Essential to risk studies, vulnerability analysis of the assets of an area is often not suitable for practical application. It is usually more an assets census than a real vulnerability assessment, ...facing a given hazard. Its intersection with the hazards zoning poses also many methodological, cartographic and operational problems. This work starts with the key concepts of risk, thanks to a review of French and international literature study. Then, it provides a procedure which allows precise knowledge of the local vulnerability, available to all types of hazards and applicable to all areas. Finally, in order to get an overall perspective of risk, assets vulnerabilities are crossed with the hazards areas, in accordance to the spatial distribution of both components and using innovative geomatics operations. As part of this study, this methodology will be applied to the rivers flooding and overflowing runoff of the Greater Lyon.
We report on the topographic roughness measurements of five exhumed faults and thirteen surface earthquake ruptures over a large range of scales: from 50 μm to 50 km. We used three scanner devices ...(LiDAR, laser profilometer, white light interferometer), spanning complementary scale ranges from 50 μm to 10 m, to measure the 3‐D topography of the same objects, i.e., five exhumed slip surfaces (Vuache‐Sillingy, Bolu, Corona Heights, Dixie Valley, Magnola). A consistent geometrical property, i.e., self‐affinity, emerges as the morphology of the slip surfaces shows at first order, a linear behavior on a log‐log plot where axes are fault roughness and spatial length scale, covering five decades of length‐scales. The observed fault roughness is scale dependent, with an anisotropic self‐affine behavior described by four parameters: two power law exponents H, constant among all the faults studied but slightly anisotropic (H∥ = 0.58 ± 0.07 in the slip direction and H⊥ = 0.81 ± 0.04 perpendicular to it), and two pre‐factors showing variability over the faults studied. For larger scales between 200 m and 50 km, we have analyzed the 2‐D roughness of the surface rupture of thirteen major continental earthquakes. These ruptures show geometrical properties consistent with the slip‐perpendicular behavior of the smaller‐scale measurements. Our analysis suggests that the inherent non‐alignment between the exposed traces and the along or normal slip direction results in sampling the slip‐perpendicular geometry. Although a data gap exists between the scanned fault scarps and rupture traces, the measurements are consistent within the error bars with a single geometrical description, i.e., consistent dimensionality, over nine decades of length scales.
Key Points
New observations of the geometry of exhumed fault surfaces and rupture traces
Self‐affine geometry from 0.05mm to 50km independent of the geological setting
Implications for the earthquake machinery using our realistic geometrical model
Breast cancer incidence rate in Belgian women was as high as 152.7 for 100 000 in 2003 (adjusted on European population). We made an estimation of the contribution of hormone replacement therapy ...(HRT) on breast cancer incidence from 1999 to 2005 in women aged 50–69 years in Flanders.
Breast cancer data were extracted from the Belgium Cancer Registry. Drug consumption was computed from drug sales data. The fraction of breast cancers attributable to HRT was calculated by year, using the relative risks of the Million Women Study in the UK.
The proportion of women aged 50–69 years using HRT in Flanders increased since 1992, peaked at 20% in 2001, then decreased to 8% in 2008. The incidence of breast cancer in 100 000 women aged 50–69 years in Flanders increased from 332.8 in 1999 to 407.9 in 2003, then decreased to 366.1 in 2005; the variations were mostly noticeable for tumors <20 mm in size. The fraction of breast cancers attributed to HRT peaked at 11% in 2001 and decreased afterward.
The high level of breast cancer observed in the years 2001–2003 in Flanders can be partly attributed to the use of HRT. Since participation to mammography screening of Flemish women aged 50–69 years was still on the rise in 2003 and never exceeds 62%, the decrease in breast cancer incidence was likely to be due to the decrease in HRT use and not to screening saturation.
This study is devoted to the experimental investigation of the interaction of a propagating rupture with one or several mechanical heterogeneities. We developed a friction laboratory experiment where ...a soft elastic solid slides past a rigid flat plate. The system is coupled to an original medical imaging technique, ultrasound speckle interferometry, that allows observing the rupture dynamics as well as the emitted elastic shear wavefield into the solid body. We compare the dynamics of propagating rupture for a homogeneous flat interface and for three cases of heterogeneous sliding surfaces: (1) an interface with a single point‐like barrier made of a small rock pebble, (2) an interface with a single linear barrier that joins the edges of the faults in a direction perpendicular to slip, and (3) an interface with multiple barriers disposed on half of its surface area, creating a heterogeneous zone. We obtain experimental observations of dynamic effects that have been predicted by numerical dynamic rupture simulations and provide experimental observations of the following phenomena: a barrier can stop or delay the rupture propagation; a linear single barrier can change the rupture velocity, increasing or decreasing it; we observe transition from subshear to supershear propagation due to the linear barrier; a large heterogeneous area slows down the rupture propagation. We observe a strong variability of the rupture dynamics occurring for identical frictional conditions, which we impute to heterogeneity of the stress field due to both the loading conditions and memory of the stress field due to previous rupture events.
Key Points
Rupture accelerated and decelerated by a linear barrier are observed
Transition from subshear to supershear due to a linear barrier is observed
Distrubuted barriers slow down the rupture propagation
The hydrothermal carbonation of calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)
2) at high pressure of CO
2 (initial
P
CO
2
=55
bar) and moderate to high temperature (30 and 90
°C) was used to synthesize fine particles of ...calcite. This method allows a high carbonation efficiency (about 95% of Ca(OH)
2–CaCO
3 conversion), a significant production rate (48
kg/m
3
h) and high purity of product (about 96%). However, the various initial physicochemical conditions have a strong influence on the crystal size and surface area of the synthesized calcite crystals. The present study is focused on the estimation of the textural properties of synthesized calcite (morphology, specific surface area, average particle size, particle size distribution and particle size evolution with reaction time), using Rietveld refinements of X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) measurements, and scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) observations. This study demonstrate that the pressure, the temperature and the dissolved quantity of CO
2 have a significant effect on the average particle size, specific surface area, initial rate of precipitation, and on the morphology of calcium carbonate crystals. In contrast, these PT
x conditions used herein have an insignificant effect on the carbonation efficiency of Ca(OH)
2.
Finally, the results presented here demonstrate that nano-calcite crystals with high specific surface area (
S
BET=6–10
m
2/g) can be produced, with a high potential for industrial applications such as adsorbents and/or filler in papermaking industry.
A major policy debate in China starting in the Mao era and carrying through the Deng area involves the tradeoff between equity and efficiency in regional growth policies. In this paper, we explore ...whether there are regional growth spillover effects promised by Deng's policy of favoring initial industrial development in coastal provinces. A stated objective of these policies was the spread of coastal provinces' growth inland. We review the theoretical underpinnings of such effects and test for them with panel data for the period 1981–1998. We also test whether any spread effects are equally distributed over inland provinces. We find that spillover effects have not been sufficient to reduce disparities across Chinese provinces in the short run.
BACKGROUND: Previous epidemiologic studies have suggested that sunscreen use is associated with an increased risk of melanoma skin cancer. Because high nevi (mole) count in adults is a strong ...predictor of melanoma, we conducted a study examining the number of nevi in 6- to 7-year-old European children, according to their sunscreen use. METHODS: Whole-body and site-specific counts of nevi 2 mm or larger were performed in 631 children in their first year of primary school in four European cities. Independently, parents were interviewed regarding sun exposure, sunscreen use, and physical sun protection of their child. RESULTS: After adjustment for sun exposure and host characteristics (e.g., skin phototype, eye color), the relative risk for high nevus count on the trunk was 1.68 (95% confidence interval CI = 1.09-2.59) for the highest level of sunscreen use and 0.59 (95% CI = 0.36-0.97) for the highest level of wearing of clothes while in the sun. The sun protection factor had no effect on nevus counts despite a high median value of 17.4. Sunburn number was not associated with nevus count. The highest risk associated with sunscreen use was found among children who had never experienced sunburn. CONCLUSIONS: In white, European children, sunscreen use appears to be associated with development of nevi, probably because it allows longer sun exposures. Wearing clothes may be an effective way to prevent proliferation of nevi. Since a high nevus count is a strong predictor of melanoma, sunscreen use may be involved in melanoma occurrence because it may encourage recreational sun exposure.
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