The history of climatic divisions in the contiguous United States has been pieced together from fragmentary documentation. Each of the 48 contiguous states has been subdivided into climatic ...divisions. Divisional boundaries are now standardized, and a set of climatic variables for time-invariant divisional boundaries has been compiled for the period of record beginning in 1895. This paper documents the origins of climatic divisions, the computational methodology of an area-invariant divisional dataset maintained by the National Climatic Data Center, and the strengths and weaknesses of divisional data.
In-vehicle driving monitoring technologies have the potential to enable young drivers to learn from self-assessment. However, their use is largely dependent on parental involvement.
A total of 79 ...interviews were conducted with young drivers and parents regarding this technology and its use. Most had the experience of having an in-vehicle data recorder installed in the vehicle driven by the young drivers. Parents and the young drivers expressed both appreciation as well as reservations about its potential as a means to enhance the driving safety of young drivers.
A surprising finding was that some parents did not check the feedback and said they relied on the young driver to do so. Main concerns related to privacy, parent-young driver relationship, self-esteem and confidence, constructive use of the feedback data, and the limitations of the documentation that can be done by the technology.
Providing parents and young drivers with a support system and tools to discuss and utilize the feedback are underscored. Challenges include addressing the invasion of young drivers’ privacy and gender differences, and using the monitoring-capacity of the technology to enhance safe driving practices. Implications for programs to enhance communication and a dialogical approach between parents and young drivers are discussed.
►Objections to in-vehicle tracking technology are invasion of privacy and trust ►An in-vehicle tracking technology advantage is it proves young drivers’ competence ►Parents find in-vehicle tracking technology can enhance parental authority ►In-vehicle tracking technology data viewed as limited and can be circumvented ►Parents may not check the feedback from the in-vehicle tracking technology
Nourishing infants presents women today with choices, desires, obligations and constraints. Despite mounting evidence about the health, psychosocial and societal benefits of breastfeeding both for ...women and infants, current breastfeeding rates worldwide are far from optimal, particularly among low-income women. Many mothers choose to use infant formula. Drawing from structured interviews with 154 mothers from an urban low-income multiethnic population in the United States, a typology of mothers' feelings about their infant feeding method is developed. Findings indicate that regardless of their feeding method, mothers tended to attribute higher health benefits to breastfeeding and perceived community norms as probreastfeeding. They differed in their rating and perceptions of logistics and the extent to which benefits mattered in their infant-feeding decision. Contradictions associated with the practice of breastfeeding even among mothers who breastfed, were reflected in their perceptions of social disapproval of breastfeeding in public, reports of ridicule by friends, lack of support from some health providers, and difficulties associated with working. A typology of mothers' emotional states resulting from such contradictions summarizes the findings and underscores how some mothers who did not, but would have liked to breastfeed, may be subjected to feelings of guilt and deprivation. Implications for educational interventions are to amplify prenatal infant feeding consultations and address ways to overcome logistical and apprehension barriers.
Hof and Hólar are adjacent farms in Hjaltadalur, North Iceland settled during the Viking Age. While Hof is mentioned prominently in the saga literature, its importance fades. Conversely, Hólar ...becomes the most powerful farm in North Iceland and the seat of the northern bishop after the introduction of Christianity. This thesis sheds some light on this apparent shift in power by assessing how social and environmental factors may have influenced the relationship between the two sites. Using a program of soil coring and targeted excavation, as well as a novel environmental sampling procedure, this study assesses if environmental factors such as landslides or erosion could have caused Hof’s decline and abandonment. The results revealed four occupational phases at Hof (pre-1000, 1000-1104, 1104-1300, post-1300) encompassing three shifts in location. Hof declined in size across these occupational phases and was abandoned twice, the longest abandonment occurring between 1300 and the mid-16th century. Given the timing of this abandonment around 1300, a lack of evidence for environmental degradation in the core farmstead area and homefield, and comparative examples of environmental resilience from other farms in Hjaltadalur, it is suggested that social factors associated with the neighboring bishopric were responsible. Hof’s abandonment was therefore a consequence rather than a cause of Hólar’s rise. Dates from excavations at Hólar facilitated a comparison between neighboring sites, suggesting that Hof and Hólar existed as contemporaneous neighboring farms from an early date until Hof’s initial abandonment. Furthermore, the evidence of a Christian cemetery at Hof suggests that the farms were independent, at least for part of this time, and that Hof carried on as an important farmstead even while it was declining. Hof’s decline and abandonment contrasts with Hólar, which, as a farm and institution, became more powerful over time. It is therefore suggested that Hof’s overall decline was broadly related to the rise of the bishopric. Abandonment may have been the final extension of this apparent shift in power, partially enabled by large scale political transformations. By relating Hof’s settlement trajectory to that of Hólar, the results provide a case study on the local exploitative dynamics that may have accompanied Holar’s consolidation, and by extension, the institutionalization of inequality in northern Iceland. It seems that Hólar’s rise to becoming the dominant site in northern Iceland was a slow process enacted at multiple scales, from the national to the local.
A new dark sector antibaryon, denoted ψ_{D}, could be produced in decays of B mesons. This Letter presents a search for B^{+}→ψ_{D}+p (and the charge conjugate) decays in e^{+}e^{-} annihilations at ...10.58 GeV, using data collected in the BABAR experiment. Data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 398 fb^{-1} are analyzed. No evidence for a signal is observed. Branching fraction upper limits in the range from 10^{-7}-10^{-5} are obtained at 90% confidence level for masses of 1.0<m_{ψ_{D}}<4.3 GeV/c^{2}. The result is also reinterpreted to provide the first limits on a supersymmetric model with R-parity violation and a light neutralino.
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We report on the first search for electron-muon lepton flavor violation (LFV) in the decay of a b quark and b antiquark bound state. We look for the LFV decay Υ(3S)→e±μ∓ in a sample of 118 million ...Υ(3S) mesons from 27 fb-1 of data collected with the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP-II e+e- collider operating with a 10.36 GeV center-of-mass energy. No evidence for a signal is found, and we set a limit on the branching fraction BΥ(3S)→e±μ∓<3.6×10-7 at 90% C. L. This result can be interpreted as a limit ΛNP/gNP2>80 TeV on the energy scale ΛNP divided by the coupling-squared gNP2 of relevant new physics (NP).
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18.
Statistical Descriptors of Climate Guttman, Nathaniel B.
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,
06/1989, Volume:
70, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
An adequate description of climate is required to meet the informational needs of planners and policy-makers who use climate as a factor in their decision-making processes. Because normals have ...become firmly entrenched as a descriptor of climate, their history and their perception by the public are discussed. An "exploratory data analysis" approach is suggested.
Background. Medical consultations are replete with conflicts, particularly in the current era of explicit and implicit rationing practices in health care organizations. Although such conflicts may ...challenge the doctor–patient relationship, little is known about them or their consequences. Aims. To systematically describe the nature of doctor–patient conflicts in medical encounters and the strategies physicians use when faced with conflicts. Methods. Analysis of 291 videotaped routine encounters with 28 general practitioners, using a novel adaptation of the Roter interaction analysis system software, provided quantitative empirical data on the conflicts and on the communication process. Seven focus groups (56 GPs) provided qualitative insights and guided the analysis. Results. Conflicts were identified in 40% of consultations; 21% of these were related to the rationing of health care resources. In conflictual encounters, both the opening and closing phases of the encounter were shorter than in non-conflictual encounters. In coping with resource rationing, the commonest strategy was to accept the dictates of the system without telling the patients about other options. When conflict of this type occurred, doctors showed more opposition to the patients rather than empathy. Conclusions. Doctors often face conflicts in their routine work, but resource-related conflicts are especially difficult and expose the dual loyalties of the doctor to the patient and to the system. Insights derived from this research can be used to design training interventions that improve doctors’ efficacy in coping with conflicts and ultimately allow them to provide better patient care.
A study of the two-body decays B^{±}→X_{ccover ¯}K^{±}, where X_{ccover ¯} refers to one charmonium state, is reported by the BABAR Collaboration using a data sample of 424 fb^{-1}. The absolute ...determination of branching fractions for these decays are significantly improved compared to previous BABAR measurements. Evidence is found for the decay B^{+}→X(3872)K^{+} at the 3σ level. The absolute branching fraction BB^{+}→X(3872)K^{+}=2.1±0.6(stat)±0.3(syst)×10^{-4} is measured for the first time. It follows that BX(3872)→J/ψπ^{+}π^{-}=(4.1±1.3)%, supporting the hypothesis of a molecular component for this resonance.
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