EOMasters Newsletter #008
08/10/2023
In this Issue:
EOMasters News
Apply for Early Access Phase of the EOMasters Toolbox
EO and RS News
Addressing Publication Overload in Environmental Science
Nomination for the Jerlov Medal is Open
FRM4SM Phase 1 completed and Phase to started
Beyond EO
This Years Nobel Prize Winners
EOMasters News
Apply for Early Access Phase of the EOMasters Toolbox
The development of the first version of the EOMasters Toolbox is finalised. Now it is ready for the Early Access phase. If you want to put your hands on the Toolbox before everyone else, let me know and you can join the Early Access phase. The phase is limited to 10 users and will start shortly after ESA's SNAP 10 has been released. The EOMasters Toolbox was developed for SNAP 10, which means the EA phase cannot start earlier.
Your early feedback will be used to further improve the toolbox and iron out the last bugs before the general release.
To participate you can send me a DM either via X, Facebook or Mastodon or simply reply to this email.
From all applicants, 10 users will be randomly selected and invited to the EA phase.
You already want to know what will be inside the box? Ok, I'll give you a sneak peek.
Quick Menu
Provides quick access to the most often used menu actions.Band Maths Extensions
Adds new functionalities to Band Maths, like window calculations and checking if pixels are invalid.Wavelength Editor
Allows to edit the wavelength properties of multiple bands and apply the changes to compatible products.
This is not all, and the toolbox will be further extended in the future. If you have ideas about which features the toolbox should be extended with, let me know and your ideas will be taken into account in the further development.
EO and RS News
Addressing Publication Overload in Environmental Science
Everyday there are plenty of new papers published in the Environmental Science domain. There is no way for scientists to digest everything of interest. It is like an avalanche, overwhelming everyone standing in the way.
The following article shows up a solution that involves a human-driven, machine-aided online synthesis tool. It discusses the challenges and limitations of existing synthesis products and proposes a vision for a dynamic and interactive tool that can connect and synthesize large amounts of related research and information while preserving the detail found in individual peer-reviewed papers. The article calls for collaboration and partnership among scientists, visualization experts, database specialists, ontologists, and machine learning experts to design and develop such a tool.
It also suggests some incentives and benefits for researchers who contribute to the tool. The article argues that this tool would help researchers keep up with the latest scientific advances, address societally important challenges, and support early-career scientists.
What do you think? Can it really be helpful?
Nomination for the Jerlov Medal is Open
The Dr. Nils Gunnar Jerlov Medal is awarded biennially to an individual for advancing our knowledge of how light interacts with the ocean. Now is the time to nominate someone who has made a significant contribution to the education and mentoring of students and young professionals in marine science, or who has conducted significant interdisciplinary research in marine science and/or collaborative work with significant societal impact.
Nominations must be submitted till November 15, 2023.
FRM4SM Phase 1 completed and Phase 2 to started
The Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM4SM) has recently completed project phase 1 and started phase 2 which has been extended by ESA to December 2024. The project focuses on defining procedures and protocols to qualify in situ soil moisture measurements as “FRMs” and on addressing specific concerns intrinsic to the satellite soil moisture validation strategy.
Beyond EO
This Years Nobel Prize Winners
Here are the Nobel Prize winners for 2023 and their significant contributions:
Physiology or Medicine: The award was given to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work developing mRNA vaccines that helped protect millions of people during the Covid-19 pandemic. Their research, first published in 2005, uncovered a new method of using mRNA to trigger immune responses, which companies like Pfizer and Moderna would eventually use to produce effective vaccines at an unprecedented rate.
Physics: The laureates Anne L’Huillier, Pierre Agostini, and Ferenc Krausz were jointly awarded the Noble Prize in Physics for their independent experiments and discoveries capturing the movement of electrons. Implementing technology that produces light pulses measured in attoseconds (an attosecond is one quintillionth, or 1×10 −18, of a second), the three scientists have enabled revolutionary means of tracking the unseen world.
Chemistry: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2023 was awarded to Moungi G. Bawendi from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Louis E. Brus from Columbia University, and Alexei I. Ekimov from Nanocrystals Technology Inc. They were recognized for their discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. Quantum dots are nanoparticles so tiny that their size determines their properties. These smallest components of nanotechnology now spread their light from televisions and LED lamps and can also guide surgeons when they remove tumour tissue, among many other things.
Literature: The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 was awarded to Norwegian author Jon Fosse. The Swedish Academy in Stockholm credited him with combining his strong linguistic and geographic connections to Norway with modernist techniques and commended him “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”.
Peace: The Nobel Peace Prize 2023 was awarded to Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian human-rights activist. She was recognized for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran, a symbolic show of support for the women’s-rights movement that sparked nationwide protests in the Islamic Republic in the past year. For decades one of Iran’s leading and most fearless human-rights campaigners, Mohammadi is currently serving multiple sentences amounting to more than 10 years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison for alleged propaganda activities.
The prize for Economic Sciences will be announced on Monday the 9th of October on the following page: Nobel Prize Economic Sciences
That's it for this issue. I hope you enjoyed this collection of news. Stay tuned for the next edition, which will arrive in your inbox in about two weeks.
Tschüss and Goodbye!
Marco