Quarterly literature review of the remote sensing of natural resources

The Technology Application Center reviewed abstracted literature sources, and selected document data and data gathering techniques which were performed or obtained remotely from space, aircraft or groundbased stations. All of the documentation was related to remote sensing sensors or the remote sensing of the natural resources. Sensors were primarily those operating within the 10 to the minus 8 power to 1 meter wavelength band. Included are NASA Tech Briefs, ARAC Industrial Applications Reports, U.S. Navy Technical Reports, U.S. Patent reports, and other technical articles and reports

UA68/1/2 Potter College of Arts & Letters Dean, Assistant Deans, Committees Events

Records created by the Potter College of Arts & Letters Dean\u27s Office regarding events, performances, series, conferences, and lectures sponsored or produced by Potter College for faculty, staff, students and general public. Includes records related to the Cultural Enhancement Committee, Fine Arts Festival, Faculty Lecture Series, Visual & Performing Arts and Kentucky Heritage Project

Center for Research on Sustainable Forests 2018 Annual Report

The Center for Research on Sustainable Forests (CRSF) was founded in 2006 to build on a rich history of leading forest research and to enhance our understanding of Maine’s forest resources in an increasingly complex world. CRSF brings together the natural and social sciences with an appreciation for the importance of the relationship between people and our ecosystems. We conduct research and inform stakeholders about how to balance the wise-use of our resources while conserving our natural world for future generations. Our mission is to conduct and promote leading interdisciplinary research on issues affecting the management and sustainability of northern forest ecosystems and Maine’s forest-based economy

The Vlochos Archaeological Project: Report on the 2016– 2018 seasons of Greek-Swedish archaeological work at Vlochos, Thessaly

The Vlochos Archaeological Project (2016–2018) was a Greek-Swedish archaeological investigation of the remains of the ancient urban site at Vlochos in western Thessaly, Greece. Employing a wide array of noninvasive methods, the project succeeded in completely mapping the visible remains, which had previously not been systematically investigated. The extensive remains of multi-period urban fortifications, a ClassicalHellenistic city, a Roman town, and a Late Antique fortress were identified, evidence of the long history of habitation on this site. Since comparatively little fieldwork has been conducted in the region, the results significantly increase our knowledge of the history and archaeology of Thessaly

Assessing the role of EO in biodiversity monitoring: options for integrating in-situ observations with EO within the context of the EBONE concept

The European Biodiversity Observation Network (EBONE) is a European contribution on terrestrial monitoring to GEO BON, the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network. EBONE’s aims are to develop a system of biodiversity observation at regional, national and European levels by assessing existing approaches in terms of their validity and applicability starting in Europe, then expanding to regions in Africa. The objective of EBONE is to deliver: 1. A sound scientific basis for the production of statistical estimates of stock and change of key indicators; 2. The development of a system for estimating past changes and forecasting and testing policy options and management strategies for threatened ecosystems and species; 3. A proposal for a cost-effective biodiversity monitoring system. There is a consensus that Earth Observation (EO) has a role to play in monitoring biodiversity. With its capacity to observe detailed spatial patterns and variability across large areas at regular intervals, our instinct suggests that EO could deliver the type of spatial and temporal coverage that is beyond reach with in-situ efforts. Furthermore, when considering the emerging networks of in-situ observations, the prospect of enhancing the quality of the information whilst reducing cost through integration is compelling. This report gives a realistic assessment of the role of EO in biodiversity monitoring and the options for integrating in-situ observations with EO within the context of the EBONE concept (cfr. EBONE-ID1.4). The assessment is mainly based on a set of targeted pilot studies. Building on this assessment, the report then presents a series of recommendations on the best options for using EO in an effective, consistent and sustainable biodiversity monitoring scheme. The issues that we faced were many: 1. Integration can be interpreted in different ways. One possible interpretation is: the combined use of independent data sets to deliver a different but improved data set; another is: the use of one data set to complement another dataset. 2. The targeted improvement will vary with stakeholder group: some will seek for more efficiency, others for more reliable estimates (accuracy and/or precision); others for more detail in space and/or time or more of everything. 3. Integration requires a link between the datasets (EO and in-situ). The strength of the link between reflected electromagnetic radiation and the habitats and their biodiversity observed in-situ is function of many variables, for example: the spatial scale of the observations; timing of the observations; the adopted nomenclature for classification; the complexity of the landscape in terms of composition, spatial structure and the physical environment; the habitat and land cover types under consideration. 4. The type of the EO data available varies (function of e.g. budget, size and location of region, cloudiness, national and/or international investment in airborne campaigns or space technology) which determines its capability to deliver the required output. EO and in-situ could be combined in different ways, depending on the type of integration we wanted to achieve and the targeted improvement. We aimed for an improvement in accuracy (i.e. the reduction in error of our indicator estimate calculated for an environmental zone). Furthermore, EO would also provide the spatial patterns for correlated in-situ data. EBONE in its initial development, focused on three main indicators covering: (i) the extent and change of habitats of European interest in the context of a general habitat assessment; (ii) abundance and distribution of selected species (birds, butterflies and plants); and (iii) fragmentation of natural and semi-natural areas. For habitat extent, we decided that it did not matter how in-situ was integrated with EO as long as we could demonstrate that acceptable accuracies could be achieved and the precision could consistently be improved. The nomenclature used to map habitats in-situ was the General Habitat Classification. We considered the following options where the EO and in-situ play different roles: using in-situ samples to re-calibrate a habitat map independently derived from EO; improving the accuracy of in-situ sampled habitat statistics, by post-stratification with correlated EO data; and using in-situ samples to train the classification of EO data into habitat types where the EO data delivers full coverage or a larger number of samples. For some of the above cases we also considered the impact that the sampling strategy employed to deliver the samples would have on the accuracy and precision achieved. Restricted access to European wide species data prevented work on the indicator ‘abundance and distribution of species’. With respect to the indicator ‘fragmentation’, we investigated ways of delivering EO derived measures of habitat patterns that are meaningful to sampled in-situ observations

Methods in Costume and Projection Design for Theatre

A report detailing multiple practices for theatre design in costumes and projection. It is focused on playscript analysis, the design process, and the final build of the design for production

Herbal product's quality control using ¹H-NMR metabolomics approach – An example from Danshen (Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge.)

Radix Salviae miltiorrhizae is the only source of Danshen in pharmacopoeias. For thousands of years, it has been used in China for vascular and pain-related diseases. The current major chemical standards for Danshen products are tanshinone IIA and salvianolic acid B (Zhou, Zuo and Chow, 2005). However, in some regions, Danshen substitutes including Salvia przewalskii Maxim, S. bowleyana Dunn, and S. sinica Migo have been used. Such local substitutes are often erroneously called Danshen (Li et al., 2008, 2013). About ten thousand tonnes of Danshen, Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, achieved total revenue of around £54 million in 2015 (Translated from Chinese: Chinese Danshen market research and investment prospect from 2017 to 2023 forecast report, 2017). The global rise of Danshen-related products in different supply chains puts into question the consistency of product quality and the accuracy of information provided by suppliers. This project aims at using a metabolomics approach to understand the standard of Danshen products in the global market and establish a novel strategy to define the quality of herbal medicine products. This study project included three disciplines, which were chemistry, pharmacology and value chain analysis. The data obtained from these three disciplines were linked by principle component analysis to the correlation of its chemical compositions and pharmacological effects and its related supply chain. For value chain analysis, an extensive literature review, semi-structured interviews with key informants and non-participant observation in the fieldwork were used to investigate the structures of the supply chains and its influence on the quality of Danshen products. According to the supply chains investigated, simplifying the supply chain and fair-trade agreement benefits the quality consistency of Danshen materials. Taiwan local farmers struggled to sell their organic Danshen (≈ £23/kg) to pharmaceuticals. Taiwanese pharmaceutical company representatives highlighted that Danshen has always been the highest consumption, but they would source from China (≈ £1.6 to7.8/kg) because of the lower price. Some farmers would follow the traditional processing after harvesting which allows the roots fermenting several days before sun-drying. With this processing, the products had less tanshinones, but it did not show any effects on salvianolic acids in HPTLC and NMR. For the chemical composition variation of Danshen products, HPTLC, NMR and metal content analysis were used to understand the standard and the consistency of the market samples in the world. With sixty-two samples collected from different countries and sources, there were distinctive chemical differences between the samples from Vietnam and China as well as authenticated samples. In HPTLC and NMR, it showed the contents of salvianolic acids and tanshinones vary, and it did not relate to the size of the firm. In the metal analysis, two out of fifteen samples from Chinese online stores exceeded acceptable cadmium levels according to Chinese pharmacopoeia (0.3 and 0.67 mg/kg). For the pharmacology variation, the evaluation of the inhibition of H2O2 induced apoptosis and the inhibition of LPS induced NO production assays were used. In LPS induced NO production, only seven dried root samples (two authenticated and five from Vietnamese market) out of sixty-two samples exhibited inhibition of NO production in 100 ug/ml without cytotoxicity (10.28%~26.17%). Three samples from Chinese online stores obtained protective effect from H2O2 induced apoptosis

Influence Of Task-role Mental Models On Human Interpretation Of Robot Motion Behavior

The transition in robotics from tools to teammates has begun. However, the benefit autonomous robots provide will be diminished if human teammates misinterpret robot behaviors. Applying mental model theory as the organizing framework for human understanding of robots, the current empirical study examined the influence of task-role mental models of robots on the interpretation of robot motion behaviors, and the resulting impact on subjective ratings of robots. Observers (N = 120) were exposed to robot behaviors that were either congruent or incongruent with their task-role mental model, by experimental manipulation of preparatory robot task-role information to influence mental models (i.e., security guard, groundskeeper, or no information), the robot\u27s actual task-role behaviors (i.e., security guard or groundskeeper), and the order in which these robot behaviors were presented. The results of the research supported the hypothesis that observers with congruent mental models were significantly more accurate in interpreting the motion behaviors of the robot than observers without a specific mental model. Additionally, an incongruent mental model, under certain circumstances, significantly hindered an observer\u27s interpretation accuracy, resulting in subjective sureness of inaccurate interpretations. The strength of the effects that mental models had on the interpretation and assessment of robot behaviors was thought to have been moderated by the ease with which a particular mental model could reasonably explain the robot\u27s behavior, termed mental model applicability. Finally, positive associations were found between differences in observers\u27 interpretation accuracy and differences in subjective ratings of robot intelligence, safety, and trustworthiness. The current research offers implications for the relationships between mental model components, as well as implications for designing robot behaviors to appear more transparent, or opaque, to humans

The Body at the Center: The Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90893/1/BodyattheCenter.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90893/2/Genbaku_eiga.pdf17

Concept development of installation technology for rainforest audio monitoring devices

Rainforest deforestation is the second largest anthropogenic source of greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere, after the burning of fossil fuels. Up to 90 per cent of tropical rainforest deforestation is conducted illegally. Rainforest Connection endeavour to reduce this number through the installation of up-recycled Audio Monitoring Devices installed high in the trees of the forest. The presented work aims to assist Rainforest Connection in their mission through the application of concept development methods for the enhancement of installation operations performed in the field. Due to the nature of the company a premium is placed on immediately implementable techniques. In response, both incremental improvements to current operations, through the adoption of industry techniques and commercially available equipment, and novel generated solutions are provided. The paper recommends the employment of extendable carbon fibre poles for the installation of the Audio Monitoring Devices as a novel solution and identifies a path forward for further development of the installation technique. The adaption of commercial telescopic carbon fibre poles from the window washing industry repre-sents an additional tool for field operations that has the potential to save hours per temporarily installed device; while providing an immediate pathway for field trials in Ecuador at a low investment cost. A segment carbon fibre pole is recommended for future development of high elevation, permanent installations performed from the ground