Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society 2019 Annual Chapter ...site.ieee.org/.../files/2020/01/2019-Chapter-Activities-Report.pdf · Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society 2019 Annual

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Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society 2019 Annual Chapter Report

Chapter Name: IEEE Kolkata Section,

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Chapter (GRS29) Kolkata

Chapter Officers:

- Chair: Pradipta Kumar Nanda, SOA University, Odisha, [email protected]

- Vice-Chair: Susmita Ghosh, JU, Kolkata, [email protected] B.Uma Shankar, ISI Kolkata, [email protected]

- Secretary: Arijit De, Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, [email protected]

- Joint Secretary: Sandip Nandi, Kalyani Government Engineering College, Kalyani , [email protected]

- Treasurer: Dalia Nandi, IIIT Kalyani, [email protected] - Nomination chair: Swastika Chakraborty, SMIT, Sikkim,

[email protected] Reporting Period:

2019 Date Submitted:

January 11, 2020 Web Site:

https://site.ieee.org/kolkata-grss/ Wish to be considered for Chapter Excellence Award: __Yes

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society

https://site.ieee.org/kolkata-grss/


1. Technical Seminars Organized:

1. One Day Technical Lecture on MEMS : A future roadmap for mmW and sub-

mmW Technologies

Date of the event: 19 March, 2019

Number of attendees: 18

Description:

On 19 March, 2019 the GRSS NSEC Student Branch Chapter in association

with the department of ECE organized a technical lecture on “MEMS : A

future roadmap for mmW and sub-mmW Technologies” at the Seminar room,

ECE Dept., NSEC from 2 pm to 3:30 pm. Mr. Ayan Karmakar, Scientist, SCL,

ISRO, Chandigarh delivered the lecture on various applications of MEMs. 15

Students along with three faculty members were present in the event.


2. One day Technical talk on “Remote Sensing of Atmospheric parameters”

By Prof. Barun Raychaudhuri, Head of Physics Department, Presidency

University

Date of the event:


Description:

The presentation is mainly intended for making the students interested in

the physical principles and applications of ‘remote sensing’, i.e., the science

and technology of detecting the interaction of electromagnetic radiation

with earth surface and atmosphere and acquiring information on natural

resources, environment and human activity. It is a wide field of work

incorporating conventional and interdisciplinary subject areas and of

diversified applications in forecasting agricultural output and climatic

conditions, estimating land cover and use, monitoring natural resources and

human activities and many others. This talk is more concentrated on the

remote sensing of aerosols and atmospheric trace gases, such as carbon

dioxide. The importance of such topics, the present scientific and technical

needs and the present activities including that of Indian context are

highlighted. The first portion of the presentation consists of the

fundamentals of remote sensing, such as the concept of spectral signature,

radiometric quantities and related laws, ideas on satellite-borne sensors,

deriving information from satellite images and related software. Then

specific information and discussions on atmospheric sensing are presented.

The sensing of two important atmospheric parameters, namely aerosols and

carbon dioxide (the most significant anthropogenic greenhouse gas) are

illustrated with the data obtained from ISRO. Some open data sources and

public domain coding systems are introduced to encourage the students so

that they can do some work on their own.


3. Distinguished Lecture Program by Prof. Gustau Camps-Valls on Physics-

driven Machine Learning for Earth Observation Data Analysis, Center for

soft Computing, ISI Kolkata

Date of the event: 2nd July 2019


Description:

At the outset, Prof. B. UmaShankar, the Vice Chair of the Kolkta Chapter introduced

Prof. Gustau Camps-Valls to the audience. Prof. Gustau spoke for about an hour on

the general issues on deep learning and thereafter invited questions from the

audience. There were questions by research scholars and faculty members. The

second half of the talk was focused on the Physics based Machine Learning. The

audience, consisting of PhD, Post Doc and faculty members took lots of interest in

the Physics-driven Machine Learning and Prof Gustau impressed the audience with

lots of new vitsa in this direction. Overall the talk was quite lucid and interesting. At

the end, Prof. Pradipta K Nanda, Chair of GRSS Chapter proposed vote of thanks to

Prof. Gustau and the participants as well. The meeting ended around 5.15 PM.


4. Industry Distinguished Lecture Program by Dr. Keely Roth on Data Fusion

and Machine Learning in Agriculture for Vegetation Characterization and

the Actionable Insights, SOA deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar,

Odisha

Date of the event: 6th November 2019


Description:

Dr. Keely Roth, Senior Remote Sensing Scientist, The Climate Corp, California, USA delivered the Industry Distinguished Lecture on 6th November 2019 at 11.30-1.00pm in the Bansuriguru Auditorium of ITER, Campus-1, Siksha O Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar. The title of her lecture was “Data Fusion and Machine Learning in Agriculture for Vegetation Characterization and the Actionable Insights" and she discussed about the remote sensing data from various source and particularly from agriculture. She presented in a lucid manner and discussed various open issues existing in this domain. The meeting was attended by around 45 research scholars and faculty members. The meeting ended at 1PM with a note of thanks from the organizer.


5. Industry Distinguished Lecture Program by Dr. Keely Roth on

Characterizing vegetation with Remote Sensing plus Deriving actionable

insights in agriculture with remote sensing, Sikkim Manipal Institute of

Technology

Date of the event: 8th November, 2019


Description:

Dr. Keely L Roth, the industry Distinguished Lecturer, delivered the talk on “Characterizing vegetation with Remote Sensing plus Deriving actionable insights in agriculture with remote sensing” at Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Gangtok on8th November 2029. Around 100 people including students and faculty members attended the talk. The lecture was very interesting as it was the application of remote sensing to agriculture. The lecture was quite interactive in nature and many students raised queries and got clarified from the distinguished speaker. The meeting ended with a note of the thanks from the coordinator. Overall this was motivating lecture for the young students and researchers..


2. Other Technical Activities:

1. Remote Pilot training

Date of the event: 26th January, 2019


Description:

Remote Pilot training for the students has been carried out by newly formed student

chapter on 26th January, 2019.

2. A brainstorming session on the “DRONE based technology in the coming days”

Date of the event: 14th April, 2019


Description:

A brainstorming session on the “DRONE based technology in the coming days” had

been arranged by the Student Branch Chapter on 14th April, 2019.


3. Education and Outreach:

1. Faculty Development Program/ Summer School on Wave Propagation and

Remote Sensing (WPRS 2019)

Date of the event: 14th July- 20th July 2019


Description:

A one week Faculty Development program cum Summer School on Wave

Propagation and Remote Sensing (WPRS 2019) organized by IEEE GRSS Student

Branch Chapter, NSEC, Kolkata in association with the department of ECE and IEEE

AP/MTT Kolkata Chapter from 14 July- 20 July 2019. Wave Propagation & Remote

Sensing (WPRS) 2019 was an intensive week-long school organized for the first time

by the IEEE GRSS SBC of Netaji Subhash Engineering College. The aim of this two-

credit equivalent certificate course is to train, educate and appraise students,

research scholars, and professionals from academic institutes, industries and other

sectors in the field of microwave remote sensing, radar engineering and big data

analysis. Remote Sensing is an emerging technology having a very wide range of

applications. It can be combined with other engineering aspects like satellite

communication, signal processing, communication, machine learning, big data

analysis etc. Prof. Manojit Mitra, from IIEST, Shibpur explained the very basic of

Electromagnetic and Wave Propagation Engineering. Dr. Satyajit Chakrabarty,

Scientist, SAMEER, Kolkata explained to the audience about various antennas and

their characteristics used in the practical field. Prof. Ashik Paul, University of

Calcutta enlightened us about the Satellite Communication. He also showed us the

basic receiver to receive the satellite signal. Prof. Gopa Sen, Head, IRPEL, University

of Calcutta taught us RADAR Engineering. In the next session, Prof. Barun

Raychaudhuri, Presidency University talked about the Optical remote sensing. He

also demonstrated us about the MODIS satellite data and ENVI software for remote

sensing. In next day, Prof. Animesh Maitra, University of Calcutta explained the


history of Remote Sensing and how it started in Kolkata. Then he talked about

various aspects of atmospheric remote sensing. He also discussed the future scopes

and funding areas of Remote Sensing and Propagation. Dr. Saurabh Das, Assistant

Professor, IIT Indore spoke about the use of Machine Learning in remote sensing. He

also discussed about the scope of big data analysis in the field of remote sensing. He

also demonstrated WEKA software which is a basic tool for Machine Learning. The

school focused upon exploring new avenues with latest advances in the field of

remote sensing, radar, and big data through lectures by eminent scientists and

researchers. The essence of the academic interaction would be different from a

conventional workshop or conference.10 students along with 25 Faculty members

showed their interest to attend this event.

2. Workshop on Deep Learning for computer Vision: A hands on

Approach, ISI Kolkata

Date of the event: 2nd June 2019


Description:

This workshop focused on the hands on experience in Application of Deep Leaning

for Computer Vision for interested researchers in this emerging area. At the outset

Dr. B. Uma Shankar, Vice Chair, introduced the speaker Dr. Jonathan H. Chan,

Associate Professor, School of Information Technology, King Mongkut’s University,

Thonburi, Thailand to the audience. This was organized at ISI Kolkata by Vice Chairs

Prof. S. Ghosh, and Dr. B. Uma Shankar. Prof. A. Ghosh, the former Chair of GRSS,

Kolkata Chapter was also actively involved in organizing this workshop. There were

50 participants including the Chair, Prof. P. K. Nanda and Vice Chairs Dr. B.


Umashankar and Prof. Susmita Ghosh. Participants were from different parts of the

country and the workshop started at 9.30am and ended 5.30 PM. Initially, Prof

Jonathan H. Chan, , delivered lectures on the Deep Leaning for Computer Vision and

thereafter guided the whole group on the implementation of deep learning

algorithms for recognition of objects from bench marked data base. All the

participants were greatly benefitted. The meeting ended at 5.30PM with a vote of

thanks by Prof. P.K. Nanda, Chair of GRSS , Kolkata Chapter.

3. Workshop on Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics: Application to

Remote Sensing, jointly organized by Mater of Computer Application,

Central University Sikkim, IEEE GRSS Kolkata Chapter and NIELIT, Gangtok.

Date of the event: 19th -20th August 2019


Description:

This workshop was organized during 19-20th August 2019 at Central University,

Sikkim, Gangtok. The workshop was conducted at Barad Sadan, 5th Mile, Tadong,

Gangtok. There were 38 registered participants from different parts of North East

states and also from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Dr. Swarup Roy, HOD,

MCA, Sikkim University was the convener of the workshop. There were seven

speakers, who delivered their lectures during these two days. The workshop was

inaugurated Prof. Avinash Khare, Vice Chancellor of Central University, Sikkim in

the presence of Prof. P.K. Nanda, Chair, GRSS, Kolkata Chapter, Dr. Arup


Chattopadhya, Director of NIELIT, Gangtok and Dr. Swarup Roy, convener of the

workshop. The different lectures were delivered by Prof. A. Ghosh, ISI Kolkata, Prof.

Susmita Ghosh, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, Prof. P.K. Nanda, SOA University,

Bhubaneswar, Dr. Debadatta Swain, IIT Bhubaneswar, Dr Swastika Chakraborty,

SMIT, Gangtok, Dr. Swarup Roy, Central University Sikkim, Gangtok, Debasrita

Chakraborty , ISI Kolkata and Anwesha Law, ISI Kolkata broadly on machine

learning, deep learning and their applications in remote sensing. The lectures were

from basics to research levels and each speaker pointed out the different open

issues in the research areas so that the participants can initiate research. Each

session was quite interactive and also the participants were greatly benefitted by

the workshop which was evident from the feedback session in the valedictory

session of the workshop. The workshop ended on 20th August with valedictory

function. Overall the workshop was very successful one.

4. International School on Advanced Machine Learning Techniques for

Climate Informatics (CHAPNET 2019), ISI Kolkata.

Date of the event: 4th-6th November 2019


Description:

In the 2019 Chapnet program six chapters with three chapters from outside India

participated in this program. These Chapters are from Singapore Section, Western

New York Section and Benelux Section, Belgium. From India, Kolkata, Bombay and

Hyderabad Section participated in this program. Under Chapnet program an

International School on Advanced Machine Learning Techniques for Climate

Informatics was organized at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) during 4th-6th

November 2019. Around 25 participants from different parts of India participated in

this school. The participants were both from academia, industry and R&D

laboratories. Dr. Yee Hui Lee from Singapore delivered a lecture on “GPS derived

PWV for rainfall predictions and other applications” with both basics and research

focus. This was a more research focused lecture with many open issues.


Subsequently, Emmett Intilucci delivered a lecture on “Atmospheric Correction &

Compensation”. This lecture was also quite through and research oriented. Besides,

Dr. Kelly Roth delivered a lecture “Vegetation Characterization with Multi-source

Remote Sensing Data” and the speaker highlighted quite a good number of

applications of remote sensing in the field of Agriculture. Dr. Avik Bhattacharya

delivered two interesting lectures, one on Introduction to Synthetic Aperture Radar

(SAR) and the other on “Polarimetric SAR Image Analysis: Physics in Machine

Learning”. This was quite beneficial to the young researchers. Besides Prof. Ashish

Ghosh delivered lecture on “ Machine Learning” while Dr. Debasrita covered the

deep learning and its applications. Besides, Prof. P. K. Nanda delivered a lecture on

Background model learning for video object detection. All the lectures were quite

beneficial to the participants. The workshop ended on 6th November 2019.

4. Professional Development (career advising, mentoring, etc.)

1. Executive meeting of GRSS Kolkata Chapter at ISI Kolkata

Date of the event: 7th June 2019


Description:

The executive meeting commenced at 6.30 PM with the special invitee Dr Jonathan.

There were seven members including the Chair Prof. P.K. Nanda, Vice Chairs, Prof. S.

Ghosh and Dr. B. Umashankar. At the outset, Prof. P. K. Nanda welcomed all the

members of the committee with special thanks to Dr. Jonathan for his contribution


for successful competition of the workshop. The Chair briefed about different

activities planned for the year 2019 and also approval in all chairs meeting held at

Delhi. Dr. Imon Mukherjee, from IIT Kalyani informed the committee about

organizing the conference in December 2019. The members discussed this and

requested him to go ahead taking care of all other conferences in the vicinity. There

was a suggestion to shift to the next year, but Dr. Mukherjee pointed out the

necessity of holding in the month of December. Finally, it was decided to organize

the conference in the month of December 2019. There was also a request from other

members regarding the sensitization of the GRSS activities in different demographic

parts of Kolkata Chapter and also to be proactive for the membership drive in

different parts under the jurisdiction of Kolkata Chapter. Dr Jonathan also

appreciated the efforts of the members of the Chapter for different activities of 2019.

The meeting ended at 7.30PM with a note of thanks from the vice Chair Dr. B

Umashankar.


Date of the event: 2nd July 2019


Description:

The executive meeting commenced at 5.30 PM in the seminar room of the center for

Soft Computing , ISI, Kolkata. The meeting was attended by seven members. At the

outset Prof. P. K. Nanda, welcomed the executive members and initiated the

discussions. The former Chair, Prof. Animesh Maitra appreciated the effort for the

DL by Prof. Prof. Gustau Camps-Valls, on Physics -driven Machine Learning for Earth

Observation Data Analysis. He pointed out that the e-notice could be circulated a bit

earlier and it was accepted by the Chair and other members. Mr Ariit Dey, secretary,

requested for a financial support for a workshop. This was discussed and resolved

that this would be taken up in the next year as there is no provision for the financial

assistance for the same conference in this year. Thereafter, the discussion was on

the organization of the Chapnet program which had been ignited by Prof. A. Ghosh,

the former GRSS Chair. The names of tentative speakers were discussed and also

creation of the web site for the same was also deliberated. Dr. B. Umashankar was

requested to take care of the Website. The Chair also briefed about the other

activities planned for this year and particularly, informed the members about the

Sikkim workshop. The meeting ended with a note of thanks from the Chair.



Date of the event: 4th Non 2019


Description:

The executive meeting commenced at 6.30 PM in the seminar room of the center for

Soft Computing , ISI, Kolkata. The meeting was attended by eight members. At the

outset, Prof. P. K. Nanda, the Chair, welcomed the members and briefed about the

activities already organized. He also highlighted the upcoming activities for the rest

of the year 2019. The issue of Industry DL by Dr. Kelly Roth was discussed.

Thereafter, Dr. B Uma Shankar, Vice President, raised the issue of constituting the

executive committee members for the year 2020. Prof. Ashish Ghosh also suggested

the names of Prof. Barun Raychaudhuri, Presidency University, Kolkata, Prof. Ashiq

Paul, Calcutta university, Kolkata and Dr. Pranab Hazra, Narula Institute of

Technology, Kolkata to be included as executive committee members of 2020.

Besides, the name Dr. Imon Mukherjee was proposed by Prof. Ghosh as the new

treasurer of Kolkata chapter. Discussion was also carried about the 7th

International Conference on “Advanced Computing, Networking, and Informatics

(ICACNI 2019)” to be held at Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)

Kalyani during December 20-21, 2019 . The meeting ended at 7.40PM with a note of

thanks from the chair.


5. Involvement with GRSS (participation in IGARSS and other GRSS-sponsored conferences, number of papers vs. number of membership, sessions organized at such conferences, hosting conferences, etc.)

1. Kolkata chapter has been awarded with “IEEE GRSS 2019 Chapter Excellence”

award.

2. Prof Ashish Ghosh has been awarded with “IEEE GRSS 2019 Regional Leader”

award.


3. A paper presented at IGRASS-2019

Date of the event: 29th July, 2019


Description: A paper authored by the students has been published and presented at the International Conference IGARSS 2019 in the month of July, 2019

4. IEEE student’s Grand Challenge project

Date of the event: February 2019


Description:

A paper has been published and presented on the outcome of the IEEE student’s

Grand Challenge project at the International Conference URSI 2019 in the month of

February, 2019.


5. International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Remote Sensing

(ICICRS 2019) technically co-sponsored by IEEE GRSS Society Kolkata

Chapter.

Date of the event: 19th-20th July 2019


Description: An International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Remote Sensing (ICICRS 2019) was organized by C. V. Raman College of Engineering, Bhubaneswar, INDIA during 19th-20th July 2019, which was technically co-sponsored by IEEE GRSS Kolkata Chapter 2019. The conference had many key note speakers and invited speakers. Besides, 45 papers were selected after review and 45 papers were presented by different authors who had registered in the conference. This conference had a one day pre-conference tutorial on 18th on Machine Learning and Open source GIS solutions for Geospatial Cloud computing. Over all the conference was a great success.


6. 7th International Conference on Advanced Computing, Networking, and

Informatics (ICACNI 2019), IIIT Kalyani.

Date of the event: December 20-21, 2019


Description:

7th International Conference on Advanced Computing, Networking, and Informatics (ICACNI 2019) was organized by Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Kalyani during December 20-21, 2019 at IIIT Kalyani campus. Students, research scholars and faculty members of several eminent Institutions joined the conference. The conference was inaugurated by Padmashri Prof. Ajoy Kumar Ray, Founder Mentor Director, IIIT Kalyani and Ex-Director of Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur. Prof. Jyotsna Kumar Mondal, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Kalyani University and Dr. Sila Singh Ghosh, VP-Corporate Relation, JIS Group, Registrar, JISCE also grace the inaugural ceremony. Dr. Imon Mukherjee, General Chair of ICACNI 2019, Faculty Coordinator and Faculty-in-Charge Academics of IIIT Kalyani and Dr. Sanjay Chatterji, Organizer ICACNI and faculty of IIIT Kalyani, welcome all delegates. Prof. Ajoy Kumar Ray delivered his key note lecture on “An insight into Deep Learning Methodology using Big Data with an use case” on 20th December Morning. The participants also enjoyed the key note lecture on “Surviving the world of Fake Media” delivered by Dr. Deepayan Bhowmik, Assistant Professor of University of Stirlink, UK. Several researchers, faculty members and students presented their works on different domains including machine learning, image analysis, security etc. The conference ended on 21st December 2019.


6. Membership Development (report number of members in the last three years including the current one and comment the trend of memberships and possible actions performed, senior and fellow elevation, nominations submitted for senior and fellow members, etc.) The membership has increased from 17 to 64 and thereafter to 74 in the beginning of the year 2019. The membership has increased to 92 at the end of the year 2019. The trend is that there is increase in membership but more in the student membership. Attempts will be made to enhance the memberships at all levels. Attempts will be made to increase the memberships.

7. Fundraising (any activity for fundraising within the local industry,

government, membership, etc.)

Fund could be raised from the increase of memberships and from the registration fees in the International School under Chapnet program 2019. Besides, the local institutions shared some of the logistics in various events. Attempts will be made to raise fund from the Industry and Government organization in the year 2020.

8. Membership Diversity (involvement of under-represented groups

including women, and activities to promote and increase engagement of underrepresented groups)

1. An Educational visit to BOSE Institute, Kolkata

Date of the event: 15th February 2019


Description: IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Student Branch Chapter of Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Garia organized one educational visit to Bose Institute


Main Campus, Razabazar, Kolkata on 15 February 2019. 13 students along with two Faculty members (Prof. Arijit De and Mr. Tapas Kr. Dawn) of ECE Department visited the Institute. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose is one of the most prominent first Indian scientists who contributed in many branches of Science (Optics, Electromagnetics, Plant Physiology). We visited the Museum and we have seen the class notes used by Sir J. C. Bose, the research articles published by sir J. C. Bose. Students also enlightened by seeing the instrumental facility used by Sir J. C. Bose for generation of Microwave and Wireless Communication. Sir J.C. Bose did his original scientific work in the area of Microwaves. He made his own equipment by employing an illiterate tin-smith whom he trained up to do the job for him. He produced extremely short waves and done considerable improvement upon Hertz's detector of electric waves.

2. Social program of “Distribution of old clothes and unused books to the people

in need”

Date of the event: 15th Sept, 2019


Description:

Student Branch had conducted social program “Distribution of old clothes and

unused books to the people in need” in 15th September, 2019.

9. Web Presence (web site development and evidence that it is widely used, especially to enhance the above activities) There is an active website present in the following web link.



Documents

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society 2019 Annual Chapter ...site.ieee.org/.../files/2020/01/2019-Chapter-Activities-Report.pdf · Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society 2019 Annual