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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have shown great potential in various applications such as surveillance, search and rescue. To perform safe and efficient navigation, it is vitally important for a UAV to evaluate the environment accurately and promptly. In this work, we present a simulation study for the estimation of foliage distribution as a UAV equipped with biosonar navigates through a forest. Based on a simulated forest environment, foliage echoes are generated by using a bat-inspired bisonar simulator. These biosonar echoes are then used to estimate the spatial distribution of both sparsely and densely distributed tree leaves. While a simple batch processing method is able to estimate sparsely distributed leaf locations well, a wavelet scattering technique coupled with a support vector machine (SVM) classifier is shown to be effective to estimate densely distributed leaves. Our approach is validated by using multiple setups of leaf distributions in the simulated forest environment. Ninety-seven percent accuracy is obtained while estimating thickly distributed foliage.

Cricket is the second most popular game around the globe, particularly it breeds a high level of enthusiasm in Asia, Australia and UK. However, it is generally known and globally mentioned that Pakistan is an "unpredictable" cricket team, which leads to extreme reactions from the citizens in case of a loss, e.g., verbal anger, breaking of television sets and burning of players' effigies. Objectives: In this study, we leverage machine learning techniques to demonstrate that the use of the "unpredictable" tag for Pakistan's cricket performance is unjustified as the match outcome can be predicted with a pretty high confidence. Method: We produce a new dataset by scrapping latest statistics from cricinfo.com, the most reliable online source. Also, we propose a novel feature "consecutive wins" that incorporates recent performance trend of the team. With extensive experimental setup, state-of-the-art machine learning methodology was employed to prove effectiveness of proposed tool. Findings: Pakistan's cricket performance can be predicted with 82% accuracy, i.e., it is possible to understand the patterns (in advance) which may lead to a winning or losing situation. Hence, using pre-match analysis, it is possible to avoid any prejudiced opinion or potentially dangerous reactions. Novelty: We employ state-of-the-art machine learning methodology based on application of various algorithms, feature selection and data splitting methods. Eventually, state-ofthe-art prediction accuracy is achieved by exploiting all potential avenues in a structured way.