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We describe the [somewhat tedious] process of digitising from a 1955 report that lists over 1000 vertical deflections in India and some surrounding countries. It involved error-checking with closed-loop tests and resolution of an ambiguity surrounding the meridional vertical deflection at the Kalianpur origin of the datum. We transformed these Kalianpur coordinates to geodetic coordinates on geocentric datum to compute absolute vertical deflections. However, due to many changes to the Everest spheroid due to different feet to metre conversions and readjustments of the Kalianpur datum, we were restricted to using the abridged Molodensky transformation parameters for the 1975 Kalianpur datum and Everest 1956 spheroid based on only seven common points from the WGS84 technical manual. We compared these transformed absolute vertical deflections with EGM2008 and GGMplus (for both models: meridional standard deviation: ∼±2″; prime vertical standard deviation: ∼±3″), showing that the effort of digitisation and scrutiny of historical geodetic data is indeed worthwhile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing environmental crises due to climate change calls for bridging the research and operational logics of spatial planning and humanitarian response. This article explores how long-term spatial planning and short-term humanitarian responses relate to three facets of uncertainty that are particularly relevant in developmental contexts, namely epistemic uncertainty, ontic uncertainty, and ambiguity. The authors explore these facets through a case study of uncertainty, that of unexpected monsoon floods in 2018 and 2019 in Wayanad, a peri-urban hill district in Kerala, India. Through the case, they show that compounded uncertainty leads to ambiguity in action, but that this ambiguity can be ameliorated by a contextualised contingency planning approach. The authors conclude the article by outlining the approach in spatial planning that prioritises flexible and adaptable decision-making to enhance iterative organisational learning and action, as well as cross-sectoral dialogue to deal with uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characterization of ground targets from a remotely sensed Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image is addressed by polarimetric decomposition. The polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) decomposition measures the contribution of total backscatter from different scattering mechanisms using SAR images. The ambiguities present in the retrieval of scattering are the major problems associated with the model-based decomposition which could be reduced with a combination of interferometric coherence and PolSAR backscatter. The objective of this study is to improve the polarimetric decomposition model for identifying the scattering mechanisms based on the Polarimetric SAR Interferometry (PolInSAR) coherence for natural and manmade features. In this paper, we have proposed a model-based polarimetric decomposition using PolInSAR decorrelation. The PolInSAR decorrelation is exploited here to distinguish the time-varying and invariant scatterers present in the ground. The volume scattering power was calculated using the proposed decorrelation parameter which is the combination of PolInSAR coherence and decorrelation. The proposed algorithm has been tested on spaceborne multifrequency SAR datasets consisting of X-band TerraSAR-X and TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement (TanDEM-X), C-band Radarsat-2, and phased array L-band synthetic aperture radar-2 (PALSAR-2) data of advanced land observing satellite-2 (ALOS-2) PolInSAR data for the Dehradun region, India. The results show that there is a remarkable reduction in the ambiguities present in the identification of the scattering mechanism from the SAR image by using the proposed decorrelation-based decomposition model. Moreover, the algorithm is tested on X-band TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X data of the Haridwar area and Rudrapur area, Uttarakhand, India to analyse the potential of the proposed decomposition technique in representing different manmade and natural features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from an interview based household survey of 453 older parent(s) and adult children (sons and daughters-in-law) in the Ahmedabad district, this study utilised the solidarity-conflict-ambivalence models to understand both the perceptions and experience of joint living. Overall, findings reinforce popular imagination of the socially-sanctioned joint family as a site of reassuring continuity with high levels of congruence in reporting relational sentiments. Evidence of intergenerational stake phenomenon was observed in responses of older adults when compared with the mature child. In addition to examining normative ambivalence, I contend that joint family relations embody a concept of 'ambiguity' – an uncertain, somewhat conflictual emotive space that offers members a temporary escape without confronting the contradictions in the objective demands of expected roles. In conclusion, I assert the need to go beyond the western tools of measurement to capture a deeply complex emotive space with its regularities, irrationalities and incoherences in the experience of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]