LANDSAT land cover analysis completed for CIRSS/San Bernardino County project

The LANDSAT analysis carried out as part of Ames Research Center's San Bernardino County Project, one of four projects sponsored by NASA as part of the California Integrated Remote Sensing System (CIRSS) effort for generating and utilizing digital geographic data bases, is described. Topics explored include use of data-base modeling with spectral cluster data to improve LANDSAT data classification, and quantitative evaluation of several change techniques. Both 1976 and 1979 LANDSAT data were used in the project

Data curation standards and the messy world of social science occupational information resources

Occupational information resources – data about the characteristics of different occupational positions – play a unique role in social science research. They are of relevance across diverse research disciplines and in numerous disparate contexts. They are also very widely available, typically freely downloadable from research-oriented academic web-pages. But they are also one of the most uncoordinated types of information resource that social scientists routinely come across. In this paper we describe issues in curating occupational information resources during the GEODE research project (Grid Enabled Occupational Data Environment, http:/www.geode.stir.ac.uk). This project attempts to develop long-term standards for the distribution of occupational information resources, by providing a standardised framework electronic depository for occupational information resources, and by providing a data-indexing service, premised upon eScience middleware, which collates occupational information resources and makes them readily accessible to non-specialist social scientists

Data curation standards and social science occupational information resources

Occupational information resources - data about the characteristics of different occupational positions - are widely used in the social sciences, across a range of disciplines and international contexts. They are available in many formats, most often constituting small electronic files that are made freely downloadable from academic web-pages. However there are several challenges associated with how occupational information resources are distributed to, and exploited by, social researchers. In this paper we describe features of occupational information resources, and indicate the role digital curation can play in exploiting them. We report upon the strategies used in the GEODE research project (Grid Enabled Occupational Data Environment, http://www.geode.stir.ac.uk). This project attempts to develop long-term standards for the distribution of occupational information resources, by providing a standardized framework-based electronic depository for occupational information resources, and by providing a data indexing service, based on e-Science middleware, which collates occupational information resources and makes them readily accessible to non-specialist social scientists

Learning Points and Routes to Recommend Trajectories

The problem of recommending tours to travellers is an important and broadly studied area. Suggested solutions include various approaches of points-of-interest (POI) recommendation and route planning. We consider the task of recommending a sequence of POIs, that simultaneously uses information about POIs and routes. Our approach unifies the treatment of various sources of information by representing them as features in machine learning algorithms, enabling us to learn from past behaviour. Information about POIs are used to learn a POI ranking model that accounts for the start and end points of tours. Data about previous trajectories are used for learning transition patterns between POIs that enable us to recommend probable routes. In addition, a probabilistic model is proposed to combine the results of POI ranking and the POI to POI transitions. We propose a new F$_1$ score on pairs of POIs that capture the order of visits. Empirical results show that our approach improves on recent methods, and demonstrate that combining points and routes enables better trajectory recommendations

Gates to Gregg High Voltage Transmission Line Study

The usefulness of LANDSAT data in the planning of transmission line routes was assessed. LANDSAT digital data and image processing techniques, specifically a multi-date supervised classification aproach, were used to develop a land cover map for an agricultural area near Fresno, California. Twenty-six land cover classes were identified, of which twenty classes were agricultural crops. High classification accuracies (greater than 80%) were attained for several classes, including cotton, grain, and vineyards. The primary products generated were 1:24,000, 1:100,000 and 1:250,000 scale maps of the classification and acreage summaries for all land cover classes within four alternate transmission line routes

On the Interpretation of Supernova Light Echo Profiles and Spectra

The light echo systems of historical supernovae in the Milky Way and local group galaxies provide an unprecedented opportunity to reveal the effects of asymmetry on observables, particularly optical spectra. Scattering dust at different locations on the light echo ellipsoid witnesses the supernova from different perspectives and the light consequently scattered towards Earth preserves the shape of line profile variations introduced by asymmetries in the supernova photosphere. However, the interpretation of supernova light echo spectra to date has not involved a detailed consideration of the effects of outburst duration and geometrical scattering modifications due to finite scattering dust filament dimension, inclination, and image point-spread function and spectrograph slit width. In this paper, we explore the implications of these factors and present a framework for future resolved supernova light echo spectra interpretation, and test it against Cas A and SN 1987A light echo spectra. We conclude that the full modeling of the dimensions and orientation of the scattering dust using the observed light echoes at two or more epochs is critical for the correct interpretation of light echo spectra. Indeed, without doing so one might falsely conclude that differences exist when none are actually present.Comment: 18 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Mechanisms that promote liberation of mitotic stress-induced death

Paclitaxel is an anti-mitotic drug that, due to its success in the clinic, has become a backbone of first-line chemotherapeutic regimens for many malignancies including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). While paclitaxel-based regimens are efficacious for some NSCLC patients, response is often incomplete, rarely curative and unpredictable, indicating widespread intrinsic resistance in chemo-naive tumors. Thus, there is an unmet need for new combinatorial treatment strategies to better target paclitaxel resistant tumor cells. To study the molecular basis for this resistance, we first established a test bed of NSCLC-derived cell lines that evade cell death from high concentrations of paclitaxel due to an uncoupling of mitotic damage from cell death. We then employed a genome-wide loss-of-function cytotoxic screen to identify the molecular components that can re-engage paclitaxel-mediated cell death programs in an otherwise paclitaxel-resistant background. This screen was performed in the presence and absence of a mitotic damaging, yet sub-lethal, dose of paclitaxel. This approach revealed a cohort of proteins that support tumor cell viability in the presence of mitotic damage. From this study, we find that prolonging a mitotic delay, by inhibition of either the APC or novel mitotic regulators, CASC1 and TRIM69, collaborates with a sub-lethal dose of paclitaxel to engage cell death programs. In particular, we find that CASC1, which is frequently co-amplified with KRAS, is essential for microtubule polymerization and mitotic spindle formation. We also identified TRIM69, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, that we find is recruited to the spindle poles during mitosis to support mitotic fidelity. Importantly, stable depletion of either CASC1, or TRIM69, attenuates tumor cell growth in vivo. Finally, we demonstrate that pharmacological inhibition of the APC collaborates with an otherwise sublethal dose of paclitaxel. We hypothesize that during the course of tumor evolution, cancer cells become dependent on mechanisms that support rapid and inappropriate mitotic exit for cell viability and that these same intrinsic mechanisms are engaged to evade anti-mitotic therapeutics. Thus, therapeutic strategies that can prolong a mitotic delay may enhance patient response to paclitaxel-based therapies.Doctor of Philosoph