scholarly journals A Novel Approach to Identify Sources of Errors in IMERG for GPM Ground Validation

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 2477-2491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jackson Tan ◽  
Walter A. Petersen ◽  
Ali Tokay
Keyword(s):  
Heavy Rain ◽  
The United States ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Estimation Uncertainty ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Ground Validation ◽  
Important Means ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Global Precipitation ◽  
Different Sources

Abstract The comparison of satellite and high-quality, ground-based estimates of precipitation is an important means to assess the confidence in satellite-based algorithms and to provide a benchmark for their continued development and future improvement. To these ends, it is beneficial to identify sources of estimation uncertainty, thereby facilitating a precise understanding of the origins of the problem. This is especially true for new datasets such as the Integrated Multisatellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) product, which provides global precipitation gridded at a high resolution using measurements from different sources and techniques. Here, IMERG is evaluated against a dense network of gauges in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. A novel approach is presented, leveraging ancillary variables in IMERG to attribute the errors to the individual instruments or techniques within the algorithm. As a whole, IMERG exhibits some misses and false alarms for rain detection, while its rain-rate estimates tend to overestimate drizzle and underestimate heavy rain with considerable random error. Tracing the errors to their sources, the most reliable IMERG estimates come from passive microwave satellites, which in turn exhibit a hierarchy of performance. The morphing technique has comparable proficiency with the less skillful satellites, but infrared estimations perform poorly. The approach here demonstrated that, underlying the overall reasonable performance of IMERG, different sources have different reliability, thus enabling both IMERG users and developers to better recognize the uncertainty in the estimate. Future validation efforts are urged to adopt such a categorization to bridge between gridded rainfall and instantaneous satellite estimates.

scholarly journals Evaluation of IMERG satellite precipitation over the land-coast-ocean continuum – Part I: Detection

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yagmur Derin ◽  
Pierre-Emmanuel Kirstetter ◽  
Jonathan J. Gourley
Keyword(s):  
West Coast ◽  
Water Flux ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Formation Mechanisms ◽  
Coastal Regions ◽  
The West ◽  
Ground Validation ◽  
Detection Capabilities ◽  
Global Precipitation

AbstractAs a fundamental water flux, quantitative understanding of precipitation is important to understand and manage water systems under a changing climate, especially in transition regions such as the coastal interface between land and ocean. This work aims to assess the uncertainty in precipitation detection over the land-coast-ocean continuum in the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) V06B. It is examined over three coastal regions of the U.S., i.e. the West Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the East Coast, each of which are characterized by different topographies and precipitation climatologies. Detection capabilities are contrasted over different surfaces (land, coast, ocean). A novel and integrated approach traces the IMERG detection performance back to its components (passive microwave, infrared, and morphing-based estimates). The analysis is performed by using high-resolution, high-quality Ground Validation Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor (GV-MRMS) rainfall estimates as ground reference. The best detection performances are reported with PMW estimates (hit rates in the range of [25-39]%), followed by morphing ([20-34]%), morphing+IR ([17-27]%) and IR ([11-16]%) estimates. Precipitation formation mechanisms play an important role, especially in the West Coast where orographic processes challenge detection. Further, precipitation typology is shown to be a strong driver of IMERG detection. Over the ocean, IMERG detection is generally better but suffers from false alarms ([10-53]%). Overall, IMERG displays nonhomogeneous precipitation detection capabilities tracing back to its components. Results point toward a similar behavior across various land-coast-ocean continuum regions of the CONUS, which suggests that results can be potentially transferred to other coastal regions of the world.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Cold-Season Precipitation Forecasts Generated by the Hourly Updating High-Resolution Rapid Refresh Model

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 921-939 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyoko Ikeda ◽  
Matthias Steiner ◽  
James Pinto ◽  
Curtis Alexander
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cold Season ◽  
Mixed Phase ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Areal Extent ◽  
Freezing Rain ◽  
Weather System ◽  
Ground Validation

Abstract The hourly updating High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model is evaluated with regard to its ability to predict the areal extent of cold-season precipitation and accurately depict the timing and location of regions of snow, rain, and mixed-phase precipitation on the ground. Validation of the HRRR forecasts is performed using observations collected by the Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) stations across the eastern two-thirds of the United States during the 2010–11 cold season. The results show that the HRRR is able to reliably forecast precipitation extent during the cold season. In particular, the location and areal extent of both snow and rain are very well predicted. Depiction of rain-to-snow transitions and freezing rain is reasonably good; however, the associated evaluation scores are significantly lower than for either snow or rain. The analyses suggest the skill in accurately depicting precipitation extent and phase (i.e., rain, snow, and mixed phase) depends on the size and organization of a weather system. Typically, larger synoptically forced weather systems are better predicted than smaller weather systems, including the associated rain-to-snow transition or freezing-rain areas. Offsets in space or time (i.e., causing misses and false alarms) have a larger effect on the model performance for smaller weather systems.

Prison Visitation

Criminology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnna Christian
Keyword(s):  
Family Members ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Friendship Networks ◽  
Correctional Institution ◽  
Phone Calls ◽  
Familial Bonds ◽  
Unique Experience ◽  
Important Means ◽  
The Individual

As rates of incarceration in the United States increased to the level termed “mass imprisonment,” interest in the broader consequences of correctional involvement also grew. Researchers and policymakers expanded their attention beyond the individual in prison or jail, to examine the lives of those connected to the incarcerated individual, such as family members and friends. Family life is affected in myriad ways when a member is incarcerated. A family may experience the loss of income, parents’ contact with children is restricted, and adult partners’ lives are altered. The incarcerated individual’s parents and broader systems of kin and friendship networks are also impacted by a family members’ incarceration. One important means of staying connected to a person in a correctional institution is prison visitation. Studies indicate that visitation is the least frequent form of contact between the incarcerated and outsiders (phone calls and the exchange of letters is more common), but visitation is nonetheless a significant aspect of incarceration. Visitation is a unique experience for family members in that they are free people who enter correctional facilities and must then abide by institutional rules. At the same time that family members enter institutions to visit, for the incarcerated individual, visitation provides important opportunities to interact with the outside world and maintain familial bonds. There is commonly held wisdom that correctional officials value visitation as a programmatic offering that occupies inmates’ time and provides opportunities for pro-social interactions. Visitation can, however, present challenges, as contact with outsiders may be an avenue for securing contraband. Visitation encounters are tightly regulated, with institutions arguing the rules are necessary for the safety and security of the institution, and some family members experiencing the restrictions as unnecessarily repressive. Published research about prison visitation has developed significantly over the last several decades. The earliest research, linking visitation to inmate outcomes such as institutional behavior and recidivism after release, suffered methodological limitations by not controlling for the factors that could influence both the likelihood of receiving visits from family members and these outcomes. As the research has advanced, the methodological rigor of studies has improved, as well as work applying a range of methodological approaches. Current research examines the experiences of family members (including children) visiting within institutions, inmate experiences of visitation and outcomes during and after release, and visitation modalities such as conjugal and video visitation. Scholars continue mapping out an agenda for future research and policy questions. Topics of particular importance include how to facilitate visitation access for families, making visitation spaces more welcoming and comfortable for family members and children, and using visitation during the incarceration period to facilitate reentry and reintegration into the family and community upon release.

Improving Rain/No-Rain Detection Skill by Merging Precipitation Estimates from Different Sources

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 2419-2429
Author(s):  
Jianzhi Dong ◽  
Wade T. Crow ◽  
Rolf Reichle
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Probabilistic Framework ◽  
Detection Error ◽  
Land Surface Modeling ◽  
Precipitation Occurrence ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Precipitation Estimation ◽  
Precipitation Estimates ◽  
Global Precipitation ◽  
Different Sources

AbstractRain/no-rain detection error is a key source of uncertainty in regional and global precipitation products that propagates into offline hydrological and land surface modeling simulations. Such detection error is difficult to evaluate and/or filter without access to high-quality reference precipitation datasets. For cases where such access is not available, this study proposes a novel approach for improved rain/no-rain detection. Based on categorical triple collocation (CTC) and a probabilistic framework, a weighted merging algorithm (CTC-M) is developed to combine noisy, but independent, precipitation products into an optimal binary rain/no-rain time series. Compared with commonly used approaches that directly apply the best parent product for rain/no-rain detection, the superiority of CTC-M is demonstrated analytically and numerically using spatially dense precipitation measurements over Europe. Our analysis also suggests that CTC-M is tolerant to a range of cross-correlated rain/no-rain detection errors and detection biases of the parent products. As a result, CTC-M will benefit global precipitation estimation by improving the representation of precipitation occurrence in gauge-based and multisource merged precipitation products.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

Armed Violence in the Ideology of Contemporary Islamic Fundamentalism - Study models

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 237
Author(s):  
Laith Mzahim Khudair Kazem
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Islamic Fundamentalism ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Armed Violence ◽  
Goals And Objectives ◽  
At Home

The armed violence of many radical Islamic movements is one of the most important means to achieve the goals and objectives of these movements. These movements have legitimized and legitimized these violent practices and constructed justification ideologies in order to justify their use for them both at home against governments or against the other Religiously, intellectually and even culturally, or abroad against countries that call them the term "unbelievers", especially the United States of America.

Hospice Care in the United States: The Process Begins

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Buckingham
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Hospice Care ◽  
Care Facility ◽  
The United States ◽  
Considerable Change ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Hospice Movement ◽  
Treatment Equipment ◽  
Centered Care ◽  
The Individual

The hospice concept represents a return to humanistic medicine, to care within the patient's community, for family-centered care, and the view of the patient as a person. Medical, governmental, and educational institutions have recognized the profound urgency for the advocacy of the hospice concept. As a result, a considerable change in policy and attitude has occurred. Society is re-examining its attitudes toward bodily deterioration, death, and decay. As the hospice movement grows, it does more than alter our treatment of the dying. Hospices and home care de-escalate the soaring costs of illness by reducing the individual and collective burdens borne by all health insurance policyholders. Because hospices and home care use no sophisticated, diagnostic treatment equipment, their overhead is basically for personal care and medication. Also, the patient is permitted to die with dignity. Studies indicated that the patient of a hospice program will not experience the anxiety, helplessness, inadequacy, and guilt as will an acute care facility patient. Consequently, a hospice program can relieve family members and loved ones of various psychological disorders.

Forecasting Interconnections in International Housing Markets: Evidence from the Dynamic Model Averaging Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-103
Author(s):  
Hardik A. Marfatia
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Model Averaging ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
Forecasting Model ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Dynamic Model Averaging ◽  
Over Time

In this paper, I undertake a novel approach to uncover the forecasting interconnections in the international housing markets. Using a dynamic model averaging framework that allows both the coefficients and the entire forecasting model to dynamically change over time, I uncover the intertwined forecasting relationships in 23 leading international housing markets. The evidence suggests significant forecasting interconnections in these markets. However, no country holds a constant forecasting advantage, including the United States and the United Kingdom, although the U.S. housing market's predictive power has increased over time. Evidence also suggests that allowing the forecasting model to change is more important than allowing the coefficients to change over time.

scholarly journals Orexin receptor antagonists reverse aberrant dopamine neuron activity and related behaviors in a rodent model of stress-induced psychosis

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah B. Elam ◽  
Stephanie M. Perez ◽  
Jennifer J. Donegan ◽  
Daniel J. Lodge
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sensorimotor Gating ◽  
The United States ◽  
Dopamine Neuron ◽  
Neuron Activity ◽  
Sprague Dawley ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Neuron Population ◽  
Population Activity ◽  
Novel Approach

AbstractPost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent condition affecting approximately 8% of the United States population and 20% of United States combat veterans. In addition to core symptoms of the disorder, up to 64% of individuals diagnosed with PTSD experience comorbid psychosis. Previous research has demonstrated a positive correlation between symptoms of psychosis and increases in dopamine transmission. We have recently demonstrated projections from the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) can regulate dopamine neuron activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Specifically, inactivation of the PVT leads to a reversal of aberrant dopamine system function and psychosis-like behavior. The PVT receives dense innervation from orexin containing neurons, therefore, targeting orexin receptors may be a novel approach to restore dopamine neuron activity and alleviate PTSD-associated psychosis. In this study, we induced stress-related pathophysiology in male Sprague Dawley rats using an inescapable foot-shock procedure. We observed a significant increase in VTA dopamine neuron population activity, deficits in sensorimotor gating, and hyperresponsivity to psychomotor stimulants. Administration of selective orexin 1 receptor (OX1R) and orexin 2 receptor (OX2R) antagonists (SB334867 and EMPA, respectively) or the FDA-approved, dual-orexin receptor antagonist, Suvorexant, were found to reverse stress-induced increases in dopamine neuron population activity. However, only Suvorexant and SB334867 were able to reverse deficits in behavioral corelates of psychosis. These results suggest that the orexin system may be a novel pharmacological target for the treatment of comorbid psychosis related to PTSD.

Using hidden Markov models to find discrete targets in continuous sociophonetic data

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Hidden Markov Models ◽  
Markov Models ◽  
Hidden Markov ◽  
Abstract Representation ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Single Target ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Speaker

Abstract Advances in sociophonetic research resulted in features once sorted into discrete bins now being measured continuously. This has implied a shift in what sociolinguists view as the abstract representation of the sociolinguistic variable. When measured discretely, variation is variation in selection: one variant is selected for production, and factors influencing language variation and change are influencing the frequency at which variants are selected. Measured continuously, variation is variation in execution: speakers have a single target for production, which they approximate with varying success. This paper suggests that both approaches can and should be considered in sociophonetic analysis. To that end, I offer the use of hidden Markov models (HMMs) as a novel approach to find speakers’ multiple targets within continuous data. Using the lot vowel among whites in Greater St. Louis as a case study, I compare 2-state and 1-state HMMs constructed at the individual speaker level. Ten of fifty-two speakers’ production is shown to involve the regular use of distinct fronted and backed variants of the vowel. This finding illustrates HMMs’ capacity to allow us to consider variation as both variant selection and execution, making them a useful tool in the analysis of sociophonetic data.

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