Land Cover Classification by Integrating NDVI Time Series and GIS Data to Evaluate Water Circulation in Aso Caldera, Japan.

Grasslands in Aso caldera, Japan, are a type of land cover that is integral for biodiversity, tourist attractions, agriculture, and groundwater recharge. However, the area of grasslands has been decreasing in recent years as a result of natural disasters and changes in social conditions surrounding agriculture. The question of whether the decrease in spring water discharge in Aso caldera is related to the decrease in grasslands remains unanswered.

Robust vehicle detection under various environments to realize road traffic flow surveillance using an infrared thermal camera.

To realize road traffic flow surveillance under various environments which contain poor visibility conditions, we have already proposed two vehicle detection methods using thermal images taken with an infrared thermal camera. The first method uses pattern recognition for the windshields and their surroundings to detect vehicles. However, the first method decreases the vehicle detection accuracy in winter season.

Robust vehicle detection under various environmental conditions using an infrared thermal camera and its application to road traffic flow monitoring.

We have already proposed a method for detecting vehicle positions and their movements (henceforth referred to as "our previous method") using thermal images taken with an infrared thermal camera. Our experiments have shown that our previous method detects vehicles robustly under four different environmental conditions which involve poor visibility conditions in snow and thick fog. Our previous method uses the windshield and its surroundings as the target of the Viola-Jones detector.