A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud

A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud
Author: Brian May
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2008-08-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0387777067

In the summer and autumn of 2006 I read several interviews with Brian May in which he mentioned his desire to complete the PhD that he had abandoned in 1974. I looked up the papers he had published while a PhD student, which were on spectroscopic studies of the motion of the dust responsible for the zodiacal light, and felt that there was a basis for a thesis. Since he had been a student at Imperial, I knew, as Head of the Astrophysics Group at Imperial, that it would be good for the Group if he came and worked with us. I got in touch with him by email and suggested he come and talk about it. He replied enthusiastically and said that he was working on typing up what he had completed by 1974. I gradually realized that I was the only staff member at Imperial who had previously worked on zodiacal dust, so that I would have to act as his supervisor. Eventually we met and I tried to assess whether he would be able to find time for the huge amount of work that finishing off a thesis involves, particularly if it has not been touched for over 30 years. Since some of Brian’s emails were coming from the recording studio I knew there was strong competition for his time.

Remote Compositional Analysis

Remote Compositional Analysis
Author: Janice L. Bishop
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 655
Release: 2019-11-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 110718620X

Comprehensive overview of the spectroscopic, mineralogical, and geochemical techniques used in planetary remote sensing.

Discriminating Data

Discriminating Data
Author: Wendy Hui Kyong Chun
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2021-11-02
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262046229

How big data and machine learning encode discrimination and create agitated clusters of comforting rage. In Discriminating Data, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun reveals how polarization is a goal—not an error—within big data and machine learning. These methods, she argues, encode segregation, eugenics, and identity politics through their default assumptions and conditions. Correlation, which grounds big data’s predictive potential, stems from twentieth-century eugenic attempts to “breed” a better future. Recommender systems foster angry clusters of sameness through homophily. Users are “trained” to become authentically predictable via a politics and technology of recognition. Machine learning and data analytics thus seek to disrupt the future by making disruption impossible. Chun, who has a background in systems design engineering as well as media studies and cultural theory, explains that although machine learning algorithms may not officially include race as a category, they embed whiteness as a default. Facial recognition technology, for example, relies on the faces of Hollywood celebrities and university undergraduates—groups not famous for their diversity. Homophily emerged as a concept to describe white U.S. resident attitudes to living in biracial yet segregated public housing. Predictive policing technology deploys models trained on studies of predominantly underserved neighborhoods. Trained on selected and often discriminatory or dirty data, these algorithms are only validated if they mirror this data. How can we release ourselves from the vice-like grip of discriminatory data? Chun calls for alternative algorithms, defaults, and interdisciplinary coalitions in order to desegregate networks and foster a more democratic big data.

Planetary Crusts

Planetary Crusts
Author: S. Ross Taylor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2009
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0521841860

This comprehensive reference volume surveys the development of crusts on solid planets and satellites in the solar system.

Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition

Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition
Author: David A. Patterson
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Total Pages: 700
Release: 2017-05-12
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0128122765

The new RISC-V Edition of Computer Organization and Design features the RISC-V open source instruction set architecture, the first open source architecture designed to be used in modern computing environments such as cloud computing, mobile devices, and other embedded systems. With the post-PC era now upon us, Computer Organization and Design moves forward to explore this generational change with examples, exercises, and material highlighting the emergence of mobile computing and the Cloud. Updated content featuring tablet computers, Cloud infrastructure, and the x86 (cloud computing) and ARM (mobile computing devices) architectures is included. An online companion Web site provides advanced content for further study, appendices, glossary, references, and recommended reading. - Features RISC-V, the first such architecture designed to be used in modern computing environments, such as cloud computing, mobile devices, and other embedded systems - Includes relevant examples, exercises, and material highlighting the emergence of mobile computing and the cloud

The Caldwell Catalogue

The Caldwell Catalogue
Author: Patrick Moore
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2001-12-01
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9780750305617

Some time ago, the renowned astronomer Patrick Moore - best known for his BBC TV programme The Sky at Night which has screened continuously for 42 years - devised a catalogue of 109 deep space (galaxies, nebulae, clusters) objects to which he has lent his middle name Caldwell. Thus Caldwell objects, numbered C1 to C109.Why Caldwell and not Moore? The most famous of all catalogues of astronomical objects was created by Charles Messier in 1774, and these are designated by M1 to M109, so Patrick Moore could not use his own surname, but instead elected to use his middle name Caldwell. And Patrick Moore chose 109 object to match Messier, though it is important to understand that not one of Patrick Moore's objects overlaps with Charles Messier's.Messier was in fact a comet hunter - in the eighteenth century comets were not understood at all and had huge significance when they appeared blazing across the clear skies, as yet free from the light pollution we experience. He catalogued galaxies, nebulae and clusters not because he was particularly interested in those objects, but because he did not want these objects to be confused with ne

Futures

Futures
Author: David A. Hardy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2004
Genre: Astronomy
ISBN: 9781904332138

Respected astronomer looks into the future of space exploration.

The Martian Surface

The Martian Surface
Author: Jim Bell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 652
Release: 2008-06-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780521866989

Phenomenal new observations from Earth-based telescopes and Mars-based orbiters, landers, and rovers have dramatically advanced our understanding of the past environments on Mars. These include the first global-scale infrared and reflectance spectroscopic maps of the surface, leading to the discovery of key minerals indicative of specific past climate conditions; the discovery of large reservoirs of subsurface water ice; and the detailed in situ roving investigations of three new landing sites. This an important, new overview of the compositional and mineralogic properties of Mars since the last major study published in 1992. An exciting resource for all researchers and students in planetary science, astronomy, space exploration, planetary geology, and planetary geochemistry where specialized terms are explained to be easily understood by all who are just entering the field.

Making the Geologic Now

Making the Geologic Now
Author: Elizabeth Ellsworth
Publisher:
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2012-12-01
Genre:
ISBN: 9780988234024

Making the Geologic Now announces shifts in cultural sensibilities and practices. It offers early sightings of an increasingly widespread turn toward the geologic as source of explanation, motivation, and inspiration for creative responses to conditions of the present moment. In the spirit of a broadside, this edited collection circulates images and short essays from over 40 artists, designers, architects, scholars, and journalists who are actively exploring and creatively responding to the geologic depth of "now." Contributors' ideas and works are drawn from architecture, design, contemporary philosophy and art. They are offered as test sites for what might become thinkable or possible if humans were to collectively take up the geologic as our instructive co-designer-as a partner in designing thoughts, objects, systems, and experiences. A new cultural sensibility is emerging. As we struggle to understand and meet new material realities of earth and life on earth, it becomes increasingly obvious that the geologic is not just about rocks. We now cohabit with the geologic in unprecedented ways, in teeming assemblages of exchange and interaction among geologic materials and forces and the bio, cosmo, socio, political, legal, economic, strategic, and imaginary. As a reading and viewing experience, Making the Geologic Now is designed to move through culture, sounding an alert from the unfolding edge of the "geologic turn" that is now propagating through contemporary ideas and practices. Contributors include: Matt Baker, Jarrod Beck, Stephen Becker, Brooke Belisle, Jane Bennett, David Benque, Canary Project (Susannah Sayler, Edward Morris), Center for Land Use Interpretation, Brian Davis, Seth Denizen, Anthony Easton, Elizabeth Ellsworth, Valeria Federighi, William L. Fox, David Gersten, Bill Gilbert, Oliver Goodhall, John Gordon, Ilana Halperin, Lisa Hirmer, Rob Holmes, Katie Holten, Jane Hutton, Julia Kagan, Wade Kavanaugh, Oliver Kellhammer, Elizabeth Kolbert, Janike Kampevold Larsen, Jamie Kruse, William Lamson, Tim Maly, Geoff Manaugh, Don McKay, Rachel McRae, Brett Milligan, Christian MilNeil, Laura Moriarity, Stephen Nguyen, Erika Osborne, Trevor Paglen, Anne Reeve, Chris Rose, Victoria Sambunaris, Paul Lloyd Sargent, Antonio Stoppani, Rachel Sussman, Shimpei Takeda, Chris Taylor, Ryan Thompson, Etienne Turpin, Nicola Twilley, Bryan M. Wilson.