GIS-based detection of land use transformation in the Loess Plateau： A case study in Baota District, Shaanxi Province, China

During the past decade, great efforts have been made to boost the land use trans- formation in the Loess Plateau, especially for reducing soil erosion by vegetation restoration measures. The Grain-for-Green project （GFG） is the largest ecological rehabilitation program in China, which has a positive impact on the vegetation restoration and sustainable devel- opment for the ecologically fragile region of west China. Based on the Landsat TM/ETM im- ages for three time periods （2000, 2005 and 2010）, this study applied the GIS technology and a hill-slope analytical model to reveal the spatio-temporal evolutional patterns of returning slope farmland to grassland or woodland in Baota District, Yan＇an city of Shaanxi province. Results showed that： （1） from 2000 to 2010, the area of farmland decreased by approximately 35,030 ha, which is the greatest decrease among all the land-use types, whereas grassland, woodland and construction land increased, of which grassland expanded rapidly by 26,380 ha （2） The annual variation rate of land-use dynamics was 1.98% during the period 2000-2010, of which the rate was 1.05% for the 2000-2005 period and 2.92% for the 2005-2010 period, respectively. Over the past decade, returning farmland to woodland or pastures was the main source of increased grassland and woodland, and the reduction of farmland contributed to the increase in grassland and woodland by 97.39% and 85.28%, respectively. （3） As the terrain slope increases, farmland decreased and woodland and grassland increased significantly. Areas with a slope ranging from 15° to 25° and less than 15° were the focus of the GFG project, accounting for 85% of the total area of farmland reduction. Meanwhile, the reduction in farmland was significant and spatially correlated with the increase in woodland and grass- land. （4） Between 2000 and 2010, the area of destruction of grass and trees in grasslands and woodlands for the reclamation of farmland was approximately 4596 ha. The area subject to the GFG policy was 4456 ha with a slope greater than 25° over the decade, but the area of farmland was still 10,357 ha in 2010. Our results indicate that there has still a great potential for returning the steep-slope farmlands to woodlands or grasslands in the Loess Plateau.

Prediction-Adaptation-Resilience(PAR)approach-A new pathway towards future resilience and sustainable development of urban landscape

Urban land-use planning,especially in the peripheral region,has become an issue in contemporary urban stud-ies.Simultaneously,urban resilience is very indispensable for future urban land use planning and management.Therefore,consistent urban proliferation can be coped through Prediction-Adaptation-Resilience(PAR),to accom-plish future urban land use and sustainable development of any growing up urban areas worldwide.Therefore,different dynamic simulation models,e.g.Cellular automata-Markov model,artificial neural network,are used to project and predict any urban areas’spatial growth.Then,the adaptation strategies are taken to assess the urban land use transformation in the past and present context.Those strategies help to strengthen urban land use planning using an integrated supply and demand chain.Finally,this study checks the resilience of how much it will be threatened or saved for future sustainable urban developmental goals and urban resilience.Therefore,it is important to establish a conceptual framework to achieve Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)based on principles of the PAR approach.Advocating the on-going adaptation of sustainability,resilience,and rapid urban transformation in the developing cities requires clear and explicit definitions that are embedded with the recent and particular context.Thus,government and policy makers should draw their attention to make proper urban landscape planning and adaptation strategies for the future urban expansion in a holistic way by maintaining appropriate urban resilience.

AN IMPROVED ALGORITHM OF GMM VOICE CONVERSION SYSTEM BASED ON CHANGING THE TIME-SCALE

This paper improves and presents an advanced method of the voice conversion system based on Gaussian Mixture Models(GMM) models by changing the time-scale of speech.The Speech Transformation and Representation using Adaptive Interpolation of weiGHTed spectrum(STRAIGHT) model is adopted to extract the spectrum features,and the GMM models are trained to generate the conversion function.The spectrum features of a source speech will be converted by the conversion function.The time-scale of speech is changed by extracting the converted features and adding to the spectrum.The conversion voice was evaluated by subjective and objective measurements.The results confirm that the transformed speech not only approximates the characteristics of the target speaker,but also more natural and more intelligible.

Conversion from whispered speech to normal speech using the extended bilinear transformation method

A method of conversion from whispered speech to normal speech using the extended bilinear transformation was proposed. On account of the different deviation degrees of the whisper＇s formants in different frequency bands, the spectrum of the whispered speech will be processed in the separate partitions of this paper. On the basis of this spectrum, we will establish a conversion function able to usefully convert whispered speech to normal speech. Because of the whisper＇s non-linear offset in relation to normal speech, this paper introduces an expansion factor in the bilinear transform function making it correspond more closely to the actual conversion demands of whispered speech to normal speech. The introduction of this factor takes the non-linear move of the spectrum and the compression of the formant bandwidth into consideration, thus effectively reducing the spectrum distortion distance in the conversion. The experiment results show that the conversion presented in this paper effectively improves both the sound quality and the intelligibility of whispered speech.

Standardizing Individualized Efficacy Evaluation to Optimize Evidence-Using Pattern in Traditional Chinese Medicine-Preliminarily Establishing Traditional Chinese Medicine Evidence-based Case Reporting System

Individualized treatment is a basic feature of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM), and individualized efficacy evaluation is also emphasized in TCM clinical practice. Individualized evaluation is in favor of improving intervention continuously, and optimizing the TCM evidenceusing pattern gradually. Traditional case reports can better demonstrate the efficacy of individual, but lack of standardized design, making such evidence show a lower quality. Meanings, objectives and design elements of TCM individualized evaluation were discussed in this paper.Then based on the original work, design ideas and framework of TCM evidence-based case reporting system were established preliminarily.This work will improve the methodology of TCM individualized evaluation to realize the goal of optimizing TCM clinical evidence-using pattern.