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James Walsh

James Walsh contributes to research discovery and scholarly infrastructure.

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Published work

4 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

Zero-Shot Satellite Image Retrieval through Joint Embeddings: Application to Crisis Response

Semantic search of Earth observation archives remains challenging. Visual foundation models such as CLAY produce rich embeddings of satellite imagery but lack the natural-language grounding needed for intuitive query, and full contrastive training of a remote-sensing CLIP-style model requires paired data and compute that are unavailable at global scale. To allow natural language querying at global scales, we present GeoQuery, a zero-shot retrieval system that sidesteps data and compute constraints through a two-stage semantic and visual search, leveraging a natural language embedding of a subset (proxy) of global data. Rather than training a joint encoder, we generate language descriptions for a 100k proxy subset of global Sentinel-2 tiles and optimise the description-generation prompt so that distances in the resulting text-embedding space correlate with distances in the frozen CLAY visual-embedding space. Queries are resolved in two stages, with a text-similarity search over the proxy subset followed by a visual nearest-neighbour search over worldwide CLAY embeddings On 76 disaster-location queries covering UK floods, US wildfires, and US droughts, GeoQuery achieves 31.6\% accuracy within 50\,km, with the strongest performance on floods (50\% within 50\,km) where terrain features are well captured by RGB embeddings. Deployed within a crisis response system called \ECHO{}, GeoQuery identified vulnerable areas during Brisbane's 2025 Cyclone Alfred, with downstream flood simulations reproducing historical patterns. Prompt-aligned proxies offer a practical bridge between EO foundation models and operational retrieval when full contrastive training is out of reach.

preprint2022arXiv

Near Real-Time Social Distance Estimation in London

During the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers at the Greater London Authority, the regional governance body of London, UK, are reliant upon prompt and accurate data sources. Large well-defined heterogeneous compositions of activity throughout the city are sometimes difficult to acquire, yet are a necessity in order to learn 'busyness' and consequently make safe policy decisions. One component of our project within this space is to utilise existing infrastructure to estimate social distancing adherence by the general public. Our method enables near immediate sampling and contextualisation of activity and physical distancing on the streets of London via live traffic camera feeds. We introduce a framework for inspecting and improving upon existing methods, whilst also describing its active deployment on over 900 real-time feeds.

preprint2022arXiv

Reducing $ω$-model reflection to iterated syntactic reflection

In mathematical logic there are two seemingly distinct kinds of principles called "reflection principles." Semantic reflection principles assert that if a formula holds in the whole universe, then it holds in a set-sized model. Syntactic reflection principles assert that every provable sentence from some complexity class is true. In this paper we study connections between these two kinds of reflection principles in the setting of second-order arithmetic. We prove that, for a large swathe of theories, $ω$-model reflection is equivalent to the claim that arbitrary iterations of uniform $Π^1_1$ reflection along countable well-orderings are $Π^1_1$-sound. This result yields uniform ordinal analyses of theories with strength between $\mathsf{ACA}_0$ and $\mathsf{ATR}$. The main technical novelty of our analysis is the introduction of the notion of the proof-theoretic dilator of a theory $T$, which is the operator on countable ordinals that maps the order-type of $\prec$ to the proof-theoretic ordinal of $T+\mathsf{WO}(\prec)$. We obtain precise results about the growth of proof-theoretic dilators as a function of provable $ω$-model reflection. This approach enables us to simultaneously obtain not only $Π^0_1$, $Π^0_2$, and $Π^1_1$ ordinals but also reverse-mathematical theorems for well-ordering principles.

preprint2021arXiv

Synchronous Glacial Cycles in a Nonsmooth Conceptual Climate Model with Asymmetric Hemispheres

We present a new conceptual model of the Earth's glacial-interglacial cycles, one leading to governing equations for which the vector field has a hyperplane of discontinuities. This work extends the classic Budyko- and Sellers-type conceptual energy balance models of temperature-albedo feedback by removing the standard assumption of planetary symmetry about the equator. The dynamics of separate Northern and Southern Hemisphere ice caps are coupled to an equation representing the annual global mean surface temperature. The system has a discontinuous switching mechanism based on mass balance principles for the Northern Hemisphere ice sheet. We show the associated Filippov system admits a unique nonsmooth and attracting limit cycle that represents the cycling between glacial and interglacial states. Due to the vastly different time scales involved, the model presents a nonsmooth geometric perturbation problem, for which we use ad hoc mathematical techniques to produce the periodic orbit. We find climatic changes in the Northern Hemisphere drive synchronous changes in the Southern Hemisphere, as is observed for the Earth on orbital time scales.