Data-rich astronomy: mining synoptic sky surveys by Stefano Cavuoti.
Abstract:
In the last decade a new generation of telescopes and sensors has allowed the production of a very large amount of data and astronomy has become, a data-rich science; this transition is often labeled as: “data revolution” and “data tsunami”. The first locution puts emphasis on the expectations of the astronomers while the second stresses, instead, the dramatic problem arising from this large amount of data: which is no longer computable with traditional approaches to data storage, data reduction and data analysis. In a new, age new instruments are necessary, as it happened in the Bronze age when mankind left the old instruments made out of stone to adopt the new, better ones made with bronze. Everything changed, even the social structure. In a similar way, this new age of Astronomy calls for a new generation of tools and, for a new methodological approach to many problems, and for the acquisition of new skills. The attempts to find a solution to this problems falls under the umbrella of a new discipline which originated by the intersection of astronomy, statistics and computer science: Astroinformatics, (Borne, 2009; Djorgovski et al., 2006).
Dissertation by the same Stefano Cavuoti of: Astrophysical data mining with GPU….
Along with every new discipline comes semantics that are transparent to insiders and opaque to others.
Not out of malice but economy. Why explain a term if all those attending the discussion understand what it means?
But that lack of explanation, like our current ignorance about the means used to construct the pyramids, can come back to bite you.
In some cases far more quickly than intellectual curiosity about ancient monuments by the tin hat crowd.
Take the continuing failure of data integration by the U.S. intelligence services for example.
Rather than the current mule-like resistance to sharing, I would data bomb the other intelligence services with incompatible data exports every week.
Full sharing, for all they would be able to do with it.
Unless they had a topic map.