Spectrally-invariant behavior of zenith radiance around cloud edges simulated by radiative transfer

In a previous paper, we discovered a surprising spectrally-invariant relationship in shortwave spectrometer observations taken by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program. The relationship suggests that the shortwave spectrum near cloud edges can be determined by a linear combination of zenith radiance spectra of the cloudy and clear regions. Here, using radiative transfer simulations, we study the sensitivity of this relationship to the properties of aerosols and clouds, to the underlying surface type, and to the finite field-of-view (FOV) of the spectrometer. Overall, the relationship is mostly sensitive to cloud properties and has little sensitivity to other factors. At visible wavelengths, the relationship primarily depends on cloud optical depth regardless of cloud phase function, thermodynamic phase and drop size. At water-absorbing wavelengths, the slope of the relationship depends primarily on cloud optical depth; the intercept, by contrast, depends primarily on cloud absorbing and scattering properties, suggesting a new retrieval method for cloud drop effective radius. These results suggest that the spectrally-invariant relationship can be used to infer cloud properties near cloud edges even with insufficient or no knowledge about spectral surface albedo and aerosol properties.

Charge transfer in Cr adsorption and reaction at the rutile TiO2(110) surface

The rutile TiO2(110) surface has been doped with sub-monolayer metallic Cr, which oxidises and donates charge to specific surface Ti ions. X-Ray and ultra violet photoemission spectroscopy and first principles density functional theory with Hubbard U are used to assign the oxidation states of Cr and surface Ti and we find that Cr2+ forms on bridging oxygen ions and a 5-fold coordinated surface Ti atom is reduced to Ti3+ and the Cr ions readily react with oxygen (to Cr3+), which leads to depletion of surface Ti3+ 3d electrons.

Photochromic switches incorporated in bridging ligands: a new tool to modulate energy-transfer processes

The thoughtful construction of molecular switches has led to a gamut of supramolecular systems that can be used in molecular electronics. These include molecules based on thienylethenes, spiropyrans, fulgides, dithienylphenanthrolines, and diazafluorenes. This article reviews the recent developments made in the synthesis and characterization of all these systems, thereby allowing a comparative study to validate the viability of these switchable molecules on a nanoscale. Also, the drawbacks of each class are demonstrated and, at the same time, the remedies for further improvisation are prescribed. We have made an honest attempt to present at? exhaustive account of all the different photochromic switches developed by us hitherto.

Electronic energy transfer in a dinuclear Ru/Os complex containing a photoresponsive dithienylethene derivative as bridging ligand

In order to build up a multicomponent system able to perform useful light-induced functions, a dithienylethene-bridged heterodinuclear metal complex (Ru/Os) has been prepared. The compound was characterized and its photophysical properties studied in detail.

Knowledge transfer processes in PFI/PPP: critical success factors

Successful knowledge transfer is an important process which requires continuous improvement in today’s knowledge-intensive economy. However, improving knowledge transfer processes represents a challenge for construction practitioners due to the complexity of knowledge acquisition, codification and sharing. Although knowledge transfer is context based, understanding the critical success factors can lead to improvements in the transfer process. This paper seeks to identify and evaluate the most significant critical factors for improving knowledge transfer processes in Public Private Partnerships/Private Finance Initiatives (PPP/PFI) projects. Drawing upon a questionnaire survey of 52 construction firms located in the UK, data is analysed using Severity Index (SI) and Coefficient of Variation (COV), to examine and identify these factors in PPP/PFI schemes. The findings suggest that a supportive leadership, participation/commitment from the relevant parties, and good communication between the relevant parties are crucial to improving knowledge transfer processes in PFI schemes. Practitioners, managers and researchers can use the findings to efficiently design performance measures for analysing and improving knowledge transfer processes.

Grammatical collocations and verb-particle constructions in Brussels French: a corpus-linguistic approach to transfer

In this study the focus is on transfer in Brussels French, the variety of French spoken in Brussels. The methodology proposed in Jarvis (2000) and Jarvis and Pavlenko (2009) is followed to provide proof for the fact that grammatical collocations such as chercher après "to look for" are the result of contact with the source language, Brussels Dutch.

L1 transfer in the acquisition of manner and path in Spanish by native speakers of English

In this article the authors argue that L1 transfer from English is not only important in the early stages of L2 acquisition of Spanish, but remains influential in later stages if there is not enough positive evidence for the learners to progress in their development (Lefebvre, White, & Jourdan, 2006). The findings are based on analyses of path and manner of movement in stories told by British students of Spanish (N = 68) of three different proficiency levels. Verbs that conflate motion and path, on the one hand, are mastered early, possibly because the existence of Latinate path verbs, such as enter and ascend in English, facilitate their early acquisition by British learners of Spanish. Contrary to the findings of Cadierno (2004) and Cadierno and Ruiz (2006), the encoding of manner, in particular in boundary crossing contexts, seems to pose enormous difficulties, even among students who had been abroad on a placement in a Spanish-speaking country prior to the data collection. An analysis of the frequency of manner verbs in Spanish corpora shows that one of the key reasons why students struggle with manner is that manner verbs are so infrequent in Spanish. The authors claim that scarce positive evidence in the language exposed to and little or no negative evidence are responsible for the long-lasting effect of transfer on the expression of manner.

Transfer of conceptualisation patterns in bilinguals: the construal of motion events in Turkish and German

We test Slobin's (2003) Thinking-for-Speaking hypothesis on data from different groups of Turkish-German bilinguals, those living in Germany and those who have returned to Germany.

Code-switching and transfer: an exploration of similarities and differences

This handbook article gives an historical overview of the development of research into code-switching and discusses its relationship to other language contact phenomena.

Local environmental action in Japan: the transfer of the groundwork approach

This paper is the basis for a report on the transfer of the UK Groundwork approach to Japan. It details the background and history of Groundwork in the UK and sets out some of the relevant context in Japan. A Japanese case study (plus two further secondary cases) is detailed and conclusions and recommendations are drawn from the work to help suggest future directions for GW and environmental action in Japan in the future.