In this study, we attempt to illustrate the competition that constitutes the main challenge of astrobiology, namely the competition between the probability of extraterrestrial life and its detectability. To illustrate this fact, we propose a simple statistical approach based on our knowledge of the Universe and the Milky Way, the Solar System, and the evolution of life on Earth permitting us to...

This work gives a detailed analysis of the relative performance between the recently installed Earth Simulator and systems built using Alpha processors. The Earth simulator is based on the NEC SX-6 vector processing node interconnected using a single-stage cross-bar network, whereas the HP AlphaServer nodes use superscalar microprocessors and are interconnected using the Quadrics fat-tree netwo...

‘Is there life on exoplanets?’. We refer to exoplanets as planets in other solar systems than our own. This often asked question can be further refined by asking ‘is there life on exoplanets which is so extensive that it may impact on its atmosphere, its biosphere and its optical properties?’. And if such a life exists, at astronomical distances from us, can we detect it with instruments on Ear...

This study documents the Earth radiation budget as simulated by the latest version of the National Center for Atmospheric Research community climate model (CCM2). The validation of the simulated Earth radiation budget is carried out through comparison with Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data. The study also documents the new cloud parameterization employed by CCM2. In general, the rad...

Rare earth elements (REs) consist of a very important group in the periodic table that is vital to many modern technologies. The mining process, however, is extremely damaging to the environment, making them low yield and very expensive. Therefore, mimicking the properties of REs in a superatom framework is especially valuable but at the same time, technically challenging and requiring advanced...

Introduction: The giant impact hypothesis [1,2] is the cornerstone of current lunar formation research. However, recent analyses of the elemental and isotopic composition of lunar samples show degrees of similarity between Moon and Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE) that are inconsistent with hydrodynamic models of the Moon-forming giant impact showing 60-90% of the Moon is made up of impactor rather th...

Development of high fidelity earth system models is important to the understanding of earth system science. Along with several decades of active developments, the complexity of the model’s software structure became a barrier that hinders model interpretation and further improvements. In this paper, a web-based visual analytic system is introduced to better understand the software structure of C...

The Doctorate in Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering has been formed in the academic year 2008/2009 as a result of an effort of the previous departmental doctorates to merge their subjects in a culturally unified vision, where the environment is the common background. In this sense water, its physical behaviour in a natural and in a built context, is a primary constituent of the enviro...

Earth-Shelter construction is one of the aspects in architecture where the thermal mass of the earth behind the outer walls are applied in order to reduce heat loss and keep the internal temperature at human comfort range. In case of earth-shelter buildings, housing is especially important. As for its applicability the earth-shelter provides good housing. Typological studies of earth-shelter co...