Hail Research Articles

Effect of PGRs on reduction of fruit drop in mango cv. MALLIKA

Fruit drop has emerged as a major problem in almost all cultivars of mango. It is mainly due to heavy competition among growing fruits but may also be attributed to weather stress during development of fruits, deficient nutrition, windy location, hail storms, cloudy weather and attack of insect pests. Mallika mainly grown in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Gujarat is also highly vulnerable to fruit drop. In a study conducted at Horticultural Research Farm of BA College of Agriculture, Anand Agricultural University, Anand, India, in the Kharif season of year 2011, influence of plant growth regulators (PGRs) like GA-3, NAA and 2, 4-D was tested on fruit retention in Mallika Mango. Maximum fruit retention was observed in treatment NAA@ 20mg/l followed by GA-3 at 25 mg/l.

Lopsided hail hits harder

Lopsided hail hits harder

Sex differences in human greeting behaviors in waiting and meeting situations: a field study in Japan.

In this study, I observed the greeting behaviors of 3,008 people or 1,504 dyads while they were waiting for and meeting another person at a station in Japan. I recorded human greeting behaviors and evaluated the factors that influenced them. I classified the greeting behaviors as body contact, wave, hail or bow. At least one of these four behaviors was observed in 43.4% of all. The greeting behaviors occurred more frequently in the person that arrived the second at the waiting location than in the first. Sex differences in greeting behaviors were also observed. For example, females waved their hands most frequently whereas males raised their hands to hail most frequently. Similarly, the greeting behaviors differed according to the sex patterns of the actors and the recipients. These findings suggest the possibility that relationship differences among male same-sex pairs, female same-sex pairs and opposite-sex pairs create sex differences in greeting behaviors like nonhuman animals.

Biological ice nucleation initiates hailstone formation

AbstractCloud condensation and ice nuclei in the troposphere are required precursors to cloud and precipitation formation, both of which influence the radiative balance of Earth. The initial stage of hailstone formation (i.e., the embryo) and the subsequent layered growth allow hail to be used as a model for the study of nucleation processes in precipitation. By virtue of the preserved particle and isotopic record captured by hailstones, they represent a unique form of precipitation that allows direct characterization of the particles present during atmospheric ice nucleation. Despite the ecological and economic consequences of hail storms, the dynamics of hailstone nucleation, and thus their formation, are not well understood. Our experiments show that hailstone embryos from three Rocky Mountain storms contained biological ice nuclei capable of freezing water at warm, subzero (°C) temperatures, indicating that biological particles can act as nucleation sites for hailstone formation. These results are corroborated by analysis of δD and δ18O from melted hailstone embryos, which show that the hailstones formed at similarly warm temperatures in situ. Low densities of ice nucleation active abiotic particles were also present in hailstone embryos, but their low concentration indicates they were not likely to have catalyzed ice formation at the warm temperatures determined from water stable isotope analysis. Our study provides new data on ice nucleation occurring at the bottom of clouds, an atmospheric region whose processes are critical to global climate models but which has challenged instrument‐based measurements.

Justice, sustainability, and participation

Vice Chancellor, dear friends, thank you for coming.Before I start, I would like offer my appreciations. I am honoured by the University and the School by my professorship. I am grateful to the School of Management for providing a home where I have been able to develop my thinking and educational practice. Diversity is a mark and a healthy ecosystem, and I think it is part of our strength that we provide space for those who want to think about questions of justice, sustainability, and participation as well as about profit and globalisation. I am also slightly overwhelmed by the kindness I have received.Justice, sustainability and participation are three huge words. When I was asked for a title for this lecture I chose them quite easily as representing the themes of my work. As I have attempted to craft them into a lecture for this diverse audience I have found out how complex they are. I want to talk about the state of our world and the way our mind frames and understands that world. Let me start with a story.Recently I went on a Buddhist meditation retreat in the Chinese Ch'an tradition. On this retreat, in addition to the usual meditation practice to calm and quieten our minds, we were invited to work with a koan. Ko ans, I learned, are short stories, usually of a paradoxical nature, that the trainee is invited to hold in the mind. Since the koan is essentially paradoxical, the point is not to solve it but to allow insights to arise as one watches the mind work with the koan. In the end, it is hoped, the paradox is cut through...The koan I worked with goes like this:It was a hot, summer day, the windows and verandahs of the Ch'an hall were open to the surrounding lawns and trees. The Master climbed the pulpit and raised his fly whisk (hossu) to indicate he was about to give his sermon. At that moment a bird began to sing in the garden. The Master stood with his hossu motionless. The bird went on singing. Eventually the song ceased. The Master lowered his hossu. He said, 'Oh monks: that will be all for today,' and returned to his room.This really is an everyday story of monastery life, but it has resonances in our own everyday culture. We are all from time to time startled from our everyday preoccupations by the sound of birdsong, by the sound of raindrops, or by the silence of snow. On Monday I was arrested, so to speak, by the sound of the hailstorm on the railway station roof. So what is this story about?I sat in meditation with this story for seven days.My first line of inquiry, which is linked to my theme of sustainability, is that the koan tells us that we can leam more from the more than human world than from the wise words of the Masters. Christ told us to 'consider the lilies of the field'. Meister Eckhart in the Christian Mystic tradition tells us that every creature is a word of God and a book about God (Fox, 1983, p. 14). The Sufi poet Hafiz wrote (Hafiz, 1999, p. 269), 'every being is God speaking... why not be polite and listen to him?But what is the birdsong saying to us and how are we to listen? Let's go a little deeperThe koan reminds me that today we have very little (consciously) to do with the other than human: we live with other humans, with our own humanmade technologies, with a human-made countryside. We can scarcely see the stars. This is a precarious situation, for 'We need that which is other than ourselves and our own creations... we are human only in contact, and conviviality, with that which is not human' (Abram, 1996, p. ix). And songbirds are in catastrophic decline, so this sweet story both masks and points toward the tragedy of the current loss of species. We must, I thought, leam to listen to the wild. But the bird is not in the wild, it is singing in a cultivated garden; and is heard through the windows and verandahs of the Ch'an hall by monks waiting to hear a sermon. How can we hear the wild if its voice is so radically filtered through our own frames and perspectives: through the 'windows of my mind', as Simon and Garfunkel put it. …

Pre-mature fruit drop and coffee production in India: a review

Coffee is a stimulating beverage crop and finds second place after petroleum products in the world trade. There are many species of coffee but only two species, Coffea arabica and C. canephora popularly called as arabica and, robusta coffees are commercially cultivated. The pre-mature fruit drop of 6–10 % occurs during early stage of berry growth and development in June–July, which is a common phenomenon due to various reasons irrespective of the crop season. However, certain pre-disposing factors such as wet feet condition due to excess rain fall coupled with cool ambient temperature, high relative humidity, cloudy weather and inadequate drainage leading to soil saturation and water logging, improper handling of bushes facilitating the secondary infection of stalk rot and black rot increases the pre-mature fruit drop. In general, fruit drop in coffee is not common at maturity/ripening stage unless the winter period that coincides with ripening stage experience heavy rain fall and hail storms leading to splitting and dropping of ripened fruits. Physiological pre-mature fruit drop under ‘Wet feet’ conditions, is associated with reduction in endogenous levels of cytokinins coupled with high content of abscisic acid (ABA) and reduction in carbohydrate reserve and nutrients. The competition among the different-sized developing berries for carbohydrate reserves causes’ additional drop of pre-mature berries. Plants bearing high number of berries are also vulnerable for high percentage of fruit drop due to competition among the developing berries for carbohydrate reserves and nutrients. Systematic studies have revealed that physiological intervention by use of plant growth regulators, coupled with adoption of good agronomic practices, reduces pre-mature fruit drop and defoliation, and enhance cropping wood for subsequent year, resulting in increase in crop yield by 12–20 %. Here we have reviewed physiology aspects associated with pre-mature fruit drop, pre disposing factors for defoliation and pre-mature fruit drop, use of plant growth regulators to minimize the losses and role of recommended cultivation practices for realizing yield potential.

Spatial analysis of hail and its suppression methods (Case Study: East-Azerbaijan Province, Iran)

Atmospheric hazards are considered as the mainenvironmental hazards, which threaten plants, animals and human communities. Hailing is one of these hazards which cause a lot of damages to differentactivities, especially agriculture, transportation, economy and so on in theworld. East Azerbaijan is one of the main areas of these activities in Iran. Inthis paper to study the time and place of occurring of hail in East Azerbaijanprovince, the data are collected from 10 synoptic stations in a span of 10year-time (2001-2010). For presenting the diagrams Excel software and forzoning GIS software were used. The results of this study show that the mostproportion of hailing is related to Marand St. with 10 times falling, and theleast one is related to Jolfa St. with only one time falling of hail. Thisissue is clearly observable in zoning map of the province. Time survey forhailing showed that the most rate of hail falling is occurring in April whichis 23 times and the least one is related to September which is only one time.In the circular diagram for seasonal falling it is considered that the mostrate of hailing is in the spring which is 49 times and the least one is in thesummer which is 8 times. In the rest of this study the principles andfundamentals of decreasing hail is discussed and methods of decreasing damagesand hail suppression is studied.

Science-Policy Interface for Disaster Risk Management in India: Toward an Enabling Environment

The 2013 Uttarakhand floods highlighted the enormous challenges faced by disaster risk management organizations and actors who had to deal with it on a real-time basis. Unusual and extreme rainfalls accompanied by a series of cloudbursts triggered the flooding. In recent times there has been a significant increase in the quantum of scientific research on such weather- and climate-related extremes in some of the most vulnerable regions in India. Although the role of science and research has been adequately recognized and included in India's national development policies and programmes, including the Disaster Management Policy (2009), integration of this accumulating scientific and research evidence into disaster management policies, planning, and practices in the country has been limited. Uttarakhand floods were followed by Cyclone Phailin (2013), and the untimely hailstorms in central India (March 2014). The resulting challenges for the country and its policy makers are complex and gigantic. It is under these emerging circumstances of complexities that the urgency for proactive and effective science-policy interface is discussed. Building on the existing institutional and policy opportunities in India, an enabling environment to facilitate such science- policy interface for disaster risk management is suggested. We discuss collaboration, co-production, coherence, and continuity as some of the organizing principles of this enabling environment.

Convective Storm Vulnerability: Quantifying the Role of Effective and Well-Enforced Building Codes in Minimizing Missouri Hail Property Damage

Implementing strong building codes is touted as a way to reduce natural disaster property damages. However, at the local level not all jurisdictions adopt equally stringent codes nor properly enforce their codes once they have been adopted. We empirically test whether zip code jurisdictions with effective and well-enforced building codes demonstrate better loss experience from the occurrence of a hail storm than those without. We model Missouri hail claim insurance data from 2008 to 2010. Our results consistently indicate that more favorable building codes do in fact matter in reducing hail damage on the order of 10% to 20%.

Inside John Haynie's Studio: A Master Teacher's Lessons on Trumpet and Life

“This wonderful collection of essays is a treasure of insight into the mind and heart of one of our great American performers and teachers. If the Arban book is the trumpet player’s ‘Bible,’ then I’d have to say Inside John Haynie’s Studio is the trumpet teacher’s ‘Bible.’”–Ronald Romm, founder, Canadian Brass and Professor of Trumpet, University of Illinois “The essays in this remarkable volume go far beyond trumpet pedagogy, providing an exquisite portrait of the studio practices of one of the first full-time single-instrument wind faculty members in an American college or university setting. John’s concern for educating the whole person, not just cramming for the job market, emanates from every page. This book showcases a teaching career that has become legendary.”–James Scott, Dean of the College of Music, University of North Texas “The principle that pervades my entire educational philosophy did not come from education or psychology classes; it did not come from the many sermons preached by my Dad and hundreds of other pulpiteers. It came from John Haynie’s studio.”–Douglas Smith, Mildred and Ernest Hogan Professor of Music, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary “I read a book like this and I come out the other end asking, ‘Why didn’t I try this long before now?’ All hail to John Haynie and Anne Hardin.”– Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451

The nervous conditions of neo-liberated HE students

It is election year 2014. To the newly liberated a higher education (HE) qualification in 1994 represented both a means to a prosperous end, and a hope-filled end in itself. Whichever party manages to achieve political victory two decades later, the current South African HE situation remains one that requires critical thought and accurately applied resources from both victors and others, because in failed HE there can be no victors. HE fails when an abnormally high number of students either fail or withdraw prematurely and involuntarily for financial or other reasons. This article aims to redefine the higher education mainstream by presenting a window into the hope-taken, hope-lost, hope-deprived and hope-terminated realities inhabiting the real-life situations of a particular body of tertiary students; their nervous condition. The majority of black (by inclusive definition)students of transforming HE institutions hail from a despairing socio-economic context. Desperation and deprivation define the neo-mainstream. Universities embarking on a hope-generating road are likely to terminate that same hope should they remain either ill-informed about, or non-sympathetic towards the real-life situations of their neo-mainstream students, and inaccurate in their support programmes. This article aims to inform. Keywords: higher education; throughput; mainstream; support; real-life situations; nervous conditions

Investigation of Bird Strike Phenomena on Shape Memory Alloy

Bird impact usually occurs during taking off or landing of flights. The aircraft structures should absorb impact energy generated due to ingested birds, ice balls or hail stone and hard body objects, etc. The paper deals with a sensitivity study of hydrodynamic bird models which is performed by numerical simulation. This is carried out by using the LS-Dyna code for impact of substitute bird on circular plate of Ni-Ti Shape Memory Alloy. The obtained results are compared with kinematic plastic materials.

ASSESSMENT OF AWARENESS TOWARDS SOME CARCINOGENS IN HAIL REGION, SAUDIA ARABIA

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge toward the use of some common chemical among Hail region population. METHODOLOGY: This is a cross-sectional survey in which data was collected from an area inhibited with 120,000 individuals. Of the 600 asked to participate, only 475/600(79.2%) subjects have completed the standard form. RESULTS: Of the 475 (79.2%), who responded to the question, whether they are currently smokers or alcohol consumers, 167/475(35.2%) or 46/475(9.7%) respectively, answered yes. Also 68/475 (14.2%) are used to eat fresh vegetable without washing. Regarding exposure to insecticides and other chemicals, 116/475(24.4%) and 245/475 (51.6%), were found with continuous exposure, in this order. CONCLUSION: The present study strongly hit the urgent need for cancer awareness programs and prevention strategies to reduce the exposure to carcinogenic chemicals. Keywords: carcinogenic chemicals, Smokers, alcoholic consumers, cancer awareness, Hail.

English

Diseases and pests are among the major constraints limiting maize productivity in the smallholder (SH) farming sector of sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives of this study were therefore, to determine how SH farmers perceive and cope with diseases and pests, identify with farmersother constraints to maize production. Data were collected from three villages of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province in South Africa using surveys and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methodology. Local maize varieties were further evaluated for disease resistance and grain yield potential at two locations in KZN. Cob rots, grey leaf spot (GLS), maize streak virus (MSV), northern leaf blight (NLB), phaeosphaeria leaf spot (PLS) and common rust were the main diseases identified by farmers, but their incidence was low and occurrence infrequent. More than 75% of the farmers did not control both insect pests and diseases, while the rest used chemicals or everyday household remedies for control. Stalk borers and cutworms were the most prevalent insect pests, where as drought, excessive rains, hail storms, and soil fertility were the most important abiotic constraints identified. Field trial results of local varieties indicated high yield potential and genetic variability for disease resistance to PLS, GLS, and NLB. These findings suggest that; if the main production constraints are addressed, farmers could realize high yields from their local varieties. Breeding opportunities, therefore, exist for incorporating resistance or tolerance to these stresses into the local varieties. Key words: Maize, diseases, pests, constraints, breeding, smallholder farmers.

A hail damaged Eastern Long-neck turtle: a case study

Veterinary practices may be presented with both captive and wild turtles that have sustained shell fractures caused by such things as road trauma and dog attacks. With the appropriate care these animals can be successfully treated. The initial nursing care provided to these patients can greatly affect their long-term survivability. This case report details the treatment of an Eastern Long-neck Turtle (Chelodina longicollis) that sustained a shell fracture after being struck by a large hail stone. It highlights the treatment required to initially stabilise the turtle, the options available to repair the shell fracture and the post-operative care needed for a successful outcome.

Lightning Applications in Weather and Climate Research

Thunderstorms, and lightning in particular, are a major natural hazard to the public, aviation, power companies, and wildfire managers. Lightning causes great damage and death every year but also tells us about the inner working of storms. Since lightning can be monitored from great distances from the storms themselves, lightning may allow us to provide early warnings for severe weather phenomena such as hail storms, flash floods, tornadoes, and even hurricanes. Lightning itself may impact the climate of the Earth by producing nitrogen oxides (NOx), a precursor of tropospheric ozone, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Thunderstorms themselves influence the climate system by the redistribution of heat, moisture, and momentum in the atmosphere. What about future changes in lightning and thunderstorm activity? Many studies show that higher surface temperatures produce more lightning, but future changes will depend on what happens to the vertical temperature profile in the troposphere, as well as changes in water balance, and even aerosol loading of the atmosphere. Finally, lightning itself may provide a useful tool for tracking climate change in the future, due to the nonlinear link between lightning, temperature, upper tropospheric water vapor, and cloud cover.

Role of Survey Department In Disaster Management In Nepal

The Himalayan Range is a young mountain system of the world and about 83% of the total area of Nepal is covered by high hills and mountains. Major river systems of Nepal originate from the glaciers and are perennial in nature. According to the preliminary results of the Census 2011, more than 50% of total population live in Terai and are vulnerable to flood. Since Nepal falls under the seismically active zone earthquake has been one of the major disasters experienced in the country. Fire, Glacier Lake Outburst Flood, lightening, hail storm are some other natural disaster claiming lives of Nepalese people. It is not possible to stop disasters, but the consolidated effort of different organization may make us better prepared to overcome the negative impacts of such disasters. This article tries to explore the role of Survey Department in this context.

Simulating Radar Observations of Precipitation at Higher Frequencies from Lower-Frequency Polarimetric Measurements

Abstract The translation of radar data from one frequency to another based on electromagnetic absorption and scattering models has been used to convert S-band measurements to higher frequencies, such as those within the X or Ku bands, in order to create realistic simulations. As the target frequency of simulations for weather radar increase to X band and above, the size of large raindrops and hail either approach or exceed the radar wavelength, resulting in a radar cross section that is no longer in the linear Rayleigh region. The Mie solution to scattering models is then required. With the advent of dual-polarization systems, a more complete characterization of the effect of precipitation on radar is possible in order to improve model effectiveness. However, typical curve- or surface-fitting methods still have limitations as particle size increases. A more robust solution is presented here in the form of a neural network that incorporates the nonlinear relationship among various polarimetric observation variables and the radar wavelength and look angle. Thus, high-frequency observations of a convective storm containing hail can be simulated using polarimetric ground radar measurements. Adequate polarimetric data from hail storms at high frequencies do not exist, however, so network outputs for this case can only be compared to theoretical observations. An application of the simulation procedure to characterize the effect of precipitation on spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) using ground observations is presented.

Corrigendum to "Analysis of hail damages and temperature series for peninsular Spain" published in Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 3415–3422, 2011

Corrigendum to "Analysis of hail damages and temperature series for peninsular Spain" published in Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 3415–3422, 2011

Why do tornados and hailstorms rest on weekends?

When anthropogenic aerosols over the eastern USA during summertime are at their weekly mid-week peak, tornado and hail storm activity there is also near its weekly maximum. The weekly cycle in storm activity is statistically significant and unlikely to be due to natural variability. The pattern of variability supports the hypothesis that air pollution aerosols invigorate deep convective clouds in a moist, unstable atmosphere, to the extent of inducing production of large hailstones and tornados. This is caused by the effect of aerosols on cloud-drop nucleation, making cloud drops smaller, delaying precipitation-forming processes and their evaporation, and hence affecting cloud dynamics.