Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications

Proceedings of a conference held in Huntsville, Alabama, on November 15-16, 1988. The Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications brings together diverse technical and scientific work in order to help those who employ AI methods in space applications to identify common goals and to address issues of general interest in the AI community. Topics include the following: space applications of expert systems in fault diagnostics, in telemetry monitoring and data collection, in design and systems integration; and in planning and scheduling; knowledge representation, capture, verification, and management; robotics and vision; adaptive learning; and automatic programming

Cultural Heritage on line

The 2nd International Conference "Cultural Heritage online – Empowering users: an active role for user communities" was held in Florence on 15-16 December 2009. It was organised by the Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale, the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and the Library of Congress, through the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program - NDIIP partners. The conference topics were related to digital libraries, digital preservation and the changing paradigms, focussing on user needs and expectations, analysing how to involve users and the cultural heritage community in creating and sharing digital resources. The sessions investigated also new organisational issues and roles, and cultural and economic limits from an international perspective

Understanding modes of dwelling: A transdisciplinary approach to phenomenology of landscape

This transdisciplinary PhD addresses the research question: Can some form of phenomenology provide an effective over-arching paradigm for transdisciplinary research in ethnophysiography? Ethnophysiography studies the way people within a language community conceptualise natural landscape, including terms for landscape features and toponyms (placenames). Dwelling involves conceptualisations and affects regarding physical, utilitarian, cultural, spiritual and ethical relationships with landscape. A key achievement is development of an enhanced ethnophysiography case study methodology, supporting the Ethnophysiography Descriptive Model (EDM). Summary phenomenographic tables were prepared from literature reviews of ethnophysiography, transdisciplinarity, phenomenology, concepts of place and relationships with place. The use of tables, summarising key results of literature reviews (via a phenomenographic approach), is integral to the methodology, to operationalize transdisciplinarity. Some tables are utilised in the PTM-ECS, facilitating identification of relevant issues, collection of appropriate data, and hermeneutic analysis processes. To facilitate comparison of landscape terms and toponyms between languages, the EDM was developed and tested. A key contribution is interpretation of the phenomenological concepts of ‘lifeworld’, ‘topology’ and ‘habitus’. Creation of landscape, as place, involves synergistic integration, in a non-deterministic and emergent manner, of the physical attributes of an area of topographic environment (terrain and ecosystem) with the socio-cultural characteristics of a group of people (including linguistic and spiritual aspects). This produces a particular topo-socio-cultural-spiritual mode-of-dwelling (topology). A partial trial of the new methodology is provided, via an ethnophysiography case study with Manyjilyjarra Aboriginal people in Australia’s Western Desert (undertaken by this author with linguist Clair Hill). It demonstrates how the adopted approach facilitates understanding of traditional forms of dwelling and how this relates to Jukurrpa (The Dreaming), the law, lore and social structure of their society. Review of research processes indicates they effectively utilised key features of transdisciplinarity. A summary of the findings, their potential application, a statement of research limitations, and proposals for further research, are provided

Across Space and Time. Papers from the 41st Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, Perth, 25-28 March 2013

This volume presents a selection of the best papers presented at the forty-first annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology. The theme for the conference was "Across Space and Time", and the papers explore a multitude of topics related to that concept, including databases, the semantic Web, geographical information systems, data collection and management, and more

Beowulf and the floating wreck of history

In his Introduction to A Beowulf Handbook, John Niles writes that future Beowulf studies are likely to reflect an increasing self-consciousness about both the historicity of Anglo- Saxon scholarship and the theoretical underpinnings of literary scholarship in general. 1 There have been many scholars who have recently been attending to this task, especially in order to trace the connections between the historical and political issues of English linguistic imperialism and cultural colonization and the history of Old English studies, with the intention of raising what Allen Frantzen has termed a critical self-consciousness among Old English scholars, such that they might be willing to rethink their practices and subjects within the larger arena of Cultural Studies, while still continuing to emphasize the close study of language and history.2 As a result, it is no longer news that Anglo- Saxon England and the Middle Ages are, to a certain extent, cultural constructs that have arisen out of the negotiations and interactions between scholars and their subjects, and therefore, efforts thus far to construct disciplinary genealogies often focus on persons, texts, and textual events that tend to underline the notions that Anglo-Saxon England is mainly a discursive formation and that scholarly disciplines are mainly ideological enterprises and power discourses which, over the course of time, cover over their political origins through various acts of repression and forgetting. While it seems apparent that disciplines maintain their institutional existence and authority–that they endure–through the discourses of one or more dominant ideologies, hidden or overt, and through historically codified systems of doctrine, it is the argument of this dissertation that the discipline of Beowulf studies emerges out of a series of historical accidents intersecting-sometimes randomly, sometimes more purposefully-with what Michel Foucault called the more enduring structures of history, 3 in much the same way Beowulf exists for us today, not as the singular fruit of a long and purposeful enterprise of a unified nationalist bibliography, but rather, as one of the more beautiful scraps of the floating wreck of history. Furthermore, the scholars of our discipline cannot be construed as knowing subjects embodying transcendental notions of language and history; rather, caught in the pitch and tide of existential time, their lives and careers represent, not the fixity of any one idea, but the flux of ideas. This study constructs a narrative of Anglo-Saxon scholarship from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries that will hopefully draw a picture of both the always historically contingent nature of the scholarly enterprise as well as the necessity of rethinking that enterprise in ways that could connect the study of an Anglo-Saxon text like Beowulf with one of the most pressing and urgent questions in the university community today: why are humanities studies necessary? Given the current state of the American university, which, as Bill Readings has shown so cogently in his book The University in Ruins, has become a kind of transnational techno-bureaucratic economically-driven corporation, the very question of the value of culture (detached from its role in building bureaucratic excellence ) has reached a crisis point. Readings convincingly argues in his book that we need to find a way to both recognize the historical anachronism at the heart of the space of the university (it is no longer the perfect model of a rational community, nor the sole legitimator of what culture means), while also continuing to hold that space open as one site among others where the question of being-together is raised, which is another way of saying that the university is quite possibly the best site (if somewhat structurally and ideologically past) for holding open the temporality of questioning culture\u27s relationship to history and vice versa, and this dissertation aims to demonstrate that the study of Beowulf can play an important role in this project

Introducing the goal-based information framework (GbIF): Documentation and evaluation of information flow in the low maturity organisation

Purpose of the Research: To introduce and evaluate a new method, the Goal-based Information Framework (GbIF), to model and contextualise information flow in a multi-channel, multi-source, environment. This research presents a derivative of the goal-question-metric (GQM) methodology for use in information retrieval and exchange scenarios, paying particular attention to information needs of low maturity organisations. Methodology/Approach: Following a review of the GQM literature, this iterative case-based research first presents a reference model based on experiences at an e- commerce business. The reference model is used as a baseline in two further case studies. The primary case study looks at multi-channel, multi-source, information retrieval challenges within the support department of a European software company. The second case study presents the GbIF in an information exchange context within a software integration project. A comparative study of the reference model and case- based iterations is presented in the conclusion. Findings: The research indicates that the GbIF has value in documenting and evaluating organisational information flow. For information retrieval, the goal-based information framework is a descriptive and evaluative construct, rather than a prescriptive process model. That is, the framework is useful for describing and evaluating an organisation’s static information needs, not in guiding it through an information-retrieval process. For information retrieval needs, the value to the organisation is the resulting documented information flow from goal to information source. However, the complexity and expansiveness of the GbIF may make maintenance (adding and documenting new/additional needs) challenging for the low maturity organisation. This factor could make the GbIF more relevant for one-off or static information needs. The research also presents the theoretical application of the GbIF in information exchange scenarios. Research limitations: The case-based findings could be specific to the observed organisations and could only be valid under similar conditions. Future field and scenario based testing of the framework is required to further understand its strengths and limitations. A complete specification of the framework will need to be authored prior to wide adoption. Practical implications: Much of the previous work on goal-based methodologies has been confined to software measurement or business strategy contexts in larger organisations with well-established information processes. This research expands on a well-documented heritage to present an entirely new method of modelling and documenting information flow in a much wider context. The research also specifically identifies and investigates the challenges of using goal-based methodologies in a low maturity environment

Third International Symposium on Space Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems, part 1

Under the theme of 'Opportunities in Ground Data Systems for High Efficiency Operations of Space Missions,' the SpaceOps '94 symposium included presentations of more than 150 technical papers spanning five topic areas: Mission Management, Operations, Data Management, System Development, and Systems Engineering. The papers focus on improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, and quality of data acquisition, ground systems, and mission operations. New technology, techniques, methods, and human systems are discussed. Accomplishments are also reported in the application of information systems to improve data retrieval, reporting, and archiving; the management of human factors; the use of telescience and teleoperations; and the design and implementation of logistics support for mission operations

Data distribution satellite

A description is given of a data distribution satellite (DDS) system. The DDS would operate in conjunction with the tracking and data relay satellite system to give ground-based users real time, two-way access to instruments in space and space-gathered data. The scope of work includes the following: (1) user requirements are derived; (2) communication scenarios are synthesized; (3) system design constraints and projected technology availability are identified; (4) DDS communications payload configuration is derived, and the satellite is designed; (5) requirements for earth terminals and network control are given; (6) system costs are estimated, both life cycle costs and user fees; and (7) technology developments are recommended, and a technology development plan is given. The most important results obtained are as follows: (1) a satellite designed for launch in 2007 is feasible and has 10 Gb/s capacity, 5.5 kW power, and 2000 kg mass; (2) DDS features include on-board baseband switching, use of Ku- and Ka-bands, multiple optical intersatellite links; and (3) system user costs are competitive with projected terrestrial communication costs