SeaView : bringing together an ocean of data

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 31, no. 1 (2018): 71, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2018.111.The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) supports a comprehensive information management system for data collected by OOI assets, providing access to a wealth of new information for scientists. But what of those wishing to access data from the region of an OOI research array that is not from OOI assets, perhaps to look at longer term trends from before the launch of OOI, or to build a larger regional context? Despite the excellent work of ocean data repositories, finding, accessing, understanding, and reformatting data for use in a desired visualization or analysis tool remains challenging, especially when data are held in multiple repositories

Airborne gravity and precise positioning for geologic applications

Airborne gravimetry has become an important geophysical tool primarily because of advancements in methodology and instrumentation made in the past decade. Airborne gravity is especially useful when measured in conjunction with other geophysical data, such as magnetics, radar, and laser altimetry. The aerogeophysical survey over the West Antarctic ice sheet described in this paper is one such interdisciplinary study. This paper outlines in detail the instrumentation, survey and data processing methodology employed to perform airborne gravimetry from the multiinstrumented Twin Otter aircraft. Precise positioning from carrier-phase Global Positioning System (GPS) observations are combined with measurements of acceleration made by the gravity meter in the aircraft to obtain the free-air gravity anomaly measurement at aircraft altitude. GPS data are processed using the Kinematic and Rapid Static (KARS) software program, and aircraft vertical acceleration and corrections for gravity data reduction are calculated from the GPS position solution. Accuracies for the free-air anomaly are determined from crossover analysis after significant editing (2.98 mGal rms) and from a repeat track (1.39 mGal rms). The aerogeophysical survey covered a 300,000 km2 region in West Antarctica over the course of five field seasons. The gravity data from the West Antarctic survey reveal the major geologic structures of the West Antarctic rift system, including the Whitmore Mountains, the Byrd Subglacial Basin, the Sinuous Ridge, the Ross Embayment, and Siple Dome. These measurements, in conjunction with magnetics and ice-penetrating radar, provide the information required to reveal the tectonic fabric and history of this important region

Subglacial sediments: A regional geological template for ice flow in West Antarctica

We use aerogeophysical data to estimate the distribution of marine subglacial sediments and fault“bounded sedimentary basins beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). We find that significant ice flow occurs exclusively in regions covered by subglacial sediments. The onsets and lateral margins of ice streams coincide with the limit of marine sediments. Lateral margins are also consistently linked with fault“bounded basins. We predict that the inland migration of ice streams B and C 1 towards the ice divide outside the region covered by marine or rift sediments is unlikely. The subglacial geology has the potential to modulate the dynamic evolution of the ice streams and the WAIS

Data Services for Long Tail Science at the Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA) Data Facility

IEDA (Integrated Earth Data Applications) is a US-based data facility funded through a contract with the US National Science Foundation to operate data systems and data services for solid earth geoscience data. IEDA has developed a comprehensive suite of data services that are designed to address the concerns and needs of investigators, especially researchers working in the 'Long Tail of Science' (Heidorn 2008). IEDA provides a data publication service, registering datasets with DOI to ensure their proper citation and attribution. IEDA works with publishers on advanced linkages between datasets in the IEDA repository and scientific online articles to facilitate access to the data, enhance their visibility, and augment their use and citation. IEDA also developed a comprehensive investigator support that includes tools, tutorials, and virtual or face-to-face workshops that guide and assist investigators with data management planning, data submission, and data documentation. A critical aspect of IEDA's concept has been the disciplinary expertise within the team and its strong liaison with the science community, as well as a community-based governance. These have been fundamental to gain the trust and support of the scientists and have lead to significantly improved data preservation and access in the communities served by IEDA

Explant analysis of AneuRx stent grafts: relationship between structural findings and clinical outcome

AbstractObjectiveWe reviewed the structural findings of explanted AneuRx stent grafts used to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms, and relate the findings to clinical outcome measures.MethodsWe reviewed data for all bifurcated AneuRx stent grafts explanted at surgery or autopsy and returned to the manufacturer from the US clinical trial and worldwide experience of more than 33,000 implants from 1996 to 2003. Devices implanted for more than 1 month with structural analysis are included in this article. Explant results were analyzed in relation to cause of explantation and pre-explant evidence of endoleak, enlargement, or device migration.ResultsOne hundred twenty explanted stent grafts, including 37 from the US clinical trial, were analyzed. Mean implant duration was 22 ± 13 months (range, 1-61 months). Structural abnormalities included stent fatigue fractures, fabric abrasion holes, and suture breaks. The mean number of nitinol stent strut fractures per explanted device was 3 ± 4, which represents less than 0.2% of the total number of stent struts in each device. The mean number of fabric holes per explanted device was 2 ± 3, with a median hole size of 0.5 mm2. Suture breaks were seen in most explanted devices, but composed less than 1.5% of the total number of sutures per device. “For cause” explants (n = 104) had a 10-month longer implant duration (P = .007) compared with “incidental” explants (n = 16). “For cause” explants had more fractures (3 ± 5; P = .005) and fabric holes (2 ± 3; P = .008) per device compared with “incidental” explants, but these differences were not significant (P = .3) when adjusted for duration of device implantation. Among clinical trial explants the number of fabric holes in grafts in patients with endoleak (2 ± 3 per device) was no different from those without endoleak (3 ± 4 per device; P = NS). The number of fatigue fractures or fabric holes was no different in grafts in clinical trial patients with pre-explant aneurysm enlargement compared with those without enlargement. Pre-explant stent-graft migration was associated with a greater number of stent strut fractures (5 ± 7 per device; P = .04) and fabric holes (3 ± 3 per bifurcation; P = .03) compared with explants without migration. Serial imaging studies revealed inadequate proximal, distal, or junctional device fixation as the probable cause of rupture or need for conversion to open surgery in 86% of “for cause” explants. Structural device abnormalities were usually remote from fixation sites, and no causal relationship between device findings and clinical outcome could be established.ConclusionsNitinol stent fatigue fractures, fabric holes, and suture breaks found in explanted AneuRx stent grafts do not appear to be related to clinical outcome measures. Longer term studies are needed to confirm these observations

The advantages of machine aided co-reference resolution for research cruise metadata

Presented at Linking Environmental Data and Samples, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Canberra, Australia, 29 May - 2 June 2017One of the central incentives of deploying linked open data is the opportunity to leverage the linkages between source datasets to retrieve related information. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) reaps these benefits by linking its cruise-level metadata to the Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R) – the trusted, authoritative source for cruises undertaken by the U.S. academic research fleet. Even though the process of identifying a link between these two repositories is easy for a human, this talk will explore the advantages of using a machine-aided process to suggest links to R2R cruises to a BCO-DMO data manager.NSF #143557

An Ontology Pattern for Oceanographic Cruises: Towards an Oceanographer\u27s Dream of Integrated Knowledge Discovery

EarthCube is a major effort of the National Science Foundation to establish a next-generation knowledge architecture for the broader geosciences. Data storage, retrieval, access, and reuse are central parts of this new effort. Currently, EarthCube is organized around several building blocks and research coordination networks. OceanLink is a semantics enabled building block that aims at improving data retrieval and reuse via ontologies, Semantic Web technologies, and Linked Data for the ocean sciences. Cruises, in the sense of research expeditions, are central events for ocean scientists. Consequently, information about these cruises and the involved vessels has to be shared and made retrievable. For example, the ability to find cruises in the vicinity of physiographic features of interest, e.g., a hydrothermal vent field or a fracture zone, is of primary interest for oceanographers. In this paper, we use a design pattern-centric strategy to engineer ontologies for OceanLink. We provide a formal axiomatization of the introduced patterns and ontologies using the Web Ontology Language, explain design choices, discuss the re-usability of our models, and provide lessons learned for the future geo-ontologies

Rescue of long-tail data from the ocean bottom to the Moon: IEDA Data Rescue Mini-Awards

Over the course of a scientific career, a large fraction of the data collected by scientific investigators turns into data at risk of becoming inaccessible to future science. Although a part of the investigators’ data is made available in manuscripts and databases, other data may remain unpublished, non-digital, on degrading or near obsolete digital media, or inadequately documented for reuse. In 2013, Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA) provided data rescue mini-awards to three Earth science investigators. IEDA’s user communities in geochemistry, petrology, geochronology, and marine geophysics collect long-tail data, defined as data produced by individuals and small teams for specific projects, tending to be of small volume and initially for use only by these teams, thus being less likely to be easily transferred or reused. Long-tail data are at greater risk of omission from the scientific record. The awarded projects topics were (1) Geochemical and Geochronological data on volcanic rocks from the Fiji, Izu-Bonin-Mariana arc, and Endeavor segments of the global mid-ocean ridge, (2) High-Resolution, Near-bottom Magnetic Field Data, and (3) Geochemistry of Lunar Glasses. IEDA worked closely with the awardees to create a plan for the data rescue, resulting in the registration of hundreds of samples and the entry of dozens of data and documentation files into IEDA data systems. The data were made openly accessible and citable by assigning persistent identifiers for samples and files. The mini-award program proved that a relatively small incentive combined with data facility guidance can motivate investigators to accomplish significant data rescue