Using nocturnal cold air drainage flow to monitor ecosystem processes in complex terrain

Treesearch

Thomas G. Pypker; Michael H. Unsworth; Alan C. Mix; William Rugh; Troy Ocheltree; Karrin Alstad; Barbara J. Bond

2007-01-01

This paper presents initial investigations of a new approach to monitor ecosystem processes in complex terrain on large scales. Metabolic processes in mountainous ecosystems are poorly represented in current ecosystem monitoring campaigns because the methods used for monitoring metabolism at the ecosystem scale (e.g., eddy covariance) require flat study sites. Our goal...

Monitoring conservation success in a large oak woodland landscape

Treesearch

Rich Reiner; Emma Underwood; John-O Niles

2002-01-01

Monitoring is essential in understanding the success or failure of a conservation project and provides the information needed to conduct adaptive management. Although there is a large body of literature on monitoring design, it fails to provide sufficient information to practitioners on how to organize and apply monitoring when implementing landscape-scale conservation...

Universal Batch Steganalysis

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-30

steganalysis) in large-scale datasets such as might be obtained by monitoring a corporate network or social network. Identifying guilty actors...guilty’ user (of steganalysis) in large-scale datasets such as might be obtained by monitoring a corporate network or social network. Identifying guilty...floating point operations (1 TFLOPs) for a 1 megapixel image. We designed a new implementation using Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) on NVIDIA

Improving crop condition monitoring at field scale by using optimal Landsat and MODIS images

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Satellite remote sensing data at coarse resolution (kilometers) have been widely used in monitoring crop condition for decades. However, crop condition monitoring at field scale requires high resolution data in both time and space. Although a large number of remote sensing instruments with different...

Large-Scale Wireless Temperature Monitoring System for Liquefied Petroleum Gas Storage Tanks.

PubMed

Fan, Guangwen; Shen, Yu; Hao, Xiaowei; Yuan, Zongming; Zhou, Zhi

2015-09-18

Temperature distribution is a critical indicator of the health condition for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage tanks. In this paper, we present a large-scale wireless temperature monitoring system to evaluate the safety of LPG storage tanks. The system includes wireless sensors networks, high temperature fiber-optic sensors, and monitoring software. Finally, a case study on real-world LPG storage tanks proves the feasibility of the system. The unique features of wireless transmission, automatic data acquisition and management, local and remote access make the developed system a good alternative for temperature monitoring of LPG storage tanks in practical applications.

Development of lichen response indexes using a regional gradient modeling approach for large-scale monitoring of forests

Treesearch

Susan Will-Wolf; Peter Neitlich

2010-01-01

Development of a regional lichen gradient model from community data is a powerful tool to derive lichen indexes of response to environmental factors for large-scale and long-term monitoring of forest ecosystems. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service includes lichens in its national inventory of forests of...

Lichen elemental content bioindicators for air quality in upper Midwest, USA: A model for large-scale monitoring

Treesearch

Susan Will-Wolf; Sarah Jovan; Michael C. Amacher

2017-01-01

Our development of lichen elemental bioindicators for a United States of America (USA) national monitoring program is a useful model for other large-scale programs. Concentrations of 20 elements were measured, validated, and analyzed for 203 samples of five common lichen species. Collections were made by trained non-specialists near 75 permanent plots and an expert...

High-Performance Monitoring Architecture for Large-Scale Distributed Systems Using Event Filtering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Maly, K.

1998-01-01

Monitoring is an essential process to observe and improve the reliability and the performance of large-scale distributed (LSD) systems. In an LSD environment, a large number of events is generated by the system components during its execution or interaction with external objects (e.g. users or processes). Monitoring such events is necessary for observing the run-time behavior of LSD systems and providing status information required for debugging, tuning and managing such applications. However, correlated events are generated concurrently and could be distributed in various locations in the applications environment which complicates the management decisions process and thereby makes monitoring LSD systems an intricate task. We propose a scalable high-performance monitoring architecture for LSD systems to detect and classify interesting local and global events and disseminate the monitoring information to the corresponding end- points management applications such as debugging and reactive control tools to improve the application performance and reliability. A large volume of events may be generated due to the extensive demands of the monitoring applications and the high interaction of LSD systems. The monitoring architecture employs a high-performance event filtering mechanism to efficiently process the large volume of event traffic generated by LSD systems and minimize the intrusiveness of the monitoring process by reducing the event traffic flow in the system and distributing the monitoring computation. Our architecture also supports dynamic and flexible reconfiguration of the monitoring mechanism via its Instrumentation and subscription components. As a case study, we show how our monitoring architecture can be utilized to improve the reliability and the performance of the Interactive Remote Instruction (IRI) system which is a large-scale distributed system for collaborative distance learning. The filtering mechanism represents an Intrinsic component integrated with the monitoring architecture to reduce the volume of event traffic flow in the system, and thereby reduce the intrusiveness of the monitoring process. We are developing an event filtering architecture to efficiently process the large volume of event traffic generated by LSD systems (such as distributed interactive applications). This filtering architecture is used to monitor collaborative distance learning application for obtaining debugging and feedback information. Our architecture supports the dynamic (re)configuration and optimization of event filters in large-scale distributed systems. Our work represents a major contribution by (1) survey and evaluating existing event filtering mechanisms In supporting monitoring LSD systems and (2) devising an integrated scalable high- performance architecture of event filtering that spans several kev application domains, presenting techniques to improve the functionality, performance and scalability. This paper describes the primary characteristics and challenges of developing high-performance event filtering for monitoring LSD systems. We survey existing event filtering mechanisms and explain key characteristics for each technique. In addition, we discuss limitations with existing event filtering mechanisms and outline how our architecture will improve key aspects of event filtering.

Large-Scale Wireless Temperature Monitoring System for Liquefied Petroleum Gas Storage Tanks

PubMed Central

Fan, Guangwen; Shen, Yu; Hao, Xiaowei; Yuan, Zongming; Zhou, Zhi

2015-01-01

Temperature distribution is a critical indicator of the health condition for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage tanks. In this paper, we present a large-scale wireless temperature monitoring system to evaluate the safety of LPG storage tanks. The system includes wireless sensors networks, high temperature fiber-optic sensors, and monitoring software. Finally, a case study on real-world LPG storage tanks proves the feasibility of the system. The unique features of wireless transmission, automatic data acquisition and management, local and remote access make the developed system a good alternative for temperature monitoring of LPG storage tanks in practical applications. PMID:26393596

Wireless in-situ Sensor Network for Agriculture and Water Monitoring on a River Basin Scale in Southern Finland: Evaluation from a Data User’s Perspective

PubMed Central

Kotamäki, Niina; Thessler, Sirpa; Koskiaho, Jari; Hannukkala, Asko O.; Huitu, Hanna; Huttula, Timo; Havento, Jukka; Järvenpää, Markku

2009-01-01

Sensor networks are increasingly being implemented for environmental monitoring and agriculture to provide spatially accurate and continuous environmental information and (near) real-time applications. These networks provide a large amount of data which poses challenges for ensuring data quality and extracting relevant information. In the present paper we describe a river basin scale wireless sensor network for agriculture and water monitoring. The network, called SoilWeather, is unique and the first of this type in Finland. The performance of the network is assessed from the user and maintainer perspectives, concentrating on data quality, network maintenance and applications. The results showed that the SoilWeather network has been functioning in a relatively reliable way, but also that the maintenance and data quality assurance by automatic algorithms and calibration samples requires a lot of effort, especially in continuous water monitoring over large areas. We see great benefits on sensor networks enabling continuous, real-time monitoring, while data quality control and maintenance efforts highlight the need for tight collaboration between sensor and sensor network owners to decrease costs and increase the quality of the sensor data in large scale applications. PMID:22574050

Large-scale monitoring of shorebird populations using count data and N-mixture models: Black Oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani) surveys by land and sea

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lyons, James E.; Andrew, Royle J.; Thomas, Susan M.; Elliott-Smith, Elise; Evenson, Joseph R.; Kelly, Elizabeth G.; Milner, Ruth L.; Nysewander, David R.; Andres, Brad A.

2012-01-01

Large-scale monitoring of bird populations is often based on count data collected across spatial scales that may include multiple physiographic regions and habitat types. Monitoring at large spatial scales may require multiple survey platforms (e.g., from boats and land when monitoring coastal species) and multiple survey methods. It becomes especially important to explicitly account for detection probability when analyzing count data that have been collected using multiple survey platforms or methods. We evaluated a new analytical framework, N-mixture models, to estimate actual abundance while accounting for multiple detection biases. During May 2006, we made repeated counts of Black Oystercatchers (Haematopus bachmani) from boats in the Puget Sound area of Washington (n = 55 sites) and from land along the coast of Oregon (n = 56 sites). We used a Bayesian analysis of N-mixture models to (1) assess detection probability as a function of environmental and survey covariates and (2) estimate total Black Oystercatcher abundance during the breeding season in the two regions. Probability of detecting individuals during boat-based surveys was 0.75 (95% credible interval: 0.42–0.91) and was not influenced by tidal stage. Detection probability from surveys conducted on foot was 0.68 (0.39–0.90); the latter was not influenced by fog, wind, or number of observers but was ~35% lower during rain. The estimated population size was 321 birds (262–511) in Washington and 311 (276–382) in Oregon. N-mixture models provide a flexible framework for modeling count data and covariates in large-scale bird monitoring programs designed to understand population change.

Large-scale, long-term silvicultural experiments in the United States: historical overview and contemporary examples.

Treesearch

R. S. Seymour; J. Guldin; D. Marshall; B. Palik

2006-01-01

This paper provides a synopsis of large-scale, long-term silviculture experiments in the United States. Large-scale in a silvicultural context means that experimental treatment units encompass entire stands (5 to 30 ha); long-term means that results are intended to be monitored over many cutting cycles or an entire rotation, typically for many decades. Such studies...

Realtime monitoring of bridge scour using remote monitoring technology

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2011-02-01

The research performed in this project focuses on the application of instruments including accelerometers : and tiltmeters to monitor bridge scour. First, two large scale laboratory experiments were performed. One : experiment is the simulation of a ...

Bioregional monitoring design and occupancy estimation for two Sierra Nevadan amphibian taxa

EPA Science Inventory

Land-management agencies need quantitative, statistically rigorous monitoring data, often at large spatial and temporal scales, to support resource-management decisions. Monitoring designs typically must accommodate multiple ecological, logistical, political, and economic objec...

A robust quantitative near infrared modeling approach for blend monitoring.

PubMed

Mohan, Shikhar; Momose, Wataru; Katz, Jeffrey M; Hossain, Md Nayeem; Velez, Natasha; Drennen, James K; Anderson, Carl A

2018-01-30

This study demonstrates a material sparing Near-Infrared modeling approach for powder blend monitoring. In this new approach, gram scale powder mixtures are subjected to compression loads to simulate the effect of scale using an Instron universal testing system. Models prepared by the new method development approach (small-scale method) and by a traditional method development (blender-scale method) were compared by simultaneously monitoring a 1kg batch size blend run. Both models demonstrated similar model performance. The small-scale method strategy significantly reduces the total resources expended to develop Near-Infrared calibration models for on-line blend monitoring. Further, this development approach does not require the actual equipment (i.e., blender) to which the method will be applied, only a similar optical interface. Thus, a robust on-line blend monitoring method can be fully developed before any large-scale blending experiment is viable, allowing the blend method to be used during scale-up and blend development trials. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

MONITORING COASTAL RESOURCES AT MULTIPLE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL SCALES: LESSONS FROM EMAP 2001 EMAP SYMPOSIUM, APRIL 24-27, PENSACOLA BEACH, FL

EPA Science Inventory

In 1990, EMAP's Coastal Monitoring Program conducted its first regional sampling program in the Virginian Province. This first effort focused only at large spatial scales (regional) with some stratification to examine estuarine types. In the ensuing decade, EMAP-Coastal has condu...

Remote Imaging Applied to Schistosomiasis Control: The Anning River Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Seto, Edmund Y. W.; Maszle, Don R.; Spear, Robert C.; Gong, Peng

1997-01-01

The use of satellite imaging to remotely detect areas of high risk for transmission of infectious disease is an appealing prospect for large-scale monitoring of these diseases. The detection of large-scale environmental determinants of disease risk, often called landscape epidemiology, has been motivated by several authors (Pavlovsky 1966; Meade et al. 1988). The basic notion is that large-scale factors such as population density, air temperature, hydrological conditions, soil type, and vegetation can determine in a coarse fashion the local conditions contributing to disease vector abundance and human contact with disease agents. These large-scale factors can often be remotely detected by sensors or cameras mounted on satellite or aircraft platforms and can thus be used in a predictive model to mark high risk areas of transmission and to target control or monitoring efforts. A review of satellite technologies for this purpose was recently presented by Washino and Wood (1994) and Hay (1997) and Hay et al. (1997).

Large Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring for Decision Makers: Monitoring to Target and Evaluate Success of Ecosystem Restoration

EPA Science Inventory

Monitoring ecosystem restoration at various scales in LAEs can be challenging, frustrating and rewarding. Some of the major ecosystem restoration monitoring occurring in LAEs include: seagrass expansion/contraction; dead zone sizes; oyster reefs; sea turtle nesting; toxic and nu...

Monitoring scale scores over time via quality control charts, model-based approaches, and time series techniques.

PubMed

Lee, Yi-Hsuan; von Davier, Alina A

2013-07-01

Maintaining a stable score scale over time is critical for all standardized educational assessments. Traditional quality control tools and approaches for assessing scale drift either require special equating designs, or may be too time-consuming to be considered on a regular basis with an operational test that has a short time window between an administration and its score reporting. Thus, the traditional methods are not sufficient to catch unusual testing outcomes in a timely manner. This paper presents a new approach for score monitoring and assessment of scale drift. It involves quality control charts, model-based approaches, and time series techniques to accommodate the following needs of monitoring scale scores: continuous monitoring, adjustment of customary variations, identification of abrupt shifts, and assessment of autocorrelation. Performance of the methodologies is evaluated using manipulated data based on real responses from 71 administrations of a large-scale high-stakes language assessment.

An effective online data monitoring and saving strategy for large-scale climate simulations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xian, Xiaochen; Archibald, Rick; Mayer, Benjamin

Large-scale climate simulation models have been developed and widely used to generate historical data and study future climate scenarios. These simulation models often have to run for a couple of months to understand the changes in the global climate over the course of decades. This long-duration simulation process creates a huge amount of data with both high temporal and spatial resolution information; however, how to effectively monitor and record the climate changes based on these large-scale simulation results that are continuously produced in real time still remains to be resolved. Due to the slow process of writing data to disk,more » the current practice is to save a snapshot of the simulation results at a constant, slow rate although the data generation process runs at a very high speed. This study proposes an effective online data monitoring and saving strategy over the temporal and spatial domains with the consideration of practical storage and memory capacity constraints. Finally, our proposed method is able to intelligently select and record the most informative extreme values in the raw data generated from real-time simulations in the context of better monitoring climate changes.« less

An effective online data monitoring and saving strategy for large-scale climate simulations

DOE PAGES

Xian, Xiaochen; Archibald, Rick; Mayer, Benjamin; ...

2018-01-22

Large-scale climate simulation models have been developed and widely used to generate historical data and study future climate scenarios. These simulation models often have to run for a couple of months to understand the changes in the global climate over the course of decades. This long-duration simulation process creates a huge amount of data with both high temporal and spatial resolution information; however, how to effectively monitor and record the climate changes based on these large-scale simulation results that are continuously produced in real time still remains to be resolved. Due to the slow process of writing data to disk,more » the current practice is to save a snapshot of the simulation results at a constant, slow rate although the data generation process runs at a very high speed. This study proposes an effective online data monitoring and saving strategy over the temporal and spatial domains with the consideration of practical storage and memory capacity constraints. Finally, our proposed method is able to intelligently select and record the most informative extreme values in the raw data generated from real-time simulations in the context of better monitoring climate changes.« less

National land cover monitoring using large, permanent photo plots

Treesearch

Raymond L. Czaplewski; Glenn P. Catts; Paul W. Snook

1987-01-01

A study in the State of North Carplina, U.S.A. demonstrated that large, permanent photo plots (400 hectares) can be used to monitor large regions of land by using remote sensing techniques. Estimates of area in a variety of land cover categories were made by photointerpretation of medium-scale aerial photography from a single month using 111 photo plots. Many of these...

Application of Time Series Insar Technique for Deformation Monitoring of Large-Scale Landslides in Mountainous Areas of Western China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qu, T.; Lu, P.; Liu, C.; Wan, H.

2016-06-01

Western China is very susceptible to landslide hazards. As a result, landslide detection and early warning are of great importance. This work employs the SBAS (Small Baseline Subset) InSAR Technique for detection and monitoring of large-scale landslides that occurred in Li County, Sichuan Province, Western China. The time series INSAR is performed using descending scenes acquired from TerraSAR-X StripMap mode since 2014 to get the spatial distribution of surface displacements of this giant landslide. The time series results identify the distinct deformation zone on the landslide body with a rate of up to 150mm/yr. The deformation acquired by SBAS technique is validated by inclinometers from diverse boreholes of in-situ monitoring. The integration of InSAR time series displacements and ground-based monitoring data helps to provide reliable data support for the forecasting and monitoring of largescale landslide.

PERSPECTIVES ON LARGE-SCALE NATURAL RESOURCES SURVEYS WHEN CAUSE-EFFECT IS A POTENTIAL ISSUE

EPA Science Inventory

Our objective is to present a perspective on large-scale natural resource monitoring when cause-effect is a potential issue. We believe that the approach of designing a survey to meet traditional commodity production and resource state descriptive objectives is too restrictive an...

Distributed intelligent urban environment monitoring system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Du, Jinsong; Wang, Wei; Gao, Jie; Cong, Rigang

2018-02-01

The current environmental pollution and destruction have developed into a world-wide major social problem that threatens human survival and development. Environmental monitoring is the prerequisite and basis of environmental governance, but overall, the current environmental monitoring system is facing a series of problems. Based on the electrochemical sensor, this paper designs a small, low-cost, easy to layout urban environmental quality monitoring terminal, and multi-terminal constitutes a distributed network. The system has been small-scale demonstration applications and has confirmed that the system is suitable for large-scale promotion

Development and Application of a Structural Health Monitoring System Based on Wireless Smart Aggregates

PubMed Central

Ma, Haoyan; Li, Peng; Song, Gangbing; Wu, Jianxin

2017-01-01

Structural health monitoring (SHM) systems can improve the safety and reliability of structures, reduce maintenance costs, and extend service life. Research on concrete SHMs using piezoelectric-based smart aggregates have reached great achievements. However, the newly developed techniques have not been widely applied in practical engineering, largely due to the wiring problems associated with large-scale structural health monitoring. The cumbersome wiring requires much material and labor work, and more importantly, the associated maintenance work is also very heavy. Targeting a practical large scale concrete crack detection (CCD) application, a smart aggregates-based wireless sensor network system is proposed for the CCD application. The developed CCD system uses Zigbee 802.15.4 protocols, and is able to perform dynamic stress monitoring, structural impact capturing, and internal crack detection. The system has been experimentally validated, and the experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed system. This work provides important support for practical CCD applications using wireless smart aggregates. PMID:28714927

Development and Application of a Structural Health Monitoring System Based on Wireless Smart Aggregates.

PubMed

Yan, Shi; Ma, Haoyan; Li, Peng; Song, Gangbing; Wu, Jianxin

2017-07-17

Structural health monitoring (SHM) systems can improve the safety and reliability of structures, reduce maintenance costs, and extend service life. Research on concrete SHMs using piezoelectric-based smart aggregates have reached great achievements. However, the newly developed techniques have not been widely applied in practical engineering, largely due to the wiring problems associated with large-scale structural health monitoring. The cumbersome wiring requires much material and labor work, and more importantly, the associated maintenance work is also very heavy. Targeting a practical large scale concrete crack detection (CCD) application, a smart aggregates-based wireless sensor network system is proposed for the CCD application. The developed CCD system uses Zigbee 802.15.4 protocols, and is able to perform dynamic stress monitoring, structural impact capturing, and internal crack detection. The system has been experimentally validated, and the experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed system. This work provides important support for practical CCD applications using wireless smart aggregates.

Pollution monitoring of puget sound with honey bees.

PubMed

Bromenshenk, J J; Carlson, S R; Simpson, J C; Thomas, J M

1985-02-08

To show that honey bees are effective biological monitors of environmental contaminants over large geographic areas, beekeepers of Puget Sound, Washington, collected pollen and bees for chemical analysis. From these data, kriging maps of arsenic, cadmium, and fluoride were generated. Results, based on actual concentrations of contaminants in bee tissues, show that the greatest concentrations of contaminants occur close to Commencement Bay and that honey bees are effective as large-scale monitors.

Intensity of Territorial Marking Predicts Wolf Reproduction: Implications for Wolf Monitoring

PubMed Central

García, Emilio J.

2014-01-01

Background The implementation of intensive and complex approaches to monitor large carnivores is resource demanding, restricted to endangered species, small populations, or small distribution ranges. Wolf monitoring over large spatial scales is difficult, but the management of such contentious species requires regular estimations of abundance to guide decision-makers. The integration of wolf marking behaviour with simple sign counts may offer a cost-effective alternative to monitor the status of wolf populations over large spatial scales. Methodology/Principal Findings We used a multi-sampling approach, based on the collection of visual and scent wolf marks (faeces and ground scratching) and the assessment of wolf reproduction using howling and observation points, to test whether the intensity of marking behaviour around the pup-rearing period (summer-autumn) could reflect wolf reproduction. Between 1994 and 2007 we collected 1,964 wolf marks in a total of 1,877 km surveyed and we searched for the pups' presence (1,497 howling and 307 observations points) in 42 sampling sites with a regular presence of wolves (120 sampling sites/year). The number of wolf marks was ca. 3 times higher in sites with a confirmed presence of pups (20.3 vs. 7.2 marks). We found a significant relationship between the number of wolf marks (mean and maximum relative abundance index) and the probability of wolf reproduction. Conclusions/Significance This research establishes a real-time relationship between the intensity of wolf marking behaviour and wolf reproduction. We suggest a conservative cutting point of 0.60 for the probability of wolf reproduction to monitor wolves on a regional scale combined with the use of the mean relative abundance index of wolf marks in a given area. We show how the integration of wolf behaviour with simple sampling procedures permit rapid, real-time, and cost-effective assessments of the breeding status of wolf packs with substantial implications to monitor wolves at large spatial scales. PMID:24663068

A ZigBee wireless networking for remote sensing applications in hydrological monitoring system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weng, Songgan; Zhai, Duo; Yang, Xing; Hu, Xiaodong

2017-01-01

Hydrological monitoring is recognized as one of the most important factors in hydrology. Particularly, investigation of the tempo-spatial variation patterns of water-level and their effect on hydrological research has attracted more and more attention in recent. Because of the limitations in both human costs and existing water-level monitoring devices, however, it is very hard for researchers to collect real-time water-level data from large-scale geographical areas. This paper designs and implements a real-time water-level data monitoring system (MCH) based on ZigBee networking, which explicitly serves as an effective and efficient scientific instrument for domain experts to facilitate the measurement of large-scale and real-time water-level data monitoring. We implement a proof-of-concept prototype of the MCH, which can monitor water-level automatically, real-timely and accurately with low cost and low power consumption. The preliminary laboratory results and analyses demonstrate the feasibility and the efficacy of the MCH.

Use of large-scale acoustic monitoring to assess anthropogenic pressures on Orthoptera communities.

PubMed

Penone, Caterina; Le Viol, Isabelle; Pellissier, Vincent; Julien, Jean-François; Bas, Yves; Kerbiriou, Christian

2013-10-01

Biodiversity monitoring at large spatial and temporal scales is greatly needed in the context of global changes. Although insects are a species-rich group and are important for ecosystem functioning, they have been largely neglected in conservation studies and policies, mainly due to technical and methodological constraints. Sound detection, a nondestructive method, is easily applied within a citizen-science framework and could be an interesting solution for insect monitoring. However, it has not yet been tested at a large scale. We assessed the value of a citizen-science program in which Orthoptera species (Tettigoniidae) were monitored acoustically along roads. We used Bayesian model-averaging analyses to test whether we could detect widely known patterns of anthropogenic effects on insects, such as the negative effects of urbanization or intensive agriculture on Orthoptera populations and communities. We also examined site-abundance correlations between years and estimated the biases in species detection to evaluate and improve the protocol. Urbanization and intensive agricultural landscapes negatively affected Orthoptera species richness, diversity, and abundance. This finding is consistent with results of previous studies of Orthoptera, vertebrates, carabids, and butterflies. The average mass of communities decreased as urbanization increased. The dispersal ability of communities increased as the percentage of agricultural land and, to a lesser extent, urban area increased. Despite changes in abundances over time, we found significant correlations between yearly abundances. We identified biases linked to the protocol (e.g., car speed or temperature) that can be accounted for ease in analyses. We argue that acoustic monitoring of Orthoptera along roads offers several advantages for assessing Orthoptera biodiversity at large spatial and temporal extents, particularly in a citizen science framework. © 2013 Society for Conservation Biology.

Very Large Scale Aerial (VLSA) imagery for assessing postfire bitterbrush recovery

Treesearch

Corey A. Moffet; J. Bret Taylor; D. Terrance Booth

2008-01-01

Very large scale aerial (VLSA) imagery is an efficient tool for monitoring bare ground and cover on extensive rangelands. This study was conducted to determine whether VLSA images could be used to detect differences in antelope bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata Pursh DC) cover and density among similar ecological sites with varying postfire recovery...

Innovative Visualizations Shed Light on Avian Nocturnal Migration

PubMed Central

Farnsworth, Andrew; Aelterman, Bart; Alves, Jose A.; Azijn, Kevin; Bernstein, Garrett; Branco, Sérgio; Desmet, Peter; Dokter, Adriaan M.; Horton, Kyle; Kelling, Steve; Kelly, Jeffrey F.; Leijnse, Hidde; Rong, Jingjing; Sheldon, Daniel; Van den Broeck, Wouter; Van Den Meersche, Jan Klaas; Van Doren, Benjamin Mark; van Gasteren, Hans

2016-01-01

Globally, billions of flying animals undergo seasonal migrations, many of which occur at night. The temporal and spatial scales at which migrations occur and our inability to directly observe these nocturnal movements makes monitoring and characterizing this critical period in migratory animals’ life cycles difficult. Remote sensing, therefore, has played an important role in our understanding of large-scale nocturnal bird migrations. Weather surveillance radar networks in Europe and North America have great potential for long-term low-cost monitoring of bird migration at scales that have previously been impossible to achieve. Such long-term monitoring, however, poses a number of challenges for the ornithological and ecological communities: how does one take advantage of this vast data resource, integrate information across multiple sensors and large spatial and temporal scales, and visually represent the data for interpretation and dissemination, considering the dynamic nature of migration? We assembled an interdisciplinary team of ecologists, meteorologists, computer scientists, and graphic designers to develop two different flow visualizations, which are interactive and open source, in order to create novel representations of broad-front nocturnal bird migration to address a primary impediment to long-term, large-scale nocturnal migration monitoring. We have applied these visualization techniques to mass bird migration events recorded by two different weather surveillance radar networks covering regions in Europe and North America. These applications show the flexibility and portability of such an approach. The visualizations provide an intuitive representation of the scale and dynamics of these complex systems, are easily accessible for a broad interest group, and are biologically insightful. Additionally, they facilitate fundamental ecological research, conservation, mitigation of human–wildlife conflicts, improvement of meteorological products, and public outreach, education, and engagement. PMID:27557096

Innovative Visualizations Shed Light on Avian Nocturnal Migration.

PubMed

Shamoun-Baranes, Judy; Farnsworth, Andrew; Aelterman, Bart; Alves, Jose A; Azijn, Kevin; Bernstein, Garrett; Branco, Sérgio; Desmet, Peter; Dokter, Adriaan M; Horton, Kyle; Kelling, Steve; Kelly, Jeffrey F; Leijnse, Hidde; Rong, Jingjing; Sheldon, Daniel; Van den Broeck, Wouter; Van Den Meersche, Jan Klaas; Van Doren, Benjamin Mark; van Gasteren, Hans

2016-01-01

Globally, billions of flying animals undergo seasonal migrations, many of which occur at night. The temporal and spatial scales at which migrations occur and our inability to directly observe these nocturnal movements makes monitoring and characterizing this critical period in migratory animals' life cycles difficult. Remote sensing, therefore, has played an important role in our understanding of large-scale nocturnal bird migrations. Weather surveillance radar networks in Europe and North America have great potential for long-term low-cost monitoring of bird migration at scales that have previously been impossible to achieve. Such long-term monitoring, however, poses a number of challenges for the ornithological and ecological communities: how does one take advantage of this vast data resource, integrate information across multiple sensors and large spatial and temporal scales, and visually represent the data for interpretation and dissemination, considering the dynamic nature of migration? We assembled an interdisciplinary team of ecologists, meteorologists, computer scientists, and graphic designers to develop two different flow visualizations, which are interactive and open source, in order to create novel representations of broad-front nocturnal bird migration to address a primary impediment to long-term, large-scale nocturnal migration monitoring. We have applied these visualization techniques to mass bird migration events recorded by two different weather surveillance radar networks covering regions in Europe and North America. These applications show the flexibility and portability of such an approach. The visualizations provide an intuitive representation of the scale and dynamics of these complex systems, are easily accessible for a broad interest group, and are biologically insightful. Additionally, they facilitate fundamental ecological research, conservation, mitigation of human-wildlife conflicts, improvement of meteorological products, and public outreach, education, and engagement.

Pollution monitoring of Puget Sound with honey bees

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bromenshenk, J.J.; Carlson, S.R.; Simpson, J.C.

To show that honey bees are effective biological monitors of environmental contaminants over large geographic areas, beekeepers of Puget Sound, Washington, collected pollen and bees for chemical analysis. From these data, kriging maps of arsenic, cadmium, and fluoride were generated. Results, based on actual concentrations of contaminants in bee tissues, show that the greatest concentrations of contaminants occur close to Commencement Bay and that honey bees are effective as large-scale monitors. 27 references, 2 figures.

Cost-Effective Large-Scale Occupancy–Abundance Monitoring of Invasive Brushtail Possums (Trichosurus Vulpecula) on New Zealand’s Public Conservation Land

PubMed Central

Gormley, Andrew M.; Forsyth, David M.; Wright, Elaine F.; Lyall, John; Elliott, Mike; Martini, Mark; Kappers, Benno; Perry, Mike; McKay, Meredith

2015-01-01

There is interest in large-scale and unbiased monitoring of biodiversity status and trend, but there are few published examples of such monitoring being implemented. The New Zealand Department of Conservation is implementing a monitoring program that involves sampling selected biota at the vertices of an 8-km grid superimposed over the 8.6 million hectares of public conservation land that it manages. The introduced brushtail possum (Trichosurus Vulpecula) is a major threat to some biota and is one taxon that they wish to monitor and report on. A pilot study revealed that the traditional method of monitoring possums using leg-hold traps set for two nights, termed the Trap Catch Index, was a constraint on the cost and logistical feasibility of the monitoring program. A phased implementation of the monitoring program was therefore conducted to collect data for evaluating the trade-off between possum occupancy–abundance estimates and the costs of sampling for one night rather than two nights. Reducing trapping effort from two nights to one night along four trap-lines reduced the estimated costs of monitoring by 5.8% due to savings in labour, food and allowances; it had a negligible effect on estimated national possum occupancy but resulted in slightly higher and less precise estimates of relative possum abundance. Monitoring possums for one night rather than two nights would provide an annual saving of NZ$72,400, with 271 fewer field days required for sampling. Possums occupied 60% (95% credible interval; 53–68) of sampling locations on New Zealand’s public conservation land, with a mean relative abundance (Trap Catch Index) of 2.7% (2.0–3.5). Possum occupancy and abundance were higher in forest than in non-forest habitats. Our case study illustrates the need to evaluate relationships between sampling design, cost, and occupancy–abundance estimates when designing and implementing large-scale occupancy–abundance monitoring programs. PMID:26029890

Large-scale oil-in-ice experiment in the Barents Sea: monitoring of oil in water and MetOcean interactions.

PubMed

Faksness, Liv-Guri; Brandvik, Per Johan; Daae, Ragnhild L; Leirvik, Frode; Børseth, Jan Fredrik

2011-05-01

A large-scale field experiment took place in the marginal ice zone in the Barents Sea in May 2009. Fresh oil (7000 L) was released uncontained between the ice floes to study oil weathering and spreading in ice and surface water. A detailed monitoring of oil-in-water and ice interactions was performed throughout the six-day experiment. In addition, meteorological and oceanographic data were recorded for monitoring of the wind speed and direction, air temperature, currents and ice floe movements. The monitoring showed low concentrations of dissolved hydrocarbons and the predicted acute toxicity indicated that the acute toxicity was low. The ice field drifted nearly 80 km during the experimental period, and although the oil drifted with the ice, it remained contained between the ice floes. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Listening to the Deep: live monitoring of ocean noise and cetacean acoustic signals.

PubMed

André, M; van der Schaar, M; Zaugg, S; Houégnigan, L; Sánchez, A M; Castell, J V

2011-01-01

The development and broad use of passive acoustic monitoring techniques have the potential to help assessing the large-scale influence of artificial noise on marine organisms and ecosystems. Deep-sea observatories have the potential to play a key role in understanding these recent acoustic changes. LIDO (Listening to the Deep Ocean Environment) is an international project that is allowing the real-time long-term monitoring of marine ambient noise as well as marine mammal sounds at cabled and standalone observatories. Here, we present the overall development of the project and the use of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) techniques to provide the scientific community with real-time data at large spatial and temporal scales. Special attention is given to the extraction and identification of high frequency cetacean echolocation signals given the relevance of detecting target species, e.g. beaked whales, in mitigation processes, e.g. during military exercises. Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Interrater Reliability in Large-Scale Assessments--Can Teachers Score National Tests Reliably without External Controls?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pantzare, Anna Lind

2015-01-01

In most large-scale assessment systems a set of rather expensive external quality controls are implemented in order to guarantee the quality of interrater reliability. This study empirically examines if teachers' ratings of national tests in mathematics can be reliable without using monitoring, training, or other methods of external quality…

Survival analysis for a large scale forest health issue: Missouri oak decline

Treesearch

C.W. Woodall; P.L. Grambsch; W. Thomas; W.K. Moser

2005-01-01

Survival analysis methodologies provide novel approaches for forest mortality analysis that may aid in detecting, monitoring, and mitigating of large-scale forest health issues. This study examined survivor analysis for evaluating a regional forest health issue - Missouri oak decline. With a statewide Missouri forest inventory, log-rank tests of the effects of...

The Contribution of International Large-Scale Assessments to Educational Research: Combining Individual and Institutional Data Sources

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strietholt, Rolf; Scherer, Ronny

2018-01-01

The present paper aims to discuss how data from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) can be utilized and combined, even with other existing data sources, in order to monitor educational outcomes and study the effectiveness of educational systems. We consider different purposes of linking data, namely, extending outcomes measures,…

An effectiveness monitoring program for the northwest forest plan: new approaches to common monitoring problems

Treesearch

Craig Palmer; Barry Mulder; Barry Noon

2000-01-01

The Northwest Forest Plan is a large-scale ecosystem management plan for federal lands in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. An effectiveness monitoring program has been developed to determine the extent to which the goals and objectives of this Plan are being achieved. Priority resources identified for ecological monitoring include late-successional and old-...

Remote maintenance monitoring system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Simpkins, Lorenz G. (Inventor); Owens, Richard C. (Inventor); Rochette, Donn A. (Inventor)

1992-01-01

A remote maintenance monitoring system retrofits to a given hardware device with a sensor implant which gathers and captures failure data from the hardware device, without interfering with its operation. Failure data is continuously obtained from predetermined critical points within the hardware device, and is analyzed with a diagnostic expert system, which isolates failure origin to a particular component within the hardware device. For example, monitoring of a computer-based device may include monitoring of parity error data therefrom, as well as monitoring power supply fluctuations therein, so that parity error and power supply anomaly data may be used to trace the failure origin to a particular plane or power supply within the computer-based device. A plurality of sensor implants may be rerofit to corresponding plural devices comprising a distributed large-scale system. Transparent interface of the sensors to the devices precludes operative interference with the distributed network. Retrofit capability of the sensors permits monitoring of even older devices having no built-in testing technology. Continuous real time monitoring of a distributed network of such devices, coupled with diagnostic expert system analysis thereof, permits capture and analysis of even intermittent failures, thereby facilitating maintenance of the monitored large-scale system.

Wafer level reliability for high-performance VLSI design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Root, Bryan J.; Seefeldt, James D.

1987-01-01

As very large scale integration architecture requires higher package density, reliability of these devices has approached a critical level. Previous processing techniques allowed a large window for varying reliability. However, as scaling and higher current densities push reliability to its limit, tighter control and instant feedback becomes critical. Several test structures developed to monitor reliability at the wafer level are described. For example, a test structure was developed to monitor metal integrity in seconds as opposed to weeks or months for conventional testing. Another structure monitors mobile ion contamination at critical steps in the process. Thus the reliability jeopardy can be assessed during fabrication preventing defective devices from ever being placed in the field. Most importantly, the reliability can be assessed on each wafer as opposed to an occasional sample.

MONITORING DECLINING METAPOPULATIONS: INSIGHTS FROM A MODEL SIMULATION

EPA Science Inventory

Pond-breeding amphibians, host-specialist butterflies, and a variety of other organisms have been shown to exhibit population structures and dynamics consistent with metapopulation theory. In recent years large-scale biodiversity monitoring efforts have been initiated in many reg...

Remote sensing of exposure to NO2: Satellite versus ground-based measurement in a large urban area

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bechle, Matthew J.; Millet, Dylan B.; Marshall, Julian D.

2013-04-01

Remote sensing may be a useful tool for exploring spatial variability of air pollution exposure within an urban area. To evaluate the extent to which satellite data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) can resolve urban-scale gradients in ground-level nitrogen dioxide (NO2) within a large urban area, we compared estimates of surface NO2 concentrations derived from OMI measurements and US EPA ambient monitoring stations. OMI, aboard NASA's Aura satellite, provides daily afternoon (˜13:30 local time) measurements of NO2 tropospheric column abundance. We used scaling factors (surface-to-column ratios) to relate satellite column measurements to ground-level concentrations. We compared 4138 sets of paired data for 25 monitoring stations in the South Coast Air Basin of California for all of 2005. OMI measurements include more data gaps than the ground monitors (60% versus 5% of available data, respectively), owing to cloud contamination and imposed limits on pixel size. The spatial correlation between OMI columns and corrected in situ measurements is strong (r = 0.93 for annual average data), indicating that the within-urban spatial signature of surface NO2 is well resolved by the satellite sensor. Satellite-based surface estimates employing scaling factors from an urban model provide a reliable measure (annual mean bias: -13%; seasonal mean bias: <1% [spring] to -22% [fall]) of fine-scale surface NO2. We also find that OMI provides good spatial density in the study region (average area [km2] per measurement: 730 for the satellite sensor vs. 1100 for the monitors). Our findings indicate that satellite observations of NO2 from the OMI sensor provide a reliable measure of spatial variability in ground-level NO2 exposure for a large urban area.

A Spectral Method for Spatial Downscaling

PubMed Central

Reich, Brian J.; Chang, Howard H.; Foley, Kristen M.

2014-01-01

Summary Complex computer models play a crucial role in air quality research. These models are used to evaluate potential regulatory impacts of emission control strategies and to estimate air quality in areas without monitoring data. For both of these purposes, it is important to calibrate model output with monitoring data to adjust for model biases and improve spatial prediction. In this article, we propose a new spectral method to study and exploit complex relationships between model output and monitoring data. Spectral methods allow us to estimate the relationship between model output and monitoring data separately at different spatial scales, and to use model output for prediction only at the appropriate scales. The proposed method is computationally efficient and can be implemented using standard software. We apply the method to compare Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model output with ozone measurements in the United States in July 2005. We find that CMAQ captures large-scale spatial trends, but has low correlation with the monitoring data at small spatial scales. PMID:24965037

Monitoring Surface Climate With its Emissivity Derived From Satellite Measurements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zhou, Daniel K.; Larar, Allen M.; Liu, Xu

2012-01-01

Satellite thermal infrared (IR) spectral emissivity data have been shown to be significant for atmospheric research and monitoring the Earth fs environment. Long-term and large-scale observations needed for global monitoring and research can be supplied by satellite-based remote sensing. Presented here is the global surface IR emissivity data retrieved from the last 5 years of Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) measurements observed from the MetOp-A satellite. Monthly mean surface properties (i.e., skin temperature T(sub s) and emissivity spectra epsilon(sub v) with a spatial resolution of 0.5x0.5-degrees latitude-longitude are produced to monitor seasonal and inter-annual variations. We demonstrate that surface epsilon(sub v) and T(sub s) retrieved with IASI measurements can be used to assist in monitoring surface weather and surface climate change. Surface epsilon(sub v) together with T(sub s) from current and future operational satellites can be utilized as a means of long-term and large-scale monitoring of Earth 's surface weather environment and associated changes.

Small-scale response in an avian community to a large-scale thinning project in the southwestern United States

Treesearch

Karen E. Bagne; Deborah M. Finch

2009-01-01

Avian populations were monitored using point counts from 2002 to 2007, two years before and four years after a 2800 ha fuel reduction project. The study area was within a ponderosa pine forest near Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Adjacent unthinned areas were also monitored as a reference for population variation related to other factors. For individual bird species...

Large Scale Application of Vibration Sensors for Fan Monitoring at Commercial Layer Hen Houses

PubMed Central

Chen, Yan; Ni, Ji-Qin; Diehl, Claude A.; Heber, Albert J.; Bogan, Bill W.; Chai, Li-Long

2010-01-01

Continuously monitoring the operation of each individual fan can significantly improve the measurement quality of aerial pollutant emissions from animal buildings that have a large number of fans. To monitor the fan operation by detecting the fan vibration is a relatively new technique. A low-cost electronic vibration sensor was developed and commercialized. However, its large scale application has not yet been evaluated. This paper presents long-term performance results of this vibration sensor at two large commercial layer houses. Vibration sensors were installed on 164 fans of 130 cm diameter to continuously monitor the fan on/off status for two years. The performance of the vibration sensors was compared with fan rotational speed (FRS) sensors. The vibration sensors exhibited quick response and high sensitivity to fan operations and therefore satisfied the general requirements of air quality research. The study proved that detecting fan vibration was an effective method to monitor the on/off status of a large number of single-speed fans. The vibration sensor itself was $2 more expensive than a magnetic proximity FRS sensor but the overall cost including installation and data acquisition hardware was $77 less expensive than the FRS sensor. A total of nine vibration sensors failed during the study and the failure rate was related to the batches of product. A few sensors also exhibited unsteady sensitivity. As a new product, the quality of the sensor should be improved to make it more reliable and acceptable. PMID:22163544

Monitoring survival rates of Swainson's Thrush Catharus ustulatus at multiple spatial scales

USGS Publications Warehouse

Rosenberg, D.K.; DeSante, D.F.; McKelvey, K.S.; Hines, J.E.

1999-01-01

We estimated survival rates of Swainson's Thrush, a common, neotropical, migratory landbird, at multiple spatial scales, using data collected in the western USA from the Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship Programme. We evaluated statistical power to detect spatially heterogeneous survival rates and exponentially declining survival rates among spatial scales with simulated populations parameterized from results of the Swainson's Thrush analyses. Models describing survival rates as constant across large spatial scales did not fit the data. The model we chose as most appropriate to describe survival rates of Swainson's Thrush allowed survival rates to vary among Physiographic Provinces, included a separate parameter for the probability that a newly captured bird is a resident individual in the study population, and constrained capture probability to be constant across all stations. Estimated annual survival rates under this model varied from 0.42 to 0.75 among Provinces. The coefficient of variation of survival estimates ranged from 5.8 to 20% among Physiographic Provinces. Statistical power to detect exponentially declining trends was fairly low for small spatial scales, although large annual declines (3% of previous year's rate) were likely to be detected when monitoring was conducted for long periods of time (e.g. 20 years). Although our simulations and field results are based on only four years of data from a limited number and distribution of stations, it is likely that they illustrate genuine difficulties inherent to broadscale efforts to monitor survival rates of territorial landbirds. In particular, our results suggest that more attention needs to be paid to sampling schemes of monitoring programmes, particularly regarding the trade-off between precision and potential bias of parameter estimates at varying spatial scales.

Monitoring survival rates of Swainson's Thrush Catharus ustulatus at multiple spatial scales

USGS Publications Warehouse

Rosenberg, D.K.; DeSante, D.F.; McKelvey, K.S.; Hines, J.E.

1999-01-01

We estimated survival rates of Swainson's Thrush, a common, neotropical, migratory landbird, at multiple spatial scales, using data collected in the western USA from the Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship Programme. We evaluated statistical power to detect spatially heterogeneous survival rates and exponentially declining survival rates among spatial scales with simulated populations parameterized from results of the Swainson's Thrush analyses. Models describing survival rates as constant across large spatial scales did not fit the data. The model we chose as most appropriate to describe survival rates of Swainson's Thrush allowed survival rates to vary among Physiographic Provinces, included a separate parameter for the probability that a newly captured bird is a resident individual in the study population, and constrained capture probability to be constant across all stations. Estimated annual survival rates under this model varied from 0.42 to 0.75 among Provinces. The coefficient of variation of survival estimates ranged from 5.8 to 20% among Physiographic Provinces. Statistical power to detect exponentially declining trends was fairly low for small spatial scales, although large annual declines (3% of previous year's rate) were likely to be detected when monitoring was conducted for long periods of time (e.g. 20 years). Although our simulations and field results are based on only four years of date from a limited number and distribution of stations, it is likely that they illustrate genuine difficulties inherent to broadscale efforts to monitor survival rates of territorial landbirds. In particular, our results suggest that more attention needs to be paid to sampling schemes of monitoring programmes particularly regarding the trade-off between precison and potential bias o parameter estimates at varying spatial scales.

Measurement repeatability of a large-scale inventory of forest fuels

Treesearch

J.A. Westfall; C.W. Woodall

2007-01-01

An efficient and accurate inventory of forest fuels at large scales is critical for assessment of forest fire hazards across landscapes. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the USDA Forest Service conducts a national inventory of fuels along with blind remeasurement of a portion of inventory plots to monitor and improve data quality. The goal of this...

Development and Evaluation of a Parallel Reaction Monitoring Strategy for Large-Scale Targeted Metabolomics Quantification.

PubMed

Zhou, Juntuo; Liu, Huiying; Liu, Yang; Liu, Jia; Zhao, Xuyang; Yin, Yuxin

2016-04-19

Recent advances in mass spectrometers which have yielded higher resolution and faster scanning speeds have expanded their application in metabolomics of diverse diseases. Using a quadrupole-Orbitrap LC-MS system, we developed an efficient large-scale quantitative method targeting 237 metabolites involved in various metabolic pathways using scheduled, parallel reaction monitoring (PRM). We assessed the dynamic range, linearity, reproducibility, and system suitability of the PRM assay by measuring concentration curves, biological samples, and clinical serum samples. The quantification performances of PRM and MS1-based assays in Q-Exactive were compared, and the MRM assay in QTRAP 6500 was also compared. The PRM assay monitoring 237 polar metabolites showed greater reproducibility and quantitative accuracy than MS1-based quantification and also showed greater flexibility in postacquisition assay refinement than the MRM assay in QTRAP 6500. We present a workflow for convenient PRM data processing using Skyline software which is free of charge. In this study we have established a reliable PRM methodology on a quadrupole-Orbitrap platform for evaluation of large-scale targeted metabolomics, which provides a new choice for basic and clinical metabolomics study.

Reducing Risk in CO2 Sequestration: A Framework for Integrated Monitoring of Basin Scale Injection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seto, C. J.; Haidari, A. S.; McRae, G. J.

2009-12-01

Geological sequestration of CO2 is an option for stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Technical ability to safely store CO2 in the subsurface has been demonstrated through pilot projects and a long history of enhanced oil recovery and acid gas disposal operations. To address climate change, current injection operations must be scaled up by a factor of 100, raising issues of safety and security. Monitoring and verification is an essential component in ensuring safe operations and managing risk. Monitoring provides assurance that CO2 is securely stored in the subsurface, and the mechanisms governing transport and storage are well understood. It also provides an early warning mechanism for identification of anomalies in performance, and a means for intervention and remediation through the ability to locate the CO2. Through theoretical studies, bench scale experiments and pilot tests, a number of technologies have demonstrated their ability to monitor CO2 in the surface and subsurface. Because the focus of these studies has been to demonstrate feasibility, individual techniques have not been integrated to provide a more robust method for monitoring. Considering the large volumes required for injection, size of the potential footprint, length of time a project must be monitored and uncertainty, operational considerations of cost and risk must balance safety and security. Integration of multiple monitoring techniques will reduce uncertainty in monitoring injected CO2, thereby reducing risk. We present a framework for risk management of large scale injection through model based monitoring network design. This framework is applied to monitoring CO2 in a synthetic reservoir where there is uncertainty in the underlying permeability field controlling fluid migration. Deformation and seismic data are used to track plume migration. A modified Ensemble Kalman filter approach is used to estimate flow properties by jointly assimilating flow and geomechanical observations. Issues of risk, cost and uncertainty are considered.

Large-scale monitoring of air pollution in remote and ecologically important areas

Treesearch

Andrzej Bytnerowicz; Witold Fraczek

2013-01-01

New advances in air quality monitoring techniques, such as passive samplers for nitrogenous (N) or sulphurous (S) pollutants and ozone (O3), have allowed for an improved understanding of concentrations of these pollutants in remote areas. Mountains create special problems with regard to the feasibility of establishing and maintaining air pollution monitoring networks,...

Monitoring Ecosystems and Biodiversity at a Continental Scale--A Proposal for South America

Treesearch

Xavier Silva

2006-01-01

A monitoring system plan is being developed in South America to assess critically endangered ecoregions. The system will be based on a previous ecosystem and biodiversity inventory developed through a large gap analysis program in five South American ecoregions. The monitoring system will include three main elements: (1) Landscape Ecology: vegetation cover,...

Integrating scales of seagrass monitoring to meet conservation needs

USGS Publications Warehouse

Neckles, Hilary A.; Kopp, Blaine S.; Peterson, Bradley J.; Pooler, Penelope S.

2012-01-01

We evaluated a hierarchical framework for seagrass monitoring in two estuaries in the northeastern USA: Little Pleasant Bay, Massachusetts, and Great South Bay/Moriches Bay, New York. This approach includes three tiers of monitoring that are integrated across spatial scales and sampling intensities. We identified monitoring attributes for determining attainment of conservation objectives to protect seagrass ecosystems from estuarine nutrient enrichment. Existing mapping programs provided large-scale information on seagrass distribution and bed sizes (tier 1 monitoring). We supplemented this with bay-wide, quadrat-based assessments of seagrass percent cover and canopy height at permanent sampling stations following a spatially distributed random design (tier 2 monitoring). Resampling simulations showed that four observations per station were sufficient to minimize bias in estimating mean percent cover on a bay-wide scale, and sample sizes of 55 stations in a 624-ha system and 198 stations in a 9,220-ha system were sufficient to detect absolute temporal increases in seagrass abundance from 25% to 49% cover and from 4% to 12% cover, respectively. We made high-resolution measurements of seagrass condition (percent cover, canopy height, total and reproductive shoot density, biomass, and seagrass depth limit) at a representative index site in each system (tier 3 monitoring). Tier 3 data helped explain system-wide changes. Our results suggest tiered monitoring as an efficient and feasible way to detect and predict changes in seagrass systems relative to multi-scale conservation objectives.

Review of the outer scale of the atmospheric turbulence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ziad, Aziz

2016-07-01

Outer scale is a relevant parameter for the experimental performance evaluation of large telescopes. Different techniques have been used for the outer scale estimation. In situ measurements with radiosounding balloons have given very small values of outer scale. This latter has also been estimated directly at the ground level from the wavefront analysis with High Angular Resolution (HAR) techniques using interferometric or Shack-Hartmann or more generally AO systems data. Dedicated instruments have been also developed for the outer scale monitoring such as the Generalized Seeing Monitor (GSM) and the Monitor of Outer Scale Profile (MOSP). The measured values of outer scale from HAR techniques, GSM and MOSP are somewhat coherent and are larger than the in situ results. The main explanation of this difference comes from the definition of the outer scale itself. This paper aims to give a review in a non-exhaustive way of different techniques and instruments for the measurement of the outer scale. Comparisons of outer scale measurements will be discussed in the light of the different definitions of this parameter, the associated observable quantities and the atmospheric turbulence model as well.

Skin Friction Reduction Through Large-Scale Forcing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhatt, Shibani; Artham, Sravan; Gnanamanickam, Ebenezer

2017-11-01

Flow structures in a turbulent boundary layer larger than an integral length scale (δ), referred to as large-scales, interact with the finer scales in a non-linear manner. By targeting these large-scales and exploiting this non-linear interaction wall shear stress (WSS) reduction of over 10% has been achieved. The plane wall jet (PWJ), a boundary layer which has highly energetic large-scales that become turbulent independent of the near-wall finer scales, is the chosen model flow field. It's unique configuration allows for the independent control of the large-scales through acoustic forcing. Perturbation wavelengths from about 1 δ to 14 δ were considered with a reduction in WSS for all wavelengths considered. This reduction, over a large subset of the wavelengths, scales with both inner and outer variables indicating a mixed scaling to the underlying physics, while also showing dependence on the PWJ global properties. A triple decomposition of the velocity fields shows an increase in coherence due to forcing with a clear organization of the small scale turbulence with respect to the introduced large-scale. The maximum reduction in WSS occurs when the introduced large-scale acts in a manner so as to reduce the turbulent activity in the very near wall region. This material is based upon work supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Award Number FA9550-16-1-0194 monitored by Dr. Douglas Smith.

Iterative User-Centered Design of a Next Generation Patient Monitoring System for Emergency Medical Response

PubMed Central

Gao, Tia; Kim, Matthew I.; White, David; Alm, Alexander M.

2006-01-01

We have developed a system for real-time patient monitoring during large-scale disasters. Our system is designed with scalable algorithms to monitor large numbers of patients, an intuitive interface to support the overwhelmed responders, and ad-hoc mesh networking capabilities to maintain connectivity to patients in the chaotic settings. This paper describes an iterative approach to user-centered design adopted to guide development of our system. This system is a part of the Advanced Health and Disaster Aid Network (AID-N) architecture. PMID:17238348

Using Item Response Theory to Develop Measures of Acquisitive and Protective Self-Monitoring From the Original Self-Monitoring Scale.

PubMed

Wilmot, Michael P; Kostal, Jack W; Stillwell, David; Kosinski, Michal

2017-07-01

For the past 40 years, the conventional univariate model of self-monitoring has reigned as the dominant interpretative paradigm in the literature. However, recent findings associated with an alternative bivariate model challenge the conventional paradigm. In this study, item response theory is used to develop measures of the bivariate model of acquisitive and protective self-monitoring using original Self-Monitoring Scale (SMS) items, and data from two large, nonstudent samples ( Ns = 13,563 and 709). Results indicate that the new acquisitive (six-item) and protective (seven-item) self-monitoring scales are reliable, unbiased in terms of gender and age, and demonstrate theoretically consistent relations to measures of personality traits and cognitive ability. Additionally, by virtue of using original SMS items, previously collected responses can be reanalyzed in accordance with the alternative bivariate model. Recommendations for the reanalysis of archival SMS data, as well as directions for future research, are provided.

Understory fern community structure, growth and spore production responses to a large-scale hurricane experiment in a Puerto Rico rainforest

Treesearch

Joanne M. Sharpe; Aaron B. Shiels

2014-01-01

Ferns are abundant in most rainforest understories yet their responses to hurricanes have not been well studied. Fern community structure, growth and spore production were monitored for two years before and five years after a large-scale experiment that simulated two key components of severe hurricane disturbance: canopy openness and debris deposition. The canopy was...

Monitoring land at regional and national scales and the role of remote sensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dymond, John R.; Bégue, Agnes; Loseen, Danny

There is a need world wide for monitoring land and its ecosystems to ensure their sustainable use. Despite the laudable intentions of Agenda 21 at the Rio Earth Summit, 1992, in which many countries agreed to monitor and report on the status of their land, systematic monitoring of land has yet to begin. The problem is truly difficult, as the earth's surface is vast and the funds available for monitoring are relatively small. This paper describes several methods for cost-effective monitoring of large land areas, including: strategic monitoring; statistical sampling; risk-based approaches; integration of land and water monitoring; and remote sensing. The role of remote sensing is given special attention, as it is the only method that can monitor land exhaustively and directly, at regional and national scales. It is concluded that strategic monitoring, whereby progress towards environmental goals is assessed, is a vital element in land monitoring as it provides a means for evaluating the utility of monitoring designs.

Developing enterprise tools and capacities for large-scale natural resource monitoring: A visioning workshop

USGS Publications Warehouse

Bayer, Jennifer M.; Weltzin, Jake F.; Scully, Rebecca A.

2017-01-01

Objectives of the workshop were: 1) identify resources that support natural resource monitoring programs working across the data life cycle; 2) prioritize desired capacities and tools to facilitate monitoring design and implementation; 3) identify standards and best practices that improve discovery, accessibility, and interoperability of data across programs and jurisdictions; and 4) contribute to an emerging community of practice focused on natural resource monitoring.

Multiple Scale Remote Sensing for Monitoring Rangelands

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Based on a land-cover classification from NASA’s MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), rangelands cover 48% of the Earth’s land surface, not including Antarctica. Nearly all analyses imply the most economical means of monitoring large areas of rangelands worldwide is with remote se...

NETWORK DESIGN FOR OZONE MONITORING

EPA Science Inventory

The potential effects of air pollution on human health have received much attention in recent years. In the U.S. and other countries, there are extensive large-scale monitoring networks designed to collect data to inform the public of exposure risks from air pollution. A major cr...

Moon-based Earth Observation for Large Scale Geoscience Phenomena

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Huadong; Liu, Guang; Ding, Yixing

2016-07-01

The capability of Earth observation for large-global-scale natural phenomena needs to be improved and new observing platform are expected. We have studied the concept of Moon as an Earth observation in these years. Comparing with manmade satellite platform, Moon-based Earth observation can obtain multi-spherical, full-band, active and passive information,which is of following advantages: large observation range, variable view angle, long-term continuous observation, extra-long life cycle, with the characteristics of longevity ,consistency, integrity, stability and uniqueness. Moon-based Earth observation is suitable for monitoring the large scale geoscience phenomena including large scale atmosphere change, large scale ocean change,large scale land surface dynamic change,solid earth dynamic change,etc. For the purpose of establishing a Moon-based Earth observation platform, we already have a plan to study the five aspects as follows: mechanism and models of moon-based observing earth sciences macroscopic phenomena; sensors' parameters optimization and methods of moon-based Earth observation; site selection and environment of moon-based Earth observation; Moon-based Earth observation platform; and Moon-based Earth observation fundamental scientific framework.

Distributed coaxial cable crack sensors for crack mapping in RC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Greene, Gary G.; Belarbi, Abdeldjelil; Chen, Genda; McDaniel, Ryan

2005-05-01

New type of distributed coaxial cable sensors for health monitoring of large-scale civil infrastructure was recently proposed and developed by the authors. This paper shows the results and performance of such sensors mounted on near surface of two flexural beams and a large scale reinforced concrete box girder that was subjected to twenty cycles of combined shear and torsion. The main objectives of this health monitoring study was to correlate the sensor's response to strain in the member, and show that magnitude of the signal's reflection coefficient is related to increases in applied load, repeated cycles, cracking, crack mapping, and yielding. The effect of multiple adjacent cracks, and signal loss was also investigated.

Terrestrial photography as a complementary measurement in weather stations for snow monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pimentel, Rafael; José Pérez-Palazón, María; Herrero, Javier; José Polo, María

2015-04-01

Snow monitoring constitutes a basic key to know snow behaviour and evolution, which have particular features in semiarid regions (i.e. highly strong spatiotemporal variability, and the occurrence of several accumulation-melting cycles throughout the year). On one hand, traditional snow observation, such as snow surveys and snow pillows have the inconvenience of a limited accessibility during snow season and the impossibility to cover a vast extension. On the other hand, satellite remote sensing techniques, largely employed in medium to large scale regional studies, has the disadvantage of a fixed spatial and temporal resolutions which in some cases are not able to reproduce snow processes at small scale. An economic alternative is the use of terrestrial photography which scales are adapted to the study problem. At the microscale resolution permits the continuous monitoring of snow, adapting the resolution of the observation to the scales of the processes. Besides its use as raw observation datasets to calibrate and validate models' results, terrestrial photography constitutes valuable information to complement weather stations observations. It allows the discriminating possible mistakes in meteorological observations (i.e. overestimation on rain measurements) and a better understanding of snow behaviour against certain weather agents (i.e. blowing snow). Thus, terrestrial photography is a feasible and convenient technique to be included in weather monitoring stations in mountainous areas in semiarid regions.

Detecting Change in Landscape Greenness over Large Areas: An Example for New Mexico, USA

EPA Science Inventory

Monitoring and quantifying changes in vegetation cover over large areas using remote sensing can potentially detect large-scale, slow changes (e.g., climate change), as well as more local and rapid changes (e.g., fire, land development). A useful indicator for detecting change i...

LEMON - LHC Era Monitoring for Large-Scale Infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marian, Babik; Ivan, Fedorko; Nicholas, Hook; Hector, Lansdale Thomas; Daniel, Lenkes; Miroslav, Siket; Denis, Waldron

2011-12-01

At the present time computer centres are facing a massive rise in virtualization and cloud computing as these solutions bring advantages to service providers and consolidate the computer centre resources. However, as a result the monitoring complexity is increasing. Computer centre management requires not only to monitor servers, network equipment and associated software but also to collect additional environment and facilities data (e.g. temperature, power consumption, cooling efficiency, etc.) to have also a good overview of the infrastructure performance. The LHC Era Monitoring (Lemon) system is addressing these requirements for a very large scale infrastructure. The Lemon agent that collects data on every client and forwards the samples to the central measurement repository provides a flexible interface that allows rapid development of new sensors. The system allows also to report on behalf of remote devices such as switches and power supplies. Online and historical data can be visualized via a web-based interface or retrieved via command-line tools. The Lemon Alarm System component can be used for notifying the operator about error situations. In this article, an overview of the Lemon monitoring is provided together with a description of the CERN LEMON production instance. No direct comparison is made with other monitoring tool.

Vibration energy harvesting based monitoring of an operational bridge undergoing forced vibration and train passage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cahill, Paul; Hazra, Budhaditya; Karoumi, Raid; Mathewson, Alan; Pakrashi, Vikram

2018-06-01

The application of energy harvesting technology for monitoring civil infrastructure is a bourgeoning topic of interest. The ability of kinetic energy harvesters to scavenge ambient vibration energy can be useful for large civil infrastructure under operational conditions, particularly for bridge structures. The experimental integration of such harvesters with full scale structures and the subsequent use of the harvested energy directly for the purposes of structural health monitoring shows promise. This paper presents the first experimental deployment of piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting devices for monitoring a full-scale bridge undergoing forced dynamic vibrations under operational conditions using energy harvesting signatures against time. The calibration of the harvesters is presented, along with details of the host bridge structure and the dynamic assessment procedures. The measured responses of the harvesters from the tests are presented and the use the harvesters for the purposes of structural health monitoring (SHM) is investigated using empirical mode decomposition analysis, following a bespoke data cleaning approach. Finally, the use of sequential Karhunen Loeve transforms to detect train passages during the dynamic assessment is presented. This study is expected to further develop interest in energy-harvesting based monitoring of large infrastructure for both research and commercial purposes.

Autonomous smart sensor network for full-scale structural health monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rice, Jennifer A.; Mechitov, Kirill A.; Spencer, B. F., Jr.; Agha, Gul A.

2010-04-01

The demands of aging infrastructure require effective methods for structural monitoring and maintenance. Wireless smart sensor networks offer the ability to enhance structural health monitoring (SHM) practices through the utilization of onboard computation to achieve distributed data management. Such an approach is scalable to the large number of sensor nodes required for high-fidelity modal analysis and damage detection. While smart sensor technology is not new, the number of full-scale SHM applications has been limited. This slow progress is due, in part, to the complex network management issues that arise when moving from a laboratory setting to a full-scale monitoring implementation. This paper presents flexible network management software that enables continuous and autonomous operation of wireless smart sensor networks for full-scale SHM applications. The software components combine sleep/wake cycling for enhanced power management with threshold detection for triggering network wide tasks, such as synchronized sensing or decentralized modal analysis, during periods of critical structural response.

INVENTORY AND CLASSIFICATION OF GREAT LAKES COASTAL WETLANDS FOR MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT AT LARGE SPATIAL SCALES

EPA Science Inventory

Monitoring aquatic resources for regional assessments requires an accurate and comprehensive inventory of the resource and useful classification of exosystem similarities. Our research effort to create an electronic database and work with various ways to classify coastal wetlands...

A Multi-Time Scale Morphable Software Milieu for Polymorphous Computing Architectures (PCA) - Composable, Scalable Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-10-01

MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency AFRL/IFTC 3701 North Fairfax Drive...Scalable Parallel Libraries for Large-Scale Concurrent Applications," Technical Report UCRL -JC-109251, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

SPATIAL SCALE OF AUTOCORRELATION IN WISCONSIN FROG AND TOAD SURVEY DATA

EPA Science Inventory

The degree to which local population dynamics are correlated with nearby sites has important implications for metapopulation dynamics and landscape management. Spatially extensive monitoring data can be used to evaluate large-scale population dynamic processes. Our goals in this ...

Designing and developing portable large-scale JavaScript web applications within the Experiment Dashboard framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andreeva, J.; Dzhunov, I.; Karavakis, E.; Kokoszkiewicz, L.; Nowotka, M.; Saiz, P.; Tuckett, D.

2012-12-01

Improvements in web browser performance and web standards compliance, as well as the availability of comprehensive JavaScript libraries, provides an opportunity to develop functionally rich yet intuitive web applications that allow users to access, render and analyse data in novel ways. However, the development of such large-scale JavaScript web applications presents new challenges, in particular with regard to code sustainability and team-based work. We present an approach that meets the challenges of large-scale JavaScript web application design and development, including client-side model-view-controller architecture, design patterns, and JavaScript libraries. Furthermore, we show how the approach leads naturally to the encapsulation of the data source as a web API, allowing applications to be easily ported to new data sources. The Experiment Dashboard framework is used for the development of applications for monitoring the distributed computing activities of virtual organisations on the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid. We demonstrate the benefits of the approach for large-scale JavaScript web applications in this context by examining the design of several Experiment Dashboard applications for data processing, data transfer and site status monitoring, and by showing how they have been ported for different virtual organisations and technologies.

Monitoring Ephemeral Streams Using Airborne Very High Resolution Multispectral Remote Sensing in Arid Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamada, Y.; O'Connor, B. L.

2012-12-01

Development in arid environments often results in the loss and degradation of the ephemeral streams that provide habitat and critical ecosystem functions such as water delivery, sediment transport, and groundwater recharge. Quantification of these ecosystem functions is challenging because of the episodic nature of runoff events in desert landscapes and the large spatial scale of watersheds that potentially can be impacted by large-scale development. Low-impact development guidelines and regulatory protection of ephemeral streams are often lacking due to the difficulty of accurately mapping and quantifying the critical functions of ephemeral streams at scales larger than individual reaches. Renewable energy development in arid regions has the potential to disturb ephemeral streams at the watershed scale, and it is necessary to develop environmental monitoring applications for ephemeral streams to help inform land management and regulatory actions aimed at protecting and mitigating for impacts related to large-scale land disturbances. This study focuses on developing remote sensing methodologies to identify and monitor impacts on ephemeral streams resulting from the land disturbance associated with utility-scale solar energy development in the desert southwest of the United States. Airborne very high resolution (VHR) multispectral imagery is used to produce stereoscopic, three-dimensional landscape models that can be used to (1) identify and map ephemeral stream channel networks, and (2) support analyses and models of hydrologic and sediment transport processes that pertain to the critical functionality of ephemeral streams. Spectral and statistical analyses are being developed to extract information about ephemeral channel location and extent, micro-topography, riparian vegetation, and soil moisture characteristics. This presentation will demonstrate initial results and provide a framework for future work associated with this project, for developing the necessary field measurements necessary to verify remote sensing landscape models, and for generating hydrologic models and analyses.

A resource of large-scale molecular markers for monitoring Agropyron cristatum chromatin introgression in wheat background based on transcriptome sequences.

PubMed

Zhang, Jinpeng; Liu, Weihua; Lu, Yuqing; Liu, Qunxing; Yang, Xinming; Li, Xiuquan; Li, Lihui

2017-09-20

Agropyron cristatum is a wild grass of the tribe Triticeae and serves as a gene donor for wheat improvement. However, very few markers can be used to monitor A. cristatum chromatin introgressions in wheat. Here, we reported a resource of large-scale molecular markers for tracking alien introgressions in wheat based on transcriptome sequences. By aligning A. cristatum unigenes with the Chinese Spring reference genome sequences, we designed 9602 A. cristatum expressed sequence tag-sequence-tagged site (EST-STS) markers for PCR amplification and experimental screening. As a result, 6063 polymorphic EST-STS markers were specific for the A. cristatum P genome in the single-receipt wheat background. A total of 4956 randomly selected polymorphic EST-STS markers were further tested in eight wheat variety backgrounds, and 3070 markers displaying stable and polymorphic amplification were validated. These markers covered more than 98% of the A. cristatum genome, and the marker distribution density was approximately 1.28 cM. An application case of all EST-STS markers was validated on the A. cristatum 6 P chromosome. These markers were successfully applied in the tracking of alien A. cristatum chromatin. Altogether, this study provided a universal method of large-scale molecular marker development to monitor wild relative chromatin in wheat.

A leap forward in geographic scale for forest ectomycorrhizal fungi

Treesearch

Filipa Cox; Nadia Barsoum; Martin I. Bidartondo; Isabella Børja; Erik Lilleskov; Lars O. Nilsson; Pasi Rautio; Kath Tubby; Lars Vesterdal

2010-01-01

In this letter we propose a first large-scale assessment of mycorrhizas with a European-wide network of intensively monitored forest plots as a research platform. This effort would create a qualitative and quantitative shift in mycorrhizal research by delivering the first continental-scale map of mycorrhizal fungi. Readersmay note that several excellent detailed...

Building software tools to help contextualize and interpret monitoring data

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Even modest monitoring efforts at landscape scales produce large volumes of data.These are most useful if they can be interpreted relative to land potential or other similar sites. However, for many ecological systems reference conditions may not be defined or are poorly described, which hinders und...

Large-Scale Biomonitoring of Remote and Threatened Ecosystems via High-Throughput Sequencing

PubMed Central

Gibson, Joel F.; Shokralla, Shadi; Curry, Colin; Baird, Donald J.; Monk, Wendy A.; King, Ian; Hajibabaei, Mehrdad

2015-01-01

Biodiversity metrics are critical for assessment and monitoring of ecosystems threatened by anthropogenic stressors. Existing sorting and identification methods are too expensive and labour-intensive to be scaled up to meet management needs. Alternately, a high-throughput DNA sequencing approach could be used to determine biodiversity metrics from bulk environmental samples collected as part of a large-scale biomonitoring program. Here we show that both morphological and DNA sequence-based analyses are suitable for recovery of individual taxonomic richness, estimation of proportional abundance, and calculation of biodiversity metrics using a set of 24 benthic samples collected in the Peace-Athabasca Delta region of Canada. The high-throughput sequencing approach was able to recover all metrics with a higher degree of taxonomic resolution than morphological analysis. The reduced cost and increased capacity of DNA sequence-based approaches will finally allow environmental monitoring programs to operate at the geographical and temporal scale required by industrial and regulatory end-users. PMID:26488407

Towards a Quantitative Use of Satellite Remote Sensing in Crop Growth Models for Large Scale Agricultural Production Estimate (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Defourny, P.

2013-12-01

The development of better agricultural monitoring capabilities is clearly considered as a critical step for strengthening food production information and market transparency thanks to timely information about crop status, crop area and yield forecasts. The documentation of global production will contribute to tackle price volatility by allowing local, national and international operators to make decisions and anticipate market trends with reduced uncertainty. Several operational agricultural monitoring systems are currently operating at national and international scales. Most are based on the methods derived from the pioneering experiences completed some decades ago, and use remote sensing to qualitatively compare one year to the others to estimate the risks of deviation from a normal year. The GEO Agricultural Monitoring Community of Practice described the current monitoring capabilities at the national and global levels. An overall diagram summarized the diverse relationships between satellite EO and agriculture information. There is now a large gap between the current operational large scale systems and the scientific state of the art in crop remote sensing, probably because the latter mainly focused on local studies. The poor availability of suitable in-situ and satellite data over extended areas hampers large scale demonstrations preventing the much needed up scaling research effort. For the cropland extent, this paper reports a recent research achievement using the full ENVISAT MERIS 300 m archive in the context of the ESA Climate Change Initiative. A flexible combination of classification methods depending to the region of the world allows mapping the land cover as well as the global croplands at 300 m for the period 2008 2012. This wall to wall product is then compared with regards to the FP 7-Geoland 2 results obtained using as Landsat-based sampling strategy over the IGADD countries. On the other hand, the vegetation indices and the biophysical variables such the Green Area Index (GAI), fAPAR and fcover usually retrieved from MODIS, MERIS, SPOT-Vegetation described the quality of the green vegetation development. The GLOBAM (Belgium) and EU FP-7 MOCCCASIN projects (Russia) improved the standard products and were demonstrated over large scale. The GAI retrieved from MODIS time series using a purity index criterion depicted successfully the inter-annual variability. Furthermore, the quantitative assimilation of these GAI time series into a crop growth model improved the yield estimate over years. These results showed that the GAI assimilation works best at the district or provincial level. In the context of the GEO Ag., the Joint Experiment of Crop Assessment and Monitoring (JECAM) was designed to enable the global agricultural monitoring community to compare such methods and results over a variety of regional cropping systems. For a network of test sites around the world, satellite and field measurements are currently collected and will be made available for collaborative effort. This experiment should facilitate international standards for data products and reporting, eventually supporting the development of a global system of systems for agricultural crop assessment and monitoring.

Large-scale dynamo action precedes turbulence in shearing box simulations of the magnetorotational instability

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bhat, Pallavi; Ebrahimi, Fatima; Blackman, Eric G.

Here, we study the dynamo generation (exponential growth) of large-scale (planar averaged) fields in unstratified shearing box simulations of the magnetorotational instability (MRI). In contrast to previous studies restricted to horizontal (x–y) averaging, we also demonstrate the presence of large-scale fields when vertical (y–z) averaging is employed instead. By computing space–time planar averaged fields and power spectra, we find large-scale dynamo action in the early MRI growth phase – a previously unidentified feature. Non-axisymmetric linear MRI modes with low horizontal wavenumbers and vertical wavenumbers near that of expected maximal growth, amplify the large-scale fields exponentially before turbulence and high wavenumbermore » fluctuations arise. Thus the large-scale dynamo requires only linear fluctuations but not non-linear turbulence (as defined by mode–mode coupling). Vertical averaging also allows for monitoring the evolution of the large-scale vertical field and we find that a feedback from horizontal low wavenumber MRI modes provides a clue as to why the large-scale vertical field sustains against turbulent diffusion in the non-linear saturation regime. We compute the terms in the mean field equations to identify the individual contributions to large-scale field growth for both types of averaging. The large-scale fields obtained from vertical averaging are found to compare well with global simulations and quasi-linear analytical analysis from a previous study by Ebrahimi & Blackman. We discuss the potential implications of these new results for understanding the large-scale MRI dynamo saturation and turbulence.« less

Large-scale dynamo action precedes turbulence in shearing box simulations of the magnetorotational instability

DOE PAGES

Bhat, Pallavi; Ebrahimi, Fatima; Blackman, Eric G.

2016-07-06

Here, we study the dynamo generation (exponential growth) of large-scale (planar averaged) fields in unstratified shearing box simulations of the magnetorotational instability (MRI). In contrast to previous studies restricted to horizontal (x–y) averaging, we also demonstrate the presence of large-scale fields when vertical (y–z) averaging is employed instead. By computing space–time planar averaged fields and power spectra, we find large-scale dynamo action in the early MRI growth phase – a previously unidentified feature. Non-axisymmetric linear MRI modes with low horizontal wavenumbers and vertical wavenumbers near that of expected maximal growth, amplify the large-scale fields exponentially before turbulence and high wavenumbermore » fluctuations arise. Thus the large-scale dynamo requires only linear fluctuations but not non-linear turbulence (as defined by mode–mode coupling). Vertical averaging also allows for monitoring the evolution of the large-scale vertical field and we find that a feedback from horizontal low wavenumber MRI modes provides a clue as to why the large-scale vertical field sustains against turbulent diffusion in the non-linear saturation regime. We compute the terms in the mean field equations to identify the individual contributions to large-scale field growth for both types of averaging. The large-scale fields obtained from vertical averaging are found to compare well with global simulations and quasi-linear analytical analysis from a previous study by Ebrahimi & Blackman. We discuss the potential implications of these new results for understanding the large-scale MRI dynamo saturation and turbulence.« less

An ultrasensitive strain sensor with a wide strain range based on graphene armour scales.

PubMed

Yang, Yi-Fan; Tao, Lu-Qi; Pang, Yu; Tian, He; Ju, Zhen-Yi; Wu, Xiao-Ming; Yang, Yi; Ren, Tian-Ling

2018-06-12

An ultrasensitive strain sensor with a wide strain range based on graphene armour scales is demonstrated in this paper. The sensor shows an ultra-high gauge factor (GF, up to 1054) and a wide strain range (ε = 26%), both of which present an advantage compared to most other flexible sensors. Moreover, the sensor is developed by a simple fabrication process. Due to the excellent performance, this strain sensor can meet the demands of subtle, large and complex human motion monitoring, which indicates its tremendous application potential in health monitoring, mechanical control, real-time motion monitoring and so on.

Monitoring challenges and innovative ideas

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

O'Neill, R.V.; Hunsaker, C.T.; Levine, D.A.

1990-01-01

Monitoring programs are difficult to design even when they focus on specific problems. Ecosystems are complex, and it is often impossible to predetermine what aspects of system structure or dynamics will respond to a specific insult. It is equally difficult to interpret whether a response is a stabilizing compensatory mechanism or a real loss of capacity to maintain the ecosystem. The problems are compounded in a broad monitoring program designed to assess ecosystem health'' at regional and continental scales. It is challenging in the extreme to monitor ecosystem response, at any scale, to past insults as well as an unknownmore » future array of impacts. The present paper will examine some of the fundamental issues and challenges raised by large-scale monitoring efforts. The challenges will serve as a framework and as an excuse to discuss several important topics in more detail. Following the discussion of challenges, we suggest some basic innovations that could be important across a range of monitoring programs. The innovations include integrative measures, innovative methodology, and creative interpretation. 59 refs., 1 tab.« less

Measurement of Thunderstorm Cloud-Top Parameters Using High-Frequency Satellite Imagery

DTIC Science & Technology

1978-01-01

short wave was present well to the south of this system approximately 2000 ka west of Baja California. Two distinct flow patterns were present, one...view can be observed in near real time whereas radar observations, although excellent for local purposes, involve substantial errors when composited...on a large scale. The time delay in such large scale compositing is critical when attempting to monitor convective cloud systems for a potential

Operational monitoring of land-cover change using multitemporal remote sensing data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rogan, John

2005-11-01

Land-cover change, manifested as either land-cover modification and/or conversion, can occur at all spatial scales, and changes at local scales can have profound, cumulative impacts at broader scales. The implication of operational land-cover monitoring is that researchers have access to a continuous stream of remote sensing data, with the long term goal of providing for consistent and repetitive mapping. Effective large area monitoring of land-cover (i.e., >1000 km2) can only be accomplished by using remotely sensed images as an indirect data source in land-cover change mapping and as a source for land-cover change model projections. Large area monitoring programs face several challenges: (1) choice of appropriate classification scheme/map legend over large, topographically and phenologically diverse areas; (2) issues concerning data consistency and map accuracy (i.e., calibration and validation); (3) very large data volumes; (4) time consuming data processing and interpretation. Therefore, this dissertation research broadly addresses these challenges in the context of examining state-of-the-art image pre-processing, spectral enhancement, classification, and accuracy assessment techniques to assist the California Land-cover Mapping and Monitoring Program (LCMMP). The results of this dissertation revealed that spatially varying haze can be effectively corrected from Landsat data for the purposes of change detection. The Multitemporal Spectral Mixture Analysis (MSMA) spectral enhancement technique produced more accurate land-cover maps than those derived from the Multitemporal Kauth Thomas (MKT) transformation in northern and southern California study areas. A comparison of machine learning classifiers showed that Fuzzy ARTMAP outperformed two classification tree algorithms, based on map accuracy and algorithm robustness. Variation in spatial data error (positional and thematic) was explored in relation to environmental variables using geostatistical interpolation techniques. Finally, the land-cover modification maps generated for three time intervals (1985--1990--1996--2000), with nine change-classes revealed important variations in land-cover gain and loss between northern and southern California study areas.

Processing of the WLCG monitoring data using NoSQL

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andreeva, J.; Beche, A.; Belov, S.; Dzhunov, I.; Kadochnikov, I.; Karavakis, E.; Saiz, P.; Schovancova, J.; Tuckett, D.

2014-06-01

The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) today includes more than 150 computing centres where more than 2 million jobs are being executed daily and petabytes of data are transferred between sites. Monitoring the computing activities of the LHC experiments, over such a huge heterogeneous infrastructure, is extremely demanding in terms of computation, performance and reliability. Furthermore, the generated monitoring flow is constantly increasing, which represents another challenge for the monitoring systems. While existing solutions are traditionally based on Oracle for data storage and processing, recent developments evaluate NoSQL for processing large-scale monitoring datasets. NoSQL databases are getting increasingly popular for processing datasets at the terabyte and petabyte scale using commodity hardware. In this contribution, the integration of NoSQL data processing in the Experiment Dashboard framework is described along with first experiences of using this technology for monitoring the LHC computing activities.

Use of large-scale, multi-species surveys to monitor gyrfalcon and ptarmigan populations

USGS Publications Warehouse

Bart, Jonathan; Fuller, Mark; Smith, Paul; Dunn, Leah; Watson, Richard T.; Cade, Tom J.; Fuller, Mark; Hunt, Grainger; Potapov, Eugene

2011-01-01

We evaluated the ability of three large-scale, multi-species surveys in the Arctic to provide information on abundance and habitat relationships of Gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus) and ptarmigan. The Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring (PRISM) has surveyed birds widely across the arctic regions of Canada and Alaska since 2001. The Arctic Coastal Plain survey has collected abundance information on the North Slope of Alaska using fixed-wing aircraft since 1992. The Northwest Territories-Nunavut Bird Checklist has collected presenceabsence information from little-known locations in northern Canada since 1995. All three surveys provide extensive information on Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) and Rock Ptarmigan (L. muta). For example, they show that ptarmigan are most abundant in western Alaska, next most abundant in northern Alaska and northwest Canada, and least abundant in the Canadian Archipelago. PRISM surveys were less successful in detecting Gyrfalcons, and the Arctic Coastal Plain Survey is largely outside the Gyrfalcon?s breeding range. The Checklist Survey, however, reflects the expansive Gyrfalcon range in Canada. We suggest that collaboration by Gyrfalcon and ptarmigan biologists with the organizers of large scale surveys like the ones we investigated provides an opportunity for obtaining useful information on these species and their environment across large areas.

Effects of Large-Scale Solar Installations on Dust Mobilization and Air Quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pratt, J. T.; Singh, D.; Diffenbaugh, N. S.

2012-12-01

Large-scale solar projects are increasingly being developed worldwide and many of these installations are located in arid, desert regions. To examine the effects of these projects on regional dust mobilization and air quality, we analyze aerosol product data from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) at annual and seasonal time intervals near fifteen photovoltaic and solar thermal stations ranging from 5-200 MW (12-4,942 acres) in size. The stations are distributed over eight different countries and were chosen based on size, location and installation date; most of the installations are large-scale, took place in desert climates and were installed between 2006 and 2010. We also consider air quality measurements of particulate matter between 2.5 and 10 micrometers (PM10) from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitoring sites near and downwind from the project installations in the U.S. We use monthly wind data from the NOAA's National Center for Atmospheric Prediction (NCEP) Global Reanalysis to select the stations downwind from the installations, and then perform statistical analysis on the data to identify any significant changes in these quantities. We find that fourteen of the fifteen regions have lower aerosol product after the start of the installations as well as all six PM10 monitoring stations showing lower particulate matter measurements after construction commenced. Results fail to show any statistically significant differences in aerosol optical index or PM10 measurements before and after the large-scale solar installations. However, many of the large installations are very recent, and there is insufficient data to fully understand the long-term effects on air quality. More data and higher resolution analysis is necessary to better understand the relationship between large-scale solar, dust and air quality.

A Networked Sensor System for the Analysis of Plot-Scale Hydrology.

PubMed

Villalba, German; Plaza, Fernando; Zhong, Xiaoyang; Davis, Tyler W; Navarro, Miguel; Li, Yimei; Slater, Thomas A; Liang, Yao; Liang, Xu

2017-03-20

This study presents the latest updates to the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania (ASWP) testbed, a $50,000 USD, 104-node outdoor multi-hop wireless sensor network (WSN). The network collects environmental data from over 240 sensors, including the EC-5, MPS-1 and MPS-2 soil moisture and soil water potential sensors and self-made sap flow sensors, across a heterogeneous deployment comprised of MICAz, IRIS and TelosB wireless motes. A low-cost sensor board and software driver was developed for communicating with the analog and digital sensors. Innovative techniques (e.g., balanced energy efficient routing and heterogeneous over-the-air mote reprogramming) maintained high success rates (>96%) and enabled effective software updating, throughout the large-scale heterogeneous WSN. The edaphic properties monitored by the network showed strong agreement with data logger measurements and were fitted to pedotransfer functions for estimating local soil hydraulic properties. Furthermore, sap flow measurements, scaled to tree stand transpiration, were found to be at or below potential evapotranspiration estimates. While outdoor WSNs still present numerous challenges, the ASWP testbed proves to be an effective and (relatively) low-cost environmental monitoring solution and represents a step towards developing a platform for monitoring and quantifying statistically relevant environmental parameters from large-scale network deployments.

A Networked Sensor System for the Analysis of Plot-Scale Hydrology

PubMed Central

Villalba, German; Plaza, Fernando; Zhong, Xiaoyang; Davis, Tyler W.; Navarro, Miguel; Li, Yimei; Slater, Thomas A.; Liang, Yao; Liang, Xu

2017-01-01

This study presents the latest updates to the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania (ASWP) testbed, a $50,000 USD, 104-node outdoor multi-hop wireless sensor network (WSN). The network collects environmental data from over 240 sensors, including the EC-5, MPS-1 and MPS-2 soil moisture and soil water potential sensors and self-made sap flow sensors, across a heterogeneous deployment comprised of MICAz, IRIS and TelosB wireless motes. A low-cost sensor board and software driver was developed for communicating with the analog and digital sensors. Innovative techniques (e.g., balanced energy efficient routing and heterogeneous over-the-air mote reprogramming) maintained high success rates (>96%) and enabled effective software updating, throughout the large-scale heterogeneous WSN. The edaphic properties monitored by the network showed strong agreement with data logger measurements and were fitted to pedotransfer functions for estimating local soil hydraulic properties. Furthermore, sap flow measurements, scaled to tree stand transpiration, were found to be at or below potential evapotranspiration estimates. While outdoor WSNs still present numerous challenges, the ASWP testbed proves to be an effective and (relatively) low-cost environmental monitoring solution and represents a step towards developing a platform for monitoring and quantifying statistically relevant environmental parameters from large-scale network deployments. PMID:28335534

An Integrative Structural Health Monitoring System for the Local/Global Responses of a Large-Scale Irregular Building under Construction

PubMed Central

Park, Hyo Seon; Shin, Yunah; Choi, Se Woon; Kim, Yousok

2013-01-01

In this study, a practical and integrative SHM system was developed and applied to a large-scale irregular building under construction, where many challenging issues exist. In the proposed sensor network, customized energy-efficient wireless sensing units (sensor nodes, repeater nodes, and master nodes) were employed and comprehensive communications from the sensor node to the remote monitoring server were conducted through wireless communications. The long-term (13-month) monitoring results recorded from a large number of sensors (75 vibrating wire strain gauges, 10 inclinometers, and three laser displacement sensors) indicated that the construction event exhibiting the largest influence on structural behavior was the removal of bents that were temporarily installed to support the free end of the cantilevered members during their construction. The safety of each member could be confirmed based on the quantitative evaluation of each response. Furthermore, it was also confirmed that the relation between these responses (i.e., deflection, strain, and inclination) can provide information about the global behavior of structures induced from specific events. Analysis of the measurement results demonstrates the proposed sensor network system is capable of automatic and real-time monitoring and can be applied and utilized for both the safety evaluation and precise implementation of buildings under construction. PMID:23860317

A KPI-based process monitoring and fault detection framework for large-scale processes.

PubMed

Zhang, Kai; Shardt, Yuri A W; Chen, Zhiwen; Yang, Xu; Ding, Steven X; Peng, Kaixiang

2017-05-01

Large-scale processes, consisting of multiple interconnected subprocesses, are commonly encountered in industrial systems, whose performance needs to be determined. A common approach to this problem is to use a key performance indicator (KPI)-based approach. However, the different KPI-based approaches are not developed with a coherent and consistent framework. Thus, this paper proposes a framework for KPI-based process monitoring and fault detection (PM-FD) for large-scale industrial processes, which considers the static and dynamic relationships between process and KPI variables. For the static case, a least squares-based approach is developed that provides an explicit link with least-squares regression, which gives better performance than partial least squares. For the dynamic case, using the kernel representation of each subprocess, an instrument variable is used to reduce the dynamic case to the static case. This framework is applied to the TE benchmark process and the hot strip mill rolling process. The results show that the proposed method can detect faults better than previous methods. Copyright © 2017 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contribution of large-scale forest inventories to biodiversity assessment and monitoring

Treesearch

Piermaria Corona; Gherardo Chirici; Ronald E. McRoberts; Susanne Winter; Anna Barbati

2011-01-01

Statistically-designed inventories and biodiversity monitoring programs are gaining relevance for biological conservation and natural resources management. Mandated periodic surveys provide unique opportunities to identify and satisfy natural resources management information needs. However, this is not an end in itself but rather is the beginning of a process that...

Recording large-scale neuronal ensembles with silicon probes in the anesthetized rat.

PubMed

Schjetnan, Andrea Gomez Palacio; Luczak, Artur

2011-10-19

Large scale electrophysiological recordings from neuronal ensembles offer the opportunity to investigate how the brain orchestrates the wide variety of behaviors from the spiking activity of its neurons. One of the most effective methods to monitor spiking activity from a large number of neurons in multiple local neuronal circuits simultaneously is by using silicon electrode arrays. Action potentials produce large transmembrane voltage changes in the vicinity of cell somata. These output signals can be measured by placing a conductor in close proximity of a neuron. If there are many active (spiking) neurons in the vicinity of the tip, the electrode records combined signal from all of them, where contribution of a single neuron is weighted by its 'electrical distance'. Silicon probes are ideal recording electrodes to monitor multiple neurons because of a large number of recording sites (+64) and a small volume. Furthermore, multiple sites can be arranged over a distance of millimeters, thus allowing for the simultaneous recordings of neuronal activity in the various cortical layers or in multiple cortical columns (Fig. 1). Importantly, the geometrically precise distribution of the recording sites also allows for the determination of the spatial relationship of the isolated single neurons. Here, we describe an acute, large-scale neuronal recording from the left and right forelimb somatosensory cortex simultaneously in an anesthetized rat with silicon probes (Fig. 2).

Recording Large-scale Neuronal Ensembles with Silicon Probes in the Anesthetized Rat

PubMed Central

Schjetnan, Andrea Gomez Palacio; Luczak, Artur

2011-01-01

Large scale electrophysiological recordings from neuronal ensembles offer the opportunity to investigate how the brain orchestrates the wide variety of behaviors from the spiking activity of its neurons. One of the most effective methods to monitor spiking activity from a large number of neurons in multiple local neuronal circuits simultaneously is by using silicon electrode arrays1-3. Action potentials produce large transmembrane voltage changes in the vicinity of cell somata. These output signals can be measured by placing a conductor in close proximity of a neuron. If there are many active (spiking) neurons in the vicinity of the tip, the electrode records combined signal from all of them, where contribution of a single neuron is weighted by its 'electrical distance'. Silicon probes are ideal recording electrodes to monitor multiple neurons because of a large number of recording sites (+64) and a small volume. Furthermore, multiple sites can be arranged over a distance of millimeters, thus allowing for the simultaneous recordings of neuronal activity in the various cortical layers or in multiple cortical columns (Fig. 1). Importantly, the geometrically precise distribution of the recording sites also allows for the determination of the spatial relationship of the isolated single neurons4. Here, we describe an acute, large-scale neuronal recording from the left and right forelimb somatosensory cortex simultaneously in an anesthetized rat with silicon probes (Fig. 2). PMID:22042361

The importance of within-year repeated counts and the influence of scale on long-term monitoring of sage-grouse

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fedy, B.C.; Aldridge, Cameron L.

2011-01-01

Long-term population monitoring is the cornerstone of animal conservation and management. The accuracy and precision of models developed using monitoring data can be influenced by the protocols guiding data collection. The greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a species of concern that has been monitored over decades, primarily, by counting the number of males that attend lek (breeding) sites. These lek count data have been used to assess long-term population trends and for multiple mechanistic studies. However, some studies have questioned the efficacy of lek counts to accurately identify population trends. In response, monitoring protocols were changed to have a goal of counting lek sites multiple times within a season. We assessed the influence of this change in monitoring protocols on model accuracy and precision applying generalized additive models to describe trends over time. We found that at large spatial scales including >50 leks, the absence of repeated counts within a year did not significantly alter population trend estimates or interpretation. Increasing sample size decreased the model confidence intervals. We developed a population trend model for Wyoming greater sage-grouse from 1965 to 2008, identifying significant changes in the population indices and capturing the cyclic nature of this species. Most sage-grouse declines in Wyoming occurred between 1965 and the 1990s and lek count numbers generally increased from the mid-1990s to 2008. Our results validate the combination of monitoring data collected under different protocols in past and future studies-provided those studies are addressing large-scale questions. We suggest that a larger sample of individual leks is preferable to multiple counts of a smaller sample of leks. ?? 2011 The Wildlife Society.

Detecting and monitoring large-scale drought effects on forests: toward an integrated approach

Treesearch

Steve Norman; Frank H. Koch; William W. Hargrove

2016-01-01

Although drought is recognized as an important and overarching driver of ecosystem change, its occurrence and effects have been difficult to describe over large geographic areas (Hogg and others 2008, Panu and Sharma 2002).

Integrating weather and geotechnical monitoring data for assessing the stability of large scale surface mining operations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Steiakakis, Chrysanthos; Agioutantis, Zacharias; Apostolou, Evangelia; Papavgeri, Georgia; Tripolitsiotis, Achilles

2016-01-01

The geotechnical challenges for safe slope design in large scale surface mining operations are enormous. Sometimes one degree of slope inclination can significantly reduce the overburden to ore ratio and therefore dramatically improve the economics of the operation, while large scale slope failures may have a significant impact on human lives. Furthermore, adverse weather conditions, such as high precipitation rates, may unfavorably affect the already delicate balance between operations and safety. Geotechnical, weather and production parameters should be systematically monitored and evaluated in order to safely operate such pits. Appropriate data management, processing and storage are critical to ensure timely and informed decisions. This paper presents an integrated data management system which was developed over a number of years as well as the advantages through a specific application. The presented case study illustrates how the high production slopes of a mine that exceed depths of 100-120 m were successfully mined with an average displacement rate of 10- 20 mm/day, approaching an almost slow to moderate landslide velocity. Monitoring data of the past four years are included in the database and can be analyzed to produce valuable results. Time-series data correlations of movements, precipitation records, etc. are evaluated and presented in this case study. The results can be used to successfully manage mine operations and ensure the safety of the mine and the workforce.

Multimethod, multistate Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach for use in regional monitoring of wolves.

PubMed

Jiménez, José; García, Emilio J; Llaneza, Luis; Palacios, Vicente; González, Luis Mariano; García-Domínguez, Francisco; Múñoz-Igualada, Jaime; López-Bao, José Vicente

2016-08-01

In many cases, the first step in large-carnivore management is to obtain objective, reliable, and cost-effective estimates of population parameters through procedures that are reproducible over time. However, monitoring predators over large areas is difficult, and the data have a high level of uncertainty. We devised a practical multimethod and multistate modeling approach based on Bayesian hierarchical-site-occupancy models that combined multiple survey methods to estimate different population states for use in monitoring large predators at a regional scale. We used wolves (Canis lupus) as our model species and generated reliable estimates of the number of sites with wolf reproduction (presence of pups). We used 2 wolf data sets from Spain (Western Galicia in 2013 and Asturias in 2004) to test the approach. Based on howling surveys, the naïve estimation (i.e., estimate based only on observations) of the number of sites with reproduction was 9 and 25 sites in Western Galicia and Asturias, respectively. Our model showed 33.4 (SD 9.6) and 34.4 (3.9) sites with wolf reproduction, respectively. The number of occupied sites with wolf reproduction was 0.67 (SD 0.19) and 0.76 (0.11), respectively. This approach can be used to design more cost-effective monitoring programs (i.e., to define the sampling effort needed per site). Our approach should inspire well-coordinated surveys across multiple administrative borders and populations and lead to improved decision making for management of large carnivores on a landscape level. The use of this Bayesian framework provides a simple way to visualize the degree of uncertainty around population-parameter estimates and thus provides managers and stakeholders an intuitive approach to interpreting monitoring results. Our approach can be widely applied to large spatial scales in wildlife monitoring where detection probabilities differ between population states and where several methods are being used to estimate different population parameters. © 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.

Moditored unsaturated soil transport processes as a support for large scale soil and water management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vanclooster, Marnik

2010-05-01

The current societal demand for sustainable soil and water management is very large. The drivers of global and climate change exert many pressures on the soil and water ecosystems, endangering appropriate ecosystem functioning. The unsaturated soil transport processes play a key role in soil-water system functioning as it controls the fluxes of water and nutrients from the soil to plants (the pedo-biosphere link), the infiltration flux of precipitated water to groundwater and the evaporative flux, and hence the feed back from the soil to the climate system. Yet, unsaturated soil transport processes are difficult to quantify since they are affected by huge variability of the governing properties at different space-time scales and the intrinsic non-linearity of the transport processes. The incompatibility of the scales between the scale at which processes reasonably can be characterized, the scale at which the theoretical process correctly can be described and the scale at which the soil and water system need to be managed, calls for further development of scaling procedures in unsaturated zone science. It also calls for a better integration of theoretical and modelling approaches to elucidate transport processes at the appropriate scales, compatible with the sustainable soil and water management objective. Moditoring science, i.e the interdisciplinary research domain where modelling and monitoring science are linked, is currently evolving significantly in the unsaturated zone hydrology area. In this presentation, a review of current moditoring strategies/techniques will be given and illustrated for solving large scale soil and water management problems. This will also allow identifying research needs in the interdisciplinary domain of modelling and monitoring and to improve the integration of unsaturated zone science in solving soil and water management issues. A focus will be given on examples of large scale soil and water management problems in Europe.

Multivariate Analysis To Quantify Species in the Presence of Direct Interferents: Micro-Raman Analysis of HNO 3 in Microfluidic Devices

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lines, Amanda M.; Nelson, Gilbert L.; Casella, Amanda J.

Microfluidic devices are a growing field with significant potential for application to small scale processing of solutions. Much like large scale processing, fast, reliable, and cost effective means of monitoring the streams during processing are needed. Here we apply a novel Micro-Raman probe to the on-line monitoring of streams within a microfluidic device. For either macro or micro scale process monitoring via spectroscopic response, there is the danger of interfering or confounded bands obfuscating results. By utilizing chemometric analysis, a form of multivariate analysis, species can be accurately quantified in solution despite the presence of overlapping or confounded spectroscopic bands.more » This is demonstrated on solutions of HNO 3 and NaNO 3 within micro-flow and microfluidic devices.« less

Large-Scale Brain Networks Supporting Divided Attention across Spatial Locations and Sensory Modalities

PubMed Central

Santangelo, Valerio

2018-01-01

Higher-order cognitive processes were shown to rely on the interplay between large-scale neural networks. However, brain networks involved with the capability to split attentional resource over multiple spatial locations and multiple stimuli or sensory modalities have been largely unexplored to date. Here I re-analyzed data from Santangelo et al. (2010) to explore the causal interactions between large-scale brain networks during divided attention. During fMRI scanning, participants monitored streams of visual and/or auditory stimuli in one or two spatial locations for detection of occasional targets. This design allowed comparing a condition in which participants monitored one stimulus/modality (either visual or auditory) in two spatial locations vs. a condition in which participants monitored two stimuli/modalities (both visual and auditory) in one spatial location. The analysis of the independent components (ICs) revealed that dividing attentional resources across two spatial locations necessitated a brain network involving the left ventro- and dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex plus the posterior parietal cortex, including the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the angular gyrus, bilaterally. The analysis of Granger causality highlighted that the activity of lateral prefrontal regions were predictive of the activity of all of the posteriors parietal nodes. By contrast, dividing attention across two sensory modalities necessitated a brain network including nodes belonging to the dorsal frontoparietal network, i.e., the bilateral frontal eye-fields (FEF) and IPS, plus nodes belonging to the salience network, i.e., the anterior cingulated cortex and the left and right anterior insular cortex (aIC). The analysis of Granger causality highlights a tight interdependence between the dorsal frontoparietal and salience nodes in trials requiring divided attention between different sensory modalities. The current findings therefore highlighted a dissociation among brain networks implicated during divided attention across spatial locations and sensory modalities, pointing out the importance of investigating effective connectivity of large-scale brain networks supporting complex behavior. PMID:29535614

Large-Scale Brain Networks Supporting Divided Attention across Spatial Locations and Sensory Modalities.

PubMed

Santangelo, Valerio

2018-01-01

Higher-order cognitive processes were shown to rely on the interplay between large-scale neural networks. However, brain networks involved with the capability to split attentional resource over multiple spatial locations and multiple stimuli or sensory modalities have been largely unexplored to date. Here I re-analyzed data from Santangelo et al. (2010) to explore the causal interactions between large-scale brain networks during divided attention. During fMRI scanning, participants monitored streams of visual and/or auditory stimuli in one or two spatial locations for detection of occasional targets. This design allowed comparing a condition in which participants monitored one stimulus/modality (either visual or auditory) in two spatial locations vs. a condition in which participants monitored two stimuli/modalities (both visual and auditory) in one spatial location. The analysis of the independent components (ICs) revealed that dividing attentional resources across two spatial locations necessitated a brain network involving the left ventro- and dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex plus the posterior parietal cortex, including the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the angular gyrus, bilaterally. The analysis of Granger causality highlighted that the activity of lateral prefrontal regions were predictive of the activity of all of the posteriors parietal nodes. By contrast, dividing attention across two sensory modalities necessitated a brain network including nodes belonging to the dorsal frontoparietal network, i.e., the bilateral frontal eye-fields (FEF) and IPS, plus nodes belonging to the salience network, i.e., the anterior cingulated cortex and the left and right anterior insular cortex (aIC). The analysis of Granger causality highlights a tight interdependence between the dorsal frontoparietal and salience nodes in trials requiring divided attention between different sensory modalities. The current findings therefore highlighted a dissociation among brain networks implicated during divided attention across spatial locations and sensory modalities, pointing out the importance of investigating effective connectivity of large-scale brain networks supporting complex behavior.

Semi-Automated Air-Coupled Impact-Echo Method for Large-Scale Parkade Structure.

PubMed

Epp, Tyler; Svecova, Dagmar; Cha, Young-Jin

2018-03-29

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has moved to data-dense systems, utilizing numerous sensor types to monitor infrastructure, such as bridges and dams, more regularly. One of the issues faced in this endeavour is the scale of the inspected structures and the time it takes to carry out testing. Installing automated systems that can provide measurements in a timely manner is one way of overcoming these obstacles. This study proposes an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) application that determines intact and damaged locations from a small training sample of impact-echo data, using air-coupled microphones from a reinforced concrete beam in lab conditions and data collected from a field experiment in a parking garage. The impact-echo testing in the field is carried out in a semi-autonomous manner to expedite the front end of the in situ damage detection testing. The use of an ANN removes the need for a user-defined cutoff value for the classification of intact and damaged locations when a least-square distance approach is used. It is postulated that this may contribute significantly to testing time reduction when monitoring large-scale civil Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures.

Semi-Automated Air-Coupled Impact-Echo Method for Large-Scale Parkade Structure

PubMed Central

Epp, Tyler; Svecova, Dagmar; Cha, Young-Jin

2018-01-01

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has moved to data-dense systems, utilizing numerous sensor types to monitor infrastructure, such as bridges and dams, more regularly. One of the issues faced in this endeavour is the scale of the inspected structures and the time it takes to carry out testing. Installing automated systems that can provide measurements in a timely manner is one way of overcoming these obstacles. This study proposes an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) application that determines intact and damaged locations from a small training sample of impact-echo data, using air-coupled microphones from a reinforced concrete beam in lab conditions and data collected from a field experiment in a parking garage. The impact-echo testing in the field is carried out in a semi-autonomous manner to expedite the front end of the in situ damage detection testing. The use of an ANN removes the need for a user-defined cutoff value for the classification of intact and damaged locations when a least-square distance approach is used. It is postulated that this may contribute significantly to testing time reduction when monitoring large-scale civil Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures. PMID:29596332

Estimating occupancy in large landscapes: evaluation of amphibian monitoring in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gould, William R.; Patla, Debra A.; Daley, Rob; Corn, Paul Stephen; Hossack, Blake R.; Bennetts, Robert E.; Peterson, Charles R.

2012-01-01

Monitoring of natural resources is crucial to ecosystem conservation, and yet it can pose many challenges. Annual surveys for amphibian breeding occupancy were conducted in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks over a 4-year period (2006–2009) at two scales: catchments (portions of watersheds) and individual wetland sites. Catchments were selected in a stratified random sample with habitat quality and ease of access serving as strata. All known wetland sites with suitable habitat were surveyed within selected catchments. Changes in breeding occurrence of tiger salamanders, boreal chorus frogs, and Columbia-spotted frogs were assessed using multi-season occupancy estimation. Numerous a priori models were considered within an information theoretic framework including those with catchment and site-level covariates. Habitat quality was the most important predictor of occupancy. Boreal chorus frogs demonstrated the greatest increase in breeding occupancy at the catchment level. Larger changes for all 3 species were detected at the finer site-level scale. Connectivity of sites explained occupancy rates more than other covariates, and may improve understanding of the dynamic processes occurring among wetlands within this ecosystem. Our results suggest monitoring occupancy at two spatial scales within large study areas is feasible and informative.

Can data from disparate long-term fish monitoring programs be used to increase our understanding of regional and continental trends in large river assemblages?

USGS Publications Warehouse

Counihan, Timothy D.; Waite, Ian R.; Casper, Andrew F.; Ward, David L.; Sauer, Jennifer S.; Irwin, Elise R.; Chapman, Colin G.; Ickes, Brian; Paukert, Craig P.; Kosovich, John J.; Bayer, Jennifer M.

2018-01-01

Understanding trends in the diverse resources provided by large rivers will help balance tradeoffs among stakeholders and inform strategies to mitigate the effects of landscape scale stressors such as climate change and invasive species. Absent a cohesive coordinated effort to assess trends in important large river resources, a logical starting point is to assess our ability to draw inferences from existing efforts. In this paper, we use a common analytical framework to analyze data from five disparate fish monitoring programs to better understand the nature of spatial and temporal trends in large river fish assemblages. We evaluated data from programs that monitor fishes in the Colorado, Columbia, Illinois, Mississippi, and Tallapoosa rivers using non-metric dimensional scaling ordinations and associated tests to evaluate trends in fish assemblage structure and native fish biodiversity. Our results indicate that fish assemblages exhibited significant spatial and temporal trends in all five of the rivers. We also document native species diversity trends that were variable within and between rivers and generally more evident in rivers with higher species richness and programs of longer duration. We discuss shared and basin-specific landscape level stressors. Having a basic understanding of the nature and extent of trends in fish assemblages is a necessary first step towards understanding factors affecting biodiversity and fisheries in large rivers.

Can data from disparate long-term fish monitoring programs be used to increase our understanding of regional and continental trends in large river assemblages?

PubMed Central

Waite, Ian R.; Casper, Andrew F.; Ward, David L.; Sauer, Jennifer S.; Irwin, Elise R.; Chapman, Colin G.; Ickes, Brian S.; Paukert, Craig P.; Kosovich, John J.; Bayer, Jennifer M.

2018-01-01

Understanding trends in the diverse resources provided by large rivers will help balance tradeoffs among stakeholders and inform strategies to mitigate the effects of landscape scale stressors such as climate change and invasive species. Absent a cohesive coordinated effort to assess trends in important large river resources, a logical starting point is to assess our ability to draw inferences from existing efforts. In this paper, we use a common analytical framework to analyze data from five disparate fish monitoring programs to better understand the nature of spatial and temporal trends in large river fish assemblages. We evaluated data from programs that monitor fishes in the Colorado, Columbia, Illinois, Mississippi, and Tallapoosa rivers using non-metric dimensional scaling ordinations and associated tests to evaluate trends in fish assemblage structure and native fish biodiversity. Our results indicate that fish assemblages exhibited significant spatial and temporal trends in all five of the rivers. We also document native species diversity trends that were variable within and between rivers and generally more evident in rivers with higher species richness and programs of longer duration. We discuss shared and basin-specific landscape level stressors. Having a basic understanding of the nature and extent of trends in fish assemblages is a necessary first step towards understanding factors affecting biodiversity and fisheries in large rivers. PMID:29364953

A Study about the 3S-based Great Ruins Monitoring and Early-warning System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xuefeng, W.; Zhongyuan, H.; Gongli, L.; Li, Z.

2015-08-01

Large-scale urbanization construction and new countryside construction, frequent natural disasters, and natural corrosion pose severe threat to the great ruins. It is not uncommon that the cultural relics are damaged and great ruins are occupied. Now the ruins monitoring mainly adopt general monitoring data processing system which can not effectively exert management, display, excavation analysis and data sharing of the relics monitoring data. Meanwhile those general software systems require layout of large number of devices or apparatuses, but they are applied to small-scope relics monitoring only. Therefore, this paper proposes a method to make use of the stereoscopic cartographic satellite technology to improve and supplement the great ruins monitoring index system and combine GIS and GPS to establish a highly automatic, real-time and intelligent great ruins monitoring and early-warning system in order to realize collection, processing, updating, spatial visualization, analysis, distribution and sharing of the monitoring data, and provide scientific and effective data for the relics protection, scientific planning, reasonable development and sustainable utilization.

The Large Ring Laser G for Continuous Earth Rotation Monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schreiber, K. U.; Klügel, T.; Velikoseltsev, A.; Schlüter, W.; Stedman, G. E.; Wells, J.-P. R.

2009-09-01

Ring Laser gyroscopes exploit the Sagnac effect and measure rotations absolute. They do not require an external reference frame and therefore provide an independent method to monitor Earth rotation. Large-scale versions of these gyroscopes promise to eventually provide a similar high resolution for the measurement of the variations in the Earth rotation rate as the established methods based on VLBI and GNSS. This would open the door to a continuous monitoring of LOD (Length of Day) and polar motion, which is not yet available today. Another advantage is the access to the sub-daily frequency regime of Earth rotation. The ring laser “G” (Grossring), located at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell (Germany) is the most advanced realization of such a large gyroscope. This paper outlines the current sensor design and properties.

Wearable Wide-Range Strain Sensors Based on Ionic Liquids and Monitoring of Human Activities

PubMed Central

Zhang, Shao-Hui; Wang, Feng-Xia; Li, Jia-Jia; Peng, Hong-Dan; Yan, Jing-Hui; Pan, Ge-Bo

2017-01-01

Wearable sensors for detection of human activities have encouraged the development of highly elastic sensors. In particular, to capture subtle and large-scale body motion, stretchable and wide-range strain sensors are highly desired, but still a challenge. Herein, a highly stretchable and transparent stain sensor based on ionic liquids and elastic polymer has been developed. The as-obtained sensor exhibits impressive stretchability with wide-range strain (from 0.1% to 400%), good bending properties and high sensitivity, whose gauge factor can reach 7.9. Importantly, the sensors show excellent biological compatibility and succeed in monitoring the diverse human activities ranging from the complex large-scale multidimensional motions to subtle signals, including wrist, finger and elbow joint bending, finger touch, breath, speech, swallow behavior and pulse wave. PMID:29135928

Monitoring Strategies for REDD+: Integrating Field, Airborne, and Satellite Observations of Amazon Forests

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morton, Douglas; Souza, Carlos, Jr.; Souza, Carlos, Jr.; Keller, Michael

2012-01-01

Large-scale tropical forest monitoring efforts in support of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus enhancing forest carbon stocks) confront a range of challenges. REDD+ activities typically have short reporting time scales, diverse data needs, and low tolerance for uncertainties. Meeting these challenges will require innovative use of remote sensing data, including integrating data at different spatial and temporal resolutions. The global scientific community is engaged in developing, evaluating, and applying new methods for regional to global scale forest monitoring. Pilot REDD+ activities are underway across the tropics with support from a range of national and international groups, including SilvaCarbon, an interagency effort to coordinate US expertise on forest monitoring and resource management. Early actions on REDD+ have exposed some of the inherent tradeoffs that arise from the use of incomplete or inaccurate data to quantify forest area changes and related carbon emissions. Here, we summarize recent advances in forest monitoring to identify and target the main sources of uncertainty in estimates of forest area changes, aboveground carbon stocks, and Amazon forest carbon emissions.

Rapid underway profiling of water quality in Queensland estuaries.

PubMed

Hodge, Jonathan; Longstaff, Ben; Steven, Andy; Thornton, Phillip; Ellis, Peter; McKelvie, Ian

2005-01-01

We present an overview of a portable underway water quality monitoring system (RUM-Rapid Underway Monitoring), developed by integrating several off-the-shelf water quality instruments to provide rapid, comprehensive, and spatially referenced 'snapshots' of water quality conditions. We demonstrate the utility of the system from studies in the Northern Great Barrier Reef (Daintree River) and the Moreton Bay region. The Brisbane dataset highlights RUM's utility in characterising plumes as well as its ability to identify the smaller scale structure of large areas. RUM is shown to be particularly useful when measuring indicators with large small-scale variability such as turbidity and chlorophyll-a. Additionally, the Daintree dataset shows the ability to integrate other technologies, resulting in a more comprehensive analysis, whilst sampling offshore highlights some of the analytical issues required for sampling low concentration data. RUM is a low cost, highly flexible solution that can be modified for use in any water type, on most vessels and is only limited by the available monitoring technologies.

The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality. Assessment GEMs No. 8

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Australian Council for Educational Research, 2015

2015-01-01

The Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) carries out large-scale cross-national research studies in member countries in the Southern and Eastern Africa region. It aims to assess the conditions of schooling and performance levels of learners and teachers in the areas of literacy and numeracy. SACMEQ has…

System and Method for Dynamic Aeroelastic Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Suh, Peter M. (Inventor)

2015-01-01

The present invention proposes a hardware and software architecture for dynamic modal structural monitoring that uses a robust modal filter to monitor a potentially very large-scale array of sensors in real time, and tolerant of asymmetric sensor noise and sensor failures, to achieve aircraft performance optimization such as minimizing aircraft flutter, drag and maximizing fuel efficiency.

Better almond water stress monitoring using fractional-order moments of non-normalized difference vegetation index

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Stem water potential (SWP) has become a very popular tool for farmers to monitor the water status of almond trees. However, it is labor intensive and time consuming to scale up the measurements in the large field. With the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sensing payload, it become...

Monitoring ocean dumping with ERTS-1 data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wezernak, C. T.; Roller, N.

1973-01-01

The results of an analysis of ERTS-1 data for the New York Bight collected on 16 August 1972 are described. Results are presented which show acid-iron wastes, sewage sludge, suspended solids, and major water mass boundary features in the study area. The potential of satellite remote sensing for monitoring large scale events such as ocean dumping is discussed.

Robust Control of Multivariable and Large Scale Systems.

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-03-14

AD-A175 $5B ROBUST CONTROL OF MULTIVRRIALE AND LARG SCALE SYSTEMS V2 R75 (U) HONEYWELL SYSTEMS AND RESEARCH CENTER MINNEAPOLIS MN J C DOYLE ET AL...ONIJQ 86 R alFS ja ,.AMIECFOEPF:ORMING ORGANIZATION So OFFICE SYMBOL 7a NAME OF MONITORING ORGANIZATI ON jonevwell Systems & Research If 4000c" Air...Force Office of Scientific Research .~ C :AE S C.rv. Stare arma ZIP Code) 7C ADDRESS (Crty. Stare. am ZIP Code, *3660 Marshall Street NE Building 410

Large-scale diversity of slope fishes: pattern inconsistency between multiple diversity indices.

PubMed

Gaertner, Jean-Claude; Maiorano, Porzia; Mérigot, Bastien; Colloca, Francesco; Politou, Chrissi-Yianna; Gil De Sola, Luis; Bertrand, Jacques A; Murenu, Matteo; Durbec, Jean-Pierre; Kallianiotis, Argyris; Mannini, Alessandro

2013-01-01

Large-scale studies focused on the diversity of continental slope ecosystems are still rare, usually restricted to a limited number of diversity indices and mainly based on the empirical comparison of heterogeneous local data sets. In contrast, we investigate large-scale fish diversity on the basis of multiple diversity indices and using 1454 standardized trawl hauls collected throughout the upper and middle slope of the whole northern Mediterranean Sea (36°3'- 45°7' N; 5°3'W - 28°E). We have analyzed (1) the empirical relationships between a set of 11 diversity indices in order to assess their degree of complementarity/redundancy and (2) the consistency of spatial patterns exhibited by each of the complementary groups of indices. Regarding species richness, our results contrasted both the traditional view based on the hump-shaped theory for bathymetric pattern and the commonly-admitted hypothesis of a large-scale decreasing trend correlated with a similar gradient of primary production in the Mediterranean Sea. More generally, we found that the components of slope fish diversity we analyzed did not always show a consistent pattern of distribution according either to depth or to spatial areas, suggesting that they are not driven by the same factors. These results, which stress the need to extend the number of indices traditionally considered in diversity monitoring networks, could provide a basis for rethinking not only the methodological approach used in monitoring systems, but also the definition of priority zones for protection. Finally, our results call into question the feasibility of properly investigating large-scale diversity patterns using a widespread approach in ecology, which is based on the compilation of pre-existing heterogeneous and disparate data sets, in particular when focusing on indices that are very sensitive to sampling design standardization, such as species richness.

A Proposal of Monitoring and Forecasting Method for Crustal Activity in and around Japan with 3-dimensional Heterogeneous Medium Using a Large-scale High-fidelity Finite Element Simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hori, T.; Agata, R.; Ichimura, T.; Fujita, K.; Yamaguchi, T.; Takahashi, N.

2017-12-01

Recently, we can obtain continuous dense surface deformation data on land and partly on the sea floor, the obtained data are not fully utilized for monitoring and forecasting of crustal activity, such as spatio-temporal variation in slip velocity on the plate interface including earthquakes, seismic wave propagation, and crustal deformation. For construct a system for monitoring and forecasting, it is necessary to develop a physics-based data analysis system including (1) a structural model with the 3D geometry of the plate inter-face and the material property such as elasticity and viscosity, (2) calculation code for crustal deformation and seismic wave propagation using (1), (3) inverse analysis or data assimilation code both for structure and fault slip using (1) & (2). To accomplish this, it is at least necessary to develop highly reliable large-scale simulation code to calculate crustal deformation and seismic wave propagation for 3D heterogeneous structure. Unstructured FE non-linear seismic wave simulation code has been developed. This achieved physics-based urban earthquake simulation enhanced by 1.08 T DOF x 6.6 K time-step. A high fidelity FEM simulation code with mesh generator has also been developed to calculate crustal deformation in and around Japan with complicated surface topography and subducting plate geometry for 1km mesh. This code has been improved the code for crustal deformation and achieved 2.05 T-DOF with 45m resolution on the plate interface. This high-resolution analysis enables computation of change of stress acting on the plate interface. Further, for inverse analyses, waveform inversion code for modeling 3D crustal structure has been developed, and the high-fidelity FEM code has been improved to apply an adjoint method for estimating fault slip and asthenosphere viscosity. Hence, we have large-scale simulation and analysis tools for monitoring. We are developing the methods for forecasting the slip velocity variation on the plate interface. Although the prototype is for elastic half space model, we are applying it for 3D heterogeneous structure with the high-fidelity FE model. Furthermore, large-scale simulation codes for monitoring are being implemented on the GPU clusters and analysis tools are developing to include other functions such as examination in model errors.

A spectral method for spatial downscaling | Science Inventory ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Complex computer models play a crucial role in air quality research. These models are used to evaluate potential regulatory impacts of emission control strategies and to estimate air quality in areas without monitoring data. For both of these purposes, it is important to calibrate model output with monitoring data to adjust for model biases and improve spatial prediction. In this paper, we propose a new spectral method to study and exploit complex relationships between model output and monitoring data. Spectral methods allow us to estimate the relationship between model output and monitoring data separately at different spatial scales, and to use model output for prediction only at the appropriate scales. The proposed method is computationally efficient and can be implemented using standard software. We apply the method to compare Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model output with ozone measurements in the United States in July, 2005. We find that CMAQ captures large-scale spatial trends, but has low correlation with the monitoring data at small spatial scales. The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL′s)Atmospheric Modeling Division (AMAD) conducts research in support of EPA′s mission to protect human health and the environment. AMAD′s research program is engaged in developing and evaluating predictive atmospheric models on all spatial and temporal scales for forecasting the Nation′s air quality and for assessing ch

Large-scale solar magnetic fields and H-alpha patterns

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mcintosh, P. S.

1972-01-01

Coronal and interplanetary magnetic fields computed from measurements of large-scale photospheric magnetic fields suffer from interruptions in day-to-day observations and the limitation of using only measurements made near the solar central meridian. Procedures were devised for inferring the lines of polarity reversal from H-alpha solar patrol photographs that map the same large-scale features found on Mt. Wilson magnetograms. These features may be monitored without interruption by combining observations from the global network of observatories associated with NOAA's Space Environment Services Center. The patterns of inferred magnetic fields may be followed accurately as far as 60 deg from central meridian. Such patterns will be used to improve predictions of coronal features during the next solar eclipse.

Building capacity in biodiversity monitoring at the global scale

USGS Publications Warehouse

Schmeller, Dirk S.; Bohm, Monika; Arvanitidis, Christos; Barber-Meyer, Shannon; Brummitt, Neil; Chandler, Mark; Chatzinikolaou, Eva; Costello, Mark J.; Ding, Hui; García-Moreno, Jaime; Gill, Michael J.; Haase, Peter; Jones, Miranda; Juillard, Romain; Magnusson, William E.; Martin, Corinne S.; McGeoch, Melodie A.; Mihoub, Jean-Baptiste; Pettorelli, Nathalie; Proença, Vânia; Peng, Cui; Regan, Eugenie; Schmiedel, Ute; Simsika, John P.; Weatherdon, Lauren; Waterman, Carly; Xu, Haigen; Belnap, Jayne

2017-01-01

Human-driven global change is causing ongoing declines in biodiversity worldwide. In order to address these declines, decision-makers need accurate assessments of the status of and pressures on biodiversity. However, these are heavily constrained by incomplete and uneven spatial, temporal and taxonomic coverage. For instance, data from regions such as Europe and North America are currently used overwhelmingly for large-scale biodiversity assessments due to lesser availability of suitable data from other, more biodiversity-rich, regions. These data-poor regions are often those experiencing the strongest threats to biodiversity, however. There is therefore an urgent need to fill the existing gaps in global biodiversity monitoring. Here, we review current knowledge on best practice in capacity building for biodiversity monitoring and provide an overview of existing means to improve biodiversity data collection considering the different types of biodiversity monitoring data. Our review comprises insights from work in Africa, South America, Polar Regions and Europe; in government-funded, volunteer and citizen-based monitoring in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. The key steps to effectively building capacity in biodiversity monitoring are: identifying monitoring questions and aims; identifying the key components, functions, and processes to monitor; identifying the most suitable monitoring methods for these elements, carrying out monitoring activities; managing the resultant data; and interpreting monitoring data. Additionally, biodiversity monitoring should use multiple approaches including extensive and intensive monitoring through volunteers and professional scientists but also harnessing new technologies. Finally, we call on the scientific community to share biodiversity monitoring data, knowledge and tools to ensure the accessibility, interoperability, and reporting of biodiversity data at a global scale.

Final Report: Enabling Exascale Hardware and Software Design through Scalable System Virtualization

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bridges, Patrick G.

2015-02-01

In this grant, we enhanced the Palacios virtual machine monitor to increase its scalability and suitability for addressing exascale system software design issues. This included a wide range of research on core Palacios features, large-scale system emulation, fault injection, perfomrance monitoring, and VMM extensibility. This research resulted in large number of high-impact publications in well-known venues, the support of a number of students, and the graduation of two Ph.D. students and one M.S. student. In addition, our enhanced version of the Palacios virtual machine monitor has been adopted as a core element of the Hobbes operating system under active DOE-fundedmore » research and development.« less

Video Monitoring a Simulation-Based Quality Improvement Program in Bihar, India.

PubMed

Dyer, Jessica; Spindler, Hilary; Christmas, Amelia; Shah, Malay Bharat; Morgan, Melissa; Cohen, Susanna R; Sterne, Jason; Mahapatra, Tanmay; Walker, Dilys

2018-04-01

Simulation-based training has become an accepted clinical training andragogy in high-resource settings with its use increasing in low-resource settings. Video recordings of simulated scenarios are commonly used by facilitators. Beyond using the videos during debrief sessions, researchers can also analyze the simulation videos to quantify technical and nontechnical skills during simulated scenarios over time. Little is known about the feasibility and use of large-scale systems to video record and analyze simulation and debriefing data for monitoring and evaluation in low-resource settings. This manuscript describes the process of designing and implementing a large-scale video monitoring system. Mentees and Mentors were consented and all simulations and debriefs conducted at 320 Primary Health Centers (PHCs) were video recorded. The system design, number of video recordings, and inter-rater reliability of the coded videos were assessed. The final dataset included a total of 11,278 videos. Overall, a total of 2,124 simulation videos were coded and 183 (12%) were blindly double-coded. For the double-coded sample, the average inter-rater reliability (IRR) scores were 80% for nontechnical skills, and 94% for clinical technical skills. Among 4,450 long debrief videos received, 216 were selected for coding and all were double-coded. Data quality of simulation videos was found to be very good in terms of recorded instances of "unable to see" and "unable to hear" in Phases 1 and 2. This study demonstrates that video monitoring systems can be effectively implemented at scale in resource limited settings. Further, video monitoring systems can play several vital roles within program implementation, including monitoring and evaluation, provision of actionable feedback to program implementers, and assurance of program fidelity.

Hierarchical spatial models for predicting tree species assemblages across large domains

Treesearch

Andrew O. Finley; Sudipto Banerjee; Ronald E. McRoberts

2009-01-01

Spatially explicit data layers of tree species assemblages, referred to as forest types or forest type groups, are a key component in large-scale assessments of forest sustainability, biodiversity, timber biomass, carbon sinks and forest health monitoring. This paper explores the utility of coupling georeferenced national forest inventory (NFI) data with readily...

Fuel mapping for the future

Treesearch

C.W. Woodall; G.R. Holden; J.S. Vissage

2004-01-01

The large wildland fires that raged during the 2000 and 2002 fire seasons highlighted the need for a nationwide strategic assessment of forest fuels. The lack of a nationally consistent and comprehensive inventory of forest fuels has hindered large-scale assessments- essential for effective fuel hazard management and monitoring reduction treatments. Data from the USDA...

Estimating occupancy in large landscapes: Evaluation of amphibian monitoring in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Treesearch

William R. Gould; Debra A. Patla; Rob Daley; Paul Stephen Corn; Blake R. Hossack; Robert Bennetts; Charles R. Peterson

2012-01-01

Monitoring of natural resources is crucial to ecosystem conservation, and yet it can pose many challenges. Annual surveys for amphibian breeding occupancy were conducted in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks over a 4-year period (2006-2009) at two scales: catchments (portions of watersheds) and individual wetland sites. Catchments were selected in a stratified...

A Successful Replication of the River Visitor Inventory and Monitoring Process for Capacity Management

Treesearch

Kenneth Chilman; James Vogel; Greg Brown; John H. Burde

2004-01-01

This paper has 3 purposes: to discuss 1. case study research and its utility for recreation management decisionmaking, 2. the recreation visitor inventory and monitoring process developed from case study research, and 3. a successful replication of the process in a large-scale, multi-year application. Although case study research is discussed in research textbooks as...

Northwest Forest Plan—the first 10 years (1994-2003): status and trends of populations and nesting habitat for the marbled murrelet.

Treesearch

Mark H. Huff; Martin G. Raphael; Sherri L. Miller; S. Kim Nelson; Jim Baldwin

2006-01-01

The Northwest Forest Plan (the Plan) is a large-scale ecosystem management plan for federal land in the Pacific Northwest. Marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) populations and habitat were monitored to evaluate effectiveness of the Plan. The chapters in this volume summarize information on marbled murrelet ecology and present the monitoring...

Universal Batch Steganalysis

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-01

in large-scale datasets such as might be obtained by monitoring a corporate network or social network. Identifying guilty actors, rather than payload...by monitoring a corporate network or social network. Identifying guilty actors, rather than payload-carrying objects, is entirely novel in steganalysis...implementation using Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) on NVIDIA graphics cards. The key to good performance is to combine computations so that

A large-scale clinical validation of an integrated monitoring system in the emergency department.

PubMed

Clifton, David A; Wong, David; Clifton, Lei; Wilson, Sarah; Way, Rob; Pullinger, Richard; Tarassenko, Lionel

2013-07-01

We consider an integrated patient monitoring system, combining electronic patient records with high-rate acquisition of patient physiological data. There remain many challenges in increasing the robustness of "e-health" applications to a level at which they are clinically useful, particularly in the use of automated algorithms used to detect and cope with artifact in data contained within the electronic patient record, and in analyzing and communicating the resultant data for reporting to clinicians. There is a consequential "plague of pilots," in which engineering prototype systems do not enter into clinical use. This paper describes an approach in which, for the first time, the Emergency Department (ED) of a major research hospital has adopted such systems for use during a large clinical trial. We describe the disadvantages of existing evaluation metrics when applied to such large trials, and propose a solution suitable for large-scale validation. We demonstrate that machine learning technologies embedded within healthcare information systems can provide clinical benefit, with the potential to improve patient outcomes in the busy environment of a major ED and other high-dependence areas of patient care.

MRMPROBS: a data assessment and metabolite identification tool for large-scale multiple reaction monitoring based widely targeted metabolomics.

PubMed

Tsugawa, Hiroshi; Arita, Masanori; Kanazawa, Mitsuhiro; Ogiwara, Atsushi; Bamba, Takeshi; Fukusaki, Eiichiro

2013-05-21

We developed a new software program, MRMPROBS, for widely targeted metabolomics by using the large-scale multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The strategy became increasingly popular for the simultaneous analysis of up to several hundred metabolites at high sensitivity, selectivity, and quantitative capability. However, the traditional method of assessing measured metabolomics data without probabilistic criteria is not only time-consuming but is often subjective and makeshift work. Our program overcomes these problems by detecting and identifying metabolites automatically, by separating isomeric metabolites, and by removing background noise using a probabilistic score defined as the odds ratio from an optimized multivariate logistic regression model. Our software program also provides a user-friendly graphical interface to curate and organize data matrices and to apply principal component analyses and statistical tests. For a demonstration, we conducted a widely targeted metabolome analysis (152 metabolites) of propagating Saccharomyces cerevisiae measured at 15 time points by gas and liquid chromatography coupled to triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. MRMPROBS is a useful and practical tool for the assessment of large-scale MRM data available to any instrument or any experimental condition.

Eucalyptus plantations for energy production in Hawaii. 1980 annual report, January 1980-December 1980

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Whitesell, C. D.

1980-01-01

In 1980 200 acres of eucalyptus trees were planted for a research and development biomass energy plantation bringing the total area under cultivation to 300 acres. Of this total acreage, 90 acres or 30% was planted in experimental plots. The remaining 70% of the cultivated area was closely monitored to determine the economic cost/benefit ratio of large scale biomass energy production. In the large scale plantings, standard field practices were set up for all phases of production: nursery, clearing, planting, weed control and fertilization. These practices were constantly evaluated for potential improvements in efficiency and reduced cost. Promising experimental treatmentsmore » were implemented on a large scale to test their effectiveness under field production conditions. In the experimental areas all scheduled data collection in 1980 has been completed and most measurements have been keypunched and analyzed. Soil samples and leaf samples have been analyzed for nutrient concentrations. Crop logging procedures have been set up to monitor tree growth through plant tissue analysis. An intensive computer search on biomass, nursery practices, harvesting equipment and herbicide applications has been completed through the services of the US Forest Service.« less

Real-time monitoring of CO2 storage sites: Application to Illinois Basin-Decatur Project

USGS Publications Warehouse

Picard, G.; Berard, T.; Chabora, E.; Marsteller, S.; Greenberg, S.; Finley, R.J.; Rinck, U.; Greenaway, R.; Champagnon, C.; Davard, J.

2011-01-01

Optimization of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage operations for efficiency and safety requires use of monitoring techniques and implementation of control protocols. The monitoring techniques consist of permanent sensors and tools deployed for measurement campaigns. Large amounts of data are thus generated. These data must be managed and integrated for interpretation at different time scales. A fast interpretation loop involves combining continuous measurements from permanent sensors as they are collected to enable a rapid response to detected events; a slower loop requires combining large datasets gathered over longer operational periods from all techniques. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it presents an analysis of the monitoring objectives to be performed in the slow and fast interpretation loops. Second, it describes the implementation of the fast interpretation loop with a real-time monitoring system at the Illinois Basin-Decatur Project (IBDP) in Illinois, USA. ?? 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Application-level regression testing framework using Jenkins

DOE PAGES

Budiardja, Reuben; Bouvet, Timothy; Arnold, Galen

2017-09-26

Monitoring and testing for regression of large-scale systems such as the NCSA's Blue Waters supercomputer are challenging tasks. In this paper, we describe the solution we came up with to perform those tasks. The goal was to find an automated solution for running user-level regression tests to evaluate system usability and performance. Jenkins, an automation server software, was chosen for its versatility, large user base, and multitude of plugins including collecting data and plotting test results over time. We also describe our Jenkins deployment to launch and monitor jobs on remote HPC system, perform authentication with one-time password, and integratemore » with our LDAP server for its authorization. We show some use cases and describe our best practices for successfully using Jenkins as a user-level system-wide regression testing and monitoring framework for large supercomputer systems.« less

Application-level regression testing framework using Jenkins

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Budiardja, Reuben; Bouvet, Timothy; Arnold, Galen

Monitoring and testing for regression of large-scale systems such as the NCSA's Blue Waters supercomputer are challenging tasks. In this paper, we describe the solution we came up with to perform those tasks. The goal was to find an automated solution for running user-level regression tests to evaluate system usability and performance. Jenkins, an automation server software, was chosen for its versatility, large user base, and multitude of plugins including collecting data and plotting test results over time. We also describe our Jenkins deployment to launch and monitor jobs on remote HPC system, perform authentication with one-time password, and integratemore » with our LDAP server for its authorization. We show some use cases and describe our best practices for successfully using Jenkins as a user-level system-wide regression testing and monitoring framework for large supercomputer systems.« less

Building spatially-explicit model predictions for ecological condition of streams in the Pacific Northwest: An assessment of landscape variables, models, endpoints and prediction scale

EPA Science Inventory

While large-scale, randomized surveys estimate the percentage of a region’s streams in poor ecological condition, identifying particular stream reaches or watersheds in poor condition is an equally important goal for monitoring and management. We built predictive models of strea...

Wilderness monitoring and data management

USGS Publications Warehouse

Riebau, A. R.

1994-01-01

In the last decade, increased public interest in natural areas has resulted in increased monitoring activity by federal wilderness managers to assess the status of wilderness values. Wilderness values are those large-scale entities of wilderness which comprise, in sum, wilderness character. Data collected through wilderness monitoring must support the maintenance of wilderness values. Wilderness monitoring must include the development of clear data management strategies and provisions for hypothesis testing. Unfortunately, some monitoring programs do not support the status assessment of wilderness values. Often wilderness monitoring programs have neglected even the most rudimentary principles of data management. This paper presents a model for wilderness monitoring, guidelines for data management, and an overview of a PC-compatible wilderness monitoring data base, the Monitoring Information Data Analysis System (MIDAS).

Large-scale control site selection for population monitoring: an example assessing Sage-grouse trends

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fedy, Bradley C.; O'Donnell, Michael; Bowen, Zachary H.

2015-01-01

Human impacts on wildlife populations are widespread and prolific and understanding wildlife responses to human impacts is a fundamental component of wildlife management. The first step to understanding wildlife responses is the documentation of changes in wildlife population parameters, such as population size. Meaningful assessment of population changes in potentially impacted sites requires the establishment of monitoring at similar, nonimpacted, control sites. However, it is often difficult to identify appropriate control sites in wildlife populations. We demonstrated use of Geographic Information System (GIS) data across large spatial scales to select biologically relevant control sites for population monitoring. Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hearafter, sage-grouse) are negatively affected by energy development, and monitoring of sage-grouse population within energy development areas is necessary to detect population-level responses. Weused population data (1995–2012) from an energy development area in Wyoming, USA, the Atlantic Rim Project Area (ARPA), and GIS data to identify control sites that were not impacted by energy development for population monitoring. Control sites were surrounded by similar habitat and were within similar climate areas to the ARPA. We developed nonlinear trend models for both the ARPA and control sites and compared long-term trends from the 2 areas. We found little difference between the ARPA and control sites trends over time. This research demonstrated an approach for control site selection across large landscapes and can be used as a template for similar impact-monitoring studies. It is important to note that identification of changes in population parameters between control and treatment sites is only the first step in understanding the mechanisms that underlie those changes. Published 2015. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Contribution of the infrasound technology to characterize large scale atmospheric disturbances and impact on infrasound monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Blanc, Elisabeth; Le Pichon, Alexis; Ceranna, Lars; Pilger, Christoph; Charlton Perez, Andrew; Smets, Pieter

2016-04-01

The International Monitoring System (IMS) developed for the verification of the Comprehensive nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) provides a unique global description of atmospheric disturbances generating infrasound such as extreme events (e.g. meteors, volcanoes, earthquakes, and severe weather) or human activity (e.g. explosions and supersonic airplanes). The analysis of the detected signals, recorded at global scales and over near 15 years at some stations, demonstrates that large-scale atmospheric disturbances strongly affect infrasound propagation. Their time scales vary from several tens of minutes to hours and days. Their effects are in average well resolved by the current model predictions; however, accurate spatial and temporal description is lacking in both weather and climate models. This study reviews recent results using the infrasound technology to characterize these large scale disturbances, including (i) wind fluctuations induced by gravity waves generating infrasound partial reflections and modifications of the infrasound waveguide, (ii) convection from thunderstorms and mountain waves generating gravity waves, (iii) stratospheric warming events which yield wind inversions in the stratosphere, (iv)planetary waves which control the global atmospheric circulation. Improved knowledge of these disturbances and assimilation in future models is an important objective of the ARISE (Atmospheric dynamics Research InfraStructure in Europe) project. This is essential in the context of the future verification of the CTBT as enhanced atmospheric models are necessary to assess the IMS network performance in higher resolution, reduce source location errors, and improve characterization methods.

Large-scale flow experiments for managing river systems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Konrad, Christopher P.; Olden, Julian D.; Lytle, David A.; Melis, Theodore S.; Schmidt, John C.; Bray, Erin N.; Freeman, Mary C.; Gido, Keith B.; Hemphill, Nina P.; Kennard, Mark J.; McMullen, Laura E.; Mims, Meryl C.; Pyron, Mark; Robinson, Christopher T.; Williams, John G.

2011-01-01

Experimental manipulations of streamflow have been used globally in recent decades to mitigate the impacts of dam operations on river systems. Rivers are challenging subjects for experimentation, because they are open systems that cannot be isolated from their social context. We identify principles to address the challenges of conducting effective large-scale flow experiments. Flow experiments have both scientific and social value when they help to resolve specific questions about the ecological action of flow with a clear nexus to water policies and decisions. Water managers must integrate new information into operating policies for large-scale experiments to be effective. Modeling and monitoring can be integrated with experiments to analyze long-term ecological responses. Experimental design should include spatially extensive observations and well-defined, repeated treatments. Large-scale flow manipulations are only a part of dam operations that affect river systems. Scientists can ensure that experimental manipulations continue to be a valuable approach for the scientifically based management of river systems.

REVIEWS OF TOPICAL PROBLEMS: Generation of large-scale eddies and zonal winds in planetary atmospheres

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Onishchenko, O. G.; Pokhotelov, O. A.; Astafieva, N. M.

2008-06-01

The review deals with a theoretical description of the generation of zonal winds and vortices in a turbulent barotropic atmosphere. These large-scale structures largely determine the dynamics and transport processes in planetary atmospheres. The role of nonlinear effects on the formation of mesoscale vortical structures (cyclones and anticyclones) is examined. A new mechanism for zonal wind generation in planetary atmospheres is discussed. It is based on the parametric generation of convective cells by finite-amplitude Rossby waves. Weakly turbulent spectra of Rossby waves are considered. The theoretical results are compared to the results of satellite microwave monitoring of the Earth's atmosphere.

Design for Run-Time Monitor on Cloud Computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kang, Mikyung; Kang, Dong-In; Yun, Mira; Park, Gyung-Leen; Lee, Junghoon

Cloud computing is a new information technology trend that moves computing and data away from desktops and portable PCs into large data centers. The basic principle of cloud computing is to deliver applications as services over the Internet as well as infrastructure. A cloud is the type of a parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of inter-connected and virtualized computers that are dynamically provisioned and presented as one or more unified computing resources. The large-scale distributed applications on a cloud require adaptive service-based software, which has the capability of monitoring the system status change, analyzing the monitored information, and adapting its service configuration while considering tradeoffs among multiple QoS features simultaneously. In this paper, we design Run-Time Monitor (RTM) which is a system software to monitor the application behavior at run-time, analyze the collected information, and optimize resources on cloud computing. RTM monitors application software through library instrumentation as well as underlying hardware through performance counter optimizing its computing configuration based on the analyzed data.

Long-term monitoring of Sgr A* at 7 mm with VERA and KaVA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Akiyama, K.; Kino, M.; Sohn, B.; Lee, S.; Trippe, S.; Honma, M.

2014-05-01

We present the results of radio monitoring observations of Sgr A* at 7 mm (i.e. 43 GHz) with the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA), which is a VLBI array in Japan. VERA provides angular resolution on millisecond scales, resolving structures within 100 Schwarzschild radii of Sgr A* , similar to the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA). We performed multi-epoch observations of Sgr A* in 2005 - 2008, and started monitoring it again with VERA from 2013 January to trace the current G2 encounter event. Our preliminary results in 2013 show that Sgr A* on mas scales has been in an ordinary state as of August 2013, although some fraction of the G2 cloud already passed the pericenter of Sgr A* in April 2013. We will continue monitoring Sgr A* with VERA and the newly developed KaVA (KVN and VERA Array).

Sample project: establishing a global forest monitoring capability using multi-resolution and multi-temporal remotely sensed data sets

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hansen, Matt; Stehman, Steve; Loveland, Tom; Vogelmann, Jim; Cochrane, Mark

2009-01-01

Quantifying rates of forest-cover change is important for improved carbon accounting and climate change modeling, management of forestry and agricultural resources, and biodiversity monitoring. A practical solution to examining trends in forest cover change at global scale is to employ remotely sensed data. Satellite-based monitoring of forest cover can be implemented consistently across large regions at annual and inter-annual intervals. This research extends previous research on global forest-cover dynamics and land-cover change estimation to establish a robust, operational forest monitoring and assessment system. The approach integrates both MODIS and Landsat data to provide timely biome-scale forest change estimation. This is achieved by using annual MODIS change indicator maps to stratify biomes into low, medium and high change categories. Landsat image pairs can then be sampled within these strata and analyzed for estimating area of forest cleared.

An empirical, integrated forest biomass monitoring system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kennedy, Robert E.; Ohmann, Janet; Gregory, Matt; Roberts, Heather; Yang, Zhiqiang; Bell, David M.; Kane, Van; Hughes, M. Joseph; Cohen, Warren B.; Powell, Scott; Neeti, Neeti; Larrue, Tara; Hooper, Sam; Kane, Jonathan; Miller, David L.; Perkins, James; Braaten, Justin; Seidl, Rupert

2018-02-01

The fate of live forest biomass is largely controlled by growth and disturbance processes, both natural and anthropogenic. Thus, biomass monitoring strategies must characterize both the biomass of the forests at a given point in time and the dynamic processes that change it. Here, we describe and test an empirical monitoring system designed to meet those needs. Our system uses a mix of field data, statistical modeling, remotely-sensed time-series imagery, and small-footprint lidar data to build and evaluate maps of forest biomass. It ascribes biomass change to specific change agents, and attempts to capture the impact of uncertainty in methodology. We find that: • A common image framework for biomass estimation and for change detection allows for consistent comparison of both state and change processes controlling biomass dynamics. • Regional estimates of total biomass agree well with those from plot data alone. • The system tracks biomass densities up to 450-500 Mg ha-1 with little bias, but begins underestimating true biomass as densities increase further. • Scale considerations are important. Estimates at the 30 m grain size are noisy, but agreement at broad scales is good. Further investigation to determine the appropriate scales is underway. • Uncertainty from methodological choices is evident, but much smaller than uncertainty based on choice of allometric equation used to estimate biomass from tree data. • In this forest-dominated study area, growth and loss processes largely balance in most years, with loss processes dominated by human removal through harvest. In years with substantial fire activity, however, overall biomass loss greatly outpaces growth. Taken together, our methods represent a unique combination of elements foundational to an operational landscape-scale forest biomass monitoring program.

Development of the USGS national land-cover database over two decades

USGS Publications Warehouse

Xian, George Z.; Homer, Collin G.; Yang, Limin; Weng, Qihao

2011-01-01

Land-cover composition and change have profound impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. Land-cover and land-use (LCLU) conditions and their changes can affect social and physical environments by altering ecosystem conditions and services. Information about LCLU change is often used to produce landscape-based metrics and evaluate landscape conditions to monitor LCLU status and trends over a specific time interval (Loveland et al. 2002; Coppin et al. 2004; Lunetta et al. 2006). Continuous, accurate, and up-to-date land-cover data are important for natural resource and ecosystem management and are needed to support consistent monitoring of landscape attributes over time. Large-area land-cover information at regional, national, and global scales is critical for monitoring landscape variations over large areas.

Monitoring water use and crop condition in California vineyards at multiple scales using multi-sensor satellite data fusion

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Recent weather patterns have left California’s agricultural areas in severe drought. Given the reduced water availability in much of California it is critical to be able to measure water use and crop condition over large areas, but also in fine detail at scales of individual fields to support water...

Space and energy. [space systems for energy generation, distribution and control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bekey, I.

1976-01-01

Potential contributions of space to energy-related activities are discussed. Advanced concepts presented include worldwide energy distribution to substation-sized users using low-altitude space reflectors; powering large numbers of large aircraft worldwide using laser beams reflected from space mirror complexes; providing night illumination via sunlight-reflecting space mirrors; fine-scale power programming and monitoring in transmission networks by monitoring millions of network points from space; prevention of undetected hijacking of nuclear reactor fuels by space tracking of signals from tagging transmitters on all such materials; and disposal of nuclear power plant radioactive wastes in space.

Microlensing Constraints on the Mass of Single Stars from HST Astrometric Measurements

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kains, N.; Calamida, A.; Sahu, K. C.

Here, we report on the first results from a large-scale observing campaign aiming to use astrometric microlensing to detect and place limits on the mass of single objects, including stellar remnants. We used the Hubble Space Telescope to monitor stars near the Galactic Center for three years, and we measured the brightness and positions of ~2 million stars at each observing epoch. In addition to this, we monitored the same pointings using the VIMOS imager on the Very Large Telescope. The stars we monitored include several bright microlensing events observed from the ground by the OGLE collaboration. In this paper,more » we present the analysis of our photometric and astrometric measurements for six of these events, and derive mass constraints for the lens in each of them. Although these constraints are limited by the photometric precision of ground-based data, and our ability to determine the lens distance, we were able to constrain the size of the Einstein ring radius thanks to our precise astrometric measurements—the first routine measurements of this type from a large-scale observing program. In conclusion, this demonstrates the power of astrometric microlensing as a tool to constrain the masses of stars, stellar remnants, and, in the future, extrasolar planets, using precise ground- and space-based observations.« less

Microlensing Constraints on the Mass of Single Stars from HST Astrometric Measurements

DOE PAGES

Kains, N.; Calamida, A.; Sahu, K. C.; ...

2017-07-14

Here, we report on the first results from a large-scale observing campaign aiming to use astrometric microlensing to detect and place limits on the mass of single objects, including stellar remnants. We used the Hubble Space Telescope to monitor stars near the Galactic Center for three years, and we measured the brightness and positions of ~2 million stars at each observing epoch. In addition to this, we monitored the same pointings using the VIMOS imager on the Very Large Telescope. The stars we monitored include several bright microlensing events observed from the ground by the OGLE collaboration. In this paper,more » we present the analysis of our photometric and astrometric measurements for six of these events, and derive mass constraints for the lens in each of them. Although these constraints are limited by the photometric precision of ground-based data, and our ability to determine the lens distance, we were able to constrain the size of the Einstein ring radius thanks to our precise astrometric measurements—the first routine measurements of this type from a large-scale observing program. In conclusion, this demonstrates the power of astrometric microlensing as a tool to constrain the masses of stars, stellar remnants, and, in the future, extrasolar planets, using precise ground- and space-based observations.« less

Acoustic emissions (AE) monitoring of large-scale composite bridge components

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Velazquez, E.; Klein, D. J.; Robinson, M. J.; Kosmatka, J. B.

2008-03-01

Acoustic Emissions (AE) has been successfully used with composite structures to both locate and give a measure of damage accumulation. The current experimental study uses AE to monitor large-scale composite modular bridge components. The components consist of a carbon/epoxy beam structure as well as a composite to metallic bonded/bolted joint. The bonded joints consist of double lap aluminum splice plates bonded and bolted to carbon/epoxy laminates representing the tension rail of a beam. The AE system is used to monitor the bridge component during failure loading to assess the failure progression and using time of arrival to give insight into the origins of the failures. Also, a feature in the AE data called Cumulative Acoustic Emission counts (CAE) is used to give an estimate of the severity and rate of damage accumulation. For the bolted/bonded joints, the AE data is used to interpret the source and location of damage that induced failure in the joint. These results are used to investigate the use of bolts in conjunction with the bonded joint. A description of each of the components (beam and joint) is given with AE results. A summary of lessons learned for AE testing of large composite structures as well as insight into failure progression and location is presented.

Monitoring of Sea Ice Dynamic by Means of ERS-Envisat Tandem Cross-Interferometry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pasquali, Paolo; Cantone, Alessio; Barbieri, Massimo; Engdahl, Marcus

2010-03-01

The interest in the monitoring of sea ice masses has increased greatly over the past decades for a variety of reasons. These include:- Navigation in northern latitude waters;- transportation of petroleum;- exploitation of mineral deposits in the Arctic, and- the use of icebergs as a source of fresh water.The availability of ERS-Envisat 28minute tandem acquisitions from dedicated campaigns, covering large areas in the northern latitudes with large geometrical baseline and very short temporal separation, allows the precise estimation of sea ice displacement fields with an accuracy that cannot be obtained on large scale from any other instrument. This article presents different results of sea ice dynamic monitoring over northern Canada obtained within the "ERS-Envisat Tandem Cross-Interferometry Campaigns: CInSAR processing and studies over extended areas" project from data acquired during the 2008-2009 Tandem campaign..

The application of two-step linear temperature program to thermal analysis for monitoring the lipid induction of Nostoc sp. KNUA003 in large scale cultivation.

PubMed

Kang, Bongmun; Yoon, Ho-Sung

2015-02-01

Recently, microalgae was considered as a renewable energy for fuel production because its production is nonseasonal and may take place on nonarable land. Despite all of these advantages, microalgal oil production is significantly affected by environmental factors. Furthermore, the large variability remains an important problem in measurement of algae productivity and compositional analysis, especially, the total lipid content. Thus, there is considerable interest in accurate determination of total lipid content during the biotechnological process. For these reason, various high-throughput technologies were suggested for accurate measurement of total lipids contained in the microorganisms, especially oleaginous microalgae. In addition, more advanced technologies were employed to quantify the total lipids of the microalgae without a pretreatment. However, these methods are difficult to measure total lipid content in wet form microalgae obtained from large-scale production. In present study, the thermal analysis performed with two-step linear temeperature program was applied to measure heat evolved in temperature range from 310 to 351 °C of Nostoc sp. KNUA003 obtained from large-scale cultivation. And then, we examined the relationship between the heat evolved in 310-351 °C (HE) and total lipid content of the wet Nostoc cell cultivated in raceway. As a result, the linear relationship was determined between HE value and total lipid content of Nostoc sp. KNUA003. Particularly, there was a linear relationship of 98% between the HE value and the total lipid content of the tested microorganism. Based on this relationship, the total lipid content converted from the heat evolved of wet Nostoc sp. KNUA003 could be used for monitoring its lipid induction in large-scale cultivation. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Exploring Google Earth Engine platform for big data processing: classification of multi-temporal satellite imagery for crop mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shelestov, Andrii; Lavreniuk, Mykola; Kussul, Nataliia; Novikov, Alexei; Skakun, Sergii

2017-02-01

Many applied problems arising in agricultural monitoring and food security require reliable crop maps at national or global scale. Large scale crop mapping requires processing and management of large amount of heterogeneous satellite imagery acquired by various sensors that consequently leads to a “Big Data” problem. The main objective of this study is to explore efficiency of using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform when classifying multi-temporal satellite imagery with potential to apply the platform for a larger scale (e.g. country level) and multiple sensors (e.g. Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2). In particular, multiple state-of-the-art classifiers available in the GEE platform are compared to produce a high resolution (30 m) crop classification map for a large territory ( 28,100 km2 and 1.0 M ha of cropland). Though this study does not involve large volumes of data, it does address efficiency of the GEE platform to effectively execute complex workflows of satellite data processing required with large scale applications such as crop mapping. The study discusses strengths and weaknesses of classifiers, assesses accuracies that can be achieved with different classifiers for the Ukrainian landscape, and compares them to the benchmark classifier using a neural network approach that was developed in our previous studies. The study is carried out for the Joint Experiment of Crop Assessment and Monitoring (JECAM) test site in Ukraine covering the Kyiv region (North of Ukraine) in 2013. We found that Google Earth Engine (GEE) provides very good performance in terms of enabling access to the remote sensing products through the cloud platform and providing pre-processing; however, in terms of classification accuracy, the neural network based approach outperformed support vector machine (SVM), decision tree and random forest classifiers available in GEE.

Can Wide Consultation Help with Setting Priorities for Large-Scale Biodiversity Monitoring Programs?

PubMed Central

Boivin, Frédéric; Simard, Anouk; Peres-Neto, Pedro

2014-01-01

Climate and other global change phenomena affecting biodiversity require monitoring to track ecosystem changes and guide policy and management actions. Designing a biodiversity monitoring program is a difficult task that requires making decisions that often lack consensus due to budgetary constrains. As monitoring programs require long-term investment, they also require strong and continuing support from all interested parties. As such, stakeholder consultation is key to identify priorities and make sound design decisions that have as much support as possible. Here, we present the results of a consultation conducted to serve as an aid for designing a large-scale biodiversity monitoring program for the province of Québec (Canada). The consultation took the form of a survey with 13 discrete choices involving tradeoffs in respect to design priorities and 10 demographic questions (e.g., age, profession). The survey was sent to thousands of individuals having expected interests and knowledge about biodiversity and was completed by 621 participants. Overall, consensuses were few and it appeared difficult to create a design fulfilling the priorities of the majority. Most participants wanted 1) a monitoring design covering the entire territory and focusing on natural habitats; 2) a focus on species related to ecosystem services, on threatened and on invasive species. The only demographic characteristic that was related to the type of prioritization was the declared level of knowledge in biodiversity (null to high), but even then the influence was quite small. PMID:25525798

Can wide consultation help with setting priorities for large-scale biodiversity monitoring programs?

PubMed

Boivin, Frédéric; Simard, Anouk; Peres-Neto, Pedro

2014-01-01

Climate and other global change phenomena affecting biodiversity require monitoring to track ecosystem changes and guide policy and management actions. Designing a biodiversity monitoring program is a difficult task that requires making decisions that often lack consensus due to budgetary constrains. As monitoring programs require long-term investment, they also require strong and continuing support from all interested parties. As such, stakeholder consultation is key to identify priorities and make sound design decisions that have as much support as possible. Here, we present the results of a consultation conducted to serve as an aid for designing a large-scale biodiversity monitoring program for the province of Québec (Canada). The consultation took the form of a survey with 13 discrete choices involving tradeoffs in respect to design priorities and 10 demographic questions (e.g., age, profession). The survey was sent to thousands of individuals having expected interests and knowledge about biodiversity and was completed by 621 participants. Overall, consensuses were few and it appeared difficult to create a design fulfilling the priorities of the majority. Most participants wanted 1) a monitoring design covering the entire territory and focusing on natural habitats; 2) a focus on species related to ecosystem services, on threatened and on invasive species. The only demographic characteristic that was related to the type of prioritization was the declared level of knowledge in biodiversity (null to high), but even then the influence was quite small.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Call, Justin

This contract report is one of a series of reports that document implementation components of the Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) funded project: Integrated Status and Effectiveness Monitoring Program (ISEMP - BPA project No.2003-017-00, Chris Jordan, NOAA-NWFSC project sponsor). Other components of the project are separately reported, as explained below. The ISEMP project has been created as a cost effective means of developing protocols and new technologies, novel indicators, sample designs, analytical data management, communication tools and skills, and restoration experiments that support the development of a region-wide Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation (RME) program to assess the status of anadromous salmonidsmore » populations, their tributary habitat and restoration and management actions. The most straightforward approach to developing a regional-scale monitoring and evaluation program would be to increase standardization among status and trend monitoring programs. However, the diversity of species and their habitat, as well as the overwhelming uncertainty surrounding indicators, metrics, and data interpretation methods requires the testing of multiple approaches. Thus, ISEMP has adopted an approach to develop a broad template that may differ in the details among subbasins, but one that will ultimately lead to the formation of a unified RME process for the management of anadromous salmonid populations and habitat across the Columbia River Basin. ISEMP has been initiated in three pilot areas, the Wenatchee/Entiat, John Day, and Salmon. To balance replicating experimental approaches with the goal of developing monitoring and evaluation tools that apply as broadly as possible across the Pacific Northwest, these subbasins were chosen as representative of a wide range of potential challenges and conditions, e.g., differing fish species composition and life histories, ecoregions, institutional settings, and existing data. ISEMP has constructed a framework that builds on current status and trend monitoring infrastructures in these pilot subbasins, but challenges current programs by testing alternative monitoring approaches. In addition, the ISEMP is: (1) Collecting information over a hierarchy of spatial scales, allowing for a greater flexibility of data aggregation for multi-scale recovery planning assessments, and (2) Designing methods that: (a) Identify factors limiting fish production in watersheds; (b) Determine restoration actions to address these problems; (c) Implement actions as a large-scale experiment (e.g. Before After Control Impact, or BACI design), and (d) Implement intensive monitoring and research to evaluate the action's success. The intent of the ISEMP project is to design monitoring programs that can efficiently collect information to address multiple management objectives over a broad range of scales. This includes: Evaluating the status of anadromous salmonids and their habitat; Identifying opportunities to restore habitat function and fish performance, and Evaluating the benefits of the actions to the fish populations across the Columbia River Basin. The multi-scale nature of this goal requires the standardization of protocols and sampling designs that are statistically valid and powerful, properties that are currently inconsistent across the multiple monitoring programs in the region. Other aspects of the program will aid in the ability to extrapolate information beyond the study area, such as research to elucidate causal mechanisms, and a classification of watersheds throughout the Columbia River Basin. Obviously, the scale of the problem is immense and the ISEMP does not claim to be the only program working towards this goal. As such, ISEMP relies heavily on the basin's current monitoring infrastructure to test and develop monitoring strategies, while acting as a coordinating body and providing support for key elements such as data management and technical analyses. The ISEMP also ensures that monitoring programs can address large-scale management objectives (resulting largely from the ESA) through these local efforts. While the ISEMP maintains a regional focus it also returns the necessary information to aid in management at the smaller spatial scales (individual projects) where manipulations (e.g., habitat restoration actions) actually occur. The work captured in this report is a component of the overall ISEMP, and while it stands alone as an important contribution to the management of anadromous salmonids and their habitat, it also plays a key role within ISEMP. Each component of work within ISEMP is reported on individually, as is done so here, and in annual and triennial summary reports that present all of the overall project components in their programmatic context and shows how the data and tools developed can be applied to the development of regionally consistent, efficient and effective Research, Monitoring and Evaluation.« less

Eavesdropping on the Arctic: Automated bioacoustics reveal dynamics in songbird breeding phenology.

PubMed

Oliver, Ruth Y; Ellis, Daniel P W; Chmura, Helen E; Krause, Jesse S; Pérez, Jonathan H; Sweet, Shannan K; Gough, Laura; Wingfield, John C; Boelman, Natalie T

2018-06-01

Bioacoustic networks could vastly expand the coverage of wildlife monitoring to complement satellite observations of climate and vegetation. This approach would enable global-scale understanding of how climate change influences phenomena such as migratory timing of avian species. The enormous data sets that autonomous recorders typically generate demand automated analyses that remain largely undeveloped. We devised automated signal processing and machine learning approaches to estimate dates on which songbird communities arrived at arctic breeding grounds. Acoustically estimated dates agreed well with those determined via traditional surveys and were strongly related to the landscape's snow-free dates. We found that environmental conditions heavily influenced daily variation in songbird vocal activity, especially before egg laying. Our novel approaches demonstrate that variation in avian migratory arrival can be detected autonomously. Large-scale deployment of this innovation in wildlife monitoring would enable the coverage necessary to assess and forecast changes in bird migration in the face of climate change.

Large-scale, dynamic transformations in fuel moisture drive wildfire activity across southeastern Australia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nolan, R. H.; Boer, M. M.; Resco de Dios, V.; Caccamo, G.; Bradstock, R. A.

2016-05-01

The occurrence of large, high-intensity wildfires requires plant biomass, or fuel, that is sufficiently dry to burn. This poses the question, what is "sufficiently dry"? Until recently, the ability to address this question has been constrained by the spatiotemporal scale of available methods to monitor the moisture contents of both dead and live fuels. Here we take advantage of recent developments in macroscale monitoring of fuel moisture through a combination of remote sensing and climatic modeling. We show there are clear thresholds of fuel moisture content associated with the occurrence of wildfires in forests and woodlands. Furthermore, we show that transformations in fuel moisture conditions across these thresholds can occur rapidly, within a month. Both the approach presented here, and our findings, can be immediately applied and may greatly improve fire risk assessments in forests and woodlands globally.

Improvement of ε-poly-L-lysine production through seed stage development based on in situ pH monitoring.

PubMed

Sun, Qi-Xing; Chen, Xu-Sheng; Ren, Xi-Dong; Mao, Zhong-Gui

2015-01-01

Nissin, natamycin, and ε-poly-L-lysine (ε-PL) are three safe, microbial-produced food preservatives used today in the food industry. However, current industrial production of ε-PL is only performed in several countries. In order to realize large-scale ε-PL production by fermentation, the effects of seed stage on cell growth and ε-PL production were investigated by monitoring of pH in situ in a 5-L laboratory-scale fermenter. A significant increase in ε-PL production in fed-batch fermentation by Streptomyces sp. M-Z18 was achieved, at 48.9 g/L, through the optimization of several factors associated with seed stage, including spore pretreatment, inoculum age, and inoculum level. Compared with conventional fermentation approaches using 24-h-old shake-flask seed broth as inoculum, the maximum ε-PL concentration and productivity were enhanced by 32.3 and 36.6 %, respectively. The effect of optimized inoculum conditions on ε-PL production on a large scale was evaluated using a 50-L pilot-scale fermenter, attaining a maximum ε-PL production of 36.22 g/L in fed-batch fermentation, constituting the first report of ε-PL production at pilot scale. These results will be helpful for efficient ε-PL production by Streptomyces at pilot and plant scales.

Integrating SMOS brightness temperatures with a new conceptual spatially distributed hydrological model for improving flood and drought predictions at large scale.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hostache, Renaud; Rains, Dominik; Chini, Marco; Lievens, Hans; Verhoest, Niko E. C.; Matgen, Patrick

2017-04-01

Motivated by climate change and its impact on the scarcity or excess of water in many parts of the world, several agencies and research institutions have taken initiatives in monitoring and predicting the hydrologic cycle at a global scale. Such a monitoring/prediction effort is important for understanding the vulnerability to extreme hydrological events and for providing early warnings. This can be based on an optimal combination of hydro-meteorological models and remote sensing, in which satellite measurements can be used as forcing or calibration data or for regularly updating the model states or parameters. Many advances have been made in these domains and the near future will bring new opportunities with respect to remote sensing as a result of the increasing number of spaceborn sensors enabling the large scale monitoring of water resources. Besides of these advances, there is currently a tendency to refine and further complicate physically-based hydrologic models to better capture the hydrologic processes at hand. However, this may not necessarily be beneficial for large-scale hydrology, as computational efforts are therefore increasing significantly. As a matter of fact, a novel thematic science question that is to be investigated is whether a flexible conceptual model can match the performance of a complex physically-based model for hydrologic simulations at large scale. In this context, the main objective of this study is to investigate how innovative techniques that allow for the estimation of soil moisture from satellite data can help in reducing errors and uncertainties in large scale conceptual hydro-meteorological modelling. A spatially distributed conceptual hydrologic model has been set up based on recent developments of the SUPERFLEX modelling framework. As it requires limited computational efforts, this model enables early warnings for large areas. Using as forcings the ERA-Interim public dataset and coupled with the CMEM radiative transfer model, SUPERFLEX is capable of predicting runoff, soil moisture, and SMOS-like brightness temperature time series. Such a model is traditionally calibrated using only discharge measurements. In this study we designed a multi-objective calibration procedure based on both discharge measurements and SMOS-derived brightness temperature observations in order to evaluate the added value of remotely sensed soil moisture data in the calibration process. As a test case we set up the SUPERFLEX model for the large scale Murray-Darling catchment in Australia ( 1 Million km2). When compared to in situ soil moisture time series, model predictions show good agreement resulting in correlation coefficients exceeding 70 % and Root Mean Squared Errors below 1 %. When benchmarked with the physically based land surface model CLM, SUPERFLEX exhibits similar performance levels. By adapting the runoff routing function within the SUPERFLEX model, the predicted discharge results in a Nash Sutcliff Efficiency exceeding 0.7 over both the calibration and the validation periods.

The expanding scope of air pollution monitoring can facilitate sustainable development.

PubMed

Knox, Andrew; Mykhaylova, Natalia; Evans, Greg J; Lee, Colin J; Karney, Bryan; Brook, Jeffrey R

2013-03-15

This paper explores technologies currently expanding the physical scope of air pollution monitoring and their potential contributions to the assessment of sustainable development. This potential lies largely in the ability of these technologies to address issues typically on the fringe of the air pollution agenda. Air pollution monitoring tends to be primarily focused on human health, and largely neglects other aspects of sustainable development. Sensor networks, with their relatively inexpensive monitoring nodes, allow for monitoring with finer spatiotemporal resolution. This resolution can support more conclusive studies of air pollution's effect on socio-ecological justice and human quality of life. Satellite observation of air pollution allows for wider geographical scope, and in doing so can facilitate studies of air pollution's effects on natural capital and ecosystem resilience. Many air pollution-related aspects of the sustainability of development in human systems are not being given their due attention. Opportunities exist for air pollution monitoring to attend more to these issues. Improvements to the resolution and scale of monitoring make these opportunities realizable. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Investigating In-Situ Mass Transfer Processes in a Groundwater U Plume Influenced by Groundwater-River Hydrologic and Geochemical Coupling (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zachara, J. M.

2009-12-01

The Hanford Integrated Field Research Challenge (IFRC) site is a DOE/BER-supported experimental and monitoring facility focused on multi-scale mass transfer processes (hanfordifc@pnl.gov). It is located within the footprint of a historic uranium (U) waste disposal pond that overlies a contaminated vadose zone and a 1 km+ groundwater U plume. The plume is under a regulatory clean-up mandate. The site is in hydraulic connectivity with the Columbia River that is located approximately 300 m distant. Dramatic seasonal variations in Columbia River stage cause 2m+ variations in water table and associated changes in groundwater flow directions and composition that are believed to recharge contaminant U to the plume through lower vadose zone pumping. The 60 m triangular shaped facility contains 37 monitoring wells equipped with down-hole electrical resistance tomography electrode and thermistor arrays, pressure transducers for continual water level monitoring, and specific conductance electrodes. Well spacings allow cross-hole geophysical interrogation and dynamic plume monitoring. Various geophysical and hydrologic field characterizations were performed during and after well installation, and retrieved sediments are being subjected to a hierarchal laboratory characterization process to support geostatistical models of hydrologic properties, U(VI) distribution and speciation, and equilibrium and kinetic reaction parameters for robust but tractable field-scale reactive transport calculations. Three large scale (10,000 gal+), non-reactive tracer experiments have been performed to evaluate groundwater flowpaths and velocities, facies scale mass transfer, and subsurface heterogeneity effects under different hydrologic conditions (e.g., flow vectors toward or away from the river). A passive monitoring experiment was completed during spring and summer of 2009 that documents spatially variable U(VI) release and plume recharge from the contaminated lower vadose zone during oscillating rising and falling water table events. A large scale injection experiment to evaluate in situ U(VI) desorption kinetics controlled by mass transfer is planned for the fall of 2009. The presentation will summarize key results from these different activities, and discuss their implications to improved plume forecasting and development of an effective groundwater remedy.

Continental Tele-connections of ET and Precipitation: Tractable Models, Viable Management, and Potential Monitoring.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Selker, J. S.; Higgins, C. W.; Tai, L. C. M.

2014-12-01

The linkage between large-scale manipulation of land cover and resulting patterns of precipitation has been a long-standing problem. For example, what is the impact of the Columbia River project's 2,700 km^2 irrigated area (applying approximately 300 m^3/s) on the down-wind continental rainfall in North America? Similarly, can we identify places on earth where planting large-scale runoff-reducing forests might increase down-wind precipitation, thus leading to magnified carbon capture? In this talk we present an analytical Lagrangian framework for the prediction of incremental increases in down-wind precipitation due to land surface evaporation and transpiration. We compare these predictions to recently published rainfall recycling values from the literature. Focus is on the Columbia basin (Pacific Northwest of hte USA), with extensions to East Africa. We further explore the monitoring requirements for verification of any such impact, and see if the planned TAHMO African Observatory (TAHMO.org) has the potential to document any such processes over the 25-year and 1,000 km scales.

Design of an Air Pollution Monitoring Campaign in Beijing for Application to Cohort Health Studies.

PubMed

Vedal, Sverre; Han, Bin; Xu, Jia; Szpiro, Adam; Bai, Zhipeng

2017-12-15

No cohort studies in China on the health effects of long-term air pollution exposure have employed exposure estimates at the fine spatial scales desirable for cohort studies with individual-level health outcome data. Here we assess an array of modern air pollution exposure estimation approaches for assigning within-city exposure estimates in Beijing for individual pollutants and pollutant sources to individual members of a cohort. Issues considered in selecting specific monitoring data or new monitoring campaigns include: needed spatial resolution, exposure measurement error and its impact on health effect estimates, spatial alignment and compatibility with the cohort, and feasibility and expense. Sources of existing data largely include administrative monitoring data, predictions from air dispersion or chemical transport models and remote sensing (specifically satellite) data. New air monitoring campaigns include additional fixed site monitoring, snapshot monitoring, passive badge or micro-sensor saturation monitoring and mobile monitoring, as well as combinations of these. Each of these has relative advantages and disadvantages. It is concluded that a campaign in Beijing that at least includes a mobile monitoring component, when coupled with currently available spatio-temporal modeling methods, should be strongly considered. Such a campaign is economical and capable of providing the desired fine-scale spatial resolution for pollutants and sources.

Design of an Air Pollution Monitoring Campaign in Beijing for Application to Cohort Health Studies

PubMed Central

Vedal, Sverre; Han, Bin; Szpiro, Adam; Bai, Zhipeng

2017-01-01

No cohort studies in China on the health effects of long-term air pollution exposure have employed exposure estimates at the fine spatial scales desirable for cohort studies with individual-level health outcome data. Here we assess an array of modern air pollution exposure estimation approaches for assigning within-city exposure estimates in Beijing for individual pollutants and pollutant sources to individual members of a cohort. Issues considered in selecting specific monitoring data or new monitoring campaigns include: needed spatial resolution, exposure measurement error and its impact on health effect estimates, spatial alignment and compatibility with the cohort, and feasibility and expense. Sources of existing data largely include administrative monitoring data, predictions from air dispersion or chemical transport models and remote sensing (specifically satellite) data. New air monitoring campaigns include additional fixed site monitoring, snapshot monitoring, passive badge or micro-sensor saturation monitoring and mobile monitoring, as well as combinations of these. Each of these has relative advantages and disadvantages. It is concluded that a campaign in Beijing that at least includes a mobile monitoring component, when coupled with currently available spatio-temporal modeling methods, should be strongly considered. Such a campaign is economical and capable of providing the desired fine-scale spatial resolution for pollutants and sources. PMID:29244738

Applications and Methods for Continuous Monitoring of Physiological Chemistry

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-02-04

product and test platform to verify the performance characteristics of the enzymes when used in diagnostic device fabrication. 1.3 Results This...project had three primary objectives: 1. Engineer a cortisol oxidase enzyme suitable for use in diagnostic devices 2. Large scale production and...for both animal and human use , and for direct sale to other entities to manufacture biosensors and other products for human monitoring. The enzymes

Edible Oil Barriers for Treatment of Chlorinated Solvent and Perchlorate-Contaminated Groundwater

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-02-01

This page left blank intentionally. 9 3.0 TECHNOLOGY The emulsified oil technology is a low- cost process for delivering a low solubility, slowly...associated with the actual injection process , including costs for installing the injection and monitoring wells, purchasing the substrate for injection...large area can be significantly lower due to economies of scale during injection and the relatively lower design, permitting, and monitoring costs

An approach for flood monitoring by the combined use of Landsat 8 optical imagery and COSMO-SkyMed radar imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tong, Xiaohua; Luo, Xin; Liu, Shuguang; Xie, Huan; Chao, Wei; Liu, Shuang; Liu, Shijie; Makhinov, A. N.; Makhinova, A. F.; Jiang, Yuying

2018-02-01

Remote sensing techniques offer potential for effective flood detection with the advantages of low-cost, large-scale, and real-time surface observations. The easily accessible data sources of optical remote sensing imagery provide abundant spectral information for accurate surface water body extraction, and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems represent a powerful tool for flood monitoring because of their all-weather capability. This paper introduces a new approach for flood monitoring by the combined use of both Landsat 8 optical imagery and COSMO-SkyMed radar imagery. Specifically, the proposed method applies support vector machine and the active contour without edges model for water extent determination in the periods before and during the flood, respectively. A map difference method is used for the flood inundation analysis. The proposed approach is particularly suitable for large-scale flood monitoring, and it was tested on a serious flood that occurred in northeastern China in August 2013, which caused immense loss of human lives and properties. High overall accuracies of 97.46% for the optical imagery and 93.70% for the radar imagery are achieved by the use of the techniques presented in this study. The results show that about 12% of the whole study area was inundated, corresponding to 5466 km2 of land surface.

A novel framework for the use of remote sensing for monitoring catchments at continental scales.

PubMed

Bugnot, A B; Lyons, M B; Scanes, P; Clark, G F; Fyfe, S K; Lewis, A; Johnston, E L

2018-07-01

Historical ecology can teach us valuable lessons on the processes and drivers of environmental change that can inform future monitoring priorities and management strategies. Environmental data to study environmental history, however, is often absent or of low quality. Even when studying changes occurring during the last few decades, monitoring efforts are scarce due to logistical and cost limitations, leaving large areas unassessed. The aim of this study is to evaluate the use of estuarine water colour as an indicator of historical environmental change in catchments. Water colour change was assessed in estuaries in Australia from 1987 to 2015 using satellite remote sensing. Random points were selected for each estuary and applied to the Australian Geoscience Data Cube (based on Landsat images) to obtain reflectance data through time. We propose a framework where (i) water colour is used to detect historical changes in catchments using generalised additive models, (ii) possible stressors and pressures driving those changes are evaluated using other available historical data, and (iii) lessons learned inform appropriate monitoring and management actions. This framework represents a novel approach to generate historical data for large-scale assessments of environmental change at catchment level, even in poorly studied areas. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Large-Scale Diversity of Slope Fishes: Pattern Inconsistency between Multiple Diversity Indices

PubMed Central

Gaertner, Jean-Claude; Colloca, Francesco; Politou, Chrissi-Yianna; Gil De Sola, Luis; Bertrand, Jacques A.; Murenu, Matteo; Durbec, Jean-Pierre; Kallianiotis, Argyris; Mannini, Alessandro

2013-01-01

Large-scale studies focused on the diversity of continental slope ecosystems are still rare, usually restricted to a limited number of diversity indices and mainly based on the empirical comparison of heterogeneous local data sets. In contrast, we investigate large-scale fish diversity on the basis of multiple diversity indices and using 1454 standardized trawl hauls collected throughout the upper and middle slope of the whole northern Mediterranean Sea (36°3′- 45°7′ N; 5°3′W - 28°E). We have analyzed (1) the empirical relationships between a set of 11 diversity indices in order to assess their degree of complementarity/redundancy and (2) the consistency of spatial patterns exhibited by each of the complementary groups of indices. Regarding species richness, our results contrasted both the traditional view based on the hump-shaped theory for bathymetric pattern and the commonly-admitted hypothesis of a large-scale decreasing trend correlated with a similar gradient of primary production in the Mediterranean Sea. More generally, we found that the components of slope fish diversity we analyzed did not always show a consistent pattern of distribution according either to depth or to spatial areas, suggesting that they are not driven by the same factors. These results, which stress the need to extend the number of indices traditionally considered in diversity monitoring networks, could provide a basis for rethinking not only the methodological approach used in monitoring systems, but also the definition of priority zones for protection. Finally, our results call into question the feasibility of properly investigating large-scale diversity patterns using a widespread approach in ecology, which is based on the compilation of pre-existing heterogeneous and disparate data sets, in particular when focusing on indices that are very sensitive to sampling design standardization, such as species richness. PMID:23843962

Plate motions and deformations from geologic and geodetic data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jordan, Thomas H.

1990-01-01

An analysis of geodetic data in the vicinity of the Crustal Dynamics Program (CDP) site at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VNDN) is presented. The utility of space-geodetic data in the monitoring of transient strains associated with earthquakes in tectonically active areas like California is investigated. Particular interest is in the possibility that space-geodetic methods may be able to provide critical new data on deformations precursory to large seismic events. Although earthquake precursory phenomena are not well understood, the monitoring of small strains in the vicinity of active faults is a promising technique for studying the mechanisms that nucleate large earthquakes and, ultimately, for earthquake prediction. Space-geodetic techniques are now capable of measuring baselines of tens to hundreds of kilometers with a precision of a few parts in 108. Within the next few years, it will be possible to record and analyze large-scale strain variations with this precision continuously in real time. Thus, space-geodetic techniques may become tools for earthquake prediction. In anticipation of this capability, several questions related to the temporal and spatial scales associated with subseismic deformation transients are examined.

Drive-by large-region acoustic noise-source mapping via sparse beamforming tomography.

PubMed

Tuna, Cagdas; Zhao, Shengkui; Nguyen, Thi Ngoc Tho; Jones, Douglas L

2016-10-01

Environmental noise is a risk factor for human physical and mental health, demanding an efficient large-scale noise-monitoring scheme. The current technology, however, involves extensive sound pressure level (SPL) measurements at a dense grid of locations, making it impractical on a city-wide scale. This paper presents an alternative approach using a microphone array mounted on a moving vehicle to generate two-dimensional acoustic tomographic maps that yield the locations and SPLs of the noise-sources sparsely distributed in the neighborhood traveled by the vehicle. The far-field frequency-domain delay-and-sum beamforming output power values computed at multiple locations as the vehicle drives by are used as tomographic measurements. The proposed method is tested with acoustic data collected by driving an electric vehicle with a rooftop-mounted microphone array along a straight road next to a large open field, on which various pre-recorded noise-sources were produced by a loudspeaker at different locations. The accuracy of the tomographic imaging results demonstrates the promise of this approach for rapid, low-cost environmental noise-monitoring.

Low-cost Photoacoustic-based Measurement System for Carbon Dioxide Fluxes with the Potential for large-scale Monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scholz, L. T.; Bierer, B.; Ortiz Perez, A.; Woellenstein, J.; Sachs, T.; Palzer, S.

2016-12-01

The determination of carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes between ecosystems and the atmosphere is crucial for understanding ecological processes on regional and global scales. High quality data sets with full uncertainty estimates are needed to evaluate model simulations. However, current flux monitoring techniques are unsuitable to provide reliable data of a large area at both a detailed level and an appropriate resolution, at best in combination with a high sampling rate. Currently used sensing technologies, such as non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) gas analyzers, cannot be deployed in large numbers to provide high spatial resolution due to their costs and complex maintenance requirements. Here, we propose a novel CO2 measurement system, whose gas sensing unit is made up of low-cost, low-power consuming components only, such as an IR-LED and a photoacoustic detector. The sensor offers a resolution of < 50 ppm in the interesting concentration range up to 5000 ppm and an almost linear and fast sensor response of just a few seconds. Since the sensor can be applied in-situ without special precautions, it allows for environmental monitoring in a non-invasive way. Its low energy consumption enables long-term measurements. The low overall costs favor the manufacturing in large quantities. This allows the operation of multiple sensors at a reasonable price and thus provides concentration measurements at any desired spatial coverage and at high temporal resolution. With appropriate 3D configuration of the units, vertical and horizontal fluxes can be determined. By applying a closely meshed wireless sensor network, inhomogeneities as well as CO2 sources and sinks in the lower atmosphere can be monitored. In combination with sensors for temperature, pressure and humidity, our sensor paves the way towards the reliable and extensive monitoring of ecosystem-atmosphere exchange rates. The technique can also be easily adapted to other relevant greenhouse gases.

Kinota: An Open-Source NoSQL implementation of OGC SensorThings for large-scale high-resolution real-time environmental monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miles, B.; Chepudira, K.; LaBar, W.

2017-12-01

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) SensorThings API (STA) specification, ratified in 2016, is a next-generation open standard for enabling real-time communication of sensor data. Building on over a decade of OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) Standards, STA offers a rich data model that can represent a range of sensor and phenomena types (e.g. fixed sensors sensing fixed phenomena, fixed sensors sensing moving phenomena, mobile sensors sensing fixed phenomena, and mobile sensors sensing moving phenomena) and is data agnostic. Additionally, and in contrast to previous SWE standards, STA is developer-friendly, as is evident from its convenient JSON serialization, and expressive OData-based query language (with support for geospatial queries); with its Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT), STA is also well-suited to efficient real-time data publishing and discovery. All these attributes make STA potentially useful for use in environmental monitoring sensor networks. Here we present Kinota(TM), an Open-Source NoSQL implementation of OGC SensorThings for large-scale high-resolution real-time environmental monitoring. Kinota, which roughly stands for Knowledge from Internet of Things Analyses, relies on Cassandra its underlying data store, which is a horizontally scalable, fault-tolerant open-source database that is often used to store time-series data for Big Data applications (though integration with other NoSQL or rational databases is possible). With this foundation, Kinota can scale to store data from an arbitrary number of sensors collecting data every 500 milliseconds. Additionally, Kinota architecture is very modular allowing for customization by adopters who can choose to replace parts of the existing implementation when desirable. The architecture is also highly portable providing the flexibility to choose between cloud providers like azure, amazon, google etc. The scalable, flexible and cloud friendly architecture of Kinota makes it ideal for use in next-generation large-scale and high-resolution real-time environmental monitoring networks used in domains such as hydrology, geomorphology, and geophysics, as well as management applications such as flood early warning, and regulatory enforcement.

Application of surface analytical methods for hazardous situation in the Adriatic Sea: monitoring of organic matter dynamics and oil pollution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pletikapić, Galja; Ivošević DeNardis, Nadica

2017-01-01

Surface analytical methods are applied to examine the environmental status of seawaters. The present overview emphasizes advantages of combining surface analytical methods, applied to a hazardous situation in the Adriatic Sea, such as monitoring of the first aggregation phases of dissolved organic matter in order to potentially predict the massive mucilage formation and testing of oil spill cleanup. Such an approach, based on fast and direct characterization of organic matter and its high-resolution visualization, sets a continuous-scale description of organic matter from micro- to nanometre scales. Electrochemical method of chronoamperometry at the dropping mercury electrode meets the requirements for monitoring purposes due to the simple and fast analysis of a large number of natural seawater samples enabling simultaneous differentiation of organic constituents. In contrast, atomic force microscopy allows direct visualization of biotic and abiotic particles and provides an insight into structural organization of marine organic matter at micro- and nanometre scales. In the future, merging data at different spatial scales, taking into account experimental input on micrometre scale, observations on metre scale and modelling on kilometre scale, will be important for developing sophisticated technological platforms for knowledge transfer, reports and maps applicable for the marine environmental protection and management of the coastal area, especially for tourism, fishery and cruiser trafficking.

Africa-wide monitoring of small surface water bodies using multisource satellite data: a monitoring system for FEWS NET: chapter 5

USGS Publications Warehouse

Velpuri, Naga Manohar; Senay, Gabriel B.; Rowland, James; Verdin, James P.; Alemu, Henok; Melesse, Assefa M.; Abtew, Wossenu; Setegn, Shimelis G.

2014-01-01

Continental Africa has the highest volume of water stored in wetlands, large lakes, reservoirs, and rivers, yet it suffers from problems such as water availability and access. With climate change intensifying the hydrologic cycle and altering the distribution and frequency of rainfall, the problem of water availability and access will increase further. Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has initiated a large-scale project to monitor small to medium surface water points in Africa. Under this project, multisource satellite data and hydrologic modeling techniques are integrated to monitor several hundreds of small to medium surface water points in Africa. This approach has been already tested to operationally monitor 41 water points in East Africa. The validation of modeled scaled depths with field-installed gauge data demonstrated the ability of the model to capture both the spatial patterns and seasonal variations. Modeled scaled estimates captured up to 60 % of the observed gauge variability with a mean root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 22 %. The data on relative water level, precipitation, and evapotranspiration (ETo) for water points in East and West Africa were modeled since 1998 and current information is being made available in near-real time. This chapter presents the approach, results from the East African study, and the first phase of expansion activities in the West Africa region. The water point monitoring network will be further expanded to cover much of sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of this study is to provide timely information on the water availability that would support already established FEWS NET activities in Africa. This chapter also presents the potential improvements in modeling approach to be implemented during future expansion in Africa.

Spatio-Temporal Variability of Groundwater Storage in India

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bhanja, Soumendra; Rodell, Matthew; Li, Bailing; Mukherjee, Abhijit

2016-01-01

Groundwater level measurements from 3907 monitoring wells, distributed within 22 major river basins of India, are assessed to characterize their spatial and temporal variability. Ground water storage (GWS) anomalies (relative to the long-term mean) exhibit strong seasonality, with annual maxima observed during the monsoon season and minima during pre-monsoon season. Spatial variability of GWS anomalies increases with the extent of measurements, following the power law relationship, i.e., log-(spatial variability) is linearly dependent on log-(spatial extent).In addition, the impact of well spacing on spatial variability and the power law relationship is investigated. We found that the mean GWS anomaly sampled at a 0.25 degree grid scale closes to unweighted average over all wells. The absolute error corresponding to each basin grows with increasing scale, i.e., from 0.25 degree to 1 degree. It was observed that small changes in extent could create very large changes in spatial variability at large grid scales. Spatial variability of GWS anomaly has been found to vary with climatic conditions. To our knowledge, this is the first study of the effects of well spacing on groundwater spatial variability. The results may be useful for interpreting large scale groundwater variations from unevenly spaced or sparse groundwater well observations or for siting and prioritizing wells in a network for groundwater management. The output of this study could be used to maintain a cost effective groundwater monitoring network in the study region and the approach can also be used in other parts of the globe.

Spatio-temporal variability of groundwater storage in India.

PubMed

Bhanja, Soumendra N; Rodell, Matthew; Li, Bailing; Mukherjee, Abhijit

2017-01-01

Groundwater level measurements from 3907 monitoring wells, distributed within 22 major river basins of India, are assessed to characterize their spatial and temporal variability. Groundwater storage (GWS) anomalies (relative to the long-term mean) exhibit strong seasonality, with annual maxima observed during the monsoon season and minima during pre-monsoon season. Spatial variability of GWS anomalies increases with the extent of measurements, following the power law relationship, i.e., log-(spatial variability) is linearly dependent on log-(spatial extent). In addition, the impact of well spacing on spatial variability and the power law relationship is investigated. We found that the mean GWS anomaly sampled at a 0.25 degree grid scale closes to unweighted average over all wells. The absolute error corresponding to each basin grows with increasing scale, i.e., from 0.25 degree to 1 degree. It was observed that small changes in extent could create very large changes in spatial variability at large grid scales. Spatial variability of GWS anomaly has been found to vary with climatic conditions. To our knowledge, this is the first study of the effects of well spacing on groundwater spatial variability. The results may be useful for interpreting large scale groundwater variations from unevenly spaced or sparse groundwater well observations or for siting and prioritizing wells in a network for groundwater management. The output of this study could be used to maintain a cost effective groundwater monitoring network in the study region and the approach can also be used in other parts of the globe.

The global climate of December 1992-February 1993. Part 2: Large-scale variability across the tropical western Pacific during TOGA COARE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gutzler, D. S.; Kiladis, G. N.; Meehl, G. A.; Weickmann, K. M.; Wheeler, M.

1994-01-01

Recently, scientists from more than a dozen countries carried out the field phase of a project called the Coupled-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE), devoted to describing the ocean-atmosphere system of the western Pacific near-equatorial warm pool. The project was conceived, organized, and funded under the auspices of the International Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Program. Although COARE consisted of several field phases, including a year-long atmospheric enhanced monitoring period (1 July 1992 -- 30 June 1993), the heart of COARE was its four-month Intensive Observation Period (IOP) extending from 1 Nov. 1992 through 28 Feb. 1993. An overview of large-scale variability during COARE is presented. The weather and climate observed in the IOP is placed into context with regard to large-scale, low-frequency fluctuations of the ocean-atmosphere system. Aspects of tropical variability beginning in Aug. 1992 and extending through Mar. 1993, with some sounding data for Apr. 1993 are considered. Variability over the large-scale sounding array (LSA) and the intensive flux array (IFA) is emphasized.

Statistical Model Applied to NetFlow for Network Intrusion Detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Proto, André; Alexandre, Leandro A.; Batista, Maira L.; Oliveira, Isabela L.; Cansian, Adriano M.

The computers and network services became presence guaranteed in several places. These characteristics resulted in the growth of illicit events and therefore the computers and networks security has become an essential point in any computing environment. Many methodologies were created to identify these events; however, with increasing of users and services on the Internet, many difficulties are found in trying to monitor a large network environment. This paper proposes a methodology for events detection in large-scale networks. The proposal approaches the anomaly detection using the NetFlow protocol, statistical methods and monitoring the environment in a best time for the application.

Design and Development of a Run-Time Monitor for Multi-Core Architectures in Cloud Computing

PubMed Central

Kang, Mikyung; Kang, Dong-In; Crago, Stephen P.; Park, Gyung-Leen; Lee, Junghoon

2011-01-01

Cloud computing is a new information technology trend that moves computing and data away from desktops and portable PCs into large data centers. The basic principle of cloud computing is to deliver applications as services over the Internet as well as infrastructure. A cloud is a type of parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of inter-connected and virtualized computers that are dynamically provisioned and presented as one or more unified computing resources. The large-scale distributed applications on a cloud require adaptive service-based software, which has the capability of monitoring system status changes, analyzing the monitored information, and adapting its service configuration while considering tradeoffs among multiple QoS features simultaneously. In this paper, we design and develop a Run-Time Monitor (RTM) which is a system software to monitor the application behavior at run-time, analyze the collected information, and optimize cloud computing resources for multi-core architectures. RTM monitors application software through library instrumentation as well as underlying hardware through a performance counter optimizing its computing configuration based on the analyzed data. PMID:22163811

Design and development of a run-time monitor for multi-core architectures in cloud computing.

PubMed

Kang, Mikyung; Kang, Dong-In; Crago, Stephen P; Park, Gyung-Leen; Lee, Junghoon

2011-01-01

Cloud computing is a new information technology trend that moves computing and data away from desktops and portable PCs into large data centers. The basic principle of cloud computing is to deliver applications as services over the Internet as well as infrastructure. A cloud is a type of parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of inter-connected and virtualized computers that are dynamically provisioned and presented as one or more unified computing resources. The large-scale distributed applications on a cloud require adaptive service-based software, which has the capability of monitoring system status changes, analyzing the monitored information, and adapting its service configuration while considering tradeoffs among multiple QoS features simultaneously. In this paper, we design and develop a Run-Time Monitor (RTM) which is a system software to monitor the application behavior at run-time, analyze the collected information, and optimize cloud computing resources for multi-core architectures. RTM monitors application software through library instrumentation as well as underlying hardware through a performance counter optimizing its computing configuration based on the analyzed data.

MONITORING POTENTIAL DRUG INTERACTIONS AND REACTIONS VIA NETWORK ANALYSIS OF INSTAGRAM USER TIMELINES

PubMed Central

CORREIA, RION BRATTIG; LI, LANG; ROCHA, LUIS M.

2015-01-01

Much recent research aims to identify evidence for Drug-Drug Interactions (DDI) and Adverse Drug reactions (ADR) from the biomedical scientific literature. In addition to this “Bibliome”, the universe of social media provides a very promising source of large-scale data that can help identify DDI and ADR in ways that have not been hitherto possible. Given the large number of users, analysis of social media data may be useful to identify under-reported, population-level pathology associated with DDI, thus further contributing to improvements in population health. Moreover, tapping into this data allows us to infer drug interactions with natural products—including cannabis—which constitute an array of DDI very poorly explored by biomedical research thus far. Our goal is to determine the potential of Instagram for public health monitoring and surveillance for DDI, ADR, and behavioral pathology at large. Most social media analysis focuses on Twitter and Facebook, but Instagram is an increasingly important platform, especially among teens, with unrestricted access of public posts, high availability of posts with geolocation coordinates, and images to supplement textual analysis. Using drug, symptom, and natural product dictionaries for identification of the various types of DDI and ADR evidence, we have collected close to 7000 user timelines spanning from October 2010 to June 2015. We report on 1) the development of a monitoring tool to easily observe user-level timelines associated with drug and symptom terms of interest, and 2) population-level behavior via the analysis of co-occurrence networks computed from user timelines at three different scales: monthly, weekly, and daily occurrences. Analysis of these networks further reveals 3) drug and symptom direct and indirect associations with greater support in user timelines, as well as 4) clusters of symptoms and drugs revealed by the collective behavior of the observed population. This demonstrates that Instagram contains much drug- and pathology specific data for public health monitoring of DDI and ADR, and that complex network analysis provides an important toolbox to extract health-related associations and their support from large-scale social media data. PMID:26776212

MONITORING POTENTIAL DRUG INTERACTIONS AND REACTIONS VIA NETWORK ANALYSIS OF INSTAGRAM USER TIMELINES.

PubMed

Correia, Rion Brattig; Li, Lang; Rocha, Luis M

2016-01-01

Much recent research aims to identify evidence for Drug-Drug Interactions (DDI) and Adverse Drug reactions (ADR) from the biomedical scientific literature. In addition to this "Bibliome", the universe of social media provides a very promising source of large-scale data that can help identify DDI and ADR in ways that have not been hitherto possible. Given the large number of users, analysis of social media data may be useful to identify under-reported, population-level pathology associated with DDI, thus further contributing to improvements in population health. Moreover, tapping into this data allows us to infer drug interactions with natural products-including cannabis-which constitute an array of DDI very poorly explored by biomedical research thus far. Our goal is to determine the potential of Instagram for public health monitoring and surveillance for DDI, ADR, and behavioral pathology at large. Most social media analysis focuses on Twitter and Facebook, but Instagram is an increasingly important platform, especially among teens, with unrestricted access of public posts, high availability of posts with geolocation coordinates, and images to supplement textual analysis. Using drug, symptom, and natural product dictionaries for identification of the various types of DDI and ADR evidence, we have collected close to 7000 user timelines spanning from October 2010 to June 2015.We report on 1) the development of a monitoring tool to easily observe user-level timelines associated with drug and symptom terms of interest, and 2) population-level behavior via the analysis of co-occurrence networks computed from user timelines at three different scales: monthly, weekly, and daily occurrences. Analysis of these networks further reveals 3) drug and symptom direct and indirect associations with greater support in user timelines, as well as 4) clusters of symptoms and drugs revealed by the collective behavior of the observed population. This demonstrates that Instagram contains much drug- and pathology specific data for public health monitoring of DDI and ADR, and that complex network analysis provides an important toolbox to extract health-related associations and their support from large-scale social media data.

Monitoring network confirms land use change is a substantial component of the forest carbon sink in the eastern United States

Treesearch

Christopher W. Woodall; Brian F. Walters; John Coulston; A.W. D’Amato; Grant M. Domke; M.B. Russell; Paul Sowers

2015-01-01

Quantifying forest carbon (C) stocks and stock change within a matrix of land use (LU) and LU change is a central component of large-scale forest C monitoring and reporting practices prescribed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Using a region–wide, repeated forest inventory, forest C stocks and stock change by pool were examined by LU categories...

Swift-BAT: Transient Source Monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barbier, L. M.; Barthelmy, S.; Cummings, J.; Gehrels, N.; Krimm, H.; Markwardt, C.; Mushotzky, R.; Parsons, A.; Sakamoto, T.; Tueller, J.; Fenimore, E.; Palmer, D.; Skinner, G.; Swift-BAT Team

2005-12-01

The Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on the Swift satellite is a large field of view instrument that continually monitors the sky to provide the gamma-ray burst trigger for Swift. An average of more than 70% of the sky is observed on a daily basis. The survey mode data is processed on two sets of time scales: from one minute to one day as part of the transient monitor program, and from one spacecraft pointing ( ˜20 minutes) to the full mission duration for the hard X-ray survey program. In the transient monitor program, sky images are processed to detect astrophysical sources in six energy bands covering 15-350 keV. The detected flux or upper limit in each energy band is calculated for >300 objects on time scales up to one day. In addition, the monitor is sensitive to an outburst from a new or unknown source. Sensitivity as a function of time scale for catalog and unknown sources will be presented. The daily exposure for a typical source is ˜1500 - 3000 seconds, with a 1-sigma sensitivity of ˜4mCrab. 90% of the sources are sampled at least every 16 days, but many sources are sampled daily. The BAT team will soon make the results of the transient monitor public to the astrophysical community through the Swift mission web page. It is expected that the Swift-BAT transient monitor will become an important resource for the high energy astrophysics community.

Implementation of Cyberinfrastructure and Data Management Workflow for a Large-Scale Sensor Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jones, A. S.; Horsburgh, J. S.

2014-12-01

Monitoring with in situ environmental sensors and other forms of field-based observation presents many challenges for data management, particularly for large-scale networks consisting of multiple sites, sensors, and personnel. The availability and utility of these data in addressing scientific questions relies on effective cyberinfrastructure that facilitates transformation of raw sensor data into functional data products. It also depends on the ability of researchers to share and access the data in useable formats. In addition to addressing the challenges presented by the quantity of data, monitoring networks need practices to ensure high data quality, including procedures and tools for post processing. Data quality is further enhanced if practitioners are able to track equipment, deployments, calibrations, and other events related to site maintenance and associate these details with observational data. In this presentation we will describe the overall workflow that we have developed for research groups and sites conducting long term monitoring using in situ sensors. Features of the workflow include: software tools to automate the transfer of data from field sites to databases, a Python-based program for data quality control post-processing, a web-based application for online discovery and visualization of data, and a data model and web interface for managing physical infrastructure. By automating the data management workflow, the time from collection to analysis is reduced and sharing and publication is facilitated. The incorporation of metadata standards and descriptions and the use of open-source tools enhances the sustainability and reusability of the data. We will describe the workflow and tools that we have developed in the context of the iUTAH (innovative Urban Transitions and Aridregion Hydrosustainability) monitoring network. The iUTAH network consists of aquatic and climate sensors deployed in three watersheds to monitor Gradients Along Mountain to Urban Transitions (GAMUT). The variety of environmental sensors and the multi-watershed, multi-institutional nature of the network necessitate a well-planned and efficient workflow for acquiring, managing, and sharing sensor data, which should be useful for similar large-scale and long-term networks.

Acoustic localization at large scales: a promising method for grey wolf monitoring.

PubMed

Papin, Morgane; Pichenot, Julian; Guérold, François; Germain, Estelle

2018-01-01

The grey wolf ( Canis lupus ) is naturally recolonizing its former habitats in Europe where it was extirpated during the previous two centuries. The management of this protected species is often controversial and its monitoring is a challenge for conservation purposes. However, this elusive carnivore can disperse over long distances in various natural contexts, making its monitoring difficult. Moreover, methods used for collecting signs of presence are usually time-consuming and/or costly. Currently, new acoustic recording tools are contributing to the development of passive acoustic methods as alternative approaches for detecting, monitoring, or identifying species that produce sounds in nature, such as the grey wolf. In the present study, we conducted field experiments to investigate the possibility of using a low-density microphone array to localize wolves at a large scale in two contrasting natural environments in north-eastern France. For scientific and social reasons, the experiments were based on a synthetic sound with similar acoustic properties to howls. This sound was broadcast at several sites. Then, localization estimates and the accuracy were calculated. Finally, linear mixed-effects models were used to identify the factors that influenced the localization accuracy. Among 354 nocturnal broadcasts in total, 269 were recorded by at least one autonomous recorder, thereby demonstrating the potential of this tool. Besides, 59 broadcasts were recorded by at least four microphones and used for acoustic localization. The broadcast sites were localized with an overall mean accuracy of 315 ± 617 (standard deviation) m. After setting a threshold for the temporal error value associated with the estimated coordinates, some unreliable values were excluded and the mean accuracy decreased to 167 ± 308 m. The number of broadcasts recorded was higher in the lowland environment, but the localization accuracy was similar in both environments, although it varied significantly among different nights in each study area. Our results confirm the potential of using acoustic methods to localize wolves with high accuracy, in different natural environments and at large spatial scales. Passive acoustic methods are suitable for monitoring the dynamics of grey wolf recolonization and so, will contribute to enhance conservation and management plans.

Automated Decomposition of Model-based Learning Problems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, Brian C.; Millar, Bill

1996-01-01

A new generation of sensor rich, massively distributed autonomous systems is being developed that has the potential for unprecedented performance, such as smart buildings, reconfigurable factories, adaptive traffic systems and remote earth ecosystem monitoring. To achieve high performance these massive systems will need to accurately model themselves and their environment from sensor information. Accomplishing this on a grand scale requires automating the art of large-scale modeling. This paper presents a formalization of [\\em decompositional model-based learning (DML)], a method developed by observing a modeler's expertise at decomposing large scale model estimation tasks. The method exploits a striking analogy between learning and consistency-based diagnosis. Moriarty, an implementation of DML, has been applied to thermal modeling of a smart building, demonstrating a significant improvement in learning rate.

Trends in size of tropical deforestation events signal increasing dominance of industrial-scale drivers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Austin, Kemen G.; González-Roglich, Mariano; Schaffer-Smith, Danica; Schwantes, Amanda M.; Swenson, Jennifer J.

2017-05-01

Deforestation continues across the tropics at alarming rates, with repercussions for ecosystem processes, carbon storage and long term sustainability. Taking advantage of recent fine-scale measurement of deforestation, this analysis aims to improve our understanding of the scale of deforestation drivers in the tropics. We examined trends in forest clearings of different sizes from 2000-2012 by country, region and development level. As tropical deforestation increased from approximately 6900 kha yr-1 in the first half of the study period, to >7900 kha yr-1 in the second half of the study period, >50% of this increase was attributable to the proliferation of medium and large clearings (>10 ha). This trend was most pronounced in Southeast Asia and in South America. Outside of Brazil >60% of the observed increase in deforestation in South America was due to an upsurge in medium- and large-scale clearings; Brazil had a divergent trend of decreasing deforestation, >90% of which was attributable to a reduction in medium and large clearings. The emerging prominence of large-scale drivers of forest loss in many regions and countries suggests the growing need for policy interventions which target industrial-scale agricultural commodity producers. The experience in Brazil suggests that there are promising policy solutions to mitigate large-scale deforestation, but that these policy initiatives do not adequately address small-scale drivers. By providing up-to-date and spatially explicit information on the scale of deforestation, and the trends in these patterns over time, this study contributes valuable information for monitoring, and designing effective interventions to address deforestation.

Remote sensing of Northern mines: supporting operation and environmental monitoring in cold conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tuomela, Anne; Davids, Corine; Knutsson, Sven; Knutsson, Roger; Rauhala, Anssi; Rossi, Pekka M.; Rouyet, Line

2017-04-01

Northern areas of Finland, Sweden and Norway have mineral-rich deposits. There are several active mines in the area but also closed ones and deposits with plans for future mining. With increasing demand for environmental protection in the sensitive Northern conditions, there is a need for more comprehensive monitoring of the mining environment. In our study, we aim to develop new opportunities to use remote sensing data from satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in improving mining safety and monitoring, for example in the case of mine waste storage facilities. Remote sensing methods have evolved fast, and could in many cases enable precise, reliable, and cost-efficient data collection over large areas. The study has focused on four mining areas in Northern Fennoscandia. Freely available medium-resolution (e.g. Sentinel-1), commercial high-resolution (e.g. TerraSAR-X) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data has been collected during 2015-2016 to study how satellite remote sensing could be used e.g. for displacement monitoring using SAR Interferometry (InSAR). Furthermore, UAVs have been utilized in similar data collection in a local scale, and also in collection of thermal infrared data for hydrological monitoring of the areas. The development and efficient use of the methods in mining areas requires experts from several fields. In addition, the Northern conditions with four distinct seasons bring their own challenges for the efficient use of remote sensing, and further complicate their integration as standardised monitoring methods for mine environments. Based on the initial results, remote sensing could especially enhance the monitoring of large-scale structures in mine areas such as tailings impoundments.

On the reliable use of satellite-derived surface water products for global flood monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hirpa, F. A.; Revilla-Romero, B.; Thielen, J.; Salamon, P.; Brakenridge, R.; Pappenberger, F.; de Groeve, T.

2015-12-01

Early flood warning and real-time monitoring systems play a key role in flood risk reduction and disaster response management. To this end, real-time flood forecasting and satellite-based detection systems have been developed at global scale. However, due to the limited availability of up-to-date ground observations, the reliability of these systems for real-time applications have not been assessed in large parts of the globe. In this study, we performed comparative evaluations of the commonly used satellite-based global flood detections and operational flood forecasting system using 10 major flood cases reported over three years (2012-2014). Specially, we assessed the flood detection capabilities of the near real-time global flood maps from the Global Flood Detection System (GFDS), and from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the operational forecasts from the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) for the major flood events recorded in global flood databases. We present the evaluation results of the global flood detection and forecasting systems in terms of correctly indicating the reported flood events and highlight the exiting limitations of each system. Finally, we propose possible ways forward to improve the reliability of large scale flood monitoring tools.

Vibration-based structural health monitoring of the aircraft large component

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pavelko, V.; Kuznetsov, S.; Nevsky, A.; Marinbah, M.

2017-10-01

In the presented paper there are investigated the basic problems of the local system of SHM of large scale aircraft component. Vibration-based damage detection is accepted as a basic condition, and main attention focused to a low-cost solution that would be attractive for practice. The conditions of small damage detection in the full scale structural component at low-frequency excitation were defined in analytical study and modal FEA. In experimental study the dynamic test of the helicopter Mi-8 tail beam was performed at harmonic excitation with frequency close to first natural frequency of the beam. The index of correlation coefficient deviation (CCD) was used for extraction of the features due to embedded pseudo-damage. It is shown that the problem of vibration-based detection of a small damage in the large scale structure at low-frequency excitation can be solved successfully.

Large scale mass redistribution and surface displacement from GRACE and SLR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheng, M.; Ries, J. C.; Tapley, B. D.

2012-12-01

Mass transport between the atmosphere, ocean and solid earth results in the temporal variations in the Earth gravity field and loading induced deformation of the Earth. Recent space-borne observations, such as GRACE mission, are providing extremely high precision temporal variations of gravity field. The results from 10-yr GRACE data has shown a significant annual variations of large scale vertical and horizontal displacements occurring over the Amazon, Himalayan region and South Asia, African, and Russian with a few mm amplitude. Improving understanding from monitoring and modeling of the large scale mass redistribution and the Earth's response are a critical for all studies in the geosciences, in particular for determination of Terrestrial Reference System (TRS), including geocenter motion. This paper will report results for the observed seasonal variations in the 3-dimentional surface displacements of SLR and GPS tracking stations and compare with the prediction from time series of GRACE monthly gravity solution.

Monitoring vegetation phenology using MODIS

USGS Publications Warehouse

Zhang, Xiayong; Friedl, Mark A.; Schaaf, Crystal B.; Strahler, Alan H.; Hodges, John C.F.; Gao, Feng; Reed, Bradley C.; Huete, Alfredo

2003-01-01

Accurate measurements of regional to global scale vegetation dynamics (phenology) are required to improve models and understanding of inter-annual variability in terrestrial ecosystem carbon exchange and climate–biosphere interactions. Since the mid-1980s, satellite data have been used to study these processes. In this paper, a new methodology to monitor global vegetation phenology from time series of satellite data is presented. The method uses series of piecewise logistic functions, which are fit to remotely sensed vegetation index (VI) data, to represent intra-annual vegetation dynamics. Using this approach, transition dates for vegetation activity within annual time series of VI data can be determined from satellite data. The method allows vegetation dynamics to be monitored at large scales in a fashion that it is ecologically meaningful and does not require pre-smoothing of data or the use of user-defined thresholds. Preliminary results based on an annual time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data for the northeastern United States demonstrate that the method is able to monitor vegetation phenology with good success.

Conservation of northern bobwhite on private lands in Georgia, USA under uncertainty about landscape-level habitat effects

USGS Publications Warehouse

Howell, J.E.; Moore, C.T.; Conroy, M.J.; Hamrick, R.G.; Cooper, R.J.; Thackston, R.E.; Carroll, J.P.

2009-01-01

Large-scale habitat enhancement programs for birds are becoming more widespread, however, most lack monitoring to resolve uncertainties and enhance program impact over time. Georgia?s Bobwhite Quail Initiative (BQI) is a competitive, proposal-based system that provides incentives to landowners to establish habitat for northern bobwhites (Colinus virginianus). Using data from monitoring conducted in the program?s first years (1999?2001), we developed alternative hierarchical models to predict bobwhite abundance in response to program habitat modifications on local and regional scales. Effects of habitat and habitat management on bobwhite population response varied among geographical scales, but high measurement variability rendered the specific nature of these scaled effects equivocal. Under some models, BQI had positive impact at both local farm scales (1, 9 km2), particularly when practice acres were clustered, whereas other credible models indicated that bird response did not depend on spatial arrangement of practices. Thus, uncertainty about landscape-level effects of management presents a challenge to program managers who must decide which proposals to accept. We demonstrate that optimal selection decisions can be made despite this uncertainty and that uncertainty can be reduced over time, with consequent improvement in management efficacy. However, such an adaptive approach to BQI program implementation would require the reestablishment of monitoring of bobwhite abundance, an effort for which funding was discontinued in 2002. For landscape-level conservation programs generally, our approach demonstrates the value in assessing multiple scales of impact of habitat modification programs, and it reveals the utility of addressing management uncertainty through multiple decision models and system monitoring.

THE NATIONAL COAST ASSESSMENT : EPA TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER TO STRATEGIC PARTNERS

EPA Science Inventory

The National Coastal Assessment (NCA) is a large-scale, comprehensive environmental monitoring program designed to characterize the ecological condition of the Nation's coastal resources (estuaries and near shore waters). A key to the success of the program is the development of ...

PESTICIDE LEACHING ANALYTICAL MODEL AND GIS-BASED APPLICATION IN AGRICULTURAL WATERSHEDS

EPA Science Inventory

Groundwater contamination by pesticides and other organic pollutants has been detected across agricultural areas and is on the increase. Because groundwater monitoring is too costly to define the geographic extent of contamination at such large scales, indirect methods are needed...

Modeling Watershed Mercury Response to Atmospheric Loadings: Response Time and Challenges

EPA Science Inventory

The relationship between sources of mercury to watersheds and its fate in surface waters is invariably complex. Large scale monitoring studies, such as the METAALICUS project, have advanced current understanding of the links between atmospheric deposition of mercury and accumulat...

Does self-perceived sleep reflect sleep estimated via activity monitors in professional rugby league athletes?

PubMed

Caia, Johnpaul; Thornton, Heidi R; Kelly, Vincent G; Scott, Tannath J; Halson, Shona L; Cupples, Balin; Driller, Matthew W

2018-07-01

This study examined agreement between self-perceived sleep and sleep estimated via activity monitors in professional rugby league athletes. 63 athletes, from three separate teams wore actigraphy monitors for 10.3 ± 3.9 days. During the monitoring period, ratings of perceived sleep quality (on a 1-5 and 1-10 Likert scale), and an estimate of sleep duration were recorded daily. Agreement between sleep estimated via activity monitors and self-perceived sleep was examined using mean bias, Pearson correlation (r) and typical error of the estimate (TEE). 641 nights of sleep were recorded, with a very large, positive correlation observed between sleep duration estimated via activity monitors and subjective sleep duration (r = 0.85), and a TEE of 48 minutes. Mean bias revealed subjective sleep duration overestimated sleep by an average of 19.8 minutes. The relationship between sleep efficiency estimated via activity monitors and self-perceived sleep quality on a 1-5 (r = 0.22) and 1-10 Likert scale (r = 0.28) was limited. The outcomes of this investigation support the use of subjective measures to monitor sleep duration in rugby league athletes when objective means are unavailable. However, practitioners should be aware of the tendency of athletes to overestimate sleep duration.

Geological hazard monitoring system in Georgia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gaprindashvili, George

2017-04-01

Georgia belongs to one of world's most complex mountainous regions according to the scale and frequency of Geological processes and damage caused to population, farmlands, and Infrastructure facilities. Geological hazards (landslide, debrisflow/mudflow, rockfall, erosion and etc.) are affecting many populated areas, agricultural fields, roads, oil and gas pipes, high-voltage electric power transmission towers, hydraulic structures, and tourist complexes. Landslides occur almost in all geomorphological zones, resulting in wide differentiation in the failure types and mechanisms and in the size-frequency distribution. In Georgia, geological hazards triggered by: 1. Activation of highly intense earthquakes; 2. Meteorological events provoking the disaster processes on the background of global climatic change; 3. Large-scale Human impact on the environment. The prediction and monitoring of Geological Hazards is a very wide theme, which involves different researchers from different spheres. Geological hazard monitoring is essential to prevent and mitigate these hazards. In past years in Georgia several monitoring system, such as Ground-based geodetic techniques, Debrisflow Early Warning System (EWS) were installed on high sensitive landslide and debrisflow areas. This work presents description of Geological hazard monitoring system in Georgia.

Organic chemicals jeopardize the health of freshwater ecosystems on the continental scale

PubMed Central

Malaj, Egina; von der Ohe, Peter C.; Grote, Matthias; Kühne, Ralph; Mondy, Cédric P.; Usseglio-Polatera, Philippe; Brack, Werner; Schäfer, Ralf B.

2014-01-01

Organic chemicals can contribute to local and regional losses of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, their overall relevance regarding larger spatial scales remains unknown. Here, we present, to our knowledge, the first risk assessment of organic chemicals on the continental scale comprising 4,000 European monitoring sites. Organic chemicals were likely to exert acute lethal and chronic long-term effects on sensitive fish, invertebrate, or algae species in 14% and 42% of the sites, respectively. Of the 223 chemicals monitored, pesticides, tributyltin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and brominated flame retardants were the major contributors to the chemical risk. Their presence was related to agricultural and urban areas in the upstream catchment. The risk of potential acute lethal and chronic long-term effects increased with the number of ecotoxicologically relevant chemicals analyzed at each site. As most monitoring programs considered in this study only included a subset of these chemicals, our assessment likely underestimates the actual risk. Increasing chemical risk was associated with deterioration in the quality status of fish and invertebrate communities. Our results clearly indicate that chemical pollution is a large-scale environmental problem and requires far-reaching, holistic mitigation measures to preserve and restore ecosystem health. PMID:24979762

Scaling Coastal Ecosystems to Oceanographic and Climatic Drivers: Making Sense of Community Variation on Rocky Shores Using the Comparative-Experimental Approach in Upwelling and Downwelling Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Menge, B. A.; Gouhier, T.; Chan, F.; Hacker, S.; Menge, D.; Nielsen, K. J.

2016-02-01

Ecology focuses increasingly on the issue of matching spatial and temporal scales responsible for ecosystem pattern and dynamics. Benthic coastal communities traditionally were studied at local scales using mostly short-term research, while environmental (oceanographic, climatic) drivers were investigated at large scales (e.g., regional to oceanic, mostly offshore) using combined snapshot and monitoring (time series) research. The comparative-experimental approach combines local-scale studies at multiple sites spanning large-scale environmental gradients in combination with monitoring of inner shelf oceanographic conditions including upwelling/downwelling wind forcing and their consequences (e.g., temperature), and inputs of subsidies (larvae, phytoplankton, detritus). Temporal scale varies depending on the questions, but can extend from years to decades. We discuss two examples of rocky intertidal ecosystem dynamics, one at a regional scale (California Current System, CCS) and one at an interhemispheric scale. In the upwelling-dominated CCS, 52% and 32% of the variance in local community structure (functional group abundances at 13 sites across 725 km) was explained by external factors (ecological subsidies, oceanographic conditions, geographic location), and species interactions, respectively. The interhemispheric study tested the intermittent upwelling hypothesis (IUH), which predicts that key ecological processes will vary unimodally along a persistent downwelling to persistent upwelling gradient. Using 14-22 sites, unimodal relationships between ecological subsidies (phytoplankton, prey recruitment), prey responses (barnacle colonization, mussel growth) and species interactions (competition rate, predation rate and effect) and the Bakun upwelling index calculated at each site accounted for 50% of the variance. Hence, external factors can account for about half of locally-expressed community structure and dynamics.

Africa-Wide Monitoring of Small Surface Water Bodies Using Multisource Satellite Data: A Monitoring System for FEWS NET

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Velpuri, N. M.; Senay, G. B.; Rowland, J.; Budde, M. E.; Verdin, J. P.

2015-12-01

Continental Africa has the largest volume of water stored in wetlands, large lakes, reservoirs and rivers, yet it suffers with problems such as water availability and access. Furthermore, African countries are amongst the most vulnerable to the impact of natural hazards such as droughts and floods. With climate change intensifying the hydrologic cycle and altering the distribution and frequency of rainfall, the problem of water availability and access is bound to increase. The U.S Geological Survey Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, has initiated a large-scale project to monitor small to medium surface water bodies in Africa. Under this project, multi-source satellite data and hydrologic modeling techniques are integrated to monitor these water bodies in Africa. First, small water bodies are mapped using satellite data such as Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), Landsat, and high resolution Google Earth imagery. Stream networks and watersheds for each water body are identified using Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital elevation data. Finally, a hydrologic modeling approach that uses satellite-derived precipitation estimates and evapotranspiration data calculated from global data assimilation system climate parameters is applied to model water levels. This approach has been implemented to monitor nearly 300 small water bodies located in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Validation of modeled scaled depths with field-installed gauge data in East Africa demonstrated the ability of the model to capture both the spatial patterns and seasonal variations. Modeled scaled estimates captured up to 60% of the observed gauge variability with an average RMSE of 22%. Current and historic data (since 2001) on relative water level, precipitation, and evapotranspiration for each water body is made available in near real time. The water point monitoring network will be further expanded to cover other pastoral regions of sub-Saharan Africa. This project provides timely information on water availability that supports FEWS NET monitoring activities in Africa. Information on water availability produced in this study would further increase the resilience of local communities to floods and droughts.

Policy Guidance From a Multi-scale Suite of Natural Field and Digital Laboratories of Change: Hydrological Catchment Studies of Nutrient and Pollutant Source Releases, Waterborne Transport-Transformations and Mass Flows in Water Ecosystems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Destouni, G.

2008-12-01

Continental fresh water transports and loads excess nutrients and pollutants from various land surface sources, through the landscape, into downstream inland and coastal water environments. Our ability to understand, predict and control the eutrophication and the pollution pressures on inland, coastal and marine water ecosystems relies on our ability to quantify these mass flows. This paper synthesizes a series of hydro- biogeochemical studies of nutrient and pollutant sources, transport-transformations and mass flows in catchment areas across a range of scales, from continental, through regional and national, to individual drainage basin scales. Main findings on continental scales include correlations between country/catchment area, population and GDP and associated pollutant and nutrient loading, which differ significantly between world regions with different development levels. On regional scales, essential systematic near-coastal gaps are identified in the national monitoring of nutrient and pollutant loads from land to the sea. Combination of the unmonitored near-coastal area characteristics with the relevant regional nutrient and pollutant load correlations with these characteristics shows that the unmonitored nutrient and pollutant mass loads to the sea may often be as large as, or greater than the monitored river loads. Process studies on individual basin- scales show long-term nutrient and pollutant memories in the soil-groundwater systems of the basins, which may continue to uphold large mass loading to inland and coastal waters long time after mitigation of the sources. Linked hydro-biogeochemical-economic model studies finally demonstrate significant comparative advantages of policies that demand explicit quantitative account of the uncertainties implied by these monitoring gaps and long-term nutrient-pollution memories and time lags, and other knowledge, data and model limitations, instead of the now common neglect or subjective implicit handling of such uncertainties in strategies and practices for combating water pollution and eutrophication.

A fast time-difference inverse solver for 3D EIT with application to lung imaging.

PubMed

Javaherian, Ashkan; Soleimani, Manuchehr; Moeller, Knut

2016-08-01

A class of sparse optimization techniques that require solely matrix-vector products, rather than an explicit access to the forward matrix and its transpose, has been paid much attention in the recent decade for dealing with large-scale inverse problems. This study tailors application of the so-called Gradient Projection for Sparse Reconstruction (GPSR) to large-scale time-difference three-dimensional electrical impedance tomography (3D EIT). 3D EIT typically suffers from the need for a large number of voxels to cover the whole domain, so its application to real-time imaging, for example monitoring of lung function, remains scarce since the large number of degrees of freedom of the problem extremely increases storage space and reconstruction time. This study shows the great potential of the GPSR for large-size time-difference 3D EIT. Further studies are needed to improve its accuracy for imaging small-size anomalies.

Research, monitoring and evaluation of fish and wildlife restoration projects in the Columbia River Basin: Lessons learned and suggestions for large-scale monitoring programs.

Treesearch

Lyman L. McDonald; Robert Bilby; Peter A. Bisson; Charles C. Coutant; John M. Epifanio; Daniel Goodman; Susan Hanna; Nancy Huntly; Erik Merrill; Brian Riddell; William Liss; Eric J. Loudenslager; David P. Philipp; William Smoker; Richard R. Whitney; Richard N. Williams

2007-01-01

The year 2006 marked two milestones in the Columbia River Basin and the Pacific Northwest region's efforts to rebuild its once great salmon and steelhead runs: the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and the 10th anniversary of an amendment to the Northwest Power Act that formalized scientific peer review of the council...

Diffraction measurements using the LHC Beam Loss Monitoring System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kalliokoski, Matti

2017-03-01

The Beam Loss Monitoring (BLM) system of the Large Hadron Collider protects the machine from beam induced damage by measuring the absorbed dose rates of beam losses, and by triggering beam dump if the rates increase above the allowed threshold limits. Although the detection time scales are optimized for multi-turn losses, information on fast losses can be recovered from the loss data. In this paper, methods in using the BLM system in diffraction studies are discussed.

Monitoring Great Ape and Elephant Abundance at Large Spatial Scales: Measuring Effectiveness of a Conservation Landscape

PubMed Central

Stokes, Emma J.; Strindberg, Samantha; Bakabana, Parfait C.; Elkan, Paul W.; Iyenguet, Fortuné C.; Madzoké, Bola; Malanda, Guy Aimé F.; Mowawa, Brice S.; Moukoumbou, Calixte; Ouakabadio, Franck K.; Rainey, Hugo J.

2010-01-01

Protected areas are fundamental to biodiversity conservation, but there is growing recognition of the need to extend beyond protected areas to meet the ecological requirements of species at larger scales. Landscape-scale conservation requires an evaluation of management impact on biodiversity under different land-use strategies; this is challenging and there exist few empirical studies. In a conservation landscape in northern Republic of Congo we demonstrate the application of a large-scale monitoring program designed to evaluate the impact of conservation interventions on three globally threatened species: western gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants, under three land-use types: integral protection, commercial logging, and community-based natural resource management. We applied distance-sampling methods to examine species abundance across different land-use types under varying degrees of management and human disturbance. We found no clear trends in abundance between land-use types. However, units with interventions designed to reduce poaching and protect habitats - irrespective of land-use type - harboured all three species at consistently higher abundance than a neighbouring logging concession undergoing no wildlife management. We applied Generalized-Additive Models to evaluate a priori predictions of species response to different landscape processes. Our results indicate that, given adequate protection from poaching, elephants and gorillas can profit from herbaceous vegetation in recently logged forests and maintain access to ecologically important resources located outside of protected areas. However, proximity to the single integrally protected area in the landscape maintained an overriding positive influence on elephant abundance, and logging roads – even subject to anti-poaching controls - were exploited by elephant poachers and had a major negative influence on elephant distribution. Chimpanzees show a clear preference for unlogged or more mature forests and human disturbance had a negative influence on chimpanzee abundance, in spite of anti-poaching interventions. We caution against the pitfalls of missing and confounded co-variables in model-based estimation approaches and highlight the importance of spatial scale in the response of different species to landscape processes. We stress the importance of a stratified design-based approach to monitoring species status in response to conservation interventions and advocate a holistic framework for landscape-scale monitoring that includes smaller-scale targeted research and punctual assessment of threats. PMID:20428233

Monitoring great ape and elephant abundance at large spatial scales: measuring effectiveness of a conservation landscape.

PubMed

Stokes, Emma J; Strindberg, Samantha; Bakabana, Parfait C; Elkan, Paul W; Iyenguet, Fortuné C; Madzoké, Bola; Malanda, Guy Aimé F; Mowawa, Brice S; Moukoumbou, Calixte; Ouakabadio, Franck K; Rainey, Hugo J

2010-04-23

Protected areas are fundamental to biodiversity conservation, but there is growing recognition of the need to extend beyond protected areas to meet the ecological requirements of species at larger scales. Landscape-scale conservation requires an evaluation of management impact on biodiversity under different land-use strategies; this is challenging and there exist few empirical studies. In a conservation landscape in northern Republic of Congo we demonstrate the application of a large-scale monitoring program designed to evaluate the impact of conservation interventions on three globally threatened species: western gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants, under three land-use types: integral protection, commercial logging, and community-based natural resource management. We applied distance-sampling methods to examine species abundance across different land-use types under varying degrees of management and human disturbance. We found no clear trends in abundance between land-use types. However, units with interventions designed to reduce poaching and protect habitats--irrespective of land-use type--harboured all three species at consistently higher abundance than a neighbouring logging concession undergoing no wildlife management. We applied Generalized-Additive Models to evaluate a priori predictions of species response to different landscape processes. Our results indicate that, given adequate protection from poaching, elephants and gorillas can profit from herbaceous vegetation in recently logged forests and maintain access to ecologically important resources located outside of protected areas. However, proximity to the single integrally protected area in the landscape maintained an overriding positive influence on elephant abundance, and logging roads--even subject to anti-poaching controls--were exploited by elephant poachers and had a major negative influence on elephant distribution. Chimpanzees show a clear preference for unlogged or more mature forests and human disturbance had a negative influence on chimpanzee abundance, in spite of anti-poaching interventions. We caution against the pitfalls of missing and confounded co-variables in model-based estimation approaches and highlight the importance of spatial scale in the response of different species to landscape processes. We stress the importance of a stratified design-based approach to monitoring species status in response to conservation interventions and advocate a holistic framework for landscape-scale monitoring that includes smaller-scale targeted research and punctual assessment of threats.

REVIEW ARTICLE: Industrial applications of temperature and species concentration monitoring using laser diagnostics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deguchi, Y.; Noda, M.; Fukuda, Y.; Ichinose, Y.; Endo, Y.; Inada, M.; Abe, Y.; Iwasaki, S.

2002-10-01

Industrial applications of laser diagnostics have been demonstrated for the purpose of clarifying combustor chemical reaction mechanisms, as well as temperature and harmful substance monitoring in large-scale burners and commercial plant exhaust ducts, and the combustion control of commercial plants. Laser induced fluorescence (LIF), laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), and tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) have accordingly been applied in various industrial fields. In this study, temperature and species concentration were measured inside gas turbine combustors, a diesel engine, and a large-scale industrial burner using LIF. This technique introduces a new tool with respect to practical combustors for the analysis of NO formation characteristics, turbulent flame front structure, and differences between standard and improved combustors. On-line monitoring of trace elements to the ppb level was also successfully demonstrated using LIBS. The automated LIBS unit was found to be capable of monitoring trace element concentration fluctuations at ppb levels with a 1 min detection time under actual plant conditions. In addition, real-time measurement of O2 and CO concentrations in a commercial incinerator furnace was performed using TDLAS to improve the combustion control. By using the multiple-point laser measurement results to control secondary air allocation, higher secondary combustion efficiency was achieved, and CO concentration (considered to be a substitute indicator for dioxins) was reduced from 11.9 to 8.0 ppm.

Outdoor thermal monitoring of large scale structures by infrared thermography integrated in an ICT based architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dumoulin, Jean; Crinière, Antoine; Averty, Rodolphe

2015-04-01

An infrared system has been developed to monitor transport infrastructures in a standalone configuration. Results obtained on bridges open to traffic allows to retrieve the inner structure of the decks. To complete this study, experiments were carried out over several months to monitor two reinforced concrete beams of 16 m long and 21 T each. Detection of a damaged area over one of the two beams was made by Pulse Phase Thermography approach. Measurements carried out over several months. Finally, conclusion on the robustness of the system is proposed and perspectives are presented.

Large scale air pollution estimation method combining land use regression and chemical transport modeling in a geostatistical framework.

PubMed

Akita, Yasuyuki; Baldasano, Jose M; Beelen, Rob; Cirach, Marta; de Hoogh, Kees; Hoek, Gerard; Nieuwenhuijsen, Mark; Serre, Marc L; de Nazelle, Audrey

2014-04-15

In recognition that intraurban exposure gradients may be as large as between-city variations, recent air pollution epidemiologic studies have become increasingly interested in capturing within-city exposure gradients. In addition, because of the rapidly accumulating health data, recent studies also need to handle large study populations distributed over large geographic domains. Even though several modeling approaches have been introduced, a consistent modeling framework capturing within-city exposure variability and applicable to large geographic domains is still missing. To address these needs, we proposed a modeling framework based on the Bayesian Maximum Entropy method that integrates monitoring data and outputs from existing air quality models based on Land Use Regression (LUR) and Chemical Transport Models (CTM). The framework was applied to estimate the yearly average NO2 concentrations over the region of Catalunya in Spain. By jointly accounting for the global scale variability in the concentration from the output of CTM and the intraurban scale variability through LUR model output, the proposed framework outperformed more conventional approaches.

Herbivorous fishes, ecosystem function and mobile links on coral reefs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Welsh, J. Q.; Bellwood, D. R.

2014-06-01

Understanding large-scale movement of ecologically important taxa is key to both species and ecosystem management. Those species responsible for maintaining functional connectivity between habitats are often called mobile links and are regarded as essential elements of resilience. By providing connectivity, they support resilience across spatial scales. Most marine organisms, including fishes, have long-term, biogeographic-scale connectivity through larval movement. Although most reef species are highly site attached after larval settlement, some taxa may also be able to provide rapid, reef-scale connectivity as adults. On coral reefs, the identity of such taxa and the extent of their mobility are not yet known. We use acoustic telemetry to monitor the movements of Kyphosus vaigiensis, one of the few reef fishes that feeds on adult brown macroalgae. Unlike other benthic herbivorous fish species, it also exhibits large-scale (>2 km) movements. Individual K. vaigiensis cover, on average, a 2.5 km length of reef (11 km maximum) each day. These large-scale movements suggest that this species may act as a mobile link, providing functional connectivity, should the need arise, and helping to support functional processes across habitats and spatial scales. An analysis of published studies of home ranges in reef fishes found a consistent relationship between home range size and body length. K. vaigiensis is the sole herbivore to depart significantly from the expected home range-body size relationship, with home range sizes more comparable to exceptionally mobile large pelagic predators rather than other reef herbivores. While the large-scale movements of K. vaigiensis reveal its potential capacity to enhance resilience over large areas, it also emphasizes the potential limitations of small marine reserves to protect some herbivore populations.

Benchmarking a soil moisture data assimilation system for agricultural drought monitoring

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Despite considerable interest in the application of land surface data assimilation systems (LDAS) for agricultural drought applications, relatively little is known about the large-scale performance of such systems and, thus, the optimal methodological approach for implementing them. To address this ...

People and water: Exploring the social-ecological condition of watersheds of the United States

EPA Science Inventory

A recent paradigm shift from purely biophysical towards social-ecological assessment of watersheds has been proposed to understand, monitor, and manipulate the myriad interactions between human well-being and the ecosystem services that watersheds provide. However, large-scale, q...

Estimating carbon fluxes on small rotationally grazed pastures

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data have been extensively used for estimating gross primary productivity (GPP) and yield of grazing lands throughout the world. Large-scale estimates of GPP are a necessary component of efforts to monitor the soil carbon balance of grazi...

Eavesdropping on the Arctic: Automated bioacoustics reveal dynamics in songbird breeding phenology

PubMed Central

Ellis, Daniel P. W.; Pérez, Jonathan H.; Wingfield, John C.; Boelman, Natalie T.

2018-01-01

Bioacoustic networks could vastly expand the coverage of wildlife monitoring to complement satellite observations of climate and vegetation. This approach would enable global-scale understanding of how climate change influences phenomena such as migratory timing of avian species. The enormous data sets that autonomous recorders typically generate demand automated analyses that remain largely undeveloped. We devised automated signal processing and machine learning approaches to estimate dates on which songbird communities arrived at arctic breeding grounds. Acoustically estimated dates agreed well with those determined via traditional surveys and were strongly related to the landscape’s snow-free dates. We found that environmental conditions heavily influenced daily variation in songbird vocal activity, especially before egg laying. Our novel approaches demonstrate that variation in avian migratory arrival can be detected autonomously. Large-scale deployment of this innovation in wildlife monitoring would enable the coverage necessary to assess and forecast changes in bird migration in the face of climate change. PMID:29938220

Global Scale Remote Sensing Monitoring of Endorheic Lake Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scuderi, L. A.

2010-12-01

Semi-arid regions of the world contain thousands of endorheic lakes in large shallow basins. Due to their generally remote locations few are continuously monitored. Documentation of recent variability is essential to assessing how endorheic lakes respond to short-term meteorological conditions and longer-term decadal-scale climatic variability and is critical in determining future disturbance of hydrological regimes with respect to predicted warming and drying in the mid-latitudes. Short- and long-term departures from climatic averages, rapid environmental shifts and increased population pressures may result in significant fluctuations in the hydrologic budgets of these lakes and adversely impact endorheic lake/basin ecosystems. Information on flooding variability is also critical in estimating changes in P/E balances and on the production of exposed and easily deflated surfaces that may impact dust loading locally and regionally. In order to provide information on how these lakes respond we need to understand how entire systems respond hydrologically to different climatic inputs. This requires monitoring and analysis of regional to continental-scale systems. To date, this level of monitoring has not been achieved in an operational system. In order to assess the possibility of creating a global-scale lake inundation database we analyzed two contrasting lake systems in western North America (Mexico and New Mexico, USA) and China (Inner Mongolia). We asked two major questions: 1) is it possible to quickly and accurately quantify current lake inundation events in near real time using remote sensing? and, 2) is it possible to differentiate variable meteorological sources and resultant lake inundation responses using this type of database? With respect to these results we outline an automated lake monitoring approach using MODIS data and real-time processing systems that may provide future global monitoring capabilities.

Rangeland monitoring reveals long-term plant responses to precipitation and grazing at the landscape scale

USGS Publications Warehouse

Munson, Seth M.; Duniway, Michael C.; Johanson, Jamin K.

2015-01-01

Managers of rangeland ecosystems require methods to track the condition of natural resources over large areas and long periods of time as they confront climate change and land use intensification. We demonstrate how rangeland monitoring results can be synthesized using ecological site concepts to understand how climate, site factors, and management actions affect long-term vegetation dynamics at the landscape-scale. Forty-six years of rangeland monitoring conducted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on the Colorado Plateau reveals variable responses of plant species cover to cool-season precipitation, land type (ecological site groups), and grazing intensity. Dominant C3 perennial grasses (Achnatherum hymenoides, Hesperostipa comata), which are essential to support wildlife and livestock on the Colorado Plateau, had responses to cool-season precipitation that were at least twice as large as the dominant C4 perennial grass (Pleuraphis jamesii) and woody vegetation. However, these C3 perennial grass responses to precipitation were reduced by nearly one-third on grassland ecological sites with fine- rather than coarse-textured soils, and there were no detectable C3 perennial grass responses to precipitation on ecological sites dominated by a dense-growing shrub, Coleogyne ramosissima. Heavy grazing intensity further reduced the responses of C3 perennial grasses to cool-season precipitation on ecological sites with coarse-textured soils and surprisingly reduced the responses of shrubs as well. By using ecological site groups to assess rangeland condition, we were able to improve our understanding of the long-term relationships between vegetation change and climate, land use, and site characteristics, which has important implications for developing landscape-scale monitoring strategies.

Wearable sensor-based objective assessment of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Ossig, Christiana; Antonini, Angelo; Buhmann, Carsten; Classen, Joseph; Csoti, Ilona; Falkenburger, Björn; Schwarz, Michael; Winkler, Jürgen; Storch, Alexander

2016-01-01

Effective management and development of new treatment strategies of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) largely depend on clinical rating instruments like the Unified PD rating scale (UPDRS) and the modified abnormal involuntary movement scale (mAIMS). Regarding inter-rater variability and continuous monitoring, clinical rating scales have various limitations. Patient-administered questionnaires such as the PD home diary to assess motor stages and fluctuations in late-stage PD are frequently used in clinical routine and as clinical trial endpoints, but diary/questionnaire are tiring, and recall bias impacts on data quality, particularly in patients with cognitive dysfunction or depression. Consequently, there is a strong need for continuous and objective monitoring of motor symptoms in PD for improving therapeutic regimen and for usage in clinical trials. Recent advances in battery technology, movement sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers and information technology boosted the field of objective measurement of movement in everyday life and medicine using wearable sensors allowing continuous (long-term) monitoring. This systematic review summarizes the current wearable sensor-based devices to objectively assess the various motor symptoms of PD.

The Swift-BAT Hard X-ray Transient Monitor

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Krimm, Hans; Markwardt, C. B.; Sanwal, D.; Tueller, J.

2006-01-01

The Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) on the Swift satellite is a large field of view instrument that continually monitors the sky to provide the gamma-ray burst trigger for Swift. An average of more than 70% of the sky is observed on a daily basis. The survey mode data is processed on two sets on time scales: from one minute to one day as part of the transient monitor program, and from one spacecraft pointing (approx.20 minutes) to the full mission duration for the hard X-ray survey program. The transient monitor has recently become public through the web site http:// swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/results/transients/. Sky images are processed to detect astrophysical sources in the 15-50 keV energy band and the detected flux or upper limit is calculated for >100 sources on time scales up to one day. Light curves are updated each time that new BAT data becomes available (approx.10 times daily). In addition, the monitor is sensitive to an outburst from a new or unknown source. Sensitivity as a function of time scale for catalog and unknown sources will be presented. The daily exposure for a typical source is approx.1500-3000 seconds, with a 1-sigma sensitivity of approx.4 mCrab. 90% of the sources are sampled at least every 16 days, but many sources are sampled daily. It is expected that the Swift-BAT transient monitor will become an important resource for the high energy astrophysics community.

The Saskatchewan River Basin - a large scale observatory for water security research (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wheater, H. S.

2013-12-01

The 336,000 km2 Saskatchewan River Basin (SaskRB) in Western Canada illustrates many of the issues of Water Security faced world-wide. It poses globally-important science challenges due to the diversity in its hydro-climate and ecological zones. With one of the world's more extreme climates, it embodies environments of global significance, including the Rocky Mountains (source of the major rivers in Western Canada), the Boreal Forest (representing 30% of Canada's land area) and the Prairies (home to 80% of Canada's agriculture). Management concerns include: provision of water resources to more than three million inhabitants, including indigenous communities; balancing competing needs for water between different uses, such as urban centres, industry, agriculture, hydropower and environmental flows; issues of water allocation between upstream and downstream users in the three prairie provinces; managing the risks of flood and droughts; and assessing water quality impacts of discharges from major cities and intensive agricultural production. Superimposed on these issues is the need to understand and manage uncertain water futures, including effects of economic growth and environmental change, in a highly fragmented water governance environment. Key science questions focus on understanding and predicting the effects of land and water management and environmental change on water quantity and quality. To address the science challenges, observational data are necessary across multiple scales. This requires focussed research at intensively monitored sites and small watersheds to improve process understanding and fine-scale models. To understand large-scale effects on river flows and quality, land-atmosphere feedbacks, and regional climate, integrated monitoring, modelling and analysis is needed at large basin scale. And to support water management, new tools are needed for operational management and scenario-based planning that can be implemented across multiple scales and multiple jurisdictions. The SaskRB has therefore been developed as a large scale observatory, now a Regional Hydroclimate Project of the World Climate Research Programme's GEWEX project, and is available to contribute to the emerging North American Water Program. State-of-the-art hydro-ecological experimental sites have been developed for the key biomes, and a river and lake biogeochemical research facility, focussed on impacts of nutrients and exotic chemicals. Data are integrated at SaskRB scale to support the development of improved large scale climate and hydrological modelling products, the development of DSS systems for local, provincial and basin-scale management, and the development of related social science research, engaging stakeholders in the research and exploring their values and priorities for water security. The observatory provides multiple scales of observation and modelling required to develop: a) new climate, hydrological and ecological science and modelling tools to address environmental change in key environments, and their integrated effects and feedbacks at large catchment scale, b) new tools needed to support river basin management under uncertainty, including anthropogenic controls on land and water management and c) the place-based focus for the development of new transdisciplinary science.

Monitoring black-tailed prairie dog colonies with high-resolution satellite imagery

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sidle, John G.; Johnson, D.H.; Euliss, B.R.; Tooze, M.

2002-01-01

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that the black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) warrants listing as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Central to any conservation planning for the black-tailed prairie dog is an appropriate detection and monitoring technique. Because coarse-resolution satellite imagery is not adequate to detect black-tailed prairie dog colonies, we examined the usefulness of recently available high-resolution (1-m) satellite imagery. In 6 purchased scenes of national grasslands, we were easily able to visually detect small and large colonies without using image-processing algorithms. The Ikonos (Space Imaging(tm)) satellite imagery was as adequate as large-scale aerial photography to delineate colonies. Based on the high quality of imagery, we discuss a possible monitoring program for black-tailed prairie dog colonies throughout the Great Plains, using the species' distribution in North Dakota as an example. Monitoring plots could be established and imagery acquired periodically to track the expansion and contraction of colonies.

Can rove beetles (Staphylinidae) be excluded in studies focusing on saproxylic beetles in central European beech forests?

PubMed

Parmain, G; Bouget, C; Müller, J; Horak, J; Gossner, M M; Lachat, T; Isacsson, G

2015-02-01

Monitoring saproxylic beetle diversity, though challenging, can help identifying relevant conservation sites or key drivers of forest biodiversity, and assessing the impact of forestry practices on biodiversity. Unfortunately, monitoring species assemblages is costly, mainly due to the time spent on identification. Excluding families which are rich in specimens and species but are difficult to identify is a frequent procedure used in ecological entomology to reduce the identification cost. The Staphylinidae (rove beetle) family is both one of the most frequently excluded and one of the most species-rich saproxylic beetle families. Using a large-scale beetle and environmental dataset from 238 beech stands across Europe, we evaluated the effects of staphylinid exclusion on results in ecological forest studies. Simplified staphylinid-excluded assemblages were found to be relevant surrogates for whole assemblages. The species richness and composition of saproxylic beetle assemblages both with and without staphylinids responded congruently to landscape, climatic and stand gradients, even when the assemblages included a high proportion of staphylinid species. At both local and regional scales, the species richness as well as the species composition of staphylinid-included and staphylinid-excluded assemblages were highly positively correlated. Ranking of sites according to their biodiversity level, which either included or excluded Staphylinidae in species richness, also gave congruent results. From our results, species assemblages omitting staphylinids can be taken as efficient surrogates for complete assemblages in large scale biodiversity monitoring studies.

Near-Real Time Monitoring of TEC Over Japan at NICT (RWC Tokyo OF ISES)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miyake, W.; Jin, H.

2010-05-01

The world wide use of global navigation satellite systems such as GPS offers unique opportunities for a permanent monitoring of the total electron content (TEC) of the ionosphere. We have developed a system of the rapid derivation of TEC from GEONET (a dense GPS receiver network in Japan). In addition to a previous plot of TEC temporal variation over Japan, we have recently developed a near-real-time two-dimensional TEC map and have used it for the daily operation of Space Weather Forecast Center at NICT (Regional Warning Center Tokyo of International Space Environment Service). The TEC map can be used to continuously monitor the ionospheric disturbances over Japan, including spatial and temporal development of ionospheric storms, large-amplitude traveling ionospheric disturbances, and plasma bubbles intruding over Japan, with high time resolution. The development of the real-time monitoring system of TEC enables us to monitor large ionospheric disturbances, ranging from global- to small-scale disturbances, expected in the next solar maximum. The plot and maps are open to the public and are available on http://wdc.nict.go.jp/IONO/index_E.html.

Large-scale studies of ion acceleration in laser-generated plasma at intensities from 1010 W/cm2 to 1019 W/cm2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Torrisi, L.

2018-02-01

A large-scale study of ion acceleration in laser-generated plasma, extended to intensities from 1010 W/cm2 up to 1019 W/cm2, is presented. Aluminium thick and thin foils were irradiated in high vacuum using different infrared lasers and pulse durations from ns up to fs scale. Plasma was monitored mainly using SiC detectors employed in time-of-flight configuration. Protons and aluminium ions, at different energies and yields, were measured as a function of the laser intensity. The discontinuity region between particle acceleration from both the backward plasma (BPA) in thick targets and the forward plasma in thin foils in the target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) regimes were investigated.

Evaluating the performance of a soil moisture data assimilation system for agricultural drought monitoring

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Despite considerable interest in the application of land surface data assimilation systems (LDAS) for agricultural drought applications, relatively little is known about the large-scale performance of such systems and, thus, the optimal methodological approach for implementing them. To address this ...

The National Near-Road Mobile Source Air Toxics Study: Las Vegas

EPA Science Inventory

EPA, in collaboration with FHWA, has been involved in a large-scale monitoring research study in an effort to characterize highway vehicle emissions in a near-road environment. The pollutants of interest include particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 microns ...

How Do Other Countries Evaluate Teachers?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, James H.; Engel, Laura C.

2012-01-01

Given the primary role of teachers in affecting student achievement, U.S. policy makers and reformers have increasingly focused on monitoring and evaluating teacher effectiveness by emphasizing the links to student learning outcomes. Large-scale international assessments are frequently used as base examples to justify reform. But, relatively…

IMPROVING ESTUARINE EVALUATION THROUGH OUTREACH AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER TO STATES, TRIBES AND OTHER PARTNERS: EPA'S NATIONAL COASTAL ASSESSMENT

EPA Science Inventory

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) National Coastal Assessment (NCA) is a large-scale, comprehensive environmental monitoring program designed to characterize the ecological condition of the Nation's coastal resources. A key to this successful program is the developmen...

Autonomous Energy Grids | Grid Modernization | NREL

Science.gov Websites

control themselves using advanced machine learning and simulation to create resilient, reliable, and affordable optimized energy systems. Current frameworks to monitor, control, and optimize large-scale energy of optimization theory, control theory, big data analytics, and complex system theory and modeling to

Thinking big: linking rivers to landscapes

Treesearch

Joan O’Callaghan; Ashley E. Steel; Kelly M. Burnett

2012-01-01

Exploring relationships between landscape characteristics and rivers is an emerging field, enabled by the proliferation of satellite date, advances in statistical analysis, and increased emphasis on large-scale monitoring. Landscapes features such as road networks, underlying geology, and human developments, determine the characteristics of the rivers flowing through...

Multiscale object-based drought monitoring and comparison in rainfed and irrigated agriculture from Landsat 8 OLI imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ozelkan, Emre; Chen, Gang; Ustundag, Burak Berk

2016-02-01

Drought is a rapidly rising environmental issue that can cause hardly repaired or unrepaired damages to the nature and socio-economy. This is especially true for a region that features arid/semi-arid climate, including the Turkey's most important agricultural district - Southeast Anatolia. In this area, we examined the uncertainties of applying Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) NDVI data to estimate meteorological drought - Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) - measured from 31 in-situ agro-meteorological monitoring stations during spring and summer of 2013 and 2014. Our analysis was designed to address two important, yet under-examined questions: (i) how does the co-existence of rainfed and irrigated agriculture affect remote sensing drought monitoring in an arid/semi-arid region? (ii) What is the role of spatial scale in drought monitoring using a GEOBIA (geographic object-based image analysis) framework? Results show that spatial scale exerted a higher impact on drought monitoring especially in the drier year 2013, during which small scales were found to outperform large scales in general. In addition, consideration of irrigated and rainfed areas separately ensured a better performance in drought analysis. Compared to the positive correlations between SPI and NDVI over the rainfed areas, negative correlations were determined over the irrigated agricultural areas. Finally, the time lag effect was evident in the study, i.e., strong correlations between spring SPI and summer NDVI in both 2013 and 2014. This reflects the fact that spring watering is crucial for the growth and yield of the major crops (i.e., winter wheat, barley and lentil) cultivated in the region.

A wireless soil moisture sensor powered by solar energy.

PubMed

Jiang, Mingliang; Lv, Mouchao; Deng, Zhong; Zhai, Guoliang

2017-01-01

In a variety of agricultural activities, such as irrigation scheduling and nutrient management, soil water content is regarded as an essential parameter. Either power supply or long-distance cable is hardly available within field scale. For the necessity of monitoring soil water dynamics at field scale, this study presents a wireless soil moisture sensor based on the impedance transform of the frequency domain. The sensor system is powered by solar energy, and the data can be instantly transmitted by wireless communication. The sensor electrodes are embedded into the bottom of a supporting rod so that the sensor can measure soil water contents at different depths. An optimal design with time executing sequence is considered to reduce the energy consumption. The experimental results showed that the sensor is a promising tool for monitoring moisture in large-scale farmland using solar power and wireless communication.

Integrated monitoring of wind plant systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Whelan, Matthew J.; Janoyan, Kerop D.; Qiu, Tong

2008-03-01

Wind power is a renewable source of energy that is quickly gaining acceptance by many. Advanced sensor technologies have currently focused solely on improving wind turbine rotor aerodynamics and increasing of the efficiency of the blade design and concentration. Alternatively, potential improvements in wind plant efficiency may be realized through reduction of reactionary losses of kinetic energy to the structural and substructural systems supporting the turbine mechanics. Investigation of the complete dynamic structural response of the wind plant is proposed using a large-scale, high-rate wireless sensor network. The wireless network enables sensors to be placed across the sizable structure, including the rotating blades, without consideration of cabling issues and the economic burden associated with large spools of measurement cables. A large array of multi-axis accelerometers is utilized to evaluate the modal properties of the system as well as individual members and would enable long-term structural condition monitoring of the wind turbine as well. Additionally, environmental parameters, including wind speed, temperature, and humidity, are wirelessly collected for correlation. Such a wireless system could be integrated with electrical monitoring sensors and actuators and incorporated into a remote multi-turbine centralized plant monitoring and control system.

Large-Scale Dynamics of the Magnetospheric Boundary: Comparisons between Global MHD Simulation Results and ISTP Observations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Berchem, J.; Raeder, J.; Ashour-Abdalla, M.; Frank, L. A.; Paterson, W. R.; Ackerson, K. L.; Kokubun, S.; Yamamoto, T.; Lepping, R. P.

1998-01-01

Understanding the large-scale dynamics of the magnetospheric boundary is an important step towards achieving the ISTP mission's broad objective of assessing the global transport of plasma and energy through the geospace environment. Our approach is based on three-dimensional global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the solar wind-magnetosphere- ionosphere system, and consists of using interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and plasma parameters measured by solar wind monitors upstream of the bow shock as input to the simulations for predicting the large-scale dynamics of the magnetospheric boundary. The validity of these predictions is tested by comparing local data streams with time series measured by downstream spacecraft crossing the magnetospheric boundary. In this paper, we review results from several case studies which confirm that our MHD model reproduces very well the large-scale motion of the magnetospheric boundary. The first case illustrates the complexity of the magnetic field topology that can occur at the dayside magnetospheric boundary for periods of northward IMF with strong Bx and By components. The second comparison reviewed combines dynamic and topological aspects in an investigation of the evolution of the distant tail at 200 R(sub E) from the Earth.

Wave Modelling - The State of the Art

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-09-27

Numerics and Resolution in Large Scale Wave Modelling 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 0601153N 6. AUTHOR( S ) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER Erick Rogers...Hendrik Tolman, Fabrice Ardhuin, Igor Lavrenov 5e. TASK NUMBER 5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER 73-8580-06-5 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME( S ) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8...SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME( S ) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S ACRONYM( S ) Office of Naval Research ONR 800 N. Quincy St. Arlington, VA 22217

Wetland mapping from digitized aerial photography. [Sheboygen Marsh, Sheboygen County, Wisconsin

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Scarpace, F. L.; Quirk, B. K.; Kiefer, R. W.; Wynn, S. L.

1981-01-01

Computer assisted interpretation of small scale aerial imagery was found to be a cost effective and accurate method of mapping complex vegetation patterns if high resolution information is desired. This type of technique is suited for problems such as monitoring changes in species composition due to environmental factors and is a feasible method of monitoring and mapping large areas of wetlands. The technique has the added advantage of being in a computer compatible form which can be transformed into any georeference system of interest.

Large-Scale Oceanic Variability Associated with the Madden-Julian Oscillation during the CINDY/DYNAMO Field Campaign from Satellite Observations

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-04-29

during the field campaign. For the first time, it is demonstrated that subseasonal SSS variations in the central Indian Ocean can be monitored by Aquarius...westerlies were observed in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres in the central and eastern Indian Oceans. The anomalous SSH associated with strong...it is demonstrated that subseasonal SSS variations in the central Indian Ocean can be monitored by Aquarius measurements based on the comparison

Using Environmental DNA for Invasive Species Surveillance and Monitoring.

PubMed

Mahon, Andrew R; Jerde, Christopher L

2016-01-01

The method employed for environmental DNA (eDNA) surveillance for detection and monitoring of rare species in aquatic systems has evolved dramatically since its first large-scale applications. Both active (targeted) and passive (total diversity) surveillance methods provide helpful information for management groups, but each has a suite of techniques that necessitate proper equipment training and use. The protocols described in this chapter represent some of the latest iterations in eDNA surveillance being applied in aquatic and marine systems.

Towards Large-area Field-scale Operational Evapotranspiration for Water Use Mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Senay, G. B.; Friedrichs, M.; Morton, C.; Huntington, J. L.; Verdin, J.

2017-12-01

Field-scale evapotranspiration (ET) estimates are needed for improving surface and groundwater use and water budget studies. Ideally, field-scale ET estimates would be at regional to national levels and cover long time periods. As a result of large data storage and computational requirements associated with processing field-scale satellite imagery such as Landsat, numerous challenges remain to develop operational ET estimates over large areas for detailed water use and availability studies. However, the combination of new science, data availability, and cloud computing technology is enabling unprecedented capabilities for ET mapping. To demonstrate this capability, we used Google's Earth Engine cloud computing platform to create nationwide annual ET estimates with 30-meter resolution Landsat ( 16,000 images) and gridded weather data using the Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) model in support of the National Water Census, a USGS research program designed to build decision support capacity for water management agencies and other natural resource managers. By leveraging Google's Earth Engine Application Programming Interface (API) and developing software in a collaborative, open-platform environment, we rapidly advance from research towards applications for large-area field-scale ET mapping. Cloud computing of the Landsat image archive combined with other satellite, climate, and weather data, is creating never imagined opportunities for assessing ET model behavior and uncertainty, and ultimately providing the ability for more robust operational monitoring and assessment of water use at field-scales.

An inventory and monitoring plan for a Sonoran Desert ecosystem; Barry M. Goldwater Range-West

USGS Publications Warehouse

Villarreal, Miguel L.; van Riper, Charles; Lovich, Robert E.; Palmer, Robert L.; Nauman, Travis; Studd, Sarah E.; Drake, Sam; Rosenberg, Abigail S.; Malusa, Jim; Pearce, Ronald L.

2011-01-01

Marine Corps Air Station Yuma manages the Barry M. Goldwater Range-West, which encompasses approximately 2,800 square kilometers of Sonoran Desert habitat in southwestern Arizona. The Barry M. Goldwater Range is a major U.S. military installation designed as an air combat training location for the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, but it also includes some of the most pristine desert habitat in the United States. In an effort to ensure the long-term viability of this unique natural resource, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed an Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan and Inventory and Monitoring Plan to guide natural resource management of the Barry M. Goldwater Range-West. This Inventory and Monitoring Plan provides a framework for long-term ecosystem monitoring on Barry M. Goldwater Range-West lands by identifying existing and potential threats to ecosystem function, prioritizing resources for monitoring, and providing information and protocols necessary to initiate a long-term ecosystem monitoring program. The Inventory and Monitoring Plan and related protocols were developed through extensive review of existing Sonoran Desert monitoring programs and monitoring literature and through a 2-day workshop with resource managers, monitoring experts, and other stakeholders. The Barry M. Goldwater Range-West Inventory and Monitoring Plan stresses the importance of regional monitoring partnerships and protocol standardization for understanding landscape-scale ecosystem changes in the Sonoran Desert; information and protocols contained within the plan may also be of interest to land managers engaged in large-scale ecosystem monitoring and adaptive management of other arid regions.

Large-scale monitoring of effects of clothianidin dressed oilseed rape seeds on pollinating insects in Northern Germany: implementation of the monitoring project and its representativeness.

PubMed

Heimbach, Fred; Russ, Anja; Schimmer, Maren; Born, Katrin

2016-11-01

Monitoring studies at the landscape level are complex, expensive and difficult to conduct. Many aspects have to be considered to avoid confounding effects which is probably the reason why they are not regularly performed in the context of risk assessments of plant protection products to pollinating insects. However, if conducted appropriately their contribution is most valuable. In this paper we identify the requirements of a large-scale monitoring study for the assessment of side-effects of clothianidin seed-treated winter oilseed rape on three species of pollinating insects (Apis mellifera, Bombus terrestris and Osmia bicornis) and present how these requirements were implemented. Two circular study sites were delineated next to each other in northeast Germany and comprised almost 65 km 2 each. At the reference site, study fields were drilled with clothianidin-free OSR seeds while at the test site the oilseed rape seeds contained a coating with 10 g clothianidin and 2 g beta-cyfluthrin per kg seeds (Elado®). The comparison of environmental conditions at the study sites indicated that they are as similar as possible in terms of climate, soil, land use, history and current practice of agriculture as well as in availability of oilseed rape and non-crop bee forage. Accordingly, local environmental conditions were considered not to have had any confounding effect on the results of the monitoring of the bee species. Furthermore, the study area was found to be representative for other oilseed rape cultivation regions in Europe.

Multi-temporal monitoring of a regional riparian buffer network (>12,000 km) with LiDAR and photogrammetric point clouds.

PubMed

Michez, Adrien; Piégay, Hervé; Lejeune, Philippe; Claessens, Hugues

2017-11-01

Riparian buffers are of major concern for land and water resource managers despite their relatively low spatial coverage. In Europe, this concern has been acknowledged by different environmental directives which recommend multi-scale monitoring (from local to regional scales). Remote sensing methods could be a cost-effective alternative to field-based monitoring, to build replicable "wall-to-wall" monitoring strategies of large river networks and associated riparian buffers. The main goal of our study is to extract and analyze various parameters of the riparian buffers of up to 12,000 km of river in southern Belgium (Wallonia) from three-dimensional (3D) point clouds based on LiDAR and photogrammetric surveys to i) map riparian buffers parameters on different scales, ii) interpret the regional patterns of the riparian buffers and iii) propose new riparian buffer management indicators. We propose different strategies to synthesize and visualize relevant information at different spatial scales ranging from local (<10 km) to regional scale (>12,000 km). Our results showed that the selected parameters had a clear regional pattern. The reaches of Ardenne ecoregion have channels with the highest flow widths and shallowest depths. In contrast, the reaches of the Loam ecoregion have the narrowest and deepest flow channels. Regional variability in channel width and depth is used to locate management units potentially affected by human impact. Riparian forest of the Loam ecoregion is characterized by the lowest longitudinal continuity and mean tree height, underlining significant human disturbance. As the availability of 3D point clouds at the regional scale is constantly growing, our study proposes reproducible methods which can be integrated into regional monitoring by land managers. With LiDAR still being relatively expensive to acquire, the use of photogrammetric point clouds combined with LiDAR data is a cost-effective means to update the characterization of the riparian forest conditions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Power monitoring and control for large scale projects: SKA, a case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barbosa, Domingos; Barraca, João. Paulo; Maia, Dalmiro; Carvalho, Bruno; Vieira, Jorge; Swart, Paul; Le Roux, Gerhard; Natarajan, Swaminathan; van Ardenne, Arnold; Seca, Luis

2016-07-01

Large sensor-based science infrastructures for radio astronomy like the SKA will be among the most intensive datadriven projects in the world, facing very high demanding computation, storage, management, and above all power demands. The geographically wide distribution of the SKA and its associated processing requirements in the form of tailored High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities, require a Greener approach towards the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) adopted for the data processing to enable operational compliance to potentially strict power budgets. Addressing the reduction of electricity costs, improve system power monitoring and the generation and management of electricity at system level is paramount to avoid future inefficiencies and higher costs and enable fulfillments of Key Science Cases. Here we outline major characteristics and innovation approaches to address power efficiency and long-term power sustainability for radio astronomy projects, focusing on Green ICT for science and Smart power monitoring and control.

Integrating Data from GRACE and Other Observing Systems for Hydrological Research and Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rodell, M.; Famiglietti, J. S.; McWilliams, E.; Beaudoing, H. K.; Li, B.; Zaitchik, B.; Reichle, R.; Bolten, J.

2011-01-01

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission provides a unique view of water cycle dynamics, enabling the only space based observations of water on and beneath the land surface that are not limited by depth. GRACE data are immediately useful for large scale applications such as ice sheet ablation monitoring, but they are even more valuable when combined with other types of observations, either directly or within a data assimilation system. Here we describe recent results of hydrological research and applications projects enabled by GRACE. These include the following: 1) global monitoring of interannual variability of terrestrial water storage and groundwater; 2) water balance estimates of evapotranspiration over several large river basins; 3) NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) state of the global water budget project; 4) drought indicator products now being incorporated into the U.S. Drought Monitor; 5) GRACE data assimilation over several regions.

Efficient species-level monitoring at the landscape scale.

PubMed

Noon, Barry R; Bailey, Larissa L; Sisk, Thomas D; McKelvey, Kevin S

2012-06-01

Monitoring the population trends of multiple animal species at a landscape scale is prohibitively expensive. However, advances in survey design, statistical methods, and the ability to estimate species presence on the basis of detection-nondetection data have greatly increased the feasibility of species-level monitoring. For example, recent advances in monitoring make use of detection-nondetection data that are relatively inexpensive to acquire, historical survey data, and new techniques in genetic evaluation. The ability to use indirect measures of presence for some species greatly increases monitoring efficiency and reduces survey costs. After adjusting for false absences, the proportion of sample units in a landscape where a species is detected (occupancy) is a logical state variable to monitor. Occupancy monitoring can be based on real-time observation of a species at a survey site or on evidence that the species was at the survey location sometime in the recent past. Temporal and spatial patterns in occupancy data are related to changes in animal abundance and provide insights into the probability of a species' persistence. However, even with the efficiencies gained when occupancy is the monitored state variable, the task of species-level monitoring remains daunting due to the large number of species. We propose that a small number of species be monitored on the basis of specific management objectives, their functional role in an ecosystem, their sensitivity to environmental changes likely to occur in the area, or their conservation importance. ©2012 Society for Conservation Biology.

Development of a Dmt Monitor for Statistical Tracking of Gravitational-Wave Burst Triggers Generated from the Omega Pipeline

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Jun-Wei; Cao, Jun-Wei

2010-04-01

One challenge in large-scale scientific data analysis is to monitor data in real-time in a distributed environment. For the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) project, a dedicated suit of data monitoring tools (DMT) has been developed, yielding good extensibility to new data type and high flexibility to a distributed environment. Several services are provided, including visualization of data information in various forms and file output of monitoring results. In this work, a DMT monitor, OmegaMon, is developed for tracking statistics of gravitational-wave (OW) burst triggers that are generated from a specific OW burst data analysis pipeline, the Omega Pipeline. Such results can provide diagnostic information as reference of trigger post-processing and interferometer maintenance.

Miniaturized Bio-and Chemical-Sensors for Point-of-Care Monitoring of Chronic Kidney Diseases

PubMed Central

Tricoli, Antonio

2018-01-01

This review reports the latest achievements in point-of-care (POC) sensor technologies for the monitoring of ammonia, creatinine and urea in patients suffering of chronic kidney diseases (CKDs). Abnormal levels of these nitrogen biomarkers are found in the physiological fluids, such as blood, urine and sweat, of CKD patients. Delocalized at-home monitoring of CKD biomarkers via integration of miniaturized, portable, and low cost chemical- and bio-sensors in POC devices, is an emerging approach to improve patients’ health monitoring and life quality. The successful monitoring of CKD biomarkers, performed on the different body fluids by means of sensors having strict requirements in term of size, cost, large-scale production capacity, response time and simple operation procedures for use in POC devices, is reported and discussed. PMID:29565315

Miniaturized Bio-and Chemical-Sensors for Point-of-Care Monitoring of Chronic Kidney Diseases.

PubMed

Tricoli, Antonio; Neri, Giovanni

2018-03-22

This review reports the latest achievements in point-of-care (POC) sensor technologies for the monitoring of ammonia, creatinine and urea in patients suffering of chronic kidney diseases (CKDs). Abnormal levels of these nitrogen biomarkers are found in the physiological fluids, such as blood, urine and sweat, of CKD patients. Delocalized at-home monitoring of CKD biomarkers via integration of miniaturized, portable, and low cost chemical- and bio-sensors in POC devices, is an emerging approach to improve patients' health monitoring and life quality. The successful monitoring of CKD biomarkers, performed on the different body fluids by means of sensors having strict requirements in term of size, cost, large-scale production capacity, response time and simple operation procedures for use in POC devices, is reported and discussed.

A Multi-Scale Structural Health Monitoring Approach for Damage Detection, Diagnosis and Prognosis in Aerospace Structures

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-01-20

ultrasonic Lamb waves to plastic strain and fatigue life. Theory was developed and validated to predict second harmonic generation for specific mode... Fatigue and damage generation and progression are processes consisting of a series of interrelated events that span large scales of space and time...strain and fatigue life A set of experiments were completed that worked to relate the acoustic nonlinearity measured with Lamb waves to both the

Application of Landscape Mosaic Technology to Complement Coral Reef Resource Mapping and Monitoring

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-10-01

irregular shapes pose a challenge for divers trying to delimit live tissue boundaries. Future improvements in the 3D representation of benthic mosaics...benthic habitats can be especially challenging when the spatial extent of injuries exceeds tens of square meters. These large injuries are often too...the impacts of severe physical disturbance on coral reefs can be especially challenging when large-scale modifications to the reef structure takes

Nested monitoring approaches to delineate groundwater trichloroethene discharge to a UK lowland stream at multiple spatial scales.

PubMed

Weatherill, John; Krause, Stefan; Voyce, Kevin; Drijfhout, Falko; Levy, Amir; Cassidy, Nigel

2014-03-01

Integrated approaches for the identification of pollutant linkages between aquifers and streams are of crucial importance for evaluating the environmental risks posed by industrial contaminants like trichloroethene (TCE). This study presents a systematic, multi-scale approach to characterising groundwater TCE discharge to a 'gaining' UK lowland stream receiving baseflow from a major Permo-Triassic sandstone aquifer. Beginning with a limited number of initial monitoring points, we aim to provide a 'first pass' mechanistic understanding of the plume's fate at the aquifer/stream interface using a novel combination of streambed diffusion samplers, riparian monitoring wells and drive-point mini-piezometers in a spatially nested sampling configuration. Our results indicate the potential discharge zone of the plume to extend along a stream reach of 120 m in length, delineated by a network of 60 in-situ diffusion samplers. Within this section, a 40 m long sub-reach of higher concentration (>10 μg L(-1)) was identified; centred on a meander bend in the floodplain. 25 multi-level mini-piezometers installed to target this down-scaled reach revealed even higher TCE concentrations (20-40 μg L(-1)), significantly above alluvial groundwater samples (<6 μg L(-1)) from 15 riparian monitoring wells. Significant lateral and vertical spatial heterogeneity in TCE concentrations within the top 1m of the streambed was observed with the decimetre-scale vertical resolution provided by multi-level mini-piezometers. It appears that the distribution of fine-grained material in the Holocene deposits of the riparian floodplain and below the channel is exerting significant local-scale geological controls on the location and magnitude of the TCE discharge. Large-scale in-situ biodegradation of the plume was not evident during the monitoring campaigns. However, detections of cis-1,2-dichloroethene and vinyl chloride in discrete sections of the sediment profile indicate that shallow (e.g., <20 cm) TCE transformation may be significant at a local scale in the streambed deposits. Our findings highlight the need for efficient multi-scale monitoring strategies in geologically heterogeneous lowland stream/aquifer systems in order to more adequately quantify the risk to surface water ecological receptors posed by point-source groundwater contaminants like TCE. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Monitoring Ecological Impacts of Environmental Surface Waters using Cell-based Metabolomics

EPA Science Inventory

Optimized cell-based metabolomics has been used to study the impacts of contaminants in surface waters on human and fish metabolomes. This method has proven to be resource- and time-effective, as well as sustainable for long term and large scale studies. In the current study, cel...

Characteristics of wilderness users in outdoor recreation assessments

Treesearch

Alan E. Watson; H. Ken Cordell; Lawrence A. Hartmann

1989-01-01

Wilderness use is often subsumed under outdoor recreation participation in large-scale assessments. Participation monitoring has indicated, however, that wilderness use has been increasing faster than outdoor recreation use in general. In a sample of Forest Service wilderness and nonwildemess users during the summer of 1985, detailed expenditure, activity, and travel...

What can one sample tell us? Stable isotopes can assess complex processes in national assessments of lakes, rivers and streams.

EPA Science Inventory

Stable isotopes can be very useful in large-scale monitoring programs because samples for isotopic analysis are easy to collect, and isotopes integrate information about complex processes such as evaporation from water isotopes and denitrification from nitrogen isotopes. Traditi...

Learning Theory and Psychometrics: Room for Growth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Briggs, Derek C.

2017-01-01

In the United States, students have historically taken large-scale assessments for many different purposes. One purpose that is shared with many other countries is a desire to monitor aggregate trends in educational attainment in core subject domains such as literacy, mathematics, and science. In this commentary, the author examines testing,…

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND RELATED QUALITY ASSURANCE FOR A LARGE SCALE, MULTI-SITE RESEARCH PROJECT

EPA Science Inventory

During the summer of 2000, as part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study designed to improve microbial water quality monitoring protocols at public beaches, over 11,000 water samples were collected at five selected beaches across the country. At each beach, samples wer...

UTILIZING SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS TO EXPAND EPA'S AIR MONITORING NETWORK: A NEW PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN NASA AND EPA

EPA Science Inventory

Over the next decade, data requirements to inform air quality management decisions and policies will need to be expanded to large spatial domains to accommodate decisions which more frequently cross geo-political boundaries; from urban (local) and regional scales to regional, sup...

A Community-Scale Modeling System to Assess Port-Related Air Quality Impacts

EPA Science Inventory

Near-port air pollution has been identified by numerous organizations as a potential public health concern. Based upon multiple near-road and near-source monitoring studies, both busy roadways and large emission sources at the ports may impact local air quality within several hun...

Stream ecological condition modeling at the reach and the hydrologic unit (HUC) scale: A look at model performance and mapping

EPA Science Inventory

The National Hydrography and updated Watershed Boundary Datasets provide a ready-made framework for hydrographic modeling. Determining particular stream reaches or watersheds in poor ecological condition across large regions is an essential goal for monitoring and management. T...

Detecting Item Drift in Large-Scale Testing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guo, Hongwen; Robin, Frederic; Dorans, Neil

2017-01-01

The early detection of item drift is an important issue for frequently administered testing programs because items are reused over time. Unfortunately, operational data tend to be very sparse and do not lend themselves to frequent monitoring analyses, particularly for on-demand testing. Building on existing residual analyses, the authors propose…

Driving terrestrial ecosystem models from space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Waring, R. H.

1993-01-01

Regional air pollution, land-use conversion, and projected climate change all affect ecosystem processes at large scales. Changes in vegetation cover and growth dynamics can impact the functioning of ecosystems, carbon fluxes, and climate. As a result, there is a need to assess and monitor vegetation structure and function comprehensively at regional to global scales. To provide a test of our present understanding of how ecosystems operate at large scales we can compare model predictions of CO2, O2, and methane exchange with the atmosphere against regional measurements of interannual variation in the atmospheric concentration of these gases. Recent advances in remote sensing of the Earth's surface are beginning to provide methods for estimating important ecosystem variables at large scales. Ecologists attempting to generalize across landscapes have made extensive use of models and remote sensing technology. The success of such ventures is dependent on merging insights and expertise from two distinct fields. Ecologists must provide the understanding of how well models emulate important biological variables and their interactions; experts in remote sensing must provide the biophysical interpretation of complex optical reflectance and radar backscatter data.

National Earthquake Information Center Seismic Event Detections on Multiple Scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patton, J.; Yeck, W. L.; Benz, H.; Earle, P. S.; Soto-Cordero, L.; Johnson, C. E.

2017-12-01

The U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) monitors seismicity on local, regional, and global scales using automatic picks from more than 2,000 near-real time seismic stations. This presents unique challenges in automated event detection due to the high variability in data quality, network geometries and density, and distance-dependent variability in observed seismic signals. To lower the overall detection threshold while minimizing false detection rates, NEIC has begun to test the incorporation of new detection and picking algorithms, including multiband (Lomax et al., 2012) and kurtosis (Baillard et al., 2014) pickers, and a new bayesian associator (Glass 3.0). The Glass 3.0 associator allows for simultaneous processing of variably scaled detection grids, each with a unique set of nucleation criteria (e.g., nucleation threshold, minimum associated picks, nucleation phases) to meet specific monitoring goals. We test the efficacy of these new tools on event detection in networks of various scales and geometries, compare our results with previous catalogs, and discuss lessons learned. For example, we find that on local and regional scales, rapid nucleation of small events may require event nucleation with both P and higher-amplitude secondary phases (e.g., S or Lg). We provide examples of the implementation of a scale-independent associator for an induced seismicity sequence (local-scale), a large aftershock sequence (regional-scale), and for monitoring global seismicity. Baillard, C., Crawford, W. C., Ballu, V., Hibert, C., & Mangeney, A. (2014). An automatic kurtosis-based P-and S-phase picker designed for local seismic networks. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 104(1), 394-409. Lomax, A., Satriano, C., & Vassallo, M. (2012). Automatic picker developments and optimization: FilterPicker - a robust, broadband picker for real-time seismic monitoring and earthquake early-warning, Seism. Res. Lett. , 83, 531-540, doi: 10.1785/gssrl.83.3.531.

Symbiotic Sensing for Energy-Intensive Tasks in Large-Scale Mobile Sensing Applications.

PubMed

Le, Duc V; Nguyen, Thuong; Scholten, Hans; Havinga, Paul J M

2017-11-29

Energy consumption is a critical performance and user experience metric when developing mobile sensing applications, especially with the significantly growing number of sensing applications in recent years. As proposed a decade ago when mobile applications were still not popular and most mobile operating systems were single-tasking, conventional sensing paradigms such as opportunistic sensing and participatory sensing do not explore the relationship among concurrent applications for energy-intensive tasks. In this paper, inspired by social relationships among living creatures in nature, we propose a symbiotic sensing paradigm that can conserve energy, while maintaining equivalent performance to existing paradigms. The key idea is that sensing applications should cooperatively perform common tasks to avoid acquiring the same resources multiple times. By doing so, this sensing paradigm executes sensing tasks with very little extra resource consumption and, consequently, extends battery life. To evaluate and compare the symbiotic sensing paradigm with the existing ones, we develop mathematical models in terms of the completion probability and estimated energy consumption. The quantitative evaluation results using various parameters obtained from real datasets indicate that symbiotic sensing performs better than opportunistic sensing and participatory sensing in large-scale sensing applications, such as road condition monitoring, air pollution monitoring, and city noise monitoring.

Symbiotic Sensing for Energy-Intensive Tasks in Large-Scale Mobile Sensing Applications

PubMed Central

Scholten, Hans; Havinga, Paul J. M.

2017-01-01

Energy consumption is a critical performance and user experience metric when developing mobile sensing applications, especially with the significantly growing number of sensing applications in recent years. As proposed a decade ago when mobile applications were still not popular and most mobile operating systems were single-tasking, conventional sensing paradigms such as opportunistic sensing and participatory sensing do not explore the relationship among concurrent applications for energy-intensive tasks. In this paper, inspired by social relationships among living creatures in nature, we propose a symbiotic sensing paradigm that can conserve energy, while maintaining equivalent performance to existing paradigms. The key idea is that sensing applications should cooperatively perform common tasks to avoid acquiring the same resources multiple times. By doing so, this sensing paradigm executes sensing tasks with very little extra resource consumption and, consequently, extends battery life. To evaluate and compare the symbiotic sensing paradigm with the existing ones, we develop mathematical models in terms of the completion probability and estimated energy consumption. The quantitative evaluation results using various parameters obtained from real datasets indicate that symbiotic sensing performs better than opportunistic sensing and participatory sensing in large-scale sensing applications, such as road condition monitoring, air pollution monitoring, and city noise monitoring. PMID:29186037

National-Scale Air Quality Data Assessment: Initial Findings from the Near-Road NO2 Monitoring Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

DeWinter, J. L.

2015-12-01

In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) to include a primary health-based standard for hourly NO2. NO2 is a reactive gas that is emitted from motor vehicles, such as cars, trucks, and off-road equipment, as well as non-mobile sources, and is known to adversely affect human respiratory health. In conjunction with the NAAQS revision, EPA has mandated air quality monitoring next to selected major roadways throughout the United States that are in large urban areas where peak hourly NO2 concentrations are expected. Monitoring began in phases during 2012-2015 and included nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) at 40 monitoring sites nationwide. We conducted a national-scale review of near-road air pollutant concentrations, identified areas where high concentrations of NO2, PM2.5, and CO occurred, and evaluated how concentrations varied by factors such as location, distance to roadway, fleet mix characteristics, and traffic volume. We present the findings from our national near-road data assessment for the 2014 monitoring year.

Non-contact Doppler radar monitoring of cardiorespiratory motion for Siberian sturgeon.

PubMed

Hafner, Noah; Massagram, Wansuree; Lubecke, Victor

2012-01-01

This paper presents the first reported use of Doppler radar to remotely sense heart and ventilation rates of fish. The Radar reported 35 to 40 BPM heart rate and 115 to 145 BPM ventilation rates for Siberian Sturgeon, with agreement from a video reference. Conventional fish vital signs measurements require invasive surgery and human handling--these are problematic for large scale monitoring, for measuring deep sea fish, and other situations which preclude human interaction with each individual subject. These results show a useful application of radar to augment existing cardiovascular and ventilatory activity sensing techniques and enable monitoring in a wider range of situations.

Design of ecoregional monitoring in conservation areas of high-latitude ecosystems under contemporary climate change

USGS Publications Warehouse

Beever, Erik A.; Woodward, Andrea

2011-01-01

Land ownership in Alaska includes a mosaic of federally managed units. Within its agency’s context, each unit has its own management strategy, authority, and resources of conservation concern, many of which are migratory animals. Though some units are geographically isolated, many are nevertheless linked by paths of abiotic and biotic flows, such as rivers, air masses, flyways, and terrestrial and aquatic migration routes. Furthermore, individual land units exist within the context of a larger landscape pattern of shifting conditions, requiring managers to understand at larger spatial scales the status and trends in the synchrony and spatial concurrence of species and associated suitable habitats. Results of these changes will determine the ability of Alaska lands to continue to: provide habitat for local and migratory species; absorb species whose ranges are shifting northward; and experience mitigation or exacerbation of climate change through positive and negative atmospheric feedbacks. We discuss the geographic and statutory contexts that influence development of ecological monitoring; argue for the inclusion of significant amounts of broad-scale monitoring; discuss the importance of defining clear programmatic and monitoring objectives; and draw from lessons learned from existing long-term, broad-scale monitoring programs to apply to the specific contexts relevant to high-latitude protected areas such as those in Alaska. Such areas are distinguished by their: marked seasonality; relatively large magnitudes of contemporary change in climatic parameters; and relative inaccessibility due to broad spatial extent, very low (or zero) road density, and steep and glaciated areas. For ecological monitoring to effectively support management decisions in high-latitude areas such as Alaska, a monitoring program ideally would be structured to address the actual spatial and temporal scales of relevant processes, rather than the artificial boundaries of individual land-management units. Heuristic models provide a means by which to integrate understanding of ecosystem structure, composition, and function, in the midst of numerous ecosystem drivers.

Evaluating predictors of local dabbling duck abundance during migration: Managing the spectrum of conditions faced by migrants

USGS Publications Warehouse

Aagaard, Kevin; Crimmins, Shawn M.; Thogmartin, Wayne E.; Tavernia, Brian G.; Lyons, James E.

2015-01-01

The development of robust modelling techniques to derive inferences from large-scale migratory bird monitoring data at appropriate scales has direct relevance to their management. The Integrated Waterbird Management and Monitoring programme (IWMM) represents one of the few attempts to monitor migrating waterbirds across entire flyways using targeted local surveys. This dataset included 13,208,785 waterfowl (eight Anas species) counted during 28,000 surveys at nearly 1,000 locations across the eastern United States between autumn 2010 and spring 2013 and was used to evaluate potential predictors of waterfowl abundance at the wetland scale. Mixed-effects, log-linear models of local abundance were built for the Atlantic and Mississippi flyways during spring and autumn migration to identify factors relating to habitat structure, forage availability, and migration timing that influence target dabbling duck species abundance. Results indicated that migrating dabbling ducks responded differently to environmental factors. While the factors identified demonstrated a high degree of importance, they were inconsistent across species, flyways and seasons. Furthermore, the direction and magnitude of the importance of each covariate group considered here varied across species. Given our results, actionable policy recommendations are likely to be most effective if they consider species-level variation within targeted taxonomic units and across management areas. The methods implemented here can easily be applied to other contexts, and serve as a novel investigation into local-level population patterns using data from broad-scale monitoring programmes.

Monitoring of oceanographic properties of Glacier Bay, Alaska 2004

USGS Publications Warehouse

Madison, Erica N.; Etherington, Lisa L.

2005-01-01

Glacier Bay is a recently (300 years ago) deglaciated fjord estuarine system that has multiple sills, very deep basins, tidewater glaciers, and many streams. Glacier Bay experiences a large amount of runoff, high sedimentation, and large tidal variations. High freshwater discharge due to snow and ice melt and the presence of the tidewater glaciers makes the bay extremely cold. There are many small- and large-scale mixing and upwelling zones at sills, glacial faces, and streams. The complex topography and strong currents lead to highly variable salinity, temperature, sediment, primary productivity, light penetration, stratification levels, and current patterns within a small area. The oceanographic patterns within Glacier Bay drive a large portion of the spatial and temporal variability of the ecosystem. It has been widely recognized by scientists and resource managers in Glacier Bay that a program to monitor oceanographic patterns is essential for understanding the marine ecosystem and to differentiate between anthropogenic disturbance and natural variation. This year’s sampling marks the 12th continuous year of monitoring the oceanographic conditions at 23 stations along the primary axes within Glacier Bay, AK, making this a very unique and valuable data set in terms of its spatial and temporal coverage.

Large Scale Environmental Monitoring through Integration of Sensor and Mesh Networks.

PubMed

Jurdak, Raja; Nafaa, Abdelhamid; Barbirato, Alessio

2008-11-24

Monitoring outdoor environments through networks of wireless sensors has received interest for collecting physical and chemical samples at high spatial and temporal scales. A central challenge to environmental monitoring applications of sensor networks is the short communication range of the sensor nodes, which increases the complexity and cost of monitoring commodities that are located in geographically spread areas. To address this issue, we propose a new communication architecture that integrates sensor networks with medium range wireless mesh networks, and provides users with an advanced web portal for managing sensed information in an integrated manner. Our architecture adopts a holistic approach targeted at improving the user experience by optimizing the system performance for handling data that originates at the sensors, traverses the mesh network, and resides at the server for user consumption. This holistic approach enables users to set high level policies that can adapt the resolution of information collected at the sensors, set the preferred performance targets for their application, and run a wide range of queries and analysis on both real-time and historical data. All system components and processes will be described in this paper.

An introduction to orbit dynamics and its application to satellite-based earth monitoring systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brooks, D. R.

1977-01-01

The long term behavior of satellites is studied at a level of complexity suitable for the initial planning phases of earth monitoring missions. First-order perturbation theory is used to describe in detail the basic orbit dynamics of satellite motion around the earth and relative to the sun. Surface coverage capabilities of satellite orbits are examined. Several examples of simulated observation and monitoring missions are given to illustrate representative applications of the theory. The examples stress the need for devising ways of maximizing total mission output in order to make the best possible use of the resultant data base as input to those large-scale, long-term earth monitoring activities which can best justify the use of satellite systems.

Integrating a project monitoring system into a public health network: experiences from Alive & Thrive Vietnam.

PubMed

Tuan, Nguyen Thanh; Alayon, Silvia; Do, Tran Thanh; Ngan, Tran Thi; Hajeebhoy, Nemat

2015-01-01

Little information is available about how to build a monitoring system to measure the output of preventive nutrition interventions, such as counselling on infant and young child feeding. This paper describes the Alive & Thrive Vietnam (A&T) project experience in nesting a large-scale project monitoring system into the existing public health information system (e.g. using the system and resources), and in using monitoring data to strengthen service delivery in 15 provinces with A&T franchises. From January 2012 to April 2014, the 780 A&T franchises provided 1,700,000 counselling contacts (~3/4 by commune franchises). In commune franchises in April 2014, 80% of mothers who were pregnant or with children under two years old had been to the counselling service at least one time, and 87% of clients had been to the service earlier. Monitoring data are used to track the progress of the project, make decisions, provide background for a costing study and advocate for the integration of nutrition counselling indicators into the health information system nationwide. With careful attention to the needs of stakeholders at multiple levels, clear data quality assurance measures and strategic feedback mechanisms, it is feasible to monitor the scale-up of nutrition programmes through the existing routine health information system.

Botswana water and surface energy balance research program. Part 2: Large scale moisture and passive microwaves

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vandegriend, A. A.; Owe, M.; Chang, A. T. C.

1992-01-01

The Botswana water and surface energy balance research program was developed to study and evaluate the integrated use of multispectral satellite remote sensing for monitoring the hydrological status of the Earth's surface. The research program consisted of two major, mutually related components: a surface energy balance modeling component, built around an extensive field campaign; and a passive microwave research component which consisted of a retrospective study of large scale moisture conditions and Nimbus scanning multichannel microwave radiometer microwave signatures. The integrated approach of both components are explained in general and activities performed within the passive microwave research component are summarized. The microwave theory is discussed taking into account: soil dielectric constant, emissivity, soil roughness effects, vegetation effects, optical depth, single scattering albedo, and wavelength effects. The study site is described. The soil moisture data and its processing are considered. The relation between observed large scale soil moisture and normalized brightness temperatures is discussed. Vegetation characteristics and inverse modeling of soil emissivity is considered.

A proposal of monitoring and forecasting system for crustal activity in and around Japan using a large-scale high-fidelity finite element simulation codes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hori, T.; Ichimura, T.

2015-12-01

Here we propose a system for monitoring and forecasting of crustal activity, especially great interplate earthquake generation and its preparation processes in subduction zone. Basically, we model great earthquake generation as frictional instability on the subjecting plate boundary. So, spatio-temporal variation in slip velocity on the plate interface should be monitored and forecasted. Although, we can obtain continuous dense surface deformation data on land and partly at the sea bottom, the data obtained are not fully utilized for monitoring and forecasting. It is necessary to develop a physics-based data analysis system including (1) a structural model with the 3D geometry of the plate interface and the material property such as elasticity and viscosity, (2) calculation code for crustal deformation and seismic wave propagation using (1), (3) inverse analysis or data assimilation code both for structure and fault slip using (1)&(2). To accomplish this, it is at least necessary to develop highly reliable large-scale simulation code to calculate crustal deformation and seismic wave propagation for 3D heterogeneous structure. Actually, Ichimura et al. (2014, SC14) has developed unstructured FE non-linear seismic wave simulation code, which achieved physics-based urban earthquake simulation enhanced by 10.7 BlnDOF x 30 K time-step. Ichimura et al. (2013, GJI) has developed high fidelity FEM simulation code with mesh generator to calculate crustal deformation in and around Japan with complicated surface topography and subducting plate geometry for 1km mesh. Further, for inverse analyses, Errol et al. (2012, BSSA) has developed waveform inversion code for modeling 3D crustal structure, and Agata et al. (2015, this meeting) has improved the high fidelity FEM code to apply an adjoint method for estimating fault slip and asthenosphere viscosity. Hence, we have large-scale simulation and analysis tools for monitoring. Furthermore, we are developing the methods for forecasting the slip velocity variation on the plate interface. Basic concept is given in Hori et al. (2014, Oceanography) introducing ensemble based sequential data assimilation procedure. Although the prototype described there is for elastic half space model, we will apply it for 3D heterogeneous structure with the high fidelity FE model.

Human Factors in the Large: Experiences from Denmark, Finland and Canada in Moving Towards Regional and National Evaluations of Health Information System Usability. Contribution of the IMIA Human Factors Working Group.

PubMed

Kushniruk, A; Kaipio, J; Nieminen, M; Hyppönen, H; Lääveri, T; Nohr, C; Kanstrup, A M; Berg Christiansen, M; Kuo, M-H; Borycki, E

2014-08-15

The objective of this paper is to explore approaches to understanding the usability of health information systems at regional and national levels. Several different methods are discussed in case studies from Denmark, Finland and Canada. They range from small scale qualitative studies involving usability testing of systems to larger scale national level questionnaire studies aimed at assessing the use and usability of health information systems by entire groups of health professionals. It was found that regional and national usability studies can complement smaller scale usability studies, and that they are needed in order to understand larger trends regarding system usability. Despite adoption of EHRs, many health professionals rate the usability of the systems as low. A range of usability issues have been noted when data is collected on a large scale through use of widely distributed questionnaires and websites designed to monitor user perceptions of usability. As health information systems are deployed on a widespread basis, studies that examine systems used regionally or nationally are required. In addition, collection of large scale data on the usability of specific IT products is needed in order to complement smaller scale studies of specific systems.

Human Factors in the Large: Experiences from Denmark, Finland and Canada in Moving Towards Regional and National Evaluations of Health Information System Usability

PubMed Central

Kaipio, J.; Nieminen, M.; Hyppönen, H.; Lääveri, T.; Nohr, C.; Kanstrup, A. M.; Berg Christiansen, M.; Kuo, M.-H.; Borycki, E.

2014-01-01

Summary Objectives The objective of this paper is to explore approaches to understanding the usability of health information systems at regional and national levels. Methods Several different methods are discussed in case studies from Denmark, Finland and Canada. They range from small scale qualitative studies involving usability testing of systems to larger scale national level questionnaire studies aimed at assessing the use and usability of health information systems by entire groups of health professionals. Results It was found that regional and national usability studies can complement smaller scale usability studies, and that they are needed in order to understand larger trends regarding system usability. Despite adoption of EHRs, many health professionals rate the usability of the systems as low. A range of usability issues have been noted when data is collected on a large scale through use of widely distributed questionnaires and websites designed to monitor user perceptions of usability. Conclusion As health information systems are deployed on a widespread basis, studies that examine systems used regionally or nationally are required. In addition, collection of large scale data on the usability of specific IT products is needed in order to complement smaller scale studies of specific systems. PMID:25123725

The potential of near-surface geophysical methods in a hierarchical monitoring approach for the detection of shallow CO2 seeps at geological storage sites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sauer, U.; Schuetze, C.; Dietrich, P.

2013-12-01

The MONACO project (Monitoring approach for geological CO2 storage sites using a hierarchic observation concept) aims to find reliable monitoring tools that work on different spatial and temporal scales at geological CO2 storage sites. This integrative hierarchical monitoring approach based on different levels of coverage and resolutions is proposed as a means of reliably detecting CO2 degassing areas at ground surface level and for identifying CO2 leakages from storage formations into the shallow subsurface, as well as CO2 releases into the atmosphere. As part of this integrative hierarchical monitoring concept, several methods and technologies from ground-based remote sensing (Open-path Fourier-transform infrared (OP-FTIR) spectroscopy), regional measurements (near-surface geophysics, chamber-based soil CO2 flux measurement) and local in-situ measurements (using shallow boreholes) will either be combined or used complementary to one another. The proposed combination is a suitable concept for investigating CO2 release sites. This also presents the possibility of adopting a modular monitoring concept whereby our monitoring approach can be expanded to incorporate other methods in various coverage scales at any temporal resolution. The link between information obtained from large-scale surveys and local in-situ monitoring can be realized by sufficient geophysical techniques for meso-scale monitoring, such as geoelectrical and self-potential (SP) surveys. These methods are useful for characterizing fluid flow and transport processes in permeable near-surface sedimentary layers and can yield important information concerning CO2-affected subsurface structures. Results of measurements carried out a natural analogue site in the Czech Republic indicate that the hierarchical monitoring approach represents a successful multidisciplinary modular concept that can be used to monitor both physical and chemical processes taking place during CO2 migration and seepage. The application of FTIR spectroscopy in combination with soil gas surveys and geophysical investigations results in a comprehensive site characterization, including atmospheric and near-surface CO2 distribution, as well as subsurface structural features. We observed a correlation of higher CO2 concentration and flux rates at the meso-scale that coincides with distinct geophysical anomalies. Here, we found prominent SP anomalies and zones of lower resistivity in the geoelectrical images compared to undisturbed regions nearby. This presentation will discuss the results we obtained and illustrate the influence of CO2 on electrical parameters measured under field conditions in relation to environmental parameters.

Plot-scale field experiment of surface hydrologic processes with EOS implications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Laymon, Charles A.; Macari, Emir J.; Costes, Nicholas C.

1992-01-01

Plot-scale hydrologic field studies were initiated at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to a) investigate the spatial and temporal variability of surface and subsurface hydrologic processes, particularly as affected by vegetation, and b) develop experimental techniques and associated instrumentation methodology to study hydrologic processes at increasingly large spatial scales. About 150 instruments, most of which are remotely operated, have been installed at the field site to monitor ground atmospheric conditions, precipitation, interception, soil-water status, and energy flux. This paper describes the nature of the field experiment, instrumentation and sampling rationale, and presents preliminary findings.

Improving health aid for a better planet: The planning, monitoring and evaluation tool (PLANET).

PubMed

Sridhar, Devi; Car, Josip; Chopra, Mickey; Campbell, Harry; Woods, Ngaire; Rudan, Igor

2015-12-01

International development assistance for health (DAH) quadrupled between 1990 and 2012, from US$ 5.6 billion to US$ 28.1 billion. This generates an increasing need for transparent and replicable tools that could be used to set investment priorities, monitor the distribution of funding in real time, and evaluate the impact of those investments. In this paper we present a methodology that addresses these three challenges. We call this approach PLANET, which stands for planning, monitoring and evaluation tool. Fundamentally, PLANET is based on crowdsourcing approach to obtaining information relevant to deployment of large-scale programs. Information is contributed in real time by a diverse group of participants involved in the program delivery. PLANET relies on real-time information from three levels of participants in large-scale programs: funders, managers and recipients. At each level, information is solicited to assess five key risks that are most relevant to each level of operations. The risks at the level of funders involve systematic neglect of certain areas, focus on donor's interests over that of program recipients, ineffective co-ordination between donors, questionable mechanisms of delivery and excessive loss of funding to "middle men". At the level of managers, the risks are corruption, lack of capacity and/or competence, lack of information and /or communication, undue avoidance of governmental structures / preference to non-governmental organizations and exclusion of local expertise. At the level of primary recipients, the risks are corruption, parallel operations / "verticalization", misalignment with local priorities and lack of community involvement, issues with ethics, equity and/or acceptability, and low likelihood of sustainability beyond the end of the program's implementation. PLANET is intended as an additional tool available to policy-makers to prioritize, monitor and evaluate large-scale development programs. In this, it should complement tools such as LiST (for health care/interventions), EQUIST (for health care/interventions) and CHNRI (for health research), which also rely on information from local experts and on local context to set priorities in a transparent, user-friendly, replicable, quantifiable and specific, algorithmic-like manner.

The Intelligent Control System and Experiments for an Unmanned Wave Glider.

PubMed

Liao, Yulei; Wang, Leifeng; Li, Yiming; Li, Ye; Jiang, Quanquan

2016-01-01

The control system designing of Unmanned Wave Glider (UWG) is challenging since the control system is weak maneuvering, large time-lag and large disturbance, which is difficult to establish accurate mathematical model. Meanwhile, to complete marine environment monitoring in long time scale and large spatial scale autonomously, UWG asks high requirements of intelligence and reliability. This paper focuses on the "Ocean Rambler" UWG. First, the intelligent control system architecture is designed based on the cerebrum basic function combination zone theory and hierarchic control method. The hardware and software designing of the embedded motion control system are mainly discussed. A motion control system based on rational behavior model of four layers is proposed. Then, combining with the line-of sight method(LOS), a self-adapting PID guidance law is proposed to compensate the steady state error in path following of UWG caused by marine environment disturbance especially current. Based on S-surface control method, an improved S-surface heading controller is proposed to solve the heading control problem of the weak maneuvering carrier under large disturbance. Finally, the simulation experiments were carried out and the UWG completed autonomous path following and marine environment monitoring in sea trials. The simulation experiments and sea trial results prove that the proposed intelligent control system, guidance law, controller have favorable control performance, and the feasibility and reliability of the designed intelligent control system of UWG are verified.

The Intelligent Control System and Experiments for an Unmanned Wave Glider

PubMed Central

Liao, Yulei; Wang, Leifeng; Li, Yiming; Li, Ye; Jiang, Quanquan

2016-01-01

The control system designing of Unmanned Wave Glider (UWG) is challenging since the control system is weak maneuvering, large time-lag and large disturbance, which is difficult to establish accurate mathematical model. Meanwhile, to complete marine environment monitoring in long time scale and large spatial scale autonomously, UWG asks high requirements of intelligence and reliability. This paper focuses on the “Ocean Rambler” UWG. First, the intelligent control system architecture is designed based on the cerebrum basic function combination zone theory and hierarchic control method. The hardware and software designing of the embedded motion control system are mainly discussed. A motion control system based on rational behavior model of four layers is proposed. Then, combining with the line-of sight method(LOS), a self-adapting PID guidance law is proposed to compensate the steady state error in path following of UWG caused by marine environment disturbance especially current. Based on S-surface control method, an improved S-surface heading controller is proposed to solve the heading control problem of the weak maneuvering carrier under large disturbance. Finally, the simulation experiments were carried out and the UWG completed autonomous path following and marine environment monitoring in sea trials. The simulation experiments and sea trial results prove that the proposed intelligent control system, guidance law, controller have favorable control performance, and the feasibility and reliability of the designed intelligent control system of UWG are verified. PMID:28005956

Restoring Forest Landscapes: Important Lessons Learnt

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mansourian, Stephanie; Vallauri, Daniel

2014-02-01

Forest restoration at large scales, or landscapes, is an approach that is increasingly relevant to the practice of environmental conservation. However, implementation remains a challenge; poor monitoring and lesson learning lead to similar mistakes being repeated. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the global conservation organization, recently took stock of its 10 years of implementation of forest landscape restoration. A significant body of knowledge has emerged from the work of the WWF and its partners in the different countries, which can be of use to the wider conservation community, but for this to happen, lessons need to be systematically collected and disseminated in a coherent manner to the broader conservation and development communities and, importantly, to policy makers. We use this review of the WWF's experiences and compare and contrast it with other relevant and recent literature to highlight 11 important lessons for future large-scale forest restoration interventions. These lessons are presented using a stepwise approach to the restoration of forested landscapes. We identify the need for long-term commitment and funding, and a concerted and collaborative effort for successful forest landscape restoration. Our review highlights that monitoring impact within landscape-scale forest restoration remains inadequate. We conclude that forest restoration within landscapes is a challenging yet important proposition that has a real but undervalued place in environmental conservation in the twenty-first century.

Assimilation of remote sensing data into a process-based ecosystem model for monitoring changes of soil water content in croplands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ju, Weimin; Gao, Ping; Wang, Jun; Li, Xianfeng; Chen, Shu

2008-10-01

Soil water content (SWC) is an important factor affecting photosynthesis, growth, and final yields of crops. The information on SWC is of importance for mitigating the reduction of crop yields caused by drought through proper agricultural water management. A variety of methodologies have been developed to estimate SWC at local and regional scales, including field sampling, remote sensing monitoring and model simulations. The reliability of regional SWC simulation depends largely on the accuracy of spatial input datasets, including vegetation parameters, soil and meteorological data. Remote sensing has been proved to be an effective technique for controlling uncertainties in vegetation parameters. In this study, the vegetation parameters (leaf area index and land cover type) derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) were assimilated into a process-based ecosystem model BEPS for simulating the variations of SWC in croplands of Jiangsu province, China. Validation shows that the BEPS model is able to capture 81% and 83% of across-site variations of SWC at 10 and 20 cm depths during the period from September to December, 2006 when a serous autumn drought occurred. The simulated SWC responded the events of rainfall well at regional scale, demonstrating the usefulness of our methodology for SWC and practical agricultural water management at large scales.

Biomagnetic Monitoring of Atmospheric Pollution: A Review of Magnetic Signatures from Biological Sensors.

PubMed

Hofman, Jelle; Maher, Barbara A; Muxworthy, Adrian R; Wuyts, Karen; Castanheiro, Ana; Samson, Roeland

2017-06-20

Biomagnetic monitoring of atmospheric pollution is a growing application in the field of environmental magnetism. Particulate matter (PM) in atmospheric pollution contains readily measurable concentrations of magnetic minerals. Biological surfaces, exposed to atmospheric pollution, accumulate magnetic particles over time, providing a record of location-specific, time-integrated air quality information. This review summarizes current knowledge of biological material ("sensors") used for biomagnetic monitoring purposes. Our work addresses the following: the range of magnetic properties reported for lichens, mosses, leaves, bark, trunk wood, insects, crustaceans, mammal and human tissues; their associations with atmospheric pollutant species (PM, NO x , trace elements, PAHs); the pros and cons of biomagnetic monitoring of atmospheric pollution; current challenges for large-scale implementation of biomagnetic monitoring; and future perspectives. A summary table is presented, with the aim of aiding researchers and policy makers in selecting the most suitable biological sensor for their intended biomagnetic monitoring purpose.

Advanced DInSAR analysis for building damage assessment in large urban areas: an application to the city of Roma, Italy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

D'Aranno, Peppe J. V.; Marsella, Maria; Scifoni, Silvia; Scutti, Marianna; Sonnessa, Alberico; Bonano, Manuela

2015-10-01

Remote sensing data play an important role for the environmental monitoring because they allow to provide systematic information on very large areas and for a long period of time. Such information must be analyzed, validated and incorporated into proper modeling tools in order to become useful for performing risk assessment analysis. These approaches has been already applied in the field of natural hazard evaluation (i.e. for monitoring seismic, volcanic areas and landslides). However, not enough attention has been devoted to the development of validated methods for implementing quantitative analysis on civil structures. This work is dedicated to the comprehensive utilization of ERS / ENVISAT data store ESA SAR used to detect deformation trends and perform back-analysis of the investigated structures useful to calibrate the damage assessment models. After this preliminary analysis, SAR data of the new satellite mission (ie Cosmo SkyMed) were adopted to monitor the evolution of existent surface deformation processes and to detect new occurrence. The specific objective was to set up a data processing and data analysis chain tailored on a service that sustains the safe maintenance of the built-up environment, including critical construction such as public (schools, hospital, etc), strategic (dam, highways, etc) and also the cultural heritage sites. The analysis of the test area, in the southeastern sector of Roma, has provided three different levels and sub-levels of products from metropolitan area scale (territorial analysis), settlement scale (aggregated analysis) to single structure scale (damage degree associated to the structure).

Soil-plant relationships and contamination by trace elements: A review of twenty years of experimentation and monitoring after the Aznalcóllar (SW Spain) mine accident.

PubMed

Madejón, Paula; Domínguez, María T; Madejón, Engracia; Cabrera, Francisco; Marañón, Teodoro; Murillo, José M

2018-06-01

Soil contamination by trace elements (TE) is a major environmental problem and much research is done into its effects on ecosystems and human health, as well as into remediation techniques. The Aznalcóllar mine accident (April 1998) was a large-scale ecological and socio-economic catastrophe in the South of Spain. We present here a literature review that synthesizes the main results found during the research conducted at the affected area over the past 20years since the mine accident, focused on the soil-plant system. We review, in depth, information about the characterization of the mine slurry and contaminated soils, and of the TE monitoring, performed until the present time. The reclamation techniques included the removal of sludge and soil surface layer and use of soil amendments; we review the effects of different types of amendments at different spatial scales and their effectiveness with time. Monitoring of TE in soil and their transfer to plants (crops, herbs, shrubs, and trees) were evaluated to assess potential toxicity effects in the food web. The utility of some plants (accumulators) with regard to the biomonitoring of TE in the environment was also evaluated. On the other hand, retention of TE by plant roots and their associated microorganisms was used as a low-cost technique for TE stabilization and soil remediation. We also evaluate the experience acquired in making the Guadiamar Green Corridor a large-scale soil reclamation and phytoremediation case study. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC/VEx) 1 micron emissivity and Magellan microwave properties of crater-related radar-dark parabolas and other terrains

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Basilevsky, A. T.; Shalygina, O. S.; Bondarenko, N. V.; Shalygin, E. V.; Markiewicz, W. J.

2017-09-01

The aim of this work is a comparative study of several typical radar-dark parabolas, the neighboring plains and some other geologic units seen in the study areas which include craters Adivar, Bassi, Bathsheba, du Chatelet and Sitwell, at two depths scales: the upper several meters of the study object available through the Magellan-based microwave (at 12.6 cm wavelength) properties (microwave emissivity, Fresnel reflectivity, large-scale surface roughness, and radar cross-section), and the upper hundreds microns of the object characterized by the 1 micron emissivity resulted from the analysis of the near infra-red (NIR) irradiation of the night-side of the Venusian surface measured by the Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) on-board of Venus Express (VEx).

Weight Watching and the Effect of Landscape on Honeybee Colony Productivity: Investigating the Value of Colony Weight Monitoring for the Beekeeping Industry

PubMed Central

Lecocq, Antoine; Kryger, Per; Vejsnæs, Flemming; Bruun Jensen, Annette

2015-01-01

Over the last few decades, a gradual departure away from traditional agricultural practices has resulted in alterations to the composition of the countryside and landscapes across Europe. In the face of such changes, monitoring the development and productivity of honey bee colonies from different sites can give valuable insight on the influence of landscape on their productivity and might point towards future directions for modernized beekeeping practices. Using data on honeybee colony weights provided by electronic scales spread across Denmark, we investigated the effect of the immediate landscape on colony productivity. In order to extract meaningful information, data manipulation was necessary prior to analysis as a result of different management regimes or scales malfunction. Once this was carried out, we were able to show that colonies situated in landscapes composed of more than 50% urban areas were significantly more productive than colonies situated in those with more than 50% agricultural areas or those in mixed areas. As well as exploring some of the potential reasons for the observed differences, we discuss the value of weight monitoring of colonies on a large scale. PMID:26147392

Weight Watching and the Effect of Landscape on Honeybee Colony Productivity: Investigating the Value of Colony Weight Monitoring for the Beekeeping Industry.

PubMed

Lecocq, Antoine; Kryger, Per; Vejsnæs, Flemming; Bruun Jensen, Annette

2015-01-01

Over the last few decades, a gradual departure away from traditional agricultural practices has resulted in alterations to the composition of the countryside and landscapes across Europe. In the face of such changes, monitoring the development and productivity of honey bee colonies from different sites can give valuable insight on the influence of landscape on their productivity and might point towards future directions for modernized beekeeping practices. Using data on honeybee colony weights provided by electronic scales spread across Denmark, we investigated the effect of the immediate landscape on colony productivity. In order to extract meaningful information, data manipulation was necessary prior to analysis as a result of different management regimes or scales malfunction. Once this was carried out, we were able to show that colonies situated in landscapes composed of more than 50% urban areas were significantly more productive than colonies situated in those with more than 50% agricultural areas or those in mixed areas. As well as exploring some of the potential reasons for the observed differences, we discuss the value of weight monitoring of colonies on a large scale.

EVALUATION OF A MEASUREMENT METHOD FOR FOREST VEGETATION IN A LARGE-SCALE ECOLOGICAL SURVEY

EPA Science Inventory

We evaluate a field method for determining species richness and canopy cover of vascular plants for the Forest Health Monitoring Program (FHM), an ecological survey of U.S. forests. Measurements are taken within 12 1-m2 quadrats on 1/15 ha plots in FHM. Species richness and cover...

C-PORT: A Community-Scale Near-Source Air Quality System to Assess Port-Related Air Quality Impacts

EPA Science Inventory

With increasing activity in global trade, there has been increased activity in transportation by rail, road and ships to move cargo. Based upon multiple near-road and near-source monitoring studies, both busy roadways and large emission source at the ports may impact local air qu...

Final ecosystem services for stream ecosystems and the metrics, methods and challenges to apply them in a national monitoring context

EPA Science Inventory

The challenge of translating notions of ecosystem services from the theoretical arena to practical application at large scales (e.g. national) requires an interdisciplinary approach. To meet this challenge, we convened a workshop involving a broad suite of natural and social scie...

State of agrocoenoses in case of large scale radioactive contamination of lands

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Filipas, A.S.; Taranenko, V.V.; Ulyanenko, L.N.

1993-12-31

As a result of the Chernobyl accident low doses of ionizing radiation have possibly caused mutations in arthropods which infect crops. The decision was made to investigate ways to protect plants from these injurious organisms. Monitoring plants is an important element in assessing the ecological situation in the Chernobyl accident zone.

Monitoring, Modeling, and Emergent Toxicology in the East Fork Watershed: Developing a Test Bed for Water Quality Management.

EPA Science Inventory

Overarching objectives for the development of the East Fork Watershed Test Bed in Southwestern Ohio include: 1) providing research infrastructure for integrating risk assessment and management research on the scale of a large multi-use watershed (1295 km2); 2) Focusing on process...

Landscape pattern metrics and regional assessment

Treesearch

Robert V. O' Neill; Kurt H. Riitters; J.D. Wickham; Bruce K. Jones

1999-01-01

The combination of remote imagery data, geographic information systems software, and landscape ecology theory provides a unique basis for monitoring and assessing large-scale ecological systems. The unique feature of the work has been the need to develop interpret quantitative measures of spatial patter-the landscape indices. This article reviews what is known about...

Microfabrication techniques for integrated sensors and microsystems.

PubMed

Wise, K D; Najafi, K

1991-11-29

Integrated sensors and actuators are rapidly evolving to provide an important link between very large scale integrated circuits and nonelectronic monitoring and control applications ranging from biomedicine to automated manufacturing. As they continue to expand, entire microsystems merging electrical, mechanical, thermal, optical, magnetic, and perhaps chemical components should be possible on a common substrate.

Performance results from Small- and Large-Scale System Monitoring and green Infrastructure in Kansas City - slides

EPA Science Inventory

In 2010, Kansas City, MO (KCMO) signed a consent degree with EPA on combined sewer overflows. The City decided to use adaptive management in order to extensively utilize green infrastructure (GI) in lieu of, and in addition to, structural controls. KCMO installed 130 GI storm co...

Competencies in Geriatric Nursing: Empirical Evidence from a Computer-Based Large-Scale Assessment Calibration Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaspar, Roman; Döring, Ottmar; Wittmann, Eveline; Hartig, Johannes; Weyland, Ulrike; Nauerth, Annette; Möllers, Michaela; Rechenbach, Simone; Simon, Julia; Worofka, Iberé

2016-01-01

Valid and reliable standardized assessment of nursing competencies is needed to monitor the quality of vocational education and training (VET) in nursing and evaluate learning outcomes for care work trainees with increasingly heterogeneous learning backgrounds. To date, however, the modeling of professional competencies has not yet evolved into…

Evaluation of Ku-Band Sensitivity To Soil Moisture: Soil Moisture Change Detection Over the NAFE06 Study Area

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

A very promising technique for spatial disaggregation of soil moisture is on the combination of radiometer and radar observations. Despite their demonstrated potential for long term large scale monitoring of soil moisture, passive and active have their disadvantages in terms of temporal and spatial ...

Search and rescue response to a large-scale rockfall disaster.

PubMed

Procter, Emily; Strapazzon, Giacomo; Balkenhol, Karla; Fop, Ernst; Faggionato, Alessandro; Mayr, Karl; Falk, Markus; Brugger, Hermann

2015-03-01

To describe the prehospital management and safety of search and rescue (SAR) teams involved in a large-scale rockfall disaster and monitor the acute and chronic health effects on personnel with severe dolomitic dust exposure. SAR personnel underwent on-site medical screening and lung function testing 3 months and 3 years after the event. The emergency dispatch center was responsible for central coordination of resources. One hundred fifty SAR members from multidisciplinary air- and ground-based teams as well as geotechnical experts were dispatched to a provisionary operation center. Acute exposure to dolomite dust with detectable silicon and magnesium concentrations was not associated with (sub)acute or chronic sequelae or a clinically significant impairment in lung function in exposed personnel. The risk for personnel involved in mountain SAR operations is rarely reported and not easily investigated or quantified. This case exemplifies the importance of a multiskilled team and additional considerations for prehospital management during natural hazard events. Safety plans should include compulsory protective measures and medical monitoring of personnel. Copyright © 2015 Wilderness Medical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Impact of landslides induced by 2014 northeast monsoon extreme rain in Malaysia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fukuoka, Hiroshi; Koay, Swee Peng; Sakai, Naoki; Lateh, Habibah

2016-04-01

In December 2014, northeast monsoon brought extreme rainfalls to Malaysia, mainly in the eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia and coastal area in Sabah and Sarawak. In this month, many of the rain gauge records in this area exceeded 1,000 mm, which is about 1/3 of average annual rainfall precipitation (2,850mm/year) in Malaysia. This unexpected heavy rainfall induced landslides and floods which brought about large-scale losses in Malaysia equivalent to several hundred million USD as thousands of residents had evacuated from hometown for months, and factories, schools and business activities were shut down for weeks. Among the major infrastructure of the nation, East-west Highway was subjected to damages by 21 landslides. Two large-scale landslides cut off the highway for a week. Authors had installed landslide monitoring instruments at reactivated landslide sites along the highway at N05° 36.042' E101° 35.546'. Records by in-situ inclinometers showed clear deformation from 17th December to 26th December, associated with certain change in piezometeres record for groundwater level monitoring. Several cracks occurred in the slope.

Enhanced systems for measuring and monitoring REDD+: Opportunities to improve the accuracy of emission factor and activity data in Indonesia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Solichin

The importance of accurate measurement of forest biomass in Indonesia has been growing ever since climate change mitigation schemes, particularly the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation scheme (known as REDD+), were constitutionally accepted by the government of Indonesia. The need for an accurate system of historical and actual forest monitoring has also become more pronounced, as such a system would afford a better understanding of the role of forests in climate change and allow for the quantification of the impact of activities implemented to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study was to enhance the accuracy of estimations of carbon stocks and to monitor emissions in tropical forests. The research encompassed various scales (from trees and stands to landscape-sized scales) and a wide range of aspects, from evaluation and development of allometric equations to exploration of the potential of existing forest inventory databases and evaluation of cutting-edge technology for non-destructive sampling and accurate forest biomass mapping over large areas. In this study, I explored whether accuracy--especially regarding the identification and reduction of bias--of forest aboveground biomass (AGB) estimates in Indonesia could be improved through (1) development and refinement of allometric equations for major forest types, (2) integration of existing large forest inventory datasets, (3) assessing nondestructive sampling techniques for tree AGB measurement, and (4) landscape-scale mapping of AGB and forest cover using lidar. This thesis provides essential foundations to improve the estimation of forest AGB at tree scale through development of new AGB equations for several major forest types in Indonesia. I successfully developed new allometric equations using large datasets from various forest types that enable us to estimate tree aboveground biomass for both forest type specific and generic equations. My models outperformed the existing local equations, with lower bias and higher precision of the AGB estimates. This study also highlights the potential advantages and challenges of using terrestrial lidar and the acoustic velocity tool for non-destructive sampling of tree biomass to enable more sample collection without the felling of trees. Further, I explored whether existing forest inventories and permanent sample plot datasets can be integrated into Indonesia's existing carbon accounting system. My investigation of these existing datasets found that through quality assurance tests these datasets are essential to be integrated into national and provincial forest monitoring and carbon accounting systems. Integration of this information would eventually improve the accuracy of the estimates of forest carbon stocks, biomass growth, mortality and emission factors from deforestation and forest degradation. At landscape scale, this study demonstrates the capability of airborne lidar for forest monitoring and forest cover classification in tropical peat swamp ecosystems. The mapping application using airborne lidar showed a more accurate and precise classification of land and forest cover when compared with mapping using optical and active sensors. To reduce the cost of lidar acquisition, this study assessed the optimum lidar return density for forest monitoring. I found that the density of lidar return could be reduced to at least 1 return per 4 m2. Overall, this study provides essential scientific background to improve the accuracy of forest AGB estimates. Therefore, the described results and techniques should be integrated into the existing monitoring systems to assess emission reduction targets and the impact of REDD+ implementation.

Scaling up the use of remote patient monitoring in Canada.

PubMed

Gheorghiu, Bobby; Ratchford, Fraser

2015-01-01

Evidence supporting the use of remote patient monitoring (RPM) as a cost-effective means of keeping patients from being re-admitted to hospitals or making repeated emergency department visits is growing, especially for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestive heart failure (CHF). A recent study funded by Canada Health Infoway, titled Connecting Patients with Providers: A Pan-Canadian Study on Remote Patient Monitoring, aimed to assess the current state of RPM solutions; to examine the evidence for patient and health system benefits achieved both in Canada and internationally; and to determine the critical success factors needed to support further investment and scaling-up of RPM solutions across the Canadian health care system. Break-even analysis of four different implementations reviewed in this study demonstrated that RPM programs can be viable and sustainable for large and small jurisdictions; however, more evidence is needed with regards to a number of potential applications for RPM beyond the management of COPD and CHF.

Corrosion monitoring on a large steel pressure vessel by thin-layer activation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wallace, G.; Boulton, L.H.; Hodder, D.

1989-12-01

Thin-layer activation (TLA) is a technique in which a surface is irradiated by a nuclear accelerator and thereby labeled with an accurate depth profile of low-level radioactivity. By monitoring this activity it is possible to calculate how much of that surface has been removed by corrosion. As the radioactivity is marked by the emission of penetrating gamma rays, it is possible to monitor this corrosion remotely through several centimeters of steel. This technique has been used to monitor erosion-corrosion occurring on the inner carbon steel wall of a continuous Kraft pulp digester at a paper mill. Representative coupons of themore » same steel as the digester wall were irradiated and fixed to the walls in the liquor extraction zone during a maintenance shutdown. The loss of metal over the six months was measured by external monitoring of gamma radiation through the vessel wall, and converted to a corrosion rate. Subsequent weight-loss measurements and comparison with ultrasonic thickness measurements established that the corrosion rate measured gave accurate results over a much shorter time scale. TLA thus enables current, rather than historical corrosion rates to be measured in a large steel pressure vessel.« less

The application of satellite data in monitoring strip mines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sharber, L. A.; Shahrokhi, F.

1977-01-01

Strip mines in the New River Drainage Basin of Tennessee were studied through use of Landsat-1 imagery and aircraft photography. A multilevel analysis, involving conventional photo interpretation techniques, densitometric methods, multispectral analysis and statistical testing was applied to the data. The Landsat imagery proved adequate for monitoring large-scale change resulting from active mining and land-reclamation projects. However, the spatial resolution of the satellite imagery rendered it inadequate for assessment of many smaller strip mines, in the region which may be as small as a few hectares.

Large-scale road safety programmes in low- and middle-income countries: an opportunity to generate evidence.

PubMed

Hyder, Adnan A; Allen, Katharine A; Peters, David H; Chandran, Aruna; Bishai, David

2013-01-01

The growing burden of road traffic injuries, which kill over 1.2 million people yearly, falls mostly on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Despite this, evidence generation on the effectiveness of road safety interventions in LMIC settings remains scarce. This paper explores a scientific approach for evaluating road safety programmes in LMICs and introduces such a road safety multi-country initiative, the Road Safety in 10 Countries Project (RS-10). By building on existing evaluation frameworks, we develop a scientific approach for evaluating large-scale road safety programmes in LMIC settings. This also draws on '13 lessons' of large-scale programme evaluation: defining the evaluation scope; selecting study sites; maintaining objectivity; developing an impact model; utilising multiple data sources; using multiple analytic techniques; maximising external validity; ensuring an appropriate time frame; the importance of flexibility and a stepwise approach; continuous monitoring; providing feedback to implementers, policy-makers; promoting the uptake of evaluation results; and understanding evaluation costs. The use of relatively new approaches for evaluation of real-world programmes allows for the production of relevant knowledge. The RS-10 project affords an important opportunity to scientifically test these approaches for a real-world, large-scale road safety evaluation and generate new knowledge for the field of road safety.

Large Scale Triboelectric Nanogenerator and Self-Powered Pressure Sensor Array Using Low Cost Roll-to-Roll UV Embossing

PubMed Central

Dhakar, Lokesh; Gudla, Sudeep; Shan, Xuechuan; Wang, Zhiping; Tay, Francis Eng Hock; Heng, Chun-Huat; Lee, Chengkuo

2016-01-01

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have emerged as a potential solution for mechanical energy harvesting over conventional mechanisms such as piezoelectric and electromagnetic, due to easy fabrication, high efficiency and wider choice of materials. Traditional fabrication techniques used to realize TENGs involve plasma etching, soft lithography and nanoparticle deposition for higher performance. But lack of truly scalable fabrication processes still remains a critical challenge and bottleneck in the path of bringing TENGs to commercial production. In this paper, we demonstrate fabrication of large scale triboelectric nanogenerator (LS-TENG) using roll-to-roll ultraviolet embossing to pattern polyethylene terephthalate sheets. These LS-TENGs can be used to harvest energy from human motion and vehicle motion from embedded devices in floors and roads, respectively. LS-TENG generated a power density of 62.5 mW m−2. Using roll-to-roll processing technique, we also demonstrate a large scale triboelectric pressure sensor array with pressure detection sensitivity of 1.33 V kPa−1. The large scale pressure sensor array has applications in self-powered motion tracking, posture monitoring and electronic skin applications. This work demonstrates scalable fabrication of TENGs and self-powered pressure sensor arrays, which will lead to extremely low cost and bring them closer to commercial production. PMID:26905285

Monitoring carnivore populations at the landscape scale: occupancy modelling of tigers from sign surveys

USGS Publications Warehouse

Karanth, Kota Ullas; Gopalaswamy, Arjun M.; Kumar, Narayanarao Samba; Vaidyanathan, Srinivas; Nichols, James D.; MacKenzie, Darryl I.

2011-01-01

1. Assessing spatial distributions of threatened large carnivores at landscape scales poses formidable challenges because of their rarity and elusiveness. As a consequence of logistical constraints, investigators typically rely on sign surveys. Most survey methods, however, do not explicitly address the central problem of imperfect detections of animal signs in the field, leading to underestimates of true habitat occupancy and distribution. 2. We assessed habitat occupancy for a tiger Panthera tigris metapopulation across a c. 38 000-km2 landscape in India, employing a spatially replicated survey to explicitly address imperfect detections. Ecological predictions about tiger presence were confronted with sign detection data generated from occupancy sampling of 205 sites, each of 188 km2. 3. A recent occupancy model that considers Markovian dependency among sign detections on spatial replicates performed better than the standard occupancy model (ΔAIC = 184·9). A formulation of this model that fitted the data best showed that density of ungulate prey and levels of human disturbance were key determinants of local tiger presence. Model averaging resulted in a replicate-level detection probability [inline image] = 0·17 (0·17) for signs and a tiger habitat occupancy estimate of [inline image] = 0·665 (0·0857) or 14 076 (1814) km2 of potential habitat of 21 167 km2. In contrast, a traditional presence-versus-absence approach underestimated occupancy by 47%. Maps of probabilities of local site occupancy clearly identified tiger source populations at higher densities and matched observed tiger density variations, suggesting their potential utility for population assessments at landscape scales. 4. Synthesis and applications. Landscape-scale sign surveys can efficiently assess large carnivore spatial distributions and elucidate the factors governing their local presence, provided ecological and observation processes are both explicitly modelled. Occupancy sampling using spatial replicates can be used to reliably and efficiently identify tiger population sources and help monitor metapopulations. Our results reinforce earlier findings that prey depletion and human disturbance are key drivers of local tiger extinctions and tigers can persist even in human-dominated landscapes through effective protection of source populations. Our approach facilitates efficient targeting of tiger conservation interventions and, more generally, provides a basis for the reliable integration of large carnivore monitoring data between local and landscape scales.

Selecting habitat to survive: the impact of road density on survival in a large carnivore.

PubMed

Basille, Mathieu; Van Moorter, Bram; Herfindal, Ivar; Martin, Jodie; Linnell, John D C; Odden, John; Andersen, Reidar; Gaillard, Jean-Michel

2013-01-01

Habitat selection studies generally assume that animals select habitat and food resources at multiple scales to maximise their fitness. However, animals sometimes prefer habitats of apparently low quality, especially when considering the costs associated with spatially heterogeneous human disturbance. We used spatial variation in human disturbance, and its consequences on lynx survival, a direct fitness component, to test the Hierarchical Habitat Selection hypothesis from a population of Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx in southern Norway. Data from 46 lynx monitored with telemetry indicated that a high proportion of forest strongly reduced the risk of mortality from legal hunting at the home range scale, while increasing road density strongly increased such risk at the finer scale within the home range. We found hierarchical effects of the impact of human disturbance, with a higher road density at a large scale reinforcing its negative impact at a fine scale. Conversely, we demonstrated that lynx shifted their habitat selection to avoid areas with the highest road densities within their home ranges, thus supporting a compensatory mechanism at fine scale enabling lynx to mitigate the impact of large-scale disturbance. Human impact, positively associated with high road accessibility, was thus a stronger driver of lynx space use at a finer scale, with home range characteristics nevertheless constraining habitat selection. Our study demonstrates the truly hierarchical nature of habitat selection, which aims at maximising fitness by selecting against limiting factors at multiple spatial scales, and indicates that scale-specific heterogeneity of the environment is driving individual spatial behaviour, by means of trade-offs across spatial scales.

Acceptance and usability of a home-based monitoring tool of health indicators in children of people with dementia: a Proof of Principle (POP) study.

PubMed

Boessen, April Bcg; Vermeulen, Joan; de Witte, Luc P

2017-01-01

Large-scale cohort studies are needed to confirm the relation between dementia and its possible risk factors. The inclusion of people with dementia in research is a challenge, however, children of people with dementia are at risk and are highly motivated to participate in dementia research. For technologies to support home-based data collection during large-scale studies, participants should be able and willing to use technology for a longer period of time. This study investigated acceptance and usability of iVitality, a research platform for home-based monitoring of dementia health indicators, in 151 children of people with dementia and investigated which frequency of measurements is acceptable for them. Participants were randomized to fortnightly or monthly measurements. At baseline and after 3 months, participants completed an online questionnaire regarding the acceptance (Technology Acceptance Model; 38 items) and usability (Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire; 24 items) of iVitality. Items were rated from 1 (I totally disagree) to 7 (I totally agree). Participants were also invited to take part in an online focus group (OFG) after 3 months of follow-up. Descriptive statistics and both two-sample/independent and paired t -tests were used to analyze the online questionnaires and a directed content analysis was used to analyze the OFGs. Children of people with dementia accept iVitality after long-term use and evaluate iVitality as a user-friendly, useful, and trusted technology, despite some suggestions for improvement. Overall, mean scores on acceptance and usability were higher than 5 (I somewhat agree), although the acceptance subscales "social influence" and "time" were rated somewhat lower. No significant differences in acceptance and usability were found between both protocol groups. Over time, "affect" significantly increased among participants measuring blood pressure fortnightly. iVitality has the potential to be used in large-scale studies for home-based monitoring of health indicators related to the development of dementia.

Utilizing the ultrasensitive Schistosoma up-converting phosphor lateral flow circulating anodic antigen (UCP-LF CAA) assay for sample pooling-strategies.

PubMed

Corstjens, Paul L A M; Hoekstra, Pytsje T; de Dood, Claudia J; van Dam, Govert J

2017-11-01

Methodological applications of the high sensitivity genus-specific Schistosoma CAA strip test, allowing detection of single worm active infections (ultimate sensitivity), are discussed for efficient utilization in sample pooling strategies. Besides relevant cost reduction, pooling of samples rather than individual testing can provide valuable data for large scale mapping, surveillance, and monitoring. The laboratory-based CAA strip test utilizes luminescent quantitative up-converting phosphor (UCP) reporter particles and a rapid user-friendly lateral flow (LF) assay format. The test includes a sample preparation step that permits virtually unlimited sample concentration with urine, reaching ultimate sensitivity (single worm detection) at 100% specificity. This facilitates testing large urine pools from many individuals with minimal loss of sensitivity and specificity. The test determines the average CAA level of the individuals in the pool thus indicating overall worm burden and prevalence. When requiring test results at the individual level, smaller pools need to be analysed with the pool-size based on expected prevalence or when unknown, on the average CAA level of a larger group; CAA negative pools do not require individual test results and thus reduce the number of tests. Straightforward pooling strategies indicate that at sub-population level the CAA strip test is an efficient assay for general mapping, identification of hotspots, determination of stratified infection levels, and accurate monitoring of mass drug administrations (MDA). At the individual level, the number of tests can be reduced i.e. in low endemic settings as the pool size can be increased as opposed to prevalence decrease. At the sub-population level, average CAA concentrations determined in urine pools can be an appropriate measure indicating worm burden. Pooling strategies allowing this type of large scale testing are feasible with the various CAA strip test formats and do not affect sensitivity and specificity. It allows cost efficient stratified testing and monitoring of worm burden at the sub-population level, ideally for large-scale surveillance generating hard data for performance of MDA programs and strategic planning when moving towards transmission-stop and elimination.

Ongoing research experiments at the former Soviet nuclear test site in eastern Kazakhstan

USGS Publications Warehouse

Leith, William S.; Kluchko, Luke J.; Konovalov, Vladimir; Vouille, Gerard

2002-01-01

Degelen mountain, located in EasternKazakhstan near the city of Semipalatinsk, was once the Soviets most active underground nuclear test site. Two hundred fifteen nuclear tests were conducted in 181 tunnels driven horizontally into its many ridges--almost twice the number of tests as at any other Soviet underground nuclear test site. It was also the site of the first Soviet underground nuclear test--a 1-kiloton device detonated on October 11, 1961. Until recently, the details of testing at Degelen were kept secret and have been the subject of considerable speculation. However, in 1991, the Semipalatinsk test site became part of the newly independent Republic of Kazakhstan; and in 1995, the Kazakhstani government concluded an agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to eliminate the nuclear testing infrastructure in Kazakhstan. This agreement, which calls for the "demilitarization of the infrastructure directly associated with the nuclear weapons test tunnels," has been implemented as the "Degelen Mountain Tunnel Closure Program." The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in partnership with the Department of Energy, has permitted the use of the tunnel closure project at the former nuclear test site as a foundation on which to support cost-effective, research-and-development-funded experiments. These experiments are principally designed to improve U.S. capabilities to monitor and verify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), but have provided a new source of information on the effects of nuclear and chemical explosions on hard, fractured rock environments. These new data extends and confirms the results of recent Russian publications on the rock environment at the site and the mechanical effects of large-scale chemical and nuclear testing. In 1998, a large-scale tunnel closure experiment, Omega-1, was conducted in Tunnel 214 at Degelen mountain. In this experiment, a 100-ton chemical explosive blast was used to test technologies for monitoring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and to calibrate a portion of the CTBT's International Monitoring System. This experiment has also provided important benchmark data on the mechanical behavior of hard, dense, fractured rock, and has demonstrated the feasibility of fielding large-scale calibration explosions, which are specified as a "confidence-building measure" in the CTBT Protocol. Two other large-scale explosion experiments, Omega-2 and Omega-3, are planned for the summer of 1999 and 2000. Like the Tunnel 214 test, the 1999 experiment will include close-in monitoring of near-source effects, as well as contributing to the calibration of key seismic stations for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The Omega-3 test will examine the effect of multiple blasts on the fractured rock environment.

Predators, Prey and Habitat Structure: Can Key Conservation Areas and Early Signs of Population Collapse Be Detected in Neotropical Forests?

PubMed

de Thoisy, Benoit; Fayad, Ibrahim; Clément, Luc; Barrioz, Sébastien; Poirier, Eddy; Gond, Valéry

2016-01-01

Tropical forests with a low human population and absence of large-scale deforestation provide unique opportunities to study successful conservation strategies, which should be based on adequate monitoring tools. This study explored the conservation status of a large predator, the jaguar, considered an indicator of the maintenance of how well ecological processes are maintained. We implemented an original integrative approach, exploring successive ecosystem status proxies, from habitats and responses to threats of predators and their prey, to canopy structure and forest biomass. Niche modeling allowed identification of more suitable habitats, significantly related to canopy height and forest biomass. Capture/recapture methods showed that jaguar density was higher in habitats identified as more suitable by the niche model. Surveys of ungulates, large rodents and birds also showed higher density where jaguars were more abundant. Although jaguar density does not allow early detection of overall vertebrate community collapse, a decrease in the abundance of large terrestrial birds was noted as good first evidence of disturbance. The most promising tool comes from easily acquired LiDAR data and radar images: a decrease in canopy roughness was closely associated with the disturbance of forests and associated decreasing vertebrate biomass. This mixed approach, focusing on an apex predator, ecological modeling and remote-sensing information, not only helps detect early population declines in large mammals, but is also useful to discuss the relevance of large predators as indicators and the efficiency of conservation measures. It can also be easily extrapolated and adapted in a timely manner, since important open-source data are increasingly available and relevant for large-scale and real-time monitoring of biodiversity.

Predators, Prey and Habitat Structure: Can Key Conservation Areas and Early Signs of Population Collapse Be Detected in Neotropical Forests?

PubMed Central

de Thoisy, Benoit; Fayad, Ibrahim; Clément, Luc; Barrioz, Sébastien; Poirier, Eddy; Gond, Valéry

2016-01-01

Tropical forests with a low human population and absence of large-scale deforestation provide unique opportunities to study successful conservation strategies, which should be based on adequate monitoring tools. This study explored the conservation status of a large predator, the jaguar, considered an indicator of the maintenance of how well ecological processes are maintained. We implemented an original integrative approach, exploring successive ecosystem status proxies, from habitats and responses to threats of predators and their prey, to canopy structure and forest biomass. Niche modeling allowed identification of more suitable habitats, significantly related to canopy height and forest biomass. Capture/recapture methods showed that jaguar density was higher in habitats identified as more suitable by the niche model. Surveys of ungulates, large rodents and birds also showed higher density where jaguars were more abundant. Although jaguar density does not allow early detection of overall vertebrate community collapse, a decrease in the abundance of large terrestrial birds was noted as good first evidence of disturbance. The most promising tool comes from easily acquired LiDAR data and radar images: a decrease in canopy roughness was closely associated with the disturbance of forests and associated decreasing vertebrate biomass. This mixed approach, focusing on an apex predator, ecological modeling and remote-sensing information, not only helps detect early population declines in large mammals, but is also useful to discuss the relevance of large predators as indicators and the efficiency of conservation measures. It can also be easily extrapolated and adapted in a timely manner, since important open-source data are increasingly available and relevant for large-scale and real-time monitoring of biodiversity. PMID:27828993

Spaceborne imaging radar - Geologic and oceanographic applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Elachi, C.

1980-01-01

Synoptic, large-area radar images of the earth's land and ocean surface, obtained from the Seasat orbiting spacecraft, show the potential for geologic mapping and for monitoring of ocean surface patterns. Structural and topographic features such as lineaments, anticlines, folds and domes, drainage patterns, stratification, and roughness units can be mapped. Ocean surface waves, internal waves, current boundaries, and large-scale eddies have been observed in numerous images taken by the Seasat imaging radar. This article gives an illustrated overview of these applications.

Solar Electricity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1988-01-01

ARCO Solar manufactures PV Systems tailored to a broad variety of applications. PV arrays are routinely used at remote communications installations to operate large microwave repeaters, TV and radio repeaters rural telephone, and small telemetry systems that monitor environmental conditions. Also used to power agricultural water pumping systems, to provide electricity for isolated villages and medical clinics, for corrosion protection for pipelines and bridges, to power railroad signals, air/sea navigational aids, and for many types of military systems. ARCO is now moving into large scale generation for utilities.

Segmentation and Quantitative Analysis of Epithelial Tissues.

PubMed

Aigouy, Benoit; Umetsu, Daiki; Eaton, Suzanne

2016-01-01

Epithelia are tissues that regulate exchanges with the environment. They are very dynamic and can acquire virtually any shape; at the cellular level, they are composed of cells tightly connected by junctions. Most often epithelia are amenable to live imaging; however, the large number of cells composing an epithelium and the absence of informatics tools dedicated to epithelial analysis largely prevented tissue scale studies. Here we present Tissue Analyzer, a free tool that can be used to segment and analyze epithelial cells and monitor tissue dynamics.

The implementation of medical monitoring programs following potentially hazardous exposures: a medico-legal perspective.

PubMed

Vearrier, David; Greenberg, Michael I

2017-11-01

Clinical toxicologists may be called upon to determine the appropriateness of medical monitoring following documented or purported exposures to toxicants in the occupational, environmental, and medical settings. We searched the MEDLINE database using the Ovid ® search engine for the following terms cross-referenced to the MeSH database: ("occupational exposures" OR "environmental exposures") AND ("physiologic monitoring" OR "population surveillance"). The titles and abstracts of the resulted articles were reviewed for relevance. We expanded our search to include non-peer-reviewed publications and gray literature and resources using the same terms as utilized in the MEDLINE search. There were a total of 48 relevant peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed publications. Publications excluded contained no information relevant to medical monitoring following potentially harmful toxicologic exposures, discussed only worker screening/surveillance and/or population biomonitoring, contained redundant information, or were superseded by more recent information. Approaches to medical monitoring: A consensus exists in the peer-reviewed medical literature, legal literature, and government publications that for medical monitoring to be a beneficial public health activity, careful consideration must be given to potential benefits and harms of the program. Characteristics of the exposure, the adverse human health effect, the screening test, and the natural history of the disease are important in determining whether an exposed population will reap a net benefit or harm from a proposed monitoring program. Broader interpretations of medical monitoring: Some have argued that medical monitoring programs should not be limited to exposure-related outcomes but should duplicate general preventive medicine efforts to improve public health outcomes although an overall reduction of morbidity, mortality and disability by modifying correctable risk factors and disease conditions. This broader approach is inconsistent with the targeted approach advocated by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the United States Preventive Services Task Force and the bulk of the peer-reviewed medical literature. Medical monitoring in legal contexts: Numerous medical monitoring actions have been litigated. Legal rationales for allowing medical monitoring claims often incorporate some of the scientific criteria for the appropriateness of monitoring programs. In the majority of cases in which plaintiffs were awarded medical monitoring relief, plaintiffs were required to demonstrate both that the condition for which medical monitoring was sought could be detected early, and that early detection and treatment will improve morbidity and mortality. However, the treatment of medical monitoring claims varies significantly depending upon jurisdiction. Examples of large-scale, comprehensive medical monitoring programs: Large-scale, comprehensive medical monitoring programs have been implemented, such as the Fernald Medical Monitoring Program and the World Trade Center Health Program, both of which exceeded the scope of medical monitoring typically recommended in the peer-reviewed medical literature and the courts. The Fernald program sought to prevent death and disability due to non-exposure-related conditions in a manner similar to general preventive medicine. The World Trade Center Health Program provides comprehensive medical care for World Trade Center responders and may be viewed as a large-scale, federally--funded research effort, which distinguishes it from medical monitoring in a medico-legal context. Synthesis of public health approaches to medical monitoring: Medical monitoring may be indicated following a hazardous exposure in limited circumstances. General causation for a specific adverse health effect must be either established by scientific consensus through a formal causal analysis using a framework such as the Bradford-Hill criteria. The exposure must be characterized and must be of sufficient severity that the exposed population has a significantly elevated risk of an adverse health effect. Monitoring must result in earlier detection of the condition than would otherwise occur and must confer a benefit in the form of primary, secondary or tertiary prevention. Outcome tables may be of use in describing the potential benefits and harms of a proposed monitoring program. In the context of litigation, plaintiffs may seek medical monitoring programs after documented or putative exposures. The role of the clinical toxicologist, in this setting, is to evaluate the scientific justifications and medical risks and assist the courts in determining whether monitoring would be expected to result in a net public health benefit.

Biodiversity in canopy-forming algae: Structure and spatial variability of the Mediterranean Cystoseira assemblages

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Piazzi, L.; Bonaviri, C.; Castelli, A.; Ceccherelli, G.; Costa, G.; Curini-Galletti, M.; Langeneck, J.; Manconi, R.; Montefalcone, M.; Pipitone, C.; Rosso, A.; Pinna, S.

2018-07-01

In the Mediterranean Sea, Cystoseira species are the most important canopy-forming algae in shallow rocky bottoms, hosting high biodiverse sessile and mobile communities. A large-scale study has been carried out to investigate the structure of the Cystoseira-dominated assemblages at different spatial scales and to test the hypotheses that alpha and beta diversity of the assemblages, the abundance and the structure of epiphytic macroalgae, epilithic macroalgae, sessile macroinvertebrates and mobile macroinvertebrates associated to Cystoseira beds changed among scales. A hierarchical sampling design in a total of five sites across the Mediterranean Sea (Croatia, Montenegro, Sardinia, Tuscany and Balearic Islands) was used. A total of 597 taxa associated to Cystoseira beds were identified with a mean number per sample ranging between 141.1 ± 6.6 (Tuscany) and 173.9 ± 8.5(Sardinia). A high variability at small (among samples) and large (among sites) scale was generally highlighted, but the studied assemblages showed different patterns of spatial variability. The relative importance of the different scales of spatial variability should be considered to optimize sampling designs and propose monitoring plans of this habitat.

First measurements of the scope for growth (SFG) in mussels from a large scale survey in the North-Atlantic Spanish coast.

PubMed

Albentosa, Marina; Viñas, Lucía; Besada, Victoria; Franco, Angeles; González-Quijano, Amelia

2012-10-01

SFG and physiological rates were measured in wild mussels from the Spanish Marine Pollution monitoring program (SMP) in order to determine seawater quality. It consists of 41 stations, covering almost 2500 km of coast, making the SMP the widest-ranging monitoring network in the Iberian Peninsula's Atlantic region. Results of the 2007 and 2008 surveys when 39 sites were sampled: (20 in 2007 and 19 in 2008, being 8 sites sampled both years) were presented. Chemical analyses were carried out to determine the relationships between physiological rates and the accumulation of toxic compounds. Data presented are the first to become available on the use of SFG as a biomarker of the marine environment on a large spatial scale (>1000 km) along Spain's Atlantic seaboard. SFG values enable significant differences to be established between the areas sampled and between the two years surveyed. The integration of biological and chemical data suggests that certain organochlorine compounds, namely chlordanes and DDTs, may have a negative effect on SFG, although such an effect is of a lesser magnitude than that associated with certain biological parameters such as condition index and mussel age. These variables act as confounding factors when attempting to determine the effect of chemical compounds present in the marine environment on mussel SFG. Further research is therefore needed on the relation between these confounding factors and SFG in order to apply the relevant corrective strategies to enable this index to be used in monitoring programs. The effect of these confounding factors is more clearly revealed in studies that cover a wide-ranging spatial and time scale, such as those carried out within the SMP. These results do not invalidate the use of biological data in monitoring programs, but rather point to the need to analyze all the factors affecting each biological process. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Gamma-Ray Emitting Radio-Loud Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxy PKS 2004-447 II. The Radio View

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schulz, R.; Kreikenbohm, A.; Kadler, M.; Ojha, R.; Ros, E.; Stevens, J.; Edwards, P. G.; Carpenter, B.; Elsaesser, D.; Gehrels, N.;

Developing methods for assessing abundance and distribution of European oysters (Ostrea edulis) using towed video.

PubMed

Thorngren, Linnea; Dunér Holthuis, Thomas; Lindegarth, Susanne; Lindegarth, Mats

2017-01-01

Due to large-scale habitat losses and increasing pressures, benthic habitats in general, and perhaps oyster beds in particular, are commonly in decline and severely threatened on regional and global scales. Appropriate and cost-efficient methods for mapping and monitoring of the distribution, abundance and quality of remaining oyster populations are fundamental for sustainable management and conservation of these habitats and their associated values. Towed video has emerged as a promising method for surveying benthic communities in a both non-destructive and cost-efficient way. Here we examine its use as a tool for quantification and monitoring of oyster populations by (i) analysing how well abundances can be estimated and how living Ostrea edulis individuals can be distinguished from dead ones, (ii) estimating the variability within and among observers as well as the spatial variability at a number of scales, and finally (iii) evaluating the precision of estimated abundances under different scenarios for monitoring. Overall, the results show that the can be used to quantify abundance and occurrence of Ostrea edulis in heterogeneous environments. There was a strong correlation between abundances determined in the field and abundances estimated by video-analyses (r2 = 0.93), even though video analyses underestimated the total abundance of living oysters by 20%. Additionally, the method was largely repeatable within and among observers and revealed no evident bias in identification of living and dead oysters. We also concluded that the spatial variability was an order of magnitude larger than that due to observer errors. Subsequent modelling of precision showed that the total area sampled was the main determinant of precision and provided general method for determining precision. This study provides a thorough validation of the application of towed video on quantitative estimations of live oysters. The results suggest that the method can indeed be very useful for this purpose and we therefor recommend it for future monitoring of oysters and other threatened habitats and species.

Developing methods for assessing abundance and distribution of European oysters (Ostrea edulis) using towed video

PubMed Central

Dunér Holthuis, Thomas; Lindegarth, Susanne; Lindegarth, Mats

2017-01-01

Due to large-scale habitat losses and increasing pressures, benthic habitats in general, and perhaps oyster beds in particular, are commonly in decline and severely threatened on regional and global scales. Appropriate and cost-efficient methods for mapping and monitoring of the distribution, abundance and quality of remaining oyster populations are fundamental for sustainable management and conservation of these habitats and their associated values. Towed video has emerged as a promising method for surveying benthic communities in a both non-destructive and cost-efficient way. Here we examine its use as a tool for quantification and monitoring of oyster populations by (i) analysing how well abundances can be estimated and how living Ostrea edulis individuals can be distinguished from dead ones, (ii) estimating the variability within and among observers as well as the spatial variability at a number of scales, and finally (iii) evaluating the precision of estimated abundances under different scenarios for monitoring. Overall, the results show that the can be used to quantify abundance and occurrence of Ostrea edulis in heterogeneous environments. There was a strong correlation between abundances determined in the field and abundances estimated by video-analyses (r2 = 0.93), even though video analyses underestimated the total abundance of living oysters by 20%. Additionally, the method was largely repeatable within and among observers and revealed no evident bias in identification of living and dead oysters. We also concluded that the spatial variability was an order of magnitude larger than that due to observer errors. Subsequent modelling of precision showed that the total area sampled was the main determinant of precision and provided general method for determining precision. This study provides a thorough validation of the application of towed video on quantitative estimations of live oysters. The results suggest that the method can indeed be very useful for this purpose and we therefor recommend it for future monitoring of oysters and other threatened habitats and species. PMID:29141028

Compliance Groundwater Monitoring of Nonpoint Sources - Emerging Approaches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harter, T.

2008-12-01

Groundwater monitoring networks are typically designed for regulatory compliance of discharges from industrial sites. There, the quality of first encountered (shallow-most) groundwater is of key importance. Network design criteria have been developed for purposes of determining whether an actual or potential, permitted or incidental waste discharge has had or will have a degrading effect on groundwater quality. The fundamental underlying paradigm is that such discharge (if it occurs) will form a distinct contamination plume. Networks that guide (post-contamination) mitigation efforts are designed to capture the shape and dynamics of existing, finite-scale plumes. In general, these networks extend over areas less than one to ten hectare. In recent years, regulatory programs such as the EU Nitrate Directive and the U.S. Clean Water Act have forced regulatory agencies to also control groundwater contamination from non-incidental, recharging, non-point sources, particularly agricultural sources (fertilizer, pesticides, animal waste application, biosolids application). Sources and contamination from these sources can stretch over several tens, hundreds, or even thousands of square kilometers with no distinct plumes. A key question in implementing monitoring programs at the local, regional, and national level is, whether groundwater monitoring can be effectively used as a landowner compliance tool, as is currently done at point-source sites. We compare the efficiency of such traditional site-specific compliance networks in nonpoint source regulation with various designs of regional nonpoint source monitoring networks that could be used for compliance monitoring. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of the site vs. regional monitoring approaches with respect to effectively protecting groundwater resources impacted by nonpoint sources: Site-networks provide a tool to enforce compliance by an individual landowner. But the nonpoint source character of the contamination and its typically large spatial extend requires extensive networks at an individual site to accurately and fairly monitor individual compliance. In contrast, regional networks seemingly fail to hold individual landowners accountable. But regional networks can effectively monitor large-scale impacts and water quality trends; and thus inform regulatory programs that enforce management practices tied to nonpoint source pollution. Regional monitoring networks for compliance purposes can face significant challenges in the implementation due to a regulatory and legal landscape that is exclusively structured to address point sources and individual liability, and due to the non-intensive nature of a regional monitoring program (lack of control of hot spots; lack of accountability of individual landowners).

Ambient Noise Monitoring of the Santa Clara and San Gabriel Aquifers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clements, T.; Denolle, M.

2016-12-01

Ambient noise cross-correlation is an effective technique to monitor temporal changes in the properties of the solid earth. The technique has had particular success in monitoring over time scales differing by orders of magnitude, with precursors to volcanic eruptions occurring over days [Brenguier, et al., 2008, Nature] and post-seismic relaxation in fault zones occurring over years [Brenguier, et al., 2008, Science]. Recently, the technique was extended to investigate the interaction of the solid earth and climate via ice sheet melt [Mordret et al.,2016]. In that vein, we use ambient noise cross-correlation to monitor basin-scale aquifers. The technique is amenable to studying aquifers, as it has potential for high spatial resolution, on the scale of a basin and can monitor aquifer recharge/draw down on timescales from large, single-day storms to multi-year droughts. Geodetics studies have previously recorded both long term, in the Santa Clara Valley [Chaussard et al., 2014, Schmidt and Burgmann, 2003], and short-term, in the San Gabriel Valley [King et al. 2007], ground uplift due to aquifer recharge. We use the Moving Window Cross Spectral technique [Clarke et al., 2011] to monitor wave-speed perturbation in the Santa Clara valley over the period 2001-2016 and San Gabriel Basin over the period 1995-2016. Preliminary results, using stations from the Berkeley Digital Seismograph Network and the USGS Northern California Regional Network, show that seismic velocities vary 0.1% intra-annually. We explore the temporal variations, along with correlations in observed ground water data, precipitation and geodesic measurements to deduce the poroelastic properties of the aquifers during the last two El-Nino and recent droughts in California.

Predicting carbon benefits from climate-smart agriculture: High-resolution carbon mapping and uncertainty assessment in El Salvador.

PubMed

Kearney, Sean Patrick; Coops, Nicholas C; Chan, Kai M A; Fonte, Steven J; Siles, Pablo; Smukler, Sean M

2017-11-01

Agroforestry management in smallholder agriculture can provide climate change mitigation and adaptation benefits and has been promoted as 'climate-smart agriculture' (CSA), yet has generally been left out of international and voluntary carbon (C) mitigation agreements. A key reason for this omission is the cost and uncertainty of monitoring C at the farm scale in heterogeneous smallholder landscapes. A largely overlooked alternative is to monitor C at more aggregated scales and develop C contracts with groups of land owners, community organizations or C aggregators working across entire landscapes (e.g., watersheds, communities, municipalities, etc.). In this study we use a 100-km 2 agricultural area in El Salvador to demonstrate how high-spatial resolution optical satellite imagery can be used to map aboveground woody biomass (AGWB) C at the landscape scale with very low uncertainty (95% probability of a deviation of less than 1%). Uncertainty of AGWB-C estimates remained low (<5%) for areas as small as 250 ha, despite high uncertainties at the farm and plot scale (34-99%). We estimate that CSA adoption could more than double AGWB-C stocks on agricultural lands in the study area, and that utilizing AGWB-C maps to target denuded areas could increase C gains per unit area by 46%. The potential value of C credits under a plausible adoption scenario would range from $38,270 to $354,000 yr -1 for the study area, or about $13 to $124 ha -1  yr -1 , depending on C prices. Considering farm sizes in smallholder landscapes rarely exceed 1-2 ha, relying solely on direct C payments to farmers may not lead to widespread CSA adoption, especially if farm-scale monitoring is required. Instead, landscape-scale approaches to C contracting, supported by satellite-based monitoring methods such as ours, could be a key strategy to reduce costs and uncertainty of C monitoring in heterogeneous smallholder landscapes, thereby incentivizing more widespread CSA adoption. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Characterization and variability of pollutant concentrations for the Las Vegas implementation of the National Near-Road Mobile Source Air Toxics Study

EPA Science Inventory

EPA, in collaboration with FHWA, has been involved in a large-scale monitoring research study in an effort to characterize highway vehicle emissions in a near-road environment. The pollutants of interest include particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 microns ...

Field-scale monitoring of the long-term impact and sustainability of drainage water reuse using ECa-directed soil sampling

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Diminishing freshwater resources have brought attention to the reuse of degraded water as a water resource rather than a disposal problem. Drainage water from tile-drained, irrigated agricultural land is degraded water that is often in large supply, but the long-term impact and sustainability of it...

Remote Sensing Analysis of Forest Disturbances

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Asner, Gregory P. (Inventor)

2015-01-01

The present invention provides systems and methods to automatically analyze Landsat satellite data of forests. The present invention can easily be used to monitor any type of forest disturbance such as from selective logging, agriculture, cattle ranching, natural hazards (fire, wind events, storms), etc. The present invention provides a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote sensing analysis of such disturbances.

Remote sensing analysis of forest disturbances

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Asner, Gregory P. (Inventor)

2012-01-01

The present invention provides systems and methods to automatically analyze Landsat satellite data of forests. The present invention can easily be used to monitor any type of forest disturbance such as from selective logging, agriculture, cattle ranching, natural hazards (fire, wind events, storms), etc. The present invention provides a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote sensing analysis of such disturbances.

Embedded Electro-Optic Sensor Network for the On-Site Calibration and Real-Time Performance Monitoring of Large-Scale Phased Arrays

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-07-09

This final report summarizes the progress during the Phase I SBIR project entitled Embedded Electro - Optic Sensor Network for the On-Site Calibration...network based on an electro - optic field-detection technique (the Electro - optic Sensor Network, or ESN) for the performance evaluation of phased

An Anthropologist among the Psychometricians: Assessment Events, Ethnography, and Differential Item Functioning in the Mongolian Gobi

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maddox, Bryan; Zumbo, Bruno D.; Tay-Lim, Brenda; Qu, Demin

2015-01-01

This article explores the potential for ethnographic observations to inform the analysis of test item performance. In 2010, a standardized, large-scale adult literacy assessment took place in Mongolia as part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme (LAMP). In a novel form…

International Comparative Studies in Education: Descriptions of Selected Large-Scale Assessments and Case Studies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council, Washington, DC. Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.

Since its inception in 1988, the Board on International Comparative Studies in Education (BICSE) has monitored U.S. participation in those cross national comparative studies in education that are funded by its sponsors, the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Education Statistics. This set of international study descriptions…

Monitoring tree secies diversity over large spatial and temporal scales

Treesearch

James F. Rosson; Clifford C. Amundsen

2004-01-01

The prospect of decline in biological diversity has become a central concern in the life sciences, both around the world and across the United States. Anthropogenic disturbance has been identified as a major factor affecting species diversity trends. An increase in the harvesting of naturally diverse timber stands in the South has become an important issue. The...

The Impact of International Large-Scale Assessments on Work-Related Educational Monitoring and Policy-Making in Germany

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seeber, Susan; Lehmann, Rainer

2013-01-01

Germany has relied on its well-established tradition of preparing the workforce through the so-called dual system of practical in-firm training (apprenticeships) and theoretical foundations conveyed by vocational schools. Believing in the high quality of academic school programmes that prepare a small elite for university studies, the German…

Variation of organic matter quantity and quality in streams at Critical Zone Observatory watersheds

Treesearch

Matthew P. Miller; Elizabeth W. Boyer; Diane M. McKnight; Michael G. Brown; Rachel S. Gabor; Carolyn Hunsaker; Lidiia Iavorivska; Shreeram Inamdar; Dale W. Johnson; Louis A. Kaplan; Henry Lin; William H. McDowell; Julia N. Perdrial

2016-01-01

The quantity and chemical composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in surface waters influence ecosystem processes and anthropogenic use of freshwater. However, despite the importance of understanding spatial and temporal patterns in DOM, measures of DOM quality are not routinely included as part of large-scale ecosystem monitoring programs and variations in...

Advancing effects analysis for integrated, large-scale wildfire risk assessment

Treesearch

Matthew P. Thompson; David E. Calkin; Julie W. Gilbertson-Day; Alan A. Ager

2011-01-01

In this article, we describe the design and development of a quantitative, geospatial risk assessment tool intended to facilitate monitoring trends in wildfire risk over time and to provide information useful in prioritizing fuels treatments and mitigation measures. The research effort is designed to develop, from a strategic view, a first approximation of how both...

Using water stable isotopes to assess evaporation and water residence time of lakes in EPA’s National Lakes Assessment.

EPA Science Inventory

Stable isotopes of water (18O and 2H) can be very useful in large-scale monitoring programs because water samples are easy to collect and water isotopes integrate information about basic hydrological processes such as evaporation as a percentage of inflow (E/I), w...

Characterization of Extracellular Proteins in Tomato Fruit using Lectin Affinity Chromatography and LC-MALDI-MS/MS analysis

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The large-scale isolation and analysis of glycoproteins by lectin affinity chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry has become a powerful tool to monitor changes in the “glycoproteome” of mammalian cells. Thus far, however, this approach has not been used extensively for the analysis of plant g...

On the Relevancy of Efficient, Integrated Computer and Network Monitoring in HEP Distributed Online Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carvalho, D.; Gavillet, Ph.; Delgado, V.; Albert, J. N.; Bellas, N.; Javello, J.; Miere, Y.; Ruffinoni, D.; Smith, G.

Large Scientific Equipments are controlled by Computer Systems whose complexity is growing driven, on the one hand by the volume and variety of the information, its distributed nature, the sophistication of its treatment and, on the other hand by the fast evolution of the computer and network market. Some people call them genetically Large-Scale Distributed Data Intensive Information Systems or Distributed Computer Control Systems (DCCS) for those systems dealing more with real time control. Taking advantage of (or forced by) the distributed architecture, the tasks are more and more often implemented as Client-Server applications. In this framework the monitoring of the computer nodes, the communications network and the applications becomes of primary importance for ensuring the safe running and guaranteed performance of the system. With the future generation of HEP experiments, such as those at the LHC in view, it is proposed to integrate the various functions of DCCS monitoring into one general purpose Multi-layer System.

Amphibian and reptile road-kills on tertiary roads in relation to landscape structure: using a citizen science approach with open-access land cover data.

PubMed

Heigl, Florian; Horvath, Kathrin; Laaha, Gregor; Zaller, Johann G

2017-06-26

Amphibians and reptiles are among the most endangered vertebrate species worldwide. However, little is known how they are affected by road-kills on tertiary roads and whether the surrounding landscape structure can explain road-kill patterns. The aim of our study was to examine the applicability of open-access remote sensing data for a large-scale citizen science approach to describe spatial patterns of road-killed amphibians and reptiles on tertiary roads. Using a citizen science app we monitored road-kills of amphibians and reptiles along 97.5 km of tertiary roads covering agricultural, municipal and interurban roads as well as cycling paths in eastern Austria over two seasons. Surrounding landscape was assessed using open access land cover classes for the region (Coordination of Information on the Environment, CORINE). Hotspot analysis was performed using kernel density estimation (KDE+). Relations between land cover classes and amphibian and reptile road-kills were analysed with conditional probabilities and general linear models (GLM). We also estimated the potential cost-efficiency of a large scale citizen science monitoring project. We recorded 180 amphibian and 72 reptile road-kills comprising eight species mainly occurring on agricultural roads. KDE+ analyses revealed a significant clustering of road-killed amphibians and reptiles, which is an important information for authorities aiming to mitigate road-kills. Overall, hotspots of amphibian and reptile road-kills were next to the land cover classes arable land, suburban areas and vineyards. Conditional probabilities and GLMs identified road-kills especially next to preferred habitats of green toad, common toad and grass snake, the most often found road-killed species. A citizen science approach appeared to be more cost-efficient than monitoring by professional researchers only when more than 400 km of road are monitored. Our findings showed that freely available remote sensing data in combination with a citizen science approach would be a cost-efficient method aiming to identify and monitor road-kill hotspots of amphibians and reptiles on a larger scale.

Networking for large-scale science: infrastructure, provisioning, transport and application mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rao, Nageswara S.; Carter, Steven M.; Wu, Qishi; Wing, William R.; Zhu, Mengxia; Mezzacappa, Anthony; Veeraraghavan, Malathi; Blondin, John M.

2005-01-01

Large-scale science computations and experiments require unprecedented network capabilities in the form of large bandwidth and dynamically stable connections to support data transfers, interactive visualizations, and monitoring and steering operations. A number of component technologies dealing with the infrastructure, provisioning, transport and application mappings must be developed and/or optimized to achieve these capabilities. We present a brief account of the following technologies that contribute toward achieving these network capabilities: (a) DOE UltraScienceNet and NSF CHEETAH network testbeds that provide on-demand and scheduled dedicated network connections; (b) experimental results on transport protocols that achieve close to 100% utilization on dedicated 1Gbps wide-area channels; (c) a scheme for optimally mapping a visualization pipeline onto a network to minimize the end-to-end delays; and (d) interconnect configuration and protocols that provides multiple Gbps flows from Cray X1 to external hosts.

Large-scale recording of neuronal ensembles.

PubMed

Buzsáki, György

2004-05-01

How does the brain orchestrate perceptions, thoughts and actions from the spiking activity of its neurons? Early single-neuron recording research treated spike pattern variability as noise that needed to be averaged out to reveal the brain's representation of invariant input. Another view is that variability of spikes is centrally coordinated and that this brain-generated ensemble pattern in cortical structures is itself a potential source of cognition. Large-scale recordings from neuronal ensembles now offer the opportunity to test these competing theoretical frameworks. Currently, wire and micro-machined silicon electrode arrays can record from large numbers of neurons and monitor local neural circuits at work. Achieving the full potential of massively parallel neuronal recordings, however, will require further development of the neuron-electrode interface, automated and efficient spike-sorting algorithms for effective isolation and identification of single neurons, and new mathematical insights for the analysis of network properties.

Large Scale Environmental Monitoring through Integration of Sensor and Mesh Networks

PubMed Central

Jurdak, Raja; Nafaa, Abdelhamid; Barbirato, Alessio

2008-01-01

Monitoring outdoor environments through networks of wireless sensors has received interest for collecting physical and chemical samples at high spatial and temporal scales. A central challenge to environmental monitoring applications of sensor networks is the short communication range of the sensor nodes, which increases the complexity and cost of monitoring commodities that are located in geographically spread areas. To address this issue, we propose a new communication architecture that integrates sensor networks with medium range wireless mesh networks, and provides users with an advanced web portal for managing sensed information in an integrated manner. Our architecture adopts a holistic approach targeted at improving the user experience by optimizing the system performance for handling data that originates at the sensors, traverses the mesh network, and resides at the server for user consumption. This holistic approach enables users to set high level policies that can adapt the resolution of information collected at the sensors, set the preferred performance targets for their application, and run a wide range of queries and analysis on both real-time and historical data. All system components and processes will be described in this paper. PMID:27873941

Design of a Water Environment Monitoring System Based on Wireless Sensor Networks

PubMed Central

Jiang, Peng; Xia, Hongbo; He, Zhiye; Wang, Zheming

2009-01-01

A water environmental monitoring system based on a wireless sensor network is proposed. It consists of three parts: data monitoring nodes, data base station and remote monitoring center. This system is suitable for the complex and large-scale water environment monitoring, such as for reservoirs, lakes, rivers, swamps, and shallow or deep groundwaters. This paper is devoted to the explanation and illustration for our new water environment monitoring system design. The system had successfully accomplished the online auto-monitoring of the water temperature and pH value environment of an artificial lake. The system's measurement capacity ranges from 0 to 80 °C for water temperature, with an accuracy of ±0.5 °C; from 0 to 14 on pH value, with an accuracy of ±0.05 pH units. Sensors applicable to different water quality scenarios should be installed at the nodes to meet the monitoring demands for a variety of water environments and to obtain different parameters. The monitoring system thus promises broad applicability prospects. PMID:22454592

Developments in Earth observation for the assessment and monitoring of inland, transitional, coastal and shelf-sea waters.

PubMed

Tyler, Andrew N; Hunter, Peter D; Spyrakos, Evangelos; Groom, Steve; Constantinescu, Adriana Maria; Kitchen, Jonathan

2016-12-01

The Earth's surface waters are a fundamental resource and encompass a broad range of ecosystems that are core to global biogeochemical cycling and food and energy production. Despite this, the Earth's surface waters are impacted by multiple natural and anthropogenic pressures and drivers of environmental change. The complex interaction between physical, chemical and biological processes in surface waters poses significant challenges for in situ monitoring and assessment and often limits our ability to adequately capture the dynamics of aquatic systems and our understanding of their status, functioning and response to pressures. Here we explore the opportunities that Earth observation (EO) has to offer to basin-scale monitoring of water quality over the surface water continuum comprising inland, transition and coastal water bodies, with a particular focus on the Danube and Black Sea region. This review summarises the technological advances in EO and the opportunities that the next generation satellites offer for water quality monitoring. We provide an overview of algorithms for the retrieval of water quality parameters and demonstrate how such models have been used for the assessment and monitoring of inland, transitional, coastal and shelf-sea systems. Further, we argue that very few studies have investigated the connectivity between these systems especially in large river-sea systems such as the Danube-Black Sea. Subsequently, we describe current capability in operational processing of archive and near real-time satellite data. We conclude that while the operational use of satellites for the assessment and monitoring of surface waters is still developing for inland and coastal waters and more work is required on the development and validation of remote sensing algorithms for these optically complex waters, the potential that these data streams offer for developing an improved, potentially paradigm-shifting understanding of physical and biogeochemical processes across large scale river-sea systems including the Danube-Black Sea is considerable. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

A comparison of single- and multi-site calibration and validation: a case study of SWAT in the Miyun Reservoir watershed, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bai, Jianwen; Shen, Zhenyao; Yan, Tiezhu

2017-09-01

An essential task in evaluating global water resource and pollution problems is to obtain the optimum set of parameters in hydrological models through calibration and validation. For a large-scale watershed, single-site calibration and validation may ignore spatial heterogeneity and may not meet the needs of the entire watershed. The goal of this study is to apply a multi-site calibration and validation of the Soil andWater Assessment Tool (SWAT), using the observed flow data at three monitoring sites within the Baihe watershed of the Miyun Reservoir watershed, China. Our results indicate that the multi-site calibration parameter values are more reasonable than those obtained from single-site calibrations. These results are mainly due to significant differences in the topographic factors over the large-scale area, human activities and climate variability. The multi-site method involves the division of the large watershed into smaller watersheds, and applying the calibrated parameters of the multi-site calibration to the entire watershed. It was anticipated that this case study could provide experience of multi-site calibration in a large-scale basin, and provide a good foundation for the simulation of other pollutants in followup work in the Miyun Reservoir watershed and other similar large areas.

Automated Monitoring of Carbon Fluxes in a Northern Rocky Mountain Forest Indicates Above-Average Net Primary Productivity During the 2015 Western U.S. Drought

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stenzel, J.; Hudiburg, T. W.

2016-12-01

As global temperatures rise in the 21st century, "hotter" droughts will become more intense and persistent, particularly in areas which already experience seasonal drought. Because forests represent a large and persistent terrestrial carbon sink which has previously offset a significant proportion of anthropogenic carbon emissions, forest carbon cycle responses to drought have become a prominent research concern. However, robust mechanistic modeling of carbon balance responses to projected drought effects requires improved observation-driven representations of carbon cycle processes; many such component processes are rarely monitored in complex terrain, are modeled or unrepresented quantities at eddy covariance sites, or are monitored at course temporal scales that are not conducive to elucidating process responses at process time scales. In the present study, we demonstrate the use of newly available and affordable automated dendrometers for the estimation of intra-seasonal Net Primary Productivity (NPP) in a Northern Rocky Mountain conifer forest which is impacted by seasonal drought. Results from our pilot study suggest that NPP was restricted by mid-summer moisture deficit under the extraordinary 2015 Western U.S. drought, with greater than 90% off stand growth occurring prior to August. Examination of growth on an inter-annual scale, however, suggests that the study site experienced above-average NPP during this exceptionally hot year. Taken together, these findings indicate that intensifying mid-summer drought in regional forests has affected the timing but has not diminished the magnitude of this carbon flux. By employing automated instrumentation for the intra-annual assessment of NPP, we reveal that annual NPP in regional forests is largely determined before mid-summer and is therefore surprisingly resilient to intensities of seasonal drought that exceed normal conditions of the 20th century.

Large-Scale SRM Screen of Urothelial Bladder Cancer Candidate Biomarkers in Urine.

PubMed

Duriez, Elodie; Masselon, Christophe D; Mesmin, Cédric; Court, Magali; Demeure, Kevin; Allory, Yves; Malats, Núria; Matondo, Mariette; Radvanyi, François; Garin, Jérôme; Domon, Bruno

2017-04-07

Urothelial bladder cancer is a condition associated with high recurrence and substantial morbidity and mortality. Noninvasive urinary tests that would detect bladder cancer and tumor recurrence are required to significantly improve patient care. Over the past decade, numerous bladder cancer candidate biomarkers have been identified in the context of extensive proteomics or transcriptomics studies. To translate these findings in clinically useful biomarkers, the systematic evaluation of these candidates remains the bottleneck. Such evaluation involves large-scale quantitative LC-SRM (liquid chromatography-selected reaction monitoring) measurements, targeting hundreds of signature peptides by monitoring thousands of transitions in a single analysis. The design of highly multiplexed SRM analyses is driven by several factors: throughput, robustness, selectivity and sensitivity. Because of the complexity of the samples to be analyzed, some measurements (transitions) can be interfered by coeluting isobaric species resulting in biased or inconsistent estimated peptide/protein levels. Thus the assessment of the quality of SRM data is critical to allow flagging these inconsistent data. We describe an efficient and robust method to process large SRM data sets, including the processing of the raw data, the detection of low-quality measurements, the normalization of the signals for each protein, and the estimation of protein levels. Using this methodology, a variety of proteins previously associated with bladder cancer have been assessed through the analysis of urine samples from a large cohort of cancer patients and corresponding controls in an effort to establish a priority list of most promising candidates to guide subsequent clinical validation studies.

Evaluating large-scale health programmes at a district level in resource-limited countries.

PubMed

Svoronos, Theodore; Mate, Kedar S

2011-11-01

Recent experience in evaluating large-scale global health programmes has highlighted the need to consider contextual differences between sites implementing the same intervention. Traditional randomized controlled trials are ill-suited for this purpose, as they are designed to identify whether an intervention works, not how, when and why it works. In this paper we review several evaluation designs that attempt to account for contextual factors that contribute to intervention effectiveness. Using these designs as a base, we propose a set of principles that may help to capture information on context. Finally, we propose a tool, called a driver diagram, traditionally used in implementation that would allow evaluators to systematically monitor changing dynamics in project implementation and identify contextual variation across sites. We describe an implementation-related example from South Africa to underline the strengths of the tool. If used across multiple sites and multiple projects, the resulting driver diagrams could be pooled together to form a generalized theory for how, when and why a widely-used intervention works. Mechanisms similar to the driver diagram are urgently needed to complement existing evaluations of large-scale implementation efforts.

Topographically Engineered Large Scale Nanostructures for Plasmonic Biosensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao, Bo; Pradhan, Sangram K.; Santiago, Kevin C.; Rutherford, Gugu N.; Pradhan, Aswini K.

2016-04-01

We demonstrate that a nanostructured metal thin film can achieve enhanced transmission efficiency and sharp resonances and use a large-scale and high-throughput nanofabrication technique for the plasmonic structures. The fabrication technique combines the features of nanoimprint and soft lithography to topographically construct metal thin films with nanoscale patterns. Metal nanogratings developed using this method show significantly enhanced optical transmission (up to a one-order-of-magnitude enhancement) and sharp resonances with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of ~15nm in the zero-order transmission using an incoherent white light source. These nanostructures are sensitive to the surrounding environment, and the resonance can shift as the refractive index changes. We derive an analytical method using a spatial Fourier transformation to understand the enhancement phenomenon and the sensing mechanism. The use of real-time monitoring of protein-protein interactions in microfluidic cells integrated with these nanostructures is demonstrated to be effective for biosensing. The perpendicular transmission configuration and large-scale structures provide a feasible platform without sophisticated optical instrumentation to realize label-free surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing.

Large-scale filament formation inhibits the activity of CTP synthetase

PubMed Central

Barry, Rachael M; Bitbol, Anne-Florence; Lorestani, Alexander; Charles, Emeric J; Habrian, Chris H; Hansen, Jesse M; Li, Hsin-Jung; Baldwin, Enoch P; Wingreen, Ned S; Kollman, Justin M; Gitai, Zemer

2014-01-01

CTP Synthetase (CtpS) is a universally conserved and essential metabolic enzyme. While many enzymes form small oligomers, CtpS forms large-scale filamentous structures of unknown function in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. By simultaneously monitoring CtpS polymerization and enzymatic activity, we show that polymerization inhibits activity, and CtpS's product, CTP, induces assembly. To understand how assembly inhibits activity, we used electron microscopy to define the structure of CtpS polymers. This structure suggests that polymerization sterically hinders a conformational change necessary for CtpS activity. Structure-guided mutagenesis and mathematical modeling further indicate that coupling activity to polymerization promotes cooperative catalytic regulation. This previously uncharacterized regulatory mechanism is important for cellular function since a mutant that disrupts CtpS polymerization disrupts E. coli growth and metabolic regulation without reducing CTP levels. We propose that regulation by large-scale polymerization enables ultrasensitive control of enzymatic activity while storing an enzyme subpopulation in a conformationally restricted form that is readily activatable. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.03638.001 PMID:25030911

Long-term magnetic field monitoring of the Sun-like star ξ Bootis A

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morgenthaler, A.; Petit, P.; Saar, S.; Solanki, S. K.; Morin, J.; Marsden, S. C.; Aurière, M.; Dintrans, B.; Fares, R.; Gastine, T.; Lanoux, J.; Lignières, F.; Paletou, F.; Ramírez Vélez, J. C.; Théado, S.; Van Grootel, V.

2012-04-01

Aims: We aim to investigate the long-term temporal evolution of the magnetic field of the solar-type star ξ Bootis A, both from direct magnetic field measurements and from the simultaneous estimate of indirect activity indicators. Methods: We obtained seven epochs of high-resolution, circularly-polarized spectra from the NARVAL spectropolarimeter between 2007 and 2011, for a total of 76 spectra. Using approximately 6100 photospheric spectral lines covering the visible domain, we employed a cross-correlation procedure to compute a mean polarized line profile from each spectrum. The large-scale photospheric magnetic field of the star was then modelled by means of Zeeman-Doppler Imaging, allowing us to follow the year-to-year evolution of the reconstructed magnetic topology. Simultaneously, we monitored the width of several magnetically sensitive spectral lines, the radial velocity, the line asymmetry of intensity line profiles, and the chromospheric emission in the cores of the Ca II H and Hα lines. Results: During the highest observed activity states, in 2007 and 2011, the large-scale field of ξ Bootis A is almost completely axisymmetric and is dominated by its toroidal component. The toroidal component persists with a constant polarity, containing a significant fraction of the magnetic energy of the large-scale surface field through all observing epochs. The magnetic topologies reconstructed for these activity maxima are very similar, suggesting a form of short cyclicity in the large-scale field distribution. The mean unsigned large-scale magnetic flux derived from the magnetic maps varies by a factor of about 2 between the lowest and highest observed magnetic states. The chromospheric flux is less affected and varies by a factor of 1.2. Correlated temporal evolution, due to both rotational modulation and seasonal variability, is observed between the Ca II emission, the Hα emission and the width of magnetically sensitive lines. The rotational dependence of polarimetric magnetic measurements displays a weak correlation with other activity proxies, presumably due to the different spatial scales and centre-to-limb darkening associated with polarimetric signatures, as compared to non-polarized activity indicators. Better agreement is observed on the longer term. When measurable, the differential rotation reveals a strong latitudinal shear in excess of 0.2 rad d-1. Based on observations obtained at the Bernard Lyot Telescope (TBL, Pic du Midi, France) of the Midi-Pyrénées Observatory, which is operated by the Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique of France.Tables 3-6 are available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org

GEOGLAM Crop Assessment Tool: Adapting from global agricultural monitoring to food security monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Humber, M. L.; Becker-Reshef, I.; Nordling, J.; Barker, B.; McGaughey, K.

2014-12-01

The GEOGLAM Crop Monitor's Crop Assessment Tool was released in August 2013 in support of the GEOGLAM Crop Monitor's objective to develop transparent, timely crop condition assessments in primary agricultural production areas, highlighting potential hotspots of stress/bumper crops. The Crop Assessment Tool allows users to view satellite derived products, best available crop masks, and crop calendars (created in collaboration with GEOGLAM Crop Monitor partners), then in turn submit crop assessment entries detailing the crop's condition, drivers, impacts, trends, and other information. Although the Crop Assessment Tool was originally intended to collect data on major crop production at the global scale, the types of data collected are also relevant to the food security and rangelands monitoring communities. In line with the GEOGLAM Countries at Risk philosophy of "foster[ing] the coordination of product delivery and capacity building efforts for national and regional organizations, and the development of harmonized methods and tools", a modified version of the Crop Assessment Tool is being developed for the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). As a member of the Countries at Risk component of GEOGLAM, FEWS NET provides agricultural monitoring, timely food security assessments, and early warnings of potential significant food shortages focusing specifically on countries at risk of food security emergencies. While the FEWS NET adaptation of the Crop Assessment Tool focuses on crop production in the context of food security rather than large scale production, the data collected is nearly identical to the data collected by the Crop Monitor. If combined, the countries monitored by FEWS NET and GEOGLAM Crop Monitor would encompass over 90 countries representing the most important regions for crop production and food security.

Watershed Scale Monitoring and Modeling of Natural Organic Matter (NOM) Generation and Transport

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adams, R.; Rees, P. L.; Reckhow, D. A.; Castellon, C. M.

2006-05-01

This study describes a coupled watershed scale monitoring campaign, laboratory study, and hydrological modeling study which has been focused on determining the sources and transport mechanisms for Natural Organic Matter (NOM), in a small, mostly forested New England watershed. For some time, the state conservation authorities and a large metropolitan water authority have been concerned that the level of naturally-occurring disinfection byproducts in drinking water supplied by a large surface water reservoir (Watchusett Reservoir, MA) have been increasing over time. The resulting study has attempted to investigate how these compounds, which are mostly formed by the chlorination process at the water treatment plant, are related to NOM precursor compounds which are generated from organic matter and transported by runoff processes in the watershed of the Watchusett Reservoir. The laboratory study measures disinfection byproduct formation potential (DBPFP) through chlorination of raw water samples obtained through field monitoring. Samples are analysed for trihalomethanes (THMs), and haloacetic acids (HAAs). Samples are also analysed for dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and ultraviolet absorbance at 254 nm (UV254). The samples have been collected from as many components of the hydrological cycle as possible in one of the subcatchments of Watchusett Reservoir (Stillwater River). To date the samples include, stream runoff, water impounded naturally in small ponds by beaver dams, rainfall, snow, throughfall (drainage from tree canopies) and samples pumped from shallow suction lysimeters which were installed to monitor soil water in the riparian zone. The current monitoring program began in late-Summer 2005, however infrequent stream samples are available dating back to 2000 from an earlier research project and water quality monitoring by various regulatory authorities. The monitoring program has been designed to capture as much seasonal variation in water chemistry as possible and also to capture a large spring snowmelt event. The modeling study has been designed to provide a method of estimating the export of NOM and DBPFP precursor compounds by running a series of simple macromodels. One of these models has already been developed for DOC transport based on a variant of the popular TOPMODEL hydrological model. Currently, historical daily streamflow and precipitation data have been used to calibrate the hydrological model, and the results from the current and previous monitoring programs are being used to improve the representation of DOM generation in the model. The ultimate aim is to produce a modeling tool which can be used to investigate changes both in land-use and climate in the watershed and the resulting effects on the export of NOM and DBPFP compounds into the reservoir.

Demonstration-Scale High-Cell-Density Fermentation of Pichia pastoris.

PubMed

Liu, Wan-Cang; Zhu, Ping

2018-01-01

Pichia pastoris has been one of the most successful heterologous overexpression systems in generating proteins for large-scale production through high-cell-density fermentation. However, optimizing conditions of the large-scale high-cell-density fermentation for biochemistry and industrialization is usually a laborious and time-consuming process. Furthermore, it is often difficult to produce authentic proteins in large quantities, which is a major obstacle for functional and structural features analysis and industrial application. For these reasons, we have developed a protocol for efficient demonstration-scale high-cell-density fermentation of P. pastoris, which employs a new methanol-feeding strategy-biomass-stat strategy and a strategy of increased air pressure instead of pure oxygen supplement. The protocol included three typical stages of glycerol batch fermentation (initial culture phase), glycerol fed-batch fermentation (biomass accumulation phase), and methanol fed-batch fermentation (induction phase), which allows direct online-monitoring of fermentation conditions, including broth pH, temperature, DO, anti-foam generation, and feeding of glycerol and methanol. Using this protocol, production of the recombinant β-xylosidase of Lentinula edodes origin in 1000-L scale fermentation can be up to ~900 mg/L or 9.4 mg/g cells (dry cell weight, intracellular expression), with the specific production rate and average specific production of 0.1 mg/g/h and 0.081 mg/g/h, respectively. The methodology described in this protocol can be easily transferred to other systems, and eligible to scale up for a large number of proteins used in either the scientific studies or commercial purposes.

Can erosion control structures in large dryland arroyo channels lead to resilient riparian and cienega restoration? Observations from LiDAR, monitoring and modeling at Rancho San Bernardino, Sonora, MX

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

DeLong, S.; Henderson, W. M.

2012-12-01

The use of erosion control structures to mitigate or even reverse erosion and to restore ecological function along dryland channels (arroyos and gullies) has led to a long list of both successful and failed restoration efforts. We propose that successful implementation of "engineering" approaches to fluvial restoration that include in-channel control structures require either a quantitative approach to design (by scientists and engineers), or intimate on-the-ground knowledge, local observation, and a commitment to adapt and maintain restoration efforts in response to landscape change (by local land managers), or both. We further propose that the biophysical interactions among engineering, sedimentation, flood hydrology and vegetation reestablishment are what determine resilience to destructive extreme events that commonly cause erosion control structure failure. Our insights come from comprehensive monitoring of a remarkable experiment underway at Ranch San Bernardino, Sonora, MX. At this site, private landowners are working to restore ecosystem function to riparian corridors and former cieñega wetlands using cessation of grazing; vegetation planting; upland grass restoration; large scale rock gabions (up to 100 m wide) to encourage local sediment deposition and water storage; and large earthen berms (up to 900 m wide) with cement spillways that form reservoirs that fill rapidly with water and sediment. Well-planned and managed erosion control structures have been used elsewhere successfully in smaller gully networks, but we are unaware of a comparable attempt to use gabions and berms for the sole purpose of ecological restoration along >10 km of arroyo channels draining watersheds on the order of ~400 km2 and larger. We present an approach to monitoring the efficacy of arroyo channel restoration using terrestrial and airborne LiDAR, remote sensing, streamflow monitoring, shallow groundwater monitoring, hydrological modeling and field observation. Our methods allow us to directly quantify the magnitude of sedimentation (and hence reversal of arroyo cutting) upstream of in-channel structures as a function of hydrology, and to quantify the dampening of flood energy caused by erosion control structures and by the restoration of riparian vegetation. We are also able to create a surface water budget that constrains water storage and infiltration by monitoring streamflow at several places above, within, and downstream of restoration efforts. We also speculate on the resilience of such efforts. Quantifying the effects of the restoration efforts at Rancho San Bernardino may prove useful in guiding similar large-scale ecological restoration efforts elsewhere in degraded dryland landscapes.

Geophysical Methods for Investigating Ground-Water Recharge

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ferre, Ty P.A.; Binley, Andrew M.; Blasch, Kyle W.; Callegary, James B.; Crawford, Steven M.; Fink, James B.; Flint, Alan L.; Flint, Lorraine E.; Hoffmann, John P.; Izbicki, John A.; Levitt, Marc T.; Pool, Donald R.; Scanlon, Bridget R.

2007-01-01

While numerical modeling has revolutionized our understanding of basin-scale hydrologic processes, such models rely almost exclusively on traditional measurements?rainfall, streamflow, and water-table elevations?for calibration and testing. Model calibration provides initial estimates of ground-water recharge. Calibrated models are important yet crude tools for addressing questions about the spatial and temporal distribution of recharge. An inverse approach to recharge estimation is taken of necessity, due to inherent difficulties in making direct measurements of flow across the water table. Difficulties arise because recharging fluxes are typically small, even in humid regions, and because the location of the water table changes with time. Deep water tables in arid and semiarid regions make recharge monitoring especially difficult. Nevertheless, recharge monitoring must advance in order to improve assessments of ground-water recharge. Improved characterization of basin-scale recharge is critical for informed water-resources management. Difficulties in directly measuring recharge have prompted many efforts to develop indirect methods. The mass-balance approach of estimating recharge as the residual of generally much larger terms has persisted despite the use of increasing complex and finely gridded large-scale hydrologic models. Geophysical data pertaining to recharge rates, timing, and patterns have the potential to substantially improve modeling efforts by providing information on boundary conditions, by constraining model inputs, by testing simplifying assumptions, and by identifying the spatial and temporal resolutions needed to predict recharge to a specified tolerance in space and in time. Moreover, under certain conditions, geophysical measurements can yield direct estimates of recharge rates or changes in water storage, largely eliminating the need for indirect measures of recharge. This appendix presents an overview of physically based, geophysical methods that are currently available or under development for recharge monitoring. The material is written primarily for hydrogeologists. Uses of geophysical methods for improving recharge monitoring are explored through brief discussions and case studies. The intent is to indicate how geophysical methods can be used effectively in studying recharge processes and quantifying recharge. As such, the material constructs a framework for matching the strengths of individual geophysical methods with the manners in which they can be applied for hydrologic analyses. The appendix is organized in three sections. First, the key hydrologic parameters necessary to determine the rate, timing, and patterns of recharge are identified. Second, the basic operating principals of the relevant geophysical methods are discussed. Methods are grouped by the physical property that they measure directly. Each measured property is related to one or more of the key hydrologic properties for recharge monitoring. Third, the emerging conceptual framework for applying geophysics to recharge monitoring is presented. Examples of the application of selected geophysical methods to recharge monitoring are presented in nine case studies. These studies illustrate hydrogeophysical applications under a wide range of conditions and measurement scales, which vary from tenths of a meter to hundreds of meters. The case studies include practice-proven as well as emerging applications of geophysical methods to recharge monitoring.

High-frequency remote monitoring of large lakes with MODIS 500 m imagery

USGS Publications Warehouse

McCullough, Ian M.; Loftin, Cynthia S.; Sader, Steven A.

2012-01-01

Satellite-based remote monitoring programs of regional lake water quality largely have relied on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) owing to its long image archive, moderate spatial resolution (30 m), and wide sensitivity in the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, despite some notable limitations such as temporal resolution (i.e., 16 days), data pre-processing requirements to improve data quality, and aging satellites. Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors on Aqua/Terra platforms compensate for these shortcomings, although at the expense of spatial resolution. We developed and evaluated a remote monitoring protocol for water clarity of large lakes using MODIS 500 m data and compared MODIS utility to Landsat-based methods. MODIS images captured during May–September 2001, 2004 and 2010 were analyzed with linear regression to identify the relationship between lake water clarity and satellite-measured surface reflectance. Correlations were strong (R² = 0.72–0.94) throughout the study period; however, they were the most consistent in August, reflecting seasonally unstable lake conditions and inter-annual differences in algal productivity during the other months. The utility of MODIS data in remote water quality estimation lies in intra-annual monitoring of lake water clarity in inaccessible, large lakes, whereas Landsat is more appropriate for inter-annual, regional trend analyses of lakes ≥ 8 ha. Model accuracy is improved when ancillary variables are included to reflect seasonal lake dynamics and weather patterns that influence lake clarity. The identification of landscape-scale drivers of regional water quality is a useful way to supplement satellite-based remote monitoring programs relying on spectral data alone.

Changing Permafrost in the Arctic and its Global Effects in the 21st Century (PAGE21): A very large international and integrated project to measure the impact of permafrost degradation on the climate system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lantuit, Hugues; Boike, Julia; Dahms, Melanie; Hubberten, Hans-Wolfgang

2013-04-01

The northern permafrost region contains approximately 50% of the estimated global below-ground organic carbon pool and more than twice as much as is contained in the current atmos-pheric carbon pool. The sheer size of this carbon pool, together with the large amplitude of predicted arctic climate change im-plies that there is a high potential for global-scale feedbacks from arctic climate change if these carbon reservoirs are desta-bilized. Nonetheless, significant gaps exist in our current state of knowledge that prevent us from producing accurate assess-ments of the vulnerability of the arctic permafrost to climate change, or of the implications of future climate change for global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Specifically: • Our understanding of the physical and biogeochemical processes at play in permafrost areas is still insuffi-cient in some key aspects • Size estimates for the high latitude continental carbon and nitrogen stocks vary widely between regions and research groups. • The representation of permafrost-related processes in global climate models still tends to be rudimentary, and is one reason for the frequently poor perform-ances of climate models at high latitudes. The key objectives of PAGE21 are: • to improve our understanding of the processes affect-ing the size of the arctic permafrost carbon and nitro-gen pools through detailed field studies and monitor-ing, in order to quantify their size and their vulnerability to climate change, • to produce, assemble and assess high-quality datasets in order to develop and evaluate representations of permafrost and related processes in global models, • to improve these models accordingly, • to use these models to reduce the uncertainties in feed-backs from arctic permafrost to global change, thereby providing the means to assess the feasibility of stabili-zation scenarios, and • to ensure widespread dissemination of our results in order to provide direct input into the ongoing debate on climate-change mitigation. The concept of PAGE21 is to directly address these questions through a close interaction between monitoring activities, proc-ess studies and modeling on the pertinent temporal and spatial scales. Field sites have been selected to cover a wide range of environmental conditions for the validation of large scale mod-els, the development of permafrost monitoring capabilities, the study of permafrost processes, and for overlap with existing monitoring programs. PAGE21 will contribute to upgrading the project sites with the objective of providing a measurement baseline, both for process studies and for modeling programs. PAGE21 is determined to break down the traditional barriers in permafrost sciences between observational and model-supported site studies and large-scale climate modeling. Our concept for the interaction between site-scale studies and large-scale modeling is to establish and maintain a direct link be-tween these two areas for developing and evaluating, on all spatial scales, the land-surface modules of leading European global climate models taking part in the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), designed to inform the IPCC process. The timing of this project is such that the main scientific results from PAGE21, and in particular the model-based assessments will build entirely on new outputs and results from the CMIP5 Climate Model Intercomparison Project designed to inform the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. However, PAGE21 is designed to leave a legacy that will en-dure beyond the lifetime of the projections that it produces. This legacy will comprise • an improved understanding of the key processes and parameters that determine the vulnerability of arctic permafrost to climate change, • the production of a suite of major European coupled climate models including detailed and validated repre-sentations of permafrost-related processes, that will reduce uncertainties in future climate projections pro-duced well beyond the lifetime of PAGE21, and • the training of a new generation of permafrost scien-tists who will bridge the long-standing gap between permafrost field science and global climate modeling, for the long-term benefit of science and society.

Detecting Bioterrorism: Is Chemistry Enough?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Omberg, Kristin M.

2014-03-13

This slide shows how most bioaerosol detection systems work. There is a lot of concern in the biothreat community, and in the federal government, about a large-scale aerosolized attack. Because of that, we’ve implemented environmental monitoring programs that use aerosol collectors to continuously monitor for the presence of threat agents in the air. Air samples are usually analyzed using PCR, which is one of the most effective analytical techniques we have for identifying DNA. Experiments and modeling have shown these systems are effective, and can warn public health of an impending crisis in time to mount an effective response.

Reaching the Unreachable: Novel Approaches to Telemedicine Screening of Underserved Populations for Vitreoretinal Disease.

PubMed

Murchison, Ann P; Haller, Julia A; Mayro, Eileen; Hark, Lisa; Gower, Emily; Huisingh, Carrie; Rhodes, Lindsay; Friedman, David S; Lee, David J; Lam, Byron L

2017-07-01

Telemedicine involves electronic communication between a physician in one location and a patient in another location to provide remote medical care. Ophthalmologists are increasingly employing telemedicine, particularly in retinal disease screening and monitoring. Telemedicine has been utilized to decrease barriers to care and yield greater patient satisfaction and lower costs, while maintaining high sensitivity and specificity. This review discusses common patient barriers to eye care, innovative approaches to retinal disease screening and monitoring using telemedicine, and eye care policy initiatives needed to enact large-scale telemedicine eye disease screening programs.

Facilitating large-scale clinical trials: in Asia.

PubMed

Choi, Han Yong; Ko, Jae-Wook

2010-01-01

The number of clinical trials conducted in Asian countries has started to increase as a result of expansion of the pharmaceutical market in this area. There is a growing opportunity for large-scale clinical trials because of the large number of patients, significant market potential, good quality of data, and the cost effective and qualified medical infrastructure. However, for carrying out large-scale clinical trials in Asia, there are several major challenges, including the quality control of data, budget control, laboratory validation, monitoring capacity, authorship, staff training, and nonstandard treatment that need to be considered. There are also several difficulties in collaborating on international trials in Asia because Asia is an extremely diverse continent. The major challenges are language differences, diversity of patterns of disease, and current treatments, a large gap in the experience with performing multinational trials, and regulatory differences among the Asian countries. In addition, there are also differences in the understanding of global clinical trials, medical facilities, indemnity assurance, and culture, including food and religion. To make regional and local data provide evidence for efficacy through the standardization of these differences, unlimited effort is required. At this time, there are no large clinical trials led by urologists in Asia, but it is anticipated that the role of urologists in clinical trials will continue to increase. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The seismo-hydromechanical behavior during deep geothermal reservoir stimulations: open questions tackled in a decameter-scale in situ stimulation experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amann, Florian; Gischig, Valentin; Evans, Keith; Doetsch, Joseph; Jalali, Reza; Valley, Benoît; Krietsch, Hannes; Dutler, Nathan; Villiger, Linus; Brixel, Bernard; Klepikova, Maria; Kittilä, Anniina; Madonna, Claudio; Wiemer, Stefan; Saar, Martin O.; Loew, Simon; Driesner, Thomas; Maurer, Hansruedi; Giardini, Domenico

2018-02-01

In this contribution, we present a review of scientific research results that address seismo-hydromechanically coupled processes relevant for the development of a sustainable heat exchanger in low-permeability crystalline rock and introduce the design of the In situ Stimulation and Circulation (ISC) experiment at the Grimsel Test Site dedicated to studying such processes under controlled conditions. The review shows that research on reservoir stimulation for deep geothermal energy exploitation has been largely based on laboratory observations, large-scale projects and numerical models. Observations of full-scale reservoir stimulations have yielded important results. However, the limited access to the reservoir and limitations in the control on the experimental conditions during deep reservoir stimulations is insufficient to resolve the details of the hydromechanical processes that would enhance process understanding in a way that aids future stimulation design. Small-scale laboratory experiments provide fundamental insights into various processes relevant for enhanced geothermal energy, but suffer from (1) difficulties and uncertainties in upscaling the results to the field scale and (2) relatively homogeneous material and stress conditions that lead to an oversimplistic fracture flow and/or hydraulic fracture propagation behavior that is not representative of a heterogeneous reservoir. Thus, there is a need for intermediate-scale hydraulic stimulation experiments with high experimental control that bridge the various scales and for which access to the target rock mass with a comprehensive monitoring system is possible. The ISC experiment is designed to address open research questions in a naturally fractured and faulted crystalline rock mass at the Grimsel Test Site (Switzerland). Two hydraulic injection phases were executed to enhance the permeability of the rock mass. During the injection phases the rock mass deformation across fractures and within intact rock, the pore pressure distribution and propagation, and the microseismic response were monitored at a high spatial and temporal resolution.

Research on a Novel Low Modulus OFBG Strain Sensor for Pavement Monitoring

PubMed Central

Wang, Chuan; Hu, Qingli; Lu, Qiyu

2012-01-01

Because of the fatigue and deflection damage of asphalt pavement, it is very important for researchers to monitor the strain response of asphalt layers in service under vehicle loads, so in this paper a novel polypropylene based OFBG (Optical Fiber Bragg Gratings) strain sensor with low modulus and large strain sensing scale was designed and fabricated. PP with MA-G-PP is used to package OFBG. The fabrication techniques, the physical properties and the sensing properties were tested. The experimental results show that this kind of new OFBG strain sensor is a wonderful sensor with low modulus (about 1 GPa) and good sensitivity, which would meet the needs for monitoring some low modulus materials or structures. PMID:23112584

Nightside Detection of a Large-Scale Thermospheric Wave Generated by a Solar Eclipse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harding, B. J.; Drob, D. P.; Buriti, R. A.; Makela, J. J.

2018-04-01

The generation of a large-scale wave in the upper atmosphere caused by a solar eclipse was first predicted in the 1970s, but the experimental evidence remains sparse and comprises mostly indirect observations. This study presents observations of the wind component of a large-scale thermospheric wave generated by the 21 August 2017 total solar eclipse. In contrast with previous studies, the observations are made on the nightside, after the eclipse ended. A ground-based interferometer located in northeastern Brazil is used to monitor the Doppler shift of the 630.0-nm airglow emission, providing direct measurements of the wind and temperature in the thermosphere, where eclipse effects are expected to be the largest. A disturbance is seen in the zonal and meridional wind which is at or above the 90% significance level based on the measured 30-day variability. These observations are compared with a first principles numerical model calculation from the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model, which predicted the propagation of a large-scale wave well into the nightside. The modeled disturbance matches well the difference between the wind measurements and the 30-day median, though the measured perturbation (˜60 m/s) is larger than the prediction (38 m/s) for the meridional wind. No clear evidence for the wave is seen in the temperature data, however.

Advantages of a city-scale emission inventory for urban air quality research and policy: the case of Nanjing, a typical industrial city in the Yangtze River Delta, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Y.; Qiu, L. P.; Xu, R. Y.; Xie, F. J.; Zhang, Q.; Yu, Y. Y.; Nielsen, C. P.; Qin, H. X.; Wang, H. K.; Wu, X. C.; Li, W. Q.; Zhang, J.

2015-11-01

With most eastern Chinese cities facing major air quality challenges, there is a strong need for city-scale emission inventories for use in both chemical transport modeling and the development of pollution control policies. In this paper, a high-resolution emission inventory (with a horizontal resolution of 3 × 3 km) of air pollutants and CO2 for Nanjing, a typical large city in the Yangtze River Delta, is developed, incorporating the best available information on local sources. Emission factors and activity data at the unit or facility level are collected and compiled using a thorough on-site survey of major sources. Over 900 individual plants, which account for 97 % of the city's total coal consumption, are identified as point sources, and all of the emission-related parameters including combustion technology, fuel quality, and removal efficiency of air pollution control devices (APCD) are analyzed. New data-collection approaches including continuous emission monitoring systems and real-time monitoring of traffic flows are employed to improve spatiotemporal distribution of emissions. Despite fast growth of energy consumption between 2010 and 2012, relatively small interannual changes in emissions are found for most air pollutants during this period, attributed mainly to benefits of growing APCD deployment and the comparatively strong and improving regulatory oversight of the large point sources that dominate the levels and spatial distributions of Nanjing emissions overall. The improvement of this city-level emission inventory is indicated by comparisons with observations and other inventories at larger spatial scale. Relatively good spatial correlations are found for SO2, NOx, and CO between the city-scale emission estimates and concentrations at nine state-operated monitoring sites (R = 0.58, 0.46, and 0.61, respectively). The emission ratios of specific pollutants including BC to CO, OC to EC, and CO2 to CO compare well to top-down constraints from ground observations. The interannual variability and spatial distribution of NOx emissions are consistent with NO2 vertical column density measured by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI). In particular, the Nanjing city-scale emission inventory correlates better with satellite observations than the downscaled Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC) does when emissions from power plants are excluded. This indicates improvement in emission estimation for sectors other than power generation, notably industry and transportation. A high-resolution emission inventory may also provide a basis to consider the quality of instrumental observations. To further improve emission estimation and evaluation, more measurements of both emission factors and ambient levels of given pollutants are suggested; the uncertainties of emission inventories at city scale should also be fully quantified and compared with those at national scale.

Advantages of city-scale emission inventory for urban air quality research and policy: the case of Nanjing, a typical industrial city in the Yangtze River Delta, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Y.; Qiu, L.; Xu, R.; Xie, F.; Zhang, Q.; Yu, Y.; Nielsen, C. P.; Qin, H.; Wang, H.; Wu, X.; Li, W.; Zhang, J.

2015-07-01

With most eastern Chinese cities facing major air quality challenges, there is a strong need for city-scale emission inventories for use in both chemical transport modeling and the development of pollution control policies. In this paper, a high-resolution emission inventory of air pollutants and CO2 for Nanjing, a typical large city in the Yangtze River Delta, is developed incorporating the best available information on local sources. Emission factors and activity data at the unit or facility level are collected and compiled using a thorough onsite survey of major sources. Over 900 individual plants, which account for 97 % of the city's total coal consumption, are identified as point sources, and all of the emission-related parameters including combustion technology, fuel quality, and removal efficiency of air pollution control devices (APCD) are analyzed. New data-collection approaches including continuous emission monitoring systems and real-time monitoring of traffic flows are employed to improve spatiotemporal distribution of emissions. Despite fast growth of energy consumption between 2010 and 2012, relatively small inter-annual changes in emissions are found for most air pollutants during this period, attributed mainly to benefits of growing APCD deployment and the comparatively strong and improving regulatory oversight of the large point sources that dominate the levels and spatial distributions of Nanjing emissions overall. The improvement of this city-level emission inventory is indicated by comparisons with observations and other inventories at larger spatial scale. Relatively good spatial correlations are found for SO2, NOx, and CO between the city-scale emission estimates and concentrations at 9 state-opertated monitoring sites (R = 0.58, 0.46, and 0.61, respectively). The emission ratios of specific pollutants including BC to CO, OC to EC, and CO2 to CO compare well to top-down constraints from ground observations. The inter-annual variability and spatial distribution of NOx emissions are consistent with NO2 vertical column density measured by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI). In particular, the Nanjing city-scale emission inventory correlates better with satellite observations than the downscaled Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC) does when emissions from power plants are excluded. This indicates improvement in emission estimation for sectors other than power generation, notably industry and transportation. High-resolution emission inventory may also provide a basis to consider the quality of instrumental observations. To further improve emission estimation and evaluation, more measurements of both emission factors and ambient levels of given pollutants are suggested; the uncertainties of emission inventories at city scale should also be fully quantified and compared with those at national scale.

Evaluation of triclosan and triclocarban at river basin scale using monitoring and modeling tools: implications for controlling of urban domestic sewage discharge.

PubMed

Zhao, Jian-Liang; Zhang, Qian-Qian; Chen, Feng; Wang, Li; Ying, Guang-Guo; Liu, You-Sheng; Yang, Bin; Zhou, Li-Jun; Liu, Shan; Su, Hao-Chang; Zhang, Rui-Quan

2013-01-01

Triclosan (TCS) and triclocarban (TCC) are two commonly used personal care products. They may enter into aquatic environments after consumption and pose potential risks to aquatic organisms. We investigated the occurrence and fate of TCS and TCC in five large rivers (the Liao River, Hai River, Yellow River, Zhujiang River and Dongjiang River) in China, and compared the monitoring data with the predicted results from Level III fugacity modeling. TCS and TCC were detected in the five large rivers with the detection frequencies of 100% or close to 100% in surface water and sediments of almost every river. TCS and TCC were found at concentrations of up to 478 ng/L and 338 ng/L in surface water, and up to 1329 ng/g and 2723 ng/g in sediments. Cluster analysis indicated that the sites with higher concentrations were usually located in or near urban area. Meanwhile, principal component analysis also suggested that the mass inventories of TCS and TCC in water and sediment were significantly influenced by the factors such as the total or untreated urban domestic sewage discharge at river basin scale. The concentrations and mass inventories from the fugacity modeling were found at the same order of magnitude with the measured values, suggesting that the fugacity modeling can provide a useful tool for evaluating the fate of TCS and TCC in riverine environments. Both monitoring and modeling results indicated that the majority of mass inventories of TCS and TCC were stored into sediment, which could be a potential pollution source for river water. The wide presence of TCS and TCC in these large rivers of China implies that better controlling of urban domestic sewage discharge is needed. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Long-term monitoring of Ark 120 with Swift

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gliozzi, M.; Papadakis, I. E.; Grupe, D.; Brinkmann, W. P.; Räth, C.

2017-02-01

We report the results of a six-month Swift monitoring campaign of Ark 120, a prototypical `bare' Seyfert 1 galaxy. The lack of intrinsic absorption combined with the nearly contemporaneous coverage of the ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray bands makes it possible to investigate the link between the accretion disc and the putative Comptonization corona. Our observations confirm the presence of substantial temporal variability, with the X-ray characterized by large-amplitude flux changes on time-scales of few days, while the variations in the UV bands are smoother and occur on time-scales of several weeks. The source also shows spectral variability with the X-ray spectrum steepening when the source is brighter. We do not detect any correlation between the UV flux and the X-ray spectral slope. A cross-correlation analysis suggests positive delays between X-rays and the UV emission, favouring a scenario of disc reprocessing. Although the strength of the correlation is moderate with a delay which is not well constrained (7.5 ± 7 d), it is nevertheless indicative of a very large disc reprocessing region, with a separation between the X-ray and the UV-emitting regions, which could be as large as 1000 rG. The Ark 120 correlation results are in agreement with those obtained in similar multiwavelength monitoring studies of active galactic nuclei (AGN). When combined together, the observations so far can be well described by a linear relation between the X-ray/UV delays and the mass of the central black hole. Within the context of the simplest scenario, where these delays correspond to light-travel times, the implied distance between the X-ray source and the optical/UV disc reprocessing region in these AGN should be of the order of many hundreds of gravitational radii.

Structural Health Monitoring on Turbine Engines Using Microwave Blade Tip Clearance Sensors

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Woike, Mark; Abdul-Aziz, Ali; Clem, Michelle

2014-01-01

The ability to monitor the structural health of the rotating components, especially in the hot sections of turbine engines, is of major interest to aero community in improving engine safety and reliability. The use of instrumentation for these applications remains very challenging. It requires sensors and techniques that are highly accurate, are able to operate in a high temperature environment, and can detect minute changes and hidden flaws before catastrophic events occur. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has taken a lead role in the investigation of new sensor technologies and techniques for the in situ structural health monitoring of gas turbine engines. As part of this effort, microwave sensor technology has been investigated as a means of making high temperature non-contact blade tip clearance, blade tip timing, and blade vibration measurements for use in gas turbine engines. This paper presents a summary of key results and findings obtained from the evaluation of two different types of microwave sensors that have been investigated for use possible in structural health monitoring applications. The first is a microwave blade tip clearance sensor that has been evaluated on a large scale Axial Vane Fan, a subscale Turbofan, and more recently on sub-scale turbine engine like disks. The second is a novel microwave based blade vibration sensor that was also used in parallel with the microwave blade tip clearance sensors on the experiments with the sub-scale turbine engine disks.

Structural health monitoring on turbine engines using microwave blade tip clearance sensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woike, Mark; Abdul-Aziz, Ali; Clem, Michelle

2014-04-01

The ability to monitor the structural health of the rotating components, especially in the hot sections of turbine engines, is of major interest to the aero community in improving engine safety and reliability. The use of instrumentation for these applications remains very challenging. It requires sensors and techniques that are highly accurate, are able to operate in a high temperature environment, and can detect minute changes and hidden flaws before catastrophic events occur. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has taken a lead role in the investigation of new sensor technologies and techniques for the in situ structural health monitoring of gas turbine engines. As part of this effort, microwave sensor technology has been investigated as a means of making high temperature non-contact blade tip clearance, blade tip timing, and blade vibration measurements for use in gas turbine engines. This paper presents a summary of key results and findings obtained from the evaluation of two different types of microwave sensors that have been investigated for possible use in structural health monitoring applications. The first is a microwave blade tip clearance sensor that has been evaluated on a large scale Axial Vane Fan, a subscale Turbofan, and more recently on sub-scale turbine engine like disks. The second is a novel microwave based blade vibration sensor that was also used in parallel with the microwave blade tip clearance sensors on the same experiments with the sub-scale turbine engine disks.

A proposal of monitoring and forecasting system for crustal activity in and around Japan using a large-scale high-fidelity finite element simulation codes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hori, Takane; Ichimura, Tsuyoshi; Takahashi, Narumi

2017-04-01

Here we propose a system for monitoring and forecasting of crustal activity, such as spatio-temporal variation in slip velocity on the plate interface including earthquakes, seismic wave propagation, and crustal deformation. Although, we can obtain continuous dense surface deformation data on land and partly on the sea floor, the obtained data are not fully utilized for monitoring and forecasting. It is necessary to develop a physics-based data analysis system including (1) a structural model with the 3D geometry of the plate interface and the material property such as elasticity and viscosity, (2) calculation code for crustal deformation and seismic wave propagation using (1), (3) inverse analysis or data assimilation code both for structure and fault slip using (1) & (2). To accomplish this, it is at least necessary to develop highly reliable large-scale simulation code to calculate crustal deformation and seismic wave propagation for 3D heterogeneous structure. Actually, Ichimura et al. (2015, SC15) has developed unstructured FE non-linear seismic wave simulation code, which achieved physics-based urban earthquake simulation enhanced by 1.08 T DOF x 6.6 K time-step. Ichimura et al. (2013, GJI) has developed high fidelity FEM simulation code with mesh generator to calculate crustal deformation in and around Japan with complicated surface topography and subducting plate geometry for 1km mesh. Fujita et al. (2016, SC16) has improved the code for crustal deformation and achieved 2.05 T-DOF with 45m resolution on the plate interface. This high-resolution analysis enables computation of change of stress acting on the plate interface. Further, for inverse analyses, Errol et al. (2012, BSSA) has developed waveform inversion code for modeling 3D crustal structure, and Agata et al. (2015, AGU Fall Meeting) has improved the high-fidelity FEM code to apply an adjoint method for estimating fault slip and asthenosphere viscosity. Hence, we have large-scale simulation and analysis tools for monitoring. Furthermore, we are developing the methods for forecasting the slip velocity variation on the plate interface. Basic concept is given in Hori et al. (2014, Oceanography) introducing ensemble based sequential data assimilation procedure. Although the prototype described there is for elastic half space model, we are applying it for 3D heterogeneous structure with the high-fidelity FE model.

Large-scale production of anhydrous nitric acid and nitric acid solutions of dinitrogen pentoxide

DOEpatents

Harrar, Jackson E.; Quong, Roland; Rigdon, Lester P.; McGuire, Raymond R.

2001-01-01

A method and apparatus are disclosed for a large scale, electrochemical production of anhydrous nitric acid and N.sub.2 O.sub.5. The method includes oxidizing a solution of N.sub.2 O.sub.4 /aqueous-HNO.sub.3 at the anode, while reducing aqueous HNO.sub.3 at the cathode, in a flow electrolyzer constructed of special materials. N.sub.2 O.sub.4 is produced at the cathode and may be separated and recycled as a feedstock for use in the anolyte. The process is controlled by regulating the electrolysis current until the desired products are obtained. The chemical compositions of the anolyte and catholyte are monitored by measurement of the solution density and the concentrations of N.sub.2 O.sub.4.

Monitoring Million Trees LA: Tree performance during the early years and future benefits

Treesearch

E. Gregory McPherson

2014-01-01

Million Trees LA (MTLA) is one of several large-scale mayoral tree planting initiatives striving to create more livable cities through urban forestry. This study combined field sampling of tree survival and growth with numerical modeling of future benefits to assess performance of MTLA plantings. From 2006 to 2010 MTLA planted a diverse mix of 91,786 trees....

Field-scale monitoring of the long-term impact and sustainability of drainage water reuse on the west side of California’s San Joaquin Valley

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Diminishing freshwater resources have brought attention to the reuse of degraded water as a potential water resource rather than as a disposal problem. Drainage water from tile-drained, irrigated agricultural land is degraded water that is often in large supply, but the long-term impact and sustain...

When Teachers Give Up: Teacher Burnout, Teacher Turnover and Their Impact on Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dworkin, Anthony Gary

A large-scale sociological study of teacher burnout in the public schools is summarized. Data presented in the study consist of: a sample of 3,500 teachers in Houston, whose attitudes were monitored in 1977; exit interviews of every teacher in the initial sample who subsequently quit teaching over a 5-year period; achievement and attendance…

Avionic Data Bus Integration Technology

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-12-01

address the hardware-software interaction between a digital data bus and an avionic system. Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) ICs and multiversion ...the SCP. In 1984, the Sperry Corporation developed a fault tolerant system which employed multiversion programming, voting, and monitoring for error... MULTIVERSION PROGRAMMING. N-version programming. 226 N-VERSION PROGRAMMING. The independent coding of a number, N, of redundant computer programs that

Aquarius salinity and wind retrieval using the cap algorithm and application to water cycle observation in the Indian ocean and subcontinent

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Aquarius is a combined passive/active L-band microwave instrument developed to map the ocean surface salinity field from space. The primary science objective of this mission is to monitor the seasonal and interannual variation of the large scale features of the surface salinity field in the open oc...

Fisher research in the US Rocky Mountains: A critical overview

Treesearch

Michael Schwartz; J. Sauder

2013-01-01

In this talk we review the recent fisher research and monitoring efforts that have occurred throughout Idaho and Montana in past 2 decades. We begin this talk with a summary of the habitat relationship work that has examined fisher habitat use at multiple scales. These have largely been conducted using radio and satellite telemetry, although a new, joint effort to use...

The Development of Time-Based Prospective Memory in Childhood: The Role of Working Memory Updating

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Voigt, Babett; Mahy, Caitlin E. V.; Ellis, Judi; Schnitzspahn, Katharina; Krause, Ivonne; Altgassen, Mareike; Kliegel, Matthias

2014-01-01

This large-scale study examined the development of time-based prospective memory (PM) across childhood and the roles that working memory updating and time monitoring play in driving age effects in PM performance. One hundred and ninety-seven children aged 5 to 14 years completed a time-based PM task where working memory updating load was…

CHARACTERIZATION OF THE WINTERTIME BOISE, IDAHO, AIR SHED: A COMPREHENSIVE FIELD STUDY REPORT FOR THE U.S. EPA OFFICE OF AIR QUALITY PLANNING AND STANDARDS

EPA Science Inventory

A large-scale ambient monitoring program vas conducted in Boise, Idaho, during the 1986-1987 winter heating season to evaluate the impact of residential wood combustion (RWC) and automotive emissions on the local air shed. onsecutive 12-h particle, organic, and gaseous samples we...

Animal movement data: GPS telemetry, autocorrelation and the need for path-level analysis [chapter 7

Treesearch

Samuel A. Cushman

2010-01-01

In the previous chapter we presented the idea of a multi-layer, multi-scale, spatially referenced data-cube as the foundation for monitoring and for implementing flexible modeling of ecological pattern-process relationships in particulate, in context and to integrate these across large spatial extents at the grain of the strongest linkage between response and driving...

A Large-Scale Investigation into the Relationship between Attendance and Attainment: A Study Using an Innovative, Electronic Attendance Monitoring System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newman-Ford, Loretta; Fitzgibbon, Karen; Lloyd, Stephen; Thomas, Stephen

2008-01-01

The literature available on the relationship between student attendance and attainment is inconsistent. Nevertheless, there is some empirical evidence to suggest that attendance is a determinant of academic performance and progression. Colby published results of a study which examined the relationship within a single year 1 undergraduate module,…

Collaborative restoration effects on forest structure in ponderosa pine-dominated forests of Colorado

Treesearch

Jeffery B. Cannon; Kevin J. Barrett; Benjamin M. Gannon; Robert N. Addington; Mike A. Battaglia; Paula J. Fornwalt; Gregory H. Aplet; Antony S. Cheng; Jeffrey L. Underhill; Jennifer S. Briggs; Peter M. Brown

2018-01-01

In response to large, severe wildfires in historically fire-adapted forests in the western US, policy initiatives, such as the USDA Forest Service’s Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), seek to increase the pace and scale of ecological restoration. One required component of this program is collaborative adaptive management, in which monitoring...

Thermal Testing and Integration: Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) Observatories with Digital 1-Wire Sensors

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Solimani, Jason A.; Rosanova, Santino

2015-01-01

Thermocouples require two thin wires to be routed out of the spacecraft to connect to the ground support equipment used to monitor and record the temperature data. This large number of wires that exit the observatory complicates integration and creates an undesirable heat path during testing. These wires exiting the spacecraft need to be characterized as a thermal short that will not exist during flight. To minimize complexity and reduce thermal variables from these ground support equipment (GSE) wires, MMS pursued a hybrid path for temperature monitoring, utilizing thermocouples and digital 1-wire temperature sensors. Digital 1-wire sensors can greatly reduce harness mass, length and complexity as they can be spliced together. For MMS, 350 digital 1-wire sensors were installed on the spacecraft with only 18 wires exiting as opposed to a potential 700 thermocouple wires. Digital 1-wire sensors had not been used in such a large scale at NASAGSFC prior to the MMS mission. During the MMS thermal vacuum testing a lessons learned matrix was formulated that will assist future integration of 1-wires into thermal testing and one day into flight.

Digital footprints: facilitating large-scale environmental psychiatric research in naturalistic settings through data from everyday technologies

PubMed Central

Bidargaddi, N; Musiat, P; Makinen, V-P; Ermes, M; Schrader, G; Licinio, J

2017-01-01

Digital footprints, the automatically accumulated by-products of our technology-saturated lives, offer an exciting opportunity for psychiatric research. The commercial sector has already embraced the electronic trails of customers as an enabling tool for guiding consumer behaviour, and analogous efforts are ongoing to monitor and improve the mental health of psychiatric patients. The untargeted collection of digital footprints that may or may not be health orientated comprises a large untapped information resource for epidemiological scale research into psychiatric disorders. Real-time monitoring of mood, sleep and physical and social activity in a substantial portion of the affected population in a naturalistic setting is unprecedented in psychiatry. We propose that digital footprints can provide these measurements from real world setting unobtrusively and in a longitudinal fashion. In this perspective article, we outline the concept of digital footprints and the services and devices that create them, and present examples where digital footprints have been successfully used in research. We then critically discuss the opportunities and fundamental challenges associated digital footprints in psychiatric research, such as collecting data from different sources, analysis, ethical and research design challenges. PMID:27922603

MRM-DIFF: data processing strategy for differential analysis in large scale MRM-based lipidomics studies.

PubMed

Tsugawa, Hiroshi; Ohta, Erika; Izumi, Yoshihiro; Ogiwara, Atsushi; Yukihira, Daichi; Bamba, Takeshi; Fukusaki, Eiichiro; Arita, Masanori

2014-01-01

Based on theoretically calculated comprehensive lipid libraries, in lipidomics as many as 1000 multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) transitions can be monitored for each single run. On the other hand, lipid analysis from each MRM chromatogram requires tremendous manual efforts to identify and quantify lipid species. Isotopic peaks differing by up to a few atomic masses further complicate analysis. To accelerate the identification and quantification process we developed novel software, MRM-DIFF, for the differential analysis of large-scale MRM assays. It supports a correlation optimized warping (COW) algorithm to align MRM chromatograms and utilizes quality control (QC) sample datasets to automatically adjust the alignment parameters. Moreover, user-defined reference libraries that include the molecular formula, retention time, and MRM transition can be used to identify target lipids and to correct peak abundances by considering isotopic peaks. Here, we demonstrate the software pipeline and introduce key points for MRM-based lipidomics research to reduce the mis-identification and overestimation of lipid profiles. The MRM-DIFF program, example data set and the tutorials are downloadable at the "Standalone software" section of the PRIMe (Platform for RIKEN Metabolomics, http://prime.psc.riken.jp/) database website.

MRM-DIFF: data processing strategy for differential analysis in large scale MRM-based lipidomics studies

PubMed Central

Tsugawa, Hiroshi; Ohta, Erika; Izumi, Yoshihiro; Ogiwara, Atsushi; Yukihira, Daichi; Bamba, Takeshi; Fukusaki, Eiichiro; Arita, Masanori

2015-01-01

Based on theoretically calculated comprehensive lipid libraries, in lipidomics as many as 1000 multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) transitions can be monitored for each single run. On the other hand, lipid analysis from each MRM chromatogram requires tremendous manual efforts to identify and quantify lipid species. Isotopic peaks differing by up to a few atomic masses further complicate analysis. To accelerate the identification and quantification process we developed novel software, MRM-DIFF, for the differential analysis of large-scale MRM assays. It supports a correlation optimized warping (COW) algorithm to align MRM chromatograms and utilizes quality control (QC) sample datasets to automatically adjust the alignment parameters. Moreover, user-defined reference libraries that include the molecular formula, retention time, and MRM transition can be used to identify target lipids and to correct peak abundances by considering isotopic peaks. Here, we demonstrate the software pipeline and introduce key points for MRM-based lipidomics research to reduce the mis-identification and overestimation of lipid profiles. The MRM-DIFF program, example data set and the tutorials are downloadable at the “Standalone software” section of the PRIMe (Platform for RIKEN Metabolomics, http://prime.psc.riken.jp/) database website. PMID:25688256

[Radar as imaging tool in ecology and conservation biology].

PubMed

Matyjasiak, Piotr

2017-01-01

Migrations and dispersal are among the most important ecological processes that shape ecosystems and influence our economy, health and safety. Movements of birds, bats and insects occur in a large spatial scale - regional, continental, or intercontinental. However, studies of these phenomena using classic methods are usually local. Breakthrough came with the development of radar technology, which enabled researchers to study animal movements in the atmosphere in a large spatial and temporal scale. The aim of this article was to present the radar imaging methods used in the research of aerial movements of birds, bats and insects. The types of radars used in research are described, and examples of the use of radar in basic research and in conservation biology are discussed. Radar visualizations are used in studies on the effect of meteorological conditions on bird migration, on spatial and temporal dynamics of movements of birds, bats and insects, and on the mechanism of orientation of migrating birds and insects. In conservation biology research radars are used in the monitoring of endangered species of birds and bats, to monitor bird activity at airports, as well as in assessing the impact of high constructions on flying birds and bats.

Digital footprints: facilitating large-scale environmental psychiatric research in naturalistic settings through data from everyday technologies.

PubMed

Bidargaddi, N; Musiat, P; Makinen, V-P; Ermes, M; Schrader, G; Licinio, J

2017-02-01

Digital footprints, the automatically accumulated by-products of our technology-saturated lives, offer an exciting opportunity for psychiatric research. The commercial sector has already embraced the electronic trails of customers as an enabling tool for guiding consumer behaviour, and analogous efforts are ongoing to monitor and improve the mental health of psychiatric patients. The untargeted collection of digital footprints that may or may not be health orientated comprises a large untapped information resource for epidemiological scale research into psychiatric disorders. Real-time monitoring of mood, sleep and physical and social activity in a substantial portion of the affected population in a naturalistic setting is unprecedented in psychiatry. We propose that digital footprints can provide these measurements from real world setting unobtrusively and in a longitudinal fashion. In this perspective article, we outline the concept of digital footprints and the services and devices that create them, and present examples where digital footprints have been successfully used in research. We then critically discuss the opportunities and fundamental challenges associated digital footprints in psychiatric research, such as collecting data from different sources, analysis, ethical and research design challenges.

DebugIT for patient safety - improving the treatment with antibiotics through multimedia data mining of heterogeneous clinical data.

PubMed

Lovis, Christian; Colaert, Dirk; Stroetmann, Veli N

2008-01-01

The concepts and architecture underlying a large-scale integrating project funded within the 7th EU Framework Programme (FP7) are discussed. The main objective of the project is to build a tool that will have a significant impact for the monitoring and the control of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistances in Europe; This will be realized by building a technical and semantic infrastructure able to share heterogeneous clinical data sets from different hospitals in different countries, with different languages and legislations; to analyze large amounts of this clinical data with advanced multimedia data mining and finally apply the obtained knowledge for clinical decisions and outcome monitoring. There are numerous challenges in this project at all levels, technical, semantical, legal and ethical that will have to be addressed.

Collaborative approaches to the evolution of migration and the development of science-based conservation in shorebirds

USGS Publications Warehouse

Harrington, Brian A.; Brown, S.; Corven, James; Bart, Jonathan

2002-01-01

Shorebirds are among the most highly migratory creatures on earth. Both the study of their ecology and ongoing efforts to conserve their populations must reflect this central aspect of their biology. Many species of shorebirds use migration and staging sites scattered throughout the hemisphere to complete their annual migrations between breeding areas and nonbreeding habitats (Morrison 1984). The vast distances between habitats they use pose significant challenges for studying their migration ecology. At the same time, the large number of political boundaries shorebirds cross during their epic migrations create parallel challenges for organizations working on their management and conservation.Nebel et al. (2002) represent a collaborative effort to understand the conservation implications of Western Sandpiper (Calidris mauri) migration ecology on a scale worthy of this highly migratory species. The data sets involved in the analysis come from four U.S. states, two Canadian provinces, and a total of five nations. Only by collaborating on this historic scale were the authors able to assemble the information necessary to understand important aspects of the migration ecology of this species, and the implications for conservation of the patterns they discovered.Collaborative approaches to shorebird migration ecology developed slowly over several decades. The same period also saw the creation of large-scale efforts to monitor and conserve shorebirds. This overview first traces the history of the study of migration ecology of shorebirds during that fertile period, and then describes the monitoring and protection efforts that have been developed in an attempt to address the enormous issues of scale posed by shorebird migration ecology and conservation.

Satellite Remote Sensing of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and a Potential Synthesized Framework

PubMed Central

Shen, Li; Xu, Huiping; Guo, Xulin

2012-01-01

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are severe ecological disasters threatening aquatic systems throughout the World, which necessitate scientific efforts in detecting and monitoring them. Compared with traditional in situ point observations, satellite remote sensing is considered as a promising technique for studying HABs due to its advantages of large-scale, real-time, and long-term monitoring. The present review summarizes the suitability of current satellite data sources and different algorithms for detecting HABs. It also discusses the spatial scale issue of HABs. Based on the major problems identified from previous literature, including the unsystematic understanding of HABs, the insufficient incorporation of satellite remote sensing, and a lack of multiple oceanographic explanations of the mechanisms causing HABs, this review also attempts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the complicated mechanism of HABs impacted by multiple oceanographic factors. A potential synthesized framework can be established by combining multiple accessible satellite remote sensing approaches including visual interpretation, spectra analysis, parameters retrieval and spatial-temporal pattern analysis. This framework aims to lead to a systematic and comprehensive monitoring of HABs based on satellite remote sensing from multiple oceanographic perspectives. PMID:22969372

A decametric wavelength radio telescope for interplanetary scintillation observations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cronyn, W. M.; Shawhan, S. D.

1975-01-01

A phased array, electrically steerable radio telescope (with a total collecting area of 18 acres), constructed for the purpose of remotely sensing electron density irregularity structure in the solar wind, is presented. The radio telescope is able to locate, map, and track large scale features of the solar wind, such as streams and blast waves, by monitoring a large grid of natural radio sources subject to rapid intensity fluctuation (interplanetary scintillation) caused by the irregularity structure. Observations verify the performance of the array, the receiver, and the scintillation signal processing circuitry of the telescope.

Remote optical sensing on the nanometer scale with a bowtie aperture nano-antenna on a fiber tip of scanning near-field optical microscopy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Atie, Elie M.; Xie, Zhihua; El Eter, Ali

2015-04-13

Plasmonic nano-antennas have proven the outstanding ability of sensing chemical and physical processes down to the nanometer scale. Sensing is usually achieved within the highly confined optical fields generated resonantly by the nano-antennas, i.e., in contact to the nanostructures. In this paper, we demonstrate the sensing capability of nano-antennas to their larger scale environment, well beyond their plasmonic confinement volume, leading to the concept of “remote” (non contact) sensing on the nanometer scale. On the basis of a bowtie-aperture nano-antenna (BNA) integrated at the apex of a SNOM (Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy) fiber tip, we introduce an ultra-compact, moveable, andmore » background-free optical nanosensor for the remote sensing of a silicon surface (up to distance of 300 nm). Sensitivity of the BNA to its large scale environment is high enough to expect the monitoring and control of the spacing between the nano-antenna and a silicon surface with sub-nanometer accuracy. This work paves the way towards an alternative class of nanopositioning techniques, based on the monitoring of diffraction-free plasmon resonance, that are alternative to nanomechanical and diffraction-limited optical interference-based devices.« less

Assessing the effectiveness of scrub management at the landscape scale using rapid field assessment and remote sensing.

PubMed

Redhead, John; Cuevas-Gonzales, Maria; Smith, Geoffrey; Gerard, France; Pywell, Richard

2012-04-30

Controlling scrub encroachment is a major challenge for conservation management on chalk grasslands. However, direct comparisons of scrub removal methods have seldom been investigated, particularly at the landscape scale. Effective monitoring of grassland scrub is problematic as it requires simultaneous information on large scale patterns in scrub cover and fine-scale changes in the grassland community. This study addressed this by combining analysis of aerial imagery with rapid field surveys in order to compare the effectiveness of four scrub management strategies on Defence Training Estate Salisbury Plain, UK. Study plots were sited within areas undergoing management and in unmanaged controls. Controls showed dramatic increases in scrub cover, with encroachment of a mean 1096 m(2) per hectare over ten years. Whilst all management strategies were effective in reducing scrub encroachment, they differed in their ability to influence regeneration of scrub and grassland quality. There was a general trend, evident in both the floral community and scrub levels, of increased effectiveness with increasing management intensity. The dual methodology proved highly effective, allowing rapid collection of data over a range of variables and spatial scales unavailable to each method individually. The methodology thus demonstrates potential for a useful monitoring tool. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Robust scalable stabilisability conditions for large-scale heterogeneous multi-agent systems with uncertain nonlinear interactions: towards a distributed computing architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manfredi, Sabato

2016-06-01

Large-scale dynamic systems are becoming highly pervasive in their occurrence with applications ranging from system biology, environment monitoring, sensor networks, and power systems. They are characterised by high dimensionality, complexity, and uncertainty in the node dynamic/interactions that require more and more computational demanding methods for their analysis and control design, as well as the network size and node system/interaction complexity increase. Therefore, it is a challenging problem to find scalable computational method for distributed control design of large-scale networks. In this paper, we investigate the robust distributed stabilisation problem of large-scale nonlinear multi-agent systems (briefly MASs) composed of non-identical (heterogeneous) linear dynamical systems coupled by uncertain nonlinear time-varying interconnections. By employing Lyapunov stability theory and linear matrix inequality (LMI) technique, new conditions are given for the distributed control design of large-scale MASs that can be easily solved by the toolbox of MATLAB. The stabilisability of each node dynamic is a sufficient assumption to design a global stabilising distributed control. The proposed approach improves some of the existing LMI-based results on MAS by both overcoming their computational limits and extending the applicative scenario to large-scale nonlinear heterogeneous MASs. Additionally, the proposed LMI conditions are further reduced in terms of computational requirement in the case of weakly heterogeneous MASs, which is a common scenario in real application where the network nodes and links are affected by parameter uncertainties. One of the main advantages of the proposed approach is to allow to move from a centralised towards a distributed computing architecture so that the expensive computation workload spent to solve LMIs may be shared among processors located at the networked nodes, thus increasing the scalability of the approach than the network size. Finally, a numerical example shows the applicability of the proposed method and its advantage in terms of computational complexity when compared with the existing approaches.

Feasibility of Using Elastic Wave Velocity Monitoring for Early Warning of Rainfall-Induced Slope Failure.

PubMed

Chen, Yulong; Irfan, Muhammad; Uchimura, Taro; Zhang, Ke

2018-03-27

Rainfall-induced landslides are one of the most widespread slope instability phenomena posing a serious risk to public safety worldwide so that their temporal prediction is of great interest to establish effective warning systems. The objective of this study is to determine the effectiveness of elastic wave velocities in the surface layer of the slope in monitoring, prediction and early warning of landslide. The small-scale fixed and varied, and large-scale slope model tests were conducted. Analysis of the results has established that the elastic wave velocity continuously decreases in response of moisture content and deformation and there was a distinct surge in the decrease rate of wave velocity when failure was initiated. Based on the preliminary results of this analysis, the method using the change in elastic wave velocity proves superior for landslide early warning and suggests that a warning be issued at switch of wave velocity decrease rate.

Application of ERTS-1 imagery and underflight photography in the detection and monitoring of forest insect infections in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hall, R. C. (Principal Investigator); Wert, S. L.; Koerber, T. W.

1974-01-01

The author has identified the following significant results. Analysis of ERTS-1 imagery with underflight aerial photo support including U-2, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, indicates promising possibilities of detecting and monitoring forest insect outbreaks visually with some mechanical support utilizing the VP-8 image analyzer. Visually, it is possible at a scale of 1:1,000,000 to discriminate between large areas of damaged and undamaged forests; timbered and non-timbered areas; pasture land and cultivated fields; desert and riparian vegetation. At a scale of 1:80,000 it is possible to distinguish among three classes of tree mortality; defoliated and undefoliated areas; non-host mixed conifers; and mountain meadows, rock domes, lakes and glaciers. Machine tests showed significant differences in image densities among various bands and mortality areas.

High-resolution behavioral mapping of electric fishes in Amazonian habitats.

PubMed

Madhav, Manu S; Jayakumar, Ravikrishnan P; Demir, Alican; Stamper, Sarah A; Fortune, Eric S; Cowan, Noah J

2018-04-11

The study of animal behavior has been revolutionized by sophisticated methodologies that identify and track individuals in video recordings. Video recording of behavior, however, is challenging for many species and habitats including fishes that live in turbid water. Here we present a methodology for identifying and localizing weakly electric fishes on the centimeter scale with subsecond temporal resolution based solely on the electric signals generated by each individual. These signals are recorded with a grid of electrodes and analyzed using a two-part algorithm that identifies the signals from each individual fish and then estimates the position and orientation of each fish using Bayesian inference. Interestingly, because this system involves eavesdropping on electrocommunication signals, it permits monitoring of complex social and physical interactions in the wild. This approach has potential for large-scale non-invasive monitoring of aquatic habitats in the Amazon basin and other tropical freshwater systems.

Environmental networks for large-scale monitoring of Earth and atmosphere

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maurodimou, Olga; Kolios, Stavros; Konstantaras, Antonios; Georgoulas, George; Stylios, Chrysostomos

2013-04-01

Installation and operation of instrument/sensor networks are proven fundamental in the monitoring of the physical environment from local to global scale. The advances in electronics, wireless communications and informatics has led to the development of a huge number of networks at different spatial scales that measure, collect and store a wide range of environmental parameters. These networks have been gradually evolved into integrated information systems that provide real time monitoring, forecasts and different products from the initial collected datasets. Instrument/sensor networks have nowadays become important solutions for environmental monitoring, comprising a basic component of fully automated systems developing worldwide that contribute in the efforts for a sustainable Earth's environment (e.g. Hart et al., 2006, Othman et al., 2012). They are also used as a source of data for models parameterization and as verification tools for accuracy assessment techniques of the satellite imagery. Environmental networks can be incorporated into decision support systems (e.g Rizzi et al., 2012) providing informational background along with data from satellites for decision making, manage problems, suggest solutions and best practices for a sustainable management of the environment. This is a comparative study aiming to examine and highlight the significant role of existing instrument/sensor networks for large-scale monitoring of environmental issues, especially atmospheric and marine environment as well as weather and climate. We provide characteristic examples of integrated systems based on large scale instrument/sensor networks along with other sources of data (like satellite datasets) as informational background to measure, identify, monitor, analyze and forecast a vast series of atmospheric parameters (like CO2, O3, particle matter and solar irradiance), weather, climate and their impacts (e.g., cloud systems, lightnings, rainfall, air and surface temperature, humidity, winds) and marine environment (salinity, water quality, sea surface temperature among others). "ZEUS" lightning detection system (Chronis et al. 2006, Lagouvardos et al. 2009), "UVnet" system that is primarily referred to the UltaViolet solar irradiance (Bais et al. 2006, Kazantzidis et al. 2006) and "GLOBcolour" system for seas monitoring, are some characteristic examples of systems that use networks of instruments/sensors to monitor relative parameters. The chosen examples are focused on the European continent. Basic operating principles of these networks, their usefulness, restrictions and their perspectives in the environmental real time basis monitoring and forecast, are also described. References Bais, A.F., Meleti, C. Kazantzidis, A., Topaloglou, C., Zerefos, C.S., Kosmidis, E. 2006. Greek UV Network: Results and perspectives after three years. 8th Conference on Meteorology - Climatology and Atmospheric Physics, 24-25 May, Athens, Greece. Chronis, T., Anagnostou, E. 2006. Evaluation of a Long-Range Lightning Detection Network with Receivers in Europe and Africa. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 44, 1504-1510. Hart, K.J., Martinez, K. 2006. Environmental Sensor Networks: A revolution in the Earth system science? Earth-Science Reviews, 78, 178-19. Kazantzidis, A., Bais, A.F, Topaloglou, C., Garane, K., Zempila, M., Meleti, C., Zerefos, C.S. 2006. Quality assurance of the Greek UV Network: preliminary results from the pilot phase operation. Proceedings of SPIE Europe Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere XI, vol. 6362, 636229-1 - 636229-10, Stockholm, Sweden, 11-14 September. Lagouvardos, K., Kotroni, V, Betz, D-H., Schmidt, K. 2009. A comparison of lightning data provided by ZEUS and LINET networks over Western Europe. Natural Hazards and Earth Systems Sciences, 9, 1713-1717. Maritorena, S., D'Andon, O.H.F., Mangin, A., Siegel, D.A., 2010. Merged satellite ocean color data products using bio-optical model: Characteristics, benefits and issues. Remote Sensing of Environment, 114, 1791-1804. Othman, M.F., Shazali K., 2012. Wireless Network Applications: A study in environment monitoring system. Procedia Engineering, 41, 1204-1210. Rizzi, J., Torresan, S., Zabeo, A., Gallina, V., Critto, A., Marcomini, A., 2012. A GIS-based Decision Support System to support the implementation of integrated coastal zone management - preliminary results from the PEGASO project. Proceedings of the AGILE' 2012 International Conference on Geographical Information Science, Avignon, April, 24-27.

National forest cover monitoring in mainland South and Southeast Asia: method development and capacity building

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tyukavina, A.; Potapov, P.; Hansen, M.; Talero, Y.; Turubanova, S.; Pickering, J.; Pickens, A. H.; Quyen, N. H.; Spirovska Kono, M.

2017-12-01

Timely forest monitoring data produced following good practice guidance are required for national reporting on greenhouse gas emissions, national forest resource assessments, and monitoring for REDD+ projects. Remote sensing provides a cost-efficient supplement to national forest inventories, and is often the single viable source of data on forest extent for countries still in the process of establishing field-based inventories. Operational forest monitoring using remotely sensed data requires technical capacity to store, process, and analyze high volumes of satellite imagery. The University of Maryland Global Land Analysis and Discovery (UMD GLAD) lab possesses such technical capacity and is seeking to transfer it to national agencies responsible for forest reporting, national academic institutions, and NGOs. Our projects in South and Southeast Asia include regional forest monitoring in the lower Mekong region in support of the Regional Land Cover Monitoring System (funded by the NASA SERVIR program) and building capacity for forest monitoring in Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand (funded by the SilvaCarbon program). Our forest monitoring approach is a regional scale adaptation of methods developed for the global analysis (Hansen et al. 2013). The methodology to track large-scale clearing of natural forests (e.g. in Brazil and Indonesia) is well established; however, the methods for small-scale disturbance mapping and tree cover rotation assessment are still in development. In Bangladesh our mapping of tree cover change between 2000-2014 revealed that 54% of the tree canopy cover was outside forests, and the majority of canopy changes were smaller than 0.1 ha. Landsat's 30-m resolution was therefore insufficient to monitor changes in tree cover. By using a probability sample of high resolution (circa 1 m) imagery we were able to quantify change in tree canopy cover outside forests (including village woodlots, tree plantations and agroforestry) and in different forest types. Our result shows that while the net tree cover change in Bangladesh is rather small, the gross dynamics are significant and can vary by forest type.

Predicting injection related changes in seismic properties at Kevin Dome, north central Montana, using well logs and laboratory measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saltiel, S.; Bonner, B. P.; Ajo Franklin, J. B.

2014-12-01

Time-lapse seismic monitoring (4D) is currently the primary technique available for tracking sequestered CO2 in a geologic storage reservoir away from monitoring wells. The main seismic responses to injection are those due to direct fluid substitution, changes in differential pressure, and chemical interactions with reservoir rocks; the importance of each depends on reservoir/injection properties and temporal/spatial scales of interest. As part of the Big Sky Carbon Sequestration Partnership, we are monitoring the upcoming large scale (1 million ton+) CO2 injection in Kevin Dome, north central Montana. As part of this research, we predict the relative significance of these three effects, as an aid in design of field surveys. Analysis is undertaken using existing open-hole well log data and cores from wells drilled at producer and injector pads as well as core experiments. For this demonstration site, CO2 will be produced from a natural reservoir and re-injected down dip, where the formation is saturated with brine. Effective medium models based on borehole seismic velocity measurements predict relatively small effects (less than 40 m/s change in V¬p) due to the injection of more compressible supercritical CO2. This is due to the stiff dolomite reservoir rock, with high seismic velocities (Vp~6000 m/s, Vs~3000 m/s) and fairly low porosity (<10%). Assuming pure dolomite mineralogy, these models predict a slight increase in Vp during CO2 injection. This velocity increase is due to the lower density of CO2 relative to brine; which outweighs the small change in modulus compared to the stiff reservoir rock. We present both room pressure and in-situ P/T ultrasonic experiments using core samples obtained from the reservoir; such measurements are undertaken to access the expected seismic velocities under pressurized injection. The reservoir appears to have fairly low permeability. Large-volume injection is expected to produce large local pore pressure increases, which may have the largest immediate effect on seismic velocities. Increasing pore pressure lowers the differential pressure due to confining stress, which decreases seismic velocities by opening cracks. The magnitude of this effect depends both on rock microstructure and fracture at the field scale; core scale measurements will help separate these effects.

Evaluation of Existing Image Matching Methods for Deriving Glacier Surface Displacements Globally from Optical Satellite Imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heid, T.; Kääb, A.

2011-12-01

Automatic matching of images from two different times is a method that is often used to derive glacier surface velocity. Nearly global repeat coverage of the Earth's surface by optical satellite sensors now opens the possibility for global-scale mapping and monitoring of glacier flow with a number of applications in, for example, glacier physics, glacier-related climate change and impact assessment, and glacier hazard management. The purpose of this study is to compare and evaluate different existing image matching methods for glacier flow determination over large scales. The study compares six different matching methods: normalized cross-correlation (NCC), the phase correlation algorithm used in the COSI-Corr software, and four other Fourier methods with different normalizations. We compare the methods over five regions of the world with different representative glacier characteristics: Karakoram, the European Alps, Alaska, Pine Island (Antarctica) and southwest Greenland. Landsat images are chosen for matching because they expand back to 1972, they cover large areas, and at the same time their spatial resolution is as good as 15 m for images after 1999 (ETM+ pan). Cross-correlation on orientation images (CCF-O) outperforms the three similar Fourier methods, both in areas with high and low visual contrast. NCC experiences problems in areas with low visual contrast, areas with thin clouds or changing snow conditions between the images. CCF-O has problems on narrow outlet glaciers where small window sizes (about 16 pixels by 16 pixels or smaller) are needed, and it also obtains fewer correct matches than COSI-Corr in areas with low visual contrast. COSI-Corr has problems on narrow outlet glaciers and it obtains fewer correct matches compared to CCF-O when thin clouds cover the surface, or if one of the images contains snow dunes. In total, we consider CCF-O and COSI-Corr to be the two most robust matching methods for global-scale mapping and monitoring of glacier velocities. If combining CCF-O with locally adaptive template sizes and by filtering the matching results automatically by comparing the displacement matrix to its low pass filtered version, the matching process can be automated to a large degree. This allows the derivation of glacier velocities with minimal (but not without!) user interaction and hence also opens up the possibility of global-scale mapping and monitoring of glacier flow.

Large-scale monitoring of effects of clothianidin-dressed oilseed rape seeds on pollinating insects in Northern Germany: effects on honey bees (Apis mellifera).

PubMed

Rolke, Daniel; Fuchs, Stefan; Grünewald, Bernd; Gao, Zhenglei; Blenau, Wolfgang

2016-11-01

Possible effects of clothianidin seed-treated oilseed rape on honey bee colonies were investigated in a large-scale monitoring project in Northern Germany, where oilseed rape usually comprises 25-33 % of the arable land. For both reference and test sites, six study locations were selected and eight honey bee hives were placed at each location. At each site, three locations were directly adjacent to oilseed rape fields and three locations were situated 400 m away from the nearest oilseed rape field. Thus, 96 hives were exposed to fully flowering oilseed rape crops. Colony sizes and weights, the amount of honey harvested, and infection with parasites and diseases were monitored between April and September 2014. The percentage of oilseed rape pollen was determined in pollen and honey samples. After oilseed rape flowering, the hives were transferred to an extensive isolated area for post-exposure monitoring. Total numbers of adult bees and brood cells showed seasonal fluctuations, and there were no significant differences between the sites. The honey, which was extracted at the end of the exposure phase, contained 62.0-83.5 % oilseed rape pollen. Varroa destructor infestation was low during most of the course of the study but increased at the end of the study due to flumethrin resistance in the mite populations. In summary, honey bee colonies foraging in clothianidin seed-treated oilseed rape did not show any detrimental symptoms as compared to colonies foraging in clothianidin-free oilseed rape. Development of colony strength, brood success as well as honey yield and pathogen infection were not significantly affected by clothianidin seed-treatment during this study.

Node Deployment with k-Connectivity in Sensor Networks for Crop Information Full Coverage Monitoring

PubMed Central

Liu, Naisen; Cao, Weixing; Zhu, Yan; Zhang, Jingchao; Pang, Fangrong; Ni, Jun

2016-01-01

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are suitable for the continuous monitoring of crop information in large-scale farmland. The information obtained is great for regulation of crop growth and achieving high yields in precision agriculture (PA). In order to realize full coverage and k-connectivity WSN deployment for monitoring crop growth information of farmland on a large scale and to ensure the accuracy of the monitored data, a new WSN deployment method using a genetic algorithm (GA) is here proposed. The fitness function of GA was constructed based on the following WSN deployment criteria: (1) nodes must be located in the corresponding plots; (2) WSN must have k-connectivity; (3) WSN must have no communication silos; (4) the minimum distance between node and plot boundary must be greater than a specific value to prevent each node from being affected by the farmland edge effect. The deployment experiments were performed on natural farmland and on irregular farmland divided based on spatial differences of soil nutrients. Results showed that both WSNs gave full coverage, there were no communication silos, and the minimum connectivity of nodes was equal to k. The deployment was tested for different values of k and transmission distance (d) to the node. The results showed that, when d was set to 200 m, as k increased from 2 to 4 the minimum connectivity of nodes increases and is equal to k. When k was set to 2, the average connectivity of all nodes increased in a linear manner with the increase of d from 140 m to 250 m, and the minimum connectivity does not change. PMID:27941704

Role of Intracranial Pressure Monitoring in Management of Patients with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: Results of a Large Level I Trauma Center in Southern Iran.

PubMed

Khalili, Hosseinali; Sadraei, Nazanin; Niakan, Amin; Ghaffarpasand, Fariborz; Sadraei, Amin

2016-10-01

To determine the role of intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring in management of patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) admitted to a large level I trauma center in Southern Iran. This was a cohort study performed during a 2-year period in a level I trauma center in Southern Iran including all adult patients (>16 years) with severe TBI (Glasgow Coma Scale [GCS] score, 3-8) who underwent ICP monitoring through ventriculostomy. The management was based on the recorded ICP values with threshold of 20 mm Hg. Decompressive craniectomy was performed in patients with intractable intracranial hypertension (persistent ICP ≥25 mm Hg). In unresponsive patients, barbiturate coma was induced. Patients were followed for 6 months and Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended was recorded. The determinants of favorable and unfavorable outcome were also determined. Overall, we included 248 patients with mean age of 34.6 ± 16.6 years, among whom there were 216 men (87.1%) and 32 women (12.9%). Eighty-five patients (34.2%) had favorable and 163 (65.8%) unfavorable outcomes. Those with favorable outcome had significantly lower age (P = 0.004), higher GCS score on admission (P < 0.001), lower Rotterdam score (P = 0.035), fewer episodes of intracranial hypertension (P < 0.001), and lower maximum recorded ICP (P = 0.041). These factors remained statistically significant after elimination of confounders by multivariate logistic regression model. Age, GCS score on admission, Rotterdam score, intracranial hypertension, and maximum recorded ICP are important determinants of outcome in patients with severe TBI. ICP monitoring assisted us in targeted therapy and management of patients with severe TBI. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Atmospheric mercury concentrations observed at ground-based monitoring sites globally distributed in the framework of the GMOS network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sprovieri, Francesca; Pirrone, Nicola; Bencardino, Mariantonia; D'Amore, Francesco; Carbone, Francesco; Cinnirella, Sergio; Mannarino, Valentino; Landis, Matthew; Ebinghaus, Ralf; Weigelt, Andreas; Brunke, Ernst-Günther; Labuschagne, Casper; Martin, Lynwill; Munthe, John; Wängberg, Ingvar; Artaxo, Paulo; Morais, Fernando; Barbosa, Henrique de Melo Jorge; Brito, Joel; Cairns, Warren; Barbante, Carlo; Diéguez, María del Carmen; Garcia, Patricia Elizabeth; Dommergue, Aurélien; Angot, Helene; Magand, Olivier; Skov, Henrik; Horvat, Milena; Kotnik, Jože; Read, Katie Alana; Mendes Neves, Luis; Gawlik, Bernd Manfred; Sena, Fabrizio; Mashyanov, Nikolay; Obolkin, Vladimir; Wip, Dennis; Feng, Xin Bin; Zhang, Hui; Fu, Xuewu; Ramachandran, Ramesh; Cossa, Daniel; Knoery, Joël; Marusczak, Nicolas; Nerentorp, Michelle; Norstrom, Claus

2016-09-01

Long-term monitoring of data of ambient mercury (Hg) on a global scale to assess its emission, transport, atmospheric chemistry, and deposition processes is vital to understanding the impact of Hg pollution on the environment. The Global Mercury Observation System (GMOS) project was funded by the European Commission (http://www.gmos.eu) and started in November 2010 with the overall goal to develop a coordinated global observing system to monitor Hg on a global scale, including a large network of ground-based monitoring stations, ad hoc periodic oceanographic cruises and measurement flights in the lower and upper troposphere as well as in the lower stratosphere. To date, more than 40 ground-based monitoring sites constitute the global network covering many regions where little to no observational data were available before GMOS. This work presents atmospheric Hg concentrations recorded worldwide in the framework of the GMOS project (2010-2015), analyzing Hg measurement results in terms of temporal trends, seasonality and comparability within the network. Major findings highlighted in this paper include a clear gradient of Hg concentrations between the Northern and Southern hemispheres, confirming that the gradient observed is mostly driven by local and regional sources, which can be anthropogenic, natural or a combination of both.

WLCG Transfers Dashboard: a Unified Monitoring Tool for Heterogeneous Data Transfers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andreeva, J.; Beche, A.; Belov, S.; Kadochnikov, I.; Saiz, P.; Tuckett, D.

2014-06-01

The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid provides resources for the four main virtual organizations. Along with data processing, data distribution is the key computing activity on the WLCG infrastructure. The scale of this activity is very large, the ATLAS virtual organization (VO) alone generates and distributes more than 40 PB of data in 100 million files per year. Another challenge is the heterogeneity of data transfer technologies. Currently there are two main alternatives for data transfers on the WLCG: File Transfer Service and XRootD protocol. Each LHC VO has its own monitoring system which is limited to the scope of that particular VO. There is a need for a global system which would provide a complete cross-VO and cross-technology picture of all WLCG data transfers. We present a unified monitoring tool - WLCG Transfers Dashboard - where all the VOs and technologies coexist and are monitored together. The scale of the activity and the heterogeneity of the system raise a number of technical challenges. Each technology comes with its own monitoring specificities and some of the VOs use several of these technologies. This paper describes the implementation of the system with particular focus on the design principles applied to ensure the necessary scalability and performance, and to easily integrate any new technology providing additional functionality which might be specific to that technology.

An instrument design and sample strategy for measuring soil respiration in the coastal temperate rain forest

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nay, S. M.; D'Amore, D. V.

2009-12-01

The coastal temperate rainforest (CTR) along the northwest coast of North America is a large and complex mosaic of forests and wetlands located on an undulating terrain ranging from sea level to thousands of meters in elevation. This biome stores a dynamic portion of the total carbon stock of North America. The fate of the terrestrial carbon stock is of concern due to the potential for mobilization and export of this store to both the atmosphere as carbon respiration flux and ocean as dissolved organic and inorganic carbon flux. Soil respiration is the largest export vector in the system and must be accurately measured to gain any comprehensive understanding of how carbon moves though this system. Suitable monitoring tools capable of measuring carbon fluxes at small spatial scales are essential for our understanding of carbon dynamics at larger spatial scales within this complex assemblage of ecosystems. We have adapted instrumentation and developed a sampling strategy for optimizing replication of soil respiration measurements to quantify differences among spatially complex landscape units of the CTR. We start with the design of the instrument to ease the technological, ergonomic and financial barriers that technicians encounter in monitoring the efflux of CO2 from the soil. Our sampling strategy optimizes the physical efforts of the field work and manages for the high variation of flux measurements encountered in this difficult environment of rough terrain, dense vegetation and wet climate. Our soil respirometer incorporates an infra-red gas analyzer (LiCor Inc. LI-820) and an 8300 cm3 soil respiration chamber; the device is durable, lightweight, easy to operate and can be built for under $5000 per unit. The modest unit price allows for a multiple unit fleet to be deployed and operated in an intensive field monitoring campaign. We use a large 346 cm2 collar to accommodate as much micro spatial variation as feasible and to facilitate repeated measures for tracking temporal trends. Our collar design minimizes root interference yet provides a highly stable platform for coupling with the respirometer. Meso-scale variability characterized by large down woody debris, wind throw pits and mounds and surface roots is negotiated with by a hexagonal array of seven collars at two meter spacing (sample pod). Landscape scale variability is managed through stratification and replication amongst ecosystem types arrayed across a hydrologic gradient from bogs to forested wetlands to upland forests. Our strategy has allowed us to gather data sets consisting of approximately 1800 total observations with approximately 600 measurements per replication per year. Mean coefficients of variation (CV) at the collar (micro-scale) were approximately 0.67. The pod level mean CV was reduced to approximately 0.29 at the pod (meso-scale). The CV at the vegetation strata were 0.43, 0.18 and 0.21 for bog, forested wetland and upland forest respectively. With temperature and hydrological data we are able to measure and model carbon dynamics in this large and complex environment. The analysis of variability at the three spatial scales has confirmed that our approach is capturing and constraining the variability.

To manage inland fisheries is to manage at the social-ecological watershed scale.

PubMed

Nguyen, Vivian M; Lynch, Abigail J; Young, Nathan; Cowx, Ian G; Beard, T Douglas; Taylor, William W; Cooke, Steven J

2016-10-01

Approaches to managing inland fisheries vary between systems and regions but are often based on large-scale marine fisheries principles and thus limited and outdated. Rarely do they adopt holistic approaches that consider the complex interplay among humans, fish, and the environment. We argue that there is an urgent need for a shift in inland fisheries management towards holistic and transdisciplinary approaches that embrace the principles of social-ecological systems at the watershed scale. The interconnectedness of inland fisheries with their associated watershed (biotic, abiotic, and humans) make them extremely complex and challenging to manage and protect. For this reason, the watershed is a logical management unit. To assist management at this scale, we propose a framework that integrates disparate concepts and management paradigms to facilitate inland fisheries management and sustainability. We contend that inland fisheries need to be managed as social-ecological watershed system (SEWS). The framework supports watershed-scale and transboundary governance to manage inland fisheries, and transdisciplinary projects and teams to ensure relevant and applicable monitoring and research. We discuss concepts of social-ecological feedback and interactions of multiple stressors and factors within/between the social-ecological systems. Moreover, we emphasize that management, monitoring, and research on inland fisheries at the watershed scale are needed to ensure long-term sustainable and resilient fisheries. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Prediction of Soil Organic Carbon at the European Scale by Visible and Near InfraRed Reflectance Spectroscopy.

PubMed

Stevens, Antoine; Nocita, Marco; Tóth, Gergely; Montanarella, Luca; van Wesemael, Bas

2013-01-01

Soil organic carbon is a key soil property related to soil fertility, aggregate stability and the exchange of CO2 with the atmosphere. Existing soil maps and inventories can rarely be used to monitor the state and evolution in soil organic carbon content due to their poor spatial resolution, lack of consistency and high updating costs. Visible and Near Infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy is an alternative method to provide cheap and high-density soil data. However, there are still some uncertainties on its capacity to produce reliable predictions for areas characterized by large soil diversity. Using a large-scale EU soil survey of about 20,000 samples and covering 23 countries, we assessed the performance of reflectance spectroscopy for the prediction of soil organic carbon content. The best calibrations achieved a root mean square error ranging from 4 to 15 g C kg(-1) for mineral soils and a root mean square error of 50 g C kg(-1) for organic soil materials. Model errors are shown to be related to the levels of soil organic carbon and variations in other soil properties such as sand and clay content. Although errors are ∼5 times larger than the reproducibility error of the laboratory method, reflectance spectroscopy provides unbiased predictions of the soil organic carbon content. Such estimates could be used for assessing the mean soil organic carbon content of large geographical entities or countries. This study is a first step towards providing uniform continental-scale spectroscopic estimations of soil organic carbon, meeting an increasing demand for information on the state of the soil that can be used in biogeochemical models and the monitoring of soil degradation.

Classification of time series patterns from complex dynamic systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schryver, J.C.; Rao, N.

1998-07-01

An increasing availability of high-performance computing and data storage media at decreasing cost is making possible the proliferation of large-scale numerical databases and data warehouses. Numeric warehousing enterprises on the order of hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes are a reality in many fields such as finance, retail sales, process systems monitoring, biomedical monitoring, surveillance and transportation. Large-scale databases are becoming more accessible to larger user communities through the internet, web-based applications and database connectivity. Consequently, most researchers now have access to a variety of massive datasets. This trend will probably only continue to grow over the next several years. Unfortunately,more » the availability of integrated tools to explore, analyze and understand the data warehoused in these archives is lagging far behind the ability to gain access to the same data. In particular, locating and identifying patterns of interest in numerical time series data is an increasingly important problem for which there are few available techniques. Temporal pattern recognition poses many interesting problems in classification, segmentation, prediction, diagnosis and anomaly detection. This research focuses on the problem of classification or characterization of numerical time series data. Highway vehicles and their drivers are examples of complex dynamic systems (CDS) which are being used by transportation agencies for field testing to generate large-scale time series datasets. Tools for effective analysis of numerical time series in databases generated by highway vehicle systems are not yet available, or have not been adapted to the target problem domain. However, analysis tools from similar domains may be adapted to the problem of classification of numerical time series data.« less

Prediction of Soil Organic Carbon at the European Scale by Visible and Near InfraRed Reflectance Spectroscopy

PubMed Central

Stevens, Antoine; Nocita, Marco; Tóth, Gergely; Montanarella, Luca; van Wesemael, Bas

2013-01-01

Soil organic carbon is a key soil property related to soil fertility, aggregate stability and the exchange of CO2 with the atmosphere. Existing soil maps and inventories can rarely be used to monitor the state and evolution in soil organic carbon content due to their poor spatial resolution, lack of consistency and high updating costs. Visible and Near Infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy is an alternative method to provide cheap and high-density soil data. However, there are still some uncertainties on its capacity to produce reliable predictions for areas characterized by large soil diversity. Using a large-scale EU soil survey of about 20,000 samples and covering 23 countries, we assessed the performance of reflectance spectroscopy for the prediction of soil organic carbon content. The best calibrations achieved a root mean square error ranging from 4 to 15 g C kg−1 for mineral soils and a root mean square error of 50 g C kg−1 for organic soil materials. Model errors are shown to be related to the levels of soil organic carbon and variations in other soil properties such as sand and clay content. Although errors are ∼5 times larger than the reproducibility error of the laboratory method, reflectance spectroscopy provides unbiased predictions of the soil organic carbon content. Such estimates could be used for assessing the mean soil organic carbon content of large geographical entities or countries. This study is a first step towards providing uniform continental-scale spectroscopic estimations of soil organic carbon, meeting an increasing demand for information on the state of the soil that can be used in biogeochemical models and the monitoring of soil degradation. PMID:23840459

Above scaling short-pulse ion acceleration from flat foil and ``Pizza-top Cone'' targets at the Trident laser facility

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flippo, Kirk; Hegelich, B. Manuel; Cort Gautier, D.; Johnson, J. Randy; Kline, John L.; Shimada, Tsutomu; Fernández, Juan C.; Gaillard, Sandrine; Rassuchine, Jennifer; Le Galloudec, Nathalie; Cowan, Thomas E.; Malekos, Steve; Korgan, Grant

2006-10-01

Ion-driven Fast Ignition (IFI) has certain advantages over electron-driven FI due to a possible large reduction in the amount of energy required. Recent experiments at the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Trident facility have yielded ion energies and efficiencies many times in excess of recent published scaling laws, leading to even more potential advantages of IFI. Proton energies in excess of 35 MeV have been observed from targets produced by the University of Nevada, Reno - dubbed ``Pizza-top Cone'' targets - at intensities of only 1x10^19 W/cm^2 with 20 joules in 600 fs. Energies in excess of 24 MeV were observed from simple flat foil targets as well. The observed energies, above any published scaling laws, are attributed to target production, preparation, and shot to shot monitoring of many laser parameters, especially the laser ASE prepulse level and laser pulse duration. The laser parameters are monitored in real-time to keep the laser in optimal condition throughout the run providing high quality, reproducible shots.

Final Scientific Report: A Scalable Development Environment for Peta-Scale Computing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Karbach, Carsten; Frings, Wolfgang

2013-02-22

This document is the final scientific report of the project DE-SC000120 (A scalable Development Environment for Peta-Scale Computing). The objective of this project is the extension of the Parallel Tools Platform (PTP) for applying it to peta-scale systems. PTP is an integrated development environment for parallel applications. It comprises code analysis, performance tuning, parallel debugging and system monitoring. The contribution of the Juelich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) aims to provide a scalable solution for system monitoring of supercomputers. This includes the development of a new communication protocol for exchanging status data between the target remote system and the client running PTP.more » The communication has to work for high latency. PTP needs to be implemented robustly and should hide the complexity of the supercomputer's architecture in order to provide a transparent access to various remote systems via a uniform user interface. This simplifies the porting of applications to different systems, because PTP functions as abstraction layer between parallel application developer and compute resources. The common requirement for all PTP components is that they have to interact with the remote supercomputer. E.g. applications are built remotely and performance tools are attached to job submissions and their output data resides on the remote system. Status data has to be collected by evaluating outputs of the remote job scheduler and the parallel debugger needs to control an application executed on the supercomputer. The challenge is to provide this functionality for peta-scale systems in real-time. The client server architecture of the established monitoring application LLview, developed by the JSC, can be applied to PTP's system monitoring. LLview provides a well-arranged overview of the supercomputer's current status. A set of statistics, a list of running and queued jobs as well as a node display mapping running jobs to their compute resources form the user display of LLview. These monitoring features have to be integrated into the development environment. Besides showing the current status PTP's monitoring also needs to allow for submitting and canceling user jobs. Monitoring peta-scale systems especially deals with presenting the large amount of status data in a useful manner. Users require to select arbitrary levels of detail. The monitoring views have to provide a quick overview of the system state, but also need to allow for zooming into specific parts of the system, into which the user is interested in. At present, the major batch systems running on supercomputers are PBS, TORQUE, ALPS and LoadLeveler, which have to be supported by both the monitoring and the job controlling component. Finally, PTP needs to be designed as generic as possible, so that it can be extended for future batch systems.« less

Prescription-event monitoring: methodology and recent progress.

PubMed

Rawson, N S; Pearce, G L; Inman, W H

1990-01-01

Event monitoring was first suggested 25 years ago as a way of detecting adverse reactions to drugs. Prescription-event monitoring (PEM), which has been developed by the Drug Safety Research Unit, is the first large-scale systematic post-marketing surveillance method to use event monitoring in the U.K. PEM identifies patients, who have been prescribed a particular drug, and their doctors from photocopies of National Health Service prescriptions which are processed centrally in England. A personalized follow-up questionnaire ("green form") is mailed to each patient's general practitioner, usually on the first anniversary of the initial prescription, asking for information about the patient, especially any "events" that he or she may have experienced since beginning treatment with the drug. The methodology of PEM is presented, together with examples of analyses that can be performed using results from recent studies. The problems and benefits of PEM are discussed.

Monitoring the welfare of polar bear populations in a rapidly changing Arctic

USGS Publications Warehouse

Atwood, Todd C.; Duncan, Colleen G.; Patyk, Kelly A.; Sonsthagen, Sarah A.

2017-01-01

Most programs for monitoring the welfare of wildlife populations support efforts aimed at reaching discrete management objectives, like mitigating conflict with humans. While such programs can be effective, their limited scope may preclude systemic evaluations needed for large-scale conservation initiatives, like the recovery of at-risk species. We discuss select categories of metrics that can be used to monitor how polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are responding to the primary threat to their long-term persistence—loss of sea ice habitat due to the unabated rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG; e.g., CO2) concentrations—that can also provide information on ecosystem function and health. Monitoring key aspects of polar bear population dynamics, spatial behavior, health and resiliency can provide valuable insight into ecosystem state and function, and could be a powerful tool for achieving Arctic conservation objectives, particularly those that have transnational policy implications.

Assessment of TRMM 3B43 product for drought monitoring in Singapore

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tan, Mou Leong; Chua, Vivien P.; Tan, Kok Chooi; Brindha, K.

2017-10-01

Drought is one of the most hazardous natural disasters for human beings and the environment. Using only rain gauge is insufficient to monitor the drought pattern effectively as it impacts large areas. This situation is more critical on small island countries, with limited rain gauges for monitoring drought pattern over the ocean regions. This study aims to assess the capability of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) 3B43 product in monitoring drought in Singapore from 1998 to 2014. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) at various time-scales is used for identifying drought patterns. Results show moderate to good correlations between TMPA- 3B43 and rain gauges in the SPI estimations. Besides that, TMPA-3B43 exhibits a similar temporal drought behavior as the rain gauges. These findings indicate the TMPA 3B43 product as a very useful tool to study drought pattern over Singapore.

Design and Realization of Online Monitoring System of Distributed New Energy and Renewable Energy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tang, Yanfen; Zhou, Tao; Li, Mengwen; Zheng, Guotai; Li, Hao

2018-01-01

Aimed at difficult centralized monitoring and management of current distributed new energy and renewable energy generation projects due to great varieties, different communication protocols and large-scale difference, this paper designs a online monitoring system of new energy and renewable energy characterized by distributed deployment, tailorable functions, extendible applications and fault self-healing performance. This system is designed based on international general standard for grid information data model, formulates unified data acquisition and transmission standard for different types of new energy and renewable energy generation projects, and can realize unified data acquisition and real-time monitoring of new energy and renewable energy generation projects, such as solar energy, wind power, biomass energy, etc. within its jurisdiction. This system has applied in Beijing. At present, 576 projects are connected to the system. Good effect is achieved and stability and reliability of the system have been validated.

Energy harvesting: small scale energy production from ambient sources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yeatman, Eric M.

2009-03-01

Energy harvesting - the collection of otherwise unexploited energy in the local environment - is attracting increasing attention for the powering of electronic devices. While the power levels that can be reached are typically modest (microwatts to milliwatts), the key motivation is to avoid the need for battery replacement or recharging in portable or inaccessible devices. Wireless sensor networks are a particularly important application: the availability of essentially maintenance free sensor nodes, as enabled by energy harvesting, will greatly increase the feasibility of large scale networks, in the paradigm often known as pervasive sensing. Such pervasive sensing networks, used to monitor buildings, structures, outdoor environments or the human body, offer significant benefits for large scale energy efficiency, health and safety, and many other areas. Sources of energy for harvesting include light, temperature differences, and ambient motion, and a wide range of miniature energy harvesters based on these sources have been proposed or demonstrated. This paper reviews the principles and practice in miniature energy harvesters, and discusses trends, suitable applications, and possible future developments.

NeuroCa: integrated framework for systematic analysis of spatiotemporal neuronal activity patterns from large-scale optical recording data

PubMed Central

Jang, Min Jee; Nam, Yoonkey

2015-01-01

Abstract. Optical recording facilitates monitoring the activity of a large neural network at the cellular scale, but the analysis and interpretation of the collected data remain challenging. Here, we present a MATLAB-based toolbox, named NeuroCa, for the automated processing and quantitative analysis of large-scale calcium imaging data. Our tool includes several computational algorithms to extract the calcium spike trains of individual neurons from the calcium imaging data in an automatic fashion. Two algorithms were developed to decompose the imaging data into the activity of individual cells and subsequently detect calcium spikes from each neuronal signal. Applying our method to dense networks in dissociated cultures, we were able to obtain the calcium spike trains of ∼1000 neurons in a few minutes. Further analyses using these data permitted the quantification of neuronal responses to chemical stimuli as well as functional mapping of spatiotemporal patterns in neuronal firing within the spontaneous, synchronous activity of a large network. These results demonstrate that our method not only automates time-consuming, labor-intensive tasks in the analysis of neural data obtained using optical recording techniques but also provides a systematic way to visualize and quantify the collective dynamics of a network in terms of its cellular elements. PMID:26229973

Full-scale testing and progressive damage modeling of sandwich composite aircraft fuselage structure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leone, Frank A., Jr.

A comprehensive experimental and computational investigation was conducted to characterize the fracture behavior and structural response of large sandwich composite aircraft fuselage panels containing artificial damage in the form of holes and notches. Full-scale tests were conducted where panels were subjected to quasi-static combined pressure, hoop, and axial loading up to failure. The panels were constructed using plain-weave carbon/epoxy prepreg face sheets and a Nomex honeycomb core. Panel deformation and notch tip damage development were monitored during the tests using several techniques, including optical observations, strain gages, digital image correlation (DIC), acoustic emission (AE), and frequency response (FR). Additional pretest and posttest inspections were performed via thermography, computer-aided tap tests, ultrasound, x-radiography, and scanning electron microscopy. The framework to simulate damage progression and to predict residual strength through use of the finite element (FE) method was developed. The DIC provided local and full-field strain fields corresponding to changes in the state-of-damage and identified the strain components driving damage progression. AE was monitored during loading of all panels and data analysis methodologies were developed to enable real-time determination of damage initiation, progression, and severity in large composite structures. The FR technique has been developed, evaluating its potential as a real-time nondestructive inspection technique applicable to large composite structures. Due to the large disparity in scale between the fuselage panels and the artificial damage, a global/local analysis was performed. The global FE models fully represented the specific geometries, composite lay-ups, and loading mechanisms of the full-scale tests. A progressive damage model was implemented in the local FE models, allowing the gradual failure of elements in the vicinity of the artificial damage. A set of modifications to the definitions of the local FE model boundary conditions is proposed and developed to address several issues related to the scalability of progressive damage modeling concepts, especially in regards to full-scale fuselage structures. Notable improvements were observed in the ability of the FE models to predict the strength of damaged composite fuselage structures. Excellent agreement has been established between the FE model predictions and the experimental results recorded by DIC, AE, FR, and visual observations.

North America: Chapter 5

USGS Publications Warehouse

Schwartz, Mark D.; Beaubien, Elisabeth G.; Crimmins, Theresa M.; Weltzin, Jake F.; Edited by Schwartz, Mark D.

2013-01-01

Plant phenological observations and networks in North America have been largely local and regional in extent until recent decades. In the USA, cloned plant monitoring networks were the exception to this pattern, with data collection spanning the late 1950s until approximately the early 1990s. Animal observation networks, especially for birds have been more extensive. The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN), established in the mid-2000s is a recent effort to operate a comprehensive national-scale network in the United States. In Canada, PlantWatch, as part of Nature Watch, is the current national-scale plant phenology program.

Live immunization against East Coast fever--current status.

PubMed

Di Giulio, Giuseppe; Lynen, Godelieve; Morzaria, Subhash; Oura, Chris; Bishop, Richard

2009-02-01

The infection-and-treatment method (ITM) for immunization of cattle against East Coast fever has historically been used only on a limited scale because of logistical and policy constraints. Recent large-scale deployment among pastoralists in Tanzania has stimulated demand. Concurrently, a suite of molecular tools, developed from the Theileria parva genome, has enabled improved quality control of the immunizing stabilate and post-immunization monitoring of the efficacy and biological impact of ITM in the field. This article outlines the current status of ITM immunization in the field, with associated developments in the molecular epidemiology of T. parva.

Wireless remote monitoring of toxic gases in shipbuilding.

PubMed

Pérez-Garrido, Carlos; González-Castaño, Francisco J; Chaves-Díeguez, David; Rodríguez-Hernández, Pedro S

2014-02-14

Large-scale wireless sensor networks have not achieved market impact, so far. Nevertheless, this technology may be applied successfully to small-scale niche markets. Shipyards are hazardous working environments with many potential risks to worker safety. Toxic gases generated in soldering processes in enclosed spaces (e.g., cargo holds) are one such risk. The dynamic environment of a ship under construction makes it very difficult to plan gas detection fixed infrastructures connected to external monitoring stations via wired links. While portable devices with gas level indicators exist, they require workers to monitor measurements, often in situations where they are focused on other tasks for relatively long periods. In this work, we present a wireless multihop remote gas monitoring system for shipyard environments that has been tested in a real ship under construction. Using this system, we validate IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee wireless networks as a suitable technology to connect gas detectors to control stations outside the ships. These networks have the added benefit that they reconfigure themselves dynamically in case of network failure or redeployment, for example when a relay is moved to a new location. Performance measurements include round trip time (which determines the alert response time for safety teams) and link quality indicator and packet error rate (which determine communication robustness).

Wireless Remote Monitoring of Toxic Gases in Shipbuilding

PubMed Central

Pérez-Garrido, Carlos; González-Castaño, Francisco J.; Chaves-Diéguez, David; Rodríguez-Hernández, Pedro S.

2014-01-01

Large-scale wireless sensor networks have not achieved market impact, so far. Nevertheless, this technology may be applied successfully to small-scale niche markets. Shipyards are hazardous working environments with many potential risks to worker safety. Toxic gases generated in soldering processes in enclosed spaces (e.g., cargo holds) are one such risk. The dynamic environment of a ship under construction makes it very difficult to plan gas detection fixed infrastructures connected to external monitoring stations via wired links. While portable devices with gas level indicators exist, they require workers to monitor measurements, often in situations where they are focused on other tasks for relatively long periods. In this work, we present a wireless multihop remote gas monitoring system for shipyard environments that has been tested in a real ship under construction. Using this system, we validate IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee wireless networks as a suitable technology to connect gas detectors to control stations outside the ships. These networks have the added benefit that they reconfigure themselves dynamically in case of network failure or redeployment, for example when a relay is moved to a new location. Performance measurements include round trip time (which determines the alert response time for safety teams) and link quality indicator and packet error rate (which determine communication robustness). PMID:24534919

Imaging mouse cerebellum with serial optical coherence scanner (Conference Presentation)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Chao J.; Williams, Kristen; Orr, Harry; Taner, Akkin

2017-02-01

We present the serial optical coherence scanner (SOCS), which consists of a polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography and a vibratome with associated controls for serial imaging, to visualize the cerebellum and adjacent brainstem of mouse. The cerebellar cortical layers and white matter are distinguished by using intrinsic optical contrasts. Images from serial scans reveal the large-scale anatomy in detail and map the nerve fiber pathways in the cerebellum and adjacent brainstem. The optical system, which has 5.5 μm axial resolution, utilizes a scan lens or a water-immersion microscope objective resulting in 10 μm or 4 μm lateral resolution, respectively. The large-scale brain imaging at high resolution requires an efficient way to collect large datasets. It is important to improve the SOCS system to deal with large-scale and large number of samples in a reasonable time. The imaging and slicing procedure for a section took about 4 minutes due to a low speed of the vibratome blade to maintain slicing quality. SOCS has potential to investigate pathological changes and monitor the effects of therapeutic drugs in cerebellar diseases such as spinocerebellar ataxia 1 (SCA1). The SCA1 is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by atrophy and eventual loss of Purkinje cells from the cerebellar cortex, and the optical contrasts provided by SOCS is being evaluated for biomarkers of the disease.

Sedimentary Framework of an Inner Continental Shelf Sand-Ridge System, West-Central Florida

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Locker, S. D.; Hine, A. C.; Wright, A. K.; Duncan, D. S.

2002-12-01

The west-central Florida inner continental shelf is a dynamic environment subject to current flows on a variety of temporal and spatial scales. A site survey program, undertaken in support of the Office of Naval Research's Mine Burial prediction program, is focused on the sedimentary framework and sediment accumulation patterns in 10-18 meters water depth. Our specific goals are to image the shallow subsurface and to monitor changes in bedform distribution patterns that coincide with physical processes studies ongoing in the area. Methods of study include side-scan sonar imaging, boomer and chirp subbottom profiling, and sedimentary facies analysis using surface sediment sampling and vibracoring. A well-defined sand-ridge system was imaged, trending oblique to the west-Florida coastline. The side-scan clearly shows that there is extensive three-dimensional structure within these large-scale NW-SE trending sedimentary bedforms. The sand ridges commonly are approximately 1 km wide and 4-8 km in length. The characteristics of these ridges are distinctly different than the sand ridges in < 8 m water that we have previously studied. Ridges in the offshore area tend to be thicker, have a flatter morphology, and exhibit fewer smaller-scale sand waves. Sand-ridge thickness ranges 2-3 meters, and typically consists of fining upward medium to fine quartz sand facies with occasional centimeter-scale coarser-grained carbonate-rich intervals. Time series investigations tracking the shift in position of the sand ridge margins have found undetectable net annual movement. However significant resuspension and bedform development accompanies high-energy events such as winter cold front passage. Thus the large-scale bedforms (sand ridges) are in a state of dynamic equilibrium with the average annual hydrodynamic regime. Repeated field surveys will focus on monitoring small-scale sedimentological and stratal framework changes that will be integrated with the quantitative process studies.

Implementation of Fiber Optic Sensing System on Sandwich Composite Cylinder Buckling Test

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pena, Francisco; Richards, W. Lance; Parker, Allen R.; Piazza, Anthony; Schultz, Marc R.; Rudd, Michelle T.; Gardner, Nathaniel W.; Hilburger, Mark W.

2018-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Engineering and Safety Center Shell Buckling Knockdown Factor Project is a multicenter project tasked with developing new analysis-based shell buckling design guidelines and design factors (i.e., knockdown factors) through high-fidelity buckling simulations and advanced test technologies. To validate these new buckling knockdown factors for future launch vehicles, the Shell Buckling Knockdown Factor Project is carrying out structural testing on a series of large-scale metallic and composite cylindrical shells at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama). A fiber optic sensor system was used to measure strain on a large-scale sandwich composite cylinder that was tested under multiple axial compressive loads up to more than 850,000 lb, and equivalent bending loads over 22 million in-lb. During the structural testing of the composite cylinder, strain data were collected from optical cables containing distributed fiber Bragg gratings using a custom fiber optic sensor system interrogator developed at the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center. A total of 16 fiber-optic strands, each containing nearly 1,000 fiber Bragg gratings, measuring strain, were installed on the inner and outer cylinder surfaces to monitor the test article global structural response through high-density real-time and post test strain measurements. The distributed sensing system provided evidence of local epoxy failure at the attachment-ring-to-barrel interface that would not have been detected with conventional instrumentation. Results from the fiber optic sensor system were used to further refine and validate structural models for buckling of the large-scale composite structures. This paper discusses the techniques employed for real-time structural monitoring of the composite cylinder for structural load introduction and distributed bending-strain measurements over a large section of the cylinder by utilizing unique sensing capabilities of fiber optic sensors.

Seasonal and Regional Dynamics of M. ulcerans Transmission in Environmental Context: Deciphering the Role of Water Bugs as Hosts and Vectors

PubMed Central

Marion, Estelle; Eyangoh, Sara; Yeramian, Edouard; Doannio, Julien; Landier, Jordi; Aubry, Jacques; Fontanet, Arnaud; Rogier, Christophe; Cassisa, Viviane; Cottin, Jane; Marot, Agnès; Eveillard, Matthieu; Kamdem, Yannick; Legras, Pierre; Deshayes, Caroline; Saint-André, Jean-Paul; Marsollier, Laurent

2010-01-01

Background Buruli ulcer, the third mycobacterial disease after tuberculosis and leprosy, is caused by the environmental mycobacterium M. ulcerans. Various modes of transmission have been suspected for this disease, with no general consensus acceptance for any of them up to now. Since laboratory models demonstrated the ability of water bugs to transmit M. ulcerans, a particular attention is focused on the transmission of the bacilli by water bugs as hosts and vectors. However, it is only through detailed knowledge of the biodiversity and ecology of water bugs that the importance of this mode of transmission can be fully assessed. It is the objective of the work here to decipher the role of water bugs in M. ulcerans ecology and transmission, based on large-scale field studies. Methodology/Principal Findings The distribution of M. ulcerans-hosting water bugs was monitored on previously unprecedented time and space scales: a total of 7,407 water bugs, belonging to large number of different families, were collected over one year, in Buruli ulcer endemic and non endemic areas in central Cameroon. This study demonstrated the presence of M. ulcerans in insect saliva. In addition, the field results provided a full picture of the ecology of transmission in terms of biodiversity and detailed specification of seasonal and regional dynamics, with large temporal heterogeneity in the insect tissue colonization rate and detection of M. ulcerans only in water bug tissues collected in Buruli ulcer endemic areas. Conclusion/Significance The large-scale detection of bacilli in saliva of biting water bugs gives enhanced weight to their role in M. ulcerans transmission. On practical grounds, beyond the ecological interest, the results concerning seasonal and regional dynamics can provide an efficient tool in the hands of sanitary authorities to monitor environmental risks associated with Buruli ulcer. PMID:20625552

Exodus! Large-scale displacement and social adjustments of resident Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) in the Bahamas.

PubMed

Herzing, Denise L; Augliere, Bethany N; Elliser, Cindy R; Green, Michelle L; Pack, Adam A

2017-01-01

Over the last 20 years, significant habitat shifts have been documented in some populations of cetaceans. On Little Bahama Bank (LBB) there are sympatric communities of resident Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), monitored since 1985. The size and social structure (three clusters: Northern, Central, Southern) have been stable among the spotted dolphin community with little immigration/emigration, even after large demographic losses (36%) following two major hurricanes in 2004. In 2013 an unprecedented exodus of over 50% (52 individuals) of the spotted dolphin community was documented. The entire Central cluster and a few Northern and Southern individuals relocated 161 km south to Great Bahama Bank (GBB), also home to two sympatric resident communities of spotted dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. During the late summer of 2013 and the summers of 2014 and 2015 both sites were regularly monitored but no former LBB dolphins returned to LBB. Uncharacteristic matriline splits were observed. Social analyses revealed random associations for those spotted dolphins and very little integration between spotted dolphins that moved to GBB (MGBB) and those dolphin resident to GBB (RGBB). Male alliances among spotted dolphins were present, with some altered patterns. On LBB, the operational sex ratio (OSR) was reduced (.40 to .25). OSR for MGBB and RGBB dolphins were similar (.45 and .43). A significant steady decrease in sea surface temperature and chlorophyll a (a proxy for plankton production) occurred on LBB leading up to this exodus. Similar trends were not present over the same period on GBB. The sudden large-scale shift of spotted dolphins from LBB to GBB in association with the gradual decline in certain environmental factors suggests that a possible "tipping point" was reached in prey availability. This study provides a unique view into social and genetic implications of large-scale displacement of stable dolphin communities.

Exodus! Large-scale displacement and social adjustments of resident Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) in the Bahamas

PubMed Central

Herzing, Denise L.; Augliere, Bethany N.; Elliser, Cindy R.; Green, Michelle L.; Pack, Adam A.

2017-01-01

Over the last 20 years, significant habitat shifts have been documented in some populations of cetaceans. On Little Bahama Bank (LBB) there are sympatric communities of resident Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), monitored since 1985. The size and social structure (three clusters: Northern, Central, Southern) have been stable among the spotted dolphin community with little immigration/emigration, even after large demographic losses (36%) following two major hurricanes in 2004. In 2013 an unprecedented exodus of over 50% (52 individuals) of the spotted dolphin community was documented. The entire Central cluster and a few Northern and Southern individuals relocated 161 km south to Great Bahama Bank (GBB), also home to two sympatric resident communities of spotted dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. During the late summer of 2013 and the summers of 2014 and 2015 both sites were regularly monitored but no former LBB dolphins returned to LBB. Uncharacteristic matriline splits were observed. Social analyses revealed random associations for those spotted dolphins and very little integration between spotted dolphins that moved to GBB (MGBB) and those dolphin resident to GBB (RGBB). Male alliances among spotted dolphins were present, with some altered patterns. On LBB, the operational sex ratio (OSR) was reduced (.40 to .25). OSR for MGBB and RGBB dolphins were similar (.45 and .43). A significant steady decrease in sea surface temperature and chlorophyll a (a proxy for plankton production) occurred on LBB leading up to this exodus. Similar trends were not present over the same period on GBB. The sudden large-scale shift of spotted dolphins from LBB to GBB in association with the gradual decline in certain environmental factors suggests that a possible “tipping point” was reached in prey availability. This study provides a unique view into social and genetic implications of large-scale displacement of stable dolphin communities. PMID:28792947

A Quantitative, Non-Destructive Methodology for Habitat Characterisation and Benthic Monitoring at Offshore Renewable Energy Developments

PubMed Central

Sheehan, Emma V.; Stevens, Timothy F.; Attrill, Martin J.

2010-01-01

Following governments' policies to tackle global climate change, the development of offshore renewable energy sites is likely to increase substantially over coming years. All such developments interact with the seabed to some degree and so a key need exists for suitable methodology to monitor the impacts of large-scale Marine Renewable Energy Installations (MREIs). Many of these will be situated on mixed or rocky substrata, where conventional methods to characterise the habitat are unsuitable. Traditional destructive sampling is also inappropriate in conservation terms, particularly as safety zones around (MREIs) could function as Marine Protected Areas, with positive benefits for biodiversity. Here we describe a technique developed to effectively monitor the impact of MREIs and report the results of its field testing, enabling large areas to be surveyed accurately and cost-effectively. The methodology is based on a high-definition video camera, plus LED lights and laser scale markers, mounted on a “flying array” that maintains itself above the seabed grounded by a length of chain, thus causing minimal damage. Samples are taken by slow-speed tows of the gear behind a boat (200 m transects). The HD video and randomly selected frame grabs are analysed to quantify species distribution. The equipment was tested over two years in Lyme Bay, UK (25 m depth), then subsequently successfully deployed in demanding conditions at the deep (>50 m) high-energy Wave Hub site off Cornwall, UK, and a potential tidal stream energy site in Guernsey, Channel Islands (1.5 ms−1 current), the first time remote samples from such a habitat have been achieved. The next stage in the monitoring development process is described, involving the use of Remote Operated Vehicles to survey the seabed post-deployment of MREI devices. The complete methodology provides the first quantitative, relatively non-destructive method for monitoring mixed-substrate benthic communities beneath MPAs and MREIs pre- and post-device deployment. PMID:21206748

Insights in nutrient sources and transport from high-frequency monitoring at the outlet pumping station of an agricultural lowland polder catchment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rozemeijer, J.; Van der Grift, B.; Broers, H. P.; Berendrecht, W.; Oste, L.; Griffioen, J.

2015-12-01

In this study, we present new insights in nutrient sources and transport processes in an agricultural-dominated lowland water system based on high-frequency monitoring technology. Starting in October 2014, we have collected semi-continuous measurements of the TP and NO3 concentrations, conductivity and water temperature at a large scale pumping station at the outlet of a 576 km2 polder catchment. The semi-continuous measurements complement a water quality monitoring program at six locations within the drainage area based on conventional monthly or biweekly grab sampling. The NO3 and TP concentrations at the pumping station varied between 0.5 and 10 mgN/L and 0.1 and 0.5 mgP/L. The seasonal trends and short scale concentration dynamics clearly indicated that most of the NO3 loads at the pumping station originated from subsurface drain tubes that were active after intensive rainfall events during the winter months. A transfer function-noise model of hourly NO3 concentrations reveals that a large part of the dynamics in NO3 concentrations during the winter months can be predicted using rainfall data. In February however, NO3 concentrations were higher than predicted due to direct losses after the first manure application. The TP concentration almost doubled during operation of the pumping station. This highlights resuspension of particulate P from channel bed sediments induced by the higher flow velocities during pumping. Rainfall events that caused peaks in NO3 concentrations did not result in TP concentration peaks. Direct effects of run-off, with an association increase in the TP concentration and decrease of the NO3concentration, was only observed during rainfall event at the end of a freeze-thaw cycle. The high-frequency monitoring at the outlet of an agricultural-dominated lowland water system in combination with low-frequency monitoring within the area provided insight in nutrient sources and transport processes that are highly relevant for water quality management.

A quantitative, non-destructive methodology for habitat characterisation and benthic monitoring at offshore renewable energy developments.

PubMed

Sheehan, Emma V; Stevens, Timothy F; Attrill, Martin J

2010-12-29

Following governments' policies to tackle global climate change, the development of offshore renewable energy sites is likely to increase substantially over coming years. All such developments interact with the seabed to some degree and so a key need exists for suitable methodology to monitor the impacts of large-scale Marine Renewable Energy Installations (MREIs). Many of these will be situated on mixed or rocky substrata, where conventional methods to characterise the habitat are unsuitable. Traditional destructive sampling is also inappropriate in conservation terms, particularly as safety zones around (MREIs) could function as Marine Protected Areas, with positive benefits for biodiversity. Here we describe a technique developed to effectively monitor the impact of MREIs and report the results of its field testing, enabling large areas to be surveyed accurately and cost-effectively. The methodology is based on a high-definition video camera, plus LED lights and laser scale markers, mounted on a "flying array" that maintains itself above the seabed grounded by a length of chain, thus causing minimal damage. Samples are taken by slow-speed tows of the gear behind a boat (200 m transects). The HD video and randomly selected frame grabs are analysed to quantify species distribution. The equipment was tested over two years in Lyme Bay, UK (25 m depth), then subsequently successfully deployed in demanding conditions at the deep (>50 m) high-energy Wave Hub site off Cornwall, UK, and a potential tidal stream energy site in Guernsey, Channel Islands (1.5 ms⁻¹ current), the first time remote samples from such a habitat have been achieved. The next stage in the monitoring development process is described, involving the use of Remote Operated Vehicles to survey the seabed post-deployment of MREI devices. The complete methodology provides the first quantitative, relatively non-destructive method for monitoring mixed-substrate benthic communities beneath MPAs and MREIs pre- and post-device deployment.

Large-scale patterns of insect and disease activity in the conterminous United States and Alaska from the National Insect and Disease Detection Survey Database, 2010

Treesearch

Kevin M. Potter; Jeanine L. Paschke

2013-01-01

Analyzing patterns of forest pest infestations, diseases occurrences, forest declines and related biotic stress factors is necessary to monitor the health of forested ecosystems and their potential impacts on forest structure, composition, biodiversity, and species distributions (Castello and others 1995). Introduced nonnative insects and diseases, in particular, can...

Large-scale patterns of insect and disease activity in the conterminous United States and Alaska from the national insect and disease detection survey, 2009

Treesearch

Kevin M. Potter

2013-01-01

Analyzing patterns of forest pest infestation, disease occurrences, forest declines, and related biotic stress factors is necessary to monitor the health of forested ecosystems and their potential impacts on forest structure, composition, biodiversity, and species distributions (Castello and others 1995). Introduced nonnative insects and diseases, in particular, can...

Stable isotope estimates of evaporation: inflow and water residence time for lakes across the United States as a tool for national lake water quality assessments

EPA Science Inventory

Stable isotope ratios of water (delta18O and delta2H) can be very useful in large-scale monitoring programs because water samples are easy to collect and isotope ratios integrate information about basic hydrologic processes such as evaporation as a percentage of inflow (E/I) and ...

Long and short term changes in the forests of the Cumberland Plateau and Mountains using large scale forest inventory data

Treesearch

Christopher M. Oswalt; Andrew J. Hartsell

2012-01-01

The Cumberland Plateau and Mountains (CPM) are a significant component of the eastern deciduous forest with biological and cultural resources strongly connected to and dependent upon the forest resources of the region. As a result, continuous inventory and monitoring is critical. The USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program has been collecting...

Assessment of fire effects based on Forest Inventory and Analysis data and a long-term fire mapping data set

Treesearch

John D. Shaw; Sara A. Goeking; James Menlove; Charles E. Werstak

2017-01-01

Integration of Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot data with Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) data can provide new information about fire effects on forests. This integration allowed broad-scale assessment of the cover types burned in large fires, the relationship between prefire stand conditions and fire severity, and postfire stand conditions. Of the 42...

Traps and attractants for wood-boring insects in ponderosa pine stands in the Black Hills, South Dakota

Treesearch

Sheryl L. Costello; Jose F. Negron; William R. Jacobi

2008-01-01

Recent large-scale wildfires have increased populations of wood-boring insects in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Because little is known about possible impacts of wood-boring insects in the Black Hills, land managers are interested in developing monitoring techniques such as flight trapping with semiochemical baits. Two trap designs and four semiochemical attractants...

Imaging of Brain Slices with a Genetically Encoded Voltage Indicator.

PubMed

Quicke, Peter; Barnes, Samuel J; Knöpfel, Thomas

2017-01-01

Functional fluorescence microscopy of brain slices using voltage sensitive fluorescent proteins (VSFPs) allows large scale electrophysiological monitoring of neuronal excitation and inhibition. We describe the equipment and techniques needed to successfully record functional responses optical voltage signals from cells expressing a voltage indicator such as VSFP Butterfly 1.2. We also discuss the advantages of voltage imaging and the challenges it presents.

Hardware-Assisted Large-Scale Neuroevolution for Multiagent Learning

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-12-30

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: This DURIP equipment award was used to purchase, install, and bring on-line two Berkeley Emulation Engines ( BEEs ) and two...mini- BEE machines to establish an FPGA-based high-performance multiagent training platform and its associated software. This acquisition of BEE4-W...Platform; Probabilistic Domain Transformation; Hardware-Assisted; FPGA; BEE ; Hive Brain; Multiagent. REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE 11. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S

Tagging and Playback Studies to Toothed Whales

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-09-30

More playbacks of sonar have been conducted to pilot whales (Globicephala sp.), which are large pelagic delphinids, than to any other genus of cetacean...the group across different spatial scales. In particular, results showing how pilot whales use repeated, stereotyped calls (Sayigh et al. 2012) to re...establish contact with their social group following separations may prove valuable for testing whether monitoring for stereotyped calls might

Using the Space-Borne NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) to Determine The Frozen and Thawed Seasons of a Boreal Landscape

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Frolking, S.; McDonald, K. C.; Kimball, J. S.; Way, J. B.; Zimmermann, R.; Running, S. W.

1998-01-01

We hypothesize that the strong sensitivity of radar backscatter to surface dielectric properties, and hence to the phase (solid or liquid) of any water near the surface, should make space-borne radar observations a powerful tool for large-scale spatial monitoring of the freeze/thaw state of the land surface, and thus ecosystem growing season length.

The Establishment and Application of a Labor Quality Index: The Case of Taiwan's Manufacturing Industry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

San,Gee; Huang, Tung-Chun; Huang, Li-Hsuan

2006-01-01

The labor quality index (LQI) not only serves as an important reference for monitoring the progress of the sustainable development of a country, but it can also serve as an important parameter for economic analysis. To compile such an index for Taiwan, we conducted two large-scale surveys of 1000 major enterprises and 844 union leaders,…

The Geomechanics of CO 2 Storage in Deep Sedimentary Formations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rutqvist, Jonny

2012-01-12

This study provides a review of the geomechanics and modeling of geomechanics associated with geologic carbon storage (GCS), focusing on storage in deep sedimentary formations, in particular saline aquifers. The paper first introduces the concept of storage in deep sedimentary formations, the geomechanical processes and issues related with such an operation, and the relevant geomechanical modeling tools. This is followed by a more detailed review of geomechanical aspects, including reservoir stress-strain and microseismicity, well integrity, caprock sealing performance, and the potential for fault reactivation and notable (felt) seismic events. Geomechanical observations at current GCS field deployments, mainly at the Inmore » Salah CO 2 storage project in Algeria, are also integrated into the review. The In Salah project, with its injection into a relatively thin, low-permeability sandstone is an excellent analogue to the saline aquifers that might be used for large scale GCS in parts of Northwest Europe, the U.S. Midwest, and China. Some of the lessons learned at In Salah related to geomechanics are discussed, including how monitoring of geomechanical responses is used for detecting subsurface geomechanical changes and tracking fluid movements, and how such monitoring and geomechanical analyses have led to preventative changes in the injection parameters. Recently, the importance of geomechanics has become more widely recognized among GCS stakeholders, especially with respect to the potential for triggering notable (felt) seismic events and how such events could impact the long-term integrity of a CO 2 repository (as well as how it could impact the public perception of GCS). As described in the paper, to date, no notable seismic event has been reported from any of the current CO 2 storage projects, although some unfelt microseismic activities have been detected by geophones. However, potential future commercial GCS operations from large power plants will require injection at a much larger scale. In conclusion, for such large-scale injections, a staged, learn-as-you-go approach is recommended, involving a gradual increase of injection rates combined with continuous monitoring of geomechanical changes, as well as siting beneath a multiple layered overburden for multiple flow barrier protection, should an unexpected deep fault reactivation occur.« less

Acceptance and usability of a home-based monitoring tool of health indicators in children of people with dementia: a Proof of Principle (POP) study

PubMed Central

Boessen, April BCG; Vermeulen, Joan; de Witte, Luc P

2017-01-01

Background Large-scale cohort studies are needed to confirm the relation between dementia and its possible risk factors. The inclusion of people with dementia in research is a challenge, however, children of people with dementia are at risk and are highly motivated to participate in dementia research. For technologies to support home-based data collection during large-scale studies, participants should be able and willing to use technology for a longer period of time. Objective This study investigated acceptance and usability of iVitality, a research platform for home-based monitoring of dementia health indicators, in 151 children of people with dementia and investigated which frequency of measurements is acceptable for them. Methods Participants were randomized to fortnightly or monthly measurements. At baseline and after 3 months, participants completed an online questionnaire regarding the acceptance (Technology Acceptance Model; 38 items) and usability (Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire; 24 items) of iVitality. Items were rated from 1 (I totally disagree) to 7 (I totally agree). Participants were also invited to take part in an online focus group (OFG) after 3 months of follow-up. Descriptive statistics and both two-sample/independent and paired t-tests were used to analyze the online questionnaires and a directed content analysis was used to analyze the OFGs. Results Children of people with dementia accept iVitality after long-term use and evaluate iVitality as a user-friendly, useful, and trusted technology, despite some suggestions for improvement. Overall, mean scores on acceptance and usability were higher than 5 (I somewhat agree), although the acceptance subscales “social influence” and “time” were rated somewhat lower. No significant differences in acceptance and usability were found between both protocol groups. Over time, “affect” significantly increased among participants measuring blood pressure fortnightly. Conclusion iVitality has the potential to be used in large-scale studies for home-based monitoring of health indicators related to the development of dementia. PMID:28814839

[New Concept for Surviving Sepsis: from Phenomenon to Essence].

PubMed

Liao, Xue-Lian; Xie, Zhi-Chao; Kang, Yan

2016-07-01

Sepsis is a critical clinical syndrome which keep puzzling the medical profession for many years. Recently, the results from several large-scale trials challenged the necessity of early goal directed therapy (EGDT) in surviving sepsis bundle, These trials were not opposed to EGDT but bring new concept that it is essential to utilize therapy with multiple monitoring measures in order to minimize injury while guarantee the safety . Deeper understanding in the pathogenesis of sepsis gives rise to the update of its definition based on vital organ dysfunction. The importance of dynamic monitoring in defining sepsis also need to be emphasized. Developing more effective monitoring measures could provide better treatments, thus improve the prognosis of septic patients. Copyright© by Editorial Board of Journal of Sichuan University (Medical Science Edition).

Water utilization, evapotranspiration and soil moisture monitoring in the south east region of south Australia

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mccloy, K. R.; Shepherd, K. J.; Mcintosh, G. F. (Principal Investigator)

1977-01-01

The author has identified the following significant results. It was established that reliable estimates of sand and coastal scrub areas can be determined from LANDSAT image classification by the Vec classifier more economically than by conventional means from a map of the coastal zone produced by photointerpretation using 1:10,000 aerial photography. Current LANDSAT imagery is also suitable for monitoring for large scale storm damage to the zone, but the normal change in sand areas extent due to man's activity or other reasons, is about 5 to 10 m per year, occasionally being as great as 30 m per year, so that it is considered that LANDSAT D will have the resolution necessary to monitor these changes but not current imagery.

Wake-up transceivers for structural health monitoring of bridges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumberg, T.; Kokert, J.; Younesi, V.; Koenig, S.; Reindl, L. M.

2016-04-01

In this article we present a wireless sensor network to monitor the structural health of a large-scale highway bridge in Germany. The wireless sensor network consists of several sensor nodes that use wake-up receivers to realize latency free and low-power communication. The sensor nodes are either equipped with very accurate tilt sensor developed by Northrop Grumman LITEF GmbH or with a Novatel OEM615 GNSS receiver. Relay nodes are required to forward measurement data to a base station located on the bridge. The base station is a gateway that transmits the local measurement data to a remote server where it can be further analyzed and processed. Further on, we present an energy harvesting system to supply the energy demanding GNSS sensor nodes to realize long term monitoring.

Diagnostic monitoring by infrared imaging of avian embryos

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wurzbach, Richard N.

1998-03-01

For large scale chicken and turkey raising operations, automated 'candling' of eggs for monitoring embryonic development is effective and efficient. Candling is accomplished by the transmission of high intensity light such that it penetrates the translucent egg and gives indications of embryonic position and development. When monitoring the development of other species, however, mixed results are obtained with this technique. For instance, the Emu egg is virtually opaque to transmitted visible light, and thus cannot be candled by traditional means. During the development cycle all avian embryos, and for that mater all egg-laying creatures, exhibit changes in shell surface temperatures that indicate on-going development, or a lack of that development. Additionally, such hazards as bacterial or viral growth within the shell produce atypical thermal signatures. Analysis of the shell surface temperatures may be useful in monitoring the development of these embryos. Further applications of IR thermography in farming of avian species may make it an economically viable monitoring technique.

Research on Dynamic Monitoring (1990-2010)of Schistosomiasis Vector- Snail at Xinmin Beach, Gaoyou Lake, Jiangsu Province, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Zhaoyan; Li, Chuanrong; Tang, Lingli; Zhou, Xiaonong; Ma, Lingling

2014-11-01

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease that menaces human health. In terms of impact, this disease is second only to malaria as the most devastating parasitic disease. Oncomelania hupensis (snail) is the unique intermediate host of schistosoma, so monitoring and controlling of the number of snail is key to reduce the risk of schistosomiasis transmission. Remote sensing technology can real-timely access the large-scale environmental factors related to snail breeding and reproduction, and can also provide the efficient information to determine the location, area, and spread tendency of snail. Based on the T-S (Takagi-Sugeno) fuzzy information theory, a quantitative remote sensing monitoring model of snail has been developed in previous wok. In a case study, this paper will take Xinmin beach, Gaoyou Lake as new research area, carry out 20 years (1990 - 2010) dynamic monitoring, to further validate the effectiveness of the T-S Fuzzy RS snail monitoring model.

Research on Dynamic Monitoring (1990-2010) of Schistosomiasis Vector-Snail at Xinmin Beach, Gaoyou Lake, Jiangsu Province, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Zhaoyan; Li, Chuanrong; Tang, Lingli; Zhou, Xiaonong; Ma, Lingling

2014-11-01

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease that menaces human health. In terms of impact, this disease is second only to malaria as the most devastating parasitic disease. Oncomelania hupensis (snail) is the unique intermediate host of schistosoma, so monitoring and controlling of the number of snail is key to reduce the risk of schistosomiasis transmission. Remote sensing technology can real-timely access the large-scale environmental factors related to snail breeding and reproduction, and can also provide the efficient information to determine the location, area, and spread tendency of snail. Based on the T-S (Takagi-Sugeno) fuzzy information theory, a quantitative remote sensing monitoring model of snail has been developed in previous wok. In a case study, this paper will take Xinmin beach, Gaoyou Lake as new research area, carry out 20 years (1990 - 2010) dynamic monitoring, to further validate the effectiveness of the T-S Fuzzy RS snail monitoring model.

Monitoring Urban Heat Island Through Google Earth Engine: Potentialities and Difficulties in Different Cities of the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ravanelli, R.; Nascetti, A.; Cirigliano, R. V.; Di Rico, C.; Monti, P.; Crespi, M.

2018-04-01

The aim of this work is to exploit the large-scale analysis capabilities of the innovative Google Earth Engine platform in order to investigate the temporal variations of the Urban Heat Island phenomenon as a whole. A intuitive methodology implementing a largescale correlation analysis between the Land Surface Temperature and Land Cover alterations was thus developed.The results obtained for the Phoenix MA are promising and show how the urbanization heavily affects the magnitude of the UHI effects with significant increases in LST. The proposed methodology is therefore able to efficiently monitor the UHI phenomenon.

Parallel human genome analysis: microarray-based expression monitoring of 1000 genes.

PubMed Central

Schena, M; Shalon, D; Heller, R; Chai, A; Brown, P O; Davis, R W

1996-01-01

Microarrays containing 1046 human cDNAs of unknown sequence were printed on glass with high-speed robotics. These 1.0-cm2 DNA "chips" were used to quantitatively monitor differential expression of the cognate human genes using a highly sensitive two-color hybridization assay. Array elements that displayed differential expression patterns under given experimental conditions were characterized by sequencing. The identification of known and novel heat shock and phorbol ester-regulated genes in human T cells demonstrates the sensitivity of the assay. Parallel gene analysis with microarrays provides a rapid and efficient method for large-scale human gene discovery. Images Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 PMID:8855227

The evolving magnetic topology of τ Boötis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mengel, M. W.; Fares, R.; Marsden, S. C.; Carter, B. D.; Jeffers, S. V.; Petit, P.; Donati, J.-F.; Folsom, C. P.; BCool Collaboration

2016-07-01

We present six epochs of spectropolarimetric observations of the hot-Jupiter-hosting star τ Boötis that extend the exceptional previous multiyear data set of its large-scale magnetic field. Our results confirm that the large-scale magnetic field of τ Boötis varies cyclicly, with the observation of two further magnetic reversals; between 2013 December and 2014 May and between 2015 January and March. We also show that the field evolves in a broadly solar-type manner in contrast to other F-type stars. We further present new results which indicate that the chromospheric activity cycle and the magnetic activity cycles are related, which would indicate a very rapid magnetic cycle. As an exemplar of long-term magnetic field evolution, τ Boötis and this long-term monitoring campaign presents a unique opportunity for studying stellar magnetic cycles.

Global Detection of Live Virtual Machine Migration Based on Cellular Neural Networks

PubMed Central

Xie, Kang; Yang, Yixian; Zhang, Ling; Jing, Maohua; Xin, Yang; Li, Zhongxian

2014-01-01

In order to meet the demands of operation monitoring of large scale, autoscaling, and heterogeneous virtual resources in the existing cloud computing, a new method of live virtual machine (VM) migration detection algorithm based on the cellular neural networks (CNNs), is presented. Through analyzing the detection process, the parameter relationship of CNN is mapped as an optimization problem, in which improved particle swarm optimization algorithm based on bubble sort is used to solve the problem. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can display the VM migration processing intuitively. Compared with the best fit heuristic algorithm, this approach reduces the processing time, and emerging evidence has indicated that this new approach is affordable to parallelism and analog very large scale integration (VLSI) implementation allowing the VM migration detection to be performed better. PMID:24959631

Global detection of live virtual machine migration based on cellular neural networks.

PubMed

Xie, Kang; Yang, Yixian; Zhang, Ling; Jing, Maohua; Xin, Yang; Li, Zhongxian

2014-01-01

In order to meet the demands of operation monitoring of large scale, autoscaling, and heterogeneous virtual resources in the existing cloud computing, a new method of live virtual machine (VM) migration detection algorithm based on the cellular neural networks (CNNs), is presented. Through analyzing the detection process, the parameter relationship of CNN is mapped as an optimization problem, in which improved particle swarm optimization algorithm based on bubble sort is used to solve the problem. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can display the VM migration processing intuitively. Compared with the best fit heuristic algorithm, this approach reduces the processing time, and emerging evidence has indicated that this new approach is affordable to parallelism and analog very large scale integration (VLSI) implementation allowing the VM migration detection to be performed better.

Inferring field-scale properties of a fractured aquifer from ground surface deformation during a well test

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schuite, Jonathan; Longuevergne, Laurent; Bour, Olivier; Boudin, Frédérick; Durand, Stéphane; Lavenant, Nicolas

2015-12-01

Fractured aquifers which bear valuable water resources are often difficult to characterize with classical hydrogeological tools due to their intrinsic heterogeneities. Here we implement ground surface deformation tools (tiltmetry and optical leveling) to monitor groundwater pressure changes induced by a classical hydraulic test at the Ploemeur observatory. By jointly analyzing complementary time constraining data (tilt) and spatially constraining data (vertical displacement), our results strongly suggest that the use of these surface deformation observations allows for estimating storativity and structural properties (dip, root depth, and lateral extension) of a large hydraulically active fracture, in good agreement with previous studies. Hence, we demonstrate that ground surface deformation is a useful addition to traditional hydrogeological techniques and opens possibilities for characterizing important large-scale properties of fractured aquifers with short-term well tests as a controlled forcing.

Simplified methods of determining treatment retention in Malawi: ART cohort reports vs. pharmacy stock cards.

PubMed

Chan, A K; Singogo, E; Changamire, R; Ratsma, Y E C; Tassie, J-M; Harries, A D

2012-06-21

Rapid scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has challenged the health system in Malawi to monitor large numbers of patients effectively. To compare two methods of determining retention on treatment: quarterly ART clinic data aggregation vs. pharmacy stock cards. Between October 2010 and March 2011, data on ART outcomes were extracted from monitoring tools at five facilities. Pharmacy data on ART consumption were extracted. Workload for each method was observed and timed. We used intraclass correlation and Bland-Altman plots to compare the agreeability of both methods to determine treatment retention. There is wide variability between ART clinic cohort data and pharmacy data to determine treatment retention due to divergence in data at sites with large numbers of patients. However, there is a non-significant trend towards agreeability between the two methods (intraclass correlation coefficient > 0.9; P > 0.05). Pharmacy stock card monitoring is more time-efficient than quarterly ART data aggregation (81 min vs. 573 min). In low-resource settings, pharmacy records could be used to improve drug forecasting and estimate ART retention in a more time-efficient manner than quarterly data aggregation; however, a necessary precondition would be capacity building around pharmacy data management, particularly for large-sized cohorts.

Distributed Large Data-Object Environments: End-to-End Performance Analysis of High Speed Distributed Storage Systems in Wide Area ATM Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, William; Tierney, Brian; Lee, Jason; Hoo, Gary; Thompson, Mary

1996-01-01

We have developed and deployed a distributed-parallel storage system (DPSS) in several high speed asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) wide area networks (WAN) testbeds to support several different types of data-intensive applications. Architecturally, the DPSS is a network striped disk array, but is fairly unique in that its implementation allows applications complete freedom to determine optimal data layout, replication and/or coding redundancy strategy, security policy, and dynamic reconfiguration. In conjunction with the DPSS, we have developed a 'top-to-bottom, end-to-end' performance monitoring and analysis methodology that has allowed us to characterize all aspects of the DPSS operating in high speed ATM networks. In particular, we have run a variety of performance monitoring experiments involving the DPSS in the MAGIC testbed, which is a large scale, high speed, ATM network and we describe our experience using the monitoring methodology to identify and correct problems that limit the performance of high speed distributed applications. Finally, the DPSS is part of an overall architecture for using high speed, WAN's for enabling the routine, location independent use of large data-objects. Since this is part of the motivation for a distributed storage system, we describe this architecture.

International Radiation Monitoring and Information System (IRMIS)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mukhopadhyay, Sanjoy; Baciu, Florian; Stowisek, Jan; Saluja, Gurdeep; Kenny, Patrick; Albinet, Franck

2017-09-01

This article describes the International Radiation Monitoring Information System (IRMIS) which was developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with the goal to provide Competent Authorities, the IAEA and other international organizations with a client server based web application to share and visualize large quantities of radiation monitoring data. The data maps the areas of potential impact that can assist countries to take appropriate protective actions in an emergency. Ever since the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in April of 19861 European Community (EC) has worked towards collecting routine environmental radiological monitoring data from national networked monitoring systems. European Radiological Data Exchange Platform (EURDEP) was created in 19952 to that end - to provide radiation monitoring data from most European countries reported in nearly real-time. During the response operations for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant accident (March 2011) the IAEA Incident and Emergency Centre (IEC) managed, harmonized and shared the large amount of data that was being generated from different organizations. This task underscored the need for a system which allows sharing large volumes of radiation monitoring data in an emergency. In 2014 EURDEP started the submission of the European radiological data to the International Radiation Monitoring Information System (IRMIS) as a European Regional HUB for IRMIS. IRMIS supports the implementation of the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident by providing a web application for the reporting, sharing, visualizing and analysing of large quantities of environmental radiation monitoring data during nuclear or radiological emergencies. IRMIS is not an early warning system that automatically reports when there are significant deviations in radiation levels or when values are detected above certain levels. However, the configuration of the visualization features offered by IRMIS may help Member States to determine where elevated gamma dose rate measurements during a radiological or nuclear emergency indicate that actions to protect the public are necessary. The data can be used to assist emergency responders determine where and when to take necessary actions to protect the public. This new web online tool supports the IAEA's Unified System for Information Exchange in Incidents and Emergencies (USIE)3, an online tool where competent authorities can access information about all emergency situations, ranging from a lost radioactive source to a full-scale nuclear emergency.

Cumulative effects of restoration efforts on ecological characteristics of an open water area within the Upper Mississippi River

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gray, B.R.; Shi, W.; Houser, J.N.; Rogala, J.T.; Guan, Z.; Cochran-Biederman, J. L.

2011-01-01

Ecological restoration efforts in large rivers generally aim to ameliorate ecological effects associated with large-scale modification of those rivers. This study examined whether the effects of restoration efforts-specifically those of island construction-within a largely open water restoration area of the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) might be seen at the spatial scale of that 3476ha area. The cumulative effects of island construction, when observed over multiple years, were postulated to have made the restoration area increasingly similar to a positive reference area (a proximate area comprising contiguous backwater areas) and increasingly different from two negative reference areas. The negative reference areas represented the Mississippi River main channel in an area proximate to the restoration area and an open water area in a related Mississippi River reach that has seen relatively little restoration effort. Inferences on the effects of restoration were made by comparing constrained and unconstrained models of summer chlorophyll a (CHL), summer inorganic suspended solids (ISS) and counts of benthic mayfly larvae. Constrained models forced trends in means or in both means and sampling variances to become, over time, increasingly similar to those in the positive reference area and increasingly dissimilar to those in the negative reference areas. Trends were estimated over 12- (mayflies) or 14-year sampling periods, and were evaluated using model information criteria. Based on these methods, restoration effects were observed for CHL and mayflies while evidence in favour of restoration effects on ISS was equivocal. These findings suggest that the cumulative effects of island building at relatively large spatial scales within large rivers may be estimated using data from large-scale surveillance monitoring programs. Published in 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Data-Driven Simulation-Enhanced Optimization of People-Based Print Production Service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rai, Sudhendu

This paper describes a systematic six-step data-driven simulation-based methodology for optimizing people-based service systems on a large distributed scale that exhibit high variety and variability. The methodology is exemplified through its application within the printing services industry where it has been successfully deployed by Xerox Corporation across small, mid-sized and large print shops generating over 250 million in profits across the customer value chain. Each step of the methodology consisting of innovative concepts co-development and testing in partnership with customers, development of software and hardware tools to implement the innovative concepts, establishment of work-process and practices for customer-engagement and service implementation, creation of training and infrastructure for large scale deployment, integration of the innovative offering within the framework of existing corporate offerings and lastly the monitoring and deployment of the financial and operational metrics for estimating the return-on-investment and the continual renewal of the offering are described in detail.

Seasonal to interannual morphodynamics along a high-energy dissipative littoral cell

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ruggiero, P.; Kaminsky, G.M.; Gelfenbaum, G.; Voigt, B.

2005-01-01

A beach morphology monitoring program was initiated during summer 1997 along the Columbia River littoral cell (CRLC) on the coasts of northwest Oregon and southwest Washington, USA. This field program documents the seasonal through interannual morphological variability of these high-energy dissipative beaches over a variety of spatial scales. Following the installation of a dense network of geodetic control monuments, a nested sampling scheme consisting of cross-shore topographic beach profiles, three-dimensional topographic beach surface maps, nearshore bathymetric surveys, and sediment size distribution analyses was initiated. Beach monitoring is being conducted with state-of-the-art real-time kinematic differential global positioning system survey methods that combine both high accuracy and speed of measurement. Sampling methods resolve variability in beach morphology at alongshore length scales of approximately 10 meters to approximately 100 kilometers and cross-shore length scales of approximately 1 meter to approximately 2 kilometers. During the winter of 1997/1998, coastal change in the US Pacific Northwest was greatly influenced by one of the strongest El Nin??o events on record. Steeper than typical southerly wave angles resulted in alongshore sediment transport gradients and shoreline reorientation on a regional scale. The La Nin??a of 1998/1999, dominated by cross-shore processes associated with the largest recorded wave year in the region, resulted in net beach erosion along much of the littoral cell. The monitoring program successfully documented the morphological response to these interannual forcing anomalies as well as the subsequent beach recovery associated with three consecutive moderate wave years. These morphological observations within the CRLC can be generalized to explain overall system patterns; however, distinct differences in large-scale coastal behavior (e.g., foredune ridge morphology, sandbar morphometrics, and nearshore beach slopes) are not readily explained or understood.

Large-scale protein-protein interaction analysis in Arabidopsis mesophyll protoplasts by split firefly luciferase complementation.

PubMed

Li, Jian-Feng; Bush, Jenifer; Xiong, Yan; Li, Lei; McCormack, Matthew

2011-01-01

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) constitute the regulatory network that coordinates diverse cellular functions. There are growing needs in plant research for creating protein interaction maps behind complex cellular processes and at a systems biology level. However, only a few approaches have been successfully used for large-scale surveys of PPIs in plants, each having advantages and disadvantages. Here we present split firefly luciferase complementation (SFLC) as a highly sensitive and noninvasive technique for in planta PPI investigation. In this assay, the separate halves of a firefly luciferase can come into close proximity and transiently restore its catalytic activity only when their fusion partners, namely the two proteins of interest, interact with each other. This assay was conferred with quantitativeness and high throughput potential when the Arabidopsis mesophyll protoplast system and a microplate luminometer were employed for protein expression and luciferase measurement, respectively. Using the SFLC assay, we could monitor the dynamics of rapamycin-induced and ascomycin-disrupted interaction between Arabidopsis FRB and human FKBP proteins in a near real-time manner. As a proof of concept for large-scale PPI survey, we further applied the SFLC assay to testing 132 binary PPIs among 8 auxin response factors (ARFs) and 12 Aux/IAA proteins from Arabidopsis. Our results demonstrated that the SFLC assay is ideal for in vivo quantitative PPI analysis in plant cells and is particularly powerful for large-scale binary PPI screens.