scholarly journals An improved quality assessment framework to better inform large-scale forest restoration management

2021 ◽  
Vol 123 ◽  
pp. 107370
Author(s):  
Zhaowei Ding ◽  
Ruonan Li ◽  
Patrick O'Connor ◽  
Hua Zheng ◽  
Binbin Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Forest Restoration ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Assessment Framework ◽  
Restoration Management

scholarly journals Stand Stability of Pure and Mixed-Eucalyptus Forests of Different Tree Species in a Typhoon-Prone Area

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 458
Author(s):  
Haiyan Deng ◽  
Linlin Shen ◽  
Jiaqi Yang ◽  
Xiaoyong Mo
Keyword(s):  
Tree Species ◽  
Forest Restoration ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Stand Structure ◽  
Pinus Elliottii ◽  
Stem Form ◽  
Tree Species Composition ◽  
Eucalyptus Plantation ◽  
Mixed Plantation ◽  
Preservation Rate

Background and Objectives: The stable stand structure of mixed plantations is the basis of giving full play to forest ecological function and benefit. However, the monocultural Eucalyptus plantations with large-scale and successive planting that caused ecological problems such as reduced species diversity and loss of soil nutrients have presented to be unstable and vulnerable, especially in typhoon-prone areas. The objective of this study was to evaluate the nonspatial structure difference and the stand stability of pure and mixed-Eucalyptus forests, to find out the best mixed pattern of Eucalyptus forests with the most stability in typhoon-prone areas. Materials and Methods: In this study, we randomly investigated eight plots of 30 m × 30 m in pure and mixed-Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus urophylla S. T. Blake × E. grandis W. Hill) plantations of different tree species (Neolamarckia cadamba (Roxb.) Bosser, Acacia mangium Willd., and Pinus elliottii var. Elliottii Engelm. × P. caribaea Morelet) on growth status, characterized and compared the distribution of nonspatial structure of the monoculture and mixtures, and evaluated the stand quality and stability from eight indexes of the nonspatial structure, including preservation rate, stand density, height, diameter, stem form, degree of stem inclination, tree-species composition, and age structure. Results: Eucalyptus surviving in the mixed plantation of Eucalyptus and A. mangium (EA) and in the mixed plantation of Eucalyptus and P. elliottii × P. caribaea (EP) were 5.0% and 7.6% greater than those in pure Eucalyptus plantation (EE), respectively, while only the stand preservation rate of EA was greater (+2.9%) than that of the pure Eucalyptus plantation. The proportions of all mixtures in the height class greater than 7 m were fewer than that of EE. The proportions of EA and mixed plantation of Eucalyptus and N. cadamba (EN) in the diameter class greater than 7 m were 10.6% and 7.8%, respectively, more than that of EE. EN had the highest ratio of branching visibly (41.0%), EA had the highest ratio of inclined stems (8.1%), and EP had the most straight and complete stem form (68.7%). The stand stability of the mixed plantation of Eucalyptus and A. mangium presented to be optimal, as its subordinate function value (0.76) and state value (ω = 0.61) of real stand were the largest. Conclusions: A. mangium is a superior tree species to mix with Eucalyptus for a more stable stand structure in the early growth stage to approach an evident and immense stability and resistance, which is of great significance for the forest restoration of Eucalyptus in response to extreme climate and forest management.

scholarly journals Automated Quality Assessment of Interferometric Ring Laser Data

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 3425
Author(s):  
Andreas Brotzer ◽  
Felix Bernauer ◽  
Karl Ulrich Schreiber ◽  
Joachim Wassermann ◽  
Heiner Igel
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Ground Motion ◽  
Ring Laser ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Scientific Field ◽  
Optical Frequency ◽  
Laser Array ◽  
Laser Data ◽  
Rotational Motions

In seismology, an increased effort to observe all 12 degrees of freedom of seismic ground motion by complementing translational ground motion observations with measurements of strain and rotational motions could be witnessed in recent decades, aiming at an enhanced probing and understanding of Earth and other planetary bodies. The evolution of optical instrumentation, in particular large-scale ring laser installations, such as G-ring and ROMY (ROtational Motion in seismologY), and their geoscientific application have contributed significantly to the emergence of this scientific field. The currently most advanced, large-scale ring laser array is ROMY, which is unprecedented in scale and design. As a heterolithic structure, ROMY’s ring laser components are subject to optical frequency drifts. Such Sagnac interferometers require new considerations and approaches concerning data acquisition, processing and quality assessment, compared to conventional, mechanical instrumentation. We present an automated approach to assess the data quality and the performance of a ring laser, based on characteristics of the interferometric Sagnac signal. The developed scheme is applied to ROMY data to detect compromised operation states and assign quality flags. When ROMY’s database becomes publicly accessible, this assessment will be employed to provide a quality control feature for data requests.

scholarly journals Grassy biomes: An inconvenient reality for large-scale forest restoration? A comment on the essay by Chazdon and Laestadius

2017 ◽  
Vol 104 (5) ◽  
pp. 649-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph W. Veldman ◽  
Fernando A. O. Silveira ◽  
Forrest D. Fleischman ◽  
Nataly L. Ascarrunz ◽  
Giselda Durigan
Keyword(s):  
Forest Restoration ◽  
Large Scale

scholarly journals Evaluation of a staff training programme to reimplement a comprehensive health assessment

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. e000353 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke A Turcotte ◽  
Jake Tran ◽  
Joshua Moralejo ◽  
Nancy Curtin-Telegdi ◽  
Leslie Eckel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Quality ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Assessment ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Care Planning ◽  
Assessment Framework ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Data Quality Assessment ◽  
Comprehensive Health

BackgroundHealth information systems with applications in patient care planning and decision support depend on high-quality data. A postacute care hospital in Ontario, Canada, conducted data quality assessment and focus group interviews to guide the development of a cross-disciplinary training programme to reimplement the Resident Assessment Instrument–Minimum Data Set (RAI-MDS) 2.0 comprehensive health assessment into the hospital’s clinical workflows.MethodsA hospital-level data quality assessment framework based on time series comparisons against an aggregate of Ontario postacute care hospitals was used to identify areas of concern. Focus groups were used to evaluate assessment practices and the use of health information in care planning and clinical decision support. The data quality assessment and focus groups were repeated to evaluate the effectiveness of the training programme.ResultsInitial data quality assessment and focus group indicated that knowledge, practice and cultural barriers prevented both the collection and use of high-quality clinical data. Following the implementation of the training, there was an improvement in both data quality and the culture surrounding the RAI-MDS 2.0 assessment.ConclusionsIt is important for facilities to evaluate the quality of their health information to ensure that it is suitable for decision-making purposes. This study demonstrates the use of a data quality assessment framework that can be applied for quality improvement planning.

scholarly journals Data Quality: A Negotiator between Paper-based and Digital Records in the Pakistan’s TB Control Program

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Mustafa Ali ◽  
Farah Naureen ◽  
Arif Noor ◽  
Maged Kamel N. Boulos ◽  
Javariya Aamir ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Quality ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Control Program ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Patient Treatment ◽  
Assessment Framework ◽  
Healthcare Organizations ◽  
Data Quality Assessment ◽  
Quality Issues

Background Increasingly, healthcare organizations are using technology for the efficient management of data. The aim of this study was to compare the data quality of digital records with the quality of the corresponding paper-based records by using data quality assessment framework. Methodology We conducted a desk review of paper-based and digital records over the study duration from April 2016 to July 2016 at six enrolled TB clinics. We input all data fields of the patient treatment (TB01) card into a spreadsheet-based template to undertake a field-to-field comparison of the shared fields between TB01 and digital data. Findings A total of 117 TB01 cards were prepared at six enrolled sites, whereas just 50% of the records (n=59; 59 out of 117 TB01 cards) were digitized. There were 1,239 comparable data fields, out of which 65% (n=803) were correctly matched between paper based and digital records. However, 35% of the data fields (n=436) had anomalies, either in paper-based records or in digital records. 1.9 data quality issues were calculated per digital patient record, whereas it was 2.1 issues per record for paper-based record. Based on the analysis of valid data quality issues, it was found that there were more data quality issues in paper-based records (n=123) than in digital records (n=110). Conclusion There were fewer data quality issues in digital records as compared to the corresponding paper-based records. Greater use of mobile data capture and continued use of the data quality assessment framework can deliver more meaningful information for decision making.

Precise No-Reference Image Quality Evaluation Based on Distortion Identification

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3s) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Chenggang Yan ◽  
Tong Teng ◽  
Yutao Liu ◽  
Yongbing Zhang ◽  
Haoqian Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Image Quality ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Quality Evaluation ◽  
Image Quality Assessment ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Gaussian White Noise ◽  
The State ◽  
Reference Image

The difficulty of no-reference image quality assessment (NR IQA) often lies in the lack of knowledge about the distortion in the image, which makes quality assessment blind and thus inefficient. To tackle such issue, in this article, we propose a novel scheme for precise NR IQA, which includes two successive steps, i.e., distortion identification and targeted quality evaluation. In the first step, we employ the well-known Inception-ResNet-v2 neural network to train a classifier that classifies the possible distortion in the image into the four most common distortion types, i.e., Gaussian white noise (WN), Gaussian blur (GB), jpeg compression (JPEG), and jpeg2000 compression (JP2K). Specifically, the deep neural network is trained on the large-scale Waterloo Exploration database, which ensures the robustness and high performance of distortion classification. In the second step, after determining the distortion type of the image, we then design a specific approach to quantify the image distortion level, which can estimate the image quality specially and more precisely. Extensive experiments performed on LIVE, TID2013, CSIQ, and Waterloo Exploration databases demonstrate that (1) the accuracy of our distortion classification is higher than that of the state-of-the-art distortion classification methods, and (2) the proposed NR IQA method outperforms the state-of-the-art NR IQA methods in quantifying the image quality.

Engaging People for Large-Scale Forest Restoration: Governance Lessons from the Atlantic Forest of Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 389-402
Author(s):  
Ludmila P. de Siqueira ◽  
Anazélia M. Tedesco ◽  
Ricardo R. Rodrigues ◽  
Rafael B. Chaves ◽  
Natália C. B. Albuquerque ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atlantic Forest ◽  
Forest Restoration ◽  
Large Scale

scholarly journals Primates Can Be a Rallying Symbol to Promote Tropical Forest Restoration

2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (6) ◽  
pp. 669-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin A. Chapman ◽  
Julio Cesar Bicca-Marques ◽  
Amy E. Dunham ◽  
Pengfei Fan ◽  
Peter J. Fashing ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Forest Restoration ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Restoration Ecology ◽  
Habitat Restoration ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Flagship Species ◽  
Forest Fragments ◽  
Conservation Action ◽  
Tropical Country

With 60% of all primate species now threatened with extinction and many species only persisting in small populations in forest fragments, conservation action is urgently needed. But what type of action? Here we argue that restoration of primate habitat will be an essential component of strategies aimed at conserving primates and preventing the extinctions that may occur before the end of the century and propose that primates can act as flagship species for restoration efforts. To do this we gathered a team of academics from around the world with experience in restoration so that we could provide examples of why primate restoration ecology is needed, outline how primates can act as flagship species for restoration efforts of tropical forest, review what little is known about how primate populations respond to restoration efforts, and make specific recommendations of the next steps needed to make restoration of primate populations successful. We set four priorities: (1) academics must effectively communicate both the value of primates and the need for restoration; (2) more research is needed on how primates contribute to forest restoration; (3) more effort must be put into Masters and PhD level training for tropical country nationals; and finally (4) more emphasis is needed to monitor the responses of regenerating forest and primate populations where restoration efforts are initiated. We are optimistic that populations of many threatened species can recover, and extinctions can be prevented, but only if concerted large-scale efforts are made soon and if these efforts include primate habitat restoration.

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