State Hazard Mitigation Plans and Climate Change: Rating the States

Climate change is affecting and will continue to affect the frequency and severity of natural hazard events, a trend that is of increasing concern for emergency managers and hazard mitigation agencies across the United States. Proper response to these hazards will require preparation and planning. Unfortunately, states are not required to include analysis of climate change in their State Hazard Mitigation Plans, which leads to uneven treatment of the issue and missed opportunities for mitigation planning. This survey identifies those state plans that address climate change and climate-related issues in an accurate and helpful manner and those that do not. Several states will be releasing updated State Hazard Mitigation Plans in 2013 and 2014, and this survey forms a basis for improving those plans through shared lessons learned and targeted communication. The results of the survey indicate that coastal states are more likely to include a discussion of climate change, possibly due in part to recent emphasis on and awareness of the relationship between climate change and sea level rise, coastal storms, and related hazards. The relative lack of discussion of climate change in land-locked states may point to a need for greater communication of how risks such as drought, floods, heat events, and non-coastal storms are affected by climate change. State plans that currently include climate change analyses and adaptation plans may be used as examples for improving other plans. This survey provides a basis for further analysis comparing future plans and determining whether they include an improved discussion of climate change

State Variation in Railroad Wheat Rates

Wheat shippers in the Central Plains states have no cost effective transportation alternative to railroads. Wheat produced in these areas moves long distances to domestic processing and consumption locations or to ports for export. Wheat shippers in the Great Plains don’t have direct access to barge loading locations and trucks provide no intermodal competition for these movements. Wheat shippers in Montana and North Dakota are highly dependent on rail transport because they are distant from barge loading locations and intra-railroad competition is limited. In North Dakota, the BNSF controls 78% of the Class I rail mileage, and in Montana, the BNSF controls 94%. Montana ships nearly 100% of its wheat by rail.Unlike Montana and North Dakota, the BNSF and UP have roughly equal track mileage in Kansas. The BNSF has 44% of the Class I rail mileage and the UP, 55%. Also, both railroads serve the major Kansas grain storage and market centers. A 2010 USDA study found that in 1988, Montana and North Dakota had the highest rail grain revenue per ton-mile of the 10 major grain producing states. By 2007 this was no longer the case. The overall objective of the paper is to investigate railroad pricing behavior for the shipment of North Dakota, Kansas, and Montana wheat. Specific objectives include (1) develop a model to measure the impacts of railroad costs and competition on rail wheat rates for North Dakota, Kansas, and Montana, (2) identify and measure the major cost determinants of rail wheat prices, and (3) measure intermodal competition by comparing rail wheat rates in captive markets (Montana and North Dakota) to one with more intermodal competition (Kansas). The results indicate that there is little difference in average Montana and Kansas rail wheat rates per ton-mile. However, North Dakota average railroad wheat prices per-ton mile are higher than average Kansas rates per ton-mile

"Biosthetics" in Robert Francis's Traveling in Concord

This article examines the presence and action of a unique multi-moded, environmentally-tuned participatory art form, or "biosthetics," in Robert Francis's tragically unpublished book, Traveling in Concord. The article seeks to introduce readers to Francis and argues that, given current concerns over economic and environmental devastation, his book (a product of post-WWII industrial "progress") should be published and read in the twenty-first century. A marginal but prophetic twentieth-century American author, Francis lived at or below the poverty line outside Amherst, Massachusetts, from 1901 to 1987

Element-selective targeting of nutrient metabolites in environmental samples by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Li, J., Boiteau, R. M., Babcock-Adams, L., Acker, M., Song, Z., McIlvin, M. R., & Repeta, D. J. Element-selective targeting of nutrient metabolites in environmental samples by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, (2021): 630494, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.630494.Metabolites that incorporate elements other than carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen can be selectively detected by inductively coupled mass spectrometry (ICPMS). When used in parallel with chromatographic separations and conventional electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESIMS), ICPMS allows the analyst to quickly find, characterize and identify target metabolites that carry nutrient elements (P, S, trace metals; “nutrient metabolites”), which are of particular interest to investigations of microbial biogeochemical cycles. This approach has been applied to the study of siderophores and other trace metal organic ligands in the ocean. The original method used mass search algorithms that relied on the ratio of stable isotopologues of iron, copper and nickel to assign mass spectra collected by ESIMS to metabolites carrying these elements detected by ICPMS. However, while isotopologue-based mass assignment algorithms were highly successful in characterizing metabolites that incorporate some trace metals, they do not realize the whole potential of the ICPMS/ESIMS approach as they cannot be used to assign the molecular ions of metabolites with monoisotopic elements or elements for which the ratio of stable isotopes is not known. Here we report a revised ICPMS/ESIMS method that incorporates a number of changes to the configuration of instrument hardware that improves sensitivity of the method by a factor of 4–5, and allows for more accurate quantitation of metabolites. We also describe a new suite of mass search algorithms that can find and characterize metabolites that carry monoisotopic elements. We used the new method to identify siderophores in a laboratory culture of Vibrio cyclitrophicus and a seawater sample collected in the North Pacific Ocean, and to assign molecular ions to monoisotopic cobalt and iodine nutrient metabolites in extracts of a laboratory culture of the marine cyanobacterium Prochorococcus MIT9215.This work was generously supported by the National Science Foundation grant OCE-1829761 to RB and OCE-1356747 and -1736280 to DR. DR also received generous support from the Simons Foundation Life Sciences Project Award 49476

Testing robustness of CPUE standardization and inclusion of environmental variables with simulated longline catch datasets

Environmental variability changes the distribution, migratory patterns, and susceptibility to various fishing gears for highly migratory marine fish. These changes become especially problematic when they affect the indices of abundance (such as those based on catch-per-unit-effort: CPUE) used to assess the status of fish stocks. The use of simulated CPUE data sets with known values of underlying population trends has been recommended by ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) to test the robustness of CPUE standardization methods. A longline CPUE data simulator was developed to meet this objective and simulate fisheries data from a population with distinct habitat preferences. The simulation was used to test several statistical hypotheses regarding best practices for index standardization aimed at accurate estimation of population trends. Effort data from the US pelagic longline fleet was paired with a volume-weighted habitat suitability model for blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) to derive a simulated time series of blue marlin catch and effort from 1986 to 2015 with four different underlying population trends. The simulated CPUE data were provided to stock assessment scientists to determine if the underlying population abundance trend could accurately be detected with different methods of CPUE standardization that did or did not incorporate environmental data. While the analysts’ approach to the data and the modeling structure differed, the underlying population trends were captured, some more successfully than others. In general, the inclusion of environmental and habitat variables aided the standardization process. However, differences in approaches highlight the importance of how explanatory variables are categorized and the criteria for including those variables. A set of lessons learned from this study was developed as recommendations for best practices for CPUE standardization.FCT IF/00253/2014info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social Preferences and the Efficiency of Bilateral Exchange

Under what conditions do social preferences, such as altruism or a concern for fair outcomes, generate efficient trade? I analyze theoretically a simple bilateral exchange game: Each player sequentially takes an action that reduces his own material payoff but increases the other player’s. Each player’s preferences may depend on both his/her own material payoff and the other player’s. I identify necessary conditions and sufficient conditions on the players’ preferences for the outcome of their interaction to be Pareto efficient. The results have implications for interpreting the rotten kid theorem, gift exchange in the laboratory, and gift exchange in the field

Identifying Dis/Misinformation on Social Media: A Policy Report for the Diplomacy Lab Strategies for Identifying Mis/Disinformation Project

Dis/misinformation was a major concern in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and has only worsened in recent years. Even though domestic actors often spread dis/misinformation, actors abroad can use it to spread confusion and push their agenda to the detriment of American citizens. Even though this report focuses on actors outside the United States, the methods they use are universal and can be adapted to work against domestic agents. A solid understanding of these methods is the first step in combating foreign dis/misinformation campaigns and creating a new information literacy paradigm. This report highlights the primary mechanisms of dis/misinformation: multimedia manipulation, bots, astroturfing, and trolling. These forms of dis/misinformation were selected after thorough research about common pathways dis/misinformation are spread online. Multimedia manipulation details image, video, and audio dis/misinformation in the form of deepfakes, memes, and out-of-context images. Bots are automated social media accounts that are not managed by humans and often contribute to dis/misinformation campaigns. Astroturfing and trolls use deception to sway media users to join false grassroots campaigns and utilize emotionally charged posts to provoke a response from users. This policy report also defines case studies of disinformation in China, Russia, and Iran, outlining common patterns of dis/misinformation specific to these countries. These patterns will allow for more accurate and quick identification of dis/misinformation from the outlined countries by State Department Watch Officers. Recommendations have also been provided for each type of disinformation and include a list of what individuals should look for and how to make sure that the information they receive is accurate and from a reputable source. The addendum at the end of the paper lists all of the recommendations in one place so that individuals do not have to search the paper for the recommendation they are looking for. This report intends to aid State Department Watch Officers as they work to identify foreign developments accurately. Still, researchers may find this information useful in anticipating future developments in foreign dis/misinformation campaigns