Airborne discrete-return LIDAR data in the estimation of vertical canopy cover, angular canopy closure and leaf area index

Remote sensing of forest canopy cover has been widely studied recently, but little attention has been paid to the quality of field validation data. Ecological literature has two different coverage metrics. Vertical canopy cover (VCC) is the vertical projection of tree crowns ignoring within-crown gaps. Angular canopy closure (ACC) is the proportion of covered sky at some angular range around the zenith, and can be measured with a field-of-view instrument, such as a camera. We compared field-measured VCC and ACC at 15° and 75° from the zenith to different LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) metrics, using several LiDAR data sets and comprehensive field data. The VCC was estimated to a high precision using a simple proportion of canopy points in first-return data. Confining to a maximum 15° scan zenith angle, the absolute root mean squared error (RMSE) was 3.7-7.0%, with an overestimation of 3.1-4.6%. We showed that grid-based methods are capable of reducing the inherent overestimation of VCC. The low scan angles and low power settings that are typically applied in topographic LiDARs are not suitable for ACC estimation as they measure in wrong geometry and cannot easily detect small within-crown gaps. However, ACC at 0-15° zenith angles could be estimated from LiDAR data with sufficient precision, using also the last returns (RMSE 8.1-11.3%, bias -6.1-+4.6%). The dependency of LiDAR metrics and ACC at 0-75° zenith angles was nonlinear and was modeled from laser pulse proportions with nonlinear regression with a best-case standard error of 4.1%. We also estimated leaf area index from the LiDAR metrics with linear regression with a standard error of 0.38. The results show that correlations between airborne laser metrics and different canopy field characteristics are very high if the field measurements are done with equivalent accuracy.     

Korrosion und kathodischer Korrosionsschutz von unlegiertem Stahl in Sandböden

Corrosion and cathodic protection of unalloyed steel in sand soil Cathodic protection takes place if the potential criterion is satisfied. That means that the pipe-to-soil potential is less than the protection potential. This is to be controlled in the case of pipelines which are required to be inspected regularly by law. Protection potentials are described in technical standards (e.g. DIN 30676), and must be determined experimentally in doubtful cases. In general the protection potential is referred to as U = ?0.85 V for soils. In practical applications of this protection potential difficulties arise in the case of sand soils with a minute amount of salt and a high resistivity resulting from a very low humidity. These difficulties are related to a high protection current demand due to good aeration and a poor current distribution due to the high resistivity. On the other hand, sand soils are known to be less corrosive. Thus, one can think of using special protection potentials for sand soils which are more positive than ?0.85 V. The results of laboratory and field tests show that protection potentials in the range of ?0.75 V to ?0.65 V can be applied depending on soil resistivity. In these cases even micro cell action can be prevented.     

Atomistic simulations of grain boundary segregation in nanocrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia and gadolinia-doped ceria solid oxide electrolytes

Hybrid Monte Carlo–molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to study defect distributions near Σ5(3 1 0)/[0 0 1] pure tilt grain boundaries (GBs) in nanocrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia and gadolinia-doped ceria. The simulations predict equilibrium distributions of dopant cations and oxygen vacancies in the vicinity of the GBs where both materials display considerable amounts of dopant segregation. The predictions are in qualitative agreement with various experimental observations. Further analyses show that the degree of dopant segregation increases with the doping level and applied pressure in both materials. The equilibrium segregation profiles are also strongly influenced by the microscopic structure of the GBs. The high concentration of oxygen vacancies at the GB interface due to lower vacancy formation energies triggers the dopant segregation, and the final segregation profiles are largely determined by the dopant–vacancy interaction.     

Breath figure templated semifluorinated block copolymers with tunable surface properties and binding capabilities

Patterning of functionalized polymeric surfaces enables the adjustment of their characteristics and use in novel applications. We prepared breath figure (BF) films from three semifluorinated diblock copolymers, which all are composed of a polystyrene block and a semifluorinated one to compare their surface properties. “Click” chemistry was employed to one of the polymers, containing a poly(pentafluorostyrene) block to incorporate hydrophilic sugar or carboxylic acid moieties. The structure of the polymer alters the obtained porous morphology of the films. Contact angle (CA) analyses of the BF films reveals that the surface porosity increases water CAs compared with solvent cast films, and, in the case of hydrophobic polymers, leads to significant increase in the CAs of dodecane. The hydrophobicity of the BF films is further amplified by the removal of the topmost layer which leads in some cases to superhydrophobic surfaces. BF films containing glucose units are hydrophilic exhibiting water CAs below 90°. These glycosylated porous surfaces are shown to bind lectin Con A‐FITC or can be labelled with isothiocyanate marker. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41225.     

Influence of different grinding wheel and dressing roller specifications on grinding wheel wear

A targeted adjustment of the dressing results and the methodological influence of the dressing process on the non-stationary wear of a grinding wheel after dressing increases the productivity and the reproducibility of grinding processes. Despite the great economic importance of grinding processes with vitrified corundum grinding wheels and the great relevance of the dressing process for the application behavior of these grinding wheels, quantitative models are missing for the purposeful design of the dressing process. In previous studies, a dressing model was successfully developed which predicts the dressing force in the dressing process as well as the workpiece roughness and the grinding wheel wear behavior in a grinding process for a specific grinding wheel and form roller specification. However, a transferability of this model to other grinding wheel and form roller specifications is not possible because the influence of the grain size and the hardness of the grinding wheel as well as the dressing tool topography on the grinding wheel wear and thus on parameters of the dressing model are not known. The objective of this work was to extend the model to additional grinding wheel and form roller specifications to ensure a broad applicability of the model.     

Tailored surface properties of semi-fluorinated block copolymers by electrospinning

Diblock copolymers based on polystyrene (PS) macroinitiators and four different fluorinated monomers (perfluorooctyl ethyl methacrylate (FMA), pentafluorostyrene (FS), perfluorooctyl-ethylene oxymethyl styrene (EMS), 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoro-4-(3,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,10,10,10-heptadecafluorodecaoxy)styrene (FSF)) were synthesized via atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The lengths of the PS and fluorinated blocks were altered and the surface and self-assembling properties of the polymers were compared with respect to the fluorinated monomer used and the fluorine content. The surface properties, contact angles and surface tension, were enhanced by the existence of the CF₃ groups at the end of the alkyl chains compared with poly(pentafluorostyrene). Hydrophobicity of the surfaces was further enhanced by electrospinning the polymer solutions, which yielded superhydrophobic surfaces with water contact angles >150° for polymers having CF₃ groups.     

Atomic layer deposition and characterization of biocompatible hydroxyapatite thin films

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) was used to produce hydroxyapatite from Ca(thd)₂ (thd = 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-3,5-heptanedionato) and (CH₃O)₃PO onto Si(100) and Corning (0211). Film crystallinity, stoichiometry, possible impurities and surface morphology were determined. The as-deposited films contained significant amounts of carbonate impurities however, annealing at moist N₂ flow reduced the carbonate content even at 400 °C. The as-deposited Ca-P-O films were amorphous but rapid thermal annealing promoted the formation of the hydroxyapatite phase. Mouse MC 3T3-E1 cells were used for the cell culture experiments. According to the bioactivity studies cell proliferation was enhanced on as-deposited ALD-grown Ca-P-O films and greatly enhanced on films annealed at 500 °C in comparison with reference cells on borosilicate glass or cell culture polystyrene.     

How attentional systems process conflicting cues. The superiority of social over symbolic orienting revisited.

We investigated orienting of attention by social and symbolic cues presented inside/outside the locus of attention. Participants responded to laterally presented targets preceded by simultaneously presented gaze and arrow cues. Participants’ attention was allocated to either of the cues and the other cue served as a distractor. In Experiments 1–4 nonpredictive cues were employed. The validity of the attended cue and distractor were varied orthogonally. Valid cues and distractors produced additive facilitation to reaction times when compared to invalid cues and distractors. The effects of gaze and arrow distractors were similar. When the cue was 100% valid and the distractor 50% valid (Experiment 5), distractor validity had no effect on reaction times. When realistic gaze and arrow cues were employed (Experiment 6), arrow but not gaze distractors influenced the reaction times. The results suggest that social and symbolic directional information can be integrated for attention orienting. The processing of social and symbolic directional information can be modulated by top-down control, but the efficiency of the control depends on the visual saliency of the cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Space-time constant modulus algorithm for multipath removal on the reference signal exploited by passive bistatic radar

The authors address the problem of multipath cancellation in the reference signal used in passive bistatic radar (PBR), which exploits an existing transmitter as emitter of opportunity. The presence of multipath echoes in the reference signal is demonstrated to strongly affect the detection performance of passive radar. Based on the well-known constant modulus algorithm (CMA) approach in the time-domain, new multi-dimensional techniques are considered for the adaptive equalisation of the reference signal based on an array of antennas and multiple receiving channels. The effectiveness of these techniques for PBR purposes is demonstrated with reference to typical simulated scenarios. The considered strategies, addressed as space-CMA and space-time-CMA, are shown to be able to recover the performance loss because of the multipath contribution in the reference signal so that they appear as very appealing solutions for PBR equipped with an array of antennas and multiple receiving channels.