Effects of Orientations, Aspect Ratios, Pavement Materials and Vegetation Elements on Thermal Stress inside Typical Urban Canyons

The analysis of local climate conditions to test artificial urban boundaries and related climate hazards through modelling tools should become a common practice to inform public authorities about the benefits of planning alternatives. Different finishing materials and sheltering objects within urban canyons (UCs) can be tested, predicted and compared through quantitative and qualitative understanding of the relationships between the microclimatic environment and subjective thermal assessment. This process can work as support planning instrument in the early design phases as has been done in this study that aims to analyze the thermal stress within typical UCs of Bilbao (Spain) in summertime through the evaluation of Physiologically Equivalent Temperature using ENVI-met. The UCs are characterized by different orientations, height-to-width aspect ratios, pavement materials, trees’ dimensions and planting pattern. Firstly, the current situation was analyzed; secondly, the effects of asphalt and red brick stones as streets’ pavement materials were compared; thirdly, the benefits of vegetation elements were tested. The analysis demonstrated that orientation and aspect ratio strongly affect the magnitude and duration of the thermal peaks at pedestrian level; while the vegetation elements improve the thermal comfort up to two thermophysiological assessment classes. The outcomes of this study, were transferred and visualized into green planning recommendations for new and consolidated urban areas in Bilbao.The work leading to these results has received funding from COST Action TU0902, the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No. 308497, Project RAMSES—Reconciling Adaptation, Mitigation and Sustainable Development for Cities (2012–2017) and Diputación Foral de Bizkaia Exp. 6-12-TK-2010-0027, Project SICURB-ITS- Desarrollo de Sistemas para el análisis de la Contaminación atmosférica en zonas URBanas integrados en ITS (2010–2011)

Detailed theoretical predictions of the outskirts of dark matter halos

In the present work we describe the formalism necessary to derive the properties of dark matter halos beyond two virial radius using the spherical collapse model (without shell crossing), and provide the framework for the theoretical prediction presented in Prada et al. (2005). We show in detail how to obtain within this model the probability distribution for the spherically-averaged enclosed density at any radii P(delta,r). Using this probability distribution, we compute the most probable and mean density profiles, which turns out to differ considerably from each other. We also show how to obtain the typical profile, as well as the probability distribution and mean profile for the spherically averaged radial velocity. Two probability distributions are obtained: a first one is derived using a simple assumption, that is, if Q is the virial radius in Lagrangian coordinates, then the enclosed linear contrast delta_l(q,Q) must satisfy the condition that delta_l(q=Q) = delta_vir, where delta_vir is the linear density contrast within the virial radius Rvir at the moment of virialization. Then we introduce an additional constraint to obtain a more accurate P(delta,r) which reproduces to a higher degree of precision the distribution of the spherically averaged enclosed density found in the simulations. This new constraint is delta_l(q,Q) < delta_vir for all q > Q, which means that there are no radii larger than Rvir where the density contrast is larger than that used to define the virial radius. Finally, we compare in detail our theoretical predictions for the probability distributions with the results found in the simulations.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, replaced to match the published versio

Double non-equivalent chain structure on vicinal Si(557)-Au surface

We study electronic and topographic properties of the vicinal Si(557)-Au surface using scanning tunneling microscopy and reflection of high energy electron diffraction technique. STM data reveal double wire structures along terraces. Moreover behavior of the voltage dependent STM tip - surface distance is different in different chains. While the one chain shows oscillations of the distance which are sensitive to the sign of the voltage bias, the oscillations in the other chain remain unchanged with respect to the positive/negative biases. This suggests that one wire has metallic character while the other one - semiconducting. The experimental results are supplemented by theoretical calculations within tight binding model suggesting that the observed chains are made of different materials, one is gold and the other one is silicon chain.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Chemical abundances of damped Lyman alpha systems in the XQ-100 survey

The XQ-100 survey has provided high signal-noise spectra of 100 redshift 3-4.5 quasars with the X-Shooter spectrograph. The metal abundances for 13 elements in the 41 damped Lyman alpha systems (DLAs) identified in the XQ-100 sample are presented, and an investigation into abundances of a variety of DLA classes is conducted. The XQ-100 DLA sample contains five DLAs within 5000 km/s of their host quasar (proximate DLAs; PDLAs) as well as three sightlines which contain two DLAs within 10,000 km/s of each other along the same line-of-sight (multiple DLAs; MDLAs). Combined with previous observations in the literature, we demonstrate that PDLAs with logN(HI)<21.0 show lower [S/H] and [Fe/H] (relative to intervening systems with similar redshift and N(HI)), whilst higher [S/H] and [Si/H] are seen in PDLAs with logN(HI)>21.0. These abundance discrepancies are independent of their line-of-sight velocity separation from the host quasar, and the velocity width of the metal lines (v90). Contrary to previous studies, MDLAs show no difference in [alpha/Fe] relative to single DLAs matched in metallicity and redshift. In addition, we present follow-up UVES data of J0034+1639, a sightline containing three DLAs, including a metal-poor DLA with [Fe/H]=-2.82 (the third lowest [Fe/H] in DLAs identified to date) at z=4.25. Lastly we study the dust-corrected [Zn/Fe], emphasizing that near-IR coverage of X-Shooter provides unprecedented access to MgII, CaII and TiII lines (at redshifts 3-4) to provide additional evidence for subsolar [Zn/Fe] ratio in DLAs.Comment: Accepted to MNRAS. 19 pages plus Appendix material (102 pages total

Non-linear Evolution of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Improved Perturbation Theory in Real and Redshift Spaces

We study the non-linear evolution of baryon acoustic oscillations in the matter power spectrum and correlation function from the improved perturbation theory (PT). Based on the framework of renormalized PT, we apply the {\it closure approximation} that truncates the infinite series of loop contributions at one-loop order, and obtain a closed set of integral equations for power spectrum and non-linear propagator. The resultant integral expressions keep important non-perturbative properties which can dramatically improve the prediction of non-linear power spectrum. Employing the Born approximation, we then derive the analytic expressions for non-linear power spectrum and the predictions are made for non-linear evolution of baryon acoustic oscillations in power spectrum and correlation function. A detailed comparison between improved PT results and N-body simulations shows that a percent-level agreement is achieved in a certain range in power spectrum and in a rather wider range in correlation function. Combining a model of non-linear redshift-space distortion, we also evaluate the power spectrum and correlation function in correlation function. In contrast to the results in real space, the agreement between N-body simulations and improved PT predictions tends to be worse, and a more elaborate modeling for redshift-space distortion needs to be developed. Nevertheless, with currently existing model, we find that the prediction of correlation function has a sufficient accuracy compared with the cosmic-variance errors for future galaxy surveys with volume of a few (Gpc/h)^3 at z>=0.5.Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Exact Multifractal Spectra for Arbitrary Laplacian Random Walks

Iterated conformal mappings are used to obtain exact multifractal spectra of the harmonic measure for arbitrary Laplacian random walks in two dimensions. Separate spectra are found to describe scaling of the growth measure in time, of the measure near the growth tip, and of the measure away from the growth tip. The spectra away from the tip coincide with those of conformally invariant equilibrium systems with arbitrary central charge $c\leq 1$, with $c$ related to the particular walk chosen, while the scaling in time and near the tip cannot be obtained from the equilibrium properties.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; references added, minor correction

The GEM-T2 gravitational model

The GEM-T2 is the latest in a series of Goddard Earth Models of the terrestrial field. It was designed to bring modeling capabilities one step closer towards ultimately determining the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite's radial position to an accuracy of 10-cm RMS (root mean square). It also improves models of the long wavelength geoid to support many oceanographic and geophysical applications. The GEM-T2 extends the spherical harmonic field to include more than 600 coefficients above degree 36 (which was the limit for its predecessor, GEM-T1). Like GEM-T1, it was produced entirely from satellite tracking data, but it now uses nearly twice as many satellites (31 vs. 17), contains four times the number of observations (2.4 million), has twice the number of data arcs (1132), and utilizes precise laser tracking from 11 satellites. The estimation technique for the solution has been augmented to include an optimum data weighting procedure with automatic error calibration for the gravitational parameters. Results for the GEM-T2 error calibration indicate significant improvement over previous satellite-only models. The error of commission in determining the geoid has been reduced from 155 cm in GEM-T1 to 105 cm for GEM-T2 for the 36 x 36 portion of the field, and 141 cm for the entire model. The orbital accuracies achieved using GEM-T2 are likewise improved. Also, the projected radial error on the TOPEX satellite orbit indicates 9.4 cm RMS for GEM-T2, compared to 24.1 cm for GEM-T1