A fast radiative transfer model for the assimilation of water vapor radiances from the Kalpana very high resolution radiometer

A fast radiative transfer model (RTM) to compute emitted infrared radiances for a very high resolution radiometer (VHRR), onboard the operational Indian geostationary satellite Kalpana has been developed and verified. This work is a step towards the assimilation of Kalpana water vapor (WV) radiances into numerical weather prediction models. The fast RTM uses a regression‐based approach to parameterize channel‐specific convolved level to space transmittances. A comparison between the fast RTM and the line‐by‐line RTM demonstrated that the fast RTM can simulate line‐by‐line radiances for the Kalpana WV channel to an accuracy better than the instrument noise, while offering more rapid radiance calculations. A comparison of clear sky radiances of the Kalpana WV channel with the ECMWF model first guess radiances is also presented, aiming to demonstrate the fast RTM performance with the real observations. In order to assimilate the radiances from Kalpana, a simple scheme for bias correction has been suggested.

Dynamic behavior of Arabidopsis eif4a-iii, putative core protein of exon junction complex: fast relocation to nucleolus and splicing speckles under hypoxia

Here, we identify the Arabidopsis thaliana ortholog of the mammalian DEAD box helicase, eIF4A-III, the putative anchor protein of exon junction complex (EJC) on mRNA. Arabidopsis eIF4A-III interacts with an ortholog of the core EJC component, ALY/Ref, and colocalizes with other EJC components, such as Mago, Y14, and RNPS1, suggesting a similar function in EJC assembly to animal eIF4A-III. A green fluorescent protein (GFP)-eIF4A-III fusion protein showed localization to several subnuclear domains: to the nucleoplasm during normal growth and to the nucleolus and splicing speckles in response to hypoxia. Treatment with the respiratory inhibitor sodium azide produced an identical response to the hypoxia stress. Treatment with the proteasome inhibitor MG132 led to accumulation of GFP-eIF4A-III mainly in the nucleolus, suggesting that transition of eIF4A-III between subnuclear domains and/or accumulation in nuclear speckles is controlled by proteolysis-labile factors. As revealed by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching analysis, the nucleoplasmic fraction was highly mobile, while the speckles were the least mobile fractions, and the nucleolar fraction had an intermediate mobility. Sequestration of eIF4A-III into nuclear pools with different mobility is likely to reflect the transcriptional and mRNA processing state of the cell.

Fast training of self organizing maps for the visual exploration of molecular compounds

Visual exploration of scientific data in life science area is a growing research field due to the large amount of available data. The Kohonen’s Self Organizing Map (SOM) is a widely used tool for visualization of multidimensional data. In this paper we present a fast learning algorithm for SOMs that uses a simulated annealing method to adapt the learning parameters. The algorithm has been adopted in a data analysis framework for the generation of similarity maps. Such maps provide an effective tool for the visual exploration of large and multi-dimensional input spaces. The approach has been applied to data generated during the High Throughput Screening of molecular compounds; the generated maps allow a visual exploration of molecules with similar topological properties. The experimental analysis on real world data from the National Cancer Institute shows the speed up of the proposed SOM training process in comparison to a traditional approach. The resulting visual landscape groups molecules with similar chemical properties in densely connected regions.

Fast approximate calculation of multiply scattered lidar returns

An efficient method is described for the approximate calculation of the intensity of multiply scattered lidar returns. It divides the outgoing photons into three populations, representing those that have experienced zero, one, and more than one forward-scattering event. Each population is parameterized at each range gate by its total energy, its spatial variance, the variance of photon direction, and the covariance, of photon direction and position. The result is that for an N-point profile the calculation is O(N-2) efficient and implicitly includes up to N-order scattering, making it ideal for use in iterative retrieval algorithms for which speed is crucial. In contrast, models that explicitly consider each scattering order separately are at best O(N-m/m!) efficient for m-order scattering and often cannot be performed to more than the third or fourth order in retrieval algorithms. For typical cloud profiles and a wide range of lidar fields of view, the new algorithm is as accurate as an explicit calculation truncated at the fifth or sixth order but faster by several orders of magnitude. (C) 2006 Optical Society of America.

Fast and frugal framing effects?

Three experiments examine whether simple pair-wise comparison judgments, involving the “recognition heuristic” (Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 2002), are sensitive to implicit cues to the nature of the comparison required. Experiments 1 & 2 show that participants frequently choose the recognized option of a pair if asked to make “larger” judgments but are significantly less likely to choose the unrecognized option when asked to make “smaller” judgments. Experiment 3 demonstrates that, overall, participants consider recognition to be a more reliable guide to judgments of a magnitude criterion than lack of recognition and that this intuition drives the framing effect. These results support the idea that, when making pair-wise comparison judgments, inferring that the recognized item is large is simpler than inferring that the unrecognized item is small.

Willingness to pay for imported and seasonal foods: a UK survey

We report results from an investigation into consumer preferences for locally produced foods. Using a choice experiment we estimate willingness to pay for foods of a designated origin together with certification for organic and free of genetically modified (GM)ingredients. Our results indicate that there is a preference for locally produced food that is GM free, organic, and produced in the traditional season.