229,675 research outputs found
Continental Scale Modelling of Water Quality in Rivers
Global and continental scale modelling has been confined to water quantity (e.g. WaterGAP - Water Global Assessment and Prognosis (Alcamo et al. 2003), GWAVA - Global Water AVailability Assessment (Meigh et al, 1999)). Here we describe an approach to include water quality at these scales within the WaterGAP model. The application is to the pan-European area and is being carried out within the EU-funded SCENES Project which has the principal goal of developing new scenarios of the future of freshwater resources in Europe.
The model operates on 5x5 arc-minute grid squares. Water flows in and between grid cells are provided by WaterGAP. The water quality loadings into the river system comprise point sources (domestic effluent, manufacturing discharges and urban runoff) and diffuse sources (runoff from land and scattered settlements not connected to the public sewerage system). Point source loadings are calculated for each country using easily available datasets. For example, the domestic load is a per capita emission factor times by country population multiplied by the percentage of the population connected to the sewage system, which is then reduced by the amount removed in each of three types of sewage treatment (primary, secondary and tertiary). Data on the amount treated in different types of sewage works is set for each country, while the amount removed by treatment types will vary with the water quality variable being modelled. Country level data is converted to grid square data required by the model, according to the population in each grid square. Diffuse sources from land are calculated by regression models based on runoff and land use (e.g. numbers of livestock) for each model grid square.
The modelling system has currently been set up to simulate biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total dissolved solids. The model was tested against measured longitudinal profiles and time series data for BOD on contrasting rivers e.g. the River Thames (UK) driven by domestic loading and the River Ebro (Spain) with a high share of discharges from livestock farming. Further developments will see the inclusion of total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and dissolved oxygen.
Within the SCENES project a set of future scenarios reflecting different outlooks on Europe has been developed, called âEconomy Firstâ, âFortress Europeâ, âSustainability Eventuallyâ and âPolicy Rulesâ. An Expert Panel was used to suggest what these futures would mean for drivers of water quantity and water quality across pan-Europe. We have projected how changes in percentage population connected to sewers, the level of sewage treatment and population would change loadings from domestic effluent for TN, TP and BOD. In time, these will be used to predict future water quality in European rivers
The study and dissemination of an iconography: banquet scenes from the catacombs of Rome to the facsimile catacombs of the nineteenth century
The text traces the discovery and the history of two important banquet scenes from the Roman catacombs (from the Catacombs of Callixtus and from the Catacombs of Priscilla). It focuses on the interpretations given to the scene from the 19th century onwards and on its fortune in Europe: reproductions of the scenes found in various churches and chapels up to the middle of the 20th century are here presented. This overview will be useful to understand how the study and reproduction of a single iconography can contribute to a general reconstruction of the development of the discipline of early Christian art history
National and international freight transport models: overview and ideas for further development
This paper contains a review of the literature on freight transport models, focussing on the types of models that have been developed since the nineties for forecasting, policy simulation and project evaluation at the national and international level. Models for production, attraction, distribution, modal split and assignment are discussed in the paper. Furthermore, the paper also includes a number of ideas for future development, especially for the regional and urban components within national freight transport models
Selling Genocide II: The Later Films
In this essay I take up the later major anti-Semitic propaganda pieces, all of them released in 1940. They were produced under Goebbels explicit orders to each of the three Nazi-controlled studios to produce an anti-Semitic film. The three films produced were: The Rothschilds Share at Waterloo; Jud Suss; and The Eternal Jew. These films were much more powerful propaganda pieces in intensifying anti-Semitic feelingsâthose feelings of difference, disgust, and danger. For each film, I point to the scenes that arouse the feelings even more profoundly than did the earlier films.
The Rothschildsâ Shares at Waterloo put forward the conspiracy theory (widespread to this day) that Jewish bankers form a conspiratorial cabal bent upon world domination. Jew Suss (which was presented as historically true) pushes the narrative of Jews using money to take power, and of their boundless lust for young Christian women (hence the danger of âracial pollutionâ). Of all the anti-Semitic propaganda films the regime produced, the top regime figures considered this to be the most powerfulâabout 40% of German adults of the time saw this film. It is banned in Germany to this day. Finally, The Eternal Jewâperhaps the most infamous of the groupâis presented as a truthful documentary. While this sham documentary was a comparative box office flop, it was widely used as a training film
The Geoff Egan Memorial Lecture 2011. Artefacts, art and artifice: reconsidering iconographic sources for archaeological objects in early modern Europe
A first systematic analysis of historic domestic material culture depicted in contemporaneous Western painting and prints, c.1400-1800. Drawing on an extensive data set, the paper proposes to methodologies and hermeneutics for historical analysis and archaeological correspondence
Pan-European backcasting exercise, enriched with regional perspective, and including a list of short-term policy options
This deliverable reports on the results of the third and final pan-European stakeholder meeting and secondly, on the enrichment with a Pilot Area and regional perspective. The main emphasis is on backcasting as a means to arrive at long-term strategies and short-term (policy) actions
Survey of free speeds on roads outside built-up areas with elevated speed limits in Hungary
In Hungary since 2008 some roads operate with posted speed limits which are higher than the general 90 kmph outside urban areas. The goal of the current study was to explore how well road users can recognize various types of roads. An on-line picture-show survey was made about the speed choices of 170 drivers at 35 different road scenes. The comparison with existing speed measurements showed a quite good match. Therefore the survey method is appropriate to estimate the driversâ speed behaviour. The results show on one hand that on the usual road categories like motorways and normal two-lane
primary roads the speed choice is clear for road users, i.e. these roads are self-explaining. On the other hand, there are also road categories, which are not self-explaining and therefore road users have difficulties to choose the appropriate speeds
Shakespeare in History, History through Shakespeare: Caliban by the Yellow Sands
Percy MacKayeâs community masque, Caliban by the Yellow Sands, was performed
in front of thousands of spectators between May 24th and June 5th, 1916 at New York
Lewisohn Stadium, as part of American celebrations of the three-hundredth
anniversary of Shakespeareâs death. The play is a fascinating example of a
Shakespearean appropriation intended for a particular historical moment and specific
socio-political purposes. Not only does it comment on Americaâs contemporary
situation, but also intervenes in it, proposing solutions to current problems, most
notably the huge increase of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. This
paper investigates two interconnected methods which Caliban by the Yellow Sands
employs to respond to the historical moment: the playâs representations of history and
its uses of Shakespeare and the Shakespearean canon. It argues that, while the main
thrust of the masque is an attempt to harness Shakespeareâs cultural authority in the
service of promoting American cohesion based on the alleged supremacy of the
Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage, the text reveals significant ambiguities and
contradictions that this operation produces. Shakespeareâs art is shown as a force that
can both liberate and subjugate, and Shakespeare as a curiously insubstantial and
malleable figure, whose work only fully comes into being with each interpretation and
is available for different kinds of appropriation. Despite glorifying the Bard, the
masque simultaneously empties him of inherent meaning and transfers his power to
those who interpret him
Assessment of two aerosol optical thickness retrieval algorithms applied to MODIS aqua and terra measurements in Europe
© Author(s) 2012. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 LicenseThe aim of the present study is to validate AOT (aerosol optical thickness) and A° ngström exponent (α), obtained from MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) Aqua and Terra calibrated level 1 data (1 km horizontal resolution at ground) with the SAER (Satellite AErosol Retrieval) algorithm and with MODIS Collection 5 (c005) standard product retrievals (10 km horizontal resolution), against AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) sun photometer observations over land surfaces in Europe. An inter-comparison of AOT at 0.469 nm obtained with the two algorithms has also been performed. The time periods investigated were chosen to enable a validation of the findings of the two algorithms for a maximal possible variation in sun elevation. The satellite retrievals were also performed with a significant variation in the satellite-viewing geometry, since Aqua and Terra passed the investigation area twice a day for several of the cases analyzed. The validation with AERONET shows that the AOT at 0.469 and 0.555 nm obtained with MODIS c005 is within the expected uncertainty of one standard deviation of the MODIS c005 retrievals (1AOT =±0.05±0.15 ·AOT). The AOT at 0.443 nm retrieved with SAER, but with a much finer spatial resolution, also agreed reasonably well with AERONET measurements. The majority of the SAER AOT values are within the MODIS c005 expected uncertainty range, although somewhat larger average absolute deviation occurs compared to the results obtained with the MODIS c005 algorithm. The discrepancy between AOT from SAER and AERONET is, however, substantially larger for the wavelength 488 nm. This means that the values are, to a larger extent, outside of the expected MODIS uncertainty range. In addition, both satellite retrieval algorithms are unable to estimate accurately, although the MODIS c005 algorithm performs better. Based on the inter-comparison of the SAER and MODIS c005 algorithms, it was found that SAER on the whole is able to obtain results within the expected uncertainty range of MODIS Aqua and Terra observations.Peer reviewe
Memorializing Genocide I: Earlier Holocaust Documentaries
In this essay, I discuss in detail two of the earliest such documentaries: Death Mills (1945), directed by Billy Wilder; and Nazi Concentration Camps (1945), directed by George Stevens. Both film-makers were able to get direct footage of the newly-liberated concentration camps from the U.S. Army. Wilder served as a Colonel in the U.S. Armyâs Psychological Warfare department in 1945 and was tasked with producing a documentary on the death camps as well as helping to restart Germanyâs film industry.
I next review the great French Holocaust documentary Night and Fog (1955), directed by Alain Resnais. This was a widely acclaimed film, winning the Prix Jean Vigo in 1956. Resnais employed a camp survivor (Jean Cayrol) to write the dialogue, and it is powerful, indeed, truly lyrical in places.
The last film I review in the essay is a generally overlooked British Thames Television documentary, Genocide: 1941-1945 (1974), directed by Michael Darlow (and narrated by Sir Laurence Oliver). It was the first of the major Holocaust documentaries to focus on the point that the Nazi genocide targeted first and foremost the Jewish people, and to explore the development of Nazi racial theory, and the rise of the SS
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