Set of tools for analyzing vertical fuel continuity at the tree level using Airborne Laser Scanning data. The workflow consisted of: 1) calculating the vertical height profiles of each segmented tree; 2) identifying gaps and fuel layers; 3) estimating the distance between fuel layers; and 4) retrieving the fuel layers base height and depth. Additionally, other functions recalculate previous metrics after considering distances greater than certain threshold. Moreover, the package calculates: i) the percentage of Leaf Area Density comprised in each fuel layer, ii) remove fuel layers with Leaf Area Density (LAD) percentage less than 10, and iii) recalculate the distances among the reminder ones. On the other hand, it identifies the crown base height (CBH) based on different criteria: the fuel layer with the highest LAD percentage and the fuel layers located at the largest- and at the last-distance. When there is only one fuel layer, it also identifies the CBH performing a segmented linear regression (breaking points) on the cumulative sum of LAD as a function of height. Finally, a collection of plotting functions is developed to represent: i) the initial gaps and fuel layers; ii) the fuels base height, depths and gaps with distances greater than certain threshold and, iii) the CBH based on different criteria. The methods implemented in this package are original and have not been published elsewhere.

Estimation of indicators on social exclusion and poverty, as well
    as Pareto tail modeling for empirical income distributions.

Methods for fast access to large ASCII files.  Currently the
    following file formats are supported: comma separated format (CSV) and fixed
    width format. It is assumed that the files are too large to fit into memory,
    although the package can also be used to efficiently access files that do
    fit into memory. Methods are provided to access and process files blockwise.
    Furthermore, an opened file can be accessed as one would an ordinary
    data.frame. The LaF vignette gives an overview of the functionality
    provided.