Wavelet analysis of MODIS time series to detect expansion and intensification of row-crop agriculture in Brazil

Since 2000, the southwestern Brazilian Amazon has undergone a rapid transformation from natural vegetation and pastures to row-crop agricultural with the potential to affect regional biogeochemistry. The goals of this research are to assess wavelet algorithms applied to MODIS time series to determine expansion of row-crops and intensification of the number of crops grown. MODIS provides data from February 2000 to present, a period of agricultural expansion and intensification in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon. We have selected a study area near Comodoro, Mato Grosso because of the rapid growth of row-crop agriculture and availability of ground truth data of agricultural land-use history. We used a 90% power wavelet transform to create a wavelet-smoothed time series for five years of MODIS EVI data. From this wavelet-smoothed time series we determine characteristic phenology of single and double crops. We estimate that over 3200 km² were converted from native vegetation and pasture to row-crop agriculture from 2000 to 2005 in our study area encompassing 40,000 km². We observe an increase of 2000 km² of agricultural intensification, where areas of single crops were converted to double crops during the study period.     

Modeling of electromagnetic interference induced by electrostaticdischarge (ESD) inside resonant structures

This paper presents an accurate analysis of the effects produced by electrostatic discharge (ESD) inside a metallic enclosure, representing the metallic shield of an apparatus. The considered discharges are either directly generated inside the cavity or guided into the enclosure through a transmission line. The model, which makes use of a modal approach for the calculation of the electromagnetic (EM) field inside the cavity, evaluates the disturbance induced by the different kinds of ESDs on a victim line. The results both in the frequency and time domain have been validated by experimental measurements and highlight the effects of the resonant nature of the structure on the intensity and the duration of the disturbance     

MARS-2: A “current sensitive” liquid argon calorimeter

The performances of a liquid argon calorimeter with wide gaps (2.8 cm) operating in current sensitive mode have been studied with 6.6–36 GeV electron and 40 GeV pion beams at the IHEP accelerator.The good uniformity in charge collection efficiency obtained with this unusual mode has led to a reduction of sampling fluctuations to values of $\text{σ}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>S</mtext>}}\text{E}\text{=}\text{0.04}\text{√E}$.Spatial and angular resolutions have been measured as well. The equivalent noise energy was 82 MeV rms for the whole detector.     

Improving coal-fired power generation by integrating PFBC and gas-fired combined cycles in a hybrid process

Two hybrid combined cycle electrical power generating schemes burning coal and natural gas were examined using the ECLIPSE chemical process simjlator. The results of these simulations are presented and analyzed. Comparison is made with conventional power generation technologies. Two additional pieces of work are included. The first examines the effect of the hot gas filtration operating conditions on the hybrid combined cycle efficiency and the second calculates the allowable increase in capital cost for a specified improvement in power plant efficiency while maintaining the same cost of electricity.     

GOLD: A Framework for Developing Intelligent-Vehicle Vision Applications

To develop real-time vision applications for use in highly dynamic environments, such as automotive traffic, researchers must gather large amounts of data from different sensors and systems at different rates. Software capable of real-time data acquisition, synchronization, logging, and - ultimately - data processing and visualization is fundamentally important to improving researcher efficiency. The general obstacle and lane detection framework supports different devices and makes it easy to add new system functionalities. GOLD can easily become the engine for many automotive applications, and it could work in other application domains as well.