Automatic Inspection of Radio Astronomical Surveys (AIRAS)

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atmire.migration.oldid4937
dc.contributor.advisorBarker, Kenneth Edwin
dc.contributor.advisorStil, Jereon Maarten
dc.contributor.authorSaid, Dina Adel
dc.contributor.committeememberFiege, Jason
dc.contributor.committeememberRokne, Jon
dc.contributor.committeememberDenzinger, Jörg
dc.contributor.committeememberLeahy, Denis
dc.date.accessioned2016-10-04T20:04:31Z
dc.date.available2016-10-04T20:04:31Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.date.submitted2016en
dc.description.abstractThis research investigates the problem of analyzing radio astronomical surveys (RAS) to automatically identify groups of objects forming patterns that astronomers are interested to find. The visual inspection of RAS to find these interesting patterns requires a lot of time and effort to go through thousands of images in RAS. Moreover, the visual process can be infeasible in very crowded and noisy images. To tackle this problem, this research presents AIRAS: the first reported system for the automatic inspection of RAS. AIRAS consists of two main stages; (i) STAGE 1: Object finding where all objects in RAS are found and presented in a graph-based representation called the astronomy graph (AG), and (ii) STAGE 2: Pattern querying and retrieval where astronomers specify the characteristics of interesting patterns in a query form. Afterwards, AIRAS finds patterns matching these characteristics in the AG and presents them to astronomers for further investigation. Astronomers can use AIRAS to detect patterns known to be suspicious (i.e. they consist of false astronomical objects or artifacts). Among these patterns are the hexagonal pattern (HP) and the zigzag pattern (ZP). In the HP, objects form a hexagon shape with an object in the middle, similar to the shape of the front end of the Arecibo telescope horn. In the ZP, objects are aligned in an orientation with the horizontal axis similar to the scanning line of the radio telescope. These two patterns are used as case studies to evaluate AIRAS performance using images from the GALFACTS project; a project carried out at the University of Calgary in cooperation with several research institutes worldwide. The experimental studies show that AIRAS is a promising system that finds patterns in RAS in response to astronomers’ queries with an acceptable accuracy. Additionally, AIRAS can be extended to connect the patterns found with their physical signals to provide more insights about the nature of these patterns.en_US
dc.identifier.citationSaid, D. A. (2016). Automatic Inspection of Radio Astronomical Surveys (AIRAS) (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25082en_US
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/25082
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11023/3404
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisher.facultyGraduate Studies
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Calgaryen
dc.publisher.placeCalgaryen
dc.rightsUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subjectAstronomy and Astrophysics
dc.subjectComputer Science
dc.subject.classificationPattern Queryen_US
dc.subject.classificationAstroinformaticsen_US
dc.subject.classificationGALFACTSen_US
dc.subject.classificationImage Segmentationen_US
dc.subject.classificationPattern Recognitionen_US
dc.subject.classificationGraph Miningen_US
dc.subject.classificationAstronomy Graphen_US
dc.subject.classificationImage Thresholdingen_US
dc.titleAutomatic Inspection of Radio Astronomical Surveys (AIRAS)
dc.typedoctoral thesis
thesis.degree.disciplineComputer Science
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Calgary
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.item.requestcopytrue
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