scholarly journals Contemporaneous Monitoring of the Whole Dynamic Earth System from Space, Part I: System Simulation Study Using GEO and Molniya Orbits

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 878
Author(s):  
Christopher Cullingworth ◽  
Jan-Peter Muller

Despite the wealth of data produced by previous and current Earth Observation platforms feeding climate models, weather forecasts, disaster monitoring services and countless other applications, the public still lacks the ability to access a live, true colour, global view of our planet, and nudge them towards a realisation of its fragility. The ideas behind commercialization of Earth photography from space has long been dominated by the analytical value of the imagery. What specific knowledge and actionable intelligence can be garnered from these evermore frequent revisits of the planet’s surface? How can I find a market for this analysis? However, what is rarely considered is what is the educational value of the imagery? As students and children become more aware of our several decades of advance in viewing our current planetary state, we should find mechanisms which serve their curiosity, helping to satisfy our children’s simple quest to explore and learn more about what they are seeing. The following study describes the reasons why current GEO and LEO observation platforms are inadequate to provide truly global RGB coverage on an update time-scale of 5-min and proposes an alternative, low-cost, GEO + Molniya 3U CubeSat constellation to perform such an application.

Author(s):  
Meghan Lynch ◽  
Irena Knezevic ◽  
Kennedy Laborde Ryan

To date, most qualitative knowledge about individual eating patterns and the food environment has been derived from traditional data collection methods, such as interviews, focus groups, and observations. However, there currently exists a large source of nutrition-related data in social media discussions that have the potential to provide opportunities to improve dietetic research and practice. Qualitative social media discussion analysis offers a new tool for dietetic researchers and practitioners to gather insights into how the public discusses various nutrition-related topics. We first consider how social media discussion data come with significant advantages including low-cost access to timely ways to gather insights from the public, while also cautioning that social media data have limitations (e.g., difficulty verifying demographic information). We then outline 3 types of social media discussion platforms in particular: (i) online news article comment sections, (ii) food and nutrition blogs, and (iii) discussion forums. We discuss how each different type of social media offers unique insights and provide a specific example from our own research using each platform. We contend that social media discussions can contribute positively to dietetic research and practice.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 2811-2842 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Chandler ◽  
L. E. Sohl ◽  
J. A. Jonas ◽  
H. J. Dowsett

Abstract. Climate reconstructions of the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP) bear many similarities to aspects of future global warming as projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In particular, marine and terrestrial paleoclimate data point to high latitude temperature amplification, with associated decreases in sea ice and land ice and altered vegetation distributions that show expansion of warmer climate biomes into higher latitudes. NASA GISS climate models have been used to study the Pliocene climate since the USGS PRISM project first identified that the mid-Pliocene North Atlantic sea surface temperatures were anomalously warm. Here we present the most recent simulations of the Pliocene using the AR5/CMIP5 version of the GISS Earth System Model known as ModelE2-R. These simulations constitute the NASA contribution to the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) Experiment 2. Many findings presented here corroborate results from other PlioMIP multi-model ensemble papers, but we also emphasize features in the ModelE2-R simulations that are unlike the ensemble means. We provide discussion of features that show considerable improvement compared with simulations from previous versions of the NASA GISS models, improvement defined here as simulation results that more closely resemble the ocean core data as well as the PRISM3D reconstructions of the mid-Pliocene climate. In some regions even qualitative agreement between model results and paleodata are an improvement over past studies, but the dramatic warming in the North Atlantic and Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Sea in these new simulations is by far the most accurate portrayal ever of this key geographic region by the GISS climate model. Our belief is that continued development of key physical routines in the atmospheric model, along with higher resolution and recent corrections to mixing parameterizations in the ocean model, have led to an Earth System Model that will produce more accurate projections of future climate.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 360-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin F. Zaitchik ◽  
Joseph A. Santanello ◽  
Sujay V. Kumar ◽  
Christa D. Peters-Lidard

Abstract Positive soil moisture–precipitation feedbacks can intensify heat and prolong drought under conditions of precipitation deficit. Adequate representation of these processes in regional climate models is, therefore, important for extended weather forecasts, seasonal drought analysis, and downscaled climate change projections. This paper presents the first application of the NASA Unified Weather Research and Forecasting Model (NU-WRF) to simulation of seasonal drought. Simulations of the 2006 southern Great Plains drought performed with and without soil moisture memory indicate that local soil moisture feedbacks had the potential to concentrate precipitation in wet areas relative to dry areas in summer drought months. Introduction of a simple dynamic surface albedo scheme that models albedo as a function of soil moisture intensified the simulated feedback pattern at local scale—dry, brighter areas received even less precipitation while wet, whereas darker areas received more—but did not significantly change the total amount of precipitation simulated across the drought-affected region. This soil-moisture-mediated albedo land–atmosphere coupling pathway is structurally excluded from standard versions of WRF.


1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 279-283
Author(s):  
Kathi J. Kemper

Over the past 50 years, health care has grown more complex and specialized. Health-care institutions now are staffed with an array of specialist physicians, social workers, psychologists, therapists, and nutritionists as well as general practitioners and nurses. The types of providers outside of the hospital are even more numerous and diverse: physicians; nurses; nurse practitioners; chiropractors; counselors; acupuncturists; herbalists; spiritual healers; and purveyors of nutritional supplements, aromatherapy, crystals, and more. Intent on distinguishing their "products," providers focus on differences, polarizing into distinct camps such as "mainstream or traditional" versus "alternative or unconventional." Although these dichotomies are simple, they also can mislead. The definition of "alternative" is very dependent on the definition "mainstream"; acupuncture may be an alternative in one setting, but it clearly is traditional within Asian communities. Therapies that once were considered unconventional, such as hypnosis and meditation, have moved into many mainstream medical settings. (See Sugarman article "Hypnosis: Teaching Children Self-regulation" in the January 1996 issue of Pediatrics in Review.) The public wants health care that is low-cost, safe, effective, and personalized. Practitioners of "natural" therapies often are viewed as more humanistic and less technological than busy physicians. According to one study, in 1990, alternative medical therapies were used by nearly one third of Americans.1


Author(s):  
Peter A. Napoli ◽  
Lindsey Sampson ◽  
Robin Davidov ◽  
Bettina Kamuk

This topic is important because of the growing need for us to produce and supply low cost energy for public consumption. Demand has increased exponentially, and in order to reduce dependence on foreign oil, coal, and natural gas we need to utilize waste to its full potential. Three major waste to energy plant expansions are happening now at Olmstead WTE, Minnesota and at Lee and Hillsborough Counties, in Florida. New “Greenfield” construction is planned at Harford, Carroll, and Fredrick Counties, in Maryland.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yossi Dahan

This Article looks at aspects of the relationship between privatization in education and educational justice, examining these relationships from normative and empirical points of view. It explores different meanings of privatization in the realm of education and assesses underlying reasons for certain aspects of privatization in light of two educational justice: the adequacy approach and the fair equality of opportunity approach. The Article argues that given the competitive nature of the sphere of education, considerations of fairness, as well as utility, solidarity, and democracy supply strong reasons for rejecting various arguments that support the existence of private schools. In the last thirty years, vouchers and school choice schemes have constituted the main modes of privatization, importing market mechanisms and the logic of competition into the realm of education. Empirical evidence suggests that vouchers and school choice schemes have not fulfilled the promise of reducing educational inequalities, partly due to the political, social, economic and ideological background in which they were implemented. The introduction of competition in the realm of education has created a reality that encourages schools to prefer “low cost” students—students from middle and upper classes families—over “high cost” disadvantaged students—who come mainly from the lower class, and students with special needs. Not only have marketization and privatization changed the way that society distributes educational services, they promote a social ethos that emphasizes self-interest over the advancement of the public good and erodes democratic public forums in which collective societal decisions should be resolved.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Thomas

Purpose – This paper aims to show why public acclaim is not always a guarantee for healthy profits. A low-cost forerunner, Laker Airlines, also discovered this same fact to its fatal cost. A company needs to understand its true value proposition and ensure that customers are willing to pay for it. Ryanair was adored by the public when it began its low-cost flights from Dublin to London in 1986. That love nearly drove it to bankruptcy. Today, despite its poor image, it is one of the most successful and profitable companies in the industry. Design/methodology/approach – The article analysis of the changing fortunes of Ryanair from its launch to its near bankruptcy in 1991 and then its revival of fortunes. It draws a parallel with Laker Airlines and the low-cost transatlantic Skytrain. Adulated by the public, the company folded in 1982. It is supplemented with research the airline industry and low-cost business models. Findings – The article shows why companies should not fall into the trap of believing that a good public image will be the necessary condition for maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. They need to fully understand the value proposition and what a customer is willing to buy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 00006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Badura ◽  
Piotr Batog ◽  
Anetta Drzeniecka-Osiadacz ◽  
Piotr Modzel

Monitoring systems are needed to obtain information about particulate matter (PM) concentrations and to make such information accessible to the public. Small, low-cost, optical sensors could be used to improve the spatial and temporal resolution of PM data. The paper presents results of collocated comparison of four low-cost PM sensors and TEOM analyser, conducted from 20-08-2017 to 24-12-2017 in Wrocław, Poland. Plantower PMS7003 and Nova Fitness SDS011 sensors proved to be the best in terms of precision and were linearly correlated with TEOM data. Alphasense OPC-N2 sensors exhibited only moderate precision and linearity. Winsen ZH03A sensors had low repeatability between units and only one copy demonstrated good operation possibilities. All tested sensors had a bias in relation to PM2.5 concentrations obtained from TEOM.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Khairunnisa Musari

Pandemic brings a crisis. This makes world leaders have to work hard and smartly in managing state budgets. During the heyday of Islam, Muslims also faced crises. Given that time the power of Islam mastered many areas of the world, it can be assumed that the crisis that occurred in the past was a global crisis as it is happening today. The difference is the crisis that occurred at the time because of losing the war. This paper tries to describe the historical experience of the esham, one of the fiscal instruments in the Islamic world that helped the Ottoman Empire overcome the crisis. Esham has mobilized low-cost funds from the public in a relatively concise time. Esham served as a better choice than looking for foreign debt. As the origin of sukuk, esham has simpler structure so that can be used as an alternative to sukuk with a lower cost. To deal with a crisis, esham may intervene in the economy. Esham funds to the real sector in turn will help the government drive the economy as well as control prices in the market for goods and services. Therefore, esham has the potential in facing the crisis.


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