A study of sawmill capacity and investment in a selected area of the Douglas fir region of North Ame

Master of ScienceNatural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/114366/1/39015003274589.pd

The Dutch aren’t turning against immigration – the salience of the immigration issue is what drives Wilders’ support

The key story in the 2017 Dutch election campaign so far has been the high levels of support for Geert Wilders’ PVV in opinion polls. But what explains the PVV’s ability to attract voters? James Dennison, Andrew Geddes and Teresa Talò write that although Wilders’ success is frequently linked to hardening views on immigration, attitudes toward immigration in the Netherlands have actually remained fairly stable. The real root of the PVV’s support lies in the salience of the immigration issue itself, partially heightened by media coverage of recent increases in the numbers of migrants entering the country

Why immigration has the potential to upend the Italian election

The failure of Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders to cause an upset in 2017 has prompted some observers to argue that Europe's 'populist right' is now in retreat. But as James Dennison, Andrew Geddes and Matthew Goodwin highlight, the apparent fall in support for anti-immigration populism elsewhere in Europe has not been seen in Italy ahead of the country's general election in March. Immigration has risen from a non-issue to the second most important for Italian voters, and polls have shown growing support for the increasingly anti-immigration Forza Italia and Lega Nord

On the Injection Energy Distibution of Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays

We investigate the injection spectrum of ultra-high-energy (>10^{15} eV) cosmic rays under the hypotheses that (1) these cosmic rays are protons and (2) the sources of these cosmic rays are extra-galactic and are homogeneously distributed in space. The most puzzling aspect of the observed ultra-high-energy cosmic ray spectrum is the apparent nonexistence of a ``Greisen cut-off'' at about 10^{19.8} eV. We show that this fact could be naturally explained if most (or all) of the cosmic rays presently observed above about 10^{19.6} eV were initially injected with energy above the Greisen cut-off. However, we find that the injection of cosmic rays above the Greisen cut-off cannot account for the observed flux below about 10^{19.6} eV unless the injection rate of these particles was enormously higher in the past, as would be the case if the injection resulted from the decay of an ultra-massive particle with lifetime of order 10^{9} yr. Even with such a rapid source evolution, the observed cosmic ray spectrum below about 10^{18.5} eV cannot be explained in this manner. However, we show that a 1/E^3 injection spectrum can account for the observed spectrum below 10^{18.5} eV}, with the steepening observed by the Fly's Eye group between 10^{17.6} eV and 10^{18.5} eV being very naturally explained by e+ - e- production effects. This latter fact lends support to the hypothesis that the cosmic rays in this energy regime are protons. However, due to e+ - e- production effects, a 1/E^3 injection spectrum cannot account for the observed flux above about 10^{18.5} eV.Comment: 23 pages, REVTeX, 5 Postscript figures available by anonymous FTP at ftp://rainbow.uchicago.edu/pub/relativity/cosmicray

ptype: probabilistic type inference

Type inference refers to the task of inferring the data type of a given column of data. Current approaches often fail when data contains missing data and anomalies, which are found commonly in real-world data sets. In this paper, we propose ptype, a probabilistic robust type inference method that allows us to detect such entries, and infer data types. We further show that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods

Families may benefit from spiritual care in acute settings when loved ones are coming to the end of their lives

This is a commentary on Hennessy N, Neenan K, Brady V, et al. End of life in acute hospital setting—A systematic review of families' experience of spiritual care. J Clin Nurs 2020;29:1041–52

Bostonia. Volume 5

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

The centre no longer holds : the Lega, Matteo Salvini and the remaking of Italian immigration politics

Published online: 09 February 2022This article asks how policy responses to migration in Italy have been shaped both by issue salience and by changing configurations on the centre right of Italian party politics both prior to and following the 2015 ‘migration crisis’. We show that, first, the increased politicisation of ‘irregular’ arrivals into Italy after 2015 changed migration from a relatively ‘quiet’ policy issue to one of ‘loud’ politics meaning that it was highly salient to the public. This salience significantly advantaged the Lega, who by this point had already transformed into an archetypal, European populist radical right party, but could now campaign successfully nationally and dominate the nominal ‘centre-right’ coalition. Second, the imposition when in government between June 2018 and September 2019 by the Lega of policies for migrants and asylum-seekers that focussed solely on prevention and removal and ended what remained of prior policy drift. We show that both trends conform to theoretical expectations regarding the relative power of interest groups and public opinion over public policy that are contingent on public issue salience, which we show to be the most plausible determinant of variation in migration policy, rather than public attitudes or party positions, during the period

Land cover change impacts on atmospheric chemistry: simulating projected large-scale tree mortality in the United States

Land use and land cover changes impact climate and air quality by altering the exchange of trace gases between the Earth's surface and atmosphere. Large-scale tree mortality that is projected to occur across the United States as a result of insect and disease may therefore have unexplored consequences for tropospheric chemistry. We develop a land use module for the GEOS-Chem global chemical transport model to facilitate simulations involving changes to the land surface, and to improve consistency across land–atmosphere exchange processes. The model is used to test the impact of projected national-scale tree mortality risk through 2027 estimated by the 2012 USDA Forest Service National Insect and Disease Risk Assessment. Changes in biogenic emissions alone decrease monthly mean O₃ by up to 0.4 ppb, but reductions in deposition velocity compensate or exceed the effects of emissions yielding a net increase in O₃ of more than 1 ppb in some areas. The O₃ response to the projected change in emissions is affected by the ratio of baseline NO[subscript x]: VOC concentrations, suggesting that in addition to the degree of land cover change, tree mortality impacts depend on whether a region is NO[subscript x]-limited or NO[subscript x]-saturated. Consequently, air quality (as diagnosed by the number of days that 8 h average O₃ exceeds 70 ppb) improves in polluted environments where changes in emissions are more important than changes to dry deposition, but worsens in clean environments where changes to dry deposition are the more important term. The influence of changes in dry deposition demonstrated here underscores the need to evaluate treatments of this physical process in models. Biogenic secondary organic aerosol loadings are significantly affected across the US, decreasing by 5–10 % across many regions, and by more than 25 % locally. Tree mortality could therefore impact background aerosol loadings by between 0.5 and 2 µg m⁻³. Changes to reactive nitrogen oxide abundance and partitioning are also locally important. The regional effects simulated here are similar in magnitude to other scenarios that consider future biofuel cropping or natural succession, further demonstrating that biosphere–atmosphere exchange should be considered when predicting future air quality and climate. We point to important uncertainties and further development that should be addressed for a more robust understanding of land cover change feedbacks.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AGC-1238109