Designing a Tool for an Innovative, Interdisciplinary Learning Process Based on a Comprehensive Understanding of Sourcing: A Case Study

The paper presents a case study describing the process of creating and validating the benefits of two Innovative Learning Tools (ILTs) aimed at more effective knowledge acquisition in the interdisciplinary field of earth resource extraction with links to the status of renewable energy. The philosophy behind the original designs and the design of the two tools, the way they are used, and the results of their application in the educational process are presented in a framework. The opinions and attitudes of both students and educators towards the tools were surveyed, and some research questions related to this form of knowledge acquisition were validated. The presented results show the students’ interest in the educational form as well as the attractive content that goes beyond conventional educational subjects, with its connections.

Edge-Preserving Denoising of Image Sequences

To monitor the Earth’s surface, the satellite of the NASA Landsat program provides us image sequences of any region on the Earth constantly over time. These image sequences give us a unique resource to study the Earth’s surface, changes of the Earth resource over time, and their implications in agriculture, geology, forestry, and more. Besides natural sciences, image sequences are also commonly used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of medical studies for understanding the functioning of brains and other organs. In practice, observed images almost always contain noise and other contaminations. For a reliable subsequent image analysis, it is important to remove such contaminations in advance. This paper focuses on image sequence denoising, which has not been well-discussed in the literature yet. To this end, an edge-preserving image denoising procedure is suggested. The suggested method is based on a jump-preserving local smoothing procedure, in which the bandwidths are chosen such that the possible spatio-temporal correlations in the observed image intensities are accommodated properly. Both theoretical arguments and numerical studies show that this method works well in the various cases considered.

Overselling overall map accuracy misinforms about research reliability

Context Image classification is routine in a variety of disciplines, and analysts rely on accuracy metrics to evaluate the resulting maps. The most frequently used accuracy metric in Earth resource remote sensing is overall accuracy. However, the inherent properties of this accuracy metric make it inappropriate as the single metric for map assessment, particularly when a map contains imbalanced categories. Objectives We discuss four noteworthy problems with overall accuracy. Under circumstances frequently encountered, overall accuracy is misleading or misinterpreted. Methods Literature review, hypothetical examples, and mathematic equations are used to prove overall accuracy is a poor general indicator of map quality. Conclusions Any research that involves classification techniques or a map product that is evaluated only with overall accuracy may be unreliable. It is necessary for map providers to publish the error matrix and its development procedure so that map users can computer whatever metrics as they wish.

Sustainable Supply Chain System Design and Optimization

Due to increasing concerns about the environment, potential economic benefits and legislation pressure; supply chain management has changed to focus on the environmental impacts of production and Earth resource preservation. Therefore, many managers are working hard on improving the sustainability of their supply chain systems. In this paper, we present the themes addressed, and the approaches used in this special issue to investigate the design and optimization of sustainable supply chain systems. Firstly, we introduce the topics under investigation, and then we present the published articles to discuss the benefits of sustainable supply chain systems in raising profits and improving ecology. This issue increases our knowledge of the sustainable supply chain systems design and sustainable strategies.