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Capturing spatial and temporal dynamics is a key issue for many remote-sensing based applications. Consequently, several image-blending algorithms that can simulate the surface reflectance with high spatial-temporal resolution have been developed recently. However, the performance of the algorithm against the effect of temporal interval length between the base and simulation dates has not been reported. In this study, our aim was to evaluate the effect of different temporal interval lengths on the accuracy using the widely used blending algorithm, Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM), based on Landsat, Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images and National Land Cover Database (NLCD). Taking the southwestern continental United States as the study area, a series of experiments was conducted using two schemes, which were the assessment of STARFM with (i) a fixed base date and varied simulation date and (ii) varied base date and specific simulation date, respectively. The result showed that the coefficient of determination (R²), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) varied, and overall trend of R² decreased along with the increasing temporal interval between the base and simulation dates for six land cover types. The mean R² value of cropland was lowest, whereas shrub had the highest value for two schemes. The result may facilitate selection of an appropriate temporal interval when using STARFM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High spatiotemporal resolution satellite imagery is useful for natural resource management and monitoring for land-use and land-cover change and ecosystem dynamics. However, acquisitions from a single satellite can be limited, due to trade-offs in either spatial or temporal resolution. The spatial and temporal adaptive reflectance fusion model (STARFM) and the enhanced STARFM (ESTARFM) were developed to produce new images with high spatial and high temporal resolution using images from multiple sources. Nonetheless, there were some shortcomings in these models, especially for the procedure of searching spectrally similar neighbor pixels in the models. In order to improve these models' capacity and accuracy, we developed a modified version of ESTARFM (mESTARFM) and tested the performance of two approaches (ESTARFM and mESTARFM) in three study areas located in Canada and China at different time intervals. The results show that mESTARFM improved the accuracy of the simulated reflectance at fine resolution to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To evaluate the influence of desensitising paste containing 8% arginine and calcium carbonate (Ar-Ca) on biofilm formation on dentine. Methods: Dentine discs were cut from extracted third molars and divided into the following three groups: no treatment, pumice treatment and Ar-Ca treatment. Surface topography and roughness were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and non-contact 3D surface profiler. After sterilisation, samples were incubated with Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) for 4 h, 24 h and 72 h. Bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation were analysed using SEM, whereas MTT and lactic acid production assays were used to analyse the metabolic activity of S. mutans. Results: After polishing with either pumice or Ar-Ca, the surfaces of the samples became smoother than in the control group. The Ra values of the three experimental groups decreased significantly to 0.43μm, 0.3μm and 0.26μm, respectively. Compared to the control group, fewer bacteria adhered to the dentine surface in the Ar-Ca group, while biofilm thickness decreased significantly for both groups after incubating for 24 h and 72 h. MTT and lactic acid production levers also showed a significant reduction in the Ar-Ca group. Conclusions: Ar-Ca appears to present antibiofilm efficacy and may provide a promising approach to combat bacterial infection in hypersensitive dentinal lesions. Clinical significance: As a clinical application of desensitising polishing paste, the paste containing 8% arginine and calcium carbonate could also inhibit the biofilm formation effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban heat islands (UHIs) created through urbanization can have negative impacts on the lives of people living in cities. They may also vary spatially and temporally over a city. There is, thus, a need for greater understanding of these patterns and their causes. While previous UHI studies focused on only a few cities and/or several explanatory variables, this research provides a comprehensive and comparative characterization of the diurnal and seasonal variation in surface UHI intensities (SUHIIs) across 67 major Chinese cities. The factors associated with the SUHII were assessed by considering a variety of related social, economic and natural factors using a regression tree model. Obvious seasonal variation was observed for the daytime SUHII, and the diurnal variation in SUHII varied seasonally across China. Interestingly, the SUHII varied significantly in character between northern and southern China. Southern China experienced more intense daytime SUHIIs, while the opposite was true for nighttime SUHIIs. Vegetation had the greatest effect in the day time in northern China. In southern China, annual electricity consumption and the number of public buses were found to be important. These results have important theoretical significance and may be of use to mitigate UHI effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the land use of the coastal zone in the sea-land direction will not only reveal its land use distribution, but may also indicate the interactions between inland land use and the ocean through associations between inland land use and seaward land use indirectly. However, in the existing research, few have paid attention to the land use in sea-land direction, let alone the sequential relationship between land-use types. The sequential relationship would be useful in land use planning and rehabilitation of the landscape in the sea-land direction, and the association between land-use types, particularly the inland land use and seaward land use, is not discussed. Therefore, this study presents a model named ARCLUSSM (Association Rules-based Coastal Land use Spatial Sequence Model) to mine the sequential pattern of land use with interesting associations in the sea-land direction of the coastal zone. As a case study, the typical coastal zone of Bohai Bay and the Yellow River delta in China was used. The results are as follows: firstly, 27 interesting association patterns of land use in the sea-land direction of the coastal zone were mined easily. Both sequential relationship and distance between land-use types for 27 patterns among six land-use types were mined definitely, and the sequence of the six land-use types tended to be tidal flat > shrimp pond > reservoir/artificial pond > settlement > river > dry land in sea-land direction. These patterns would offer specific support for land-use planning and rehabilitation of the coastal zone. There were 19 association patterns between seaward and landward land-use types. These patterns showed strong associations between seaward and landward land-use types. It indicated that the landward land use might have some impacts on the seaward land use, or in the other direction, which may help to reveal the interactions between inland land use and the ocean. Thus, the ARCLUSSM was an efficient tool to mine the sequential relationship and distance between land-use types with interesting association rules in the sea-land direction, which would offer practicable advice to appropriate coastal zone management and planning, and might reveal the interactions between inland land use and the ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is a complex hazard, and it has an impact on agricultural, ecological, and socio-economic systems. The vegetation condition index (VCI), which is derived from remote-sensing data, has been widely used for drought monitoring. However, VCI based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) does not perform well in certain circumstances. In this study, we examined the utility of the vegetation index based on the universal pattern decomposition method (VIUPD) based VCI for drought monitoring in various climate divisions across the continental United States (CONUS).We compared the VIUPD-derived VCI with the NDVI-derived VCI in various climate divisions and during different sub-periods of the growing season. It was also compared with other remote-sensing-based drought indices, such as the temperature condition index (TCI), precipitation condition index (PCI) and the soil moisture condition index (SMCI). The VIUPD-derived VCI had stronger correlations with long-term in situ drought indices, such as the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and the standardized precipitation index (SPI-3, SPI-6, SPI-9, and SPI-12) than did the NDVI-derived VCI, and other indices, such as TCI, PCI and SMCI. The VIUPD has considerable potential for drought monitoring. As VIUPD can make use of the information from all the observation bands, the VIUPD-derived VCI can be regarded as an enhanced VCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the spatial patterns of urban land use at both the macro and the micro levels is a central issue in global change studies. Due to the nonlinear features associated with land use spatial patterns, it is currently necessary to provide some distinct analysis methods to analyze them across a range of remote sensing imagery resolutions. The objective of our study is to quantify urban land use patterns from various perspectives using multidimensional fractal methods. Three commonly used fractal dimensions, i.e., the boundary dimension, the radius dimension, and the information entropy dimension, are introduced as the typical indices to examine the complexity, centrality and balance of land use spatial patterns, respectively. Moreover, a new lacunarity dimension for describing the degree of self-organization of urban land use at the macro level is presented. A cloud-free Landsat ETM+ image acquired on 17 September 2010 was used to extract land use information in Wuhan, China. The results show that there are significant linear relationships represented by good statistical fitness related to these four indices. The results indicate that rapid urbanization has substantially affected the urban landscape pattern, and different land use types show different spatial patterns in response. This analysis reveals that multiple fractal/nonfractal indices provides a more comprehensive understanding of the spatial heterogeneity of urban land use spatial patterns than any single fractal dimension index. These findings can help us to gain deeper insight into the complex spatial patterns of urban land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To evaluate the effect of the addition of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) on the antibacterial and physical properties of glass ionomer cement (GIC). Methods: A conventional GIC, Fuji IX, was used as a control. EGCG was incorporated into GIC at 0.1% (w/w) and used as the experimental group. Chlorhexidine (CHX) was added into GIC at 1% (w/w) as a positive control. The anti-biofilm effect of the materials was assessed by a colorimetric technique (MTT assay) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The leaching antibacterial activity of the materials on Streptococcus mutans was evaluated by an agardiffusion test. The flexural strength of the materials was evaluated using a universal testing machine and the surface microhardness was measured using a microhardness tester. The fluoride-releasing property of the materials was tested by ion chromatography. Results: The optical density (OD) values of the GIC-EGCG group were significantly decreased at 4 h compared with the GIC group, but only a slightly decreased tendency was observed at 24 h (P > 0.05). No inhibition zones were detected in the GIC group during the study period. Significant differences were found between each group (P < 0.05). Compared with the control group, there was a significant increase in the flexural strength and surface microhardness for the GIC-EGCG group (P < 0.05). The fluoride ion release was not influenced by EGCG-incorporation (P > 0.05). Conclusions: These findings suggested that GIC-containing 0.1% (w/w) EGCG is a promising restorative material with improved mechanical properties and a tendency towards preferable antibacterial properties. Clinical significance: Modification of the glass ionomer cements with EGCG to improve the antibacterial and physical properties showed some encouraging results. This suggested that the modification of GIC with EGCG might be an effective strategy to be used in the dental clinic. However, this was only an in vitro study and clinical trials would need to verify true outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change inevitably leads to changes in hydrothermal circulation. However, thermal-hydrologic exchanging caused by land cover change has also undergone ineligible changes. Therefore, studying the comprehensive effects of climate and land cover changes on land surface water and heat exchanges enables us to well understand the formation mechanism of regional climate and predict climate change with fewer uncertainties. This study investigated the land surface thermal-hydrologic exchange across southern China for the next 40 years using a land surface model (ecosystem-atmosphere simulation scheme (EASS)). Our findings are summarized as follows. (i) Spatiotemporal variation patterns of sensible heat flux (H) and evapotranspiration (ET) under the land cover scenarios (A2a or B2a) and climate change scenario (A1B) are unanimous. (ii) Both H and ET take on a single peak pattern, and the peak occurs in June or July. (iii) Based on the regional interannual variability analysis, H displays a downward trend (10%) and ET presents an increasing trend (15%). (iv)The annual average H and ET would, respectively, increase and decrease by about 10% when woodland converts to the cultivated land. Through this study, we recognize that land surface water and heat exchanges are affected greatly by the future climate change as well as land cover change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ice shedding from conductors may easily induce electrical and mechanical accidents, which cause a serious threat to the safe operation of transmission lines. In this paper, a 3D finite element model of tower-conductor-ground wire-insulator system was established in ANSYS, and the dynamic responses of ice shedding under different cases were analyzed for a transmission tower-line system. The computed jumping heights are in excellent agreement with the experimental values of a two span conductors model. Many variables were considered in the ice-shedding simulations that include tower-line coupled effect, phase combination of the ice-shedding conductors, thickness of the accreted ice, length of the ice-shedding span as well as elevation difference. Influences of all the variables on the dynamic responses of jumping heights, loads at the end of insulators and the forces of transmission tower were studied. Ice-shedding simulations of an actual 500 kV transmission line section which experience failure under ice shedding in 2008 were performed. The results show that stress ratios of members at the tower head under design ice thickness exceed the limiting values when the amount of shedding ice is large. For ice shedding at the top phase conductors, the jumping height and unbalanced tension at the end of insulator can be reduced by applying interphase spacers in triangular arrangement. The tower is in a safe state under the load of the design ice thickness. In order to prevent ice-shedding accidents, interphase spacers should be used, and the weak members at the tower head should be strengthened according to the calculated load values at the end of insulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]