Indian Ocean Experiment: An integrated analysis of the climate forcing and effects of the great Indo-Asian haze

Every year, from December to April, anthropogenic haze spreads over most of the North Indian Ocean, and South and Southeast Asia. The Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) documented this Indo-Asian haze at scales ranging from individual particles to its contribution to the regional climate forcing. This study integrates the multiplatform observations (satellites, aircraft, ships, surface stations, and balloons) with one- and four-dimensional models to derive the regional aerosol forcing resulting from the direct, the semidirect and the two indirect effects. The haze particles consisted of several inorganic and carbonaceous species, including absorbing black carbon clusters, fly ash, and mineral dust. The most striking result was the large loading of aerosols over most of the South Asian region and the North Indian Ocean. The January to March 1999 visible optical depths were about 0.5 over most of the continent and reached values as large as 0.2 over the equatorial Indian ocean due to long-range transport. The aerosol layer extended as high as 3 km. Black carbon contributed about 14% to the fine particle mass and 11% to the visible optical depth. The single-scattering albedo estimated by several independent methods was consistently around 0.9 both inland and over the open ocean. Anthropogenic sources contributed as much as 80% (±10%) to the aerosol loading and the optical depth. The in situ data, which clearly support the existence of the first indirect effect (increased aerosol concentration producing more cloud drops with smaller effective radii), are used to develop a composite indirect effect scheme. The Indo-Asian aerosols impact the radiative forcing through a complex set of heating (positive forcing) and cooling (negative forcing) processes. Clouds and black carbon emerge as the major players. The dominant factor, however, is the large negative forcing (-20±4 W m^(−2)) at the surface and the comparably large atmospheric heating. Regionally, the absorbing haze decreased the surface solar radiation by an amount comparable to 50% of the total ocean heat flux and nearly doubled the lower tropospheric solar heating. We demonstrate with a general circulation model how this additional heating significantly perturbs the tropical rainfall patterns and the hydrological cycle with implications to global climate

Bringing Counsel in from the Cold: Reconciling Ethical Rules with the Quagmire of Insurance Defense Practice

Our case study is an ethical dilemma faced by insurance defense attorneys daily. An attorney is hired by Insurance Company A to defend an insured who is in a lawsuit over a car accident. Insurance Company A is one of the attorney\u27s best clients, from whom he receives a steady stream of cases. Our attorney\u27s investigation reveals good news-another driver not yet a party to the lawsuit may have contributed to the accident. This revelation has the potential to shift the blame, and all or part of the financial responsibility, onto the shoulders of the new potential party and his insurer. But, only after joining the new party to the lawsuit as a third-party defendant does our defense counsel learn that the insurer footing the bill on the other side is his second-best client, Insurance Company B. That seems like a problem: two major clients with two sets of diverging interests in this case. Does counsel have a conflict? Technically, Insurance Company B is not a party to the case, so our attorney\u27s client is not directly adverse to Insurance Company B. But at the same time, he is pursuing a claim against Company B\u27s insured, which means this insurer will foot the bill, initially for the defense, and possibly later for indemnity. Does that make his client\u27s interests adverse to those of Insurance Company B? And if that alone does not create a conflict, what if during settlement negotiations, Insurance Company B fails to step up and adequately contribute, thereby forcing the case to trial and exposing both carriers\u27 insureds to potential liability in excess of their liability limits? Can defense counsel call out Insurance Company B for recklessly exposing its insured? Will defense counsel find himself holding back out of concern he will upset Insurance Company B? What does defense counsel need to reveal about all of this to the insured, Insurance Company A, or even Insurance Company B? Where are the boundaries? Unfortunately, as we will see, even this frequent and not-too- complex scenario is unanswered by existing ethical rules (at least in most jurisdictions)

Navigating the Law of Defense Counsel Ex Parte Interviews of Treating Physicians

This article explores the issue of defense counsel ex parte interviews with treating physicians, and proposes a resolution to standardize the practice that is equitable for all parties involved. Courts and legal scholars have commonly recognized that treating physicians in personal injury litigation are usually fact witnesses, albeit with special expertise, and allow plaintiffs unfettered access while defendants are relegated to a formal deposition which creates a fundamental imbalance in informational power. Moreover, there are significant arguments raised by the defense bar concerning efficiency and fairness. However, allowing defense counsel unlimited and unregulated access to treating physicians creates clear risks particularly the danger that doctors might inadvertently disclose privileged information. Section I explores the threshold question of whether the interviews are outright prohibited by existing laws. Many courts and litigants suggest certain statutes or common law principles restrict or prohibit ex parte defense interviews altogether. Most notable are the patient-physician privilege and other confidentiality rules, as well as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Section I concludes that, while these doctrines may be relevant to regulate ex parte interviews, they certainly do not prevent courts and legislatures from permitting them. Section II discusses the law regulating ex parte defense interviews across both the federal and state systems. The current state of the law across jurisdictions is inconsistent and often confusing. Jurisdictions vary widely on whether ex parte interviews are allowed and jurisdictions that permit ex parte communications often have unclear rules for litigants. Inconsistency and confusion emerge from assumptions made about the effects of the doctrines discussed in Section I, or from arguments based on conflicting policy grounds. For example, many jurisdictions prohibit ex parte communications based on assumptions concerning the patient-physician privilege. Section II ends by using Nevada as an example of a jurisdiction with a confusing maze of rules based on unclear and potentially inapplicable grounds. Section III attempts to wade through the policy arguments raised by various authorities in support of the methods each has used to regulate ex parte defense interviews. The purpose of analyzing the policies behind different approaches is for courts and legislatures to make informed decisions when regulating defense counsel treating physician interviews. Finally, the authors propose a comprehensive, uniform approach to regulating ex parte defense interviews. This solution attempts to balance the policy arguments raised by both sides of the bar as well as the courts. Ultimately, this article does not suggest a perfect means of regulating these interviews. Rather, the authors urge legislatures and courts to consider the policy arguments raised by both sides of the bar when crafting a solution. Finally, and most important, legislatures and courts should create a measure of uniformity and clarity in this area by adopting a balanced, consistent mechanism for regulating ex parte defense counsel interviews

Nutrition for Older Adults.

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SigGPDE: scaling sparse Gaussian Processes on sequential data

Making predictions and quantifying their uncertainty when the input data is sequential is a fundamental learning challenge, recently attracting increasing attention. We develop SigGPDE, a new scalable sparse variational inference framework for Gaussian Processes (GPs) on sequential data. Our contribution is twofold. First, we construct inducing variables underpinning the sparse approximation so that the resulting evidence lower bound (ELBO) does not require any matrix inversion. Second, we show that the gradients of the GP signature kernel are solutions of a hyperbolic partial differential equation (PDE). This theoretical insight allows us to build an efficient back-propagation algorithm to optimize the ELBO. We showcase the significant computational gains of SigGPDE compared to existing methods, while achieving state-of-the-art performance for classification tasks on large datasets of up to 1 million multivariate time series

Two Conceptions of Irreversible Environmental Harm

The concept of irreversibility plays a large role in the theory and practice of environmental protection. Indeed, the concept is explicit in some statements of the Precautionary Principle. But the idea of irreversibility remains poorly defined. Because time is linear, any loss is, in a sense, irreversible. On one approach, drawn from environmental economics, irreversibility might be understood as a reference to the value associated with taking precautionary steps that maintain flexibility for an uncertain future ( option value ). On another approach, drawn from environmental ethics, irreversibility might be understood to refer to the qualitatively distinctive nature of certain environmental harms—a point that raises a claim about incommensurability. The two conceptions fit different problems. For example, the idea of option value best fits the problem of climate change; the idea of qualitatively distinctive harms best fits the problem of extinction of endangered species. These ideas can be applied to a wide assortment of environmental problems