On the possibility of calibrating urban storm-water drainage models using gauge-based adjusted radar rainfall estimates

Traditionally, urban storm water drainage models have been calibrated using only raingauge data, which may result in overly conservative models due to the lack of spatial description of rainfall. With the advent of weather radars, radar rainfall estimates with higher temporal and spatial resolution have become increasingly available and have started to be used operationally for urban storm water model calibration and real time operation. Nonetheless, the insufficient accuracy of radar rainfall estimates has proven problematic and has hindered its widespread practical use. This work explores the possibility of improving the applicability of radar rainfall estimates to the calibration of urban storm-water drainage models by employing gauge-based radar rainfall adjustment techniques. Four different types of rainfall estimates were used as input to the recently verified urban storm water drainage models of the Beddington catchment in South London; these included: raingauge, block-kriged raingauge, radar (UK Met Office Nimrod) and the adjusted (or merged) radar rainfall estimates. The performance of the simulated flow and water depths was assessed using measurements from 78 gauges. Results suggest that a better calibration could be achieved by using the block-kriged raingauge and the adjusted radar estimates as input, as compared to using only radar or raingauge estimates

Reconstruction of Quark Mass Matrices with Weak Basis Texture Zeroes from Experimental Input

All quark mass matrices with texture zeroes obtained through weak basis transformations are confronted with the experimental data. The reconstruction of the quark mass matrices M_u and M_d at the electroweak scale is performed in a weak basis where the matrices are Hermitian and have a maximum of three vanishing elements. The same procedure is also accomplished for the Yukawa coupling matrices at the grand unification scale in the context of the Standard Model and its minimal supersymmetric extension as well as of the two Higgs doublet model. The analysis of all viable power structures on the quark Yukawa coupling matrices that could naturally appear from a Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism is also presented.Comment: RevTeX4, 3 tables, 21 pages; misprints corrected and one reference adde

Stochastic evaluation of sewer inlet capacity on urban pluvial flooding

In this paper we present an innovative methodology to stochastically assess the impact of sewer inlet conditions on urban pluvial flooding. The results showed that sewer inlet capacity can have a large impact on the occurrence of urban pluvial flooding. The methodology is a useful tool for dealing with uncertainties in sewer inlet operational conditions and contribute to comprehensive assessment of urban pluvial risk assessment

Genome Sequence of the Moderately Halophilic Yellow Sea Bacterium Lentibacillus salicampi ATCC BAA-719T

Lentibacillus salicampi SF-20T (=ATCC BAA-719T) was first isolated from a Yellow Sea salt field in Korea in 2002. Here, we report that the L. salicampi ATCC BAA-719T genome sequence has a predicted length of 3,897,716 bp, containing 3,945 total genes and a CRISPR array, with a G+C content of 43.0%

On the use of semi-distributed and fully-distributed urban stormwater models

Urban stormwater models comprise four main components: rainfall, rainfall-runoff, overland flow and sewer flow modules. They can be considered semi-distributed (SD) or fully distributed (FD) according to the rainfall-runoff module definition. SD models are based on sub-catchments units through which rainfall is applied to the model and at which runoff volumes are estimated. In FD models, the runoff volumes are estimated and applied directly on every element of a twodimensional (2D) model of the surface. This poster presents a comparison of SD and FD models based on two case studies: Zona Central catchment at Coimbra, Portugal, and Cranbrook catchment at London, UK. SD and FD modelling results are compared against water depth and flow records in sewers, and photographic records of a flood event. In general, FD models are theoretically more realistic and physically-based, but the results of this study suggest that the implementation of these models requires higher resolution (more detailed) elevation, land use and sewer network data than is normally used in the implementation of SD models. Failing to use higher resolution data for the implementation of FD models could result in poor-performing models. In cases when high resolution data are not available, the use of SD models could be a better choice

Analyzing the IAR with IRI During the Recent Solar Minimum

The 2008-2009 solar minimum was deeper than any within the past century. As such, the performance of the empirical International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model was impacted. This impact manifested as a disagreement between predicted and measured characteristic separation in frequency for a wave resonating within an Ionospheric Alfven Resonator (IAR). The predicted value of the characteristic was a factor of three lower than what was measured by the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS). Analyzing the model performance and comparing output with measured ionospheric values showed that more than half of the inaccuracy could be explained by inaccuracies in the output of the model. The 2008-2009 solar minimum was outside of the bounds of the effectiveness of the empirical IRI model. Incorporating recent data measurements and new indices would increase the accuracy of IRI during this period