Irrigation Modelling in the Context of Basin Water Resources

Management practices for irrigation schemes can often be improved by modelling the behaviour of a scheme and by evaluating its efficiency statistics. However, looking at an irrigation scheme without regard for other water uses within the river basin may not be effective. Efficiencies computed in this way are local and, since water may be used many times within the same basin, may not be realistic. Changes in water uses (e.g. irrigation, industrial, power production, urban water supply, navigation, environmental, recreational) will often have effects on other uses; and changes in irrigation schemes (management,structural, crop pattern) may affect other users within the basin. In addition, all water users will be affected by external changes such as changes in land cover or in climate. As demand for water increases, these links become more important until, at some stage, there is insufficient water for all users and hard choices must be made. Hydrological modelling is a tool that can be used to relate irrigation schemes to the other water uses within a river basin and can help in assessing real productivities and in evaluating alternative patterns of water usage. This paper discusses the techniques available to simulate irrigation schemes within overall basin water resources using, as an example, an intensively utilized basin in western Turkey.     

Temburong Bridge,Brunei – Design of two cable stayed bridges

The Temburong Bridge Project is a 30 km long dual two‐lane highway crossing over the Brunei Bay. It will connect the relatively isolated Brunei district of Temburong to the other three Brunei districts. The main objective of the project is to stimulate economic growth in the Temburong region by connecting it to the country's airport and ports. The alignment crosses two navigation channels resulting in the need for two cable stayed bridges – the Brunei Channel Bridge (145 m main span) and the Eastern Channel Bridge (260 m main span). The design of these cable stayed bridges is one of the first applications of the Eurocode to a fully concrete cable stayed bridge. Both cable stayed bridges draw on strong Islamic architectural influences from the region to form a tower shape that is unique and instantly recognisable. Temburong Brücke, Brunei – Entwurf von zwei Schrägkabelbrücken Die Temburong Brücke ist eine 30 km lange Verbindung über die Brunei Bucht mit zwei Richtungsfahrbahnen mit je zwei Fahrstreifen. Sie wird den relativ isolierten Distrikt Temburong mit den anderen drei Distrikten Bruneis verbinden. Hauptanliegen des Projekts ist die Stimulierung von ökonomischem Wachstum in der Temburong Region, indem sie an den Flughafen und Seehafen des Landes angebunden wird. Die Trassierung erfordert die Überquerung zweier Schiffahrtsrouten. Dies wird mit der Anordnung zweier Schrägkabelbrücken ermöglicht, der Brunei Channel Brücke (145 m Hauptspannweite) und der Eastern Channel Brücke (260 m Hauptspannweite). Die Bemessung der beiden Brücken stellt eine der ersten Anwendungen des Eurocode auf Schrägkabelbrücken mit Betonüberbau dar. Optisch sind die beiden Brücken geprägt von der islamischen Architektur der Umgebung, die Pylonform ist ein besonderes Erkennungsmerkmal der Brücken.     

Architecture as Virtù: Adrian Stokes,Ezra Pound and the ethics of 'Patterned Energy'

This article seeks to document the architectural history of the Victorian art school type, beginning with the search for a home for the Government School of Design following its expulsion from Somerset House, to the construction of purpose-built studios behind the new museum complex of ‘Albertopolis’ in South Kensington, and finally to its proliferation through the major industrial cities of Britain where the most significant examples of the type would be realised.

Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow Schools of Art reveal an unprecedented concern for the design of an ideal internal environment in the context of the polluted industrial Victorian city. These buildings were symbols of the possibility for the diffusion of art culture in a rapidly transforming society. The art school embraced the architectural potential to be found in the synthesis of the functional requirement for the provision of plentiful light and air, with the desire for an appropriate formal expression for a new kind of public building (supported by local rates), properly fit for its place in the civic heart of the city.     

Eco-friendly synthesis of Ag-ZrO2 nanocomposites for degradation of methylene blue

In this work, we have successfully synthesized ZrO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) using Ficus benghalensis (FB) leaf extract via simple microwave-assisted method. Silver NPs were deposited on the surface of ZrO₂ through photocatalytic reduction. The synthesized ZrO₂ and Ag-ZrO₂ photocatalysts were characterized through X-ray Diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS), Fourier Transform-Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HR-TEM), Photoluminescence (PL), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area. From the aforesaid characterization of the materials, it is revealed that synthesized Ag NPs are crystalline in nature with the face-centered cubic structure (FCC), while ZrO₂ NPs have both monoclinic and tetragonal phases. TEM images indicate that both ZrO₂ and Ag-ZrO₂ nanocomposite have spherical shape with the particle size of 20 and 15 nm, respectively. The optical properties were obtained using UV–Vis DRS which showed a decrease in the band gap energy of ZrO₂ due to surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of Ag NPs. A lower in PL intensity of Ag-ZrO₂ compared to that of ZrO₂ NPs confirms the suppression of recombination rate of excited electron–hole pairs ultimately resulted into high photocatalytic activity. BET analysis shows that all the nanocomposites have higher surface area than pure ZrO₂. The pure ZrO₂ and Ag-ZrO₂ show the efficient photocatalytic activity towards the methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO). Ag-ZrO₂ (1.0 wt.%) shows 21% increment in photocatalytic activity as compared to pure ZrO₂ within 160 min under UV–Vis light.

     

Image quality assessment based on a degradation model

We model a degraded image as an original image that has been subject to linear frequency distortion and additive noise injection. Since the psychovisual effects of frequency distortion and noise injection are independent, we decouple these two sources of degradation and measure their effect on the human visual system. We develop a distortion measure (DM) of the effect of frequency distortion, and a noise quality measure (NQM) of the effect of additive noise. The NQM, which is based on Peli's (1990) contrast pyramid, takes into account the following: 1) variation in contrast sensitivity with distance, image dimensions, and spatial frequency; 2) variation in the local luminance mean; 3) contrast interaction between spatial frequencies; 4) contrast masking effects. For additive noise, we demonstrate that the nonlinear NQM is a better measure of visual quality than peak signal-to noise ratio (PSNR) and linear quality measures. We compute the DM in three steps. First, we find the frequency distortion in the degraded image. Second, we compute the deviation of this frequency distortion from an allpass response of unity gain (no distortion). Finally, we weight the deviation by a model of the frequency response of the human visual system and integrate over the visible frequencies. We demonstrate how to decouple distortion and additive noise degradation in a practical image restoration system     

“Filled with thoughts of flowing leafage and fiery life”: John Ruskin's Venice—Fragility and Flux

Venice continues to hold the western imagination as the supreme embodiment of flow in human settlement. Indeed, in the second volume of The Stones of Venice (1853), John Ruskin (1819-1900) stresses the extremely narrow margins of tidal flux that made the city possible; if the tide been a little stronger, or the water channels deeper, it would have become just another walled city. It is the city's openness to flow and penetration that inform its erotic power. This essay focuses on Ruskin's passionately engaged ‘‘watching'' of Venice's stones, exploring how these themes of flux and flow inform his inimitable vision.     

Sex differences in attitudes toward homosexuality: A comment on Oliver and Hyde (1993).

In a recent article, M. B. Oliver and J. S. Hyde (1993) reported the results of a set of meta-analyses of gender differences on a number of sexuality-related variables, including attitudes toward homosexuality. The small number of studies on this topic included in the review suggested that Oliver and Hyde's literature search strategy overlooked a number of studies. This article reports the results of a new meta-analysis using an expanded search strategy. In contrast to Oliver and Hyde's results, it was found that men held more negative attitudes toward homosexuality and, to a lesser extent, the civil rights of lesbians and gay men than did women. Effect sizes were moderated by subject population, with general adult samples showing no sex difference and other samples showing larger effect sizes. Effect sizes also varied as a function of the sex of the person rated, with larger sex differences for gay men than for lesbians. The implications of the results for the process of literature reviewing and for gender-based explanations of antigay prejudice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are stereotypes of nationalities applied to both women and men?

Stereotypes of women, men, and nationalities of 28 countries were examined to determine the extent to which stereotypes of nationalities are applied to women as well as to men. As expected, stereotypes of the men tended to resemble stereotypes of their nationalities more than did stereotypes of the women. Yet this greater similarity between stereotypes of men and their nationalities than between stereotypes of women and their nationalities was more pronounced to the extent that countries were unfavorably evaluated. Interpretation of these findings followed from a social structural theory of stereotype content and focused on the relative status of women and men in modern nations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Water Rights

Abstract

Water is becoming increasingly scarce in many parts of the world. In most such areas, definition and enforcement of water rights have yet to be put in place, while experience shows that these steps are fundamentally important to ensure productive and efficient use of water. Often, as competition intensifies, the data required to assess appropriate allocations and rules become more contentious and difficult to access. New technologies are available, primarily based on remotely sensed satellite data used in conjunction with a minimum set of ground measurements, to generate hydrological data. Such data can readily be correlated with streamflow measurements and also can be used for “what if” analyses of specific climate situations or changes in ground cover. The satellite data are freely available over the Internet, as are other data required.