Weather, Risk, and Voting: An Experimental Analysis of the Effect of Weather on Vote Choice

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Bassi

AbstractA number of theoretical and empirical studies analyze the effect of inclement weather on voter turnout and in turn on parties’ vote share. However, empirical findings suggest that the effect of weather on parties’ vote share is greater than can be explained by its influence on voter turnout alone. This article provides experimental evidence of the effect of weather on vote choice between more- versus less-risky candidates. Findings show that bad weather significantly and sizeably depresses risk tolerance making voters less likely to vote for risky candidates. This article also provides evidence of a possible mechanism: unpleasant weather conditions depress agents’ mood, making agents less inclined to vote for candidates who are perceived as more risky.

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 507-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junhan Lee ◽  
Wonjae Hwang

Weather conditions have long been considered as a major factor that affects voter turnout. Does inclement weather suppress voter turnout? If so, which party would benefit from lower voter turnout caused by bad weather conditions? Since voter turnout has an impact on electoral outcomes in many countries, including Korea, addressing these questions is essential for better understanding of voter turnout and electoral outcomes. This paper examines the weather-turnout theory using 146 by-elections held in Korea between 1995 and 1999. The results show that, all else being constant, inclement weather reduces voter turnout, implying that it may benefit right-wing or major parties rather than left-wing or minor parties through its negative impact on voter turnout.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Beomseob Park

This research explores the role relative economy plays in vote choice and turnout. The decision to vote and for whom to vote are heavily predicated on selecting competent policymakers based on their performance handling the economy. To do so, voters must infer the leader's competence based on observations of the economy. I argue that voters can better extract the 'competence signal' by comparing their own economy with the economies of reference countries that share a great deal of familiarity, similarity and connectivity. A relatively strong economy signals incumbent competence whereas a relatively poor one signals their incompetence, and thus, incumbent vote share and voter turnout should be a function of the relative economy. By selecting appropriate reference points from news media in 22 different languages from 33 democracies, this research demonstrates that incumbents tend to be rewarded with increasing vote shares for out-performing growth and are punished for growth that under-performs relative to reference economies. It also reveals that the relatively poor economy makes voters alienated and indifferent from politics, which eventually leads them to abstain from voting. This research has an important implication for democratic electoral accountability; despite frequent instability between the economy and vote choice, this research reaffirms democratic theorists by showing that elections offer citizens periodic chances to change policymakers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-81
Author(s):  
Simone Zini ◽  
Simone Bianco ◽  
Raimondo Schettini

Rain removal from pictures taken under bad weather conditions is a challenging task that aims to improve the overall quality and visibility of a scene. The enhanced images usually constitute the input for subsequent Computer Vision tasks such as detection and classification. In this paper, we present a Convolutional Neural Network, based on the Pix2Pix model, for rain streaks removal from images, with specific interest in evaluating the results of the processing operation with respect to the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) task. In particular, we present a way to generate a rainy version of the Street View Text Dataset (R-SVTD) for "text detection and recognition" evaluation in bad weather conditions. Experimental results on this dataset show that our model is able to outperform the state of the art in terms of two commonly used image quality metrics, and that it is capable to improve the performances of an OCR model to detect and recognise text in the wild.


2000 ◽  
Vol 78 (10) ◽  
pp. 1831-1839 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Sound ◽  
M Veith

Daily activity patterns of male western green lizards, Lacerta bilineata (Daudin, 1802), at the edge of their northern distribution range in western Germany after the breeding season from June to October were recorded using implanted radio transmitters. Different activity indices discriminating between stimulation, duration, and length of movement were correlated with actual weather conditions (d0) and with weather conditions on the 2 previous days (d-1 and d-2). The lizards' dependence on weather showed two different phases throughout the study period. During the first period and in the period preceding a drastic change of weather in midsummer, weather had no significant influence on movement parameters. After that event, temperatures dropped and a strong dependence on weather of all movement parameters except those indicating displacements became apparent. Thresholds for 50% activity during this second phase were a maximum temperature of 17°C and a minimum humidity of 35%. Two days after periods of bad weather, the influence of weather conditions increased again. This can be explained by physiological deficits that require compensation during the period of marginal weather conditions prior to hibernation. Displacement movements were significantly longer than home-range movements and were neither triggered nor modulated by the weather. They must therefore represent activities such as patrolling territory boundaries.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2521-2533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Babak Yousefi-khangah ◽  
Saeid Ghassemzadeh ◽  
Seyed Hossein Hosseini ◽  
Behnam Mohammadi-Ivatloo

Author(s):  
Liliana V. Pinheiro ◽  
Conceição J. E. M. Fortes ◽  
João A. Santos

The risks associated with mooring of ships are a major concern for port and maritime authorities. Sea waves and extreme weather conditions can lead to excessive movements of vessels and mooring loads affecting the safety of ships, cargo, passengers, crew or port infrastructures. Normally, port activities such as ships’ approach manoeuvres and loading/unloading operations, are conditioned or suspended based solely on weather or wave forecasts, causing large economic losses. Nevertheless, it has been shown that some of the most hazardous events with moored ships happen on days with mild sea and wind conditions, being the culprit long waves and resonance phenomena. Bad weather conditions can be managed with an appropriate or reinforced mooring arrangement. A correct risk assessment must be based on the movements of the ship and on the mooring loads, taking into account all the moored ship’s system. In this paper, the development of a forecast and warning system based on the assessment of risks associated with moored ships in port areas, SWAMS ALERT, is detailed. This modular system can be scaled and adapted to any port, providing decision-makers with accurate and complete information on the behaviour of moored ships, movements and mooring loads, allowing a better planning and integrated management of port areas.


2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 741-744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo H.D. Cançado ◽  
Taciany Ferreira ◽  
Eliane M. Piranda ◽  
Cleber O. Soares

Outbreaks of stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans, cause losses for livestock producers located near sugarcane mills in Brazil, especially in southern Mato Grosso do Sul. The sugarcane mills are often pointed by local farmers as the primary source of these outbreaks; some mills also joined the farmers in combating the flies. Brazilian beef cattle production has great economic importance in similar level to bio-fuel production as ethanol. In this context, the wide-ranging knowledge on the biology and ecology of the stable fly, including larval habitats and their reproduction sites is extremely important for further development of control programs. This paper aims to report the occurrence and development of S. calcitrans larvae inside sugarcane stems in three municipalities of Mato Grosso do Sul. The sugarcane stems give protection against bad weather conditions and insecticide application. In this way, for sustainable sugarcane growth specific research concerning this situation should be conducted.


Author(s):  
Martina Bobriková

The paper focuses on valuation of a weather derivative with payoffs depending on temperature. We use historical data from the weather station in the Slovak town Košice to obtain unique prices of option contracts in an incomplete market. Numerical examples of prices of some contracts are presented, using the Burn analysis. We provide an example of how a weather contract can be designed to hedge the financial risk of a suboptimal temperature condition. The comparative comparison of the selected option hedging strategies has shown the best results for the producers in agricultural industries who hedges against an unfavourable weather conditions. The results of analysis proved that by buying put option or call option, the farmer establishes the highest payoff in the case of temperature decrease or increase. The Long Straddle Strategy is the most expensive but is available to the farmer who hedges against a high volatility in temperature movement. We conclude with the findings that weather derivatives could be useful tools to diminish the financial losses for agricultural industries highly dependent for temperature.


Author(s):  
T. Tadono ◽  
M. Ohki ◽  
T. Abe

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 (ALOS-2) was launched on May 24, 2014, and it is operating very well in space more than 4.5 years. The designed mission life is five years as nominal operational phase and the target is over seven years since launch the satellite. The mission objectives of ALOS-2 are 1) disaster monitoring, 2) national land and infrastructure information, 3) cultivated area monitoring, and 4) global forest monitoring. To achieve the objectives, ALOS-2 carries on the Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar-2 (PALSAR-2), which is an active microwave radar using the 1.2 GHz frequency band and observes in day and night times even in bad weather conditions as successor PALSAR instrument onboard ALOS satellite operated from 2006 to 2011. PALSAR-2 instrument has several enhanced features from PALSAR e.g. finer spatial resolution, spotlight observing mode, dual-polarisation ScanSAR. This paper summarises an introduction of typical data analysis results for monitoring natural disasters by ALOS-2 during the operational phase. As the response natural disasters, more than 400 times of the emergency observations have been conducted to identify damages caused by volcanic activities, earthquakes, flooding etc. happened in Japan and the World.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 161-170
Author(s):  
Rosen Pasarelski

The currently widely used 4G cellular networks face many challenges. The growing demand for high-resolution mobile multimedia applications is bringing these networks to their practical limits. 5G networks, the next generation of wireless communications, are standardized to ease the burden on current infrastructure by offering significantly higher data rates through increased channel bandwidth. Given the lack of accessible frequencies traditionally used for mobile communications, millimeter bandwidths (mmWave) are quite a challenging alternative. This technology is a cornerstone of upcoming 5G networks, allowing faster data speeds and much higher bandwidth than ever before, but not every 5G network will necessarily use this frequency band, at least not all the time. As with any new technology, there are unavoidable problems that need to be overcome. The purpose of the research and analysis in this article is to systematize issues and solutions related to the potential problems of spectrum sharing in mmWave frequency range, its suitability for long-distance communications, indoors, in bad weather conditions, as well as biological aspects, and relevant conclusions have been done to meet these challenges.


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