11/11/22: Two papers resubmitted - both "response to reviewers" letters below!

  Agenda and Minutes


At the International UFO Museum, Roswell, NM. A mural painted by local students - a nice opportunity for the Roswell H.S. Art Club!

Updates

  • HA: 
    • Revised astronauts paper was resubmitted. He will forward the final copy to all. Here is the accompanying cover letter responding to the reviews:

Dear Dr. E#####,

     We would like to thank the editor and reviewers for their comments and suggestions on our submittal to the Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science (POAS4-2022). We have updated the manuscript accordingly and have responded to each input from the editor and reviewers below. We look forward to hearing back about the attached updated manuscript.

Respectfully,

The authors

Editor:

Both reviewers provide comments and suggestions for improvement, including better articulation of the rationale of the research in the introduction…

Response:

We have clarified in the introduction that the main contribution is based on the projections of future percentages of female astronauts.

Editor:

…as well as the novelty of the results in the results section.

Response:

We provided a new subsection in the Results section, subsection 2.1, which identifies and develops the new results that we obtained from analysis of the data. We also provided a concise summary of the contribution at the very end of the article.

Editor:

I invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the reviewers’ comments. Please submit the revised manuscript within 30 days (before November 13th, 2022).

Response:

Thank you for the encouragement, to which the attached manuscript responds.

 

Reviewer 1: 

The manuscript describes the past contributions of women to the space program, with emphasis on the proportion of astronauts going to space. The manuscript attempts to predict future participation based on current data…

Response:

Yes, this was the main point we are attempting to convey.

Reviewer 1:

The introduction is wandering and poorly structured. It does not set the stage appropriately for the results presented. I suggest the authors reorganize into two parts: a well references historical overview, and a justification section for the value of women’s participation in the space program. Currently, both topics are intermingled in the introduction, without a clear structuring pattern.

Response:

We have greatly reorganized the Introduction section, including breaking it into clearly delineated subsections, and hope that it is now satisfactory.

Reviewer 1:

Similarly, the authors should clearly elaborate on what sections of the manuscript is new analysis and what sections are simply plotting data that are retrieved from prior references (where it was presented in a text format).

Response:

We now have a new subsection, 2.1, entitled “A New Analysis,” and we specifically state the contribution in the first paragraph of that subsection.

Reviewer 1:

In the latter case, how does the current re-analysis provide new insights into the data at hand?

Response:

The new insight centers around Figure 7, while the earlier figures provide context and a feel for the underlying data.

 

Reviewer 2:

I offer the following suggestions for improving the manuscript.

Abstract “and trend if these percentages over time” should be “and trend of these percentages over time”.

Response:

We revised the abstract considerably, hoping to make it more readable.

Reviewer 2:

Figure 1. The numbers of women (and men) participation in space is a very niche profession, and a very miniscule number. I see very little correlation between overall participation of women in the workforce (Figure 1), and in the space program. As such, I question the value of figure 1.

Response:

We deleted the figure. (The former Figure 2 is now numbered as Figure 1.)

Reviewer 2:

Introduction. Please elaborate what the WISE program is.

Response:

We have spelled out the acronym and provided more explanation. 

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  • PT: Paper revision was sent out. 
    • Here is the letter of response to reviews for this paper:

Editor's comments:

"In addition, please update your literature with recently published papers on this emerging topic ..."

Authors' reply:

We conducted a new search of the literature on Google Scholar and the Web of Science on October 12, 2022 and ultimately collected two more studies relevant to the objective of the research, giving a final collection of 25 articles eligible to be considered for detailed review. We added the following two paragraphs to the section of 2.5.1 Research question one and modified all the tables, figures, and content affected by the inclusion of these two articles. The list of references has also been updated.

Howell et al. (2021) applied ARIMA models and its extension, ARIMAX, to investigate improvements in space exploration technology and compared their forecasting performance. They collected the data of spacecraft lifespan, which was used as a metric for improvement, for deep space missions from 1959 to the present day. The data set was divided into two groups, with 85% used as a training set and 15% used as a test set. Their analysis concluded that ARIMAX models achieved better performance than ARIMA models in predicting improvements in spacecraft lifespan.

Ray et al. (2022) forecast the development of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) technology in India using the yearly data of Bt cotton yield during 2002-2017 obtained from Cotton Advisory Board of India. A GM(1,1) grey model and its improved version were fitted to the first eleven observations for training and tested on the remaining four for model evaluation. After comparing the forecasting accuracy of both models, they found that the improved GM(1,1) grey model performed better for forecasting the Bt cotton yield in India. 

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1:

Comment 1:

Your statement "Until now, no attempt has been made to systematically review the empirical evidence on quantitative trend extrapolation techniques" assumes that you have accessed all the publications universally available. It is more appropriate to say that you have no evidence from the publications available to you that there has been little or no attempt to conduct an SLR on quantitative forecasting that is based on trending time series data and information. 

Authors' reply:

We modified the statement in Abstract according to the reviewer’s suggestion (Page 1):

Changed "Until now, no attempt has been made to systematically review the empirical evidence on quantitative trend extrapolation techniques." to "Based on the publications available to us, there has been little or no attempt made to systematically review the empirical evidence on quantitative trend extrapolation techniques."

Comment 2:

The paper is 66 pages long most probably because of your first SLR question. This question also implies that you conduct a bibliometric research. Perhaps you can reframe and narrow the question. Forecasting is futuristic, and future data is not available in the present, so future trends based on factual data may only be extrapolated by assuming ergodicity and some level of stationarity in the ensemble of signals chosen to represent future phenomena. 

Authors' reply:

We modified the first SLR question according to the reviewer’s suggestion (Page 9 and 21):

Old Q1: What existing research related to using quantitative trend extrapolation methods for technology forecasting has been conducted?

New Q1: What existing research provides about the implementation of quantitative trend extrapolation methods for technology forecasting?

Reviewer #2:

Comment:

I see the paper as a valuable one however there are some papers that the authors omitted. The elimination amount of the irrelevant papers appears too high. Authors should at least consider the following papers for their review.

-T Dereli, A Durmusoglu, A trend-based patent alert system for technology watch, CSIR

-T Dereli, A Durmusoglu, Alerting companies through on-line patent trend analysis, Cybernetics and Systems: An International Journal 41 (5), 371-390

-T Dereli, A Durmuşoğlu, Application of possibilistic fuzzy regression for technology watch, Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems 21 (5), 353-363 

Authors' reply:

We added the following statement covering the articles suggested by the reviewer to the section of Machine Learning (Page 46):

"Moreover, Dereli and Durmuşoğlu (2009, 2010a, 2010b) performed linear regression modeling of patent information to develop a trend-based patent alert system (PAS)." 

The articles also have been added to the list of references (Page 61):

Dereli, T., & Durmuşoğlu, A. (2009). A trend-based patent alert system for technology watch. Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research, 68(8), 674–679. http://nopr.niscpr.res.in/bitstream/123456789/5299/1/JSIR%2068%288%29%20674-679.pdf

Dereli, T., & Durmuşoğlu, A. (2010a). Alerting Companies Through on-Line Patent Trend Analysis. Cybernetics and Systems, 41(5), 371–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/01969722.2010.486225

Dereli, T., & Durmuşoğlu, A. (2010b). Application of possibilistic fuzzy regression for technology watch. Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, 21(5), 353–363. https://doi.org/10.3233/IFS-2010-0467

Reviewer #3:

Comment 1:

This review paper presents the quantitative technology forecasting using the trend of extrapolation methods. It’s a nice review paper. The authors used several references in their literature but the suggested research work needs more references with the advantages or disadvantages of the reference papers used in the work. 

Authors' reply:

We added Table 1 and the following to the section of Introduction (Page 5 and 6):

Table 1 presents a comparison of existing surveys of the literature on technology forecasting (TF). In summary, despite their contributions, these studies suffer from the following weaknesses:

     Most surveys did not use the SLR approach to conduct the review.

     Most surveys are not up to date, and thus many relevant studies published in recent years have been skipped.

     Several studies concentrated on a specific technological domain where the TF methods were applied.

     None of the studies comprehensively and thoroughly addressed the quantitative techniques for trend extrapolation applied to diverse contexts.

Comment 2:

The introduction section should have bullet points to show the contribution of the research work to science as well.  The research can be improved. 

Authors' reply:

We added the following with the bullet points to the section of Introduction (Page 5):

By addressing these weaknesses, this study offers three major contributions to the scientific literature as listed below:

     It is the first attempt, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to conduct an SLR on technology forecasting addressing the application of quantitative trend extrapolation techniques to various technologies.

     It gives an updated picture of the published studies on applying quantitative trend extrapolation to technology forecasting and serves as a reference for technology forecasting researchers interested in employing an SLR as a research approach.

    It helps familiarize scholars and practitioners with the current state of quantitative trend extrapolation methods for technology forecasting and identify a direction for developing and improving the methods.

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  • Recent space activities? 
      • Mars Orbiter Mission. News of its ending recently was received. (Ended Oct. 3?)
      • DART mission update next time? Camera (LICIAcube) is still in existence.
      • Artemis 1 is scheduled (again!) to launch in mid-Nov.
      • NASA's InSight Mars lander on the verge of ending due to dust.
      • Here is the lunar calendar for 2022. This is a new potential hiccup in developing a Moore's law for deep space vessel lifetimes.
        1. Launched: CAPSTONE, a 12-unit CubeSat, lunar orbiter with 9-month planned lifetime, launched after delays. Launch vehicle Lunar Photon may also be a separate independent deep space vessel.
        2. Future: Artemis 1 mission launch was delayed a few times, is now rescheduled for a some time yet to come.
          • Payload: Orion capsule with no crew, will not be reused, and short lifetime of 25 days ending in reentry and recovery
            • Contents: instruments, etc.
          • Payloads: Multiple CubeSats including JAXA's OMOTENASHI
        3. Future: CLPS-1 (Peregrine Mission One), launching in Q4 2022
          • Payload: Peregrine lander with short lifetime
            • Contents: rovers, instruments, etc. with longer lifetimes
        4. Future: CLPS-2 (IM-1) (Intuitive Machines 1), launching Dec. 22
          • Payload: Nova-C lander (lifetime: 1 lunar day)
            • Contents: instruments, rover, CubeSat camera
          • DOGE 1 (CubeSat)
          • Lunar Flashlight (CubeSat)
        5. Future: Luna 25, launching Sept. (doubtful?) by Russia
      • Future: Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), JAXA vessel launching in 2022, short lifetime of 2-3 weeks in orbit and several days after landing
2. Reading and discussion

  • Reading that we are starting today: From Jonathan's Space Pages, https://www.planet4589.org, we started examining the various data files ("catalogs") and their documentation pages. Vote was 4. The location is https://planet4589.org/space/index.html.
    • Today we started on "GCAT: General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects," a documentation page at https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/index.html. We got up to the paragraph beginning "Each time the object transitions..." and will start there next time.
  • Readings that have been rated: we previously scanned and voted on them and they might or might not be read in more depth at some point. Listed in decreasing order of vote score. 
    • One of McDowell's *yearly* (not the more frequent news) reports, in particular, the most recent one: https://planet4589.org/space/papers/space21.pdf. We read through the first paragraph of section 1.1. Vote to continue was 4.
    • Already voted on: Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology. Let's find out more about it. We skimmed https://www.picmet.org/main/ and the question next is whether we want to read through the site in more detail. Do we search this site for another paper/papers to read? Vote was 3 11/12.
    • Already voted on. We found that the paper at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-40896-1_3 seems like it might be a good paper for us to read. Vote was 3.9.
    • Already voted on: One candidate: https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/394111 is a recent account of using DEA (which is part of TFDEA). We rechecked the abstract and read the first paragraph. Votes were: 3,5,2,5,4, averaging 3.8. 
    • Goldin et al., The Productivity Paradox, https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/productivity-paradox/. We read the "Home" tab and 2 paragraphs of the "Background" tab. Vote to continue reading was: 3.5.
    • 5/20/22: We read the enlarged font paragraph at the beginning of "Women's Place in Space Exploration, 1996, ...\femaleAstronauts\relatedArticles\WomenPlaceInSpaceExplorationRef2.pdf. Vote was 3 1/3.
    • Already voted on: The Institute for Progress. They address questions like what policies and social factors affect technological progress. We will try out a bit of https://progress.institute/immigration-powers-american-progress/ to see if we want to read it in full. Vote was 3 2/7.
    • Voted on 4/15/22: One of McDowell's update reports, available on the website. Link is: https://planet4589.org/space/jsr/jsr.html. We checked #804. Vote was 3 1/12.
  • Possible readings/videos that have not yet been scanned and voted on. As time allows, read/view paragraph/minute or two of each and vote: Should we read it in more depth? 5=strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=neutral, 2=disagree, 1=strongly disagree.
    • Newly added 9/16/22: J. Trancik, Testing and improving technology forecasts for better climate policy, PNAS 2021.
    • Chad Jones, https://web.stanford.edu/~chadj/, writes about endogenous growth theory.
    • Pantelis Koutroumpis, The Productivity Paradox, a report.
    • Some interesting videos are at the Kartik Gada channel such as at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuRX67CJhaOT98Jdjh85CEQ which we discussed previously.
    • https://www.planet4589.org. Astronautics section. Something we haven't read yet, like one of the yearly reports. 
    • Future Spaceflight Meditations, a cosmist perspective, by Jiulio Prisco, physicist formerly with the ESA.
  • Completed readings
    • We finished section 6 of MR paper (C:\Users\jdberleant\Dropbox\research\SpaceTravelMetric-b6-5-16\PapersAndPresentations\byOthers\MatthewRoughanDraft.pdf). This completes the parts that we planned to read. 
    • Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9o66fH_sgo (about MOXIE device which converts CO2 to oxygen). We then read a bit more about MOXIE on wikipedia.
    • Https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/we-need-new-science-progress/594946 on "progress studies." Completed 9/30/22.
    • Ryan et al., "A Forgotten Moment in Physiology: the Lovelace Woman in Space Program (1960-1962)", 2009. Completed 7/22/22.
    • Various previous papers.
  • Here are some generic questions about articles (and videos):
    • What is the source?
    • What is the most significant advance in the human knowledge presented in the paper?
    • Why is that advance important?
    • What important questions arise from the paper for future research?
    • What important questions would it be nice if the paper answered, but does not answer?
    • What does the paper present that is novel (no one else has provided that before)?
    • What is the relevance of the paper to our satellite research goals?
    • Questions from the group?

 

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11/13/24: Reviewing, etc.

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