Hydrologic verification: A call for action and collaboration

Traditionally, little attention has been focused on the systematic verification of operational hydrologic forecasts. This paper summarizes the results of forecasts verification from 15 river basins in the United States. The verification scores for these forecast locations do not show improvement over the periods of record despite a number of forecast process improvements. In considering a root cause for these results, the authors note that the current paradigm for designing hydrologic forecast process improvements is driven by expert opinion and not by objective verification measures. The authors suggest that this paradigm should be modified and objective verification metrics should become the primary driver for hydrologic forecast process improvements. ©2007 American Meteorological Society

The Commercial Application of Missile/Space Technology, Parts 1 and 2

This report is concerned with the transfer of technology from missile and space programs to non-missile/space applications in the United States. It presents the findings of a University of Denver Research Institute study sponsored by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant awarded in November 1961. Initial stimulation for the unsolicited proposal leading to this study came from a 1960 Brookings Institution report to NASA, Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs

High-Resolution Thermal Wave Imaging of Surface and Subsurface Defects in IC Metal Lines

Using a thermal wave imaging system we have been able to detect and identify a variety of microscopic defects commonly found in fine metal Al connector lines used in the IC industry. The defects of interest are hillocks, surface and subsurface Si and Cu precipitates and subsurface voids and notches. Defects as small as 0.1 μm have been detected. This thermal wave imaging system has also been used to detect subsurface defects in Al and W metal contact plugs

The channels of technology acquisition in commercial firms, and the NASA dissemination program

Technology acquisition in commercial firms, and NASA dissemination progra

Contrasting social and non-social sources of predictability in human mobility

Social structures influence human behavior, including their movement patterns. Indeed, latent information about an individual’s movement can be present in the mobility patterns of both acquaintances and strangers. We develop a “colocation” network to distinguish the mobility patterns of an ego’s social ties from those not socially connected to the ego but who arrive at a location at a similar time as the ego. Using entropic measures, we analyze and bound the predictive information of an individual’s mobility pattern and its flow to both types of ties. While the former generically provide more information, replacing up to 94% of an ego’s predictability, significant information is also present in the aggregation of unknown colocators, that contain up to 85% of an ego’s predictive information. Such information flow raises privacy concerns: individuals sharing data via mobile applications may be providing actionable information on themselves as well as others whose data are absent

Ames collaborative study of cosmic ray neutrons

The results of a collaborative study to define both the neutron flux and the spectrum more precisely and to develop a dosimetry package that can be flown quickly to altitude for solar flare events are described. Instrumentation and analysis techniques were used which were developed to measure accelerator-produced radiation. The instruments were flown in the Ames Research Center high altitude aircraft. Neutron instrumentation consisted of Bonner spheres with both active and passive detector elements, threshold detectors of both prompt-counter and activation-element types, a liquid scintillation spectrometer based on pulse-shape discrimination, and a moderated BF3 counter neutron monitor. In addition, charged particles were measured with a Reuter-Stokes ionization chamber system and dose equivalent with another instrument. Preliminary results from the first series of flights at 12.5 km (41,000 ft) are presented, including estimates of total neutron flux intensity and spectral shape and of the variation of intensity with altitude and geomagnetic latitude