Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ground‐Motion and Soil‐Response Analyses for Leninakan, 1988 Armenia Earthquake

Two earlier papers by the writers, appearing in the preceding issue of the journal, presented an overview of the seismological and engineering aspects of the 1988 Armenia earthquake and examined building damage statistics contrasted to geologic and geotechnical soil profiles. Possible regions of appreciable soil amplification effects were identified in the cities of Leninakan and Kirovakan. The present paper and companion paper, in the same issue of the journal, present results from analytical soil amplification studies using actual soil profiles from Leninakan and Kirovakan, and investigate whether or not current state-of-practice methods could adequately explain the damage statistics and their local and geographical distribution in the two cities. The present paper deals with Leninakan, which is located in the center of a very wide flat valley, having a width-to-maximum-soil-thickness ratio of about 55. Results indicate that, when using proper laboratory and field measurements of soil properties, one-dimensional soil amplification analyses can explain well not only the trends observed in the intensity and distribution of damage to buildings, but also observations made of response of various structures in Leninakan. The companion paper describes the one- and three-dimensional soil amplification analyses and valley effects in Kirovakan and summarizes the overall conclusions drawnmore » from this research related to soil effects during the Armenia earthquake. « less
Neighbourhood models of the effects of the invasive Acer platanoides on tree seedling dynamics: linking impacts on communities and ecosystems

1 Effects of invasive species on ecosystem processes are often thought to underlie the effects of invaders on community dynamics. Specifically, positive feedbacks in which invasive species alter ecosystem function in ways that favour their own growth have been suggested as an important mechanism contributing to the success of invasion. 2 In this study, we analysed the impacts of the invasive exotic tree Acer platanoides on survival and growth of conspecific and native tree seedlings, and explored whether these impacts can be explained by the ecosystem effects of the invader. Seedlings of Acer platanoides, Acer saccharum, Fraxinus americana and Prunus serotina were monitored in quadrats in three forest stands in north‐western Connecticut. Soil resources and light levels were quantified in the same quadrats. 3 Maximum‐likelihood methods were used to predict seedling survival and growth as a function of the size and spatial configuration of A. platanoides trees in the immediate neighbourhood (0–25 m). 4 The abundance of A. platanoides in the neighbourhood had moderate negative effects on survival of first‐year conspecific seedlings, but did not affect survival of older conspecific or native seedlings. These negative effects on conspecifics were not correlated with soil nutrients or light levels, but were presumably related to Janzen‐Connell effects. In contrast, A. platanoides had strong positive effects on the growth of seedlings of all four species. These positive effects appear to be related to the positive impacts of the invader on soil fertility. 5 Our results support the importance of canopy‐seedling feedbacks as a mechanism regulating the rate of invasion in forests. However, they also indicate that the net consequences of feedbacks on the process of invasion are probably determined by the balance of positive and negative feedbacks acting at the same time on different aspects of regeneration (i.e. survival vs. growth). 6 Synthesis. Because the species with the highest inherent growth rates were the most responsive to the ‘fertilizing’ effect of A. platanoides, we conclude that the invasion of north‐eastern forests by this exotic tree may facilitate canopy dominance by fast‐growing native and exotic species associated with fertile soils.
The tsunami of 2004 in Sri Lanka: An introduction to impacts and policy in the shadow of civil war

The tsunami of 2004 and ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka are treated in the Special Issue of Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography as two inter-related disasters. Both have been shaped by long-established patterns of vulnerability. Understanding their outcomes and offering constructive critique about policy responses depend both on explanations and models of social processes as well as an understanding of the post-tsunami policy process in the shadow of civil war. A framework is offered for analysing the policy process to which the articles in the Issue contribute. Policy process is examined in terms of policy narratives, the actors involved and their institutions. Two policy narratives constructed by international development institutions – vulnerability, and livelihood destruction and recovery – are discussed, followed by more focused policy narratives concerning internally displaced persons (IDPs), housing policy, resettlement, and the ‘right to return’. They are reproduced dynamically between a range of actors, including those in civil society (differentiated by ethnicity, gender, age, wealth, social and political capital, and geographical location), international non-governmental organisations (INGOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), civilian government, the military, and others. Policy narratives evolve and interact reflexively with the policy process and address the impact and longer term development effects of the tsunami and the civil conflict that overshadows it.
Improving Workers' Skills: Analytical Evidence and the Role of the Social Partners

There is a wide consensus that workforce skills are an important determinant for economic growth. Alongside initial education, continuous education and training (hereafter referred to as CET) plays a key role in meeting these skill needs. This report examines possible positive impacts of CET on workers’ performance, and discusses some policy issues with a special focus on the role of the social partners. Access to CET is associated with workers’ characteristics and literacy level Over and above international differences in training participation – with the Nordic countries showing the highest participation rates – access to CET appears to be consistently unequal across socioeconomic groups. In all the countries reviewed, the low-educated and older workers are under-represented in firm-training programmes. The incidence of CET is also positively associated with workers’ literacy levels. Importantly, the erosion of literacy with age seems to be slower in countries with high training . Il est tres generalement admis que les competences de la main-d’œuvre sont un facteur important de croissance economique. A cote de la formation initiale, la formation continue a un role essentiel a jouer pour repondre a ces besoins de competences. Ce rapport etudie l’impact positif qu’elle peut avoir sur les performances des travailleurs et analyse quelques unes des questions qui se posent aux politiques publiques, en mettant specialement l’accent sur le role des partenaires sociaux. L’acces a la formation continue est lie aux caracteristiques des travailleurs et a leurs niveaux de litteratie Au-dela des differences de niveau de participation a la formation continue entre pays – niveau qui est particulierement eleve dans les pays nordiques – l’acces a cette formation est toujours inegal suivant les caracteristiques socio-economiques de la population. Dans tous les pays etudies, les travailleurs moins qualifies et plus âges sont sous-representes dans la formation en entreprise .
The impact of ancient civilization on the northeastern Chinese landscape: palaeoecological evidence from the Western Liaohe River Basin, Inner Mongolia

The Western Liaohe River Basin in northeastern China is one of the cradles of ancient Chinese civilization. Archaeological records from this region indicate that human occupation began about 8000 years ago and that agriculture and pastoralism were important activities from an early stage. Very little is known, however, about the effects that these activities had upon the landscape. This paper presents the results of a palaeoecological study from a 3.6 m sedimentary sequence in a relict oxbow lake in the Western Liaohe River Basin of southeast Inner Mongolia. The 5400-yr sequence indicates that human activities had a noticeable impact on an apparently open landscape. Buckwheat cultivation began as early as 5400 cal. yr BP with intensification of agricultural activities from approximately 4700 cal. yr BP. Nitrophilous plants such as Solanum and Cerastium, and also Artemisia were growing in the region at certain times, linked with fluctuations in the δ15N record and probably indicative of increased pastoralism and unintentional/ intentional manuring. Burning was probably used for clearance of the steppe vegetation for agriculture with a close relationship apparent between increased influx of microfossil charcoal and the presence of buckwheat. Superimposed upon this record of human impact is also clear indication of three significant intervals of climate change between 2900 and 2600, 1200 and 600 and 600 and 30 cal. yr BP. The latter two are discussed in relation to the ‘Mediaeval Warm Period’ and ‘Little Ice Age’ apparent in sedimentary sequences across the Northern Hemisphere. Discussions are therefore made in terms of the impact that both climate change and ancient Chinese civilizations had upon shaping the present day landscape and vegetation.
Eastern Pacific oxygen minimum zones: Supply paths and multidecadal changes

The supply of oxygen-rich water to the oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) of the eastern North and South Pacific via zonal tropical currents is investigated using shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler and hydrographic section data. Near the equator, the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC), Northern and Southern Subsurface Countercurrents (SCCs), and the Northern and Southern Intermediate Countercurrents (ICCs) all carry water that is oxygen richer than adjacent westward flows, thereby providing a net oxygen supply to the eastern Pacific OMZs. The synoptic velocity-weighted oxygen concentration difference between eastward and westward flows is typically 10–50 μmol kg−1. Subthermocline zonal oxygen fluxes reflect decreasing oxygen concentrations of the EUC, the SCCs, and the ICCs as they flow eastward. Approximately 30 year time series in well-sampled regions of the equatorial Pacific show oxygen content decreasing as rapidly as −0.55 μmol kg−1 yr−1 in the major oxygen supply paths of the OMZs for a 200–700 m layer and similar trends for a density layer spanning roughly these depths. This finding is in gross agreement with climate models, which generally predict expanding OMZs.
Soil erosion and sediment deposition in the Belgian oess belt during the Holocene: establishing a sediment budget for a small agricultural catchment

A method to establish a Holocene sediment budget for a 103 ha agricultural catchment representative for the Belgian loess belt is presented. Soil erosion and sediment deposition were determined based on 185 coring locations and a large excavation in the valley bottom. Results were integrated in a GIS and interpolation techniques applied to derive spatial patterns of erosion and sedimentation. Total soil erosion, sediment deposition and sediment export were calculated and the results show that volumes are highly dependent on the interpolation technique used. Sediment delivery ratios between 20% and 42% are derived and are consistent with data reported in previous studies. This clearly shows that the majority of the sediments produced during the Holocene have been stored near their source area and have not been delivered to the downstream rivers. The spatial distribution of soil erosion and sediment deposition within the catchment is strongly dependent on slope gradient and position within the catchment, which suggests that, since human impact began, topography has been the main factor determining long-term soil erosion and sedimentation.
Dependence of Large-Scale Precipitation Climatologies on Temporal and Spatial Sampling

Large-scale observed precipitation climatologies are needed for a variety of purposes in the fields of climate and environmental modeling. Although new satellite-derived precipitation estimates offer the prospect of nearglobal climatologies covering the last one or two decades, historical assessments of precipitation and its variability in time remain dependent on conventional gauge observations. A number of questions need to be asked of the existing precipitation climatologies that use such gauge observations. What time period do they sample? What is the spatial density of gauge coverage? What adjustments are made for measurement bias? And what interpolation method is used to convert them to regular grids? Different precipitation climatologies, nominally describing the same variable, can yield very different answers when used as inputs in either the fields of climate model validation or environmental modeling. This paper explores some of the reasons for these differences by examining the importance of the first two questions listed above—the temporal and spatial sampling of the precipitation normals that form the basis of these types of climatologies. The authors draw upon subcontinental examples from tropical North Africa and Europe and show that, in the presence of significant decadal-scale precipitation variability, climatologies constructed from the same station network, but sampling different 30-yr time periods (i.e., 1931‐60 and 1961‐90), can vary by 25% or more. Using the same two regions, the authors also examine the influence of different spatiotemporal gauge sampling strategies on the construction of a long-term, ‘‘twentieth-century,’’ precipitation climatology. They show that, in the presence of multidecadal variability in precipitation, a strategy that favors more complete spatial coverage at the expense of temporal fidelity can induce biases of 5%‐10% in the resulting climatology. They compare their 30-yr precipitation climatologies with those of Legates and Willmott and Leemans and Cramer. In Europe, where twentieth-century precipitation exhibits little interdecadal variability at the regional scale, different interpolation methods and station networks are the major cause of variations between these climatologies. Conversely, in tropical North Africa, where historical precipitation shows decadal-scale departures from the long-term mean, differences between climatologies due to temporal sampling strategies are at least as great as those arising from alternative interpolation techniques and station distributions. The authors argue for careful consideration of the appropriateness of a given climatology for any application, in particular the time period it represents, or at least an awareness of potential pitfalls in its use.
CARBPLAT—A computer model to simulate the development of carbonate platforms

This paper presents a computer model with two new main components that simulates the development of carbonate platforms. First, it uses a function for the decrease of carbonate production with depth that combines the photosynthetic growth of carbonate-producing organisms and the extinction of light with depth. Platform growth is simulated with a differential equation incorporating sea level. These processes therefore act continuously rather than in steps. Second, it attempts a more realistic approach to predicting carbonate-platform slopes by incorporating variation of slope angle with textural composition of the sediment. In this model, the angle at which slope sedimentation begins depends on the radio between sediment produced on the platform interior (mud) and that produced on the platform margin (sand). The shape of the slope is represented by an exponential function that can be changed to accommodate the total amount of slope sediment. In the model, stratigraphic unconformities due to changing textural composition are produced on the fore-reef slopes.
Selecting a global optimization method to estimate the oceanic particle cycling rate constants

The objective is to select an inverse method to estimate the parameters of a dynamical model of the oceanic particle cycling from in situ data. Estimating the parameters of a dynamical model is a nonlinear inverse problem, even in the case of linear dynamics. Generally, biogeochemical models are characterized by complex nonlinear dynamics and by a high sensitivity to their parameters. This makes the parameter estimation problem strongly nonlinear. We show that an approach based on a linearization around an a priori solution and on a gradient descent method is not appropriate given the complexity of the related cost functions and our poor a priori knowledge of the parameters. Global Optimization Algorithms (GOAs) appear as better candidates. We present a comparison of a deterministic (TRUST), and two stochastic (simulated annealing and genetic algorithm) GOAs. From an exact model integration, a synthetic data set is generated which mimics the space-time sampling of a reference campaign. Simulated optimizations of two to the eight model parameters are performed. The parameter realistic ranges of values are the only available a priori information. The results and the behavior of the GOAs are analyzed in details. The three GOAs can recover at least two parameters. However, the gradient requirement of deterministic methods proves a serious drawback. Moreover, the complexity of the TRUST makes the estimation of more than two parameters hardly conceivable. The genetic algorithm quickly converges toward the eight parameter solution, whereas the simulated annealing is trapped by a local minimum. Generally, the genetic algorithm is less computationally expensive, swifter to converge, and has more robust procedural parameters than the simulated annealing.
The History of Bukhara

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Narshakhi of Bukhara wrote the history of his city and presented it to the Samanid ruler Nuh ibn Nasr in 943 C.E. (A.H. 332). This is the only book he is known to have written. Narshakhi's "History of Bukhara" is unusual among histories of Middle Eastern cities because it provides a broad and perceptive overview of urban life of the time, as opposed to the standard biographies of religious leaders. Richard Frye's translation from the Persian presents an engaging, readable narrative that recreates the lively intellectual and commercial life of this vibrant ancient city. In the tenth century, Bukhara was a cultural center that rivaled Baghdad, and was known as "the dome of learning in the East. " It was a dynamic metropolis, capital of the semi-independent dynasty that ruled most of present-day Iran and Central Asia. It was in Bukhara that the so-called Persian Renaissance began, with its far-reaching literary implications. Narshakhi portrays not only rulers, but also everyday life in cities and villages. This primary source affords insights into life in Eastern Iran and Central Asia during a period of change in the Islamic world.
Delamerian Orogeny and potential foreland sedimentation: a review of age and stratigraphic constraints

A review of available geochronology and biostratigraphy leads to the conclusion that a considerable thickness of Cambrian sedimentary rocks exposed in the Arrowie and Stansbury Basins, South Australia, was probably deposited in a foreland setting during early phases of the Delamerian Orogeny. In contrast to most previous stratigraphic correlation schemes, we consider that the pre‐tectonic Kanmantoo Group was deposited synchronously with the locally thick upper Hawker Group in essentially en echelon basins during a final phase of extensional sedimentation within the Adelaide ‘Geosyncline’. The base of the locally overlying ‘redbed package’ (base of the Billy Creek and Minlaton Formations) is interpreted as the sedimentological signature of the onset of convergent deformation and associated uplift within the Delamerian Orogen at about 522 Ma. This early ('Kangarooian') phase of the Delamerian Orogeny is interpreted as the progressive development of a coherent sigmoidal fold‐thrust belt within the combined F.
Correctie van de melkgift van koeien voor verschillen in leeftijd, seizoen en lactatiestadium

To correct milk records for differences due to age and season of calving, the milk records of 4000 cows, with lactation length of 290-320 days, were analysed. The magnitude of the influences of age, season and herd on test-day, cumulative and lactation yield were determined. There was no interaction between age and season. The age effect on test-day yield explained 47% of the total sum of squares at 30 days and decreased to 5% at 270 days. The effect of age on lactation yield was 39%. The influence of season was about 0.5% at 30 days and 8.5% at 270 days. Herd effect was 25% on lactation yield and increased from 15 to 31% on test-day yield. To standardize lactation and test-day yield, correction factors for age and season were tested with an independent sample of 2000 records. There were no differences whether lactation yield was corrected for season by additive or multiplication factors. For test-day yield additive factors had some advantage. Age differences can be corrected with multiplication factors over herd levels (in spite of a interaction between age and herd level). Test-day yields have to be standardized for stage of lactation by multiplication factors within herd level. Factors to be used for extrapolation of current lactations were calculated within subclass of age and season; three methods of extrapolation were tested in sample of 2000 records. The method with regression of remainder of lactation on last test-day yield had the smallest absolute difference and the highest correlation coefficient between estimated and calculated lactation yield. In practice the extrapolation parameters have to be calculated within subclass of age, season and herd level. Data of incomplete records were analysed. The length of the records was related to the season of calving. The peak yield was positively related to the length of the records and the test-day yield for records with less than about 200 days decreased faster than for complete records.
The nature and origin of a granitoid-related gold deposit at Dargue's Reef, Major's Creek, New South Wales

Dargue9s Reef is a mesothermal, gold sulfide deposit developed in altered granitoid rocks of the Braidwood Granodiorite in southeastern New South Wales, Australia. Two main lodes consist of narrow zones (0.6-9.5 m wide) of intense sericitic alteration and pyritization (15-30% pyrite), enclosed in areas of propylitic alteration. Deposition of barren euhedral-subhedral pyrite accompanied early-stage alteration and was followed by deposition of irregular pyrite containing numerous small inclusions of silicates, calcite, chalcopyrite, Bi sulfo- salts, galena, gold, trace tellurides, native bismuth, and pyrrhotite. Separate aggregates of chalcopyrite, Bi sulfosalts, and tetrahedrite are intergrown with the silicate alteration minerals. Fluid inclusion data indicate that gold-bearing hydrothermal fluids were CO 2 bearing, of low to moderate salinity, and medium to low temperature ( 34 S, -0.4 to--3.4%) and disseminated pyrite in the host granodiorite (delta 34 S, 1.4-2.5%) are consistent with a magmatic sulfur source. Carbon isotope data for calcites from the mineralization indicate delta 13 C values for the fluid close to 0 per mil. These are not inconsistent with a magmatic C source, but they are also consistent with derivation of CO 2 from minor limestones in the country rocks. Textural and fluid inclusion evidence suggest that CO 2 activity in the fluids increased with time, which could be explained by late-stage introduction of country-rock fluids or possibly influx of fluid from a later intrusion at depth. Oxygen isotope data for calcites from the ores (6.5-10.9%) and late-stage veinlets (6.5%) implicate fluids similar to those in porphyry-mineralizing systems.