Topographic Points Research Articles

MEDICINAL BIOMAGNETISM IN THE TREATMENT OF URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS CAUSED BY Escherichia coli: CASE REPORTS

Introduction: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are amongst the most common pathological conditions in community and hospital environments. The bacterium Escherichia coli is its main etiological agent. The conventional medical treatment includes antibiotics; however, it is necessary to search for strategies that can avoid microbial resistance. This highlights the importance of Medicinal Biomagnetism (MB), a therapeutic system developed in 1988 by the Mexican physician Dr. Isaac Goiz Durán (1941-2021), which consists of the use of magnets in pairs, with magnetic flux greater than 1,000 Gauss, in topographic points that present biomagnetic resonance and aims to correct distortions in the body’s pH, helping to restore and maintain the Normal Energy Level (NEL). Objective: To evaluate people with UTIs caused by E. coli who were treated with MB. Methodology: MB treatment was carried out in two female participants (47 and 50 years old) and one male participant (54 years old), who had positive urine culture results for E. coli. The participant also had a high dose of total prostate specific antigen (PSA). Only the first case required a second MB session. Laboratory tests were repeated. Results and discussion: The urine culture tests indicated that there was no bacterial growth in cases treated with MB. And, the dosage of total PSA, indicated a reduction from 6.13 to 0.54 ng/mL. This study demonstrated that people showed elimination of UTIs caused by E. coli when treated with MB. It is suggested that this technique be researched in larger trials to better determine its contribution to the treatment of UTIs.

A Quantitative Assessment of LIDAR Data Accuracy

Airborne laser scanning sensors are impressive in their ability to collect a large number of topographic points in three dimensions in a very short time thus providing a high-resolution depiction of complex objects in the scanned areas. The quality of any final product naturally depends on the original data and the methods of generating it. Thus, the quality of the data should be evaluated before assessing any of its products. In this research, a detailed evaluation of a LIDAR system is presented, and the quality of the LIDAR data is quantified. This area has been under-emphasized in much of the published work on the applications of airborne laser scanning data. The evaluation is done by field surveying. The results address both the planimetric and the height accuracy of the LIDAR data. The average discrepancy of the LIDAR elevations from the surveyed study area is 0.12 m. In general, the RMSE of the horizontal offsets is approximately 0.50 m. Both relative and absolute height discrepancies of the LIDAR data have two components of variation. The first component is a random short-period variation while the second component has a less significant frequency and depends on the biases in the geo-positioning system.

The shape of the sagittal curvatures of the spine in a high-level acrobatic gymnasts – comparison by sex

Specific loads on the spine and the very young age at which acrobatic gymnastics training is undertaken require monitoring the shape of the spine curvatures in gymnasts to detect possible postural abnormalities. The aim of this descriptive study was to assess and compare the shape of the spine in the sagittal plane in acrobatic gymnasts of both sexes and their associations with demographic and somatic variables. The study group included 159 acrobatic gymnasts aged 12-19 (106 females and 53 males) from 16 European countries. The study was designed as a survey and measurements of somatic variables and the angles of inclination (using the Baseline Bubble inclinometer) at four topographic points of the spine: S1, L5/S1, Th12/L1, C7/Th1. Based on the angles of spinal inclination, the sizes of the sacral slope (SS), lumbar lordosis (LL), and thoracic kyphosis (TK) were calculated. Body posture was assessed based on Wolański’s modified typology. The angles of SS and LL were significantly higher in females, and TK did not differ between sexes. Training experience positively correlated only with the size of the SS in both sexes. Age and somatic variables were significantly correlated with the size of the sagittal curvatures, mainly in females. The majority of gymnasts had a normal angle of SS and TK and a flattened LL. The equivalent and lordotic types of body posture were more frequent in females, and the kyphotic type in males. The incorrect body posture was noted in 19.8% of females and 43.4% of males. We concluded that acrobatic gymnasts are not at risk of increasing the size of spinal curvatures in the sagittal plane, but males show a tendency toward flattened LL and kyphotic type of body posture.

Combination of morphological and distributional filtering for UAV - LiDAR point cloud density to establish the Digital Terrain Model

Filtering the LiDAR point cloud based the Unmaned Aerial Vehilce (UAV - LiDAR) in the dense land cover areas to build a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) is a basic requirement of large-scale topographic mapping. The aim of this paper is to study the use of the Simple Morphological Filter (SMRF) with suitable parameters to separate the non-terrain points (trees, noise points, etc.) and the topographical points. The methods of this article are algorithmic programming and combining the two filtering algorithms including SMRF and distributed filtering. The various data input was studied in the Ba Be case study. These parameters include the grid width called Gcell (m), the radius of filters called nwd and the threshold of the feature elevation called Eth (m). The point cloud of the terrain obtained after applying the SMRF continues to be filtered using distributional filter with the algorithm keeping only minimum elevation in the filtering window in order to remove the locations of high density of points. Then, it will contribute to lighten the point capacity to build DTM, to accurately interpolate the contour lines and to ensure the aesthetics of large-scale topographic maps. The results of the study are the fomulas to estimate reasonable input parameters (Gcell = 3 m, nwd = 3, Eth = 0.2 m) of the two filters for the establishment of a topographic map of 1:2000 scale, 1 m level in the Ba Be national forest, Bac Kan province, Vietnam.

Georeferencing the Cadastral Map of the Krakow Region

ABSTRACT The article concerns the transformation of the nineteenth--century cadastral map in the cadastral coordinate system to the current Polish national coordinate system (PL-1992, EPSG:2180). This map provides source information on land ownership and shows the state of topography nearly 200 years ago. The task of changing the georeferencing was performed for its sections covering the area of Krakow, using information on the cadastral system in Western Galicia and the Krakow local coordinate system (ULK). A single-step algorithm is proposed and can be used to transform coordinates from the Krakow area. In particular, it can be used to georeference sections of a cadastral map. The advantage is its independence from unchanged topographic points. These points are either difficult to determine or there are few of them in that area. The accuracy of the coordinate transformation model is at the level of 30 cm and the actual accuracy – is about 1 m.

A Mountain Summit Recognition Method Based on Improved Faster R-CNN

Mountain summits are vital topographic feature points, which are essential for understanding landform processes and their impacts on the environment and ecosystem. Traditional summit detection methods operate on handcrafted features extracted from digital elevation model (DEM) data and apply parametric detection algorithms to locate mountain summits. However, these methods may no longer be effective to achieve desirable recognition results in small summits and suffer from the objective criterion lacking problem. Thus, to address these problems, we propose an improved Faster region-convolutional neural network (R-CNN) to accurately detect the mountain summits from DEM data. Based on Faster R-CNN, the improved network adopts a residual convolution block to replace the traditional part and adds a feature pyramid network (FPN) to fuse the features with adjacent layers to better address the mountain summit detection task. The residual convolution is employed to capture the deep correlation between visual and physical morphological features. The FPN is utilized to integrate the location and semantic information in the extracted feature maps to effectively represent the mountain summit area. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed network could achieve the highest recall and precision without manually designed summit features and accurately identify small summits.

Beach Topography Surveying Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Photogrammetry Technology

The mechanisms of in situ topography changes must be identified for spatial planning in coastal areas. In this study, the authors used in situ direct measurement methods and indirect remote-sensing technologies to develop a method for beach topography surveillance. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have advantages of high portability and mobility and low operating altitude. Therefore, a UAV was equipped with a lightweight camera and a positioning system that comprised a global positioning system and an inertial measurement unit. Aerial photogrammetry and aerial triangu-lation methods were adopted for matching image feature points to obtain the corresponding topographic points in the sand. A virtual base station with real-time kinematic positioning functionality was used to measure the coordinates of the ground control points for correcting the actual coordinates to obtain actual topographic points of the beach sand. The results obtained using image-matching point clouds and direct measurements were compared. The ground sample distance of a UAV at the operational altitude of 70 m was 3.26 cm. Moreover, the average elevation error was 3.20 cm, and the root mean square error was 0.169 m. The measurement error was ±25 cm, which was within the acceptance criteria of±50 cm set by Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan. UAV imaging technology can increase the efficiency of conventional manual sampling and reduce the cost of indirect observations, thus minimizing the measurement errors and field measurement costs.

The Hittite Notion of Border. A practical view

The Hittite cuneiform texts (16th-12th cent. BCE) contain a number of detailed descriptions of borders of various countries and territories. Such fragments, mainly found in the international treaties as well as the annals of the kings, clearly reflect the particular formal interest on the part of the Hittite rulers in specific delimitation of political territories.
 Although the Hittite listings of the topographical points, which make up a frontier can extend over many lines of texts, one never finds any use of cardinal directions which would indicate the position of these points. Instead, the Hittite scribes applied a peculiar internal reference system that combines the position of the speaker and another point of reference in order to locate a specific part of the border.
 The talk will briefly review the corpus of the Hittite border descriptions and discuss how such fragments were conceptualized. It will also tackle the question, whether they reflect a ‘bird’s eye’, cartographic view of the land, or rather a ground-level, hodological perspective.

A Method to Derive Bathymetry for Dynamic Water Bodies Using ICESat-2 and GSWD Data Sets

Detailed information on lake bathymetry is essential for both hydrology-related studies and water resource management. Conventionally, lake bathymetry was mapped using high-cost approaches (e.g., ship/boat-based multibeam echosounders or airborne bathymetric lidars). With only satellite remotely sensed data sets, a method for deriving high-resolution bathymetry for dynamic areas was proposed by combining the new Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) lidar data and the Landsat-based Global Surface Water Data Set (GSWD). First, ICESat-2 can provide accurate along-track topographic points after the point cloud processing and bathymetric error correction, and the GSWD can supply water occurrence information within the lake dynamic area between 1984 and 2018. Second, using the derived relationship between the elevation and water occurrence, the bathymetric map of Lake Mead, USA, was produced with the dynamic area exceeding 235 km <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> , elevation ranging nearly 37 m, and a resolution of 30 m. The local reference data (i.e., the airborne topographic lidar data and ship/boat-based bathymetric data) in six areas around Lake Mead were used for the validations. In general, the produced lake bathymetry achieved an accuracy of approximately 2 m in elevation with <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$R^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> of 0.97. The proposed method is promising to obtain global bathymetry for inland water bodies (e.g., the lake and reservoir) and coastal areas (e.g., the tidal zone) where water level fluctuations are strong and the water clarity is sufficient.

Virtualanthropy: Towards an Open-Source Tool for the Visualization of 2D Anthropology Images Positioned In 3D

VirtualAnthroPy is a prototype application for creating files for 3D visualization of physical anthropology data. From topographic points and associated data contained in a spreadsheet, the objective is to allow archaeo-anthropologists to explore in 3D images mapped on plans. In addition to these positions, text and colorizations are also possible in order to provide additional information.

LARGE-SCALE CARTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF RELIEF FEATURES FROM SANDYZATION PROCESS

Abstract: In topographic maps, contour lines and elevation points usually represent the variation of height and slope. Contour lines interval defines the level of detail for relief representation. Geomorphological features we can identify on maps are related to contour lines generalization. In this study, we aim to define the necessary level of detail for the cartographic representation of relief features from the sandyzation process. The methodology comprises: defining the relief features associated with sandyzation at the study area by literature review; describing the aspects of data survey using Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) to generate the orthophoto mosaic and the Digital Surface Model (DSM); and using the DSM to extract contour lines at different scales. We defined eight relief features (denudational landform, rill, ravine, micro-residual hill, dune, depositional fan, concentrated flow, and gully) for contour cartographic representation at 1:5,000, 1:1,000, 1:500, 1:200, and 1:100 scales. The results show the scales in which the relief features have their geomorphological characteristics better represented by contours lines. Since there is no reference for suitable scales for the cartographic representation of landforms related to the sandyzation process, this study can contribute to geomorphological researches in areas where this process occurs.

Det latente sted. Fra topografisk punkt til nô-teatrets scenerum

In the Japanese landscape, the traveller finds innumerable markings which locate historical events and actions, mythological incidents, natural disasters, etc. These ghost-ridden places are loaded with latent, supematural forces, and are the subjects of prayers and rituals from living people. On stage, the no theatre establishes such concrete topographic points from Japan’s cultural landscape. A specific type of no play is the mugen no, ‘phantom no’. As an example, this article describes the dramatic, aesthetic and scenic form of the play Tamura by Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443). The no stage is an open cube with no specific scenography other than a few simple objects. The stage cube is placed according to the four points of the compass, intersected by imaginary horisontal and vertical lines which represent present time/this world and past time/the other world respectively. These lines meet in the latent place from where the story originales and which is central to no dramaturgy. The actors create a traveller’s vision of landscapes and incidents of the past into the empty stage space. Gradually the imaginary landscape expands beyond the physical stage and is later confined to a single spot on the stage floor where the performance ends up.

DEM fusion concept based on the LS-SVM cokriging method

ABSTRACT Data fusion from two sources of data could develop better output since the process may minimise any inherent disadvantages of the data. Cokriging data fusion requires a semivariogram fitting process, which is an important step for weight determination in the fusion process. The traditional method of cokriging fusion usually applies a specific model of semivariogram fitting based on the available options, such as circular or tetraspherical. This research aims to fuse height point data from two different sources using ordinary kriging based on LS-SVM regression, which is applied to the semivariogram fitting process. The data used are height points generated from stereo satellite imagery, GPS measurement, and topographic map points to generate DEMs. The research experiment begins by calculating the semivariogram model for all the data, and then the fitting process is performed by applying the same approach of functional approach for both sets of data. The following process is an ordinary cokriging interpolation, whose results are analysed and compared to the ordinary kriging interpolation. The experiment results prove that the ordinary cokriging fusion process could reduce interpolation error. The LS-SVM approach offers better precision in the semivariogram modelling by determining more precise weight calculation for cokriging fusion process.

Особенности формирования кожного покрова памирского экотипа яков северного Таджикистана

In all animals, the hide mass increases together with live body weight. At the age of 6 months and 3 years, the total weight of yak hide is almost two times higher than in other cattle. At 6 months, the thickness of yak hide in all topographical points exceeds that of cowhide by almost two times. By one and three years, the difference in the reference point disappears. However, the neck and the bellous hides of yak remain 25–40% thicker, and the skin area of other breeds of cattle exceeds that of yak at all ages by 35–40%. For the yaks of the Aininks Region, the optimal hide removal period is from birth to 3–4 years. For the animals over 4 years old, the hide yield by weight becomes relatively low. As far as thickness uniformity is concerned, the best skins for leather processing are those obtained from yaks under 3 years old, since they have the lowest degree of slackness. As for the chemical composition, the moisture of yak hide is 2.0–2.5% higher and the hide substance is 7.0–18.5% lower than in cowhide. This is, probably, connected with a certain reserve of water, or the so-called “depot moisture”, in the skin of the animal. For all age periods, the moisture of the bellous yak hides is lower and fat content is by 1.5–2.2% higher than in other topographical areas. Apparently, this is due to the thermal adaptation of animals to the habitat conditions.

배각법에 의한 지적도근측량 폐색오차 조정

배각법에 의한 지적도근측량 폐색오차 조정

Sub-centimetre geoid

This paper represents a milestone in the UNB effort to formulate an accurate and self-consistent theory for regional geoid determination. To get the geoid to a sub-centimetre accuracy, we had to formulate the theory in a spherical rather than linear approximation, advance the modelling of the effect of topographic mass density, formulate the solid spherical Bouguer anomaly, develop the probabilistic downward continuation approach, incorporate improved satellite determined global gravitational models and introduce a whole host of smaller improvements. Having adopted Auvergne, an area in France as our testing ground, where the mean standard deviation of observed gravity values is 0.5 mGal, according to the Institute Geographique Nationale (Duquenne in Proceedings of the 1st international symposium of the international gravity field service “gravity field of the earth”, International gravity field service meeting, Istanbul, Turkey, 2006), we obtained the standard deviation of the gravity anomalies continued downward to the geoid, as estimated by minimizing the L2 norm of their residuals, to be in average 3 times larger than those on the surface with large spikes underneath the highest topographic points. The standard deviations of resulting geoidal heights range from a few millimetres to just over 6 cm for the highest topographic points in the Alpine region (just short of 2000 m). The mean standard deviations of the geoidal heights for the whole region are only 0.6 cm, which should be considered quite reasonable even if one acknowledges that the area of Auvergne is mostly flat. As one should expect, the main contributing factors to these uncertainties are the Poisson probabilistic downward continuation process, with the maximum standard deviation just short of 6 cm (the average value of 2.5 mm) and the topographic density uncertainties, with the maximum value of 5.6 cm (the average value of 3.0 mm). The comparison of our geoidal heights with the testing geoidal heights, obtained for a set of 75 control points (regularly spaced throughout the region), shows the mean shift of 13 cm which is believed to reflect the displacement of the French vertical datum from the geoid due to sea surface topography. The mean root square error of the misfit is 3.3 cm. This misfit, when we consider the estimated accuracy of our geoid, indicates that the mean standard deviation of the “test geoid” is about 3 cm, which makes it about 5 times less accurate than the Stokes–Helmert computed geoid.

The qualitative assessment of median and transverse palatal sutures in various age groups – a CBCT analysis

Abstract Objectives To detect age-related morphological changes occurring in the median and transverse palatal sutures that could affect the outcome of rapid maxillary expansion. Determined by Cone-Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) scans. Material and methods CBCT scans were retrospectively analysed of 325 patients aged from 5.9 to 82 years (mean = 27.3 +/-17.9), comprising 144 males and 181 females who underwent CBCT scanning of the maxillary region. The median and transverse palatal sutures were assessed at four topographic points using a grading scale created for the purpose of this study to attempt to assess the shape and the amount of calcified tissue within the examined sutures. Results At each of the assessed topographic points, the median palatal suture evolved from a straight/polyline shape to a more tortuous outline with a concomitant increase in the amount of calcified tissue most significantly identified in the middle and posterior regions of the suture. Patients older than 20 years showed significant suture obliteration at all points evaluated. No agedependent increase in the transverse suture calcification could be established. Conclusion Patients younger than 15 years should be treated with more predictable effect by means of an RME if no factors other than median palatal suture morphology are considered. Patients between 15 and 20 years old can be described as borderline cases in which an individual assessment by CBCT scans may prove clinically relevant. Patients older than 20 years showed significant suture obliteration at all points evaluated and therefore could be considered as patients at high risk of RME failure.

A disk tool cutting method for bevel gear manufacture on a five-axis machine

Two main popular cutting methods for bevel gear mass production, face milling and face hobbing, both require dedicated tools and machines available from only a few machine tool companies, which makes production more costly. This paper thus proposes a cheaper, more flexible alternative for producing small or medium batches of large bevel gears, a disk tool cutting method using a five-axis machine. In this method, the machine coordinates are derived based on tooth surfaces. The target’s topographic points of tooth surface are applied to construct a fitted surface which is then used to further refine the cutter-contact points to improve the precision of the gear produced. At the same time, mathematical models are established for both the tool and the machine. A coordinate transformation matrix is then generated by aligning the coordinate system of the tool’s reference point with each of the work gear cutter-contact points. Because different machines employ identical transformation matrices for producing the same workpiece, the machine’s five-axis coordinates can be derived using inverse kinematics. These coordinates are the resource to generate the NC machining data that allows NC verification software to perform cutting simulations. The simulation results verify the correctness of the mathematical models.

Comparison and Validation of the Recent Freely Available DEMs over Parts of the Earth’s Lowest Elevation Area: Dead Sea, Jordan

The present research study assesses the accuracy of two recent freely available ASTER-GDEM ver.2, SRTM ver.4.1 digital elevation models for parts of the lowest area on the earth on the shores of the Dead Sea, the site located over areas with high variation in topography within the “humratessahan” watershed, where the elevation varies between 700 m above sea level in the north east of the watershed to 210 meter below sea level. The reference elevation data used in this study are topographical points extracted from existing digital vector topographical map published by Royal Jordanian Geographical Center (RJGC). However, the contour lines do not cover the whole area especially in the flat areas where elevation is less than the contour line interval. Therefore, the second reference data created with photogrammetric techniques from stereoscopic pairs of aerial photos had been used for the surface to surface comparison and elevation profiles assessment purpose. It is demonstrated that the vertical accuracy of ASTER-GDEM ver.2 is 22.223 m (Root Mean Square Error (RMSE)) against reference elevation data, while the SRTM ver.4.1 has an RMSE of 15.858 m; the statistics results indicate that the theoretical accuracy is achievable and meets the expected accuracy specification. Furthermore, as for its unprecedented detail, it is believed that the photogrammetric derived DEM offers an alternative in accessibility to high-quality elevation data with vertical accuracy of 0.78 m (Root Mean Square Error (RMSE)).

Control de la intervención estructural sobre el área del Teatro Romano de Cádiz

The Roman Theatre of Cadiz (Spain) is a piece of heritage that has been buried for centuries under the historical town. It is the oldest and biggest Roman theatre in Spain. In 2010, an intervention began in order to dig it up but respecting the monumental landmarks over it. The intervention consisted on the construction of some vaults under the blocks by grout injection. The control of this intervention is being done by two different techniques: topographic control points and Operational Modal Analysis. The methodology that has been followed to control the intervention on this area and the obtained results are the main goals of this paper.