Net@EDU 2008: Key Takeaways

Earlier this week, I participated in the Net@EDU Annual Meeting 2008: The Next 10 Years.   For me, the key takeaways are:

• The Internet can be improved. IP, its transport protocols (RTP, SIP, TCP and UDP), and especially HTTP, are stifling innovation at the edges – everything (device-oriented) on IP and everything (application-oriented) on the Web. There are a number of initiatives that seek to improve the situation. One of these, with tangible outcomes, is the Stanford Clean Slate Internet Design Program.
• Researchers and IT organizations need to be reunited. In the 1970s and 1980s, these demographics worked closely together and delivered a number of significant outcomes. Beyond the 1990s, these group remain separate and distinct. This separation has not benefited either group. As the manager of a team focused on operation of a campus network who still manages to conduct a modest amount of research, this takeaway resonates particularly strongly with me. 
• DNSSEC is worth investigating now. DNS is a mission-critical service. It is often, however, an orphaned service in many IT organizations. DNSSEC is comprised of four standards that extend the original concept in security-savvy ways – e.g., they will harden your DNS infrastructure against DNS-targeted attacks. Although production implementation remains a future, the time is now to get involved.
• The US is lagging behind in the case of broadband. An EDUCAUSE blueprint details the current situation, and offers a prescription for rectifying it. As a Canadian, it is noteworthy that Canada’s progress in this area is exceptional, even though it is regarded as a much-more rural nation than the US. The key to the Canadian success, and a key component of the blueprint’s prescription, is the funding model that shares costs evenly between two levels of government (federal and provincial) as well as the network builder/owner. 
• Provisioning communications infrastructures for emergency situations is a sobering task. Virginia Tech experienced 100-3000% increases  in the demands on their communications infrastructure as a consequence of their April 16, 2007 event. Such stress factors are exceedingly difficult to estimate and account for. In some cases, responding in real time allowed for adequate provisioning through a tremendous amount of collaboration. Mass notification remains a challenge. 
• Today’s and tomorrow’s students are different from yesterday’s. Although this may sound obvious, the details are interesting. Ultimately, this difference derives from the fact that today’s and tomorrow’s students have more intimately integrated technology into their lives from a very young age.
• Cyberinfrastructure remains a focus. EDUCAUSE has a Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working Group. Some of their deliverables are soon to include a CI digest, plus contributions from their Framing and Information Management Focus Groups. In addition to the working-group session, Don Middleton of NCAR discussed the role of CI in the atmospheric sciences. I was particularly pleased that Middleton made a point of showcasing semantic aspects of virtual observatories such as the Virtual Solar-Terrestrial Observatory (VSTO).
• The Tempe Mission Palms Hotel is an outstanding venue for a conference. Net@EDU has themed its annual meetings around this hotel, Tempe, Arizona and the month of February. This strategic choice is delivered in spades by the venue. From individual rooms to conference food and logistics to the mini gym and pool, The Tempe Mission Palms Hotel delivers. 

Digital Terrain Mapping via LIDAR

From the purely scientific (ozone-column mapping, imaging hydrometeors in clouds) to commercial (on-board detection of clear air turbulence, CAT), my exposure to LIDAR applications has been primarily atmospheric.

Of course, other applications of LIDAR technology exist, and one of these is Digital Terrain Mapping (DTM).

Terra Remote Sensing Inc. is a leader in LIDAR-based DTM. Particularly impressive is their ability to perform surface DTM in areas of dense vegetation. As I learned at a very recent meeting of the Ontario Association of Remote Sensing (OARS), Terra has already found a number of very practical applications for LIDAR-based DTM.

Some additional applications that come to mind are:

• DTM of urban canopies for atmospheric experiments – Terra has already mapped buildings for various purposes. The same approach could be used to better ground (sorry atmospheric experiments. For example, the boundary-layer modeling that was conducted for Joint Urban 2003 (JU03) employed a digitization of Oklahoma City. A LIDAR-based DTM would’ve made this an even-more realistic effort.
• Monitoring the progress of Global Change in the Arctic – In addition to LIDAR-based DTM, Terra is also having some success characterizing surfaces based on LIDAR intensity measurements. Because open water and a glacier would be expected to have different DTM and intensity characteristics, Terra should also be able to monitor Global Change as nunataks are progressively transformed into traditional islands (land isolated and surrounded by open water). With the Arctic as a bellwether for Global Change, it’s not surprising that the nunatak-to-island transformation is getting attention.

Although my additional examples are (once again) atmospheric in nature, as Terra is demonstrating, there are numerous applications for LIDAR-based technologies.

Quantitative classification of cloud microphysical imagery via fractal dimension calculations

I recently referred to a paper I wrote for a Fractals in Engineering conference in the mid-90s:

I did lead a project at KelResearch where our objective was to classify hydrometeors (i.e., raindrops, snowflakes, etc.). The hydrometeors were observed in situ by a sensor deployed on the wing of an airplane. Data was collected as the plane flew through winter storms. (Many of these campaigns were spearheaded by Prof. R. E. Stewart.) What we attempted to do was automate the classification of the hydrometeors on the basis of their shape. More specifically, we attempted to estimate the fractal dimension of each observed hydrometeor in the hopes of providing at automated classification scheme. Although this was feasible in principle, the resolution offered by the sensor made this impractical.

I’ve now added the citation and paper to my publications list.

I expect to revisit this paper soon … stay tuned.

Genetic Aesthetics: Generative Software Meets Genetic Algorithms

I’m still reading Cloninger’s book, and just read a section on Generative Software (GS) – software used by contemporary designers to “… automate an increasingly large portion of the creative process.” As implied by the name, GS can produce a tremendous amount of output. It’s then up to the designer to be creatively stimulated as they sift through the GS output.

As I was reading Cloninger’s description, I couldn’t help but make my own connections with Genetic Algorithms (GAs). I’ve seen GAs applied in the physical sciences. For example, GAs can be used to generate models to fit data. The scientist provides an ancestor (a starting model), and then variations are derived through genetic processes such as mutation. Only the models with appropriate levels of fitness survive subsequent generations. Ultimately, what results is the best (i.e., most fit) model that explains the data according to the GA process.

In an analogous way, this is also what happens with the output from GS. Of course, in the GS case, it is the designer her/himself who determines what survives according to their own criteria.

The GS-GA connection is even stronger than my own association may cause you to believe.

In interviewing Joshua Davis for his book, Cloninger states:

At one point, you talked about creating software that would parse through the output of your generative software and select the iterations you were most likely to choose.

Davis responds:

That’s something [programmer] Branden Hall and I worked on called Genetic Aesthetic. It uses a neural network and genetic algorithms to create a “hot or not” situation. It says, “Rate this composition I generated on a scale from 1 to 10.” If I give it a 1, it says, “This isn’t beautiful. I should look at what kind of numbers were generated in this iteration and record those as unfavorable.” You have to train the software. Because the process is based on variables and numbers, over a very short period of time it’s able to learn what numbers are unsatisfactory and what numbers are satisfactory to that individual human critic. It changes per individual.

That certainly makes the GS-GA connection explicit and poetic, Genetic Aesthetic – I like that!

I’ve never worked with GAs. However, I did lead a project at KelResearch where our objective was to classify hydrometeors (i.e., raindrops, snowflakes, etc.). The hydrometeors were observed in situ by a sensor deployed on the wing of an airplane. Data was collected as the plane flew through winter storms. (Many of these campaigns were spearheaded by Prof. R. E. Stewart.) What we attempted to do was automate the classification of the hydrometeors on the basis of their shape. More specifically, we attempted to estimate the fractal dimension of each observed hydrometeor in the hopes of providing at automated classification scheme. Although this was feasible in principle, the resolution offered by the sensor made this impractical. Nonetheless, it was a interesting opportunity for me to personally explore the natural Genetic Aesthetics afforded by Canadian winter storms!

Fall AGU Meeting 13,000 Strong!

Unofficially, the 2006 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union was attended by some 13,000 people.

That’s a lot of attedees!

More than many IT events!

And not bad for an organization that caters largely to physical scientists.

With focus groups like Earth and Space Science Informatics on the rise, I can’t see this number decreasing!

Of course, the fact that the Fall Meeting has branded itself with San Francisco doesn’t hurt

Annotating at the AGU

Perhaps two years ago, it was a challenge to find appropriate sessions at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting for submissions that addressed the intersection between geophysics and knowledge representation.

A year ago, there were quite a few to choose from.

This year, I was almost overwhelmed by choice.

I ended up selecting the “Earth and Space Science Cyberinfrastructure: Application and Theory of Knowledge Representation” session in the “Earth and Space Science Informatics” section. The work I intend to present, co-authored with Jerusha Lederman and Keith Aldridge also of York University, is described via an abstract elsewhere. I’ll need to prepare well as I’m presenting in good company and have only 15 minutes!

The makings for a productive and stimulating meeting are clearly present.

And for a Canadian in December, it’s pretty difficult not to enjoy the Bay Area!

Alternate Mechanism for Earth’s Magnetic Field

About 3,000 km beneath our feet lies Earth’s third ocean. Quite unlike the water-based first and air-based second, this third ocean is an iron-based alloy. Because this liquid-state alloy (aka. Earth’s fluid/liquid outer core) is an electrical conductor, currents can exist. Owing to a well-known reciprocity between electrical currents and magnetic fields, this third ocean factors significantly in an observable known to any of us surface dwellers who have ever wielded a compass.

Although there’s no question that Earth possesses a magnetic field, there are a number of open scientific questions about this pervasive, natural phenomenon. A number of these questions are directed at the sustainability of this magnetic field over geologically significant timescales. Well evidenced in the geologic record over a few billion years, Earth’s magnetic field requires a self-sustaining mechanism (aka. a geodynamo) to account for its very existence and peculiarities (such as reversals).

The starting point for scientific investigators is that this electrically conducting region is under rotation. (Taken from the appropriate scientific perspective, a perspective that takes into account planetary scales and fluid dynamical properties, it turns out this region is rotating rapidly.) The same Earth’s rotation that causes deflection of trade winds in the atmosphere (via the Coriolis effect) also figures significantly in the energetics of Earth’s magnetic field. Rotational effects alone, however, cannot account for the existence, longevity and peculiarities of Earth’s magnetic field over the visible geologic past.

This conundrum has forced the scientists who study this phenomenon to speculate on mechanisms for Earth’s magnetic field. Many of the suggested mechanisms call from some degree of additional stirring. This additional stirring causes deviations from the otherwise steady state of solid body rotation. Simply put, these deviations cause motion in the electrically conducting fluid that in turn result in magnetic fields.

Since the late 1970s, the favored mechanism for additional stirring has been based on buoyancy. In the case of Earth’s third ocean, buoyancy is thought to result from solidification. More specifically, as Earth’s centremost region (know as the inner core) grows by iron crystallization, the residual light element(s) in the alloy is/are released buoyantly. This combined effect of chemistry and fluid dynamics is thought to result in compositional convection.

Compositional convection, however, can be challenged on a number of fronts. Rather than pursue that here, my present purpose is to relate another mechanism for Earth’s magnetic field. As with the previous mechanism, deviations from an otherwise steady state of solid body rotation are key in this case as well. Rotation enforces cylindrical symmetry. This enforcement even applies when the body that’s under rotation (Earth in this case) has an almost spherical symmetry to it. Almost is definitely the operative word here, as Earth isn’t perfectly spherically symmetric. In fact, Earth is an oblate spheroid that bulges at the equator and is depressed at the poles. This combination results in an opposition of symmetries, cylindrical (owing to Earth’s rotation) versus spheroidal (owing to the boundary that contains Earth’s third ocean). As has been demonstrated experimentally and theoretically, the introduction of deviations in the presence of such symmetry oppositions can cause significant instabilities. In Earth’s case, periodic deviations might originate from precession and/or tides.

Experimental, theoretical, numerical and observational studies of such instabilities have been one of Keith Aldridge’s research themes for over a decade at Toronto’s York University. In addition to ongoing experimental studies with graduate student Ross Baker, Keith has been collaborating with post-doc David McMillan and I on supportive observational evidence. Because the instabilities we’re all interested in are periodic, we’ve been looking for indirect evidence in historical records of Earth’s magnetic field. Deep-ocean sediments, extracted as drill cores, are proving useful in our attempts to analyze relative variations in Earth’s magnetic field intensity over the past 70,000 years. In short, our analysis of variations in paleointensity allows us to further support fluid-flow instabilities as a viable mechanism for Earth’s magnetic field.

A scientific account of this investigation has recently been accepted for publication in an appropriate journal, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors. A preprint is currently available online.

Environment Canada Presentation

I'll be making a presentation at Environment Canada on the semantic expressivity and richness of scientific data. The abstract is available in English and French .