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    Improving volcanic ash forecasts with ensemble-based data assimilation

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    The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption had serious consequences to civil aviation. This has initiated a lot of research on volcanic ash forecasting in recent years. For forecasting the volcanic ash transport after eruption onset, a volcanic ash transport and diffusion model (VATDM) needs to be run with Eruption Source Parameters (ESPs) such as plume height and mass eruption rate as input, and with data assimilation techniques to continuously improve the forecast. Reliable and accurate ash measurements are crucial for providing successful ash clouds advices. In the firstphase of this research work, simulated aircraft-based volcanic ash measurements, will be assimilated into a transport model to identify the potential benefit of this kind of observations in an assimilation system. The results show that assimilating aircraft-based measurements can improve the state of ash clouds, and can provide an improved forecast. We also show that for an advice on the aeroplane flying level, aircraft-based measurements should preferably be taken at this level. Furthermoreit is shown that in order to make an acceptable advice for aviation decision makers, accurate knowledge about uncertainties of ESPs and measurements is of great importance.The forecast accuracy of distal volcanic ash clouds is important for providing valid aviation advice during volcanic ash eruptions. However, because the distal part of a volcanic ash plume is far from the volcano, the influence of eruption information on this part becomes rather indirect and uncertain, resulting in inaccurate volcanic ash forecasts in these distal areas. In this thesis, we use real-life aircraft in situ observations, measured in the North-West part of Germany during the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, in an ensemble-based data assimilation system to investigate the potential improvement on the forecast accuracy with regard to the distal volcanic ash plume. We show that the error of the analyzed volcanic ash state can be significantly reduced by assimilating real-life in situ measurements. After assimilation, it is shown that the model-based aviation advice for Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg can be improved. We suggest that with suitable aircrafts measuring once per day across the distal volcanic ash plume, the description and prediction of volcanic ash clouds in these areas can be improved significantly.Among the data assimilation approaches, the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is a well-known and popular method. A proper covariance localization strategy in the analysis step of EnKF is essential for reducing spurious covariances caused by the finite ensemble size, as shown for this application for assimilation of aircraft in situ measurements. After analyzing the characteristics of the physical forecast error covariances, we present a two-way tracking approach to define the localization matrixfor covariance localization. The result shows that the Two-way-tracking Localized EnKF (TL-EnKF) effectively maintains the correctly specified physical covariances and largely reduces the spurious ones. The computational cost of TL-EnKF is also evaluated and is shown to be advantageous for both serial and parallel implementations. Compared to the commonly used distance-based covariance localization, the two-way tracking approach is shown to be more suitable. In addition, the covariance inflation approach is verified as an additional improvement to TL-EnKF to achieve more accurate results.A timely prediction requires that the computations of the data assimilation system can be performed quickly (at least than the Wall-clock). We therefore investigate strategies for accelerating the data assimilation algorithm. Based on evaluations of the computational time, the analysis step of the assimilation turns out to be the most expensive part. After a study on the characteristics of the ensemble ash state, we propose a mask-state algorithm which records the sparsity information of the full ensemble state matrix and transforms the full matrix into a relatively small one. This will reduce the computational cost in the analysis step. Experimental results show the mask-state algorithm significantly speeds up the analysis step. Subsequently, the total amount of computing time for volcanic ash data assimilation is reduced to an acceptable level. The mask-state algorithm is generic and thus can be embedded in any ensemble-based data assimilation framework. Moreover, ensemble-based data assimilation with the mask-state algorithm is promising and flexible, because it implements exactly the standard data assimilation without any approximation and it realizes the satisfying performance without any change of the full model.Infrared satellite measurements of volcanic ash mass loadings are often used asinput observations for the assimilation scheme. However, these satellite-retrieveddata are often two-dimensional (2D), and cannot easily be combined with a three-dimensional (3D) volcanic ash model to improve the volcanic ash state. By integrating available data including ash mass loadings, cloud top heights and thickness information, we propose a satellite observational operator (SOO) that translates satellite-retrieved 2D volcanic ash mass loadings to 3D concentrations at the top layer of the ash cloud. Ensemble-based data assimilation is used to assimilate the extracted measurements of ash concentrations. The results show that satellite data assimilation can force the volcanic ash state to match the satellite observations, and that it improves the forecast of the ash state. Comparison with highly accurate aircraft in situ measurements shows that the effective duration of the improved volcanic ash forecasts is about a half day

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used

    Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902

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    In Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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