Search for: All records

Abstract Pielke deprecates both the ICAT database, which he once recommended, and U.S. tropical cyclone (TC) damage estimates from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). We do not share these views. Willoughby et al. (hereafter WL24) is based upon ICAT damage for 1900–2017, both then-year and normalized for inflation, population, and individual wealth, extended to 2022 with National Hurricane Center (NHC) official figures from NCEI. Pielke represents the data of Weinkle et al. (hereafter WK18) as a superior source. We find troubling anomalies in the WK18 data. The issue is that WK18 find that normalized TC damage is constant, but WL24 find that it is increasing. Here, we replicate the WL24 analysis with WK18 data and find a statistically significant growth of then-year damage relative to the U.S. economy, a statistically significant increase in the occurrence of the most damaging TCs, and a 0.6% per year increase in TC normalized damage. The last of these is not statistically significant because of the large variance due to the modulation of TC impacts by the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. Thus, the increase in U.S. TC damage is sufficiently robust to survive the shortcomings of both datasets. 

Abstract A series of papers published since 1998 assert that U.S. tropical cyclone (TC) damage, when “normalized” for individual wealth, population, and inflation, exhibits no increase attributable to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). This result is here questioned for three reasons: 1) The then-year (no demographic or economic adjustments) U.S. TC damage increases 2.5% yr⁻¹faster than U.S. then-year gross domestic product. This result, which is substantially due to the faster growth of assets in hurricane-prone states, shows that TC impacts on the total U.S. economy double every generation. 2) Fitting of an exponential curve to normalized damage binned by 5-yr “pentads” yields a growth rate of 1.06% yr⁻¹since 1900, although causes besides AGW may contribute. 3) During the twenty-first century, when the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) was in its warm phase, the most damaging U.S. TCs struck at twice the rate of the warm AMO of the twentieth century and 4 times the rate of the entire twentieth century, both warm and cool AMO phases. A key unanswered question is as follows: What will happen when (and if) the AMO returns to its cool phase later in this century? Significance StatementU.S. hurricane damage, normalized for changes in inflation, population, and wealth, increases by approximately 1% yr⁻¹. For 1900–2022, 1% yr⁻¹is equivalent to a factor of >3 increase, substantially but not entirely, attributable to climate change. The incidence of the most damaging tropical cyclones (TCs) approximately doubled in the twenty-first century compared with climatologically analogous periods of the twentieth century. These results contradict the previously published work that introduced normalization and found zero trend in normalized damage but are consistent with physical reasoning and modeling studies. 

Latine Health and Development in the Digital Age: Assets-Based Inclusive Design as a Social Movement for Equitable Distributions of Power → Inclusive design of digital platforms may increase equitable access to healthcare services and dismantle systemic barriers for Latine communities. → Ethical identification of assets in the design process can promote action through internal change or external allyship. → The ABID framework is designed to minimize technology-based amplifications of existing inequities. 

Digital technologies shape how individuals, communities, and soci- eties interact; yet they are far from equitable. This paper presents a framework that challenges the “one-view-fits-all” design approach to digital health tools. We explore systemic issues of power to eval- uate the multidimensional indicators of Latino health outcomes and how technology can support well-being. Our proposed frame- work enables designers to gain a better understanding of how marginalized communities use digital technologies to navigate unique challenges. As an innovative and possibly controversial approach to assets-based design, we stress the importance of in- dustry and academia self-reflection on their organization’s role in the marginalization of communities in addition to valuing the lived experiences of marginalized communities. Through this approach, designers may avoid amplifying structural and health inequities in marginalized communities. 

In the discovery process of new drugs and the development of novel therapies in medicine, computational modeling is a complementary tool for the design of new molecules by predicting for example their solubility in different solvents. Here, we benchmarked several computational methods to calculate the partition coefficients of a diverse set of 161 organic molecules with experimental logP values obtained from the literature. In general, density functional theory methods yielded the best correlations and lower average deviations. Although results are obtained faster with semiempirical and molecular mechanics methodologies, these methods yielded higher average deviations and lower correlation coefficients than hybrid density functional theory methods. We recommend the use of an empirical formula to correct the calculated values with each methodology tested. 

Abstract Despite the f₀(980) hadron having been discovered half a century ago, the question about its quark content has not been settled: it might be an ordinary quark-antiquark ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}$) meson, a tetraquark ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}{{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}q\overline{q}$) exotic state, a kaon-antikaon ($${{\rm{K}}}\overline{{{\rm{K}}}}$$ $K\overline{K}$) molecule, or a quark-antiquark-gluon ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}{{\rm{g}}}$$ $q\overline{q}g$) hybrid. This paper reports strong evidence that the f₀(980) state is an ordinary$${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}$meson, inferred from the scaling of elliptic anisotropies (v₂) with the number of constituent quarks (n_q), as empirically established using conventional hadrons in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The f₀(980) state is reconstructed via its dominant decay channel f₀(980) →π⁺π⁻, in proton-lead collisions recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC, and itsv₂is measured as a function of transverse momentum (p_T). It is found that then_q= 2 ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}$state) hypothesis is favored overn_q= 4 ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}{{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}$$ $q\overline{q}q\overline{q}$or$${{\rm{K}}}\overline{{{\rm{K}}}}$$ $K\overline{K}$states) by 7.7, 6.3, or 3.1 standard deviations in thep_T< 10, 8, or 6 GeV/cranges, respectively, and overn_q= 3 ($${{\rm{q}}}\overline{{{\rm{q}}}}{{\rm{g}}}$$ $q\overline{q}g$hybrid state) by 3.5 standard deviations in thep_T< 8 GeV/crange. This result represents the first determination of the quark content of the f₀(980) state, made possible by using a novel approach, and paves the way for similar studies of other exotic hadron candidates.