Considerable rainfall occurs in India during the post-monsoon period from October to December, particularly over north-eastern, eastern and southern regions, and this is of great significance in agricultural and allied sectors. For the first time, we have attempted to provide detailed information on the variability and predictability of the post-monsoon rainfall (PMR) of the country. Details on...

The paper briefly presents a methodology for mapping surface UV radiation that uses a radiative transfer model and satellite data to quantify the influencing factors. TOMS, TOVS and GOME data are used for the total column ozone. The cloud optical thickness is estimated using METEOSAT/MVIRI data. Other influencing factors taken into account include tropospheric aerosols, snow cover and surface e...

A recent study reported a significant increase in teenage suicides after television newscasts about suicide in the period 1973-1979 and suggested that the increase might have resulted from an imitative effect of television. In the present study, the authors found no significant association between newscasts and subsequent teenage suicides over the period 1973-1984. Although teenage suicides inc...

The Department of the Navyimplemented its present mandatory bird-aircraft strike reporting system in 1981. Reported bird-aircraft strikes have increased each year, presumably due to increased awareness and compliance with regulations. Four Naval air stations implementing birdaircraft strike hazard reduction programs in 1984 reported 57-78% fewer strikes in 1984 than in 1983.

The monthly mean shortwave (SW) radiation budget at the Earth’s surface (SRB) was computed on 2.5degree longitude-latitude resolution for the 17-year period from 1984 to 2000, using a radiative transfer model accounting for the key physical parameters that determine the surface SRB, and long-term climatological data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCPD2). The model...

Practice can dramatically reduce dual-task interference, but typically does not eliminate interference entirely. Residual interference after practice is especially large with certain non-preferred modality pairings (e.g., auditory-manual and visual-vocal). Does this residual interference imply the existence of a persistent central-processing bottleneck? To address this question, we transferred ...

In this research, the controversial issue of whether the central bottleneck can be bypassed through task automatization was investigated. To examine this issue, participants received six single-task practice sessions with an auditory-vocal task (low vs. high pitch). We then assessed dual-task performance using the analytically tractable psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm, in which t...

The authors examined the role of online order control in the psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm. In the first 2 experiments, participants switched between color-letter and letter-color orders so that subtask order was isolated as the only element being switched. The results indicated that order switching impaired the 2 PRP responses and modulated the PRP effect. Importantly, these e...