Two new groundbreaking issues of The Hybrid Vigor Journal -- exploring the role of clouds in climate change, and redesigning machine vision systems that are consistent with human vision -- have been published by the Hybrid Vigor Institute, a nonprofit research institute dedicated to solving complex problems by synthesizing and integrating expert knowledge.

"The Living Skies: Cloud Behaviour and Its Role in Climate Change," by Oliver Morton, can be read online at the Hybrid Vigor Institute's working site, hybridvigor.net, in the Earth Systems publications zone.

"As If You Were There: Matching Machine Vision to Human Vision," by Richard Jay Solomon, is available in the Human Perception publications zone on Hybridvigor.net.

Both publications are offered in PDF format.

OLIVER MORTON'S 'THE LIVING SKIES'

"The Living Skies: Cloud Behaviour and its Role in Climate Change," was produced for Hybrid Vigor's Earth Systems program by the award-winning science writer Oliver Morton.

Morton tapped the work of researchers in several disciplines for a fascinating exploration of the climatic effects of clouds -- the second largest source of energy for the atmosphere -- upon an atmosphere with significantly higher levels of greenhouse gases.

Morton explains why today's computer-driven models of the climate system, which make use of a physics-based understanding of its various processes, may be producing large errors. He then explores other, more controversial potential problems with the models -- for example, the possibility that chemical and biological processes and factors not yet dealt with in existing physics-based models, such as bacteria and various aerosols, may also play a critical, yet unexplored role in climate change.

Morton, a Hybrid Vigor Fellow, is the author of 'Mapping Mars' (St. Martin's Press, 2002). He is currently a contributing editor to many publications, including the journals Nature and Science; to the magazines New Scientist, where he has a regular column, and Prospect, where he is a member of the advisory board; and to the news publications Newsweek, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. He was the youngest science and technology editor to serve at The Economist.

'MATCHING MACHINE TO HUMAN VISION,' BY RICHARD JAY SOLOMON

"As If You Were There: Matching Machine Vision to Human Vision," was produced for the Institute's Human Perception program by Richard Jay Solomon, senior scientist for the Program on Vision Science & Advanced Networking at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Communications and Information Science and Policy.

Solomon, who was instrumental in the creation of a super-high resolution video camera for Polaroid, Philips and MIT, embarked on a multi-year research project starting in the 1990s to discover why even the vastly sophisticated camera he helped create could not "see" as accurately as the human eye.

His highly original, and often surprising, boundary-crossing exploration of the latest research on the human neurological system questions long-held assumptions about how electronic transmission components, cameras, displays, processors, and even audio speakers should work, and will doubtless provide the foundation for a new generation of machine vision systems that can more accurately replicate presence, or the sensation of "being there."

Solomon is currently working in collaboration with Creative Technology LLC on the interfaces between super high-speed networking, electronic imaging and the human perceptual system for augmented cognition, sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research. The Polaroid (et al.) camera project that inspired his interdisciplinary exploration of human vision was the result of psychophysical research begun in the 1980s at the MIT Media Lab, with which he was associated from 1986 to 1990. He is currently working on a book on advanced technology for replicating visual presence.

THE HYBRID VIGOR APPROACH

The organizing principle of Hybrid Vigor Institute's work is the shared topic or problem. An ideal Hybrid Vigor topic, such as those described above, is currently studied by several disciplines and has the greatest potential for shifts in traditional thinking, and/or future technological developments or breakthroughs by integrating disciplinary knowledge.

With this organizing principle in mind, the Institute has developed a systematic method for cultivating disciplinary diversity, which employs several complementary approaches, including journals, working symposia and online collaborations.

HYBRID VIGOR'S PROGRAM AREAS

The Institute's Earth Systems program, which produced "The Living Skies," brings a fresh outlook to environmental topics, ranging from the genetic modification of organisms to climate change and sustainability, as well as other global concerns. Some of the topics to be explored in future Earth Systems productions will include the study of how artifacts of modern industrial culture affect the global environment; others will explore a single natural phenomenon from the perspective of the several disciplines which study it.

Already a growing area of interest for industry-academic partnerships in biotechnology, the Institute's Human Perception program explores the wide range of creative, rigorous and potentially lucrative research being done by many disciplines on virtually all the senses -- vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste -- as well as other ways of knowing. This program will also investigate subjects which are influenced by human perceptive capabilities, such as intelligence, memory, time, and our ability to process information.

The first issue of the Hybrid Vigor Journal, a co-production of the Institute's Earth Systems and Health Determinants program areas, was "Risk as Continuum: A Redefinition of Risk for Governing the Post-Genome World", written by Hybrid Vigor's founder Denise Caruso. The Health Determinants program is designed to connect and interweave the physical, psychological and social determinants of health in a broad range of fields ranging from genetics to psychology and public policy.

THE HYBRID VIGOR INSTITUTE

Based in San Francisco, California, the Hybrid Vigor Institute is a tax-exempt, 501C3 nonprofit research institution. Its ongoing activities are funded by government agencies, public and private philanthropies, and individuals.