8,755 research outputs found
Italian center for Astronomical Archives publishing solution: modular and distributed
The Italian center for Astronomical Archives tries to provide astronomical
data resources as interoperable services based on IVOA standards. Its VO
expertise and knowledge comes from active participation within IVOA and VO at
European and international level, with a double-fold goal: learn from the
collaboration and provide inputs to the community. The first solution to build
an easy to configure and maintain resource publisher conformant to VO standards
proved to be too optimistic. For this reason it has been necessary to re-think
the architecture with a modular system built around the messaging concept,
where each modular component speaks to the other interested parties through a
system of broker-managed queues. The first implemented protocol, the Simple
Cone Search, shows the messaging task architecture connecting the parametric
HTTP interface to the database backend access module, the logging module, and
allows multiple cone search resources to be managed together through a
configuration manager module. Even if relatively young, it already proved the
flexibility required by the overall system when the database backend changed
from MySQL to PostgreSQL+PgSphere. Another implementation test has been made to
leverage task distribution over multiple servers to serve simultaneously: FITS
cubes direct linking, cubes cutout and cubes positional merging. Currently the
implementation of the SIA-2.0 standard protocol is ongoing while for TAP we
will be adapting the TAPlib library. Alongside these tools a first
administration tool (TASMAN) has been developed to ease the build up and
maintenance of TAP_SCHEMA-ta including also ObsCore maintenance capability.
Future work will be devoted at widening the range of VO protocols covered by
the set of available modules, improve the configuration management and develop
specific purpose modules common to all the service components.Comment: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2018, Software and
Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy V, pre-publishing draft proceeding (reduced
abstract
Search and Discovery Tools for Astronomical On-line Resources and Services
A growing number of astronomical resources and data or information services
are made available through the Internet. However valuable information is
frequently hidden in a deluge of non-pertinent or non up-to-date documents. At
a first level, compilations of astronomical resources provide help for
selecting relevant sites. Combining yellow-page services and meta-databases of
active pointers may be an efficient solution to the data retrieval problem.
Responses generated by submission of queries to a set of heterogeneous
resources are difficult to merge or cross-match, because different data
providers generally use different data formats: new endeavors are under way to
tackle this problem. We review the technical challenges involved in trying to
provide general search and discovery tools, and to integrate them through upper
level interfaces.Comment: 7 pages, 2 Postscript figures; to be published in A&A
On-line data archives
©2001 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.Digital libraries and other large archives of electronically retrievable and manipulable material are becoming widespread in both commercial and scientific arenas. Advances in networking technologies have led to a greater proliferation of wide-area distributed data warehousing with associated data management challenges. We review tools and technologies for supporting distributed on-line data archives and explain our key concept of active data archives, in which data can be, processed on-demand before delivery. We are developing wide-area data warehousing software infrastructure for geographically distributed archives of large scientific data sets, such as satellite image data, that are stored hierarchically on disk arrays and tape silos and are accessed by a variety of scientific and decision support applications. Interoperability is a major issue for distributed data archives and requires standards for server interfaces and metadata. We review present activities and our contributions in developing such standards for different application areas.K. Hawick, P. Coddington, H. James, C. Patte
Spatial audio in small display screen devices
Our work addresses the problem of (visual) clutter in mobile device interfaces. The solution we propose involves the translation of technique-from the graphical to the audio domain-for expliting space in information representation. This article presents an illustrative example in the form of a spatialisedaudio progress bar. In usability tests, participants performed background monitoring tasks significantly more accurately using this spatialised audio (a compared with a conventional visual) progress bar. Moreover, their performance in a simultaneously running, visually demanding foreground task was significantly improved in the eye-free monitoring condition. These results have important implications for the design of multi-tasking interfaces for mobile devices
Data management in NOAA
NOAA has 11 terabytes of digital data stored on 240,000 computer tapes. There are an additional 100 terabytes (TB) of geostationary satellite data stored in digital form on specially configured SONY U-Matic video tapes at the University of Wisconsin. There are over 90,000,000 non-digital form records in manuscript, film, printed, and chart form which are not easily accessible. The three NOAA Data Centers service 6,000 requests per year and publish 5,000 bulletins which are distributed to 40,000 subscribers. Seventeen CD-ROM's have been produced. Thirty thousand computer tapes containing polar satellite data are being copied to 12 inch WORM optical disks for research applications. The present annual data accumulation rate of 10 TB will grow to 30 TB in 1994 and to 100 TB by the year 2000. The present storage and distribution technologies with their attendant support systems will be overwhelmed by these increases if not improved. Increased user sophistication coupled with more precise measurement technologies will demand better quality control mechanisms, especially for those data maintained in an indefinite archive. There is optimism that the future will offer improved media technologies to accommodate the volumes of data. With the advanced technologies, storage and performance monitoring tools will be pivotal to the successful long-term management of data and information
Mobile traffic alert and tourist route guidance system design using geospatial data
The present study describes an integrated system for traffic data collection and alert warning. Geographical information based decision making related to traffic destinations and routes is proposed through the design. The system includes a geospatial database having profile relating to a user of a mobile device. The processing and understanding of scanned maps, other digital data input leads to route guidance. The system includes a server configured to receive traffic information relating to a route and location information relating to the mobile device. Server is configured to send a traffic alert to the mobile device when the traffic information and the location information indicate that the mobile device is traveling toward traffic congestion. Proposed system has geospatial and mobile data sets pertaining to Bangalore city in India. It is envisaged to be helpful for touristic purposes as a route guidance and alert relaying information system to tourists for proximity to sites worth seeing in a city they have entered into. The system is modular in architecture and the novelty lies in integration of different modules carrying different technologies for a complete traffic information system. Generic information processing and delivery system has been tested to be functional and speedy under test geospatial domains. In a restricted prototype model with geo-referenced route data required information has been delivered correctly over sustained trials to designated cell numbers, with average time frame of 27.5 seconds, maximum 50 and minimum 5 seconds. Traffic geo-data set trials testing is underway
ADS pilot program Plan
The Applications Data Service (ADS) is a system based on an electronic data communications network which will permit scientists to share the data stored in data bases at universities and at government and private installations. It is designed to allow users to readily locate and access high quality, timely data from multiple sources. The ADS Pilot program objectives and the current plans for accomplishing those objectives are described
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