The Swiss School of Engineering for the Wood Industry

The Swiss School of Engineering for the Wood Industry is situated between the residential areas on the outskirts of the city of Biel and the industrial zones flanking the southern slopes of the Jura. The existing buildings consist mostly of single-storied production halls and storage sheds which, with their open layout, low-pitched roofs and close rapport with the surrounding landscape, are typical of school buildings of the post-war period in Switzerland

Nonlinear temperature response of lake ice breakup

A uniquely comprehensive set of four decades of ice breakup data from 196 Swedish lakes covering 13degrees of latitude (55.7degrees N to 68.4degrees N) shows the relationship between the timing of lake ice breakup and air temperature to be an arc cosine function. The nonlinearity inherent in this relationship results in marked differences in the response of the timing of lake ice breakup to changes in air temperature between colder and warmer geographical regions, and between colder and warmer time periods. The spatial and temporal patterns are mutually consistent, suggesting that climate change impacts on the timing of lake ice breakup will vary along a temperature gradient. This has potentially important ramifications for the employment of lake ice phenologies as climate indicators and for the future behavior of lacustrine ecosystem

Buried Paleosols as Reference Objects for Assessing the Current Level of Soil Pollution with Lead in the Lower Volga Steppes

The estimation of soil contamination with anthropogenic lead requires uncontaminated analogues of the recent soils for comparison. For this purpose, a paleosol buried under a 2-m high burial mound of the Bronze Age and protected by it from atmospheric deposition during 4500 years was studied. The content and isotopic composition of mobile and total lead in the buried and recent soils (roadside and remote from lead sources) were compared. Obvious signs of anthropogenic contamination were revealed in only the upper layer of the roadside soil within 10 m from a highway. These were an increase in the absolute content of all lead forms; a high relative content of mobile forms; high ratios of Pb relative to Ti, Zr, and Y; and the similarity between isotopic compositions of the soil lead and the lead from modern atmospheric aerosols and Russian gasoline. Interestingly, no significant difference was found in the total lead contents or in the isotopic compositions between the recent soil remote from roads and the buried soil. However, some signs of anthropogenic impact could be revealed by the analysis of mobile lead forms, which make up a small portion of the total content