198 July 1999
NATIONAL SURVEY OF SPEEDING Do you drive? Fast? Do you speed? Why do you speed? Are you aggressive? Do other drivers speed? Why would one speed? What are safe and unsafe speeds? Are the current speed limits too high, too low, or about right? What have you noticed about unsafe driving, risk and risk-taking drivers? How about unsafe drivers? Do you think the law enforcement officers are out to help or hinder traffic? Are they too tolerant with traffic law offenders? These questions have had no answers until now. In 1997, the First National Survey of Speeding was conducted by telephone during which 6000 of drivers age 16 and over were questioned. The result was a 3-volume final report dated September 15, 1998, which was sent to Federal Depository libraries in microfiche in May 1999 (TD 8.2:SP3/9/v.1-3). The National Survey of Speeding and Other Unsafe Driving Actions: V. 1- Methodology (72 pages); V. 2- Driver Attitudes and Behaviors (194 pages), and V. 3- Countermeasures (28 pages). The methodology and questionnaires, which are included, show the how and why of this survey. Volume 2 is most interesting because it contains the respondents' answers, which reflect how Americans see themselves and others as drivers. This report provides statistics about the aggressive, risk-taking speeders we see everyday. It also supports Dr. Clark R. Chapman's view that highway deaths are more likely than asteroid collisions (with Earth). There is 1 chance in 100 that one can die in a traffic accident; asteroid collisions are 1 in 20,000 ( http://www.boulder.swri.edu/clark/hr.html ). But, we all knew that!! Cars should have to have signage, as do the trucks: "How's my driving? Call [phone number]". Would you be willing to have such a message on your back bumper? Where do you fit into the above survey, even if you were not one of the 6000 drivers surveyed?
BASKETBALL 'S "IRONY" Basketball is a fun game which started with two peach baskets in a 1891 Springfield Massachusetts YMCA Training School and had several sets of rules until the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) standardized the rules in 1934. The growth and popularity of basketball is shown the common sight of basketball hoops in backyards; however, basketball's history has its blemishes such as the NCAA point-fixing scandals of the early 1950s. This fun sport has become America's "quintessential big-money game". Tickets to the NBA games are the costliest in sports, the rosters for each team is smaller than other sports (such as football and baseball), and the overhead is much less. Basketball games are played in buildings that cost much less to construct and maintain than football and baseball stadiums. Yet the ticket and television revenues are as high or higher than other major sports so that the owners have as much or more money to pay their relatively fewer players. These circumstances allow NBA salaries to now average $2.6 million, the highest in sports. Basketball is following the footsteps of baseball, football, and hockey in experiencing labor- management problems and conflicts about money. Who gets what amount, when, and why. Paul D. Staudohar brings out all the "grizzly" details of why and how the owners lost about $ 1 billion and the players lost about half that much in foregone salaries in "Labor relations in basketball: the lockout of 1998-99". This article in the Monthly Labor Review v. 122, no. 4, April 1999 pages 3-9 (L 2.6:122/4) shows us that in professional basketball the fun is gone. The question is no longer "how'd you play the game?" or "did you have fun?", but how much money will I make? …but, you knew that!
SCALING LAWS TEMPLATE OFLIFE MODEL FOR LIVING SYSTEMS What do trees, plants, mice, whales, and men have in common? They all live because they "are sustained by the transport of materials through a branching network." Vertebrate cardiovascular and respiratory systems, plant vascular systems, and insect tracheal tubes all represent transport systems in living organisms that can be studied, related, and compared. They all exhibit the same continuously branching structure that increases or decreases in scale as a power of body size. Geoffrey West, Jim Brown, and Brian Enquist have created a "quarter-power scaling" model as announced in Universal template of life modeled, an April 4, 1997 Los Alamos national Laboratory Press Release http://w10.lanl.gov:80/worldview/news/releases/archive/97-029.html . With the model, they hope to predict the structural and functional properties of the mammalian cardiovascular and respiratory systems. West, Brown, and Enquist gain new insights into all life by working on three basic principles: (1) a fractal branching network is universal in all living things, (2) all cells (in all living things) are the same size, and (3) living things minimize the energy required to transport resources through the branching networks. Their model, like the DNA double helix structure, can be the scale model for studying all the transport systems of living organisms with branching networks. This model is the found in the "Tree of Life" by Diane Banegas, Reflections v. 2, no. 7 July 1997 pages 6-7, & 10 which can be found as a pdf file at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Reflections website http://w10.lanl.gov:80/orgs/pa/Reflections/0797.pdf . For those "scientifically" oriented readers, Science v. 276, April 4, 1997, pages 9 ("Biological Scales"), 34 ("Fractal Geometry Gets the Measure of Life’s Scales), and 122-123 ("A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology" by Geoffrey B. West, James H. Brown, and Brian J. Enquist) will provide further discussion of universal biological scaling laws.
OLD NEWS ABOUT pH & SPOILED FOOD How often have you seen spoiled milk curdle in hot coffee or been shocked with its sour taste? When cottage cheese gets a sour vinegar taste, it is also starting to spoil. The flavor in foods is due to the hydrogen ion concentration in each of them. This hydrogen ion concentration is called the pH. The more hydrogen ions present, the more acid the food and the lower the pH the more the food is alkaline. On the pH scale from 0 to 14, car battery's acid has a pH of 0, and lemons with a pH of 1have many hydrogen ions. Acid will kill you and lemons are an acidic food, and taste sour. A cola soft drink has a pH of 2, pure water is neutral at 7, and milk of magnesia is a 10. Moving toward 14, an alkaline food product like milk of magnesia will have less hydrogen ions and will taste bitter. Caustic drain cleaner, which is not a food product, is at 14. Basically each food product is supposed to have a specific amount of hydrogen ions (to be safe for consumption and) to taste the way it should. Bad milk tastes sour, as does the vinegar taste of spoiled cottage cheese. Quality control in prepared or processed foods depends on the control of the pH level. Inadequate control of the pH can result in the undesired growth of bacteria and a health hazard to the consumer. pH Control--Why the Concern? (HE 20.4502:P84) is a two page 1980 FDA publication explaining why the commercial food processor wants to maintain the stability of the pH, preventing unwanted bacterial growth and food spoilage.
FIRE RISK: TO WHOM AND WHERE In 1995, 3,761 people died accidentally because of "fire and flames" according to Table 148. Deaths and Death Rates from Accidents, by type: 1980 to 1995 of the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1998. Fire statistical data found in the 1998 Statistical Abstract are limited to national data covering property losses, specific types of property and structure use. There are only national fire data about civilian injuries, deaths, and property loss provided by the National Fire Protection Association. In April 1998, the National Fire Data Center issued An NFIRS Analysis: Investigating City Characteristics and Residential Fire Rates (FEM 1.102:C49). The United States Fire Administration's National Fire incident Reporting System collects data from 27 cities and has the largest set of fire data in the United States. This report analyzes the relationship between the cities characteristics and their residential fire rates. This is 30 pages of fire data analysis covering 24 cities and 3 counties has 9 tables of data showing fires by cause for these cities and counties. The information for each city includes age, race, household income, (one-person and female-headed) householder data, poverty rate, and labor force information. The types of fire causes include arson, children playing, careless smoking, cooking, heating, electricity, appliances, open fires, natural, and exposure. The report is intended to identify and clarify the relationships between characteristics of people and places and fire risk.
DROUGHT AND HEAT FORECASTS VIA YOUR COMPUTER On August 11,1999, the Commerce Department announced ( http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s260.htm ) new initiatives for drought and heat forecasts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has created "NOAA's Drought Information Center" http://www.drought.noaa.gov which is a roundup of about thirty URL links to a network of other textual, data, graphic, and animated map web site pages. There is a "threats assessment" page maps of information/data/forecasts for 'temperature/wind, precipitation, soil/wildfire, and composite (of all 5). These are followed by texts of "long-range", "6-10 days", and "3-5 days" weather forecasts for varied parts of the United States http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/threats/ . You will find detailed textual information "All About Droughts" http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/drought.htm , an explanation of the Palmer Severity Drought Index, c http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/drought.htm and a weekly updated graphic of the Palmer Drought Severity Index for the entire nation and by region. This site includes the Crop Moisture Index, the Vegetation and Temperature Condition Index, a "Fire Potential" information page and "All About Heat Waves" http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/hwave.html which is the National Weather Service. This National Weather Service page is quite impressive in its scope and content as is this entire web site. This website has a caveat emptor: "This product is intended to provide emergency managers, planners, forecasters and the public advance notice of potential threats related to climate, weather and hydrologic events." Also..."these pages are best viewed with an HTML v3.5 (or higher) compliant browser. Some features may not work properly or at all with non-compliant browsers. Ed O'Lenic, and Jon Hoopingarner, the current editors and the contact people for this site, have e-mail addresses on the NOAA Drought Information Center's "threats assessment" page.
CENSUS BUILDING BLOCKS: MSA DEFINITIONS Did you ever see toddlers' reactions and creative activities when given a bag of building blocks of varied shapes and sizes? The blocks in which we live within each Metropolitan Statistical Area of the United States are the concern of the adults who makeup the Metropolitan Area Standards Review Committee. This is an interagency committee that has been reviewing the Standards that define Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas since 1995. These proposed standards are now available for public review. "Alternative Approaches to Defining Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas, Notice of intent to review the standards currently use to define metropolitan statistical areas and to propose standards for defining Nonmetropolitan areas following the 2000 census, Federal Register v. 63, no. 244 December 21, 1998 pages 70525-70561 is where the standards can be found. This Federal Register text covers seven major issues and has maps showing the examples and effects of the substantial changes, which are proposed. The new standards could result in new geographical area concepts such as micropolitan and mesopolitan (areas) in addition to metropolitan areas. The question of using some other geographical or social units as building blocks instead of the traditional city blocks as a census statistical foundation is introduced. There is a brief summary article "Revising Metropolitan Area Standards" in DTTP, Documents to the People, v. 27, no. 1, Spring 1999 page 7. It will be interesting to see what is built with these building blocks.
September 20, 1999
http://www.nku.edu/~yannarella/news9907.html