Regional Visibility Statistics in the United States: Natural and Transboundary Pollution Influences, and Implications for the Regional Haze Rule

The Regional Haze Rule of the US Environmental Protection Agency mandates reduction in US anthropogenic emissions to achieve linear improvement of visibility in wilderness areas over the 2004–18 period toward an endpoint of natural visibility conditions by 2064. Linear improvement is to apply to the mean visibility degradation on the statistically 20% worst days, measured as a Haze Index in units of deciviews (log of aerosol extinction). We use a global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) with 1°×1° horizontal resolution to simulate present-day visibility statistics in the USA, compare them to observations from the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) surface network, and provide natural and background visibility statistics for application of the Regional Haze Rule. Background is defined by suppression of US anthropogenic emissions but allowance for present-day foreign emissions and associated import of pollution. Our model is highly successful at reproducing the observed variability of visibility statistics for present-day conditions, including the low tail of the frequency distribution that is most representative of natural or background conditions. We find considerable spatial and temporal variability in natural visibility over the USA, especially due to fires in the west. A major uncertainty in estimating natural visibility is the sensitivity of biogenic organic aerosol formation to the availability of preexisting anthropogenic aerosol. Background visibility is more variable than natural visibility and the 20% worst days show large contributions from Canadian and Mexican pollution. Asian pollution, while degrading mean background visibility, is relatively less important on the worst days. Recognizing the influence of uncontrollable transboundary pollution in the Regional Haze Rule would substantially decrease the schedule of emission reductions required in the 2004–18 implementation phase. Meaningful application of the Rule in the future will require projections of future trends in foreign anthropogenic emissions, wildfire frequency, and climate variablesEarth and Planetary SciencesEngineering and Applied Science

Potential future climatic conditions on tourists : a case study focusing on Malta and Venice

The main purpose of this study is to quantify important climatic shifts that took place over Malta and Venice that could be considered as a determining factor on their choice as two prime tourist destinations. Rather than making use of traditional tourist climate indices, this study identifi es long-term trends in weather variables and their derived bioclimatic indices. These climate derivatives are based on a set of high temporal observations (some of which are collected every 30 minutes) and are thus able to capture valuable information that traditional monthly distribution cannot provide. The derivatives obtained from the elementary meteorological observations showed that the level of comfort experienced by visiting tourists over the long term is deteriorating due to increased heat stress. Nonetheless, the increased occurrence of optimal wind speed conditions, as well as a reduced occurrence of gale storms and wind chill events is making these destinations more attractive. A careful study of the output of IPCC climate model projections sheds light on a critical future bioclimate condition during current peak visiting months (July and August) at both destinations. This may imply a required shift, as a form of adaptation, of the visiting periods at these two destinations. This study should allow tourist planners to determine which weather element is a likely future obstacle to the overall bioclimatic suitability of outdoor tourism activities.peer-reviewe

Advancing nursing informatics in the next decade: Recommendations from an international survey

© 2016 IMIA and IOS Press. In the summer of 2015, the International Medical Informatics Association Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group (IMIA NISIG) Student Working Group developed and distributed an international survey of current and future trends in nursing informatics. The survey was developed based on current literature on nursing informatics trends and translated into six languages. Respondents were from 31 different countries in Asia, Africa, North and Central America, South America, Europe, and Australia. This paper presents the results of responses to the survey question: "What should be done (at a country or organizational level) to advance nursing informatics in the next 5-10 years?" (n responders=272). Using thematic qualitative analysis, responses were grouped into five key themes: 1) Education and training; 2) Research; 3) Practice; 4) Visibility; and 5) Collaboration and integration. We also provide actionable recommendations for advancing nursing informatics in the next decade

User's Privacy in Recommendation Systems Applying Online Social Network Data, A Survey and Taxonomy

Recommender systems have become an integral part of many social networks and extract knowledge from a user's personal and sensitive data both explicitly, with the user's knowledge, and implicitly. This trend has created major privacy concerns as users are mostly unaware of what data and how much data is being used and how securely it is used. In this context, several works have been done to address privacy concerns for usage in online social network data and by recommender systems. This paper surveys the main privacy concerns, measurements and privacy-preserving techniques used in large-scale online social networks and recommender systems. It is based on historical works on security, privacy-preserving, statistical modeling, and datasets to provide an overview of the technical difficulties and problems associated with privacy preserving in online social networks.Comment: 26 pages, IET book chapter on big data recommender system

Emergency Medical Service (EMS): Rotorcraft Technology Workshop

A lead organization on the national level should be designated to establish concepts, locations, and the number of shock trauma air medical services. Medical specialists desire a vehicle which incorporates advances in medical technology trends in health care. Key technology needs for the emergency medical services helicopter of the future include the riding quality of fixed wing aircraft (reduced noise and vibration), no tail rotor, small rotor, small rotor diameter, improved visibility, crashworthy vehicle, IFR capability, more affordability high reliability, fuel efficient, and specialized cabins to hold medical/diagnostic and communications equipment. Approaches to a national emergency medical service are discussed

Massachusetts Offshore Wind Future Cost Study

The Special Initiative on Offshore Wind is an independent project at the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment that supports the advancement of offshore wind as part of a comprehensive solution to the most pressing energy problems facing the United States.  The Special Initiative on Offshore Wind provides expertise, analysis, information sharing, and strategic partnership with industry, advocacy and government stakeholders to build understanding and drive the deployment of offshore wind

Increasing resilience of ATM networks using traffic monitoring and automated anomaly analysis

Systematic network monitoring can be the cornerstone for the dependable operation of safety-critical distributed systems. In this paper, we present our vision for informed anomaly detection through network monitoring and resilience measurements to increase the operators' visibility of ATM communication networks. We raise the question of how to determine the optimal level of automation in this safety-critical context, and we present a novel passive network monitoring system that can reveal network utilisation trends and traffic patterns in diverse timescales. Using network measurements, we derive resilience metrics and visualisations to enhance the operators' knowledge of the network and traffic behaviour, and allow for network planning and provisioning based on informed what-if analysis

The origin of hydrogen line emission for five Herbig Ae/Be stars spatially resolved by VLTI/AMBER spectro-interferometry

To trace the accretion and outflow processes around YSOs, diagnostic spectral lines such as the BrG 2.166 micron line are widely used, although due to a lack of spatial resolution, the origin of the line emission is still unclear. Employing the AU-scale spatial resolution which can be achieved with infrared long-baseline interferometry, we aim to distinguish between theoretical models which associate the BrG line emission with mass infall or mass outflow processes. Using the VLTI/AMBER instrument, we spatially and spectrally (R=1500) resolved the inner environment of five Herbig Ae/Be stars (HD163296, HD104237, HD98922, MWC297, V921Sco) in the BrG emission line as well as in the adjacent continuum. All objects (except MWC297) show an increase of visibility within the BrG emission line, indicating that the BrG-emitting region in these objects is more compact than the dust sublimation radius. For HD98922, our quantitative analysis reveals that the line-emitting region is compact enough to be consistent with the magnetospheric accretion scenario. For HD163296, HD104237, MWC297, and V921Sco we identify a stellar wind or a disk wind as the most likely line-emitting mechanism. We search for general trends and find that the size of the BrG-emitting region does not seem to depend on the basic stellar parameters, but correlates with the H-alpha line profile shape. We find evidence for at least two distinct BrG line-formation mechanisms. Stars with a P-Cygni H-alpha line profile and a high mass-accretion rate seem to show particularly compact BrG-emitting regions (R_BrG/R_cont<0.2), while stars with a double-peaked or single-peaked H-alpha-line profile show a significantly more extended BrG-emitting region (0.6<R_BrG/R_cont<1.4), possibly tracing a stellar wind or a disk wind.Comment: 20 pages; 11 figures; Accepted by A&A; a high quality version of the paper can be obtained at http://www.skraus.eu/papers/kraus.HAeBe-BrGsurvey.pd