The NASA/MSFC global reference atmospheric model: MOD 3 (with spherical harmonic wind model)

Improvements to the global reference atmospheric model are described. The basic model includes monthly mean values of pressure, density, temperature, and geostrophic winds, as well as quasi-biennial and small and large scale random perturbations. A spherical harmonic wind model for the 25 to 90 km height range is included. Below 25 km and above 90 km, the GRAM program uses the geostrophic wind equations and pressure data to compute the mean wind. In the altitudes where the geostrophic wind relations are used, an interpolation scheme is employed for estimating winds at low latitudes where the geostrophic wind relations being to mesh down. Several sample wind profiles are given, as computed by the spherical harmonic model. User and programmer manuals are presented

Audit Committee Material Weaknesses in Smaller Reporting Companies

One of the critical elements of internal control over financial reporting is an effectively functioning audit committee. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) defines an audit committee as committee (or equivalent body) established by and amongst the board of directors of an issuer for the purpose of overseeing the accounting and financial reporting processes of the issuer and audits of the financial statements of the issuer. Recent SOX section 404 filings by smaller reporting companies ( nonaccelerated filers, or registrants with less than $75 million of public float), however, indicate that some small companies still are struggling to develop effective audit committees. Examining the disclosures made by smaller reporting companies and then analyzing the available resources can be useful for small businesses seeking to establish and maintain effective audit committees. The SEC rules public companies to issue an annual report on the company\u27s internal control over financial reporting and to include an auditor\u27s opinion on their effectiveness

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: Insights for Internal Auditors

Douglas Faggioli, president and CEO of Nature\u27s Sunshine Products (NSP) made the above remarks as he accepted, on behalf of NSP, a 2004 100 Best Corporate Citizens award from Business Ethics magazine. NSP received the award two years in a row. Less than two years later, NSP would discover a bribery scheme in its Brazil operations that would expose it to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Faggioli and the company\u27s CFO, Craig Huff, along with NSP, would be plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit, and the SEC would fine each officer $25,000. In order to register and import more products in Brazil, NSP made undocumented cash payments to Brazilian customs brokers, some of which were ultimately paid to Brazilian customs officials. NSP\u27s Brazilian subsidiary falsified its books and hid the nature of these payments in its filings with the SEC. NSP\u27s internal investigation revealed internal control weaknesses, which likely led to the violations

A Review of Academic Literature on Internal Control Reporting Under SOX

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) mandates reporting on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) by public company management and auditors. Such reporting began for fiscal years ended Nov 15, 2004 for accelerated filers and is scheduled to be fully implemented for non-accelerated filers in mid-2010. Section 404(a) of SOX requires public company management to include an assessment of the effectiveness of the company\u27s ICFR in its annual internal control report, and Section 404(b) requires attestation by the company\u27s auditor. The authors review the literature on internal control reporting under both Sections 302 and 404 in the post-SOX period. The internal control literature has grown substantially since the passage of SOX due to the availability of data regarding ICFR effectiveness that were not previously available. They conducted a literature search through mid-2009 resulting in the inclusion of many published papers and working papers that address ICFR issues covered in our taxonomy

Ecohydrology of a Floodplain Forest: Relationships Between Evapotranspiration, Vegetation, and Topography at Congaree National Park, South Carolina

Congaree National Park supports high biodiversity and provides ecosystem services for the surrounding area in the floodplain wetland system, especially in the bottomland hardwood forests which contain some of the last remaining old-growth stands in the eastern U.S. Maintaining the hydraulic functions of this ecosystem is essential not only for the conservation of biodiversity, but also for the ecosystem services it provides, such as nitrification, denitrification, decomposition, removal of organic carbon, and phosphorous uptake and sorption. Because management practices of the park depend on understanding the area‟s hydrology, past research has been performed to analyze the flooding of Congaree River. However, not much has been done to better understand groundwater movement through the floodplain sediments in the Congaree River Valley. The goal of this project is to quantify interactions between the shallow unconfined aquifer and local vegetation surrounding eight piezometers in the Congaree Observation Well Network at Congaree National Park through calculating and comparing evapotranspiration rates, specific yield, vegetation diversity and basal area, and microtopography. Data on groundwater response to storm events, diurnal signals caused by evaporation and transpiration in the forest, vegetation community structure, and local topography were compared to better understand the role of these factors on vegetation water demand in this wetland-dominated system

TDRSS Onboard Navigation System (TONS) flight qualification experiment

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is currently developing an operational Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) System (TDRSS) Onboard Navigation System (TONS) to provide realtime, autonomous, high-accuracy navigation products to users of TDRSS. A TONS experiment was implemented on the Explorer Platform/Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EP/EUVE) spacecraft, launched June 7, 1992, to flight qualify the TONS operational system using TDRSS forward-link communications services. This paper provides a detailed evaluation of the flight hardware, an ultrastable oscillator (USO) and Doppler extractor (DE) card in one of the TDRSS user transponders and the ground-based prototype flight software performance, based on the 1 year of TONS experiment operation. The TONS experiment results are used to project the expected performance of the TONS 1 operational system. TONS 1 processes Doppler data derived from scheduled forward-link S-band services using a sequential estimation algorithm enhanced by a sophisticated process noise model to provide onboard orbit and frequency determination and time maintenance. TONS 1 will be the prime navigation system on the Earth Observing System (EOS)-AM1 spacecraft, currently scheduled for launch in 1998. Inflight evaluation of the USO and DE short-term and long-term stability indicates that the performance is excellent. Analysis of the TONS prototype flight software performance indicates that realtime onboard position accuracies of better than 25 meters root-mean-square are achievable with one tracking contact every one to two orbits for the EP/EUVE 525-kilometer altitude, 28.5 degree inclination orbit. The success of the TONS experiment demonstrates the flight readiness of TONS to support the EOS-AM1 mission

Relative navigation for spacecraft formation flying

The Goddard Space Flight Center Guidance, Navigation, and Control Center (GNCC) is currently developing and implementing advanced satellite systems to provide autonomous control of formation flyers. The initial formation maintenance capability will be flight-demonstrated on the Earth-Orbiter-1 (EO-1) satellite, which is planned under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration New Millennium Program to be a coflight with the Landsat-7 (L-7) satellite. Formation flying imposes relative navigation accuracy requirements in addition to the orbit accuracy requirements for the individual satellites. In the case of EO-1 and L-7, the two satellites are in nearly coplanar orbits, with a small difference in the longitude of the ascending node to compensate for the Earth's rotation. The GNCC has performed trajectory error analysis for the relative navigation of the EO-1/L-7 formation, as well as for a more advanced tracking configuration using cross-link satellite communications. This paper discusses the orbit determination and prediction accuracy achievable for EO-1 and L-7 under various tracking and orbit determination scenarios and discusses the expected relative separation errors in their formation flying configuration

Adapting Livestock Production Systems to Climate Change in Nepal: Challenges and Opportunities

To assess climate change impacts and identify challenges and opportunities for livestock climate change adaption, we conducted a comprehensive study in the Thulokhola watershed of Nuwakot district in Nepal from June 1, 2011 to January 31, 2013. We established nine community livestock groups (CLGs) consisting of 51 members and trained the CLG members in daily livestock record keeping and monitoring surface water quality. Monthly fecal samples from 50 cattle, 50 goats, and 50 buffaloes were collected for the determination of gastrointestinal parasites. Soil and fodder samples were also collected and analyzed. Group discussions, Participatory Rural Appraisals, and full-fledged household survey of 97 households were done. A survey of 41 water sources in the watershed was also conducted. While 85.3 % of the water sources have either dried up or decreased in flow in recent years, drought conditions had great toll on agricultural production. Prevalence rates of helminthes on goats, cattle, and buffalo was 53.8%, 31.32%, and 23.52%, respectively, and animal deaths were remarkably high. Declining pregnancy rates on livestock along with waning supply of fodder and forages and poor soil quality were additional major problems. Although local communities have undertaken several measures including adding new breed, destocking, purchasing fodder and forages, and planting grasses for livestock climate change adaptation, the problems of animal health, breeding conditions, soil fertility, forest degradation, increasing women workload, and water shortages were largely unaddressed. Opportunities for livestock climate change adaptation in Nepal include agroforestry intervention, groundwater utilization, rainwater harvesting, enhancing feed efficiency, and community capacity-building

Attitudes toward offshore oil development: A summary of current evidence

Attitudes toward offshore petroleum have varied widely across both time and place. This paper summarizes the accumulated evidence from around the globe and then examines two regions that represent the polar extremes - both drawn from the same country and the same era - southern Louisiana and northern California, over the past two decades. The comparison illustrates that attitudes toward offshore oil development are best understood through a closer examination of the ways in which the offshore industry has interacted with a given region, over time, in terms of three sets of factors - the historical, biophysical, and social factors that shape the people and culture of a given place and time. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Missed Opportunities: Family History and Behavioral Risk Factors in Breast Cancer Risk Assessment Among a Multiethnic Group of Women

BACKGROUND: Clinician’s knowledge of a woman’s cancer family history (CFH) and counseling about health-related behaviors (HRB) is necessary for appropriate breast cancer care. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether clinicians solicit CFH and counsel women on HRB; to assess relationship of well visits and patient risk perception or worry with clinician’s behavior. DESIGN: Cross-sectional population-based telephone survey. PARTICIPANTS: Multiethnic sample; 1,700 women from San Francisco Mammography Registry with a screening mammogram in 2001–2002. MEASUREMENTS: Predictors: well visit in prior year, self-perception of 10-year breast cancer risk, worry scale. Outcomes: Patient report of clinician asking about CFH in prior year, or ever counseling about HRB in relation to breast cancer risk. Multivariate models included age, ethnicity, education, language of interview, insurance/mammography facility, well visit, ever having a breast biopsy/follow-up mammography, Gail-Model risk, Jewish heritage, and body mass index. RESULTS: 58% reported clinicians asked about CFH; 33% reported clinicians ever discussed HRB. In multivariate analysis, regardless of actual risk, perceived risk, or level of worry, having had a well visit in prior year was associated with increased odds (OR = 2.3; 95% CI 1.6, 3.3) that a clinician asked about CFH. Regardless of actual risk of breast cancer, a higher level of worry (OR = 1.9; 95% CI 1.4, 2.6) was associated with increased odds that a clinician ever discussed HRB. CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians are missing opportunities to elicit family cancer histories and counsel about health-related behaviors and breast cancer risk. Preventive health visits offer opportunities for clinicians to address family history, risk behaviors, and patients’ worries about breast cancer