2016-07-27

Milyen előnyt adhat egy földrajzos végzettség a brit miniszterelnök asszonynak? Cikk a Forbes Science on-line kiadásában

Az illusztráció forrása: Internet (The Guardian, 2016)
Karl Donert az European Association of Geographers (EUROGEO) vezetője figyelemfelhívása nyomán akadtam a Forbes Science on-line kiadásában (#WhoaScience) található Marshall Shepherd cikkre:
How Theresa May's Geography Background Might Impact Her Leadership
Ebben a szerző idézi Dr. Kavita Panditot, az Amerikai Földrajzi Társulás volt elnökét, aki jól ismert szakértő a migrációs és nemzetközi kérdésekben is. Tekintve, hogy Theresa May Oxfordban földrajz szakon végzett, a Brexit kapcsán az idézettel már választ is kaptunk a szerző címben feltett kérdésére. Érdemes elolvasni Marshall Sheperd itt található cikkét, benne a kérdéses idézettel: http://tinyurl.com/jmdan2q 
Nemrégen éppen a Magyar Földrajzi Társaság által a földrajztanítás szakközépiskolákban való megtartása érdekében tett felhívása mellé állva, a felhozott érvemhez jó példaként szolgált volna a Pandit idézet.

2016-07-24

Spekulatív utazás a közeljövőbe - blogsorozatot indított Bruce McCormack

BruceMcCormack Budapesten, egy 2013 végén az FVM-ben rendezett
Copernicus MPP műhelyen Fotó: Remetey 
Tegnapi levelében az ír-dél-afrikai város- és térségfejlesztő, környezetvédelmi és térinformatikai szakember, az EUROGI előző elnöke blogsorozatot indított ''Speculative Journey" címmel.  Az ír GeoDirectory felkérésére készülő sorozat első epizódjában arról írt, hogy  2021-ben vagyunk és egy feltett kérdésre, miszerint a számos ismert befolyásoló tényező közül hacsak egyetlen egyet kellene kiválasztani, ami az elmúlt öt évben a legnagyobb mértékben befolyásolta a térinformatikai szakterület haladását, az mi lenne. Válasza a mesterséges intelligencia és gépi tanulás volt: ugyanaz, melyet 2015-ben egy, az Egyesült Arab Emírségek fővárosában tartott konferencián válaszolt egy a jövőt leginkább befolyásoló tényezőre vonatkozó feltett kérdésre. (Válaszával ott egy másik paneltag, Ed Parson is egyetértett.)  Bruce blogsorozatának első, júliusi bejegyzése itt olvasható, és ahhoz örömmel vár megjegyzéseket, észrevételeket. Tegnap ezt magam is megtettem, megjegyzésem jelenleg még a moderátori jóváhagyásra vár.

2016-07-22

Megdöbbentő vizualizáció a terrorista események térbeli és időbeli előfordulásáról századunk első 15 évében

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Forrás: 15 YEARS OF TERROR | A time-lapse map
Milan R. Vuckovic (YouTube: https://youtu.be/cHbYk2l9w-E)

2016-07-21

GSDI a GEO XIII Plenáris ülésen és a CEOS WGISS munkahetén

A Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI) soron következő időszakra megválasztott elnöke Dave Lovell és a földmegfigyelés nemzetközi kormányközi szervezete, a GEO titkárságvezetője Barbara Ryan az elmúlt hónapban találkozót tartottak Londonban. A GSDI delegálttal vesz részt a GEO XIII Plenáris ülésén, melynek a Roszkozmosz és Roszhidromet ad otthont Szentpéterváron. A GEO-nak Mongóliával immár 103 ország valamint az Európai Bizottság a tagja és 8 új jelentkező intézmény (köztük a WHO)  befogadásával éppen 103 'résztvevő szervezet' (PO) tagja van. GSDI összekötője jelen lesz a GEO műholdas karjának számító CEOS, Információs Rendszerek és Szolgáltatások Munkacsoport soron következő munkahetén, melynek házigazdája az Európai Űrügynökség ESRIN szervezete lesz Frascatiban. A vezetőség egyetértésével a GSDI-t mindkét eseményen ezúttal is a szervezet magyar egyéni tagja képviseli. A november végi tajpeji GSDI 15 konferenciának várhatóan lesz külön földmegfigyelési szekciója is. A földmegfigyelési/távérzékelési és  térinformatikai közösségek ígéretes szinergikus kapcsolatára legutóbb a GSDI és az ISPRS is felhívták a figyelmet (GIM Magazin, 2016 július). 

2016-07-20

Draft Report for the GSDI Association on the 6th Digital Earth Summit

6. Digital Earth Summit
‘Digital Earth in the Era of Big Data’
Beijing, July 7-8, 2016

Last year in Halifax, Presidents of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association and the International Society for Digital Earth signed a Memorandum of Understanding in order to cooperate and to exchange knowledge and experiences between their communities. GSDI President Prof. David Coleman was invited to the Scientific Board of the 6. Digital Earth Summit held in Beijing on 7-8 July, 2016.
Co-chaired by Academician GUO Huadong, CAS RADI, Beijing and Dr. Alessandro Annoni, Head of the JRC IES DERD Unit of the European Commission, Ispra,
the event attracted about 300 participants from 30 countries. Actually it provided also opportunity to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Foundation of International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE).
The venue of the event was the Beijing International Convention Centre, where once also the ISPRS Congress was held in 2008.
Welcome speeches

The Summit was opened by GUO Huadong, President of ISDE. Welcome addresses were delivered by LU Yongxiang, the Founding President of ISDE, President of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), SHANG Yong, Executive Deputy of the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, Geoffrey Boulton, President of ICSU’s Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), Rajib Shaw, Executive Director of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR), Prof. Abbas Rajabifard, Former President of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI, the text can be downloaded from the GSDI website) and XIANGLI Bin, Deputy President of CAS.

Keynotes
The invited keynote presentations of the Digital Earth Summit were delivered by
GUA Huadong, President of ISDE: Digital Earth in the Context of the Big Data
Geoffrey Boulton President of ICSU’s Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA): Digital Earth and the Open Data
Günter Schreier, Head of the German Remote Sensing Data Centre at DLR, Oberpfaffenhofen: Collaborative Ground Segments
Alessandro Annoni, Head of the JRC IES Digital Earth and Reference Data Unit at the JRC Institute of Environment and Sustainability: Digital Earth and New data Source: What is changing?
Prof. LI Deren academician, CAS: Towards Geomatics in Big Data Era
Prof. Tim Foresman, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane: Beyond Moore’s Law:
Trevor Taylor of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC): Enabling the Digital Earth: The Role of Open Standards

Parallel sessions

Almost 200 abstracts were received from 20 countries for the thematic parallel sessions arranged in 5-6 tracks. About 90 presentations were delivered in 13 sessions covering the following topics:
Volunteer Geographic Information 
Digital Earth Applications in the Context of Big Data I - II
The role of open standards in the era of Big Data
Digital Mountain: Big Data and Mountain Surface Process
HIST & SDIM Special Session on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage
Crop Monitoring and Precision Agriculture
Technology advances in Digital Earth I – III
Technological Systems of Digital Earth
Microwave Earth Observing
LIDAR Remote Sensing in the Era of Big Data
Digital Earth in Industry
CODATA Special Session on Open Data in a Big Data World
Hyperspectral Remote Sensing in the Era of Big Data
Discovery, Perceiving and Conservation of Natural and Cultural Heritage Based Big Data
Global Environmental Change Remote Sensing
SAR Information Integrated Processing and Environmental Parameter Inversion

Award ceremonies and Welcome Reception
Digital Earth Science/Technology Contribution Award 
Recipients: Dr. Alessandro Annoni, Prof. LI Deren

ISDE Special Contribution Award
Recipient: Prof. WANG Quinmin

ISDE Service Award
Recipients: Prof. WANG Changlin, Prof.Milan Konecny, Dr.Mario Hernandez, Dr.Fred Campbell (posthumus)

ISDE Conference Organising Award
Recipients: Gua Huadong akadémikus (Peking), Prof.Temenoujka Bandrova (Nessebar), Dr.Peter Woodgate (Perth), Dr. Richard Simpson (Wellington), Prof. Mazlan bin Hashim (Kuching), Prof. Hiromichi Fukui (Nagoya), Prof. Hugh Millward (Halifax)

ISDE Life Member
Recipients: Prof. XU Guanhua, Dr. Remetey-Fülöpp Gábor,  Prof. SUN Shu,
Prof. Hirochimi Fukui, Prof. Tim Foresman, Prof. John van Genderen, Mrs. Davina Jackson and Prof Jean Sequeira.

Outstanding Paper Awards were conveyed to Prof. Michael F. Goodchild, Prof. Yang Chaowei, Dr. Max Craglia (JRC) and Joseph O. Sexton, whom papers published in the International Journal of Digital Earth were most frequently cited or downloaded. (About the award ceremonies a separate, illustrated report has been prepared for GSDI)

Exhibitions and posters
The major exhibitors represented mainly the Chinese EO Industry and Research Institutions including the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS RADI), the Centre of Excellence on Space Technology for Disaster Mitigation (CAS TWAS), which performs capacity building and international scientific programs,  SuperMap spatial data products and service provider (Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo), looking for cooperation partners worldwide in product distribution and solution provision, (if interested, visit www.supermap.com or contact globalsupport@supermap.com ). Among the exhibitors was the International Centre on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage an institution hosted by RADI under the auspices of UNESCO (www.unesco-hist.org). According to LIU Zhen, Secretary-general of the Organising Committee of the 6th Digital Earth Summit, alltogether 6 co-organisers, 5 institutions and universities and 5 private sector representative took part in the exhibition. Over 100 posters were accepted but the number of displayed ones were around 50.

Forthcoming ISDE events
Organised for every odd year, the next ISDE Symposium will be held in Sydney between April 3-6, 2017, in conjuction with the Locate 17 Conference.  The ISDE Council Meeting held on 6th July 2016 in Beijing accepted the bid of the Italian CNR to host the 2019 Symposium in Florence, Italy. It was the first successful attempt to bring the Symposium back to Europe after 2003!

Announcement: The Digital Belt and Road (DBAR) initiative 
The research program envisaged for the next ten years was initiated by the CAS RADI (Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth of the Chinese Academy of Science) and has cooperating members from 20 countries along the maritime and land Silk Roads (if interested please contact: DBAR@radi.ac.cn ). The scientific cooperation has the aim to demonstrate the use and application of Big Earth Data for the benefit of people and economy providing sustainable development on local, national and regional level. The affected area covers three continents from China to the Netherlands including Kuala Lumpur, Nairobi and Moscow.

Courtesy of ISDE
Editorial Board Meeting of the International Journal for Digital Earth
Chaired by the Editor-in-Chief GUO Huadong and Editor Prof WANG Changlin, the participants were informed on the promising facts of the internationally acknowledged journal between the top Remote Sensing periodica. Representative of the Publisher Taylor & Francis gave in-sight look on the scientific content, citations, contributing institutions and countries and download statistics. Member of the Board were asked to provide suggestions and recommendations. The last issue (Vol. 9 No. 1-3) had 324 pages containing state of the art articles on the Digital Earth and the ICSU’s Future Earth by GUO Huadong, Prof. Peter Baumann et al: Big Data Analytics for Earth Sciences: the Earth Server Approach, as well as Adam Lewis et al: Rapid, High-resolution Detection of Environmental Change over Continental Scales from Satellite Data - the Earth Observation Data Cube.

Further publications displayed
Booklet entitled “To Benefit Society by Promoting the Development and Realisation of Digital Earth”. Edited by the ISDE Secretariat, this 36-page publication gives an overview of the history of the International Symposia and Summits on Digital Earth and it was published at the 10th Anniversary of the Foundation of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) www.digitalearth-isde.org .

China Scientific Data (a brand new journal, ISSN 2096-2223)
Published by the Computer Network Information Centre of the Chinese Academy of Science (www.csdata.org) and the National Committee of the CAS CODATA, the first issue of the Quarterly was published in June 2016. Editor-in-Chief is GUO Huadong of the Key Laboratory of the Digital Earth Science at the CAS Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth. The leading article of the first issue deals with the investigation of the snow-land cover of the Tibetan Plateau in the period of July 2002 and April 2016 using MODIS imageries. Snow is one of the most active natural element on the Earth surface having significant impact on the regional and global climate change, the energy balance and the water cycle. A area of assessment covers the full territory of the Tibetan Autonom Region and the database contains 69 GB of data (http://www.sciencedb.cn/dataSet/handle/55).

The 2016 Innovation Summit on Smart City and Smart Life 
One floor below the Summit and its Exhibition, the Beijing International Convention Centre hosted an independent but contextually connected event with the title above. Presenters were mostly American and Chinese experts and the average life of the participants seemed to be below 25. Some of the exhibitors came from the Artificial Intelligence Security sector (www.aisec.com ).
The event was arranged by the Beijing Science and Technology Association, the Chinese-US Innovation Network (http://innovationchain.org ), the Beijing Overseas Talent Centre (BOTC), as well as the Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry (BAAFS), in cooperation with the Chinese Artificial Intelligence Association (CAAI). The urban and rural intelligent transportation systems were under the spotlight. Visual impressions of the event: https://picasaweb.google.com/112066959995287816437/6306947141727866801?authuser=0&feat=directlink



New Book: Remote Sensing Image Fusion - A Practical Guide 
A textbook written by Christine Pohl (University of Osnabrück) and John van Genderen (University of Twente)
ISBN: 978-1-4987-3002-0  www.crcpress.com   (Taylor & Francis Group) orders@crcpress.com


All photos were taken by G. Remetey if not otherwise specified