Large Scale

The St. Lawrence Lowlands platform, Quebec, Canada, is a densely-populated area, heavily dependent on groundwater resources. In 1999, the Geological Survey of Canada initiated a large-scale hydrogeological assessment study over a 1,500 km2 region northwest of Montreal. The objectives were to define the regional groundwater flow, and to give quantitative estimates of the groundwater dynamic parameters and of the available groundwater resources. The applied approach consisted of defining the hydrogeologic framework, hydraulic properties of the aquifer units, and groundwater dynamic components. Lower Paleozoic sedimentary rocks represent regional aquifer units. Coarse Quaternary fluvio-glacial sediments locally overlay the rock sequence and constitute an interface aquifer unit. Fine marine sediments confine most of the regional aquifers. Collected GIS based information was synthesized in a finite element numerical model. The regional saturated steady-state flow was calibrated under current stress conditions assuming an equivalent porous medium approach. Water budget calculations show that the total groundwater flow in regional aquifers amounts to 97.7 Mm3/y. Infiltration from precipitation provides 86.6% of the groundwater supply, while 9.6% comes from subsurface inflow and the remaining 3.8% is induced recharge from surface waters. Discharge from regional aquifers occurs through flow to streams (76.9%), groundwater withdrawal (18.4%), and underground outflow (4.7%). La plateforme Lowllands du Saint-Laurent, Québec, Canada, est une aire densément peuplée, dépendant grandement des ressources en eau souterraine. En 1999, le Service Géologique du Canada a initié une étude hydrogéologique à grande-échelle sur 1500 km2 au Nord-Ouest de Montréal. Le sobjectifs ont été de définir la dynamique de l’écoulement régional, et de donner des estimations quantitatives des paramètres dynamiques des ressources disponibles en eau souterraine. L’approche utilisée consista à définir le cadre hydrogéologique de travail, les propriétés hydrauliques des unités aquifères, et les composantes dynamiques des eaux souterraines. Les roches sédimentaires du Paléozoïque Inférieur représentent les unités aquifères régionales. Les sédiments marins fins confinent la plus grande partie des aquifères régionaux. Les informations de base, collectées dans un SIG, ont été synthétisées dans un modèle numérique aux éléments finis. L’écoulement permanent régional, en zone saturée, a été calibré en conditions de stress en assumant une approche de milieu poreu équivalent. Les calculs du bilan hydrologique montrent que l’écoulement total des eaux souterraines dans les aquifères régionaux atteind 97,7 Mm3/an. L’infiltration à partir des précipitations apporte 86.6% de l’eau souterraine exploitée; sachant que 9,6% proviennent d’écoulement de subsurfaces, et que les 3,8% restants proviennent de la recharge via les eaux de surface. Le débit pompé des aquifères régionaux apparaît à travers l’écoulement des cours d’eau, le rabattement des eaux souterraines (18.4%), et l’écoulement ascendant (4.7%). La plataforma de Tierras Bajas San Lorenzo, Quebec, Canadá, es un área densamente poblada que depende fuertemente de recursos de agua subterránea. En 1999 el Servicio Geológico de Canadá inició un estudio de evaluación hidrogeológica a gran escala sobre un área de 1,500 km2 en la región noroeste de Montreal. Los objetivos fueron definir el flujo regional de agua subterránea y aportar estimados cuantitativos de los parámetros dinámicos de agua subterráne y de los recursos disponibles de agua subterránea. El enfoque aplicado consistió en definir el marco hidrogeológico, propiedades hidráulicas de las unidades acuíferas, y los componentes dinámicos de agua subterránea. Rocas sedimentarias del Paleozoico Inferior representan unidades regionales de acuíferos. Sedimentos fluvio-glaciares Cuaternarios gruesos sobreyacen localmente la secuencia rocosa y constituyen una unidad acuífera interfacial. Sedimentos marinos finos confinan la mayoría de acuíferos regionales. Información colectada basada en SIG se sintetizó en un modelo numérico de elemento finito. El flujo regional saturado en régimen permanente se calibró bajo condiciones de stress asumiendo un enfoque de medio poroso equivalente. Los cálculos de balance hídrico muestran que el flujo total de agua subterránea en acuíferos regional alcanza 97.7 Mm3/año. Infiltración a partir de lluvia aporta el 86.6% del abastecimiento al agua subterránea, mientras que el 9.6% proviene de entradas subsuperficiales y el restante 3.8% consiste de recarga inducida a partir de aguas superficiales. La descarga proveniente de acuíferos regionales ocurre a través de flujo a ríos (76.9%), utilización de agua subterránea (18.4%), y salida subterránea (4.7%).

The disclosure of audio-visual meeting recordings is a new challenging domain studied by several large scale research projects in Europe and the US. Automatic meeting summarization is one of the functionalities studied. In this paper we report the results of a feasibility study on a subtask, namely the summarization of meeting transcripts. A Maximum Entropy based extractive summarization system using a mix of 15 features improved the performance of a baseline system selecting all utterances longer than 10 words with 20%( ...

The entry into force of the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Agreement in 1995 transformed the international intellectual property system. The harmonization of basic intellectual property standards has operated to protect investment in innovation, limiting risks from unjustified ‘free riding’. Yet these same harmonized IP standards sharply curtailed the traditional capacity of suppliers of public goods, such as health care and nutrition, to address priority needs of less affluent members of society, particularly in (but not limited to) developing countries. In the Doha Declaration, the Waiver Decision of 30 August 2003 and the Article 31bis Protocol of Amendment, stakeholders concerned with re-opening policy space for the supply of newer pharmaceutical products pushed back against restrictive elements of the TRIPS Agreement.Governments around the world are in the process of deciding whether to ratify and accept the Article 31bis Amendment. Based on their Study for the Internatio...

During the last glacial-interglacial cycle, northern hemispheric (NH) ice-sheets experienced dramatic changes in radiative forcing, due to orbitally-driven insolation changes and varying greenhouse gas concentrations. This direct forcing caused temperature changes and eventually ablation anomalies. Orbital-scale variations in the atmospheric circulation caused anomalies in temperature advection and precipitation/snowfall that also strongly contributed to the mass balance and hence the time-evolution

Nigeria is endowed with abundant energy resources, both conventional and renewable, whichprovide her with immense capacity to develop an effective national energy plan. However, introduction of renewable energyresources into the nation's energy mix have implications on itsenergy budget. The national energy supply system has been projected intothe future using MARKAL, a large scale linear optimization model.However, this model may not be absolutely representative of the highlynon-linear future of renewable energy. Results of the model reveal that under onlya least cost constraint, only large hydro power technology is the prominentcommercial renewable energy technology in the electricity supply mix of thecountry. Despite the immense solar energy potentials available, solar electricity generation is attractive only under severeCO2 emissions mitigation of the nation's energy supply system. Similarly, the penetration of small-scale hydro power technology in theelectricity supply mix is favoured only under CO2 emissionsconstraints. Due to economy of scale, large hydropower technology takes the lion share of all the commercial renewableenergy resources share for electricity generation under any CO2emissions constraint. These analyses reveal that some barriers exist to thedevelopment and penetration of renewable energy resources electricity production in Nigeria's energy supplysystem. Barriers and possible strategies to overcome them arediscussed. Intensive efforts and realistic approachtowards energy supply system in the country will have to be adopted inorder to adequately exploit renewable energy resources and technologiesfor economic growth and development.

We present the development and use of a novel distributed geohazard modeling environment for the analysis and interpretation of large scale earthquake data sets. Our work demonstrates, for the first time, how earthquake-related surface deformation measured from satellite images using imageodesy algorithms is coupled with analysis and simulation using finite-element numerical models.

With declining petroleum reserves, increased world demand, and unstable politics in some of the worlds richest oil producing regions, the capability for the U.S. to produce synthetic liquid fuels from domestic resources is critical to national security and economic stability. Coal, biomass and other carbonaceous materials can be converted to liquid fuels using several conversion processes. The leading candidate for

An anomalous radio continuum component at cm-wavelengths has been observed in various sources, including dark clouds. This continuum component represents a new property of the ISM. In this work we focus on one particular dark cloud, the bright reflection nebula M 78. The main goal of this work is to invetigate cm-wave continuum emission in a prominent molecular cloud, nearby and with complementary observational data. We acquired Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) visibility data of M 78 at 31 GHz with an angular resolution of $\sim 5.8\arcmin$ and CBI2 data at an angular resolution of $\sim 4.2\arcmin$. A morphological analysis was undertaken to search for possible correlations with templates that trace different emission mechanisms. Using data from WMAP and the Rhodes/HartRAO 2326 MHz survey we constructed the spectral energy distribution (SED) of M 78 in a $45\arcmin$ circular aperture. We used results from the literature to constrain the physical conditions and the stellar content. The 5 GHz -- 31 GHz spectral index in flux density ($\alpha = 1.89\pm 0.15$) is significantly different from optically thin free-free values. We also find closer morphological agreement with IR dust tracers than with free-free sources. Dust-correlated cm-wave emission that is not due to free-free is significant at small scales ($\sim 8\arcmin$). However, a free-free background dominates at cm-wavelengths on large scales ($\sim 1$ deg). We correct for this uniform background by differencing against a set of reference fields. The differenced SED of M 78 shows excess emission at 10-70 GHz over free-free and a modified blackbody, at $3.4\sigma$. The excess is matched by the spinning dust model from Draine and Lazarian (1998).

Porcine handmade cloning (HMC), a simplified alternative of micromanipulation based traditional cloning (TC) has been developed in multiple phases during the past years, but the final evidence of its biological value, births of piglets was missing. Here we report the first births of ...