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Improving Precipitation Estimation Using Convolutional Neural Network
Precipitation process is generally considered to be poorly represented in numerical weather/climate models. Statistical downscaling (SD) methods, which relate precipitation with model resolved dynamics, often provide more accurate precipitation estimates compared to model's raw precipitation products. We introduce the convolutional neural network model to foster this aspect of SD for daily precipitation prediction. Specifically, we restrict the predictors to the variables that are directly resolved by discretizing the atmospheric dynamics equations. In this sense, our model works as an alternative to the existing precipitation-related parameterization schemes for numerical precipitation estimation. We train the model to learn precipitation-related dynamical features from the surrounding dynamical fields by optimizing a hierarchical set of spatial convolution kernels. We test the model at 14 geogrid points across the contiguous United States. Results show that provided with enough data, precipitation estimates from the convolutional neural network model outperform the reanalysis precipitation products, as well as SD products using linear regression, nearest neighbor, random forest, or fully connected deep neural network. Evaluation for the test set suggests that the improvements can be seamlessly transferred to numerical weather modeling for improving precipitation prediction. Based on the default network, we examine the impact of the network architectures on model performance. Also, we offer simple visualization and analyzing approaches to interpret the models and their results. Our study contributes to the following two aspects: First, we offer a novel approach to enhance numerical precipitation estimation; second, the proposed model provides important implications for improving precipitation-related parameterization schemes using a data-driven approach
Embedding impedance approximations in the analysis of SIS mixers
Future millimeter-wave radio astronomy instruments will use arrays of many SIS receivers, either as focal plane arrays on individual radio telescopes, or as individual receivers on the many antennas of radio interferometers. Such applications will require broadband integrated mixers without mechanical tuners. To produce such mixers, it will be necessary to improve present mixer design techniques, most of which use the three-frequency approximation to Tucker's quantum mixer theory. This paper examines the adequacy of three approximations to Tucker's theory: (1) the usual three-frequency approximation which assumes a sinusoidal LO voltage at the junction, and a short-circuit at all frequencies above the upper sideband; (2) a five-frequency approximation which allows two LO voltage harmonics and five small-signal sidebands; and (3) a quasi five-frequency approximation in which five small-signal sidebands are allowed, but the LO voltage is assumed sinusoidal. These are compared with a full harmonic-Newton solution of Tucker's equations, including eight LO harmonics and their corresponding sidebands, for realistic SIS mixer circuits. It is shown that the accuracy of the three approximations depends strongly on the value of omega R(sub N)C for the SIS junctions used. For large omega R(sub N)C, all three approximations approach the eight-harmonic solution. For omega R(sub N)C values in the range 0.5 to 10, the range of most practical interest, the quasi five-frequency approximation is a considerable improvement over the three-frequency approximation, and should be suitable for much design work. For the realistic SIS mixers considered here, the five-frequency approximation gives results very close to those of the eight-harmonic solution. Use of these approximations, where appropriate, considerably reduces the computational effort needed to analyze an SIS mixer, and allows the design and optimization of mixers using a personal computer
Density Variations over Subparsec Scales in Diffuse Molecular Gas
We present high-resolution observations of interstellar CN, CH, CH^{+},
\ion{Ca}{1}, and \ion{Ca}{2} absorption lines toward the multiple star systems
HD206267 and HD217035. Substantial variations in CN absorption are observed
among three sight lines of HD206267, which are separated by distances of order
10,000 AU; smaller differences are seen for CH, CH^{+}, and \ion{Ca}{1}. Gas
densities for individual velocity components are inferred from a chemical
model, independent of assumptions about cloud shape. While the component
densities can differ by factors of 5.0 between adjacent sightlines, the
densities are always less than 5000 cm^{-3}. Calculations show that the derived
density contrasts are not sensitive to the temperature or reaction rates used
in the chemical model. A large difference in the CH^{+} profiles (a factor of 2
in column density) is seen in the lower density gas toward HD217035.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ
Nanoscale Impurity Structures on the Surface of -wave Superconductors
We study the effects of nanoscale impurity structures on the local electronic
structure of -wave superconductors. We show that the interplay
between the momentum dependence of the superconducting gap, the geometry of the
nanostructure and its orientation gives rise to a series of interesting quantum
effects. Among these are the emergence of a zero bias conductance peak in the
superconductor's density of states and the suppression of impurity states for
certain nanostructures. The latter effect can be used to screen impurity
resonances in the superconducting state.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
The effect of electromechanical coupling on the strain in AlGaN/GaN heterojunction field effect transistors
The strain in AlGaN/GaN heterojunction field-effect transistors (HFETs) is
examined theoretically in the context of the fully-coupled equation of state
for piezoelectric materials. Using a simple analytical model, it is shown that,
in the absence of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG), the out-of-plane
strain obtained without electromechanical coupling is in error by about 30% for
an Al fraction of 0.3. This result has consequences for the calculation of
quantities that depend directly on the strain tensor. These quantities include
the eigenstates and electrostatic potential in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. It
is shown that for an HFET, the electromechanical coupling is screened by the
2DEG. Results for the electromechanical model, including the 2DEG, indicate
that the standard (decoupled) strain model is a reasonable approximation for
HFET calculataions. The analytical results are supported by a self-consistent
Schr\"odinger-Poisson calculation that includes the fully-coupled equation of
state together with the charge-balance equation.Comment: 6 figures, revte
Microcanonical Lattice Gas Model for Nuclear Disassembly
Microcanonical calculations are no more difficult to implement than canonical
calculations in the Lattice Gas Model. We report calculations for a few
observables where we compare microcanonical model results with canonical model
results.Comment: 7 pages, Revtex, 3 postscript figure
Opportunistic Relaying in Time Division Broadcast Protocol with Incremental Relaying
In this paper, we investigate the performance of time division broadcast protocol (TDBC) with incremental relaying (IR) when there are multiple available relays. Opportunistic relaying (OR), i.e., the âbestâ relay is select for transmission to minimize the systemâs outage probability, is proposed. Two OR schemes are presented. The first scheme, termed TDBC-OIR-I, selects the âbestâ relay from the set of relays that can decode both flows of signal from the two sources successfully. The second one, termed TDBC-OIR-II, selects two âbestâ relays from two respective sets of relays that can decode successfully each flow of signal. The performance, in terms of outage probability, expected rate (ER), and diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT), of the two schemes are analyzed and compared with two TDBC schemes that have no IR but OR (termed TDBC-OR-I and TDBC-OR-II accordingly) and two other benchmark OR schemes that have no direct link transmission between the two sources
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