Nabin K. Malakar, Ph.D.

NASA JPL
I am a computational physicist working on societal applications of machine-learning techniques.

Research Links

My research interests span multi-disciplinary fields involving Societal applications of Machine Learning, Decision-theoretic approach to automated Experimental Design, Bayesian statistical data analysis and signal processing.

Linkedin


Interested about the picture? Autonomous experimental design allows us to answer the question of where to take the measurements. More about it is here...

Hobbies

I addition to the research, I also like to hike, bike, read and play with water color.

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Friday, June 1, 2012

Write your Name with Galaxies: Galaxify

Reach for the stars, write your name with Galaxies!
Note the website above, created by astronomer Steven Bamford, which uses images of galaxies to recreate your message as an image.  The galaxy images are acquired through the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Galaxy Zoo projects.

Well, nabinkm.com appears as:

Did you ask: Which galaxies are used in this image?
























For the Geeky love birds out there:

Find out which ones were used!
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Solution to "Newton's Math Problem" by Shouryya Ray

OR,
Analytical solution of two fundamental unsolved problems of particle dynamics

When I heard that "Newton's math puzzle was solved", I searched for the problem. All I could find was the news with variation of the title: Newton math puzzle, a 350 year old problem, solved by an Indian boy who lives in Germany. Everyone is simply running after the boy and his origin. No description of his work. Yahoo, Google, Bing, all of them capturing the same news item! Of course they show what the interest has been.

The main contribution, which mattered to me, was buried in the pages.

Here is the winner abstract (the webpage was translated using Google translator in Chrome):
  • Category: Mathematics / computer science 
  • Supervisor: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jochen Fröhlich, Dr.-Ing. Tobias Kempe 
  • Competition Energy: Youth Research
Awards received:
  • Second Place in the national competition
  • Regional winner
  • Regional winner for the best interdisciplinary project
Two problems in classical mechanics have withstood several centuries of mathematical endeavor. The first problem is to calculate the trajectory of a body thrown at an angle in the Earth's gravitational field and Newtonian flow resistance. The underlying law was discovered by Newton (17th century). The second problem is the objective description of a particle-wall collision under Hertzian collision force and linear damping. The collision energy was derived in 1858 by Hertz, a linear damping force has been known since Stokes (1850).
This paper has so far only the analytical solution of this approximate or numerical targets for the problems solved. First, the two problems are solved fully analytically generalized context, they are then compared with numerical solutions and, finally, on the basis of the analytical solutions derived statements about the physical behavior.

Original page here:
Youth Research 2012 DD Ostsachsen
And the picture of Ray holding the equation:
https://www.jugend-forscht.de/images/1MAT_67_download.jpg
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Friday, May 25, 2012

Dragon Captured in Space

"Houston, looks like we got Dragon by the tail", Don Petit, astronaut in ISS controlling the Canadaarm2, announced.
SpaceX's Space dragon capsule has been roaming around the ISS for about three days. It carries cargo to ISS. After sophisticated tests and affirmation that Dragon will not be harmful to ISS, it has now been captured by a robotic arm. The process known as Berthing.
Credit: NASA TV screenshot.
... and now bolted to ISS...
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102371865054310418159/posts/aRSmBE2ZeYZ
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On May 22nd, @SpaceX  uccessfully launched the #Dragon capsule into orbit! 
This is the new venture to commute to the international space station (ISS) through private efforts and is the first commercial resupply vehicle to ISS. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18154937)

Here is a tweet linked to the beautiful arc when SpaceX lifted Dragon to space.
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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Solar Eclipse in East Asia and North America May 2012

Clouds permitted, we will be observing a solar eclipse this weekend on 20-21st May 2012.
The track of solar eclipse created by NASA. Source

More info at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_May_20,_2012

The Annular Solar Eclipse of 2012 May 20/21
See the interactive Google Map here:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle2001/SE2012May20Agoogle.html

Update: We came up to higher ground and waited for the Eclipse time. Only to be disappointed. My colleague Marc referenced it as Murphy's law striking.
Screenshot of Eclipse behind the clouds. Credit: Dr. Marc Hairston. 
Yes, there is an app for that! (See my android astronomy here.)
 After about an hour, I gave up and turned towards home. Then the Sun peeked from a space between the clouds! It was just before the sun was setting. I captured the moment with my cell.
 Left: no filter. Right: through the dark glasses.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Listening to the data by sonification

When you get a good chunk of data, what do you do first?
You probably plot different aspects of the data, trying to identify the patterns and characteristic signatures in it. Well, that is very helpful for visual people. 


What would auditory people do? they listen...
"Shhhh. Listen to the data." A Physics Today article by Toni Feder.
The process of converting the data to streaming sound is called data sonification. Sometimes the visual data is too noisy. Ear may be able to pick out the subtle structures in the data.
A quote from the article:
“When Voyager 1 flew by [Jupiter’s moon] Io in 1979, we detected whistlers”—low-frequency radio waves. “That was first detected by hearing. Your ears are amazing at picking out fine signals. In frequency–time spectra, you can choose the resolution when you process the data. If you choose the wrong resolution, you may not detect anything. You have to match what you are processing to the time resolution. Your ear does that automatically.”
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