45,897 research outputs found
A Journal for the Astronomical Computing Community?
One of the Birds of a Feather (BoF) discussion sessions at ADASS XX
considered whether a new journal is needed to serve the astronomical computing
community. In this paper we discuss the nature and requirements of that
community, outline the analysis that led us to propose this as a topic for a
BoF, and review the discussion from the BoF session itself. We also present the
results from a survey designed to assess the suitability of astronomical
computing papers of different kinds for publication in a range of existing
astronomical and scientific computing journals. The discussion in the BoF
session was somewhat inconclusive, and it seems likely that this topic will be
debated again at a future ADASS or in a similar forum.Comment: 4 pages, no figures; to appear in proceedings of ADASS X
Maximum Inner-Product Search using Tree Data-structures
The problem of {\em efficiently} finding the best match for a query in a
given set with respect to the Euclidean distance or the cosine similarity has
been extensively studied in literature. However, a closely related problem of
efficiently finding the best match with respect to the inner product has never
been explored in the general setting to the best of our knowledge. In this
paper we consider this general problem and contrast it with the existing
best-match algorithms. First, we propose a general branch-and-bound algorithm
using a tree data structure. Subsequently, we present a dual-tree algorithm for
the case where there are multiple queries. Finally we present a new data
structure for increasing the efficiency of the dual-tree algorithm. These
branch-and-bound algorithms involve novel bounds suited for the purpose of
best-matching with inner products. We evaluate our proposed algorithms on a
variety of data sets from various applications, and exhibit up to five orders
of magnitude improvement in query time over the naive search technique.Comment: Under submission in KDD 201
Managing Research Data: Gravitational Waves
The project which led to this report was funded by JISC in 2010ā2011 as part of its
āManaging Research Dataā programme, to examine the way in which Big Science data
is managed, and produce any recommendations which may be appropriate.
Big science data is different: it comes in large volumes, and it is shared and
exploited in ways which may differ from other disciplines. This project has explored
these differences using as a case-study Gravitational Wave data generated by the LSC,
and has produced recommendations intended to be useful variously to JISC, the funding
council (STFC) and the LSC community.
In Sect. 1 we deļ¬ne what we mean by ābig scienceā, describe the overall data
culture there, laying stress on how it necessarily or contingently differs from other
disciplines.
In Sect. 2 we discuss the beneļ¬ts of a formal data-preservation strategy, and the
cases for open data and for well-preserved data that follow from that. This leads to our
recommendations that, in essence, funders should adopt rather light-touch prescriptions
regarding data preservation planning: normal data management practice, in the areas
under study, corresponds to notably good practice in most other areas, so that the only
change we suggest is to make this planning more formal, which makes it more easily
auditable, and more amenable to constructive criticism.
In Sect. 3 we brieļ¬y discuss the LIGO data management plan, and pull together
whatever information is available on the estimation of digital preservation costs.
The report is informed, throughout, by the OAIS reference model for an open
archive. Some of the reportās ļ¬ndings and conclusions were summarised in [1].
See the document history on page 37
A solar water heater for remote communities
The RADG has been developing a solar water heater suitable for use in remote areas. The original inspiration for this project was to provide hot water for remote Aboriginal communities. It was felt that a regular and plentiful supply of hot water would encourage showering and laundering and hence improve personal hygiene.
Electric, fuel burning and solar water heaters are currently used in some communities. Solar water heaters are attractive for remote areas because they stand alone i.e. they require no external fuel source. Wood has traditionally been used as a fuel by Aboriginal people, but in permanent communities the demand on this resource may have a large impact on the environment. Solar water heaters can help to reduce this demand
Instant restore after a media failure
Media failures usually leave database systems unavailable for several hours
until recovery is complete, especially in applications with large devices and
high transaction volume. Previous work introduced a technique called
single-pass restore, which increases restore bandwidth and thus substantially
decreases time to repair. Instant restore goes further as it permits read/write
access to any data on a device undergoing restore--even data not yet
restored--by restoring individual data segments on demand. Thus, the restore
process is guided primarily by the needs of applications, and the observed mean
time to repair is effectively reduced from several hours to a few seconds.
This paper presents an implementation and evaluation of instant restore. The
technique is incrementally implemented on a system starting with the
traditional ARIES design for logging and recovery. Experiments show that the
transaction latency perceived after a media failure can be cut down to less
than a second and that the overhead imposed by the technique on normal
processing is minimal. The net effect is that a few "nines" of availability are
added to the system using simple and low-overhead software techniques
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