As the core of spatial planning in China,delineation of the production-living-ecological space(PLES)refers to dividing the overall land use into three functional spaces.Spatial units are optimally configured as the mo...As the core of spatial planning in China,delineation of the production-living-ecological space(PLES)refers to dividing the overall land use into three functional spaces.Spatial units are optimally configured as the most suitable functional type,while beset by various uncertainties.Weight uncertainties,being affected by subjective preferences,are highly arbitrary and seriously affect PLES.Taking Xuzhou as the study area,this paper studies the perturbation mechanism and response measure of weight uncertainties on PLES.First,weight samples are obtained through quasi-random sampling to serve as sources of uncertainties for input into the optimized delineation of PLES.Next,the Monte Carlo simulation is applied to simulate the spatial probability distribution of PLES.The global sensitivity analysis method is then adopted to identify the main sources that cause uncertainties in the delineation of PLES.Subsequently,the flexible space(FS)of PLES at a certain level of significance is formulated by comparing the distribution probabilities of spatial units for different functional spaces,acting as a countermeasure for the perturbation.The results show that weight uncertainties bring disturbances to the PLES by affecting the multi-criteria evaluation(MCE)of PLES delineation.The PLES is affected by the weight uncertainties of the factors alone or through interactions with other weights.FS is the spatial response measure of PLES when uncertainties occurred at a certain level of significance.The study introduces the perspective of uncertainty for PLES,which contributes toward improving the scientificity and reliability of PLES.展开更多
Although Tanzania has a large land suitable for irrigation development, only 4.2% of the arable land which is potential for irrigation has been developed. Mbarali District is characterized by commercial and small-scal...Although Tanzania has a large land suitable for irrigation development, only 4.2% of the arable land which is potential for irrigation has been developed. Mbarali District is characterized by commercial and small-scale irrigation activities for paddy production. Currently, surface water availability for irrigation in Mbarali District is dwindling due to high water demands. Inadequate studies that estimate water availability for irrigation is one of the underlying factors to the lack of irrigation development in many parts of Tanzania including in Mbarali District. This study, therefore, aimed to model surface water availability for irrigation development in Mbarali River sub-catchment Mbeya, Tanzania. The Soil and Water Analysis Tool (SWAT) model and field observations were used to accomplish the study. The model estimates that Mbarali River sub-catchment receives about 631 mm of total mean precipitation annually. About 53% of received precipitation is lost through evapotranspiration, 12% recharged to deep aquifer and the remaining 35% discharged to the stream flow through surface runoff, lateral flow and return flow from unconfined aquifer. Discharge to the steam flow contributes to the total annual means of river discharge ranging from 0 - 10 cubic meters per second at upper catchment to 120 - 140 cubic meters per second at lower catchment. The study recommends that the lower reach of the Mbarali River sub-catchment is potential for irrigation than the upper reach as it has potential river flow that can support irrigation activities. The study also notes the urgent need for water reallocation plan to meet competing water needs in the lower reach of Mbarali River sub-catchment. Moreover, the study addresses the potentiality of irrigation in upper catchment under sustainable water management practices including excavation of small ponds to capture and store surface runoff for dry season use or to supplement irrigation as the rainfall declines.展开更多
This is a quantitative method for studying the fractal character of magnetic anornaly fields and delineating tectonic elements using fractal theory . For an area with different geological and geophysical features , th...This is a quantitative method for studying the fractal character of magnetic anornaly fields and delineating tectonic elements using fractal theory . For an area with different geological and geophysical features , the definition of Hausdorff dimension is used to calculate the fractal dimension of the area’s magnetic field , then delineate geological tectonic elements by comparing this value . Use of 1978- 1986 geophysical survey data in this method applied to the South China Sea yielded three first grade tectonic elements and nine second grade ones , in six of which subsecond grade elernents were found.展开更多
Runoff models such as the Curve Number (CN) model are dependent upon land use and soil type within the watershed or contributing area. In regions with internal drainage (e.g. wetlands) watershed delineation methods th...Runoff models such as the Curve Number (CN) model are dependent upon land use and soil type within the watershed or contributing area. In regions with internal drainage (e.g. wetlands) watershed delineation methods that fill sinks can result in inaccurate contributing areas and estimations of runoff from models such as the CN model. Two methods to account for this inaccuracy have been 1) to adjust the initial abstraction value within the CN model;or 2) to improve the watershed delineation in order to better account for internal drainage. We used a combined approach of examining the watershed delineation, and refining the CN model by the incorporating of dual hydrologic soil classifications. For eighteen watersheds within Wisconsin, we compared the CN model results of three watershed delineation methods to USGS gaged values. We found that for large precipitation events (>100 mm) the CN model estimations are closer to observed values for watershed delineations that identify the directly connected watershed and use the undrained hydrologic soil classification.展开更多
Identifying tree locations is a basic step in the derivation of other tree parameters using remote sensing techniques, particularly when using airborne laser scanning. There are several techniques for identifying tree...Identifying tree locations is a basic step in the derivation of other tree parameters using remote sensing techniques, particularly when using airborne laser scanning. There are several techniques for identifying tree positions. In this paper, we present a raster-based method for determining tree position and delineating crown coverage. We collected data from nine research plots that supported different mixes of species. We applied a raster-based method to raster layers with six different spatial resolutions and used terrestrial measurement data as reference data. Tree identification at a spatial resolution of 1.5 m was demonstrated to be the most accurate, with an average identification ratio (IR) of 95% and average detection ratio of 68% being observed. At a higher spatial resolution of 0.5 m, IR was overestimated by more than 600%. At a lower spatial resolution of 3 m, IR was underestimated at less than 44% of terrestrial measurements. The inventory process was timed to enable evaluation of the time efficiency of automatic methods.展开更多
Accurate wetland delineation is the basis of wetland definition and mapping, and is of great importance for wetland management and research. The Zoige Plateau on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was used as a research site f...Accurate wetland delineation is the basis of wetland definition and mapping, and is of great importance for wetland management and research. The Zoige Plateau on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was used as a research site for research on alpine wetland delineation. Several studies have analyzed the spatiotemporal pattern and dynamics of these alpine wetlands, but none have addressed the issues of wetland boundaries. The objective of this work was to discriminate the upper boundaries of alpine wetlands by coupling ecological methods and satellite observations. The combination of Landsat 8 images and supervised classification was an effective method for rapid identification of alpine wetlands in the Zoig6 Plateau. Wet meadow was relatively stable compared with hydric soils and wetland hydrology and could be used as a primary indicator for discriminating the upper boundaries of alpine wetlands. A slope of less than 4.5° could be used as the threshold value for wetland delineation. The normalized difference vegetation index （NDVI） in 434 field sites showed that a threshold value of 0.3 could distinguish grasslands from emergent marsh and wet meadow in September. The median normalized difference water index （NDWI） of emergent marsh remained more stable than that of wet meadow and grasslands during the period from September until July of the following year. The index of mean density in wet meadow zones was higher than the emergent and upland zones. Over twice the number of species occurred in the wet meadow zone compared with the emergent zone, and close to the value of upland zone. Alpine wetlands in the three reserves in 2014 covered 1175.19 kin2 with a classification accuracy of 75.6%. The combination of ecological methods and remote sensing technology will play an important role in wetland delineation at medium and small scales. The correct differentiation between wet meadow and grasslands is the key to improving the accuracy of future wetland delineation.展开更多
BACKGROUND Accurate target volume delineation is the premise for the implementation of precise radiotherapy.Inadequate target volume delineation may diminish tumor control or increase toxicity.Although several clinica...BACKGROUND Accurate target volume delineation is the premise for the implementation of precise radiotherapy.Inadequate target volume delineation may diminish tumor control or increase toxicity.Although several clinical target volume(CTV)delineation guidelines for rectal cancer have been published in recent years,significant interobserver variation(IOV)in CTV delineation still exists among radiation oncologists.However,proper education may serve as a bridge that connects complex guidelines with clinical practice.AIM To examine whether an education program could improve the accuracy and consistency of preoperative radiotherapy CTV delineation for rectal cancer.METHODS The study consisted of a baseline target volume delineation,a 150-min education intervention,and a follow-up evaluation.A 42-year-old man diagnosed with stage IIIC(T3N2bM0)rectal adenocarcinoma was selected for target volume delineation.CTVs obtained before and after the program were compared.Dice similarity coefficient(DSC),inclusiveness index(IncI),conformal index(CI),and relative volume difference[ΔV(%)]were analyzed to quantitatively evaluate the disparities between the participants’delineation and the standard CTV.Maximum volume ratio(MVR)and coefficient of variation(CV)were calculated to assess the IOV.Qualitative analysis included four common controversies in CTV delineation concerning the upper boundary of the target volume,external iliac area,groin area,and ischiorectal fossa.RESULTS Of the 18 radiation oncologists from 10 provinces in China,13 completed two sets of CTVs.In quantitative analysis,the average CTV volume decreased from 809.82 cm3 to 705.21 cm3(P=0.001)after the education program.Regarding the indices for geometric comparison,the mean DSC,IncI,and CI increased significantly,whileΔV(%)decreased remarkably,indicating improved agreement between participants’delineation and the standard CTV.Moreover,an 11.80%reduction in MVR and 18.19%reduction in CV were noted,demonstrating a smaller IOV in delineation after the education program.Regarding qualitative analysis,the greatest variations in baseline were observed at the external iliac area and ischiorectal fossa;61.54%(8/13)and 53.85%(7/13)of the participants unnecessarily delineated the external iliac area and the ischiorectal fossa,respectively.However,the education program reduced these variations.CONCLUSION Wide variations in CTV delineation for rectal cancer are present among radiation oncologists in China's Mainland.A well-structured education program could improve delineation accuracy and reduce IOVs.展开更多
Delineation of the lung parenchyma in the thoracic Computed Tomography(CT)is an important processing step for most of the pulmonary image analysis such as lung volume extraction,lung nodule detection and pulmonary ves...Delineation of the lung parenchyma in the thoracic Computed Tomography(CT)is an important processing step for most of the pulmonary image analysis such as lung volume extraction,lung nodule detection and pulmonary vessel segmentation.An automatic method for accurate delineation of lung parenchyma in thoracic Computed Tomography images is presented in this paper.The proposed method involves a segmentation phase followed by a lung boundary correction technique.The tissues in the thoracic Computed Tomography can be represented by a number of Gaussians.We propose a histogram utilized Adaptive Multilevel Thresholding(AMT)for estimating the total number of Gaussians and their initial parameters.The parameters of Gaussian components are updated by Expectation Maximization(EM)algorithm.The segmented lung parenchyma from the Gaussian Mixture model(GMM)undergoes an Adaptive Morphological Filtering(AMF)to reduce the boundary errors.The proposed method has been tested on 70 diseased and 119 normal lung images from 28 cases obtained from Lung Image Database Consortium(LIDC).The performance of the proposed system has been validated.展开更多
BACKGROUND Accurate delineation of the target area for patients with hypopharyngeal cancer is the key to achieving an ideal radiotherapy effect.Since computed tomography(CT)alone can no longer meet the treatment needs...BACKGROUND Accurate delineation of the target area for patients with hypopharyngeal cancer is the key to achieving an ideal radiotherapy effect.Since computed tomography(CT)alone can no longer meet the treatment needs,fusing CT images with magnetic resonance imaging(MRI)or positron emission tomography(PET)images can overcome the disadvantages of CT.Herein,we present a clinical case of hypopharyngeal cancer to delineate the tumor volume using combined MRI-CT and PET-CT fusion images to examine if they could accurately cover the tumor volume.CASE SUMMARY A 67-year-old male patient with hypopharyngeal carcinoma could not tolerate chemotherapy and surgery due to complicated health issues such as diabetic nephropathy and other underlying diseases.After multidisciplinary consultations,clinicians eventually agreed to undergo radiotherapy to control the progression of his tumor.He was examined by CT,MRI,and 18-fluorodeoxyglucose-PET for treatment planning,and CT images were fused with PET and MRI images while delineating tumor volume.CONCLUSION The image fusion of MRI-CT and PET-CT has both advantages and disadvantages.Compared with CT images alone,the combination of MRI-CT and PET-CT fusion images can precisely cover the gross tumor volume in hypopharyngeal carcinoma and avoid overestimation or incomplete coverage of tumor volume.展开更多
The precision remediation and redevelopment of contaminated sites are crucial issues for improving the human settlement and constructing a beautiful China. Three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants at contamina...The precision remediation and redevelopment of contaminated sites are crucial issues for improving the human settlement and constructing a beautiful China. Three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants at contaminated sites is a prerequisite for precision remediation and redevelopment. However, a contaminated site is a three-dimensional complex system coupling multiple spatial elements above-and under-ground. The complexity incurs high uncertainties about the three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants based on sparse borehole and spatial statistics and inference models. This paper first systematically reviewed the objectives of fine three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants, the sampling strategies for soil boring, the commonly used models for delineating soil pollutants, and the relevant cases of applying these models at contaminated sites. We then summarized the effects of borehole data and three-dimensional models on soil pollutants' delineation results from biased characteristics and nonstationary conditions. The present research status and related issues on correcting the biased characteristics and nonstationary conditions were analyzed. Finally, based on the problems and challenges, we suggested the three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants in the underground “black box” for future research from the following six priority areas: multi-scenarios, nonstationary, non-linearity, multi-source data fusion, multiple model coupling, and the delineation of co-contaminated sites.展开更多
Eyes are important organs-at-risk （OARs） that should be protected during the radiation treatment of those head tumors. Correct delineation of the eyes on CT images is one of important issues for treatment planning t...Eyes are important organs-at-risk （OARs） that should be protected during the radiation treatment of those head tumors. Correct delineation of the eyes on CT images is one of important issues for treatment planning to protect the eyes as much as possible. In this paper, we propose a new method, named ant colony optimization （ACO）, to delineate the eyes automatically. In the proposed algorithm, each ant tries to find a closed path, and some pheromone is deposited on the visited path when the ant fmds a path. After all ants fmish a circle, the best ant will lay some pheromone to enforce the best path. The proposed algorithm is verified on several CT images, and the preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility of ACO for the delineation problem.展开更多
Based on the accumulated data for the gold deposits in the central Jilin Province in recent years and our understanding of the gold metallogenic province,the Haigou gold metallogenic province is delineated and the den...Based on the accumulated data for the gold deposits in the central Jilin Province in recent years and our understanding of the gold metallogenic province,the Haigou gold metallogenic province is delineated and the denudation degree of gold deposits in this province is discussed. The potential and the ore-searching direction of the province are also considered. The Haigou gold metallogenic province occurs as an independent province with low denudation degree and high ore-producing potential. Regional fault belts and small basic intrusions are two ore-constrains and could serve as the ore-searching indictors in the province.展开更多
Intensification of agricultural land use and population growth from 1990-2017 has caused changes in land cover and land use of the Mbarali River sub-catchment which is located in the Upper Great Ruaha Sub basin, Tanza...Intensification of agricultural land use and population growth from 1990-2017 has caused changes in land cover and land use of the Mbarali River sub-catchment which is located in the Upper Great Ruaha Sub basin, Tanzania. This has affected the magnitude of the surface runoff, total water yield and the groundwater flow. This study assesses the impacts of the land cover and land use changes on the stream flows and hydrological water balance components (surface runoff, water yield, percolation and actual evapotranspiration). The land use and land cover (LULC) maps for three window period snapshots, 1990, 2006 and 2017 were created from Landsat TM and OLI_TIRS with the help of QGIS version 2.6. Supervised classification was used to generate LULC maps using the Maximum Likelihood Algorithm and Kappa statistics for assessment of accuracy. SWAT was set up and run to simulate stream flows and hydrological water balance components. The assessment of the impacts of land use and land cover changes on stream flows and hydrological water balance component was performed by comparing hydrological parameters simulated by SWAT using land use scenarios of 2006 and 2017 against the baseline land use scenario of 1990. Accuracy of LULC classification was good with Kappa statistics ranging between 0.9 and 0.99. There was a drastic increase in areal coverage of cultivated land, for periods 1990-2006 (5.84%) and 2006-2017 (12.05%) compared to other LULC. During 2006 and 2017 surface runoff increased by 4% and 9% respectively;however, water yield increased by only 0.5% compared to 1990 baseline period. This was attributed to increased proportion of cultivated land in the sub-catchment which has a high curve number (59.60) that indicates a higher runoff response and low infiltration rate.展开更多
<strong>Introduction:</strong> Radiotherapy alone or combined with surgery and/or chemotherapy is being investigated in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). This study aimed to simulate a...<strong>Introduction:</strong> Radiotherapy alone or combined with surgery and/or chemotherapy is being investigated in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). This study aimed to simulate a Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) treatment of a patient with MPM. <strong>Materials and Methods:</strong> CT images from a patient with intact lungs were imported via DICOM into the Pinnacle3 treatment planning (TP) system (TPS) and used as a model for MPM to delineate organs at risk (OAR) and both clinical and planning target volumes (CTV and PTV) with a margin of 5 mm. Elekta Synergy with 6 MV photons and 80 leafs MLCi2 was employed. VMAT plans were generated using two coplanar arcs with gantry rotation angles of 178<span style="font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;white-space:normal;background-color:#FFFFFF;">°</span> - 182<span style="font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;white-space:normal;background-color:#FFFFFF;">°</span>, the collimator angles of each arc were set to 90<span style="font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;white-space:normal;background-color:#FFFFFF;">°</span>, Octavius<span style="white-space:nowrap;"><sup>®</sup></span> 4D 729 was employed for quality assurance while the calculated and measured doses were compared using VeriSoft. <strong>Results:</strong> A TP was achieved. The Gamma volume analysis with criteria of 3 mm distance to agreement and 3% dose difference yielded the gamma passing rate = 99.9%. The reference isodose was 42.75 Gy with the coverage constraints for the PTV D95 and V95 = 95.0% of 45 Gy. The remaining dosimetric parameters met the recommendations from the clinically acceptable guidelines for the radiotherapy of MPM. <strong>Conclusion:</strong> Using well-defined TV and VMAT, a consistent TP compared to similar ones from publications was achieved. We obtained a high agreement between the 3D dose reconstructed and the dose calculated.展开更多
1.ObjectivesSouthern Qinghai-northem Tibet permafrost region is a place having the most widespread and most developed permafrost in China with good mineralization conditions and prospecting potentials for gas hydrate ...1.ObjectivesSouthern Qinghai-northem Tibet permafrost region is a place having the most widespread and most developed permafrost in China with good mineralization conditions and prospecting potentials for gas hydrate (Zhu YH et al.,2011). In 2011,China Geological Survey initiated a special national program entitled "Gas hydrate resource exploration and trial mining",which signaled a prelude to a comprehensive gas hydrate survey in southern Qinghai-northern Tibet permafrost region.So far,appreciable progress has been made in the geological,geophysical,geochemical and drilling survey across a number of key blocks.This paper is intended to examine the fundamental conditions for gas hydrate mineralization based on previous findings,delineate favorable zones for gas hydrate mineralization,and to make contributions to the onshore gas hydrate resource exploration in China.展开更多
Time-frequency analysis is a successfully used tool for analyzing the local features of seismic data.However,it suffers from several inevitable limitations,such as the restricted time-frequency resolution,the difficul...Time-frequency analysis is a successfully used tool for analyzing the local features of seismic data.However,it suffers from several inevitable limitations,such as the restricted time-frequency resolution,the difficulty in selecting parameters,and the low computational efficiency.Inspired by deep learning,we suggest a deep learning-based workflow for seismic time-frequency analysis.The sparse S transform network(SSTNet)is first built to map the relationship between synthetic traces and sparse S transform spectra,which can be easily pre-trained by using synthetic traces and training labels.Next,we introduce knowledge distillation(KD)based transfer learning to re-train SSTNet by using a field data set without training labels,which is named the sparse S transform network with knowledge distillation(KD-SSTNet).In this way,we can effectively calculate the sparse time-frequency spectra of field data and avoid the use of field training labels.To test the availability of the suggested KD-SSTNet,we apply it to field data to estimate seismic attenuation for reservoir characterization and make detailed comparisons with the traditional time-frequency analysis methods.展开更多
Brain midline delineation can facilitate the clinical evaluation of brain midline shift,which has a pivotal role in the diagnosis and prognosis of various brain pathology.However,there are still challenges for brain m...Brain midline delineation can facilitate the clinical evaluation of brain midline shift,which has a pivotal role in the diagnosis and prognosis of various brain pathology.However,there are still challenges for brain midline delineation:1)the largely deformed midline is hard to localize if mixed with severe cerebral hemorrhage;2)the predicted midlines of recent methods are not smooth and continuous which violates the structural priority.To overcome these challenges,we propose an anisotropic three dimensional(3D)network with context-aware refinement(A3D-CAR)for brain midline modeling.The proposed network fuses 3D context from different two dimensional(2D)slices through asymmetric context fusion.To exploit the elongated structure of the midline,an anisotropic block is designed to balance the difference between the adjacent pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions.For maintaining the structural priority of a brain midline,we present a novel 3D connectivity regular loss(3D CRL)to penalize the disconnectivity between nearby coordinates.Extensive experiments on the CQ dataset and one in-house dataset show that the proposed method outperforms three state-of-the-art methods on four evaluation metrics without excessive computational burden.展开更多
Limitations of cancer margin delineation and surgical guidance by means of autofluorescence imaging under conditions of laser ablation were investigated and preliminary results are presented.PinPoint^(TM)(Novadaq Tech...Limitations of cancer margin delineation and surgical guidance by means of autofluorescence imaging under conditions of laser ablation were investigated and preliminary results are presented.PinPoint^(TM)(Novadaq Technologies Inc.,Canada)was used to capture digital images and Er:YAG laser(2.94μm,Glissando,WaveLight^(TM),Germany)was exploited to cause laser ablation on both normal and cancer sites of the specimen.It was shown that changes of the autofluorescence image after ablation extend beyond the actual sizes of the ablation loci.The tumor tissue after the laser ablation starts to emit fluorescent light within the green wavelength band(490-550nm)similar to normal tissue stating that the current technology of in-process tissue classification fails.However,when the autofluorescence was collected in the red range(600-750nm),then the abnormal/normal contrast was reduced,but still present even after the laser ablation.The present study highlights the importance of finding a proper technology for surgical navigation of cancer removal under conditions of high power effects in biological tissues.展开更多
IMRT has increased the local-regional control and decreased the complications from treating nasopharyngeal cancer （NPC）. Therefore studying IMRT is important. CT and MRI are complementary, and their joint use is cur...IMRT has increased the local-regional control and decreased the complications from treating nasopharyngeal cancer （NPC）. Therefore studying IMRT is important. CT and MRI are complementary, and their joint use is currently considered to be the optimal modality to delineate the extent of the primary spread of NPC. The key problem in delineation of the neck nodes is how to translate anatomic node regions into the CT boundaries. The consensus guideline which narrowed the gap among different cancer centers is recommended in delineating the boundary of the cervical lymph node regions. The definition of the NPC GTV is clear and almost the same among the main cancer centers in their IMRT planning protocols. The suggested biological dose to the GTV is close to or more than 80 Gy; the main differences are the definitions of the CTVs and their schemes for the prescribed dose, and also the dosage to the high cervical region is different among those centers. According to their long-term follow-up results, it is suggested that, besides adding 5-10 mm margins to the primary lesions, the immediate high-risk structures （including the entire nasopharyngeal cavity, retropharyngeal space, clivus, base of the skull, pterygoid plates and muscles, parapharyngeal space, the sphenoid and partial ethmoid sinuses, the posterior third of the maxillary sinuses and the nasal cavity） should also be included with a prescription of more than 60 Gy, and the bilateral Ib, II and Va node levels should be ranked as high-risk regions and differentially prescribed for treatment with no less than 60 Gy.展开更多
The study was conducted to investigate farmers’ perception of soil erosion, participation and adoption of soil conservation technologies (SWC) in Geshy sub-catchment of Gojeb river catchment, Omo-Gibe basin, Ethiopia...The study was conducted to investigate farmers’ perception of soil erosion, participation and adoption of soil conservation technologies (SWC) in Geshy sub-catchment of Gojeb river catchment, Omo-Gibe basin, Ethiopia during 2016. The study is based on a detailed survey of 77 households using structured interviews, field observation and focus group discussion. Descriptive and chi-square statistics were applied to analyze factors that affected farmers’ perceived soil erosion severity, participation and adoption options. The results revealed that about 79% of farmers perceived soil erosion problem and its consequences and 97.4% of them believed that it can be controlled. Almost all (97.4%) farmers acknowledged the presence of SWC technologies and about 92.2% of them were participated in conservation activities voluntarily. Thus, 93.5% of them realized decreasing rate of soil erosion and 79.9% of them observed an increasing trend in soil fertility status. Consequently, 94.8% of them confirmed the potential of SWC technologies to halt land degradation and improve land productivity. Furthermore, 98.7% of them were willing to adopt with very good adoption judgment and 94.8% of them were willing to continue maintaining constructed technologies in the future. Principally, farmers’ perception of soil erosion, their genuine participation derived from their conviction, and adoption of induced SWC technologies are the decisive elements for the success of watershed management interventions.展开更多
基金Under the auspices of National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.42171248,42371273)。
文摘As the core of spatial planning in China,delineation of the production-living-ecological space(PLES)refers to dividing the overall land use into three functional spaces.Spatial units are optimally configured as the most suitable functional type,while beset by various uncertainties.Weight uncertainties,being affected by subjective preferences,are highly arbitrary and seriously affect PLES.Taking Xuzhou as the study area,this paper studies the perturbation mechanism and response measure of weight uncertainties on PLES.First,weight samples are obtained through quasi-random sampling to serve as sources of uncertainties for input into the optimized delineation of PLES.Next,the Monte Carlo simulation is applied to simulate the spatial probability distribution of PLES.The global sensitivity analysis method is then adopted to identify the main sources that cause uncertainties in the delineation of PLES.Subsequently,the flexible space(FS)of PLES at a certain level of significance is formulated by comparing the distribution probabilities of spatial units for different functional spaces,acting as a countermeasure for the perturbation.The results show that weight uncertainties bring disturbances to the PLES by affecting the multi-criteria evaluation(MCE)of PLES delineation.The PLES is affected by the weight uncertainties of the factors alone or through interactions with other weights.FS is the spatial response measure of PLES when uncertainties occurred at a certain level of significance.The study introduces the perspective of uncertainty for PLES,which contributes toward improving the scientificity and reliability of PLES.
文摘Although Tanzania has a large land suitable for irrigation development, only 4.2% of the arable land which is potential for irrigation has been developed. Mbarali District is characterized by commercial and small-scale irrigation activities for paddy production. Currently, surface water availability for irrigation in Mbarali District is dwindling due to high water demands. Inadequate studies that estimate water availability for irrigation is one of the underlying factors to the lack of irrigation development in many parts of Tanzania including in Mbarali District. This study, therefore, aimed to model surface water availability for irrigation development in Mbarali River sub-catchment Mbeya, Tanzania. The Soil and Water Analysis Tool (SWAT) model and field observations were used to accomplish the study. The model estimates that Mbarali River sub-catchment receives about 631 mm of total mean precipitation annually. About 53% of received precipitation is lost through evapotranspiration, 12% recharged to deep aquifer and the remaining 35% discharged to the stream flow through surface runoff, lateral flow and return flow from unconfined aquifer. Discharge to the steam flow contributes to the total annual means of river discharge ranging from 0 - 10 cubic meters per second at upper catchment to 120 - 140 cubic meters per second at lower catchment. The study recommends that the lower reach of the Mbarali River sub-catchment is potential for irrigation than the upper reach as it has potential river flow that can support irrigation activities. The study also notes the urgent need for water reallocation plan to meet competing water needs in the lower reach of Mbarali River sub-catchment. Moreover, the study addresses the potentiality of irrigation in upper catchment under sustainable water management practices including excavation of small ponds to capture and store surface runoff for dry season use or to supplement irrigation as the rainfall declines.
文摘This is a quantitative method for studying the fractal character of magnetic anornaly fields and delineating tectonic elements using fractal theory . For an area with different geological and geophysical features , the definition of Hausdorff dimension is used to calculate the fractal dimension of the area’s magnetic field , then delineate geological tectonic elements by comparing this value . Use of 1978- 1986 geophysical survey data in this method applied to the South China Sea yielded three first grade tectonic elements and nine second grade ones , in six of which subsecond grade elernents were found.
文摘Runoff models such as the Curve Number (CN) model are dependent upon land use and soil type within the watershed or contributing area. In regions with internal drainage (e.g. wetlands) watershed delineation methods that fill sinks can result in inaccurate contributing areas and estimations of runoff from models such as the CN model. Two methods to account for this inaccuracy have been 1) to adjust the initial abstraction value within the CN model;or 2) to improve the watershed delineation in order to better account for internal drainage. We used a combined approach of examining the watershed delineation, and refining the CN model by the incorporating of dual hydrologic soil classifications. For eighteen watersheds within Wisconsin, we compared the CN model results of three watershed delineation methods to USGS gaged values. We found that for large precipitation events (>100 mm) the CN model estimations are closer to observed values for watershed delineations that identify the directly connected watershed and use the undrained hydrologic soil classification.
基金supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education,Science,Research and Sport of the Slovak Republicthe Slovak Academy of Sciences under Project No.1/0953/13:‘‘Geographic information on forest and forest landscape:creation and utilization of particularity’’
文摘Identifying tree locations is a basic step in the derivation of other tree parameters using remote sensing techniques, particularly when using airborne laser scanning. There are several techniques for identifying tree positions. In this paper, we present a raster-based method for determining tree position and delineating crown coverage. We collected data from nine research plots that supported different mixes of species. We applied a raster-based method to raster layers with six different spatial resolutions and used terrestrial measurement data as reference data. Tree identification at a spatial resolution of 1.5 m was demonstrated to be the most accurate, with an average identification ratio (IR) of 95% and average detection ratio of 68% being observed. At a higher spatial resolution of 0.5 m, IR was overestimated by more than 600%. At a lower spatial resolution of 3 m, IR was underestimated at less than 44% of terrestrial measurements. The inventory process was timed to enable evaluation of the time efficiency of automatic methods.
基金Under the auspices of National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.41201445,41103041)National Science and Technology Support Program(No.2012BAJ24B01)National High Technology Research and Development Program of China(No.2009AA12200307)
文摘Accurate wetland delineation is the basis of wetland definition and mapping, and is of great importance for wetland management and research. The Zoige Plateau on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was used as a research site for research on alpine wetland delineation. Several studies have analyzed the spatiotemporal pattern and dynamics of these alpine wetlands, but none have addressed the issues of wetland boundaries. The objective of this work was to discriminate the upper boundaries of alpine wetlands by coupling ecological methods and satellite observations. The combination of Landsat 8 images and supervised classification was an effective method for rapid identification of alpine wetlands in the Zoig6 Plateau. Wet meadow was relatively stable compared with hydric soils and wetland hydrology and could be used as a primary indicator for discriminating the upper boundaries of alpine wetlands. A slope of less than 4.5° could be used as the threshold value for wetland delineation. The normalized difference vegetation index （NDVI） in 434 field sites showed that a threshold value of 0.3 could distinguish grasslands from emergent marsh and wet meadow in September. The median normalized difference water index （NDWI） of emergent marsh remained more stable than that of wet meadow and grasslands during the period from September until July of the following year. The index of mean density in wet meadow zones was higher than the emergent and upland zones. Over twice the number of species occurred in the wet meadow zone compared with the emergent zone, and close to the value of upland zone. Alpine wetlands in the three reserves in 2014 covered 1175.19 kin2 with a classification accuracy of 75.6%. The combination of ecological methods and remote sensing technology will play an important role in wetland delineation at medium and small scales. The correct differentiation between wet meadow and grasslands is the key to improving the accuracy of future wetland delineation.
基金Supported by the Beijing Municipal Science&Technology Commission,No.Z181100001718192the Capital’s Funds for Health Improvement and Research,No.2020-2-1027 and No.2020-1-4021+1 种基金the National Natural Science Foundation,No.82073333the Beijing Natural Science Foundation,No.1212011.
文摘BACKGROUND Accurate target volume delineation is the premise for the implementation of precise radiotherapy.Inadequate target volume delineation may diminish tumor control or increase toxicity.Although several clinical target volume(CTV)delineation guidelines for rectal cancer have been published in recent years,significant interobserver variation(IOV)in CTV delineation still exists among radiation oncologists.However,proper education may serve as a bridge that connects complex guidelines with clinical practice.AIM To examine whether an education program could improve the accuracy and consistency of preoperative radiotherapy CTV delineation for rectal cancer.METHODS The study consisted of a baseline target volume delineation,a 150-min education intervention,and a follow-up evaluation.A 42-year-old man diagnosed with stage IIIC(T3N2bM0)rectal adenocarcinoma was selected for target volume delineation.CTVs obtained before and after the program were compared.Dice similarity coefficient(DSC),inclusiveness index(IncI),conformal index(CI),and relative volume difference[ΔV(%)]were analyzed to quantitatively evaluate the disparities between the participants’delineation and the standard CTV.Maximum volume ratio(MVR)and coefficient of variation(CV)were calculated to assess the IOV.Qualitative analysis included four common controversies in CTV delineation concerning the upper boundary of the target volume,external iliac area,groin area,and ischiorectal fossa.RESULTS Of the 18 radiation oncologists from 10 provinces in China,13 completed two sets of CTVs.In quantitative analysis,the average CTV volume decreased from 809.82 cm3 to 705.21 cm3(P=0.001)after the education program.Regarding the indices for geometric comparison,the mean DSC,IncI,and CI increased significantly,whileΔV(%)decreased remarkably,indicating improved agreement between participants’delineation and the standard CTV.Moreover,an 11.80%reduction in MVR and 18.19%reduction in CV were noted,demonstrating a smaller IOV in delineation after the education program.Regarding qualitative analysis,the greatest variations in baseline were observed at the external iliac area and ischiorectal fossa;61.54%(8/13)and 53.85%(7/13)of the participants unnecessarily delineated the external iliac area and the ischiorectal fossa,respectively.However,the education program reduced these variations.CONCLUSION Wide variations in CTV delineation for rectal cancer are present among radiation oncologists in China's Mainland.A well-structured education program could improve delineation accuracy and reduce IOVs.
文摘Delineation of the lung parenchyma in the thoracic Computed Tomography(CT)is an important processing step for most of the pulmonary image analysis such as lung volume extraction,lung nodule detection and pulmonary vessel segmentation.An automatic method for accurate delineation of lung parenchyma in thoracic Computed Tomography images is presented in this paper.The proposed method involves a segmentation phase followed by a lung boundary correction technique.The tissues in the thoracic Computed Tomography can be represented by a number of Gaussians.We propose a histogram utilized Adaptive Multilevel Thresholding(AMT)for estimating the total number of Gaussians and their initial parameters.The parameters of Gaussian components are updated by Expectation Maximization(EM)algorithm.The segmented lung parenchyma from the Gaussian Mixture model(GMM)undergoes an Adaptive Morphological Filtering(AMF)to reduce the boundary errors.The proposed method has been tested on 70 diseased and 119 normal lung images from 28 cases obtained from Lung Image Database Consortium(LIDC).The performance of the proposed system has been validated.
文摘BACKGROUND Accurate delineation of the target area for patients with hypopharyngeal cancer is the key to achieving an ideal radiotherapy effect.Since computed tomography(CT)alone can no longer meet the treatment needs,fusing CT images with magnetic resonance imaging(MRI)or positron emission tomography(PET)images can overcome the disadvantages of CT.Herein,we present a clinical case of hypopharyngeal cancer to delineate the tumor volume using combined MRI-CT and PET-CT fusion images to examine if they could accurately cover the tumor volume.CASE SUMMARY A 67-year-old male patient with hypopharyngeal carcinoma could not tolerate chemotherapy and surgery due to complicated health issues such as diabetic nephropathy and other underlying diseases.After multidisciplinary consultations,clinicians eventually agreed to undergo radiotherapy to control the progression of his tumor.He was examined by CT,MRI,and 18-fluorodeoxyglucose-PET for treatment planning,and CT images were fused with PET and MRI images while delineating tumor volume.CONCLUSION The image fusion of MRI-CT and PET-CT has both advantages and disadvantages.Compared with CT images alone,the combination of MRI-CT and PET-CT fusion images can precisely cover the gross tumor volume in hypopharyngeal carcinoma and avoid overestimation or incomplete coverage of tumor volume.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China,No.42130713National Key R&D Program of China,No.2020YFC1807400。
文摘The precision remediation and redevelopment of contaminated sites are crucial issues for improving the human settlement and constructing a beautiful China. Three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants at contaminated sites is a prerequisite for precision remediation and redevelopment. However, a contaminated site is a three-dimensional complex system coupling multiple spatial elements above-and under-ground. The complexity incurs high uncertainties about the three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants based on sparse borehole and spatial statistics and inference models. This paper first systematically reviewed the objectives of fine three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants, the sampling strategies for soil boring, the commonly used models for delineating soil pollutants, and the relevant cases of applying these models at contaminated sites. We then summarized the effects of borehole data and three-dimensional models on soil pollutants' delineation results from biased characteristics and nonstationary conditions. The present research status and related issues on correcting the biased characteristics and nonstationary conditions were analyzed. Finally, based on the problems and challenges, we suggested the three-dimensional delineation of soil pollutants in the underground “black box” for future research from the following six priority areas: multi-scenarios, nonstationary, non-linearity, multi-source data fusion, multiple model coupling, and the delineation of co-contaminated sites.
基金Supported by the 973 Project of China (No. 2003CB716106)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30500140 and 90208003)
文摘Eyes are important organs-at-risk （OARs） that should be protected during the radiation treatment of those head tumors. Correct delineation of the eyes on CT images is one of important issues for treatment planning to protect the eyes as much as possible. In this paper, we propose a new method, named ant colony optimization （ACO）, to delineate the eyes automatically. In the proposed algorithm, each ant tries to find a closed path, and some pheromone is deposited on the visited path when the ant fmds a path. After all ants fmish a circle, the best ant will lay some pheromone to enforce the best path. The proposed algorithm is verified on several CT images, and the preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility of ACO for the delineation problem.
基金Supported by Project of China Geological Survey(No.1212011085480)Key Scientific and Technological Development Project of Jilin Province(No.20090479)
文摘Based on the accumulated data for the gold deposits in the central Jilin Province in recent years and our understanding of the gold metallogenic province,the Haigou gold metallogenic province is delineated and the denudation degree of gold deposits in this province is discussed. The potential and the ore-searching direction of the province are also considered. The Haigou gold metallogenic province occurs as an independent province with low denudation degree and high ore-producing potential. Regional fault belts and small basic intrusions are two ore-constrains and could serve as the ore-searching indictors in the province.
文摘Intensification of agricultural land use and population growth from 1990-2017 has caused changes in land cover and land use of the Mbarali River sub-catchment which is located in the Upper Great Ruaha Sub basin, Tanzania. This has affected the magnitude of the surface runoff, total water yield and the groundwater flow. This study assesses the impacts of the land cover and land use changes on the stream flows and hydrological water balance components (surface runoff, water yield, percolation and actual evapotranspiration). The land use and land cover (LULC) maps for three window period snapshots, 1990, 2006 and 2017 were created from Landsat TM and OLI_TIRS with the help of QGIS version 2.6. Supervised classification was used to generate LULC maps using the Maximum Likelihood Algorithm and Kappa statistics for assessment of accuracy. SWAT was set up and run to simulate stream flows and hydrological water balance components. The assessment of the impacts of land use and land cover changes on stream flows and hydrological water balance component was performed by comparing hydrological parameters simulated by SWAT using land use scenarios of 2006 and 2017 against the baseline land use scenario of 1990. Accuracy of LULC classification was good with Kappa statistics ranging between 0.9 and 0.99. There was a drastic increase in areal coverage of cultivated land, for periods 1990-2006 (5.84%) and 2006-2017 (12.05%) compared to other LULC. During 2006 and 2017 surface runoff increased by 4% and 9% respectively;however, water yield increased by only 0.5% compared to 1990 baseline period. This was attributed to increased proportion of cultivated land in the sub-catchment which has a high curve number (59.60) that indicates a higher runoff response and low infiltration rate.
文摘<strong>Introduction:</strong> Radiotherapy alone or combined with surgery and/or chemotherapy is being investigated in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). This study aimed to simulate a Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) treatment of a patient with MPM. <strong>Materials and Methods:</strong> CT images from a patient with intact lungs were imported via DICOM into the Pinnacle3 treatment planning (TP) system (TPS) and used as a model for MPM to delineate organs at risk (OAR) and both clinical and planning target volumes (CTV and PTV) with a margin of 5 mm. Elekta Synergy with 6 MV photons and 80 leafs MLCi2 was employed. VMAT plans were generated using two coplanar arcs with gantry rotation angles of 178<span style="font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;white-space:normal;background-color:#FFFFFF;">°</span> - 182<span style="font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;white-space:normal;background-color:#FFFFFF;">°</span>, the collimator angles of each arc were set to 90<span style="font-family:Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;white-space:normal;background-color:#FFFFFF;">°</span>, Octavius<span style="white-space:nowrap;"><sup>®</sup></span> 4D 729 was employed for quality assurance while the calculated and measured doses were compared using VeriSoft. <strong>Results:</strong> A TP was achieved. The Gamma volume analysis with criteria of 3 mm distance to agreement and 3% dose difference yielded the gamma passing rate = 99.9%. The reference isodose was 42.75 Gy with the coverage constraints for the PTV D95 and V95 = 95.0% of 45 Gy. The remaining dosimetric parameters met the recommendations from the clinically acceptable guidelines for the radiotherapy of MPM. <strong>Conclusion:</strong> Using well-defined TV and VMAT, a consistent TP compared to similar ones from publications was achieved. We obtained a high agreement between the 3D dose reconstructed and the dose calculated.
文摘1.ObjectivesSouthern Qinghai-northem Tibet permafrost region is a place having the most widespread and most developed permafrost in China with good mineralization conditions and prospecting potentials for gas hydrate (Zhu YH et al.,2011). In 2011,China Geological Survey initiated a special national program entitled "Gas hydrate resource exploration and trial mining",which signaled a prelude to a comprehensive gas hydrate survey in southern Qinghai-northern Tibet permafrost region.So far,appreciable progress has been made in the geological,geophysical,geochemical and drilling survey across a number of key blocks.This paper is intended to examine the fundamental conditions for gas hydrate mineralization based on previous findings,delineate favorable zones for gas hydrate mineralization,and to make contributions to the onshore gas hydrate resource exploration in China.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42274144,42304122,and 41974155)the Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi (2023-YBGY-076)+1 种基金the National Key R&D Program of China (2020YFA0713404)the China Uranium Industry and East China University of Technology Joint Innovation Fund (NRE202107)。
文摘Time-frequency analysis is a successfully used tool for analyzing the local features of seismic data.However,it suffers from several inevitable limitations,such as the restricted time-frequency resolution,the difficulty in selecting parameters,and the low computational efficiency.Inspired by deep learning,we suggest a deep learning-based workflow for seismic time-frequency analysis.The sparse S transform network(SSTNet)is first built to map the relationship between synthetic traces and sparse S transform spectra,which can be easily pre-trained by using synthetic traces and training labels.Next,we introduce knowledge distillation(KD)based transfer learning to re-train SSTNet by using a field data set without training labels,which is named the sparse S transform network with knowledge distillation(KD-SSTNet).In this way,we can effectively calculate the sparse time-frequency spectra of field data and avoid the use of field training labels.To test the availability of the suggested KD-SSTNet,we apply it to field data to estimate seismic attenuation for reservoir characterization and make detailed comparisons with the traditional time-frequency analysis methods.
基金supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)(Nos.62106022,62225601,and U19B2036)Key Program of Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation(No.7191003)Beijing Natural Science Foundation Project(No.Z200002).
文摘Brain midline delineation can facilitate the clinical evaluation of brain midline shift,which has a pivotal role in the diagnosis and prognosis of various brain pathology.However,there are still challenges for brain midline delineation:1)the largely deformed midline is hard to localize if mixed with severe cerebral hemorrhage;2)the predicted midlines of recent methods are not smooth and continuous which violates the structural priority.To overcome these challenges,we propose an anisotropic three dimensional(3D)network with context-aware refinement(A3D-CAR)for brain midline modeling.The proposed network fuses 3D context from different two dimensional(2D)slices through asymmetric context fusion.To exploit the elongated structure of the midline,an anisotropic block is designed to balance the difference between the adjacent pixels in the horizontal and vertical directions.For maintaining the structural priority of a brain midline,we present a novel 3D connectivity regular loss(3D CRL)to penalize the disconnectivity between nearby coordinates.Extensive experiments on the CQ dataset and one in-house dataset show that the proposed method outperforms three state-of-the-art methods on four evaluation metrics without excessive computational burden.
基金the Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies(SAOT)by the German National Science Foundation(DFG)in the framework of the excellence initiative and Bavarian Laser Centre(BLZ)for support of this study.
文摘Limitations of cancer margin delineation and surgical guidance by means of autofluorescence imaging under conditions of laser ablation were investigated and preliminary results are presented.PinPoint^(TM)(Novadaq Technologies Inc.,Canada)was used to capture digital images and Er:YAG laser(2.94μm,Glissando,WaveLight^(TM),Germany)was exploited to cause laser ablation on both normal and cancer sites of the specimen.It was shown that changes of the autofluorescence image after ablation extend beyond the actual sizes of the ablation loci.The tumor tissue after the laser ablation starts to emit fluorescent light within the green wavelength band(490-550nm)similar to normal tissue stating that the current technology of in-process tissue classification fails.However,when the autofluorescence was collected in the red range(600-750nm),then the abnormal/normal contrast was reduced,but still present even after the laser ablation.The present study highlights the importance of finding a proper technology for surgical navigation of cancer removal under conditions of high power effects in biological tissues.
文摘IMRT has increased the local-regional control and decreased the complications from treating nasopharyngeal cancer （NPC）. Therefore studying IMRT is important. CT and MRI are complementary, and their joint use is currently considered to be the optimal modality to delineate the extent of the primary spread of NPC. The key problem in delineation of the neck nodes is how to translate anatomic node regions into the CT boundaries. The consensus guideline which narrowed the gap among different cancer centers is recommended in delineating the boundary of the cervical lymph node regions. The definition of the NPC GTV is clear and almost the same among the main cancer centers in their IMRT planning protocols. The suggested biological dose to the GTV is close to or more than 80 Gy; the main differences are the definitions of the CTVs and their schemes for the prescribed dose, and also the dosage to the high cervical region is different among those centers. According to their long-term follow-up results, it is suggested that, besides adding 5-10 mm margins to the primary lesions, the immediate high-risk structures （including the entire nasopharyngeal cavity, retropharyngeal space, clivus, base of the skull, pterygoid plates and muscles, parapharyngeal space, the sphenoid and partial ethmoid sinuses, the posterior third of the maxillary sinuses and the nasal cavity） should also be included with a prescription of more than 60 Gy, and the bilateral Ib, II and Va node levels should be ranked as high-risk regions and differentially prescribed for treatment with no less than 60 Gy.
文摘The study was conducted to investigate farmers’ perception of soil erosion, participation and adoption of soil conservation technologies (SWC) in Geshy sub-catchment of Gojeb river catchment, Omo-Gibe basin, Ethiopia during 2016. The study is based on a detailed survey of 77 households using structured interviews, field observation and focus group discussion. Descriptive and chi-square statistics were applied to analyze factors that affected farmers’ perceived soil erosion severity, participation and adoption options. The results revealed that about 79% of farmers perceived soil erosion problem and its consequences and 97.4% of them believed that it can be controlled. Almost all (97.4%) farmers acknowledged the presence of SWC technologies and about 92.2% of them were participated in conservation activities voluntarily. Thus, 93.5% of them realized decreasing rate of soil erosion and 79.9% of them observed an increasing trend in soil fertility status. Consequently, 94.8% of them confirmed the potential of SWC technologies to halt land degradation and improve land productivity. Furthermore, 98.7% of them were willing to adopt with very good adoption judgment and 94.8% of them were willing to continue maintaining constructed technologies in the future. Principally, farmers’ perception of soil erosion, their genuine participation derived from their conviction, and adoption of induced SWC technologies are the decisive elements for the success of watershed management interventions.
