Remote Sensing and Landscape Metrics-Based Forest Physical Degradation: Two-Decades Assessment in Gishwati-Mukura Biological Corridor in Rwanda, East-Central Africa

The management of forest corridors and related ecology is one of the effective strategies to minimize the adverse effects of forest degradation. It controls the connectivity of inhabitant species and the connection of the isolated patches. This study analyzed spatial and temporal forest physical degradation based on forest cover change and forest fragmentation in the Gishwati-Mukura biological corridor from 1990-2019. Remotely sensed datasets, Geographical Information System (GIS) and FRAGSTATS software were used to analyze the spatial and temporal physical degradation and changes in forest cover. The results indicated that the Gishwati-Mukura corridor experienced massive deforestation where approximately 7617.1 ha (64.22%) of forest cover was completely cleared out, which implies an annual forest loss of 262.6 ha·year-1 (2.21%) during 1990-2019. The forest cover transitions patterns and geostatistical analysis indicated that extensive deforestation was associated with intensive agriculture. The results demonstrated that agriculture has dramatically increased from 29.46% in 1990 to 57.22% in 2019, with an annual increase of 1.97%. Since Gishwati-Mukura has changed to National Park (NP), it lacks diversified scientific studies addressing the analysis of the remote and spatial patterns to investigate its physical degradation and landscape dynamics. This research study will serve as remote forest analysis gap-filling and as the cornerstone of numerous other research that will contribute to the improvement of the connectivity assessments along the Gishwati-Mukura corridor and other related ecosystems.

Flexible micro-LED display and its application in Gbps multi-channel visible light communication

A flexible full-color micro-LED display with high mechanical robustness was fabricated by printing quantum dots(QDs)on a blue micro-LED array using standard photolithography.The red and green colors yielded from QDs exhibit a better color gamut than conventional color filters.The light conversion efficiency was enhanced by adding TiO2 nanoparticles to the QD-photoresist composite.This full-color micro-LED display was successfully mounted on various unusual substrates such as curved glass,fabrics,and human skin,enabling diverse optoelectronic applications.In addition,wireless multi-channel visible light communication(VLC)based on the wavelength-division-multiplexing orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing(WDM-OFDM)technique was demonstrated using a QD-based color micro-LED panel.A high data transmission rate of 1.9 Gbps was successfully obtained owing to the high electrical-optical modulation bandwidth of the QD-based micro-LED panel.