Supernova Remnant W49B

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-12-08

Release date Dec. 30, 2009 In the supernova remnant W49B, Suzaku found another fossil fireball. It detected X-rays produced when heavily ionized iron atoms recapture an electron. This view combines infrared images from the ground (red, green) with X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory (blue). Credit: Caltech/SSC/J. Rho and T. Jarrett and NASA/CXC/SSC/J. Keohane et al. To learn more about this image go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/astro-e2/news/fossil-fireballs... NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.

George Ellery Hale, Caltech Astrophysics, and the Hale 200-inch Telescope, 1920-1948

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Osterbrock, D. E.

1998-05-01

Caltech and the 200-inch Hale telescope on Palomar are two of George Ellery Hale's many creations in Southern California. He brought the California Institute of Technology into existence in 1920; Palomar Observatory was built for it. However, even before Hale had "secured" the funds for the 200-inch, astrophysical research had been underway on the Caltech campus in Pasadena, and it intensified after the Rockefeller grant came through. Interactions between the campus, Palomar Mountain, and Mount Wilson Obervatory (one of Hale's earlier creations) played important roles in determining the course of Caltech astrophysics. Changing funding patterns (from private philanthropy to drought, then "defense" weapons-development programs, and then governmental agencies designed to support scientific research) will be briefly described. The 18-inch Schmidt, built at the Caltech (200-inch Telescope) Shop, went into operation in 1936, the first research telescope on Palomar. The 200-inch, essentially completed, was dedicated in 1948 and went into operation for regularly scheduled research observations near the end of 1949. Its coude spectrograph was completed and put into regular use in stages from 1950 to 1952, Among the most important leaders of Caltech astrophysics up to 1948 and the years immediately after it when the 200-inch went into full operation were Robert A. Millikan, Max Mason, and Lee A. DuBridge. Some of the astrophysicists who worked at Caltech and Palomar were Albert Einstein, Richard C. Tolman, Fritz Zwicky, Ira S. Bowen, John A. Anderson, Sinclair Smith, John Strong, William A. Fowler and, just at the end of this period, Jesse L. Greenstein. Some of the key staff personnel were Russell W. Porter, Don O. Hendrix (on loan), and Byron Hill.

NCI Scientists Solve Structure of Protein that Enables MERS Virus to Spread | Poster

Cancer.gov

Scientists at the Frederick National Lab have produced three crystal structures that reveal a specific part of a protein that can be targeted to fight the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which causes an emerging viral respiratory illness. Senior Investigator David Waugh, Ph.D., Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, has solved the structure of an

Participation of HNO3 CIMS Instrument in the Sage III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eisele, F. L.

2001-01-01

This project was part of a larger SOLVE project led by Paul Wennberg at California Institute of Technology. The work completed on this project included participating in the installation and preflight testing of a new chemical ionization mass spectrometer for measuring gas and particle phase nitric acid on the ER-2. The investigators subsequently participated in SOLVE where additional instrument improvements were made and a substantial data set was generated. The two Georgia Tech investigators that participated in this work (Fred Eisele and Dave Tanner) had previously been responsible for much of the design and construction of the ion source and mass spectrometer which would be used to measure HNO3 in SOLVE, with Caltech focusing on inlets, calibration, gas supplies/pumping computer control, and overall integration. Thus, a similar focus remained during the SOLVE measurements though all investigators worked on most if not all aspects of the instrument at some point in the mission. Some of the more interesting results from the study included measurements of nitric acid on what are thought to be 5-20 microns diameter individual particles which could supply a local mechanism for HNO3 removal, Nitric acid measurements on SOLVE were completed as a collaborative effort with a great deal of overlap between this project and the larger parent project led by Paul Wennberg. As such, the instrumentation used, its operation, and the resulting measurements are far more fully discussed in the attached report (appendix A) which describes the joint SOLVE nitric acid measurement effort.

Astronomers puzzle over a peculiar age-defying massive star

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-12-08

An age-defying star designated as IRAS 19312+1950 exhibits features characteristic of a very young star and a very old star. The object stands out as extremely bright inside a large, chemically rich cloud of material, as shown in this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. A NASA-led team of scientists thinks the star – which is about 10 times as massive as our sun and emits about 20,000 times as much energy – is a newly forming protostar. That was a big surprise because the region had not been known as a stellar nursery before. But the presence of a nearby interstellar bubble, which indicates the presence of a recently formed massive star, also supports this idea. Read more: go.nasa.gov/2bMza9d Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Yogi the rock

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

Yogi, a rock taller than rover Sojourner, is the subject of this image, taken by the deployed Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) on Sol 3. The soil in the foreground will be the location of multiple soil mechanics experiments performed by Sojourner's cleated wheels. Pathfinder scientists will be able to control the force inflicted on the soil beneath the rover's wheels, giving them insight into the soil's mechanical properties.

The image was taken by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) after its deployment on Sol 3. Mars Pathfinder was developed and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The IMP was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator.

Research at the Dairy and Functional Foods Research Unit

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Dr. Peggy Tomasula is Research Leader of the Dairy and Functional Foods Research Unit (DFFRU), ARS, USDA, Wyndmoor, PA, a group that includes 11 Research Scientists, 4 of whom are Lead Scientists (LS), 13 support scientists, and 3 Retired Collaborators. The mission of the DFFRU is to solve critical ...

Despite Appearances, Cosmic Explosions Have Common Origin, Astronomers Discover

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2003-11-01

A Fourth of July fireworks display features bright explosions that light the sky with different colors, yet all have the same cause. They just put their explosive energy into different colors of light. Similarly, astronomers have discovered, a variety of bright cosmic explosions all have the same origin and the same amount of total energy. This is the conclusion of an international team of astronomers that used the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope to study the closest known gamma-ray burst earlier this year. Artist's conception of burst Artist's Conception of Twin Jets in Energetic Cosmic Explosion CREDIT: Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital (Click on Image for Larger Version) "For some reason we don't yet understand, these explosions put greatly varying percentages of their explosive energy into the gamma-ray portion of their output," said Dale Frail, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Socorro, NM. That means, he said, that both strong and weak gamma-ray bursts, along with X-ray flashes, which emit almost no gamma rays, are just different forms of the same cosmic beast. The research team reported their results in the November 13 issue of the scientific journal Nature. The scientists trained the VLA on a gamma-ray burst discovered using NASA's HETE-2 satellite last March 29. This burst, dubbed GRB 030329, was the closest such burst yet seen, about 2.6 billion light-years from Earth. Because of this relative proximity, the burst was bright, with visible light from its explosion reaching a level that could be seen in amateur telescopes. As the burst faded, astronomers noted an underlying distinctive signature of a supernova explosion, confirming that the event was associated with the death of a massive star. Since 1999, astronomers have known that the strong outbursts of gamma rays, X-rays, visible light and radio waves from these bursts form beams, like those from a flashlight, rather than spreading in all directions, like light from a bare bulb. The surprising result from the VLA studies of GRB 030329 is that there are two beams, not one. The scientists found that the gamma rays and the early visible-light and X-ray emission were coming from a narrow beam, while the radio waves and later visible-light emission came from another, wider beam. "The strange thing is that some explosions seem to put most of their energy into the narrow beam, while others put most or nearly all their energy into the wider beam," Frail said. "This is telling us something very fundamental about the inner workings that drive these explosions," Frail added. The mechanism producing these explosions is what scientists call a collapsar, which occurs when a giant star collapses of its own weight at the end of its normal, nuclear fusion-powered lifetime. In an ordinary supernova, such a collapse produces a neutron star. A collapsar, however, marks the death of a more-massive star and results in a black hole, a concentration of mass so dense that not even light can escape it. After the black hole forms, its powerful gravitational pull sucks the star's remaining material toward it. This material forms a spinning disk around the black hole that lasts only a few seconds. During that time, the disk ejects material outward from its poles. A jet of material moving at nearly the speed of light emits gamma rays; slower material emits radio waves and visible light. "Despite the differences in how much energy comes out in gamma rays, all these things seem to be caused by the same basic mechanism," said Edo Berger, a graduate student at Caltech and lead author of the Nature paper. "Our observations now give the data that will help us understand what causes the differences," he added. "It was astounding to suddenly realize that these apparently very different cosmic beasts all are really the same thing," said Berger. The next job, Frail said, is to learn if there are, in fact, two jets, or a single jet in which the central part encounters less resistance and thus can move outward at greater speeds. Frail pointed out that the radio observations alone had the ability to show the total energy output of the burst, thus providing the breakthrough in understanding the common thread among the different types of explosions. "The key fact is that the optical, X-Ray and gamma-ray telescopes missed 90 percent of the energy put out by this burst," Frail added. "As the VLA Expansion Project progresses and the sensitivity of the VLA improves in the coming years, it will become an even more important tool in unravelling this mystery," Frail said. "The exciting part of this new discovery is that explosions that we once thought were quite different now appear to all have a common origin," Frail concluded. "That insight, of course, gives us the new challenge of explaining how a single mechanism can make itself look so different," he added. In addition to Berger and Frail, the other authors of the paper are Professor Shri Kulkarni of Caltech; Guy Pooley of Cambridge University's Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory; Vince McIntyre and Robin Wark, both of the Australia Telescope National Facility; Re'em Sari, associate professor of astrophysics and planetary science at Caltech; Derek Fox, a postdoctoral scholar in astronomy at Caltech; Alicia Soderberg, a graduate student in astrophysics at Caltech; Sarah Yost, a graduate student in physics at Caltech; and Paul Price, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy. Berger and Soderberg earlier worked on gamma-ray-burst studies as summer students at NRAO. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Quasars and the Caltech-Carnegie Connection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Waluska, Edward R.

2006-12-01

A collaborative relationship existed between the California Institute of Technology(Caltech) and the Carnegie Institution of Washington (Carnegie) beginning in 1946, when a formal agreement was made between the two groups of trustees. This agreement was designed to integrate Mount Wilson Observatory with the new unfinished Palomar Observatory into a single scientific entity. During the period from 1946 to 1979, much astronomical research was done at both institutions as a direct result of this collaboration. Part of this research included the first identification of a radio source with an apparently stellar object by Allan Sandage of Carnegie and Thomas Matthews of Caltech in 1960, and the first identification of the spectral lines from a radio source associated with such an object by Maarten Schmidt of Caltech in 1963. This paper examines how the discovery of these objects, which came to be known as quasars, and the subsequent research on these objects, impacted the relationship between Caltech and Carnegie, such that the relationship was formally dissolved in 1980. In this paper, the controversy surrounding the discovery and the interpretation of quasars is examined to provide further understanding about the working relationship when the two institutions were formally collaborating. Some of the data used in this paper were drawn from interviews of the researchers themselves, and this research forms part of a dissertation for a PhD degree from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.

NCI Scientists Solve Structure of Protein that Enables MERS Virus to Spread | Poster

Cancer.gov

Scientists at the Frederick National Lab have produced three crystal structures that reveal a specific part of a protein that can be targeted to fight the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which causes an emerging viral respiratory illness. Senior Investigator David Waugh, Ph.D., Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, has solved the structure of an enzyme known as the 3C-like protease (3CLpro), which, if blocked, can prevent the virus from replicating...

Quasars and the Caltech-Carnegie Connection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Waluska, Edward R.

2007-07-01

A collaborative relationship existed between the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Carnegie Institution of Washington (Carnegie) beginning in 1946, when a formal agreement was signed between the two groups of trustees. This agreement was designed to integrate Mount Wilson Observatory and the new unfinished Palomar Observatory into a single scientific entity. During the period from 1946 to 1979, much astronomical research was done at both institutions as a direct result of this collaboration. Part of this research included the first identification of a radio source with an apparently stellar object by Allan Sandage of Carnegie and Thomas Matthews of Caltech in 1960, and the first identification of spectral lines at large redshift from a radio source associated with such an object by Maarten Schmidt of Caltech in 1963. This paper examines how the discovery of these objects - which came to be known as quasars - and subsequent research an them, indirectly had an impact an the relationship between Caltech and Carnegie by leading to an environment of increased competitiveness that eventually resulted in the formal dissolution of the relationship in 1980. In this paper, the controversy surrounding the discovery and the interpretation of quasars is examined to provide further understanding about the working relationship when the two institutions were formally collaborating. Some of the data used in this paper were drawn from personal correspondence and interviews with the researchers themselves, and this research forms part of a dissertation for a Ph.D. degree in the Centre for Astronomy at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.

Bridging the Gender Gap: The demographics of scientists in the USDA Forest Service and academia

Treesearch

Christel C. Kern; Laura S. Kenefic; Susan L. Stout

2015-01-01

Past research has established that diverse scientific communities foster innovation and problem solving more effectively than communities with a narrow range of knowledge, skills, and experience. However, gender diversity among scientists is limited, particularly in natural-resource fields. We compared data on scientist gender and rank from the US Department of...

NASA's Universe of Learning: Engaging Learners in Discovery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cominsky, L.; Smith, D. A.; Lestition, K.; Greene, M.; Squires, G.

2016-12-01

NASA's Universe of Learning is one of 27 competitively awarded education programs selected by NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) to enable scientists and engineers to more effectively engage with learners of all ages. The NASA's Universe of Learning program is created through a partnership between the Space Telescope Science Institute, Chandra X-ray Center, IPAC at Caltech, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Exoplanet Exploration Program, and Sonoma State University. The program will connect the scientists, engineers, science, technology and adventure of NASA Astrophysics with audience needs, proven infrastructure, and a network of over 500 partners to advance the objectives of SMD's newly restructured education program. The multi-institutional team will develop and deliver a unified, consolidated suite of education products, programs, and professional development offerings that spans the full spectrum of NASA Astrophysics, including the Exoplanet Exploration theme. Program elements include enabling educational use of Astrophysics mission data and offering participatory experiences; creating multimedia and immersive experiences; designing exhibits and community programs; providing professional development for pre-service educators, undergraduate instructors, and informal educators; and, producing resources for special needs and underserved/underrepresented audiences. This presentation will provide an overview of the program and process for mapping discoveries to products and programs for informal, lifelong, and self-directed learning environments.

Students and Scientists Take a "Lichen" To Air Quality Assessment in Ireland.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murphy, Anthony P.

1998-01-01

Describes a cooperative project in which students in a number of areas in Ireland collect environmental data for use by scientists working to solve real-life problems. Reports on the follow-up survey to the study. (DDR)

The NuSTAR Education and Public Outreach Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cominsky, Lynn R.; McLin, K. M.; NuSTAR Team

2010-01-01

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is a NASA Small Explorer mission led by Caltech, managed by JPL, and implemented by an international team of scientists and engineers, under the direction of CalTech Professor Fiona Harrison, principal investigator. NuSTAR is a pathfinder mission that will open the high-energy X-ray sky for sensitive study for the first time. By focusing X-rays at higher energies (up to 79 keV) NuSTAR will answer fundamental questions about the Universe: How are black holes distributed through the cosmos? How were the elements that compose our bodies and the Earth forged in the explosions of massive stars? What powers the most extreme active galaxies? Perhaps most exciting is the opportunity to fill a blank map with wonders we have not yet dreamed of: NuSTAR offers the opportunity to explore our Universe in an entirely new way. The purpose of the NuSTAR E/PO program is to increase student and public understanding of the science of the high-energy Universe, by capitalizing on the synergy of existing high-energy astrophysics E/PO programs to support the mission's objectives. Our goals are to: facilitate understanding of the nature of collapsed objects, develop awareness of the role of supernovae in creating the chemical elements and to facilitate understanding of the physical properties of the extreme Universe. We will do this through a program that includes educator workshops through NASA's Astrophysics Educator Ambassador program, by writing articles for Physics Teacher and Science Scope magazines to reach a broader community of educators, and by working with informal educators through museums and planetaria to develop an exhibit that includes a model of NuSTAR and describes the mission's science objectives. We will also develop printed materials such as a mission factsheet that describes the mission.

The NuSTAR Education and Public Outreach Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cominsky, Lynn R.; McLin, K. M.; NuSTAR Team

2010-03-01

NuSTAR is a NASA Small Explorer mission led by Caltech, managed by JPL, and implemented by an international team of scientists and engineers, under the direction of CalTech Professor Fiona Harrison, principal investigator. NuSTAR is a pathfinder mission that will open the high-energy X-ray sky for sensitive study for the first time. By focusing X-rays at higher energies (up to 79 keV) NuSTAR will answer fundamental questions about the Universe: How are black holes distributed through the cosmos? How were the elements that compose our bodies and the Earth forged in the explosions of massive stars? What powers the most extreme active galaxies? Perhaps most exciting is the opportunity to fill a blank map with wonders we have not yet dreamed of: NuSTAR offers the opportunity to explore our Universe in an entirely new way. The purpose of the NuSTAR E/PO program is to increase student and public understanding of the science of the high-energy Universe, by capitalizing on the synergy of existing high-energy astrophysics E/PO programs to support the mission's objectives. Our goals are to: facilitate understanding of the nature of collapsed objects, develop awareness of the role of supernovae in creating the chemical elements and to facilitate understanding of the physical properties of the extreme Universe. We will do this through a program that includes educator workshops through NASA's Astrophysics Educator Ambassador program, by writing articles for Physics Teacher and Science Scope magazines to reach a broader community of educators, and by working with informal educators through museums and planetaria to develop an exhibit that includes a model of NuSTAR and describes the mission's science objectives. We will also develop printed materials such as a mission factsheet that describes the mission.

Sentinel-1 Radar Shows Ground Motion From Sept. 2017 Oaxaca-Chiapas, Mexico Quake

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-09-20

NASA and its partners are contributing important observations and expertise to the ongoing response to the Sept. 7, 2017 (local time), magnitude 8.1 Oaxaca-Chiapas earthquake in Mexico. This earthquake was the strongest in more than a century in Mexico. It has caused a significant humanitarian crisis, with widespread building damage and triggered landslides throughout the region. Scientists with the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis project (ARIA), a collaboration between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; and Caltech, also in Pasadena, analyzed interferometric synthetic aperture radar images from the radar instrument on the Copernicus Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) to calculate a map of the deformation of Earth's surface caused by the quake. This false-color map shows the amount of permanent surface movement caused almost entirely by the earthquake, as viewed by the satellite, during a six-day interval between radar images acquired by the two Sentinel-1 satellites on Sept. 7 and Sept. 13, 2017. In this map, the colors of the surface displacements are proportional to the surface motion. The red tones show the areas along the coast of Chiapas and Oaxaca have moved toward the satellite by as much as 9 inches (22 centimeters) in a combination of up and eastward motion. The area in between and farther north with various shades of blue moved away from the satellite, mostly downward or westward, by as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters). Areas without color are open water or heavy vegetation, which prevent the radar from measuring change between the satellite images. Scientists use these maps to build detailed models of the fault slip at depth and associated land movements to better understand the impact on future earthquake activity. The green star shows the location of the earthquake epicenter estimated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Earthquake Information Center. Map contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2017, processed by ESA and analyzed by the NASA-JPL/Caltech ARIA team. This research was carried out at JPL under a contract with NASA. Sentinel-1 data were accessed through the Copernicus Open Access Hub. An annotated figures is available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21962

Filming seismograms and related materials at the California Institute of Technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodstein, Judith R.; Roberts, Paul

As part of the worldwide effort to create an international earthquake data bank, the seismology archive of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has been organized, labeled, described, and microfilmed. It includes a wide variety of original records, documents, and printed materials relating to local and distant earthquakes. The single largest and most complex component of the task has been the preparation and microfilming of Caltech's vast collection of original seismograms. The original proposal envisioned a modest project in which a selected number of seismographic records at Caltech could be made more generally available to the scientific community. These single-copy records are stored at Kresge Laboratory and comprise thousands of individual photographic sheets, each 30×92 cm. In the end, we microfilmed both the Pasadena station records and those written at the six original stations in the Caltech network. This task got underway in June 1981 and was completed in January 1985. In the course of the project, the staff sorted, arranged, inventoried, copied, and refiled more than 276,000 records written between January 10, 1923 and December 31, 1962. The microfilm edition of the earthquake records at the Seismological Laboratory at Pasadena and at auxiliary stations at Mount Wilson, Riverside, Santa Barbara, La Jolla, Tinemaha, and Haiwee (the latter two in the Owens Valley) consists of 461 reels of film. The film archive is cataloged and available to researchers in Caltech's Millikan Library in Pasadena, at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif, and at the World Data Center (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in Boulder, Colo.

Goddard's Astrophysics Science Divsion Annual Report 2014

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Weaver, Kimberly (Editor); Reddy, Francis (Editor); Tyler, Pat (Editor)

2015-01-01

The Astrophysics Science Division (ASD, Code 660) is one of the world's largest and most diverse astronomical organizations. Space flight missions are conceived, built and launched to observe the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma rays to centimeter waves. In addition, experiments are flown to gather data on high-energy cosmic rays, and plans are being made to detect gravitational radiation from space-borne missions. To enable these missions, we have vigorous programs of instrument and detector development. Division scientists also carry out preparatory theoretical work and subsequent data analysis and modeling. In addition to space flight missions, we have a vibrant suborbital program with numerous sounding rocket and balloon payloads in development or operation. The ASD is organized into five labs: the Astroparticle Physics Lab, the X-ray Astrophysics Lab, the Gravitational Astrophysics Lab, the Observational Cosmology Lab, and the Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Lab. The High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) is an Office at the Division level. Approximately 400 scientists and engineers work in ASD. Of these, 80 are civil servant scientists, while the rest are resident university-based scientists, contractors, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and administrative staff. We currently operate the Swift Explorer mission and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. In addition, we provide data archiving and operational support for the XMM mission (jointly with ESA) and the Suzaku mission (with JAXA). We are also a partner with Caltech on the NuSTAR mission. The Hubble Space Telescope Project is headquartered at Goddard, and ASD provides Project Scientists to oversee operations at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Projects in development include the Neutron Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) mission, an X-ray timing experiment for the International Space Station; the Transiting Exoplanet Sky Survey (TESS) Explorer mission, in collaboration with MIT (Ricker, PI); the Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS) for the Astro-H mission in collaboration with JAXA, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), the highest ranked mission in the 2010 decadal survey, is in a pre-phase A study, and we are supplying study scientists for that mission.

Research and Teaching: Fostering Collaborative Problem Solving and 21st Century Skills Using the DEEPER Scaffolding Framework

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Antonenko, Pavlo D.; Jahanzad, Farzaneh; Greenwood, Carmen

2014-01-01

Collaborative problem solving is an essential component of any 21st century science career. Scientists are hired, retained, and promoted for solving problems in dynamic and interdisciplinary teams. They discuss issues, explain and justify their opinions, debate, elaborate, and reflect on their collective knowledge. At the same time, both…

Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

The Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) software library developed at Idaho National Laboratory is a tool. MOOSE, like other tools, doesn't actually complete a task. Instead, MOOSE seeks to reduce the effort required to create engineering simulation applications. MOOSE itself is a software library: a blank canvas upon which you write equations and then MOOSE can help you solve them. MOOSE is comparable to a spreadsheet application. A spreadsheet, by itself, doesn't do anything. Only once equations are entered into it will a spreadsheet application compute anything. Such is the same for MOOSE. An engineer or scientist can utilizemore » the equation solvers within MOOSE to solve equations related to their area of study. For instance, a geomechanical scientist can input equations related to water flow in underground reservoirs and MOOSE can solve those equations to give the scientist an idea of how water could move over time. An engineer might input equations related to the forces in steel beams in order to understand the load bearing capacity of a bridge. Because MOOSE is a blank canvas it can be useful in many scientific and engineering pursuits.« less

Methods & Strategies: Sculpt-a-Scientist

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jackson, Julie; Rich, Ann

2014-01-01

Elementary science experiences help develop students' views of science and scientific interests. As a result, teachers have been charged with the task of inspiring, cultivating, recruiting, and training the scientists needed to create tomorrow's innovations and solve future problems (Business Roundtable 2005). Who will these future…

Charles F. Richter: A personal tribute

USGS Publications Warehouse

Allen, Clarence R.

1987-01-01

With the death of Charles Richter in 1985, the seismological community lost a renowned colleague, and many of us lost a close friend and advisor. Charles was born on a farm in Ohio in 1900, received his A.B. from Stanford in 1920, and his Ph.D.  from Caltech in 1928. Virtually his entire professional career was spent at the Seismological Laboratory in Pasadena, first as an employee of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and later as a Caltech faculty member. Following his retirement from Caltech in 1970, he was active for several years in the consulting firm of Lindvall, Richter, and Associates. His wife, Lillian, died in 1972, and they had no children. Richter served as President of the Seismological Society of America from 1959 to 1960 and was the second recipient of its medal in 1977.

Effects of mass transfer between Martian satellites on surface geology

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-12-21

University Affiliated Research Center (UARC). Thanks to Bill Folkner (JPL/Caltech) for high-fidelity long-term Phobos/Deimos SPICE orbit propagations, and...created by JPL/Caltech to SPICE ephemeris information from NASA’s Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (naif.jpl.nasa.gov) (Acton et al., 2002...References Acton, C. et al., 2002. Extending NASA’s SPICE ancillary information system to meet future mission needs. In: 2002 AIAA Space Operations

Patterns and Correlates of Research Productivity in Population Scientists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richards, James M., Jr.

Although a concern with population issues has gone out of fashion, the problems underlying that concern have not disappeared. Solving these problems would be facilitated by increased knowledge produced by scientists working directly on population issues. A study was conducted to explore patterns and correlates of research productivity of members…

Image Halftoning and Inverse Halftoning for Optimized Dot Diffusion

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-01-01

systems.caltech.edu, ppvnath@sys.caltech.edu ABSTRACT The dot diffusion method for digital halftoning has the advantage of parallelism unlike the error ... halftoning : ordered dither [3], error diffusion [4], neural-net based methods [2], and more recently direct binary search (DBS) [10]. Ordered dithering is a...patterns. On the other hand error diffused halftones do not suffer from periodicity and offer blue noise characteristic [11] which is found to be

AirMSPI Level 1B2 V006 New Data for the NASA/JPL/Caltech ImPACT-PM Campaign

Atmospheric Science Data Center

2018-05-17

AirMSPI Level 1B2 V006 New Data for the NASA/JPL/Caltech ImPACT-PM Campaign ImPACT-PM Wednesday, May 16, 2018 The NASA Langley Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) and Jet Propulsion ... flight campaign.   AirMSPI flies in the nose of NASA's high-altitude ER-2 aircraft. The instrument was built by JPL and the ...

Compound Separation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1981-01-01

Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed a new one-step liquid-liquid extraction technique which cuts processing time, reduces costs and eliminates much of the equipment required. Technique employs disposable extraction columns, originally developed as an aid to the Los Angeles Police Department, which allow more rapid detection of drugs as part of the department's drug abuse program. Applications include medical treatment, pharmaceutical preparation and forensic chemistry. NASA waived title to Caltech, and Analytichem International is producing Extubes under Caltech license.

Retention of Women in Geoscience Undergraduate and Graduate Education at Caltech

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alexander, C. J.

2001-12-01

Institutional barriers encountered by women in undergraduate and graduate schools may take many forms, but can also be as simple as a lack of community support. In the 1990's the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) made a commitment to the retention of women in their graduate and undergraduate schools. Their program included mentoring, focussed tutoring, self-esteem support groups, and other retention efforts. Under this program, the attrition rate of women has dramatically slowed. In this paper, we will discuss recent data from the American Geological Institude chronicling the enrollment and successes of women in the geosciences, the program instituted by Caltech, possible causes of attrition among women in the geosciences, as well as potential programs to address these problems. We will also present, from the nationwide study, data on geoscience departments which have been relatively successful at retaining and graduating women in Earth and Space Sciences.

Viscoelastic coupling of nanoelectromechanical resonators.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Simonson, Robert Joseph; Staton, Alan W.

2009-09-01

This report summarizes work to date on a new collaboration between Sandia National Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to utilize nanoelectromechanical resonators designed at Caltech as platforms to measure the mechanical properties of polymeric materials at length scales on the order of 10-50 nm. Caltech has succeeded in reproducibly building cantilever resonators having major dimensions on the order of 2-5 microns. These devices are fabricated in pairs, with free ends separated by reproducible gaps having dimensions on the order of 10-50 nm. By controlled placement of materials that bridge the very small gap between resonators, the mechanicalmore » devices become coupled through the test material, and the transmission of energy between the devices can be monitored. This should allow for measurements of viscoelastic properties of polymeric materials at high frequency over short distances. Our work to date has been directed toward establishing this measurement capability at Sandia.« less

Mental Imagery in Creative Problem Solving.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Polland, Mark J.

In order to investigate the relationship between mental imagery and creative problem solving, a study of 44 separate accounts reporting mental imagery experiences associated with creative discoveries were examined. The data included 29 different scientists, among them Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, and 9 artists, musicians, and writers,…

Combining Real-Time Seismic and GPS Data for Earthquake Early Warning (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boese, M.; Heaton, T. H.; Hudnut, K. W.

2013-12-01

Scientists at Caltech, UC Berkeley, the Univ. of SoCal, the Univ. of Washington, the US Geological Survey, and ETH Zurich have developed an earthquake early warning (EEW) demonstration system for California and the Pacific Northwest. To quickly determine the earthquake magnitude and location, 'ShakeAlert' currently processes and interprets real-time data-streams from ~400 seismic broadband and strong-motion stations within the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN). Based on these parameters, the 'UserDisplay' software predicts and displays the arrival and intensity of shaking at a given user site. Real-time ShakeAlert feeds are currently shared with around 160 individuals, companies, and emergency response organizations to educate potential users about EEW and to identify needs and applications of EEW in a future operational warning system. Recently, scientists at the contributing institutions have started to develop algorithms for ShakeAlert that make use of high-rate real-time GPS data to improve the magnitude estimates for large earthquakes (M>6.5) and to determine slip distributions. Knowing the fault slip in (near) real-time is crucial for users relying on or operating distributed systems, such as for power, water or transportation, especially if these networks run close to or across large faults. As shown in an earlier study, slip information is also useful to predict (in a probabilistic sense) how far a fault rupture will propagate, thus enabling more robust probabilistic ground-motion predictions at distant locations. Finally, fault slip information is needed for tsunami warning, such as in the Cascadia subduction-zone. To handle extended fault-ruptures of large earthquakes in real-time, Caltech and USGS Pasadena are currently developing and testing a two-step procedure that combines seismic and geodetic data; in the first step, high-frequency strong-motion amplitudes are used to rapidly classify near-and far-source stations. Then, the location and extent of the 2D fault rupture is determined from comparison with pre-calculated generic and fault-specific templates ('FinDer' algorithm, Finite Fault Rupture Detector). In the second step, long-period dynamic displacement amplitudes from the GPS sites are back-projected onto this rupture line/plane to estimate the slip amplitudes ('GPSlip' algorithm). The corresponding back-projection relations were empirically derived from a suite of 3D waveform simulations. We are currently testing our approach in southern California (both real-time and offline), although not yet included in the current distribution of ShakeAlert. RTK/PPP(AR) solutions from the RTNet software at USGS Pasadena currently provide 1 Hz real-time position times series at ~100 GPS sensor locations. Output is in openly available in JSON format. We and UNAVCO have tested onsite (in-receiver) PPP(AR) processing using Trimble NetR9 receivers with RTX & GLONASS options enabled, of which Caltech has recently purchased 41 new units. These special GPS receivers will provide 5 Hz position and velocity streams. We will deliver the GPS RTX output (in GSOF format) into the EEW system (in Earthworm tracebuf2 format). The new receivers are to be installed at 'zipper array' stations of the SCSN in upcoming months. In addition, we have developed a framework for end-to-end offline testing with archived and simulated waveform data.

Overview of NASA's Universe of Learning: An Integrated Astrophysics STEM Learning and Literacy Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, Denise; Lestition, Kathleen; Squires, Gordon; Biferno, Anya A.; Cominsky, Lynn; Manning, Colleen; NASA's Universe of Learning Team

2018-01-01

NASA's Universe of Learning creates and delivers science-driven, audience-driven resources and experiences designed to engage and immerse learners of all ages and backgrounds in exploring the universe for themselves. The project is the result of a unique partnership between the Space Telescope Science Institute, Caltech/IPAC, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Sonoma State University, and is one of 27 competitively-selected cooperative agreements within the NASA Science Mission Directorate STEM Activation program. The NASA's Universe of Learning team draws upon cutting-edge science and works closely with Subject Matter Experts (scientists and engineers) from across the NASA Astrophysics Physics of the Cosmos, Cosmic Origins, and Exoplanet Exploration themes. Together we develop and disseminate data tools and participatory experiences, multimedia and immersive experiences, exhibits and community programs, and professional learning experiences that meet the needs of our audiences, with attention to underserved and underrepresented populations. In doing so, scientists and educators from the partner institutions work together as a collaborative, integrated Astrophysics team to support NASA objectives to enable STEM education, increase scientific literacy, advance national education goals, and leverage efforts through partnerships. Robust program evaluation is central to our efforts, and utilizes portfolio analysis, process studies, and studies of reach and impact. This presentation will provide an overview of NASA's Universe of Learning, our direct connection to NASA Astrophysics, and our collaborative work with the NASA Astrophysics science community.

Genesis Solar-Wind Sample Return Mission: The Materials

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jurewicz, A. J. G.; Burnett, D. S.; Wiens, R. C.; Woolum, D.

2003-01-01

The Genesis spacecraft has two primary instruments which passively collect solar wind. The first is the collector arrays , a set of panels, each of which can deploy separately to sample the different kinds of solar wind (regimes). The second is the concentrator, an electrostatic mirror which will concentrate ions of mass 4 through mass 25 by about a factor of 20 by focusing them onto a 6 cm diameter target. When not deployed, these instruments fit into a compact canister. After a two year exposure time, the deployed instruments can be folded up, sealed into the canister, and returned to earth for laboratory analysis. Both the collector arrays and the concentrator will contain suites of ultra-high purity target materials, each of which is tailored to enable the analysis of a different family of elements. This abstract is meant to give a brief overview of the Genesis mission, insight into what materials were chosen for flight and why, as well as head s up information as to what will be available to planetary scientist for analysis when the solar-wind samples return to Earth in 2003. Earth. The elemental and isotopic abundances of the solar wind will be analyzed in state-of-the-art laboratories, and a portion of the sample will be archived for the use of future generations of planetary scientists. Technical information about the mission can be found at www.gps.caltech.edu/genesis.

Perfecting Scientists' Collaboration and Problem-Solving Skills in the Virtual Team Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jabro, A.; Jabro, J.

2012-04-01

PPerfecting Scientists' Collaboration and Problem-Solving Skills in the Virtual Team Environment Numerous factors have contributed to the proliferation of conducting work in virtual teams at the domestic, national, and global levels: innovations in technology, critical developments in software, co-located research partners and diverse funding sources, dynamic economic and political environments, and a changing workforce. Today's scientists must be prepared to not only perform work in the virtual team environment, but to work effectively and efficiently despite physical and cultural barriers. Research supports that students who have been exposed to virtual team experiences are desirable in the professional and academic arenas. Research supports establishing and maintaining established protocols for communication behavior prior to task discussion provides for successful team outcomes. Research conducted on graduate and undergraduate virtual teams' behaviors led to the development of successful pedagogic practices and assessment strategies.

ER-2 #809 and DC-8 in Arena Arctica hangar in Kiruna, Sweden prior to the SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE)

NASA Image and Video Library

2000-01-23

NASA ER-2 # 809 and its DC-8 shown in Arena Arctica before the SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE). The two airborne science platforms were based north of the Arctic Circle in Kiruna, Sweden, during the winter of 2000 to study ozone depletion as part of SOLVE. A large hangar built especially for research, "Arena Arctica" housed the instrumented aircraft and the scientists. Scientists have observed unusually low levels of ozone over the Arctic during recent winters, raising concerns that ozone depletion there could become more widespread as in the Antarctic ozone hole. The NASA-sponsored international mission took place between November 1999 and March 2000 and was divided into three phases. The DC-8 was involved in all three phases returning to Dryden between each phase. The ER-2 flew sample collection flights between January and March, remaining in Sweden from Jan. 9 through March 16. "The collaborative campaign will provide an immense new body of information about the Arctic stratosphere," said program scientist Dr. Michael Kurylo, NASA Headquarters. "Our understanding of the Earth's ozone will be greatly enhanced by this research."

Sunset over Twin Peaks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

This image was taken by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) about one minute after sunset on Mars on Sol 21. The prominent hills dubbed 'Twin Peaks' form a dark silhouette at the horizon, while the setting sun casts a pink glow over the darkening sky. The image was taken as part of a twilight study which indicates how the brightness of the sky fades with time after sunset. Scientists found that the sky stays bright for up to two hours after sunset, indicating that Martian dust extends very high into the atmosphere.

Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator.

A 2D electrostatic PIC code for the Mark III Hypercube

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ferraro, R.D.; Liewer, P.C.; Decyk, V.K.

We have implemented a 2D electrostastic plasma particle in cell (PIC) simulation code on the Caltech/JPL Mark IIIfp Hypercube. The code simulates plasma effects by evolving in time the trajectories of thousands to millions of charged particles subject to their self-consistent fields. Each particle`s position and velocity is advanced in time using a leap frog method for integrating Newton`s equations of motion in electric and magnetic fields. The electric field due to these moving charged particles is calculated on a spatial grid at each time by solving Poisson`s equation in Fourier space. These two tasks represent the largest part ofmore » the computation. To obtain efficient operation on a distributed memory parallel computer, we are using the General Concurrent PIC (GCPIC) algorithm previously developed for a 1D parallel PIC code.« less

Distributed Computing Framework for Synthetic Radar Application

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gurrola, Eric M.; Rosen, Paul A.; Aivazis, Michael

2006-01-01

We are developing an extensible software framework, in response to Air Force and NASA needs for distributed computing facilities for a variety of radar applications. The objective of this work is to develop a Python based software framework, that is the framework elements of the middleware that allows developers to control processing flow on a grid in a distributed computing environment. Framework architectures to date allow developers to connect processing functions together as interchangeable objects, thereby allowing a data flow graph to be devised for a specific problem to be solved. The Pyre framework, developed at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and now being used as the basis for next-generation radar processing at JPL, is a Python-based software framework. We have extended the Pyre framework to include new facilities to deploy processing components as services, including components that monitor and assess the state of the distributed network for eventual real-time control of grid resources.

FNL Scientists and Collaborators Solve 3-D Structure of Key Protein in Alzheimer’s Disease | FNLCR Staging

Cancer.gov

Researchers at the Frederick National Lab (FNL) have collaborated in solving the three-dimensional structure of a key protein in Alzheimer’s disease, providing new insight into the basic mechanisms that give rise to the devastating illness. The pro

Impact of Context-Rich, Multifaceted Problems on Students' Attitudes Towards Problem-Solving

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ogilvie, Craig

2008-04-01

Young scientists and engineers need strong problem-solving skills to enable them to address the broad challenges they will face in their careers. These challenges will likely be ill-defined and open-ended with either unclear goals, insufficient constraints, multiple possible solutions, and different criteria for evaluating solutions so that our young scientists and engineers must be able to make judgments and defend their proposed solutions. In contrast, many students believe that problem-solving is being able to apply set procedures or algorithms to tasks and that their job as students is to master an ever-increasing list of procedures. This gap between students' beliefs and the broader, deeper approaches of experts is a strong barrier to the educational challenge of preparing students to succeed in their future careers. To start to address this gap, we have used multi-faceted, context-rich problems in a sophomore calculus-based physics course. To assess whether there was any change in students' attitudes or beliefs towards problem-solving, students were asked to reflect on their problem-solving at the beginning and at the end of the semester. These reflections were coded as containing one or more problem-solving ideas. The change in students' beliefs will be shown in this talk.

NASA’s Universe of Learning: Connecting Scientists, Educators, and Learners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, Denise A.; Lestition, Kathleen; Squires, Gordon K.; Greene, W. M.; Biferno, Anya A.; Cominsky, Lynn R.; Goodman, Irene; Walker, Allyson; Universe of Learning Team

2017-01-01

NASA’s Universe of Learning (UoL) is one of 27 competitively awarded education programs selected by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in its newly restructured education effort. Through these 27 programs, SMD aims to infuse NASA science experts and content more effectively and efficiently into learning environments serving audiences of all ages. UoL is a unique partnership between the Space Telescope Science Institute, Chandra X-ray Center, IPAC at Caltech, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Exoplanet Exploration Program, and Sonoma State University that will connect the scientists, engineers, science, technology and adventure of NASA Astrophysics with audience needs, proven infrastructure, and a network of partners to advance SMD education objectives. External evaluation is provided through a partnership with Goodman Research Group and Cornerstone Evaluation Associates. The multi-institutional team is working to develop and deliver a unified, consolidated and externally evaluated suite of education products, programs, and professional development offerings that spans the full spectrum of NASA Astrophysics, including the Cosmic Origins, Physics of the Cosmos, and Exoplanet Exploration themes. Products and programs focus on out-of-school-time learning environments and include enabling educational use of Astrophysics mission data and offering participatory experiences; creating multimedia and immersive experiences; designing exhibits and community programs; and producing resources for special needs and underserved/underrepresented audiences. The UoL team also works with a network of partners to provide professional learning experiences for informal educators, pre-service educators, and undergraduate instructors. This presentation will provide an overview of the UoL team’s approach to partnering scientists and educators to engage learners in Astrophysics discoveries and data; progress to date; and pathways for science community involvement.

Overview of the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) program of the Caltech Tectonics Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kovalenko, L.; Jain, K.; Maloney, J.

2009-12-01

The Caltech Tectonics Observatory (TO) is an interdisciplinary center, focused on geological processes occurring at the boundaries of Earth's tectonic plates (http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu). Over the past year, the TO has made a major effort to develop an Education and Public Outreach (EPO) program. Our goals are to (1) stimulate the interest of students and the general public in Earth Sciences, particularly in the study of tectonic processes, (2) inform and educate the general public about science in the context of TO discoveries and advancements, and (3) provide opportunities for graduate students, postdocs, and faculty to do outreach in the local K-12 schools. We have hosted local high school students and teachers to provide them with research experience (as part of Caltech’s “Summer Research Connection”); participated in teacher training workshops (organized by the local school district); hosted tours for local elementary school students; and brought hands-on activities into local elementary and middle school classrooms, science clubs, and science nights. We have also led local school students and teachers on geology field trips through nearby parks. In addition, we have developed education modules for undergraduate classes (as part of MARGINS program), and have written educational web articles on TO research (http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/outreach). The presentation will give an overview of these activities and their impact on our educational program.

How to get paid for having fun.

PubMed

Koshland, D E

1996-01-01

As I look back, I am still amazed that I was actually paid to do something I loved and others could describe as work. Yet my situation is no different from that of most scientists who find that they are asked to pursue their innate curiosity to solve puzzles, the solutions to which fortunately are of value to society. I enjoyed the beautiful logic of mathematics in elementary grades and was entranced by the exciting solution of puzzles described by DeKruif. So I drifted into the scientific profession without a clear idea of what to do or how to do it. Each experience prepared my mind and supplied the base for the next job, creating what was for me a smooth flow from scientist to professor to editor to scientist. Fortunately for me and fellow scientists the problems of the world never disappear. "The one who rides the tiger can never get off" is an aphorism that expresses society's dependence on science. Automobiles improve transportation and create pollution, medical advantages prolong life and create over-population, pesticides bring cheaper food and create soil problems. Each advance brings on the need for more science to solve the new problems. Society, which likes to live well, is addicted to the products of science, and fortunately a peculiar set of humans are addicted to solving the problems. I am one of those typical addicts who finds the obstacle course fascinating and the endlessness of the quest utopia.

Helping early career research scientists ascend the professional ladder.

PubMed

King, Laina

2013-08-01

The Keystone Symposia Early Career Investigator Travel Award initiative is a unique successful research mentoring program tailored for 'end of the pipeline' life and biomedical scientists from academia and industry. Using targeted educational, mentoring, and networking activities, the program benefits early career scientists in solving a specific laboratory-based research question that is limiting their evolving research and could increase their ability to obtain new grants and improve their career progression. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

From Science to Business: Preparing Female Scientists and Engineers for Successful Transitions into Entrepreneurship--Summary of a Workshop

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Didion, Catherine Jay; Guenther, Rita S.; Gunderson, Victoria

2012-01-01

Scientists, engineers, and medical professionals play a vital role in building the 21st- century science and technology enterprises that will create solutions and jobs critical to solving the large, complex, and interdisciplinary problems faced by society: problems in energy, sustainability, the environment, water, food, disease, and healthcare.…

Engineering Concepts: The Interplay between Concept Formation and Modeling Practices in Bioengineering Sciences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nersessian, Nancy J.

2012-01-01

As much research has demonstrated, novel scientific concepts do not arise fully formed in the head of a scientist but are created in problem-solving processes, which can extend for considerable periods and even span generations of scientists. To understand concept formation and conceptual change it is important to investigate these processes in…

The Young Artist as Scientist: What Can Leonardo Teach Us?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pollman, Mary Jo

2017-01-01

This is the first in-depth look at the important connections between the arts and science specifically for early childhood education (pre-K-3rd grade). Highlighting their many commonalities, such as the processes involved in creative problem solving, the author draws on what we can learn from Leonardo da Vinci as the supreme artist-scientist.…

From Pipettes to Science Policy.

PubMed

Seger, Yvette R

2015-11-01

Science policy provides PhD-trained scientists with unique and rewarding opportunities to support the research community. Careers in science policy require broad scientific knowledge coupled with keen problem-solving, data-analysis, and communication skills. This article describes strategies for scientists to engage in policy discussions, both extramural and full-time. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

MeDICi Software Superglue for Data Analysis Pipelines

ScienceCinema

Ian Gorton

2017-12-09

The Middleware for Data-Intensive Computing (MeDICi) Integration Framework is an integrated middleware platform developed to solve data analysis and processing needs of scientists across many domains. MeDICi is scalable, easily modified, and robust to multiple languages, protocols, and hardware platforms, and in use today by PNNL scientists for bioinformatics, power grid failure analysis, and text analysis.

The second Caltech-Jodrell Bank VLBI survey. 1: Observations of 91 of 193 sources

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Taylor, G. B.; Vermeulen, R. C.; Pearson, T. J.; Readhead, A. C. S.; Henstock, D. R.; Browne, I. W. A.; Wilkinson, P. N.

1994-01-01

We define the sample for the second Caltech-Jodrell Bank very long base interferometry (VLBI) survey. This is a sample of 193 flat- or gigahertz-peaked-spectrum sources selected at 4850 MHz. This paper presents images of 91 sources with a resolution of approximately 1 mas, obtained using VLBI observations at 4992 MHz with a global array. The remaining images and the integrated radio spectra will be presented in a forthcoming paper by Henstock et al.

Planetary submillimeter spectroscopy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Klein, M. J.

1988-01-01

The aim is to develop a comprehensive observational and analytical program to study solar system physics and meterology by measuring molecular lines in the millimeter and submillimeter spectra of planets and comets. A primary objective is to conduct observations with new JPL and Caltech submillimeter receivers at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. A secondary objective is to continue to monitor the time variable planetary phenomena (e.g., Jupiter and Uranus) at centimeter wavelength using the NASA antennas of the Deep Space Network (DSN).

Creating Alien Life Forms: Problem Solving in Biology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grimnes, Karin A.

1996-01-01

Describes a project that helps students integrate biological concepts using both creativity and higher-order problem-solving skills. Involves students playing the roles of junior scientists aboard a starship in orbit around a class M planet and using a description of habitats, seasonal details, and a surface map of prominent geographic features to…

Phylogenetic prediction of Alternaria leaf blight resistance in wild and cultivated species of carrots (Daucus, Apiaceae)

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Plant scientists make inferences and predictions from phylogenetic trees to solve scientific problems. Crop losses due to disease damage is an important problem that many plant breeders would like to solve, so the ability to predict traits like disease resistance from phylogenetic trees derived from...

Problem Solving with Patents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Jerilou; Sumrall, William J.

2008-01-01

Exploring our patent system is a great way to engage students in creative problem solving. As a result, the authors designed a teaching unit that uses the study of patents to explore one avenue in which scientists and engineers do science. Specifically, through the development of an idea, students learn how science and technology are connected.…

The impact of a student-teacher-scientist partnership (STSP) on students' and teachers' content knowledge and attitudes toward science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Houseal, Ana K.

Engaging elementary students in science through inquiry-based methodologies is at the center of science education reform efforts (AAAS, 1989, NRC 1996, 2000). Through scientific problem solving, students can learn that science is more than just learning facts and concepts (NRC, 2000) The process of scientific inquiry, as a way of approaching scientific problem solving, can be taught to students through experiential, authentic (or real-world) science experiences. Student-teacher-scientist partnerships (STSPs) are one vehicle used to connect students to these science experiences with practicing research scientists. However, the literature on STSPs demonstrates they are fraught with challenges and very little is known of their effects on teachers' and students' content knowledge growth or changes in their attitudes about science and scientists. This study addressed these two areas by researching a particular STSP. The STSP, called Students, Teachers, and Rangers and Research Scientists (STaRRS), designed to be incorporated into the existing long-standing education program Expedition: Yellowstone! (E:Y!) was the focus of this study. For teachers, a pre-test, intervention, post-test research design addressing content knowledge gains, attitude changes, and pedagogical changes was used. A quasi-experimental pre- post-test design using treatment and comparison groups of students addressed content knowledge gains and attitude changes. Findings provided evidence of significant positive shifts in teachers' attitudes regarding science and scientists, and trends of shifting pedagogical choices made by teachers. Students showed significant content knowledge gains and an increased positive attitude regarding their perceptions of scientists.

A neural network-based approach to noise identification of interferometric GW antennas: the case of the 40 m Caltech laser interferometer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Acernese, F.; Barone, F.; de Rosa, M.; De Rosa, R.; Eleuteri, A.; Milano, L.; Tagliaferri, R.

2002-06-01

In this paper, a neural network-based approach is presented for the real time noise identification of a GW laser interferometric antenna. The 40 m Caltech laser interferometer output data provide a realistic test bed for noise identification algorithms because of the presence of many relevant effects: violin resonances in the suspensions, main power harmonics, ring-down noise from servo control systems, electronic noises, glitches and so on. These effects can be assumed to be present in all the first interferometric long baseline GW antennas such as VIRGO, LIGO, GEO and TAMA. For noise identification, we used the Caltech-40 m laser interferometer data. The results we obtained are pretty good notwithstanding the high initial computational cost. The algorithm we propose is general and robust, taking into account that it does not require a priori information on the data, nor a precise model, and it constitutes a powerful tool for time series data analysis.

ER-2 #809 awaits pilot entry for the third flight of the SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE)

NASA Image and Video Library

2000-01-28

ER-2 #809 awaiting pilot entry for the third flight of the SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE). The ER-2, a civilian variant of Lockheed's U-2, and another NASA flying laboratory, Dryden's DC-8, were based north of the Arctic Circle in Kiruna, Sweden during the winter of 2000 to study ozone depletion as part of SOLVE. A large hangar built especially for research, "Arena Arctica" housed the instrumented aircraft and the scientists. Scientists have observed unusually low levels of ozone over the Arctic during recent winters, raising concerns that ozone depletion there could become more widespread as in the Antarctic ozone hole. The NASA-sponsored international mission took place between November 1999 and March 2000 and was divided into three phases. The DC-8 was involved in all three phases returning to Dryden between each phase. The ER-2 flew sample collection flights between January and March, remaining in Sweden from Jan. 9 through March 16. "The collaborative campaign will provide an immense new body of information about the Arctic stratosphere," said program scientist Dr. Michael Kurylo, NASA Headquarters. "Our understanding of the Earth's ozone will be greatly enhanced by this research."

The NuSTAR Education and Public Outreach Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cominsky, Lynn R.; McLin, K. M.; Boggs, S.; Christensen, F.; Craig, W.; Hailey, C. J.; Harrison, F.; Stern, D.; Zhang, W.; NuSTAR Team

2013-01-01

NuSTAR is a NASA Small Explorer mission led by Caltech, managed by JPL, and implemented by an international team of scientists and engineers, under the direction of CalTech Professor Fiona Harrison, principal investigator. NuSTAR is a pathfinder mission that is opening the high-energy X-ray sky for sensitive study for the first time. By focusing X-rays at higher energies (up to 79 keV) NuSTAR will answer fundamental questions about the Universe: How are black holes distributed through the cosmos? How were the elements that compose our bodies and the Earth forged in the explosions of massive stars? What powers the most extreme active galaxies? Perhaps most exciting is the opportunity to fill a blank map with wonders we have not yet dreamed of: NuSTAR offers the opportunity to explore our Universe in an entirely new way. The purpose of the NuSTAR E/PO program is to increase understanding of the science of the high-energy Universe, by capitalizing on the synergy of existing high-energy astrophysics E/PO programs to support the mission’s objectives. Our goals are to: facilitate understanding of the nature of collapsed objects, develop awareness of the role of supernovae in creating the chemical elements and to facilitate understanding of the physical properties of the extreme Universe. We will do this through a program that includes educator workshops through NASA's Astrophysics Educator Ambassador program, a technology education unit for formal educators, articles for Physics Teacher and/or Science Scope magazines, and work with informal educators on a museum exhibit that includes a model of NuSTAR and describes the mission’s science objectives. Extensive outreach is also underway by members of the Science Team, who are working with high school students, undergraduates and graduate students. We are also developing printed materials that describe the mission and special workshops for girls at public libraries in order to improve the STEM pipeline.

The NuSTAR Education and Public Outreach Program

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cominsky, Lynn R.; McLin, K. M.; Boggs, S. E.; Christensen, F.; Hailey, C. J.; Harrison, F.; Stern, D.; Zhang, W.; NuSTAR Team

2013-04-01

NuSTAR is a NASA Small Explorer mission led by Caltech, managed by JPL, and implemented by an international team of scientists and engineers, under the direction of CalTech Professor Fiona Harrison, principal investigator. NuSTAR is a pathfinder mission that is opening the high-energy X-ray sky for sensitive study for the first time. By focusing X-rays at higher energies (up to 79 keV) NuSTAR will answer fundamental questions about the Universe: How are black holes distributed through the cosmos? How were the elements that compose our bodies and the Earth forged in the explosions of massive stars? What powers the most extreme active galaxies? Perhaps most exciting is the opportunity to fill a blank map with wonders we have not yet dreamed of: NuSTAR offers the opportunity to explore our Universe in an entirely new way. The purpose of the NuSTAR E/PO program is to increase understanding of the science of the high-energy Universe, by capitalizing on the synergy of existing high-energy astrophysics E/PO programs to support the mission’s objectives. Our goals are to: facilitate understanding of the nature of collapsed objects, develop awareness of the role of supernovae in creating the chemical elements and to facilitate understanding of the physical properties of the extreme Universe. We will do this through a program that includes educator workshops through NASA's Astrophysics Educator Ambassador program, a technology education unit for formal educators, articles for Physics Teacher and/or Science Scope magazines, and work with informal educators on a museum exhibit that includes a model of NuSTAR and describes the mission’s science objectives. Extensive outreach is also underway by members of the Science Team, who are working with high school students, undergraduates and graduate students. We are also developing printed materials that describe the mission and special workshops for girls at public libraries in order to improve the STEM pipeline.

Interface between Physics and Biology: Training a New Generation of Creative Bilingual Scientists.

PubMed

Riveline, Daniel; Kruse, Karsten

2017-08-01

Whereas physics seeks for universal laws underlying natural phenomena, biology accounts for complexity and specificity of molecular details. Contemporary biological physics requires people capable of working at this interface. New programs prepare scientists who transform respective disciplinary views into innovative approaches for solving outstanding problems in the life sciences. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Diffusion, decolonializing, and participatory action research.

PubMed

Woodward, William R; Hetley, Richard S

2007-03-01

Miki Takasuna describes knowledge transfer between elite communities of scientists, a process by which ideas become structurally transformed in the host culture. By contrast, a process that we have termed knowledge transfer by deelitization occurs when (a) participatory action researchers work with a community to identify a problem involving oppression or exploitation. Then (b) community members suggest solutions and acquire the tools of analysis and action to pursue social actions. (c) Disadvantaged persons thereby become more aware of their own abilities and resources, and persons with special expertise become more effective. (d) Rather than detachment and value neutrality, this joint process involves advocacy and structural transformation. In the examples of participatory action research documented here, Third World social scientists collaborated with indigenous populations to solve problems of literacy, community-building, land ownership, and political voice. Western social scientists, inspired by these non-Western scientists, then joined in promoting PAR both in the Third World and in Europe and the Americas, e.g., adapting it for solving problems of people with disabilities or disenfranchised women. Emancipatory goals such as these may even help North American psychologists to break free of some methodological chains and to bring about social and political change.

Implementing a 3D printing service in a biomedical library

PubMed Central

Walker, Verma

2017-01-01

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is opening new opportunities in biomedicine by enabling creative problem solving, faster prototyping of ideas, advances in tissue engineering, and customized patient solutions. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library purchased a Makerbot Replicator 2 3D printer to give scientists a chance to try out this technology. To launch the service, the library offered training, conducted a survey on service model preferences, and tracked usage and class attendance. 3D printing was very popular, with new lab equipment prototypes being the most common model type. Most survey respondents indicated they would use the service again and be willing to pay for models. There was high interest in training for 3D modeling, which has a steep learning curve. 3D printers also require significant care and repairs. NIH scientists are using 3D printing to improve their research, and it is opening new avenues for problem solving in labs. Several scientists found the 3D printer so helpful they bought one for their labs. Having a printer in a central and open location like a library can help scientists, doctors, and students learn how to use this technology in their work. PMID:28096747

Implementing a 3D printing service in a biomedical library.

PubMed

Walker, Verma

2017-01-01

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is opening new opportunities in biomedicine by enabling creative problem solving, faster prototyping of ideas, advances in tissue engineering, and customized patient solutions. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Library purchased a Makerbot Replicator 2 3D printer to give scientists a chance to try out this technology. To launch the service, the library offered training, conducted a survey on service model preferences, and tracked usage and class attendance. 3D printing was very popular, with new lab equipment prototypes being the most common model type. Most survey respondents indicated they would use the service again and be willing to pay for models. There was high interest in training for 3D modeling, which has a steep learning curve. 3D printers also require significant care and repairs. NIH scientists are using 3D printing to improve their research, and it is opening new avenues for problem solving in labs. Several scientists found the 3D printer so helpful they bought one for their labs. Having a printer in a central and open location like a library can help scientists, doctors, and students learn how to use this technology in their work.

Integrating Cost Engineering and Project Management in a Junior Engineering Economics Course and a Senior Capstone Project Design Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tickles, Virginia C.; Li, Yadong; Walters, Wilbur L.

2013-01-01

Much criticism exists concerning a lack of focus on real-world problem-solving in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) infrastructures. Many of these critics say that current educational infrastructures are incapable in preparing future scientists and engineers to solve the complex and multidisciplinary problems this society…

Tribal ecoAmbassadors Program

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Describes EPA's Tribal ecoAmbassadors Program that partners with Tribal College and University (TCU) with EPA scientists to solve the environmental problems most important to their tribal communities.

The Strength of the Strongest Ties in Collaborative Problem Solving

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Montjoye, Yves-Alexandre; Stopczynski, Arkadiusz; Shmueli, Erez; Pentland, Alex; Lehmann, Sune

2014-06-01

Complex problem solving in science, engineering, and business has become a highly collaborative endeavor. Teams of scientists or engineers collaborate on projects using their social networks to gather new ideas and feedback. Here we bridge the literature on team performance and information networks by studying teams' problem solving abilities as a function of both their within-team networks and their members' extended networks. We show that, while an assigned team's performance is strongly correlated with its networks of expressive and instrumental ties, only the strongest ties in both networks have an effect on performance. Both networks of strong ties explain more of the variance than other factors, such as measured or self-evaluated technical competencies, or the personalities of the team members. In fact, the inclusion of the network of strong ties renders these factors non-significant in the statistical analysis. Our results have consequences for the organization of teams of scientists, engineers, and other knowledge workers tackling today's most complex problems.

The strength of the strongest ties in collaborative problem solving.

PubMed

de Montjoye, Yves-Alexandre; Stopczynski, Arkadiusz; Shmueli, Erez; Pentland, Alex; Lehmann, Sune

2014-06-20

Complex problem solving in science, engineering, and business has become a highly collaborative endeavor. Teams of scientists or engineers collaborate on projects using their social networks to gather new ideas and feedback. Here we bridge the literature on team performance and information networks by studying teams' problem solving abilities as a function of both their within-team networks and their members' extended networks. We show that, while an assigned team's performance is strongly correlated with its networks of expressive and instrumental ties, only the strongest ties in both networks have an effect on performance. Both networks of strong ties explain more of the variance than other factors, such as measured or self-evaluated technical competencies, or the personalities of the team members. In fact, the inclusion of the network of strong ties renders these factors non-significant in the statistical analysis. Our results have consequences for the organization of teams of scientists, engineers, and other knowledge workers tackling today's most complex problems.

Inquiry-based Science Activities Using The Infrared Zoo and Infrared Yellowstone Resources at Cool Cosmos

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Daou, D.; Gauthier, A.

2003-12-01

Inquiry-based activities that utilize the Cool Cosmos image galleries have been designed and developed by K12 teachers enrolled in The Invisible Universe Online for Teachers course. The exploration activities integrate the Our Infrared World Gallery (http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/image_galleries/our_ir_world_gallery.html) with either the Infrared Zoo gallery (http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/image_galleries/ir_zoo/index.html) or the Infrared Yellowstone image http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/image_galleries/ir_yellowstone/index.html) and video (http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/videos/ir_yellowstone/index.html) galleries. Complete instructor guides have been developed for the activities and will be presented by the authors in poster and CD form. Although the activities are written for middle and highschool learners, they can easily be adapted for college audiences. The Our Infrared World Gallery exploration helps learners think critically about visible light and infrared light as they compare sets of images (IR and visible light) of known objects. For example: by taking a regular photograph of a running faucet, can you tell if it is running hot or cold water? What new information does the IR image give you? The Infrared Zoo activities encourage learners to investigate the differences between warm and cold blooded animals by comparing sets of IR and visible images. In one activity, learners take on the role of a pit viper seeking prey in various desert and woodland settings. The main activities are extended into the real world by discussing and researching industrial, medical, and societal applications of infrared technologies. The Infrared Yellowstone lessons give learners a unique perspective on Yellowstone National Park and it's spectacular geologic and geothermal features. Infrared video technology is highlighted as learners make detailed observations about the visible and infrared views of the natural phenomena. The "Cool Cosmos" EPO activities are coordinated and managed by the SIRTF Science Center, based at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center on the campus of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. You can find Cool Cosmos at http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/

A review of planetary and space science projects presented at iCubeSat, the Interplanetary CubeSat Workshop

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnson, Michael

2015-04-01

iCubeSat, the Interplanetary CubeSat Workshop, is an annual technical workshop for researchers working on an exciting new standardised platform and opportunity for planetary and space scientists. The first workshop was held in 2012 at MIT, 2013 at Cornell, 2014 at Caltech with the 2015 workshop scheduled to take place on the 26-27th May 2015 at Imperial College London. Mission concepts and flight projects presented since 2012 have included orbiters and landers targeting asteroids, the moon, Mars, Venus, Saturn and their satellites to perform science traditionally reserved for flagship missions at a fraction of their cost. Some of the first missions proposed are currently being readied for flight in Europe, taking advantage of multiple ride share launch opportunities and technology providers. A review of these and other interplanetary CubeSat projects will be presented, covering details of their science objectives, instrument capabilities, technology, team composition, budget, funding sources, and the other programattic elements required to implement this potentially revolutionary new class of mission.

Deep Impact Spacecraft Collides With Comet Tempel 1 (Video)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2005-01-01

After 172 days and 268 million miles of deep space travel, the NASA Deep Impact spacecraft successfully reached out and touched comet Tempel 1. The collision between the coffee table-sized space probe and city-sized comet occurred July 4, 2005 at 12:52 a.m. CDT. Comprised of images taken by the targeting sensor aboard the impactor probe, this movie shows the spacecraft approaching the comet up to just seconds before impact. Mission scientists expect Deep Impact to provide answers to basic questions about the formation of the solar system. Principal investigator for Deep Impact, Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland in College Park, is responsible for the mission, and project management is handled by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The program office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama assisted the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington with program management, technology planning, systems assessment, flight assurance and public outreach. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation of Boulder, Colorado. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD)

Cassiopeia A supernova

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-12-08

NASA's Fermi Closes on Source of Cosmic Rays New images from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope show where supernova remnants emit radiation a billion times more energetic than visible light. The images bring astronomers a step closer to understanding the source of some of the universe's most energetic particles -- cosmic rays. This composite shows the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant across the spectrum: Gamma rays (magenta) from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope; X-rays (blue, green) from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory; visible light (yellow) from the Hubble Space Telescope; infrared (red) from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope; and radio (orange) from the Very Large Array near Socorro, N.M. Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration, CXC/SAO/JPL-Caltech/Steward/O. Krause et al., and NRAO/AUI For more information: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/cosmic-rays-source.... NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe. Follow us on Twitter Join us on Facebook

Photochemical Control of the Distribution of Venusian Water and Comparison to Venus Express SOIR Observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parkinson, Chris; Yung, Yuk; Esposito, Larry; Gao, Peter; Bougher, Steve

2014-11-01

We use the JPL/Caltech 1-D KINETICS photochemical model to solve the continuity diffusion equation for the atmospheric constituent abundances and total number density as a function of radial distance from the planet Venus. The photochemistry of the Venus atmosphere from 58 to 112 km is modeled using an updated and expanded chemical scheme (Zhang et al., 2010; 2012), guided by the results of recent observations. We mainly follow Zhang et al. (2010; 2012) to guide our choice of boundary conditions for 40 species. We fit the SOIR Venus Express results of 1 ppm at 70-90 km (Bertaux et al (2007) by modeling water from between 10 - 35 ppm at our 58 km lower boundary and using an SO2 mixing ratio of 25 ppm as our nominal reference value. We then vary the SO2 mixing ratio at the lower boundary between 5 and 75 ppm and find that it can control the water distribution at higher altitudes.

Transferring Technology to Industry

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wolfenbarger, J. Ken

2006-01-01

This slide presentation reviews the technology transfer processes in which JPL has been involved to assist in transferring the technology derived from aerospace research and development to industry. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), the organization that runs JPL, is the leading institute in patents for all U.S. universities. There are several mechanisms that are available to JPL to inform industry of these technological advances: (1) a dedicated organization at JPL, National Space Technology Applications (NSTA), (2) Tech Brief Magazine, (3) Spinoff magazine, and (4) JPL publications. There have also been many start-up organizations and businesses from CalTech.

Bioconversion study conducted by JPL

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kalvinskas, J.

1978-01-01

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of Caltech conducted a study of bioconversion as a means of identifying the role of biomass for meeting the national energy fuel and chemical requirements and the role and means for JPL-Caltech involvement in bioconversion. The bioconversion study included the following categories; biomass sources, chemicals from biomass, thermochemical conversion of biomass to fuels, biological conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals, and basic bioconversion sciences. A detailed review is included of the bioconversion fields cited with specific conclusions and recommendations given for future research and development and overall biomass system engineering and economic studies.

Initial results from the Caltech/DRSI balloon-borne isotope experiment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schindler, S. M.; Buffington, A.; Christian, E. C.; Grove, J. E.; Lau, K. H.; Stone, E. C.; Rasmussen, I. L.; Laursen, S.

1985-01-01

The Caltech/DSRI balloonborne High Energy Isotope Spectrometer Telescope (HEIST) was flown successfully from Palestine, Texas on 14 May, 1984. The experiment was designed to measure cosmic ray isotopic abundances from neon through iron, with incident particle energies from approx. 1.5 to 2.2 GeV/nucleon depending on the element. During approximately 38 hours at float altitude, 100,000 events were recorded with Z or = 6 and incident energies approx. 1.5 GeV/nucleon. We present results from the ongoing data analysis associated with both the preflight Bevalac calibration and the flight data.

Initial results from the Caltech/DSRI balloon-borne isotope experiment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schindler, S. M.; Buffington, A.; Christian, E. C.; Grove, J. E.; Lau, K. H.; Stone, E. C.; Rasmussen, I. L.; Laursen, S.

1985-01-01

The Caltech/DSRI balloon-borne High Energy Isotope Spectrometer Telescope (HEIST) was flown successfully from Palestine, Texas on 14 May 1984. The experiment was designed to measure cosmic ray isotopic abundances from neon through iron, with incident particle energies from approximately 1.5 to 2.2 GeV/nucleon, depending on the element. During approximately 38 hours at float altitude, 10 to the 5th events were recorded with Z or = 6 and incident energies 1.5 GeV/nucleon. We present results from the ongoing data analysis associated with both the pre-flight Bevalac calibration and the flight data.

Imitation game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Follows, Michael

2017-06-01

In response to Bruce Knuteson’s Forum article “Figuring out a handshake” (February p17), in which he suggested that the replication crisis in science could be solved if scientists sold their research.

Proceedings of the Conference on Joint Problem Solving and Microcomputers (San Diego, California, March 31 - April 2, 1983). Technical Report No. 1.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cole, Michael; And Others

A group of American and Japanese psychologists, anthropologists, linguists, and computer scientists gathered at the University of California, San Diego, to exchange ideas on models of joint problem solving and their special relevance to the design and implementation of computer-based systems of instruction. Much of the discussion focused on…

Meeting the challenge of policy-relevant science: lessons from a water resource project

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lamb, Berton L.

1986-01-01

Water resource scientists face complex tasks in evaluating aspects of water projects, but relatively few assessment procedures have been applied and accepted as standard applications. Decision-makers often rely on environmental assessments to evaluate the value and operation of projects. There is often confusion about scientists' role in policy decisions. The scientist can affect policy-making as an expert withess, an advocate or a surrogate. By understanding the policy process, scientists can make their work more “policy relevant.” Using the Terror Lake hydro project in Alaska as a guide, three lessons are discussed: (1) not all problems are able to be solved with technology; (2) policy-relevant technology is rarely imposed on a problem; and (3) the scientist need not just react to the policy process, but can have an impact on how that process unfolds.

Supporting Scientific Analysis within Collaborative Problem Solving Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Watson, Velvin R.; Kwak, Dochan (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Collaborative problem solving environments for scientists should contain the analysis tools the scientists require in addition to the remote collaboration tools used for general communication. Unfortunately, most scientific analysis tools have been designed for a "stand-alone mode" and cannot be easily modified to work well in a collaborative environment. This paper addresses the questions, "What features are desired in a scientific analysis tool contained within a collaborative environment?", "What are the tool design criteria needed to provide these features?", and "What support is required from the architecture to support these design criteria?." First, the features of scientific analysis tools that are important for effective analysis in collaborative environments are listed. Next, several design criteria for developing analysis tools that will provide these features are presented. Then requirements for the architecture to support these design criteria are listed. Sonic proposed architectures for collaborative problem solving environments are reviewed and their capabilities to support the specified design criteria are discussed. A deficiency in the most popular architecture for remote application sharing, the ITU T. 120 architecture, prevents it from supporting highly interactive, dynamic, high resolution graphics. To illustrate that the specified design criteria can provide a highly effective analysis tool within a collaborative problem solving environment, a scientific analysis tool that contains the specified design criteria has been integrated into a collaborative environment and tested for effectiveness. The tests were conducted in collaborations between remote sites in the US and between remote sites on different continents. The tests showed that the tool (a tool for the visual analysis of computer simulations of physics) was highly effective for both synchronous and asynchronous collaborative analyses. The important features provided by the tool (and made possible by the specified design criteria) are: 1. The tool provides highly interactive, dynamic, high resolution, 3D graphics. 2. All remote scientists can view the same dynamic, high resolution, 3D scenes of the analysis as the analysis is being conducted. 3. The responsiveness of the tool is nearly identical to the responsiveness of the tool in a stand-alone mode. 4. The scientists can transfer control of the analysis between themselves. 5. Any analysis session or segment of an analysis session, whether done individually or collaboratively, can be recorded and posted on the Web for other scientists or students to download and play in either a collaborative or individual mode. 6. The scientist or student who downloaded the session can, individually or collaboratively, modify or extend the session with his/her own "what if" analysis of the data and post his/her version of the analysis back onto the Web. 7. The peak network bandwidth used in the collaborative sessions is only 1K bit/second even though the scientists at all sites are viewing high resolution (1280 x 1024 pixels), dynamic, 3D scenes of the analysis. The links between the specified design criteria and these performance features are presented.

On Responsibility of Scientists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burdyuzha, Vladimir

The situation of modern world is analised. It is impossible for our Civilization when at least half of the World Scientists are engaged in research intended to solve military problems. Civilization cannot be called reasonable so long as it spends a huge portion of national incomes on armaments. For resolution of our global problems International Scientific Center - Brain Trust of planet must be created, the status of which should be defined and sealed by the UN organization.

Your Brain and Nervous System

MedlinePlus

... using your cerebrum. You need it to solve math problems, figure out a video game, and draw ... said to be more analytical, helping you with math, logic, and speech. Scientists do know for sure ...

LLNL Scientist is Passionate About Targets

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Butlin, Becky

With a lifelong passion for problem-solving and a love of production, Becky Butlin has helped lead the National Ignition Facility Target Fabrication Team through obstacles and challenges for the past six years.

Obituary: James Adolph Westphal, 1930-2004

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Danielson, G. Edward

2004-12-01

James A. Westphal died September 8, 2004. He had battled a neurological disease related to Alzheimer's for the past year. He was 74. James A. Westphal was born in Dubuque, Iowa, on June 13, 1930. He was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and in Little Rock, Arkansas. Westphal earned his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Tulsa in 1954, a year after he went to work as geophysical research group leader at Sinclair Research Lab in Tulsa. Westphal first got into the business of scientific instrumentation right after high school, when he did well-logging in Texas and Gulf Coast oil fields. In fact, his work at Sinclair Research Labs involved devising unorthodox methods for oil discovery; one of his discoveries of a new way of processing seismic data first brought him to the attention of Caltech professor Hewitt Dix, who is often considered the father of exploration geophysics. Westphal arrived at Caltech initially on a four-month leave of absence to devise a data processor for Dix, but never left. He discovered that the academic freedom individual professors enjoy was amenable to his own predilections, so he soon began branching out to other areas of scientific investigation at Caltech. Before long, he had teamed up with Bruce Murray to do thermal infrared scans of the moon in order to see if humans could even walk on the lunar surface without sinking into the dusty soil. Westphal and Murray's work showed that rocky areas could be identified with the thermal imaging, which in turn led to the inference that the Apollo astronauts could safely walk on the soil without sinking. Westphal and Murray also teamed up to do the first infrared imaging of Venus and Jupiter. Other projects at Caltech led to Westphal's being hired on permanently by Bob Sharp, who at the time was the geology division chairman. In the following years, Westphal involved himself in novel ways of studying volcanism in Hawaii and Mount St. Helens. He invented a simple and very sensitive tilt meter that allowed them to measure the volcano's expansion and help predict upcoming eruptions. Westphal also designed a way of creating a high-pressure aquarium for studies of deep-ocean animals as well as instruments for tracking glacial ice flows and capturing starlight. Caltech astronomers were pleased to discover that Westphal had an idea for an infrared camera for the historic 200-inch Hale Telescope--at the time the largest optical telescope in the world--that could measure the radiance of galaxies with greater precision and capture fainter galaxies than possible up to that time. He built various other instruments for the Hale Telescope, including a Silicon Intensified Target camera, which was a sort of transitional device between the photographic emulsion plates of the day and modern charged-coupled devices (CCDs) and which produced digital pictures with unparalleled clarity. The instrument is now in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's collection. Westphal and Jim Gunn (now at Princeton) recognized early that CCDs would revolutionize astronomy, and in the process of obtaining them for Palomar, Westphal and Gunn decided to put a team of astronomers together and design a CCD camera for use on the Hubble Space Telescope. Westphal was named principal investigator of the proposal and Jim Gunn was his deputy. They teamed with JPL to design the main camera for Hubble Space Telescope. (The Wide-Field / Planetary Camera), which proved to be an enormously successful part of the telescope's scientific mission. Westphal's research came up with a CCD coating that absorbed the UV photons and fluoresced back in the visible thus allowing the instrument to be used in the UV (The engineers dubbed the coating "mouse milk"). He didn't reveal the composition of the coating until NASA announced that the Caltech/JPL proposal was selected to provide the WF/PC Investigation. During the Hubble first light operations Jim had to diagnose the spherical aberration in the main 2.4 meter mirror, which caused the Hubble's initial focusing problems, while being photographed in real time by all the press cameras. A straight forward fix was devised for the WFPCII camera to bring the images into sharp focus. Once the repaired camera and the Hubble Space Telescope were safely in orbit, Westphal and his collaborators began receiving data on a regular basis. One of the early images of distant galaxies provided especially compelling evidence for the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. "When this picture came in," Westphal said in a 1995 interview for Caltech's Engineering and Science magazine, "I put it under [Caltech physicist] Kip Thorne's door with a note saying, if you ever have any doubt about gravitational lenses, here's your proof." He was a member of the American Astronomical Society and served as the chairman of the Division for Planetary Sciences in 1979-1980. In 1991 Westphal received a MacArthur Fellowship. Already a tenured faculty member and the author of scores of refereed journal articles, and the creator of 15 patented inventions, Westphal was named director of Palomar Observatory in 1995 and served for three years. This assignment included being Caltech's representative to the Cara Board (which managed the KECK telescope). After lowering one of his custom-designed instruments into Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park to study the geyser's cycling mechanism, he published a paper with Caltech graduate, Sue Kieffer, in 1997. The work, which received a good deal of media attention, confirmed previous assumptions about the geyser and also uncovered new details about the eruption cycle. Westphal took Caltech emeritus status in 1998, but remained active in research endeavors until his bout with this illness. Surviving Jim are his wife, Jean Westphal of Altadena; a son, Andrew Westphal, a daughter-in-law, Kim Taylor, and two granddaughters, Theresa and Laura Westphal, all of Richmond, California; two stepdaughters, Robin Stroll of Agoura Hills, California and Susan Stroll of Eagle Rock, California; and an uncle, Eddy Westphal of Indiana. A portion of this obituary was taken from a tribute by Robert Tindol published September 14, 2004 in an electronic Caltech Newsletter.

Obituary: Andrew Lange (1957-2010)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kamionkowski, Marc

2011-12-01

The worlds of physics and astrophysics were stunned to learn on 22 January 2010 that Andrew Lange, the Marvin L. Goldberger Professor of Physics at Caltech, had taken his own life the night before. He had succumbed to the severe depression that he had suffered from for many years, unbeknownst to even his closest colleagues. Lange will perhaps be best remembered as the co-leader of Boomerang, the balloon-borne experiment that provided the first high-angular-resolution map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). And while this was certainly his most notable achievement, Andrew amassed a record of accomplishment as an instrumentalist, leader, mentor, and communicator that extended much further. Andrew was born in Urbana, Illinois on July 23, 1957, the son of an architect and a librarian, and raised primarily in Connecticut. His family and early friends remember him as a serious and extremely intelligent child and young man. Andrew Lange's lifelong interest in the CMB was nurtured as an undergraduate at Princeton University by David Wilkinson, and he recalled fondly a summer spent working with John Mather at Goddard Space Flight Center. Andrew Lange went to graduate school in physics at Berkeley where he worked in Paul Richards' group. Although his thesis project, the Berkeley-Nagoya rocket experiment, showed an anomalous sub-millimeter excess in the CMB spectrum that was shortly thereafter shown by a later flight of the same rocket and COBE-FIRAS to be incorrect, Lange's talents were recognized by the physics department at Berkeley who appointed him shortly after his PhD (1987) to their faculty. While on the Berkeley faculty, Andrew obtained early detections of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, upper limits to small-angle CMB fluctuations, and important infrared constraints to the interstellar medium. He also led a pioneering instrument operating 300 mK detectors for a small infrared satellite experiment. This early work showed high ambition and daring, and it pioneered new techniques that paid off later in a number of ways in CMB science and in infrared/sub-mm astronomy. At a meeting of Packard Fellows (he was awarded the Fellowship in 1989), Lange met Frances Arnold, another Fellow from Caltech, fell in love, and thus wound up moving to Caltech in 1994. Upon arriving, Lange led a team that proposed a space CMB mission (FIRE), one of several proposals spawned by the exciting results flowing from COBE. While FIRE lost out to the WMAP team, this disappointment freed Lange and his collaborators to focus on Boomerang, a balloon-borne experiment which, although of more limited scope than the satellite mission, could be flown far more quickly for far less money. Their efforts paid off with a long-duration Antarctic balloon flight in 1998 and the dramatic announcement, in May 2000, of the remarkable science results from this flight. Boomerang provided the first high-resolution high-signal-to-noise map of the CMB from which was obtained a crystal-clear measurement of the first acoustic peak in the CMB power spectrum, and thus a robust determination of the geometry of the Universe. This experiment, widely recognized in cosmology as a watershed event, helped usher in the era of precision cosmology, with precise constraints to several cosmological parameters and strong evidence in support of inflation. These results were confirmed a few days later by MAXIMA, a balloon experiment that Lange helped get started, as well as a string of subsequent suborbital experiments and then WMAP. Over the next years, Andrew continued to improve the precision of CMB cosmological-parameter measurements, leading or participating in a string of subsequent CMB experiments, including the Planck satellite (a partial outgrowth of the FIRE proposal). But he also focused increasingly on the search for the CMB-polarization signature of inflationary gravitational waves, initiating a string of projects in this direction. Andrew Lange loved to work in the laboratory, and his legacy includes several generations of novel instrumentation for CMB studies and infrared/submillimeter astronomy. The spider-web bolometers that he and Jamie Bock developed dominated sub-orbital CMB science (and beyond) for nearly 15 years, and the transition-edge sensors he and colleagues have been developing more recently are poised to play a defining role in the coming decade. As a mentor too, Andrew Lange amassed an extraordinary track record. He had a unique ability to identify and attract the most talented young scientists, to motivate them and provide them with what they needed to succeed. He routinely relinquished leadership of projects that he had initiated to younger colleagues. The number of his former students, postdocs, and other younger collaborators who now occupy top faculty and senior-scientist positions is remarkable. Collectively, his former students and postdocs are, as Andrew did, "making measurable what is not so," a Galileo quotation that Lange was drawn to. In the year before his death, Andrew served as Chairman of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy at Caltech, broadening the scope of his shepherding of scientific projects and programs. Andrew's work was recognized by a number of honors, including the California Scientist of the Year Award (2003), the Balzan Prize (2006), and the Dan David Prize (2009). Andrew is survived by Frances, and their sons James, William, and Joseph.

A cognitive operating system (COGNOSYS) for JPL's robot, phase 1 report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mathur, F. P.

1972-01-01

The most important software requirement for any robot development is the COGNitive Operating SYStem (COGNOSYS). This report describes the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory's hand eye software system from the point of view of developing a cognitive operating system for JPL's robot. In this, the Phase 1 of the JPL robot COGNOSYS task the installation of a SAIL compiler and a FAIL assembler on Caltech's PDP-10 have been accomplished and guidelines have been prepared for the implementation of a Stanford University type hand eye software system on JPL-Caltech's computing facility. The alternatives offered by using RAND-USC's PDP-10 Tenex operating sytem are also considered.

Journal Article: Using Scientists and Real-World Scenarios in Professional Development for Middle School Science Teachers

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Morrison, Judith A.; Estes, Jeffrey C.

Middle school science teachers were involved in a problem-solving experience presented and guided by research scientists. Data on the teachers’ perspectives about this professional development and any impact it may have had on their teaching practices were collected through interviews, surveys, and classroom observations. The findings show that the professional development experience was positive, although one concern expressed by teachers was their lack of understanding of the scientists’ vocabulary. Using scientists and real-world scenarios was shown to be an effective strategy for encouraging middle school teachers to teach science as a process and help them strengthen their science content understanding.

Data transfer nodes and demonstration of 100-400 Gbps wide area throughput using the Caltech SDN testbed

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mughal, A.; Newman, H.

2017-10-01

We review and demonstrate the design of efficient data transfer nodes (DTNs), from the perspective of the highest throughput over both local and wide area networks, as well as the highest performance per unit cost. A careful system-level design is required for the hardware, firmware, OS and software components. Furthermore, additional tuning of these components, and the identification and elimination of any remaining bottlenecks is needed once the system is assembled and commissioned, in order to obtain optimal performance. For high throughput data transfers, specialized software is used to overcome the traditional limits in performance caused by the OS, file system, file structures used, etc. Concretely, we will discuss and present the latest results using Fast Data Transfer (FDT), developed by Caltech. We present and discuss the design choices for three generations of Caltech DTNs. Their transfer capabilities range from 40 Gbps to 400 Gbps. Disk throughput is still the biggest challenge in the current generation of available hardware. However, new NVME drives combined with RDMA and a new NVME network fabric are expected to improve the overall data-transfer throughput and simultaneously reduce the CPU load on the end nodes.

High-Performance Computing Unlocks Innovation at NREL

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

Need to fly around a wind farm? Or step inside a molecule? NREL scientists use a super powerful (and highly energy-efficient) computer to visualize and solve big problems in renewable energy research.

Mathematical computer programs: A compilation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1972-01-01

Computer programs, routines, and subroutines for aiding engineers, scientists, and mathematicians in direct problem solving are presented. Also included is a group of items that affords the same users greater flexibility in the use of software.

Information Power Grid: Distributed High-Performance Computing and Large-Scale Data Management for Science and Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, William E.; Gannon, Dennis; Nitzberg, Bill; Feiereisen, William (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

The term "Grid" refers to distributed, high performance computing and data handling infrastructure that incorporates geographically and organizationally dispersed, heterogeneous resources that are persistent and supported. The vision for NASN's Information Power Grid - a computing and data Grid - is that it will provide significant new capabilities to scientists and engineers by facilitating routine construction of information based problem solving environments / frameworks that will knit together widely distributed computing, data, instrument, and human resources into just-in-time systems that can address complex and large-scale computing and data analysis problems. IPG development and deployment is addressing requirements obtained by analyzing a number of different application areas, in particular from the NASA Aero-Space Technology Enterprise. This analysis has focussed primarily on two types of users: The scientist / design engineer whose primary interest is problem solving (e.g., determining wing aerodynamic characteristics in many different operating environments), and whose primary interface to IPG will be through various sorts of problem solving frameworks. The second type of user if the tool designer: The computational scientists who convert physics and mathematics into code that can simulate the physical world. These are the two primary users of IPG, and they have rather different requirements. This paper describes the current state of IPG (the operational testbed), the set of capabilities being put into place for the operational prototype IPG, as well as some of the longer term R&D tasks.

Oral histories in meteoritics and planetary science—XVI: Donald D. Bogard

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sears, Derek W. G.

2012-03-01

Donald D. Bogard (Don, Fig. 1) became interested in meteorites after seeing the Fayetteville meteorite in an undergraduate astronomy class at the University of Arkansas. During his graduate studies with Paul Kuroda at Arkansas, Don helped discover the Xe decay products of 244Pu. After a postdoctoral period at Caltech, where he learned much from Jerry Wasserburg, Peter Eberhardt, Don Burnett, and Sam Epstein, Don became one of a number of young Ph.D. scientists hired by NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center to set up the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) and to perform a preliminary examination of Apollo samples. In collaboration with Oliver Schaeffer (SUNY), Joseph Zähringer (Max Planck, Heidelberg), and Raymond Davis (Brookhaven National Laboratory), he built a gas analysis laboratory at JSC, and the noble gas portion of this laboratory remained operational until he retired in 2010. At NASA, Don worked on the lunar regolith, performed pioneering work on cosmic ray produced noble gas isotopes and Ar-Ar dating, the latter for important insights into the thermal and shock history of meteorites and lunar samples. During this work, he discovered that the trapped gases in SNC meteorites were very similar to those of the Martian atmosphere and thus established their Martian origin. Among Don's many administrative accomplishments are helping to establish the Antarctic meteorite and cosmic dust processing programs at JSC and serving as a NASA-HQ discipline scientist, where he advanced peer review and helped create new programs. Don is a recipient of NASA's Scientific Achievement and Exceptional Service Medals and the Meteoritical Society's Leonard Medal.

Analogy as a strategy for supporting complex problem solving under uncertainty.

PubMed

Chan, Joel; Paletz, Susannah B F; Schunn, Christian D

2012-11-01

Complex problem solving in naturalistic environments is fraught with uncertainty, which has significant impacts on problem-solving behavior. Thus, theories of human problem solving should include accounts of the cognitive strategies people bring to bear to deal with uncertainty during problem solving. In this article, we present evidence that analogy is one such strategy. Using statistical analyses of the temporal dynamics between analogy and expressed uncertainty in the naturalistic problem-solving conversations among scientists on the Mars Rover Mission, we show that spikes in expressed uncertainty reliably predict analogy use (Study 1) and that expressed uncertainty reduces to baseline levels following analogy use (Study 2). In addition, in Study 3, we show with qualitative analyses that this relationship between uncertainty and analogy is not due to miscommunication-related uncertainty but, rather, is primarily concentrated on substantive problem-solving issues. Finally, we discuss a hypothesis about how analogy might serve as an uncertainty reduction strategy in naturalistic complex problem solving.

Theoretical Studies of Stratospheric and Tropospheric Clouds and Aerosols in Support of SOLVE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Toon, Owen B.

2002-01-01

We proposed a number of theoretical efforts to support NASA's SOLVE Mission which took place in Kiruna, Sweden in the winter of 1999-2000. We proposed to serve as one of the DC-8 project scientists, to work with various instrument teams to better understand the composition of polar stratospheric clouds, and their properties, and to help understand the physical conditions which lead to cloud formation in the polar winter.

Why we can't sell what we don't own

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wildes, Andrew

2017-04-01

In response to Bruce Knuteson's Forum article “Figuring out a handshake” (February p17), in which he suggested that the replication crisis in science could be solved if scientists sold their research.

Exploring Oil Pollution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rillo, Thomas J.

1974-01-01

Discusses damages of oil tanker spillage to the marine organisms and scientists' research in oil pollution removal techniques. Included is a list of learning activities concerning the causes and effects of oil pollution and methods of solving the problem. (CC)

Blast from the Past Gives Clues About Early Universe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2009-10-01

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have gained tantalizing insights into the nature of the most distant object ever observed in the Universe -- a gigantic stellar explosion known as a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB). The explosion was detected on April 23 by NASA's Swift satellite, and scientists soon realized that it was more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. It represents an event that occurred 630 million years after the Big Bang, when the Universe was only four percent of its current age of 13.7 billion years. This explosion provides an unprecedented look at an era when the Universe was very young and also was undergoing drastic changes. The primal cosmic darkness was being pierced by the light of the first stars and the first galaxies were beginning to form. The star that exploded in this event was a member of one of these earliest generations of stars," said Dale Frail of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Astronomers turned telescopes from around the world to study the blast, dubbed GRB 090423. The VLA first looked for the object the day after the discovery, detected the first radio waves from the blast a week later, then recorded changes in the object until it faded from view more than two months later. "It's important to study these explosions with many kinds of telescopes. Our research team combined data from the VLA with data from X-ray and infrared telescopes to piece together some of the physical conditions of the blast," said Derek Fox of Pennsylvania State University. "The result is a unique look into the very early Universe that we couldn't have gotten any other way," he added. The scientists concluded that the explosion was more energetic than most GRBs, was a nearly-spherical blast, and that it expanded into a tenuous and relatively uniform gaseous medium surrounding the star. Astronomers suspect that the very first stars in the Universe were very different -- brighter, hotter, and more massive -- from those that formed later. They hope to find evidence for these giants by observing objects as distant as GRB 090423 or more distant. "The best way to distinguish these distant, early-generation stars is by studying their explosive deaths, as supernovae or Gamma Ray Bursts," said Poonam Chandra, of the Royal Military College of Canada, and leader of the research team. While the data on GRB 090423 don't indicate that it resulted from the death of such a monster star, new astronomical tools are coming that may reveal them. "The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), will allow us to pick out these very-distant GRBs more easily so we can target them for intense followup observations. The Expanded Very Large Array, with much greater sensitivity than the current VLA, will let us follow these blasts much longer and learn much more about their energies and environments. We'll be able to look back even further in time," Frail said. Both ALMA and the EVLA are scheduled for completion in 2012. Chandra, Frail and Fox worked with Shrinivas Kulkarni of Caltech, Edo Berger of Harvard University, S. Bradley Cenko of the University of California at Berkeley, Douglas C.-J. Bock of the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy in California, and Fiona Harrison and Mansi Kasliwal of Caltech. The scientists described their research in a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Program and abstracts of the Second Tsunami Source Workshop; July 19-20, 2010

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lee, W.H.K.; Kirby, S.H.; Diggles, M.F.

2010-01-01

In response to a request by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for computing tsunami propagations in the western Pacific, Eric Geist asked Willie Lee for assistance in providing parameters of earthquakes which may be future tsunami sources. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Tsunami Source Working Group (TSWG) was initiated in August 2005. An ad hoc group of diverse expertise was formed, with Steve Kirby as the leader. The founding members are: Rick Blakely, Eric Geist, Steve Kirby, Willie Lee, George Plafker, Dave Scholl, Roland von Huene, and Ray Wells. Half of the founding members are USGS emeritus scientists. A report was quickly completed because of NOAA's urgent need to precalculate tsunami propagation paths for early warning purposes. It was clear to the group that much more work needed to be done to improve our knowledge about tsunami sources worldwide. The group therefore started an informal research program on tsunami sources and meets irregularly to share ideas, data, and results. Because our group activities are open to anyone, we have more participants now, including, for example, Harley Benz and George Choy (USGS, Golden, Colo.), Holly Ryan and Stephanie Ross (USGS, Menlo Park, Calif.), Hiroo Kanamori (Caltech), Emile Okal (Northwestern University), and Gerard Fryer and Barry Hirshorn (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Hawaii). To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the TSWG, a workshop is being held in the Auditorium of Building 3, USGS, Menlo Park, on July 19-20, 2010 (Willie Lee and Steve Kirby, Conveners). All talks (except one) will be video broadcast. The first tsunami source workshop was held in April 2006 with about 100 participants from many institutions. This second workshop (on a much smaller scale) will be devoted primarily to recent work by the USGS members. In addition, Hiroo Kanamori (Caltech) will present his recent work on the 1960 and 2010 Chile earthquakes, Barry Hirshorn and Stuart Weinstein (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center) will present their work on tsunami warning, and Rick Wilson (California Geological Survey) will display three posters on tsunami studies by him and his colleagues.

The Zwicky Transient Facility

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kulkarni, Shrinivas R.

2016-01-01

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) has been designed with a singular focus: a systematic exploration of the night sky at a magnitude level well suited for spectral classification and follow up with the existing class of 4-m to 10-m class telescopes. ZTF is the successor to the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). The discovery engine for ZTF is a 47 square degree camera (realized through 16 e2V monolithic CCDs) that fills the entire focal plane of the 48-inch Oschin telescope of the Palomar Observatory. Single 30-s epoch sensitivity is about 20.5 in g and R bands. The Infarared Processing & Analysis Center (IPAC) is the data center for ZTF. ZTF is a public-private partnership with equal contributions from a consortium of world-wide partners and an NSF MSIP grant. Forty percent of ZTF time is set aside for two major community surveys: a 3-day cadence survey of high latitudes (to mimic LSST) and a time domain survey of the entire Northern Galactic plane. We expect first light in February 2017 and begin a 3-year survey starting summer of 2017. The first year will be spent on building up deep reference images of the sky (a must for transient surveys). During the second year IPAC will deliver near archival quality photometric products within 12 hours of observations. By comparison to reference images photometric alerts will be sent out. Year 3 will see the near real-time release of image differencing products. A Community Science Advisory Committee (CSAC), chaired by S. Ridgway (NOAO), has been set up to both advise the PI and to ensure that the US community's interests are well served. Astronomers interested in getting a head start on ZTF may wish to peruse the data releases from PTF. Young people (or young at heart) may wish to attend the annual summer school on PTF/ZTF (August, Caltech campus). The Principal Investigator (PI) for the project is S. Kulkarni and the Project Scientist is Eric Bellm.For further details please consult http://www.ptf.caltech.edu/ztf

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Current trends for customized biomedical software tools.

PubMed

Khan, Haseeb Ahmad

2017-01-01

In the past, biomedical scientists were solely dependent on expensive commercial software packages for various applications. However, the advent of user-friendly programming languages and open source platforms has revolutionized the development of simple and efficient customized software tools for solving specific biomedical problems. Many of these tools are designed and developed by biomedical scientists independently or with the support of computer experts and often made freely available for the benefit of scientific community. The current trends for customized biomedical software tools are highlighted in this short review.

Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-06-09

Dr. Carlos Calle, lead scientist in the Kennedy Space Center's Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory, left, and Jay Phillips, a research physicist, are modifying an electrostatic precipitator to help remove dust from simulated Martian atmosphere. NASA's Journey to Mars requires cutting-edge technologies to solve the problems explorers will face on the Red Planet. Scientists are developing some of the needed solutions by adapting a device to remove the ever-present dust from valuable elements in the Martian atmosphere. Those commodities include oxygen, water and methane.

Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-06-09

Dr. Carlos Calle, lead scientist in the Kennedy Space Center's Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory, left, and Jay Phillips, a research physicist, are modifying an electrostatic precipitator to help remove dust from a simulated Martian atmosphere. NASA's Journey to Mars requires cutting-edge technologies to solve the problems explorers will face on the Red Planet. Scientists are developing some of the needed solutions by adapting a device to remove the ever-present dust from valuable elements in the Martian atmosphere. Those commodities include oxygen, water and methane.

Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-06-09

Jay Phillips, a research physicist in the Kennedy Space Center's Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory, left, and Dr. Carlos Calle, lead scientist in the lab, are modifying an electrostatic precipitator to help remove dust from simulated Martian atmosphere. NASA's Journey to Mars requires cutting-edge technologies to solve the problems explorers will face on the Red Planet. Scientists are developing some of the needed solutions by adapting a device to remove the ever-present dust from valuable elements in the Martian atmosphere. Those commodities include oxygen, water and methane.

Development of Scanning Ultrafast Electron Microscope Capability.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Collins, Kimberlee Chiyoko; Talin, Albert Alec; Chandler, David W.

Modern semiconductor devices rely on the transport of minority charge carriers. Direct examination of minority carrier lifetimes in real devices with nanometer-scale features requires a measurement method with simultaneously high spatial and temporal resolutions. Achieving nanometer spatial resolutions at sub-nanosecond temporal resolution is possible with pump-probe methods that utilize electrons as probes. Recently, a stroboscopic scanning electron microscope was developed at Caltech, and used to study carrier transport across a Si p-n junction [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] . In this report, we detail our development of a prototype scanning ultrafast electron microscope system at Sandia National Laboratoriesmore » based on the original Caltech design. This effort represents Sandia's first exploration into ultrafast electron microscopy.« less

Obituary: Leonard Searle (1930-2010)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Preston, George

2011-12-01

Leonard Searle, Astronomer and Director Emeritus of Carnegie Observatories, died at his home on July 2, 2010, in Pasadena, CA, in the midst of a busy retirement that followed a long, distinguished scientific career. Searle was born on October 23, 1930, in the London suburb of Mitcham to parents of modest means. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, and his PhD from Princeton University, where he met his future wife, Eleanor Millard. They were married in Princeton in 1952. Eleanor, his lifelong companion, was a distinguished medieval historian who joined the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Caltech as professor in 1979. She died in 1999. Leonard joined the faculty at University of Toronto in 1953, resigning that position in 1960 to become a Senior Research Fellow at Caltech, where he worked with Jesse Greenstein and Wallace Sargent on the chemical compositions of stars. The Caltech appointment marked the beginning of a fruitful association with Sargent, with whom he published 25 papers. In 1963 Searle left Caltech to join the faculty of the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia. Then in 1968 he returned to Pasadena to join the staff of Carnegie Observatories, his final academic home. Several themes punctuate Searle's academic career. One of the most persistent was the abundance of helium in the very early universe, a quantity whose numerical value is of great importance for cosmology. He pursued this topic with Sargent, first in the study of old evolved "horizontal branch" stars. Later, convinced that such stars could not provide a satisfactory answer, he and Sargent turned to certain small galaxies which provided more reliable estimates of the important helium-to-hydrogen abundance ratio. In the pursuit of this answer they devised the "simple model" of chemical evolution, a formalism used by astronomers to this day. He worked with the Dutch astronomer Piet van der Kruit to construct successful models of certain spiral galaxies by careful measurements of surface brightness, and later he worked with colleagues in Pasadena to derive the abundances of chemical elements in primordial stars of our Milky Way Galaxy. His most successful venture was the formulation of a scheme for the assembly of the Milky Way Galaxy from "primordial fragments." This work, which he undertook with then-Carnegie Fellow Robert Zinn, has withstood the test of time. It has been quoted more than 1000 times since it was published in 1978. Searle accepted the Directorship of Carnegie Observatories in 1989 at a signal time in its history. Under his leadership an initial plan to build a single 8.4 meter telescope evolved finally into the construction of two 6.5 meter telescopes, operated since 2000 by a 5-institution consortium at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Searle's vital contribution to the Magellan project was his shrewd ability to hire good experts, and then to delegate authority in ways that invited their fruitful participation. All the while, Searle managed to maintain the Observatories' tradition of academic excellence, even as it was plunging into a new world of big-telescope technology. He pursued a visiting scholars program, and he used the important telescope time-allocation process to promote the intellectual growth of Carnegie scientists. His sympathy for the plight of financially strapped Eastern European astronomers took the form of support for the Polish OGLE telescope, to this day a shining success story at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory. Following retirement in 1996, Searle continued to follow the progress of the Observatories by frequent contact with his colleagues of many years. He and Eleanor wintered in Pasadena, and during hot Pasadena summers they escaped to their home at Somerset in the south of England. Searle maintained an avid interest in both British and American politics. He has no surviving relatives.

HTTP as a Data Access Protocol: Trials with XrootD in CMS’s AAA Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balcas, J.; Bockelman, B. P.; Kcira, D.; Newman, H.; Vlimant, J.; Hendricks, T. W.; CMS Collaboration

2017-10-01

The main goal of the project to demonstrate the ability of using HTTP data federations in a manner analogous to the existing AAA infrastructure of the CMS experiment. An initial testbed at Caltech has been built and changes in the CMS software (CMSSW) are being implemented in order to improve HTTP support. The testbed consists of a set of machines at the Caltech Tier2 that improve the support infrastructure for data federations at CMS. As a first step, we are building systems that produce and ingest network data transfers up to 80 Gbps. In collaboration with AAA, HTTP support is enabled at the US redirector and the Caltech testbed. A plugin for CMSSW is being developed for HTTP access based on the DaviX software. It will replace the present fork/exec or curl for HTTP access. In addition, extensions to the XRootD HTTP implementation are being developed to add functionality to it, such as client-based monitoring identifiers. In the future, patches will be developed to better integrate HTTP-over-XRootD with the Open Science Grid (OSG) distribution. First results of the transfer tests using HTTP are presented in this paper together with details about the initial setup.

Early Days of SIS Receivers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woody, D. P.

2009-12-01

The modern era of millimeter and submillimeter spectral line observations and interferometry started at end of the 1979 with the invention of the Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) mixer. Tom Phillips co-invented this device while working at Bell Telephone Labs (BTL) in Murray Hill, NJ. His group built the first astronomically useful SIS heterodyne receiver which was deployed on the Leighton 10.4 m telescope at the Caltech Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) in the same year. Tom Phillips joined the Caltech faculty in the early 1980s where his group continues to lead the way in developing state-of-the-art SIS receivers throughout the millimeter and submillimeter wavelength bands. The rapid progress in millimeter and submillimeter astronomy during 1980s required developments on many fronts including the theoretical understanding of the device physics, advances in device fabrication, microwave and radio frequency (RF) circuit design, mixer block construction, development of wideband low-noise intermediate frequency (IF) amplifiers and the telescopes used for making the observations. Many groups around the world made important contributions to this field but the groups at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) under the leadership of Tom Phillips made major contributions in all of these areas. The end-to-end understanding and developments from the theoretical device physics to the astronomical observations and interpretation has made this group uniquely productive.

Machine Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kirrane, Diane E.

1990-01-01

As scientists seek to develop machines that can "learn," that is, solve problems by imitating the human brain, a gold mine of information on the processes of human learning is being discovered, expert systems are being improved, and human-machine interactions are being enhanced. (SK)

Cassini-Huygens Outreach: It takes a village to reach the world.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wessen, A.; McConnell, S.

As ancient mariners, we charted our journeys and our destinies by the stars in the night sky. Their cosmic mysteries have drawn us all, from the icy fjords of Norway to the wheat fields of the North American plains. Today, an international collaboration of countries has pointed a collective compass toward Saturn, seeking to understand its nature, its history, its rings and its moons, by guiding the Cassini spacecraft in a first- ever orbital exploration and by launching the Huygens probe into the cosmic realm of Titan. All across the world we seek to make this jewel of the solar system a part of our shared human experience, to inspire the next generation of explorers. The Cassini-Huygens Education and Public Outreach team may be small, but we are hundreds large through the mission scientists, technical personnel and partners we work with to reach the world. With partners like ESA, ASI and others with expertise in reaching students and educators such as the Bay Area Writing project, Don Johnston Publishing and the Caltech Precollege Science Initiative (CAPSI), the Cassini-Huygens Education and Public Outreach team has been able to create unique programs that are meaningful and useful to our audiences while reaching the world.

Yogi the rock - 3D

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

Yogi, a rock taller than rover Sojourner, is the subject of this image, taken in stereo by the deployed Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) on Sol 3. 3D glasses are necessary to identify surface detail. The soil in the foreground has been the location of multiple soil mechanics experiments performed by Sojourner's cleated wheels. Pathfinder scientists were able to control the force inflicted on the soil beneath the rover's wheels, giving them insight into the soil's mechanical properties. The soil mechanics experiments were conducted after this image was taken.

Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator.

Click below to see the left and right views individually. [figure removed for brevity, see original site] Left [figure removed for brevity, see original site] Right

Scout: high-performance heterogeneous computing made simple

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jablin, James; Mc Cormick, Patrick; Herlihy, Maurice

2011-01-26

Researchers must often write their own simulation and analysis software. During this process they simultaneously confront both computational and scientific problems. Current strategies for aiding the generation of performance-oriented programs do not abstract the software development from the science. Furthermore, the problem is becoming increasingly complex and pressing with the continued development of many-core and heterogeneous (CPU-GPU) architectures. To acbieve high performance, scientists must expertly navigate both software and hardware. Co-design between computer scientists and research scientists can alleviate but not solve this problem. The science community requires better tools for developing, optimizing, and future-proofing codes, allowing scientists to focusmore » on their research while still achieving high computational performance. Scout is a parallel programming language and extensible compiler framework targeting heterogeneous architectures. It provides the abstraction required to buffer scientists from the constantly-shifting details of hardware while still realizing higb-performance by encapsulating software and hardware optimization within a compiler framework.« less

Epistemological undercurrents in scientists' reporting of research to teachers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glasson, George E.; Bentley, Michael L.

2000-07-01

Our investigation focused upon how scientists, from both a practical and epistemological perspective, communicated the nature and relevance of their research to classroom teachers. Six scientists were observed during presentations of cutting-edge research at a conference for science teachers. Following the conference, these scientists were interviewed to discern how each perceived the nature of science, technology, and society in relation to his particular research. Data were analyzed to determine the congruence and/or dissimilarity in how scientists described their research to teachers and how they viewed their research epistemologically. We found that a wide array of scientific methodologies and research protocols were presented and that all the scientists expressed links between their research and science-technology-society (STS) issues. When describing their research during interviews, the scientists from traditional content disciplines reflected a strong commitment to empiricism and experimental design, whereas engineers from applied sciences were more focused on problem-solving. Implicit in the data was a commitment to objectivity and the tacit assumption that science may be free of values and ethical assumptions. More dialogue is recommended between the scientific community, science educators, and historians/philosophers of science about the nature of science, STS, and curriculum issues.

No Solutions: Resisting Certainty in Water Supply Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cockerill, K.; Armstrong, M.; Richter, J.; Okie, J. G.

2017-12-01

Although most scholars and water managers implicitly understand that managing water resources is an ongoing need, both popular and academic literature routinely use the words `solution' and `solve' in discussing water management concerns. The word `solution' reflects a quest for certainty, stability, permanence. A focus on `solving' creates a simplistic expectation that some person or institution is responsible for implementing a solution and that once `solved' the issue no longer requires attention. The reality, however, is water management is a wicked problem, meaning it is amorphous, involves multiple definitions, is embedded in complex systems, and hence is intractable. By definition, wicked problems defy solution. Our interdisciplinary project integrates research from across a broad spectrum of biological, physical, and social sciences. We find that framing a problem in terms of `solving' affects how people think, feel, behave toward the problem. Further, our work suggests that the prevalence of solution- based language has simultaneously generated expectations that science / scientists can predict and control biophysical systems and that science is not to be trusted because it has failed to deliver on previous promises to permanently `solve' events like floods or droughts. Hydrologic systems, are, of course highly uncertain. Hence, reiterating a simplistic insistence on `solving' water management concerns may result in decreased public attention to or support for more complex policy discussions that could provide long-term management strategies. Using the language of `solutions' with expectations of certainty sets hydrologic researchers and water managers up to fail. Managing water is a social responsibility and it will require consistent attention in the future, just as it has throughout human history. Scientists have a key role to play in explaining how various hydrologic systems function, but they should not be expected to `solve' pressing water management needs. Rather, reconsidering the language used to frame water management concerns can help us recognize our own culpability in creating water problems and our responsibility in continuously managing this most essential resource.

Multi-D Full Boltzmann Neutrino Hydrodynamic Simulations in Core Collapse Supernovae and their detailed comparison with Monte Carlo method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nagakura, Hiroki; Richers, Sherwood; Ott, Christian; Iwakami, Wakana; Furusawa, Shun; Sumiyoshi, Kohsuke; Yamada, Shoichi

2017-01-01

We have developed a multi-d radiation-hydrodynamic code which solves first-principles Boltzmann equation for neutrino transport. It is currently applicable specifically for core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), but we will extend their applicability to further extreme phenomena such as black hole formation and coalescence of double neutron stars. In this meeting, I will discuss about two things; (1) detailed comparison with a Monte-Carlo neutrino transport (2) axisymmetric CCSNe simulations. The project (1) gives us confidence of our code. The Monte-Carlo code has been developed by Caltech group and it is specialized to obtain a steady state. Among CCSNe community, this is the first attempt to compare two different methods for multi-d neutrino transport. I will show the result of these comparison. For the project (2), I particularly focus on the property of neutrino distribution function in the semi-transparent region where only first-principle Boltzmann solver can appropriately handle the neutrino transport. In addition to these analyses, I will also discuss the ``explodability'' by neutrino heating mechanism.

Rebecca Erikson – Solving Problems with Love for Science

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Erikson, Rebecca

Rebecca Erikson’s love for science began at a young age. Today, she’s a senior scientist at PNNL trying to solve problems that address national security concerns. Through one project, she developed a sleek, simple and inexpensive way to turn a cellphone into a high-powered, high-quality microscope that helps authorities determine if white powder that falls from an envelope is anthrax or something simple like baby powder. Listen as Rebecca describes her work in this Energy Department video.

Building Flexible User Interfaces for Solving PDEs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Logg, Anders; Wells, Garth N.

2010-09-01

FEniCS is a collection of software tools for the automated solution of differential equations by finite element methods. In this note, we describe how FEniCS can be used to solve a simple nonlinear model problem with varying levels of automation. At one extreme, FEniCS provides tools for the fully automated and adaptive solution of nonlinear partial differential equations. At the other extreme, FEniCS provides a range of tools that allow the computational scientist to experiment with novel solution algorithms.

Ocean Research Priorities: Similarities and Differences among Scientists, Policymakers, and Fishermen in the United States

PubMed Central

Mason, Julia G.; Rudd, Murray A.; Crowder, Larry B.

2017-01-01

Abstract Understanding and solving complex ocean conservation problems requires cooperation not just among scientific disciplines but also across sectors. A recently published survey that probed research priorities of marine scientists, when provided to ocean stakeholders, revealed some agreement on priorities but also illuminated key differences. Ocean acidification, cumulative impacts, bycatch effects, and restoration effectiveness were in the top 10 priorities for scientists and stakeholder groups. Significant priority differences were that scientists favored research questions about ocean acidification and marine protected areas; policymakers prioritized questions about habitat restoration, bycatch, and precaution; and fisheries sector resource users called for the inclusion of local ecological knowledge in policymaking. These results quantitatively demonstrate how different stakeholder groups approach ocean issues and highlight the need to incorporate other types of knowledge in the codesign of solutions-oriented research, which may facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration. PMID:28533565

Ocean Research Priorities: Similarities and Differences among Scientists, Policymakers, and Fishermen in the United States.

PubMed

Mason, Julia G; Rudd, Murray A; Crowder, Larry B

2017-05-01

Understanding and solving complex ocean conservation problems requires cooperation not just among scientific disciplines but also across sectors. A recently published survey that probed research priorities of marine scientists, when provided to ocean stakeholders, revealed some agreement on priorities but also illuminated key differences. Ocean acidification, cumulative impacts, bycatch effects, and restoration effectiveness were in the top 10 priorities for scientists and stakeholder groups. Significant priority differences were that scientists favored research questions about ocean acidification and marine protected areas; policymakers prioritized questions about habitat restoration, bycatch, and precaution; and fisheries sector resource users called for the inclusion of local ecological knowledge in policymaking. These results quantitatively demonstrate how different stakeholder groups approach ocean issues and highlight the need to incorporate other types of knowledge in the codesign of solutions-oriented research, which may facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration.

Principle of serviceability and gratuitousness in transplantation?

PubMed

Pashkov, Vitaliy M; Golovanova, Iryna A; Noha, Petro P

the issue of commercialization of transplantation analyses in the article. Attention is paid to the importance of transplantation as a method of treatment and saving human lives. the clarify the feasibility of the introduction of donation commercialization as an avenue to solve the shortage of donor organs and means of combating with black organ market and finding alternative avenues solving these problems, which are more morally acceptable for society is the aim of this article. the experience of foreign countries has been analyses in the research. Additionally, we used data from international organizations, conclusions scientists and report of Global Financial Integrity in the research. it is impossible to solve most problems by means of paid donation. therapeutic organ and tissue cloning based on genetic technology is the best way out and solving ethical transplantation problems.

Modeling games from the 20th century

PubMed Central

Killeen, P.R.

2008-01-01

A scientific framework is described in which scientists are cast as problem-solvers, and problems as solved when data are mapped to models. This endeavor is limited by finite attentional capacity which keeps depth of understanding complementary to breadth of vision; and which distinguishes the process of science from its products, scientists from scholars. All four aspects of explanation described by Aristotle trigger, function, substrate, and model are required for comprehension. Various modeling languages are described, ranging from set theory to calculus of variations, along with exemplary applications in behavior analysis. PMID:11369459

Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 5th edition - Volume 1

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tipler, Paul A.; Mosca, Gene P.

For nearly 30 years, Paul Tipler's Physics for Scientists and Engineers has set the standard in the introductory calculus-based physics course for clarity, accuracy, and precision. In this fifth edition, Paul has recruited Gene Mosca to bring his years of teaching experience to bear on the text, to scrutinize every explanation and example from the perspective of the freshman student. The result is a teaching tool that retains its precision and rigor, but offers struggling students the support they need to solve problems strategically and to gain real understanding of physical concepts.

Identifying Future Scientists: Predicting Persistence into Research Training

PubMed Central

2007-01-01

This study used semistructured interviews and grounded theory to look for characteristics among college undergraduates that predicted persistence into Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. training. Participants in the summer undergraduate and postbaccalaureate research programs at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine were interviewed at the start, near the end, and 8–12 months after their research experience. Of more than 200 themes considered, five characteristics predicted those students who went on to Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. training or to M.D. training intending to do research: 1) Curiosity to discover the unknown, 2) Enjoyment of problem solving, 3) A high level of independence, 4) The desire to help others indirectly through research, and 5) A flexible, minimally structured approach to the future. Web-based surveys with different students confirmed the high frequency of curiosity and/or problem solving as the primary reason students planned research careers. No evidence was found for differences among men, women, and minority and nonminority students. Although these results seem logical compared with successful scientists, their constancy, predictive capabilities, and sharp contrast to students who chose clinical medicine were striking. These results provide important insights into selection and motivation of potential biomedical scientists and the early experiences that will motivate them toward research careers. PMID:18056303

Identifying future scientists: predicting persistence into research training.

PubMed

McGee, Richard; Keller, Jill L

2007-01-01

This study used semistructured interviews and grounded theory to look for characteristics among college undergraduates that predicted persistence into Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. training. Participants in the summer undergraduate and postbaccalaureate research programs at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine were interviewed at the start, near the end, and 8-12 months after their research experience. Of more than 200 themes considered, five characteristics predicted those students who went on to Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. training or to M.D. training intending to do research: 1) Curiosity to discover the unknown, 2) Enjoyment of problem solving, 3) A high level of independence, 4) The desire to help others indirectly through research, and 5) A flexible, minimally structured approach to the future. Web-based surveys with different students confirmed the high frequency of curiosity and/or problem solving as the primary reason students planned research careers. No evidence was found for differences among men, women, and minority and nonminority students. Although these results seem logical compared with successful scientists, their constancy, predictive capabilities, and sharp contrast to students who chose clinical medicine were striking. These results provide important insights into selection and motivation of potential biomedical scientists and the early experiences that will motivate them toward research careers.

Visualization in Science and the Arts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roth, Susan King

Visualization as a factor of intelligence includes the mental manipulation of spatial configurations and has been associated with spatial abilities, creative thinking, and conceptual problem solving. There are numerous reports of scientists and mathematicians using visualization to anticipate transformation of the external world. Artists and…

New computer system simplifies programming of mathematical equations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinfelds, J.; Seitz, R. N.; Wood, L. H.

1966-01-01

Automatic Mathematical Translator /AMSTRAN/ permits scientists or engineers to enter mathematical equations in their natural mathematical format and to obtain an immediate graphical display of the solution. This automatic-programming, on-line, multiterminal computer system allows experienced programmers to solve nonroutine problems.

"The awe in which biologists hold physicists": Frits Went's first phytotron at Caltech, and an experimental definition of the biological environment.

PubMed

Munns, David P D

2014-01-01

After Darwin, experimental biology sought to unravel organisms. By the early twentieth century, organisms were broadly conceived as the product of their heredity and their environment. Much historical work has explored the scientific attack on the genotype, particularly through the new science of genetics. This article explores the tandem efforts to assert experimental control over the environment in which plants grew and developed. The case described here concerns the creation of the first phytotron at Caltech by botanist and plant physiologist Frits Went. Opening in 1949, the phytotron was a plant laboratory that, across a series of rooms and chambers, kept genes constant while regulating and maintaining defined ranges of known environments. This article details the context in which the phytotron emerged, how the phytotron gained its sobriquet, and how it served to cement the "environment" as a category of biological knowledge. Describing the institutional context of Caltech, its interdisciplinary culture, and its encouragement of adopting technology into biological science, I argue that the phytotron and the commensurate category of the "environment", were the product of the familiar movement to integrate the physical and biological sciences. In addition, however, the creation of the phytotron was also a broader story of plant physiologists establishing a definition of the "environment" in both physical and technological terms.

PREFACE: International Scientific and Research Conference on Topical Issues in Aeronautics and Astronautics (dedicated to the 55th anniversary from the foundation of SibSAU)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2015-10-01

The International Scientific and Research Conference ''Topical Issues in Aeronautics and Astronautics'' is one of the most significant scientific conferences arranged by the Reshetnev Siberian State Aerospace University (SibSAU) which is located in the Krasnoyarsk Region of Russian Federation. In April 2015 this Conference was dedicated to the 55th anniversary from the foundation of the University. Traditionally, the Conference is seen as emblematic of the University's specialty and is annually organized in April, when the first human travelled into space. This Conference is arranged for undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students, scientists and lecturers, as well as developers, designers and constructors representing leading companies and enterprises of the aerospace sector to give opportunities to present their projects, research work and results. The Conference is a great chance to connect scientists and highly-qualified and skilled specialists with a new community of future scientists and practitioners in the aerospace sector. The Conference proceedings include papers presented by creative young specialists closely connected with aviation and space vehicles - design, production, problem-solving in space machine building and aerospace education, macro- and microeconomic development of the field, new approaches to solving philosophical and social problems, - experienced scientists and specialists, and all those who want to dedicate themselves to aeronautics and astronautics. The selected papers are presented in these proceedings to share University research results, innovations and cutting-edge technologies with the international community to develop aeronautics and astronautics on a global scale.

Swedish Scientists have Solved Honey's Enigma

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Recently, it was discovered by Olofsson and Vasquez (2008) that a novel flora composed of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) of the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, exists in the honey stomach of the honey bee Apis mellifera. The twelve different flora members varied numerically with the sources o...

Sherlock Holmes as a Social Scientist.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ward, Veronica; Orbell, John

1988-01-01

Presents a way of teaching the scientific method through studying the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Asserting that Sherlock Holmes used the scientific method to solve cases, the authors construct Holmes' method through excerpts from novels featuring his adventures. Discusses basic assumptions, paradigms, theory building, and testing. (SLM)

Introduction to cognition in science and technology.

PubMed

Gorman, Michael E

2009-10-01

Cognitive studies of science and technology have had a long history of largely independent research projects that have appeared in multiple outlets, but rarely together. The emergence of a new International Society for Psychology of Science and Technology suggests that this is a good time to put some of the latest work in this area into topiCS in a way that will both acquaint readers with the cutting edge in this domain and also give them a hint of its history. One core theme includes how scientists, inventors, and engineers represent and solve problems; another, related theme is the extent to which they distribute and share cognition. Methodologies include fine-grained studies of historical records, protocols of working scientists, observations and comparisons of engineering science laboratories, and computational simulations designed both to serve as research tools and also to improve scientific problem-solving. The series of articles will conclude with the Associate Editor's suggestions for future research. Copyright © 2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

How to put to use results from research work in viable developments: Scope Water, an exciting new opportunity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kerner, Martin

2004-10-01

Here, we introduce an interactive communication and management system, Scope Water, which is constructed to establish a transfer of results from research work directed towards the solving of a specific problem. To proceed step by step towards this goal, the system uses a structured approach. Starting with the global exploration of knowledge, expertise, and ideas from experts, passing an objective assessment of this information and leading finally to a coopertive making up of a concept for problem solving by specialists. Scope Water has been developed on the basis of recent advances in cybernetic management experienced in team meetings and was successfully launched as a tool to gain quick access to recent results from research work on water by Strategic Science Consult Ltd. (SSC). SSC now plans to broaden the application of SCope Water by adding a platform which allows scientists on remote sensing to offer their results, knowledge and ideas as a service to help to solve specific problems on studying/monitoring aquatic systems. Single scientists, working groups and research instituitions are invited to participate in such a service metwork on remote sensing and are asked to ceclare their interest by sending an e-mail to the authors address given above.

Mission Technician

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hull, Dan

2012-01-01

The country's technological edge is receding, and the problem cannot be solved simply by flooding the workforce with more engineers and scientists. This comes as little surprise to administrators at the nation's community colleges. In 2007, the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Science, and the Institute of Medicine responded to…

Collaboration with Community Partners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sterling, Donna R.; Frazier, Wendy M.

2006-01-01

For eight years, relationships with community partners have been the mainstay of a science enrichment program for secondary students. Through the use of problem-based learning, science classes use, the techniques and tools of scientists to solve authentic problems directly related to students' interests and needs. In this article, the author…

Gliding into Understanding

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Patrick

2014-01-01

A rich science learning experience not only captures students' attention but also motivates them to investigate and solve problems and investigate how scientists carry out their work. This article describes how secondary science coordinator Patrick Brown's found success teaching students the nature of science by engaging them in…

ANALYTIC ELEMENT GROUND WATER MODELING AS A RESEARCH PROGRAM (1980-2006)

EPA Science Inventory

Scientists and engineers who use the analytic element method (AEM) for solving problems of regional ground water flow may be considered a community, and this community can be studied from the perspective of history and philosophy of science. Applying the methods of the Hungarian...

Boom. Bust. Build.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kite, Vance; Park, Soonhye

2018-01-01

In 2006 Jeanette Wing, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, proposed computational thinking (CT) as a literacy just as important as reading, writing, and mathematics. Wing defined CT as a set of skills and strategies computer scientists use to solve complex, computational problems (Wing 2006). The computer science and…

Exoplanet Orbit Database | Exoplanet Data Explorer

Science.gov Websites

, Strasbourg, France, NASA's Astrophysics Data System, the NASA Exoplanet Archive (and, formerly, the NASA/IPAC /Caltech. This research received generous funding from NASA and the NSF.

A Pressing Need for Gender Balance in AGU Honors Nominations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ball, Jessica

2014-03-01

AGU thrives on the volunteer efforts of its scientists, which is how I found myself agreeing to be a member of AGU's Science for Solutions Award committee last year. The award is targeted specifically at students and postdoctoral scientists who use Earth and space science to solve societal problems, and it was an intriguing experience to go through the process of evaluating the nominees and selecting a winner. All across the Union, members of other honors committees were going through a similar process, and at the 2013 Fall Meeting, those award recipients selected by the committees were honored.

Science & Technology Review September 2005

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Aufderheide III, M B

2005-07-19

This month's issue has the following articles: (1) The Pursuit of Fusion Energy--Commentary by William H. Goldstein; (2) A Dynamo of a Plasma--The self-organizing magnetized plasmas in a Livermore fusion energy experiment are akin to solar flares and galactic jets; (3) How One Equation Changed the World--A three-page paper by Albert Einstein revolutionized physics by linking mass and energy; (4) Recycled Equations Help Verify Livermore Codes--New analytic solutions for imploding spherical shells give scientists additional tools for verifying codes; and (5) Dust That.s Worth Keeping--Scientists have solved the mystery of an astronomical spectral feature in interplanetary dust particles.

Internet-Based Solutions for a Secure and Efficient Seismic Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhadha, R.; Black, M.; Bruton, C.; Hauksson, E.; Stubailo, I.; Watkins, M.; Alvarez, M.; Thomas, V.

2017-12-01

The Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN), operated by Caltech and USGS, leverages modern Internet-based computing technologies to provide timely earthquake early warning for damage reduction, event notification, ShakeMap, and other data products. Here we present recent and ongoing innovations in telemetry, security, cloud computing, virtualization, and data analysis that have allowed us to develop a network that runs securely and efficiently.Earthquake early warning systems must process seismic data within seconds of being recorded, and SCSN maintains a robust and resilient network of more than 350 digital strong motion and broadband seismic stations to achieve this goal. We have continued to improve the path diversity and fault tolerance within our network, and have also developed new tools for latency monitoring and archiving.Cyberattacks are in the news almost daily, and with most of our seismic data streams running over the Internet, it is only a matter of time before SCSN is targeted. To ensure system integrity and availability across our network, we have implemented strong security, including encryption and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).SCSN operates its own data center at Caltech, but we have also installed real-time servers on Amazon Web Services (AWS), to provide an additional level of redundancy, and eventually to allow full off-site operations continuity for our network. Our AWS systems receive data from Caltech-based import servers and directly from field locations, and are able to process the seismic data, calculate earthquake locations and magnitudes, and distribute earthquake alerts, directly from the cloud.We have also begun a virtualization project at our Caltech data center, allowing us to serve data from Virtual Machines (VMs), making efficient use of high-performance hardware and increasing flexibility and scalability of our data processing systems.Finally, we have developed new monitoring of station average noise levels at most stations. Noise monitoring is effective at identifying anthropogenic noise sources and malfunctioning acquisition equipment. We have built a dynamic display of results with sorting and mapping capabilities that allow us to quickly identify problematic sites and areas with elevated noise.

Participatory Design of Human-Centered Cyberinfrastructure (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pennington, D. D.; Gates, A. Q.

2010-12-01

Cyberinfrastructure, by definition, is about people sharing resources to achieve outcomes that cannot be reached independently. CI depends not just on creating discoverable resources, or tools that allow those resources to be processed, integrated, and visualized -- but on human activation of flows of information across those resources. CI must be centered on human activities. Yet for those CI projects that are directed towards observational science, there are few models for organizing collaborative research in ways that align individual research interests into a collective vision of CI-enabled science. Given that the emerging technologies are themselves expected to change the way science is conducted, it is not simply a matter of conducting requirements analysis on how scientists currently work, or building consensus among the scientists on what is needed. Developing effective CI depends on generating a new, creative vision of problem solving within a community based on computational concepts that are, in some cases, still very abstract and theoretical. The computer science theory may (or may not) be well formalized, but the potential for impact on any particular domain is typically ill-defined. In this presentation we will describe approaches being developed and tested at the CyberShARE Center of Excellence at University of Texas in El Paso for ill-structured problem solving within cross-disciplinary teams of scientists and computer scientists working on data intensive environmental and geoscience. These approaches deal with the challenges associated with sharing and integrating knowledge across disciplines; the challenges of developing effective teamwork skills in a culture that favors independent effort; and the challenges of evolving shared, focused research goals from ill-structured, vague starting points - all issues that must be confronted by every interdisciplinary CI project. We will introduce visual and semantic-based tools that can enable the collaborative research design process and illustrate their application in designing and developing useful end-to-end data solutions for scientists. Lastly, we will outline areas of future investigation within CyberShARE that we believe have the potential for high impact.

Acid Rain. Teacher's Guide. LHS GEMS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hocking, Colin; Barber, Jacqueline; Coonrod, Jan

This teacher's guide presents a unit on acid rain and introduces hands-on activities for sixth through eighth grade students. In each unit, students act as real scientists and gather evidence by using science process skills such as observing, measuring and recording data, classifying, role playing, problem solving, critical thinking, synthesizing…

The secret of the blue fog

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henrich, Oliver; Marenduzzo, Davide

2017-04-01

Why certain liquids turn blue when cooled was a mystery that stumped scientists for more than a century. As Oliver Henrich and Davide Marenduzzo explain, solving the secret of the “blue fog” proved to be an intellectual tour de force - and one that could lead to new types of display devices

Computational Thinking: A Digital Age Skill for Everyone

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barr, David; Harrison, John; Conery, Leslie

2011-01-01

In a seminal article published in 2006, Jeanette Wing described computational thinking (CT) as a way of "solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior by drawing on the concepts fundamental to computer science." Wing's article gave rise to an often controversial discussion and debate among computer scientists,…

Advances in Environmental Science and Technology, Volume Two.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pitts, James N., Jr., Ed.; Metcalf, Robert L., Ed.

The aim of this volume is to help delineate and solve the multitude of environmental problems our technology has created. Representing a diversity of notable approaches to crucial environmental issues, it features eight self-contained chapters by noted scientists. Topics range from broad considerations of air pollution and specific techniques for…

Developing Intuitive Reasoning with Graphs to Support Science Arguments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grueber, David

2011-01-01

Graphs are important for supporting critical thinking and scientific argumentation because students can use them to reason, make judgments and decisions, and solve problems like a scientist (Connery 2007). Yet teaching students how to use math to actually think critically continues to be difficult for teachers. This article describes two…

A Longitudinal Perspective on Inductive Reasoning Tasks. Illuminating the Probability of Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ifenthaler, Dirk; Seel, Norbert M.

2011-01-01

Cognitive scientists have studied internal cognitive structures, processes, and systems for decades in order to understand how they function in human learning. Nevertheless, questions concerning the diagnosis of changes in these cognitive structures while solving inductive reasoning tasks are still being scrutinized. This paper reports findings…

Solar System, in Perspective

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-03-24

This artist's concept puts solar system distances in perspective. The scale bar is in astronomical units, with each set distance beyond 1 AU representing 10 times the previous distance. One AU is the distance from the sun to the Earth, which is about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. Neptune, the most distant planet from the sun, is about 30 AU. Informally, the term "solar system" is often used to mean the space out to the last planet. Scientific consensus, however, says the solar system goes out to the Oort Cloud, the source of the comets that swing by our sun on long time scales. Beyond the outer edge of the Oort Cloud, the gravity of other stars begins to dominate that of the sun. The inner edge of the main part of the Oort Cloud could be as close as 1,000 AU from our sun. The outer edge is estimated to be around 100,000 AU. NASA's Voyager 1, humankind's most distant spacecraft, is around 125 AU. Scientists believe it entered interstellar space, or the space between stars, on Aug. 25, 2012. Much of interstellar space is actually inside our solar system. It will take about 300 years for Voyager 1 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly about 30,000 years to fly beyond it. Alpha Centauri is currently the closest star to our solar system. But, in 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will be closer to the star AC +79 3888 than to our own sun. AC +79 3888 is actually traveling faster toward Voyager 1 than the spacecraft is traveling toward it. The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Voyager missions are a part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. For more information about Voyager, visit: www.nasa.gov/voyager and voyager.jpl.nasa.gov . Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA image use policy. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Find us on Instagram

Monitor and Control of the Deep-Space network via Secure Web

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lamarra, N.

1997-01-01

(view graph) NASA lead center for robotic space exploration. Operating division of Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Current missions, Voyagers, Galileo, Pathfinder, Global Surveyor. Upcoming missions, Cassini, Mars and New Millennium.

Glass Stronger than Steel

DOE R&D Accomplishments Database

Yarris, Lynn

2011-03-28

A new type of damage-tolerant metallic glass, demonstrating a strength and toughness beyond that of steel or any other known material, has been developed and tested by a collaboration of researchers from Berkeley Lab and Caltech.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: NIR albedos of main-belt asteroids (Masiero+, 2014)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Masiero, J. R.; Grav, T.; Mainzer, A. K.; Nugent, C. R.; Bauer, J. M.; Stevenson, R.; Sonnett, S.

2017-04-01

To fit for NIR albedos of main-belt asteroids, we use data from the WISE/NEOWISE all-sky single exposure source table, which are available for download from the Infrared Science Archive (IRSA, http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu ; Cutri et al. 2012, xplanatory Supplement to the WISE All-Sky Data Release Products, http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/allsky/expsup/index.html). We extract photometric measurements of all asteroids observed by WISE following the technique described in Masiero et al. (2011, J/ApJ/741/68) and Mainzer et al. (2011ApJ...731...53M). In particular, we use the NEOWISE observations reported to the MPC and included in the MPC's minor planet observation database as the final validated list of reliable NEOWISE detections of solar system objects. (1 data file).

Featured Image: A Looping Stellar Stream

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kohler, Susanna

2016-11-01

This negative image of NGC 5907 (originally published inMartinez-Delgadoet al. 2008; click for the full view!) reveals the faint stellar stream that encircles the galaxy, forming loops around it a fossil of a recent merger. Mergers between galaxies come in several different flavors: major mergers, in which the merging galaxies are within a 1:5 ratio in stellar mass; satellite cannibalism, in which a large galaxy destroys a small satellite less than a 50th of its size; and the in-between case of minor mergers, in which the merging galaxieshave stellar mass ratios between 1:5 and 1:50. These minor mergers are thought to be relatively common, and they can have a significant effect on the dynamics and structure of the primary galaxy. A team of scientists led by Seppo Laine (Spitzer Science Center Caltech) has recently analyzed the metallicity and age of the stellar population in the stream around NGC 5907. By fitting these observations with a stellar population synthesis model, they conclude that this stream is an example of a massive minor merger, with a stellar mass ratio of at least 1:8. For more information, check out the paper below!CitationSeppo Laine et al 2016 AJ 152 72. doi:10.3847/0004-6256/152/3/72

How can we improve problem solving in undergraduate biology? Applying lessons from 30 years of physics education research.

PubMed

Hoskinson, A-M; Caballero, M D; Knight, J K

2013-06-01

If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated student problem solving for the past three decades. Although physics and biology problems differ in structure and content, the instructional purposes align closely: explaining patterns and processes in the natural world and making predictions about physical and biological systems. In this paper, we discuss how research-supported approaches developed by physics education researchers can be adopted by biologists to enhance student problem-solving skills. First, we compare the problems that biology students are typically asked to solve with authentic, complex problems. We then describe the development of research-validated physics curricula emphasizing process skills in problem solving. We show that solving authentic, complex biology problems requires many of the same skills that practicing physicists and biologists use in representing problems, seeking relationships, making predictions, and verifying or checking solutions. We assert that acquiring these skills can help biology students become competent problem solvers. Finally, we propose how biology scholars can apply lessons from physics education in their classrooms and inspire new studies in biology education research.

Last chance at Taurus-Littrow

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilhelms, D. E.

1992-01-01

By the fall of 1971, it was known that only two more Apollos would land on the Moon. Most geoscientists agreed that both should concentrate on the previously neglected terrae (highlands). In June 1991, the Apollo Site Selection Board (ASSB) had chosen Descartes as the site of the Apollo 16 terra landing, scheduled for April 1972. Therefore, we had to assess how many pre-Apollo objectives the first four landings had met, how many Apollo 16 was likely to meet, and how to meet the remaining ones with Apollo 17. Geologists convened at Caltech in November 1971 and formulated a list of major lunar problems. An edited version of the list is presented, and how the remaining problems influenced the Apollo 16 and 17 landing site selection process is discussed with particular emphasis on the selection of Taurus-Littrow as the landing site for Apollo 17. Apollo 17 returned a fine collection from the massifs, bright mantle, Sculptured Hills, subfloor basalt, and dark mantle of Taurus-Littrow. They answered many of 1971's questions, showed others to have been wrongly asked, and left others for us to ponder still today. A brief discussion of the problems solved and the questions raised by the Apollo Program are presented.

Professional identity in clinician-scientists: brokers between care and science.

PubMed

Kluijtmans, Manon; de Haan, Else; Akkerman, Sanne; van Tartwijk, Jan

2017-06-01

Despite increasing numbers of publications, science often fails to significantly improve patient care. Clinician-scientists, professionals who combine care and research activities, play an important role in helping to solve this problem. However, despite the ascribed advantages of connecting scientific knowledge and inquiry with health care, clinician-scientists are scarce, especially amongst non-physicians. The education of clinician-scientists can be complex because they must form professional identities at the intersection of care and research. The successful education of clinician-scientists requires insight into how these professionals view their professional identity and how they combine distinct practices. This study sought to investigate how recently trained nurse- and physiotherapist-scientists perceive their professional identities and experience the crossing of boundaries between care and research. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 nurse- and physiotherapist-scientists at 1 year after they had completed MSc research training. Interviews were thematically analysed using insights from the theoretical frameworks of dialogical self theory and boundary crossing. After research training, the initial professional identity, of clinician, remained important for novice clinician-scientists, whereas the scientist identity was experienced as additional and complementary. A meta-identity as broker, referred to as a 'bridge builder', seemed to mediate competing demands or tensions between the two positions. Obtaining and maintaining a dual work position were experienced as logistically demanding; nevertheless, it was considered beneficial for crossing the boundaries between care and research because it led to reflection on the health profession, knowledge integration, inquiry and innovation in care, improved data collection, and research with a focus on clinical applicability. Novice clinician-scientists experience dual professional identities as care providers and scientists. The meta-position of being a broker who connects care and research is seen as core to the unique clinician-scientist identity. To develop this role, identity formation and boundary-crossing competencies merit explicit attention within clinician-scientist programmes. © 2017 The Authors Medical Education published by Association for the Study of Medical Education and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

AROTAL Ozone and Temperature Vertical Profile Measurements from the NASA DC-8 during the SOLVE II Campaign

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McGee, Thomas J.; Twigg, Laurence; Sumnicht, Grant; Hoegy, Walter; Burris, John; Silbert, Donald; Heaps, William; Neuber, R.; Trepte, C. R.

2004-01-01

The AROTAL instrument (Airborne Raman Ozone Temperature and Aerosol Lidar) - a collaboration between scientists at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Langley Research Center - was flown on the NASA DC-8 during the SOLVE II Campaign during January and February, 2003. The flights were flown from the Arena Arctica in Kiruna, Sweden. We report measurements of temperature and ozone profiles showing approximately a 600 ppbv loss in ozone near 17.5 km, over the time frame of the aircraft campaign. Comparisons of ozone profiles from AROTAL are made with the SAGE III instrument.

Big Data: An Opportunity for Collaboration with Computer Scientists on Data-Driven Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baru, C.

2014-12-01

Big data technologies are evolving rapidly, driven by the need to manage ever increasing amounts of historical data; process relentless streams of human and machine-generated data; and integrate data of heterogeneous structure from extremely heterogeneous sources of information. Big data is inherently an application-driven problem. Developing the right technologies requires an understanding of the applications domain. Though, an intriguing aspect of this phenomenon is that the availability of the data itself enables new applications not previously conceived of! In this talk, we will discuss how the big data phenomenon creates an imperative for collaboration among domain scientists (in this case, geoscientists) and computer scientists. Domain scientists provide the application requirements as well as insights about the data involved, while computer scientists help assess whether problems can be solved with currently available technologies or require adaptaion of existing technologies and/or development of new technologies. The synergy can create vibrant collaborations potentially leading to new science insights as well as development of new data technologies and systems. The area of interface between geosciences and computer science, also referred to as geoinformatics is, we believe, a fertile area for interdisciplinary research.

Obituary: George Hamilton Bowen Jr. (1925-2009)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Willson, Lee Anne; Struck, Curtis

2011-12-01

Our colleague and collaborator George Hamilton Bowen, Jr., passed away November 1, 2009 in Ames, Iowa. George was born June 20, 1925 in Tulsa, Oklahoma to George and Dorothy (Huntington) Bowen. He married Marjorie Brown June 19, 1948 in Redondo Beach, California; they had five children, with eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren at the time of his death. George H. Bowen's third or perhaps his fourth career was in astronomy. He was drafted into the navy in 1944, at the end of his first year as a student at Caltech, and ended his war-time service as an electronic technician on the aircraft carrier Shangri-La. He later said "In just nine months, starting from scratch (Ohm's law!), we learned an amazing amount - not by memorization, of course, but by study and real understanding of the basic function of the most advanced AC circuits then being used for instrumentation, measurements, communications, control systems, and much more." He gained a confidence that he could quickly and accurately diagnose and solve technical problems that stood him well in future work. One accomplishment he took particular pride in was figuring out how the radar control used cams and gears to solve the trigonometry for accurate pointing. He also described how the captain was alarmed when weather conditions changed so that refraction no longer showed them distant, small boats around the curvature of Earth. After the war, George Bowen returned to undergraduate and eventually graduate study at Caltech, where he was recruited to the biophysics research group headed by future Nobel Laureate Max Delbrück. George often described his joy in working with these first-rate scientists and finding himself accepted as a part of the effort. He finished his BS with honors in 1949 and his PhD in 1953 with a thesis on "Kinetic Studies on the Mechanism of Photoreactivation of Bacteriophase T2 Inactivated by Ultraviolet Light" involving work with E Coli. This work was supported by grants from the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission and the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. George began a postdoctoral appointment in 1952 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, still in biophysics, before being recruited to the Department of Physics at Iowa State in 1954. While he became Emeritus Professor in 1993, he continued with his research until health considerations took primacy around 2007. When the biophysics effort in the Department of Physics split to form its own department in the early 1960s, George Bowen chose to stay with physics, commenting later that "It was clear to me that the important work was going to be in biochemistry and that was not my interest." At that time he and his wife, recovering from polio, were parenting a large family, and this may also have influenced his choice. He spent the next decade focusing on improving the teaching of physics at Iowa State, revising and documenting the lecture demonstrations, teaching a generation of physics and engineering majors (including some later very successful scientists), and giving himself time for family and hobbies, notably color photography with a laboratory at home. In the 1970s, George Bowen was ready to return to research, and found himself interested in the work being done in the astronomy program. Astronomy was a relatively recent addition to the department with just a few members. The newest arrival, Lee Anne Willson, was collaborating with Stephen Hill, an assistant professor at Michigan State and, coincidentally, one of the students who had benefited from Bowen's physics courses at Iowa State. Bowen became intrigued by the physical problem of the relation of pulsation and mass loss in pulsating red giants. When Hill left astronomy to become a geophysicist with the oil company Conoco, George Bowen volunteered to take over the code he had written. Bowen quickly mastered the science and the technical skills needed for this project. A number of factors probably made this possible: In addition to his native intelligence and insight, he was building on experience with complex systems in biology, a clarity derived from his teaching experience, and his problem-solving introduction in the Navy. After six months of working with Hill's code, Bowen started over and constructed his own code. What distinguished the Bowen code from other programs that have been written to similar purpose was his consistent use of simple but reasonable approximations to allow study of the complex interactions among physical processes that contribute to mass-loss. This made a nimble code well suited to determining the essential physics of the process that takes most stars from red giants to white dwarfs, and keeps stars in the range of 1.4-4 solar masses from exploding as supernovae. Although Bowen did not publish many papers in his relatively short astronomy career, his 1988 "Dynamical modeling of long- period variable star atmospheres" describing the physics is still a much-cited classic, and his 1991 paper with Willson, "From wind to superwind - The evolution of mass-loss rates for Mira models," laid out the essential properties of this important evolutionary stage. George Bowen contributed to astronomy also as the main organizer for the 1986 American Astronomical Society meeting in Ames, IA. He was always ready to help a student or a colleague, taking a lot of time over a referee report or response to a letter of inquiry. Those of us privileged to work closely with him feel his continued influence in our approach to problems and our interactions with our students. Devoted to his family, a man of high intellectual integrity and talent, George H. Bowen's legacy remains at Iowa State University and in the field of stellar astronomy.

Managing Our Environment, A Report on Ways Agricultural Research Fights Pollution.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC.

A report on the ways agricultural research attempts to fight pollution is presented in this series of articles covering some of the major challenges facing scientists and regulatory officials working in agricultural research. Improved resource management is stressed with the use of advanced technologies as the avenue to solving environmental…

Tractable Analysis for Large Social Networks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhang, Bin

2012-01-01

Social scientists usually are more interested in consumers' dichotomous choice, such as purchase a product or not, adopt a technology or not, etc. However, up to date, there is nearly no model can help us solve the problem of multi-network effects comparison with a dichotomous dependent variable. Furthermore, the study of multi-network…

Space Psychology: A New Frontier. Implications for the Profession of Psychology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ponterotto, Joseph G.; Hayden, Davis C.

As many of the physical problems of space travel are solved, scientists are beginning to address the psychological needs of the astronauts. While the last decade has produced technological advances making space travel and work a definite possibility, psychologists and the public are largely unaware of the psychological and socio-psychological…

Issues in Teacher Education; A Social Scientist's View.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Senesh, Lawrence

The basic problem in training teachers (teaching them what makes social institutions tick and how to relate this knowledge to present and future needs of children) has not been solved by teacher training institutions. The author's plan for a one-year social sciences training program emphasizing the project approach may provide a solution. Its…

Helping Young Students to Better Pose an Environmental Problem

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pruneau, Diane; Freiman, Viktor; Barbier, Pierre-Yves; Langis, Joanne

2009-01-01

Grade 3 students were asked to solve a sedimentation problem in a local river. With scientists, students explored many aspects of the problem and proposed solutions. Graphic representation tools were used to help students to better pose the problem. Using questionnaires and interviews, researchers observed students' capacity to pose the problem…

Student Misconceptions Caused by Misuse of Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paige, Robert

2007-01-01

Calculators used widely by students, teachers, scientists, engineers and many others provide an interesting case study of a compelling technology that has helped change the way many professionals work. They not only help in enhancing problem solving skills of most individuals, but also help visualise solutions to problems in a better way. Research…

Boulder Creek Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bingaman, Deirdre; Eitel, Karla Bradley

2010-01-01

Boulder Creek runs literally in the backyard of Donnelly Elementary School and happens to be on the EPA list of impaired water bodies. Therefore, a unique opportunity for problem solving opened the door to an exciting chance for students to become scientists, while also becoming active in their community. With the help of the Idaho Department of…

What's on Your Radar Screen? Distance-Rate-Time Problems from NASA

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Condon, Gregory W.; Landesman, Miriam F.; Calasanz-Kaiser, Agnes

2006-01-01

This article features NASA's FlyBy Math, a series of six standards-based distance-rate-time investigations in air traffic control. Sixth-grade students--acting as pilots, air traffic controllers, and NASA scientists--conduct an experiment and then use multiple mathematical representations to analyze and solve a problem involving two planes flying…

The Multiple Pendulum Problem via Maple[R

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salisbury, K. L.; Knight, D. G.

2002-01-01

The way in which computer algebra systems, such as Maple, have made the study of physical problems of some considerable complexity accessible to mathematicians and scientists with modest computational skills is illustrated by solving the multiple pendulum problem. A solution is obtained for four pendulums with no restriction on the size of the…

General Science, Ninth Grade: Theme I and Theme II. Experimental.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

New York City Board of Education, Brooklyn, NY. Div. of Curriculum and Instruction.

This document was designed to assist teachers who are helping ninth grade students in New York City learn scientific concepts. In addition, the guide emphasizes basic reasoning skills which underlie problem-solving processes in scientific and nonscientific disciplines. The first section of the guide contains lessons on what a scientist does,…

Vandalism and outdoor recreation: symposium proceedings

Treesearch

Sam S. Alfano; Arthur W. [tech. coord.] Magil

1976-01-01

Resource managers, law enforcement officers, designers, and social scientists provide 24 papers giving an overview of vandalism on outdoor recreation areas; a measure of the difficult control problems which must be solved; some insights for design of buildings, fixtures, and site layouts to reduce or repel vandalism; and a profile of vandals, with respect to the...

Determining the Deacetylation Degree of Chitosan: Opportunities to Learn Instrumental Techniques

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pérez-Álvarez, Leyre; Ruiz-Rubio, Leire; Vilas-Vilela, Jose Luis

2018-01-01

To enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills, a project-based learning (PBL) approach for "Instrumental Techniques" courses in undergraduate physical chemistry was specifically developed for a pharmacy bachelor degree program. The starting point of this PBL was an open-ended question that is close to the student scientist's…

Relevancy in Problem Solving: A Computational Framework

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kwisthout, Johan

2012-01-01

When computer scientists discuss the computational complexity of, for example, finding the shortest path from building A to building B in some town or city, their starting point typically is a formal description of the problem at hand, e.g., a graph with weights on every edge where buildings correspond to vertices, routes between buildings to…

Resources in Technology and Engineering: A Journey to Increase Student Engagement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akers, Ruth

2017-01-01

Increasing student achievement is a fundamental concern for many school districts and teachers. Providing students with engaging, blended STEM educational experiences may help them understand how scientists and engineers solve problems. The purpose of this article is to share teaching strategies and student activities that will not only increase…

[NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 1:] The value of Scientific and Technical Information (STI), its relationship to Research and Development (R&D), and its use by US aerospace engineers and scientists

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pinelli, Thomas E.; Glassman, Myron; Barclay, Rebecca O.; Oliu, Walter E.

1990-01-01

The relationship between scientific and technical information (STI), its use by aerospace engineers and scientists, and the aerospace R&D process is examined. Data are presented from studies of the role of STI in the performance and management of R&D activities and the behavior of engineers when using and seeking information. Consideration is given to the information sources used to solve technical problems, the production and use of technical communications, and the use of libraries, technical information centers, and on-line data bases.

Developing Technology Products - A Physicist's Perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burka, Michael

2014-03-01

There are many physicists working in the industrial sector. We rarely have the word physicist in our job title; we are far more commonly called engineers or scientists. But, we are physicists, and we succeed because our training in physics has given us the habits of mind and the technical skills that one needs to solve complex technical challenges. This talk will explore the transition from physics research to technology product development using examples from my own career, first as a postdoctoral fellow and research scientist on the LIGO project, and then developing products in the spectroscopy, telecommunications, and medical device industries. Approaches to identifying and pursuing opportunities in industry will be discussed.

JPL-20170926-TECHf-0001-Robot Descends into Alaska Moulin

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-09-26

JPL engineer Andy Klesh lowers a robotic submersible into a moulin. Klesh and JPL's John Leichty used robots and probes to explore the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska this past July. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Caltech Concurrent Computation Program - Project description

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fox, G.; Otto, S.; Lyzenga, G.; Rogstad, D.

1985-01-01

The Caltech Concurrent Computation Program wwhich studies basic issues in computational science is described. The research builds on initial work where novel concurrent hardware, the necessary systems software to use it and twenty significant scientific implementations running on the initial 32, 64, and 128 node hypercube machines have been constructed. A major goal of the program will be to extend this work into new disciplines and more complex algorithms including general packages that decompose arbitrary problems in major application areas. New high-performance concurrent processors with up to 1024-nodes, over a gigabyte of memory and multigigaflop performance are being constructed. The implementations cover a wide range of problems in areas such as high energy and astrophysics, condensed matter, chemical reactions, plasma physics, applied mathematics, geophysics, simulation, CAD for VLSI, graphics and image processing. The products of the research program include the concurrent algorithms, hardware, systems software, and complete program implementations.

Leon Knopoff (1926-2011)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davis, Paul; Jackson, David; Gilbert, Freeman

2011-06-01

Leon Knopoff died at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., on 20 January 2011 at the age of 85. A man of wide-ranging talents, he had the rare distinction of being simultaneously a professor of physics, a professor of geophysics, and a research musicologist at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). As an undergraduate he studied electrical engineering and obtained his Ph.D. in physics and mathematics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1949. He was recruited to the Institute of Geophysics (now the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics) at UCLA in 1950 by Louis Slichter, where he became a professor of geophysics in 1957 and of geophysics and physics in 1961. He became a research musicologist in the UCLA Institute of Ethnomusicology soon after it was formed in 1960. Other appointments included faculty positions at Miami University in Ohio (1948-1950) and Caltech (1962-1963) and visiting appointments at Cambridge, Karlsruhe, Harvard, Santiago, Trieste, and Venice.

Making the Case: Workforce, Education, Public Outreach and Communications as Mission-Critical Activities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Squires, Gordon K.; Brewer, Janesse; Dawson, Sandra; Program Organizing Committee "Making the Case" workshop 2017

2018-01-01

Increasingly, next-generation science projects will never see first light, or will lose their “right to operate” if they are unable to be responsive to emerging societal values and interests. Science projects with a robust and professional Workforce, Education, Public Outreach and Communications (WEPOC) architecture are able to engage and welcome public discourse about science, trade-offs, and what it means to be a good neighbor in a community. In this talk I will update the latest WEPOC efforts for TMT & NASA projects at Caltech/IPAC, and highlight how WEPOC has entered the critical path for many large, international science projects. I will also present a draft working document being developed by many of the world's largest astronomy and high-energy physics WEPOC leaders as an outcome from a "Making the Case" conference held at Caltech in spring 2017.

An observation of the Galactic center hard X-ray source, 1E 1740.7-2942, with the Caltech coded-aperture telescope

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heindl, William A.; Cook, Walter R.; Grunsfeld, John M.; Palmer, David M.; Prince, Thomas A.; Schindler, Stephen M.; Stone, Edward C.

1993-01-01

The Galactic center region hard X-ray source IE 1740.7-2942 has been observed with the Caltech Gamma-Ray Imaging Payload (GRIP) from Alice Springs, Australia, on 1988 April 12 and on 1989 April 3 and 4. We report here results from the 1989 measurements based on 14 hr of observation of the Galactic center region. The observations showed IE 1740.7-2942 to be in its normal state, having a spectrum between 35 and 200 keV characterized by a power law with an exponent of -2.2 +/- 0.3 and flux at 100 keV of (7.0 +/- 0.7) x 10 exp -5 sq cm s keV. No flux was detected above 200 keV. A search for time variability in the spectrum of IE 1740.7-2942 on one hour time scales showed no evidence for variability.

The MKID Camera

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maloney, P. R.; Czakon, N. G.; Day, P. K.; Duan, R.; Gao, J.; Glenn, J.; Golwala, S.; Hollister, M.; LeDuc, H. G.; Mazin, B.; Noroozian, O.; Nguyen, H. T.; Sayers, J.; Schlaerth, J.; Vaillancourt, J. E.; Vayonakis, A.; Wilson, P.; Zmuidzinas, J.

2009-12-01

The MKID Camera project is a collaborative effort of Caltech, JPL, the University of Colorado, and UC Santa Barbara to develop a large-format, multi-color millimeter and submillimeter-wavelength camera for astronomy using microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs). These are superconducting, micro-resonators fabricated from thin aluminum and niobium films. We couple the MKIDs to multi-slot antennas and measure the change in surface impedance produced by photon-induced breaking of Cooper pairs. The readout is almost entirely at room temperature and can be highly multiplexed; in principle hundreds or even thousands of resonators could be read out on a single feedline. The camera will have 576 spatial pixels that image simultaneously in four bands at 750, 850, 1100 and 1300 microns. It is scheduled for deployment at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in the summer of 2010. We present an overview of the camera design and readout and describe the current status of testing and fabrication.

NASA/IPAC Infrared Archive's General Image Cutouts Service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alexov, A.; Good, J. C.

2006-07-01

The NASA/IPAC Infrared Archive (IRSA) ``Cutouts" Service (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/applications/Cutouts) is a general tool for creating small ``cutout" FITS images and JPEGs from collections of data archived at IRSA. This service is a companion to IRSA's Atlas tool (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/applications/Atlas/), which currently serves over 25 different data collections of various sizes and complexity and returns entire images for a user-defined region of the sky. The Cutouts Services sits on top of Atlas and extends the Atlas functionality by generating subimages at locations and sizes requested by the user from images already identified by Atlas. These results can be downloaded individually, in batch mode (using the program wget), or as a tar file. Cutouts re-uses IRSA's software architecture along with the publicly available Montage mosaicking tools. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach to generic cutout serving will be discussed.

Robust nonlinear control of vectored thrust aircraft

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Doyle, John C.; Murray, Richard; Morris, John

1993-01-01

An interdisciplinary program in robust control for nonlinear systems with applications to a variety of engineering problems is outlined. Major emphasis will be placed on flight control, with both experimental and analytical studies. This program builds on recent new results in control theory for stability, stabilization, robust stability, robust performance, synthesis, and model reduction in a unified framework using Linear Fractional Transformations (LFT's), Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMI's), and the structured singular value micron. Most of these new advances have been accomplished by the Caltech controls group independently or in collaboration with researchers in other institutions. These recent results offer a new and remarkably unified framework for all aspects of robust control, but what is particularly important for this program is that they also have important implications for system identification and control of nonlinear systems. This combines well with Caltech's expertise in nonlinear control theory, both in geometric methods and methods for systems with constraints and saturations.

Investigations into the metabolic diversity of microorganisms as part of microbial diversity

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Leadbetter, Jared

DOE funds supported a key portion of the MBL Microbial Diversity (Woods Hole) program across 6 complete summers. The initial 4 years of the funded period were overseen by two co-Directors, Daniel Buckley (Cornell) and Steve Zinder (Cornell), who then completed their term. The final 2 summers were overseen by 2 new co-Directors, Jared R. Leadbetter (Caltech) and Dianne Newman (Caltech). The 6 funded summer iterations of the course included the incorporation of new themes such as single cell approaches applied to natural microbial communities (cell separation and sorting, genome amplification from single cells, and the use of Nano-SIMS tomore » examine assimilation of carbon and nitrogen from isotopically labeled substrates into single cells), genetics and genomics on bacteria freshly isolated during the course of the programs, quantitative systems biology, and modern quantitative light microscopy.« less

Overcoming the obstacles: Life stories of scientists with learning disabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Force, Crista Marie

Scientific discovery is at the heart of solving many of the problems facing contemporary society. Scientists are retiring at rates that exceed the numbers of new scientists. Unfortunately, scientific careers still appear to be outside the reach of most individuals with learning disabilities. The purpose of this research was to better understand the methods by which successful learning disabled scientists have overcome the barriers and challenges associated with their learning disabilities in their preparation and performance as scientists. This narrative inquiry involved the researcher writing the life stories of four scientists. These life stories were generated from extensive interviews in which each of the scientists recounted their life histories. The researcher used narrative analysis to "make sense" of these learning disabled scientists' life stories. The narrative analysis required the researcher to identify and describe emergent themes characterizing each scientist's life. A cross-case analysis was then performed to uncover commonalities and differences in the lives of these four individuals. Results of the cross-case analysis revealed that all four scientists had a passion for science that emerged at an early age, which, with strong drive and determination, drove these individuals to succeed in spite of the many obstacles arising from their learning disabilities. The analysis also revealed that these scientists chose careers based on their strengths; they actively sought mentors to guide them in their preparation as scientists; and they developed coping techniques to overcome difficulties and succeed. The cross-case analysis also revealed differences in the degree to which each scientist accepted his or her learning disability. While some demonstrated inferior feelings about their successes as scientists, still other individuals revealed feelings of having superior abilities in areas such as visualization and working with people. These individuals revealed beliefs that they developed these special abilities as a result of their learning differences, which made them better than their non-learning disabled peers in certain areas. Finally, the researcher discusses implications of these findings in the light of special accommodations that can be made by teachers, school counselors, and parents to encourage learning disabled children who demonstrate interest in becoming scientists.

Introduction to the Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Green, J. L. (Editor); Peters, D. J. (Editor)

1985-01-01

The Space Physics Analysis Network or SPAN is emerging as a viable method for solving an immediate communication problem for the space scientist. SPAN provides low-rate communication capability with co-investigators and colleagues, and access to space science data bases and computational facilities. The SPAN utilizes up-to-date hardware and software for computer-to-computer communications allowing binary file transfer and remote log-on capability to over 25 nationwide space science computer systems. SPAN is not discipline or mission dependent with participation from scientists in such fields as magnetospheric, ionospheric, planetary, and solar physics. Basic information on the network and its use are provided. It is anticipated that SPAN will grow rapidly over the next few years, not only from the standpoint of more network nodes, but as scientists become more proficient in the use of telescience, more capability will be needed to satisfy the demands.

Geoscience and Public Policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

White, K. S.

2013-12-01

Many current public policy issues have a geoscience component: climate change, natural hazards, energy, and mineral resources to name just a few. In addition, Congress makes decisions that directly affect scientists, such as funding allocations and visa and travel policy. Yet few geoscientists are engaged in the policy-making process. Members of Congress have called on scientists to become more active, including Ph.D. physicist and former-Representative Vernon Ehlers (R-MI). In an address at the 2010 AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy, he told scientists, "The gulf between the scientifically minded and those who are not scientifically minded is still tremendous. I think we are keeping far too quiet about what we know and how we would go about solving problems. We have so much to offer this country à solutions to various difficulties." This talk will provide information on avenues for geoscientists to more effectively engage in the public policy arena.

Aquatics Systems Branch: transdisciplinary research to address water-related environmental problems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Dong, Quan; Walters, Katie D.

2015-01-01

The Aquatic Systems Branch at the Fort Collins Science Center is a group of scientists dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary science and providing science support to solve water-related environmental issues. Natural resource managers have an increasing need for scientific information and stakeholders face enormous challenges of increasing and competing demands for water. Our scientists are leaders in ecological flows, riparian ecology, hydroscape ecology, ecosystem management, and contaminant biology. The Aquatic Systems Branch employs and develops state-of-the-science approaches in field investigations, laboratory experiments, remote sensing, simulation and predictive modeling, and decision support tools. We use the aquatic experimental laboratory, the greenhouse, the botanical garden and other advanced facilities to conduct unique research. Our scientists pursue research on the ground, in the rivers, and in the skies, generating and testing hypotheses and collecting quantitative information to support planning and design in natural resource management and aquatic restoration.

Improving Communication Skills in Early Career Scientists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saia, S. M.

2013-12-01

The AGU fall meeting is a time for scientists to share what we have been hard at work on for the past year, to share our trials and tribulations, and of course, to share our science (we hope inspirational). In addition to sharing, the AGU fall meeting is also about collaboration as it brings old and new colleagues together from diverse communities across the planet. By sharing our ideas and findings, we build new relationships with the potential to cross boundaries and solve complex and pressing environmental issues. With ever emerging and intensifying water scarcity, extreme weather, and water quality issues across the plant, it is especially important that scientists like us share our ideas and work together to put these ideas into action. My vision of the future of water sciences embraces this fact. I believe that better training is needed to help early career scientists, like myself, build connections within and outside of our fields. First and foremost, more advanced training in effective storytelling concepts and themes may improve our ability to provide context for our research. Second, training in the production of video for internet-based media (e.g. YouTube) may help us bring our research to audiences in a more personalized way. Third, opportunities to practice presenting at highly visible public events such as the AGU fall meeting, will serve to prepare early career scientists for a variety of audiences. We hope this session, ';Water Sciences Pop-Ups', will provide the first steps to encourage and train early career scientists as they share and collaborate with scientists and non-scientists around the world.

The cryomechanical design of MUSIC: a novel imaging instrument for millimeter-wave astrophysics at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hollister, Matthew I.; Czakon, Nicole G.; Day, Peter K.; Downes, Thomas P.; Duan, Ran; Gao, Jiansong; Glenn, Jason; Golwala, Sunil R.; LeDuc, Henry G.; Maloney, Philip R.; Mazin, Benjamin A.; Nguyen, Hien Trong; Noroozian, Omid; Sayers, Jack; Schlaerth, James; Siegel, Seth; Vaillancourt, John E.; Vayonakis, Anastasios; Wilson, Philip; Zmuidzinas, Jonas

2010-07-01

MUSIC (Multicolor Submillimeter kinetic Inductance Camera) is a new facility instrument for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (Mauna Kea, Hawaii) developed as a collaborative effect of Caltech, JPL, the University of Colorado at Boulder and UC Santa Barbara, and is due for initial commissioning in early 2011. MUSIC utilizes a new class of superconducting photon detectors known as microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs), an emergent technology that offers considerable advantages over current types of detectors for submillimeter and millimeter direct detection. MUSIC will operate a focal plane of 576 spatial pixels, where each pixel is a slot line antenna coupled to multiple detectors through on-chip, lumped-element filters, allowing simultaneously imaging in four bands at 0.86, 1.02, 1.33 and 2.00 mm. The MUSIC instrument is designed for closed-cycle operation, combining a pulse tube cooler with a two-stage Helium-3 adsorption refrigerator, providing a focal plane temperature of 0.25 K with intermediate temperature stages at approximately 50, 4 and 0.4 K for buffering heat loads and heat sinking of optical filters. Detector readout is achieved using semi-rigid coaxial cables from room temperature to the focal plane, with cryogenic HEMT amplifiers operating at 4 K. Several hundred detectors may be multiplexed in frequency space through one signal line and amplifier. This paper discusses the design of the instrument cryogenic hardware, including a number of features unique to the implementation of superconducting detectors. Predicted performance data for the instrument system will also be presented and discussed.

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 34: Users and uses of DOD technical reports: A report from the field

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pinelli, Thomas E.; Barclay, Rebecca O.; Kennedy, John M.

1993-01-01

The NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project attempts to understand the information environment in which U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists work, the information-seeking behavior of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists, and the factors that influence the use of scientific and technical information (STI) (Pinelli, Barclay, and Kennedy, 1991). Such an understanding could (1) lead to the development of practical theory, (2) contribute to the design and development of aerospace information systems, and (3) have practical implications for transferring the results of federally funded aerospace research and development (R&D) to the U.S. aerospace community. This paper presents data from two information-seeking behavior studies involving U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists that were undertaken as Phase 1 activities of the NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Responses from three groups of respondents - DoD, other government, and industry - are presented for two sets of selected questions. One set focuses on DoD technical reports: their use and importance, reasons for non-use, the factors affecting their use, the sources used to find out about them and the sources used to physically obtain them, and the quality of DoD technical reports. The second set focuses on information sources used in problem solving: the use of U.S. government technical reports in problem solving and the information sources used to find out about U.S. government technical reports.

Best practices in bioinformatics training for life scientists.

PubMed

Via, Allegra; Blicher, Thomas; Bongcam-Rudloff, Erik; Brazas, Michelle D; Brooksbank, Cath; Budd, Aidan; De Las Rivas, Javier; Dreyer, Jacqueline; Fernandes, Pedro L; van Gelder, Celia; Jacob, Joachim; Jimenez, Rafael C; Loveland, Jane; Moran, Federico; Mulder, Nicola; Nyrönen, Tommi; Rother, Kristian; Schneider, Maria Victoria; Attwood, Teresa K

2013-09-01

The mountains of data thrusting from the new landscape of modern high-throughput biology are irrevocably changing biomedical research and creating a near-insatiable demand for training in data management and manipulation and data mining and analysis. Among life scientists, from clinicians to environmental researchers, a common theme is the need not just to use, and gain familiarity with, bioinformatics tools and resources but also to understand their underlying fundamental theoretical and practical concepts. Providing bioinformatics training to empower life scientists to handle and analyse their data efficiently, and progress their research, is a challenge across the globe. Delivering good training goes beyond traditional lectures and resource-centric demos, using interactivity, problem-solving exercises and cooperative learning to substantially enhance training quality and learning outcomes. In this context, this article discusses various pragmatic criteria for identifying training needs and learning objectives, for selecting suitable trainees and trainers, for developing and maintaining training skills and evaluating training quality. Adherence to these criteria may help not only to guide course organizers and trainers on the path towards bioinformatics training excellence but, importantly, also to improve the training experience for life scientists.

Rescuing the physician-scientist workforce: the time for action is now.

PubMed

Milewicz, Dianna M; Lorenz, Robin G; Dermody, Terence S; Brass, Lawrence F

2015-10-01

The 2014 NIH Physician-Scientist Workforce (PSW) Working Group report identified distressing trends among the small proportion of physicians who consider research to be their primary occupation. If unchecked, these trends will lead to a steep decline in the size of the workforce. They include high rates of attrition among young investigators, failure to maintain a robust and diverse pipeline, and a marked increase in the average age of physician-scientists, as older investigators have chosen to continue working and too few younger investigators have entered the workforce to replace them when they eventually retire. While the policy debates continue, here we propose four actions that can be implemented now. These include applying lessons from the MD-PhD training experience to postgraduate training, shortening the time to independence by at least 5 years, achieving greater diversity and numbers in training programs, and establishing Physician-Scientist Career Development offices at medical centers and universities. Rather than waiting for the federal government to solve our problems, we urge the academic community to address these goals by partnering with the NIH and national clinical specialty and medical organizations.

Best practices in bioinformatics training for life scientists

PubMed Central

Blicher, Thomas; Bongcam-Rudloff, Erik; Brazas, Michelle D.; Brooksbank, Cath; Budd, Aidan; De Las Rivas, Javier; Dreyer, Jacqueline; Fernandes, Pedro L.; van Gelder, Celia; Jacob, Joachim; Jimenez, Rafael C.; Loveland, Jane; Moran, Federico; Mulder, Nicola; Nyrönen, Tommi; Rother, Kristian; Schneider, Maria Victoria; Attwood, Teresa K.

2013-01-01

The mountains of data thrusting from the new landscape of modern high-throughput biology are irrevocably changing biomedical research and creating a near-insatiable demand for training in data management and manipulation and data mining and analysis. Among life scientists, from clinicians to environmental researchers, a common theme is the need not just to use, and gain familiarity with, bioinformatics tools and resources but also to understand their underlying fundamental theoretical and practical concepts. Providing bioinformatics training to empower life scientists to handle and analyse their data efficiently, and progress their research, is a challenge across the globe. Delivering good training goes beyond traditional lectures and resource-centric demos, using interactivity, problem-solving exercises and cooperative learning to substantially enhance training quality and learning outcomes. In this context, this article discusses various pragmatic criteria for identifying training needs and learning objectives, for selecting suitable trainees and trainers, for developing and maintaining training skills and evaluating training quality. Adherence to these criteria may help not only to guide course organizers and trainers on the path towards bioinformatics training excellence but, importantly, also to improve the training experience for life scientists. PMID:23803301

How Can We Improve Problem Solving in Undergraduate Biology? Applying Lessons from 30 Years of Physics Education Research

PubMed Central

Hoskinson, A.-M.; Caballero, M. D.; Knight, J. K.

2013-01-01

If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated student problem solving for the past three decades. Although physics and biology problems differ in structure and content, the instructional purposes align closely: explaining patterns and processes in the natural world and making predictions about physical and biological systems. In this paper, we discuss how research-supported approaches developed by physics education researchers can be adopted by biologists to enhance student problem-solving skills. First, we compare the problems that biology students are typically asked to solve with authentic, complex problems. We then describe the development of research-validated physics curricula emphasizing process skills in problem solving. We show that solving authentic, complex biology problems requires many of the same skills that practicing physicists and biologists use in representing problems, seeking relationships, making predictions, and verifying or checking solutions. We assert that acquiring these skills can help biology students become competent problem solvers. Finally, we propose how biology scholars can apply lessons from physics education in their classrooms and inspire new studies in biology education research. PMID:23737623

IP Network Design and Implementation for the Caltech-USGS Element of TriNet

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnson, M. L.; Busby, R.; Watkins, M.; Schwarz, S.; Hauksson, E.

2001-12-01

The new seismic network IP numbering scheme for the Caltech-USGS element of TriNet is designed to provide emergency response plans for computer outages and/or telemetry circuit failures so that data acquisition may continue with minimal interruption. IP numbers from the seismic stations through the Caltech acquisition machines are numbered using private, non-routable IP addresses, which allows the network administrator to create redundancy in the network design, more freedom in choosing IP numbers, and uniformity in the LAN and WAN network addressing. The network scheme used by the Caltech-USGS element of TriNet is designed to create redundancy and load sharing over three or more T1 circuits. A T1 circuit can support 80 dataloggers sending data at a design rate of 19.2 kbps or 120 dataloggers transmitting at a nominal rate of 12.8 kbps. During a circuit detour, the 80 dataloggers on the failed T1 are equally divided between the remaining two circuits. This increases the loads on the remaining two circuits to 120 dataloggers, which is the maximum load each T1 can handle at the nominal rate. Each T1 circuit has a router interface onto a LAN at Caltech with an independent subnet address. Some devices, such as Solaris computers, allow a single interface to be numbered with several IP addresses, a so called "multinetted" interface. This allows the central acquisition computers to appear with distinct addresses that are routable via different T1 circuits, but simplifies the physical cables between devices. We identify these T1 circuits as T1-1, T1-2, and T1-3. At the remote end, each Frame Relay Access Device (FRAD) and connected datalogger(s) is a subnetted LAN. The numbering is arranged so the second octet in the LAN IP address of the FRAD and datalogger identify the datalogger's primary and alternate T1 circuits. For example; a LAN with an IP address of 10.12.0.0/24 has T1-1 as its primary T1, and T1-2 as its alternate circuit. Stations with this number scheme are sometimes referred to as group "12". LANs with IP addresses of 10.23.0.0/24 have T1-2 as the primary circuit, and T1-3 as the alternate circuit. Static routes on the acquisition system are used to direct traffic through the primary T1. The network can operate in one of three modes. The most common and desirable mode is "normal", where all three T1's are operational and Caltech has both a primary and secondary central acquisition system running. The second mode is a "failover", where the primary acquisition system is down (due to maintenance or failure) and the secondary acquisition system assumes the primary role. This includes sending acknowledgments to dataloggers and multicasts to the rest of the network. The third mode is a circuit detour. The port numbers on the central acquisition system for the dataloggers on the failed T1 are changed to match the auxiliary ports on the dataloggers. This allows for the auxiliary ports on the dataloggers to receive acknowledgements from the acquiring system through the detoured circuit. The static routes on the system are changed to go through the detoured circuit as specified by the group's IP numbers. At this point the two working T1's will be running at full capacity but the data acquisition will continue with minimal interruption while the third T1 is being restored. The primary acquisition computer continues to listen for data on the failed T1 should things improve spontaneously.

Students Inspiring Students: An Online Tool for Science Fair Participants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seeman, Jeffrey I.; Lawrence, Tom

2011-01-01

One goal of 21st-century education is to develop mature citizens who can identify issues, solve problems, and communicate solutions. What better way for students to learn these skills than by participating in a science and engineering fair? Fair participants face the same challenges as professional scientists and engineers, even Nobel laureates.…

Using multi-criteria analysis of simulation models to understand complex biological systems

Treesearch

Maureen C. Kennedy; E. David Ford

2011-01-01

Scientists frequently use computer-simulation models to help solve complex biological problems. Typically, such models are highly integrated, they produce multiple outputs, and standard methods of model analysis are ill suited for evaluating them. We show how multi-criteria optimization with Pareto optimality allows for model outputs to be compared to multiple system...

How Scientists Use Critical-Thinking Skills: Isolating Both Total RNA and Protein Using the Same Small Organ

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Porta, Angela R.; Dhawan, Puneet

2006-01-01

Undergraduate biology programs are currently undergoing reform to involve students in biomedical research. Engaging students in more active, hands-on experiments allows students to discover scientific principles for themselves, and to develop techniques of critical thinking and problem solving. This models the world of real scientific research,…

Water Pollution, A Scientists' Institute for Public Information Workbook.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berg, George G.

Analyzed are the reasons why present mechanisms for the control of water purity are inadequate. The control of waterborne epidemics is discussed to illustrate a problem which has been solved, then degradation of the environment is presented as an unsolved problem. Case histories are given of pollution and attempts at control in rivers, lakes,…

Crabby Interactions: Fifth Graders Explore Human Impact on the Blue Crab Population

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jeffery, Tonya D.; McCollough, Cherie A.; Moore, Kim

2016-01-01

This article describes a two-day lesson in which fifth-grade students took on the role of marine biology scientists, using their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills to explore human impact on the blue crab ecosystem. The purpose of "Crabby Interactions" was to help students understand the impact of human activities on the local…

Elk Habitat: A Case Study of Scientific Inquiry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Graves, C. John

2009-01-01

A case study is an excellent way to help students think like scientists as they work to solve a dilemma. This article describes a case study of elk in Yellowstone National Park. Students read short narratives, based on scientific research data, about the puzzling question of why some elk live substantially longer than others in certain areas of…

From the NIH: A Systems Approach to Increasing the Diversity of the Biomedical Research Workforce

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Valantine, Hannah A.; Lund, P. Kay; Gammie, Alison E.

2016-01-01

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to attracting, developing, and supporting the best scientists from all groups as an integral part of excellence in training. Biomedical research workforce diversity, capitalizing on the full spectrum of skills, talents, and viewpoints, is essential for solving complex human health challenges.…

Effect of Cooperative Problem-Based Lab Instruction on Metacognition and Problem-Solving Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sandi-Urena, Santiago; Cooper, Melanie; Stevens, Ron

2012-01-01

While most scientists agree that laboratory work is an important part of introductory science courses, there is scant evidence for the relationship between laboratory work and student learning, particularly at the college level. This work reports the quantitative component of a mixed-methods study of the effect of cooperative problem-based…

Powering Mars Rovers

ScienceCinema

Stewert, Robin

2018-01-15

INL scientists are doing their best to help solve our energy problems here on Earth. But did you know the lab is playing a key role in the exploration of other worlds, too? Meet INL Engineer Robin Stewart helps build and test generators that power NASA missions to Pluto and Mars. You can learn more about INL projects at http://www.facebook.com/idahonationallaboratory.

Learning to Argue as a Biotechnologist: Disprivileging Opposition to Genetically Modified Food

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Solli, Anne; Bach, Frank; Åkerman, Björn

2014-01-01

In the public discussion of genetically modified (GM) food the representations of science as a social good, conducted in the public interest to solve major problems are being subjected to intense scrutiny and questioning. Scientists working in these areas have been seen to struggle for the position of science in society. However few in situ…

Open-Phylo: a customizable crowd-computing platform for multiple sequence alignment

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Citizen science games such as Galaxy Zoo, Foldit, and Phylo aim to harness the intelligence and processing power generated by crowds of online gamers to solve scientific problems. However, the selection of the data to be analyzed through these games is under the exclusive control of the game designers, and so are the results produced by gamers. Here, we introduce Open-Phylo, a freely accessible crowd-computing platform that enables any scientist to enter our system and use crowds of gamers to assist computer programs in solving one of the most fundamental problems in genomics: the multiple sequence alignment problem. PMID:24148814

NASA’s Universe of Learning: Engaging Subject Matter Experts to Support Museum Alliance Science Briefings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marcucci, Emma; Slivinski, Carolyn; Lawton, Brandon L.; Smith, Denise A.; Squires, Gordon K.; Biferno, Anya A.; Lestition, Kathleen; Cominsky, Lynn R.; Lee, Janice C.; Rivera, Thalia; Walker, Allyson; Spisak, Marilyn

2018-06-01

NASA's Universe of Learning creates and delivers science-driven, audience-driven resources and experiences designed to engage and immerse learners of all ages and backgrounds in exploring the universe for themselves. The project is a unique partnership between the Space Telescope Science Institute, Caltech/IPAC, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Sonoma State University and is part of the NASA SMD Science Activation Collective. The NASA’s Universe of Learning projects pull on the expertise of subject matter experts (scientist and engineers) from across the broad range of NASA Astrophysics themes and missions. One such project, which draws strongly on the expertise of the community, is the NASA’s Universe of Learning Science Briefings, which is done in collaboration with the NASA Museum Alliance. This collaboration presents a monthly hour-long discussion on relevant NASA astrophysics topics or events to an audience composed largely of informal educators from informal learning environments. These professional learning opportunities use experts and resources within the astronomical community to support increased interest and engagement of the informal learning community in NASA Astrophysics-related concepts and events. Briefings are designed to create a foundation for this audience using (1) broad science themes, (2) special events, or (3) breaking science news. The NASA’s Universe of Learning team engages subject matter experts to be speakers and present their science at these briefings to provide a direct connection to NASA Astrophysics science and provide the audience an opportunity to interact directly with scientists and engineers involved in NASA missions. To maximize the usefulness of the Museum Alliance Science Briefings, each briefing highlights resources related to the science theme to support informal educators in incorporating science content into their venues and/or interactions with the public. During this presentation, learn how you can help contribute to the NASA’s Universe of Learning and take part in Science Briefings.

NASA’s Universe of Learning: Providing a Direct Connection to NASA Science for Learners of all Ages with ViewSpace

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lawton, Brandon L.; Rhue, Timothy; Smith, Denise A.; Squires, Gordon K.; Biferno, Anya A.; Lestition, Kathleen; Cominsky, Lynn R.; Godfrey, John; Lee, Janice C.; Manning, Colleen

2018-06-01

NASA's Universe of Learning creates and delivers science-driven, audience-driven resources and experiences designed to engage and immerse learners of all ages and backgrounds in exploring the universe for themselves. The project is the result of a unique partnership between the Space Telescope Science Institute, Caltech/IPAC, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Sonoma State University, and is one of 27 competitively-selected cooperative agreements within the NASA Science Mission Directorate STEM Activation program. The NASA's Universe of Learning team draws upon cutting-edge science and works closely with Subject Matter Experts (scientists and engineers) from across the NASA Astrophysics Physics of the Cosmos, Cosmic Origins, and Exoplanet Exploration themes. As one example, NASA’s Universe of Learning program is uniquely able to provide informal learning venues with a direct connection to the science of NASA astrophysics via the ViewSpace platform. ViewSpace is a modular multimedia exhibit where people explore the latest discoveries in our quest to understand the universe. Hours of awe-inspiring video content connect users’ lives with an understanding of our planet and the wonders of the universe. This experience is rooted in informal learning, astronomy, and earth science. Scientists and educators are intimately involved in the production of ViewSpace material. ViewSpace engages visitors of varying backgrounds and experience at museums, science centers, planetariums, and libraries across the United States. In addition to creating content, the Universe of Learning team is updating the ViewSpace platform to provide for additional functionality, including the introduction of digital interactives to make ViewSpace a multi-modal learning experience. During this presentation we will share the ViewSpace platform, explain how Subject Matter Experts are critical in creating content for ViewSpace, and how we are addressing audience needs and using evaluation to support a dedicated user base across the country.

Geological mysteries on Ganymede

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

This image shows some unusual features on the surface of Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. NASA's Galileo spacecraft imaged this region as it passed Ganymede during its second orbit through the Jovian system. The region is located at 31 degrees latitude, 186 degrees longitude in the north of Marius Regio, a region of ancient dark terrain, and is near the border of a large swathe of younger, heavily tectonised bright terrain known as Nippur Sulcus. Situated in the transitional region between these two terrain types, the area shown here contains many complex tectonic structures, and small fractures can be seen crisscrossing the image. North is to the top-left of the picture, and the sun illuminates the surface from the southeast. This image is centered on an unusual semicircular structure about 33 kilometers (20 miles) across. A 38 kilometer (24 miles) long, remarkably linear feature cuts across its northern extent, and a wide east-west fault system marks its southern boundary. The origin of these features is the subject of much debate among scientists analyzing the data. Was the arcuate structure part of a larger feature? Is the straight lineament the result of internal or external processes? Scientists continue to study this data in order to understand the surface processes occurring on this complex satellite.

The image covers an area approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles) by 52 kilometers (32 miles) across. The resolution is 189 meters (630 feet) per picture element. The images were taken on September 6, 1996 at a range of 9,971 kilometers (6,232 miles) by the solid state imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.

Unsolved problems in biology--The state of current thinking.

PubMed

Dev, Sukhendu B

2015-03-01

Many outstanding problems have been solved in biology and medicine for which scientists have been awarded prestigious prizes including the Nobel Prize, Lasker Award and Breakthrough Prizes in life sciences. These have been the fruits of years of basic research. From time to time, publications have appeared listing "unsolved" problems in biology. In this article, I ask the question whether it is possible to have such a list, if not a unique one, at least one that is analogous to the Millennium Prize in mathematics. My approach to finding an answer to this question was to gather views of leading biologists. I have also included my own views. Analysis of all the responses received over several years has convinced me that it is difficult, but not impossible, to have such a prize. Biology is complex and very interdisciplinary these days at times involving large numbers of teams, unlike mathematics, where Andrew Wiles spent seven years in complete isolation and secrecy solving Fermat's last theorem. Such an approach is simply not possible in biology. Still I would like to suggest that a similar prize can be established by a panel of distinguished scientists. It would be awarded to those who solved one of the listed problems in biology that warrant a verifiable solution. Despite many different opinions, I found that there is some commonality in the responses I received - I go on to discuss what these are and how they may impact future thinking. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Theoretical Investigations of Clouds and Aerosols in the Stratosphere and Upper Troposphere

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Toon, Owen B.

2005-01-01

support of the Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling and Data Analysis Program. We investigated a wide variety of issues involving ambient stratospheric aerosols, polar stratospheric clouds or heterogeneous chemistry, analysis of laboratory data, and particles in the upper troposphere. The papers resulting from these studies are listed below. In addition, I participated in the 1999-2000 SOLVE mission as one of the project scientists and in the 2002 CRYSTAL field mission as one of the project scientists. Several CU graduate students and research associates also participated in these mission, under support from the ACMAP program, and worked to interpret data. During the past few years my group has completed a number of projects under the

The increasing influence of medical image processing in clinical neuroimaging.

PubMed

Barillot, Christian

2007-01-20

This paper review the evolution of clinical neuroinformatics domain in the passed and gives an outlook how this research field will evolve in clinical neurology (e.g. Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Dementia) and neurosurgery (e.g. image guided surgery, intra-operative imaging, the definition of the Operation Room of the future). These different issues, as addressed by the VisAGeS research team, are discussed in more details and the benefits of a close collaboration between clinical scientists (radiologist, neurologist and neurosurgeon) and computer scientists are shown to give adequate answers to the series of problems which needs to be solved for a more effective use of medical images in clinical neurosciences.

Firefly: embracing future web technologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roby, W.; Wu, X.; Goldina, T.; Joliet, E.; Ly, L.; Mi, W.; Wang, C.; Zhang, Lijun; Ciardi, D.; Dubois-Felsmann, G.

2016-07-01

At IPAC/Caltech, we have developed the Firefly web archive and visualization system. Used in production for the last eight years in many missions, Firefly gives the scientist significant capabilities to study data. Firefly provided the first completely web based FITS viewer as well as a growing set of tabular and plotting visualizers. Further, it will be used for the science user interface of the LSST telescope which goes online in 2021. Firefly must meet the needs of archive access and visualization for the 2021 LSST telescope and must serve astronomers beyond the year 2030. Recently, our team has faced the fact that the technology behind Firefly software was becoming obsolete. We were searching for ways to utilize the current breakthroughs in maintaining stability, testability, speed, and reliability of large web applications, which Firefly exemplifies. In the last year, we have ported the Firefly to cutting edge web technologies. Embarking on this massive overhaul is no small feat to say the least. Choosing the technologies that will maintain a forward trajectory in a future development project is always hard and often overwhelming. When a team must port 150,000 lines of code for a production-level product there is little room to make poor choices. This paper will give an overview of the most modern web technologies and lessons learned in our conversion from GWT based system to React/Redux based system.

Crowd-Sourcing Seismic Data: Lessons Learned from the Quake-Catcher Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cochran, E. S.; Sumy, D. F.; DeGroot, R. M.; Clayton, R. W.

2015-12-01

The Quake Catcher Network (QCN; qcn.caltech.edu) uses low cost micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) sensors hosted by volunteers to collect seismic data. Volunteers use accelerometers internal to laptop computers, phones, tablets or small (the size of a matchbox) MEMS sensors plugged into desktop computers using a USB connector to collect scientifically useful data. Data are collected and sent to a central server using the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) distributed computing software. Since 2008, when the first citizen scientists joined the QCN project, sensors installed in museums, schools, offices, and residences have collected thousands of earthquake records. We present and describe the rapid installations of very dense sensor networks that have been undertaken following several large earthquakes including the 2010 M8.8 Maule Chile, the 2010 M7.1 Darfield, New Zealand, and the 2015 M7.8 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake. These large data sets allowed seismologists to develop new rapid earthquake detection capabilities and closely examine source, path, and site properties that impact ground shaking at a site. We show how QCN has engaged a wide sector of the public in scientific data collection, providing the public with insights into how seismic data are collected and used. Furthermore, we describe how students use data recorded by QCN sensors installed in their classrooms to explore and investigate earthquakes that they felt, as part of 'teachable moment' exercises.

NASA/Caltech Team Images Nepal Quake Fault Rupture, Surface Movements

NASA Image and Video Library

2015-05-04

Using a combination of GPS-measured ground motion data, satellite radar data, and seismic observations from instruments distributed around the world, scientists have constructed preliminary estimates of how much the fault responsible for the April 25, 2015, magnitude 7.8 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal moved below Earth's surface (Figure 1). This information is useful for understanding not only what happened in the earthquake but also the potential for future events. It can also be used to infer a map of how Earth's surface moved due to the earthquake over a broader region (Figure 2). The maps created from these data can be viewed at PIA19384. In the first figure, the modeled slip on the fault is shown as viewed from above and indicated by the colors and contours within the rectangle. The peak slip in the fault exceeds 19.7 feet (6 meters). The ground motion measured with GPS is shown by the red and purple arrows and was used to develop the fault slip model. In the second figure, color represents vertical movement and the scaled arrows indicate direction and magnitude of horizontal movement. In both figures, aftershocks are indicated by red dots. Background color and shaded relief reflect regional variations in topography. The barbed lines show where the main fault reaches Earth's surface. The main fault dives northward into the Earth below the Himalaya. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19384

Team Problem Solving Strategies with a Survey of These Methods Used by Faculty Members in Engineering Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marcus, Michael L.; Winters, Dixie L.

2004-01-01

Students from science, engineering, and technology programs should be able to work together as members of project teams to find solutions to technical problems. The exercise in this paper describes the methods actually used by a project team from a Biomedical Instrumentation Corporation in which scientists, technicians, and engineers from various…

Commentary: Attitude Adjustment--Educating PhD Scientist for Business Careers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schuster, Sheldon M.

2011-01-01

The PhD graduate from a US research academic institution who has worked 5-7 years to solve a combination of laboratory and computational problems after an in-depth classroom experience is likely superbly trained in at least a subset of the life sciences and the underlying methodology and thought processes required to perform high level research.…

Harnessing the crowd to accelerate molecular medicine research.

PubMed

Smith, Robert J; Merchant, Raina M

2015-07-01

Crowdsourcing presents a novel approach to solving complex problems within molecular medicine. By leveraging the expertise of fellow scientists across the globe, broadcasting to and engaging the public for idea generation, harnessing a scalable workforce for quick data management, and fundraising for research endeavors, crowdsourcing creates novel opportunities for accelerating scientific progress. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Importance of Mathematical Models to Scientific Discovery: A Case Study on the Feeding Mechanism of the Goliath Grouper "Epinephelus itajara"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huber, Daniel; Jones, Leslie; Helminski, Christine

2015-01-01

The use of collaborative problem solving within mathematics education is imperative in this day and age of integrative science. The formation of interdisciplinary teams of mathematicians and scientists to investigate crucial problems is on the rise, as greater insight can be gained from an interdisciplinary perspective. Mathematical modelling, in…

Experience of valorization projects ISTC for laser technologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sartory, A. V.; Stepennov, D. B.; Vlasova, E. Y.; Pokrovsky, K. K.

2002-04-01

Application of the achievements of the ISTC projects is one of the main problems being solved to achieve one of the basic goals of the ISTC, namely, to adapt Russian scientists to conditions of developing market economy in Russia. The present report is aimed at rendering of promotional services for ISTC project teams in the context of the program of projects outcomes valorization.

Independent Synthesis Projects in the Organic Chemistry Teaching Laboratories: Bridging the Gap between Student and Researcher

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keller, Valerie A.; Kendall, Beatrice Lin

2017-01-01

Science educators strive to teach students how to be well-rounded scientists with the ability to problem solve, anticipate errors, and adapt to unexpected roadblocks. Traditional organic chemistry experiments seldom teach these skills, no matter how novel or contemporary the subject material. This paper reports on the success of a quarter-long…

A Physics Lesson Designed According to 7E Model with the Help of Instructional Technology (Lesson Plan)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gonen, Selahattin; Kocakaya, Serhat

2010-01-01

Students enter the classrooms with a preexisting knowledge of science concepts. These science concepts sometimes show inconsistency with the accepted ones by the scientists and called as misconceptions. Studies applied science field have to get possession of abilities that not only detect these misconceptions also help to solve these problems.…

[Dr. Edmond Locard (1877-1966), the Sherlock Holmes of Lyons].

PubMed

Maze, Michel; Stagnara, Denise; Fischer, Louis-Paul

2007-01-01

Doctor Edmond Locard (1877-1966), a French forensic scientist, a disciple of famous Professor Alexandre Lacassagne, created in Lyons, in 1910, the first French laboratory of technical police. During more than fourty years, he used and developed new scientific techniques (fingerprint identification, study of marks and dust...) in order to help the policemen and judges to solve the most horrible crimes.

Are Fourth and Fifth Grade Children Better Scientists through Metacognitive Learning?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dejonckheere, Peter; Van de Keere, Kristof; Tallir, Isabel

2011-01-01

Introduction: A way to find out how scientific thinking in children develops is to focus on the processes that are involved. As such, scientific thinking can be seen as a particular form of problem solving in which the problem solver selects a strategy from the space of possible experiments that can reveal the cause of an event. Notwithstanding…

Stewart and Ray's Big Adventure: A Research Experience for Teachers at UMASS/Amherst

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCarthy, Ray

2011-01-01

Late in the winter of 2010, teachers across Massachusetts received invitations to apply for six- to eight-week Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in which middle or high school teachers in STEM subjects would work alongside scientists and their graduate students as they sought to solve real-world problems. This country-wide effort was funded…

The Effects of a Robot Game Environment on Computer Programming Education for Elementary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shim, Jaekwoun; Kwon, Daiyoung; Lee, Wongyu

2017-01-01

In the past, computer programming was perceived as a task only carried out by computer scientists; in the 21st century, however, computer programming is viewed as a critical and necessary skill that everyone should learn. In order to improve teaching of problem-solving abilities in a computing environment, extensive research is being done on…

Determining the Antifungal Agent Clioquinol by HPLC, the Not so Pure Preparation: A Laboratory-Based Case Study for an Instrumental Analytical Chemistry Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schaber, Peter M.; Hobika, Geoffrey

2018-01-01

The case study approach provides students with a better appreciation of how scientists solve problems and conduct themselves in the "real world". When applied to the undergraduate chemistry laboratory, this approach also challenges critical thinking skills and creativity in ways "cook book" experiments very often do not. This…

Evolving Frameworks for Different Communities of Scientists and End Users

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Graves, S. J.; Keiser, K.

2016-12-01

Two evolving frameworks for interdisciplinary science will be described in the context of the Common Data Framework for Earth-Observation Data and the importance of standards and protocols. The Event Data Driven Delivery (ED3) Framework, funded by NASA Applied Sciences, provides the delivery of data based on predetermined subscriptions and associated workflows to various communities of end users. ED3's capabilities are used by scientists, as well as policy and resource managers, when event alerts are triggered to respond to their needs. The EarthCube Integration and Testing Environment (ECITE) Assessment Framework for Technology Interoperability and Integration is being developed to facilitate the EarthCube community's assessment of NSF funded technologies addressing Earth science problems. ECITE is addressing the translation of geoscience researchers' use cases into technology use case that apply EarthCube-funded building block technologies (and other existing technologies) for solving science problems. EarthCube criteria for technology assessment include the use of data, metadata and service standards to improve interoperability and integration across program components. The long-range benefit will be the growth of a cyberinfrastructure with technology components that have been shown to work together to solve known science objectives.

Multidisciplinary approaches to climate change questions

USGS Publications Warehouse

Middleton, Beth A.; LePage, Ben A.

2011-01-01

Multidisciplinary approaches are required to address the complex environmental problems of our time. Solutions to climate change problems are good examples of situations requiring complex syntheses of ideas from a vast set of disciplines including science, engineering, social science, and the humanities. Unfortunately, most ecologists have narrow training, and are not equipped to bring their environmental skills to the table with interdisciplinary teams to help solve multidisciplinary problems. To address this problem, new graduate training programs and workshops sponsored by various organizations are providing opportunities for scientists and others to learn to work together in multidisciplinary teams. Two examples of training in multidisciplinary thinking include those organized by the Santa Fe Institute and Dahlem Workshops. In addition, many interdisciplinary programs have had successes in providing insight into climate change problems including the International Panel on Climate Change, the Joint North American Carbon Program, the National Academy of Science Research Grand Challenges Initiatives, and the National Academy of Science. These programs and initiatives have had some notable success in outlining some of the problems and solutions to climate change. Scientists who can offer their specialized expertise to interdisciplinary teams will be more successful in helping to solve the complex problems related to climate change.

Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game.

PubMed

Cooper, Seth; Khatib, Firas; Treuille, Adrien; Barbero, Janos; Lee, Jeehyung; Beenen, Michael; Leaver-Fay, Andrew; Baker, David; Popović, Zoran; Players, Foldit

2010-08-05

People exert large amounts of problem-solving effort playing computer games. Simple image- and text-recognition tasks have been successfully 'crowd-sourced' through games, but it is not clear if more complex scientific problems can be solved with human-directed computing. Protein structure prediction is one such problem: locating the biologically relevant native conformation of a protein is a formidable computational challenge given the very large size of the search space. Here we describe Foldit, a multiplayer online game that engages non-scientists in solving hard prediction problems. Foldit players interact with protein structures using direct manipulation tools and user-friendly versions of algorithms from the Rosetta structure prediction methodology, while they compete and collaborate to optimize the computed energy. We show that top-ranked Foldit players excel at solving challenging structure refinement problems in which substantial backbone rearrangements are necessary to achieve the burial of hydrophobic residues. Players working collaboratively develop a rich assortment of new strategies and algorithms; unlike computational approaches, they explore not only the conformational space but also the space of possible search strategies. The integration of human visual problem-solving and strategy development capabilities with traditional computational algorithms through interactive multiplayer games is a powerful new approach to solving computationally-limited scientific problems.

Studying PubMed usages in the field for complex problem solving: Implications for tool design

PubMed Central

Song, Jean; Tonks, Jennifer Steiner; Meng, Fan; Xuan, Weijian; Ameziane, Rafiqa

2012-01-01

Many recent studies on MEDLINE-based information seeking have shed light on scientists’ behaviors and associated tool innovations that may improve efficiency and effectiveness. Few if any studies, however, examine scientists’ problem-solving uses of PubMed in actual contexts of work and corresponding needs for better tool support. Addressing this gap, we conducted a field study of novice scientists (14 upper level undergraduate majors in molecular biology) as they engaged in a problem solving activity with PubMed in a laboratory setting. Findings reveal many common stages and patterns of information seeking across users as well as variations, especially variations in cognitive search styles. Based on findings, we suggest tool improvements that both confirm and qualify many results found in other recent studies. Our findings highlight the need to use results from context-rich studies to inform decisions in tool design about when to offer improved features to users. PMID:24376375

Recent optical activity of the blazar OT 355

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bachev, R.; Kurtenkov, A.; Nikolov, Y.; Spassov, B.; Boeva, S.; Latev, G.; Dimitrova, R. V. Munoz

2017-06-01

The Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar OT 355 (also known as 7C 173240.70+385949.00, z=0.975) was typically observed to be in the optical between 16th and 21th magnitude (CRTS, http://nesssi.cacr.caltech.edu/catalina/20011332/113321380764100137p.html).

Dynamic Resource Allocation in Conservation Planning

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-08-01

0932392 and IIS-0953413, the Caltech Center for the Mathematics of Information, and by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. We thank J. Bakker, J. Bush ...Moilanen, A.; Pakkala, T.; and Kuussaari, M. 1996. The quantitative incidence function model and persistence of an endangered butterfly metapopulation

Lunar and planetary studies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Muhleman, Duane O.; Goldreich, P.; Ingersoll, A. P.; Westphal, J. A.

1988-01-01

This grant supports the core program in planetary astronomy at Caltech. The research includes observations in the IR, sub-mm, mm and cm wavelengths at national and Caltech observatories with a strong emphasis on integrating the observations with spacecraft data and with models of atmospheric structure, dynamics and chemistry. Muhleman's group made extensive observations of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune which are being interpreted in terms of deep atmospheric structures which are obvious in the 2 and 6 cm maps of Saturn and Uranus. The microwave measurements are one of the few sources of information below the 2 bar level. Goldreich is investigating the dynamics of narrow rings with postdoctoral fellow, Pierre-Yves Longaretti. Their work has focused on the role of collisional stresses on the precession of the rings, since the Voyager radio science results imply that the previous model based on the ring's self-gravity is not the entire story. In addition Borderies, Goldreich and Tremaine have completed an investigation of the dynamics of the Encke division in Saturn's A ring.

Whirlpool Galaxy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1999-01-01

Scientists are seeing unprecedented detail of the spiral arms and dust clouds in the nearby Whirlpool galaxy, thanks to a new Hubble Space Telescope image, available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/wfpc/wfpc.html. The image uses data collected January 15 and 24, 1995, and July 21, 1999, by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, designed and built by JPL. Using the image, a research group led by Dr. Nick Scoville of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, clearly defined the structure of the galaxy's cold dust clouds and hot hydrogen, and they linked star clusters within the galaxy to their parent dust clouds.

The Whirlpool galaxy is one of the most photogenic galaxies. This celestial beauty is easily seen and photographed with smaller telescopes and studied extensively from large ground- and space-based observatories. The new composite image shows visible starlight and light from the emission of glowing hydrogen, which is associated with the most luminous young stars in the spiral arms.

The galaxy is having a close encounter with a nearby companion galaxy, NGC 5195, just off the upper edge of the image. The companion's gravitational pull is triggering star formation in the main galaxy, lit up by numerous clusters of young and energetic stars in brilliant detail. Luminous clusters are highlighted in red by their associated emission from glowing hydrogen gas.

This image was composed by the Hubble Heritage Team from Hubble archive data and was superimposed onto data taken by Dr. Travis Rector of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory at the .9-meter (35-inch) telescope at the National Science Foundation's Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson, Ariz. Scoville's team includes M. Polletta of the University of Geneva, Switzerland; S. Ewald and S. Stolovy of Caltech; and R. Thompson and M. Rieke of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of Caltech.

Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov

Identifying contributors of two-person DNA mixtures by familial database search.

PubMed

Chung, Yuk-Ka; Fung, Wing K

2013-01-01

The role of familial database search as a crime-solving tool has been increasingly recognized by forensic scientists. As an enhancement to the existing familial search approach on single source cases, this article presents our current progress in exploring the potential use of familial search to mixture cases. A novel method was established to predict the outcome of the search, from which a simple strategy for determining an appropriate scale of investigation by the police force is developed. Illustrated by an example using Swedish data, our approach is shown to have the potential for assisting the police force to decide on the scale of investigation, thereby achieving desirable crime-solving rate with reasonable cost.

Cross-Field Differences in Creative Problem-Solving Skills: A Comparison of Health, Biological, and Social Sciences

PubMed Central

Mumford, Michael D.; Antes, Alison L.; Caughron, Jared J.; Connelly, Shane; Beeler, Cheryl

2010-01-01

In the present study, 258 doctoral students working in the health, biological, and social sciences were asked to solve a series of field-relevant problems calling for creative thought. Proposed solutions to these problems were scored with respect to critical creative thinking skills such as problem definition, conceptual combination, and idea generation. Results indicated that health, biological, and social scientists differed with respect to their skill in executing various operations, or processes, involved in creative thought. Interestingly, no differences were observed as a function of the students’ level of experience. The implications of these findings for understanding cross-field, and cross-experience level, differences in creative thought are discussed. PMID:20936085

Naturally selecting solutions: the use of genetic algorithms in bioinformatics.

PubMed

Manning, Timmy; Sleator, Roy D; Walsh, Paul

2013-01-01

For decades, computer scientists have looked to nature for biologically inspired solutions to computational problems; ranging from robotic control to scheduling optimization. Paradoxically, as we move deeper into the post-genomics era, the reverse is occurring, as biologists and bioinformaticians look to computational techniques, to solve a variety of biological problems. One of the most common biologically inspired techniques are genetic algorithms (GAs), which take the Darwinian concept of natural selection as the driving force behind systems for solving real world problems, including those in the bioinformatics domain. Herein, we provide an overview of genetic algorithms and survey some of the most recent applications of this approach to bioinformatics based problems.

NAS Technical Summaries, March 1993 - February 1994

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1995-01-01

NASA created the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Program in 1987 to focus resources on solving critical problems in aeroscience and related disciplines by utilizing the power of the most advanced supercomputers available. The NAS Program provides scientists with the necessary computing power to solve today's most demanding computational fluid dynamics problems and serves as a pathfinder in integrating leading-edge supercomputing technologies, thus benefitting other supercomputer centers in government and industry. The 1993-94 operational year concluded with 448 high-speed processor projects and 95 parallel projects representing NASA, the Department of Defense, other government agencies, private industry, and universities. This document provides a glimpse at some of the significant scientific results for the year.

NAS technical summaries. Numerical aerodynamic simulation program, March 1992 - February 1993

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1994-01-01

NASA created the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation (NAS) Program in 1987 to focus resources on solving critical problems in aeroscience and related disciplines by utilizing the power of the most advanced supercomputers available. The NAS Program provides scientists with the necessary computing power to solve today's most demanding computational fluid dynamics problems and serves as a pathfinder in integrating leading-edge supercomputing technologies, thus benefitting other supercomputer centers in government and industry. The 1992-93 operational year concluded with 399 high-speed processor projects and 91 parallel projects representing NASA, the Department of Defense, other government agencies, private industry, and universities. This document provides a glimpse at some of the significant scientific results for the year.

Catherine Cesarsky - President Elect of the International Astronomical Union (IAU)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2003-07-01

The General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), meeting in Sydney (Australia), has appointed the ESO Director General, Dr. Catherine Cesarsky, as President Elect for a three-year period (2003-2006). The IAU is the world's foremost organisation for astronomy, uniting almost 9000 professional scientists on all continents. The IAU General Assembly also elected Prof. Ron Ekers (Australia) as President (2003 - 2006). Dr. Cesarsky will then become President of the IAU in 2006, when the General Assembly next meets in Prague (The Czech Republic). Dr. Cesarsky is the first woman scientist to receive this high distinction. "The election of Catherine Cesarsky as President-Elect of the IAU is an important recognition for a scientist who has made impressive contributions to various areas of modern astrophysics, from cosmic rays to the interstellar medium and cosmology" , commented the outgoing IAU President, Prof. Franco Pacini. "It is also an honour and an important accolade for the European astronomical community in general and ESO in particular." Dr. Cesarsky, who assumed the function as ESO Director General in 1999, was born in France. She received a degree in Physical Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires and graduated with a PhD in Astronomy in 1971 from Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass., USA). Afterwards she worked at the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH). In 1974, she became a staff member of the Service d'Astrophysique (SAp), Direction des Sciences de la Matière (DSM), Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) (France). As Director of DSM (1994 - 1999), she was leading about 3000 scientists, engineers and technicians active within a broad spectrum of basic research programmes in physics, chemistry, astrophysics and earth sciences. Dr. Cesarsky is known for her successful research activities in several central areas of modern astrophysics. She first worked on the theory of cosmic ray propagation and acceleration, and galactic gamma-ray emission. Later, she led the design and construction of the ISOCAM camera onboard the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) of the European Space Agency (ESA), and the ISOCAM Central Programme which studied the infrared emission from many different galactic and extragalactic sources. This has led to new and exciting results on star formation and galactic evolution, and in the identification of the sources providing the bulk of the energy in the Cosmic Infrared Background. As ESO Director General, she has been a driving force towards the realisation of the full potential of ESO's unique Very Large Telescope (VLT) and its associated interferometer ( VLTI), and also towards the recent European-North American agreement on the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). Dr. Cesarsky received the COSPAR (Committee on Space Research) Space Science Award in 1998. She is married and has two children.

A survey of geographical information systems applications for the Earth Science and Applications Division, Space Sciences Laboratory, Marshall Space Flight Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rickman, D.; Butler, K. A.; Laymon, C. A.

1994-01-01

The purpose of this document is to introduce Geographical Information System (GIS) terminology and summarize interviews conducted with scientists in the Earth Science and Applications Division (ESAD). There is a growing need in ESAD for GIS technology. With many different data sources available to the scientists comes the need to be able to process and view these data in an efficient manner. Since most of these data are stored in vastly different formats, specialized software and hardware are needed. Several ESAD scientists have been using a GIS, specifically the Man-computer Interactive Data Access System (MCIDAS). MCIDAS can solve many of the research problems that arise, but there are areas of research that need more powerful tools; one such example is the multispectral image analysis which is described in this document. Given the strong need for GIS in ESAD, we recommend that a requirements analysis and implementation plan be developed using this document as a basis for further investigation.

Decision tree and ensemble learning algorithms with their applications in bioinformatics.

PubMed

Che, Dongsheng; Liu, Qi; Rasheed, Khaled; Tao, Xiuping

2011-01-01

Machine learning approaches have wide applications in bioinformatics, and decision tree is one of the successful approaches applied in this field. In this chapter, we briefly review decision tree and related ensemble algorithms and show the successful applications of such approaches on solving biological problems. We hope that by learning the algorithms of decision trees and ensemble classifiers, biologists can get the basic ideas of how machine learning algorithms work. On the other hand, by being exposed to the applications of decision trees and ensemble algorithms in bioinformatics, computer scientists can get better ideas of which bioinformatics topics they may work on in their future research directions. We aim to provide a platform to bridge the gap between biologists and computer scientists.

Los Alamos Guns Take Aim at Material's Mysteries

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Byers, Mark; Moore, David; Dimarino, Steve

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists and technicians conduct thousands of experiments a year, delving into the fundamental nature of everything from supernovas to subatomic particles. One set of instruments used to better understand the fundamental nature of various materials are 10 scientific gun systems that fire various projectiles at high-tech targets to create enormous velocities, pressures, and temperatures - and using laser, x-ray, and other diagnostics - explore the very nature of metals and other materials. The hundreds of gun-based experiments conducted every year at the Laboratory require a highly-skilled staff of scientists and technicians, and has given rise tomore » a special organization called the "gun working group" to foster open communications, cooperation, problem-solving, and a healthy safety culture.« less

Los Alamos Guns Take Aim at Material's Mysteries

ScienceCinema

Byers, Mark; Moore, David; Dimarino, Steve

2018-05-30

Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists and technicians conduct thousands of experiments a year, delving into the fundamental nature of everything from supernovas to subatomic particles. One set of instruments used to better understand the fundamental nature of various materials are 10 scientific gun systems that fire various projectiles at high-tech targets to create enormous velocities, pressures, and temperatures - and using laser, x-ray, and other diagnostics - explore the very nature of metals and other materials. The hundreds of gun-based experiments conducted every year at the Laboratory require a highly-skilled staff of scientists and technicians, and has given rise to a special organization called the "gun working group" to foster open communications, cooperation, problem-solving, and a healthy safety culture.

Framework for Service Composition in G-Lite

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goranova, R.

2011-11-01

G-Lite is a Grid middleware, currently the main middleware installed on all clusters in Bulgaria. The middleware is used by scientists for solving problems, which require a large amount of storage and computational resources. On the other hand, the scientists work with complex processes, where job execution in Grid is just a step of the process. That is why, it is strategically important g-Lite to provide a mechanism for service compositions and business process management. Such mechanism is not specified yet. In this article we propose a framework for service composition in g-Lite. We discuss business process modeling, deployment and execution in this Grid environment. The examples used to demonstrate the concept are based on some IBM products.

Physician Extender (Sr. NP or PA) | Center for Cancer Research

Cancer.gov

Be part of our mission to solve the most important, challenging and neglected problems in modern cancer research and patient care.  The National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research (CCR) is a world-leading cancer research organization working toward scientific breakthroughs at medicine’s cutting edge. Our scientists can’t do it alone. It takes an extraordinary team

Aerospace Employment Project: Finding New Careers in Local Government for Unemployed Engineers and Scientists. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

United States Conference of Mayors, Washington, DC.

"If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we solve the problems of our cities?" The demand for urban services and the manpower needs of local governments were increasing dramatically. Skilled professional personnel were unemployed. The Aerospace Employment Project was set up as a special pilot project to test whether unemployed professional…

High-Accurate, Physics-Based Wake Simulation Techniques

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-01-27

to accepting the use of computational fluid dynamics models to supplement some of the research. The scientists Lewellen and Lewellen [13] in 1996...resolved in today’s climate es- pecially concerning CFD and experimental. Multiple programs have been established such as the Aircraft Vortex Spacing ...step the entire matrix is solved at once creating inconsistencies when applied to the physics of a fluid mechanics problem where information changes

Decision-support systems for natural-hazards and land-management issues

USGS Publications Warehouse

Dinitz, Laura; Forney, William; Byrd, Kristin

2012-01-01

Scientists at the USGS Western Geographic Science Center are developing decision-support systems (DSSs) for natural-hazards and land-management issues. DSSs are interactive computer-based tools that use data and models to help identify and solve problems. These systems can provide crucial support to policymakers, planners, and communities for making better decisions about long-term natural hazards mitigation and land-use planning.

ISS Has an Attitude! Determining ISS Attitude at the ISS Window Observational Research Facility (WORF) Using Landmarks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Runco, Susan K.; Pickard,Henry; Kowtha, Vijayanand; Jackson, Dan

2011-01-01

Universities and secondary schools can help solve a real issue for remote sensing from the ISS WORF through hands-on engineering and activities. Remote sensing technology is providing scientists with higher resolution, higher sensitivity sensors. Where is it pointing? - To take full advantage of these improved sensors, space platforms must provide commensurate improvements in attitude determination

Mission Driven Science at Argonne

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Thackery, Michael; Wang, Michael; Young, Linda

2012-07-05

Mission driven science at Argonne means applying science and scientific knowledge to a physical and "real world" environment. Examples include testing a theoretical model through the use of formal science or solving a practical problem through the use of natural science. At the laboratory, our materials scientists are leading the way in producing energy solutions today that could help reduce and remove the energy crisis of tomorrow.

Medical Countermeasure Product Development - Alternatives Paper

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-04-01

Maritime Research Laboratory of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) in 1995 as a Research Scientist. In January 1997 he was promoted... biosecurity role to supply to the Government and the World Health Organisation (WHO). In the future there may be circumstances where there is no... standards to solve national priority CBR or infectious disease threats. The PPP may enable Government to: • access and grow product development

Personal Beliefs as Key Drivers in Identifying and Solving Seminal Problems: Lessons from Faraday, Maxwell, Kepler and Newton

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caleon, I. S.; Wui, Ma. G. Lopez; Regaya, Ma. H. P.

2015-01-01

The movement towards the use of the history of science and problem-based approaches in teaching serves as the impetus for this paper. This treatise aims to present and examine episodes in the lives of prominent scientists that can be used as resources by teachers in relation to enhancing students' interest in learning, fostering skills about…

Geoscience communication in Namibia: YES Network Namibia spreading the message to young scientists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mhopjeni, Kombada

2015-04-01

The Young Earth Scientists (YES) Network is an international association for early-career geoscientists under the age of 35 years that was formed as a result of the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) in 2007. YES Network aims to establish an interdisciplinary global network of early-career geoscientists to solve societal issues/challenges using geosciences, promote scientific research and interdisciplinary networking, and support professional development of early-career geoscientists. The Network has several National Chapters including one in Namibia. YES Network Namibia (YNN) was formed in 2009, at the closing ceremony of IYPE in Portugal and YNN was consolidated in 2013 with the current set-up. YNN supports the activities and goals of the main YES Network at national level providing a platform for young Namibian scientists with a passion to network, information on geoscience opportunities and promoting earth sciences. Currently most of the members are geoscientists from the Geological Survey of Namibia (GSN) and University of Namibia. In 2015, YNN plans to carry out two workshops on career guidance, establish a mentorship program involving alumni and experienced industry experts, and increase involvement in outreach activities, mainly targeting high school pupils. Network members will participate in a range of educational activities such as school career and science fairs communicating geoscience to the general public, learners and students. The community outreach programmes are carried out to increase awareness of the role geosciences play in society. In addition, YNN will continue to promote interactive collaboration between the University of Namibia, Geological Survey of Namibia (GSN) and Geological Society of Namibia. Despite the numerous potential opportunities YNN offers young scientists in Namibia and its presence on all major social media platforms, the Network faces several challenges. One notable challenge the Network faces is indifference among early-career geoscientists in the industry and university students to geoscience activities outside the confines of academia and the industry such as networking and outreach activities. This is compounded by the Network's perceived lack of relevance and appeal among young Namibian scientists. To become more 'popular' YNN needs to solve the issue of indifference among early-career geoscientists in the industry and University students by listening to their needs and actively engaging them in the process. Good communication skills are essential and YNN has to reformulate the way it reaches out to its audiences by developing more active ways to communicate geosciences. With this in mind, YNN plans to implement best practice methods to engage more young scientists in YNN and provide support and guidance on geoscience opportunities.

Dispersion, Mixing, and Combustion in Turbulent and High-Speed Flows, Air-Breathing Propulsion, and Hypersonic Flight

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-31

postdoctoral research of Antonino Ferrante (currently Assistant Professor at the University of Washington). The fluid dynamics video "LES of an inclined jet...Northrop Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Applied Physics, Caltech, and ChiefTechnologist, JPL. Ferrante, Antonino : Postdoctoral Scholar in

JPL Non-NASA Programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cox, Robert S.

2006-01-01

A viewgraph presentation describing JPL's non-NASA Programs is shown. The contents include: 1) JPL/Caltech: National Security Heritage; 2) Organization and Portfolio; 3) Synergistic Areas of Interest; 4) Business Environment; 5) National Space Community; 6) New Business Environment; 7) Technology Transfer Techniques; 8) Innovative Partnership Program (IPP); and 9) JPL's Track Record.

Micro Power

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-02-01

GENERATOR ENERGIZED BY A MEMS BASED CHEMICAL- THERMAL REACTOR” 5-6 PI: Professor Robert F. Savinell Co-I(s): Professors C. C. Liu, M. H . Litt, and J. S...January 8, 2002 PI Chih-Ming Ho UCLA Yu-Chong Tai Caltech Siegfried Janson Henry Helvajian Aerospace Corporation H.Q. Yang Andrzej J. Przekwasa CFDRC Co

Western Coordinating Committee-204 goals and why they are important to the future of animal production systems.

PubMed

Cherney, D J R

2004-03-01

There are scientists who believe that science is value-free and that social and ethical issues are not their concern. The birth of Dolly, the cloned lamb, greatly increased public and scientific awareness of ethical issues raised by molecular biology as they intersect with human experience. There are many other issues involving animal production systems, including animal welfare, rural community issues, and environmental concerns. Last year Germany became the first European nation to grant animals a constitutional right. Several European nations ban the use of traditional battery cages for laying hens and gestation crates for sows. In the US, 37 states have recently passed animal anticruelty laws. Times are changing, and if animal production systems are to be part of the future, animal scientists must join with society to solve these ethical issues. The Western Coordinating Committee-204 (WCC-204), Animal Bioethics, has as its goals to 1) create a forum in which animal scientists and nonanimal scientists may work together to examine and discuss contentious social issues, 2) provide a means of encouraging the development of research projects dealing with bioethics of the animal sciences, 3) develop mechanisms of outreach that would allow animal scientists to respond directly to consumers and critics, and 4) provide the means for ongoing critical analysis of the animal science professions in the context of their ability to address moral and sociopolitical issues. Animal scientists can no longer ignore social ethics, and by realizing the goals of Western Coordinating Committee-204, we can help maintain the future of animal production systems.

How high school science-related experiences influenced science career persistence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shaw, Andrew D.

The events of 9/11 brought into focus two ongoing trends that were present before this tragedy and have continued since: (1) The United States needs more scientists if it is to ensure its freedoms and maintain its economy. (2) The number of scientists in the "pipeline" is declining because of the diminished presence of foreign scientists (they are wanted in their own countries), the under-representation of minorities and women, and the reduced numbers of students able and willing to take on the scholastic rigors necessary for a science or engineering degree. Though much has been written about improving science education, and numerous projects have been conducted to promote it, few education researchers have questioned the scientists themselves about the experiences, practices, and people that positively influenced them, particularly during their pre-college years. Towards this end, thirty-two scientists were interviewed in order to address four research questions: (1) How did practicing scientists' personal relationships with their science teachers influence their decision to pursue a career in science? (2) What pedagogical methods (e.g. lectures, demonstrations, "hands-on" work, problem solving, small groups) used in their high school science courses, if any, played a significant role in propelling certain students towards a career as a practicing scientist? (3) What high school science-related support structures (e.g. labs, equipment, textbooks, technology), if any, played a significant role in propelling certain students towards a career as a practicing scientist? (4) What high school science-related educational activities (e.g. science fairs, clubs, summer internships), if any, played a significant role in propelling certain students towards a career as a practicing scientist? Some of the scientists reported that they knew they were headed towards a career in science before they even entered high school, while others did not make a decision about a science career until after they had graduated from college. The prevailing conviction, however, was that the encouragement from others (though not exclusively by teachers), the excellence of teaching (regardless of pedagogical style), and the richness of science related experiences were the most influential factors in either maintaining or initiating a persistence in science towards a career.

Calculation Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1994-01-01

MathSoft Plus 5.0 is a calculation software package for electrical engineers and computer scientists who need advanced math functionality. It incorporates SmartMath, an expert system that determines a strategy for solving difficult mathematical problems. SmartMath was the result of the integration into Mathcad of CLIPS, a NASA-developed shell for creating expert systems. By using CLIPS, MathSoft, Inc. was able to save the time and money involved in writing the original program.

Health Maintenance System (HMS) CMO - Fundoscope

NASA Image and Video Library

2015-04-09

ISS043E099306 (04/09/2015) --- NASA astronauts Terry Virts (bottom) and Scott Kelly (top) are seen here inside the Destiny Laboratory performing eye exams as part of ongoing studies into crew vision health. Vision changes in astronauts spending long periods of time in microgravity is a critical health issue that scientists are looking to solve as humanity prepares to travel to destinations far outside our planet like an asteroid and Mars.

Automation of the micro-arc oxidation process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Golubkov, P. E.; Pecherskaya, E. A.; Karpanin, O. V.; Shepeleva, Y. V.; Zinchenko, T. O.; Artamonov, D. V.

2017-11-01

At present the significantly increased interest in micro-arc oxidation (MAO) encourages scientists to look for the solution of the problem of this technological process controllability. To solve this problem an automated technological installation MAO was developed, its structure and control principles are presented in this article. This device will allow to provide the controlled synthesis of MAO coatings and to identify MAO process patterns which contributes to commercialization of this technology.

Current Approaches in Implementing Citizen Science in the Classroom

PubMed Central

Shah, Harsh R.; Martinez, Luis R.

2016-01-01

Citizen science involves a partnership between inexperienced volunteers and trained scientists engaging in research. In addition to its obvious benefit of accelerating data collection, citizen science has an unexplored role in the classroom, from K–12 schools to higher education. With recent studies showing a weakening in scientific competency of American students, incorporating citizen science initiatives in the curriculum provides a means to address deficiencies in a fragmented educational system. The integration of traditional and innovative pedagogical methods to reform our educational system is therefore imperative in order to provide practical experiences in scientific inquiry, critical thinking, and problem solving for school-age individuals. Citizen science can be used to emphasize the recognition and use of systematic approaches to solve problems affecting the community. PMID:27047583

Performance analysis of successive over relaxation method for solving glioma growth model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hussain, Abida; Faye, Ibrahima; Muthuvalu, Mohana Sundaram

2016-11-01

Brain tumor is one of the prevalent cancers in the world that lead to death. In light of the present information of the properties of gliomas, mathematical models have been developed by scientists to quantify the proliferation and invasion dynamics of glioma. In this study, one-dimensional glioma growth model is considered, and finite difference method is used to discretize the problem. Then, two stationary methods, namely Gauss-Seidel (GS) and Successive Over Relaxation (SOR) are used to solve the governing algebraic system. The performance of the methods are evaluated in terms of number of iteration and computational time. On the basis of performance analysis, SOR method is shown to be more superior compared to GS method.

Current Approaches in Implementing Citizen Science in the Classroom.

PubMed

Shah, Harsh R; Martinez, Luis R

2016-03-01

Citizen science involves a partnership between inexperienced volunteers and trained scientists engaging in research. In addition to its obvious benefit of accelerating data collection, citizen science has an unexplored role in the classroom, from K-12 schools to higher education. With recent studies showing a weakening in scientific competency of American students, incorporating citizen science initiatives in the curriculum provides a means to address deficiencies in a fragmented educational system. The integration of traditional and innovative pedagogical methods to reform our educational system is therefore imperative in order to provide practical experiences in scientific inquiry, critical thinking, and problem solving for school-age individuals. Citizen science can be used to emphasize the recognition and use of systematic approaches to solve problems affecting the community.

Technical communications in aerospace - An analysis of the practices reported by U.S. and European aerospace engineers and scientists

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pinelli, Thomas E.; Barclay, Rebecca O.; Kennedy, John M.; Glassman, Myron

1990-01-01

The flow of scientific and technical information (STI) at the individual, organizational, national, and international levels is studied. The responses of U.S and European aerospace engineers and scientists to questionnaires concerning technical communications in aerospace are examined. Particular attention is given to the means used to communicate information and the social system of the aerospace knowledge diffusion process. Demographic data about the survey respondents are provided. The methods used to communicate technical data and the sources utilized to solve technical problems are described. The importance of technical writing skills and the use of computer technology in the aerospace field are discussed. The derived data are useful for R&D and information managers in order to improve access to and utilization of aerospace STI.

From the NIH: A Systems Approach to Increasing the Diversity of the Biomedical Research Workforce

PubMed Central

Valantine, Hannah A.; Lund, P. Kay; Gammie, Alison E.

2016-01-01

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to attracting, developing, and supporting the best scientists from all groups as an integral part of excellence in training. Biomedical research workforce diversity, capitalizing on the full spectrum of skills, talents, and viewpoints, is essential for solving complex human health challenges. Over the past few decades, the biomedical research workforce has benefited from NIH programs aimed at enhancing diversity. However, there is considerable room for improvement, particularly at the level of independent scientists and within scientific leadership. We provide a rationale and specific opportunities to develop and sustain a diverse biomedical research workforce through interventions that promote the successful transitions to different stages on the path toward completion of training and entry into the biomedical workforce. PMID:27587850

A testable theory of problem solving courts: Avoiding past empirical and legal failures.

PubMed

Wiener, Richard L; Winick, Bruce J; Georges, Leah Skovran; Castro, Anthony

2010-01-01

Recent years have seen a proliferation of problem solving courts designed to rehabilitate certain classes of offenders and thereby resolve the underlying problems that led to their court involvement in the first place. Some commentators have reacted positively to these courts, considering them an extension of the philosophy and logic of Therapeutic Jurisprudence, but others show concern that the discourse surrounding these specialty courts has not examined their process or outcomes critically enough. This paper examines that criticism from historical and social scientific perspectives. The analysis culminates in a model that describes how offenders are likely to respond to the process as they engage in problem solving court programs and the ways in which those courts might impact subsequent offender conduct. This Therapeutic Jurisprudence model of problem solving courts draws heavily on social cognitive psychology and more specifically on theories of procedural justice, motivation, and anticipated emotion to offer an explanation of how offenders respond to these programs. We offer this model as a lens through which social scientists can begin to address the concern that there is not enough critical analysis of the process and outcome of these courts. Applying this model to specialty courts constitutes an important step in critically examining the contribution of problem solving courts. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neophilia Ranking of Scientific Journals.

PubMed

Packalen, Mikko; Bhattacharya, Jay

2017-01-01

The ranking of scientific journals is important because of the signal it sends to scientists about what is considered most vital for scientific progress. Existing ranking systems focus on measuring the influence of a scientific paper (citations)-these rankings do not reward journals for publishing innovative work that builds on new ideas. We propose an alternative ranking based on the proclivity of journals to publish papers that build on new ideas, and we implement this ranking via a text-based analysis of all published biomedical papers dating back to 1946. In addition, we compare our neophilia ranking to citation-based (impact factor) rankings; this comparison shows that the two ranking approaches are distinct. Prior theoretical work suggests an active role for our neophilia index in science policy. Absent an explicit incentive to pursue novel science, scientists underinvest in innovative work because of a coordination problem: for work on a new idea to flourish, many scientists must decide to adopt it in their work. Rankings that are based purely on influence thus do not provide sufficient incentives for publishing innovative work. By contrast, adoption of the neophilia index as part of journal-ranking procedures by funding agencies and university administrators would provide an explicit incentive for journals to publish innovative work and thus help solve the coordination problem by increasing scientists' incentives to pursue innovative work.

Food Production, Population Growth, and Environmental Quality. Caltech Population Program Occasional Papers, Series 1, Number 7.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Groth, Edward, III

This paper, one in a series of occasional publications, discusses trends in food production and population growth, emphasizing how environmental quality will be affected. The series is intended to increase understanding of the interrelationships between population growth and socioeconomic and cultural patterns throughout the world, and to…

Angles and Range: Initial Orbital Determination with the Air Force Space Surveillance Telescope (AFSST)

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-09-01

Tycho-2 [12], UCAC-2 [8], USNO-B1.0 [7] supplemented with data from 2MASS [13]. The final intrinsic issue is whether terrestrial parallax...www.ipac.caltech.edu/ 2mass /releases/allsky/ [14] Strand, K. Aa. 1963, “Trigonometric Parallaxes” in Basic Astronomical Data (University of Chicago

China's Population Program at the Grassroots Level: Report on a Field Trip, Summer 1972.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Pi-chao

The goals of the Caltech Population Program are to increase understanding of the interrelationships between population growth and socioeconomic and cultural patterns throughout the world and to communicate this understanding. This series of occasional papers is one step in the process of communicating research results. The papers deal primarily…

Genesis of "Biochemistry: A Problems Approach"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wood, William B.

2002-01-01

When the author began teaching as a young assistant professor at Caltech in 1966, his assignment was to take over the undergraduate biochemistry course taught for many years by Henry Borsook, who was about to retire. Students dreaded this course. Having delighted in biochemistry during his graduate training at Stanford, he was determined to put…

Visual word ambiguity.

PubMed

van Gemert, Jan C; Veenman, Cor J; Smeulders, Arnold W M; Geusebroek, Jan-Mark

2010-07-01

This paper studies automatic image classification by modeling soft assignment in the popular codebook model. The codebook model describes an image as a bag of discrete visual words selected from a vocabulary, where the frequency distributions of visual words in an image allow classification. One inherent component of the codebook model is the assignment of discrete visual words to continuous image features. Despite the clear mismatch of this hard assignment with the nature of continuous features, the approach has been successfully applied for some years. In this paper, we investigate four types of soft assignment of visual words to image features. We demonstrate that explicitly modeling visual word assignment ambiguity improves classification performance compared to the hard assignment of the traditional codebook model. The traditional codebook model is compared against our method for five well-known data sets: 15 natural scenes, Caltech-101, Caltech-256, and Pascal VOC 2007/2008. We demonstrate that large codebook vocabulary sizes completely deteriorate the performance of the traditional model, whereas the proposed model performs consistently. Moreover, we show that our method profits in high-dimensional feature spaces and reaps higher benefits when increasing the number of image categories.

A comparison of two cloudwater/fogwater collectors: The rotating arm collector and the caltech active strand cloudwater collector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Collett, Jeffrey L.; Daube, Bruce C.; Munger, J. William; Hoffmann, Michael R.

A side-by-side comparison of the Rotating Arm Collector (RAC) and the Caltech Active Strand Cloudwater Collector (CASCC) was conducted at an elevated coastal site near the eastern end of the Santa Barbara Channel in southern California. The CASCC was observed to collect cloudwater at rates of up to 8.5 ml min -1. The ratio of cloudwater collection rates was found to be close to the theoretical prediction of 4.2:1 (CASCC:RAC) over a wide range of liquid water contents (LWC). At low LWC, however, this ratio climbed rapidly, possibly reflecting a predominance of small droplets under these conditions, coupled with a greater collection efficiency of small droplets by the CASCC. Cloudwater samples collected by the RAC had significantly higher concentrations of Na +, Ca 2+, Mg 2+ and Cl - than those collected by the CASCC. These higher concentrations may be due to differences in the chemical composition of large vs small droplets. No significant differences were observed in concentrations of NO 3-, SO 42- or NH 4+ in samples collected by the two instruments.

Vertical columns of NO2, HONO, HCHO, CHOCHO and aerosol extinction: diurnal and seasonal variations in context of CalNex and CARES

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ortega, I.; Coburn, S.; Oetjen, H.; Sinreich, R.; Thalman, R. M.; Waxman, E.; Volkamer, R.

2011-12-01

We present results from two ground-based University of Colorado Multi Axis Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (CU-MAX-DOAS) instruments that were deployed during the CALNEX and CARES 2010 field campaigns. Ground based CU-MAX-DOAS measurements were carried out through Dec 2010, and measured vertical column abundances of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitrous acid (HONO), formaldehyde (HCHO), glyoxal (CHOCHO), and aerosol extinction, which is determined indirectly from observing the oxygen dimers (O4). The measurements were acquired on the top of Millikan library at Caltech, Pasadena, CA, at the Fontana Arrows site located 60 Km east of Caltech, and for a limited period also downwind of Sacramento at T1 site during CARES. In the South Coast Air Basin, the MAX-DOAS instruments at both sites collected an extended time series of use to test satellites, and atmospheric chemistry models. We determine the state of the planetary boundary layer by comparing the columns observations with in-situ sensors, and place the CALNEX and CARES measurements intensive into seasonal context.

Tier-scalable reconnaissance: the future in autonomous C4ISR systems has arrived: progress towards an outdoor testbed

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fink, Wolfgang; Brooks, Alexander J.-W.; Tarbell, Mark A.; Dohm, James M.

2017-05-01

Autonomous reconnaissance missions are called for in extreme environments, as well as in potentially hazardous (e.g., the theatre, disaster-stricken areas, etc.) or inaccessible operational areas (e.g., planetary surfaces, space). Such future missions will require increasing degrees of operational autonomy, especially when following up on transient events. Operational autonomy encompasses: (1) Automatic characterization of operational areas from different vantages (i.e., spaceborne, airborne, surface, subsurface); (2) automatic sensor deployment and data gathering; (3) automatic feature extraction including anomaly detection and region-of-interest identification; (4) automatic target prediction and prioritization; (5) and subsequent automatic (re-)deployment and navigation of robotic agents. This paper reports on progress towards several aspects of autonomous C4ISR systems, including: Caltech-patented and NASA award-winning multi-tiered mission paradigm, robotic platform development (air, ground, water-based), robotic behavior motifs as the building blocks for autonomous tele-commanding, and autonomous decision making based on a Caltech-patented framework comprising sensor-data-fusion (feature-vectors), anomaly detection (clustering and principal component analysis), and target prioritization (hypothetical probing).

Involvement in Cassini's "Reading, Writing and Rings" Project as a Prototype for DPS Scientists' Participation in Education Projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miner, E. D.

2004-11-01

The great emphasis on assuring that the nation's students become competent in reading and writing has led in many US states to the elimination of science teaching in the lower elementary grades. This in turn has led to an ever-decreasing understanding of science by students, as well as a corresponding drop in those who choose scientific careers. One method of attacking this problem is to include scientific content in the reading and writing curriculum. The Cassini Mission has funded an initiative which has included the Bay Area Writing Project, Project FIRST (Foundations In Reading trough Science and Technology), and CAPSI (Caltech Pre-college Science Initiative) in writing such a science-based reading and writing curriculum, entitled "Reading, Writing and Rings." The author worked closely with one of the primary writers to assure that the content was scientifically accurate, serving in the process as an educator-mentor for the curriculum writer. This paper discusses that interaction, shows the finished product, and documents some of the results from beta testing in elementary schools in Victorville and Oakland, California, as well as in other classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area. This type of involvement in education and public outreach utilizes the respective strengths of both the scientific and educational communities and can serve as a model for effective interaction between the two. More information on the product is available at the website listed below.

Flow-like Features On Europa

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

This image shows features on Jupiter's moon Europa that may be 'flows' from ice volcanoes. It was taken by the Galileo spacecraft solid state imaging (CCD) system during its seventh orbit around Jupiter. North is to the top of the image. The sun illuminates the scene from the left, showing features with shapes similar to lava flows on Earth. Two such features can be seen in the northwest corner of the image. The southern feature appears to have flowed over a ridge along its western edge. Scientists use these types of relationships to determine which feature formed first. In this case, the ridge probably formed before the flow-like feature that covers it.

The image, centered at 22.6 degrees north latitude and 106.7 degrees west longitude, covers an area of 180 by 215 kilometers (112 by 134 miles). The smallest distinguishable features in the image are about 1.1 kilometers (0.7 miles) across. This image was obtained on April 28, 1997, when Galileo was 27,590 kilometers (16,830 miles) from Europa.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. Background information and educational context for the images can be found at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo

Deep Impact Spacecraft Collides With Comet Tempel 1-Video

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2005-01-01

After 172 days and 268 million miles of deep space travel, the NASA Deep Impact spacecraft successfully reached out and touched comet Tempel 1. The collision between the coffee table-sized space probe and city-sized comet occurred July 4, 2005 at 12:52 a.m. CDT. The objects met at 23,000 miles per hour. The heat produced by the impact was at least several thousand degrees Kelvin and at that extreme temperature, just about any material begins to glow. This movie, made up of images taken by the medium resolution camera aboard the spacecraft, from May 1 to July 2, shows the Deep Impact approach to comet Tempel 1. The spacecraft detected 3 outbursts during this time period, on June 14th, June 22nd, and July 2nd. The movie ends during the final outburst. Mission scientists expect Deep Impact to provide answers to basic questions about the formation of the solar system. Principal investigator, Dr. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland in College Park, is responsible for the mission, and project management is handled by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The program office at Marshall Space Flight Center MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama, assisted the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington with program management, technology planning, systems assessment, flight assurance and public outreach. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation of Boulder, Colorado. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD)

Scientists and K-12: Experience from The Science House

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haase, David G.

2003-03-01

In working with K-12 science and mathematics education, scientists may take on many different roles - from presenter to full-time partner. These roles are illustrated in the activities of The Science House, a K-12 education program of North Carolina State University, (www.science-house.org) which partners with teachers and students across the state to promote inquiry-based learning in mathematics and science. While it is important to involve scientists in K-12, most universities do not have effective means to make the connections. In our efforts to do so, which began with a few teacher workshops and now encompasses six offices across NC, we have sought to join the interests of the university (research, teaching, student recruiting) to the needs of K-12. Our programs now include teacher training workshops, student science camps and curriculum projects in several states. We are reminded that K-12 science education is interdisciplinary; local and political; and a process, not a problem to be solved and forgotten. Partially supported by NSF (CHE-9876674 and DBI-0115462), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Paper 36: Technical uncertainty as a correlate of information use by US industry-affiliated aerospace engineers and scientists

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pinelli, Thomas E.; Glassman, Nanci A.; Affelder, Linda O.; Hecht, Laura M.; Kennedy, John M.; Barclay, Rebecca O.

1994-01-01

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study that investigated the influence of technical uncertainty on the use of information and information sources by U.S. industry-affiliated aerospace engineers and scientists in completing or solving a project, task, or problem. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire. Survey participants were U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists whose names appeared on the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) mailing list. The results support the findings of previous research and the following study assumptions. Information and information-source use differ for projects, problems, and tasks with high and low technical uncertainty. As technical uncertainty increases, information-source use changes from internal to external and from informal to formal sources. As technical uncertainty increases, so too does the use of federally funded aerospace research and development (R&D). The use of formal information sources to learn about federally funded aerospace R&D differs for projects, problems, and tasks with high and low technical uncertainty.

Contributed Review: Absolute spectral radiance calibration of fiber-optic shock-temperature pyrometers using a coiled-coil irradiance standard lamp

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fat’yanov, O. V., E-mail: fatyan1@gps.caltech.edu; Asimow, P. D., E-mail: asimow@gps.caltech.edu

2015-10-15

We describe an accurate and precise calibration procedure for multichannel optical pyrometers such as the 6-channel, 3-ns temporal resolution instrument used in the Caltech experimental geophysics laboratory. We begin with a review of calibration sources for shock temperatures in the 3000-30 000 K range. High-power, coiled tungsten halogen standards of spectral irradiance appear to be the only practical alternative to NIST-traceable tungsten ribbon lamps, which are no longer available with large enough calibrated area. However, non-uniform radiance complicates the use of such coiled lamps for reliable and reproducible calibration of pyrometers that employ imaging or relay optics. Careful analysis of documentedmore » methods of shock pyrometer calibration to coiled irradiance standard lamps shows that only one technique, not directly applicable in our case, is free of major radiometric errors. We provide a detailed description of the modified Caltech pyrometer instrument and a procedure for its absolute spectral radiance calibration, accurate to ±5%. We employ a designated central area of a 0.7× demagnified image of a coiled-coil tungsten halogen lamp filament, cross-calibrated against a NIST-traceable tungsten ribbon lamp. We give the results of the cross-calibration along with descriptions of the optical arrangement, data acquisition, and processing. We describe a procedure to characterize the difference between the static and dynamic response of amplified photodetectors, allowing time-dependent photodiode correction factors for spectral radiance histories from shock experiments. We validate correct operation of the modified Caltech pyrometer with actual shock temperature experiments on single-crystal NaCl and MgO and obtain very good agreement with the literature data for these substances. We conclude with a summary of the most essential requirements for error-free calibration of a fiber-optic shock-temperature pyrometer using a high-power coiled tungsten halogen irradiance standard lamp.« less

A portable FTS measurements during GOSAT and OCO-2 joint campaign in Western US 2017

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shiomi, K.; Kikuchi, N.; Kuze, A.; Hashimoto, M.; Suto, H.; Kataoka, F.; Kasai, K.; Arai, T.; Oshio, H.; Ohyama, H.; Morino, I.; Hori, A.; Hedelius, J.; Parker, H. A.; Roehl, C. M.; Wennberg, P. O.; Leifer, I.; Iraci, L. T.; Bruegge, C. J.; Schwandner, F. M.; Osterman, G. B.; Crisp, D.

2017-12-01

The column-average dry air mole fractions of carbon dioxide (XCO2), methane (XCH4) and carbon monoxide (XCO) were measured from the surface using direct sunlight at near-IR wavelengths. Simultaneous detection of CO is helpful to characterize CO2 source type. We measured XCO along with XCO2 and XCH4 using an upgraded portable Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS), EM27/SUN, in western US field experiments at 1) Caltech and JPL, in Pasadena, a northern Los Angeles suburb, 2) Railroad Valley (RRV), a desert playa in Nevada, and 3) Salton Sea, a terminal high-salinity lake in southern California's Imperial Valley. These measurements were conducted during the GOSAT/OCO-2 joint campaign in the early summer of 2017. Before and after US shipments, the JAXA EM27 was compared with the NIES EM27 and Tsukuba TCCON station to quantify the measurement bias and to identify any unanticipated changes. After US shipment, the JAXA EM27 was compared with the Caltech EM27 and the Caltech TCCON station with the NASA-Dryden TCCON station, which is now located at JPL for OCO-3 pre-flight test comparisons. At RRV, we obtained not only the EM27 data but also atmospheric profile of pressure, temperature and humidity by radiosonde and aerosol optical thickness (AOT) by Microtops. Then, we deployed the EM27 on the south side of the Salton Sea, where agriculture, active volcanism and geothermal power plants might produce CO2 and CH4 as sources. A large CO enhancement originating from wildfires was serendipitously measured in conjunction with a large AOT measured by the Microtops. The JAXA EM27 measurements at Pasadena, RRV and Salton Sea were taken in conjunction with GOSAT and OCO-2 overpass targets and are being used to assess the value of the EM27 as a portable transfer standard for validating space based measurements of greenhouse gases.

How scientific experiments are designed: Problem solving in a knowledge-rich, error-rich environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baker, Lisa M.

While theory formation and the relation between theory and data has been investigated in many studies of scientific reasoning, researchers have focused less attention on reasoning about experimental design, even though the experimental design process makes up a large part of real-world scientists' reasoning. The goal of this thesis was to provide a cognitive account of the scientific experimental design process by analyzing experimental design as problem-solving behavior (Newell & Simon, 1972). Three specific issues were addressed: the effect of potential error on experimental design strategies, the role of prior knowledge in experimental design, and the effect of characteristics of the space of alternate hypotheses on alternate hypothesis testing. A two-pronged in vivo/in vitro research methodology was employed, in which transcripts of real-world scientific laboratory meetings were analyzed as well as undergraduate science and non-science majors' design of biology experiments in the psychology laboratory. It was found that scientists use a specific strategy to deal with the possibility of error in experimental findings: they include "known" control conditions in their experimental designs both to determine whether error is occurring and to identify sources of error. The known controls strategy had not been reported in earlier studies with science-like tasks, in which participants' responses to error had consisted of replicating experiments and discounting results. With respect to prior knowledge: scientists and undergraduate students drew on several types of knowledge when designing experiments, including theoretical knowledge, domain-specific knowledge of experimental techniques, and domain-general knowledge of experimental design strategies. Finally, undergraduate science students generated and tested alternates to their favored hypotheses when the space of alternate hypotheses was constrained and searchable. This result may help explain findings of confirmation bias in earlier studies using science-like tasks, in which characteristics of the alternate hypothesis space may have made it unfeasible for participants to generate and test alternate hypotheses. In general, scientists and science undergraduates were found to engage in a systematic experimental design process that responded to salient features of the problem environment, including the constant potential for experimental error, availability of alternate hypotheses, and access to both theoretical knowledge and knowledge of experimental techniques.

Apollo 16: Nothing So Hidden

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1972-01-01

This film shows the landing and the three lunar traverses in the highland region of the moon, near the crater descartes. It includes an astronaut's eye view from the rover, lunar grand prix, discovery of the house-sized rock, lunar lift-off and eva 173,000 miles above the earth. Microphones and cameras in mission control record the emergency problem solving during the prelanding crisis and the reactions of scientists on earth as the astronauts explore the moon.

The Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Lab

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dickerson, James

2015-07-09

Scientists from all over the world visit the Center for Functional Nanomaterials to explore strange phenomena hidden on the nanoscale—an exciting and powerful landscape spanning just billionths of a meter. The U.S. Department of Energy opened the CFN, one of its five nanoscale science research centers in the United States, to develop unprecedented energy technologies and solve fundamental scientific puzzles. Learn more about the CFN: https://www.bnl.gov/cfn/.

Scientific Integrity and Executive National Security Proclamations: A Conflict of the Modern Age

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nelson, R.; Banerdt, B.; Bell, J. L.; Byrnes, D. V.; Carlisle, G. L.; D'Addario, L. R.; Weissman, P. R.; Eisenhardt, P. R.; Foster, S. D.; Golombek, M. P.; Gorjian, V.; Gorjian, Z.; Hale, A. S.; Kulleck, J. G.; Laubach, S. L.; McElrath, T. P.; Penanen, K. I.; Satter, C.; Walker, W. J.

2010-12-01

In 2004, in response to the events of September, 11, 2001, President George W. Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12, an executive order requiring a uniform means of identification (i.e. identification badge) for all employees and contractors at federal facilities. To comply with this directive NASA ordered that its contract employees at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 'voluntarily' agree to an open ended, unrestricted, background investigation into the intimate details of their private lives. These employees do not have security clearances and do not work with classified material. Caltech, which employs the JPL personnel under a NASA management contract, informed the employees that if they did not ‘voluntarily’ consent to the background investigation, they would be assumed to have voluntarily resigned and therefore be denied access to JPL (i.e. they would be functionally terminated). In October 2007, twentyeight JPL employees filed suit in Federal District Court. After an initial dismissal by the lowest federal court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction against Caltech and NASA, stopping the background investigations. The Appeals Court found that the investigations were not narrowly tailored to meet the specific needs of NASA and therefore violated the employee’s legitimate expectation of informational privacy. This injunction has been reviewed and upheld several times by various panels of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In November 2009, the United States Department of Justice petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court requesting that it overturn this injunction. The Supreme Court accepted the case for oral arguments and scheduled them for October 5, 2010. A decision is imminent (if it has not been made already). The case has opened the following questions regarding all research workers under government contract: 1. What impact would such intrusive investigations have on open scientific inquiry and scientific integrity? 2. How much can the Government reasonably ask about the backgrounds of its contract employees? 3. What rights do employees have to challenge the findings of their background investigations, and can the results of such investigations be contested in the courts? 4. What is the responsibility of a contract employer such as Caltech to protect the privacy of contract research workers like those at JPL? 5. What is the responsibility of professional societies in representing the interests of federal contract employees such as those at JPL? 6. What would constitute a reasonable background investigation of contract employees that would be narrowly tailored in order to protect informational privacy? This work is a private venture. Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only. No NASA, Caltech or JPL resources were expended in producing this abstract.

Hubble’s Planetary Portrait Captures New Changes in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-12-08

New imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope is revealing details never before seen on Jupiter. Hubble’s new Jupiter maps were used to create this Ultra HD animation. These new maps and spinning globes of Jupiter were made from observations performed with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. They are the first products to come from a program to study the solar system’s outer planets – Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and, later, Saturn – each year using Hubble. The observations are designed to capture a broad range of features, including winds, clouds, storms and atmospheric chemistry. These annual studies will help current and future scientists see how these giant worlds change over time. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the University of California at Berkeley produced two global maps of Jupiter from the observations, which were made using Hubble’s high-performance Wide Field Camera 3. The two maps represent nearly back-to-back rotations of the planet, making it possible to determine the speeds of Jupiter’s winds. Already, the images have revealed a rare wave just north of the planet’s equator and a unique filament-like feature in the core of the Great Red Spot that had not been seen previously. In addition, the new images confirm that the Great Red Spot continues to shrink and become more circular, as it has been doing for years. The long axis of this characteristic storm is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) shorter now than it was in 2014. Recently, the storm had been shrinking at a faster-than-usual rate, but the latest change is consistent with the long-term trend. Read more: www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/hubble-s-planetary-por... Credits: NASA/ESA/Goddard/UCBerkeley/JPL-Caltech/STScI NASA image use policy. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Find us on Instagram

Engineering Education in K-12 Schools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Spence, Anne

2013-03-01

Engineers rely on physicists as well as other scientists and mathematicians to explain the world in which we live. Engineers take this knowledge of the world and use it to create the world that never was. The teaching of physics and other sciences as well as mathematics is critical to maintaining our national workforce. Science and mathematics education are inherently different, however, from engineering education. Engineering educators seek to enable students to develop the habits of mind critical for innovation. Through understanding of the engineering design process and how it differs from the scientific method, students can apply problem and project based learning to solve the challenges facing society today. In this talk, I will discuss the elements critical to a solid K-12 engineering education that integrates science and mathematics to solve challenges throughout the world.

Studies of the atmosphere of Venus by means of spacecraft: Solved and unsolved problems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moroz, V. I.

Many spacecraft were used for exploration of the atmosphere of Venus. Their list consists of 25 items, including fly-by missions, orbiters, descent and landing probes and even balloons. VENERA-4 (1967) was near the beginning of this list, providing the first time in situ experiments on other planet. It started a long sequence of successful Soviet Venera missions. However after the year 1985 there were no missions to Venus in Russia. It probably was a strategic error. Now several groups of scientists in other countries work on proposals for new missions to Venus. The goal of this paper is to present a brief review of already solved and still unsolved problems in the studies of the Venus' atmosphere and to possible future aims in this field.

Newly Commissioned Green Bank Telescope Bags New Pulsars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2002-01-01

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's newly commissioned Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have discovered a windfall of three previously undetected millisecond pulsars in a dense cluster of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Green Bank Telescope The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope "This globular cluster, known as Messier 62, has been very well studied, and it would have been an exciting discovery to find just one new pulsar. The fact that we were able to detect three new pulsars at one time is simply remarkable," said Bryan Jacoby, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology who led the research team. Results of the discovery were recently announced in an International Astronomical Union Circular. Jacoby and his colleague Adam Chandler, also a graduate student at Caltech, used the GBT to search for new pulsars in addition to the three already known in this cluster. Their research was part of the GBT's Early Science Program, which allows scientific investigations during the testing and commissioning of the telescope. The researchers used the Berkeley-Caltech Pulsar Machine, a new instrument whose development was overseen by Donald Backer at the University of California at Berkeley, to process the signals from the GBT and record them for later analysis. After their data were analyzed, the researchers discovered the telltale signatures of three additional pulsars and their white dwarf companion stars. Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit intense beams of radio waves along their misaligned magnetic axes. When these beams intersect the Earth, we see the pulsar flash on and off. Due to their exquisitely steady rotation, pulsars allow astronomers to study the basic laws of physics and the ways in which these dense clusters and exotic stellar systems are formed. Astronomers study globular clusters because they are among the oldest building blocks of our Galaxy. With their very dense stellar populations, these clusters are breeding grounds for unusual binary star systems, like the ones detected by the researchers. All three pulsars are known as "millisecond pulsars" because they make one complete rotation in only a few thousandths of a second. One of these newly discovered pulsars spins at approximately 440 rotations per second, and the other two both spin about 300 times per second. All are orbited by white dwarfs with orbital periods ranging from 4 to 27 hours. "This discovery demonstrates the remarkable sensitivity of the Green Bank Telescope," said Phil Jewell, site director for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, W.Va. "The fact that these pulsars were never before detected in this highly studied area of the Galaxy shows that the GBT has outstanding capabilities and will be an important tool for astronomers to make very precise, very sensitive observations of the Universe. The GBT is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope. It was dedicated on August 25, 2000, after nearly 10 years of construction. Since that time, engineers and scientists at the NRAO in Green Bank have been testing the telescope and outfitting it with the sensitive receivers and electronics that will make it one of the world's premier astronomical instruments. "As a graduate student," said Jacoby "this discovery was particularly satisfying, and I feel privileged to be part of the history of the Green Bank Telescope." Shrinivas Kulkarni, the Caltech faculty advisor for this project, remarked, "it is very satisfying to see such discoveries being made by young people. GBT is poised to play a significant role in the education of young astronomers." The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

The Floodgates of Change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McPhaden, Michael J.

2013-01-01

It has been a great honor to serve as president and, for 2 years before that, as president-elect of AGU. I was drawn to AGU more than 30 years ago as a graduate student because it was an exciting and supportive organization of scientists working together to solve big problems to make the world a better place. My first AGU Fall Meeting left an indelible impression, reinforced every year since: a weeklong celebration of science—sharing, learning, and discovering—amid a sea of exuberant participants from around the globe. In AGU I found a community that nurtured my professional development and provided me with exceptional opportunities for career advancement. So when I was asked to run for president, it was an easy decision. I welcomed the chance to give back to the organization that had contributed so much to my growth as a scientist.

Cancer Cell Biology: A Student-Centered Instructional Module Exploring the Use of Multimedia to Enrich Interactive, Constructivist Learning of Science

PubMed Central

Bockholt, Susanne M.; West, J. Paige; Bollenbacher, Walter E.

2003-01-01

Multimedia has the potential of providing bioscience education novel learning environments and pedagogy applications to foster student interest, involve students in the research process, advance critical thinking/problem-solving skills, and develop conceptual understanding of biological topics. Cancer Cell Biology, an interactive, multimedia, problem-based module, focuses on how mutations in protooncogenes and tumor suppressor genes can lead to uncontrolled cell proliferation by engaging students as research scientists/physicians with the task of diagnosing the molecular basis of tumor growth for a group of patients. The process of constructing the module, which was guided by scientist and student feedback/responses, is described. The completed module and insights gained from its development are presented as a potential “multimedia pedagogy” for the development of other multimedia science learning environments. PMID:12822037

Charles F. Richter; an interview

USGS Publications Warehouse

Spall, H.

1980-01-01

Charles F. Richter, renowned seismologist, is a professor emeritus at the California Institue of techonology (Caltech). He is best known to the public for the Richter magnitude scale; but he is equally recognized in the scientific community for many other contributions to seismology including his books Elementary Seismology (1958) and Seismicity of the Earth (coauthored in 1954 with Beno Gutenberg). 

Deflection Measurements on Propeller 5503 in Ahead and Crashback

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-10-01

the dots on the blade that were visible for the run . Not all points could be determined for each picture during each run . One issue discovered with...Channel (LCC) in February and April of 2009. The deflection of the blades was measured using defocused particle image velocimetry. Comparisons were made... Blade Deflection Measurement CalTech

John Todd--Numerical Mathematics Pioneer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Albers, Don

2007-01-01

John Todd, now in his mid-90s, began his career as a pure mathematician, but World War II interrupted that. In this interview, he talks about his education, the significant developments in his becoming a numerical analyst, and the journey that concluded at Caltech. Among the interesting stories are how he met his wife-to-be the mathematician Olga…

Demographic Trends in the Republic of Zaire. Caltech Population Program Occasional Papers, Series 1, Number 5.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boute, Joseph

This paper, one in a series of occasional publications, discusses population growth and trends in the African Republic of Zaire. The series is intended to increase understanding of the interrelationships between population growth and socioeconomic and cultural patterns throughout the world, and to communicate this understanding to scholars and…

Derivative free Davidon-Fletcher-Powell (DFP) for solving symmetric systems of nonlinear equations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mamat, M.; Dauda, M. K.; Mohamed, M. A. bin; Waziri, M. Y.; Mohamad, F. S.; Abdullah, H.

2018-03-01

Research from the work of engineers, economist, modelling, industry, computing, and scientist are mostly nonlinear equations in nature. Numerical solution to such systems is widely applied in those areas of mathematics. Over the years, there has been significant theoretical study to develop methods for solving such systems, despite these efforts, unfortunately the methods developed do have deficiency. In a contribution to solve systems of the form F(x) = 0, x ∈ Rn , a derivative free method via the classical Davidon-Fletcher-Powell (DFP) update is presented. This is achieved by simply approximating the inverse Hessian matrix with {Q}k+1-1 to θkI. The modified method satisfied the descent condition and possess local superlinear convergence properties. Interestingly, without computing any derivative, the proposed method never fail to converge throughout the numerical experiments. The output is based on number of iterations and CPU time, different initial starting points were used on a solve 40 benchmark test problems. With the aid of the squared norm merit function and derivative-free line search technique, the approach yield a method of solving symmetric systems of nonlinear equations that is capable of significantly reducing the CPU time and number of iteration, as compared to its counterparts. A comparison between the proposed method and classical DFP update were made and found that the proposed methodis the top performer and outperformed the existing method in almost all the cases. In terms of number of iterations, out of the 40 problems solved, the proposed method solved 38 successfully, (95%) while classical DFP solved 2 problems (i.e. 05%). In terms of CPU time, the proposed method solved 29 out of the 40 problems given, (i.e.72.5%) successfully whereas classical DFP solves 11 (27.5%). The method is valid in terms of derivation, reliable in terms of number of iterations and accurate in terms of CPU time. Thus, suitable and achived the objective.

Obituary: Jesse Greenstein, 1909-2002

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gunn, James Edward

2003-12-01

On the 21 October 2002, with the death of Jesse Greenstein, many of us in astronomy lost a beloved adopted father and astronomy lost one of its most influential leaders of the postwar era. Truly a giant is gone; it is easy to say that they don't make the likes of Greenstein, Spitzer, and Scharwarzschild any more, but it is unfortunately only the truth. The field has changed and grown enormously in the more than 50 years spanned by Jesse's career with no small part of this traceable directly to his efforts. His growth was shaped very much by world events. He enjoyed a quite comfortable childhood; he was born on 15 October 1909 to successful immigrant parents, Maurice and Leah, who indulged his early interests in astronomy, radio, and science in general; these interests were to remain with him the rest of his life. As a boy he thought physics dull and chemistry exciting, though later he was to be influential in the transformation of astronomy into astrophysics in this country. He was something of a prodigy, entering the Horace Mann School for boys (an excellent private high school) at age 11 and Harvard at age 16 (in 1926). He met and became close friends with Cecilia Payne, with whom he shared cultural and scientific passions. She was certainly the greatest female astronomer of the era but largely shunned and ignored by her colleagues. Thus began a curious ambivalence in his relationship with women in the field; in fact and in action he was highly supportive but much less so in word. He graduated with a BA in astronomy in October 1929, on the eve of the stock market crash. He stayed for one more year and obtained a Master's degree, prevented by ill health from a planned one-year visit to Oxford. His family had always assumed that he would forego his interest in research and take his place in the family's successful business and real estate endeavors and the seriousness of the market collapse impelled him, very much against his will, to do just that. He proved himself to be a capable manager, able to deal with difficult times and circumstances, and the family business prospered. However, his itch to be an astronomer did not falter, and in 1934, when he was convinced that the family business would survive without him, he returned to Harvard - over the objection of director Harlow Shapely who tried to persuade him that the field had advanced too far in his four-year absence for him ever to catch up! This same year he married his childhood sweetheart Naomi Kitay, whom he ever after affectionately called 'Kitty.' Naomi nourished the already-strong humanist streak in Jesse. Interested in, and passionate about, art and the theater, life in general, and whatever it was that absorbed her interest at the moment, she was a wonderful foil for Jesse's self-deprecatory and sometimes depressive moods. She died a few months before Jesse did; they had been married 66 years. At Harvard he pursued a very successful and prescient thesis on the scattering of light by interstellar grains, begun perhaps partly in an endeavor to alleviate his failure during a Master's research project to recognize the existence of dust absorption and reddening in the face of quite convincing data. His last days at Harvard were premonitory of things to come in his career. He and Fred Whipple wrote a paper attempting, quite unsuccessfully, to explain Karl Jansky's detection of strong radio emission from the center of the Galaxy as thermal emission; this was long before the existence of magnetic fields and relativistic electrons were even suspected. The problem was to wait 15 years for a solution. But Jansky's, and later Grote Reber's, observations resonated with Jesse's early interest in radio and presaged his later decisive support for radio astronomy in the U.S. In 1937 he was awarded a NRC fellowship, which he took to Yerkes Observatory. Attracted by the innovative and productive group assembled there by Otto Struve, he flourished. Still working on dust and the interstellar medium, he began a long and productive collaboration with theorist Louis Henyey. He also began his career in stellar spectroscopy at Struve's urging and did the first analysis of the peculiar hydrogen-poor object upsilon Sagittarii, thus beginning a love affair with peculiar stars and their compositions which was to last the rest of his career. During the war he and Henyey, as well as a number of other astronomers, managed to stay at Yerkes, largely putting aside astronomical research to work on the war effort. He and Henyey learned optics in the face of great difficulty (modern optical design techniques at the time being almost exclusively both proprietary and German) and produced many optical designs for the military, among which is the beautiful wide-angle, Henyey-Greenstein camera. After the war Jesse became very interested in, and supportive of, the vast changes to the field wrought by the technological developments during the war, including infrared detectors, photomultipliers, sensitive radio receivers, and rockets. Astronomy clearly stood on the threshold of a new and wonderful era, which he was determined to help usher in. The astronomical community had already recognized Jesse's genius and in 1948 he received an invitation he could not possibly refuse. He was invited to come to Caltech to build a department to do science with the soon to be completed 200-inch Hale telescope, by far the largest and most ambitious telescope project to that date. The family (there were now two sons, George and Peter) moved from the little town of Williams Bay, Wisconsin to the bustle of postwar Pasadena, California. One may well ask whether anyone, given an opportunity of this magnitude, could have failed to be great but the answer, I am certain, is that it would have been very easy indeed. It took all of Jesse's hard-won ability as a manager, his wonderful personal touch, his ease with moneyed supporters, and above all his unimpeachable scientific and personal integrity to build what is universally recognized as one of the finest departments in the world. The arcane political arrangements with the Carnegie Institution, which ran Mount Wilson and would later run both Mount Wilson and Palomar jointly with Caltech, were hammered out with Jesse's guidance before he had a chance to build the department. In the beginning the only two astronomers at Caltech were Jesse and Fritz Zwicky; Zwicky was a genius but personally incredibly difficult and Jesse was very much alone in navigating the difficult political waters. His view of the way to build the department, which time has certainly vindicated, was to hire the best international theorists he could find. He was convinced they were the smartest people being trained at that time and convinced as well that the lure of the great telescope would transform them into capable observers who would soon understand their data from an astrophysical perspective. This was wildly successful. He built a postdoctoral program around stellar abundance determinations, funded by the Air Force and aided by the many military contacts he had made during and after the war. He managed, in his tiny department, to lure the most able students in the field. The list of names among the early students and the ``graduates" of the abundance project is a who's who of astronomy: Allan Sandage, Helmut Abt, George Wallerstein, Halton Arp, Wallace Sargent, Leonard Searle, to name only a representative few. His own research continued unabated; he returned to the subject of dust with Leverett Davis and, in 1951, they proposed the magnetic alignment mechanism to explain interstellar polarization that survives essentially unchanged to the present - certainly one of the longest-lived theoretical results in the field. At Caltech's Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, there was much interest in the nuclear reactions that provide stars their energy and potentially result in observable abundance changes. This work fit hand-in-glove with Jesse's interest in stars of peculiar abundance and he forged close scientific ties with the Kellogg team, particularly Willy Fowler. Jesse arranged a controversial visit to Caltech by Fred Hoyle (Hoyle's steady state cosmology was not popular among Caltech physicists) and Hoyle's protégés Geoff and Margaret Burbidge. Their classic work with Fowler on nucleosynthesis arose from this visit. Later his research turned increasingly toward understanding the denizens of the lower left of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram - white dwarfs, blue subdwarfs, and nuclei of planetary nebulae. He became the observational authority on such stars, and much of our current understanding of these objects is a direct outgrowth of his work. In the course of this work he obtained several spectra of faint blue objects with weak, broad emission lines that were not readily identifiable. The realization that compact stars could have very strong magnetic fields was then current, and he felt that most of these objects could be explained by peculiar Zeeman and pressure effects on the spectra of intrinsically faint degenerate objects. The quasar story has been told many times, but the realization by Maarten Schmidt in 1963 that the spectrum of 3C273 was consistent with a redshift of 16 percent led them to reassess Jesse's work on 3C48, a quasi-stellar radio source with a spectrum similar to some of the peculiar blue "stars" in his library of spectra: this turned out to be the second QSO redshift recognized, with a value of 0.37. In 1960, Jesse had obtained a spectrum of Ton 202, which he had confidently identified as a peculiar DC white dwarf 40 pc distant. When he went through his library of spectra with an eye toward new possibilities, it turned out to be a QSO with a redshift of 0.37, continuing his penchant for being right almost all the time, but with the occasional really spectacular mistake. He characterized his research and the rather frequent and profound changes of direction in a very characteristic way - he very actively wanted to skim the cream off new subjects and establish correct directions for research, but he did not care for pedantic detail. It is clear from his record that this did not mean that he was ill equipped to dig deeply; his work on dust in particular was very difficult stuff. He simply felt that he had the tools at his disposal to help at the very frontiers of astronomical research and preferred to leave the details to others. Even before he came to Caltech in 1948, Jesse was convinced by the work of Jansky and Reber, and later the British and Australians, that radio astronomy was of vast importance to the field, and he was determined that Caltech should be a center. He fought for the founding of a radio astronomy group by first gaining institutional acceptance - which was not easy - and then obtaining federal funding for the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) in 1954 from the Office of Naval Research. In this context, it is important to note that astronomy in the U.S. had been, for a very long time, almost exclusively privately funded and the Caltech abundance project and the radio astronomy observatory were among the first large departures from this norm. Jesse's task was made even more difficult by the connection with the Carnegie Institution, which at the time had specific rules against seeking federal funds. He gradually built Caltech astronomy into the powerhouse it has been for many years. Along the way he fostered and welcomed promising new technology, beginning with photomultipliers, through radio astronomy techniques, vidicons, CCDs, and computers. His views on computers as tools for doing theory, namely that they basically trivialize theoretical research (he would not have said it ``exactly" that way) would certainly be very unpopular today. Jesse's role on the national scene was profound and controversial. He was instrumental in persuading the Navy and Air Force to fund astronomical research and he was active in the founding of the National Science Foundation; he chaired the first NSF advisory committee in astronomy. He served on countless government advisory committees and worked with other Caltech physicists in highly classified research until well after such work became highly unpopular on campuses. He pushed very hard for the founding of the national observatories, particularly NRAO. He was one of the organizers of the conference in 1954, which was explicitly aimed at convincing the government to establish NRAO - the same year he obtained funds from the Navy to build Caltech's private OVRO, which was for a long time in direct competition with the national observatory. He was also influential in the founding of the national optical observatory at Kitt Peak, though this was to be a very contentious issue later. He was chosen in 1970 to lead the second National Academy decade review of astronomy, after the ground breaking Whitford report a decade earlier. It is generally conceded that the Greenstein report was the most successful of these efforts to date in the face of a rather austere funding climate; this effort was aided by the cohesive spirit of the community, but also because of the wisdom that he brought to the enterprise. His view on the best way to conduct science was explicitly and very frankly intellectually elitist. The very best people at the very best institutions, he thought, should be supported to the fullest extent possible with money and technological support wherever it could be found. He had built the Caltech department from a gleam in George Ellery Hale's eye to one of the preeminent astronomical research institution in the world, and was proud of it. He felt that the nation owed it to science for its own sake and as a nation to support science fully. He wrote in his memoir, ``An Astronomical Life," in the "Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics": ``Human illness and poverty cannot be cured merely by spending money, but the human condition can be ennobled by spending money wisely." He did not think that spending vast amounts of money at Kitt Peak to build giant telescopes for the whole community was the best way to spend said vast amounts of money. He felt that the elite universities had demonstrated the ability both to build big instruments (the 200-inch, the 120-inch) and to attract the astronomical staff to operate them and to do superb science with them. If the federal government were to spend the money, it should clearly go to those universities. In any event, these universities should not be allowed to wither as the national observatories grew. Curiously, his view of NRAO was very different and he personally was enthusiastic about the construction of the VLA; indeed, it was the highest-priority project of the Greenstein report. In any document such as this, one must mention offices and awards. Jesse was awarded and held most of them: the Gold Medal of the RAS, the Russell Lectureship, the Bruce Medal, the Vice Presidency of the AAS, a (controversial) chairmanship of AURA, membership in the National Academy, chairmanship of many of its, and other government, advisory committees as well as chairmanship of the decadal review. He held the first Lee DuBridge chair at Caltech. While he was appreciative of these awards, he felt that awards and honors usually came too late in a scientist's career to be useful. He was a superb scientist and skillful manager and administrator, but no description of Jesse, especially this memorial one, can possibly be complete without some attempt to describe him as a human being. It was shortly before the QSO era, in 1961, that I, as a green graduate student, first met Jesse. I was in awe, of course, but it soon became clear that there was not even a stern exterior to this remarkable man who had built the Caltech department, and who was very much a personification of American astronomy. He cared deeply about everyone in his department and clearly prided himself as an amateur psychologist. He was always available, charming, warm, and open, and eager to discuss and help with personal problems as well as scientific ones with seemingly equal willingness and enthusiasm. Naomi was called in for help with stubborn personal problems and their house on San Pasqual street was a warm, inviting place and the location of countless formal and raucous informal parties and gatherings. I never worked with him directly as a student, but felt that I knew him better than any of the faculty with whom I did work. All of the words I have read in tribute to Jesse mention him as a father; he was certainly mine, and I (and all of his many children) will miss him terribly.

Educational NASA Computational and Scientific Studies (enCOMPASS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Memarsadeghi, Nargess

2013-01-01

Educational NASA Computational and Scientific Studies (enCOMPASS) is an educational project of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center aimed at bridging the gap between computational objectives and needs of NASA's scientific research, missions, and projects, and academia's latest advances in applied mathematics and computer science. enCOMPASS achieves this goal via bidirectional collaboration and communication between NASA and academia. Using developed NASA Computational Case Studies in university computer science/engineering and applied mathematics classes is a way of addressing NASA's goals of contributing to the Science, Technology, Education, and Math (STEM) National Objective. The enCOMPASS Web site at http://encompass.gsfc.nasa.gov provides additional information. There are currently nine enCOMPASS case studies developed in areas of earth sciences, planetary sciences, and astrophysics. Some of these case studies have been published in AIP and IEEE's Computing in Science and Engineering magazines. A few university professors have used enCOMPASS case studies in their computational classes and contributed their findings to NASA scientists. In these case studies, after introducing the science area, the specific problem, and related NASA missions, students are first asked to solve a known problem using NASA data and past approaches used and often published in a scientific/research paper. Then, after learning about the NASA application and related computational tools and approaches for solving the proposed problem, students are given a harder problem as a challenge for them to research and develop solutions for. This project provides a model for NASA scientists and engineers on one side, and university students, faculty, and researchers in computer science and applied mathematics on the other side, to learn from each other's areas of work, computational needs and solutions, and the latest advances in research and development. This innovation takes NASA science and engineering applications to computer science and applied mathematics university classes, and makes NASA objectives part of the university curricula. There is great potential for growth and return on investment of this program to the point where every major university in the U.S. would use at least one of these case studies in one of their computational courses, and where every NASA scientist and engineer facing a computational challenge (without having resources or expertise to solve it) would use enCOMPASS to formulate the problem as a case study, provide it to a university, and get back their solutions and ideas.

Finite-Fault and Other New Capabilities of CISN ShakeAlert

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boese, M.; Felizardo, C.; Heaton, T. H.; Hudnut, K. W.; Hauksson, E.

2013-12-01

Over the past 6 years, scientists at Caltech, UC Berkeley, the Univ. of Southern California, the Univ. of Washington, the US Geological Survey, and ETH Zurich (Switzerland) have developed the 'ShakeAlert' earthquake early warning demonstration system for California and the Pacific Northwest. We have now started to transform this system into a stable end-to-end production system that will be integrated into the daily routine operations of the CISN and PNSN networks. To quickly determine the earthquake magnitude and location, ShakeAlert currently processes and interprets real-time data-streams from several hundred seismic stations within the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN) and the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN). Based on these parameters, the 'UserDisplay' software predicts and displays the arrival and intensity of shaking at a given user site. Real-time ShakeAlert feeds are currently being shared with around 160 individuals, companies, and emergency response organizations to gather feedback about the system performance, to educate potential users about EEW, and to identify needs and applications of EEW in a future operational warning system. To improve the performance during large earthquakes (M>6.5), we have started to develop, implement, and test a number of new algorithms for the ShakeAlert system: the 'FinDer' (Finite Fault Rupture Detector) algorithm provides real-time estimates of locations and extents of finite-fault ruptures from high-frequency seismic data. The 'GPSlip' algorithm estimates the fault slip along these ruptures using high-rate real-time GPS data. And, third, a new type of ground-motion prediction models derived from over 415,000 rupture simulations along active faults in southern California improves MMI intensity predictions for large earthquakes with consideration of finite-fault, rupture directivity, and basin response effects. FinDer and GPSlip are currently being real-time and offline tested in a separate internal ShakeAlert installation at Caltech. Real-time position and displacement time series from around 100 GPS sensors are obtained in JSON format from RTK/PPP(AR) solutions using the RTNet software at USGS Pasadena. However, we have also started to investigate the usage of onsite (in-receiver) processing using NetR9 with RTX and tracebuf2 output format. A number of changes to the ShakeAlert processing, xml message format, and the usage of this information in the UserDisplay software were necessary to handle the new finite-fault and slip information from the FinDer and GPSlip algorithms. In addition, we have developed a framework for end-to-end off-line testing with archived and simulated waveform data using the Earthworm tankplayer. Detailed background information about the algorithms, processing, and results from these test runs will be presented.

A Tale Of 160 Scientists, Three Applications, a Workshop and a Cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berriman, G. B.; Brinkworth, C.; Gelino, D.; Wittman, D. K.; Deelman, E.; Juve, G.; Rynge, M.; Kinney, J.

2013-10-01

The NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) hosts the annual Sagan Workshops, thematic meetings aimed at introducing researchers to the latest tools and methodologies in exoplanet research. The theme of the Summer 2012 workshop, held from July 23 to July 27 at Caltech, was to explore the use of exoplanet light curves to study planetary system architectures and atmospheres. A major part of the workshop was to use hands-on sessions to instruct attendees in the use of three open source tools for the analysis of light curves, especially from the Kepler mission. Each hands-on session involved the 160 attendees using their laptops to follow step-by-step tutorials given by experts. One of the applications, PyKE, is a suite of Python tools designed to reduce and analyze Kepler light curves; these tools can be invoked from the Unix command line or a GUI in PyRAF. The Transit Analysis Package (TAP) uses Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques to fit light curves under the Interactive Data Language (IDL) environment, and Transit Timing Variations (TTV) uses IDL tools and Java-based GUIs to confirm and detect exoplanets from timing variations in light curve fitting. Rather than attempt to run these diverse applications on the inevitable wide range of environments on attendees laptops, they were run instead on the Amazon Elastic Cloud 2 (EC2). The cloud offers features ideal for this type of short term need: computing and storage services are made available on demand for as long as needed, and a processing environment can be customized and replicated as needed. The cloud environment included an NFS file server virtual machine (VM), 20 client VMs for use by attendees, and a VM to enable ftp downloads of the attendees' results. The file server was configured with a 1 TB Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volume (network-attached storage mounted as a device) containing the application software and attendees home directories. The clients were configured to mount the applications and home directories from the server via NFS. All VMs were built with CentOS version 5.8. Attendees connected their laptops to one of the client VMs using the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) protocol, which enabled them to interact with a remote desktop GUI during the hands-on sessions. We will describe the mechanisms for handling security, failovers, and licensing of commercial software. In particular, IDL licenses were managed through a server at Caltech, connected to the IDL instances running on Amazon EC2 via a Secure Shell (ssh) tunnel. The system operated flawlessly during the workshop.

NASA-Produced Maps Help Gauge Italy Earthquake Damage

NASA Image and Video Library

2016-10-05

A NASA-funded program provided valuable information for responders and groups supporting the recovery efforts for the Aug. 24, 2016, magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck central Italy. The earthquake caused significant loss of life and property damage in the town of Amatrice. To assist in the disaster response efforts, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, both in Pasadena, California, obtained and used radar imagery of the earthquake's hardest-hit region to discriminate areas of damage from that event. The views indicate the extent of damage caused by the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks in and around Amatrice, based on changes to the ground surface detected by radar. The color variations from yellow to red indicate increasingly more significant ground surface change. The damage maps were created from data obtained before and after the earthquake by satellites belonging to the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The radar-derived damage maps compare well with a damage map produced by the European Commission Copernicus Emergency Management Service based upon visual inspection of high-resolution pre-earthquake aerial photographs and post-earthquake satellite optical imagery, and provide broader geographic coverage of the earthquake's impact in the region. The X-band COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) data were provided through a research collaboration with ASI and were acquired on July 3, August 20, and August 28, 2016. The L-band ALOS/PALSAR-2 data were provided by JAXA through its science research program and were acquired on September 9, 2015, January 27, 2016, and August 24, 2016. The radar data were processed by the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at JPL and Caltech. ARIA is a NASA-funded project that is building an automated system for demonstrating the ability to rapidly and reliably provide GPS and satellite data to support the local, national and international hazard monitoring and response communities. Using space-based imagery of disasters, ARIA data products can provide rapid assessments of the geographic region impacted by a disaster, as well as detailed imaging of the locations where damage occurred. Radar can "see" through clouds day and night and measure centimeter-level ground movements. NASA is partnering with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to develop the NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission that will routinely provide systematic SAR observations of Earth's land and ice-covered surfaces at least twice every 12 days, enabling greater scientific understanding of the dynamic processes that drive the Earth system and natural hazards, as well as providing actionable support for disaster response and recovery. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21091

The Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Lab

ScienceCinema

Dickerson, James

2018-01-16

Scientists from all over the world visit the Center for Functional Nanomaterials to explore strange phenomena hidden on the nanoscale—an exciting and powerful landscape spanning just billionths of a meter. The U.S. Department of Energy opened the CFN, one of its five nanoscale science research centers in the United States, to develop unprecedented energy technologies and solve fundamental scientific puzzles. Learn more about the CFN: https://www.bnl.gov/cfn/.

Fisheries and aquatic resources--fish health

USGS Publications Warehouse

Panek, Frank

2008-01-01

Fish health research at Leetown had its origin in the 1930’s when the Leetown Fish Hatchery and Experiment Station was constructed. In 1978, the National Fish Health Research Laboratory, now a component of the Leetown Science Center, was established to solve emerging and known disease problems affecting fish and other aquatic organisms critical to species restoration programs. Center scientists develop methods for the isolation, detection, and identification of fish pathogens and for prevention and control of fish diseases.

Neophilia Ranking of Scientific Journals

PubMed Central

Packalen, Mikko; Bhattacharya, Jay

2017-01-01

The ranking of scientific journals is important because of the signal it sends to scientists about what is considered most vital for scientific progress. Existing ranking systems focus on measuring the influence of a scientific paper (citations)—these rankings do not reward journals for publishing innovative work that builds on new ideas. We propose an alternative ranking based on the proclivity of journals to publish papers that build on new ideas, and we implement this ranking via a text-based analysis of all published biomedical papers dating back to 1946. In addition, we compare our neophilia ranking to citation-based (impact factor) rankings; this comparison shows that the two ranking approaches are distinct. Prior theoretical work suggests an active role for our neophilia index in science policy. Absent an explicit incentive to pursue novel science, scientists underinvest in innovative work because of a coordination problem: for work on a new idea to flourish, many scientists must decide to adopt it in their work. Rankings that are based purely on influence thus do not provide sufficient incentives for publishing innovative work. By contrast, adoption of the neophilia index as part of journal-ranking procedures by funding agencies and university administrators would provide an explicit incentive for journals to publish innovative work and thus help solve the coordination problem by increasing scientists' incentives to pursue innovative work. PMID:28713181

The International GPS Network for Charting the Evolving Global Reference Frame

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zumberge, J. F.; Heflin, M. B.; Lindqwister, U. J.; Neilan, R. E.; Watkins, M. M.

1995-01-01

The Telecommunications and Engineering Division of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to play a variety of roles in applying the Global Positioning System (GPS) to geodesy and geodynamics. Among these are the operation of dozens of globally-distributed, permanently-operating Earth fixed GPS stations. This, and other applications are described.

Impact Cratering Physics al Large Planetary Scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahrens, Thomas J.

2007-06-01

Present understanding of the physics controlling formation of ˜10^3 km diameter, multi-ringed impact structures on planets were derived from the ideas of Scripps oceanographer, W. Van Dorn, University of London's, W, Murray, and, Caltech's, D. O'Keefe who modeled the vertical oscillations (gravity and elasticity restoring forces) of shock-induced melt and damaged rock within the transient crater immediately after the downward propagating hemispheric shock has processed rock (both lining, and substantially below, the transient cavity crater). The resulting very large surface wave displacements produce the characteristic concentric, multi-ringed basins, as stored energy is radiated away and also dissipated upon inducing further cracking. Initial calculational description, of the above oscillation scenario, has focused upon on properly predicting the resulting density of cracks, and, their orientations. A new numerical version of the Ashby--Sammis crack damage model is coupled to an existing shock hydrodynamics code to predict impact induced damage distributions in a series of 15--70 cm rock targets from high speed impact experiments for a range of impactor type and velocity. These are compared to results of crack damage distributions induced in crustal rocks with small arms impactors and mapped ultrasonically in recent Caltech experiments (Ai and Ahrens, 2006).

A Low Noise NbTiN-Based 850 GHz SIS Receiver for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kooi, J. W.; Kawamura, J.; Chen, J.; Chattopadhyay, G.; Pardo, J. R.; Zmuidzinas, J.; Phillips, T. G.; Bumble, B.; Stern, J.; LeDuc, H. G.

2000-01-01

We have developed a niobium titanium nitride (NbTiN) based superconductor- insulator-superconductor (SIS) receiver to cover the 350 micron atmospheric window. This frequency band lies entirely above the energy gap of niobium (700 GHz), a commonly used SIS superconductor. The instrument uses an open structure twin-slot SIS mixer that consists of two Nb/AlN/NbTiN tunnel junctions, NbTiN thin-film microstrip tuning elements, and a NbTiN ground plane. The optical configuration is very similar to the 850 GHz waveguide receiver that was installed at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) in 1997. To minimize front-end loss, we employed reflecting optics and a cooled beamsplitter at 4 K. The instrument has an uncorrected receiver noise temperature of 205K DSB at 800 GHz and 410K DSB at 900 GHz. The degradation in receiver sensitivity with frequency is primarily due to an increase in the mixer conversion loss, which is attributed to the mismatch between the SIS junction and the twin-slot antenna impedance. The overall system performance has been confirmed through its use at the telescope to detect a wealth of new spectroscopic lines.

The earthshine s spectra

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Montanes Rodriguez, P.; Palle, E.; Goode, P.; Koonin, S.; Hickey, J.; Qiu, J.; Yurchysyn, V.

The Earthshine project, was run by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) between 1993 and 1995. Since 1998, it has been a collaborative effort between Caltech and Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO)/New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Our primary goal is the precise determination of a global and absolutely calibrated Earth's albedo and its synoptic, seasonal, and annual variability; as well as the measurement and investigation of the resolved reflected spectrum of the integrated Earth in the infrared region. The absorption in the infrared region, mainly due to rotational and vibrational transitions of the molecules, show the absorption bands of various telluric and solar components allowing the analysis of the Earth's spectrum such as it would be observed from the outer space. In this paper we present preliminary results of spectroscopic observations, made at Palomar Observatory with the 60-inch telescope's echelle spectrograph. They targeted the visible and near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and were performed in the spectral range (< 1μm) of the bands of Oxygen A, Oxygen B, water and Hydrogen alpha (H). The first three are typically terrestrial molecular bands. The fourth line, H, is a solar line, used mainly for spectral calibration.

Herschel Observations of C+ in the Vicinity of Star Forming Complexes in the Galactic Plane

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pineda, Jorge; Velusamy, T.; Langer, W.; Goldsmith, P.; Li, D.; Yorke, H.

2010-05-01

The CII fine-structure line at 158 um, is an excellent tracer of the warm diffuse gas and the hot, dense Photon Dominated Regions (PDRs). We can, therefore, use the CII emission as a probe to understand the effects of star formation on their interstellar environment. Here we present the first results from the Galactic Observations of Terahertz C+ (GOT C+), a Herschel Key Project study of CII fine structure emission in the vicinity of star forming complexes. In the Priority Science Phase of HIFI observations, the GOT C+ project collects data along a dozen lines of sight passing near star forming regions in the inner Galaxy from longitude 310 degrees to 25 degrees. We discuss our first results on the transition between dense and hot gas (traced by CII) and dense and cold gas (traced by 12CO and 13CO). This research was conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. JLP was supported under the NASA Postdoctoral Program at JPL, Caltech, administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities through a contract with NASA, and is currently supported as a Caltech-JPL Postdoc.

Caltech water-ice dusty plasma: preliminary results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bellan, Paul; Chai, Kilbyoung

2013-10-01

A water-ice dusty plasma laboratory experiment has begun operation at Caltech. As in Ref., a 1-5 watt parallel-plate 13.56 MHz rf discharge plasma has LN2-cooled electrodes that cool the neutral background gas to cryogenic temperatures. However, instead of creating water vapor by in-situ deuterium-oxygen bonding, here the neutral gas is argon and water vapor is added in a controlled fashion. Ice grains spontaneously form after a few seconds. Photography with a HeNe line filter of a sheet of HeNe laser light sheet illuminating a cross section of dust grains shows a large scale whorl pattern composed of concentric sub-whorls having wave-like spatially varying intensity. Each sub-whorl is composed of very evenly separated fine-scale stream-lines indicating that the ice grains move in self-organized lanes like automobiles on a multi-line highway. HeNe laser extinction together with an estimate of dust density from the intergrain spacing in photographs indicates a 5 micron nominal dust grain radius. HeNe laser diffraction patterns indicate the ice dust grains are large and ellipsoidal at low pressure (200 mT) but small and spheroidal at high pressure (>600 mT). Supported by USDOE.

Einstein and Time in Physics and Philosophy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Canales, Jimena

Current debates about time have left ``a hole at the heart of physics'' (Scientific American, Sept 2002). The main problem with contemporary explanations is usually traced to Einstein's theory of relativity, to the notion of a ``block universe,'' and to his famous claim that ``the distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.'' While some scientist have tried to incorporate elements of our experience of time into our explanations of the universe, others continue to claim that our sense of time is simply illusory. Can these debates be solved by science alone or are they inescapably philosophical, historical and cultural? My talk will explore the origins of this persistent quandary by focusing on the relation of physics to philosophy, history and the humanities. Can we solve the problem of time without engaging in ``Science Wars''?

Determining the relationship between students' scores using traditional homework assignments to those who used assignments on a non-traditional interactive CD with tutor helps

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tinney, Charles Evan

2007-12-01

By using the book "Physics for Scientists and Engineers" by Raymond A. Serway as a guide, CD problem sets for teaching a calculus-based physics course were developed, programmed, and evaluated for homework assignments during the 2003-2004 academic year at Utah State University. These CD sets were used to replace the traditionally handwritten and submitted homework sets. They included a research-based format that guided the students through problem-solving techniques using responseactivated helps and suggestions. The CD contents were designed to help the student improve his/her physics problem-solving skills. The analyzed score results showed a direct correlation between the scores obtained on the homework and the students' time spent per problem, as well as the number of helps used per problem.

Evaluating learning and teaching using the Force Concept Inventory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zitzewitz, Paul

1997-04-01

Teaching methods used in the calculus-based mechanics course for engineers and scientists (P150) at the University of Michigan-Dearborn were markedly changed in September, 1996. Lectures emphasize active learning with Mazur's ConcepTests, Sokoloff's Interactive Demonstrations, and Van Heuvelen's ALPS Kit worksheets. Students solve context-rich problems using Van Heuvelen's multiple representation format in cooperative groups in discussion sections. Labs were changed to use MBL emphasizing concepts and Experiment Problems to learn lab-based problem solving. Pre- and post-testing of 400 students with the Force Concept Inventory has demonstrated considerable success. The average increase in score has been 35-45methods as defined by Hake. The methods and results will be discussed. Detailed analyses of the FCI results will look at success in teaching specific concepts and the effect of student preparation in mathematics and high school physics.

Proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics: a mass spectrometry tutorial from a computer scientist's point of view.

PubMed

Smith, Rob; Mathis, Andrew D; Ventura, Dan; Prince, John T

2014-01-01

For decades, mass spectrometry data has been analyzed to investigate a wide array of research interests, including disease diagnostics, biological and chemical theory, genomics, and drug development. Progress towards solving any of these disparate problems depends upon overcoming the common challenge of interpreting the large data sets generated. Despite interim successes, many data interpretation problems in mass spectrometry are still challenging. Further, though these challenges are inherently interdisciplinary in nature, the significant domain-specific knowledge gap between disciplines makes interdisciplinary contributions difficult. This paper provides an introduction to the burgeoning field of computational mass spectrometry. We illustrate key concepts, vocabulary, and open problems in MS-omics, as well as provide invaluable resources such as open data sets and key search terms and references. This paper will facilitate contributions from mathematicians, computer scientists, and statisticians to MS-omics that will fundamentally improve results over existing approaches and inform novel algorithmic solutions to open problems.

Citizen Science

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Memarsadeghi, Nargess

2015-01-01

Scientists and engineers constantly face new challenges, despite myriad advances in computing. More sets of data are collected today from earth and sky than there is time or resources available to carefully analyze them. Some problems either don't have fast algorithms to solve them or have solutions that must be found among millions of options, a situation akin to finding a needle in a haystack. But all hope is not lost: advances in technology and the Internet have empowered the general public to participate in the scientific process via individual computational resources and brain cognition, which isn't matched by any machine. Citizen scientists are volunteers who perform scientific work by making observations, collecting and disseminating data, making measurements, and analyzing or interpreting data without necessarily having any scientific training. In so doing, individuals from all over the world can contribute to science in ways that wouldn't have been otherwise possible.

FIAP Forum on Entrepreneurship in Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2015-03-01

With the changes in science as globalization has taken root, the future role of physicists becoming a part of the industrial physics community is more imperative. When 80% of graduating physicists will not be employed in academic positions, and 50% of all jobs for these physicists will be industrial sector, the importance of bringing our next generation of scientists up to speed on industrial applications is becoming much more important with the rapid, world-wide development of technology. FIAP is initiating a forum on entrepreneurship as a major role for the next generation of scientists. As physicists are problem solvers and the entrepreneurial experience is all about problem solving: whether involving technology, building a team, or financing a business. This forum seeks to link successful entrepreneurial physicists with the upcoming generation, through the dissemination of their global expertise and experience. The forum will consist of a panel discussion and then be open to question and answers from the audience.

Collecting winter data on U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oyserman, Ben O.; Woityra, William C.; Bullerjahn, George S.; Beall, Benjamin F. N.; McKay, Robert Michael L.

2012-03-01

Winter research and monitoring of icebound rivers, lakes, and coastal seas to date has usually involved seagoing civilian scientists leading survey efforts. However, because of poor weather conditions and a lack of safe research platforms, scientists collecting data during winter face some difficult and often insurmountable problems. To solve these problems and to further research and environmental monitoring goals, new partnerships can be formed through integrating efforts of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) with citizen science initiatives. USCG and a research group at Ohio's Bowling Green State University are entering the third year of such a partnership, in which icebreaking operations in Lake Erie using USCG Cutter Neah Bay support volunteer data collection. With two additional USCG vessels joining the program this winter season, the partnership serves as a timely and useful model for worldwide environmental research and monitoring through citizen science and government collaboration.

The science of computing - The evolution of parallel processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Denning, P. J.

1985-01-01

The present paper is concerned with the approaches to be employed to overcome the set of limitations in software technology which impedes currently an effective use of parallel hardware technology. The process required to solve the arising problems is found to involve four different stages. At the present time, Stage One is nearly finished, while Stage Two is under way. Tentative explorations are beginning on Stage Three, and Stage Four is more distant. In Stage One, parallelism is introduced into the hardware of a single computer, which consists of one or more processors, a main storage system, a secondary storage system, and various peripheral devices. In Stage Two, parallel execution of cooperating programs on different machines becomes explicit, while in Stage Three, new languages will make parallelism implicit. In Stage Four, there will be very high level user interfaces capable of interacting with scientists at the same level of abstraction as scientists do with each other.

A Transdisciplinary Training Program for Behavioral Oncology and Cancer Control Scientists

PubMed Central

McDaniel, Anna M.; Champion, Victoria L.; Kroenke, Kurt

2008-01-01

Transdisciplinary health research training has been identified as a major initiative to achieve the vision for research teams of the future as articulated in the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. To address the need for scientists who can integrate diverse scientific approaches and work in transdisciplinary teams to solve complex health problems, Indiana University has designed an innovative training program that will provide the didactic and research experiences to enable trainees to establish productive careers in behavioral oncology and cancer control research. Development of a successful transdisciplinary training program requires mentorship, research, and a specialized curriculum that encompass a broad range of disciplines. The program capitalizes on a unique set of existing and emerging training opportunities resulting from the collaborative activities of the Indiana University (IU) Simon Cancer Center, the IU Schools of Nursing and Medicine, and multiple research institutes and academic centers located in Indiana and neighboring states. PMID:18501750

Plateaus Up Close

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-04-10

Saturn's C ring isn't uniformly bright. Instead, about a dozen regions of the ring stand out as noticeably brighter than the rest of the ring, while about half a dozen regions are devoid of ring material. Scientists call the bright regions "plateaus" and the devoid regions "gaps." Scientists have determined that the plateaus are relatively bright because they have higher particle density and reflect more light, but researchers haven't solved the trickier puzzle of how the plateaus are created and maintained. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 62 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken Jan. 9, 2017 in green light with the Cassini spacecraft's narrow-angle camera. Cassini obtained the image while approximately 194,000 miles (312,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 67 degrees. Image scale is 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) per pixel. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20529

Meaningful crosstalk between biologists and physical scientists is essential for modern biology to progress.

PubMed

Dev, Sukhendu B

2009-01-01

The advances in biological sciences have been phenomenal since the structure of DNA was decoded, especially if one considers the input from physical sciences, not only in terms of analytical tools, but also understanding and solving some of the key problems in biology. In this article, I trace briefly the history of this transition, from physical sciences to biology, and argue that progress in modern biology can be accelerated if there is far more meaningful crosstalk between the biologists and the physical scientists, simply because biology has become far more complex and interdisciplinary, and the need for such crosstalk cannot be overemphasized. Without a concerted effort in this area progress will be hindered, and the two camps will continue to work on their own, using their own specialized language, thus making communication highly ineffective. I support my argument giving a vast array of examples and also quoting leading authorities.

Using blended and guided technologies in a university course for scientist-practitioners: teaching applied behaviour analysis to autism professionals.

PubMed

Roll-Pettersson, Lise; Ala'i-Rosales, Shahla

2009-06-01

Although the incidence of autism spectrum disorders is increasing worldwide, there is a shortage of professionals trained to provide effective interventions. The article describes an advanced university course in Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and autism tailored to meet the needs of Swedish professionals from multiple disciplines. The course implemented both blended-learning technologies (web, telecommunication, and in vivo) and guided-design (problem-solving) exercises to promote the scientist-practitioner model. Overall, students advanced their skills related to identifying extant scientific literature, choosing appropriate single-subject design evaluation methods, and critically analysing the effects of attempted interventions. Students rated the course as having high social validity and predicted the course content would positively affect their professional practice. The relevance of the course and future directions are discussed in the context of meeting the global need for effective autism intervention professionals.

Art, Science, and the Choreography of Creative Process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lomask, Jodi

2010-03-01

Through my performance company, Capacitor, I have designed a novel conceptual space - ``the Capacitor Lab'' - where artists and scientists exchange ideas and information about a concept that underlies my next performance piece. In 2000, I invited astronomers to advise my company on Earth's relationship to outer space. In 2003, we invited geophysicists into the dance studio to advise us about the layers of the Earth. In 2006, we invited an ecologist to the Monteverde Cloud forest to advise us on the on the quiet interactions among animals and plants in the forest. Currently we are working on a piece about ocean exploration, marine ecology, and the physics of sound underwater. Each of these Capacitor Labs results in a conceptually-rich dance piece which we perform in cities nationally and internationally. In my talk, I take a deeper look at the creative process that scientists and artists share. In the Capacitor labs, the process serves not only our creative team, but also our participating scientists by giving them an opportunity to view their own work in a new light. These collaborations are part of my ongoing research into creative problem solving and my belief that it is essentially the same process regardless of its application.

Research of cost aspects of cement pavements construction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bezuglyi, Artem; Illiash, Sergii; Tymoshchuk, Oleksandr

2017-09-01

The tendency to increasing traffic volume on public roads and to increased axle loads of vehicles makes the road scientists to develop scientifically justified methods for preserving the existing and developing the new transport network of Ukraine. One of the options for solving such issues is the construction of roads with rigid (cement concrete) pavement. However, any solution must be justified considering technical and economic components. This paper presents the results of the research of cost aspects of cement pavements construction.

On the Matter of Dark Matter

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Orrell, John L.

The mission of the USS Enterprise was to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” And so it is with Particle Physicist John Orrell as he seeks to solve the conundrum of elusive dark matter. It’s a mystery that PNNL scientists have chased for more than 25 years. And, if dark matter is discovered, it will change our entire understanding of how the universe was formed. The first experiments to locate dark matter were conducted underground using specialized, radiation detector technology developed at PNNL.

Qualitative and quantitative reasoning about thermodynamics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Skorstad, Gordon; Forbus, Ken

1989-01-01

One goal of qualitative physics is to capture the tacit knowledge of engineers and scientists. It is shown how Qualitative Process theory can be used to express concepts of engineering thermodynamics. In particular, it is shown how to integrate qualitative and quantitative knowledge to solve textbook problems involving thermodynamic cycles, such as gas turbine plants and steam power plants. These ideas were implemented in a program called SCHISM. Its analysis of a sample textbook problem is described and plans for future work are discussed.

Mystery solved: White deposit on streambeds proves to be diatoms

USGS Publications Warehouse

Webb, Rick; Rice, Karen C.

2007-01-01

In the late winter and early spring of 2006 an unusual white deposit was observed on rocks and margins of streambeds in a number of park streams. Inquiries were made to park staff and scientists studying water resources in the park as to what the deposit was and did it pose any type of risk. A number of explanations were proposed, but it was not until samples were collected and examined with a scanning electron microscope that the identity of the deposit was definitively determined.

The environment and human health; USGS science for solutions

USGS Publications Warehouse

,

2001-01-01

Emerging infectious diseases, ground-water contamination, trace-metal poisoning...environmental threats to public health the world over require new solutions. Because of an increased awareness of the issues, greater cooperation among scientific and policy agencies, and powerful new tools and techniques to conduct research, there is new hope that complex ecological health problems can be solved. U.S. Geological Survey scientists are forming partnerships with experts in the public health and biomedical research communities to conduct rigorous scientific inquiries into the health effects of ecological processes.

The mystery of the perpetual motion clock of Geiser and Son

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Piguet, Jean-Michel

A description of the operation and mechanisms of a so called perpetual motion clock is given. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, the achievement of perpetual motion was one of the Neuchatel clockmakers' great interests. Some watchmakers presented scientists and the public with constructions which, at first sight, seemed to have solved the problem. In 1815 a really interesting clock mechanism invented by Jean Geiser and his son was presented in Neuchatel.

JPRS Report, East Asia. Southeast Asia, Vietnam: TAP CHI CONG SAN, No. 7, July 1989.

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-01-29

due to the fact that our economy is weak. It is also due to specific changes in the political-state system and the socioeconomic management...scientist how India has managed to solve the food problem in view of the fact that India produces less than 200 kg of grain per person per year. His...the nutritional value and use rate have increased, too. Families can use both rudimentary or modern equip- ment to process food. Thus, changing the

Advanced methods for the solution of differential equations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Goldstein, M. E.; Braun, W. H.

1973-01-01

This book is based on a course presented at the Lewis Research Center for engineers and scientists who were interested in increasing their knowledge of differential equations. Those results which can actually be used to solve equations are therefore emphasized; and detailed proofs of theorems are, for the most part, omitted. However, the conclusions of the theorems are stated in a precise manner, and enough references are given so that the interested reader can find the steps of the proofs.

Pathology of the human pituitary adenomas

PubMed Central

Kajiya, Hanako; Takei, Mao; Egashira, Noboru; Tobita, Maya; Takekoshi, Susumu; Teramoto, Akira

2008-01-01

This article describes pertinent aspects of histochemical and molecular changes of the human pituitary adenomas. The article outlines individual tumor groups with general, specific and molecular findings. The discussion further extends to the unusual adenomas or carcinomas. The description in this article are pertinent not only for the practicing pathologists who are in the position of making proper diagnosis, but also for the pituitary research scientists who engage in solving basic problems in pituitary neoplasms by histochemistry and molecular biology. PMID:18688636

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

SLAC,

The Department of Energy (DOE) and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) encourage innovation, creativity, originality and quality to maintain the Laboratory’s research activities and staff at the forefront of science and technology. To further advance its scientific research capabilities, the Laboratory allocates a portion of its funds for the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. With DOE guidance, the LDRD program enables SLAC scientists to make rapid and significant contributions that seed new strategies for solving important national science and technology problems. The LDRD program is conducted using existing research facilities.

The Convergence of High Performance Computing and Large Scale Data Analytics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duffy, D.; Bowen, M. K.; Thompson, J. H.; Yang, C. P.; Hu, F.; Wills, B.

2015-12-01

As the combinations of remote sensing observations and model outputs have grown, scientists are increasingly burdened with both the necessity and complexity of large-scale data analysis. Scientists are increasingly applying traditional high performance computing (HPC) solutions to solve their "Big Data" problems. While this approach has the benefit of limiting data movement, the HPC system is not optimized to run analytics, which can create problems that permeate throughout the HPC environment. To solve these issues and to alleviate some of the strain on the HPC environment, the NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) has created the Advanced Data Analytics Platform (ADAPT), which combines both HPC and cloud technologies to create an agile system designed for analytics. Large, commonly used data sets are stored in this system in a write once/read many file system, such as Landsat, MODIS, MERRA, and NGA. High performance virtual machines are deployed and scaled according to the individual scientist's requirements specifically for data analysis. On the software side, the NCCS and GMU are working with emerging commercial technologies and applying them to structured, binary scientific data in order to expose the data in new ways. Native NetCDF data is being stored within a Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) enabling storage-proximal processing through MapReduce while continuing to provide accessibility of the data to traditional applications. Once the data is stored within HDFS, an additional indexing scheme is built on top of the data and placed into a relational database. This spatiotemporal index enables extremely fast mappings of queries to data locations to dramatically speed up analytics. These are some of the first steps toward a single unified platform that optimizes for both HPC and large-scale data analysis, and this presentation will elucidate the resulting and necessary exascale architectures required for future systems.

DC-8 being pushed out of the Arena Arctica hangar in Kiruna, Sweden for the second flight of the SAG

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2000-01-01

This photo shows NASA's DC-8 being pushed out of the Arena Arctica hangar in Kiruna, Sweden for the second flight of the SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE). One of Dryden's high-flying ER-2 Airborne Science aircraft, a civilian variant of Lockheed's U-2, and another NASA flying laboratory, Dryden's DC-8, were based north of the Arctic Circle in Kiruna, Sweden during the winter of 2000 to study ozone depletion as part of SOLVE. A large hangar built especially for research, 'Arena Arctica' housed the instrumented aircraft and the scientists. Scientists observed unusually low levels of ozone over the Arctic during recent winters, raising concerns that ozone depletion there could become more widespread as in the Antarctic ozone hole. The NASA-sponsored international mission took place between November 1999 and March 2000 and was divided into three phases. The DC-8 was involved in all three phases returning to Dryden between each phase. The ER-2 flew science collection flights between January and March, remaining in Sweden from Jan. 9 through March 16. 'The collaborative campaign will provide an immense new body of information about the Arctic stratosphere,' said program scientist Dr. Michael Kurylo, NASA Headquarters. 'Our understanding of the Earth's ozone will be greatly enhanced by this research.' NASA is using a DC-8 aircraft as a flying science laboratory. The platform aircraft, based at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., collects data for many experiments in support of scientific projects serving the world scientific community. Included in this community are NASA, federal, state, academic and foreign investigators. Data gathered by the DC-8 at flight altitude and by remote sensing have been used for scientific studies in archeology, ecology, geography, hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, volcanology, atmospheric chemistry, soil science and biology.

``Political'' Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berzak Hopkins, Laura

2013-03-01

Politics and policy affect all of us, both as scientists and as citizens, and issues ranging from laboratory budgets to arms control treaties clearly require research problem-solving skills and technical expertise. There is a critical role for scientists in each aspect of the political system, and in fact, we as a society need more scientists to take part in politics. Furthermore, the research we pursue has important societal applications and is fascinating! We have a right and a responsibility to share our scientific knowledge not only with each other, but with the general public as well. So, why are we as a community of scientists reticent in the public arena, hesitant to enter politics, and even at times unsupportive of our peers who transition into governmental roles? In this time of fiscal constraint, when difficult research funding (and de-funding) choices are regularly being made, we as scientists must step up to the plate, reach across the aisle, and explain why what we do is fascinating, inspiring, and important, not just to us, but to society as a whole. A range of policy-relevant roles exists inside and outside the laboratory, such as Congressional Fellowships. Each year the Congressional Fellowships program brings together approximately thirty scientists at all stages of their careers to serve as scientific advisors in a variety of offices in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Although the jump from lab to lobbying meetings can be frustrating, the transition can also be intriguing. Firsthand experience with the ``how'' and ``why'' (or lack thereof) of politics and policy is invaluable and provides a unique opportunity to expand and broaden one's background. The opportunity to work on Capitol Hill is unparalleled, particularly because our nation has a definite need for scientists with the inclination and interest to inform and develop policy. But, whatever role you decide to take, from contributing scientific news to local publications to running for Congress, it's high time to show that we as scientists have important contributions to make both inside and outside the laboratory. We as scientists can and should contribute to ongoing political discussions, and there is no better time than now to speak up and apply our expertise to the policy issues at hand.

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) Project: Providing Standard and On-Demand SAR products for Hazard Science and Hazard Response

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Owen, S. E.; Hua, H.; Rosen, P. A.; Agram, P. S.; Webb, F.; Simons, M.; Yun, S. H.; Sacco, G. F.; Liu, Z.; Fielding, E. J.; Lundgren, P.; Moore, A. W.

2017-12-01

A new era of geodetic imaging arrived with the launch of the ESA Sentinel-1A/B satellites in 2014 and 2016, and with the 2016 confirmation of the NISAR mission, planned for launch in 2021. These missions assure high quality, freely and openly distributed regularly sampled SAR data into the indefinite future. These unprecedented data sets are a watershed for solid earth sciences as we progress towards the goal of ubiquitous InSAR measurements. We now face the challenge of how to best address the massive volumes of data and intensive processing requirements. Should scientists individually process the same data independently themselves? Should a centralized service provider create standard products that all can use? Are there other approaches to accelerate science that are cost effective and efficient? The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) project, a joint venture co-sponsored by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and by NASA through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is focused on rapidly generating higher level geodetic imaging products and placing them in the hands of the solid earth science and local, national, and international natural hazard communities by providing science product generation, exploration, and delivery capabilities at an operational level. However, there are challenges in defining the optimal InSAR data products for the solid earth science community. In this presentation, we will present our experience with InSAR users, our lessons learned the advantages of on demand and standard products, and our proposal for the most effective path forward.

Mars Program Independent Assessment Team Report

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Young, Thomas; Arnold, James; Brackey, Thomas; Carr, Michael; Dwoyer, Douglas; Fogleman, Ronald; Jacobson, Ralph; Kottler, Herbert; Lyman, Peter; Maguire, Joanne

2000-01-01

The Mars Climate Orbiter failed to achieve Mars orbit on September 23, 1999. On December 3, 1999, Mars Polar Lander and two Deep Space 2 microprobes failed. As a result, the NASA Administrator established the Mars Program Independent Assessment Team (MPIAT) with the following charter: 1) Review and analyze successes and failures of recent Mars and Deep Space Missions which include: a) Mars Global Surveyor, b) Mars Climate Orbiter, c) Pathfinder, d) Mars Polar Lander, e) Deep Space 1, and f) Deep Space 2; 2) Examine the relationship between and among, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology (Caltech), NASA Headquarters, and industry partners; 3) Assess effectiveness of involvement of scientists; 4) Identify lessons learned from successes and failures; 5) Review revised Mars Surveyor Program to assure lessons learned are utilized; 6) Oversee Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 failure reviews; and 7) Complete by March 15, 2000. In-depth reviews were conducted at NASA Headquarters, JPL, and Lockheed Martin Astronautics (LMA). Structured reviews, informal sessions with numerous Mars Program participants, and extensive debate and discussion within the MPIAT establish the basis for this report. The review process began on January 7, 2000, and concluded with a briefing to the NASA Administrator on March 14, 2000. This report represents the integrated views of the members of the MPIAT who are identified in the appendix. In total, three related reports have been produced: a summary report, this report entitled "Mars Program Independent Assessment Team Report," and the "Report on the Loss of the Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 Missions".

Overview of the Focused Isoprene eXperiment at the California Institute of Technology (FIXCIT): mechanistic chamber studies on the oxidation of biogenic compounds

DOE PAGES

Nguyen, T. B.; Crounse, J. D.; Schwantes, R. H.; ...

2014-12-19

The Focused Isoprene eXperiment at the California Institute of Technology (FIXCIT) was a collaborative atmospheric chamber campaign that occurred during January 2014. FIXCIT is the laboratory component of a synergistic field and laboratory effort aimed toward (1) better understanding the chemical details behind ambient observations relevant to the southeastern United States, (2) advancing the knowledge of atmospheric oxidation mechanisms of important biogenic hydrocarbons, and (3) characterizing the behavior of field instrumentation using authentic standards. Approximately 20 principal scientists from 14 academic and government institutions performed parallel measurements at a forested site in Alabama and at the atmospheric chambers at Caltech.more » During the 4 week campaign period, a series of chamber experiments was conducted to investigate the dark- and photo-induced oxidation of isoprene, α-pinene, methacrolein, pinonaldehyde, acylperoxy nitrates, isoprene hydroxy nitrates (ISOPN), isoprene hydroxy hydroperoxides (ISOPOOH), and isoprene epoxydiols (IEPOX) in a highly controlled and atmospherically relevant manner. Pinonaldehyde and isomer-specific standards of ISOPN, ISOPOOH, and IEPOX were synthesized and contributed by campaign participants, which enabled explicit exploration into the oxidation mechanisms and instrument responses for these important atmospheric compounds. The present overview describes the goals, experimental design, instrumental techniques, and preliminary observations from the campaign. This work provides context for forthcoming publications affiliated with the FIXCIT campaign. Insights from FIXCIT are anticipated to aid significantly in interpretation of field data and the revision of mechanisms currently implemented in regional and global atmospheric models.« less

Light Matters (A "Life at the Frontiers of Energy Research" contest entry from the 2011 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) Summit and Forum)

ScienceCinema

Atwater, Harry (Director, Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI), California Institute of Technology); LMI Staff

2017-12-09

'Light Matters' was submitted by the Center for Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI) to the 'Life at the Frontiers of Energy Research' video contest at the 2011 Science for Our Nation's Energy Future: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) Summit and Forum. Twenty-six EFRCs created short videos to highlight their mission and their work. This video was selected as one of five winners by a distinguished panel of judges for its 'striking photography and visual impact'. LMI, an EFRC directed by Harry Atwater at the California Institute of Technology is a partnership of scientists from three institutions: CalTech (lead), University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science established the 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) in 2009. These collaboratively-organized centers conduct fundamental research focused on 'grand challenges' and use-inspired 'basic research needs' recently identified in major strategic planning efforts by the scientific community. The overall purpose is to accelerate scientific progress toward meeting the nation's critical energy challenges. The mission of Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion is 'to tailor the morphology, complex dielectric structure, and electronic properties of matter to sculpt the flow of sunlight, enabling light conversion to electrical and chemical energy with unprecedented efficiency.' Research topics are: catalysis (imines hydrocarbons), solar photovoltaic, solar fuels, photonic, solid state lighting, metamaterial, optics, phonons, thermal conductivity, solar electrodes, photsynthesis, CO{sub 2} (convert), greenhouse gas, and matter by design.

Image Halftoning Using Optimized Dot Diffusion

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-01-01

ppvnath@sys.caltech.edu ABSTRACT The dot diffusion method for digital halftoning has the advantage of parallelism unlike the error diffusion ...digital halftoning : ordered dither [1], error diffusion [2], neural-net based methods [8], and more recently direct binary search (DBS) [7]. Ordered...from periodic patterns. On the other hand error diffused halftones do not suffer from periodicity and offer blue noise characteristic [3] which is

(abstract) Absolute Flux Calibrations of Venus and Jupiter at 32 GHz

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gatti, Mark S.; Klein, Michael J.

1994-01-01

The microwave flux densities of Venus and Jupiter at 32 GHz have been measured using a calibration standard radio telescope system at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) during April and May of 1993. These measurements are part of a joint JPL/Caltech program to accurately calibrate a catalog of other radio sources using the two bright planets as flux standards.

Quantum Algorithms for Fermionic Quantum Field Theories

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-04-28

preskill@theory.caltech.edu 1 Report Documentation Page Form ApprovedOMB No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for the collection of information is...NAME OF RESPONSIBLE PERSON a. REPORT unclassified b. ABSTRACT unclassified c. THIS PAGE unclassified Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98...operators of momentum modes. (The choice between these forms of measurement depends on the application.) 2.3 Complexity In this section we bound the

A Conversation with Robert F. Christy Part I

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lippincott, Sara

2006-09-01

Robert F. Christy, Institute Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at Caltech, recalls his childhood in British Columbia; his undergraduate years at the University of British Columbia; his graduate work with J. Robert Oppenheimer at Berkeley; and his work on the Manhattan Project, first with Enrico Fermi at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago and then as a member of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos.

Team RoboSimian

NASA Image and Video Library

2015-06-09

Many members of Team RoboSimian and a few guests gather with competition hardware at a "Meet the Robots" event during the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals in Pomona, California, on June 6, 2015. The RoboSimian team at JPL is collaborating with partners at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19329

ASK Magazine. No. 9

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Post, Todd (Editor)

2002-01-01

Most of this issue is about ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer). We've collected stories by four members of the ACE management team: Don Margolies, the mission manager from Goddard Space Flight Center; Frandsen, science payloads manager from the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Mary Chin, project manager in charge of spacecraft development at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; and Frank Snow, operations and ground systems manager at Goddard.

Hubble tracks down a galaxy cluster's dark matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2003-07-01

Unique mass map hi-res Size hi-res: 495 kb Credits: European Space Agency, NASA and Jean-Paul Kneib (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France/Caltech, USA) Unique mass map This is a mass map of galaxy cluster Cl0024+1654 derived from an extensive Hubble Space Telescope campaign. The colour image is made from two images: a dark-matter map (the blue part of the image) and a 'luminous-matter' map determined from the galaxies in the cluster (the red part of the image). They were constructed by feeding Hubble and ground-based observations into advanced mathematical mass-mapping models. The map shows that dark matter is present where the galaxies clump together. The mass of the galaxies is shown in red, the mass of the dark matter in blue. The dark matter behaves like a 'glue', holding the cluster together. The dark-matter distribution in the cluster is not spherical. A secondary concentration of dark-matter mass is shown in blue to the upper right of the main concentration. Sky around galaxy cluster Cl0024+1654 hi-res Size hi-res: 3742 kb Credits: European Space Agency, NASA and Jean-Paul Kneib (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France/Caltech, USA) Sky around galaxy cluster Cl0024+1654 This is a 2.5-degree field around galaxy cluster Cl0024+1654. The cluster galaxies are visible in the centre of the image in yellow. The image is a colour composite constructed from three Digitized Sky Survey 2 images: Blue (shown in blue), Red (shown in green), and Infrared (shown in red). HST observes shapes of more than 7000 faint background galaxies hi-res Size hi-res: 5593 kb Credits: European Space Agency, NASA and Jean-Paul Kneib (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France/Caltech, USA) Hubble observes shapes of more than 7000 faint background galaxies Five days of observations produced the altogether 39 Hubble Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) images required to map the mass of the galaxy cluster Cl0024+1654. Each WFPC2 image has a size of about 1/150 the diameter of the full Moon. In total, the image measures 27 arc-minutes across, slightly smaller than the diameter of the Moon. The observed warped shapes of more than 7000 faint background galaxies have been converted into a unique map of the dark matter in the cluster. The images were taken through a red filter and have been reduced a factor of two in size. Ground-based image of the galaxy cluster C10024+1654 hi-res Size hi-res: 4699 kb Credits: European Space Agency, NASA and Jean-Paul Kneib (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France/Caltech, USA) Ground-based image of the galaxy cluster C10024+1654 This is a colour image of the galaxy cluster C10024+1654 obtained with the CFHT12k camera at the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea (Hawaii). The cluster clearly appears as a concentration of yellow galaxies in the centre of this image although cluster galaxies actually extend at least to the edge of this image. This image measures 21 x 21 arc-minutes. Clusters of galaxies are the largest stable systems in the Universe. They are like laboratories for studying the relationship between the distributions of dark and visible matter. In 1937, Fritz Zwicky realised that the visible component of a cluster (the thousands of millions of stars in each of the thousands of galaxies) represents only a tiny fraction of the total mass. About 80-85% of the matter is invisible, the so-called 'dark matter'. Although astronomers have known about the presence of dark matter for many decades, finding a technique to view its distribution is a much more recent development. Led by Drs Jean-Paul Kneib (from the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France/Caltech, United States), Richard Ellis and Tommaso Treu (both Caltech, United States), the team used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to reconstruct a unique 'mass map' of the galaxy cluster CL0024+1654. It enabled them to see for the first time on such large scales how mysterious dark matter is distributed with respect to galaxies. This comparison gives new clues on how such large clusters assemble and which role dark matter plays in cosmic evolution. Tracing dark matter is not an easy task because it does not shine. To make a map, astronomers must focus on much fainter, more distant galaxies behind the cluster. The shapes of these distant systems are distorted by the gravity of the foreground cluster. This distortion provides a measure of the cluster mass, a phenomenon known as 'weak gravitational lensing'. To map the dark matter of CL0024+1654, more than 120 hours observing time was dedicated to the team. This is the largest amount of Hubble time ever devoted to studying a galaxy cluster. Despite its distance of 4.5 thousand million light-years (about one third of the look-back time to the Big Bang) from Earth, this massive cluster is wide enough to equal the angular size of the full Moon. To make a mass map that covers the entire cluster required observations that probed 39 regions of the galaxy cluster. The investigation has resulted in the most comprehensive study of the distribution of dark matter in a galaxy cluster so far and extends more than 20 million light-years from its centre, much further than previous investigations. Many groups of researchers have tried to perform these types of measurements with ground-based telescopes. However, the technique relies heavily on finding the exact shapes of distant galaxies behind the cluster. The sharp vision of a space telescope such as NASA-ESA's Hubble is superior. The study reveals that the density of dark matter on large scales drops sharply with distance from the cluster centre. This confirms a picture that has emerged from recent detailed computer simulations. As Richard Ellis says: "Although theorists have predicted the form of dark matter in galaxy clusters from numerical simulations based on the effects of gravity alone, this is the first time we have convincing observations to back them up. Some astronomers had speculated clusters might contain large reservoirs of dark matter in their outermost regions. Assuming our cluster is representative, this is not the case." The team noticed that dark matter appears to clump together in their map. For example, they found concentrations of dark matter associated with galaxies known to be slowly falling into the system. Generally, the researchers found that the dark matter traces the cluster galaxies remarkably well and over an unprecedented range of physical scales. "When a cluster is being assembled, the dark matter will be smeared out between the galaxies where it acts like a glue," says Jean-Paul Kneib."The overall association of dark matter and 'glowing matter' is very convincing evidence that structures like CL0024+1654 grow by merging of smaller groups of galaxies that were already bound by their own dark matter components." Future investigations using Hubble's new camera, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), will extend this work when Hubble is trained on a second galaxy cluster later this year. ACS is 10 times more efficient than the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 used for this investigation, making it possible to study finer mass clumps in galaxy clusters and help work out how the clusters are assembled. Notes for editors The team is composed of Jean-Paul Kneib (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France/Caltech, United States), Patrick Hudelot (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France),Richard S. Ellis (Caltech, United States), Tommaso Treu (Caltech, United States), Graham P. Smith (Caltech, United States), Phil Marshall (MRAO, United Kingdom), Oliver Czoske (Institut für Astrophysik und Extraterrestrische Forschung, Germany), Ian Smail (University of Durham, United Kingdom) and Priya Natarajan (Yale University, United States). The ground-based observations were done with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) using the CFHT12k camera, the Keck telescopes, and the Hale 5-metre telescope at Palomar, United States, using the WIRC camera. The team will present their study at the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union. They will also publish their results in a forthcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal. For broadcasters, animations of the discovery and general Hubble Space Telescope background footage is available from http://www.spacetelescope.org/video/releases.html Image credit: European Space Agency, NASA and Jean-Paul Kneib (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France/Caltech, United States)

Whose DNA is this? How relevant a question? (a note for forensic scientists).

PubMed

Taroni, Franco; Biedermann, Alex; Vuille, Joëlle; Morling, Niels

2013-07-01

This communication seeks to draw the attention of researchers and practitioners dealing with forensic DNA profiling analyses to the following question: is a scientist's report, offering support to a hypothesis according to which a particular individual is the source of DNA detected during the analysis of a stain, relevant from the point of view of a Court of Justice? This question relates to skeptical views previously voiced by commentators mainly in the judicial area, but is avoided by a large majority of forensic scientists. Notwithstanding, the pivotal role of this question has recently been evoked during the international conference "The hidden side of DNA profiles. Artifacts, errors and uncertain evidence" held in Rome (April 27th to 28th, 2012). Indeed, despite the fact that this conference brought together some of the world's leading forensic DNA specialists, it appeared clearly that a huge gap still exists between questions lawyers are actually interested in, and the answers that scientists deliver to Courts in written reports or during oral testimony. Participants in the justice system, namely lawyers and jurors on the one hand and forensic geneticists on the other, unfortunately talk considerably different languages. It thus is fundamental to address this issue of communication about results of forensic DNA analyses, and open a dialogue with practicing non-scientists at large who need to make meaningful use of scientific results to approach and help solve judicial cases. This paper intends to emphasize the actuality of this topic and suggest beneficial ways ahead towards a more reasoned use of forensic DNA in criminal proceedings. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Art-Science-Technology collaboration through immersive, interactive 3D visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kellogg, L. H.

2014-12-01

At the W. M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES), a group of geoscientists and computer scientists collaborate to develop and use of interactive, immersive, 3D visualization technology to view, manipulate, and interpret data for scientific research. The visual impact of immersion in a CAVE environment can be extremely compelling, and from the outset KeckCAVES scientists have collaborated with artists to bring this technology to creative works, including theater and dance performance, installations, and gamification. The first full-fledged collaboration designed and produced a performance called "Collapse: Suddenly falling down", choreographed by Della Davidson, which investigated the human and cultural response to natural and man-made disasters. Scientific data (lidar scans of disaster sites, such as landslides and mine collapses) were fully integrated into the performance by the Sideshow Physical Theatre. This presentation will discuss both the technological and creative characteristics of, and lessons learned from the collaboration. Many parallels between the artistic and scientific process emerged. We observed that both artists and scientists set out to investigate a topic, solve a problem, or answer a question. Refining that question or problem is an essential part of both the creative and scientific workflow. Both artists and scientists seek understanding (in this case understanding of natural disasters). Differences also emerged; the group noted that the scientists sought clarity (including but not limited to quantitative measurements) as a means to understanding, while the artists embraced ambiguity, also as a means to understanding. Subsequent art-science-technology collaborations have responded to evolving technology for visualization and include gamification as a means to explore data, and use of augmented reality for informal learning in museum settings.

At the Beginning of the STEM Pipeline: A Case Study Exploring Preadolescent Female Students' Attitudes Toward Science, Perceptions of Scientists, and Developing Career Aspirations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heacock, Lucy Vogel

The continuous underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), referred to as the leaky pipeline, has been examined from multiple perspectives internationally, while the attitudes and perceptions of preadolescent girls regarding STEM remain largely ignored. Employing a constructivist paradigm, this qualitative case study explored the perceptions and attitudes of 40 public elementary school female students across three grade levels regarding science, scientists, and career aspirations. Mixed-methods data collections included three survey instruments combined with semi-structured interviews. Self-efficacy, stereotype threat, and career choice theory provided the framework for the overarching research question: What are the attitudes and perceptions of female preadolescent students at the third, fourth, and fifth grade levels regarding science and scientists, and how might these dispositions affect their early development of STEM career aspirations and interests? The Three-Dimensions of Student Attitude Towards Science (TDSAS) instrument informed the exploration of self-efficacy; the modified Draw-A-Scientist Test (mDAST) and Rubric informed the exploration of stereotype threat; and the STEM-Career Interest Survey (CIS) informed the exploration of career aspirations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants. Results from this study indicated that the majority of the preadolescent girls thought science was an important topic to study and displayed an attitude of self-confident ability to learn science and be successful in science class. They highly enjoyed scientific experimentation and deeply valued problem solving. While they inferred they did not experience gender bias, the girls did engage in stereotyping scientists. Over half the girls expected to use science in their future careers, while a minority had already determined they wanted to be scientists when they grow up. The study concludes with recommendations for education stakeholders and for future research.

Good Morning from Barrow, Alaska! Helping K-12 students understand the importance of research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shelton, M.

2010-12-01

This presentation focuses on how an educator experiences scientific research and how those experiences can help foster K-12 students’ understanding of research being conducted in Barrow, Alaska. According to Zhang and Fulford (1994), real-time electronic field trips help to provide a sense of closeness and relevance. In combination with experts in the field, the electronic experience can help students to better understand the phenomenon being studied, thus strengthening the student’s conceptual knowledge (Zhang & Fulford, 1994). During a seven day research trip to study the arctic sea ice, five rural Virginia teachers and their students participated in Skype sessions with the participating educator and other members of the Radford University research team. The students were able to view the current conditions in Barrow, listen to members of the research team describe what their contributions were to the research, and ask questions about the research and Alaska in general. Collaborations between students and scientist can have long lasting benefits for both educators and students in promoting an understanding of the research process and understanding why our world is changing. By using multimedia venues such as Skype students are able to interact with researchers both visually and verbally, forming the basis for students’ interest in science. A learner’s level of engagement is affected by the use of multimedia, especially the level of cognitive processing. Visual images alone do no promote the development of good problem solving skills. However, the students are able to develop better problem solving skills when both visual images and verbal interactions are used together. As students form higher confidence levels by improving their ability to problem solve, their interest in science also increases. It is possible that this interest could turn into a passion for science, which could result in more students wanting to become scientists or science teachers.

Next Generation Search Interfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roby, W.; Wu, X.; Ly, L.; Goldina, T.

2015-09-01

Astronomers are constantly looking for easier ways to access multiple data sets. While much effort is spent on VO, little thought is given to the types of User Interfaces we need to effectively search this sort of data. For instance, an astronomer might need to search Spitzer, WISE, and 2MASS catalogs and images then see the results presented together in one UI. Moving seamlessly between data sets is key to presenting integrated results. Results need to be viewed using first class, web based, integrated FITS viewers, XY Plots, and advanced table display tools. These components should be able to handle very large datasets. To make a powerful Web based UI that can manage and present multiple searches to the user requires taking advantage of many HTML5 features. AJAX is used to start searches and present results. Push notifications (Server Sent Events) monitor background jobs. Canvas is required for advanced result displays. Lesser known CSS3 technologies makes it all flow seamlessly together. At IPAC, we have been developing our Firefly toolkit for several years. We are now using it to solve this multiple data set, multiple queries, and integrated presentation problem to create a powerful research experience. Firefly was created in IRSA, the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu). Firefly is the core for applications serving many project archives, including Spitzer, Planck, WISE, PTF, LSST and others. It is also used in IRSA's new Finder Chart and catalog and image displays.

Cosmic Blasts Much More Common, Astronomers Discover

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2006-08-01

A cosmic explosion seen last February may have been the "tip of an iceberg," showing that powerful, distant gamma ray bursts are outnumbered ten-to-one by less-energetic cousins, according to an international team of astronomers. A study of the explosion with X-ray and radio telescopes showed that it is "100 times less energetic than gamma ray bursts seen in the distant universe. We were able to see it because it's relatively nearby," said Alicia Soderberg, of Caltech, leader of the research team. The scientists reported their findings in the August 31 issue of the journal Nature. The explosion is called an X-ray flash, and was detected by the Swift satellite on February 18. The astronomers subsequently studied the object using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Ryle radio telescope in the UK. "This object tells us that there probably is a rich diversity of cosmic explosions in our local Universe that we only now are starting to detect. These explosions aren't playing by the rules that we thought we understood," said Dale Frail of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Illustration of a Magnetar Illustration of a Magnetar The February blast seems to fill a gap between ordinary supernova explosions, which leave behind a dense neutron star, and gamma ray bursts, which leave behind a black hole, a concentration of mass so dense that not even light can escape it. Some X-ray flashes, the new research suggests, leave behind a magnetar, a neutron star with a magnetic field 100-1000 times stronger than that of an ordinary neutron star. "This explosion occurred in a galaxy about 470 million light-years away. If it had been at the distances of gamma ray bursts, as much as billions of light-years away, we would not have been able to see it," Frail said. "We think that the principal difference between gamma ray bursts and X-ray flashes and ordinary supernova explosions is that the blasts that produce gamma rays and X-rays have disks of material rotating rapidly about the central object," Soderberg said. The powerful gamma ray bursts tap the tremendous gravitational energy of their black hole to produce strong beams of energetic radiation, while less-energetic X-ray bursts like the Feburary event tap energy from the strong magnetic field of the magnetar, the scientists speculated. "This discovery means that the 'zoo' of cosmic explosions has just gotten more numerous and more diverse. It also means that our understanding of how the cores of massive stars collapse to produce this variety of explosions is less complete than we had thought," Frail added. Multiwavelength follow-up observations were required by the team to measure the total energy release of the explosion. In particular, Soderberg adds that "Radio observations with the Very Large Array were additionally required to determine the geometry of the ejecta. We find that unlike typical GRBs which produce pencil-beam jets, this object more resembles a spherical explosion." In addition to Soderberg and Frail, the research team includes Shri Kulkarni. Ehud Nakar, Edo Berger, Brian Cameron, Avishay Gal-Yam, Re'em Sari, Mansi Kasiwal, Eran Ofek, Arne Rau, Brad Cenko, Eric Persson and Dae-Sik Moon of Caltech, Derrick Fox and Dave Burrows of Pennsylvania State University, Roger Chevalier of the University of Virginia, Tsvi Piran of the Hebrew University, Paul Price of the University of Hawaii, Brian Schmidt of Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia, Guy Pooley of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in the UK, Bryan Penprase of Pomona College, and Neil Gehrels of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. http://www.nrao.edu/

Cosmic Blasts Much More Common, Astronomers Discover

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2006-08-01

A cosmic explosion seen last February may have been the "tip of an iceberg," showing that powerful, distant gamma ray bursts are outnumbered ten-to-one by less-energetic cousins, according to an international team of astronomers. The VLA The Very Large Array CREDIT: NRAO/AUI/NSF (Click on image for VLA gallery) A study of the explosion with X-ray and radio telescopes showed that it is "100 times less energetic than gamma ray bursts seen in the distant universe. We were able to see it because it's relatively nearby," said Alicia Soderberg, of Caltech, leader of the research team. The scientists reported their findings in the August 31 issue of the journal Nature. The explosion is called an X-ray flash, and was detected by the Swift satellite on February 18. The astronomers subsequently studied the object using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Ryle radio telescope in the UK. "This object tells us that there probably is a rich diversity of cosmic explosions in our local Universe that we only now are starting to detect. These explosions aren't playing by the rules that we thought we understood," said Dale Frail of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The February blast seems to fill a gap between ordinary supernova explosions, which leave behind a dense neutron star, and gamma ray bursts, which leave behind a black hole, a concentration of mass so dense that not even light can escape it. Some X-ray flashes, the new research suggests, leave behind a magnetar, a neutron star with a magnetic field 100-1000 times stronger than that of an ordinary neutron star. "This explosion occurred in a galaxy about 470 million light-years away. If it had been at the distances of gamma ray bursts, as much as billions of light-years away, we would not have been able to see it," Frail said. "We think that the principal difference between gamma ray bursts and X-ray flashes and ordinary supernova explosions is that the blasts that produce gamma rays and X-rays have disks of material rotating rapidly about the central object," Soderberg said. The powerful gamma ray bursts tap the tremendous gravitational energy of their black hole to produce strong beams of energetic radiation, while less-energetic X-ray bursts like the Feburary event tap energy from the strong magnetic field of the magnetar, the scientists speculated. "This discovery means that the 'zoo' of cosmic explosions has just gotten more numerous and more diverse. It also means that our understanding of how the cores of massive stars collapse to produce this variety of explosions is less complete than we had thought," Frail added. Multiwavelength follow-up observations were required by the team to measure the total energy release of the explosion. In particular, Soderberg adds that "Radio observations with the Very Large Array were additionally required to determine the geometry of the ejecta. We find that unlike typical GRBs which produce pencil-beam jets, this object more resembles a spherical explosion." In addition to Soderberg and Frail, the research team includes Shri Kulkarni. Ehud Nakar, Edo Berger, Brian Cameron, Avishay Gal-Yam, Re'em Sari, Mansi Kasiwal, Eran Ofek, Arne Rau, Brad Cenko, Eric Persson and Dae-Sik Moon of Caltech, Derrick Fox and Dave Burrows of Pennsylvania State University, Roger Chevalier of the University of Virginia, Tsvi Piran of the Hebrew University, Paul Price of the University of Hawaii, Brian Schmidt of Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia, Guy Pooley of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in the UK, Bryan Penprase of Pomona College, and Neil Gehrels of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

NASA Planetary Science Summer School: Preparing the Next Generation of Planetary Mission Leaders

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Budney, C. J.; Lowes, L. L.; Sohus, A.; Wheeler, T.; Wessen, A.; Scalice, D.

2010-12-01

Sponsored by NASA’s Planetary Science Division, and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Planetary Science Summer School prepares the next generation of engineers and scientists to participate in future solar system exploration missions. Participants learn the mission life cycle, roles of scientists and engineers in a mission environment, mission design interconnectedness and trade-offs, and the importance of teamwork. For this professional development opportunity, applicants are sought who have a strong interest and experience in careers in planetary exploration, and who are science and engineering post-docs, recent PhDs, and doctoral students, and faculty teaching such students. Disciplines include planetary science, geoscience, geophysics, environmental science, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, and materials science. Participants are selected through a competitive review process, with selections based on the strength of the application and advisor’s recommendation letter. Under the mentorship of a lead engineer (Dr. Charles Budney), students select, design, and develop a mission concept in response to the NASA New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity. They develop their mission in the JPL Advanced Projects Design Team (Team X) environment, which is a cross-functional multidisciplinary team of professional engineers that utilizes concurrent engineering methodologies to complete rapid design, analysis and evaluation of mission concept designs. About 36 students participate each year, divided into two summer sessions. In advance of an intensive week-long session in the Project Design Center at JPL, students select the mission and science goals during a series of six weekly WebEx/telecons, and develop a preliminary suite of instrumentation and a science traceability matrix. Students assume both a science team and a mission development role with JPL Team X mentors. Once at JPL, students participate in a series of Team X project design sessions, during which their mentors aid them in finalizing their mission design and instrument suite, and in making the necessary trade-offs to stay within the cost cap. Tours of JPL facilities highlight the end-to-end life cycle of a mission. At week’s end, students present their Concept Study to a “proposal review board” of JPL scientists and engineers and NASA Headquarters executives, who feed back the strengths and weaknesses of their proposal and mission design. The majority of students come from top US universities with planetary science or engineering programs, such as Brown University, MIT, Georgia Tech, University of Colorado, Caltech, Stanford, University of Arizona, UCLA, and University of Michigan. Almost a third of Planetary Science Summer School alumni from the last 10 years of the program are currently employed by NASA or JPL. The Planetary Science Summer School is implemented by the JPL Education Office in partnership with JPL’s Team X Project Design Center.

Satellite Radar Show Complex Set of Faults Moved in 2016 New Zealand Earthquake

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-03-23

NASA and its partners are contributing important observations and expertise to the ongoing response to the Nov. 14, 2016, magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake in New Zealand. This shallow earthquake was so complex and unusual, it is likely to change how scientists think about earthquake hazards in plate boundary zones around the world. Scientists with the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis project (ARIA), a collaboration between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and Caltech in Pasadena, analyzed interferometric synthetic aperture radar images from the PALSAR-2 instrument on the ALOS-2 satellite operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to calculate maps of the deformation of Earth's surface caused by the quake. Two maps show motion of the surface in two different directions. Each false-color map shows the amount of permanent surface movement caused almost entirely by the earthquake, as viewed by the satellite, during a 28-day interval between two ALOS-2 wide-swath images acquired on Oct. 18 and Nov. 15, 2016. In these two new maps made from the wide-swath images, the colors of the surface displacements are proportional to the surface motion. The wide-swath images cover the entire 106-mile (170-kilometer) length of the complex set of earthquake ruptures. The arrows show the direction of the radar motion measurement. In the left image, the blue and purple tones show the areas where the land around the Kaikoura peninsula in the Marlborough region of New Zealand's South Island has moved toward the satellite by up to 13.2 feet (4 meters), both eastward and upward. In the right image, the blue and purple tones show the areas that moved to the north by up to 30 feet (9 meters) and green tones show the area that moved to the south. The sharp line of color change is across the Kekerengu Fault, which had the largest amount of motion in the earthquake. Field studies found maximum rupture at the surface was measured at 39 feet (12 meters) of horizontal displacement. Several other faults have sharp color changes due to smaller amounts of motion, with a total of at least 12 faults rupturing in this single large earthquake. Areas without color have snow, heavy vegetation or open water that prevents the radar measurements from being coherent between satellite images – a required condition to measure ground displacement. Scientists use these maps to build detailed models of the fault slip at depth and associated land movements to better understand the impact on future earthquake activity. The PALSAR-2 data were provided by JAXA through the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and through scientific research projects. The background image is from Google Earth. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21210

[Forensic evidence-based medicine in computer communication networks].

PubMed

Qiu, Yun-Liang; Peng, Ming-Qi

2013-12-01

As an important component of judicial expertise, forensic science is broad and highly specialized. With development of network technology, increasement of information resources, and improvement of people's legal consciousness, forensic scientists encounter many new problems, and have been required to meet higher evidentiary standards in litigation. In view of this, evidence-based concept should be established in forensic medicine. We should find the most suitable method in forensic science field and other related area to solve specific problems in the evidence-based mode. Evidence-based practice can solve the problems in legal medical field, and it will play a great role in promoting the progress and development of forensic science. This article reviews the basic theory of evidence-based medicine and its effect, way, method, and evaluation in the forensic medicine in order to discuss the application value of forensic evidence-based medicine in computer communication networks.

Comparative analysis of polychlorinated biphenyl decomposition processes in air or argon (+oxygen) thermal plasma.

PubMed

Kostic, Z G; Stefanovic, P L; Pavlović, P B

2000-07-10

Thermal plasmas may solve one of the biggest toxic waste disposal problems. The disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) is a long standing problem which will get worse in the coming years, when 180000 tons of PCB-containing wastes are expected to accumulate in Europe (Hot ions break down toxic chemicals, New Scientist, 16 April 1987, p. 24.). The combustion of PCBs in ordinary incinerators (at temperature T approximately 1100 K, as measured near the inner wall of the combustion chamber (European Parliament and Council Directive on Incineration of Waste (COM/99/330), Europe energy, 543, Sept. 17, 1999, 1-23.)) can cause more problems than it solves, because highly toxic dioxins and dibenzofurans are formed if the combustion temperature is too low (T<1400 K). The paper presents a thermodynamic consideration and comparative analysis of PCB decomposition processes in air or argon (+oxygen) thermal plasmas.

Overcoming Geometry-Induced Stiffness with IMplicit-Explicit (IMEX) Runge-Kutta Algorithms on Unstructured Grids with Applications to CEM, CFD, and CAA

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kanevsky, Alex

2004-01-01

My goal is to develop and implement efficient, accurate, and robust Implicit-Explicit Runge-Kutta (IMEX RK) methods [9] for overcoming geometry-induced stiffness with applications to computational electromagnetics (CEM), computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational aeroacoustics (CAA). IMEX algorithms solve the non-stiff portions of the domain using explicit methods, and isolate and solve the more expensive stiff portions using implicit methods. Current algorithms in CEM can only simulate purely harmonic (up to lOGHz plane wave) EM scattering by fighter aircraft, which are assumed to be pure metallic shells, and cannot handle the inclusion of coatings, penetration into and radiation out of the aircraft. Efficient MEX RK methods could potentially increase current CEM capabilities by 1-2 orders of magnitude, allowing scientists and engineers to attack more challenging and realistic problems.

Creativity and Ethics: The Relationship of Creative and Ethical Problem-Solving.

PubMed

Mumford, Michael D; Waples, Ethan P; Antes, Alison L; Brown, Ryan P; Connelly, Shane; Murphy, Stephen T; Devenport, Lynn D

2010-02-01

Students of creativity have long been interested in the relationship between creativity and deviant behaviors such as criminality, mental disease, and unethical behavior. In the present study we wished to examine the relationship between creative thinking skills and ethical decision-making among scientists. Accordingly, 258 doctoral students in the health, biological, and social sciences were asked to complete a measure of creative processing skills (e.g., problem definition, conceptual combination, idea generation) and a measure of ethical decision-making examining four domains, data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. It was found that ethical decision-making in all four of these areas was related to creative problem-solving processes with late cycle processes (e.g., idea generation and solution monitoring) proving particularly important. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationship between creative and deviant thought are discussed.

Creativity and Ethics: The Relationship of Creative and Ethical Problem-Solving

PubMed Central

Mumford, Michael D.; Waples, Ethan P.; Antes, Alison L.; Brown, Ryan P.; Connelly, Shane; Murphy, Stephen T.; Devenport, Lynn D.

2010-01-01

Students of creativity have long been interested in the relationship between creativity and deviant behaviors such as criminality, mental disease, and unethical behavior. In the present study we wished to examine the relationship between creative thinking skills and ethical decision-making among scientists. Accordingly, 258 doctoral students in the health, biological, and social sciences were asked to complete a measure of creative processing skills (e.g., problem definition, conceptual combination, idea generation) and a measure of ethical decision-making examining four domains, data management, study conduct, professional practices, and business practices. It was found that ethical decision-making in all four of these areas was related to creative problem-solving processes with late cycle processes (e.g., idea generation and solution monitoring) proving particularly important. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationship between creative and deviant thought are discussed. PMID:21057603

Historical development of Chinese dietary patterns and nutrition from the ancient to the modern society.

PubMed

Chen, J D; Xu, H

1996-01-01

Actually, food, diet and diet therapy germinated together with the change of meal patterns and traditional Chinese medicine from very ancient China; they appeared in an embryonic form till the Shang and Zhou Dynasties and received great importance from the governors who arranged officials to manage their diets and banquets. Moreover, food, diet and meal patterns were replenished through the Zhou, Qin, Han and Jin Dynasties and epitomized and reached thriving and prosperous standards till the Tang Dynasty. They then became perfected, developed, and formed a complete theory in the dynasties of Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing. The basis of modern nutrition was made up until the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, which was the time when natural science, including microbiology, chemistry, food industry, etc. were extended into China, yet it was not fully formed until the established of the People's Republic of China. Practicing, teaching, training and research activities started regularly in 1950. With a big population and poor economy basis, the first problem that the Chinese people has now been basically solved. Chinese nutritional scientists worked hard to find out the nutritional problems and status of the people. Through the broad-scale 'Nationwide Nutrition Survey', we now understand our main problems. On this basis, RDA, dietary goal and dietary guidance have been put forward. Although the problem of adequate food and clothing has been basically solved, the Chinese are still facing both the problem of nutrition insufficiency and nutrition excess. However, although nutrition insufficiency and deficiency still extensively exist, nutrition excess and imbalance are emerging in other sections of the population. There is still a shortage of qualified nutritional scientists and technicians, and the training of nutritionists is urgent. Food supplies, including milk, beef, green vegetables and fruit should be increased, especially for some rural and remote areas. The good traditional eating habits and meal patterns should be kept, e.g., breakfast and lunch cannot be neglected, and plant protein meals and Chinese medicinal diets should be promoted. Animals fat intake and fried foods should be reduced, and exercise and fitness programs should be recommended for the overweight population. In the future, our meal pattern take on a mixed form with the advantages of both the eastern and western diets. Chinese scientists are confident of solving the nutritional problems and improving the whole nation's physical fitness and physique under the situation of gradual improvements of the economy and nutritional status of people.

New Dimensions for the Online Catalog: The Dartmouth College Library Experience [and] TOC/DOC at Caltech: Evolution of Citation Access Online [and] Locally Loaded Databases in Arizona State University's Online Catalog Using the CARL System.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klemperer, Katharina; And Others

1989-01-01

Each of three articles describes an academic library's online catalog that includes locally created databases. Topics covered include database and software selection; systems design and development; database producer negotiations; problems encountered during implementation; database loading; training and documentation; and future plans. (CLB)

Sensing, Navigation and Reasoning Technologies for the DARPA Urban Challenge

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-12-31

from the Applanix hardware and processed the data to account for state jumps. It then broadcast the world and local frame coordinate for the vehicle...contiguous series of control tactics, as requested by the Control. 22 Team Caltech Sensing and Mapping Subsystem Health Monitor Applanix (GPS and IMU...California Institute of Technology, Big Dog Ventures, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Applanix Inc. The authors would also

Keypoint Density-Based Region Proposal for Fine-Grained Object Detection and Classification Using Regions with Convolutional Neural Network Features

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-12-15

Keypoint Density-based Region Proposal for Fine-Grained Object Detection and Classification using Regions with Convolutional Neural Network ... Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) enable them to outperform conventional techniques on standard object detection and classification tasks, their...detection accuracy and speed on the fine-grained Caltech UCSD bird dataset (Wah et al., 2011). Recently, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), a deep

Content Dynamics Over the Network Cloud

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-11-04

Ferragut, “Trading Off Efficiency and Reciprocity in Wireless Peer- To-Peer File Sharing”, WiOpt 2015, Mumbai , India, May 2015. 11. A. Ferragut, F...inspired by queueing theory”, RSRG Seminar, Caltech, March 2015. q) Presentation of paper [10] by the PI at WiOpt, Mumbai , India, May 2015...2015, Mumbai , India, May 2015. 11. A. Ferragut, F. Paganini, "Queueing analysis of peer-to-peer swarms: stationary distributions and their scaling

Energetic electron anisotropies in the magnetotail - Identification of open and closed field lines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Baker, D. N.; Stone, E. C.

1976-01-01

Unidirectional anisotropies in the energetic electron fluxes (E greater than or equal to about 200 keV) have been observed in the earth's magnetotail with the Caltech Electron/Isotope Spectrometer on IMP-8. The anisotropies occur during periods of enhanced fluxes and provide essential information on the topology (open or closed) of the magnetotail field lines which are associated with recently identified acceleration regions.

EVLA Observations of PTF10vdl

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kasliwal, Mansi; Kulkarni, Shri; Arcavi, Iair; Gal-Yam, Avishay; Quimby, Robert; Ofek, Eran; Frail, Dale; Yuan, Fang; Akerlof, Carl; McKay, Time

2010-09-01

We triggered our NRAO Target Of Opportunity program "Exploring Transients in the Local Universe" and used the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) to observe the field of view toward PTF10vdl (ATEL#2862 an ATEL#2863), discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory . The EVLA observations were made on September 18.26 UT at a center frequency of 8.46 GHz.

CARMA Observations of PTF10vdl

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carpenter, John M.

2010-09-01

We used the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) to observe the field of view toward PTF10vdl (ATEL#2862), discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory . The observations began at September 18, 2010 04:18 UT and continued for 4.9 hours. The mean frequency of the observations was 97.5 GHz with a total bandwidth of 8 GHz.

Statistics of the MASIV 5 GHZ VLA Scintillation Survey

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-10-01

76, Epping, NSW, Australia, E-mail: david.jauncey@csiro.au James Lovell : School of Mathematics & Physics, University of Tasmania, GPO Box 252...Technology, Pasadena CA 91125, E-mail: jpm@astro.caltech.edu Hayley Bignall: Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, Postbus 2, 7900 AA Dwingeloo, The...369, 449 [7] Lovell , J. E. J., et al., First Results from MASIV: The Microarcsecond Scintillation- induced Variability Survey, 2003, AJ, 126, 1699

Natural and accelerated recovery from brain damage: experimental and theoretical approaches.

PubMed

Andersen, Richard A; Schieber, Marc H; Thakor, Nitish; Loeb, Gerald E

2012-03-01

The goal of the Caltech group is to gain insight into the processes that occur within the primate nervous system during dexterous reaching and grasping and to see whether natural recovery from local brain damage can be accelerated by artificial means. We will create computational models of the nervous system embodying this insight and explain a variety of clinically observed neurological deficits in human subjects using these models.

Seasonal Variations in the CO Line Profile and the Retrieved Thermal/Pressure Structures in the Atmosphere of Mars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khayat, Alain; Villanueva, G. L.; Mumma, M. J.; Riesen, T. E.; Tokunaga, A. T.

2013-10-01

We report retrievals of temperature vertical profiles up to 100 km over Tharsis and Syrtis regions on Mars obtained by inverting the strong rotational (3-2) line of carbon monoxide (CO) at 346 GHz. Observations of CO were made from mid Northern Spring to early Northern Summer on Mars (Ls= 36°-108°, 23 Nov, 2011 - 13 May, 2012) using the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory's (CSO) high-resolution heterodyne receiver (Barney) on top of Mauna Kea, Hawai'i. The temperature profiles were derived using our radiative transfer model that considers the latest spectroscopic constants for CO collisionally broadened by CO2. We observe notable changes of the line profile for different dates, which are directly related to seasonal variations in the thermal/pressure structure of the atmosphere. The seasonal variability of the martian CO line profile, the extracted temperature profiles, and comparisons with modeled profiles from the Mars Climate Database (Lewis et al, 1999) will be presented. We gratefully acknowledge support from the NASA Planetary Astronomy Program , NASA Astrobiology Institute, Planetary Atmospheres programs. This material is based upon work at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, grant number AST-0838261.

Numerical investigation of the self-starting of a vertical axis wind turbine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, Hsieh-Chen; Colonius, Tim

2014-11-01

The immersed boundary method is used to simulate the incompressible flow around two-dimensional airfoils at sub-scale Reynolds number in order to investigate the self-starting capability of a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT). By investigating a single blade fixed at various angle of attacks, the leading edge vortex (LEV) is shown to play an important role in the starting mechanism for both flat-plate and NACA 0018 blades. Depending on the angle of attack of the blade, as the LEV grows, the corresponding low pressure region results in a thrust in the tangential direction, which produces a positive torque to VAWT. Due to the characteristics of the blades, a NACA 0018 blade produces a larger thrust over a wider range of angle of attacks than a flat-plate blade. Therefore, a VAWT with NACA 0018 blades can self-start more easily than one with flat-plate blades. Moreover, by investigating the starting torque of three-bladed VAWTs fixed at various orientations, the optimal orientation that produces the largest torque to start both VAWTs is with a blade parallel to the flow and facing downstream. The simulations are also compared to results from companion water-tunnel experiments at Caltech. This project is supported by Caltech FLOWE center/Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Hard X-Ray Burst Detected From Caltech Plasma Jet Experiment Magnetic Reconnection Event

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marshall, Ryan S.; Bellan, Paul M.

2016-10-01

In the Caltech plasma jet experiment a 100 kA MHD driven jet becomes kink unstable leading to a Rayleigh-Taylor instability that quickly causes a magnetic reconnection event. Movies show that the Rayleigh-Taylor instability is simultaneous with voltage spikes across the electrodes that provide the current that drives the jet. Hard x-rays between 4 keV and 9 keV have now been observed using an x-ray scintillator detector mounted just outside of a kapton window on the vacuum chamber. Preliminary results indicate that the timing of the x-ray burst coincides with a voltage spike on the electrodes occurring in association with the Rayleigh-Taylor event. The x-ray signal accompanies the voltage spike and Rayleigh-Taylor event in approximately 50% of the shots. A possible explanation for why the x-ray signal is sometimes missing is that the magnetic reconnection event may be localized to a specific region of the plasma outside the line of sight of the scintillator. The x-ray signal has also been seen accompanying the voltage spike when no Rayleigh-Taylor is observed. This may be due to the interframe timing on the camera being longer than the very short duration of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability.

The XXIIIrd Phage/Virus Assembly Meeting.

PubMed

Serwer, Philip

2014-01-01

The XXIIIrd Phage/Virus Assembly (PVA) meeting returned to its birthplace in Lake Arrowhead, CA on September 8-13, 2013 (Fig. 1). The original meeting occurred in 1968, organized by Bob Edgar (Caltech, Pasadena, CA USA), Fred Eiserling (University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA) and Bill Wood (Caltech, Pasadena, CA USA). The organizers of the 2013 meeting were Bill Gelbart (University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA) and Jack Johnson (Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA USA). This meeting specializes in an egalitarian format. Students are distinguished from senior faculty primarily by the signs of age. With the exception of historically based introductory talks, all talks were allotted the same time and freedom. This tradition began when the meeting was phage-only and has been continued now that all viruses are included. Many were the animated conversations about basic questions. New and international participants were present, a sign that the field has significant attraction, as it should, based on details below. The meeting was also characterized by a sense of humor and generally good times, a chance to both enjoy the science and forget the funding malaise to which many participants are exposed. I will present some of the meeting content, without attempting to be comprehensive.

Essential Mathematics for the Physical Sciences; Volume I: Homogeneous boundary value problems, Fourier methods, and special functions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Borden, Brett; Luscombe, James

2017-10-01

Physics is expressed in the language of mathematics; it is deeply ingrained in how physics is taught and how it's practiced. A study of the mathematics used in science is thus a sound intellectual investment for training as scientists and engineers. This first volume of two is centered on methods of solving partial differential equations and the special functions introduced. This text is based on a course offered at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and while produced for NPS needs, it will serve other universities well.

On the Matter of Dark Matter

ScienceCinema

Orrell, John L.

2018-05-31

The mission of the USS Enterprise was to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” And so it is with Particle Physicist John Orrell as he seeks to solve the conundrum of elusive dark matter. It’s a mystery that PNNL scientists have chased for more than 25 years. And, if dark matter is discovered, it will change our entire understanding of how the universe was formed. The first experiments to locate dark matter were conducted underground using specialized, radiation detector technology developed at PNNL.

Future of the Pacific: Inspiring the Next Generation of Scientists and Engineers Through Place-Based Problem-Solving Using Innovative STEM Curriculum and Technology Tools

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-03-30

lesson 8.4, " Wind Turbine Design Inquiry." 13 The goal of her project was to combine a1t and science in project-based learning. Although pmt of an...challenged to design, test, and redesign wind turbine blades, defining variables and measuring performance. Their goal was to optimize perfonnance through...hydroelectric. In each model there are more than one variable. For example, the wind farm activity enables the user to select number of turbines

Chasing nuclear rainbows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allison, Wade

2010-01-01

Expeditions in search of a rainbow's end never reach their goal. Efforts to solve the problem of nuclear-waste disposal have not had much success either - perhaps because they have been addressing questions the wrong way round. There are two basic challenges of waste disposal. The first is scientific: the waste must be kept somewhere out of harm's way, where it does not incur major risks to current or future residents of the planet. The second is political: scientists must persuade and reassure the community as a whole that the waste is being handled, stored and disposed of safely.

2014 Future Earth Young Scientists Conference on Integrated Science and Knowledge Co-Production for Ecosystems and Human Well-Being †

PubMed Central

Shiue, Ivy; Samberg, Leah; Kulohoma, Benard; Dogaru, Diana; Wyborn, Carina; Hamel, Perrine; Jørgensen, Peter Søgaard; Lussier, Paul; Sundaram, Bharath; Lim, Michelle; Tironi, Antonio

2014-01-01

Effective integration in science and knowledge co-production is a challenge that crosses research boundaries, climate regions, languages and cultures. Early career scientists are crucial in the identification of, and engagement with, obstacles and opportunities in the development of innovative solutions to complex and interconnected problems. On 25–31 May 2014, International Council for Science and International Social Science Council, in collaboration with the International Network of Next-Generation Ecologists and Institute for New Economic Thinking: Young Scholars Initiative, assembled a group of early career researchers with diverse backgrounds and research perspectives to reflect on and debate relevant issues around ecosystems and human wellbeing in the transition towards green economy, funded by the German Research Foundation, at Villa Vigoni, Italy. As a group of young scientists, we have come to a consensus that collaboration and communication among a diverse group of peers from different geographic regions could break down the barriers to multi-disciplinary research designed to solve complex global-scale problems. We also propose to establish a global systematic thinking to monitor global socio-ecological systems and to develop criteria for a “good” anthropocene. Finally, we aim to bridge gaps among research, the media, and education from a governance perspective linking with “sustainable development goals”. PMID:25390795

High school students' understanding and problem solving in population genetics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soderberg, Patti D.

This study is an investigation of student understanding of population genetics and how students developed, used and revised conceptual models to solve problems. The students in this study participated in three rounds of problem solving. The first round involved the use of a population genetics model to predict the number of carriers in a population. The second round required them to revise their model of simple dominance population genetics to make inferences about populations containing three phenotype variations. The third round of problem solving required the students to revise their model of population genetics to explain anomalous data where the proportions of males and females with a trait varied significantly. As the students solved problems, they were involved in basic scientific processes as they observed population phenomena, constructed explanatory models to explain the data they observed, and attempted to persuade their peers as to the adequacy of their models. In this study, the students produced new knowledge about the genetics of a trait in a population through the revision and use of explanatory population genetics models using reasoning that was similar to what scientists do. The students learned, used and revised a model of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium to generate and test hypotheses about the genetics of phenotypes given only population data. Students were also interviewed prior to and following instruction. This study suggests that a commonly held intuitive belief about the predominance of a dominant variation in populations is resistant to change, despite instruction and interferes with a student's ability to understand Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and microevolution.

Hubble’s Planetary Portrait Captures New Changes in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-12-08

New imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope is revealing details never before seen on Jupiter. Hubble’s new Jupiter maps were used to create this Ultra HD animation. These new maps and spinning globes of Jupiter were made from observations performed with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. They are the first products to come from a program to study the solar system’s outer planets – Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and, later, Saturn – each year using Hubble. The observations are designed to capture a broad range of features, including winds, clouds, storms and atmospheric chemistry. These annual studies will help current and future scientists see how these giant worlds change over time. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the University of California at Berkeley produced two global maps of Jupiter from the observations, which were made using Hubble’s high-performance Wide Field Camera 3. The two maps represent nearly back-to-back rotations of the planet, making it possible to determine the speeds of Jupiter’s winds. Already, the images have revealed a rare wave just north of the planet’s equator and a unique filament-like feature in the core of the Great Red Spot that had not been seen previously. In addition, the new images confirm that the Great Red Spot continues to shrink and become more circular, as it has been doing for years. The long axis of this characteristic storm is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) shorter now than it was in 2014. Recently, the storm had been shrinking at a faster-than-usual rate, but the latest change is consistent with the long-term trend. Read more:http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/hubble-s-planetary-portrait-captures-new-changes-in-jupiter-s-great-red-spot Credits: NASA/ESA/Goddard/UCBerkeley/JPL-Caltech/STScI NASA image use policy. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook Find us on Instagram

In Memoriam: Frederick S. Goulding (1925-2013)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2013-10-01

Frederick S. Goulding, passed away on July 2, 2013. A brief biography of F.S. Goulding is given highlighting his professional achievements. In spite of Fred's long and productive research career, his most enduring legacy might well be the generations of young scientists, engineers and technical staff whom he mentored and inspired. Fred was a leader who was quick to share his ideas with others and was committed to the success of those who worked with him. As most good scientists, he was able to communicate his insights to a diverse audience. His creative approach to problem solving served as a model for others to emulate. Many of his protégés remained in the Laboratory community for the duration of their careers, others moved on to success in academia and industry. All carry with them a strong sense of respect and gratitude for Fred's contribution to their careers. He contributed technically to a diverse range of programs that covered most aspects of the scientific mission of the Department of Energy.

Research Infrastructure for Collaborative Team Science: Challenges in Technology-Supported Workflows in and Across Laboratories, Institutions, and Geographies.

PubMed

Mirel, Barbara; Luo, Airong; Harris, Marcelline

2015-05-01

Collaborative research has many challenges. One under-researched challenge is how to align collaborators' research practices and evolving analytical reasoning with technologies and configurations of technologies that best support them. The goal of such alignment is to enhance collaborative problem solving capabilities in research. Toward this end, we draw on our own research and a synthesis of the literature to characterize the workflow of collaborating scientists in systems-level renal disease research. We describe the various phases of a hypothetical workflow among diverse collaborators within and across laboratories, extending from their primary analysis through secondary analysis. For each phase, we highlight required technology supports, and. At time, complementary organizational supports. This survey of supports matching collaborators' analysis practices and needs in research projects to technological support is preliminary, aimed ultimately at developing a research capability framework that can help scientists and technologists mutually understand workflows and technologies that can help enable and enhance them. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

More Than Just Chemistry: The Impact of a Collaborative Participant Structure on Student Perceptions of Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patchen, Terri; Smithenry, Dennis W.

2015-02-01

Researchers have theorized that integrating authentic science activities into classrooms will help students learn how working scientists collaboratively construct knowledge, but few empirical studies have examined students' experiences with these types of activities. Utilizing data from a comparative, mixed-methods study, we considered how integrating a complex, collaborative participant structure into a secondary school chemistry curriculum shapes students' perceptions of what constitutes "science." We found that the implementation of this participant structure expanded student perceptions of chemistry learning beyond the typical focus on science content knowledge to include the acquisition of collaboration skills. This support for the collaborative construction of knowledge, in addition to the appropriation of scientific content, establishes the conditions for what science educators and scientists say they want: students who can work together to solve science problems. Radical shifts towards such collaborative participant structures are necessary if we are to modify student perceptions of science and science classrooms in ways that are aligned with recent calls for science education reform.

Automating the parallel processing of fluid and structural dynamics calculations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Arpasi, Dale J.; Cole, Gary L.

1987-01-01

The NASA Lewis Research Center is actively involved in the development of expert system technology to assist users in applying parallel processing to computational fluid and structural dynamic analysis. The goal of this effort is to eliminate the necessity for the physical scientist to become a computer scientist in order to effectively use the computer as a research tool. Programming and operating software utilities have previously been developed to solve systems of ordinary nonlinear differential equations on parallel scalar processors. Current efforts are aimed at extending these capabilities to systems of partial differential equations, that describe the complex behavior of fluids and structures within aerospace propulsion systems. This paper presents some important considerations in the redesign, in particular, the need for algorithms and software utilities that can automatically identify data flow patterns in the application program and partition and allocate calculations to the parallel processors. A library-oriented multiprocessing concept for integrating the hardware and software functions is described.

The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

MacKenzie, Dana

2003-03-01

The first popular book to explain the dramatic theory behind the Moon's genesis This lively science history relates one of the great recent breakthroughs in planetary astronomy-a successful theory of the birth of the Moon. Science journalist Dana Mackenzie traces the evolution of this theory, one little known outside the scientific community: a Mars-sized object collided with Earth some four billion years ago, and the remains of this colossal explosion-the Big Splat-came together to form the Moon. Beginning with notions of the Moon in ancient cosmologies, Mackenzie relates the fascinating history of lunar speculation, moving from Galileo and Kepler to George Darwin (son of Charles) and the Apollo astronauts, whose trips to the lunar surface helped solve one of the most enigmatic mysteries of the night sky: who hung the Moon? Dana Mackenzie (Santa Cruz, CA) is a freelance science journalist. His articles have appeared in such magazines as Science, Discover, American Scientist, The Sciences, and New Scientist.

Building the team for team science

USGS Publications Warehouse

Read, Emily K.; O'Rourke, M.; Hong, G. S.; Hanson, P. C.; Winslow, Luke A.; Crowley, S.; Brewer, C. A.; Weathers, K. C.

2016-01-01

The ability to effectively exchange information and develop trusting, collaborative relationships across disciplinary boundaries is essential for 21st century scientists charged with solving complex and large-scale societal and environmental challenges, yet these communication skills are rarely taught. Here, we describe an adaptable training program designed to increase the capacity of scientists to engage in information exchange and relationship development in team science settings. A pilot of the program, developed by a leader in ecological network science, the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), indicates that the training program resulted in improvement in early career scientists’ confidence in team-based network science collaborations within and outside of the program. Fellows in the program navigated human-network challenges, expanded communication skills, and improved their ability to build professional relationships, all in the context of producing collaborative scientific outcomes. Here, we describe the rationale for key communication training elements and provide evidence that such training is effective in building essential team science skills.

Update on an Interstellar Asteroid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kohler, Susanna

2018-01-01

Whats the news coming from the research world on the interstellar asteroid visitor, asteroid 1I/Oumuamua? Read on for an update from a few of the latest studies.What is Oumuamua?In lateOctober2017, the discovery of minor planet 1I/Oumuamua was announced. This body which researchers first labeled asa comet and later revised to an asteroid had just zipped around the Sun and was already in the process of speeding away whenwe trained our telescopes on it. Its trajectory, however, marked it as being a visitor from outside our solar system: the first knownvisitorof its kind.Since Oumuamuasdiscovery, scientists have been gathering as many observations of this bodyas possible before it vanishes into the distance. Simultaneously, theorists have leapt at the opportunity to explain its presence and the implications its passage has on our understanding of our surroundings. Here we present just a few of the latest studies that have been published on this first detected interstellar asteroid including several timelystudies published in our new journal, Research Notes of the AAS.The galactic velocity of Oumuamua does not coincide with any of the nearest stars to us. [Mamajek 2018]Where Did Oumuamua Come From?Are we sure Oumuamua didnt originate in our solar system andget scattered into a weird orbit? Jason Wright (The Pennsylvania State University) demonstrates via a series of calculations that no known solar system body could have scattered Oumuamua onto its current orbit nor could any stillunknown object bound to our solar system.Eric Mamajek (Caltech and University of Rochester) showsthat thekinematics of Oumuamua areconsistent with what we might expect of interstellar field objects, though he argues that its kinematics suggest its unlikely to have originated from many of the neareststellar systems.What AreOumuamuas Properties?Oumuamuas light curve. [Bannister et al. 2017]A team of University of Maryland scientists led by Matthew Knight captured a light curve of Oumuamua using Lowell Observatorys 4.3-m Discovery Channel Telescope. The data indicate that the asteroids period is at least 3 hours in length,and most likely more than 5 hours. Assuming the light curves variation is caused by the tumbling asteroids changing cross-section, Oumuamuamust be a minimum of3 times as long as it is wide. Knight and collaborators seeno signs in their images of a coma or tail emitted from Oumuamua, suggesting there isno volatile material sublimating from its surface under the heat of the Sun.No coma is visible around Oumuamua. [Knight et al. 2017]A study of the asteroids photometry, led by Michele Bannister (Queens University Belfast, UK), usedthe Gemini-North telescope in Hawaii and the William Herschel Telescope in Spainto explore the asteroids shape and color. Bannister and collaborators refined the estimate of the asteroids shape to be at least 5.3 times as long as it is wide, which requiresthis body to have significant internal cohesion to hold together as it tumbles. Their measured color for Oumuamua is largely neutral.What Does This Visitor Imply?Masses and semimajor axes of known exoplanets. Colors correspond to the ratio of escape velocity to circular velocity. The presence of Oumuamua implies a vast and cool, stillundetected population of planets. [Laughlin Batygin, 2017]Gregory Laughlinof Yale University and Konstantin Batyginof Caltech(andPlanet Nine fame) explore some of the consequences of Oumuamuas parameters. They arguethat its current passage, if its not a fluke, suggests the presence ofan enormous number (1027) ofsuch objects in our galaxy alone enough to account for two Earth-masses of material for every star in the galaxy. Flinging asteroids like Oumuamuaout into interstellar space isnteasy, though; the necessary multi-body interaction requires the system to containa giant and long-period planet like our Neptune or Jupiter. Taken together, this information suggests that every star in the galaxy may host a Neptune-like planet at a Neptune-like distance.More information on Oumuamua is sure to come in the next few months as scientists continue to process their data from the asteroids swift passage. In the meantime, this interstellar visitor continues to challenge our understanding of our nearbysurroundings and the broader context of thegalaxy around us.CitationJason T. Wright 2017 Res. Notes AAS 1 38. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/aa9f23Eric Mamajek 2017 Res. Notes AAS 1 21. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/aa9bdcMatthew M. Knight et al 2017 ApJL 851 L31.doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aa9d81Michele T. Bannister et al 2017 ApJL 851 L38. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aaa07cGregory Laughlin and Konstantin Batygin 2017 Res. Notes AAS 1 43. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/aaa02b

DIVA (Data Intensive Architecture)

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-06-01

Itanium-based workstation as a test bench for the larger system concepts. 44 10. Publications [Hall99] M. Hall, P. Kogge, J. Koller, P. Diniz ...White, Dr. Pedro Diniz . Mr. Pablo Moissett • Caltech: Dr. Thomas Sterling, Mr. Daniel Savarese • University of Notre Dame: Dr. Peter Kogge, Dr. Jay...IEEE Computer, April 1995, pp. 23-31. [Hall99] M. Hall, P. Kogge, J. Koller, P. Diniz , J. Chame, J. Draper, J. LaCoss, J. Granacki, J. Brockman

Improved Ambient Pressure Pyroelectric Ion Source

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beegle, Luther W.; Kim, Hugh I.; Kanik, Isik; Ryu, Ernest K.; Beckett, Brett

2011-01-01

The detection of volatile vapors of unknown species in a complex field environment is required in many different applications. Mass spectroscopic techniques require subsystems including an ionization unit and sample transport mechanism. All of these subsystems must have low mass, small volume, low power, and be rugged. A volatile molecular detector, an ambient pressure pyroelectric ion source (APPIS) that met these requirements, was recently reported by Caltech researchers to be used in in situ environments.

Enhanced Hydrogen Dipole Physisorption, Final Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ahn, Channing

2014-01-03

The hydrogen gas adsorption effort at Caltech was designed to probe and apply our understanding of known interactions between molecular hydrogen and adsorbent surfaces as part of a materials development effort to enable room temperature storage of hydrogen at nominal pressure. The work we have performed over the past five years has been tailored to address the outstanding issues associated with weak hydrogen sorbent interactions in order to find an adequate solution for storage tank technology.

Caltech/JPL Conference on Image Processing Technology, Data Sources and Software for Commercial and Scientific Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Redmann, G. H.

1976-01-01

Recent advances in image processing and new applications are presented to the user community to stimulate the development and transfer of this technology to industrial and commercial applications. The Proceedings contains 37 papers and abstracts, including many illustrations (some in color) and provides a single reference source for the user community regarding the ordering and obtaining of NASA-developed image-processing software and science data.

The Tunnels of Samos

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Apostol, Tom M. (Editor)

1995-01-01

This 'Project Mathematics' series video from CalTech presents the tunnel of Samos, a famous underground aquaduct tunnel located near the capital of Pithagorion (named after the famed Greek mathematician, Pythagoras, who lived there), on one of the Greek islands. This tunnel was constructed around 600 BC by King Samos and was built under a nearby mountain. Through film footage and computer animation, the mathematical principles and concepts of why and how this aquaduct tunnel was built are explained.

Studying the Sky/Planets Can Drown You in Images: Machine Learning Solutions at JPL/Caltech

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fayyad, U. M.

1995-01-01

JPL is working to develop a domain-independent system capable of small-scale object recognition in large image databases for science analysis. Two applications discussed are the cataloging of three billion sky objects in the Sky Image Cataloging and Analysis Tool (SKICAT) and the detection of possibly one million small volcanoes visible in the Magellan synthetic aperture radar images of Venus (JPL Adaptive Recognition Tool, JARTool).

Data Basin Aquatic Center: expanding access to aquatic conservation data, analysis tools, people and practical answers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Osborne-Gowey, J.; Strittholt, J.; Bergquist, J.; Ward, B. C.; Sheehan, T.; Comendant, T.; Bachelet, D. M.

2009-12-01

The world’s aquatic resources are experiencing anthropogenic pressures on an unprecedented scale and aquatic organisms are experiencing widespread population changes and ecosystem-scale habitat alterations. Climate change is likely to exacerbate these threats, in some cases reducing the range of native North American fishes by 20-100% (depending on the location of the population and the model assumptions). Scientists around the globe are generating large volumes of data that vary in quality, format, supporting documentation, and accessibility. Moreover, diverse models are being run at various temporal and spatial scales as scientists attempt to understand previous (and project future) human impacts to aquatic species and their habitats. Conservation scientists often struggle to synthesize this wealth of information for developing practical on-the-ground management strategies. As a result, the best available science is often not utilized in the decision-making and adaptive management processes. As aquatic conservation problems around the globe become more serious and the demand to solve them grows more urgent, scientists and land-use managers need a new way to bring strategic, science-based, and action-oriented approaches to aquatic conservation. The Conservation Biology Institute (CBI), with partners such as ESRI, is developing an Aquatic Center as part of a dynamic, web-based resource (Data Basin; http: databasin.org) that centralizes usable aquatic datasets and provides analytical tools to visualize, analyze, and communicate findings for practical applications. To illustrate its utility, we present example datasets of varying spatial scales and synthesize multiple studies to arrive at novel solutions to aquatic threats.

Designing a solution to enable agency-academic scientific collaboration for disasters

USGS Publications Warehouse

Mease, Lindley A.; Gibbs-Plessl, Theodora; Erickson, Ashley; Ludwig, Kristin A.; Reddy, Christopher M.; Lubchenco, Jane

2017-01-01

As large-scale environmental disasters become increasingly frequent and more severe globally, people and organizations that prepare for and respond to these crises need efficient and effective ways to integrate sound science into their decision making. Experience has shown that integrating nongovernmental scientific expertise into disaster decision making can improve the quality of the response, and is most effective if the integration occurs before, during, and after a crisis, not just during a crisis. However, collaboration between academic, government, and industry scientists, decision makers, and responders is frequently difficult because of cultural differences, misaligned incentives, time pressures, and legal constraints. Our study addressed this challenge by using the Deep Change Method, a design methodology developed by Stanford ChangeLabs, which combines human-centered design, systems analysis, and behavioral psychology. We investigated underlying needs and motivations of government agency staff and academic scientists, mapped the root causes underlying the relationship failures between these two communities based on their experiences, and identified leverage points for shifting deeply rooted perceptions that impede collaboration. We found that building trust and creating mutual value between multiple stakeholders before crises occur is likely to increase the effectiveness of problem solving. We propose a solution, the Science Action Network, which is designed to address barriers to scientific collaboration by providing new mechanisms to build and improve trust and communication between government administrators and scientists, industry representatives, and academic scientists. The Science Action Network has the potential to ensure cross-disaster preparedness and science-based decision making through novel partnerships and scientific coordination.

Interweaving Knowledge Resources to Address Complex Environmental Health Challenges.

PubMed

Anderson, Beth Ellen; Naujokas, Marisa F; Suk, William A

2015-11-01

Complex problems do not respect academic disciplinary boundaries. Environmental health research is complex and often moves beyond these boundaries, integrating diverse knowledge resources to solve such challenges. Here we describe an evolving paradigm for interweaving approaches that integrates widely diverse resources outside of traditional academic environments in full partnerships of mutual respect and understanding. We demonstrate that scientists, social scientists, and engineers can work with government agencies, industry, and communities to interweave their expertise into metaphorical knowledge fabrics to share understanding, resources, and enthusiasm. Our goal is to acknowledge and validate how interweaving research approaches can contribute to research-driven, solution-oriented problem solving in environmental health, and to inspire more members of the environmental health community to consider this approach. The National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Superfund Research Program (SRP), as mandated by Congress, has evolved to become a program that reaches across a wide range of knowledge resources. SRP fosters interweaving multiple knowledge resources to develop innovative multidirectional partnerships for research and training. Here we describe examples of how motivation, ideas, knowledge, and expertise from different people, institutions, and agencies can integrate to tackle challenges that can be as complex as the resources they bring to bear on it. By providing structure for interweaving science with its stakeholders, we are better able to leverage resources, increase potential for innovation, and proactively ensure a more fully developed spectrum of beneficial outcomes of research investments. Anderson BE, Naujokas MF, Suk WA. 2015. Interweaving knowledge resources to address complex environmental health challenges. Environ Health Perspect 123:1095-1099; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1409525.

The Next Generation of the Montage Image Mopsaic Engine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berriman, G. Bruce; Good, John; Rusholme, Ben; Robitaille, Thomas

2016-01-01

We have released a major upgrade of the Montage image mosaic engine (http://montage.ipac.caltech.edu) , as part of a program to develop the next generation of the engine in response to the rapid changes in the data processing landscape in Astronomy, which is generating ever larger data sets in ever more complex formats . The new release (version 4) contains modules dedicated to creating and managing mosaics of data stored as multi-dimensional arrays ("data cubes"). The new release inherits the architectural benefits of portability and scalability of the original design. The code is publicly available on Git Hub and the Montage web page. The release includes a command line tool that supports visualization of large images, and the beta-release of a Python interface to the visualization tool. We will provide examples on how to use these these features. We are generating a mosaic of the Galactic Arecibo L-band Feed Array HI (GALFA-HI) Survey maps of neutral hydrogen in and around our Milky Way Galaxy, to assess the performance at scale and to develop tools and methodologies that will enable scientists inexpert in cloud processing to exploit could platforms for data processing and product generation at scale. Future releases include support for an R-tree based mechanism for fast discovery of and access to large data sets and on-demand access to calibrated SDSS DR9 data that exploits it; support for the Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelization (HEALPix) scheme, now standard for projects investigating cosmic background radiation (Gorski et al 2005); support fort the Tessellated Octahedral Adaptive Subdivision Transform (TOAST), the sky partitioning sky used by the WorldWide Telescope (WWT); and a public applications programming interface (API) in C that can be called from other languages, especially Python.

Rover Panorama of Entrance to Murray Buttes on Mars

NASA Image and Video Library

2016-08-19

This 360-degree panorama was acquired by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as the rover neared features called "Murray Buttes" on lower Mount Sharp. The view combines more than 130 images taken on Aug. 5, 2016, during the afternoon of the mission's 1,421st sol, or Martian day, by Mastcam's left-eye camera. This date also was the fourth anniversary of Curiosity's landing. The dark, flat-topped mesa seen to the left of Curiosity's robotic arm is about 300 feet (about 90 meters) from the rover's position. It stands about 50 feet (about 15 meters) high. The horizontal ledge near the top of the mesa is about 200 feet (about 60 meters) across. An upper portion of Mount Sharp appears on the distant horizon to the left of this mesa. The relatively flat foreground is part of a geological layer called the Murray formation, which formed from lakebed mud deposits. The buttes and mesas rising above this surface are eroded remnants of ancient sandstone that originated when winds deposited sand after lower Mount Sharp had formed. Curiosity closely examined that layer -- the Stimson formation -- during the first half of 2016 while crossing a feature called "Naukluft Plateau" between two exposures of the Murray formation. The buttes and mesas of Murray Buttes are capped by material that is relatively resistant to erosion, just as is the case with many similarly shaped buttes and mesas on Earth. The informal naming honors Bruce Murray (1931-2013), a Caltech planetary scientist and director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. The scene is presented with a color adjustment that approximates white balancing, to resemble how the rocks and sand would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20765

BRAVO (Brazilian Astrophysical Virtual Observatory): data mining development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Carvalho, R. R.; Capelato, H. V.; Velho, H. C.

2007-08-01

The primary goal of the BRAVO project is to generate investment in information technology, with particular emphasis on datamining and statistical analysis. From a scientific standpoint, the participants assembled to date are engaged in several scientific projects in various fields of cosmology, astrophysics, and data analysis, with significant contributions from international partners. These scientists conduct research on clusters of galaxies, small groups of galaxies, elliptical galaxies, population synthesis, N-body simulations, and a variety of studies in stellar astrophysics. One of the main aspects of this project is the incorporation of these disparate areas of astrophysical research within the context of the coherent development of database technology.Observational cosmology is one of the branches of science experiencing the largest growth in the past few decades. large photometric and spectroscopic surveys have been carried out in both hemispheres. As a result, an extraordinary amount of data in all portions of the electromagnetic spectrum exists, but without standard techniques for storage and distribution. This project will utilize several specific astronomical databases, created to store data generated by several instruments (including SOAR, Gemini, BDA, etc), uniting them within a common framework and with standard interfaces. We are inviting members of the entire Brazilian astronomical community to partake in this effort. This will certainly impact both education and outreach efforts, as well as the future development of astrophysical research. Finally, this project will provide a constant investment in human resources. First, it will do so by stimulating ongoing short technical visits to Johns Hopkins University and Caltech. These will allow us to bring software technology and expertise in datamining back to Brazil. Second, we will organize the Summer School on Software Technology in Astrophysics, which will be designed to ensure that the Brazilian scientific community can take full advantage of the benefits offered by the VO project

Ridge of Jagged Peaks on Titan

NASA Image and Video Library

2016-07-29

This synthetic-aperture radar image was obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its T-120 pass over Titan's southern latitudes on June 7, 2016. The area shown here measures about 40 by 60 miles (70 by 100 kilometers) and is centered at about 60 degrees south latitude, 130 degrees west longitude. Radar illuminates the scene from the left at a 28-degree incidence angle. At the center of the image is a bright feature oriented from upper left to lower right. This is interpreted to be a long ridge with jagged peaks, likely created by methane rainfall erosion. Some of the individual peaks rise about 2,400 feet (800 meters) above the valley floor. The ridge has a considerably gentler slope on its left side (which appears brighter here) than on its right. Frequently, mountains shaped like this on Earth are fractured blocks of the planet's crust, thrusted upward and then tilted, creating a shallow slope on one side and a steeper slope on the fractured, faulted edge. Also presented here is an annotated version of the image, along with a radar image of the Dragoon Mountains in Arizona just east of Tucson. The Dragoon feature represents a tilted fault block, formed by spreading that has occurred across the western U.S., and has a similar shape to that of the Titan ridge. The Dragoon radar image was produced using data from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NGA). Radar illuminates the scene from the left in that image as well. Titan has displayed many features that are strikingly similar to Earth: lakes, seas, rivers, dunes and mountains. Scientists think it possible that, like Earth, the giant moon's crust has experienced familiar processes of uplift and spreading, followed by erosion. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20709

First image of clouds over Mars

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

This is the first image ever taken from the surface of Mars of an overcast sky. Featured are stratus clouds coming from the northeast at about 15 miles per hour (6.7 meters/second) at an approximate height of ten miles (16 kilometers) above the surface. The 'you are here' notation marks where Earth was situated in the sky at the time the image was taken. Scientists had hoped to see Earth in this image, but the cloudy conditions prevented a clear viewing. Similar images will be taken in the future with the hope of capturing a view of Earth. From Mars, Earth would appear as a tiny blue dot as a star would appear to an Earthbound observer. Pathfinder's imaging system will not be able to resolve Earth's moon. The clouds consist of water ice condensed on reddish dust particles suspended in the atmosphere. Clouds on Mars are sometimes localized and can sometimes cover entire regions, but have not yet been observed to cover the entire planet. The image was taken about an hour and forty minutes before sunrise by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) on Sol 16 at about ten degrees up from the eastern Martian horizon.

Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages and Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator.

Bridging the ';knowing and doing gap' in disaster risk reduction using design and design thinking; Ideation of concepts to improve hazard preparedness and response

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Manen, S. M.

2013-12-01

The central goal of disaster risk reduction (DRR) is to reduce the impact and cost of natural hazards, in human, environmental and economic terms. There are numerous approaches that aim to achieve this but recent studies have shown a substantial gap between risk reduction actions taken at national and local levels. The traditional media of the scientist: education, outreach and increasingly community involvement, have been shown to raise levels of awareness and understanding but generate little change in terms of people's actions. This can be attributed to the differences in hazard perception and the relative weight placed on various aspects by scientists, authorities and communities as a result of non-hazard related factors. Therefore DRR, particularly when placed in its social, environmental and economic contexts, is an excellent example of what is termed a ';wicked problem': a problem that is difficult to formulate, where data to base decisions on are incomplete, the stakeholders are many and they hold contradicting views and the consequences of actions on the wider system are unclear. Although both science and design are geared towards problem solving, design, in drawing equally on art and engineering skills, does so in a fundamentally different but complementary way. Neither design nor science will solve the wicked problem that is DRR, but scientists, engineers and designers can improve the current state of disaster risk reduction by tackling aspects of underlying risk factors. This work will present concepts aimed at engaging people in novel and innovative ways with scientific results, with a specific focus on improving hazard preparedness and tangible, rather than abstract, ways of communicating hazard levels. Key considerations include the need to graft onto existing behaviours or innovate on existing products to simplify implementation, the possibility to co-create and connect through design and balancing desirability with technical and economical feasibility. The examples presented are intended to initiate and illustrate discussion regarding the role design and design thinking can play in disaster risk reduction.

REPORT OF RESEARCH ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND FUTURE GOALS HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wise, Mark B.; Kapustin, Anton N.; Schwarz, John Henry

Caltech High Energy Physics (HEP) has a broad program in both experimental and theoretical physics. We are known for our creativity and leadership. The future is uncertain and we strive to be involved in all the major areas of experimental and theoretical HEP physics so no matter where the important discoveries occur we are well positioned to play an important role. An outstanding group of postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, staff scientists, and technical and administrative personnel support our efforts in experimental and theoretical physics. The PI’s on this grant are involved in the following program of experimental and theoretical activities:more » I) EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS Our CMS group, led by Harvey Newman and Maria Spiropulu, has played a key role in the discovery and interpretation of the Higgs boson and in searches for new physics. They have important hardware responsibilities in both ECAL and HCAL and are also involved in the upgrades needed for the High Luminosity LHC. Newman's group also develops and operates Grid-based computing, networking, and collaborative systems for CMS and the US HEP community. The charged lepton (Mu2e) and quark BaBar flavor physics group is led by David Hitlin and Frank Porter. On Mu2e they have been instrumental in the design of the calorimeter. Construction responsibilities include one third of the crystals and associated readout as well as the calibration system. They also will have responsibility for a major part of the online system software. Although data taking ceased in 2008 the Caltech BaBar group is active on several new forefront analyses. The neutrino group is led by Ryan Patterson. They are central to NOvA's core oscillation physics program, to calibration, and to detector readiness being responsible for the production and installation of 12,000 APD arrays. They have key roles in neutrino appearance and disappearance analysis in MINOS and MINOS+. Sunil Golwala leads the dark matter direct detection effort. Areas of activity include: CDMS II data analysis, contributions to SuperCDMS Soudan operations and analysis, R&D towards SuperCDMS SNOLAB, development of a novel screener for radiocontamination (the BetaCage), and development of new WIMP detector concepts. Ren-Yuan Zhu leads the HEP crystal laboratory for the advanced detector R&D effort. The crystal lab is involved in development of novel scintillating crystals and has proposed several crystal based detector concepts for future HEP experiments at the energy and intensity frontiers. Its current research effort is concentrated on development of fast crystal scintillators with good radiation hardness and low cost. II) THEORETICAL PHYSICS The main theme of Sergei Gukov's current research is the relation between the geometry of quantum group invariants and their categorification, on the one hand, and the physics of supersymmetric gauge theory and string theory, on the other. Anton Kapustin's research spans a variety of topics in non-perturbative Quantum Field Theory (QFT). His main areas of interest are supersymmetric gauge theories, non-perturbative dualities in QFT, disorder operators, Topological Quantum Field Theory, and non-relativistic QFT. He is also interested in the foundations and possible generalizations of Quantum Mechanics. Hirosi Ooguri's current research has two main components. One is to find exact results in Calabi-Yau compactification of string theory. Another is to explore applications of the AdS/CFT correspondence. He also plans to continue his project with Caltech postdoctoral fellows on BPS spectra of supersymmetric gauge theories in diverse dimensions. John Preskill works on quantum information science. This field may lead to important future technologies, and also lead to new understanding of issues in fundamental physics John Schwarz has been exploring a number of topics in superstring theory/M-theory, supersymmetric gauge theory, and their AdS/CFT relationships. Much of the motivation for these studies is the desire to gain a deeper understanding of superstring theory and M-theory. The research interests of Mark Wise span particle physics, cosmology and nuclear physics. His recent work has centered on extensions of the standard model where baryon number and lepton number are gauged and extensions of the standard model that have novel sources of baryon number violation and new sources of charged lepton flavor violation« less

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Spitzer Atlas of Stellar Spectra (SASS) (Ardila+, 2010)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ardila, D. R.; van Dyk, S. D.; Makowiecki, W.; Stauffer, J.; Song, I.; Rho, J.; Fajardo-Acosta, S.; Hoard, D. W.; Wachter, S.

2010-11-01

From IRS Staring observations in the Spitzer archive we selected those stellar targets that had been observed with all the low-resolution IRS modules. We did not include known young stars with circumstellar material, stars known to harbor debris disks, or objects classified in SIMBAD as RS CVn, Be stars, or eclipsing binaries. We have also avoided classes already fully described with IRAS, ISO, or Spitzer, such as Asymptotic Giant Branch stars and rejected targets presenting IR excesses. However, note that in the case of very massive and/or evolved stars there are few objects presenting a pure photospheric spectrum. A few stars are specifically selected for their intrinsic interest regardless of their IR excess and even if the Atlas already contained another star with the same spectral type. The spectral coverage only reaches to 14um in the case of very late spectral classes (late M, L and T dwarfs) and some WR stars for which the long wavelength modules are unusable or not present in the archive. The spectral types have been taken from (in order of priority): * NStED (http://nsted.ipac.caltech.edu/), * NStars (http://nstars.nau.edu/nau_nstars/about.htm), * the Tycho-2 Spectral Type Catalog (Cat. III/231) * SIMBAD. For certain types of objects, we have used specialized catalogs as the source of the spectral types. The data were processed with the Spitzer Science Center S18.7.0 pipelined and corrected for teardrop effects, slit position uncertainties, residual flat-field errors, residual model errors, 24um flux deficit (1), fringing, and order mismatches. The Atlas files contain an error value for each wavelength, intended to represent the random 1sig error at that wavelength. This is the error provided by the SSC's S18.7.0 pipeline and propagated along the reduction procedure. The treatment of errors remains incomplete in this pipeline (2). The errors provided here should be considered carefully, before propagating them into further calculations. However, the processing insures that the spectra do not have strong spurious emission or absorption lines in large signal-to-noise regions. (1) http://ssc.spitzer.caltech.edu/irs/irsinstrumenthandbook/102/ #Toc253561116 (2) http://ssc.spitzer.caltech.edu/irs/irsinstrumenthandbook/ (4 data files).

Battery-Powered RF Pre-Ionization System for the Caltech Magnetohydrodynamically-Driven Jet Experiment: RF Discharge Properties and MHD-Driven Jet Dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chaplin, Vernon H.

This thesis describes investigations of two classes of laboratory plasmas with rather different properties: partially ionized low pressure radiofrequency (RF) discharges, and fully ionized high density magnetohydrodynamically (MHD)-driven jets. An RF pre-ionization system was developed to enable neutral gas breakdown at lower pressures and create hotter, faster jets in the Caltech MHD-Driven Jet Experiment. The RF plasma source used a custom pulsed 3 kW 13.56 MHz RF power amplifier that was powered by AA batteries, allowing it to safely float at 4-6 kV with the cathode of the jet experiment. The argon RF discharge equilibrium and transport properties were analyzed, and novel jet dynamics were observed. Although the RF plasma source was conceived as a wave-heated helicon source, scaling measurements and numerical modeling showed that inductive coupling was the dominant energy input mechanism. A one-dimensional time-dependent fluid model was developed to quantitatively explain the expansion of the pre-ionized plasma into the jet experiment chamber. The plasma transitioned from an ionizing phase with depressed neutral emission to a recombining phase with enhanced emission during the course of the experiment, causing fast camera images to be a poor indicator of the density distribution. Under certain conditions, the total visible and infrared brightness and the downstream ion density both increased after the RF power was turned off. The time-dependent emission patterns were used for an indirect measurement of the neutral gas pressure. The low-mass jets formed with the aid of the pre-ionization system were extremely narrow and collimated near the electrodes, with peak density exceeding that of jets created without pre-ionization. The initial neutral gas distribution prior to plasma breakdown was found to be critical in determining the ultimate jet structure. The visible radius of the dense central jet column was several times narrower than the axial current channel radius, suggesting that the outer portion of the jet must have been force free, with the current parallel to the magnetic field. The studies of non-equilibrium flows and plasma self-organization being carried out at Caltech are relevant to astrophysical jets and fusion energy research.

Making Scientific Data Usable and Useful

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Satwicz, T.; Bharadwaj, A.; Evans, J.; Dirks, J.; Clark Cole, K.

2017-12-01

Transforming geological data into information that has broad scientific and societal impact is a process fraught with barriers. Data sets and tools are often reported to have poor user experiences (UX) that make scientific work more challenging than it needs be. While many other technical fields have benefited from ongoing improvements to the UX of their tools (e.g., healthcare and financial services) scientists are faced with using tools that are labor intensive and not intuitive. Our research team has been involved in a multi-year effort to understand and improve the UX of scientific tools and data sets. We use a User-Centered Design (UCD) process that involves naturalistic behavioral observation and other qualitative research methods adopted from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and related fields. Behavioral observation involves having users complete common tasks on data sets, tools, and websites to identify usability issues and understand the severity of the issues. We measure how successfully they complete tasks and diagnosis the cause of any failures. Behavioral observation is paired with in-depth interviews where users describe their process for generating results (from initial inquiry to final results). By asking detailed questions we unpack common patterns and challenges scientists experience while working with data. We've found that tools built using the UCD process can have a large impact on scientist work flows and greatly reduce the time it takes to process data before analysis. It is often challenging to understand the organization and nuances of data across scientific fields. By better understanding how scientists work we can create tools that make routine tasks less-labor intensive, data easier to find, and solve common issues with discovering new data sets and engaging in interdisciplinary research. There is a tremendous opportunity for advancing scientific knowledge and helping the public benefit from that work by creating intuitive, interactive, and powerful tools and resources for generating knowledge. The pathway to achieving that is through building a detailed understanding of users and their needs, then using this knowledge to inform the design of the data products, tools, and services scientists and non-scientists use to do their work.

Science, Engineering, and Mathematics (SEM) at the Timbuktu Academy

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-07-31

School @ CalTech (PhD Chemistry Program) Millican , Jasmine F Su02 ONR 20 Fall `02- Grad . School @ LSU for Ph .D. in Chemistry, Baton Rouge, LA Thomas...n 22 . Joshua McKinsey Stennis Space Center - Stennis Space Center, M S 23 . Jasmine Millican Louisiana State University (LAMP Program) - Baton Rouge...OH 26. Rachel Mckinsey Fr ./Physics MIT- Boston, M A 27. Jasmine Millican Jr ./Chemistry University of Illinois - Chicago, I L 28. Symoane Mizell So

A Microcomputer-Based Program for Printing Check Plots of Integrated Circuits Specified in Caltech Intermediate Form.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-12-01

only four transistors[5]. Each year since that time, the semiconductor industry has con- sistently improved the quality of the fabrication tech- niques...rarely took place at universities and was almost exclusively confined to industry . IC design techniques were developed, tested, and taught only in the...community, it is not uncommon for industry to borrow ideas and even particular programs from these university designed tools. The Very Large Scale Integration

Designing Networks that are Capable of Self-Healing and Adapting

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-04-01

Undergrad. Res. Fellowship, visiting from Caltech. Undergraduate Eugene Park Math Duke Models of self-healing networks (undergrad. senior thesis...Graduate student Anastasia Deckard Math Duke 3rd/4th year PhD. Wrote software for simulation. Undergraduate Nick Day Math LIMS Summer project at...Harer gave a talk on this DTRA grant to undergraduate math majors at Duke. 11 Q UA D C HA R T Uploaded to the DTRA Basic and Fundamental Research

Interferometry science center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sargent, A. I.

2002-01-01

The Interferometry Science Center (ISC) is operated jointly by Caltech and JPL and is part of NASA's Navigator Program. The ISC has been created to facilitate the timely and successful execution of scientific investigations within the Navigator program, particularly those that rely on observations from NASA's interferometer projects. Currently, ISC is expected to provide full life cycle support for the Keck Interferometer, the Starlight mission, the Space Interferometry Mission, and the Terrestrial Planet Finder Mission. The nature and goals of ISc will be described.

(DURIP 10) High Speed Intensified Imaging System For Studies Of Mixing And Combustion In Supersonic Flows And Hydrocarbon Flame Structure Measurements At Elevated Pressures

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-11-09

software, and their networking to augment optical diagnostics employed in supersonic reacting and non-reacting flow experiments . A high-speed...facility at Caltech. Experiments to date have made use of this equipment, extending previous capabilities to high-speed schlieren quantitative flow...visualization and image correlation velocimetry, with further experiments currently in progress. 15. SUBJECT TERMS 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17

The Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI): A Powerful New Integral Field Spectrograph for the Keck Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morrissey, Patrick; KCWI Team

2013-01-01

The Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) is a new facility instrument being developed for the W. M. Keck Observatory and funded for construction by the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). KCWI is a bench-mounted spectrograph for the Keck II right Nasmyth focal station, providing integral field spectroscopy over a seeing-limited field up to 20"x33" in extent. Selectable Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) gratings provide high efficiency and spectral resolution in the range of 1000 to 20000. The dual-beam design of KCWI passed a Preliminary Design Review in summer 2011. The detailed design of the KCWI blue channel (350 to 700 nm) is now nearly complete, with the red channel (530 to 1050 nm) planned for a phased implementation contingent upon additional funding. KCWI builds on the experience of the Caltech team in implementing the Cosmic Web Imager (CWI), in operation since 2009 at Palomar Observatory. KCWI adds considerable flexibility to the CWI design, and will take full advantage of the excellent seeing and dark sky above Mauna Kea with a selectable nod-and-shuffle observing mode. The KCWI team is lead by Caltech (project management, design and implementation) in partnership with the University of California at Santa Cruz (camera optical and mechanical design) and the W. M. Keck Observatory (program oversight and observatory interfaces).

Context-aware and locality-constrained coding for image categorization.

PubMed

Xiao, Wenhua; Wang, Bin; Liu, Yu; Bao, Weidong; Zhang, Maojun

2014-01-01

Improving the coding strategy for BOF (Bag-of-Features) based feature design has drawn increasing attention in recent image categorization works. However, the ambiguity in coding procedure still impedes its further development. In this paper, we introduce a context-aware and locality-constrained Coding (CALC) approach with context information for describing objects in a discriminative way. It is generally achieved by learning a word-to-word cooccurrence prior to imposing context information over locality-constrained coding. Firstly, the local context of each category is evaluated by learning a word-to-word cooccurrence matrix representing the spatial distribution of local features in neighbor region. Then, the learned cooccurrence matrix is used for measuring the context distance between local features and code words. Finally, a coding strategy simultaneously considers locality in feature space and context space, while introducing the weight of feature is proposed. This novel coding strategy not only semantically preserves the information in coding, but also has the ability to alleviate the noise distortion of each class. Extensive experiments on several available datasets (Scene-15, Caltech101, and Caltech256) are conducted to validate the superiority of our algorithm by comparing it with baselines and recent published methods. Experimental results show that our method significantly improves the performance of baselines and achieves comparable and even better performance with the state of the arts.

Optics for MUSIC: a new (sub)millimeter camera for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sayers, Jack; Czakon, Nicole G.; Day, Peter K.; Downes, Thomas P.; Duan, Ran P.; Gao, Jiansong; Glenn, Jason; Golwala, Sunil R.; Hollister, Matt I.; LeDuc, Henry G.; Mazin, Benjamin A.; Maloney, Philip R.; Noroozian, Omid; Nguyen, Hien T.; Schlaerth, James A.; Siegel, Seth; Vaillancourt, John E.; Vayonakis, Anastasios; Wilson, Philip R.; Zmuidzinas, Jonas

2010-07-01

We will present the design and implementation, along with calculations and some measurements of the performance, of the room-temperature and cryogenic optics for MUSIC, a new (sub)millimeter camera we are developing for the Caltech Submm Observatory (CSO). The design consists of two focusing elements in addition to the CSO primary and secondary mirrors: a warm off-axis elliptical mirror and a cryogenic (4K) lens. These optics will provide a 14 arcmin field of view that is diffraction limited in all four of the MUSIC observing bands (2.00, 1.33, 1.02, and 0.86 mm). A cold (4K) Lyot stop will be used to define the primary mirror illumination, which will be maximized while keeping spillover at the sub 1% level. The MUSIC focal plane will be populated with broadband phased antenna arrays that efficiently couple to factor of (see manuscript) 3 in bandwidth,1, 2 and each pixel on the focal plane will be read out via a set of four lumped element filters that define the MUSIC observing bands (i.e., each pixel on the focal plane simultaneously observes in all four bands). Finally, a series of dielectric and metal-mesh low pass filters have been implemented to reduce the optical power load on the MUSIC cryogenic stages to a quasi-negligible level while maintaining good transmission in-band.

Phase transitions and melting on the Hugoniot of Mg2SiO4 forsterite: new diffraction and temperature results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asimow, P. D.; Akin, M. C.; Homel, M.; Crum, R. S.; Pagan, D.; Lind, J.; Bernier, J.; Mosenfelder, J. L.; Dillman, A. M.; Lavina, B.; Lee, S.; Fat'yanov, O. V.; Newman, M. G.

2017-06-01

The phase transitions of forsterite under shock were studied by x-ray diffraction and pyrometry. Samples of 2 mm thick, near-full density (>98% TMD) polycrystalline forsterite were characterized by EBSD and computed tomography and shock compressed to 50 and 75 GPa by two-stage gas gun at the Dynamic Compression Sector, Advanced Photon Source, with diffraction imaged during compression and release. Changes in diffraction confirm a phase transition by 75 GPa. In parallel, single-crystal forsterite shock temperatures were taken from 120 to 210 GPa with improved absolute calibration procedures on the Caltech 6-channel pyrometer and two-stage gun and used to examine the interpretation of superheating and P-T slope of the liquid Hugoniot. This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344, supported in part by LLNL's LDRD program under Grants 15-ERD-012 and 16-ERD-010. The Dynamic Compression Sector (35) is supported by DOE / National Nuclear Security Administration under Award Number DE-NA0002442. This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Caltech lab supported by NSF EAR-1426526.

Satellite Radar Detects Damage from Sept. 2017 Chiapas, Mexico Quake

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-09-19

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Caltech, also in Pasadena, created this Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas of Southern Mexico that are likely damaged (shown by red and yellow pixels) from the magnitude 8.1 Chiapas earthquake of Sept. 7, 2017 (near midnight local time, early morning on Sept. 8 UTC). The map is derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B satellites, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The images were taken before (Sept. 7, 2017 UTC) and after (Sept. 13, 2017 UTC) the earthquake. The map covers an area of 155 by 106 miles (250 by 170 kilometers). Each pixel measures about 33 yards (30 meters) across. The color variation from yellow to red indicates increasingly more significant ground surface change. Preliminary validation was done by comparing the SAR images to optical satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe. This damage proxy map should be used as guidance to identify damaged areas, and may be less reliable over vegetated areas. Sentinel-1 data were accessed through the Copernicus Open Access Hub. The image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA and analyzed by the NASA-JPL/Caltech ARIA team. This research was carried out at JPL under a contract with NASA. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21956

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Eric A. Wernert; William R. Sherman; Patrick O'Leary

Immersive visualization makes use of the medium of virtual reality (VR) - it is a subset of virtual reality focused on the application of VR technologies to scientific and information visualization. As the name implies, there is a particular focus on the physically immersive aspect of VR that more fully engages the perceptual and kinesthetic capabilities of the scientist with the goal of producing greater insight. The immersive visualization community is uniquely positioned to address the analysis needs of the wide spectrum of domain scientists who are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by data. The outputs of computational science simulations and high-resolutionmore » sensors are creating a data deluge. Data is coming in faster than it can be analyzed, and there are countless opportunities for discovery that are missed as the data speeds by. By more fully utilizing the scientists visual and other sensory systems, and by offering a more natural user interface with which to interact with computer-generated representations, immersive visualization offers great promise in taming this data torrent. However, increasing the adoption of immersive visualization in scientific research communities can only happen by simultaneously lowering the engagement threshold while raising the measurable benefits of adoption. Scientists time spent immersed with their data will thus be rewarded with higher productivity, deeper insight, and improved creativity. Immersive visualization ties together technologies and methodologies from a variety of related but frequently disjoint areas, including hardware, software and human-computer interaction (HCI) disciplines. In many ways, hardware is a solved problem. There are well established technologies including large walk-in systems such as the CAVE{trademark} and head-based systems such as the Wide-5{trademark}. The advent of new consumer-level technologies now enable an entirely new generation of immersive displays, with smaller footprints and costs, widening the potential consumer base. While one would be hard-pressed to call software a solved problem, we now understand considerably more about best practices for designing and developing sustainable, scalable software systems, and we have useful software examples that illuminate the way to even better implementations. As with any research endeavour, HCI will always be exploring new topics in interface design, but we now have a sizable knowledge base of the strengths and weaknesses of the human perceptual systems and we know how to design effective interfaces for immersive systems. So, in a research landscape with a clear need for better visualization and analysis tools, a methodology in immersive visualization that has been shown to effectively address some of those needs, and vastly improved supporting technologies and knowledge of hardware, software, and HCI, why hasn't immersive visualization 'caught on' more with scientists? What can we do as a community of immersive visualization researchers and practitioners to facilitate greater adoption by scientific communities so as to make the transition from 'the promise of virtual reality' to 'the reality of virtual reality'.« less

Identification and evaluation of scientific uncertainties related to fish and aquatic resources in the Colorado River, Grand Canyon - summary and interpretation of an expert-elicitation questionnaire

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kennedy, Theodore A.

2013-01-01

Identifying areas of scientific uncertainty is a critical step in the adaptive management process (Walters, 1986; Runge, Converse, and Lyons, 2011). To identify key areas of scientific uncertainty regarding biologic resources of importance to the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program, the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC) convened Knowledge Assessment Workshops in May and July 2005. One of the products of these workshops was a set of strategic science questions that highlighted key areas of scientific uncertainty. These questions were intended to frame and guide the research and monitoring activities conducted by the GCMRC in subsequent years. Questions were developed collaboratively by scientists and managers. The questions were not all of equal importance or merit—some questions were large scale and others were small scale. Nevertheless, these questions were adopted and have guided the research and monitoring efforts conducted by the GCMRC since 2005. A new round of Knowledge Assessment Workshops was convened by the GCMRC in June and October 2011 and January 2012 to determine whether the research and monitoring activities conducted since 2005 had successfully answered some of the strategic science questions. Oral presentations by scientists highlighting research findings were a centerpiece of all three of the 2011–12 workshops. Each presenter was also asked to provide an answer to the strategic science questions that were specific to the presenter’s research area. One limitation of this approach is that these answers represented the views of the handful of scientists who developed the presentations, and, as such, they did not incorporate other perspectives. Thus, the answers provided by presenters at the Knowledge Assessment Workshops may not have accurately captured the sentiments of the broader group of scientists involved in research and monitoring of the Colorado River in Glen and Grand Canyons. Yet a fundamental ingredient of resilient decisionmaking and problem-solving is incorporation of a wide range of perspectives (Carpenter and others, 2009). To ensure that a wide range of scientists had an opportunity to weigh in on the strategic science questions, the GCMRC elicited additional perspectives through written questionnaires. Independently soliciting responses from scientists through questionnaires had the added advantage of allowing all scientists to freely and openly share their views on complex and controversial topics—something which may not have occurred in the group setting of the June 2011 Knowledge Assessment Workshop because of dominance by one or more scientists. The purpose of this report is to document and interpret the questionnaire responses.

Open Technology Approaches to Geospatial Interface Design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crevensten, B.; Simmons, D.; Alaska Satellite Facility

2011-12-01

What problems do you not want your software developers to be solving? Choosing open technologies across the entire stack of software development-from low-level shared libraries to high-level user interaction implementations-is a way to help ensure that customized software yields innovative and valuable tools for Earth Scientists. This demonstration will review developments in web application technologies and the recurring patterns of interaction design regarding exploration and discovery of geospatial data through the Vertex: ASF's Dataportal interface, a project utilizing current open web application standards and technologies including HTML5, jQueryUI, Backbone.js and the Jasmine unit testing framework.

SPAN: Ocean science

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thomas, Valerie L.; Koblinsky, Chester J.; Webster, Ferris; Zlotnicki, Victor; Green, James L.

1987-01-01

The Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN) is a multi-mission, correlative data comparison network which links space and Earth science research and data analysis computers. It provides a common working environment for sharing computer resources, sharing computer peripherals, solving proprietary problems, and providing the potential for significant time and cost savings for correlative data analysis. This is one of a series of discipline-specific SPAN documents which are intended to complement the SPAN primer and SPAN Management documents. Their purpose is to provide the discipline scientists with a comprehensive set of documents to assist in the use of SPAN for discipline specific scientific research.

Electrostatic Precipitator

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-06-09

In their Swamp Works laboratory at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Dr. Carlos Calle and Jay Phillips are testing an electrostatic precipitator using dust that closely approximates the make-up of that on Mars. They upgraded their electrostatic precipitator to fully simulate Martian atmosphere by designing and constructing a dust aerosolization pre-chamber. The agency's Journey to Mars requires cutting-edge technologies to solve the problems explorers will face on the Red Planet. Scientists are developing some of the needed solutions by adapting a device to remove the ever-present dust from valuable elements in the Martian atmosphere. Those commodities include oxygen, water and methane.

Space Exploration: Oh, the Materials You'll Need!

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Sylvia M.

2016-01-01

Space exploration has many challenges and materials are critical for many of the systems required to enable robotic or human space exploration. This talk will highlight challenges for materials with an emphasis on thermal protection materials and systems. Solving the materials issues will require thinking about materials in the systems and environments where are they to be used. In many cases the materials must be designed for the application, and the system needs to be designed with the materials in mind. The talk will conclude with some thoughts on the skills needed for materials scientists and engineers working on materials for space.

KSC-2014-2038

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., James Mantovani of the NASA Surface Systems Office at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2036

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Tom Engler, deputy director of Center Planning and Development at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2040

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Janet Petro, deputy director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2041

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Janet Petro, deputy director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2043

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Janet Petro, deputy director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2045

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Karen Thompson, NASA's chief technologist at the Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2042

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Janet Petro, deputy director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2037

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Tom Engler, deputy director of Center Planning and Development at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2044

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Karen Thompson, NASA's chief technologist at the Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

KSC-2014-2039

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-04-11

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Cocoa Beach, Fla., James Mantovani of the NASA Surface Systems Office at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, speaks to participants in the 4th International Workshop on Lunar and Planetary Compact and Cryogenic Science and Technology Applications. Scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs interested in research on the moon and other planetary surfaces, recently participated in the Workshop. Taking place April 8-11, 2014, the event was designed to foster collaborative work among those interested in solving the challenges of building hardware, software and businesses interested in going back to the moon and exploring beyond. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

Mental model mapping as a new tool to analyse the use of information in decision-making in integrated water management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kolkman, M. J.; Kok, M.; van der Veen, A.

The solution of complex, unstructured problems is faced with policy controversy and dispute, unused and misused knowledge, project delay and failure, and decline of public trust in governmental decisions. Mental model mapping (also called concept mapping) is a technique to analyse these difficulties on a fundamental cognitive level, which can reveal experiences, perceptions, assumptions, knowledge and subjective beliefs of stakeholders, experts and other actors, and can stimulate communication and learning. This article presents the theoretical framework from which the use of mental model mapping techniques to analyse this type of problems emerges as a promising technique. The framework consists of the problem solving or policy design cycle, the knowledge production or modelling cycle, and the (computer) model as interface between the cycles. Literature attributes difficulties in the decision-making process to communication gaps between decision makers, stakeholders and scientists, and to the construction of knowledge within different paradigm groups that leads to different interpretation of the problem situation. Analysis of the decision-making process literature indicates that choices, which are made in all steps of the problem solving cycle, are based on an individual decision maker’s frame of perception. This frame, in turn, depends on the mental model residing in the mind of the individual. Thus we identify three levels of awareness on which the decision process can be analysed. This research focuses on the third level. Mental models can be elicited using mapping techniques. In this way, analysing an individual’s mental model can shed light on decision-making problems. The steps of the knowledge production cycle are, in the same manner, ultimately driven by the mental models of the scientist in a specific discipline. Remnants of this mental model can be found in the resulting computer model. The characteristics of unstructured problems (complexity, uncertainty and disagreement) can be positioned in the framework, as can the communities of knowledge construction and valuation involved in the solution of these problems (core science, applied science, and professional consultancy, and “post-normal” science). Mental model maps, this research hypothesises, are suitable to analyse the above aspects of the problem. This hypothesis is tested for the case of the Zwolle storm surch barrier. Analysis can aid integration between disciplines, participation of public stakeholders, and can stimulate learning processes. Mental model mapping is recommended to visualise the use of knowledge, to analyse difficulties in problem solving process, and to aid information transfer and communication. Mental model mapping help scientists to shape their new, post-normal responsibilities in a manner that complies with integrity when dealing with unstructured problems in complex, multifunctional systems.

Pure science and the problem of progress.

PubMed

Douglas, Heather

2014-06-01

How should we understand scientific progress? Kuhn famously discussed science as its own internally driven venture, structured by paradigms. He also famously had a problem describing progress in science, as problem-solving ability failed to provide a clear rubric across paradigm change--paradigm changes tossed out problems as well as solving them. I argue here that much of Kuhn's inability to articulate a clear view of scientific progress stems from his focus on pure science and a neglect of applied science. I trace the history of the distinction between pure and applied science, showing how the distinction came about, the rhetorical uses to which the distinction has been put, and how pure science came to be both more valued by scientists and philosophers. I argue that the distinction between pure and applied science does not stand up to philosophical scrutiny, and that once we relinquish it, we can provide Kuhn with a clear sense of scientific progress. It is not one, though, that will ultimately prove acceptable. For that, societal evaluations of scientific work are needed.

The 2008 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: Robert Huber, Chemistry 1988. Interview by Klaus J. Korak.

PubMed

Huber, Robert

2008-11-25

Robert Huber and his colleagues, Johann Deisenhofer and Hartmut Michel, elucidated the three-dimensional structure of the Rhodopseudomonas viridis photosynthetic reaction center. This membrane protein complex is a basic component of photosynthesis - a process fundamental to life on Earth - and for their work, Huber and his colleagues received the 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Because structural information is central to understanding virtually any biological process, Huber likens their discovery to "switching on the light" for scientists trying to understand photosynthesis. Huber marvels at the growth of structural biology since the time he entered the field, when crystallographers worked with hand-made instruments and primitive computers, and only "a handful" of crystallographers would meet annually in the Bavarian Alps. In the "explosion" of structural biology since his early days of research, Huber looks to the rising generation of scientists to solve the remaining mysteries in the field - such as the mechanisms that underlie protein folding. A strong proponent of science mentorship, Huber delights in meeting young researchers at the annual Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau, Germany. He hopes that among these young scientists is an "Einstein of biology" who, he says with a twinkle in his eye, "doesn't know it yet." The interview was conducted by JoVE co-founder Klaus J. Korak at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2008 in Lindau, Germany.

The 2008 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: Robert Huber, Chemistry 1988

PubMed Central

Huber, Robert

2008-01-01

Robert Huber and his colleagues, Johann Deisenhofer and Hartmut Michel, elucidated the three-dimensional structure of the Rhodopseudomonas viridis photosynthetic reaction center. This membrane protein complex is a basic component of photosynthesis – a process fundamental to life on Earth – and for their work, Huber and his colleagues received the 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Because structural information is central to understanding virtually any biological process, Huber likens their discovery to “switching on the light” for scientists trying to understand photosynthesis. Huber marvels at the growth of structural biology since the time he entered the field, when crystallographers worked with hand-made instruments and primitive computers, and only “a handful” of crystallographers would meet annually in the Bavarian Alps. In the “explosion” of structural biology since his early days of research, Huber looks to the rising generation of scientists to solve the remaining mysteries in the field – such as the mechanisms that underlie protein folding. A strong proponent of science mentorship, Huber delights in meeting young researchers at the annual Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau, Germany. He hopes that among these young scientists is an “Einstein of biology” who, he says with a twinkle in his eye, “doesn’t know it yet.” The interview was conducted by JoVE co-founder Klaus J. Korak at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 2008 in Lindau, Germany. PMID:19066525

The evolution of the FIGARO data reduction system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shortridge, K.

1992-01-01

The Figaro data reduction system originated at Caltech around 1983. It was based on concepts being developed in the U.K. by the Starlink organization, particularly the use of hierarchical self-defining data structures and the abstraction of most user-interaction into a set of 'parameter system' routines. Since 1984 it has continued to be developed at AAO, in collaboration with Starlink and Caltech. It was adopted as Starlink's main spectroscopic data reduction package, although it is by no means limited to spectra; it has operations for images and data cubes and even a few (very specialized) for four-dimensional data hypercubes. It continued to be used at Caltech and will be used at the Keck. It is also in use at a variety of other organizations around the world. Figaro was originally a system for VMS Vaxes. Recently it was ported (at Caltech) to run on SUN's, and work is underway at the University of New South Wales on a DecStation version. It is hoped to coordinate all this work into a unified release, but coordination of the development of a system by organizations covering three continents poses a number of interesting administrative problems. The hierarchical data structures used by Figaro allow it to handle a variety of types of data, and to add new items to data structures. Error and data quality information was added to the basic file format used, error information being particularly useful for infrared data. Cooperating sets of programs can add specific sub-structures to data files to carry information that they understand (polarimetry data containing multiple data arrays, for example), without this affecting the way other programs handle the files. Complex instrument-specific ancillary information can be added to data files written at a telescope and can be used by programs that understand the instrumental details in order to produce properly calibrated data files. Once this preliminary data processing was done the resulting files contain 'ordinary' spectra or images that can be processed by programs that are not instrument-specific. The structures holding the instrumental information can then be discarded from the files. Much effort has gone into trying to make it easy to write Figaro programs; data access subroutines are now available to handle access to all the conventional items found in Figaro files (main data arrays, error information, quality information etc), and programs that only need to access such items can be very simple indeed. A large number of Figaro users do indeed write their own Figaro applications using these routines. The fact that Figaro programs are written as callable subroutines getting information from the user through a small set of parameter routines means that they can be invoked in numerous ways; they are normally linked and run as individual programs (called by a small main routine that is generated automatically), but are also available linked to run under the ADAM data acquisition system and there is an interface that lets them be called as part of a user-written Fortran program. The long-term future of Figaro probably depends to a large extent on how successfully it manages the transition from being a VMS-only system to being a multi-platform system.

The Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary: 25 Years of controversial discussion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harting, M.; Wittler, F. A.

2006-05-01

The K/T transition is under geoscientific focus since many years. Ever since the discovery of the Chicxulub- Impact theory in the early 1980s, its ctrater and its subsurface structure in the late 1990s many scientists and media, Hollywood, and the general public have become convinced that a large meteorite caused the K/T boundary and killed the dinosaurs and other organisms in the late Maastrichtian. However, today a much more comprehensive and detailed scientific background is present. Many scientist today believe that there is doubt that the Chicxulub impact is the "smoking gun". Moreover, there is increasing evidence that the Chicxulub impact predates the K/T mass extinction by about 300.000 years and did not cause the end of the dinosaures or of other marine and terrestrial organisms. On the other hand, some scientist still fixed to the general theory of a catastropic event. Due to recent field work on highly important sites and drillings inside the Chicxulub Impact structure itself, major new results are present today. In general, these new evidence, such as multiple ejecta layer, in locations in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, the Tethys and beyond, could not be interpreted by secondary (e.g. sedimentological-) features (slumping, reworking). Unfortunately, due to the highly emotional and controversal discussion - sometimes more like a religious than a scientific fight - many scientist feel uncomfortable to join the K/T problem. In fact, in between only a couple of major groups in various Universities are focussed - and leading - the discussion. A more open interaction between various geoscientific disciplines and researcher may the key to solve the mystery of the Chicxulub Impact and its relation to the K/T boundary.

Becoming an International Scientist in South Korea: Ho Wang Lee's Research Activity about Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever.

PubMed

Shin, Miyoung

2017-04-01

In the 1960-70s, South Korea was still in the position of a science latecomer. Although the scientific research environment in South Korea at that time was insufficient, there was a scientist who achieved outcomes that could be recognized internationally while acting in South Korea. He was Ho Wang Lee(1928~ ) who found Hantann Virus that causes epidemic hemorrhagic fever for the first time in the world. It became a clue to identify causative viruses of hemorrhagic diseases that were scattered here and there throughout the world. In addition, these outcomes put Ho Wang Lee on the global center of research into epidemic hemorrhagic fever. This paper examines how a Korean scientist who was in the periphery of virology could go into the central area of virology. Also this article shows the process through which the virus found by Ho Wang Lee was registered with the international academia and he proceeded with follow-up research based on this progress to reach the level at which he generalized epidemic hemorrhagic fever related studies throughout the world. While he was conducting the studies, experimental methods that he had never experienced encountered him as new difficulties. He tried to solve the new difficulties faced in his changed status through devices of cooperation and connection. Ho Wang Lee's growth as a researcher can be seen as well as a view of a researcher that grew from a regional level to an international level and could advance from the area of non-mainstream into the mainstream. This analytic tool is meaningful in that it can be another method of examining the growth process of scientists in South Korea or developing countries.

Scientists Celebrate VLBA's First Decade As Astronomy's Sharpest "Eye" on the Universe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2003-06-01

Scientists from around the globe are gathered in Socorro, New Mexico, to mark the tenth anniversary of the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) , a continent-wide radio telescope that produces the most detailed images of any instrument available to the world's astronomers. The VLBA The VLBA CREDIT: NRAO/AUI/NSF Nearly 200 scientists are presenting 160 research papers on topics including geophysics, star and planet formation, supernova explosions, galaxies, supermassive black holes, and future directions of research and instrumentation in astronomy. The meeting is sponsored by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NM Tech). The meeting is being held on the NM Tech campus in Socorro. "In ten years of operation, the VLBA has made landmark contributions to astronomy. In this scientific meeting, we are acknowledging those contributions and looking forward to an even more exciting future of frontier research," said James Ulvestad, director of VLA/VLBA operations for the NRAO. "The presentations at this meeting show that the VLBA is being used to study a much broader range of astronomical objects than was anticipated by its designers," said Prof. Roger Blandford of Caltech, who delivered the meeting's opening Keynote Address. Dedicated in 1993, the $85-million VLBA includes ten, 240-ton radio-telescope antennas, ranging from Hawaii in the west to the U.S. Virgin Islands in the east. Two are in New Mexico, one near Pie Town in Catron County and the other at Los Alamos. The VLBA is operated from the NRAO's Array Operations Center in Socorro. Acting like a giant eye 5,000 miles wide, the VLBA can produce the sharpest images of any telescope on Earth or in space. Its ability to see fine detail, called resolving power, is equivalent to being able to stand in New York and read a newspaper in Los Angeles. The VLBA's scientific achievements include making the most accurate distance measurement ever made of an object beyond the Milky Way Galaxy; the first mapping of the magnetic field of a star other than the Sun; "movies" of motions in powerful cosmic jets and of distant supernova explosions; the first measurement of the propagation speed of gravity; and long-term measurements that have improved the reference frame used to map the Universe and detect tectonic motions of Earth's continents. In coming years, scientists plan to use the VLBA, along with other radio-telescope facilities, to gain important new insights on astronomical bodies ranging from nearby stars to the most distant galaxies, seen as they were billions of years ago. The VLBA also will help improve the celestial coordinate system used for spacecraft navigation and other purposes. Blandford outlined a number of future research challenges, including understanding how pulsars produce their powerful beams of light and radio waves, learning how supermassive black holes and their nearby environments produce superfast cosmic jets, trying to understand solar bursts, using gravitational lenses to study the distant Universe, and understanding the mechanisms of gamma ray bursts and their "afterglows." "I am heartened to see the number of young astronomers at this meeting who are using the VLBA and will use it to help answer these important scientific questions," Blandford added. Closer to home, the VLBA can be "turned around" to produce extremely precise measurements on the Earth. This capability allows scientists to study the motion of Earth's tectonic plates, to track "wobbles" in our planet's rotation, and to measure subtle changes attributed to atmospheric motions and climate change. The meeting in Socorro began June 8 and runs through June 12. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Mediarology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schneider, S.

2006-12-01

Scientific assessments show a broad range of possible outcomes, but media coverage of the many aspects of the climate change debate often dichotomize into two camps: e.g. ignore the problem vs. stop it. This is exacerbated by an advocacy philosophy in which proponents take information out of context that supports their ideological positions and/or their clients' interests. Such courtroom epistemology feeds the media's pre- existing tendency to engage in balanced reporting: polarizing an issue despite a broad range of possible positions making each side equally credible, e.g., pitting a 200 author peer reviewed report against a lone PhD funded by special interests. This creates a false dichotomy: global warming is good for the Earth and too expensive to fix anyway, or it is the world's most serious problem, but relatively cheap to solve with renewable energy. I think these two are the lowest probability outliers as are: mitigating climate changes will bankrupt the US a frequent remark from some industries and the White House or technology will solve climate change at no cost, an overstatement by some deep green groups. Often neither side offers probabilities of outcomes or identifies the winners and losers from hypothesized climate impacts or policies to ameliorate them and when they do, it is rarely reported. To address the problem, scientists must take proactive roles in the public debate. We can help journalists by participating in the public climate change debate using clear metaphors and ordinary language without the pretense that we are above it since media is a time-constrained exercise and we insist all caveats must be reported. We must make it a priority to write review papers and present talks stressing well-established principles first, followed by cutting-edge science with its typical contention. Scientists, policy makers, the general citizenry, and journalists should enter the public debate, or the popularization of potential probabilities and consequences of climate change will occur without their input and will likely be more inaccurate, if not spun to ideological positions. It is impossible to obtain frequency data for events occurring in the future, so it is necessary to use subjective probabilities built on projections/models that compile all the relevant information we can bring to the problem, including, but not limited to, direct measurements and statistics. Scientists should provide subjective probabilistic assessments of climate change impacts for policy makers, with a special obligation to make any value judgments explicit. We must attempt to keep our value judgments out of the scientific assessment process, but if we choose to express a policy advocacy position as a citizen, it is imperative we make our personal values and prejudices explicit. A scientist-popularizer should publicly report community assessments and personal values clearly and explicitly. An effective scientist-popularizer must balance being heard good sound bites and simple metaphors with the responsibility to be honest all the caveats. Being both effective and honest is essential metaphors that convey both urgency and uncertainty work well, though it is a tough tradeoff when one has 20 seconds or 20 words to do it in! I believe a hierarchy of back up products op eds, Scientific American-type articles, and full length popular books to add all the nuances can help navigate sound-bite conundrums. Popularizers must answer 3 environmental literacy questions: What can happen? What are the odds of it happening? How are such estimates made? Plus non-scientists must attain a basic level of environmental, political, and scientific literacy so as to distinguish climate change science from spin and make critical value judgments and policy decisions.

Impact Cratering Calculations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ahrens, Thomas J.

2001-01-01

This research is computational /theoretical and complements the Caltech experimental program. We have developed an understanding of the basic physical processes and produced computational models and implemented these into Eulerian and Lagrangian finite element codes. The key issues we have addressed include the conditions required for: faulting (strain localization), elastic moduli weakening, dynamic weakening (layering elastic instabilities and fluidization), bulking (creation of porosity at zero pressure) and compaction of pores, frictional melting (creation of pseudotachylytes), partial and selective devolatilization of materials (e.g. CaCO3, water/ice mixtures), and debris flows.

Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope [WFIRST]: Telescope Design and Simulated Performance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Goullioud, R.; Content, D. A.; Kuan, G. M.; Moore, J. D.; Chang, Z.; Sunada, E. T.; Villalvazo, J.; Hawk, J. P.; Armani, N. V.; Johnson, E. L.;

Streaming energetic electrons in earth's magnetotail - Evidence for substorm-associated magnetic reconnection

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bieber, J. W.; Stone, E. C.

1980-01-01

This letter reports the results of a systematic study of streaming greater than 200 keV electrons observed in the magnetotail with the Caltech Electron/Isotope Spectrometers aboard IMP-7 and IMP-8. A clear statistical association of streaming events with southward magnetic fields, often of steep inclination, and with substorms as evidenced by the AE index is demonstrated. These results support the interpretation that streaming energetic electrons are indicative of substorm-associated magnetic reconnection in the near-earth plasma sheet.

A Caltech MURI Center for Quantum Networks

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-05-31

the code. Thus the dimension of the code space is n5uPfAu5detD , ~64! where PfA denotes the Pfaffian, the square root of the deter- minant of the...material properties, such as bulk ab- sorption and surface scattering. However, as one moves to very small spheres with radius a&10 mm, the intrinsic...1550 nm, which yields a quality factor of Qbulk;3.8310 11. The quality factor due to surface scattering Qs.s. and ab- sorption by adsorbed water Qw has

Searching for Correlations with the HCO+ 4-3 Molecular Spectra of Protostars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Acikgoz, Ogulcan; Basturk, Seda

The assignment is based on HCO+ J=4-3 spectral line molecular observations of protostars from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, which has the 15 m diameter dish and located in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA. Data of 20 protostars are taken from the public LOMASS database and analyzed. We looked for correlations between a few observational quantities. We thank Dr Umut Yildiz (NASA/JPL-Caltech) for providing data and his comments and support to our research project.

Transition Delay in Hypervelocity Boundary Layers by Means of Vibrational Relaxation and Acoustic Instability Interactions

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-01-04

Ca, 93536 Stuart Laurence2, Amy War-Kei Beierholm3, Hans G. Hornung4 Caltech, Pasadena, Ca, 91125 and Ross Wagnild5, Graham Candler6 University...The shots refer to particular conditions tested in the T5 facility for a 45-degree swept cylinder. Taken from [10]. The theory of how relaxation...0. 25 14 /6 .2 00 9- 12 87 27 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 15 3 Mack, L.M., “Boundary-layer stability theory ,” In

Caltech Center for Structural and Amorphous Metals

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-05-10

Flores, D. Suh, R. Howell, P. Asoka -Kumar, P.A. Sterne, and R. H. Dauskardt, "Flow and Fracture of Bulk Metallic Glass Alloys and Their Composites...Behavior of Zr-Ti-Cu-Ni-Be Bulk Metallic Glass Alloys," Materials Transactions, JIM, 42 [4], 638-641, 2001. K. M. Flores, D. Suh, P. Asoka -Kumar, P.A...Materials Research, 17[5], 1153-1161, 2002. D. Suh, P. Asoka -Kumar and R. H. Dauskardt, "The Effects of Hydrogen on Viscoelastic Relaxation in Zr-Ti-Ni-Cu

Global Binary Continuity for Color Face Detection With Complex Background

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belavadi, Bhaskar; Mahendra Prashanth, K. V.; Joshi, Sujay S.; Suprathik, N.

2017-08-01

In this paper, we propose a method to detect human faces in color images, with complex background. The proposed algorithm makes use of basically two color space models, specifically HSV and YCgCr. The color segmented image is filled uniformly with a single color (binary) and then all unwanted discontinuous lines are removed to get the final image. Experimental results on Caltech database manifests that the purported model is able to accomplish far better segmentation for faces of varying orientations, skin color and background environment.

Book Review - Panofsky on Physics, Politics, and Peace: Pief Remembers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loew, Gregory

The following sections are included: * Introduction: Genesis of the Book * Nature and Nurture: Pief's Early Life * This Review * High School in Hamburg; University at Princeton and Caltech * Pief and the Bomb * Accelerators and Physics at UCRL * Events Leading up to the Loyalty Oath * Stanford, the Microwave Lab and HEPL * The Rise of SLAC * Building SLAC * Physics Research at SLAC in the First Ten Years * Other Accelerator Activities under Pief * Science Advising and International Science * Arms Control (1981-2007): The Unfinished Business

A High-Mass Cold Core in the Auriga-California Giant Molecular Cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Magnus McGehee, Peregrine; Paladini, Roberta; Pelkonen, Veli-Matti; Toth, Viktor; Sayers, Jack

2015-08-01

The Auriga-California Giant Molecular Cloud is noted for its relatively low star formation rate, especially at the high-mass end of the Initial Mass Function. We combine maps acquired by the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory's Multiwavelength Submillimeter Inductance Camera [MUSIC] in the wavelength range 0.86 to 2.00 millimeters with Planck and publicly-available Herschel PACS and SPIRE data in order to characterize the mass, dust properties, and environment of the bright core PGCC G163.32-8.41.

The Antiaircraft Journal. Volume 92, Number 6, November-December 1949

DTIC Science & Technology

1949-12-01

nation’s peacetime history . Strategic plans for the nation’s defense are far advanced beyond those of any previous peacetime year . The Ameri- can people...From April through October of that year , activities of the OSRD Group such as Caltech were largely absorbed by the permanent teChnical organization of...with only four years ’ service is los - ing as many credits as a nonveteran might earn in twenty years of reserve component service. Title III, Public

Fluid Mixing in the Eye Under Rapid Eye Movement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Jinglin; Gharib, Morteza

2017-11-01

Drug injection is an important technique in certain treatments of eye diseases. The efficacy of chemical mixing plays an important role in determining pharmacokinetics of injected drugs. In this study, we build a device to study the chemical mixing behavior in a spherical structure. The mixing process is visualized and analyzed qualitatively. We hope to understand the chemical convection and diffusion behaviors in correlation with controlled rapid mechanical movements. The results will have potential applications in treatment of eye diseases. Resnick Institute at Caltech.

Interweaving Knowledge Resources to Address Complex Environmental Health Challenges

PubMed Central

Anderson, Beth Ellen; Suk, William A.

2015-01-01

Background Complex problems do not respect academic disciplinary boundaries. Environmental health research is complex and often moves beyond these boundaries, integrating diverse knowledge resources to solve such challenges. Here we describe an evolving paradigm for interweaving approaches that integrates widely diverse resources outside of traditional academic environments in full partnerships of mutual respect and understanding. We demonstrate that scientists, social scientists, and engineers can work with government agencies, industry, and communities to interweave their expertise into metaphorical knowledge fabrics to share understanding, resources, and enthusiasm. Objective Our goal is to acknowledge and validate how interweaving research approaches can contribute to research-driven, solution-oriented problem solving in environmental health, and to inspire more members of the environmental health community to consider this approach. Discussion The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Superfund Research Program (SRP), as mandated by Congress, has evolved to become a program that reaches across a wide range of knowledge resources. SRP fosters interweaving multiple knowledge resources to develop innovative multidirectional partnerships for research and training. Here we describe examples of how motivation, ideas, knowledge, and expertise from different people, institutions, and agencies can integrate to tackle challenges that can be as complex as the resources they bring to bear on it. Conclusions By providing structure for interweaving science with its stakeholders, we are better able to leverage resources, increase potential for innovation, and proactively ensure a more fully developed spectrum of beneficial outcomes of research investments. Citation Anderson BE, Naujokas MF, Suk WA. 2015. Interweaving knowledge resources to address complex environmental health challenges. Environ Health Perspect 123:1095–1099; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1409525 PMID:25910282

The OGC Innovation Program Testbeds - Advancing Architectures for Earth and Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bermudez, L. E.; Percivall, G.; Simonis, I.; Serich, S.

2017-12-01

The OGC Innovation Program provides a collaborative agile process for solving challenging science problems and advancing new technologies. Since 1999, 100 initiatives have taken place, from multi-million dollar testbeds to small interoperability experiments. During these initiatives, sponsors and technology implementers (including academia and private sector) come together to solve problems, produce prototypes, develop demonstrations, provide best practices, and advance the future of standards. This presentation will provide the latest system architectures that can be used for Earth and space systems as a result of the OGC Testbed 13, including the following components: Elastic cloud autoscaler for Earth Observations (EO) using a WPS in an ESGF hybrid climate data research platform. Accessibility of climate data for the scientist and non-scientist users via on demand models wrapped in WPS. Standards descriptions for containerize applications to discover processes on the cloud, including using linked data, a WPS extension for hybrid clouds and linking to hybrid big data stores. OpenID and OAuth to secure OGC Services with built-in Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) infrastructures leveraging GeoDRM patterns. Publishing and access of vector tiles, including use of compression and attribute options reusing patterns from WMS, WMTS and WFS. Servers providing 3D Tiles and streaming of data, including Indexed 3d Scene Layer (I3S), CityGML and Common DataBase (CDB). Asynchronous Services with advanced pushed notifications strategies, with a filter language instead of simple topic subscriptions, that can be use across OGC services. Testbed 14 will continue advancing topics like Big Data, security, and streaming, as well as making easier to use OGC services (e.g. RESTful APIs). The Call for Participation will be issued in December and responses are due on mid January 2018.

The OGC Innovation Program Testbeds - Advancing Architectures for Earth and Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bermudez, L. E.; Percivall, G.; Simonis, I.; Serich, S.

2016-12-01

The OGC Innovation Program provides a collaborative agile process for solving challenging science problems and advancing new technologies. Since 1999, 100 initiatives have taken place, from multi-million dollar testbeds to small interoperability experiments. During these initiatives, sponsors and technology implementers (including academia and private sector) come together to solve problems, produce prototypes, develop demonstrations, provide best practices, and advance the future of standards. This presentation will provide the latest system architectures that can be used for Earth and space systems as a result of the OGC Testbed 13, including the following components: Elastic cloud autoscaler for Earth Observations (EO) using a WPS in an ESGF hybrid climate data research platform. Accessibility of climate data for the scientist and non-scientist users via on demand models wrapped in WPS. Standards descriptions for containerize applications to discover processes on the cloud, including using linked data, a WPS extension for hybrid clouds and linking to hybrid big data stores. OpenID and OAuth to secure OGC Services with built-in Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) infrastructures leveraging GeoDRM patterns. Publishing and access of vector tiles, including use of compression and attribute options reusing patterns from WMS, WMTS and WFS. Servers providing 3D Tiles and streaming of data, including Indexed 3d Scene Layer (I3S), CityGML and Common DataBase (CDB). Asynchronous Services with advanced pushed notifications strategies, with a filter language instead of simple topic subscriptions, that can be use across OGC services. Testbed 14 will continue advancing topics like Big Data, security, and streaming, as well as making easier to use OGC services (e.g. RESTful APIs). The Call for Participation will be issued in December and responses are due on mid January 2018.

The role of mathematical models in understanding pattern formation in developmental biology.

PubMed

Umulis, David M; Othmer, Hans G

2015-05-01

In a Wall Street Journal article published on April 5, 2013, E. O. Wilson attempted to make the case that biologists do not really need to learn any mathematics-whenever they run into difficulty with numerical issues, they can find a technician (aka mathematician) to help them out of their difficulty. He formalizes this in Wilsons Principle No. 1: "It is far easier for scientists to acquire needed collaboration from mathematicians and statisticians than it is for mathematicians and statisticians to find scientists able to make use of their equations." This reflects a complete misunderstanding of the role of mathematics in all sciences throughout history. To Wilson, mathematics is mere number crunching, but as Galileo said long ago, "The laws of Nature are written in the language of mathematics[Formula: see text] the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word." Mathematics has moved beyond the geometry-based model of Galileo's time, and in a rebuttal to Wilson, E. Frenkel has pointed out the role of mathematics in synthesizing the general principles in science (Both point and counter-point are available in Wilson and Frenkel in Notices Am Math Soc 60(7):837-838, 2013). We will take this a step further and show how mathematics has been used to make new and experimentally verified discoveries in developmental biology and how mathematics is essential for understanding a problem that has puzzled experimentalists for decades-that of how organisms can scale in size. Mathematical analysis alone cannot "solve" these problems since the validation lies at the molecular level, but conversely, a growing number of questions in biology cannot be solved without mathematical analysis and modeling. Herein, we discuss a few examples of the productive intercourse between mathematics and biology.

Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES): using GIS to include social values information in ecosystem services assessments

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sherrouse, B.C.; Semmens, D.J.

2010-01-01

Ecosystem services can be defined in various ways; simply put, they are the benefits provided by nature, which contribute to human well-being. These benefits can range from tangible products such as food and fresh water to cultural services such as recreation and esthetics. As the use of these benefits continues to increase, additional pressures are placed on the natural ecosystems providing them. This makes it all the more important when assessing possible tradeoffs among ecosystem services to consider the human attitudes and preferences that express underlying social values associated with their benefits. While some of these values can be accounted for through economic markets, other values can be more difficult to quantify, and attaching dollar amounts to them may not be very useful in all cases. Regardless of the processes or units used for quantifying such values, the ability to map them across the landscape and relate them to the ecosystem services to which they are attributed is necessary for effective assessments. To address some of the needs associated with quantifying and mapping social values for inclusion in ecosystem services assessments, scientists at the Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center (RMGSC), in collaboration with Colorado State University, have developed a public domain tool, Social Values for Ecosystem Services (SolVES). SolVES is a geographic information system (GIS) application designed to use data from public attitude and preference surveys to assess, map, and quantify social values for ecosystem services. SolVES calculates and maps a 10-point Value Index representing the relative perceived social values of ecosystem services such as recreation and biodiversity for various groups of ecosystem stakeholders. SolVES output can also be used to identify and model relationships between social values and physical characteristics of the underlying landscape. These relationships can then be used to generate predicted Value Index maps for areas where survey data are not available. RMGSC will continue to develop more robust versions of SolVES by pursuing opportunities to work with land and resource managers as well as other researchers to apply SolVES to specific ecosystem management problems.

Cultivating Collaborations: Site Specific Design for Embodied Science Learning.

PubMed

Gill, Katherine; Glazier, Jocelyn; Towns, Betsy

2018-05-21

Immersion in well-designed outdoor environments can foster the habits of mind that enable critical and authentic scientific questions to take root in students' minds. Here we share two design cases in which careful, collaborative, and intentional design of outdoor learning environments for informal inquiry provide people of all ages with embodied opportunities to learn about the natural world, developing the capacity for understanding ecology and the ability to empathize, problem-solve and reflect. Embodied learning, as facilitated by and in well-designed outdoor learning environments, leads students to develop new ways of seeing, new scientific questions, new ways to connect with ideas, with others and new ways of thinking about the natural world. Using examples from our collaborative practices as experiential learning designers, we illustrate how creating the habits of mind critical to creating scientists, science-interested, and science-aware individuals benefits from providing students spaces to engage in embodied learning in nature. We show how public landscapes designed in creative partnerships between educators, scientists, designers and the public have potential to amplify science learning for all.

Zooniverse - A Platform for Data-Driven Citizen Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, A.; Lintott, C.; Bamford, S.; Fortson, L.

2011-12-01

In July 2007 a team of astrophysicists created a web-based astronomy project called Galaxy Zoo in which members of the public were asked to classify galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey by their shape. Over the following year a community of more than 150,000 people classified each of the 1 million galaxies more than 50 times each. Four years later this community of 'citizen scientists' is more than 450,000 strong and is contributing their time and efforts to more than 10 Zooniverse projects each with its own science team and research case. With projects ranging from transcribing ancient greek texts (ancientlives.org) to lunar science (moonzoo.org) the challenges to the Zooniverse community have gone well beyond the relatively simple original Galaxy Zoo interface. Delivering a range of citizen science projects to a large web-based audience presents challenges on a number of fronts including interface design, data architecture/modelling and reduction techniques, web-infrastructure and software design. In this paper we will describe how the Zooniverse team (a collaboration of scientists, software developers and educators ) have developed tools and techniques to solve some of these issues.

Introducing integrated product and process development into the education of science and engineering undergraduates: a lecture course with an accompanying case-study programme at the ETH chemistry department.

PubMed

Fenner, K; Jödicke, G; Alean-Kirkpatrick, P; Hungerbühler, K

2001-04-01

Increased quality requirements in the development of chemical products and a growing awareness within society of the activities of chemical companies present a new challenge to the education of young scientists. Nowadays, the teaching of chemists, chemical engineers and environmental scientists at universities has to go beyond the traditional, discipline-orientated knowledge acquisition. The students also have to learn to work and communicate in interdisciplinary teams, to solve application-oriented tasks and to integrate scientific, economical, ecological and social aspects into their work. For this reason, a case-study programme was launched at the chemistry department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In this paper, we describe the organisational aspects of the programme, its inclusion into academic and industrial environments and summarise some of the scientific methodologies applied. One of the seven case-studies, an assessment of a modern insecticide, is presented in more detail. Finally, we discuss how far the case-study programme is suitable for introducing a new mode of knowledge production to universities.

Internet Links for Science Education: Student-Scientist Partnerships (edited by Karen Cohen)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barden, Linda M.

1998-10-01

Plenum: New York, 1997. xx + 260 pp. Figs., tables, photos. 15 x 22.8 cm. ISBN 0-306-45558-7. $27.50. Science education is undergoing an upheaval more fundamental than the one that occurred in the aftermath of Sputnik. Research during the past 40 years has led to a radical change in the way we view children's learning of science. The National Science Education Standards (NSES) suggest a new model for teaching science based upon these research findings. Societal changes, particularly changes in business, have put pressure on schools to alter the emphasis of curricula from rote memory and individual competition to problem solving using a variety of technological skills and teamwork/team competition. This timely book addresses all these issues by describing projects that K-12 teachers can use to achieve the goals set forth by both NSES and business. It also provides scientists with examples of how they and their coworkers might better interact with K-12 science education to encourage a more scientifically literate society. Finally, it includes suggestions for future research in science education.

Materials towards carbon-free, emission-free and oil-free mobility: hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles--now and in the future.

PubMed

Hirose, Katsuhiko

2010-07-28

In the past, material innovation has changed society through new material-induced technologies, adding a new value to society. In the present world, engineers and scientists are expected to invent new materials to solve the global problem of climate change. For the transport sector, the challenge for material engineers is to change the oil-based world into a sustainable world. After witnessing the recent high oil price and its adverse impact on the global economy, it is time to accelerate our efforts towards this change. Industries are tackling global energy issues such as oil and CO2, as well as local environmental problems, such as NO(x) and particulate matter. Hydrogen is the most promising candidate to provide carbon-free, emission-free and oil-free mobility. As such, engineers are working very hard to bring this technology into the real society. This paper describes recent progress of vehicle technologies, as well as hydrogen-storage technologies to extend the cruise range and ensure the easiness of refuelling and requesting material scientists to collaborate with industry to fight against global warming.

Status of Public Earthquake Early Warning in the U.S

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Given, D. D.

2013-12-01

Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) is a proven use of seismological science that can give people and businesses outside the epicentral area of a large earthquake up to a minute to take protective actions before the most destructive shaking hits them. Since 2006 several organizations have been collaborating to create such a system in the United States. These groups include the US Geological Survey, Caltech, UC Berkeley, the University of Washington, the Southern California Earthquake Center, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, the California Office of Emergency Services, and the California Geological Survey. A demonstration version of the system, called ShakeAlert, began sending test notifications to selected users in California in January 2012. In August 2012 San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit district began slowing and stopping trains in response to strong ground shaking. The next step in the project is to progress to a production prototype for the west coast. The system is built on top of the considerable technical and organizational earthquake monitoring infrastructure of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS). While a fully functional, robust, public EEW system will require significant new investment and development in several major areas, modest progress is being made with current resources. First, high-quality sensors must be installed with sufficient density, particularly near source faults. Where possible, we are upgrading and augmenting the existing ANSS networks on the west coast. Second, data telemetry from those sensors must be engineered for speed and reliability. Next, robust central processing infrastructure is being designed and built. Also, computer algorithms to detect and characterize the evolving earthquake must be further developed and tested. Last year the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funded USGS, Caltech, UCB and UW to accelerate R&D efforts. Every available means of distributing alerts must be used to insure the system's effectiveness. We have developed an internet-based UserDisplay application and a smartphone app based on Google Cloud Messaging. In addition, USGS has applied for authorization to alert over FEMA's Integrated Pubic Alert and Warning System. We are also working with private companies to develop alert distribution channels and end user implementation capabilities. Finally, because policy makers, institutional users, and the public must be educated about the system, social scientists and communicators are determining how to communicate the alerts most effectively. Progress is also being made in several related areas. Real-time GPS position data is becoming available on a large scale and algorithms are being developed to use these data to rapidly characterize the fault rupture as it propagates. New, advanced seismological and geodetic algorithms for the Cascadia megathrust and San Andreas fault are being developed. We are exploring public-private partnerships to develop commercial EEW applications. And Federal, State and local agencies are working out their roles and responsibilities in building, operating and educating users about the system. There is much more to be done and funding the creation and operation of this new capability is a challenge in the current budget climate. However, our goal is to build an EEW system before the next big earthquake rather than in its aftermath.

Converting Advances in Seismology into Earthquake Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hauksson, Egill; Shearer, Peter; Vidale, John

2004-01-01

Federal and state agencies and university groups all operate seismic networks in California. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) operates seismic networks in California in cooperation with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in southern California, and the University of California (UC) at Berkeley in northern California. The California Geological Survey (CGS) and the USGS National Strong Motion Program (NSMP) operate dial-out strong motion instruments in the state, primarily to capture data from large earthquakes for earthquake engineering and, more recently, emergency response. The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) provides leadership for the most recent project, the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN), to integrate all of the California efforts, and to take advantage of the emergency response capabilities of the seismic networks. The core members of the CISN are Caltech, UC Berkeley, CGS, USGS Menlo Park, and USGS Pasadena (http://www.cisn.org). New seismic instrumentation is in place across southern California, and significant progress has been made in improving instrumentation in northern California. Since 2001, these new field instrumentation efforts, data sharing, and software development for real-time reporting and archiving have been coordinated through the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN). The CISN is also the California region of the Advanced National Seismic Network (ANSS). In addition, EarthScope deployments of USArray that will begin in early 2004 in California are coordinated with the CISN. The southern and northern California earthquake data centers (SCEDC and NCEDC) have new capabilities that enable seismologists to obtain large volumes of data with only modest effort.

TOASTing Your Images With Montage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berriman, G. Bruce; Good, John

2017-01-01

The Montage image mosaic engine is a scalable toolkit for creating science-grade mosaics of FITS files, according to the user's specifications of coordinates, projection, sampling, and image rotation. It is written in ANSI-C and runs on all common *nix-based platforms. The code is freely available and is released with a BSD 3-clause license. Version 5 is a major upgrade to Montage, and provides support for creating images that can be consumed by the World Wide Telescope (WWT). Montage treats the TOAST sky tessellation scheme, used by the WWT, as a spherical projection like those in the WCStools library. Thus images in any projection can be converted to the TOAST projection by Montage’s reprojection services. These reprojections can be performed at scale on high-performance platforms and on desktops. WWT consumes PNG or JPEG files, organized according to WWT’s tiling and naming scheme. Montage therefore provides a set of dedicated modules to create the required files from FITS images that contain the TOAST projection. There are two other major features of Version 5. It supports processing of HEALPix files to any projection in the WCS tools library. And it can be built as a library that can be called from other languages, primarily Python. http://montage.ipac.caltech.edu.GitHub download page: https://github.com/Caltech-IPAC/Montage.ASCL record: ascl:1010.036. DOI: dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.49418 Montage is funded by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number ACI-1440620,

T(T,4He)2n and 3He(3He,4He)2p Reactions and the Energy Dependence of Their Mechanisms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bacher, Andrew; McNabb, Dennis; Brune, Carl; Sayre, Dan; Hale, Gerry; Frenje, Johan; Gatu Johnson, Maria

2015-10-01

We have studied the T(T,alpha)2n reaction because it is the charge symmetric analog to the 3He(3He,alpha)2p reaction which completes the most direct mode of the p-p chain in stellar interiors. These reactions lead to three-body final states whose energy spectrum shapes are dominated by the strong nucleon-alpha interaction and the weaker nucleon-nucleon interaction. These experiments were done at OMEGA at the University of Rochester and at the NIF at Lawrence Livermore Lab. We will focus on two features: (1) the excitation energy dependence of the reaction mechanism and (2) the center-of-mass energy dependence of the reaction mechanism. At stellar energies (OMEGA and the NIF) we find that the shape of the neutron spectrum peaks in the middle. The n-alpha 1/2-excited state is about two times stronger than the n-alpha 3/2-ground state. For the 3He+3He reaction (at CalTech), the proton spectrum peaks at the high end. The p-alpha 3/2-state is about two times stronger than the 1/2-state. This difference in the spectrum shape is explained by theoretical models which include the interference between the two identical fermions in the final state. At CalTech we have angular distributions of the 3He+3He reaction from 2 MeV to 18 MeV. We see the p-wave strength increasing.

Dominica Hurricane Damage Mapped by NASA's ARIA Team

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-09-29

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Caltech, also in Pasadena, created this Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas including the Commonwealth of Dominica, that are likely damaged (shown by red and yellow pixels) as a result of Hurricane Maria (a Category 5 storm at landfall in Dominica on Sept. 18, 2017). The map is derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites, operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The images were taken before (March 27, 2017) and after (Sept. 23, 2017) the landfall of the storm. The map covers the area within the large red polygon, which measures 53 by 106 miles (85 by 170 kilometers). Each pixel measures about 98 feet (30 meters) across. The color variation from yellow to red indicates increasingly more significant ground surface change. Preliminary validation was done by comparing the data to a crowdsourced map by Clemson Center for Geospatial Technologies and optical satellite imagery feom DigitalGlobe. This damage proxy map should be used as guidance to identify damaged areas, and may be less reliable over vegetated areas. Sentinel-1 data were accessed through the Copernicus Open Access Hub. The image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017), processed by ESA and analyzed by the NASA/JPL-Caltech ARIA team. This research was carried out at JPL under a contract with NASA. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22037

Is Your Gut Conscious? Is an Extraterrestrial?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vos Post, Jonathan

2011-10-01

This paper speculates on questions intending to be taken scientifically rather than metaphysically: "Can the human gut (enteric nervous system) be conscious?"; "Can your immune system think?"; "Could consciousness be coded in DNA?"; "What do we mean when asserting that an Extraterrestrial is Thinking, or is Conscious? We explore through reference to theory, experiment, and computational models by Christof Koch (Caltech), Barbara Wold (Caltech), and Stuart Kauffman (University of Calgary, Tampere University of Technology, Santa Fe Institute). We use a tentative new definition of thinking, designed to be applicable for humans, cetecea, corvids, artificial intelligences, and extraterrestrial intelligences of any substrate (i.e. Life as We Do Not Know It): "Thinking is the occurrence, transformation, and storage in a mind or brain (or simulation thereof) of information-bearing structures (representations) of one kind or another, such as thoughts, concept, percepts, ideas, impressions, notions, rules, schemas, images, phantasms, or subpersonal representations." We use the framework for Consciousness developed by Francis Crick and Christof Koch. We try to describe scientific goals, but discuss Philosophy sufficient to avoid naïve philosophical category errors (thus are careful not to conflate thought, consciousness, and language) Penrose, Hameroff, and Kauffman speculate (differently) that CNS consciousness is a macroscopic quantum phenomenon. Might intestinal, immune system, or genetic regulatory network dynamics exhibit emergent cooperative quantum effects? The speculations are in the context of Evolution by Natural Selection, presumed to operate throughout the Cosmos, and recent work in the foundations of Computational Biology and Quantum Mechanics.

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Star formation in active and normal galaxies (Tsai+, 2015)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, M.; Hwang, C.-Y.

2015-11-01

We selected 104 active galaxies from the lists of Melendez et al. (2010MNRAS.406..493M), Condon et al. 1991 (cat. J/ApJ/378/65), and Ho & Ulvestad 2001 (cat. J/ApJS/133/77). Most of the sources are identified as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), and a few of them are classified as Luminous InfraRed Galaxies (LIRGs). We obtained 3.6 and 8μm infrared images of these galaxies from the Spitzer Archive (http://sha.ipac.caltech.edu/applications/Spitzer/SHA/) and 8GHz images from the VLA archive (http://archive.nrao.edu/archive/archiveimage.html). We also selected a nearby AGN sub-sample containing 21 radio-selected AGNs for further spatial analysis. We selected 25 nearby AGNs exhibiting no detected radio emission in order to compare with the results of the radio-selected sources. For comparison, we also selected normal galaxies with distances less than 15Mpc from the catalog of Tully 1994 (see cat. VII/145). We only selected the galaxies that have Spitzer archive data and are not identified as AGNs in either the Veron-Cetty & Veron 2006 (see cat. VII/258) AGN catalog or in the NED database (http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/). Our results for the radio-selected and the non-radio-selected active galaxies are listed in Table1, and those for the normal galaxies are listed in Table2. (2 data files).

Repurposing the Caltech Robinson Hall Coelostat

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Treffers, Richard R.; Loisos, G.; Ubbelohde, M.; Douglas, S.; Martinez, M.

2013-01-01

We describe the repurposing of the historic coelostat atop Caltech’s Robinson Hall for building lighting, public education and scientific research. The coelostat was originally part of George Ellery Hale’s vision of the Astrophysical Laboratory on the Caltech campus in 1932. The coelostat, designed by Russell Porter, has a 36 inch diameter primary mirror a 30 inch diameter secondary mirror and provides a 24 inch un-vignetted beam of sunlight into the building. Although constructed in the 1930s, due to wartime pressures and other projects, it was used only briefly in the 1970s and never fully realized. Recently Robinson Hall has been fully renovated to house the Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science. The coelostat operation was modernized replacing the old motors and automating all the motions. Each morning, if the weather cooperates, the dome slit opens, the mirrors configured and sunlight pours into the building. The beam of sunlight is divided into three parts. One part goes into a refracting telescope which projects a ten inch diameter of the sun onto a ground glass screen visible to the public. A second fraction is distributed to fiber optic fixtures that illuminate some of the basement rooms. The final fraction goes into two laboratories where it is used in experiments monitoring trace constituents of our atmosphere and for solar catalysis experiments. The instrument as originally conceived required at least two human operators. Now it is fully automatic and doing real science

GOSAT field experiments with a new portable mid-IR FTS in the western US

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shiomi, K.; Kikuchi, N.; Kuze, A.; Suto, H.; Kawakami, S.; Hashimoto, M.; Kataoka, F.; Kasai, K.; Arai, T.; Hedelius, J.; Viatte, C.; Wennberg, P. O.; Roehl, C. M.; Leifer, I.; Yates, E. L.; Marrero, J. E.; Iraci, L. T.; Bruegge, C. J.; Schwandner, F. M.; Crisp, D.

2016-12-01

The column-average dry air mole fractions of carbon dioxide (XCO2), methane (XCH4) and carbon monoxide (XCO) were measured from the surface using direct sunlight at near-IR wavelengths. Simultaneous detection of CO is helpful to characterize CO2 source type. We measured XCO along with XCO2 and XCH4 using a new portable Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS), EM27/SUN mid-IR,in western US field experiments at 1) Caltech, in Pasadena, a northern Los Angeles suburb, 2) Chino, a dairy farming region east of Los Angeles, and 3) Railroad Valley (RRV), a desert playa in Nevada. These measurements were conducted during the GOSAT/OCO-2 joint campaign for vicarious calibration and validation (cal/val) and its preparatory experiments in the early summer of 2016. Before the campaign, measurements from the JAXA EM27/SUN mid-IR were compared with those from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) station at Caltech. Then, we observed a diurnal cycle at the Chino dairy site, an area of concentrated animal husbandry, producing a CH4 point source. Finally, we conducted the cal/val campaign at RRV coincident with GOSAT and OCO-2 overpass observations. Over RRV, in-situ vertical profiles of CO2 and CH4 were measured using the Alpha Jet research aircraft as a part of the NASA Ames Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX). We will compare experimental results from the cal/val campaign for XCO2 and XCH4 with the portable FTS.