Volcanic Risk Mitigation that Could Have Been Derailed but Wasn’t: Pinatubo, Philippines 1991

This is the story of a successful risk mitigation effort at Mount Pinatubo in 1991 that could easily have failed. The counterfactuals are the myriad of ways that the effort could have failed but didn’t. Forecasts for a large, VEI 6 eruption were the basis of 10, 20, 30 and, during the climactic eruption, even 40 km radius evacuations. Let’s use the metaphor of a train headed for the destination of successful mitigation, but that could have easily have been derailed or slowed and shunted off to a siding. Among the possible nodes of derailment: capability and trust between responding institutions; external distractions, both natural and man-made; early alert; scientific judgment of whether, when, and how big an eruption will occur; stochastic or unpredictable factors that can make even the best scientific judgment moot; optimal balance between caution and decisive actions, by scientists and civil defense alike; and effective communication between all parties. Potential derailments are detailed at each of these nodes for Pinatubo.

Principal Component-Based Logistical Regression Algorithms to Predict Health care Accessibility for Texas Medicaid Gap

Background12 states without expanded Medicaid caused 2 million people who were under the poverty line across the U.S to be in Medicaid limbo and not eligible for subsidized health plans on the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges. In order to amplify geographic equity, this paper aims to explore the health access for Medicaid gaps in Texas. MethodsPrincipal Component-based logistical regression algorithms (PCA-LA) is provided data visualization and comparison in between unadjusted and adjusted Medicaid programs. Initially, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) eliminated well-known multiplicity problems between explanatory variables in the application of epidemiology. Optimized the traditional logistical Regression (LR), the PCA-LA method, is considered health status (HS) as a dependent variable with 0 (“poor” health) and 1 (“good” health), fourteen social-economic indexes as independent variables. ResultsAfter Principal Component Analysis (PCA), four composite components incorporated health conditions (i.e., “no regular source of care” (NRC), “Last check up more than a year ago” (LCT)), demographic impacts (i.e., four categorized adults (AS)), education (ED), and marital status (MS). Compared to the unadjusted LA, direct adjusted LA, and PCA-unadjusted LA three methods, the PCA-LA approach exhibited objective and reasonable outcomes in presenting an Odd Ratio (OR). They included that health condition is positively significant to HS due to beyond 1 OR, and negatively significant to ED, AS, and MS due to less than 1 OR. ConclusionsThis paper provided quantitative evidence for the Medicaid gap in Texas to extend Medicaid, exposed healthcare geographical inequity, offered a sight for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to raise researchable direction of the Medicaid program and make a timely scientific judgment of Texas healthcare accessibility.

Spaghetti Breaking Dynamics

Why are pieces of spaghetti generally broken into three to ten segments instead of two as one thinks? How can one obtain the desired number of fracture segments? For these problems, in this paper a strand of spaghetti is considered an elastic rod, and the finite-element software ABAQUS is used to simulate the detailed fracture dynamics of the elastic rod. By changing the size (length and diameter) of the rod, the relevant data on the fracture limit curvature and the number of fractured segments of the elastic rod are obtained. The ABAQUS simulation results confirm the scientific judgment of B. Audoly and S. Neukirch (Fragmentation of rods by cascading cracks: Why spaghetti does not break in half. Phys Rev Lett 95: 095505). Using dimensional analysis to fit the finite-element data, two relations of the elastic rod fracture dynamics are obtained: (1) the relationship between the fracture limit curvature and the diameter, and (2) the relationship between the number of fracture segments and the diameter-length ratio. Results reveal that when the length is constant, the larger the diameter (the smaller the diameter-length ratio D/L), the smaller the limit curvature; and the larger the diameter-length ratio D/L, the fewer the number of fractured segments. The relevant formulations can be used to obtain the desired number of broken segments of spaghetti by changing the diameter-to-length ratio.

Influencing Factors of Investment Scale of Power Grid Enterprises

Investment is the key driving force for the sustainable growth of power grid enterprises. The rationality of investment scale directly determines the investment efficiency, and affects the quality of enterprise growth. The internal and external environment of investment management of power grid enterprises is constantly changing. Scientific judgment of the importance of various influencing factors can provide strong support for the determination of investment scale. In this paper, the factors affecting the investment scale of power grid enterprises are divided into economic and social development, product industry development, enterprise operation and management, and power grid operation and development. Representative indicators are selected for analysis, and the influence degree of various influencing factors is judged by correlation coefficient test and variable importance evaluation method. The empirical results show that the enterprise management and power grid operation and development have greater impacts on the investment scale. The influence of internal factors is greater than that of external factors.

Memahami Objektivitas Dalam Penilaian Moral

Can moral judgment be objective'' Unlike scientific judgment, moral judgment is often considered simply subjective. This article is an attempt to argue against this contention. The article is divided into three parts, First, as a background for the problem, it will be shown how the scientistic view of reality and its limited view of objectivity has given rise to the problem of objectivity in moral judgment. Second, to see the similarities and differences between the concept of objectivity in scientific judgment and in moral judgment, the two will be compared. Third, to bolster the argument for supporting the idea of objectivity in moral judgment, some criteria for the objectivity of moral judgment will be provided.

Variations in internal standard response: some thoughts and real-life cases

Internal standards are essential to ensure the reliability of chromatographic bioanalytical methods. However, this only holds true if the response of the internal standard is adequately monitored. A difference needs to be made between isolated variations in a limited number of samples, which can be easily handled using objective criteria triggering the re-analysis of the affected samples and more complex situations such as trends or systematic differences, which may require the use of scientific judgment, trigger further investigations and ultimately result in the rejection of analytical runs.

Williams, Bernard Arthur Owen (1929–2003)

Bernard Williams wrote on the philosophy of mind, especially personal identity, and political philosophy, where his position is staunchly liberal; but the larger and later part of his published work is on ethics. He is hostile to utilitarianism, and also attacks a view of morality associated in particular with Kant: people may only be properly blamed for what they do voluntarily, and what we should do is the same for all of us, and discoverable by reason. By contrast Williams holds that luck has an important role in our evaluation of ourselves and others; in the proper attribution of responsibility the voluntary is less central than the Kantian picture implies. Williams thinks shame a more important moral emotion than blame. Instead of there being an independent set of consistent moral truths, discoverable by reason, how we should live depends on the emotions and desires that we happen to have. These vary between people, and are typically plural and conflicting. Hence for Williams ethical judgment could not describe independent or real values - by contrast with the way in which he thinks that scientific judgment may describe a real independent world.

Williams, Bernard Arthur Owen (1929–2003)

Bernard Williams wrote on the philosophy of mind, especially personal identity, and political philosophy; but the larger and later part of his published work is on ethics. He is hostile to utilitarianism, and also attacks a view of morality associated in particular with Kant: people may only be properly blamed for what they do voluntarily, and what we should do is the same for all of us, and discoverable by reason. By contrast Williams holds that luck has an important role in our evaluation of ourselves and others; in the proper attribution of responsibility the voluntary is less central than the Kantian picture implies. Williams thinks shame a more important moral emotion than blame. Instead of there being an independent set of consistent moral truths, discoverable by reason, how we should live depends on the emotions and desires that we happen to have. These vary between people, and are typically plural and conflicting. Hence for Williams ethical judgment could not describe independent or real values – by contrast with the way in which he thinks that scientific judgment may describe a real independent world.

Sælsomme beretninger i lægen og anatomen Thomas Bartholins skrifter

Jesper Brandt Andersen: Curious case reports in the works of the Danish physician and anatomist Thomas Bartholin Scattered through the voluminous authorship of the Danish physician and anatomist Thomas Bartholin (1616–1680), famous for his discovery of the lymph vessels in the early 1650s, case reports can be found, for which Bartholin was criticized and accused for verbosity and lack of scientific judgment by contemporary scholars and later medical historians. In this article 15 such case reports, mainly from the work Historiarum Anatomicarum Rariorum 1654–1661, are presented, analyzed and perspectivated. It is concluded, that much of the criticism, especially the one submitted by the posteriority and especially during the era of positivism by the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century and the one concerning observations made by Bartholin himself, is unjustified. When practising science himself Bartholin felt responsible for reproducing his observations correctly and trustworthy, and he was not satisfied by making conclusions on the basis of knowledge handed over by others. The author of this article has not succeded in finding one single example indicating that Bartholin doesn’t reproduce his own observations correctly and truthfully. On the other hand there are in his authorship numerous examples of case reports originating from others, which he either didn’t believe himself or at least doubted. When he published case reports originating from other people, he didn’t feel responsible for the truthfulness. His purpose bringing these case reports was to present his reader for new and interesting matter, to entertain his reader, to arouse his reader’s curiosity and to challenge his reader’s own judgment. Thomas Bartholin was one of the most excellent, diligent and passionate intermediaries of scientific matter of his time, and as a scientist he was characterized by openness. Often he was among the first to recognize, verify and publish new knowledge.