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What viable technologies exist to enable the development of so-called desktop virtual reality (desktop-VR) applications? Specifically, which of these are active and capable of helping us to engineer a collaborative, virtual environment (CVE)? A review of the literature and numerous project websites indicates an array of both overlapping and disparate approaches to this problem. In this paper, we review and perform a risk assessment of 16 prominent desktop-VR technologies (some building-blocks, some entire platforms) in an effort to determine the most efficacious tool or tools for constructing a CVE

10Introduction of irrigated agriculture changes the partitioning of the surface energy flux between 11 sensible and latent heat (H v LE), and alters the albedo () and emissivity (). In the absence of 12 changes in the radiation components of the surface energy balance, the change in the Bowen 13 ratio due to irrigation typically suppresses the local air temperature (T), but increases the total 14 near-surface atmospheric heat content (as measured using equivalent potential temperature (θe)). 15While the effect of irrigation on surface energy partitioning due to enhanced surface and sub-16 surface water availability has long been acknowledged, the roles of associated changes in  and  17 have received less attention, and the scales and magnitudes of these effects remain uncertain. A 18 new methodology designed for application to in situ and remote sensing data is presented and 19 used to demonstrate that the net impact of irrigation on T and θe is strongly dependent on the 20 regional climate, land cover in surrounding areas, and the amount of irrigation in the upwind 21 fetch. Our results suggest the impact of the radiative forcing terms on net available energy is not 22 negligible, and may amplify or offset the impact from changed energy partitioning on T and θe 23 Manuscript (non-LaTeX) Click here to download Manuscript (non-LaTeX) JAMC_D_15_0291revised.docx 2 depending on the specific regional climate and land cover. 24

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Microbolometer thermal cameras in UAVs and manned aircraft allow for the acquisition of highresolution temperature data, which, along with optical reflectance, contributes to monitoring and modeling of agricultural and natural environments. Furthermore, these temperature measurements have facilitated the development of advanced models of crop water stress and evapotranspiration in precision agriculture and heat fluxes exchanges in small river streams and corridors. Microbolometer cameras capture thermal information at blackbody or radiometric settings (narrowband emissivity equates to unity). While it is customary that the modeler uses assumed emissivity values (e.g. 0.99-0.96 for agricultural and environmental settings); some applications (e.g. Vegetation Health Index), and complex models such as energy balance-based models (e.g. evapotranspiration) could benefit from spatial estimates of surface emissivity for true or kinetic temperature mapping. In that regard, this work presents an analysis of the spectral characteristics of a microbolometer camera with regard to emissivity, along with a methodology to infer thermal emissivity spatially based on the spectral 1 *