A perspective on the Healthgrid initiative

This paper presents a perspective on the Healthgrid initiative which involves European projects deploying pioneering applications of grid technology in the health sector. In the last couple of years, several grid projects have been funded on health related issues at national and European levels. A crucial issue is to maximize their cross fertilization in the context of an environment where data of medical interest can be stored and made easily available to the different actors in healthcare, physicians, healthcare centres and administrations, and of course the citizens. The Healthgrid initiative, represented by the Healthgrid association (http://www.healthgrid.org), was initiated to bring the necessary long term continuity, to reinforce and promote awareness of the possibilities and advantages linked to the deployment of GRID technologies in health. Technologies to address the specific requirements for medical applications are under development. Results from the DataGrid and other projects are given as examples of early applications.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Accepted by the Second International Workshop on Biomedical Computations on the Grid, at the 4th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid 2004). Chicago USA, April 200

Library Resources: Procurement, Innovation and Exploitation in a Digital World

The possibilities of the digital future require new models for procurement, innovation and exploitation. Emma Crowley and Chris Spencer describe the skills staff need to deliver resources in hybrid and digital environments. The chapter demonstrates the innovative ways that librarians use to procure and exploit the wealth of resources available in a digital world. They also describe the technological developments that can be adopted to improve workflow processes and they highlight the challenges faced on this fascinating journey

The Neuroscience Information Framework: A Data and Knowledge Environment for Neuroscience

With support from the Institutes and Centers forming the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, we have designed and implemented a new initiative for integrating access to and use of Web-based neuroscience resources: the Neuroscience Information Framework. The Framework arises from the expressed need of the neuroscience community for neuroinformatic tools and resources to aid scientific inquiry, builds upon prior development of neuroinformatics by the Human Brain Project and others, and directly derives from the Society for Neuroscience’s Neuroscience Database Gateway. Partnered with the Society, its Neuroinformatics Committee, and volunteer consultant-collaborators, our multi-site consortium has developed: (1) a comprehensive, dynamic, inventory of Web-accessible neuroscience resources, (2) an extended and integrated terminology describing resources and contents, and (3) a framework accepting and aiding concept-based queries. Evolving instantiations of the Framework may be viewed at http://nif.nih.gov, http://neurogateway.org, and other sites as they come on line

Collaboration Enabling Internet Resource Collection-Building Software and Technologies

Over the last decade the Library of the University of California, Riverside and its collaborators have developed a number of systems, service designs, and projects that utilize innovative technologies to foster better Internet finding tools in libraries and more cooperative and efficient effort in Internet link and metadata collection building. The open-source software and projects discussed represent appropriate technologies and sustainable strategies that we believe will help Internet portals, digital libraries, virtual libraries, library catalogs-with-portal-like-capabilities (IPDVLCs), and related collection-building efforts in academia to better scale and more accurately anticipate and meet the needs of scholarly and educational users.published or submitted for publicatio

A novel dissemination protocol to deploy opportunistic services in federated satellite systems

The Earth Observation community is demanding new satellite applications that cover the need of monitoring different areas with high spatial resolution and short revisit times. These applications will generate huge amounts of data, and thus improvements in the downlink capacity are mandatory. Distributed Satellite Systems have emerged as a moderate-risk and cost-effective solution to meet these new requirements. These systems are groups of satellites that share a global and common objective. One of these systems are the Federated Satellite Systems, which rely on the collaboration between satellites that share unused resources, such as memory storage, computing capabilities, or downlink opportunities. In the same context, the Internet of Satellites paradigm expands the FSS concept to a multi-hop scenario, without predefining a satellite system architecture, and deploying temporal satellite networks. The basis of both concepts is the offer of unused satellite resources as services, being necessary that satellites notify their availability to other satellites that composes the system. This work presents the Opportunistic Service Avaliability Dissemination Protocol, which allows a satellite to publish an available service to be consumed by others. Details of the protocol behavior, and packet formats are presented as part of the protocol definition. Additionally, without loss of generality, the protocol has been verified in a realistic scenario composed of Earth Observation satellites, and the Telesat mega-constellation as a network backbone. The achieved results demonstrate the benefits of using the proposed protocol by doubling the downloaded data in some cases.This work was supported in part by the ’’CommSensLab’’ Excellence Research Unit Maria de Maeztu Ministerio de asuntos Económicos y transformación digital (MINECO) under Grant MDM-2016-0600; in part by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) and European Union - European Regional Development Fund (EU ERDF) project ’’Sensing with pioneering opportunistic techniques‘‘ under Grant RTI2018-099008-B-C21; in part by the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR)—Generalitat de Catalunya (FEDER) under Grant FI-DGR 2015; and in part by the Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya under Grant 2017 SGR 376 and Grant 2017 SGR 219.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

An ECOOP web portal for visualising and comparing distributed coastal oceanography model and in situ data

As part of a large European coastal operational oceanography project (ECOOP), we have developed a web portal for the display and comparison of model and in situ marine data. The distributed model and in situ datasets are accessed via an Open Geospatial Consortium Web Map Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) respectively. These services were developed independently and readily integrated for the purposes of the ECOOP project, illustrating the ease of interoperability resulting from adherence to international standards. The key feature of the portal is the ability to display co-plotted timeseries of the in situ and model data and the quantification of misfits between the two. By using standards-based web technology we allow the user to quickly and easily explore over twenty model data feeds and compare these with dozens of in situ data feeds without being concerned with the low level details of differing file formats or the physical location of the data. Scientific and operational benefits to this work include model validation, quality control of observations, data assimilation and decision support in near real time. In these areas it is essential to be able to bring different data streams together from often disparate locations

Bringing research and researchers to light: current and emerging challenges for a discipline-based knowledge resource

Australian literary studies have, in the past decade, been greatly assisted by AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource (www.austlit.edu.au), a multi-institutional collaboration between researchers, librarians and software designers from ten universities and the National Library of Australia. Under the leadership of The University of Queensland, this collaboration has produced a web-based research environment that supports a wide range of projects and publications across a diverse array of fields in Australian literary and narrative cultures while also becoming a key resource for teaching and general information. AustLit has consistently worked to integrate the research output of associated projects and is currently planning to expand its position in the community with a new open access and open contribution model. A major innovation in data management and maintenance, the AustLit Research Community[1] structure supports the study of Australian literary and story-making cultures by providing a web-based environment where segments of these cultures can be explored and presented as distinct topics within a larger knowledge framework. Scholars are able to build datasets, annotate, analyse and present that data in a range of ways, and publish scholarly interpretations of their findings in the form of peer reviewed articles. The incorporation of these research-rich datasets into AustLit contributes to an overarching goal of building a comprehensive database of information about Australian writers, writing and print culture more broadly. With a recent decision to move from the current access model as a subscription service, available to relatively few users, to an open access and open contributions model incorporating content produced by a network of volunteers, AustLit is now facing a significant new challenge. The Aus-e-Lit Project[2] has delivered innovative tools and services that will enable AustLit users to engage more directly with AustLit data and to contribute to a Research Commons with collaborative annotations and richly described collections of internet resources. This paper will report on the implications that these innovations bring to current and future research practices. It will consider the successes and challenges that AustLit faces with its aim to be the definitive virtual research environment and information resource for Australian literary, print, and narrative culture, not only for scholars in the field but for students of all levels and the general public. [1] See www.austlit.edu.au/ResearchCommunities [2] The Aus-e-Lit project is funded from 2008 - 2011 by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Platforms for Collaboration, through the National eResearch Architecture Taskforce (NeAT), and by the University of Queensland.PARADISEC (Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures), Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories, Ethnographic E-Research Project and Sydney Object Repositories for Research and Teaching