J. A. Rod Blais

Professor Emeritus in Geomatics Engineering

Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4

Office Location: Engineering EN E228N

Office Phone/Fax: 403-220-7379 / 284-1980

Email: blais@ucalgary.ca

Residence: Unit 50, 3302-50^th Street N.W., Calgary, AB, T3A 2C6

Residence Phone: 403-247-3701

RESEARCH GROUP IN GEOCOMPUTATIONS AND VISUALIZATION

· Zhan Zhang, M.Sc. graduate student

· Steve Kent, M.Eng. graduate student (part time)

· Phillip M. Mutulu, Post-Doctoral Fellow (part time)

 CURRENT RESEARCH ACTIVITIES:

· Cyberinfrastructure and applications in geomatics and geoscience

· Geocomputations and visualization for the Earth's gravity field and Synthetic Earth

· Inverse problems and multiresolution analysis with remote sensing and other imaging

· Parallel computations and numerical simulations using PLFG pseudo-random numbers

· Environmental information systems for the Yellowstone-to-Yukon (Y2Y) projects

OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

· Professional Engineer in the Province of Alberta

· Coordinator of Canadian Geophysical Union annual meetings (www.cgu-ugc.ca)

· Chair of the Program Committee for the 2011 CGU-CSAFM Meeting in Banff (www.ucalgary.ca/~cguconf)

· Member of Program Committee of the ICCS 2011 Meeting in Tsukuba, Japan (www.iccs-meeting.org)

· Member of Program Committee of the ICCSA 2011 Meeting in Santander, Spain (www.iccsa.org)

· Member of Program Committee of ISVD 2011 in Quindao, China (i.cs.hku.hk/~isvd2011)

· Member of Program Committee of IT 2011 in Kaunas, Lithuania (isd.ktu.lt/IT2011)

ACADEMIC DEGREES:

Ph.D. (Geodesy), University of New Brunswick

M.A. (Mathematics), University of Toronto

B.Sc. (Honours Mathematics), Loyola College (now Concordia University)

PREVIOUS WORK EXPERIENCE:

Research Officer / Geodetic Mathematician with Geomatics Canada, Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa:

Togographical mapping project: SPACE-M software for adjusting large blocks of stereoscopic models;

Georeferencing datum project: ESTPM software for modeling datum transformations (e.g. NAD 27 --> NAD 83).

UNDERGRADUATE / GRADUATE TEACHING IN GEOMATICS:

· Gravity Field in Geomatics · Geodetic Reference Systems

· Computations in Geomatics · Spectrum Estimation Methods

· Digital Imaging and Applications · Estimation and Spectral Analysis

· Map Projections and Cartography · Satellite Altimetry and Applications

· Geospatial Information Systems · Digital Terrain Modeling and Applications

RECENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:

Blais, J.A.R. [2011]: Optimal Data Structures for Spherical Multiresolution Analysis and Synthesis. Oral presentation at the CGU-CSAFM Meeting in Banff, AB.

Blais, J.A.R. [2010]: Exploring Various Monte Carlo Simulations for Geoscience Applications. Poster presentation at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, CA.

Blais, J.A.R. [2010]: Monte Carlo Simulations of Gravimetric Terrain Corrections Using LIDAR Data. Oral presentation at the CMOS-CGU Congress in Ottawa, ON.

Mutulu, P. and J.A.R. Blais [2010]: Modeling Precipitation Uncertainty Effect on Flood Flows in a Medium Sized Watershed. Poster presentation at the CMOS-CGU Congress in Ottawa, ON.

Blais, J.A.R. [2009]: Distributed Geocomputations and Web Collaboration. Oral presentation at the 2009 Joint Assembly Meeting in Toronto, ON.

Zhang, Z. and J.A.R. Blais [2009]: On Monte Carlo Methods and Applications in Geoscience. Oral presentation at the 2009 Joint Assembly Meeting in Toronto, ON.

Blais, J.A.R., R. Grebenitcharsky and Z. Zhang [2008]: Exploring Monte Carlo Simulation Strategies for Geoscience Applications. Poster presentation at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, CA.

Blais, J. A. R. [2008]: Discrete Spherical Harmonic Transforms: Numerical Preconditioning and Optimization. Oral presentation at the International Conference on Computational Science – ICCS 2008, Krakow, Poland.

Blais, J.A.R. [2008]: Geocomputations and Related Web Services. Oral presentation at the CGU-CGRG 2008 Annual Meeting in Banff, AB.

Liakopoulos, A.G., Z. Zhang, W. Van Der Wal and J.A.R. Blais [2008] : Evaluation of some Noise Reducing Filters for GRACE Gravity Data. Poster presentation at the Annual Joint Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Union and the Canadian Geomorphology Research Group in Banff, AB.

Orlob, M., J.A.R. Blais and A. Braun [2008]: Lomb-Scargle Spectral Analysis of Nonequispaced Data. Oral presentation at the Annual Joint Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Union and the Canadian Geomorphology Research Group in Banff, AB.

Taghvakish, T., A. Braun and J.A.R. Blais [2008]: Analysis of SRTM Data Gap Handling without Relying on Topographical Maps. Oral presentation at the Annual Joint Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Union and the Canadian Geomorphology Research Group in Banff, AB.

Blais, J.A.R. [2007]: Optimal Spherical Triangulation for Global Multiresolution Analysis and Synthesis. Poster presentation at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, CA.

Blais, J.A.R. [2007]: Multiresolution Analysis and Synthesis of Geopotential Fields. Oral presentation at the CMOS-CGU-AMS Congress in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Blais, J.A.R. and M.A. Soofi [2006]: Optimization of Discrete Spherical Harmonic Transforms and Applications. Poster presentation at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, CA.

Hosseini, S., Y. Balazadegan, M.A. Rajabi and J.A.R. Blais [2006]: Evaluation of the Effects of the Observation Weight Matrix on the Ambiguity Resolution in LAMBDA Method. Paper submitted for presentation at the XXIII FIG Congress and Intergeo in Munich, Germany.

Blais, J.A.R. and M.A. Soofi [2006]: Spherical Harmonic Transforms Using Quadratures and Least Squares. Oral presentation at the International Conference on Computational Science – ICCS 2006, University of Reading, UK.

Blais, J.A.R. [2006]: Discrete Spherical Harmonic Transforms Using Quadratures and Least Squares. Oral presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Union in Banff, AB.

Soofi, M.A. and J.A.R. Blais [2006]: Computer Visualization in Geocomputations. Oral presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Union in Banff, AB.

Soofi, M.A. and P.P. Wu [2006]: Seismotectonics in Alaska due to its Collision with the Yakutat Terrain. Oral presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Union in Banff, AB.

Van der Wal, J.A.R. Blais, M.G. Sideris and P. Wu [2006]: Time Variable Gravity due to Seasonal Volume Changes in the Great Lakes Derived from Satellite Altimetry and Tide Gauges. Oral presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Union in Banff, AB.

Sahabi, H., M.A. Rajabi and J.A.R. Blais [2006]: Design of Deformation Monitoring Networks Using Penalty Function-Based Genetic Algorithm. Oral presentation at Location 2006, Second International Conference on Positioning, Navigation and Timing, Bangalore, India.

Mansourpour, M., M.A. Rajabi and J.A.R. Blais [2006]: Effects and Performance of Speckle Noise Reduction Filters on Active Radar and SAR Images. Oral presentation at the WG I/5 & I/6 Workshop on Topographic Mapping from Space, Ankara, Turkey.

Sahabi, H., M.A. Rajabi and J.A.R. Blais [2006]: Optimal Design of Deformation Monitoring Networks Using Genetic Algorithm. Oral presentation at the Fifth International Symposium Turkish-German Joint Geodetic Days in Berlin, Germany.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:

Blais, J.A.R. [2011]: Discrete Spherical Harmonic Transforms of Nearly Equidistributed Global Data. (Research Article), Journal of Geodetic Science, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp.251-258.

Blais, J.A.R. [2011]: Discrete Spherical Harmonic Transforms for Equiangular Grids of Spatial and Spectral Data. (Research Article), Journal of Geodetic Science, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.9-16.

Blais, J.A.R. and Z. Zhang [2011]: Exploring Pseudo- and Chaotic Random Monte Carlo Simulations. Computers and Geosciences, Vol. 37, pp.928-934.

Blais, J.A.R. [2010]: Least Squares for Practitioners. (Review Article), Hindawi Publishing Corporation, Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Vol. 2010, Article ID 508092, 19 Pages

Blais, J. A. R. [2008]: Discrete Spherical Harmonic Transforms: Numerical Preconditioning and Optimization. Computational Science – ICCS 2008, Part II, edited by M. Bubak, G.D. van Albada, J.J. Dongarra and P.M.A. Sloot. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 5102, pp.638-645, Springer-Verlag.

Blais, J.A.R. and H. Esche [2008]: Geomatics and the New Cyberinfrastructure. Geomatica, Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 431-443.

Blais, J.A.R., D.A. Provins and M.A. Soofi [2006]: Spherical Harmonic Transforms for Discrete Multiresolution Applications. Journal of Supercomputing, Vol. 38, pp.173-187.

Blais, J.A.R. and M.A. Soofi [2006]: Spherical Harmonic Transforms Using Quadratures and Least Squares. Computational Science – ICCS 2006, Part III, edited by V.N. Alexandrov, G.D. van Albada, P.M.A. Sloot and J.J. Dongarra. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3993, pp. 48-55, Springer-Verlag.

SPACE-M Demo Package (SMDEMO)

SPACE-M Educational Demo Package (SMEDEMO)