Water Mark Research Articles

Morphotectonic evolution of Maviboğaz canyon and Suğla polje, SW central Anatolia, Turkey

This study focuses on the morphotectonic evolutionary history of two significant geomorphic features, Suğla structural-border polje and Maviboğaz canyon, located within the Suğla-Seydişehir, Akören-Kavakköy, and Bozkır grabens in the central Taurides. Data were obtained by detailed field mapping of faults, rocks, and geomorphic features. Three phases of tectonic deformation were determined. The three erosional surfaces developed, especially in the form of tectonically controlled steps, during Oligocene-early Miocene, middle Miocene, and late Miocene-early Pliocene, sequentially. Southwest- to northeast-trending karstified hanging paleovalleys are present on the high erosional surfaces, which have been attributed to the end of early Miocene and late Miocene. Faulting-induced tectonic movements enabled the formation of Suğla-Seydişehir paleograben in early Miocene. We suggest that the Maviboğaz canyon was formed by captures at the beginning of late Miocene and late Pliocene and by incision in Late Pliocene-Quaternary, depending on the headward erosion of Çarşamba River. Starting from the beginning of Quaternary, a tensional neotectonic regime became prominent and then a series of modern graben-horst structures formed along the reactivated older grabens. One of these is the Suğla-Seydişehir reactivated graben. Suğla structural-border polje developed within the graben. Total visible tectonic subsidence of the polje is 134 m. Underground capture of surface water occurred on the southern slopes of the graben. Waters of Suğla polje are transported intermittently into Konya basin on the surface and into the Mediterranean basin via natural swallow holes. Beach deposits, water marks, cliffs, and notches marking the late Pleistocene lake level (10 m) and two perched corrosion surfaces (~50 and 22 m) were detected around the polje.

300 years of coastal salinization research in Germany – the Homann (1718) map of the Christmas Flood of 1717

The Christmas Flood of 1717 was one of the most destructive storm floods in the North Sea region and affected large parts of the shores of Germany, the Netherlands and Germany (e.g. Jakubowski-Tiessen 1992). It occurred in the night from the 24th to the 25th of December 1717, when a strong northwesterly storm front pushed massive volumes of water into the funnel-shaped German Bight. Adding to the astronomical high tide occurring this night, water levels rose up to 4 m higher than the mean tidal high water mark. This lead to widespread overtopping and breaching of the dikes, which had been neglected in the preceding years due to extended periods of war and unrest. Since the event happened at night, the population was unable to react. About 9,000 people in Germany lost their lives and around 2,500 in the Netherlands. The small German town of Jever alone lost 1,700 people. In the village of Stollhamm, located on the peninsula of Butjadingen, which was exposed to the flood from two sides, 582 out of a population of 1,200 perished and only a third of the houses were not destroyed. In Eastern Frisia, 922 houses were completely destroyed and 1,672 damaged. In all of the affected regions in Germany, at least 3,000 houses were completely destroyed. Agriculture was severely affected by the salinization of large tracts of agricultural land and the loss of 2,300 horses, 9,500 cows, 2,800 sheep and 1,800 pigs was recorded in Eastern Frisia. In the following years, famines and epidemic plagues took a further toll on the population. Many people emigrated. It took several decades to reconstruct the dikes and to restore the livelihoods of the population.

Field performance of three real-time moisture sensors in sandy loam and clay loam soils

ABSTRACTThe study was conducted to evaluate HydraProbe (HyP), Campbell Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and Watermarks (WM) moisture sensors for their ability to estimate water content based on calibrated neutron probe (NP) measurements. The three sensors were in-situ tested under natural weather conditions over a 3-yr period in a sandy loam and clay loam soils planted to grass. The HyP, TDR and WM sensors were evaluated for their ability to estimate soil moisture contents by comparing their outputs with those of NP measurements. Results showed that HyP, TDR and WM provided different estimates of soil moisture contents in both soils. Nevertheless, our work suggests that soil moisture sensors including those used in this study can be made suitable for irrigation scheduling without in-situ calibrations by simply setting the upper and lower irrigation trigger limits for each sensor and each soil type. The upper trigger point occurs directly after irrigation event (near field capacity) and the lower trigger point is based on about 50% depletion of available water in the crop rootzone and is occurs prior to irrigation refill. This approach can significantly help irrigators to achieve their irrigation scheduling and productivity goals without consuming any time onsite or soil specific calibrations.

Pricing Bounds and Bang-Bang Analysis of the Polaris Variable Annuities

This paper studies the no-arbitrage pricing of the Income Plus Daily structured the Choice IV variable annuities recently issued by the American International Group. Distinct from the withdrawal benefits studied the literature, Polaris allows the income base to lock in the high water mark of the investment account over a certain monitoring period which is related to the timing of policyholder's first withdrawal. By prudently introducing certain auxiliary state and decision variables, we manage to formulate the pricing model under a Markovian stochastic optimal control framework. By a slight modification of the fee structure, we show the existence of a bang-bang solution to the stochastic control problem: the optimal withdrawal strategy is among a few explicit choices. We consequently design a novel Least Squares Monte Carlo (LSMC) algorithm to approach the optimal solution. Convergence results are established for the algorithm by applying the theory of nonparametric sieve estimation. Compared with existing LSMCs, our algorithm possesses a number of advantages such as memory reduction, preserving convexity and monotonicity of the continuation value, reducing the computational cost of the tuning parameter selection, and evading extrapolating value function estimate. Finally, we prove that the obtained pricing result works as an upper bound of the no-arbitrage price of Polaris with the real fee structure. Numerical experiments show that this upper bound is fairly tight.

Soil organic carbon variability in Australian temperate freshwater wetlands

AbstractGlobally, there is little information on freshwater (non‐tidal) wetland below ground soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, sequestration rates and, in particular, their within‐wetland variation. This basic information is critical for designing programs to sample SOC stocks and identifying areas that sequester large amounts of carbon so that they can be managed to prevent degradation and carbon loss. Here, focusing on temperate seasonally inundated freshwater wetlands in south‐eastern Australia, we compared SOC stocks and sequestration rates (via radiometric dating) among wetlands, within wetland locations (High water mark, Edge and Middle), and with adjacent terrestrial locations. SOC stocks varied most among wetlands but also varied inconsistently within wetlands. Wetland SOC stocks (20.4 ± 0.1 kg C m−2) were significantly greater than adjacent terrestrial locations (13.3 ± 0.1 kg C m−2). Wetland SOC sequestration rates were similar among all locations (i.e., within a wetland, ranging from 70 g C m−2 yr−1 to 87 g C m−2 yr−1). The relative lack of difference in SOC stocks among wetland locations allows for reduced within‐wetland sampling and subsequently greater replication at the wetland level, at least for temperate ephemeral freshwater wetlands, although these findings need to be confirmed over a range of wetland types. This study also produced the first estimates of temperate freshwater wetland SOC stocks and sequestration rates in Australia, and is among the first studies globally to demonstrate that seasonally inundated wetlands can sequester carbon at significant rates. It therefore provides important justification to support the protection and rehabilitation of temperate freshwater wetlands worldwide.

Predominant Atmospheric and Oceanic Patterns during Coastal Marine Heatwaves

As the mean temperatures of the worlds oceans increase, it is predicted that marine heatwaves (MHWs) will occur more frequently and with increased severity. However, it has been shown that variables other than increases in sea water temperature have been responsible for MHWs. To better understand these mechanisms driving MHWs we have utilised atmospheric (ERA-Interim) and oceanic (OISST, AVISO) data to examine the patterns around southern Africa during coastal (<400 m from the low water mark; measured in situ) MHWs. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) was first used to determine that the atmospheric and oceanic states during MHW are different from daily climatological states. Self-organising maps (SOMs) were then used to cluster the MHW states into one of nine nodes to determine the predominant atmospheric and oceanic patterns present during these events. It was found that warm water forced onto the coast via anomalous ocean circulation was the predominant oceanic pattern during MHWs. Warm atmospheric temperatures over the subcontinent during onshore or alongshore winds were the most prominent atmospheric patterns. Roughly one third of the MHWs were clustered into a node with no clear patterns, which implied that they were not forced by a recurring atmospheric or oceanic state that could be described by the SOM analysis. Because warm atmospheric and/or oceanic temperature anomalies were not the only pattern associated with MHWs, the current trend of a warming earth does not necessarily mean that MHWs will increase apace; however, aseasonal variability in wind and current patterns was shown to be central to the formation of coastal MHWs, meaning that where climate systems shift from historic records, increases in MHWs will likely occur.

A Hybrid Digital Watermarking Approach Using Wavelets and LSB

The present paper proposed a novel approach called Wavelet based Least Significant Bit Watermarking (WLSBWM) for high authentication, security and copyright protection. Alphabet Pattern (AP) approach is used to generate shuffled image in the first stage and Pell’s Cat Map (PCM) is used for providing more security and strong protection from attacks. PCM applied on each 5×5 sub images. A wavelet concept is used to reduce the dimensionality of the image until it equals to the size of the watermark image. Discrete Cosign Transform is applied in the first stage; later N level Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is applied for reducing up to the size of the watermark image. The water mark image is inserted in LH&lt;sub&gt;n&lt;/sub&gt; Sub band of the wavelet image using LSB concept. Simulation results show that the proposed technique produces better PSNR and similarity measure. The experimental results indicate that the present approach is more reliable and secure efficient.The robustness of the proposed scheme is evaluated against various image-processing attacks.

Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw: Animals, Language, Sensation

Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw: Animals, Language, Sensation

Counterpoint to Agardy

[Extract] It is hard to counter the perspective discussed by Tundi Agardy when the evidence she presents is so compelling and the peer-reviewed publications that she cites strengthen her concerns. So my comments below are limited to addressing a few of Tundi's specific points. Protecting the best possible area, provided it is managed effectively, can still achieve a lot for marine conservation. Readers may not be aware that when the inshore boundary of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Region was proclaimed in 1975, the formal boundary description was along the coastline of Queensland at low water. Low water mark constantly moves because of erosion and accretion, and is frequently underwater, so mapping it is impractical.

Hermesorchestia alastairi gen. et sp. nov. from Australia (Talitridae: Senticaudata: Amphipoda: Crustacea)

The new talitrid amphipod genus Hermesorchestia is established for one new species from Australia, H. alastairi, common to the beaches of Tasmania. Hermesorchestia gen. nov. is typified by the sexually dimorphic males which have palmate lobes on the carpus and propodus of gnathopod 1, a three dimensional merus article on pereopod 7 and expanded posterior margin of pereopod 7 carpus. Other characters which define H. alastairi gen. et sp. nov. are the male pereopod 6 expanded merus and carpus, pereopod 7 basis posterior expansion, merus shape both medial and facial, carpus posterior expansion and the shape and setation of the telson. Hermesorchestia alastairi gen. et sp. nov. is a documented burrower (sand-hopper), living in sand dunes above the high water mark.

CaMEL and ADCIRC Storm Surge Models—A Comparative Study

The Computation and Modeling Engineering Laboratory (CaMEL), an implicit solver-based storm surge model, has been extended for use on high performance computing platforms. An MPI (Message Passing Interface) based parallel version of CaMEL has been developed from the previously existing serial version. CaMEL uses hybrid finite element and finite volume techniques to solve shallow water conservation equations in either a Cartesian or a spherical coordinate system and includes hurricane-induced wind stress and pressure, bottom friction, the Coriolis effect, and tidal forcing. Both semi-implicit and fully-implicit time stepping formulations are available. Once the parallel implementation is properly validated, CaMEL is evaluated against ADCIRC, an established storm surge model, using a hindcast of storm surge due to Hurricane Katrina. Observed high water marks are used to verify that both models have comparable accuracy. The effects of time step on the stability and accuracy of the models are investigated and indicate that the semi- and fully-implicit solvers in CaMEL allow the use of larger timesteps than ADCIRC’s explicit and semi-implicit solvers. However, ADCIRC outperforms CaMEL in parallel scalability and execution wall clock times. Wall times of CaMEL improve significantly when the largest stable time step sizes are used in respective models, although ADCIRC still is faster.

Foraminifera reveal a shallow nearshore origin for overwash sediments deposited by Tropical Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu (South Pacific)

Tropical cyclone inundation is a major threat to the highly exposed islands of the South Pacific. This vulnerability was highlighted in March 2015 when Tropical Cyclone (TC) Pam made landfall on Vanuatu as a Category 5 storm, impacting coastlines with storm surges that produced high water marks up to 7m above mean sea level (MSL) and deposited overwash sediments up to 400m inland. We examined the foraminiferal assemblages contained within TC Pam sediments at two locations in Vanuatu: a mixed-carbonate embayment at Manuro on Efate Island and a volcaniclastic beach at Port Resolution Bay on Tanna Island. At Manuro, the TC Pam sediments were up to 10cm thick and composed of coarse to medium sand that contained abundant foraminifera (955 to 2015 individuals per 5cm3) and fragments of corals and mollusks. At Port Resolution Bay, TC Pam sediments were up to 44cm thick and composed of medium sand-sized volcaniclastics with low to moderate abundances of foraminifera (27 to 206 individuals per 5cm3). TC Pam sediments could be discriminated from underlying units by a sharp basal contact, an abrupt decrease in organic matter, and an increase in the concentration of foraminifera. Foraminiferal assemblages between the two sites varied in terms of taxonomy and taphonomy. At both sites, the TC Pam assemblage was generally dominated by intertidal (e.g., Amphistegina spp., Baculogypsina sphaerulata, Calcarina mayori, Elphidium spp., Pararotalia spp.) and subtidal (e.g., Peneroplis pertusus, Quinqueloculina spp.) foraminifera that are characteristic of beach, reef flat, and reef crest environments. The TC Pam assemblage at Manuro was characterized by individuals that were dominantly unaltered (i.e., pristine), but also those that showed signs of abrasion (including edge rounded fragments). By contrast, TC Pam sediments at Port Resolution Bay contained fewer unaltered and more corraded (i.e., combined influence of corrosion and abrasion) foraminifera. We compared modern surface foraminiferal distributions with those from TC Pam sediments to assess provenance. Partitioning Around a Medoid (PAM) cluster analysis discriminated six subenvironments within the modern coastal zone: open bay, forereef, reef crest, reef flat, mangrove, and beach. Discrete intervals sampled from TC Pam sediments at Manuro were individually clustered with the surface samples and revealed a shallow nearshore to supratidal (reef crest to beach; −4.9 to 1.3m above MSL) source for the sand.

Genomic admixture tracks pulses of economic activity over 2,000 years in the Indian Ocean trading network

The Indian Ocean has long been a hub of interacting human populations. Following land- and sea-based routes, trade drove cultural contacts between far-distant ethnic groups in Asia, India, the Middle East and Africa, creating one of the world’s first proto-globalized environments. However, the extent to which population mixing was mediated by trade is poorly understood. Reconstructing admixture times from genomic data in 3,006 individuals from 187 regional populations reveals a close association between bouts of human migration and trade volumes during the last 2,000 years across the Indian Ocean trading system. Temporal oscillations in trading activity match phases of contraction and expansion in migration, with high water marks following the expansion of the Silk Roads in the 5th century AD, the rise of maritime routes in the 11th century and a drastic restructuring of the trade network following the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century. The economic fluxes of the Indian Ocean trade network therefore directly shaped exchanges of genes, in addition to goods and concepts.

Assessing the role of mangrove forest in reducing coastal inundation during major hurricanes

A vegetation-resolving CH3D-SWAN surge–wave modeling system is used to examine the role of mangroves and salt marshes along the shore of Biscayne Bay in buffering surge, wave, and inundation in Southeast Florida during Hurricane Andrew (1992). First, the 3D vegetation-resolving model is validated by comparing the simulated and measured high water marks from post-hurricane field survey, debris lines, and time series of water level at the Haulover Pier. The simulated water levels and magnitude and extent of maximum inundation agree well with the observed data, whereas the removal of vegetation from the model leads to massive flooding with increased total inundation volume and total inundation area in the highly populated low-lying area behind the Biscayne Bay. Additional simulations show that the surge–wave–inundation buffering capacity of the mangrove forest depends on the vertical structure of the wetted leaf area index, A_{text{w}} and the frontal leaf area index, A_{text{f}}. The study demonstrates the capability of CH3D-SWAN in quantifying the role of mangroves in buffering storm surge, wave, and inundation, and demonstrates its potential application for assessing the effectiveness of coastal wetland restoration projects. Meanwhile, the accurate representation of vegetation’s vertical structure can enhance the numerical modeling of flow–vegetation interaction processes.

A golden age of general relativity? Some remarks on the history of general relativity

This article deals with the concepts “renaissance” and “low water mark between 1925 and 1955” of general relativity suggested in the literature. By empirical data, it is shown that no such period did exist. Research on general relativity continued continuously since the 1920s interrupted only by the second world war. On a broad scale, research on general relativity started only after 1945.

Semi-fragile Image Authentication based on CFD and 3-bit Quantization

There is a great adventure of watermarking usage in the context of conventional authentication since it does not require additional storage space for supplementary metadata. However, JPEG compression, being a conventional method to compress images, leads to exact authentication breaking. We discuss a semi-fragile watermarking system for digital images tolerant to JPEG/JPEG2000 compression. Recently we have published a selective authentication method based on Zernike moments. But unfortunately it has large computational complexity and not sufficiently good detection of small image modifications. In the current paper it is proposed (in contrast to Zernike moments approach) the usage of image finite differences and 3-bit quantization as the main technique. In order to embed watermark (WM) into the image, some areas of the Haar wavelet transform coefficients are used. Simulation results show a good resistance of this method to JPEG compression with CR≤30% (Compression Ratio), high probability of small image modification recognition, image quality assessments PSNR≥40 dB (Peak signal-to-noise ratio) and SSIM≥0.98 (Structural Similarity Index Measure) after embedding and lower computation complexity of WM embedding and extraction. All these properties qualify this approach as effective.

A new approach for digital image watermarking to predict optimal blocks using artificial neural networks

In this paper, we propose a novel nonblind digital image watermarking based on discrete wavelet transform and singular value decomposition. This robust scheme takes advantage of artificial neural networks for selecting suitable image blocks in which the watermark signal can be embedded. Local characteristics of the blocks such as luminance and texture sensitivity are the main criteria that the selections are based on. Generally, selection is based on a prediction of the results with the objective of transparency and watermark resilience. In other words, before embedding the water mark signal, it is estimated which blocks would be the best for embedding the signals to achieve the desired robustness and quality. Simulation results confirm the superiority of the proposed scheme in terms of the transparency of the images as well as robustness under various kinds of attacks.

"You can be a Catholic if you want": Protestant Social Capital and Catholic Education in the Antebellum Era

Contrary to the hostile receptions that greeted elite Catholic schools in the Northeast, Catholic institutions of higher education in Missouri, Kentucky, and Arkansas were often welcomed enthusiastically by their respective communities. Situated in an area of the country where access to higher education was limited, schools like St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville, Missouri provided valuable access to social capital in the form of a classical education. Furthermore, letters from students and parents to these schools demonstrate that a Protestant child converting to Catholicism while away at school was sometimes met with acceptance by parents rather than the outrage one might expect. At a time of social transformation in American society, "credentials" in the form of a college or academy education increasingly became necessary to enter the ranks of the rising middle class. Yet even during the high water mark of anti-Catholicism in the antebellum North, frontier families became increasingly attracted to the elite cache a convent school education could provide for their children. Convent schools and seminaries, in turn, took pains to market themselves in a Protestant republic.

Variable Annuities with High Water Mark Withdrawal Benefit

In this paper, we develop a continuous-time model for variable annuities allowing for periodic withdrawals proportional to the high water mark of the underlying account value as well as early surrender of the policy. We derive a HJB variational inequality characterizing the minimal superhedging price of such a contract and the worst-case policyholder behavior from an issuer's perspective. Based on these results, we construct a dynamic trading strategy which superreplicates the contract. In addition, we show how early surrender has to be penalized to disincentivize a worst-case policyholder from using this option. To treat the problem numerically, we develop a semi-Lagrangian scheme based on a discretization of the underlying noise process.

Deterministic Approach to Identify Ordinary High Water Marks Using Hydrologic and Hydraulic Attributes

AbstractHydraulic design and environmental permitting require the knowledge of ordinary high water marks (OHWMs) because they determine the federal jurisdictional limits over nontidal waters. The U...