Diurnal Temperature Range Variability due to Land Cover and Airmass Types in the Southeast

This study examines the relationship between diurnal temperature range (DTR) and land use/land cover (LULC) in a portion of the Southeast. Temperature data for all synoptically weak days within a 10-yr period are gathered from the National Climatic Data Center for 144 weather stations. Each station is classified as one of the following LULC types: urban, agriculture, evergreen forest, deciduous forest, or mixed forest.Athreeway analysis of variance and paired-sample t tests are used to test for significant DTR differences due to LULC, month, and airmass type. The LULC types display two clear groups according to their DTR, with agricultural and urban areas consistently experiencing the smallest DTRs, and the forest types experiencing greater DTRs. The dry air masses seem to enhance the DTR differences between vegetated LULC types by emphasizing the differences in evapotranspiration. Meanwhile, the high moisture content of moist air masses prohibits extensive evapotranspirational cooling in the vegetated areas. This lessens the DTR differences between vegetatedLULC types, while enhancing the differences between vegetated land and urban areas. All of the LULC types exhibit an annual bimodal DTR pattern with peaks in April and October. Since both vegetated and nonvegetated areas experience the bimodal pattern, this may conflict with previous research that names seasonal changes in evapotranspiration as the most probable cause for the annual trend. These findings suggest that airmass type has a larger and more consistent influence on the DTR of an area than LULC type and therefore may play a role in causing the bimodal DTR pattern, altering DTR with the seasonal distribution of airmass occurrence

The Scope of Attorney Advertising in Illinois

Attorneys have long been allowed to advertise their services, with restrictions. With the extension of constitutional protection to commercial free speech, the professions were given access to marketing techniques which were formerly unknown. Once the toehold had been established, it was not long until commercial free speech was extended to attorney advertising

A Public Water Supply System for Fountain City, Tennessee

It is the purpose of this paper to plan and design a water supply system that is capable of economically and efficiently serving the people who live in Fountain City with adequate water for consumption and for fire protection purposes

Perspectives on synoptic climate classification and its role in interdisciplinary research

Synoptic climatology has a long history of research where weather data are aggregated and composited to gain a better understanding of atmospheric effects on non-atmospheric variables. This has resulted in an applied scientific discipline that yields methods and tools designed for applications across disciplinary boundaries. The spatial synoptic classification (SSC) is an example of such a tool that helps researcher bridge methodological gaps between disciplines, especially those studying weather effects on human health. The SSC has been applied in several multi-discipline projects, and it appears that there is ample opportunity for growth into new topical areas. Likewise, there is opportunity for the SSC network to be expanded across the globe, especially into mid-latitude locations in the southern hemisphere. There is some question of the utility of the SSC in tropical locations, but such decisions must be based on the actual weather data from individual locations. Despite all of the strengths and potential uses of the SSC, there are some research problems, some locations, and some datasets for which it is not suitable. Nevertheless, the success of the SSC as a cross-disciplinary method is noteworthy because it has become a catalyst for collaboration

Toward Increased Utilization of Historical Hurricane Chronologies

The record of past tropical cyclones provides an important means to evaluate the hurricane hazard. Historical chronologies are a source of information about tropical cyclones prior to the modern era. Chenoweth (2006) describes an archive of 383 tropical cyclones occurring during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, largely before the official hurricane record. The present study demonstrates a novel way this archive can be used to articulate historical tropical cyclone activity across space. First, an event in the archive is assigned a series of latitude/longitude coordinates approximating the descriptive locations of the cyclone’s affect. Second, tropical cyclones from the modern record that approach these locations (modern analogs) are mapped. Third, a probable pathway and a realistic track of the archived event is created by averaging the modern analog tracks. As an example, the procedure is used to generate a map showing the tracks of the Atlantic tropical cyclones of 1766. Sensitivity of the methodology to changes in event location and event timing are considered. The study shows that historical hurricane chronologies when combined with a history of cyclone tracks can provide useful information about the older events that is not directly related to where the original information was gathered. When this information is available for all cyclones it should help climatologists better understand long-term variations in tropical cyclone activity

Predicting Paths of Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Using Monthly Surface Pressure Data

Previous research has had some success in predicting likely tracks of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin using North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) anomalies (above or below average values) during preceding months. This paper expands on this research by incorporating other surface pressure values as independent variables as alluded to by some of the earliest NAO research. We examine monthly sea-level-pressure (SLP) data from Reykjavik (Iceland), Cape Hatteras (North Carolina), and Nassau (Bahamas), along with NAO index anomalies, to see if they can be used to predict future paths and landfall locations of Atlantic tropical cyclones during the period 1970–2005. Average SLP from Nassau during the preceding May and June shows the strongest correlations with tropical cyclone tracks, with increased values correlated with more cyclones impacting the southeastern United States, but fewer landfalls along the Gulf of Mexico. Results also show virtually no relationship between the storm variables tested and the NAO index

Effectivity of intravescical thermo-chemotherapy prophylaxis for patients with high recurrence and progression risk for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.

Background&Aim: High grade non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) is common in urological practice. Most of these cancers are or become refractory to intravesical immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Here we evaluated the efficacy of combined local bladder hyperthermia and intravesical mitomycin-C (MMC) instillation in patients with high-risk recurrent NMIBC. Materials and methods: Between February 2014 and December 2015, 18 patients with high risk NMIBC were enrolled. Patients were treated in an outpatient basis with 6 weekly induction sessions followed by monthly maintenance sessions with intravesical MMC in local hyperthermia with bladder wall thermo-chemotherapy (BWT) system (PelvixTT system, Elmedical Ltd., Hod Hasharon, Israel). The follow-up regimen included cystoscopy after the induction cycle and thereafter with regular intervals. Time to disease recurrence was defined as time from the first intravesical treatment to endoscopic or histological documentation of a new bladder tumour. Adverse events were recorded according to CTC 4.0 (Common Toxicity Criteria) score system. Results: Mean age was 72 (32-87) years. 10 patients had multifocal disease, 9 had CIS, 6 had recurrent disease and 2 had highly recurrent disease (> 3 recurrences in a 24 months period). 6 patients underwent previous intravesical chemotherapy with MMC. The average number of maintenance sessions per patient was 7.6. After a mean follow-up of 433 days, 15 patients (83.3%) were recurrence-free. 3 patients had tumour recurrence after a mean period of 248 days without progression. Side effects were limited to grade 1 in 2 patients and grade 2 in 1 patient. Conclusions: BWT seems to be feasible and safe in high grade NMIBC. More studies are needed to identify the subgroup of patients who may benefit more from this treatment