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This work investigated the effect of Fe/Mn ratio on the microstructure and mechanical properties of non-equimolar Fe80−xMnxCo10Cr10 (x = 30% and 50%) high-entropy alloys (HEAs) fabricated by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing. Process optimization was conducted to achieve fully dense Fe30Mn50Co10Cr10 and Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 HEAs using a volumetric energy density of 105.82 J·mm−3. The LPBF-printed Fe30Mn50Co10Cr10 HEA exhibited a single face-centered cubic (FCC) phase, while the Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 HEA featured a hexagonal close-packed (HCP) phase within the FCC matrix. Notably, the fraction of HCP phase in the Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 HEAs increased from 0.94 to 28.10%, with the deformation strain ranging from 0 to 20%. The single-phase Fe30Mn50Co10Cr10 HEA demonstrated a remarkable combination of high yield strength (580.65 MPa) and elongation (32.5%), which surpassed those achieved in the FeMnCoCr HEA system. Comparatively, the dual-phase Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 HEA exhibited inferior yield strength (487.60 MPa) and elongation (22.3%). However, it displayed superior ultimate tensile strength (744.90 MPa) compared to that in the Fe30Mn50Co10Cr10 HEA (687.70 MPa). The presence of FCC/HCP interfaces obtained in the Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 HEA resulted in stress concentration and crack expansion, thereby leading to reduced ductility but enhanced resistance against grain slip deformation. Consequently, these interfaces facilitated an earlier attainment of yield limit point and contributed to increased ultimate tensile strength in the Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 HEA. These findings provide valuable insights into the microstructure evolution and mechanical behavior of LPBF-printed metastable FeMnCoCr HEAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the rationale and the protocol of the first component of the third simulation round of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3a, http://www.isimip.org , last access: 2 November 2023) and the associated set of climate-related and direct human forcing data (CRF and DHF, respectively). The observation-based climate-related forcings for the first time include high-resolution observational climate forcings derived by orographic downscaling, monthly to hourly coastal water levels, and wind fields associated with historical tropical cyclones. The DHFs include land use patterns, population densities, information about water and agricultural management, and fishing intensities. The ISIMIP3a impact model simulations driven by these observation-based climate-related and direct human forcings are designed to test to what degree the impact models can explain observed changes in natural and human systems. In a second set of ISIMIP3a experiments the participating impact models are forced by the same DHFs but a counterfactual set of atmospheric forcings and coastal water levels where observed trends have been removed. These experiments are designed to allow for the attribution of observed changes in natural, human, and managed systems to climate change, rising CH 4 and CO 2 concentrations, and sea level rise according to the definition of the Working Group II contribution to the IPCC AR6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehending the correlation between alterations in human‐flood distance and flood fatalities (as well as displacements) is pivotal for formulating effective human adaptive strategies in response to floods. However, this relationship remains inadequately explored in existing global analyses. To address this gap, we examine 910 flood events occurring from 2000 to 2018, resulting in significant numbers of fatalities and displacements. We find that in 53% of countries, humans tend to distance from floods, particularly in the Middle East. Such distancing greatly mitigates flood fatalities and displacements. Simultaneously, in areas with increased flood protection level (FPL), humans are less likely to move away from floods. Furthermore, FPL and human‐flood distance have decreased in regions affected by ice jam‐ and hurricane‐induced floods from 2000 to 2018. Notably, regions with human‐flood distance slightly below the average for a given flood type experience more severe flood fatalities. Plain Language Summary: People have developed effective ways (i.e., distancing from flood and increasing flood protection level) to adapt and minimize the impact of catastrophic floods on exposed populations. However, the relationship between these behaviors and flood fatalities (as well as displacements) is not well understood on a global scale. To address this knowledge gap, we study 910 flood events that occurred between 2000 and 2018, leading to significant fatalities and displacements. We find that in 53% of countries, people tend to move away from flood‐affected areas, especially in the Middle East. This distancing behavior greatly reduces the number of fatalities and displaced individuals caused by floods. Additionally, in areas with higher flood protection level, people are less likely to relocate away from floods. Over the studied period, both flood protection levels and the distance between humans and flood‐prone areas have decreased in regions affected by ice jam‐ and hurricane‐induced floods. Importantly, regions where the distance between humans and floods is slightly below the average for a given flood type experience more severe flood fatalities. These findings could help improve the efficiency of flood control management and the adoption of adaptive policies. Key Points: 53% of countries witnessed humans distancing themselves from floods between 2000 and 2018, especially those in the Middle EastHumans distancing from the floods leads to a substantial reduction in both flood fatalities and flood displaced populationHumans residing in regions with a high flood protection level tend not to move away from the flood [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Tropical Geography is the property of Tropical Geography Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Precipitation extremes are expected to increase by 7% per degree of warming according to the Clausius–Clapeyron (CC) relation. However, this scaling behavior is inappropriate for high temperatures and short-duration precipitation extremes. Here, daily data from 702 stations during 1951–2014 and hourly data from 8 stations during 2000–15 are used to examine and explain this behavior in China. Both daily and hourly precipitation extremes exhibit an increase in temperature dependency at lower temperatures. The CC scaling transitions from positive to negative rates with temperatures greater than 25°C. Unlike the increase in daily data, which is similar to single-CC (1CC) scaling, the increase in hourly data resembles super-CC (2CC) scaling for temperatures greater than 13°C. Results show that the precipitation extremes are controlled by water vapor for a given temperature. At lower temperatures, precipitation extremes exhibit a positive linear dependence on daily actual vapor pressure whose value is almost equal to the saturated vapor pressure at a given temperature. At higher temperatures, actual vapor pressure has difficulty maintaining a consistent increasing rate because of the exponential increasing of the saturated vapor pressure. Higher temperatures result in larger vapor pressure deficits, which lead to sharp decreases in precipitation extremes. Similar scaling behaviors are obtained in 10 river basins over China, where the breaking point temperature increases from 17°C along the northwest inland area to 25°C along the southeast coast. These behaviors demonstrate that precipitation extremes are firmly linked to temperature when there is sufficient moisture at lower temperatures and limited by insufficient moisture at higher temperatures. Overall, precipitation extreme events require more attention in a warming climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and its potential threats on water security call for reliable predictions of evapotranspiration (ET) and runoff Q at different time scales, but current knowledge of the differences in their predictability between humid and nonhumid regions is limited.Based on spatially distributed catchments inChina, the authors characterized their predictability and provided plausible explanations. Using the Budyko framework, it was confirmed that annualET is predictable in nonhumid regions but less predictable in humid regions, and annualQ is predictable in humid regions but less reliable in nonhumid regions. Themain cause of the varied predictability lies in the variation of water storage change DS in the water balance equation. It affects both the estimation and the variability ofQin nonhumid catchmentsmore than that in humid catchments, which increases the challenge of predicting annual Q in nonhumid regions, while the opposite effect occurs in annual ET prediction between humid and nonhumid catchments.Moreover, the differences between the controlling factors of ET variability in different regions add more differences in their predictability. The dominant control of precipitation makes it easy to predict annual ET in nonhumid regions. By contrast, precipitation, potential evaporation, and their covariance take considerable effort to determine annualETvariations,which leads to less reliableETestimation and predictability in humid catchments. Therefore, one can accurately predict annual ET in nonhumid catchments andQ in humid catchments based on commonly used hydrological models.With proper consideration of ΔS, the predictability of annual ET and Q in both humid and nonhumid catchments can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on AMS 14C dating data, carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses were conducted on mammal bone collagen of deer, cattle and pigs from the Zhongba site in the Three Gorges Reservoir region of the Yangtze River. These analyses were conducted to reconstruct palaeodiets of mammals, palaeoecology, palaeoenviroment and previous human activities in the study area. Results show that the collagen loss of bone did not change the in vivo isotopic composition of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes, and most of the bone fossils were well preserved. The bone collagen of samples from deer had a mean δ 13C of -23.1‰ and a mean δ15N of 4.7‰, suggesting that deer subsisted in a closed habitat and fed on branches and leaves. The bone collagen of cattle had a mean δ13C of -19.6‰ and a mean δ15N of 5.2‰, which indicates that cattle subsisted in an open habitat and fed on grasses and 13 stems. The δ13C values show that both deer and cattle fed on C3 plants and lived in the same ecosystem, but the t-test results show that deer δ13C and δ15N values were both more negative than those of cattle, indicating that they inhabited different niches. The δ13C and δ15N values of cattle partially overlapped those of deer, suggesting some competition in diets between them. The t-tests show that the δ13C and δ15N values of pigs were more positive than those of cattle and deer, which signifies that pigs occupied a higher trophic level compared to cattle and deer. The wide range of pig δ13C values demonstrates that pig trading had been taking place from early Neolithic Age to late Bronze Age. There were no significant differences in deer δ13C and δ15N values among different archaeological periods, making it clear that climatic, ecological and environmental conditions were kept relatively stable from 2200 to 4200 a BP. This stability may have been responsible for the extensive and complete cultural layers at the Zhongba site. The minimum number of samples required to estimate the mean δ13C and values of deer, pigs and cattle are 8, 73 and 16, respectively, and for mean δ15N values of deer, pigs and cattle, the minimum numbers are 4, 5 and 6, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the application of multi-channel ground-penetrating radar (GPR) at a permafrost site in the Tibetan Plateau to explore spatial variations in thaw depth and moisture content in the active layer in China. Measurements were conducted on an area with surface bare soil to finer textured, thinly vegetated areas covered with fine and wind blown gravel road. The study shows the complicated interactions between surface and subsurface state variables in this environment.

A review was conducted on the environmental evolvement and environmental archaeological research since the 1980s in the Yangtze Delta. Former environmental evolvement and environmental archaeological research results can be summed up into 4 aspects: 1) Formation and evolution of the Taihu Lake; 2) Transgression and sea-level changes in the Holocene epoch; 3) Reconstruction of the pre-historical environment; and 4) Impacts of environmental variations on the rise and fall of human civilization (formation of the cultural interruptions). Based on this review, some limitations in the present research methods and possible outcomes are pointed out in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 400 000 years, the pattern of climatic change in the southern African sector of the southern hemisphere is shown to have followed in broad outline that defined by the Vostock ice-core sequence. Regional-local differences are apparent in the inshore ocean sediment core record taken from the continental shelf off Namibia and probably relate to little-understood local processes. Clear evidence of precessional Milankovitch forcing of climate is evident for the subcontinent over the last 200 000 years. The Last Glacial Maximum was cool and dry over most of non-equatorial southern Africa, when the semi-permanent subtropical anticyclone dominating the atmospheric circulation was displaced equatorward. At the time, Lake Victoria was dry. Post-glacial warming culminated in the Holocene altithermal, which reached its maximum earlier than 6000 BP. Lake Victoria began to fill rapidly and overflowed at around 7500 B.P. Rapid speciation of local fishes occurred in the lake at an unprecedented rate. Over the last 6000 years, robust, spatially representative high-resolution speleothem records from the summer rainfall region of the southern part of the subcontinent reveal that a high degree of variability prevailed on centennial to decadal scales. Abrupt changes, often over decades, are a feature of the record. Whereas maximum heating in the altithermal occurred before 6000 BP, the greatest extent of grass cover characterized the landscape at around 2400-2000 BP. In the last six millennia, the most pronounced and sustained event was the five centuries of cooling during the Little Ice Age from AD 1300 to 1800. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies were done on new geomorphological and quaternary-geological profiles through representative reliefs of Tibet from the Central Himalaya as far as the Kuenlun. Thus, further detailed investigations on the prehistoric glaciation could be carried out. Youngest historical to neoglacial ice margin positions could be recorded. Their mapping took place in a downward direction from the modern glacier margins. They confirm snow line (ELA) depressions from decametres up to ca. 100–250 m. At distances of several kilometres to many decakilometres (depending on the relief) from the modern glaciers, névé shields and perennial snow fields, end moraines and later just remnants of lateral moraines and kame complexes of the Late Glacial (ca. Stadia IV-II) have been localized in an increasing disrupted succession and samples have been taken. The recorded, inter- and extrapolated lowest ice margin positions allowed the reconstruction of accompanying depressions of the snow line which, due to the altitude of the Tibetan plateau plains, attained a maximum of 400–700 m. Accordingly, the early Late Glacial (Stadia I to II) and High Glacial glacier traces (Riss or pre-LGM and Würm or LGM = Stadia −I and/or 0) occurred over a horizontal distance of 1620 km across the plateau with an average height of 4700 m asl without showing the key forms of ice margin positions. From the profiles introduced here, running from Mt. Everest/Cho Oyu (Central Himalaya) in the SE via Gertse (Kaitse; Central Tibet) as far as the Lingzi Thang and Aksai Chin and from there into the Kuenlun, as well as from a parallel section of the Gurla Mandhata (central S Tibet) to the currently very arid Nako Tso, located centrally in the W, sediment samples have been analysed which provide evidence for a ground moraine genesis. Thus, the macroscopic field observations are confirmed. Only the relatively small basin of Shiquanha (Ali) – like the Indus valley chamber of Leh – may have been free of ice during the High Glacial (LGM). Forms of glacial horns, as well as roches moutonnées and large, several metres-high round-polished mountain ridges with slight debris covers, flank polishings, abraded mountain spurs at intermediate valley ridges and high-lying erratics document the widespread ice cover. Important ice thicknesses of at least 1300–1400 m have been recognized by means of transfluences. Especially by and in the Nako Tso (lake) the limnic undercutting of roches moutonnées provides evidence only of a postglacial filling into a primary glacial relief. The glacial ice cover (with the LGM at the end) testified here for a further area of Tibet, is the foundation of the relief-specific hypothesis on the development of the Ice Ages, based on the global radiation geometry: accordingly, the last great geological event, the early Pleistocene plate-tectonically induced uplift of Tibet above the snow line, has brought about a glaciation which, owing to its high albedo, reflected the subtropical radiation energy into space, so that it could not be exploited for the heating of the atmosphere. This may have triggered the Ice Ages. The repeated interglacial warming-up is to be reduced to the positive radiation anomalies by the variations of the parameters of the earth''s orbit – which take place rhythmically – and the overlying glacio-isostatic lowering of Tibet and the other inland ice areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results presented on the glacio-geomorphological reconstruction of a maximum Ice Age (LGM = Last Glacial Maximum) glaciation in High-Asia concern five test-areas in and around Tibet (Figure 1, Nos. 14, 6, 17, 2, 9, 18, 16). For the E-Pamir plateau and its mountains a covering ice cap is proved; a snow-line (ELA)-depression of 820–1250 m in relation to the present relief has been calculated. The Ice Age snow-line ran at 3750–3950 m asl. In the Nanga Parbat-massif a glacial (LGM) ice-stream network with a snow-line altitude (ELA) at c. 3400– 3600 m has been reconstructed. This corresponds to an ELA-depression of at least 1200 m. The lowest ice margin site of the connected 1800–1900 m-thick Indus glacier flowed down to c. 800 m asl. From N-Tibet the author introduces further observations of ground moraines and erratics from a high plateau area he had already investigated in 1981. They provide evidence of a complete inland ice sheet in Tibet. From the S edge of Tibet six large outlet glacier systems i.e. lowest High Glacial ice margin sites of the Himalaya ice-stream network are reconstructed. This is a continuation of the investigations in 1977, 1978, 1982, 1984, 1988 and 1989 between Kangchendzönga in the E and Nanda Devi in the W. In this place probably the lowest glacial glacier end of the Himalaya-S-slope was found at c. 460 m asl at the Dumre settlement, S of the Manaslu. C14-datings from the Tsangpo valley on the S edge of Central Tibet classify the reconstructed Tibetan ice as being from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) between older than 48580 ± 4660–2930 and 9820 ± 350 YBP. From this empirical findings and inductive results on the Ice Age Tibetan glaciation are derived deductive conclusions on the interaction of the relief and the snow-line altitude with concern to the ice cover. Modelling by means of those snow-line depressions and estimations of the precipitation provide ideas about surface heights, ice thicknesses and flow behaviour of the ice sheet. The hypothesis of a global triggering of the ice age by the uplift of the subtropical Tibet up to above the snow-line motivates the investigations presented here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the rituals involved in wall construction in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of China. Since the building of a settlement wall required the involvement of most of the residents and the settlement gate was used as a public place, such rituals were probably conducted in public without any restrictions on the participants. During the Longshan period, when early states first formed in China, these ritual activities became increasingly elaborate and more humans were sacrificed. The people who were sacrificed were probably captives caught during warfare. Sacrificing enemies in public rituals can reinforce ethnic identity, which is conducive to the ideological formation of an early state. KEYWORDS: walled site, ritual, human sacrifice, social conflict, early state, China., INTRODUCTION ARCHAEOLOGISTS ANALYZE RITUAL ACTIVITIES to investigate the emergence of power and hierarchical organizations in ancient societies. However, most studies on ritual strategies of the formative states in China focus [...]

This article examines the production of prestige goods in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age (Erlitou and Erligang Cultures) of China, focusing on procurement of raw material, and on manufacture, redistribution, and consumption of ritual objects made of jade, white pottery, and bronze. During the Neolithic period elite groups in several regions may have been directly involved in jade manufacture, which facilitated the formation of interaction networks based on shared cosmological concepts and aesthetic values. The elite enhanced their personal status by controlling ritual power, which was based on access to prestige goods and esoteric knowledge. During the early Bronze Age ritual vessels made of white pottery and bronze entered the inventory of prestige goods. These new types of ritual objects best facilitated the ancestor-worship ceremony, which was the ideological basis for politically legitimizing the ruling lineages. The process of bronze production and distribution, monopolized by the highest elite in the primary center (core), formed the backbone of the political hierarchy, enabling the development of a centralized political economy. These fundamental political and economic changes taking place in the Erlitou Culture indicate the transition from pre-state to state societies in north China. KEYWORDS: prestige goods, ritual objects, Neolithic, Bronze Age, state formation, China., THE EARLIEST PRESTIGE ITEMS, as the first indications of emerging social inequality, although rarely found, may be traced back to as early as the Middle Palaeolithic. During the Upper Palaeolithic [...]