The role of water vapor in climate. A strategic research plan for the proposed GEWEX water vapor project (GVaP)

The proposed GEWEX Water Vapor Project (GVaP) addresses fundamental deficiencies in the present understanding of moist atmospheric processes and the role of water vapor in the global hydrologic cycle and climate. Inadequate knowledge of the distribution of atmospheric water vapor and its transport is a major impediment to progress in achieving a fuller understanding of various hydrologic processes and a capability for reliable assessment of potential climatic change on global and regional scales. GVap will promote significant improvements in knowledge of atmospheric water vapor and moist processes as well as in present capabilities to model these processes on global and regional scales. GVaP complements a number of ongoing and planned programs focused on various aspects of the hydrologic cycle. The goal of GVaP is to improve understanding of the role of water vapor in meteorological, hydrological, and climatological processes through improved knowledge of water vapor and its variability on all scales. A detailed description of the GVaP is presented

Using experiments and expert judgment to model catchability of Pacific rockfishes in trawl surveys, with application to bocaccio (Sebastes paucispinis) off British Columbia

The time series of abundance indices for many groundfish populations, as determined from trawl surveys, are often imprecise and short, causing stock assessment estimates of abundance to be imprecise. To improve precision, prior probability distributions (priors) have been developed for parameters in stock assessment models by using meta-analysis, expert judgment on catchability, and empirically based modeling. This article presents a synthetic approach for formulating priors for rockfish trawl survey catchability (qgross). A multivariate prior for qgross for different surveys is formulated by using 1) a correction factor for bias in estimating fish density between trawlable and untrawlable areas, 2) expert judgment on trawl net catchability, 3) observations from trawl survey experiments, and 4) data on the fraction of population biomass in each of the areas surveyed. The method is illustrated by using bocaccio (Sebastes paucipinis) in British Columbia. Results indicate that expert judgment can be updated markedly by observing the catch-rate ratio from different trawl gears in the same areas. The marginal priors for qgross are consistent with empirical estimates obtained by fitting a stock assessment model to the survey data under a noninformative prior for qgross. Despite high prior uncertainty (prior coefficients of variation ≥0.8) and high prior correlation between qgross, the prior for qgross still enhances the precision of key stock assessment quantities

The Return of the Prophetic Ministry of the Western Church within the Context of Liberation Theology and the Prophets

While there may still be churches in the West that take up the prophetic call against injustice their voices are the minority. Generally speaking, the prophetic church in Western Christendom is dead. Its prophetic voice has become mute. Its prophetic vision has diminished. Its prophetic call has vanished from the ears of its members. The Western Church has lost its prophetic role in the Global World. The prophets of the West have vanished. However, the prophetic call has been taken up by a new church tradition that rises upward from the ruin of oppression. The Southern Church of the developing world has taken up the prophetic mantle in its fight against injustice. The voices of the prophets cry out from the South in the form of liberation theology. This postmodern method of interpretation speaks from the social context of poverty and subjugation. In many ways, liberation theology embodies the prophetic movement of the Old Testament

Thermodynamic Limit for Spin Glasses. Beyond the Annealed Bound

Using a correlation inequality of Contucci and Lebowitz for spin glasses, we demonstrate existence of the thermodynamic limit for short-ranged spin glasses, under weaker hypotheses than previously available, namely without the assumption of the annealed bound.Comment: 8 page

The Adair Site: Caddo Relations through Ceramic Analysis

The Adair site (3GA1), located in the Upper Ouachita River Valley in Garland County, Arkansas is an Upper Ouachita Caddo site. The people at the site are presume to be at the center of cultural dominance for the area and had interaction with Caddo sites in the region. This article explores this by studying the whole vessel collections that were excavated at the Adair site in the 1930s. Comparing the Adair collection to three other Caddo sites provides information about the social standing of the Adair site, its relations with other sites, and how it fits into the greater fabric of Caddo culture in the Upper Ouachita River Valley

Mercury Concentrations and Mercury Methylation Along the Freshwater to Marine Continuum

Mercury (Hg) is a neurotoxin that can have detrimental impacts on the human nervous system and on brain development in infants. Methylmercury (MeHg) is the most toxic form of Hg and can concentrate to potentially harmful levels in higher levels of marine food webs. Production of MeHg in oxic water columns is poorly understood due to lack of knowledge of the mechanisms of formation and distribution. Recent work has reported widespread, putative Hg methylation genes in nitrite oxidizers, but any relationship with nitrifiers is unknown. This work focuses on Hg water column distribution, speciation, and methylation. The aims of this dissertation are to quantify: (1) rates and distribution of HgT and MeHg in the western basin of Lake Erie; (2) Hg methylation and nitrification rates in the Tropical North Atlantic Ocean; and (3) Hg species distribution in the Central Pacific Ocean. In Lake Erie, a Laurentian Great Lake, the mean fraction of total Hg as MeHg in water column measurements from lake areas near three Lake Erie river inputs (summers of 2018, 2019, and 2021) were comparable (~5%), suggesting similar biogeochemical cycling for rivers feeding Lake Erie. Estimated river fluxes of MeHg were an order of magnitude greater than in situ production, and greater from the Detroit River (9.5 kg yr–1) than from either the Maumee River (0.78 kg yr–1) or Sandusky iii Bay (0.03 kg yr–1), as expected since the Detroit River accounts for about 95% of total water discharge into Lake Erie. These results suggest that the Detroit River is a major source of MeHg from the upper Great Lakes basin to western Lake Erie. Overall, Hg concentrations and fluxes observed in this study were up to orders of magnitude less than those reported in previous decades, which may be a positive result of the Ohio Clean Air and Water Act of 2004. In a marine system, potential Hg methylation and nitrification rates were measured in Western Tropical North Atlantic Ocean surface waters (June and July 2019), within and near the Amazon River plume. The Hg methylation rates in this study were correlated positively and strongly to nitrification rates and Nitrospina-specific 16S gene expression. Potential Hg methylation and nitrification rates were highest at the most saline and least turbid stations, indicating that sediment particles and nutrient-rich, Amazon riverine discharges were not the primary factors promoting either process. These novel results in oxic seawater provide further evidence that Hg methylation may be linked to abundant, nitrifying microbes and may help explain marine MeHg distributions. In the open Pacific Ocean, to better understand Hg partitioning and distributions, multiple Hg species were measured during a meridional section from Alaska to Tahiti in 2018. We quantified filtered total Hg (HgT) and MeHg, as well as HgT and MeHg associated with suspended particles, in high-resolution vertical profiles along the meridional transect at 152° W, which included the Alaskan shelf, North Pacific gyre, and the Loihi seamount. All measured Hg species had greater concentrations in the northern than southern Pacific Ocean, consistent with prior measurements, and the Loihi seamount was identified as a major source. Results from this expedition provide useful information vi regarding potential sources and sinks of HgT and MeHg in the North Pacific Ocean, but additional Hg speciation data is needed for water masses south of Tahiti and the Southern Ocean. The overarching theme of this dissertation was to address knowledge gaps in Hg methylation in oxic waters, such as Lake Erie and the Tropical North Pacific Ocean, as well as distribution of total Hg and MeHg in Lake Erie and the Pacific Ocean

Equity markets, transaction costs, and capital accumulation

There is a close, if imperfect, relationship between the effectiveness of an economy's capital markets and its level (or rate of growth) of real development. This may be because financial markets provide liquidity, promote the sharing of information, or permit agents to specialize. There is literature about how these functions help increase real activity, but surprisingly little literature predicting how the volume of activity in financial markets relates to the level or efficiency of an economy's productive activity. The authors address this question: how does the efficiency of an economy's equity market -- as measured by transaction costs -- affect its efficiency in producing physical capital and, through this channel, final goods and services? The answer: As the efficiency of an economy's capital markets increases (that is, as the transaction costs fall), the general effect is to cause agents to make longer-term -- hence, more transction-intensive -- investments. The result is a higher rate of return on savings and a change in its composition. These general equilibrium effects on the composition of savings cause agents to hold more of their wealth in the form of existing equity claims and to invest less in the initiation of new capital investments. As a result, a reduction in transaction costs can cause the capital stock either to rise or fall (under scenarios described in the paper). Further, a reduction in transaction costs will typically alter the composition of saving and investment, and any analysis of the consequences of such changes must take those effects into account.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Trade and Regional Integration

A review of modular strategies and architecture within manufacturing operations

This paper reviews existing modularity and modularization literature within manufacturing operations. Its purpose is to examine the tools, techniques, and concepts relating to modular production, to draw together key issues currently dominating the literature, to assess managerial implications associated with the emerging modular paradigm, and to present an agenda for future research directions. The review is based on journal papers included in the ABI/Inform electronic database and other noteworthy research published as part of significant research programmes. The research methodology concerns reviewing existing literature to identify key modular concepts, to determine modular developments, and to present a review of significant contributions to the field. The findings indicate that the modular paradigm is being adopted in a number of manufacturing organizations. As a result a range of conceptual tools, techniques, and frameworks has emerged and the field of modular enquiry is in the process of codifying the modular lexicon and developing appropriate modular strategies commensurate with the needs of manufacturers. Modular strategies and modular architecture were identified as two key issues currently dominating the modular landscape. Based on this review, the present authors suggest that future research areas need to focus on the development and subsequent standardization of interface protocols, cross-brand module use, supply chain power, transparency, and trust. This is the first review of the modular landscape and as such provides insights into, first, the development of modularization and, second, issues relating to designing modular products and modular supply chains