CERN openlab Whitepaper on Future IT Challenges in Scientific Research

This whitepaper describes the major IT challenges in scientific research at CERN and several other European and international research laboratories and projects. Each challenge is exemplified through a set of concrete use cases drawn from the requirements of large-scale scientific programs. The paper is based on contributions from many researchers and IT experts of the participating laboratories and also input from the existing CERN openlab industrial sponsors. The views expressed in this document are those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the view of their organisations and/or affiliates

An Integrated Approach for Characterizing Aerosol Climate Impacts and Environmental Interactions

Aerosols exert myriad influences on the earth's environment and climate, and on human health. The complexity of aerosol-related processes requires that information gathered to improve our understanding of climate change must originate from multiple sources, and that effective strategies for data integration need to be established. While a vast array of observed and modeled data are becoming available, the aerosol research community currently lacks the necessary tools and infrastructure to reap maximum scientific benefit from these data. Spatial and temporal sampling differences among a diverse set of sensors, nonuniform data qualities, aerosol mesoscale variabilities, and difficulties in separating cloud effects are some of the challenges that need to be addressed. Maximizing the long-term benefit from these data also requires maintaining consistently well-understood accuracies as measurement approaches evolve and improve. Achieving a comprehensive understanding of how aerosol physical, chemical, and radiative processes impact the earth system can be achieved only through a multidisciplinary, inter-agency, and international initiative capable of dealing with these issues. A systematic approach, capitalizing on modern measurement and modeling techniques, geospatial statistics methodologies, and high-performance information technologies, can provide the necessary machinery to support this objective. We outline a framework for integrating and interpreting observations and models, and establishing an accurate, consistent, and cohesive long-term record, following a strategy whereby information and tools of progressively greater sophistication are incorporated as problems of increasing complexity are tackled. This concept is named the Progressive Aerosol Retrieval and Assimilation Global Observing Network (PARAGON). To encompass the breadth of the effort required, we present a set of recommendations dealing with data interoperability; measurement and model integration; multisensor synergy; data summarization and mining; model evaluation; calibration and validation; augmentation of surface and in situ measurements; advances in passive and active remote sensing; and design of satellite missions. Without an initiative of this nature, the scientific and policy communities will continue to struggle with understanding the quantitative impact of complex aerosol processes on regional and global climate change and air quality

On the Angular Resolution of the AGILE gamma-ray imaging detector

We present a study of the Angular Resolution of the AGILE gamma-ray imaging detector (GRID) that is operational in space since April 2007. The AGILE instrument is made of an array of 12 planes each equipped with a Tungsten converter and Silicon micros trip detectors and is sensitive in the energy range 50 MeV - 10 GeV. Among the space instruments devoted to gamma-ray astrophysics, AGILE uniquely exploits an analog readout system with dedicated electronics coupled with Silicon detectors. We show the results of Monte Carlo simulations carried out to reproduce the gamma-ray detection by the GRID, and we compare them to in-flight data. We use the Crab (pulsar + Nebula) system for discussion of real data performance, since its E^{-2} energy spectrum is representative of the majority of gamma-ray sources. For Crab-like spectrum sources, the GRID angular resolution (FWHM of ~4deg at 100 MeV; ~0.8deg at 1 GeV; ~0.9deg integrating the full energy band from 100 MeV to tens of GeV) is stable across a large field of view, being characterized by a flat response up to 30deg off-axis. A comparison of the angular resolution obtained by the two operational gamma-ray instruments, AGILE-GRID and Fermi-LAT, is interesting in view of future gamma-ray missions, that are currently under study. The two instruments exploit different detector configurations affecting the angular resolution: the former being optimized in the readout and track reconstruction especially in the low-energy band, the latter in terms of converter thickness and power consumption. We show that, despite these differences, the angular resolution of both instruments is very similar between 100 MeV and a few GeV.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Ap