Climate change: conflict of observational science, theory, and politics: Discussion

Gerhard (2004) argues that our reasoning on the causes of climate change should be guided by observational science, instead of by results derived from computer models. Given that the nature and balance of the controls of the Earth's climate remain uncertain, this appears to be a sound suggestion. On the strength of his own reading of recent observational science, Gerhard adheres to the view set out by the AAPG Ad Hoc Committee on Global Climate Issues in its 1999 annual report: "Because no tool is available to test the supposition of human-induced climate change and the range of natural variability is so great, there is no discernible human influence on global climate at this time." (Gerhard and Hanson, 2000, p. 466). Gerhard (2004, p. 1219) now asks: "Why is it that we spend so much time and resources trying to prove a theory of greenhouse gas climate control instead of testing the hypothesis?"\ud \ud A contrary view is expressed in a position paper of the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society (London) (Zalasiewicz et al., 2004, p. 1): "We find that the evidence for human-induced climate change is now persuasive, and the need for direct action compelling." Oreskes (2004, p. 1686) cites evidence that such a view is representative of a notable consensus in the refereed scientific literature, and that "all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements.

The Importance of Academic Deans\u27 Interpersonal/Negotiating Skills as Leaders

Four academic deans investigated when and how they used interpersonal/negotiating skills to function effectively in their positions. For two full weeks, the deans coded their on-the-job interactions during scheduled meetings, informal meetings, spontaneous encounters/meetings, telephone calls, and select email. Analyses revealed that the interpersonal/negotiating skills used, from most to least prevalent, were: working closely with others, being responsive to key persons, negotiating key players\u27 roles, and keeping key persons in the organisation informed. Across these engagements, the deans interacted with 35 different categories of stakeholders inside and outside their institutions for 32 different purposes. Given the nature and range of interactions, the deans concluded that practicing and prospective deans should likely have access to professional development opportunities explicitly focused on working closely with others. Future research would need to confirm, however, whether interpersonal/negotiating skills are essential for deans\u27 job survival and, if so, whether such skills can authentically be developed

USING DATA MINING TO DETECT ANOMALOUS PRODUCER BEHAVIOR: AN ANALYSIS OF SOYBEAN PRODUCTION AND THE FEDERAL CROP INSURANCE PROGRAM

The analysis was conducted on the USDA's Risk Management Agency insurance data and NRCS Land Resource Regions from 1994 - 2001 to assist RMA in improving program integrity. The objective is to develop a data-mining algorithm that identifies anomalous producers and counties within LRRs based upon the percentage of acres harvested.Risk and Uncertainty,

Measurement Function Design for Visual Tracking Applications

Extracting human postural information from video sequences has proved a difficult research question. The most successful approaches to date have been based on particle filtering, whereby the underlying probability distribution is approximated by a set of particles. The shape of the underlying observational probability distribution plays a significant role in determining the success, both accuracy and efficiency, of any visual tracker. In this paper we compare approaches used by other authors and present a cost path approach which is commonly used in image segmentation problems, however is currently not widely used in tracking applications