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At least 19 records

Advanced Manufacturing and Value-added Products from US Agriculture

An objective of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agriculture Research Service (ARS) is to develop technology leading to a broad portfolio of value-added marketable products. Modern scientific disciplines such as chemical engineering are brought into play to develop processes for converting bulk commodities into high-margin products. To accomplish this, the extremely sophisticated processing devices which form the basis of modern biotechnology, namely, genes and enzymes, can be tailored to perform the required functions. The USDA/ARS is a leader in the development of intelligent processing equipment (IPE) for agriculture in the broadest sense. Applications of IPE are found in the production, processing, grading, and marketing aspects of agriculture. Various biotechnology applications of IPE are discussed.

Villet, Ruxton H.↗

Spatially Complete Surface Albedo Data Sets: Value-Added Products Derived from Terra MODIS Land Products

Spectral land surface albedo is an important parameter for describing the radiative properties of the Earth. Accordingly it reflects the consequences of natural and human interactions, such as anthropogenic, meteorological, and phenological effects, on global and local climatological trends. Consequently, albedos are integral parts in a variety of research areas, such as general circulation models (GCMs), energy balance studies, modeling of land use and land use change, and biophysical, oceanographic, and meteorological studies. The availability of global albedo data over a large range of spectral channels and at high spatial resolution has dramatically improved with the launch of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA s Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra spacecraft in December 1999. However, lack of spatial and temporal coverage due to cloud and snow effects can preclude utilization of official products in production and research studies. We report on a technique used to fill incomplete MOD43 albedo data sets with the intention of providing complete value-added maps. The technique is influenced by the phenological concept that within a certain area, a pixel s ecosystem class should exhibit similar growth cycle events over the same time period. The shape of an area s phenological temporal curve can be imposed upon existing pixel-level data to fill missing temporal points. The methodology will be reviewed by showcasing 2001 global and regional results of complete albedo and NDVl data sets.

Moody, E. G.↗

Spatially Complete Surface Albedo Data Sets: Value-Added Products Derived from Terra MODIS Land Products

Spectral land surface albedo is an important parameter for describing the radiative properties of the Earth. Accordingly it reflects the consequences of natural and human interactions, such as anthropogenic, meteorological, and phenological effects, on global and local climatological trends. Consequently, albedos are integral parts in a variety of research areas, such as general circulation models (GCMs), energy balance studies, modeling of land use and land use change, and biophysical, oceanographic, and meteorological studies. Recent observations of diffuse bihemispherical (white-sky) and direct beam directional hemispherical (black-sky ) land surface albedo included in the MOD43B3 product from MODIS instruments aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellite platforms have provided researchers with unprecedented spatial, spectral, and temporal characteristics. Cloud and seasonal snow cover, however, curtail retrievals to approximately half the global land surfaces on an annual equal-angle basis, precluding MOD43B3 albedo products from direct inclusion in some research projects and production environments.

Moody, Eric G.↗

Spatially Complete Global Surface Albedos Derived from Terra/MODIS Data

Spectral land surface albedo is an important parameter for describing the radiative properties of the Earth. Accordingly it reflects the consequences of natural and human interactions, such as anthropogenic, meteorological, and phenological effects, on global and local climatological trends. Consequently, albedos are integral parts in a variety of research areas, such as general circulation models (GCMs), energy balance studies, modeling of land use and land use change, and biophysical, oceanographic, and meteorological studies. Recent production of land surface anisotropy, diffuse bihemispherical (white-sky) albedo and direct beam directional hemispherical (black-sky) albedo from observations acquired by the MODIS instruments aboard NASA s Terra and Aqua satellite platforms have provided researchers with unprecedented spatial, spectral, and temporal information on the land surface's radiative characteristics. Cloud cover, which cutails retrievals, and the presence of ephemeral and seasonal snow limit the snow-free data to approximately half the global land surfaces on an annual equal-angle basis. This precludes the MOD43B3 albedo products from being used in some remote sensing and ground-based applications, climate models, and global change research projects. An ecosystem-dependent temporal interpolation technique is described that has been developed to fill missing or seasonally snow-covered data in the official MOD43B3 albedo product. The method imposes pixel-level and local regional ecosystem-dependent phenological behavior onto retrieved pixel temporal data in such a way as to maintain pixel-level spatial and spectral detail and integrity. The phenological curves are derived from statistics based on the MODIS MOD12Q1 IGBP land cover classification product geolocated with the MOD43B3 data. The resulting snow-free value-added products provide the scientific community with spatially and temporally complete global white- and black-sky surface albedo maps and statistics. These products are stored on 1'(approximately 10 km) and coarser resolution equal-angle grids, and are computed for the first seven MODIS wavelengths, ranging from 0.47 through 2.1 microns, and for three broadband wavelengths, 0.3-0.7,0.3-5.0 and 0.7-5.0 microns.

King, Michael D.↗

Global Change Data Center: Mission, Organization, Major Activities, and 2001 Highlights

Rapid efficient access to Earth sciences data is fundamental to the Nation's efforts to understand the effects of global environmental changes and their implications for public policy. It becomes a bigger challenge in the future when data volumes increase further and missions with constellations of satellites start to appear. Demands on data storage, data access, network throughput, processing power, and database and information management are increased by orders of magnitude, while budgets remain constant and even shrink. The Global Change Data Center's (GCDC) mission is to provide systems, data products, and information management services to maximize the availability and utility of NASA's Earth science data. The specific objectives are (1) support Earth science missions be developing and operating systems to generate, archive, and distribute data products and information; (2) develop innovative information systems for processing, archiving, accessing, visualizing, and communicating Earth science data; and (3) develop value-added products and services to promote broader utilization of NASA Earth Sciences Enterprise (ESE) data and information. The ultimate product of GCDC activities is access to data and information to support research, education, and public policy.

Wharton, Stephen W.↗

Transitioning NPOESS Data to Weather Offices: The SPoRT Paradigm with EOS Data

Real-time satellite information provides one of many data sources used by NWS weather forecast offices (WFOs) to diagnose current weather conditions and to assist in short-term forecast preparation. While GOES satellite data provides relatively coarse spatial resolution coverage of the continental U.S. on a 10-15 minute repeat cycle, polar orbiting imagery has the potential to provide snapshots of weather conditions at high-resolution in many spectral channels. Additionally, polar orbiting sounding data can provide additional information on the thermodynamic structure of the atmosphere in data sparse regions of at asynoptic observation times. The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) project has demonstrated the utility of polar orbiting MODIS and AIRS data on the Terra and Aqua satellites to improve weather diagnostics and short-term forecasting on the regional and local scales. SPoRT scientists work directly forecasters at selected WFOS in the Southern Region (SR) to help them ingest these unique data streams into their AWIPS system, understand how to use the data (through on-site and distance learn techniques), and demonstrate the utility of these products to address significant forecast problems. This process also prepares forecasters for the use of similar observational capabilities from NPOESS operational sensors. NPOESS environmental data records (EDRs) from the Visible 1 Infrared Imager I Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrlS) and Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) instruments and additional value-added products produced by NESDIS will be available in near real-time and made available to WFOs to extend their use of NASA EOS data into the NPOESS era. These new data streams will be integrated into the NWs's new AWIPS II decision support tools. The AWIPS I1 system to be unveiled in WFOs in 2009 will be a JAVA-based decision support system which preserves the functionality of the existing systems and offers unique development opportunities for new data sources and applications in the Service Orientated Architecture ISOA) environment. This paper will highlight some of the SPoRT activities leading to the integration of VllRS and CrIS/ATMS data into the display capabilities of these new systems to support short-term forecasting problems at WFOs.

Jedlovec, Gary↗

Commercial potential of remote sensing data from the Earth observing system

The purpose was to assess the market potential of remote sensing value-added products from the Earth Observing System (EOS) platform. Sensors on the EOS platform were evaluated to determine which qualities and capabilities could be useful to the commercial user. The approach was to investigate past and future satellite data distribution programs. A questionnaire was developed for use in a telephone survey. Based on the results of the survey of companies that add value to remotely sensed data, conversations with the principal investigators in charge of each EOS sensor, a study of past commercial satellite data ventures, and reading from the commercial remote sensing industry literature, three recommendations were developed: develop a strategic plan for commercialization of EOS data, define a procedure for commercial users within the EOS data stream, and develop an Earth Observations Commercial Applications Program-like demonstration program within NASA using EOS simulated data.

Merry, Carolyn J.↗

Cloud Macro- and Microphysical Properties Derived from GOES over the ARM SGP Domain

Cloud macrophysical properties like fractional coverage and height Z(sub c) and microphysical parameters such as cloud liquid water path (LWP), effective droplet radius r(sub e), and cloud phase, are key factors affecting both the radiation budget and the hydrological cycle. Satellite data have been used to complement surface observations from Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) by providing additional spatial coverage and top-of-atmosphere boundary conditions of these key parameters. Since 1994, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) has been used for deriving at each half-hour over the ARM Southern Great Plains (SGP) domain: cloud amounts, altitudes, temperatures, and optical depths as well as broadband shortwave (SW) albedo and outgoing longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere. A new operational algorithm has been implemented to increase the number of value-added products to include cloud particle phase and effective size (r(sub e) or effective ice diameter D(sub e)) as well as LWP and ice water path. Similar analyses have been performed on the data from the Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite as part of the Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System project. This larger suite of cloud properties will enhance our knowledge of cloud processes and further constrain the mesoscale and single column models using ARM data as a validation/initialization resource. This paper presents the results of applying this new algorithm to GOES-8 data taken during 1998 and 2000. The global VIRS results are compared to the GOES SGP results to provide appropriate context and to test consistency.

Minnis, P.↗

Earth Science Data Archive and Access at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC)

The Goddard Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC), as an integral part of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), is the official source of data for several important earth remote sensing missions. These include the Sea-viewing Wide-Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) launched in August 1997, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) launched in November 1997, and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) scheduled for launch in mid 1999 as part of the EOS AM-1 instrumentation package. The data generated from these missions supports a host of users in the hydrological, land biosphere and oceanographic research and applications communities. The volume and nature of the data present unique challenges to an Earth science data archive and distribution system such as the DAAC. The DAAC system receives, archives and distributes a large number of standard data products on a daily basis, including data files that have been reprocessed with updated calibration data or improved analytical algorithms. A World Wide Web interface is provided allowing interactive data selection and automatic data subscriptions as distribution options. The DAAC also creates customized and value-added data products, which allow additional user flexibility and reduced data volume. Another significant part of our overall mission is to provide ancillary data support services and archive support for worldwide field campaigns designed to validate the results from the various satellite-derived measurements. In addition to direct data services, accompanying documentation, WWW links to related resources, support for EOSDIS data formats, and informed response to inquiries are routinely provided to users. The current GDAAC WWW search and order system is being restructured to provide users with a simplified, hierarchical access to data. Data Browsers have been developed for several data sets to aid users in ordering data. These Browsers allow users to specify spatial, temporal, and other parameter criteria in searching for and previewing data.

Leptoukh, Gregory↗

The User Community and a Multi-Mission Data Project: Services, Experiences and Directions of the Space Physics Data Facility

From a user's perspective, the multi-mission data and orbit services of NASA's Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) project offer a unique range of important data and services highly complementary to other services presently available or now evolving in the international heliophysics data environment. The VSP (Virtual Space Physics Observatory) service is an active portal to a wide range of distributed data sources. CDAWeb (Coordinate Data Analysis Web) enables plots, listings and file downloads for current data cross the boundaries of missions and instrument types (and now including data from THEMIS and STEREO). SSCWeb, Helioweb and our 3D Animated Orbit Viewer (TIPSOD) provide position data and query logic for most missions currently important to heliophysics science. OMNIWeb with its new extension to 1- and 5-minute resolution provides interplanetary parameters at the Earth's bow shock as a unique value-added data product. SPDF also maintains NASA's CDF (common Data Format) standard and a range of associated tools including translation services. These capabilities are all now available through webservices-based APIs as well as through our direct user interfaces. In this paper, we will demonstrate the latest data and capabilities now supported in these multi-mission services, review the lessons we continue to learn in what science users need and value in this class of services, and discuss out current thinking to the future role and appropriate focus of the SPDF effort in the evolving and increasingly distributed heliophysics data environment.

Fung, Shing F.↗

Scientific Uses and Directions of SPDF Data Services

From a science user's perspective, the multi-mission data and orbit services of NASA's Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) project perform as a working and highly functional heliophysics virtual observatory. CDAWeb enables plots, listings and file downloads for current data across the boundaries of missions and instrument types (and now including data from THEMIS and STEREO), VSPO access to a wide range of distributed data sources. SSCWeb, Helioweb and our 3D Animated Orbit Viewer (TIPSOD) provide position data and query logic for most missions currently-important to heliophysics science. OMNIWeb with its new extension to 1- and 5- minute resolution provides interplanetary parameters at the Earth's bow shock as a unique value-added data product. To enable easier integrated use of our capabilities by developers and by the emerging heliophysics VxOs, our data and services are available through webservices-based APls as well as through our direct user interfaces. SPDF has also now developed draft descriptions of its holdings in SPASE-compliant XML In addition to showcasing recent enhancements to SPDF capabilities, we will use these systems and our experience in developing them: to demonstrate a few typical science use cases; to discuss key scope and design issues among users, service providers and end data providers; and to identify key areas where existing capabilities and effective interface design are still inadequate to meet community needs.

Fung, Shing↗

Earth benefits of interdisciplinary CELSS-related research by the NSCORT in Bioregenerative Life Support

Earth benefits of research from the NSCORT in Bioregenerative Life Support will include the following: development of active control mechanisms for light, CO2, and temperature to maximize photosynthesis of crop plants during important phases of crop development; automation of crop culture systems; creation of novel culture systems for optimum productivity; creation of value-added crops with superior nutritional, yield, and waste-process characteristics; environmental control of food and toxicant composition of crops; new process technologies and novel food products for safe, nutritious, palatable vegetarian diets; creation of menus for healthful vegetarian diets with psychological acceptability; enzymatic procedures to degrade recalcitrant crop residues occurring in municipal waste; control-system strategies to ensure sustainabilty of a CELSS that will enable management of diverse complex systems on Earth.

NASA Discipline Number 93-10↗

Spatially Complete Global Spectral Surface Albedos: Value-Added Datasets Derived from Terra MODIS Land Products

Land surface albedo is an important parameter in describing the radiative properties of the earth s surface as it represents the amount of incoming solar radiation that is reflected from the surface. The amount and type of vegetation of the surface dramatically alters the amount of radiation that is reflected; for example, croplands that contain leafy vegetation will reflect radiation very differently than blacktop associated with urban areas. In addition, since vegetation goes through a growth, or phenological, cycle, the amount of radiation that is reflected changes over the course of a year. As a result, albedo is both temporally and spatially dependant upon global location as there is a distribution of vegetated surface types and growing conditions. Land surface albedo is critical for a wide variety of earth system research projects including but not restricted to remote sensing of atmospheric aerosol and cloud properties from space, ground-based analysis of aerosol optical properties from surface-based sun/sky radiometers, biophysically-based land surface modeling of the exchange of energy, water, momentum, and carbon for various land use categories, and surface energy balance studies. These projects require proper representation of the surface albedo s spatial, spectral, and temporal variations, however, these representations are often lacking in datasets prior to the latest generation of land surface albedo products.

Moody, Eric G.↗

Verification and Improvement of ERS-1/2 Altimeter Geophysical Data Records for Global Change Studies

This Final Technical Report summarizes the research work conducted under NASA's Physical Oceanography Program entitled, Verification And Improvement Of ERS-112 Altimeter Geophysical Data Recorders For Global Change Studies, for the time period from January 1, 2000 through June 30, 2000. This report also provides a summary of the investigation from July 1, 1997 - June 30, 2000. The primary objectives of this investigation include verification and improvement of the ERS-1 and ERS-2 radar altimeter geophysical data records for distribution of the data to the ESA-approved U.S. ERS-1/-2 investigators for global climate change studies. Specifically, the investigation is to verify and improve the ERS geophysical data record products by calibrating the instrument and assessing accuracy for the ERS-1/-2 orbital, geophysical, media, and instrument corrections. The purpose is to ensure that the consistency of constants, standards and algorithms with TOPEX/POSEIDON radar altimeter for global climate change studies such as the monitoring and interpretation of long-term sea level change. This investigation has provided the current best precise orbits, with the radial orbit accuracy for ERS-1 (Phases C-G) and ERS-2 estimated at the 3-5 cm rms level, an 30-fold improvement compared to the 1993 accuracy. We have finalized the production and verification of the value-added ERS-1 mission (Phases A, B, C, D, E, F, and G), in collaboration with JPL PODAAC and the University of Texas. Orbit and data verification and improvement of algorithms led to the best data product available to-date. ERS-2 altimeter data have been improved and we have been active on Envisat (2001 launch) GDR algorithm review and improvement. The data improvement of ERS-1 and ERS-2 led to improvement in the global mean sea surface, marine gravity anomaly and bathymetry models, and a study of Antarctica mass balance, which was published in Science in 1998.

Shum, C. K.↗

Use of Land Use Land Cover Change Mapping Products in Aiding Coastal Habitat Conservation and Restoration Efforts of the Mobile Bay NEP

The Mobile Bay region has undergone significant land use land cover change (LULC) over the last 35 years, much of which is associated with urbanization. These changes have impacted the region s water quality and wildlife habitat availability. In addition, much of the region is low-lying and close to the Gulf, which makes the region vulnerable to hurricanes, climate change (e.g., sea level rise), and sometimes man-made disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. Land use land cover change information is needed to help coastal zone managers and planners to understand and mitigate the impacts of environmental change on the region. This presentation discusses selective results of a current NASA-funded project in which Landsat data over a 34-year period (1974-2008) is used to produce, validate, refine, and apply land use land cover change products to aid coastal habitat conservation and restoration needs of the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program (MB NEP). The project employed a user defined classification scheme to compute LULC change mapping products for the entire region, which includes the majority of Mobile and Baldwin counties. Additional LULC change products have been computed for select coastal HUC-12 sub-watersheds adjacent to either Mobile Bay or the Gulf of Mexico, as part of the MB NEP watershed profile assessments. This presentation will include results of additional analyses of LULC change for sub-watersheds that are currently high priority areas, as defined by MB NEP. Such priority sub-watersheds include those that are vulnerable to impacts from the DWH oil spill, as well as sub-watersheds undergoing urbanization. Results demonstrating the nature and permanence of LULC change trends for these higher priority sub-watersheds and results characterizing change for the entire 34-year period and at approximate 10-year intervals across this period will also be presented. Future work will include development of value-added coastal habitat quality assessment products that will be used by the MB NEP and its partners in the planning of coastal conservation and restoration activities.

Spruce, Joseph P.↗

NASA Educational Product Development and Post-Secondary Program Assessment Planning

Producing "value-added students" involves proactively addressing how successfully students develop their skills, knowledge, and personal, social, and ethical growth due to their association with a program. NASA programs for higher education can certainly be responsive in aiding the academic community strive for quality in terms of "valueadded" students. By identifying essential characteristics of exemplary assessment practices, the standards developed by accrediting agencies serve as guides for developing quality practices and policies. Such a process is an effective tool for communicating the expectations of the educational components of a program to all concerned with the program and its expected results. When standards are connected to student performance, they provide a very compelling argument for refocusing the definition of quality in higher education. By linking standards and performance, student learning and development becomes the starting point for examining program quality. If the multiple stakeholders - faculty, peers, the professional community, addressed assessment issues, then accreditation can be a link among various constituencies, the parties can better understand the needs of each other and develop the necessary trust needed for understanding and support.

Salmons, Phyllis A.↗

Medium Spatial Resolution Satellite Characterization

This project provides characterization and calibration of aerial and satellite systems in support of quality acquisition and understanding of remote sensing data, and verifies and validates the associated data products with respect to ground and and atmospheric truth so that accurate value-added science can be performed. The project also provides assessment of new remote sensing technologies.

Stensaas, Greg↗

Value-added Data Services at the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), in addition to serving the Earth Science community as one of the major Distributed Active Archives Centers (DAACs), provides much more than just data. Among the value-added services available to general users are subsetting data spatially and/or by parameter, online analysis (to avoid downloading unnecessarily all the data), and assistance in obtaining data from other centers. Services available to data producers and high-volume users include consulting on building new products with standard formats and metadata and construction of data management systems. A particularly useful service is data processing at the DISC (i.e., close to the input data) with the users algorithm. This can take a number of different forms: as a configuration-managed algorithm within the main processing stream; as a stand-alone program next to the on-line data storage; as build-it-yourself code within the Near-Archive Data Mining (NADM) system; or as an on-the-fly analysis with simple algorithms embedded into the web-based tools. Partnerships between the GES DISC and scientists, both producers and users, allow the scientists to concentrate on science, while the GES DISC handles the data management, e.g., formats, integration, and data processing. The existing data management infrastructure at the GES DISC supports a wide spectrum of options: from simple data support to sophisticated on-line analysis tools, producing economies of scale and rapid time-to-deploy. At the same time, such partnerships allow the GES DISC to serve the user community more efficiently and to better prioritize on-line holdings. Several examples of successful partnerships are described in the presentation.

Leptoukh, Gregory G.↗