Identification of gaps in mangrove forests with airborne LIDAR

Mangrove forests change frequently due to disturbances from tropical storms, frost, lightning, and insects. It has been suggested that the death and regeneration of trees in small gaps due to lightning may play a critical role in mangrove forest turnover; however, the large-scale quantification of spatial pattern and areas of gaps is lacking for investigating this issue. Airborne light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology provides an effective way for identifying gaps by remotely obtaining direct measurements of ground and canopy elevations. A method based on an alternative sequential filter and black top-hat mathematical morphological transformation was developed to extract gap features. Comparison of identified gap polygons with raw LIDAR measurements and field surveys shows that the proposed method successfully extracted gap features in mangrove forests in Everglades National Park. There are 400–500 lightning gaps per square kilometer in mangrove forests at the study sites. The distribution of gap sizes follows an exponential form and the area of gaps with sizes larger than 100 m² account for 55–61% of the total area of gaps. The area of gaps in the mangrove forest in Everglades National Park is about 4–5% of the total forest area and the average gap formation rate is about 0.3% of the total forest area per year, indicating that lightning gaps play an important role in mangrove forest dynamics.     

Pattern search algorithms for nonlinear inversion of high-frequency Rayleigh-wave dispersion curves

Inversion of Rayleigh wave dispersion curves is challenging for most local-search methods due to its high nonlinearity and to its multimodality. In this paper, we implemented and tested a Rayleigh wave dispersion curve inversion scheme based on GPS Positive Basis 2N, a commonly used pattern search algorithm. Incorporating complete poll and complete search strategies based on GPS Positive Basis 2N into the inverse procedure greatly enhances the performance of pattern search algorithms because the two steps can effectively locate the promising areas in the solution space containing the global minima and significantly reduce the computation cost, respectively.The proposed inverse procedure was applied to nonlinear inversion of fundamental-mode Rayleigh wave dispersion curves for a near-surface shear (S)-wave velocity profile. The calculation efficiency and stability of the inversion scheme are tested on three synthetic models and a real example from a roadbed survey in Henan, China. Effects of the number of data points, the reduction of the frequency range of the considered dispersion curve, errors in P-wave velocities and density, the initial S-wave velocity profile as well as the number of layers and their thicknesses on inversion results are also investigated in the present study to further evaluate the performance of the proposed approach.Results demonstrate that pattern search algorithms applied to nonlinear inversion of high-frequency surface wave data should be considered good not only in terms of accuracy but also in terms of the computation effort due to their global and deterministic search process.     

Exact integration in the boundary element method for two-dimensional elastostatic problems

This paper derives the exact integrations for the integrals in the boundary element analysis of two-dimensional elastostatics. For facilitation, the derivation is based on the simple forms of the fundamental functions by taking constant, discontinuous linear and discontinuous quadratic elements as examples. The efficiency and accuracy of the derived exact integrations are verified against five benchmark problems; the results indicate that the derived exact integrations significantly reduces the CPU time for forming the matrices of the boundary element analysis and solving the internal displacements.     

分割电极片状压电致动器——(二)位移特性及狭缝宽度对其影响的实验研究

研究了悬臂梁式分割电极片状压电致动器的位移特性。理论分析表明，分割电极狭缝宽度会减小致动器自由端的位移输出，但当狭缝宽度小于致动器电极宽度的１０％时，可忽略狭缝宽度的影响。致动器端部位移的测试结果大于理论计算值。与现有磁头悬浮臂尺寸相近的致动器，在２０Ｖ～５０Ｖ的电压驱动下均可获得１μｍ～２μｍ的致动位移。对９８５０道／厘米的密度磁盘，该位移能覆盖至少一个磁道宽度，满足磁头定位两级伺服系统对第二级致动器位移的基本要求。     

Acoustical tomography based on the second-order Born transformperturbation approximation

Reconstruction algorithms and their numerical examples of acoustical tomography based on the second-order Born transform perturbation approximation are presented. The reconstruction algorithms in the second-order Born approximation are similar in form to those in the first-order Born approximation. Replacing the angular spectrum of the scattered wave in the first-order case by the result of applying a first-order operator to the angular spectrum of the scattered wave or applying a second-order operator to the angular spectrum of the incident wave leads to the second-order reconstruction algorithms. Also, comparisons of reconstruction algorithms of the first- and second-order Born approximations are given, and they show that the second-order Born approximation algorithms have a distinct advantage over the first-order approximations in many cases     

Observation of atomic steps on CaCO3 crystal surface

By using scanning polarization force microscopy,the deliquescence process and the atomic steps on the cleavage surface of CaCO3 in air were studied in situ.Under an exposure to medium umidity(-57%),the sloiw step movement has been observed.     

Pore size control of porous silica by sol-gel process

Porous silica glass was prepared by sol-gel process from tetraethoxysilane (TEOS). The effects of solvents (water, ethanol), drying condition, heat treatment temperature on specific surface area and pore size distribution of porous silica were investigated. Gelation process accelerates with an increase of H₂O content, while retards with the increase of ethanol amount. Structure changes during heat treatment were studied by means of DTA, XRD. TEM micrographs show that the gel particles shrink after heated at 500°C, thus the average pore size decreases.     

石蜡光氯化合成氯蜡－70的研究──（Ⅲ）反应过程致色因素考察及生色机理研究

氯蜡－７０是—应用广泛、性能优良的精细化工产品，其色泽是—重要的技术指标，直接影响着产品的质量和应用。本文考察了合成反应过程导致生色的因素，指出原料中含有的少量环烷烃、芳烃、杂环有机物及少量无机杂质能影响产品的色泽，实验表明温度过高，光源波长选择不当也是致色的重要原因。研究了致色的过程，提出其生色历程是按照β－消除反应机理进行的，并做了具体描述。     

A study on the anodic protection of Titanium evaporators in Al2(SO4)3 solution

The feasibility of the anodic protection of titanium evaporators in Al₂(SO₄)₃ solution was studied by the measurement of polarization curves, weight loss, solubility of passive film and AC impedance. The protection parameters and efficiency were determined. In addition, the practical technology of anodic protection was studied by screening reference electrodes and auxiliary cathodes. Throwing power was also measured. Four rows of tube-type evaporators of titanium have been anodically protected in situ. Field tests lasting more than one year show satisfactory results.     

H∞ control versus disturbance-observer-basedcontrol

In the motion control field, a disturbance observer-based disturbance canceling control is often used as a robust control methodology. However, this method is nothing more than an alternative design of an integral controller, and the robust stability issue cannot be directly accounted for. In this paper, an extended H_∞ control scheme is proposed as a new robust motion control method which achieves the disturbance cancellation ability and guarantees robust stability automatically