Antarctic Ice Rift Growing, Satellite Images Show
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Science and satellite
Research Satellites
Certain satellites are important for scientific research. These satellites gather data for scientific analysis. This includes observations of the atmosphere of our planet, the stars, the sun and other parts of space. Demeis states that earth orbiting satellites can observe celestial objects without the interference from the Earth's atmosphere (72). These satellites are able to record data without the interference of gases, lights, and magnetic fields produced on earth. Scientific satellites are not restricted to earth orbits, they also orbit the sun, moon, and other planets.
Observation Satellites
Observation satellites help to observe many features of the earth's surface. Oberright states, "Scientists use earth observation satellites to locate mineral deposits, to determine the location and size of freshwater supplies . . . and to detect the spread of disease in crops and forests"(150b). The U.S. satellites of the LANDSAT and SEASAT series find such data. The LANDSAT satellites have been used "for making estimates of global wheat production, for forest and range land inventories, for mineral and oil exploration and geological mapping, and for environmental monitoring and impact assessments"(Charyk 87). SEASAT has "detected ocean currents, tides, and storm surges"(Charyk 87). It's instrumentation "included a radar that measured altitude to an accuracy of 10cm (4in) and wave heights from 1 to 20m (3 to 65 ft)"(Charyk 87). The earliest of these types of satellites were used for cartography, or the surveying and mapping of the Earth's surface.
Weather Satellites
Weather satellites are one of the most important instrumentation used to predict the weather. The photos of these satellites "locate weather features--storm systems, fronts, upper-level wind direction and speeds--that are characterized by certain cloud formations"(Charyk 87). Island and coastal weather stations use this data to find and track major storms. Satellite data can "provide information about ocean, desert, and polar areas where conventional weather reports are unavailable or limited"(Charyk 87). Meteorologists, weather forecasters, have received enormous benefits from satellites. As early as 1960, NASA launched Trios 1 the word stands for Television and Infrared Observation Satellite. One of the first benefits to come from this system was the classification of clouds according to brightness, formation, color, height, shape, and size. This greatly helped meteorologists in the prediction of hurricane and tornadoes with earlier and greater accuracy.
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Photo luminescence
Photo luminescence
• Molecules that have an electronic excitation are excited
• Molecules that have a vibration excitation are hot
• With light absorption, molecules may become hot and excited
• Physical process that leads to excited molecules can be
physical(e.g. absorption of light), mechanical (e.g. friction),
or chemical(e.g. reactions)
• When excited molecular states decay back to the ground
state,resulting in the emission of light, they are undergoing a
luminescence process
• Generation of excited molecules by light absorption, that then
decay emitting visible light, is photo luminescence
• Photo luminescence processes are divided into 2 classes:
– Fluorescence and Phosphorescence
• Molecules that have an electronic excitation are excited
• Molecules that have a vibration excitation are hot
• With light absorption, molecules may become hot and excited
• Physical process that leads to excited molecules can be
physical(e.g. absorption of light), mechanical (e.g. friction),
or chemical(e.g. reactions)
• When excited molecular states decay back to the ground
state,resulting in the emission of light, they are undergoing a
luminescence process
• Generation of excited molecules by light absorption, that then
decay emitting visible light, is photo luminescence
• Photo luminescence processes are divided into 2 classes:
– Fluorescence and Phosphorescence
Lets Take This Blog To a Second Stage .............
My blog deals with research.....
Being a member of science society my last 110 post always aimed at telling you that research is very important part of our life whether its our science field or any other.This blog will always continue to do so.
Second stage will include........
1.Graphic representation about research
2.Surveys and analysis
3.Special emphases on scientific research
4.Include research important in our daily life
5.Changes in methods and development in society of research.
<HOPE I WILL ABLE TO FULFILL MY VIEWERS EXPECTATION >
Being a member of science society my last 110 post always aimed at telling you that research is very important part of our life whether its our science field or any other.This blog will always continue to do so.
Second stage will include........
1.Graphic representation about research
2.Surveys and analysis
3.Special emphases on scientific research
4.Include research important in our daily life
5.Changes in methods and development in society of research.
<HOPE I WILL ABLE TO FULFILL MY VIEWERS EXPECTATION >
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Research Questions should be SMART...
Question Tip: Questions should be SMART...
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timely
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Timely
Types of Research Questions:
Exploratory: Seeks to gain an understanding of a new topic that has not had much research on it before.
1. Exploratory research
typically addresses the “What” questions.
• What types of professional development opportunities would teachers find helpful?
• What types of extra curricular activities are students involved in?
• What types of learning aids are effective with students who have learning disabilities?
• What types of extra curricular activities are students involved in?
• What types of learning aids are effective with students who have learning disabilities?
2. Descriptive:
Presents a picture of a specific situation.Descriptive research asks the How? and Who? questions.
• How did Aboriginal students score on the grade 3 provincial test?
• How do students from X school use X technology?
• How did the implementation of X program effect X student group?
• How did teachers rate “named” professional development opportunity?
3.Explanatory: Builds on exploratory and explanatory research.It goes beyond exploring a topic or providing a picture of it.The goal is to identify the reason certain things occur. Explanatory research asks the “Why” questions.
• Why do some teachers integrate new technology X into their classroom, and other do
not?
• Why did “student group” achieve “x-result” on the provincial test?
• How do students from X school use X technology?
• How did the implementation of X program effect X student group?
• How did teachers rate “named” professional development opportunity?
3.Explanatory: Builds on exploratory and explanatory research.It goes beyond exploring a topic or providing a picture of it.The goal is to identify the reason certain things occur. Explanatory research asks the “Why” questions.
• Why do some teachers integrate new technology X into their classroom, and other do
not?
• Why did “student group” achieve “x-result” on the provincial test?
Exploratory research
It is often conducted because a problem has not been clearly defined as yet, or its real scope is as yet unclear. It allows the researcher to familiarize him/herself with the problem or concept to be studied, and perhaps generate hypotheses (definition of hypothesis) to be tested. It is the initial research, before more conclusive research (definition of conclusive research) is undertaken. Exploratory research helps determine the best research design, data collection method and selection of subjects, and sometimes it even concludes that the problem does not exist!
Another common reason for conducting exploratory research is to test concepts before they are put in the marketplace, always a very costly endeavour. In concept testing, consumers are provided either with a written concept or a prototype for a new, revised or repositioned product, service or strategy.
Exploratory research can be quite informal, relying on secondary research such as reviewing available literature and/or data, or qualitative (definition of qualitative research) approaches such as informal discussions with consumers, employees, management or competitors, and more formal approaches through in-depth interviews, focus groups, projective methods, case studies or pilot studies.
The results of exploratory research are not usually useful for decision-making by themselves, but they can provide significant insight into a given situation. Although the results of qualitative research can give some indication as to the "why", "how" and "when" something occurs, it cannot tell us "how often" or "how many". In other words, the results can neither be generalized; they are not representative of the whole population being studied.
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
FIVE STEPS TO A WINNING RESEARCH PROPOSAL
George A. Hazelrigg
National Science Foundation
Just follow these five simple steps.
1. Know yourself: Know your area of expertise, what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses. Play to your strengths, not to your weaknesses. Do not assume that, because you do not understand an area, no one understands it or that there has been no previous research conducted in the area. If you want to get into a new area of research, learn something about the area before you write a proposal.Research previous work.Be a scholar.
2. Know the program from which you seek support: You are responsible for finding the
appropriate program for support of your research.Don’t leave this task up to someone else.If you are not absolutely certain which program is appropriate, call the program officer to find out.Never submit a proposal to a program if you are not certain that it is the correct program to support your area of research. Proposals submitted inappropriately to programs may be returned without review, transferred to other programs where they are likely to be declined, or simply trashed in the program to which you submit. In any case, you have wasted your time writing a proposal that has no chance of success from the get-go.
3. Read the program announcement: Programs and special activities have specific goals and specific requirements. If you don’t meet those goals and requirements, you have thrown out your chance of success. Read the announcement for what it says, not for what you want it to say. If your research does not fit easily within the scope of the topic areas outlined, your chance of success is nil.
4. Formulate an appropriate research objective: A research proposal is a proposal to conduct research, not to conduct development or design or some other activity. Research is a methodical process of building upon previous knowledge to derive or discover new knowledge, that is, something that isn’t known before the research is conducted. In formulating a research objective, be sure that it hasn’t been proven impossible (for example, “My research objective isto find a geometric construction to trisect an angle”), that it is doable within a reasonable budget and in a reasonable time, that you can do it, and that it is research, not development.
5. Develop a viable research plan: A viable research plan is a plan to accomplish your research objective that has a non-zero probability of success. The focus of the plan must be to accomplish the research objective. In some cases, it is appropriate to validate your results. In such cases, a valid validation plan should be part of your research plan. If there are potential difficulties lurking in your plan, do not hide from them, but make them clear and, if possible, suggest alternative approaches to achieving your objective. A good research plan lays out step-by-step the approach to accomplishment of the research objective. It does not gloss over difficult areas with statements like, “We will use
computers to accomplish this solution.”
Sunday, 17 February 2013
Saturday, 16 February 2013
The importance of stupidity in scientific research
The
importance of stupidity in scientific research
By Martin A. Schwartz
Department of Microbiology, UVA Health System, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA
I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many
years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although
in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard
Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization.
At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To
my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a
couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else.
I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent
career supports that view. What she said bothered me. I kept thinking about it;
sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel stupid too. It’s just that
I’ve gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that I actively seek out new
opportunities to feel stupid. I wouldn’t know what to do without that feeling.
I even think it’s supposed to be this way. Let me explain. For almost all of
us, one of the reasons that we liked science in high school and college is that
we were good at it. That can’t be the only reason – fascination with understanding
the physical world and an emotional need to discover new things has to enter
into it too. But high-school and college science means taking courses, and doing
well in courses means getting the right answers on tests. If you know those
answers, you do well and get to feel smart. A Ph.D., in which you have to do a
research project, is a whole different thing. For me, it was a daunting task.
How could I possibly frame the questions that would lead to significant
discoveries; designand interpret an experiment so that the conclusions were
absolutely convincing; foresee difficulties and see ways around them, or,
failing that, solve them when they occurred? My Ph.D. project was somewhat
interdisciplinary and, for a while, whenever I ran into a problem, I pestered
the faculty in my department who were experts in the various disciplines that I
needed. I remember the day when Henry Taube (who won the Nobel Prize two years
later) told me he didn’t know how to solve the problem I was having in his
area. I was a third-year graduate student and I figured that Taube knew about
1000 times more than I did (conservative estimate). If he didn’t have the
answer, nobody did. That’s when it hit me: nobody did. That’s why it was a
research problem. And being my research problem, it was up to me to solve. Once
I faced that fact, I solved the problem in a couple of days. (It wasn’t really
very hard; I just had to try a few things.) The crucial lesson was that the
scope of things I didn’t know wasn’t merely vast; it was, for all practical
purposes, infinite. That realization, instead of being discouraging, was
liberating. If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is
to muddle through as best we can. I’d like to suggest that our Ph.D. programs
often do students a disservice in two ways. First, I don’t think students are
made to understand how hard it is to do research. And how very, very hard it is
to do important research. It’s a lot harder than taking even very demanding
courses. What makes it difficult is that research is immersion in the unknown.
We just don’t know what we’re doing. We can’t be sure whether we’re asking the
right question or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the
result.
Admittedly, science is made harder by competition for grants
and space in top journals. But apart from all of that, doing significant research
is intrinsically hard and changing departmental, institutional or national
policies will not succeed in lessening its intrinsic difficulty. Second, we
don’t do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively
stupid – that is, if we don’t feel stupid it means we’re not really trying. I’m
not talking about ‘relative stupidity’, in which the other students in the
class actually read the material, think about it and ace the exam, whereas you
don’t. I’m also not talking about bright people who might be working in areas
that don’t match their talents. Science involves confronting our ‘absolute
stupidity’. That kind of stupidity is an existential fact, inherent in our
efforts to push our way into the unknown. Preliminary and thesis exams have the
right idea when the faculty committee pushes until the student starts getting the
answers wrong or gives up and says, ‘I don’t know’. The point of the exam isn’t
to see if the student gets all the answers right. If they do, it’s the faculty
who failed the exam. The point is to identify the student’s weaknesses, partly
to see where they need to invest some effort and partly to see whether the
student’s knowledge fails at a sufficiently high level that they are ready to
take on a research project. Productive stupidity means being ignorant by
choice.
Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward
position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that
it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly
fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult
for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt,
reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think
scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from
learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The
more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the
unknown and the more likely we are to make big
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Limitations of research methodology
All studies have limitations.
However, it is important that you restrict your discussion to
limitations related to the research problem under investigation. For
example, if a meta-analysis of existing literature is not a stated
purpose of your research, it should not be discussed as a limitation. Do not apologize for not addressing issues that you did not promise to investigate in your paper.
Here are examples of
limitations you may need to describe and to discuss how they possibly
impacted your findings. Descrptions of limitations should be stated in
the past tense.
Possible Methodological Limitations
- Sample size -- the number of the units of analysis you use in your study is dictated by the type of research problem you are investigating. Note that, if your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to find significant relationships from the data, as statistical tests normally require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and to be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred.
- Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship. You need to not only describe these limitations but to offer reasons why you believe data is missing or is unreliable. However, don’t just throw up your hands in frustration; use this as an opportunity to describe the need for future research.
- Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the currency or scope of your research topic, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic. Before assuming this to be true, consult with a librarian! In cases when a librarian has confirmed that there is a lack of prior research, you may be required to develop an entirely new research typology [for example, using an exploratory rather than an explanatory research design]. Note that this limitiation can serve as an important opportunity to describe the need for further research.
- Measure used to collect the data -- sometimes it is the case that, after completing your interpretation of the findings, you discover that the way in which you gathered data inhibited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results. For example, you regret not including a specific question in a survey that, in retrospect, could have helped address a particular issue that emerged later in the study. Acknowledge the deficiency by stating a need in future research to revise the specific method for gathering data.
- Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing self-reported data or you are conducting a qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you have to take what people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaries, at face value. However, self-reported data contain several potential sources of bias that should be noted as limitations: (1) selective memory (remembering or not remembering experiences or events that occurred at some point in the past); (2) telescoping [recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another time]; (3) attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces]; and, (4) exaggeration [the act of representing outcomes or embelishing events as more significant than is actually suggested from other data].
Monday, 11 February 2013
The Future of Scientific Research in India
The Future of Scientific Research in India.......
The future of India seems bright. India's research and
development in many areas such as genetic modification, bio-energy
sources, biochemistry, atomic energy, organ donation, biomedical
science, and many other issues will determine much of the way these
issues are viewed by the world in the near future. How India handles
many of the ethical dilemmas that scientific research presents will be
an education for many other countries, including developed countries.
India is leading in many areas and evolving in others.
However, most funding comes from public sources, and many times, it is
limited. This area has to evolve, and more private funding is to be
encouraged so India can compete with other countries like China.
Industrial research and development competitiveness must be encouraged
more, as most of the effort goes into the field of space, defense,
oceanography, and atomic energy. However, India is strong in Software
technology and computer science.
The lack of attractive salaries compared to the private sector has created a void in the education and research sectors. However, it is a matter of money and not quality of talent. Indian minds are among the brightest and skilled, and many students from the ITT's are highly sought by European and American universities.
India has to its advantage the willingness to work with other countries in research and science development and lend its talents to the project. Controversy about India not producing enough PhD's in the science arena is one that have been going on recently. If India wants to continue to prosper in this area, something must be done in respect. It is the opinion of Professor CNR Rao - a leading Indian scientist - that if India wants to keep and surpass its place in the scientific world, it must contribute more in that area, as right now it is not producing enough professionals to compete. This is viewed as one of the biggest obstacles for India. India is not producing the required number to meet the demand of the students in universities and colleges. The debate continues about the need to focus more in the basic sciences, open-ended research, and less in targeted research. Politics is said to be blamed, wrong allocating of efforts and funding, and lack of private funding as well.
The lack of attractive salaries compared to the private sector has created a void in the education and research sectors. However, it is a matter of money and not quality of talent. Indian minds are among the brightest and skilled, and many students from the ITT's are highly sought by European and American universities.
India has to its advantage the willingness to work with other countries in research and science development and lend its talents to the project. Controversy about India not producing enough PhD's in the science arena is one that have been going on recently. If India wants to continue to prosper in this area, something must be done in respect. It is the opinion of Professor CNR Rao - a leading Indian scientist - that if India wants to keep and surpass its place in the scientific world, it must contribute more in that area, as right now it is not producing enough professionals to compete. This is viewed as one of the biggest obstacles for India. India is not producing the required number to meet the demand of the students in universities and colleges. The debate continues about the need to focus more in the basic sciences, open-ended research, and less in targeted research. Politics is said to be blamed, wrong allocating of efforts and funding, and lack of private funding as well.
Sunday, 10 February 2013
Importance of training
What is the importance of training ?
Study highlights the importance of training in making the journey from researcher
to consultant, and in developing storytelling and other impaction communication skills.
Additional training needs include synthesis skills, development of rich insights, and learning
about new research modalities. Research companies are much less likely than clients to
recognize the need for training in persuasion and influence, which are critical for being an
effective consultant.
Study highlights the importance of training in making the journey from researcher
to consultant, and in developing storytelling and other impaction communication skills.
Additional training needs include synthesis skills, development of rich insights, and learning
about new research modalities. Research companies are much less likely than clients to
recognize the need for training in persuasion and influence, which are critical for being an
effective consultant.
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