Historical Surge Research Articles

The recent rise in homicide: An analysis of weekly mortality data, United States, 2018-2022.

From 2019 to 2020, homicide showed its largest single-year increase in modern US history. While many have cited the COVID-19 pandemic or police killing of George Floyd as initiating the rise, there has been limited systematic investigation of how the timing of the increase corresponded with these key events. We investigated trends in firearm and non-firearm homicide across sociodemographic and geographic groups to clarify the timing and nature of the recent increase. We conducted a descriptive epidemiologic study using National Vital Statistics System weekly mortality data from January 2018 to December 2022, US. We seasonally adjusted and smoothed weekly firearm and non-firearm homicide data, quantifying changes in relation to key event dates for the COVID-19 pandemic, killing of George Floyd, and 2020 national election. We disaggregated trends by sociodemographic and geographic characteristics. Between January 2018 and December 2022, firearm homicide increased by 54% while non-firearm homicide was stable. The increase in firearm homicide started by October 2019 and stabilized by November 2020; 28% of the eventual increase had already occurred by the time COVID-19 was declared a national emergency. All sociodemographic and geographic groups experienced large recent increases in firearm homicide. The magnitude and timing of the recent increase in homicide has been previously understated and obscured by crude data and seasonal patterns. Existing theories, including the COVID-19 pandemic, fall short in explaining the historic surge, which is specific to firearm homicide, started in late 2019, and affected all persons and places across the US.

Establishing a Centralized Virtual Visit Support Team: Early Insights.

With the removal of many barriers to direct-to-consumer telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in a historic surge in the adoption of telehealth into ongoing practice, health systems must now identify the most efficient and effective way to sustain these visits. The Medical University of South Carolina Center for Telehealth developed a Telehealth Centralized Support team as part of a strategy to mature the support infrastructure for the continued large-scale use of outpatient virtual care. The team was deployed as the Center for Telehealth rolled out a new ambulatory telehealth software platform to monitor clinical activity, support patient registration and virtual rooming, and ensure successful visit completion. A multi-method, program-evaluation approach was used to describe the development and composition of the Telehealth Centralized Support Team in its first 18 months utilizing the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance framework. In the first 18 months of the Telehealth Centralized Support team, over 75,000 visits were scheduled, with over 1500 providers serving over 46,000 unique patients. The team was successfully deployed over a large part of the clinical enterprise and has been well received across the health system. It has proven to be a scalable model to support enterprise-level virtual health care delivery. While further research is needed to evaluate the long-term program outcomes, the results of its early implementation suggest great promise for improved telehealth patient and provider satisfaction, the more equitable delivery of virtual services, and more cost-effective means for supporting virtual care.

Pharmacovigilance des médicaments et des vaccins contre la COVID-19 durant la pandémie : comment le Réseau français des centres régionaux de pharmacovigilance a relevé le défi ?

The pandemic subsequent to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus resulted, for the French institutional pharmacovigilance, in a "health crisis" in 2 phases: the coronavirus disease 2019-"COVID-19" phase during which the missions of the Regional Pharmacovigilance Centres (RPVC) were to detect a possible impact of drugs on this disease, as whether existed a possible aggravating role of certain drugs, or the safety profile of drugs used for the management of COVID-19 could evolve. The second phase followed the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, during which the RPVCs' missions were to detect as early as possible any new serious adverse effect, source of a potential signal that would modify the benefit/risk ratio of a vaccine and require the implementation of health safety measures. During these two periods, signal detection remained the core business of the RPVCs. The RPVCs had to organize themselves to handle an historical surge of declarations and requests for advice, whereas the RPVCs in charge of monitoring vaccines had to deal with an extraordinary dense activity over a long period of time, in order to produce in real time and on a weekly basis, a summary of all the declarations and an analysis of safety signals. The national organization put in place made it possible to meet the challenge of real-time pharmacovigilance monitoring of 4 vaccines with conditional marketing authorizations. Short-circuit efficient exchanges with the French Regional Pharmacovigilance Centres Network was paramount for the French National Agency for medicines and health products (Agence nationale de sécurité du médicament et des produits de santé) to develop an optimal collaborative partnership. The RPVC network has shown agility and flexibility, has been able to adapt swiftly and demonstrated its effectiveness in the early detection of safety signals. This crisis confirmed the superiority of manual/human signal detection as the most effective and powerful tool to date, to rapidly detect a new adverse drug reaction and enable to elaborate rapid measures of risk reduction. In order to maintain the performance of French RPVCs in signal detection and to monitor all drugs as they should and as expected by our fellow citizens, a new funding model correcting the inadequacy of RPVCs' expertise resources in relation to the volume of reports should be considered.

Union Election Petitions Skyrocket

According to a recent release from the National Labor Relations Board, union election petitions filed in the most recent fiscal year (October 2021–September 2022) increased 53 percent over the prior year. Naysayers to the perspective that the current petition numbers do not reflect a significant uptick in organizing due to the effect of the pandemic in the immediately prior year need to consider another fact. The number of fiscal year 2022 petitions filed, notwithstanding the fact the economy is still recovering from the pandemic, is the highest level of activity since fiscal year 2016. Not only has petition activity recovered from the pandemic, but it has also raced beyond. According to NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, the dramatic uptick in election petition filing represents a “historic surge.”

Finance and the supply of housing quality

I show how financial intermediaries affect rental housing quality and affordability by supplying real estate investors with financing for quality improvement projects (i.e., renovations). First, I document a historic surge in improvement activity since the Great Recession. Then, using exogenous variation generated by a 2015 change in regulatory capital requirements, I find that a reallocation of bank credit toward improvement projects accounts for 24% of quality improvements since 2015. The shock increases the supply of high-quality apartments and lowers their rent. However, it raises the average apartment’s rent and accounts for 32% of historically high rent growth over 2015–16.

Financial Intermediaries as Suppliers of Housing Quality

I show how financial intermediaries affect rental housing quality and affordability by supplying real estate investors with financing for quality improvement projects (i.e., renovations). First, I document a historic surge in improvement activity since the Great Recession. Then, using exogenous variation generated by a 2015 change in regulatory capital requirements, I find that a reallocation of bank credit toward improvement projects accounts for 24% of quality improvements since 2015. The shock increases the supply of high-quality apartments and lowers their rent. However, it raises the average apartment's rent and accounts for 32% of historically high rent growth over 2015-16.

Mapping Dependence Between Extreme Rainfall and Storm Surge

AbstractDependence between extreme storm surge and rainfall can have significant implications for flood risk in coastal and estuarine regions. To supplement limited observational records, we use reanalysis surge data from a hydrodynamic model as the basis for dependence mapping, providing information at a resolution of approximately 30 km along the Australian coastline. We evaluated this approach by comparing the dependence estimates from modeled surge to that calculated using historical surge records from 79 tide gauges around Australia. The results show reasonable agreement between the two sets of dependence values, with the exception of lower seasonal variation in the modeled dependence values compared to the observed data, especially at locations where there are multiple processes driving extreme storm surge. This is due to the combined impact of local bathymetry as well as the resolution of the hydrodynamic model and its meteorological inputs. Meteorological drivers were also investigated for different combinations of extreme rainfall and surge—namely rain‐only, surge‐only, and coincident extremes—finding that different synoptic patterns are responsible for each combination. The ability to supplement observational records with high‐resolution modeled surge data enables a much more precise quantification of dependence along the coastline, strengthening the physical basis for assessments of flood risk in coastal regions.

Development and uncertainty quantification of hurricane surge response functions for hazard assessment in coastal bays

Reliable and robust methods of extreme value-based hurricane surge prediction, such as the joint probability method (JPM), are critical in the coastal engineering profession. The JPM has become the preferred surge hazard assessment method in the USA; however, it has a high computational cost: One location can require hundreds of simulated storms and more than ten thousand computational hours to complete. Optimal sampling methods that use physics-based surge response functions (SRFs) can reduce the required number of simulations. This study extends the development of SRFs to bay interior locations at Panama City, Florida. Mean SRF root-mean-square errors for open coast and bay interior locations were 0.34 and 0.37 m, respectively, comparable with ADCIRC errors. Average uncertainty increases from open coast, and bay SRFs were 10 and 12 %, respectively. Long-term climate trends, such as rising sea levels, introduce nonstationarity into the simulated and historical surge datasets. A common approach to estimating total flood elevations is to take the sum of projected sea-level rise (SLR) and present day surge (static approach); however, this does not account for dynamic SLR effects on surge generation. This study demonstrates that SLR has a significant dynamic effect on surge in the Panama City area, and that total flood elevations, with respect to changes in SLR, are poorly characterized as static increases. A simple adjustment relating total flood elevation to present day conditions is proposed. Uncertainty contributions from these SLR adjustments are shown to be reasonable for surge hazard assessments.

Brief Communication: On the magnitude and frequency of Khurdopin glacier surge events

Abstract. The return periods of Karakoram glacier surges are poorly quantified. Here, we present evidence of an historic surge of the Khurdopin Glacier that began in the mid-1970s and peaked in 1979. Measured surface displacements reached >5 km a−1, two orders of magnitude faster than during quiescence. The Khurdopin Glacier next surged in the late 1990s, equating to a return period of 20 years. Surge evolution in the two events shows remarkable similarity suggesting a common trigger. Surge activity in the Karakoram needs to be better understood if accurate mass balance assessments of Hindu-Kush–Karakoram–Himalaya glaciers are to be made.

Hørbyebreen polythermal glacial landsystem, Svalbard

A contoured surficial geology and geomorphology map of the forelands of the Hørbyebreen, Svenbreen and Ferdinandbreen valley glaciers in Petuniabukta, Svalbard was compiled from an orthophotograph based upon aerial photographs taken in 2009. The map reveals typical polythermal glacial landsystems, comprising ice-cored latero-frontal moraine arcs grading up valley into fluted till surfaces draped by supraglacially-derived longitudinal debris stripes. The additional occurrence on the Hørbyebreen foreland of linear esker and debris ridges arranged in a geometric ridge network is thought to be related to the infilling of densely spaced crevasses, created during a period of elevated meltwater pressures and ice hydrofracturing. These landforms were associated either with a jökulhlaup that was blocked by the frozen snout or an historical surge. The Hørbyebreen landform assemblage therefore constitutes an analogue for either: (1) spatial and temporal landsystem overprinting (polythermal and surging activity); or (2) a more refined polythermal landsystem in which the build up and release of meltwater reservoirs in warm-based interiors of polythermal glaciers give rise to a particularly diagnostic landform at the up-ice junction with the cold-based snout.

Statistical properties of hurricane surge along a coast

[1] The validity and accuracy of approaches used to determine hurricane surge hazard risk received much attention following the hurricane seasons in mid- to late-2000, which caused record surge-related damage along the Gulf of Mexico coastline. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, research showed that most extreme-value statistics approaches underestimated the risk associated with this surge event. In this paper, two of the most popular methods for determining hurricane surge extreme-value statistics are reviewed: the historical surge population approach and the joint probability method. Here, it is demonstrated that both limited historical record length and random along-coast variability in hurricane landfall location can introduce significant errors into surge estimates. For example, the historical surge population approach gives errors of 9% to 17% for return periods between 50 and 1000 years when a surge record of 100 years is considered. In contrast, it is shown that the joint probability method yields significantly more reliable surge estimates, with errors of 2% to 3% for return periods between 50 and 1000 years when a storm record of 100 years is considered. Finally, we show that both methods remain robust when decadal-scale climate variability in the storm rate of occurrence is considered, so long as the hurricane history is long enough to capture the full decadal cycle. When used in conjunction with continuous surge response information, it can be concluded that the joint probability method is a practical and reliable approach for determining extreme-value hurricane surge statistics.

Setting the Governmental Agenda for State Decentralization of Higher Education

Background and Problem Stephen K. Bailey once characterized the American campus-state relationship as embodying a persistent human paradox-the simultaneous need for structure and for anti-structure, for dependence and for autonomy, for involvement and for privacy (1975, p.1). Because neither complete accountability of the campus to the state, nor absolute autonomy of the campus from the state is feasible, the crucial question confronting policymakers is where the line between campus and state should be drawn. The inevitable tension between these dual demands for freedom and control has vexed state policymakers for higher education throughout U.S. history, especially in the last half of the twentieth century. Prior to the Second World War, most states exercised relatively little formal regulatory control of higher education. However, during the dynamic postwar growth era of the 1950s and 1960s, the balance of authority dramatically shifted from campuses to state governments. The rapid expansion of state control was the result of a convergence of social and political forces both internal and external to higher education, including a historic surge in college enrollments, increasing sprawl in state systems of higher education, trenchant interinstitutional rivalries, and the growing regulatory capability of state governments. Although the centralization movement met with intense criticism from numerous national study commissions (Carnegie Commission, 1973; Carnegie Foundation, 1976, 1982), by the mid-1970s the pendulum had decidedly swung toward greater governmental control. The authors of one such national commission lamented: Guerilla warfare now goes on all across the nation over what belongs to the institution and what belongs to the state. Independence erodes yearly in the face of the greater forces in the hands of the state, and frustration on both sides grows daily (Carnegie Foundation, 1976, p. 18). Glenny and Bowen (1977) astutely observed that state intervention into higher education has taken place in almost infinite ways. Yet, the institutionalized control of public campuses was achieved mainly through the creation and subsequent strengthening of statewide coordinating boards (1) and consolidated governing boards. Through the mechanism of coordination, states superimposed upon campus governance structures a new entity whose responsibility was to make central academic and fiscal recommendations or decisions for an entire state. In consolidated governing boards, states achieved a highly centralized form of campus governance, whereby a single board was empowered to make all day-to-day management decisions for institutions within a particular system or state (McGuinness, 1998). The proliferation of these agents of centralized control was rapid; in 1950, state coordinating and governing boards existed in just 17 of 48 states, but by 1974 only three of 50 states were without them (Berdahl, 1971, 1975). In contrast with the universal trend toward centralized control of higher education in earlier decades, the 1980s and 1990s witnessed a diverse array of higher education reorganization and restructuring initiatives in the states (McGuinness, 1998; MacTaggart, 1996). One important development that arose during this turbulent period in state coordination and governance of higher education was a countertrend toward decentralization (2) of decision authority from the state to more local levels of campus control (MacTaggart, 1998; Marcus, 1997; McLendon, forthcoming). Marcus (1997) documented as many governance decentralization proposals (eleven) in the states between 1989 and 1994 as there were proposals to centralize higher education governance at the state level. In fact, from 1981-2000, at least 16 states enacted legislation decentralizing authority from the state to the campus level (McLendon, forthcoming). Although the precise dimensions of the decentralization countertrend prove challenging to limn, four primary forms may be delineated. …

Wind and Surge Damage due to Hurricane Camille

The wind speeds in hurricane Camille are evaluated to provide a structural engineering interpretation. These are compared to published design winds for the area. Similar evaluation is made of the storm surge heights. A new method of probability analysis is applied to the historical surge data for Beloxi. Surveys of these storm and surge damage are considered with reference to actual wind speeds and design values in various parts of the storm area.