Real-time flood inundation forecasting and mapping for key railway infrastructure: a UK case study

Flooding events that impede railway infrastructure can cause severe travel delays for the general public and large fines in delayed minutes for the rail industry. Early warnings of flood inundation can give more time to implement mitigation measures which help reduce cancellations, delays and fines. Initial work is reported on the development of a real-time flood inundation forecasting and mapping system for the Cowley Bridge track area near Exeter, UK. This location is on one of the main access routes to South West England and has suffered major floods in the past resulting in significant transport impacts. Flood forecasting systems in the UK mainly forecast river level/flow rather than extent and depth of flood inundation. Here, the development of a chain of coupled models is discussed that link rainfall to river flow, river level and flood extent for the rail track area relating to Cowley Bridge. Historical events are identified to test model performance in predicting inundation of railway infrastructure. The modelling system will operate alongside a series of in-situ sensors chosen to enhance the flood mapping forecasting system. Sensor data will support offline model calibration/verification and real-time data assimilation as well as monitoring flood conditions to inform track closure decisions

Multiple rare-earth ion environments in amorphous (Gd2O3)(0.230)(P2O5)(0.770) revealed by gadolinium K-edge anomalous x-ray scattering

A Gd K-edge anomalous x-ray scattering (AXS) study is performed on the rare-earth (R) phosphate glass, (Gd2O3)0.230(P2O5)0.770, in order to determine Gd⋯Gd separations in its local structure. The minimum rare-earth separation is of particular interest given that the optical properties of these glasses can quench when rare-earth ions become too close to each other. To this end, a weak Gd⋯Gd pairwise correlation is located at 4.2(1)Å, which is representative of a metaphosphate R⋯R separation. More intense first-neighbor Gd⋯Gd pairwise correlations are found at the larger radial distributions, 4.8(1), 5.1(1), and 5.4(1)Å. These reflect a mixed ultraphosphate and metaphosphate structural character, respectively. A second-neighbor Gd⋯Gd pairwise correlation lies at 6.6(1)Å which is indicative of metaphosphate structures. Meta- and ultraphosphate classifications are made by comparing the R⋯R separations against those of rare-earth phosphate crystal structures, R(PO3)3 and RP5O14, respectively, or difference pair-distribution function (ΔPDF) features determined on similar glasses using difference neutron-scattering methods. The local structure of this glass is therefore found to display multiple rare-earth ion environments, presumably because its composition lies between these two stoichiometric formulae. These Gd⋯Gd separations are well-resolved in ΔPDFs that represent the AXS signal. Indeed, the spatial resolution is so good that it also enables the identification of R⋯X(X=R, P, O) pairwise correlations up to r∼9Å; their average separations lie at r∼7.1(1), 7.6(1), 7.9(1), 8.4(1), and 8.7(1)Å. This is a report of a Gd K-edge AXS study on an amorphous material. Its demonstrated ability to characterize the local structure of a glass up to such a long range of r heralds exciting prospects for AXS studies on other ternary noncrystalline materials. However, the technical challenge of such an experiment should not be underestimated, as is highlighted in this work where probing AXS signal near the Gd K edge is found to produce inelastic x-ray scattering that precludes the normal AXS methods of data processing. Nonetheless, it is shown that AXS results are not only tractable but they also reveal local structure of rare-earth phosphate glasses that is important from a materials-centered perspective and which could not be obtained by other materials characterization methods.J.M.C. is grateful to the Royal Commission of the Great Exhibition 1851 for a 2014 Design Fellowship hosted by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) where work done was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and X-ray 1-BM beam line of the Advanced Photon Source, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility, all under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. J.M.C. and R.J.N. are also indebted to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Grant No. GR/L41035 for funding

Paleomagnetic Results from Luzon and the Central Philippines

Samples were collected from 86 paleomagnetic sites from the islands of Luzon, Marinduque, Mindoro, Panay, Negros, Cebu, and Mindanao in the Philippine Arc. The sampling sites range in age from Pleistocene to Jurassic. Characteristic directions of magnetization of the samples were determined by the use of vector plots. Curie temperature determinations, thin section studies, and hysteresis studies showed that remanence of these samples is carried by fine-grained (pseudo-single domain) magnetite. Positive fold tests from Miocene data from Panay, Jurassic data from Mindoro, and Cretaceous data from Cebu suggest that the magnetization of these regions was acquired prior to folding. Rotations reported below are measured with respect to the axial goecentric dipole field. The Plio-Pleistocene data set shows no resolvable rotation for the 22 sites. This data set suggests that the various terranes that make up the Philippine Arc have behaved as a single unit during the past 5 m.y. or that deformation has been below the limits of resolution. The inclination data from the Plio-Pleistocene sites have anomalously shallow inclination and are consistent with other Plio-Pleistocene data from Vietnam, Taiwan, and the Marianas. These data support earlier suggestions for a late Neogene offset dipole effect. The late Miocene sites fall into two separate groups. Ten sites from western Luzon show evidence for around 20° of clockwise rotation. In contrast to this, late Miocene samples from the Bicol region, Negros, Marinduque, and Mindanao are not rotated. The cause of the postlate Miocene clockwise rotation of Luzon is unknown, but a Pliocene collision of the North Luzon Arc with Taiwan is suggested. Early Neogene results also separate into two different populations. The population from Marinduque shows evidence for a large counterclockwise rotation. The second early Neogene population comes from Panay, Cebu, and Mindanao and clearly shows evidence for a clockwise rotation. The validity of this rotation is further supported by a fold test and a reversal test. These early Neogene data sets are consistent with a middle to late Miocene collision of the Palawan Continental Terrane and the Central Philippine Arc. Data from six dikes of possible Oligocene age from the Zambales Ophiolite are highly discordant from the present field, being rotated approximately 60° clockwise. The directions from these dikes are similar to a direction reported earlier from late Oligocene sediments also from the Zambales region. These two data sets support the interpretation that the Eocene direction from Zambales is recording a large clockwise rotation of the region. Data from the Mesozoic sites are from two regions. Data from the Cretaceous Pandan formation of Cebu are discordant with data from the Upper Jurassic from Mindoro. The presence of a fold test from each region and a reversal test from Mindoro supports the interpretation that each of these data sets is reliable. The VGP of Mindoro is displaced southward from the Late Jurassic VGP of South China, suggesting a post-Jurassic southward migration of Mindoro

Social regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes

Analysis of differentially expressed in circulating leukocytes from people who chronically experienced high versus low levels of subjective social isolation (loneliness) revealed over-expression of some anti-inflammatory genes and under-expression of some pro-inflammatory genes

Food Distribution and Consumption in Knoxville: Exploring Food-Related Local Planning Issues

Summary: City planners have traditionally made an effort to understand the interrelationships between urban activities and various support systems, such as transportation, water and sewer, waste management, communications and energy. Food is also an important urban support system with a complex system of supply, distribution, and consumption. An understanding of the nature of the food supply and distribution system seems important, but in the past has not been an area of concern for the planning profession. It was the intent of this project to develop a basis from which to seek an understanding of the Knoxville food support system and its implications for local planning policy in Knoxville. The thrust of the study was three-fold. First, food-related problems and issues were identified. Then, further work was undertaken in order to propose remedial measures or public programs that might be initiated by local units of government. Finally, the group considered the possibility of establishing some kind of public oversight of the local food supply and distribution function. The approach has been general and comprehensive. One assumption here is that before public action can be initiated, those with responsibility for maintaining the public interest must understand the system. Thus, an analysis which would describe the system comprehensively, while allowing an opportunity to detect interrelationships among system components, was utilized. Patterns of consumption, food services and programs, and marketing channels by food types were also explored. The development of information involves consultation with literature, academicians, public officials, and industry representatives

Summer CO2 evasion from streams and rivers in the Kolyma River basin, north-east Siberia

Inland water systems are generally supersaturated in carbon dioxide (CO2) and are increasingly recognized as playing an important role in the global carbon cycle. The Arctic may be particularly important in this respect, given the abundance of inland waters and carbon contained in Arctic soils; however, a lack of trace gas measurements from small streams in the Arctic currently limits this understanding.We investigated the spatial variability of CO2 evasion during the summer low-flow period from streams and rivers in the northern portion of the Kolyma River basin in north-eastern Siberia. To this end, partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) and gas exchange velocities (k) were measured at a diverse set of streams and rivers to calculate CO2 evasion fluxes. We combined these CO2 evasion estimates with satellite remote sensing and geographic information system techniques to calculate total areal CO2 emissions. Our results show that small streams are substantial sources of atmospheric CO2 owing to high pCO2 and k, despite being a small portion of total inland water surface area. In contrast, large rivers were generally near equilibrium with atmospheric CO2. Extrapolating our findings across the Panteleikha-Ambolikha sub-watersheds demonstrated that small streams play a major role in CO2 evasion, accounting for 86% of the total summer CO2 emissions from inland waters within these two sub-watersheds. Further expansion of these regional CO2 emission estimates across time and space will be critical to accurately quantify and understand the role of Arctic streams and rivers in the global carbon budget