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At least 145 records · Page 8

Improving the Inventory of Large Lunar Basins: Using LOLA Data to Test Previous Candidates and Search for New Ones

Topography and crustal thickness data from LOLA altimetry were used to test the validity of 98 candidate large lunar basins derived from photogeologic and earlier topographic and crustal thickness data, and to search for possible new candidates. We eliminate 23 previous candidates but find good evidence for 20 new candidates. The number of basins greater than 300 km diameter on the Moon is almost certainly a factor 2 (maybe 3?) larger than the number of named features having basin-like topography. Unified Lunar Control Net 2005 data [1] and model crustal thickness data [2] were previously used to search for possible previously unrecognized large lunar impact basins [3,4]. An inventory of 98 candidate topographic basins greater than 300 km in diameter was found [5]. This includes 33 named features (only those having basin-like topography) out of the 45 listed by Wilhelms [6], 38 additional Quasi-Circular Depressions (QCDs) found in the ULCN2005 topography, and 27 Circular Thin Areas (CTAs) found in model crustal thickness data [2]. Most named features and additional QCDs have strong CTA signatures, but there may be a class of CTAs that are not easily recognized in the old and low resolution ULCN2005 topography. Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) data have recently become publically available. We used these data to (a) refine the center and ring diameters of known basins, (b) test the viability of the candidate basins previously found (as described above), and (c) search for additional candidate basins not revealed by the earlier lower resolution data. We used the LOLA topography directly but also a recent new model crustal thickness data that includes Kaguya gravity data [7]. We repeated a Topographic Expression (TE) and a Crustal Thickness Expression (CTE) scoring exercise originally done with the basins found in ULCN and earlier model crustal thickness data [5]. Each candidate was scored on a scale from 0 (no topographic basin or circular thin area signature) to 5 (strong circular low or strong circular thin area signature). These were combined into a total score used to rank the probability for each candidate basin. We used the same GRIDVIEW software to stretch, contour and profile the LOLA and new crustal thickness data as was done with the ULCN2005 and older model crustal thickness data.

Frey, H. V.↗

Steps Toward Improved Integration, Search, and Analysis of Heterogeneous Data in the Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database

The Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED) is a new data system being developed as a long-term, open-access repository for astrobiology data. AHED is intended to store user-contributed results from NASA or externally-funded research in astrobiology, and to encourage sharing and synergy within the astrobiology community. However, the interdisciplinary nature of astrobiology presents some specific challenges to data management, integration, and analysis within AHED. In some disciplines (e.g., genomics), open databases thrive because the contributed products are fairly uniform and standardized (e.g., sequence data). In astrobiology, each investigation produces a unique set of data products; this makes it difficult to search across different datasets to find similar data, or to combine results from separate investigations. With AHED, we are taking steps to ensure there is adequate metadata - both at the dataset and record levels - to facilitate search, integration, and analysis. At the dataset level, we are developing a new metadata standard for describing astrobiology datasets, with detailed information about content, funding source, and scientific relevance, along with a set of topical keywords for characterizing datasets. At the record level, we are encouraging users to provide more structured content and finer-grained metadata. In many user-contributed science data repositories, few restrictions are placed on the uploaded data format, and minimal or no record-level metadata is required; thus users are unburdened when it comes to data preparation. The tradeoff is that deep integration and search across datasets is almost impossible without standardized structures and metadata. Although AHED users are free to upload minimally-described datasets, they will be encouraged to use database authoring tools (supplied by the underlying platform - Open Data Repository's Data Publisher) plus a set of customizable astrobiology-specific templates to help structure their data and provide standardized metadata. In reward for their extra effort, AHED will be able to deliver enhanced search, discovery, and analysis capabilities.

astrobiology↗

Progress and Plans in Support of the Polar Community

Feedback provided by the Antarctic community has proven instrumental in positively influencing the direction of the GCMD's development. For example, in response to requests for a stand alone metadata authoring tool, a new shareable software package called docBUILDER solo will be released to the public in March 2006. This tool permits researchers to document their data during experiments and observational periods in the field. The international polar community has also played a key role in encouraging support for the foreign language character set in the metadata display and tools (10% of the records in the AMD hold foreign characters). In the upcoming release, the full ISO character set, which also includes mathematical symbols, will be supported. Additional upgrades include the ability for users to search for data sets based on pre-selected temporal and spatial resolution ranges. Data providers are strongly encouraged to populate the resolution fields for their data sets, although these fields are not currently required. In prior versions, browser incompatibilities often resulted in unreliable performance for users attempting to initiate a spatial search using a map based on Java applet technology. The GCMD will offer an integrated Google map and date search, replacing the applet technology and enhancing the geospatial and temporal searches. It is estimated that 30% of the records in the AMD have direct access to data. A growing number of these records can be accessed through data service links. Related data services are therefore becoming valuable assets in facilitating the use and visualization of data. Users will gain the ability to refine services using the same options as those available for data set searches. Data providers are encouraged to describe available data-related services through the directory. Future plans include offering web services through a SOAP interface and extending semantic queries for the polar regions through the use of ontologies. The Open Archives Initiative's (OAI) Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (PMH) has been successfully tested with several organizations and appears to be a prime candidate for sharing metadata within the community. The GCMD anticipates contributing to the design of the data management system for the International Polar Year and to the ongoing efforts in the years to come. Further enhancements will be discussed at the meeting.

Olsen, Lola M.↗

A Relevancy Algorithm for Curating Earth Science Data Around Phenomenon

Earth science data are being collected for various science needs and applications, processed using different algorithms at multiple resolutions and coverages, and then archived at different archiving centers for distribution and stewardship causing difficulty in data discovery. Curation, which typically occurs in museums, art galleries, and libraries, is traditionally defined as the process of collecting and organizing information around a common subject matter or a topic of interest. Curating data sets around topics or areas of interest addresses some of the data discovery needs in the field of Earth science, especially for unanticipated users of data. This paper describes a methodology to automate search and selection of data around specific phenomena. Different components of the methodology including the assumptions, the process, and the relevancy ranking algorithm are described. The paper makes two unique contributions to improving data search and discovery capabilities. First, the paper describes a novel methodology developed for automatically curating data around a topic using Earthscience metadata records. Second, the methodology has been implemented as a standalone web service that is utilized to augment search and usability of data in a variety of tools.

earth science phenomena↗

Electron Density Profiles of the Topside Ionosphere

The existing uncertainties about the electron density profiles in the topside ionosphere, i.e., in the height region from h,F2 to - 2000 km, require the search for new data sources. The ISIS and Alouette topside sounder satellites from the sixties to the eighties recorded millions of ionograms but most were not analyzed in terms of electron density profiles. In recent years an effort started to digitize the analog recordings to prepare the ionograms for computerized analysis. As of November 2001 about 350000 ionograms have been digitized from the original 7-track analog tapes. These data are available in binary and CDF format from the anonymous ftp site of the National Space Science Data Center. A search site and browse capabilities on CDAWeb assist the scientific usage of these data. All information and access links can be found at http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/space/isis/isis- status.htm1. This paper describes the ISIS data restoration effort and shows how the digital ionograms are automatically processed into electron density profiles from satellite orbit altitude (1400 km for ISIS-2) down to the F peak. Because of the large volume of data an automated processing algorithm is imperative. The TOPside Ionogram Scaler with True height algorithm TOPIST software developed for this task is successfully scaling - 70% of the ionograms. An < > is available to manually scale the more difficult ionograms. The automated processing of the digitized ISIS ionograms is now underway, producing a much-needed database of topside electron density profiles for ionospheric modeling covering more than one solar cycle.

Huang, Xue-Qin↗

NASA Technology Takes Center Stage

In today's fast-paced business world, there is often more information available to researchers than there is time to search through it. Data mining has become the answer to finding the proverbial "needle in a haystack," as companies must be able to quickly locate specific pieces of information from large collections of data. Perilog, a suite of data-mining tools, searches for hidden patterns in large databases to determine previously unrecognized relationships. By retrieving and organizing contextually relevant data from any sequence of terms - from genetic data to musical notes - the software can intelligently compile information about desired topics from databases.

Source record↗

Improving the Inventory of Large Lunar Basins: Using Lola Data to Test Previous Candidates and Search for New Ones

Topography and crustal thickness data from LOLA altimetry were used to test the validity of 98 candidate large lunar basins derived from photogeologic and earlier topographic and crustal thickness data, and to search for possible new candidates. We eliminate 23 previous candidates but find good evidence for 20 new candidates. The number of basins > 300 km diameter on the Moon is almost certainly a factor 2 (maybe 3?) larger than the number of named features having basin-like topography.

Frey, Herbert V.↗

Earth Observing System Data Gateway

The Earth Observing System Data Gateway (EDG) software provides a "one-stop-shopping" standard interface for exploring and ordering Earth-science data stored at geographically distributed sites. EDG enables a user to do the following: 1) Search for data according to high-level criteria (e.g., geographic location, time, or satellite that acquired the data); 2) Browse the results of a search, viewing thumbnail sketches of data that satisfy the user s criteria; and 3) Order selected data for delivery to a specified address on a chosen medium (e.g., compact disk or magnetic tape). EDG consists of (1) a component that implements a high-level client/server protocol, and (2) a collection of C-language libraries that implement the passing of protocol messages between an EDG client and one or more EDG servers. EDG servers are located at sites usually called "Distributed Active Archive Centers" (DAACs). Each DAAC may allow access to many individual data items, called "granules" (e.g., single Landsat images). Related granules are grouped into collections called "data sets." EDG enables a user to send a search query to multiple DAACs simultaneously, inspect the resulting information, select browseable granules, and then order selected data from the different sites in a seamless fashion.

Pfister, Robin↗

Search for bursts in air shower data

There have been reports in recent years of the possible observation of bursts in air shower data. If such events are truly of an astrophysical nature then, they represent an important new class of phemonenon since no other bursts have been observed above the MeV level. The spectra of conventional gamma ray bursts are unknown at higher energies but their observed spectra at MeV energies appear generally to exhibit a steepening in the higher MeV range and are thus unlikely to extrapolate to measurable fluxes at air shower energies. An attempt has been made to look for deviations from randomness in the arrival times of air showers above approx. 10 to the 14th power eV with a number of systems and results so far are presented here. This work will be continued for a substantial period of ime with a system capable of recording bursts with multiple events down to a spacing of 4 microns. Earlier data have also been searched for the possible association of air shower events with a glitch of the Vela pulsar.

Bruce, T. E. G.↗

Design and Construction of a NASA Airborne and Field Investigation Inventory

NASA conducts airborne and field investigations that produce a wealth of valuable research data. Unfortunately, this data is often scattered across individual scientist hard drives or NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers and it can be difficult to locate and retrieve. Although satellite data has been successfully consolidated by tools such as EarthData Search, airborne and field investigation data present unique challenges stemming from the variability of temporal, spatial, platform, and instrument metadata. To address these difficulties with data retrieval and metadata variability, the Interagency Implementation and Concepts Team established an Airborne Data Management Group to improve airborne data search, understanding, access, and use. Surveys have been conducted of end users in order to build query lists that will drive the augmentation and standardization of existing metadata. Detailed metadata was then laboriously compiled from present and historic airborne and field investigations to build a database that will enable intelligent data search and retrieval. The inventory structure and function will be described and demonstrated. The purpose of this presentation is to bring awareness to this effort, to highlight and describe the issues and complications in development, and to increase user interest prior to public release in 2020.

Davis, Carson↗

Use of Semantic Technology to Create Curated Data Albums

One of the continuing challenges in any Earth science investigation is the discovery and access of useful science content from the increasingly large volumes of Earth science data and related information available online. Current Earth science data systems are designed with the assumption that researchers access data primarily by instrument or geophysical parameter. Those who know exactly the data sets they need can obtain the specific files using these systems. However, in cases where researchers are interested in studying an event of research interest, they must manually assemble a variety of relevant data sets by searching the different distributed data systems. Consequently, there is a need to design and build specialized search and discover tools in Earth science that can filter through large volumes of distributed online data and information and only aggregate the relevant resources needed to support climatology and case studies. This paper presents a specialized search and discovery tool that automatically creates curated Data Albums. The tool was designed to enable key elements of the search process such as dynamic interaction and sense-making. The tool supports dynamic interaction via different modes of interactivity and visual presentation of information. The compilation of information and data into a Data Album is analogous to a shoebox within the sense-making framework. This tool automates most of the tedious information/data gathering tasks for researchers. Data curation by the tool is achieved via an ontology-based, relevancy ranking algorithm that filters out nonrelevant information and data. The curation enables better search results as compared to the simple keyword searches provided by existing data systems in Earth science.

Ramachandran, Rahul↗

Use of Semantic Technology to Create Curated Data Albums

One of the continuing challenges in any Earth science investigation is the discovery and access of useful science content from the increasingly large volumes of Earth science data and related information available online. Current Earth science data systems are designed with the assumption that researchers access data primarily by instrument or geophysical parameter. Those who know exactly the data sets they need can obtain the specific files using these systems. However, in cases where researchers are interested in studying an event of research interest, they must manually assemble a variety of relevant data sets by searching the different distributed data systems. Consequently, there is a need to design and build specialized search and discovery tools in Earth science that can filter through large volumes of distributed online data and information and only aggregate the relevant resources needed to support climatology and case studies. This paper presents a specialized search and discovery tool that automatically creates curated Data Albums. The tool was designed to enable key elements of the search process such as dynamic interaction and sense-making. The tool supports dynamic interaction via different modes of interactivity and visual presentation of information. The compilation of information and data into a Data Album is analogous to a shoebox within the sense-making framework. This tool automates most of the tedious information/data gathering tasks for researchers. Data curation by the tool is achieved via an ontology-based, relevancy ranking algorithm that filters out non-relevant information and data. The curation enables better search results as compared to the simple keyword searches provided by existing data systems in Earth science.

Ramachandran, Rahul↗

A search for rapidly modulated emission in bright X-ray sources using the HEAO A-1 data base

A search was performed in the HEAO A-1 Data Base (located at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.) for evidence of rapidly-rotating neutron stars that could be sources of coherent gravitational radiation. A new data analysis algorithm, which was developed, is described. The algorithm was applied to data from observations of Cyg X-2, Cyg X-3, and 1820-30. Upper limits on pulse fraction were derived and reported.

Fairbank, William M.↗

Data Albums: An Event Driven Search, Aggregation and Curation Tool for Earth Science

Approaches used in Earth science research such as case study analysis and climatology studies involve discovering and gathering diverse data sets and information to support the research goals. To gather relevant data and information for case studies and climatology analysis is both tedious and time consuming. Current Earth science data systems are designed with the assumption that researchers access data primarily by instrument or geophysical parameter. In cases where researchers are interested in studying a significant event, they have to manually assemble a variety of datasets relevant to it by searching the different distributed data systems. This paper presents a specialized search, aggregation and curation tool for Earth science to address these challenges. The search rool automatically creates curated 'Data Albums', aggregated collections of information related to a specific event, containing links to relevant data files [granules] from different instruments, tools and services for visualization and analysis, and information about the event contained in news reports, images or videos to supplement research analysis. Curation in the tool is driven via an ontology based relevancy ranking algorithm to filter out non relevant information and data.

Ramachandran, Rahul↗

The scheduling techniques of ESP2

The Mission Analysis Division of the Systems Analysis and Integration Laboratory at the Marshall Space Flight Center has developed a robust automatic scheduler which can produce detailed schedules for the multi-step activities required for payload operations on the Space Station. This scheduler, a part of the Expert Scheduling Program (ESP2), has five components: the bookkeeper, checker, loader, selector, and explainer. The bookkeeper maintains the usage profiles for nondepletable resources, consumables, equipment, crew, and the times of all the steps for the payload activities for several different schedules simultaneously. The checker searches the data maintained by the bookkeeper and finds times when the constraints of each step of an activity are satisfied. The loader is an expert system that uses the techniques of forward chaining, depth-first searching, and backtracking to manage the workings of the checker so that activities are placed in the schedule without violating constraints (such as crew, resources, and orbit opportunities). The checker searches the data maintained by the bookkeeper and finds times when the constraints of each step of an activity are satisfied. The loader is an expert system which uses the techniques of forward chaining, depth-first searching, and backtracking to manage the workings of the checker so that activities are placed in the schedule without violating the constraints. The selector has several methods of choosing the next activity for the loader to schedule. The explainer shows the user why an activity was or was not scheduled at a certain time; it offers a unique graphical explanation of how the expert system (the loader) works.

Jaap, John P.↗

Mercury Toolset for Spatiotemporal Metadata

Mercury (http://mercury.ornl.gov) is a set of tools for federated harvesting, searching, and retrieving metadata, particularly spatiotemporal metadata. Version 3.0 of the Mercury toolset provides orders of magnitude improvements in search speed, support for additional metadata formats, integration with Google Maps for spatial queries, facetted type search, support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) delivery of search results, and enhanced customization to meet the needs of the multiple projects that use Mercury. It provides a single portal to very quickly search for data and information contained in disparate data management systems, each of which may use different metadata formats. Mercury harvests metadata and key data from contributing project servers distributed around the world and builds a centralized index. The search interfaces then allow the users to perform a variety of fielded, spatial, and temporal searches across these metadata sources. This centralized repository of metadata with distributed data sources provides extremely fast search results to the user, while allowing data providers to advertise the availability of their data and maintain complete control and ownership of that data. Mercury periodically (typically daily) harvests metadata sources through a collection of interfaces and re-indexes these metadata to provide extremely rapid search capabilities, even over collections with tens of millions of metadata records. A number of both graphical and application interfaces have been constructed within Mercury, to enable both human users and other computer programs to perform queries. Mercury was also designed to support multiple different projects, so that the particular fields that can be queried and used with search filters are easy to configure for each different project.

Wilson, Bruce E.↗

Time-Dependent Searches for Point Sources of Neutrinos with the 40-String and 22-String Configurations of IceCube

This paper presents four searches for flaring sources of neutrinos using the IceCube neutrino telescope. For the first time, a search is performed over the entire parameter space of energy, direction and time with sensitivity to neutrino flares lasting between 20 microseconds and a year duration from astrophysical sources. Searches which integrate over time are less sensitive to flares because they are affected by a larger background of atmospheric neutrinos and muons that can be reduced by the use of additional timing information. Flaring sources considered here, such as active galactic nuclei, soft gamma ray repeaters and gamma-ray bursts, are promising candidate neutrino emitters. Two searches are untriggered in the sense that they look for any possible flare in the entire sky and from a predefined catalog of sources from which photon flares have been recorded. The other two searches are triggered by multi-wavelength information on flares from blazars and from a soft gamma-ray repeater. One triggered search uses lightcurves from Fermi-LAT which provides continuous monitoring. A second triggered search uses information where the flux states have been measured only for short periods of time near the flares. The untriggered searches use data taken by 40 strings of IceCube between Apr 5, 2008 and May 20, 2009. The triggered searches also use data taken by the 22-string configuration of IceCube operating between May 31, 2007 and Apr 5, 2008. The results from all four searches are compatible with a fluctuation of the background.

Stamatikos, M.↗

Time-Dependent Searches for Point Sources of Neutrinos with the 4O-String and 22-String Configurations of IceCube

This paper presents four searches for flaring sources of neutrinos using the IceCube neutrino telescope. For the first time, a search is performed over the entire parameter space of energy, direction, and time with sensitivity to neutrino flares lasting between 20 micro-s and a year duration from astrophysical sources. Searches that integrate over time are less sensitive to flares because they are affected by a larger background of atmospheric neutrinos and muons that can be reduced by the use of additional timing information. Flaring sources considered here, such as active galactic nuclei, soft gamma-ray repeaters, and gamma-ray bursts, are promising candidate neutrino emitters. Two searches are "untriggered" in the sense that they look for any possible flare in the entire sky and from a predefined catalog of sources from which photon flares have been recorded. The other two searches are triggered by multi-wavelength information on flares from blazars and from a soft gamma-ray repeater. One triggered search uses lightcurves from Fermi-LAT which provides continuous monitoring. A second triggered search uses information where the flux states have been measured only for short periods of time near the flares. The untriggered searches use data taken by 40 strings of IceCube between 2008 April 5 and 2009 May 20. The triggered searches also use data taken by the 22-string configuration of IceCube operating between 2007 May 31 and 2008 April 5. The results from all four searches are compatible with a fluctuation of the background.

Abbasi, R.↗