The Delphi technique and judgmental forecasting

The Delphi technique for judgmental forecasting by expert groups is described and the controversy surrounding its use is summarized. The technique clearly does not eliminate all unwanted psychological effects on group judgment. Furthermore, the design of most Delphi studies makes it impossible to separate the signal from the noise in expert judgment. A methodological standard for evaluating judgmental forecasts is proposed.     

Local and remote causes of the southern Australian autumn-winter rainfall decline, 1958–2007

The 1958–2007 decline in March–August rainfall over southern Australia (south of 30°S) is very closely related to an increase in surface atmospheric pressure over Australia. Sea surface temperatures around northern Australia are strongly correlated with southern Australian rainfall but the recent warming of the ocean should have led to increased rainfall rather than the observed rainfall decline. The relationships between the rainfall and indices of several modes of the atmosphere/ocean system are investigated to determine a cause of the rainfall decline. Indices of the modes that only use data remote from the Australian region are used to avoid the possibility that a relationship between the mode and Australian rainfall is simply reflecting the behaviour of “local” portions of the index. Thus a climate mode index that incorporates Australian pressure would, of course, be related to southern Australian rainfall, even if the remote parts of the mode were unrelated to Australian rainfall. Unless the remote contributions to the mode index were also related to Australian rainfall it seems physically unrealistic to consider that the mode, per se, was affecting Australian rainfall (rather than simply reflecting the influence of the local pressure changes). The rainfall decline does not appear to be explainable by a change in the behaviour of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (remote indices of this phenomenon do not exhibit a trend over this period) or the Indian Ocean Dipole (which is not strongly correlated with Australian rainfall on detrended data). The strong 1958–2007 trend in the southern annular mode (SAM) appears able to explain much of the rainfall decline since its year-to-year variations are correlated with year-to-year variations in southern Australian rainfall, and the sense of the correlation and the SAM trend would lead to a decline in rainfall (and an increase in pressure over Australia). The observed trend in SAM can reproduce over 70% of the observed rainfall trend. All these conclusions also apply to the rainfall declines in the southeast and southwest sub-regions.     

Interpretation of migrated seismic reflection profiles across the northern Appalachians in Maine

Summary. A simple line-migration technique has been developed and applied to deep crustal reflection data collected in the northern Appalachians of Quebec and central Maine. Preliminary interpretation of these data, combined with the results of gravity and refraction studies, shows thinning of the crust in two distinct steps beneath the Silurian-Devonian Merrimack synclinorium and shows evidence for Mesozoic crustal stretching and dike intrusion.     

The detection of fast-moving asteroids and comets by IRAS

The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) was used to search for fast-moving objects in the inner Solar System. The selection effects and limitations of the search are examined with particular reference to the objects which may be present in the moving-object data base at JPL. It is shown that the two new Apollo asteroid discoveries are in fair agreement with the discovery rate by ground-based telescopes. IRAS discovered six comets which is also consistent with the discovery rate for ground-based searches. It is estimated that there are 20–30 comets but no Apollo asteroids in the hours-confirmed moving-object data base established by the IRAS project.     

A population cartogram of New Zealand

The authors use 1981 census data to create a cartogram showing the counties of New Zealand in proportion to their population.     

Solar noise storms and magnetic sector structures

A synoptic study of the occurrence and polarization of 160 MHz noise storms recorded at Culgoora during the current solar cycle shows that the storm sources occur in large unipolar cells extending >90° in solar longitude and 60° in latitude, with lifetimes of 1 yr. From solar maximum onwards these large cells stretch across the solar equator to form a longitudinal sector pattern reminiscent of that observed in the interplanetary magnetic field. Comparisons with published heliospheric current sheet simulations support this conclusion. The noise storms occur in the strong magnetic fields above large, complex, flare-active sunspots. Unlike most active regions, those associated with noise storms do not always have dominant sunspots as leaders. Rather, about one-third have the dominant sunspot as a follower. The dominant sunspot polarities tend to agree with the long-lived sector structure, implying that emerging magnetic flux occurs at preferred longtitudes on the solar surface.     

Automatic change detection in lane-level road networks using GPS trajectories

Lane-level road network updating is crucial for urban traffic applications that use geographic information systems contributing to, for example, intelligent driving, route planning and traffic control. Researchers have developed various algorithms to update road networks using sensor data, such as high-definition images or GPS data; however, approaches that involve change detection for road networks at lane level using GPS data are less common. This paper presents a novel method for automatic change detection of lane-level road networks based on GPS trajectories of vehicles. The proposed method includes two steps: map matching at lane level and lane-level change recognition. To integrate the most up-to-date GPS data with a lane-level road network, this research uses a fuzzy logic road network matching method. The proposed map-matching method starts with a confirmation of candidate lane-level road segments that use error ellipses derived from the GPS data, and then computes the membership degree between GPS data and candidate lane-level segments. The GPS trajectory data is classified into successful or unsuccessful matches using a set of defuzzification rules. Any topological and geometrical changes to road networks are detected by analysing the two kinds of matching results and comparing their relationships with the original road network. Change detection results for road networks in Wuhan, China using collected GPS trajectories show that these methods can be successfully applied to detect lane-level road changes including added lanes, closed lanes and lane-changing and turning rules, while achieving a robust detection precision of above 80%.     

Making a Cultural Landscape: The Case of Dongshan River Basin,Taiwan

Developing a cultural landscape establishes a regional identity, creates value for residents, and has potential to diversify a community’s economic base due to tourism development. Changes in local landscape morphology lead to multidimensional challenges in terms of the environmental consciousness and cultural identity of residents. The study examined residents’ perception of changes in their local landscape regarding its visual form, the meanings they constructed with the landscape, and their functional experience of living and working in it. Findings revealed that in its agricultural era, the visual landscape, meanings, and experience consisted mainly of physical elements connected with residents’ small-scale agricultural and fishery production. In the tourism era, the visual landscape, meanings, and experience were connected to recreational settings and iconic landmarks associated with the tourism industry. Both agricultural and tourism development occurred in ways that complemented each other and built a cultural landscape that connected the past with the present.     

ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES ON NORTHWEST PACIFIC TROPICAL CYCLONE NUMBERS

In this study,the relationship between tropical cyclone numbers in the Northwest Pacific,Southern Oscillation (SO) and some environmental variables observed over the global oceans has been examined.The major results indicate that the pattern of correlations between the tropical cyclone numbers and the environmental variables is in a sense analogous to that between the SO and the same environmental variables,but the correlation is weak.The study indicates that the relationship between tropical cyclone numbers and environmental variables is more complex,and the factors affecting the variation in tropical cyclone numbers in the Northwest Pacific should include not only ENSO events but also a long-term effect which is not related to ENSO.