This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Air Quality Monitoring and Forecasting" that was published in Atmosphere

Since my first book "See The Air - The Essential Guide for Optimal Air Quality in Your Life" was published back in 2017 many have read it, and many have followed my example and tried to write and describe the problem too. There is some interest in the field, and I want to contribute even more by gathering all the available information regarding air pollution and its impact on health in this book. My intention here is clear, I want to shock people and authorities and make it clear that there is proof. Air pollution kills millions of people every year and there is no excuse not to listen to brilliant scientists and the noble work they have done.

According to the United Nations, three out of five people will be living in cities worldwide by the year 2030. The United States continues to experience urbanization with its vast urban corridors on the east and west coasts. Although urban weather is driven by large synoptic and meso-scale features, weather events unique to the urban environment arise from the characteristics of the typical urban setting, such as large areas covered by buildings of a variety of heights; paved streets and parking areas; means to supply electricity, natural gas, water, and raw materials; and generation of waste heat and materials. Urban Meteorology: Forecasting, Monitoring, and Meeting Users' Needs is based largely on the information provided at a Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate community workshop. This book describes the needs for end user communities, focusing in particular on needs that are not being met by current urban-level forecasting and monitoring. Urban Meteorology also describes current and emerging meteorological forecasting and monitoring capabilities that have had and will likely have the most impact on urban areas, some of which are not being utilized by the relevant end user communities. Urban Meteorology explains that users of urban meteorological information need high-quality information available in a wide variety of formats that foster its use and within time constraints set by users' decision processes. By advancing the science and technology related to urban meteorology with input from key end user communities, urban meteorologists can better meet the needs of diverse end users. To continue the advancement within the field of urban meteorology, there are both short-term needs-which might be addressed with small investments but promise large, quick returns-as well as future challenges that could require significant efforts and investments.

Investigations of atmospheric pollution have recently reached a new stage. In addition to the estimation and the monitoring of pollutant concentrations in the air around their sources, by way of observational data and also by calcu lations on the basis of theoretical research, it is now possible to make short term forecasts of air pollution and to use them to regulate industrial emissions. Many countries are interested in such forecasts. In the Soviet Union the organizations of the State Committee of the USSR for Hydrometeorology (Goskomgidromet) are carrying out a wide-scale scientific programme on the devising of methods to forecast atmospheric pollution. Prognostic groups are organized in territorial hydrometeocenters; in essence a new forecasting service has been established. Nowadays, in more than 200 towns of the USSR predictions are made and transmitted to large enterprises for the purpose of taking the necessary steps to preserve air qua lity. To ensure an operative working of this service, Methodological Instruc (1979) have been issued, as well as other instructions and guides. Wide tions scale verifications of proposed calculating methods have been made. Prob lems of forecasting and regulating air pollution have become evident lately in other countries as well. Much attention to these problems is payed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). They have been widely dis cussed in a number of international conferences and meetings for modelling and investigating pollutant distribution in the atmosphere. The number of publications on this subject is rapidly increasing.

This book provides readers with a broad understanding of the fundamental principles driving atmospheric flow over complex terrain and provides historical context for recent developments and future direction for researchers and forecasters. The topics in this book are expanded from those presented at the Mountain Weather Workshop, which took place in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, August 5-8, 2008. The inspiration for the workshop came from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Mountain Meteorology Committee and was designed to bridge the gap between the research and forecasting communities by providing a forum for extended discussion and joint education. For academic researchers, this book provides some insight into issues important to the forecasting community. For the forecasting community, this book provides training on fundamentals of atmospheric processes over mountainous regions, which are notoriously difficult to predict. The book also helps to provide a better understanding of current research and forecast challenges, including the latest contributions and advancements to the field. The book begins with an overview of mountain weather and forecasting chal- lenges specific to complex terrain, followed by chapters that focus on diurnal mountain/valley flows that develop under calm conditions and dynamically-driven winds under strong forcing. The focus then shifts to other phenomena specific to mountain regions: Alpine foehn, boundary layer and air quality issues, orographic precipitation processes, and microphysics parameterizations. Having covered the major physical processes, the book shifts to observation and modelling techniques used in mountain regions, including model configuration and parameterizations such as turbulence, and model applications in operational forecasting. The book concludes with a discussion of the current state of research and forecasting in complex terrain, including a vision of how to bridge the gap in the future.

This book contains accepted papers presented at SOCO 2020 conference held in the beautiful and historic city of Burgos (Spain), in September 2020. Soft computing represents a collection or set of computational techniques in machine learning, computer science and some engineering disciplines, which investigate, simulate, and analyze very complex issues and phenomena. After a through peer-review process, the SOCO 2020 International Program Committee selected 83 papers which are published in these conference proceedings and represents an acceptance rate of 35%. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the SOCO 2020 edition was blended, combining on-site and on-line participation. In this relevant edition a special emphasis was put on the organization of special sessions. Eleven special session were organized related to relevant topics such as: Soft Computing Applications in Precision Agriculture, Manufacturing and Management Systems, Management of Industrial and Environmental Enterprises, Logistics and Transportation Systems, Robotics and Autonomous Vehicles, Computer Vision, Laser-Based Sensing and Measurement and other topics such as Forecasting Industrial Time Series, IoT, Big Data and Cyber Physical Systems, Non-linear Dynamical Systems and Fluid Dynamics, Modeling and Control systems The selection of papers was extremely rigorous in order to maintain the high quality of SOCO conference editions and we would like to thank the members of the Program Committees for their hard work in the reviewing process. This is a crucial process to the creation of a high standard conference and the SOCO conference would not exist without their help.

The two volumes LNCS 10337 and 10338 constitute the proceedings of the International Work-Conference on the Interplay Between Natural and Artificial Computation, IWINAC 2017, held in Corunna, Spain, in June 2017. The total of 102 full papers was carefully reviewed and selected from 194 submissions during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The papers are organized in two volumes, one on natural and artificial computation for biomedicine and neuroscience, addressing topics such as theoretical neural computation; models; natural computing in bioinformatics; physiological computing in affective smart environments; emotions; as well as signal processing and machine learning applied to biomedical and neuroscience applications. The second volume deals with biomedical applications, based on natural and artificial computing and addresses topics such as biomedical applications; mobile brain computer interaction; human robot interaction; deep learning; machine learning applied to big data analysis; computational intelligence in data coding and transmission; and applications.

This book features selected research papers presented at the International Conference on Evolutionary Computing and Mobile Sustainable Networks (ICECMSN 2020), held at the Sir M. Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology on 20–21 February 2020. Discussing advances in evolutionary computing technologies, including swarm intelligence algorithms and other evolutionary algorithm paradigms which are emerging as widely accepted descriptors for mobile sustainable networks virtualization, optimization and automation, this book is a valuable resource for researchers in the field of evolutionary computing and mobile sustainable networks.

As the nation's economic activities, security concerns, and stewardship of natural resources become increasingly complex and globally interrelated, they become ever more sensitive to adverse impacts from weather, climate, and other natural phenomena. For several decades, forecasts with lead times of a few days for weather and other environmental phenomena have yielded valuable information to improve decision-making across all sectors of society. Developing the capability to forecast environmental conditions and disruptive events several weeks and months in advance could dramatically increase the value and benefit of environmental predictions, saving lives, protecting property, increasing economic vitality, protecting the environment, and informing policy choices. Over the past decade, the ability to forecast weather and climate conditions on subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales, i.e., two to fifty-two weeks in advance, has improved substantially. Although significant progress has been made, much work remains to make S2S predictions skillful enough, as well as optimally tailored and communicated, to enable widespread use. Next Generation Earth System Predictions presents a ten-year U.S. research agenda that increases the nation's S2S research and modeling capability, advances S2S forecasting, and aids in decision making at medium and extended lead times.