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January 28, 2011
ISGC 2011 Conference, Taipei, Taiwan, 21 - 25 March

The upcoming ISGC 2011 (International Symposium on Grids and Clouds 2011) conference, in conjunction with OGF31 (Open Grid Forum), will be held in Taipei, Taiwan from 21 - 25 March 2011. Please visit here to register for this joint event. We welcome you to register before 28 February 2011 to enjoy the Early Bird rates!

December 1, 2010
Collecting data gets easier with EpiCollect

Read about how the EpiCollect application can help field researchers gather data.

November 10, 2010
Feature - Can a digital earth save the planet?

Feature - Can a digital earth save the planet?

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Ash spewing from Iceland’s volcano, “Eyjafjallajoekull’ in 2010, in an image from the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite. Image courtesy ESA (European Space Agency).

With climate change hot on the agenda, activists, scientists and politicians are looking into what can be done to provide a united front against this global issue.
At the 8th e-Infrastructure Concertation Meeting, held at CERN last Thursday and  Friday, a networking event organized by the European Commission (EC), one such project aims to consolidate the various Earth sciences. Their work could reduce the loss of life and property due to natural disasters, and help us better understand how our planet’s climate is changing.
Ground European Network for Earth Science Interoperations - Digital Earth Community (GENESI-DEC) is focused on providing a virtual resource for scientist

October 20, 2010
Announcement - New European petaflop supercomputer available in 2011

Announcement - New European Petaflop supercomputer available in 2011

Photo courtesy PRACE

In 2011, the 1.6 Petaflop French supercomputer, Curie, will be installed and available for use. Powered by more than 90,000 processor cores, it will be exclusively dedicated to European research and available for all fields of science, including high-energy and plasma physics, climatology and much more.
“It is crucial to have high computing power to simulate, with the most possible realism, the past of our climate, the current conditions and its future evolution according to various scenarios,” said Jean Jouzel, vice-president of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
Scientists and engineers will also be able to use Curie’s simulations to explore the properties of various materials, improve aircraft and car construction, design better drugs, understand the intricate molecular functions of the human body and conduct simulations that are impractical in reality.
Cur

October 20, 2010
Feature - Climate model tackles clouds

Feature - Climate model tackles clouds

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Animation from the NICAM model simulation of 21 May - 31 August 2009, showing cloudiness (based on outgoing long-wave radiation) in shades of gray and precipitation rate in rainbow colors, based on hourly data from the simulation. The cloudiness is shaded in brighter gray for thicker clouds, and the colors range from shades of green, indicating precipitation rate less than 1 mm/day, to yellow and orange (1 - 16 mm/day), to red (16-64 mm/day) and magenta (> 64 mm/day). The animation begins zoomed in over India and the Bay of Bengal, showing the fact that tropical cyclone Aila, which in reality made landfall near Calcutta killing dozens of Indian and Bangladeshi citizens and displacing over 100,000 people from their homes, was very accurately predicted in the simulation.
Video and caption courtesy NICS

Few areas of science are currently hotter than clima

October 6, 2010
Announcement - Registration open, Computing and Astroparticle Physics-ASPERA, Lyon, France

Announcement - Registration open, Computing and Astroparticle Physics-ASPERA, Lyon, France

Photo courtesy ASPERA

Registration is now open for Computing and Astroparticle Physics-ASPERA, to be hold in Lyon, France from 07 October to 08 October 2010.
Astroparticle Physics has grown in a few years from a field of a few charismatic pioneers transgressing interdisciplinary frontiers to a global science activity projecting very large infrastructures involving hundreds of researchers each. In particular, the large infrastructures proposed in the ASPERA Roadmap will face challenging problems of data collection, data storage and data mining. In some of these, the cost of computing will be a significant fraction of the cost of the infrastructure and the issues of model of computation, data mining complexity and public access will be extremely challenging.
In the Lyon workshop these issues will be addressed, along with data storage and analysis models developed in neighboring fields such as part

October 6, 2010
Feature - A lasting ocean observatory

Feature - A lasting ocean observatory

A map indicates the location of the four major ocean arrays, as well as the two minor ones. Click for a larger version. Image courtesy of OOI - CEV at University of Washington.

Agile architecture is essential if a large-scale infrastructure like the Ocean Observatories Initiative is to last three decades, as mandated.
“The Ocean Observatory has been in planning for fifteen years and more,” said Matthew Arrott, OOI’s project manager for cyberinfrastructure. “It is our anticipation, over a 30 year lifespan, that we need to account for user needs and the technology that we are using all changing.”
That’s why they’ve focused their attention on creating an infrastructure that can interface with a wide variety of software packages and computational resource providers.
“The observatory supports a broad range of analysis with the expectation that the majority of the analysis capability will be provided a

September 22, 2010
Feature - Surfing for earthquakes

Feature - Surfing for earthquakes

Aftermath of Haiti earthquake. Image courtesy UN Development Program

A better understanding of the ground beneath our feet may come from research by seismologists and an organization called RAPID—a group of computer scientists at the University of Edinburgh.
The very structure of the Earth controls how earthquakes travel and the amount of damage they cause. Therefore, a clear picture of this structure would be extremely valuable to earthquake planners — but it requires the analysis of huge amounts of data.
To help, the RAPID team developed a system that performs the seismologists’ data-crunching, and have made it easy to use by relying on an interface familiar to all scientists: a web browser.
Seismologists measure vibrations in the Earth at hundreds of observatories across Europe, which allows them to study earthquakes as they travel across countries and continents. By measuring the speed and strength of the vibrations at d

June 9, 2010
Feature - Seeing particles with VPM

Feature - Seeing particles with VPM

VPM Interview from Renaissance Computing Institute on Vimeo.

Before we can make use of data, we need to make sense of it. But with complex concepts such as particulate air pollution, you could just as easily drown in the data.
And that’s exactly what was happening when NASA first approached Uma Shankar, an atmospheric scientist at the Institute for the Environment at UNC Chapel Hill, to ask what sort of advanced visualizations the particulate matter research community needed.
After some thought, Shankar suggested an application to visualize particulate matter across the range of sizes in which it occurs.
“Particulate matter has such important impacts on a variety of air quality issues, especially human health” Shankar explained. “Now we better understand the connection between particulate matter and climate, so its importance is even greater than we originally understood.”
Despite this better understanding, the existing visu

May 26, 2010
Announcement - CI Summer Institute for Geoscientists applications due 6 June

Announcement - CI Summer Institute for Geoscientists accepting applications, 6 June deadline

The 7th Cyberinfrastructure Summer Institute for Geoscientists is now accepting applications.
The event will take place 9-13 August at the San Diego Supercomputer Center on the University of California, San Diego campus.
The broad theme for CSIG’10 will be emergent geoinformatic approaches to 3D and 4D integration of geoscience data. Given the diverse interests of past CSIG participants, and based on feedback that they have provided, CSIG’10 will feature two “tracks” of instruction:

Build Track: technologies related to building geoinformatics systems; and
Education Track: use of geoinformatics resources in education

Interested applicants at all levels are encouraged to apply, including graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and professionals in earth science and related disciplines. Applicants will have the option to choose the track of interest at the time of applica

April 28, 2010
Announcement - Tell us your travel tales coming back from the User Forum

Announcement - Tell us your travel tales coming back from the User Forum, win a T-shirt

Screen shot showing air traffic over Europe, and places with closed airports as of Friday night, April 16. Blue is closed, yellow is open. Image courtesy FlightRadar24.com

Now that air transportation is slowly getting back to normal in the wake of that ash cloud from the Iceland volcano, stories have been streaming in from User Forum attendees about their adventures in returning home from the conference site in central Sweden. To collect them all in one place, GridCast is encouraging travelogue blogposts on its site.
To get the ball rolling, here’s our adventure tale:
 
iSGTW and company had some . . . colorful . . . moments on the way home to Geneva, such as the incident with the bus tickets we didn’t need, gave away, and then realized we did need — and then found in the trash at the ticket counter.
Or the all-night bus on Sunday between Stockholm and Copenhagen with the br

April 28, 2010
Image of the week - Earthquake comics

Image of the Week - Earthquake comics

Image courtesy PHIVOLCS

In the EUAsiaGrid Disaster Mitigation Workshop at ISGC 2010, Bart Bautista of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) reminded delegates that it is not enough to simply detect earthquakes and the tsunamis they produce with sophisticated sensors, or simulate them with grid computing. Countries in earthquake-prone regions must also invest heavily in preparing the population to cope with major natural disasters. This starts in schools, where outreach material like the comic book shown above is used to raise awareness among children.
— Francois Grey, EUAsia Grid

March 24, 2010
Feature - Ecological forecasting in NEON

Feature - Ecological forecasting in NEON

TOP: NEON's proto-tower just north of Boulder, Colorado, where the project is testing equipment. The site is already producing a real-data stream.
BOTTOM: Hongyan Luo conducts tests at the base of NEON's test proto-tower.
Images courtesy of NEON, Inc.

Massive independent networks of environmental and ecological data stations distributed across the globe could launch environmental science into the petascale era, transforming the way scientists look at our planet.
In the United States, the National Ecological Observatory Network is poised to begin construction later this year.
“What NEON is about is measuring the effects of climate change, land use change, and invasive species on continental scale ecology. And we’re doing that in order to enable ecological forecasting,” said Michael Keller, the chief of science at NEON.
Ecological forecasting, like weather forecasting, uses extensive data sets over large areas and pe

March 17, 2010
Feature - Sixty seconds to save a city

Feature - Sixty seconds to save a city

Circles indicate warning times for the earthquake that hit Taiwan on 4 March 2010, using a new approach to detection that gives up to 40 seconds more early warning. Taipei is the northernmost city indicated on the map, on the 50 second circle. Image courtesy Nai-Chi Hsiao, Central Weather Bureau, Taiwan.

At the International Symposium on Grid Computing (ISGC 2010) in Taipei last week, a special two-day EUAsiaGrid Disaster Mitigation Workshop devoted a day to the latest technological progress in monitoring and simulating earthquakes and tsunamis. In a situation where every second counts, grid computing could one day help authorities assess the potential impact of an earthquake quickly enough to avoid the worst consequences.
 
The day before ISGC 2010 began, Taiwan was hit by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake in the south part of the island, making headlines worldwide.
But earthquakes are a daily reality for Taiwan’s inhabitants, and indeed

January 27, 2010
Announcement - Register now for Security Jam on 4-9 Feb, on-line event

Announcement - Register now for Security Jam, to be held 4-9 Feb (on-line event)

Image courtesy Security Jam

The European Commission and NATO are joining together as co-sponsors of a worldwide online brainstorm — the Security Jam — with the aim of producing recommendations on how to make our world a safer place.
To be held online from 4 February to 9 February, this event will feature topics such as: Climate Change, Crisis Management, Afghanistan, Human Rights, Piracy, and Development. This format will allow stakeholders direct access to a broad level of input from NGOs, security & defence practitioners, political and military figures, think tanks, academics and journalists.
Several thousand participants will debate online over the 5-day period. And, as an online session, it allows participants to log in and log out at their convenience, from anywhere in the world, once they’re registered.
Security Jam is organized by a number of think-tanks, including t

January 20, 2010
Image of the week: Seeing with lasers

Image of the week - Seeing with lasers

Top: LiDAR point cloud data for the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone National Park. Data source is EarthScope LiDAR hosted by the OpenTopography Facility. Image shows approximately 8.3 million individual LiDAR returns. The historic Old Faithful Inn is the structure at left. The Old Faithful Geyser is in the middle of the image.
Bottom: LiDAR digital elevation model (DEM)-derived image of Fish Springs cinder cone and the Owens Valley fault in eastern California produced from OpenTopography-hosted EarthScope LiDAR data.
Credit: Christopher Crosby, SDSC. Source: San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego.

The data used to create these images was gathered using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), a technology that utilizes lasers to record precise and extremely high resolution topographical information.
The San Diego Supercomputer Center′s OpenTopography portal provides free access to LiDAR data sets, including the EarthScope data

December 9, 2009
Case study: The GeoChronos web portal

Case study: The GeoChronos web portal

Surface reflectance and ocean temperature, an example of Earth observation science. Image courtesy of Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC.

When GeoChronos launches, it will serve up a buffet of scientific and social networking ingredients that together empower Earth observation scientists to collaborate and make new discoveries.
The GeoChronos recipe didn't come out right the first time, however. The path the GeoChronos team has followed provides valuable insight into the process of creating a scientific web portal.
“The idea is that scientists can come to a portal where they process and share their data without having to worry about the overall technical details of how that’s being done,” said Cameron Kiddle, a research fellow for the Grid Research Centre at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.
Social networking features and collaborative tools are a must for the project, and so the first GeoC

December 9, 2009
Feature - Observing oceans online

Feature - Observing oceans online

Overview map of the NEPTUNE Canada observatory off the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The network, which extends across the Juan de Fuca plate, will gather live data from a rich constellation of instruments deployed in a broad spectrum of undersea environments. This system will provide free Internet access to an immense wealth of data, both live and archived throughout the life of this planned 25-year project. Image courtesy NEPTUNE Canada.

Although the Earth is mostly water, scientists know relatively little about the ocean floor. But with the creation of ocean observatories such as NEPTUNE Canada, all that could change.
Until recently, scientists had to use cruise ships, satellites, and temporary probes to study the world’s oceans. This allowed them to take occasional snapshots of the ocean for later study.
Ocean observatories are made up of more permanent installations of instruments directly on the ocean floor, along the co

November 25, 2009
Event of the Week - D4Science World User Meeting

Event of the week: D4Science World User Forum

Climate change will produce major shifts in the productivity of the world’s fisheries, with an average of 30–70% increase in high-latitude regions and a drop of up to 40% in the tropics. This will affect ocean food supply throughout the world, particularly in the tropics.
This image shows the change in maximum catch potential (percent change relative to 2005) from 2005 to 2055 in each ½ x ½ degree cell under one of the climate change scenarios described by this study. Image courtesy the Sea Around Us project. Click on map to enlarge.

There are several independant projects studying things such as climate change, the decline in the the world’s fisheries, and the effects upon our food supply — such as the map above from the Sea Around Us project.
But how do you bring all this source material together into one centralized, coordinated place? How can you produce computer-generated, reproducible rang

November 11, 2009
Announcement - Webinar on Digital Elevation Models

Announcement - Webinar on Digital Elevation Models

Photo courtesy of Konrad Glogowski and the Virtual Classroom Project.

The free webinar "Introduction to Digital Elevation Models" is scheduled to run on 12 November 2009 at:

9:00 a.m. PST
10:00 a.m. MST
11:00 a.m. CST
12:00 p.m. EST
5:00 p.m. GMT

The webinar is sponsored by Intermap Technologies and the ASPRS Student Advisory Council.
The website states:
"As the fields of digital mapping and geospatial analysis continue to grow, the use of 3D data is becoming more widespread. One of the most common types of 3D data is a digital elevation model, or DEM. In this Webinar, we'll talk about what DEMs are and how they differ from other types of spatial data. We'll also look at some of the sources of DEM data, their quality, and how they are generated. Lastly, we'll look at examples of how you can use DEMs in sophisticated geospatial analysis to solve real-world problems."
For more information about this webinar, or to register, pl

November 11, 2009
Feature - Envirogrids: Protecting the Black Sea

Feature - Envirogrids: Protecting the Black Sea

Kız Kulesi (Leander’s Tower) in Istanbul’s harbor, whose waters feed into the Black Sea via the Bosphorus Straits. The EnviroGRIDS project will aid in protecting an area of great natural and cultural beauty. Image courtesy özhan 

The Argonauts sailed on its waters. Its eastern shores (now Georgia) marked the boundary of the known world to the Ancient Greeks. The lands along its northern shores are possibly the cradle of the Indo-European language family. The Black Sea region is rich in culture, history, natural beauty and — for the past 50 years — environmental problems.The land area containing the tributaries that feed into the Black Sea is five times the size of the sea itself (2 million square km). This “catchment basin” stretchs from near Munich in the west, the headwaters of the Danube near Moscow in the north, close to the border of Kazakhstan in the east, from the source o

November 4, 2009
Feature - FOOTWAYS takes its first steps

Feature - FOOTWAYS takes its first steps

Footways started quite literally in the back of someone’s garage. Image courtesy Igor Dubus

Google, Hewlett Packard and Apple all had humble beginnings in the back of someone’s garage. Could the same be true in the back of a garage in Orleans, France?
“I had never seen a router/switch in my life, I had to get into VPN, network, perl scripting. I also had problems with electricity supply and consumption — this was my home, not a dedicated IT room,” says Igor Dubus.
This was only the beginning. Having built a 96-node cluster in his garage to run computer models as the coordinator of the FOOTPRINT project (iSGTW ran an article about FOOTPRINT earlier this year,) Dubus launched his own start-up company, called FOOTWAYS. His goal is to develop this “garage-cluster” into a 12,000-node high performance computing center dedicated to pesticide modeling.
FOOTPRINT, an EU project, seeks to minimize water contam

November 4, 2009
Image of the Week - More than a TOY

 

Image of the week - More than a TOY

Image courtesy CU/NCAR and the TOY Geophysical Turbulence Summer School

Every year, the Institute for Mathematics Applied to Geosciences conducts a 3-week-long Geophysical Turbulence Summer School, in which students learn how to model complex phenomena as part of a course on computational methods, scientific computing and visualization. In 2008, their Theme Of the Year, or TOY, was on gravity waves. And the above is what team of students — Jochem Floor, Neven-Stjepan Fuckar, and Dorota Jarecka — came up with, to illustrate the idea of a gravity wave.

October 21, 2009
Feature - Clearing the air: solving an atmospheric controversy with DEISA

Feature - Clearing the air: solving an atmospheric controversy with DEISA

The PINNACLE project tests climate models. Image courtesy UCAR

Scientists seeking to develop models for predicting weather, climate and air quality have long been confronted with the fundamental problem of how to accurately forecast the height of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) as it develops during daytime heating.
In an attempt to solve this controversy, a team of scientists from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, together with Imperial College London and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, initiated the PINNACLE project, using the resources of the DEISA grid of supercomputers.
The ABL is the lower layer of the atmosphere, the part which we live in. Its height grows throughout the day, from a few hundred meters in the morning to one kilometer or more in the afternoon. The ABL has a large Reynolds number (a measure of the turbulence of the system), which me

October 14, 2009
Feature - Supercomputing code helps develop new solar cells

Feature - Supercomputing code helps develop new solar cells

Image courtesy of Patrick Moore.

If scientists could use simulations to zoom in on the atomic level of solar cells, the insight they gain could launch solar power into the next energy orbital.
Unfortunately, those simulations would require an exorbitant amount of computational power.
“Typically we need to simulate tens of thousands of atoms,” said Lin-Wang Wang, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “For the conventional code, if the number of atoms increases by a factor of ten, the computational load increases by a factor of a thousand.”
In fact, the same problem arises with nano-scale simulations of a wide variety of materials. That’s why Wang and his research team came up with the LS3DF code.
“We were thinking about how to improve the algorithm and have linear scaling,” said Wang. When an algorithm scales linearly, the computational cost increases at the same rate