Supervised classification of electric power transmission line nominal voltage from high-resolution aerial imagery

For many researchers, government agencies, and emergency responders, access to the geospatial data of US electric power infrastructure is invaluable for analysis, planning, and disaster recovery. Historically, however, access to high quality geospatial energy data has been limited to few agencies because of commercial licenses restrictions, and those resources which are widely accessible have been of poor quality, particularly with respect to reliability. Recent efforts to develop a highly reliable and publicly accessible alternative to the existing datasets were met with numerous challenges – not the least of which was filling the gaps in power transmission line voltage ratings. To address the line voltage rating problem, we developed and tested a basic methodology that fuses knowledge and techniques from power systems, geography, and machine learning domains. Specifically, we identified predictors of nominal voltage that could be extracted from aerial imagery and developed a tree-based classifier to classify nominal line voltage ratings. Overall, we found that line support height, support span, and conductor spacing are the best predictors of voltage ratings, and that the classifier built with these predictors had a reliable predictive accuracy (that is, within one voltage class for four out of the five classes sampled). We applied our approach to a study area in Minnesota.     

High-frequency climate oscillations drive ice-off variability for Northern Hemisphere lakes and rivers

Climatic Change - This study examines the climatic drivers of ice-off dates for lakes and rivers across the Northern Hemisphere. Most lakes and rivers have trended toward earlier ice-off dates over...     

Cosmic strings and strings in gravitational waves

We consider strings with the Nambu action as extremal surfaces in a given space-time, thus, we ignore their back reaction. Especially, we look for strings sharing one symmetry with the underlying space-time. If this is a non-null symmetry the problem of determining ihc motion of the string can be dimensionally reduced. We get exact solutions for the following cases: straight and circle-like strings in a Friedmann background, straight strings in an anisotropic Kasner background, different types of strings in the metric of a gravitational wave. The solutions will be discussed. Wir betrachten Strings mit der Nambu-Wirkung als Extremalflächen in einer gegebenen Raum-Zeit, d. h., wir ignorieren ihre Rückwirkung. Wir interessieren uns dabei besonders für solche Strings, die eine Isometrie mit der unterliegenden Raum-Zeit gemeinsam haben. Handelt es sich dabei um eine nicht-lichtartige Symmetrie, so läß Bt sich das Problem der Bestimmung der Stringbewegung dimensionsreduzieren. Wir erhalten exakte Lösungen für die folgenden Fälle: gerade und kreisrunde Strings im Friedmann-Hintergrund, gerade Strings im anisotropen Kasner-Hintergrund sowie verschiedene Stringtypen in der Metrik einer Gravitationswelle. Die Lösungen werden diskutiert.     

Density profiles and luminosity functions of the globular clusters M3 and M92

Tautenburg Schmidt plates with the globular clusters M3 and M92 were measured on the APM facility in Cambridge, mainly for astrometric purposes. The data were used to derive the radial density profiles and the luminosity functions of these clusters. There is a good agreement of our results with formerly ones derived by other authors. In both clusters effects of mass segregation are observed.     

A Long Way to Go: Collective Paths to Racial Justice in Geography

Despite decades of recognition and worry about diversity, our discipline remains persistently white. That is, it is dominated by white bodies and it continues to conform to norms, practices, and ideologies of whiteness. This is a loss. At best, it limits the possibilities and impact of our work as geographers. At worst, it perpetuates harmful exclusions in our discipline: its working environments, its institutions, and its knowledge production. This remains deeply concerning for many geographers, and there has been important research, commentary, and institutional activity over the years. Yet, research shows us that little meaningful progress has been made. We know that mentoring is one vital part of the journey toward change. As such, we reflect here on our experience developing a research collective built on a transformative mentoring practice. We outline the key challenges, strategies, and tentative successes of the collective in supporting women of color undergraduate, graduate, and faculty geographers, arguing that such feminist formations are a vital part of the path to intellectual racial justice in our field. Key Words: diversity, feminist geography, higher education, mentoring, race.