This paper derives upper and lower bounds on the secrecy capacity-memory tradeoff of a wiretap erasure broadcast channel (BC) with Kw weak receivers and Ks strong receivers, where weak receivers, respectively strong receivers, have same erasure probabilities and cache sizes. The lower bounds are achieved by schemes that meticulously combine joint cache-channel coding with wiretap coding and key...

Short-duration overnight kraaling has been suggested as a tool for restoring degraded rangelands. However, the response of different plant functional types and communities to such intense livestock impact may vary depending on local context. We thus examined effects short-duration soil vegetation characteristics in mesic montane grassland South Africa using paired kraal control sites, part low ...

Character segmentation is an important preprocessing step for text recognition. In degraded documents, existence of touching characters decreases recognition rate drastically, for any optical character recognition (OCR) system. In this paper a study of touching Gurmukhi characters is carried out and these characters have been divided into various categories after a careful analysis. Structural ...

Rangelands essentially comprise geographical regions dominated by grass with or without scattered woody plants. Rangelands are often considered to function primarily as feed for livestock. In this view, conservation and biodiversity issues are secondary. The alternate view involves recognising rangelands as a biome without a specific function, but where there is an implied responsibility for in...

Land degradation is one of the most significant environmental problems in the semi-arid and arid savannas of Southern Africa. Degradation affects vegetation structure, cover and patchiness and this result in the loss of vegetation resources used by rural populations (grazing, fuel wood, and other non-timber forest products) and wildlife. Land degradation processes are influenced by rainfall, la...

Rangelands provide the main forage resource for livestock in many parts of the world, but maintaining long-term productivity and providing sufficient income for the rancher remains a challenge. One key issue is to maintain the rangeland in conditions where the rancher has the greatest possibility to adapt his/her management choices to a highly fluctuating and uncertain environment. In this stud...