scholarly journals The Extended-Range Tornado Activity Forecast (ERTAF) Project

2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (6) ◽  
pp. E700-E709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vittorio A. Gensini ◽  
Bradford S. Barrett ◽  
John T. Allen ◽  
David Gold ◽  
Paul Sirvatka

Abstract Large-scale weather patterns favorable for tornado occurrence have been understood for many decades. Yet prediction of tornadoes, especially at extended lead periods of more than a few days, remains an arduous task, partly due to the space and time scales involved. Recent research has shown that tropical convection, sea surface temperatures, and the Earth-relative atmospheric angular momentum can induce jet stream configurations that may increase or decrease the probability of tornado frequency across the United States. Applying this recent theoretical work in practice, on 1 March 2015, the authors began the Extended-Range Tornado Activity Forecast (ERTAF) project, with the following goals: 1) to have a map room–style discussion of the anticipated atmospheric state in the 2–3-week lead window; 2) to predict categorical level of tornado activity in that lead window; and 3) to learn from the forecasts through experience by identifying strengths and weaknesses in the methods, as well as identifying any potential scientific knowledge gaps. Over the last five years, the authors have shown skill in predicting U.S. tornado activity two to three weeks in advance during boreal spring. Unsurprisingly, skill is shown to be greater for forecasts spanning week 2 versus week 3. This manuscript documents these forecasting efforts, provides verification statistics, and shares the challenges and lessons learned from predicting tornado activity on the subseasonal time scale.

Author(s):  
L J Hart-Smith ◽  
G Strindberg

The development of the adhesive bonding of the wing of the SAAB 340 and 2000 aircraft is traced from the development of the technology during the Primary Adhesively Bonded Structure Technology (PABST) research programme performed at Douglas Aircraft under contract to the US Air Force Wright Laboratories in the late 1970s through initial fabrication by Fairchild in America in the early 1980s to series production by SAAB in Sweden and, today, also by CASA in Spain. The saga of solving a processing problem encountered in America before the first aircraft was delivered is recounted as an object lesson in how to approach problems and in the benefits derived by doing so promptly and thoroughly. Every aspect of the problem was identified and replicated in the laboratory where, because it was understood properly, it could be duplicated and prevented at will. The lessons learned about bonding tool designs from this investigation and during the manufacture of the PABST fuselage were implemented during the transfer of production of the wing from America to Sweden. The use of a floating caul plate, rather than a traditional rigid bonding tool, is explained. The justification for doing so is the virtual elimination of all fit problems and the production of a far more uniform void-free bond line. In addition, the evolution of progressively simpler, yet more effective, bagging procedures is also described, culminating in a refinement of a technique pioneered by Fokker in Holland. Today, all breather and bleeder layers have been eliminated. This reduces costs and the need for disposal of costly expendable materials and also permits a positive check of the fit of the details by visual examination through the transparent bag once the vacuum is drawn before the assembly is inserted into the autoclave, giving an opportunity to correct any misfits while it is still possible to do so. Consequently, there is also no need for traditional verifilm operations. The tooling technology developed during the PABST programme did not die when the contract was completed with no follow-on production programme for large transport aircraft in the United States. It is alive and flourishing in Sweden. In addition, as the paper describes, the transfer of the technology was so complete that it has since been improved upon. Today, the bonding of the stiffened wing skins for these two aircraft is probably the most advanced and simultaneously the most forgiving production application of large-scale metal bonding the world has yet seen.


1967 ◽  
pp. 493-511
Author(s):  
H.H. HUMMEL ◽  
P. GREEBLER ◽  
W.B. LOEWENSTEIN ◽  
J.B. NIMS ◽  
A.B. REYNOLDS ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn D. Taylor ◽  
Ethan P. White

AbstractPhenology - the timing of cyclical and seasonal natural phenomena such as flowering and leaf out - is an integral part of ecological systems with impacts on human activities like environmental management, tourism, and agriculture. As a result, there are numerous potential applications for actionable predictions of when phenological events will occur. However, despite the availability of phenological data with large spatial, temporal, and taxonomic extents, and numerous phenology models, there has been no automated species-level forecasts of plant phenology. This is due in part to the challenges of building a system that integrates large volumes of climate observations and forecasts, uses that data to fit models and make predictions for large numbers of species, and consistently disseminates the results of these forecasts in interpretable ways. Here we describe a new near-term phenology forecasting system that makes predictions for the timing of budburst, flowers, ripe fruit, and fall colors for 78 species across the United States up to 6 months in advance and is updated every four days. We use the lessons learned in developing this system to provide guidance developing large-scale near-term ecological forecast systems more generally, to help advance the use of automated forecasting in ecology.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan DeAngelis ◽  
Ariana Sutton-Grier ◽  
Allison Colden ◽  
Katie Arkema ◽  
Christopher Baillie ◽  
...  

In the United States, extensive investments have been made to restore the ecological function and services of coastal marine habitats. Despite a growing body of science supporting coastal restoration, few studies have addressed the suite of societally enabling conditions that helped facilitate successful restoration and recovery efforts that occurred at meaningful ecological (i.e., ecosystem) scales, and where restoration efforts were sustained for longer (i.e., several years to decades) periods. Here, we examined three case studies involving large-scale and long-term restoration efforts including the seagrass restoration effort in Tampa Bay, Florida, the oyster restoration effort in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia, and the tidal marsh restoration effort in San Francisco Bay, California. The ecological systems and the specifics of the ecological restoration were not the focus of our study. Rather, we focused on the underlying social and political contexts of each case study and found common themes of the factors of restoration which appear to be important for maintaining support for large-scale restoration efforts. Four critical elements for sustaining public and/or political support for large-scale restoration include: (1) resources should be invested in building public support prior to significant investments into ecological restoration; (2) building political support provides a level of significance to the recovery planning efforts and creates motivation to set and achieve meaningful recovery goals; (3) recovery plans need to be science-based with clear, measurable goals that resonate with the public; and (4) the accountability of progress toward reaching goals needs to be communicated frequently and in a way that the general public comprehends. These conclusions may help other communities move away from repetitive, single, and seemingly unconnected restoration projects towards more large-scale, bigger impact, and coordinated restoration efforts.


2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 131-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Potts-Datema ◽  
Becky J. Smith ◽  
Howard Taras ◽  
Theresa C. Lewallen ◽  
James F. Bogden ◽  
...  

National governments worldwide work to improve education and health outcomes for children and youth and influence their behaviours. Also heavily engaged are national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the voluntary and non-profit sector. While individual agencies and non-profit organisations are often concerned with specific issues of interest related to their charge, constituency or membership, they often develop allegiances with like-minded groups to accomplish broader goals. Two such collaborations in the United States are the focus of this discussion, the National Co-ordinating Committee on School Health and Safety (NCCSHS) and the Friends of School Health (hereafter, "the Friends"). This article reviews these two significant partnerships of public health and education NGOs and outlines successful strategies and lessons learned from the development of these large-scale partnerships. NCCSHS is a collaboration of 64 NGOs and six U.S. government departments representing both the fields of public health and education. Nearly all major NGOs working in fields related to school health are represented, and the six primary governmental agencies all have at least some responsibility for students' health and safety. The group is the primary intersection of NGOs and the Federal government related to school health at the national level. The Friends of School Health ("the Friends") is the primary school health advocacy coalition at the national level in the United States. Sixty-one education and public health NGOs participate. The coalition serves as a communication mechanism and venue for collaborative action on issues before the U.S. Congress and state legislatures that relate to school health. Since the coalition advocates to legislators and other decision makers, no government agencies participate. The paper describes the strategies relating to the initial development of the collaboratives and their ongoing operation. A common theme in development of both of these examples of large-scale partnerships is trust. Like any partnership, the ability to work and grow is dependent on the level of trust among the partners. Both the National Coordinating Committee on School Health and Safety and the Friends of School Health work together successfully within and across their collaborations, to improve health and educational outcomes for children and youth. While both experience challenges, and neither would indicate that its work is near completion, they provide important insight into how these collaboratives can initially develop and subsequently operate productively while providing important contributions to the promotion of healthy schools, and ultimately, healthy nations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (12) ◽  
pp. 1436-1437
Author(s):  
Payal K. Patel ◽  
Arjun Srinivasan

AbstractAntimicrobial resistance is a global and pressing problem that requires large-scale, federal coordination of efforts and tailored local interventions and surveillance. Given the urgency of the threat, many countries now have national policies to reduce inappropriate antimicrobial use. However, few countries have followed this with resources at the institutional level to support the implementation of practices to achieve this goal. In the United States, accreditation bodies such as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and The Joint Commission have added antimicrobial stewardship standards to encourage uptake of antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs).


<em>Abstract</em>.—Historic coal mining operations throughout the United States left behind a legacy of waterways polluted by abandoned mine drainage (AMD). Streams polluted by AMD typically have low pH and high concentrations of heavy metals such as aluminum, iron, and manganese, creating toxic environments for aquatic organisms and causing many of these environments to be devoid of aquatic life. This chapter details the large-scale restoration efforts underway since 2004 in the West Branch Susquehanna River watershed in north-central Pennsylvania to remediate AMD. It provides an overview of the historical coal mining throughout the watershed and the types of restoration projects that have been completed. The importance of establishing and maintaining partnerships for large-scale restoration projects is emphasized along with a discussion on how these projects have been monitored and maintained to ensure restoration success. This chapter aims to provide guidance in the development of other large-scale restoration projects through the lessons learned over the past 15 years of restoration in the West Branch Susquehanna River watershed.


2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 (1) ◽  
pp. 805-809
Author(s):  
Kim Beasley ◽  
C. Curtis Martin ◽  
Roger Laferriere

ABSTRACT Large scale dispersant exercises have been conducted nationally and internationally ever since their first large scale use during the Torrey Canyon Spill of 1967. Few of these exercises are conducted on the grandest scale intended to exercise all aspects of the operation; from command and control, pre-application testing, application, monitoring and data transmission. Clean Islands Council in cooperation with the State of Hawaii'S Department of Health and the U.S. Coast Guard conducted a two day exercise on February 21–22, 2007 to test the full range of the State'S Dispersant capability. It was the largest exercise ever conducted in Hawaii, and arguably the largest in United States history. The exercise was the culmination of 14 years of program development by the Clean Islands Council, the State of Hawaii and the United States Coast Guard. The exercise instilled a tremendous appreciation in all players involved of the complexity of dispersant operations, and the importance of ensuring efficient command and control processes, support and communications. All elements of Dispersant application were tested: decision making processes, laboratory pre-testing, on-scene test application, on-scene application, on-scene monitoring and real time data transmission to effect quick decision making from jurisdictional agencies. Additionally, the latest state of the art equipment was used during all phases. This paper discusses the results of the exercise and shares critical lessons learned that will greatly advance the preparedness knowledge of all dispersant users internationally. The authors of this paper have over 50 years of collective spill response experience and were personally involved in the exercise design and execution.


Author(s):  
H Jonathon Rendina ◽  
Ali J Talan ◽  
Nicola F Tavella ◽  
Jonathan López Matos ◽  
Ruben H Jimenez ◽  
...  

Abstract The use of digital technologies to conduct large-scale research with limited interaction (i.e., no in-person contact) and objective endpoints (i.e., biological testing) have significant potential for the field of epidemiology, but limited research to date has been published on the successes and challenges of such approaches. We analyzed data from a cohort study of sexual minority men across the United States (US). collected using digital strategies during a 10-month period from 2017 to 2018. Overall, 113,874 individuals were screened, of whom 26,000 were invited to the study, 10,691 joined the study, and 7,957 completed all enrollment steps, including return of a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative sample. We examined group differences in completion of the steps towards enrollment to inform future research and found significant differences by several factors, including age and race. This study adds to prior work to provide further proof-of-concept for this limited interaction, technology-mediated methodology, highlighting some of its strengths and challenges, including rapid access to more diverse populations but also potential for bias due to differential enrollment. This method has strong promise and future implementation research is needed to better understand the roles of burden, privacy, access, and compensation, to enhance representativeness and generalizability of the data generated.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3S) ◽  
pp. 638-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine F. J. Meijerink ◽  
Marieke Pronk ◽  
Sophia E. Kramer

Purpose The SUpport PRogram (SUPR) study was carried out in the context of a private academic partnership and is the first study to evaluate the long-term effects of a communication program (SUPR) for older hearing aid users and their communication partners on a large scale in a hearing aid dispensing setting. The purpose of this research note is to reflect on the lessons that we learned during the different development, implementation, and evaluation phases of the SUPR project. Procedure This research note describes the procedures that were followed during the different phases of the SUPR project and provides a critical discussion to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the approach taken. Conclusion This research note might provide researchers and intervention developers with useful insights as to how aural rehabilitation interventions, such as the SUPR, can be developed by incorporating the needs of the different stakeholders, evaluated by using a robust research design (including a large sample size and a longer term follow-up assessment), and implemented widely by collaborating with a private partner (hearing aid dispensing practice chain).


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