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Scientific Disciplines of Interest Remote sensing. Computer vision. Human vision. Machine learning. Artificial intelligence. Software engineering. Geographic information science. Environmental science. Research Interests After more than ten years from the launch of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems GEOSS implementation plan for years 20052015, no EO dataderived Level 2 prototype product has ever been generated systematically at the ground segment. By definition, an EO dataderived Level 2 product encompasses a multispectral MS image corrected for atmospheric, adjacency and topographic effects into surface reflectance SURF values, in addition to a scene classification map SCM, such as vegetationnonvegetation and terrestrialaquatic layers in the initial Dichotomous Phase of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO Land Cover Classification System LCCS taxonomy, in addition to cloud and cloudshadow quality layers. My research activity is mainly focused on the development of automatic requiring no users interaction hybrid combined deductivetopdownphysical modelbased and inductivebottomupstatistical modelbased spaceborneairborne EO image understanding systems, capable of delivering as output EO Level 2 products in operating mode, at coarse to fine spatial resolution and large spatial extent, from national to global coverage. Wherever possible these hybrid computer vision systems search for biological plausibility as a value added. The proposed hybrid EO image understanding systems architecture consists of three stages provided with a feedback connection. I A zerostage MS image preprocessing data enhancement module, where radiometric calibration of digital numbers into topofatmosphere reflectance or SURF values is mandatory. II A preattentive vision module, comprising a physical modelbased deductive, prior knowledgebased fully automatic, multisensor, multiresolution, applicationindependent spectral decisiontree preliminary classification and segmentation first stage in operating mode, called Satellite Image Automatic Mapper SIAM, refer to the web page siam.andreabaraldi.com. III An attentive vision module. It comprises two phases. A A hybrid stratified layered, drivenbyknowledge FAOLCCS Dichotomous Phase, plus thematic classes clouds and cloud shadows, in agreement with the EO Level 2 product requirements. The three FAOLCCS Dichotomous Phase levels are a vegetationnonvegetation, b terrestrialaquatic, c managednatural or seminatural. The eight FAOLCCS Dichotomous land cover types are 1 Cultivated and Managed Terrestrial nonaquatic Nonvegetated Areas. 2 Natural and SemiNatural Terrestrial Vegetation. 3 Cultivated Aquatic or Regularly Flooded Areas. 4 Natural and SemiNatural Aquatic or Regularly Flooded Vegetation. 5 Artificial Surfaces and Associated Areas. 6 Bare Areas. 7 Artificial Waterbodies, Snow and Ice. 8 Natural Waterbodies, Snow and Ice. B An infinite battery of secondstage contextsensitive, application and sensorspecific stratified drivenbyfirststageknowledge feature extractors and oneclass land cover classification modules, equivalent to the FAOLCCS Modular Hierarchical Phase. IV A feedback mechanism between the preattentive vision first stage and the remote sensing image preprocessing stage zero. Existing applications of the proposed feedback system, employing SIAM as its preattentive vision first stage, to remote sensing image preprocessing enhancement problems, which are inherently illposed, i.e., equivalent to chickenandegg dilemma requiring prior knowledge in addition to data to become better posed for numerical treatment, are a stratified atmospheric correction, b stratified bidirectional reflectance distribution function BRDF effects correction, c automatic stratified image topographic correction, d automatic stratified image mosaic enhancement, e automatic stratified image coregistration, etc. Existing applications of the proposed feedback system, employing SIAM as its preattentive vision first stage, to secondstage highlevel classification problems include automatic burned area detection in timeseries of 30 m resolution Landsat images and 250 m resolution MODIS images. The proposed hybrid feedback system for remote sensing image understanding also includes landscape fragmentationconnectivity analysis tools to be employed as input by ecosystem and land use modeling systems. In practice, this hybrid feedback spaceborneairborne image understanding system estimates categorical and continuous variables from sensory data alternately and iteratively. A recent development of the SIAM deductive preclassifier, called RGB Image Automatic Mapper RGBIAM, is input with a noncalibrated RedGreenBlue image, such as those typically acquired by consumerlevel color cameras mounted in smartphones and on drones, preprocessed with an original histogram stretching algorithm accomplishing color constancy. In common practice, the same SIAMRGBIAM deductive preclassification technology is now available for mapping any multispectral image, whether or not radiometrically calibrated, either spaceborne, airborne or acquired at ground level, into an a priori dictionary of discrete and finite color names. In the output multilevel color map, whose legend is a prior dictionary of color names, each connected set of pixels featuring the same color label is a texture element texel, recently called superpixel in the computer vision literature. Texel detection was called preattentional vision raw primal sketch by Marr Vision, 1982. Perceptual spatial grouping of texels, known as texture segmentation, was called preattentional vision full primal sketch by Marr. With regard to the assessment and comparison of remote sensing dataderived products, in recent years I have developed original protocols for statistically significant and statistically consistent quality assessment of i multispectral image pansharpening algorithms and ii thematic maps generated from very high resolution spaceborneairborne images. Additional research interests encompass machine learning, with special emphasis on selforganizing topologypreserving inductivedatalearning networks capable of modeling nonstationary random processes. My current research interest is focused on developing secondstage stratified drivenbyknowledge spatiotemporal feature extractors e.g., texture detectors and application and sensorspecific classification modules e.g., cloud and cloud shadow detectors in an automatic hybrid feedback Eo image understanding system implementation employing the SIAM deductive preclassifier as its preattentive vision first stage. Teaching interests I am most interested to teach courses focused on multidisciplinary concepts where the use of multimedia, numerical examples, case histories, personal anecdotes and reallife examples is recommended to illustrate concepts. Connections with other classesdisciplines should be highlighted whenever possible. I am committed to the use of assessment techniques to improve teaching and learning. I enjoy to supervise Ph.D. and M.S. students andor participate to their dissertation committees. Professional references Prof. and Chair Christophere Justice, 2181A LeFrak Hall, Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. Email cjusticeatumd.edu. Prof. Luigi Boschetti, College of Natural Resources, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive, Moscow, ID 838444264, USA. Email luigiatuidaho.edu Dr. Alessandro Annoni, Head of the Spatial Data Infrastructures Unit, EC Joint Research Center, Via Fermi, Ispra Varese, Italy. Email alessandro.annoniatjrc.ec.europa.eu Prof. Paolo Pavan, Engineering Department, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. Email paolo.pavanatunimore.it Prof. Guido DUrso, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Via Universit 100 80055 PORTICI Napoli, Italy. Email guido.dursoatunina.it Dr. Virginia Puzzolo, European Commission Research Executive Agency, Covent Garden Place Rogier, 16 1049 Brussels Belgium, Email virginia.puzzoloatec.europa.eu Prof. Stefan Lang, Head Integrated Spatial Analysis ISA, Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics ZGIS, University of Salzburg, Schillerstr. 30, Building 15, 3rd Floor, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, Email stefan.langatsbg.ac.at Prof. Thomas Blaschke, Deputy Director of the Department of Geoinformatics ZGIS, Integrated Spatial Analysis ISA, University of Salzburg, Schillerstr. 30, 5020 Salzburg, Austria, Email Thomas.Blaschkeatsbg.ac.at Education and training 1 March 2014 to date Ph.D. in Agriculture and Agribusiness Dottorato di Ricerca in Scienze Agrarie ed Agroalimentari, XXIX Ciclo, official starting date 1 March 2014University of Naples Federico II, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie ed Agroalimentari. Proposed title of the Ph.D. research Process and outcome innovations in Earth observation spaceborneairborne image understanding for vegetation monitoring May 2000 May 2002 Postdoctoral fellowship, European Commission Joint Research Center JRC, Ispra Varese, Italy. Supervisor G. De Grandi, JRCIESGEM. Oct. 1997 June 1999 Postdoctoral fellowship, International Computer Science Institute ICSI, Berkeley, California, USA. Supervisor Prof. J. Feldman, ICSI and UC Berkeley. June 1993 Feb. 1994 1st Level Master in Software Engineering, Universita di Padova and Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. Date June 14, 1994. Feb. 1989 Laurea degree M.S. in Electronic Engineering, specialization computer science, Universit degli Studi di Bologna, Italy. Final degree 100100. Title of the Laurea thesis in italian Segmentation and classification of high resolution satellite images. Supervisor Prof. F. Bonfatti, Univ. of Bologna, Italy. Date Feb. 22, 1989. July 1982 Italian high school diploma in Electronics, Istituto Tecnico Industriale E. Fermi, Modena, Italy. Votazione 6060. July 1981 American high school diploma, Rex Putnam High School, Milwaukie, Oregon, USA. Competitive selection procedures May 2000. European Commission, procedure COMRA012000 for selection of temporary agents category A5, admitted to the reserve list in sector Space applications and earth observation. Dec. 2013. German Academic Exchange Service DAAD, Senior Scientist 1month Fellowship No. 178 Advances in automatic realtime preclassification and segmentation, to be spent at the German Aerospace Center DLR, Institute Remote Sensing Technology Institute Photogrammetry and Image Analysis, Oberpfaffenhofen, Weling, Germany. Feb. 2014. 1st ranked in the competitive selection procedure for a Ph.D. position in Agriculture and Agribusiness, Universita degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences. Dec. 2014, European Commission FP7 project 20102015 Experimentation in Ecosystem Research ExpeER, Transnational Access TNA proposal, TNA site Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Sde Boker Campus 84990, Israel, Period 5 Feb. 2015 8 March 2015. Title of the ExpeER project proposal Prior Spectral Knowledge for Ecosystem Service Monitoring and Understanding PriorSpecK4ECOS. Research experience MarchAug. 2016 Visiting scientist, Computer Vision Center CVC, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona UAB, Barcelona, Spain. Feb.March 2015 FP7ExpeER project proposal, Ph.D. fellowship, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Sde Boker Campus 84990, Israel. Feb. 2014 German Academic Exchange Service DAAD, Senior Scientist Fellowship, German Aerospace Center DLR, Institute of Remote Sensing Technology, Oberpfaffenhofen, Postfach 11 16, 82230 Weling, Germany. July 2013 Oct. 2014, April 2015 Jan. 2016 Senior researcher, involved with spaceborneairborne multispectral image calibration, enhancement, preclassification and classification, under the supervision of Dr Stefan Lang, Head Integrated Spatial Analysis ISA, Department of Geoinformatics ZGIS, University of Salzburg, Schillerstr. 30, Building 15, 3rd Floor, 5020 Salzburg, Austria. Funding projects the Copernicus former GMES Initiative, FP7Space project GSEXTANT Consolidation of a standardized portfolio of Earth Observation products and preoperational services in the frame of predefined scenarios, like humanitarian crises, JulyOct. 2014 Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFGASAP11 project call, AutoSentinel23 project Knowledgebased preclassification of Sentinel23 images for operational product generation and contentbased image retrieval, ID 848009, Apr. 2015 Jan. 2016. July 2013 July 2015 Adjunct Associate Professor at the Dept. of Geographical Sciences, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA. Sept. 2010 June 2013 Research Associate Professor at the Dept. of Geographical Sciences, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA, involved with the automatic classification of Landsat WebEnabled Data set WELD at continental and global spatial extents, in the framework of the NASA LandCover and LandUse Change LCLUC Program. Feb. 2005 Feb. 2009 Scientific officer at the European Commission Joint Research Centre ECJRC, Ispra Varese, affiliated to the Spatial Data Infrastructures SDI unit of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability IES. The research activity focused on the development of operational remote sensing image understanding systems for vegetation monitoring, cloud detection, flood detection, fire detection, urban area monitoring at either local regional, continental or global scale. Aug. 2003 Oct. 2004 Research associate in pattern recognition and image understanding at the Institute of Intelligent Systems for Automation ISSIANational Research Council CNR, Bari, Italy Assegno di ricerca, bando n. 0740013, financed by EU, project LEWIS Landslide EarlyWarning Integrated System, n. EVG1CT200100055. June 2002 June 2003 Research associate in image understanding at ISSIACNR, Bari, Italy Development of contextsensitive neurofuzzy clustering algorithms for multisource image analysis May 2000 May 2002 Postdoctoral researcher at the European Commission Joint Research Centre ECJRC, Ispra Varese, Italy, affiliated to the Global Vegetation Monitoring GVM unit of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability IES. Title of the research activity Development and validation of algorithms for the automatic thematic information extraction from wide area radar maps of forest ecosystems. June 99 Apr. 2000 Research associate in pattern recognition at the Istituto di Scienze dellAtmosfera e del Clima ISACCNR, Bologna, Italy Collaborazione professionale esterna, Prot. N. 46499 Assegno di ricerca, Prot. n. 1300AR. Dec. 97 Jun. 99. Postdoctoral researcher at International Computer Science Institute ICSI, Berkeley, CA USA, affiliated to the Artificial Intelligence group led by Prof. J. Feldman, ICSI and UC Berkeley. Title of the research activity Scatterpartitioning neural networks for image segmentation. Mar. 93 Dec. 97. Research associate at Istituto per lo studio delle Metodologie Geofisiche Ambientali IMGACNR, Modena, Italy. Main interests are lowlevel visual processing, with special regard to texture analysis and neural network applications to unsupervised data quantization and clustering contracts CEECNR EV5V CT94 0440, CEECNR MAS3 CT95 0015, CNRASI ARS 96 13. Oct. 96. Participation to the course Learning in Graphical Models, NATO Advanced Study Institute, Ettore Maiorana Centre, Erice, Italy, September 27October 7, 1996. Jan. 91 Mar. 93. Consultant to the European Space Agency ESAESRIN in Frascati Rome, Italy, responsible of the quality assessment of commercial geographic information systems GISs and of the development of raster modules in vectorbased GISs e.g., System9. Jun. 89 Jan. 91 Military service Lieutenant in the Technical Corp, Istituto Geografico Militare, Florence, Italy, responsible for the development of satellite image segmentation and classification algorithms to be integrated with GIS MicroStation by Intergraph. Feb. 89 Jun. 89. Consultant to CIOCCNR, Bologna, Italy, responsible for the development of objectoriented geographic information representation models and for the assessment of Geographic Information Systems MicroStation by Intergraph. Professional experience Jan. 2003 Dec. 2003 Name and address of employer Surface Inspection s.r.l., Formigine Modena, Italy. Industrial sector automatic ceramic tile inspection. Position heldconsultant. Main activities and responsibilities development of a software prototype for the automated classification of textured images of ceramic tiles acquired by the Flawmaster automatic file inspection system. Jan. 1991 Jan. 1993 Name and address of employer Advance Computer Systems S.p.A., Roma. Industrial sector services for the remote sensing industry and agencies. Position heldproject manager. Main activities and responsibilities development of a satellite image Acquisition Planning Support Package APS. Position held consultant to the European Space Agency, ESAESRIN, Frascati, Italy. Main activities and responsibilities assessment and comparison of commercial geographic information systems GISs. Jan. 2009 to date Founder of Baraldi Consultancy in Remote Sensing di Andrea Baraldi, Ditta Individuale, Via Gian Maria Barbieri 23, Modena 41124, Italy, P.IVA 02907681205. Feb. 2009 Oct. 2009 Name and address of employer Sarmap s.a., Purasca, Swizterland. Industrial sector Automatic remote sensing image understanding system development. Position heldsupervisor and chief scientist. Main activities and responsibilities development of an operational software for the automatic understanding of remote sensing optical imagery. Teaching experience June 23, 2014 Workshop for Ph.D. and MS students Hands on the Satellite Image Automatic Mapper software toolbox, In collaboration with Prof. Thomas Blaschke, Prof. Stefan Lang and Dr. Dirk Tiede, Department of Geoinformatics ZGIS, Integrated Spatial Analysis ISA, University of Salzburg. March May 2014 Visiting professor, University of Modena and Reggio E., Italy, Academic year in Electronic Engineering 20131014, Teaching course 30 hours testing for M.S. and Ph.D. students in Advanced Electronic Systems Neuromorphic Engineering Adaptive oxide electronics memristors for fabricating devices to mimic human brain functionalities. Hosting professor Prof. P. Pavan. Feb. 2011 Teaching assistant in the Spring 2011 Geog778B course, titled Remote Sensing for Global Carbon Monitoring, University of Maryland, Department of Geographical Sciences, Teaching Professor Dr. L. Boschetti. Dec. 2003 Teaching assistant in Tecniche avanzate di elaborazione dei segnali, corso di Laurea in Ingegneria e Telecomunicazioni, academic year 20032004, first semester, Univ. di Trento, Teaching Professor Prof. L. Bruzzone. Titles of the laboratory experience Inductive machine learning from a finite set of unlabeled data. Image multiscale analysis the GaussianLaplacian pyramid decomposition, multiscale batteries of Gabor filters, multispectral image panchromaticsharpening. Dec. 2002 Teaching assistant in Tecniche avanzate di elaborazione dei segnali, corso di Laurea in Ingegneria e Telecomunicazioni, academic year 20022003, first semester, Univ. di Trento, Teaching Professor Prof. L. Bruzzone. Titles of the laboratory experience Inductive machine learning from a finite set of unlabeled data. Taxonomy of supervised and unsupervised inductive data learning algorithms. Assessment of alternative unsupervised inductive data learning algorithms for data quantization, data clustering, topologically correct mapping, entropy maximization. Estimated quality indexes are Ease of use, Effectiveness e.g., accuracy, Robustness to changes in input dataset, Robustness to changes in input parameters, Robustness to noisy data, Efficiency e.g., computation time, Maintainabilityscalability, Timeliness, Costs e.g., in manpower, computer power, etc.. Participation in training mentoring Past Current Trainee Trainee Name Degree Academic Department and Institution Mentoring Period and Activity Title of Research Project Language Current Position of Past Trainees Source of Support of Current Trainees Ongoing Martin Sudmanns Ph.D. Dep. of Geoinformatics, ZGIS, Univ. Salzburg, Austria 20162019, cosupervision Earth observation ImageContent Extraction and Semantic ContentBased Image Retrieval English Ph.D. program, ZGIS Past Martin Sudmanns M.S. Dep. of Geoinformatics, ZGIS, Univ. Salzburg, Austria 20152016, cosupervision ContentBased Image and Information Retrieval English Ph.D. program, ZGIS Ongoing Csillik Ovidiu Ph.D. Dep. of Geoinformatics, ZGIS, Univ. Salzburg, Austria 20162018, cosupervision Geons domainspecific regionalization of optimized latent variables English Ph.D. program, ZGIS Past Joao Vitor Baldini Soares Ph.D. Dep. of Computer Science, Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA 20112014, cosupervision Software library of planar shape descriptors English Postdoc, UMD Past Francesca Despini Ph.D. Dep. of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Modena and Reggio E., Italy 20122014, cosupervision Protocol for quality assessment and comparison of algorithms for panchromatic sharpening of multispectral images English Postdoc, Unimore Past Moreno Carullo Ph.D. Dep. of Informatics, Univ. of Insubria, Varese, Italy 20082011, cosupervision Web content mining with multisource machine learning for intelligent web agents English eXtreme Programming Coach at 7Pixel, Varese, Italy Past Mattia Stasolla Ph.D. Dep. of Electronics, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Univ. of Pavia, Italy 20062008, cosupervision Characterization and monitoring of urban settlements by means of VHR remote sensing images English Researcher, Telecommunications Remote Sensing Laboratory Dep. of Electronics , Uni. of Pavia Past Moreno Carullo M.S. Dep. of Informatics, Univ. of Insubria, Varese, Italy 2007, cosupervision Sviluppo di un algoritmo di apprendimento supervisionato basato su Radial Basis Function Networks Italian Past Lisa Trollo M.S. Dep. of Telecommunication Engineering, Univ. of Trento, Italy 2006, cosupervision Metodo innovative per la segmentazione automatic 3D Applicazione ad immagini TAC cardiache Italian Past Michele Grandi M.S. Dep. of Telecommunication Engineering, Univ. of Trento, Italy 2003, cosupervision Classificazione di immagini telerilevate ad alta risoluzione geometrica mediante filtri di Gabor e Support Vector Machine Italian Past Daniele Sevegnani M.S. Dep. of Telecommunication Engineering, Univ. of Trento, Italy 2003, cosupervision Classificazione di immagini telerilevate ad elevate risoluzione geometrica mediante un approccio gerarchico e multilivello innovativo Italian Participation in European, international and national programmes Summary Institution Projects name and comments, if any European Unions Projects LEWIS, MEDIC.ACE, KYOTOINV, GMESSARGUS, GMESLIMES, GMESIMAGE2006, GMOSS, BIOSOS, GSEXTANT. European Space Agency ESAs projects KEI, CARD, SPA, SOSI, SRoKEO, IIMTS. These ESA projects started from the year 2008 to present and are either finished or ongoing. They are all based on the original remote sensing image understanding system software modules provided by A. Baraldi a litigation about intellectual property right violation is currently ongoing between A. Baraldi and MEEO srl, an Italian private held company which is the principal investigator or a participant in these projects. Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG ASAP11 project call AutoSentinel23 project. Participation in European, international and national programmes number of teams in the programme and budget obtained by the candidates team Institution of affiliation Project Name and Identifier Funded by Duration Own amount Budget Other partners ISSIACNR WP Leader Landslide EarlyWarning Integrated System LEWIS, EVG1CT200100055 EUEC 20022006 190.00 ... Univ. Bari PI, Canada Centre of Remote Sensing CCRS, Univ. of Surrey, Silogic, Planetek, Altamira MEEO srl Italy PI Knowledgecentred Earth Observation KEO Extensions and Installations KEI ESA 20072009 196.241 none MEEO srl Italy PI Classification Applicationservices and Reference Datasets CARD, Letter of Invitation n RESPOE2007525LGcb ESA 20082010 265.720 none MEEO srl Italy PI Support by Preclassification to Specific Applications SPA, Letter of Invitation n RESPOE2008497ECsp ESA 20092011 469.903 none MEEO srl Italy WP Leader Spatial Observation Services and Infrastructure SOSI, Letter of Invitation n RESPOE2008488LGcb ESA 2009 29.996 ... Siemens Austria PI MEEO srl Italy PI Support to the RoKEO PECS project SRoKEO, Letter of Invitation n RESPOE2008292cb ESA 20092011 79.704 ... Romanian Space Agency MEEO srl Italy PI Image Information Mining Time Series IIMTS ESA 2009 13.576 ... Sarmap SA Baraldi Consultancy in Remote Sensing WP leader BIOdiversity MultiSource Monitoring System from Space TO Species BIOSOS, FP7SPACE20101 EUEC 20102012 360.000 ... ISSIACNR PI, Alterra, IRD, Uni. of Bari, ATREE, Planetek, ICETA, Univ. Of Aberystwyth, ASI, Uni. of MilanoBicocca Univ. Salzburg, ZGIS PI ASAP11 project call, AutoSentinel23 project Knowledgebased preclassification of Sentinel23 images for operational product generation and contentbased image retrieval, ID 848009 FFG 20152016 125.580 Professional society activities Jan. 2001May 2006 Associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks journal. Sep. 2012 Program Committee, Workshop at the GIScience conference, 1820 September 2012, Columbus, Ohio Geographic object based multiscale analysis Developing a methodological framework for GIScience. Sept. 28, 2015 invited European Commission European Space Expo, Milan, Italy, 18 Sept. 4 Oct. 2015 Food and Space. Andrea Baraldi, Agricultural Applications of AirborneSpaceborne Images If You Dont Measure It, You Cant Improve It, University of Salzburg and University of Naples Federico II. List of awards for work and publications Sept. 2015 Winner of the TSystems Big Data Challenge of the Copernicus Masters 2015, with the project and feasibility study titled Satellite Image Automatic Mapper SIAMThroughTime SIAMT2 for spaceborneairborne multispectral image timesequence classification in operating mode and contentbased image database retrieval Project ID 150688. Final project title Final project title D. Tiede, A. Baraldi, M. Sudmanns, M. Belgiu, and S. Lang, ImageQuerying IQ Offtheshelf Image Content Extraction Querying Across Time and Space, Oct. 20, 2015, German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Invalidenstrae 444, 10115 Berlin, Germany. Quote by Dr. Jurry de la Mar, TSystems International GmbH, Account Ditrector Global Accounts International Business ImageQuerying is an innovative application that simplifies and accelerates the analysis of large EO image archives. The images and image timeseries are automatically preclassified and stored in a raster database, thus allowing users to perform geospatiotemporal semantic queries on large EO image archives via an easytouse grapic user interface. The application quickly transforms EO images into information, creating real value for the user. Awards Ceremony on Oct. 20, 2015 at the Satellite Masters Conference, 2022 Oct. 2015, German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Invalidenstrae 444, 10115 Berlin, Germany. May 2015 IGARSS 2015, Milan, Italy, 2731 July 2015. IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest, paper Geospatial 2D AND 3D objectbased classification and 3D reconstruction of ISOcontainers depicted in a LiDAR dataset and aerial imagery of a harbor, ranked 2nd. Refereeing IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Systems. Reviewed papers 5 IEEE Trans. Neural Networks 43 IEEE Trans. Image Processing 3 IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Engineering 1 IEEE Trans. Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 2 IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing 26 IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters 2 International Journal of Remote Sensing 1 Fuzzy Sets and Systems 1 Cybernetics and Systems 1 Information Fusion Journal 1 International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence 2 Pattern Recognition Letters 1 Photogrammetric Engineering Remote Sensing 1 Remote Sensing 4 Remote Sensing of Environment, Elsevier 2 International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing ISPRS, Elsevier 1 International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation JAG, Elsevier 1 Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, Elsevier 1 Information Science 1 Cold Regions Science and Technology 1 Personal skills and competences Languages Mother tongue Italian Other languages English Understanding english Speaking english Writing english Listening Reading Spoken interaction Spoken production C2 Proficient user C2 Proficient user C2 Proficient user C2 Proficient user C2 Proficient user Technical skills and competences Software engineering Analysis of the user requirements. Software planning. Data flow analysis. Structured system design. Software implementation. Software validation. Machine learning, artificial intelligence and pattern recognition Stationary environments either finite or infinite data sets. o Labeled supervised data learning. Function regression from continuous labeled data. Categorical data classification. o Unlabeled unsupervised data learning. Unlabeled data clustering. Vector quantization. Probability density function estimation. Inductive machine learning selforganizing networks from nonstationary data sets. Prior knowledgebased systems expert systems, static rulebased decision systems. o Semantic networks conceptual models for spatiotemporal knowledge representation of the 4D worldthroughtime. Hybrid inference systems, combining i topdown deductive, knowledgedriven, modelbased, learningbyrule, coarsetofine and ii bottomup inductive, drivenwithoutknowledge, datadriven, learningbyexample, finetocoarse inference systems. Multiple source data fusion Mixture of experts, mixture of classifiers, hybrid inductive bottomup and deductive topdown decision systems, convergenceofevidence approach. Computer vision Preattentive and attentive vision. Illposed inference of plausible symbolic descriptions of the 3D scene depicted in a 2D image. Image preprocessing, enhancement and feature extraction Radiometric calibration, edgepreserving image smoothing, multispectral image panchromaticsharpening, 2D image feature extraction e.g., geometric features shape indexes, texture features, morphological features, autocorrelation estimation, interobject relationships spatial topological and nontopological relationships, temporal relationships.