Automated Approach for Extraction of Oil Spill from SAR Imagery

Oil spill pollution is a major environmental concern since it has most dangerous and hazardous effects on marine environment. Periodic monitoring by detecting oil spills along with its movement, helps in efficient clean-up and recovery operations. Over the past few years, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) based remote sensing has received considerable attention for monitoring and detecting oil spill due to its unique capabilities to provide wide-area observation in all weather conditions. However, the interpretation of marine SAR imagery is often ambiguous, since it is difficult to separate oil spill from look-alike features. The objective behind our study was to extract probable oil spill candidates automatically from SAR imageries containing oil spill incidences, where new methods based on over-segmentation and amalgamate approach is used for this purpose. The methodology is all about over segmenting the entire image based on its statistics and amalgamating relevant segments at later point of time to represent actual dark features as probable oil spill candidates. Under the dependency on SAR imageries alone, the approach does not take care of the separation of look-alike features which can be addressed subsequently by the consideration of associated synchronous external data resources such as optical data, wind and ocean parameters (Zhao et al. in Opt Express 22(11):13755–13772, 2014; Espedal and Wahl in Int J Remote Sens 20(1):49–65, 1999). The approach is carried out on a set of RISAT-1 imagery containing oil spill incidences and the extracted oil spill areas are in well agreement with the visually interpreted output with kappa coefficient greater than 0.70 and overall classification accuracy greater than 80%.     

Fixed-bed column study for the adsorptive removal of acid fuchsin using carbon–alumina composite pellet

The carbon–alumina composite pellet was developed for the adsorption of acid fuchsin from its aqueous solution. The composite pellet was characterized using Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method, scanning Electron Microscopy and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. The adsorption capacity of commercial alumina, commercial activated carbon and the prepared composite pellet was investigated against acid fuchsin, and the adsorption capacity was found to be increased in the order of alumina < carbon–alumina composite pellet < activated carbon. Although the adsorption capacity of carbon–alumina composite pellets was less than that of activated carbon, the use of the pelletized form of the present adsorbent was proven to be advantageous for the use in the packed-bed column. The experimental data were fitted to Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin adsorption isotherms, and the equilibrium behavior was well explained by Langmuir isotherm. Besides, the kinetic behavior was well predicted by pseudo-second-order kinetics. The effects of inlet dye concentration (10–20 mg/L), feed flowrate (5–15 mL/min) and bed height (2.54–7.62 cm) on the breakthrough characteristics were investigated using a fixed-bed column. The maximum removal capacity in the column study was found to be 343.87 mg/L with an initial dye concentration and flowrate of 20 and 10 mL/min according to Bohart–Adams model. The breakthrough behavior was also effectively described by the Yoon–Nelson and Clark models.     

Petrology and geochemistry of the ultramafic–mafic Mawpyut complex,Meghalaya: a Sylhet trap differentiation centre in northeastern India

The present article describes, for the first time, petrological and geochemical details of the Mawpyut differentiated complex which is related to the Sylhet trap located at Jaintia Hills district, Meghalaya, northeastern India. The Mawpyut complex occurs as an arcuate body that intrudes into the surrounding Shillong Group rocks. The complex in general contains ‘ultramafic’ and ‘mafic’ rocks, as well as minor syenitic veins that postdate the main units. The lithotypes correspond to cumulate and noncumulate units. The cumulate unit is represented by olivine clinopyroxenite, clinopyroxenite, plagioclase‐bearing ultramafic, olivine gabbronorite, mela‐gabbronorite, melagabbro, orthopyroxene gabbro, and gabbro, all with a pronounced cumulus texture. The noncumulate unit is marked by gabbro, monzonite, monzodiorite, and quartzsyenite. The use of several major and trace element variation diagrams suggests that magmatic differentiation led to the formation of cumulate and noncumulate units. In chondrite‐normalized REE diagrams the cumulate rocks show flat LREE and MREE patterns and a moderate positive Eu anomaly (in plagioclase‐bearing ultramafics) due to plagioclase cumulation. The rocks of the noncumulate unit show a strongly fractionated REE pattern and no Eu anomaly. The noncumulate mafic rocks are geochemically comparable to high‐phosphorous/high‐titanium basalts (HPT) indicative of low pressure fractional crystallization. In a primitive mantle‐normalized multielement diagram some of the cumulate rocks show pronounced negative anomalies for K and P, indicating anorogenic mafic magmatism in a within‐plate setting. The rocks of the noncumulate unit show a slight negative anomaly for Yb and a Nb–Ta trough, indicating a subduction‐related signature that perhaps is inherited from subducted sedimentary rocks incorporated during crustal contamination of the derived magma (left after crystal cumulation) with country rocks. Various trace element ratios for the cumulate mafic rocks indicate parent EMI/EMII/HIMU sources with a very limited crustal signature. The noncumulate mafic rocks (corresponding to the derived evolved magma) indicate EMI/EMII/HIMU sources with a pronounced crustal contamination. The Sr–Nd isotopic compositions of the Mawpyut samples typically plot in the continental flood basalt field, with an affinity to the EMII source. The isotopic compositions of the noncumulate rocks also clearly indicate crustal contamination. We suggest that partial melting (involving garnet in the residue) of the enriched mantle source EMI/EMII/HIMU could have derived the parental melt; this melt, in turn, underwent assimilation and fractional crystallization to produce the variety of cumulate‐noncumulate lithologies of the Mawpyut complex. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Molecular composition and paleobotanical origin of Eocene resin from northeast India

The molecular composition of fossil resins from early to middle Eocene coal from northeast India, has been analyzed for the first time to infer their paleobotanical source. The soluble component of fossil resin was analyzed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The resin extracts are composed of cadalene-based C₁₅ sesquiterpenoids and diagenetically altered triterpenoids. The macromolecular composition was investigated using pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC–MS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The major pyrolysis products are C₁₅ bicyclic sesquiterpenoids, alkylated naphthalenes, benzenes and a series of C₁₇–C₃₄ n-alkene-n-alkane pairs. Spectroscopic analysis revealed the dominance of aliphatic components. The presence of cadalene-based sequiterpenoids confirms the resin to be Class II or dammar resin, derived from angiosperms of Dipterocarpaceae family. These sesquiterpenoids are often detected in many SE Asian fluvio-deltaic oils. Dipterocarpaceae are characteristic of warm tropical climate suggesting the prevalence of such climate during early Eocene in northeast India.     

Suitable sampling technique in contextual fuzzy c-means classification of remotely sensed data for land cover mapping

In the past, researchers tried hard classification techniques with contextual information to improve classification results. While modelling the spatial contextual information for hard classifiers using Markov Random Field it has been found that the Metropolis algorithm is easier to program and it performs better when compared with the Gibbs sampler. In this study, it has been found that in the case of soft contextual classification, the Metropolis algorithm fails to sample from a random field efficiently and the Gibbs sampler performs better than the Metropolis algorithm, due to the high dimensionality of the soft classification outputs.     

Sedimentological and 14C dating studies of past tsunami events in Southern Sri Lanka

After the 2004 Sumatra?CAndaman tsunamigenic earthquake, waters from the ocean moved upstream along rivers, bays, harbors, and lagoons and inundated many coastal and inland locations in the southern, eastern, and northern parts of Sri Lanka. The tsunami waters were observed to move upwards inland and then recede downwards to the ocean after varying inundation periods in different coastal areas. Subsequent massive tsunami waves came with the wave height varying from 3 to 8?m inland with speed of about 30?C40?kmph. The oceanic waves carrying heterogeneous sediments with water deposited them in coastal as well as inland locations about 1?km from the present coastline. Given the chaotic nature of tsunami oceanic waves, pre-tsunami deposits, such as beach sands, debris from coral reefs and buildings, parts of vehicles and ships, and tree trunks are found incorporated in authentic tsunami sediments. Thus, the texture, structure, and composition of sediments deposited by tsunami waters differed from one location to another. Therefore, in identifying paleo-tsunami sediments, care was taken to compare them with diagnostic unmixed uncontaminated recent tsunami sediments having characteristic textures and marine microfossil assemblages, such as foraminifera, radiolarians, and diatoms where preserved in coastal depressions. The radiocarbon ages of the carbonate and the organic fractions of these sediments are stratigraphically inconsistent, indicating mixing of sediments by the tsunami waves. The concentrations of organic carbon and nitrogen and their isotopic signatures confirm marine origin of these sediments.     

Changes in landuse and landcover along the Dhansiri River channel,Assam — A remote sensing and GIS approach

Information on landuse/landcover change is a critical input for natural resource management policy decisions. Remote sensing data under GIS domain were utilized to evaluate the changes in land-use/land-cover (LU/LC) spanning a period of thirty three years during 1975 to 2008 along the Dhansiri River channel, Assam, India. Seven different types of LU/LC were categorized and out of them cropland was evident as the most important landuse/landcover practices followed by dense mixed jungle in 1975 and the settlement in 2008. Significant reduction (13.02%) in cropland area to settlement was observed. Moreover, teagarden also occupies 0.77% of the total area from cropland and open mixed jungle. The changes in the areas of swampy land as evident from the present study in turn will impact the environmental quality around it and will help to increase the surface run off leading to enhancement of erosion processes. It is believed that the present study will help to contribute towards sustainable land-use planning and management towards protection of extremely rich biodiversity of the North East India with mighty Brahmaputra River system.     

64层锥束CT扫描的优化系统

近年来X射线断层成像(CT)技术获得了突飞猛进的发展,自1998年推出4层螺旋CT后,CT扫描设备在容积覆盖,空间分辨率,扫描速度,切片数方面取得了长足进展.这不仅给医学应用带来了深远的影响,同时也给CT系统设计提出了巨大的挑战.容积CT(VCT)的设计过程引入了各种策略来战胜其复杂性.这些方法学包括:理论分析,系统性能预测的图像分析工具,各种基于专家背对背评价的参数优化.本文论述了64层CT系统设计中的一些考虑因素及优化过程.这些设计过程保证了锥束CT的优化性能.首批客户的应用反馈显示了我们设计实践的有效率性.