WCRP surface radiation budget shortwave data product description, version 1.1

Shortwave radiative fluxes which reach the Earth's surface are key elements that influence both atmospheric and oceanic circulation. The World Climate Research Program has established the Surface Radiation Budget climatology project with the ultimate goal of determining the various components of the surface radiation budget from satellite data on a global scale. This report describes the first global product that is being produced and archived as part of that effort. The interested user can obtain the monthly global data sets free of charge using e-mail procedures

Using Synchronic and Diachronic Relations for Summarizing Multiple Documents Describing Evolving Events

In this paper we present a fresh look at the problem of summarizing evolving events from multiple sources. After a discussion concerning the nature of evolving events we introduce a distinction between linearly and non-linearly evolving events. We present then a general methodology for the automatic creation of summaries from evolving events. At its heart lie the notions of Synchronic and Diachronic cross-document Relations (SDRs), whose aim is the identification of similarities and differences between sources, from a synchronical and diachronical perspective. SDRs do not connect documents or textual elements found therein, but structures one might call messages. Applying this methodology will yield a set of messages and relations, SDRs, connecting them, that is a graph which we call grid. We will show how such a grid can be considered as the starting point of a Natural Language Generation System. The methodology is evaluated in two case-studies, one for linearly evolving events (descriptions of football matches) and another one for non-linearly evolving events (terrorist incidents involving hostages). In both cases we evaluate the results produced by our computational systems.Comment: 45 pages, 6 figures. To appear in the Journal of Intelligent Information System

Why It Is Hard to Find Genes Associated With Social Science Traits: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations

OBJECTIVES: We explain why traits of interest to behavioral scientists may have a genetic architecture featuring hundreds or thousands of loci with tiny individual effects rather than a few with large effects and why such an architecture makes it difficult to find robust associations between traits and genes. METHODS: We conducted a genome-wide association study at 2 sites, Harvard University and Union College, measuring more than 100 physical and behavioral traits with a sample size typical of candidate gene studies. We evaluated predictions that alleles with large effect sizes would be rare and most traits of interest to social science are likely characterized by a lack of strong directional selection. We also carried out a theoretical analysis of the genetic architecture of traits based on R.A. Fisher's geometric model of natural selection and empirical analyses of the effects of selection bias and phenotype measurement stability on the results of genetic association studies. RESULTS: Although we replicated several known genetic associations with physical traits, we found only 2 associations with behavioral traits that met the nominal genome-wide significance threshold, indicating that physical and behavioral traits are mainly affected by numerous genes with small effects. CONCLUSIONS: The challenge for social science genomics is the likelihood that genes are connected to behavioral variation by lengthy, nonlinear, interactive causal chains, and unraveling these chains requires allying with personal genomics to take advantage of the potential for large sample sizes as well as continuing with traditional epidemiological studies.EconomicsPsycholog

Sensory Measurements: Coordination and Standardization

Do sensory measurements deserve the label of “measurement”? We argue that they do. They fit with an epistemological view of measurement held in current philosophy of science, and they face the same kinds of epistemological challenges as physical measurements do: the problem of coordination and the problem of standardization. These problems are addressed through the process of “epistemic iteration,” for all measurements. We also argue for distinguishing the problem of standardization from the problem of coordination. To exemplify our claims, we draw on olfactory performance tests, especially studies linking olfactory decline to neurodegenerative disorders

The impact of sound field systems on learning and attention in elementary school classrooms

Purpose: An evaluation of the installation and use of sound field systems (SFS) was carried out to investigate their impact on teaching and learning in elementary school classrooms. Methods: The evaluation included acoustic surveys of classrooms, questionnaire surveys of students and teachers and experimental testing of students with and without the use of SFS. Students ’ perceptions of classroom environments and objective data evaluating change in performance on cognitive and academic assessments with amplification over a six month period are reported. Results: Teachers were positive about the use of SFS in improving children’s listening and attention to verbal instructions. Over time students in amplified classrooms did not differ from those in nonamplified classrooms in their reports of listening conditions, nor did their performance differ in measures of numeracy, reading or spelling. Use of SFS in the classrooms resulted in significantly larger gains in performance in the number of correct items on the nonverbal measure of speed of processing and the measure of listening comprehension. Analysis controlling for classroom acoustics indicated that students ’ listening comprehension score

A simple, biologically plausible feature detector for language acquisition

Language has a complex grammatical system we still have to understand computationally and biologically (Hauser et al., 2002; Yang, 2013). However, some evolutionarily ancient mechanisms have been repurposed for grammar (Dehaene & Cohen, 2007; Endress, Cahill, et al., 2009; Endress, Nespor, et al., 2009; Fitch, 2017) so that we can use insight from other taxa into possible circuit level mechanisms of grammar. Drawing upon recent evidence for the importance of disinhibitory circuits across taxa and brain regions (Chevalier & Deniau, 1990; Letzkus et al., 2015; Hangya et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2013; Goddard et al., 2014; Mysore & Knudsen, 2012; Koyama et al., 2016; Koyama & Pujala, 2018), I suggest a simple circuit that explains the acquisition of core grammatical rules used in 85% of the world’s languages (Rubino, 2013): grammatical rules based on sameness/difference relations. This circuit acts as a sameness-detector. Different items are suppressed through inhibition, but presenting two identical items leads to inhibition of inhibition. The items are thus propagated for further processing. This sameness-detector thus acts as a feature detector for a grammatical rule. I suggest that having a set of feature detectors for elementary grammatical rules might make language acquisition feasible based on relatively simple computational mechanisms

Review and assessment of latent and sensible heat flux accuracy over the global oceans

For over a decade, several research groups have been developing air-sea heat flux information over the global ocean, including latent (LHF) and sensible (SHF) heat fluxes over the global ocean. This paper aims to provide new insight into the quality and error characteristics of turbulent heat flux estimates at various spatial and temporal scales (from daily upwards). The study is performed within the European Space Agency (ESA) Ocean Heat Flux (OHF) project. One of the main objectives of the OHF project is to meet the recommendations and requirements expressed by various international programs such as the World Research Climate Program (WCRP) and Climate and Ocean Variability, Predictability, and Change (CLIVAR), recognizing the need for better characterization of existing flux errors with respect to the input bulk variables (e.g. surface wind, air and sea surface temperatures, air and surface specific humidities), and to the atmospheric and oceanic conditions (e.g. wind conditions and sea state). The analysis is based on the use of daily averaged LHF and SHF and the asso- ciated bulk variables derived from major satellite-based and atmospheric reanalysis products. Inter-comparisons of heat flux products indicate that all of them exhibit similar space and time patterns. However, they also reveal significant differences in magnitude in some specific regions such as the western ocean boundaries during the Northern Hemisphere winter season, and the high southern latitudes. The differences tend to be closely related to large differences in surface wind speed and/or specific air humidity (for LHF) and to air and sea temperature differences (for SHF). Further quality investigations are performed through comprehensive comparisons with daily-averaged LHF and SHF estimated from moorings. The resulting statistics are used to assess the error of each OHF product. Consideration of error correlation between products and observations (e.g., by their assimilation) is also given. This reveals generally high noise variance in all products and a weak signal in common with in situ observations, with some products only slightly better than others. The OHF LHF and SHF products, and their associated error characteristics, are used to compute daily OHF multiproduct-ensemble (OHF/MPE) estimates of LHF and SHF over the ice-free global ocean on a 0.25° × 0.25° grid. The accuracy of this heat multiproduct, determined from comparisons with mooring data, is greater than for any individual product. It is used as a reference for the anomaly characterization of each individual OHF product

Performing innocence: violence and the nation in Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Sunjeev Sahota’s Ours Are the Streets

British normative society and post-9/11 fiction borrow from the discourse of American exceptionalism (including the fall from innocence to experience, the desire to create or preserve a better world, a ‘Messianic consciousness’ reflecting the arrogance of virtue, the development of narratives of heroism and goodness tied to nation-building, and the use of the above to justify ‘exemptionalism’) to expose and query the entitlement of those within the narrative home of Britishness and the outsider-status of those used to define its borders. This article discusses Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Sunjeev Sahota’s Ours Are the Streets, arguing that they illustrate a turning point in Britain’s imagination of itself as a nation in a struggle over Britishness which is predicated on notions of violence and innocence. Since 9/11 the debate about Britishness has used innocence as a constitutive inside of the nation and direct violence as an exclusionary characteristic. McEwan satirizes this rhetoric of innocence whereas Sahota challenges it. Both novels illustrate how post-9/11 British fiction deals with politics as war, placing violence at the heart of society. McEwan parodies the point of view of British normative society by allowing his main character to justify his privileged position under the guise of arguing for the current social and international status quo. Sahota charts the journey of those who are caught between the rejection of unjust social structures and the desire to fit within them, depicting his protagonist’s misguided attempt to redefine the British nation through terrorism. Violence and exceptionalism are central to both novels, which portray a turn in the imagining of Britain. The events of 9/11 can therefore be seen not just as a historical turning point but as a turn in Britain’s imagination of itself

Letter processing and font information during reading: beyond distinctiveness, where vision meets design

Letter identification is a critical front end of the reading process. In general, conceptualizations of the identification process have emphasized arbitrary sets of distinctive features. However, a richer view of letter processing incorporates principles from the field of type design, including an emphasis on uniformities across letters within a font. The importance of uniformities is supported by a small body of research indicating that consistency of font increases letter identification efficiency. We review design concepts and the relevant literature, with the goal of stimulating further thinking about letter processing during reading

Land, history or modernization? Explaining ethnic fractionalization

Ethnic fractionalization (EF) is frequently used as an explanatory tool in models of economic development, civil war and public goods provision. However, if EF is endogenous to political and economic change, its utility for further research diminishes. This turns out not to be the case. This paper provides the first comprehensive model of EF as a dependent variable. It contributes new data on the founding date of the largest ethnic group in each state. It builds political and international variables into the analysis alongside historical and geoclimatic parameters. It extends previous work by testing models of politically relevant EF. In addition, this research interprets model results in light of competing theories of nationalism and political change. Results show that cross-national variation in EF is largely exogenous to modern politico-economic change. However, the data are inconclusive with respect to competing geoclimatic, historical institutional and modernist theories of ethnogenesis