This book is a composition of different points of view regarding the application of Computational Intelligence techniques and methods to Remote Sensing data and applications. It is the general consensus that classification, its related data processing, and global optimization methods are core topics of Computational Intelligence. Much of the content of the book is devoted to image segmentation and recognition, using diverse tools from different areas of the Computational Intelligence field, ranging from Artificial Neural Networks to Markov Random Field modeling. The book covers a broad range of topics, starting from the hardware design of hyperspectral sensors, and data handling problems, namely data compression and watermarking issues, as well as autonomous web services. The main contents of the book are devoted to image analysis and efficient (parallel) implementations of these analysis techniques. The classes of images dealt with throughout the book are mostly multispectral-hyperspectral images, though there are some instances of processing Synthetic Aperture Radar images.

Remote sensing is the acquisition of information of an object or phenomenon, by the use of either recording or real-time sensing device(s), that is not in physical or intimate contact with the object (such as by way of aircraft, spacecraft, satellite, buoy, or ship). In practice, remote sensing is the stand-off collection through the use of a variety of devices for gathering information on a given object or area. Human existence is dependent on our ability to understand, utilize, manage and maintain the environment we live in - Geoscience is the science that seeks to achieve these goals. This book is a collection of contributions from world-class scientists, engineers and educators engaged in the fields of geoscience and remote sensing.

To all those sailors / Who dreamed before us / Of another way to sail the oceans. The dedication of this Volume is meant to recall, and honour, the bold pioneers of ocean exploration, ancient as well as modern. As a marine scientist, dealing with the oceans through the complex tools, ?lters and mechanisms of contemporary research, I have always wondered what it was like, in centuries past, to look at that vast ho- zon with the naked eye, not knowing what was ahead, and yet to sail on. I have tried to imagine what ancient sailors felt, when “the unknown swirls around and engulfs the mind”, as a forgotten author simply described the brave, perhaps reckless, act of facing such a hostile, menacing and yet fascinating adventure. Innovation has always been the key element, I think, for their success: another way, a better way, a more effective, safer and worthier way was the proper answer to the challenge. The map of our world has been changed time and again, from the geographical as well as the social, economic and scienti?c points of view, by the new discoveries of those sailors. One of the positive qualities of human beings is without doubt the inborn desire to expand their horizons, to see what lies beyond, to learn and understand.

This volume is a compilation of studies on interactions of land-cover/land-use change with climate in a region where the climate warming is most pronounced compared to other areas of the globe. The climate warming in the far North, and in the Arctic region of Northern Eurasia in particular, affects both the landscape and human activities, and hence human dimensions are an important aspect of the topic. Environmental pollution together with climate warming may produce irreversible damages to the current Arctic ecosystems. Regional land-atmosphere feedbacks may have large global importance. Remote sensing is a primary tool in studying vast northern territories where in situ observations are sporadic. State-of-the-art methods of satellite remote sensing combined with GIS and models are used to tackle science questions and provide an outlook of current land-cover changes and potential scenarios for the future. Audience: The book is a truly international effort involving U.S. and European scientists. It is directed at the broad science community including graduate students, academics and other professionals in this field.

The four-volume set comprising LNCS volumes 5302/5303/5304/5305 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Computer Vision, ECCV 2008, held in Marseille, France, in October 2008. The 243 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 871 papers submitted. The four books cover the entire range of current issues in computer vision. The papers are organized in topical sections on recognition, stereo, people and face recognition, object tracking, matching, learning and features, MRFs, segmentation, computational photography and active reconstruction.