- In the eye of a data hurricane
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UW space scientists were among the first to start
collecting weather information from space. Now
they're leading efforts to make sense of it all.
It only makes sense that researchers at the UW-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center would be pioneers in weather technology. The idea of visualizing weather - translating a flood of weather data into more easily under-standable pictures and images - was essentially born there. Two inspirations of the late Verner Suomi, founder of the SSEC, paved the way for visualiz-ing the atmosphere. His spin-scan camera, developed in the 1960s, enabled scientists to collect myriad new forms of weather data, such as cloud height and growth rates, rainfall location and amounts, and the extent of atmospheric
Vis5D helps scientists
understand very large sets
of data, containing
billions of numbers,
by turning numbers into
pictures.
pollution. Suomi's development a decade later of the Man computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS) gave scientists a powerful system to organize the stream of weather data they were now receiving from space. Using McIDAS and spin-scan data, SSEC researchers continue to extend the boundaries of weather research with innovative applications of satellite data.Hurricane research has become a prominent focus at SSEC. Christopher Velden and col-leagues are developing new ways to analyze satellite data to improve hurricane forecast predictions. They find that images of water vapor can reveal previously undetectable features in air flow, which ultimately influence the motion and path of tropical cyclones and hurricanes. The results are making predictions of a hurricane's path more precise and warnings more effective. Elaine Prins and Paul Menzel are focusing satellite eyes on Amazonia, to study the effects of rain forest burning on climate and ecology. The studies provide detailed information on smoke transport and the location, size and average temperature of fires. The Amazon area's richness in animal and plant life is especially vulnerable to damage from fire. And thanks to the work of SSEC researcher
Bill Hibbard and his team in developing visualization software, scientists can now view and interact with their data in five dimensions. The software, called Vis5D, helps scientists understand very large sets of data, containing billions of numbers, by turning numbers into pictures. The software is currently in use at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which uses the program to track pollut-ants in acid rain and form pictures of pollution over urban areas. Vis5D is also used to examine sea-surface temperatures and to analyze the dynamic processes of severe thunderstorms. The software is provided, as are the satellite images received by SSEC's rooftop antennas, free over the Internet.
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- Extracurricular or just extra?
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How much work and extracurricular activity can your
child take on before they begin to interfere with
classwork? A professor provides a few clues.
As every parent knows, teenagers lead busy lives. Many may hold part-time jobs flipping burgers or waiting tables. Others spend countless hours each week at football practice, drama rehearsal or student-government meetings. Their schedules seem to leave little room for homework. And that leads parents to wonder: Are all these activities hurting my child's schoolwork? Research by a UW-Madison professor indicates that parents may be asking the wrong question. They should instead be concerned about what kind of activity their teens are engaged in - and how much time they devote to it. Brad Brown, a professor of educational psychology, bases his conclusions on surveys and focus-group discussions with 20,000 teenagers and hundreds of parents in Wisconsin and California. The three-year study examined such topics as students' attitudes toward school, relationships with peers, and after-school activities. Brown and his colleagues discovered that once they earn their driver's licenses, most teenagers go to work. Three-quarters of the seniors in the study, and two-thirds of the juniors, held a part-time job at some point during the school year. But that news isn't necessarily bad. "We found that students who work 10 hours a week or less actually do better in school than peers who don't work at all," says Brown. "They have higher grade-point averages, are more attentive to their school-ing, and have lower rates of delinquent activity." Yet once teenagers begin to work 15 hours a week or more, the picture changes dramatically: Those students perform more poorly in school than their peers without part-time jobs. "Kids already spend 35 hours a week just going to school. If they work 15 or 20 or even 30 hours a week on top of that, how will they find time for homework?" he says. Brown and his colleagues learned that students who participated in extracurricular activities such as sports, clubs and performing groups did better in school than those who didn't. There's a catch, though: When the researchers controlled for other factors, the advantage disappeared. Explains Brown: "The kids who choose to go out for extracurriculars tend to be the ones who already earn good grades. They were doing well in school even before they signed up for the extra-curriculars."
Generally, though, Brown believes extra-curricular activities are a good way for teenagers to spend their time. The only exceptions are those groups and teams that discourage kids from doing their best academically. For instance, does the coach refuse to let athletes miss practice in order to study for a test? Are the other teenagers participating in the club more interested in parties than in school? If the answer to these questions is yes, parents may want their child to find a different activity.
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