Detection Of Short-term Changes Research Articles

Short-Term Change Detection and Markov Chain Prediction of Greenhouse Areas in Alanya, Turkey Using Sentinel-2 Imageries

Greenhouses provide controlled growth conditions and possibility off-season production for various agricultural products while there are some reported adverse effects on the environment due to particularly increased plastic waste, changed soil properties, and ecosystem degradation in their extensive use. Monitoring recent status and forecasting future probabilities of greenhouse coverage (ha, %) comprise influential tool for researchers and planners to reach more sustainable and environmental-friendly situations. Present paper deals with detection of short-term changes in greenhouse areas using high resolution Sentinel-2 imageries, and prediction of probable future status via markov chain model within Alanya, Turkey. The changes in greenhouse coverages were evaluated considering initial acquisition year of imageries, and change analyses were conducted between 2015 and 2021 years. Use of a Landsat-derived plastic greenhouse index to discriminate between greenhouse and other surrounding land cover land use (LCLU) types was tested for Sentinel-2. The LCLU2015 and LCLU2021 maps were consisted of five main classes including natural vegetation, open agricultural field, water surface, concrete structure, and greenhouse. Classification accuracies were assessed by checking the actual statuses of 200 equalized random control points using Google Earth application. The changes in LCLU within the major greenhouse located zone were evaluated through post-classification comparison technique. Future greenhouse areas, as well as other LCLU types, were predicted through markov chains for 2027 year by considering the same time interval. Findings have revealed that greenhouse areas have remarkably increased in the last seven years, and have great potential to continue expanding in the near future. Utilization of the index imageries to increase the classification accuracy of greenhouses is recommended.

NeuroSense: Short-term emotion recognition and understanding based on spiking neural network modelling of spatio-temporal EEG patterns

Emotion recognition still poses a challenge lying at the core of the rapidly growing area of affective computing and is crucial for establishing a successful human–computer interaction. Identification and understanding of emotions are achieved through various measures, such as subjective self-reports, face-tracking, voice analysis, gaze-tracking, as well as the analysis of autonomic and central neurophysiological measurements. Current approaches to emotion recognition based on electroencephalography (EEG) mostly rely on various handcrafted features extracted over relatively long time windows of EEG during participants exposure to appropriate affective stimuli. In this paper, we present a short-term emotion recognition framework based on spiking neural network (SNN) modelling of spatio-temporal EEG patterns. Our method relies on EEG signal segmentation based on detection of short-term changes in facial landmarks, and as such includes no computation of handcrafted EEG features. Differences between participants’ EEG properties are taken into account via subject-dependent spike encoding in the formulated subject-independent emotion recognition task. We test our methods on the publicly available DEAP and MAHNOB-HCI databases due to the availability of both EEG and frontal face video data. Through an exhaustive hyperparameter optimisation strategy, we show that the proposed SNN-based representation of EEG spiking patterns provides valuable information for short- term emotion recognition. The obtained accuracies are 78.97% and 79.39% in arousal classification, and 67.76% and 72.12% in valence classification, on the DEAP and MAHNOB-HCI datasets, respectively. Furthermore, through the application of a brain-inspired SNN model, this study provides novel insight and helps in the understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in emotional processing in the context of audiovisual stimuli, such as affective videos. The presented results encourage the use of the proposed EEG processing methodology as a complement to existing features and methods commonly used for EEG-based emotion recognition, especially for short-term arousal recognition.

Anthropometric indices and measures to assess change in the nutritional status of a population: a systematic literature review

Undernutrition is a major public health issue highlighted by the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, with target 2.2 aiming to ‘end hunger’ by 2030. On-going surveillance is essential detecting nutritional stress in a population and is key to planning consequent interventions. Whilst methodologies of nutritional surveillance systems vary across different settings, organisations and even within the same country, the direct evidence-base underpinning these practices is limited. This paper aims therefore to: 1) compare the performance of different anthropometric indices/measurements for detecting change in the nutritional situation at population level; 2) discuss their properties and appropriateness for use in a surveillance system. This systematic literature review considered peer-reviewed and grey literature. Evidence was compiled from standard electronic databases, websites and snowballing. The search was performed in November 2015 by a single reviewer using the following terms to capture two concepts: 1) Undernutrition and 2) Nutrition surveillance. The search was limited to children under five and the period considered started in 1980. Languages included English and French. Articles had to assess whether the changes or trend observed at population level were statistically significant. All study designs were included. A total of 4563 articles were retrieved from the electronic database search. Most articles (3137, 89%) were not directly relevant based on title and abstract; 39 articles were reviewed in full. A total of 17 articles met the inclusion criteria and an additional 4 papers were added after snowballing. A number of measures and indices such as weight, weight-for-height/length, triceps skinfold and middle-upper arm circumference performed well in the detection of short term changes in the nutritional situation of a population. Height/Length-for-age responded the most to long term change. Applying a standard set of criteria (simplicity, acceptability, cost, independence of age, reliability and accuracy) to determine which is the most appropriate measure or index identified middle-upper arm circumference as the one with the greatest net benefits. Limited available evidence suggests that mid-upper arm circumference is the best measure to detect short term changes in the nutritional state of a population: this should receive higher priority in surveillance systems.

The effects of harvest-created gaps on plant species diversity, composition, and abundance in a Maine oak–pine forest

In forests where large, stand-replacing disturbances are infrequent, small-scale disturbances associated with the mortality and replacement of individual trees are a primary source of heterogeneity in forest composition and structure. The disturbances considered in this study were canopy gaps created by a partial harvest in the winter of 1987–1988 in an oak–pine ( Quercus–Pinus) forest that is part of a long-term ecosystem study at the Holt Research Forest in coastal Maine. This study examined the gap phase of the forest turnover cycle: the brief episodes of rapid change when processes determining the structure and composition of a forest community occur. The objective was to evaluate the effects of harvest-created gaps and soil moisture (as reflected by soil drainage classes) on woody and herbaceous species diversity, composition, and abundance relative to unharvested control areas. Because the vegetation was sampled in both 1993 and 1998, detection of short-term changes was possible. Harvest gaps had higher total plant species richness in the understory (vegetation <1 m tall) than controls, primarily due to more infrequently-occurring species. Average species richness varied by soil drainage class but not treatment, whereas the Shannon–Wiener diversity index was not affected by treatment, drainage class, or time. Species abundance was more evenly distributed (i.e., higher evenness) in controls than in gaps. Species unique to harvest gaps decreased in number and abundance over time. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) revealed that harvest gaps exhibited greater variability in species composition than controls, although many of the gaps and controls were similar in composition. Shifts in individual species abundance were evident with treatment, drainage, and time. Diversity measures calculated for sapling density showed a significant difference among drainage classes for species richness, but no significant difference between treatments for species richness, the Shannon–Wiener index, or the evenness index. Gap size was positively correlated with the total density of saplings, the density of several species, and species richness. There were significant differences between treatments for the density of all species tested in at least one of the four height classes. DCA of sapling data revealed some separation of harvest gaps and controls but there was considerable overlap. Axis 1 tended to separate early successional species in the harvest gaps from shade tolerant species in the controls. The understory plant community at the HRF appears to be resilient to the partial harvest that created a variety of gap sizes. Silvicultural objectives were met; the harvest gaps created sites for establishment of seedlings and sprouts of tree species, particularly early successional species.

Effects of short-term psychological stress on the time and frequency domains of heart-rate variability.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that short-term psychological stress produces significant changes in sympathovagal activity. A simple, noninvasive method was used measuring the timing and frequency of heart-rate variability (HRV). 30 normal healthy subjects were assigned into two age- and sex matched groups. In the experimental condition a 5-min. psychological stress test, predominantly based on the Stroop Word Color Conflict Test, was employed in a competitive setting and included a financial inducement to produce psychological strain. Analysis showed that during psychological stress a significant reduction in the timing and frequency of heart rate variability was observed. The standard deviation of interbeat intervals decreased. A significant increase in heart rate was also observed. Within the frequency domain, a significant reduction in the high frequency component of HRV and a significant increase in the low frequency component were observed. There was also a significant increase in the low frequency to high frequency ratio. Self-evaluation of physical tension and emotional state measured by visual analog scales also showed significant increases following psychological stress. No significant differences were observed on any variables within the control group. The results indicate a shift towards sympathetic predominance as a result of parasympathetic withdrawal and demonstrates that this psychological stress test is effective in provoking a characteristic defence-arousal reaction. This simple, cost-effective method of analysing heart rate variability is suitable for detection of short-term changes in sympathovagal balance.

Temporal Trend of Organochlorine Marine Pollution Indicated by Concentrations in Mussels, Semipermeable Membrane Devices, and Sediment

To assess the short-term trend of pollution by hexachlorobenzene (HCB), chlorophenols, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) emitted to a marine environment, existing and former loads were estimated based on pollutant concentrations in water, blue mussels, and sediment, using partitioning calculations. The study included chemical analyses of organochlorines in sediment samples, caged mussels, and semipermeable membrane devices (SPMD) incubated in the water column and in the outflow from an adjacent plant in order to find out whether the high pollutant concentrations found in the superficial sediment corresponded to former or existing discharges. A comparison was made of hypothetical water concentrations calculated from values determined in SPMDs, mussels, and sediment, assuming equilibrium in the distribution of the pollutants between mussels and water or sediment and water. Sediment-derived water concentrations of HCB in the vicinity of the outlet were much higher than the water concentrations calculated from SPMDs or mussels, indicating that the discharges of HCB from a local source were strongly reduced during the past decade. It is concluded that partitioning calculations applied on analytical data from mussels and superficial sediment, when combined with SPMD data, make possible the detection of short-term changes of environmental loads of hydrophobic pollutants.

EEG patterns during different emotions

Emotion recognition still poses a challenge lying at the core of the rapidly growing area of affective computing and is crucial for establishing a successful human–computer interaction. Identification and understanding of emotions are achieved through various measures, such as subjective self-reports, face-tracking, voice analysis, gaze-tracking, as well as the analysis of autonomic and central neurophysiological measurements. Current approaches to emotion recognition based on electroencephalography (EEG) mostly rely on various handcrafted features extracted over relatively long time windows of EEG during participants exposure to appropriate affective stimuli. In this paper, we present a short-term emotion recognition framework based on spiking neural network (SNN) modelling of spatio-temporal EEG patterns. Our method relies on EEG signal segmentation based on detection of short-term changes in facial landmarks, and as such includes no computation of handcrafted EEG features. Differences between participants’ EEG properties are taken into account via subject-dependent spike encoding in the formulated subject-independent emotion recognition task. We test our methods on the publicly available DEAP and MAHNOB-HCI databases due to the availability of both EEG and frontal face video data. Through an exhaustive hyperparameter optimisation strategy, we show that the proposed SNN-based representation of EEG spiking patterns provides valuable information for short- term emotion recognition. The obtained accuracies are 78.97% and 79.39% in arousal classification, and 67.76% and 72.12% in valence classification, on the DEAP and MAHNOB-HCI datasets, respectively. Furthermore, through the application of a brain-inspired SNN model, this study provides novel insight and helps in the understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in emotional processing in the context of audiovisual stimuli, such as affective videos. The presented results encourage the use of the proposed EEG processing methodology as a complement to existing features and methods commonly used for EEG-based emotion recognition, especially for short-term arousal recognition.

Postmortem Diagnosis of Diabetic Metabolic Derangement: Elevated α1-Antitrypsin and Haptoglobin Glycosylation Levels as an Index of Antemortem Hyperglycemia

Fatal diabetic metabolic derangement is difficult to diagnose postmortem because of the paucity of characteristic morphologic findings. Hyperglycemia is an indicator of diabetic derangement. Conventional biochemical parameters for postmortem diagnosis of antemortem hyperglycemic states are not sufficiently resistant to antemortem and postmortem non-diabetic influences or are suited only for long and medium-term assessment of diabetes control. In the search for other, more reliable, indices of immediately antemortem blood glucose levels, we investigated the value of glycosylation levels of serum proteins with very brief biologic half-lives: a) In vitro studies were performed on the glycosylation course of the short-lived serum proteins alpha 1-antitrypsin (alpha 1-AT) and haptoglobin (HP). b) Glycosylation levels were measured after purification of alpha 1-AT and HP from sera of living and deceased non-diabetics and diabetics. c) The resistance of alpha 1-AT and HP glycosylation levels to autolysis was investigated. Our studies revealed the following: 1) alpha 1-AT and HP glycosylate considerably more rapidly than either albumin or hemoglobin. This rapid glycosylation, combined with the rapid turnover of both proteins; facilitates detection of short-term changes in glycemia. 2) alpha 1-AT and HP glycosylation levels are autolysis-stable and can be assessed even after advanced hemolysis. 3) alpha 1-AT and HP glycosylation levels appear to allow reliable ante- and postmortem discrimination between normoglycemic and hyperglycemic metabolic states. As a tool in the postmortem diagnosis of antemortem hyperglycemic states, alpha 1-AT and HP glycosylation levels combine the advantages of a short-term parameter with resistance to non-diabetic influences.

Short-term effects of denopamine on anaerobic threshold and related parameters in patients with chronic heart failure: A double-blind crossover study

The short-term effects of denopamine, an orally available beta-stimulant, on exercise capacity were studied in patients with chronic heart failure. Nineteen patients entered the study. Three patients had ischemic heart disease, 13 had dilated cardiomyopathy, and three had valvular disease; 16 patients were in New York Heart Association class II, and three patients were in New York Heart Association class III. Symptom-limited exercise testing (ramp protocol) on a bicycle ergometer with gas exchange analysis was conducted 1 hour after oral administration of either 20 mg denopamine or placebo. Drug administration sequence was randomly assigned in a double-blind crossover method, with 1 week between drugs. Peak VO2 was 20.4 +/- 3.2 and 21.2 +/- 3.1 ml/min/kg, respectively, for those administered the placebo and the drug, and anaerobic threshold was 13.1 +/- 2.1 and 14.0 +/- 2.0 ml/min/kg. There was a significant increase in peak VO2 (p < 0.05) and anaerobic threshold (p < 0.01) with denopamine, whereas no significant change was observed in peak work rate or exercise time. Denopamine increased heart rate in patients with atrial fibrillation but had little effect on heart rate in patients with sinus rhythm. Data obtained from gas exchange analysis are more sensitive and potentially more useful in the detection of short-term changes in exercise capacity than data obtained from either exercise time or peak work rate, indexes that are commonly used to assess drug therapy. Patients with mild-to-moderate heart failure with sinus rhythm, but not those with atrial fibrillation because of its frequent induction of tachycardia, may be good candidates for denopamine therapy.

The energy cost of standing and lying in adult cattle

1. Gas exchanges on eleven steers with a mean weight of 273 kg, fasted for 96 h, were obtained over time intervals of 5·76 min in a confinement-type respiration chamber, when the animals were either standing of lying, or engaged in the act of standing or lying.2. In all, 751 observations were analysed and these included twenty-four associated with the act of standing, forty-eight with the act of lying and the remainder approximately equally divided between standing and lying.3. When lying, the heat production was 72·2 kJ (17·2 kcal)/kg fasted weight per 24 h and when standing, 85·7 kJ (20·5 kcal)/kg fasted weight per 24 h; an increase when standing of 18·7%. The double act of standing and lying was associated with an increase in heat production of 11·3 kJ (2·7 kcal)/100 kg fasted weight and while the act of standing was energetically more costly than the act of lying, the difference between the two was not significant.4. The results are discussed in relation to earlier estimates.5. Confinement-type respiration chambers of the type described by Turner &amp; Thornton (1966), which have a fast response time and monitor the changes in chamber air frequently, are ideally suited to the detection of short-term changes in metabolic rate such as occur with changes in posture.