The monthly newsletter from the National e-Science Centre
NeSC News
Issue 59 April 2008 www.nesc.ac.uk
To GU Campus Grid and Beyond!
ISSGC08
What do the following have in common? nanoCMOS electronics, clinical
trials, epidemiological studies, geographical information systems,
bioinformatics, cardiovascular functional genomics, astrophysics, drug
discovery, breast cancer tissue banks, visualisation, social sciences,
occupational data, biochemical pathways, brain trauma, high energy physics
and paediatric endocrinology?
The sixth in the highly successful
series of International Summer
Schools on Grid Computing
will be held at the Hotel Füred
Conference and Congress Centre in
Balatonfüred, Hungary, from 6th to
18th July 2008.
These are just some of the areas that are being explored within the National
e-Science Centre (NeSC - www.nesc.ac.uk) at the University of Glasgow in
a range of projects funded from an array of research councils in the UK and
in Europe, with a variety of domain researchers on campus and beyond.
The common denominator in these areas, and the niche that NeSC at
Glasgow is exploring, is in development, deployment and management of
infrastructures that provide seamless and secure access to computational
and data resources, often crossing departmental, institutional and, indeed,
national boundaries. Grid-based technologies are linked with fine grained
access control, allowing collaborators to securely share their local resources
or to access remote resources within the context of particular collaborations
– so called virtual organisations in Grid parlance.
In recent weeks, this notion of resource sharing has gone to a new
dimension through the University of Glasgow becoming a full partner in the
UK National Grid Service (www.ngs.ac.uk). By making available the major
new ScotGrid campus facility (www.scotgrid.ac.uk) – the largest resource
currently offered by an NGS partner – and the IT services-managed HPC
facility to the UK and international community, the University of Glasgow is
now leading the way in a wide array of e-Science or, more generally,
e-Research areas. Whether it is evaluating next generation
atomistic-scale transistors and their impact upon system design, looking at
in silico development of novel drugs or exploring the genetic relationships
between individuals or organisms, this facility and the services it provides is
underlying a wide array of research possibilities.
The School will include lectures,
discussions, laboratory sessions,
tutorials and group work delivered
by leading authorities in the fields
of advanced grid technology,
applications of e-Science and
distributed systems research.
Reports from world leaders in
deploying and exploiting Grids will
complement lectures from research
leaders shaping future
e-Infrastructure.
Hands-on laboratory exercises
will give students experience with
widely used Grid middleware.
The school will conclude with an
integrating practical that will enable
students, working in teams, to bring
together all they have learnt on an
extended exercise that simulates
collaborative research using
e-Infrastructures. Indeed during
the school, participants will meet
like-minded students from many
parts of the world, working in many
disciplines, and form valuable
long-term working relationships.
We invite applications from
enthusiastic and ambitious
researchers who have recently
started or are about to start working
on Grid projects.
Glasgow was also recently chosen to lead the Europe-wide User Liaison
activity for the UK, Ireland and France. For more information, users may in
the first instance contact Morag Burgon-Lyon
(m.burgon-lyon@physics.gla.ac.uk). The NeSC team are also happy to
provide targeted talks and training for staff interested in exploring the
possibilities offered through these systems – would-be users or departments
may in the first instance contact Prof Richard Sinnott
(r.sinnott@nesc.gla.ac.uk), Director of the e-Science hub at Glasgow.
Students may come from any
country. We expect participants
from computer science,
computational science and any
application discipline. The School
will assume that students have
diverse backgrounds and build on
that diversity. However, in order
to fully participate in the practical
exercises, you should be a
confident programmer who will have
fulfilled certain prerequisites.
To find further details visit:
http://www.issgc.org
Issue 59, April 2008
ENGAGE: Linking Research with Software Development
The widespread adoption of
e-Research technologies will
revolutionise the way that research
is conducted. The ENGAGE project
plans to accelerate this revolution
by meeting with researchers and
developing software to fulfil their
needs. If you would like to benefit
from the project, please contact
ENGAGE (info@omii.ac.uk) or visit
their website: www.engage.ac.uk
ENGAGE combines the expertise
of OMII-UK and the NGS – the UK’s
foremost providers of e-Research
software and e-Infrastructure.
The first phase, which began in
September, is currently identifying
and interviewing researchers that
could benefit from e-Research
but are relatively new to the field.
“The response from researchers
has been very positive” says
Chris Brown, project leader of the
interview phase, “we are learning
a lot about their perceptions of
e-Research and the problems they
have faced”. Eleven groups, with
research interests that include
Oceanography, Biology and
Chemistry, have already been
interviewed.
evaluated by the community on the
NGS. “It’s very early in the interview
phase, but we’re already learning
that researchers want to be better
informed of new developments
and are keen for more training and
support” says Chris Brown.
The results of the interviews will
be reviewed during ENGAGE’s
second phase. This phase will
identify and publicise the ‘big issues’
that are hindering e-Research
adoption, and the ‘big wins’ that
could help it. Solutions to some of
the big issues will be developed
and made freely available so that
the entire research community will
benefit. The solutions may involve
the development of new software,
which will make use of OMII-UK’s
expertise, or may simply require
the provision of more information
and training. Any software that is
developed will be deployed and
ENGAGE is a JISC-funded project
that will collaborate with two other
JISC projects – e-IUS and
e-Uptake – to further e-Research
community engagement within
the UK. “To improve the uptake of
e-Research, we need to make sure
that researchers understand what
e-Research is and how it can
benefit them” says Neil Chue Hong,
OMII-UK’s director, “We need to
hear from as many researchers
and as many fields of research as
possible, and to do this, we need
researchers to contact ENGAGE.”
Call for Participation: OGF Community Workshop on Access
Paradigms
14th & 15th April 2008
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
Organizers: Steven Newhouse, Andrew Grimshaw, Hiro Kishimoto & Ellen Stokes
As OGF’s efforts to standardize the lower service and system level of Grid resources start to bear fruit, we feel it is
time to reconnect that work with the original driving force: the OGF user community, their software environments
and their use cases. We are holding a workshop to consolidate these use cases and features of these software
environments, in order to better understand how users are accessing this lower-level service infrastructure so as to
meet their semantic and syntactic application level requirements.
The workshop will build upon work that has previously taken place within the OGSA-WG, the Enterprise Grid
Requirements RG, the SAGA-WG and other groups within the OGF.
We are not being restrictive as to the scope of the use cases. We wish to capture end-to-end scenarios as to how
Grid technology (in its broadest definition) is being used. That will help us to map the respective requirements to the
existing OGF standards, and will allow us to identify gaps and overlaps. We expect these use cases to encompass
a variety of users (applied scientists, system administrator, application developers, etc.) using diverse technologies
(portals, command line interfaces, graphical environments, clouds, etc.) across deployments in academia and the
enterprise, and within any domain.
Due to the size of the facilities at the University of Virginia, the site of the first meeting, the number of participants
may have to be limited. We will, however, accept use cases from people who cannot make the meeting in person.
The results from this meeting will be presented at a workshop at OGF 23 in Barcelona, which will also provide
an opportunity for further use cases to be presented. Participants should expect to present their use case(s) to
according to a defined structure, a template of which will be circulated before the meeting.
If you are interested in attending this meeting, please send an email to the organizers at:
usecase-workshop@ogf.org
NeSC News
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
Call For Papers: AHM2008
Crossing Boundaries: Computational Science, E-Science and Global E-Infrastructures
8th – 11th September 2008 in Edinburgh, Scotland
Submission Deadline: 1st May 2008
General Information:
This is the principal e-Science meeting in the UK and brings together researchers from all disciplines, computer
scientists and developers to meet and exchange ideas. The meeting is in its seventh year and normally
attracts between 500 and 600 participants. The theme for this year’s meeting is “Crossing Boundaries:
Computational Science, E-Science and Global E-Infrastructures”. The appointment of Professor Peter Coveney
(UCL) as Programme Chair, heralds a new approach. This year, for the first time, key papers will be published
in two back to back editions of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A in the early part of 2009, with
the title “Crossing Boundaries: Computational Science, E-Science and Global E-Infrastructures”. One of the
central aims of this year’s meeting is to promote the domain specific applications aspects of e-Science, as well
as building bridges between the three communities of the theme title.
The general format of the meeting will include cross-community symposia (kicked off by invited key speakers)
and workshops. The workshops are being championed by Programme Committee members in what are
considered to be key areas of e-Science that need to be addressed, rather than by a call for workshops as has
been done in the past. There will also be opportunities to present 20 minute talks.
The proposed workshops include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Delivering Grid Services - the role of Central Computing Services
Infrastructure Provision for ‘Grids’: Infrastructure for Users
Software Development for Scientific Applications: Current and Future Perspectives
Information Assurance for the Grid: Crossing Boundaries between Stakeholders
e-Science Applications in Computational Science: Advancing Research Across Scales
Interactive e-Science to Support Creativity and Intuition in Research
HPC Grids of Continental Scope
Computational Biomedicine
The Global Data Centric View
We are therefore calling for abstract submissions for:
1. General papers which are not particularly attached to a workshop.
2. Workshop papers related to the above workshops.
Further details about the workshops and important information about the submission and review process,
including guidelines for authors can be found at: http://www.allhands.org.uk/2008/programme/call.cfm
Enquiries: Please address any enquiries about abstract submission to: admin@allhands.org.uk
NeSC News
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
e-Science
Institute
The Oxford e-Research Centre: Science, Scholarship and
Technology
by Iain Coleman
It used to be a car park, they tell
me. Now it’s the Oxford e-Research
Centre, a bright, modern office
complex hidden behind an old
wooden door in a traditional Oxford
terrace. But this is no secretive
organisation: the researchers at
OeRC couldn’t be more eager to tell
the world what they get up to behind
this unassuming frontage.
The scientific research at OeRC
spans an enormous range of
disciplines, from heart modelling
to earthquake engineering. One of
the latest highlights is in large-scale
data processing for astronomy.
The Square Kilometre Array is a
huge network of radio telescopes
familiar one to e-scientists; indeed,
e-Science owes its origins to
particle physicists’ need to cope
with the data deluge from the Large
Electron-Positron Collider at CERN.
Unfortunately, the solutions they
came up with were specialised
to their particular discipline, and
cannot be readily exported to
radio astronomy. Building on the
same broad principles, though, the
researchers at OeRC are working
with the astronomers to get their
data systems up and running in time
for the first observations.
Along with this pure research,
OeRC works with a variety of
OeRC embraces humanities
scholarship as well as the hard
sciences. The Virtual Research
Environment for the Humanities,
currently being developed at OeRC,
is an ambitious attempt to address
the needs of researchers across the
humanities disciplines, from classics
to music. The driving force of the
project is a desire to create tools
for the humanities based on the
users’ requirements, not to simply
foist tools on the researchers as has
tended to happen in the past.
Four demonstrator tools have
already been built, including a
virtual workspace for the study
of ancient documents that allows
Artist’s impression of radio telescopes in the Square Kilometre Array
that promises to revolutionise
our understanding of the cosmos
with its unprecedented levels of
sensitivity and resolution. With
construction due to begin in 2011,
and completion expected by 2020,
astronomers are now facing the
challenge of dealing with the flood
of data that the Square Kilometre
Array will unleash.
This is where OeRC comes in.
The astronomers’ problem is a
NeSC News
industrial partners on systems
with real commercial applications.
One of the most fruitful of these
collaborations is with Microsoft, who
are involved in half a dozen projects
at OeRC. Of these, perhaps the
most exciting is the work on cancer
and cardiac imaging, aimed at
developing dynamically configurable
personalised computational
research environments, and at
creating algorithms for improving
the prospects for successful
surgery.
scholars to annotate texts and work
on them in remote collaborations.
The current work is about
extending this tool to the
humanities as a whole, whether
by linking the ancient documents
to archaeological databases, or
by implementing the system on
AccessGrid for the study of music
manuscripts.
The work on ancient manuscripts
has even brought technology into
the humanities that was originally
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
e-Science
Institute
the NGS. ShibGrid has developed
prototype software, including a new
user-friendly interface and a set of
management tools.
Ancient manuscript in the Virtual Research Environment
developed for cancer imaging. A
wealth of insight into everyday life in
Roman Britain can be inferred from
ritualised curses, scratched onto
thin lead tablets and deposited in
the hot springs at Bath. When these
were freshly written, the scratches
of the letters would have shone
against the dull grey background,
but two millennia of oxidisation
have left them almost illegible. The
application of e-Science techniques
promises to significantly improve
upon the traditional methods of
discerning and interpreting these
crude markings.
This kind of interdisciplinarity is
commonplace in e-Science, and
it raises a number of challenges
that go beyond the design of
applications. How does this
technology relate to social aspects
of access and collaboration? What
is the career loyalty of researchers,
and what are their reward
structures? What difference does
the socio-technical environment
make to the people who interact
with it? Such questions are the stuff
of e-Social Science, and OeRC is
engaged in a three-year research
programme aimed at finding the
answers. Their current focus is on
project management – investigating
what exactly you need to know if
you are going to run an e-Science
project.
Of course, one of the most
important things you need to
know is how to get hold of the
technology you need. This is why
OeRC concentrates as much on
NeSC News
infrastructure and organisation as it
does on research.
OeRC is one of the four core
sites of the National Grid Service
(NGS), and one of its priorities is
engaging with institutions such as
universities and compute centres
that want to join the grid. OeRC
helps to streamline this process. It
also provides a distributed testing
mechanism that regularly tests sites
on the NGS and acts as repository
for testing information. This shows
when and where problems have
occurred, as well as whether a site
is passing or failing, helping system
administrators to debug their
systems.
The great bugbear of grid
computing is security, and OeRC
does substantial work in this area.
Security has two main aspects:
authentication and authorisation. In
other words, who are you, and are
you allowed to use this system?
This can often be a cumbersome
process when dealing with multiple
distributed systems, each with
their own requirements and
protocols. The Shibboleth software
simplifies this by allowing users
to authenticate themselves with
a single sign-on, and then carry
that authentication across multiple
system boundaries. Each of these
systems is enabled to create its own
set of authorisations, and can define
exactly what each authenticated
individual is or is not allowed to do.
OeRC is a partner in the ShibGrid
project, which is engaged in
implementing Shibboleth security on
But research infrastructure is not
just about tools. Organisation
matters as well. OeRC had this
fact demonstrated to it two years
ago, when it moved into the new
premises that it currently occupies.
It had previously been located in
an office at the top of a disused
hospital, far away from other Oxford
research groups, and finding it
difficult to achieve productive
collaborations. Now that OeRC
is right next door to the physics
and computing departments,
with other science disciplines a
stone’s throw away, communication
and collaboration have been
transformed.
Within the institution, there is
a conscious effort to find the
best structures for successful
e-Research. One effective
move has been the creation of
a Project Facilitator role. If a
senior researcher can be likened
to a Government minister, then
the Project Facilitator is their
Permanent Secretary, implementing
decisions, administering finances,
and making sure the strategic goals
are achieved. The effectiveness of
collaborations has been enhanced
by bringing researchers from the
relevant research group into OeRC
itself, to work closely alongside
its experts in developing lowlevel algorithms. The Centre’s
ongoing work in researching project
management in e-Science is far
from being an abstract exercise.
The Oxford e-Research Centre is
vibrant and diverse, with a wide
range of activities in science,
scholarship and infrastructure.
In this, it embodies the goals of
the e-Science agenda. While
actively reaching out to new user
communities, it instructs by example
rather than proselytising. “Innovative
technology accelerating research”
is the slogan, and it is clear that the
OeRC researchers are determined
to make that a reality.
More information about the Oxford
e-Research Centre can be found at:
http://www.oerc.ox.ac.uk
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
e-Science
Institute
Call For Participation:OGF23/OGF-Europe
Session proposals are being accepted through till 11 April, 2008 for OGF23, OGF-Europe’s first international event,
co-hosted by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (http://www.bsc.es/) in Barcelona, Spain, June 2-6, 2008. With
the launch of the EU-funded OGF-Europe project (http://www.ogfeurope.eu), topic-specific community outreach
seminars emphasizing best practices, workshops analyzing grid user requirements, and tutorials transferring practical
skills will take place as part of this event. Additionally, the BEinGRID project (http://www.beingrid.com) will co-locate
its Industry Days event where updates and demonstrations of eighteen business experiments with grids will be
presented. More details on the call for participation and an online submission form may be found at: http://ogf.org/
OGF23/cfp.php
In addition to OGF’s chartered groups and Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, the Program Committee is soliciting
proposals for content related to the following topics:
•
OGF Specification Adoption
•
Digital Repositories
•
Data Management in a Grid Environment
•
Best Practices
•
Related Community Content
The OGF23 Program Committee welcomes submissions of all types (case studies, technology updates, panels,
tutorials, etc.). Additional topics of interest include but are not limited to:
•
Achieving scalability & availability in a grid environment
•
Application development/deployment in a grid environment
•
Earth modeling & geospatial applications using grids
•
High Performance technical Computing and grids
•
Virtualization, cloud computing, and grids
•
Exploiting grid technologies for inter-organizational collaborations
•
Simplifying management complexity of grids
•
Small-medium enterprise (SME) adoption of grids
•
Technology Enhanced Learning & Virtual Learning Tools
•
Digital Content & Digital Rights Management - Applications & Technologies
•
Medical applications using grids
•
Telecommunications & Optical Networks
•
Networked & Virtual Organizations
•
Collaborative Working Environments
•
Transportation & Grids
•
Energy & Grids
•
Tutorials
OGF and OGF-Europe are soliciting proposals for multiple half-day or full-day tutorials, hands-on activities with a clear
expectation of knowledge and skill transfer.
The online submission site (http://ogf.org/OGF23/cfp.php) is available from 10 March through 11 April, 2008. The Call
for Participation submission deadline is 11 April, 2008. Notifications will be sent by 21 April, 2008.
For OGF23 registration and lodging information, please visit: http://www.ogf.org/OGF23
NeSC News
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
GCN! Webinars
For more information about these Webinars, contact:
Tara Kelly
Tel: 020 7331 2171
Email: tara.kelly@intellectuk.org
Energy Efficient Data Centres: Experience, Measurement and Models
May 7th 2008,14:30 (BST)
Rising energy costs and the increased awareness of climate change are forcing companies to make their IT
provision more energy efficient. There are many competing claims for technologies and approaches to achieve
this aim. In this webinar, we hear from the front line of practical efforts to save energy and look forward to how new
models might cut through the confusion.
Nic Barnes will explain what Merrill Lynch observed when they applied virtualisation on the desktop and in the server
room. He will show the importance of measuring real gains in practice.
Nic Barnes is a Director of Merrill Lynch’s Global Technology Infrastructure division. Nic has extensive experience in
technology for the finance sector. He is currently head of engineering functions across technology infrastructure and
is the internal ‘green evangelist’ for the technology division.
Liam Newcombe will describe the work of the BCS in evaluating metrics and in developing a model for predicting
data centre efficiency. This approach will allow managers to plan and evaluate designs in advance of their
implementation.
Liam Newcombe has over 15 years experience in IT infrastructure, software development and solution design. Liam
consults on energy efficiency, product strategy and solution architecture to enable businesses to understand the
relationship between their requirements and the environmental and financial costs of the technical solutions.
There will be opportunities to ask questions of both speakers.
To register, see: http://mediazone.brighttalk.com/event/gridcomputingnow/0c0a756691-1388-intro
Virtualisation and Grid: A Fundamental Challenge to the Software Licensing Model?
Thursday 10 April 2008, 14:00 (BST)
Virtualisation has spread like wildfire through the data centres of UK organisations during 2007. Before virtualisation
it was relatively easy to keep control of business IT expenditure through the assigned hardware costs and software
applications licensed to execute upon them.
If we struggled to keep track of licence agreements and their provisions in the past, does virtualisation help or
hinder the task looking forwards? What tools and techniques are available to help us manage in this new age of
computing?
This webinar brings together the following pioneers in this industry to shed light on the new responsibilities of IT
managers; to provide tools and methods to gain insight and to set policies and industry direction in the new situation:
•
David Gittins, Capgemini
•
Neil Sanderson, Microsoft
•
Mark Cresswell, Scalable Solutions
Ian Osborne, Project Director of Grid Computing Now! will chair the session and invite those attending to an online
conference to discuss the topic following the broadcast. Grid Computing Now! is working closely with FAST, the
Federation against Software Theft, to bring insight and understanding to this issue for IT managers in all sectors of
the industry.
To register, see: http://mediazone.brighttalk.com/event/gridcomputingnow/af47327116-1354-introtro
Why You Need Grid and How To Do It!�
The EGEE project is co-hosting a Distributed Computing Workshop on Why You Need Grid and How To Do It! with the
STFC, to bring together players from the business and research communities to explore opportunities for collaborative
developments. The workshop is being held on 21 May 2008 at 1, Great George Street, London.
The workshop focuses on new developments and opportunities in computing technologies across vertical markets,
such as energy, engineering, financial services, health services, pharmaceuticals, and transport. The workshop
features case studies demonstrating the value-add of Grid computing, and tips on how newcomers to Grid can get
started. Top-level experts in Grid computing adoption will evaluate opportunities for Open Source, and there will be a
hands-on discussion to explore opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaborative development to help generate
new partnerships between business and research organisations.
For more information, see: http://www.qi3.co.uk/events/event.asp?EventID=193
NeSC News
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
Shedding Light on Life’s Beginning
The NGS has yet again played a
key role in cutting edge science by
helping to shed light on how DNA
may have survived deep ocean
hydrothermal vents 2500 million
years ago. The study, by Peter
Coveney and colleagues from
the Department of Chemistry at
UCL (University College London),
involved a sequence of simulation
steps performed across the
NGS, the Distributed European
Infrastructure for Supercomputing
Applications (DEISA) and the
US TeraGrid. The study was
published online in March in the
Journal of the American Chemical
Society (JACS), the most cited
journal in chemistry.
Deep ocean hydrothermal vents
have long been suggested as
possible sources of biological
molecules such as RNA and DNA
but it was unclear how they could
survive the high temperatures and
pressures that occur round these
vents. This study used computer
simulation performed on several
grid systems, to provide insight into
the structure and stability of DNA
while inserted into layered minerals.
Previous experimental studies have
shown that molecules such as DNA
can be inserted into minerals called
layered double hydroxides (LDHs)
but no one had been able to show
at the level of atoms and molecules
how the DNA interacts with the
mineral, or how the DNA might look
inside the mineral layers. These
minerals would have been common
in the earliest age of Earth 2500
million years ago.
The simulations reproduced the
high temperatures and pressures
that occur around hydrothermal
vents. It was shown that the
structure of DNA inserted into
layered minerals becomes stabilized
at these conditions and therefore
protected from catalytic and thermal
degradation.
A snapshot from a large-scale, molecular dynamics simulation of a 480 base pair DNA plasmid sandwiched
between two sheets of a clay mineral. The plasmid structure remains essentially stable and intact at elevated
temperatures and pressures pertaining to deep ocean hydrothermal vents, where life may have originated on
Earth.
Reproduced with permission of Peter Coveney.
“Grids of supercomputers are essential for this kind of study”, says Professor Coveney, “The time taken to run these
simulations is reduced, from the years that a desktop computer would take to hours, by using the many thousands of
processors made available across continents.”
NeSC News
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
Talking to the NGS
NGS News
The NGS has a myriad of ways that you can talk and interact with the
service.
The forum has been designed specifically for users of the NGS and they
are strongly encouraged to post questions, discuss NGS activates etc. The
forum is monitored by experienced NGS and Grid users and is intended to
be a place where you can share problems, ideas and experiences with other
users. Would you like to see a piece of software on the NGS, then ask on
the forum? Having problems getting your jobs to run? See if someone else
has had a similar problem! We are also happy to provide space for specific
subject communities – just ask! See: https://forum.ngs.ac.uk/
A Flickr photo group has recently been created in order for us to share our
travels and events such as conference exhibition stands, presentations,
roadshows etc. with the community. If you have any photos of NGS
activities etc., then please add them to the group which you can find at:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/uk_ngs/
Radical Sharing: Transforming Science?
The Digital Curation Centre
(DCC) is pleased to announce
that the 4th International Digital
Curation Conference will be held in
partnership with the National
e-Science Centre (NeSC).
The conference, entitled Radical
Sharing:Transforming Science?, will
be held from 1-3 December 2008
at the Hilton Edinburgh Grosvenor
Hotel and will comprise a mix of
peer-reviewed papers, invited
presentations and international
keynote speakers.
The first day of the conference will
focus on three key topics:
•
Radical sharing, new ways of doing science, e.g.
large scale research
networks, mass
collaboration, dynamic
publishing tools, wikis,
blogs, social networks,
visualisations and immersive
environments
•
Sustainability of curation
•
Legal issues including
privacy, confidentiality &
consent, intellectual property
rights and provenance
•
The second edition of the quarterly
NGS newsletter is out now and
contains articles on the ENGAGE
project (in partnership with OMIIUK), the NGS database service,
an interview with one of our new
partner the University of Glasgow,
the NGS Accounting System
and VOMS (Virtual Organization
Membership System).
The newsletter can be found in the
Outreach and Events section of
the NGS website (http://www.ngs.
ac.uk).
The second day will feature peer
reviewed research papers.
There will be a pre-conference
Drinks Reception on Monday 1
December at Dynamic Earth
(http://www.dynamicearth.co.uk/).
The Conference Dinner will be
held on the evening of Tuesday 2
December at Edinburgh Castle
(http://www.edinburghcastle.gov.
uk/).
A call for papers and a draft
programme will be released shortly.
See: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/
dcc-2008/
RA in Grid Computing
A research assistant is required to work on the DAMES project (Data Management through E-Social Science,
http://www.dames.org.uk). This three-year project is led by the University of Stirling (Departments of Applied Social
Science, Computing Science and Mathematics). The project is collaborative with the National e-Science Centre at
the University of Glasgow.
You will have a PhD in computer science, or be shortly about to complete one.
You will be experienced in developing complex systems using a variety of software solutions, and will be familiar
with the key concepts of grid computing. Ideally, you will have worked with a variety of grid computing solutions. It
would be advantageous if you also had an understanding of the computing needs of social scientists.
The initial appointment will be made at spine point 30 (£27,466 p.a.). This is a full time post and is fixed term for 28
months. The successful candidate is expected to take up the position by 1st October 2008.
Further details and an application form are available from:
http://www.hr-services.stir.ac.uk/vacancies/research.php
NeSC News
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
Announcement and Call for Participation
e-Science Institute Theme: Trust and Security in Virtual Communities
Second Workshop: Usability and Interoperability in AuthN/AuthZ
Oxford, 8th and 9th May 2008
http://wiki.esi.ac.uk/Trust_and_Security_Second_Workshop
Tutorial: Trusted Computing Technologies for e Science
eSI, Edinburgh, 3rd and 4th June 2008
http://wiki.esi.ac.uk/Trusted_Computing_Tutorial
This year, we are running a themed programme of events, supported by the e-Science Institute in Edinburgh. The
first workshop ran in March, and created a snapshot report (available on the eSI wiki) on the state of security in a
range of e-Science projects.
Two of the key pressing issues identified were usability and interoperability: these are the topic of a second
workshop, to be held in Oxford in May. The workshop will consist of a mix of invited presentations and open
discussion. The objective of this workshop is to take a snapshot of work being done in this area, particularly in the
UK, to identify and disseminate the most promising solutions and best practice, and to inform and develop proposals
for future research.
Anyone working in security in e-Science and related topics is welcome to attend. Anyone wishing to offer a talk
should contact Andrew Martin.
An area of promising technology for improving e-Science security in the medium term is Trusted Computing. A short
tutorial will run in June to introduce e-Science application designers and developers to this field. A later workshop will
explore how these approaches can be integrated into existing e-Science architectures.
The theme intends to develop understanding and activity in the area of Trust and Security in e-Science. A
discussion paper introducing the topic is available on the eSI wiki. Other proposals for events are welcome. Please
contact Andrew Martin.
http://wiki.esi.ac.uk/Trust_and_Security_in_Virtual_Communities
Andrew.Martin@comlab.ox.ac.uk
Building data grids with iRODS
27 May 08, 09:30 AM - 30 May 08, 04:00 PM
e-Science Institute, 15 South College Street, Edinburgh
Organisers: Dave Berry, Reagan Moore, Adil Hasan and Paul Watry
This 4-day event will give an introduction to the uses of data grids on the first day, followed by three days of
hands-on tutorials, brainstorming, troubleshooting and looking to future developments. The focus will be on the
open-source iRODS system, developed at SDSC as a follow-on to their successful Storage Resource Broker (SRB).
The iRODS data grid automates the execution of management policies, minimizing the amount of labour needed to
organise and preserve large collections. The event will be led by Reagan Moore and Arcot Rajasekar from SDSC, in
conjunction with users of the system from the UK and elsewhere.
For more background about iRODS, see the iRODS Wiki at http://irods.sdsc.edu . Participants bringing laptops are
encouraged to download the software before the meeting. The new iRODS installation procedure can be used on
Mac, Solaris, and Unix platforms.
For more details of the event, see: http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/866/
Please direct all enquiries to our Conference Administrator at: adminteam@nesc.ac.uk
NeSC News
10
www.nesc.ac.uk
Issue 59, April 2008
Forthcoming Events Timetable
April
15
The e-Science Institute Public Lecture
- Principles of Provenance
eSI
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/884/
17
DGEMap Annual Meeting
(3rd & last edition)
NeSC
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/878/
23 - 25
Using OGSA-DAI to Grid-enable data for
the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences
- part 3 - Consultancy
TOE
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/874/
24
Mathematical Techniques in Coding
Theory
eSI
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~ngoertz/
MIC/workshop_april08.html
25
Improving Feedback Using Technology
NeSC
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/865/
30
PRACE Project WP4 & WP6 Face2Face
Meeting
NeSC
1-2
ICEAGE Review Rehearsal 2
TOE
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/883/
6-7
Arts & Humanities e-Science Projects
Meeting
eSI
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/879/
8
ICEAGE Final Review
NeSC/EGEE
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/876/
8-9
Trust & Security Theme 2nd Workshop:
eSI
Usability & Interoperability in AuthN/AuthZ
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/885/
8-9
Fostering e-Infrastructure: from userdesigner relations to community
engagement
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/880/
May
eSI
Open Source Grid & Cluster Conference
May 12-16 2008, Marriot City Center, Oakland, California, USA
The 2008 Open Source Grid & Cluster Conference aims to encourage current and potential users, administrators,
and developers of open source grid and cluster software to:
•
Learn the latest best practices for using, managing and building grids and clusters.
•
Hear the experiences of real users applying this open source software in a wide range of commercial, research and educational environments.
•
Meet the developers responsible for this open source grid and cluster software.
•
Interact with others facing and addressing challenges similar to your own.
The program will include tracks dedicated to Globus (GlobusWorld), Grid Engine (Grid Engine Workshop), and
Rocks (Rocks Cluster Workshop). Other sessions will cover related open source grid and cluster software, and
present cross-cutting material focused on end-user applications and grid and cluster operations.
For more details, including registration, see: http://www.opensourcegridcluster.org/
This is only a selection of events that are happening in the next few months. For the full listing go to the following
websites:
Events at the e-Science Institute: http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/esi.html
External events: http://www.nesc.ac.uk/events/ww_events.html
If you would like to hold an e-Science event at the e-Science Institute, please contact:
Conference Administrator,
National e-Science Centre, 15 South College Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AA
Tel: 0131 650 9833 Fax: 0131 650 9819
Email: events@nesc.ac.uk
This NeSC Newsletter was edited by Katharine Woods. Layout by Jennifer Hurst.
email kwoods1@nesc.ac.uk
The deadline for the May 2008 Newsletter is: 23rd April 2008
NeSC News
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www.nesc.ac.uk