Classification of Ultra High Range Resolution Radar Using Decision Boundary Analysis

This thesis examines the discrimination of targets with Ultra High Range Resolution (UHRR) radar data. Using these measured signals from frontal aspect angles of four aircraft classes, the baseline performance of the Adaptive Gaussian Classifier (AGC) is tested with respect to aligning exemplars to templates. Alignment plays a crucial role in the AGC\u27s classification performance which can degrade by 11% for a target class. The AGC is compared to non-parametric classifiers, but no statistically significant degradation of performance is found. Data separability is analyzed by hounding the Bayes error. The data is well separated in a statistical sense. A feature selection algorithm based on analysis of the decision boundary, is applied to find a reduced feature set, which are linear combinations of the original features. These features are optimized with respect to classification error rather than reconstruction error. This technique is extended to deduce the relevant features in the original feature space. Fewer than 5% of the features in the original feature space may be used to attain an improved classification rate. This new method is a true reduction of features and shows improvement up to 15%. Discrimination of UHRR radar signatures using a multiresolution analysis is proposed. The decision boundary analysis chooses relevant wavelet scales with respect to classification. Some improved performance against an entropy based measure is observed for limited feature sets. The technique developed here successfully chooses the scale that causes classification performance to peak within 5% of the performance in the full-dimensional or reduced-dimensional UHRR radar signature space

Advances in shrub-willow crops for bioenergy, renewable products, and environmental benefits

Short-rotation coppice systems like shrub willow are projected to be an important source of biomass in the United States for the production of bioenergy, biofuels, and renewable bio-based products, with the potential for auxiliary environmental benefits and multifunctional systems. Almost three decades of research has focused on the development of shrub willow crops for biomass and ecosystem services. The current expansion of willow in New York State (about 500 ha) for the production of renewable power and heat has been possible because of incentive programs offered by the federal government, commitments by end users, the development of reliable harvesting systems, and extension services offered to growers. Improvements in the economics of the system are expected as willow production expands further, which should help lower establishment costs, enhance crop management options and increase efficiencies in harvesting and logistics. Deploying willow in multifunctional value-added systems provides opportunities for both potential producers and end users to learn about the system and the quality of the biomass feedstock, which in turn will help overcome barriers to expansion

Evaluation of a Single-Pass, Cut and Chip Harvest System on Commercial-Scale, Short-Rotation Shrub Willow Biomass Crops

Harvesting is the single largest cost in the production of short rotation woody crops (SRWC) like shrub 8 willow and previous systems tested in North America have not been effective for the size of material grown. The 9 objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of a single-pass, cut and chip harvester in conjunction with 10 two locally-sourced chip collection systems on 54 ha of coppiced willow harvests in New York State. Harvesting 11 and collection equipment was tracked for 153 loads over 10 days of harvesting using GPS dataloggers. Effective 12 material capacities (Cm) increased linearly with standing biomass up to 40 to 45 Mgwet ha-1 because ground speed 13 was limited by ground conditions. This relationship changed dramatically with standing biomass in the 40 – 90 14 Mgwet ha-1 range, where Cm plateaued between 70 and 90 Mgwet hr-1 and was limited by crop conditions and 15 harvester capacity. The relationship between standing biomass and the harvester’s Cm will probably change under 16 different crop and ground conditions. The size of the harvester and the experience of the operator are other factors. 17 This nonlinear relationship will impact cost and optimization modeling SRWC systems. Improperly sized headland 18 and long haul distances impeded the performance of locally sourced collection systems resulting in a 33% decrease 19 in Cm from the field to the headlands, and 66% from the field to short-term storage as biomass moves through the 20 system

Impacts of land use and land cover change on surface runoff, discharge and low flows: evidence from East Africa

Region: East Africa. Focus: A review of catchment studies (n=37) conducted in East Africa evaluating the impacts of Land Use and Land Cover Changes (LULCC) on discharge, surface runoff, and low flows. New hydrological insights: Forest cover loss is accompanied by increased stream discharges and surface runoff. No significant difference in stream discharge is observed between bamboo and pine plantation catchments, and between cultivated and tea plantation catchments. Trend analyses show that despite forest cover loss, 63% of the watersheds show non-significant changes in annual discharges while 31% show increasing trends. Half of the watersheds show non-significant trends in wet season flows and low flows while 35% reveal decreasing trends in low flows. Modeling studies estimate that forest cover loss increases annual discharges and surface runoff by 16 ± 5.5% and 45 ± 14%, respectively. Peak flows increased by a mean of 10 ± 2.8% while low flows decreased by a mean of 7 ± 5.3%. Increased forest cover decreases annual discharges and surface runoff by 13 ± 1.9% and 25 ± 5%, respectively. Weak correlations between forest cover and runoff (r=0.42, p < 0.05), mean discharge (r=0.63, p < 0.05) and peak discharge (r=0.67, p < 0.05) indicate that forest cover alone is not an accurate predictor of hydrological fluxes in East African catchments. The variability in these results supports the need for long-term field monitoring to better understand catchment responses and to improve the calibration of currently used simulation models

Bioenergy and climate change mitigation: an assessment

Acknowledgements The authors are indebted to Julia Römer for assisting with editing several hundred references. Helmut Haberl gratefully acknowledges funding by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Global Change Programme), the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research (BMWF, proVision programme) as well as by the EU-FP7 project VOLANTE. Carmenza Robledo-Abad received financial support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.Peer reviewedPostprin

The Hydrologic Characterization of Three Forested Headwater Riparian Wetlands in East Tennessee

Headwater riparian wetlands form an important hydrologic link between terrestrial and aquatic systems. These wetlands are small and account for only nine percent of the total wetland area in the US, however, they account for nearly half of the upland/wetland edge. Three headwater riparian wetlands were instrumented with flumes, solution samplers and shallow wells to monitor hydrologic and chemical interactions between physiographic positions and streams within the watersheds. The objectives of this study were to examine the general hydrologic and chemical characteristics of such wetlands. Water sampling was conducted in soils and streams during baseflow and stormflow conditions. Cross sections of water tables on wetlands had distinctive differences from those on non-wetlands. Wetland areas had generally level, shallow water tables, while non-wetland bottoms had deeper, more sloping water tables. Calcium concentrations in streams and soils ranged from 2 mg L-1 to 25 mg L-1, and were usually highest on wetland physiographic positions. Magnesium concentrations ranged from 1 mg L-1 to 4 mg L-1 and had similar patterns to those seen for calcium. Dissolved organic carbon concentrations ranged from 5 to 17 mg L-1 and were also highest in wetlands. Total nitrogen concentrations were consistently less than 1 mg L-1 at all positions. Although these wetlands were small, the hydrogeochemical processes occurring were sufficient to alter soil water chemistry. Although wetlands generally had the highest concentrations of the observed solutes, the solute concentrations of non-wetland bottom was closer to wetland values during drier periods on the watersheds