<p>We present a new data set of air temperature change across land and ocean extending back to the late-18<sup>th</sup> century. This new data set uses marine air temperature observations rather than the sea surface temperature measurements typically used by pre-existing data sets. This allows the new data set to extend further into the past than existing instrumental temperature records, which typically have start dates in the mid-to-late 19<sup>th</sup> century. The new data set brings together advances in understanding of measurement biases affecting all-day marine air temperature observations with a new assessment of the effects of non-standard thermometer enclosures used at land meteorological stations in the early instrumental record. A further innovation is the use of kriging to obtain localised temperature estimates that allow land air temperature records to be converted into anomalies even for stations without observations during the baseline period. Global and hemispheric series show close agreement with those based on sea-surface temperature for much of the overlapping period of their records, some of the interesting differences will be presented. This data set has been developed under the GloSAT project (https://www.glosat.org/).</p>

Previous research on nonprofit management education (NME) in the United Kingdom (UK) has raised the question of whether NME provided through public service departments will focus more on third sector distinctiveness, while NME provided through business schools will concentrate more on general, cross-sector management skills. We collect data on courses offered within UK graduate degree programs with an NME concentration and compare them using Mirabella’s (2007) taxonomy and find that there is more commonality than differences between graduate NME offered in both business and public service programs in the UK. However, statistically significant differences in the provision of courses as a proportion of total curriculum do exist for courses related to “advocacy, public policy, and community organizing,” “financial management,” and “social enterprise.”

Previous research on nonprofit management education (NME) in the United Kingdom (UK) has raised the question of whether NME provided through public service departments will focus more on third sector distinctiveness, while NME provided through business schools will concentrate more on general, cross-sector management skills. We collect data on courses offered within UK graduate degree programs with an NME concentration and compare them using Mirabella's (2007) taxonomy and find that there is more commonality than differences between graduate NME offered in both business and public service programs in the UK. However, statistically significant differences in the provision of courses as a proportion of total curriculum do exist for courses related to "advocacy, public policy, and community organizing: "financial management: and "social enterprise"..

Limited research has been undertaken to determine the impact of horse age, sex, and number of riders on horse performance in British Eventing (BE) horse trials. Improved understanding of this can aid professionals in planning a competition horse’s career. To investigate the impact of age, sex, and number of riders on the peak performance of horses at each of the main levels of BE competitions. The best score from each horse competing in BE horse trials in the years 2008–2018 was recorded, and principal component and hierarchical cluster analysis was performed. Basic data analysis was used to identify variables associated with particular better-performing clusters of horses. The interplay of the combinatory variables was then used to map out the trends in career trajectory for horses competing at each level of competition in the best-performing and worst-performing clusters. The peak performance of mares was worse than geldings and stallions at all levels. At Novice to Advanced, stallions did not perform as consistently with multiple riders as geldings. The age at which the best-performing groups peaked was similar for mares and geldings in all classes, although stallions peaked at an older age than mares and geldings at Novice and Intermediate level. All horses were a minimum of 4-years-old at the time of competition, as per BE rules.

ABSTRACTAs higher education has increasingly embraced digital technologies, we have been too slow to acknowledge accessibility issues for students with visual disabilities. One of the earliest promises of information and communication technology was increased accessibility to content. In theory, digitized content should be as equally accessible as the printed word on a screen, a braille keyboard, or an audible voice on a speaker. In the majority of educational technology, this promise has gone unfulfilled, and faculty members are largely unaware of the myriad obstacles that students with visual disabilities confront while navigating the technology-rich classroom. The principles of Universal Design in Instruction (UDI) provide guidance for developing curriculum that maximizes accessibility and usability of course content for all learners, including those with disabilities. This article examines the development of political science courses through the lens of UDI.

Crop production in the Caribbean is dominated by small open field holdings that are almost totally reliant on rainfall. Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam. [Convolvulaceae]) has been identified as an important commodity to attain food and nutrition security goals of the region, particularly in light of a changing climate. The crop has high nutritional value, innate drought-tolerant properties, and can be grown with relatively low inputs. The routine use of crop models for yield optimization is largely absent in the Caribbean. In this study, an attempt was made to parameterize the FAO AquaCrop model for sweet potato for the first time. AquaCrop is a simulation model for crop water productivity, designed primarily for use in irrigation management. Parameters were developed using data from three sweet potato cultivars grown in two agroecological zones in Jamaica under rainfed and irrigated conditions. Digital photography was combined with an automated canopy estimator to track canopy development, and sample harvesting was done throughout the crop season. The overall simulation of biomass was good, with deviations of <28% for four out of six simulations, and season-long performance of the model was commendable. The simulation of yield presented more challenges, especially given the nonlinear rate of tuber development. The results, however, indicate that AquaCrop could be a useful tool for Caribbean agriculture in predicting the productivity of sweet potato under varying water availability.

End-of-century changes in Caribbean climate extremes are derived from the Providing Regional Climate for Impact Studies (PRECIS) regional climate model (RCM) under the A2 and B2 emission scenarios across five rainfall zones. Trends in rainfall, maximum temperature, and minimum temperature extremes from the RCM are validated against meteorological stations over 1979–1989. The model displays greater skill at representing trends in consecutive wet days (CWD) and extreme rainfall (R95P) than consecutive dry days (CDD), wet days (R10), and maximum 5-day precipitation (RX5). Trends in warm nights, cool days, and warm days were generally well reproduced. Projections for 2071–2099 relative to 1961–1989 are obtained from the ECHAM5 driven RCM. Northern and eastern zones are projected to experience more intense rainfall under A2 and B2. There is less consensus across scenarios with respect to changes in the dry and wet spell lengths. However, there is indication that a drying trend may be manifest over zone 5 (Trinidad and northern Guyana). Changes in the extreme temperature indices generally suggest a warmer Caribbean towards the end of century across both scenarios with the strongest changes over zone 4 (eastern Caribbean).

Dengue fever is one of the most severe insect-borne viral infections; it is potentially fatal and is currently endemic in more than 100 countries in Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, with Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific being the most seriously affected (WHO, 1997). It is a flu-like illness but may develop into the more serious dengue haemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome, which can result in death. In the Caribbean, virological evidence of dengue fever was first obtained in the 1950s, although the disease is believed to have existed there for the past 200 years (Ehrenkranz et al, 1971). The outbreak of dengue haemorrhagic fever in Cuba in 1981, which affected almost half the population, is considered to be one of the most important events in the history of dengue in the Americas (CAREC, 1997). Since this event there have been confirmed or suspected cases of dengue haemorrhagic fever almost every year in the American region. The last large epidemic in Jamaica occurred about ten years ago.

Phase II of the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater regulations requires communities smaller than 100 000 residents to meet new criteria for stormwater runoff reduction. In many cases these smaller communities have no established stormwater utility, and are investigating alternatives for complying with these new, sometimes expensive requirements. We note that it might be cost effective for some communities to encourage homeowners to control stormwater runoff at the parcel level instead of, or in conjunction with more traditional large, infrastructural best management practices (BMP). We go onto argue that in the absence of a strict regulatory cap, an auction is a cost-effective tool for implementing controls on stormwater runoff quantity at the parcel level. In this paper, we test the effectiveness of a procurement auction as the coordinating mechanism for encouraging installation of parcel-scale rain gardens and rain barrels within a small suburban watershed in the Midwest. The auction, which was conducted in spring 2007 and 2008, resulted in installation of 81 gardens and 165 barrels on 107 of the 350 eligible properties. Average cost per liter of runoff detention in both years was $0.36 for gardens and $0.59 for barrels. Interestingly, approximately 55% of the bids were for $0, suggesting that an educational campaign may result in substantial runoff mitigation if utilities paid for the installation of stormwater management practices. However, we found that an auction promoted more participation than education alone and at a cheaper per-unit control cost than a flat stormwater control payment plan. Overall, this study demonstrates that relatively minimal financial incentives can result in homeowners’ willingness-to-accept stormwater management practices on their property, thus opening an important avenue for retrofitting watersheds that are largely in private ownership.

This study presents a systematic evaluation of the homogeneity of daily surface temperature observations for the Caribbean and neighboring regions on a monthly timescale. The reference series are developed using adjacent sea‐surface temperatures (SSTs). This novel approach is undertaken instead of the conventional use of highly correlated nearby stations, given the sparse station network for the Caribbean and adjacent Caribbean. The temperature data are from the regional climate change workshops held for the Caribbean, and Central and Northern South America in 2001 and 2004, respectively, complemented with data from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), and the Caribbean meteorological stations. Correlations are used to explore the degree of association between the maximum and minimum temperatures and SSTs, and homogeneity tests are performed on their individual and difference series (e.g., maximum temperature minus SSTs). The results suggest SSTs as a viable option for use in evaluating homogeneity in the data sparse region of the Caribbean. Common statistically significant change points identified across at least three stations are investigated using composite analysis to determine links to large‐scale atmospheric circulation patterns. The study identifies two homogeneous periods from the analyses, i.e., 1970–1992 and 1984–1998, with the former used to reanalyze some extreme temperature trends for the Caribbean and adjacent Caribbean. The results are found to be consistent with those obtained from the 2001 Caribbean data workshop.

There is great potential for managing stormwater runoff quantity; however, implementation in already-developed areas remains a challenge. We assess the viability of economic incentives to place best management practices (BMPs) on parcels in a 1.8 km 2 suburban watershed near Cincinnati, Ohio (USA). A reverse auction, used to relieve legal constraints on BMP implementation on private land such that residents voluntarily bid on BMPs (rain gardens and rain barrels), was held in 2007. Out of a possible 350 homeowners, we obtained a ~25% response rate, and ~60% of the bids were for $0. Bids were ranked based on the basis of cost and an environmental benefits index. We ultimately installed 50 rain gardens and 100 rain barrels, which were uniform in their distribution across the watershed. Although BMPs did not disconnect an appreciable amount of effective impervious area from stream channels (0.2 – 0.4%), a dramatic increase (16-28%) in stormwater runoff storage capacity was imparted to the various subwatersheds. Ongoing monitoring at neighborhood stormwater outfalls and subwatershed tributaries will ultimately determine whether this approach yields an effective

Two statistical models are created for the Caribbean during its dry season. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) confirms that there is a robust El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) signal in the region during the dry season and that the mode manifests itself as oppositely signed precipitation anomalies over the north and south Caribbean. The south-eastern Caribbean becomes dry in response to a warm event. The first statistical model consequently uses a rainfall index averaged over the south-eastern Caribbean as the predictand. A model which retains an ENSO proxy as one of two predictors shows reasonable skill with hindcast predictions for the region. A second model is created using a Jamaican rainfall index as predictand. Jamaica falls in the transition zone i.e. between the oppositely signed north-south precipitation anomalies characteristic of the ENSO dry season mode. In this case no ENSO related predictor is retained in the final model. Composite analysis of select atmospheric variables for anomalously high and low rainfall years (for the dry season) give an understanding of the dynamics of the Caribbean dry season during phases of the ENSO, particularly those which lead to the creation of the transition zone.

Rats use active, rhythmic movements of their whiskers to acquire tactile information about three-dimensional object features. There are no receptors along the length of the whisker; therefore all tactile information must be mechanically transduced back to receptors at the whisker base. This raises the question: how might the rat determine the radial contact position of an object along the whisker? We developed two complementary biomechanical models that show that the rat could determine radial object distance by monitoring the rate of change of moment (or equivalently, the rate of change of curvature) at the whisker base. The first model is used to explore the effects of taper and inherent whisker curvature on whisker deformation and used to predict the shapes of real rat whiskers during deflections at different radial distances. Predicted shapes closely matched experimental measurements. The second model describes the relationship between radial object distance and the rate of change of moment at the base of a tapered, inherently curved whisker. Together, these models can account for recent recordings showing that some trigeminal ganglion (Vg) neurons encode closer radial distances with increased firing rates. The models also suggest that four and only four physical variables at the whisker base -- angular position, angular velocity, moment, and rate of change of moment -- are needed to describe the dynamic state of a whisker. We interpret these results in the context of our evolving hypothesis that neural responses in Vg can be represented using a state-encoding scheme that includes combinations of these four variables.