Hormone replacement therapy

Martha Hickey, Jane Elliott, Sonia Louise Daviso

Statistical Modeling of Spatial Extremes

The areal modeling of the extremes of a natural process such as rainfall or temperature is important in environmental statistics; for example, understanding extreme areal rainfall is crucial in flood protection. This article reviews recent progress in the statistical modeling of spatial extremes, starting with sketches of the necessary elements of extreme value statistics and geostatistics. The main types of statistical models thus far proposed, based on latent variables, on copulas and on spatial max-stable processes, are described and then are compared by application to a data set on rainfall in Switzerland. Whereas latent variable modeling allows a better fit to marginal distributions, it fits the joint distributions of extremes poorly, so appropriately-chosen copula or max-stable models seem essential for successful spatial modeling of extremes.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-STS376 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Rejoinder to "Statistical Modeling of Spatial Extremes"

Rejoinder to "Statistical Modeling of Spatial Extremes" by A. C. Davison, S. A. Padoan and M. Ribatet [arXiv:1208.3378].Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-STS376REJ the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Marker based Thermal-Inertial Localization for Aerial Robots in Obscurant Filled Environments

For robotic inspection tasks in known environments fiducial markers provide a reliable and low-cost solution for robot localization. However, detection of such markers relies on the quality of RGB camera data, which degrades significantly in the presence of visual obscurants such as fog and smoke. The ability to navigate known environments in the presence of obscurants can be critical for inspection tasks especially, in the aftermath of a disaster. Addressing such a scenario, this work proposes a method for the design of fiducial markers to be used with thermal cameras for the pose estimation of aerial robots. Our low cost markers are designed to work in the long wave infrared spectrum, which is not affected by the presence of obscurants, and can be affixed to any object that has measurable temperature difference with respect to its surroundings. Furthermore, the estimated pose from the fiducial markers is fused with inertial measurements in an extended Kalman filter to remove high frequency noise and error present in the fiducial pose estimates. The proposed markers and the pose estimation method are experimentally evaluated in an obscurant filled environment using an aerial robot carrying a thermal camera.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, Published in International Symposium on Visual Computing 201

Experiences of Middle School Students Following a Financial Literacy Simulation

The need for today's youth to acquire financial literacy skills cannot be taken lightly as this knowledge leads to better financial decisions. However, there is a shortage of qualified teachers to teach financial skills. When teachers are not available, one way to provide students with such skills is through simulations. This article describes the experiences of middle school students’ following the Reality Store®, a financial simulation. The activity, divided into 15 different stations, provided hands-on experiences and opportunities for students to think about their futures and career choices in relation to their economic well-being. One hundred fifty-six (156) eighth grade students participated in the simulation activity. Results from the activity indicated students: 1) overwhelmingly enjoyed the experience; 2) lacked knowledge of careers and the educational requirements necessary to achieve their desired life choices; and 3) liked the opportunity to make “life” decisions. Suggestions for teaching financial literacy and career awareness using simulations are provided. Keywords: Career awareness, Experiential education, Financial literacy, Simulation, Middle school DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-15-06 Publication date:May 31st 201

Interpreting intraplate tectonics for seismic hazard : a UK historical perspective

It is notoriously difficult to construct seismic source models for probabilistic seismic hazard assessment in intraplate areas on the basis of geological information, and many practitioners have given up the task in favour of purely seismicity-based models. This risks losing potentially valuable information in regions where the earthquake catalogue is short compared to the seismic cycle. It is interesting to survey how attitudes to this issue have evolved over the past 30 years. This paper takes the UK as an example, and traces the evolution of seismic source models through generations of hazard studies. It is found that in the UK, while the earliest studies did not consider regional tectonics in any way, there has been a gradual evolution towards more tectonically based models. Experience in other countries, of course, may differ