Spatiotemporal Assessment of Vegetation Indices and Land Cover for Erbil City and Its Surrounding Using Modis Imageries

The rate of global urbanization is exponentially increasing and reducing areas of natural vegetation. Remote sensing can determine spatiotemporal changes in vegetation and urban land cover. The aim of this work is to assess spatiotemporal variations of two vegetation indices (VI), the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), in addition land cover in and around Erbil city area between the years 2000 and 2015. MODIS satellite imagery and GIS techniques were used to determine the impact of urbanization on the surrounding quasi-natural vegetation cover. Annual mean vegetation indices were used to determine the presence of a spatiotemporal trend, including a visual interpretation of time-series MODIS VI imagery. Dynamics of vegetation gain or loss were also evaluated through the study of land cover type changes, to determine the impact of increasing urbanization on the surrounding areas of the city. Monthly rainfall, humidity and temperature changes over the 15-year-period were also considered to enhance the understanding of vegetation change dynamics. There was no evidence of correlation between any climate variable compared to the vegetation indices. Based on NDVI and EVI MODIS imagery the spatial distribution of urban areas in Erbil and the bare around it has expanded. Consequently, the vegetation area has been cleared and replaced over the past 15 years by urban growth

Monitoring urban greenness evolution using multitemporal Landsat imagery in the city of Erbil (Iraq)

Most cities in the world have experienced major developments in the past 20–25 years. However, research has showed that the development aspect of these cities has led to a decrease in green areas. This paper aims to assess the spatiotemporal variations of urban green areas during the period 1990–2015 with special regard to city of Erbil. The study uses a mix of fuzzy functions, linear spectral mixture analysis, and maximum likelihood classification for the classification of Landsat imagery from 1990 to 2015 to extract the four main classes of land use, namely agricultural land, vacant land, built-up land, and green vegetation. Both the classification approaches used in this research produced excellent and reliable results, as an overall accuracy of more than 80% was able to be obtained. The spatiotemporal analysis of land use within the city of Erbil shows a series of major changes between 1990 and 2015. Therefore, the results of the spatiotemporal evolution of urban greenness assessment in the Erbil region can be used both for spatial planning purposes and as an urban greenness assessment method in dry climate areas

Solving Robin problems in bounded doubly connected regions via an integral equation with the eneralized Neumann Kernel

This paper presents a boundary integral equation method for finding the solution of Robin problems in bounded multiply connected regions. The Robin problems are formulated as a Riemann-Hilbert problems which lead to systems of integral equations and the related differential equations are also constructed that give rise to unique solutions are shown. Numerical results on several test regions are presented to illustrate that the approximate solution when using this method for the Robin problems when the boundaries are sufficiently smooth are accurate

New mutations in the Lamin A/C gene in patients with familiar dilative cardiomyopathy

Wir untersuchten 73 nichtverwandte Indexpatienten mit gesicherter familiärer DCM. Ein Screening auf Mutationen wurde mittels PCR, direkter Sequenzierung, Single-Strand-Conformational-Polymorphism-Analyse und Restriktionsverdau in den 12 kodierenden Exons des LMNA-Gens durchgeführt. Drei verschiedene heterozygote Basenaustausch-Mutationen wurden in drei nichtverwandten Patienten (4% des Kollektivs) gefunden. Wir konnten außerdem 5 verschiedene bekannte synonyme SNPs in 5 verschiedenen Exons in einer großen Anzahl von Patienten identifizieren.We investigated 73 non-related index patients with known familial dilative cardiomyopathy. Screening for mutations was performed by PCR, direct sequencing, single strand conformation polymorphism analysis and restriction fragment lengths polymorphism in the 12 coded exons of the LMNA gene. Three different heterozygotic base exchange mutations were found in three non- related patients (4% of the collective). Further, we identified five known synonymous SNPs in five different exons in a large number of patients

Nystrom method for solving non-uniquely solvable interior Riemann-Hilbert problem on region with corners via integral equation

This work involve a boundary integral equation method to find the non-uniquely solvable numerical solution of the Interior Riemann-Hilbert problem on a region with corners. The integral equation was derived based on the Fredholm integral equation of the second kind with continuous kernel and the solvability of the integral equation and its equivalence to the problem is reviewed the derived integral equation in this research for the non-uniquely solvable interior Riemann-Hilbert problem on a region with corners will be computed in achieving this aim, this study developed two numerical formulas where the Nystrom method with the Gaussian quadrature rule are implemented. So that, the singularities are eliminated during numerical integration. Numerical examples on four test regions with 0ff-corners are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this formulation

Spatiotemporal Assessment of Vegetation Indices and Land Cover for Erbil City and Its Surrounding Using Modis Imageries

The rate of global urbanization is exponentially increasing and reducing areas of natural vegetation. Remote sensing can determine spatiotemporal changes in vegetation and urban land cover. The aim of this work is to assess spatiotemporal variations of two vegetation indices (VI), the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), in addition land cover in and around Erbil city area between the years 2000 and 2015. MODIS satellite imagery and GIS techniques were used to determine the impact of urbanization on the surrounding quasi-natural vegetation cover. Annual mean vegetation indices were used to determine the presence of a spatiotemporal trend, including a visual interpretation of time-series MODIS VI imagery. Dynamics of vegetation gain or loss were also evaluated through the study of land cover type changes, to determine the impact of increasing urbanization on the surrounding areas of the city. Monthly rainfall, humidity and temperature changes over the 15-year-period were also considered to enhance the understanding of vegetation change dynamics. There was no evidence of correlation between any climate variable compared to the vegetation indices. Based on NDVI and EVI MODIS imagery the spatial distribution of urban areas in Erbil and the bare around it has expanded. Consequently, the vegetation area has been cleared and replaced over the past 15 years by urban growth