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2010 CAN Awards

Submitted by dthorsen on Mon, 10/29/2012 - 14:19

PROJECT: Optimizing Next-Generation Image Compression Transforms via Evolutionary Computation
PI: Frank Moore, Professor, UAA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) Spirit and Opportunity have been a tremendous success. Since landing on opposite sides of the planet in January 2004, these rovers have been transmitting visual and infrared images of the Martian landscape to Earth. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have used these images to discover conclusive evidence of water activity, suggesting that conditions on Mars may have once been suitable for sustaining life. Each rover is configured with nine onboard cameras. Compression of the enormous amount of image data captured by these cameras prior to transmission to Earth is essential. MER scientists often prefer lossy compression schemes because they are capable of achieving significantly greater compression ratios than lossless schemes; unfortunately, this additional compression comes at the cost of introducing distortion into reconstructed images

PROJECT: Estimating Spatio-Temporal Variability in Evapotranspiration in Interior Alaska using Field Measurements, Modeling and Remote Sensing
PI: Anupma Prakash, Professor, UAF

Evapotranspiration (ET) measures water loss to atmosphere through soil evaporation and plant
transpiration, and is a major component of both the land surface hydrologic cycle and the surface
energy balance. Our recent proof-of-concept study has shown that multiscale ground-based data
can be used to calibrate and adapt ET estimation models, e.g. the Two-Source Energy Balance
(TSEB) model. Adapted models can subsequently use input from moderate resolution satellite
images (~60m to 1km spatial resolution) to generate maps quantifying the magnitude and spatiotemporal variability of ET over large areas. Satellite-derived ET estimates within the continental
US have been a focus of NASA-sponsored research. It is time to expand the focus and provide
critically-needed, reliable ET estimates for Alaska.

To obtain a summary of all proposals funded by the 2010 CAN solicitation go to:

http://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/

Select "Solicitations" in the left menu and then select "Closed/Past Selected"
Enter "EPSCoR" in the Keywords window and hit return

You should now see listed the EPSCoR solicitations from 2007-2011.

Select the solicitation link for any year you are interested in.
Finally select the link to the Selected Research Abstracts.