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At least 91 records · Page 5

An Object-Oriented Interface to the CCSDS Ground Telecommand Services

The Telecommand Data Routing and Channel Services defined by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) are flexible enough to support a myriad of commanding models. Because the standard is so broad, the traditional approach has been to implement only the portion of the standard needed by the particular spacecraft being tested/operated. Tasked with providing Telecommand Services for an entire class of spacecraft, where each spacecraft may choose any valid CCSDS commanding model, NASA Code 584 designed a common architecture capable of handling the full CCSDS protocol. The solution uses another CCSDS standard - the Standard Formatted Data Unit (SFDU) as the interface to the Telecommand Services. SFDUs provide a consistent way of labelling data objects, as well as allowing data objects to encapsulate other data objects. The resulting interface is: - Flexible: The full Data Routing and Channel Services are available via a single interface. The client (i.e. the command source) may enter commands at any layer within the protocol stack, specify any of the data aggregation or segmentation methods, and dynamically set any configuration parameter defined in the standard. - Object-oriented: Each object specifies both the data and the actions to be performed with the data. An object may contain other objects. - Expandable: New capabilities are added by defining new objects. Objects pass thru the protocol layers until they reach the applicable layer. The resulting design is: - Modular: The logic for each protocol layer is contained in a separate Application Program Interface (API). The objects used for the external interface are also used for communication between layers. - Distributable: The design can be split along any layer boundary for distribution across multiple machines. The objects ensure data consistency across platforms. This paper describes the SFDU-based interface and the resulting protocol implementation. The implementation is currently used by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) for integration & test of the microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) and Earth observer-I (EO-l) spacecraft. It will be used for post-launch operations of these spacecraft as well as the Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) spacecraft.

Ray, Timothy Joseph↗

Exploring Climate-Disease Connections in Geopolitical Versus Ecological Regions: The Case of West Nile Virus in the United States

Many infectious disease forecasting models in the United States (US) are built with data partitioned into geopolitical regions centered on human activity as opposed to regions defined by natural ecosystems; although useful for data collection and intervention, this has the potential to mask biological relationships between the environment and disease. We explored this concept by analyzing the correlations between climate and West Nile virus (WNV) case data aggregated to geopolitical and ecological regions. We compared correlations between minimum, maximum, and mean annual temperature; precipitation; and annual WNV neuroinvasive disease (WNND) case data from 2005 to 2019 when partitioned into (a) climate regions defined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and (b) Level I ecoregions defined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We found that correlations between climate and WNND in NOAA climate regions and EPA ecoregions were often contradictory in both direction and magnitude, with EPA ecoregions more often supporting previously established biological hypotheses and environmental dynamics underlying vector-borne disease transmission. Using ecological regions to examine the relationships between climate and disease cases can enhance the predictive power of forecasts at various scales, motivating a conceptual shift in large-scale analyses from geopolitical frameworks to more ecologically meaningful regions.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

National Energy Water Treatment & Speciation (NEWTS): A Water & Critical Mineral Database and Dashboard

The scarcity of water resources, the need for beneficial water reuse, and the challenges of wastewater treatment are becoming increasingly pressing in economic, social, and environmental domains. Addressing these concerns requires effective treatment strategies to manage wastewater streams and tackle environmental and economic issues. Furthermore, the recovery of critical minerals from the waste streams associated with energy production holds the promise of offsetting treatment costs and securing local sources of valuable minerals. However, relevant data on these waste streams are dispersed and challenging to locate. The process of ingesting such data into modeling software often involves multiple steps, requiring data restructuring to meet software-input requirements. The non-standardized reporting of water data makes data aggregation and reformatting a time-consuming process. Additionally, essential attributes necessary for modeling water treatment and mineral scale formation are frequently missing. Moreover, data gaps vary depending on the region of interest. Consequently, there is a pressing need for high-quality energy-water composition data that can be easily imported into water chemistry modeling software. To address this need, the National Energy Technology Laboratory has created the National Energy Water Treatment and Speciation (NEWTS) Database and Dashboard—a free online tool catering to community leaders and water researchers. NEWTS facilitates a comprehensive understanding of the composition of energy-related wastewater streams in the United States. The datasets provide detailed concentrations and speciation of major and minor aqueous compounds in energy-related wastewater streams, including power plant leachate, acid mine drainage, brackish water, and oil and gas produced water across the United States. Many of the aqueous species are critical minerals (Li, REEs) in high demand to modernize the world’s energy infrastructure. Many of the datasets also contain volumetric flow-rates needed to model the treatment and reuse scenarios in advanced aqueous chemistry software programs. The NEWTS Database and Dashboard offer public access to hitherto challenging-to-access datasets, presented in a standardized format that is tailored for easy input into aqueous chemistry modeling software. By performing the work needed to transform dispersed, disparate data sources into unified, model-ready datasets, NEWTS serves as an essential resource in advancing water treatment research and sustainable water resource management.

produced water management↗

Automatic array alignment in data-parallel programs

FORTRAN 90 and other data-parallel languages express parallelism in the form of operations on data aggregates such as arrays. Misalignment of the operands of an array operation can reduce program performance on a distributed-memory parallel machine by requiring nonlocal data accesses. Determining array alignments that reduce communication is therefore a key issue in compiling such languages. We present a framework for the automatic determination of array alignments in array-based, data-parallel languages. Our language model handles array sectioning, reductions, spreads, transpositions, and masked operations. We decompose alignment functions into three constituents: axis, stride, and offset. For each of these subproblems, we show how to solve the alignment problem for a basic block of code, possibly containing common subexpressions. Alignments are generated for all array objects in the code, both named program variables and intermediate results. We assign computation to processors by virtue of explicit alignment of all temporaries; the resulting work assignment is in general better than that provided by the 'owner-computes' rule. Finally, we present some ideas for dealing with control flow, replication, and dynamic alignments that depend on loop induction variables.

Chatterjee, Siddhartha↗

Cryogenic C-band wavelength division multiplexing system using an AIM Photonics Foundry process design kit

Cryogenic environments make superconducting computing possible by reducing thermal noise, electrical resistance and heat dissipation. Heat generated by the electronics and thermal conductivity of electrical transmission lines to the outside world constitute two main sources of thermal load in such systems. As a result, higher data rates require additional transmission lines which come at an increasingly higher cooling power cost. Hybrid or monolithic integration of silicon photonics with the electronics can be the key to higher data rates and lower power costs in these systems. We present a 4-channel wavelength division multiplexing photonic integrated circuit (PIC) built from modulators in the AIM Photonics process development kit (PDK) that operate at 25 Gbps at room temperature and 10 Gbps at 40 K. We further demonstrate 2-channel operation for 20 Gbps aggregate data rate at 40 K using two different modulators/wavelengths, with the potential for higher aggregate bit rates by utilizing additional channels.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Characterizing the California Current System through Sea Surface Temperature and Salinity

Characterizing temperature and salinity (T-S) conditions is a standard framework in oceanography to identify and describe deep water masses and their dynamics. At the surface, this practice is hindered by multiple air–sea–land processes impacting T-S properties at shorter time scales than can easily be monitored. Now, however, the unsurpassed spatial and temporal coverage and resolution achieved with satellite sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity (SSS) allow us to use these variables to investigate the variability of surface processes at climate-relevant scales. In this work, we use SSS and SST data, aggregated into domains using a cluster algorithm over a T-S diagram, to describe the surface characteristics of the California Current System (CCS), validating them with in situ data from uncrewed Saildrone vessels. Despite biases and uncertainties in SSS and SST values in highly dynamic coastal areas, this T-S framework has proven useful in describing CCS regional surface properties and their variability in the past and in real time, at novel scales. This analysis also shows the capacity of remote sensing data for investigating variability in land–air–sea interactions not previously possible due to limited in situ data.

Marisol García-Reyes↗

Implementation of a realistic artificial data generator for crash data generation

In this paper, a framework is outlined to generate realistic artificial data (RAD) as a tool for comparing different models developed for safety analysis. The primary focus of transportation safety analysis is on identifying and quantifying the influence of factors contributing to traffic crash occurrence and its consequences. The current framework of comparing model structures using only observed data has limitations. With observed data, it is not possible to know how well the models mimic the true relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Further, real datasets do not allow researchers to evaluate the model performance for different levels of complexity of the dataset. RAD offers an innovative framework to address these limitations. Hence, we propose a RAD generation framework embedded with heterogeneous causal structures that generates crash data by considering crash occurrence as a trip level event impacted by trip level factors, demographics, roadway and vehicle attributes. Within our RAD generator we employ three specific modules: (a) disaggregate trip information generation, (b) crash data generation and (c) crash data aggregation. For disaggregate trip information generation, we employ a daily activity-travel realization for an urban region generated from an established activity-based model for the Chicago region. We use this data of more than 2 million daily trips to generate a subset of trips with crash data. For trips with crashes crash location, crash type, driver/vehicle characteristics, and crash severity. The daily RAD generation process is repeated for generating crash records at yearly or multi-year resolution. In conclusion, the crash databases generated can be employed to compare frequency models, severity models, crash type and various other dimensions by facility type - possibly establishing a universal benchmarking system for alternative model frameworks in safety literature.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A Privacy-Aware Federated Learning Framework for Distributed Energy Resource Analytics in Constrained Environments

To be resilient against extreme weather events, the rural communities in Puerto Rico are leveraging distributed energy resources (DER). However, computing frameworks sup-porting the grid in critical decision-making are still largely centralized. Sensitive consumer data are transmitted over the Internet or cellular networks to a secondary or tertiary node. It guarantees better situational awareness at the cost of a wider attack surface, jeopardizing user privacy, as more DER come online. Cloud, Edge, and Fog computing all require data aggregation at some level. This paper introduces a privacy-aware federated learning framework that leverages the Fog model by pushing analytics all the way to the DER and load assets. These local models train on individual asset data and transmit only learned parameters (such as weights) over secure communications to a global decision-maker. By abstracting personally identifiable consumer data without impacting decision optimality, this framework better aligns with distributed power generation paradigm.

Sundararajan, Aditya↗

Carbon Storage Open Database

The Carbon Storage Open Database is a collection of spatial data obtained from publicly available sources published by several NATCARB Partnerships and other organizations. The carbon storage open database was collected from open-source data on ArcREST servers and websites in 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022. The original database was published on the former GeoCube, which is now EDX Spatial, in July 2020, and has since been updated with additional data resources from the Energy Data eXchange (EDX) and external public data resources. The shapefile geodatabase is available in total, and has also been split up into multiple databases based on the maps produced for EDX spatial. These are topical map categories that describe the type of data, and sometimes the region for which the data relates. The data is separated in case there is only a specific area or data type that is of interest for download. In addition to the geodatabases, this submission contains: 1. A ReadMe file describing the processing steps completed to collect and curate the data. 2. A data catalog of all feature layers within the database. Additional published resources are available that describe the work done to produce the geodatabase: Morkner, P., Bauer, J., Creason, C., Sabbatino, M., Wingo, P., Greenburg, R., Walker, S., Yeates, D., Rose, K. 2022. Distilling Data to Drive Carbon Storage Insights. Computers & Geosciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2021.104945 Morkner, P., Bauer, J., Shay, J., Sabbatino, M., and Rose, K. An Updated Carbon Storage Open Database - Geospatial Data Aggregation to Support Scaling -Up Carbon Capture and Storage. United States: N. p., 2022. Web. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1890730 Morkner, P., Rose, K., Bauer, J., Rowan, C., Barkhurst, A., Baker, D.V., Sabbatino, M., Bean, A., Creason, C.G., Wingo, P., and Greenburg, R. Tools for Data Collection, Curation, and Discovery to Support Carbon Sequestration Insights. United States: N. p., 2020. Web. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1777195 Disclaimer: This project was funded by the United States Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, in part, through a site support contract. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, nor the support contractor, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

carbon storage↗

Application of Manufacturing Quality Management Principles to PV System Installations

To help SETO/DOE achieve its goals, the IBTS team proposed a project addressing system reliability by improving installation standards and quality management. The proposed approach was designed to help achieve measurable reductions in installation defect density and improvements in the performance of PV systems by optimizing design and installation of residential and commercial PV systems. This approach addressed the soft costs associated with installations and quality management. The project demonstrated improved system reliability and reduced PV system installation costs. The software developed improved operations, decreased risk, and increased the overall value of PV systems across their lifecycle. The project used several data collection methods, including extensive industry surveys, face-to-face high-level interviews at industry conferences, stakeholder teleconferences, and in-depth interviews conducted by IBTS staff. Results from the research found the industry needs a uniform assessment method for national providers to be more efficient; the software should support both code officials and installers; most industry stakeholders would find value in a centralized software system that allows them to collect, report, and review information on in-process and completed solar installations; and mobile solutions that bridge existing knowledge gaps with inspectors and integrate with existing methodologies (such as permitting software) are of great value. The software solution developed is web-based, allowing for national access, and is built on a Google Firebase platform that can handle significant users and data. It can be used onsite or remotely, allowing for code compliance to continue despite ongoing pandemic related delays or shutdowns for local economies. The information provided by the software tool allows users to uniformly assess a system for compliance and use that aggregated data to identify training topics or create internal process designed to improving issues and reducing occurrence. This solution has multiple benefits in managing quality at time of use and promoting an increase in future safety and quality through education. Perhaps most importantly, this software increases public safety by ensuring compliance of installed systems and allows for local AHJs to remotely engage specialized and qualified solar specific expertise for oversite of the installation in their jurisdictions. Data analysis provides the quality feedback loop identifying the root cause of failure and drives installation practices to improve through training and education, resulting in systems with higher performance, greater reliability, and reduced operations and maintenance costs. With the successful completion of this project, the industry can expect reduced soft costs and increased performance and safety and will ultimately benefit from longer performing systems that cost less to operate.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Surface-Height Determination of Crevassed Glaciers-Mathematical Principles of an Autoadaptive Density-Dimension Algorithm and Validation Using ICESat-2 Simulator (SIMPL) Data

Glacial acceleration is a main source of uncertainty in sea-level-change assessment. Measurement of ice-surface heights with a spatial and temporal resolution that not only allows elevation-change calculation, but also captures ice-surface morphology and its changes is required to aid in investigations of the geophysical processes associated with glacial acceleration.The Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System aboard NASAs future ICESat-2 Mission (launch 2017) will implement multibeam micropulse photon-counting lidar altimetry aimed at measuring ice-surface heights at 0.7-m along-track spacing. The instrument is designed to resolve spatial and temporal variability of rapidly changing glaciers and ice sheets and the Arctic sea ice. The new technology requires the development of a new mathematical algorithm for the retrieval of height information.We introduce the density-dimension algorithm (DDA) that utilizes the radial basis function to calculate a weighted density as a form of data aggregation in the photon cloud and considers density an additional dimension as an aid in auto-adaptive threshold determination. The auto-adaptive capability of the algorithm is necessary to separate returns from noise and signal photons under changing environmental conditions. The algorithm is evaluated using data collected with an ICESat-2 simulator instrument, the Slope Imaging Multi-polarization Photon-counting Lidar, over the heavily crevassed Giesecke Braer in Northwestern Greenland in summer 2015. Results demonstrate that ICESat-2 may be expected to provide ice-surface height measurements over crevassed glaciers and other complex ice surfaces. The DDA is generally applicable for the analysis of airborne and spaceborne micropulse photon-counting lidar data over complex and simple surfaces.

Herzfeld, Ute C.↗

Characterization and QC practice of 16-channel ADC ASIC at cryogenic temperature for Liquid Argon TPC front-end readout electronics system in DUNE experiment

ColdADC is a low-noise 16-channel analog-to-digital converter ASIC designed for cold readout electronics of Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). ColdADC was specifically designed for operation at cryogenic temperatures (77 K–89 K). Cold electronics is considered to be an enabling technology for liquid argon detectors in neutrino experiments. The main function of the chip is to digitize signals from the 16-channel charge-sensitive amplifier designed at BNL (LArASIC) and send digitized signals to the data aggregator and serializer chip (COLDATA). ColdADC operates with a resolution of 12 bits and a sampling rate of 2 MS/s per channel. A complete characterization of prototype chips was conducted at cryogenic temperature, involving power consumption, noise and linearity performance. In the first DUNE Far-Detector module, 384000 data channels will be read out, corresponding to 24000 ColdADC chips. Therefore, systematic testing of ColdADC chips at cryogenic temperature is vital for the quality and reliability of DUNE Single-Phase modules. We have developed a Quality Control (QC) test stand that includes ColdADC evaluation and characterization at cryogenic temperature. The QC procedure was applied to a first batch of 33 chips, corresponding to 528 data channels. The obtained results meet all the required DUNE specifications for ColdADC. Moreover, the testing outcome allowed us to identify possibilities of performance optimization that are currently being addressed in the design of the next version of the chip. The Quality Control procedure is proved to be successful and will be a reference design for future large-batch production testing of final ColdADC ASICs.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Recursive Gaussian Process over graphs for Integrating Multi-timescale Measurements in Low-Observable Distribution Systems

The transition to a smarter grid is empowered by enhanced sensor deployments and smart metering infrastructure in the distribution system. Measurements from these sensors and meters can be used for many applications, including distribution system state estimation (DSSE). However, these measurements are typically sampled at different rates and could be intermittent due to losses during the aggregation process. These multi timescale measurements should be reconciled in real-time to perform accurate grid monitoring. This paper tackles this problem by formulating a recursive multi-task Gaussian process (RGP-G) approach that sequentially aggregates sensor measurements. Specifically, we formulate a recursive multi-task GP with and without network connectivity information to reconcile the multi time-scale measurements in distribution systems. Here, the proposed framework is capable of aggregating the multi-time scale measurements batch-wise or in real-time. Following the aggregation of the multi time-scale measurements, the spatial states of the consistent time-series are estimated using matrix completion based DSSE approach. Simulation results on IEEE 37 and IEEE 123 bus test systems illustrate the efficiency of the proposed methods from the standpoint of both multi time-scale data aggregation and DSSE.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Spatial Data Management System (SDMS)

The Spatial Data Management System (SDMS) is a testbed for retrieval and display of spatially related material. SDMS permits the linkage of large graphical display objects with detail displays and explanations of its smaller components. SDMS combines UNIX workstations, MIT's X Window system, TCP/IP and WAIS information retrieval technology to prototype a means of associating aggregate data linked via spatial orientation. SDMS capitalizes upon and extends previous accomplishments of the Software Technology Branch in the area of Virtual Reality and Automated Library Systems.

Hutchison, Mark W.↗

Direct Data Distribution From Low-Earth Orbit

NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC) is developing the space and ground segment technologies necessary to demonstrate a direct data distribution (1)3) system for use in space-to-ground communication links from spacecraft in low-Earth orbit (LEO) to strategically located tracking ground terminals. The key space segment technologies include a K-band (19 GHz) MMIC-based transmit phased array antenna, and a multichannel bandwidth- and power-efficient digital encoder/modulate with an aggregate data rate of 622 Mb/s. Along with small (1.8 meter), low-cost tracking terminals on the ground, the D3 system enables affordable distribution of data to the end user or archive facility through interoperability with commercial terrestrial telecommunications networks. The D3 system is applicable to both government and commercial science and communications spacecraft in LEO. The features and benefits of the D3 system concept are described. Starting with typical orbital characteristics, a set of baseline requirements for representative applications is developed, including requirements for onboard storage and tracking terminals, and sample link budgets are presented. Characteristics of the transmit array antenna and digital encoder/modulator are described. The architecture and components of the tracking terminal are described, including technologies for the next generation terminal. Candidate flights of opportunity for risk mitigation and space demonstration of the D3 features are identified.

Budinger, James M.↗

Denoising Autoencoder for Reconstructing Sensor Observation Data and Predicting Evapotranspiration: Noisy and Missing Values Repair and Uncertainty Quantification

Abstract Machine learning (ML) methods applied in scientific research often deal with interrelated features in high‐dimensional data. Reducing data noise and redundancy is needed to increase prediction accuracy and efficiency especially when dealing with data from field sensors. We explored an unsupervised learning method, the denoising autoencoder (DAE), to extract the underlying data structure from noisy raw data in the context of predicting hydrologic quantities from multiple field sensors. These sensors have intrinsic instrumental noise and occasional malfunctions that cause missing values. Our DAE neural network reconstructed meteorological sensor data containing noise and missing values to predict evapotranspiration in a mountainous watershed. The DAE reconstructed the sensor variables with a mean coefficient of determination value of 0.77 across 15 dimensions representing individual sensors. It reduced variance and bias uncertainties compared to a classical autoencoder model. The reconstruction quality varied across dimensions depending on their cross‐correlation and alignment with the underlying data structure. Uncertainties arising from the model structure were overall higher than those resulting from data corruption. We attached the DAE structure to a downstream ET‐prediction neural network in three formats and achieved reasonably accurate ET predictions . The use of the DAE notably reduced variance uncertainty in ET prediction. However, excessive variance reduction may be accompanied by an increase in bias due to the intrinsic bias‐variance tradeoff. Our method of evaluating and reducing uncertainties in aggregated data from different sources can be used to improve predictive models, process understanding, and uncertainty quantification for better water resource management. Plain Language Summary We present a machine learning method, namely the denoising autoencoder, which reduces the effects of data noise and missing values typically present in scientific data sets collected through sensor measurements. This method selects the most relevant information from noisy raw data collected by the instruments and fills in missing values. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, we applied it to predict evapotranspiration, a hydrologic variable that represents the water moved from the land surface to the atmosphere through a combination of evaporation and plant water use (transpiration). We also used a random sampling technique (the Monte Carlo method) to compare the uncertainty in the predictions when using the raw and noisy data versus the reconstructed data. The denoising process produced more accurate predictions of evapotranspiration with less uncertainty. Improved predictions of evapotranspiration can lead to a better understanding and accounting of water budgets. This ML approach is broadly suitable for a wide variety of applications that involve noisy sensor data with missing values. Key Points We used a denoising autoencoder (DAE) neural network to reduce noise in meteorological and soil sensor observations by on average We used Monte Carlo sampling to estimate the bias and variance of all model outputs, including uncertainty sources from data and the model We attached the DAE component to a downstream neural network to predict ET with the variance reduced by , compared to that without the DAE

denoising autoencoder↗

Improving the LandScan USA Non-Obligate Population Estimate (NOPE)

Where do people go when they have nowhere to be? Nonobligate activities are a significant part of our social and cultural lives, but there are no existing large scale data which characterize spatial variability in population allocation for these activities. As large scale population estimates have ever-finer resolutions, gaps in our ability to estimate this population segment have an increasingly large impact on high resolution population estimates. In this paper, we demonstrate an improved method for estimating the spatial allocation of the non-obligate population - people who are not at work, school, or in another residential institution. This method builds upon on anonymized and aggregate data on visits to public places, allocating the non-obligate population proportionally to worker population while accounting for the estimated ratio of visitors to workers in public places.

Brelsford, Christa↗

Multi-Decadal Pathfinder Data Sets of Global Land Biophysical Variables from AVHRR and MODIS and their Use in GCM Studies of Biogeophysics and Biogeochemistry

The problem of how the scale, or spatial resolution, of reflectance data impacts retrievals of vegetation leaf area index (LAI) and fraction absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) has been investigated. We define the goal of scaling as the process by which it is established that LAI and FPAR values derived from coarse resolution sensor data equal the arithmetic average of values derived independently from fine resolution sensor data. The increasing probability of land cover mixtures with decreasing resolution is defined as heterogeneity, which is a key concept in scaling studies. The effect of pixel heterogeneity on spectral reflectances and LAI/FPAR retrievals is investigated with 1 km Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data aggregated to different coarse spatial resolutions. It is shown that LAI retrieval errors at coarse resolution are inversely related to the proportion of the dominant land cover in such pixel. Further, large errors in LAI retrievals are incurred when forests are minority biomes in non-forest pixels compared to when forest biomes are mixed with one another, and vice-versa. A physically based technique for scaling with explicit spatial resolution dependent radiative transfer formulation is developed. The successful application of this theory to scaling LAI retrievals from AVHRR data of different resolutions is demonstrated

Myneni, Ranga↗