Population surveys and species recognition for roosting bats are either based on capture, sight or optical-mechanical count methods. However, these methods are intrusive, are tedious and, at best, provide only statistical estimations. Here, we demonstrated the successful use of a terrestrial Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) laser scanner for remotely identifying and determining the exact population of roosting bats in caves. LIDAR accurately captured the 3D features of the roosting bats and their spatial distribution patterns in minimal light. The high-resolution model of the cave enabled an exact count of the visibly differentiated Hipposideros larvatus and their roosting pattern within the 3D topology of the cave. We anticipate that the development of LIDAR will open up new research possibilities by allowing researchers to study roosting behaviour within the topographical context of a cave's internal surface, thus facilitating rigorous quantitative characterisations of cave roosting behaviour.
A new species, Polyalthia watui, is described. It resembles Polyalthia bullata King in having bullate leaves with a cordate base, but is distinguished by its flowers with shorter pedicels, longer sepals and petals, subsessile monocarps with long stiff erect hairs; and broad-obovate leaves with fewer pairs of secondary veins. The new species is only known from Brunei's Belait and Tutong districts and is very likely endemic to the Belait geosyncline that includes these areas.
This paper presents investigations on the combination effect of landcover types, ground filtering approach and interpolation methods on Digital Terrain Model (DTM) generated from airborne LiDAR over vegetated area in tropical environment. The study area is separated into three landcover types i.e. oil palm, mangrove and mixed forest. The LiDAR data is filtered based on: 1) Adaptive TIN (ATIN), 2) Progressive morphology (Morph), and 3) Elevation Threshold with Expand Window (ETEW). The DTMs are generated by interpolating the ground points using Ordinary Kriging and Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) methods. The quality of DTMs is evaluated based on the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results show that combination of ATIN and Ordinary Kriging has produced DTMs with higher quality compared to other combination of filtering and interpolation technique. The smallest value of RMSE obtained for terrain covered by oil palm (0.21m) followed by mixed forest (0.25m) and mangrove (0.32m).
Abstract. Affordable housing was developed in order to give equal opportunity for middle and low-incomers in owning a house, especially in Malaysia. To make sure that these people can have a quality house, the National Housing Policy (DRN) with Pelan Tindakan DRN has been introduced by the Malaysian Government to not only provide adequate housing, but also a comfortable, fun and affordable for the wellbeing of the people in Malaysia (KPKT, 2011). Therefore, sustainability for housing is important to achieve balance between economic development, social interactions and environmental impact by reducing the problems related to population growth, urbanisation, slums, poverty, climate change, lack of access to sustainable energy, and economic uncertainty. One of the goals in DRN and Pelan Tindakan Dasar Perumahan Negara (PTDRN) is to provide an affordable housing and ensure the people from low-income can own a house. However, there is an issue towards assessing the sustainability level of affordable housing, especially in social aspects. This study will discuss on sustainability of affordable housing in Malaysia focused on social aspects. Assessment of spatial indicators was conducted to assess the indicator's implementation of social aspect of the sustainability model. The indicators used in this study include public community facilities, health, safety, religion, and public transportation. These indicators will determine the level of sustainability of the affordable housing. From the results, most of the affordable housing in Malaysia is in intermediate level of sustainability in term of social aspects. These results can help/guide the Government in planning and development in the future, especially with collaboration from private agencies and non-government organization (NGO).
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