tag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:/all?page=28Journal of Brief Ideas: Ideas from the last week2016-04-19T07:28:53Ztag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/3002016-04-19T07:28:53Z2016-05-16T09:18:37ZReconstructing the 3D shape of lightning strikes from their thunderhttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.50078A nearby lightning strike is accompanied by a loud roll of thunder that can last for many seconds. The stroke conducts current between cloud and ground, simultaneously superheating the air along the path of the stroke. The resultant shock wave expands outwards and forms the sound of thunder all along the length of the stroke, reaching the listener at the much slower speed of sound.
We propose to reconstruct the lightning stroke path using the sound of thunder recorded at three or more locations separated by 1 km or more. The audio data is acquired by recording two audio channels with a computer. One channel is fed by a microphone placed outside (but not to be a lightning strike risk!) and the other channel is fed by an FM radio. The lightning strike causes a burst of radio waves that is picked up by the radio and serves as a time tag for synchronisation. Suggested reconstruction is by drawing hemispherical shells around each location with radius from speed of sound times time from strike and intensity by the amplitude of the thunder, colouring them red, green and blue, and then the path of the lightning strike will appear as a white line.Kenworthy, Matthewtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2992016-04-15T18:07:06Z2016-04-17T06:00:42ZCorrespondence Between Sonic Booms and Photonic Boomshttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.49871A [sonic boom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_boom) is heard by an observer, for example, when a supersonic airplane passes by. A lesser known phenomenon dubbed a photonic boom is seen by an observer, for example, when an always-superluminal spot from a laser pointer sweeps by.
Both booms are perceived image pair-creation events. With sound, after the boom, the airplane is heard later from two diverging locations. [Lord Rayleigh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Strutt,_3rd_Baron_Rayleigh) [realized]( https://archive.org/stream/theorysound05raylgoog#page/n173/mode/2up) that one sound sequence from a supersonic source would be heard backwards. [Ahrens and Spors (2008)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230702229_Reproduction_of_Virtual_Sound_Sources_Moving_at_Supersonic_Speeds_in_Wave_Field_Synthesis) indicated confirmation of this in the lab, and [Randall Munroe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Munroe) summarized it on [what-if.xkcd](https://what-if.xkcd.com/37/).
With light, a photonic boom is seen first when the radial component toward the observer of the superluminal sweeping laser spot drops to subluminal [(Nemiroff 2015)](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015PASA...32....1N). Subsequently, two laser spots are seen at diverging locations. Were the laser pointer showing a video, one video of this pair would be seen playing normally -- the other time-reversed.
The initial flash of the perceived light-spot pair-creation event of the photonic boom directly corresponds to the initial bang of the perceived sound pair-creation event of the sonic boom.
Nemiroff, Roberttag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2972016-04-07T09:56:46Z2016-04-16T13:08:36ZCould a primeval version of the Basque 'Jentilak' tale be 25.000-year-old?http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.49309In the deepest part at the end of Llonín Cave (Asturias, Northern Spain), a fortuitous configuration of minor protuberances and cracks in the wall suggests the lateral outline of an 80 cm high anthropomorphic head, whereas a minor depression indicates the eye. Around 25.000 BP, our Late Palaeolithic ancestors covered the eye with a carefully painted set of red radiating lines and also painted a 40 cm high anthropomorphic female figure on the neck.
We can only speculate about the meaning of this pictorial narrative. However, if the tales of the Basque 'Jentilak', the Celtic 'Balor' and 'Yspaddaden Penkawr', the Ukranian 'Vij", the Hopi 'Hásohkata' and similar giant creatures with heavy or long brows and eyelids might have Palaeolithic roots (Lajoye 2014: 41), the combination of a head (a giant emerging from the 'other side' of the wall in a deep cave), an eye covered with long lines (representing the hairs of the brow?) and a 'heroine' (who closed this eye or had the power to open it?) may have illustrated a Palaeolithic proto-version of these myths.
Sincere thanks are due to Julien d'Huy for his very useful suggestion to compare Llonín's ideograph with the tales analyzed by Patrice Lajoye.
Lajoye, P. 2014. Balor et Yspaddaden Penkawr de par le monde. À propos du motif F571.1. Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée 2: 1-51.Bless, Martintag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2942016-04-01T11:31:52Z2016-04-16T13:09:00ZKickstarting research into end-to-end trigger systemshttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.48784The data volumes (_**O**_(TB/s)) created at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are too large to record. Typical rejection factors are _**O**_(100-1000), and using as little CPU time as possible to reject an event is the goal. More powerful decision features take more CPU time to construct, therefore the discrimination power of decisions is limited by the available CPU time.
Current approaches rely on hand-crafted features, and hand tuned decision cascades. We propose the possibility of using deep learning techniques to construct an end-to-end system (using the raw data electronics data as input) that learns the decision function of the trigger system (the global HLT decision). Deep Neural Networks can be efficiently evaluated on dedicated hardware and can be used to preempt the decision of the full system.
For LHCb we estimate that 750GB of data contain about 10000000 candidates of which 100000 will be accepted by the trigger system.
To kickstart research into this new area of research each of the four LHC experiments should release a few seconds of HLT output as well as the corresponding input. This will allow collaboration with experts from the field of machine-learning and cooperation between the experiments to solve this challenging problem.Head, TimGligorov, Vladimirtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2932016-03-22T08:38:44Z2022-03-27T13:23:11ZNew Ph.D. students in the empirical sciences should be recruited into ongoing scientific studies right from the starthttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.48179All too often we come across Ph.D. students who after 2-3 years of effort still struggle with their first (co-)authorship. In many cases, this may be considered a waste of financial resources and human potential<sup>[1](https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-117911655/obstacles-to-completion-of-the-doctoral-degree-in)[-](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0158037X.2015.1055463)[3](http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/10/817.abstract)</sup>. We’d like to pitch the idea that newly started Ph.D. students should be invited to an ongoing study – thesis material or not – within the first weeks of their employment<sup>[cf.4](http://www.informingscience.org/Publications/2291?Source=%2FJournals%2FIJDS%2FArticles%3FVolume%3D0-0)</sup>. The study should ideally be close to completion, and the task assigned to the Ph.D. student should comprise perhaps 2-3 days of work (plus manuscript revision<sup>[5](http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/)</sup>). We have employed this approach many times<sup>[e.g.,6](http://mycokeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=7553)</sup>, and the results so far have been encouraging: the Ph.D. students get a dose of positive energy from being part of a successful scientific enterprise and publication; they gets to feel that they and their work are taken seriously; and they obtain a quantum of experience of the scientific process. Furthermore, an early introduction to the notion of collaborative research efforts – a routine practice in academia and industry these days – is accomplished<sup>[7](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/acs.analchem.6b00532)</sup>. This approach means little extra work for the project PI, but what strikes us is how long-lasting the positive effects for the Ph.D. students seem to be.Nilsson, HenrikWurzbacher, ChristianKristiansson, ErikRyberg, Martintag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2912016-03-16T14:34:52Z2016-04-14T20:42:29ZPre-registration of a test for statistical significance of a GALFA-HI -- WMAP ILC correlation http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.47726In 2007 Gerrit Verschuur [proposed](http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/522685) that HI structures as seen in the Leiden-Argentina-Bonn 36' HI survey of the sky are correlated with structures in the WMAP sky, which are typically ascribed to the CMB.
He has recently proposed to see WMAP correlations in the higher-resolution GALFA-HI DR1 data. As the referee of this manuscript, I,([Joshua Peek](/users/5b0d532a4c510f697a292dec92d6c683)) required a test of statistical significance to publish.
I proposed a test: I have fully reduced, but publicly unreleased GALFA-HI data that Verschuur has no access to. In the test, I select 34 WMAP peaks, to have [WMAP 7 year ILC brightness](http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/dr4/ilc_map_get.cfm) greater than 0.1 mK, Galactic latitude > 20 degrees, and extract ~2x2 degree regions in the unreleased area. I extract the same regions from GALFA-HI, and give both to Dr. Verschuur, without coordinates. If he can match many of these pairs, one can easily calculate the p-value -- 6 matches would be convincing. While it might be possible to leverage the dust-gas correlation using the Planck 353 maps to 'cheat', I believe this would be very difficult.
Dr. Verschuur, the editor, Dieter Hartmann, and I have agreed to this test. The test expires in Jan 1 2017, or when GALFA-HI DR2 become public, whichever comes first.Peek, Joshuatag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2902016-03-15T16:36:10Z2016-05-14T04:36:20ZThe End of the Party: A New Approach to Parliamentary Democracyhttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.47699Today’s party democracy suffers from two issues. First, members of parliament (MPs) should represent voters’ opinions. Yet their free mandate often suffers from obligations to vote in accordance with party interests and is therefore overridden by the group ([Cohen, 2003](http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2003-09138-003)). Second, due to selection processes, alignment with party policy facilitates success within that party ([Cox & McCubbins, 2007](https://books.google.de/books?id=gc1LkxwQtPIC)). However, those in power are not necessarily competent to solve current issues. Given the complexity of political issues, pooling expertise across party boundaries (similar to problem-oriented interdisciplinary science projects) therefore promises to be more fruitful.
Decreasing membership figures point to voters’ disidentification with parties ([Van Biezen et al., 2012](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2011.01995.x/abstract)). Furthermore, the amount of data necessary to cast informed votes overwhelms many individuals. Voting advice applications (VAA) matching voters’ opinions to parties increase voter turnout and voters' propensity to seek political information ([Ladner & Pianzola, 2010](https://hal.inria.fr/file/index/docid/1059097/filename/62290207.pdf)).
Voters’ interests may be represented more accurately by extending the VAA approach such that, like on dating platforms, voters obtain a “matching index” for individual candidates (rather than entire parties) who represent their values, opinions, and political priorities best. Once elected, MPs can be flexibly grouped by their expertise for given tasks and issues, regardless of party boundaries. This approach may increase voters’ identification with politics, ensure independence of political representatives and, eventually, enhance the quality of political work.Baudson, Tanja Gabrieletag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2892016-03-13T19:26:08Z2017-07-29T11:07:54ZA first law of humanities computinghttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.47473In the course of the last decade, I formulated what I consider to be something of [a law concerning the use of computing in Humanities research](http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/Blog/the-first-law-of-humanities-computing):
>The novel and non-trivial application of computation to humanities research problems inevitably requires an examination of first principles including the social, political, economic, and disciplinary rationale for the research itself.
The point is that you can never simply copy a technique from the pre-digital Humanities into the digital without addressing fundamental questions of why you are doing what you are doing, what it is that you think you are doing, and whether what you are doing actually does what you think it does.
This law is related to the New Media concept of [“remediation,”](http://seminar.net/index.php/reviews-hovedmeny-110/68-remediation-understanding-new-media-revisiting-a-classic) the process by which works are refashioned when they move from one medium to another.
It stems from the contrast between digital and non-digital methodologies. In the non-digital space, we can work by analogy and intuition. In the digital world, however, we must work by design and algorithm if we are doing something non-trivial. It is possible to simply replicate pre-digital formats (e.g. the PDF); but taking advantage of the fundamental power of computation requires us to work programmatically.
Examples in action include [John Unsworth's study of "Scholarly Primitives"](http://people.brandeis.edu/~unsworth/Kings.5-00/primitives.html) and much early digital editing theory.O'Donnell, Danieltag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2862016-03-04T21:12:16Z2016-03-05T06:00:33ZHybridization of the Position Sensitive Tunable Laser Diode Microspectroscopy and Laser Ionization Mass Spectrometry on the Scanning Microscopic Stage for Multiparametric Colocalization Imaginghttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.47012To date there are known methods for mass-spectrometric control of the surgical samples, including MALDI imaging which applies a laser beam. But in most cases these methods provide nonselective measurements of the samples, which were previously identified and labeled by the morphologists or pathologists. However, a tissue itself is not only a micro-heterogeneous medium, but it is also heterogeneous in the chemical composition of the constituent cells. Chemistry of the single cells and tissue zones is a diagnostic criterion both for determination of the healthy tissue type and for differential diagnostics of the cellular pathologies. Consequently, it is necessary to perform either a position-sensitive sample scanning or microspectrophotometric measurements in situ at the sample holder of the mass-spectrometer. The former cannot be performed within the acceptable time for surgery and express-diagnostics needs, which includes several minutes, while the latter is rather possible and requires a targeted analysis in the ion beam with the subsequent filtration of the excess exposure. We propose to hybridize a trinocular stereoscopic microscope with scanning laser ionization imaging module (MALDI, ELDI, MALDESI) and tunable diode laser spectroscopy module (TDLSM). Jablokov, Arthurtag:beta.briefideas.org,2005:Idea/2852016-02-26T21:34:14Z2016-04-03T17:04:01ZCreate standalone simulation tools to facilitate collaboration between HEP and machine learning communityhttp://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.46864Discussions at recent workshops have made it clear that one of the key barriers to collaboration between high energy physics and the machine learning community is access to training data. Recent successes in data sharing through the [HiggsML](http://doi.org/10.7483/OPENDATA.ATLAS.ZBP2.M5T8) and [Flavours of Physics](https://www.kaggle.com/c/flavours-of-physics/data) Kaggle challenges have borne much fruit, but required significant effort to coordinate.
While static simulated datasets are useful for challenges, in the course of investigating new machine learning techniques it is advantageous to be able to generate training data on demand (e.g. Refs. [1](https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/HEPMASS), [2](https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/SUSY), [3](https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/HIGGS) ).
Therefore we recommend efforts be made to produce the ingredients required to facilitate such collaboration:
* Specific challenges for HEP experiments should be fully specified such that minimal domain-specific knowledge is required to attack them.
* Stand-alone simulators should be made open source. They should be developed to be easy to use without domain-specific expertise, while still being representative of real experimental challenges. Such a simulation will permit non-HEP researchers to generate realistic HEP datasets for training and testing. These simulators could range from truth-level simulation of a hard scattering to fast simulation like [Delphes](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2014)057), to full [GEANT4](http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0168-9002(03)01368-8) simulation of sensor arrays.
* Performance metrics (objective functions) and operational constraints should be defined to evaluate proposed solutions.
Cranmer, KyleHead, Timvlimant, jean-rochGligorov, VladimirPierini, MaurizioLouppe, GillesUstyuzhanin, AndreyKégl, BalázsElmer, PeterPavez, JuanFarbin, AmirGleyzer, SergeiSchramm, StevenHeinrich, LukasWilliams, MichaelMüller, Christian LorenzWhiteson, DanielSadowski, PeterBaldi, Pierre