An objective method for homogenization of early (pre $1850) instrumental near surface air temperature records is developed. The method is grounded on the same variational principle as used in the objective analysis of meteorological ®elds; i.e. the method consists of a statistically optimal spatial-coherence-based adjustment of nearby station temperature records. The adjustments are made for se...

The introduction of alien species, which are also called exotic or non-native species, can cause a decrease in biotic similarity among areas when different species are introduced to each area and remain localized, a process called biotic differentiation (Olden & Poff, 2003; Qian et al., 2008). However, over time, alien species often spread widely and cause an increase in biotic similarity among...

Reflection and refraction of electromagnetic waves by artificial periodic composites (metamaterials) can be accurately modeled by an effective medium theory only if the boundary of the medium is explicitly taken into account and the two effective parameters of the medium (the index of refraction and the impedance) are correctly determined. Theories that consider infinite periodic composites do ...

Viscous sputum specimens usually cannot undergo automated extraction, and thus, a pre-homogenization process is desirable before isolating nucleic acids for real-time reverse transcription PCR. In this study, we compared three preprocessing methods [preprocessing with normal saline (NS), dithiothreitol (DTT), and proteinase K (PK)] of sputum specimens on the extraction and detection of influenz...

The effective permeability of electromagnetic metamaterials can deviate significantly from unity at high frequencies – an intriguing property not available in natural materials. However, we show both analytically and numerically that this artificial magnetism has limitations: the stronger the magnetic response, the less accurate the homogenization. New computational aspects of the paper include...

By employing the (de)homogenization technique in a relatively extensive setting, this note studies in detail the relation between nonhomogeneous Gröbner bases and homogeneous Gröbner bases. As a consequence, a general principle of computing Gröbner bases (for an ideal and its homogenization ideal) by passing to homogenized generators is clarified systematically. The obtained results improve and...

This paper concerns the homogenization problem of a parabolic equation with large, timedependent, random potentials in high dimensions d ≥ 3. Depending on the competition between temporal and spatial mixing of the randomness, the homogenization procedure turns to be different. We characterize the difference by proving the corresponding weak convergence of Brownian motion in random scenery. When...

In this paper, we consider the derivation of the modified Wenzel’s and Cassie’s equations for wetting phenomena on rough surfaces from a three-dimensional phase field model. We derive an effective boundary condition by asymptotic two-scale homogenization technique when the size of the roughness is small. The modified Wenzel’s and Cassie’s equations for the apparent contact angles on the rough s...

In this paper, we prove an individual homogenization result for a class of almost periodic nonlinear parabolic operators. The spatial and temporal heterogeneities are almost periodic functions in the sense of Besicovitch. The latter allows discontinuities and suitable for many applications. First, we derive stability and comparison estimates for sequences of G-convergent nonlinear parabolic ope...

Aim Biotic homogenization describes the process by which species invasions and extinctions increase the genetic, taxonomic or functional similarity of two or more biotas over a specified time interval. The study of biotic homogenization is a young and rapidly emerging research area in the budding field of conservation biogeography, and this paper aims to synthesize our current knowledge of this...