Resources for dealing with spring weather delays

While the forecast still seems unsettled we are all hopeful that we are past the worst of the rain and can begin catch up on springs work. Here we have attempted to summarize a variety of relevant topics as you consider how to best tackle all the work that needs to take place is a condensed time frame. As always contact your local Extension office for more information on any of these topics

Countering the Global Landmine Epidemic Through Basic Scientific Research

Since their first use during the U.S. Civil War (Croll 1998), blast landmines have played a role in almost every armed conflict from the World Wars to the most recent limited skirmishes. Landmines are the epitome of the consummate soldier: always ready, never tiring. Mines are simple devices that can be fabricated with little effort and from readily available materials. In Sri Lanka, numerous news releases covering the conflict mention a Johnny mine (Botsford 1997), which is a local term for an improvised explosive device. Manufactured mines can be inexpensive, costing as little as two dollars apiece. If mine laying operations ceased tomorrow, an estimated 100 million mines would remain in place throughout the world (United Nations 1994)

Reply to comment by T.J. Osborn and K. R. Briffa on "Mid-Latitude (30?-60?N) climatic warming inferred by combining borehole temperatures with surface air temperatures"

Journal ArticleWe thank Osborn and Briffa [2002] for their comment regarding our use of the climatic reconstruction of Overpeck et al. [1997]. We [Harris and Chapman, 2001] had taken a proxy, Arctic wide summer-weighted annual temperature reconstruction [Overpeck et al., 1997], given in dimensionless sigma units (i.e., normalized deviation from the 1901?1960 proxy mean in units of standard deviation of the new series for the period 1901?1960) and represented the reconstruction in our Figure 3 and Table 1 in terms of dimensional temperature units ?C

THE ROLE OF SWITCHING COSTS IN ANTITRUST ANALYSIS: A COMPARISON OF MICROSOFT AND GOOGLE

Recently there has been a chorus of competition complaints asserting that Google\u27s conduct and position today is parallel to Microsoft\u27s position in the “Microsoft case,” the antitrust case brought by the Department of Justice in 1998. Any monopolization case against Google Search would have to be very different from the Microsoft browser case, because the cost for a user switching from Google Search is much lower than was the cost in the 1990s (or today) of switching away from the Microsoft operating system. It would likewise need to be different because Google has not attempted to manipulate the cost of a user switching away from Google Search, at least not to a significant degree. Low switching costs should and likely will have important implications for antitrust analysis of Google

Geothermics and climate change: 1. Analysis of borehole temperatures with emphasis on resolving power

Journal ArticleTemperature-depth data from six boreholes in western Utah and nine boreholes in southeastern Utah are reanalyzed for evidence of ground surface temperature (GST) histories. We invert the temperature-depth data using the functional space inverse algorithm of Shen and Beck [1991, 1992] which we prefer over previous inversions of these data because of its greater sophistication and flexibility in suppressing noise. GST histories for western and southeastern Utah are generally consistent and suggest that temperatures in the mid-1800s are, on average, cooler than previous centuries, followed by about 0.6°C of warming in this century. Attention is given to the temporal resolution of our GST solutions showing the time-smearing effects of heat conduction on the solutions. GST solutions represent an average ground temperature over a time window that expands as we look farther into the past. The size of the time window is a function of measurement and geologic noise and limits the ultimate resolution of GST reconstructions

Geothermics and climate change: 2. Joint analysis of borehole temperature and meteorological data

Journal ArticleLong-period ground surface temperature variations contained in bore hole temperature-depth profiles form a complementary climate change record to high-frequency, but noisy surface air temperature (SAT) records at weather stations. We illustrate the benefits of jointly analyzing geothermal and meteorological data for two regions in Utah where both high-quality temperature-depth measurements and century long SAT records exist

Wind tunnel tests of an NACA 23021 airfoil equipped with a slotted extensible and a plain extensible flap

An investigation has been made in the NACA 7- by 10-foot wind tunnel of a large chord NACA 23021 airfoil equipped with two arrangements of a completely extended 15 percent chord extensible flap. One of the flaps had a faired juncture, without a gap; the other was provided with a slot between the trailing edge of the airfoil and the nose of the flap. The results showed that the basic airfoil gave the lowest profile-drag coefficients over the low lift range, the airfoil with the plain extensible flap gave the lowest profile-drag coefficients over the moderate lift range, and the airfoil with the slotted extensible flap gave the lowest profile-drag coefficients over the high lift range. The airfoil with the slotted extensible flap had the same maximum lift at a flap deflection of 25 degrees as the airfoil with the plain extensible flap had at a flap deflection of 60 degrees. The results of comparisons of the airfoil pitching-moment coefficients obtained with the two types of flap are dependent upon the basis chosen for comparison. Complete aerodynamic section characteristics are presented for the various flap deflections for both flap arrangements in the completely extended portion

CMS search plans and sensitivity to new physics with dijets

CMS will use dijets to search for physics beyond the standard model during early LHC running. The inclusive jet cross section as a function of jet transverse momentum, with 10 inverse picobarns of integrated luminosity, is sensitive to contact interactions beyond the reach of the Tevatron. The dijet mass distribution will be used to search for dijet resonances coming from new particles, for example an excited quark. Additional sensitivity to the existence of contact interactions or dijet resonances can be obtained by comparing dijet rates in two distinct pseudorapidity regions.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phy

Modelling Financial Satisfaction Across Life Stages: A Latent Class Approach

We explore the determinants of financial satisfaction using a modelling framework which allows the drivers of financial satisfaction to vary across life stages. Given that financial satisfaction is measured as an ordered variable, our modelling approach is based on a latent class ordered probit model with an ordered probit class assignment function. Our analysis of household survey data indicates that four life stages are supported by the data. Our results suggest that such flexibility is important in understanding the drivers of financial satisfaction over the life cycle since there is a substantial amount of parameter heterogeneity across the four classes