NEARBY Platform: Algorithm for Automated Asteroids Detection in Astronomical Images

In the past two decades an increasing interest in discovering Near Earth Objects has been noted in the astronomical community. Dedicated surveys have been operated for data acquisition and processing, resulting in the present discovery of over 18.000 objects that are closer than 30 million miles of Earth. Nevertheless, recent events have shown that there still are many undiscovered asteroids that can be on collision course to Earth. This article presents an original NEO detection algorithm developed in the NEARBY research object, that has been integrated into an automated MOPS processing pipeline aimed at identifying moving space objects based on the blink method. Proposed solution can be considered an approach of Big Data processing and analysis, implementing visual analytics techniques for rapid human data validation.Comment: IEEE 14th International Conference on Intelligent Computer Communication and Processing (ICCP), Sep 6-8, 2018, Cluj-Napoca, Romani

NEARBY Platform for Detecting Asteroids in Astronomical Images Using Cloud-based Containerized Applications

The continuing monitoring and surveying of the nearby space to detect Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are essential because of the threats that this kind of objects impose on the future of our planet. We need more computational resources and advanced algorithms to deal with the exponential growth of the digital cameras' performances and to be able to process (in near real-time) data coming from large surveys. This paper presents a software platform called NEARBY that supports automated detection of moving sources (asteroids) among stars from astronomical images. The detection procedure is based on the classic "blink" detection and, after that, the system supports visual analysis techniques to validate the moving sources, assisted by static and dynamical presentations.Comment: IEEE 14th International Conference on Intelligent Computer Communication and Processing (ICCP), Cluj-Napoca, Romani

EnviroGRIDS Data Storage Guidelines

This document describes the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) of the enviroGRIDS infrastructure aiming at providing the user with access to SWAT model execution over the Grid, Geospatial functionality, and distributed Earth Science data. The document was prepared as a guideline for data storage over the Grid, highlighting the main issues emerging from conceptual and technological solutions of software components, data repositories, data management, Grid oriented processing, Grid portal, and interoperability between geospatial and Grid infrastructures

Grid based calibration of SWAT hydrological models

The calibration and execution of large hydrological models, such as SWAT (soil and water assessment tool), developed for large areas, high resolution, and huge input data, need not only quite a long execution time but also high computation resources. SWAT hydrological model supports studies and predictions of the impact of land management practices on water, sediment, and agricultural chemical yields in complex watersheds. The paper presents the gSWAT application as a web practical solution for environmental specialists to calibrate extensive hydrological models and to run scenarios, by hiding the complex control of processes and heterogeneous resources across the grid based high computation infrastructure. The paper highlights the basic functionalities of the gSWAT platform, and the features of the graphical user interface. The presentation is concerned with the development of working sessions, interactive control of calibration, direct and basic editing of parameters, process monitoring, and graphical and interactive visualization of the results. The experiments performed on different SWAT models and the obtained results argue the benefits brought by the grid parallel and distributed environment as a solution for the processing platform. All the instances of SWAT models used in the reported experiments have been developed through the enviroGRIDS project, targeting the Black Sea catchment area

Requirements and specifications for the development of BSC-OS Portal

This document describes the requirements and specifications of the enviroGRIDS BSC-OS Portal. It concerns mainly with user, functional, technological, and usability requirements of user applications. The functionality and data repositories required in Web and Grid infrastructures are analyzed together with the main issues of the interoperability between functional modules as well as between the geospatial and Grid infrastructures. The document explores the possible architectural and technological solutions, and details and recommends solutions for the development of the BSC-OS portal

Therapeutic fascism: re-educating Communists in Nazi-occupied Serbia, 1942-44

This article probes the relationship between psychoanalysis and right-wing authoritarianism, and analyses a unique psychotherapeutic institution established by Serbia’s World War II collaborationist regime. The extraordinary Institute for compulsory re-education of high-school and university students affiliated with the Communist resistance movement emerged in the context of a brutal civil war and violent retaliations against Communist activists, but its openly psychoanalytic orientation was even more astonishing. In order to stem the rapid spread of Communism, the collaborationist state, led by its most extreme fascistic elements, officially embraced psychotherapy, the ‘talking cure’ and Freudianism, and conjured up its own theory of mental pathology and trauma – one that directly contradicted the Nazi concepts of society and the individual. In the course of the experiment, Serbia’s collaborationists moved away from the hitherto prevailing organicist, biomedical model of mental illness, and critiqued traditional psychiatry’s therapeutic pessimism

Ready for EURONEAR NEA surveys using the NEARBY moving source detection platform

In 2015 we started a PhD thesis aiming to write a moving objects processing system (MOPS) aimed to detect near Earth asteroids (NEAs) in astronomical surveys planned within the EURONEAR project. Based on this MOPS experience, in 2017 we proposed the NEARBY project to the Romanian Space Agency, which awarded funding to the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (UTCN) and the University of Craiovafor building a cloud-based online platform to reduce survey images, detect, validate and report in near real time asteroid detections and NEA candidates. The NEARBY platform was built and is available at UTCN since Feb 2018, being tested during 5 pilot surveys observed in 2017-2018 with the Isaac Newton Telescope in La Palma. Two NEAs were discovered in Nov 2018 (2018 VQ1 and 2018 VN3), being recovered and reported to MPC within 2 hours. Other 4 discovered NEAs were found from a few dozen possible NEA candidates promptly being followed, allowing us to discover 22 Hungarias and 7 Mars crossing asteroids using the NEARBY platform. Compared with other few available software, NEARBY could detect more asteroids (by 8-41%), but scores less than human detection (by about 10%). Using resulted data, the astrometric accurancy, photometric limits and an INT NEA survey case study are presented as guidelines for planning future surveys