An important parameter that defines the effectiveness and efficiency of any optical or infrared sky survey is the atmospheric characteristics of the observing site. Of prime importance is the sky spectral brightness, which determines the sensitivities and the observing time required to complete a particular survey. This paper presents observations of the near-infrared sky spectral brightness me...

IC ER SPTIVES On contentious issues such as gun control, where advocacy groups on both sides claim to have the weight of public opinion behind them, polling can help clarify what Americans really think. Three decades of polling have painted a clear picture of public opinion about gun control. These polls show that public support for the regulation of firearms is strong, deep, and widespread. La...

This paper studies completed parity distributions for all the industrialized and developing countries that participated in the World Fertility Survey. This is done by means of a table based on parity calculated for all ever-married women above age 40 by educational and residential subcategories. The information is also used to compare mean family and mean sibship sizes and to study changes in...

A nonparametric model-assisted survey estimator for status estimation based on local polynomial regression is extended to incorporate spatial auxiliary information. Under mild assumptions, this estimator is design-unbiased and consistent. Simulation studies show that the nonparametric regression estimator is competitive with standard parametric techniques when a parametric specification is corr...

the larsemann hills range is an ice-free oasis on the ingrid christensen coast of princess elizabeth land, east antarctica, which includes bharti island, fisher island, mcleod island, broknes peninsula, stornes peninsula, and several other islands, promontories, and nunataks. the larsemann hills is an ice-free area of approximately 50 km2, located halfway between the vestfold hills and the amer...

Based on a unique dataset of more than 50 000 observations of ice phenology from 1213 lakes and 236 rivers in 12 different countries, we show that interannual variations in the timing of ice-on and ice-off on lakes and rivers are not equally pronounced over the entire Northern Hemisphere, but increase strongly towards geographical regions that experience only short periods during which the air ...

Usability testing, commonly conducted for commercial software to ensure that it meets the needs of the end user, is likewise vital to creating effective training software employing VR technologies. However, developers often limit software testing to expert evaluation (by other developers or subject matter experts [SMEs]) to identify potential problems that might impede the usability or acceptab...

For many years we have heard rumors of the downfall and death of GSS research. In this paper we will argue that the nay-sayers are wrong, as many have been in other disciplines in the past and that they would propose to stop seeking answers before the most important questions may have even been asked. We describe some of the many unanswered research questions left to be addressed in Group Suppo...

Distinctive periglacial landscapes have formed in late-Pleistocene ice-rich permafrost deposits (Ice Complex) of northern Yakutia, Siberia. Thermokarst lakes and thermokarst basins alternate with ice-rich Yedoma uplands. We investigate different thermokarst stages in Ice Complex deposits of the Lena River Delta using remote sensing and geoinformation techniques. The morphometry and spatial dist...