News and Updates

Dear 36th ACRS 2015 Participants,

Good day!

First of all, the organizers wish to thank all of you for your support and contribution to ACRS 2015.

We are very excited that ACRS 2015 is just two days away. But we are also concerned that some of you might be concerned about the approaching Typhoon KOPPU (Local name: LANDO).

According to the latest bulletin from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), there is a public storm signal #1 for Metro Manila with 30-60km/h winds in 36 hours. Despite the relatively weak winds, Metro Manila will experience moderate to heavy rains especially tomorrow Sunday (Oct. 18) and expected to last till Monday (Oct. 19) since the typhoon is forecasted to remain stationary in Central-Northern Luzon area. It is expected that rains and bit of gusts will last till Tuesday morning when the typhoon is expected to exit the Luzon land mass and head northwest.

In this regard, we wish to advice all our participants to keep abreast of the typhoon conditions, and to bring rain coats. For our participants who will travel to Metro Manila by air, may we advice you to contact or get the latest information from your respective airlines for any changes or cancellation of your flights, and to kindly inform us accordingly.

Despite the prevailing weather conditions in the Philippines, the organizers would like to inform all participants that the conference will push through as scheduled.

We wish for your safe arrival in Metro Manila, and we look forward to meeting you at the conference.

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us through acrs2015.ph@gmail.com.

REGISTRATION DATES AND TIMINGS

Advance/Early Registration:
– Sunday, October 18, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM | Mezzanine, Crowne Plaza Manila, Galleria
Regular Registration:
– Monday, October 19, 7:00 AM – 3:00 PM | Pre-Function Area, Crowne Plaza Manila, Galleria
– Tuesday, October 20, 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM | Pre-Function Area, Crowne Plaza Manila, Galleria
– Wednesday, October 21, 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM | Pre-Function Area, Crowne Plaza Manila, Galleria
– Thursday, October 22, 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM | Pre-Function Area, Crowne Plaza Manila, Galleria
– Friday, October 23, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM | Pre-Function Area, Crowne Plaza Manila, Galleria

GENERAL REGISTRATION PROCEDURES

>> Online-Registered participants are kindly requested to proceed directly to the registration desks upon arrival at the conference venue. Ushers will be present to guide the participants for verification of their registration details and for the claiming of their identification badge and conference kit.
>> Registrants who already paid their registration fees are kindly requested to provide proof of payment (in the form of the deposit slip/bank transfer transaction receipt).
>> For Unpaid registrants, ushers will guide them to cashier tables to process payment, and for the claiming of their identification badge and conference kit.

Note: It is mandatory for all to wear identification badge during the conference hours and social events.

IMPORTANT: For participants who will be arriving on October 18th, we highly suggest to register and claim their identification badge and conference kit in advance during the afternoon of October 18, from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM at the Mezzanine of Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria.

The ACRS 2015 Transportation Committee have arranged an airport-to-hotel transportation from October 18 until noon of October 19 only for a fee.

The following options are available:

1. Van car pool*

If you are traveling alone or in a small group, we can assign you to a van along with other participants (maximum of 8 persons per van). The rate is PhP 350.00 (appox. USD 8.00) per person. Please take note that you will be waiting for other participants to arrive, depending on your flight schedule.

2. Group van*

If you are traveling in a group (maximum of 8 people), or you do not want to wait for other participants, you or your group can avail a one-way trip amounting to PhP 2400.00 (approx. USD 52.00).

*Options 1 and 2 will be arranged and assisted by the transportation committee and will only be available from October 18 to noon of October 19, 2015 only.

3. Airport’s Coupon Taxi (Fixed rate taxi)

The rates for the coupon taxi will depend on your destination. The transportation committee will just guide you to the taxi bay on October 18 to noon of October 19, 2015 only. Based on the standard transportation rates, the fee from airport to Ortigas ranges from PhP 500.00 – PhP 700.00 (approx. USD12.00 – USD15.00). The rate for the other hotels may vary.

We also want to remind you that currency exchange stalls are available inside the airport. Payments should be in Philippine Peso.

Please confirm your preferred option and verify your flight details by accomplishing the form which can be accessed through http://goo.gl/forms/vZpDKTjnm0  until October 14, Wednesday to allow us to finalize the arrangements.

If you have questions, comments or inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us at acrs2015.transpo@gmail.com

We are pleased to invite you to the Banquet and Cultural Night which will take place on the evening of October 19, 2015, 7:00 PM at the Metrotent-Ortigas Center (a few blocks away from Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria). Transportation to the venue will be provided by the organizers.One of the most anticipated activities every ACRS, the Banquet and Cultural Night is where performances from the host country and representatives from participating countries/regions are showcased and where talents are unleashed. This year, the local organizing committee has prepared an exciting line-up of numbers and performances.

To make the occasion more thrilling and memorable, we would like to invite individuals or groups of participants from participating countries/regions to perform during the cultural night, showcasing their country/region’s culture and heritage. Prize will be given to the winning individual/group. There is no restriction as to the type of performance.

Interested individuals/groups of participants are kindly requested to take note of the following:

• Duration of Performance: 8 minutes (additional 2 minutes for preparation)
• Maximum number of performers per country: 20
• Size of Stage: 16 ft x 24 ft
• Mechanics and Criteria for Judging
• Choreography/Musicality – 20%
• Talent and Dexterity – 25%
• Staging and Interpretation – 20%
• Exposition of Cultural Heritage – 25%
• Audience Impact/Costume – 10%

Note: Technical Requirements (e.g. sounds, lights, microphones, background video, etc.) should be provided in advance to the conference secretariat.

Individuals/groups who wish to perform during the Cultural Night should signify their intention by accomplishing the Cultural Night Performance Application Form at https://goo.gl/9MWU7c

Additional Information: Attendance to the banquet and cultural night is exclusive to registered participants and invited guests/VIPs. If registered participants have accompanying persons (e.g. spouse, etc.) that are not registered for the entire conference, the accompanying person would have to purchase a ticket for the event. In this case, please approach any members of the Conference Secretariat in the morning/afternoon of October 19 to make the necessary arrangements (e.g., purchase of ticket).

See you during the conference, and of course, during the Banquet and Cultural Night!

Oral Presentations

Depending on the type of oral session, each paper is allocated the following number of presentation time:

• Because presentation time is critical, we recommend you organize your slides around the points you intend to make, using no more than one slide per minute. A reasonable strategy is to allocate about 2 minutes per slide when there are equations or important key points to make, and one minute per slide when the content is less complex. Slides attract and hold attention, and reinforce what you say – provided you keep them simple and easy to read. Make sure each of your key points is easy to explain with aid of the material on your slides.
• Surrogate presenters must be sufficiently familiar with the material being presented to answer detailed questions from the audience. In addition, the surrogate presenter must contact the Session Chair in advance of the presenter’s session.
• A computer-driven slideshow for use with a data projector is required for your talk at ACRS 2015. We recommend preparing your slides using Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 or later. Contents and mode of presentation should be in the English language.
• All presentation rooms will be equipped with a computer, a data projector, a microphone, a lectern, and a pointing device.
• It is important that the sessions remain on time. The session chair(s) are responsible for keeping presentations on schedule. Any setup time you use is part of your overall presentation time, so it is a good idea to check your visual aids before the session begins.
• Please do not attempt to use your own computer to connect to the projector. For speed and efficiency, use only the conference-provided computer for displaying your presentation visual aids.
• Presentation files must be submitted in advance to the ACRS 2015 Secretariat assigned in each session room.
• Any revisions or additions to the above guidelines will be communicated to all presenters as the need arises.

Poster Presentations

Poster sessions are a good medium for authors to present papers and meet with interested attendees for in-depth technical discussions. In addition, attendees find the poster sessions a good way to sample many papers within a limited time period. Thus it is important that you display your message clearly and noticeably to attract people who might have an interest in your paper.

A poster should cover the key points of your work. It need not, and should not, attempt to include all the details; you can describe them in person to people who are interested. The ideal poster is designed to attract attention, provide a brief overview of your work, and initiate discussion. Carefully and completely prepare your poster well in advance of the conference. Try tacking up the poster before you leave for the conference to see what it will look like and to make sure that you have all of the necessary pieces.

For each paper accepted within a poster session, a poster board is reserved. The boards will be arranged in rows. Each reserved paper space will be assigned a number as indicated in the Poster Session Schedules.

• The poster must be prepared in vertical format, with 32 inches x 40 inches size, preferably using the template that can be downloaded from /wp-content/uploads/2015/10/ACRS2015_Poster_Template_Guidelines.ppt
• Contents and mode of presentation should be in the English language.
• Each presenter is in-charge of printing, and in bringing their own posters during their assigned presentation schedule.

There MUST be a presenter standing at the poster during the scheduled poster time. Posters shall be on display during the day dedicated to the specific poster session. Posters must be immediately removed after each session.

Any revisions or additions to the above guidelines will be communicated to all presenters as the need arises.

*Some of these guidelines were adapted from http://www.igarss2015.org/Papers/PaperKit.html#PartIV

MR. TUAN SY LE

Current Affiliation: Geological Remote Sensing Laboratory
Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research
National Central University

Nationality: Vietnam

Title of Winning Paper: Surface deformation assessments in Hanoi, Vietnam using ALOS PALSAR interferometry

About the Shunji Murai Award

The Shunji Murai Award was set up in 2010 under the initiative of Japan Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. A young scientist less than 40 years old who has submitted the best paper in advance to the coming ACRS shall be awarded Shunji Murai Award. This year, total of 39 papers were submitted to the Award. The fair and precise reviews were performed by the evaluation committee consists of the following members.

Chair:   　Prof. Ryutaro Tateishi, Chiba University, Japan

Members:

Emeritus Prof. Armin Gruen, ETH, Switzerland
Prof. Clive Fraser, Melbourne University, Australia
Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duong, Editor-in-Chief, AJG,Vietnam

After the two steps review, the chair reported the top three candidates with their scores to Advisory Committee Chair Prof. Shunji Murai, and the winner was finally selected. The award of 1000USD with certificate will be given to Mr. Tuan Sy Le at the opening ceremony of the 36nd Asian Conference on Remote Sensing(ACRS) on October19th, 2015 in Manila.

About the Winning Author

Born on October 4, 1990, Mr. Tuan Sy Le has a big enthusiasm in studying human-induced disturbances and their consequences by using remote sensing techniques. His current research interests mainly focuses on modelling SAR data and SAR analysis for indicating and monitoring Earth’s surface deformation.

Mr. Le took his bachelor’s degree at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute, Vietnam from 2008-2012. During this period, he worked with Dr. Nguyen Minh Hai and Dr. Phan Thi Hoai Phuong in big data processing and statistical machine translation. One of his achievement was modifying the open source software Moses to build an automatic statistical English – Vietnamese translator.

From 2012-2014, Mr. Le became involved with the “Rice crop and flood-affected areas mapping in Bac Kan province using Geographic Information System” project at the Spatial Research Laboratory, Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, Vietnam. His work focused on the data processing aspect of the project.

Beginning 2014 up to the present, Mr. Le is taking his Master’s degree at the National Central University (NCU). He is a member of the Geological Remote Sensing Laboratory of the Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research (CSRSR) of NCU.

Mr. Le’s winning paper (co-authored with Dr. Chung Pai-Chaing of CSRSR, NCU) is based on the use of microwave remote sensing technology and techniques, particularly Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). Through his research, he discovered that some regions in northern Vietnam have severe ground deformation rate due to natural processes and human activities.

Abstract of the Winning Paper

SURFACE DEFORMATION ASSESSMENTS IN HANOI, VIETNAM USING ALOS PALSAR INTERFEROMETRY

Tuan S. Le  and Chung-Pai Chang
Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University

KEY WORDS: Radar interferometry, surface deformation, ALOS PALSAR, Hanoi city

ABSTRACT: Surface deformation is a well known phenomenon for many years in the urban area of Hanoi city, the capital of Vietnam. Although much of the effort made by researchers has focused on detecting and monitoring the deformation rate in this city, there is no data available for the newly administrative districts due to a large-scale extent needed to be covered and the limitation of conventional monitoring methods. In the last decade, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) has proven as a powerful geodetic technique for detecting and monitoring small scale displacements of the Earth surface with millimetric precision. Therefore, we use the cutting-edge radar  technique Persistent Scatterer InSAR to assess the ground deformation of nearly full area of the new Hanoi. A time series ALOS PALSAR stack that covered the period between 2007 and 2009, captured in different data modes is jointly analyzed to derive the deforming information. The results suggest us that the subsidence rate in the surrounding urban districts of Hanoi (namely Tu Liem, Ha Dong, Thanh Xuan and Hoang Mai) reach up to -45 mm per year, is at severe level. We found two deformation regions that have never been observed before which are northeastern Luong Son subsiding area and southern My Duc uplifting area. The reasons of these phenomena were considered as massive groundwater extraction and infrastructure constructions. We also analyze the temporal evolution of some reference PS points as well as compare with previous studies in order to evaluate the consistent ofthe results. Further work should be focused on the surface deformation of northern sub-urban districts andintegrating next-gen SAR sensors for better understanding the deforming patterns of this area.

The first version of the Technical Program for Oral Technical Sessions (as of September 28, 2015) is now available for viewing below. It can also be downloaded through this link. The detailed schedules for Poster Presentations will be released in the coming days, together with the full Conference Program.

The Asian Association on Remote Sensing Student Group (ASG), through its First-Co Chair, Sheryl Rose Reyes, is inviting everyone to participate in three major activities for students and young researchers/scientists during ACRS 2015, namely WEBCON5, Student Session, and Student Night.

WEBCON5 is the 5th in a series of contests held every ACRS since 2011 whose main objective is to promote the development of web materials which may give us a future vision of the web related to geo-information sciences. Any students and young scientists who are younger than 35 and have registered to the ACRS 2015 can nominate their web materials to WEBCON5. You may find more information about WEBCON5 through this link: /webcon/.

For the Student Session, we are inviting students from different universities for a 10-minute presentation about their universities. The organizers have allocated one and half hours for the Student Session during ACRS 2015. For the preliminary schedule, please refer to the draft conference program.

If you have inquiries about the WEBCON5 or if you are interested to present in the Student Session, as well as to participate in the Student Night, please send an email to Sheryl Rose Reyes (sherylrose.reyes@gmail.com)

We are looking forward to your participation in our student activities. See you soon in the Philippines!

Considering the requests from several authors of accepted abstracts, the ACRS 2015 Organizers have decided to extend the deadline of full paper submission until September 10, 2015. However, we strongly encourage all authors to submit their full papers as early as possible (before the new deadline) so that we can finalize the Conference Program. For the reference of everyone, the tentative program is available at /the-conference/program/

The guidelines and template for the preparation of full papers can be found at /guidelines-for-submitting-full-paper-for-acrs-2015/

To all authors who already submitted their full papers, thank you very much!

We are looking forward to see all of you during the conference!

If you have questions, comments, suggestions, or if you need ACRS 2015-related assistance, please do not hesitate to e-mail us at acrs2015.ph@gmail.com.

The Chinese National Committee for Remote Sensing (CNCRS), AARS and the ACRS 2015 Local Organizing Committee are pleased to announce the call for application for the AARS Innovation Award. The deadline for the submission of application documents is on September 1, 2015.

Each year, the award will be given to two persons whose papers have innovative points, appraised before each ACRS. The winners will be granted certificates of AARS Innovation Award with a gift as encouragement. At the same time, their papers or innovative points of the papers will receive the right to publish on the Journal of Remote Sensing without charge. And the winners will get one year free subscriptions for the Journal of Remote Sensing.

Purpose of the Award
To reward Asian young scientists and students who are applying innovative ideas in remote sensing technology and applications.

Application and selection
– The author should be younger than 40 years old.
– The author should be from AARS Ordinary Member countries or regions.
– The paper should be a single author. In the case there are more co-authors, the number of co-authors should be less than two and only the first author will be considered for the Award.
– The following should be submitted to the Chinese National Committee for Remote Sensing (CNCRS), by e-mail: cncrs@irsa.ac.cn (kindly cc: ACRS 2015 Secretariat, acrs2015.ph@gmail.com) on or before September 1, 2015:

• Copy of Full Paper (please click here for the guidelines and template)
• Letter of Acceptance of Abstract
• The award application form including the description within 500 words about the innovative points of the paper
• Curriculum Vitae (C.V.) of the first author

– The application will be appraised by AARS and CNCRS Evaluation Committee before the coming ACRS, and four candidates will be decided.
– The candidates should attend the coming Asian Conference on Remote Sensing and present the paper in oral or poster during the ACRS. The winner will be the two according to their scores given by AARS and CNCRS Evaluation Committee.

Prize
The winners will be granted certifcates with a gift as encouragement. At the same time, the winners will receive the right to publish their papers on the Journal of Remote Sensing without charge. In addition, the winners will be presented one year free subscriptions for Journal of Remote Sensing. The prize will be supported by Chinese National Committee for Remote Sensing (CNCRS).

Presentation
The winners will be announced and awarded at the closing ceremony of the ACRS.

Links to the Application Documents:

• AARS Innovation Award Application Form
• ACRS 2015 Full Paper Guidelines and Template