Spatial Informations Research Articles

Ant Lion Optimizer Based on Spatial Information

Optimization problems widely exist in different real‐world applications. Ant lion optimizer (ALO) is an effective optimization algorithm that simulates the hunting behavior of antlions, but it will easily fall into local optima. To address this issue, this paper proposes a modified version of ALO called spatial ant lion optimizer (SALO). SALO makes full use of spatial informations of solutions to promote its searchability. It utilizes a distance‐based indicator instead of objective fitness to choose ant lions for updating solutions. Besides, it maintains a candidate enhanced archive by a distance‐based updating approach and implements a hybrid‐enhanced strategy in the archive to search for better solutions. Exhaust experiments are carried out through six classic benchmark functions and seven state‐of‐the‐art compared algorithms, and the results validate the superior performance of SALO. © 2024 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

The experience of the Municipal Finance Department of Fortaleza in implementing spatial data infrastructure as an integrated management tool for the real estate registry

The growing production and demand for spatial information in public administration, as well as its need for dissemination among the entities responsible for planning, management and decision-making processes, require efficient and controlled ways to maintain and publish significant amounts of data. Under the terms of the Tax Code of Fortaleza, the Secretaria Municipal de Finanças” (SEFIN) is responsible for the management and maintenance of the Real Estate Cadaster (CIM), especially as regards the registration data of all real estate units and subunits in the city, regardless of their category of use or taxation incident, as well as the multi-finality character of the register. In view of this, a considerable part of the creation, alteration, exclusion and management of the elements of alphanumeric and spatial nature, which correspond to the basic cartography of the city, are inserted in the CIM and are managed through the “Sistema de Informação Territorial de Fortaleza” (SITFor). With the purpose of promoting the adequate sharing and dissemination of this spatial and tax informations with other entities of the municipal public administration, SEFIN, promoted between the years 2019 and 2020 the implementation of its Spatial Data Infrastructure with a tax theme. This article aims to present and share the experiences and products generated by the agency with the IDE-SEFIN implementation project, as well as its integration perspectives and future challenges. The use of this type of solution for sharing information can be one of the success factors for the use of geotechnologies and decision-making processes that require the analysis of spatial data for their consolidation.

Field-matching attention network for object detection

Feature pyramid network (FPN) is widely used in object detection in order to divide and conquer objects of different scales and to fuse high and low-level features, and it has achieved encouraging achievements in multi-scale object processing. However, due to the mismatch between receptive fields at different stages, the direct fusion of the two features from different receptive fields may be unable to achieve satisfactory results. Moreover, simple lateral connections in FPN may lead to loss of spatial relationships and details. To alleviate these problems, in this paper we propose a field-matching attention network (FMANet) for object detection. Particularly, we first propose a receptive field dilated module (RFDM), which is used to normalize receptive fields between features at different stages to the same scale. Furthermore, to capture the spatial informations and details, we build a dual attention module (DAM) by employing the spatial attention and channel attention. Utilizing both spatial and channel attention mechanisms simultaneously improves performance while maintaining speed. Finally, experimental results reveal that our proposed FMANet with DSPDarkNet-53 as backbone achieves a competitive detection performance.

Novel in situ visualisation of rat intestinal absorption of polyphenols via matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation mass spectrometry imaging

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) is presently used in physiological evaluations for visualisation of targets in organs. In the present study, MALDI-MSI was used as a visualisation technique to investigate the intestinal absorption of polyphenols. Nifedipine/phytic acid-aided MALDI-MSI was performed to visualise theaflavin-3′-O-gallate (TF3′G) and epicatechin-3-O-gallate (ECG) in the rat jejunum for 50-µM, 60-min transport experiments. Non-absorbable TF3′G was successfully visualised at the apical region, whereas absorbable ECG was detected throughout the rat jejunum. MALDI-MSI was also performed to determine the transport routes of the target metabolites. Signals corresponding to TF3′G and ECG in the membranes were diminished following treatment with inhibitors targeting the monocarboxylic acid transporter and organic anion transporting polypeptides. Enhanced visualisation of TF3′G was achieved by inhibiting efflux routes. Our findings demonstrated that the present MALDI-MSI can provide critical spatial informations on intestinal absorption of targets, by which TF3′G and ECG were incorporated into intestinal tissues, followed by efflux back to the apical compartment. In addition, MALDI-MSI analyses suggested that TF3′G was resistant to phase II metabolism during the influx/efflux processes, whereas ECG was susceptible to methylation and sulphation reactions. In conclusion, inhibitor-aided MALDI-MSI could serve as a powerful in situ visualisation technique for verifying intestinal transport routes and investigating the metabolism of penetrants.

Performances of conventional fusion methods evaluated for inland water body observation using GF-1 image

Satellite remote sensing of inland water body requires a high spatial resolution and a multiband narrow spectral resolution, which makes the fusion between panchromatic (PAN) and multi-spectral (MS) images particularly important. Taking the Daquekou section of the Qiantang River as an observation target, four conventional fusion methods widely accepted in satellite image processing, including pan sharpening (PS), principal component analysis (PCA), Gram-Schmidt (GS), and wavelet fusion (WF), are utilized to fuse MS and PAN images of GF-1. The results of subjective and objective evaluation methods application indicate that GS performs the best, followed by the PCA, the WF and the PS in the order of descending. The existence of a large area of the water body is a dominant factor impacting the fusion performance. Meanwhile, the ability of retaining spatial and spectral informations is an important factor affecting the fusion performance of different fusion methods. The fundamental difference of reflectivity information acquisition between water and land is the reason for the failure of conventional fusion methods for land observation such as the PS to be used in the presence of the large water body. It is suggested that the adoption of the conventional fusion methods in the observing water body as the main target should be taken with caution. The performances of the fusion methods need re-assessment when the large-scale water body is present in the remote sensing image or when the research aims for the water body observation.

Design of Objective Video Quality Metrics Using Spatial and Temporal Informations

Digital videos are subject to several types of distortions, which may occur during the processes of acquisition, processing, compression, storage and transmission of videos, resulting in loss of visual quality. Video quality assessment is important to set system parameters and propose the reduction of degradation, to improve the systems quality. The most appropriate way to assess the visual quality of a video sequence is subjective assessment. This study proposes new metrics for assessment of videos. The proposed metrics that uses spatial and temporal information to evaluate videos are more closely to the subjective assessment. For the evaluation of videos the BD-TPW-SSIM and TP-VQI metric obtained the best result for wireless degradation. For MPEG-2 encoded videos, T-PW-SSIM e T-MOVIE was the best, and IP systems the metric with the best result was the TPW-SSIM. Finally, the metric T-VimSSIM was the best for H.264 encoding.

Pansharpening Based on Low-Rank and Sparse Decomposition

This paper explores the low-rank and sparse (LRS) decomposition to solve the problem of pansharpening. By exploiting the significant correlation among the multispectral (MS) image bands, the LRS decomposition is employed as a decorrelation tool, from which the spectral and spatial informations in MS images can be separated. Based on Go Decomposition (GoDec), we provide two contributions. 1) An LRS-based pansharpening method (i.e., ImPCA) which is designed in terms of component substitution (CS) concept is given. 2) In order to improve the performance of ImPCA by reducing the spectral distortion which is characterized by the color or radiometric changes in the pansharpened images, the local dissimilarity between MS and panchromatic (PAN) images is taken into account by exploiting the context-based decision (CBD) model. Experimental results with both simulated and real data demonstrate that after the local dissimilarity is considered, the quality of the pansharpened images is significantly improved. The improved version of ImPCA is comparable with other popular methods.

4D numerical observer for lesion detection in respiratory-gated PET.

Respiratory-gated positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography protocols reduce lesion smearing and improve lesion detection through a synchronized acquisition of emission data. However, an objective assessment of image quality of the improvement gained from respiratory-gated PET is mainly limited to a three-dimensional (3D) approach. This work proposes a 4D numerical observer that incorporates both spatial and temporal informations for detection tasks in pulmonary oncology. The authors propose a 4D numerical observer constructed with a 3D channelized Hotelling observer for the spatial domain followed by a Hotelling observer for the temporal domain. Realistic (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose activity distributions were simulated using a 4D extended cardiac torso anthropomorphic phantom including 12 spherical lesions at different anatomical locations (lower, upper, anterior, and posterior) within the lungs. Simulated data based on Monte Carlo simulation were obtained using geant4 application for tomographic emission (GATE). Fifty noise realizations of six respiratory-gated PET frames were simulated by GATE using a model of the Siemens Biograph mMR scanner geometry. PET sinograms of the thorax background and pulmonary lesions that were simulated separately were merged to generate different conditions of the lesions to the background (e.g., lesion contrast and motion). A conventional ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) reconstruction (5 iterations and 6 subsets) was used to obtain: (1) gated, (2) nongated, and (3) motion-corrected image volumes (a total of 3200 subimage volumes: 2400 gated, 400 nongated, and 400 motion-corrected). Lesion-detection signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) were measured in different lesion-to-background contrast levels (3.5, 8.0, 9.0, and 20.0), lesion diameters (10.0, 13.0, and 16.0 mm), and respiratory motion displacements (17.6-31.3 mm). The proposed 4D numerical observer applied on multiple-gated images was compared to the conventional 3D approach applied on the nongated and motion-corrected images. On average, the proposed 4D numerical observer improved the detection SNR by 48.6% (p < 0.005), whereas the 3D methods on motion-corrected images improved by 31.0% (p < 0.005) as compared to the nongated method. For all different conditions of the lesions, the relative SNR measurement (Gain = SNRObserved/SNRNongated) of the 4D method was significantly higher than one from the motion-corrected 3D method by 13.8% (p < 0.02), where Gain4D was 1.49 ± 0.21 and Gain3D was 1.31 ± 0.15. For the lesion with the highest amplitude of motion, the 4D numerical observer yielded the highest observer-performance improvement (176%). For the lesion undergoing the smallest motion amplitude, the 4D method provided superior lesion detectability compared with the 3D method, which provided a detection SNR close to the nongated method. The investigation on a structure of the 4D numerical observer showed that a Laguerre-Gaussian channel matrix with a volumetric 3D function yielded higher lesion-detection performance than one with a 2D-stack-channelized function, whereas a different kind of channels that have the ability to mimic the human visual system, i.e., difference-of-Gaussian, showed similar performance in detecting uniform and spherical lesions. The investigation of the detection performance when increasing noise levels yielded decreasing detection SNR by 27.6% and 41.5% for the nongated and gated methods, respectively. The investigation of lesion contrast and diameter showed that the proposed 4D observer preserved the linearity property of an optimal-linear observer while the motion was present. Furthermore, the investigation of the iteration and subset numbers of the OSEM algorithm demonstrated that these parameters had impact on the lesion detectability and the selection of the optimal parameters could provide the maximum lesion-detection performance. The proposed 4D numerical observer outperformed the other observers for the lesion-detection task in various lesion conditions and motions. The 4D numerical observer shows substantial improvement in lesion detectability over the 3D observer method. The proposed 4D approach could potentially provide a more reliable objective assessment of the impact of respiratory-gated PET improvement for lesion-detection tasks. On the other hand, the 4D approach may be used as an upper bound to investigate the performance of the motion correction method. In future work, the authors will validate the proposed 4D approach on clinical data for detection tasks in pulmonary oncology.

A Rain Pixel Recovery Algorithm for Videos With Highly Dynamic Scenes

Rain removal is a very useful and important technique in applications such as security surveillance and movie editing. Several rain removal algorithms have been proposed these years, where photometric, chromatic, and probabilistic properties of the rain have been exploited to detect and remove the rainy effect. Current methods generally work well with light rain and relatively static scenes, when dealing with heavier rainfall in dynamic scenes, these methods give very poor visual results. The proposed algorithm is based on motion segmentation of dynamic scene. After applying photometric and chromatic constraints for rain detection, rain removal filters are applied on pixels such that their dynamic property as well as motion occlusion clue are considered; both spatial and temporal informations are then adaptively exploited during rain pixel recovery. Results show that the proposed algorithm has a much better performance for rainy scenes with large motion than existing algorithms.

Type-2 Fuzzy C-Means Algorithm with Spatial Informations and Membership Constrains for Liver Segmentation

The Fuzzy C-Means algorithm with spatial informations and membership constrains is a very effective and efficient image segmentation method. However£¬it is founded with Type-1 fuzzy sets, which can not handle the uncertainties existing in liver image well.The type-2 fuzzy sets have better performance on handling uncertainties than Type-1 fuzzy set. In this paper, a new robust Type-2 FCM image segmentation algorithm is proposed aiming to improve the segmentation precision and robustness of liver image by introducing the type-2 fuzzy set into FCM with spatial information and membership constrains. We extend the type-1 fuzzy set of membership to interval type-2 fuzzy set using two fuzzifiers and which create a footprint of uncertainty (FOU). The experimental results show that the target area of the liver in CT images can be segmented well by the proposed method.

Dinâmicas de regeneração, degeneração e desmatamento da vegetação provocadas por fatores climáticos e geomorfológicos: uma análise geoecológica através de SIG

Este trabalho teve como objetivo analisar a influência de fatores climáticos (insolação e precipitação anual) e geomorfológicos (declividade) na dinâmica das transformações da cobertura vegetal arbórea e no uso do solo. A área de pesquisa é a bacia hidrográfica do rio Paquequer, região serrana do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, bacia representativa de Mata Atlântica. Foram utilizadas as interpretações da cobertura vegetal dos anos de 1976 e 1996, obtidas, respectivamente, através de fotografias aéreas e imagem de satélite SPOT-3 XS/PAN. Os dados de relevo e de insolação (aspect) foram derivados do Projeto Teresópolis (UERJ/IBGE) e os de pluviosidade, da CPRM. A análise da dinâmica da cobertura vegetal arbórea em 20 anos visou avaliar os fatores físicos condicionantes de processos de regeneração (inicial e avançada), degeneração e de desmatamento. Essas categorias de informação foram cruzadas com os fatores de declividade, insolação e precipitação anual. A análise espacial foi realizada com o uso de Sistema de Informação Geográfica (SIG), utilizando-se o software ArcGIS 9.0. Enquanto a regeneração inicial ocorre indistintamente dos fatores abióticos, sugere-se que a regeneração avançada seja um processo mais seletivo, ou melhor, preferencialmente em encostas com menor insolação e mais úmidas. De forma contrária, o desmatamento da vegetação para uso antrópico tende a ser mais intenso nas áreas favoráveis ao uso: baixa declividade e maior insolação (encostas voltadas para o norte).

The Effect of Visuo-Spatial Organisation in Recognition-Memory Tasks

We investigated whether recognition memory benefits when stimuli are organised in a visuo-spatial array. Three different memory tasks were compared: (a) verbal task (what); (b) spatial task (where); (c) combination task, where both verbal and spatial informations were combined together (what/where). We hypothesised that when visual stimuli are organised in a spatial array the recognition is better. Recognition memory was assessed by quantifying the speed of correct responses and the total number of correct responses in a group of male volunteers (N = 20). Subjects' task was to recognise a stimulus probe from sequences (one versus three) of stimuli. All stimuli appeared randomly in one of nine locations on a 3 x 3 grid. The results show that subjects were faster and more accurate when they had to recognise only spatial information (where) than when they had to recognise verbal information (what) or the combination of both verbal and spatial information (what/where). Additionally, when the stimuli were presented in a spatial array there were benefits for the spatial task, whilst verbal and combination tasks were unaffected. Additionally, asymmetry between left and right hemifields has been found. These findings are discussed with regard to different memory processes that operate independently.

Mapeamento da vulnerabilidade geoambiental do estado do Paraná

The geo-environmental vulnerability mapping of Paraná State, elaborated at the 1:600.000 scale, was based on the “Análise Empírica da Fragilidade dos Ambientes Naturais e Antropizados” method presented by Ross (1994). For attainment of the vulnerability classes, geology, geomorphology and pedology were considered in three classes, low, moderate and high, applied on fifty geomorphologic units defined in Paraná state by Oka-Fiori et al. (2006) and Santos et al. (2006). The vulnerability classes are characterized by a variety of geo-environmental processes: erosion, movements of mass, fall of blocks, soil subsidence, ground collapses, periodic flooding and underground water contamination. The expected problems and the aptitude of use for each unit were identified. The integration between the various spatial informations was carried out trough geo-processing techniques, having applied numerical combinations and operators of weighed addition in matrices and using Arcview 3,2, Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst softwares. The result of the work aims at to take care of the demand for a systematic base to environmental action planning in Paraná state.

Mapeamento da vulnerabilidade geoambiental do estado do Paraná

The geo-environmental vulnerability mapping of Parana State, elaborated at the 1:600.000 scale, was based on the “Analise Empirica da Fragilidade dos Ambientes Naturais e Antropizados” method presented by Ross (1994). For attainment of the vulnerability classes, geology, geomorphology and pedology were considered in three classes, low, moderate and high, applied on fifty geomorphologic units defined in Parana state by Oka-Fiori et al. (2006) and Santos et al. (2006). The vulnerability classes are characterized by a variety of geo-environmental processes: erosion, movements of mass, fall of blocks, soil subsidence, ground collapses, periodic flooding and undergroundwater contamination. The expected problems and the aptitude of use for each unit were identified. The integration between the various spatial informations was carried out trough geo-processing techniques, having applied numerical combinations and operators of weighed addition in matrices and using Arcview 3,2, Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst softwares. The result of the work aims at to take care of the demand for a systematic base to environmental action planning in Parana state.

Spatial memory, habituation, and reactions to spatial and nonspatial changes in rats with selective lesions of the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortex or the subiculum

Various spatial memory deficits have been described in rats with damage to the hippocampal formation (including the subiculum and the entorhinal cortex) and particularly in rats with selective lesions of the hippocampus proper. So far, the involvement of the entorhinal cortex in spatial memory is still controversial and the role of the subiculum is poorly documented. The aim of the present study was to compare the behavioural effects of selective lesions of the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortex or the subiculum in (a) a water-maze task using testing procedures sensitive to the disruption of reference or working memory and (b) in an object exploration task designed to evaluate habituation and subsequently reactions to changes of the spatial layout of objects (spatial change) or to the substitution of a familiar object by a new one (nonspatial change). Our results showed several similarities between the behavioural consequences of damage to each of the three structures. A few differences were also noted. Hippocampal rats were impaired in all spatial tasks, but they reacted like controls to a nonspatial change. The rats sustaining lesions of the entorhinal cortex or the subiculum were not impaired in the reference-memory procedure of the water-maze task and showed a deficit in reacting to a nonspatial change. Overall, our results confirm the central role of the hippocampus in spatial memory and also suggest a role for the entorhinal cortex and the subiculum in processing spatial informations. In addition, they indicate that the entorhinal cortex and the subiculum may have a hippocampal-independent role in memory.

Differential environmental modulations on locomotor activity, exploration and spatial behaviour in young and old rats

The effects of environmental enrichment on motor activity, exploration and spatial performances were studied in young and old rats. Both young (4 mo old) and old (22 mo old) rats were housed from weaning to testing either in standard or in enriched conditions. All rats were submitted successively to spontaneous alternation test and to object exploration test. Results show that locomotion is decreased by age and enrichment but that the quality of exploration expressed by corrected alternation scores or by the response to spatial change is improved by enrichment sometimes in old, sometimes in young rats. Enrichment tends to accelerate the acquisition of spatial informations in young rats, but it does not succeed to restore the reactivity to spatial change of old rats in the object exploration test. These results, although they do not rule out a persistance of a continued behavioural plasticity during aging, also support the idea that the beneficial effects of environmental stimulations do not succeed to restore high cognitive function, such as the capacity to have a spatial representation, in old animals.

Neutron Scattering Studies of Host-Guest Interaction in Zeolites

Abstract Neutrons are coupled with all the degrees of freedom of the molecules, and particularly suitable to study molecular dynamics. They provide at the same time spatial and dynamical informations and allow a good representation of the guest behaviour in the host topology. Experiments have shown the mobility and diffusivity of protonated molecules (CH4, H2 and HD) and the location of several hydrocarbons in zeolite crystals.

Effects of anterior thalamic lesions on spatial memory in mice.

The present study was aimed at determining whether or not lesions of the anterior thalamic nuclei induced deficits in sequential or delayed spatial alternation (SA) in mice, these procedures enabling measures of sensitivity to interference and rate of forgetting respectively. Results showed that sequential SA comprising six successive trials separated by a 30 s inter-trial interval was not impaired by the lesion; in contrast, delayed SA in lesioned animals was impaired by a long (6 h) but not by a short (5 min) delay, compared with controls. These results support the view that lesions of anterior thalamic nuclei can produce anterograde amnesia for spatial informations selective to relatively long delay.

Post-training medial septal stimulation improves spatial information processing in BALB/c mice

The experiment reported here was designed to highlight the effects of medial septal nucleus electrical stimulation on memory processes. To that end, we have used a learning task carried out in a 4-hole board in which animals were successively presented with the location of 2 baited holes. Under these conditions, the consequence of a weak stimulation (30 microA peak to peak, 80 s in duration) applied 30 s after acquisition of these 2 separate spatial informations was assessed on a retention test 24 h later. The results indicated that performance of stimulated animals was improved by medial septal stimulation as shown by an increase in the time duration of exploration of the second previously baited hole. However, post-training stimulation also produced a significant avoidance of the first previously baited hole not observed in the control groups. These results suggest that medial septal stimulation improves retroactive inhibition involved in working memory processes, thus leading to better retention of this kind of learning situation.

A statistical approach to computerized EEG: Preliminary data on control subjects and epileptic patients

Factor Analysis represents an important method of extracting salient features from EEG data condensing functional as well as spatial informations in a few factors and so reducing redundancy of multi-channels computerized EEG data. A 16-channel computerized frequency analysis of background brain electrical activity during 3 functional conditions (eyes closed, eyes open and hyperventilation) were performed in 2 groups, 50 healthy subjects and 14 epileptic patients with generalized seizures. The differences in each frequency band between the 2 groups have been assessed by means of factor scores. Factor scores differences between control and epileptic patients have been found in theta and alpha frequency bands. These interictal EEG abnormalities were more evident in epileptic patients. This preliminary study shows the confirmatory capability of Factor Analysis and its usefulness in managing and comparing computerized EEG data.