Åke Sivertun

Abstract: Weather has a significant influence on navigation processes. Driving during a heavy rain, for example, is slower and due to poor visibility more dangerous than driving in perfect weather conditions. Thus from time management and safety perspective including weather information is beneficial. Weather, especially rain may also be critical for transportation tasks since some commodities like straw or sand should not get wet. In the last years, the quality of weather information and weather forecast has improved and could be used to improve route planning.The paper discusses how weather information can be included in route planning algorithms. A first approximating algorithm to incorporate weather forecast data is presented. Some examples showing the impact on route planning conclude the paper.

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to identify the main vegetation factors in the terrain, which are important for the analysis of forest structure. Such an analysis is important for forestry, rescue operations management during crises situations and disasters such as fires, storms, earthquakes and military analysis (transportation, cover, concealment, etc.). For the forest structure determination, both LIDAR and the forest growth prediction analysis were used. As main results, the vegetation height, tree spacing and stem diameters were determined

Abstract: Mapping of forest areas and other landscapes as to combine information about ground structures, topography as well as other natural and man-made features can be made with help of LiDAR (Elmqvist, M. 2001). The result can be used for planning military and civil missions and analysis of the possibility to drive though areas with bad or no roads (Sivertun & Gumos 2006) as well as for management of natural recourses and for example in physical planning. By combining LiDAR and other remotely sensed data it is possible to make use of the different advantages the different sensors provides. In this article based on a test in Linkoping municipality, Sweden, we have employed the LiDAR based SingleTree™ detection model (Ahlberg at al 2008) and hyper spectral image data as to improve the classification of the trees and the ground surface under the trees. This method differs from similar models like in Beland et al. (2014) and Cote et al (2011) that uses terrestrial TLiDAR sensors to identify the species of trees.By detecting returns of laser beams that passed through the vegetation and are reflected back to the sensor, it is possible to detect ditches, stones, logs and other obstacles to passing through the area. The data from modern LiDAR sensors can have very high spatial resolution, in many cases 50 points/m2 or more. By filtering the LiDAR data it is also possible to detect vehicles and man-made objects that are hidden under the vegetation, especially if the LIDAR uptake is compared with an earlier registration, movements and differences can be detected.LiDAR registrations are today made by the forest industry in order to obtain better and more accurate information about the vegetation and improve their activities. Observation of the health of plants or trees becomes more important as a consequence from global warming and increased pressure from insects and diseases. There is also an increasing demand on forests and crops as to fill the demands from a growing and partly wealthier world (Kamaruzaman J. and Kasawani I., 2009). In forestry the LiDAR data are used to plan for harvest, building forest roads and timber transports. Another important source of data is Hyper Spectral Scenes (HSS) where the reflected solar light is analysed to identify anomalies in the spectral response and get a hint about the health of the canopy (Hyperspectral Imaging 2011). The difference from using multispectral images in comparison with other remotely sensed data is that the hyper spectral sensor delivers response in several hundred small and well-defined spectral wavelength bands. Those are supposed to indicate the biomass and water content as well as the difference between the absorption and the reflectance band for chlorophyll and many other conditions. A system can be used to identify the spectral signature in a certain area in order to decide what material and colours that should be used for camouflage. The data can be combined with LiDAR and used in the classification of forests, soils and other landscape features in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Modern development of sensors and platforms makes it possible to use for example Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) like helicopters to collect LiDAR and HSS data.

Abstract: Three technology forecast reports from the Fraunhofer Institute and four reports on literature studies (sometimes called scanning reports) from the Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOI) have bee

Abstract: In this study, the interferometric coherence calculated from 12-day Sentinel-1 image pairs was analysed in relation to mowing events on agricultural grasslands. Results showed that after a mowing event, median VH (vertical transmit, horizontal receive) and VV (vertical transmit, vertical receive) polarisation coherence values were statistically significantly higher than those from before the event. The shorter the time interval after the mowing event and the first interferometric acquisition, the higher the coherence. The coherence tended to stay higher, even 24 to 36 days after a mowing event. Precipitation caused the coherence to decrease, impeding the detection of a mowing event. Given the three analysed acquisition geometries, it was concluded that afternoon acquisitions and steeper incidence angles were more useful in the context of this study. In the case of morning acquisitions, dew might have caused a decrease of coherence for mowed and unmowed grasslands. Additionally, an increase of coherence after a mowing event was not evident during the rapid growth phase, due to the 12-day separation between the interferometric acquisitions. In future studies, six-day pairs utilising Sentinel-1A and 1B acquisitions should be considered.

Abstract: As urbanization process has been and will be happening in an unprecedented scale worldwide, strong requirements from academic research and practical fields for smart management and intelligent planning of cities are pressing to handle increasing demands of infrastructure and potential risks of inhabitants’ agglomeration in disaster management. Geospatial data and geographic information systems (GISs) are essential components for building smart cities in a basic way that maps the physical world into virtual environment as a referencing framework. On higher level, GIS has been becoming very important in smart cities on different sectors. In the digital city era, digital maps and geospatial databases have long been integrated in workflows in land management, urban planning and transportation in government. People have anticipated GIS to be more powerful not only as an archival and data management tool but also as spatial models for supporting decision-making in intelligent cities. Successful applications hav...

Abstract: The prevalence of life habits may vary substantially within a country. Incidence maps of strongly related diseases can illustrate the distribution of these life style habits. In this study we explored the spatial variation in Belgium for different cancers related to alcohol and/or tobacco. From the Belgian Cancer Registry, municipality specific World Standardised incidence rates for the years 2004-2011 are used to create detailed smoothed cancer maps by subsite or histology for cancers of oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus, liver and lung. Cancer incidence is compared both visually (from incidence maps) and with Poisson regression analysis using mortality from chronic liver disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as a proxy for alcohol and tobacco prevalence, respectively. The incidence rates for oral cavity, pharyngeal and laryngeal cancer were comparable with the alcohol gradient. However, glottic cancer revealed a pattern that was more comparable with lung cancer. These two tumour types resembled more closely to the smoking pattern. Oesophageal cancer showed two patterns: squamous cell carcinoma was highly comparable with the background alcohol consumption, while adenocarcinoma was unrelated to one of our two proxies. Our approach and results are an encouraging example how data from a young cancer registry can be used in studies describing the regional cancer burden. The results can be useful for primary prevention to increase awareness for the public, authorities and health care professionals in specific subpopulations.

Abstract: A concept called Military Utility is proposed for the study of the use of technology in military operations. The proposed concept includes a three-level structure representing key features and their detailed components. On basic level the Military Utility of a technical system, to a military actor, in a specific context, is a compound measure of the military effectiveness, of the assessed technical system's suitability to the military capability system and of the affordability. The concept is derived through conceptual analysis and is based on related concepts used in social sciences, the military domain and Systems Engineering. It is argued that the concept has qualitative explanatory powers and can support military decision-making regarding technology in forecasts, defense planning, development, utilization and the lessons learned process. The suggested concept is expected to contribute to the development of the science of Military-Technology and to be found useful to actors related to defense.

Abstract: This thesis strives to create opportunities within landscape architecture to promote the development of the outdoors as a resource for health and well-being in healthcare settings. The overall aim is to describe users’ experiences of contact with the outdoors in healthcare environments, and from this generate frameworks and tools for use in the design processes of such environments. The work is built on theoretical frameworks including person-environment fit and universal design, together with theories on restorative and supportive environments. In the background, evidence-based design is described in relation to outdoor environments in healthcare and this leads to the identification of four zones of contact that are used as part of a holistic approach to explore the experience of contact with the outdoors. The result reflects two different parts of the working process. The first part describes the users’ contact with the outdoors, as experienced by staff, next of kin and residents. These descriptions portray a variety of universal wishes, needs and opportunities in relation to the outdoor environment in healthcare settings. Such universal needs and wishes became the main perspective in the second part of the work, as the empirical results were interpreted from a researcher’s and designer’s point of view. The main contribution of the present work is the generation of frameworks and tools useful in design processes that correspond to users’ wishes and needs in healthcare settings. The quality evaluation tool (QET) is the final manifestation of these frameworks. In all, these frameworks consist of 19 environmental qualities, the three design concepts of comfortable design, inspiring design, and the gradient of challenge, and the principal model of the four zones of contact with the outdoors. The frameworks also offer explanations of the ways in which the 19 environmental qualities relate to theories on different resources of the outdoors. These frameworks are designed to help designers to be comprehensive and aware in their work, and not overlook important qualities and aspects of the outdoors in a healthcare context. Furthermore, they are designed to be useful in participatory design processes.