Costs of Early Childhood Home Visiting: An Analysis of Programs Implemented in the Supporting Evidence-Based Home Visiting to Prevent Child Maltreatment Initiative

The Cost Study of Evidence-Based Home Visiting Programs applied a uniform approach and common time frame to analyze costs among agencies implementing five different home visiting program models. The study assessed (1) the total cost of providing home visiting programs during a year of steady-state operation, (2) the allocation of annual costs among cost categories and program activities or components, (3) the cost to serve a participating family, and (4) variation in average costs across program models and other agency characteristics.Mathematica Policy Research and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago conducted the study with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and in collaboration with Casey Family Programs. It included agencies that participated in the Supporting Evidence-Based Home Visiting to Prevent Child Maltreatment (EBHV) initiative, a five-year grant program launched in 2008 by the Children's Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families at HHS. In 2011, the EBHV grant program was formally incorporated into the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV) State Formula Grant Program administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration of HHS

Take me back…but to where? A content analysis of how country of origin impacts on the authenticity of souvenirs

Souvenirs are a popular commodity for purchase by tourists. Souvenirs can serve as an emotional connection for people to bring back fond memories of touristic experiences. They can also be gifts for friends and relatives to showcase and share touristic events when the tourist returns back home. In recent years, research has been undertaken on the importance of souvenirs and the aspect of authenticity. However, the relationship between country of origin, more specifically the ‘Made in...’ labels, and souvenirs has attracted little research interest. Importantly, despite the importance of souvenirs to tourism, a content analysis has not been undertaken. Such research seems important in order to guide future research and hold important implications for tourism practitioners. Accordingly, this research involves a content analysis of the relationship between authenticity and souvenirs. Key themes are highlighted and future research identified

Analytical solution for transient partitioning and reaction of a condensing vapor species in a droplet

We present the exact analytical solution of the transient equation of gas-phase diffusion of a condensing vapor to, and diffusion and reaction in, an aqueous droplet. Droplet-phase reaction is represented by first-order chemistry. The solution facilitates study of the dynamic nature of the vapor uptake process as a function of droplet size, Henry's law coefficient, and first-order reaction rate constant for conversion in the droplet phase

Assessing the Positional Planimetric Accuracy of DBpedia Georeferenced Resources

International audienceAssessing the quality of the main linked data sources on the Web like DBpedia or Yago is an important research topic. The existing approaches for quality assessment mostly focus on determining whether data sources are compliant with Web of data best practices or on their completeness, semantic accuracy, consistency, relevancy or trustworthi-ness. In this article, we aim at assessing the accuracy of a particular type of information often associated with Web of data resources: direct spatial references. We present the approaches currently used for assessing the planimetric accuracy of geographic databases. We explain why they cannot be directly applied to the resources of the Web of data. Eventually , we propose an approach for assessing the planimetric accuracy of DBpedia resources, adapted to the open nature of this knowledge base

Invisible water, visible impact: How unsustainable groundwater use challenges sustainability of Indian agriculture under climate change

India is one of the world’s largest food producers, making the sustainability of its agricultural system of global significance. Groundwater irrigation underpins India’s agriculture, currently boosting crop production by enough to feed 170 million people. Groundwater overexploitation has led to drastic declines in groundwater levels, threatening to push this vital resource out of reach for millions of small-scale farmers who are the backbone of India’s food security. Historically, losing access to groundwater has decreased agricultural production and increased poverty. We take a multidisciplinary approach to assess climate change challenges facing India’s agricultural system, and to assess the effectiveness of large-scale water infrastructure projects designed to meet these challenges. We find that even in areas that experience climate change induced precipitation increases, expansion of irrigated agriculture will require increasing amounts of unsustainable groundwater. The large proposed national river linking project has limited capacity to alleviate groundwater stress. Thus, without intervention, poverty and food insecurity in rural India is likely to worsen

Modeling kinetic partitioning of secondary organic aerosol and size distribution dynamics: representing effects of volatility, phase state, and particle-phase reaction

This paper describes and evaluates a new framework for modeling kinetic gas-particle partitioning of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) that takes into account diffusion and chemical reaction within the particle phase. The framework uses a combination of (a) an analytical quasi-steady-state treatment for the diffusion–reaction process within the particle phase for fast-reacting organic solutes, and (b) a two-film theory approach for slow- and nonreacting solutes. The framework is amenable for use in regional and global atmospheric models, although it currently awaits specification of the various gas- and particle-phase chemistries and the related physicochemical properties that are important for SOA formation. Here, the new framework is implemented in the computationally efficient Model for Simulating Aerosol Interactions and Chemistry (MOSAIC) to investigate the competitive growth dynamics of the Aitken and accumulation mode particles. Results show that the timescale of SOA partitioning and the associated size distribution dynamics depend on the complex interplay between organic solute volatility, particle-phase bulk diffusivity, and particle-phase reactivity (as exemplified by a pseudo-first-order reaction rate constant), each of which can vary over several orders of magnitude. In general, the timescale of SOA partitioning increases with increase in volatility and decrease in bulk diffusivity and rate constant. At the same time, the shape of the aerosol size distribution displays appreciable narrowing with decrease in volatility and bulk diffusivity and increase in rate constant. A proper representation of these physicochemical processes and parameters is needed in the next generation models to reliably predict not only the total SOA mass, but also its composition- and number-diameter distributions, all of which together determine the overall optical and cloud-nucleating properties

Disparity Map Generation from Illumination Variant Stereo Images Using Efficient Hierarchical Dynamic Programming

A novel hierarchical stereo matching algorithm is presented which gives disparity map as output from illumination variant stereo pair. Illumination difference between two stereo images can lead to undesirable output. Stereo image pair often experience illumination variations due to many factors like real and practical situation, spatially and temporally separated camera positions, environmental illumination fluctuation, and the change in the strength or position of the light sources. Window matching and dynamic programming techniques are employed for disparity map estimation. Good quality disparity map is obtained with the optimized path. Homomorphic filtering is used as a preprocessing step to lessen illumination variation between the stereo images. Anisotropic diffusion is used to refine disparity map to give high quality disparity map as a final output. The robust performance of the proposed approach is suitable for real life circumstances where there will be always illumination variation between the images. The matching is carried out in a sequence of images representing the same scene, however in different resolutions. The hierarchical approach adopted decreases the computation time of the stereo matching problem. This algorithm can be helpful in applications like robot navigation, extraction of information from aerial surveys, 3D scene reconstruction, and military and security applications. Similarity measure SAD is often sensitive to illumination variation. It produces unacceptable disparity map results for illumination variant left and right images. Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm produces quality disparity maps for both wide range of illumination variant and invariant stereo image pair

The MESSy aerosol submodel MADE3 (v2.0b): description and a box model test

We introduce MADE3 (Modal Aerosol Dynamics model for Europe, adapted for global applications, 3rd generation; version: MADE3v2.0b), an aerosol dynamics submodel for application within the MESSy framework (Modular Earth Submodel System). MADE3 builds on the predecessor aerosol submodels MADE and MADE-in. Its main new features are the explicit representation of coarse mode particle interactions both with other particles and with condensable gases, and the inclusion of hydrochloric acid (HCl) / chloride (Cl) partitioning between the gas and condensed phases. The aerosol size distribution is represented in the new submodel as a superposition of nine lognormal modes: one for fully soluble particles, one for insoluble particles, and one for mixed particles in each of three size ranges (Aitken, accumulation, and coarse mode size ranges). <br><br> In order to assess the performance of MADE3 we compare it to its predecessor MADE and to the much more detailed particle-resolved aerosol model PartMC-MOSAIC in a box model simulation of an idealised marine boundary layer test case. MADE3 and MADE results are very similar, except in the coarse mode, where the aerosol is dominated by sea spray particles. Cl is reduced in MADE3 with respect to MADE due to the HCl / Cl partitioning that leads to Cl removal from the sea spray aerosol in our test case. Additionally, the aerosol nitrate concentration is higher in MADE3 due to the condensation of nitric acid on coarse mode particles. MADE3 and PartMC-MOSAIC show substantial differences in the fine particle size distributions (sizes &lesssim; 2 μm) that could be relevant when simulating climate effects on a global scale. Nevertheless, the agreement between MADE3 and PartMC-MOSAIC is very good when it comes to coarse particle size distributions (sizes &gtrsim; 2 μm), and also in terms of aerosol composition. Considering these results and the well-established ability of MADE in reproducing observed aerosol loadings and composition, MADE3 seems suitable for application within a global model

Global distribution and climate forcing of marine organic aerosol: 1. Model improvements and evaluation

Marine organic aerosol emissions have been implemented and evaluated within the National Center of Atmospheric Research (NCAR)'s Community Atmosphere Model (CAM5) with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's 7-mode Modal Aerosol Module (MAM-7). Emissions of marine primary organic aerosols (POA), phytoplankton-produced isoprene- and monoterpenes-derived secondary organic aerosols (SOA) and methane sulfonate (MS&lt;sup&gt;&amp;minus;&lt;/sup&gt;) are shown to affect surface concentrations of organic aerosols in remote marine regions. Global emissions of submicron marine POA is estimated to be 7.9 and 9.4 Tg yr&lt;sup&gt;−1&lt;/sup&gt;, for the Gantt et al. (2011) and Vignati et al. (2010) emission parameterizations, respectively. Marine sources of SOA and particulate MS&lt;sup&gt;&amp;minus;&lt;/sup&gt; (containing both sulfur and carbon atoms) contribute an additional 0.2 and 5.1 Tg yr&lt;sup&gt;−1&lt;/sup&gt;, respectively. Widespread areas over productive waters of the Northern Atlantic, Northern Pacific, and the Southern Ocean show marine-source submicron organic aerosol surface concentrations of 100 ng m&lt;sup&gt;−3&lt;/sup&gt;, with values up to 400 ng m&lt;sup&gt;−3&lt;/sup&gt; over biologically productive areas. Comparison of long-term surface observations of water insoluble organic matter (WIOM) with POA concentrations from the two emission parameterizations shows that despite revealed discrepancies (often more than a factor of 2), both Gantt et al. (2011) and Vignati et al. (2010) formulations are able to capture the magnitude of marine organic aerosol concentrations, with the Gantt et al. (2011) parameterization attaining better seasonality. Model simulations show that the mixing state of the marine POA can impact the surface number concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). The largest increases (up to 20%) in CCN (at a supersaturation (&lt;i&gt;S&lt;/i&gt;) of 0.2%) number concentration are obtained over biologically productive ocean waters when marine organic aerosol is assumed to be externally mixed with sea-salt. Assuming marine organics are internally-mixed with sea-salt provides diverse results with increases and decreases in the concentration of CCN over different parts of the ocean. The sign of the CCN change due to the addition of marine organics to sea-salt aerosol is determined by the relative significance of the increase in mean modal diameter due to addition of mass, and the decrease in particle hygroscopicity due to compositional changes in marine aerosol. Based on emerging evidence for increased CCN concentration over biologically active surface ocean areas/periods, our study suggests that treatment of sea spray in global climate models (GCMs) as an internal mixture of marine organic aerosols and sea-salt will likely lead to an underestimation in CCN number concentration