Forest ecotone survey by line intersect sampling

Given their ecological relevance, the survey of ecotones is of considerable interest in forest multiresource inventory. To this end, it is useful to set up survey procedures to provide efficient and reliable information about the length of such elements within the landscape mosaic. This note demonstrates a procedure based upon line intersect sampling on remotely sensed imagery. The estimate of ecotone length per unit area is obtained by visual interpretation of the changes from forest to other land use classes along each sampling line. The experimentation carried out in two test areas within forest landscapes of central Italy proves the operative soundness of the proposed procedure, which is more efficient than the classical approach by forest polygon delineation and perimeter mensuration in a GIS environment. Under the examined conditions, samples based on a moderately high number of lines characterized by relatively long length prove to be more efficient than those based on shorter survey units.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.nrcresearchpress.co

Potenzialità del telerilevamento laser scanner aereo per la classificazione delle coperture forestali in funzione della forma di governo

In questo studio è stata valutata la potenzialità del telerilevamento laser scanner aereo (ALS) per classificare le forme di governo forestale in un bosco misto di latifoglie. La metodologia applicata prevede l’utilizzo del modello digitale delle chiome (CHM) ottenuto da dati ALS e l’impiego di procedure automatizzate per la segmentazione object-oriented delle immagini telerilevate. La classificazione delle forme di governo si basa sulle metriche estratte dal CHM. I risultati ottenuti indicano che la media delle altezze e il coefficiente di variazione delle altezze estratti dal CHM sono utili per distinguere i boschi governati a ceduo da quelli governati a fustaiaIn this study aerial laser scanning (ALS) data has been tested to classify coppice stands and high forest stands in a mixed broadleaved forest. The method is based on a canopy height model (CHM) obtained from ALS data. Forest stands have been delineated using a object-oriented approach. The polygons have been classified into coppices and high forests based on the metrics derived from CHM. Our results indicate that the mean of the heights and the coefficient of variation of the heights extracted from CHM are useful to discriminate coppices from high forests.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.asita.i

General purpose readout board {\pi} LUP: overview and results

This work gives an overview of the PCI-Express board $\pi$LUP, focusing on the motivation that led to its development, the technological choices adopted and its performance. The $\pi$LUP card was designed by INFN and University of Bologna as a readout interface candidate to be used after the Phase-II upgrade of the Pixel Detector of the ATLAS and CMS experiments at LHC. The same team in Bologna is also responsible for the design and commissioning of the ReadOut Driver (ROD) board - currently implemented in all the four layers of the ATLAS Pixel Detector (Insertable B-Layer, B-Layer, Layer-1 and Layer-2) - and acquired in the past years expertise on the ATLAS readout chain and the problematics arising in such experiments. Although the $\pi$LUP was designed to fulfill a specific task, it is highly versatile and might fit a wide variety of applications, some of which will be discussed in this work. Two 7$^{th}$-generation Xilinx FPGAs are mounted on the board: a Zynq-7 with an embedded dual core ARM Processor and a Kintex-7. The latter features sixteen 12.5$\,$Gbps transceivers, allowing the board to interface easily to any other electronic board, either electrically and/or optically, at the current bandwidth of the experiments for LHC. Many data-transmission protocols have been tested at different speeds, results will be discussed later in this work. Two batches of $\pi$LUP boards have been fabricated and tested, two boards in the first batch (version 1.0) and four boards in the second batch (version 1.1), encapsulating all the patches and improvements required by the first version.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, 21th Real Time Conference, winner of "2018 NPSS Student Paper Award Second Prize

K-NN FOREST: a software for the non-parametric prediction and mapping of environmental variables by the k-Nearest Neighbors algorithm

In the last decades researchers investigated the possibility of extending the information collected in sampling units during a field survey to wider geographical areas through the use of remotely sensed images. One of the most widely adopted approaches is based on the non-parametric k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN) algorithm. This contribution describes the software K-NN FOREST we developed to provide a complete tool for the implementation of the k-NN technique to generate spatially explicit estimations (maps) of a response variable acquired in the field by sampling units through the use of remotely sensed data or other ancillary variables. K-NN FOREST is designed to guide the user through a graphic user interface in the different phases of the process. K-NN FOREST is freely available for download and it is designed to run under Windows environment in conjunction with the GIS software IDRISI

Constitutional Development Without Constitutional Amendments. The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

openThe Western Balkan has always been a borderland between East and West and represented, for the 21st century, the scene of important geopolitical changes. Within the region, present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina can be observed as a place of great complexity: just think of the religious mix that has solidified over hundreds of years or the role that the murder of Archduke Francesco Ferdinando played in Sarajevo to understand the role more central than ever in the country in defining today's Europe. Outskirts and capital at the same time, Sarajevo represented a fruitful experiment in multiculturalism and inter-religiousness until the beginning of the Nineties, when, following the dissolution of Tito’s Yugoslavia, conflicts of independence broke out. Episodes, those of the war, which appear to be indissoluble from the current situation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on all fronts. The Peace Agreements for Bosnia and Herzegovina signed in Dayton and the subsequent actions of reconstruction of the state are at the centre of this work that moves its steps starting from key questions such as: What years of conflict have produced in Bosnian society? How have national and international actors moved to ensure peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina? What were and still are the main effects of the Daytonian system? Why do many believe that the Dayton Peace Agreement represent an element of instability in the framework of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina? Through the study of the parties in conflict and of the different motivations, in order to explain the desire to create an ethnically divided state, we will come to observe how Bosnia and Herzegovina presents itself today using different angles. The paradoxes contained in the Dayton Agreement; its top-bottom application without a real process of citizen involvement; and the prospects for improvement through the involvement of civil society are the three main fields of analysis used for this work. The objective, here, will be to observe the peace created by Dayton and the socio-political ecosystem created by it after the thirty anniversary of the signing of the 8 pax daytoniana. It will shed light on the limits created by it as regards a possible peaceful coexistence between the Croatian, Bosniaks and Serbian communities, focusing the observation on the important role that the citizens themselves could play in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the real overcoming of the sectarian division between ethnic groups. The constitutional ban imposed on those who belong to the "Others" category to access the highest political arenas of the country represented a crucial node in Bosnia in recent years and in its delicate relationship with the European institutions