Wednesday 28 November 2012
ROPEWAYS not for fun but for everyday city commute
Ropeways and the city. This may sound like a strange combination to many, but makes sense upon closer examination. Modern ropeway systems are able to solve various urban transport problems in a sustainable way. They can help residents and visitors to improve their quality of life in cities. Currently, LEITNER ropeways has more than 2,000 kilometers of ropeways operating in 50 countries. Some of them are already fulfilling their mission in urban areas.
More comfort and safety, less costs – ropeways offer many benefits
People attach more and more importance to a stress-free and environmentally-friendly transport system. Ropeways' technical advantages can meet these expectations perfectly. They require little space, do not conflict with other traffic, and can cross over any obstacle. In addition, they are able to handle steep roads better than other means of transport. Investment and operating costs are lower than with other traffic systems. These lower costs are due, among other things, to lower staff needs, as cabins can carry up to 50 passengers without a driver in the cabin. In comparison with other transport systems, ropeways have a very low energy consumption. Ropeways can, in contrast to most other traffic systems, move several vehicles with one motor and adjust energy use to the number of passengers carried. Therefore, ropeways are particularly suitable for the connection of sensitive recreation areas. And what passengers especially like: Ropeways offer unrivaled views during the ride.
Faster in the city – millions of passengers travel with ropeways every year
The Tricable gondola lift from Bolzano, Italy to the high plateau of Renon, near the city, shows how advantageous ropeways can be for the traffic and the quality of life. If one travels by ropeway, he avoids traffic jams and the long search for a parking spot in Bolzano. This results in significant time savings. While the ropeways journey takes only 12 minutes, driving takes at least twice the time. These advantages are in favor of the ropeways: in 2011, close to one million passengers chose this transport system. It has resulted in an improved quality of life, and even higher real estate prices on Renon.
In 2009, LEITNER ropeways installed a 10-passenger gondola lift along the main streets of Manizales , Colombia. It can transport up to 2,400 passengers per hour, along a 2-kilometer route from the regional bus terminal to the city center. The sometimes chaotic street traffic situation has been significantly improved. With its success, the ropeway is now being extended with a new line to Villamaria, neighbouring suburb.
In Ordu, on the Turkish Black Sea coast, an 8-passenger gondola lift has been constructed which brings passengers from the beach to the nearby Boztepe recreation area, which is
300 meters higher. Not only this ropeway has an impressive 900 meters long span between towers, but it also has considerably reduced road traffic in the lively commercial city.
The medieval fortress of Narikala over the old city of Tbilisi is one of the most popular destinations in the capital of the Georgian Republic. In the past, one had to take a long walk up to the fortress. A new, 8-passenger gondola lift was installed in 2012, which makes the climb comfortably. Visitors and locals can now easily reach the famous castle.
Tuesday 20 November 2012
Thursday 15 November 2012
Amazing facts about Ants
Ants are ancient ,they have been on the earth much before we
arrived.They constitute nearly 25% of
total animal weight in the tropics.Inch
Ants of Australia and Jumping Ants of India qualify as some of largest ants in
the world.Ants are seasoned architects
,the design and architecture of their nest is distinctly purposeful and
constructed with patience.Ants not only
care for their offsprings but also for distant relatives of colony.
Amazing facts about Ants
Communication by touch:
Morphological communication is not very well understood. Antennating (Tapping each others
antennae) is the most commonly seen form of tactile communication.Ants also tap
the gaster of their nest mates as
well.The physical contact could be made to request for food or checking if ant
belongs to same nest and many times just
for nothing .
Recognizing Nest mates from non-nest mates:
A unique odour is present in each ant’s nest.The source of the odour is from the founder of the colony the queen.Hence the odour differs from
one colony to the other.
It is always “us” not “I”:
Cooperation coupled with an
unselfish behavior in ants .Numerous ants have given up their ability to reproduce only to help one or few reproductive individuals highlights the organization
and evolution of social life in an ant society.
No Scanning to identify gender of offspring like Us :
Sex of each of the offspring
to take birth in the colony is decided and then regulated by the queen depending on the stage of the colony’s life cycle.
So much to learn from Ants :
Mathematical modeling inspired by ant colonies has been used
in various subjects ,for example
in traffic management .Army ants are
amazing animals where 2.5 lakh
individuals moves thirty thousand bits of food per hour without collisions .
Wednesday 14 November 2012
Wednesday 7 November 2012
Indian monsoon could fail more often as climate changes
A large share of the world's population depends on Indian summer-monsoon rainfall to grow food. But it is hard to predict how the phenomenon will respond to climate change. Now German researchers have found that the Indian monsoon is likely to fail much more frequently under future warming.
"As India's economy today relies heavily on rainfed agriculture, more frequent and severe monsoon failure would be an immediate danger to the livelihoods of a large share of its population," said Jabob Schewe of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany. "Note, however, that in our model study, monsoon failure gets more frequent only in the more distant future; such a scenario, if deemed realistic, would probably rather have implications for long-term adaptation planning."
Together with Anders Levermann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Potsdam University, Germany, Schewe used the MPI-ESM climate model to simulate the years 800–2200. The researchers used the IPCC SRES A1B scenario for carbon emissions from 2005 until 2100 and constant carbon-dioxide concentrations up to 2200.
Rainfall in South Asia is likely to be strengthened during much of the 21st century because atmospheric warming will enable more moisture to be held in the atmosphere, they found. But once the Walker circulation weakens, rainfall will drop off rapidly, falling short of the pre-industrial long-term mean roughly by the turn of the 22nd century. And from 2150 to 2200, dry years will be much more frequent than wet.
"In a nutshell, our results indicate that the response of monsoon rainfall to global warming can be complex, including periods of both strengthening and rapid weakening; and that nonlinear internal dynamics of the monsoon system may play an important role in its response to external changes," said Schewe.
Typically, summer-monsoon rain occurs in South Asia from June until September, when winds blow from the southwest Indian Ocean onto the continent. From about October the wind direction reverses. By modelling past data, the researchers found that there are two monsoon modes.
In the first, spring sees the troposphere over land being warmer than that above the ocean. Moist air moves over the continent and the resulting rainfall releases latent heat. This reinforces the tropospheric temperature contrast, and stabilizes the air circulation, in what the team dubbed the wet moisture-advection feedback.
In dry years, in contrast, less humid air in the upper troposphere tends to sink over both land and the Arabian Sea. This suppresses rainfall and keeps sea-level pressure anomalously high throughout the summer. As a result, the direction of the monsoon flow in the upper troposphere tends to change from generally westward to northward or even eastward. In the same way that rainfall sustains a wet monsoon regime, the team believes this anomalous circulation pattern may be a self-amplifying feedback that can sustain a dry-monsoon regime – the "dry-subsidence" feedback.
Incorporating these two feedbacks into a model enabled the team to statistically predict changes in the frequency distribution of seasonal mean all-Indian rainfall. The model was forced only by global mean temperature and the strength of the Pacific Walker circulation in spring.
The Walker circulation is a large overturning circulation in the atmosphere, oriented along the equator and spanning the Pacific and Indian Oceans, explained Schewe. Its interannual variations form the atmospheric part of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. As temperatures rise, the Walker circulation will, on average, bring more high pressure over India, suppressing the monsoon, as happens today in El Niño years.
"We plan to take the work forward by considering other climate models in order to test the robustness of the monsoon response found in our study, and also the applicability of the statistically predictive model," said Schewe. "Should it turn out that a nonlinear response of monsoon rainfall to global warming is indeed a robust feature of climate-change simulations, and that monsoon failure of the order of magnitude that we find in our study cannot be excluded in the future, then of course that would have far-reaching implications for adaptation strategies in India and other monsoon regions."
The team reported the study in Environmental Research Letters.
About the author
Liz Kalaugher is editor of environmentalresearchweb.
Tuesday 6 November 2012
Trees in Urban
“U.S Forest Service facts and figures and new traffic safety studies detail many urban street tree benefits. Once seen problematic for many reasons, street trees are proving to be a great value to people living, working, shopping, sharing, walking and motoring in and through urban places.
Generally planted from 4 feet to 8 feet from curbs, they provide many benefits to those streets they occupy. These trees provide so many benefits that they should always be considered as an urban area default street making feature.re well on the way to recognizing the
The many identified problems of street trees are overcome with care by designers. Generally street trees are placed each 15-30 feet. These trees are carefully positioned to allow adequate sight triangles at intersections and driveways, to not block street luminaries, not impact utility lines above or below ground. Properly placed and spaced urban street trees provide a number of benefits.”
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