Małgorzata Wieczorek

Tourist Traffic In The Aconcagua Massif Area

Abstract The aim of the article is an analysis of tourist traffic in the Aconcagua massif, one of the most popular peaks of the Seven Summits. On the basis of statistical data, the tourist traffic was analysed in a temporal and spatial perspective. The applied data made it possible to capture the dynamics of visits in the period 2000/2001 – 2012/2013 and with a breakdown into months, which helped analyse the tourist traffic in this area. In each of the analysed periods, January dominates. Data concerning the origin of tourists according to countries and continents, their age, gender and type of mountaineering activity were also taken into account. Most tourists came from Argentina, the USA and Germany. These are people of age groups 21–30 (33%) and 31–40 (31%). Men account for over 75% of visitors. The favourite mountaineering activity is climbing (about 60%). Aconcagua has invariably been a very popular peak among tourists and climbers. It is a place for training and acclimatisation for alpinists, participating in Himalayan expeditions and climbers collecting peaks of the Seven Summits.

The nested k‐means method: A new approach for detecting lost persons in aerial images acquired by unmanned aerial vehicles

A new method, named as the nested k-means, for detecting a person captured in aerial images acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), is presented. The nested k-means method is used in a newly built system that supports search and rescue (SAR) activities through processing of aerial photographs taken in visible light spectra (red-green-blue channels, RGB). First, the k-means classification is utilized to identify clusters of colors in a three-dimensional space (RGB). Second, the k-means method is used to verify if the automatically selected class of colors is concurrently spatially clustered in a two-dimensional space (easting-northing, EN), and has human-size area. The UAV images were acquired during the field campaign carried out in the Izerskie Mountains (SW Poland). The experiment aimed to observe several persons using an RGB camera, in spring and winter, during various periods of day, in uncovered terrain and sparse forest. It was found that the nested k-means method has a considerable potential for detecting a person lost in the wilderness and allows to reduce area to be searched to 4.4 and 7.3% in spring and winter, respectively. In winter, land cover influences the performance of the nested k-means method, with better skills in sparse forest than in the uncovered terrain. In spring, such a relationship does not hold. The nested k-means method may provide the SAR teams with a tool for near real-time detection of a person and, as a consequence, to reduce search area to approximately 0.5–7.3% of total terrain to be visited, depending on season and land cover.

Endogenous event-related potentials in patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome without central nervous system involvement

Objectives: Endogenous cognitive event-related potentials (CERPs) reflect higher-level processing of sensory information and can be used to evaluate cognitive functions. The aim of this paper was to determine whether there are any abnormalities in the electrophysiological parameters of CERPs in patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS) but without symptoms of central nervous system (CNS) involvement or mental disorder. The analysis of CERP parameters was then correlated with the clinical status of the patients and with some of the immunological parameters in the patient group. Method: Thirty consecutive patients with pSS (29 females, one male) were included in the study. All the patients underwent CERP examination. Results: There was a significant prolongation of the latency of P300 and N200 potentials in patients with pSS. Abnormalities in electrophysiological parameters of CERPs correlated with the duration of the disease, salivary gland abnormalities, and elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) values. Patients with coexisting chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) had larger P300 amplitudes. There were no statistically significant changes in the electrophysiological parameters of CERPs in patients with pSS dependent on the presence of peripheral nervous system (PNS) lesions, skin changes, arthritis, abnormalities in white blood cells and the immune system or the levels of blood lipids. Conclusions: The results of the study suggest the presence of a minor cognitive dysfunction in patients with pSS without symptoms of CNS involvement or mental disorder. Cognitive dysfunction correlated with the disease duration time and the severity of inflammatory changes (salivary gland abnormalities and inflammatory markers in the blood). Further and larger longitudinal studies are necessary for confirmation of this correlation.

Use of Remotely-Derived Bathymetry for Modelling Biomass in Marine Environments

The paper presents results on the influence of geometric attributes of satellite-derived raster bathymetric data, namely the General Bathymetric Charts of the Oceans, on spatial statistical modelling of marine biomass. In the initial experiment, both the resolution and projection of the raster dataset are taken into account. It was found that, independently of the equal-area projection chosen for the analysis, the calculated areas are very similar, and the differences between them are insignificant. Likewise, any variation in the raster resolution did not change the computed area. Although the differences were shown to be insignificant, for the subsequent analysis we selected the cylindrical equal area projection, as it implies rectangular spatial extent, along with the automatically derived resolution. Then, in the second experiment, we focused on demersal fish biomass data acquired from trawl samples taken from the western parts of ICES Sub-area VII, near the sea floor. The aforementioned investigation into processing bathymetric data allowed us to build various statistical models that account for a relationship between biomass, sea floor topography and geographic location. We fitted a set of generalised additive models and generalised additive mixed models to combinations of trawl data of the roundnose grenadier (Coryphaenoides rupestris) and bathymetry. Using standard statistical techniques—such as analysis of variance, Akaike information criterion, root mean squared error, mean absolute error and cross-validation—we compared the performance of the models and found that depth and latitude may serve as statistically significant explanatory variables for biomass of roundnose grenadier in the study area. However, the results should be interpreted with caution as sampling locations may have an impact on the biomass–depth relationship.

Spatio-temporal changes in atmospheric precipitation over south-western Poland between the periods 1891–1930 and 1981–2010

In this paper, we quantify the changes in precipitation distribution in south-western Poland between the periods 1891–1930 and 1981–2010. The average monthly precipitation totals available for 368 and 245 stations, respectively, are spatially interpolated and processed to calculate maps of differences and pluvial continentality indices for both periods. The maps are analysed against changes in atmospheric circulation and take into account the potential role of the mountain barrier of the Sudetes. The main findings are (1) winter totals generally increased in conjunction with a higher frequency of zonal circulation; it is more pronounced in the upper parts of the Sudetes due to orographic effects; (2) a decreased frequency of zonal circulation together with an increased frequency of southern flows has likely led to the reduction of precipitation in spring and autumn. These changes have led to a significant modification of the region’s pluvial regime, mostly by decreasing continentality features (especially in the Sudetes and the western lowlands). In addition, the strong sheltering influence of the mountain barrier is observed, driving the preservation or even the enhancement of the continental pluvial characteristics in the north-eastern to eastern foregrounds of the Sudetes. This leads to the conclusion that in areas where long-term observed trends or future projections of precipitation are ambiguous, there may occur significant modifications in regional characteristics, especially as a result of changes in atmospheric circulation modified by local orography.

Parameters of Somatosensory Evoked Potentials in Patients with Primary Sjӧgren’s Syndrome: Preliminary Results

Primary Sjogrens syndrome (pSS) is a chronic autoimmune disease. The aim of the study was to establish whether in patients with pSS without central nervous system (CNS) involvement, the function of the central portion of the sensory pathway can be challenged. In 33 patients with pSS without clinical features of CNS damage and normal head computed tomography scan, somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) were studied. The results were compared to other clinical parameters of the disease, particularly to immunological status. The control group consisted of 20 healthy volunteers. Mean latency of all components of SEP was considerably prolonged in patients compared to the control group. Mean interpeak latency N20-N13 (duration of central conduction TT) did not differ significantly between the groups. However, in the study group, mean amplitude of N20P22 and N13P16 was significantly higher compared to healthy individuals. In patients with pSS, significant differences in SEP parameters depending on the duration of the disease and presence of SSA and SSB antibodies were noted. The authors confirmed CNS involvement often observed in patients with pSS. They also showed dysfunction of the central sensory neuron as a difference in the amplitude of cortical response, which indicates subclinical damage to the CNS.

An Influence of Spatial Range of Input Data set on Terrain Relief form Classification Homogeneity for Glacial Area

Morphometric analyses performed on various areas and various methods are still very popular nowadays. There are both raster data and vector data analysed in this scope. In this article, there is a comparison described between two analyses of the same area. The input data was a 10 m × 10 m raster DEM representing SW part of Spitsbergen with actual size 15 km × 18 km. The data was characterized by 5 attributes: relative height, slope, aspect, and also plan and profile curvature. The first analysis was done on the full input data. For the other one, the input data was limited to the mainland only (excluding waters and subarea with glacier itself). In both classifications k-median method with Manhattan metric was used. The results were compared using statistical methods and visual evaluation. More detailed analyses were performed for two selected classifications. Finally, it is remarkable that suggested limitation of analyzed area improved homogeneity of result classes.