How the Belgian wind farm business made us discover the challenging environment of marine sand dunes

During the last decade, it has become clear that sand dunes are important features in the Belgian wind farm concession area. Because they influence not only the design seabed levels, but also the hydrodynamic forcings and installation methods for both cable and foundations, the study of the seabed morphodynamics is essential for all wind farm projects. This paper starts with an overview of the geographic and morphological setting of the Belgian wind farm concession areas and presents an overview of the key features of the bedforms in the different concessions. Next the importance and impact of the sand dunes during the design and development of these wind farms is illustrated by exploring the different types of studies and investigations which have been performed in relation to seabed & morphology, the hydrodynamic loadings, the installation methods and the environmental impact assessments

Vortex liquid correlations induced by in-plane field in underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d

By measuring the Josephson Plasma Resonance, we have probed the influence of an in-plane magnetic field on the pancake vortex correlations along the c-axis in heavily underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d (Tc = 72.4 +/- 0.6 K) single crystals both in the vortex liquid and in the vortex solid phase. Whereas the in-plane field enhances the interlayer phase coherence in the liquid state close to the melting line, it slightly depresses it in the solid state. This is interpreted as the result of an attractive force between pancake vortices and Josephson vortices, apparently also present in the vortex liquid state. The results unveil a boundary between a correlated vortex liquid in which pancakes adapt to Josephson vortices, and the usual homogeneous liquid.Comment: 2 pages, submitted to the Proceedings of M2S HTSC VIII Dresde

Basal metabolic rate in relation to body composition and daily energy expenditure in the field vole, Microtus agrestis

Basal metabolic rate in the field vole (Microtus agrestis) was studied in relation to body composition and daily energy expenditure in the field Daily energy expenditure was measured by means of doubly labelled water ((D2O)-O-18). In the same individuals, basal metabolic rate was subsequently derived from O-2 consumption in an open-circuit system in the laboratory. Body composition was obtained by dissecting the animals and determining fresh, dry, and lean dry mass of different organs. Daily energy expenditure for free-living field voles ranged from 1.8 to 4.5 times basal metabolic race, with an average of 2.9 times basal metabolic rate. Variation in both daily energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate was best explained by body mass. Gender or reproductive activity did not have significant additive effects. Daily energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate showed significant positive relationships to body mass with similar mass exponents of 0.493 and 0.526, respectively. Overall, there was a significant correlation between daily energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate, but the mass-independent residuals (deviations from the allometrically predicted values) did not correlate. Carcass analysis revealed that a number of organs were slightly better predictors for daily energy expenditure and basal metabolic rate than was fresh body mass. Mass-independent residuals of lean dry heart mass and basal metabolic rate were positively correlated, which is in agreement with the idea that basal metabolic rate reflects the size of metabolically active organs. The study does not provide support for an intraindividual association of basal metabolic rate with daily energy expenditure in the field

Ontwikkelingen van vis en visserij in de Nederlandse Waddenzee

Voor veel vissoorten is de Waddenzee een belangrijk opgroeigebied. Voor veel andere soorten vormt de ondiepe, relatief voedselrijke Waddenzee een belangrijk leefgebied. Ze trekken er door heen, brengen er een deel van het jaar of hun hele leven door. Maar hoe is het eigenlijk gesteld met de vis in de Waddenzee? Een gebied dat tevens intensief gebruikt wordt door de visserij

Structure of Flux Line Lattices with Weak Disorder at Large Length Scales

Dislocation-free decoration images containing up to 80,000 vortices have been obtained on high quality Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+x}$ superconducting single crystals. The observed flux line lattices are in the random manifold regime with a roughening exponent of 0.44 for length scales up to 80-100 lattice constants. At larger length scales, the data exhibit nonequilibrium features that persist for different cooling rates and field histories.Comment: 4 pages, 3 gif images, to appear in PRB rapid communicatio

Report of the Horse Mackerel Exchange and Workshop 2006

Following a recommendation from PGCCDBS, a workshop on age calibration of horse mackerel was carried out. The workshop was preceded by an exchange. The objectives were: to improve the quality of horse mackerel readings by international calibration. In particular, attempt to resolve the observed differences between countries. Estimate the accuracy and precision of the age readings before and after the intercalibration. Take into account differences between areas and methods. Training of new horse mackerel readers

A Formal Study of the Privacy Concerns in Biometric-Based Remote Authentication Schemes

With their increasing popularity in cryptosystems, biometrics have attracted more and more attention from the information security community. However, how to handle the relevant privacy concerns remains to be troublesome. In this paper, we propose a novel security model to formalize the privacy concerns in biometric-based remote authentication schemes. Our security model covers a number of practical privacy concerns such as identity privacy and transaction anonymity, which have not been formally considered in the literature. In addition, we propose a general biometric-based remote authentication scheme and prove its security in our security model