Rampart craters on Earth

Author(s):  
Gerwin Wulf ◽  
Thomas Kenkmann

ABSTRACT Rampart craters are omnipresent features on volatile-rich solid planetary surfaces. This raises the question whether, and how many, rampart craters are present on Earth. We reviewed the terrestrial impact crater record with regard to possible rampart morphologies and present detailed morphological analyses of these terrestrial craters here. Our results show that the Ries crater in Germany, Bosumtwi crater in Ghana, Tenoumer crater in Mauritania, Lonar crater in India, and Meteor crater in the United States are terrestrial rampart craters. The Ries and Bosumtwi craters can be classified as double-layer ejecta (DLE) craters, whereas Tenoumer, Lonar, and Meteor craters can be classified as single-layer ejecta (SLE) craters. Tenoumer and Meteor craters show rampart as well as common lunar-like ejecta characteristics within their ejecta blankets and, thus, appear to be hybrid craters. In addition, we discuss seven crater structures that show at least some morphological or lithological peculiarities that could provide evidence for possible ejecta ramparts. Considering the low number of terrestrial impact craters with well-preserved ejecta blankets, the relatively high proportion of rampart craters is astonishing. Obviously, the formation of layered or rampart craters is a common and not a rare process on Earth.

Author(s):  
Shuo Li ◽  
Peiliang Cong ◽  
Demei Yu ◽  
Rui Xiong ◽  
Yi Jiang

High friction surface treatment (HFST) has been proactively used as a solution to extreme friction demands at locations such as horizontal curves, ramps, bridge decks, and intersections. Considerable efforts have been made to evaluate the use of HFST across the United States (U.S.) The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has issued a provisional specification, i.e., AASHTO PP 79-14, to help state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) to successfully apply HFST. This paper presents a further effort made by the authors to evaluate and compare the friction performance and durability of single and double layer HFTS systems with calcined bauxite aggregate. The laboratory accelerated polishing was conducted to evaluate the effects of aggregate candidate gradations on the friction performance, such as friction coefficient and macrotexture mean profile depth (MPD), and to determine the aggregate gradation for field evaluation. Field evaluation was conducted on both single and double layer HFST systems using test strips under actual traffic polishing over a time period of nine months that covered an entire snow season. It was found that larger aggregate size tends to yield larger MPD, but larger MPD does not necessarily imply larger friction. The double layer HFST did not outperform the single layer HFST with respect to friction and durability. If the properties of calcined bauxite aggregate are precisely defined, either surface friction or MPD can solely be utilized as the frictional metric for quality assurance (QA) of HFST.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhonghua Hong ◽  
Ziyang Fan ◽  
Xiaohua Tong ◽  
Ruyan Zhou ◽  
Yun Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic is the most serious catastrophe since the Second World War. To more accurately observe the epidemic under the influence of policies and provide policy adjustments before the official presidential transition in the United States, we use a three-layer superimposed Long-Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) model to predict the epidemic development trend to mid-January, 2021. The proposed model provides more accuracy and stability relative to Susceptible-Exposed-Infective-Recovered (SEIR), modified stacked au-to-encoder, and single-layer LSTM models. The performance effects of the measures in China and five countries with severe epidemics are analysed and summarised. The model shows that the error rate of China, five countries and the world is less than 1.4%. According to forecasts, the epidemic situations in the United States, India, and Brazil, caused by untimely, inappropriate policies, lax regulations and insufficient public cooperation, remain very severe, with cases continuing to increase by tens of thousands. The number of cumulative confirmed cases worldwide will exceed 84.58 million by mid-January, 2021; however, the mortality rate will gradually decrease. Based on analysis of measures (including China’s effective prevention and control policies), we found that there are performed tremendous different efficiency even using same positive policy for different countries because of various cooperation between people and governments. It is essential to maintain self-protection to prevent the epidemic from deterioration or regenerating, especially, wearing mask and maintaining a safe distance.


Author(s):  
Rob Greene

Because of the recent emphasis on rail transit infrastructure expansion and rebuilding in the United States, there is concern about the potential adverse vibration effects on existing activities that are sensitive to vibration and ground-borne-noise located in proximity to new or reactivated rail system rights-of-way. A Southern California at-grade/elevated LRT system that is currently under construction required the design and specification of extensive vibration control features. The final design needed to include the entire range of vibration mitigation tools presented in the Federal Transit Administration guidance manual. Designs and Contract Specifications included simple single-layer ballast mats; multi-layer ballast mats; high-resilience direct fixation fasteners; potential wheel-squeal solutions; low-vibration special trackwork; continuously-supported, street-running, floating slab track; and discrete, steel-helical-spring-supported floating slab track. It is noteworthy that the discrete steel-spring-supported FST is the first use of this vibration control approach in an at-grade rail system in the United States. This paper will discuss the overall approach, data analysis, solutions development, and the final designs prepared for this project and how this information may be beneficial to other projects with similar issues.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-267
Author(s):  
Mark E. Uchanski ◽  
Dawn M. VanLeeuwen ◽  
Steven J. Guldan ◽  
Constance L. Falk ◽  
Manoj Shukla ◽  
...  

Replicated temperature data from passively heated high tunnels are lacking, especially in the southwestern United States. Field studies were conducted over three seasons in two locations in New Mexico—a southern site in Las Cruces and a northern site in Alcalde—to characterize the crop environment in three high-tunnel designs during the winter growing season (October–March). High tunnels were 16 × 32 ft and oriented with the long edge running east to west. Heavyweight woven plastic covered the single-layer (SL) high-tunnel design. Double-layer designs (DL) were covered with a lightweight woven plastic on the bottom, followed by a second layer of the heavyweight plastic inflated with a fan. A heat sink was created using 16 55-gal barrels painted black, filled with water, and aligned along the north side of the double layer for the DL+B design. Soil temperature (3 inches deep) and air temperature (1 ft above the soil surface) were recorded inside the high tunnel, inside the high tunnel under a floating rowcover, and outside the high tunnel. In addition, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) was recorded inside and outside the high tunnels during or near the winter solstice each year of the study. Daily air and soil temperature minimums were highest in the DL+B design and lowest in the SL design. Maximum air and soil temperatures did not significantly differ between high-tunnel designs, although the DL+B design measurements were consistently lower. During season 1, the SL design had significantly higher PAR transmission than the other two designs. In the northern location, the difference became insignificant during seasons 2 and 3, likely due to dust accumulation and plastic aging. In the southern location, the SL design maintained higher PAR transmission throughout the study, possibly due to plastic cleaning. Data collected in this study can help inform the decisions of high-tunnel growers and researchers in the region.


Author(s):  
A. Hakam ◽  
J.T. Gau ◽  
M.L. Grove ◽  
B.A. Evans ◽  
M. Shuman ◽  
...  

Prostate adenocarcinoma is the most common malignant tumor of men in the United States and is the third leading cause of death in men. Despite attempts at early detection, there will be 244,000 new cases and 44,000 deaths from the disease in the United States in 1995. Therapeutic progress against this disease is hindered by an incomplete understanding of prostate epithelial cell biology, the availability of human tissues for in vitro experimentation, slow dissemination of information between prostate cancer research teams and the increasing pressure to “ stretch” research dollars at the same time staff reductions are occurring.To meet these challenges, we have used the correlative microscopy (CM) and client/server (C/S) computing to increase productivity while decreasing costs. Critical elements of our program are as follows:1) Establishing the Western Pennsylvania Genitourinary (GU) Tissue Bank which includes >100 prostates from patients with prostate adenocarcinoma as well as >20 normal prostates from transplant organ donors.


Author(s):  
Vinod K. Berry ◽  
Xiao Zhang

In recent years it became apparent that we needed to improve productivity and efficiency in the Microscopy Laboratories in GE Plastics. It was realized that digital image acquisition, archiving, processing, analysis, and transmission over a network would be the best way to achieve this goal. Also, the capabilities of quantitative image analysis, image transmission etc. available with this approach would help us to increase our efficiency. Although the advantages of digital image acquisition, processing, archiving, etc. have been described and are being practiced in many SEM, laboratories, they have not been generally applied in microscopy laboratories (TEM, Optical, SEM and others) and impact on increased productivity has not been yet exploited as well.In order to attain our objective we have acquired a SEMICAPS imaging workstation for each of the GE Plastic sites in the United States. We have integrated the workstation with the microscopes and their peripherals as shown in Figure 1.


2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 53-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Rehfeld

Every ten years, the United States “constructs” itself politically. On a decennial basis, U.S. Congressional districts are quite literally drawn, physically constructing political representation in the House of Representatives on the basis of where one lives. Why does the United States do it this way? What justifies domicile as the sole criteria of constituency construction? These are the questions raised in this article. Contrary to many contemporary understandings of representation at the founding, I argue that there were no principled reasons for using domicile as the method of organizing for political representation. Even in 1787, the Congressional district was expected to be far too large to map onto existing communities of interest. Instead, territory should be understood as forming a habit of mind for the founders, even while it was necessary to achieve other democratic aims of representative government.


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