How Averages Became Normal Crowley, John E
The American historical review,
06/2023, Volume:
128, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Abstract
Averages became a distinctive form of information in early modern European culture, first in commercial arithmetic, then in natural philosophy, demography, political economy, and eventually ...in eclectic social analysis. Averaging, in the modern sense of calculating an arithmetic mean by adding up the individual values of cases in a set and then dividing that total by the number of cases, provided an empirical and heuristic resource for understanding planetary orbits, fertility and mortality rates, experimental results in natural philosophy, fiscal resources, the return on stock market investments, the relative profitability of crops, incomes and the cost of living, and even the trivia of daily life. Averaging created a new class of fact—precisely typifying information that varied. By the Enlightenment, averages had become a respectable, readily deployed, form of fact, giving unity to the variety of experience and knowledge. Averages became a metaphor of credibility and normality.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The International Staging Committee (ISC) of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) collected 68,463 patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer and 13,032 patients with small ...cell lung cancer, registered or diagnosed from 1990 to 2000, whose records had adequate information for analyzing the tumor, node, metastasis (TNM) classification. The T, N, and M descriptors were analyzed, and recommendations for changes in the seventh edition of the TNM classification were proposed based on differences in survival. For the T component, tumor size was found to have prognostic relevance, and its analysis led to recommendations to subclassify T1 tumors into T1a (< or = 2 cm) and T1b (>2 - < or = 3 cm) and T2 tumors into T2a (>3 - < or = 5 cm) and T2b (>5 - < or = 7 cm), and to reclassify T2 tumors > 7 cm into T3. Furthermore, with additional nodules in the same lobe as the primary tumors, T4 tumors would be reclassified as T3; with additional nodules in another ipsilateral lobe, M1 as T4; and with pleural dissemination, T4 as M1. There were no changes in the N category. In the M category, M1 was recommended to be subclassified into M1a (contralateral lung nodules and pleural dissemination) and M1b (distant metastasis). The proposed changes for the new stage grouping were to upstage T2bN0M0 from stage IB to stage IIA, and to downstage T2aN1M0 from stage IIB to stage IIA and T4N0-N1M0 from stage IIIB to stage IIIA. The proposed changes better differentiate tumors of different prognoses.
The termolecular, association reaction between OH and NO is a source of nitrous acid (HONO), an important atmospheric trace gas. Rate coefficients for the title reaction as recommended by evaluation ...panels differ substantially at the temperatures and pressures that prevail in the Earth’s boundary layer where the reaction is in the fall-off regime between low- and high-pressure limiting rate coefficients. Using pulsed laser methods for generation and detection of OH, we have reinvestigated the kinetics of the title reaction at pressures of 22–743 Torr (1 Torr = 1.333 hPa) and temperatures (273, 298, and 333 K) in pure N2 and in N2–H2O bath gases. In situ optical absorption measurements were used to rule out any bias due to NO2 or HONO impurities. Our rate coefficients (k 1) in N2 bath gas are parametrized in terms of low-pressure (k 0) and high-pressure (k ∞) rate coefficients and a fall-off parameter (F C) with k 1,0 N 2 = 7.24 × 10–31 (T/300 K)−2.17 cm6 molecule–2 s–1, k 1,∞ = 3.3 × 10–12 (T/300 K)−0.3 cm3 molecule–1 s–1, and F C = 0.53. Used with the “Troe” expression for termolecular reactions, these parameters accurately reproduce the current data in the fall-off regime and also capture literature rate coefficients at extrapolated temperatures. The presence of water vapor was found to enhance the rate coefficients of the title reaction significantly. The low-pressure limiting rate coefficient in H2O bath gas is a factor 5–6 larger than in N2, at room temperature (k 1,0 H 2 O = 4.55 × 10–30 (T/300 K)−4.85 cm6 molecule–2 s–1) indicating that H2O is much more efficient in quenching the association complex HONO* through collisional energy transfer. Based on measurements in N2–H2O mixtures, a parametrization of k 1 including both N2 and H2O as third-body quenchers was derived. Neglecting the effect of H2O results, e.g., in an underestimation of k 1 by >10% in the tropical boundary layer.
Full text
Available for:
IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
Cure models are a popular topic within statistical literature but are not as widely known in the clinical literature. Many patients with cancer can be long-term survivors of their disease, and cure ...models can be a useful tool to analyze and describe cancer survival data. The goal of this article is to review what a cure model is, explain when cure models can be used, and use cure models to describe multiple myeloma survival trends. Multiple myeloma is generally considered an incurable disease, and this article shows that by using cure models, rather than the standard Cox proportional hazards model, we can evaluate whether there is evidence that therapies at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences induce a proportion of patients to be long-term survivors.
Oxidation of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) by the nitrate radical (NO
) represents one of the important interactions between anthropogenic emissions related to combustion and natural ...emissions from the biosphere. This interaction has been recognized for more than 3 decades, during which time a large body of research has emerged from laboratory, field, and modeling studies. NO
-BVOC reactions influence air quality, climate and visibility through regional and global budgets for reactive nitrogen (particularly organic nitrates), ozone, and organic aerosol. Despite its long history of research and the significance of this topic in atmospheric chemistry, a number of important uncertainties remain. These include an incomplete understanding of the rates, mechanisms, and organic aerosol yields for NO
-BVOC reactions, lack of constraints on the role of heterogeneous oxidative processes associated with the NO
radical, the difficulty of characterizing the spatial distributions of BVOC and NO
within the poorly mixed nocturnal atmosphere, and the challenge of constructing appropriate boundary layer schemes and non-photochemical mechanisms for use in state-of-the-art chemical transport and chemistry-climate models. This review is the result of a workshop of the same title held at the Georgia Institute of Technology in June 2015. The first half of the review summarizes the current literature on NO
-BVOC chemistry, with a particular focus on recent advances in instrumentation and models, and in organic nitrate and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation chemistry. Building on this current understanding, the second half of the review outlines impacts of NO
-BVOC chemistry on air quality and climate, and suggests critical research needs to better constrain this interaction to improve the predictive capabilities of atmospheric models.
SUMMARY
A new least-squares method is developed for estimating and removing the correlated errors (stripes) from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) ...mission data. This method is based on a joint parametric model of the correlated errors and temporal trends in the spherical harmonic coefficients of GRACE models. Three sets of simulation data are created from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), the Regional Atmospheric Climate Model 2.3 (RACMO2.3) and GRACE models and used to test it. The results show that the new method improves the decorrelation method by Swenson & Wahr significantly. Its application to the release 5 (RL05) and new release 6 (RL06) spherical harmonic solutions from the Center for Space Research (CSR) at The University of Texas at Austin demonstrates its effectiveness and provides a relative assessment of the two releases. A comparison to the Swenson & Wahr and Kusche et al. methods highlights the deficiencies in past destriping methods and shows how the inclusion and decoupling of temporal trends helps to overcome them. A comparison to the CSR mascon and JPL mascon solutions demonstrates that the new method yields global trends that have greater amplitude than those produced by the CSR RL05 mascon solution and are of comparable quality to the JPL RL06 mascon solution. Furthermore, these results are obtained without the need for a priori information, scale factors or complex regularization methods and the solutions remain in the standard form of spherical harmonics rather than discrete mascons. The latter could introduce additional discretization error when converting to the spherical harmonic model, upon which many post-processing methods and applications are built.
Objective: The study investigated the role of mother-daughter communication and race in college women's decisions to pursue sexual health screening services. Participants: Participants were 301 ...college women who primarily identified as White and Asian American (M
age
= 19 years). Methods: Participants completed an online survey that assessed mother-daughter communication about sex and responded to items pertaining to pursuing sexual health screening services. Results: Maternal communication predicted daughters' screening behaviors and sexual anxiety mediated the negative association between conservative communication from mothers and screening behaviors. Asian American college women were less likely than White college women to report that they received frequent and open communication about sex from their mothers and reported higher levels of sexual anxiety. Conclusions: Mothers should be aware of the implications their communication patterns may have on their daughters' sexual and reproductive health, and college women's sexual anxiety should be addressed in order to increase utilization of screening services.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, FSPLJ, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Rate coefficients (
k
4
) for the reaction of hydroxyl radicals (OH) with methyl nitrate (CH
3
ONO
2
) were measured over the temperature range 232-343 K using pulsed laser photolysis to generate OH ...and pulsed laser-induced fluorescence to detect it in real-time and under pseudo-first-order conditions. In order to optimize the accuracy of the rate coefficients obtained, the concentration of CH
3
ONO
2
(the reactant in excess) was measured on-line by absorption spectroscopy at 213.86 nm for which the absorption cross-section was also measured (
σ
213.86
= 1.65 ± 0.09 × 10
−18
cm
2
molecule
−1
). The temperature-dependent rate coefficient is described by
k
4
(
T
) = 7.5 × 10
−13
exp(−1034 ± 40)/
T
cm
3
molecule
−1
s
−1
with a room temperature rate coefficient of
k
4
(296 ± 2 K) = (2.32 ± 0.12) × 10
−14
cm
3
molecule
−1
s
−1
where the uncertainty includes the statistical error of 2
σ
and an estimation of the potential systematic bias of 5%. This new dataset helps to consolidate the database for this rate coefficient and to reduce uncertainty in the atmospheric lifetime of CH
3
ONO
2
. As part of this study, an approximate rate coefficient for the reaction of H-atoms with CH
3
ONO
2
(
k
9
) was also derived at room temperature:
k
9
(298 K) = (1.68 ± 0.45) × 10
−13
cm
3
molecule
−1
s
−1
.
Temperature dependent rate coefficients (
k
4
) for the reaction of OH with CH
3
ONO
2
.
Strongly enhanced tropospheric ozone (O3) mixing ratios have
been reported in the Arabian Basin, a region with intense solar radiation
and high concentrations of O3 precursors such as nitrogen oxides ...(NOx) and
volatile organic compounds (VOCs). To analyze photochemical O3 production in the
marine boundary layer (MBL) around the Arabian Peninsula, we use shipborne
observations of NO, NO2, O3, OH, HO2, HCHO, the actinic flux,
water vapor, pressure and temperature obtained during the summer 2017 Air
Quality and Climate in the Arabian Basin (AQABA) campaign, and we compare them to
simulation results from the ECHAM-MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) general
circulation model. Net O3 production rates (NOPRs) were greatest over both the Gulf of Oman and the northern Red Sea (16 ppbv d−1) and
over the Arabian Gulf (32 ppbv d−1). The NOPR over the
Mediterranean, the southern Red Sea and the Arabian Sea did not
significantly deviate from zero; however, the results for the Arabian Sea
indicated weak net O3 production of 5 ppbv d−1 as well as net O3
destruction over the Mediterranean and the southern Red Sea with values of −1 and −4 ppbv d−1, respectively. Constrained
by HCHO∕NO2 ratios, our photochemistry calculations show that net O3
production in the MBL around the Arabian Peninsula mostly occurs in
NOx-limited regimes with a significant share of O3 production
occurring in the transition regime between NOx limitation and VOC limitation over
the Mediterranean and more significantly over the northern Red Sea and Oman
Gulf.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were measured around the Arabian Peninsula using a research vessel during the AQABA campaign (Air Quality and Climate
Change in the Arabian Basin) from June to ...August 2017. In this study we
examine carbonyl compounds, measured by a proton transfer reaction mass
spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS), and present both a regional concentration
distribution and a budget assessment for these key atmospheric species.
Among the aliphatic carbonyls, acetone had the highest mixing ratios in most
of the regions traversed, varying from 0.43 ppb over the Arabian Sea to 4.5 ppb over the Arabian Gulf, followed by formaldehyde (measured by a Hantzsch monitor, 0.82 ppb over the Arabian Sea and 3.8 ppb over the Arabian Gulf)
and acetaldehyde (0.13 ppb over the Arabian Sea and 1.7 ppb over the Arabian
Gulf). Unsaturated carbonyls (C4–C9) varied from 10 to 700 ppt during the
campaign and followed similar regional mixing ratio dependence to aliphatic carbonyls, which were identified as oxidation products of cycloalkanes over
polluted areas. We compared the measurements of acetaldehyde, acetone, and methyl ethyl ketone to global chemistry-transport model (ECHAM5/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry – EMAC) results. A
significant discrepancy was found for acetaldehyde, with the model
underestimating the measured acetaldehyde mixing ratio by up to an order of
magnitude. Implementing a photolytically driven marine source of
acetaldehyde significantly improved the agreement between measurements and
model, particularly over the remote regions (e.g. Arabian Sea). However, the
newly introduced acetaldehyde source was still insufficient to describe the
observations over the most polluted regions (Arabian Gulf and Suez), where
model underestimation of primary emissions and biomass burning events are
possible reasons.
PDF
