Three-dimensional visualization of mission planning and control forthe NPS autonomous underwater vehicle

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is constructing a small autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with an onboard mission control computer. The mission controller software for this vehicle is a knowledge-based artificial intelligence (AI) system requiring thorough analysis and testing before the AUV is operational. The manner in which rapid prototyping of this software has been demonstrated by developing a controller code on a LISP machine and using an Ethernet link with a graphics workstation to simulate the controller's environment is discussed. The development of a testing simulator using a knowledge engineering environment (KEE) expert system shell that examines AUV controller subsystems and vehicle models before integrating them with the full AUV for its test environment missions is discussed. This AUV simulator utilizes an interactive mission planning control console and is fully autonomous once initial parameters are selected     

Meanders in the Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone and their impact on phytoplankton

The Antarctic Polar Front is a complex set of meandering jets, which appear to support enhanced primary productivity. The US Joint Global Ocean Flux Study conducted a series of survey and process studies in part to study the processes regulating primary productivity in this high nutrient, low chlorophyll region. We deployed a set of surface velocity drifters, some of which were equipped with bio-optical sensors, to study the temporal and spatial scales of biological and physical processes in the Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone. There were two primary sets of deployments: November 1997 before the spring bloom and January 1998 after the spring bloom. The November deployment revealed a strong spring bloom that lasted about 10 days. In late spring, when incoming solar radiation began to increase, the vertical motions associated with the meanders strongly affected the accumulation of phytoplankton biomass, primarily through their impact on light availability. Weaker meandering was observed in the January deployment, and chlorophyll values remained relatively constant. As the bloom began to decay, it appears that nutrient availability became more important in regulating phytoplankton photosynthesis. Some of the drifters in the November deployment were deployed in coherent clusters, thus allowing us to calculate vertical velocities associated with the meanders. Estimates of fluorescence/chlorophyll suggest that areas of upwelling and downwelling alternately decrease and increase photosynthetic stress, perhaps as a result of changes in the availability of iron or light during the formation of the bloom.     

基于随机集合的非传统型有效波极值模型

The analysis and design of offshore structures necessitates the consideration of wave loads. Realistic modeling of wave loads is particularly important to ensure reliable performance of these structures. Among the available methods for the modeling of the extreme significant wave height on a statistical basis, the peak over threshold method has attracted most attention. This method employs Poisson process to character- ize time-varying properties in the parameters of an extreme value distribution. In this paper, the peak over threshold method is reviewed and extended to account for subjectivity in the modeling. The freedom in selecting the threshold and the time span to separate extremes from the original time series data is incorpo- rated as imprecision in the model. This leads to an extension from random variables to random sets in the probabilistic model for the extreme significant wave height. The extended model is also applied to different periods of the sampled data to evaluate the significance of the climatic conditions on the uncertainties of the parameters.     

Testing and evaluation of an integrated GPS/INS system for smallAUV navigation

A Small Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Navigation System (SANS) is being developed at the Naval Postgraduate School. The SANS is an integrated Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation System (GPS/INS) navigation system composed of low-cost and small-size components. It is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of using a low-cost strap-down inertial measurement unit (IMU) to navigate between intermittent GPS fixes. The present hardware consists of a GPS/DGPS receiver, IMU, compass, water speed sensor, water depth sensor, and a data processing computer. The software is based on a 12-state complementary filter that combines measurement data from all sensors to derive a vehicle position/orientation estimate. This paper describes hardware and software design and testing results of the SANS. It is shown that results from tilt table testing and bench testing provide an effective means for tuning filter gains. Ground vehicle testing verifies the overall functioning of the SANS and exhibits an encouraging degree of accuracy     

A caveat regarding diatom-inferred nitrogen concentrations in oligotrophic lakes

Atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen (Nr) has enriched oligotrophic lakes with nitrogen (N) in many regions of the world and elicited dramatic changes in diatom community structure. The lakewater concentrations of nitrate that cause these community changes remain unclear, raising interest in the development of diatom-based transfer functions to infer nitrate. We developed a diatom calibration set using surface sediment samples from 46 high-elevation lakes across the Rocky Mountains of the western US, a region spanning an N deposition gradient from very low to moderate levels (<1 to 3.2 kg Nr ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ in wet deposition). Out of the fourteen measured environmental variables for these 46 lakes, ordination analysis identified that nitrate, specific conductance, total phosphorus, and hypolimnetic water temperature were related to diatom distributions. A transfer function was developed for nitrate and applied to a sedimentary diatom profile from Heart Lake in the central Rockies. The model coefficient of determination (bootstrapping validation) of 0.61 suggested potential for diatom-inferred reconstructions of lakewater nitrate concentrations over time, but a comparison of observed versus diatom-inferred nitrate values revealed the poor performance of this model at low nitrate concentrations. Resource physiology experiments revealed that nitrogen requirements of two key taxa were opposite to nitrate optima defined in the transfer function. Our data set reveals two underlying ecological constraints that impede the development of nitrate transfer functions in oligotrophic lakes: (1) even in lakes with nitrate concentrations below quantification (<1 μg L⁻¹), diatom assemblages were already dominated by species indicative of moderate N enrichment; (2) N-limited oligotrophic lakes switch to P limitation after receiving only modest inputs of reactive N, shifting the controls on diatom species changes along the length of the nitrate gradient. These constraints suggest that quantitative inferences of nitrate from diatom assemblages will likely require experimental approaches.     

Laboratory study of deep-water breaking waves

In an attempt to elucidate the mechanics of deep-water wave breaking, a variety of breaking waves, including spilling and plunging waves, of different length scales and geometries was studied. The waves were generated through wave-wave interactions using wave packets with constant-steepness components, constant-amplitude components, and also components following the Pierson-Moskowitz distribution. Wave steepening prior to breaking were found to cause an increase in the high frequency spectral slope of the wave spectrum. The slopes were correlated to the type of breaking and the intensity of the breaking. The energy loss through breaking varied with the spectral characteristics of the wave packet. On the other hand, it was also noted that, irrespective of the wave packet, the losses were from the higher frequency end of the first harmonics.     

Health impact assessment of marine emissions in Pearl River Delta region

Global marine vessels emissions are adversely affecting human health particularly in southeast Asia. But health burdens from both ocean- and river-going vessels in Pearl River Delta (PRD) regions are not quantified. We estimated the potential health impacts using pooled relative risks of mortality and hospital admissions in China, and the model derived concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO₂), particulate matter (PM₁₀), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and ozone (O₃) due to vessels emissions. SO₂ concentrations due to marine emissions in Hong Kong were 13.6 μgm^?3 compared with 0.7 μgm^?3 in PRD regions that were far from the marine vessels. In PRD regions, the estimated annual numbers (per million people) of excess deaths from all natural causes and hospital admissions from cardiorespiratory causes attributable to SO₂, NO₂, O₃ and PM₁₀ combined from marine emissions were 45 and 265 respectively. Marine emission control measures could contribute a large reduction in mortality and hospital admissions in PRD regions especially in Hong Kong.     

Multi-proxy paleolimnological assessment of biogeochemical versus food web controls on the trophic states of two shallow,mesotrophic lakes

The frequency of nuisance algal blooms has been increasing during the last two decades in the shallow, headwater East Pond (Smithfield, Maine, USA). Meanwhile, the hydrologically linked North Pond has not experienced an increase in algal blooms, despite similar morphometry and higher external nutrient loads. Possible explanations for this difference include stronger trophic cascade effects from planktivorous white perch (Morone americana) in East Pond as well as differences in phosphorus (P) release from the sediments of these two lakes. We conducted a paleolimnological investigation of these two lakes to assess whether sedimentary evidence supported trophic cascade effects based on cladoceran ephippia size, diatom fossils, and fossil pigments or biogeochemical controls based on potential sedimentary P release as the primary driver of these increased algal blooms in East Pond. At the time of white perch introduction (~1930–1950), ephippia size increases in East Pond, although no changes are observed in either diatom abundance or trends in the algal pigments. Instead, algal pigments increase in recent decades (~1980 to present) along with an increase in diatom taxa with higher TP optima These results suggest that predation by white perch is not resulting in top-down effects on algal abundance in East Pond, as predicted by the trophic cascade hypothesis. While the P content of sediments from both lakes is relatively equal, the releasable P in the top 10 cm of sediment in East Pond constitutes a greater percentage of the P extracted. Also, North Pond sediments exhibit a greater capacity to permanently bury P via the mechanisms of sorption to Al(OH)_3(s) and a slower mineralization of organic P compounds. The results of this investigation suggest that the ultimate driver of the recent algal blooms in East Pond is internal P release from the sediments instead of trophic cascade effects.     

Influence of basin-scale and mesoscale physical processes on biological productivity in the Bay of Bengal during the summer monsoon

Physical forcing plays a major role in determining biological processes in the ocean across the full spectrum of spatial and temporal scales. Variability of biological production in the Bay of Bengal (BoB) based on basin-scale and mesoscale physical processes is presented using hydrographic data collected during the peak summer monsoon in July–August, 2003. Three different and spatially varying physical processes were identified in the upper 300 m: (I) anticyclonic warm gyre offshore in the southern Bay; (II) a cyclonic eddy in the northern Bay; and (III) an upwelling region adjacent to the southern coast. In the warm gyre (>28.8 °C), the low salinity (33.5) surface waters contained low concentrations of nutrients. These warm surface waters extended below the euphotic zone, which resulted in an oligotrophic environment with low surface chlorophyll a (0.12 mg m⁻³), low surface primary production (2.55 mg C m⁻³ day⁻¹) and low zooplankton biovolume (0.14 ml m⁻³). In the cyclonic eddy, the elevated isopycnals raised the nutricline upto the surface (NO₃–N > 8.2 μM, PO₄–P > 0.8 μM, SiO₄–Si > 3.5 μM). Despite the system being highly eutrophic, response in the biological activity was low. In the upwelling zone, although the nutrient concentrations were lower compared to the cyclonic eddy, the surface phytoplankton biomass and production were high (Chl a – 0.25 mg m⁻³, PP – 9.23 mg C m⁻³ day⁻¹), and mesozooplankton biovolume (1.12 ml m⁻³) was rich. Normally in oligotrophic, open ocean ecosystems, primary production is based on ‘regenerated’ nutrients, but during episodic events like eddies the ‘production’ switches over to ‘new production’. The switching over from ‘regenerated production’ to ‘new production’ in the open ocean (cyclonic eddy) and establishment of a new phytoplankton community will take longer than in the coastal system (upwelling). Despite the functioning of a cyclonic eddy and upwelling being divergent (transporting of nutrients from deeper waters to surface), the utilization of nutrients leading to enhanced biological production and its transfer to upper trophic levels in the upwelling region imply that the energy transfer from primary production to secondary production (mesozooplankton) is more efficient than in the cyclonic eddy of the open ocean. The results suggest that basin-scale and mesoscale processes influence the abundance and spatial heterogeneity of plankton populations across a wide spatial scale in the BoB. The multifaceted effects of these physical processes on primary productivity thus play a prominent role in structuring of zooplankton communities and could consecutively affect the recruitment of pelagic fisheries.     

The role of hyperparameters in predicting rainfall using n-hidden-layered networks

Natural Hazards - Weather prediction is one of the challenging issues around the world. It is necessary to determine the effective use of water resources and forecasting weather-related disasters....