Earthquake weather and climate change: Should we stress about the forecast?

ABSTRACT Relationships between the weather and earthquakes have been suspected for over 2400 yr. However, scientific evidence to support such relationships has grown only since the 1980s. Because faults in Earth’s crust are generally regarded as critically stressed, small changes in stress and pore-fluid pressure brought about by rainfall, snow, and atmospheric pressure and temperature variations have all been proposed to modulate seismicity at local and regional scales. Elastic static stress changes as low as 0.07 kPa and pore-fluid pressure changes as low as 0.5 kPa have been proposed to naturally trigger earthquakes. In the UK, the spatial distributions of onshore earthquakes and rainfall are highly nonuniform and may be related; the wetter and most naturally seismically active areas occur on the west side of the country. We found significant spatial and temporal relationships between rainfall amount and the number of earthquakes for 1980–2012, suggesting larger volumes of rainfall promote earthquake nucleation. Such relationships occur when human-induced seismicity is included or excluded, indicating that meteorological conditions can also modulate seismicity induced by subsurface anthropogenic activities such as coal mining. No significant relationships were observed for monthly time lags, suggesting that the triggering effect of rainfall in the UK is near-instantaneous or occurs within 1 mo. With global climate changing rapidly and extreme weather events occurring more frequently, it is possible that some global regions may also experience changes in the spatial and temporal occurrence of earthquakes in response to changes in meteorologically induced stress perturbations.

Spinoffs’ alliance network growth beyond parental ties: performance diminishing, then performance enhancing

Spinoff firms are a common phenomenon in entrepreneurship where employees leave incumbent parent firms to found their own. Like other types of new firms, such new spinoffs face liabilities of newness and smallness. Previous research has emphasised the role of the initial endowments from their parent firm to overcome such liabilities. In this study, we argue and are the first to show, that, in addition to such endowments, growing an alliance network with firms other than their parents’ is also critical for spinoff performance. Specifically, we investigate the performance effect of alliance network growth in newly founded spinoffs using a longitudinal sample of 248 spinoffs and 3370 strategic alliances in the mining industry. Drawing on theory based on the resource adjustment costs of forming alliances, we posit and find a U-shaped relationship between the alliance network growth and spinoff performance, above and beyond the parent firm’s influence. We further hypothesise and find that performance effects become stronger with increased time lags between alliance network growth and spinoff performance, and when spinoffs delay growing their alliance networks. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Temperature, carbon dioxide and methane

1) Globally-representative monthly rates of change of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane are compared with global rates of change of sea ice and with Arctic and Antarctic air temperatures. 2) Carbon dioxide is very strongly correlated with sea ice dynamics, with the carbon dioxide rate at Mauna Loa lagging sea ice extent rate by 7 months. 3) Methane is very strongly correlated with sea ice dynamics, with the global (and Mauna Loa) methane rate lagging sea ice extent rate by 5 months. 4) Sea ice melt rate peaks in very tight synchrony with temperature in each Hemisphere. 5) The very high synchrony of the two gases is most parsimoniously explained by a common causality acting in both Hemispheres. 6) Time lags between variables indicate primary drivers of the gas dynamics are due to solar action on the polar regions, not mid-latitudes as is conventionally believed. 7) Results are consistent with a proposed role of a high-latitude temperature-dependent abiotic variable such as sea ice in the annual cycles of carbon dioxide and methane. 8) If sea ice does not drive the net flux of these gases, it is a highly precise proxy for whatever does. 9) Potential mechanisms should be investigated urgently.

Impact of work-study conflict on workplace outcomes: supervisor support for juggling many balls

Purpose Drawing on conservation of resource theory, this study aims to examine the impact of work-study conflict (WSC) on workplace outcomes (job performance, job satisfaction, burnout and turnover intention). The study also investigated whether these relationships were contingent on the level of supervisor support at the workplace. Design/methodology/approach Survey data were collected in two-time lags from 752 studying professionals (non-traditional students) through a convenient sampling technique. Findings Results showed that WSC enhances burnout and turnover intention but has no significant direct relationship with job performance and job satisfaction. It was also found that the relationships between WSC and workplace outcomes, i.e. job performance, job satisfaction and burnout were conditional on the level of supervisor support. Originality/value The research contributes to WSC literature by being the first to empirically investigate the direct and interactive effects of WSC and supervisor support on important workplace outcomes of those adults who were primarily working and then decided to study further for career development rather than on full-time students.

Linking Spatial–Temporal Changes of Vegetation Cover with Hydroclimatological Variables in Terrestrial Environments with a Focus on the Lake Urmia Basin

Investigation of vegetation cover is crucial to the study of terrestrial ecological environments as it has a close relationship with hydroclimatological variables and plays a dominant role in preserving the characteristics of a region. In Iran, the current study selected the watersheds of two rivers, Nazloo-Chay and Aji-Chay, to systematically investigate the implications and causes of vegetation cover variations under changing environments. These two rivers are among the essential inflows to Lake Urmia, the second largest saline lake on Earth, and are located on the west and east sides of the lake, respectively. There has been a debate between the people living in the rivers’ watersheds about who is responsible for the decline in the level of Lake Urmia—does responsibility fall with those on the east side or with those on the west side? In this study, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was used as a remotely sensed index to study spatial–temporal pattern changes in vegetation. Moreover, the temperature, precipitation, and streamflow time series were gathered using ground measurements to explore the causes and implications of changing vegetation cover. Discrete wavelet transform was applied to separate the different components of the time series. The Mann–Kendall (MK) test was applied to the time series on monthly, seasonal, and annual time scales. The connections and relationship between the NDVI time series and temperature, precipitation, and streamflow time series and any underlying causes were investigated using wavelet transform coherence (WTC). Land use maps were generated for different years using a support vector machine (SVM) in the final stage. The results indicated that the most dominant monthly, seasonal, and annual hydrological periodicities across the watersheds are 8 months, 6 months, and 2 years, respectively. The increasing vegetation cover during stable hydro-environmental periods revealed unusual conditions in the Aji-Chay watershed and reflected agricultural expansion. The WTC graphs indicated sudden changes in mutual periodicities and time-lags with different patterns between variables, which indicates the increasing anthropogenic activities in both watersheds. However, this was more dominant in the Aji-Chay watershed. The land use maps and investigation of the averaged NDVI maps also denoted that the areas of cultivated land have increased by 30% in the Aji-Chay watershed, and crop types have been changed to the crops with a higher demand for water in both watersheds.

Radiant Conditioning Retrofitting for Residential Buildings

In order to achieve Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, a majority of the existing residential building stock in Australia will require retrofitting in favour of energy-efficient solutions. This paper considers retrofitting for conditioning to be one of the most straightforward and offers the greatest potential to deliver significant comfort and energy-saving results. Radiant conditioning systems are not new, yet some game-changing innovations have taken place over the last decade that may require an entire paradigm shift in the manner we condition our buildings. The reiteration of the principle ‘thermally active systems’ suggests that our buildings need to accommodate these systems into the fabric of building components. However, extremely few products and/or innovative solutions for doing such seem to be provided by the industry. We seem incompetent with solutions that are not costing the Earth, insulating, lightweight, and offering an instant response time to conditioning. We still have the concept embedded in our minds that radiative systems consist of heavy ‘combat’ construction with time lags of a day or two and that they are very costly to implement, especially if we are to retrofit a project. The purpose of this paper is to rectify and change our understanding of radiant systems, namely through a review of the existing technology and its recent advancements. It intends to introduce the fact that radiant systems can become highly reactive, responsive, and thermally dynamic conditioning systems. Lightweight radiant systems can be 40% more energy-efficient than common air conditioners and can respond in less than 15 min rather than in the hours required of heavy radiant systems. Thus, an insulated, lightweight radiant system is ideal for retrofitting residential buildings. Furthermore, this paper supports and introduces various systems suited to retrofitting a residential building with hydronic radiant systems.

Outpatient Appointment Optimization: A Case Study of a Chemotherapy Service

In this paper, we study a complex outpatient planning problem in the chemotherapy department. The planning concerns sequences of patients’ treatment sessions subject to exact in-between resting periods (i.e., exact time-lags). The planning is constrained by the hospital infrastructure and the availability of medical staff (i.e., multiple time-varying resources’ availability). In order to maximize the patients’ service quality, the objective of the function considered is to minimize the total wait times, which is equivalent to the criteria for minimizing the total completion time. Our main contribution is a thorough analysis of this problem, using the Hybrid Flow Shop problem as a theoretical framework to study the problem. A novel Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) is introduced. Concerning the resolution methods, priority-based heuristics and an adapted genetic algorithm (GA) are presented. Numerical experiments are conducted on historical data to compare the performances of the approximate resolution methods against the MILP solved by CPLEX. Numerical results confirm the performances of the proposed methods.

Heterogeneity: method and applications for complex systems analysis

Socio-ecological systems like another physical systems are complex systems in which are required methods for analyzes their non-linearities, thresholds, feedbacks, time lags, and resilience. This involves understanding the heterogeneity of the interactions in time and space. In this article, we carry out the proposition and demonstration of two methods that allow the calculation of heterogeneity in different contexts. The practical effectiveness of the methods is presented through applications in sustainability analysis, land transport, and governance. It is concluded that the proposed methods can be used in various research and development areas due to their ease of being considered in broad modeling frameworks as agent-based modeling, system dynamics, or machine learning, although it could also be used to obtain point measurements only by replacing values.

Variability of Indian summer monsoon: Relationship with surface air temperature anomalies over northern hemisphere

Thirty year (1950-79) time series of Monsoon Index (MI) is correlated with the gridded surface air temperature data over northern hemisphere land at various time lags of months (i.e., months preceding concurrent and succeeding to the monsoon season) to identify tele-connections of monsoon with the northern hemisphere surface air temperature anomalies. . Out of three key regions identified which show statistically significant relationship of monsoon rainfall, two regions are in the higher latitudinal belt of 40oN- 70oN over North America and Eurasia which show positive correlations with temperatures during northern winter particularly during January and February. The third region is located over northwest India and adjoining Pakistan, where the maximum positive correlation is observed to occur during the pre-li1onsoon months of April and May. These relationships suggest that cooler northern hemisphere during the preceding seasons of winter/spring over certain key regions are generally associated with below normal summer monsoon rainfall over India and vice-versa which could be useful predictors for long-range forecasting of monsoon. There are two large regions in the northern tropics, namely, Asian and African monsoons whose temperatures reveal strong negative correlations with monsoon rainfall during the seasons concurrent and subsequent to the summer monsoon season. However, persistence of this relationship for longer period of about two seasons after the monsoon, suggests the dominant influence of ENSO (El. Nino-Southern Oscillation) on tropical climate.

Intensification of Downslope Nutrient Transport and Associated Biological Responses Over the Northeastern South China Sea During Wind-Driven Downwelling: A Modeling Study

Coastal downwelling is generally considered to have a limited biological effect compared with coastal upwelling. In this study, downslope transport of nearshore, nutrient-enriched waters during downwelling is found to induce distinct biological productivity in the water column over the northeastern South China Sea (NSCS). By conducting a process-driven study over a widened shelf with intensified downwelling in the NSCS, we investigated the biophysical processes associated with strong nutrient enrichment in the water column of downwelled waters. These processes and underlying mechanisms are largely unreported and remain unclear. Field measurements and a three-dimensional coupled physical-biological model incorporating nitrate (N), phytoplankton (P), zooplankton (Z), and detritus (D) were utilized to investigate distinct cross-shore nutrient transport over the uniquely widened NSCS shelf. We revealed that intensified downwelling circulation, dynamically induced by the widened shelf topography, enhanced chlorophyll a and biological productivity in a strip of well-mixed water over the inner shelf as well as in the downwelled water over the mid-shelf. Strong time lags and spatial differences existed among N, P, and Z because of the physical transport and the ensuing biogeochemical response. The intensified downslope transport of nutrient-rich coastal water formed distinct cross-shore wedge-shaped P, Z, and D structures, while N was rapidly consumed in the water column. This study illustrates the underlying coupled physical-biogeochemical processes associated with the observed biogeochemical response to wind-driven downwelling circulation over the variable shelf, which are commonly found in coastal oceans worldwide.