Using Intelligent Agents to Manage Business Processes

This paper describes work undertaken in the ADEPT (Advanced Decision Environment for Process Tasks) project towards developing an agent-based infrastructure for managing business processes. We describe how the key technology of negotiating, service providing, autonomous agents was realised and demonstrate how this was applied to the BT business process of providing a customer quote for network services

Methods of editing cloud and atmospheric layer affected pixels from satellite data

Subvisible cirrus clouds (SCi) were easily distinguished in mid-infrared (MIR) TIROS-N daytime data from south Texas and northeast Mexico. The MIR (3.55-3.93 micrometer) pixel digital count means of the SCi affected areas were more than 3.5 standard deviations on the cold side of the scene means. (These standard deviations were made free of the effects of unusual instrument error by factoring out the Ch 3 MIR noise on the basis of detailed examination of noisy and noise-free pixels). SCi affected areas in the IR Ch 4 (10.5-11.5 micrometer) appeared cooler than the general scene, but were not as prominent as in Ch 3, being less than 2 standard deviations from the scene mean. Ch 3 and 4 standard deviations and coefficients of variation are not reliable indicators, by themselves, of the presence of SCi because land features can have similar statistical properties

Methods of editing cloud and atmospheric layer affected pixels from satellite data

The location and migration of cloud, land and water features were examined in spectral space (reflective VIS vs. emissive IR). Daytime HCMM data showed two distinct types of cloud affected pixels in the south Texas test area. High altitude cirrus and/or cirrostratus and "subvisible cirrus" (SCi) reflected the same or only slightly more than land features. In the emissive band, the digital counts ranged from 1 to over 75 and overlapped land features. Pixels consisting of cumulus clouds, or of mixed cumulus and landscape, clustered in a different area of spectral space than the high altitude cloud pixels. Cumulus affected pixels were more reflective than land and water pixels. In August the high altitude clouds and SCi were more emissive than similar clouds were in July. Four-channel TIROS-N data were examined with the objective of developing a multispectral screening technique for removing SCi contaminated data

Plant cover, soil temperature, freeze, water stress, and evapotranspiration conditions

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Plant cover, soil temperature, freeze, water stress, and evapotranspiration conditions

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Plant cover, soil temperature, freeze, water stress, and evapotranspiration conditions

The author has identified the following significant results. HCMM day/night coverage 12 hours apart cannot be obtained at 26 deg N latitude; nor have any pairs 36 hours apart been obtained. A day-IR scene and a night scene for two different dates were analyzed. A profile across the test site for the same latitude shows that the two profiles are near mirror images of each other over land surfaces and that the temperature of two large water bodies, Falcon Reservoir and the Gulf of Mexico, are nearly identical on two dates. During the time interval between overpasses, the vegetative cover remained static due to winter dormancy. The data suggest that day/night temperature differences measured weeks apart may yield meaningful information about the contrast between daytime maximum and nighttime minimum temperatures for a given site

Plant cover, soil temperature, freeze, water stress, and evapotranspiration conditions

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

AgRISTARS: Early warning and crop condition assessment. Plant cover, soil temperature, freeze, water stress, and evapotranspiration conditions

Emissive (10.5 to 12.5 microns) and reflective (0.55 to 1.1 microns) data for ten day scenes and infrared data for six night scenes of southern Texas were analyzed for plant cover, soil temperature, freeze, water stress, and evapotranspiration. Heat capacity mapping mission radiometric temperatures were: within 2 C of dewpoint temperatures, significantly correlated with variables important in evapotranspiration, and related to freeze severity and planting depth soil temperatures

Plant cover, soil temperature, freeze, water stress, and evapotranspiration conditions

The author has identified the following significant results. Procedures to edit cloud-contaminated pixels from those pixels representing Earth surface features were investigated. Because clouds are more reflective than Earth features and are colder than Earth surface features most of the year at 26 N latitude, either a raw digital count ratio or a ratio of reflectance percentage for the VIS band to the temperature works well. For this procedure, the two bands of data need to be registered to the ground scene

Plant cover, soil temperature, freeze, water stress, and evapotranspiration

There are no author-identified significant results in this report