Lubrication of mechanical systems using water instead of conventional oil lubricants is extremely attractive from the view of resource conservation and environmental protection. However, insufficient film thickness of water due to low viscosity and chemical reaction of water with metallic materials have been a great obstacle in utilization of water as an effective lubricant. Herein, the frictio...

The development of seismic vulnerability evaluation standards for reinforced concrete buildings in Japan is briefly reviewed. Damage statistics are shown to indicate that severe damage was observed in a relatively small percentage of existing buildings even after damaging earthquakes in the world. Therefore, a simple screening procedure is necessary to identify such vulnerable buildings out of ...

There has been an increase in the occurrence of sudden local flooding of great volume and short duration caused by heavy or excessive rainfall intensity over a small area, which presents the greatest potential danger threat to the natural environment, human life, public health and property, etc. Such flash floods have rapid runoff and debris flow that rises quickly with little or no advance war...

1 Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, Deutsches Zentrum für Luftund Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Weßling, Germany 2 Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland 3 Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), University of Bremen, Germany 4 Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Dept. Regional and Global Pollution Issues, Kjeller, Norway * now at: Laboratory fo...

Changing climatic conditions have led to a significant increase in the magnitude and frequency of extreme rainfall events in the Central Andes of South America. These events are spatially extensive and often result in substantial natural hazards for population, economy and ecology. Here we develop a general framework to predict extreme events by introducing the concept of network divergence on ...

In the second half of the last century the attitude with respect to foreign investment has changed, and the role of this investment on development of Latin-American economies has become crucial. A fierce competition is taking place among these countries in a even more integrated region where environmental policies have become one of the suitable instruments to manage the perturbations on welfar...