Cross-Lingual Linking of News Stories using ESA

In this paper, we describe our approach for Cross-Lingual linking of Indian news stories, submitted for Cross-Lingual Indian News Story Search (CL!NSS) task at FIRE 2012. Our approach consists of two major steps, the reduction of search space by using di�erent features and ranking of the news stories according to their relatedness scores. Our approach uses Wikipedia-based Cross-Lingual Explicit Semantic Analysis (CLESA) to calculate the semantic similarity and relatedness score between two news stories in di�erent languages. We evaluate our approach on CL!NSS dataset, which consists of 50 news stories in English and 50K news stories in Hindi.

Plasma kinetics issues in an ESA study for a plasma laboratory in space

A study supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), in the context of its General Studies Programme, performed an investigation of the possible use of space for studies in pure and applied plasma physics, in areas not traditionally covered by ‘space plasma physics’. A set of experiments have been identified that can potentially provide access to new phenomena and to allow advances in several fields of plasma science. These experiments concern phenomena on a spatial scale (101–104 m) intermediate between what is achievable on the ground and the usual solar system plasma observations. Detailed feasibility studies have been performed for three experiments: active magnetic experiments, largescale discharges and long tether–plasma interactions. The perspectives opened by these experiments are discussed for magnetic reconnection, instabilities, MHD turbulence, atomic excited states kinetics, weakly ionized plasmas,plasma diagnostics, artificial auroras and atmospheric studies. The discussion is also supported by results of numerical simulations and estimates.

The ESA "Plasma Laboratory in Space" study

The European Space Agency has initiated, in the context of its General Studies Programme, a study of the possible use of space for studies in pure and applied plasma physics, in areas not traditionally covered by “space plasma physics”. A team of experts has been set-up to review a broad range of area including industrial plasma physics and pure plasma physics, astrophysical and solar-terrestrial areas. A set of experiments have been identified that can potentially provide access to new phenomena and to allow advances in several fields of plasma science. These experiments concern phenomena on spatial scale (102 to104 m) intermediate between what is achievable on ground experiment and usual solar system plasma observations.

Laser sounding from space; report of the ESA Technology Working Group on Space Laser Sounding and Ranging

The purpose and principles of spaceborne lidar are described, giving particular attention to candidates for space deployment, including simple backscatter lidar for measuring of cloud top height, cloud extend and optical properties, differential absorption lidar providing high vertical resolution measurements of humidity, temperature and pressure, a wind profiling lidar with the unique capability of improved weather forecasting and global dynamics, and a ranging and altimeter lidar for very accurate measurement of surface features, including ground, sea and ice cap height for solid earth studies.