bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Potential Predictability of Seasonal Extreme Precipitation Accumulation in China
Authors: Wei Wenguang , Yan Zhongwei , Jones P. D. 
Published: January 2017

Abstract
The potential predictability of seasonal extreme precipitation accumulation (SEPA) across mainland China is evaluated, based on daily precipitation observations during 1960–2013 at 675 stations. The potential predictability value (PPV) of SEPA is calculated for each station by decomposing the observed SEPA variance into a part associated with stochastic daily rainfall variability and another part associated with longer-time-scale climate processes. A Markov chain model is constructed for each station and a Monte Carlo simulation is applied to estimate the stochastic part of the variance. The results suggest that there are more potentially predictable regions for summer than for the other seasons, especially over southern China, the Yangtze River valley, the north China plain, and northwestern China. There are also regions of large PPVs in southern China for autumn and winter and in northwestern China for spring. The SEPA series for the regions of large PPVs are deemed not entirely stochastic, either with long-term trends (e.g., increasing trends in inland northwestern China) or significant correlation with well-known large-scale climate processes (e.g., East Asian winter monsoon for southern China in winter and El Niño for the Yangtze River valley in summer). This fact not only verifies the claim that the regions have potential predictability but also facilitates predictive studies of the regional extreme precipitation associated with large-scale climate processes.
Diagnosing an Artificial Trend in NLDAS-2 Afternoon Precipitation
Authors: Ferguson Craig R. , Mocko David M. 
Published: January 2017

AbstractWhile investigating linkages between afternoon peak rainfall amount and land–atmosphere coupling strength, a statistically significant trend in phase 2 of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2) warm season (April–September) afternoon (1700–2259 UTC) precipitation was noted for a large fraction of the conterminous United States, namely, two-thirds of the area east of the Mississippi River, during the period from 1979 to 2015. To verify and better characterize this trend, a thorough statistical analysis is undertaken. The analysis focuses on three aspects of precipitation: amount, frequency, and intensity at 6-hourly time scale and for each calendar month separately. At the NLDAS-2 native resolution of 0.125° × 0.125°, Kendall’s tau and Sen’s slope estimators are used to detect and estimate trends and the Pettitt test is used to detect breakpoints. Parallel analyses are conducted on both NARR and Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2), subdaily precipitation estimates. Widespread breakpoints of field significance at the α = 0.05 level are detected in the NLDAS-2 frequency and intensity series for all months and 6-h periods that are absent from the analogous NARR and MERRA-2 datasets. These breakpoints are shown to correspond with a July 1996 NLDAS-2 transition away from hourly 2° × 2.5° NOAA/CPC precipitation estimates to hourly 4-km stage II Doppler radar precipitation estimates in the temporal disaggregation of CPC daily gauge analyses. While NLDAS-2 may provide the most realistic diurnal precipitation cycle overall, users should be aware of this discontinuity and its direct effect on long-term trends in subdaily precipitation and indirect effects on trends in modeled soil moisture, surface temperature, surface energy and water fluxes, snow cover, snow water equivalent, and runoff/streamflow.
On the Application of the Mirror‐Match Bootstrap in Adaptive Cluster Sampling
Authors: Saha Amitava 
Published: January 2017

Abstract: The confidence intervals (CT’s) conventionally constructed in large‐scale sample surveys assuming asymptotic normality often leads to unsatisfactory results when the population under study is rare or clustered. Adaptive cluster sampling is a promising sampling technique to effectively catch rare, geographically clustered or localized population elements. Christman and Pontius (2000) applied several bootstrap techniques to construct confidence intervals when simple random samples are selected without replacement (SRSWOR) and adaptive cluster sampling is used to sample localized population units. Here we extend Sitter's (1992a, b) ‘mirror‐match’ (MM) bootstrap to a practical survey set‐up using varying selection probability. We also demonstrate using real data from the Indian Economic Census how the extended procedure can be applied to adaptive cluster sampling adopted for estimating simultaneously the numbers of carners engaged in a number of localized unorganized rural industries. AMS (2000) Subject Classification: 62D05.
An Inventory Model for Deteriorating Items with Quantity Dependent Permissible Delay in Payment and Partial Backlogging of Shortage
Authors: Pal Manisha , Ghosh Sanjoy Kumar 
Published: January 2017

Abstract: In many inventory situations, instead of making immediate payment on receiving the consigument, the purchaser is allowed a certain fixed time period to pay for the goods bought. During this time the supplier charges no interest, but beyond this period interest is charged under the terms and condition agreed upon. As for the purchaser, he can earn interest on the revenue coolected during the credit period. This paper studies a single item inventory model for deteriorating items, when the permissible delay in payment depends on the ordered quantity and shortages are partially backlogged, assuming the backlogging rate to be inversely proportional to the waiting time for the next replenishment. An algorithm has been developed to find the optimal inventory policy. Numerical examples have been cited to illustrate the model. AMS (2000) Subject Classification: 90B05.
Environmental Compliance of Indian Leather Firms in the Post-WTO Period
Authors: Chakraborty Debashis 
Published: January 2017

India is one of the major exporters of leather products. However, the exporting firms need to conform to a number of environment-related compliance requirements in foreign markets, which function as a major barrier. For instance, the introduction of the German ban on import of leather products with traces of PCP and azo dyes in late nineties has been followed by similar product and process related standards in other developed countries like the US. The outward-orientation of Indian leather sector firms has gone up over the years, accompanied by rising degree of environmental compliance for exporting units. The objective of the current paper is to analyze the determinants of environmental expense of leather firms in India in the period following the imposition of the stringent environmental standard through an empirical model. The findings underline the reverse relationship between environmental compliance and export orientation, but positive relationship with firm size and ownership structure. The result indicates that smaller players may encounter problems in undertaking of the compliance expenditures, which requires policy intervention. JEL Classifications: L67, F18
A Comparative Study of Admissions to Two Public Sector Regional Secure Units and One Independent Medium-Secure Psychiatric Hospital
Authors: Moss Katrina R 
Published: January 2017

To date there has been no research carried out in respect of the contribution being made by the independent sector to medium-secure psychiatric care. There are also no published studies comparing the provision of the independent sector with that of the public sector. As such this is a neglected field of study. This paper examines the characteristics of patients admitted to one independent medium-secure psychiatric hospital and two regional secure units in terms of their demographic characteristics, source, detention under the Mental Health Act, 1983, psychiatric diagnosis, criminal history and discharge. The results of the study are tested for their significance using the chi-square distribution. There is discussion of how the independent sector may be providing a service either unavailable within the National Health Service or for which the National Health Service is unsuitable in terms of patients either requiring medium- to long-term hospital care in conditions of security or those who cannot live independently and therefore require ‘asylum’, which is no longer an option within the National Health Service. In this sense, the independent sector could be seen as meeting a national need by acting as a ‘safety valve’ for National Health Service facilities.
A Study of Outrage of Modesty Offenders in a Singapore Prison
Authors: Lim L E C , Yap A K , Ong S H , Chan K L , Chan A O M 
Published: January 2017

Outrage of modesty (OOM) offenders cause considerable annoyance and distress to their victims. The offending behaviours include touching, grabbing or fondling of erogenous or non-erogenous parts of the victim's body. The purpose of this study is to examine a prison cohort of OOM offenders and to compare them with a group of OOM offenders who had been remanded in a state mental hospital. All prisoners serving sentence over a two-year study period were interviewed. They were of similar mean age to the hospital cohort but were better educated, more likely to be married and most were working. Victims tended to be young females with an average age of 19 years. Psychotic disorders were rarely present, although 15% had a dissocial personality disorder. Those with previous OOM convictions were likely to have had past psychiatric consultations and were more likely to be unmarried. However, there were no statistically significant differences between convicted first-time offenders and repeat offenders with respect to age, educational level, nature of offences and alcohol consumption. The prisoners were less inclined to commit their offences in the mornings. Breasts and genitalia were the favoured targets for molest action, irrespective of time or place or whether the offence was committed by a first or repeat offender. The offences were often committed along staircases, corridors and in crowded public places. CONCLUSION: Interesting differences emerged when a cohort of prisoners was compared with another cohort of molesters remanded in a psychiatric hospital. The prison cohort contained fewer individuals with psychiatric illness, whereas the converse was true for the hospital cohort. Although it is thought that sexual offences are typically committed by those with no psychiatric disorders, much depends on the type of study population being evaluated. If the study population is from a prison setting, fewer mentally ill individuals would be expected. In these situations the Dissocial Personality Disorders are expected to be more prevalent. The surprising finding that the prison group comprised those who were fairly well educated with high employment contrasted with an age-old concept of the criminal population as a whole. While mental illnesses tended to be found in a minority of the prisoners, there seemed to be an indication that those who had committed repeat offences were in some way more psychologically impaired than those who had molested for the first time. Such impairments were probably responsible for problems in forming intimate relationships leading up to marriage.
Pattern of Fatal Head Injuries in Ibadan — A 10 Year Review
Authors: Akang E E U , Kuti Mao , Osunkoya A O , Komolafe E O , Malomo A O , Shokunbi M T , Amutta S B 
Published: January 2017

Head injury is an important cause of mortality worldwide. The objective of the present study was to analyse the pattern of fatal head injury among patients seen in University College Hospital, Ibadan. The study was based on retrospective investigation of cases of fatal head injury referred by the coroner to the Department of Pathology, University College Hospital, between 1991 and 2000. Pertinent clinical and postmortem findings were extracted from available coroner's autopsy records. There were 529 cases (402 males and 127 females). Their ages ranged from <1 year to 90 years (mean=33 years), the average age of females (27.8) being less than that of males (34.6) (p=0.00003). 83.8% were road traffic accidents, 8.9% falls from a height, 3.8% assault, and 3% gunshot injuries. 79.1% had a GCS of 8 or less at presentation. The mean survival period of children aged less than 15 years was 2 days while that of adolescents and adults aged 15 years and above was 5.6 days (p=0.02). Subdural (62.4%), subarachnoid (24.6%), epidural (10.2%), and intracerebral (10%) haemorrhages were the major causes of death. Skull fractures occurred in 38.2%, while cerebral contusions occurred in 22.1%. Intracranial infection was relatively uncommon in these patients. The present study has shown that young adults, predominantly males in their most productive years of life, are especially prone to fatal head injury.
Myocarditis Misdiagnosed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Authors: Shatz Anat , Hiss Jehuda , Arensburg Baruch 
Published: January 2017

In a retrospective study spanning five years, the histologic sections of 35 autopsies of infants diagnosed as SIDS victims were reviewed. Based on a recently reported study in which findings on marked basement membrane thickening (BMT) in the true vocal cords was suggested as a pathognomonic marker of SIDS, we expected to find BMT in all these cases. However, in seven of the reviewed autopsies (20%) no BMT was detected. Examination of new histologic sections of all the victims revealed myocarditis in these seven cases. In a control group (n=18) of children with known cause of death, neither BMT nor myocarditis were found. The incidence of myocardial diseases in infants and young adults (20% and 22% respectively) reported in the literature indicates that myocarditis is not a rare cause of sudden death in infants. Therefore, in SIDS-suspected cases a meticulous post-mortem microscopic examination of the heart should be carried out, especially whenever BMT of the vocal cords is absent.
A Prospective Study of Coroner's Autopsies in University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria
Authors: Amakiri C N T , Akang E E U , Aghadiuno P U , Odesanmi W O 
Published: January 2017

The present study reviews 876 consecutive coroner's autopsies performed in the Department of Pathology, University College Hospital, Ibadan over a two-year period (1 February 1991 to 31 January 1993). The hospital autopsy rate during the study period was 36.2%, and 62.5 per cent of these post-mortems were medico-legal cases. The most common indications for coroner's autopsies were sudden natural deaths (55.6%), followed by accidental deaths (35.3%). The proportions of maternal (4.3%), homicidal (3.1%) and suicidal (0.3%) deaths were much lower. The male to female ratio was 1.7 to 1. Ninety-one (10.4%) of the cases fell within the paediatric age group and the peak age incidence for these cases was in the 5–14 years age group. The remaining 785 (89.6%) cases were adults and the peak age incidence for these cases was in the fourth decade of life. The most common cause of sudden natural death was cardiovascular disease, of which hypertension constituted the majority of cases. Other major causes of sudden death included pneumonia, meningitis, typhoid fever and neoplastic diseases. Road traffic accidents accounted for 78 per cent of accidental deaths followed by falls (13.3%) and burns (4.6%). Abortions, post-partum haemorrhage and eclampsia were the major causes of maternal deaths in the present study. Homicidal deaths were eight times more frequent in male than female victims and the commonest mode of death was gunshot injuries. Suicidal deaths remain extremely uncommon in African patients, as confirmed by our study.
Nontraditional Work Factors in Farmworker Adolescent Populations: Implications for Health Research and Interventions
Authors: Cooper Sara R. , Cooper Sharon P. , Felknor Sarah S. , Santana Vilma S. , Fischer Frida M. , Shipp Eva M. , Acosta Martha S. Vela 
Published: January 2017

Agriculture has been documented to be one of the most hazardous work environments for both adults and children. Adolescents may be especially vulnerable to adverse health effects from agricultural exposures due to the rapid growth and development experienced during those years. Separating the occupational, economic, and social issues in this population is difficult. Weak regulatory protection, lack of compliance with existing regulations, and gaps in service provision characterize the working conditions of adolescent farmworkers. Although there is increasing research on the impact of work organization on mental and physical health in adult working populations, there is a scarcity of research focused on this concept in young workers—and it remains virtually unaddressed in young farmworkers. Work characteristics of the informal work sector, better delineated in international literature, should be considered when planning research or interventions in this at-risk population. Further, the population of adolescent farmworkers is diverse, and research strategies and interventions need to be targeted and tailored to the heterogeneous groups. This article addresses some of the nontraditional work factors associated with the less-than-formal work organization and environments in the farmworker adolescent population and how these factors may inform the planning of research and interventions. Specifically, mobility, cultural patterns and social networks, alternative sampling strategies, alternative delivery of health care and education, and involvement of a wide range of players in the work environment of adolescent farmworkers should all be considered when conducting research or planning programs for this population.
The Effects of Solvent Exposure on Memory and Motor Dexterity in Working Children
Authors: Saddik Basema , Williamson Ann , Nuwayhid Iman , Black Deborah 
Published: January 2017

Objectives. Children working in vehicle spray-painting, mechanical, and other trade workshops are at significant risk of exposure to organic solvents and, as a result, may be at significant risk of developing clinical and subclinical signs of neurotoxicity. This study reports on the association between exposure to solvents and neurobehavioral performance on a number of non-computerized tests for working children exposed to solvents in comparison with nonexposed working children and nonexposed children at school. Methods. A convenience cross-sectional sample of 300 male children aged 10–17 years was recruited for study. The exposed working group and the two nonexposed groups (working and nonworking school) were matched, as far as possible, on geographic location of residence and age. Neurotoxic effects were assessed through a questionnaire and the child's performance on a selection of neurobehavioral tests. Results. Exposed working children scored worse on the overall neurotoxicity symptoms score (mean=6.8; standard deviation [SD]=3.6) compared with the nonexposed working children (mean = 1.3; SD=2.0) and school children (mean = 1.2; SD=1.8). Analysis of the non-computerized neurobehavioral tests demonstrated that exposed working children performed significantly worse than the two nonexposed groups on the motor dexterity and memory tests. Results of the mood test showed that exposed working children were more angry and confused than the nonexposed groups. Conclusion. There is an association between exposure to solvents and lower neurobehavioral performance, with significant neurobehavioral deficits among children exposed to solvents in comparison with working children not exposed to solvents and nonworking school children. Memory and motor dexterity appear to be particularly affected in solvent-exposed working children.
Price Discoveries and Volatility Spillovers in S&P CNX Nifty Future and its Underlying Index CNX Nifty
Authors: Karmakar Madhusudan 
Published: January 2017

In a perfectly functioning world, every piece of information should be reflected simultaneously in the underlying spot market and its futures markets. However, in reality, information can be disseminated in one market first and then transmitted to other markets due to market imperfections. And, if one market reacts faster to information than the other, a lead-lag relation is observed The lead-lag relationship in returns and volatilities between spot and futures markets is of interest to academics, practitioners, and regulators. In India, there are very few studies which have investigated the lead-lag relationship in the first moment of the spot and futures markets This study investigates the lead-lag relationship in the first moment as well as the second moment between the S&P CNX Nifty and the Nifty future. It also investigates how much of the volatility in one market can be explained by volatility innovations in the other market and how fast these movements transfer between these markets. It conducts Multivariate Cointegration tests on the long-run relation between these two markets. It investigates the daily price discovery process by exploring the common stochastic trend between the S&P CNX Nifty and the Nifty future based on vector error correction model (VECM). It examines the volatility spillover mechanism with a bivariate BEKK model. Finally, this study captures the effects of recent policy changes in the Indian stock market. The results reveal the following: The VECM results show that the Nifty futures dominate the cash market in price discovery. The bivariate BEKK model shows that although the persistent volatility spills over from one market to another market bi-directionally, past innovations originating in future market have the unidirectional significant effect on the present volatility of the spot market. The findings of the study thus suggest that the Nifty future is more informationally efficient than the underlying spot market. These findings may provide insights on the information transaction and index arbitrage between the CNX Nifty and futures markets.