Contextual heat island assessment for pavement preservation

Pavement preservation (PP) is a planned set of construction and material interventions that can extend the pavement’s service life and may also impact sustainability through Heat Island (HI) mitigation. The HI mitigation potential can vary from location-to-location and with time. For agencies to widely adopt the PP, it is necessary to quantify the benefits based on the context of the project. A method to calculate the Global Warming Potential (GWP) for the HI effect was developed and illustrated for four cities in the US: Chicago, Austin, San Diego and Philadelphia, for hypothetical pavements with three preservation options: chip seals, a concrete inlay, and an asphalt concrete inlay. The use phase GWP with respect to HI was estimated for all cases given a 2-, 5-, 7- or 10-year service life. Overall, the HI in the use phase was found to dominate the total GWP relative to the materials and construction phases. The HI GWP savings increase over time, with the 10-year savings being greatest for San Diego using the concrete inlay (22.5?kg CO₂-eq/m²) and smallest for Chicago with a chip seal (8.0?kg CO₂-eq/m²). The savings were found to increase in areas that have a more pronounced HI and could offset GWP in the other phases. The proposed method allows agencies to estimate HI GWP for a specific preservation strategy, location and service life.     

Fabry-Perot CCD annular-summing spectroscopy: study and implementation for aeronomy applications

The technique of Fabry-Perot CCD annular-summing spectroscopy, with particular emphasis on applications in aeronomy, is discussed. Parameter choices for optimizing performance by the use of a standard format CCD array are detailed. Spectral calibration methods, techniques for determining the ring pattern center, and effects imposed by limited radial resolution caused by superpixel size, variable by on-chip binning, are demonstrated. The technique is carefully evaluated experimentally relative to the conventional scanning Fabry-Perot that uses a photomultiplier detector. We evaluate three extreme examples typical of aeronomical spectroscopy using calculated signal-to-noise ratios. Predicted sensitivity gains of 10-30 are typical. Of the cases considered, the largest savings in integration time are estimated for the day sky thermospheric O(1)D case, in which the bright sky background dominates the CCD read noise. For profile measurements of faint night sky emission lines, such as exospheric hydrogen Balmer-α, long integration times are required to achieve useful signal-to-noise ratios. In such cases, CCD read noise is largely overcome. Predictions of a factor of 10-15 savings in integration time for night sky Balmer-α observations are supported by field tests. Bright, isolated night sky lines such as thermospheric O(1)D require shorter integration times, and more modest gains dependent on signal level are predicted. For such cases it appears from estimate results that the Fabry-Perot CCD annular-summing technique with a conventional rectangular format may be outperformed by a factor of 2-5 by special CCD formats or by unusual optical coupling configurations that reduce the importance of read noise, based on the ideal transmission for any additional optics used in these configurations.     

Quality analysis of scalable video coding on unstable transmissions

This paper presents a study of quality on scalable video sequences coded using the scalable extension of the H.264 standard (SVC). A group of experiments was performed to measure, primarily, the effects that transmission instability has in the quality of the videos and the relationship among three scalability methods (spatial, temporal and quality) in terms of quality. A set of experiments was performed to measure the subjective quality using the ACR-HRR methodology and recommendations from ITU-R Rec. BT.500 and ITU-T Rec. P.910. The results show that the amount of instability is not as important as just the presence of instability, that video quality can be deteriorated due to instability and that temporal scalability usually produces videos with worse quality than spatial and quality scalabilities.     

Ocean inherent optical property determination from in-water light field measurements

An algorithm is described and evaluated for determining the absorption and backscattering coefficients a(z) and bb(z) from measurements of the nadir-viewing radiance Lu(z) and downward irradiance Ed(z). The method, derived from radiative transfer theory, is similar to a previously proposed one for Eu(z) and Ed(z)and both methods are demonstrated with numerical simulations and field data. Numerical simulations and a sensitivity analysis show that good estimates of a(z) and bb(z) can be obtained if the assumed scattering phase function is approximately correct. In an experiment in Long Island Sound, estimates of a(z) derived with these methods agreed well with those obtained from an in situ reflecting tube instrument.     

Envisioning human-robot coordination in future operations

Developers of autonomous capabilities underestimate the need for coordination with human team members when their automata are deployed into complex operational settings. Automata are brittle as literal minded agents and there is a basic asymmetry in coordinative competencies between people and automata. The new capabilities of robotic systems raise new questions about how to support coordination. This paper presents a series of issues that demand innovation to achieve human-robot coordination (HRC). These include supporting people in their roles as problem holder and as robotic handler, overcoming ambiguities in remote perception, avoiding coordination surprises by better tools to see into future robotic activities and contingencies, and responsibility in human-robot teams.     

Uniform colour spaces based on the DIN99 colour‐difference formula

Several colour‐difference formulas such as CMC, CIE94, and CIEDE2000 have been developed by modifying CIELAB. These formulas give much better fits for experimental data based on small colour differences than does CIELAB. None of these has an associated uniform colour space (UCS). The need for a UCS is demonstrated by the widespread use of the a*b* diagram despite the lack of uniformity. This article describes the development of formulas, with the same basic structure as the DIN99 formula, that predict the experimental data sets better than do the CMC and CIE94 colour‐difference formulas and only slightly worse than CIEDE2000 (which was optimized on the experimental data). However, these formulas all have an associated UCS. The spaces are similar in form to L*a*b*. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 27, 282–290, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.10066     

Keeping it too simple: how the reductive tendency affects cognitive engineering

Certain features of tasks make especially difficult for humans. These constitute leverage points for applying intelligent technologies, but there's a flip side. Designing complex cognitive systems is itself a tough task. Cognitive engineers face the same challenges in designing systems that users confront in working the tasks that the systems are intended to aid. We discuss about these issues. We assume that the cognitive engineers will invoke one or more knowledge shields when they are confronted with evidence that their understanding and planning involves a reductive understanding. The knowledge shield phenomenon suggests that it will take effort to change the reductive mindset that people might bring to design a CCS.