Blending science and public policies for remediation of a degraded ecosystem: Jackfish Bay, north shore of Lake Superior, Ontario, Canada

The Jackfish Bay Remedial Action Plan is the first of Lake Superior's Areas of Concern (AOCs) to consider recognition as an Area in Recovery (AiR). As a result of a high degree of complexity and uncertainty, ecosystem recovery in Jackfish Bay has been determined using a combination of regulatory policies and scientific evidence and extensive public and expert-based decision making. As a result, the conceptualization of the AiR status in Jackfish Bay has been developed with the adaptive management and the ecosystem approach, which provide the basic principles of assessing, monitoring, and managing the Area of Concern. To determine the status of beneficial use impairments caused by effluent from the Terrace Bay Pulp Inc., three public advisory committees—an academic panel of experts, a government technical review committee, and the Jackfish Bay Public Area in Recovery Review Committee (PARRC)—reviewed relevant scientific data and documents, including peer-reviewed publications, to assess changes in pollution levels in Jackfish Bay and improvements to aquatic, biotic, and benthic environments of the bay. The public decision-making process concluded with recommendations by the PARRC to develop a systematic monitoring program so that the ecosystem recovery process in the bay could be assessed on a continued basis, leading to its eventual delisting as an AOC. The entire process provides an example of blending science and public policies for remediation of a degraded ecosystem on the Great Lakes.     

Optimal blank design based on finite element method for blades of large Francis turbines

Metal pressing process that is widely used in industries has advantages over casting process for producing large Francis turbine blades from thick plates. Prior to the pressing process, blank design is firstly performed to determine flat blanks. The traditional trial and error approach is not applicable to blade design for Francis turbines that are not standard due to hydraulic characteristics of power plant sites. The rapid development of computing technology makes it possible to obtain optimal flat blanks by numerical modelling and simulation. In this paper, inverse finite element approach is investigated for blank design and an elasto-plastic model has been built using the well-known commercial software ANSYS. Numerical simulations for blade unfolding models with thick shell elements, solid elements and shell elements have given results with negligible differences. Unfolding tests with simple geometries have been carried out and the numerical results agree well with the analytical solutions. A large and thick shape of a Francis turbine blade for a hydropower plant has been successfully unfolded by inverse FE model. Sensibility analysis shows that the middle surface of the flat blank is independent of blade thickness. For ensuring the machining of the blade after the pressing process, a new contour is obtained by extending the boundary of the flat blank provided by the numerical model. This research may provide a useful tool for optimal blank design of Francis turbine blades.     

坝王河羡塘至大井、小井河段开发方式研究

针对坝王河流域忽明忽暗、明伏交替、落水洞遍布、地下暗河系统发育等强喀斯特特点,拟对羡塘至大井、小井河段的开发采取分段开发的思路,上河段为合理规避河段喀斯特渗漏问题,采用长隧洞引水方式;下河段为避开地下暗河系统和渗漏河段,选择成库条件较为可靠的坝址和引水线路较短的开发方案.其工程经验可供类似流域开发借鉴.     

行动导向教学法在技校计算机教学中的应用

在以能力为本位的职业教育模式中,通过引入行动导向教学法来提高教学质量,加强对学生动手能力的培养是现实而可行的。文章结合《PHOTOSHOP》课程,探讨了行动导向教学法在技校计算机教学中的应用。     

Adaptive fuzzy tracking control of nonlinear time-delay systems with unknown virtual control coefficients

In this paper, a novel adaptive fuzzy control scheme is proposed for a class of uncertain single-input and single-output (SISO) nonlinear time-delay systems with the lower triangular form. Fuzzy logic systems are used to approximate unknown nonlinear functions, then the adaptive fuzzy tracking controller is constructed by combining Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals and the backstepping approach. The proposed controller guarantees uniform ultimate boundedness of all the signals in the closed-loop system, while the tracking error converges to a small neighborhood of the origin. An advantage of the proposed control scheme lies in that the number of adaptive parameters is not more than the order of the systems under consideration. Finally, simulation studies are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design scheme.     

A Bayesian approach to estimate the marginal loss distributions in operational risk management

One of the main problems in operational risk management is the lack of loss data, which affects the parameter estimates of the marginal distributions of the losses. The principal reason is that financial institutions only started to collect operational loss data a few years ago, due to the relatively recent definition of this type of risk. Considering this drawback, the employment of Bayesian methods and simulation tools could be a natural solution to the problem. The use of Bayesian methods allows us to integrate the scarce and, sometimes, inaccurate quantitative data collected by the bank with prior information provided by experts. An original proposal is a Bayesian approach for modelling operational risk and for calculating the capital required to cover the estimated risks. Besides this methodological innovation a computational scheme, based on Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations, is required. In particular, the application of the MCMC method to estimate the parameters of the marginals shows advantages in terms of a reduction of capital charge according to different choices of the marginal loss distributions.     

Invariant and attracting sets of impulsive delay difference equations with continuous variables

The aim of this paper is to study the invariant and attracting sets of impulsive delay difference equations with continuous variables. Some criteria for the invariant and attracting sets are obtained by using the decomposition approach and delay difference inequalities with impulsive initial conditions.     

用力传感器测量固液体的热膨胀系数

根据硅压阻式力传感器的工作原理,用传感器测量固液体热膨胀的微小长度变化量,进而测出了固液体的热膨胀系数,实验结果与公认值相比小于2%。这种方法实现了微小长度变化量的非电量电测,使实验操作简便,改进了传统的实验测量方法,拓展了传感器在普通物理实验中的应用。     

基于积分二次约束时滞不确定系统的H∞可靠性控制

把基于积分二次约束H∞可靠性控制方法引入状态与时滞不确定系统。通过LMI方法导出无扰动时滞系统具有二次约束H∞可靠性控制的时滞依赖标准,降低有关判定系统鲁棒稳定性条件的保守性。通过推导获得参数与时滞不确定系统的时滞依赖标准。通过数例说明所得结论。