GeoSpatial Tools and Data Provided by ITaP/Research Computing

The presentation will provide the audience information about the geospatial applications that are available on campus including Esri ArcGIS, ERDAS Imagine, Exelis ENVI, Trimble eCognition and others. The information will include where to go to download the software installers and how to set up the licensing for them. The discussion will also go over the new software installer file download process

GIS Resources @ Purdue

GIS tools, resources, and data provided by ITAP and RCA

ESRI Virtual Campus - Free GIS Training for Purdue Students

Free Training – GIS Science and Technology Web-based seminars and online courses

Conversion of sunflower multiband radiometer polarization measurements to polarization parameters

The data processing analysis and conversion of polarization measurements to polarization parameters from the Sunflower multiband radiometer is presented in this final report. Included is: (1) the actual data analysis; (2) the comparison of the averaging techniques and the percent polarization derived from the original and averaged I, Q, U parameters; (3) the polarizer angles used in conversion; (4) the Matlab files; (5) the relative ground size, field of view location, and view zenith angles, and (6) the summary of all the sky data for all dates

Flowering Development Stage in Sorghum Estimated from Optical Polarization Data

We tested the hypothesis that we can estimate the flowering developmentstage of sorghum from measurements of the polarization of the light scattered by asorghum canopy. Such information is critically important in agricultural productionforecasting. If such information were available for each sorghum field in a region, itcould be interleaved with timely weather data and used in crop production models toobtain improved estimates of sorghum grain production for the region

Optical Polarization of Light from a Sorghum Canopy Measured Under Both a Clear and an Overcast Sky

Introduction: We tested the hypothesis that the optical polarization of the light reflected by a sorghum canopy is due to a Fresnel-type redirection, by sorghum leaf surfaces, of light from an unpolarized light source, the sun or overcast sky, toward the measuring sensor. If it can be shown that the source of the polarization of the light scattered by the sorghum canopy is a first surface, Fresnel-type reflection, then removing this surface reflected light from measurements of canopy reflectance presumably would allow better insight into the biochemical processes such as photosynthesis and metabolism that occur in the interiors of sorghum canopy leaves. Methods: We constructed a tower 5.9m tall in the center of a homogenous sorghum field. We equipped two Barnes MMR radiometers with polarization analyzers on the number 1, 3 and 7 Landsat TM wavelength bands. Positioning the radiometers atop the tower, we collected radiance data in 44 view directions on two days, one day with an overcast sky and the other, clear and sunlit. From the radiance data we calculated the linear polarization of the reflected light for each radiometer wavelength channel and view direction. Results and Discussion: Our experimental results support our hypothesis, showing that the amplitude of the linearly polarized portion of the light reflected by the sorghum canopy varied dramatically with view azimuth direction under a point source, the sun, but the amplitude varied little with view azimuth direction under the hemispherical source, the overcast sky. Under the clear sky, the angle of polarization depended upon the angle of incidence of the sunlight on the leaf, while under the overcast sky the angle of polarization depended upon the zenith view angle. These results support a polarized radiation transport model of the canopy that is based upon a first surface, Fresnel reflection from leaves in the sorghum canopy

The Purdue Agro-climatic (PAC) Dataset for The U.S. Corn Belt: Development and Initial Results

This study is a result of a project titled ‘‘Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers”. This paper responds to the project goal to improve farm resiliency and proftability in the U.S. Corn Belt region by transforming existing meteorological dataset into usable knowledge and tools for the agricultural community. A high-resolution agro-climatic dataset that covers the U.S. Corn Belt was built for the U2U project based on a Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) framework. This data referred to as the Purdue Agro-climatic (PAC) dataset is a gridded, continuous dataset suitable for agrocli- matic and crop model studies over the U.S. Corn Belt. The dataset was created at 4 km, sub- daily spatiotemporal resolution and covers the period of 1981–2014. The dataset includes a range of variables such as daily maximum/minimum temperature, solar radiation, rainfall, evapotranspiration (ET), multilevel soil moisture and soil temperatures. The data were com- pared to feld measurements from Amerifux and the Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN), and with coarser but widely used atmospheric regional reanalysis data products. Validations indicate an overall good agreement between this dataset and feld measurements. The agree- ment is particularly high for radiation and temperature parameters and lesser for rainfall and soil moisture data. Despite the differences with observations, the data show improvements over the coarser resolution products and other available models and thus highlights the value of the dataset for agroclimatic and crop model studies. This high-resolution dataset is available to the wider community, and can fll gaps in observed data records and increase accessibility for the agricultural sector, and for conduct- ing variety of if-then assessments

Swine genetic abnormalities

1 online resource (PDF, 6 pages)This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

The question concerning human rights and human rightlessness: disposability and struggle in the Bhopal gas disaster

In the midst of concerns about diminishing political support for human rights, individuals and groups across the globe continue to invoke them in their diverse struggles against oppression and injustice. Yet both those concerned with the future of human rights and those who champion rights activism as essential to resistance, assume that human rights – as law, discourse and practices of rights claiming – can ameliorate rightlessness. In questioning this assumption, this article seeks also to reconceptualise rightlessness by engaging with contemporary discussions of disposability and social abandonment in an attempt to be attentive to forms of rightlessness co-emergent with the operations of global capital. Developing a heuristic analytics of rightlessness, it evaluates the relatively recent attempts to mobilise human rights as a frame for analysis and action in the campaigns for justice following the 3 December 1984 gas leak from Union Carbide Corporation’s (UCC) pesticide manufacturing plant in Bhopal, India. Informed by the complex effects of human rights in the amelioration of rightlessness, the article calls for reconstituting human rights as an optics of rightlessness