CBI raised $1,000 and gathered nearly 400 essential items through two internal holiday charitable drives benefitting Izzy’s Food Pantry, a campus resource that supports TAMU-CC students experiencing food insecurity.
Three TAMU-CC alumni were among those recognized at the 74th annual Texas Society of Professional Surveyors Convention & Tech Expo in San Antonio, Texas.
CBI recently completed the restoration of a critical environmental monitoring station in Copano Bay near Rockport, Texas, marking a major step in strengthening the Texas Coastal Ocean Observation Network (TCOON).
An international research collaboration has led to advances that could improve how scientists predict seasonal-to-multi-year changes in sea levels using artificial intelligence (AI).
GSCS PhD student, Abhishek Phadke, was awarded a Semiconductor Research Foundation (SRC) grant through Texas A&M Research and Innovation (TAMUCC R&I). Funds from his proposal titled “Resilient Operations of Unmanned Aerial System of Systems” will be used to purchase a set of microdrones to prototype the collaborative multi-UAV methods he will develop for his PhD research.
CBI researcher, Antonio Medrano, had an article published by PLOS.org today. The article discusses the impacts that data representations have and how they may or may not distort outcomes. The article focuses on two common spatial data preparations: 1) the connectivity of the network generated by connecting raster cells to their neighbors, and 2) the range of the attribute scale for assigning costs. Such analyses involve locating a linear feature by performing shortest path analysis on raster terrain data and are commonly used to locate transmission lines, where the results could have major implications on project cost and environmental impact.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Happy Global Surveyors Day, and Happy National Surveyors Week!
What are you doing to celebrate?
We encourage you to register for NOAA’s NGS 2021 Geospatial Summit on Tuesday, May 4th and Wednesday, May 5th. This two day virtual event provides updated information about the planned modernization of the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS).
Link to register for the 2021 Geospatial Summit: https://geodesy.noaa.gov/geospatial-summit/registration.shtml
For more information on NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey 2021 Geospatial Summit: https://geodesy.noaa.gov/geospatial-summit/index.shtml
Surveying Activities For Kids:
https://www.nsps.us.com/page/BSmeritbadge
High School Trig-Star Competition:
CBI students, Hamid Kamangir and Hue Dinh, were recognized for their presentations at the American Meteorological Society’s 20th Conference on Artificial Intelligence which was held vitually last month from January 10-15. Hamid Kamangir placed third and Hue Dinh placed fourth (honorable mention) at last month’s conference. Hamid Kamangir presented on his paper, FogNet: A Multiscale 3D CNN with an Attention Mechanism and a Dense Block for Fog Predictions, and Hue Dinh presented on his paper, Deep Learning Predictions of Coastal Fog Using Autoencoders.
The American Meteorological Society’s 20th Conference on Artificial Intelligence was held at the 101st Annual Meeting, from 10-14 January 2021 in New Orleans. The theme for the 101st Annual Meeting was “strengthening engagement with communities through our science and service”. The American Meteorological Society’s was founding in 1919 and its mission has been to advance the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services for the benefit of society.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Data showing rapidly increasing COVID-19 infections at the approach of the holiday season has members of a special joint task force and the Nueces County Medical Society particularly concerned.
“The increase has started and we expect to see significant further increases,” said Dr. Chris Bird, Associate Professor of Biology at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Already, cases this week have jumped to triple digits for the first time in more than 70 days.
The joint taskforce modelers have estimated the transmission rate has climbed to 1.8, meaning each person who becomes infected is likely to spread the disease to 1.8 others, almost doubling the numbers of infected people from one infected group to another.
During his weekly update to City of Corpus Christi and Nueces County leaders, Bird advised the community to prepare for a large outbreak and increased hospitalizations, peaking on Dec. 27 at about 500 new cases per day.
The Nueces County Medical Society is joining the task force in raising awareness of the danger. The medical society made several recommendations to the community to help curb the increase.
In a statement from Dr. Marita Rafael, president of the medical society, doctors pointed out that there is no evidence of “herd immunity” in the Coastal Bend. They noted that even small gatherings can spread the deadly virus.
“This holiday season, please cancel, postpone, or significantly alter your plans for gatherings,” they said. The medical society asked that people postpone gatherings until after a vaccine becomes available, hold gatherings outside, have separate tables for each household, and wear masks during such gatherings.
They asked that people stay socially distant at gatherings, refrain from hugs and kisses, serve each guest individually rather than buffet-style, or move the event to Zoom or another virtual platform.
Bird said steps people can take to lessen the risk include using face coverings and remaining socially distant, using take-out and curbside services whenever possible, and avoiding indoor gatherings.
“In agreement with the medical society, we are strongly encouraging the community to make these difficult but necessary changes in their plans, especially during the holidays,” said Dr. Philippe Tissot, Interim Director of the Conrad Blucher Institute at A&M-Corpus Christi. “The more steps we can take in these areas, the more we can do to protect ourselves and others, including our own family members and our friends. The vaccines are very promising and are coming, there is light at end of the tunnel, but we are very concerned about the next couple of months including here in the Coastal Bend.”
The task force is preparing in-depth reports and public presentations each week for the City of Corpus Christi and Nueces County that model the course of the virus across the Coastal Bend. The updates are presented at 5 p.m. Tuesdays.
The team’s presentations and findings can be seen on a special dashboard: https://www.conradblucherinstitute.org/covid19.
Author: Bill Churchwell
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — With Hurricane Zeta now projected to become the fifth named storm to make landfall on the Louisiana coast, thankfully, all we have seen are high tides and a higher threat for rip currents on our beaches. But there is also one other major impact here.
Deidre Williams is a researcher with Texas A&M Corpus Christi; they just conducted a survey from the Fish Pass on Mustang Island down to Bob Hall Pier to determine how much beach erosion we've had during this hurricane season.
“What we have had damage to is the beaches and dune system, and it has been significant. It's been some of the greatest damage I've seen over the years studying the area, and I started studying the area back in the 90's,” Williams said.
She said Hurricane Hanna caused major damage to the dune system along the coast and all the storms thereafter have made that damage even worse. That includes the narrowing of the beach along the North Padre Island seawall.
She said we've been lucky that we have an overall healthy dune system, but it is the most significant damage we've seen in a long time. She added that our bayside beaches, including those along Corpus Christi Bay, also took a hit.
"Such as Poenisch Park, University, Ropes and Cole Park, and folks are congregating in those beaches and the parks above them on the bluff, but the bluff was eroded severely along all of these parks, and the city will need to look for a plan to preserve those parks," said Williams
The final results of the survey have not yet been released. Williams said beach crews have been doing their best to help maintain our local beaches.
RELATED: WEATHER BLOG: Zeta headed for Eastern Louisiana as a Cat. 2 hurricane today
RELATED: Port Aransas Mayor issues disaster declaration, closes beaches to camping due to Hurricane Zeta
For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.
Photo courtesy of NBC News
