A classification of emerging and traditional grid systems

The grid has evolved in numerous distinct phases. It started in the early ’90s as a model of metacomputing in which supercomputers share resources; subsequently, researchers added the ability to share data. This is usually referred to as the first-generation grid. By the late ’90s, researchers had outlined the framework for second-generation grids, characterized by their use of grid middleware systems to “glue” different grid technologies together. Third-generation grids originated in the early millennium when Web technology was combined with second-generation grids. As a result, the invisible grid, in which grid complexity is fully hidden through resource virtualization, started receiving attention. Subsequently, grid researchers identified the requirement for semantically rich knowledge grids, in which middleware technologies are more intelligent and autonomic. Recently, the necessity for grids to support and extend the ambient intelligence vision has emerged. In AmI, humans are surrounded by computing technologies that are unobtrusively embedded in their surroundings. However, third-generation grids’ current architecture doesn’t meet the requirements of next-generation grids (NGG) and service-oriented knowledge utility (SOKU).4 A few years ago, a group of independent experts, arranged by the European Commission, identified these shortcomings as a way to identify potential European grid research priorities for 2010 and beyond. The experts envision grid systems’ information, knowledge, and processing capabilities as a set of utility services.3 Consequently, new grid systems are emerging to materialize these visions. Here, we review emerging grids and classify them to motivate further research and help establish a solid foundation in this rapidly evolving area

Developing Health System Surge Capacity: Community Efforts in Jeopardy

Examines six communities' efforts to build surge healthcare capacities to respond to terrorist attacks, epidemics, and natural and manmade disasters; the needed components and funding; and the effects of the restrictions and decline in federal funds

Turning data into action:Supporting humanitarian field workers with open data

In the aftermath of disasters, information is of the essence for humanitarian decision makers in the field. Their concrete information needs is highly context-influenced and often they find themselves unable to access the right information at the right time. We propose a novel ICT-based approach to address these information needs more accurately. First, we select a group of in-field decision makers and collect their concrete information needs in the disaster aftermath. We then review to what extent existing data and tools can already address these needs. We conclude that existing solutions fall short in meeting important information needs of the selected group. We describe the design of an information system prototype to address these gaps more accurately. We combine data of the International Aid Transparency Initiative and the Humanitarian Data Exchange to form the data-backend of our system. We describe our implementation approach and evaluation plan

The Informatics Audit

The demand for qualitative and reliable information in order to support decision-making is continuously increasing. On the other hand, the cost of software production and maintenance is raising dramatically as a consequence of the increasing complexity of software systems and the need for better designed and user friendly programs. The huge amount of data the organizations face needs human, financial, and material resources to collect, checks, analyze and use it. All these aspects impose to develop activities in order to obtain better outcomes with less resources. The Informatics Audit is one of such kind of activities. This paper presents some Informatics Audit basic concepts.it audit, software cost, maintenance, system complexity

Addressing Resource Gaps in the U.S. Health Care Safety Net: An Assessment of the Free Clinic Network

Based on a survey of free clinics serving uninsured low-income patients, examines the resource constraints limiting the expansion of healthcare services provided, including the high costs of labs, equipment, and medication. Makes recommendations

Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) Partnership’s work in Latin America

The Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) Partnership is a private-public collaboration led by USAID, which aims to increase resilience to climate change in developing countries through the development and dissemination of climate services. The partnership began with initial projects in three countries: Colombia, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) was the lead organization for the Colombian CSRD efforts – which then expanded to encompass work in the whole Latin American region

Heritage, crisis, and community crime prevention in Nepal

Following Nepal's 2015 earthquake there was speculation that sacred art would be looted from the ruins of severely damaged temples due to breakdown in formal security. Although pillage did not immediately occur, the months following the earthquake have seen the theft of sacred heritage items. As Nepali sacred art remains under threat of theft, we explore the processes by which government intervention can be destructive of the community dynamic that maintains local crime prevention on an informal and unofficial level. Can situational crime prevention measures when imposed in a top-down fashion upon communities by state actors be corrosive of collective efficacy, and therefore ultimately self-defeating in crime prevention terms? The case of post-quake Nepal seems to suggest that the answer to this question is, in some circumstances, yes