• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.393-403
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• 2021

A comprehensive knowledge of the wind flow in hilly terrains is of great interest in many engineering applications, be it wind energy distribution for suitable site selection for wind farms, pollution dispersion, forest fire propagation or agrometerological studies. Several researchers have shown that wind flow over a hilly terrain may be significantly different when compared with the wind flow over a flat terrain. Complex hilly terrains may alter the wind speed to a great extent. Therefore, this effect of terrain must be properly assessed by designers and planners to arrive at a proper wind flow distribution. This paper reviews the work done in this area over the past three decades. Wind flow over two-dimensional hills and two-dimensional escarpments investigated in wind tunnels by various researchers is presented in this paper.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.178-184
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• 2020

Background: Geladas (Theropithecus gelada), endemic to Ethiopia, are distributed closely related to the escarpments and gorge systems of the country, and large populations are found in the Simien Mountain National Park. This study was conducted in Eastern Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, from February 2018 to August 2019 in order to determine population size and composition of geladas. Total count method was used to estimate the population structure of geladas. Observations of the group of geladas based on body size and morphological characteristics were used to classify age and sex categories of the population. SPSS Version 20 was used to analyze the data. Chi-square test was used to compare sex ratio of geladas and population size among the counting sites between wet and dry seasons. Results: A total of 112 and 99 individual of geladas were counted during wet and dry seasons, respectively. Of the average gelada population recorded in this study, 11.4% were adult males, 30.3% were adult females, 12.8% were sub-adult males, 25.6% were sub-adult females, and 19.9% were unidentified juveniles. However, there was no statistically significant difference among the various age and sex groups of geladas counted during wet and dry season (χ² = 2.6, DF = 4, P > 0.05). Variations of group size along seasons were observed in this study. Sex ratio of adult male to adult female was 1:2.6 and 1:2.7 during the dry and wet seasons, respectively. Conclusion: Very small gelada population size was recorded in the current study. An average of 105.5 geladas was recorded during the study period. As this is the first report of gelada population in escarpments of Eastern Tigray, population trend of the geladas cannot decide based on the current study.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.965-981
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• 2017

Stability of vertical escarpments has been the subject of discussion for long time. However, available literature provides scarce knowledge about the effect of the formation of undercut and surface cracks on the stability of a vertical escarpment. The present study deals with a systematic analysis of the effect of surface cracks and undercut on slope stability using finite element based lower bound limit analysis. In the present analysis, the non-dimensional stability factor (${\gamma}H/c$) is used to inspect the degrading effect of undercut and cracks developed at different offset distances from the edge of the vertical escarpment. Failure patterns are also studied in detail to understand the extent and the type of failure zone which may generate during the state of collapse.