News - North Georgia Technical College Blairsville Halloween Story Telling

The North Georgia Technical College Library is Blairsville hosted a Halloween-themed storytelling event for students, faculty, and staff

The Iowa Homemaker vol.9, no.5

Guide Our Giving by Bessie Hammer, page 1 Art Expression for the Child by Joanne M. Hansen, page 2 What About the Glamour? by Nielsine Hansen, page 3 Death to the Clothes Moth by Jean B. Guthrie, page 4 Long or Short? by Irene Evinger and Lillian Goodrow, page 4 Homemaker’s Books by Dorothy Parkhurst, page 5 4-H Club by Esther Sietman, page 6 State Association by Marcia E. Turner, page 8 Editorial, page 11 Alumnae News by Dorothy B. Anderson, page 1

Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation reconstructed from trans-Pacific tree rings: 1350–2004 CE

The interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) represents the decadal mode of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon. As such the IPO is one of the dominant modes of decadal climate variability on both sides of the Pacific Ocean basin. For this paper we utilized a newly developed tree-ring data network comprised of five multi-centennial Vietnamese cypress ring-width chronologies that range from around 11°N–23°N latitude. We combined these data with an average of tree-ring derived drought indices from the North American Drought Atlas over the south central USA, from a box that spans from 27.5°N–35.0°N, 85.0°–110.0°W and contains 55 gridpoints and more than 100 tree ring site chronologies, these 2 locations exhibit rainfall variations that are strongly, negatively correlated with each other and are representative of the influence of the IPO on terrestrial rainfall. The final reconstruction model, weighted most heavily on the three most southerly of the five Vietnamese cypress records, spans from 1350 to 2004, and explains nearly 57% of the variance in the original IPO data for the 5-month season of October–February. The reconstruction model passes all standard statistical tests using a split calibrationverification scheme. We reveal 15 positive and 15 negative phase shifts of the IPO prior to the period of instrumentation, suggesting that the IPO has been active for at least the past seven centuries with varying degrees of intensity. We compare our reconstruction with two related millennial records: the MacDonald and Case (Geophys Res Lett 32(8):L08703, 2005) tree ring-derived reconstruction of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and an ice core-derived reconstruction of the IPO from the Law Dome Ice core in Antarctica by Vance et al. (Geophys Res Lett 33(6):L06712, 2015). While there is good general agreement with the latter record, there are three key periods of the past where the two records are out of phase, and we explore the reasons for this disparity. Direct comparison with the related Tripole Index (TPI) shows weaker correlation, likely owing to the stronger relationship between our tree ring data and the equatorial Pacific region relative to the north and south regions of the Pacific that combine to comprise the TPI calculation

To share or not to share: Public attitudes towards disclosing personal and identifiable medical data and information

In the summer of 2023, we surveyed 2,355 members of the public in England to gauge their opinions on the acceptability of the NHS sharing their personal versus anonymised data or information with other key entities operating within the public health system. These include hospitals, GPs, pharmacists, social care providers, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies for research purposes, and city or county councils. Notably, 84% of respondents indicate it is either acceptable or very acceptable of the NHS sharing personalised data and information with hospitals and GPs. In contrast, the majority of respondents (50%+) find it either unacceptable or very unacceptable of sharing such information with pharmaceutical companies for research purposes or with councils, whether it was personal or anonymised. Interestingly, higher levels of acceptability were observed when the term information was used rather than data with GPs and hospitals. Our findings extend previous understanding by suggesting that, when there are perceived potential personal benefits, people are more willing to share personal rather than anonymised health information/data. This is a new finding that has not been considered before in the discussion of patients’ health information/data sharing. We discuss the managerial implications and provide specific recommendations to the NHS, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and local governments on how they could improve their communication with the general public regarding the sharing of health data and information

London, you have a problem with women : trust towards the police in England

Following a series of high-profile incidents of violence against women by serving London Metropolitan Police Officers, questions of standards and the public’s confidence in policing are in the spotlight. Over a fifteen-month period between July 2022 and September 2023 using monthly surveys of representative English samples, this study confirms that women, in general, are more trusting in the police than men. This, however, does not hold true in London. Out of nine regions in England, London is the only region where women’s overall trust in the police is lower than men. Lower levels of trust in the police among women in London hold when controls for age, income, political environment and crime levels are considered. In line with existing literature that considers women being more sensitive to cues about trustworthiness, the concerning incidents of sexual violence by police officers against women are likely to further erode trust in police in the capital, which already ranks last among England’s nine regions in citizen trust of the police. Statement on ethics approval: Approval was granted for this study to be carried out by the College of Business, Arts and Social Science Research Ethics Committee, Brunel University London. Approval reference: 35290-LR-Jan/2022-37313-1

London, you have a problem with women: trust towards the police in England

Following a series of high-profile incidents of violence against women by serving London Metropolitan Police Officers, questions of standards and the public’s confidence in policing are in the spotlight. Over a fifteen-month period between July 2022 and September 2023 using monthly surveys of representative English samples, this study confirms that women, in general, are more trusting in the police than men. This, however, does not hold true in London. Out of nine regions in England, London is the only region where women’s overall trust in the police is lower than men. Lower levels of trust in the police among women in London hold when controls for age, income, political environment and crime levels are considered. In line with existing literature that considers women being more sensitive to cues about trustworthiness, the concerning incidents of sexual violence by police officers against women are likely to further erode trust in police in the capital, which already ranks last among England’s nine regions in citizen trust of the police

London, you have a problem with women: trust towards the police in England

Following a series of high-profile incidents of violence against women by serving London Metropolitan Police Officers, questions of standards and the public’s confidence in policing are in the spotlight. Over a fifteen-month period between July 2022 and September 2023 using monthly surveys of representative English samples, this study confirms that women, in general, are more trusting in the police than men. This, however, does not hold true in London. Out of nine regions in England, London is the only region where women’s overall trust in the police is lower than men. Lower levels of trust in the police among women in London hold when controls for age, income, political environment and crime levels are considered. In line with existing literature that considers women being more sensitive to cues about trustworthiness, the concerning incidents of sexual violence by police officers against women are likely to further erode trust in police in the capital, which already ranks last among England’s nine regions in citizen trust of the police

Demonstrasjonsprosjekters rolle i overgangen til bærekraftig energi og transport:Policy brief fra prosjektet InnoDemo

InnoDemo-prosjektet har undersøkt skandinaviske demonstrasjonsprosjekter for bærekraftige energi- og transportsystemer, som fornybar elektrisitet, hydrogen og avansert biodrivstoff, og hvordan de bør videreutvikles. Forskningsprosjektet ble støttet av Forfi-programmet under Norges forskningsråd (2013–2014) og er basert på et samarbeid mellom forskere ved NIFU, CIRCLE ved Lund Universitet og Danmarks Tekniske Universitet. Finansiell støtte til og koordinering av demonstrasjonsprosjekter kan være viktige politiske virkemidler for policymakere for å stimulere innovasjon i relasjon til bærekraftige overgangs-prosesser. Offentlig finansierte demonstrasjonsprosjekter skal bidra til læring og kommersialisering av ny teknologi i situasjoner preget av stor økonomisk, sosial og/eller teknologisk usikkerhet. Denne rapporten fremhever som læringspunktene at demonstrasjonsprogrammer må være villige til å støtte prosjekter som fremstår som usikre, og de bør gi støtte til en bred portefølje av demonstrasjonsprosjekter for å kunne prøve ut forskjellige alternativer parallelt og dra nytte av læring på tvers. Programmene bør legge større vekt på læringsspredning og samarbeid mellom ulike prosjekter og de bør utvikle evalueringsformer med et mer langsiktig perspektiv

Global atmospheric black carbon inferred from AERONET,

AERONET, a network of well calibrated sunphotometers, provides data on aerosol optical depth and absorption optical depth at >250 sites around the world. The spectral range of AERONET allows discrimination between constituents that absorb most strongly in the UV region, such as soil dust and organic carbon, and the more ubiquitously absorbing black carbon (BC). AERONET locations, primarily continental, are not representative of the global mean, but they can be used to calibrate global aerosol climatologies produced by tracer transport models. We find that the amount of BC in current climatologies must be increased by a factor of 2-4 to yield best agreement with AERONET, in the approximation in which BC is externally mixed with other aerosols. The inferred climate forcing by BC, regardless of whether it is internally or externally mixed, is Ϸ1 W͞m 2 , most of which is probably anthropogenic. This positive forcing (warming) by BC must substantially counterbalance cooling by anthropogenic reflective aerosols. Thus, especially if reflective aerosols such as sulfates are reduced, it is important to reduce BC to minimize global warming. It is difficult to determine the BC climate forcing by using emission estimates and aerosol transport models, because of imprecise knowledge of BC sources and uncertainties in simulation of aerosol removal mechanisms. We propose an alternative empirical approach for estimating the BC amount that uses photometer data in the long wave (red) portion of the spectrum. This approach is based on the fact that BC absorption exhibits a 1͞ spectral dependence over this entire wavelength range (5). This makes it possible to distinguish BC from other absorbing aerosols, specifically organic carbon (OC) and soil dust, which have appreciable absorption only at Ͻ 600 nm (6). We employ the optical depths for aerosol absorption ( a ) measured by AERONET photometers The aerosol compositions are treated as if they were externally mixed in the aerosol climatologies and in our radiative forcing calculations. This assumption does not affect our resulting estimate for the BC climate forcing, because both the forcing and the AERONET-measured a depend on the BC absorption, not the BC mass. However, it means that, because internally mixed BC absorbs more effectively (3, 11), the BC mass may be less than obtained in the externally mixed approximation. We first describe the AERONET data and the aerosol climatologies. We discuss assumed optical properties for soil dust and OC, because the absorption by these aerosols is not negligible in comparison with that of BC. We then estimate the amounts of BC and OC that provide the best match to aerosol absorption measured by AERONET. Finally we calculate the climate forcing associated with the inferred BC amount and discuss implications for strategies to minimize anthropogenic climate effects. AERONET Data AERONET is an internationally federated, globally distributed network of automatic sun and sky scanning radiometers that routinely observe and transmit observations for processing and posting to the AERONET web site (7). The instruments are returned annually to Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, for calibration against Mauna Loa Langley calibrated reference instruments for aerosol optical depth (Ϯ0.01) and a National Institute of Standards and Technology referenced integrating sphere for sky radiances (Ͼ5% absolute accuracy). Our analysis uses the quality assured data that were available in late November of 2002, when there were 322 AERONET sites, of which 263 had data available for at least 1 month. The processing method for the AERONET data (8, 12) involves fitting the multiangle multiwavelength observations with Mie scattering calculations, yielding best-fit values for aerosol (extinction) optical thickness () and aerosol absorption optical thickness ( a ). We employ the AERONET calculated monthly means of and a . These data are available for four narrow wavelength bands centered at 440, 670, 870 and 1,020 nm. We prepare the AERONET data for map display and comparison with aerosol model climatologies as follows. If there are two or more stations within a 1°ϫ 1°box for any given month, their data (for and a ) are combined with equal weights. Further, data for the 1°ϫ 1°boxes within each 4°ϫ 5°box are combined with equal weights. If there are at least 2 months with data in a given season for a given (4°ϫ 5°) grid box, we calculate the seasonal means of and a . The number of 4°ϫ 5°boxes with seasonal mean data are thus 102 (March-April-May), 117 (June-July-August), 108 (September-October-November), and 81 (December-January-February). Annual means are calculated for the 95 4°ϫ 5°boxes with at least three seasons of data. There are 3,312 4°ϫ 5°grid boxes on the globe, so the 95 boxes with annual data cover Ϸ3% of the world. The locations of the boxes with data are shown in later figures in this paper. Coverage is good in the United States, Europe, and most of South America and Southern Africa. We do not imply that a single station should be taken as providing a representative mean for a 4°ϫ 5°region. One can Abbreviations: BC, black carbon; OC, organic carbon