Spatial Means Research Articles

A General Method for Resampling Autocorrelated Spatial Data

AbstractComparing spatial data sets is a ubiquitous task in data analysis, however the presence of spatial autocorrelation means that standard estimates of variance will be wrong and tend to over‐estimate the statistical significance of correlations and other observations. While there are a number of existing approaches to this problem, none are ideal, requiring detailed analytical calculations, which are hard to generalize or detailed modeling of the data generating process, which may not be straightforward. In this work we propose an approach based on permuting or resampling at fixed spatial autocorrelation, measured by Moran's I, in order to generate a null model that accounts for spatial dependence. Testing on real and synthetic data, we find that, as long as the spatial autocorrelation is not too strong, this approach works just as well as if we knew the data generating process exactly and allows us to compute P‐values with the correct Type‐I error rate.

Synchrotron Infrared Microspectroscopy of Zeolite Catalysts

This article reviews recent work undertaken at the beamline B22 of the Diamond Light Source using infrared (IR) microspectroscopy to characterise zeolite catalysts and to study their reactivity in real time. The advantage of vibrational microspectroscopic analysis when linked to the brightness and spectral bandwidth of synchrotron IR light are illustrated. The high spatial resolution means that the uniformity of acid site concentrations within individual large crystals of zeolites and between different crystals can be readily checked and changes to acid site concentrations within crystals resulting from steam treatment mapped. When an in situ reaction cell is coupled with mass spectrometric analysis of evolved gases the rapid time response of the method has provided new insight into the initial stages of the conversion of methanol to hydrocarbons over ZSM-5 and SAPO-34 single crystals. Future prospects for applying the method to other types of zeolite catalysed reactions with improved reaction cell design are also discussed.

Focused Ultrasound Modulates Dopamine in a Mesolimbic Reward Circuit.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a significant role in reward and motivation. Dysfunction in the mesolimbic dopamine pathway has been linked to a variety of psychiatric disorders, including addiction. Low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) has demonstrated effects on brain activity, but how LIFU affects dopamine neurotransmission is not known. Here, we applied three different intensities (6.5, 13, and 26 W/cm 2 I sppa ) of 2-minute LIFU to the prelimbic region (PLC) and measured dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) core using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry. Two minutes of LIFU sonication at 13 W/cm 2 to the PLC significantly reduced dopamine release by ∼ 50% for up to 2 hours. However, double the intensity (26 W/cm 2 ) resulted in less inhibition (∼30%), and half the intensity (6.5 W/cm 2 ) did not result in any inhibition of dopamine. Anatomical controls applying LIFU to the primary somatosensory cortex did not change NAc core dopamine, and applying LIFU to the PLC did not affect dopamine release in the caudate or NAc shell. Histological evaluations showed no evidence of cell damage or death. Modeling of temperature rise demonstrates a maximum temperature change of 0.5°C with 13 W/cm 2 , suggesting that modulation is not due to thermal mechanisms. These studies show that LIFU at a moderate intensity provides a noninvasive, high spatial resolution means to modulate specific mesolimbic circuits that could be used in future studies to target and repair pathways that are dysfunctional in addiction and other psychiatric diseases.

Geographic disaggregation of household surveys. Modified estimators for correcting misclassification bias

ABSTRACT We present a two-stage method to estimate spatial conditional means at a higher spatial resolution than the data actually have. In the first stage, we increase the spatial resolution of the data using classification tools and ancillary data. In the second stage, we estimate spatial conditional means (conditioning on the new spatial resolution). The estimation procedure in the second stage is not straightforward because the new finer spatial areas are subject to misclassification (measurement error). We prove that the least square (LS) estimators are biased under this framework and propose a consistent and asymptotically normal estimator under non-differential measurement errors. Given that the proposed estimator depends on unobservable terms, we also present its feasible version. Unlike most of the spatial downscaling methods, our proposal is non-model-based, and does not require area homogeneity assumptions. We assess analytical results by some Monte Carlo simulations, showing that our proposals work properly and outperform the spatial microsimulation approach. Finally, we conduct an empirical application where we analyse poverty and unemployment in one of the main urban agglomerates of Argentina known as Gran Rosario, we spatially disaggregate the original database to make inferences at a finer geographic scale.

Early forecasting of corn yield and price variations using satellite vegetation products

Several approaches based on process-based, statistical or economic models have been developed and are currently used by market analysts and governmental agencies to forecast agricultural yields and commodity prices at the national and global scales. However, these models require input data that are often difficult to obtain before crop harvest and their predictions are not always reliable. Satellite data products provide easily accessible sources of information on vegetation characteristics, potentially relevant for predicting crop yield and commodity prices at a large scale, before harvest. This study presents and evaluates several methods for forecasting variations in US corn yield and global corn prices using regional vegetation satellite products. The spatial dimension of maps of vegetation indices derived from satellite products in the US Corn Belt is first reduced either by their spatial means or by principal components derived using the Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) method. Mean values and EOF principal components are then used as explanatory variables in generalized LASSO linear models to forecast corn price and yield changes at different time horizons, before harvest. A cross-validation method was implemented to assess the model performances using Area under the ROC curve (AUC), the Brier Skill Score (BSS) and the Matthew Correlation Coefficient (MCC). The results revealed that EOF principal components derived from satellite-based gross primary production (GPP) in July could be used to predict variations in US corn yields, with an AUC of 0.97 (95% CI 0.92-1), a BSS of 0.75 and an MCC of 0.83. The results also showed that the July spatial averages of satellite GPP data obtained in the US Corn Belt could be used to forecast the forthcoming increase or decrease of global corn prices as evidenced by an AUC reaching up to 0.91, a BSS up to 0.5, and an MCC up to 0.67. Finally, we compared our forecasts of yield and price variations to those derived from the WASDE forecasting method currently implemented in the US. This comparison showed that our approach was at least as accurate and often more accurate than WASDE. This study demonstrates how satellite data can be used to forecast variations in crop yields and corn prices several months before harvest.

Characterizing energy balance closure over a heterogeneous ecosystem using multi-tower eddy covariance

Single point eddy covariance measurements of the Earth’s surface energy budget frequently identify an imbalance between available energy and turbulent heat fluxes. While this imbalance lacks a definitive explanation, it is nevertheless a persistent finding from single-site measurements; one with implications for atmospheric and ecosystem models. This has led to a push for intensive field campaigns with temporally and spatially distributed sensors to help identify the causes of energy balance non-closure. Here we present results from the Chequamegon Heterogeneous Ecosystem Energy-balance Study Enabled by a High-density Extensive Array of Detectors 2019 (CHEESEHEAD19)—an observational experiment designed to investigate how the Earth’s surface energy budget responds to scales of surface spatial heterogeneity over a forest ecosystem in northern Wisconsin. The campaign was conducted from June–October 2019, measuring eddy covariance (EC) surface energy fluxes using an array of 20 towers and a low-flying aircraft. Across the domain, energy balance residuals were found to be highest during the afternoon, coinciding with the period of surface heterogeneity-driven mesoscale motions. The magnitude of the residual varied across different sites in relation to the vegetation characteristics of each site. Both vegetation height and height variability showed positive relationships with the residual magnitude. During the seasonal transition from latent heat-dominated summer to sensible heat-dominated fall the magnitude of the energy balance residual steadily decreased, but the energy balance ratio remained constant at 0.8. This was due to the different components of the energy balance equation shifting proportionally, suggesting a common cause of non-closure across the two seasons. Additionally, we tested the effectiveness of measuring energy balance using spatial EC. Spatial EC, whereby the covariance is calculated based on deviations from spatial means, has been proposed as a potential way to reduce energy balance residuals by incorporating contributions from mesoscale motions better than single-site, temporal EC. Here we tested several variations of spatial EC with the CHEESEHEAD19 dataset but found little to no improvement to energy balance closure, which we attribute in part to the challenging measurement requirements of spatial EC.

New directions for malaria vector control using geography and geospatial analysis.

As we strive towards the ambitious goal of malaria elimination, we must embrace integrated strategies and interventions. Like many diseases, malaria is heterogeneously distributed. This inherent spatial component means that geography and geospatial data is likely to have an important role in malaria control strategies. For instance, focussing interventions in areas where malaria risk is highest is likely to provide more cost-effective malaria control programmes. Equally, many malaria vector control strategies, particularly interventions like larval source management, would benefit from accurate maps of malaria vector habitats - sources of water that are used for malarial mosquito oviposition and larval development. In many landscapes, particularly in rural areas, the formation and persistence of these habitats is controlled by geographical factors, notably those related to hydrology. This is especially true for malaria vector species like Anopheles funestsus that show a preference for more permanent, often naturally occurring water sources like small rivers and spring-fed ponds. Previous work has embraced geographical concepts, techniques, and geospatial data for studying malaria risk and vector habitats. But there is much to be learnt if we are to fully exploit what the broader geographical discipline can offer in terms of operational malaria control, particularly in the face of a changing climate. This chapter outlines potential new directions related to several geographical concepts, data sources and analytical approaches, including terrain analysis, satellite imagery, drone technology and field-based observations. These directions are discussed within the context of designing new protocols and procedures that could be readily deployed within malaria control programmes, particularly those within sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on experiences in the Kilombero Valley and the Zanzibar Archipelago, United Republic of Tanzania.

Exodus and Return: A study of spaces in The Summer Before the Dark

British writer Doris Lessing (1919-2013) is praised as an epicist of the female experience. In 2007, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Summer Before the Dark, published in 1973, is one of Lessing’s best-selling books. It has been mostly studied from the perspectives of feminism, psychoanalysis, and narratology. This paper adopts an innovative perspective of space theory to analyze the work. Kate, the heroine of the novel, has long suffered from the patriarchal gaze. Kate resorts to a variety of spatial means to escape her original suffering. She tries to get rid of spiritual slavery through her exodus. In the journey, she discovers that only by establishing a firm self can she truly emerge from her spiritual dilemma. Lessing’s pioneering exposition of women’s experience continues in this novel. She points out that the private feelings of women are difficult to find expression in the male-dominated world. The story finally leads to the woman’s psychological liberation and reunion with her family.

Intersubjective legitimacy and the failure of Kosovo’s authoritarian peace

ABSTRACT Legitimacy is traditionally the province of peacebuilding schools which pursue positive peace, but it is salient in illiberal contexts too. In this article I make the case that the concept of intersubjective legitimacy gives Authoritarian Conflict Management (ACM) theory the tools to address the processes of (de-)legitimation. It also highlights the interdependence of ACM’sdiscursive, spatial, and economic means of control. This elaborates ACM and thus makes a theoretical contribution to a growing research agenda on illiberal peacebuilding. I make a further, empirical contribution by illustrating my point with a study of the rise and fall of Kosovo’s old guard parties. They constructed an intersubjective environment using the means of ACM that allowed them to legitimate their governance despite grievances. The LVV movement was then able to break the intersubjectivity through actions of de-legitimation. My account therefore de-emphasises the influence of grievances alone and instead foregrounds active performances of legitimation in Kosovo.

Contrasting the semantic typology biases of Deaf and hearing nonsigners in their conceptualization of time and space

AbstractThe mental lexicon offers a window into the configuration of conceptual domains such as space and time, which has been labeled as concrete the former and abstract the latter in the current embodiment approach to cognition. Space has a phonological and semantic value in sign languages, but not in spoken languages. Additionally, the representation of time by spatial means is robust in oral and sign languages. This research asks if Deaf signers and hearing nonsigners have the same conceptual organization of those domains. In their respective languages, sixty-two participants made a repeated free word association task. These results showed that the studied populations have a little overlap in the associates evocated for each clue. The analysis of the preferences of the semantic relations of the pairs clue-associate showed a greater tendency of the Deaf signers to establish thematic relations. In contrast, the hearing participants indicated a bias toward taxonomic relations. The results suggest that the abstractness or concreteness of concepts may be modulated by factors associated with linguistic modalities. However, in this compared free association norms factors related to the language deprivation of Deaf, the asymmetries in the cross-modal language contact and cross-modal borrowing were not exhaustively controlled.

Linking G2SFCA method and circuit theory to promote spatial equity and landscape connectivity in urban ecological infrastructure

Protecting and constructing urban ecological infrastructure (UEI) is an important spatial means of improving the quality of life of urban residents, enhancing the benefits of the urban environment, and improving urban habitats. Landscape connectivity is the basis for UEI to play an ecological role. Spatial equity is an important goal for UEI to enhance urban resident happiness and sense of access and achieve environmental justice. Taking Yantai city as an example, this study analyzed the UEI morphological spatial pattern based on morphological spatial pattern analysis and calculated the spatial accessibility of UEI based on the gravity -based two-step-floating catchment area (G2SFCA) method. In addition, the study proposed the concept of accessible UEI and reflected the spatial differences in the equity of accessible UEI in urban residential areas through equity modeling that was oriented to connectivity enhancement and equity improvement. Moreover, the study integrated the location-allocation model and circuit theory to optimize the spatial layout of the existing UEI and construct an urban ecological corridor that considered landscape connectivity and leisure and recreational convenience. The results of this study showed that the proportion of bridge and island areas with connecting functions in the existing UEI in Yantai was only 10%, and they had not yet formed a complete network structure; hence, connectivity improvements were needed. In addition, the equity of accessible UEI in the residential areas of Yantai was generally good, and more than two-thirds of residents had sufficient access to UEI. However, approximately 32.7% of the residents in the four old city areas lacked a UEI distribution within their effective commuting time. Moreover, UEI layout optimization could improve the equity of accessible UEI in residential areas; however, the method of adding a new UEI was not applicable to areas with high concentrations of urban populations and stable urban spatial layouts. Furthermore, urban ecological corridors could effectively improve the connectivity and equity of UEI; however, 70% relied on existing road systems and needed to enhance their ecological attributes. The UEI equity of residential areas was highly correlated with house prices, indicating an obvious spatial injustice in the UEI layout in Yantai. Planners and governments should promote urban environmental justice through effective conservation and construction measures by incorporating established ecological and artificial infrastructures into UEI planning to achieve equitable access to UEI services for urban residents. This study provides a spatial reference and methodological support to enhance the equity and connectivity of UEI.

Effects of geographically stratified random sampling initial solutions on solving a continuous surface p-median location problem using the ALTERN heuristic

In the fields of location theory and spatial optimization, heuristic algorithms have been developed to overcome the NP-hard nature of solutions to their problems, which results in an exponential increase in computation time. These algorithms aim to generate good initial solutions, narrow the solution space, and guide the search process to optimality. Geographically stratified random sampling (GSRS) can be regarded as a method to generate such high-quality initial solutions. This study investigates the application of GSRS to solving the p-median location problem on a continuous surface solution space punctuated with weighted demand points, and its impact on the performance of the popular ALTERN heuristic algorithm. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of GSRS in finding optimal p-median solutions, but only for smaller p values: the ALTERN heuristic with initial solutions generated by local spatial means from GSRS for these smaller p always produces optimal final solutions. In contrast, implementing a random search by executing a large number of random initial solutions often produces non-optimal results. Findings reported in this paper also highlight that sample size and degree of positive spatial autocorrelation (PSA) in the geographic distribution of weights influence how close final solutions are to optimality for larger p. Increasing the sample size leads solutions to be concentrated near their optimal counterparts, as does increasing PSA levels.

Multispectral optoacoustic tomography is more sensitive than micro-computed tomography for tracking gold nanorod labelled mesenchymal stromal cells.

Tracking the fate of therapeutic cell types is important for assessing their safety and efficacy. Bioluminescence imaging (BLI) is an effective cell tracking technique, but poor spatial resolution means it has limited ability to precisely map cells in vivo in 3D. This can be overcome by using a bimodal imaging approach that combines BLI with a technique capable of generating high-resolution images. Here we compared the effectiveness of combining either multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) or micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) with BLI for tracking the fate of luciferase+ human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) labelled with gold nanorods. Following subcutaneous administration in mice, the MSCs could be readily detected with MSOT but not with micro-CT. We conclude that MSOT is more sensitive than micro-CT for tracking gold nanorod-labelled cells in vivo and depending on the route of administration, can be used effectively with BLI to track MSC fate in mice.

Exhibiting the Holocaust at the Majdanek Concentration Camp and the Bergen-Belsen DP Camp

ABSTRACT This article reconstructs and analyses the spaces and visual narratives of two particularly important early exhibitions organized by Holocaust survivors: the one at the Jewish Pavilion in the former Majdanek concentration camp in Lublin (September 1946), and ‘Unzer Veg in der Frayheyt’ (Our Path to Freedom) made in the displaced persons camp in Bergen-Belsen (July 1947). Located in one of the barracks of the former concentration camp, the Jewish Pavilion in Majdanek was one of the first public commemorative sites expressing Jewish memory of the war in Poland. While presenting a history of the Holocaust, the display also established a space for mourning. ‘Our Path to Freedom’ was created on the occasion of the Second Congress of Liberated Jews in the British Zone. It also presented the Holocaust, while at the same time imagining the future life of survivors in Eretz Israel. Together, these exhibitions demonstrate the heterogeneity of Holocaust memory of that time. They pose questions about different ways of narrating history, pointing to exhibitions as a significant medium, while allowing for a combination of visual and spatial means of representation in order to create a multifaceted narrative about the past.

Combining PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 images with environmental data for improved wheat yield estimation

ABSTRACT Satellite images are widely used for crop yield estimation, but their coarse spatial resolution means that they often fail to provide detailed information at the field scale. Recently, a new generation of high-resolution satellites and CubeSat platforms has been launched. In this study, satellite data sources including PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 were combined with topographic and climatic variables, and the improvement in wheat yield estimation was evaluated. Wheat yield data from a combine harvester were used to train and validate a yield estimation model based on random forest regression. Nine vegetation indices (NDVI, GNDVI, MSAVI2, MTVI2, MTCI, reNDVI, SAVI, EVI and WDVI) and spectral bands were tested. During the model training, the Sentinel-2 data realized a slightly higher estimation accuracy than the PlanetScope data. However, combining environmental data with the PlanetScope data realized the highest estimation accuracy. For the validated models, adding the topographic and climatic datasets to the satellite data sources improved the estimation accuracy, and the results were slightly better with the Sentinel-2 data than with the PlanetScope data. Observation data of the milk and dough stages provided the highest estimation accuracy of the wheat yield at 210–225 days after sowing.

Projected interiorities or the production of subjectivity through spatial and performative means

Even those who consider themselves lucky to have escaped trauma, long-term illness and death, have experienced radical changes to their conception of life in its relation to public and private domains due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When public space turned into a dangerous realm, private interiors were assigned a new role and with these shifts, also new questions about the relation of interiority to any type of exteriority emerged. The first four contributions in this ‘Projected Interiorities’ issue of Technoetic Arts (TA) reflect from an architectural and urban point of view on the conception of the public and private, their past, present and future. Yet, the pandemic contributed more widely to a re-evaluation of interiority, not least because the public and private realms seemingly coalesced via digital processes. While this journal issue cannot cover all these questions, it indicates the range of the pandemic turn in thought, collecting contributions from theory and practice, including architecture, art, philosophy and literary studies. With authors of a variety of disciplinary backgrounds based in China, India, Norway, France, the United Kingdom and the United States, this issue of TA covers not only a multiplicity of methodological approaches but also diverse regional and cultural perspectives on the idea of ‘Projected Interiorities’.

Construction of an Ecological Network Based on an Integrated Approach and Circuit Theory: A Case Study of Panzhou in Guizhou Province

Protecting ecological security has become the backbone of social and economic development since declines in ecological quality due to an increase in human dominance over the natural environment. The establishment of ecological networks is an effective, comprehensive spatial regulation means to ensure regional ecological security. Panzhou city, as a case study, is a typical karst county and has been confronted with the pressure of ecological degradation in recent decades. In this study, an integrated approach combining ecological quality (EQ), ecosystem function importance (EFI), and morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) was developed to determine the ecological sources. Ecological corridors, ecological pinch areas, and ecological barriers were extracted using circuit theory to identify the restored and conserved priority areas of ecological security patterns. The results showed that (1) the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) and EFI exhibited typical geographical distributions, with the highest values concentrated in the northern and southern parts of the study area and the lowest values scattered in the middle part; (2) 26 patches with forestland, grassland, and waterbodies as the main land cover types were selected as the ecological sources; (3) 63 ecological corridors, composed of 45 key ecological corridors and 18 inactive ecological corridors, were extracted, accounting for 203.12 km and 163.31 km, respectively; (4) 82.76 km2 of pinch areas and 320.29 km2 of barriers were identified, both of which were distributed on key ecological corridors and played different roles in ecological security; and (5) 4 types of ecological security zones were established according to ecological sources, corridors, pinch areas, and barriers. This integrated approach provides a scientific method for the identification and implementation of ecological networks that can contribute to protecting regional ecological security. Our findings can serve as applicable and reasonable guidance to land administrators and policy-makers for adopting suitable territorial spatial planning, urban planning, green cities, etc.

Downstairs, Upstairs: The Division of Domestic Space Between Domestic Workers and Super-Rich Employers in London

London’s affluent neighborhoods are often reported as places where employers infringe migrant domestic workers’ rights. Much has been written on both the wealthy’s influence on cities and on domestic workers’ lack of rights, yet few have connected these literatures. In this article, I explore one of the UK’s most expensive addresses, Eaton Square, through contemporary and historical planning documents, to unearth a legacy of segregation masked by tactics to avoid public scrutiny. Through interviewing staff at Kalayaan, a charity that supports and advocates for domestic workers, and analyzing their survey data, I find that explicit segregation is being replaced by boundary erasure, with workers sleeping in communal areas and family members’ bedrooms, with little or no access to the city outside. The article questions the conflation of the physical house and social home that is regularly assumed, and argues for domestic workers’ human right to privacy to be enabled, rather than restricted, by spatial and legislative means.

A Causal Debiasing Framework for Unsupervised Salient Object Detection

Unsupervised Salient Object Detection (USOD) is a promising yet challenging task that aims to learn a salient object detection model without any ground-truth labels. Self-supervised learning based methods have achieved remarkable success recently and have become the dominant approach in USOD. However, we observed that two distribution biases of salient objects limit further performance improvement of the USOD methods, namely, contrast distribution bias and spatial distribution bias. Concretely, contrast distribution bias is essentially a confounder that makes images with similar high-level semantic contrast and/or low-level visual appearance contrast spuriously dependent, thus forming data-rich contrast clusters and leading the training process biased towards the data-rich contrast clusters in the data. Spatial distribution bias means that the position distribution of all salient objects in a dataset is concentrated on the center of the image plane, which could be harmful to off-center objects prediction. This paper proposes a causal based debiasing framework to disentangle the model from the impact of such biases. Specifically, we use causal intervention to perform de-confounded model training to minimize the contrast distribution bias and propose an image-level weighting strategy that softly weights each image's importance according to the spatial distribution bias map. Extensive experiments on 6 benchmark datasets show that our method significantly outperforms previous unsupervised state-of-the-art methods and even surpasses some of the supervised methods, demonstrating our debiasing framework's effectiveness.

Evaluation of the Thermal Environmental Effects of Urban Ecological Networks—A Case Study of Xuzhou City, China

Urban heat islands (UHIs) constitute an important ecological problem in cities. Ecological space has a positive effect on UHI mitigation, which can be effectively organized in the form of ecological networks. In this study, the framework for structural UHI improvement based on ecological networks considering the source-corridor model is proposed to examine the spatial threshold of the thermal effect of ecological network factors. Additionally, the cooling mechanism of each constituent element in the ecological network context is further explored. The results demonstrate that (1) an obvious cold and heat island spatial aggregation distribution exists in the Xuzhou main urban area, and land of the same land use type exhibits the dual thermal environmental properties of cold and heat islands through its spatial distribution and characteristics. Ecological space is the main bearing area of cold islands. (2) The ecological network in the main urban area of Xuzhou city occurs at a moderately complex level, and the overall network efficiency is acceptable; the network connectivity is low, while the network loop distribution is uneven. (3) Ecological networks represent an effective spatial means to improve overall UHI patterns. The ecological source area cooling threshold is 300 m, and the optimal threshold is 100 m, while the ecological corridor width threshold is 500 m and 60 m, respectively. (4) Within the optimal threshold in the context of ecological networks, the temperature of ecological sources in category G land is influenced by NDBI and FVC; ecological corridors are mainly influenced by NDBI. The results can provide a quantitative basis for urban ecological network planning considering UHI improvement and a reference for urban thermal environment research within different ecological substrates and planning and control systems in other countries and regions worldwide.