Dan Atkins on CLEAR

CI = "competitive intelligence"

"CI" is now being used as an easier way of writing or saying "cyberinfrastructure."  But to some I have recently found out it means "competitive intelligence" as in http://www.quantum3.co.za/CI%20Building%20a%20CI%20Team.htm

Most highly defined spatial and temporal simulation of the Universe

UNIVERSE SIMULATION

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) has achieved the most highly defined spatial and temporal simulation of the universe using Enzo, a parallel, 3D cosmology hydrodynamics code. It took place during a 48-hour period and involved more than 10,000 CPU hours on the center's TeraGrid system.

SDSC's global parallel filing system (GPFS), combined with a strategic area network (SAN) that SDSC has especially configured to handle vast amounts of data, allowed the research team to write the 26 terabytes to disk through 128 nodes running simultaneously.

The calculation involved 2,000 simulated snapshots of a wide expanse of the universe -- approximately 250 million light years across -- each one signifying the passage of 6.8 million years, to encompass the nearly 14 billion years from the Big Bang to the present.

For more information, visit: http://www.sdsc.edu/Press/2005/05/052605_skysurvey.html

From [email protected], 6/2/2005.

NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure

At the most recent meeting of the National Science Board (NSB), Dr. Arden Bement, Director of the NSF announced the creation of a new Office of Cyberinfrastructure reporting to the Director. The current Division of Shared Cyberinfrastructure (SCI) within CISE will be subsumed by the  this new office. A internal plan giving more details about the function and priorities of this office is now under internal review, including by members of the NSB.  Within one or two months a public version of the report will be made available and comments will be actively sought from a broad set of stakeholders. A director for the new office will be sought beginning late summer or early fall.

In my view this is a very good move consistent with the foundation-wide nature of an advanced cyberinfrastructure program. It is very consistent with the recommendations of the Advisory Panel of Cyberinfrastructure I chaired. CISE will continue to be an indispensable directorate for R&D relevant to creating advanced cyberinfrastructure, but it will no longer be expected to take the responsibility for coordination with other directorates and federal agencies around provisioning and advanced application in other disciplines. I believe this will be good for all concerned.

From Concept to Confluence: Framing our Cyberinfrastructure

From Concept to Confluence: Framing our Cyberinfrastructure
SBE/CISE Shared Cyberinfrastructure Workshop
Closing Dinner Remarks by Dr. Arden Bement, Director of NSF
Airlie Center, Warrenton, Virginia, March 16, 2005

Go to text of talk

(The following is excerpted from a recent email forwarded to me by unknown author. I do know that the essence of the message is correct.)

The above are remarks NSF Director Arden Bement gave before a recent workshop on the social and behavioral aspects of cyberinfrastructure. (The report from this Arlie House Workshop  on  Cyberinfrastructure and the Social Sciences is cited in an earlier item on this site.) These are a prelude to the plan he briefly laid out yesterday before the National Science Board.

The major point in his presentation before the NSB yesterday was to formal propose or announce that he will set up a new office of cyberinfrastructure within the Office of the Director - so he is moving the division of shared cyberinfrastructure out of CISE and into the "front office".  As Mel suggests and as was confirmed to me by those I spoke to at NSF yesterday, this is similar but not identical to the "old days" at NSF before the CISE directorate existed - it was called the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing.  This new office of cyberinfrastructure will apparently be much more than just support for
leading edge machines - Arden also talked about the software, modeling and the other pieces that go into his vision for a 21st century cyberinfrastructure.

In his remarks  Arden talks about an NSF group called the Cyberinfrastructure Initial Implementation Working Group.  Its purpose is to define NSF's role in developing the cyberinfrastructure enterprise. The group has representation from all of NSF's research directorates, plus the Offices of Polar Programs and International Science and Engineering. The group has nearly completed a report that analyzes NSF's current CI-related portfolio, looks for commonalities, gaps and new opportunities. It also is supposed to include a strategy for internal (within NSF) and external collaborations. Finally, the working group is supposed to have developed a charter for the formation of a CI Management Panel, which will carry out the long-term planning and management of NSF's cyberinfrastructure investments.  The working group's report is supposed to be released in about two weeks - for the purpose of receiving comments from the relevant external community.

Kathie Olsen to replace Joe Bordogna as NSF Deputy

WASHINGTON, D.C. - House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) today applauded the nominations of Dr. Kathie Olsen and Dr. William Jeffrey to key positions at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), respectively.  Dr. Olsen, who currently serves as Associate Director of Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), was nominated to the position of Deputy Director of NSF.  Dr. Jeffrey, currently the Senior Director for Homeland and National Security and Assistant Director for Space and Aeronautics at OSTP, was nominated to serve as Director of NIST. 

Chairman Boehlert issued the following statement on the nominations of Dr. Olsen and Dr. Jeffrey:

            "I want to congratulate Dr. Olsen and Dr. Jeffery on their new assignments and I want to applaud the White House for selecting two fine nominees.  The Committee has worked closely with Dr. Olsen and Dr. Jeffrey in their roles at OSTP, and we look forward to a continuing relationship.  Both nominees have shown themselves to be energetic, thoughtful and open - exactly the characteristics both their current and new positions require.  We are especially pleased that the position of NIST director will be filled.  NIST is an absolutely critical agency and it needs strong leadership. We hope that Dr. Jeffrey's association with the White House will enable him to raise the visibility - and the budget - of NIST. 

            "We also want to wish our best to the outgoing Deputy Director of NSF, Joe Bordogna, with whom we have worked for so many years.  Joe has always had an open door, and he has been a stabilizing force at NSF.  His boundless enthusiasm for science and for his agency, his institutional knowledge, and his openness to new ideas, have made him a bulwark of the federal science establishment." 

"E-Learning" in Switzerland

“E-Learning” in Switzerland

We were visited today (May 23, 2005) by a delegation of  leaders from higher education  in Switzerland. The Swiss group is touring some major universities in the U.S. to compare notes and learn more about “e-learning.”  The Swiss organizer for the tour is Ulrich Gysel, Attaché for Information Technology at the Swiss Embassy, Washington ([email protected]). In preparation for the meeting, Ulrich Gysel sent some background information about higher ed in Switzerland and Europe in general. I thought these references might be of general interest and they are as follows:

Here is a list of links and presentations of the current major changes in the educational System in Switzerland.

General Information on the Swiss Educational System
Recent Changes
Swiss Virtual Campus - the major federal funding initiative in e-learning on
the university level.

Please note. Swiss Universities are owned by the states/cantons (all old universities) or state consortia (almost all universities of applied science). The Swiss Confederation owns and is in charge of the two Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich and Lausanne only.

Bologna Process/Bologna Declaration

Here is the major information page for Swiss Universities concerning Bologna (in German).

Here is one rather short English Pan-European report concerning the Bologna implementation.

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I have attached the pdf of slides that I used to set the framework for our presentations to this group including the list of speakers and topics.

Atkins Introductory Slides and List of Speakers

Intelligence: We've Lost Our Edge

Intelligence: We've Lost Our Edge
By John Seely Brown and Jeffrey R. Cooper
Washington Post
Tuesday, May 10, 2005; A21

First Paragraph:

The U.S. intelligence community faces immense challenges that demand both a
strong technology base and an effective research and development strategy.
Unfortunately, the research and development path it is currently following will
not allow it to meet those challenges.

Download this Article (pdf)

DEA comment:
This is a thoughtful verse in the growing chorus of reports and editorials calling for reversal of the risky under investment by the U.S. in science and engineering -- research and development, education, and the supporting infrastructure. It is not specific to cyberinfrastructure but certainly this is included in the needs for strategic investments. Appropriate investments in cyberinfrastructure undergird relevant R&D for a broad spectrum in science and engineering -- including fundamental work relevant to penetrating “denied areas and minds.”  Although there would be tricky policy issues, there could be significant overlap in technical and social research necessary to create CI-enhanced science communities and CI-enhanced intelligence communities including smart sensors, networks, and computation.  Certainly increased strategic investment in  basic work could payoff in both application areas.

Atkins Keynote Talk at Conference on Digital Government Research

A Keynote Address for the Sixth Annual National Conference
on Digital Government Research
May 15-18, 2005, Washington, D.C.
Conference Website

Download Text of Talk  (pdf)  This text also includes references.

Abstract
The NSF community and other US and non-US science and engineering research funding agencies have recognized that ever more powerful, ubiquitous, and integrated information and communication technology nows offers the potential to transform the conduct of scientific and engineering research and allied education. The platform for such transformation has been dubbed “cyberinfrastructure”(CI for short)  and is the basis for cyberinfrastructure-enabled science, or e-science1.  Cyberinfrastructure provides reliable services and knowledge on which to build specific instances of organizational forms called for example, collaboratories, grid communities, or community portals.

This talk will review the emergence and status of the “cyberinfrastructure movement” and draw parallels with the emergence of the field of digital government. It will suggest that there is complementary between these lines of endeavor, and that they stay in touch as pathfinders and fellow travelers into the broad application of advanced information technology to facilitate, or potentially revolutionize, complex and important human endeavor.

Press Release about Tony Hey going to Microsoft

See item in Grid Today
Also see previous posts on this topic from yesterday.

Final Report: NSF SBE-CISE Workshop on Cyberinfrastructure and the Social Sciences

This was an excellent workshop organized by Fran Berman and Henry Brady. The workshop and the report I believe may be a turning point in the greater participation of the Social, Behavioral, Economics research communities in the analysis, synthesis, and application of cyberinfrastructure-enhanced  knowledge communities. There have been strong pockets of researchers working in this area for a long time, but hopefully this workshop and report will help with scale-up and of course with the provision of financial resources to enable it.

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Final Report:  NSF SBE-CISE Workshop on  Cyberinfrastructure and the Social Sciences

First section of
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background

The report of the Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure (the “Atkins Report”) found that “a new age has dawned in scientific and engineering research” in which
Cyberinfrastructure will play a crucial role.  Cyberinfrastructure has the potential to be a fundamental enabler of innovations and new discoveries, and it is just as critical for the advancement of the social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) sciences as it is for engineering and the physical, natural, biological, and computer sciences.  By participating in the development of Cyberinfrastructure, the SBE sciences can take a giant step forward.   

It is equally true that SBE scientists are uniquely situated to work with computer scientists supported by NSF’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science Engineering (CISE) as well as other researchers to develop more effective Cyberinfrastructure.  In addition to benefiting from and helping to design successful Cyberinfrastructure for the broad NSF science and engineering community, the SBE sciences can also help assess the effects of Cyberinfrastructure on science, engineering, technology, and society so that its potential can be realized and its benefits maximized.   

Download the Full Report (pdf)