Automated sliding susceptibility mapping of rock slopes

International audienceWe present a suite of extensions for ARCVIEW GIS? (ESRI) that allows to map the spatial distribution of first-order mechanical slope-properties in hard rock terrain, e.g. for large slope areas like water reservoir slopes. Besides digital elevation data, this expert-system includes regional continuous grid-based data on geological structures that might act as potential sliding or cutoff planes for rockslides. The system allows rapid automated mapping of geometrical and kinematical slope properties in hard rock, providing the basis for spatially distributed deterministic sliding-susceptibility evaluations on a pixel base. Changing hydrostatic slope conditions and rock mechanical parameters can be implemented and used for simple predictive static stability calculations. Application is demonstrated for a study area in the Harz Mts., Germany

A posteriori error analysis for elliptic pdes on domains with complicated structures

Summary.: The discretisation of boundary value problems on complicated domains cannot resolve all geometric details such as small holes or pores. The model problem of this paper consists of a triangulated polygonal domain with holes of a size of the mesh-width at most and mixed boundary conditions for the Poisson equation. Reliable and efficient a posteriori error estimates are presented for a fully numerical discretisation with conforming piecewise affine finite elements. Emphasis is on technical difficulties with the numerical approximation of the domain and their influence on the constants in the reliability and efficiency estimate

Self-organized pore formation and open-loop-control in semiconductor etching

Electrochemical etching of semiconductors, apart from many technical applications, provides an interesting experimental setup for self-organized structure formation capable e.g. of regular, diameter-modulated, and branching pores. The underlying dynamical processes governing current transfer and structure formation are described by the Current-Burst-Model: all dissolution processes are assumed to occur inhomogeneously in time and space as a Current Burst (CB); the properties and interactions between CB's are described by a number of material- and chemistry- dependent ingredients, like passivation and aging of surfaces in different crystallographic orientations, giving a qualitative understanding of resulting pore morphologies. These morphologies cannot be influenced only by the current, by chemical, material and other etching conditions, but also by an open-loop control, triggering the time scale given by the oxide dissolution time. With this method, under conditions where only branching pores occur, the additional signal hinders side pore formation resulting in regular pores with modulated diameter

Experimental investigation on the effects of shoreface nourishment placement and timing on long-term cross-shore profile development

Acknowledgements The first, second and last authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Independent Research Fund Denmark project SWASH: Simulating WAve Surf-zone Hydrodynamics and sea bed morphology, Grant No.8022-00137B. The experimental data (DOI:10.11583/DTU.16739449, active upon pub791 lication) can be downloaded from https://figshare.com/s/accc92bad9fe629c943cPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Approaches to Studying: A Cross-Sectional Comparison of Occupational Therapy Students in Six Education Programs in Norway

Students’ approaches to studying have been associated with their academic performance. Although previous research suggests that the cultural and educational context may influence approaches to studying, few studies have investigated differences in study approaches across education programs. The aim of this study was to examine whether approaches to studying differed among occupational therapy students enrolled in six different educational programs in Norway. From a population of 308 students, 187 first-year occupational therapy students in six educational programs in Norway were recruited. The students provided their sociodemographic information and completed the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST), and group differences were analyzed with Chi-square tests and one-way analyses of variance. Scores on the deep and surface approach scales did not differ significantly among the students in the six educational programs, while there was an overall difference in scores on the strategic approach scale. Group differences regarding the subscales were minor, and only a few of the pairwise differences reached statistical significance. Differences at the education program level appear not to be important for the interpretation of differences in study approaches among students

Children’s velo-mobility – how cycling children are ‘made’ and sustained.

Sustainable mobilities play a dominate role in low carbon futures and cycling is an integral element. Children are heirs of transport cultures and crucial for future sustainable mobility. Moreover cycling is important for children’s independent mobility and geographical experience.Dominating approaches in transport research, including cycling, understand travel behaviour individualistic and lack to grasp the relational complexities, which are inevitable when considering children’s mobilities. Furthermore has children’s cycling largely been studied as independent mobility and active school travel. How cycling is learned and constituted, and how cycling skills are consolidated, extended and turned into a stabilized practice remains unstudied. Drawing on in-depth interview data from the region of Copenhagen, Denmark, among families with children (N=20) the paper provides new insights into how children, parents, and the locale socio-spatial environment through collaborations, negations and experiments co-produce independent cycling.It introduces a three-step model for conceptualizing children’s cycling deriving from processes of gradually enlarging the geographical experience and partial embodying of know-how of traffic power relations and mobility technology. The paper examines how parents’ perception of risks are transgressed by cycle training and how cycling is fitted into complex household routines. By shedding light on the sensitive mechanisms that ‘make’ and sustain cycling children the paper inform a discussion of urban planning and transport policy measures important for stabilizing sustainable mobility

Children’s velo-mobility – how cycling children are ‘made’ and sustained.

Sustainable mobilities play a dominate role in low carbon futures and cycling is an integral element. Children are heirs of transport cultures and crucial for future sustainable mobility. Moreover cycling is important for children’s independent mobility and geographical experience.Dominating approaches in transport research, including cycling, understand travel behaviour individualistic and lack to grasp the relational complexities, which are inevitable when considering children’s mobilities. Furthermore has children’s cycling largely been studied as independent mobility and active school travel. How cycling is learned and constituted, and how cycling skills are consolidated, extended and turned into a stabilized practice remains unstudied. Drawing on in-depth interview data from the region of Copenhagen, Denmark, among families with children (N=20) the paper provides new insights into how children, parents, and the locale socio-spatial environment through collaborations, negations and experiments co-produce independent cycling.It introduces a three-step model for conceptualizing children’s cycling deriving from processes of gradually enlarging the geographical experience and partial embodying of know-how of traffic power relations and mobility technology. The paper examines how parents’ perception of risks are transgressed by cycle training and how cycling is fitted into complex household routines. By shedding light on the sensitive mechanisms that ‘make’ and sustain cycling children the paper inform a discussion of urban planning and transport policy measures important for stabilizing sustainable mobility

The role of urban form in sustaining public transport, car, and bicycle based travel styles.

In the quest for sustainable mobility futures the promotion of car independent or less car dependent lifestyles is often mentioned. This partly reflects an acknowledgement of car use and travel as part of a pattern or style in which behaviors and possessions are interdependent and potentially reinforcing. Little research has, however, targeted behaviors in this manner, but generally tend to focus on the number of trips, km of travel or similar. This paper makes the experiment of analyzing urban form effects on discrete weekly travel styles of 1970 (N) 16-74 year old respondents based on a two step methodology. In the first step, the weekly use of travel modes was analyzed by means of principal component analysis and k-means cluster analysis to identify discrete travel styles among adult Danes based on the main differences in the sample. Four travel styles were found and can be labeled as public transport (11% of the respondents); car-alone (36% of the respondents); and bicycle based travel styles (29% of the respondents); whereas the fourth style was mixed with important contributions from car-alone, co-driving and walking (24% of the respondents). In the second step the urban form correlates of the travel styles was analyzed in a multinomial logistic regression model with control for respondent attitudes as well as transport-related residential preferences to control for self-selection. Four urban form and infrastructure variables were found to be significantly related to the travel styles of the respondents: the distance to a larger service centre/urban centre; proximity to S-train or Metro stations in the Greater Copenhagen area; service offers within walking distance; and finally population density within a larger neighborhood area (up to 1,5 km airline distance from the dwelling of the respondents). Separation from the large service centers as well as proximity to the well serviced and highly connected S-train and Metro network increases the probability of a public transport based travel style. Separation from the large service centers – indicating also a low level of accessibility – also increases the probability of a car-based travel style. Cycling based travel styles appear mainly to be affected by local opportunities: positively if there is a high density in a larger neighborhood surrounding the dwelling, but negatively if there are good service offers within walking distance. The results indicate that the travel styles are mainly shaped by the respondents needs to overcome a travel distance from their home location to important clusters of activities, as well as the degree to which the local accessibility offers support for cycling. The effects of proximity to S-train or Metro indicate that transport services can play a role, but also that a very high level of service and connectivity is likely to be required. The travel styles and their correlations with urban form and transport variables also provide new evidence on how the different modes combine. The results indicate that walking and cycling for transport are not joined, but takes place in different travel styles that are living in different locations. Thus even in the ‘cycling nation’ Denmark, there is a substantial group that prefers walking over cycling. For public transport and cycling the results point to the existence of public transport travel styles that are dependent upon other access modes than walking, and that cycling for access as well as cycling as main mode are important. Thus, cycling is an integral part of public transport travel styles. Reversely cycling based travel styles can exist without significantly higher use of public transport compared to other non-public transport travel styles. The interactions and dependencies between the travel styles should be the topic of further research aiming to understand mobility and the preconditions for promoting less car dependent lifestyles