An evaluation of environmental factors affecting species distributions

Many different models can be built to explain the distributions of species. Often there is no single model that is clearly better than the alternatives, and this leads to uncertainty over which environmental factors are limiting species’ distributions. We investigated the support for different environmental factors by determining the drop in model performance when selected predictors were excluded from the model building process. We used a paired t-test over 37 plant species so that an environmental factor was only deemed significant if it consistently improved the results for multiple species. Geology and winter minimum temperatures were found to be the environmental factors with the most support, with a significant drop in model performance when either of these factors was excluded. However, there was less support for summer maximum temperature, as other environmental factors could combine to produce similar model performance. Our method of evaluating environmental factors using multiple species will not be capable of detecting predictors that are only important for one or two species, but it is difficult to distinguish these from spurious correlations. The strength of the method is that it increases inference for factors that consistently affect the distributions of many species. We discourage the assessment of models against predefined benchmarks, such as an area under the curve (AUC) of more than 0.7, as many alternative models for the same species produce similar results. Therefore, the benchmarks do not provide any indication of how the performance of the selected model compares to alternative models, and they provide weak inference to accept any selected model.     

室内织物火灾烟气危害性分析

室内织物因其容易点燃、燃烧速度快、蔓延迅速等燃烧特性,对室内火灾的发生、发展蔓延及火灾危害都有重要影响.在低强度热源加热条件下,研究了几种常见室内织物如牛仔裤、化纤运动裤、棉布床单、混合织物等温度变化、火灾烟气危害性及喷水对热解烟气的影响.结果表明,棉类织物在低强度火源引燃后烟气毒害成分主要为CO、NOx、SO2,3种毒性气体在7～ 10 min超过人体允许极限值,喷水降低了烟气毒性成分的生成速度与生成量,如牛仔裤热解烟气中CO、SO2的超标时间分别增加了约4min、7 min,NOx则未超标;化纤类织物热解气体超标主要毒性成分为CO、SO2,喷水有利于化纤等聚合物熔融物的流动,在一定程度上反而加快了热量传递,热分解速度加快,有毒有害气体的生成量和产生速度增加.如加水后化纤运动裤热解烟气中,CO超标时间提前了10 min,SO2、NOx烟气也在20 min左右出现了超标情况.     

降雨产流计算中径流曲线法(SCS模型)局限性的探讨

SCS模型(Soil Conservation Service,水土保持局,简称SCS)是根据美国强烈的地带性气候特征和明显的农业区划所研发的小流域设计洪水模型。由降雨量估算降雨产流的SCS模型被广泛用于应用水文学和环境保护领域中。本文通过阐述SCS模型的起源和发展历史,讨论了该模型使用的基本条件、应用目标以及局限。总结并分析国内外相关研究现状,深入探讨了模型主要参数初损(Ia)和CN值的重要意义及确定方法。     

基于Matlab曲线拟合的山东省各地市人口密度预测及Cartogram地图表现

通过Matlab软件的曲线拟合功能,以1993-2012年《山东省统计年鉴》中的人口统计数据为基础数据,对山东省17地市分别选择最佳拟合模型进行人口规模预测,依据行政区划面积计算人口密度,对结果以Cartogram的技术方法进行地图表现,得出直观的结果.该研究采用了新颖的专题地图表示方法,丰富了人口预测方法,对了解未来社会的供求关系和人口发展趋势、拟定正确合理的人口规划方案具有重大的理论和实践意义.     

Can Desalination and Clean Energy Combined Help to Alleviate Global Water Scarcity?

The major present hindrance in using desalination to help alleviate global water scarcity is the cost of this technology, which, in turn is due to energy cost involved. This study examines historical trends in desalination and breaks up the cost of desalination into energy based and nonenergy based. It then develops the learning curves (relationship between cumulative production and market price) for desalination. Assuming that the photovoltaic (PV) technology will be the dominant form of energy used in the desalination process, the existing PV learning curve and desalination learning curve are combined to explore the viability of large‐scale adoption of desalination in the future. The world has been divided into seven regions and it is assumed that water demand from desalinated water will be met only within the 100‐km coastal belt. It is shown that, in most of the regions, other than sub‐Saharan Africa, Central America, and South Asia (where water tariffs are low), the desalination (without considering energy) becomes viable by 2040. For PV technology, less than 1 million MW per annum growth is required till 2050 to make it affordable. Globally, desalination with renewable energy can become a viable option to replace domestic and industrial water demand in the 100‐km coastal belt by 2050.     

The Design of a New Energy-conservation Type Solar-powered Lighting System Using a High‐pressure Sodium Lamp

This study designs and applies a new energy-conservation type solar-powered lighting system using a high-pressure sodium lamp to areas not having any utility company's electricity. The proposed system uses a zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) DC/DC converter in the batteries’ charge circuit to reduce the switching loss for a higher charging efficiency. Said system also adopts the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique to maximize the solar panels’ photovoltaic conversion capability. When dark, the batteries in the proposed system will discharge, with a raised voltage, through a push-pull DC/DC converter; said voltage, as the input voltage of the series-parallel resonant inverter, will be regulated to dim the lamp. To enable the efficient usage of the batteries’ stored energy capacity, this control scheme of the proposed system may adjust the night-time discharge time lengths, according to season difference, and compute the usable capacity for the load, according to the batteries’ charged voltage, so as to select a suitable pre-scheduled light-dimming curve for the lamp to achieve energy conservation for the batteries and continuity in lighting when dark.     

Predicting Offenses and Crashes from Young Drivers' Offense and Crash Histories

Previous research has indicated that offenses are better predictors of subsequent crashes than crashes themselves. We examined this hypothesis for 13,800 young beginning drivers in Michigan for up to nine years during the initial years of driving. Our analyses indicated that previous-year offenses are better predictors of both subsequent-year offenses and crashes than either previous-year crashes or at-fault crashes. This finding also held for the apparently higher-risk subset of subsequent-year serious offenses and at-fault crashes. Although there were no gender differences in the predictive power of crashes, it was found that the predictive power of previous offenses to subsequent serious offenses was significantly stronger for women than for men. The predictive power of incidents appeared to increase somewhat with increasing driving experience, suggesting that early incidents may be more attributable to inexperience, a characteristic of all beginning drivers, while later incidents may be more attributable to individual differences.     

EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN TOPMODEL AND THE NRCS CURVE NUMBER METHOD IN PREDICTING VARIABLE RUNOFF SOURCE AREAS1

An equivalence is proposed between two rainfall‐runoff methods with a long history of use in the United States and Europe. In watersheds where variable source areas dominate runoff, the two methods can have comparable probability distribution functions of moisture deficit, and therefore predict similar saturated runoff source areas. A novel approach is introduced to determine the S parameter in the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) method. This approach constrains S by the physical soil and topography characteristics of the catchment and depth to water table. The NRCS curve number method is at the core of many rainfall‐runoff models in hydrology. As a simple lumped parameter method, it is often scrutinized because it is not obvious how to derive S from catchment hydromorphological characteristics. The novel approach provides a clear physical meaning for S, allowing better estimation of this parameter in humid shallow water table environments where the variable source area can be the dominant runoff mechanism.     

湖南省环境质量演进的波动研究

环境库兹涅茨曲线是学术研究的热点问题，但是。对环境质量演进波动的研究还是空白。本文以湖南为例。运用计量分析及谱分析方法对湖南省环境质量演进中的波动性问题进行了尝试性实证研究。结果表明湖南环境质量的演进存在波动。且近年来各环境质量指标的波动有正向扩大的趋势；未来湖南环境质量周期波动亦将步入正向波动时期。因而。今后的发展可能会进一步加大对环境的压力。需要制定相应的环境政策来降低出现的大幅正向波动。     

经济发展与土地资源保护:问题、原因及对策

正确处理经济发晨与土地资源保护的关系．既是当前一个重要的理论课囊．又是重大的实践问题。近年来。各地在处理经济发展与土地资源保护关系方面创造了许多宝贵的经验．取得了显着成效，但还存在一些突出问题。本文深入分析当前经济发展与土地资源保护方在存在的突出问题．并认真剖析其原因．提出了一系列有关对策。