Pollution of montane soil with Cu, Zn, As, Sb, Pb, and nitrate in Kanto, Japan

Soil cores and rainwater were sampled under canopies of Cryptomeria japonica in four montane areas along an atmospheric depositional gradient in Kanto, Japan. Soil cores (30 cm in depth) were divided into 2-cm or 4-cm segments for analysis. Vertical distributions of elemental enrichment ratios in soils were calculated as follows: (X/Al)_i/(X/Al)_BG (where the numerator and denominator are concentration ratios of element-X and Al in the i- and bottom segments of soil cores, respectively). The upper 14-cm soil layer showed higher levels of Cu, Zn, As, Sb, and Pb than the lower (14-30 cm) soil layer. In the four areas, the average enrichment ratios in the upper 6-cm soil layer were as follows: Pb (4.93) ≥ Sb (4.06) ≥ As (3.04) > Zn (1.71) ≥ Cu (1.56). Exogenous elements (kg/ha) accumulated in the upper 14-cm soil layer were as follows: Zn (26.0) > Pb (12.4) > Cu (4.48) ≥ As (3.43) ≥ Sb (0.49). These rank orders were consistent with those of elements in anthropogenic aerosols and polluted (roadside) air, respectively, indicating that air pollutants probably caused enrichment of these elements in the soil surface layer. Approximately half of the total concentrations of As, Sb, and Pb in the upper 14-cm soil layer were derived from exogenous (anthropogenic) sources. Sb showed the highest enrichment factor in anthropogenic aerosols, and shows similar deposition behavior to NO₃⁻, which is a typical acidic air pollutant. There was a strong correlation between Sb and NO₃⁻ concentrations in rainfall (e.g., in the throughfall under C. japonica: [NO₃⁻] = 21.1 [dissolved Sb], r = 0.938, p < 0.0001, n = 182). Using this correlation, total (cumulative) inputs of NO₃⁻ were estimated from the accumulated amounts of exogenous Sb in soils, i.e., 16.7 t/ha at Mt. Kinsyo (most polluted), 8.6 t/ha at Mt. Tsukuba (moderately polluted), and 5.8 t/ha at the Taga mountain system (least polluted). There are no visible ecological effects of these accumulated elements in the Kanto region at present. However, the concentrations of some elements are within a harmful range, according to the Ecological Soil Screening Levels determined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.     

Cogges Manor Farm,Witney, Oxfordshire, 1554/5

Abstract

This note discusses carpenters' marks in relation to the tools used to scribe or carve them, and two ways of marking timbers with Arabic numerals are illustrated from houses dating from 1577 and c.1600. The earlier date refers to a long series of numbers on a house in Cheshire, whereas the other example is representative of a group of houses in central Lancashire.     

Determination of the emission indices for NO,NO2, HONO,HCHO, CO,and particles emitted from candles

In the present study, emission indices for NO, NO₂, HONO, HCHO, CO, particle mass, and particle numbers including particle size distributions for three different offering candles were determined. The candles investigated showed similar emission characteristics with emission indices (g/kg) in good agreement with former candle emission studies. An average HONO/NO_x emission ratio of 6.6 ± 1.1% was obtained, which is much higher compared to most other combustion sources, indicating that candles may be a significant indoor source of this important trace gas. The particle size distributions indicate that the majority of the emitted particles are in the size range 7 - 15 nm. Three modes were observed during burning the candles with very different emission profiles: a “normal burning” mode characterized by low particle number emission rates and small particles; an initial “sooting” behavior after ignition, and a final “smoldering” phase upon candle extinction with higher particle number emission rates and larger particles. The particle emission upon extinction is dependent on the extinction method. The NO_x emission indices were applied in a simple box model to calculate typical indoor NO_x concentration levels from candle emissions, which were in excellent agreement with direct measurements in a typical indoor environment.     

Frank Fenner,AC, CMG,MBE, FAA,FRS

The effect of Abate used in the control of Simulium damnosum on non‐target benthic invertebrate organisms was studied in river Oti (West Africa) in the Onchocerciasis Control Programme area. Abate was administered by aerial spraying and pre‐dosing and post‐dosing Surber samples were compared. Baetidae and Leptophlebiidae, two of the three predominating organisms were seriously affected by the Abate. Other non‐target organisms that were killed were Gomphidae, Libellulidae and Dytiscidae. Though the larvicide was toxic to other non‐target organisms, particularly Neoperla and Orthocladinae, the effect did not seem to be significant.     

Continuity,Criticality, and Change

Abstract

This article reconsiders a joint seminar and studio that studied how an expanded vision of site and culture influences architectural production. The Barnes Foundation controversy provided a vehicle for this study. The Barnes is a private, world-renowned collection of art situated in an unlikely suburban Philadelphia neighborhood. Arguing that its current home was untenable, in 2002 the foundation announced plans to relocate—a move that runs counter to its founding charter, which bars any change to the collection, its content, or its location. Against a background of continued public protest and legal appeals, the Barnes decision prompts myriad vexing questions that are valuable for consideration in architectural education. Chief among these: is replication a valid, meaningful, or sufficient way to preserve cultural value, and if so, how?     

A Multimedia Panopticon: Media,Translation, and History in OMA's S,M,L,XL and the Arnhem Prison

This essay argues that S,M,L,XL is a digital multimedia architectural project that sought to redefine the relationship between architecture and various other media on the cusp of architectural culture's widespread digitization. It uses one design included within the text, OMA's proposed renovations for the Panoptic Prison in Arnhem, the Netherlands, to analyze how Rem Koolhaas and his firm synthesize a wide range of media to create and theorize their own conception of modern architectural history as a fantastical state of imprisonment.     

S,M,L,XL

In this essay, I explore Performances of Spatial Labor—a set of practices that emerge at the intersection of the architectural and performative, the political and (in)visible—as critical actions that not only reveal hidden labor and laborers within processes of “making up” and “making real” works of architecture but also scrutinize questionable disciplinary acts that are themselves fraught with multiple forms of invisibility. Through this practice-as-research, I ask how labor associated with architecture may be reconsidered and revealed through the lens and practices of performance and how this shift in perspective may bring into focus not only the “thing done” but also the act of “doing.”     

Characterization of Yangsan Clay,Pusan, Korea

It has been reported by previous researchers that the preconsolidation pressure (p_c) of Kimhae (Yangsan) clay, which is thickly deposited along the Naktdong River, Pusan, Korea, is considerably less than its in-situ effective overburden pressure (p'_vo)-The question has arisen whether such a low p_c value is due to underconsolidation or to the unreliability of laboratory tests, including the use of low quality sample. As a cooperative research program between PHRI (Port and Harbour Research Institute) and Pusan National University, extensive in-situ and laboratory investigations were carried out at Yangsan, using a Japanese sampler and Japanese sampling technique. It is found that the p_c values at the site are slightly greater than p'_vo, which is different from the test results from the previous researchers. However, the overconsolidation ratio (OCR) at this site is quite small compared to similar aged normally consolidated clays deposited in Japan.     

Relics,protestants, things

ABSTRACT

Reformation Protestants’ detestation of Catholic sacra, holy objects, and sacred sites is well documented. To probe the later history of this contempt, this essay observes two nineteenth-century Protestants in Palestine. Both, as might be anticipated, exhibit disgust at those physical phenomena revered by other Christianities. But surprisingly, both also obsessively collect alternative things that are associated with the Holy Land. Contemporary theory—namely Bill Brown's Thing Theory—is brought to bear on the preoccupation with things represented by this substitution of safe objects for abhorrent ones. However, instead of providing an explanatory frame for this behavior, Thing Theory seems to reproduce it. The essay concludes by suggesting that a primal Protestant anxiety about powerful things continues to haunt contemporary Western scholarship.     

The effect of surfactants on the mixed chelate extraction-atomic absorption spectrophotometric determination of copper, nickel, iron, cobalt, cadmium, zinc and lead

Twelve surfactants representing pure cationic, anionic and non-ionic detergents, three commercial detergents, sodium pyrophosphate, sodium tripolyphosphate, a soap, nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), EDTA, and humic acid were investigated for their effect on the extraction-atomic absorption spectrophotometric determination of copper, nickel, iron, cobalt, cadmium, zinc and lead. Cations were extracted into 10 ml of a solution containing diphenylthiocarbazone, 8-quinolinol and acetyl acetone in ethyl propionate. To avoid emulsion formation, the maximum concentration of linear alkylate sulphonate (LAS) was 10 mg l⁻¹ and for solid industrial LAS-type detergent was 50 mg l⁻¹, but washing powder did not interfere at 100 mg l⁻¹. Cationic and non-ionic detergents gave low recoveries for cobalt. Condensed phosphates at a concentration of 20 mg l⁻¹ did not cause significant interference. NTA interfered with nickel extraction and EDTA with all metals. Humic acid, however, gave no interference. A standard addition procedure can be used to correct the results.A comparison is made between the APDC-MIBK and the mixed chelate-ethyl propionate methods for the determination of trace metals in the presence of various surfactants in natural waters; the latter is preferable.     

Resilient cities: meaning, models, and metaphor for integrating the ecological, socio-economic, and planning realms

Urban designers, ecologists, and social scientists have called for closer links among their disciplines. We examine a promising new tool for promoting this linkage—the metaphor of “cities of resilience.” To put this tool to best use, we indicate how metaphor fits with other conceptual tools in science. We then present the two opposing definitions of resilience from ecology, and give reasons why one is more appropriate for linking with design. Additional specific tools and insights that are emerging from, or being increasingly used in, ecology can further support the linkage with urban design. These include recognizing the role of spatial heterogeneity in both ecological and social functioning of urban areas, the integrating power of watersheds, social and ecological patch dynamics of cities, the utility of spatial mosaic models to capture function, the use of an integrated “human ecosystem” modeling framework, and the consequent perspective of metropolitan areas as integrated ecological-social systems. Three additional tools are related to the adaptability of people and human institutions. First is the recognition of a “learning loop” in metropolitan ecosystems in which people respond to and affect ecological change, the use of urban design as experiments whose ecological and social outcomes can be measured, and finally the potency of a dialog between professionals and citizens, communities, and institutions, to support both research and design. The metaphor of resilience, and its technical specifications, draw these diverse strands for linking ecology and planning together.     

布拉格5区别墅，布拉格，捷克

这是一座双拼式别墅,它由两个规模不同却可以自由组合的住宅单元构成。一部分严格地围合成为一个二元的区块,另一部分则以基本开敞的流动空间为主。通过地下通道进入位于地下的前厅及衣帽间。最短的路径则是通过一间三角形大厅中的楼梯进入。楼梯旋转升高,像是要高过整个住宅．然而屋顶的美景却也值得一看。     

Tax competition, spillovers, and subsidies

In the literature of local public finance, one of the well-known properties of optimal matching grant programs is that the matching grant rate should increase as the degree of benefit spillovers of public goods increases. This paper presents the reexamination of properties of optimal matching grant programs using the model of Bjorvatn and Schjelderup (Int Tax Public Financ 9:111–120, 2002). The result formally captures a property of matching grants that the optimal matching grant rate might decrease with the degree of spillover externalities.

The effect of surfactants on the extraction-atomic absorption spectrophotometric determination of copper, iron, manganese, lead, nickel, zinc cadmium and cobalt

Nine surfactants representing pure cationic, anionic and non-ionic detergents, three industrially prepared detergents. sodium pyrophosphate. sodium tripolyphosphate, and a soap were investigated for their effect on the extraction-atomic absorption spectrophotometric determination of copper. iron, manganese and lead. Some results are also given for nickel, zinc, cadmium and cobalt. Cations were extracted into 10 ml of MIBK as APDC chelates. To Avoid emulsion formation, maximum concentration of LAS was 1 mg 1⁻¹, and for formulated and non-ionic detergents and washing powders it was 5 mg 1⁻¹.A standard addition procedure was used to obtain correct results for copper and nickel. Two extractions of iron, cobalt and lead, and one extraction of manganese, zinc and cadmium gave a recovery of 100 ± 5%. Soap gave high recoveries for iron and copper. NTA in concentrations up to 25 mg l⁻¹ did not interfere. EDTA in concentrations up to 25 mg l⁻¹ interfered with iron and nickel determinations, but the addition of 3 mg of aluminium removed the EDTA interference in the determination of copper, manganese, lead, zinc, cadmium and cobalt.For the determination of trace metals in polluted natural waters the amount of 4% APDC was increased to 10 ml and for manganese to 25 ml. An addition of 3 mg aluminium as nitrate after the addition of buffer with subsequent 20 min reaction time is required for the determination of all eight metals by the recommended procedures. The effect of humic acid was also investigated.     

BEng,CEng, MSc,MICE, ... — eine Analyse angelsächsischer Visitenkarten

Visitenkarten ausländischer Gesprächspartner enthalten oftmals — insbesondere wenn der Eigentümer der Karte aus einem britisch geprägten Land kommt — eine Reihe von Abkürzungen, die dem Namen nachgestellt sind. Der Beitrag beschreibt, was sich hinter “Robert Smith BEng(Hons) PhD CEng MICE MIStructE“ verbirgt. Dazu wird zunächst verdeutlicht, dass erstens akademische Bauberufe in Deutschland und britisch geprägten Ländern nicht deckungsgleich sind, zweitens die Aus‐ und Weiterbildung maßgeblich von Berufsverbänden beeinflusst wird und drittens die Abkürzungen entweder akademische Abschlüsse oder von Berufsverbänden verliehene Qualifikationsstufen repräsentieren. Beispielhaft werden sodann die Aus‐ und Weiterbildung eines civil engineer und die sich daraus entwickelnde Visitenkarte beschrieben. Angefügt werden “Faustformeln”, die eine weitgehende Deutung der Visitenkarten baunaher Gesprächspartner ermöglichen. BEng, CEng, MSc, MICE, . . . — an analysis of Anglo‐Saxon business‐cards. Business‐cards from business partners often contain a number of abbreviations following the name ‐ especially if the person comes from a country which is either British or characterized as British. This article describes the meaning behind of “Robert Smith BEng(Hons) PhD CEng MICE MIStructE”. Firstly it is pointed out that academic professions in the construction industry are not directly comparable between Germany and Anglo‐Saxon countries, secondly the education and professional development are influenced significantly by professional institutions and, thirdly the abbreviations are either academic degrees or grades of memberships in professional institutions. As an example the education and professional development of a civil engineer and the resulting business‐card are described. Attached are empirical formulas which will enable the far reaching decoding of business‐cards from business partners from or related to the construction industry.     

The relationship between indoor and outdoor temperature,apparent temperature,relative humidity,and absolute humidity

Many studies report an association between outdoor ambient weather and health. Outdoor conditions may be a poor indicator of personal exposure because people spend most of their time indoors. Few studies have examined how indoor conditions relate to outdoor ambient weather. The average indoor temperature, apparent temperature, relative humidity (RH), and absolute humidity (AH) measured in 16 homes in Greater Boston, Massachusetts, from May 2011 to April 2012 was compared to measurements taken at Boston Logan airport. The relationship between indoor and outdoor temperatures is nonlinear. At warmer outdoor temperatures, there is a strong correlation between indoor and outdoor temperature (Pearson correlation coefficient, r = 0.91, slope, β = 0.41), but at cooler temperatures, the association is weak (r = 0.40, β = 0.04). Results were similar for outdoor apparent temperature. The relationships were linear for RH and AH. The correlation for RH was modest (r = 0.55, β = 0.39). Absolute humidity exhibited the strongest indoor‐to‐outdoor correlation (r = 0.96, β = 0.69). Indoor and outdoor temperatures correlate well only at warmer outdoor temperatures. Outdoor RH is a poor indicator of indoor RH, while indoor AH has a strong correlation with outdoor AH year‐round.     

SETTLING ALONG,WITH, AND ON WATER IN THUA THIEN HUE,VIETNAM: PAST,PRESENT, AND FUTURE

This paper develops a water-based spatial biography of the Thua Thien Hue Province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands and critically interprets the territory’s intertwined contemporary challenges — a growing population, greater demands on agriculture, fisheries, and aquaculture, tourism and changes in annual rainwater, and sea level regimes. It is structured by four sections (typical geography and exceptional ecology, diverse settlement typologies, curse and perils of water, contemporary challenges) which interpretatively read the context. Historical analysis and mapping of present-day projects in the pipeline are complemented by extensive fieldwork in an attempt to reveal (and later build upon) the logics of the territory. It concludes with a series of projective design strategies developed by Research Urbanism and Architecture for the Thua Thien Hue Province Peoples’ Committee and the Hanoi-based investor Van Phu, which attempt to balance ecology with economy with a focus on lagoon restoration and new city and settlement types (for the living and the dead) which respond to the predicted consequences of climate change (particularly severe flooding). The project is premised on policy shifts from hardengineering to approaches that work as much as possible with natural means to simultaneously restore ecologies and generates opportunities to embed new sustainable economies. Not surprisingly, water urbanism strategies are key to this envisioned future development of the province.     

LEA别墅，斯拉蒂那，捷克

建筑的概念中融合了两种截然相反的定义场地的方式。通过外向的底层楼板，室外空间贯穿到各个固定的功能区域中，内部空间和花园之间仅用玻璃墙划分。混凝土框架勾勒出内向的卧室和浴室空间。中庭的设置隔离开外界的影响．而景观则通过混凝土墙上的开口渗透进室内。虽然卧室和浴室中使用了极大面积的玻璃，房间私密性还是得到了保证。材料的使用都保持了其原色，只有玻璃被染成稍暗的颜色.     

The uptake of plutonium-238, 239, 240, americium-241, strontium-90 and caesium-137 into potatoes

Transfer factors have been measured for ²³⁹Pu + ²⁴⁰Pu, ²⁴¹Am, ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs into potatoes grown in a blend of soil which included silt polluted with radioactive waste discharged into the Irish Sea. The experiment has been carried out over four seasons and attempts to assess the radiological consequences to the consumer which would arise if potatoes were to be grown in land heavily contaminated with the silt. During the course of the experiment plutonium and americium became less available for uptake, ⁹⁰Sr became slightly more available and ¹³⁷Cs remained nearly constant in its availability. The values of the transfer factors are among the lowest reported for these radionuclides into potatoes.