Application of artificial neural networks in hydrological modeling: A case study of runoff simulation of a Himalayan glacier basin

The simulation of runoff from a Himalayan Glacier basin using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is presented. The performance of the ANN model is found to be superior to the Energy Balance Model and the Multiple Regression model. The RMS Error is used as the figure of merit for judging the performance of the three models, and the RMS Error for the ANN model is the latest of the three models. The ANN is faster in learning and exhibits excellent system generalization characteristics

Efeito do tebuconazol no comportamento de fuga de Eisenia andrei em ensaios de laboratórios com solo natural.

FertBio 2010

The New Political Economy of EU State Aid Policy

Despite its importance and singularity, the EU’s state aid policy has attracted less scholarly attention than other elements of EU competition policy. Introducing the themes addressed by the special issue, this article briefly reviews the development of EU policy and highlights why the control of state aid matters. The Commission’s response to the current economic crisis notably in banking and the car industry is a key concern, but the interests of the special issue go far beyond. They include: the role of the European Commission in the development of EU policy, the politics of state aid, and a clash between models of capitalism. The special issue also examines the impact of EU policy. It investigates how EU state aid decisions affect not only industrial policy at the national level (and therefore at the EU level), but the welfare state and territorial relations within federal member states, the external implications of EU action and the strategies pursued by the Commission to limit any potential disadvantage to European firms, and the conflict between the EU’s expanding legal order and national

Organization of Multinational Activities and Ownership Structure

We develop a model in which multinational investors decide about the modes of organization, the locations of production, and the markets to be served. Foreign investments are driven by market-seeking and cost-reducing motives. We further assume that investors face costs of control that vary among sectors and increase in distance. The results show that (i) production intensive sectors are more likely to operate a foreign business independent of the investment motive, (ii) that distance may have a non-monotonous effect on the likelihood of horizontal investments, and (iii) that globalization, if understood as reducing distance, leads to more integration

Schur Q-functions and degeneracy locus formulas for morphisms with symmetries

We give closed-form formulas for the fundamental classes of degeneracy loci associated with vector bundle maps given locally by (not necessary square) matrices which are symmetric (resp. skew-symmetric) w.r.t. the main diagonal. Our description uses essentially Schur Q-polynomials of a bundle, and is based on a certain push-forward formula for these polynomials in a Grassmann bundle.Comment: 22 pages, AMSTEX, misprints corrected, exposition improved. to appear in the Proceedings of Intersection Theory Conference in Bologna, "Progress in Mathematics", Birkhause

Universality-Breaking Effects in Leptonic Z Decays

We analyze the possibility of universality violation in diagonal leptonic decays of the $Z$ boson, in the context of interfamily "see-saw" models. In a minimal extension of the Standard Model with right-handed neutrino fields, we find that universality-breaking effects increase quadratically with the heavy Majorana neutrino mass and may be observed in the running $LEP$ experiments.Comment: MZ-TH/93-04 #, LaTeX, 14 p. (2 Figs

European Financial Market Integration: A Closer Look at Government Bonds in Eurozone Countries

The European Union made a number of steps not least of them the introduction of a common currency to foster the integration of the European financial markets. A number of papers have tried to gauge the degree of integration for various financial markets looking at the convergence of interest rates. A common finding is that government bond markets are quite well integrated. In this paper stochastic Kernel density estimates are used to take a closer look at the dynamics that drive the process of interest rate convergence. The main finding is that countries with large initial deviations from the mean interest rate do indeed converge. Interestingly the candidates least suspected namely the countries initially with interest rates at the mean level show a pattern of slight divergence

Influence of Oxychlorine Phases During the Pyrolysis of Organic Molecules: Implications for the Quest of Organics on Mars with the SAM Experiment Onboard the Curiosity Rover

One among the main objectives of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) experiment is the in situ molecular analysis of gases evolving from solid samples heated up to approximately 850 degrees Centigrade, and collected by Curiosity on Mars surface/sub-surface in Gale crater. With this aim, SAM uses a gas-chromatograph coupled to a quadrupole mass spectrometer (GC-QMS) devoted to separate, detect and identify both volatile inorganic and organic compounds. SAM detected chlorinated organic molecules produced in evolved gas analysis (EGA) experiments. Several of these were also detected by the Viking experiments in 1976. SAM also detected oxychlorine compounds that were present at the Phoenix landing site. The oxychlorines may be prevelant over much of the martian surface. The C1 to C3 aliphatic chlorohydrocarbons (chloromethane and di- and trichloromethane) detected by SAM were attributed to reaction products occurring between the oxychlorines phases and the organic compounds coming from SAM instrument background. But SAM also showed the presence of a large excess of chlorobenzene and C2 to C4 dichloroalkanes among the volatile species released by the Cumberland sample of the Sheepbed mudstone. For the first time in the history of the Mars exploration, this proved the presence of Mars indigenous organic material at the Mars' surface. However, the identification of the precursor organic compounds of these chlorohydrocarbons is difficult due to the complexity of the reactions occurring during the sample pyrolysis. Laboratory pyrolysis experiments have demonstrated that oxychlorines phases such as perchlorates and chlorates, decomposed into dioxygen and volatile chlorine bearing molecules (HCl and/or Cl2) during the pyrolysis. These chemical species can then react with the organic molecules present in the martian solid samples through oxidation, chlorination and oxychlorination processes

Investigating the Origin of Chlorohydrocarbons Detected by the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument at Rocknest

The search for organic compounds on Mars, including molecules of either abiotic or biological origin is one of the key goals of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. Previously the Viking and Phoenix Lander missions searched for organic compounds, but did not find any definitive evidence of martian organic material in the soils. The Viking pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) instruments did not detect any organic compounds of martian or exogenous origin above a level of a few parts-per-billion (ppb) in the near surface regolith at either landing site [1]. Viking did detect chloromethane and dichloromethane at pmol levels (up to 40 ppb) after heating the soil samples up to 500 C (Table 1), although it was originally argued that the chlorohydrocarbons were derived from cleaning solvents used on the instrument hardware, and not from the soil samples themselves [1]. More recently, it was suggested that the chlorohydrocarbons detected by Viking may have been formed by oxidation of indigenous organic matter during pyrolysis of the soil in the presence of perchlorates [2]. Although it is unknown if the Viking soils contained perchlorates, Phoenix did reveal relatively high concentrations (~0.6 wt%) of perchlorate salt in the icy regolith [3], therefore, it is possible that the chlorohydrocarbons detected by Viking were produced, at least partially, during the experiments [2,4]. The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on MSL analyzed the organic composition of the soil at Rocknest in Gale Crater using a combination of pyrolysis evolved gas analysis (EGA) and GCMS. One empty cup procedural blank followed by multiple EGA-GCMS analyses of the Rocknest soil were carried out. Here we will discuss the results from these SAM measurements at Rocknest and the steps taken to determine the source of the chlorohydrocarbons