The Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) is a globally endangered species.Although this species has received much attention by scientists,conservationists and the general public,the continental population of the Red-cr...The Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) is a globally endangered species.Although this species has received much attention by scientists,conservationists and the general public,the continental population of the Red-crowned Crane continues to face serious threats which affect not only its population dynamics but also its breeding and wintering habitats.Habitat loss and deterioration are the main causes of the decline of its population.With the massive loss of habitats in all parts of its range - breeding,stopover and wintering grounds - the cranes have been forced into crops and farmlands where cranes are more vulnerable to human activities,such as poisoning the cranes and conflicts with farmers.From our review of studies done over 30 years,the eastern flyway subpopulation has been stable or slightly increasing and the western flyway subpopulation of the Red-crowned Crane has sharply declined in recent years.The wintering population for the western flyway has declined from over 1100 to less than 500 birds.Not only is the size of the population reduced to less than 50％,but most recently the decline has occurred with frightening speed,by 50-150 birds per winter.The current wintering range for the west flyway is only about 8％ of its extent in the 1980s.Urgent actions for habitat protection,law enforcement and education need to stop the declining trend for this species.展开更多
High Frequency(HF) radar current data is assimilated into a shelf sea circulation model based on optimal interpolation(OI) method. The purpose of this work is to develop a real-time computationally highly efficient as...High Frequency(HF) radar current data is assimilated into a shelf sea circulation model based on optimal interpolation(OI) method. The purpose of this work is to develop a real-time computationally highly efficient assimilation method to improve the forecast of shelf current. Since the true state of the ocean is not known, the specification of background error covariance is arduous. Usually, it is assumed or calculated from an ensemble of model states and is kept in constant. In our method, the spatial covariances of model forecast errors are derived from differences between the adjacent model forecast fields, which serve as the forecast tendencies. The assumption behind this is that forecast errors can resemble forecast tendencies, since variances are large when fields change quickly and small when fields change slowly. The implementation of HF radar data assimilation is found to yield good information for analyses. After assimilation, the root-mean-square error of model decreases significantly. Besides, three assimilation runs with variational observation density are implemented. The comparison of them indicates that the pattern described by observations is much more important than the amount of observations. It is more useful to expand the scope of observations than to increase the spatial interval. From our tests, the spatial interval of observation can be 5 times bigger than that of model grid.展开更多
The monitoring of highwall slopes at open-pit mines is an important task to ensure safe mining. For this reason, several techniques such as total station, radar, terrestrial Light Detection and Ranging （LIDAR） can b...The monitoring of highwall slopes at open-pit mines is an important task to ensure safe mining. For this reason, several techniques such as total station, radar, terrestrial Light Detection and Ranging （LIDAR） can be employed for surface measurement. The objective of this study is to investigate mesh algorithms, which can be used to interpolate 3D models of pit walls. Experiments were carried out at Coc Sau open-pit mine at Quang Ninh province of Vietnam, and at experimental mine of Akademia Gtrniczo-Hutnicza University of Science and Technology in Cracow, Poland. First, 3D point cloud data for the study area was acquired by using terrestrial LIDAR, then was used to generate mesh surfaces using three algorithms--Delaunay 2.5D XY Plane, Delaunay 2.5D Best Fitting Plane, and Mesh from Points. After that, the results were rectified and optimized. Subsequently, the optimized meshes were used for generation of non-uniform rational basis spline （NURBS） surfaces. Then, the NURBS surface accuracy was assessed. The results showed that the average distance between surface and point cloud was within range of 5.6-5.8 mm with deviation of 6.2-6.8 mm, depending on the used mesh. Additionally, the quality of surfaces depends on the quality of input data set and the algorithm used to generate mesh network, and the accuracy of computed NURBS surfaces fitting into pointset was 4-5 times lower than that of optimized mesh fitting. However, the accuracy of the final product allows determining displacements on the level of centimeters.展开更多
After a trial period between 2008 and 2010, the LTRP （Land Tenure Regularization Program） was implemented in Rwanda. The program is the consequent implementation of the National Land Policy （2004）, which initiated...After a trial period between 2008 and 2010, the LTRP （Land Tenure Regularization Program） was implemented in Rwanda. The program is the consequent implementation of the National Land Policy （2004）, which initiated the reform of the administration of land. With the LTRP, titles to land were registered in the name of every landholder to unlock the potentialities for sustainable growth based on a clear framework, equally valid to all landholders. This paper describes the changes in land and property market activity after the reforms and comments on increasing development pressure on land which can be observed. It recalls that this new market activity is intended and policy-made as a result of the Land Policy with the land tenure regularization and changed land tenure principles, the EDPRS2 which clearly focuses on enabling the private sector to participate in and drive economic development, and the new urbanization agenda coming with the Vision 2020 and the EDPRS2. Identified factors are also discussed which contribute to the new market values of land and a case study in Kigali is referenced which identified accessibility to an area as the most influencing factor, besides access to services and levels of investment on the land. The importance is now, to keep ensuring and enhancing the positive impact of the policy directions in a sustainable manner for their maximum positive impact on socio-economic progress. Provided are recommendations of how to strategically guide public policies and investment in support of sustainable land market activity and using geospatial technologies. The supportive application of technologies is explored.展开更多
Late Cretaceous sea inundation of major continents, surprisingly did not affect Indian block except by two major subaerial events of Large Igneous Provinces （LIPs）. Marion hotspot induced LIP of Mahajanga Flood Bas...Late Cretaceous sea inundation of major continents, surprisingly did not affect Indian block except by two major subaerial events of Large Igneous Provinces （LIPs）. Marion hotspot induced LIP of Mahajanga Flood Basalt （ca. 92Ma） in Madagascar triggered high intensity earthquake along Narmada Lineament and permitted a short lived marine transgression during late Turonian with spectacular estuarine deposits of limited thickness, preserved as archive of “Greenhouse Climatic Record” ？ Reunion hotspot induced LIP of Deccan Flood Basalt, stretching from western to eastern India around Rajahmundry area attracted worldwide attention for the unique fauna and flora preserved in the intertrappean beds straddling Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary. This massive subaerial LIP （ca. 66Ma） permitted fairly deep penetration of sea along collision facing Subathu-Dogadda Line-ament during late Maastrichtian-Danian, but due to thick vegetation cover, tectonic disturbance and scarce out-crops the evidence is less straightforward than along Narmada rift.展开更多
One-sided ascending or descending Synthetic Aperture Radar（SAR） stereoradargrammetry has limited accuracy of topographic mapping due to the short spatial baseline（-100 km） and small intersection angle. In order to...One-sided ascending or descending Synthetic Aperture Radar（SAR） stereoradargrammetry has limited accuracy of topographic mapping due to the short spatial baseline（-100 km） and small intersection angle. In order to improve the performance and reliability of generating digital elevation model（DEM） from spaceborne SAR radargrammetry, an exploration of two-sided stereoradargrammetry from the combination of ascending and descending orbits with geometric configuration of long spatial baseline（-1000 km） was conducted in this study. The slant-range geometry between SAR sensors to the earth surface and the Doppler positioning equations were employed to establish the stereoscopic intersection model. The measurement uncertainty of two-sided radargrammetric elevation was estimated on the basis of radar parallax of homogeneous points between input SAR images. Two stereo-pairs of ALOS/PALSAR（Advanced Land Observing Satellite/Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar） acquisitions with the orbital separation almost 1080 km over the west Sichuan foreland basin with rolling topography in southwestern China were employed in the study to obtain the up-to-date terrain data after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake that hit this area. Thequantitative accuracy assessment of two-sided radargrammetric DEM was performed with reference to field GPS observations. The experimental results show that the elevation accuracy reaches 5.5 m without ground control points（GCPs） used, and the accuracy is further improved to 1.5 m with only one GPS GCP used as the least constraint. The theoretical analysis and testing results demonstrate that the twosided long baseline SAR radargrammetry from the ascending and descending orbits can be a very promising technical alternative for large-area and high accuracy topographic mapping.展开更多
OBJECTIVE: To rapidly and economically obtain knowledge about adult stage Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) expressed genes using expressed sequence tag (EST). METHODS: A directional cDNA library constructed from...OBJECTIVE: To rapidly and economically obtain knowledge about adult stage Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) expressed genes using expressed sequence tag (EST). METHODS: A directional cDNA library constructed from Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) adult stage RNA was used to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs). These were compared against an EMBL-parasites database and GENBANK database by BLASTn and BLASTx. RESULTS: A total of 314 phage clones were randomly selected for generating expressed sequence tags (ESTs). From these clones, 132 EST-quality sequence were obtained. Among these EST-quality sequences, 113 ESTs were successfully submitted to the dbEST at GenBanK. A total of 7.6% of these EST-quality sequences were previously identified sequence of Schistosoma japonicum, while 4.5% were putatively identified sequences of Schistosoma japonicum. A total of 23.5% of these EST-quality sequences were putatively identified sequence of Schistosoma mansoni or other organisms. 57.6% had no matches in the database and were classified as unknown sequences. Most ESTs with the putative protein identified belonged to housekeeping proteins. Information about several interesting genes was found. CONCLUSION: Partial cDNA sequencing to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs) has the potential to rapidly and economically increase our knowledge about adult stage Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) expressed genes.展开更多
文摘The Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) is a globally endangered species.Although this species has received much attention by scientists,conservationists and the general public,the continental population of the Red-crowned Crane continues to face serious threats which affect not only its population dynamics but also its breeding and wintering habitats.Habitat loss and deterioration are the main causes of the decline of its population.With the massive loss of habitats in all parts of its range - breeding,stopover and wintering grounds - the cranes have been forced into crops and farmlands where cranes are more vulnerable to human activities,such as poisoning the cranes and conflicts with farmers.From our review of studies done over 30 years,the eastern flyway subpopulation has been stable or slightly increasing and the western flyway subpopulation of the Red-crowned Crane has sharply declined in recent years.The wintering population for the western flyway has declined from over 1100 to less than 500 birds.Not only is the size of the population reduced to less than 50％,but most recently the decline has occurred with frightening speed,by 50-150 birds per winter.The current wintering range for the west flyway is only about 8％ of its extent in the 1980s.Urgent actions for habitat protection,law enforcement and education need to stop the declining trend for this species.
基金supported by the State Oceanic Administration Young Marine Science Foundation (No. 2013201)the Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environment & Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Foundation (No. 2012007)+1 种基金the Marine Public Foundation (No. 201005018)the North China Sea Branch Scientific Foundation (No. 2014B10)
文摘High Frequency(HF) radar current data is assimilated into a shelf sea circulation model based on optimal interpolation(OI) method. The purpose of this work is to develop a real-time computationally highly efficient assimilation method to improve the forecast of shelf current. Since the true state of the ocean is not known, the specification of background error covariance is arduous. Usually, it is assumed or calculated from an ensemble of model states and is kept in constant. In our method, the spatial covariances of model forecast errors are derived from differences between the adjacent model forecast fields, which serve as the forecast tendencies. The assumption behind this is that forecast errors can resemble forecast tendencies, since variances are large when fields change quickly and small when fields change slowly. The implementation of HF radar data assimilation is found to yield good information for analyses. After assimilation, the root-mean-square error of model decreases significantly. Besides, three assimilation runs with variational observation density are implemented. The comparison of them indicates that the pattern described by observations is much more important than the amount of observations. It is more useful to expand the scope of observations than to increase the spatial interval. From our tests, the spatial interval of observation can be 5 times bigger than that of model grid.
文摘The monitoring of highwall slopes at open-pit mines is an important task to ensure safe mining. For this reason, several techniques such as total station, radar, terrestrial Light Detection and Ranging （LIDAR） can be employed for surface measurement. The objective of this study is to investigate mesh algorithms, which can be used to interpolate 3D models of pit walls. Experiments were carried out at Coc Sau open-pit mine at Quang Ninh province of Vietnam, and at experimental mine of Akademia Gtrniczo-Hutnicza University of Science and Technology in Cracow, Poland. First, 3D point cloud data for the study area was acquired by using terrestrial LIDAR, then was used to generate mesh surfaces using three algorithms--Delaunay 2.5D XY Plane, Delaunay 2.5D Best Fitting Plane, and Mesh from Points. After that, the results were rectified and optimized. Subsequently, the optimized meshes were used for generation of non-uniform rational basis spline （NURBS） surfaces. Then, the NURBS surface accuracy was assessed. The results showed that the average distance between surface and point cloud was within range of 5.6-5.8 mm with deviation of 6.2-6.8 mm, depending on the used mesh. Additionally, the quality of surfaces depends on the quality of input data set and the algorithm used to generate mesh network, and the accuracy of computed NURBS surfaces fitting into pointset was 4-5 times lower than that of optimized mesh fitting. However, the accuracy of the final product allows determining displacements on the level of centimeters.
文摘After a trial period between 2008 and 2010, the LTRP （Land Tenure Regularization Program） was implemented in Rwanda. The program is the consequent implementation of the National Land Policy （2004）, which initiated the reform of the administration of land. With the LTRP, titles to land were registered in the name of every landholder to unlock the potentialities for sustainable growth based on a clear framework, equally valid to all landholders. This paper describes the changes in land and property market activity after the reforms and comments on increasing development pressure on land which can be observed. It recalls that this new market activity is intended and policy-made as a result of the Land Policy with the land tenure regularization and changed land tenure principles, the EDPRS2 which clearly focuses on enabling the private sector to participate in and drive economic development, and the new urbanization agenda coming with the Vision 2020 and the EDPRS2. Identified factors are also discussed which contribute to the new market values of land and a case study in Kigali is referenced which identified accessibility to an area as the most influencing factor, besides access to services and levels of investment on the land. The importance is now, to keep ensuring and enhancing the positive impact of the policy directions in a sustainable manner for their maximum positive impact on socio-economic progress. Provided are recommendations of how to strategically guide public policies and investment in support of sustainable land market activity and using geospatial technologies. The supportive application of technologies is explored.
文摘Late Cretaceous sea inundation of major continents, surprisingly did not affect Indian block except by two major subaerial events of Large Igneous Provinces （LIPs）. Marion hotspot induced LIP of Mahajanga Flood Basalt （ca. 92Ma） in Madagascar triggered high intensity earthquake along Narmada Lineament and permitted a short lived marine transgression during late Turonian with spectacular estuarine deposits of limited thickness, preserved as archive of “Greenhouse Climatic Record” ？ Reunion hotspot induced LIP of Deccan Flood Basalt, stretching from western to eastern India around Rajahmundry area attracted worldwide attention for the unique fauna and flora preserved in the intertrappean beds straddling Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary. This massive subaerial LIP （ca. 66Ma） permitted fairly deep penetration of sea along collision facing Subathu-Dogadda Line-ament during late Maastrichtian-Danian, but due to thick vegetation cover, tectonic disturbance and scarce out-crops the evidence is less straightforward than along Narmada rift.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.41472255,51178404)Open Research Fund by Sichuan Engineering Research Center for Emergency Mapping & Disaster Reduction(Program K2014B006)Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(Grant Nos.SWJTU12ZT07,2682014BR014)
文摘One-sided ascending or descending Synthetic Aperture Radar（SAR） stereoradargrammetry has limited accuracy of topographic mapping due to the short spatial baseline（-100 km） and small intersection angle. In order to improve the performance and reliability of generating digital elevation model（DEM） from spaceborne SAR radargrammetry, an exploration of two-sided stereoradargrammetry from the combination of ascending and descending orbits with geometric configuration of long spatial baseline（-1000 km） was conducted in this study. The slant-range geometry between SAR sensors to the earth surface and the Doppler positioning equations were employed to establish the stereoscopic intersection model. The measurement uncertainty of two-sided radargrammetric elevation was estimated on the basis of radar parallax of homogeneous points between input SAR images. Two stereo-pairs of ALOS/PALSAR（Advanced Land Observing Satellite/Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar） acquisitions with the orbital separation almost 1080 km over the west Sichuan foreland basin with rolling topography in southwestern China were employed in the study to obtain the up-to-date terrain data after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake that hit this area. Thequantitative accuracy assessment of two-sided radargrammetric DEM was performed with reference to field GPS observations. The experimental results show that the elevation accuracy reaches 5.5 m without ground control points（GCPs） used, and the accuracy is further improved to 1.5 m with only one GPS GCP used as the least constraint. The theoretical analysis and testing results demonstrate that the twosided long baseline SAR radargrammetry from the ascending and descending orbits can be a very promising technical alternative for large-area and high accuracy topographic mapping.
文摘OBJECTIVE: To rapidly and economically obtain knowledge about adult stage Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) expressed genes using expressed sequence tag (EST). METHODS: A directional cDNA library constructed from Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) adult stage RNA was used to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs). These were compared against an EMBL-parasites database and GENBANK database by BLASTn and BLASTx. RESULTS: A total of 314 phage clones were randomly selected for generating expressed sequence tags (ESTs). From these clones, 132 EST-quality sequence were obtained. Among these EST-quality sequences, 113 ESTs were successfully submitted to the dbEST at GenBanK. A total of 7.6% of these EST-quality sequences were previously identified sequence of Schistosoma japonicum, while 4.5% were putatively identified sequences of Schistosoma japonicum. A total of 23.5% of these EST-quality sequences were putatively identified sequence of Schistosoma mansoni or other organisms. 57.6% had no matches in the database and were classified as unknown sequences. Most ESTs with the putative protein identified belonged to housekeeping proteins. Information about several interesting genes was found. CONCLUSION: Partial cDNA sequencing to generate expressed sequence tags (ESTs) has the potential to rapidly and economically increase our knowledge about adult stage Schistosoma japonicum (Chinese strain) expressed genes.
