Border Width Research Articles

Treed field borders net-export over 82,000 more hoverflies per km every week into canola crops than herbaceous field borders, regardless of mass-flowering crop bloom

Hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) provide dual ecosystem services, as the adults act as pollinators and the larvae can be predators of crop pests. Because bloom time is limited in mass-flowering crops, resources within crops for hoverfly adults can also be limited and change temporally. Therefore, hoverflies need to move between crops and their borders. It may be that some field border vegetation types support the provision of hoverflies to crops better than other vegetation types. We sought to determine how field border type (herbaceous vs. treed), canola bloom, and border vegetation structure and composition (border width, canopy cover, grass height, grass cover, plant cover, flower availability, and density of trees, shrubs, snags, stumps, and downed woody debris) affect hoverfly movement into and out of crop fields from field borders. We placed bi-directional Malaise traps in herbaceous and treed field borders at 10 fields seeded with canola, and sampled continuously from May 17 to August 20, 2021 in central Alberta, Canada. We found that field border type affected hoverfly movement such that, across the whole summer, net-export of hoverflies into crops was over 33-times higher from treed field borders (an estimated 84,699 hoverflies per km per week) than from herbaceous field borders (an estimated 2515 hoverflies per km per week). We did not find any single component of the vegetation within treed field borders that explained the difference in movement. We found more hoverfly activity in herbaceous field borders than in treed field borders during and after canola bloom, but that overall activity was equal between field border types prior to canola bloom. Treed borders had greater Hill-Shannon and Hill-Simpson diversity and evenness than herbaceous borders. Throughout the growing season, the community became dominated by Toxomerus marginatus, which drove all temporal trends. We conclude that treed field borders act as net exporters of hoverflies to canola fields and are therefore important features for optimizing the magnitude of the ecosystem services provided by hoverflies in agricultural systems.

高低畦小麦免耕播种机设计与试验

Aiming at the problems of low land utilization and serious water waste in the existing wheat planting pattern, a two-high and two-low wheat high-low border spaced apart planting mode was proposed, and a high and low borders wheat no-till planter that can finish stubbing, fertilization, border construction, seeding and other tasks was designed. The design and analysis of the ship-type ridging device were carried out, and the construction process was simulated to determine the optimal parameters. A field test was carried out, the average sowing depth was 3.17 cm, the qualification rate was 95%, the standard deviation was 0.38 cm, and the coefficient of variation was 12.06%. The average value of the width of the seedling belt was 9.40 cm, the qualification rate was 91.67%, the standard deviation was 0.29 cm, and the coefficient of variation was 3.09%. The average height difference between the high and low borders was 9.26 cm, the pass rate was 100%, the standard deviation was 0.35 cm, and the coefficient of variation was 3.83%. The average width of the borders was 52.18 cm, the qualified rate of the border width was 100%, the standard deviation was 1.00 cm, and the coefficient of variation was 1.93%. The differences between each index and the theoretical design are small and meet the agronomic requirements.

Determination of River Border Width at the Manikin River in Kupang Regency, Nusa Tenggara Timur Province

River Border Lines was made and determined so that there some efforts were made for the protection, use and control of existing resources in the river. One of the river segments that are prioritized for determining river border lines is a river section adjacent to or within a developing area, one of which is the Manikin River in Kupang Regency, which is currently under construction of the Tefmo Dam which is targeted to be completed by the end of 2022. Therefore, in the future, of course, area around the weir will experience great pressure on land use which can have an impact on the function of the river due to developing community activities. The purpose of this study is to determine the width of the river border on the Manikin River. The length of the river segment where the width of the border line will be determined is 10 km from the Manikin weir to the downstream of the river. The results of this study are to obtain the width of the Manikin river border and get an overview of the location around the Manikin River about land conditions and functions, facilities and utilities that are included in the border area.

Assessing the water conservation potential of optimized surface irrigation management in Northern Italy

The effects of climate change on water availability affect the performance of surface irrigation, which is the oldest and most common method of water application to row crops worldwide. A paradigm shift towards strategies aimed at increasing flexibility of irrigation scheduling and improving the design and management of field layouts and irrigation practices should be explored to promote water conservation at the farm scale. In this study, we investigate how by adopting a more flexible irrigation scheduling and optimizing irrigation management variables and field layout it is possible to increase the efficiency of border irrigation and thus achieve water conservations and improve quality of crop production. The analysis of the actual performance of border irrigation was carried out on two maize fields located in the Padana Plain (Northern Italy) in 2 years characterized by different rainfall patterns (i.e. 2021 and 2022). Based on this information, continuous monitoring of soil moisture status combined with the AquaCrop-OS agro-hydrological model was used to manage flexible irrigation scheduling over the experimental fields, while the optimization of irrigation management (flowrate per unit width and cutoff time) and field geometries (border width and slope) was studied using WinSRFR 5.1 USDA software, which was properly calibrated by measures of waterfront advance and recession. The results show that with flexible irrigation scheduling and proper irrigation management and field layout, significant water conservation can be achieved. Specifically, in the case study, seasonal water conservation of about 10% was obtained just by scheduling irrigation based on actual crop water needs in a very dry agricultural season, while water conservation reached up to 60% in a wetter season. On average, an additional 7% of water conservation was achieved over the agricultural season when the irrigation duration was correctly applied to each border of the experimental plots, while approximately 20% of water was conserved when the border width was correctly designed based on inflow availability. These results provide useful information for improving the management of border irrigation in practice, both under current conditions and in prospective of increasing freshwater scarcity in the future.

Mapping of Flood Inundation and Eco-hydraulic Analyses to Minimize Food Discharge in Tributaries

Eco-hydraulic analyses begin with the arrangement of tributaries. This research aimed to minimize the discharge of flood run-off downstream and map the flood inundation by spatial analysis uses DEMNAS data and mapping of flood inundation areas using ArcGIS. Analysis of return period flood points using HEC-RAS version 5.0.7. The data needed is the cross section of the river, the distance between the sections, the Manning's roughness number, the return period flood discharge and the slope of the river. The integration between topographic maps, watersheds and flood water levels can display areas that are potentially affected by inundation floods, so that the flood inundation limits and flood inundation areas can be calculated. This research examined proper eco-hydraulics design so that it could reduce discharge, identify locations prone to flooding, and describe the magnitude of the flood impact quantitatively. The results eco-hydraulic method obtained the design border width of 100 m, the condition before the existing river border arrangement was carried out, the inundation height was 0.30 – 1.13 m and after the river border arrangement the discharge could be reduced to 113.09 – 209 m3/s and the inundation height is 0 – 0.31 m. Based on the research results, it is known that border arrangement can provide benefits for flood control measures.

Morphometric features of the condylar process of the mandible

The aim of the study is to determine the X-ray morphometric parameters of the neck of the mandible for the rational choice of fixing elements during osteosynthesis. Based on 145 computed tomography scans of the mandible, the parameters of the upper and lower borders, the area and thickness of the neck of the mandible were studied. The anatomical boundaries of the neck were determined using the classification of A. Neff (2014). The parameters of the neck of the mandible were studied depending on the shape of the mandible ramus, gender, age and preservation of dentition. The sizes of morphometric parameters of the neck of the mandible prevail in men. Statistically significant differences were found between the sizes of the neck of the mandible in men and women in the width of the lower border, area, and thickness of bone tissue. It was revealed that there are statically significant differences between hypsiramimandibular, orthoramimandibular and platyramimandibular forms in the following parameters: the width of the lower and upper borders, the middle of the neck, the area of bone tissue. When comparing the morphometric parameters of the neck of the articular process, there were no statistically significant differences between the age groups (p>0.05), and no differences were found between the groups identified by the degree of preservation of the dentition (p>0.05). Morphometric parameters of the neck of the mandible have individual variability, statically significant differences depending on the sex and shape of the mandibular ramus. The obtained results on the width, thickness, and area of the bone tissue of the neck of the mandible will help in clinical practice to rationally choose the length of screws; the size, number, and shape of titanium mini-plates to achieve the requirements of stable functional osteosynthesis.

Effect of Border Width and Micro-Sprinkling Hose Irrigation on Soil Moisture Distribution and Irrigation Quality for Wheat Crops

Micro-sprinkling irrigation is a small-flow irrigation technology that uses the grouped outlets on the micro-sprinkling hoses to spray the pressure water evenly in the field. Plants’ barriers during the middle to late growth period of winter wheat significantly reduce the irrigation quality of the micro-spray system. It is still unclear whether soil border width in wheat fields can alleviate the negative effect. In this study, a popularly-used variety (c.v. ZM 369) was adopted to test the mitigation effect of soil borders on irrigation quality, as well as soil moisture distribution, in wheat fields. Two irrigation quotas (i.e., 75 mm and 45 mm per time) and three border widths (i.e., 2.3 m, 3.3 m, and 5.3 m) were arranged in a randomized block design in the experimental years of 2020–2022. Soil moisture distribution and irrigation quality during the middle to late growth period of winter wheat (i.e., jointing to heading stage and grain filling stage) were investigated, as well as the effects on grain yield and water use efficiency (WUE). The results showed that irrigation water distribution in the direction perpendicular to micro-spray tapes generally decreased with the distance from tapes increasing. The maximum difference between the irrigation amount and water collected under the canopy was 134 mm. The uniformity coefficient of soil moisture distribution was increased by 25.8% with a 5.3 m border width compared to a 2.3 m width. Although an irrigation quota of 75 mm was beneficial for ensuring better irrigation uniformity and more stable grain yield, grain yield and WUE were produced with an irrigation quota of 45 mm. In conclusion, it is appropriate to increase border width and adopt a small quota for the micro-spray system in the North China Plain for wheat crops.

Neurovascular anatomy of pronator quadratus for reanimation of blepharoptosis.

Pronator quadratus (PQ) is a quadrilateral muscle on a volar distal side of the forearm. The purpose of this study was to establish a novel surgical technique for reanimation of the upper eyelid for severe ptosis using PQ functional free muscle flap. The current study is a cadaveric study, designed to assess a PQ free flap transfer that lies between the frontalis muscle and the upper eyelid. Fourteen PQ from fourteen embalmed cadavers were dissected, and their neurovascular pedicles were isolated. Then they were transferred to the area on the contralateral side between the frontalis muscle and upper eyelid tarsal cartilage. Measurements of the PQ flap, antebrachial region, orbitofrontal region, recipient vessels, and motor nerve were performed using a caliper. The extendibility of neurovascular pedicles was evaluated by measurements of lengths. In addition, the diameter of PQ flap vascular pedicle vessels was compared with recipient vessels. The mean width of the proximal border of PQ was 41.92 ± 2.05mm and the distal border of the PQ was 42.84 ± 4.04mm. The mean PQ artery (type II, Mathes-Nahai flap classification) length was found to be 117.72 ± 7.77mm. The mean diameter of the anterior interosseous nerve was 1.89 ± 0.08mm. The mean diameter of the uppermost branch of the frontal branch of the facial nerve was 1.18 ± 0.25mm. The length and diameter of neurovascular pedicles of muscle flaps were adequate for microvascular anastomoses and neurorrhaphy. The results of this anatomical study demonstrate that the PQ free flap transfer has anatomical features that are suitable and compatible with the surgical treatment of blepharoptosis.

Effect of Selected Weed Management Practices on the Growth and Yield Components of Finger Millet (Eleusine coracana) in Western Region of Kenya

Finger millet (Elusine coracana) accounts for 8% of the total area and 11% of the millet production worldwide. It is grown on over 4 million ha globally, mainly for food purposes. Millions of people in the dry lands of Central and East Africa, and South of India depend on finger millet as an important source of food to them (CGIAR, 2001). Finger millet is one of the most neglected and underutilized crops. Additionally, the crop has received limited research attention compared to wheat, rice, and maize (FAO, 2011). Therefore, production challenges such as those caused by weeds like goose grass Elusine indica remain at large. Manual weeding is the commonly employed weed control method in finger millet production, but is expensive and labour intensive. The current study was set to evaluate the influence of weed management practices on finger millet growth and yield components. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replicates. The plots measured 2 by 2m with a border width of 1m. The treatments included Pendimethalin, Dimethyl amine, Metolachlor, Metribuzin, Atrazine (at three rates each 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 l/ha), No weeding and Hand weeding. Data was collected on the number of weed species, weed biomass, number of basal tillers, herbicide phytotoxicity, weed and crop heights, number of panicles, weight of panicles, weight of un-threshed and threshed grains and 1000 grain weight. Data was analyzed using one-way ANOVA using GenStat version 15.1. Application of Pendimethalin at 1.5 and 2.0 L/ha Active Ingredient (AI), resulted in weed optimal control and least phytotoxicity. Results also indicated that the height of finger millet was significantly (p<0.001) higher where the herbicides were applied. Lower weed biomass was also positively correlated with higher crop height, more panicles, high unthreshed and threshed weights and a 1000 grain weight. Application of 2,4D at rates of 1.5L and 2.0L resulted in significantly taller plants 33.00 cm, than the other weed management methods. Finger millet under Pendimethalin 1.5 L gave the highest number of 86 panicles while Atrazine 2.0L and Pendimethalin1.5L methods of weed control, had significantly higher weight compared to all the other treatments. The 1000 seed mass across the treatments averaged 2.31 g while the on the untreated treatments had an average of 1.54 g. Weed control using pre emergence herbicides significantly (p<0.001) increased the yields of finger millet.

Description of the egg cases and juvenile colouration in two catsharks of the genus Atelomycterus (Carcharhiniformes: Scyliorhinidae).

Descriptions of egg cases and hatchlings of the Bali catshark Atelomycterus baliensis and the Australian marbled catshark Atelomycterus macleayi are provided. Comparisons are made with two of their congeners, banded sand catshark Atelomycterus fasciatus and coral catshark Atelomycterus marmoratus. The Atelomycterus egg cases have the same general morphology, i.e., elongate with anterior and posterior waists, a depressed and truncate anterior end sometimes with attachment fibres, a medially tapered posterior end with two horns sometimes terminating in short, tightly curled tendrils and four respiratory fissures (one at each left corner on opposing sides). Morphometric measurements taken of the egg cases of the four species differed significantly when subjected to multivariate analysis, with unique characters enabling distinction between them. The morphological characters that best distinguished the Atelomycterus species from each other were anterior border width, posterior waist width and posterior case width. Thus, egg case morphology could be used to distinguish the egg cases of the four Atelomycterus species examined, consistent with other studies on scyliorhinid and pentanchid egg cases. Colouration of A. baliensis and A. macleayi juveniles was similar to that of other Atelomycterus juveniles in being pale with a series of dark-brown distinct dorsal saddles along the body, blotches and sometimes with a low number of small dark spots.

Two species of Tsinania (Trilobita, Corynexochida) from upper Furongian (Cambrian) of northern Anhui, China and their intraspecific variation

Hundreds of specimens of the trilobite Tsinania were collected from the Cambrian (upper Jiangshanian through Stage 10) at Fenghuangshan in northern Anhui, China, and were identified as Tsinania canens (Walcott, 1905) and Tsinania dolichocephala (Kobayashi, 1933). Comparisons between these two species and others referred to Tsinania, allow the redefinition of the two species. Fourteen synonyms and thirteen synonyms have been incorporated into T. canens and T. dolichocephala respectively. The key diagnosis of T. canens includes: the preglabellar field is flat, relatively short (sag.), has a slightly to obviously angular anterior margin; pygidium is rounded triangular and strongly convex; pygidial border is absent or very narrow. The key diagnosis of Tsinania dolichocephala comprises: the glabella is moderately convex with flat anterior part and convex posterior part (sag.); anterior border is relatively long (sag.), rounded to sharply angulated; pygidium is rounded triangularly with a wide, concave border. Upon such diagnoses, the potential intraspecific variations (e.g., the angularity of the anterior margin, the triangularity of the pygidium, and the width of the pygidial border) of the two species are discussed and listed. The late ontogeny of both species is described to further support the intraspecific variations.

Anadolu Selçuklu Taçkapılarında Ana Bordür Tasarımları

Anadolu Selçuklu taçkapılarının özellikle kavsara kemeri üzerindeki bölümlerinin yıkılması nedeniyle bu bölümdeki süslemelerin ne şekilde oldukları hakkındaki bilgiler sınırlı kalmaktadır. Bazı taçkapı ana bordürlerinde de görülebileceği üzere taçkapıların ana bordürlerinde her zaman düşeyde düzenlenen kompozisyonla yatayda düzenlenen kompozisyonun raport özellikleri aynı değildir. Araştırmada ana bordürlerdeki kompozisyonların çokgen ve raport özelliklerine de yer verilmiş ve üst bölümü yıkılan bu taçkapıların ne şekilde restitüsyonlarının yapılacağına dair öneriler sunulmuştur.Geometrik süslemeye sahip ana bordürlerin süslemelerinde çokgenlerin kenar sayılarının kronolojik olarak arttığı izlenebilmektedir. İlk yapılarda genel olarak sekiz veya on olan kenar sayıları zamanla onikiye, onaltıya çıkmıştır. Bu artış ana bordür genişliklerinin artmasını da beraberinde getirmiştir. Geometrik kompozisyonlar içerisinde kullanılan bitkisel süsleme, Anadolu Selçuklu sanatında az sayıdaki iki eksenli sonsuz karakterli bitkisel süsleme örneklerini bünyesinde barındırması nedeniyle özel bir konuma sahiptir. 13. yüzyıl sonuna doğru yapılan yapıların ana bordürlerinde ise sınırlı veya tek eksenli sonsuz karakterli bitkisel kompozisyonlar tercih edilmiştir. Anadolu Selçuklu yapılarında taçkapılar, beden duvarlarından dışa taşkın ve yapıyı aşan ölçüleri, geometrik ve bitkisel süslemeli bordürleriyle dikkati çekmektedir. Taçkapı yüzeyinin üç tarafını çeviren bordürler farklı genişlikte tasarlanmışlar ve üzerlerine çok çeşitli süslemeler yapılmıştır. Bu bordürlerin en büyük ve en dikkat çekeni ana bordürdür. Bordür bezemelerinde 13. yüzyıl ilk yarısına kadar geometrik süsleme kullanılmıştır. 13. yüzyıl ikinci yarısından itibaren geometrik ve bitkisel kompozisyonların birlikte kullanıldığı taçkapı ana bordürlerinde yüzyıl sonlarına doğru ise bitkisel kompozisyonların hâkim olduğu görülmektedir.

Prediction and optimization of oscillating wave surge converter using machine learning techniques

With the increase in global environmental problems and the energy crisis, the oscillating wave surge converter has been extensively studied in the past decades owing to its simple geometry and direct energy capture mechanism. However, systematic optimization of this converter is yet to be achieved. Consequently, in this study, a scaled oscillating wave surge converter under regular waves is numerically investigated using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics method, which is validated against experimental data. With the random changes in nine typical design parameters (i.e., the wave period, wave height, water depth, width of bottom border of the flap, width of top border, flap height, hinge height, flap density, and damping of the power take-off system), a total of 379 cases are generated and simulated. Subsequently, the capture factors corresponding to each case are calculated to quantitatively describe the energy conversion efficiency. With the design parameter combinations as input and the capture factors as output, a radial basis function neural network is trained as the prediction model of capture factors of the converters, which performs satisfactorily. Finally, this prediction model is used with the genetic algorithm to optimize the converters corresponding to different wave periods, wave heights, and water depths. By interpolating the open-source optimization results, a converter with high performance can be easily designed. The optimization method used in this study includes a radial basis function neural network based prediction model and genetic algorithm based optimization model, which can not only optimize oscillating wave surge converters but also has the potential to solve other scientific and technical optimization problems.

Re-excision or "wait and watch"-a prediction model in breast phyllodes tumors after surgery.

BackgroundThe prognosis of breast phyllodes tumors (PTs) largely depending on the pathological grading, which lacks objectivity. This study aimed to develop a nomogram based on clinicopathological features to evaluate the recurrence probability of PTs following surgery.MethodsData from 334 patients with breast PTs, who underwent surgical treatment at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital from January 2005 to December 2014, were used to develop a prediction model. Additionally, data of 36 patients from Peking University Shenzhen Hospital (cohort 1) and data of 140 patients from Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (cohort 2) during the same period were used to validate the model. The medical records and tumor slides were retrospectively reviewed. The log-rank and Cox regression tests were used to develop a clinical prediction model of breast PTs. All statistical analyses were performed using R and STATA.ResultsOf all 334 patients included in the primary cohort, 224 had benign, 91 had borderline, and 19 had malignant tumors. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year recurrence-free survival was 98.5%, 97.9%, and 96.8%, respectively. Ultrasound-guided vacuum-assisted biopsy (UGVAB) is a non-inferior treatment application in benign PTs compared with open surgery [hazard ratio (HR), 2.38; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.59–9.58]. Width of surgical margin, mitoses, and tumor border were identified as independent risk factors for breast PTs. A nomogram was developed based on these three variables. The C-index of internal and external validation was 0.71, 0.67 (cohort 1) and 0.73 (cohort 2), respectively.ConclusionsThe study model presented more concise and objective variables to evaluate the recurrence-free survival of patients after surgery, which can help deciding whether to do a re-excision or “wait and watch”.

Implementation of Multivariate Exponentially Weighted Mean Square (MEWMS) control chart for quality control of wing parts of Airbus aircraft at PT Dirgantara Indonesia

Quality control must be carried out very tightly for the production of single wing multivariate dispersion aircraft manufacturing. This research was conducted at PT. Dirgantara Indonesia in producing components of Airbus aircraft wings centered in Germany and France. The method used includes three stages, namely determining the single observation MEWMS diagram, determining the algorithm for determining L, and implementing MEWMS. The data used are L simulation data for p = 2 and p = 3, ARL = 370, and various values, key characteristic data from 31 wing component components of the aircraft fly with. The results showed that the more variables, the L value as the determinant of the width of the MEWMS control limit was smaller, and the greater the value of ω, the value of L as the width of the MEWMS control border width is wider.

WATER FRONT ADVANCE UNDER VARIABLE BORDER WIDTH AND INITIAL SOIL MOISTURE CONTENTS UNDER WHEAT (Triticum aestuivium L.) CROP – I: HYDRAULICS AND IRRIGATION EFFICIENCIES

Border irrigation experiments were conducted on wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) crop at Water Technology Centre, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) New Delhi in winter season (October-April) of 2013-2014 to study the border hydraulics (cutoff ratio, border width and stream discharge), irrigation efficiencies, grain and biomass yields for 4 border sizes (2, 3, 4 and 5 m widths) to economize the water use. Optimizing the border width under varying soil moisture contents prior to irrigation was attempted. The border of length 25 m required 30.2 minutes (min) to 78.1 min for irrigation for a fixed cutoff length of 15 m. The water front advance time up to cutoff length was 10 min and 27.3 min for border widths varying from 2 to 5 m; respectively corresponding to the selected stream discharge of 1.5 l/s. The water front advance time was inversely proportional to the initial soil moisture contents. The travel time to cutoff point of 15 m for three soil moisture contents namely q 1:14.2, q 2:16.5 and q 3:17.2%; varied from 10.0-11.7 min for the border size (width) of 2.0 m, 14.0-15.6 min for the border size of 3 m; 20.0-23.4 min for the border size of 4 m whereas, it took 24.5- 27.3 min for 5 m border size. The best border size was identified as 4 m without any yield penalty. The effect of the stream discharge was not pronounced based on yields. Due to uniform cutoff ratio there was no significant difference in the amount of water use. Hence, the border size of 4 m was rated the best.

A manifold-based approach to sparse global constraint satisfaction problems

We consider square, sparse nonlinear systems of equations whose Jacobian is structurally nonsingular, with reasonable bound constraints on all variables. We propose an algorithm for finding good approximations to all well-separated solutions of such systems. We assume that the input system is ordered such that its Jacobian is in bordered block lower triangular form with small diagonal blocks and with small border width; this can be performed fully automatically with off-the-shelf decomposition methods. Five decades of numerical experience show that models of technical systems tend to decompose favorably in practice. Once the block decomposition is available, we reduce the task of solving the large nonlinear system of equations to that of solving a sequence of low-dimensional ones. The most serious weakness of this approach is well-known: It may suffer from severe numerical instability. The proposed method resolves this issue with the novel backsolve step. We study the effect of the decomposition on a sequence of challenging problems. Beyond a certain problem size, the computational effort of multistart (no decomposition) grows exponentially. In contrast, thanks to the decomposition, for the proposed method the computational effort grows only linearly with the problem size. It depends on the problem size and on the hyperparameter settings whether the decomposition and the more sophisticated algorithm pay off. Although there is no theoretical guarantee that all solutions will be found in the general case, increasing the so-called sample size hyperparameter improves the robustness of the proposed method.

Novel Features for Character Extraction of Historical Chinese Seal Images

Characters in the historical seals is valuable for the research of corresponding documents. Character extraction for these seals is challenging because of the special characteristics of the seals such as the different carving type (rilievi or diaglyph) and variant border form. Thus most existing character extraction methods do not work well with the images of the historical seals. In this paper, a new character extraction method is proposed based on novel features of the scanned seal images. First, the border width feature and structure feature of each scanned seal image are extracted by analysis of the probabilistic density distribution of border width and brightness of each column. Meanwhile, the optimal border width for rilievi or a starting position of border for diaglyph are generated for subsequent border removal and character extraction. The tri-border feature is used to differentiate between diaglyph and tri-border diaglyph. Then a decision tree is built to classify the seal images into rilievi and diaglyph. The classification result is used to divide background, border and character. After the border is removed with the optimal border width estimated from border width feature, the characters are finally extracted from the seal image. Experimental results on the real data set show that the proposed method classifies the scanned seal image accurately and extracts the characters effectively.

3D-CT assessment of mandibular widths in young subjects with different underlying vertical facial patterns

AimThis study was undertaken to evaluate the relationships among dental arch widths, mandibular bone widths, and masseter muscle dimensions in growing children with different underlying vertical facial patterns using three-dimensional computed tomography (3D-CT). MethodFifty-eight young subjects (32 male and 26 female) with a mean age of 13.27 (±1.59) years had undergone cranial CT examinations as part of medical diagnosis. 3D-CT images were reconstructed for the assessment of various mandibular dental and bone widths in relation to the vertical facial pattern and masseter muscle dimensions. ResultsThe cross-sectional area and volume of the masseter muscle, mandibular plane angle, total posterior face height and lower posterior face height were significantly different among the vertical pattern groups. There were a number of significant positive and negative correlations among the muscular dimensions and the dental and bone widths with the different vertical patterns. ConclusionsDolichofacials are likely to have relatively smaller masseter cross-sectional areas and volumes than brachyfacials, and vice versa. There is likely to be a close association between mandibular intermolar width and the corresponding widths at the apical and lower border levels. There is not likely to be the same association between the intercanine width and the corresponding lower border width. Brachyfacials are likely to have a greater width of buccal cancellous bone through which the canines can potentially be expanded laterally.

Performance evaluation and optimization studies of border irrigation system for wheat in the Indian Punjab

Surface irrigation methods are the most widely practiced worldwide for irrigation of row crops. The major problem with these methods is low irrigation efficiency, mainly due to poor design. In the Punjab, border irrigation is used to irrigate wheat crops grown over 90% of the cultivated area. The evaluation of existing border systems using a surface irrigation model showed that the irrigation conditions, comprising of inflow rate, border dimensions, and cut-off time, were diverse in tubewell and canal irrigated areas. The study also examined the feasibility of optimizing border dimensions taking into consideration the existing irrigation conditions for achieving more than 60% application efficiency as compared to the 30–40% achieved under present field conditions. In the case of a border length of 60 m, it was recommended to increase border width in the range of 10–45 m and 20–60 m for different flow rates of 10, 20 and 30 L/s in light and medium soils, respectively. For higher flow rates, a border length ranging from 120–150 m was found to be optimum. For a border length of 150 m, it was recommended to keep a border width ranging from 4–38 m and 8–65 m in light soils and medium soils, respectively, for flow rates of 10, 20, 30 and 60 L/s. Optimizing border dimensions is a practical way to achieve efficient and judicious use of water resources.