Abstract: In this study, an automated building and tree detection
method is proposed using DSM data and true orthophoto image. A
multiscale matched filtering is used on DSM data. Therefore, first
watershed transform is applied. Then, Otsu’s thresholding method
is used as an adaptive threshold to segment each watershed region.
Detected objects are masked with NDVI to separate buildings and
trees. The proposed method is able to detect buildings and trees
without entering any elevation threshold. We tested our method on
ISPRS semantic labeling dataset and obtained promising results.
Abstract: Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES) is a university with a vision of conservation. The impact of the UNNES conservation is the existence of a positive response from the community for the effort of greening the campus and the planting of conservation value in the academic community. But in reality, energy consumption in UNNES campus tends to increase. The objectives of the study were to analyze the energy consumption in the campus area, to analyze the absorption of emissions by trees and the awareness of UNNES citizens in reducing emissions. Research focuses on energy consumption, carbon emissions, and awareness of citizens in reducing emissions. Research subjects in this study are UNNES citizens (lecturers, students and employees). The research area covers 6 faculties and one administrative center building. Data collection is done by observation, interview and documentation. The research used a quantitative descriptive method to analyze the data. The number of trees in UNNES is 10,264. Total emission on campus UNNES is 7.862.281.56 kg/year, the tree absorption is 6,289,250.38 kg/year. In UNNES campus area there are still 1,575,031.18 kg/year of emissions, not yet absorbed by trees. There are only two areas of the faculty whose trees are capable of absorbing emissions. The awareness of UNNES citizens in reducing energy consumption is seen in change the habit of: using energy-saving equipment (65%); reduce energy consumption per unit (68%); do energy literacy for UNNES citizens (74%). UNNES leaders always provide motivation to the citizens of UNNES, to reduce and change patterns of energy consumption.
Abstract: The agricultural sector is becoming more critical than ever in view of the expected overpopulation of the Earth. The introduction of robotic solutions in this field is an increasingly researched topic to make the most of the Earth's resources, thus going to avoid the problems of wear and tear of the human body due to the harsh agricultural work, and open the possibility of a constant careful processing 24 hours a day. This project is realized for a terrestrial autonomous robot aimed to navigate in an orchard collecting fallen peaches below the trees. When it receives the signal indicating the low battery, it has to return to the docking station where it will replace its battery and then return to the last work point and resume its routine. Considering a preset path in orchards with tree rows with variable length by which the robot goes iteratively using the algorithm D*. In case of low battery, the D* algorithm is still used to determine the fastest return path to the docking station as well as to come back from the docking station to the last work point. MATLAB simulations were performed to analyze the flexibility and adaptability of the developed algorithm. The simulation results show an enormous potential for adaptability, particularly in view of the irregularity of orchard field, since it is not flat and undergoes modifications over time from fallen branch as well as from other obstacles and constraints. The D* algorithm determines the best route in spite of the irregularity of the terrain. Moreover, in this work, it will be shown a possible solution to improve the initial points tracking and reduce time between movements.
Abstract: Heritage trees are natural large, individual trees with exceptionally value due to association with age or event or distinguished people. In Malaysia, there is an abundance of tropical heritage trees throughout the country. It is essential to set up a repository of heritage trees to prevent valuable trees from being cut down. In this cross domain study, a web-based online expert system namely the Heritage Tree Expert Assessment and Classification (HTEAC) is developed and deployed for public to nominate potential heritage trees. Based on the nomination, tree care experts or arborists would evaluate and verify the nominated trees as heritage trees. The expert system automatically rates the approved heritage trees according to pre-defined grades via Delphi technique. Features and usability test of the expert system are presented. Preliminary result is promising for the system to be used as a full scale public system.
Abstract: In case of abnormal situations, the nuclear power plant (NPP) operators must follow written procedures to check the condition of the plant and to classify the type of emergency. In this paper, we proposed a Real Time Expert System in order to improve operator’s performance in case of transient or accident with reactor shutdown. The expert system’s knowledge is based on the sequence of events (SoE) of known accident and two emergency procedures of the Brazilian Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) NPP and uses two kinds of knowledge representation: rule and logic trees. The results show that the system was able to classify the response of the automatic protection systems, as well as to evaluate the conditions of the plant, diagnosing the type of occurrence, recovery procedure to be followed, indicating the shutdown root cause, and classifying the emergency level.
Abstract: Brain information transmission in the neuronal network occurs in the form of electrical signals. Neural work transmits information between the neurons or neurons and target cells by moving charged particles in a voltage field; a fraction of the energy utilized in this process is dissipated via entropy generation. Exergy loss and entropy generation models demonstrate the inefficiencies of the communication along the dendritic trees. In this study, neurons of 4 different animals were analyzed with one dimensional cable model with N=6 identical dendritic trees and M=3 order of symmetrical branching. Each branch symmetrically bifurcates in accordance with the 3/2 power law in an infinitely long cylinder with the usual core conductor assumptions, where membrane potential is conserved in the core conductor at all branching points. In the model, exergy loss and entropy generation rates are calculated for each branch of equivalent cylinders of electrotonic length (L) ranging from 0.1 to 1.5 for four different dendritic branches, input branch (BI), and sister branch (BS) and two cousin branches (BC-1 & BC-2). Thermodynamic analysis with the data coming from two different cat motoneuron studies show that in both experiments nearly the same amount of exergy is lost while generating nearly the same amount of entropy. Guinea pig vagal motoneuron loses twofold more exergy compared to the cat models and the squid exergy loss and entropy generation were nearly tenfold compared to the guinea pig vagal motoneuron model. Thermodynamic analysis show that the dissipated energy in the dendritic tress is directly proportional with the electrotonic length, exergy loss and entropy generation. Entropy generation and exergy loss show variability not only between the vertebrate and invertebrates but also within the same class. Concurrently, single action potential Na+ ion load, metabolic energy utilization and its thermodynamic aspect contributed for squid giant axon and mammalian motoneuron model. Energy demand is supplied to the neurons in the form of Adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Exergy destruction and entropy generation upon ATP hydrolysis are calculated. ATP utilization, exergy destruction and entropy generation showed differences in each model depending on the variations in the ion transport along the channels.
Abstract: The liquefaction process of cork based tree barks has led to an increase of interest due to its potential innovation in the lumber and wood industries. In this particular study the bark of Quercus cerris (Turkish oak) is used due to its appreciable amount of cork tissue, although of inferior quality when compared to the cork provided by other Quercus trees. This study aims to optimize alkaline catalysis liquefaction conditions, regarding several parameters. To better comprehend the possible chemical characteristics of the bark of Quercus cerris, a complete chemical analysis was performed. The liquefaction process was performed in a double-jacket reactor heated with oil, using glycerol and a mixture of glycerol/ethylene glycol as solvents, potassium hydroxide as a catalyst, and varying the temperature, liquefaction time and granulometry. Due to low liquefaction efficiency resulting from the first experimental procedures a study was made regarding different washing techniques after the filtration process using methanol and methanol/water. The chemical analysis stated that the bark of Quercus cerris is mostly composed by suberin (ca. 30%) and lignin (ca. 24%) as well as insolvent hemicelluloses in hot water (ca. 23%). On the liquefaction stage, the results that led to higher yields were: using a mixture of methanol/ethylene glycol as reagents and a time and temperature of 120 minutes and 200 ºC, respectively. It is concluded that using a granulometry of
Abstract: In Pakistan, major demands of fuel wood and timber wood are fulfilled by agroforestry. However, the information regarding economic significance of agroforestry and its productivity in Pakistan is still insufficient and unreliable. Survey of field conditions to examine the agroforestry status at local level helps us to know the future trends and to formulate the policies for sustainable wood supply. The objectives of this research were to examine the actual status and potential of agroforestry and to point out the barriers that are faced by farmers in the adoption of agroforestry. Research was carried out in Chiniot district, Pakistan because it is the famous city for furniture industry that is largely dependent on farm trees. A detailed survey of district Chiniot was carried out from 150 randomly selected farmer respondents using multi-objective oriented and pre-tested questionnaire. It was found that linear tree planting method was more adopted (45%) as compared to linear + interplanting (42%) and/or compact planting (12.6%). Chi-square values at P-value
Abstract: Study of the effects of climate change on Norway
Spruce (Picea abies) forests has mainly focused on the diversity of
tree species diversity of tree species as a result of the ability of
species to tolerate temperature and moisture changes as well as some
effects of disturbance regime changes. The tree species’ diversity
changes in spruce forests due to climate change have been analyzed
via gap model. Forest gap model is a dynamic model for calculation
basic characteristics of individual forest trees. Input ecological data
for model calculations have been taken from the permanent research
plots located in primeval forests in mountainous regions in Slovakia.
The results of regional scenarios of the climatic change for the
territory of Slovakia have been used, from which the values are
according to the CGCM3.1 (global) model, KNMI and MPI
(regional) models. Model results for conditions of the climate change
scenarios suggest a shift of the upper forest limit to the region of the
present subalpine zone, in supramontane zone. N. spruce
representation will decrease at the expense of beech and precious
broadleaved species (Acer sp., Sorbus sp., Fraxinus sp.). The most
significant tree species diversity changes have been identified for the
upper tree line and current belt of dwarf pine (Pinus mugo)
occurrence. The results have been also discussed in relation to most
important disturbances (wind storms, snow and ice storms) and
phenological changes which consequences are little known. Special
discussion is focused on biomass production changes in relation to
carbon storage diversity in different carbon pools.
Abstract: Cancer affects people globally with breast cancer being a leading killer. Breast cancer is due to the uncontrollable multiplication of cells resulting in a tumour or neoplasm. Tumours are called ‘benign’ when cancerous cells do not ravage other body tissues and ‘malignant’ if they do so. As mammography is an effective breast cancer detection tool at an early stage which is the most treatable stage it is the primary imaging modality for screening and diagnosis of this cancer type. This paper presents an automatic mammogram classification technique using wavelet and Gabor filter. Correlation feature selection is used to reduce the feature set and selected features are classified using different decision trees.
Abstract: Most of the oil palm plantations have been threatened
by Basal Stem Rot (BSR) disease which causes serious economic
impact. This study was conducted to identify the healthy and BSRinfected
oil palm tree using thirteen color indices. Multispectral and
thermal camera was used to capture 216 images of the leaves taken
from frond number 1, 9 and 17. Indices of normalized difference
vegetation index (NDVI), red (R), green (G), blue (B), near infrared
(NIR), green – blue (GB), green/blue (G/B), green – red (GR),
green/red (G/R), hue (H), saturation (S), intensity (I) and thermal
index (T) were used. From this study, it can be concluded that G
index taken from frond number 9 is the best index to differentiate
between the healthy and BSR-infected oil palm trees. It not only gave
high value of correlation coefficient (R=-0.962), but also high value
of separation between healthy and BSR-infected oil palm tree.
Furthermore, power and S model developed using G index gave the
highest R2 value which is 0.985.
Abstract: This paper presents general results on the Java source
code snippet detection problem. We propose the tool which uses
graph and subgraph isomorphism detection. A number of solutions
for all of these tasks have been proposed in the literature. However,
although that all these solutions are really fast, they compare just the
constant static trees. Our solution offers to enter an input sample
dynamically with the Scripthon language while preserving an
acceptable speed. We used several optimizations to achieve very low
number of comparisons during the matching algorithm.
Abstract: A brief review of the empirical studies on the methodology of the stock market decision support would indicate that they are at a threshold of validating the accuracy of the traditional and the fuzzy, artificial neural network and the decision trees. Many researchers have been attempting to compare these models using various data sets worldwide. However, the research community is on the way to the conclusive confidence in the emerged models. This paper attempts to use the automotive sector stock prices from National Stock Exchange (NSE), India and analyze them for the intra-sectorial support for stock market decisions. The study identifies the significant variables and their lags which affect the price of the stocks using OLS analysis and decision tree classifiers.
Abstract: The main purpose of this research was to study how to
communicate the identity of the Mueang district, SamutSongkram
province for ecotourism. The qualitative data was collected through
studying related materials, exploring the area, in-depth interviews
with three groups of people: three directly responsible officers who
were key informants of the district, twenty foreign tourists and five
Thai tourist guides. A content analysis was used to analyze the
qualitative data. The two main findings of the study were as follows:
1. The identity of Amphur (District) Mueang, SamutSongkram
province. This establishment was near the Mouth of Maekong
River for normal people and tourists, consisting of rest
accommodations. There are restaurants where food and drinks
are served, rich mangrove forests, Hoy Lod (Razor Clam) and
mangrove trees. Don Hoy Lod, is characterized by muddy
beaches, is a coastal wetland for Ramsar Site. It is at 1099th
ranging where the greatest number of Hoy Lod (Razor Clam)
can be seen from March to May each year.
2. The communication of the identity of AmphurMueang,
SamutSongkram province which the researcher could find and
design to present in English materials can be summed up in 4
items: 1) The history of AmphurMueang, SamutSongkram
province 2) WatPhetSamutWorrawihan 3) The Learning source
of Ecotourism: Don Hoy Lod and Mangrove forest 4) How to
keep AmphurMueang, SamutSongkram province for
ecotourism.
Abstract: Most known methods for measuring the structural similarity of document structures are based on, e.g., tag measures, path metrics and tree measures in terms of their DOM-Trees. Other methods measures the similarity in the framework of the well known vector space model. In contrast to these we present a new approach to measuring the structural similarity of web-based documents represented by so called generalized trees which are more general than DOM-Trees which represent only directed rooted trees.We will design a new similarity measure for graphs representing web-based hypertext structures. Our similarity measure is mainly based on a novel representation of a graph as strings of linear integers, whose components represent structural properties of the graph. The similarity of two graphs is then defined as the optimal alignment of the underlying property strings. In this paper we apply the well known technique of sequence alignments to solve a novel and challenging problem: Measuring the structural similarity of generalized trees. More precisely, we first transform our graphs considered as high dimensional objects in linear structures. Then we derive similarity values from the alignments of the property strings in order to measure the structural similarity of generalized trees. Hence, we transform a graph similarity problem to a string similarity problem. We demonstrate that our similarity measure captures important structural information by applying it to two different test sets consisting of graphs representing web-based documents.
Abstract: Due to the tremendous amount of information provided
by the World Wide Web (WWW) developing methods for mining
the structure of web-based documents is of considerable interest. In
this paper we present a similarity measure for graphs representing
web-based hypertext structures. Our similarity measure is mainly
based on a novel representation of a graph as linear integer strings,
whose components represent structural properties of the graph. The
similarity of two graphs is then defined as the optimal alignment of
the underlying property strings. In this paper we apply the well known
technique of sequence alignments for solving a novel and challenging
problem: Measuring the structural similarity of generalized trees.
In other words: We first transform our graphs considered as high
dimensional objects in linear structures. Then we derive similarity
values from the alignments of the property strings in order to
measure the structural similarity of generalized trees. Hence, we
transform a graph similarity problem to a string similarity problem for
developing a efficient graph similarity measure. We demonstrate that
our similarity measure captures important structural information by
applying it to two different test sets consisting of graphs representing
web-based document structures.
Abstract: The evolutionary tree is an important topic in bioinformation. In 2006, Chen and Lindsay proposed a new method to build the mixture tree from DNA sequences. Mixture tree is a new type evolutionary tree, and it has two additional information besides the information of ordinary evolutionary tree. One of the information is time parameter, and the other is the set of mutated sites. In 2008, Lin and Juan proposed an algorithm to compute the distance between two mixture trees. Their algorithm computes the distance with only considering the time parameter between two mixture trees. In this paper, we proposes a method to measure the similarity of two mixture trees with considering the set of mutated sites and develops two algorithm to compute the distance between two mixture trees. The time complexity of these two proposed algorithms are O(n2 × max{h(T1), h(T2)}) and O(n2), respectively
Abstract: This study was conducted to determine effect of water stress on chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence parameter in young `Dezful- olive trees. Three irrigation regimes (40% ETcrop, 65% ETcrop and 100% ETcrop) were used. After irrigation treatments were applied, some of biochemical parameters including chlorophyll a, b, total chlorophyll, chlorophyll fluorescence and also chlorophyll content index (C.C.I) were measured. Results of Analysis of variance showed that irrigation treatments had significant effect on chlorophylla, total chlorophyll (chl a+b), C.C.I and Fv/Fm ratio. The amount of decreased chlorophyll a and total chlorophyll in plants were received 40% ETcrop were 51.55% and 46.86%, respectively, compared with 100% ETcrop.
Abstract: We present a visualization technique for radial drawing of trees consisting of two slightly different algorithms. Both of them make use of node-link diagrams for visual encoding. This visualization creates clear drawings without edge crossing. One of the algorithms is suitable for real-time visualization of large trees, as it requires minimal recalculation of the layout if leaves are inserted or removed from the tree; while the other algorithm makes better utilization of the drawing space. The algorithms are very similar and follow almost the same procedure but with different parameters. Both algorithms assign angular coordinates for all nodes which are then converted into 2D Cartesian coordinates for visualization. We present both algorithms and discuss how they compare to each other.
Abstract: Tehran, one of the heavily-populated capitals, is
severely suffering from increasing air pollution. To show a
documented trend of such pollutants during last years, plane tree
species (Platanus orientalis) were suited to be studied as indicators,
for the species have been planted throughout the city many years
ago. Two areas (Saadatabad and Narmak districts) allotting different
contents of crowed and highly-traffic routs but the same ecological
characteristics were selected. Twelve sample individuals were cored
twice perpendicularly in each area. Tree-rings of each core were
measured by a binocular microscope and separated annually for the
last 25 years. Two heavy metals including Cd and Pb accompanied
by a mineral element (Ca) were analyzed using Hatch method. Treerings
analysis of the two areas showed different groups in term of
physiologically ability as the growths were plunged during the last
10 years in Saadatabad district and showed a slight decrease in the
same period for another studying area. In direct contrast to
decreasing growth trend in Saadatabad, all three mentioned elements
increased sharply during last 25 years in the same area. When it came
to Narmak district, the trend was completely different with
Saadatabad. There were some fluctuations in absorbing trace
elements like tree-rings widths were, yet calcium showed an upward
trend all the last 25 years. The results of the study proved the
possibility of using tree species of each region to monitor its air
pollution trends of the past, hence to depict a pollution assessment of
a populated city for last years and then to make appropriate decisions
for the future as it is well-known what the trend is. On the other
hand, risen values of calcium (as the stress-indicator element)
accompanied by increased trace elements suggests non-sustainable
state of the trees.