Designing community surveys to provide a basis for noise policy

After examining reports from a large number of social surveys, two areas were identified where methodological improvements in the surveys would be especially useful for public policy. The two study areas are: the definition of noise indexes and the assessment of noise impact. Improvements in the designs of surveys are recommended which would increase the validity and reliability of the noise indexes. Changes in interview questions and sample designs are proposed which would enable surveys to provide measures of noise impact which are directly relevant for public policy

An evaluation of study design for estimating a time-of-day noise weighting

The relative importance of daytime and nighttime noise of the same noise level is represented by a time-of-day weight in noise annoyance models. The high correlations between daytime and nighttime noise were regarded as a major reason that previous social surveys of noise annoyance could not accurately estimate the value of the time-of-day weight. Study designs which would reduce the correlation between daytime and nighttime noise are described. It is concluded that designs based on short term variations in nighttime noise levels would not be able to provide valid measures of response to nighttime noise. The accuracy of the estimate of the time-of-day weight is predicted for designs which are based on long term variations in nighttime noise levels. For these designs it is predicted that it is not possible to form satisfactorily precise estimates of the time-of-day weighting

Research perspective: Time-of-day effects on noise annoyance

Some of the complications encountered in researching time-of-day effects on noise annoyance are reported. A conceptual framework for further research is provided. Some of the implications for the research methods that should be used are suggested

Rational approximations to Tricomi's psi function Interim report, 20 Mar. - 19 Jun. 1968

Closed form rational approximations to Tricomi psi functio

The George C. Davis Site, Cherokee County, Texas: Spring 1980 Archeological Investigations

The results of archeological investigations in portions of the George C. Davis Site are presented in this report prepared by Ross Fields and J. Peter Thurmond . Stringent contract requirements and the provisions of Texas Antiquities Permit No. 237 dictate that this report be brief and descriptive in nature. Requirements such as inclusion of a detailed site investigation history and environmental data were excluded and extensive excavations were stressed in preference to detailed analyses and comparisons. Field investigations were limited by contract to 20 working days and the analysis/write-up to 10 working days. The governing research design was prepared by the Texas Antiquities Committee staff to reflect agreements between the Committee and the Texas Forest Service. Sighificant findings include the general delineation of extensive, and in places intensive, Archaic and Late Prehistoric occupations. Of primary importance is the lack of an identifiable Alto Focus occupation within the northern portion of the Davis Site. This suggests that the small left bank tributary to Bowles Creek existed during Alto Focus times and served as a natural boundary for the village area during that period of site usage. There are hints that significant variations in the selection and use of lithic resources through time are identifiable. It is indeed ! unfortunate that time limitations precluded pursuit of this line of investigation. Ross and Pete have successfully accomplished a most challenging task under less than ideal conditions. They and their field crew are commended for their outstanding work at the Davis Site

A multivariate semiparametric Bayesian spatial modeling framework for hurricane surface wind fields

Storm surge, the onshore rush of sea water caused by the high winds and low pressure associated with a hurricane, can compound the effects of inland flooding caused by rainfall, leading to loss of property and loss of life for residents of coastal areas. Numerical ocean models are essential for creating storm surge forecasts for coastal areas. These models are driven primarily by the surface wind forcings. Currently, the gridded wind fields used by ocean models are specified by deterministic formulas that are based on the central pressure and location of the storm center. While these equations incorporate important physical knowledge about the structure of hurricane surface wind fields, they cannot always capture the asymmetric and dynamic nature of a hurricane. A new Bayesian multivariate spatial statistical modeling framework is introduced combining data with physical knowledge about the wind fields to improve the estimation of the wind vectors. Many spatial models assume the data follow a Gaussian distribution. However, this may be overly-restrictive for wind fields data which often display erratic behavior, such as sudden changes in time or space. In this paper we develop a semiparametric multivariate spatial model for these data. Our model builds on the stick-breaking prior, which is frequently used in Bayesian modeling to capture uncertainty in the parametric form of an outcome. The stick-breaking prior is extended to the spatial setting by assigning each location a different, unknown distribution, and smoothing the distributions in space with a series of kernel functions. This semiparametric spatial model is shown to improve prediction compared to usual Bayesian Kriging methods for the wind field of Hurricane Ivan.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOAS108 in the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Bell's Theorem from Moore's Theorem

It is shown that the restrictions of what can be inferred from classically-recorded observational outcomes that are imposed by the no-cloning theorem, the Kochen-Specker theorem and Bell's theorem also follow from restrictions on inferences from observations formulated within classical automata theory. Similarities between the assumptions underlying classical automata theory and those underlying universally-unitary quantum theory are discussed.Comment: 12 pages; to appear in Int. J. General System