************************************* T O P I C S ******************************************

1. [[Interview]]
Interview with Malaysian Centre for Remote Sensing (MACRES)

2. [[ Asian Space Update ]]
The 2nd Technical Meeting on Thailand-Vietnam Joint Research Project on Geo-Informatics Technology for Risk Area Management: Flood Case

3. [[ Event and APRSAF website Information ]]

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1. [[Interview]]
Interview with Malaysian Centre for Remote Sensing (MACRES)
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We visited MACRES to make an interview with Mr. IR. JAAFAR AHMAD,Deputy Director (Operations), Ms. SALMAH BINTI KASIM, Head (Corporate Division), and Mr. JIMAT BOLHASSAN, Head (Spatial Data Analysis and Modeling)

We interviewed them about the following:
*MACRES Establishment and Organization
*MACRES Ground Receiving Station
*Satellite Data Utilization
*Disaster Management in Malaysia
*ALOS Data Utilization including Projects
*Training for Remote Sensing
*Future Plan

MACRES, MOSTI (Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation) was established as an R&D center in Aug. 1988 and was fully operational in Jan. 1990. MACRES started with a team of 17 professionals and supporting staff, and total up to 190 posts (including contract researchers). MACRES is staffed with dedicated professionals to lead the nation in areas of remote sensing space technology applications for development. Its manpower development programme continues to strive towards having full compliment of qualified and trained scientists and engineers in selected areas of specification to attain the country's self-reliance in these technologies.

Regional Space Agency Forum. To subscribe/unsubscribe, or to update your Currently, MACRES is equipped with computer system for satellite data image processing, geographic information system and global positioning system, satellite ground receiving station for real time data acqusition, microwave remote sensing laboratory (anechoic chamber, mobile scatterometer), remote sensing digital photographic laboratory,remote sensing data archiving and retrieval centre, National Disaster Data and Information (NADDI) System and MACRES GIS Immersive Centre (MAGIC).

MACRES will have a new division to handle disaster management which will be called the Disaster Management Division.

There are three segments in the operationalisation of remote sensing.
They are User Segment, Ground Segment and Space Segment.
The User Segment means capacity building and the Ground Segment means ground station and remote systems. The Space Segment means to develop the capacity to build satellites. This segment is now being carried out by the Space Agency.They are going to launch one satellite next year and MACRES will receive the data from the satellite at their ground station.

The full version of these interviews will be uploaded to the APRSAF website.

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2. [[ Asian Space Update ]]
The 2nd Technical Meeting on Thailand-Vietnam Joint Research
Project on Geo-Informatics Technology for Risk Area Management:
Flood Case
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The Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) and the Remote Sensing Center of Vietnam (RSC) signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the cooperation in the field of Remote Sensing and GIS in November, 2005. GISTDA organized the 1st workshop in December, 2005 in Bangkok,Thailand, and RSC hosted the 2nd Technical Workshop on Vietnam-Thailand Joint Research Project on Geo-Informatics Technology for Risk Area Management: Flood Case, during 24-25 July, 2006 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The objectives of the workshop were to exchange information and report the progress of the project to discuss problems and prevention,mitigation, and management and discuss future cooperation. As the result of the workshop, it was agreed that both sides will continue exchange technical papers, sending through GISTDA to exchange information and knowledge on flood management technology. GISTDA proposed for organizing joint training course on disaster management, both sides agreed to prepare the contents of the training course as well as other details to make training course possible.

In addition, technical visit to RSC and the Institute of Hydro Meteorology(IHM) were conducted.

** Information Source:GISTDA website
http://www.gistda.or.th/Gistda/HtmlGistda/Html/index2.htm

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3. [[ Event and APRSAF website Information ]]
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<<<<< Event Information - August 2006- >>>>>

* Aug 20 (Sun)-24 (Thu), 2006
" ICPR 2006 The 18th International Conference on Pattern Recognition"
(Hong Kong, China)
-http://www.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/~icpr06/

* Aug 29 (Tue)-Sept 1 (Fri), 2006
" Map Asia 2006" (Bangkok, Thailand)
-http://www.mapasia.org/

* Sept 1 (Fri)-3 (Sun), 2006
" Fifth International Conference on Photonics and Imaging in Biology
and Medicine" (Wuhan, China)

* Sept 3 (Sun)-7 (Thu), 2006
" APOC 2006 Asia-Pacific Optical Communications" (Gwangju, South Korea)
-http://www.apoc2006.org/

<<<<< Newly Added Information >>>>>

* Event information has been added to Calendar/ APRSAF Website.
http://www.aprsaf.org/text/schedule01.html

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Copyright 2006 The APRSAF Secretariat

APRSAF Secretariat

c/o. Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan
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Telephone: +(81 3)5572-6708
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