Evaluation of AIS Data for Agronomic and Rangeland Vegetation: Preliminary Results for August 1984 Flight over Nebraska Sandhills Agricultural Laboratory

Since 1978 scientists from the Center for Agricultural Meteorology and Climatology at the University of Nebraska have been conducting research at the Sandhills Agricultural Laboratory on the effects of water stress on crop growth, development and yield using remote sensing techniques. We have been working to develop techniques, both remote and ground-based, to monitor water stress, phenological development, leaf area, phytomass production and grain yields of corn, soybeans and sorghum. Because of the sandy soils and relatively low rainfall at the site it is an excellent location to study water stress without the necessity of installing expensive rainout shelters. The primary objectives of research with the airborne imaging spectrometer (AIS) data collected during an August 1984 flight over the Sandhills Agricultural Laboratory are to evaluate the potential of using AIS to: (1) discriminate crop type; (2) to detect subtle architectural differences that exist among different cultivars or hybrids of agronomic crops; (3) to detect and quantify, if possible, the level of water stress imposed on the crops; and (4) to evaluate leaf area and biomass differences for different crops

Predicting Class Life Cycle Maintenance Effort Based on Class Complexity

In the software industry today many programmers spend countless hours maintaining existing Java programs. The cost of code maintenance affects a company in many ways such as the budget, time management and resources. Making management decisions regarding these issues could be assisted, if maintenance cost of Java classes could be predicted. The goal of this thesis was to create a new model predicting the maintenance effort based on the Java class complexity. It seems clear the complexity of a Java class can directly relate to the amount of time it will take to perform maintenance on the class. To develop the new maintenance effort model, a test bed of Java classes was assembled representing a sample of Java classes from the workplace. Then a variety of Java class metrics were calculated using these classes. Using the backward elimination process of regression analysis in SPSS, a new model was created predicting maintenance effort. The metrics that best predicted maintenance effort were the depth of an inheritance tree, the number of times a class has been deployed to the customer and the lines of code. Together, these metrics together were able to predict 85% of the maintenance effort on the set of Java classes tested

Reforming medical education in the United Kingdom: lessons for Australia and New Zealand

Medical education faces global challenges because of the changing health care needs of an ageing and more demanding society, and the consequent requirement for increased health care workforce capacity and different workforce models. In the United Kingdom, education reform has spanned the medical, nursing and allied health professions, and has introduced new health professions with specific roles within a new, team-based model of comprehensive health care. In medical education, the UK reforms span undergraduate, prevocational, vocational and continuing education, with the aim of providing a framework for faster, more flexible career development that can adapt to future changes in workforce need. While some reforms are controversial, most appear sensible and are supported by most observers. The Modernizing Medical Careers process suffered implementation difficulties in 2007: the national, web-based application scheme for vocational training posts could not cope with such a large process, disrupting both the recruitment of an appropriate workforce for hospitals and the career progression of many recent UK medical graduates. The main problem appears to have been in management of change--too much was attempted too quickly on too large a scale--resulting in a backlash against any significant change. There may be lessons for Australia and New Zealand, which face similar challenges and are considering broadly similar changes

Reverse Engineering Software Code in Java to Show Method Level Dependencies

With the increased dependency on the Internet and computers, the software industry continues to grow. However, just as new software is being developed, older software is still in existence and must be maintained. This tends to be a difficult task, as the developers charged with maintaining the software are not always the developers who designed it. Reverse engineering is the study of an application\u27s code and behavior, in order to better understand the system and its design. There are many existing tools that will assist the developer with this undertaking, such as Rational Rose®, jGRASP®, and Eclipse®. However, all the tools generate high level abstractions of the system in question, like the class diagram. It would be more beneficial to developers to have illustrations with more detailed information, such as the method level dependencies in the source code. In order to accomplish this task, a new framework has been developed that will allow the user to view both high level and lower level code detail. As users attempt to perform code maintenance, they will run the code through an existing tool, such as Rational Rose®, and then through the Method Level Dependency Generator component, to show the method level dependencies. These tools used together provide the software maintainer with more useful information, assisting with the software development process, including code design, implementation, and testing

High resolution Doppler lidar

A high resolution lidar system was implemented to measure winds in the lower atmosphere. The wind speed along the line of sight was determined by measuring the Doppler shift of the aerosol backscattered laser signal. The system in its present configuration is stable, and behaves as indicated by theoretical simulations. This system was built to demonstrate the capabilities of the detector system as a prototype for a spaceborne lidar. The detector system investigated consisted of a plane Fabry-Perot etalon, and a 12-ring anode detector. This system is generically similar to the Fabry-Perot interferometer developed for passive wind measurements on board the Dynamics Explorer satellite. That this detector system performs well in a lidar configuration was demonstrated

Study of the technique of stellar occultation

The results are reported of a study of the stellar occultation technique for measuring the composition of the atmosphere. The intensity of starlight was monitored during the occultation using the Wisconsin stellar ultraviolet photometers aboard the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO-A2). A schematic diagram of an occultation is shown where the change in intensity at a given wavelength is illustrated. The vertical projection of the attenuation region is typically 60 km deep for molecular oxygen and 30 km deep for ozone. Intensity profiles obtained during various occultations were analyzed by first determining the tangential columm density of the absorbing gases, and then Abel inverting the column densities to obtain the number density profile. Errors are associated with each step in the inversion scheme and have been considered as an integral part of this study

Integrated technology wing design study

The technology development costs and associated benefits in applying advanced technology associated with the design of a new wing for a new or derivative trijet with a capacity for 350 passengers and maximum range of 8519 km, entering service in 1990 were studied. The areas of technology are: (1) airfoil technology; (2) planform parameters; (3) high lift; (4) pitch active control system; (5) all electric systems; (6) E to 3rd power propulsion; (7) airframe/propulsion integration; (8) graphite/epoxy composites; (9) advanced aluminum alloys; (10) titanium alloys; and (11) silicon carbide/aluminum composites. These technologies were applied to the reference aircraft configuration. Payoffs were determined for block fuel reductions and net value of technology. These technologies are ranked for the ratio of net value of technology (NVT) to technology development costs