ALBERT

Description: The authors would like to add the following note in the Affiliation Section of their paper published in Energies [...]

Description: Exponential fertilization is well-known for improving the growth and nutritional status of seedlings during nursery culture. However, less is known about how genetic variability among seedling species influences the effects of fertilization regimes on the growth of seedlings and their nutritional status under varying fertilization levels. Here, we conducted a greenhouse experiment to compare the growth, as well as the nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) nutrient concentration responses, of 2- and 3-generation Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lambert) Hooker) seedlings to the impacts of varying exponential and conventional constant-rate fertilization levels (50, 100, and 200 mg P seedling−1). Seedling size and shoot:root ratios were lower in exponential fertilization than in conventional fertilization. Exponentially fertilized seedlings had higher concentrations of N and P nutrients compared to conventionally fertilized seedlings during low-level fertilization. Conversely, an elevated P concentration was observed in seedlings subjected to conventional fertilization compared to those exposed to exponential fertilization during high-level fertilization. However, there were no significant differences in seedling N and P concentrations between the two fertilization regimes during medium-level fertilization. Furthermore, 2- and 3-generation Chinese fir seedlings differed greatly in their growth and nutritional status. Additionally, there were significant fertilization regime × seedling generation interaction effects on the seedling shoot:root ratio and N concentration. Our findings suggest that exponential fertilization can improve the nutritional status, survival, and growth of Chinese fir seedlings, especially on competitive sites, and that information on both intra-species genetic variability and appropriate fertilizer levels is necessary for the successful fertilization of Chinese fir seedlings, regardless of fertilization regimes.

Description: Drought in Australia has widespread impacts on agriculture and ecosystems. Satellite-based Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) has great potential to monitor and assess drought impacts on vegetation greenness and health. Various FAPAR products based on satellite observations have been generated and made available to the public. However, differences remain among these datasets due to different retrieval methodologies and assumptions. The Quality Assurance for Essential Climate Variables (QA4ECV) project recently developed a quality assurance framework to provide understandable and traceable quality information for Essential Climate Variables (ECVs). The QA4ECV FAPAR is one of these ECVs. The aim of this study is to investigate the capability of QA4ECV FAPAR for drought monitoring in Australia. Through spatial and temporal comparison and correlation analysis with widely used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT)/PROBA-V FAPAR generated by Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS), and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) drought index, as well as the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative (ESA CCI) soil moisture, the study shows that the QA4ECV FAPAR can support agricultural drought monitoring and assessment in Australia. The traceable and reliable uncertainties associated with the QA4ECV FAPAR provide valuable information for applications that use the QA4ECV FAPAR dataset in the future.

Description: Stochastic optimisation in Riemannian manifolds, especially the Riemannian stochastic gradient method, has attracted much recent attention. The present work applies stochastic optimisation to the task of recursive estimation of a statistical parameter which belongs to a Riemannian manifold. Roughly, this task amounts to stochastic minimisation of a statistical divergence function. The following problem is considered: how to obtain fast, asymptotically efficient, recursive estimates, using a Riemannian stochastic optimisation algorithm with decreasing step sizes. In solving this problem, several original results are introduced. First, without any convexity assumptions on the divergence function, we proved that, with an adequate choice of step sizes, the algorithm computes recursive estimates which achieve a fast non-asymptotic rate of convergence. Second, the asymptotic normality of these recursive estimates is proved by employing a novel linearisation technique. Third, it is proved that, when the Fisher information metric is used to guide the algorithm, these recursive estimates achieve an optimal asymptotic rate of convergence, in the sense that they become asymptotically efficient. These results, while relatively familiar in the Euclidean context, are here formulated and proved for the first time in the Riemannian context. In addition, they are illustrated with a numerical application to the recursive estimation of elliptically contoured distributions.

Description: The purpose of this article is to obtain the exact and approximate numerical solutions of linear and nonlinear singular conformable pseudohyperbolic equations and conformable coupled pseudohyperbolic equations through the conformable double Laplace decomposition method. Further, the numerical examples were provided in order to demonstrate the efficiency, high accuracy, and the simplicity of present method.

Description: Surface albedo is of crucial interest in land–climate interaction studies, since it is a key parameter that affects the Earth’s radiation budget. The temporal and spatial variation of surface albedo can be retrieved from conventional satellite observations after a series of processes, including atmospheric correction to surface spectral bi-directional reflectance factor (BRF), bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) modelling using these BRFs, and, where required, narrow-to-broadband albedo conversions. This processing chain introduces errors that can be accumulated and then affect the accuracy of the retrieved albedo products. In this study, the albedo products derived from the multi-angle imaging spectroradiometer (MISR), moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS), based on the VEGETATION and now the PROBA-V sensors, are compared with albedometer and upscaled in situ measurements from 19 tower sites from the FLUXNET network, surface radiation budget network (SURFRAD) and Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) networks. The MISR sensor onboard the Terra satellite has 9 cameras at different view angles, which allows a near-simultaneous retrieval of surface albedo. Using a 16-day retrieval algorithm, the MODIS generates the daily albedo products (MCD43A) at a 500-m resolution. The CGLS albedo products are derived from the VEGETATION and PROBA-V, and updated every 10 days using a weighted 30-day window. We describe a newly developed method to derive the two types of albedo, which are directional hemispherical reflectance (DHR) and bi-hemispherical reflectance (BHR), directly from three tower-measured variables of shortwave radiation: downwelling, upwelling and diffuse shortwave radiation. In the validation process, the MISR, MODIS and CGLS-derived albedos (DHR and BHR) are first compared with tower measured albedos, using pixel-to-point analysis, between 2012 to 2016. The tower measured point albedos are then upscaled to coarse-resolution albedos, based on atmospherically corrected BRFs from high-resolution Earth observation (HR-EO) data, alongside MODIS BRDF climatology from a larger area. Then a pixel-to-pixel comparison is performed between DHR and BHR retrieved from coarse-resolution satellite observations and DHR and BHR upscaled from accurate tower measurements. The experimental results are presented on exploring the parameter space associated with land cover type, heterogeneous vs. homogeneous and instantaneous vs. time composite retrievals of surface albedo.

Description: Tropical forests and the biodiversity they contain are declining at an alarming rate throughout the world. Although southern Belize is generally recognized as a highly forested landscape, it is becoming increasingly threatened by unsustainable agricultural practices. Deforestation data allow forest managers to efficiently allocate resources and inform decisions for proper conservation and management. This study utilized satellite imagery to analyze recent forest cover and deforestation in southern Belize to model vulnerability and identify the areas that are the most susceptible to future forest loss. A forest cover change analysis was conducted in Google Earth Engine using a supervised classification of Landsat 8 imagery with ground-truthed land cover points as training data. A multi-layer perceptron neural network model was performed to predict the potential spatial patterns and magnitude of forest loss based on the regional drivers of deforestation. The assessment indicates that the agricultural frontier will continue to expand into recently untouched forests, predicting a decrease from 75.0% mature forest cover in 2016 to 71.9% in 2026. This study represents the most up-to-date assessment of forest cover and the first vulnerability and prediction assessment in southern Belize with immediate applications in conservation planning, monitoring, and management.

Description: Forest management in Indonesia has not yet been able to realize the constitutional mandate which was followed by uncontrolled forest destruction. Implementing a good forest government system is necessary. Therefore, it is essential to give indigenous peoples the authority to play a more critical role in forest management in the future. This study aims to find a form of sustainable forest management and sanctions for the perpetrators of forest destruction based on Dayak Kotabaru’s indigenous people. This study uses the normative juridical method that focuses on data in the form of primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials. While the objectives of this study are to review and describe the problems due to the absence of legal protection for customary rights, we also examine the extent of forest management by the Dayak Kotabaru’s customary law and seek to formulate forest management solutions in Indonesia based on the local culture as a prescriptive future policy. The results of this study indicate that a large amount of permits, given by the government to the private sector for forests in possession of indigenous peoples, are overlapping and as a result have increasingly marginalized the indigenous community and acted as a drawback to development. Forest management through the local culture, such as the Bera system in Dayak Kotabaru, can be beneficial for the local community, because locals will enjoy the production of farms and gardens, the soil will be naturally fertile because of a four year interlude, and the forest will remain sustainable as less forest area is cut down.

Description: In this paper, the a priori estimate method, the so-called energy inequalities method based on some functional analysis tools is developed for a Caputo time fractional 2 m th order diffusion wave equation with purely nonlocal conditions of integral type. Existence and uniqueness of the solution are proved. The proofs of the results are based on some a priori estimates and on some density arguments.

Description: This article deals with some existence and uniqueness result of random solutions for some coupled systems of Hilfer and Hilfer–Hadamard fractional differential equations with random effects. Some applications are made of generalizations of classical random fixed point theorems on generalized Banach spaces.