to be done in this area. Face recognition is a problem that scarcely clamoured for attention before the computer age but, having surfaced, has involved a wide range of techniques and has attracted the attention of some fine minds (David Mumford was a Fields Medallist in 1974). This singular application of mathematical modelling to a messy applied problem of obvious utility and importance but with no unique solution is a pretty one to share with students: perhaps, returning to the source of our opening quotation, we may invert Duncan's earlier observation, 'There is an art to find the mind's construction in the face!'.

Linear and nonlinear waves, by G. B. Whitham. Pp.636. £50. 1999. ISBN 0 471 35942 4 (Wiley).

Over the past decade, the number of studies that investigate aerosol–cloud interactions has increased considerably. Although tremendous progress has been made to improve the understanding of basic physical mechanisms of aerosol–cloud interactions and reduce their uncertainties in climate forcing, there is still poor understanding of 1) some of the mechanisms that interact with each other over multiple spatial and temporal scales, 2) the feedbacks between microphysical and dynamical processes and between local-scale processes and large-scale circulations, and 3) the significance of cloud–aerosol interactions on weather systems as well as regional and global climate. This review focuses on recent theoretical studies and important mechanisms on aerosol–cloud interactions and discusses the significances of aerosol impacts on radiative forcing and precipitation extremes associated with different cloud systems. The authors summarize the main obstacles preventing the science from making a leap—for exampl...

Review of Aerosol–Cloud Interactions: Mechanisms, Significance, and Challenges

Mitigation of the heat island effect in urban New Jersey

https://www.umbc.edu/rssipl/people/aplaza/Papers/Journals/2009.RSE.Spectroscopy.pdf

Earth system science related imaging spectroscopy — an assessment

Geospatial Cyberinfrastructure: Past, present and future

Disclosed is a geographic information system which comprises a multithreading client and a multithreading server cluster. The multithreading client includes at least one user interface, at least one client coordinator, map data, at least one map manager, at least one client-side spatial analyzer, at least one cache manager, at least one data requester, and at least one information communicator. The multithreading server cluster includes: at least one servlet, at least one image accessor, at least one map configuration mechanism; at least one data storage access mechanism, at least one data source manager, and at least one server-side spatial manager.

Geographic information system

WebGIS (also known as web‐based GIS and Internet GIS) denotes a type of Geographic Information System (GIS), whose client is implemented in a Web browser. WebGISs have been developed and used extensively in real‐world applications. However, when such a complex web‐based system involves the dissemination of large volumes of data and/or massive user interactions, its performance can become an issue. In this paper, we first identify several major potential performance problems with WebGIS. Then, we discuss several possible techniques to improve the performance. These techniques include the use of pyramids and hash indices on the server side to handle large images. To resolve server‐side conflicts originating from concurrent massive access and user interactions, we suggest clustering and multithreading techniques. Multithreading is also used to break down the long sequential, layer‐based data access to concurrent data access on the client side. Caching is suggested as a means to enhance concurrent data access...

Performance‐improving techniques in web‐based GIS

Multi sensor satellites are now capable of monitoring the globe during day and night and provide information about the land, ocean and atmosphere. Soon after the Sumatra tsunami and earthquake of 26 December 2004, multi-sensors data have been analysed to study the changes in ocean, land, meteorological and atmospheric parameters. A pronounced changes in the ocean, atmospheric and meteorological parameters are observed while comparing data prior and after the Sumatra main event of 26 December 2004. These changes strongly suggest a strong coupling between land, ocean and atmosphere associated with the Sumatra event.

Multi-sensor studies of the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami of 26 December 2004

In exploring the nature of hyperspectral data, this study has focused on one of its most challenging applications—oil spill detection—in order to uncover the potential limits of such data. The classification performance of conventional techniques can be improved by testing the accuracy of the existing classifiers using a ground data image as a reference. Moreover, a created prototype demonstrates how hyperspectral data can supplement information on environmental deterioration due to oil pollution, specifically the Patuxent River wetland at the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. The data allow an assessment of the current state of wetland losses and habitat changes due to oil pollution of local waters and associated wetlands. Airborne Imaging Spectro‐Radiometer for Applications (AISA) hyperspectral imagery was used for this study and the results were derived using the Environment for Visualizing Images (ENVI) software. The use of different classifiers showed low accuracy and class overlap for many classes. Theref...

Hyperspectral image assessment of oil‐contaminated wetland

In this study, the role of the Saharan air layer (SAL) is investigated in the development and intensification of tropical cyclones (TCs) via modifying environmental stability and moisture, using multisensor satellite data, long-term TC track and intensity records, dust data, and numerical simulations with a state-of-the-art Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). The long-term relationship between dust and Atlantic TC activity shows that dust aerosols are negatively associated with hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin, especially with the major hurricanes in the western Atlantic region. Numerical simulations with the WRF for specific cases during the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA) experiment show that, when vertical temperature and humidity profiles from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) were assimilated into the model, detailed features of the warm and dry SAL, including the entrainment of dry air wrapping around the developing vortex, are well simulated....

/pdf/numerical-simulations-of-the-impacts-of-the-saharan-air-2xp02jv37p.pdf

Ruixin Yang

Papers

Geographic information system

Performance‐improving techniques in web‐based GIS

Multi-sensor studies of the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami of 26 December 2004

Hyperspectral image assessment of oil‐contaminated wetland

Numerical Simulations of the Impacts of the Saharan Air Layer on Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Development