Tool support for security-oriented virtual research collaborations

Collaboration is at the heart of e-Science and e-Research more generally. Successful collaborations must address both the needs of the end user researchers and the providers that make resources available. Usability and security are two fundamental requirements that are demanded by many collaborations and both concerns must be considered from both the researcher and resource provider perspective. In this paper we outline tools and methods developed at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) that provide users with seamless, secure access to distributed resources through security-oriented research environments, whilst also allowing resource providers to define and enforce their own local access and usage policies through intuitive user interfaces. We describe these tools and illustrate their application in the ESRC-funded Data Management through e-Social Science (DAMES) and the JISC-funded SeeGEO projects

Development of Distributed Research Center for analysis of regional climatic and environmental changes

We present an approach and first results of a collaborative project being carried out by a joint team of researchers from the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems, Russia and Earth Systems Research Center UNH, USA. Its main objective is development of a hardware and software platform prototype of a Distributed Research Center (DRC) for monitoring and projecting of regional climatic and environmental changes in the Northern extratropical areas. The DRC should provide the specialists working in climate related sciences and decision-makers with accurate and detailed climatic characteristics for the selected area and reliable and affordable tools for their in-depth statistical analysis and studies of the effects of climate change. Within the framework of the project, new approaches to cloud processing and analysis of large geospatial datasets (big geospatial data) inherent to climate change studies are developed and deployed on technical platforms of both institutions. We discuss here the state of the art in this domain, describe web based information-computational systems developed by the partners, justify the methods chosen to reach the project goal, and briefly list the results obtained so far

D19 final plan for using and disseminating knowledge

This document presents the Final Plan for Using and Disseminating Knowledge acquired throughout the development of the CYCLOPS project as deliverable D19. It includes a description of the main achievements in disseminating knowledge, and the consortium and each participant’s plans for the exploitation of the results for the consortium as a whole, or for individual participants or groups of participants. It updates the Plan for Using and Disseminating Knowledge that was presented as Deliverable D4 and describes the final dissemination plan of the CYCLOPS project. This deliverable provides a strategy aimed at addressing various target communities in order to achieve the project dissemination and exploitation goals. After an update of the dissemination instruments employed, the deliverable focuses on the description of the dissemination activities carried out. In addition to the normal dissemination and exploitation of the work through scientific journals and professional bodies, Civil Protection Community will be specifically targeted for dissemination of the CYCLOPS deliverables, and their future exploitation of the results. Other written deliverables focus on presenting dissemination activities in specific subject areas. In particular deliverable D17 reports “the results of the dissemination of EGEE towards the Civil Protection community, and about the coordination between the EGEE and CYCLOPS activities”, deliverable D18 focuses on “collecting the CYCLOPS project results for dissemination towards different interested audiences such as Grid communities, other Civil protection agencies, but also national and international initiative and projects, SMEs, etc.” and deliverable D20 that reports “the extent to which actors beyond the research community have been involved to help spread awareness and to explore the wider societal implications of the proposed work

Programming patterns and development guidelines for Semantic Sensor Grids (SemSorGrid4Env)

The web of Linked Data holds great potential for the creation of semantic applications that can combine self-describing structured data from many sources including sensor networks. Such applications build upon the success of an earlier generation of 'rapidly developed' applications that utilised RESTful APIs. This deliverable details experience, best practice, and design patterns for developing high-level web-based APIs in support of semantic web applications and mashups for sensor grids. Its main contributions are a proposal for combining Linked Data with RESTful application development summarised through a set of design principles; and the application of these design principles to Semantic Sensor Grids through the development of a High-Level API for Observations. These are supported by implementations of the High-Level API for Observations in software, and example semantic mashups that utilise the API

3rd EGEE User Forum

We have organized this book in a sequence of chapters, each chapter associated with an application or technical theme introduced by an overview of the contents, and a summary of the main conclusions coming from the Forum for the chapter topic. The first chapter gathers all the plenary session keynote addresses, and following this there is a sequence of chapters covering the application flavoured sessions. These are followed by chapters with the flavour of Computer Science and Grid Technology. The final chapter covers the important number of practical demonstrations and posters exhibited at the Forum. Much of the work presented has a direct link to specific areas of Science, and so we have created a Science Index, presented below. In addition, at the end of this book, we provide a complete list of the institutes and countries involved in the User Forum

WEB MAPPING ARCHITECTURES BASED ON OPEN SPECIFICATIONS AND FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE IN THE WATER DOMAIN

The availability of water-related data and information across different geographical and jurisdictional scales is of critical importance for the conservation and management of water resources in the 21st century. Today information assets are often found fragmented across multiple agencies that use incompatible data formats and procedures for data collection, storage, maintenance, analysis, and distribution. The growing adoption of Web mapping systems in the water domain is reducing the gap between data availability and its practical use and accessibility. Nevertheless, more attention must be given to the design and development of these systems to achieve high levels of interoperability and usability while fulfilling different end user informational needs. This paper first presents a brief overview of technologies used in the water domain, and then presents three examples of Web mapping architectures based on free and open source software (FOSS) and the use of open specifications (OS) that address different users' needs for data sharing, visualization, manipulation, scenario simulations, and map production. The purpose of the paper is to illustrate how the latest developments in OS for geospatial and water-related data collection, storage, and sharing, combined with the use of mature FOSS projects facilitate the creation of sophisticated interoperable Web-based information systems in the water domain

Project results presentation (deliverable D18)

This document is a report which collects together the CYCLOPS project results for dissemination to different interested audiences such as Grid communities and Civil Protection agencies. It also reports on national and international initiatives and projects, SMEs, training activities and related projects. The structure of this document shows the approach used in the project. Following an introduction, it describes a set of related projects, namely grid- based technologies/EGEE, risk management, and GMEs-based services. It then presents the business of Civil Protection and the use cases selected. These highlight the grid requirements for Grid-based CP applications. The research strategies and enhancements needed for the EGEE infra-structure are identified, based on the use cases. Dissemination of training and knowledge to different communities are also key points of the project.FP

FOSS4G 2016 Proceedings: Academic Program - selected papers and posters

This Conference Proceedings is a collection of selected papers and posters submitted to the Academic Program of the International Conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G 2016), 24th to 26th August 2016 in Bonn, Germany. Like in previous FOSS4G conferences on national and international level the academic papers and posters cover an extensive wide range of topics reflecting the contribution of the academia to this field by the development of open source software components, in the design of open standards, in the proliferation of web-based solutions, in the dissemination of the open principles important in science and education, or in the collection and the hosting of freely available geo-data