A new generation of cyberinfrastructure and data services for earth system science education and research

International audienceA revolution is underway in the role played by cyberinfrastructure and modern data services in the conduct of research and education. We live in an era of an unprecedented data volume from diverse sources, multidisciplinary analysis and synthesis, and active, learner-centered education emphasis. Complex environmental problems such as global change and water cycle transcend disciplinary and geographic boundaries, and their solution requires integrated earth system science approaches. Contemporary education strategies recommend adopting an Earth system science approach for teaching the geosciences, employing pedagogical techniques such as enquiry-based learning. The resulting transformation in geoscience education and research creates new opportunities for advancement and poses many challenges. The success of the scientific enterprise depends heavily on the availability of a state-of-the-art, robust, and flexible cyberinfrastructure, and on the timely access to quality data, products, and tools to process, manage, analyze, integrate, publish, and visualize those data. Concomittantly, rapid advances in computing, communication, and information technologies have revolutionized the provision and use of data, tools and services. The profound consequences of Moore's Law and the explosive growth of the Internet are well known. On the other hand, how other technological trends have shaped the development of data services is less well understood. For example, the advent of digital libraries, web services, open standards and protocols have been important factors in shaping a new generation of cyberinfrastructure for solving key scientific and educational problems. This paper presents a broad overview of these issues, along with a survey of key information technology trends, and discuses how those trends are enabling new approaches to applying data services for solving geoscientific problems

LIDA: A Working Model of Cognition

In this paper we present the LIDA architecture as a working model of cognition. We argue that such working models are broad in scope and address real world problems in comparison to experimentally based models which focus on specific pieces of cognition. While experimentally based models are useful, we need a working model of cognition that integrates what we know from neuroscience, cognitive science and AI. The LIDA architecture provides such a working model. A LIDA based cognitive robot or software agent will be capable of multiple learning mechanisms. With artificial feelings and emotions as primary motivators and learning facilitators, such systems will ‘live’ through a developmental period during which they will learn in multiple ways to act in an effective, human-like manner in complex, dynamic, and unpredictable environments. We discuss the integration of the learning mechanisms into the existing IDA architecture as a working model of cognition

Does Information Technology Always Lead to Better Firm Performance? The Role of Environmental Dynamism

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in whether and the extent to which information technology contributes to firm performance and business value. Using the resource-based view of the firm, recent research highlights the notion of IT capability of the organization and finds that higher IT capability leads to superior firm performance. This study, however, argues that one has to reckon the influence of environmental uncertainty (in this study, specifically dynamism) when evaluating the link between IT capability and business value. This study makes use of Galbraith’s information processing theory of the firm, which posits that information processing needs and capabilities must match for superior performance. Extending this argument, one would expect that organizations need much greater amounts of information in more dynamic environments and that greater information processing capabilities (accrued via superior IT capabilities) must exist in such environments and vice versa. Using cross-sectional archival data, this study finds, somewhat contrary to previous assertions, that high IT capability does not add business value to firms operating in more dynamic environments, but that it does add business value in relatively more stable environments. In addition, under low environmental dynamism condition, the performance advantages of high IT capability are found to sustain over time. These findings raise interesting implications and directions for future research. Further, environmental dynamism emerges as a quasi-moderator of the relationship between IT capability and firm performance

Computer-Mediated Group Support, Anonymity and Software Inspection Process

While considerable research in both software inspection and anonymity in Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) exists individually, anonymity within the context of software inspection has not been explored. Anonymity becomes an important issue as researchers and practitioners advocate the use of computer- mediated inspection over traditional manual-based ones. Moreover, the emergence of new paradigms such as distributed and asynchronous environments for inspection only add to the importance of understanding the effects of anonymity on inspection outcomes. This research examines and proposes possible influences of group member anonymity on the outcome of computer-mediated software inspection

Multi-Layer Design of IP over WDM Backbone Networks: Impact on Cost and Survivability

To address the reliability challenges due to failures and planned outages, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) typically use two backbone routers at each central office to which access routers connected in a dual-homed configuration. At the IP layer, redundant backbone routers and redundant transport equipment to interconnect them are deployed, providing reliability through node and path diversity. However, adding such redundant resources increases the overall cost of the network. Hence, a fundamental redesign of the backbone network avoiding such redundant resources, by leveraging the capabilities of an agile optical transport network, is highly desired. In this paper, we propose such a fundamental redesign of IP backbones. Our alternative design uses only a single router at each office but uses the agile optical transport layer to carry traffic to remote Backbone Routers (BRs) in order to survive failures or outages of the single local BR. Optimal mapping of local Access Routers (ARs) to remote BRs is determined by solving an Integer Linear Program (ILP). We describe how our proposed design can be realized using current optical transport technology. We evaluate network designs for cost and performability, the latter being a metric combining performance and availability. We show significant reduction in cost for approximately the same level of reliability as current designs