scholarly journals Reliability and Climatological Impacts of Convective Wind Estimations

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (8) ◽  
pp. 1825-1845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Edwards ◽  
John T. Allen ◽  
Gregory W. Carbin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Wind Gust ◽  
Wind Tunnel Testing ◽  
Accurate Analysis ◽  
Wind Gusts ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
Quality And Reliability ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

AbstractConvective surface winds in the contiguous United States are classified as severe at 50 kt (58 mi h−1, or 26 m s−1), whether measured or estimated. In 2006, NCDC (now NCEI) Storm Data, from which analyzed data are directly derived, began explicit categorization of such reports as measured gusts (MGs) or estimated gusts (EGs). Because of the documented tendency of human observers to overestimate winds, the quality and reliability of EGs (especially in comparison with MGs) has been challenged, mostly for nonconvective winds and controlled-testing situations, but only speculatively for bulk convective data. For the 10-yr period of 2006–15, 150 423 filtered convective-wind gust magnitudes are compared and analyzed, including 15 183 MGs and 135 240 EGs, both nationally and by state. Nonmeteorological artifacts include marked geographic discontinuities and pronounced “spikes” of an order of magnitude in which EG values (in both miles per hour and knots) end in the digits 0 or 5. Sources such as NWS employees, storm chasers, and the general public overestimate EGs, whereas trained spotters are relatively accurate. Analysis of the ratio of EG to MG and their sources also reveals an apparent warning-verification-influence bias in the climatological distribution of wind gusts imparted by EG reliance in the Southeast. Results from prior wind-tunnel testing of human subjects are applied to 1) illustrate the difference between measured and perceived winds for the database and 2) show the impact on the severe-wind dataset if EGs were bias-corrected for the human overestimation factor.

Sexual Harassment Laws and Their Impact on the Work Environment

2019 ◽  
pp. 657-683
Author(s):  
Philippe W. Zgheib
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Willingness To Disclose ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the impact of sexual harassment laws in a work environment. Different contexts are examined with different sexual harassment laws. The most vulnerable individuals are identified. The particular case of Lebanon is inspected where few laws regulate this matter. A comparison is established with the USA. Lebanon and the United States have a different view of sexual harassment. In Lebanon, no clear laws protect women. In addition, Lebanon is more tolerant than the United States. The difference in cultures also contributes in people's willingness to disclose harassment. In the United States, people are used to the concept of right and a judicial system that preserves it. In Lebanon, such a matter is taboo, and people are discouraged from disclosing to preserve their reputation.

The Domestic Politics of World Power: Explaining Debates over the United States Battleship Fleet, 1890–91

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (02) ◽  
pp. 435-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin O. Fordham
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
World Power ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe United States' 1890–91 decision to begin building a battleship fleet, an important point in its development as a world power, can illuminate the domestic sources of foreign policy ambition. An analysis of roll-call votes in the House of Representatives indicates that socioeconomic divisions arising from industrialization strongly influenced support and opposition to the battleship fleet. This relationship worked mainly through trade policy interests: members of Congress from import-competing states tended to support the effort, while those from export-oriented states tended to oppose it. The patriotic symbolism of battleships at a time of labor unrest also helped motivate support for the program, though evidence of this pattern is less conclusive. Although party affiliation was crucial, it was also partly a function of economic structure, which shaped the two parties’ electoral fortunes. The impact of trade interests during this period is a mirror image of what previous research has found concerning the post-World War II era, when export-oriented interests tended to support American global activism and import-competing interests to oppose it. The reason for the difference is the Republican Party's commitment to trade protection, which strongly influenced both the goals of the policy and the identity of its supporters.

Pharmaceutical Prices

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart O. Schweitzer ◽  
Z. John Lu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Product Quality ◽  
Pharmaceutical Expenditure ◽  
Healthcare Spending ◽  
The United States ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Pharmaceutical Pricing ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pharmaceutical Prices

This chapter provides a detailed examination of pharmaceutical pricing strategies in the United States. It points out that pharmaceutical expenditure as a share of total healthcare spending has historically been quite low in comparison to that of hospitalization and physician services. It identifies several common measures of pharmaceutical prices, and highlights the difference in conclusions reached based on different measures. It offers a critical review of several models used to explain pharmaceutical price behavior, which are grouped into three major categories: market structure models, R&D cost-based models, and product quality or value based models. The chapter concludes that prices of brand-name drugs in the United States are largely driven by product quality attributes, not cost of R&D. Lastly, the chapter examines the impact of generic entry on price.

The Impact of Wind Gusts on the Ocean Thermal Skin Layer by Capillary-Gravity Waves

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J Zappa ◽  
Nathan Laxague ◽  
Sophia Brumer ◽  
Steven Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Infrared Imaging ◽  
Wind Waves ◽  
Ocean Surface ◽  
Skin Layer ◽  
Wind Gust ◽  
Thermal Infrared Imaging ◽  
Wind Gusts ◽  
Transient Forcing ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Water

<p><span>The thermodynamic and emissive properties of the ocean thermal skin layer are crucial contributors to air-sea heat flux. In order to properly observe ocean surface temperature without disturbing any delicate fluid mechanical processes, thermal infrared imaging is often used. However, wind impacting the ocean surface complicates the extraction of meaningful information from thermal imagery; this is especially true for transient forcing phenomena such as wind gusts. Here, we describe wind gust-water surface interaction through its impact on skin layer thermal and emissive properties. Two key physical processes are identified: (1) the growth of centimeter-scale wind waves, which increases interfacial emissivity and (2) microscale wave breaking and shear, which mix the cool skin layer with warmer millimeter-depth water and increase the skin temperature. As more observations are made of air-sea interaction under transient forcing, the full consideration of these processes becomes increasingly important.</span></p>

Sexual Harassment Laws and Their Impact on the Work Environment

2015 ◽  
pp. 41-65
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Willingness To Disclose ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the impact of sexual harassment laws in a work environment. Different contexts are examined with different sexual harassment laws. The most vulnerable individuals are identified. The particular case of Lebanon is inspected where few laws regulate this matter. A comparison is established with the USA. Lebanon and the United States have a different view of sexual harassment. In Lebanon, no clear laws protect women. In addition, Lebanon is more tolerant than the United States. The difference in cultures also contributes in people's willingness to disclose harassment. In the United States, people are used to the concept of right and a judicial system that preserves it. In Lebanon, such a matter is taboo, and people are discouraged from disclosing to preserve their reputation.

scholarly journals The influence of Holocene vegetation changes on topography and erosion rates: a case study at Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed, Arizona

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 471-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon D. Pelletier ◽  
Mary H. Nichols ◽  
Mark A. Nearing
Keyword(s):  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Drainage Density ◽  
Vegetation Changes ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Erosion Rates ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Walnut Gulch ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Quantifying how landscapes have responded and will respond to vegetation changes is an essential goal of geomorphology. The Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) offers a unique opportunity to quantify the impact of vegetation changes on landscape evolution over geologic timescales. The WGEW is dominated by grasslands at high elevations and shrublands at low elevations. Paleovegetation data suggest that portions of WGEW higher than approximately 1430 m a.s.l. have been grasslands and/or woodlands throughout the late Quaternary, while elevations lower than 1430 m a.s.l. changed from a grassland/woodland to a shrubland ca. 2–4 ka. Elevations below 1430 m a.s.l. have decadal timescale erosion rates approximately 10 times higher, drainage densities approximately 3 times higher, and hillslope-scale relief approximately 3 times lower than elevations above 1430 m. We leverage the abundant geomorphic data collected at WGEW over the past several decades to calibrate a mathematical model that predicts the equilibrium drainage density in shrublands and grasslands/woodlands at WGEW. We use this model to test the hypothesis that the difference in drainage density between the shrublands and grassland/woodlands at WGEW is partly the result of a late Holocene vegetation change in the lower elevations of WGEW, using the upper elevations as a control. Model predictions for the increase in drainage density associated with the shift from grasslands/woodlands to shrublands are consistent with measured values. Using modern erosion rates and the magnitude of relief reduction associated with the transition from grasslands/woodlands to shrublands, we estimate the timing of the grassland-to-shrubland transition in the lower elevations of WGEW to be approximately 3 ka, i.e., broadly consistent with paleovegetation studies. Our results provide support for the hypothesis that common vegetation changes in semi-arid environments (e.g., from grassland to shrubland) can change erosion rates by more than an order of magnitude, with important consequences for landscape morphology.

United States-India Relations 1947–1962: Stresses and Strains Over Communist China

1988 ◽  
Vol 44 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 83-99
Author(s):  
S. C. Saha
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
English Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Assistance ◽  
Mccarthy Era ◽  
Communist China ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

The United States had an inbuilt constituency in India, a constituency that had its origins in the pre-independent period. Although the British were under fire, they enjoyed a certain amount of respect for their commitment to justice and law. The Indian elites were the products of English education. All these resulted in a love-hate relationship between the Indians and the Anglo-Saxon groups in general. Besides, the amount of importance the Indian nationalist leaders gave to the mediatory role of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the liberal American Press in bringing about India's independence bears testimony to this formulation. Thus in 1941 when India won independence, the United States enjoyed considerable goodwill in India. The United States was willing and far abler than Stalin's Soviet Union to help in the economic betterment of India. The US launched the Point Four Programme, a politico-humanitarian package.1 Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, was consciously warm towards it because, apart from other reasons, he found it good tactics to use against domestic communism, and the collapse of the Telengana rebellion in Southern India proved him right. During his first visit to the United States in 1949, Nehru and President Truman seemed to have achieved a reasonable desire of mutual sympathy in genera! outlook on. world affairs. What alienated India's diplomacy from that of the United States most was the difference in their views of the nature of Chinese Communist threat and what approaches could be made about it. The United States had not yet given in to Dulles's pactomania, nor had the dreadful McCarthy era started. Yet guided by their different experiences, the two countries began to choose their different paths which did not converge until the Communist Chinese massive invasion of India's north-eastern border in October 1962. So conflicting were the approaches of India and the United States that they found themselves ranged on opposite sides on many issues regarding China. This worked clearly to the disadvantage of both. The differences discouraged economic assistance to India while the United States lost the sympathy of the emerging Asian nations. My paper examines the various aspects of these Indo-American differences over Communist China in order to define the impact on their political relations. It establishes that the ‘China Question’—the non-recognition by the United States, non-admission to the United Nations, the status of Formosa, etc., created bitter differences between India and the United States till the China War of 1962. This provided cause for an unparalleled deepening of the Indo-US involvement.

scholarly journals Dark web and bitcoin: an analysis of the impact of digital anonymate and criptomoids in the practice of money laundering crime

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-285
Author(s):  
Romulo Rhemo Palitot Braga ◽  
Arthur Augusto Barbosa Luna
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Money Laundering ◽  
The United States ◽  
Deep Web ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Dark Web

This article analyzes some of the existing digital anonymity technologies, as well as their impact on the process and facilitation of the money laundering process. It presents the concept of superficial Internet and clarifies the difference between the Deep Web and the Dark Web, exposing how it works one of its most important operating structures, the TOR protocol. It also details the operation of BitCoin, one of the most important crypto-coins today, and draws a parallel on how these technologies can impact the practice of money laundering, as well as discusses the capacity of the mechanisms currently in place to curb and punish it. The anonymity guaranteed by the use of BitCoin is so much that in the first half of May 2017, hackers infected thousands of computers in dozens of countries, including Brazil, the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Russia, Spain and Italy, encrypting computer files and requiring redemption payment for the coded data.

scholarly journals Moral Rights Laws and Income Disparity Between Artists in High and Low GDP States

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Avanesov ◽  
Robert Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
T Test ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

The United States' laissez-faire approach to moral rights legislation has left many academics questioning the impact that these laws have on artists' welfare. In using artists' income as one component of measuring overall well-being, states with additional statewide moral rights legislation have been shown to contribute to more significant artist losses, in contrast to states with only federal legislation. At the same time, moral rights laws have been shown to have no impact on artists' choice of residency, leaving some artists possibly disadvantaged regarding their choice of residency. Utilizing a difference in differences framework, this paper explores the impact of moral rights legislation on artists' weekly incomes between moral rights states of varying outputs of GDP. Although results suggested that artists would lose approximately $0.18 per one billion dollar increase in GDP at the statewide level, after conducting an additional t-test, these findings were shown to have no statistical significance. Several limitations, most prominently a lack of data availability in the pre-law values required for the difference in differences framework, may have contributed to these findings. These indeterminate results leave the question of whether some artists remain economically disadvantaged as a result of moral rights legislation uncertain.  

scholarly journals Refinement of the ice absorption spectrum in the visible using radiance profile measurements in Antarctic snow

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 2655-2672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghislain Picard ◽  
Quentin Libois ◽  
Laurent Arnaud
Keyword(s):  
Absorption Coefficient ◽  
Estimation Method ◽  
Radiative Transfer Model ◽  
Spectral Radiance ◽  
Transfer Model ◽  
Snow Layer ◽  
Antarctic Snow ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Ice is a highly transparent material in the visible. According to the most widely used database (IA2008; Warren and Brandt, 2008), the ice absorption coefficient reaches values lower than 10−3 m−1 around 400 nm. These values were obtained from a vertical profile of spectral radiance measured in a single snow layer at Dome C in Antarctica. We reproduced this experiment using an optical fiber inserted in the snow to record 56 profiles from which 70 homogeneous layers were identified. Applying the same estimation method on every layer yields 70 ice absorption spectra. They present a significant variability but absorption coefficients are overall larger than IA2008 by 1 order of magnitude at 400–450 nm. We devised another estimation method based on Bayesian inference that treats all the profiles simultaneously. It reduces the statistical variability and confirms the higher absorption, around 2  ×  10−2 m−1 near the minimum at 440 nm. We explore potential instrumental artifacts by developing a 3-D radiative transfer model able to explicitly account for the presence of the fiber in the snow. The simulation shows that the radiance profile is indeed perturbed by the fiber intrusion, but the error on the ice absorption estimate is not larger than a factor of 2. This is insufficient to explain the difference between our new estimate and IA2008. The same conclusion applies regarding the plausible contamination by black carbon or dust, concentrations reported in the literature are insufficient. Considering the large number of profiles acquired for this study and other estimates from the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA), we nevertheless estimate that ice absorption values around 10−2 m−1 at the minimum are more likely than under 10−3 m−1. A new estimate in the range 400–600 nm is provided for future modeling of snow, cloud, and sea-ice optical properties. Most importantly, we recommend that modeling studies take into account the large uncertainty of the ice absorption coefficient in the visible and that future estimations of the ice absorption coefficient should also thoroughly account for the impact of the measurement method.

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