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The original UFORE code was written using
SAS®
(Statistical Analysis Software) between 1995 and 2000 by Daniel E. Crane,
and others of the USDA Forest Service office (Syracuse, New York). The UFORE model
was created by Dr. David J. Nowak, project leader, Northeastern Research Station,
USDA Forest Service. It was based on his research from the
Chicago
Urban Forest Climate Project, as well as the research of others. The prototype
implemented five different modules:
- Structure
of the urban forest
- Biogenic
emissions (
VOCs from urban forest)
- Carbon (storage
and
sequestration of carbon in the urban forest)
- Deposition (pollutant deposition on leaf surfaces)
- Energy Conservation (due to the presence of urban trees)
Due to the SAS®
interface of the prototype version of UFORE, the development of UFORE for Windows
was begun in 2000 to increase user friendliness of the model. The programming of the
new version was divided into two major components:
- the UFORE implementation (the “model”), written in
Visual C++ by Daniel E. Crane in Syracuse
- the user interface written in Visual BASIC by a team of developers at the
Davey Resource Group in Stow, Ohio.
The model implementation portion is divided into two separate functional units, the
Parameter Estimator and the Statistical Estimator. Each functional unit produces
output that is deposited into an electronic database. The Parameter Estimator
calculates the individual parameters for plots, trees, shrub masses, etc. based on
input from the Field Input Database, and places its output into the Inventory
Database. The Statistical Estimator uses the Inventory Database as its input and
produces statistical estimates for the study area based on the inventory information.
The Statistical Estimator output is stored in another Access database, the Estimation
Database. |
The user interface was written in VB to make the information in the Inventory and
Estimation databases available to the user for display and analysis. Previous
UFORE input data for 9 cities, with varying structure and format, needed to be
converted in order to create a uniform database.
Crystal Reports
was selected for reporting objects within the user interface environment in order
to meet the reporting criteria demanded by UFORE.
In UFORE for Windows, a "Project" consists of three components:
- A number of data files (field input, etc.)
- Saved analyses of those data
- Linkage through location, time, and sampling protocol
This concept of an UFORE Project is distinct from the common usage designating
the work required for data collection.
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