Does the Danube exist? Versions of reality given by various regional climate models and climatological datasets

We present an intercomparison and verification analysis of several regional climate models (RCMs) nested into the same run of the same Atmospheric Global Circulation Model (AGCM) regarding their representation of the statistical properties of the hydrological balance of the Danube river basin for 1961-1990. We also consider the datasets produced by the driving AGCM, from the ECMWF and NCEP-NCAR reanalyses. The hydrological balance is computed by integrating the precipitation and evaporation fields over the area of interest. Large discrepancies exist among RCMs for the monthly climatology as well as for the mean and variability of the annual balances, and only few datasets are consistent with the observed discharge values of the Danube at its Delta, even if the driving AGCM provides itself an excellent estimate. Since the considered approach relies on the mass conservation principle and bypasses the details of the air-land interface modeling, we propose that the atmospheric components of RCMs still face difficulties in representing the water balance even on a relatively large scale. Their reliability on smaller river basins may be even more problematic. Moreover, since for some models the hydrological balance estimates obtained with the runoff fields do not agree with those obtained via precipitation and evaporation, some deficiencies of the land models are also apparent. NCEP-NCAR and ERA-40 reanalyses result to be largely inadequate for representing the hydrology of the Danube river basin, both for the reconstruction of the long-term averages and of the seasonal cycle, and cannot in any sense be used as verification. We suggest that these results should be carefully considered in the perspective of auditing climate models and assessing their ability to simulate future climate changes.Comment: 25 pages 8 figures, 5 table

“Shooting Hoops With Foreign Teams:” Basketball Ambassadors on US Military Bases in France, 1916-1961

The purpose of this paper is to assess the projection of the US military establishment on French sports culture during the Cold War, when American soldiers were stationed in army bases across the country. After World War I, the War Department agreed to assist private organizations in setting up sporting events – especially basketball games and tournaments – to keep up army morale. But after World War II, from the onset of the Cold War until the 1960s, times were harder for the GIs in France: in rural areas, where US military bases were located, their presence was often contested and led to important disputes over issues of culture, sovereignty and national defence. As a consequence, France became the setting of drastically changing US military diplomacy in Europe, orchestrated by the Department of Defense, in cooperation with the United States Information Services (USIS), a network established by the State Department in the postwar years. As we intend to demonstrate, the entire US cultural diplomacy network revolved around the needs of the military stationed in France. Sport, and especially basketball, was pivotal in the political promotion of American culture to the French. In 1954, the failure of the European Defense Community led to a change in public diplomacy objectives: the fear of European dislocation was partly countered by better planning of sporting events organized both on and outside the bases. This paper is set at the crossroads of political and cultural history, will introduce original USIS, NATO and French archives as well as some oral history interviews. It analyses two promotional events – the Armed Forces Day and the GI Basketball All-Star Game, which took place on Chambley Air Base in the mid-1950s – and attempts at showing how specific cultural reflexes were eventually passed on to the French

Advanced solutions for quality-oriented multimedia broadcasting

Multimedia content is increasingly being delivered via different types of networks to viewers in a variety of locations and contexts using a variety of devices. The ubiquitous nature of multimedia services comes at a cost, however. The successful delivery of multimedia services will require overcoming numerous technological challenges many of which have a direct effect on the quality of the multimedia experience. For example, due to dynamically changing requirements and networking conditions, the delivery of multimedia content has traditionally adopted a best effort approach. However, this approach has often led to the end-user perceived quality of multimedia-based services being negatively affected. Yet the quality of multimedia content is a vital issue for the continued acceptance and proliferation of these services. Indeed, end-users are becoming increasingly quality-aware in their expectations of multimedia experience and demand an ever-widening spectrum of rich multimedia-based services. As a consequence, there is a continuous and extensive research effort, by both industry and academia, to find solutions for improving the quality of multimedia content delivered to the users; as well, international standards bodies, such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), are renewing their effort on the standardization of multimedia technologies. There are very different directions in which research has attempted to find solutions in order to improve the quality of the rich media content delivered over various network types. It is in this context that this special issue on broadcast multimedia quality of the IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting illustrates some of these avenues and presents some of the most significant research results obtained by various teams of researchers from many countries. This special issue provides an example, albeit inevitably limited, of the richness and breath of the current research on multimedia broadcasting services. The research i- - ssues addressed in this special issue include, among others, factors that influence user perceived quality, encoding-related quality assessment and control, transmission and coverage-based solutions and objective quality measurements

Sobre la formación de los conceptos geométricos y sobre el léxico geométrico

El léxico geométrico está relacionado con un criterio de equivalencia entre figuras -normalmente dado por un grupo de transformación (K1ein) -. Puede haber un conflicto entre el lenguaje ordinario, el léxico geométrico tradicional y el criterio de equivalencia que puede sugerir una situación específica. En este artículo analizamos los resultados de un conjunto de preguntas con el objetivo de descubrir los criterios de equivalencia elegidos por los alumnos de entre 9 y 11 años, y la influencia de su léxico. Hemos observado una influencia considerable de los criterios basados en el grupo de traducciones y en el grupo de homoteties y traducciones. También hemos observado la influencia de ((modelos estándar)) (es decir, figuras que aparecen normalmente en sus libros), y algunas dificultades de conceptualización

Evidences on the role of the lid loop of γ-glutamyltransferases (GGT) in substrate selection

\u3b3-Glutamyltransferase (GGT) catalyzes the transfer of the \u3b3-glutamyl moiety from a donor substrate such as glutathione to water (hydrolysis) or to an acceptor amino acid (transpeptidation) through the formation of a \u3b3-glutamyl enzyme intermediate. The vast majority of the known GGTs has a short sequence covering the glutamate binding site, called lid-loop. Although being conserved enzymes, both B. subtilis GGT and the related enzyme CapD from B. anthracis lack the lid loop and, differently from other GGTs, both accept poly-\u3b3-glutamic acid (\u3b3-PGA) as a substrate. Starting from this observation, in this work the activity of an engineered mutant enzyme containing the amino acid sequence of the lid loop from E. coli GGT inserted into the backbone of B. subtilis GGT was compared to that of the lid loop-deficient B. subtilis GGT and the lid loop-carrier E. coli GGT. Results indicate that the absence of the lid loop seems not to be the sole structural feature responsible for the recognition of a polymeric substrate by GGTs. Nevertheless, time course of hydrolysis reactions carried out using oligo-\u3b3-glutamylglutamines as substrates showed that the lid loop acts as a gating structure, allowing the preferential selection of the small glutamine with respect to the oligomeric substrates. In this respect, the mutant B. subtilis GGT revealed to be more similar to E. coli GGT than to its wild-type counterpart. In addition, the transpeptidase activity of the newly produced mutant enzyme revealed to be higher with respect to that of both E. coli and wild-type B. subtilis GGT. These findings can be helpful in selecting GGTs intended as biocatalysts for preparative purposes as well as in designing mutant enzymes with improved transpeptidase activity

Magnetic fabric of Pleistocene continental clays from the hanging-wall of an active low-angle normal fault (Altotiberina Fault, Italy)

Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) represents a valuable proxy able to detect subtle strain effects in very weakly deformed sediments. In compressive tectonic settings, the magnetic lineation is commonly parallel to fold axes, thrust faults, and local bedding strike, while in extensional regimes, it is perpendicular to normal faults and parallel to bedding dip directions. The Altotiberina Fault (ATF) in the northern Apennines (Italy) is a Plio-Quaternary NNW–SSE low-angle normal fault; the sedimentary basin (Tiber basin) at its hanging-wall is infilled with a syn-tectonic, sandy-clayey continental succession. We measured the AMS of apparently undeformed sandy clays sampled at 12 sites within the Tiber basin. The anisotropy parameters suggest that a primary sedimentary fabric has been overprinted by an incipient tectonic fabric. The magnetic lineation is well developed at all sites, and at the sites from the western sector of the basin it is oriented sub-perpendicular to the trend of the ATF, suggesting that it may be related to extensional strain. Conversely, the magnetic lineation of the sites from the eastern sector has a prevailing N–S direction. The occurrence of triaxial to prolate AMS ellipsoids and sub-horizontal magnetic lineations suggests that a maximum horizontal shortening along an E–W direction occurred at these sites. The presence of compressive AMS features at the hanging-wall of the ATF can be explained by the presence of gently N–Strending local folds (hardly visible in the field) formed by either passive accommodation above an undulated fault plane, or rollover mechanism along antithetic faults. The long-lasting debate on the extensional versus compressive Plio-Quaternary tectonics of the Apennines orogenic belt should now be revised taking into account the importance of compressive structures related to local effects

Magnetic fabric of Pleistocene continental clays from the hanging-wall of an active low-angle normal fault (Altotiberina Fault, Italy)

Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) represents a valuable proxy able to detect subtle strain effects in very weakly deformed sediments. During the last decades a large number of AMS studies have documented that in compressive tectonic settings the maximum susceptibility axes (i.e. the magnetic lineations) are parallel to fold axes (and thrust faults) and local bedding strikes, while in extensional regimes they are perpendicular to the normal faults and, thus, parallel to the strata dip directions. One of the most striking active tectonic structures of the northern Apennines is represented by the Altotiberina Fault (ATF), a NE-dipping low-angle normal fault bounding the High Tiber Valley. The ATF represents a primary detachment of the Plio-Quaternary extensional tectonics affecting the Apennine belt. The long-lasting activity of the ATF produced 5 km of total displacement and up to 1200-m-thick basin infill of syn-tectonic, sandy-clayey continental succession. Thus, the AMS analysis of the sediments lying above the ATF represents a unique opportunity to document the strain field affecting the hanging-wall of low-angle normal faults. We collected 129 oriented cores at 12 different localities within the High Tiber Valley, and measured the AMS with a spinner Multi-Function Kappabridge. Most of the sites show a magnetic fabric typical of sediments at the earliest stages of deformation, characterized by oblate AMS ellipsoids and a well defined magnetic lineation, while prolate AMS ellipsoids at two sites are suggestive of pervasive tectonic effects. The magnetic lineation is well-developed at all sites and 20 has a prevailing N-S direction. At five sites the bedding is tilted and the magnetic lineation is subparallel to local bed-strikes, implying that these sites underwent a maximum horizontal shortening along an E-W direction. At two sites the magnetic lineation is sub-perpendicular to the trend of the ATF, and may be related to extensional strain. Our results reveal the existence of both compressional and extensional structures at the hangingwall of the ATF, and suggest that the early Pleistocene sequence of the High Tiber Valley is arranged in gently, local folds (hardly visible in the field) ~N-S trending. We interpret these compressivestructures as the result of local superficial stress induced by irregularities of the fault plane at depth. Accordingly, the strain field we documented from the High Tiber Valley can not be used to infer the regional tectonic regime acting during the ATF activity. We conclude that the long-lasting debate on the extensional vs. compressional Plio-Quaternary tectonics of the Apennines orogenic belt should be revised evaluating the importance of compressional structures resulting by local effects

Sistema de informação para o agronegócio da cana-de-açúcar.

RESUMO: Este trabalho apresenta esforços de organização de informações e de melhoria de ferramentas de difusão pela Embrapa Informática Agropecuária, com foco no sistema agroindustrial da cana-de-açúcar. Apresenta-se a implementação de uma ferramenta WebGIS e os resultados de espacialização e organização das informações sobre empreendimentos do agronegócio. A iniciativa mostra-se promissora para adoção pela Embrapa como referência para análise do agronegócio e difusão de informações.SBIAgro 2011

« If the shoe fits, wear it » : Français et Américains dans les opérations militaires de la politique culturelle américaine en France (1955 – 1958)

Dans les années 1950, l’implantation de bases militaires américaines en France, en vertu des termes du traité de l’Atlantique Nord, fait l’objet de deux types de critiques. Critiques d’ordre politique d’une part, portant non seulement sur le respect de la souveraineté française, mais aussi sur la question de l’OTAN dans son ensemble. D’autre part, des critiques d’ordre socioculturel jaillissent de la difficulté qu’éprouvent certains Français à partager leur quotidien avec les GI’s, ces soldats américains aux côtés desquels ils observent et absorbent un mode de vie parfois bien différent du leur. En périphérie des bases, les contacts franco-américains entraînent des questions relatives à l’identité de l’« Autre », qui conduisent à d’inévitables tensions entre les deux populations. Le Département d’État et le Département de la Défense américains s’efforcent immédiatement de projeter une image des militaires à la population française, par le biais d’une propagande culturelle plus ou moins dissimulée. Les Américains organisent de nombreuses opérations promotionnelles, comme des meetings aériens, des journées portes ouvertes sur les bases, ou des rencontres sportives entre des équipes françaises et américaines. On observe peu à peu la mise en place d’un « spectacle de l’Autre », selon l’expression du sociologue Stuart Hall, qui montre l’existence d’une politique culturelle reposant notamment sur les militaires. S’il nous faut d’abord saisir la façon dont les militaires et les diplomates négocient leurs rapports en matière de politique culturelle, il nous faut également nous interroger sur la représentation de l’altérité, tant sur la nature des médias favorisant la construction de l’altérité que sur la fonction du « spectacle de l’Autre ». Dans notre étude, nous nous intéresserons plus particulièrement au cas du basket-ball sur la base de Chambley-Bussières en Lorraine, qui révèle un point de rupture entre Français et Américains. Cette analyse repose sur une lecture attentive des archives nationales américaines, mais aussi des archives de l’OTAN et sur quelques documents du ministère français de la Défense nationale. Nous espérons ici exposer les stratégies mises en œuvre par la politique culturelle pour appréhender l’altérité, et ainsi déterminer quelques aspects spécifiques de la politique culturelle américaine en France pendant la Guerre froide. The establishment of US military bases in France in the 1950s under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) is subject to political and sociocultural criticisms. Political, first of all, with respect to French sovereignty and the NATO issue as a whole, but also sociocultural, emerging from the difficulty for the French to share their daily lives with the GI’s. On the outskirts of the military bases, contacts between the two populations triggered issues relating to the identity of the "Other," which led to important strain between the French and Americans. The US Department of State and the US Department of Defense designed specific programs to improve transnational contacts as well as an “authorized” image of the military they could then display to the French. Air shows, open houses on the bases, or sporting events between French and American teams demonstrate the existence of a cultural policy in the hands of the military in particular allowing for a "spectacle of the Other", in the words of sociologist Stuart Hall. But this aspect of American diplomacy interrogated the relationship between the military and diplomats on matters of cultural policy. We must therefore question this depiction of otherness, both by the media’s construction of otherness as well as by the "spectacle of the Other." In this study, we will place specific emphasis on basketball at the US Air Force base of Chambley-Bussières in the Lorraine region. This analysis is based on a close reading of the US National Archives, but also NATO Archives and documents from the French Ministry of National Defense. We aim to expose the strategies implemented through cultural policy to understand otherness, and to determine specific aspects of American cultural policy in France during the Cold War