Total Variation

This paper studies the total variation regularization model with an L 1 fidelity term (TV-L 1 ) for decomposing an image into features of different scales. We first show that the images produced by this model can be formed from the minimizers of a sequence of decoupled geometry subproblems. Using this result we show that the TV-L 1 model is able to separate image features according to their scales, where the scale is analytically defined by the G-value. A number of other properties including the geometric and morphological invariance of the TV-L 1 model are also proved and their applications discussed.

In this study, we investigated the environmental factors driving small mammal (rodents and shrews) assemblages in permanent habitat patches in response to a gradient of agricultural intensification. Small mammals were sampled using a trapping standard method in the hedgerow networks of three contrasted landscapes differing by their level of landuse intensity and hedgerow network density (BOC1: slightly intensified; BOC2: moderately intensified and POL: highly intensified). We hypothesized that habitat and landscape characteristics have to be considered to understand the structure of local community. In that way, we carried out a multi-scale study using environmental variables ranging from local habitat (structure and composition of the hedgerows) to hedgerows neighbourhoods in a radius of 300 m (land cover and connectivity around hedges) and to landscape units (three sites). During 1 year, 24 hedgerows were sampled seven times, representing a total of 1,379 captures (86% of rodents and 14% of shrews) and eight species, dominated by the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) and the bank vole (Clethrionomys glareolus). Inter-site variability was significant and accounted for 18% of total variation in small mammal species abundances. But intra-site variability was also highlighted: species abundance profiles may differ greatly among hedgerows within a site. The more explanatory variables were identified at the different scales of the study: the landscape unit POL was shown to be an important factor in structuring the community, but the predominant factors explaining differences of abundances among hedgerows were about local habitat. In fact, the width of hedges and the tree species richness appeared to be significant and explaining the greatest part of the total variation of the small mammal community composition.

Spatio-temporal variations in the water quality of the Chao Phraya River, Thailand, were examined, on average-yearly basis, between 1999 and 2008, from 32 surface water stations from the river origin to the delta. Five water quality parameters viz., DO, BOD, TCB, FCB, NH3-N and water temperature were used in the analysis. Analysis was performed by using the Self Organizing Maps. Four distinct spatially approached clusters were classified, according to the similarity of water quality parameters, while temporal variations of most of the surface water stations were not obviously observed. The worst water quality condition was at the stations near the river delta and highly related to anthropogenic stresses. Result from the correspondence analysis showed that, except for the cluster of the worst water quality, the stations of the remaining three clusters were overlapped. There was no statistical difference in water temperature among clusters but the expected effects from climate change should be a precautionary focus since the will eventually affect the water quality.

We propose to use a kernel intensity penalizer (KIP) in the blind maximum likelihood expectation maximization (MLEM) deconvolution scheme. With this very general kernel regularization term, we can stabilize the blind MLEM scheme even for the deconvolution of wide-field microscopic recordings. No complex prior point spread function models are needed. We combine state of the art optimization schemes using Tikhonov-Miller and TV regularization with our new kernel regularization. The proposed method improves the conventional deconvolution methods in terms of SNR on real and simulated datasets.

A new approach based on nonlinear inversion for autocalibrated parallel imaging with arbitrary sampling patterns is presented. By extending the iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method with variational penalties, the improved reconstruction quality obtained from joint estimation of image and coil sensitivities is combined with the superior noise suppression of total variation and total generalized variation regularization. In addition, the proposed approach can lead to enhanced removal of sampling artifacts arising from pseudorandom and radial sampling patterns. This is demonstrated for phantom and in vivo measurements. Magn Reson Med 67:34-41, 2012.

We carry out an objective classification of four samples of spiral galaxies having extended rotation curves beyond the optical radius. A multivariate statistical analysis (viz., principal component analysis [PCA]) shows that about 96% of the total variation is due to two components, one being the combination of absolute blue magnitude and maximum rotational velocity beyond the optical region and the other being the central density of the halo. On the basis of PCA a fundamental plane has been constructed that reduces the scatter in the Tully-Fisher relation up to a maximum of 16%. A multiple stepwise regression analysis of the variation of the overall shape of the rotation curves shows that it is mainly determined by the central surface brightness, while the shape purely in the outer part of the galaxy (beyond the optical radius) is mainly determined by the size of the galactic disk.

Genetic diversity and relatedness were assessed among three most common commercial watermelon cultivars in Kenya; one newly introduced commercial cultivar from the U.S., one Kenyan landrace and one wild (Citrullus colocynthis) accession. The six accessions were grown in the field for two seasons under sub humid tropical conditions. Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications was used. Data was collected on morphological features of watermelon which include vine, leaf, flower, fruit and seed characteristics. A descriptor list with 21 morphological (qualitative and quantitative) characters was adopted from Diez et al., (2005) and Jarret and Griffin, and was refined and used in characterization. The data was used to calculate genetic similarity and to construct a dendrogram using the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic average (UPGMA). Data on quantitative characters was subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using SAS statistical package and effects declared significant at 5% level. The procedure PRINCOMP was then used to perform a principle component (PC) analysis using six quantitative variables and accessions plotted on two dimensions using the first two principle components (PC1 and PC2). The cluster analysis results demonstrated high morphological diversity (54-42%) between unimproved accessions (wild accession and landrace) and commercial cultivars and low morphological diversity (8-27%) among commercial cultivars. The ANOVA conducted on quantitative characters of cultivated accessions demonstrated highly significant variation between accessions. Results of the principle component analyses for the six quantitative traits indicated that the first two PCs explained 68% and 29% (a total of 97%) of the total variation. The low morphological diversity observed among commercial cultivars emphasizes the need to expand the genetic base of the cultivated watermelon in Kenya.

Within the vector-error correction (VEC) model, the short-run bilateral causal relationships among Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) weekly equity index returns are limited and mostly unidirectional. Their relationships with three global factors (the oil price, the US S&P 500 index, and the US T-bill rate) suggest that the US T-bill rate has direct influence on some of these segmented GCC markets. The S&P 500 index and the Western Texas Intermediate (WTI) or the Brent oil price have no such direct impact, implying that local or regional factors such as liquidity and profitability directly affect them. In contrast, the impulse response analysis suggests that the S&P 500 shocks have positive dynamic impacts on all GCC markets over a 20-week forecast horizon, implying that GCC stock markets rise with US markets, while the impact of the T-bill rate is important but mixed. Moreover, a positive oil shock will benefit most of GCC markets. The variance decomposition implies that the largest portions of total variations in GCC index returns come from their own domestic or other GCC shocks over the forecast horizon. Excepting the oil price factor, which accounts for 30 percent of Oman's and 19 percent of Saudi Arabia's total variations, the global factors account for only a small percentage of these stock markets' total variations.

In this paper we formulate a new time dependent convolutional model for superresolution based on a constrained variational model that uses the total variation of the signal as a regularizing functional. We propose an iterative refinement procedure based on Bregman iteration to improve spatial resolution. The model uses a dataset of low resolution images and incorporates a downsampling operator to relate the high resolution scale to the low resolution one. We present an algorithm for the model and we perform a series of numerical experiments to show evidence of the good behavior of the numerical scheme and quality of the results.

For a Jordan domain with smooth boundary, the boundary rotation h is defined as the total variation of the direction angle of the tangent to the boundary curve under a complete circuit. The domain is said to have bounded turning or rotation if h < 1 and the functions under such mappings are called functions of bounded boundary turning or rotation. We define a generalization of this concept and examine some of its properties. A few open problems are also stated for further explorations. Ó 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Title. Burnout and 'stress of conscience' among healthcare personnel Aim. This paper reports a study examining factors that may contribute to burnout among healthcare personnel. Background. The impact on burnout of factors such as workload and interpersonal conflicts is well-documented. However, although health care is a moral endeavour, little is known about the impact of moral strain. Interviews reveal that healthcare personnel experience a troubled conscience when they feel that they cannot provide the good care that they wish -and believe it is their dutyto give. Methods. In this cross-sectional study, conducted in 2003, a sample of 423 healthcare personnel in Sweden completed a battery of questionnaires comprising the Maslach Burnout Inventory, Perception of Conscience Questionnaire, Stress of Conscience Questionnaire, Social Interactions Scale, Resilience Scale and a personal/work demographic form.

In this paper the reconstruction of damaged piecewice constant color images is studied using a RGB total variation based model for colorization/inpainting. In particular, it is shown that when color is known in a uniformly distributed region, then reconstruction is possible with maximal fidelity.

... initiated to assess variation in fruits, nuts and kernels of some important indigenous tree species such as Adansonia digitata ([Assogbadjo et al., 2005], [Assogbadjo et al., 2006] and [Assogbadjo et al., 2011]), Tamarindus indica (Fandohan et al., 2011), Balanites aegyptiaca ...

The present study is based on data recorded from fish of the third generation of the GIFT project (Genetic Improvement of Farmed Tilapias). The objective of the study was to compose a synthetic base population of Nile tilapia for further selective breeding, and to estimate phenotypic and genetic parameters in that population. The base population was formed by choosing parent stock among the best performing animals within the best strain combinations resulting from a full diallel cross design (8 × 8) involving four African wild strains and four Asian farmed strains (64 strain combination cells altogether). The grandparent ancestors of the base population were mainly representing the three strains originating from Egypt, Kenya and Thailand (20.2, 27.3 and 19.6%, respectively). The proportion of ancestors from the Senegal strain was medium (12.2%) whereas the proportion of ancestors from Ghana, Israel, Singapore and Taiwan strains was low (3 to 8%) and mainly due to a restriction that all parent strains should be represented in the synthetic base. Statistical analyses using a mixed animal model were carried out on records from 13,570 individually tagged and surviving progeny of 50 sires and 123 dams. The growth performance of the fish was tested in seven diverse environments. The test environments covered a wide range of tilapia farming systems, namely, earthen ponds fertilized with inorganic fertilizer and organic manure or on-farm agricultural residues, cage culture, and test stations located in different agro-climatic regions. The model fitted included the fixed effect of test environment and sex and the linear and quadratic covariate of age at stocking. The random terms were the additive genetic effect of individual fish and the additional effects common to full-sib groups. The estimates of heritability for body weight at harvest in different test environments ranged from moderate to high (0.12 to 0.56) and the estimate across test environments was 0.15. The variances due to other effects common to full-sib families were significant, accounting for 8 to 16% of total variation in body weight. The genetic correlations among body weights recorded in similar environments were high (mostly N 0.80, i.e. among the earthen ponds in experimental locations). By contrast, the genetic correlations between harvest weight in earthen pond and in cage environments were more variable (0.36-0.82). Overall, the results suggested that the genotype by environment interactions were of limited importance, at least for the target pond farming systems in the Philippines. It was concluded that as the additive genetic variation in the base population was large, the harvest weight of the GIFT fish could be effectively improved by selective breeding, and that there was no immediate need to develop separate strains for different environments.

Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) caused by a group of begomoviruses and transmitted by whitefly vector is a serious disease in all the cassava-growing areas of Africa. Field evaluation with replication was conducted in 2003 and 2004 in three agroecologies in Nigeria to study the response of 40 cassava genotypes to CMD and to investigate genotype · environment (GE) interactions on their reactions to CMD, using the rank-sum classification and site regression analysis model. The 40 genotypes were separated into resistant (n = 17), moderately resistant (n = 6), moderately susceptible (n = 2) and susceptible (n = 15) groups. Environments, genotypes and GE interactions were all highly significant (P < 0.0001) for the virus disease contributing 9.5%, 71.36% and 19.14%, respectively to total variation. More than 40% of the genotypes were identified as resistant to the disease. Genotypes TMS 98/0581, TMS 99/3073, TMS 97/4763, TMS M98/0040, TMS 98/0505, TMS 97/0211, TMS 97/4769, TMS 99/2123, TMS M98/0068 and TMS 97/0162 were shown to have high resistance to CMD. The study also identified Umudike, in south-east Nigeria, as having high disease severity and the most appropriate site for CMD resistance screening of genotypes. Most of the genotypes exhibited stable resistance to CMD. The implication that the availability of these resistant genotypes as identified in this study could be a source of CMD resistance for further breeding is discussed.

The degree to which variation in species distribution is predictable from topographic variation is of considerable current interest. In this paper, canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), linear regression and principal coordinates of neighbour matrices (PCNM) models were used to explain the variation in the distributions of the 13 dominant species in a 20-ha tropical rain-forest plot in China. The results showed that: (1) Tree distribution maps show that some species are mainly found in the gullies of the plot, whereas others occur on the slopes. Which indicates topographic variables are important factors for the distribution pattern of species. (2) Both linear regression and CCA results show that convexity and elevation are the most important variables effecting distribution of trees. For saplings, elevation, convexity and aspect explain 15.3%, 9.0% and 10.1% of the total variation of species abundance. For poles, elevation and convexity explain 19.3% and 11.4% respectively. However, only 5.3% of the total variation is explained for adults. The PCNM results showed that topography alone explained 20%, 24% and 5% of the total variation of species abundance for saplings, poles and adults, respectively. Overall evidence for topographic control of the tropical tree distribution is strong, but the explanatory power of topographic variables was a small part of the total of variation.

Specific strains of silver fox (Vulpes vulpes) with markedly different behavioral phenotypes have been developed at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Foxes bred for docility demonstrate a friendly response to humans similar to that of domestic dogs. In contrast, foxes from a strain selected for aggressive behavior are aggressive towards humans, and difficult to handle. Because these genetically determined behavioral differences segregate in pedigrees of a single species they offer an unprecedented opportunity to identify the loci and genes responsible. Although these fox strains have been carefully studied for several decades, only recently has it become possible to consider a systematic approach to identify the loci and molecular mechanisms controlling these behavioral phenotypes. The recent development of modern tools for the dog genome has made analysis of the genetic basis of complex phenotypes in canids feasible, and enabled the current project to map the loci responsible for behavioral phenotypes in the silver fox. During the first phase of this project we developed tools and resources for genetic mapping in foxes. 1) A meiotic linkage map of the fox genome was constructed with 320 microsatellite markers adapted from the canine genome. The resulting sex-averaged map covers 16 fox autosomes and the X chromosome with an average inter-marker distance of 7.5 cM. 2) Three-generation experimental fox pedigrees segregating behaviors derived from the founder strains were developed by crossing tame and aggressive founders, then backcrossing F1 progeny to the tame strain. 3) A rigorous system for measuring behavior as a truly continuous variable has been implemented, utilizing Principal-components analysis. This newly refined method of behavioral assignment has identified 50 binary scoreable observations that non-redundantly and reliably distinguished behaviors in the reference populations and in experimental cross-breed pedigrees. The first principal component (PC1) accounts for approximately 37% of the total variation in behavior among foxes and is significantly related to the expected additive genetic distance between the populations. Identification of loci and genes underlying fox behavioral phenotypes promises to yield insight into the genetics of social behavior and its underlying molecular mechanisms, not only in foxes, but in other mammals, including humans and contribute into our understanding of the animal domestication process as a whole.

This paper presents a new formulation of the regularized image up-sampling problem that incorporates models of the image acquisition and display processes. We give a new analytic perspective that justifies the use of total-variation regularization from a signal processing perspective, based on an analysis that specifies the requirements of edge-directed filtering. This approach leads to a new data fidelity term that has been coupled with a total-variation regularizer to yield our objective function. This objective function is minimized using a level-sets motion that is based on the level-set method, with two types of motion that interact simultaneously. A new choice of these motions leads to a stable solution scheme that has a unique minimum. One aspect of the human visual system, perceptual uniformity, is treated in accordance with the linear nature of the data fidelity term. The method was implemented and has been verified to provide improved results, yielding crisp edges without introducing ringing or other artifacts.

External apical root resorption (EARR) can be an undesirable sequela of orthodontic treatment. Previous studies have suggested that EARR has a substantial genetic component. Linkage and association were examined between polymorphisms of the interleukin IL-1 (IL-1A and IL-1B) genes and EARR in 35 white American families. Buccal swab cells were collected for DNA isolation and analysis. The EARR in the maxillary central incisors, the mandibular central incisors, and the mesial and distal roots of the mandibular first molar were analyzed separately and together by using both linkage and association methods of analysis. Highly significant (P ϭ .0003) evidence of linkage disequilibrium of IL-1B polymorphism with the clinical manifestation of EARR was obtained. The analysis indicates that the IL-1B polymorphism accounts for 15% of the total variation of maxillary incisor EARR. Persons homozygous for the IL-1B allele 1 have a 5.6 fold (95% CI 1.9-21.2) increased risk of EARR greater than 2 mm as compared with those who are not homozygous for the IL-1␤ allele 1. Data indicate that allele 1 at the IL-1B gene, known to decrease the production of IL-1 cytokine in vivo, significantly increases the risk of EARR. These findings are consistent with an interpretation of EARR as a complex condition influenced by many factors, with the IL-1B gene contributing an important predisposition to this common problem. Defining genetic contributions to EARR is an important factor in understanding the contribution of environmental factors, such as habits and therapeutic biomechanics. (Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop 2003;123:242-52)

The majority of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) depend on maize (Zea mays L.), which is mostly grown in drought-prone areas. Understanding the inheritance of drought tolerance would help in developing drought-tolerant maize hybrids that would help increase maize production under erratic rainfalls. Twenty-four maize inbred lines were subjected to NC design II to generate 96 single-cross hybrids. The 24 inbred lines and their 96 hybrids were evaluated under managed drought-stress conditions between 2002 and 2005 at Ikenne, Nigeria. The objectives of this study were to determine the effects of drought-susceptible and drought-tolerant inbred lines on performance of their hybrids, investigate mode of inheritance of drought tolerance, and determine the relationship between parental lines and their hybrids. Most crosses with at least one drought-tolerant parent produced tolerant hybrids, and the crosses between susceptible inbred lines produced susceptible hybrids. General combining ability (GCA) accounted for 55% to 87% of total variation among hybrids for most of the traits. Additive genetic effects influenced grain yield under drought stress. Correlation coefficient between grain yield of the inbred lines and their hybrids was positive and highly significant (r = 0.46***) under severe drought stress and relatively low (r = 0.30**) under mild drought stress and well-watered (r = 0.34**) regimes. Grain yield of inbred lines represented >20% of hybrid yield under severe stress. KU1409, 1824, 9006, 9432, and TZMI501xKU1414x501 had positive GCA effects for yield under drought stress and could be used for developing drought-tolerant hybrids.

This paper disentangles the impact of schools and teachers in influencing achievement with special attention given to the potential problems of omitted or mismeasured variables and of student and school selection. Unique matched panel data from the UTD Texas Schools Project permit the identification of teacher quality based on student performance along with the impact of specific, measured components of teachers and schools. Semiparametric lower bound estimates of the variance in teacher quality based entirely on within-school heterogeneity indicate that teachers have powerful effects on reading and mathematics achievement, though little of the variation in teacher quality is explained by observable characteristics such as education or experience. The results suggest that the effects of a costly ten student reduction in class size are smaller than the benefit of moving one standard deviation up the teacher quality distribution, highlighting the importance of teacher effectiveness in the determination of school quality.

Bacterial community structure and microbial activity were determined together with a large number of contextual environmental parameters over 2 years in subtidal sands of the German Wadden Sea in order to identify the main factors shaping microbial community structure and activity in this habitat. Seasonal changes in temperature were directly reflected in bacterial activities and total community respiration, but could not explain variations in the community structure. Strong sediment depthrelated patterns were observed for bacterial abundances, carbon production rates and extracellular enzymatic activities. Bacterial community structure also showed a clear vertical variation with higher operational taxonomic unit (OTU) numbers at 10-15 cm depth than in the top 10 cm, probably because of the decreasing disturbance by hydrodynamic forces with sediment depth. The depthrelated variations in bacterial community structure could be attributed to vertical changes in bacterial abundances, chlorophyll a and NO 3 À , indicating that spatial patterns of microbes are partially environmentally controlled. Time was the most important single factor affecting microbial community structure with an OTU replacement of up to 47% over 2 years and a contribution of 34% to the total variation. A large part of this variation was not related to any environmental parameters, suggesting that temporal variations in bacterial community structure are caused by yet unknown environmental drivers and/or by stochastic events in coastal sand habitats. Principal ecosystem functions such as benthic oxygen consumption and extracellular hydrolysis of organic matter were, however, at a high level at all times, indicating functional redundancy in the microbial communities.

In this work, we take a novel line of approaches to evolve images. It is motivated by the total variation method, known for its denoising and edge-preserving effect. Our approach generalises the TV method by taking a general L p norm of the gradients instead of the L 1 in the TV method. We generalise this method in a series of first and second order derivatives in terms of gauge coordinates. This method also incorporates the well-known blurring by a Gaussian filter and the balanced forward -backward diffusion.

Fifteen medium-heat whole milk powders manufactured at the same plant under identical processing conditions from 15 different batches of raw milk were subjected to accelerated storage at 50°C and a water activity of 0.3 1 in air. With a view to the development of a new prediction method, 22 chemical and technological variables and 13 time-dependent changes over 2 days were measured at the beginning of the experiment. The development of oxidized flavour in the stored powders was subsequently assessed weekly for 6 weeks by a sensory panel. The shelf-life of each powder was determined as the time at which the mean flavour score crossed a threshold value (8 or 6 on a scale from 15 to 0). The relationship between shelf-life and the properties of the fresh powders, together with the time-dependent changes, was investigated by the use of stepwise multiple regression with maximum R2 improvement, and pseudo-optimal sets of regression equations were found which minimized the PRESS (predicted sum of squares) statistic. The initial time-dependent change of TBA-reactive substances was the variable which correlated best (r = -0.66) with the shelf-life at flavour threshold 8. followed by the yellowness Hunter b-value of the powder (r = 0.54) while the variables which alone correlated best with the shelf-life at flavour threshold 6 were the density of milk powder after 1250 tappings (r=O.58), TBA-reactive substances (r= -0.56), and the density of milk powder after 100 tappings (r=O.53). The variables selected by PRESS minimization for the regression equation of threshold 8 (R2 = 0.949) were the a-lactalbumin content, the time-dependent change in /?-lactoglobulin, the time-dependent change in TBA-reactive substances, the density after 1250 tappings, and the solubihty index. The variables selected for the regression equation of threshold 6 (R2=0.980) were the a-lactalbumin content, the time-dependent change in fllactoglobulin, the density after 1250 tappings, the total fat content, the time-dependent change in the redness Hunter a-value of the powder, and the initial moisture content. Good predictive abilities of the regression equations were indicated by small PRESS values, and the method appears ready for validation in industrial production. Differences between the milk powders were recognized by principal component analysis. One powder deviated clearly, but not extremely, from the other 14 powders on the first and second principal components, mainly because of a large initial amount of free radicals, a rapid generation of further free radicals, and a low initial concentration of fluorescent oxidation products. The first 7 principal components explained only 84% of the total variation, and no other groupings of the milk powders were apparent. ic? 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Keywords: medium-heat whole milk powder; sensory evaluation; shelf-life prediction; principal component analysis; multiple regression Guide for Personal Computers, Version 6 Edition. SAS Institute, Cary, NC. Stapelfeldt, H., Nielsen, B.R. and Skibsted, L.H. (1997) Effect of heat treatment, water activity and storage temperature on the oxidative stability of whole milk powder. International Dairy Journal 7, 299-307. Stapelfeldt, H. and Skibsted, L. H. (1994) Modification of fllactoglobuhn by aliphatic aldehydes in aqueous solution.

Medical Imaging is playing the key role in diagnosing and treatment of diseases such as locating the tumours in brain, thin fractures in bones, detection of cancer cells in early stages etc. For making accurate decisions the images acquired by various medical imaging modalities must be free from noise. So Image denoising became an important pre-processing step in Medical image analysis. Developing the denoising algorithms is a difficult task because diagnostic information must be preserved while removing the noise. Earlier the denoising algorithms were designed in the spatial domain such as median filtering, harmonic filtering, and weiner filtering etc. by directly working on the pixel values, these methods will remove noise while introducing the blur in the denoised images. At present advanced mathematical models such as Partial differential equations which are useful for edge preservation and multiresolution analysis useful for preserving directional oriented information and texture became very popular in developing the denoising techniques. In this paper we are using Total Variational approach (PDE method) and Complex Dual Tree wavelet transform (Multiresolution analysis)method to denoise the medical images and we perform the fusion of the two denoised images resulting from the above denoising techniques. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with the existing methods using PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) and SSIM (Structural Similarity Index.). The performance of the fusion process is measured using MI (Mutual Information), Edge Association and Spatial Frequency (SF) measures. The results showed that the proposed method is having better PSNR values diagnostically acceptable and very much useful for the diagnosis& treatment phases.

A major problem in imaging applications such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is the task of trying to reconstruct an image with the smallest possible set of Fourier samples, every single one of which has a potential time and/or power cost. The theory of Compressive Sensing (CS) points to ways of exploiting inherent sparsity in such images in order to achieve accurate recovery using sub-Nyquist sampling schemes. Traditional CS approaches to this problem consist of solving total-variation minimization programs with Fourier measurement constraints or other variations thereof. This paper takes a different approach: Since the horizontal and vertical differences of a medical image are each more sparse or compressible than the corresponding total-variational image, CS methods will be more successful in recovering these differences individually. We develop an algorithm called GradientRec that uses a CS algorithm to recover the horizontal and vertical gradients and then estimates the original image from these gradients. We present two methods of solving the latter inverse problem: one based on least squares optimization and the other based on a generalized Poisson solver. After a thorough derivation of our complete algorithm, we present the results of various experiments that compare the effectiveness of the proposed method against other leading methods.

To evaluate metallurgical processing as a source of Zn and Cd isotopic fractionation and to potentially trace their distribution in the environment, high-precision MC-ICP-MS Zn, Cd and Pb isotope ratio measurements were made for samples from the integrated Zn-Pb smelting and refining complex in Trail, B.C., Canada. Significant fractionation of Zn and Cd isotopes during processing of ZnS and PbS ore concentrates is demonstrated by the total variation in δ 66/64 Zn and δ 114/110 Cd values of 0.42‰ and 1.04‰, respectively, among all smelter samples. No significant difference is observed between the isotopic compositions of the Zn ore concentrates (δ 66/64 Zn = 0.09 to 0.17‰; δ 114/110 Cd = −0.13 to 0.18‰) and the roasting product, calcine (δ 66/64 Zn =0.17‰; δ 114/110 Cd= 0.05‰), due to ∼100% recovery from roasting. The overall Zn recovery from metallurgical processing is ∼98%, thus the refined Zn metal (δ 66/64 Zn = 0.22‰) is not significantly fractionated relative to the starting materials despite significantly fractionated fume (δ 66/64 Zn = 0.43‰) and effluent (δ 66/64 Zn=0.41 to 0.51‰). Calculated Cd recovery from metallurgical processing is 72-92%, with the majority of the unrecovered Cd lost during Pb operations (δ 114/110 Cd= −0.38‰). The refined Cd metal is heavy (δ 114/110 Cd =0.39 to 0.52‰) relative to the starting materials. In addition, significant fractionation of Cd isotopes is evidenced by the relatively light and heavy isotopic compositions of the fume (δ 114/110 Cd= −0.52‰) and effluent (δ 114/110 Cd =0.31 to 0.46‰). In contrast to Zn and Cd, Pb isotopes are homogenized by mixing during processing. The total variation observed in the Pb isotopic compositions of smelter samples is attributed to mixing of ore sources with different radiogenic signatures.

The effects of restorative grazing on species composition and community structure of butterflies and moths were studied in mesic semi-natural grasslands differing in their management history: (1) old continuously grazed pastures, (2) restored pastures with ϳ5 yr of reinitiated grazing, and (3) abandoned former pastures. Butterflies and moths were counted with a transect method during 1999 and 2000 in 33 study sites in southwest Finland. In a multivariate ordination (NMDS), the studied grasslands were separated from each other on the basis of their species composition so that the actively grazed pastures differed from abandoned pastures. The first ordination axis represented most (73%) of the variation in species composition, and it was strongly correlated with variables describing the current grazing intensity. Species richness and total abundance were highest in abandoned pastures, both for all species and for grassland-preferring species. In contrast, relative diversity (N 1 , N 2 , and ␣) and evenness (Alatalo's evenness index) were in most cases highest in old pastures and lowest in abandoned pastures. Generalized linear models (GLM) were constructed for four response variables: total species richness, grassland species richness, abundance of all species, and abundance of grassland species. The derived models explained 78-84% of the total variation for species richness and 92-93% for abundance, and the type of grazing history explained the largest proportion of variation. Mean vegetation height was included in the abundance models as a quadratic function, which indicated that butterflies and moths were most abundant at an intermediate level of grazing intensity, as predicted by the ''dynamic equilibrium model.'' The results suggest that grazing management is a useful tool in the restoration of insect communities of abandoned semi-natural grasslands. In order to enhance the survival of species suffering from continuously high grazing intensity, the existing management instructions should be developed toward construction of regional networks of semi-natural grasslands, which would allow differing grazing intensities or rotational grazing on the patch level, but simultaneously ensure continuity of varying management regimes on a regional level.

The characteristics of starch, such as gelatinization temperature (GT), apparent amylose content (AAC), pasting temperature (PT) and other physicochemical properties, determine the quality of various products of rice, e.g., eating, cooking and processing qualities. The GT of rice flour is controlled by the alk locus, which has been co-mapped to the starch synthase IIa (SSIIa) locus. In this study, we sequenced a 2,051 bp DNA fragment spanning part of intron 6, exon 7, intron 7, exon 8 and part of 3′ untranslated region of SSIIa for 30 rice varieties with diverse geographical distribution and variation in starch physicochemical properties. A total of 24 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and one insertion/deletion (InDel) were identified, which could be classified into nine haplotypes. The mean pairwise nucleotide diversity π was 0.00292, and Watterson’s estimator θ was 0.00296 in this collection of rice germplasm. Tajima’s D test for selection showed no significant deviation from the neutral expectation (D = − 0.04612, P > 0.10). However, significant associations were found between seven of the SNPs and peak GT (T p) at P < 0.05, of which two contiguous SNPs (GC/TT) showed a very strong association with T p (P < 0.0001). With some rare exception, this GC/TT polymorphism alone can differentiate rice varieties with high or intermediate GT (possessing the GC allele) from those with low GT (possessing the TT allele). In contrast, none of these SNPs or InDel was significantly associated with amylose content. A further 509 rice varieties with known physicochemical properties (e.g., AAC and PT) and known alleles of other starch synthesizing genes were genotyped for the SSIIa GC/TT alleles. Association analysis indicated that 82% of the total variation of AAC in these samples could be explained by a (CT)n simple sequence repeat (SSR) and a G/T SNP of Waxy gene (Wx), and 62.4% of the total variation of PT could be explained by the GC/TT polymorphism. An additional association analysis was performed between these molecular markers and the thermal and retrogradation properties for a subset of 245 samples from the 509 rice varieties. The SSIIa GC/TT polymorphism explained more than 60% of the total variation in thermal properties, whereas the SSR and SNP of Wx gene explained as much as the SSIIa GC/TT of the total variation in retrogradation properties. Our study provides further support for the utilization of the GC/TT polymorphism in SSIIa. As shown in our study of 509 rice varieties, the GC/TT SNP could differentiate rice with high or intermediate GT from those with low GT in about 90% of cases. Using four primers in a single PCR reaction, the GC/TT polymorphism can be surveyed on a large scale. Thus, this SNP polymorphism can be very useful in marker-assisted selection for the improvement of GT and other physicochemical properties of rice.

The present study is based on data recorded from fish of the third generation of the GIFT project (Genetic Improvement of Farmed Tilapias). The objective of the study was to compose a synthetic base population of Nile tilapia for further selective breeding, and to estimate phenotypic and genetic parameters in that population. The base population was formed by choosing parent stock among the best performing animals within the best strain combinations resulting from a full diallel cross design (8 × 8) involving four African wild strains and four Asian farmed strains (64 strain combination cells altogether). The grandparent ancestors of the base population were mainly representing the three strains originating from Egypt, Kenya and Thailand (20.2, 27.3 and 19.6%, respectively). The proportion of ancestors from the Senegal strain was medium (12.2%) whereas the proportion of ancestors from Ghana, Israel, Singapore and Taiwan strains was low (3 to 8%) and mainly due to a restriction that all parent strains should be represented in the synthetic base. Statistical analyses using a mixed animal model were carried out on records from 13,570 individually tagged and surviving progeny of 50 sires and 123 dams. The growth performance of the fish was tested in seven diverse environments. The test environments covered a wide range of tilapia farming systems, namely, earthen ponds fertilized with inorganic fertilizer and organic manure or on-farm agricultural residues, cage culture, and test stations located in different agro-climatic regions. The model fitted included the fixed effect of test environment and sex and the linear and quadratic covariate of age at stocking. The random terms were the additive genetic effect of individual fish and the additional effects common to full-sib groups. The estimates of heritability for body weight at harvest in different test environments ranged from moderate to high (0.12 to 0.56) and the estimate across test environments was 0.15. The variances due to other effects common to full-sib families were significant, accounting for 8 to 16% of total variation in body weight. The genetic correlations among body weights recorded in similar environments were high (mostly N 0.80, i.e. among the earthen ponds in experimental locations). By contrast, the genetic correlations between harvest weight in earthen pond and in cage environments were more variable (0.36-0.82). Overall, the results suggested that the genotype by environment interactions were of limited importance, at least for the target pond farming systems in the Philippines. It was concluded that as the additive genetic variation in the base population was large, the harvest weight of the GIFT fish could be effectively improved by selective breeding, and that there was no immediate need to develop separate strains for different environments.

The characterization of soil spatio-temporal variability is essential to achieve a better understanding of complex relations between soil properties, environmental factors and land use systems. This study evaluates the sources of soil variability in an agricultural landscape mosaic system in the humid forest of southern Cameroon at four scales: (i) the regional level as affected by soil-forming factors; (ii) the local level as affected by land use; (iii) the within-plot level in shifting cultivation crop fields; and (iv) the quality control level in the laboratory. At the first three levels, the study was based on soil samples collected throughout a 2000 km 2 area, with a different sampling scheme for each level. In the laboratory, we used replicated measurements of soil chemical properties of reference samples similar to those in the study area. Analysis of variance (ANOVA), Principal Component Analysis, cluster analysis and variogram modelling were applied. Soil properties exhibit a high spatial dependence even at plot level, but there is a clear regional trend explaining 30-50% of the total variation, modelled either by elevation or geographic coordinates. Cluster analysis, landscape zoning and soil classification showed, with more than 80% coincidence between methods, that the soils of the study area can be grouped in two main classes (Ferralsols and Acrisols) and five subclasses. Soil pH (r 2 =0.68) and clay content (r 2 =0.51) were the best explained by regional factors of soil variation. Geostatistical analysis showed that a closer sampling density would be required to map regional variability which is not due to land use, regional trend or environmental covariates. Regional and local effects, and their interaction, accounted for 70% (clay) to 85% (pH) of the total variance. The cumulative variances from field plot and laboratory was similar to the nugget variance from geostatistical modelling. Land use practices significantly ( pb0.05) influenced topsoil variation between plots at village level, but there was low variation within plots of about 1 ha. At laboratory level, all variables deviated from the ideal behaviour expected of well-mixed reference samples; however, in absolute terms both total ranges and standard deviations were quite low, except in the case of available P. Although clay content and pH have shown to vary considerably at regional level, research for appropriate management practices for 0016-7061/$ -see front matter D resource use should focus chiefly on processes and factors occurring at the local level, as influenced by a dynamical land use system. D

Front tracking in combination with dimensional splitting is analyzed as a numerical method for scalar conservation laws in two space dimensions. An analytic error bound is derived, and convergence rates based on numerical experiments are presented. Numerical experiments indicate that large CFL numbers can be used without loss of accuracy for a wide range of problems. A new method for grid refinement is introduced. The method easily allows for dynamical changes in the grid, using, for instance, the total variation in each grid cell as a criterion for introducing new or removing existing refinements. Several numerical examples are included, highlighting the features of the numerical method. A comparison with a high-resolution method confirms that dimensional splitting with front tracking is a highly viable numerical method for practical computations.

Sorghum shoot fly, Atherigona soccata (Rondani) is an important pest of sorghum in Asia, Africa, and Mediterranean Europe, and host plant resistance is an important component for the management of this pest. The levels of resistance in the cultivated germplasm are low to moderate, and therefore, it is important to identify genotypes with different mechanisms of resistance to pyramid the resistance genes. We studied the antixenosis for oviposition, antibiosis, and tolerance components of resistance in a diverse array of shoot fly-resistant and -susceptible genotypes. The main plants and tillers of SFCR 151, ICSV 705, SFCR 125, and, IS 18551 experienced lower shoot fly deadhearts at 28 days after seedling emergence, produced more number of productive tillers. The insects fed on these genotypes also exhibited longer larval period (10.1–11.0 days compared to 9.3 days on Swarna), lower larval survival and adult emergence (54.7–67.8 and 46.7–52.2% compared to 73.3 and 60.6% on Swarna, respectively), and lower growth and adult emergence indices as compared to the susceptible check, Swarna. Physico-chemical traits such as leaf glossiness, trichome density, and plumule and leaf sheath pigmentation were found to be associated with resistance, and chlorophyll content, leaf surface wetness, seedling vigor, and waxy bloom with susceptibility to shoot fly and explained 88.5% of the total variation in deadhearts. Step-wise regression indicated that 90.4% of the total variation in deadhearts was due to leaf glossiness and trichome density. The direct and indirect effects, correlation coefficients, multiple and step-wise regression analysis suggested that deadhearts, plants with eggs, leaf glossiness, trichomes on the abaxial surface of the leaf, and leaf sheath pigmentation can be used as marker traits to select for resistance to shoot fly, A. soccata in sorghum.

These notes address various theoretical and practical topics related to Total Variation-based image reconstruction. They focuse first on some theoretical results on functions which minimize the total variation, and in a second part, describe a few standard and less standard algorithms to minimize the total variation in a finite-differences setting, with a series of applications from simple denoising to stereo, or deconvolution issues, and even more exotic uses like the minimization of minimal partition problems.

This experiment on farmed Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) was designed to investigate the effect of postsmolt photoperiodic regime on growth performance, muscle cellularity, and flesh quality in out-of-season produced smolts. The offspring from three pairs of half-sibling crosses were studied to provide information on the genetic variability of treatment effects. In both treatments, parr were initially held on 10

Iran is one of the two major centres of Pistacia diversity and the main producer of pistachios in the world. About 282 Iranian pistachio genotypes (Pistacia spp.), together with 22 foreign cultivars (P. vera), were genotyped using 10 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to analyse the genetic diversity and relationships among Pistacia species and cultivars. The results revealed that the genetic diversity within P. atlantica subsp. kurdica was considerably lower than in P. vera or P. khinjuk. Principal coordinate analysis revealed a clear separation between the different Pistacia spices, as well as between the Iranian and foreign cultivars. AMOVA analysis showed that the variation between the species, between different populations, and within populations accounted for 41, 9, and 50% of the total variation, respectively. The results demonstrated that the study of genetic diversity and relationships among Pistacia species and cultivars using SSR markers provides important information for the collection and conservation of pistachio germplasm. In addition, the Iranian cultivars had a broader genetic background than that of the foreign cultivars. Thus, they are very important for genetic conservation and the planning of future breeding programmes. We also determined the different levels of genetic diversity that exist between and within the species and populations and showed that gene flow occurs between the Iranian cultivars and wild-type P. vera populations. The study provides practical information that policy-makers and scientists can apply to the conservation and sustainable use of all the species studied.

Milk samples of 59 cows of the Norwegian Red Cattle breed receiving three di!erent supplementary concentrates, were analysed for genotypes of caseins and whey proteins, the content of di!erent milk salts (Ca>, Ca, Mg and citrate), the content of total protein, casein and whey protein and the mean micellar size of native and heated casein micelles. The genotype of -casein had a statistically signi"cant e!ect on the content of protein and casein, and the content of whey protein and the casein number were signi"cantly in#uenced by di!erent feeding regimes, and the content of citrate. The mean size of native and heated casein micelles was signi"cantly in#uenced by the feeding regimes, genotype of -casein (native mean size only) and -casein, pH and the content of casein, whey protein and casein number. The heat-induced changes in mean micellar size were signi"cantly a!ected by the calcium ion activity which accounted for approximately 40% of the total variation.

A generic model for flowering phenology as a function of daily temperature and photoperiod was applied to predict differences of flowering times among 96 individuals (including the two parents) of a recombinant inbred line population in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Because of the large number of individuals to study, there is a need for simple ways to derive model parameters for each genotype. Therefore the number of genotype-specific parameters was reduced to four, namely f o (the minimum number of days to flowering at the optimum temperature and photoperiod), h 1 and h 2 (the development stages for the start and the end of the photoperiod-sensitive phase, respectively), and d (the photoperiod sensitivity). Values of these parameters were estimated using a newly described methodological framework based on data from a photoperiodcontrolled experiment where plants were mutually transferred between long-day and short-day environments at regular intervals. This modelling approach was tested in eight independent field environments of different sowing dates in two growing seasons. The four-parameter model predicted 37-67% of observed phenotypic variation in an environment, 76% of variation in across-environment mean days to flowering among the genotypes, and 96% of variation in acrossgenotype mean among the eight environments. When all the observations of the 96 genotypes across the eight environments were pooled, the model explained 81% of the total variation. Sensitivity analysis showed that all four model parameters were important for predicting differences in flowering time among the genotypes; but their relative importance differed and the ranking was in the order of f o , d, h 1 , and h 2. This study highlighted the potential of using ecophysiolog-ical models to assist the genetic analysis of quantitative crop traits whose phenotype is often environmentdependent.

We determine rates of convergence of rank-based interacting diffusions and semimartingale reflecting Brownian motions to equilibrium. Convergence rate for the total variation metric is derived using Lyapunov functions. Sharp fluctuations of additive functionals are obtained using Transportation Cost-Information inequalities for Markov processes. We work out various applications to the rank-based abstract equity markets used in Stochastic Portfolio Theory. For example, we produce quantitative bounds, including constants, for fluctuations of market weights and occupation times of various ranks for individual coordinates. Another important application is the comparison of performance between symmetric functionally generated portfolios and the market portfolio. This produces estimates of probabilities of "beating the market".

Stochastic regularized methods are quite advantageous in super-resolution (SR) image reconstruction problems. In the particular techniques, the SR problem is formulated by means of two terms, the datafidelity term and the regularization term. The present work examines the effect of each one of these terms on the SR reconstruction result with respect to the presence or absence of noise in the low-resolution (LR) frames. Experimentation is carried out with the widely employed L 2 , L 1 , Huber and Lorentzian estimators for the data-fidelity term. The Tikhonov and Bilateral (B) Total Variation (TV) techniques are employed for the regularization term. The extracted conclusions can, in practice, help to select an effective SR method for a given sequence of LR frames. Thus, in case that the potential methods present common data-fidelity or regularization term, and frames are noiseless, the method which employs the most robust regularization or data-fidelity term should be used. Otherwise, experimental conclusions regarding performance ranking vary with the presence of noise in frames, the noise model as well as the difference in robustness of efficiency between the rival terms. Estimators employed for the data-fidelity term or regularizations stand for the rival terms.

The present work aimed at studying the rotifer communities of three shallow eutrophic lakes in Portugal (lakes Mira, Vela and Linhos). At the time of the study, Mira and Vela faced large inputs of allochthonous nutrients, while Linhos was facing terrestrialisation, with cycles of dominance-senescence of macrophytes. The three lakes differed in terms of their abiotic features, with Linhos presenting very high nutrient levels and low pH, while Vela and Mira shared most of the characteristics. The rotifer communities of these two lakes were poorly diversified but highly abundant (max. > 2000 ind l−1), with a clear dominance of eurytopic euplanktonic species (mainly Keratella cochlearis). On the other hand, Linhos presented lower abundances (<1000 ind l−1) but higher species richness, mainly due to macrophyte-associated taxa, such as the littoral genera Lepadella, Testudinella and Squatinella. In all lakes, summertime represented a peak in terms of abundance and diversity. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) identified two main environmental gradients that shape up the rotifer assemblages: a temporal gradient, mainly related to temperature, and a eutrophy gradient, associated with nitrogenous nutrients. The latter gradient is clearly dependent on between-lake variation, due to the high nutrient levels observed in lake Linhos. Variance partitioning using CCA revealed that the largest portion (27.5%) of the total variation explained (52.1%) was attributed to the interaction between lake and environmental variables.