Is there regime behavior in monsoon convection in the late 20th century?

Mixture model techniques are applied to a daily index of monsoon convection from ERA‐40 reanalysis to show regime behavior. The result is the existence of two significant regimes showing preferred locations of convection within the Asia/Western‐North Pacific domain, with some resemblance to active‐break events over India. Simple trend analysis over 1958–2001 shows that the first regime has become less frequent while the second becomes much more dominant. Both undergo a change in structure contributing to the total OLR trend over the ERA‐40 period. Stratifying the data according to a large‐scale dynamical index of monsoon interannual variability, we show the regime occurrence to be strongly perturbed by the seasonal condition, in agreement with conceptual ideas. This technique could be used to further examine predictability issues relating the seasonal mean and intraseasonal monsoon variability or to explore changes in monsoon behavior in centennial‐scale model integrations

The role of orienting in vibrissal touch sensing

Rodents, such as rats and mice, are strongly tactile animals who explore the environment with their long mobile facial whiskers, or macrovibrissae, and orient to explore objects further with their shorter, more densely packed, microvibrissae. Although whisker motion (whisking) has been extensively studied, less is known about how rodents orient their vibrissal system to investigate unexpected stimuli. We describe two studies that address this question. In the first we seek to characterize how adult rats orient toward unexpected macrovibrissal contacts with objects and examine the microvibrissal exploration behavior following such contacts. We show that rats orient to the nearest macrovibrissal contact on an unexpected object, progressively homing in on the nearest contact point on the object in each subsequent whisk. Following contact, rats “dab” against the object with their microvibrissae at an average rate of approximately 8 Hz, which suggests synchronization of microvibrissal dabbing with macrovibrissal motion, and an amplitude of 5 mm. In study two, we examine the role of orienting to tactile contacts in developing rat pups for maintaining aggregations (huddles). We show that young pups are able to orient to contacts with nearby conspecifics before their eyes open implying an important role for the macrovibrissae, which are present from birth, in maintaining contact with conspecifics. Overall, these data suggest that orienting to tactile cues, detected by the vibrissal system, plays a crucial role throughout the life of a rat

English article usage as a window on the meanings of same, identical and similar

We propose an explanation for a traditional puzzle in English linguistics involving the use of articles with the nominal modifiers same, identical and similar. Same can only take the definite article the, whereas identical and similar take either the or a. We argue that there is a fundamental difference in the manner in which a comparison is made with these modifiers. Identical and similar involve direct comparisons between at least two entities and an assertion of either full property matching (identical), or partial property matching (similar). The comparison with same proceeds differently: what is compared is not linguistic entities directly, but definite descriptions of these entities that can be derived through logical entailments. John and Mary live in the same house entails the house that John lives in is the (same) house that Mary lives in. There must be a pragmatic equivalence between these entailed definite descriptions, ranging from full referential equivalence to a possibly quite minimal overlap in semantic and real-world properties shared by distinct referents. These differences in meaning and article cooccurrence reveal the sensitivity of syntax to semantic and pragmatic properties, without which all and only the grammatical sentences of a language cannot be predicted

El Gobierno Corporativo, ¿en el Ecuador?

El término gobierno corporativo es análogo al gobierno de las naciones o de las ciudades, y en nuestro caso al régimen de las empresas. Es el conjunto de elementos que rodean e interactúan en la política de la sociedad mercantil, y su pleno funcionamiento con el fin de obtener las mayores utilidades corporativas a corto y largo plazo.El término gobierno corporativo es análogo al gobierno de las naciones o de las ciudades, y en nuestro caso al régimen de las empresas. Es el conjunto de elementos que rodean e interactúan en la política de la sociedad mercantil, y su pleno funcionamiento con el fin de obtener las mayores utilidades corporativas a corto y largo plazo

The role of the basic state in the ENSO-monsoon relationship and implications for predictability

The impact of systematic model errors on a coupled simulation of the Asian Summer monsoon and its interannual variability is studied. Although the mean monsoon climate is reasonably well captured, systematic errors in the equatorial Pacific mean that the monsoon-ENSO teleconnection is rather poorly represented in the GCM. A system of ocean-surface heat flux adjustments is implemented in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans in order to reduce the systematic biases. In this version of the GCM, the monsoon-ENSO teleconnection is better simulated, particularly the lag-lead relationships in which weak monsoons precede the peak of El Nino. In part this is related to changes in the characteristics of El Nino, which has a more realistic evolution in its developing phase. A stronger ENSO amplitude in the new model version also feeds back to further strengthen the teleconnection. These results have important implications for the use of coupled models for seasonal prediction of systems such as the monsoon, and suggest that some form of flux correction may have significant benefits where model systematic error compromises important teleconnections and modes of interannual variability

An integrated SDN architecture for application driven networking

The target of our effort is the definition of a dynamic network architecture meeting the requirements of applications competing for reliable high performance network resources. These applications have different requirements regarding reli- ability, bandwidth, latency, predictability, quality, reliable lead time and allocatability. At a designated instance in time a virtual network has to be defined automatically for a limited period of time, based on an existing physical network infrastructure, which implements the requirements of an application. We suggest an integrated Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture providing highly customizable functionalities required for efficient data transfer. It consists of a service interface towards the application and an open network interface towards the physical infrastruc- ture. Control and forwarding plane are separated for better scalability. This type of architecture allows to negotiate the reser- vation of network resources involving multiple applications with different requirement profiles within multi-domain environments

La posición jurídica del titular de la marca registrada en España y la Comunidad Económica Europea

¿Qué hace una marca? ¿Por qué es importante el estudio de las marcas y los nombres comerciales? Por varias razones las marcas y los nombres comerciales tienen cada vez mayor trascendencia en la vida cotidiana de las personas y de los negocios: tan solo en Ecuador se han registrado casi cien mil marcas en 12 años. La Internet, la televisión por satélite, la publicidad global entre otros factores han permito una mayor intemacionalización de los productos y servicios. El mundo del siglo XXI -caracterizado por una neoeconomía de mercado- mantiene varias exigencias en el comercio internacional y requiere de una mayor protección de los bienes producidos y comercializados. Esto ha conllevado a un mayor desarrollo en el ámbito jurídico de la posición del titular de la marca registrada, reflejado con la promulgación de la nueva Ley española de Marcas de 2001 (LM 17/2001), y por convenios mundiales como las rondas del GATT, los ADPIC, la OMC y la OMPI. En el marco de la Comunidad Andina (CA) encontramos la Decisión 486 sobre el Régimen Común sobre Propiedad Industria y la referencia específica sobre marcas en el artículo 55 del Acuerdo de Cartagena.¿Qué hace una marca? ¿Por qué es importante el estudio de las marcas y los nombres comerciales? Por varias razones las marcas y los nombres comerciales tienen cada vez mayor trascendencia en la vida cotidiana de las personas y de los negocios: tan solo en Ecuador se han registrado casi cien mil marcas en 12 años. La Internet, la televisión por satélite, la publicidad global entre otros factores han permito una mayor intemacionalización de los productos y servicios. El mundo del siglo XXI -caracterizado por una neoeconomía de mercado- mantiene varias exigencias en el comercio internacional y requiere de una mayor protección de los bienes producidos y comercializados. Esto ha conllevado a un mayor desarrollo en el ámbito jurídico de la posición del titular de la marca registrada, reflejado con la promulgación de la nueva Ley española de Marcas de 2001 (LM 17/2001), y por convenios mundiales como las rondas del GATT, los ADPIC, la OMC y la OMPI. En el marco de la Comunidad Andina (CA) encontramos la Decisión 486 sobre el Régimen Común sobre Propiedad Industria y la referencia específica sobre marcas en el artículo 55 del Acuerdo de Cartagena

Morphometric differences in the grasshopper Cornops aquaticum (Bruner, 1906) from South America and South Africa

The semi-aquatic grasshopper Cornops aquaticum is native to South America and inhabits lowlands from southern Mexico to Central Argentina and Uruguay. It is host-specific to aquatic plants in the genera Eichhornia and Pontederia. A quarantine population has existed in South Africa for 10 y, and it is planned to release it there as a biological control agent of water hyacinth, E. crassipes. Various studies of C. aquaticum are coordinated under HICWA (www.mpil-ploen.mpg.de). This paper compares the morphometry of the release population and 11 native populations in South America. We tested four hypotheses: 1) South African and South American populations of C. aquaticum differ in morphology; 2) the South African laboratory population is more similar to other isolated populations in South America than to nonisolated populations; 3) morphology differs across sites; 4) morphology differs with host plant. South African populations differed from continental nonisolated populations, but not from continental isolated ones. Isolated populations presented smaller individuals than nonisolated, but there was also a change in male morphology: while in nonisolated populations male wing length was similar to their body length, in isolated populations, male wings were smaller than body length. Females were larger when on Eicchornia azurea than on E. crassipes, while males presented larger wings than their body on E. azurea, and similar lengths on E. crassipes. These morphological changes may have resulted from phenotypic plasticity, selection for small size, or because of a loss of genetic diversity in quantitative traits.Fil: Adis, Joachim. Institute for Limnology; AlemaniaFil: Sperber, Carlos F. Universidade Federal de Viçosa; BrasilFil: Brede, Edward G. Institute for Limnology; AlemaniaFil: Capello, Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto Nacional de Limnología. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto Nacional de Limnología; ArgentinaFil: Franceschini, Maria Celeste. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste. Centro de Ecología Aplicada del Litoral. Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Centro de Ecología Aplicada del Litoral; ArgentinaFil: Hill, Martin. Rhodes University; SudáfricaFil: Lhano, Marcos G. Universidade Federal de Viçosa; BrasilFil: Marques, Marinê. A;z M.. Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso; BrasilFil: Nunes, Ana L.. Muséu Paraense Emílio Goeldi; BrasilFil: Polar, Perry. CAB International; Trinidad y Tobag