Spaced Out ::

EGU 2016 General Assembly Session (search for SS12.18)
Conveners: Mike J Smith (Kingston), Mike James (Lancaster), Damià Vericat (Lleida), Saskia Keesstra (Wageningen)
Abstract Deadline: 13 Jan 2016

WHO?

The aim of this session is to bring together scientists who are working with UAS in soil science, geohazards, geomorphology, vegetation and agronomy and share experiences with a focus upon platforms, sensors, data processing, and applications. The session will provide an overview of the current state of research and challenges that need to be tackled.

WHAT?

We encourage any scientist working with small aerial platforms to submit an abstract. Possible topics can include, but are not limited to:

Platform development
Light-weight sensor development
Methods of data processing
Multispectral and hyperspectral data analysis
Pre-processing and time-series analysis
Applications in soil science, geohazards, geomorphology, cryosphere, ecology, agriculture, forestry, vegetation mapping and monitoring, etc.

WHY?

Recent enhancements in the performance and endurance of autonomous flying platforms, such as multi-copters and fixed wing aircraft, coupled with lighter and better performing sensors, has led to a dramatic increase in the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for scientific applications. The pace of development has been breath-taking and this is no better realised than in the low-cost consumer market where products are viable for scientific deployment. Yet we also see the development of aerial platforms for laser scanning, medium format visible cameras and multispectral scanners. These now approach the capability of traditional manned airborne systems. Within the geosciences the increasing use of photogrammetry, and particularly Structure from Motion (SfM), has led to a range of exciting applications.

I was recently on a panel discussion organised by Sense About Science on peer review specifically targeted at PhD and early career researchers. This series has been running 4 or 5 years now and has slowly evolved over time in to its current format of 2 group discussion sessions followed by brief panel member presentations and then a long Q&A (a good review of the event by my PhD student James O’Connor). Elizabeth Moylan of BioMed Central spoke about how the system currently operates commenting upon single/double blind and open review, the cycle of review, potential biases and the problem of reviewer fatigue. This is particularly a problem where journals seek fast review times and if papers get cycled between different journals. She noted new developments that uncouple review from the journal (Peerage of Science and Axios Review), as well as ideas for collaborative review and receiving credit for review. All important discussions and developments in the peer review process.

I spoke next (see my slides) covering why people choose to publish before moving on to the process (and emotions!) of submitting a paper, receiving a review and (hopefully) seeing it in print before concluding on why people review.

Irene Hames spoke on some of the developments in peer review and how we can and should be making the most of these. They included (in no particular order) retraction watch, PubPeer, PeerJ, Faculty1000 and Rubriq. She also highlighted how journals are now competing for peer reviews and that this is an area ripe for credit (dont forget to get your ORCID ID and list them there) as well as abuse!! See this story over at Retraction Watch for example. She also briefly talked about what you can do with a review - this is actually a piece of work by the reviewer and being able to use these reviews is potentially a valuable output. Check with the journal!

The discussion was really thought provoking and highlighted, first and foremost, the strong biomedical interest in the attendees. Questions relating to supervisors taking credit for reviews students had undertaken, unhelpful reviews, rude reviews, why rejections happen, how reviewers are selected, differences between subjects, journal funding models…. all really pertinent topics. It’s also worth noting that authors compete for space where journals have page budgets - so whilst a paper may well be publishable, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be accepted. And that writing well goes a long way to helping a paper along in the review process - you can never practice enough at writing!!

A hugely valuable day and well worth being a part of the debate.

I’m off to the 6th Argentine Congress on Quaternary Geomorphology (or the rather handy Google Translate version!) shortly so have been prepping various academic and travel things ready for the trip. One thing I stumbled across which might be useful to other (UK) travelers is paying abroad - credit cards are obviously dead handy in this regard but usually charge a foreign transaction fee. Not so the Halifax Clarity Credit Card which is free on foreign transaction and, indeed, free on cash withdrawals. If you pay off your card monthly then this is a great deal.

Late last year I became a trustee at the Mount Everest Foundation, an charity (and company) dedicated to “provide grants and recognition to assist particularly deserving expeditions for the exploration of, and scientific work in, the mountain regions of the world.” It was set up after the successful 1953 expedition to climb Everest and uses income from surplus funds and subsequent media royalties to support these activities. The website is of a relatively old design (its currently being updated) but has a wealth of information on it including application information and details of supported expeditions and brief trip reports.

All applications for funding are passed through a screening committee which assesses them against the Memorandum of Association of the charity. On the MEF website it also notes:

“The aims of the Foundation are to encourage and support expeditions exploring mountain regions, and both education and research pertaining to a wide range of subjects in mountain areas, including geography, glaciology and the effects of altitude.”

It goes on to note the way the charity is incorporated:

“Affairs are controlled by a Committee of Management, of which half is appointed by the Alpine Club and half by the Royal Geographical Society.Unless an expedition has research as its primary objective, it must have a strong exploratory element to be deemed eligible for support. Expeditions planning geographical exploration, first ascents of, or major new routes on high or remote mountains are likely to qualify. Applications from expeditions proposing to visit little explored or formerly inaccessible areas are particularly encouraged, as are those pursuing worthwhile research. Normally, the MEF will only support expeditions where the majority of memberscome from Great Britain or New Zealand.”

However its worth quoting the relevant objects themselves:

1. To encourage, or support, (whether financially or otherwise) expeditions for the exploration of the mountain regions of the Earth

2. To encourage, or support, (whether financially or otherwise) education in or research into the geography, topography, geology, ethnology, meteorology, botany, zoology (including entomology), and glaciology of the mountain regions of the Earth and allied subjects relating thereto.

3. To encourage, or support, (whether financially or otherwise) education in or research into the effect of altitude upon the human organism and the means of countering such effect in so far as it may be harmful

4. To encourage, or support, (whether financially or otherwise) the dissemination of any information acquired in pursuance of the foregoing objects or any of them and the provision of publicity for the results of education research and exploration as aforesaid

5. To relieve or contribute relief, of persons injured or suffering from sickness contracted in pursuance of such researchers or explorations or to encourage or support either alone or in combination with others arrangements or instructions for the purpose of affording such relief

“Mountain regions of Earth” are generally taken to mean *outside* Europe for climbing expeditions. However note the wide remit of the charity to include “geographic” research, education, altitude based physiology and relief of injured persons. Its a wide remit and as a charity we have a responsibility to target all aspects of the Memorandum of Association. Grants are typically of the order of hundreds to several thousands of pounds and need to show financial support from other areas.

MEF is a valuable and worthwhile charity with a 60 year heritage of supporting work in high mountains built upon the foundations of the early Everest expeditions. It’s a heritage that should long continue and I would urge those that undertake research or expeditions in high mountains to submit a grant application.

For those interested the charity (208206) files its accounts with the Charities Commission and is also a listed company at Companies’ House.

If you haven’t clocked it already, I am involved in organising a workshop on the mapping of glacial landforms this September. Titled GMapping, it is concerned with:

“….the “GMapping Workshop” will present and discuss results from glacial gemorphological mapping by different interpreters for statistically representative synthetic drumlins within a real landscape. This can then inform both the differences/similarities in mapping and quantify the impacts upon the calculation of derived metrics. The key outcomes of this workshop will be the initial development of a set of objective criteria for geomorphological mapping.”

This is a highly topical area at the moment as manual, interpretive, mapping of visually complex landscapes is used extensively throughout the geosciences. And whilst it is preferable to have objective, repeatable, automated techniques, these approaches are still some way off sufficient levels of accuracy. So manual mapping remains the tried and tested approach….. yet comparability of results remains unquantified. Part of the problem is that with a real landscape we cannot a priori know what actually exists meaning it is hard to test the efficacy of individual maps.

One solution to this problem I was involved in with a my colleague John Hillier over in Loughborough….. here we used a real landscape but removed drumlins from it and then inserted our own back in to the landscape. We now have a real landscape with known landforms which means we can test how well individuals are able to identify them and, more importantly, variations in this identification and impacts upon the subsequent calculation of landform metrics.

So the workshop fast approaches and we now have a large set of mapped data (and shortly a preliminary report!) from which discussion can follow - perhaps the most important outcomes of this workshop are twofold:

1. gain a better understanding of mapping error and its impact upon landform metrics
2. development of a protocol for manual mapping to maximise accuracy