Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the International Space Station (ISS): Launch, Installation, Activation and First Results

Mission: Fly a flight-spare LIS (Lightning Imaging Sensor) on ISS to take advantage of unique capabilities provided by the ISS (e.g., high inclination, real time data); Integrate LIS as a hosted payload on the DoD Space Test Program-Houston 5 (STP-H5) mission and launch on a Space X rocket for a minimum 2 year mission. Measurement: NASA and its partners developed and demonstrated effectiveness and value of using space-based lightning observations as a remote sensing tool; LIS measures lightning (amount, rate, radiant energy) with storm scale resolution, millisecond timing, and high detection efficiency, with no land-ocean bias. Benefit: LIS on ISS will extend TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) time series observations, expand latitudinal coverage, provide real time data to operational users, and enable cross-sensor calibration

The Deep Space Gateway Lightning Mapper (DLM) - Monitoring Global Change and Thunderstorm Processes Through Observations of Earth's High-Latitude Lightning from Cis-Lunar Orbit

Function: Monitor global change and thunderstorm processes through observations of Earth's high-latitude lightning. This instrument will combine long-lived sampling of individual thunderstorms with long-term observations of lightning at high latitudes: How is global change affecting thunderstorm patterns; How do high-latitude thunderstorms differ from low-latitude? Why is the Gateway the optimal facility for this instrument / research: Expected DSG (Deep Space Gateway) orbits will provide nearly continuous viewing of the Earth's high latitudes (50 degrees latitude and poleward); These regions are not well covered by existing lightning mappers (e.g., Lightning Imaging Sensor / LIS, or Geostationary Lightning Mapper / GLM); Polar, Molniya, Tundra, etc. Earth orbits have significant drawbacks related to continuous coverage and/or stable FOVs (Fields of View)

Intelligent evacuation management systems: A review

Crowd and evacuation management have been active areas of research and study in the recent past. Various developments continue to take place in the process of efficient evacuation of crowds in mass gatherings. This article is intended to provide a review of intelligent evacuation management systems covering the aspects of crowd monitoring, crowd disaster prediction, evacuation modelling, and evacuation path guidelines. Soft computing approaches play a vital role in the design and deployment of intelligent evacuation applications pertaining to crowd control management. While the review deals with video and nonvideo based aspects of crowd monitoring and crowd disaster prediction, evacuation techniques are reviewed via the theme of soft computing, along with a brief review on the evacuation navigation path. We believe that this review will assist researchers in developing reliable automated evacuation systems that will help in ensuring the safety of the evacuees especially during emergency evacuation scenarios

Object-Oriented data modeling and warehousing to support urban design

All over the world, local authorities are moving towards managing and storing urban data in digital form. But the data storage devices used are heterogeneous and typically include relational database management systems (DBMS), GIS and CAD files. As a result, data are present in different locations on different platforms and under different schemas. This poses a problem for software applications meant to support decision-making in urban design that require input from more than one data source. This dissertation demonstrates how data warehousing ? combined with object-oriented data modelling ? is able to provide a general solution for this problem. Data warehousing is a technique initially developed for business applications, but is equally useful for urban design: The data warehouse constitutes a communication layer between the urban design applications and data sources. It makes the data available through a unified interface that hides the sources themselves and represents that data in terms of a general-purpose, preferably object-oriented, model. The dissertation also describes an implementation prototype of the data model and the data warehouse. The test case of this research is the city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia, which faces significant urban design and planning issues in connection with the pilgrimage (Hajj) that brings millions of visitors to the city every year

Analyzing Pedestrian Movement in Mataf Using GPSand GIS to Support Space Redesign

Evaluating the use of architectural and urban spaces is an important issue for architects and urban designers who wish to enhance space usability. Space usability is crucial in crowded spaces such as Mataf areas. Millions of people come to the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia every year to perform Hajj (Islamic Pilgrimage) and Umrah. A cornerstone of Hajj and Umrah spirituals is to perform Tawaf, which is the circumambulation of the Ka'bah in the center of the Holy Mosque in Makkah. The areas of performing Tawaf (called Mataf) become very crowded during Hajj and the last ten days of Ramadan. This paper demonstrates how we utilized Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze pedestrian movement while performing Tawaf. During the Hajj of 1424 H (2004 in the Georgian Calendar), several GPS devices were used to collect pedestrian movement coordinates at specific time intervals. Computer software for tracking analysis is used to visualize and analyze the pattern of pedestrian movement in Tawaf. The software allows users to view temporal data, which can be set up with past time windows for historical data analysis. The findings of this research show levels of service and flow rates throughout different zones and times of Mataf. They indicate the most critical zones and times for Tawaf during Hajj. They also visually demonstrate the track pattern of pedestrian movement at different locations in the Tawaf area. The paper concludes with some redesign recommendations to remove obstacles and facilitate pedestrian movement in Tawaf. The approach described in this paper can be implemented in architectural and urban design space modifications to improve pedestrian movement in open spaces.

3D Modeling of Historic Makkah - Strategies for Constructing Accurate CAD Models of Historic Buildings

In this paper, we outline the problem of historic preservation and the opportunities that rigorous CAD models provide to address it, describe the particular class of buildings in Makkah that we are concerned with, and discuss a modelling strategy that takes advantage of common elements, symmetry and repetition in the buildings'construction, and standard operations in current CAD programs. We briefly discuss tools for architectural heritage recording, construction of CAD models of historic buildings, and systematic analysis of built form. Finally, the paper shows how the method can streamline the construction of accurate CAD models