No.
238 November 2002
MUSEUM VISITS ANYWHERE? Your first
thought may be of a
Natural
History
Museum
full of fossilized
land and sea plants and animals. Yet, some museums house very old Mayan Indian
objects and also other artifacts which represent their city’s history during
World War II. However, there are other museums which house living creatures,
such as Aquariums. There is an
Aquarium in Newport, Kentucky
which house a varied
of ocean creatures. There are Museums “without walls” called Nature Centers,
such as the
Nature
Center
in
Cincinnati
Ohio.
A Nature Preserve of trees, plants, and animals intended for an
interactive education. There are
also Museums for Art, Coins, Trolley Cars, Music, Trains, Tobacco, baseball,
football, Sesame Street, etc. which can be found through a Internet search or The
Official Museum Directory. Many
cities have Botanical Gardens and Art Museums, and some have Planetariums where
you can learn about the stars. Nationally,
do you know about the Smithsonian Institution,
(http://www.si.edu) the American Museum
of Natural History in New York, (http://www.amnh.org/)
and the U.S. Botanical Garden?( http://www.usbg.gov/
)which will complement your local museum(s)? The third type (of museum) is a
specialized museum which stems from
America
’s interest in
sports, music, cars, airplanes, etc. Museums
& Learning: A Guide for Family Visits by Wilma Prudhum Greene issued in
April 1998 by the U.S. Dept. of Education (ED 1.308:M 97) is 29 pages of basic
information intended for children ages 4 to 12.
Museum’s Bibliography on pages 23-27 identifies museums,
information resource materials, and electronic sources of information about
museums. The paper version of Museums & Learning is available in some
depository libraries (ED 1.308:M97) and on the Dept. of Education web site (http://www.ed.gov/pubs/Museum/
). Ultimately, you can visit the
Museums in all the countries and find the complete List at the Museums Around
the World web site at http://icom.museum/vlmp/world.html
. This web site will accept your contribution of the identification of a
Museum it may not include.
STRESS
TESTS How well do you endure
any combination of these adverse weather conditions?
How much stress can your body endure? Your doctor can give you a stress
test. Likewise banks and financial
institutions will grow and thrive in good economic times, but during the
consistent dropping of the stock market as in 2002 and before the Stock Market
Break of 1987, and the Crash of 1929, financial institutions can experience
stress. How much stress can a financial institution endure can be determined
through a stress test.
For financial institutions, a stress test is a unique risk measurement
tool showing how well the institution will endure major fluctuations in stock
prices or how it stock-market crash will affect the profitability of its
portfolio at a specific point in time. The primary mission of the OFHEO (Office
of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight) is to guarantee the financial soundness
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our nations largest housing finance institutions,
so Stress tests were administered to FANNIE MAE and FREDDIE MAC. The tests
results were discussed by Congress in July 2002 and these enterprises, upon
which America’s home loan mortgage
system depends, were found to be very sound. (OFHEO Risk-Based Capital Stress
Test for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Hearing…
July 23, 2002
is the 55 page Hearing issued as Serial 107-79, which is found on the
Committee’s web site at http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/house03ch107.html
in html and pdf formats. “An International Survey of Stress Tests” by
Ingo Fender, Michael S. Gibson, and Patricia C. Mosser in Current Issues in
Economics and Finance, V. 7, No. 10, November, 2001, (15 pages) is found on
the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York
web site at http://www.newyorkfed.org/rmaghome/curr_iss/html/Civ7n10/Civ7n10.html
.
URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECT On warm summer days, the temperature in urban
areas can be 2 to 5 degrees warmer than that of surrounding rural areas. Dark
surface colors of buildings and pavement surfaces absorb the sun’s heat and
reradiate it as thermal infrared radiation increasing the temperature of the
surrounding air. Conversely, the
rural areas with trees, more vegetation, little concrete, and (land in) lighter
colors, do not absorb as much heat. Trees provide shade and even cool the air
through “evapotranspiration”. Many
urban areas are heat islands which require increasing amounts of electricity,
have smog, and cause human discomfort. Urban heat islands also provide the urban
dwellers with some social, economic, and health problems not found in the rural
population. Many cities are becoming
heat islands and some older heat islands are getting bigger because of urban
sprawl. Urban sprawl usually means a reduction in the tree population and more
dark pavement roads. Cooling Our
Communities, A Guidebook on Tree Planting and Light-Colored Surfacing,
issued in January 1992 (EP 1.8:C77) is 215 pages of information which is still
current and informative about the problems and solutions for urban heat islands,
a problem which dates back to the 1970’s. “Urban
Sprawl and Public Health” by Howard Frumkin, Public Health Reports , V.
117, No. 3, May/June 2002, pages 201-217 (HE 20.30:117/3) is 17 pages of
discussion updating the EPA text in terms of the current physical, psychological
health issues and problems of heat islands. The 1999 NASA discussion of “Heat
Islands” http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/urban/urban_heat_island.html
also provides a link to a recent EPA-NASA attempts to remedy the problem
of heat islands (“EPA-NASA Urban Heat Island Pilot Project” http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/uhipp/urban_uhipp.html).
ICE
Ice cubes which cool our drink(s) and glacier ice lies below the snow on the ski
slopes. How much do you know about
the (forms of) ice which covers much of Earth’s surface is more than cubes and
ski slopes? Glaciers are ice sheets which move down the side of the mountain,
and the biggest glacier ice sheets are found in
Greenland
and
Antarctica
. Smaller ice caps are
found in
Iceland,
Canada,
Alaska,
Patagonia, and the mountainous
regions of
Central Asia. Mountain
glaciers, smaller than ice sheets or ice caps, are found in mountain areas on
all continents except
Australia. Where the Antarctic
glacial ice sheet extends over the water as ice shelves or glacier tongues, a
floating ice mass may break away to become a (new) iceberg.
The Icebergs and Sea Ice, which is produced when the ocean water is
cooled below -2 (Degrees) C or 29 (Degrees) F, are the examples of floatable ice
which can be hazards for ocean-going vessels.
Introduction to Ice, issued in 2002 by NASA
is a one-sheet text and “illustration of ice in the natural
environment” which provides a brief and simple answer to the question: “What
is ice?” To view the biggest glacier sheets on
Greenland
and Antarctic and
determine if these ice sheets are growing or shrinking, NASA has created the
Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). NASA’s ICESat Satellite
which was launched into space on
January 12, 2003
. The ICESat mission
will measure ice sheet elevations, changes in elevation through time, height
profiles of clouds and aerosols, land elevations, and vegetation cover, and
approximate sea ice thickness. ICESat will, ultimately, enable scientists to
monitor the rising sea level and predict how the ice sheets and sea level will
respond to future climate change. More information about
NASA’s ICESat Mission as
found in Goddard Space Flight Center publication ICESat, Ice, Cloud, and land
Elevation Satellite, September, 2002 (FS-2002-9-047-GSFC) NAS 1.2:IC 2/2 can
be found at the ICESat website (http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov
).
HUNGER FOR ELECTRONIC ACCESS TO FOOD NUTRIENTS What are all the nutrients
in the food(s) you? What about the foods you don’t eat?
An apple, orange, ricotta cheese, pomegranate, nut, steak, lamb chop?
Until now, the answers would have come from: USDA Agriculture Handbook
No. 8, Composition of Foods; Raw, Processed, Prepared (A 1.76:8) and The
Nutritive Value of Foods, DATE,
2000 (A 1.77:72/2002). Now
the USDA tells us in the latter title that all food compositions questions are
found on the electronic USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (A
77.40:N95/(DATE) with PURL http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS4479
). Now go to a computer and type in http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/
for introductory background, search options and a link to the search
window. For a test run, typing
“cheese” into the search window (Search the USDA National Database for
Standard Reference) http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl
will result in the list of 201 cheeses/foods with cheese. Basic search
technique is (1) First search the food term to (2) get the list of item foods.
Then, (3) select one item to get a page of information about a 100 gram
sample/serving, and then (4) see a printed report of the values of the 100 gram
sample. At the 4th step, the two-page report can be printed off-line.
Sample, select ricotta whole milk cheese or your choice of the 201 selections
which includes raw, processed, and prepared (recipes) version of cheese. The
final result is a two-page printable table of
the quantities and qualitative nutrients values, of up to 117 nutrients
and food components, for the (100
gram serving of the) whole milk ricotta cheese. If you search for “apple”,
you find 142 items of apples/foods with apple and the end result is a two-page
table of the quantities and qualitative nutrient values for the apple content of
the (apple) food you select. There were 7 items under “walnut” and 85 for
“egg” and then a table of information for each food item.
This Food Composition database shows the kinds of cheese and
cheese/foods, all apples and forms of apple foods including apple juice.
Likewise a search for information for specific nuts, vegetables, meats, fish,
could result in an easy, quick, and up-to-date compilation of cheese, foods with
cheese, the varied ways of eating cheese, and the nutrient values for each
version of cheese. For further
satisfaction of your electronic appetite, go directly to the latest USDA Press
Release 15 USDA Food Composition Data which is found at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/index.html
, which tells us that this version of the database provides data for 6,220 foods
for up to117 nutrients and food components.
AMERICA’S
DRUG ABUSE/USE NEWS & CITIES COMPARED Illegal
drug use and abuse is a part of American life that it is the topic of daily
newspaper and television news items in cites in
all of the 50 states. The topics of
the news items relate to drug use indicators, drug arrests, drug related crime,
trafficking, drug seizures, marijuana plant eradication, drug related deaths,
law enforcement activities, drug treatment programs, etc. The collection of
these articles for a day would be the first step in a comparative study of the
drug abuse/use habits in America’s cities. The next
question would be the question of comparability of the as to quality, scope,
quantity, and objectivity of all these varied newspaper articles. There is
already some intercity and state drug use data available for research of this
type. A Drug abuse/use study
covering the 50 States, D.C.,
Puerto Rico,
Guam,
American Samoa,
Virgin Islands
, and the
Northern Mariana
Islands
is possible if you use
the State and City Drug Profiles compiled and issued by the Office of
National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). The
Population and income information included in these summary narrative reports
present the data which come from the Census Bureau, FBI, Justice Department,
SAMHSA, and other federal and State/local sources. These reports dating from
1999 through 2002, are pdf files found on ONDCP State and Local page at http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/statelocal/state_and_city_profiles.html
State and City Drug Profiles
currently lists city reports for almost 100 cities under the of their parent
jurisdiction(s).
Back
to Philip’s page
July
14, 2003, 2003
http://www.nku.edu/~yannarella/news0211.html