Data exchange for web site content and resource sharing

At the MPI for Psycholinguistics we launched a new web site (www.mpi.nl) on April 20, 2009. The web site is created in the Content Management System Plone. Our Plone CMS communicates with three data bases: 1. The MPI people data base: The interaction between the data base and the CMS is through a python script which allows us to create standard person pages for each MPI member. Person pages have a default person home set-up, a standard sub folder structure and some extra functionality to create user specific content. 2. The MPDL PubMan data base. Every night our CMS retrieves the metadata from the PubMan data base and stores these in the CMS using a python script. Researchers can specify a set of criteria to select the publications they wish to show on the publication folder of their person pages. The display can either be set to sort the publications by year, or by publication type or a combination of the two. A special (and hidden) 'local tag' element in the PubMan metadata set has been created to either create a collection for special publications or to exclude publications to be presented on the web page. In addition, research group and projects can create publications list based on the research group or project name. The MPDL metadata accomodates persistent links to the full text which can be viewed directly from the website when set at Public (in PubMan). In case the publication is set at Private a request form will appear with which users can send a request to our Library. The MPDL metadata also accomdates persistent links to the MPI-psycholinguistics research data archive. This allows the users to store supplementary material (primary data) in this archive and to link it to the PubMan data base. On the web site it will show automatically if the publiaction has supplementary material. 3. The MPI research data archive At our institute we house a primary research data archive. From the web site links can be created to these data, which will provide an alternative (and more public friendly) manner of showing the data. To realize the communication between the CMS and the three data bases has been quite a technical and organisational challenge, involving a lot of commitment from the MPDL team members and from the institute staff involved in the development of the web site (library, techical support). We feel that the functionality we have created is complex, but very nice and -easy-to-be-used- by other MPI institutes with a Plone based web site

Preparation of Neutron-activated Xenon for Liquid Xenon Detector Calibration

We report the preparation of neutron-activated xenon for the calibration of liquid xenon (LXe) detectors. Gamma rays from the decay of xenon metastable states, produced by fast neutron activation, were detected and their activities measured in a LXe scintillation detector. Following a five-day activation of natural xenon gas with a Cf-252 (4 x 10^5 n/s) source, the activities of two gamma ray lines at 164 keV and 236 keV, from Xe-131m and Xe-129m metastable states, were measured at about 95 and 130 Bq/kg, respectively. We also observed three additional lines at 35 keV, 100 keV and 275 keV, which decay away within a few days. No long-lifetime activity was observed after the neutron activation.Comment: to be published in NIM A, corrected typos in Table 1 and Fig.6 of the previous versio

Report of the panel on plate motion and deformation, section 2

Given here is a panel report on the goals and objectives, requirements and recommendations for the investigation of plate motion and deformation. The goals are to refine our knowledge of plate motions, study regional and local deformation, and contribute to the solution of important societal problems. The requirements include basic space-positioning measurements, the use of global and regional data sets obtained with space-based techniques, topographic and geoid data to help characterize the internal processes that shape the planet, gravity data to study the density structure at depth and help determine the driving mechanisms for plate tectonics, and satellite images to map lithology, structure and morphology. The most important recommendation of the panel is for the implementation of a world-wide space-geodetic fiducial network to provide a systematic and uniform measure of global strain

Using MODIS to detect cropping frequency variation in mechanized agriculture in Amazonia.

Policy makers concerned with managing rapidly developing agriculture on the Amazon frontier currently have no Basin-wide spatial and temporal information on exactly when and how soubean and other mechanized annual cropping have developed in the region. To address this, we present a reliminary evaluation of the use of moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 m vegetation index (VI) time-series data to detect croppping frequency in two municipalities, Vilhena, Rondônia, and Santarém, Pará

Using MODIS to detect cropping frequency variation in mechanized agriculture in Amazonia.

Policy makers concerned with managing rapidly developing agriculture on the Amazon frontier currently have no Basin-wide spatial and temporal information on exactly when and how soubean and other mechanized annual cropping have developed in the region. To address this, we present a reliminary evaluation of the use of moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 m vegetation index (VI) time-series data to detect croppping frequency in two municipalities, Vilhena, Rondônia, and Santarém, Pará