Application of remote sensing to parks and protected area monitoring: Introduction to the special issue

This special issue is the result of sustained and highly collaborative efforts to improve the use of remotely sensed data to inform management of protected areas. The 15 papers in the issue address a diverse range of topics. These papers provide a conceptual basis and a framework for establishing monitoring programs, techniques and methods to make operational the use of remotely sensed data, case studies, and synthesis papers liking remotely sensed data to models used to inform ecological assessments. Studies in this issue necessarily confront the universal challenges of scale, both spatial and temporal, and the sometimes tenuous link between observed patterns and significant ecological process. A clear message is that the information needs of resource managers require information across scales, and these information demands will continue to motivate advances in the collection and analysis of remotely sensed data. This compilation of papers is unusual in (1) articulating a basic, if somewhat technical, foundation of remote sensing that is required for resource managers to effectively collaborate with remote sensing specialists, and (2) providing a framework for addressing monitoring resource issues that is likely to be of interest to many remote sensing specialists. We hope these papers inspire broader use of remotely sensed data to manage the increasingly rare and valuable resources in protected areas around the world.     

Modulation of Mechanical Interactions by Local Piezoelectric Effects

Piezoelectricity is a well‐established property of biological materials, yet its functional role has remained unclear. Here, a mechanical effect of piezoelectric domains resulting from collagen fibril organisation is demonstrated, and its role in tissue function and application to material design is described. Using a combination of scanning probe and nonlinear optical microscopy, a hierarchical structuring of piezoelectric domains in collagen‐rich tissues is observed, and their mechanical effects are explored in silico. Local electrostatic attraction and repulsion due to shear piezoelectricity in these domains modulate fibril interactions from the tens of nanometre (single fibril interactions) to the tens of micron (fibre interactions) level, analogous to modulated friction effects. The manipulation of domain size and organisation thus provides a capacity to tune energy storage, dissipation, stiffness, and damage resistance.     

Turbo decoding of product codes using adaptive belief propagation

The adaptive belief propagation (ABP) algorithm was recently proposed by Jiang and Narayanan for the soft decoding of Reed-Solomon (RS) codes. In this paper, simplified versions of this algorithm are investigated for the turbo decoding of product codes. The complexity of the turbo-oriented adaptive belief propagation (TAB) algorithm is significantly reduced by moving the matrix adaptation step outside of the belief propagation iteration loop. A reduced-complexity version of the TAB algorithm that offers a trade-off between performance and complexity is also proposed. Simulation results for the turbo decoding of product codes show that belief propagation based on adaptive parity check matrices is a practical alternative to the currently very popular Chase-Pyndiah algorithm.     

Derivate des Phosphorsäure-o-phenylenesters. XV [1]. Synthese von Tris-(o-phenylendioxy)-phosphorat(V)

Derivatives of o-Phenylenephosphate. XV. Synthesis of Tris-(o-phenylenedioxy)-phosphorate(V) The structure of an orthophosphate which had been supposed earlier to represent type 1 , has been proven to be a compound having only one P-nucleus in the molecule, with a penta( 4 ) resp. hexacoordinated ( 5 ) structure depending on the solvent. The triethyl-ammonium salt 8 of this first example of a hexacoordinated phosphoric acid with 6 P O-bonds ( 5 ) is formed simply from tri- als well as from tetra- and pentacoordinated derivatives of phosphorous resp. phosphoric or thiophosphoric acid.     

MERIS potential for ocean colour studies in the open ocean

The interest of space observations of ocean colour for determining variations in phytoplankton distribution and for deriving primary production (via models) has been largely demonstrated by the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) which operated from 1978 to 1986. The capabilities of this pioneer sensor, however, were limited both in spectral resolution and radiometric accuracy. The next generation of ocean colour sensors will benefit from major improvements. The Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), planned by the European Space Agency (ESA) for the Envisat platform, has been designed to measure radiances in 15 visible and infrared channels. Three infrared channels will allow aerosol characterization, and therefore accurate atmospheric corrections, to be performed for each pixel. For the retrieval of marine parameters, nine channels between 410 and 705nm will be available (as opposed to only four with the CZCS). In coastal waters this should, in principle, allow a separate quantification of different substances (phytoplankton, mineral particles, yellow substance) to be performed. In open ocean waters optically dominated by phytoplankton and their associate detrital matter, the basic information (i.e. the concentration of phytoplanktonic pigments) will be retrieved with improved accuracy due to the increased radiometric performances of MERIS. The adoption of multi-wavelength algorithms could also lead to additional information concerning auxiliary pigments and taxonomic groups. Finally, MERIS will be one of the first sensors to allow measurements of Sun-induced chlorophyll a in vivo fluorescence, which could provide a complementary approach for the assessment of phytoplankton abundance. The development of these next-generation algorithms, however, requires a number of fundamental studies.