Nohemi C. A. Voglozin, PhD
HUNGER FIGHTER
Food security and rural development expert with an extensive international field experience and GIS acumen
LATEST PROJECTS
Project |01
Project |01
Ecogeographic patterns of genetic diversity of African rice, Oryza glaberrima, in Benin (West Africa)
Genetic erosion is a phenomenon that is currently of concern because of the loss of biodiversity, especially from crop populations in centers of origin and diversity due to a narrowing of the genetic base caused by various factors. The rate of erosion depends on the crop, the region, and the specific environment and cropping conditions. There is now a need for new gene sources and reinstatement of genetic diversity. Studies on the genetic diversity available, especially in traditional agricultural ecosystems are therefore needed.
The genus Oryza contains 22 species: two are cultivated, Asian rice (Oryza sativa) and African rice (Oryza glaberrima) and 20 are wild. In West Africa, which is considered the center of origin of Oryza glaberrima, the two cultivated species are often grown alongside one another on farmers’ fields. Yet, few investigations have been undertaken to study African rice landraces (traditional varieties) in West Africa, and the impact of the introduction of new varieties on their diversity.
The main goal of this project was to explore the spatial distribution of Oryza glaberrima and its landraces managed at the farmer’s level in different geographical regions and help supply a basis for further investigations for the management of Oryza glaberrima landraces in Benin, West Africa. Various methodologies were utilized and focused on three modes of inquiry: the collection of socio-economic data using 150 ethnographic surveys; molecular analysis of 253 rice accessions collected in the field from farmers using 12 fluorescent labeled microsatellites organized in 3 panels; and the utilization of Geographic Information Systems to integrate physical and socio-economic conditions to identify the areas of unique and high diversity. The results show that 1) landraces and modern cultivars are grown in conjunction on farmers’ fields, 2) peak genetic diversity occurs in areas with intermediate environmental variables, and 3) a systematic rather than opportunistic targeting of populations and areas for both ex situ and in situ conservation can be elaborated.
These results can be used as part of a national program to complement the rice germplasm collection and the genetic analysis ongoing in Benin, to effectively target the area of greatest diversity, and to identify the most effective strategy for the conservation of this diversity.
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Youtube Channel: http://tinyurl.com/youtube-NohemiVoglozin or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9QfO-hvQBciXFdzgawlTHA
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YouTube link: https://youtu.be/VqITs9nZQRY or http://tinyurl.com/PhD-video
This research was made possible by the support of fellowships for which I'm very grateful.
* The Norman E. Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Program (LEAP) Fellowship (UC Davis, USA)
* The Vavilov-Frankel Fellowship (Bioversity International)
Project |02
Project |02
Influence of different agroforestry practices on the diversity of bat assemblages in Lama forest reserve (Southern Benin, West Africa).
The book "Diversité et Conservation de la petite faune mammalienne au Bénin: Cas d'Étude des chauves-souris et des mangoustes dans les habitats de la Forêt ... Bénin (Afrique de l'Ouest) (French Edition)" can be purchased at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/6131565406/sr=1-1/qid=1430971659/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1430971659&sr=1-1 or http://tinyurl.com/Nohemi-V-Bats-Book​
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The Lama Forest Reserve (LFR), located in the south of Benin, inside the provinces of Atlantique and Zou, was established on 16 250 ha from which, 4 777 ha consist of mosaic-forest called "Noyau Central" (NC). This "Noyau Central", one of the last remnants of the dense forest in the south of Benin, is very important in the preservation of forest biodiversity.
To contribute to the constitution of data banks on biodiversity of bats, which bats play an important role in pollination and seeds dispersion, in LFR, researches on Chiroptera in different ecosystems were undertaken.
Cluster and Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) were used to determine factors that could discriminate bats preference to vegetation type, while the ANOVA was used to test significance of the relationship between bats occurrences and vegetation types with respect to bats species abundance. Statistical tests were also used to determine if differences between males and females could be attributed to the length of the forearm or the live weight.
The new species of Chiroptera caught the first time in Benin as a result of these studies were Epomorphorus labiatus Temminck (1837) and Megaloglossus woermanni Pagenstecker (1885).
The following plant species were found as food-stuffs for Megachiroptera : Musa sp. (Musaceae), Psidium guayava (Myrtaceae), Ficus spp. (Moraceae), Borassus aethiopum (Arecaceae), Mangifera indica (Anacardiaceae) and Carica papaya (Caricaceae).
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YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsSRqHBQqjE or http://tinyurl.com/bats-video
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This research was made possible by the support of fellowships for which I'm very grateful.
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* British Ecological Society (BES, Overseas Bursaries and Fellowships) (UK)
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* The International Foundation for Science (IFS) Fellowship (Sweden)
Project |03
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Project | 03 - Class Projects
α. Touristic Map of BENIN - (Data Visualization and Presentation)
To open it and view the project full screen, and try it yourself, please go to:
http://bl.ocks.org/nohevog1/raw/d978718d7bb6f7479dbe7a00c2db1eaf/
The data is available in repository: https://github.com/nohevog1/Classes and https://github.com/umbcvis/projects/tree/master/nohevog1/data
More details on project: https://github.com/nohevog1/Final_Project2/blob/master/README.md
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The project was realized for a class of Advanced Visualization and Presentation, with an objective to create geospatial data driven Web apps with modern technologies and open source software, including HTML5, JavaScript, and D3. Topics included advanced cartographic techniques, 3D, dynamic data update, and temporal modeling.
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The project is a touristic map of BENIN. The map is an overlay of 9 different layers. The map shows national parks, cynegetic zones, the 12 departments of the country, but also some data about my doctoral research such as the communes or subdivisions in the North and the South of the country as well as the different villages in which I conducted my doctoral field research. The map allows the user to add or remove some layers, and when the user hover on the villages, the names are displayed as an info, and on the other layers, pictures representing a particularity of the region is shown along with the name of the feature. or
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The code of the project is available at: https://gist.github.com/nohevog1/7e9f3a0a170cd644cbd020f94ba9aa39.
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Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu1rDKU1HC8 or http://tinyurl.com/d3-JavaScript-Benin
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Note: The video was not part of the project. It was made afterwards to showcase the results of the individual project, on YouTube, on my website and on other media outlets.
β. Find points of interests BENIN and define a buffer - (GIS Application Development)
The project objective was to use Java to develop a desktop GIS application. When the map first loads, it shows a transparent rendering of a map of Benin, and a unique rendering for the villages in the North and in the South of the country in which I conducted my doctoral research. This map was achieved in a previous project.
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This application has an overview map, a legend, a scale bar and a tool bar.
The tool bar has one file chooser button, when you click on it, it pops up a file chooser dialog that gives you only one option: to display files of type .shp, meaning shapefiles only.
The tool bar has also zoom in, zoom out and full extent buttons. When you click on each button, the map will zoom in or out by factor 2 or zoom to full extent.
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The toolbar has a toggle button (in my case the "Load Tiled Map" button). When you click on it, the map created in ArcGIS Online loads as the base map, and a message pops up letting you know that your action has been successful, and providing you as well with the "well known id: wkid" of the layer. Click on it again, it toggles to an ArcGIS Service Layer the base map, an ArcGIS Local Tiled Layer or to the layer from the GIS server that was previously created. These base maps will be loading in a loop, which means that you'll always have the choice among only these four base maps.
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The application also has two input boxes to allow the user to type in two addresses or location in the base map area. It has another input box for the buffer distance in miles. I chose for aesthetic reasons to put these three boxes on a second toolbar located at the bottom of the map.
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The application has a "Find Start Point" button, a "Find End Point" button that pinpoint with a marker the two addresses or location entered by the user in the corresponding boxes. It then creates a buffer,after clicking on the "Execute buffer and clip" button, around a line drawn resulting from the two locations entries made by the user and a user defined buffer distance.
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The geoprocess then uses the buffered area to clip the counties. The clipped features are displayed on the map, and the counties names, in ascending order, as well as the sates in which they are located are listed on a text area on the application.
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The baseline assignment was the same for all students, but creative elements were left to our discretion. For example, the layout of the application was my own design; for the toggle basemaps, the assignment required only the ArcGIS server basemap and the online basemap; only the list of counties was asked for, however I provided the counties names in ascending order as well as the states names, etc...
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Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eA-hPNCxgk or http://tinyurl.com/java-buffer
Note: The video was not part of the project. It was made afterwards to showcase the results of the individual project , on YouTube, on my website and on other media outlets.
γ. Draw features using the tools of your choice and define a buffer - (GIS Application Development)
This video describes how ArcGIS Java Runtime is used to create a geoprocess application.
In this application, the user can manipulate the mouse to click on the map and draw a polygon using a default tool and 4 different other tools that are available in the toolbar. The user can also reverse back to the default tool by clicking a button located on the same toolbar.
The user can then buffer this polygon using a buffer distance of his/her choice. The buffered area is then used to clip the county layer. The counties names are shown in ascending order on a text area outside of the map, and the clipped features displayed on the map.
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YouTube link: https://youtu.be/dJGxnUjkRAo or http://tinyurl.com/java-polygons
δ. GeoJSON data published as a public map in an Amazon Ubuntu instance (Advanced Spatial Data Management)
This video presents examples of projects where GeoJSON data were published as a public map in an Amazon Ubuntu instance. Specifically, the cases of countries and tweets over the spans of a few days.
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For the countries, the map three (3) countries in Europe (Belarus, Italy and Spain) and three (3) countries in America (Argentina, Brazil and Canada). The European countries are colored in blue and the American ones in red. A popup including both the name and population of the distinct country appears when hovered over it.
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For the tweets map, tweets were made over the span of several days, with the geolocation feature activated. Then, using the twitter API the tweets were gathered, parsed and converted to GeoJSON. A map was created with Leaflet reading the GeoJSON file, and made available in the Amazon Ubuntu instance. When clicked on a location, the content of the tweet as well as the date and time of the tweet is displayed as a popup.
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The map also shows a tweet from another user, that is represented in a different way from the other tweets, showing not only the text of the tweet, but also the picture taken by the user.
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Youtube link: https://youtu.be/u5divxx7qd8 or http://tinyurl.com/Spatial-Data
ε. Remote Sensing and Ecotourism in Benin (WA) (Remote Sensing Systems, Technologies and Applications)
This video presents the use of remote sensing techniques applied to ecotourism and areas of interests in Benin. Techniques such as Mosaicking of red portion and NIR portion of the electromagnetic spectrum of Landsat8 images, Georefencing, Image Enhancement (Low Pass Filter and High Pass Filter) and Supervised Classification are used in the project.
YouTube link: http://youtu.be/K0Wfnb4-K5s or http://tinyurl.com/remote-sensing-app
Just a sample of my work. To see more or discuss possible work >>