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SMED is short for Swedish Environmental Emissions Data, which is a collaboration between IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, SCB Statistics Sweden, SLU Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and SMHI Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. This study has examined noise exposure on a national scale for Sweden by calculating road and rail noise for the entire country. Calculations have been made according to the Nordic Prediction Method for both road and rail. For aviation noise, data is extracted directly from Swedavias yearly noise report with addition of military flights. Because of the large scale of noise mapping, several simplifications have been made in both data and calculations. For validation, the national noise mapping has been compared to noise data reported to EU via the Environmental Noise Directive (END), indicating a ratio of 0.4-1.5 compared to END data for road in intervals between 52.5 and >72.5 dBa and 1-1.8 for rail for the intervals between 49 and >69 dBA. Since 1998, the Environmental Protection Agency has produced national noise analysis, similar to this one for the years; 1992 (Wittmark, 1992), 1995 (Wittmark, 1997), 2000 (Ingemansson Technology AB , 2002), 2006 (WSP Akustik, 2009), 2011 (SWECO, 2014). Even though the task and method for these previous reports were similar, there are many differences. Therefor a trend analysis is not feasible. There are many aspects that could improve accuracy for future national mapping such as including definition of hard and soft ground effect due to different ground types, estimation of exposure point height using building geometries. Most likely the most important change is to include buildings and noise barriers effects on noise.

Social triad—a group of three people—is one of the simplest and most fundamental social groups, which serves as the basis of social network analysis. Triadic closure, a closing process of an open triad, is a useful principle and model to understand and predict network evolution and community growth, which has been widely used in web mining and solving social issues like political movements, professional organizations and religious denominations. Extensive network and social theories have been developed to understand the triadic structure, for example, triadic closure facilitates cooperative behavior and "friend of my friends are my friends". However, over the course of a triadic closure—the transition from open triads to closed triads are much less well understood. Furthermore, the interaction dynamics in networks, particularly in a triad is still unclear. In order to fill the gap in triadic closure studies, in this thesis, we trace the whole process during and after triadic closure. Starting from open triads, we study the problem of group formation in online social networks and try to understand how closed triads are formed from open triads in dynamic networks. Secondly, we focus on triadic closure's influence on networks, especially its influence on tie strength dynamics of social relations. We investigate whether the new established third link will affect the tie strength dynamics of open triads after triadic closure. Employing a large microblogging network as the source in our study, we first focus on open triads closing process. By investigating the impact of different factors from three aspects: user demographics, network characteristics, and social perspectives, we find some interesting phenomena including: male, celebrity and gregarious users are more inclined to closing triads; structural hole spanners are eager to close open triads for more social resources, but they are also reluctant to have two disconnected friends to be linked together. Then, we examine triadic closure and its influence – tie strength dynamics of triads after closure, especially whether and how the formation of the third tie among three users in a triad affects the strengths of the existing two ties using two dynamic networks from Weibo and mobile communication. We find that the closure of 80% social triads weakens the strength of the first two ties. Surprisingly, we discover that although males are easier to get closed, the decrease in tie strength among three males is more sharp than that among females, and celebrities are more willing to form triadic closure. However, the tie strengths between celebrities are more likely to be weakened as the closure of a triad than those between ordinary people. We also demonstrate that while strong ties result in weakened relationships in open triads, they can promote the stronger ties in closed social triads. Further, we formalize a prediction problem to predict triadic closure. We propose a probabilistic graphical method to solve the triadic closure prediction problem by incorporating user demographics, network topology, and social information. With better instantiating attribute factors, we also extended our model with kernel density estimates. Unlike triadic closure prediction, the prediction for triadic tie strength dynamics is far more complicated when time dynamics is took into account. We further propose a dynamic probabilistic graphical to solve the problem of triadic tie strength dynamics prediction with the consideration of user demographics and temporal as well as structural correlations. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed model offers a greater predictability for both prediction tasks. We demonstrate that our methodology offers a better-than-82% potential predictability for inferring the dynamics status of social triads in both networks, and the leveraging of the kernel density estimate together with structural correlations enables our models to outperform baselines by up to 30% in terms of F1-score. The triadic closure and its influence studied in this thesis will be a good guide to practical applications, like friend recommendation and new friend invitation for online microblogging services.

Essentials of Personnel Assessment and Selection discusses the essentials that managers and other well-educated people should know about the assessment processes so widely used in contemporary society--and so widely not understood. It emphasizes that good prediction requires well-formed hypotheses about personal characteristics that may be related to valued behavior at work and the need for developing a theory of the attribute one hypothesizes as a predictor--a thought process too often missing from work on selection procedures. In addition, it explores such topics as team-member select.

This chapter examines the social dynamics of projections about the outcomes and implications of the repeated elections in Israel. Based on a combination of a panel survey and focus groups, we analyze citizens' evolving predictions regarding the expected largest party, the next prime minister, the coalition composition, and the future of Israel more generally. Introducing a conceptual framework that breaks political projections into several constituent elements, we study what probabilities and evaluations people assign to their predictions, how they explain them, and what their implications are for political participation. We show that despite the deepening political crisis, Israeli citizens' political optimism did not decrease during the three 2019–2020 election campaigns. Furthermore, we find an important link between intention to vote and the expected level of happiness about the predicted outcomes. Based on these findings, we argue that persistent optimism is one explanation for the higher voter turnout in each round of elections. In the epilogue we consider additional insights from the 2021 election, which saw a reversal in voters' growing optimism and turnout, but which eventually fulfilled hopes of the anti-Netanyahu camp for political change.

Cover -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Overview of the Book's Theory -- Contributions to Literature and Implications -- Methodology and Inference -- Plan of the Book -- Chapter 2. Two Paths to Democratization -- Defining Democracy -- Defining the Paths -- Theory: No Disruption, No Democracy -- A Two-Step Theory: Disruption and Democratization -- Chapter 3. Domestic Shocks -- Coups -- Civil Wars -- Assassinations -- Chapter 4. International Shocks -- Defeat in Foreign War -- Withdrawal of an Autocratic Hegemon -- Chapter 5. Electoral Continuity -- Background -- Electoral Continuity Cases -- Path to Democratization -- Electoral Confidence and Democratization -- Chapter 6. Other Autocracies -- Outlier Transitions -- Negative Cases: Patterns of Non-Democratization -- Chapter 7. Direct Effects of the Paths -- Predictions -- Empirical Setup -- Empirical Results -- Chapter 8. Mediated Effects of the Paths -- Predictions -- Mediation, Moderation, and Democratization -- The Paths, Pro-Democratic Activity, and Democratization -- Structural Factors and Democratization: A New Empirical Framework -- The Paths' Predictive Power -- Chapter 9. The Paths and Democratic Survival -- Legacies of Transition: Democratic Survival and Quality -- Empirical Results -- Chapter 10. Conclusion -- Theoretical Contributions -- Implications -- The Future of Democracy -- Appendix -- List of Democratic Transitions by Paths -- Coding Details -- Case Narratives -- Citations -- Index.

"Since 1980, the number of climate-related disasters has been greatly increased globally. Scientific consensus based on the IPCC fifth report suggested that global warming would bring more intense and frequent extreme climate events. These climate-related disasters hinder the achievement of sustainable economic growth and prosperity by disrupting supply chains, impeding production, destroying infrastructure, and necessitating high-cost rebuilding and recovery. To mitigate the climate extreme risks and possible losses, it is essential to maximize the utilization of scientific outputs and to share best practices in disaster risk management. Aligned with such purposes, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Climate Center (APCC) hosts the APEC Climate Symposium (APCS) every year. APCS focused on drought prediction and management in 2013, climate extremes and hydrological disaster in 2014, and efficient use of climate information for disaster risk management in 2015. This book aims to compile some of the important results from the latest research in climate extreme prediction and services and its application studies with a focus on climate extremes such as typhoons, droughts, and floods based on the APCS presentations during 2013–2015."--

Leland Faust unmasks Wall Street's unsavory tactics in powerful detail by giving readers a high-level view of how the financial services industry misleads them, overcharges them, and exposes them to needless risk. He documents the financial industry's alluring come-ons, airbrushed risks, high-stakes gambling, half-truths, misleading statements, outlandish predictions, tricks to overcharge customers, bad deals, and outright fraud by the most prominent and renowned of Wall Street's players. A Capitalist's Lament is about what happens when financial firms and their employees forget whose interest they are supposed to protect. It shows how making foolish or wrong predictions is of no consequence to those who make them and how Wall Street luminaries with poor track records still garner celebrity status. Most of all, it spotlights how Wall Street manipulates the system and furthers its own interests at its customers' expense and puts us all at great risk. Here is what you need to know to protect yourself from "business as usual" and get ahead-instead of getting taken

"Despite its popular association today with magic, astrology was once a complex and sophisticated practice, grounded in technical training provided by a university education. The Crown and the Cosmos examines the complex ways that political practice and astrological discourse interacted at the Habsburg court, a key center of political and cultural power in early modern Europe. Like other monarchs, Maximilian I used astrology to help guide political actions, turning to astrologers and their predictions to find the most propitious times to sign treaties or arrange marriage contracts. Perhaps more significantly, the emperor employed astrology as a political tool to gain support for his reforms and to reinforce his own legitimacy as well as that of the Habsburg dynasty. Darin Hayton analyzes the various rhetorical tools astrologers used to argue for the nobility, antiquity, and utility of their discipline, and how they strove to justify their 'science' on the grounds that through its rigorous interpretation of the natural world, astrology could offer more reliable predictions. This book draws on extensive printed and manuscript sources from archives across northern and central Europe, including Poland, Germany, France, and England"--

"The onset of the 2004 EU enlargement witnessed a number of predictions being made about the approaches, capacity and ability of Central European judges who were soon to join the Union. Optimistic voices, foreshadowing the deep transformative power that Europe was bound to exercise with respect to the judicial mentality and practice in the new Member States, were intertwined with gloomy pictures of post-Communist limited formalism and mechanical jurisprudence that could not be reformed, which were likely to undermine the very foundations of mutual trust and recognition the judicial system of the Union is built upon. Ten years later, this volume revisits these predictions and critically assesses the evolution of Central European judicial mentality, institutions, and constitutionality under the influence of the EU membership. Comparatively evaluating the situation in a number of Central European Member States in their socio-legal contexts, notably Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, the volume offers unique insights into the process of (non)Europeanisation of national legal systems and cultures."--Bloomsbury Publishing

The monograph covers the fundamentals and the consequences of extreme geophysical phenomena like asteroid impacts, climatic change, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, flooding, and space weather. This monograph also addresses their associated, local and worldwide socio-economic impacts. The understanding and modeling of these phenomena is critical to the development of timely worldwide strategies for the prediction of natural and anthropogenic extreme events, in order to mitigate their adverse consequences. This monograph is unique in as much as it is dedicated to recent theoretical, numerical and empirical developments that aim to improve: (i) the understanding, modeling and prediction of extreme events in the geosciences, and, (ii) the quantitative evaluation of their economic consequences. The emphasis is on coupled, integrative assessment of the physical phenomena and their socio-economic impacts. With its overarching theme, Extreme Events: Observations, Modeling and Economics will be relevant to and become an important tool for researchers and practitioners in the fields of hazard and risk analysis in general, as well as to those with a special interest in climate change, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, seismo-tectonics, hydrology, and space weather.

Intro -- CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN PUBLIC HEALTH IN NORTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST -- Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION -- Chapter 1: CHARACTERISTICS OF DIABETES EPIDEMIC IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA AND OTHER MUSLIM COUNTRIES -- ABSTRACT -- INTRODUCTION -- RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS -- RESULTS -- DISCUSSION -- CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- Chapter 2: PRIMARY PREVENTION OF DIABETES IN NORTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST REGION: AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE -- ABSTRACT -- INTRODUCTION -- METHOD -- RESULTS -- DISCUSSION -- CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- Chapter 3: HEPATITIS B AND C IN REFUGEES FROM NORTHEAST AFRICA: THE NEED FOR SCREENING -- ABSTRACT -- BACKGROUND -- DISCUSSION -- CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- Chapter 4: PREDICTION OF TOTAL WATER REQUIREMENTS FOR AGRICULTURE IN THE ARAB WORLD UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE -- ABSTRACT -- INTRODUCTION -- MATERIALS AND METHODS -- PREDICTION OF TOTAL WATER REQUIREMENTS FOR AGRICULTURE UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE -- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION -- CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- Chapter 5: ROLE OF INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT AND PREVENTION IN COMBAT AGAINST HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA: OPPORTUNITIES BEING LOST -- ABSTRACT -- INTRODUCTION -- METHODS -- DISCUSSION -- PREVENTION -- CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- Chapter 6: A COMPARISON OF THE EGYPTIAN PUBLIC'S RANKINGS OF KEY PUBLIC HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES BY OCCUPATION AND BY GENDER -- ABSTRACT -- INTRODUCTION -- METHOD -- RESULTS -- DISCUSSION -- LIMITATIONS -- REFERENCES -- EDITORS' CONTACT INFORMATION -- INDEX.

"The Limits to Growth" (Meadows, 1972) generated unprecedented controversy with its predictions of the eventual collapse of the world's economies. First hailed as a great advance in science, 'The Limits to Growth' was subsequently rejected and demonized. However, with many national economies now at risk and global peak oil apparently a reality, the methods, scenarios, and predictions of 'The Limits to Growth' are in great need of reappraisal. In The Limits to Growth Revisited, Ugo Bardi examines both the science and the polemics surrounding this work, and in particular the reactions of economists that marginalized its methods and conclusions for more than 30 years. 'The Limits to Growth' was a milestone in attempts to model the future of our society, and it is vital today for both scientists and policy makers to understand its scientific basis, current relevance, and the social and political mechanisms that led to its rejection. Bardi also addresses the all-important question of whether the methods and approaches of 'The Limits to Growth' can contribute to an understanding of what happened to the global economy in the Great Recession and where we are headed from there.

Exploring nonlinear dynamics with a spreadsheet : a graphical view of chaos for beginners / L. Douglas Kiel and Euel Elliott -- Probing the underlying structure in dynamical systems : an introduction to spectral analysis / Michael McBurnett -- Measuring chaos using the Lyapunov exponent / Thad A. Brown -- The prediction test for nonlinear determinism / Ted Jaditz -- From individuals to groups : the aggregation of votes and chaotic dynamics / Diana Richards -- Nonlinear politics / Thad A. Brown -- The prediction of unpredictability : applications of the new paradigm of chaos in dynamical systems to the old problem of the stability of a system of hostile nations / Alvin M. Saperstein -- Complexity in the evolution of public opinion / Michael McBurnett -- Chaos theory and rationality in economics / J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. -- Long waves 1790-1990 : intermittency, chaos, and control / Brian J.L. Berry and Heja Kim -- Cities as spatial choatic attractors / Dimitrios S. Dendrinos -- Field-theoretic framework for the interpretation of the evolution, instability, structural change, and management of complex systems / Kenyon B. De Greene -- Social science as the study of complex systems / David L. Harvey and Michael Reed

Introduction: Plan of attack -- PART I. GREAT DECISION OR GREAT ILLUSION: International law and the use of force -- Outlawing the mob: international law and the use of force prior to 1918 -- Renouncing luxury: international law and the use of force in the interwar years -- Where there's a will: international law and the use of force during the Cold War -- PART II. FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY: the use of force for humanitarian reasons --The snail and the slug: the protection of nationals abroad -- From dawn to dusk: humanitarian intervention -- The uninvited guest: intervention in failed states -- PART III. FOR THE GOOD OF THE STATE: the use of force for individual and collective self-defence -- Bolt from the blue: the pre-emptive use of force -- The remains of the reign: the use of force to counter terrorism -- The (un)usual suspects: the use of force against rogue states -- PART IV. PATTERNS, PREDICTION AND PREVENTION: developments in the contemporary international system -- Patterns, prediction and prevention: the development of armed conflict -- The state of play: developments in the contemporary international system -- CONCLUSION: The road (not) taken

"China's trade pattern is influenced not just by its overall comparative advantage in labor intensive goods but also by geography. We use two variants of the Eaton-Kortum (2002) model to study China's local comparative advantage. The theory predicts that China's share of export markets should grow most rapidly where China's share is initially large. A corollary is that exporters that have a big market share where China's share is initially large should see the largest fall in their market shares. These market share change predictions are strongly supported in the data from 1996 to 2006. We also show theoretically that since trade costs are proportional to weight rather than value, relative distance affects local comparative advantage as well as the overall volume of trade. The model predicts that China has a comparative advantage in heavy goods in nearby markets, and lighter goods in more distant markets. This theory motivates a simple empirical prediction: within a product, China's export unit values should be increasing in distance. We find strong support for this effect in our empirical analysis on product-level Chinese exports in 2006"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site