Automatic face recognition of video sequences using self-eigenfaces

The objective of this work is to provide an efficient face recognition scheme useful for video indexing applications. In particular we are addressing the following problem: given a set of known images and given a video sequence to be indexed, find where the corresponding persons appear in the sequence. Conventional face detection schemes are not well suited for this application and alternate and more efficient schemes have to be developed. In this paper we have modified our original generic eigenface-based recognition scheme presented in [1] by introducing the concept of selfeigenfaces. The resulting scheme is very efficient to find specific face images and to cope with the different face conditions present in a video sequence. The main and final objective is to develop a tool to be used in the MPEG-7 standardization effort to help video indexing activities. Good results have been obtained using the video test sequences used in the MPEG-7 evaluation group.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Representing Sheared Convective Boundary Layer by Zeroth- and First-Order-Jump

Dry convective boundary layers characterized by a significant wind shear on the surface and at the inversion are studied by means of the mixed-layer theory. Two different representations of the entrainment zone, each of which has a different closure of the entrainment heat flux, are considered. The simpler of the two is based on a sharp discontinuity at the inversion (zeroth-order jump), whereas the second one prescribes a finite depth of the inversion zone (first-order jump). Large-eddy simulation data are used to provide the initial conditions for the mixed-layer models, and to verify their results. Two different atmospheric boundary layers with different stratification in the free atmosphere are analyzed. It is shown that, despite the simplicity of the zeroth-order-jump model, it provides similar results to the first-order-jump model and can reproduce the evolution of the mixed-layer variables obtained by the large-eddy simulations in sheared convective boundary layers. The mixed-layer model with both closures compares better with the large-eddy simulation results in the atmospheric boundary layer characterized by a moderate wind shear and a weak temperature inversion. These results can be used to represent the flux of momentum, heat, and other scalars at the entrainment zone in general circulation or chemistry transport models.Peer Reviewe

Uncertainties in the CO2 budget associated to the diurnal variability of the boundary layer dynamics

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Parameterization of entrainment in a sheared convective boundary layer using a first-order jump model

Basic entrainment equations applicable to the sheared convective boundary layer (CBL) are derived by assuming an inversion layer with a finite depth, i.e., the first-order jump model. Large-eddy simulation data are used to determine the constants involved in the parameterizations of the entrainment equations. Based on the integrated turbulent kinetic energy budget from surface to the top of the CBL, the resulting entrainment heat flux normalized by surface heat flux is a function of the inversion layer depth, the velocity jumps across the inversion layer, the friction velocity, and the convection velocity. The developed first-order jump model is tested against large-eddy simulation data of two independent cases with different inversion strengths. In both cases, the model reproduces quite reasonably the evolution of the CBL height, virtual potential temperature, and velocity components in the mixed layer and in the inversion layer.Peer Reviewe

Boundary Layer Late Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence: the BLLAST 2011 experiment

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The diurnal stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition over land in southern West Africa

The misrepresentation of the diurnal cycle of boundary layer clouds by large-scale models strongly impacts the modeled regional energy balance in southern West Africa. In particular, recognizing the processes involved in the maintenance and transition of the nighttime stratocumulus to diurnal shallow cumulus over land remains a challenge. This is due to the fact that over vegetation, surface fluxes exhibit a much larger magnitude and variability than on the more researched marine stratocumulus transitions. An improved understanding of the interactions between surface and atmosphere is thus necessary to improve its representation. To this end, the Dynamics-aerosol-chemistry-cloud interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) measurement campaign gathered a unique dataset of observations of the frequent stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition in southern West Africa. Inspired and constrained by these observations, we perform a series of numerical experiments using large eddy simulation. The experiments include interactive radiation and surface schemes where we explicitly resolve, quantify and describe the physical processes driving such transition. Focusing on the local processes, we quantify the transition in terms of dynamics, radiation, cloud properties, surface processes and the evolution of dynamically relevant layers such as subcloud layer, cloud layer and inversion layer. We further quantify the processes driving the stratocumulus thinning and the subsequent transition initiation by using a liquid water path budget. Finally, we study the impact of mean wind and wind shear at the cloud top through two additional numerical experiments. We find that the sequence starts with a nighttime well-mixed layer from the surface to the cloud top, in terms of temperature and humidity, and transitions to a prototypical convective boundary layer by the afternoon. We identify radiative cooling as the largest factor for the maintenance leading to a net thickening of the cloud layer of about 18 g m−2 h−1 before sunrise. Four hours after sunrise, the cloud layer decouples from the surface through a growing negative buoyancy flux at the cloud base. After sunrise, the increasing impact of entrainment leads to a progressive thinning of the cloud layer. While the effect of wind on the stratocumulus layer during nighttime is limited, after sunrise we find shear at the cloud top to have the largest impact: the local turbulence generated by shear enhances the boundary layer growth and entrainment aided by the increased surface fluxes. As a consequence, wind shear at the cloud top accelerates the breakup and transition by about 2 h. The quantification of the transition and its driving factors presented here sets the path for an improved representation by larger-scale model

The combined effect of elevation and meteorology on potato crop dynamics : a 10-year study in the Gamo Highlands, Ethiopia

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is an important crop in the Gamo Highlands in Ethiopia. The region is characterised by a complex topography with large inter-annual weather variations, where potatoes grow in a range of altitudes between 1,600 and 3,200 m above sea level (a.s.l.). Traditional large-scale crop modelling studies only crudely represent the effect of complex topography, misrepresenting spatial variability in meteorology and potato growth in the region. Here, we investigate how weather influenced by topography affects crop growth. We used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to simulate weather in relation to topography in coarse (54 km × 54 km) and fine (2 km × 2 km) resolution domains. The first has a resolution similar to those used by large-scale crop modelling studies that only crudely resolve the horizontal and vertical spatial effects of topography. The second realistically represents the most important topographical variations. The weather variables modelled in both the coarse and fine resolution domains are given as input to the GECROS model (Genotype-by-Environment interaction on CROp growth Simulator) to simulate the potato growth. We modelled potato growth from 2001 to 2010 and studied its inter-annual variability. This enabled us to determine for the first time in Ethiopia how variations in weather are linked to crop dynamics as a function of elevation at a fine resolution. We found that due to its finer representation of topography, weather and crop growth spatio-temporal variations were better represented in the fine than in the coarse resolution domain. The magnitude of crop growth variables such as Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Length of the Growing Season (LGS) obtained with weather from the coarse resolution domain were unrealistically low, hence unacceptable. Nevertheless, the resulting potato yields in the coarse resolution domain were comparable with the yields from the fine resolution domain. We explain this paradoxical finding in terms of a compensating effect, as the opposite effects of temperature and precipitation on yield compensated for each other along the major potato growing transect in the Gamo Highlands. These offsetting effects were also dependent on the correct estimations of the LGS, LAI. We conclude that a well-resolved representation of complex topography is crucial to realistically model meteorology and crop physiology in tropical mountainous areas

Role of the residual layer and large-scale subsidence on the development and evolution of the convective boundary layer

Observations, mixed-layer theory and the Dutch Large-Eddy Simulation model (DALES) are used to analyze the dynamics of the boundary layer during an intensive operational period (1 July 2011) of the Boundary Layer Late Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence campaign. Continuous measurements made by remote sensing and in situ instruments in combination with radio soundings, and measurements done by remotely piloted aircraft systems and two manned aircrafts probed the vertical structure and the temporal evolution of the boundary layer during the campaign. The initial vertical profiles of potential temperature, specific humidity and wind, and the temporal evolution of the surface heat and moisture fluxes prescribed in the models runs are inspired by some of these observations.; The research focuses on the role played by the residual layer during the morning transition and by the large-scale subsidence on the evolution of the boundary layer. By using DALES, we show the importance of the dynamics of the boundary layer during the previous night in the development of the boundary layer at the morning. DALES numerical experiments including the residual layer are capable of modeling the observed sudden increase of the boundary-layer depth during the morning transition and the subsequent evolution of the boundary layer. These simulations show a large increase of the entrainment buoyancy flux when the residual layer is incorporated into the mixed layer. We also examine how the inclusion of the residual layer above a shallow convective boundary layer modifies the turbulent kinetic energy budget.; Large-scale subsidence mainly acts when the boundary layer is fully developed, and, for the studied day, it is necessary to be considered to reproduce the afternoon observations.; Finally, we also investigate how carbon dioxide (CO2) mixing ratio stored the previous night in the residual layer plays a fundamental role in the evolution of the CO2 mixing ratio during the following day.Postprint (published version

Data treatment and corrections for estimating H2O and CO2 isotope fluxes from high-frequency observations

Current understanding of land-atmosphere exchange fluxes is limited by the fact that available observational techniques mainly quantify net fluxes, which are the sum of generally larger, bi-directional fluxes that partially cancel out. As a consequence, validation of gas exchange fluxes applied in models is challenging due to the lack of ecosystem-scale exchange. flux measurements partitioned into soil, plant, and atmospheric components. One promising experimental method to partition measured turbulent fluxes uses the exchange-process-dependent isotopic fractionation of molecules like CO2 and H2O. When applying this method at a field scale, an isotope flux (δ-flux) needs to be measured. Here, we present and discuss observations made during the LIAISE 2021 field campaign using an Eddy Covariance (EC) system coupled to two laser spectrometers for high frequency measurement of the isotopic composition of H2O and CO2. This campaign took place in the summer of 2021 in the irrigated Ebro River basin near Mollerussa, Spain, embedded in a semi-arid region. We present a systematic procedure to scrutinise and analyse measurements of the δ-flux variable, which plays a central role in flux partitioning. Our experimental data indicated a larger relative signal loss in the δ-fluxes of H2O compared to the net ecosystem flux of H2O, while this was not true for CO2. Furthermore, we find that mole fractions and isotope ratios measured with the same instrument can be offset in time by more than a minute for the H2O isotopologues due to the isotopic memory effect. We discuss how such artifacts can be detected and how they impact flux partitioning. We argue that these effects are likely due to condensation of water on a cellulose filter in our inlet system. Furthermore, we show that these artifacts can be resolved using physically sound corrections for inlet delays and high frequency loss. Only after such corrections and verification’s are made, ecosystem scale fluxes can be partitioned using isotopic fluxes as constraints, which in turn allows for conceptual land-atmosphere exchange models to be validated

Impacts of afternoon and evening sea-breeze fronts on local turbulence, and on CO2 and radon-222 transport

We investigated sharp disruptions of local turbulence and scalar transport due to the arrival of sea-breeze fronts (SBFs). To this end, we employed a comprehensive 10-year observational database from the Cabauw Experimental Site for Atmospheric Research (CESAR, the Netherlands). Sea-breeze (SB) days were selected using a five-filter algorithm, which accounts for large-scale conditions and a clear mesoscale-frontal signal associated with the land-sea contrast. Among those days (102 in all, 8.3%), based on the value of the sensible-heat flux at the onset of SB, we identified three atmospheric boundary-layer (ABL) regimes: convective, transition and stable. In the convective regime, the thermally driven convective boundary layer is only slightly altered by a small enhancement of the shear when the SBF arrives. Regarding the transition regime, we found that the ABL afternoon transition is accelerated. This was quantified by estimating the contributions of shear and buoyancy to the turbulent kinetic energy. Other relevant disruptions are the sharp reduction in ABL depth (similar to 250 m/hr) and the sudden increase in average wind speed (> 2 m/s). In the stable regime, the arrival of the SB leads to disturbances in the wind profile at the surface layer. We observed a deviation of more than 1 m/s in the observed surface-layer wind profile compared with the profile calculated using Monin-Obukhov Similarity Theory (MOST). Our findings furthermore reveal the determinant role of the SB direction in the transport of water vapour, CO2 and Rn-222. The return of continental air masses driven by the SB circulation generates sharp CO2 increases (up to 14 ppm in half an hour) in a few SB events. We suggest that the variability in Rn-222 evolution may also be influenced by other non-local processes such as the large-scale footprint from more remote sources