Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is common and has significant morbidity mortality as the fourth leading cause of death in United States. In many patients, particularly those with emphysema, COPD characterized by markedly increased residual volume contributing to exertional dyspnea. Current therapies have limited efficacy. Surgical resection diseased areas lung reduce was effective ...

Plot-based sampling with ground measurements or photography is typically used to establish and maintain National Forest Inventories (NFI). The re-measurement phase of the Canadian NFI is an opportunity to develop novel methods for the estimation of forest attributes such as stand height, crown closure, volume, and aboveground biomass (AGB) from satellite, rather than, airborne imagery. Based on...

The application of lung volume reduction surgery in clinical practice is limited by high postoperative morbidity and stringent selection criteria. This has been the impetus for the development of bronchoscopic approaches to lung volume reduction. A range of different techniques such as endobronchial blockers, airway bypass, endobronchial valves, thermal vapor ablation, biological sealants, and ...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a category of diseases characterized by chronic airflow obstruction and hyperinflation. The GOLD committee and the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society have published detailed, evidence-based reviews of management approaches, providing stepped-care algorithms for pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic therapy. Over the past several d...

Diameter distribution is used in most forest management planning packages for predicting stand volume, timber volume and stand growth. The prediction of diameter distribution can be based on parametric distribution functions, distribution-free parametric prediction methods or purely non-parametric methods. In the fi rst case, the distribution is obtained by predicting the parameters of some pro...

Surgical lung volume reduction can improve exercise performance and forced expiratory volume in one second in patients with emphysema. However, the procedure is associated with a 5% mortality rate and a nonresponse rate of ,25%. Accordingly, interest has focused on alternative ways of reducing lung volume. Two principle approaches are used: collapse of the diseased area using blockers placed en...