If appleseed had an open portal : making sense of data, SEIS and integrated systems for the Maltese Islands

Much sought and realistically distant, an open data system can serve as the Holy Grail for many a policy-maker and decision taker as well as the operational entities involved in the field. The steady seeding of data-related legislative tools has aided the setting up of exploratory and active systems that serve the concept of data-information-knowledge-action to academia, the general public and the implementing agencies. Legislation, inclusive of Data Protection, Freedom of Information, Public Sector Information, Aarhus, INSPIRE, SEIS and the still embryonic SENSE, have all managed to create a new reality that may be too complex for some still caught in a jurassic analogue stage where data hoarding might still be prevalent and little effort is made to jump to the post-modern reality. Efforts to push the process through various domains such as census, environment protection, spatial development and crime have helped the Maltese Islands to create a scenario that is ripe for a national data infrastructure, inter-entity data exchange, open data structuring, and free dissemination services. This process enhances the knowledge-base and reduces redundancy, whilst creating new challenges on how to make sense of all the data being made available, particularly in the interpretation or misinterpretation of the outputs. The paper reviews Malta’s process to go through the birth pains of SEIS as an open data construct, through to the dissemination of various spatial datasets and the first open portals pertaining to the various regulatory directives.peer-reviewe

Connecting geodata initiatives to contribute to a European spatial data infrastructure : the CRISOLA case for Malta and the project Plan4all

The Malta CRISOLA case study is investigated in terms of its analysis of the approaches taken to ensure that data in the physical and social domains are tackled within a reliable structure as that provided by the spatial domain through INSPIRE. The crime, social and landuse themes, being pivotal to the model, have served as a bridge across the landuse domains identified as fundamental in the INSPIRE Directive and as expressed in the Plan4all project. The case study is described in terms of its eventual take-up of functions developed by the Plan4all project which are essential for the future successful outcomes as identified in the CRISOLA model. The idea is to disseminate Maltese results to other geoportals including Plan4all geoserver which focuses on the interoperability and harmonisation of spatial planning data. The aims are to support holistic planning through the provision of data services across the spatial and social themes.peer-reviewe

Random-phase approximation and its applications in computational chemistry and materials science

The random-phase approximation (RPA) as an approach for computing the electronic correlation energy is reviewed. After a brief account of its basic concept and historical development, the paper is devoted to the theoretical formulations of RPA, and its applications to realistic systems. With several illustrating applications, we discuss the implications of RPA for computational chemistry and materials science. The computational cost of RPA is also addressed which is critical for its widespread use in future applications. In addition, current correction schemes going beyond RPA and directions of further development will be discussed.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures, published online in J. Mater. Sci. (2012

A grid-based infrastructure for distributed retrieval

In large-scale distributed retrieval, challenges of latency, heterogeneity, and dynamicity emphasise the importance of infrastructural support in reducing the development costs of state-of-the-art solutions. We present a service-based infrastructure for distributed retrieval which blends middleware facilities and a design framework to ‘lift’ the resource sharing approach and the computational services of a European Grid platform into the domain of e-Science applications. In this paper, we give an overview of the DILIGENT Search Framework and illustrate its exploitation in the field of Earth Science

Managing Uncertainty: A Case for Probabilistic Grid Scheduling

The Grid technology is evolving into a global, service-orientated architecture, a universal platform for delivering future high demand computational services. Strong adoption of the Grid and the utility computing concept is leading to an increasing number of Grid installations running a wide range of applications of different size and complexity. In this paper we address the problem of elivering deadline/economy based scheduling in a heterogeneous application environment using statistical properties of job historical executions and its associated meta-data. This approach is motivated by a study of six-month computational load generated by Grid applications in a multi-purpose Grid cluster serving a community of twenty e-Science projects. The observed job statistics, resource utilisation and user behaviour is discussed in the context of management approaches and models most suitable for supporting a probabilistic and autonomous scheduling architecture

Research in Geant4 electromagnetic physics design, and its effects on computational performance and quality assurance

The Geant4 toolkit offers a rich variety of electromagnetic physics models; so far the evaluation of this Geant4 domain has been mostly focused on its physics functionality, while the features of its design and their impact on simulation accuracy, computational performance and facilities for verification and validation have not been the object of comparable attention yet, despite the critical role they play in many experimental applications. A new project is in progress to study the application of new design concepts and software techniques in Geant4 electromagnetic physics, and to evaluate how they can improve on the current simulation capabilities. The application of a policy-based class design is investigated as a means to achieve the objective of granular decomposition of processes; this design technique offers various advantages in terms of flexibility of configuration and computational performance. The current Geant4 physics models have been re-implemented according to the new design as a pilot project. The main features of the new design and first results of performance improvement and testing simplification are presented; they are relevant to many Geant4 applications, where computational speed and the containment of resources invested in simulation production and quality assurance play a critical role.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures and images, to appear in proceedings of the Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference 2009, Orland

Quantum-Chemical Approach to Nuclear Magnetic Resonance of Paramagnetic Systems

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a central method for investigating the microscopic structure and dynamics of molecules and materials, with numerous applications in science, technology, and medicine. Computational modelling is indispensable in NMR research due to the indirect nature of NMR information and the rich physical phenomenology behind its observables. While NMR is conventionally used to study diamagnetic systems, paramagnetic NMR (pNMR) of electronically open-shell systems is rapidly gaining importance. This inaugural article concerns the methodology and application of computational molecular science to the observables pNMR, including current challenges and outlook for the future.Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a central method for investigating the microscopic structure and dynamics of molecules and materials, with numerous applications in science, technology, and medicine. Computational modelling is indispensable in NMR research due to the indirect nature of NMR information and the rich physical phenomenology behind its observables. While NMR is conventionally used to study diamagnetic systems, paramagnetic NMR (pNMR) of electronically open-shell systems is rapidly gaining importance. This inaugural article concerns the methodology and application of computational molecular science to the observables pNMR, including current challenges and outlook for the future