Spatial assessment of forest cover and land-use changes in the Hindu-Kush mountain ranges of northern Pakistan

Anthropogenic activities and natural processes are continuously altering the mountainous environment through deforestation, forest degradation and other land-use changes. It is highly important to assess, monitor and forecast forest cover and other land-use changes for the protection and conservation of mountainous environment. The present study deals with the assessment of forest cover and other land-use changes in the mountain ranges of Dir Kohistan in northern Pakistan, using high resolution multi-temporal SPOT-5 satellite images. The SPOT-5 satellite images of years 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013 were acquired and classified into land-cover units. In addition, forest cover and land-use change detection map was developed using the classified maps of 2004 and 2013. The classified maps were verified through random field samples and Google Earth imagery(Quick birds and SPOT-5). The results showed that during the period 2004 to 2013 the area of forest land decreased by 6.4%, however, area of range land and agriculture land have increased by 22.1% and 2.9%, respectively. Similarly, barren land increased by 1.1%, whereas, area of snow cover/glacier is significantly decreased by 21.3%. The findings from the study will be useful for forestry and landscape planning and can be utilized by the local, provincial and national forest departments; and REDD+ policy makers in Pakistan.

USING COVARIANCE INTERSECTION FOR CHANGE DETECTION IN REMOTE SENSING IMAGES

In this paper,an unsupervised change detection technique for remote sensing images acquired on the same geographical area but at different time instances is proposed by conducting Covariance Intersection(CI) to perform unsupervised fusion of the final fuzzy partition matrices from the Fuzzy C-Means(FCM) clustering for the feature space by applying compressed sampling to the given remote sensing images.The proposed approach exploits a CI-based data fusion of the membership function matrices,which are obtained by taking the Fuzzy C-Means(FCM) clustering of the frequency-domain feature vectors and spatial-domain feature vectors,aimed at enhancing the unsupervised change detection performance.Compressed sampling is performed to realize the image local feature sampling,which is a signal acquisition framework based on the revelation that a small collection of linear projections of a sparse signal contains enough information for stable recovery.The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has a good change detection results and also performs quite well on denoising purpose.

Global Water Vapor Content Decreases from 2003 to 2012： An Analysis Based on MODIS Data

Water vapor in the earth′s upper atmosphere plays a crucial role in the radiative balance, hydrological process, and climate change. Based on the latest moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer(MODIS) data, this study probes the spatio-temporal variations of global water vapor content in the past decade. It is found that overall the global water vapor content declined from 2003 to 2012(slope b = –0.0149, R = 0.893, P = 0.0005). The decreasing trend over the ocean surface(b = –0.0170, R = 0.908, P = 0.0003) is more explicit than that over terrestrial surface(b = –0.0100, R = 0.782, P = 0.0070), more significant over the Northern Hemisphere(b = –0.0175, R = 0.923, P = 0.0001) than that over the Southern Hemisphere(b = –0.0123, R = 0.826, P = 0.0030). In addition, the analytical results indicate that water vapor content are decreasing obviously between latitude of 36°N and 36°S(b = 0.0224, R = 0.892, P = 0.0005), especially between latitude of 0°N and 36°N(b = 0.0263, R = 0.931, P = 0.0001), while the water vapor concentrations are increasing slightly in the Arctic regions(b = 0.0028, R = 0.612, P = 0.0590). The decreasing and spatial variation of water vapor content regulates the effects of carbon dioxide which is the main reason of the trend in global surface temperatures becoming nearly flat since the late 1990 s. The spatio-temporal variations of water vapor content also affect the growth and spatial distribution of global vegetation which also regulates the global surface temperature change, and the climate change is mainly caused by the earth's orbit position in the solar and galaxy system. A big data model based on gravitational-magmatic change with the solar or the galactic system is proposed to be built for analyzing how the earth's orbit position in the solar and galaxy system affects spatio-temporal variations of global water vapor content, vegetation and temperature at large spatio-temporal scale. This comprehensive examination of water vapor changes promises a holistic understanding of the global climate change and potential underlying mechanisms.

Comprehending the therapeutic effects of stereotactic body radiation therapy for small hepatocellular carcinomas based on imagings

Surgical resection or radiofrequency ablation(RFA)is considered first-choice treatment for small hepatocellular carcinomas(HCCs).When a patient has a small HCC that is inoperable or unsuitable for RFA,what are alternative treatments?Some oncologists recommend transarterial chemoembolization(TACE),chemotherapy,molecular-targeted therapy,or immunotherapy.However,these treatments have minimally beneficial effects in small HCCs.Stereotactic body radiation therapy(SBRT)is a liver-directed radical therapy for small HCCs,with treatment outcomes similar to those for surgical resection or RFA,but many oncologists do not comprehend its efficacy or accept this therapy.We herein discuss 11 typical patients who received SBRT for various indications:refusal to undergo resection or RFA;surgical resection or RFA considered difficult or unfeasible;residual cancer after surgical resection or RFA or incomplete iodized oil retention after TACE;or tumor recurrence after resection or RFA.We describe each case,including the radiation field,tumor radiation dose,and response to SBRT in both the tumor and liver parenchyma.These clinical data should help readers understand this new therapeutic technique.We also conducted a literature review and found evidence to support survival benefit with SBRT,including good three-and five-year overall survival rates.The purpose of this article is to encourage readers to accept the concept that SBRT is a low-toxicity and effective therapeutic option for patients with small HCCs,which offers substantial local control and improved overall survival,especially for patients with a tumor that is unresectable or unsuitable for RFA,residual tumor after local therapy,or intrahepatic recurrent tumor.