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The role of mineral dust aerosol in global radiative energy budget is often quantified by the dust direct radiative effect (DRE). The dust DRE strongly depends on dust aerosol optical depth (DAOD), therefore, DRE efficiency (DREE=DRE/DAOD) is widely compared across different studies to eliminate difference due to the various dust load. Nevertheless, DREE is still influenced by the uncertainties associated with dust particle size distribution (PSD) and optical properties. In this study, we derive a global clear-sky size-resolved DREE dataset in both shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) at top of the atmosphere (TOA) and surface based on satellite observations (i.e., satellite-retrieved dust extinction spatial and vertical distributions). In the DREE dataset, dust geometric diameter from 0.1µm to 100 µm is divided into 10 bins and the corresponding monthly mean DREE (with respect to DAOD at 532 nm) for each size bin is derived by using the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM). Three sets of state-of-the-art dust refractive indices (RI) and two sets of dust shape models (sphere vs. spheroid) are adopted to investigate the sensitivity of dust DREE to dust absorption and shape. As a result, the size-resolved dust DREE dataset contains globally distributed monthly mean dust DREE at TOA and surface for each of 10 size bins with 5° (longitude) × 2° (latitude) resolution as well as for each dust RI and shape combination. The size-resolved dust DREE dataset can be used to readily calculate global dust DRE for any DAOD and dust PSD, including the uncertainty in the DRE induced by dust microphysical properties (e.g., dust PSD, RI and shape). By calculating dust DRE based on DAOD climatology retrieved from different satellite sensors and based on different dust PSD, we find that uncertainty in the spatial pattern of DAOD induces more than 10 % of the uncertainty in SW dust DRE at TOA. The observation-based dust PSD induces around 15 %~20 % uncertainty in dust DRE at TOA and in the atmosphere. The sensitivity assessments of dust DRE to dust RI and shape further suggest that dust non-sphericity induces a negligible effect on dust DRE estimations, while dust RI turns out to be the most important factor in determining dust DRE, particularly in SW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative filtering is the most popular approach when building recommender systems, but the large scale and sparse data of the user-item matrix seriously affect the recommendation results. Recent research shows the user's social relations information can improve the quality of recommendation. However, most of the current social recommendation algorithms only consider the user's direct social relations, while ignoring potential users' interest preference and group clustering information. Moreover, project attribute is also important in item rating. We propose a recommendation algorithm which using matrix factorization technology to fuse user information and project information together. We first detect the community structure using overlapping community discovery algorithm, and mine the clustering information of user interest preference by a fuzzy clustering algorithm based on the project category information. On the other hand, we use project-category attribution matrix and user-project score matrix to get project comprehensive similarity and compute project feature matrix based on Entity Relation Decomposition. Fusing the user clustering information and project information together, we get Entity-Association-based Matrix Factorization (EAMF) model which can be used to predict user ratings. The proposed algorithm is compared with other algorithms on the Yelp dataset. Experimental studies show that the proposed algorithm leads to a substantial increase in recommendation accuracy on Yelp data set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We summarize the size parameter range of the applicability of four light-scattering computational methods for nonspherical dielectric particles. These methods include two exact methods -- the extended boundary condition method (EBCM) and the invariant imbedding T-matrix method (II-TM) and two approximate approaches -- the physical-geometric optics method (PGOM) and the improved geometric optics method (IGOM). For spheroids, the single-scattering properties computed by EBCMand II-TMagree for size parameters up to 150, and the comparison gives us confidence in using IITM as a benchmark for size parameters up to 150 for other geometries (e.g., hexagonal columns) because the applicability of II-TM with respect to particle shape is generic, as demonstrated in our previous studies involving a complex aggregate. This study demonstrates the convergence of the exact II-TM and approximate PGOM solutions for the complete set of single-scattering properties of a nonspherical shape other than spheroids and circular cylinders with particle sizes of ~ 48λ (size parameter ∼ 150), specifically a hexagonal column with a length size parameter of kL = 300, where k = 2π/λ and L is the column length. IGOM is also quite accurate except near the exact 180◦ backscattering direction. This study demonstrates that a synergetic combination of the numerically-exact II-TM and the approximate PGOM can seamlessly cover the entire size parameter range of practical interest. To demonstrate the applicability of the approach, we compute the optical properties of dust particles and demonstrate a downstream application to the retrieval of dust aerosol optical thickness and effective particle size from satellite polarimetric observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]