Comparisons of environmental effects and productivity by road construction machines in forest areas in Turkey

In this study, forest road construction techniques, environmental damages, cross sections and productivity by using hydraulic excavator and bulldozer were investigated in forested lands in Antalya and Eskisehir region in Turkey. Maximum length of fill slope for bulldozer and excavator were found 17 m on 80% slope gradient and 11 m on same slope gradient, respectively. The costs of forest roads for bulldozer and excavator were calculated to be 21.8 US dollars/m and 8.5 US dollars/m, respectively. Productivity of bulldozer and excavator were found to be 105.8 and 66.2 m3/h, respectively. The types of environmental damages on trees were determined and found to be wounded, bending and crushing. In this study, 23% of trees under the forest road construction by excavator are damaged and 40% of trees by bulldozer are damaged for 45 - 90% ground slope.Key words: Hydraulic excavator, bulldozer, forest road, road construction, environmental damage, construction cost

Wearable Knee Health Rehabilitation Assessment using Acoustical Emissions

Each year, approximately 200,000 Americans endure anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears, and 100,000 reconstructive procedures are conducted to repair the injured knees (1). The injury itself, and the long rehabilitation process that follows, can majorly disrupt the quality of life for these Americans through missed workdays, reduction of overall physical activity, and increased risk of re-injury in future activities. Wearable technologies for quantifying the state of rehabilitation, and providing feedback to the user regarding which activities or intensities of activities are safe to perform at any given time, could potentially help accelerate the rehabilitation process as well as reduce the risk of re-injury. Our lab has developed a novel, wearable sensing system based on miniature piezoelectric contact microphones for measuring the acoustical emissions from the knee during movements such as unloaded flexion / extension, sit-to-stand, and walking activities. The system consists of two Knowles BU-23173 contact microphones (Knowles, Itasca, IL) positioned on the medial and lateral sides of the patella, connected to custom, analog pre-amplifier circuits and a microcontroller for digitization and data storage on a secure digital (SD) card. In addition to the acoustical sensing, the system includes two integrated inertial measurement sensors including accelerometer and gyroscope modalities to enable joint angle calculations; these sensors, with digital outputs, are connected directly to the same microcontroller via serial peripheral interface (SPI). The system provides low noise, accurate joint acoustical emission and angle measurements in a wearable form factor, and has several hours of battery life. We have also taken measurements from healthy subjects, and athletes following acute ACL tear, to determine initial features from these acoustical emissions that are associated with injured versus healthy joints. We have found that the main acoustic clicks during particular motions occurred at consistent joint angles for healthy subjects based on intraclass correlation coefficient analysis (ICC(1,1) = 0.94 and ICC(1,k) = 0.99) (2). For one subject with an ACL tear, we found that the consistency of the joint acoustical emissions was lower for the injured knee as compared to the healthy knee in the recording immediately following the injury (\u3c 7 days), and improved following six months of rehabilitation. We envision using the wearable system we have recently completed to conduct further experiments with subjects following acute ACL tears, and tracking the progress of the rehabilitation while simultaneously measuring acoustical emissions in the context of particular movements. This data will then serve as a foundation for creating subject-specific algorithms for assessing rehabilitation and providing feedback to the users

Late Cretaceous-Early Eocene tectonic development of the Tethyan suture zone in the Erzincan area, Eastern Pontides, Turkey

Six individual tectonostratigraphic units are identified within the Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan Suture Zone in the critical Erzincan area of the Eastern Pontides. The Ayikayasi Formation of Campanian-Maastrichtian age is composed of bedded pelagic limestones intercalated with polymict, massive conglomerates. The Ayikayasi Formation conformably overlies the Tauride passive margin sequence in the Munzur Mountains to the south and is interpreted as an underfilled foredeep basin. The Refahiye Complex, of possible Late Cretaceous age, is a partial ophiolite composed of similar to 75 % (by volume) serpentinized peridotite (mainly harzburgite), similar to 20 % diabase and minor amounts of gabbro and plagiogranite. The complex is interpreted as oceanic lithosphere that formed by spreading above a subduction zone. Unusual screens of metamorphic rocks (e.g. marble and schist) locally Occur between sheeted diabase dykes. The Upper Cretaceous Karayaprak Melange exhibits two lithological associations: (1) the basalt + radiolarite + serpentinite association, including depleted arc-type basalts; (2) the massive neritic limestone + lava + volcaniclastic association that includes fractionated, intermediate-composition lavas, and is interpreted as accreted Neotethyan seamount(s). The several-kilometre-thick Karadag Formation, of Campanian-Maastrichtian age, is composed of greenschist-facies volcanogenic rocks of mainly basaltic to andesitic composition, and is interpreted as an emplaced Upper Cretaceous volcanic arc. The Campanian-Early Eocene Sutpinar Formation (similar to 1500 m thick) is a coarsening-Upward succession of turbiditic calcarenite, sandstone, laminated mudrock, volcaniclastic sedimentary rocks that includes rare andesitic lava, and is interpreted as a regressive forearc basin. The Late Paleocene-Eocene Sipikor Formation is a laterally varied succession of shallow-marine carbonate and siliciclastic lithofacies that overlies deformed Upper Cretaceous units with an angular unconformity. Structural study indicates that the assembled accretionary prism, supra-subduction zone-type oceanic lithosphere and volcanic are units were emplaced northwards onto the Eurasian margin and also southwards onto the Tauride (Gondwana-related) margin during Campanian-Maastrichtian time. Further, mainly southward thrusting took place during the Eocene in this area, related to final closure of Tethys. Our preferred tectonic model involves northward subduction, supra-subduction zone ophiolite genesis and arc magmatism near the northerly, Eurasian margin of the Mesozoic Tethys

Magnetar outbursts: an observational review

Transient outbursts from magnetars have shown to be a key property of their emission, and one of the main way to discover new sources of this class. From the discovery of the first transient event around 2003, we now count about a dozen of outbursts, which increased the number of these strongly magnetic neutron stars by a third in six years. Magnetar outbursts might involve their multi-band emission resulting in an increased activity from radio to hard X-ray, usually with a soft X-ray flux increasing by a factor of 10-1000 with respect to the quiescent level. A connected X-ray spectral evolution is also often observed, with a spectral softening during the outburst decay. The flux decay times vary a lot from source to source, ranging from a few weeks to several years, as also the decay law which can be exponential-like, a power-law or even multiple power-laws can be required to model the flux decrease. We review here on the latest observational results on the multi-band emission of magnetars, and summarize one by one all the transient events which could be studied to date from these sources.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures. Chapter of the Springer Book ASSP 7395 "High-energy emission from pulsars and their systems", proceeding of the Sant Cugat Forum on Astrophysics (12-16 April 2010). Review updated to January 201