182,095 research outputs found
Observing giant panda habitat and forage abundance from space
No full textGiant pandas are obligate bamboo grazers. The bamboos favoured by giant pandas are typical forest understorey plants. Therefore, the availability and abundance of understorey bamboo is a key factor in determining the quantity and quality of giant panda food resources. However, there is little or no information about the spatial distribution or abundance of bamboo underneath the forest canopy, due to the limitations of traditional ground survey and remote sensing classification techniques. In this regard, the development of methods that can predict the understorey bamboo spatial distribution and cover abundance is critical for an improved understanding of the habitat, foraging behaviour and distribution of giant pandas, as well as facilitating an optimal conservation strategy for this endangered species. The objectives of this study were to develop innovative methods in remote sensing and GIS for estimating the giant panda habitat and forage abundance, and to explain the altitudinal migration and the spatial distribution of giant pandas in the fragmented forest landscape. It was concluded that 1) the vegetation indices derived from winter (leaf-off) satellite images can be successfully used to predict the distribution of evergreen understorey bamboo in a deciduous-dominated forest, 2) winter is the optimal season for quantifying the coverage of evergreen understorey bamboo in a mixed temperate forest, regardless of the classification methods used, 3) a higher mapping accuracy for understorey bamboo in a coniferous-dominated forest can be achieved by using an integrated neural network and expert system algorithm, 4) the altitudinal migration patterns of sympatric giant pandas and golden takins are related to satellite-derived plant phenology (a surrogate of food quality) and bamboo abundance (a surrogate of food quantity), 5) the driving force behind the seasonal vertical migration of giant pandas is the occurrence of bamboo shoots and the temperature variation along an altitudinal gradient, 6) the satellite-derived forest patches occupied by giant pandas were significantly larger and more contiguous than patches where giant pandas were not recorded, indicating that giant pandas appear sensitive to patch size and isolation effects associated with forest fragmentation. Overall, the study has been shown the potential of satellite remote sensing to map giant panda habitat and forage (i.e., understorey bamboo) abundance. The results are important for understanding the foraging behaviour and the spatial distribution of giant pandas, as well as the evaluation and modelling of giant panda habitat in order to guide decision-making on giant panda conservation. <br/
Physics Performance Report for PANDA: Strong Interaction Studies with Antiprotons
No full textTo study fundamental questions of hadron and nuclear physics in interactions of antiprotons with nucleons and nuclei, the universal PANDA detector will be built. Gluonic excitations, the physics of strange and charm quarks and nucleon structure studies will be performed with unprecedented accuracy thereby allowing high-precision tests of the strong interaction. The proposed PANDA detector is a state-of-the art internal target detector at the HESR at FAIR allowing the detection and identification of neutral and charged particles generated within the relevant angular and energy range. This report presents a summary of the physics accessible at PANDA and what performance can be expected
The WTP for property rights for the Giant Panda: can a charismatic species be an instrument for conservation of natural habitat?
No full textThe paper presents the results from a stated preference study to address issues concerning the potential for using flag-ship species, such as the Giant Panda, to purchase the property rights for the conservation of natural habitat. The study finds, first, that there is clear WTP for acquiring the property rights for panda habitat. The nature of this demand is found both convincing and logically coherent in that it is an increasing function of land
(at a diminishing rate). Secondly, the study decomposed the elicited values into genetic stock, animal welfare and implicit biodiversity values. The results show that the latter type of value consist of almost half of total value implying that the Panda is in fact a potential instrument for greater biodiversity conservation. Thirdly, the study shows that these implicit biodiversity values are dependent on the preservation of the flagship species itself, implying that the panda is not only a potential instrument for habitat conservation, but a necessary one. Finally, the extent to which the flagship approach can be capable of contributing to wider biodiversity conservation is discussed
PSYNDEX Tests Review für PANDA - Parkinson Neuropsychometrie Dementia Assessment
No full textThis is a PSYNDEX Tests Review of PANDA - Parkinson Neuropsychometrie Dementia Assessment. PSYNDEX Tests Reviews are written in German and describe and evaluate psychological and educational tests used in the German-speaking countries. PSYNDEX Tests is offered by the Leibniz Institute for Psychology as open access documentation.Das ist ein PSYNDEX Tests Review zu PANDA - Parkinson Neuropsychometrie Dementia Assessment. PSYNDEX Tests Reviews beschreiben und bewerten zentrale psychologische und pädagogische Testverfahren, die in den deutschsprachigen Ländern eingesetzt werden, nach einem standardisierten Raster. PSYNDEX Tests wird durch das Leibniz-Institut für Psychologie als Open Access Dokumentation angeboten.Diagnostische Zielsetzung: Der PANDA will störungsspezifische kognitive Defizite bei Parkinson-Patienten zeitökonomisch mit hoher Sensitivität und Spezifität erfassen. Darüber hinaus können die Stimmungsfragen (Teil B) einen zusätzlichen Beitrag zur Planung therapeutischer Interventionen liefern. Aufbau: Der PANDA besteht aus einem Kognitionsteil (A), der sich aus den fünf Subtests (1) Paarassoziationslernen (gleichzeitig Subtest 5 Verzögerte Abfrage), (2) Wortflüssigkeit, (3) Räumliches Vorstellungsvermögen (mentales Spiegeln) und (4) Arbeitsgedächtnis zusammensetzt, sowie einem Stimmungsteil (B), der die Stimmungslage des Patienten mit drei Items auf einer vierstufigen Antwortskala erfasst. Grundlagen und Konstruktion: Der PANDA wurde explizit konstruiert, um subkortikale Typen von Demenz zu identifizieren, die typisch für Parkinson-Patienten sind. Zur Konstruktion ziehen die Autoren relevante Ergebnisse empirischer Forschung heran, wie etwa von Pillon und Kollegen (1993), die insbesondere exekutive Dysfunktionen wie ineffiziente Kodier- und Abrufstrategien als primäre Ursache für eine eingeschränkte Gedächtnisfähigkeit sehen. Auf Grundlage einer Pilotstudie adaptierten die Autoren bewährte Testaufgaben aus der Demenzdiagnostik für die diagnostische Zielsetzung des Verfahrens. Dabei orientiert sich die Testkonstruktion des PANDA an Prinzipien der Klassischen Testtheorie. Empirische Prüfung und Gütekriterien: Reliabilität: Kalbe und Kollegen (2008) finden für einen Abstand von sechs Monaten eine Retestreliabilität von rtt = .93 für den Kognitionsteil (A) des PANDA und gleichzeitig keine signifikante Veränderung des Stimmungsteils (B). Die Interrater-Reliabilität betrug r = .95. Validität: Verschiedene Studien berichten Korrelationen der PANDA-Ergebnisse (Kognition) mit dem MMST (.22 < r < .76), dem MADRS (rho = -.25) und dem MoCA (r = .44). Kalbe und Kollegen (2008) berichten einen Zusammenhang zwischen BDI und dem PANDA-Stimmungsteil (rho = .64) sowie zwischen BDI und dem PANDA-Kognitionsteil (rho = -.34). Korrelationen zwischen PANDA-Kognitionsteil und PANDA-Stimmungsteil werden für zwei Studien zwischen -.16 < rho < -.29 angegeben. Normen: Die Normierungsstichprobe des PANDA beläuft sich auf N = 232 Personen (Kontrollgruppe: n = 108; n = 124 Parkinson-Patienten). Es liegen altersspezifische Normwerte für Parkinson-Patienten bis 59 Jahre und ab 60 Jahre vor. Für die Anwendung von Cut-off-Werten werden die Rohwerte in Wertpunkte transformiert, sodass ein maximaler Gesamtwert von 30 transformierten Wertpunkten im Kognitionsteil (A) erreicht werden kann. Auch für die erreichte Summe des Stimmungsteils (B) wird ein Cut-off-Wert angegeben.publishedVersio
Physics Performance Report for PANDA: Strong Interaction Studies with Antiprotons
No full text216 pagesTo study fundamental questions of hadron and nuclear physics in interactions of antiprotons with nucleons and nuclei, the universal PANDA detector will be built. Gluonic excitations, the physics of strange and charm quarks and nucleon structure studies will be performed with unprecedented accuracy thereby allowing high-precision tests of the strong interaction. The proposed PANDA detector is a state-of-the art internal target detector at the HESR at FAIR allowing the detection and identification of neutral and charged particles generated within the relevant angular and energy range. This report presents a summary of the physics accessible at PANDA and what performance can be expected
Physics Performance Report for PANDA: Strong Interaction Studies with Antiprotons
No full text216 pagesTo study fundamental questions of hadron and nuclear physics in interactions of antiprotons with nucleons and nuclei, the universal PANDA detector will be built. Gluonic excitations, the physics of strange and charm quarks and nucleon structure studies will be performed with unprecedented accuracy thereby allowing high-precision tests of the strong interaction. The proposed PANDA detector is a state-of-the art internal target detector at the HESR at FAIR allowing the detection and identification of neutral and charged particles generated within the relevant angular and energy range. This report presents a summary of the physics accessible at PANDA and what performance can be expected
Economic development in Orissa: Growth without inclusion?
No full textThe economy of Orissa has been lagging behind the national economy by several decades. Its per capita net state domestic product, a measure of average income, stood at Rs.20200 for 2006-07 which falls behind the national average by about 35 per cent. Moreover, the gross domestic product of the state grew by a considerable lower rate than many other states for a long time despite its high growth potential. Drawing on the experience of several countries as well as that of India, various studies concluded that economic growth was the most critical factor for reduction of incidence of poverty in the state. It now seems that there has been a turning point in the last few years and the economy of Orissa has witnessed an acceleration in terms of the gross state domestic product (GSDP). The evidence presented here clearly shows that the economy is poised for a take-off to a high growth phase, almost similar to that at the national level. On the poverty dimension, however, the recent developments have been gloomy, to say the least. The consumption expenditure surveys carried out by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the standard source of data for poverty analysis in India by official and non-official investigators, shows that the period 1993-2004 has witnessed a reversal of the achievements made on the poverty front during 1983-93. The prima facie evidence points towards a case of growth without inclusion and needs further probe.Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), India, Poverty
Informetrics of a Veteran Library Scientist and Academician Prof (Dr.) K. C. Panda
No full textThe study is a scientometric analysis of the magnitude of contributions of Prof. K. C. Panda, an eminent information scientist and academician of LIS. The paper highlights his 130 publications (120 articles and 10 books) during 1982-2011. The analysis of his 120 articles reveals that he has contributed 20 single papers and co-authored 80 papers with 45 collaborators that appeared 115 times yielding a greater collaboration coefficient of 0.79 which indicates his versatility of promoting research from the collaborative front. On an average, he has contributed 4 to 5 papers in a year during the stated period. Prof Panda is found to have contributed maximum (06) articles to Annals of Library and Information Studies
Patterns of Genetic Diversity in Remaining Giant Panda Populations
No full textThe giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is among the more familiar symbols of species conservation. The protection of giant panda populations has been aided recently by the establishment of more and better-managed reserves in existing panda habitat located in six mountain ranges in western China. These remaining populations are becoming increasingly isolated from one another, however, leading to the concern that historic patterns of gene flow will be disrupted and that reduced population sizes will lead to diminished genetic variability. We analyzed four categories of molecular genetic markers (mtDNA restriction-fragment-length polymorphisms [RFLP], mtDNA control region sequences, nuclear multilocus DNA fingerprints, and microsatellite size variation) in giant pandas from three mountain populations (Qionglai, Minshan, and Qinling) to assess current levels of genetic diversity and to detect evidence of historic population subdivisions. The three populations had moderate levels of genetic diversity compared with similarly studied carnivores for all four gene measures, with a slight but consistent reduction in variability apparent in the smaller Qinling population. That population also showed significant differentiation consistent with its isolation since historic times. From a strictly genetic perspective, the giant panda species and the three populations look promising insofar as they have retained a large amount of genetic diversity in each population, although evidence of recent population reduction—likely from habitat loss—is apparent. Ecological management to increase habitat, population expansion, and gene flow would seem an effective strategy to stabilize the decline of this endangered species
Assessing the applicability of Transformer-based architectures as rainfall-runoff models
No full textModeling the relationship between rainfall and runoff is a longstanding challenge in hydrology and is crucial for informed water management decisions. Recently, Deep Learning models, particularly Long short-term memory (LSTM), have shown promising results in simulating this relationship. The Transformer, a newly proposed deep learning architecture, has also demonstrated the ability to outperform LSTM in machine translation, text classification, etc. However, there has been limited research on applying Transformers for rainfall-runoff modeling. The research examined the performance of using Transformer architecture, including its time series forecasting variants, to develop rainfall-runoff models using the CAMELS (US) data set. These models were compared to the LSTM regional rainfall-runoff models, with a particular focus on snow-driven basins as the attention mechanism in Transformer is believed to allow it to attend to the earlier precipitation events in the meteorological forcing. Additionally, the Transformer's potential as a global rainfall-runoff model was also tested using the global Caravan data to determine if it could learn and generalize a wide range of rainfall-runoff behaviors, allowing it to potentially be applied in ungauged basins.The results suggest that while Transformer and its variants may not be able to fully replace LSTM for rainfall-runoff modeling, the variant called Reformer has shown promise for daily discharge forecasting in snow-driven basins, particularly in terms of peak flow and low flow prediction. However, using the global Caravan data for building a global rainfall-runoff model was not successful due to uncertainty in the forcing data, particularly precipitation. The code for Transformer-based rainfall-runoff modeling is available publicly at https://github.com/Numpy-Panda/neuralhydrology_Transformer.https://github.com/Numpy-Panda/neuralhydrology_Transformer Repository link The GitHub repository of the Transformer-based rainfall-runoff modeling.Civil Engineerin
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