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This paper develops two criteria for institutional evaluation -- necessity & convenience -- & applies them to the analysis of 76 presidential elections in Latin America between 1979 & 2002. Over the last 20 years, a majority of Latin American countries have adopted presidential runoff electoral systems, but the empirical evidence suggests that both the necessity & convenience of this institution can be questioned. The need for runoff elections is dubious when the most voted candidate in the first round has obtained enough votes to become a legitimate winner, & their convenience is questionable when the candidate elected in the runoff election lacked enough political support to rule. The latter problem has been most visible when the front-runner in the first round was defeated in the runoff (i.e., when the electoral system produced an inversion of the initial outcome) in a context of low party system institutionalization. Tables, Figures, References. [Copyright 2006 Elsevier Ltd.]

Testing the frontrunner loses myth and minority loses myth, this paper examines the 2008 Georgia Democratic Senate runoff between Vernon Jones and Jim Martin. Despite winning 40 per-cent of the primary vote, Jones lost in the runoff to Jim Martin. Methods: We use a variety of data to determine what factors were having the greatest effect on the election. Results: Vernon Jones's strongest support came from the rural counties of central and southern Georgia. While Jones did win high levels of support in counties with large black populations, the fact that Jones was not performing as well in counties in metro Atlanta highlights that controversies surrounding Jones may have been playing a larger role than race. Conclusions: The lack of black voter turnout in the runoff illustrates the problems that even a black candidate has in motivating black voters to return for the runoff.

Multi-step ahead inflow forecasting has a critical role to play in reservoir operation and management in Taiwan during typhoons as statutory legislation requires a minimum of 3-hours warning to be issued before any reservoir releases are made. However, the complex spatial and temporal heterogeneity of typhoon rainfall, coupled with a remote and mountainous physiographic context makes the development of real-time rainfall-runoff models that can accurately predict reservoir inflow several hours ahead of time challenging. Consequently, there is an urgent, operational requirement for models that can enhance reservoir inflow prediction at forecast horizons of more than 3-hours. In this paper we develop a novel semi-distributed, data-driven, rainfall-runoff model for the Shihmen catchment, north Taiwan. A suite of Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System solutions is created using various combinations of auto-regressive, spatially-lumped radar and point-based rain gauge predictors. Different levels of spatially-aggregated radar-derived rainfall data are used to generate 4, 8 and 12 sub-catchment input drivers. In general, the semi-distributed radar rainfall models outperform their less complex counterparts in predictions of reservoir inflow at lead-times greater than 3-hours. Performance is found to be optimal when spatial aggregation is restricted to 4 sub-catchments, with up to 30% improvements in the performance over lumped and point-based models being evident at 5-hour lead times. The potential benefits of applying semi-distributed, data-driven models in reservoir inflow modelling specifically, and hydrological modelling more generally, is thus demonstrated.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the contaminants in storm water runoff as a significant threat to water quality across the nation. Prompted by Congress, EPA has responded with various initiatives, including the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Storm Water Program, which requires more than 1,000 local governments to undertake storm water management programs. Those municipalities in Phase I of the program have been trying to reduce pollutants in storm water runoff for several years, and it is time to begin evaluating their efforts. EPA however, has not established measurable goals for this program, nor has it attempted to evaluate the program's effectiveness in reducing storm water pollution or to determine its cost. EPA attributes its inaction to inconsistent data reporting from municipalities, insufficient staff resources, and other competing priorities within the Office of Wastewater Management. Although municipalities report monitoring and cost data to EPA or state regulatory agencies annually, these agencies have not reviewed this information to determine whether it can be useful in determining the program's overall effectiveness or cost. GAO found that the reported cost information will be difficult to analyze unless EPA and its state partners set guidelines to elicit more standardized reporting. Better data on costs and program effectiveness are needed--especially in light of the Phase II program that will involve thousands more municipalities in 2003. EPA's planned research grant to the University of Alabama and its pilot project to analyze data from annual reports and develop baseline indicators is a step in the right direction and could point the way for a more comprehensive approach."

Previous research has examined the impact of the majority vote or runoff election requirement on the success of minority and incumbent candidates in the South. In Chicago city council elections from 1975 to 1991 both minorities and women were advantaged by the majority vote requirement in Chicago. Also, the runoff appears to have been a crucial factor in the replacement of Daley-machine black councillors in the late 1970s and 1980s with allies of Harold Washington. (Original abstract-amended)

Abstract. The IRIP method, or "indicator of intense pluvial
runoff" in English, is a geomatics method that allows mapping the
susceptibility of a territory to surface runoff and that provides three
maps of susceptibility to the generation, transfer and accumulation of
runoff. It is based on the combination of binary maps that represent the
impact of a given factor (favourable or not favourable) on runoff. These
factors are summed up to provide susceptibility maps for runoff with levels
ranging from 0 to 5. To be used for risk prevention, the quality and
limitations of the produced maps must be assessed. However, direct runoff
data are very scarce and not available everywhere in a territory. Proxy data
of impacts related to runoff can provide information useful for the
evaluation of the IRIP maps. However, both pieces of information cannot be compared
directly, and a specific methodology to compare susceptibility maps and proxy data must be proposed. This paper presents such a method, which accounts for
the hazard level, the vulnerability of the study area and possible
mitigation actions taken to reduce the risk. The evaluation method is
assessed using a comprehensive database of runoff-related impacts collected
on an 80 km railway line in Normandy (north of France) and covering the
whole 20th century. The results show that the evaluation method is
robust, relevant and generic enough for evaluating a non-quantitative
method of runoff hazard mapping using localized runoff-related proxy data.
In addition, the good performance of the IRIP model in the case study
confirms that the susceptibility maps produced by the IRIP model provide
relevant information related to runoff and that they can be used to design
risk management strategies, as illustrated in the railway context.

| openaire: EC/H2020/819202/EU//SOS.aquaterra Funding Information: Marko Kallio and Vili Virkki were funded by the Aalto University School of Engineering Doctoral Programme. Marko Kallio additionally received funding from Maa-ja Vesitekniikan Tuki ry. Matti Kummu received funding from the Academy of Finland project WATVUL (grant no. 317320), Emil Aaltonen Foundation project eat-less-water, and European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant no. 819202) from which Vili Virkki received additional funding. Joseph H. A. Guillaume received funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (project no. DE190100317) Funding Information: Financial support. Marko Kallio and Vili Virkki were funded by the Aalto University School of Engineering Doctoral Programme. Marko Kallio additionally received funding from Maa-ja Vesitekni-ikan Tuki ry. Matti Kummu received funding from the Academy of Finland project WATVUL (grant no. 317320), Emil Aaltonen Foundation project "eat-less-water", and European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant no. 819202) from which Vili Virkki received additional funding. Joseph H. A. Guillaume received funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (project no. DE190100317). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Marko Kallio et al. ; An increasing number of different types of hydrological, land surface, and rainfall-runoff models exist to estimate streamflow in river networks. Results from various model runs from global to local scales are readily available online. However, the usability of these products is often limited, as they often come aggregated in spatial units which are not compatible with the desired analysis purpose. We present here an R package, a software library Hydrostreamer v1.0, which aims to improve the usability of existing runoff products by addressing the modifiable area unit problem and allows non-experts with little knowledge of hydrology-specific modelling issues and methods to use them for their analyses. Hydrostreamer workflow includes (1) interpolation from source zones to target zones, (2) river routing, and (3) data assimilation via model averaging, given multiple input runoff and observation data. The software implements advanced areal interpolation methods and area-to-line interpolation not available in other products and is the first R package to provide vector-based routing. Hydrostreamer is kept as simple as possible - intuitive with minimal data requirements - and minimises the need for calibration. We tested the performance of Hydrostreamer by downscaling freely available coarse-resolution global runoff products from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) in an application in 3S Basin in Southeast Asia. Results are compared to observed discharges as well as two benchmark streamflow data products, finding comparable or improved performance. Hydrostreamer v1.0 is open source and is available from http://github.com/mkkallio/hydrostreamer/ (last access: 5 May 2021) under the MIT licence. ; Peer reviewed

by Blake Morris The state of North Carolina is home to some of the largest pork operations in the country. In Clinton County, North Carolina, the heart of hog country, hogs outnumber humans. As concentratedContinue reading