bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Retreatment of endodontically failed tooth with wide-open apex using platelet rich fibrin membrane as matrix and an apical plug of Biodentine™
Authors: Pawar Ajinkya Mansing , Pawar Suraj M. , Pawar Mansing G. , Kokate Sharad R.
Published: August 2015

The primary reason for an endodontic failure is the persistence or regrowth of bacteria within the root canal system, and such cases require retreatment. The tooth root development and closure of its apex occurs till 3 years after the eruption. Traumatic injuries during this development period result in endodontic complications. While dealing with a tooth, with an open apex the prime objective was eliminating bacteria from the root canal system with minimum irritation to the periapical tissues and induction of apical closure to produce favorable conditions and to confine the root canal filling within the canal space. Traditionally as supported by literature multiple dressings of calcium hydroxide medicament were advocated to induce apical barrier formation followed by an evolution of the apical artificial barrier technique where the mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) was used. Recently introduced Biodentine™ is similar to MTA with its basic composition, which can be used as its substitute. The main difficulty associated while treating teeth with wide-open apices are preventing the overfilling of the restorative materials that serve as an artificial barrier. Use of a matrix overcomes this challenge. Platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) a matrix of autologous fibrin, embedded with a large quantity of platelet and leukocyte cytokines during centrifugation can be successfully used as an apical membrane. The present case, reports a novel procedure of apexification of endodontically failed central incisor with open apex using PRF as apical membrane and Biodentine™.
Multidisciplinary approach in the immediate replantation of a maxillary central incisor - A six and a half year follow-up
Authors: Xavier Cristina Braga , Vogt Beatriz Farias , Faria Giselle Daer , Reinhardt Leandro Calcagno , Hosni Elaini Sickert , Martos Josué
Published: August 2015

This report proposes a discussion of the various peculiarities of a tooth 21 replantation in a 9-year-old patient and describes different treatment facets and a 6-year follow-up of the case. The splint was maintained for a 3-month period. After a 1½ year therapy with calcium hydroxide to control inflammatory resorption, the final canal obturation was performed 18 months after trauma with mineral trioxide aggregate. Two years after replantation, the orthodontic treatment had been initiated and 5 years after avulsion, whitening of tooth 21 was also done. Clinical and radiographic follow-up at regular intervals revealed that the treated tooth was still functional, showing normal mobility, resorption stabilization, and normal appearance of the bone tissue and lamina dura, testifying the treatment has been so far successful. The possibility of submitting avulsed teeth to other dental treatments once, there is close professional monitoring by controlling the risks and benefits of each therapy, as well as the patient′s cooperation, extra-oral time, and storage media for transport to the dentist among other details is emphasized.
The influences of mass loading and rapid dilution of secondary organic aerosol on particle volatility
Authors: Kolesar K. R. , Chen C. , Johnson D. , Cappa C. D.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The thermally induced evaporation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) has been characterized for SOA formed from the dark ozonolysis of α-pinene at initial mass concentrations ranging from 1 to 800 μg m−3. Temperature-dependent particle size distributions were measured using a thermodenuder and the resulting mass thermograms were compared between the SOA formed at the various SOA mass concentrations. Negligible differences were observed between the mass thermograms for SOA concentrations < 300 μg m−3. At higher SOA concentrations, the observed mass thermograms indicated the SOA was actually slightly less volatile than the SOA at lower concentrations; this is likely an artifact due to either saturation of the gas phase or to recondensation during cooling. The thermograms observed when the SOA was formed at high concentrations (> 380 μg m−3) and then rapidly isothermally diluted to low concentrations (1–20 μg m−3) were identical to those for the SOA that was initially formed at low concentrations. The experimental results were compared to a kinetic model that simulates particle evaporation upon heating in a thermodenuder for a given input volatility distribution and particle composition. Three cases were considered: (1) the SOA was composed of semi-volatile monomer species with a volatility distribution based on that derived previously from consideration of SOA growth experiments; (2) the initial SOA was composed almost entirely of non-volatile dimers that decompose upon heating into their semi-volatile monomer units, which can then evaporate; and (3) where a volatility distribution was derived by fitting the model to the observed mass thermograms. It was found that good agreement is obtained between model predictions and the observations when the particle composition is dominated by either compounds of low volatility or by dimers. These same models were used to simulate isothermal evaporation of the SOA and were found to be broadly consistent with literature observations that indicate that SOA evaporation occurs with multiple timescales. The use of the semi-volatile monomer volatility distribution fails to reproduce the observed evaporation. The presence of dimers and larger oligomers in secondary organic aerosol formed from products of the reaction of α-pinene and O3 has been well established in laboratory studies. However, the timescale and relative importance of the formation of oligomers or low-volatility compounds in the growth and evaporation of SOA has been debated. This study provides further support that low-volatility compounds and oligomers are formed in α-pinene + O3 in high abundances and suggests that their formation occurs rapidly upon particle formation.
Regional-scale transport of air pollutants: impacts of Southern California emissions on Phoenix ground-level ozone concentrations
Authors: Li J. , Georgescu M. , Hyde P. , Mahalov A. , Moustaoui M.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. In this study, WRF-Chem is utilized at high resolution (1.333 km grid spacing for the innermost domain) to investigate impacts of southern California anthropogenic emissions (SoCal) on Phoenix ground-level ozone concentrations ([O3]) for a pair of recent exceedance episodes. First, WRF-Chem control simulations, based on the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2005 National Emissions Inventories (NEI05), are conducted to evaluate model performance. Compared with surface observations of hourly ozone, CO, NOX, and wind fields, the control simulations reproduce observed variability well. Simulated [O3] are comparable with the previous studies in this region. Next, the relative contribution of SoCal and Arizona local anthropogenic emissions (AZ) to ozone exceedances within the Phoenix metropolitan area is investigated via a trio of sensitivity simulations: (1) SoCal emissions are excluded, with all other emissions as in Control; (2) AZ emissions are excluded with all other emissions as in Control; and (3) SoCal and AZ emissions are excluded (i.e., all anthropogenic emissions are eliminated) to account only for Biogenic emissions and lateral boundary inflow (BILB). Based on the USEPA NEI05, results for the selected events indicate the impacts of AZ emissions are dominant on daily maximum 8 h average (DMA8) [O3] in Phoenix. SoCal contributions to DMA8 [O3] for the Phoenix metropolitan area range from a few ppbv to over 30 ppbv (10–30 % relative to Control experiments). [O3] from SoCal and AZ emissions exhibit the expected diurnal characteristics that are determined by physical and photochemical processes, while BILB contributions to DMA8 [O3] in Phoenix also play a key role. Finally, ozone transport processes and pathways within the lower troposphere are investigated. During daytime, pollutants (mainly ozone) near the Southern California coasts are pumped into the planetary boundary-layer over the Southern California desert through the mountain chimney and pass channel effects, aiding eastward transport along the desert air basins in southern California and finally, northeastward along the lower Gila River basin in Arizona, thereby affecting Phoenix air quality during subsequent days. This study indicates that local emission controls in Phoenix need to be augmented with regional emission reductions to attain the federal ozone standard, especially if a more stringent standard is adopted in the future.
Introduction: The Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) – multi-disciplinary, multi-scale and multi-component research and capacity building initiative
Authors: Kulmala M. , Lappalainen H. K. , Petäjä T. , Kurten T. , Kerminen V.-M. , Viisanen Y. , Hari P. , Bondur V. , Kasimov N. , Kotlyakov V. , Matvienko G. , Baklanov A. , Guo H. D. , Ding A. , Hansson H.-C. , Zilitinkevich S.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX) is a multi-disciplinary, multi-scale and multi-component research, research infrastructure and capacity building program. PEEX has originated from a bottom-up approach by the science communities, and is aiming at resolving the major uncertainties in Earth System Science and global sustainability issues concerning the Arctic and boreal Pan-Eurasian regions, as well as China. The vision of PEEX is to solve interlinked global grand challenges influencing human well-being and societies in northern Eurasia and China. Such challenges include climate change, air quality, biodiversity loss, urbanization, chemicalization, food and fresh water availability, energy production and use of natural resources by mining, industry, energy production and transport sectors. Our approach is integrative and supra-disciplinary, recognizing the important role of the Arctic and boreal ecosystems in the Earth system. The PEEX vision includes establishing and maintaining long-term, coherent and coordinated research activities as well as continuous, comprehensive research and educational infrastructures and related capacity building across the PEEX domain. In this paper we present the PEEX structure, summarize its motivation, objectives and future outlook.
Global validation of SCIAMACHY limb ozone data (versions 2.9 and 3.0, IUP Bremen) using ozonesonde measurements
Authors: Jia J. , Rozanov A. , Ladstätter-Weißenmayer A. , Burrows J. P.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. In this paper, the latest SCIAMACHY limb ozone scientific vertical profiles, namely the current V2.9 and the upcoming V3.0, are extensively compared with ozonesonde data from the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre (WOUDC) database. The comparisons are made on a global scale from 2003 to 2011, involving 61 sonde stations. The retrieval processors used to generate V2.9 and V3.0 data sets are briefly introduced. The comparisons are discussed in terms of vertical profiles and stratospheric partial columns. Our results indicate that the V2.9 ozone profile data between 20 and 30 km are in good agreement with ground-based measurements, with less than 5 % relative differences in the latitude range of 90° S–40° N (with the exception of the tropical Pacific region, where an overestimation of more than 10 % is observed), which corresponds to less than 5 DU partial-column differences. In the tropics the differences are within 3 %. However, this data set shows a significant underestimation northwards of 40° N (up to ~ 15 %). The newly developed V3.0 data set reduces this bias to below 10 % while maintaining a good agreement southwards of 40° N with slightly increased relative differences of up to 5 % in the tropics.
A modification to the standard ionospheric correction method used in GPS radio occultation
Authors: Healy S. B. , Culverwell I. D.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. A modification to the standard bending-angle correction used in GPS radio occultation (GPS-RO) is proposed. The modified approach should reduce systematic residual ionospheric errors in GPS radio occultation climatologies. A new second-order term is introduced in order to account for a known source of systematic error, which is generally neglected. The new term has the form κ(a) × (αL1(a)-αL2(a))2, where a is the impact parameter and (αL1, αL2) are the L1 and L2 bending angles, respectively. The variable κ is a weak function of the impact parameter, a, but it does depend on a priori ionospheric information. The theoretical basis of the new term is examined. The sensitivity of κ to the assumed ionospheric parameters is investigated in one-dimensional simulations, and it is shown that κ ≃ 10–20 rad−1. We note that the current implicit assumption is κ=0, and this is probably adequate for numerical weather prediction applications. However, the uncertainty in κ should be included in the uncertainty estimates for the geophysical climatologies produced from GPS-RO measurements. The limitations of the new ionospheric correction when applied to CHAMP (Challenging Minisatellite Payload) measurements are noted. These arise because of the assumption that the refractive index is unity at the satellite, made when deriving bending angles from the Doppler shift values.
A simulation study with a new residual ionospheric error model for GPS radio occultation climatologies
Authors: Danzer J. , Healy S. B. , Culverwell I. D.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. In this study, a new model was explored which corrects for higher order ionospheric residuals in Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) data. Recently, the theoretical basis of this new "residual ionospheric error model" has been outlined (Healy and Culverwell, 2015). The method was tested in simulations with a one-dimensional model ionosphere. The proposed new model for computing the residual ionospheric error is the product of two factors, one of which expresses its variation from profile to profile and from time to time in terms of measurable quantities (the L1 and L2 bending angles), while the other describes the weak variation with altitude. A simple integral expression for the residual error (Vorob’ev and Krasil’nikova, 1994) has been shown to be in excellent numerical agreement with the exact value, for a simple Chapman layer ionosphere. In this case, the "altitudinal" element of the residual error varies (decreases) by no more than about 25 % between ~10 and ~100 km for physically reasonable Chapman layer parameters. For other simple model ionospheres the integral can be evaluated exactly, and results are in reasonable agreement with those of an equivalent Chapman layer. In this follow-up study the overall objective was to explore the validity of the new residual ionospheric error model for more detailed simulations, based on modeling through a complex three-dimensional ionosphere. The simulation study was set up, simulating day and night GPS RO profiles for the period of a solar cycle with and without an ionosphere. The residual ionospheric error was studied, the new error model was tested, and temporal and spatial variations of the model were investigated. The model performed well in the simulation study, capturing the temporal variability of the ionospheric residual. Although it was not possible, due to high noise of the simulated bending-angle profiles at mid- to high latitudes, to perform a thorough latitudinal investigation of the performance of the model, first positive and encouraging results were found at low latitudes. Furthermore, first application tests of the model on the data showed a reduction in temperature level of the ionospheric residual at 40 km from about −2.2 to −0.2 K.
Spring bloom onset in the Nordic Seas
Authors: Mignot A. , Ferrari R. , Mork K. A.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The North Atlantic spring bloom is a massive annual growth event of marine phytoplankton, tiny free-floating algae that form the base of the ocean's food web and generates a large fraction of the global primary production of organic matter. The conditions that trigger the onset of the spring bloom in the Nordic Seas, at the northern edge of the North Atlantic, are studied using in-situ data from five bio-optical floats released above the Arctic Circle. It is often assumed that spring blooms start as soon as phytoplankton cells daily irradiance is sufficiently abundant that division rates exceed losses. The bio-optical float data instead suggest the tantalizing hypothesis that Nordic Seas blooms start when the photoperiod, the number of daily light hours experienced by phytoplankton, exceeds a critical value, independently of division rates. This bloom behavior may be explained by realizing that photosynthesis is impossible during polar nights and phytoplankton enters in a dormant stage in winter, only to be awaken by a photoperiodic trigger. While the first accumulation of biomass recorded by the bio-optical floats is consistent with the photoperiod hypothesis, it is possible that some biomass accumulation started before the critical photoperiod but at levels too low to be detected by the fluorometers. Thus more precise observations are needed to test the photoperiod hypothesis.
3D SUPER-RESOLUTION APPROACH FOR SPARSE LASER SCANNER DATA
Authors: Hosseinyalamdary S. , Yilmaz A.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Laser scanner point cloud has been emerging in Photogrammetry and computer vision to achieve high level tasks such as object tracking, object recognition and scene understanding. However, low cost laser scanners are noisy, sparse and prone to systematic errors. This paper proposes a novel 3D super resolution approach to reconstruct surface of the objects in the scene. This method works on sparse, unorganized point clouds and has superior performance over other surface recovery approaches. Since the proposed approach uses anisotropic diffusion equation, it does not deteriorate the object boundaries and it preserves topology of the object.
LACO-WIKI: AN OPEN ACCESS ONLINE PORTAL FOR LAND COVER VALIDATION
Authors: See L. , Perger C. , Hofer M. , Weichselbaum J. , Dresel C. , Fritz S.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The LACO-Wiki tool represents an open access, online portal that offers standardized land cover validation at local to global scales. LACO-Wiki integrates the LACOVAL prototype for land cover validation and the Geo-Wiki system for visualization, validation and crowdsourcing of land cover. This paper presents a conceptual overview of the LACO-Wiki system and describes the main validation workflow, in which the user uploads the map for validation, creates a validation sample, carries out the sample interpretation and generates a report detailing the accuracy assessment. In addition to a land cover validation tool, LACO-Wiki is also intended to become an open access repository for calibration and validation data that can be used by the land monitoring community to improve future land cover products.
A REPRESENTATION-DRIVEN ONTOLOGY FOR SPATIAL DATA QUALITY ELEMENTS, WITH ORTHOIMAGERY AS RUNNING EXAMPLE
Authors: Hangouët J.-F.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The many facets of what is encompassed by such an expression as “quality of spatial data” can be considered as a specific domain of reality worthy of formal description, i.e. of ontological abstraction. Various ontologies for data quality elements have already been proposed in literature. Today, the system of quality elements is most generally used and discussed according to the configuration exposed in the “data dictionary for data quality” of international standard ISO 19157. Our communication proposes an alternative view. This is founded on a perspective which focuses on the specificity of spatial data as a product: the representation perspective, where data in the computer are meant to show things of the geographic world and to be interpreted as such. The resulting ontology introduces new elements, the usefulness of which will be illustrated by orthoimagery examples.
OBSTACLE CHARACTERIZATION IN A GEOCROWDSOURCED ACCESSIBILITY SYSTEM
Authors: Qin H. , Aburizaiza A. O. , Rice R. M. , Paez F. , Rice M. T.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Transitory obstacles – random, short-lived and unpredictable objects – are difficult to capture in any traditional mapping system, yet they have significant negative impacts on the accessibility of mobility- and visually-impaired individuals. These transitory obstacles include sidewalk obstructions, construction detours, and poor surface conditions. To identify these obstacles and assist the navigation of mobility- and visually- impaired individuals, crowdsourced mapping applications have been developed to harvest and analyze the volunteered obstacles reports from local students, faculty, staff, and residents. In this paper, we introduce a training program designed and implemented for recruiting and motivating contributors to participate in our geocrowdsourced accessibility system, and explore the quality of geocrowdsourced data with a comparative analysis methodology.
ASSESSMENT OF THE THEMATIC ACCURACY OF LAND COVER MAPS
Authors: Höhle J.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Several land cover maps are generated from aerial imagery and assessed by different approaches. The test site is an urban area in Europe for which six classes (‘building’, ‘hedge and bush’, ‘grass’, ‘road and parking lot’, ‘tree’, ‘wall and car port’) had to be derived. Two classification methods were applied (‘Decision Tree’ and ‘Support Vector Machine’) using only two attributes (height above ground and normalized difference vegetation index) which both are derived from the images. The assessment of the thematic accuracy applied a stratified design and was based on accuracy measures such as user’s and producer’s accuracy, and kappa coefficient. In addition, confidence intervals were computed for several accuracy measures. The achieved accuracies and confidence intervals are thoroughly analysed and recommendations are derived from the gained experiences. Reliable reference values are obtained using stereovision, false-colour image pairs, and positioning to the checkpoints with 3D coordinates. The influence of the training areas on the results is studied. Cross validation has been tested with a few reference points in order to derive approximate accuracy measures. The two classification methods perform equally for five classes. Trees are classified with a much better accuracy and a smaller confidence interval by means of the decision tree method. Buildings are classified by both methods with an accuracy of 99% (95% CI: 95%-100%) using independent 3D checkpoints. The average width of the confidence interval of six classes was 14% of the user’s accuracy.
ON DATA QUALITY ASSURANCE AND CONFLATION ENTANGLEMENT IN CROWDSOURCING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Authors: Leibovici D. G. , Evans B. , Hodges C. , Wiemann S. , Meek S. , Rosser J. , Jackson M.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Volunteer geographical information (VGI) either in the context of citizen science, active crowdsourcing and even passive crowdsourcing has been proven useful in various societal domains such as natural hazards, health status, disease epidemic and biological monitoring. Nonetheless, the variable degrees or unknown quality due to the crowdsourcing settings are still an obstacle for fully integrating these data sources in environmental studies and potentially in policy making. The data curation process in which a quality assurance (QA) is needed is often driven by the direct usability of the data collected within a data conflation process or data fusion (DCDF) combining the crowdsourced data into one view using potentially other data sources as well. Using two examples, namely land cover validation and inundation extent estimation, this paper discusses the close links between QA and DCDF in order to determine whether a disentanglement can be beneficial or not to a better understanding of the data curation process and to its methodology with respect to crowdsourcing data. Far from rejecting the usability quality criterion, the paper advocates for a decoupling of the QA process and the DCDF step as much as possible but still in integrating them within an approach analogous to a Bayesian paradigm.
IMPROVEMENT OF THE F-PERCEPTORY APPROACH THROUGH MANAGEMENT OF FUZZY COMPLEX GEOGRAPHIC OBJECTS
Authors: Khalfi B. , de Runz C. , Faiz S. , Akdag H.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. In the real world, data is imperfect and in various ways such as imprecision, vagueness, uncertainty, ambiguity and inconsistency. For geographic data, the fuzzy aspect is mainly manifested in time, space and the function of objects and is due to a lack of precision. Therefore, the researchers in the domain emphasize the importance of modeling data structures in GIS but also their lack of adaptation to fuzzy data. The F-Perceptory approachh manages the modeling of imperfect geographic information with UML. This management is essential to maintain faithfulness to reality and to better guide the user in his decision-making. However, this approach does not manage fuzzy complex geographic objects. The latter presents a multiple object with similar or different geographic shapes. So, in this paper, we propose to improve the F-Perceptory approach by proposing to handle fuzzy complex geographic objects modeling. In a second step, we propose its transformation to the UML modeling.
UNCERTAINTY HANDLING IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT USING HIERARCHICAL ROUGH SET GRANULATION
Authors: Sheikhian H. , Delavar M. R. , Stein A.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Uncertainty is one of the main concerns in geospatial data analysis. It affects different parts of decision making based on such data. In this paper, a new methodology to handle uncertainty for multi-criteria decision making problems is proposed. It integrates hierarchical rough granulation and rule extraction to build an accurate classifier. Rough granulation provides information granules with a detailed quality assessment. The granules are the basis for the rule extraction in granular computing, which applies quality measures on the rules to obtain the best set of classification rules. The proposed methodology is applied to assess seismic physical vulnerability in Tehran. Six effective criteria reflecting building age, height and material, topographic slope and earthquake intensity of the North Tehran fault have been tested. The criteria were discretized and the data set was granulated using a hierarchical rough method, where the best describing granules are determined according to the quality measures. The granules are fed into the granular computing algorithm resulting in classification rules that provide the highest prediction quality. This detailed uncertainty management resulted in 84% accuracy in prediction in a training data set. It was applied next to the whole study area to obtain the seismic vulnerability map of Tehran. A sensitivity analysis proved that earthquake intensity is the most effective criterion in the seismic vulnerability assessment of Tehran.
A METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING OPENSTREETMAP DEGREE OF COVERAGE FOR PURPOSES OF LAND COVER MAPPING
Authors: Ribeiro A. , Fonte C.C.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The data available in the collaborative project OpenStreetMap (OSM) is in some locations so detailed and complete that it may provide useful data for Land Cover Map creation and validation. However, this degree of detail is not uniform along space. Therefore, one of the first requirements that needs to be assessed to determine if the creation and validation of Land Cover Maps using data available in OSM may be feasible, is the availability of data to provide a relatively complete coverage of the region of interest. To provide a fast and automatic quantitative assessment of this requirement a methodology is presented and tested in this article. Four study areas are considered, all located in Europe. The results show that the four regions presented very different coverages at the time of data download and its spatial distribution was not uniform. This approach enabled the identification of the most problematic regions for land cover mapping, where low levels of data coverage are available. Since the proposed methodology can be automated, it enables a fast identification of the regions that, in a preliminary analysis, may be considered fit for further analysis to assess fitness for use for Land Cover Map creation and/or validation.
AUTOMATIC CREATION OF STRUCTURAL MODELS FROM POINT CLOUD DATA: THE CASE OF MASONRY STRUCTURES
Authors: Riveiro B. , Conde-Carnero B. , González-Jorge H. , Arias P. , Caamaño J.C.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. One of the fields where 3D modelling has an important role is in the application of such 3D models to structural engineering purposes. The literature shows an intense activity on the conversion of 3D point cloud data to detailed structural models, which has special relevance in masonry structures where geometry plays a key role. In the work presented in this paper, color data (from Intensity attribute) is used to automatically segment masonry structures with the aim of isolating masonry blocks and defining interfaces in an automatic manner using a 2.5D approach. An algorithm for the automatic processing of laser scanning data based on an improved marker-controlled watershed segmentation was proposed and successful results were found. Geometric accuracy and resolution of point cloud are constrained by the scanning instruments, giving accuracy levels reaching a few millimetres in the case of static instruments and few centimetres in the case of mobile systems. In any case, the algorithm is not significantly sensitive to low quality images because acceptable segmentation results were found in cases where blocks could not be visually segmented.
ESTIMATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL DATABASES CAPTURE SCALE BASED ON INTER-VERTICES DISTANCES EXPLORATION
Authors: Girres J.-F.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. This article presents a method to estimate the capture scale of a geographical database based on the characterization of its level of detail. This contribution fits in a larger research, dealing with the development of a general model to estimate the imprecision of length and area measurements computed from the geometry of objects of weakly informed geographical databases. In order to parameterize automatically a digitizing error simulation model, the characteristic capture scale is required. Thus, after a definition of the different notions of scales in geographical databases, the proposed method is presented. The goal of the method is to model the relation between the level of detail of a geographical database, by exploring inter-vertices distances, and its characteristic capture scale. To calibrate the model, a digitizing test experiment is provided, showing a clear relation between median intervertices distance and characteristic capture scale. The proposed knowledge extraction method proves to be the usefull in order to parameterize the measurement imprecision estimation model, and more generally to inform the database user when the capture scale is unknown. Nevertheless, further experiments need to be provided to improve the method, and model the relation between level of detail and capture scale with more efficiency.
EXTRACTING AND COMPARING PLACES USING GEO-SOCIAL MEDIA
Authors: Ostermann F. O. , Huang H. , Andrienko G. , Andrienko N. , Capineri C. , Farkas K. , Purves R. S.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Increasing availability of Geo-Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Foursquare and Flickr) has led to the accumulation of large volumes of social media data. These data, especially geotagged ones, contain information about perception of and experiences in various environments. Harnessing these data can be used to provide a better understanding of the semantics of places. We are interested in the similarities or differences between different Geo-Social Media in the description of places. This extended abstract presents the results of a first step towards a more in-depth study of semantic similarity of places. Particularly, we took places extracted through spatio-temporal clustering from one data source (Twitter) and examined whether their structure is reflected semantically in another data set (Flickr). Based on that, we analyse how the semantic similarity between places varies over space and scale, and how Tobler's first law of geography holds with regards to scale and places.
VGI QUALITY CONTROL
Authors: Fonte C. C. , Bastin L. , Foody G. , Kellenberger T. , Kerle N. , Mooney P. , Olteanu-Raimond A.-M. , See L.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. This paper presents a framework for considering quality control of volunteered geographic information (VGI). Different issues need to be considered during the conception, acquisition and post-acquisition phases of VGI creation. This includes items such as collecting metadata on the volunteer, providing suitable training, giving corrective feedback during the mapping process and use of control data, among others. Two examples of VGI data collection are then considered with respect to this quality control framework, i.e. VGI data collection by National Mapping Agencies and by the most recent Geo-Wiki tool, a game called Cropland Capture. Although good practices are beginning to emerge, there is still the need for the development and sharing of best practice, especially if VGI is to be integrated with authoritative map products or used for calibration and/or validation of land cover in the future.
EVALUATION OF MATCHING STRATEGIES FOR IMAGE-BASED MOBILE MAPPING
Authors: Cavegn S. , Haala N. , Nebiker S. , Rothermel M. , Zwölfer T.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The paper presents the implementation of a dense multi-view stereo matching pipeline for the evaluation of image sequences from a camera-based mobile mapping system. For this purpose the software system SURE is taken as a basis. Originally this system was developed to provide 3D point clouds or DEM from standard airborne and terrestrial image blocks. Since mobile mapping scenarios typically include stereo configurations with camera motion predominantly in viewing direction, processing steps like image rectification and structure computation of the existing processing pipeline had to be adapted. The presented investigations are based on imagery captured by the mobile mapping system of the Institute of Geomatics Engineering in the city center of Basel, Switzerland. For evaluation, reference point clouds from terrestrial laser scanning are used. Our first results already demonstrate a considerable increase in reliability and completeness of both depth maps and point clouds as result of the matching process.
ROAD ORTHOPHOTO/DTM GENERATION FROM MOBILE LASER SCANNING
Authors: Vallet B. , Papelard J.-P.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. This paper proposes a pipeline to produce road orthophoto and DTM from Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS). For the ortho, modern laser scanners provide a reflectance information allowing for high quality grayscale images, at a much finer resolution than aerial photography can offer. For DTM, MLS offers a much higher accuracy and density than aerial products. This increased precision and resolution leverages new applications for both ortho and DEM. The first task is to filter ground vs non ground, then an interpolation is conducted to build image tiles from the filtered points. Finally, multiple layers are registered and blended to allow for seamless fusion. Our proposed approach achieves high quality products and scaling up is demonstrated.
FREE SHAPE CONTEXT DESCRIPTORS OPTIMIZED WITH GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR THE DETECTION OF DEAD TREE TRUNKS IN ALS POINT CLOUDS
Authors: Polewski P. , Yao W. , Heurich M. , Krzystek P. , Stilla U.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. In this paper, a new family of shape descriptors called Free Shape Contexts (FSC) is introduced to generalize the existing 3D Shape Contexts. The FSC introduces more degrees of freedom than its predecessor by allowing the level of complexity to vary between its parts. Also, each part of the FSC has an associated activity state which controls whether the part can contribute a feature value. We describe a method of evolving the FSC parameters for the purpose of creating highly discriminative features suitable for detecting specific objects in sparse point clouds. The evolutionary process is built on a genetic algorithm (GA) which optimizes the parameters with respect to cross-validated overall classification accuracy. The GA manipulates both the structure of the FSC and the activity flags, allowing it to perform an implicit feature selection alongside the structure optimization by turning off segments which do not augment the discriminative capabilities. We apply the proposed descriptor to the problem of detecting single standing dead tree trunks from ALS point clouds. The experiment, carried out on a set of 285 objects, reveals that an FSC optimized through a GA with manually tuned recombination parameters is able to attain a classification accuracy of 84.2%, yielding an increase of 4.2 pp compared to features derived from eigenvalues of the 3D covariance matrix. Also, we address the issue of automatically tuning the GA recombination metaparameters. For this purpose, a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) which dynamically adjusts the magnitude of the recombination effects is co-evolved with the FSC parameters in a two-tier evolution scheme. We find that it is possible to obtain an FLC which retains the classification accuracy of the manually tuned variant, thereby limiting the need for guessing the appropriate meta-parameter values.
EDGE BASED 3D INDOOR CORRIDOR MODELING USING A SINGLE IMAGE
Authors: Baligh Jahromi A. , Sohn G.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Reconstruction of spatial layout of indoor scenes from a single image is inherently an ambiguous problem. However, indoor scenes are usually comprised of orthogonal planes. The regularity of planar configuration (scene layout) is often recognizable, which provides valuable information for understanding the indoor scenes. Most of the current methods define the scene layout as a single cubic primitive. This domain-specific knowledge is often not valid in many indoors where multiple corridors are linked each other. In this paper, we aim to address this problem by hypothesizing-verifying multiple cubic primitives representing the indoor scene layout. This method utilizes middle-level perceptual organization, and relies on finding the ground-wall and ceiling-wall boundaries using detected line segments and the orthogonal vanishing points. A comprehensive interpretation of these edge relations is often hindered due to shadows and occlusions. To handle this problem, the proposed method introduces virtual rays which aid in the creation of a physically valid cubic structure by using orthogonal vanishing points. The straight line segments are extracted from the single image and the orthogonal vanishing points are estimated by employing the RANSAC approach. Many scene layout hypotheses are created through intersecting random line segments and virtual rays of vanishing points. The created hypotheses are evaluated by a geometric reasoning-based objective function to find the best fitting hypothesis to the image. The best model hypothesis offered with the highest score is then converted to a 3D model. The proposed method is fully automatic and no human intervention is necessary to obtain an approximate 3D reconstruction.
JOINT 3D ESTIMATION OF VEHICLES AND SCENE FLOW
Authors: Menze M. , Heipke C. , Geiger A.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. driving. While much progress has been made in recent years, imaging conditions in natural outdoor environments are still very challenging for current reconstruction and recognition methods. In this paper, we propose a novel unified approach which reasons jointly about 3D scene flow as well as the pose, shape and motion of vehicles in the scene. Towards this goal, we incorporate a deformable CAD model into a slanted-plane conditional random field for scene flow estimation and enforce shape consistency between the rendered 3D models and the parameters of all superpixels in the image. The association of superpixels to objects is established by an index variable which implicitly enables model selection. We evaluate our approach on the challenging KITTI scene flow dataset in terms of object and scene flow estimation. Our results provide a prove of concept and demonstrate the usefulness of our method.
PROBABILISTIC MULTI-PERSON TRACKING USING DYNAMIC BAYES NETWORKS
Authors: Klinger T. , Rottensteiner F. , Heipke C.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Tracking-by-detection is a widely used practice in recent tracking systems. These usually rely on independent single frame detections that are handled as observations in a recursive estimation framework. If these observations are imprecise the generated trajectory is prone to be updated towards a wrong position. In contrary to existing methods our novel approach uses a Dynamic Bayes Network in which the state vector of a recursive Bayes filter, as well as the location of the tracked object in the image are modelled as unknowns. These unknowns are estimated in a probabilistic framework taking into account a dynamic model, and a state-of-the-art pedestrian detector and classifier. The classifier is based on the Random Forest-algorithm and is capable of being trained incrementally so that new training samples can be incorporated at runtime. This allows the classifier to adapt to the changing appearance of a target and to unlearn outdated features. The approach is evaluated on a publicly available benchmark. The results confirm that our approach is well suited for tracking pedestrians over long distances while at the same time achieving comparatively good geometric accuracy.
GLOBAL ROTATION ESTIMATION USING WEIGHTED ITERATIVE LIE ALGEBRAIC AVERAGING
Authors: Reich M. , Heipke C.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. In this paper we present an approach for a weighted rotation averaging to estimate absolute rotations from relative rotations between two images for a set of multiple overlapping images. The solution does not depend on initial values for the unknown parameters and is robust against outliers. Our approach is one part of a solution for a global image orientation. Often relative rotations are not free from outliers, thus we use the redundancy in available pairwise relative rotations and present a novel graph-based algorithm to detect and eliminate inconsistent rotations. The remaining relative rotations are input to a weighted least squares adjustment performed in the Lie algebra of the rotation manifold SO(3) to obtain absolute orientation parameters for each image. Weights are determined using the prior information we derived from the estimation of the relative rotations. Because we use the Lie algebra of SO(3) for averaging no subsequent adaptation of the results has to be performed but the lossless projection to the manifold. We evaluate our approach on synthetic and real data. Our approach often is able to detect and eliminate all outliers from the relative rotations even if very high outlier rates are present. We show that we improve the quality of the estimated absolute rotations by introducing individual weights for the relative rotations based on various indicators. In comparison with the state-of-the-art in recent publications to global image orientation we achieve best results in the examined datasets.
DETECTION OF OIL POLLUTION HOTSPOTS AND LEAK SOURCES THROUGH THE QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE PERSISTENCE AND TEMPORAL REPETITION OF REGULAR OIL SPILLS IN THE CASPIAN SEA USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS
Authors: Bayramov E. R. , Buchroithner M. F. , Bayramov R. V.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The main goal of this research was to detect oil spills, to determine the oil spill frequencies and to approximate oil leak sources around the Oil Rocks Settlement, the Chilov and Pirallahi Islands in the Caspian Sea using 136 multi-temporal ENVISAT Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar Wide Swath Medium Resolution Images acquired during 2006-2010. The following oil spill frequencies were observed around the Oil Rocks Settlement, the Chilov and Pirallahi Islands: 2-10 (3471.04 sq. km.), 11-20 (971.66 sq. km.), 21-50 (692.44 sq. km.), 51-128 (191.38 sq. km.). The most critical oil leak sources with the frequency range of 41-128 were observed at the Oil Rocks Settlement. The exponential regression analysis between wind speeds and oil slick areas detected from 136 multi-temporal ENVISAT images revealed the regression coefficient equal to 63%. The regression model showed that larger oil spill areas were observed with decreasing wind speeds. The spatiotemporal patterns of currents in the Caspian Sea explained the multi-directional spatial distribution of oil spills around Oil Rocks Settlement, the Chilov and Pirallahi Islands. The linear regression analysis between detected oil spill frequencies and predicted oil contamination probability by the stochastic model showed the positive trend with the regression coefficient of 30%.
IMPROVING CAR NAVIGATION WITH A VISION-BASED SYSTEM
Authors: Kim H. , Choi K. , Lee I.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. The real-time acquisition of the accurate positions is very important for the proper operations of driver assistance systems or autonomous vehicles. Since the current systems mostly depend on a GPS and map-matching technique, they show poor and unreliable performance in blockage and weak areas of GPS signals. In this study, we propose a vision oriented car navigation method based on sensor fusion with a GPS and in-vehicle sensors. We employed a single photo resection process to derive the position and attitude of the camera and thus those of the car. This image georeferencing results are combined with other sensory data under the sensor fusion framework for more accurate estimation of the positions using an extended Kalman filter. The proposed system estimated the positions with an accuracy of 15 m although GPS signals are not available at all during the entire test drive of 15 minutes. The proposed vision based system can be effectively utilized for the low-cost but high-accurate and reliable navigation systems required for intelligent or autonomous vehicles.
A SENSOR AIDED H.264/AVC VIDEO ENCODER FOR AERIAL VIDEO SEQUENCES WITH IN THE LOOP METADATA CORRECTION
Authors: Cicala L. , Angelino C. V. , Ruatta G. , Baccaglini E. , Raimondo N.
Published: August 2015

Abstract. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are often employed to collect high resolution images in order to perform image mosaicking and/or 3D reconstruction. Images are usually stored on board and then processed with on-ground desktop software. In such a way the computational load, and hence the power consumption, is moved on ground, leaving on board only the task of storing data. Such an approach is important in the case of small multi-rotorcraft UAVs because of their low endurance due to the short battery life. Images can be stored on board with either still image or video data compression. Still image system are preferred when low frame rates are involved, because video coding systems are based on motion estimation and compensation algorithms which fail when the motion vectors are significantly long and when the overlapping between subsequent frames is very small. In this scenario, UAVs attitude and position metadata from the Inertial Navigation System (INS) can be employed to estimate global motion parameters without video analysis. A low complexity image analysis can be still performed in order to refine the motion field estimated using only the metadata. In this work, we propose to use this refinement step in order to improve the position and attitude estimation produced by the navigation system in order to maximize the encoder performance. Experiments are performed on both simulated and real world video sequences.