On the Role of NAO Driven Interannual Variability in Rainfall Seasonality on Water Resources and Hydrologic Design in a Typical Mediterranean Basin

In the last several decades, extended dry periods have affected the Mediterranean area with dramatic impacts on water resources. Climate models are predicting further warming, with negative effects on water availability. The authors analyze the hydroclimatic tendencies of a typical Mediterranean basin, the Flumendosa basin located in Sardinia, an island in the center of the Mediterranean Sea, where in the last 30 years a sequence of dry periods has seriously impacted the water management system. Interestingly, in the historic record the annual runoff reductions have been more pronounced than the annual precipitation reductions. This paper performs an analysis that links this runoff decrease to changes in the total annual precipitation and its seasonal structure. The seasonality is a key determinant of the surface runoff process, as it reflects the degree to which rainfall is concentrated during the winter. The observed reductions in winter precipitation are shown here to be well correlated (Pearson correlation coefficient of −0.5) with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index. Considering the predictability of the winter NAO, there is by extension an opportunity to predict future winter precipitation and runoff tendencies. The recent hydroclimatic trends are shown to impact hydrologic design criteria for water resources planning. The authors demonstrate that there is a dangerous increase of the drought severity viewed from the perspective of water resources planning

DNA Replication Fidelity: Proofreading in Trans

Proofreading is the primary guardian of DNA polymerase fidelity. New work has revealed that polymerases with intrinsic proofreading activity may cooperate with non-proofreading polymerases to ensure faithful DNA replication

Report on hydraulic model tests for Rihand Dam

CER47-52SDR5.April 1950.Includes bibliographical references.At head of title: United Province, India, Public Works Department, Irrigation Branch

The Effects of Solar Magnetic Activity on Electric Power Systems

Disturbances an large electric power transmission systems have been attributed to magnetic storms following solar flares. It can be shown that these magnetic disturbances are of the proper nature and magnitude to produce the documented effects on these electric systems. It is anticipated that these effects may become more serious with the greater and greater geographical spread of interconnected systems. More research and information on causal relationships is needed

Content-Based Video Retrieval in Historical Collections of the German Broadcasting Archive

The German Broadcasting Archive (DRA) maintains the cultural heritage of radio and television broadcasts of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The uniqueness and importance of the video material stimulates a large scientific interest in the video content. In this paper, we present an automatic video analysis and retrieval system for searching in historical collections of GDR television recordings. It consists of video analysis algorithms for shot boundary detection, concept classification, person recognition, text recognition and similarity search. The performance of the system is evaluated from a technical and an archival perspective on 2,500 hours of GDR television recordings.Comment: TPDL 2016, Hannover, Germany. Final version is available at Springer via DO

Ecological Studies of Blue Grama Grass (Bouteloua gracilis)

Blue grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis) was selected for detailed description here because of its wide distribution and importance throughout the Great Plains Region in the United States.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/fort_hays_studies_series/1058/thumbnail.jp

Reviews

Sandi Alberston-Shea. Letters for the Living: Teaching Writing in a Violent Age. (Michael Blitz and C. Mark Huribert, 1999). Susan A. Schiller. Education and the Soul: Toward a Spiritual Curriculum. (John P. Miller, 2000). Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. (Mary Rose O\u27Reilly, 1998). Back to the Archiv

Flume studies using medium sand (0.45mm)

CER58DBS2.Includes bibliographical references.The results pertaining to the progress during the first year of a comprehensive study of fluvial hydraulics, specifically roughness in alluvial channels, are presented. The report is based on the data collected by using a recirculating rectangular flume of adjustable slope, 8 feet wide, 2 feet deep, and 150 feet long with an alluvial bed of sand approximately 0. 7 foot deep. A typical river sand has been utilized. Its median diameter, d, is 0.45 mm and its relative standard deviation, σ, is 1.60. A total of 45 runs have been completed over a range of bed roughness forms extending from the plane bed with no movement to antidunes. In order to achieve this range, the discharge was varied from 2 to 21 cubic feet per second, the average velocity was varied from 0.5 to 7 feet per second, the average depth of flow was varied from 0.3 to 1.0 foot, and the slope of water surface was varied from 0.00014 to 0.01. Other variables measured included: water temperature, bed roughness, suspended sediment load, and total sediment load. Terms describing channel roughness were formulated and tested based on the data collected. The results indicate, as one possibility, that the Chezy coefficient of discharge in dimensionless form C/√g is a function of parameters involving the Froude number, viscosity of fluid, fall velocity, specific weight of the sediment, median diameter of the sediment particles and slope of the water surface. The various expressions presented were formulated on the fundamental concepts of fluid mechanics, dimensional analysis, and a detailed study of the variations of the variables measured. In the two regimes of flow the following forms of bed roughness were observed. For tranquil flow regime: plane bed without movement, ripples, dunes and transition from dunes to rapid flow forms. For rapid flow regime: plane bed with movement, standing sand waves, and antidunes. These forms of bed roughness are discussed and defined in various relationships. Other data of both a laboratory and a field nature were combined with the flume data to develop a graphical relationship in which the form of bed roughness is related to size of bed material

An objective method for determining principal time scales of coherent eddy structures using orthonormal wavelets

A new, parameter-free method, based on orthonormal wavelet expansions is proposed for calculating the principal time scale of coherent structures in atmospheric surface layer measurements. These organized events play an important role in the exchange of heat, mass, and momentum between the land and the atmosphere. This global technique decomposes the energy contribution at each scale into organized and random eddy motion. The method is demonstrated on vertical wind velocity measurements above bare and vegetated surfaces. It is found to give nearly identical results to a local thresholding approach developed for signal de-noising that assigns the wavelet coecients to organized and random motion. The eect of applying anti-and/or near-symmetrical wavelet basis functions is also investigated.