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At least 127 records · Page 7

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NASA NTRS1981

Remote sensing of soil moisture content over bare field at 1.4 GHz frequency

An algorithm for estimating moisture content of a bare soil from the observed brightness temperature at 1.4 GHz is discussed and applied to a limited data base. The method is based on a radiative transfer model calculation, which has been successfully used in the past to account for many observational results, with some modifications to take into account the effect of surface roughness. Besides the measured brightness temperatures, the three additional inputs required by the method are the effective soil thermodynamic temperature, the precise relation between moisture content and the smooth field brightness temperatures and a pair of parameters related to surface roughness. The procedures of estimating surface roughness parameters and of obtaining moisture content from observed brightness temperature are discussed. The algorithm is applied to observations from truck mounted and airborne radiometers. The estimated moisture contents compare favorably with the observations in the top 2 cm layer.

Wang, J. R.↗

NASA NTRS1956

An Oil-Stream Photomicrographic Aeroscope for Obtaining Cloud Liquid-Water Content and Droplet Size Distributions in Flight

An airborne cloud aeroscope by which droplet size, size distribution, and liquid-water content of clouds can be determined has been developed and tested in flight and in wind tunnels with water sprays. In this aeroscope the cloud droplets are continuously captured in a stream of oil, which Is then photographed by a photomicrographic camera. The droplet size and size distribution can be determined directly from the photographs. With the droplet size distribution known, the liquid-water content of the cloud can be computed from the geometry of the aeroscope, the airspeed, and the oil-flow rate. The aeroscope has the following features: Data are obtained semi-automatically, and permanent data are taken in the form of photographs. A single picture usually contains a sufficient number of droplets to establish the droplet size distribution. Cloud droplets are continuously captured in the stream of oil, but pictures are taken at Intervals. The aeroscope can be operated in icing and non-icing conditions. Because of mixing of oil in the instrument, the droplet-distribution patterns and liquid-water content values from a single picture are exponentially weighted average values over a path length of about 3/4 mile at 150 miles per hour. The liquid-water contents, volume-median diameters, and distribution patterns obtained on test flights and in the Lewis icing tunnel are similar to previously published data.

Hacker, Paul T.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Remote sensing of atmospheric water content from Bhaskara SAMIR data

The 19.35 GHz and 22.235 GHz passive microwave radiometers (SAMIR) on board the Indian satellite Bhaskara have provided very useful data. From these data has been demonstrated the feasibility of deriving atmospheric and ocean surface parameters such as water vapor content, liquid water content, rainfall rate and ocean surface winds. Different approaches have been tried for deriving the atmospheric water content. The statistical and empirical methods have been used by others for the analysis of the Nimbus data. A simulation technique has been attempted for the first time for 19.35 GHz and 22.235 GHz radiometer data. The results obtained from three different methods are compared with radiosonde data. A case study of a tropical depression has been undertaken to demonstrate the capability of Bhaskara SAMIR data to show the variation of total water vapor and liquid water contents.

Gohil, B. S.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Microwave bistatic reflectivity dependence on the moisture content and matric potential of bare soil

Results are presented of an experimental program to determine the functional dependence of the microwave reflectivity of nonvegetated soil surfaces upon volumetric soil moisture and matric potential. A combination evaporation-drainage field experiment was conducted on a bare Captina slit loam with reflectivity, soil moisture content, and matric potential monitored for extended time periods. Results show that for a restricted pressure range (approximately -0.05 to -0.75 bar) there is excellent linear correlation between the log of bistatic reflectivity and both volumetric moisture content and matric potential. Layering effects due to steep moisture content (and matric potential) gradients in the profile are demonstrated to have two distinct and significant effects on the reflectivity response. At near saturation of rough surfaces a very thin dry surface layer appears to modify the effective roughness. This leads to a saturation of reflectivity at high moisture contents. As the surface proceeds to dry further, deeper layers produce coherent interference patterns in the reflectivity response, particularly at the higher frequencies.

Waite, W. P.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Comparison of the information contents of Landsat TM and MSS data

A communications-theory approach is taken to analyze the dispersion and concentration of signal values in various data spaces, irrespective of specific class membership. Entropy is used to quantify information, and mutual information is used to measure the information represented by subsets of spectral variables. Several different comparisons of information content are made. These include comparisons of system design capacities, of data volumes occupied by agricultural data in the spaces defined by original bands and by transformed spectral (Tasseled Cap) variables, of the information contents of original bands and Tasseled Cap variables, and of the information contents of TM and MSS for the given agricultural data sets. Also, the effects of sample size, scene content, and quantization level are examined.

Malila, W. A.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Comparison of the information contents of LANDSAT TM and MSS data

Malila, W. A.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Determination of cloud ice water content and geometrical thickness using microwave and infrared radiometric measurements

Cloud ice water content and cloud geometrical thickness have been determined using a combination of near-infrared, thermal infrared and thermal microwave radiometric measurements. The radiometric measurements are from a Multispectral Cloud Radiometer, which has seven channels ranging from visible to thermal infrared, and an Advanced Microwave Moisture Sounder, which has four channels ranging from 90 to 183 GHz. Studies indicate that the microwave brightness temperatures depend not only on the amount of ice water content but also on the vertical distribution of ice water content. Studies also show that the low brightness temperature at 92 GHz for large ice water content is due to cloud reflection which reflects most of the irradiance incident at the cloud base downward. Therefore the 92 GHz channel detects a low brightness temperature at the cloud top.

Wu, Man-Li C.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Be-10 and Al-26 contents of eucrites - Implications for production rates and exposure ages

This paper presents the Be-10 contents of 20 and the Al-26 contents of nine eucrites. Most have Be-10 production rates between 16 and 26 dpm/kg. The average value of 21.8 dpm/kg agrees to within 10 percent with the value expected and does not support the suggestion that the eucrites received an unusually low flux of cosmic rays during the last few million years. Measured Be-10 and Al-26 contents are consistent with semiempirical calculations of nuclear production rates. The Al-26 contents provide a basis for computing shielding-corrected Ar-38 exposure ages of eucrites which show little evidence for clustering. Relatively more eucrites than diogenites are younger than 20 Ma.

Aylmer, D.↗

NASA NTRS1989

A scheme for parameterizing ice cloud water content in general circulation models

A method for specifying ice water content in GCMs is developed, based on theory and in-cloud measurements. A theoretical development of the conceptual precipitation model is given and the aircraft flights used to characterize the ice mass distribution in deep ice clouds is discussed. Ice water content values derived from the theoretical parameterization are compared with the measured values. The results demonstrate that a simple parameterization for atmospheric ice content can account for ice contents observed in several synoptic contexts.

Heymsfield, Andrew J.↗

NASA NTRS1991

A contention-based bus-control scheme for multiprocessor systems

The authors study contention-based bus-control schemes for scheduling processors in using a bit-parallel shared bus. The protocol is designed under the requirements that each processor exhibit a random access behavior, that there be no centralized bus control in the system, and that access be granted in real time. The proposed scheme is based on splitting algorithms used in conventional contention-resolution schemes, and utilizes two-state information obtained from collision detection. Two versions of the bus-control scheme are studied. The static one resolves contentions of N requesting processors in an average of O(logW/2N) iterations, where W is the number of bits in the bit-parallel bus. An adaptive version resolves contentions in an average time that is independent of N.

Juang, Jie-Yong↗

NASA NTRS1957

The frequency content of the control input and airplane response obtained during service operations of fighter airplanes

The frequency content of the control input and resulting airplane motions is presented as power spectral densities for one operational flight of the fighter airplane (Republic F-84G). The frequency content, which is described by the shape of the spectrum, may be useful in providing inputs for the design of power control systems. For normal load factors, the results presented for the operational flight considered are in general agreement with the results of more complete data on three fighter airplanes (Republic F-84G, Republic F-84F, and North American F-86A) . The frequency content for the three control positions was similar and the frequency content for the three angular velocities was also similar when normalized by dividing the mean-square value.

Mayer, John P↗

NASA NTRS1995

Regional mapping of forest canopy water content and biomass using AIRSAR images over BOREAS study area

In recent years, monitoring vegetation biomass over various climate zones has become the primary focus of several studies interested in assessing the role of the ecosystem responses to climate change and human activities. Airborne and spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems provide a useful tool to directly estimate biomass due to its sensitivity to structural and moisture characteristics of vegetation canopies. Even though the sensitivity of SAR data to total aboveground biomass has been successfully demonstrated in many controlled experiments over boreal forests and forest plantations, so far, no biomass estimation algorithm has been developed. This is mainly due to the fact that the SAR data, even at lowest frequency (P-band) saturates at biomass levels of about 200 tons/ha, and the structure and moisture information in the SAR signal forces the estimation algorithm to be forest type dependent. In this paper, we discuss the development of a hybrid forest biomass algorithm which uses a SAR derived land cover map in conjunction with a forest backscatter model and an inversion algorithm to estimate forest canopy water content. It is shown that unlike the direct biomass estimation from SAR data, the estimation of water content does not depend on the seasonal and/or environmental conditions. The total aboveground biomass can then be derived from canopy water content for each type of forest by incorporating other ecological information. Preliminary results from this technique over several boreal forest stands indicate that (1) the forest biomass can be estimated with reasonable accuracy, and (2) the saturation level of the SAR signal can be enhanced by separating the crown and trunk biomass in the inversion algorithm. We have used the JPL AIRSAR data over BOREAS southern study area to test the algorithm and to generate regional scale water content and biomass maps. The results are compared with ground data and the sources of errors are discussed. Several SAR images in synoptic modes are used to generate the parameter maps. The maps are then combined to generate mosaic maps over the BOREAS modeling grid.

Saatchi, Sasan↗

NASA NTRS1996

Balancing Contention and Synchronization on the Intel Paragon

The Intel Paragon is a mesh-connected distributed memory parallel computer. It uses an oblivious and deterministic message routing algorithm: this permits us to develop highly optimized schedules for frequently needed communication patterns. The complete exchange is one such pattern. Several approaches are available for carrying it out on the mesh. We study an algorithm developed by Scott. This algorithm assumes that a communication link can carry one message at a time and that a node can only transmit one message at a time. It requires global synchronization to enforce a schedule of transmissions. Unfortunately global synchronization has substantial overhead on the Paragon. At the same time the powerful interconnection mechanism of this machine permits 2 or 3 messages to share a communication link with minor overhead. It can also overlap multiple message transmission from the same node to some extent. We develop a generalization of Scott's algorithm that executes complete exchange with a prescribed contention. Schedules that incur greater contention require fewer synchronization steps. This permits us to tradeoff contention against synchronization overhead. We describe the performance of this algorithm and compare it with Scott's original algorithm as well as with a naive algorithm that does not take interconnection structure into account. The Bounded contention algorithm is always better than Scott's algorithm and outperforms the naive algorithm for all but the smallest message sizes. The naive algorithm fails to work on meshes larger than 12 x 12. These results show that due consideration of processor interconnect and machine performance parameters is necessary to obtain peak performance from the Paragon and its successor mesh machines.

Bokhari, Shahid H.↗

NASA NTRS1977

An Evaluation of Total Solar Reflectance and Spectral Band Ratioing Techniques for Estimating Soil Water Content

For several days in March of 1975, reflected solar radiation measurements were obtained from smooth and rough surfaces of wet, drying, and continually dry Avondale loam at Phoenix, Arizona, with pyranometers located 50 cm above the ground surface and a multispectral scanner flown at a 300-m height. The simple summation of the different band radiances measured by the multispectral scanner proved equally as good as the pyranometer data for estimating surface soil water content if the multispectral scanner data were standardized with respect to the intensity of incoming solar radiation or the reflected radiance from a reference surface, such as the continually dry soil. Without this means of standardization, multispectral scanner data are most useful in a spectral band ratioing context. Our results indicated that, for the bands used, no significant information on soil water content could be obtained by band ratioing. Thus the variability in soil water content should insignificantly affect soil-type discrimination based on identification of type-specific spectral signatures. Therefore remote sensing, conducted in the 0.4- to 1.0-micron wavelength region of the solar spectrum, would seem to be much More suited to identifying crop and soil types than to estimating of soil water content.

Reginato, R. J.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Source of Global Scale Variations in the Midday Vertical Content of Ionospheric Metal Ions

An analysis of long baseline NIMBUS 7 SBUV (Solar Backscatter UV Spectrometer) observations of the latitudinal variation of the noontime vertical Mg' content above approx. 70 km have revealed seasonal, solar activity and magnetic activity dependencies in the Mg+ content. The distributions were categorized in terms of magnetic coordinates partially because transport processes lifting metallic ions from the main meteor ionization layer below 100 km up into the F- region and down again are controlled by electrodynamical processes. Alternatively, the Nimbus Mg+ distributions may simply be a result of ion/neutral chemistry changes resulting from atmospheric changes and not dynamics. In such a case magnetic control would not dominate the distributions. Using in situ satellite measurements of metal ions from the Atmosphere Explorer satellites in the region above the main meteor layer and published sounding rocket measurements of the main metallic ion layers, the effects of the dynamics on the vertical content are delineated. The consequences of atmospheric changes on the vertical content are explored by separating the Nimbus measurements in a geodetic frame of reference.

Joiner, J.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Scale Adhesion, Sulfur Content, and TBC Failure on Single Crystal Superalloys

This paper summarizes the main effects of sulfur impurity content on the cyclic oxidation resistance of single crystal superalloys, with emphasis on scale and TBC adhesion. Eleven hundred degrees C cyclic oxidation of PWA 1480 produces scale spallation leading to a weight loss of more than 30 Mg/sq cm after 500 one-hr cycles for a sulfur content of 6 ppmw. The sulfur content was reduced to levels below 0.1 ppmw by hydrogen annealing, resulting in weight gains of only 0.5 to 1.0 Mg/sq cm after 1000 one-hr cycles. Samples were produced with various sulfur contents by adjusting the annealing temperature, time, and sample thickness (i.e., diffusion product Dt/L(exp 2)). The subsequent cyclic oxidation behavior, mapped over a sulfur content/thickness diagram, shows a transition to adherent behavior at sulfur levels equivalent to 1 monolayer of total segregation. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Smialek, James L.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Influence of coronary artery diameter on eNOS protein content

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the content of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) protein (eNOS protein/g total artery protein) increases with decreasing artery diameter in the coronary arterial tree. Content of eNOS protein was determined in porcine coronary arteries with immunoblot analysis. Arteries were isolated in six size categories from each heart: large arteries [301- to 2,500-microm internal diameter (ID)], small arteries (201- to 300-microm ID), resistance arteries (151- to 200-microm ID), large arterioles (101- to 150-microm ID), intermediate arterioles (51- to 100-microm ID), and small arterioles(<50-microm ID). To obtain sufficient protein for analysis from small- and intermediate-sized arterioles, five to seven arterioles 1-2 mm in length were pooled into one sample for each animal. Results establish that the number of smooth muscle cells per endothelial cell decreases from a number of 10 to 15 in large coronary arteries to 1 in the smallest arterioles. Immunohistochemistry revealed that eNOS is located only in endothelial cells in all sizes of coronary artery and in coronary capillaries. Contrary to our hypothesis, eNOS protein content did not increase with decreasing size of coronary artery. Indeed, the smallest coronary arterioles had less eNOS protein per gram of total protein than the large coronary arteries. These results indicate that eNOS protein content is greater in the endothelial cells of conduit arteries, resistance arteries, and large arterioles than in small coronary arterioles.

NASA Discipline Cardiopulmonary↗

NASA NTRS1994

Yield and seed oil content response of dwarf, rapid-cycling Brassica to nitrogen treatments, planting density, and carbon dioxide enrichment

Effects of N level (15 to 30 mM), time of N increase (14 to 28 days after planting), and planting density (1163 to 2093 plants/m2) were determined for crop yield responses of dwarf, rapid-cycling brassica (Brassica napus L., CrGC 5-2, Genome: ACaacc). Crops were grown in solid-matrix hydroponic systems and under controlled-environment conditions, including nonsupplemented (ambient) or elevated CO2 concentrations (998 +/- 12 micromoles mol-1). The highest seed yield rate obtained (4.4 g m-2 day-1) occurred with the lowest N level (15 mM) applied at the latest treatment time (day 28). In all trials, CO2 enrichment reduced seed yield rate and harvest index by delaying the onset of flowering and senescence and stimulating vegetative shoot growth. The highest shoot biomass accumulation rate (55.5 g m-2 day-1) occurred with the highest N level (30 mM) applied at the earliest time (day 14). Seed oil content was not significantly affected by CO2 enrichment. Maximum seed oil content (30% to 34%, dry weight basis) was obtained using the lowest N level (15 mM) initiated at the latest treatment time (day 28). In general, an increase in seed oil content was accompanied by a decrease in seed protein. Seed carbohydrate, moisture, and ash contents did not vary significantly in response to experimental treatments. Effects of N level and time of N increase were consistently significant for most crop responses. Planting density was significant only under elevated CO2 conditions.

Non-NASA Center↗