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NASA NTRS1990

A description of the Global Resources Information Database

This paper describes the Global Resources Information Database (GRID), which is part of the Global Environmental Monitoring (GEM) Program. The following four objectives were established for GRID: (1) to collect and disseminate geographical information; (2) to construct within developing countries a geographical information system (GIS); (3) to demonstrate the ability of GIS to fuse global and national data sets for resource and environment management and planning at the national level; and (4) to train individuals from developing countries in remote sensing technology. The activities of GRID are coordinated at the GEM center at Nairobi (Kenya).

Vermillion, Charles H.↗

NASA NTRS1974

Concepts of integrated satellite surveys

The United Nations initially contracted with NASA to carry out investigations in three countries; but now as the result of rapidly increasing interest, ERTS imagery has been/is being used in 7 additional projects related to agriculture, forestry, land-use, soils, landforms and hydrology. Initially the ERTS frames were simply used to provide a synoptic view of a large area of a developing country as a basis to regional surveys. From this, interest has extended to using reconstituted false color imagery and latterly, in co-operation with Purdue University, the use of computer generated false color mosaics and computer generated large scale maps. As many developing countries are inadequately mapped and frequently rely on outdated maps, the ERTS imagery is considered to provide a very wide spectrum of valuable data. Thematic maps can be readily prepared at a scale of 1:250,000 using standard NASA imagery. These provide coverage of areas not previously mapped and provide supplementary information and enable existing maps to be up-dated. There is also increasing evidence that ERTS imagery is useful for temporal studies and for providing a new dimension in integrated surveys.

Howard, J. A.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Renewable Energy SCADA/Training Using NASA's Advanced Technology Communication Satellite

The lack of electrical energy in the rural communities of developing countries is well known, as is the economic unfeasibility of providing much needed energy to these regions via electric grids. Renewable energy (RE) can provide an economic advantage over conventional forms in meeting some of these energy needs. The use of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) arrangement via satellite could enable experts at remote locations to provide technical assistance to local trainees while they acquire a measure of proficiency with a newly installed RE system through hands-on training programs using the same communications link. Upon full mastery of the technologies, indigenous personnel could also employ similar SCADA arrangements to remotely monitor and control their constellation of RE systems. Two separate ACTS technology verification experiments (TVEs) have demonstrated that the portability of the Ultra Small Aperture Terminal (USAT) and the versatility of NASA's Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS), as well as the advantages of Ka band satellites, can be invaluable in providing energy training via distance education (DE), and for implementing renewable energy system SCADA. What has not been tested is the capabilities of these technologies for a simultaneous implementation of renewable energy DE and SCADA. Such concurrent implementations will be useful for preparing trainees in developing countries for their eventual SCADA operations. The project described in this correspondence is the first effort, to our knowledge, in this specific TVE. The setup for this experiment consists of a one-Watt USAT located at Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) connected to two satellite modems tuned to different frequencies to establish two duplex ACTS Ka-band communication channels. A short training program on operation and maintenance of the system will be delivered while simultaneously monitoring and controlling the hybrid using the same satellite communications link. The trainees will include faculty and students from Savannah State University, and staff from FSEC. An interactive internet link will be used to allow faculty from the University of West Indies to participate in the training session.

Kalu, A.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Workshop on Spanning Regional-to-Global Pollution

Pollution is often considered a localized phenomenon, but it is now clear that it travels from region-to-region, country to country, and even continent to continent. In addition to urban pollution in developed countries, large emissions from developing nations and large-scale biomass fires add to the global pollution burden. Ozone and aerosols are two components of pollution that contribute to radiative forcing of the earth s climate. In turn, as climate changes, rates of chemical and microphysical reactions may be perturbed. Considering the earth as a coupled chemical-microphysical-climate system poses challenges for models and observations alike. These issues were the topic of a Workshop held in May 2002 at NASA GSFC s Laboratory for Atmospheres. Highlights of the Workshop are summarized in this article.

Thompson, Anne M.↗

NASA NTRS2018

A Multi-Satellite Assimilation and Modeling Platform to Construct a Global and Complete view of the Hydrologic Cycle

What captivates me about the research field of satellite remote sensing of the earth system science is the opportunity to help human beings by addressing challenging questions related to the current and future availability of natural resources for domestic, agricultural, and industrial needs. For example, a continuously varying climate poses a threat to the water resource, not only in developing countries, but also in economically well-developed regions, creating the urgent need to characterize and predict its spatial and temporal availability. Specifically, my curiosity is driven by the challenge of merging cutting-edge space technology and earth observations (i.e., remote sensing) with state-of-the-art models for the purpose of improving our scientific knowledge about the variability and the change of the hydrologic cycle.The only practical way to observe the land surface processes (e.g., hydrologic cycle) on continental to global scales is via satellite remote sensing. Though remote sensing can make spatially comprehensive measurements of various components of the land surface system, it cannot provide direct information on the entire system, and the measurements represent only a snapshot in time. Physical based models may be used to continuously predict the temporal and spatial earth processes, but these predictions are often poor, due to model initialization, parameter and meteorological forcing errors, and inadequate model physics and/or resolution. Thus, an attractive prospect is to combine the strengths of land surface models and observations (and minimize the weaknesses of both) to provide a superior land surface state estimate. This is the goal of land surface data assimilation. Data assimilation provides a better estimate of the environmental states than either models or observations could individually do. The broad concept of data assimilation can be applied to various disciplines such as hydrology, ecology, environmental hazards, agriculture and economy.My research is targeted to integrating multiple satellite information having multi-sensor and multi-resolution assimilation within today's state-of-the-art hydrologic models. Multi-sensor and multi-resolution assimilation techniques represent a necessary milestone in future earth science applications because they offer the capability of comprehensively integrating disparate types of earth observations via deep-learning techniques. A multi-satellite assimilation and modeling platform will ultimately provide a robust and complete dataset to more fully understand earth's dynamics. In fact, the multi-satellite assimilation platforms build a comprehensive description of the earth processes that is geared toward accurately representing the complexity of natural and anthropogenic interactions in land surface processes. Most importantly, these platforms are suitable as decision support tools for applications across different aspects of earth system science.My recent work has focused on recent multi-sensor data assimilation techniques targeted at improving snow, soil moisture, groundwater, and terrestrial water storage hydrological states.

Girotto, Manuela↗

NASA NTRS1993

Geolocation applications of the Gonets LEO messaging satellites

Geostationary satellites carry a majority of the international telecommunications traffic not carried by transoceanic cable. However, because the radio path links to and from geostationary satellites total at least 70,000 km and because of inherent on-board spacecraft power limitations, earth stations used in conjunction with geostationary satellites are usually large and expensive. This limits their installation to areas with a well-developed industrial and economic infrastructure. This reality helps perpetuate a chicken egg dilemma for the developing countries and isolated regions. Economic integration with the developed world requires being 'networked'. But for many developing entities, even the initial price of entry exceeds their modest resources. Exclusion from the global information highways virtually assures retardation of economic growth for developing nations, remote and isolated areas. Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) earth stations are often thought of as a solution for networking developing regions. But economic considerations often forecloses this option. If VSAT size and cost is to be minimized, powerful spot beams from the satellite need to be focused on relatively small regions. This is not often feasible because of the high cost of the satellite itself. To dedicate a high power spot beam to a small region is usually not economically feasible.

Vlasov, Vladimir N.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Transfer of Satellite Rainfall Uncertainty from Gauged to Ungauged Regions at Regional and Seasonal Timescales

Hydrologists and other users need to know the uncertainty of the satellite rainfall data sets across the range of time/space scales over the whole domain of the data set. Here, uncertainty' refers to the general concept of the deviation' of an estimate from the reference (or ground truth) where the deviation may be defined in multiple ways. This uncertainty information can provide insight to the user on the realistic limits of utility, such as hydrologic predictability, that can be achieved with these satellite rainfall data sets. However, satellite rainfall uncertainty estimation requires ground validation (GV) precipitation data. On the other hand, satellite data will be most useful over regions that lack GV data, for example developing countries. This paper addresses the open issues for developing an appropriate uncertainty transfer scheme that can routinely estimate various uncertainty metrics across the globe by leveraging a combination of spatially-dense GV data and temporally sparse surrogate (or proxy) GV data, such as the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar. The TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) products over the US spanning a record of 6 years are used as a representative example of satellite rainfall. It is shown that there exists a quantifiable spatial structure in the uncertainty of satellite data for spatial interpolation. Probabilistic analysis of sampling offered by the existing constellation of passive microwave sensors indicate that transfer of uncertainty for hydrologic applications may be effective at daily time scales or higher during the GPM era. Finally, a commonly used spatial interpolation technique (kriging), that leverages the spatial correlation of estimation uncertainty, is assessed at climatologic, seasonal, monthly and weekly timescales. It is found that the effectiveness of kriging is sensitive to the type of uncertainty metric, time scale of transfer and the density of GV data within the transfer domain. Transfer accuracy is lowest at weekly timescales with the error doubling from monthly to weekly.However, at very low GV data density (<20% of the domain), the transfer accuracy is too low to show any distinction as a function of the timescale of transfer.

Tang, Ling↗

NASA NTRS1989

Specification of parameters for development of a spatial database for drought monitoring and famine early warning in the African Sahel

Parameters were described for spatial database to facilitate drought monitoring and famine early warning in the African Sahel. The proposed system, referred to as the African Drought and Famine Information System (ADFIS) is ultimately recommended for implementation with the NASA/FEMA Spatial Analysis and Modeling System (SAMS), a GIS/Dymanic Modeling software package, currently under development. SAMS is derived from FEMA'S Integration Emergency Management Information System (IEMIS) and the Pacific Northwest Laborotory's/Engineering Topographic Laboratory's Airland Battlefield Environment (ALBE) GIS. SAMS is primarily intended for disaster planning and resource management applications with the developing countries. Sources of data for the system would include the Developing Economics Branch of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the World Bank, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine's Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS) Project, the USAID's Foreign Disaster Assistance Section, the World Resources Institute, the World Meterological Institute, the USGS, the UNFAO, UNICEF, and the United Nations Disaster Relief Organization (UNDRO). Satellite imagery would include decadal AVHRR imagery and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values from 1981 to the present for the African continent and selected Landsat scenes for the Sudan pilot study. The system is initially conceived for the MicroVAX 2/GPX, running VMS. To facilitate comparative analysis, a global time-series database (1950 to 1987) is included for a basic set of 125 socio-economic variables per country per year. A more detailed database for the Sahelian countries includes soil type, water resources, agricultural production, agricultural import and export, food aid, and consumption. A pilot dataset for the Sudan with over 2,500 variables from the World Bank's ANDREX system, also includes epidemiological data on incidence of kwashiorkor, marasmus, other nutritional deficiencies, and synergistically-related infectious diseases.

Rochon, Gilbert L.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Peru Water Resources: Integrating NASA Earth Observations into Water Resource Planning and Management in Perus La Libertad Region

Developing countries often struggle with providing water security and sanitation services to their populations. An important aspect of improving security and sanitation is developing a comprehensive understanding of the country's water budget. Water For People, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing clean drinking water, is working with the Peruvian government to develop a water budget for the La Libertad region of Peru which includes the creation of an extensive watershed management plan. Currently, the data archive of the necessary variables to create the water management plan is extremely limited. Implementing NASA Earth observations has bolstered the dataset being used by Water For People, and the METRIC (Mapping EvapoTranspiration at High Resolution and Internalized Calibration) model has allowed for the estimation of the evapotranspiration values for the region. Landsat 8 imagery and the DEM (Digital Elevation Model) from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) sensor onboard Terra were used to derive the land cover information, and were used in conjunction with local weather data of Cascas from Peru's National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (SENAMHI). Python was used to combine input variables and METRIC model calculations to approximate the evapotranspiration values for the Ochape sub-basin of the Chicama River watershed. Once calculated, the evapotranspiration values and methodology were shared Water For People to help supplement their decision support tools in the La Libertad region of Peru and potentially apply the methodology in other areas of need.

Padgett-Vasquez, Steve↗

NASA NTRS1982

Technology transfer and international development: Materials and manufacturing technology

Policy oriented studies on technological development in several relatively advanced developing countries were conducted. Priority sectors defined in terms of technological sophistication, capital intensity, value added, and export potential were studied in Brazil, Venezuela, Israel, and Korea. The development of technological policy alternatives for the sponsoring country is assessed. Much emphasis is placed on understanding the dynamics of the sectors through structured interviews with a large sample of firms in the leading manufacturing and materials processing sectors.

Source record↗

DOE OSTI2026

Reexamining Fat: Exploring Diversity, Plasticity, Development, Functional Implication, and Therapeutic Options

Obesity has become so prevalent in many developed countries that it is increasingly perceived as a new norm, despite decades of interventions and drug development. Although research continues to explore novel strategies, no single approach to date has demonstrated sustained success in reducing its population-level dominance. This underscores the need to better evaluate and integrate the growing body of knowledge surrounding obesity’s multifaceted nature. Stamped under one ‘fat’ name, adipose tissue varies by color, location, morphology, composition, and function. This variability suggests a level of complexity that demands deeper investigation. Although the relevance and roles of different adipose types have been extensively discussed throughout the literature, their interdependence, synergy, and collective impact on the body remain to be fully expounded. This review aims to further consolidate and elucidate the available information on the different adipose tissue types and their association with obesity and metabolic health. We also discuss existing and emerging therapeutic strategies, highlighting their respective strengths and limitations.

BAT↗

NASA NTRS1985

Telecommunications forecast for ITU Region 2 to the year 1995

Telecommunications activity was studied. The primary objective was to forecast the need for fixed service satellites (FSS) by countries within ITU Region 2 excluding the United States and Greenland. Forecasts of telecommunications equipment needs were developed as a yardstick of the relative level of telecommunications activity among developing countries within the region. A likely scenario for the implementation of domestic and regional communications satellites is forecasted to provide services to and among countries in ITU Region 2. By 1995, it is forecast that 15 fixed service satellites will be implemented. A forecast of the countries requirements indicates that, with the possible exception of Canada, this constellation of satellites will meet these countries' needs to beyond the year 2000.

Hollansworth, J. E.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Observation of Hydrological Processes Using Remote Sensing: Volume 2: The Science of Hydrology - Chapter 2.14

Improving water management can make a significant contribution to achieving most of the Millennium Development Goals established by the UN General Assembly in 2000, especially those related to poverty, hunger, and major diseases. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002 recognized this need. Water and sanitation in particular received great attention from the Summit. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation recommended to improve water resources management and scientific understanding of the water cycle through joint cooperation and research. For this purpose, it is recommended to promote knowledge sharing, provide capacity building, and facilitate the transfer of technology including remote-sensing (RS) and satellite technologies, especially to developing countries and countries with economies in transition, and to support these countries in their efforts to monitor and assess the quantity and quality of water resources, for example, by establishing and/or further developing national monitoring networks and water resources databases and by developing relevant national indicators. The Johannesburg Plan also adopted integrated water resources management as the overarching concept in addressing and solving water-related issues. As a result of the commitments made in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, several global and regional initiatives have emerged. Current international initiatives such as the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program of the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) 10-Year Implementation Plan, have all identified Earth observation (EO) of the water cycle as the key in helping to solve the world s water problems. The availability of spatial information on water quantity and quality will also enable closure of the water budget at river basin and continental scales to the point where effective water management is essential (e.g., as requested by the European Union s Water Framework Directive (WFD), as well as national policies). Geo-information science and EO are vital in achieving a better understanding of the water cycle and better monitoring, analysis, prediction, and management of the world s water resources. The major components of the water cycle of the Earth system and their possible observations are presented. Such observations are essential to understand the global water cycle and its variability, both spatially and temporally, and can only be achieved consistently by means of EOs. Additionally, such observations are essential to advance our understanding of coupling between the terrestrial, atmospheric, and oceanic branches of the water cycle, and how this coupling may influence climate variability and predictability. Water resources management directly interferes with the natural water cycle in the forms of building dams, reservoirs, water transfer systems, and irrigation systems that divert and redistribute part of the water storages and fluxes on land. The water cycle is mainly driven and coupled to the energy cycle in terms of phase changes of water (changes among liquid, water vapor, and solid phases) and transport of water by winds in addition to gravity and diffusion processes. The water-cycle components can be observed with in situ sensors as well as airborne and satellite sensors in terms of radiative quantities. Processing and conversion of these radiative signals are necessary to retrieve the water-cycle components.

Wilder, Peter↗

NASA NTRS1983

International aspects of commercial space activities

Attention is given to problems in international cooperation that will arise if NASA proceeds with a Space Station. The rise in space budgets in many countries is cited as an indication of the growing importance being placed on space activities. It is also pointed out that these nations are emphasizing areas which hold promise for eventual commercial payoff. Developing countries are also paying greater attention to space. As part of the European Space Agency's development program, it is underwriting the development of up to six multiuser facilities dedicated to microgravity research; these include furnaces and thermostats for processing metallurgical samples and for crystal growth and botanical investigations. Competition from Europe is seen as a spur to efficiency. Attention is also given to the question whether international cooperation will interfere with research carried out by the US for military purposes.

Pedersen, K. S.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Global Estimates of Average Ground-Level Fine Particulate Matter Concentrations from Satellite-Based Aerosol Optical Depth

Exposure to airborne particles can cause acute or chronic respiratory disease and can exacerbate heart disease, some cancers, and other conditions in susceptible populations. Ground stations that monitor fine particulate matter in the air (smaller than 2.5 microns, called PM2.5) are positioned primarily to observe severe pollution events in areas of high population density; coverage is very limited, even in developed countries, and is not well designed to capture long-term, lower-level exposure that is increasingly linked to chronic health effects. In many parts of the developing world, air quality observation is absent entirely. Instruments aboard NASA Earth Observing System satellites, such as the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), monitor aerosols from space, providing once daily and about once-weekly coverage, respectively. However, these data are only rarely used for health applications, in part because the can retrieve the amount of aerosols only summed over the entire atmospheric column, rather than focusing just on the near-surface component, in the airspace humans actually breathe. In addition, air quality monitoring often includes detailed analysis of particle chemical composition, impossible from space. In this paper, near-surface aerosol concentrations are derived globally from the total-column aerosol amounts retrieved by MODIS and MISR. Here a computer aerosol simulation is used to determine how much of the satellite-retrieved total column aerosol amount is near the surface. The five-year average (2001-2006) global near-surface aerosol concentration shows that World Health Organization Air Quality standards are exceeded over parts of central and eastern Asia for nearly half the year.

Van Donkelaar, A.↗

NASA NTRS1982

Design, installation and operating experience of 20 photovoltaic medical refrigerator systems on four continents

The NASA Lewis Research Center in cooperation with the World Health Organization, U.S.A. I.D., the Pan American Health Organization and national government agencies in some developing countries sponsored the installation of twenty photovoltaic powered medical vaccine storage refrigerator-freezer (R/F) systems. The Solar Power Corporation was selected as the contractor to perform the design, development and installation of these twenty units. Solar Power's experiences are described herein.

Hein, G. F.↗

NASA NTRS2002

An economic analysis of space solar power and its cost competitiveness as a supplemental source of energy for space and ground markets

Economic Growth has been historically associated with nations that first made use of each new energy source. There is no doubt that Solar Power Satellites is high as a potential energy system for the future. A conceptual cost model of the economics value of space solar power (SSP) as a source of complementary power for in-space and ground applications will be discussed. Several financial analysis will be offered based on present and new technological innovations that may compete with or be complementary to present energy market suppliers depending on various institutional arrangements for government and the private sector in a Global Economy. Any of the systems based on fossil fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas, and synthetic fuels share the problem of being finite resources and are subject to ever-increasing cost as they grow ever more scarce with drastic increase in world population. Increasing world population and requirements from emerging underdeveloped countries will also increase overall demand. This paper would compare the future value of SSP with that of other terrestrial renewable energy in distinct geographic markets within the US, in developing countries, Europe, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

electric power inter-regional electricity trading↗

NASA NTRS2019

Connecting Space to Village: Tethys Adoption Within SERVIR

The SERVIR program, a joint development initiative of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), works in partnership with leading regional organizations world-wide to help developing countries use information provided by Earth observing satellites and geospatial technologies for managing climate risks and land use. SERVIR empowers decision-makers with tools, products, and services to act locally on critical issues related to four key areas: Food Security and Agriculture, Water and Water-related Disasters, Land Use/Land Cover and Ecosystems, Weather and Climate. SERVIR is improving awareness, increasing access to information, and supporting analysis to help people in West Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH), the Lower Mekong, South America and Mesoamerica. NASA funds an Applied Sciences Team (AST), composed of experts from universities and research institutions around the United States. Through AST, SERVIR adopted the Tethys platform introduced by Brigham Young University (BYU) for the implementation of tools to deliver scientific data to stakeholders in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region. Several Tethys applications developed within SERVIR have raised interest amongst decision makers in the countries served by our regional hubs. They see these new apps as key vehicles to disseminate complex information related to weather models, hydrological models, and air quality monitoring, and as such the scope of our Tethys efforts continue to expand to other regions. As of July 2019, each one of the SERVIR hubs (with the exception of Amazonia, which has only recently started), have stood up Tethys portals and have at least one individual trained in the implementation and maintenance of a Tethys portal and in the creation of basic applications. HKH, with BYU's valuable support, has implemented very sophisticated applications that showcase the possibilities and the benefits that the Tethys platform brings.

Tethys↗