To achieve controllable subjective quality in image coding, this paper proposes a Video Multi-method Assessment Fusion (VMAF)-oriented image coding pre-analysis algorithm, enabling the adaptive derivation of quantization parameters corresponding to a specified quality target. First, a$Q-\mathcal{V}$model is constructed to describe the relationship between encoding quantization and VMAF distortion. Then, a Three-stage Progressive Control (TPC) algorithm, shown in Fig. 1(a), is designed to adapt quantization parameters using the discovered$Q-\mathcal{V}$model. The first two stages, based on lightweight feature extraction, iteratively fit the distortion metrics intrinsically calculated by VMAF to predict the VMAF value for a given sample under specified distortion conditions. The final stage fits the$Q-\mathcal{V}$model parameters using multi-point VMAF distortion data and outputs the corresponding quantization step for encoder control. A two-pass refinement algorithm, depicted in Fig. 1(b), further adjusts the quantization parameters based on the first encoding pass, improving quality control accuracy and framework robustness. Experiments on four datasets show that the quality control error remains below 1.293% for various VMAF targets, and the two-pass refinement reduces it further to 0.710%, outperforming existing methods.

The radiance fields style transfer is an emerging field that has recently gained popularity as a means of 3D scene stylization, thanks to the outstanding performance of neural radiance fields in 3D reconstruction and view synthesis. We highlight a research gap in radiance fields style transfer, the need for sufficient perceptual controllability, motivated by the existing concept in the 2D image style transfer. In this paper, we present ARF-Plus, a unique 3D neural style transfer framework offering manageable control over perceptual factors, to systematically explore the perceptual controllability in 3D scene stylization. Four distinct types of controls - color preservation control, (style pattern) scale control, spatial (selective stylization area) control, and depth enhancement control - come with our proposed novel loss functions and strategies, seamlessly integrated into this framework. This unlocks a realm of limitless possibilities, allowing customized modifications of stylization effects and flexible merging of the strengths of different styles, ultimately enabling the creation of novel and eye-catching stylistic effects on 3D scenes.

In California's Central Valley, water management and crop health, particularly in rice cultivation, are critical. This paper details the application of Earth surface Mineral dust source InvesTigation (EMIT) hyperspectral imaging, specifically employing Spectral Correlation Mapper (SCM) and Spectral Information Divergence (SID), for precise phenological analysis. By aligning EMIT data with Hyperion satellite references, we address spectral and geographical discrepancies. Our methodology includes seasonal sampling of spectral curves to capture the phenological stages of rice. Results show a strong correlation (R2= 0.86) between August EMIT and Reference dataset, emphasizing EMIT's utility in enhancing agricultural practices and water efficiency in the region, and highlighting the importance of understanding rice phenology for sustainable farming.

This study evaluates the potential application of hyperspectral Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) remote sensing for monitoring harmful algal blooms (HABs) and water quality in Clear Lake, California. The research focuses on correlating the chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations with EMIT spectral signatures, using waterbody-wide statistical analysis of Chl-a and EMIT data sampling at various lake locations. Results demonstrate distinct spectral signatures associated with varying Chl-a levels, highlighting the potential of hyperspectral imaging in differentiating algae levels and assessing water quality variables. It also indicates the EMIT’s utility in filling data gaps and offering high-resolution monitoring. This study underscores the need for further research in hyperspectral imaging for aquatic ecosystems, especially under challenging atmospheric conditions, enhancing our understanding of water quality dynamics.

Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) is crucial in meteorology and agriculture for understanding plant-environment interactions. Its application as an indicator in agricultural practices notably advances Sustainable Development Goals such as Zero Hunger (SDG 2) and Climate Action (SDG 13). This research focuses on the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity and food security in the Nile River Basin (NRB), emphasizing the role of VPD, temperature, and precipitation. Utilizing Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) datasets from NEX-GDDP-CMIP6, the study analyzes key climatic variables that influence agricultural conditions. The study applies the Mann-Kendall test to evaluate VPD trends from 2000 to 2060 under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5. The study's findings on the implications of rising VPD levels in the Nile River Basin (NRB), particularly under the SSP 5-8.5 scenario, highlight a critical challenge for the region's agricultural productivity and food security. The increased VPD, indicative of drier conditions, leads to a moisture deficit for crops, potentially reducing agricultural yields. This scenario poses a significant threat to food security, as lower crop yields can result in food shortages and higher food prices, adversely affecting vulnerable populations. The study underscores the necessity of integrating VPD insights into agricultural and water resource management strategies to uphold food security against climatic variations in support of the SDGs.

California, known for its diverse agriculture, is also a major producer of rice, especially in its northern regions in Sacramento River Valley. Traditional methods, predominantly reliant on optical-based satellite imagery, encounter limitations due to atmospheric interference and sensor resolution. The ability of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to penetrate atmospheric distortions and exhibit high sensitivity to vegetation structure presents a distinct advantage over optical-based methods. Utilizing Optical and SAR data fusion, this study advances the enhanced pixel-based phenological feature composite (Eppf) method using SVM classification algorithm, which can track phenological changes and patterns, providing valuable insights for agricultural planning and management. We demonstrate that Radar Vegetation Index (RVI) derived from SAR data, offers an improved alternative for identifying and mapping rice fields with enhanced accuracy. Subsequent research will focus on enhancing the suggested approach and investigating its relevance and adaptability to different types of crops.

Water preservation and maximization of its efficient use is key in areas facing water scarcity like California. One of the most important resources available to us are dams, which are useful to address a variety of needs like water supply, flood control, and maintaining environmental flows. However, if not managed properly, dams can be disastrous to humans and wildlife alike, different water species, habitats, and even impact water quality for a region. In this context, we have used newer Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry techniques like Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) and Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) to estimate the displacement rates at Shasta Dam in California, USA, and compare between the two techniques. Our results indicate that both the analyses show similar displacement trends, however, they differ in the magnitude of the displacements. The varying displacement values can be attributed to fundamental differences in the way both these techniques analyze data.

The water planning in Texas is responsible for assessing water supplies, demands, needs, and strategies over a 50-year planning period, which has demonstrated significant benefits for the state. However, the current planning needs more insights from the climate change impacts affecting regional hydrological processes and available water resources in both precipitation and temperature-driven evapotranspiration. This study develops a spatial multilinear regression model of actual evapotranspiration to estimate decadal water resources projections (2020–2100) over the state using ensemble climate datasets. The results show different yearly and monthly changing trends of water resource variables in regional water planning areas in Texas under three greenhouse gas emissions scenarios (RCPs 4.5, 6.0, 8.5). This work sheds lights on how climate change impacts the water availability as a critical factor to be considered in a long-term water planning.

In the northwestern Arabian Gulf, the offshore islands of Jana and Karan are the major nesting sites of sea turtles. Continued litter pollution may clog the beaches of the islands and hamper nesting activities and hatchling emergence success. We examined the distribution of marine litter on Jana and Karan islands using a combination of in-situ beach litter survey and remote sensing satellite technologies. Results showed that the western portions of the islands receive the most significant amount of marine litter. The dominant debris type were plastic bottles by count and processed wood by weight. Jana island had relatively higher number of plastic bottles than Karan island. The vegetation line accumulated more significant amount of marine debris compared to the beach zone and the within vegetation zone. Debris was also observed deep into the islands. Plastic Index (PI) from Sentinel-2 was better in detecting a 19m-by-19m test plastic sheet than Floating Debris Index. The potential of PI was tested at Jana and Karan islands but require further studies to detect scattered macroplastics.

The summer phytoplankton bloom events have been recently investigated using remote sensing observations over several geographical areas of the Red Sea and changed our impression of its oligotrophic characteristic. However, only limited blooms events were recorded due to active dust storms limiting the observations. This work focuses on predicting the potential bloom events in the central region of the Red Sea, indicated by the chlorophyll- a values, through the machine learning models built from the simulated and observed oceanographical parameters. Four subregions showing active eddy activities are selected to generate modeling datasets in the Case-1 waters (water depth > 300 meters) for each region. Automated model selection and tuning are performed among different candidate supervised models including linear regression, trees models, ensemble models and deep neural networks (101 in total). The ensemble models (random decision forest and bootstrap decision forest) outperform others in showing effective performance in estimating chlorophyll-a values with ( ) of the training and ( ) of the testing processes, respectively. This work shows the potential applications to use a machine learning model to reconstruct missing ocean color observations, as well as revealing the oceanographical mechanism to induce phytoplankton growth in the Red Sea.

Machine learning (ML) techniques can be applied to predict and monitor drought conditions due to climate change. Predicting future vegetation health indicators (such as EVI, NDVI, and LAI) is one approach to forecast drought events for hotspots (e.g. Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions). Recently, ML models were implemented to predict EVI values using parameters such as land types, time series, historical vegetation indices, land surface temperature, soil moisture, evapotranspiration etc. In this work, we collected the MODIS atmospherically corrected surface spectral reflectance imagery with multiple vegetation related indices for modeling and evaluation of drought conditions in the MENA region. These models are built by a total of 4556 and 519 normalized samples for training and testing purposes, respectively and with 51820 samples used for model evaluation. Models such as multilinear regression, penalized regression models, support vector regression (SVR), neural network, instance-based learning K-nearest neighbor (KNN) and partial least squares were implemented to predict future values of EVI. The models show effective performance in predicting EVI values (R2> 0.95) in the testing and (R2> 0.93) in the evaluation process.

Primary productivity (PP) has been recently investigated using remote sensing-based models over quite limited geographical areas of the Red Sea. This work sheds light on how phytoplankton and primary production would react to the effects of global warming in the extreme environment of the Red Sea and, hence, illuminates how similar regions may behave in the context of climate variability. study focuses on using satellite observations to conduct an intercomparison of three net primary production (NPP) models-the vertically generalized production model (VGPM), the Eppley-VGPM, and the carbon-based production model (CbPM)-produced over the Red Sea domain for the 1998-2018 time period. A detailed investigation is conducted using multilinear regression analysis, multivariate visualization, and moving averages correlative analysis to uncover the models' responses to various climate factors. Here, we use the models' eight-day composite and monthly averages compared with satellite-based variables, including chlorophyll-a (Chla), mixed layer depth (MLD), and sea-surface temperature (SST). Seasonal anomalies of NPP are analyzed against different climate indices, namely, the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO), the multivariate ENSO Index (MEI), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Dipole Mode Index (DMI). In our study, only the CbPM showed significant correlations with NPGO, MEI, and PDO, with disagreements relative to the other two NPP models. This can be attributed to the models' connection to oceanographic and atmospheric parameters, as well as the trends in the southern Red Sea, thus calling for further validation efforts.

We present a graph matching refinement framework that improves the performance of a given graph matching algorithm. Our method synergistically uses the inherent structure information embedded globally in the active association graph, and locally on each individual graph. The combination of such information reveals how consistent each candidate match is with its global and local contexts. In doing so, the proposed method removes most false matches and improves precision. The validation on standard benchmark datasets demonstrates the effectiveness of our method.