Arthur J. Cracknell: In the mid 1970s Prof. Cracknell started to become involved in remote sensing (Earth Observation) work, a field that was then in its infancy. The idea that led him to start remote sensing work in the former Physics Department at Dundee University was to provide a link between the generators of satellite data and the environmental scientists and engineers who would like to use the data. This work on the processing and interpretation of remote sensing data developed by Prof. Cracknell expanded enormously over a period of about 25 years and led to the publication by him and his co-authors of over 200 research papers and about 20 or so books on the subject. The books range from an introductory textbook on the subject, which is about to go into its second edition, to monographs and edited conference and summer school proceedings. Prof.

Vladimir F. Krapivin published numerous papers and a number of books relevant to environmental and global changes studies. Among the latter are:"Ecoinformatics Methods" (with I.I. Potapov), 2002, Moscow (in Russian)."Modelling the Global Carbon Cycle" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev), 2004, Moscow (in Russian).

"Global Change of the Environment: Ecoinformatics" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev), St. Petersburg (in Russian)."Perspectives of Civilization Development: Multidimensional Analysis" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev and V.P.

Savinikh), 2003, Moscow (in Russian)."Global Environmental Change: Modelling and Monitoring" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev and G.W. Phillips), Springer, 2002, Germany;"Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev and C.

A. Varotsos), Springer/Praxis, 2003, U.K.;"Global Ecodynamics: a Multidimensional Analysis" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev, V.P. Savinikh, and C.

A. Varotsos), 2004, Springer/Praxis, U.K."Natural Disasters as Interactive Components of Global Ecodynamics" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev and C.A. Varotsos);"Atmospheric Aerosol Properties: Formation, Processes and Impacts" (with K.

Ya. Kondratyev, L.S. Ivlev and C.A. Varotsos).