bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Where Are You From? Why Are You Here? An African Perspective on Global Warming
Authors: Philander S. George
Published: April 2009

Global warming, although usually associated with imminent environmental disasters, also presents splendid opportunities for research and education and for collaboration between the rich and the poor that will benefit both groups. Unfortunately, efforts to take advantage of these opportunities are handicapped by the misperception that scientific disputes concerning imminent global climate changes have been settled—that the science “is over”—in addition to a failure to appreciate that some people face problems more urgent than adaptation to and mitigation of the climate changes scientists predict. Changes over the past few decades in the way we conduct our affairs in the Earth sciences, specifically the atmospheric and oceanic sciences, contribute to these misunderstandings. This is a subjective, personal account of those changes.
Rivers, Lakes, Dunes, and Rain: Crustal Processes in Titan's Methane Cycle
Authors: Lunine Jonathan I. , Lorenz Ralph D.
Published: April 2009

Titan exhibits ample surface and crustal processes including lakes and seas, fluvial erosive features, possibly subsurface reservoirs of liquid, and rainfall. Together these constitute strong evidence for a multicomposition hydrological system, composed mostly of methane and ethane as well as trace amounts of other alkanes. Estimates of the volume of liquid methane required in streams and rainfall to produce erosional features suggest that these could be relatively recent phenomena, perhaps periodically renewed as the overall climate cycles between dry and wet periods. The end state of the longer-term chemical processing of methane in the upper atmosphere is expressed on the surface in the form of deposits of solid organics organized into dunes, and lighter hydrocarbons such as ethane (in the lakes), acetylene, and other hydrocarbons and nitriles. The long-term evolution of the methane cycle may have involved episodic resupply of methane to the surface or gradual depletion of a larger surface reservoir of methane, but in either case, removal of large amounts of ethane from the surface remains an unresolved problem.
The Hadean Crust: Evidence from >4 Ga Zircons
Authors: Harrison T. Mark
Published: April 2009

A review of continental growth models leaves open the possibilities that Earth during the Hadean Eon (∼4.5–4.0 Ga) was characterized by massive early crust or essentially none at all. Without support from the rock record, our understanding of pre-Archean continental crust must largely come from investigating Hadean detrital zircons. We know that these ancient zircons yield relatively low crystallization temperatures and some are enriched in heavy oxygen, contain inclusions similar to modern crustal processes, and show evidence of silicate differentiation at ∼4.5 Ga. These observations are interpreted to reflect an early terrestrial hydrosphere, early felsic crust in which granitoids were produced and later weathered under high water activity conditions, and even the possible existence of plate boundary interactions—in strong contrast to the traditional view of an uninhabitable, hellish world. Possible scenarios are explored with a view to reconciling this growing but fragmentary record with our knowledge of conditions then extant in the inner solar system.
Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide
Authors: Archer David , Eby Michael , Brovkin Victor , Ridgwell Andy , Cao Long , Mikolajewicz Uwe , Caldeira Ken , Matsumoto Katsumi , Munhoven Guy , Montenegro Alvaro , Tokos Kathy
Published: April 2009

CO2 released from combustion of fossil fuels equilibrates among the various carbon reservoirs of the atmosphere, the ocean, and the terrestrial biosphere on timescales of a few centuries. However, a sizeable fraction of the CO2 remains in the atmosphere, awaiting a return to the solid earth by much slower weathering processes and deposition of CaCO3. Common measures of the atmospheric lifetime of CO2, including the e-folding time scale, disregard the long tail. Its neglect in the calculation of global warming potentials leads many to underestimate the longevity of anthropogenic global warming. Here, we review the past literature on the atmospheric lifetime of fossil fuel CO2 and its impact on climate, and we present initial results from a model intercomparison project on this topic. The models agree that 20–35% of the CO2 remains in the atmosphere after equilibration with the ocean (2–20 centuries). Neutralization by CaCO3 draws the airborne fraction down further on timescales of 3 to 7 kyr.
The Tectonic Framework of the Sumatran Subduction Zone
Authors: McCaffrey Robert
Published: April 2009

The great Aceh-Andaman earthquake of December 26, 2004 and its tragic consequences brought the Sumatran region and its active tectonics into the world's focus. The plate tectonic setting of Sumatra has been as it is today for tens of millions of years, and catastrophic geologic events have likely been plentiful. The immaturity of our understanding of great earthquakes and other types of geologic hazards contributed to the surprise regarding the location of the 2004 earthquake. The timing, however, is probably best understood simply in terms of the inevitability of the infrequent events that shape the course of geologic progress. Our best hope is to improve understanding of the processes involved and decrease our vulnerability to them.
Feedbacks, Timescales, and Seeing Red
Authors: Roe Gerard
Published: April 2009

Feedback analysis is a powerful tool for studying the Earth system. It provides a formal framework for evaluating the relative importance of different interactions in a dynamical system. As such, its application is essential for a predictive or even a mechanistic understanding of the complex interplay of processes on the Earth. This paper reviews the basic principles of feedback analysis and tries to highlight the importance of the technique for the interpretation of physical systems. The need for clear and consistent definitions when comparing different interactions is emphasized. It is also demonstrated that feedback analyses can shed light on how uncertainty in physical processes translates into uncertainty in system response, and that the strength of the feedbacks has a very tight connection to the dynamical response time of the system.
The Fin to Limb Transition: New Data, Interpretations, and Hypotheses from Paleontology and Developmental Biology
Authors: Clack Jennifer A.
Published: April 2009

After a brief historical review of the fin to limb transition and consideration of a theoretical “prototetrapod,” this article considers new ideas generated from recent fossil finds and from developmental biology that bear on the question of how limbs, digits, limb joints, and pentadactyly evolved. Among the first changes to take place were those to the humerus, in concert with those to the breathing apparatus, and these adaptations were acquired while the animals were still basically aquatic with the evolution of digits occurring during this phase. Studies from developmental biology of modern taxa can be integrated with information from fossils to produce a fuller picture. The acquisition of pentadactyly was among the last changes to occur in the modification of a fin into a limb. This vision differs radically from older theoretical ideas which perceived land locomotion as the prime evolutionary force driving the transition.
Tracking Euxinia in the Ancient Ocean: A Multiproxy Perspective and Proterozoic Case Study
Authors: Lyons Timothy W. , Anbar Ariel D. , Severmann Silke , Scott Clint , Gill Benjamin C.
Published: April 2009

The evolution and extinction of life are tied intimately to the oxygen state of the ocean, and particularly to the presence of anoxic and H2S-containing (euxinic) water on a global scale. Anoxia and euxinia were more common in the past, relative to today's <0.5% euxinic seafloor. We are able to constrain the distributions of these conditions through a combination of indirect numerical modeling methods and more direct geochemical proxies, with particular emphasis on Fe-S-Mo analysis of fine-grained siliciclastic rocks for the latter. Establishing the spatiotemporal pattern of oceanic redox is more difficult with very old rocks because of the limited availability of well-dated, well-preserved materials that span shallow and deep environments across time lines. Despite these difficulties, the multiple approaches synthesized in our case study point to global oxygen-deficiency in the deep ocean and perhaps euxinia during most, if not all, of the Proterozoic and likely extending into the early Paleozoic.
Microbial Transformations of Minerals and Metals: Recent Advances in Geomicrobiology Derived from Synchrotron-Based X-Ray Spectroscopy and X-Ray Microscopy
Authors: Templeton Alexis , Knowles Emily
Published: April 2009

The field of geomicrobiology has embraced efforts to define and quantify the role of microbial organisms in low-temperature geochemical processes. However, any mechanistic understanding of the interactions between microbial organisms and minerals or metals requires analytical tools with the appropriate chemical sensitivity and spatial resolution. In the past several years, increasing application of nanometer-, micron-, and bulk-scale synchrotron-based X-ray techniques has provided new insights regarding the feedbacks among microbial growth, mineral dissolution, redox transformations, and biomineralization processes. In this review, recent findings derived from X-ray absorption spectroscopy, X-ray microprobe mapping, and X-ray microscopy studies are integrated to provide a new view of the dynamic biogeochemistry occurring at the microbe-mineral interface.
Stat3 Expression and Its Correlation with Proliferation and Apoptosis/Autophagy in Gliomas
Authors: Caldera Valentina , Mellai Marta , Annovazzi Laura , Valente Guido , Tessitore Luciana , Schiffer Davide
Published: April 2009

Signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 (Stat3) was studied along with several steps of the PI3/Akt pathway in a series of 64 gliomas that included both malignant and low-grade tumors, using quantitative immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, and molecular biology techniques. The goal of the study was to investigate whether activated Stat3 (phospho-Stat3) levels correlated with cell proliferation, apoptosis, and autophagy. Stat3 and activated Akt (phospho-Akt) expression increased with malignancy grade, but did not correlate with proliferation and survival within the category of glioblastomas. A correlation of Stat3 with Akt was found, indicating a regulation of the former by the PI3/Akt pathway, which, in turn, was in relation with EGFR amplification. Stat3 and Akt did not show any correlation with apoptosis, whereas they showed an inverse correlation with Beclin 1, a stimulator of autophagy, which was rarely positive in glioblastomas. Autophagy seems then to be inactivated in malignant gliomas.
Holographic Polymer‐Dispersed Liquid Crystals: Materials, Formation, and Applications
Authors: Liu Y. J. , Sun X. W.
Published: April 2009

By combining polymer‐dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) and holography, holographic PDLC (H‐PDLC) has emerged as a new composite material for switchable or tunable optical devices. Generally, H‐PDLC structures are created in a liquid crystal cell filled with polymer‐dispersed liquid crystal materials by recording the interference pattern generated by two or more coherent laser beams which is a fast and single‐step fabrication. With a relatively ideal phase separation between liquid crystals and polymers, periodic refractive index profile is formed in the cell and thus light can be diffracted. Under a suitable electric field, the light diffraction behavior disappears due to the index matching between liquid crystals and polymers. H‐PDLCs show a fast switching time due to the small size of the liquid crystal droplets. So far, H‐PDLCs have been applied in many promising applications in photonics, such as flat panel displays, switchable gratings, switchable lasers, switchable microlenses, and switchable photonic crystals. In this paper, we review the current state‐of‐the‐art of H‐PDLCs including the materials used to date, the grating formation dynamics and simulations, the optimization of electro‐optical properties, the photonic applications, and the issues existed in H‐PDLCs.
CFD Analysis on the Effect of Radial Gap on Impeller‐Diffuser Flow Interaction as well as on the Flow Characteristics of a Centrifugal Fan
Authors: Karanth K. Vasudeva , Sharma N. Yagnesh
Published: April 2009

The flow between the impeller exit and the diffuser entry (i.e., in the radial gap is generally considered to be complex). With the development of PIV and CFD tools such as moving mesh techniques, it is now possible to arrive at a prudent solution compatible with the physical nature of flow. In this work, numerical methodology involving moving mesh technique is used in predicting the real flow behavior, as exhibited when a target blade of the impeller is made to move past corresponding vane on the diffuser. Many research works have been undertaken using experimental and numerical methods on the impeller‐diffuser interactive phenomenon. It is found from the literature that the effect of radial gap between impeller and diffuser on the interaction and on the performance of the fan has not been the focus of attention. Hence numerical analysis is undertaken in this work to explore and predict the flow behavior due to the radial gap. This has revealed the presence of an optimum radial gap which could provide better design characteristics or lower loss coefficient. It is found that there is a better energy conversion by the impeller and enhanced energy transformation by the diffuser, corresponding to optimum radial gap. The overall efficiency also found to increase for relatively larger gap.
Soluble E-Cadherin: An Early Marker of Severity in Acute Pancreatitis
Authors: Sewpaul A. , French J. J. , Khoo T. K. , Kernohan M. , Kirby J. A. , Charnley R. M.
Published: April 2009

Background/Aims. At present, there is no simple test for predicting severity in acute pancreatitis. We investigated the use of an assay of soluble E-cadherin (sE-cadherin).Methods. Concentrations of sE-cadherin, from 19 patients with mild acute pancreatitis, 7 patients with severe acute pancreatitis, 11 patients with other acute gastrointestinal pathologies, and 12 healthy subjects were measured using a commercially available sandwich ELISA kit based on two monoclonal antibodies specific to the extracellular fragment of human E-cadherin. Measurements were made at 12 hours or less from onset of pain and also at 24 and 48 hours after onset of pain.Results. Mean (standard deviation) concentration of sE-cadherin in patients with severe acute pancreatitis at 12 hours was 17780 ng/mL (7853), significantly higher than that of healthy volunteers 5180 ng/mL (1350), , patients with other gastrointestinal pathologies 7358 ng/mL (6655), , and also significantly higher than that of patients with mild pancreatitis, 7332 ng/mL (2843), .Discussion. Serum sE-cadherin could be an early (within 12 hours) objective marker of severity in acute pancreatitis. This molecule warrants further investigation in the form of a large multicentre trial.
Regularized F‐Measure Maximization for Feature Selection and Classification
Authors: Liu Zhenqiu , Tan Ming , Jiang Feng
Published: April 2009

Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis is a common tool for
assessing the performance of various classifications. It gained much popularity in medical and other fields including biological markers and, diagnostic test. This is particularly due to the fact that in real‐world problems
misclassification costs are not known, and thus, ROC curve and related utility
functions such as F‐measure can be more meaningful performance measures.
F‐measure combines recall and precision into a global measure. In this paper, we propose a novel method through regularized F‐measure maximization.
The proposed method assigns different costs to positive and negative samples and does simultaneous feature selection and prediction with L1 penalty. This method is useful especially when data set is highly unbalanced, or the
labels for negative (positive) samples are missing. Our experiments with the
benchmark, methylation, and high dimensional microarray data show that the performance of proposed algorithm is better or equivalent compared with the other popular classifiers in limited experiments.
Diagnostic de la cholestase néonatale
Authors: Girard Muriel , Lacaille Florence
Published: April 2009

Une cholestase est fréquente chez les nouveau-nés (1/2500 naissances vivantes) et les jeunes enfants. Elle relève de nombreuses étiologies et son pronostic est parfois péjoratif. En cas de cholestase néonatale, le point le plus important est d’examiner la couleur des selles et d’exclure une atrésie des voies biliaires, qui nécessite un traitement chirurgical avant le 45ème jour de la vie. L’atrésie des voies biliaires représente près de 50% des cas de cholestase néonatale, les autres causes étant nombreuses. Certains cas peuvent être traités avec succès, par exemple une tyrosinémie de type I ou des erreurs innées de la synthèse des acides biliaires. Il n’existe cependant aucun traitement spécifique dans la majorité des cas, et la maladie évolue vers une cirrhose ou une insuffisance hépatique nécessitant une transplantation hépatique. De nos jours, les résultats de la transplantation hépatique sont bons, mais il s’agit d’une intervention difficile avec de fréquents effets indésirables. Dans le futur, une analyse et une meilleure connaissance des mécanismes des différentes affections cholestatiques pourraient permettre le développement d’autres traitements tels une transplantation de cellules hépatiques ou une thérapie génique, ouvrant de nouvelles perspectives pour les enfants atteints.
Prise en charge nutritionnelle des syndromes cholestatiques chez l’enfant
Authors: Socha Piotr
Published: April 2009

Une hépatopathie cholestatique expose à un risque sévère de malnutrition, en particulier protéino-énergétique avec des carences nutritionnelles spécifiques. L’état nutritionnel peut être évalué sur la base de mesures anthropométriques, qui peuvent être trompeuses en cas de présence d’une ascite et d’œdèmes périphériques. Les mesures biochimiques du statut des vitamines liposolubles sont importantes afin d’évaluer les besoins. Sur la base de l’évaluation du statut nutritionnel, un traitement nutritionnel doit être planifié selon un calendrier bien défini. Le principe fondamental de la prise en charge nutritionnelle est de corriger le statut nutritionnel et de réduire le risque de carence en nutriments. Les enfants atteints de cholestase nécessitent habituellement un apport énergétique supplémentaire qui peut être obtenu en accroissant la densité énergétique des aliments ou en ajoutant des polymères de glucose et des lipides. La croissance de rattrapage nécessite habituellement une augmentation des apports protéiques. Une supplémentation en vitamines liposolubles mérite une attention particulière car il n’est pas facile de corriger un statut médiocre en vitamine E. L’administration parentérale de vitamine K est nécessaire chez certains enfants. Jusqu’à récemment, une vitamine E hydrosoluble (succinate de d-α-tocophéryl polyéthylène glycol 1000) administrée par voie orale était utilisée avec un effet thérapeutique satisfaisant. Alors que l’hépatopathie progresse vers une insuffisance hépatique dans de nombreuses maladies cholestatiques, le traitement nutritionnel peut souvent être considéré comme un relais dans l’attente d’une transplantation hépatique afin d’améliorer le pronostic. De ce fait, un soutien nutritionnel intensif est justifié dans les hépatopathies sévères et comprend habituellement une alimentation nocturne par sonde nasogastrique ou même une nutrition parentérale.
“It Don't Gitmo Better”: Scenes from the Coney Island Waterboarding Thrill Ride
Authors: Brady Sara
Published: April 2009

A reflection on Coney Island's Waterboarding Thrill Ride, an animatronic installation by Steve Powers that gives viewers a chance to experience the Bush administration—approved “enhanced interrogation technique”—and for only a dollar, folks!
Fashioning Hybridity
Authors: Garelick Rhonda
Published: April 2009

In the summer of 2008, French performance artist ORLAN launched a large-scale political, psychoanalytic, and philosophical meditation on the roles of artist and spectator in the installation Suture, Hybridization, Recyclage, bringing together a new kind of biogenetic fusion process; work by young Spanish designer David Delfin (Davidelfin); a text by philosopher Michel Serres; and furniture by designer Philippe Starck.
De/visualizing Calligraphic Archaeology: Qiu Zhijie's Total Art
Authors: Cheng Meiling
Published: April 2009

Chinese multimedia artist Qiu Zhijie's “total art” exhibition, The Ataraxic of Zhuang Zi, combines cultural fieldwork, historical documentation, sociological investigation, and cross-media artworks to intervene into the disturbing phenomenon that has turned the Nanjing Yangzi River Bridge into China's most popular suicide location.
Performing Gender at the Beginning of Modern Chinese Theatre
Authors: Liu Siyuan
Published: April 2009

In the early twentieth century, female impersonators in Japan's first Western-style theatre, shinpa (new school drama), employed gender performance conventions based on kabuki onnagata and European melodramatic techniques. Shinpa performers influenced the performance of gender in early Chinese spoken drama. Chinese student actors emulated shinpa conventions in Tokyo and popularized them in Shanghai in the 1910s, where they were accepted as being accurate enactments of modern women.
Performing and Supplicating Mānik Pīr: Infrapolitics in the Domain of Popular Islam
Authors: Ahmed Syed Jamil
Published: April 2009

Rituals and performances supplicating Mānik Pīr, a Sufi culture-hero venerated in isolated rural pockets of western Bangladesh and southern West Bengal (India), function as “infrapolitics” of the subaltern classes in the domain of “popular Islam.” A substantial segment of popular (“folk”) culture of the subaltern classes articulates disguised ideological insubordination critiquing the dominant classes.
On the Relationship between the North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the Surface-Forced Overturning Streamfunction
Authors: Grist Jeremy P. , Marsh Robert , Josey Simon A.
Published: April 2009

The influence of surface thermohaline forcing on the variability of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) at mid–high latitudes is investigated using output from three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) coupled climate models. The method employed is an extension of the surface-forced streamfunction approach, based on water mass transformation theory, used in an earlier study by Marsh (2000). The maximum value of the MOC at 48°N is found to have a significant lagged relationship with the maximum surface-forced streamfunction in the region north of 48°N with a surface density greater than σ0 = 27.5 kg m−3. This correlation peaks when the index of the surface-forced streamfunction leads the MOC by 2–4 yr, depending on the coupled model considered. A method for estimating the MOC variability solely from the surface forcing fields is developed and found to be in good agreement with the actual model MOC variability in all three of the models considered when a past averaging window of 10 yr is employed. This method is then applied with NCEP–NCAR reanalysis surface flux fields for the period 1949–2007 to reconstruct MOC strength over 1958–2007. The reconstructed MOC shows considerable multidecadal variability but no discernible trend over the modern observational era.
Climatology of Warm Rain and Associated Latent Heating Derived from TRMM PR Observations
Authors: Kodama Yasu-Masa , Katsumata Masaki , Mori Shuichi , Satoh Sinsuke , Hirose Yuki , Ueda Hiroaki
Published: April 2009

The large-scale distribution of precipitation and latent heating (LH) profiles in the tropics, subtropics, and part of the midlatitudes was studied using a 9-yr dataset derived from Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission precipitation radar observations, with emphasis on the contribution of warm rain. The distribution of warm rain showed features unique from those of rain in other categories and those of outgoing longwave radiation. Warm rain was weak over land but widely distributed over oceans, especially along the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and the western part of the subtropical oceans. The observed amount of warm rain depended on the rainfall intensity rather than on the frequency of warm rain events. The amount of warm rain over ocean was positively correlated with sea surface temperature (SST); this dependency was found in the tropics, subtropics, and part of the midlatitudes, whereas dependency of SST on total rain was confined to the tropics. Both total rain and warm rain were concentrated in the ITCZ, which elongated along the local SST maximum. Small amounts of warm rain were found along subtropical convergence zones (the baiu frontal zone and subtropical portions of the South Pacific convergence zone and the South Atlantic convergence zone) with ample total rainfall. However, larger amounts of warm rain were observed at the lower-latitude sides of these zones in the upstream portions of low-level moisture flow toward the zones. Warm rain may cultivate the subtropical convergence zones by deepening the moist boundary layer and increasing moisture flux toward the zones. The statistical relationship between warm rain and low-level cloudiness showed that the warm rain amount was large when low-level cloudiness was 20%–30% and small when low-level cloudiness was greater than 40%. This indicates that intense warm rain is provided by convective clouds, not by stratiform clouds, in conditions of substantial cloudiness. Despite the small contribution to total rain, warm rain maintained positive LH values over most of the tropical and subtropical oceans. The LH by warm rain masked low-level cooling observed in stratiform rain and maintained positive LH in the lower atmosphere below the melting layer. Because warm rain was confined to oceans, a strong LH contrast was maintained along the coast; this contrast reached values of 1–2 K day−1 in certain places and may affect local and monsoonal circulation across continental coasts.
Rainfall Teleconnections with Indo-Pacific Variability in the WCRP CMIP3 Models
Authors: Cai Wenju , Sullivan Arnold , Cowan Tim
Published: April 2009

The present study assesses the ability of climate models to simulate rainfall teleconnections with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD). An assessment is provided on 24 climate models that constitute phase 3 of the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (WCRP CMIP3), used in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The strength of the ENSO–rainfall teleconnection, defined as the correlation between rainfall and Niño-3.4, is overwhelmingly controlled by the amplitude of ENSO signals relative to stochastic noise, highlighting the importance of realistically simulating this parameter. Because ENSO influences arise from the movement of convergence zones from their mean positions, the well-known equatorial Pacific climatological sea surface temperature (SST) and ENSO cold tongue anomaly biases lead to systematic errors. The climatological SSTs, which are far too cold along the Pacific equator, lead to a complete “nonresponse to ENSO” along the central and/or eastern equatorial Pacific in the majority of models. ENSO anomalies are also too equatorially confined and extend too far west, with linkages to a weakness in the teleconnection with Hawaii boreal winter rainfall and an inducement of a teleconnection with rainfall over west Papua New Guinea in austral summer. Another consequence of the ENSO cold tongue bias is that the majority of models produce too strong a coherence between SST anomalies in the west, central, and eastern equatorial Pacific. Consequently, the models’ ability in terms of producing differences in the impacts by ENSO from those by ENSO Modoki is reduced.

Similarly, the IOD–rainfall teleconnection strengthens with an intensification of the IOD relative to the stochastic noise. A significant relationship exists between intermodel variations of IOD–ENSO coherence and intermodel variations of the ENSO amplitude in a small subset of models in which the ENSO anomaly structure and ENSO signal transmission to the Indian Ocean are better simulated. However, using all but one model (defined as an outlier) there is no systematic linkage between ENSO amplitude and IOD–ENSO coherence. Indeed, the majority of models produce an ENSO–IOD coherence lower than the observed, supporting the notion that the Indian Ocean has the ability to generate independent variability and that ENSO is not the only trigger of the IOD. Although models with a stronger IOD amplitude and rainfall teleconnection tend to have a greater ENSO amplitude, there is no causal relationship; instead this feature reflects a commensurate strength of the Bjerknes feedback in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The Ocean’s Role in Continental Climate Variability and Change
Authors: Dommenget Dietmar
Published: April 2009

A characteristic feature of global warming is the land–sea contrast, with stronger warming over land than over oceans. Recent studies find that this land–sea contrast also exists in equilibrium global change scenarios, and it is caused by differences in the availability of surface moisture over land and oceans. In this study it is illustrated that this land–sea contrast exists also on interannual time scales and that the ocean–land interaction is strongly asymmetric. The land surface temperature is more sensitive to the oceans than the oceans are to the land surface temperature, which is related to the processes causing the land–sea contrast in global warming scenarios. It suggests that the ocean’s natural variability and change is leading to variability and change with enhanced magnitudes over the continents, causing much of the longer-time-scale (decadal) global-scale continental climate variability. Model simulations illustrate that continental warming due to anthropogenic forcing (e.g., the warming at the end of the last century or future climate change scenarios) is mostly (80%–90%) indirectly forced by the contemporaneous ocean warming, not directly by local radiative forcing.
Optimal Estimation of the Climatological Mean
Authors: Narapusetty Balachandrudu , DelSole Timothy , Tippett Michael K.
Published: April 2009

This paper shows theoretically and with examples that climatological means derived from spectral methods predict independent data with less error than climatological means derived from simple averaging. Herein, “spectral methods” indicates a least squares fit to a sum of a small number of sines and cosines that are periodic on annual or diurnal periods, and “simple averaging” refers to mean averages computed while holding the phase of the annual or diurnal cycle constant. The fact that spectral methods are superior to simple averaging can be understood as a straightforward consequence of overfitting, provided that one recognizes that simple averaging is a special case of the spectral method. To illustrate these results, the two methods are compared in the context of estimating the climatological mean of sea surface temperature (SST). Cross-validation experiments indicate that about four harmonics of the annual cycle are adequate, which requires estimation of nine independent parameters. In contrast, simple averaging of daily SST requires estimation of 366 parameters—one for each day of the year, which is a factor of 40 more parameters. Consistent with the greater number of parameters, simple averaging poorly predicts samples that were not included in the estimation of the climatological mean, compared to the spectral method. In addition to being more accurate, the spectral method also accommodates leap years and missing data simply, results in a greater degree of data compression, and automatically produces smooth time series.
Bias Adjustment of Satellite Precipitation Estimation Using Ground-Based Measurement: A Case Study Evaluation over the Southwestern United States
Authors: Boushaki Farid Ishak , Hsu Kuo-Lin , Sorooshian Soroosh , Park Gi-Hyeon , Mahani Shayesteh , Shi Wei
Published: April 2009

Reliable precipitation measurement is a crucial component in hydrologic studies. Although satellite-based observation is able to provide spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation, the measurements tend to show systematic bias. This paper introduces a grid-based precipitation merging procedure in which satellite estimates from the Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks–Cloud Classification System (PERSIANN–CCS) are adjusted based on the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) daily rain gauge analysis. To remove the bias, the hourly CCS estimates were spatially and temporally accumulated to the daily 1° × 1° scale, the resolution of CPC rain gauge analysis. The daily CCS bias was then downscaled to the hourly temporal scale to correct hourly CCS estimates. The bias corrected CCS estimates are called the adjusted CCS (CCSA) product. With the adjustment from the gauge measurement, CCSA data have been generated to provide more reliable high temporal/spatial-resolution precipitation estimates. In the case study, the CCSA precipitation estimates from the proposed approach are compared against ground-based measurements in high-density gauge networks located in the southwestern United States.
The Contribution of Eastern North Pacific Tropical Cyclones to the Rainfall Climatology of the Southwest United States
Authors: Corbosiero Kristen L. , Dickinson Michael J. , Bosart Lance F.
Published: April 2009

Forty-six years of summer rainfall and tropical cyclone data are used to explore the role that eastern North Pacific tropical cyclones (TCs) play in the rainfall climatology of the summer monsoon over the southwestern United States. Thirty-five TCs and their remnants were found to bring significant rainfall to the region, representing less than 10% of the total number of TCs that formed within the basin. The month of September was the most common time for TC rainfall to occur in the monsoon region as midlatitude troughs become more likely to penetrate far enough south to interact with the TCs and steer them toward the north and east. On average, the contribution of TCs to the warm-season precipitation increased from east to west, accounting for less than 5% of the rainfall in New Mexico and increasing to more than 20% in southern California and northern Baja California, with individual storms accounting for as much as 95% of the summer rainfall. The distribution of rainfall for TC events over the southwest United States reveals three main categories: 1) a direct northward track from the eastern Pacific into southern California and Nevada, 2) a distinct swath northeastward from southwestern Arizona through northwestern New Mexico and into southwestern Colorado, and 3) a broad area of precipitation over the southwest United States with embedded maxima tied to terrain features. Differences in these track types relate to the phasing between, and scales of, the trough and TC, with the California track being more likely with large cutoff cyclones situated off the west coast, the southwest–northeast track being most likely with mobile midlatitude troughs moving across the intermountain west, and the broad precipitation category generally exhibiting no direct interaction with midlatitude features.
Verification of Extratropical Cyclones within the NCEP Operational Models. Part I: Analysis Errors and Short-Term NAM and GFS Forecasts
Authors: Charles Michael E. , Colle Brian A.
Published: April 2009

This paper verifies extratropical cyclones around North America and the adjacent oceans within the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) and North American Mesoscale (NAM) models during the 2002–07 cool seasons (October–March). The analyzed cyclones in the Global Forecast System (GFS) model, North American Mesoscale (NAM) model, and the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) were also compared against sea level pressure (SLP) observations around extratropical cyclones. The GFS analysis of SLP was clearly superior to the NAM and NARR analyses. The analyzed cyclone pressures in the NAM improved in 2006–07 when its data assimilation was switched to the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI).

The NCEP GFS has more skillful cyclone intensity and position forecasts than the NAM over the continental United States and adjacent oceans, especially over the eastern Pacific, where the NAM has a large positive (underdeepening) bias in cyclone central pressure. For the short-term (0–60 h) forecasts, the GFS and NAM cyclone errors over the eastern Pacific are larger than the other regions to the east. There are relatively large biases in cyclone position for both models, which vary spatially around North America. The eastern Pacific has four to eight cyclone events per year on average, with errors >10 mb at hour 48 in the GFS; this number has not decreased in recent years. There has been little improvement in the 0–2-day cyclone forecasts during the past 5 yr over the eastern United States, while there has been a relatively large improvement in the cyclone pressure predictions over the eastern Pacific in the NAM.
Diagnosis of the Initial and Forecast Errors in the Numerical Simulation of the Rapid Intensification of Hurricane Emily (2005)
Authors: Pu Zhaoxia , Li Xuanli , Zipser Edward J.
Published: April 2009

A diagnostic study is conducted to examine the initial and forecast errors in a short-range numerical simulation of Hurricane Emily’s (2005) early rapid intensification. The initial conditions and the simulated hurricane vortices using high-resolution grids (1 and 3 km), generated from the Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (ARW) model and its three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) systems, are compared with the flight-level data acquired from the U.S. Air Force C-130J aircraft data.

Numerical simulation results show that the model fails at predicting the actual rapid intensification of the hurricane, although the initial intensity of the vortex matches the observed intensity. Comparing the model results with aircraft flight-level data, unrealistic thermal and convective structures of the storm eyewall are found in the initial conditions. In addition, the simulated eyewall does not contract rapidly enough during the model simulation. Increasing the model’s horizontal resolution from 3 to 1 km can help the model to produce a deeper storm and also a more realistic eye structure. However, even at 1 km the model is still not able to fully resolve the inner-core structures.

To provide additional insight, a set of mesoscale reanalyses is generated through the assimilation of available satellite and aircraft dropsonde data into the ARW model throughout the whole simulation period at a 6-h interval. It is found that the short-range numerical simulation of the hurricane has been greatly improved by the mesoscale reanalysis; the data assimilation helps the model to reproduce stronger wind, thermal, and convective structures of the storm, and a more realistic eyewall contraction and eye structure.

Results from this study suggest that a more accurate representation of the hurricane vortex, especially the inner-core structures in the initial conditions, is necessary for a more accurate forecast of hurricane rapid intensification.
Universities–Industry Links and Regional Development in Japan
Authors: Kitagawa Fumi
Published: April 2009

The development of a new research system in Japan throughout the 1990s is seemingly leading to the emergence of new relationships and systems of innovation, in which new university-industry links have been sought as a means to stimulate regional economic growth. This article examines the changing roles of universities against the current policy and institutional landscapes in Japan, given the recent university reforms, the concentration of resources to ‘elite’ institutions, and the ‘regionalisation’ of science and innovation policies. The variety of forms of university-industry linkages and spatial relationships that universities are developing are illustrated, and organisational challenges in order to connect excellence and relevance at the institutional level are identified
Developing Entrepreneurial Universities in Taiwan
Authors: Hu Mei-Chih
Published: April 2009

This article investigates the evolving University–Industry–Government (UIG) linkages pattern in Taiwan, a latecomer catch-up country in terms of its late technology development and pursuing a targeted strategy of catch-up. The focus is on the funding sources available to universities and on their significance in defining the essentials of operating entrepreneurial universities. The results demonstrate that both public and private funding sources are important for assisting the build of entrepreneurial universities to reinforce such linkages, but their effects are divergent. The essential role of private research funding is not determined by the amount of funding, but is rather one of a guide to fill in the gaps in technological development between universities and industries. In comparison, public funding is a pre-requisite to and catalyst in attracting private research funding to bridge the gaps between university and industry research and to correct the misalignment of its impacts. The results also suggest that the UIG linkages available to an entrepreneurial university are closely associated with patterns of regional innovation and industrial development.
Capacity Building for University–Industry Linkages in Developing	Countries
Authors: Schiller Daniel , Brimble Peter
Published: April 2009

The aim of this article is to analyse the impact of academic capacity building on university–industry–linkages (UILs) and to identify a set of critical success factors to guide improvements of university–industry knowledge transfers in developing countries. Extensive empirical evidence from a unique case of academic institution building and efforts to improve UILs in the context of a developing country—the Thai Higher Education Development Project (HEDP)—is used. Since the Thai HEDP combines the enhancement of both core academic missions and UIL activities within newly founded centres, it provides an interesting case study to support the cross-fertilization of ideas and academic entrepreneurship.

The article is organised as follows: (i) A generic overview of UILs in Thailand is presented to place the establishment and evolution of the centres into perspective; (ii) The quantitative relevance of UILs at the centres is measured and considered by looking at their sources of income generation; (iii) Approaches and best practices of the centres towards UILs are discussed with the help of qualitative analysis; (iv) The empirical results are used to identify critical success factors for UILs, and their potential for cross-fertilisation of academic tasks in developing countries.
The Role of Triple Helix for Promoting Social Capital, Industrial Technology	and Innovation in the SME Sector in Thailand
Authors: Yokakul Nattaka , Zawdie Girma
Published: April 2009

This article aims to look into the Triple Helix system as a basis for promoting social capital formation, innovation and exchange of best practice. It argues that the process of industrial innovation will be limited where there is little or no scope for institutional development, networking and social capital development. The article also seeks to evaluate the performance of policy in Thailand, in terms of influencing the major actors of the Triple Helix to work together and contribute towards the development of the culture of networking, collaboration and sharing of best industrial practices using the case of a traditional but potentially creative industry—the Thai dessert industry.
Explosion hardening of Hadfield steel crossing
Authors: Zhang F. C. , Lv B. , Wang T. S. , Zheng C. L. , Zhang M. , Luo H. H. , Liu H. , Xu A. Y.
Published: April 2009

In the present paper the effects of explosion hardening on the microstructure and the mechanical properties as well as the lifetime of Hadfield steel (high manganese steel) crossing have been studied. The optimum explosion hardening technology of the high manganese steel crossing was proposed. That is twice explosion by using cyclonite explosive in thickness of 3 mm. The new technology emphasises the formation of a 25 mm deep hardened layer with surface hardness of 370 HB. Upon the explosion impact, the deformation mechanism of the material is found to follow in situ plastic deformation. The explosion hardening mechanisms of the high manganese steel crossing are dislocation and nanoscale deformation twin hardenings in the surface layer which is subjected to large deformation, and dislocation hardening in the subsurface layer which is subjected to small deformation. The explosion hardening enhances the mechanical properties of the material, included the deformation resistance, wear resistance and fatigue resistance, therefore, the lifetime of the high manganese steel crossing can be increased by ∼35% through the explosion hardening treatment.
Microstructure and compressive properties of NiAl–Cr(Mo)–Dy near eutectic alloy prepared by suction casting
Authors: Sheng L. Y. , Guo J. T. , Zhou L. Z. , Ye H. Q.
Published: April 2009

The NiAl–Cr(Mo) eutectic alloy doped with Dy was prepared by suction casting technique and its microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated. It is found that with the addition of Dy, the Ni5Dy phase is formed along the NiAl/Cr(Mo) phase boundary in the intercellular region. By the suction casting method, the microstructure of the alloy get well optimisation which can be characterised by the fine interlamellar spacing, high proportion of eutectic cell area and fine homogeneous distributed Ni5Dy phase. The compression test results reveal that the room temperature and high temperature mechanical properties of the suction cast alloy improve significantly, compared with the conventionally cast alloy.
Statistical analysis of tensile properties of cast A357/Al2O3 MMCs
Authors: Emamy M. , Razaghian A. , Kaboli S. , Campbell J.
Published: April 2009

An analysis of the statistical distribution of the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of cast Al2O3 containing aluminium matrix composite and its matrix alloy (A357) was carried out using different volume fractions of alumina particles (0, 5, 10 15 and 20%). The scatter of UTS data was assessed by the use of two parameter Weibull analysis. Results for the matrix alloy and metal matrix composites in the heat treated condition (T6) were compared. It was found that the addition of reinforcing particles to the matrix alloy resulted in lower UTS and ductility and increased scatter of results. Weibull modulus of cast MMC rods was found to be about 22 in the matrix alloy, falling to six in the 20% alumina MMC. Fractographic examinations of lower strength specimens showed that oxide films and the consequent porosity play an important role in fracture. The future potential, if MMCs can be manufactured without entrained oxides, is seen to be exciting.