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At least 73 records · Page 4

Automated Assignment of Proposals to Reviewers

A computer program automates the process of selecting unbiased peer reviewers of research proposals submitted to NASA. Heretofore, such selection has been performed by manual searching of two large databases subject to a set of assignment rules. One database lists proposals and proposers; the other database lists potential reviewers. The manual search takes an average of several weeks per proposal. In contrast, the present software can perform the selection in seconds. The program begins by selecting one entry from each database, then applying the assignment rules to this pair of entries. If and only if all the assignment rules are satisfied, the chosen reviewer is assigned to the chosen proposal. The assignment rules enforced by the program are (1) a maximum allowable number of proposals assigned to a single reviewer; (2) a maximum allowable number of reviewers assigned to a single proposal; (3) if the proposing team includes a member affiliated with an industry, then the reviewer must not be affiliated with any industry; and (4) the reviewer must not be a member of the proposing team or affiliated with the same institution as that of a member of the proposing team.

Kantak, Anil↗

NASA's Global Change Master Directory: Discover and Access Earth Science Data Sets, Related Data Services, and Climate Diagnostics

NASA's Global Change Master Directory provides the scientific community with the ability to discover, access, and use Earth science data, data-related services, and climate diagnostics worldwide. The GCMD offers descriptions of Earth science data sets using the Directory Interchange Format (DIF) metadata standard; Earth science related data services are described using the Service Entry Resource Format (SERF); and climate visualizations are described using the Climate Diagnostic (CD) standard. The DIF, SERF and CD standards each capture data attributes used to determine whether a data set, service, or climate visualization is relevant to a user's needs. Metadata fields include: title, summary, science keywords, service keywords, data center, data set citation, personnel, instrument, platform, quality, related URL, temporal and spatial coverage, data resolution and distribution information. In addition, nine valuable sets of controlled vocabularies have been developed to assist users in normalizing the search for data descriptions. An update to the GCMD's search functionality is planned to further capitalize on the controlled vocabularies during database queries. By implementing a dynamic keyword "tree", users will have the ability to search for data sets by combining keywords in new ways. This will allow users to conduct more relevant and efficient database searches to support the free exchange and re-use of Earth science data. http://gcmd.nasa.gov/

Aleman, Alicia↗

Adaptive search in mobile peer-to-peer databases

Information is stored in a plurality of mobile peers. The peers communicate in a peer to peer fashion, using a short-range wireless network. Occasionally, a peer initiates a search for information in the peer to peer network by issuing a query. Queries and pieces of information, called reports, are transmitted among peers that are within a transmission range. For each search additional peers are utilized, wherein these additional peers search and relay information on behalf of the originator of the search.

Wolfson, Ouri↗

Buckets: Smart Objects for Digital Libraries

Current discussion of digital libraries (DLs) is often dominated by the merits of the respective storage, search and retrieval functionality of archives, repositories, search engines, search interfaces and database systems. While these technologies are necessary for information management, the information content is more important than the systems used for its storage and retrieval. Digital information should have the same long-term survivability prospects as traditional hardcopy information and should be protected to the extent possible from evolving search engine technologies and vendor vagaries in database management systems. Information content and information retrieval systems should progress on independent paths and make limited assumptions about the status or capabilities of the other. Digital information can achieve independence from archives and DL systems through the use of buckets. Buckets are an aggregative, intelligent construct for publishing in DLs. Buckets allow the decoupling of information content from information storage and retrieval. Buckets exist within the Smart Objects and Dumb Archives model for DLs in that many of the functionalities and responsibilities traditionally associated with archives are pushed down (making the archives dumber) into the buckets (making them smarter). Some of the responsibilities imbued to buckets are the enforcement of their terms and conditions, and maintenance and display of their contents.

Nelson, Michael L.↗

EROS main image file - A picture perfect database for Landsat imagery and aerial photography

The Earth Resources Observation System (EROS) Program was established by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1966 under the administration of the Geological Survey. It is primarily concerned with the application of remote sensing techniques for the management of natural resources. The retrieval system employed to search the EROS database is called INORAC (Inquiry, Ordering, and Accounting). A description is given of the types of images identified in EROS, taking into account Landsat imagery, Skylab images, Gemini/Apollo photography, and NASA aerial photography. Attention is given to retrieval commands, geographic coordinate searching, refinement techniques, various online functions, and questions regarding the access to the EROS Main Image File.

Jack, R. F.↗

STARBASE: Database software for the automated plate scanner

The Automated Plate Scanner (APS) of the University of Minnesota, a unique high speed 'flying spot' laser scanner, is currently being used to scan and digitize the 936 O and E plate pairs of the first epoch Palomar Sky Survey. The resultant database will be used to produce a catalog of approximately a billion stars and several million galaxies. The authors describe the ongoing development of a dedicated APS database management system which will be made available to the astronomical community via INTERNET. A specialized DBMS called STARBASE has been written to provide fast access to the hundreds of millions of images collected by the APS. This system provides an initial reduction mode for parameterizing APS images and classifying image types using a novel set of neural network image classifiers. A second analysis mode, which will be that commonly used by the general user, provides for searches of the database which may be constrained by any combination of physical and positional parameters. Through the use of pointer hash trees, the system has been optimized for extremely fast positional searches using either right ascension and declination on the sky or linear X and Y positions on the POSS field. In addition to fast data retrieval, the system provides a graphical interface for displaying scatter plots or histograms of the collected data. In addition, a specialized image display system is being developed to allow the user to view densitometric data for all objects classified as extended by the neural network system. Finally, STARBASE has a flexible programmable interface which allows other programs to access information in the database. This allows users to write applications suited to their particular needs to process APS data.

Odewahn, S. C.↗

(abstract) Ion-Molecule Reactions at Your Finger Tips

A standalone search engine is described along with a database of ion-molecule kinetics. The engine is available for either Macintosh or IBM/PC computers. The engine will search a supplied database of ion-molecule kinetics data for two body reactions and positive ions. The database includes data found in various publications and reference works written by the author. Currently that database has over 10 600 reaction entries and uses over 1 000 referenced citations. Searches of the database can be by either reactants or products and either ions or neutrals. Narrowing searches can be made on up to three specifications. Reports of the searches are either viewed on the screen or printed. The reports also include the short list of references cited.

ion-molecule reactions search engine database ion-↗

On-Line Database of Vibration-Based Damage Detection Experiments

This paper describes a new, on-line bibliographic database of vibration-based damage detection experiments. Publications in the database discuss experiments conducted on actual structures as well as those conducted with simulated data. The database can be searched and sorted in many ways, and it provides photographs of test structures when available. It currently contains 100 publications, which is estimated to be about 5-10% of the number of papers written to date on this subject. Additional entries are forthcoming. This database is available for public use on the Internet at the following address: http://sdbpappa-mac.larc.nasa.gov. Click on the link named "dd_experiments.fp3" and then type "guest" as the password. No user name is required.

Pappa, Richard S.↗

Termolecular ion-molecule reactions in Titan's atmosphere. IV. A search made at up to 1 micron in pure hydrocarbons

The results of a study of ion-molecule reactions occurring in pure methane, acetylene, ethylene, ethane, propyne, propene, propane, and diacetylene at pressures up to 40 microns of pressure are reported. A variety of experimental methods are used: The standard double resonance in an ICR, for determination of the precursor ions and the modulated double resonance ejection in an ICR, for the determination of the daughter ions. The FA-SIFT technique was used for validation and examination of termolecular reactions with rate coefficients that are less than 10(-26) cm(6) s(-1). An extensive database of reaction kinetics already exists for many of these reactions. The main point of this study was the determination of the accuracy of this database and to search for any missing reactions and reaction channels that may have been omitted from earlier investigations. A specific objective of this work was to extend the study to the highest pressures possible to find out if there were any important termolecular reaction channels occurring. A new approach was used here. In the pure hydrocarbon gases the mass spectra were followed as a function of the pressure changes of the gas. An initial guess was first made using the current literature as a source of the reaction kinetics that were expected. A model of the ion abundances was produced from the solution of the partial differential equations in terms of reaction rate coefficients and initial abundances. The experimental data was fitted to the model for all of the pressures by a least squares minimization to the reaction rate coefficients and initial abundances. The reaction rate coefficients obtained from the model were then compared to the literature values. Several new channels and reactions were discovered when the modeled fits were compared to the actual data. This is all explained in the text and the implications of these results are discussed for the Titan atmosphere.

Hydrocarbons, Acyclic/analysis↗

A Search for Transiting Neptune-Mass Extrasolar Planets in High-Precision Photometry of Solar-Type Stars

Tennessee State University operates several automatic photometric telescopes (APTs) at Fairborn Observatory in southern Arizona. Four 0.8 m APTs have been dedicated to measuring subtle luminosity variations that accompany magnetic cycles in solar-type stars. Over 1000 program and comparison stars have been observed every clear night in this program for up to 12 years with a precision of approximately 0.0015 mag for a single observation. We have developed a transit-search algorithm, based on fitting a computed transit template for each trial period, and have used it to search our photometric database for transits of unknown companions. Extensive simulations with the APT data have shown that we can reliably recover transits with periods under 10 days as long as the transits have a depth of at least 0.0024 mag, or about 1.6 times the scatter in the photometric observations. Thus, due to our high photometric precision, we are sensitive to transits of possible short-period Neptune-mass planets that likely would have escaped detection by current radial velocity techniques. Our search of the APT data sets for 1087 program and comparison stars revealed no new transiting planets. However, the detection of several unknown grazing eclipsing binaries from among our comparison stars, with eclipse depths of only a few millimags, illustrates the success of our technique. We have used this negative result to place limits on the frequency of Neptune-mass planets in close orbits around solar-type stars in the Sun's vicinity.

Henry, Stephen M.↗

NASA Project Icon Image Access and Management, year 2

Viewgraphs used in a presentation of the NASA Project Icon Image Access and Management are given. The viewgraphs depict the opening screen that allows the user to start searching the thesaurus; a schematic of the the NASA image input/output workstation; the main term screen that allows the user to view the term and the associated pictures, enter the term into the search buffer, and go to one of the linked terms; the main input screen that allows the user to enter new terms, edit terms, and add pictures and links between terms; the term index that allows the user to select a term by scrolling through an alphabetic list of all the terms in the thesaurus; the results screen that shows the results of the search on the external database; the screen buffer that displays a list of all the search terms collected while browsing through the thesaurus; and the picture index that allows the user to select a term by scrolling through the list of pictures stored in the visual thesaurus.

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A National Virtual Specimen Database for Early Cancer Detection

Access to biospecimens is essential for enabling cancer biomarker discovery. The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) comprises and integrates a large number of laboratories into a network in order to establish a collaborative scientific environment to discover and validate disease markers. The diversity of both the institutions and the collaborative focus has created the need for establishing cross-disciplinary teams focused on integrating expertise in biomedical research, computational and biostatistics, and computer science. Given the collaborative design of the network, the EDRN needed an informatics infrastructure. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the National Cancer Institute,and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) teamed up to build an informatics infrastructure creating a collaborative, science-driven research environment despite the geographic and morphology differences of the information systems that existed within the diverse network. EDRN investigators identified the need to share biospecimen data captured across the country managed in disparate databases. As a result, the informatics team initiated an effort to create a virtual tissue database whereby scientists could search and locate details about specimens located at collaborating laboratories. Each database, however, was locally implemented and integrated into collection processes and methods unique to each institution. This meant that efforts to integrate databases needed to be done in a manner that did not require redesign or re-implementation of existing system

distributed↗

Constraints on gamma-ray bursters from soft X-ray transients

The Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory's Einstein imaging proportional counter database has been searched for possible X-ray counterparts to gamma ray bursts. The limiting sensitivity was about 10 to the 10th erg/sq cm with a total exposure of about 3 x 10 to the 6th s divided among about 1000 1 deg x 1 deg fields. Four events with a pointlike spatial distribution were detected but their extremely soft spectra makes them unlikely candidates for gamma ray burst counterparts. The results are used to place limits on the X-ray and gamma ray luminosity ratio and log(number)N-log(flux)S relation for gamma ray bursts. The constraints placed on models for their origin are commented on.

Helfand, D. J.↗

A survey of IRAS data on 41 classical novae

The IRAS database has been searched for detections of 41 classical novae using coadditions of survey scans; 15 were detected. IRAS temporal observations of novae in outburst are discussed. The observed long-wavelength infrared distributions of DQ Her, and possibly HR Del, can be explained by emission from small (a of about 0.1 microns) dust grains heated by the central object. An alternative explanation for the energy distributions of DQ Her and HR Del is emission from fine-structure lines. FH Ser and LW Ser display energy distributions that have color temperatures much too hot to be due to heating of dust by the central source in any plausible scenario. Line emission is probably the best explanation of their observed energy distributions. The novae NQ Vul and LV Vul have energy distributions that may be contaminated by emission from galactic cirrus. The unusual object PL 1547.3-5612 exhibits an energy distribution that does not resemble those of planetary nebulae or other novae detected in this sample. An IRAS low-resolution spectrum of RR Tel shows the 10-micron silicate emission feature.

Harrison, T. E.↗

IRAS sources near the positions of pulsars

We searched the IRAS database at the positions of pulsars to see if they are associated with FIR sources, as might be expected if some pulsars possess preplanetary disks. There are 13 IRAS sources from the Point Source Catalog within 1 arcmin of nearly 500 radio pulsars. While this does not represent an enhancement over the number of chance coincidences, we argue that several are in fact associated with pulsars.

Van Buren, Dave↗

A radar altitude and line of sight attachment

This paper describes a method of overcoming much of the computational expense of finding radar altitude and determining lines of sight in flight simulations over databases built from polygons. Methods are described for quantizing polygonal databases and for searching through them quickly. Various tuning parameters are explained and run-time performance figures are offered.

Sansom, Russell↗

Sources of the 13 Microns Feature Associated with Oxygen-Rich Circumstellar Dust

A search of the database of spectra from the IRAS Low-Resolution Spectrometer has revealed 13 micron emission features in 187 sources, most of which are associated with stars embedded within oxygen-rich circumstellar dust shells. Our sample is very incomplete, but we estimate that 40-50% of all sources with oxygen-rich dust on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) exhibit emission features at 13 microns. The similarities of the galactic distribution, mean radial velocities, infrared colors, and other properties of the sample of 13 micron sources compared to the parent population of variables on the AGB suggest that the carrier of the 13 micron feature is commonly produced in oxygen-rich dust environments. A strikingly large fraction of SRb variables show 13 micron features, approximately 75-90%, suggesting that the formation and/or survival of the carrier of the 13 micron feature may be enhanced by the unusual pulsational properties of these variables.

Sloan, G. C.↗

Capacitance Meter

Anders Precision Instrument Co.'s original meter could not measure dissipation leakage in capacitors. Seeking to add that capability, the company planned an advanced model. Before starting work, company president, Thomas Anderson, sought technical assistance from NASA's NERAC (New England Research Application Center). Anderson wanted a survey of the status and capabilities of NASA's electronic measuring devices. NERAC performed a search of six databases, including NASA's and provided a comprehensive report on state of the art worldwide.

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