Measuring Greenland Glacier Dynamics with Remotely Sensed Data

Graduate student in GeographyPlatinum Sponsors Gold Sponsors KU Department of Geography KU Institute for Policy & Social Research KU Libraries GIS and Data Services State of Kansas Data Access and Support Center (DASC) Silver Sponsors Bartlett & West KansasView Kansas Biological Survey U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Bronze Sponsors AECOM Black & Veatch City of Lawrence - Utilities Department ESRI Global Information Systems KU Center for Global & International Studies KU Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) KU Environmental Studies Program Lucity, Inc. Wilson & Company, Engineers and Architect

The challenges of decolonising university curricula in South Africa : a critical perspective

Abstract: This study presents a theoretical and critical analysis of the challenges of decolonising university curricula in South Africa. This research is based on the premise that university curricula has not considerably changed due to the incessant use of western epistemologies, diverse nature of the South African landscape, many languages, complexities among African scholars and the influences of neoliberal and globalisation policies and practices on higher education. Universities have been caught in the middle to bridge the gap and strike a balance such that university curricula constitute both western and African (South) knowledges and languages. This study follows the qualitative research design that aimed at exploring and discovering themes from data collected. It adopts an interpretivist research approach as it deals with the collection and analyses of extensive review of data from journals, articles and books so as to describe and interpret related works. It entails a hermeneutics analysis of data so as to understand the meaning derived from textual analysis. It adopts critical theory as its theoretical framework and uses decoloniality paradigm to explain concepts. Findings indicate that universities in South Africa still pride in the knowledges and languages of the western world as ideals. These knowledges are held as unquestionable truths that cannot be challenged. Hence, they continue to dominate and disregard South African philosophies. Amidst these challenges, university curricula could actually be decolonised if the powers that be and the department responsible for designing curricula include South African world views and languages as part of the curricula. However, this has not been the case as the decolonisation process is yet to be achieved.M.Ed. (Education and Curriculum Studies

Characterization of Ice Mélange and its Implications to Terminus Stability at Helheim Glacier, Southeast Greenland

Ice mélange, a conglomeration of icebergs and sea ice, persists in front of some marine-terminating glaciers. Depending upon local fjord geometry and other environmental conditions, an ice mélange can sometimes compact and jam. Here, the impact of the ice mélange on iceberg calving is assessed at a fast-moving glacier with a unique flow regime – Helheim Glacier, southeast Greenland (HG). Satellite remote sensing is used to quantify the ice mélange and the glacier terminus position, and additional ancillary data – wind speed, moorings, sea surface temperature (SST) and bed topography – are used to assess potential controls on iceberg calving. Iceberg jams were measured on a 2 to 35-day interval, but often did not correlate with the rate of calving. Isolated calving events were more likely during a jam, but most jams were in winter, when calving is most infrequent. At HG, SST and seasonality are the stronger drivers of iceberg calving

An Effective Satellite Remote Sensing Tool Combining Hardware and Software Solutions

In this paper we propose a new effective remote sensing tool combining hardware and software solutions as an extension of our previous work. In greater detail the tool consists of a low cost receiver subsystem for public weather satellites and a signal and image processing module for several tasks such as signal and image enhancement, image reconstruction and cloud detection. Our solution allows to manage data from satellites effectively with low cost components and portable software solutions. We aim at sampling and processing of the modulated signal entirely in software enabled by Software Defined Radios (SDR) and CPU computational speed overcoming hardware limitation such as high receiver noise and low ADC resolution. Since we want to extend our previous method to demodulate signals coming from various meteorological satellites, we propose a new high frequency receiving system designed to receive and demodulate signals transmitted at 1.7 GHz. The signals coming from satellites are demodulated, synchronized and enhanced by using low level image processing techniques, then cloud detection is performed by using the well known K-means clustering algorithm. The hardware and software architecture extensions make our solution able to receive and demodulate high frequency and bandwidth meteorological satellite signals, such as those transmitted by NOAA POES, NOAA GOES, EUMETSAT Metop, Meteor-M and FengYun

Dynamic jamming of iceberg-choked fjords

We investigate the dynamics of ice mélange by analyzing rapid motion recorded by a time-lapse camera and terrestrial radar during several calving events that occurred at Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland. During calving events (1) the kinetic energy of the ice mélange is 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the total energy released during the events, (2) a jamming front propagates through the ice mélange at a rate that is an order of magnitude faster than the motion of individual icebergs, (3) the ice mélange undergoes initial compaction followed by slow relaxation and extension, and (4) motion of the ice mélange gradually decays before coming to an abrupt halt. These observations indicate that the ice mélange experiences widespread jamming during calving events and is always close to being in a jammed state during periods of terminus quiescence. We therefore suspect that local jamming influences longer timescale ice mélange dynamics and stress transmission

Proposta de uma unidade de an?lise para a materialidade da cogni??o.

As aulas de ci?ncias s?o espa?os ocupados por um conjunto enorme de objetos e sem eles as aulas certamente seriam diferentes ou mesmo imposs?veis de acontecer. Assim, p?e-se a necessidade de se considerar o engajamento entre esses objetos e humanos para o entendimento dos processos de ensino/aprendizagem. No presente artigo apresentamos uma proposta de unidade de an?lise, denominada por n?s de figura??o cognitiva. Essa unidade est? fundamentada no enquadramento te?rico-metodol?gico da teoria ator-rede, da cogni??o distribu?da e na psicologia ecol?gica. Com essa proposta, procuramos evitar um vocabul?rio mentalista e cognitivista, bem como facilitar a visualiza??o da rede de rela??es nos processos de ensino/aprendizagem

Spatial and temporal trends of visceral leishmaniasis by mesoregion in a southeastern state of Brazil, 2002-2013.

This article presents the spatial and temporal distribution of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Minas Gerais State and identifies the greater risk areas of transmission. This study is both timely and substantive because Minas Gerais is an important Brazilian state in the number of cases of visceral leishmaniasis. The results showed that during the 12-year time series the VL had a heterogeneous spatial and temporal distribution in the state of Minas Gerais. Among the 12 existing mesoregions, six (Central Mineira, Jequitinhonha, Metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte, Northwest of Minas, North of Minas, and Vale do Rio Doce) were responsible for the expansion and maintenance of VL in the state. Among them, the Vale do Rio Doce and Jequitinhonha mesoregions presented a considerable increase in the incidence rates of the disease in the last period. In the other six mesoregions only sporadic cases of the disease were reported during the study period. The results of in this study may contribute to a better understanding the dynamic of the disease in Minas Gerais. Also these findings can provide subsidies to assist the actions of the control program of VL

Summer warming explains widespread but not uniform greening in the Arctic tundra biome

Arctic warming can influence tundra ecosystem function with consequences for climate feedbacks, wildlife and human communities. Yet ecological change across the Arctic tundra biome remains poorly quantified due to field measurement limitations and reliance on coarse-resolution satellite data. Here, we assess decadal changes in Arctic tundra greenness using time series from the 30 m resolution Landsat satellites. From 1985 to 2016 tundra greenness increased (greening) at ~37.3% of sampling sites and decreased (browning) at ~4.7% of sampling sites. Greening occurred most often at warm sampling sites with increased summer air temperature, soil temperature, and soil moisture, while browning occurred most often at cold sampling sites that cooled and dried. Tundra greenness was positively correlated with graminoid, shrub, and ecosystem productivity measured at field sites. Our results support the hypothesis that summer warming stimulated plant productivity across much, but not all, of the Arctic tundra biome during recent decades