Extracting and analyzing semantic relatedness between cities using news articles

News articles capture a variety of topics about our society. They reflect not only the socioeconomic activities that happened in our physical world, but also some of the cultures, human interests, and public concerns that exist only in the perceptions of people. Cities are frequently mentioned in news articles, and two or more cities may co-occur in the same article. Such co-occurrence often suggests certain relatedness between the mentioned cities, and the relatedness may be under different topics depending on the contents of the news articles. We consider the relatedness under different topics as semantic relatedness. By reading news articles, one can grasp the general semantic relatedness between cities; yet, given hundreds of thousands of news articles, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to manually read them. This paper proposes a computational framework which can ‘read’ a large number of news articles and extract the semantic relatedness between cities. This framework is based on a natural language processing model and employs a machine learning process to identify the main topics of news articles. We describe the overall structure of this framework and its individual modules, and then apply it to an experimental dataset with more than 500,000 news articles covering the top 100 US cities spanning a 10-year period. We perform exploratory visualizations of the extracted semantic relatedness under different topics and over multiple years. We also analyze the impact of geographic distance on semantic relatedness and find varied distance decay effects. The proposed framework can be used to support large-scale content analysis in city network research.     

Fundamental solutions to Helmholtz's equation for inhomogeneous media by a first-order differential equation system

Helmholtz's equation with a variable wavenumber is solved for a point force through use of a first-order differential equation system approach. Since the system matrix in this formulation is non-constant, an eigensolution is no longer valid and recourse has to be made to approximate techniques such as series expansions and Picard iterations. These techniques can accommodate in principle any variation of the wavenumber with position and are applicable to scalar wave propagation in one, two and three dimensions, with the latter two cases requiring radial symmetry. As shown in the examples, good solution accuracy can be achieved in the near field region, irrespective of frequency, for the particular case examined, namely a wavenumber which increases (or decreases) as the square root of the radial distance from source to receiver. Finally, the resulting Green's functions can be used as kernels within the context of boundary element type solutions to study scalar wave scattering in inhomogeneous media.     

Evidence of pressure-forced turbulent flow in a forest

Lagged cross-correlation analyses between streamwise velocity at several heights within and above a forest, and between streamwise velocity and surface pressure, provide evidence that turbulence in the sub-crown region of the forest is to a large extent driven by pressure perturbations. The analyses support earlier results based on examination of coherent structures observed in the same forest. The phase of the streamwise velocity signal exhibits an increasing delay with decreasing height, indicative of a downwind tilted structure, until the upper region of the forest is reached, at which point the effect is reversed. It is suggested that positive pressure perturbations ahead of advancing microfronts induce streamwise accelerations in the trunk space. This link between the pressure pattern and the wind field explains why velocity spectra in the trunk space are depleted in the higher frequencies, relative to levels above.     

The influence of buoyancy on third-order turbulent velocity statistics within a deciduous forest

The influence of atmospheric stability on the behaviour of the third moment of flow velocities observed inside a deciduous forest canopy is examined. Results suggest that buoyancy plays a dominant role in dictating the magnitude of gusts observed inside tall vegetation. Furthermore, an examination of the turbulence recorded throughout leaf fall inside the same forest indicates that larger velocity skewnesses are observed inside a canopy in full leaf than inside a sparse canopy. The behaviour of the measured terms in the non-dimensionalized rate equation of the third moment of canopy flow velocities is also examined. Turbulent diffusion and turbulence gradient interaction terms are largest in stable conditions in the upper canopy layer while these are most important in unstable conditions in the lower canopy layer. In all stability regimes, the turbulent diffusion term is the main source of skewness. The turbulence gradient interaction term, the residual and buoyant production terms all contribute to destroy skewness in stable conditions.     

New contributions to Chinese Plio-Pleistocene magnetostratigraphy

A new collection of over 500 orientated hand-samples (of which 180 are red clays) from a 195 m loess/red clay section near Xian (109° 12′ E, 34° 12′ N), China, has been dated by magnetic stratigraphy. Biostratigraphic and previous magnetostratigraphic investigations gave a maximum age for the Chinese loess of 2.4 Ma, implying that the underlying Red Clay Formation is Pliocene in age. The present study yields a clearly defined magnetic polarity stratigraphy in good agreement with a polarity time scale developed by earlier workers. An interpretation of this magnetostratigraphy suggests a basal age for the loess series in this region of 2.5 Ma, and a minimum age for the base of the Red Clay Formation, which is also the base of the section, of 5.0 Ma.     

Production of Reactive Oxygen Species in the Rhizosphere of a <Emphasis Type="Italic">Spartina-</Emphasis>Dominated Salt Marsh Systems

This paper reports the presence of a metastable mixture of Fe(II), O₂, superoxide and hydrogen peroxide in sediment pore water in organic carbon-rich sediments in Spartina alterniflora-dominated salt marsh systems. Field measurements at two different estuarine sites in South Carolina (one heavily urbanized and a protected research reserve) showed a broad region of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production more than 15 cm below the sediment surface within and immediately adjacent to the rhizospheres of S. alterniflora. Dissolved Fe(II) was positively correlated with hydrogen peroxide indicating a possible abiotic pathway to ROS production (r ² = 0.94). The null hypothesis was tested that Fe(II) inventories were maintained by protective ligands and thus unreactive with respect to O₂ consumption and ROS production. The addition of an Fe-binding ligand, DTPA, resulted in rapid decline of ROS in pore water, indicating that Fe(II) was labile. The half-life of superoxide under the measured solution conditions was calculated and found to be less than a second. The combination of high lability and persistent ROS was interpreted to indicate a high rate of Fe(II) and O₂ supply to the pore water. The ²²⁴Ra/²²⁸Th disequilibrium was measured to determine the potential for advective mass transfer of dissolved oxygen via pore water exchange. The estimated pore water exchange of 54 L m^?2 day^?1 was significant but could not support the measured production of ROS alone, the direct exchange of O₂ from the S. alterniflora root system may have contributed significantly to ROS production in the sediments.     

Identification of ionene and other carotenoid degradation products from the pyrolysis of sporopollenins derived from some pollen exines,a spore coal and the Green River shale

Examination of the pyrolysis products of sporopollenins from Pinus montana, Picea canadensis and Fagus sylvatica pollen, a spore coal and the Green River shale kerogen has shown the presence of typical carotenoid degradation products, including especially ionene and various naphthalenes and hydro naphthalenes. The products are compared with similar materials obtained from β-carotene and its oxidative co-polymer and the mechanism of formation of the compounds is discussed.