Japanese Astrometry Satellite Mission for Infrared Exploration

JASMINE is the name of a Japanese infrared (K-band) scanning astrometric satellite. JASMINE (I and/or II-project) is planned to be launched between 2013 and 2017 and will measure parallaxes and proper motions with the precision of 10μas at K≃ 12 - 15 mag. JASMINE will observe a few hundred million stars belonging to the disk and the bulge components of our Galaxy, which are hidden by the interstellar dust extinction in optical bands. Furthermore, JASMINE will also obtain photometry of stars in K, J and H-bands. The main objective of JASMINE is to study the most fundamental structure and evolution of the disk and the bulge components of the Milky Way Galaxy. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The layered structure of lunar maria: Identification of the HF-radar reflector in Mare Serenitatis using multiband optical images

Comparison of the Lunar Radar Sounder (LRS) data to the Multiband Imager (MI) data is performed to identify the subsurface reflectors in Mare Serenitatis. The LRS is FM-CW radar (4–6 MHz) and the 2 MHz bandwidth leads to the range resolution of 75 m in a vacuum, whereas the sampling interval in the flight direction is about 75 m when an altitude of the spacecraft with polar orbit is nominal (100 km). Horizontally continuous reflectors were clearly detected by LRS in limited areas that consist of about 9% of the whole maria. The typical depth of the reflectors is estimated to be a few hundred meters. Layered structures of mare basalts are also discernible on some crater walls in the MI data of the visible bands (VIS). The VIS range has nine wavelengths of 415, 750, 900, 950, and 1000 nm, and their spatial resolution is 20 m/pixel at a nominal altitude. The stratigraphies around Bessel and Bessel-H craters in Mare Serenitatis are examined in this paper. It was revealed that the subsurface reflectors lie on the boundaries between basalt units with different chemical compositions. In addition, model calculations using the simplified radar equation indicate that the subsurface reflectors are not compositional interfaces but layer boundaries with a high-porosity contrast. These results suggest that the detected reflectors in Mare Serenitatis are regolith accumulated during so long hiatus of mare volcanisms enough for chemical composition of magma to change, not instantaneously. Therefore combination of the LRS and MI data has a potential to reveal characteristics of a series of magmatism forming each lithostratigraphic unit in Mare Serenitatis and other maria.     

Farside explorer: unique science from a mission to the farside of the moon

Farside Explorer is a proposed Cosmic Vision medium-size mission to the farside of the Moon consisting of two landers and an instrumented relay satellite. The farside of the Moon is a unique scientific platform in that it is shielded from terrestrial radio-frequency interference, it recorded the primary differentiation and evolution of the Moon, it can be continuously monitored from the Earth–Moon L2 Lagrange point, and there is a complete lack of reflected solar illumination from the Earth. Farside Explorer will exploit these properties and make the first radio-astronomy measurements from the most radio-quiet region of near-Earth space, determine the internal structure and thermal evolution of the Moon, from crust to core, and quantify impact hazards in near-Earth space by the measurement of flashes generated by impact events. The Farside Explorer flight system includes two identical solar-powered landers and a science/telecommunications relay satellite to be placed in a halo orbit about the Earth–Moon L2 Lagrange point. One lander would explore the largest and oldest recognized impact basin in the Solar System— the South Pole–Aitken basin—and the other would investigate the primordial highlands crust. Radio astronomy, geophysical, and geochemical instruments would be deployed on the surface, and the relay satellite would continuously monitor the surface for impact events.     

Trajectories of Moving Objects on a Network: Detection of Similarities,Visualization of Relations,and Classification of Trajectories

Development in techniques of spatial data acquisition enables us to easily record the trajectories of moving objects. Movement of human beings, animals, and birds can be captured by GPS loggers. The obtained data are analyzed by visualization, clustering, and classification to detect patterns frequently or rarely found in trajectories. To extract a wider variety of patterns in analysis, this article proposes a new method for analyzing trajectories on a network space. The method first extracts primary routes as subparts of trajectories. The topological relations among primary routes and trajectories are visualized as both a map and a graph‐based diagram. They permit us to understand the spatial and topological relations among the primary routes and trajectories at both global and local scales. The graph‐based diagram also permits us to classify trajectories. The representativeness of primary routes is evaluated by two numerical measures. The method is applied to the analysis of daily travel behavior of one of the authors. Technical soundness of the method is discussed as well as empirical findings.     

Visualizing Diurnal Population Change in Urban Areas for Emergency Management

There is an increasing need for a quick, simple method to represent diurnal population change in metropolitan areas for effective emergency management and risk analysis. Many geographic studies rely on decennial U.S. Census data that assume that urban populations are static in space and time. This has obvious limitations in the context of dynamic geographic problems. The U.S. Department of Transportation publishes population data at the transportation analysis zone level in fifteen-minute increments. This level of spatial and temporal detail allows for improved dynamic population modeling. This article presents a methodology for visualizing and analyzing diurnal population change for metropolitan areas based on this readily available data. Areal interpolation within a geographic information system is used to create twenty-four (one per hour) population surfaces for the larger metropolitan area of Salt Lake County, Utah. The resulting surfaces represent diurnal population change for an average workday and are easily combined to produce an animation that illustrates population dynamics throughout the day. A case study of using the method to visualize population distributions in an emergency management context is provided using two scenarios: a chemical release and a dirty bomb in Salt Lake County. This methodology can be used to address a wide variety of problems in emergency management.     

Seasonal changes in camera-based indices from an open canopy black spruce forest in Alaska,and comparison with indices from a closed canopy evergreen coniferous forest in Japan

Evaluation of the carbon, water, and energy balances in evergreen coniferous forests requires accurate in situ and satellite data regarding their spatio-temporal dynamics. Daily digital camera images can be used to determine the relationships among phenology, gross primary productivity (GPP), and meteorological parameters, and to ground-truth satellite observations. In this study, we examine the relationship between seasonal variations in camera-based canopy surface indices and eddy-covariance-based GPP derived from field studies in an Alaskan open canopy black spruce forest and in a Japanese closed canopy cedar forest. The ratio of the green digital number to the total digital number, hue, and GPP showed a bell-shaped seasonal profile at both sites. Canopy surface images for the black spruce forest and cedar forest mainly detected seasonal changes in vegetation on the floor of the forest and in the tree canopy, respectively. In contrast, the seasonal cycles of the ratios of the red and blue digital numbers to the total digital numbers differed between the two sites, possibly due to differences in forest structure and leaf color. These results suggest that forest structural characteristics, such as canopy openness and seasonal forest-floor changes, should be considered during continuous observations of phenology in evergreen coniferous forests.     

Characteristics of evapotranspiration from a permafrost black spruce forest in interior Alaska

Here, the year 2011 characteristics of evapotranspiration and the energy budget of a black spruce forest underlain by permafrost in interior Alaska were explored. Energy balance was nearly closed during summer, and the mean value of the daily energy balance ratio (the ratio of turbulent energy fluxes to available energy) from June to August was 1.00, though a large energy balance deficit was observed in the spring. Such a deficit was explained partly by the energy consumed by snowmelt. Ground heat flux played an important role in the energy balance, explaining 26.5% of net radiation during summer. The mean daily evapotranspiration of this forest during summer was 1.37 mm day^?1 – considered typical for boreal forests. The annual evapotranspiration and sublimation yielded 207.3 mm year^?1, a value much smaller than the annual precipitation. Sublimation accounted for 8.8% (18.2 mm year^?1) of the annual evapotranspiration and sublimation; thus, the sublimation is not negligible in the annual water balance in boreal forests. The daytime average decoupling coefficient was very small, and the mean value was 0.05 during summer. Thus, evapotranspiration from this forest was mostly explained by the component from the dryness of the air, resulting from the aerodynamically rough surface of this forest.     

Luminescence spectra of chabazite-Ca,a zeolite mineral

Chabazite-Ca deposited on dacite laccolith from Osódi Hill, Dunabogdány, Hungary, exhibited bluish-white luminescence under ultraviolet (UV) light. The photoluminescence (PL) and optical excitation spectra of chabazite-Ca were obtained at 300 K. The PL spectrum under 300-nm excitation consists of (1) a Ce³⁺ band with a peak at 340 nm, (2) a broad main band with a peak at 453 nm and (3) five narrow bands at 592, 616, 650, 700 and 734 nm due to Eu³⁺. The main band is spread over the entire visible-wavelength region. The excitation spectrum obtained by monitoring green luminescence at 520 nm consists of a band at wavelengths shorter than 200 nm and an extremely broad band with a peak at 385 nm. The extremely broad band is spread over not only the UV region but also the blue region. The features of PL and excitation spectra suggest that the origin of bluish-white luminescence is luminescent organic matter incorporated into chabazite-Ca crystals during growth.     

Trace element and Pb–B–Li isotope systematics of olivine-hosted melt inclusions: insights into source metasomatism beneath Stromboli (southern Italy)

We studied the elemental and isotopic (Pb, B and Li isotopes) composition of melt inclusions hosted in highly forsteritic (Fo_83–91) olivines that were collected from San Bartolo lava and pumice (ST79p, ST82p and ST531p) samples erupted by Stromboli in historical times. The studied melt inclusions have primitive calcalkaline to shoshonitic basaltic compositions. They cover a compositional range far wider than that exhibited by the whole-rocks and differ in key trace element ratios. San Bartolo melt inclusions are characterized by lower incompatible trace element abundances, higher ratios between fluid-mobile (B, Pb, U and LILE) and less fluid-mobile (REE, Th, HFSE) elements and lower La/Yb ratios relative to the pumice-hosted melt inclusions and pumiceous melts erupted during paroxysmal events. Trace elements, along with different Pb, B and Li isotopic signatures, attest to source heterogeneity on the small scale and provide new insights into subducted components beneath Stromboli. Results of a mixing model suggest that metasomatism of the mantle source of pumice-hosted melt inclusions was driven by solute-rich high-pressure fluids (<20%) expelled from the deep portion of the slab. Heterogeneous Pb isotopic composition together with light δ¹¹B (−8.6 to −13.7‰) and δ⁷Li (+2.3 to −1.7‰) indicates that high-pressure liquids were released in variable proportions from highly dehydrated metabasalts and metasediments. On the other hand, the elemental and isotopic (δ¹¹B ~ −1.9 to −5.9‰) composition of San Bartolo melt inclusions is better explained by the addition of a prevalent aqueous component (~2 to 4%) escaped at shallower depths from sediments and altered basaltic crust in almost equivalent proportions, with a smaller contribution by high-pressure fluids. Owing to the high-angle dip of the subducted cold Ionian slab, aqueous fluids and high-pressure fluids would rise through the mantle wedge and locally superimpose on each other, thus giving origin to variously metasomatized mantle domains.     

'Here we go again': Christchurch's antiracism rally as a discursive crisis

Abstract:   An antiracist rally in Christchurch, New Zealand in May 2004 was organized by Asian immigrants to protest and advocate for an end to everyday racism in their dealings with long settled New Zealanders, but public debate focused not on the experiences of recent migrants but on the question of whether Christchurch is racist. A discursive crisis, indicated by heavy media coverage in the weeks immediately before and after the event, is characterized by discourses of denial, affront and whiteness that indicate the social context in which racialization occurs. Such discourses are similar to those of 'new racism' in other immigrant societies.