Mineraly of oceanic crust from the Kane Transform, Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Gabbroic cumulates drilled south of the Kane Transform Fault on the slow-spread Mid-Atlantic Ridge preserve up to three discrete magnetization components. Here we use absolute age constraints derived from the paleomagnetic data to develop a model for the magmatic construction of this section of the lower oceanic crust. By comparing the paleomagnetic data with mineral compositions, and based on thermal models of local reheating, we infer that magmas that began crystallizing in the upper mantle intruded into the lower oceanic crust and formed meter-scale sills. Some of these magmas were crystal-laden and the subsequent expulsion of interstitial liquid from them produced '"cumulus" sills. These small-scale magmatic injections took place over at least 210 000 years and at distances of ~3 km from the ridge axis and may have formed much of the lower crust. This model explains many of the complexities described in this area and can be used to help understand the general formation of oceanic crust at slow-spread ridges.

(Table 1) Correlation of precipitation and winter mass balance (bw) at Storbreen, Norway

Measurements of winter balance (bw) and summer balance (bs) have been carried out at Storbreen since 1949. Here we apply a simple mass balance model to study the climate sensitivity and to reconstruct the mass balance series prior to 1949. The model is calibrated and validated with data from an automatic weather station (AWS) operating in the ablation zone of Storbreen since 2001. Regression analysis revealed that bw was best modelled using precipitation data southwest of the glacier. Results from the model compared well with reported mass balance values for the period 1949-2006, obtained correlations (r) for bw and bs varied between 0.83 and 0.87 depending on model set up. Reconstruction of the mass balance series for the period 1924/1925-1948/1949 suggested a cumulative mass deficit of c. 30 m w.e. mainly due to highly negative summer balances, but also lower bw than the average for 1949-2006. Calculated change in specific mass balance for a ±1°C change in air temperature was ±0.55 m w.e., whereas a ±10 % increase in precipitation represented a change of ± 0.20 m w.e. Model results further indicated that for a 2°C warming, the ablation season will be extended by c. 30 days and that the period of ice melt at the AWS location will increase from c. 40 to c. 80 days.

Quality assessment by region in spot images fused by means dual-tree complex wavelet transform

This work is motivated in providing and evaluating a fusion algorithm of remotely sensed images, i.e. the fusion of a high spatial resolution panchromatic image with a multi-spectral image (also known as pansharpening) using the dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT), an effective approach for conducting an analytic and oversampled wavelet transform to reduce aliasing, and in turn reduce shift dependence of the wavelet transform. The proposed scheme includes the definition of a model to establish how information will be extracted from the PAN band and how that information will be injected into the MS bands with low spatial resolution. The approach was applied to Spot 5 images where there are bands falling outside PAN’s spectrum. We propose an optional step in the quality evaluation protocol, which is to study the quality of the merger by regions, where each region represents a specific feature of the image. The results show that DT-CWT based approach offers good spatial quality while retaining the spectral information of original images, case SPOT 5. The additional step facilitates the identification of the most affected regions by the fusion process.

Productive performance, carcass and meat quality of intact and castrated gilts slaughtered at 106 or 122 kg BW

A total of 200 (Landrace3Large White dam3Pietrain3Large White sire) gilts of 5063 days of age (23.361.47 kg BW) were used to investigate the effects of castration (intact gilt, IG v. castrated gilt, CG) and slaughter weight (SW; 106 v. 122 kg BW) on productive performance, carcass and meat quality. Four treatments were arranged factorially and five replicates of 10 pigs each per treatment. Half of the gilts were ovariectomized at 58 days of age (8 days after the beginning of the trial at 29.861.64 kg BW), whereas the other half remained intact. The pigs were slaughtered at 106 or 122 kg BW. Meat samples were taken at Musculus longissimus thoracis at the level of the last rib and subcutaneous fat samples were taken at the tail insertion. For the entire experimental period, CG had higher ( P,0.05) BW gain and higher ( P,0.001) backfat and Musculus gluteus medius fat thickness than IG. However, IG had higher ( P,0.05) loin and trimmed primal cut yields than CG. Meat quality was similar for IG and CG but the proportion of linoleic acid in subcutaneous fat was higher ( P,0.001) for IG. Pigs slaughtered at 122 kg BW had higher ( P,0.001) feed intake and poorer feed efficiency than pigs slaughtered at 106 kg BW. An increase in SW improved ( P,0.001) carcass yield but decreased ( P,0.05) trimmed primal cut yield. Meat from pigs slaughtered at the heavier BW was redder (a*; P,0.001) and had more ( P,0.01) intramuscular fat and less thawing ( P,0.05) and cooking ( P,0.10) loss than meat from pigs slaughtered at the lighter BW. In addition, pigs slaughtered at 122 kg BW had less ( P,0.01) linoleic acid content in subcutaneous fat than pigs slaughtered at 106 kg BW. Castration of gilts and slaughtering at heavier BW are useful practices for the production of heavy pigs destined to the dry-cured industry in which a certain amount of fat in the carcass is required. In contrast, when the carcasses are destined to fresh meat production, IG slaughtered at 106 kg BW is a more efficient alternative.

Extreme temperature events analyzed with Fast Fourier Transform

Extreme weather and climate events have received increased attention in the last few years, due to the often large loss of agriculture business and exponentially increasing costs associated with them and insurance planning. This increased attention raises the question as to whether extreme weather and climate events are truly increasing, whether this is only a perceived increase exacerbated by enhanced media coverage, or both. There are a number of ways extreme climate events can be defined, such as extreme daily temperatures, extreme daily rainfall amounts, and large areas experiencing unusually warm monthly temperatures, among others. In this study, we will focus our attention in frost and heatstroke events measuring it as the number of days under 0 ºC and number of days with daily maximum over 30ºC monthly respectively. We have studied the trends in these extreme events applying a Fast Fourier Transform to the series to clarify the tendency. Lack of long-term climate data suitable for analysis of extremes is the single biggest obstacle to quantifying whether extreme events have changed over the twentieth century, including high temporal and spatial resolution observations of temperatures. However, several series have been grouped in different ways: chosen the longest series independently, by provinces, by main watersheds and altitude. On the other hand, synthetic series generated by Luna and Balairón (AEMet) were also analyzed. The results obtained by different pooling data are discussed concluding the difficulties to assess the extreme events tendencies and high regional variation in the trends.

Glottal Parameter Estimation by Wavelet Transform for Voice Biometry

Voice biometry is classically based on the parameterization and patterning of speech features mainly. The present approach is based on the characterization of phonation features instead (glottal features). The intention is to reduce intra-speaker variability due to the `text'. Through the study of larynx biomechanics it may be seen that the glottal correlates constitute a family of 2-nd order gaussian wavelets. The methodology relies in the extraction of glottal correlates (the glottal source) which are parameterized using wavelet techniques. Classification and pattern matching was carried out using Gaussian Mixture Models. Data of speakers from a balanced database and NIST SRE HASR2 were used in verification experiments. Preliminary results are given and discussed.