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December
2005
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Editor: Gyula
Tóth
IAG
Communication and Outreach Branch
MTA-BME
Research Group for Phys. Geod. and Geodyn.
Department of Geodesy and Surveying
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
H-1521 Budapest, Hungary
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Information Service of
the International Association of Geodesy
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http://www.iag-aig.org
newsletter@iag-aig.org
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General
Announcements
. 2
To all IAG officers
LAST CALL.
2
IAG
Membership Application Form 2006.
2
Torben Krarup died.
2
Meeting
Announcements
. 2
1st International Symposium of the
International Gravity Field Service.
2
IAG Sponsored
Meetings.
3
Fifteen Years
of Progress in Radar Altimetry Symposium...
3
3rd IAG Symposium on Geodesy for Geotechnical and Structural Engineering
and 12th FIG Symposium on
Deformation Measurements
3
VI
Hotine-Marussi Symposium of Theoretical and Computational Geodesy: Challenge and Role of Modern
Geodesy
4
“Gravity Field of the Earth” –
1st International Symposium of the
IGFS.
4
Geodetic
Reference Frames GRF2006.
4
IAG Related
Meetings.
4
4th IVS
General Meeting.
4
5th FIG
Regional Conference – Promoting Land Administration and
Good Governance.
4
Asia Oceania
Geosciences Society’s 3rd Annual Meeting (AOGS 2006)
4
Book
Review..
5
Gligorije Perovic: Least
Squares.
5
The IAG
Newsletter is under the editorial responsibility of the
Communication and Outreach Branch (COB) of the
IAG.
It is an open forum
and contributors are welcome to send material (preferably in
electronic form) to the IAG COB (newsletter@iag-aig.org). These contributions should complement
information sent by IAG officials or by IAG symposia organizers
(reports and announcements). The IAG Newsletter is
published monthly. It is available in different formats from the
IAG new internet site: http://www.iag-aig.org
Each IAG
Newsletter includes several of the following
topics:
I. news from the Bureau
Members
II. general information
III. reports of IAG
symposia
IV. reports by commissions, special
commissions or study groups
V. symposia announcements
VI. book reviews
VII. fast bibliography
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Books for review are
the responsibility of:
C.C
Tscherning
University of Copenhagen
Dept. of Geophysics
Copenhagen, Denmark
Fax: +45 35365357
E-mail: cct@gfy.ku.dk
|
Deadline extended to January 31, 2006
Dear
Colleagues,
Two years ago, at its
General Assembly in Japan, the IAG adopted and put into place new
Statutes and By-laws which differed substantially from the old
ones. In order to identify problems with this new administrative
framework as soon as possible, the IAG Executive Committee
decided to establish a Review Committee for the period between
the General Assemblies in Japan and Italy. The Committee was
charged with the task of detecting and fixing problems that have
been encountered in working with the new Statutes and
By-laws.
Since you are the ones
who work most closely with the new Statutes and By-laws, we would
like to address you first. If there is anything that needs to be
improved, please let us know. Difficulties you may have
encountered are:
§ Definitions or formulations in the new Statutes and
By-laws that are ambiguous
§ Contradictions in the new Statutes and By-laws
§ Procedures that simply do not work
§ Procedures that introduce unnecessary
bureaucracy
§ Anything that hinders creativity and
flexibility
To improve the system, we
need to know where it is creaky. Please drop us a note if you
have come across something that could be done in a simpler or
more efficient way. The members of the Committee and their e-mail
addresses are given below. Please send us an e-mail.
Kind regards,
Klaus-Peter
Schwarz
(for the committee)
Luiz Paulo
Fortes fortes@ibge.gov.br
Don B.
Grant dgrant@linz.govt.nz
Klaus-Peter
Schwarz kpschwar@telusplanet.net
Pascal
Willis Pascal.R.Willis@jpl.nasa.gov
The Membership
Application Form 2006 in PDF can be downloaded from the IAG
website: http://www.iag-aig.org.
Those members, whose membership expires by the end of 2005 may
consider renewing their membership for 2006 or longer period
(2006-2009). The IAG Communication and Outreach Branch is
continuing to improve the service, especially for the IAG
individual members
Torben Krarup at the age
of 86, died on 24 November 2005 (an obituary will be published
soon).
1st
International Symposium of the International
Gravity Field Service
August 28 - September 1, 2006, Istanbul,
Turkey
URL: http://www.igfs2006.org/
Dear Colleagues and
Friends,
As the Local Organizing
Committee, it gives us great pleasure to invite you to the first
International Symposium of The International Gravity Field
Service (IGFS), to be held August 28 - September 1,2006, in
Istanbul / Turkey.
This is the first symposium of the International Gravity
Field Service (IGFS) of the International Association of Geodesy
(IAG), and it continues the series of symposia of the former
International Gravity and Geoid Commission. IGFS is a unified
“umbrella” service of the IAG, which coordinates
services for the gravity field of the Earth (BGI - International
Gravity Bureau, IGeS - International Geoid Service, ICET -
International Center for Earth Tides, and ICGEM - International
Center for Global Earth Models, DEM service.
Such scientific assemblies are held every two years, but
in separate locations. Hence this symposium of the IGFS will
offer opportunities to present and discuss earth’s gravity
field related research and applications.
The IAG Scientific Assembly will take place in Istanbul.
Although thousands of years have passed, Istanbul still maintains
its geographical importance. Today Istanbul is a huge metropolis
connecting continents, cultures, religions, and being home to
eleven million people and one of the greatest business and
cultural center of the region.
Istanbul is submitting richness
of first class hotels, resorts and conference facilities, easily
transportation to main cities of the world with daily flights,
beautiful decorations and unique panorama attraction in all
seasons. A perfect climate, exotic atmosphere and less cost
advantages compared to alternative destinations are added to all
of these and makes Istanbul an ideal destination at the meeting
point of Europe, Asia and Africa.
The venue for the Scientific Assembly will be The
Cultural Center of Military Museum, Harbiye, Istanbul. The
Cultural Center within the constitution of the Military Museum is
fully equipped to serve as a venue for cultural, scientific and
arts activities. All sort of activities such as scientific
sessions, special meetings of work groups, exhibitions and so on
will be held within the Cultural Center’s meeting rooms and
exhibition halls during IGFS 2006.
We are looking forward to
seeing you in Istanbul.
Local
Organizing Committee, IGFS2006
For further details,
please visit the conference website at: http://www.igfs2006.org
13-18
March 2006, Venice, Italy
Fifteen years after the
launch of ERS-1 and TOPEX/POSEIDON, the European Space Agency, in
collaboration with the French Space Agency, CNES, is organising
an exceptional Symposium on “15 Years of Progress in Radar
Altimetry”. For further information visit the website
http://www.esa.int/venice06.
3rd IAG Symposium on Geodesy for Geotechnical and Structural Engineering
and 12th FIG Symposium on
Deformation Measurements
22-24 May, 2006,
Baden, Austria
The FIG symposia on
deformation measurements and analysis have a long tradition dated
back to 1975. The IAG Symposium was established in 1998 and held
twice. It will be the first time that the two symposia will be
held together as a joint conference. Researchers, engineers,
educators, designers, manufacturers, contractors, public
authorities, and other professionals are cordially invited to
attend this international event. Please also visit the symposium
website for further details: http://info.tuwien.ac.at/ingeo/sc4/baden.
29 May - 2 June 2006,
Wuhan University, PR China
The symposium will be
held at Wuhan University, PR China, 29 May - 2 June 2006. More
information will be circulated as soon as available and can be
found at the website: http://www.sgg.whu.edu.cn/icct_hm.html
28 August - 1
September 2006, Istanbul, Turkey
The 1st symposium of IGFS
as being a continuation of the symposia series of the former
International Gravity and Geoid Commission will be held in
Istanbul, Turkey. The major objective is to bring together the
geoscientists working in general areas of modeling the Earth's
gravity field. For more information visit the website: www.igfs2006.org.
9-13 October 2006,
Munich, Germany
The Commission 1
„Reference Frames“ of the International Association
of Geodesy (IAG) invites scientists and experts from all
countries to participate in the Symposium “Geodetic
Reference Frames”. The symposium shall give the opportunity
to present new ideas, discuss improved models and approaches, and
report on latest results of the definition and realization of
geodetic reference frames. Detailed information is available at
the symposium website: http://iag.dgfi.badw.de/?grf2006.
January
9-13, 2006,
Concepción, Chile
The fourth General
Meeting of the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and
Astrometry (IVS) will be held January 9-13, 2006, in
Concepción, Chile. The purpose of the meeting is to
assemble representatives from all IVS components to share
information, hear reports, and plan future activities. The
meeting also provides a forum for interaction with other members
of the VLBI and Earth science communities. For further details
visit the webpage http://ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov/meetings/gm2006.
March
8-11, 2006, Accra, Ghana
The focus of the 5th FIG
Regional Conference will be on land administration and good
governance as conditions for sustainable development. It will
discuss these topics also through the technical tools that modern
surveying technology can offer in promoting these main goals.
More information on the conference web site: www.fig.net/accra .
July
10-14, 2006, Singapore, Malaysia
The AOGS mission is to
promote geophysical science for the benefit of humanity in Asia
and Oceania. Hence, AOGS 2006 will once again bring together
geoscientists from all over Asia, Oceania and the rest of the
world to present their works and ideas. AOGS invites all
geoscientists to convene their own sessions and present their
findings at AOGS 2006 in Singapore. For further details, visit
http://www.asiaoceania-conference.org/.
Title:
Least Squares (Monograph in
English)
Author:
Gligorije Perovic
Publisher:
published by the author, University of
Belgrade, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Belgrade
ISBN:
86-907409-0-2
Year:
2005
Price:
Euro 120 (including postage)
Pages:
648
Details:
Hardcover, 87 Figures and 90
Tables, nicely typeset on high-quality paper
This book is a very comprehensive introduction to
least-squares methods, including classical topics such as
least-squares adjustment, but also contemporary methods such as
statistical tests, Bayes estimation, Kalman filtering,
least-squares collocation, time series, and optimal planning of
experiments. Thus it has the character of an encyclopaedic
monograph.
The book is intended for all scientists and engineers who
perform highly precise measurements and who wish to analyze them
by sophisticated linear models of mathematical data processing,
in particular for geodetic scientists and engineers.
The required mathematics is on the level of a graduate
engineering student. Generalized matrix inverses are playing a
basic role, but they are introduced in the text. Many numerical
examples are given to facilitate understanding
essentially.
Part I recalls the basic MATHEMATICAL BACKGROUND of
linear algebra: vectors, matrices, and statistical distribution
of vectors. It is seen how naturally the normal (Gaussian)
distribution matches with linear algebra.
Part II, BASIC LEAST-SQUARES MODELS, is a modern
presentation of classical least-squares adjustment (by parameters
and by conditions).
Part III considers SINGULAR LS MODELS and is a
remarkable modern treatment by means of generalised matrix
inverses. It also contains in great detail the important topic of
hypothesis testing. Bayesian methods are also treated
here.
Part IV, STUDY OF RELATIONSHIPS, gives a comprehensive
representation of the various linear regression methods and
covariance analysis, as well as an elementary introduction to
least-squares collocation and stochastic processes, Kalman
filtering and time series.
Part V treats FUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND NON-LINEAR
LEAST SQUARES, a topic which is becoming increasingly more
important.
Part VI, OPTIMAL PLANNING OF EXPERIMENTS, is of
particular value for the experimenter. It is an adequate
conclusion of the book.
The book is of particular value since it includes much,
hitherto unpublished, personal research of the author such as the
methods PEROBML, PEROBLS D, MINQE-PERG, PERMODMINQE, PERVCV1 etc.
Having been devised by an excellent scientist with a view to
practical application, they considerably increase its value both
for the senior scientist and the practical engineer.
This is really a unique book. It is fully up to date
concerning mathematical tools (matrices and their generalized
inverses). It is, however, written in the patient and leisurely
style of a good old-style professor who cares about being
understood by practically oriented engineering students. In a
modern expression, it is very "reader-friendly" but requires (and
rewards) serious study. Many particular cases and examples
elaborated in great detail illustrate the procedures.
For me, it is comforting that such books exist in our
hurried and short-lived time (the book was written in the course
of 12 years!). It can be unreservedly recommended to graduate
students, as well as to scientists and engineers looking for
reliable advice in advanced statistical applications occurring in
geodetic and surveying practice.
May I add a personal note. When the author gave me his
monograph "Singular-Adjustment Theory" (in Serbo-Croatian, Naucna
Knjiga, Beograd 1986), I spontaneously wrote a review for the
basic geodetic journal "Bulletin Geodesique" (now "Journal of
Geodesy"), although it is customary to review only books written
in one of the two official languages (English and French) of the
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, and I recommended
its translation into English.
Originally, the present book was intended to appear in
1998, 200 years after C. F. Gauss said to have found least
squares on a probabilistic basis. However, in the meantime, the
tragic war in Yugoslavia had broken out.
The book is on an international contemporary level, with
a list of 241 references, in English or with their titles
translated into English.
The book looks very fine and stable, hardbound and
typeset on high quality paper. The author spared no efforts in
making it an excellent book, not only as regards the contents,
but also regarding the form. From this point of view, the
relatively high price of the book is fully justified.
It should not be missing in any geodetic, statistical or
mathematical library. Interested scientists might wish to have
this unusual book also on their private bookshelf. It is worth
it.
The book should be ordered directly from the author by
email <perg@grf.bg.ac.yu> or by fax to (++381)11 3370-293
(Prof. Gligorije Perovic, University of Belgrade)".
Helmut
Moritz, Graz
helmut.moritz@tugraz.at