Investing in Disaster Risk Reduction: A Global Fund

I focus on three issues that are, in my view, the most pertinent to addressing the need to deal with catastrophic, low-probability storms and earthquakes (most likely to occur in Asia and/or the Caribbean): (1) the large benefits and benefit/cost ratios from early-warning systems; (2) the feasibility of an international disaster risk reduction intervention fund and its guiding principles, and (3) an evaluation of the Copenhagen Consensus methodology that relate to the Kunreuther and Michel-Kerjan challenge paper

Counting outerplanar maps

A map is outerplanar if all its vertices lie in the outer face. We enumerate various classes of rooted outerplanar maps with respect to the number of edges and vertices. The proofs involve several bijections with lattice paths. As a consequence of our results, we obtain an e cient scheme for encoding simple outerplanar maps.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The 1960 Tsunami in Hawaii: Long Term Consequences of a Coastal Disaster

Research on the economic and human toll of natural disasters focuses on the short-term, often ignoring the important long-term impacts of these catastrophic events. The main reason for the lack of empirical research on the long-term is the inherent and unavoidable difficulty in identifying any long-term impacts and attributing them to the disaster. On the 23rd of May 1960, a devastating tsunami struck the city of Hilo on the island of Hawaii. Remarkably, there was no significant injury or damage elsewhere in the Hawaiian Islands. This tsunami provides a unique natural experiment as the tsunami was unexpected, and the other Hawaiian Islands, which were not hit by the tsunami, provide an ideal control group that enables us to precisely identify the counter-factual. We use a newly developed synthetic control methodology formalized in Abadie et al. (2010) to measure the long-term impacts of the tsunami. We find that while wages did not decline noticeably, population and employment trends shifted. Fifteen years after the event, unemployment was still 32% higher and population was still 9% lower than it would have been had the tsunami not occurred. We also find a corresponding decrease in the number of employers and sugar production in the county

Geographic variation in flower color patterns within Calceolaria uniflora Lam. in Southern Patagonia

Infraspecific variation in flower colors was evaluated in 26 populations of Calceolaria uniflora Lam. in Southern Patagonia, Argentina. Computerized analysis of high-resolution photo-images was used to estimate the proportions of red, orange and yellow in surfaces of two corolla parts, “instep” and “throat”, in field samples of 20–35 flowers per population. The between-populations component accounted for 48% of variance for instep colors and 24% for throat colors. Geographic differentiation was found between populations with a uniform red instep in the Andes in the west, and populations with a maculate yellow-and-red instep in the Magellanic steppe to the east. Mixed populations occurred in a transition zone. Throat colors showed a different, north-south geographic trend. Based on color pattern and distribution, two subspecies may be differentiated within C. uniflora. Their overall geographic distribution is related to climate and vegetation, but their detailed distribution is better explained by isolation by distance and barriers to gene flow.Fil: Mascó, Mercedes. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral; ArgentinaFil: Noy-Meir, I.. Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Faculty of Agricultural Food and Environmental Quality Sciences. Institute of Plant Sciences; IsraelFil: Sersic, Alicia Noemi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; Argentin

Behavioural compensation by drivers of a simulator when using a vision enhancement system

Technological progress is suggesting dramatic changes to the tasks of the driver, with the general aim of making driving environment safer. Before any of these technologies are implemented, empirical research is required to establish if these devices do, in fact, bring about the anticipated improvements. Initially, at least, simulated driving environments offer a means of conducting this research. The study reported here concentrates on the application of a vision enhancement (VE) system within the risk homeostasis paradigm. It was anticipated, in line with risk homeostasis theory, that drivers would compensate for the reduction in risk by increasing speed. The results support the hypothesis although, after a simulated failure of the VE system, drivers did reduce their speed due to reduced confidence in the reliability of the system

Unzipping Kinetics of Double-Stranded DNA in a Nanopore

We studied the unzipping kinetics of single molecules of double-stranded DNA by pulling one of their two strands through a narrow protein pore. PCR analysis yielded the first direct proof of DNA unzipping in such a system. The time to unzip each molecule was inferred from the ionic current signature of DNA traversal. The distribution of times to unzip under various experimental conditions fit a simple kinetic model. Using this model, we estimated the enthalpy barriers to unzipping and the effective charge of a nucleotide in the pore, which was considerably smaller than previously assumed.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, Accepted: Physics Review Letter

The CMS Tracker Readout Front End Driver

The Front End Driver, FED, is a 9U 400mm VME64x card designed for reading out the Compact Muon Solenoid, CMS, silicon tracker signals transmitted by the APV25 analogue pipeline Application Specific Integrated Circuits. The FED receives the signals via 96 optical fibers at a total input rate of 3.4 GB/sec. The signals are digitized and processed by applying algorithms for pedestal and common mode noise subtraction. Algorithms that search for clusters of hits are used to further reduce the input rate. Only the cluster data along with trigger information of the event are transmitted to the CMS data acquisition system using the S-LINK64 protocol at a maximum rate of 400 MB/sec. All data processing algorithms on the FED are executed in large on-board Field Programmable Gate Arrays. Results on the design, performance, testing and quality control of the FED are presented and discussed

Elucidating the Role of Topological Constraint on the Structure of Overstretched DNA Using Fluorescence Polarization Microscopy

The combination of DNA force spectroscopy and polarization microscopy of fluorescent DNA intercalator dyes can provide valuable insights into the structure of DNA under tension. These techniques have previously been used to characterize S-DNA—an elongated DNA conformation that forms when DNA overstretches at forces ≥ 65 pN. In this way, it was deduced that the base pairs of S-DNA are highly inclined, relative to those in relaxed (B-form) DNA. However, it is unclear whether and how topological constraints on the DNA may influence the base-pair inclinations under tension. Here, we apply polarization microscopy to investigate the impact of DNA pulling geometry, torsional constraint, and negative supercoiling on the orientations of intercalated dyes during overstretching. In contrast to earlier predictions, the pulling geometry (namely, whether the DNA molecule is stretched via opposite strands or the same strand) is found to have little influence. However, torsional constraint leads to a substantial reduction in intercalator tilting in overstretched DNA, particularly in AT-rich sequences. Surprisingly, the extent of intercalator tilting is similarly reduced when the DNA molecule is negatively supercoiled up to a critical supercoiling density (corresponding to ∼70% reduction in the linking number). We attribute these observations to the presence of P-DNA (an overwound DNA conformation). Our results suggest that intercalated DNA preferentially flanks regions of P-DNA rather than those of S-DNA and also substantiate previous suggestions that P-DNA forms predominantly in AT-rich sequences