Step In Restoration Research Articles

Improving vegetation quality for the restoration of pollinators – the relevance of co-flowering species in space and time

Pollination is a key ecosystem function that directly and indirectly provides food for all organisms – regardless of the trophic level. In degraded ecosystems, installing plant and habitat resources for pollinators starts with an understanding of the temporal and spatial habitat needs of pollinators, and the augmentations, the co-factors and conditions required for pollinator populations. These co-factors, not immediately recognised as linked to the provision of pollination services, are critical for complexity and include a diverse array of resources such as food plants for larvae, shelter and temporal legacies of earlier flowering species. Practical steps for restoration include the installation of an array of plant species that provide a staggered supply of flowers and this can be refined to include specific floral types that are the mega supermarkets for nectar and pollen resources in them.

Corrigendum to: Improving vegetation quality for the restoration of pollinators – the relevance of co-flowering species in space and time

Pollination is a key ecosystem function that directly and indirectly provides food for all organisms – regardless of the trophic level. In degraded ecosystems, installing plant and habitat resources for pollinators starts with an understanding of the temporal and spatial habitat needs of pollinators, and the augmentations, the co-factors and conditions required for pollinator populations. These co-factors, not immediately recognised as linked to the provision of pollination services, are critical for complexity and include a diverse array of resources such as food plants for larvae, shelter and temporal legacies of earlier flowering species. Practical steps for restoration include the installation of an array of plant species that provide a staggered supply of flowers and this can be refined to include specific floral types that are the mega supermarkets for nectar and pollen resources in them.

RESTORATION OF TWENTY WOODEN PAINTED PANELS OF THE REFORMED CHURCH CEILING IN VECHEA

The present paper describes the state of conservation of 20 wooden painted panels belonging to an 18th century painted coffered ceiling broght to life by Lőrinc Umling the Elder (1751). The Transylvanian Museum of Ethnography has in its heritage 47 such painted panels which comprise the ceiling of the former Reformed Church from the village of Vechea, Cluj County. Most painted ceilings with identified authors belong to the three generations of painter-carpenters from the Umling family, whose members have worked for more than a half a century (1742-1794) in Hungarian Reformed Churches throughout the territory of the nowadays counties of Cluj, Sălaj and Bistrița-Năsăud. The specific techniques and materials used for the completion of the 20 wooden panels, together with the degradations forms of the wooden supportand those of the painted layers they carry are revealed above in the article, leading to the selection by the museum specialists of the proper restoration steps to be taken on. The complexity and the high volume of the needed operations (adding the time pressure urged by the deadline of this restoration work), imposed as necessary the team work of several museum professionals.

Development of a Sequential Restoration Strategy Based on the Enhanced Dijkstra Algorithm for Korean Power Systems

When a blackout occurs, it is important to reduce the time for power system restoration to minimize damage. For fast restoration, it is important to reduce taking time for the selection of generators, transmission lines and transformers. In addition, it is essential that a determination of a generator start-up sequence (GSS) be made to restore the power system. In this paper, we propose the optimal selection of black start units through the generator start-up sequence (GSS) to minimize the restoration time using generator characteristic data and the enhanced Dijkstra algorithm. For each restoration step, the sequence selected for the next start unit is recalculated to reflect the system conditions. The proposed method is verified by the empirical Korean power systems.

Pulp Chamber Heating: An In Vitro Study Evaluating Different Light Sources and Resin Composite Layers.

The aim of the present in vitro study was to evaluate the temperature variation inside the pulp chamber during light-activation of the adhesive and resin composite layers with different light sources. Cavities measuring 8x10 mm were prepared on the buccal surface of bovine incisors, leaving a remaining dentin thickness of 1 mm. Specimens were placed in a 37±1 °C water bath to standardize the temperature. The temperature in the pulp chamber was measured every 10 s during 40 s of light activation of the adhesive system (SBMP-3M/ESPE) and in the three consecutive 1-mm-thick layers of resin composite (Z250-3M/ESPE). Three light source devices were evaluated: Elipar 2500 (QTH), LD Max (LED low irradiance) and VALO (LED high irradiance). The results were submitted to one-way ANOVA with repeated measures and Tukey's test, both with p<0.001. The exothermic reaction warming was observed in the Z250 increments, but not in the SBMP. The high irradiance LED showed a higher temperature average (42.7±1.56 °C), followed by the quartz-tungsten-halogen light (40.6±0.67 °C) and the lower irradiance LED (37.8±0.12 °C). Higher temperature increases were observed with the adhesive and the first resin composite increment light-activation, regardless of the employed light source. From the second increment of Z250, the restorative material acted as a dispersive structure of heat, reducing temperature increases. Regardless the light source and restorative step, the temperature increased with the irradiation time. It may be concluded that the light source, irradiation time and resin composite thickness interfered in the temperature variation inside the pulp chamber.

A multi-frame super-resolution using diffusion registration and a nonlocal variational image restoration

In this paper, we present a new approach of multi-frame super-resolution (SR). The SR techniques strongly depend on the availability of accurate motion estimation. When the estimation of motion is not well established, as usually happens for non-parametric motion, annoying artifacts appear in the super-resolved image. Since SR problems suffer from the motion and blur estimations, new techniques are considered to improve the registration and restoration steps. The proposed method consists of a non-parametric image registration based on diffusion regularization and a nonlocal Laplace regularizer combined with a bilateral filter (BTV) in the reconstruction step to remove noise and motion outliers. The diffusion registration is employed to handle the small deformation between the unregistered images, while the combination of nonlocal Laplace and BTV is used to increase the robustness of the restoration step with respect to the blurring effect and to the noise. We also prove the existence of a solution to the well posed registration problem. Simulation results using different images show the effectiveness and robustness of our algorithm against noise and outliers compared to other existing methods.

First steps of ecological restoration in Mediterranean lagoons: Shifts in phytoplankton communities

Along the French Mediterranean coast, a complex of eight lagoons underwent intensive eutrophication over four decades, mainly related to nutrient over-enrichment from continuous sewage discharges. The lagoon complex displayed a wide trophic gradient from mesotrophy to hypertrophy and primary production was dominated by phytoplankton communities. In 2005, the implementation of an 11 km offshore outfall system diverted the treated sewage effluents leading to a drastic reduction of anthropogenic inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus into the lagoons. Time series data have been examined from 2000 to 2013 for physical, chemical and biological (phytoplankton) variables of the water column during the summer period. Since 2006, total nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations as well as chlorophyll biomass strongly decreased revealing an improvement in lagoon water quality. In summertime, the decline in phytoplankton biomass was accompanied by shifts in community structure and composition that could be explained by adopting a functional approach by considering the common functional traits of the main algal groups. These phytoplankton communities were dominated by functional groups of small-sized and fast-growing algae (diatoms, cryptophytes and green algae). The trajectories of summer phytoplankton communities displayed a complex response to changing nutrient loads over time. While diatoms were the major group in 2006 in all the lagoons, the summer phytoplankton composition in hypertrophic lagoons has shifted towards green algae, which are particularly well adapted to summertime conditions. All lagoons showed increasing proportion and occurrence of peridinin-rich dinophytes over time, probably related to their capacity for mixotrophy. The diversity patterns were marked by a strong variability in eutrophic and hypertrophic lagoons whereas phytoplankton community structure reached the highest diversity and stability in mesotrophic lagoons. We observe that during the re-oligotrophication process in coastal lagoons, phytoplankton shows complex trajectories with similarities with those observed in freshwater lake systems.

Quantifying the Onset and Progression of Plant Senescence by Color Image Analysis for High Throughput Applications.

Leaf senescence, an indicator of plant age and ill health, is an important phenotypic trait for the assessment of a plant’s response to stress. Manual inspection of senescence, however, is time consuming, inaccurate and subjective. In this paper we propose an objective evaluation of plant senescence by color image analysis for use in a high throughput plant phenotyping pipeline. As high throughput phenotyping platforms are designed to capture whole-of-plant features, camera lenses and camera settings are inappropriate for the capture of fine detail. Specifically, plant colors in images may not represent true plant colors, leading to errors in senescence estimation. Our algorithm features a color distortion correction and image restoration step prior to a senescence analysis. We apply our algorithm to two time series of images of wheat and chickpea plants to quantify the onset and progression of senescence. We compare our results with senescence scores resulting from manual inspection. We demonstrate that our procedure is able to process images in an automated way for an accurate estimation of plant senescence even from color distorted and blurred images obtained under high throughput conditions.

Environmental Monitoring Supported by Aerial Photography – a Case Study of the Burnt Down Bugac Juniper Forest, Hungary

Abstract Wildfire poses a serious risk in several regions of the world threatening urban, agricultural areas and natural ecosystems as well. Nature conservation has important role to be prepared for the management of postfire environmental degradation and restoration for protected areas preserving valuable ecosystems. The improving temporal and spatial resolution of remote sensing and GIS methods significantly contributes to map the changes for accelerating management steps of restoration. In this study a severe wildfire and its impacts were assessed in case of a protected area of the Kiskunság National Park in Hungary, which was partly burnt down in 2012. The aim of this research was to efficiently and accurately assess the damages and to plan and execute the restoration works using remote sensing tools. Aerial data collection was performed one month, and one year after the fire. In 2014 the regenerated vegetation was surveyed and mapped in the field. Using the aerial photographs and the field data, the degree and extent of the fire damages, the types and the state of the vegetation and the presence and proportion of the invasive species were determined. Semi-automatic methods were used for the classification of completely, partially damaged and undamaged areas. Based on the results, the reforestation of the burnt area is suggested to prevent the overspreading of white poplar against common junipers and to clean the area from the most frequent invasive species. To monitor the regeneration of the vegetation and the spreading of the invasive species, further aerial photography and field campaigns are planned.

$L_0$ -Regularized Intensity and Gradient Prior for Deblurring Text Images and Beyond.

We propose a simple yet effective L0-regularized prior based on intensity and gradient for text image deblurring. The proposed image prior is based on distinctive properties of text images, with which we develop an efficient optimization algorithm to generate reliable intermediate results for kernel estimation. The proposed algorithm does not require any heuristic edge selection methods, which are critical to the state-of-the-art edge-based deblurring methods. We discuss the relationship with other edge-based deblurring methods and present how to select salient edges more principally. For the final latent image restoration step, we present an effective method to remove artifacts for better deblurred results. We show the proposed algorithm can be extended to deblur natural images with complex scenes and low illumination, as well as non-uniform deblurring. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs favorably against the state-of-the-art image deblurring methods.

Movement vectors and deformation mechanisms in kinematic restorations: A case study from the Colombian Eastern Cordillera

We have developed a new method to assess the movement of particles in different steps of a well-calibrated sequential kinematic restoration. Calibration included correct assessment of amounts of overburden, sedimentation, erosion, and thermal behavior through time. Our method allowed a better understanding of the mechanisms of deformation and uplift in different geologic provinces. In our pilot case study in the Colombian Eastern Cordillera, we have used movement vectors in balanced cross sections to document an initial phase of dominant vertical uplift and a final phase of dominant tangential horizontal shortening. Our findings challenged the common assumptions related to folding and deformation mechanisms in fold-and-thrust belts used for cross-section balancing and palinspastic reconstructions. Thus, we found that the movement vectors in cross sections can be used to test and validate a complete procedure to obtain calibrated sequential kinematic restorations and represent a powerful tool to better understand deformation mechanisms in different settings.

Conventional Impression vs Optical Impression: The Battle has already Begun

The most important step in prosthetic restoration is the impression, for centuries, the conventional impression has always been used in dentistry therefore the introduction of digital impression has revolutionized our prosthetic approach.

Adaptive responses of cell hydration to a low temperature arrest.

Slow cooling leads to a passive dehydration of cells, whereas rehydration during warming reflects the active regain of functionality. The ability to modulate such an energy demanding process could be instrumental in optimizing the cryo-arrest of living systems. In the present study, various levels of hypertonic stress were used to disturb the water content of cells and to define the energy profiles of aquaporins and (Na(+) conducting) cation channels during rehydration. Na(+) import was found to be the rate-limiting step in water restoration, whereas aquaporins merely played a permissive role. Indeed, regulated Na(+) import was increased 2-fold following cryo-arrests, thus facilitating the osmotic rehydration of cells. Freezing temperatures increased cell viscosity with a remarkable hysteresis and viscosity was a trigger of cation channels. The peptide hormone vasopressin was a further activator of channels, increasing the viability of post-cryo cells considerably. Hence, the hormone opens the path for a novel class of cryo-protectants with an intrinsic biological activity.

A Historical Timber Frame Model for Diagnosis and Documentation before Building Restoration

The aim of the project that is described in this paper was to define a four-level timber frame survey mode of a historical building: the so-called “Andlau's Seigniory”, Alsace, France. This historical building was built in the late XVIth century and was in a stage of renovation in order to become a heritage interpretation centre. The used measurement methods combine Total Station measurements, Photogrammetry and 3D Terrestrial Laser scanner. Different modelling workflows were tested and compared according to the data acquisition method, but also according to the characteristics of the reconstructed model in terms of accuracy and level of detail. 3D geometric modelling of the entire structure was performed including modelling the degree of detail adapted to the needs. The described 3D timber framework exists now in different versions, from a theoretical and geometrical one up to a very detailed one, in which measurements and evaluation of deformation by time are potentially allowed. The virtually generated models involving archaeologists, architects, historians and specialists in historical crafts, are intended to be used during the four stages of the project: (i) knowledge of the current state of needs for diagnosis and understanding of former construction techniques; (ii) preparation and evaluation of restoration steps; (iii) knowledge and documentation concerning the archaeological object; (iv) transmission and dissemination of knowledge through the implementation of museum animations. Among the generated models one can also find a documentation of the site in the form of virtual tours created from panoramic photographs before and during the restoration works. Finally, the timber framework model was structured and integrated into a 3D GIS, where the association of descriptive and complementary digital documents was possible. Both offer tools leading to the diagnosis, the understanding of the structure, knowledge dissemination, documentation and the creation of educational activities. The integration of these measurements in a historical information system will lead to the creation of an interactive model and the creation of a digital visual display unit for consultation. It will be offered to any public to understand interactively the art of constructing a Renaissance structure, with detailed photos, descriptive texts and graphics. The 3D digital model of the framework will be used directly in the interpretation path, within the space dedicated to “Seigniory” of Andlau. An interactive touch-screen will be installed. It will incorporate several levels of playgrounds (playful, evocative and teaching). In a virtual way, it will deal with the different stages of building a wooden framework and clarify the art of construction.

Cytotoxicity and antibacterial activity of a new generation of nanoparticle-based consolidants for restoration and contribution to the safe-by-design implementation

Works of art are constantly under physical, chemical and biological degradation, so constant restoration is required. Consolidation is an important step in restoration, and traditional approaches and materials have already shown their limitations. To solve these problems, new nanoparticle-based consolidants were developed. No information on their toxicity is yet available. In this work, we focused our attention on potential risks posed by three commercially available nanoparticle-based consolidants: silica (SiO2 NPs), silanized silica (silanized SiO2 NPs) and calcium hydroxide (nanolime) nanoparticle dispersions. Occupational exposure impact was tested on three in vitro models mimicking inhalation, dermal contact and systemic routes. While no toxic effects were observed for nanolime and silanized SiO2 NPs, bare SiO2 NPs showed a dose- and time-dependent damage in all considered models. Corrosion test on EpiSkin® revealed no viability reduction.Works of art degradation is partially due to microorganism activity. Consolidant antibacterial activity was evaluated on three representative bacterial strains. Silica NPs-based consolidants showed effect on specific bacterial groups, while no specificity was observed with nanolime. In conclusion, silanized SiO2 NPs-based consolidant emerged as the safest and bacteriologically active product. The different biological impact of bare and silanized SiO2 NPs highlights the importance of safe-by-design approach in developing nanoparticle-containing products.

STFT 기반 영상분석을 이용한 효과적인 잡음제거 알고리즘

Noise reduction has been actively studied in the digital image processing and recently, block-based denoising algorithms are widely used. In particular, a low rank approximation employing WNNM(Weighted Nuclear Norm Minimization) and block-based approaches demonstrated the potential for effective noise reduction. However, the algorithm based on low rank a approximation generates the artifacts in the image restoration step. In this paper, we analyzes the image content using the STFT(Short Time Fourier Transform) and proposes an effective method of minimizing the artifacts generated from the conventional algorithm. To evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme, we use the test images containing a wide range of noise levels and compare the results with the state-of-art algorithms.

Robust super-resolution by fusion of interpolated frames for color and grayscale images

Multi-frame super-resolution (SR) processing seeks to overcome undersampling issues that can lead to undesirable aliasing artifacts. The key to effective multi-frame SR is accurate subpixel inter-frame registration. This accurate registration is challenging when the motion does not obey a simple global translational model and may include local motion. SR processing is further complicated when the camera uses a division-of-focal-plane (DoFP) sensor, such as the Bayer color filter array. Various aspects of these SR challenges have been previously investigated. Fast SR algorithms tend to have difficulty accommodating complex motion and DoFP sensors. Furthermore, methods that can tolerate these complexities tend to be iterative in nature and may not be amenable to real-time processing. In this paper, we present a new fast approach for performing SR in the presence of these challenging imaging conditions. We refer to the new approach as Fusion of Interpolated Frames (FIF) SR. The FIF SR method decouples the demosaicing, interpolation, and restoration steps to simplify the algorithm. Frames are first individually demosaiced and interpolated to the desired resolution. Next, FIF uses a novel weighted sum of the interpolated frames to fuse them into an improved resolution estimate. Finally, restoration is applied to deconvolve the modeled system PSF. The proposed FIF approach has a lower computational complexity than most iterative methods, making it a candidate for real-time implementation. We provide a detailed description of the FIF SR method and show experimental results using synthetic and real datasets in both constrained and complex imaging scenarios. The experiments include airborne grayscale imagery and Bayer color array images with affine background motion plus local motion.

Blind super-resolution restoration with frame-by-frame nonparametric blur estimation

In this paper, we investigate super-resolution image restoration from multiple images, which are possibly degraded with large nonparametric motion blur. The blur kernel for each input image is separately estimated. This is unlike many existing super-resolution algorithms, which assume identical blur kernel for all input images. We also do not make any restrictions on the motion field among images; that is, we estimate dense motion field without simplifications such as parametric motion. We present a two-step algorithm: In the first step, each input image is deblurred using its estimated blur kernel. In the second step, multi-frame super-resolution restoration is applied to the deblurred images. Because the estimated blur kernels may not be accurate, we propose a weighted cost function for the super-resolution restoration step, where a weight associated with an input image reflects the reliabilities of the corresponding kernel estimate and deblurred image. We provide experimental results with both simulated and real data, and show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method compared to some alternative approaches and state-of-the-art methods.

Application of weight method based on canonical correspondence analysis for assessment of Anatidae habitat suitability: A case study in East Dongting Lake, Middle China

Habitat suitability assessment is one of the essential steps in habitat conservation and restoration. A weight method, which used the length of arrow in the result of canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) to determine the weight of the environmental variables, was developed to evaluate the Anatidae habitat suitability in East Dongting Lake. Based on descriptive waterfowl statistics from field observation data, Anatidae were selected as the representative waterfowl by the dominance. And then five environmental variables were identified by the correlation analysis as having important effects on the presence/absence of Anatidae habitat suitability. The Anatidae habitat suitability was evaluated by the new weight method. The results showed that the area of highly suitable habitat and moderately suitable habitat were 21.8% and 48.5%, respectively. Only small area was unsuitable habitat (9.3%). The survey data of Anatidae from 2006 to 2011 in East Dongting Lake were used to test the validity of the assessment results. It was concluded that the five environmental variables could well explain the results of Anatidae habitat suitability. The weight method based on CCA was feasible in assessment of Anatidae habitat suitability.

Combating Bad Weather Part II: Fog Removal from Image and Video

Every year lives and properties are lost in road accidents. About one-fourth of these accidents are due to low vision in foggy weather. At present, there is no algorithm that is specifically designed for the removal of fog from videos. Application of a single-image fog removal algorithm over each video frame is a time-consuming and costly affair. It is demonstrated that with the intelligent use of temporal redundancy, fog removal algorithms designed for a single image can be extended to the real-time video application. Results confirm that the presented framework used for the extension of the fog removal algorithms for images to videos can reduce the complexity to a great extent with no loss of perceptual quality. This paves the way for the real-life application of the video fog removal algorithm. In order to remove fog, an efficient fog removal algorithm using anisotropic diffusion is developed. The presented fog removal algorithm uses new dark channel assumption and anisotropic diffusion for the initialization and refinement of the airlight map, respectively. Use of anisotropic diffusion helps to estimate the better airlight map estimation. The said fog removal algorithm requires a single image captured by uncalibrated camera system. The anisotropic diffusion-based fog removal algorithm can be applied in both RGB and HSI color space. This book shows that the use of HSI color space reduces the complexity further. The said fog removal algorithm requires pre- and post-processing steps for the better restoration of the foggy image. These pre- and post-processing steps have either data-driven or constant parameters that avoid the user intervention. Presented fog removal algorithm is independent of the intensity of the fog, thus even in the case of the heavy fog presented algorithm performs well. Qualitative and quantitative results confirm that the presented fog removal algorithm outperformed previous algorithms in terms of perceptual quality, color fidelity and execution time. The work presented in this book can find wide application in entertainment industries, transportation, tracking and consumer electronics. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments / Introduction / Analysis of Fog / Dataset and Performance Metrics / Important Fog Removal Algorithms / Single-Image Fog Removal Using an Anisotropic Diffusion / Video Fog Removal Framework Using an Uncalibrated Single Camera System / Conclusions and Future Directions / Bibliography / Authors' Biographies