How to register copyrights and a link to an article on counterfeit goods on the Pentagon

¿Cómo registrar derechos de autor? y una recomendación a un artículo en referencia a la infiltración de piratería China en el Pentágono.

Me and my life parter are on the way to establish a research group, which at least at the beginning, will be focused on the development of computational models for civil and environmental engineering. We pursue that because we believe that the main problem in our young society is the lack of interest; i.e., several enroll to universities, but most of them may not be committed to play an active role. On that way, my main concern are the copyrights.

In the place where we are living now, copyright laws are quite (very) relaxed (see the picture that accompanies my entry), despite all the efforts made by artists, principally. Nevertheless, instead of complaining and doing nothing, I am browsing on the web looking for a way to protect our rights as authors. Next I am posting some of the WEB links I am visiting. There you may find some information if you are in a position similar than mine.

A quick break from water science: Arpas Eternas (en español).

Un pequeño descanso de la ciencia del agua: Arpas Eternas

I got this book as a birthday present from my cousin, after having left my copy in my beloved Kaigan Lab. The book basically tells the story of Jesus that is not written in the Bible. What I like about it is that it does not claim to contain the "real story" (no one could); it just provides an interesting perspective of what was, or what it could have been, the life back then. It was recommended to me by Anita, my support during my journey, and I recommend it back to you, my fellow postgraduate degree pursuers (especially those living abroad), because it helped me a lot during the days of self-discovery kindly provided by my doctoral studies. The book is written in Spanish; however I think you may be able to translate it using google services, perhaps after downloading it in google docs format.

You may ask yourself why is this post related to the contents of this blog? Answer: because a PhD course comprises more than a load of technical knowledge.

Freddy

PD. Aún no estás interesado en leerlo?, probablemente las charlas de Wolfang Kellert acerca de este libro (en español) cambien tu perspectiva.

Geo-environmental data for Bolivia

Datos geo-ambientales para Bolivia

Estás estudiando fuera del país?, or are you interested in establishing some project in Bolivia and you can not find any geo-environmental data? I had the same issue, and even though I could not find the amount of data available for countries such as the USA, I found some interesting links with useful information for environmental applications (please let us know if you find more info). The links are shown below the figure.

New to climate change? Here you have some WEB links to start!!

¿Nuevo en el tema del cambio climatico? Aquí tienes algunos links en la WEB para comenzar!!!

Today, everybody seems to blame climate change for their disgraces. Is the melting of the poles the worst threat? Will tropical diseases spread to today´s cold areas? But, how much of all we hear is likely to occur? I am not asking "how much of all climate change-related stuff we hear is true?", because most of the works published are based on predictions.

If you feel curious, I would recommend you to have a look first on the reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC, which is a renowned international instance. Remember the Al Gore´s movie and the Nobel Prize awarded?, well..the contents is based on the research conducted by the experts from the IPCC.

Next I am posting some WEB links where you can find relevant and trusty information on this topic, climate modeling, ENSO, climate change impacts in mountains, and similar resources. Please, take a look and If you wish, suggest some other links if you think I have omitted some relevant information.

Nihon and Nihongo: Some resources for beginners

Japón e idioma japonés: Recursos en la WEB para principiantes y recién llegados

For leisure, learning languages is always a good alternative. For daily life, learning the local language is quite important to fit into the local society. For personal development, learning a language is key to understand the local culture, because languages are not only composed by translated words connected together by grammatical rules, but also composed by gestures, manners and local customs.

Japanese language and the culture of the country it self have thousands of followers around the world. Several have posted very interesting material over the WEB. Next I am posting some links to sites that I have visited, which can help beginners to enjoy their Nihongo lessons and in general their life in Japan.

Geographic Information Systems GIS: Resources for the old (and wise) ArcView GIS

Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG): Recursos para el viejo y sabio Arcview GIS

Although the commercial software ArcView GIS by ESRI is quite old respect its new version the ArcGIS, it has demonstrated to be a quite useful tool for the processing of information that has geographic attributes, i.e., information with qualitative or quantitative value that has a geographical position (Latitude, Longitude, Elevation), and it is still being used in several educational institutions. Why? because buying it and/or upgrading it into the new ArcGIS version is not cheap!!!

GIS are fundamental tools for the generation of input maps (e.g., catchment delineation, land use maps, vegetation type maps, etc) for environmental models. We may also process geographical data using C++, Fortran and others (maps are just arrays). However, the advantage of using GIS software packages is that they have several functions already programmed. By the way, Matlab is also an alternative.

In this post I am showing some links on resources related to the use of ArcView in environmental modelling.

Environmental Modelling: Tools for viewing, processing large matrices

Modelación medioambiental: Herramientas para ver y procesar matrices enormes

A basic knowledge on computational programming is a very important resource for the modelling of natural systems. Following the entry on the "Water Tohoku: Tutorials" in reference to C programming and GCM data retrieving, in the current entry I cite and shortly review some tools useful for viewing and editing of large multidimensional matrices.

Why do we need to deal with large matrices?

Remote Sensing PART 5: Teaching Remote Sensing

Percepción remota Parte 5: Enseñanza de la percepción remota

5. The Remote Sensing Curriculum.

In addition to the material summarized in the previous entries, next are shown some links that show good examples on lecture contents that can be used to structure the Remote Sensing core curriculum. What I like about the material contained in the links provided is the philosophy under which the contents are developed. I hope you find it as well inspiring.

Remote Sensing PART 4: Environmental applications

Percepción remota en la práctica: Aplicaciones medioambientales

4. Remote Sensing in the practice: Environmental applications.

NOTE. Please notice that the following links provide information on some applications only. This is because my work has been principally focused on the analysis of information retrieved by optical sensors. The reason: the free access for non-commercial purposes.

There are several application intended for remotely sensed imagery. The outcomes for some fields are promising, but for others the potential has not yet been exploited principally due to the limitations in the spatio-temporal resolution at which the data is nowadays available. The limited resources at non-profit and academic institutions is also a huge limitation; nevertheless, researches have always found a way to overcome the obstacles.

Remote Sensing PART 3: Image Processing

Percepción remota Parte 3: Procesamiento de imágenes

3. Resources on Image Processing.

After having passed through the readings that explain what Remote Sensing refers to, the next concern for practical (engineering)-quantitative applications is to "use" the data contained in the imagery, i.e., to process and analyze the imagery.

Then, after processing (e.g., using basic GIS tools), the final output may look like the product shown in the image on the left. How to do it?

Remote sensing PART 2: Data sources, pre and post-processing tools.

Percepción remota parte 2: Datos,  herramientas de pre y post procesamiento

2. Where to get the data (global).

Next are provided links referred to Landsat, MODIS, ASTER, SRTM, TRMM data. Links to other kind of data are briefly referenced, either because the data is not public or simply because I have not used that kind of data.

2.1 NASA satellites.

Remote Sensing PART 1: Tutorials for beginners - Intermediates

Percepción remota Parte 1: Tutoriales para principiantes - intermedios

Remote Sensing is perhaps the field for which I have found the largest volume of resources throughout the WEB. Personally, I think that for practical and engineering applications the amount of free information available may fulfill the expectations at an introductory stage.

1. Remote Sensing Tutorials for practical quantitative applications.

Imaginative technology for disaster stricken zones

Tecnología imaginativa para zonas golpeadas por desastres

Today, BBC news has posted an interesting article where are reviewed some "gadgets for disaster zones". The article is written by Jack Lamport, and presents three options to cope with major issues faced during a natural or "man made" (as if we did not have enough with the nature) disasters.

1. SHELTER: Concrete canvas

Video lectures

Video-lecciones

videolectures.net is a repository of video lectures given by recognized scientists from around the world. It is aimed at promoting knowledge sharing within the scientific community and towards the general public. Opposed to the general miss belief in developing economies that knowledge and information means power (money), the trend of sharing information seems to grow (fortunately!!!).

Few years ago (notice that I am not talking about decades), the access to free resources and information over the internet was not as abundant as it is today. As I remember, an inflection point was established by Wikipedia in the early 2000´s and of course Youtube, back in 2006. Those initiatives established the basis for the social networks, which currently are the most common ways to share information, thoughts, and opinions. The scientific community has joined that tendency, perhaps after having realized that science is concerned to the action of every single individual.

The Opencourse Ware initiative

VIdeo: Recording, playing and editing.

Grabación, edición y apertura de videos

Multimedia is quite fun and it is also useful for educational purposes. Here are some links to resources I found useful to play with:

Climate change: Ecopolis

Cambio climático: Ecopolis

"Ecopolis" is the title of a TV programme broadcasted in the Discovery Channel that I was watching this morning. The programme presented the perspective of the professor Daniel Kammen (University of California, Berkeley) on which would be the top 4 most demanding alternatives to face climate change issues related to energy production in mega cities.

Full text journals and other resources for developing countries

Acceso (legal) a textos completos de revistas especializadas y otros recursos similares para países en vías de desarrollo

When you find your self in a place where there is no access to journals and specialized literature, it becomes very difficult to carry serious research and it may even become difficult also to carry practical professional activities. Fortunately, in the field of natural and life sciences, there are two major initiatives that provide access to literature for environmental science research:

1. OARE (Online Access to Research in the Environment).
2. AGORA (Access to Global Research in Agriculture).

How was it like to study/work without internet?

¿Cómo era estudiar/trabajar sin internet?

Do you still remember how was it like to study without an internet connection?

I do. I used to limit my "learning" to the notes given by my lecturers (some of them really interesting and useful).