The Lawyer Meets the Appraiser-Witness

I. Introduction II. Conference with Appraiser III. Formula for Damages IV. Hearsay V. Comparable Sales VI. Adaptable Uses VII. Elements of Damage VIII. Conclusio

Davit for handling piston corers

Most core rigs over 15 feet (5 m) in length are cumbersome, awkward, and in bad weather somewhat dangerous to handle. On all Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ships, coring is done over the side, using a hydraulically operated A-frame. In recent years, two methods have been used to transfer the core rig from its point of assembly to its \u27down\u27 position outboard, attached to the lowering cable...

Using Air Quality Monitoring in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia as Teaching Case Study

Environmental issues are increasingly a concern in developing countries as populations grow and the need to supply cities with enough electricity, food, and water increases. Air pollution is a unique problem because it affects almost everyone, particularly those who are in “at risk” populations, such as the very young, the very old, and those with lung or heart disease. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (UB), is one such city in Central Asia with air pollution problems. Surrounded by high hills, pollution is often trapped within the city during winter, when temperatures can fall below -30 degrees Celsius, and most of the city is heated by coal. Since 2015, the U.S. State Department has been monitoring the air quality hourly at the US Embassy in Mongolia, and that data is available online through the Internet of Things (IoT). In UB, the PM2.5 particulate matter pollution levels can reach above “687 micrograms per cubic meter, or 27 times the level WHO recommends as safe” (UNICEF, 2022). This level of pollution has been estimated to cause up to 40% of lung cancer deaths and 30% of cardiopulmonary deaths in the city, as well as a 3.6-fold increase in spontaneous miscarriages every year (Dashnyam et al. 2015, Enkhmaa et al., 2014). The data collected is particularly useful as a teaching case in an introductory IT class, because it involves clearly seasonal non-normal data. That is, average pollution levels are not nearly as important as maximum pollution levels during the winter months. The resulting class discussions can involve using IoT to monitor everyday life, drive government policy, inform people about health related issues, and also exposes undergraduate students to problems facing developing countries as well as non-normal distributions for data analysis

Ionization potentials in the limit of large atomic number

By extrapolating the energies of non-relativistic atoms and their ions with up to 3000 electrons within Kohn-Sham density functional theory, we find that the ionization potential remains finite and increases across a row, even as $Z\rightarrow\infty$. The local density approximation becomes chemically accurate (and possibly exact) in some cases. Extended Thomas-Fermi theory matches the shell-average of both the ionization potential and density change. Exact results are given in the limit of weak electron-electron repulsion.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Monitoring and Predicting Air Quality in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Using IoT IoT

Air quality is a concern for people living all over the world. Pollutants in the air we breathe causes quality of life issues for everyone, particularly for those who are at risk, such as the very young, the elderly and those with lung disease. At very high levels, even healthy people suffer adverse effects. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia is a city of a million and a half people, in Central Asia, surrounded by high hills. In the winter temperatures average below 0 degrees C from November to March, and most of the city is heated by coal. Beginning in 2015, the U.S. State Department has been monitoring the air quality at the US Embassy in Mongolia, and that data is available online through the Internet of Things, (IoT). Using this data we are seeking to use Extreme Value Analysis to predict future maximum levels of pollutants during the year, so that organizations within the country can plan appropriately. One of the benefits of continuous monitoring using IoT, is that data that in the past was difficult or extremely costly to get is becoming much more available. Because of this, one type of analysis that is becoming more common is Extreme Value Analysis, where statistics such as the maximums or minimums of samples are studied, as opposed to the more common analysis of mean averages. While a mean is often a very important measure of a population, it may not be the most interesting statistic. For example, when building a bridge over a river, the expected water level of the river is important, but far more important would be the expected highest water level over the next ten years, especially during periods of flooding. Likewise, when measuring levels of air pollution, the average level of pollution is important, but knowing when the highest and lowest levels of pollution during the day might be critical, especially for people in sensitive groups. The data that is available indicates strong seasonality, making the data set an excellent teaching tool for educators wanting to demonstrate statistical techniques necessary for handling such data, while the specific technique, Extreme Value Analysis, is quite appropriate to the study of pollution and other environmental issues

IT Portfolio Management: A Case Study

IT Portfolio Management is increasingly becoming an important topic of research in IS/IT. The number of IT projects in a company can number in the hundreds, and it is difficult for upper level executives to manage this portfolio effectively without using some guiding methodology. This paper focuses on one such methodology that is being developed by a Fortune 100 company. Although many excellent papers have discussed using Real Options in the valuation of IT, there has been relatively little work in using Real Options in the IT Portfolio management context. Furthermore, most of the papers in the main IS journals have used relatively simple option models to evaluate (1) a single investment decision (2) assuming independence between projects. The focus of this paper is on a company that is actually managing IT portfolios of projects, and on some issues that may make exotic option models and more appropriate valuation tools

Towards a more inclusive and precautionary indicator of global sustainability

We construct a hybrid, economic indicator of the sustainability of global well-being, which is more inclusive than existing indicators and incorporates an environmentally pessimistic, physical constraint on global warming. Our methodology extends the World Bank's Adjusted Net Saving (ANS) indicator to include the cost of population growth, the benefit of technical progress, and a much higher, precautionary cost of current CO2 emissions. Future warming damage is so highly unknowable that valuing emissions directly is rather arbitrary, so we use a novel, inductive approach: we modify damage and climate parameters in the deterministic DICE climate-economy model so it becomes economically optimal to control emissions in a way likely to limit warming to an agreed target, here 2 degrees Celsius. If future emissions are optimally controlled, our ANS then suggests that current global well-being is sustainable. But if emissions remain uncontrolled, our base-case ANS is negative now and our corresponding, modified DICE model has an unsustained development path, with well-being peaking in 2065. Current ANS on an uncontrolled path may thus be a useful heuristic indicator of future unsustainability. Our inductive method might allow ANS to include other very hard-to-value, environmental threats to global sustainability, like biodiversity loss and nitrogen pollution

Shallow-water Strontium-90 anomaly about the Antilles Arc----1970

Vertical profiles about the southeastern approaches to the Caribbean in early 1970 have shown a consistent Sr-90 inversion, with the maximum concentrations at depths of about room. It appears that four water masses may be involved, in this area, in a very complicated mixing and overlayering phenomenon