For centuries, the rapid development of human society has already made human activity the dominant factor in the terrestrial ecosystem. As the city of greatest importance in China, the capital Beijing has experienced eco-environmental changes with unprecedented economic and population growth during the past few decades. To better understand the ecological transition and its correlations in Beij...

In this study, the capability of geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) in the reconstruction of the recent fire history of a typical Mediterranean area was investigated. More specifically, a semi-automated GEOBIA procedure was developed and tested on archived and newly acquired Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS), Thematic Mapper (TM), and Operational Land Imager (OLI) images in order...

No thematic map is perfect. Some pixels or polygons are not accurately classified, no matter how well the map is crafted. Therefore, thematic maps need metadata that sufficiently characterize the nature and degree of these imperfections. To decision-makers, an accuracy assessment helps judge the risks of using imperfect geospatial data. To analysts, an accuracy assessment helps describe the rel...

Comparison of thematic maps is an important task in a number of disciplines. Map comparison has traditionally been conducted using cell-by-cell agreement indicators, such as the Kappa measure. More recently, other methods have been proposed that take into account not only spatially coincident cells in two maps, but also their surroundings or the spatial structure of their differences. The objec...

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death among American men. Biopsy for prostate cancer is a procedure known as transrectal ultrasound-guided needle biopsy. Because of the low resolution of ultrasound, the urologist cannot usually distinguish between cancerous and healthy tissue. For this reason, most biopsies follow standard protocols based on long-term experience of...

Many countries in Central and Eastern Europe have been undergoing marked economic changes following the collapse of the former “Eastern Bloc” and totalitarian regimes. In the Czech Republic, this transition has had a profound effect on land use management that subsequently results in widespread land cover changes. This study analyzes trends in land use/land cover changes (LULCC) in the context ...

The delineation and classification of forest stands is a crucial aspect of forest management. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) can be used to produce detailed maps of forest stands from either orthophotos or very high resolution satellite imagery. However, measures are then required for evaluating and quantifying both the spatial and thematic accuracy of the OBIA output. In this paper we pres...

In the shadow of the energy crisis and environmental degradation, energy intensity is a hot topic in academic circles in China. The energy intensity distribution map of China indicates the fairly large geographic disparities globally and clustering locally in some areas, ascending from the southeast regions to the northwest provinces. Although energy intensity and its determinants vary from pla...