On Birthing Dancing Stars: The Need for Bounded Chaos in Information Interaction

While computers causing chaos is acommon social trope, nearly the entirety of the history of computing is dedicated to generating order. Typical interactive information retrieval tasks ask computers to support the traversal and exploration of large, complex information spaces. The implicit assumption is that they are to support users in simplifying the complexity (i.e. in creating order from chaos). But for some types of task, particularly those that involve the creative application or synthesis of knowledge or the creation of new knowledge, this assumption may be incorrect. It is increasingly evident that perfect order—and the systems we create with it—support highly-structured information tasks well, but provide poor support for less-structured tasks.We need digital information environments that help create a little more chaos from order to spark creative thinking and knowledge creation. This paper argues for the need for information systems that offerwhat we term ‘bounded chaos’, and offers research directions that may support the creation of such interface

The Antarctic dry valley lakes: Relevance to Mars

The similarity of the early environments of Mars and Earth, and the biological evolution which occurred on early Earth, motivates exobiologists to seriously consider the possiblity of an early Martian biota. Environments are being identified which could contain Martian life and areas which may presently contain evidence of this former life. Sediments which were thought to be deposited in large ice-covered lakes are present on Mars. Such localities were identified within some of the canyons of the Valles Marineris and more recently in the ancient terrain in the Southern Hemisphere. Perennially ice-covered Antarctic lakes are being studied in order to develop quantitative models that relate environmental factors to the nature of the biological community and sediment forming processes. These models will be applied to the Martian paleolakes to establish the scientific rationale for the exobiological study of ancient Martian sediments

Universal Prediction Distribution for Surrogate Models

International audienceThe use of surrogate models instead of computationally expensive simulation codes is very convenient in engineering. Roughly speaking, there are two kinds of surrogate models: the deterministic and the probabilistic ones. These last are generally based on Gaussian assumptions. The main advantage of probabilistic approach is that it provides a measure of uncertainty associated with the surrogate model in the whole space. This uncertainty is an efficient tool to construct strategies for various problems such as prediction enhancement, optimization or inversion.In this paper, we propose a universal method to define a measure of uncertainty suitable for any surrogate model either deterministic or probabilistic. It relies on Cross-Validation (CV) sub-models predictions. This empirical distribution may be computed in much more general frames than the Gaussian one. So that it is called the Universal Prediction distribution (UP distribution).It allows the definition of many sampling criteria. We give and study adaptive sampling techniques for global refinement and an extension of the so-called Efficient Global Optimization (EGO) algorithm. We also discuss the use of the UP distribution for inversion problems. The performances of these new algorithms are studied both on toys models and on an engineering design problem

MERLIN observations of relativistic ejections from GRS 1915+105

We present high resolution MERLIN radio images of multiple relativistic ejections from GRS 1915+105 in 1997 October / November. The observations were made at a time of complex radio behaviour, corresponding to multiple optically-thin outbursts and several days of rapid radio flux oscillations. The radio imaging resolved four major ejection events from the system. As previously reported from earlier VLA observations of the source, we observe apparent superluminal motions resulting from intrinsically relativistic motions of the ejecta. However, our measured proper motions are significantly greater than those observed on larger angular scales with the VLA. Under the assumption of an intrinsically symmetric ejection, we can place an upper limit on the distance to GRS 1915+105 of 11.2 +/- 0.8 kpc. Solutions for the velocities unambiguously require a higher intrinsic speed by about 0.1c than that derived from the earlier VLA observations, whilst the angle to the line-of-sight is not found to be significantly different. At a distance of 11 kpc, we obtain solutions of v = 0.98 (-0.05,+0.02)c and theta = 66 +/- 2 degrees. The jet also appears to be curved on a scale which corresponds to a period of around 7 days. We observe significant evolution of the linear polarisation of the approaching component, with large rotations in position angle and a general decrease in fractional polarisation. The power input into the formation of the jet is very large, >10^38 erg/s at 11 kpc for a pair plasma. If the plasma contains a cold proton for each electron, then the mass outflow rate, >10^18 g/sec is comparable to inflow rates previously derived from X-ray spectral fits.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Morphological Classification of Galaxies by Shapelet Decomposition in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II: Multiwavelength Classification

We describe the application of the `shapelet' linear decomposition of galaxy images to multi-wavelength morphological classification using the $u,g,r,i,$ and $z$-band images of 1519 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We utilize elliptical shapelets to remove to first-order the effect of inclination on morphology. After decomposing the galaxies we perform a principal component analysis on the shapelet coefficients to reduce the dimensionality of the spectral morphological parameter space. We give a description of each of the first ten principal component's contribution to a galaxy's spectral morphology. We find that galaxies of different broad Hubble type separate cleanly in the principal component space. We apply a mixture of Gaussians model to the 2-dimensional space spanned by the first two principal components and use the results as a basis for classification. Using the mixture model, we separate galaxies into three classes and give a description of each class's physical and morphological properties. We find that the two dominant mixture model classes correspond to early and late type galaxies, respectively. The third class has, on average, a blue, extended core surrounded by a faint red halo, and typically exhibits some asymmetry. We compare our method to a simple cut on $u-r$ color and find the shapelet method to be superior in separating galaxies. Furthermore, we find evidence that the $u-r=2.22$ decision boundary may not be optimal for separation between early and late type galaxies, and suggest that the optimal cut may be $u-r \sim 2.4$.Comment: 42 pages, 18 figs, revised version in press at AJ. Some modification to the technique, more discussion, addition/deletion/modification of several figures, color figures have been added. A high resolution version may be obtained at http://bllac.as.arizona.edu/~bkelly/shapelets/shapelets_ugriz.ps.g

Moessbauer and Electron Microprobe Studies of Density Separates of Martian Nakhlite Mil03346: Implications for Interpretation of Moessbauer Spectra Acquired by the Mars Exploration Rovers

Martian meteorite MIL03346 is described as an augite-rich cumulate rock with approx.80%, approx.3%, and approx.21% modal phase proportions of augite (CPX), olivine and glassy mesostasis, respectively, and is classified as a nakhlite [1]. The Mossbauer spectrum for whole rock (WR) MIL 03346 is unusual for Martian meteorites in that it has a distinct magnetite subspectrum (~7% subspectral area) [2]. The meteorite also has products of pre-terrestrial aqueous alteration ("iddingsite") that is associated primarily with the basaltic glass and olivine. The Mossbauer spectrometers on the Mars Exploration Rovers have measured the Fe oxidation state and the Fe mineralogical composition of rocks and soils on the planet s surface since their landing in Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum in January, 2004 [3,4]. The MIL 03346 meteorite provides an opportunity to "ground truth" or refine Fe phase identifications. This is particularly the case for the so-called "nanophase ferric oxide" (npOx) component. NpOx is a generic name for a ferric rich product of oxidative alteration. On Earth, where we can take samples apart and study individual phases, examples of npOx include ferrihydrite, schwertmannite, akagaaneite, and superparamagnetic (small particle) goethite and hematite. It is also possible for ferric iron to be associated to some unknown extent with igneous phases like pyroxene. We report here an electron microprobe (EMPA) and Moessbauer (MB) study of density separates of MIL 03346. The same separates were used for isotopic studies by [5]. Experimental techniques are described by [6,7]