Responses of estuarine salinity and transport processes to sea level rise in the Zhujiang(Pearl River) Estuary

Understanding the changes of hydrodynamics in estuaries with respect to magnitude of sea level rise is important to understand the changes of transport process. Based on prediction of sea level rise over the 21st century, the Zhujiang（Pearl River） Estuary was chosen as a prototype to study the responses of the estuary to potential sea level rise. The numerical model results show that the average salt content, saltwater intrusion distance, and stratification will increase as the sea level rises. The changes of these parameters have obvious seasonal variations. The salt content in the Lingdingyang shows more increase in April and October（the transition periods）. The saltwater intrusion distance has larger increase during the low-flow periods than during the highflow periods in the Lingdingyang. The result is just the opposite in Modaomen. The stratification and its increase are larger during the low-flow periods than during the high-flow periods in Lingdingyang. The response results of transport processes to sea level rise demonstrate that：（1） The time of vertical transport has pronounced increase.The increased tidal range and currents would reinforce the vertical mixing, but the increased stratification would weaken the vertical exchange. The impact of stratification changes overwhelms the impact of tidal changes. It would be more difficult for the surface water to reach the bottom.（2） The lengthways estuarine circulation would be strengthened. Both the offshore surface residual current and inshore bottom residual current will be enhanced.The whole meridional resident flow along the transect of the Lingdingyang would be weakened. These phenomena are caused by the decrease of water surface slope（WWS） and the change of static pressure with the increase of water depth under sea level rise.

Analysis of sea level changes in the Caspian Sea related to Cosmo-geophysical processes based on satellite and terrestrial data

Analysis results of the average annual sea levels in the Caspian Sea obtained from ground and satellite observations, corresponding to solar activity characteristics, magnetic field data, and length of day are presented. Spectra of the indicated processes were investigated and their approximation models were also built. Previously assumed statistical relationships between space-geophysical processes and Caspian Sea level(CSL) changes were confirmed. A close connection was revealed between the low-frequency models of the solar and geomagnetic activity parameters and the CSL changes. Predictions extending into the next decades showed a high probability of an increase in the CSL and a decrease of the compared space-geophysical parameters.

Analysis and control of inter-electrode gap during leveling process in counter-rotating electrochemical machining

The inter-electrode gap(IEG) is an essential parameter for the anode shaping process in electrochemical machining(ECM) and directly affects the machining accuracy. In this paper, the IEG during the leveling process of an oval anode workpiece in counter-rotating ECM(CRECM)is investigated. The variation of the minimum IEG is analyzed theoretically, and the results indicate that rather than reaching equilibrium, the minimum IEG in CRECM expands constantly when a constant feed speed is used for the cathode tool. This IEG expansion leads to a poor localization effect and has an adverse influence on the roundness of the machined workpiece. To maintain a small constant IEG in CRECM, a variable feed speed is used for the cathode based on a fitted equation. The theoretical results show that the minimum IEG can be controlled at a small value by using an accelerated feed speed. Experiments have been conducted using a specific experimental apparatus in which the cathode tool is designed as a combined structure of two sectors and a thin sheet. By detecting the machining currents flowing through the minimum IEG, how the latter varies is obtained indirectly. The results indicate that using an accelerated feed speed is effective for controlling the IEG, thereby improving the roundness of the machined workpiece.

Curvature and Residual Stress Analysis in Rotational Leveling of Bars

Leveling process plays an important role in delivering the desired material properties and product standards.An analytical method for the rotational leveling process of bars was presented.First,each cross section of the bar in the leveling area was discretized with the roller gap-curvature relations established in both planes XYand XZ.Second,a numerical procedure with two steps was developed to simulate both pressing and leveling processes.This approach can be easily implemented to produce simulation results of the curvature and trajectory distributions during the leveling process,as well as the bending and residual stresses.It is found that curvature and trajectory distributions follow a sine-shape due to the characteristic of rotational movement,which also results in a helical pattern of residual stress after leveling.Based on the results obtained,it is also observed that the rotational movement is beneficial for adding the number of bending cycle.This is the reason why there are only a few pairs of rollers on the bar leveler.

Sub-pixel change detection for urban land-cover analysis via multi-temporal remote sensing images

Conventional change detection approaches are mainly based on per-pixel processing,which ignore the sub-pixel spectral variation resulted from spectral mixture.Especially for medium-resolution remote sensing images used in urban landcover change monitoring,land use/cover components within a single pixel are usually complicated and heterogeneous due to the limitation of the spatial resolution.Thus,traditional hard detection methods based on pure pixel assumption may lead to a high level of omission and commission errors inevitably,degrading the overall accuracy of change detection.In order to address this issue and find a possible way to exploit the spectral variation in a sub-pixel level,a novel change detection scheme is designed based on the spectral mixture analysis and decision-level fusion.Nonlinear spectral mixture model is selected for spectral unmixing,and change detection is implemented in a sub-pixel level by investigating the inner-pixel subtle changes and combining multiple composition evidences.The proposed method is tested on multi-temporal Landsat Thematic Mapper and China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite remote sensing images for the land-cover change detection over urban areas.The effectiveness of the proposed approach is confirmed in terms of several accuracy indices in contrast with two pixel-based change detection methods(i.e.change vector analysis and principal component analysis-based method).In particular,the proposed sub-pixel change detection approach not only provides the binary change information,but also obtains the characterization about change direction and intensity,which greatly extends the semantic meaning of the detected change targets.