Quake-Catcher Network
The Quake-Catcher Network is an initiative run by the University of Southern California that aims to use computer-based accelerometers to detect earthquakes. It uses the BOINC volunteer computing platform (a form of distributed computing A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ..., similar to SETI@home). It currently supports mobile devices (smartphones and some tablets/laptops) that have a built-in accelerometer. It also supports three external USB devices currently - the codemercs.com JoyWarrior 24F8, the ONavi sensor, and the MotionNode Accel. In 2011, project scientist Elizabeth Cochran was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award from US President Barack Obama in large part due to her founding of the Quake-Catcher Network project. References External links Int ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BOINC
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC, pronounced – rhymes with "oink") is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing (a type of distributed computing). Developed originally to support SETI@home, it became the platform for many other applications in areas as diverse as medicine, molecular biology, mathematics, linguistics, climatology, environmental science, and astrophysics, among others. The purpose of BOINC is to enable researchers to utilize processing resources of personal computers and other devices around the world. BOINC development began with a group based at the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) at the University of California, Berkeley, and led by David P. Anderson, who also led SETI@home. As a high-performance volunteer computing platform, BOINC brings together 34,236 active participants employing 136,341 active computers (hosts) worldwide, processing daily on average 20.164 PetaFLOPS (it would be the 21st largest processin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Accelerometer
An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is acceleration in a fixed coordinate system. For example, an accelerometer at rest on the surface of the Earth will measure an acceleration due to Earth's gravity, straight upwards (by definition) of g ≈ 9.81 m/s2. By contrast, accelerometers in free fall (falling toward the center of the Earth at a rate of about 9.81 m/s2) will measure zero. Accelerometers have many uses in industry and science. Highly sensitive accelerometers are used in inertial navigation systems for aircraft and missiles. Vibration in rotating machines is monitored by accelerometers. They are used in tablet computers and digital cameras so that images on screens are always displayed upright. In unmanned aerial vehicles, accelerometers help to stabilise flight. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Volunteer Computing
Volunteer computing is a type of distributed computing in which people donate their computers' unused resources to a research-oriented project, and sometimes in exchange for credit points. The fundamental idea behind it is that a modern desktop computer is sufficiently powerful to perform billions of operations a second, but for most users only between 10-15% of its capacity is used. Typical uses like basic word processing or web browsing leave the computer mostly idle. The practice of volunteer computing, which dates back to the mid-1990s, can potentially make substantial processing power available to researchers at minimal cost. Typically, a program running on a volunteer's computer periodically contacts a research application to request jobs and report results. A middleware system usually serves as an intermediary. History The first volunteer computing project was the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, which was started in January 1996. It was followed in 1997 by distribute ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Distributed Computing
A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different computer network, networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by message passing, passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. The components of a distributed system interact with one another in order to achieve a common goal. Three significant challenges of distributed systems are: maintaining concurrency of components, overcoming the clock synchronization, lack of a global clock, and managing the independent failure of components. When a component of one system fails, the entire system does not fail. Examples of distributed systems vary from service-oriented architecture, SOA-based systems to massively multiplayer online games to peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer applications. A computer program that runs within a distributed system is called a distributed program, and ''distributed programming' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Elizabeth Cochran
Elizabeth Scott Cochran is a seismologist known for her work on early warning systems for earthquakes and human-induced earthquakes. Education and career As a middle-school student living in California, Cochran experiences the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Cochran has a B.S. from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2000) and went on to earn an M.Sc.(2003) and a Ph.D.(2005) from the University of California. Following her Ph.D. Cochran was a postdoctoral investigator at the University of California, San Diego. From 2007 until 2011 Cochran was an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside, until she joined the United States Geological Survey. Research Cochran's early research was on the impact of the 1999 Hector Mine earthquake. Her subsequent work examined the geographic extent of earthquake damage, and defined the factors that lead to the 2011 Oklahoma earthquake. In 2006, Cochran co-foundered of Quake-Catcher Network, a crowd-sourced program ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Science In Society
''Science In Society: An Introduction to Social Studies of Science'' () is a 2004 book by Massimiano Bucchi. The book explains how science works, what sociologists find to be of interest, and how scientific knowledge is produced. There are chapters on the relevance of science to contemporary life, Kuhn's work and its modern relevance, as well as the role of scientific communication.{{cite journal , url=http://www.sociology.org/content/2005/tier1/morrell_review.pdf , title=Book Review - Science in Society: an Introduction to Social Studies of Science , author=Morrell, Peter , journal=Electronic Journal of Sociology , year=2005 , issn=1198-3655 See also *List of books about the politics of science This is a list of notable books about the politics of science that have their own articles on Wikipedia. Environment * ''Merchants of Doubt, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global ... References 2004 non-fiction ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Free Science Software
Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procure political rights, as for a disenfranchised group * Free will, control exercised by rational agents over their actions and decisions * Free of charge, also known as gratis. See Gratis vs libre. Computing * Free (programming), a function that releases dynamically allocated memory for reuse * Free format, a file format which can be used without restrictions * Free software, software usable and distributable with few restrictions and no payment * Freeware, a broader class of software available at no cost Mathematics * Free object ** Free abelian group ** Free algebra ** Free group ** Free module ** Free semigroup * Free variable People * Free (surname) * Free (rapper) (born 1968), or Free Marie, American rapper and media pers ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |