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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 46, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2008

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Foreword to the Special Issue on the 2007 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS’07)

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HE 2007 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS’07) was held at the brand new Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona (CCIB), Catalunya, Spain, from July 23 to 27. The General Chair was Prof. I. Corbella, and the Technical Program Committee (TPC) Cochairs were Prof. A. Camps, Prof. A. Broquetas, and Prof. A. Comerón, all from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. With the theme “Sensing and Understanding Our Planet,” the conference attracted over 2400 abstract submissions. In an attempt to ensure a high-quality program, each abstract was evaluated by at least two reviewers. We would like to thank the 560 reviewers for their generous support, the invited session organizers, and the theme coordinators/session organizers and for their help in setting up the program and to act as backup reviewers in the few cases needed. A dedicated TPC processed and organized the nearly 2000 accepted presentations that composed the Final Program in a meeting kindly organized by Prof. W. Wiesbeck in Karlsruhe, Germany, on February 23, 2007. Half of the program was made up of invited sessions, and the other half comprised contributed papers and posters. The Program presentations were arranged into 99 oral sessions and 62 interactive sessions, covering nearly all aspects of remote sensing: from the physics of the measurements to the most advanced data processing techniques, through the electromagnetic modeling and the technologies and techniques that allow to develop and build new and more powerful instruments. In addition to the general topics, we tried to promote some such as lidar and radar altimetry in order to improve the IGARSS coverage of techniques and applications. We also

tried to emphasize present-day space missions (TerraSAR-X, Cosmo-Skymed, SMOS, etc.), emerging techniques (GNSSR, sensor web, advanced sensor concepts, etc.), and other topics of special interest such as remote-sensing activities in Africa, educational activities, and disaster prevention and monitoring. Finally, the Program also included two sessions dedicated to Prof. T. M. Elfouhaily (Tuesday afternoon) and Prof. M. Takagi (Thursday afternoon) for their significant contributions to our field. IGARSS 2007 had a record attendance of more than 1750 people, which helped lower the no-show rate down to 7% and 24% in the oral and poster sessions, respectively. For this Special Issue, a record of 88 manuscripts has been submitted, from which, after a rigorous revision process, a total of 38 have been finally accepted for publication. We want to thank all reviewers for their time and dedication to this task. Finally, special thanks are due to Prof. J. Benediktsson (Editor-in-Chief), A. Larkin, and G. Criscione for their continuous and patient help during the preparation of this Special Issue.

Current version published October 1, 2008. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2008.929999

0196-2892/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE

ADRIANO CAMPS, Guest Editor Remote Sensing Laboratory, Department of Signal Theory and Communications Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya 08034 Barcelona, Spain JORDI J. MALLORQUI, Guest Editor Remote Sensing Laboratory, Department of Signal Theory and Communications Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya 08034 Barcelona, Spain

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 46, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2008

Adriano Camps (S’91–A’97–M’00–SM’03) was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1969. He received the degree in telecommunications engineering and Ph.D. degree in telecommunications engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. In 1991 to 1992, he was at the ENS des Télécommunications de Bretagne, France, with an Erasmus Fellowship. Since 1993, he has been with the Electromagnetics and Photonics Engineering Group, Department of Signal Theory and Communications, UPC, where he was first an Assistant Professor, an Associate Professor in 1997, and where he has been a Full Professor since 2007. In 1999, he was on sabbatical leave at the Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory, of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Since 1993, he has been deeply involved in the European Space Agency SMOS Earth Explorer Mission, from the instrument and algorithmic points of view, performing field experiments, and more recently studying the use of GNSS-R to perform the sea state correction needed to retrieve salinity from radiometric observations. His research interests are focused in microwave remote sensing, with special emphasis in microwave radiometry by aperture synthesis techniques and remote sensing using signals of opportunity (GNSS-R). Dr. Camps was Chair of μCal 2001 and Technical Program Committee Cochair of IGARSS 2007. Currently, he is an Associate Editor of Radio Science and the IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING LETTERS, and from 2003 to 2006 editor of the IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING NEWSLETTER, and President-Founder of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Chapter at Spain. In 1993, he received the Second National Award of University Studies; in 1997, the INDRA award of the Spanish Association of Telecommunication Engineering to the best Ph.D. in Remote Sensing; in 1999 the Extraordinary Ph.D. Award at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya; in 2002, the Research Distinction of the Generalitat de Catalunya for contributions to microwave passive remote sensing; and in 2004 he received a European Young Investigator Award. Moreover, as a member of the Microwave Radiometry Group, UPC, he received in 2000, 2001, and 2004: the 1st Duran Farell and the Ciudad de Barcelona awards for Technology Transfer, and the “Salvà I Campillo” Award of the Professional Association of Telecommunication Engineers of Catalonia for the most innovative research project. Jordi J. Mallorquí (S’93–M’96) was born in Tarragona, Spain, in 1966. He received the Ingeniero degree in telecommunications engineering and the Doctor Ingeniero degree in telecommunications engineering for his research on microwave tomography for biomedical applications from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in 1990 and 1995, respectively. In 1991, he was with the Department of Signal Theory and Communications as a Ph.D. student. In 1993, he was an Assistant Professor, and since 1997, he has been an Associate Professor with the Telecommunications Engineering School, UPC. His teaching activity involves microwaves, radionavigation systems, and remote sensing. He spent a sabbatical year at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, in 1999, working on interferometric airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) calibration algorithms. He is currently working on the application of SAR interferometry to terrain-deformation monitoring with orbital, airborne and ground data, vessel detection and classification from SAR images, and 3-D electromagnetic simulation of SAR systems. He is also collaborating in the design and construction of a ground-based SAR interferometer for landslide control. Finally, he is currently developing the hardware and software of a bistatic opportunistic SAR for interferometric applications using ERS, ENVISAT, and TerraSAR-X as sensors of opportunity. He has published more than 80 papers on microwave tomography, electromagnetic numerical simulation, and SAR processing, interferometry, and differential interferometry in referred journals and international symposia.