Protozooplankton in the Deep Oligotrophic Traunsee (Austria) Influenced by Discharges of Soda and Salt Industries

Traunsee is a deep oligotrophic lake in Austria characterised by an artificial enrichment of chloride in the hypolimnion (up to 170 mg L^-1) caused by waste disposal of soda and salt industries. Protists were collected monthly over one year, observed alive and after Quantitative Protargol Staining (ciliates) or via epifluorescence microscopy (heterotrophic flagellates). Three sites within the lake (0–40 m depths) were compared to deeper water layers from 60–160 m depths where chloride concentrations and conductivity were increased. In addition, we observed the protozooplankton of two neighbouring lakes, i.e. reference systems, during one sampling occasion. In Traunsee the abundance of ciliates was low (200–36 600 cells L^-1) in contrast to high species diversity (at least 60 different species; H_S = 2.6) throughout the year. The main pelagic species in terms of abundance were small oligotrichs and prostomatids like Rimostrombidium brachykinetum/hyalinum, Balanion planctonicum and Urotricha spp. throughout the investigation period. Among free-living heterotrophic flagellates, which occurred at densities of 40–2800 cells mL^-1, small morphotypes dominated in the pelagial. No differences at the community level between the three lakes could be observed and pelagic ciliates and flagellates seemed not to be affected by increased chloride concentrations or by enhanced conductivity.     

DESIGN OF DESALTING PLANTS FOR CONJUNCTIVE OPERATION1

ABSTRACT The selection of an evaporator design must reflect the balancing of captial cost (primarily in heat exchanger surface and vessels) against operating cost (primarily steam cost) to achieve minimum cost. In a conjunctive plant the tendency is to select a low-capital cost, high-operating cost plant. In addition, it is advantageous to use a high-capacity plant which needs to be operated much less of the time than a plant which is sized just at the needed rate. For example, in the study of a possible system to satisfy a future increase of 450 MGD in water supply to New York Qty, a plant of 750 MGD capacity was selected as optimum. This plant, of the advanced VTE-MSF process type, would have a performance ratio of 9 lb product/1000 Btu as compared to 10-13 normally used for base-loaded plants. Steam would be supplied by a multi-unit dual-purpose nuclear power plant. The most economical type of energy supply would be “interruptible”; the steam would be used by a low pressure turbine to generate electricity during periods of peak electrical demand but would be available to the desalting plant at other times. The low pressure turbine would be available as spinning reserve during desalting plant operation. It is estimated that the desalting plant would have a load factor of 27 per cent over its life.     

A convective wind resource model for Solar Vortex power generation

ABSTRACT

Climate change has increased the need for clean, nonpolluting energy sources to decrease dependence on fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources, mainly solar and horizontal wind, have been the primary focus for producing clean energy. New technologies are being developed, such as the Solar Vortex (SoV), which was developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and relies on a vertical wind resource to generate power. The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) has resource models representing solar and horizontal wind resources across the 48 United States. This research developed a vertical wind resource model that is comparable in resolution to NREL’s solar and horizontal wind resource models and uses the model for estimating power output for the SoV. This model complements NREL’s existing resource models and supports the deployment of an additional clean energy generation technology. The model was applied to Mesa, Arizona to find feasible sites for a small-scale vertical wind farm.     

Forced migration, processes of return and livelihood construction among pastoralists in northern Sudan

The Hawaweer, a nomadic, pastoralist group in northern Sudan, were seriously affected by the drought in the Sahel during the mid-1980s. Their experience illustrates the connection between internally displaced people, normal mobility, forced migration, dilemmas and opportunities of return and how new livelihoods can be successfully constructed based on traditional rights, strong local institutions and external resources. Some displaced Hawaweer got the chance to return to their homeland as new livelihood opportunities were established; others did not get this opportunity nor would they have returned if they had been given the chance. In both situations, the processes of displacement and return had an impact on the sense of belonging and identity.     

提高企业信任度,改善安全生产人文环境

在安全规章制度中往往只规定下级的安全责任,并未对领导责任做出具体规定,缺乏权利义务的对等性,导致企业安全管理成一纸空文,落实不下去,存在着严重的形式主义.由于企业规章制度持续性和稳定性不足,存在朝令夕改的现象,导致企业在安全生产工作方面产生信任度危机,所以员工在安全生产过程中总是在揣测领导的真正意图以决定自己的行为.因此,提倡将企业内部纵向的信任研究引入到安全管理领域.     

Distribution of radionuclides among the main components of Lake Chervyanoe in the Eastern Ural Radioactive Trace

Radioecological conditions have been estimated in Lake Chervyanoe located on the central axis of the Eastern Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT) about 100–110 km northeast of the Mayak Production Association. Data on the ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs contents in the main components of the lake, the distribution of these radionuclides over the profile of bottom sediments, and their amounts in the lake are presented. The experimental data have been used to construct mathematical models for estimating changes in the radionuclide concentrations and amounts in the water and bottom sediments of the lake over a long period after the nuclear accident, as well as the tritium content of the lake water in different periods of time.     

Stochastic Transfer Function Model and Neural Networks to Estimate Soil Moisture1

Abstract: A practical methodology is proposed to estimate the three‐dimensional variability of soil moisture based on a stochastic transfer function model, which is an approximation of the Richard’s equation. Satellite, radar and in situ observations are the major sources of information to develop a model that represents the dynamic water content in the soil. The soil‐moisture observations were collected from 17 stations located in Puerto Rico (PR), and a sequential quadratic programming algorithm was used to estimate the parameters of the transfer function (TF) at each station. Soil texture information, terrain elevation, vegetation index, surface temperature, and accumulated rainfall for every grid cell were input into a self‐organized artificial neural network to identify similarities on terrain spatial variability and to determine the TF that best resembles the properties of a particular grid point. Soil moisture observed at 20 cm depth, soil texture, and cumulative rainfall were also used to train a feedforward artificial neural network to estimate soil moisture at 5, 10, 50, and 100 cm depth. A validation procedure was implemented to measure the horizontal and vertical estimation accuracy of soil moisture. Validation results from spatial and temporal variation of volumetric water content (vwc) showed that the proposed algorithm estimated soil moisture with a root mean squared error (RMSE) of 2.31% vwc, and the vertical profile shows a RMSE of 2.50% vwc. The algorithm estimates soil moisture in an hourly basis at 1 km spatial resolution, and up to 1 m depth, and was successfully applied under PR climate conditions.     

天津市夏季PM10浓度及组成元素垂直分布特征

通过天津市气象局大气边界层观测站高255 m的气象铁塔,获得了10m、40m、120m和220 m 4个高度共80个PM10样品,分析了PM10的日均质量浓度及其元素的垂直分布特征.结果表明,4个高度处PM10质量浓度时序变化基本一致;PM10质量浓度及其组成元素总量随高度增加递减;10 m、40m和120m3个高度处的PM10质量浓度时间序列分布的相关性较好,组分分歧系数较小,而220 m处的PM10质量浓度时间序列分布与其他3个高度处的相关性较差,组分分歧系数较大.样品中元素质量浓度由高到低依次是Si、Al、Ca、Fe、Na、Mg、K、Zn、Ti、Cu、Mn、Pb、Cr、Ni、Co、V、As、Cd和Hg.其中,Si、Al、Na、K质量分数随高度变化不大;Ca、Fe、Mg质量分数随高度增加递减明显;Zn、Cu、Mn、Pb、Cr在10m、40m和120 m3个高度处质量分数接近,而在220m处明显降低;Ti元素在4个高度处的质量浓度接近,质量分数总体上随高度增加递增;Ni、Co、V、As、Cd、Hg质量分数随高度的变化不同,其中与燃煤有密切关系的Hg在120 m处质量分数明显高于其他高度处,而在220m处最低.Al、Fe、Na、K等元素相对富集因子小于或接近1,其质量浓度与PM10质量浓度时序分布的相关性较好,其中Al、Na相关系数随高度增加显著递减;Zn,Cu、Pb、Cr、As、Ni的相对富集因子显著大于1,其质量浓度与PM10质量浓度时序分布的相关性较差,相关系数随高度增加变化不大.     

城市污泥发酵物土地利用重金属迁移变化研究

文章针对污泥发酵物开展替代草坪基质的规模化应用,对其重金属迁移风险进行了分析,通过对重金属在纵向和横向水平上的迁移量变化进行比较的结果表明,与常规对照相比,随污泥发酵物施用量(45~75 t/hm2)提高,重金属(As、Cd、Ni、Pb、Cu、Zn)在地下纵向和地表横向水平上的迁移量无显著性增加.结果表明污泥发酵物应用于草坪基质,在短期(两年)内,由地下渗流和地表径流引起的重金属迁移量甚微,施用区域内地下水和周边土壤的环境安全性较高.     

Geographic range size and extinction risk assessment in nomadic species

Geographic range size is often conceptualized as a fixed attribute of a species and treated as such for the purposes of quantification of extinction risk; species occupying smaller geographic ranges are assumed to have a higher risk of extinction, all else being equal. However many species are mobile, and their movements range from relatively predictable to‐and‐fro migrations to complex irregular movements shown by nomadic species. These movements can lead to substantial temporary expansion and contraction of geographic ranges, potentially to levels which may pose an extinction risk. By linking occurrence data with environmental conditions at the time of observations of nomadic species, we modeled the dynamic distributions of 43 arid‐zone nomadic bird species across the Australian continent for each month over 11 years and calculated minimum range size and extent of fluctuation in geographic range size from these models. There was enormous variability in predicted spatial distribution over time; 10 species varied in estimated geographic range size by more than an order of magnitude, and 2 species varied by >2 orders of magnitude. During times of poor environmental conditions, several species not currently classified as globally threatened contracted their ranges to very small areas, despite their normally large geographic range size. This finding raises questions about the adequacy of conventional assessments of extinction risk based on static geographic range size (e.g., IUCN Red Listing). Climate change is predicted to affect the pattern of resource fluctuations across much of the southern hemisphere, where nomadism is the dominant form of animal movement, so it is critical we begin to understand the consequences of this for accurate threat assessment of nomadic species. Our approach provides a tool for discovering spatial dynamics in highly mobile species and can be used to unlock valuable information for improved extinction risk assessment and conservation planning.