Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / August 15-16, 2010

Interesting: When a JetBlue flight attendant creatively deplaned earlier this week, many questions arose as to why someone would be willing to give up a steady paycheck during these tough economic times. While this "working man’s hero" will most likely be questioning his motives as he hands over his lawyer’s fees, a new report in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that his action may be a sign of trouble for JetBlue and other large companies.

We spend a lot of our waking time at work, so it’s not surprising that work has an influence on our well-being: Numerous studies have linked general attitudes towards work to mood outside of work and health outcomes such as coronary heart disease. However, psychological scientist James K. Harter of Gallup, Inc. and his colleagues found that employee perceptions of work conditions may also have a big impact on the bottom line of employing organizations.

In this study, the researchers examined data from more than 2,000 business units (e.g., retail stores, factories, sales offices) of ten companies. The data consisted of employee satisfaction surveys, employee retention rates, customer loyalty, and financial performance of the organizations. Analyses of the data were conducted to identify relationships between employee job satisfaction and outcome measures of the organizations.

The results indicate that employee work perceptions predict important organizational outcomes — if employees have positive perceptions of their jobs, their organizations benefit via higher employee retention, increased customer loyalty, and improved financial outcomes. Interestingly, the analysis suggests that employee perceptions affect outcomes more than outcomes affect employee perceptions of their jobs.

"One implication is that changes in management practices that improve employee perceptions of specific work situation variables will increase business-unit outcomes, including financial outcomes," the authors note. Additionally, Harter and colleagues offer that one way managers can help boost job satisfaction and help their organization may be to "clarify expectations for employees by helping employees see the ultimate outcomes the organization is working to achieve and how they play a role in achieving those outcomes."

Interesting2: The growing amount of human noise pollution in the ocean could lead fish away from good habitat and off to their death, according to new research from a UK-led team working on the Great Barrier Reef. After developing for weeks at sea, baby tropical fish rely on natural noises to find the coral reefs where they can survive and thrive. However, the researchers found that short exposure to artificial noise makes fish become attracted to inappropriate sounds.

In earlier research, Dr Steve Simpson, Senior Researcher in the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences discovered that baby reef fish use sounds made by fish, shrimps and sea urchins as a cue to find coral reefs. With human noise pollution from ships, wind farms and oil prospecting on the increase, he is now concerned that this crucial behavior is coming under threat.

He said: "When only a few weeks old, baby reef fish face a monumental challenge in locating and choosing suitable habitat. Reef noise gives them vital information, but if they can learn, remember and become attracted towards the wrong sounds, we might be leading them in all the wrong directions." Using underwater nocturnal light traps, Dr Simpson and his team collected baby damselfish as they were returning to coral reefs.

The fish were then put into tanks with underwater speakers playing natural reef noise or a synthesized mix of pure tones. The next night the fish were put into specially designed choice chambers (long tubes with contrasting conditions at each end in which fish can move freely towards the end they prefer) with natural or artificial sounds playing. All the fish liked the reef noise, but only the fish that had experienced the tone mix swam towards it, the others were repelled by it.

Dr Simpson said: "This result shows that fish can learn a new sound and remember it hours later, debunking the 3-second memory myth." His collaborator, Dr Mark Meekan added: "It also shows that they can discriminate between sounds and, based on their experience, become attracted to sounds which might really mess up their behavior on the most important night of their life."

In noisy environments the breakdown of natural behavior could have devastating impacts on success of populations and the replenishment of future fish stocks. Dr Simpson said: "Anthropogenic noise has increased dramatically in recent years, with small boats, shipping, drilling, pile driving and seismic testing now sometimes drowning out the natural sounds of fish and snapping shrimps. If fish accidentally learn to follow the wrong sounds, they could end up stuck next to a construction site or follow a ship back out to sea."

Interesting3: Our cities play a vital role in the quest to achieve global ecological sustainability. They are the largest contributors to greenhouse gases and climate change. However, if we can achieve sustainable construction and use of urban infrastructure, our cities could become a critical leverage point in global efforts to drastically reduce emissions and avoid the social and economic costs associated with climate change, as well as enhance energy security and resilience in the face of high fossil energy prices.

The world’s urban centers already account for close to 80 percent of CO2 emissions. In the next three decades, the global population will continue to grow and become ever more urban. Booz & Company analysis conducted for this report shows that under business-as-usual (BAU) assumptions, $350 trillion will be spent on urban infrastructure and usage during this period.

This huge expenditure either can cause the ecological impact of our cities to become even more pronounced or can be a tremendous opportunity to reduce that impact. To meet the urban challenge, cities around the world—in developed and developing nations—need to tackle climate change directly. Cities in developed nations can apply new technologies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions stemming from the usage of their existing infrastructure.

They can invest in mobility management and incentivize sustainable lifestyle choices. Cities in developing nations can adopt best practices in urban planning and mobility management, as well as technological advances, to design sustainability into their new infrastructure. Every city is part of the solution—now is the time to act!

Interesting4: Decades ago the only type of car was the internal combustion (gasoline) type. Other varieties have arrived such as Hybrid and electric. With the new choices are other decisions such as which one reduces most the carbon footprint (or is the most green) and which one is the most cost effective. No more is "the miles per gallon" a standard that can be applied across the board as a specification. The efficiency of a car will depend, obviously, on the overall weight and size. Consumers will buy vehicles for their perceived needs.

The new breeds of cars that are evolving depend on other features to improve performance and efficiency. They fall into the following categories: hybrid, all electric, high efficiency gasoline engines. A hybrid electric (HEV) is a type of vehicle which combines a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) propulsion system with an electric propulsion system. The presence of the electric power train is intended to achieve either better fuel economy than a conventional vehicle, or better performance.

A variety of types of HEV exist, and the degree to which they function as EVs varies as well. The most common form of HEV is the hybrid electric car, although hybrid electric trucks (pickups and tractors) also exist. Modern HEVs make use of efficiency improving technologies such as regenerative braking, which converts the vehicle’s kinetic energy into battery replenishing electric energy, rather than wasting it as heat energy as conventional brakes do.

Some varieties of HEVs use their internal combustion engine to generate electricity by spinning an electrical generator (this combination is known as a motor-generator), to either recharge their batteries or to directly power the electric drive motors. Many HEVs reduce idle emissions by shutting down the ICE at idle and restarting it when needed; this is known as a start-stop system.

A hybrid-electric produces less emissions from its ICE than a comparably-sized gasoline car, as an HEV’s gasoline engine is usually smaller than a pure fossil-fuel vehicle, and if not used to directly drive the car, can be geared to run at maximum efficiency, further improving fuel economy. A hybrid car definitely reduces air emissions because of its using sources of energy otherwise wasted in a conventional car engine.

An electric car is an automobile which is propelled by an electric motor which is entirely powered by electrochemical cells. Electric cars are usually powered by on board battery packs, and as such are usually battery electric vehicles, although some are powered by fuel cells. Although electric cars often give good acceleration and have generally acceptable top speed, the lower specific energy of production batteries available in 2010 compared with fossil fuels means that electric cars have relatively low range between charges, and recharging can take significant lengths of time.

For shorter range commuter type journeys, rather than long journeys, electric cars are practical forms of transportation and can be inexpensively recharged overnight. Longer range journey options are currently being pursued as cities such as New York and states such as Washington start building a charging station infrastructure. Electric cars will not emit as many pollutants as an conventional car engine but the electricity is generated somewhere and at that source the same (though more controlled) air emissions will occur.

There are other factors to consider also such as the relative capital cost of a vehicle and how much it costs per mile to drive. At the moment due to limited production capacities, capital costs are higher than they will be eventually though governmental subsidies help reduce this burden. Also there is limited durability and long term maintenance of the new breeds of cars that is still to be determined by real data.