The destruction wrought by North Atlantic hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 dramatically emphasizes the need for better understanding of tropical cyclone activity apart from the records provided by meteorological data and historical documentation. We present a 220-year record of oxygen isotope values of alpha-cellulose in longleaf pine tree rings that preserves anomalously low isotope values in the l...

We present a statistical model for the unconditional mean tracks of hurricanes. Our model is a semi-parametric scheme that averages together observed hurricane displacements. It has a single parameter that defines the averaging length scale, and we derive the optimum value for this parameter using a jackknife. The main purpose of this model is as a starting point for developing a statistical mo...

We present applications of uncertainty visualization methods to a global meteorological model, allowing better understanding of the composition of the local environment of developing hurricanes. Our work enables efficient visual pruning of unlikely results, especially in regions of atmospheric shear. We derive bounds on advection uncertainty due to interpolation and incorporate this uncertainty...

This chapter focuses on the impacts of natural phenomena such as earthquakes and hurricanes or typhoons in terms of fatalities and injuries. In particular, it frames such impacts in the context of human insecurity. Through a comparison of outcomes associated to natural events in developed and developing countries, the document puts forth the notion that developed countries are finding ways to e...

As an environmental phenomenon, hurricanes cause significant property damage and loss of life in coastal areas almost every year. Research concerning hurricanes and their aftermath is gaining more and more attentions nowadays. The potential changeability of hurricane data and hurricane models requires robust, maintainable and easily extensible software system for hurricane simulation. With focu...

How readily do potential migrants respond to increased returns to migration? Even if origin areas become less attractive vis-à-vis migration destinations, fixed costs can prevent increased migration. We examine migration responses to hurricanes, which reduce the attractiveness of origin locations. Restricted-access U.S. Census data allows precise migration measures and analysis of more migrant-...

More than 131 x 10(6) metric tons (MT) of inorganic sediments accumulated in coastal wetlands when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita crossed the Louisiana coast in 2005, plus another 281 x 10(6) MT when accumulation was prorated for open water area. The annualized combined amount of inorganic sediments per hurricane equals (i) 12% of the Mississippi River's suspended load, (ii) 5.5 times the inorgani...

Background LGE-MRI is widely used to assess cardiac RF ablation lesions. However, LGE-MRI requires contrast injection and the appearance, dimensions and visibility of lesions in LGE-MRI noticeably change with time after ablation and time after contrast injection. Recently proposed non-contrast T1-weighted (T1w) technique is only applicable to visualize acute (< 3 days) RF lesions. The main goal...

In recent years, the effectiveness of anti-TNF therapy in treating rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has become apparent. While trials of IL-1 receptor antagonist in RA have been encouraging, it clearly is more difficult to target two molecules (IL-1 alpha and beta) than one (TNF-alpha). In his review article, Professor Wim van den Berg argues that both TNF-alpha and IL-1 must be blocked in RA and that...