Smart Cartographic Background Symbolization for Map Mashups in Geoportals: A Proof of Concept by Example of Landuse Representation

Geospatial data are now widely available to the general public thanks to geoportals and online mapping platforms. However, creating a map involves more than just combining data layers. Thus we develop cartographic functions for geoportals to support better visual hierarchy in user map mashups. This includes a couple of preparatory steps followed by a smart cartographic background symbolization derived from the original layer style. We evaluate different approaches to background symbolization: greyscale, desaturation, and smart background. The different background symbolization methods are analysed with two concrete map examples and evaluated with a survey. The smart background symbolization developed in this work improves the visual hierarchy of the map mashup by reducing the visual importance of the background layers.     

Thermal and irradiation history of lunar meteorite Dhofar 280

Dhofar 280 recorded a complex history on the Moon revealed by high‐resolution ⁴⁰Ar‐³⁹Ar dating. Thermal resetting occurred less than 1 Ga ago, and the rock was exposed to several impact events before and afterwards. The cosmic ray exposure (CRE) age spectrum indicates a 400 ± 40 Ma CRE on the lunar surface. A unique feature of this lunar sample is a partial loss of cosmogenic ³⁸Ar, resulting in a (low‐temperature) CRE age plateau of about 1 Ma. This was likely caused by the same recent impact event that reset the (low‐temperature) ⁴⁰Ar‐³⁹Ar age spectrum and preceded the short transit phase to Earth of ≤1 Ma. Dhofar 280 may be derived from KREEP‐rich lunar frontside terrains, possibly associated with the Copernicus crater or with a recent impact event on the deposits of the South Pole–Aitken basin. Although Dhofar 280 is paired with Dhofar 081, their irradiation and thermal histories on the Moon were different. An important trapped Ar component in Dhofar 280 is “orphan” Ar with a low ⁴⁰Ar/³⁶Ar ratio. It is apparently a mixture of two components, one endmember with ⁴⁰Ar/³⁶Ar = 17.5 ± 0.2 and a second less well‐constrained endmember with ⁴⁰Ar/³⁶Ar ≤10. The presence of two endmembers of trapped Ar, their compositions, and the breccia ages seem to be incompatible with a previously suggested correlation between age or antiquity and the (⁴⁰Ar/³⁶Ar)_trapped ratio (Eugster et al. 2001; Joy et al. 2011a). Alternatively, “orphan” Ar of this impact melt breccia may have an impact origin.     

AVIATR—Aerial Vehicle for In-situ and Airborne Titan Reconnaissance

We describe a mission concept for a stand-alone Titan airplane mission: Aerial Vehicle for In-situ and Airborne Titan Reconnaissance (AVIATR). With independent delivery and direct-to-Earth communications, AVIATR could contribute to Titan science either alone or as part of a sustained Titan Exploration Program. As a focused mission, AVIATR as we have envisioned it would concentrate on the science that an airplane can do best: exploration of Titan??s global diversity. We focus on surface geology/hydrology and lower-atmospheric structure and dynamics. With a carefully chosen set of seven instruments??2 near-IR cameras, 1 near-IR spectrometer, a RADAR altimeter, an atmospheric structure suite, a haze sensor, and a raindrop detector??AVIATR could accomplish a significant subset of the scientific objectives of the aerial element of flagship studies. The AVIATR spacecraft stack is composed of a Space Vehicle (SV) for cruise, an Entry Vehicle (EV) for entry and descent, and the Air Vehicle (AV) to fly in Titan??s atmosphere. Using an Earth-Jupiter gravity assist trajectory delivers the spacecraft to Titan in 7.5 years, after which the AVIATR AV would operate for a 1-Earth-year nominal mission. We propose a novel ??gravity battery?? climb-then-glide strategy to store energy for optimal use during telecommunications sessions. We would optimize our science by using the flexibility of the airplane platform, generating context data and stereo pairs by flying and banking the AV instead of using gimbaled cameras. AVIATR would climb up to 14?km altitude and descend down to 3.5?km altitude once per Earth day, allowing for repeated atmospheric structure and wind measurements all over the globe. An initial Team-X run at JPL priced the AVIATR mission at FY10 $715M based on the rules stipulated in the recent Discovery announcement of opportunity. Hence we find that a standalone Titan airplane mission can achieve important science building on Cassini??s discoveries and can likely do so within a New Frontiers budget.     

The diversity of resilience: contributions from a social science perspective

The paper presents contributions to the widespread resilience paradigm from a social science perspective. Certain aspects of social systems, especially their symbolic dimension of meaning, need to be taken into account in the endeavor to research coupled social–ecological systems. Due to the symbolic dimension, disasters are defined as the failure of future expectations, and social resilience is defined as the social system property of avoiding or withstanding disasters. In relation to this, three capacities of social systems (adaptive, coping, and participative) that constitute resilience are presented. The adaptive capacity is the property of a system in which structures are modified to prevent future disasters, whereas the coping capacity is the system’s property of coping with calamitous processes that occurred in the past. The participative capacity is a measure of the system’s ability to change its own structures with regard to interventions by other systems, decreasing the system’s resilience. The concept of resilience provides important epistemological and political insights and can help overcome an orientation tied together with the concept of vulnerability that blocks social capacities for the mitigation of disasters.     

Graphical design of world map projections

The design of new map projections has up until now required mathematical and cartographic expertise that has limited this activity to a small group of specialists. This article introduces the background mathematics for a software-based method that enables cartographers to easily design new small-scale world map projections. The software is usable even by those without mathematical expertise. A new projection is designed interactively in an iterative process that allows the designer to graphically and numerically assess the graticule, the representation of the continents, and the distortion properties of the new projection. The method has been implemented in Flex Projector, a free and open-source application enabling users to quickly create new map projections and modify existing projections. We also introduce new tools that help evaluate the distortion properties of projections, namely a configurable acceptance index to assess areal and angular distortion, a derived acceptance visualization, and interactive profiles through the distortion space of a projection. To illustrate the proposed method, a new projection, the Cropped Ginzburg VIII projection, is presented.     

Photometric Solution of the O-type Eclipsing Binary V1007 Sco

A Cosmological model with a viscous fluid in Kaluza-Klein metric is obtained assuming a time-dependent equation of state. The solution is in fact a generalization of an earlier work by Hajj and Boutros for a perfect fluid. It is also found that dimensional reduction of the extra space takes place such that the five-dimensional universe naturally evolves into an effective four-dimensional one. The dynamical behavior of the model is examined and it is also found that with a decrease in extra space the observable 3D space entropy increases thus accounting for the large value of entropy observable at present.     

Flood Risk Analysis and Flood Potential Losses Assessment

The heavy floods in the Taihu Basin Showed increasing trend in recent years.In this work,a typical area in the northern Taihu Basin was selected for flood rish analysis and potential flood losses assessment.human activities have strong impact on the study area‘s flood situation(as affected by the polders built,deforestation,population increase,urbanization,etc.) and have made water level higher,flood duration shorter,and flood peaks sharper.Five years of different flood return periods[(1970),5(1962),10(1987),20(1954),50(1991)] were used to calculate the potential flood risk area and its losses.The potential flood risk map,economic losses,and flood-impacted population were also calculated.The study‘s main conclusions are:1) Human activities have strongly changed the natural flood situation in the study area,increasing runoff and flooding;2) The flood risk area is closely related with the precipitation center;3) Polder construction has successfully protected land from flood.Shortened the flood duration,and elevated water leel in rivers outside the polders;4) Economic and social development have caused flood losses to increase in recent years.     

Mineralogy of silicate inclusions in the Elga IIE iron meteorite

The petrography, mineral modal data and major and trace element compositions of 15 silicate inclusions in the Elga iron meteorite (chemical group IIE) show that these inclusions represent chemically homogeneous zoned objects with highly variable structures, reflecting the sequence of crystallization of a silicate melt during cooling of the metal host. The outer zones of inclusions at the interface with their metal host have a relatively medium-grained hypocrystalline texture formed mainly by Cr-diopside and merrillite crystals embedded in high-silica glass, whereas the central zones have a fine-grained hypocrystalline texture. Merrillite appears first on the liquidus in the outer zones of the silicate inclusions. Na and REE concentrations in merrillite from the outer zones of inclusions suggest that it may have crystallized as α-merrillite in the temperature range of 1300–1700°С. Merrillite tends to preferentially accumulate Eu without Sr. Therefore, strongly fractionated REE patterns are not associated with prolonged differentiation of the silicate melt source but depend on crystallization conditions of Н-chondrite droplets in a metallic matrix. The systematic decrease in Mg# with increasing Fe/Mn in bronzite may indicate partial reduction of iron during crystallization of the inclusion melt. The modal and bulk compositions of silicate inclusions in the Elga meteorite, as well as the chemical composition of phases are consistent with the model equilibrium crystallization of a melt, corresponding to 25% partial melting of H-chondrite, and the crystallizing liquidus phase, merrillite, and subsequent quenching at about 1090°С. Despite a high alkali content of the average weighted bulk inclusion composition, La/Hf and Rb/Th fall within the field of H chondrites, suggesting their common source. Our results reveal that silicate inclusions in the Elga (IIE) iron meteorite originated by mixing of two impact melts, ordinary chondrite and Ni-rich iron with а IIE composition, which were produced by impact event under near-surface conditions on a partially differentiated parent asteroid.     

Dense 3D displacement vector fields for point cloud-based landslide monitoring

Landslides - We propose a novel fully automated deformation analysis pipeline capable of estimating real 3D displacement vectors from point cloud data. Different from the traditional methods that...     

Impact craters on Titan

Five certain impact craters and 44 additional nearly certain and probable ones have been identified on the 22% of Titan’s surface imaged by Cassini’s high-resolution radar through December 2007. The certain craters have morphologies similar to impact craters on rocky planets, as well as two with radar bright, jagged rims. The less certain craters often appear to be eroded versions of the certain ones. Titan’s craters are modified by a variety of processes including fluvial erosion, mass wasting, burial by dunes and submergence in seas, but there is no compelling evidence of isostatic adjustments as on other icy moons, nor draping by thick atmospheric deposits. The paucity of craters implies that Titan’s surface is quite young, but the modeled age depends on which published crater production rate is assumed. Using the model of Artemieva and Lunine (2005) suggests that craters with diameters smaller than about 35 km are younger than 200 million years old, and larger craters are older. Craters are not distributed uniformly; Xanadu has a crater density 2-9 times greater than the rest of Titan, and the density on equatorial dune areas is much lower than average. There is a small excess of craters on the leading hemisphere, and craters are deficient in the north polar region compared to the rest of the world. The youthful age of Titan overall, and the various erosional states of its likely impact craters, demonstrate that dynamic processes have destroyed most of the early history of the moon, and that multiple processes continue to strongly modify its surface. The existence of 24 possible impact craters with diameters less than 20 km appears consistent with the Ivanov, Basilevsky and Neukum (1997) model of the effectiveness of Titan’s atmosphere in destroying most but not all small projectiles.