Mass Media and Environmental Risk: Seven Principles

Dr. Sandman suggests that, when spokespersons for risk sources are inept in conveying their messages, they and we pay heavily for their mistakes

Radiative and free-convective heat transfer from a finite horizontal plate inside an enclosure

An experimental and analytical investigation of heat transfer from a horizontal, thin, square plate inside of an enclosure was carried out. Experimental results were obtained from both the upward-facing and the downward-facing sides of the heated plate. Starting with the integrated momentum and energy equations, approximate solutions were obtained for heat transfer in the laminar and the turbulent regime that correlate well with experimental data. Radiative heat transfer correction was given special attention. Effects of the enclosure-related recirculation of the test fluid, as well as effects of simultaneous heat transfer on both sides of the plate, caused an early transition, and indicated a high level of internal turbulence

Bootstrapping the Coronal Magnetic Field with STEREO: I. Unipolar Potential Field Modeling

We investigate the recently quantified misalignment of $\alpha_{mis} \approx 20^\circ-40^\circ$ between the 3-D geometry of stereoscopically triangulated coronal loops observed with STEREO/EUVI (in four active regions) and theoretical (potential or nonlinear force-free) magnetic field models extrapolated from photospheric magnetograms. We develop an efficient method of bootstrapping the coronal magnetic field by forward-fitting a parameterized potential field model to the STEREO-observed loops. The potential field model consists of a number of unipolar magnetic charges that are parameterized by decomposing a photospheric magnetogram from MDI. The forward-fitting method yields a best-fit magnetic field model with a reduced misalignment of $\alpha_{PF} \approx 13^\circ-20^\circ$. We evaluate also stereoscopic measurement errors and find a contribution of $\alpha_{SE}\approx 7^\circ-12^\circ$, which constrains the residual misalignment to $\alpha_{NP}=\alpha_{PF}-\alpha_{SE}\approx 5^\circ -9^\circ$, which is likely due to the nonpotentiality of the active regions. The residual misalignment angle $\alpha_{NP}$ of the potential field due to nonpotentiality is found to correlate with the soft X-ray flux of the active region, which implies a relationship between electric currents and plasma heating.Comment: 12 figures, manuscript submitted to ApJ, 2010 Apr 2

Testing the Role of Technical Information in Public Risk Perception

It is widely believed that more detail about health effects and likely exposure routes is apt to reduce citizens\u27 concerns about low-probability Risks. The authors\u27 study suggests that providing such detail may not be as useful as, e.g., addressing public concerns and keeping citizens current on officials\u27 actions

Plugging the “Phishing” Hole: Legislation Versus Technology

This iBrief analyzes the Anti-Phishing Act of 2005, legislation aimed at curbing the problem of phishing. Phishing is the sending of fraudulent emails which appear to be from legitimate businesses and thereby fooling the recipients into divulging personal information such as credit card numbers. While this legislation may provide some assistance in the fight against phishing, it is limited by the global nature of the Internet and the ease with which phishers can hide and avoid judgments. This iBrief therefore concludes that although the Anti-Phishing Act can play a supporting role in the battle, technological solutions are the most effective means of reducing or eliminating phishing attacks

Seleclting Middleware for N-tier applications

This paper describes middleware for n-tier architecture, describes how this middleware is meeting the unique demands of Internet applications and e-commerce, and suggests selection guidelines to assist business managers in choosing appropriate types of middleware for n-tier systems that will meet their internet needs. Different types of middleware provide the functionality for addressing many distinct and disparate problems arising from the distributed processing associated with n-tier systems. This paper associates the type of middleware with the nature of the system being developed

Severity as a Priority Setting Criterion: Setting a Challenging Research Agenda

Priority setting in health care is ubiquitous and health authorities are increasingly recognising the need for priority setting guidelines to ensure efficient, fair, and equitable resource allocation. While cost-effectiveness concerns seem to dominate many policies, the tension between utilitarian and deontological concerns is salient to many, and various severity criteria appear to fill this gap. Severity, then, must be subjected to rigorous ethical and philosophical analysis. Here we first give a brief history of the path to today’s severity criteria in Norway and Sweden. The Scandinavian perspective on severity might be conducive to the international discussion, given its long-standing use as a priority setting criterion, despite having reached rather different conclusions so far. We then argue that severity can be viewed as a multidimensional concept, drawing on accounts of need, urgency, fairness, duty to save lives, and human dignity. Such concerns will often be relative to local mores, and the weighting placed on the various dimensions cannot be expected to be fixed. Thirdly, we present what we think are the most pertinent questions to answer about severity in order to facilitate decision making in the coming years of increased scarcity, and to further the understanding of underlying assumptions and values that go into these decisions. We conclude that severity is poorly understood, and that the topic needs substantial further inquiry; thus we hope this article may set a challenging and important research agenda

The eutrophication of some pelotrophic lakes; a palaeolimnological study

Paleolimnologinen tutkimus eräiden pelotrofisten järvien rehevöitymisest