Neural classification of SPOT imagery through integration of intensity and fractal information

It is well known that higher dimensional information essentially leads to better accuracy in remotely sensed image classification. This paper is aimed at land cover classification from SPOT-HRV imagery by the integration of multispectral intensity and texture information. In particular, fractal dimensions are extracted using a wavelet transform as image texture. A neural network approach to classification is adopted in this paper. The underlying network is a modified multilayer perceptron trained by a Kalman filtering technique. The main advantages of this network are (1) its non-backpropagation fashion of learning which leads to a fast convergence, (2) a built-in optimization function, and (3) global scale. Saving computer storage space and a fast learning capability are in particular suitable features for remote sensing applications. Correlation analysis was subsequently performed on both the intensity and fractal images. It was found that fractal information significantly improves the discrimination capability of heterogeneous area such as in urban regions, while it slightly degrades accuracy for homogeneous areas, such as open water. The overall classification performance is superior to results obtained using reflectance only. Improvements over heterogeneous areas are demonstrated.     

Integration of automatic mapping/facility management in distribution system analysis

This paper presents the use of an Automatic Mapping/Facility Management (AM/FM) system for distribution system analysis and design. The AM/FM provides an environment for building a database which contains both graphic information and non-graphic facility data. This database can be used by various departments for engineering analysis, accounting, inventory, map production, and so forth. This system can be used to retrieve facility data from the database and support different applications such as system analysis or planning. With the state-of-the-art graphic user interface (GUI), output results of the application can be shown on the screen along with the graphic displays of the system that includes the geographic information. In this paper, the integration of the AM/FM is illustrated by a three-phase load flow program, that is, a very precise and sophisticated three-phase distribution system model was used. It is also shown that a statistical report of facilities can be easily built with the aid of the AM/FM.     

Surface aerosol radiative forcing derived from collocated ground-based radiometric observations during PRIDE, SAFARI, and ACE-Asia

An approach is presented to estimate the surface aerosol radiative forcing by use of collocated cloud-screened narrowband spectral and thermal-offset-corrected radiometric observations during the Puerto Rico Dust Experiment 2000, South African Fire Atmosphere Research Initiative (SAFARI) 2000, and Aerosol Characterization Experiment-Asia 2001. We show that aerosol optical depths from the Multiple-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer data match closely with those from the Cimel sunphotometer data for two SAFARI-2000 dates. The observed aerosol radiative forcings were interpreted on the basis of results from the Fu-Liou radiative transfer model, and, in some cases, cross checked with satellite-derived forcing parameters. Values of the aerosol radiative forcing and forcing efficiency, which quantifies the sensitivity of the surface fluxes to the aerosol optical depth, were generated on the basis of a differential technique for all three campaigns, and their scientific significance is discussed.     

Polymerase chain reaction-mediated characterization of molds belonging to the Aspergillus flavus group and detection of Aspergillus parasiticus in peanut kernels by a multiplex polymerase chain reaction

The Aspergillus flavus group covers species of A. flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus as aflatoxin producers and Aspergillus oryzae and Aspergillus sojae as koji molds. Genetic similarity among these species is high, and aflatoxin production of a culture may be affected by cultivation conditions and substrate composition. Therefore, a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-mediated method of detecting the aflatoxin-synthesizing genes to indicate the degree of risk a genotype has of being a phenotypic producer was demonstrated. In this study, 19 strains of the A. flavus group, including A. flavus, A. parasiticus, A. oryzae, A. sojae, and one Aspergillus niger, were subjected to PCR testing in an attempt to detect four genes, encoding for norsolorinic acid reductase (nor-1), versicolorin A dehydrogenase (ver-1), sterigmatocystin O-methyltransferase (omt-1), and a regulatory protein (apa-2), involved in aflatoxin biosynthesis. Concurrently, the strains were cultivated in yeast-malt (YM) broth for aflatoxin detection. Fifteen strains were shown to possess the four target DNA fragments. With regard to aflatoxigenicity, all seven aflatoxigenic strains possessed the four DNA fragments, and five strains bearing less than the four DNA fragments did not produce aflatoxin. When peanut kernels were artificially contaminated with A. parasiticus and A. niger for 7 days, the contaminant DNA was extractable from a piece of cotyledon (ca. 100 mg), and when subjected to multiplex PCR testing using the four pairs of primers coding for the above genes, they were successfully detected. The target DNA fragments were detected in the kernels infected with A. parasiticus, and none was detected in the sound (uninoculated) kernels or in the kernels infected with A. niger.     

Fatigue crack growth behavior of laser-processed 304 stainless steel in air and gaseous hydrogen

Fatigue crack growth test was performed to evaluate fatigue behavior of 304 stainless steel specimens with or without laser processing (welding and surface treatment) in air and gaseous hydrogen. As the crack propagation normal to the laser welding or scan direction, the laser-processed specimens exhibited a higher resistance to crack growth in the low stress intensity factor range (ΔK) than the as-received steel plates regardless of testing environments. However, the marked retardation of crack growth behavior vanished for welded specimens subjected to a 850 °C/h stress relief treatment or with a shorter distance from notch tip to the weld centerline in the test.Fatigue-fractured appearance of the steel plate tested in air was composed of mainly transgranular fatigue fracture and some flat facets, along with a small amount of intergranular fracture. While quasi-cleavage fracture and few twin boundary separations were observed for the same specimen in hydrogen. On the other hand, the lower crack growth rate of laser-processed specimens in both air and hydrogen was accompanied with rubbed areas on the fracture surfaces. It was found that the extent of quasi-cleavage fracture was related to the formation of strain-induced martensite, which would contribute to an increased fatigue crack growth rate of all specimens in gaseous hydrogen.     

A bibliometric analysis and comparison on three information science journals: JASIST,IPM, JOD, 1998–2008

Employing a citation analysis, this study explored and compared the bibliometric characteristics and the subject relationship with other disciplines of and among the three leading information science journals, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), Information Processing and Management and Journal of Documentation. The citation data were drawn from references of each article of the three journals during 1998 and 2008. The Ulrich’s Periodical Directory, Library of Congress Subject Heading, retrieved from the WorldCat, and LISA database were used to identify the main class, subclass and subject of cited journals and books. Quantitative results on the number of JASIST, IPM and JOD literature references, average number of references cited per paper, document type of cited literature and the journal self-citation rate are reported. Moreover, the highly cited journals and books, the main classes and subclasses of cited journals and books in papers of the three journals, the highly cited subjects in journals and books of library and information science were identified and analyzed. Comparison on the characteristics of cited journals and books confirmed that all the three journals under study are information science oriented, except JOD which is library science orientation. JASIST and IPM are very much in common and diffuse to other disciplines more deeply than JOD.     

Application of evolutionary programming for economic dispatch of cogeneration systems under emission constraints

This paper studies the economical operation of cogeneration systems under emission control with NO_x and SO_x from fossil-fueled thermal generation. The emission model is formulated as a function of fuel enthalpy dependent on the emission factor. The objective function includes fuel cost, emission cost, and tie-line energy cost, subject to the use of mixed fuels, operational limits, and emission constraints. An evolutionary programming was adopted to solve this problem. The steams, fuel mix, and generations will be found by considering the time-of-use dispatch between cogeneration systems and utility companies. A real cogeneration system is given to illustrate the proposed method.     

Using Difference‐Based Methods for Inference in Regression with Fractionally Integrated Processes

Abstract. This paper suggests a difference‐based method for inference in the regression model involving fractionally integrated processes. Under suitable regularity conditions, our method can effectively deal with the inference problems associated with the regression model consisting of nonstationary, stationary and intermediate memory regressors, simultaneously. Although the difference‐based method provides a very flexible modelling framework for empirical studies, the implementation of this method is extremely easy, because it completely avoids the difficult problems of choosing a kernel function, a bandwidth parameter, or an autoregressive lag length for the long‐run variance estimation. The asymptotic local power of our method is investigated with a sequence of local data‐generating processes (DGP) in what Davidson and MacKinnon [Canadian Journal of Economics. (1985) Vol. 18, pp. 38–57] call ‘regression direction’. The simulation results indicate that the size control of our method is excellent even when the sample size is only 100, and the pattern of power performance is highly consistent with the theoretical finding from the asymptotic local power analysis conducted in this paper.