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Agriculture monitoring, and in particular food security, requires near real-time information on crop growing conditions for early detection of possible production deficits. In this work, we propose the use of Gaussian processes (GPs). together with in-situ, EO and ERA-Interim climate reanalysis data for crop yield forecasting. Country-level agricultural survey data from FAOSTAT are used for quantitative assessment. The study is conducted in the framework of the ASAP (Anomaly hot Spots of Agricultural Production) early warning decision support system of the European Commission, which aims at providing timely information about possible crop production anomalies worldwide. After grouping countries with similar growing season periods, we We show that GP models allow predicting the yield of the different planted crops within such groups with coefficient of determination R2 ranging from 0.5 to 0.95. For each country and crop, a better fit that the mean of the data is obtained in all cases, and the errors obtained are comparable to the ones obtained for the group. The proposed modelling framework can be potentially adopted in ASAP operations to forecast national level crop yield and production.

Image classification has become one of the most common applications in remote sensing yielding to the creation of a variety of operational thematic maps at multiple spatio-temporal scales. The information contained in these maps summarizes key characteristics related with the physical environment and provides fundamental information of the Earth for vegetation monitoring or land use status over time. However, high spatial resolution land cover maps are usually only produced for specific small regions or in an image tile. We present a general methodology to obtain a high spatial resolution land cover maps using Landsat spectral information, the powerful Google Earth Engine platform, and operational coarse classification schemes such as the MODIS (MOD12) land cover. After the experimental analysis for different regions, we conclude that the method allows to successfully learn the MODIS Plant Functional Type classification scheme at 500 m pixel resolution which greatly improves the level of spatial detail when the machine learning model is applied to Landsat pixel resolution (30 m) reflectance data.

The present study focuses on retrieving soil and canopy temperatures, which are key parameters to estimate soil moisture and vegetation optical depth from multi-frequency microwaves information. Several retrieval algorithms assume that canopy and vegetation temperatures are similar in thermal equilibrium conditions, while others separate their contributions, as SMOS-IC, one of the consolidated retrieval algorithms for the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite mission. Soil and canopy temperatures in SMOS-IC are modelled from the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) centre. Both SMOS and the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) missions are currently the only passive L-band (1.4 GHz) missions in operation, but their lifetime is limited. In this context, the upcoming Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) mission will provide continuity on L-band measurements with complementary information in a range of microwave frequencies, from 1.4 to 36.5 GHz. This study uses in situ soil moisture information from the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) as input in the SMOS-IC algorithm to retrieve vegetation optical depth (VOD) and soil/canopy effective temperature (T GC ). The retrieved effective temperature is then compared with modelled temperatures from ECMWF and with data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2), which acquires the higher frequency bands (C, X, K a , and K u ) present in the future CIMR mission. Results confirm the potential of all high-frequency bands to estimate T GC , with C and X-bands being the most correlated. This study is a first approach to evaluate how microwave multi-frequency information can help modelling soil and canopy temperatures in the SMOS-IC retrieval algorithm, from which the upcoming CIMR mission may benefit.

Manifold learning methods are very efficient methods for hyperspectral image (HSI) analysis but, unless specifically designed, they cannot provide an explicit embedding map readily applicable to out-of-sample data. A common assumption to deal with the problem is that the transformation between the high input dimensional space and the (typically low) latent space is linear. This is a particularly strong assumption, especially when dealing with hyperspectral images due to the well-known nonlinear nature of the data. To address this problem, a manifold learning method based on High Dimensional Model Representation (HDMR) is proposed, which enables to present a nonlinear embedding function to project out-of-sample samples into the latent space. The proposed method is compared to its linear counterparts and achieves promising performance in terms of classification accuracy of hyperspectral images.

In this work we propose the use of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Recurrent Neural Networks for multivariate time series of satellite data for crop yield estimation. Recurrent nets allow exploiting the temporal dimension efficiently, but interpretability is hampered by the typically overparameterized models. The focus of the study is to understand LSTM models by looking at the hidden units distribution, the impact of increasing network complexity, and the relative importance of the input covariates. We extracted time series of three variables describing the soil-vegetation status in agroe-cosystems -soil moisture, VOD and EVI- from optical and microwave satellites, as well as available in situ surveys on crops across Continental U.S. to perform the experiments. Firstly, the models were validated in error terms. Secondly, the trained models were visualized and, thirdly, some useful statistics were extracted from the hidden unit activation heatmaps, accounting for redundancy and cluttering of activation responses. Results reveal how networks assign most of the relevance to soil moisture and focus on two phenological stages of crop growth.

High spatial resolution vegetation products are fundamental in different fields, such as improving the understanding of crop seasonality at regional scales. Here, two new vegetation products such as the Leaf Area Index (LAI) and the Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) are downscaled at continental scales. A novel HIghly Scalable Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (HIS-TARFM) is used to generate the gap-free time series of Landsat surface reflectance data by fusing MODIS and Landsat reflectance for the contiguous United States. An artificial neural network is trained to capture the relationship between the gap free Landsat surface reflectance and the MODIS LAI/FAPAR products and allows to predict both biophysical variables at 30 meters spatial resolution. The results confirm that both vegetation products largely agree with the test dataset, providing low error and high explained variance.

Modeling and understanding the Earth system is a constant and challenging scientific endeavour. When a clear mechanistic model is unavailable, complex or uncertain, learning from data can be an alternative. While machine learning has provided excellent methods for detection and retrieval, understanding the governing equations of the system from observational data seems an elusive problem. In this paper we introduce sparse regression to uncover a set of governing equations in the form of a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The presented method is used to explicitly describe variable relations by identifying the most expressive and simplest ODEs explaining data to model relevant components of the biosphere.

Many fields of science and engineering require the use of complex and computationally expensive models to understand the involved processes in the system of interest. Nevertheless, due to the high cost involved, the required study becomes a cumbersome process. This paper introduces an interpolation procedure which belongs to the family of active learning algorithms, in order to construct cheap surrogate models of such costly complex systems. The proposed technique is sequential and adaptive, and is based on the optimization of a suitable acquisition function. We illustrate its efficiency in a toy example and for the construction of an emulator of an atmosphere modeling system.

We present a deep learning model with temporal memory to detect clouds in image time series acquired by the Seviri imager mounted on the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite. The model provides pixel-level cloud maps with related confidence and propagates information in time via a recurrent neural network structure. With a single model, we are able to outline clouds along all year and during day and night with high accuracy.

This paper introduces a methodology to construct emulators of costly radiative transfer models (RTMs). The proposed methodology is sequential and adaptive, and it is based on the notion of acquisition functions in Bayesian optimization. Here, instead of optimizing the unknown underlying RTM function, one aims to achieve accurate approximations. The Automatic Multi-Output Gaussian Process Emulator (AMO-GAPE) methodology combines the interpolation capabilities of Gaussian processes (GPs) with the accurate design of an acquisition function that favors sampling in low density regions and flatness of the interpolation function. We illustrate the promising capabilities of the method for the construction of an emulator for a standard leaf-canopy RTM.

We introduce a Particle Metropolis-Hastings algorithm driven by several parallel particle filters. The communication with the central node requires the transmission of only a set of weighted samples, one per filter. Furthermore, the marginal version of the previous scheme, called Distributed Particle Marginal Metropolis-Hastings (DPMMH) method, is also presented. DPMMH can be used for making inference on both a dynamical and static variable of interest. The ergodicity is guaranteed, and numerical simulations show the advantages of the novel schemes.

© 2018 IEEE Measurements of soil moisture are needed for a better global understanding of the land surface-climate feedbacks at both the local and the global scale. Satellite sensors operating in the low frequency microwave spectrum (from 1 to 10 GHz) have proven to be suitable for soil moisture retrievals. These sensors now cover nearly 4 decades thus allowing for global multi-mission climate data records. In this paper, we assess the possibility of using L-band (SMOS) and C-band (AMSR2, ASCAT) remotely sensed soil moisture time series for the global estimation of soil moisture persistence. A multi-output Gaussian process regression model is applied to ensure spatio-temporal coverage of the satellite data sets. It allows a robust computation of temporal autocorrelation and e-folding times. Results over a selection of catchments reveals general agreement between the response of in-situ and satellite microwave observations to hydrological processes. The response of the uppermost-modeled soil moisture layer of GLDAS-1-Noah agrees well with that of the observations, whereas major differences are displayed by MERRA2 reanalysis. The temporal dynamics of the three microwave sensors are shown to be consistent, close to in-situ and to GLDAS-1-Noah, which supports their combination for the global estimation soil moisture persistence. ispartof: pages:8259-8262 ispartof: 2018 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium vol:2018-July pages:8259-8262 ispartof: IGARSS 2018 location:Valencia, Spain date:22 Jul - 27 Jul 2018 status: Published online

Passive Millimeter Wave Images (PMMWIs) are being increasingly used to identify and localize objects concealed under clothing. Taking into account the quality of these images and the unknown position, shape, and size of the hidden objects, large data sets are required to build successful classification/detection systems. Kernel methods, in particular Gaussian Processes (GPs), are sound, flexible, and popular techniques to address supervised learning problems. Unfortunately, their computational cost is known to be prohibitive for large scale applications. In this work, we present a novel approach to PMMWI classification based on the use of Gaussian Processes for large data sets. The proposed methodology relies on linear approximations to kernel functions through random Fourier features. Model hyperparameters are learned within a variational Bayes inference scheme. Our proposal is well suited for real-time applications, since its computational cost at training and test times is much lower than the original GP formulation. The proposed approach is tested on a unique, large, and real PMMWI database containing a broad variety of sizes, types, and locations of hidden objects.

Gaussian Processes (GPs) are state-of-the-art tools for regression. Inference of GP hyperparameters is typically done by maximizing the marginal log-likelihood (ML). If the data truly follows the GP model, using the ML approach is optimal and computationally efficient. Unfortunately very often this is not case and suboptimal results are obtained in terms of prediction error. Alternative procedures such as cross-validation (CV) schemes are often employed instead, but they usually incur in high computational costs. We propose a probabilistic version of CV (PCV) based on two different model pieces in order to reduce the dependence on a specific model choice. PCV presents the benefits from both approaches, and allows us to find the solution for either the maximum a posteriori (MAP) or the Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) estimators. Experiments in controlled situations reveal that the PCV solution outperforms ML for both estimators, and that PCV-MMSE results outperforms other traditional approaches.

Gibbs sampling is a well-known Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm, extensively used in signal processing, machine learning and statistics. The key point for the successful application of the Gibbs sampler is the ability to draw samples from the full-conditional probability density functions efficiently. In the general case this is not possible, so in order to speed up the convergence of the chain, it is required to generate auxiliary samples. However, such intermediate information is finally disregarded. In this work, we show that these auxiliary samples can be recycled within the Gibbs estimators, improving their efficiency with no extra cost. Theoretical and exhaustive numerical comparisons show the validity of the approach.

The ESA's SMOS and the NASA's SMAP missions, launched in 2009 and 2015, respectively, are the first two missions having on-board L-band microwave sensors, which are very sensitive to the water content in soils and vegetation. Focusing on the vegetation signal at L-band, we have implemented an inversion approach for SMAP that allows deriving vegetation optical depth (VOD, a microwave parameter related to biomass and plant water content) alongside soil moisture, without reliance on ancillary optical information on vegetation. This work aims at using this new observational data to monitor the phenology of crops in major global agro-ecosystems and enhance present agricultural monitoring and prediction capabilities. Core agricultural regions have been selected worldwide covering major crops (corn, soybean, wheat, rice). The complementarity and synergies between the microwave vegetation signal, sensitive to biomass water-uptake dynamics, and optical indices, sensitive to canopy greenness, are explored. Results reveal the value of L-band VOD as an independent ecological indicator for global terrestrial biosphere studies., Comment: Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium

This paper introduces a methodology for predicting the year of plantation (YOP) from remote sensing data. The application has important implications in forestry management and inventorying. We exploit hyperspectral and LiDAR data in combination with state-of-the-art machine learning classifiers. In particular, we present a complete processing chain to extract spectral, textural and morphological features from both sensory data. Features are then combined and fed a Gaussian Process Classifier (GPC) trained to predict YOP in a forest area in North Carolina (US). The GPC algorithm provides accurate YOP estimates, reports spatially explicit maps and associated confidence maps, and provides sensible feature rankings.

This paper presents the development and implementation of a cloud detection algorithm for Proba-V. Accurate and automatic detection of clouds in satellite scenes is a key issue for a wide range of remote sensing applications. With no accurate cloud masking, undetected clouds are one of the most significant sources of error in both sea and land cover biophysical parameter retrieval. The objective of the algorithms presented in this paper is to detect clouds accurately providing a cloud flag per pixel. For this purpose, the method exploits the information of Proba-V using statistical machine learning techniques to identify the clouds present in Proba-V products. The effectiveness of the proposed method is successfully illustrated using a large number of real Proba-V images., Preprint corresponding to the paper published in 2017 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), Fort Worth, TX, USA, pp. 2251-2254

This paper studies the level of complementary information conveyed by extremely high resolution LiDAR and optical images. We pursue this goal following an indirect approach via unsupervised spatial-spectral feature extraction. We used a recently presented unsupervised convolutional neural network trained to enforce both population and lifetime spar-sity in the feature representation. We derived independent and joint feature representations, and analyzed the sparsity scores and the discriminative power. Interestingly, the obtained results revealed that the RGB+LiDAR representation is no longer sparse, and the derived basis functions merge color and elevation yielding a set of more expressive colored edge filters. The joint feature representation is also more discriminative when used for clustering and topological data visualization.

Kernel methods constitute a family of powerful machine learning algorithms, which have found wide use in remote sensing and geosciences. However, kernel methods are still not widely adopted because of the high computational cost when dealing with large scale problems, such as the inversion of radiative transfer models. This paper introduces the method of random kitchen sinks (RKS) for fast statistical retrieval of bio-geo-physical parameters. The RKS method allows to approximate a kernel matrix with a set of random bases sampled from the Fourier domain. We extend their use to other bases, such as wavelets, stumps, and Walsh expansions. We show that kernel regression is now possible for datasets with millions of examples and high dimensionality. Examples on atmospheric parameter retrieval from infrared sounders and biophysical parameter retrieval by inverting PROSAIL radiative transfer models with simulated Sentinel-2 data show the effectiveness of the technique.

Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) for machine learning has lately been successfully introduced for chlorophyll content mapping from remotely sensed data. The method provides a fast, stable and accurate prediction of biophysical parameters. However, since GPR is a non-linear kernel regression method, the relevance of the features are not accessible. In this paper, we introduce a probabilistic approach for feature sensitivity analysis (SA) of the GPR in order to reveal the relative importance of the features (bands) being used in the regression process. We evaluated the SA on GPR ocean chlorophyll content prediction. The method revealed the importance of the spectral bands, thus allowing the discrimination between Case-1 water and Case-2 water conditions.

The accurate estimation of carbon and heat fluxes at global scale is paramount for future policy decisions in the context of global climate change. This paper analyzes the relative relevance of potential remote sensing and meteorological drivers of global carbon and energy fluxes over land. The study is done in an indirect way via upscaling both Gross Primary Production (GPP) and latent energy (LE) using Gaussian Process regression (GPR). In summary, GPR is successfully compared to multivariate linear regression (RMSE gain of +4.17% in GPP and +7.63% in LE) and kernel ridge regression (+2.91% in GPP and +3.07% in LE). The best GP models are then studied in terms of explanatory power based on the analysis of the lengthscales of the anisotropic covariance function, sensitivity maps of the predictive mean, and the robustness to distortions in the input variables. It is concluded that GPP is predominantly mediated by several vegetation indices and land surface temperature (LST), while LE is mostly driven by LST, global radiation and vegetation indices.

The transform in image coding aims to remove redundancy among data coefficients so that they can be independently coded, and to capture most of the image information in few coefficients. While the second goal ensures that discarding coefficients will not lead to large errors, the first goal ensures that simple (point-wise) coding schemes can be applied to the retained coefficients with optimal results. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) provides the best independence and data compaction for Gaussian sources. Yet, non-linear generalizations of PCA may provide better performance for more realistic non-Gaussian sources. Principal Polynomial Analysis (PPA) generalizes PCA by removing the non-linear relations among components using regression, and was analytically proved to perform better than PCA in dimensionality reduction. We explore here the suitability of reversible PPA for lossless compression of hyperspectral images. We found that reversible PPA performs worse than PCA due to the high impact of the rounding operation errors and to the amount of side information. We then propose two generalizations: Backwards PPA, where polynomial estimations are performed in reverse order, and Double-Sided PPA, where more than a single dimension is used in the predictions. Both yield better coding performance than canonical PPA and are comparable to PCA.

The re use of available labeled samples to classify newly acquired data is a hot topic in pattern analysis and machine learning. Classification or regression algorithms developed with data from one domain cannot be directly used in another related domain unless the data representation or the classifier have been adapted to the new data distribution. This is crucial in satellite/airborne image analysis: when confronted to domain shifts issued from changes in acquisition or illumination conditions image classifiers tend to become inaccurate. In this paper we introduce a method to align data manifolds that represent the same land cover classes but have undergone spectral distortions. The proposed method relies on a recently proposed semi supervised manifold alignment technique. We propose an algorithm to relax the strong requirement of labeled data in all domains by exploiting centrality measures over graphs to match the manifolds. Experiments on multispectral pixel classification at very high spatial resolution show the potential of the method.

This paper presents a synergistic cloud detection algorithm that has been developed for processing simultaneous observations from AATSR and MERIS sensors on-board ENVISAT. The main objective of this work is to explore sensor synergies in order to increase the cloud detection accuracy and provide a reliable cloud mask. This is of paramount importance in the framework of the ESA climate change initiative for clouds (Cloud CCI), which aims to provide long time series of cloud properties at a global scale from satellite data. The cloud detection algorithm is based on an ensemble of artificial neural networks, where the outputs of different dedicated models are combined to provide more accurate and robust predictions. The performance of the method has been tested on a large number of real images, and provides higher classification accuracy than other methods, especially when spatial information from the images is included in the classifiers.

When dealing with supervised target detection, the acquisition of labeled samples is one of the most critical phases: the samples must be yet representative of the class of interest, but must also be found among a vast majority of non-target examples. Moreover, the efficiency of the search is also an issue, since the samples labeled as background are not used by target detectors such as the support vector data description (SVDD). In this work we propose a competitive and effective approach to identify the most relevant training samples for one-class classification based on the use of an active learning strategy. The SVDD classifier is first trained with insufficient target examples. It is then used to detect the most informative samples to be labeled by a user through active learning techniques. By selecting unlabeled samples in a smart way and by adopting a diversity criterion, it is possible to obtain an accurate description of the class of interest with a relatively small number of training samples. The performance of the proposed method is illustrated in a change detection scenario and is validated by comparison with state-of-art active learning techniques originally developed for multiclass problems.

The standard (Bayesian) methods for image denoising involve explicit (analytic) models of signal and noise. The performance of these parametric approaches critically depend on using realistic models, but accurate models may ruin analytical tractability. Recently, an alternative nonparametric method was successfully proposed in [1]. The method was based on developing stationary support vector regression (SVR) models in the wavelet domain according to prior knowledge about signal and noise features. Nevertheless, off-line analysis of the particular signal and noise statistics is required to apply it to different problems. In this work, we take a similar non-parametric approach, but we explore the ability of kernel ridge regression (KRR) to locally follow image and noise characteristics, thus trivially obtaining adaptive (non-stationary) description of the image. Making KRR adaptive alleviates the strong assumption of Gaussianity of the noise. The method is embedded in the iterative restoration framework that allows consistent parameter tuning. Promising results are obtained with a model straightforwardly formulated in the spatial domain for different noise sources.

This paper introduces a nonlinear measure of dependence between random variables in the context of remote sensing data analysis. The Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criterion (HSIC) is a kernel method for evaluating statistical dependence. HSIC is based on computing the Hilbert-Schmidt norm of the cross-covariance operator of mapped samples in the corresponding Hilbert spaces. The HSIC empirical estimator is very easy to compute and has good theoretical and practical properties. We exploit the capabilities of HSIC to explain nonlinear dependences in two remote sensing problems: temperature estimation and chlorophyll concentration prediction from spectra. Results show that, when the relationship between random variables is nonlinear or when few data are available, the HSIC criterion outperforms other standard methods, such as the linear correlation or mutual information.

This paper presents a cloud screening algorithm based on ensemble methods that exploits the combined information from both MERIS and AATSR instruments on board ENVISAT in order to improve current cloud masking products for both sensors. The first step is to analyze the synergistic use of MERIS and AATSR images in order to extract some physically-based features increasing the separability of clouds and surface. Then, several artificial neural networks are trained using different sets of input features and different sets of training samples depending on acquisition and surface conditions. Finally, outputs of the trained neural networks are combined at the decision level to construct a more accurate and robust ensemble of classifiers. The proposed classifier is tested on more than 80 coregistered MERIS/AATSR images providing better classification accuracy than the official cloud flags and available operational cloud screening algorithms for MERIS and AATSR. Moreover, thanks to the synergy of both sensors, it correctly classifies critical cloud-screening problems such as snow and ice covers over land and sun-glint over ocean.

Here we propose an alternative non-explicit way to take into account the relations among wavelet coefficients in natural images for denoising: we use support vector machines (SVM) to learn these relations. Since relations among the coefficients are specific to the signal, SVM regularization removes the noise, which does not share this property. Moreover, due to its non-parametric nature, the method can eventually cope with different noise sources. The results show that: (1) the proposed non-parametric method outperforms conventional methods that assume coefficient independence, and (2) its performance is similar to state-of-the-art parametric methods that do explicitly include these relations. Therefore, the proposed machine learning approach can be seen as a more flexible (model-free) alternative to the explicit description of wavelet coefficient relations in Bayesian approaches.

The Orthogonal Subspace Projection (OSP) algorithm is substantially a kind of matched filter that requires the evaluation of a prototype for each class to be detected. The kernel OSP (KOSP) has recently demonstrated improved results for target detection in hyperspectral images. The use of kernel helps to combat the high dimensionality problem and makes the method robust to noise. This paper presents a semi-supervised graph-based approach to improve KOSP. The proposed algorithm deforms the kernel by approximating the marginal distribution using the unlabeled samples. The good performance of the proposed method is illustrated in a toy dataset and an hyperspectral image target detection problem.

Two kernel-based methods for semi-supervised regression are presented. The methods rely on building a graph or hypergraph Laplacian with both the labeled and unlabeled data, which is further used to deform the training kernel matrix. The deformed kernel is then used for support vector regression (SVR). The semi-supervised SVR methods are sucessfully tested in LAI estimation and ocean chlorophyll concentration prediction from remotely sensed images.

This paper presents a semi-supervised classifier based on the combination of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for Gaussian mixture models (GMM) and the mean map kernel. The proposed method uses the most reliable samples in terms of maximum likelihood to compute a kernel function that accurately reflects the similarity between clusters in the kernel space. The proposed method improves classification accuracy in situations where the available labeled information does not properly describe the classes in the test image.

Nonlinear system identification based on relevance vector machines (RVMs) has been traditionally addressed by stacking the input and/or output regressors and then performing standard RVM regression. This letter introduces a full family of composite kernels in order to integrate the input and output information in the mapping function efficiently and hence generalize the standard approach. An improved trade-off between accuracy and sparsity is obtained in several benchmark problems. Also, the RVM yields confidence intervals for the predictions, and it is less sensitive to free parameter selection. Teoría de la Señal y Comunicaciones

This paper presents simple but powerful combination methods of dedicated one-class classifiers (OCCs) for efficient remote sensing image classification. The mean and product combination rules are applied to the probabilistic outputs generated by OCCs, and the performance is illustrated in a urban monitoring application in which multi-sensor (optical and SAR) data and multi-source (spectral and contextual) features are available. Two OCCs are used as core parts: the classical mixture of Gaussians (MoG) and the support vector domain description (SVDD) classifier. The obtained results by combining SVDD classifier outputs show a clear improvement in the accuracy, and more robustness to high dimensional samples compared to both MoG and stacked approaches.

This paper presents the study of a sparse kernel-based method for non-linear feature extraction in the context of remote sensing classification and regression problems. The so-called kernel orthonormalized PLS algorithm with reduced complexity (rKOPLS) has two core parts: (i) a kernel version of OPLS (called KOPLS), and (ii) a sparse (reduced) approximation for large scale data sets, which ultimately leads to rKOPLS. The method demonstrates good capabilities in terms of expressive power of the extracted features and scalability.

This paper introduces the use of Relevance Vector Machines (RVM) for remote sensing hyperspectral image classification. We also include the Mahalanobis kernel in the formulation of the RVM to take into account the covariance of the features in the classification process. Experimental results in different scenarios confirm the accuracy and robustness of the proposed method, and also the ease of free parameters tuning.

This paper presents a semi-supervised graph-based method for the classification of hyperspectral images. The method is designed to exploit the spatial/contextual information in the im- ages through composite kernels. The proposed method produces smoother classifications with respect to the intrinsic structure collectively revealed by known labeled and unlabeled points. Good accuracy in high dimensional spaces and low number of labeled samples (ill-posed situations) are produced as compared to standard inductive support vector machines.

We present a combination of two state-of-the-art machine learning methods for predicting mortality in patients with unstable angina (UA). Support vector machines (SVM) are used as non-linear discrimination tools. However, before building the models, selection of the best subset of variables is carried out with genetic algorithms (GA). The best subset of descriptors selected by the GA was constituted by five variables from the originally 75 collected The data was split into a training set (483 patients; 22 cases with UA) and a validation set (243 patients; 12 of cases with UA). The criterion used to select the best model was based on the sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP) and negative predictive values (NPV) in the validation data set. The final SVM model (RBF kernel) yielded good results (SE = 66.67%, SP = 79.77% in the validation set). The recognition rate was 79.12% and a high rate of NPV (97.87%) was obtained. Methods proposed have proven to be well-suited for this problem, simplifying the solution and providing excellent discrimination scores.

Monte Carlo (MC) algorithms are widely used for Bayesian inference in statistics, signal processing, and machine learning. In this work, we introduce an Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique driven by a particle filter. The resulting scheme is a generalization of the so-called Particle Metropolis-Hastings (PMH) method, where a suitable Markov chain of sets of weighted samples is generated. We also introduce a marginal version for the goal of jointly inferring dynamic and static variables. The proposed algorithms outperform the corresponding standard PMH schemes, as shown by numerical experiments.

The coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM) concentration is the standard measure of humic substance in natural waters. CDOM measurements by remote sensing is calculated using the absorption coefficient (a) at a certain wavelength (e.g. 440nm). This paper presents a comparison of four machine learning methods for the retrieval of CDOM from remote sensing signals: regularized linear regression (RLR), random forest (RF), kernel ridge regression (KRR) and Gaussian process regression (GPR). Results are compared with the established polynomial regression algorithms. RLR is revealed as the simplest and most efficient method, followed closely by its nonlinear counterpart KRR., 7 pages, 4 figures

Establishing causal relations between random variables from observational data is perhaps the most important challenge in today's Science. In remote sensing and geosciences this is of special relevance to better understand the Earth's system and the complex and elusive interactions between processes. In this paper we explore a framework to derive cause-effect relations from pairs of variables via regression and dependence estimation. We propose to focus on the sensitivity (curvature) of the dependence estimator to account for the asymmetry of the forward and inverse densities of approximation residuals. Results in a large collection of 28 geoscience causal inference problems demonstrate the good capabilities of the method., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1611.00555, arXiv:2012.05150

Solving inverse problems is central in geosciences and remote sensing. Very often a mechanistic physical model of the system exists that solves the forward problem. Inverting the implied radiative transfer model (RTM) equations numerically implies, however, challenging and computationally demanding problems. Statistical models tackle the inverse problem and predict the biophysical parameter of interest from radiance data, exploiting either in situ data or simulated data from an RTM. We introduce a novel nonlinear and nonparametric statistical inversion model which incorporates both real observations and RTM-simulated data. The proposed Joint Gaussian Process (JGP) provides a solid framework for exploiting the regularities between the two types of data, in order to perform inverse modeling. Advantages of the JGP method over competing strategies are shown on both a simple toy example and in leaf area index (LAI) retrieval from Landsat data combined with simulated data generated by the PROSAIL model.

This paper presents an efficient methodology for approximating kernel functions in Gaussian process classification (GPC). Two models are introduced. We first include the standard random Fourier features (RFF) approximation into GPC, which largely improves the computational efficiency and permits large scale remote sensing data classification. In addition, we develop a novel approach which avoids randomly sampling a number of Fourier frequencies, and alternatively learns the optimal ones using a variational Bayes approach. The performance of the proposed methods is illustrated in complex problems of cloud detection from multispectral imagery.