Influence of turbidity and clouds on satellite total ozone data over Madrid (Spain)

This article focuses on the comparison of the total ozone column data from three satellite instruments; Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometers (TOMS) on board the Earth Probe (EP), Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on board AURA and Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) on board ERS/2, with ground-based measurement recorded by a well calibrated Brewer spectrophotometer located in Madrid during the period 1996–2008. A cluster classification based on solar radiation (global, direct and diffuse), cloudiness and aerosol index allow selecting hazy, cloudy, very cloudy and clear days. Thus, the differences between Brewer and satellite total ozone data for each cluster have been analyzed. The accuracy of EP-TOMS total ozone data is affected by moderate cloudiness, showing a mean absolute bias error (MABE) of 2.0%. In addition, the turbidity also has a significant influence on EP-TOMS total ozone data with a MABE ~1.6%. Those data are in contrast with clear days with MABE ~1.2%. The total ozone data derived from the OMI instrument show clear bias at clear and hazy days with small uncertainties (~0.8%). Finally, the total ozone observations obtained with the GOME instrument show a very smooth dependence with respect to clouds and turbidity, showing a robust retrieval algorithm over these conditions.Manuel Ant´on thanks Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci´on and Fondo Social Europeo for the award of a postdoctoral grant (Juan de la Cierva). This work was partially supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under project CGL2008-05939-C03-02/CLI

Standardization of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Elisa) for the determination of avidity of avian IGY immunoglobulin.

Projeto/Plano de Ação: 11.11.11.111

Optimizacion del diseino de una red de distribucion de agua potable

En el presente reporte se present an los resultados obtenidos por el grupo de trabajo que estudio el problema de disenar de manera optima, una red de distribucion de agua potable. Esencialmente se discuten dos clases de estrategias. En primer lugar, aquellas cuya finalidad es reducir significativamente los recursos computacionales requeridos por los algoritmos im- plementados por el IMTA. Estos algoritmos son de caracter heuristico y generan una solucion factible que no es optima. En ciertos casos se sabe que las soluciones obtenidas por dichos algoritmos estan relativamente lejos del optima y no son aceptables desde el punto de vista del disenador. La segunda clase de estrategias propuestas, esta destinada precisamente a aliviar este problema. Se sugieren tecnicas originadas en optimizacion continua yen flujo en redes

Policy conflict analysis for diffserv quality of service management

Policy-based management provides the ability to (re-)configure differentiated services networks so that desired Quality of Service (QoS) goals are achieved. This requires implementing network provisioning decisions, performing admission control, and adapting bandwidth allocation to emerging traffic demands. A policy-based approach facilitates flexibility and adaptability as policies can be dynamically changed without modifying the underlying implementation. However, inconsistencies may arise in the policy specification. In this paper we provide a comprehensive set of QoS policies for managing Differentiated Services (DiffServ) networks, and classify the possible conflicts that can arise between them. We demonstrate the use of Event Calculus and formal reasoning for the analysis of both static and dynamic conflicts in a semi-automated fashion. In addition, we present a conflict analysis tool that provides network administrators with a user-friendly environment for determining and resolving potential inconsistencies. The tool has been extensively tested with large numbers of policies over a range of conflict types

Geophysical validation and long-term consistency between GOME-2/MetOp-A total ozone column and measurements from the sensors GOME/ERS-2, SCIAMACHY/ENVISAT and OMI/Aura

The main aim of the paper is to assess the consistency of five years of Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2/Metop-A [GOME-2] total ozone columns and the long-term total ozone satellite monitoring database already in existence through an extensive inter-comparison and validation exercise using as reference Brewer and Dobson ground-based measurements. The behaviour of the GOME-2 measurements is being weighed against that of GOME (1995–2011), Ozone Monitoring Experiment [OMI] (since 2004) and the Scanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY [SCIAMACHY] (since 2002) total ozone column products. Over the background truth of the ground-based measurements, the total ozone columns are inter-evaluated using a suite of established validation techniques; the GOME-2 time series follow the same patterns as those observed by the other satellite sensors. In particular, on average, GOME-2 data underestimate GOME data by about 0.80%, and underestimate SCIAMACHY data by 0.37% with no seasonal dependence of the differences between GOME-2, GOME and SCIAMACHY. The latter is expected since the three datasets are based on similar DOAS algorithms. This underestimation of GOME-2 is within the uncertainty of the reference data used in the comparisons. Compared to the OMI sensor, on average GOME-2 data underestimate OMI_DOAS (collection 3) data by 1.28%, without any significant seasonal dependence of the differences between them. The lack of seasonality might be expected since both the GOME data processor [GDP] 4.4 and OMI_DOAS are DOAS-type algorithms and both consider the variability of the stratospheric temperatures in their retrievals. Compared to the OMI_TOMS (collection 3) data, no bias was found. We hence conclude that the GOME-2 total ozone columns are well suitable to continue the long-term global total ozone record with the accuracy needed for climate monitoring studies

Da doença ao milagre: etnografia de soluções terapêuticas entre evangélicos na cidade de Boa Vista, Roraima

São várias as possibilidades de articulação entre doença, religião e cura. O artigo em questão constitui uma análise de narrativas sobre doença e cura pela religião, realizada a partir de abordagem etnográfica em 10 bairros de Boa Vista, Roraima, com indivíduos que afirmaram terem sido curados através de intervenção divina. Os resultados mostram que a doença não se reduz aos sintomas físicos universais da realidade empírica. Rituais mágicos de cura são, também, caminhos abertos à sua interpretação