Towards a European health research and innovation cloud (HRIC)

in Genome Medicine (2020)

Towards a high-resolution drone-based 3D mapping dataset to optimise flood hazard modelling

in International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences (2019, June), XLII-2/W13

The occurrence of urban flooding following strong rainfall events may increase as a result of climate change. Urban expansion, ageing infrastructure and an increasing number of impervious surfaces are ... [more ▼]

The occurrence of urban flooding following strong rainfall events may increase as a result of climate change. Urban expansion, ageing infrastructure and an increasing number of impervious surfaces are further exacerbating flooding. To increase resilience and support flood mitigation, bespoke accurate flood modelling and reliable prediction is required. However, flooding in urban areas is most challenging. State-of-the-art flood inundation modelling is still often based on relatively low-resolution 2.5 D bare earth models with 2-5m GSD. Current systems suffer from a lack of precise input data and numerical instabilities and lack of other important data, such as drainage networks. Especially, the quality and resolution of the topographic input data represents a major source of uncertainty in urban flood modelling. A benchmark study is needed that defines the accuracy requirements for highly detailed urban flood modelling and to improve our understanding of important threshold processes and limitations of current methods and 3D mapping data alike. This paper presents the first steps in establishing a new, innovative multiscale data set suitable to benchmark urban flood modelling. The final data set will consist of high-resolution 3D mapping data acquired from different airborne platforms, focusing on the use of drones (optical and LiDAR). The case study includes residential as well as rural areas in Dudelange/Luxembourg, which have been prone to localized flash flooding following strong rainfall events in recent years. The project also represents a cross-disciplinary collaboration between the geospatial and flood modelling community. In this paper, we introduce the first steps to build up a new benchmark data set together with some initial flood modelling results. More detailed investigations will follow in the next phases of this project. [less ▲]

Towards an Efficient and Coherent Regulatory Framework on Cybersecurity in the EU: The Proposals for a NIS 2.0 Directive and a Cyber Resilience Act

in Applied Cybersecurity & Internet Governance (2022), 1(1),

Cybersecurity regulation in the EU has long been implemented in a piece- meal fashion resulting in a fragmented regulatory landscape. Recent developments triggered the EU to review its approach which has ... [more ▼]

Cybersecurity regulation in the EU has long been implemented in a piece- meal fashion resulting in a fragmented regulatory landscape. Recent developments triggered the EU to review its approach which has not resulted in the envisaged high level of cyber resilience across the Union. The paper addresses the EU’s limited mandate to regulate cybersecurity and outlines how the internal market rationale serves as a basis to harmonise cybersecurity legislation in the EU Member States. In that regard, the recent Proposal for a NIS 2.0 Directive (adopted by the European Parliament in November 2022) and the Proposal for a Cyber Resilience Act (published in September 2022) highlight how the EU seeks to align legislation and reduce complexity between different, often sectoral regulatory approaches to cybersecurity, while at the same time extending regulation in a view to achieve a high level of cybersecurity across the EU. As regards the latter, the paper also outlines how the Cyber Resilience Act will complement the NIS 2.0 Directive in order to close existing regulatory gaps. [less ▲]

Towards Dynamic Zero Emission Zone Management for Plug-in Hybrid Buses

Scientific Conference (2019, November)

Towards global flood mapping onboard low cost satellites with machine learning

in Scientific Reports (2021), 11(7249 (2021)),

Spaceborne Earth observation is a key technology for flood response, offering valuable information to decision makers on the ground. Very large constellations of small, nano satellites— ’CubeSats’ are a ... [more ▼]

Spaceborne Earth observation is a key technology for flood response, offering valuable information to decision makers on the ground. Very large constellations of small, nano satellites— ’CubeSats’ are a promising solution to reduce revisit time in disaster areas from days to hours. However, data transmission to ground receivers is limited by constraints on power and bandwidth of CubeSats. Onboard processing offers a solution to decrease the amount of data to transmit by reducing large sensor images to smaller data products. The ESA’s recent PhiSat-1 mission aims to facilitate the demonstration of this concept, providing the hardware capability to perform onboard processing by including a power-constrained machine learning accelerator and the software to run custom applications. This work demonstrates a flood segmentation algorithm that produces flood masks to be transmitted instead of the raw images, while running efficiently on the accelerator aboard the PhiSat-1. Our models are trained on WorldFloods: a newly compiled dataset of 119 globally verified flooding events from disaster response organizations, which we make available in a common format. We test the system on independent locations, demonstrating that it produces fast and accurate segmentation masks on the hardware accelerator, acting as a proof of concept for this approach. [less ▲]

Towards multiscale data fusion of high-resolution space borne and terrestrial datasets over Tristan da Cunha

Poster (2018, April 10)

Ever improving low cost, lightweight and easy to use sensing technologies are enabling the capture of rich 3D Datasets to support an unprecedented range of applications in Geosciences. Especially low-cost ... [more ▼]

Ever improving low cost, lightweight and easy to use sensing technologies are enabling the capture of rich 3D Datasets to support an unprecedented range of applications in Geosciences. Especially low-cost LiDAR systems as well as optical sensors, which can be deployed from terrestrial or low altitude aerial platforms, allow the collection of large datasets without detailed expert knowledge or training. Dense pointcloud derived from these technologies provide an invaluable source to fill the gap between highly precise and accurate terrestrial topographic surveys and large area Digital Surface Models (DSMs) derived from airborne and spaceborne sensors. However, the collection of reliable 3D pointclouds in remote and hazardous locations remains to be very difficult and costly. Establishing a reliable georeference, ensuring accuracy and data quality as well as merging such rich datasets with existing or space borne mapping provide additional challenges. The presented case study investigates the data quality and integration of a heterogeneous dataset collected over the remote island of Tristan da Cunha. High-resolution 3D pointclouds derived by TLS and drone Photogrammetry are merged with space borne imagery while preserving the accurate georeference provided by Ground Control derived from geodetic observations. The volcanic island of Tristan da Cunha located in the centre of the Southern Atlantic Ocean is one of the most remote and difficult to access locations on the planet. Its remote location, rough climatic conditions and consistent cloud coverage provides exceptional challenges for terrestrial, aerial as well as space borne data acquisition. Amongst many other scientific installations, the island also hosts a continuous GNSS station observation and monitoring facilities operated by the University of Luxembourg, which provided the opportunity to conduct a local terrestrial data acquisition campaign consistent with a terrestrial ground survey, Laserscanning and an image acquisition from a low-cost drone. The highly accurate Ground Control network, observed by GNSS and total station, provides a reliable georeference. Pointclouds were acquired around the area of the harbour using a Leica P20 terrestrial Laserscanner, as well as drone Photogrammetry based on images collected by a low-cost DJI Phantom3 drone. To produce a map of the complete island a comprehensive dataset of high-resolution space borne imagery based on the Digital Globe WorldView constellation was acquired which provided high resolution mapping information. The case study presents a cross-validation of terrestrial, low altitude airborne as well as spaceborne datasets in terms coregistration, absolute georeference, scale, resolution and overall data quality. Following the evaluation a practical approach to fuse this heterogeneous dataset is applied which aims to preserve overall data quality, local resolution and accurate georeference and avoid edge artefacts. The conclusions drawn from our preliminary results provide some good practice advice for similar projects. The final topographic dataset enables mapping and monitoring of local geohazards as, e.g. coastal erosion and recent landslides thus also supporting the local population. [less ▲]

Towards Optimised Deployment of Electric Bus Systems with On-Route Charging using Cooperative ITS

Scientific Conference (2018, July)

Towards Optimized Deployment of Electric Bus Systems Using Cooperative ITS

Poster (2019, January)

In this paper we analyze the impact of using cooperative intelligent transportation systems (C-ITS) to manage electrical bus systems. A simulation-based study is presented where three control strategies ... [more ▼]

In this paper we analyze the impact of using cooperative intelligent transportation systems (C-ITS) to manage electrical bus systems. A simulation-based study is presented where three control strategies are used to regulate the operations of a line, namely bus holding, Green Light Optimal Dwell Time Adaptation (GLODTA) and Transit Signal Priority (TSP). The results show, using a realistic scenario of a major line in Luxembourg City, that buses are efficiently operated without necessarily providing additional priority to public transport, hence without negatively affecting the capacity of the private vehicles system. Benefits in terms of headway regulations, energy consumption and travel time variance reductions are quantified. [less ▲]

Trading Zones of Digital History

Presentation (2016)

Tragbare und aktiv vom Parkinson-Patienten genutzte Technologie im hauslichen Umfeld: Was bringt die Zukunft?

in Fortschritte der Neurologie-Psychiatrie (2016), 84 Suppl 1

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a multisystem disorder with a plethora of symptoms affecting quality of life in the home environment. Due to the rapid development of wearable technique in the health and ... [more ▼]

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a multisystem disorder with a plethora of symptoms affecting quality of life in the home environment. Due to the rapid development of wearable technique in the health and fitness sector, an increasing number of such wearables are available to complement diagnostic strategies of PD symptoms not only in the clinical but also in the domestic environment. This development has clear advantages over clinical evaluation, as the latter is relatively subjective, time-consuming and costly, and provides only a snapshot of the condition. First results about the use of such technology for the assessment of PD symptoms (including bradykinesia, dyskinesia, tremor, daily activity and sleep behavior) in the domestic environment are promising. They suggest that these techniques can provide complementary information about the symptoms of PD patients, and have the potential to be included in future diagnostic workup concepts of routine care in PD. The use of such technique provides also the chance to more actively include patients into medical decision making processes. [less ▲]