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Modelling high data rate communication network access protocol

Modeling of high data rate communication systems is different from the low data rate systems. Three simulations were built during the development phase of Carrier Sensed Multiple Access/Ring Network (CSMA/RN) modeling. The first was a model using SIMCRIPT based upon the determination and processing of each event at each node. The second simulation was developed in C based upon isolating the distinct object that can be identified as the ring, the message, the node, and the set of critical events. The third model further identified the basic network functionality by creating a single object, the node which includes the set of critical events which occur at the node. The ring structure is implicit in the node structure. This model was also built in C. Each model is discussed and their features compared. It should be stated that the language used was mainly selected by the model developer because of his past familiarity. Further the models were not built with the intent to compare either structure or language but because the complexity of the problem and initial results contained obvious errors, so alternative models were built to isolate, determine, and correct programming and modeling errors. The CSMA/RN protocol is discussed in sufficient detail to understand modeling complexities. Each model is described along with its features and problems. The models are compared and concluding observations and remarks are presented.

Khanna, S.↗

A survey of commercial object-oriented database management systems

The object-oriented data model is the culmination of over thirty years of database research. Initially, database research focused on the need to provide information in a consistent and efficient manner to the business community. Early data models such as the hierarchical model and the network model met the goal of consistent and efficient access to data and were substantial improvements over simple file mechanisms for storing and accessing data. However, these models required highly skilled programmers to provide access to the data. Consequently, in the early 70's E.F. Codd, an IBM research computer scientists, proposed a new data model based on the simple mathematical notion of the relation. This model is known as the Relational Model. In the relational model, data is represented in flat tables (or relations) which have no physical or internal links between them. The simplicity of this model fostered the development of powerful but relatively simple query languages that now made data directly accessible to the general database user. Except for large, multi-user database systems, a database professional was in general no longer necessary. Database professionals found that traditional data in the form of character data, dates, and numeric data were easily represented and managed via the relational model. Commercial relational database management systems proliferated and performance of relational databases improved dramatically. However, there was a growing community of potential database users whose needs were not met by the relational model. These users needed to store data with data types not available in the relational model and who required a far richer modelling environment than that provided by the relational model. Indeed, the complexity of the objects to be represented in the model mandated a new approach to database technology. The Object-Oriented Model was the result.

Atkins, John↗

Changes in Characteristics of Future Climate Across the U.S.: Time Series Analysis of Climate Model Data by NASA POWER

NASA’s Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resource (POWER) project facilitates the use of NASA Earth Science data holdings within the energy, agricultural, and building heating/cooling design industries. POWER packages solar and meteorological data at various temporal levels from several NASA projects in a user friendly GIS-enabled web services system (https://power.larc.nasa.gov). Data users can access these data either through an intuitive data viewer, image services fully integrable with GIS analysis, connections in the cloud through an Amazon Web Services S3 Bucket, or fully customizable access through an API. Data provided by POWER has been used to remotely monitor solar array fields and integrated in a sizing tool for off-grid solar and storage systems. POWER data has also been coupled with key building decision tools to support design and retrofitting of building energy systems for energy efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gases. POWER is now developing capabilities to provide time series of the projected future evolution of surface quantities important to future energy production and use, such as heating/cooling degree days, temperature, wind speed, and downwelling solar flux. We present here a range of possible future changes in these quantities at locations throughout the continental United States. We show how both average and extreme values of the quantities will evolve from present-day to future climate conditions. We plan to provide these projections for users in the energy and sustainable energy communities.

Bradley M. Hegyi↗

NASA POWER: Providing Present and Future Climate Services Based on NASA Data for the Energy, Agricultural, and Sustainable Buildings Communities

NASA’s Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resource (POWER) project facilitates the use of NASA Earth Science data holdings within the renewable energy, agricultural, and building heating/cooling design industries. POWER packages solar and meteorological data at various temporal levels from several NASA projects in a user friendly GIS-enabled web services system (https://power.larc.nasa.gov). Data users can access these data either through an intuitive data viewer, image services fully integrable with GIS analysis, connections in the cloud through an Amazon Web Services S3 Bucket, or fully customizable access through an API. Data provided by POWER has been successfully used by decision makers to support actions that address climate change. For example, POWER data has been used to remotely monitor solar array fields and integrated in a sizing tool for off-grid solar and storage systems. POWER data has also been coupled with key building decision tools to support design and retrofitting of building energy systems for energy efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gases. POWER is now developing climate services to provide time series of the projected future evolution of key quantities that interest our users, such as heating/cooling degree days, temperature, wind speed, and downwelling solar flux. We demonstrate the potential of the new climate services by presenting here a range of possible future changes in these quantities at different NASA centers across the continental United States. These data services are based on downscaled climate model data from the NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP) data set. We highlight the important insights that new climate services can provide. Our climate services will help our user communities quantify the impacts of climate change to support their key decisions in planning for the future, both inside and outside the Federal Government, especially for decisions in renewable energy and in building heating and cooling.

Bradley Hegyi↗

Australian Bushfire in 2020: Accessing MERRA-2 Data in GES DISC Remotely through OPeNDAP & Calculating Statistics with Python3

The evolution and transport of thick haze from the 2020 Australian bushfire is tracked using the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) data archived at the NASA GES DISC data center. The MERRA-2 provides global data at 0.5 x 0.625 spatial resolution since the year 1980. In this use case, with xarray, a python3 library, we remotely accessed the hourly aerosol optical depth (AOD) and PM2.5 data through the OpeNDAP service provided by GES DISC. We also derived weekly data from hourly ones.

Xiaohua Pan↗

Acquisition of and Access to Research Omics Data

Omics data are essential for understanding the myriad and complex effects of space environments on humans. To assure maximum benefit from these kinds of data, the NASA Human Research Program Data Management Plan stipulates that human omics data should be archived within and accessed through the NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP). The NLSP has the capability to acquire and provision access to omics (and other kinds of) research results for individual and ad-hoc groups of subjects at the direction of institutional review boards, or other authorizing bodies or individuals, per institutional, program and investigation-specific policies and procedures. However, because some single-subject omics data, like CT scans and other kinds of large, complex biomedical data, could be used to identify heretofore unknown risks to the subject’s health, or, in certain cases, be used to identify a subject, NASA Policy Directive 7170.1 describes various policies regarding the management of and access to “research genetic testing” data, which includes many kinds of omics data. For example, NPD 7170.1 prohibits access to human research genetic data by NASA personnel who make employment decisions for the subjects from whom the data were obtained. To meet the objective of acquiring research omics data for NLSP in compliance with the policies in NPD 7170.1 and other applicable NASA policies, we designed NOMADS (the NLSP Omics Multimodal Acquisition of Data System), a new component that supports the transfer of large research data files, including research genetic testing data, using one of several different transfer mechanisms. The choice of mechanism is made by the submitter of the data, with guiding information from the system, and is likely to often be determined in large part by the nature and source location of the data. For example, for small files where the source data files are not already stored in a cloud storage system, users are likely to prefer to transfer their data to the NLSP via a web browser. Conversely, for large sets of files already organized and stored in a cloud storage system, users may opt for NOMAD’s cloud-to-cloud transfer method. All omics datasets targeted for the NASA Life Sciences Data Archive must pass a variety of quality checks to ensure data integrity and adherence to the standards defined by the LSDA Data Submission Guidelines (DSG) (see https://nlsp.nasa.gov/explore/lsdahome/datasubmit). These include requirements that data are consistent with open standards established by the omics community. Non-compliant data will not be accepted however archivists are available to advise submitters on how to revise data submissions and re-submit until compliance is achieved. Following compliance with the LSDA DSG, omics data next undergo a variety of additional quality checks to ensure the data meet omics community standards. Domain specific Omics data quality control tools and techniques are continually evolving and linked to the advancements in omics assays utilized and thus, the tools and techniques utilized by the LSDA for data quality control and validation will need to be sustained accordingly. All human omics data will be access controlled according to the policies described above, and requiring IRB approval for any additional access grants once the data are acquired (including access for analysis using the NLSP workspace tools).

Omics↗

Acquisition of and Access to Research Omics Data

Omics data are essential for understanding the myriad and complex effects of space environments on humans. To assure maximum benefit from these kinds of data, the NASA Human Research Program Data Management Plan stipulates that human omics data should be archived within and accessed through the NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP). The NLSP has the capability to acquire and provision access to omics (and other kinds of) research results for individual and ad-hoc groups of subjects at the direction of institutional review boards, or other authorizing bodies or individuals, per institutional, program and investigation-specific policies and procedures. However, because some single-subject omics data, like CT scans and other kinds of large, complex biomedical data, could be used to identify heretofore unknown risks to the subject’s health, or, in certain cases, be used to identify a subject, NASA Policy Directive 7170.1 describes various policies regarding the management of and access to “research genetic testing” data, which includes many kinds of omics data. For example, NPD 7170.1 prohibits access to human research genetic data by NASA personnel who make employment decisions for the subjects from whom the data were obtained. To meet the objective of acquiring research omics data for NLSP in compliance with the policies in NPD 7170.1 and other applicable NASA policies, we designed NOMADS (the NLSP Omics Multimodal Acquisition of Data System), a new component that supports the transfer of large research data files, including research genetic testing data, using one of several different transfer mechanisms. The choice of mechanism is made by the submitter of the data, with guiding information from the system, and is likely to often be determined in large part by the nature and source location of the data. For example, for small files where the source data files are not already stored in a cloud storage system, users are likely to prefer to transfer their data to the NLSP via a web browser. Conversely, for large sets of files already organized and stored in a cloud storage system, users may opt for NOMAD’s cloud-to-cloud transfer method. All omics datasets targeted for the NASA Life Sciences Data Archive must pass a variety of quality checks to ensure data integrity and adherence to the standards defined by the LSDA Data Submission Guidelines (DSG) (see https://nlsp.nasa.gov/explore/lsdahome/datasubmit). These include requirements that data are consistent with open standards established by the omics community. Non-compliant data will not be accepted however archivists are available to advise submitters on how to revise data submissions and re-submit until compliance is achieved. Following compliance with the LSDA DSG, omics data next undergo a variety of additional quality checks to ensure the data meet omics community standards. Domain specific Omics data quality control tools and techniques are continually evolving and linked to the advancements in omics assays utilized and thus, the tools and techniques utilized by the LSDA for data quality control and validation will need to be sustained accordingly. All human omics data will be access controlled according to the policies described above, and requiring IRB approval for any additional access grants once the data are acquired (including access for analysis using the NLSP workspace tools).

Omics↗

Volume server: A scalable high speed and high capacity magnetic tape archive architecture with concurrent multi-host access

A major challenge facing data processing centers today is data management. This includes the storage of large volumes of data and access to it. Current media storage for large data volumes is typically off line and frequently off site in warehouses. Access to data archived in this fashion can be subject to long delays, errors in media selection and retrieval, and even loss of data through misplacement or damage to the media. Similarly, designers responsible for architecting systems capable of continuous high-speed recording of large volumes of digital data are faced with the challenge of identifying technologies and configurations that meet their requirements. Past approaches have tended to evaluate the combination of the fastest tape recorders with the highest capacity tape media and then to compromise technology selection as a consequence of cost. This paper discusses an architecture that addresses both of these challenges and proposes a cost effective solution based on robots, high speed helical scan tape drives, and large-capacity media.

Rybczynski, Fred↗

Between a Map and a Data Rod

A Digital Divide has long stood between how NASA and other satellite-derived data are typically archived (time-step arrays or maps) and how hydrology and other point-time series oriented communities prefer to access those data. In essence, the desired method of data access is orthogonal to the way the data are archived. Our approach to bridging the Divide is part of a larger NASA-supported data rods project to enhance access to and use of NASA and other data by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Hydrologic Information System (HIS) and the larger hydrology community. Our main objective was to determine a way to reorganize data that is optimal for these communities. Two related objectives were to optimally reorganize data in a way that (1) is operational and fits in and leverages the existing Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) operational environment and (2) addresses the scaling up of data sets available as time series from those archived at the GES DISC to potentially include those from other Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) data archives. Through several prototype efforts and lessons learned, we arrived at a non-database solution that satisfied our objectivesconstraints. We describe, in this presentation, how we implemented the operational production of pre-generated data rods and, considering the tradeoffs between length of time series (or number of time steps), resources needed, and performance, how we implemented the operational production of on-the-fly (virtual) data rods. For the virtual data rods, we leveraged a number of existing resources, including the NASA Giovanni Cache and NetCDF Operators (NCO) and used data cubes processed in parallel. Our current benchmark performance for virtual generation of data rods is about a years worth of time series for hourly data (9,000 time steps) in 90 seconds. Our approach is a specific implementation of the general optimal strategy of reorganizing data to match the desired means of access. Results from our project have already significantly extended NASA data to the large and important hydrology user community that has been, heretofore, mostly unable to easily access and use NASA data.

machine learning↗

An integrated voice and data multiple-access scheme for a land-mobile satellite system

An analytical study is performed of the satellite requirements for a land mobile satellite system (LMSS). The spacecraft (MSAT-X) would be in GEO and would be compatible with multiple access by mobile radios and antennas and fixed stations. The FCC has received a petition from NASA to reserve the 821-825 and 866-870 MHz frequencies for the LMSS, while communications with fixed earth stations would be in the Ku band. MSAT-X transponders would alter the frequencies of signal and do no processing in the original configuration considered. Channel use would be governed by an integrated demand-assigned, multiple access protocol, which would divide channels into reservation and information channels, governed by a network management center. Further analyses will cover tradeoffs between data and voice users, probability of blocking, and the performance impacts of on-board switching and variable bandwidth assignment. Initial calculations indicate that a large traffic volume can be handled with acceptable delays and voice blocking probabilities.

Li, V. O. K.↗

A New Architecture for Visualization: Open Mission Control Technologies

Open Mission Control Technologies (MCT) is a new architecture for visualisation of mission data. Driven by requirements for new mission capabilities, including distributed mission operations, access to data anywhere, customization by users, synthesis of multiple data sources, and flexibility for multi-mission adaptation, Open MCT provides users with an integrated customizable environment. Developed at NASAs Ames Research Center (ARC), in collaboration with NASAs Advanced Multimission Operations System (AMMOS) and NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Open MCT is getting its first mission use on the Jason 3 Mission, and is also available in the testbed for the Mars 2020 Rover and for development use for NASAs Resource Prospector Lunar Rover. The open source nature of the project provides for use outside of space missions, including open source contributions from a community of users. The defining features of Open MCT for mission users are data integration, end user composition and multiple views. Data integration provides access to mission data across domains in one place, making data such as activities, timelines, telemetry, imagery, event timers and procedures available in one place, without application switching. End user composition provides users with layouts, which act as a canvas to assemble visualisations. Multiple views provide the capability to view the same data in different ways, with live switching of data views in place. Open MCT is browser based, and works on the desktop as well as tablets and phones, providing access to data anywhere. An early use case for mobile data access took place on the Resource Prospector (RP) Mission Distributed Operations Test, in which rover engineers in the field were able to view telemetry on their phones. We envision this capability providing decision support to on console operators from off duty personnel. The plug-in architecture also allows for adaptation for different mission capabilities. Different data types and capabilities may be added or removed using plugins. An API provides a means to write new capabilities and to create data adaptors. Data plugins exist for mission data sources for NASA missions. Adaptors have been written by international and commercial users. Open MCT is open source. Open source enables collaborative development across organizations and also makes the product available outside of the space community, providing a potential source of usage and ideas to drive product design and development. The combination of open source with an Apache 2 license, and distribution on GitHub, has enabled an active community of users and contributors. The spectrum of users for Open MCT is, to our knowledge, unprecedented for mission software. In addition to our NASA users, we have, through open source, had users and inquires on projects ranging from Internet of Things, to radio hobbyists, to farming projects. We have an active community of contributors, enabling a flow of ideas inside and outside of the space community.

Trimble, Jay↗

Use of Assistive Technology to Augment API Capabilities

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow for access to data and capabilities of computer applications by developers or users with experience in computer programming. Recent development with both Thermal Desktop and ESATAN-TMS have provided APIs to allow users to develop their own capabilities that interface with the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) or manipulate the thermal model data. However, these APIs are only as good as the breadth of features in the native code accessible through the API. If a particular code’s feature is not accessible through the API, then users have very limited options besides waiting for updates to the API that expose the necessary functionality, particularly if model data access or user action, such as a button click, is required. However, Assistive Technology features that allow for users with a disability to more fully experience a software’s capabilities may be creatively utilized to gain further access to data and capabilities not yet exposed by the API. This paper describes the process to augment the features of the OpenTD API via assistive technology and describes how to identify the application instance, navigate GUI elements, updates values on forms, and execute actions such as selecting a listbox item or clicking a button. It concludes with identifying some of the pitfalls to avoid and describes methods to best implement this approach.

Application Programming Interface↗

Use of Assistive Technology to Augment API Capabilities

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow for access to data and capabilities of computer applications by developers or users with experience in computer programming. Recent development with both Thermal Desktop and ESATAN-TMS have provided APIs to allow users to develop their own capabilities that interface with the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) or manipulate the thermal model data. However, these APIs are only as good as the breadth of features in the native code accessible through the API; if a particular code’s feature is not accessible through the API, then users have very limited options besides waiting for updates to the API that expose the necessary functionality, particularly if model data access or user action, such as a button click, is required. However, Assistive Technology features that allow for differently-abled users to more fully experience a software’s capabilities may be creatively utilized to gain further access to data and capabilities not yet exposed by the API. This paper describes the process to augment the features of the OpenTD API via assistive technology and describes how to identify the application instance, navigate GUI elements, updates values on forms, and execute actions such as selecting a listbox item or clicking a button. It concludes with identifying some of the pitfalls to avoid and describes methods to best implement this approach.

Application Programming Interface↗

How to Boost Engineering Support Via Web 2.0 - Seeds for the Ares Project...and/or Yours?

The Mission Operations Laboratory (MOL) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is responsible for Engineering Support capability for NASA s Ares launch system development. In pursuit of this, MOL is building the Ares Engineering and Operations Network (AEON), a web-based portal intended to provide a seamless interface to support and simplify two critical activities: a) Access and analyze Ares manufacturing, test, and flight performance data, with access to Shuttle data for comparison. b) Provide archive storage for engineering instrumentation data to support engineering design, development, and test. A mix of NASA-written and COTS software provides engineering analysis tools. A by-product of using a data portal to access and display data is access to collaborative tools inherent in a Web 2.0 environment. This paper discusses how Web 2.0 techniques, particularly social media, might be applied to the traditionally conservative and formal engineering support arena. A related paper by the author [1] considers use

Scott, David W.↗

NASA POWER: Providing Analysis-Ready, Cloud-Optimized Data for AI /ML Training and Applications in Earth Science

As global demand for sustainable development grows, the integration of Earth Observation (EO) data into decision making frameworks has become a primary objective for the scientific community. The NASA Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) project serves as a bridge between NASA EO data and the specialized needs of the renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure and agroclimatology communities. In this poster presentation we will present an overview of POWER data products and services along with its use in diverse research to decision-making workflows. By providing over 40 years of high-resolution historical, hourly and daily solar and meteorological data, POWER transforms satellite observations and global model reanalysis into actionable, Analysis-Ready Dataset (ARD). Currently, the project delivers over 250 industry-friendly parameters to the users from different NASA datasets like CERES SYN1Deg, MERRA-2, and IMERG alongside downscaled CMIP6 climate model data, fulfilling over 16 million requests from 50,000 unique users monthly. To ensure data quality and traceability, these parameters are rigorously validated against the ground-based observations from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) and the Global Surface Summary of the Day (GSOD) – these results will be discussed in the presentation. A newly introduced web-based PaRameter Uncertainty ViEwer (PRUVE) tool will be presented that provides an online validation platform to the users that benchmarks satellite-based and assimilation data products against these surface measurements. To reduce technical barriers to data adoption, POWER data is accessible through RESTful APIs, ESRI ArcGIS Image Services, a web-based Data Access Viewer tool, allowing users to visualize, validate and apply the dataset. For efficient data delivery POWER data is cloud-optimized into Zarr datastore accessible through NASA managed Amazon S3 ensures high-performance allowing users to integrate EO directly into operational pipelines. These customized services will be presented. Use cases from application will be presented from the energy sector - such as for design of generation systems, performance monitoring of solar power plants, in infrastructure sector- optimizing building energy efficiency and thermal comfort, in agriculture – such as driving crop simulation and yield forecasting models to enable climate resilient farming. Furthermore, the shift toward machine learning (ML) in EO research that has positioned POWER as a key provider for training datasets which will be discussed. Use-cases will be presented to showcase how NASA data is enabling the development of predictive tools for climate variability and resource management. The poster will present POWER’s future plans including technology development to enhance data traceability and reproducibility and improving I/O performance to support the rapid integration of new EO products, ensuring that POWER remains a robust scalable backend for the evolving landscape of AI-driven Earth Science. Additionally, POWER is developing an AI Agent and an MCP-Server to enable industry AI-Agentic workflows.

Neha Khadka↗

Studies of lightning data in conjunction with geostationary satellite data

Since January, work has been proceeding on the first phase of this project: the creation of an extensive real-time lightning data base accessible via the Space Science and Engineering Center McIdas system. The purpose of this endeavor is two-fold: to enhance the availability and ease of access to lightning data among the various networks, governmental and research agencies; and to test the feasiblity and desirability of such efforts in succeeding years. The final steps in the creation of the necessary communications links, hardware, and software are in the process of being completed. Operations ground rules for access among the various users have been discussed and are being refined. While the research planned for the last year of the project will rely for the most part on archived, quality-controlled data from the various networks, the real-time data will provide a valuable first-look at potentially interesting case studies. For this purpose, tools are being developed on McIdas for display and analysis of the data as they become available. In conjunction with concurrent GOES real-time imagery, strike locations can be plotted, gridded and contoured, or displayed in various statistical formats including frequency distributions, histograms, and scatter plots. The user may also perform these functions in relation to arbitrarily defined areas on the satellite image. By mid-May these preparations for the access and analysis of real-time lightning data are expected to be complete.

Auvine, B.↗

Dynamic Server-Based KML Code Generator Method for Level-of-Detail Traversal of Geospatial Data

Web-based geospatial client applications such as Google Earth and NASA World Wind must listen to data requests, access appropriate stored data, and compile a data response to the requesting client application. This process occurs repeatedly to support multiple client requests and application instances. Newer Web-based geospatial clients also provide user-interactive functionality that is dependent on fast and efficient server responses. With massively large datasets, server-client interaction can become severely impeded because the server must determine the best way to assemble data to meet the client applications request. In client applications such as Google Earth, the user interactively wanders through the data using visually guided panning and zooming actions. With these actions, the client application is continually issuing data requests to the server without knowledge of the server s data structure or extraction/assembly paradigm. A method for efficiently controlling the networked access of a Web-based geospatial browser to server-based datasets in particular, massively sized datasets has been developed. The method specifically uses the Keyhole Markup Language (KML), an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGS) standard used by Google Earth and other KML-compliant geospatial client applications. The innovation is based on establishing a dynamic cascading KML strategy that is initiated by a KML launch file provided by a data server host to a Google Earth or similar KMLcompliant geospatial client application user. Upon execution, the launch KML code issues a request for image data covering an initial geographic region. The server responds with the requested data along with subsequent dynamically generated KML code that directs the client application to make follow-on requests for higher level of detail (LOD) imagery to replace the initial imagery as the user navigates into the dataset. The approach provides an efficient data traversal path and mechanism that can be flexibly established for any dataset regardless of size or other characteristics. The method yields significant improvements in userinteractive geospatial client and data server interaction and associated network bandwidth requirements. The innovation uses a C- or PHP-code-like grammar that provides a high degree of processing flexibility. A set of language lexer and parser elements is provided that offers a complete language grammar for writing and executing language directives. A script is wrapped and passed to the geospatial data server by a client application as a component of a standard KML-compliant statement. The approach provides an efficient means for a geospatial client application to request server preprocessing of data prior to client delivery. Data is structured in a quadtree format. As the user zooms into the dataset, geographic regions are subdivided into four child regions. Conversely, as the user zooms out, four child regions collapse into a single, lower-LOD region. The approach provides an efficient data traversal path and mechanism that can be flexibly established for any dataset regardless of size or other characteristics.

Baxes, Gregory↗

Towards a coherent remote sensing data policy

Access to space-based remote sensing data is critical for earth science and the study of global change. This article summarizes a variety of U.S. government earth science data policies and problems. The authors examine current efforts to develop data policies for the next generation of U.S. remote sensing programs, noting likely problems based on past experiences. They argue that the goal of U.S. earth science data policy should be to provide the widest possible dissemination of data. Setting such a goal permits the development of a simple, coherent data policy that serves scientific, commercial, and U.S. government interests.

Shaffer, Lisa R.↗