The Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) was launched on Jan 24th, 2006 by a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) H-IIA launcher. It carries three remote sensing instruments: Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type-2 (AVNIR-2), Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM) and Phased Array Type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR). Within the framewor...

High precision DEM of a tidal-flat is valuable to coastal management as well as pure scientific interest including erosion and sedimentation rate study. Geomorphologic mapping in coastal zone is, however, complicated by the rapid and significant changes on many fluvial forms and poor topographic expression of the landform. Three space-borne SAR systems including ALOS PALSAR, TerrrSAR-X and ERS-...

Persian juniper and Pistachio are grown in low density in the rangelands of North-East of Iran. These rangelands are populated by evergreen conifers, which are widespread and present at low-density and sparse shrub of pistachio in Iran, that are not only environmentally but also genetically essential as seed sources for pistachio improvement in orchards. Rangelands offer excellent opportunities...

The Global Digital Elevation Model produced from stereo images of Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer data (ASTER GDEM) covers land surfaces between latitudes of 83°N and 83°S. The Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) onboard Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) collected many SAR images since it was launched on 24 January 2006. The combinati...

The new Japanese optical sensor ALOS/PRISM which was launched in January 2006 has stereo capabilities which can be used for a great number of applications and products. One of the most important products is the generation of Digital Surface Models (DSMs). With SAT-PP (Satellite Image Precision Processing) our group has developed a suite of new methods and a software package which can be used fo...

BACKGROUND Empirical evidence on how ownership type affects the quality and cost of medical care is growing, and debate on these topics is ongoing. Despite the fact that the private sector is a major provider of hospital services in Greece, little comparative information on private versus public sector hospitals is available. The aim of the present study was to describe and compare the operatio...

BACKGROUND Although hospital length of stay (LOS) following lumbar fusion has decreased for a variety of reasons, different institutions find their LOS over the benchmarks published by the national Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Over a 3-year period, this prospective study introduced utilization of multidisciplinary committee meetings between surgeons and other caretakers to...