Hemispherical photography has received renewed interest to describe plant canopies and measure canopy gap fraction from which important biophysical variables such as leaf area index (LAI) can be derived. This kind of remote sensing imagery is typically processed by setting a threshold on the histogram of a given image feature to segment the image and separate target from non-target pixels. Sele...

Page Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Estimating forest variables from top-of-atmosphere 15 radiance satellite measurements using coupled radiative transfer models Chapter 3 Inversion of a coupled canopy-atmosphere model using 37 multi-angular top-of-atmosphere radiance data: A forest case study Chapter 4 A Bayesian object-based approach for estimating 59 vegetation biophysical and biochemica...

Sampling design is critical in locating ground sampling stations for large-scale climatological field experiments. In the stratified sampling design adopted for the First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Field Experiment (FIFE), the study region was stratified into 14 different terrain units based on land use/land cover and topographic variables that were hypoth...

Ground spectroradiometric measurements using a GER3700 spectroradiometer on grassland communities are used to assess the potential of unmixing methods, derivative spectroscopy, and spectral feature fitting. The reference testsite used for this work is a well controlled and maintained area by a multinational biodiversity project, namely ’BIODEPTH’. Results of the application of the different met...

Network biologists attempt to extract meaningful relationships among genes or their products from very noisy data. We argue that what we categorize as noisy data may sometimes reflect noisy biology and therefore may shield a hidden meaning about how networks evolve and how matter is organized in the cell. We present practical solutions, based on existing evolutionary and biophysical concepts, t...

Complaints on low-frequency noise were till recently fairly unexplained, but audiological research shed light on the mechanisms that enable perception of frequencies below the threshold of average normal hearing. It was shown that exposure to low-frequency sound may alter the inner ear. This results in an increase of sensitivity to low-frequency sounds, and as a result, previously imperceptible...

Spike timing-dependent plasticity is a fundamental adaptation mechanism of the nervous system. It induces structural changes of synaptic connectivity by regulation of coupling strengths between individual cells depending on their spiking behavior. As a biophysical process its functioning is constantly subjected to natural fluctuations. We study theoretically the influence of noise on a microsco...

In this paper we present an efficient method to generate realistic simulations of extracellular recordings. The method uses a hybrid and computationally simple approach, where the features of the background noise arise naturally from its biophysical process of generation. The generated data resemble the characteristics of real recordings, as quantified by the amplitude and frequency distributio...

This paper presents a complete methodology for modeling gradings also called non-full-availability groups servicing single-service and multi-service traffic streams. The methodology worked out by the authors makes it possible to determine traffic characteristics of various types of gradings with state-dependent call arrival processes, including a new proposed structure of the Erlang’s Ideal Gra...

Connectivity, or the exchange of individuals among marine populations, is a central topic in marine ecology. For most benthic marine species with complex life cycles, this exchange occurs primarily during the pelagic larval stage. The small size of larvae coupled with the vast and complex fluid environment they occupy hamper our ability to quantify dispersal and connectivity. Evidence from dire...