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At least 73 records · Page 4

Geostatistical evaluation of satellite radar altimetry for high-resolution mapping of Lambert Glacier, Antarctica

The potential of satellite radar altimetry for high-resolution mapping of Antarctic ice streams is evaluated, using retracked and slope-corrected data from the Lambert Glacier and Amery Ice Shelf area, East Antarctica, acquired by Geosat during the Exact Repeat Mission (ERM), 1986-89. The map area includes lower Lambert Glacier north of 72.18 deg S, the southern Amery Ice Shelf, and the grounded inland ice sheet on both sides. The Geosat ERM altimetry is found to provide substantially more complete coverage than the 1978 Seasat altimetry, due to improved tracking. Variogram methods are used to estimate the noise levels in the data as a function of position throughout the map area. The spatial structure in the data is quantified by constructing experimental variograms using altimetry from the area of the grounding zone of Lambert Glacier, which is the area chiefly of interest in this topographically complex region. Kriging is employed to invert the along-track height measurements onto a fine-scale 3 km grid. The unsmoothed along-track Geosat ERM altimetry yields spatially continuous maps showing the main topographic features of lower Lambert Glacier, upper Amery Ice Shelf and the adjacent inland ice sheet. The probable position of the grounding line of Lambert Glacier is identified from a break in slope at the grounded ice/floating ice transition. The approximate standard error of the kriged map is inferred from the data noise levels.

Herzfeld, Ute C.↗

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↗

Spatial Statistical Data Fusion (SSDF)

As remote sensing for scientific purposes has transitioned from an experimental technology to an operational one, the selection of instruments has become more coordinated, so that the scientific community can exploit complementary measurements. However, tech nological and scientific heterogeneity across devices means that the statistical characteristics of the data they collect are different. The challenge addressed here is how to combine heterogeneous remote sensing data sets in a way that yields optimal statistical estimates of the underlying geophysical field, and provides rigorous uncertainty measures for those estimates. Different remote sensing data sets may have different spatial resolutions, different measurement error biases and variances, and other disparate characteristics. A state-of-the-art spatial statistical model was used to relate the true, but not directly observed, geophysical field to noisy, spatial aggregates observed by remote sensing instruments. The spatial covariances of the true field and the covariances of the true field with the observations were modeled. The observations are spatial averages of the true field values, over pixels, with different measurement noise superimposed. A kriging framework is used to infer optimal (minimum mean squared error and unbiased) estimates of the true field at point locations from pixel-level, noisy observations. A key feature of the spatial statistical model is the spatial mixed effects model that underlies it. The approach models the spatial covariance function of the underlying field using linear combinations of basis functions of fixed size. Approaches based on kriging require the inversion of very large spatial covariance matrices, and this is usually done by making simplifying assumptions about spatial covariance structure that simply do not hold for geophysical variables. In contrast, this method does not require these assumptions, and is also computationally much faster. This method is fundamentally different than other approaches to data fusion for remote sensing data because it is inferential rather than merely descriptive. All approaches combine data in a way that minimizes some specified loss function. Most of these are more or less ad hoc criteria based on what looks good to the eye, or some criteria that relate only to the data at hand.

Braverman, Amy J.↗

Spatiotemporal Interpolation of Elevation Changes Derived from Satellite Altimetry for Jakobshavn Isbrae, Greenland

Estimation of ice sheet mass balance from satellite altimetry requires interpolation of point-scale elevation change (dHdt) data over the area of interest. The largest dHdt values occur over narrow, fast-flowing outlet glaciers, where data coverage of current satellite altimetry is poorest. In those areas, straightforward interpolation of data is unlikely to reflect the true patterns of dHdt. Here, four interpolation methods are compared and evaluated over Jakobshavn Isbr, an outlet glacier for which widespread airborne validation data are available from NASAs Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM). The four methods are ordinary kriging (OK), kriging with external drift (KED), where the spatial pattern of surface velocity is used as a proxy for that of dHdt, and their spatiotemporal equivalents (ST-OK and ST-KED).

Jakobshavn Isbrae↗

Greedy Sampling and Incremental Surrogate Model-Based Tailoring of Aeroservoelastic Model Database for Flexible Aircraft

This paper presents a data analysis and modeling framework to tailor and develop linear parameter-varying (LPV) aeroservoelastic (ASE) model database for flexible aircrafts in broad 2D flight parameter space. The Kriging surrogate model is constructed using ASE models at a fraction of grid points within the original model database, and then the ASE model at any flight condition can be obtained simply through surrogate model interpolation. The greedy sampling algorithm is developed to select the next sample point that carries the worst relative error between the surrogate model prediction and the benchmark model in the frequency domain among all input-output channels. The process is iterated to incrementally improve surrogate model accuracy till a pre-determined tolerance or iteration budget is met. The methodology is applied to the ASE model database of a flexible aircraft currently being tested at NASA/AFRC for flutter suppression and gust load alleviation. Our studies indicate that the proposed method can reduce the number of models in the original database by 67%. Even so the ASE models obtained through Kriging interpolation match the model in the original database constructed directly from the physics-based tool with the worst relative error far below 1%. The interpolated ASE model exhibits continuously-varying gains along a set of prescribed flight conditions. More importantly, the selected grid points are distributed non-uniformly in the parameter space, a) capturing the distinctly different dynamic behavior and its dependence on flight parameters, and b) reiterating the need and utility for adaptive space sampling techniques for ASE model database compaction. The present framework is directly extendible to high-dimensional flight parameter space, and can be used to guide the ASE model development, model order reduction, robust control synthesis and novel vehicle design of flexible aircraft.

numerical analysi↗

Retrieval of Daily Maps of PM2.5 Aerosol in the Problematic California Valleys: Bright, Speckled Reflectances, Thin AOT, but High Pollution

The San Joaquin Valley suffers from severe episodes of respirable aerosol (PM2.5) in wintertime.We provide maps of aerosol episodes using daily snapshots of PM2.5 and its changing features despite numerous difficulties inherent to sampling the region. Linear relationships relating aerosol optical thickness (AOT) to PM2.5 give an explained variance of approximately 3.The GEO-CAPE mission has as a goal the provision of relevant measures of respirable aerosol to the community,but has not formulated a science goal beyond the limited goal of retrieval of AOT, bringing the usefulness of GEO-CAPE into doubt.Our special focus was on the DISCOVER-AQ period, Jan-Feb 2013, which had many supporting measurements.Both high pollution and retrieval difficulties tend to occur in many Mediterranean agricultural regions like the San Joauin. One difficulty is the relatively bright surfaces with considerable exposed soil. NASAs MAIAC and MODIS Deep Blue retrieval techniques are shown to have considerable skill even at low aerosol optical thickness (AOT) values, as evaluated by concurrent AERONET sunphotometer measurements.More significantly, these AOT values can correspond to high daytime PM2.5 since aerosol mixed layer depth is thin and variable, 200m 600 m. The thin layers derive from typical subsidence of dry air between more stormy periods. This situation provides an advantage: water vapor column is also almost completely limited to a similar mixed layer depth, and can thus serve as a measure of aerosol dilution.Using the MAIAC Water Vapor Column:In order to make the maps below, we used the MAIAC data but subtracted partial water-vapor columns estimated from MERRA Reanalysis Data availabe from the GSFC GMAO using kriging. We did not use the mixed-layer estimates from MERRA, since such analyses were found problematic during our forecasting exercises for DISCOVER-AQ. Observations from the aircraft soundings suggested that this overlying moisture was mostly due to larger scale flows, not ML venting.However, the specific humidity at the surface and a nearly well-mixed ML was analyzed by kriging from the surface network (MesoWest, University of Utah). These were thought to be truer, uninfluenced by physical process modeling that combines with data observations. (TBD: How different are they?) Procedure: Subtract overlying partial water columns from MAIAC column water and divide this by a surface value of water vapor. (MAIAC column is expressed in cm of water, i.e., water vapor at surface conditions.This method appears to bring out useful details in the distribution of submicron particles in the very problematic Wintertime San Joaquin Valley, and allow analysis of pollution episodes throughout the valley, rather than long-term averages.

san joaquin valley↗

Numerical Investigation and Optimization of a Flushwall Injector for Scramjet Applications at Hypervelocity Flow Conditions

An investigation utilizing Reynolds-averaged simulations (RAS) was performed in order to find optimal designs for an interdigitated flushwall injector suitable for scramjet applications at hypervelocity conditions. The flight Mach number, duct height, spanwise width, and injection angle were the design variables selected to maximize two objective functions: the thrust potential and combustion efficiency. A Latin hypercube sampling design-of-experiments method was used to select design points for RAS. A methodology was developed that automated building geometries and generating grids for each design. The ensuing RAS analysis generated the performance database from which the two objective functions of interest were computed using a one-dimensional performance utility. The data were fitted using four surrogate models: an artificial neural network (ANN) model, a cubic polynomial, a quadratic polynomial, and a Kriging model. Variance-based decomposition showed that both objective functions were primarily driven by changes in the duct height. Multiobjective design optimization was performed for all four surrogate models via a genetic algorithm method. Optimal solutions were obtained at the upper and lower bounds of the flight Mach number range. The Kriging model obtained an optimal solution set that predicted high values for both objective functions. Additionally, three challenge points were selected to assess the designs on the Pareto fronts. Further sampling among the designs of the Pareto fronts are required in order to lower the errors and perform more accurate surrogate-based optimization. sed optimization.

Shenoy, Rajiv R.↗

Numerical Investigation and Optimization of a Flushwall Injector for Scramjet Applications at Hypervelocity Flow Conditions

An investigation utilizing Reynolds-averaged simulations (RAS) was performed in order to demonstrate the use of design and analysis of computer experiments (DACE) methods in Sandia’s DAKOTA software package for surrogate modeling and optimization. These methods were applied to a flow- path fueled with an interdigitated flushwall injector suitable for scramjet applications at hyper- velocity conditions and ascending along a constant dynamic pressure flight trajectory. The flight Mach number, duct height, spanwise width, and injection angle were the design variables selected to maximize two objective functions: the thrust potential and combustion efficiency. Because the RAS of this case are computationally expensive, surrogate models are used for optimization. To build a surrogate model a RAS database is created. The sequence of the design variables comprising the database were generated using a Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method. A methodology was also developed to automatically build geometries and generate structured grids for each design point. The ensuing RAS analysis generated the simulation database from which the two objective functions were computed using a one-dimensionalization (1D) of the three-dimensional simulation data. The data were fitted using four surrogate models: an artificial neural network (ANN), a cubic polynomial, a quadratic polynomial, and a Kriging model. Variance-based decomposition showed that both objective functions were primarily driven by changes in the duct height. Multiobjective design optimization was performed for all four surrogate models via a genetic algorithm method. Optimal solutions were obtained at the upper and lower bounds of the flight Mach number range. The Kriging model predicted an optimal solution set that exhibited high values for both objective functions. Additionally, three challenge points were selected to assess the designs on the Pareto fronts. Further sampling among the designs of the Pareto fronts may be required to lower the surrogate model errors and perform more accurate surrogate-model-based optimization.

Shenoy, Rajiv R.↗

Aerothermal Uncertainty Quantification of Deployable Entry Technologies Using Multi-Fidelity Modeling

The objective of this work was to investigate the use of a co-Kriging based multi-fidelity modeling approach with a Monte Carlo uncertainty quantification analyses of surface heating on hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator vehicles and adaptable, deployable entry placement technology vehicles in Mars entry. A previously developed co-Kriging based multi-fidelity modeling approach was used to model the laminar and turbulent convective and radiative heat fluxes along the vehicle. Monte Carlo analyses of surface heat load for nine different vehicle nose radii was performed for both vehicles, assuming the same thermal protection system is used for both vehicles. The maximum heat loads and heat load uncertainties were found to occur at either the stagnation point or the vehicle shoulder. The maximum 95% confidence intervals for the total heat load for the hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator vehicle were found to be [-9.27, 7.81] % of the nominal value and [-6.09, 13.1] % of the nominal value for laminar and turbulent flow, respectively. The maximum 95% confidence intervals for the total heat load for the adaptable, deployable entry placement technology vehicle were found to be [-8.85, 7.22] % of the nominal value and [-9.33, 9.35] % of the nominal value for laminar and turbulent flow, respectively. The difference in heating uncertainties based on vehicle geometry between the two vehicle technologies was found to be minimal.

Mario Santos↗

Gaussian Process Regression Method for Costing SmallSat Bus Capabilities

NASA is responding to the growing interest in, andcapabilities of, small satellites for science applications with an increasingnumber and frequency of Announcements of Opportunityfor small satellite space missions. Estimating the probabilitythat these mission concepts will fit within the small cost capsof these opportunities is largely driven by the probability thatone of the burgeoning number of small satellite providers will beable to meet the payload’s accommodation requirements withinthe budget for the spacecraft. JPL has collected a databasecontaining technical specifications and cost of commerciallyavailable Smallsat buses across various vendors. The primarypurpose of the database is for use in JPL’s Team X architecturestudies to inform cost estimates of a spacecraft bus which fitsthe customer’s technical requirements for their payload andmission. Customer needs are often unique and don’t alignperfectly with an off-the-shelf commercial spacecraft bus, whichmotivates the need to develop a cost model across the continuoustechnical parameter space.Al’s Bus Cost Distribution Estimator (ABCDE) uses Gaussianprocess regression (GPR) to predict commercial Smallsat spacecraftbus cost based on a subset of a customer’s technicalrequirements (payload mass, payload power, delta V, pointingcontrol, and downlink rate). GPR is implemented in ABCDE asa Bayesian method which fits an implied multivariate regressionon the technical parameters and uses kriging to intentionally“overfit” the residuals. Overfitting the residuals allows costestimates to collapse in uncertainty closer to the data pointswhile maintaining larger uncertainty intervals in regions of parameterspace with fewer data records. The data used to fit thismodel is sensitive and represents cost estimates for off-the-shelfcommercial buses. GPR simultaneously protects the sensitivityof the database and uses the sparse nature of the database toaccount for uncertainty in cost in a useful way. For a givenset of customer technical requirements, the tool provides a costestimate distribution, the percentiles of which can be interpretedas a confidence level of finding a commercial bus under a specifiedcost cap. ABCDE dramatically pushes the boundaries ofspacecraft cost estimation models due to its Bayesian methodology(accounting for the maximum uncertainty in the underlyingregression), the mathematically advanced kriging methodology,and the novelty of its application in Team X architecture tradestudies.

Austin, Alex↗

SIMPLIFIED PREDICTIVE MODELS FOR CO₂ SEQUESTRATION PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT RESEARCH TOPICAL REPORT ON TASK #3 STATISTICAL LEARNING BASED MODELS

We compare two approaches for building a statistical proxy model (metamodel) for CO₂ geologic sequestration from the results of full-physics compositional simulations. The first approach involves a classical Box-Behnken or Augmented Pairs experimental design with a quadratic polynomial response surface. The second approach used a space-filling maxmin Latin Hypercube sampling or maximum entropy design with the choice of five different meta-modeling techniques: quadratic polynomial, kriging with constant and quadratic trend terms, multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) and additivity and variance stabilization (AVAS). Simulations results for CO₂ injection into a reservoir-caprock system with 9 design variables (and 97 samples) were used to generate the data for developing the proxy models. The fitted models were validated with using an independent data set and a cross-validation approach for three different performance metrics: total storage efficiency, CO₂ plume radius and average reservoir pressure. The Box-Behnken–quadratic polynomial metamodel performed the best, followed closely by the maximin LHS–kriging metamodel.

Mishra, Srikanta↗

A SPATIOTEMPORAL APPROACH FOR HIGH RESOLUTION TRAFFIC FLOW IMPUTATION

Along with the rapid development of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), traffic data collection technologies have been evolving dramatically. The emergence of innovative data collection technologies such as Remote Traffic Microwave Sensor (RTMS), Bluetooth sensor, GPS-based Floating Car method, automated license plate recognition (ALPR) (1), etc., creates an explosion of traffic data, which brings transportation engineering into the new era of Big Data. However, despite the advance of technologies, the missing data issue is still inevitable and has posed great challenges for research such as traffic forecasting, real-time incident detection and management, dynamic route guidance, and massive evacuation optimization, because the degree of success of these endeavors depends on the timely availability of relatively complete and reasonably accurate traffic data. A thorough literature review suggests most current imputation models, if not all, focus largely on the temporal nature of the traffic data and fail to consider the fact that traffic stream characteristics at a certain location are closely related to those at neighboring locations and utilize these correlations for data imputation. To this end, this paper presents a Kriging based spatiotemporal data imputation approach that is able to fully utilize the spatiotemporal information underlying in traffic data. Imputation performance of the proposed approach was tested using simulated scenarios and achieved stable imputation accuracy. Moreover, the proposed Kriging imputation model is more flexible compared to current models.

Han, Lee↗

Spatial associations between social groups and ozone air pollution exposure in the Beijing urban area

Highlights: • Greater percentages of persons living alone and migrants were associated with higher O{sub 3} exposure. • Social groups divided by Hukou status had distinct spatial distributions in the Beijing urban area. • Migrants bore a double burden of social deprivation and O{sub 3} exposure due to city development planning and the Hukou system. • Areas with greater percentages of seniors had lower O{sub 3} exposure but higher NO{sub 2} exposure. Few studies have linked social factors to air pollution exposure in China. Unlike the race or minority concepts in western countries, the Hukou system (residential registration system) is a fundamental reason for the existence of social deprivation in China. To assess the differences in ozone (O{sub 3}) exposure among social groups, especially groups divided by Hukou status, we assigned estimates of O{sub 3} exposure to the latest census data of the Beijing urban area using a kriging interpolation model. We developed simultaneous autoregressive (SAR) models that account for spatial autocorrelation to identify the associations between O{sub 3} exposure and social factors. Principal component regression was used to control the multicollinearity bias as well as explore the spatial structure of the social data. The census tracts (CTs) with higher proportions of persons living alone and migrants with non-local Hukou were characterized by greater exposure to ambient O{sub 3}. The areas with greater proportions of seniors had lower O{sub 3} exposure. The spatial distribution patterns were similar among variables including migrants, agricultural population and household separation (population status with separation between Hukou and actual residences), which fit the demographic characteristics of the majority of migrants. Migrants bore a double burden of social deprivation and O{sub 3} pollution exposure due to city development planning and the Hukou system.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

National soil organic carbon estimates can improve global estimates

Global inventories of spatial and vertical distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks are being used in national and global initiatives targeted to mitigate climate change and land degradation impacts. Yet, national level high-resolution estimates of SOC stocks can be useful for improving the accuracy of global SOC inventories. We estimated spatially resolved SOC stocks of surface 0–30 cm and subsurface 30–100 cm layers at a spatial resolution of 30m in tropical Island, Sri Lanka using a legacy harmonized soil database of 122 soil profiles. The national estimates were compared with two global estimates derived from WISE30sec and SoilGrids250m. The tropical Island (land area=64,610 km2) occupying 0.03% of global land area showed a considerable heterogeneity in SOC stocks ranging from 2.0-342.5 Mg ha -1 and 2.7-391.7 Mg ha -1 in the surface and subsurface soil layers, respectively. We found, elevation, precipitation and slope angle as main environmental controllers of the spatial distribution of SOC stocks under tropical climate. Incorporating the pedogenic information (derived from soil series level legacy map, soil orders and suborders) with environmental controllers resulted in better regression models of predicting surface (R 2 =0.61) and subsurface (R 2 =0.81) SOC stocks. Geographically weighted regression kriging derived maps of SOC stocks revealed that 0–100 cm soil layer of the tropical Island stored 500 Tg C contributing for 0.04% of the global SOC stocks. The validation results of our estimates showed low Mean Estimation Error (MEE: surface -1.6 and subsurface -1.6 Mg ha -1 ) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE: surface 29.5 and subsurface 24.9 Mg ha -1 ) indicating a low bias and satisfactory predictions. The relative improvement of the prediction accuracy of the SOC stocks of our geospatial estimates in the 0–30 cm layer in comparison to SoilGrids250m and WISE30sec data derived SOC stocks were 51.7% and 35.2%, respectively. The SOC stocks predictions of the 30-100 cm soil layer showed even better relative improvement compared to SoilGrids250m (78.4%) and WISE30sec (57.4%) SOC estimates. Compared to estimates of total SOC stocks resulted in this study, WISE30sec data derived SOC stock maps showed 30% over estimation of the C stock in surface 0-30 cm (332 Tg C) and 41% overestimation in 30-100 cm layer (343 Tg C). The over estimation of total SOC stocks by the SoilGrids250 SOC stocks map for the surface 0-30 cm layer was 122% (567 Tg C) and for the 30-100 cm layer it was 209% (750 Tg C). We conclude that the fusion of legacy soil information of SOC stocks with appropriate environmental covariates and pedogenic information derived from legacy area-class soil maps at national level can produce more accurate inventories of spatial and vertical distribution of SOC stocks. As a result, these national inventories have a great potential of upgrading global inventories of SOC stocks.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Multi-fidelity Gaussian process regression for prediction of random fields

We propose a new multi-fidelity Gaussian process regression (GPR) approach for prediction of random fields based on observations of surrogate models or hierarchies of surrogate models. Our method builds upon recent work on recursive Bayesian techniques, in particular recursive co-kriging, and extends it to vector-valued fields and various types of covariances, including separable and non-separable ones. The framework we propose is general and can be used to perform uncertainty propagation and quantification in model-based simulations, multi-fidelity data fusion, and surrogate-based optimization. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed recursive GPR techniques through various examples. Specifically, we study the stochastic Burgers equation and the stochastic Oberbeck–Boussinesq equations describing natural convection within a square enclosure. In both cases we find that the standard deviation of the Gaussian predictors as well as the absolute errors relative to benchmark stochastic solutions are very small, suggesting that the proposed multi-fidelity GPR approaches can yield highly accurate results.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Reconstruction 3-dimensional image from 2-dimensional image of status optical coherence tomography (OCT) for analysis of changes in retinal thickness

Optical Coherence Tomography is often used in medical image acquisition to diagnose that change due easy to use and low price. Unfortunately, this type of examination produces a two-dimensional retinal image of the point of acquisition. Therefore, this study developed a method that combines and reconstruct 2-dimensional retinal images into three-dimensional images to display volumetric macular accurately. The system is built with three main stages: data acquisition, data extraction and 3-dimensional reconstruction. At data acquisition step, Optical Coherence Tomography produced six *.jpg images of each patient were further extracted with MATLAB 2010a software into six one-dimensional arrays. The six arrays are combined into a 3-dimensional matrix using a kriging interpolation method with SURFER9 resulting 3-dimensional graphics of macula. Finally, system provides three-dimensional color graphs based on the data distribution normal macula. The reconstruction system which has been designed produces three-dimensional images with size of 481 × 481 × h (retinal thickness) pixels.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Statistical analysis of content of Cs-137 in soils in Bansko-Razlog region

Statistical analysis of the data set consisting of the activity concentrations of {sup 137}Cs in soils in Bansko–Razlog region is carried out in order to establish the dependence of the deposition and the migration of {sup 137}Cs on the soil type. The descriptive statistics and the test of normality show that the data set have not normal distribution. Positively skewed distribution and possible outlying values of the activity of {sup 137}Cs in soils were observed. After reduction of the effects of outliers, the data set is divided into two parts, depending on the soil type. Test of normality of the two new data sets shows that they have a normal distribution. Ordinary kriging technique is used to characterize the spatial distribution of the activity of {sup 137}Cs over an area covering 40 km{sup 2} (whole Razlog valley). The result (a map of the spatial distribution of the activity concentration of {sup 137}Cs) can be used as a reference point for future studies on the assessment of radiological risk to the population and the erosion of soils in the study area.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Numerical estimation of phase transformations in solid state during Yb:YAG laser heating of steel sheets

This work concerns the numerical modeling of heat transfer and phase transformations in solid state occurring during the Yb:YAG laser beam heating process. The temperature field is obtained by the numerical solution into transient heat transfer equation with convective term. The laser beam heat source model is developed using the Kriging interpolation method with experimental measurements of Yb:YAG laser beam profile taken into account. Phase transformations are calculated on the basis of Johnson - Mehl - Avrami (JMA) and Koistinen - Marburger (KM) kinetics models as well as continuous heating transformation (CHT) and continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagrams for S355 steel. On the basis of developed numerical algorithms 3D computer simulations are performed in order to predict temperature history and phase transformations in Yb:YAG laser heating process.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗