Federal agencies integrate federal, state, and local political demands at the operational level of service delivery. They balance conflicting political demands and task requirements as they attempt to develop feasible enforcement routines capable of attracting support and resources in multiple arenas without undermining central support for budgetary resources and statutory authority. Our regression analysis of annual enforcement data from 1976 through 1983 for all 50 states indicates that even the relatively isolated enforcement procedures of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration respond significantly to state-level political and task differences. Enforcement activities responded most consistently to daily enforcement contacts with interest groups. State differences in task conditions—particularly workplace accident and unemployment rates—also elicited instrumental responses, while differences in the party and ideology of elected officials elicited more symbolic actions. State agencies, with their smaller size and greater flexibility, were even more responsive than the federal agency to political and task differences. This integrative function of bureaucracy needs further attention in democratic theory.

On Monday, May 12, 2008, a devastating mega-earthquake of magnitude 8.0 struck the Wenchuan area, northwestern Sichuan Province, China. The focal mechanism of the earthquake was successive massive rock fracturing 15 km in depth at Yingxiu. Seismic analysis confirms that the major shock occurred on the Beichuan-Yingxiu Fault and that aftershocks rapidly extended in a straight northeast-southeast direction along the Longmenshan Fault zone. Fatalities approaching a total of 15,000 occurred, with a significant number resulting from four types of seismically triggered geohazards-rock avalanches and landslides, landslide-dammed lakes (''earthquake lakes''), and debris flows. China Geological Survey has identified 4,970 potentially risky sites, 1,701 landslides, 1,844 rock avalanches, 515 debris flows, and 1,093 unstable slopes. Rock avalanches and landslides caused many fatalities directly and disrupted the transportation system, extensively disrupting rescue efforts and thereby causing additional fatalities. Landslide-dammed lakes not only flooded human habitats in upstream areas but also posed threats to potentially inundated downstream areas with large populations. Debris flows become the most remarkable geohazards featured by increasing number, high frequency, and low triggering rainfall. Earthquake-triggered geohazards sequentially induced and transformed to additional hazards. For example, debris flows occurred on rock avalanches and landslides, followed by landslide-dammed lakes, and then by additional debris flows and breakouts of the landslide-dammed lakes and downstream flooding. Earthquake-induced geohazards occurred mainly along the fault zone and decreased sharply with distance from the fault. It can be anticipated that post-earthquake geohazards, particularly for debris flows, will continue for 5-10 years and even for as long as 20 years. An integrated strategy of continuing emergency response and economic reconstruction is required. The lesson from Wenchuan Earthquake is that the resulted geohazards may appear in large number in active fault regions. A plan for geohazard prevention in the earthquake-active mountainous areas is needed in advance.

Impact forces associated with major debris flows (Jiangjia Ravine, China, August 25, 2004) were recorded in real time by a system consisting of three strain sensors installed at different flow depths. This provides the first real-time and long-duration record of impact forces associated with debris flows. A comprehensive approach including low-pass filtering and moving average methods were used to preprocess the recorded signals. The upper limit of impact frequency in the debris flows was estimated at 188•66 Hz under the assumption that only coarse grains cause effective impact loadings. Thus, a low-pass filter with a 200 Hz cut-off frequency was needed to denoise the original data in order to extract the impact force. Then the moving average method was applied to separate long-term and random components of the filtered data. These were interpreted as, respectively, the fluid pressure and grain impact loading. It was found that the peak grain impacts at different depths were non-synchronous within the debris flows. The impact loadings were far greater than, and not proportional to the fluid pressures. Analysis of the impact force of 38 debris flow surges gives an empirical value for the ratio of the hydrodynamic pressure to the momentum flow density, i.e. the product of debrisflow density and mean velocity square, which provides a very valuable basis for understanding debris flow dynamics and designing debris flow management systems.

Federal agencies integrate federal, state, and local political demands at the operational level of service delivery. They balance conflicting political demands and task requirements as they attempt to develop feasible enforcement routines capable of attracting support and resources in multiple arenas without undermining central support for budgetary resources and statutory authority. Our regression analysis of annual enforcement data from 1976 through 1983 for all 50 states indicates that even the relatively isolated enforcement procedures of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration respond significantly to state-level political and task differences. Enforcement activities responded most consistently to daily enforcement contacts with interest groups. State differences in task conditions—particularly workplace accident and unemployment rates—also elicited instrumental responses, while differences in the party and ideology of elected officials elicited more symbolic actions. State agencies, with their smaller size and greater flexibility, were even more responsive than the federal agency to political and task differences. This integrative function of bureaucracy needs further attention in democratic theory.

A novel chlorinated coumarin-malononitrile fluorescent probe with three potential reaction sites, which exhibited highly selective, rapid response, low detection limit, and was capable of the simultaneous detection of H2S (λex/em = 515/564 nm) and GSH (λex/em = 430/517 nm), was first proposed. The probe was successfully applied to dual-channel imaging H2S and GSH in MCF-7 cells.

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