UK e-Science
M.O.S.T. visit to NeSC
Malcolm Atkinson
Director e-Science Institute
UK e-Science Envoy
www.nesc.ac.uk
11th June 2007
Overview
History of e-Science in UK > 6 years
Three Significant Strengths Established
Scene setting
Science projects
(70% of funding,
Demanding drivers)
Communities & Breadth
Examples
Why e-Science now
Challenges  Collaborate
e-Infrastructure
(hardware,
software
& training)
Defining e-Science
e-Science: Systematic Support for
Collaborative Research using advanced ICT
Interdisciplinary, Multi-Site & Multi-National
All disciplines contribute & benefit
Enabling wider engagement
Building on and demanding advances in
Computing Science
Using advances in computing to support
research, design, diagnosis
Dates back 50 years
Prevalent in branches of biology >30 years
Prevalent in Engineering for >40 years
New emphasis on systematic support for
collaboration, sharing & interdisciplinarity
UK e-Science Diversity
Thriving Community
All disciplines & all
Research Councils
Industry & Academia
Many universities &
research institutes
UK e-Science All
Hands Meetings
Productive
collaboration
e-Infrastructure
A shared resource
That enables science,
research, engineering,
medicine, industry, …
It will improve UK /
European / …
productivity


Lisbon Accord 2000
E-Science Vision SR2000 –
John Taylor
Commitment by UK
government

Sections 2.23-2.25
Always there & multipurpose

c.f. telephones, transport,
power
OSI report

www.nesc.ac.uk/documents/
OSI/index.html
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Kyra Norman and Orchestra Cube; Photo: Rob Bristow, June 2006
Slide: Angela Piccini
http://www.allhands.org.uk/index.html
National Grid Service and partners
Glasgow
Edinburgh
York
Lancaster
Leeds
Manchester
Sheffield
STFC Daresbury
Oxford
Cardiff
STFC Harwell
London
Bristol
Slide: Neil Geddes
Coordinated by:
Directors’ Forum
& NeSC
e-Science Centres in the UK
Access Grid
Support Centre
National Centre for
Text Mining
Glasgow
Digital Curation Centre
Lancaster
Edinburgh
Newcastle
Belfast
White Rose
Grid
National Institute
for Environmental
e-Science
Manchester
National Centre
for e-Social
Science
York
Leicester
Leeds
Sheffield
STFC Daresbury
Cambridge
National Grid
Service
Birmingham
STFC Harwell
Oxford
UCL
Cardiff
Bristol
Open Middleware
Infrastructure Institute
Southampton
Reading
LeSC
OMII-UK nodes
Edinburgh Parallel Computing
Centre/National e-Science Centre
University of Manchester
School of Electronics
and Computer Science
University of Southampton
Edinburgh
Manchester
Southampton
OMII-UK Software
Open Source
Special Product Lines
User Community
Community
deposits
Software
catalogue
Software
repository
SE QA
pipeline
Workflow
Portal
Service
registry
Foreign
Distributions
Data
Community
software
stacks
Commissioned
programme
OMII-BPEL
Software spotted on safari
or by Product or Area Liaisons
(PALs)
Infrastructure and Standards Community
New EPSRC project.
CARMEN
late 2006 - 2009
Understanding the brain
may be the greatest
informatics challenge of
the 21st century
http://bioinf.ncl.ac.uk/carmen/
 determining ion
channel contribution
to the timing of action
potentials
 resolving the ‘neural
code’ from the timing
of action potential
activity
 examining integration
within networks of
differing dimensions
Source: Colin Ingram
MESSAGE – overview
• Heterogeneous fixed and
mobile sensors on
infrastructure, vehicles
and people
• Sensors communicate
via wireless networks
• Positioning via GPS +
wireless & cellular
ranging
• Integration of processing
along the data path
• Multiple application
studies in different local
contexts
Slide from John Polak
www.nanocmos.ac.uk
The Challenge
International Tech nology Roadmap for Semiconductors
Year
MPU Half Pitch (nm)
MPU Gate Length (nm)
2005
2010
2015
2020
90
32
45
18
25
10
14
6
2005 edition Toshiba 04
Device diversification
230 nm
90nm: HP, LOP, LSTP
45nm: UTB SOI
Bulk MOSFET
32nm: Double gate
Standard
25 nm
FinFET
UTB SOI
FD SOI
Bulk MOSFET
LSTP
LOP
HP(MPU)
6th September 2006
Single
Set
Stat.
Sets
Slide from Asen Asenov
WISDOM deployment :
wisdom.eu-egee.fr
•country
•sites
•country
•sites
•Bulgaria
•3
•Greece
•3
•Romania
•1
•Croatia
•1
•Israel
•1
•Russia
•2
•Cyprus
•1
•Italy
•13
•Spain
•7
•France
•9
•Netherlands
•2
•Taiwan
•1
•Germany
•1
•Poland
•1
•UK
•10
Total amount of CPU
provided by EGEE
federation
•country
Countries with nodes
contributing to the data
challenge WISDOM
•sites
CentralEurope, 4%
GermanySwitzerland,
1%
AsiaPacific, 2%
Russia, 1%
UKI, 29%
NorthernEurope, 7%
SouthEasternEurope,
10%
SouthWesternEurope,
12%
France, 18%
Italy, 16%
Discovery Net
China SARS
Virtual Lab
Genbank
Homology search against
viral genome DB
Homology search
against protein DB
Annotation using
Artemis and GenSense
Annotation using
Artemis and
GenSense
Predicted
genes
Gene prediction
Exon prediction
Key word
search
Protein localization
site prediction
Splice site prediction
GeneSense
Ontology
Multiple sequence
alignment
D-Net:
Integration,
interpretation,
and discovery
Relationship
between
SARS and
other virus
Phylogenetic analysis
Immunogenetics
Mutual regions
identification
Microarray analysis
Epidemiological analysis
Homology search
against motif DB
SARS patients
diagnosis
Protein interaction
prediction
Relationship
between SARS virus
and human receptors
prediction
Classification and
secondary structure
prediction
Bibliographic databases
Bibliographic databases
Used now in Institute for Animal Health, UK
Source: Yike Guo and Moustafa Ghanem
Europe FP7
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/
e-Health
The Virtual Human
Foundations for Collaborative Behaviour
Grunts and
body language
500,000 years
Printing
600 years
Speech
300,000 years
Broadcasting
100 years
Telecommunications
170 years
Home Computers
Internet and WWW
Mobile phones
Grid and Web 2.0
Writing Web 3.0 and Ubiquitous connected devices
30 years
5,000 years
Today
“Wellbeing” the global-scale killer
app., Sir Robin Saxby Oct. 2006
Timeline
Healthcare @ Home
REFERRAL
GP
Home-mobile-clinic
via PDA-laptop-PC-Paper
REFERRAL
Diabetician
Home-mobile-clinic
via PDA-laptop-PC-Paper
Various Clinical Specialists (Distributed)
e.g. Ophthalmologist, Podiatrist, Vascular
Surgeons, Renal Specialists, Wound clinic,
Foot care clinic, Neurologists, Cardiologists
REFERRAL
VARIABLES
ACCESS
MATRIX
CASE
Patient
Home-mobile-clinic
via TV-PDA-laptop-PC-Paper
Dietitian
Slide from Alex Hardisty
Biochemist
Diabetes Specialist / Other Specialist Nurses
Home-mobile-clinic
via TV-PDA-laptop-PC-Paper
Community Nurses / Health Visitors
Amazon Web Services
Web 2.0 APIs
http://www.programmableweb.com/apis
currently (Jan 10 2007) 356 Web 2.0 APIs with
GoogleMaps the most used in Mashups
This site acts as a “UDDI” for Web 2.0
Geoffrey Fox
Why e-Science now
Scale of Challenges demand
interdisciplinary global collaboration
Theoretical collaboration
Build theorem on theorem
Build equation on equation
Computational collaboration
Build subroutine on subroutine
Compose subsystem models
Data-driven collaboration
Build and curate data collections
Compositiona developing “art”
Challenges for e-Science
Understand what enables
collaboration
Interdisciplinary
Multi-site
Through time
With realism about motives & competition
Find the best ways of supporting it
Is this a one-size fits all opportunity?
It requires an inter-disciplinary approach
Technology push or pull?
Abstract and communicate
Opportunities for China & UK collaboration
Challenges for e-Science 2
Creating wider understanding
In researchers
In funders
In the public
Find the best ways of creating
understanding
Articulate the stories?
Analyse the successes
Educate the emerging generation?
An interdisciplinary challenge
Abstract and communicate
Opportunities for China & UK collaboration
Three Educational
Challenges
The Computing & Computational Courses
Recognition of the importance of scale and
complexity
Systems thinking
Support for composition and orchestration
Numerical and Simulation skills
Data intensive engineering
Distributed systems
Computational engineering
Abstraction skills
Insights into usability
Experience working in multi-disciplinary
applications
Opportunities for China & UK collaboration
Three Educational
Challenges
The Disciplines that may apply
e-Science
Understanding potential & limits of
models
Exploiting tools that capture methods and
processes
Success stories and exemplars in cognate
disciplines
Experience working in multi-disciplinary
collaborations
Appreciation of costs and responsibilities
Opportunities for China & UK collaboration
Three Educational
Challenges
A new engineering discipline Designing, Building & Operating
continuously available systems
Changing the engines on a 747 while flying
passengers at 39,000 feet!
Planning & designing systems
Planning & designing operational procedures
Understanding risks and their management
Understanding workload dynamics
Predicting resource and system requirements
Developing abstractions that enable this to be
done reliably in every deployed system
Opportunities for China & UK collaboration
Take Home
UK e-Science investment has built
three interdependent strengths:
Communities & collaboration
Projects delivering & demanding
e-Infrastructure: organisation, support & technology
Three success factors for projects
Engagement & value for all participants
Creativity & insight addressing a well-posed challenge
Technology adoption and innovation
Progress in research domains is the driver
Integrate whatever technology you need
Invent new technology only if you have to
Opportunities for China & UK collaboration