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RACC researchers play key role at Legislative Policy Summit on Climate Change at the University of Vermont
The University of Vermont (UVM) sponsored its second annual legislative summit on November 18, 2014. This year’s summit focused on Climate Change and brought together over 40 legislators to campus. Approximately 150 faculty, UVM Graduate Students, Vermont Agency representative and invited community members from various Non-Government Organizations also attended.

A recent report by the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources has indicated that approximately $156 million is needed annually for the next ten years for the State of Vermont to meet its obligations under the Clean Water Act, though confidence has declined in this estimate. Recent public opinion polling indicates that the most publicly-acceptable means for raising funds are through one-time development fees and annual stormwater fees. Further polling indicates that the median willingness to pay among Vermont households is $40 per year, when raised through water utility and vehicle registration fees. The polling also suggests that willingness to pay could be increased through outreach and education.

This analysis uses over 50 years of hourly observations of temperature, relative humidity, and opaque cloud cover and daily precipitation from 11 climate stations across the Canadian Prairies to analyze the monthly, seasonal and long-term climate coupling in the warm season. On climate timescales, temperature depends on cloud forcing, while relative humidity depends on precipitation. The monthly climate depends on both opaque cloud cover for the current month and precipitation for both the present and past 2 months in summer. Multiple linear regression shows that anomalies of opaque cloud and precipitation explain 60-80% of the variance in the diurnal temperature range, afternoon relative humidity and lifting condensation level on monthly timescales. We analyze the internal coupling of diurnal climate observables as a further guide to evaluating models. We couple the statistics to simplified energy and water budgets for the Prairies in the growing season. The opaque cloud observations have been calibrated against the incoming shortwave and longwave fluxes. We estimate that the dry-down of total water storage on the landscape damps 56% of precipitation anomalies for the growing season on large spatial scales, although this drydown increases evapotranspiration. This couples the climatological surface fluxes to four key observables: cloud forcing, precipitation, temperature and humidity. We estimate a climatological evaporative fraction of 0.61 for the Prairies. The observational relationships of the coupled Prairie climate system across timescale will be useful for evaluating these coupled processes in models for weather and seasonal forecasting and climate simulation.

A Paper entitled "Mining Patterns in Big Data K-H Networks" written by RACC Postdoc Ahmed Abdeen Hamed, Xindong Wu and Tamer Fandy won the Runner-up for Best Paper Award at the 11th ACS/IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA 2014) in Doha, Qatar on November 10th 2014.
The paper presents a novel network model, called K-H Networks (short for Keyword-Hashtag Networks), which is designed for Big Data social media environments (e.g., Twitter). The networks are mined using a novel algorithm, which we call HashnetMiner, also presented in the paper. The algorithm mines the networks for patterns for the purpose of exposing links and discoveries. The K-H Networks were tested on contents from sentiments, drugs, cars and healthcare industry. Currently, Dr. Hamed is exploring climate change and water quality related keywords/hashtags in Vermont's twitter data using the K-H Networks and HashnetMiner.

Dr. Alan Betts was invited to participate on a climate change panel at the VT Commons School on October 29, 2014, following a showing of the film 'Disruption'. He reported that after the discussion, "A senior student came up to me afterwards with a very enthusiastic: "Thank-you so much! You will not remember me, but three years ago, when I was a shy 15-yr-old girl with a watershed poster at an EPScoR conference, you stopped and discussed it with me for 20-mins. I knew then I wanted to become a scientist!"
The event also included a showing of "Disruption" dealing with the Sept 21, 2014 Peoples Climate March in NYC - which Dr. Betts also participated in.
http://vermontcommons.org/2014/10/disruption/

Free Workshop for Local Entrepreneurs, Dec.11 in Winooski
Winooski, Vt.—On Thursday, Dec. 11, the Vermont Small Business Development
Center (VtSBDC) is hosting a free workshop for regional businesses and entrepreneurs. The session, which will focus on “How to Commercialize Your Idea,” is being held from 10 a.m. to noon at the Community College of Vermont in Winooski.
This is the second workshop that’s being held in Winooski to help local innovators who are creating new technologies and would like the know-how to bring their ideas to the marketplace. Scott Holson, VtSBDC’s technology commercialization advisor, will talk about how to bring an idea to fruition and locate funding through a variety of grant programs.

The VT EPSCoR RACC seminar series featured Dr. Chris Danforth, the Flint Professor of Mathematical, Natural, and Technical Sciences at UVM and co-director the Center of Complex Systems at UVM. He presented his work in: Remote Sensing of Emotional States in Real-Time -- http://hedonometer.org.

New England Water Resource Network (NEWRnet) Undergraduate Summer Internship Applications are now being accepted. Complete applications are due by 4:00pm eastern on February 20, 2015

Tech@Bennington sparks dialogue among entrepreneurial community
Bennington Banner
BENNINGTON >> DB McKenna, Global-Z International and the Bennington Young Professionals teamed up to sponsor a set of educational workshops built around the Small Business Technology Transfer, the University of Vermont's EPSCOR grant and other funding ...

Tech@Bennington sparks dialogue among entrepreneurial community
Bennington Banner
BENNINGTON >> DB McKenna, Global-Z International and the Bennington Young Professionals teamed up to sponsor a set of educational workshops built around the Small Business Technology Transfer, the University of Vermont's EPSCOR grant and other ...

Boston Globe
In FXFL, Boston Brawlers keep NFL dreams alive
Boston Globe
“It's a minor league model, but it's a major league product,” says FXFL commissioner Brian Woods. “The talent on the field is NFL-caliber.” Tickets range from $5 to $40, and games are on Wednesday or Friday nights, so as not to overlap with the NFL.

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Photo Flash: Inside CAMELOT's Opening Night at Drury Lane Theatre  Broadway World

Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, presents the iconic love story CAMELOT, the winner of four Tony Awards, which opened last night, November 6 and runs ...

BurlingtonFreePress.com
How a two-term incumbent governor nearly lost
BurlingtonFreePress.com
Gov. Peter Shumlin, a day after voters delivered him an Election Day comeuppance, declared victory Wednesday afternoon in his bid for a third term while saying he got the message that voters are unhappy with him. "It's a time for me to regroup," the ...

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Glass Almanac
Once, Twice … Four Times a Humidity-Damaged Glass
Glass Almanac
I was in northern Vermont, trekking through river canyons and forests. Yet it seemed the problem was sudden changes in humidity. Down in the canyons, it's cold and moist, while up in the mountains it's warmer and dryer. I just assumed the changes in ...

Keene man accused of sexually assaulting seven children
The Keene Sentinel
A Cheshire County grand jury has handed up more indictments in the case against a Keene man accused of sexually assaulting seven children over several years. Steven Velez, 35, was most recently charged with three counts of aggravated felonious sexual ...

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LAVENDER NIGHT OUT Benefit Set for the Pasadena Playhouse Tonight  Broadway World

BurlingtonFreePress.com
Five new county prosecutors headed to victory
BurlingtonFreePress.com
Vermont appeared ready to embrace five new state's attorneys in Washington, Rutland, Orleans, Grand Isle, and Lamoille counties, but a couple of races went down to the wire Tuesday night. With 17 of 20 precincts reporting in Washington County ...

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Bells Over Burlington: A Church's Chimes Get Mixed Reviews  Seven Days

New England Delegation Acquires a Tinge of Red (Published 2014)  The New York Times

Where Americans Smoke and Grow Marijuana (Maps)  Live Science