Chaotic Rivest-Shamir-Adlerman Algorithm with Data Encryption Standard Scheduling

Cryptography, which involves the use of a cipher, describes a process of encrypting information so that its meaning is hidden and thus, secured from those who do not know how to decrypt the information. Cryptography algorithms come with the various types including the symmetric key algorithms and asymmetric key algorithms. In this paper, the authors applied the most commonly used algorithm, which is the RSA algorithm together with the Chaos system and the basic security device employed in the worldwide organizations which is the Data Encryption Standard (DES) with the objective to make a hybrid data encryption. The advantage of a chaos system which is its unpredictability through the use of multiple keys and the secrecy of the RSA which is based on integer factorization's difficulty is combined for a more secure and reliable cryptography. The key generation was made more secure by applying the DES schedule to change the keys for encryption. The main strength of the proposed system is the chaotic variable key generator that chages the value of encrypted message whenever a different number of key is used. Using the provided examples the strength of security of the proposed system was tested and demonstrated

Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora

Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by forest type, as predictor, our spatial model, to the best of our knowledge, provides the most accurate map of tree diversity in Amazonia to date, explaining approximately 70% of the tree diversity and species-richness. Large soil-forest combinations determine a significant percentage of the variation in tree species-richness and tree alpha-diversity in Amazonian forest-plots. We suggest that the size and fragmentation of these systems drive their large-scale diversity patterns and hence local diversity. A model not using location but cumulative water deficit, tree density, and temperature seasonality explains 47% of the tree species-richness in the terra-firme forest in Amazonia. Over large areas across Amazonia, residuals of this relationship are small and poorly spatially structured, suggesting that much of the residual variation may be local. The Guyana Shield area has consistently negative residuals, showing that this area has lower tree species-richness than expected by our models. We provide extensive plot meta-data, including tree density, tree alpha-diversity and tree species-richness results and gridded maps at 0.1-degree resolution

Unraveling Amazon tree community assembly using Maximum Information Entropy: a quantitative analysis of tropical forest ecology

In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important constraints via predictions using least biased probability distributions. We apply it to over two thousand hectares of Amazonian tree inventories across seven forest types and thirteen functional traits, representing major global axes of plant strategies. Results show that constraints formed by regional relative abundances of genera explain eight times more of local relative abundances than constraints based on directional selection for specific functional traits, although the latter does show clear signals of environmental dependency. These results provide a quantitative insight by inference from large-scale data using cross-disciplinary methods, furthering our understanding of ecological dynamics

Unraveling Amazon tree community assembly using Maximum Information Entropy: a quantitative analysis of tropical forest ecology

In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important constraints via predictions using least biased probability distributions. We apply it to over two thousand hectares of Amazonian tree inventories across seven forest types and thirteen functional traits, representing major global axes of plant strategies. Results show that constraints formed by regional relative abundances of genera explain eight times more of local relative abundances than constraints based on directional selection for specific functional traits, although the latter does show clear signals of environmental dependency. These results provide a quantitative insight by inference from large-scale data using cross-disciplinary methods, furthering our understanding of ecological dynamics

Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora

Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by forest type, as predictor, our spatial model, to the best of our knowledge, provides the most accurate map of tree diversity in Amazonia to date, explaining approximately 70% of the tree diversity and species-richness. Large soil-forest combinations determine a significant percentage of the variation in tree species-richness and tree alpha-diversity in Amazonian forest-plots. We suggest that the size and fragmentation of these systems drive their large-scale diversity patterns and hence local diversity. A model not using location but cumulative water deficit, tree density, and temperature seasonality explains 47% of the tree species-richness in the terra-firme forest in Amazonia. Over large areas across Amazonia, residuals of this relationship are small and poorly spatially structured, suggesting that much of the residual variation may be local. The Guyana Shield area has consistently negative residuals, showing that this area has lower tree species-richness than expected by our models. We provide extensive plot meta-data, including tree density, tree alpha-diversity and tree species-richness results and gridded maps at 0.1-degree resolution

One sixth of Amazonian tree diversity is dependent on river floodplains

Amazonia’s floodplain system is the largest and most biodiverse on Earth. Although forests are crucial to the ecological integrity of floodplains, our understanding of their species composition and how this may differ from surrounding forest types is still far too limited, particularly as changing inundation regimes begin to reshape floodplain tree communities and the critical ecosystem functions they underpin. Here we address this gap by taking a spatially explicit look at Amazonia-wide patterns of tree-species turnover and ecological specialization of the region’s floodplain forests. We show that the majority of Amazonian tree species can inhabit floodplains, and about a sixth of Amazonian tree diversity is ecologically specialized on floodplains. The degree of specialization in floodplain communities is driven by regional flood patterns, with the most compositionally differentiated floodplain forests located centrally within the fluvial network and contingent on the most extraordinary flood magnitudes regionally. Our results provide a spatially explicit view of ecological specialization of floodplain forest communities and expose the need for whole-basin hydrological integrity to protect the Amazon’s tree diversity and its function

Maturity classification of cacao through spectrogram and convolutional neural network

Cacao pod's ideal harvesting time is when it is about to be ripe. Immature harvest would result in hard cacao beans not suitable for fermentation, while overripe cacao pods lead to fungal-infected, defective, and poor-quality yields. The demand for high-quality cacao products is expected to rise due to advancing technology in the present. Pre-harvesting needs to provide optimal identification of which amongst the pods are ripened enough and ready for the next stage of the cacao process. This paper recommends a technique to determine the ripeness of cacao. Nine hundred thirty-three cacao samples were used to collect thumping audio data at five different pod's exocarp locations. Each sound file is 1 second long, creating 4665 cacao sound file datasets at 16kHz sample rate and 16-bit audio bit depth. The process of the Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficient Spectrogram was then applied to extract recognizable features for the training process. The deep learning method integrated was a convolutional neural network (CNN) to classify the cacao sound successfully. The experimental design model's output exhibits an accuracy of 97.50 % for the training data and 97.13 % for the validation data. While the overall accuracy mean of the classification system is 97.46 %, whether the cacao is unripe or ripe