High Area Coverage Research Articles

Community-led Responses for Elimination (CoRE): a study protocol for a community randomized controlled trial assessing the effectiveness of community-level, reactive focal drug administration for reducing Plasmodium falciparum infection prevalence and incidence in Southern Province, Zambia

BackgroundZambia is pushing for, and has made great strides towards, the elimination of malaria transmission in Southern Province. Reactive focal test and treat (RFTAT) using rapid diagnostic tests and artemether-lumefantrine (AL) has been key in making this progress. Reactive focal drug administration (RFDA) using dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DHAP), may be superior in accelerating clearance of the parasite reservoir in humans due to the provision of enhanced chemoprophylactic protection of at-risk populations against new infections. The primary aim of this study is to quantify the relative effectiveness of RFDA with DHAP against RFTAT with AL (standard of care) for reducing Plasmodium falciparum prevalence and incidence.Methods/designThe study will be conducted in four districts in Southern Province, Zambia; an area of low malaria transmission and high coverage of vector control. A community randomized controlled trial of 16 health facility catchment areas will be used to evaluate the impact of sustained year-round routine RFDA for 2 years, relative to a control of year-round routine RFTAT. Reactive case detection will be triggered by a confirmed malaria case, e.g., by microscopy or rapid diagnostic test at any government health facility. Reactive responses will be performed by community health workers (CHW) within 7 days of the index case confirmation date. Responses will be performed out to a radius of 140 m from the index case household. A subset of responses will be followed longitudinally for 90 days to examine reinfection rates. Primary outcomes include a post-intervention survey of malaria seropositivity (n = 4800 children aged 1 month to under 5 years old) and a difference-in-differences analysis of malaria parasite incidence, as measured through routine passive case detection at health facilities enrolled in the study. The study is powered to detect approximately a 65% relative reduction in these outcomes between the intervention versus the control.DiscussionStrengths of this trial include a robust study design and an endline cross-sectional parasite survey as well as a longitudinal sample. Primary limitations include statistical power to detect only a 65% reduction in primary outcomes, and the potential for contamination to dilute the effects of the intervention.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, ID: NCT02654912. Registered on 12 November 2015.

Knowledge-aided processing for multipath exploitation radar (MER)

Truly persistent surveillance of moving vehicles in urban areas spanning approximately 1,000 km2 is a desirable capability that does not exist due to the generally non-line-of-sight (non-LOS) nature of urban terrain. Radar is an attractive sensing modality for this purpose due to its all-weather day or night operation and the potential for a high area coverage rate. However, radar is not achieving the goal of persistent urban surveillance for several reasons. First, urban buildings block LOS between radars mounted on standoff platforms and large swaths of urban roadways. Overcoming the severe LOS blockage would force the sensors to very high aspect ratios that in turn would drive the total number of required platforms to an unacceptably large number. Second, existing airborne radar systems cannot properly function in an urban area due to the complicated multipath environment. In addition to vehicles moving in and out of LOS, reflections from buildings introduce numerous other returns. A classical LOS interpretation of the detections obtained in a multipath environment results in the formation of tracks that typically do not match the number of true objects in the scene or their positions and velocities. As an example, for certain geometries, a multipath return from a retreating vehicle can exhibit a Doppler consistent with a LOS return of an advancing vehicle.

Assessing the impact and cost-effectiveness of needle and syringe provision and opioid substitution therapy on hepatitis C transmission among people who inject drugs in the UK: an analysis of pooled data sets and economic modelling

BackgroundThere is limited evidence of the impact of needle and syringe programmes (NSPs) and opioid substitution therapy (OST) on hepatitis C virus (HCV) incidence among people who inject drugs (PWID), nor have there been any economic evaluations.Objective(s)To measure (1) the impact of NSP and OST, (2) changes in the extent of provision of both interventions, and (3) costs and cost-effectiveness of NSPs on HCV infection transmission.DesignWe conducted (1) a systematic review; (2) an analysis of existing data sets, including collating costs of NSPs; and (3) a dynamic deterministic model to estimate the impact of differing OST/NSP intervention coverage levels for reducing HCV infection prevalence, incidence and disease burden, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios to measure the cost-effectiveness of current NSP provision versus no provision.SettingCost-effectiveness analysis and impact modelling in three UK sites. The pooled analysis drew on data from the UK and Australia. The review was international.ParticipantsPWID.InterventionsNSP coverage (proportion of injections covered by clean needles) and OST.OutcomeNew cases of HCV infection.ResultsThe review suggested that OST reduced the risk of HCV infection acquisition by 50% [rate ratio (RR) 0.50, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.40 to 0.63]. Weaker evidence was found in areas of high (≥ 100%) NSP coverage (RR 0.77, 95% CI 0.38 to 1.54) internationally. There was moderate evidence for combined high coverage of NSPs and OST (RR 0.29, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.65). The pooled analysis showed that combined high coverage of NSPs and OST reduced the risk of HCV infection acquisition by 29–71% compared with those on minimal harm reduction (no OST, ≤ 100% NSP coverage). NSPs are likely to be cost-effective and are cost-saving in some settings. The impact modelling suggest that removing OST (current coverage 81%) and NSPs (coverage 54%) in one site would increase HCV infection incidence by 329% [95% credible interval (CrI) 110% to 953%] in 2031 and at least double (132% increase; 95% CrI 51% to 306%) the number of new infections over 15 years. Increasing NSP coverage to 80% has the largest impact in the site with the lowest current NSP coverage (35%), resulting in a 27% (95% CrI 7% to 43%) decrease in new infections and 41% (95% CrI 11% to 72%) decrease in incidence by 2031 compared with 2016. Addressing homelessness and reducing the harm associated with the injection of crack cocaine could avert approximately 60% of HCV infections over the next 15 years.LimitationsFindings are limited by the misclassification of NSP coverage and the simplified intervention definition that fails to capture the integrated services that address other social and health needs as part of this.ConclusionsThere is moderate evidence of the effectiveness of OST and NSPs, especially in combination, on HCV infection acquisition risk. Policies to ensure that NSPs can be accessed alongside OST are needed. NSPs are cost-saving in some sites and cost-effective in others. NSPs and OST are likely to prevent considerable rates of HCV infection in the UK. Increasing NSP coverage will have most impact in settings with low coverage. Scaling up other interventions such as HCV infection treatment are needed to decrease epidemics to low levels in higher prevalence settings.Future workTo understand the mechanisms through which NSPs and OST achieve their effect and the optimum contexts to support implementation.FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme.

Improved method of freeze–thaw erosion for the Three-River Source Region in the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, China

ABSTRACTIn order to quantitatively evaluate the intensity of FT erosion, eight typical factors, including annual FT cycle days, precipitation, average diurnal phase-changed water content, rainfall erosivity during the FT period, wind field intensity during the FT period, slope, aspect, and vegetation, were introduced to establish an improved evaluation method of FT erosion in the TRSR, which had better applicability in TRSR with an overall precision of 93%. Results showed that FT erosion was widely distributed in the TRSR, with zones of slight, mild, and moderated erosion being the most widely distributed. During 2000–2015, a slight improvement can be observed in the condition of FT erosion over the whole study region. Vegetation coverage was the dominant factor affecting the intensity of FT erosion in the zones with sparse vegetation or bare land, whereas the climate factors played an important role in high vegetation coverage area. Vegetation coverage played a dominant role in affecting the FT erosion intensity in zones with 0.3 ≤ VC < 0.6, whereas the terrain and climate factors played an more important role in areas with sparse vegetation (VC < 0.3) or high vegetation coverage (VC ≥ 0.6). Meanwhile, slope was of great importance in affecting the process of FT erosion in zones with slopes of >18°.

DEVELOPMENT OF A HYBRID UAV SENSOR PLATFORM SUITABLE FOR FARM-SCALE APPLICATIONS IN PRECISION AGRICULTURE

Abstract. Today’s modern precision agriculture applications have a huge demand for data with high spatial and temporal resolution. This leads to the need of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as sensor platforms providing both, easy use and a high area coverage. This study shows the successful development of a prototype hybrid UAV for practical applications in precision agriculture. The UAV consists of an off-the-shelf fixed-wing fuselage, which has been enhanced with multi-rotor functionality. It was programmed to perform pre-defined waypoint missions completely autonomously, including vertical take-off, horizontal flight, and vertical landing. The UAV was tested for its return-to-home (RTH) accuracy, power consumption and general flight performance at different wind speeds. The RTH accuracy was 43.7 cm in average, with a root-mean-square error of 39.9 cm. The power consumption raised with an increase in wind speed. An extrapolation of the analysed power consumption to conditions without wind resulted in an estimated 40 km travel range, when we assumed a 25 % safety margin of remaining battery capacity. This translates to a maximal area coverage of 300 ha for a scenario with 18 m/s airspeed, 50 minutes flight time, 120 m AGL altitude, and a desired 70 % of image side-lap and 85 % forward-lap. The ground sample distance with an in-built RGB camera was 3.5 cm, which we consider sufficient for farm-scale mapping missions for most precision agriculture applications.

Modelling and mapping of landslide hazard using remote sensing and GIS techniques

This research examines the use of GIS and remote sensing techniques to model landslide hazard and its risk assessment in and around Wau–Bulolo. In achieving this, risk evaluation is carried out with the use of eleven geotechnical engineering parameters which include altitude, slope, aspect, rainfall, lithology, soil erodibility function, landform, distance from river, distance from road, earthquake magnitude, and land use/ land cover to generate and calculate landslide susceptibility zones and risk zones. Landslide vulnerability of Wau–Bulolo district in Morobe province was assessed using the weighted linear combination (WLC) method. The study area shows the distribution of the five vulnerability/susceptibility classes ranking from very low (1) to very high (5). Areas with very high landslide vulnerability zones are found in the northern and north-eastern of the study area compare to southern parts have very low vulnerability areas. From the calculations 12.49% of area is at very low risk, 30.33% at low risk, 32.84% of moderate risk, 11.58% of high risk and 14.76% of very high risk area coverage.

Spatial and temporal change patterns of freeze-thaw erosion in the three-river source region under the stress of climate warming

The three-river source region (TRSR), located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China, suffers from serious freeze-thaw (FT) erosion in China. Considering the unique eco-environment and the driving factors of the FT process in the TRSR, we introduce the driving force factors of FT erosion (rainfall erosivity and wind field intensity during FT period) and precipitation during the FT period (indicating the phase-changed water content). The objective was to establish an improved evaluation method of FT erosion in the TRSR. The method has good applicability in the study region with an overall precision of 92%. The spatial and temporal changes of FT erosion from 2000 to 2015 are analyzed. Results show that FT erosion is widely distributed in the TRSR, with slight and mild erosion being the most widely distributed, followed by moderate erosion. Among the three sub-regions, the source region of the Yellow River has the slightest erosion intensity, whereas the erosion intensity of the source region of Yangtze River is the most severe. A slight improvement can be observed in the condition of FT erosion over the whole study region from 2000 to 2015. Vegetation coverage is the dominant factor affecting the intensity of FT erosion in the zones with sparse vegetation or bare land, whereas the climate factors play an important role in high vegetation coverage area. Slopes>28° also have a significant effect on the intensity of FT erosion in the zones. The results can provide a scientific basis for the prevention and management of the soil FT erosion in the TRSR.

Enhancing Lifetime and Efficiency of Organic Solar Cell by Applying an In Situ Synthesized Low-Crystalline ZnO Layer.

By introducing an in situ synthesized low-crystalline ZnO (LC-ZnO) (amorphous) layer between the cathode and the active layer of PCPDTBT:CdSe solar cell {PCPDTBT: poly[2,6-(4,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl)-4H-cyclopenta [2,1-b:3,4-b']dithiophene)-alt-4,7(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)]}, the device keeps more than 80 and 40 % of its initial lifetime after 180 and 360 days without any encapsulation, respectively. In this regard, 180 days is the highest lifetime achieved for polymer-based solar cells with direct configuration. In addition, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) is improved up to 70 % in the presence of the LC-ZnO interfacial layer. The LC-ZnO layer is synthesized during polymer annealing after solution-deposition of the precursor at a low temperature (140 °C) and a short time. Highly crystalline ZnO (HC-ZnO) nanoparticles are also synthesized and applied as an interfacial layer. The results show that the LC-ZnO is superior to the HC-ZnO in acting as cathode interfacial layer and moisture scavenger because of the high coverage and surface area provided by the in situ synthesis method.

High entomological inoculation rate of malaria vectors in area of high coverage of interventions in southwest Ethiopia: Implication for residual malaria transmission

In Ethiopia, vector control is the principal strategy to reduce the burden of malaria. The entomological indicators of malaria transmission such as density, sporozoite rate and entomological inoculation rate (EIR) are parameters used to assess the impact of the interventions and the intensity of malaria transmission. The susceptibility of malaria vectors also determines the effectiveness of insecticide based vector control tools. Hence, the aim of the study was to assess the species composition, sporozoite rate and EIR, and insecticide susceptibility status of malaria vectors.33 houses (18 for Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) light traps and 15 for exit traps) were randomly selected to sample Anopheles mosquitoes from October 2015 to May 2016. Plasmodium circum-sporozoite proteins (CSPs) of An. arabiensis and An. pharoensis were determined using Enzyme-Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay (ELISA).Five Anopheles species were identified from CDC Light traps and exit traps. An. arabiensis (80.2%) was the predominant species, followed by An. pharoensis (18.5%). An. pretoriensis, An. tenebrosus and An. rhodesiensis were documented in small numbers. 1056 Anopheles mosquitoes were tested for CSPs. Of which nine (eight An. arabiensis and one An. pharoensis) were positive for CSPs with an overall CSP rate of 0.85% (95% CI: 0.3–1.4). Five Anopheles mosquitoes were positive for P. falciparum and four were positive for P.vivax_210. P. falciparum CSP rate of An. arabiensis was 0.46% (95% CI: 0.13–1.2) and it was 0.54% (95% CI: 0.01–2.9) for An. pharoensis. The overall EIR of An. arabiensis was 5.3infectious bites per/person (ib/p)/eight months. An. arabiensis was resistant to dieldrin (mortality rate of 57%) and deltamethrin with mortality rates of 71% but was fully susceptible to propoxur and bendiocarb. Based on the EIR of An. arabiensis, indoor malaria transmission was high regardless of high coverage of indoor-based interventions.Finally, there was an indoor residual malaria transmission in a village of high coverage of bed nets and where the principal malaria vector is susceptibility to propoxur and bendiocarb; insecticides currently in use for indoor residual spraying. The continuing indoor transmission of malaria in such village implies the need for new tools to supplement the existing interventions and to reduce indoor malaria transmission.

What do health consumers want to know about childhood vaccination? An evaluation of data from an Australian medicines call centre

Objectives:Immunisation is crucial to population health. This study aimed to identify the information needs and concerns of health consumers regarding childhood vaccination. Methods:We analysed 1,342 calls concerning childhood vaccination to an Australian pharmacist‐operated medicines call centre (MCC). Data were available from September 2002 until June 2010. We identified key themes and compared these for callers from high and low immunisation coverage areas. Results:Most calls related to safety concerns (60.4%), with many questions about vaccine constituents (31.6%). In low immunisation areas, a higher level of concern persisted about vaccine preservatives (mercury and thiomersal) despite their removal from vaccines in 2000. Of specific vaccines, the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine raised most questions (29.9%). Common motivations to call the MCC were ‘inadequate information’ (54%), ‘second opinion’ (21%) ‘conflicting information’ (9%) and ‘worrying symptom’ (6%). Conclusion and implications:The consistent number of vaccine‐related calls, particularly about safety, demonstrates an information gap that can contribute to vaccination hesitancy. Health professionals need to know their local immunisation rate and associated carer concerns, to proactively address these information‐related barriers to vaccination.

Software-Defined Management Model for Energy-Aware Vehicular Networks

This paper investigates the energy efficiency of Road Side Units (RSUs) by proposing a novel flow and energy management model in Software-Defined Networking (SDN)-based vehicular networks. In the considered scenario, high vehicular mobility and limited coverage area of RSUs cause a degradation in Qualit

航摄与机载激光雷达技术在河道地形测量中的应用

随着数字航空摄影及激光雷达技术的发展，这种非接触式测量技术成本低、快速高效、机动灵活的优势也越来越显著。结合长江干流1:10,000河道地形测量项目，介绍了航空摄影及激光雷达技术相结合的作业方式及其在大面积的洲滩、植被高覆盖河道地形测量中的应用情况，并对成图精度进行了检测分析，结果表明成果精度满足相关规范要求，这种联合作业模式应用于河道地形测绘中是可行的。 With the development of digital aerial photography and lidar technology, because of its low cost, high efficiency and flexible, this non-contact measurement technology is becoming more and more significant. Based on the 1:10,000 riverway topographic survey project of Yangtze River, we introduced the operation mode of aerial photography and lidar technology and the application of riverway topographic survey in a large bottomland and high vegetation coverage area, and statistically analyzed the accuracy of topographic map. The results show that the surveying precision satisfies the requirements of relevant specifications, and this combined operating mode used in riverway topographic Survey is feasible.

Relay Selection for Heterogeneous Transmission Powers in VANETs

The main challenge in the vehicular ad hoc network vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) multi-hop dissemination is to control the number of vehicles, that relay the broadcast message. Proper selection of relay nodes governs high delivery ratio, acceptable overall end-to-end delay, and efficient bandwidth usage. To date, several protocols have been proposed to identify appropriate relay vehicles. However, such approaches neglect the fact that vehicle transmission ranges are typically heterogeneous due to different transmission power values or dynamic adjustment of power to alleviate congestion and/or control energy consumption. In this paper, we introduce area-based dissemination protocols that work in heterogeneous transmission powers. The transmissions between relay vehicles are ordered in way that ensures that the node with high potential new coverage area transmits first. This eliminates useless transmission and retransmission that could be contained by other transmission. The new potential coverage area is computed as a function of the common overlap areas. In addition, we propose more reliable approaches by relaying duplicate received message. Thus, we introduce a geometric taxonomy for all possible overlap patterns in wireless environment, which is an apparently hitherto unsolved geometrical problem. Accordingly, we deduce the criteria used to define each pattern and relevant algebraic expression to compute the potential additional coverage area.

Dynamics of Fractional Vegetation Coverage and Its Relationship with Climate and Human Activities in Inner Mongolia, China

Long-term remote sensing normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) datasets have been widely used in monitoring vegetation changes. In this study, the NASA Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) NDVI3g dataset was used as the data source, and the dimidiate pixel model, intensity analysis, and residual analysis were used to analyze the changes of vegetation coverage in Inner Mongolia—from 1982 to 2010—and their relationships with climate and human activities. This study also explored vegetation changes in Inner Mongolia with respect to natural factors and human activities. The results showed that the estimated vegetation coverage exhibited a high correlation (0.836) with the actual measured values. The increased vegetation coverage area (49.2% of the total area) was larger than the decreased area (43.3%) from the 1980s to the 1990s, whereas the decreased area (57.1%) was larger than the increased area (35.6%) from the 1990s to the early 21st century. This finding indicates that vegetation growth in the 1990s was better than that in the other two decades. Intensity analysis revealed that changes in the average annual rate from the 1990s to the early 21st century were relatively faster than those in the 1980s–1990s. During the 1980s–1990s, the gain of high vegetation coverage areas was active, and the loss was dormant; in contrast, the gain and loss of low vegetation coverage areas were both dormant. In the 1990s to the early 21st century, the gains of high and low vegetation coverage areas were both dormant, whereas the losses were active. During the study period, areas of low vegetation coverage were converted into ones with higher coverage, and areas of high vegetation coverage were converted into ones with lower coverage. The vegetation coverage exhibited a good correlation (R2 = 0.60) with precipitation, and the positively correlated area was larger than the negatively correlated area. Human activities not only promote the vegetation coverage, but also have a destructive effect on vegetation, and the promotion effect during 1982 to 2000 was larger than from 2001 to 2010, while, the destructive effect was larger from 2000 to 2010.

Built‐in self‐test structure for fault detection of charge‐pump phase‐locked loop

A defect-oriented built-in self-test (BIST) structure of charge-pump phase-locked loop (CP-PLL) for high fault coverage and low area overhead test solution is proposed. It employs a new structure of phase/frequency detector, a D flip-flop and some existing blocks in the PLL as the input stimulus generator and fault feature extracted devices for testing evaluation. Thus, no extra test stimulus or high-performance measured instruments are required for test. The structure is easily implemented and has a little influence on the performance of CP-PLL. Fault simulation results indicate that the proposed BIST structure has high fault coverage (98.75%) and low area overhead (0.78%).

Patency of anterior circulation branch vessels after Pipeline embolization: longer-term results from 82 aneurysm cases.

OBJECTIVE The Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) has become increasingly used for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms. Given its high metal surface area coverage, there is concern for the patency of branch vessels that become covered by the device. Limited data exist regarding the patency of branch vessels adjacent to aneurysms that are covered by PEDs. The authors assessed the rate of intracranial internal carotid artery, anterior circulation branch vessel patency following PED placement at their institution. METHODS The authors retrospectively reviewed the records of 82 patients who underwent PED treatment between 2009 and 2014 and in whom the PED was identified to cover branch vessels. Patency of the anterior cerebral, posterior communicating, anterior choroidal, and ophthalmic arteries was evaluated using digital subtraction angiography preoperatively and postoperatively after PED deployment and at longer-term follow-up. RESULTS Of the 127 arterial branches covered by PEDs, there were no immediate postoperative occlusions. At angiographic follow-up (mean 10 months, range 3-34.7 months), arterial side branches were occluded in 13 (15.8%) of 82 aneurysm cases and included 2 anterior cerebral arteries, 8 ophthalmic arteries, and 3 posterior communicating arteries. No cases of anterior choroidal artery occlusion were observed. Patients with branch occlusion did not experience any neurological symptoms. CONCLUSIONS In this large series, the longer-term rate of radiographic side branch arterial occlusion after coverage by a flow diverter was 15.8%. Terminal branch vessels, such as the anterior choroidal artery, remained patent in this series. The authors' series suggests that branch vessel occlusions are clinically silent and should not deter aneurysm treatment with flow diversion.

Landslide vulnerability mapping (LVM) using weighted linear combination (WLC) model through remote sensing and GIS techniques

Weighted linear combination (WLC) method was used to assess landslides vulnerability of the Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea within the GIS environment of ArcGIS. This multi-criteria evaluation method allows flexibility and tradeoffs amongst all parameters used. Ranks and weights are assigned depending on their influence on the occurrence of landslides. Parameters selected for the study include slope angle, elevation, rainfall, vegetation cover, land use/land cover, landform, proximity to roads, proximity to rivers and proximity to lineaments. Restricted in some sense in terms of data, WLC was appropriate in using existing metadata of the country; Papua New Guinea Resource Information System and Forest Information Management System. The landslide susceptibility map provides valuable information of the risk at hand in the province and district levels to better manage and plan mitigation measures. The slope factor was assigned a weighted of 4 as having greater influence on landslides in the region followed by rainfall weighted of 2 and the other having uniform influence of 1. The study area shows the distribution of the five vulnerability/susceptibility classes ranking from very low (1) to very high (5). Areas with very high landslide vulnerability zones are found in the northern and western parts of Simbu Province. Comparatively, southern parts have very low vulnerability areas. From the calculations done, 6.21 % of area is at very low risk, 20.24 % at low risk, 32.27 % of moderate risk, 26.88 % of high risk and 14.41 % of very high risk area coverage.

Testing methods to support management decisions in coralligenous and cave environments. A case study at Portofino MPA

Baseline data on the distribution, condition and extent of coralligenous and cave bioconcretions is one of the main requirements of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) necessary to assess the achievement of a Good Environmental Status (GES) by 2020. In this study the potential of remote sensing and distribution modelling techniques to map, measure descriptors and choose indicators were tested, that could provide standard methods for the assessment of the health status and assist in monitoring activities. It is demonstrated how, by combining different methodologies, it is possible to map the distribution of the bioconcretions with acceptable accuracy and to discriminate the main habitat types and facies. In addition, zonal statistical analysis revealed that fishing activities primarily coincide with areas of high coverage of the bioconcretions. Results demonstrate that the presented methodology is a valuable simple tool to assess several MSFD descriptors and indicators, and could strengthen management efficiency when making informed, ecologically relevant decisions.

室内清扫机器人路径规划方法研究

室内清扫机器人的应用越来越广泛，其路径规划直接影响到清扫效率和质量，一直是研究的热点。对传感器精度种类和精度的过高要求，可能降低路径规划的适应性，或者导致成本不可接受。在分析室内清扫机器人路径规划需求的基础上，提出了一种基于碰撞检测的纵横弓式路径规划方法，算法简单有效，区域覆盖率高，环境适应性强。 The cleaning robot under indoor environment has found an increasingly wide utilization. Its path planning directly affects the efficiency and quality of cleaning, which has always been a hot research topic. Too high requirements of sensor types and precision, may reduce the path planning adaptability, or lead to unacceptable cost. Based on the analysis of the path planning requirements of indoor cleaning robot, a path planning method based on collision detection is proposed, with a simple & effective algorithm, high area coverage, and strong environmental adaptability.

An Effective Pattern Pruning and Summarization Method Retaining High Quality Patterns With High Area Coverage in Relational Datasets

Pattern mining has been widely used to uncover interesting patterns from data. However, one of its main problems is that it produces too many patterns and many of them are redundant. To reduce the number of redundant patterns and retain overlapping ones, delta-closed pattern pruning was introduced, yet it can only prune subpatterns if they are covered by superpatterns. Such unduly superpatterns need to be pruned. Furthermore, in order to improve the management and interpretation of patterns, pattern summarization is proposed. It renders a small number of patterns that retain the most crucial information. RuleCover algorithm was one of such algorithms. However, it tends to produce over trivial patterns, whereas more interesting and revealing ones may be pruned. To overcome these problems, this paper presents a new algorithm which integrates delta-closed , and RuleCover methods with our other two new algorithms: 1) statistically induced pattern pruning for pruning statistically induced superpatterns by strong subpatterns and 2) AreaCover algorithm for pruning overlapping patterns but retain higher order and high quality patterns with large coverage of the data “area.” Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms produce very compact yet comprehensive knowledge from patterns discovered from relational data sets.