DELL Looks to the Clouds
Via the Google Cloud Computing Group Todd Brannon sends a pointer to DELL's blog trumpetting its entry into the cloud computing space.
<GRID.Lock/>
RE: Finding Resources for the Innovation Plantation
<ed.note>One of the topics of the upcoming Eighth Annual Technology Nashville Conference (Thursday, May 22, 2008, 7:20am - 2:30pm, Franklin Marriott Cool Springs) will be "Workforce Development - Solving the IT Shortage in Middle TN". Setting aside the fact that there is no IT shortage in Nashville, only possibly a shortage of IT folks who reside in Nashville (which is not the same thing when management ceases the geo-locking of work tasks and adopts distributed digital environments, results-only collaborative work environments) IT firms would do well to pay attention to the Asperger's-IT connection and make it part of their recruiting networking strategies.</ed.note>
Virtualisation and Grid: a fundamental challenge to the software licensing model? - Webinar, Thursday 10 April
Virtualisation has spread like wildfire through the data centres of UK organisations during 2007.
Before virtualisation it was relatively easy to keep control of business IT expenditure through the assigned hardware costs and software applications licensed to execute upon them. Even at the individual level it was possible to keep track of licensing terms and conditions by counting the number of employees who had access to their office and other work applications.
- If we struggled to keep track of licence agreements and their provisions in the past, does virtualisation help or hinder the task looking forwards?
- What tools and techniques are available to help us manage in this new age of computing?
This webinar brings together some of the pioneers in this industry, working at the leading edge to shed light on the new responsibilities of IT managers; to provide tools and methods to gain insight and to set policies and industry direction in the new situation.
Join us at 14:00 on Thursday 10 April to learn more from:
- David Gittins, Capgemini who has been working with the public sector on this challenge
- Neil Sanderson, Product Manager for Virtualisation at Microsoft
- Mark Cresswell of Scalable Solutions, a leader in the provision of tools for monitoring and reporting usage.
Ian Osborne, Project Director of Grid Computing Now! will chair the session and invite those attending to an online conference to discuss the topic following the broadcast. Grid Computing Now! is working closely with FAST, the Federation against Software Theft, to bring insight and understanding to this issue for IT managers in all sectors of the industry.
Registration Link: http://mediazone.brighttalk.com/event/gridcomputingnow/af47327116-1354-intro
Agenda: http://mediazone.brighttalk.com/event/gridcomputingnow/fc8001f834-784-intro
How it works: You will be able to take part online from your desk by watching live video, viewing slides and asking questions through an interactive webpage.
Date: Thursday 10 April 2008
Time: 14:00- 15:00 (UK time)
For more information contact:
Tara Kelly
T 020 7331 2171
E tara.kelly@intellectuk.org
Open GRID Group Launched on LinkedIn.com
This is a group to promote the intersection of open source, open standards and grid and high performance computing. The invite link is here.
World's next outsourcing hub: Kenya?
The Kenyan government is pumping millions of dollars into improving the nation's outdated telecom industry.
<ed.note>I reiterate my harrangue for the Kenya Call Center Industry -- driving in to a call center to access the wiki and VOIP is missing the point. Rural telehealth and disease management will never reach its full potential if you can't develop a management structure which can trust remote workers -- or develop enough tech monitoring tools savvy to fake it. Just because the US keeps talking "green" but refuses to adopt ROWE doesn't mean the rest of the world has to repeat the mistake.</ed.note>
GLORIAD
GLORIAD is built on a fiber-optic ring of networks around the northern hemisphere of the earth, providing scientists, educators and students with advanced networking tools that improve communications and data exchange, enabling active, daily collaboration on common problems. With GLORIAD, the scientific community can move unprecedented volumes of valuable data effortlessly, stream video and communicate through quality audio- and video-conferencing.
GLORIAD exists today due to the shared commitment of the US, Russia, China, Korea, Canada, the Netherlands and the 5 Nordic countries to promote increased engagement and cooperation between their countries, beginning with their scientists, educators and young people. The benefits of this advanced network are shared with S&E communities throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas.
GLORIAD provides more than a network; it provides a stable, persistent, non-threatening means of facilitating dialog and increased cooperation between nations that have often been at odds through the past century. This new era of cooperation will provide benefits not only to the S&E communities but to every citizen in the partner countries through:
- Improved weather forecasting and atmospheric modeling through live sharing of monitoring data;
- New discoveries into the basic nature and structure of the universe through advanced network connections between high energy physicists and astronomers - and the expensive facilities GLORIAD makes it possible to share;
- Support of the global community building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), creating a technology which will someday provide a practically limitless supply of energy;
- Advancing joint geological sciences related to seismic monitoring and earthquake prediction;
- Enabling new joint telemedical applications and practices;
- Strengthening current programs in nuclear weapons disposal, nuclear materials protection, accounting and control and active discussions on combating terrorist threats.
- Increasing classroom to-to-classroom cooperation to accessible scientists and students in other countries through the 24/7 EduCultural Channel, the “Virtual Science Museum of China,” the Russia-developed “Simple Words ” global essay contest, and a special partnership with International Junior Achievement.
These are a small sample of the literally hundreds of active collaborations served by both the general and advanced network services provided by GLORIAD. To learn more about the applications using GLORIAD, browse the following pages. This site describes the currently operating GLORIAD network and plans to expand this to a much higher capacity and more capable infrastructure in the years ahead.
We have released the official GLORIAD-2007 map. It is in high, medium, and small resolutions for your convenience.
The GLORIAD-2007 map you can download from the web server.
High Throughput Computing Week - Edinburgh - November 27-30, 2007
Speakers will include Miron Livny of Condor and John Powers of Digipede, as well as Jason Stowe of Cycle Computing and Akash Chopra of Barrie & Hibbart representing commercial users. There will also be several other presenters who will describe how they have used HTC in their everyday research.
Each of the four days will focus on a different aspect of High-Throughput Computing. Delegates may register for individual days. There will be a workshop dinner on the evening of Day 3.
Day 1: Example Solutions: presentations from users in academia and enterprise show how HTC has transformed their work.
Day 2: Technology comparison and training: two technology providers demonstrate how their systems would tackle the same problem
Day 3: Requirements gathering: researchers, applications developers and providers discuss their HTC requirements, including security, usability, energy efficiency and reliability.
Day 4: The Future of HTC: users, service providers and technology providers discuss long term roadmaps.
This meeting is intended for a mix of users of HTC as a service, service providers and application developers who build on top of HTC systems. Participants should be from the commercial as well as academic communities.
For registration and more details see http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/831/.
Regards
Grid Computing Now! Team
http://www.gridcomputingnow.org
info-at_gridcomputing.org
Open Source Grid & Cluster Conference
Featuring: GlobusWorld, Grid Engine Workshop, Rocks Cluster Workshop
For Users, Administrators, and Developers of Open Source Grid and Cluster Software
May 2008 in the USA
Email info@OpenSourceGridCluster.org to be notified of details as they are finalized
As grid and cluster technologies transition to mainstream use, users — wary of high administration costs, expensive software, and proprietary lock-in for what are frequently mission critical functions — increasingly demand open source solutions.
At the 2008 Open Source Grid & Cluster Conference, current and potential users, administrators, and developers of open source grid and cluster software can:
* Learn the latest best practices for using, managing and building grids and clusters using the world’s most popular open source grid and cluster software, including Globus, Grid Engine, Rocks, Ganglia, Cluster Express, and many other open source components.
* Hear the experiences of real users applying this open source software in a wide range of commercial, research, educational, and biomedical environments.
* Meet the developers responsible for this open source grid and cluster software.
* Interact with others facing and addressing challenges similar to your own.
The program will include tracks dedicated to Globus (GlobusWorld), Grid Engine (Grid Engine Workshop), and Rocks (Rocks-A-Palooza). Other sessions will cover related open source grid and cluster software, and present cross-cutting material focused on end-user applications and grid and cluster operations. With a combination of in-depth tutorials, user experiences, technical architecture reviews, discussions of future directions, and much more, there will be something for everyone at this unique event.
The Open Source Grid & Cluster Conference will be held in May 2008 in the USA.
Email info@OpenSourceGridCluster.org to be notified of details as they are finalized.
Organizing Committee
Fritz Ferstl (Grid Engine)
Ian Foster (Globus)
Carl Kesselman (Globus)
Phil Papadopoulos (Rocks)
Steve Tuecke (Cluster Express)
World Community Grid Call for Research Proposals
Submit a Proposal
World Community Grid invites public and not-for-profit organizations to apply to use its powerful grid technology at no cost for projects that benefit humanity. Grid technology enables researchers to access tremendous amounts of power, exceeding that of several supercomputers, to run complex computations and to accelerate the pace of their research. Research results must be made available to the global research community and will be made available on World Community Grid's web site.
Research We Support
World Community Grid supports research that is:
Focused on solving problems to benefit humanity;
Conducted by public or nonprofit organizations;
Contributed to the public domain; and
Accelerated by grid computing technology.
Research projects that benefit from grid technology are those that perform computations that require millions of computer processing units (CPUs) and that can be divided into smaller independent computations.
Examples of potential fields of study include:
New and existing infectious disease research - development of treatments for HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), etc.
Genomics and disease - functions of proteins that are coded by human genes and how they might relate to cures for common diseases
Environmental research - meteorology and severe weather warning, pollution, remediation, climate modeling, and others
Natural disasters and hunger - earthquake warning, information on improving crop yields and livestock production, and evaluation of the supply of critical natural resources such as water
World Community Grid's Advisory Board, composed of prominent philanthropists, scientists and officials from leading public and private organizations, reviews proposals to identify those with the best potential to benefit from World Community Grid's technology and make important progress on humanitarian goals.
How to Submit a Proposal
For more information, including the proposal process, technical requirements, and selection criteria, please review our Request For Proposals (pdf).
To submit a project for consideration, please download and complete the RFP Proposal Application (doc) and return to rfp@worldcommunitygrid.org. RFP Proposal Application (doc).
"Expanding Africa’s Broadband Capacity", Connect Africa Summit in Kigali, 29-30 October 2007
Where: Kigali, Rwanda
Why: The main goal of the Summit is to help bring connectivity to Africa and promote "Connect Africa", a new partnership that seeks to expand the information and communication technology infrastructure of the continent, especially Internet broadband.
Who: Some 500 participants are expected to attend the Connect Africa Summit. Participants include the patrons of the initiative, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Ghana’s President John Kufuor, who is also the African Union Chairman. High-level participants include International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré; President of the African Development Bank Donald Kaberuka; and Intel Corporation Chairman Craig Barrett, who is also the Chair of the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, will make a contribution by video link. The Presidents of several African nations are expected to participate.
The event will bring together political leaders, including Ministers and Heads of State, CEOs and senior executives of global and African IT companies, leaders from civil society and heads of international and regional development banks. Industry leaders including Cisco, GSM Association, Ericsson, Huawei, British Telecom, Qualcomm, NTT DoCoMo, Neustar, Safaricom, Nokia-Siemens and Microsoft will attend and announce new initiatives to help bring connectivity to Africa.
The Summit sessions are designed for television to encourage interactive participation and key sessions will be moderated by Stephen Cole, a renowned TV anchor with Al Jazeera International. The event’s press conferences will be webcast live, and time slots for telephone interviews with prominent participants will be allocated for those journalists who cannot attend.
The event is organized by the International Telecommunication Union, the African Union, the World Bank Group and the Global Alliance for ICT and Development, in partnership with the African Development Bank, the African Telecommunication Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and the Global Digital Solidarity Fund.
For further information, click here or contact:
Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information
ITU
Tel: +41 22 730 5046
Mobile: +41 79 249 4861
Fax: +41 22 730 5939
E-mail
Contact: in New York Enrica Murmura, Tel: +1 212 963-5913, E-mail murmura@un.org; in Washington, DC Henny Rahardja, Tel. +1 202 473 4857, E-mail HRahardja@worldbank.org; in Tunis, Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi, Tel: +216 71 10 26 27, E-mail e.ngwainmbi@afdb.org.
About ITU
World Community Grid begins the move to BOINC
World Community Grid is pleased to announce that it has made the decision to migrate entirely to BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), a software platform for volunteer computing and desktop grid computing.
This software platform has been in use by World Community Grid since November 2005. It was added originally to provide support for users of the Linux and Macintosh operating systems, but due to its popularity, World Community Grid also has supported BOINC on Windows since December 2005. Today, approximately 50% of all runtime is returned by computers running the BOINC agent, and 80% of new computer registrations are using the BOINC software.
The BOINC agent provides a number of advantages over the UD agent. Some of these include support for multiple processors, memory throttle and bandwidth throttle. An in-depth review of the BOINC agent can be read here.
As a result of this decision, World Community Grid will not be releasing any new projects on the UD software platform. There are currently two projects available to users of the UD agent: FightAIDS@Home and Human Proteome Folding – Phase 2. These two projects will continue to run on the UD agent until it is shut down sometime during the second quarter of 2008. There are currently four projects available for users of the BOINC agent: FightAIDS@Home, Human Proteome Folding – Phase 2, Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together, and AfricanClimate@Home.
Users of the UD agent will need to migrate to the BOINC client before it sunsets by visiting the website and downloading and installing the BOINC agent. The BOINC installer will detect if a computer is running the UD agent and if it is found, help the user uninstall it. Details on downloading and installing the BOINC agent for Windows can be found here.
More details about the migration are available in the member news forum.
Smart Phone Electronic Medical Record / Mobile Contactless Payment / Remote Monitoring, Developments Toward...
<ed.note>Since vendors are looking at remote monitoring for disease management I should list those as well. I'll also be on the look out for sensors which are car-based now that wi-fi is available in automobiles. There are some parallel developments which I guess I should mention: Major League Baseball and other event vendors as well as transportation providers and social networks are putting the cell phone closer to the center of their business models. ( Robert Neelbauer on social graphs here -- cells will eventually be tracked by them. ) Of course, on the other end of the spectrum is home automation.</ed.note>
Phillips (still using POTS lines)
Qualcomm
Nokia's Intellisync Call Connect for Cisco
Shout out to http://www.wirelesshealthcare.co.uk who usually gets these stories before anyone else.
The Tech Scene: Banking by Cell Phone - This Time It's for Real?,
Use of Mobile and Wireless Technology Jumps in Hospitals,
iPhone ? ? ? ( Remember Osirix ), icefirst, liferecord, Access, aKos, ARANZ Medical, Asia eHealth presentations, Banco do Brasil, Blackberry [2], Diebold, Docobo, ebay VOIP (Skype), Gemalto, Google [2][3][4], INSIDE Contactless, J/Speedy, mBlox, mFoundry, Microsoft, m-Wallet, Obopay, payWave, Mayo Clinic InTouch, NTT DoCoMo, PayPal Credit Card, Privium, Samsung, telSpace, Telzuit's Bio-Patch PDA,
Telemedicine & eHealth Directory 2005, Verisign, ViVOtech, FeliCa, [2], Mifare [2], NFC Forum, Blackberry, Ubuntu mobile, Globe Telecom and Smart Communications
The Green Grid
The Green Grid is a consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data centers around the globe. The organization is chartered to develop meaningful, platform-neutral standards, measurement methods, processes and new technologies to improve energy efficient performance of global data centers.
Membership to The Green Grid is open to those companies and information technology professionals with an interest in helping to support the movement to improve data center power consumption, and improve overall efficiency.
Rex Brooks on Collaborative Expedition Workshop #62
<ed.note>Rex is ACTIVE in many healthcare IT related initiatives, one of which is the OASIS International Health Continuum Technical Committee. He posted the following summary in a recent listserv comment:</ed.note>
Hi Folks,
I've been attending and presenting at these collaboration workshops for five years now. The first presentation I gave was at #36. It seems unreal that this was #62.
Here's the url for the workshop yesterday. All of the presentations are downloadable.
Ian Ïoster's presentation on Service Oriented Science is really important for connecting the dots of how all this health-related activity can be pulled together and work together, enabling the kind of multiplier effect we are all hoping will lift Healthcare IT from the depths of paper-anchored catacombs.
Christopher Mackie's presentation on Cyberinfrastructure supports Ian's presentation on Service Oriented Science is particularly cogent in the context of not letting go of the tiger's tail. It's a very pragmatic approach to how to ensure that cyberinfrastructure, especially in academia remains strong after initial funding dwindles. It includes references to actual software development projects.
The Trans-Enterprise Service Grid presentation was given by David Ellis from Sandia Labs, with whom I work on a regular basis in the OASIS Emergency Management TC, and it highlights both the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) as a message payload, and the Emergency Data Exchange Language Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) for message routing. Since messaging is what makes web services work, whether using SOAP or REST, the concept of the Service Grid is what makes the Service Oriented (Architecture) Science and Health Grid mentioned in the other presentations work.
Michelle Warner's presentation on the Health Grid from the perspective of the National Governors Association is another dose of pragmatism. It is a wise inclusion, since the level of state cooperation basically dictates the actual viability of all national health initiatives.
Saul Rosenberg, whose presentation highlighted the concept of the Health Grid, is HQd across the SF Bay from me, and I think I will be working with him in an associated-follow-up project to support his registry-based PTSD/Head/Brain injury early diagnosis service. I met him through Marc Wine in the GSA Office of Intergovernmental Solutions.
This wiki page is a rich set of resources, especially down in the Resources Section toward the bottom of the page.
Cheers,
Rex Brooks
<rexb at starbourne.com>
President, CEO
Starbourne Communications Design
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison Berkeley, CA 94702
Tel: 510-898-0670
Managing Virtual Distance - Driving Business Transformation through Distributed Work, November 14-16, 2007
The Disneyland Hotel • Anaheim, CA
THE One, THE Only Conference Focused on Strategies, Teams, Tools & Beyond in the Virtual Workplace
ANNOUNCING INAUGURAL CONFERENCE ON MANAGING VIRTUAL DISTANCE
- IDENTIFY, MANAGE & MEASURE virtual distance
- Break through language barriers & manage MULTI-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS
- Harness virtual KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
- Believe the unbelievable & witness the power of VIRTUAL WORLDS technology
- Transform business norms & cause cultural shifts in the way people work through SOCIAL NETWORKING
- Implement new millennium strategies that change the way we think about INNOVATION in a corporate context
- Manage, Train & Measure Productivity of the REMOTE EMPLOYEE
- Identify SECURITY CHALLENGES introduced by the transition into Web 2.0 and Web 3.0
To Register:
E-mail register@iirusa.com
Call 888.670.8200
Fax 941.365.2507
Visit http://www.iirusa.com/virtual
The New World of Work
Daniel W. Rasmus
Director of Information Work Vision – MICROSOFT
Virtual Distance Under High-Stress
Honorable Jerry MacArthur Hultin
President – POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY & FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF THE U.S. NAVY
Global Projects vs. Traditional Projects
Karan Sorensen
Chief Information Officer – JOHNSON & JOHNSON PHARMACEUTICAL R&D
Legal Issues & IP Protection
Michael S. Mensik
Partner – BAKER & MCKENZIE
Virtual Worlds Technology
Philip Rosedale
Founder & CEO – LINDEN LABS
Secrets of High-Performance Distributed Teams
Cynthia C. Froggatt
Author of “Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace”
Leadership in the Digital Age
Charles H. House
Executive Director – STANFORD UNIVERSITY, MEDIA X LAB
A Perspective From Corporate Resources
Ann Bamesberger
Vice President of Open Work Services – SUN MICROSYSTEMS
More here.
Cognitive Computing 2007 Videos
here.
WHAT IS COGNITIVE COMPUTING? Cognitive Computing is when computer science meets neuroscience to explain and implement psychology.
We have, in the brain and nervous system, an information processing system unrivalled by artificial means. While it trails machines in accuracy and mathematical computation, it wins on adaptability, flexibility, functionality, and parallelism. The ultimate goal is to reverse engineer enough of this system so that the design principles can be applied to building robust and adaptable computer systems.
Cognitive Computing is different from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Neural Networks (NN). From the outset, AI ignored neurobiology. While neural networks started from biological motivation, they too quickly discarded biological plausibility. In both cases, the approach has been to focus on a suitable problem, and to offer a "symbolic" or "neural network" solution to it. The brain, however, works in exactly the opposite fashion, it has evolved a solution that allows it to deal with problems as they arise.
AI and NN technologies take one or more cognitive phenomena exhibited by the brain as a starting point and then try to replicate that capability by inventing algorithms/learning rules. In contrast, CC is about learning how the brain operates, about algorithms, about diligent reverse engineering and testing plausible models.
Cognitive Computing is about engineering the mind by reverse engineering the brain.
Advancing Virtual Organizing: Potentials and Realities from Scientific Grid to Citizen-Service Communities - June 20, 2007
The purpose of the workshop is to envision greater possibilities for distributed citizen service communities, in light of grid-based, research and design communities. How can emerging public service communities learn "build to share" principles from distributed research communities already benefiting from cyberinfrastructures they have built? What are the implications for accelerating Service Oriented Architecture in public service communities?
By discovering how different fields of business, science and healthcare are using grid computing, participants will share in lessons learned and best practices to provide a common foundation for establishing next steps in planning projects that leverage all the advances associated with grid communities.
"...Grids are the integrated platforms for all network-distributed applications or services whether they are computationally or transactionally intensive." Paul Strong, Grid Today, Sept.11, 2006
In addition, the workshop includes a focus on the U.S. HealthGrid. Current priorities as seen through the National Institutes of Health Roadmap for example call for advancing collaboration in biomedical research and using biomedical data and information to improve the quality and outcomes of health care delivery.
The President's goal to make an electronic health record available for most Americans by 2014 and the development of the Nationwide Health Information Network under the leadership of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, present a timely opportunity to share and collaborate advanced HealthGrid projects, systems, data and knowledge. Through collaboration, open solutions and innovation, the grid community can contribute to advancing quality, electronic health records, population and bio-surveillance and personal health records to achieve higher levels of performance and interoperability.
NetFPGA Open Platform Overview
The NetFPGA platform enables researchers and instructors to build working prototypes of high-speed, hardware-accelerated networking systems. The platform can be used in the classroom to teach students how to build Ethernet switches and Internet Prototcol (IP) routers using hardware rather than software. The platform can be used by researchers to prototype advanced services for next-generation networks.
The NetFPGA is an open platform and available to developers worldwide. Reference designs included with the system include an IPv4 router, an Ethernet switch, and a four-port NIC. Researchers have used the platform to build advanced network flow processing systems. Multiple platforms could be connected together to route packets over multiple subnets.
The system consists of a reprogrammable development board, reference implementations, and sample courseware. The development board itself is a PCI card that can be installed in any PC with an available full-length slot. Hosted on the board are a user-programmable FPGA (with two PowerPC processors), SRAM, DRAM, and four 1Gbps Ethernet ports.
Programming and administration of the development board are performed by the host PC via the PCI bus. This allows users to remotely develop and deploy designs since physical access to the board is not required.
FP7 Grant and Consortium Agreements Workshop, Tuesday 10 July 2007 - Cambridge, UK
FP7 is open to EU public and private entities of all sizes and incorporates provision for the participation of non-EU countries. There are no national quotas as the Programme operates on a competitive basis with proposals being evaluated by panels of independent experts against set criteria. There are 10 thematic areas including Information and Communications Technology for which the detailed workplan can be obtained here.
Participating in FP7 has many potential benefits: up to 50% of the cost of undertaking R&D that you might not otherwise be able to do; opportunities to be part of a pan-European consortium sharing knowledge, skills and expertise; the opportunity to raise your profile and access new business markets. Taking part could enable you to become involved in ambitious, leading-edge projects.
The new grant agreement for FP7 brings with it changes concerning the responsibilities of coordinators and participants, revisions to IPR terms, and clarifications concerning the involvement of third parties. New model Consortium Agreements are being drafted to match the new terms and incorporate lessons learnt in FP6. This workshop will describe the main processes, from signature, reporting and payment, through changing participants and on to suspension and termination in the FP7 Cooperation Programme. It will explain what the EC means by background and need, and the implications for access rights to IPR. The workshop will also explore the implications for the consortium agreement.
The workshop is aimed at contracts officers in organisations participating in the EU Research Framework Programme. It is also suitable for project managers and professional advisors working on these projects. It will be limited to 24 participants, to allow high levels of interaction and plenty of time for questions. Note: finance managers requiring in-depth information on the financial aspects of FP7 should attend our Finance in FP7 workshop.
If you would like more information regarding this workshop please contact Sue Kerr on 01480 497712 or visit www.singleimage.co.uk. For further information on ICT in the 7th Framework, go to GCN's funding pages.
Open Grid Forum 20/Enabling Grids for E-sciencE User Forum May 7-11, Manchester, UK
The deadline for saving up to $100 on OGF20/EGEE User Forum registration is this Friday, April 27 at midnight US Central time. With over 700 grid leaders, technologists, and users registered, you won't want to miss the premier grid and distributed computing event of the year. Register today by visiting http://www.ogf.org/OGF20/events_regstrtn_ogf20.php.
The OGF20/EGEE User Forum is being held May 7-11 in Manchester, UK. The five day programme includes an exciting array of opportunities for attendees to learn, outreach, network, and contribute to the work of our international grid community. Of particular interest to industry is the Grids Mean Business track which will run on May 8-9, featuring speakers from companies across many sectors talking openly and honestly about their experiences deploying grid technologies.
Other highlights will include:
* Keynote speakers – Tony Hey (Microsoft), Peter Coveney (University College London), Mario Campolargo (European Commission);
* OGF Group Sessions - continuing the standards and best practice work of our community while contributing to deployment success and global adoption;
* OGF Enterprise Workshops – bringing together industry-specific experts to workshop requirements and examine adoption issues;
* OGF eScience Workshops – exploring grid technology application in a variety of Academic and Scientific endeavors;
* EGEE User Forum - providing opportunities for discussions between users and Grid service providers, as well as the chance to interactively demonstrate prototypes and production applications;
* OGF/EGEE plenary day - bringing users and standards bodies together to ensure that the future of the Grid is complemented by the establishment of key standards
To view the full program schedule, visit http://www.ogf.org/gf/event_schedule/?event_id=7
For hotel and lodging information, please visit http://www.ogf.org/OGF20/events_lodging_ogf20.php
We look forward to seeing you in Manchester!
Regards,
Dave Berry
Deputy Director, Research & E-infrastructure Development
National e-Science Centre, 15 South College Street
Edinburgh, EH8 9AA +44 131 651 4039
Incenting Healthcare Disparity [ was: Toward a National Rural Telehealth IT Support Policy [Update] ]
<ed.note>I noted earlier that "The American Health IT sector needs to incent less with promises of stock options and more with upfront offers of educational loan repayment. While there is federal school loan repayment help for healthcare workers ( the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program ) and healthcare researchers ( the National Institutes of Health Loan Repayment Program ), there is no similar help for those healthcare IT workers who will lay the "backbone" for telehealth."
Bank of America is actually helping primary care doctors, which is laudable -- although the actual need appears to me to be a lack of CYBER.NURSES. Instead of intentionally seeking a hybridization of nursing and IT ( via the NHIN related grants ), we underpay nurses and offshore HIT.</ed.note>
Bank of America is actually helping primary care doctors, which is laudable -- although the actual need appears to me to be a lack of CYBER.NURSES. Instead of intentionally seeking a hybridization of nursing and IT ( via the NHIN related grants ), we underpay nurses and offshore HIT.</ed.note>
A National Summit: Moving Toward Interoperability - Technologies for Accessible, Affordable Healthcare October 18-19, 2006 [ Updated ]
Presentations available online here.
NIST Administration Building, Gaithersburg, MD
Keynote Address:
Michael O. Leavitt (confirmed)
Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Carlos M. Gutierrez (invited)
Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce
Craig R. Barrett (confirmed)
Chairman of the Board, Intel Corporation
Just Announced...
Keynote Address (Day Two):
Mike Magee, MD, Director, Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative and Vice President, Science and Medical Advocacy, Pfizer Inc. (confirmed)
This is a unique opportunity where government and industry will come together to chart a path toward a far-reaching vision for connected, home-based health technologies through public-private partnerships.
Five session topics will cover today's interoperability issues, such as:
- Market Drivers and Societal Issues
- Technology Gaps and Barriers Networked, Interoperable Solutions
- Device Standardization and Interoperability of Equipment
- EHR and PHR Standards as a Foundation for Future Digital Healthcare Systems
Register Today!
Register online now. The registration fee is $195 and includes meals, summit materials, and transportation to and from the NIST facilities to the Gaithersburg Holiday Inn.
Hotel and Travel
Reserve a hotel room at the Gaithersburg Holiday Inn. A limited number of rooms are available for the rate of $104 per night. Book online or call (301) 948-8900 to make your reservation . Please refer to the "NIST/Moving Toward Interoperability Workshop" room block. The group booking code is MTI.
Posters and Case Studies
Interact with researchers at universities, companies and government on technologies to support our aging population during our poster networking session.
Questions?
Contact Rebecca Scritchfield
E-mail: rscritchfield@agingtech.org
Tel: (202) 508-9416
Official Event Web site: http://www.itl.nist.gov/Healthcare%20Summit/intro.htm
Who Should Attend
Technology Researchers and Developers
Healthcare and Aging Services Providers
Government Agency Representatives
Healthcare Product Vendors
Company Executives
Standards Development Organizations
Associations
Consumer Organizations
Companies, government, and consumers are developing partnerships to address the challenges of the coming "age wave". Through the application of consumer-directed technologies, opportunities exist to empower individuals to take charge of their own health care and maintain independence.
To achieve this vision, our country must advance the development of new technologies and ensure the interoperability of these devices. To help explore the best way to enable the vision of connected home-based health delivery, Center for Aging Services Technologies, the Department of Commerce's Technology Administration and National Institute of Standards and Technology have come together as partners to host a National Summit to identify issues around the needs and challenges to make interoperability a reality. Recommendations from the Summit will drive needed public and private sector action.
Co-Sponsored by:
Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST)
U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration (TA)
For more information about this Summit, visit the official website at http://www.itl.nist.gov/Healthcare%20Summit/intro.htm
Cleversafe’s desktop for access to dispersed storage grid
Nov 14 -- The Cleversafe project, developers of open source Dispersed Storage software, has launched a new open source project, called Cleversafe Desktop, which is an open source application with a graphical user interface (GUI) that improves visual presentation, ease of use and efficiencies for users storing data on open source dispersed storage grids.
The Cleversafe Desktop will provide a way for anyone, technical or otherwise, to take advantage of Dispersed Storage, and complements Cleversafe's other interfaces, Command Line Interface (CLI), Dispersed Storage Grid File System (DSGFS) and Dispersed Storage API (DSAPI), the Cleversafe project said last week..
The new desktop project allows easier and more intuitive access to a dispersed storage grid, such as the Cleversafe Research Storage Grid, a freely available, multi-terabyte globally dispersed storage test grid, the Cleversafe project said. An XML (Extensible Markup Language) interface within Cleversafe Desktop allows users to specify what data to retrieve by assigning policies to data sets, such as backup after 30 days, or in relation to a certain set of files if there is a change, according to the Cleversafe project.
... Cleversafe LLC, a company in Chicago, Illinois providing commercial dispersed storage software and services, decided to open source the initial release of dispersed storage software for a number of reasons including because open source enables comprehensive development of a variety of connector software to enable all types of applications and environments to benefits from dispersed storage, and effective security software is based on software that has been reviewed by a global community of security experts versus. a few developers of proprietary software within one company, Cleversafe said.
In order for the world to accept and embrace the benefits of dispersed storage, Cleversafe felt that Dispersed Storage had to be an open technology in the same way that TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) had to be an open technology in order for the world to embrace the Internet, the company said.
g-Eclipse - Access the power of the Grid
The g-Eclipse project aims to build an integrated workbench framework to access the power of existing Grid infrastructures. The framework will be built on top of the reliable eco-system of the Eclipse community to enable a sustainable development. The framework will provide tools to customize Grid users' applications, to manage Grid resources and to support the development cycle of new Grid applications. Therefore, already existing tools (such as the Migrating Desktop, the GridBench suite, the Grid Visualisation Kernel (GVK), ...) will be integrated.
The project will aim for general Grid workbench tools that can be extended for many different Grid middlewares (such at gLite, UNICORE, Globus toolkit), starting with implementations for the gLite middleware. The project will use existing Grid infrastructure from projects like int.eu.grid or EGEE.
The g-Eclipse consortium consists of 6 partners from 5 different European countries, being either experts in Grid or Eclipse technology. Details about the partners can be found here.
After the project, access to the power of Grid infrastructures will be more intuitive and simpler than is possible nowadays.
- Grid application users will be able to access the Grid with standardized, but customized user-friendly interfaces
- Grid resource providers can reduce the cost of operation while the complexity of the Grid is reduced with supporting tools
- Grid application developers will be empowered to speed up the development cycle of new Grid applications
Folding@Home PS3 client announced
PS3 client announced today. Today in Germany, Sony demoed their Folding@Home client for the PS3. For more details, check out our PS3 FAQ. Using the Cell processor of the PS3, we should be able to do more folding than what one could do on a PC. Also, since the PS3 has a powerful GPU, the PS3 client will offer real time visualization for the first time. Check out the PS3 FAQ for some early movies of that. The PS3 client and GPU client are together part of our new broader goals to push Folding@Home to the next stage, reaching calculations on the petaflop to 10 petaflop scale. We have some preliminary details on our Folding@Home Petaflop Initiative (FPI). We will release more details on all of this as the new software rolls out. We are beta testing the ATI GPU client software internally at the moment and will likely announce an open beta in four to five weeks (end of September).
Latest enhancements to the free Access Grid Toolkit are now available for download
ARGONNE, Ill. (Aug. 21, 2006) – A new version of the free and popular Access Grid Toolkit developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, is now available for download. The Access Grid Toolkit is software that uses audio, video, data and text to enable distributed researchers to work together as if they were at the same location.
The Access Grid Toolkit is now in its third release, with more than 20,000 downloads across 56 countries. The software is deployed in a wide range of applications: from college courses where the students and instructor are in different locations, to engaging worldwide interaction between scientists and experimental facilities working on fusion power, to providing doctors and specialists with the ability to examine patient scans simultaneously at multiple sites, enriching diagnostics and biomedical applications.
The Access Grid Toolkit includes Virtual Venues software and Workspace Docking software to facilitate rich collaborations including people, data, and grid computing resources, and is capable of supporting w all-sized display technology, permitting lifesize display of remote collaborators, and visualization of simulations and other digital information in great detail (millions of pixels).
This new version includes streamlined user interfaces, robust middleware and low-level services that enable participants to share experiences through digital media. Many of the underlying technologies have been updated or re-engineered to conform to standard Internet technologies and protocols, for a new level of robustness and interoperability.
Thomas Uram, technical lead for the Access Grid effort within the Futures Laboratory at Argonne notes that this release is more stable and more secure, and at the same time increases usability. Uram states that “The emphasis on compliance with standards and insistence on openly licensed technologies in this new version is a key differentiator for the Access Grid; it delivers free software with significant improvements to the users, while providing a platform for exploring how remote researchers can work together effectively. With this release, the Access Grid provides a basis for scientists not only to discuss their research, but also to perform their research.”
Michael Papka, acting Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for Computing and Life Sciences at Argonne said “Collaboration is part of science and the Access Grid provides a robust foundation on which researchers can build collaborative tools for enabling discovery , allowing them to communicate seamlessly and naturally across physical and institutional boundaries”
The Access Grid Toolkit employs a very open license and is designed to allow researchers to use the toolkit as a platform for further research and to support technology transfer by allowing commercial organizations to develop products centered on the Access Grid. This has resulted in the creation of several diverse communities and synergies that enable innovation and enhancements. For more information about the Access Grid, and to download the software, see http://www.accessgrid.org.
This research is funded by the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program in the Department of Energy's Office of Science. ASCR is committed to delivering forefront computational and networking capabilities to extend the frontiers of science by bringing together world-class research efforts along with the knowledge, tools and facilities to revitalize high end computing and enable scientific leadership.
The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory conducts basic and applied scientific research across a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to climatology and biotechnology. Since 1990, Argonne has worked with more than 600 companies and numerous federal agencies and other organizations to help advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for the future. Argonne is managed by the University of Chicago for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
Sprint network to use Intel's WiMax
By John Markoff and Ken Belson, The New York Times
Intel has also made progress in South Korea, which is using a version of WiMax called WiBro, and in developing countries like Brazil and Pakistan.
...More broadly, Intel has long wanted to create a global wireless network that mirrors today's land-based Internet, in which dozens of competitors build equipment designed to support a single open standard.
Sprint says it expects to reach a third of the U.S. population with its new network by the end of 2008.
Sprint's WiMax gambit could put pressure on Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless, and on equipment makers, to move toward more open standards and what the industry refers to as "network neutrality," a network design in which all types of data traffic are treated equally by the network operators.
Focused on Creating an Advanced and Interoperable Medical Network, HIMSS and Internet2 Announce Collaboration
The two organizations will leverage each other’s expertise to explore the viability of an independent and logically interconnected medical network in the United States
CHICAGO, Ill. and ANN ARBOR, Mich. - August 1, 2006 – The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and Internet2 announced today that the two organizations have created a partnership to explore the development of a secure, reliable and advanced networking solution for the transmission of medical information, messages and images throughout the broad healthcare industry.
The two organizations are exploring a new network designed to offer the health sciences and healthcare sectors a private and secure medium for exchanging health information. A next-generation architecture built to meet federal regulatory requirements, this new network may also have value to offer in the work of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).
This ground-breaking collaboration is a natural extension for both not-for-profit organizations. Through a membership of 20,000 individuals, 45 chapters, and more than 300 corporations representing millions of employees, the HIMSS mission focuses on the betterment of healthcare through the most effective use of information technology and management systems. Internet2, the U.S. ’s advanced networking consortium led by 208 U.S. university members in partnership with over 100 industry and government members, works to develop and deploy advanced networks, applications and resources.
“HIMSS and our members look forward to this collaboration with Internet2,” said H. Stephen Lieber, HIMSS president/CEO. “The synergies between HIMSS and Internet2 brought our organizations together to consider and evaluate the feasibility of establishing a network that would meet the evolving needs of the biomedical and healthcare delivery community.”
Since 1999, Internet2 has operated an advanced nationwide network that supports leading-edge Internet technology development for the research and academic community. Internet2 recently announced a major upgrade to this network to provide members 10 times the capacity and speed of its current infrastructure. In addition, the Internet2 community has successfully developed important middleware technologies to address critical issues in authentication and authorization in order to enable active privacy management. Through this partnership, HIMSS and the Internet2 community will work closely together to leverage these leading-edge technologies to explore development of brand new capabilities that meet the specific security and privacy needs of the healthcare industry.
“The research and education community has long understood the potential for leveraging advanced Internet technology to enhance the healthcare industry’s ability to serve the public’s needs, to improve the flow of information for research, to streamline care processes and to enable cost savings,” said Douglas Van Houweling, Internet2 president and CEO. “Our partnership with the HIMSS community is a major step forward in realizing this vision. Together we will work to create a new state-of-the-art platform for biomedical research, education and clinical practice on a national scale.”
Through the partnership, four working groups have been established to explore the requirements and capabilities needed to create an advanced medical network during the next year. HIMSS and Internet2 will join each other’s organizations. Members of both organizations will also join each of the four working groups, which include:
In addition, members of both organizations will work for the development and implementation of the network with other partnerships and collaborations, including Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE).
Open Grid Forum Pharmas and Grids Workshop: User Feedback Opportunity
Clusters and grids have sometimes proven difficult to adopt and manage. Here is an opportunity to provide some feedback that will matter!
At the Open Grid Forum's upcoming conference, Global Grid Forum 18 in Washington, D.C., on September 13, at 1:30 PM, end-users will be able to identify key problems they face in using and adopting grids.
This initiative from the Open Grid Forum (recently formed by the merger of Global Grid Forum and the Enterprise Grid Alliance) hopes to facilitate the commercialization of grids. The workshop will focus on standards issues, interoperability, scalability, using traditional pharma applications on grids, and APIs.
The workshop will not feature a series of speeches. Rather, it will serve as a roundtable for users to identify issues they face in adopting or using grids, particularly problems that may be delaying wider use of grids in pharmas.
The 90-minute workshop will be held at 1:30 PM on Wednesday, September 13, at the Washington Convention Center. We plan to waive the daily registration fee for the conference for all pharmas that participate in the workshop. Participants will need to confirm their attendance prior to the workshop.
Following the workshop, there will be a "rollup" session to identify the issues raised by end users in both the pharma workshop and an EDA/Semiconductor workshop held the same day. A Standards Summit the next day will bring together workshop participants, vendors, and OGF technical experts to identify priorities for action.
For further information, please contact Robert Cohen, area director, industrial applications, OGF, at bcohen@bway.net.
Distributed Work and Geobound Management
<ed.note>I had a contact ping me about possible candidates for a social networking position in San Francisco. I responded thusly:
Why is it that every globally distributed software solution ( which could be headquartered anywhere in the world ) insists that all bright people in the world must move their families to live over a fault line? Seems counterintuitive to me ;-)
Has management not figured out that if everyone has to move to CA that it will only force real estate prices up, and thus salaries which they must offer?
I'll think on your request -- and you please think about telling your clients about this thingie called the internet which let's people work from anywhere ( even from the third Coast, Nashville ) -- it's just management who are untrusting of their employees who are geobound.
I step off of my soapbox... Have a great weekend!
Ed</ed.note>
Why is it that every globally distributed software solution ( which could be headquartered anywhere in the world ) insists that all bright people in the world must move their families to live over a fault line? Seems counterintuitive to me ;-)
Has management not figured out that if everyone has to move to CA that it will only force real estate prices up, and thus salaries which they must offer?
I'll think on your request -- and you please think about telling your clients about this thingie called the internet which let's people work from anywhere ( even from the third Coast, Nashville ) -- it's just management who are untrusting of their employees who are geobound.
I step off of my soapbox... Have a great weekend!
Ed</ed.note>
ETSI Firms Up on Grid Standards
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has announced the creation of a new technical committee (TC), GRID, to produce interoperability standards, contributing to the global progress of Grid.
The ETSI Board approved the move at its recent meeting at Sophia Antipolis, France. TC GRID will be responsible for ETSI's contribution to information technology and telecommunications convergence standards in the Grid domain and the work will start with writing of test specifications and progress toward a broader range of Grid standards to integrate the use of telecommunications infrastructures in networked computing.
College Launches Research Facility With Real-Time Connectivity
6/29/2006 Walters-Storyk Design Group
The Gene Center at Hunter College in New York, NY, recently opened a new Internet2 Distance Research & Learning Facility. Designed by the Walters-Storyk Design Group, the new facility is driven by high-speed Internet2 transmission and promotes real-time collaborative experimentation and teaching projects within the international gene research community.
“Internet2 speed, reliability, and clarity will enable us to virtually share the same laboratory with colleagues at over 200 research institutions and universities in this country and with similarly equipped institutions around the world,” said Robert Dottin, Ph.D., director of the Gene Center for the Study of Gene Structure & Function.
The facility is comprised of two rooms, which include soundproof doors, acoustic ceiling treatments, and dual interior windows to create a sound lock. WSDG also incorporated a sound curtain to block any nearby street noise leakage. Equipment includes a flat panel monitor, projectors, a video camera for robotic tracking, wireless microphones, and retractable projection screens. The entire complex can be controlled by a single Crestron touch screen mounted on the lectern in Conference A or via a computer in the adjacent support office.
A mobile studio has also been designed to provide full AV and Internet connectivity to individual labs within the Hunter College Gene Center. This studio can monitor real-time experiments ranging from behavioral studies of live lab mice to collaborative microscopy, and transmit live coverage to research institutions and universities participating in the Internet2 network.
Open Development Initiative (ODI), Center for Bioinformatics, National Cancer Institute
The NCICB Open Development Initiative (ODI) is an exciting opportunity for members of the bioinformatics community to extend the work being done by NCICB staff and contractors. Are you an innovator, a pioneer? Do you find yourself wondering "why not" versus "why", "what if" versus "what" and "let’s do it" versus "when will they"? Do you long to participate in the development and deployment of leading edge analytic and knowledge tools, designed to help solve difficult and complex problems? This is the place for you!
The NCICB ODI offers the opportunity to get involved in shaping the next frontier for NCICB software development as we pursue our vision of rapidly expanding the suite of applications and infrastructure. We can’t do it alone. We don’t want to do it alone. We need your creative talents, your unrestrained enthusiasm and ideas to enhance and grow the next generation of bioinformatics tools. Over the remainder of this year this initiative will mature, now is the time to get in on the ground floor!
Bluetooth Group Pushes Health Care Interoperability
Matt Hines, Mobile IT Hub, eweek.com
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group is advocating a new measure aimed at pushing interoperability for wireless devices and other computers designed for use in the medical field.
The industry group announced the formation of a new Medical Devices Working Group that will research, ratify and distribute a Bluetooth Medical Device Profile that it hopes will expand the use of the wireless technology in the medical, health and fitness markets. The Bluetooth SIG contends that the design specification will ensure an improved user experience and optimized interoperability between health-related devices and electronics including mobile phones, PCs and PDAs.
Some 19 companies have already committed to the effort, including IBM, Intel, Motorola, Nonin Medical, Philips Electronics and Welch Allyn.
Officials said that health-related devices in the home, such as weight scales, blood pressure monitors and exercise equipment, that utilize the new standard will be able to send information wirelessly to Bluetooth-capable PCs or cell phones. By using such devices, the idea is that users can monitor their health information or share the information with health professionals, regardless of their locations.
Raining Data to Present at JAVAONE
Supercharging SOA Registries for Improved Governance and Performance
Representatives from Raining Data Corporation will be presenting “Supercharging SOA Registries with XML Persistence and Management”, Session ID# TS-8098, at the 2006 JavaOne Conference to be held May 16-19, 2006 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.
Ash Parikh, Director of Technology & Development, Ajay Ramachandran, CTO & Vice President and Premal Parikh, Lead Architect from Raining Data’s XML-Centric Platforms and Applications Group will discuss this emerging technology topic.
"Raining Data’s TigerLogic XDMS plug-in for Sun Service Registry adds new value to the Sun Service Registry product by enabling direct and efficient search of XML content within our repository using the XQuery standard. The new features complement and accentuate the already rich SOA Governance features of Sun Service Registry," said Farrukh Najmi, Federated Information Management Architect from Sun Microsystems.
This session discusses the following:
Problem:
The core challenge of SOA governance is to provide an adequate governance infrastructure that scales while still providing the agility and flexibility that SOA architectures require. SOA metadata is becoming the lifeblood of SOA implementations, because of its importance to corporate visibility, policy management, and governance. The more dynamic the business environment, the more important metadata becomes.
Enterprises traditionally store metadata and SOA payloads in relational databases and file systems, but these data persistence tools are not well-suited to handle SOA-related metadata and transactional payloads. SOA metadata and payloads are fundamentally XML (hierarchical) and therefore naturally do not fit well in relational databases, and relational database schemas are inflexible which do not adapt well to the always-evolving, often ad hoc schemas in an SOA implementation, especially when business requirements are changing. File systems do not provide the advanced querying and management capabilities that SOA implementations require.
Rosetta@home 7th Biennial Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction Experiment from May 10th until August 1st
Rosetta@home is working to develop software to accurately predict the folding structure of proteins, which is a key function in developing cures for diseases such as AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimer's. The Rosetta software is used by other scientists and distributed computing projects. Any improvement we can make in this project will benefit other scientists and projects as well.
Cutting-Edge Research with an all new Application package
The Rosetta@home science application has improved greatly in recent weeks. We now have "smarter" software and new techniques which help find the best structures faster. We have also released a number of new features:
- Work unit runtimes based on preference setting can minimize your internet use.
- More frequent saves (checkpointing), means more science output and more credits for you and your team.
- The "Watchdog" keeps work flowing by ending work units that appear stuck or hung.
- All work units will receive credit even if they return late or with an error result.
All these improvements guarantee a problem-free and most useful contribution of your valuable computer time.
CASP7 is here - Be part of the competition and the winning team!
There are many science teams working on protein studies, and every 2 years they conduct a contest of sorts, to define the current state-of-the-art. Now the 2006 event is underway, and you can help. CASP will present proteins no one has ever seen before and ask the research teams to give their best structure predictions for this computationally intense problem. We are very hopeful the improved Rosetta software, now with the added power of distributed computing, will again find the most accurate predictions.
CASP7 runs from May 10th to August 1st. The more computing power we apply, the better the predictions become. Please be sure to run Rosetta@home, at least during the three month period of the competition. Read more about CASP7, and check for published results on the Rosetta@home website through the end of the year.
Be a part of the project team with new information and user recognition
A number of new informational features have been added to help you participate with the research team:
- "Dr. Baker's science journal" where the project's lead scientist posts regular updates and project news.
- Work Unit information describes the proteins and tests being performed for each work unit type.
- The Application Version Log explains new features and scientific improvements in the application.
The project staff is very responsive to questions and suggestions and is working to incorporate them into Rosetta application improvements.
What you can do to help
- If you discontinued Rosetta for any reason, please attach again and you will find the application improvements have resolved the problems many were having.
- Dedicate a greater resource share to Rosetta, at least during CASP7.
- Attach additional computers to the project.
- Contact your friends and teammates and help them learn more about Rosetta so they will want to crunch more too. Here is a simple explanation you might use.
- If you are a member of a team, please ask for more Rosetta processing time on your team message boards.
Take a look at "10 reasons why I support Rosetta@home and you should too."
Thank you for your past participation, and we hope you can provide additional support to Rosetta@home in the future.
Mark, Joachim, Gerry and the Rosetta@home volunteers
An OASIS White Paper: 'The ebBP' (ebXML Business Process Specification Schema)
By The OASIS Business Process TC (Dale Moberg and Monica J. Martin, co-chairs) For OASIS
Business processes are key components to enable and drive collaborating partner relationships for electronic business (eBusiness). The ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS or ebBP) provides capabilities drive those eBusiness collaborative processes. As a part of the original eBusiness eXtensible Markup Language (XML) [ebXML] framework of specifications, the ebBP is targeted for monitoring of collaborative business processes among parties or business partners.
The ebBP (ebXML Business Process Specification Schema) defines a standard language to configure business systems for business collaboration execution between collaborating parties or business partners. It provides:
In the second quarter 2006, the OASIS ebBP v2.0.3 set of packages are moving towards OASIS standard. The changes and capabilities defined in the v2.0.x packages have substantially increased the business value-add for using standard process definitions. These definitions support tailoring of eBusiness processes and business documents to serve our user community.
The ebBP focuses on an integrated eBusiness adaptable approach in order to support heterogeneous environments, particularly Small- to Medium-Enterprises. As with other specifications and capabilities, ebBP can be leveraged other ebXML and/or emerging web services technologies.
It is the ‘community at large’ that has emboldened the development of ebBP and likely will drive its adoption.
The missing last mile {Rural communities that lack broadband connectivity have an extra handicap when it comes to implementing health IT}
April 17, Nancy Ferris, govhealthit.com
When it comes to using health information technology, rural communities face many difficulties, including common ones such as figuring out how to pay for the systems and how to set up patient information exchanges.
But some rural areas have another tough problem. They can’t get affordable high-speed communications services.
When limited to dial-up connections, doctors, hospital workers and clinicians must spend minutes to accomplish transactions that high-speed Internet users can do in seconds, such as downloading a PDF or sending a photograph. Although medical records are not necessarily enormous files, most cannot easily transmit at slow data speeds. Sending radiological images and other graphic files is out of the question.
A 2005 Institute of Medicine report notes the lack of broadband in rural areas. “This aspect of the digital divide is one of the greatest challenges for rural telehealth, as well as other rural commerce,” the report states.
With slow Internet connections, simple tasks can be hard to execute. Gail Bellamy, director of community studies at the West Virginia Institute for Health Policy Research in Charleston, W.Va., cited the example of a federally funded project in which West Virginia hospitals report medical errors.
The hospitals receive reports that show their error rates compared with those from other hospitals. When the project started, one hospital could not use the Web-based reporting screen because of its slow dial-up connection, and no T1 line or DSL service was available in that area. Project leaders appealed to Verizon, the local phone company, and persuaded the company to install a high-speed line, Bellamy said.
“Broadband is a huge issue,” she said, although it’s not a problem in every rural area. “Different parts of rural America have differential access,” and the cost of high-speed service varies.
Bellamy led a National Rural Health Association team that drafted an issue paper on health IT. It states that “simple access to the Internet is not sufficient for secure health care transactions” because of the need for security at every point along the transmission path. And a single high-speed line is not enough because redundancy is necessary to avert an unacceptable communications breakdown.
“In addition, the technology infrastructure needs to support telehealth applications, as these are critical to rural health systems,” the association’s paper states. “For example,