Delineation of site‐specific management zones using estimation of distribution algorithms

In this paper, we present a novel methodology to solve the problem of delineating homogeneous site-specific management zones (SSMZ) in agricultural fields. This problem consists of dividing the field into small regions for which a specific rate of inputs is required. The objec- tive is to minimize the number of management zones, which must be homogeneous according to a specific soil property: physical or chem- ical. Furthermore, as opposed to oval zones, SSMZ with rectangular shapes are preferable since they are more practical for agricultural technologies. The methodology we propose is based on evolutionary computation, specifically on a class of the estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs). One of the strongest contributions of this study is the representation used to model the management zones, which gener- ates zones with orthogonal shapes, e.g., L or T shapes, and minimizes the number of zones required to delineate the field. The experimental results show that our method is efficient to solve real-field and ran- domly generated instances. The average improvement of our method consists in reducing the number of management zones in the agricul- tural fields concerning other operations research methods presented in the literature. The improvement depends on the size of the field and the level of homogeneity established for the resulting management zones.IT1244-19 TIN2016-78365-R PID2019-104966GB-I0

A site-specific and dynamic modeling system for zoning and optimizing variable rate irrigation in cotton

Cotton irrigation has been rapidly expanding in west Tennessee during the past decade. Variable rate irrigation is expected to enhance water use efficiency and crop yield in this region due to the significant field-scale soil spatial heterogeneity. A detailed understanding of the soil available water content within the effective root zone is needed to optimally schedule irrigation. In addition, site-specific crop-yield mathematical relationships should be established to identify optimum irrigation management. This study aimed to design and evaluate a site-specific modeling system for zoning and optimizing variable rate irrigation in cotton. The specific objectives of this study were to investigate (i) the spatial variability of soil attributes at the field-scale, (ii) site-specific cotton lint yieldwater relationships across all soil types, and (iii) multiple zoning strategies for variable rate irrigation scenarios. The field (73 ha) was sampled and apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) was measured. Landsat 8 satellite data was acquired, processed, and transformed to compare indicators of vegetation and soil response to cotton lint yields, variable irrigation rates, and the spatial variability of soil attributes. Multiple modeling scenarios were developed and examined. Although experiments were performed during two wet years, supplemental irrigation enhanced cotton yield across all soil types in comparison with rain-fed conditions. However, length of cropping season and rainfall distribution remarkably affected cotton response to supplemental irrigation. Geostatistical analysis showed spatial variability in soil textural components and water content was significant and correlated to yield patterns. There was as high as four-fold difference between available water content between coarse-textured and fine-textured soils on the study site. A good agreement was observed (RMSE = 0.052 cm3 cm-3 [cubic centimeter per cubic centimeter] and r = 0.88) between predicted and observed water contents. ECa and space images were useful proximal data to investigate soil spatial variability. The site-specific water production functions performed well at predicting cotton lint yield with RMSE equal to 0.131 Mg ha-1 [megagram per hectare] and 0.194 Mg ha-1 in 2013 and 2014, respectively. The findings revealed that variable rate irrigation with pie shape zones could enhance cotton lint yield under supplemental irrigation in west Tennessee

Third ERTS Symposium: Abstracts

Abstracts are provided for the 112 papers presented at the Earth Resources Program Symposium held at Washington, D.C., 10-14 December, 1973

Application of Geographical Information Systems to Lahar Hazard Assessment on an Active Volcanic System

Lahars (highly dynamic mixtures of volcanic debris and water) have been responsible for some of the most serious volcanic disasters and have killed tens of thousands of people in recent decades. Despite considerable lahar model development in the sciences, many research tools have proved wholly unsuitable for practical application on an active volcanic system where it is difficult to obtain field measurements. In addition, geographic information systems are tools that offer a great potential to explore, model and map hazards, but are currently under-utilised for lahar hazard assessment. This research pioneered a three-tiered approach to lahar hazard assessment on Montserrat, West Indies. Initially, requirements of potential users of lahar information (scientists and decision-makers) were established through interview and evaluated against attainable modelling outputs (given flow type and data availability). Subsequently, a digital elevation model, fit for modelling lahars, was used by a path of steepest descent algorithm and a semi-empirical debris-flow model in the prediction of lahar routes and inundation areas. Limitations of these established geographical information system (GIS) based models, for predicting the behaviour of (relatively under-studied) dilute lahars, were used to inform key parameters for a novel model, also tightly coupled to a GIS, that simulated flow routes based on change in velocity. Importantly, uncertainty in model predictions was assessed through a stochastic simulation of elevation error. Finally, the practical utility of modelling outputs (visualisations) was assessed through mutual feedback with local scientists. The new model adequately replicated past flow routes and gave preliminary predictions for velocities and travel times, thus providing a short-term lahar hazard assessment. Inundation areas were also mapped using the debris-flow model to assist long-term planning. Ultimately, a GIS can support ‘on the ground’ planning decisions, but efficacy is limited by an active volcanic system which can restrict feedback to and from end-users. *[The appendices for this thesis were submitted as separate files which could not be uploaded to the repository. Please contact the author for more information.]

OPTIMIZATION OF RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION HAZMATS AND REGULAR COMMODITIES

Transportation of dangerous goods has been receiving more attention in the realm of academic and scientific research during the last few decades as countries have been increasingly becoming industrialized throughout the world, thereby making Hazmats an integral part of our life style. However, the number of scholarly articles in this field is not as many as those of other areas in SCM. Considering the low-probability-and-high-consequence (LPHC) essence of transportation of Hazmats, on the one hand, and immense volume of shipments accounting for more than hundred tons in North America and Europe, on the other, we can safely state that the number of scholarly articles and dissertations have not been proportional to the significance of the subject of interest. On this ground, we conducted our research to contribute towards further developing the domain of Hazmats transportation, and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), in general terms. Transportation of Hazmats, from logistical standpoint, may include all modes of transport via air, marine, road and rail, as well as intermodal transportation systems. Although road shipment is predominant in most of the literature, railway transportation of Hazmats has proven to be a potentially significant means of transporting dangerous goods with respect to both economies of scale and risk of transportation; these factors, have not just given rise to more thoroughly investigation of intermodal transportation of Hazmats using road and rail networks, but has encouraged the competition between rail and road companies which may indeed have some inherent advantages compared to the other medium due to their infrastructural and technological backgrounds. Truck shipment has ostensibly proven to be providing more flexibility; trains, per contra, provide more reliability in terms of transport risk for conveying Hazmats in bulks. In this thesis, in consonance with the aforementioned motivation, we provide an introduction into the hazardous commodities shipment through rail network in the first chapter of the thesis. Providing relevant statistics on the volume of Hazmat goods, number of accidents, rate of incidents, and rate of fatalities and injuries due to the incidents involving Hazmats, will shed light onto the significance of the topic under study. As well, we review the most pertinent articles while putting more emphasis on the state-of-the-art papers, in chapter two. Following the discussion in chapter 3 and looking at the problem from carrier company’s perspective, a mixed integer quadratically constraint problem (MIQCP) is developed which seeks for the minimization of transportation cost under a set of constraints including those associating with Hazmats. Due to the complexity of the problem, the risk function has been piecewise linearized using a set of auxiliary variables, thereby resulting in an MIP problem. Further, considering the interests of both carrier companies and regulatory agencies, which are minimization of cost and risk, respectively, a multiobjective MINLP model is developed, which has been reduced to an MILP through piecewise linearization of the risk term in the objective function. For both single-objective and multiobjective formulations, model variants with bifurcated and nonbifurcated flows have been presented. Then, in chapter 4, we carry out experiments considering two main cases where the first case presents smaller instances of the problem and the second case focuses on a larger instance of the problem. Eventually, in chapter five, we conclude the dissertation with a summary of the overall discussion as well as presenting some comments on avenues of future work

Floodplain Aquifer Storage Capacity in Upper Yakima River Tributaries, Kittitas County, WA

Large wood (LW) restoration projects were recently implemented in the Upper Yakima Basin following the destructive logging practices of the early 20th Century, which stripped Upper Yakima River tributaries of LW. The removal of natural LW increased incision, isolating channels from floodplain aquifers, and degrading resident and anadromous fish habitat. Returning streams to their natural state through instream LW installations is believed to increase floodplain groundwater storage by decreasing channel incision, increasing floodplain-channel connectivity, and raising the water table elevation. Additional storage in floodplain aquifers can help combat the adverse effects of climate change, namely decreasing snowpack and earlier melting. Storing infiltrating snowmelt and river water during peak flow in shallow floodplain aquifers could allow the natural release of groundwater as baseflow through the dry summer. Taneum Creek, Indian Creek, and Teanaway River have established LW projects and are candidates for floodplain aquifer storage. However, a regionally wide spread gray silt layer could affect potential aquifer transmissivity and storage capacity. Through fieldwork, mapping, and grain-size analysis, the groundwater storage volume was quantified taking into consideration the effects of the stratigraphy on groundwater storage, recharge, and flow. Volume estimates indicate a potential floodplain aquifer capacity of 1,040-1,990 acre-feet in the North Fork Teanaway watershed and 352-1,320 acre-feet in Taneum Creek

Distribution Law for Constituent Minerals and Chemical Components in Rocks and Ores

Rocks and Ores comprising of multicomponent of minerals (Group I) contain chemical molecules (Group II) which further contain (Group III). Man has exploited these valuable constituents for industrial, economic, and social growth causing serious depletion of high-grade ores at surface and shallow depths. Sustainable growth now requires exploitation of low-grade ores and those occurring at depth which imply optimal and most efficient mining efforts based on spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal distribution of these constituents. The optimal decisions resulting in profit maximization is possible by obtaining precise and accurate parameters of these distributions. Sample size required for such estimations must be at least representative elementary volume (REV) of the rocks/ores, but the data matrix is not full-rank for statistical analyses and sample mean (x; 0 < x < 1) must be transformed to Gaussian to apply standard univariate (UND)/multivariate (MND) statistical techniques. A log(x/(1−x)) or ln(x/(1−x)) transform is shown to be an appropriate pre-transformation that eliminates the twin problems of full-rank, and spurious negative correlations as well as makes the distribution Gaussian for major, minor, and trace components. Mining applications using the univariate and/or Multivariate Normal Theory of pre-transformed sample mean (x) in rocks/ores is optimal for anomaly detection, drilling site selection, global reserve and grade estimations, mine planning, ore mineral liberation, blending, sustainable mine developments and maximization of profits computed on net profit value (NPV) basis to present time

Addressing the uncertain geographic context problem by advanced spatial analysis approaches based on GIS and GPS for environmental health studies

Scholars in the fields of health geography, urban planning, and transportation studies have long attempted to understand the relationships among human movement, environmental context, and their effect on health outcomes. Considerable research has been conducted to advance our understanding of how environmental exposures affects health behaviors and outcomes. In many of these studies, however, environmental exposures are found to have inconsistent associations with health. The uncertain geographic context problem (UGCoP) is one of the most important methodological issues that contribute to the inconsistent findings. This dissertation explores the methodological issues in environmental health research causing the uncertain findings and how the UGCoP influences research findings, proposes an activity space approaches to comprehensively assess the individual exposures to environmental contexts, and designs an innovative environmental exposure evaluation framework to spatiotemporally assess individual environmental exposure and evaluated the environmental effects on health outcomes. With empirical analysis of real-world applications with the GPS tracking data and environmental context data collected at Chicago, IL, and Columbus, OH, these proposed approaches are proved perform better than currently widely used methods. Taking into account the complex spatial and temporal dynamics of individual environmental exposures, the proposed methods also helps to mitigate the UGCoP in important ways. They may be used in environmental health studies concerning environmental influences on a wide range of health behaviors and outcomes, and thus help to improve our understanding of the environmental effects on different health behaviors and outcomes

Vehicular Instrumentation and Data Processing for the Study of Driver Intent

The primary goal of this thesis is to provide processed experimental data needed to determine whether driver intentionality and driving-related actions can be predicted from quantitative and qualitative analysis of driver behaviour. Towards this end, an instrumented experimental vehicle capable of recording several synchronized streams of data from the surroundings of the vehicle, the driver gaze with head pose and the vehicle state in a naturalistic driving environment was designed and developed. Several driving data sequences in both urban and rural environments were recorded with the instrumented vehicle. These sequences were automatically annotated for relevant artifacts such as lanes, vehicles and safely driveable areas within road lanes. A framework and associated algorithms required for cross-calibrating the gaze tracking system with the world coordinate system mounted on the outdoor stereo system was also designed and implemented, allowing the mapping of the driver gaze with the surrounding environment. This instrumentation is currently being used for the study of driver intent, geared towards the development of driver maneuver prediction models