Past and Future Operations Concepts of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System

NASA committed to support the collection and distribution of Earth science data to study global change in the 1990's. A series of Earth science remote sensing satellites, the Earth Observing System (EOS), was to be the centerpiece. The concept for the science data system, the EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS), created new challenges in the data processing of multiple satellite instrument observations for climate research and in the distribution of global-coverage remote sensor products to a large and growing science research community. EOSDIS was conceived to facilitate easy access to EOS science data for a wide heterogeneous national and international community of users. EOSDIS was to provide a spectrum of services designed for research scientists working on NASA focus areas but open to the general public and international science community. EOSDIS would give researchers tools and assistance in searching, selecting and acquiring data, allowing them to focus on Earth science climate research rather than complex product generation. Goals were to promote exchange of data and research results and expedite development of new geophysical algorithms. The system architecture had to accommodate a diversity of data types, data acquisition and product generation operations, data access requirements and different centers of science discipline expertise. Steps were taken early to make EOSDIS flexible by distributing responsibility for basic services. Many of the system operations concept decisions made in the 90s continued to this day. Once implemented, concepts such as the EOSDIS data model played a critical role developing effective data services, now a hallmark of EOSDIS. In other cases, EOSDIS architecture has evolved to enable more efficient operations, taking advantage of new technology and thereby shifting more resources on data services and less on operating and maintaining infrastructure. In looking to the future, EOSDIS may be able to take advantage of commercial compute environments for infrastructure and further enable large scale climate research. In this presentation, we will discuss key EOSDIS operations concepts from the 1990's, how they were implemented and evolved in the architecture, and look at concepts and architectural challenges for EOSDIS operations utilizing commercial cloud services

From imagery to ecology: Leveraging time series of all available Landsat observations to map and monitor ecosystem state and dynamics

https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rse2.24Published versio

Attributing scientific and technical progress: the case of holography

Holography, the three-dimensional imaging technology, was portrayed widely as a paradigm of progress during its decade of explosive expansion 1964–73, and during its subsequent consolidation for commercial and artistic uses up to the mid 1980s. An unusually seductive and prolific subject, holography successively spawned scientific insights, putative applications and new constituencies of practitioners and consumers. Waves of forecasts, associated with different sponsors and user communities, cast holography as a field on the verge of success—but with the dimensions of success repeatedly refashioned. This retargeting of the subject represented a degree of cynical marketeering, but was underpinned by implicit confidence in philosophical positivism and faith in technological progressivism. Each of its communities defined success in terms of expansion, and anticipated continual progressive increase. This paper discusses the contrasting definitions of progress in holography, and how they were fashioned in changing contexts. Focusing equally on reputed ‘failures’ of some aspects of the subject, it explores the varied attributes by which success and failure were linked with progress by different technical communities. This important case illuminates the peculiar post-World War II environment that melded the military, commercial and popular engagement with scientific and technological subjects, and the competing criteria by which they assessed the products of science

Legal Challenges and Market Rewards to the Use and Acceptance of Remote Sensing and Digital Information as Evidence

Bakgrund I den nutida forskningen är det essentiellt att företag tar hänsyn till medarbetarnas motivation så att de gynnas av det arbetssätt som tillämpas. En arbetsmetod som blivit allt vanligare är konceptet Lean som ursprungligen kommer från den japanska bilindustrin. Lean har idag utvecklats till ett allmängiltigt koncept som tillämpas i flertalet branscher världen över. Trots att konceptet innebär flertalet positiva aspekter har det fått utstå stark kritik när det kommer till de mänskliga aspekterna och forskare har ställt sig frågan om Lean är "Mean". Kritiken härleds främst till medarbetares arbetsmiljö i form av stress och brist på variation, självbestämmande, hälsa och välmående. Få empiriska studier har däremot genomförts som undersöker konsekvenserna som Lean får på medarbetares upplevda motivation. Syfte Vårt syfte är att undersöka och öka förståelsen för medarbetares upplevelser av motivationen i företag som tillämpar Lean. Vidare har studien för avsikt att utreda om det föreligger en paradox mellan Lean och vad som motiverar medarbetare på en arbetsplats. Metod Studien har utgått från en kvalitativ metod via intervjuer. För att göra en djupare undersökning och analysera hur vårt fenomen, motivation, upplevs i en kontext med Lean tillämpade vi Små-N-studier. Vi har även haft en iterativ forskningsansats som förenat den deduktiva och induktiva ansatsen där studien pendlat mellan teorier och empiriska observationer fram tills det slutgiltiga resultatet. Slutsatser Utefter medarbetarnas upplevelser har vi identifierat att det inte föreligger någon paradox mellan Lean och motivation eftersom övervägande antal medarbetare upplevde att de är motiverade även om företaget tillämpar Lean. Dock har studien kunnat urskilja både stödjande och motverkande faktorer när det kommer till medarbetarnas upplevda arbetsförhållanden som i sin tur inverkar på motivationen. De motverkande faktorerna menar vi främst beror på att arbetsförhållandena i somliga fall innehåller höga prestationskrav, målstyrning samt standardiseringar. Vidare upplevs motivationen överlag som mer positiv när företagen använder en mjukare form av Lean där samtliga medlemmars intressen beaktas.Background In modern research, it is essential that companies consider employees’ motivation so that they benefit from the applied practices. A working method that has become increasingly common is the concept Lean, which has its origin in the Japanese automotive industry. Today, Lean has evolved into a universal concept that is applied in many industries worldwide. Although the concept involves numerous positive aspects it has endured strong criticism when it comes to the human aspects and researchers have raised the question if Lean is "Mean". Criticism is derived primarily to employees’ working conditions in terms of stress and lack, variation, autonomy, health and wellbeing. However, few empirical studies have been carried out that examines the impact that Lean has on employees’ experienced motivation. Aim The aim is to increase the understanding of employees’ experienced motivation in companies that practice Lean. Further on the study has the intention to investigate if there is a paradox between Lean and what motivates employees on work. Methodology The study has been conducted through a qualitative method by interviews and to be able to do a deeper examination and analyze how our phenomenon, motivation, is experienced in a Lean context we applied small-N-studies. Our strategy has been iterative, combining both a deductive and inductive approach, where the study has varied between theories and empirical observations until the final result. Conclusions We have identified that there is no paradox between Lean and motivation since the majority of employees’ experienced that they are motivated even though the company practice Lean. Nevertheless the study shows that there are both supportive and counteractive factors when it comes to the employees’ experienced working conditions. The counteractive factors consists foremost of high performance standards, goal steering and standardizations, and have in some cases a negative influence on the working conditions. Furthermore the experienced motivation is more positive overall when the companies use a softer form of Lean where all the members’ interests are taken into account

GMES-service for assessing and monitoring subsidence hazards in coastal lowland areas around Europe. SubCoast D3.5.1

This document is version two of the user requirements for SubCoast work package 3.5, it is SubCoast deliverable 3.5.1. Work package 3.5 aims to provide a European integrated GIS product on subsidence and relative sea level rise. The first step of this process was to contact the European Environment Agency as the main user to discover their user requirements. This document presents these requirments, the outline methodology that will be used to carry out the integration and the datasets that will be used. In outline the main user requirements of the EEA are: 1. Gridded approach using an Inspire compliant grid 2. The grid would hold data on: a. Likely rate of subsidence b. RSLR c. Impact (Vulnerability) d. Certainty (confidence map) e. Contribution of ground motion to RSLR f. A measure of certainty in the data provided g. Metadata 3. Spatial Coverage - Ideally entire coastline of all 37 member states a. Spatial resolution - 1km 4. Provide a measure of the degree of contribution of ground motion to RSLR The European integration will be based around a GIS methodology. Datasets will be integrated and interpreted to provide information on data vlues above. The main value being a likelyhood of Subsidence. This product will initially be developed at it’s lowest level of detail for the London area. BGS have a wealth of data for london this will enable this less detialed product to be validated and also enable the generation of a more detailed product usig the best data availible. One the methodology has been developed it will be pushed out to other areas of the ewuropean coastline. The initial input data that have been reviewed for their suitability for the European integration are listed below. Thesea re the datasets that have European wide availibility, It is expected that more detailed datasets will be used in areas where they are avaiilble. 1. Terrafirma Data 2. One Geology 3. One Geology Europe 4. Population Density (Geoland2) 5. The Urban Atlas (Geoland2) 6. Elevation Data a. SRTM b. GDEM c. GTOPO 30 d. NextMap Europe 7. MyOceans Sea Level Data 8. Storm Surge Locations 9. European Environment Agencya. Elevation breakdown 1km b. Corine Land Cover 2000 (CLC2000) coastline c. Sediment Discharges d. Shoreline e. Maritime Boundaries f. Hydrodynamics and Sea Level Rise g. Geomorphology, Geology, Erosion Trends and Coastal Defence Works h. Corine land cover 1990 i. Five metre elevation contour line 10. FutureCoas

Image Analysis for Facility Siting: a Comparison of Lowand High-altitude Image Interpretability for Land Use/land Cover Mapping

For two test sites in Pennsylvania the interpretability of commercially acquired low-altitude and existing high-altitude aerial photography are documented in terms of time, costs, and accuracy for Anderson Level II land use/land cover mapping. Information extracted from the imagery is to be used in the evaluation process for siting energy facilities. Land use/land cover maps were drawn at 1:24,000 scale using commercially flown color infrared photography obtained from the United States Geological Surveys' EROS Data Center. Detailed accuracy assessment of the maps generated by manual image analysis was accomplished employing a stratified unaligned adequate class representation. Both 'area-weighted' and 'by-class' accuracies were documented and field-verified. A discrepancy map was also drawn to illustrate differences in classifications between the two map scales. Results show that the 1:24,000 scale map set was more accurate (99% to 94% area-weighted) than the 1:62,500 scale set, especially when sampled by class (96% to 66%). The 1:24,000 scale maps were also more time-consuming and costly to produce, due mainly to higher image acquisition costs

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