Using E-Maps to Organize and Navigate Web-based Content

Many university faculty create their own websites or use a course management system to upload course materials for online instruction. Course content and files are mostly organized and presented in a linear structure and placed in a series of folders and subfolders. An alternative approach to navigate, organize, and sequence Webbased content is to use a computer generated mind map – an E-Map. With its unique storage and organizational capacity, E-Maps not only provide a user-friendly elearning structure, but also can effectively manage knowledge in a much more efficient manner than using a linear approach to navigate and access Web-based content. The purpose of this article is to examine how E-Maps can be used as a graphical interface for presenting and organizing Web-based course content and files online. Explored in this article is a brief overview of mind maps , mind mapping software, how using E-Maps as a graphic organizer can facilitate learning, and some instructional application examples of using E-Maps for Web-based instruction.Many university faculty create their own websites or use a course management system to upload course materials for online instruction. Course content and files are mostly organized and presented in a linear structure and placed in a series of folders and subfolders. An alternative approach to navigate, organize, and sequence Webbased content is to use a computer generated mind map – an E-Map. With its unique storage and organizational capacity, E-Maps not only provide a user-friendly elearning structure, but also can effectively manage knowledge in a much more efficient manner than using a linear approach to navigate and access Web-based content. The purpose of this article is to examine how E-Maps can be used as a graphical interface for presenting and organizing Web-based course content and files online. Explored in this article is a brief overview of mind maps , mind mapping software, how using E-Maps as a graphic organizer can facilitate learning, and some instructional application examples of using E-Maps for Web-based instruction

Sea state monitoring using coastal GNSS-R

We report on a coastal experiment to study GPS L1 reflections. The campaign was carried out at the Barcelona Port breaker and dedicated to the development of sea-state retrieval algorithms. An experimental system built for this purpose collected and processed GPS data to automatically generate a times series of the interferometric complex field (ICF). The ICF was analyzed off line and compared to a simple developed model that relates ICF coherence time to the ratio of significant wave height (SWH) and mean wave period (MWP). The analysis using this model showed good consistency between the ICF coherence time and nearby oceanographic buoy data. Based on this result, preliminary conclusions are drawn on the potential of coastal GNSS-R for sea state monitoring using semi-empirical modeling to relate GNSS-R ICF coherence time to SWH.Comment: All Starlab authors have contributed significantly; the Starlab author list has been ordered randomly. Submitted to GR

The Eddy Experiment: accurate GNSS-R ocean altimetry from low altitude aircraft

During the Eddy Experiment, two synchronous GPS receivers were flown at 1 km altitude to collect L1 signals and their reflections from the sea surface for assessment of altimetric precision and accuracy. Wind speed (U10) was around 10 m/s, and SWH up to 2 m. A geophysical parametric waveform model was used for retracking and estimation of the lapse between the direct and reflected signals with a 1-second precision of 3 m. The lapse was used to estimate the SSH along the track using a differential model. The RMS error of the 20 km averaged GNSS-R absolute altimetric solution with respect to Jason-1 SSH and a GPS buoy measurement was of 10 cm, with a 2 cm mean difference. Multipath and retracking parameter sensitivity due to the low altitude are suspected to have degraded accuracy. This result provides an important milestone on the road to a GNSS-R mesoscale altimetry space mission.Comment: All Starlab authors have contributed significantly; the Starlab Author list has been ordered randoml

On the physical processes which lie at the bases of time variability of GRBs

The relative-space-time-transformation (RSTT) paradigm and the interpretation of the burst-structure (IBS) paradigm are applied to probe the origin of the time variability of GRBs. Again GRB 991216 is used as a prototypical case, thanks to the precise data from the CGRO, RXTE and Chandra satellites. It is found that with the exception of the relatively inconspicuous but scientifically very important signal originating from the initial ``proper gamma ray burst'' (P-GRB), all the other spikes and time variabilities can be explained by the interaction of the accelerated-baryonic-matter pulse with inhomogeneities in the interstellar matter. This can be demonstrated by using the RSTT paradigm as well as the IBS paradigm, to trace a typical spike observed in arrival time back to the corresponding one in the laboratory time. Using these paradigms, the identification of the physical nature of the time variablity of the GRBs can be made most convincingly. It is made explicit the dependence of a) the intensities of the afterglow, b) the spikes amplitude and c) the actual time structure on the Lorentz gamma factor of the accelerated-baryonic-matter pulse. In principle it is possible to read off from the spike structure the detailed density contrast of the interstellar medium in the host galaxy, even at very high redshift.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure