Day: September 15, 2010

Perspective on Department of Energy Geospatial Science

/ Matt Artz

Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, Volume 4, Issue 1 January 2008 , pages 29 – 58

Paul M. Rich; James S. Bollinger; Budhendra Bhaduri; Denise R. Bleakly

“For many decades, the Department of Energy (DOE) has been an international leader in basic scientific and engineering research that utilizes geospatial science to advance the state of knowledge in disciplines impacting national security, energy sustainability, environmental stewardship, and associated basic research. However, the realized benefits from cross-cutting geospatial science contributions have fallen short of what they could have been with greater collaboration across the DOE complex, stronger emphasis on core geographic information science (GIScience) research and development to support advanced applications, increased strategic institutional support (e.g., for management of legacy data), and additional education and outreach concerning how geospatial science can benefit DOE programs and operations. We propose a vision for DOE’s geospatial science based on expanded collaboration to address major national problems, additional advanced GIScience research and development, and a long-term strategy to better manage DOE’s geospatial science resources (personnel, facilities, shared data, etc.).”

Children’s Spatial Analysis of Hierarchical Patterns: Construction and Perception

/ Matt Artz

Developmental Psychology, 2010 Aug 16.

Vinter A, Puspitawati I, Witt A

“Two experiments were reported that aimed at investigating the development of spatial analysis of hierarchical patterns in children between 3 and 9 years of age. A total of 108 children participated in the drawing experiment, and 224 children were tested in a force-choice similarity judgment task. In both tasks, participants were exposed to consistent and inconsistent targets for short (300-ms) and long (3-s) durations. The drawing task showed that 3-year-old children either preferred to draw the local level or reproduced both levels in a nonintegrated manner. Coordination between the 2 processes started to emerge at 4 years of age, and 6-year-old children produced essentially correct integrated responses. The similarity judgment task confirmed that local processing dominated at 3 years of age. Preference for global processing appeared at 5 years of age, and it gained in strength later. Significant effects of stimulus consistency and stimulus duration were also found. In particular, the use of inconsistent patterns in the similarity judgment task revealed a phenomenon of local-to-global interference in the 3-year-olds.”

Geostatistical Modeling of the Spatial Distribution of Sediment Oxygen Demand Within a Coastal Plain Blackwater Watershed

/ Matt Artz

Geoderma, Publication Acceptance Date: August 23, 2010

Todd, Jason; Lowrance, Robert; Goovaerts, Pierre; Vellidis, George; and Pringle, Catherine

“Blackwater streams of the Georgia Coastal Plain are often considered polluted due to chronically low DO levels. Previous research has shown that sediment oxygen demand (SOD, the amount of dissolved oxygen consumed by processes in the stream sediments) was significantly positively correlated with total organic carbon (TOC) within the stream sediments. SOD is probably a cause of lowered DO within these waters,. SOD measurements in the previous study were point measurements, making it difficult to characterize SOD values at the reach and watershed scale. However, the use of geostatistics allowed for the characterization and spatial depiction of SOD across the entire stream and floodplain in two study locations through its relationship with TOC. The results showed TOC to be spatially correlated at both experimental locations with the corresponding distribution and patchiness of SOD differing between the sites as a result of different hydrological regimes. The larger stream, with a larger, more persistent area of inundation, had higher average rates of oxygen demand both in terms of area-wide average and as a function of stream length when compared to the smaller stream. The mapping of floodplain soils on these watersheds showed that areas subject to flooding are larger per unit stream length along larger streams. The greater area per unit stream length in the larger streams demonstrates the importance of areas of these instream swamp areas in coastal blackwater streams and further illustrates their importance to oxygen dynamics on a watershed scale. Additionally, this research provides support for the hypothesis that many blackwater streams draining Georgia”s coastal plain are naturally low in DO as a result of elevated SOD.”