Dichoropetalum viarium (Apiaceae), a new species from Lorestan Province, Western Iran

A new species, Dichoropetalum viarium (Apiaceae), is described from the Lorestan Province, Western Iran. The new species differs from D. paucijugum, D. aromaticum, and D. chryseum in the height, shape, diameter, and branching of the stem, shape of the terminal leaf lobes, shape of the bracteoles, shape and size of the mericarps, and shape of the stylopodium. In addition, D. viarium is recognized as a separate species by molecular analysis of nrITS.

Agroecology and Uses of Galinsoga parviflora as Indigenous Vegetable in Highland of Kuningan, Banjarnegara and Wonosobo, Indonesia

Gallant soldier (Galinsoga parviflora Cav.) is a cosmopolitan weed and is traditionally used as a vegetable in Java highland. The study aimed to evaluate agroecology and uses of G. parviflora as an indigenous vegetable in Java. Researches were conducted in Kuningan, Banjarnegara, and Wonosobo districts from June 2015 to July 2017. The distribution map was drawn from field tracks, interviews, and literature studies. Results revealed two Galinsoga species based on leaf and stem shape, i.e., G. parviflora and G. quadriradiata. Only G. parviflora was selected as a vegetable in Banjarnegara and Wonosobo, but not in Kuningan district. It ranked seventh among 13 traditional vegetables; young shoot with inflorescences was consumed after cooking or boiling, and sometimes used as a diuretic. Although it contributed low to household diet, however, its position on the social relationship among neighbors was important. The wide distribution range of Galinsoga in Java is potential as a new vegetable. It is important to study the nutrient content of this vegetable to improve utilization. Keywords: Asteraceae, Dieng, gallant soldier, jukut saminggu, weed

Research on Uyghur Pattern Matching Based on Syllable Features

Pattern matching is widely used in various fields such as information retrieval, natural language processing (NLP), data mining and network security. In Uyghur (a typical agglutinative, low-resource language with complex morphology, spoken by the ethnic Uyghur group in Xinjiang, China), research on pattern matching is also ongoing. Due to the language characteristics, the pattern matching using characters and words as basic units has insufficient performance. There are two problems for pattern matching: (1) vowel weakening and (2) morphological changes caused by suffixes. In view of the above problems, this paper proposes a Boyer–Moore-U (BM-U) algorithm and a retrievable syllable coding format based on the syllable features of the Uyghur language and the improvement of the Boyer–Moore (BM) algorithm. This algorithm uses syllable features to perform pattern matching, which effectively solves the problem of weakening vowels, and it can better match words with stem shape changes. Finally, in the pattern matching experiments based on character-encoded text and syllable-encoded text for vowel-weakened words, the BM-U algorithm precision, recall, F1-measure and accuracy are improved by 4%, 55%, 33%, 25% and 10%, 52%, 38%, 38% compared to the BM algorithm.

Point cloud data from terrestrial laser scanning for volume modelling of Scots pine trees

Stem shape and size develop through time especially due to changing environmental characteristics but especially if and when forest management activities change. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) provides detailed information on stem shape and size and can enable large and comprehensive data sets for various modelling applications. We collected diameter at breast height and tree height information with traditional field measurements as well as preprocessed TLS point cloud data on 230 Scots pine trees (Pinus sylvestris L.) from southern Finland. The data set described here includes three-dimensional information on Scots pine tree stems derived from TLS point clouds. The usage of this data set can include, but is not limited to, development of point cloud processing algorithms for single tree stem reconstruction and investigations of stem volume modelling for Scots pine.

Assessing the effects of thinning on stem growth allocation of individual Scots pine trees

Forest management alters the growing conditions and thus further development of trees. However, quantitative assessment of forest management on tree growth has been demanding as methodologies for capturing changes comprehensively in space and time have been lacking. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) has shown to be capable of providing three-dimensional (3D) tree stem reconstructions required for revealing differences between stem shapes and sizes. In this study, we used 3D reconstructions of tree stems from TLS and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to investigate how varying thinning treatments and the following growth effects affected stem shape and size of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) trees. The results showed that intensive thinning resulted in more stem volume and therefore total biomass allocation and carbon uptake compared to the moderate thinning. Relationship between tree height and diameter at breast height (i.e. slenderness) varied between both thinning intensity and type (i.e. from below and above) indicating differing response to thinning and allocation of stem growth of Scots pine trees. Furthermore, intensive thinning, especially from below, produced less variation in relative stem attributes characterizing stem shape and size. Thus, it can be concluded that thinning intensity, type, and the following growth effects have an impact on post-thinning stem shape and size of Scots pine trees. Our study presented detailed measurements on post-thinning stem growth of Scots pines that have been laborious or impracticable before the emergence of detailed 3D technologies. Moreover, the stem reconstructions from TLS and UAV provided variety of attributes characterizing stem shape and size that have not traditionally been feasible to obtain. The study demonstrated that detailed 3D technologies, such as TLS and UAV, provide information that can be used to generate new knowledge for supporting forest management and silviculture as well as improving ecological understanding of boreal forests.

Bone morphology of the proximal femoral canal: ethnicity related differences and the influence on cementless tapered wedge stem designs

Background: Differences in proximal femoral morphology between ethnicities may have implications on the design of cementless tapered wedge stems. This study analyses the differences in Asian and Caucasian bone morphology as well as the related fit of various cementless tapered wedge stem designs. Methods: A computed tomography database and modelling software was used to retrospectively analyse a total of 1345 femora. Ethnicity related comparisons as well as the fit of the stem designs were analysed. Results: Statistically significant differences between canal shape of Caucasian and Japanese as well as non-Japanese Asians were observed. The fit of the stems within the femoral canal was highly dependent on the respective stem shape. Conclusions: The shape differences in stem designs had a larger influence on the fit within the femoral canal than the differences in ethnicity related to bone morphology.

Influence of Stem Taper on the Yield of Black Spruce Stands and Trees Following Commercial Thinning

In this work, we examine the effects of commercial thinning on stand volume and individual stem form in nine naturally regenerated black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) stands. We compared these study sites with controls in the commercial boreal forest of northern Quebec, Canada. At stand level, dendrochronological data provided insight into changes in stand volume ten years after thinning. Analysis of a subsample of six individual trees from each commercially thinned stand and three individual trees from the controls illustrated the role of thinning on stem shape development. Although average volume increased for residual stems in thinned stands slightly more than in the controls (110% versus 106%), the treatment effect stand-level volume increment or stand-level total volume harvested (ten years after treatment) was not statistically significant. Moreover, at tree level, thinning did not significantly affect stem volume increment. However, radial growth increment significantly increased after treatment. Trees from commercially thinned stands showed a significantly higher growth increment along the lower first two-thirds of the stem. Response to thinning at tree level correlated strongly with the size and number of harvested competitors around a residual stem. We conclude that commercial thinning modified wood allocation rather than wood volume and did not affect taper and stem shape. These patterns of post-cutting growth are explained by wood allocation following thinning. After commercial thinning, growth increment is favored at the expense of height growth. As the treatment effect was found at the stem scale rather than at the stand scale, further research is needed in regard to commercial thinning treatments to investigate how to increase productivity at the stand scale.

Exploration of Wax Vegetable Plants (Saccharum edule) in West Halmahera Regency North Maluku Province

Waxed vegetable plants (Saccharum edule) have a variety of species, can be found in several regions in Indonesia. This study aims to determine the types of vegetable candles in West Halmahera Regency, North Maluku Province. The research was carried out in nine sub-districts, 36 villages and involved 108 farmer owners. Research uses exploration and identification methods. Variables observed included stem shape, stem color, stem length, and plant height, as well as the color and length of the flower. The results of the study found that there were five types of vegetable candles namely short white, long white, long yellow, short yellow, and long white with reddish tree trunks. The five types of plants can be found throughout the sub-districts in West Halmahera Regency, Maluku Province.Keywords: West Halmahera, Saccharum edule, Wax vegetable

Point distribution form model for spruce stems (Picea abies [L.] Karst.)

The paper deals with the construction of a point distribution form model for spruce stems. This model is based on the principal components analysis of variance-covariance matrix formed for the Procrustes residuals. The calculation of full Procrustes co-ordinates, the principal components, is demonstrated on an example of a spruce experimental plot at premature age, and a point distribution model is constructed for the first three components. The parameters of the model are evaluated in relation to Konšel’s (Kraft’s) tree classes, normality of their classification is tested, maxima and minima are demonstrated on actual trees. The complete stem shape analysis of all four samples is also provided. A special model is constructed for these samples and the course of the parameters of this model is graphically represented.