RMS: a platform for managing cross-disciplinary and multi-institutional research project collaboration.

PubMed

Luo, Jake; Apperson-Hansen, Carolyn; Pelfrey, Clara M; Zhang, Guo-Qiang

2014-11-30

Cross-institutional cross-disciplinary collaboration has become a trend as researchers move toward building more productive and innovative teams for scientific research. Research collaboration is significantly changing the organizational structure and strategies used in the clinical and translational science domain. However, due to the obstacles of diverse administrative structures, differences in area of expertise, and communication barriers, establishing and managing a cross-institutional research project is still a challenging task. We address these challenges by creating an integrated informatics platform to reduce the barriers to biomedical research collaboration. The Request Management System (RMS) is an informatics infrastructure designed to transform a patchwork of expertise and resources into an integrated support network. The RMS facilitates investigators' initiation of new collaborative projects and supports the management of the collaboration process. In RMS, experts and their knowledge areas are categorized and managed structurally to provide consistent service. A role-based collaborative workflow is tightly integrated with domain experts and services to streamline and monitor the life-cycle of a research project. The RMS has so far tracked over 1,500 investigators with over 4,800 tasks. The research network based on the data collected in RMS illustrated that the investigators' collaborative projects increased close to 3 times from 2009 to 2012. Our experience with RMS indicates that the platform reduces barriers for cross-institutional collaboration of biomedical research projects. Building a new generation of infrastructure to enhance cross-disciplinary and multi-institutional collaboration has become an important yet challenging task. In this paper, we share the experience of developing and utilizing a collaborative project management system. The results of this study demonstrate that a web-based integrated informatics platform can facilitate and increase research interactions among investigators.

Voice of Experience International Research Infrastructure and the Impact of Export Control Regulations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kulakowski, Elliott C.; Chronister, Lynne; Molfese, Victoria; Slocum, Michael; Studman, Cliff; Waugaman, Paul

2007-01-01

Research today has become very complex, often involving international collaborations among multidisciplinary teams. Many institutions, especially those in less economically developed countries, have a great deal of expertise to contribute to these collaborations, but often lack the instrumentation, training, and research management infrastructure…

Industrial and Academic Collaboration: Hybrid Models for Research and Innovation Diffusion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

de Freitas, Sara; Mayer, Igor; Arnab, Sylvester; Marshall, Ian

2014-01-01

This paper explores how, in the light of global economic downturn and rising student populations, new academic-industrial models for research collaboration based upon specific technological expertise and knowledge can be developed as potential mechanisms for preserving and extending central university research infrastructure. The paper explores…

Improving Virtual Collaborative Learning through Canonical Action Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weber, Peter; Lehr, Christian; Gersch, Martin

2014-01-01

Virtual collaboration continues to gain in significance and is attracting attention also as virtual collaborative learning (VCL) in education. This paper addresses aspects of VCL that we identified as critical in a series of courses named "Net Economy": (1) technical infrastructure, (2) motivation and collaboration, and (3) assessment…

Enabling Research without Geographical Boundaries via Collaborative Research Infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gesing, S.

2016-12-01

Collaborative research infrastructures on global scale for earth and space sciences face a plethora of challenges from technical implementations to organizational aspects. Science gateways - also known as virtual research environments (VREs) or virtual laboratories - address part of such challenges by providing end-to-end solutions to aid researchers to focus on their specific research questions without the need to become acquainted with the technical details of the complex underlying infrastructures. In general, they provide a single point of entry to tools and data irrespective of organizational boundaries and thus make scientific discoveries easier and faster. The importance of science gateways has been recognized on national as well as on international level by funding bodies and by organizations. For example, the US NSF has just funded a Science Gateways Community Institute, which offers support, consultancy and open accessible software repositories for users and developers; Horizon 2020 provides funding for virtual research environments in Europe, which has led to projects such as VRE4EIC (A Europe-wide Interoperable Virtual Research Environment to Empower Multidisciplinary Research Communities and Accelerate Innovation and Collaboration); national or continental research infrastructures such as XSEDE in the USA, Nectar in Australia or EGI in Europe support the development and uptake of science gateways; the global initiatives International Coalition on Science Gateways, the RDA Virtual Research Environment Interest Group as well as the IEEE Technical Area on Science Gateways have been founded to provide global leadership on future directions for science gateways in general and facilitate awareness for science gateways. This presentation will give an overview on these projects and initiatives aiming at supporting domain researchers and developers with measures for the efficient creation of science gateways, for increasing their usability and sustainability under consideration of the breadth of topics in the context of science gateways. It will go into detail for the challenges the community faces for collaborative research on global scale without geographical boundaries and will provide suggestions for further enhancing the outreach to domain researchers.

The iPlant collaborative: cyberinfrastructure for enabling data to discovery for the life sciences

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The iPlant Collaborative provides life science research communities access to comprehensive, scalable, and cohesive computational infrastructure for data management; identify management; collaboration tools; and cloud, high-performance, high-throughput computing. iPlant provides training, learning m...

Accelerators for society: succession of European infrastructural projects: CARE, EuCARD, TIARA, EuCARD2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Romaniuk, Ryszard S.

2013-10-01

Accelerator science and technology is one of a key enablers of the developments in the particle physic, photon physics and also applications in medicine and industry. The paper presents a digest of the research results in the domain of accelerator science and technology in Europe, shown during the realization of CARE (Coordinated Accelerator R&D), EuCARD (European Coordination of Accelerator R&D) and during the national annual review meeting of the TIARA - Test Infrastructure of European Research Area in Accelerator R&D. The European projects on accelerator technology started in 2003 with CARE. TIARA is an European Collaboration of Accelerator Technology, which by running research projects, technical, networks and infrastructural has a duty to integrate the research and technical communities and infrastructures in the global scale of Europe. The Collaboration gathers all research centers with large accelerator infrastructures. Other ones, like universities, are affiliated as associate members. TIARA-PP (preparatory phase) is an European infrastructural project run by this Consortium and realized inside EU-FP7. The paper presents a general overview of CARE, EuCARD and especially TIARA activities, with an introduction containing a portrait of contemporary accelerator technology and a digest of its applications in modern society. CARE, EuCARD and TIARA activities integrated the European accelerator community in a very effective way. These projects are expected very much to be continued.

Building Cyberinfrastructures for Earth and Space Sciences so that they will come: lessons learnt from Australia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wyborn, L. A.; Woodcock, R.

2013-12-01

One of the greatest drivers for change in the way scientific research is undertaken in Australia was the development of the Australian eResearch Infrastructure which was coordinated by the then Australian Government Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. There were two main tranches of funding: the 2007-2013 National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and the 2009 Education and Investment Framework (EIF) Super Science Initiative. Investments were in two areas: the Australian e-Research Infrastructure and domain specific capabilities: combined investment in both is 1,452M with at least 456M being invested in eResearch infrastructure. NCRIS was specifically designed as a community-guided process to provide researchers, both academic and government, with major research facilities, supporting infrastructures and networks necessary for world-class research. Extensive community engagement was sought to inform decisions on where Australia could best make strategic infrastructure investments to further develop its research capacity and improve research outcomes over the next 5 to 10years. The current (2007-2014) Australian e-Research Infrastructure has 2 components: 1. The National eResearch physical infrastructure which includes two petascale HPC facilities (one in Canberra and one in Perth), a 10 Gbps national network (National Research Network), a national data storage infrastructure comprising 8 multi petabyte data stores and shared access methods (Australian Access Federation). 2. A second component is focused on research integration infrastructures and includes the Australian National Data Service, which is concerned with better management, description and access to distributed research data in Australia and the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) project. NeCTAR is centred on developing problem oriented digital laboratories which provide better and coordinated access to research tools, data environments and workflows. The eResearch Infrastructure Stack is designed to support 12 individual domain-specific capabilities. Four are relevant to the Earth and Space Sciences: (1) AuScope (a national Earth Science Infrastructure Program), (2) the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), (3) the Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network (TERN) and (4) the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN). The two main research integration infrastructures, ANDS and NeCTAR, are seen as pivotal to the success of the Australian eResearch Infrastructure. Without them, there was a risk that that the investments in new computers and data storage would provide physical infrastructure, but few would come to use it as the skills barriers to entry were too high. ANDS focused on transforming Australia's research data environment. Its flagship is Research Data Australia, an Internet-based discovery service designed to provide rich connections between data, projects, researchers and institutions, and promote visibility of Australian research data collections in search engines. NeCTAR focused on building eResearch infrastructure in four areas: virtual laboratories, tools, a federated research cloud and a hosting service. Combined, ANDS and NeCTAR are ensuring that people ARE coming and ARE using the physical infrastructures that were built.

Building Community-Engaged Health Research and Discovery Infrastructure on the South Side of Chicago: Science in Service to Community Priorities

PubMed Central

Lindau, Stacy Tessler; Makelarski, Jennifer A.; Chin, Marshall H.; Desautels, Shane; Johnson, Daniel; Johnson, Waldo E.; Miller, Doriane; Peters, Susan; Robinson, Connie; Schneider, John; Thicklin, Florence; Watson, Natalie P.; Wolfe, Marcus; Whitaker, Eric

2011-01-01

Objective To describe the roles community members can and should play in, and an asset-based strategy used by Chicago’s South Side Health and Vitality Studies for, building sustainable, large-scale community health research infrastructure. The Studies are a family of research efforts aiming to produce actionable knowledge to inform health policy, programming, and investments for the region. Methods Community and university collaborators, using a consensus-based approach, developed shared theoretical perspectives, guiding principles, and a model for collaboration in 2008, which were used to inform an asset-based operational strategy. Ongoing community engagement and relationship-building support the infrastructure and research activities of the Studies. Results Key steps in the asset-based strategy include: 1) continuous community engagement and relationship building, 2) identifying community priorities, 3) identifying community assets, 4) leveraging assets, 5) conducting research, 6) sharing knowledge and 7) informing action. Examples of community member roles, and how these are informed by the Studies’ guiding principles, are provided. Conclusions Community and university collaborators, with shared vision and principles, can effectively work together to plan innovative, large-scale community-based research that serves community needs and priorities. Sustainable, effective models are needed to realize NIH’s mandate for meaningful translation of biomedical discovery into improved population health. PMID:21236295

Scalable Collaborative Infrastructure for a Learning Healthcare System (SCILHS): architecture.

PubMed

Mandl, Kenneth D; Kohane, Isaac S; McFadden, Douglas; Weber, Griffin M; Natter, Marc; Mandel, Joshua; Schneeweiss, Sebastian; Weiler, Sarah; Klann, Jeffrey G; Bickel, Jonathan; Adams, William G; Ge, Yaorong; Zhou, Xiaobo; Perkins, James; Marsolo, Keith; Bernstam, Elmer; Showalter, John; Quarshie, Alexander; Ofili, Elizabeth; Hripcsak, George; Murphy, Shawn N

2014-01-01

We describe the architecture of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) funded Scalable Collaborative Infrastructure for a Learning Healthcare System (SCILHS, http://www.SCILHS.org) clinical data research network, which leverages the $48 billion dollar federal investment in health information technology (IT) to enable a queryable semantic data model across 10 health systems covering more than 8 million patients, plugging universally into the point of care, generating evidence and discovery, and thereby enabling clinician and patient participation in research during the patient encounter. Central to the success of SCILHS is development of innovative 'apps' to improve PCOR research methods and capacitate point of care functions such as consent, enrollment, randomization, and outreach for patient-reported outcomes. SCILHS adapts and extends an existing national research network formed on an advanced IT infrastructure built with open source, free, modular components. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Improving global flood risk awareness through collaborative research: Id-Lab

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weerts, A.; Zijderveld, A.; Cumiskey, L.; Buckman, L.; Verlaan, M.; Baart, F.

2015-12-01

Scientific and end-user collaboration on operational flood risk modelling and forecasting requires an environment where scientists and end-users can physically work together and demonstrate, enhance and learn about new tools, methods and models for forecasting and warning purposes. Therefore, Deltares has built a real-time demonstration, training and research infrastructure ('operational' room and ICT backend). This research infrastructure supports various functions like (1) Real time response and disaster management, (2) Training, (3) Collaborative Research, (4) Demonstration. The research infrastructure will be used for a mixture of these functions on a regular basis by Deltares and a multitude of both scientists as well as end users such as universities, research institutes, consultants, governments and aid agencies. This infrastructure facilitates emergency advice and support during international and national disasters caused by rainfall, tropical cyclones or tsunamis. It hosts research flood and storm surge forecasting systems for global/continental/regional scale. It facilitates training for emergency & disaster management (along with hosting forecasting system user trainings in for instance the forecasting platform Delft-FEWS) both internally and externally. The facility is expected to inspire and initiate creative innovations by bringing together different experts from various organizations. The room hosts interactive modelling developments, participatory workshops and stakeholder meetings. State of the art tools, models and software, being applied across the globe are available and on display within the facility. We will present the Id-Lab in detail and we will put particular focus on the global operational forecasting systems GLOFFIS (Global Flood Forecasting Information System) and GLOSSIS (Global Storm Surge Information System).

Development and Implementation of Collaborative e-Infrastructures and Data Management for Global Change Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allison, M. Lee; Davis, Rowena

2016-04-01

An e-infrastructure that supports data-intensive, multidisciplinary research is needed to accelerate the pace of science to address 21st century global change challenges. Data discovery, access, sharing and interoperability collectively form core elements of an emerging shared vision of e-infrastructure for scientific discovery. The pace and breadth of change in information management across the data lifecycle means that no one country or institution can unilaterally provide the leadership and resources required to use data and information effectively, or needed to support a coordinated, global e-infrastructure. An 18-month long process involving ~120 experts in domain, computer, and social sciences from more than a dozen countries resulted in a formal set of recommendations that were adopted in fall, 2015 by the Belmont Forum collaboration of national science funding agencies and international bodies on what they are best suited to implement for development of an e-infrastructure in support of global change research, including: • adoption of data principles that promote a global, interoperable e-infrastructure, that can be enforced • establishment of information and data officers for coordination of global data management and e-infrastructure efforts • promotion of effective data planning and stewardship • determination of international and community best practices for adoption • development of a cross-disciplinary training curriculum on data management and curation The implementation plan is being executed under four internationally-coordinated Action Themes towards a globally organized, internationally relevant e-infrastructure and data management capability drawn from existing components, protocols, and standards. The Belmont Forum anticipates opportunities to fund additional projects to fill key gaps and to integrate best practices into an e-infrastructure to support their programs but that can also be scaled up and deployed more widely. Background The Belmont Forum is a global consortium established in 2009 to build on the work of the International Group of Funding Agencies for Global Change Research toward furthering collaborative efforts to deliver knowledge needed for action to avoid and adapt to detrimental environmental change, including extreme hazardous events.

International Development of e-Infrastructures and Data Management Priorities for Global Change Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allison, M. L.; Gurney, R. J.

2015-12-01

An e-infrastructure that supports data-intensive, multidisciplinary research is needed to accelerate the pace of science to address 21st century global change challenges. Data discovery, access, sharing and interoperability collectively form core elements of an emerging shared vision of e-infrastructure for scientific discovery. The pace and breadth of change in information management across the data lifecycle means that no one country or institution can unilaterally provide the leadership and resources required to use data and information effectively, or needed to support a coordinated, global e-infrastructure. An 18-month long process involving ~120 experts in domain, computer, and social sciences from more than a dozen countries resulted in a formal set of recommendations to the Belmont Forum collaboration of national science funding agencies and others on what they are best suited to implement for development of an e-infrastructure in support of global change research, including: adoption of data principles that promote a global, interoperable e-infrastructure establishment of information and data officers for coordination of global data management and e-infrastructure efforts promotion of effective data planning determination of best practices development of a cross-disciplinary training curriculum on data management and curation The Belmont Forum is ideally poised to play a vital and transformative leadership role in establishing a sustained human and technical international data e-infrastructure to support global change research. The international collaborative process that went into forming these recommendations is contributing to national governments and funding agencies and international bodies working together to execute them.

Psychiatric brain collection in Macedonia: general lessons for scientific collaboration among countries of differing wealth.

PubMed

Rosoklija, G; Duma, A; Dwork, A J

2013-01-01

Macedonia is a small country, and the current state has been independent for only 22 years. Medical research, which requires an extensive infrastructure, has been limited. We describe our experience in developing Macedonian research through a mutually beneficial collaboration between institutions in Macedonia and the United States.

Surface Operations Simulator and Scheduler (SOSS) Presentation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zhu, Zhifan

2016-01-01

NASA - KAIA (Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement) - KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute) collaboration surface air traffic management research has been ongoing since May 2015. In the first year collaboration, NASA's SOSS software has been transferred to KAIA and KARI teams to provide fast time simulation capability. Incheon International Airport model has been developed for SOSS.

Community Perspectives on Factors That Influence Collaboration in Public Health Research

PubMed Central

Pinto, Rogério M.

2009-01-01

Community collaboration in research may lead to better methods, results, and dissemination of interventions. Little systematic research has examined specific factors that influence community-based organizations (CBOs) to collaborate in public health research. There is an urgent need to advance knowledge on this topic so that together, researchers and CBOs can minimize barriers to collaboration. This study advances a CBO-focused characterization of collaboration in HIV-prevention research. By focusing on the perspectives of 20 key informants in 10 HIV-prevention CBOs, qualitative data revealed factors that influenced their collaborations in four domains: (a) Researchers’ Characteristics (expertise, availability), (b) Collaborative Research Characteristics (ought to improve services and CBO infrastructure); (c) Community Partner–Researcher Relationships (resolving social and professional issues); and (d) Barriers to HIV-Prevention Research Collaboration (cultural and social disconnect between CBO and academia). To reduce barriers, researchers ought to enhance motivators that facilitate collaboration. To use the advantages of community-based research, prevention scientists and policy makers ought to embrace CBOs’ characterization of what makes health research genuinely collaborative. PMID:19196863

The p-medicine portal—a collaboration platform for research in personalised medicine

PubMed Central

Schera, Fatima; Weiler, Gabriele; Neri, Elias; Kiefer, Stephan; Graf, Norbert

2014-01-01

The European project p-medicine creates an information technology infrastructure that facilitates the development from current medical practice to personalised medicine. The main access point to this infrastructure is the p-medicine portal that provides clinicians, patients, and researchers a platform to collaborate, share data and expertise, and use tools and services to improve personalised treatments of patients. In this document, we describe the community-based structure of the p-medicine portal and provide information about the p-medicine security framework implemented in the portal. Finally, we show the user interface and describe the p-medicine tools and services integrated in the portal. PMID:24567755

Collaborative WorkBench (cwb): Enabling Experiment Execution, Analysis and Visualization with Increased Scientific Productivity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maskey, Manil; Ramachandran, Rahul; Kuo, Kwo-Sen

2015-04-01

The Collaborative WorkBench (CWB) has been successfully developed to support collaborative science algorithm development. It incorporates many features that enable and enhance science collaboration, including the support for both asynchronous and synchronous modes of interactions in collaborations. With the former, members in a team can share a full range of research artifacts, e.g. data, code, visualizations, and even virtual machine images. With the latter, they can engage in dynamic interactions such as notification, instant messaging, file exchange, and, most notably, collaborative programming. CWB also implements behind-the-scene provenance capture as well as version control to relieve scientists of these chores. Furthermore, it has achieved a seamless integration between researchers' local compute environments and those of the Cloud. CWB has also been successfully extended to support instrument verification and validation. Adopted by almost every researcher, the current practice of downloading data to local compute resources for analysis results in much duplication and inefficiency. CWB leverages Cloud infrastructure to provide a central location for data used by an entire science team, thereby eliminating much of this duplication and waste. Furthermore, use of CWB in concert with this same Cloud infrastructure enables co-located analysis with data where opportunities of data-parallelism can be better exploited, thereby further improving efficiency. With its collaboration-enabling features apposite to steps throughout the scientific process, we expect CWB to fundamentally transform research collaboration and realize maximum science productivity.

About BTTC | Center for Cancer Research

Cancer.gov

About Combined Forces Drive BTTC The Brain Tumor Trials Collaborative (BTTC) was created in 2003 - a combined effort of many professionals, entities and organizations to help those suffering from brain tumors. The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Center for Cancer Research serves as the lead institution and provides the administrative infrastructure, clinical database and oversight for the collaborative.

Leading across Boundaries: Collaborative Leadership and the Institutional Repository in Research Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seaman, David M.

2017-01-01

Libraries often engage in services that require collaboration across stakeholder boundaries to be successful. Institutional repositories (IRs) are a good example of such a service. IRs are an infrastructure to preserve intellectual assets within a university or college, and to provide an open access showcase for that institution's research,…

Towards International and Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration for the Measurements of Quality of Life

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mizohata, Sachie; Jadoul, Raynald

2013-01-01

This paper focuses on three main subjects: (1) monitoring quality of life (QoL) in old age; (2) international and interdisciplinary collaboration for QoL research; and (3) computer-based technology and infrastructure assisting (1) and (2). This type of computer-supported cooperative work in the social sciences has been termed eHumanities or…

Innovative Decentralized Decision-Making Enabling Capability on Mobile Edge Devices

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-01

feasibility of adapting mobile device infrastructure into a future tactical cloud ecosystem. F. SCOPE The scope of this research is focused on the...critical to mobility : wireless infrastructure , the mobile device itself, and mobile applications” (Office of the Department of Defense Chief Information... Infrastructure to a Cost Effective and Platform Agnostic Environment; 3) Collaborate with DOD and Industry Partners to Develop a Classified Mobile Device

Research data management support for large-scale, long-term, interdisciplinary collaborative research centers with a focus on environmental sciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Curdt, C.; Hoffmeister, D.; Bareth, G.; Lang, U.

2017-12-01

Science conducted in collaborative, cross-institutional research projects, requires active sharing of research ideas, data, documents and further information in a well-managed, controlled and structured manner. Thus, it is important to establish corresponding infrastructures and services for the scientists. Regular project meetings and joint field campaigns support the exchange of research ideas. Technical infrastructures facilitate storage, documentation, exchange and re-use of data as results of scientific output. Additionally, also publications, conference contributions, reports, pictures etc. should be managed. Both, knowledge and data sharing is essential to create synergies. Within the coordinated programme `Collaborative Research Center' (CRC), the German Research Foundation offers funding to establish research data management (RDM) infrastructures and services. CRCs are large-scale, interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, long-term (up to 12 years), university-based research institutions (up to 25 sub-projects). These CRCs address complex and scientifically challenging research questions. This poster presents the RDM services and infrastructures that have been established for two CRCs, both focusing on environmental sciences. Since 2007, a RDM support infrastructure and associated services have been set up for the CRC/Transregio 32 (CRC/TR32) `Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere-Systems: Monitoring, Modelling and Data Assimilation' (www.tr32.de). The experiences gained have been used to arrange RDM services for the CRC1211 `Earth - Evolution at the Dry Limit' (www.crc1211.de), funded since 2016. In both projects scientists from various disciplines collect heterogeneous data at field campaigns or by modelling approaches. To manage the scientific output, the TR32DB data repository (www.tr32db.de) has been designed and implemented for the CRC/TR32. This system was transferred and adapted to the CRC1211 needs (www.crc1211db.uni-koeln.de) in 2016. Both repositories support secure and sustainable data storage, backup, documentation, publication with DOIs, search, download, statistics as well as web mapping features. Moreover, RDM consulting and support services as well as training sessions are carried out regularly.

Against Infrastructure: Curating Community Literacy in a Jail Writing Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobi, Tobi

2016-01-01

This essay argues that while fostering individual and collaborative literacy can indeed promote self-awareness, confidence, and political awareness, the threat of emotional and material retribution is ever-present in jail, making the development of infrastructure challenging. Such reality compels engaged teacher-researchers to develop tactical…

Research Infrastructure for Collaborative Team Science: Challenges in Technology-Supported Workflows in and Across Laboratories, Institutions, and Geographies.

PubMed

Mirel, Barbara; Luo, Airong; Harris, Marcelline

2015-05-01

Collaborative research has many challenges. One under-researched challenge is how to align collaborators' research practices and evolving analytical reasoning with technologies and configurations of technologies that best support them. The goal of such alignment is to enhance collaborative problem solving capabilities in research. Toward this end, we draw on our own research and a synthesis of the literature to characterize the workflow of collaborating scientists in systems-level renal disease research. We describe the various phases of a hypothetical workflow among diverse collaborators within and across laboratories, extending from their primary analysis through secondary analysis. For each phase, we highlight required technology supports, and. At time, complementary organizational supports. This survey of supports matching collaborators' analysis practices and needs in research projects to technological support is preliminary, aimed ultimately at developing a research capability framework that can help scientists and technologists mutually understand workflows and technologies that can help enable and enhance them. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Role of federal policy in building research infrastructure among emerging minorities: the Asian American experience.

PubMed

Trinh-Shevrin, Chau; Ro, Marguerite; Tseng, Winston; Islam, Nadia Shilpi; Rey, Mariano J; Kwon, Simona C

2012-01-01

Considerable progress in Asian American health research has occurred over the last two decades. However, greater and sustained federal support is needed for reducing health disparities in Asian American communities. PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE: This paper reviews federal policies that support infrastructure to conduct minority health research and highlights one model for strengthening research capacity and infrastructure in Asian American communities. Research center infrastructures can play a significant role in addressing pipeline/workforce challenges, fostering campus-community research collaborations, engaging communities in health, disseminating evidence-based strategies and health information, and policy development. Research centers provide the capacity needed for academic institutions and communities to work together synergistically in achieving the goal to reduce health disparities in the Asian American community. Policies that support the development of concentrated and targeted research for Asian Americans must continue so that these centers will reach their full potential.

Marine Research Infrastructure collaboration in the COOPLUS project framework - Promoting synergies for marine ecosystems studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beranzoli, L.; Best, M.; Embriaco, D.; Favali, P.; Juniper, K.; Lo Bue, N.; Lara-Lopez, A.; Materia, P.; Ó Conchubhair, D.; O'Rourke, E.; Proctor, R.; Weller, R. A.

2017-12-01

Understanding effects on marine ecosystems of multiple drivers at various scales; from regional such as climate and ocean circulation, to local, such as seafloor gas emissions and harmful underwater noise, requires long time-series of integrated and standardised datasets. Large-scale research infrastructures for ocean observation are able to provide such time-series for a variety of ocean process physical parameters (mass and energy exchanges among surface, water column and benthic boundary layer) that constitute important and necessary measures of environmental conditions and change/development over time. Information deduced from these data is essential for the study, modelling and prediction of marine ecosystems changes and can reveal and potentially confirm deterioration and threats. The COOPLUS European Commission project brings together research infrastructures with the aim of coordinating multilateral cooperation among RIs and identifying common priorities, actions, instruments, resources. COOPLUS will produce a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) which will be a shared roadmap for mid to long-term collaboration. In particular, marine RIs collaborating in COOPLUS, namely the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory: EMSO (Europe), the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI, USA), Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), and the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS, Australia), can represent a source of important data for researchers of marine ecosystems. The RIs can then, in turn, receive suggestions from researchers for implementing new measurements and stimulating cross-cutting collaborations and data integration and standardisation from their user community. This poster provides a description of EMSO, OOI, ONC and IMOS for the benefit of marine ecosystem studies and presents examples of where the analyses of time-series have revealed noteworthy environmental conditions, temporal trends and events.

Parallel digital forensics infrastructure.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Liebrock, Lorie M.; Duggan, David Patrick

2009-10-01

This report documents the architecture and implementation of a Parallel Digital Forensics infrastructure. This infrastructure is necessary for supporting the design, implementation, and testing of new classes of parallel digital forensics tools. Digital Forensics has become extremely difficult with data sets of one terabyte and larger. The only way to overcome the processing time of these large sets is to identify and develop new parallel algorithms for performing the analysis. To support algorithm research, a flexible base infrastructure is required. A candidate architecture for this base infrastructure was designed, instantiated, and tested by this project, in collaboration with New Mexicomore » Tech. Previous infrastructures were not designed and built specifically for the development and testing of parallel algorithms. With the size of forensics data sets only expected to increase significantly, this type of infrastructure support is necessary for continued research in parallel digital forensics. This report documents the implementation of the parallel digital forensics (PDF) infrastructure architecture and implementation.« less

In/dependent Collaborations: Perceptions and Experiences of African Scientists in Transnational HIV Research

PubMed Central

Moyi Okwaro, Ferdinand; Geissler, P. W.

2015-01-01

This article examines collaboration in transnational medical research from the viewpoint of African scientists working in partnerships with northern counterparts. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork in an HIV laboratory of an East African state university, with additional data from interviews with scientists working in related research institutions. Collaboration is today the preferred framework for the mechanisms by which northern institutions support research in the south. The concept signals a shift away from the legacy of unequal (post‐) colonial power relations, although, amid persisting inequalities, the rhetorical emphasis on equality might actually hinder critical engagement with conflicts of interest and injustice. To collaborate, African scientists engage various strategies: They establish a qualified but flexible, non‐permanent workforce, diversify collaborators and research areas, source complementary funding to assemble infrastructures, and maintain prospective research populations to attract transnational clinical trials. Through this labor of collaboration, they sustain their institutions under prevailing conditions of scarcity. PMID:25800667

Development of the AuScope Australian Earth Observing System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rawling, T.

2017-12-01

Advances in monitoring technology and significant investment in new national research initiatives, will provide significant new opportunities for delivery of novel geoscience data streams from across the Australian continent over the next decade. The AuScope Australian Earth Observing System (AEOS) is linking field and laboratory infrastructure across Australia to form a national sensor array focusing on the Solid Earth. As such AuScope is working with these programs to deploy observational infrastructure, including MT, passive seismic, and GNSS networks across the entire Australian Continent. Where possible the observational grid will be co-located with strategic basement drilling in areas of shallow cover and tied with national reflection seismic and sampling transects. This integrated suite of distributed earth observation and imaging sensors will provide unprecedented imaging fidelity of our crust, across all length and time scales, to fundamental and applied researchers in the earth, environmental and geospatial sciences. The AEOS will the Earth Science community's Square Kilometer Array (SKA) - a distributed telescope that looks INTO the earth rather than away from it - a 10 million SKA. The AEOS is strongly aligned with other community strategic initiatives including the UNCOVER research program as well as other National Collaborative Research Infrastructure programs such as the Terrestrial Environmental Research Network (TERN) and the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) providing an interdisciplinary collaboration platform across the earth and environmental sciences. There is also very close alignment between AuScope and similar international programs such as EPOS, the USArray and EarthCube - potential collaborative linkages we are currently in the process of pursuing more fomally. The AuScope AEOS Infrastructure System is ultimately designed to enable the progressive construction, refinement and ongoing enrichment of a live, "FAIR" four-dimensional Earth Model for the Australian Continent and its immediate environs.

An information technology infrastructure to enable evidence-based nursing practice.

PubMed

Pochciol, Joan M; Warren, Joan I

2009-01-01

The movement toward evidence-based practice (EBP) poses new organizational challenges to provide the necessary infrastructure to promote effective nursing interventions based on the best available evidence. The purpose of this article is to describe a collaborative effort between nursing and library services to provide readily accessible information at the bedside to support nurses using the best available evidence. In collaboration with nursing, the Health Services Librarian created an information resource titled "Research-based Nursing Practice: Finding the Evidence," which enables nursing staff to access the resources at the bedside without having to perform lengthy searches. Every known resource that will educate nurses in defining EBP to providing them with the links to Web sites, published articles, and all the information resources is included in the tool. Much has been written about building the organizational infrastructure to promote EBP and finding the filtered, synthesized research evidence, but to our knowledge, little has been published on building the information technology infrastructure, which will give nurses real-time access at the point-of-care to the research evidence. The research-based nursing practice system is helping bridge the gap between evidence-based resources and practice by compiling the literature in one place and making it easily and readily accessible.

Educating English Language Learners: Opportunities for Improved Infrastructure. PERC Research Brief

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rowland, Jeannette; Reumann-Moore, Rebecca; Hughes, Rosemary; Lin, Joshua

2016-01-01

Academic success for ELLs depends on high quality instruction and the infrastructure needed to support it (e.g., staff, curricular materials, collaboration, professional development). This brief examines the challenges schools face in these areas and the strategies they use to mediate them. The purpose of this brief is to share these strategies…

The SCIDIP-ES project - towards an international collaboration strategy for long term preservation of earth science data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riddick, Andrew; Glaves, Helen; Marelli, Fulvio; Albani, Mirko; Tona, Calogera; Marketakis, Yannis; Tzitzikas, Yannis; Guarino, Raffaele; Giaretta, David; Di Giammatteo, Ugo

2013-04-01

The capability for long term preservation of earth science data is a key requirement to support on-going research and collaboration within and between many earth science disciplines. A number of critically important current research directions (e.g. understanding climate change, and ensuring sustainability of natural resources) rely on the preservation of data often collected over several decades in a form in which it can be accessed and used easily. Another key driver for strategic long term data preservation is that key research challenges (such as those described above) frequently require cross disciplinary research utilising raw and interpreted data from a number of earth science disciplines. Effective data preservation strategies can support this requirement for interoperability and collaboration, and thereby stimulate scientific innovation. The SCIDIP-ES project (EC FP7 grant agreement no. 283401) seeks to address these and other data preservation challenges by developing a Europe wide infrastructure for long term data preservation comprising appropriate software tools and infrastructure services to enable and promote long term preservation of earth science data. Because we define preservation in terms of continued usability of the digitally encoded information, the generic infrastructure services will allow a wide variety of data to be made usable by researchers from many different domains. This approach promotes international collaboration between researchers and will enable the cost for long-term usability across disciplines to be shared supporting the creation of strong business cases for the long term support of that data. This paper will describe our progress to date, including the results of community engagement and user consultation exercises designed to specify and scope the required tools and services. Our user engagement methodology, ensuring that we are capturing the views of a representative sample of institutional users, will be described. Key results of an in-depth user requirements exercise, and also the conclusions from a survey of existing technologies and policies for earth science data preservation involving almost five hundred respondents across Europe and beyond will also be outlined. A key aim of the project will also be to create harmonised data preservation and access policies for earth science data in Europe, taking into account the requirements of relevant earth science data users and archive providers across Europe, and liaising appropriately with other European data integration and e-infrastructure projects to ensure a collaborative strategy.

ENT audit and research in the era of trainee collaboratives.

PubMed

Smith, Matthew E; Hardman, John; Ellis, Matthew; Williams, Richard J

2018-05-26

Large surgical audits and research projects are complex and costly to deliver, but increasingly surgical trainees are delivering these projects within formal collaboratives and research networks. Surgical trainee collaboratives are now recognised as a valuable part of the research infrastructure, with many perceived benefits for both the trainees and the wider surgical speciality. In this article, we describe the activity of ENT trainee research collaboratives within the UK, and summarise how INTEGRATE, the UK National ENT Trainee Research Network, successfully delivered a national audit of epistaxis management. The prospective audit collected high-quality data from 1826 individuals, representing 94% of all cases that met the inclusion criteria at the 113 participating sites over the 30-day audit period. It is hoped that the audit has provided a template for subsequent high-quality and cost-effective national studies, and we discuss the future possibilities for ENT trainee research collaboratives.

A National Virtual Specimen Database for Early Cancer Detection

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Crichton, Daniel; Kincaid, Heather; Kelly, Sean; Thornquist, Mark; Johnsey, Donald; Winget, Marcy

2003-01-01

Access to biospecimens is essential for enabling cancer biomarker discovery. The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) comprises and integrates a large number of laboratories into a network in order to establish a collaborative scientific environment to discover and validate disease markers. The diversity of both the institutions and the collaborative focus has created the need for establishing cross-disciplinary teams focused on integrating expertise in biomedical research, computational and biostatistics, and computer science. Given the collaborative design of the network, the EDRN needed an informatics infrastructure. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the National Cancer Institute,and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) teamed up to build an informatics infrastructure creating a collaborative, science-driven research environment despite the geographic and morphology differences of the information systems that existed within the diverse network. EDRN investigators identified the need to share biospecimen data captured across the country managed in disparate databases. As a result, the informatics team initiated an effort to create a virtual tissue database whereby scientists could search and locate details about specimens located at collaborating laboratories. Each database, however, was locally implemented and integrated into collection processes and methods unique to each institution. This meant that efforts to integrate databases needed to be done in a manner that did not require redesign or re-implementation of existing system

Online molecular image repository and analysis system: A multicenter collaborative open-source infrastructure for molecular imaging research and application.

PubMed

Rahman, Mahabubur; Watabe, Hiroshi

2018-05-01

Molecular imaging serves as an important tool for researchers and clinicians to visualize and investigate complex biochemical phenomena using specialized instruments; these instruments are either used individually or in combination with targeted imaging agents to obtain images related to specific diseases with high sensitivity, specificity, and signal-to-noise ratios. However, molecular imaging, which is a multidisciplinary research field, faces several challenges, including the integration of imaging informatics with bioinformatics and medical informatics, requirement of reliable and robust image analysis algorithms, effective quality control of imaging facilities, and those related to individualized disease mapping, data sharing, software architecture, and knowledge management. As a cost-effective and open-source approach to address these challenges related to molecular imaging, we develop a flexible, transparent, and secure infrastructure, named MIRA, which stands for Molecular Imaging Repository and Analysis, primarily using the Python programming language, and a MySQL relational database system deployed on a Linux server. MIRA is designed with a centralized image archiving infrastructure and information database so that a multicenter collaborative informatics platform can be built. The capability of dealing with metadata, image file format normalization, and storing and viewing different types of documents and multimedia files make MIRA considerably flexible. With features like logging, auditing, commenting, sharing, and searching, MIRA is useful as an Electronic Laboratory Notebook for effective knowledge management. In addition, the centralized approach for MIRA facilitates on-the-fly access to all its features remotely through any web browser. Furthermore, the open-source approach provides the opportunity for sustainable continued development. MIRA offers an infrastructure that can be used as cross-boundary collaborative MI research platform for the rapid achievement in cancer diagnosis and therapeutics. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

e-Infrastructures for e-Sciences 2013 A CHAIN-REDS Workshop organised under the aegis of the European Commission

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

The CHAIN-REDS Project is organising a workshop on "e-Infrastructures for e-Sciences" focusing on Cloud Computing and Data Repositories under the aegis of the European Commission and in co-location with the International Conference on e-Science 2013 (IEEE2013) that will be held in Beijing, P.R. of China on October 17-22, 2013. The core objective of the CHAIN-REDS project is to promote, coordinate and support the effort of a critical mass of non-European e-Infrastructures for Research and Education to collaborate with Europe addressing interoperability and interoperation of Grids and other Distributed Computing Infrastructures (DCI). From this perspective, CHAIN-REDS will optimise the interoperation of European infrastructures with those present in 6 other regions of the world, both from a development and use point of view, and catering to different communities. Overall, CHAIN-REDS will provide input for future strategies and decision-making regarding collaboration with other regions on e-Infrastructure deployment and availability of related data; it will raise the visibility of e-Infrastructures towards intercontinental audiences, covering most of the world and will provide support to establish globally connected and interoperable infrastructures, in particular between the EU and the developing regions. Organised by IHEP, INFN and Sigma Orionis with the support of all project partners, this workshop will aim at: - Presenting the state of the art of Cloud computing in Europe and in China and discussing the opportunities offered by having interoperable and federated e-Infrastructures; - Exploring the existing initiatives of Data Infrastructures in Europe and China, and highlighting the Data Repositories of interest for the Virtual Research Communities in several domains such as Health, Agriculture, Climate, etc.

Coordinating High-Resolution Traffic Cameras : Developing Intelligent, Collaborating Cameras for Transportation Security and Communications

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2015-08-01

Cameras are used prolifically to monitor transportation incidents, infrastructure, and congestion. Traditional camera systems often require human monitoring and only offer low-resolution video. Researchers for the Exploratory Advanced Research (EAR) ...

Piezoresistive Strain Sensors and Multiplexed Arrays for Transportation Infrastructures

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2012-10-01

During Year 5 of SAFETEA-LU, ITI researcher Professor Yonggang Huang, an expert in : the science of stretchable and flexible electronics, collaborated with researchers at : University of Illinois to engineer stretchable and flexible piezoresistive st...

ARCUS Project Managers and the Intangible Infrastructure of Large Interdisciplinary Arctic Research Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Myers, B.; Wiggins, H. V.; Turner-Bogren, E. J.; Warburton, J.

2017-12-01

Project Managers at the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. (ARCUS) lead initiatives to convene, communicate with, and connect the Arctic research community across challenging disciplinary, geographic, temporal, and cultural boundaries. They regularly serve as the organizing hubs, archivists and memory-keepers for collaborative projects comprised of many loosely affiliated partners. As leading organizers of large open science meetings and other outreach events, they also monitor the interdisciplinary landscape of community needs, concerns, opportunities, and emerging research directions. However, leveraging the ARCUS Project Manager role to strategically build out the intangible infrastructure necessary to advance Arctic research requires a unique set of knowledge, skills, and experience. Drawing on a range of lessons learned from past and ongoing experiences with collaborative science, education and outreach programming, this presentation will highlight a model of ARCUS project management that we believe works best to support and sustain our community in its long-term effort to conquer the complexities of Arctic research.

Building the national health information infrastructure for personal health, health care services, public health, and research

PubMed Central

Detmer, Don E

2003-01-01

Background Improving health in our nation requires strengthening four major domains of the health care system: personal health management, health care delivery, public health, and health-related research. Many avoidable shortcomings in the health sector that result in poor quality are due to inaccessible data, information, and knowledge. A national health information infrastructure (NHII) offers the connectivity and knowledge management essential to correct these shortcomings. Better health and a better health system are within our reach. Discussion A national health information infrastructure for the United States should address the needs of personal health management, health care delivery, public health, and research. It should also address relevant global dimensions (e.g., standards for sharing data and knowledge across national boundaries). The public and private sectors will need to collaborate to build a robust national health information infrastructure, essentially a 'paperless' health care system, for the United States. The federal government should assume leadership for assuring a national health information infrastructure as recommended by the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics and the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee. Progress is needed in the areas of funding, incentives, standards, and continued refinement of a privacy (i.e., confidentiality and security) framework to facilitate personal identification for health purposes. Particular attention should be paid to NHII leadership and change management challenges. Summary A national health information infrastructure is a necessary step for improved health in the U.S. It will require a concerted, collaborative effort by both public and private sectors. If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. Lord Kelvin PMID:12525262

Infrastructure Problems of the Cities of Developing Countries. An International Urbanization Survey Report to the Ford Foundation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bernstein, Beverly, Ed.

The contents of this collaborative report are as follows: Chapter I--Terms of Reference. Chapter II--Historical Summary of Non-Research. Chapter III--Studies of Urban Infrastructure Elements: (A) Domestic Water Supply; (B) Removal and Treatment Solid and Liquid Wastes; (C) Domestic Power Supply; (D) Urban Transportation; (E) Urban Land. Chapter…

Research Activities at Fermilab for Big Data Movement

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mhashilkar, Parag; Wu, Wenji; Kim, Hyun W

2013-01-01

Adaptation of 100GE Networking Infrastructure is the next step towards management of Big Data. Being the US Tier-1 Center for the Large Hadron Collider's (LHC) Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment and the central data center for several other large-scale research collaborations, Fermilab has to constantly deal with the scaling and wide-area distribution challenges of the big data. In this paper, we will describe some of the challenges involved in the movement of big data over 100GE infrastructure and the research activities at Fermilab to address these challenges.

Impacts of Permafrost on Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trochim, E.; Schuur, E.; Schaedel, C.; Kelly, B. P.

2017-12-01

The Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) program developed knowledge pyramids as a tool for advancing scientific understanding and making this information accessible for decision makers. Knowledge pyramids are being used to synthesize, curate and disseminate knowledge of changing land ice, sea ice, and permafrost in the Arctic. Each pyramid consists of a one-two page summary brief in broadly accessible language and literature organized by levels of detail including synthesizes and scientific building blocks. Three knowledge pyramids have been produced related to permafrost on carbon, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. Each brief answers key questions with high societal relevance framed in policy-relevant terms. The knowledge pyramids concerning infrastructure and ecosystem services were developed in collaboration with researchers specializing in the specific topic areas in order to identify the most pertinent issues and accurately communicate information for integration into policy and planning. For infrastructure, the main issue was the need to build consensus in the engineering and science communities for developing improved methods for incorporating data applicable to building infrastructure on permafrost. In ecosystem services, permafrost provides critical landscape properties which affect basic human needs including fuel and drinking water availability, access to hunting and harvest, and fish and wildlife habitat. Translating these broad and complex topics necessitated a systematic and iterative approach to identifying key issues and relating them succinctly to the best state of the art research. The development of the knowledge pyramids provoked collaboration and synthesis across distinct research and engineering communities. The knowledge pyramids also provide a solid basis for policy development and the format allows the content to be regularly updated as the research community advances.

The iPlant Collaborative: Cyberinfrastructure for Enabling Data to Discovery for the Life Sciences.

PubMed

Merchant, Nirav; Lyons, Eric; Goff, Stephen; Vaughn, Matthew; Ware, Doreen; Micklos, David; Antin, Parker

2016-01-01

The iPlant Collaborative provides life science research communities access to comprehensive, scalable, and cohesive computational infrastructure for data management; identity management; collaboration tools; and cloud, high-performance, high-throughput computing. iPlant provides training, learning material, and best practice resources to help all researchers make the best use of their data, expand their computational skill set, and effectively manage their data and computation when working as distributed teams. iPlant's platform permits researchers to easily deposit and share their data and deploy new computational tools and analysis workflows, allowing the broader community to easily use and reuse those data and computational analyses.

Leveraging e-Science infrastructure for electrochemical research.

PubMed

Peachey, Tom; Mashkina, Elena; Lee, Chong-Yong; Enticott, Colin; Abramson, David; Bond, Alan M; Elton, Darrell; Gavaghan, David J; Stevenson, Gareth P; Kennedy, Gareth F

2011-08-28

As in many scientific disciplines, modern chemistry involves a mix of experimentation and computer-supported theory. Historically, these skills have been provided by different groups, and range from traditional 'wet' laboratory science to advanced numerical simulation. Increasingly, progress is made by global collaborations, in which new theory may be developed in one part of the world and applied and tested in the laboratory elsewhere. e-Science, or cyber-infrastructure, underpins such collaborations by providing a unified platform for accessing scientific instruments, computers and data archives, and collaboration tools. In this paper we discuss the application of advanced e-Science software tools to electrochemistry research performed in three different laboratories--two at Monash University in Australia and one at the University of Oxford in the UK. We show that software tools that were originally developed for a range of application domains can be applied to electrochemical problems, in particular Fourier voltammetry. Moreover, we show that, by replacing ad-hoc manual processes with e-Science tools, we obtain more accurate solutions automatically.

The Recovery-Oriented Care Collaborative: A Practice-Based Research Network to Improve Care for People With Serious Mental Illnesses.

PubMed

Kelly, Erin L; Kiger, Holly; Gaba, Rebecca; Pancake, Laura; Pilon, David; Murch, Lezlie; Knox, Lyndee; Meyer, Mathew; Brekke, John S

2015-11-01

Practice-based research networks (PBRNs) create continuous collaborations among academic researchers and practitioners. Most PBRNs have operated in primary care, and less than 5% of federally registered PBRNs include mental health practitioners. In 2012 the first PBRN in the nation focused on individuals with serious mental illnesses-the Recovery-Oriented Care Collaborative-was established in Los Angeles. This column describes the development of this innovative PBRN through four phases: building an infrastructure, developing a research study, executing the study, and consolidating the PBRN. Key lessons learned are also described, such as the importance of actively engaging direct service providers and clients.

Effective collaborative learning in biomedical education using a web-based infrastructure.

PubMed

Wu, Yunfeng; Zheng, Fang; Cai, Suxian; Xiang, Ning; Zhong, Zhangting; He, Jia; Xu, Fang

2012-01-01

This paper presents a feature-rich web-based system used for biomedical education at the undergraduate level. With the powerful groupware features provided by the wiki system, the instructors are able to establish a community-centered mentoring environment that capitalizes on local expertise to create a sense of online collaborative learning among students. The web-based infrastructure can help the instructors effectively organize and coordinate student research projects, and the groupware features may support the interactive activities, such as interpersonal communications and data sharing. The groupware features also provide the web-based system with a wide range of additional ways of organizing collaboratively developed materials, which makes it become an effective tool for online active learning. Students are able to learn the ability to work effectively in teams, with an improvement of project management, design collaboration, and technical writing skills. With the fruitful outcomes in recent years, it is positively thought that the web-based collaborative learning environment can perform an excellent shift away from the conventional instructor-centered teaching to community- centered collaborative learning in the undergraduate education.

Developing a Community-Academic Partnership to Improve Recognition and Treatment of Depression in Underserved African American and White Elders

PubMed Central

Dobransky-Fasiska, Deborah; Brown, Charlotte; Pincus, Harold A.; Nowalk, Mary P.; Wieland, Melissa; Parker, Lisa S.; Cruz, Mario; McMurray, Michelle L.; Mulsant, Benoit; Reynolds, Charles F.

2011-01-01

Objective Reducing mental health disparities among underserved populations, particularly African American elders, is an important public health priority. The authors describe the process and challenges of developing a community/academic research partnership to address these disparities. Methods The authors are using a Community-Based Participatory Research approach to gain access to underserved populations in need of depression treatment. The authors identify six stages: 1) Collaborating to Secure Funding; 2) Building a Communications Platform and Research Infrastructure; 3) Fostering Enduring Relationships; 4) Assessing Needs/Educating about Research Process; 5) Initiating Specific Collaborative Projects (meeting mutual needs/interests); and 6) Maintaining a Sustainable and Productive Partnership. Data from a needs assessment developed collaboratively by researchers and community agencies facilitated agreement on mutual research goals, while strengthening the partnership. Results A community/academic-based partnership with a solid research infrastructure has been established and maintained for 3 years. Using the results of a needs assessment, the working partnership prioritized and launched several projects. Through interviews and questionnaires, community partners identified best practices for researchers working in the community. Future research and interventional projects have been developed, including plans for sustainability that will eventually shift more responsibility from the academic institution to the community agencies. Conclusions To reach underserved populations by developing and implementing models of more effective mental health treatment, it is vital to engage community agencies offering services to this population. A successful partnership requires “cultural humility,” collaborative efforts, and the development of flexible protocols to accommodate diverse communities. PMID:20104053

The Experiment Factory: Standardizing Behavioral Experiments.

PubMed

Sochat, Vanessa V; Eisenberg, Ian W; Enkavi, A Zeynep; Li, Jamie; Bissett, Patrick G; Poldrack, Russell A

2016-01-01

The administration of behavioral and experimental paradigms for psychology research is hindered by lack of a coordinated effort to develop and deploy standardized paradigms. While several frameworks (Mason and Suri, 2011; McDonnell et al., 2012; de Leeuw, 2015; Lange et al., 2015) have provided infrastructure and methods for individual research groups to develop paradigms, missing is a coordinated effort to develop paradigms linked with a system to easily deploy them. This disorganization leads to redundancy in development, divergent implementations of conceptually identical tasks, disorganized and error-prone code lacking documentation, and difficulty in replication. The ongoing reproducibility crisis in psychology and neuroscience research (Baker, 2015; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) highlights the urgency of this challenge: reproducible research in behavioral psychology is conditional on deployment of equivalent experiments. A large, accessible repository of experiments for researchers to develop collaboratively is most efficiently accomplished through an open source framework. Here we present the Experiment Factory, an open source framework for the development and deployment of web-based experiments. The modular infrastructure includes experiments, virtual machines for local or cloud deployment, and an application to drive these components and provide developers with functions and tools for further extension. We release this infrastructure with a deployment (http://www.expfactory.org) that researchers are currently using to run a set of over 80 standardized web-based experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. By providing open source tools for both deployment and development, this novel infrastructure holds promise to bring reproducibility to the administration of experiments, and accelerate scientific progress by providing a shared community resource of psychological paradigms.

The Experiment Factory: Standardizing Behavioral Experiments

PubMed Central

Sochat, Vanessa V.; Eisenberg, Ian W.; Enkavi, A. Zeynep; Li, Jamie; Bissett, Patrick G.; Poldrack, Russell A.

2016-01-01

The administration of behavioral and experimental paradigms for psychology research is hindered by lack of a coordinated effort to develop and deploy standardized paradigms. While several frameworks (Mason and Suri, 2011; McDonnell et al., 2012; de Leeuw, 2015; Lange et al., 2015) have provided infrastructure and methods for individual research groups to develop paradigms, missing is a coordinated effort to develop paradigms linked with a system to easily deploy them. This disorganization leads to redundancy in development, divergent implementations of conceptually identical tasks, disorganized and error-prone code lacking documentation, and difficulty in replication. The ongoing reproducibility crisis in psychology and neuroscience research (Baker, 2015; Open Science Collaboration, 2015) highlights the urgency of this challenge: reproducible research in behavioral psychology is conditional on deployment of equivalent experiments. A large, accessible repository of experiments for researchers to develop collaboratively is most efficiently accomplished through an open source framework. Here we present the Experiment Factory, an open source framework for the development and deployment of web-based experiments. The modular infrastructure includes experiments, virtual machines for local or cloud deployment, and an application to drive these components and provide developers with functions and tools for further extension. We release this infrastructure with a deployment (http://www.expfactory.org) that researchers are currently using to run a set of over 80 standardized web-based experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. By providing open source tools for both deployment and development, this novel infrastructure holds promise to bring reproducibility to the administration of experiments, and accelerate scientific progress by providing a shared community resource of psychological paradigms. PMID:27199843

Dynamic Collaboration Infrastructure for Hydrologic Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tarboton, D. G.; Idaszak, R.; Castillo, C.; Yi, H.; Jiang, F.; Jones, N.; Goodall, J. L.

2016-12-01

Data and modeling infrastructure is becoming increasingly accessible to water scientists. HydroShare is a collaborative environment that currently offers water scientists the ability to access modeling and data infrastructure in support of data intensive modeling and analysis. It supports the sharing of and collaboration around "resources" which are social objects defined to include both data and models in a structured standardized format. Users collaborate around these objects via comments, ratings, and groups. HydroShare also supports web services and cloud based computation for the execution of hydrologic models and analysis and visualization of hydrologic data. However, the quantity and variety of data and modeling infrastructure available that can be accessed from environments like HydroShare is increasing. Storage infrastructure can range from one's local PC to campus or organizational storage to storage in the cloud. Modeling or computing infrastructure can range from one's desktop to departmental clusters to national HPC resources to grid and cloud computing resources. How does one orchestrate this vast number of data and computing infrastructure without needing to correspondingly learn each new system? A common limitation across these systems is the lack of efficient integration between data transport mechanisms and the corresponding high-level services to support large distributed data and compute operations. A scientist running a hydrology model from their desktop may require processing a large collection of files across the aforementioned storage and compute resources and various national databases. To address these community challenges a proof-of-concept prototype was created integrating HydroShare with RADII (Resource Aware Data-centric collaboration Infrastructure) to provide software infrastructure to enable the comprehensive and rapid dynamic deployment of what we refer to as "collaborative infrastructure." In this presentation we discuss the results of this proof-of-concept prototype which enabled HydroShare users to readily instantiate virtual infrastructure marshaling arbitrary combinations, varieties, and quantities of distributed data and computing infrastructure in addressing big problems in hydrology.

Landscape of the EU-US Research Infrastructures and actors: Moving towards international interoperability of earth system data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asmi, Ari; Powers, Lindsay

2015-04-01

Research Infrastructures (RIs) are major long-term investments supporting innovative, bottom-up research activities. In the environmental research, they range from high atmosphere radars, to field observation networks and coordinated laboratory facilities. The Earth system is highly interactive and each part of the system interconnected across the spatial and disciplinary borders. However, due practical and historical reasons, the RIs are built from disciplinary points-of-view and separately in different parts of the world, with differing standards, policies, methods and research cultures. This heterogeneity provides necessary diversity to study the complex Earth system, but makes cross-disciplinary and/or global interoperability a challenge. Global actions towards better interoperability are surfacing, especially with EU and US. For example, recent mandates within the US government prioritize open data for federal agencies and federally funded science, and encourage collaboration among agencies to reduce duplication of efforts and increase efficient use of resources. There are several existing initiatives working toward these goals (e.g., COOPEUS, EarthCube, RDA, ICSU-WDS, DataOne, ESIP, USGEO, GEO). However, there is no cohesive framework to coordinate efforts among these, and other, entities. COOPEUS and EarthCube have now begun to map the landscape of interoperability efforts across earth science domains. The COOPEUS mapping effort describes the EU and US landscape of environmental research infrastructures to accomplish the following: identify gaps in services (data provision) necessary to address societal priorities; provide guidance for development of future research infrastructures; and identify opportunities for Research Infrastructures (RIs) to collaborate on issues of common interest. EarthCube mapping effort identifies opportunities to engage a broader community by identifying scientific domain organizations and entities. We present the current situation of the landscape analysis to create a sustainable effort towards removing barriers to interoperability on a global scale.

Security and Policy for Group Collaboration

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ian Foster; Carl Kesselman

2006-07-31

“Security and Policy for Group Collaboration” was a Collaboratory Middleware research project aimed at providing the fundamental security and policy infrastructure required to support the creation and operation of distributed, computationally enabled collaborations. The project developed infrastructure that exploits innovative new techniques to address challenging issues of scale, dynamics, distribution, and role. To reduce greatly the cost of adding new members to a collaboration, we developed and evaluated new techniques for creating and managing credentials based on public key certificates, including support for online certificate generation, online certificate repositories, and support for multiple certificate authorities. To facilitate the integration ofmore » new resources into a collaboration, we improved significantly the integration of local security environments. To make it easy to create and change the role and associated privileges of both resources and participants of collaboration, we developed community wide authorization services that provide distributed, scalable means for specifying policy. These services make it possible for the delegation of capability from the community to a specific user, class of user or resource. Finally, we instantiated our research results into a framework that makes it useable to a wide range of collaborative tools. The resulting mechanisms and software have been widely adopted within DOE projects and in many other scientific projects. The widespread adoption of our Globus Toolkit technology has provided, and continues to provide, a natural dissemination and technology transfer vehicle for our results.« less

Managing Astronomy Research Data: Case Studies of Big and Small Research Projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sands, Ashley E.

2015-01-01

Astronomy data management refers to all actions taken upon data over the course of the entire research process. It includes activities involving the collection, organization, analysis, release, storage, archiving, preservation, and curation of research data. Astronomers have cultivated data management tools, infrastructures, and local practices to ensure the use and future reuse of their data. However, new sky surveys will soon amass petabytes of data requiring new data management strategies.The goal of this dissertation, to be completed in 2015, is to identify and understand data management practices and the infrastructure and expertise required to support best practices. This will benefit the astronomy community in efforts toward an integrated scholarly communication framework.This dissertation employs qualitative, social science research methods (including interviews, observations, and document analysis) to conduct case studies of data management practices, covering the entire data lifecycle, amongst three populations: Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) collaboration team members; Individual and small-group users of SDSS data; and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) collaboration team members. I have been observing the collection, release, and archiving of data by the SDSS collaboration, the data practices of individuals and small groups using SDSS data in journal articles, and the LSST collaboration's planning and building of infrastructure to produce data.Preliminary results demonstrate that current data management practices in astronomy are complex, situational, and heterogeneous. Astronomers often have different management repertoires for working on sky surveys and for their own data collections, varying their data practices as they move between projects. The multitude of practices complicates coordinated efforts to maintain data.While astronomy expertise proves critical to managing astronomy data in the short, medium, and long term, the larger astronomy data workforce encompasses a greater breadth of educational backgrounds. Results show that teams of individuals with distinct expertise are key to ensuring the long-term preservation and usability of astronomy datasets.

Strengthening Institutional Research Administration in Uganda: A Case Study on Developing Collaborations among Academic and Research Institutions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kakande, Nelson; Namirembe, Regina; Kaye, Dan K.; Mugyenyi, Peter N.

2012-01-01

Despite the presence of several funded research projects at academic and research institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, the quality of the pre/post grant award process in these institutions is inadequate. There is a need to strengthen research administration through infrastructural, organizational, and human resource development to match the dynamic…

Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property [and] The ERCIM Technical Reference Digital Library [and] International Information Gateway Collaboration [and] The Standards Fora for Online Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gladney, Henry M.; Andreoni, Antonella; Baldacci, Maria Bruna; Biagioni, Stefania; Carlesi, Carlo; Castelli, Donatella; Pagano, Pasquale; Peters, Carol; Pisani, Serena; Dempsey, Lorcan; Gardner, Tracy; Day, Michael; van der Werf, Titia; Bacsich, Paul; Heath, Andy; Lefrere, Paul; Miller, Paul; Riley, Kevin

1999-01-01

Includes four articles that discuss the impact of the emerging digital information infrastructure on intellectual property; the implementation of a digital library for a European consortium of national research institutions; an international information gateway collaboration; and developing standards for the description and sharing of educational…

Life cycle cost reduction road map : final report.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2016-12-01

Rutgers University Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT), in collaboration : with research partners within the University Transportation Center (UTC) consortium, seeks to identify : knowledge gaps and chart future R&D direction...

The iPlant Collaborative: Cyberinfrastructure for Enabling Data to Discovery for the Life Sciences

PubMed Central

Merchant, Nirav; Lyons, Eric; Goff, Stephen; Vaughn, Matthew; Ware, Doreen; Micklos, David; Antin, Parker

2016-01-01

The iPlant Collaborative provides life science research communities access to comprehensive, scalable, and cohesive computational infrastructure for data management; identity management; collaboration tools; and cloud, high-performance, high-throughput computing. iPlant provides training, learning material, and best practice resources to help all researchers make the best use of their data, expand their computational skill set, and effectively manage their data and computation when working as distributed teams. iPlant’s platform permits researchers to easily deposit and share their data and deploy new computational tools and analysis workflows, allowing the broader community to easily use and reuse those data and computational analyses. PMID:26752627

You, Me, and We: Biolabs for the 21st Century.

PubMed

Kornberg, Ken

2016-03-10

Twenty-first century biomedical research is advantaged by institutional infrastructures that foster a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach. A few critical elements in the design of labs, research buildings, or campus can make interaction easier while preserving privacy and comfort for the individual researcher. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Greening the CWA Consent Decree: Some Examples of Collaborative Research Amongst US EPA and Municipalities (Ohio, USA)

EPA Science Inventory

This research will illuminate the prospects and limitations of certain types of green infrastructure measures as they are implemented in US communities, and advance the objectives of the Clean Water Act. We have an appropriate blend of expertise to pursue field research opport...

Brokering Capabilities for EarthCube - supporting Multi-disciplinary Earth Science Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jodha Khalsa, Siri; Pearlman, Jay; Nativi, Stefano; Browdy, Steve; Parsons, Mark; Duerr, Ruth; Pearlman, Francoise

2013-04-01

The goal of NSF's EarthCube is to create a sustainable infrastructure that enables the sharing of all geosciences data, information, and knowledge in an open, transparent and inclusive manner. Brokering of data and improvements in discovery and access are a key to data exchange and promotion of collaboration across the geosciences. In this presentation we describe an evolutionary process of infrastructure and interoperability development focused on participation of existing science research infrastructures and augmenting them for improved access. All geosciences communities already have, to a greater or lesser degree, elements of an information infrastructure in place. These elements include resources such as data archives, catalogs, and portals as well as vocabularies, data models, protocols, best practices and other community conventions. What is necessary now is a process for levering these diverse infrastructure elements into an overall infrastructure that provides easy discovery, access and utilization of resources across disciplinary boundaries. Brokers connect disparate systems with only minimal burdens upon those systems, and enable the infrastructure to adjust to new technical developments and scientific requirements as they emerge. Robust cyberinfrastructure will arise only when social, organizational, and cultural issues are resolved in tandem with the creation of technology-based services. This is a governance issue, but is facilitated by infrastructure capabilities that can impact the uptake of new interdisciplinary collaborations and exchange. Thus brokering must address both the cyberinfrastructure and computer technology requirements and also the social issues to allow improved cross-domain collaborations. This is best done through use-case-driven requirements and agile, iterative development methods. It is important to start by solving real (not hypothetical) information access and use problems via small pilot projects that develop capabilities targeted to specific communities. Brokering, as a critical capability for connecting systems, evolves over time through more connections and increased functionality. This adaptive process allows for continual evaluation as to how well science-driven use cases are being met. There is a near term, and possibly unique, opportunity through EarthCube and European e-Infrastructure projects to increase the impact and interconnectivity of projects. In the developments described in this presentation, brokering has been demonstrated to be an essential part of a robust, adaptive technical infrastructure and demonstration and user scenarios can address of both the governance and detailed implementation paths forward. The EarthCube Brokering roadmap proposes the expansion of brokering pilots into fully operational prototypes that work with the broader science and informatics communities to answer these questions, connect existing and emerging systems, and evolve the EarthCube infrastructure.

Building Sustainable Local Capacity for Global Health Research in West Africa.

PubMed

Sam-Agudu, Nadia A; Paintsil, Elijah; Aliyu, Muktar H; Kwara, Awewura; Ogunsola, Folasade; Afrane, Yaw A; Onoka, Chima; Awandare, Gordon A; Amponsah, Gladys; Cornelius, Llewellyn J; Mendy, Gabou; Sturke, Rachel; Ghansah, Anita; Siberry, George K; Ezeanolue, Echezona E

Global health research in resource-limited countries has been largely sponsored and led by foreign institutions. Thus, these countries' training capacity and productivity in global health research is limited. Local participation at all levels of global health knowledge generation promotes equitable access to evidence-based solutions. Additionally, leadership inclusive of competent local professionals promotes best outcomes for local contextualization and implementation of successful global health solutions. Among the sub-Saharan African regions, West Africa in particular lags in research infrastructure, productivity, and impact in global health research. In this paper, experts discuss strategies for scaling up West Africa's participation in global health evidence generation using examples from Ghana and Nigeria. We conducted an online and professional network search to identify grants awarded for global health research and research education in Ghana and Nigeria. Principal investigators, global health educators, and representatives of funding institutions were invited to add their knowledge and expertise with regard to strengthening research capacity in West Africa. While there has been some progress in obtaining foreign funding, foreign institutions still dominate local research. Local research funding opportunities in the 2 countries were found to be insufficient, disjointed, poorly sustained, and inadequately publicized, indicating weak infrastructure. As a result, research training programs produce graduates who ultimately fail to launch independent investigator careers because of lack of mentoring and poor infrastructural support. Research funding and training opportunities in Ghana and Nigeria remain inadequate. We recommend systems-level changes in mentoring, collaboration, and funding to drive the global health research agenda in these countries. Additionally, research training programs should be evaluated not only by numbers of individuals graduated but also by numbers of independent investigators and grants funded. Through equitable collaborations, infrastructure, and mentoring, West Africa can match the rest of Africa in impactful global health research. Copyright © 2016 Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. All rights reserved.

MEDNET: A Multi-State Policymaker/Researcher Collaboration to Improve Prescribing Practices

PubMed Central

Finnerty, Molly; Neese-Todd, Sheree; Bilder, Scott; Olfson, Mark; Crystal, Stephen

2015-01-01

States face new federal requirements to monitor psychotropic prescribing practices for children and adults in Medicaid. Effective use of quality measurement and quality improvement strategies hold the promise of improved outcomes for public mental health systems. The Medicaid/Mental Health Network for Evidence Based Treatment (MEDNET) is an AHRQ funded multi-state Medicaid quality collaborative with the Rutgers University Center for Health Services Research on Pharmacotherapy, Chronic Disease Management, and Outcomes. We review the development, infrastructure, challenges, and early evidence of success of this public-academic partnership, the first multi-state Medicaid quality improvement collaborative to focus on psychotropic medications. PMID:25756882

GAPS OF DECISION SUPPORT MODELS FOR PIPELINE RENEWAL AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT - Paper

EPA Science Inventory

As part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Aging Water Infrastructure Research Program, one key area of research pursued, in collaboration with wastewater and water utilities, was a study of the current approaches available for making rehabilitation versus replac...

Organizing the HIV vaccine development effort.

PubMed

Voronin, Yegor; Snow, William

2013-09-01

To describe and compare the diverse organizational structures and funding mechanisms applied to advance HIV preventive vaccine research and development and to help explain and inform evolving infrastructures and collaborative funding models. On the basis of models that have been tried, improved or abandoned over three decades, the field seems to have settled into a relatively stable set of diverse initiatives, each with its own organizational signature. At the same time, this set of organizations is forging cross-organizational collaborations, which promise to acquire newly emergent beneficial properties. Strong motivation to expedite HIV vaccine R&D has driven a diversity of customized and inventive organizational approaches, largely government and foundation funded. Although no one approach has proven a panacea, the field has evolved into a constellation of often overlapping organizations that complement or reinforce one another. The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a responsive, rapidly evolving loose infrastructure, is an innovative collaboration to catalyze that evolution.

Developing an urban community-campus partnership: lessons learned in infrastructure development and communication.

PubMed

Parker, Dorothy F; Dietz, Noella A; Hooper, Monica Webb; Byrne, Margaret M; Fernandez, Cristina A; Baker, Elizabeth A; Stevens, Marsha S; Messiah, Antoine; Lee, David J; Kobetz, Erin N

2012-01-01

A low-income, African American neighborhood in Miami, Florida, experiences health disparities including an excess burden of cancer. Many residents are disenfranchised from the healthcare system, and may not participate in cancer prevention and screening services. We sought to describe the development of a partnership between a university and this community and lessons learned in using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) model. To better understand the community's health behaviors and status, a randomized door-to-door survey was conducted in collaboration with a community partner. This collaboration helped foster a mutual understanding of the benefits of CBPR. We also describe challenges of adhering to study protocols, quality control, and sharing fiscal responsibility with organizations that do not have an established infrastructure. Understanding the organizational dynamics of a community is necessary for developing a CBPR model that will be effective in that community. Once established, it can help to inform future collaborations.

Organizing the HIV Vaccine Development Effort

PubMed Central

Voronin, Yegor; Snow, William

2014-01-01

Purpose of Review Describe and compare the diverse organizational structures and funding mechanisms applied to advance HIV preventive vaccine research and development, to help explain and inform evolving infrastructures and collaborative funding models. Recent Findings Based on models that have been tried, improved or abandoned over three decades, the field seems to have settled into a relatively stable set of diverse initiatives, each with its own organizational signature. At the same time, this set of organizations is forging cross-organizational collaborations, which promise to acquire newly emergent beneficial properties. Summary Strong motivation to expedite HIV vaccine R&D has driven a diversity of customized and inventive organizational approaches, largely government and foundation funded. While no one approach has proven a panacea, the field has evolved into a constellation of often overlapping organizations that complement or reinforce one another. The Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a responsive, rapidly evolving loose infrastructure, is an innovative collaboration to catalyze that evolution. PMID:23924997

FOSS Tools for Research Infrastructures - A Success Story?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stender, V.; Schroeder, M.; Wächter, J.

2015-12-01

Established initiatives and mandated organizations, e.g. the Initiative for Scientific Cyberinfrastructures (NSF, 2007) or the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI, 2008), promote and foster the development of sustainable research infrastructures. The basic idea behind these infrastructures is the provision of services supporting scientists to search, visualize and access data, to collaborate and exchange information, as well as to publish data and other results. Especially the management of research data is gaining more and more importance. In geosciences these developments have to be merged with the enhanced data management approaches of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). The Centre for GeoInformationTechnology (CeGIT) at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences has the objective to establish concepts and standards of SDIs as an integral part of research infrastructure architectures. In different projects, solutions to manage research data for land- and water management or environmental monitoring have been developed based on a framework consisting of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) components. The framework provides basic components supporting the import and storage of data, discovery and visualization as well as data documentation (metadata). In our contribution, we present our data management solutions developed in three projects, Central Asian Water (CAWa), Sustainable Management of River Oases (SuMaRiO) and Terrestrial Environmental Observatories (TERENO) where FOSS components build the backbone of the data management platform. The multiple use and validation of tools helped to establish a standardized architectural blueprint serving as a contribution to Research Infrastructures. We examine the question of whether FOSS tools are really a sustainable choice and whether the increased efforts of maintenance are justified. Finally it should help to answering the question if the use of FOSS for Research Infrastructures is a success story.

Coordinating Centers in Cancer-Epidemiology Research: The Asia Cohort Consortium Coordinating Center

PubMed Central

Rolland, Betsy; Smith, Briana R; Potter, John D

2011-01-01

Although it is tacitly recognized that a good Coordinating Center (CC) is essential to the success of any multi-site collaborative project, very little study has been done on what makes a CC successful, why some CCs fail, or how to build a CC that meets the needs of a given project. Moreover, very little published guidance is available, as few CCs outside the clinical-trial realm write about their work. The Asia Cohort Consortium (ACC) is a collaborative cancer-epidemiology research project that has made strong scientific and organizational progress over the past three years by focusing its CC on the following activities: collaboration development; operations management; statistical and data management; and communications infrastructure and tool development. Our hope is that, by sharing our experience building the ACC CC, we can begin a conversation about what it means to run a coordinating center for multi-institutional collaboration in cancer epidemiology, help other collaborative projects solve some of the issues associated with collaborative research, and learn from others. PMID:21803842

Development of a Dynamically Configurable,Object-Oriented Framework for Distributed, Multi-modal Computational Aerospace Systems Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Afjeh, Abdollah A.; Reed, John A.

2003-01-01

This research is aimed at developing a neiv and advanced simulation framework that will significantly improve the overall efficiency of aerospace systems design and development. This objective will be accomplished through an innovative integration of object-oriented and Web-based technologies ivith both new and proven simulation methodologies. The basic approach involves Ihree major areas of research: Aerospace system and component representation using a hierarchical object-oriented component model which enables the use of multimodels and enforces component interoperability. Collaborative software environment that streamlines the process of developing, sharing and integrating aerospace design and analysis models. . Development of a distributed infrastructure which enables Web-based exchange of models to simplify the collaborative design process, and to support computationally intensive aerospace design and analysis processes. Research for the first year dealt with the design of the basic architecture and supporting infrastructure, an initial implementation of that design, and a demonstration of its application to an example aircraft engine system simulation.

Incorporating collaboratory concepts into informatics in support of translational interdisciplinary biomedical research

PubMed Central

Lee, E. Sally; McDonald, David W.; Anderson, Nicholas; Tarczy-Hornoch, Peter

2008-01-01

Due to its complex nature, modern biomedical research has become increasingly interdisciplinary and collaborative in nature. Although a necessity, interdisciplinary biomedical collaboration is difficult. There is, however, a growing body of literature on the study and fostering of collaboration in fields such as computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) and information science (IS). These studies of collaboration provide insight into how to potentially alleviate the difficulties of interdisciplinary collaborative research. We, therefore, undertook a cross cutting study of science and engineering collaboratories to identify emergent themes. We review many relevant collaboratory concepts: (a) general collaboratory concepts across many domains: communication, common workspace and coordination, and data sharing and management, (b) specific collaboratory concepts of particular biomedical relevance: data integration and analysis, security structure, metadata and data provenance, and interoperability and data standards, (c) environmental factors that support collaboratories: administrative and management structure, technical support, and available funding as critical environmental factors, and (d) future considerations for biomedical collaboration: appropriate training and long-term planning. In our opinion, the collaboratory concepts we discuss can guide planning and design of future collaborative infrastructure by biomedical informatics researchers to alleviate some of the difficulties of interdisciplinary biomedical collaboration. PMID:18706852

Survey of Collaboration Technologies in Multi-level Security Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-04-28

infrastructure or resources. In this research program, the security implications of the US Air Force GeoBase (the US The problem is that in many cases...design structure. ORA uses a Java interface for ease of use, and a C++ computational backend . The current version ORA1.2 software is available on the...information: culture, policy, governance, economics and resources, and technology and infrastructure . This plan, the DoD Information Sharing

The Role of an Intermediary Organization in Promoting Research in Schools of Social Work: The Case of the Bay Area Social Services Consortium

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anthony, Elizabeth K.; Austin, Michael J.

2008-01-01

The multifaceted role of research in social work education and practice requires innovation to respond to the broader mission of the university and the needs of the community. Building research capacity and supporting infrastructure for research thus demands new approaches to effective collaboration between stakeholders. Intermediary organizations…

Enhancement of Health Research Capacity in Nigeria through North-South and In-Country Partnerships

PubMed Central

Olaleye, David O.; Odaibo, Georgina N.; Carney, Paula; Agbaji, Oche; Sagay, Atiene S.; Muktar, Haruna; Akinyinka, Olusegun O.; Omigbodun, Akinyinka O.; Ogunniyi, Adesola; Gashau, Wadzani; Akanmu, Sulaimon; Ogunsola, Folasade; Chukwuka, Chinwe; Okonkwo, Prosper I.; Meloni, Seema T.; Adewole, Isaac; Kanki, Phyllis J.; Murphy, Robert L.

2014-01-01

Research productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to affect teaching, student quality, faculty career development, and translational country-relevant research as it has in developed countries. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with an academic infrastructure that includes 129 universities and 45 medical schools; however, despite the size, the country has unacceptably poor health status indicators. To further develop the research infrastructure in Nigeria, faculty and research career development topics were identified within the six Nigerian universities of the nine institutions of the Medical Education Partnership Initiative in Nigeria (MEPIN) consortium. The consortium identified a training model that incorporated multi-institutional “train the trainers” programs at the University of Ibadan, followed by replication at the other MEPIN universities. More than 140 in-country trainers subsequently presented nine courses to more than 1,600 faculty, graduate students, and resident doctors throughout the consortium during the program’s first three years (2011–2013). This model has fostered a new era of collaboration among the major Nigerian research universities, which now have increased capacity for collaborative research initiatives and improved research output. These changes, in turn, have the potential to improve the nation’s health outcomes. PMID:25072590

The International Symposium on Grids and Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

The International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2012 will be held at Academia Sinica in Taipei from 26 February to 2 March 2012, with co-located events and workshops. The conference is hosted by the Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre (ASGC). 2012 is the decennium anniversary of the ISGC which over the last decade has tracked the convergence, collaboration and innovation of individual researchers across the Asia Pacific region to a coherent community. With the continuous support and dedication from the delegates, ISGC has provided the primary international distributed computing platform where distinguished researchers and collaboration partners from around the world share their knowledge and experiences. The last decade has seen the wide-scale emergence of e-Infrastructure as a critical asset for the modern e-Scientist. The emergence of large-scale research infrastructures and instruments that has produced a torrent of electronic data is forcing a generational change in the scientific process and the mechanisms used to analyse the resulting data deluge. No longer can the processing of these vast amounts of data and production of relevant scientific results be undertaken by a single scientist. Virtual Research Communities that span organisations around the world, through an integrated digital infrastructure that connects the trust and administrative domains of multiple resource providers, have become critical in supporting these analyses. Topics covered in ISGC 2012 include: High Energy Physics, Biomedicine & Life Sciences, Earth Science, Environmental Changes and Natural Disaster Mitigation, Humanities & Social Sciences, Operations & Management, Middleware & Interoperability, Security and Networking, Infrastructure Clouds & Virtualisation, Business Models & Sustainability, Data Management, Distributed Volunteer & Desktop Grid Computing, High Throughput Computing, and High Performance, Manycore & GPU Computing.

Collaborative Access Control For Critical Infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baina, Amine; El Kalam, Anas Abou; Deswarte, Yves; Kaaniche, Mohamed

A critical infrastructure (CI) can fail with various degrees of severity due to physical and logical vulnerabilities. Since many interdependencies exist between CIs, failures can have dramatic consequences on the entire infrastructure. This paper focuses on threats that affect information and communication systems that constitute the critical information infrastructure (CII). A new collaborative access control framework called PolyOrBAC is proposed to address security problems that are specific to CIIs. The framework offers each organization participating in a CII the ability to collaborate with other organizations while maintaining control of its resources and internal security policy. The approach is demonstrated on a practical scenario involving the electrical power grid.

International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2016

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

The International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2016 will be held at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan from 13-18 March 2016, with co-located events and workshops. The conference is hosted by the Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre (ASGC). The theme of ISGC 2016 focuses on“Ubiquitous e-infrastructures and Applications”. Contemporary research is impossible without a strong IT component - researchers rely on the existence of stable and widely available e-infrastructures and their higher level functions and properties. As a result of these expectations, e-Infrastructures are becoming ubiquitous, providing an environment that supports large scale collaborations that deal with global challenges as well as smaller and temporal research communities focusing on particular scientific problems. To support those diversified communities and their needs, the e-Infrastructures themselves are becoming more layered and multifaceted, supporting larger groups of applications. Following the call for the last year conference, ISGC 2016 continues its aim to bring together users and application developers with those responsible for the development and operation of multi-purpose ubiquitous e-Infrastructures. Topics of discussion include Physics (including HEP) and Engineering Applications, Biomedicine & Life Sciences Applications, Earth & Environmental Sciences & Biodiversity Applications, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) Applications, Virtual Research Environment (including Middleware, tools, services, workflow, etc.), Data Management, Big Data, Networking & Security, Infrastructure & Operations, Infrastructure Clouds and Virtualisation, Interoperability, Business Models & Sustainability, Highly Distributed Computing Systems, and High Performance & Technical Computing (HPTC), etc.

Experiences and Lessons Learnt with Collaborative e-Research Infrastructure and the application of Identity Management and Access Control for the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kershaw, P.

2016-12-01

CEDA, the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, hosts a range of services on behalf of NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) for the UK environmental sciences community and its work with international partners. It is host to four data centres covering atmospheric science, earth observation, climate and space data domain areas. It holds this data on behalf of a number of different providers each with their own data policies which has thus required the development of a comprehensive system to manage access. With the advent of CMIP5, CEDA committed to be one of a number of centres to host the climate model outputs and make them available through the Earth System Grid Federation, a globally distributed software infrastructure developed for this purpose. From the outset, a means for restricting access to datasets was required, necessitating the development a federated system for authentication and authorisation so that access to data could be managed across multiple providers around the world. From 2012, CEDA has seen a further evolution with the development of JASMIN, a multi-petabyte data analysis facility. Hosted alongside the CEDA archive, it provides a range of services for users including a batch compute cluster, group workspaces and a community cloud. This has required significant changes and enhancements to the access control system. In common with many other examples in the research community, the experiences of the above underline the difficulties of developing collaborative e-Research infrastructures. Drawing from these there are some recurring themes: Clear requirements need to be established at the outset recognising that implementing strict access policies can incur additional development and administrative overhead. An appropriate balance is needed between ease of access desired by end users and metrics and monitoring required by resource providers. The major technical challenge is not with security technologies themselves but their effective integration with services and resources which they must protect. Effective policy and governance structures are needed for ongoing operations Federated identity infrastructures often exist only at the national level making it difficult for international research collaborations to exploit them.

Job Needs and Priorities Report, Phase 2: Action Plans : Northeast Region

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2016-08-01

The Northeast Transportation Workforce Center (NETWC) is housed at the University of Vermont Transportation Research Center (UVM TRC). It has collaborated in this effort with the Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT). The NE re...

European environmental research infrastructures are going for common 30 years strategy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asmi, Ari; Konjin, Jacco; Pursula, Antti

2014-05-01

Environmental Research infrastructures are facilities, resources, systems and related services that are used by research communities to conduct top-level research. Environmental research is addressing processes at very different time scales, and supporting research infrastructures must be designed as long-term facilities in order to meet the requirements of continuous environmental observation, measurement and analysis. This longevity makes the environmental research infrastructures ideal structures to support the long-term development in environmental sciences. ENVRI project is a collaborative action of the major European (ESFRI) Environmental Research Infrastructures working towards increased co-operation and interoperability between the infrastructures. One of the key products of the ENVRI project is to combine the long-term plans of the individual infrastructures towards a common strategy, describing the vision and planned actions. The envisaged vision for environmental research infrastructures toward 2030 is to support the holistic understanding of our planet and it's behavior. The development of a 'Standard Model of the Planet' is a common ambition, a challenge to define an environmental standard model; a framework of all interactions within the Earth System, from solid earth to near space. Indeed scientists feel challenged to contribute to a 'Standard Model of the Planet' with data, models, algorithms and discoveries. Understanding the Earth System as an interlinked system requires a systems approach. The Environmental Sciences are rapidly moving to become a one system-level science. Mainly since modern science, engineering and society are increasingly facing complex problems that can only be understood in the context of the full overall system. The strategy of the supporting collaborating research infrastructures is based on developing three key factors for the Environmental Sciences: the technological, the cultural and the human capital. The technological capital development concentrates on improving the capacities to measure, observe, preserve and compute. This requires staff, technologies, sensors, satellites, floats, software to integrate and to do analysis and modeling, including data storage, computing platforms and networks. The cultural capital development addresses issues such as open access to data, rules, licenses, citation agreements, IPR agreements, technologies for machine-machine interaction, workflows, metadata, and RI community on the policy level. Human capital actions are based on anticipated need of specialists, including data scientists and 'generalists' that oversee more than just their own discipline. Developing these, as interrelated services, should help the scientific community to enter innovative and large projects contributing to a 'Standard Model of the Planet'. To achieve the overall goal, ENVRI will publish a set of action items that contains intermediate aims, bigger and smaller steps to work towards the development of the 'Standard Model of the Planet' approach. This timeline of actions can used as reference and 'common denominator' in defining new projects and research programs. Either within the various environmental scientific disciplines or when cooperating among these disciplines or even when outreaching towards other disciplines like social sciences, physics/chemistry, medical/life sciences etc.

About BTTC | Center for Cancer Research

Cancer.gov

About Combined Forces Drive BTTC The Brain Tumor Trials Collaborative (BTTC) was created in 2003 - a combined effort of many professionals, entities and organizations to help those suffering from brain tumors. The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Center for Cancer Research serves as the lead institution and provides the administrative infrastructure, clinical database and

Undergraduate Research and Service-Learning Programs in a Kinesiology Program at a Teaching University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O, Jenny; Sherwood, Jennifer J.; Yingling, Vanessa R.

2017-01-01

High-impact practices foster student success, but faculty faced with heavy teaching loads and lack of resources and infrastructure are challenged to implement such practices. Kinesiology faculty at California State University, East Bay collaborated to implement two student programs: Kinesiology Research Group and Get Fit! Stay Fit! The Kinesiology…

Understanding collaboration in a multi-national research capacity-building partnership: a qualitative study.

PubMed

Varshney, Dinansha; Atkins, Salla; Das, Arindam; Diwan, Vishal

2016-08-18

Research capacity building and its impact on policy and international research partnership is increasingly seen as important. High income and low- and middle-income countries frequently engage in research collaborations. These can have a positive impact on research capacity building, provided such partnerships are long-term collaborations with a unified aim, but they can also have challenges. What are these challenges, which often result in a short term/ non viable collaboration? Does such collaboration results in capacity building? What are the requirements to make any collaboration sustainable? This study aimed to answer these and other research questions through examining an international collaboration in one multi-country research capacity building project ARCADE RSDH (Asian Regional Capacity Development for Research on Social Determinants of Health). A qualitative study was conducted that focused on the reasons for the collaboration, collaboration patterns involved, processes of exchanging information, barriers faced and perceived growth in research capacity. In-depth interviews were conducted with the principal investigators (n = 12), research assistants (n = 2) and a scientific coordinator (n = 1) of the collaborating institutes. Data were analysed using thematic framework analysis. The initial contact between institutes was through previous collaborations. The collaboration was affected by the organisational structure of the partner institutes, political influences and the collaboration design. Communication was usually conducted online, which was affected by differences in time and language and inefficient infrastructure. Limited funding resulted in restricted engagement by some partners. This study explored work in a large, North-South collaboration project focusing on building research capacity in partner institutes. The project helped strengthen research capacity, though differences in organization types, existing research capacity, culture, time, and language acted as obstacles to the success of the project. Managing these differences requires preplanned strategies to develop functional communication channels among the partners, maintaining transparency, and sharing the rewards and benefits at all stages of collaboration.

Developing an Open Source, Reusable Platform for Distributed Collaborative Information Management in the Early Detection Research Network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hart, Andrew F.; Verma, Rishi; Mattmann, Chris A.; Crichton, Daniel J.; Kelly, Sean; Kincaid, Heather; Hughes, Steven; Ramirez, Paul; Goodale, Cameron; Anton, Kristen;

A Drupal-Based Collaborative Framework for Science Workflows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pinheiro da Silva, P.; Gandara, A.

2010-12-01

Cyber-infrastructure is built from utilizing technical infrastructure to support organizational practices and social norms to provide support for scientific teams working together or dependent on each other to conduct scientific research. Such cyber-infrastructure enables the sharing of information and data so that scientists can leverage knowledge and expertise through automation. Scientific workflow systems have been used to build automated scientific systems used by scientists to conduct scientific research and, as a result, create artifacts in support of scientific discoveries. These complex systems are often developed by teams of scientists who are located in different places, e.g., scientists working in distinct buildings, and sometimes in different time zones, e.g., scientist working in distinct national laboratories. The sharing of these specifications is currently supported by the use of version control systems such as CVS or Subversion. Discussions about the design, improvement, and testing of these specifications, however, often happen elsewhere, e.g., through the exchange of email messages and IM chatting. Carrying on a discussion about these specifications is challenging because comments and specifications are not necessarily connected. For instance, the person reading a comment about a given workflow specification may not be able to see the workflow and even if the person can see the workflow, the person may not specifically know to which part of the workflow a given comments applies to. In this paper, we discuss the design, implementation and use of CI-Server, a Drupal-based infrastructure, to support the collaboration of both local and distributed teams of scientists using scientific workflows. CI-Server has three primary goals: to enable information sharing by providing tools that scientists can use within their scientific research to process data, publish and share artifacts; to build community by providing tools that support discussions between scientists about artifacts used or created through scientific processes; and to leverage the knowledge collected within the artifacts and scientific collaborations to support scientific discoveries.

Network-based collaborative research environment LDRD final report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Davies, B.R.; McDonald, M.J.

1997-09-01

The Virtual Collaborative Environment (VCE) and Distributed Collaborative Workbench (DCW) are new technologies that make it possible for diverse users to synthesize and share mechatronic, sensor, and information resources. Using these technologies, university researchers, manufacturers, design firms, and others can directly access and reconfigure systems located throughout the world. The architecture for implementing VCE and DCW has been developed based on the proposed National Information Infrastructure or Information Highway and a tool kit of Sandia-developed software. Further enhancements to the VCE and DCW technologies will facilitate access to other mechatronic resources. This report describes characteristics of VCE and DCW andmore » also includes background information about the evolution of these technologies.« less

Nanoscience and nanotechnology in Venezuela

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

López Cadenas, María Sonsiré; Hasmy, Anwar; Vessuri, Hebe

2011-08-01

Nanoscale research in Venezuela is briefly reviewed, with emphasis on research groups, research lines, and institutions involved. A summary exploration is made of international collaboration through scientific co-authorship, as well of the efforts to build nano capacities, available infrastructure, relationships to the productive sector and a weak presence in Venezuelan public policies, although there is some expectation that the situation may soon begin to change.

Collaborative dissemination and exploitation of research infrastructures and their products within COOP+

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Järvi, L.; Asmi, A.; Bonet-García, F.; Suárez-Muñoz, M.

2016-12-01

COOP+ is a recently started European level project (EU Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action) that promotes cooperation between European research infrastructures (RIs) and their global counterparts to address global environmental challenges with emphasis on marine science, arctic research and biodiversity (see www.coop-plus.eu). As part of the project, the purpose is to understand and position the relevant ESFRI RIs (EMSO, EISCAT, ICOS and LifeWatch jointly with other European RIs) as a clear reference to the main stakeholders, and examine the best practices in how different RI products could be best exploited by different actors varying from research communities to stakeholders and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). A relevant question is that what collaboration approaches could be implemented to foster the cooperation among RIs and to disseminate their products and services to researchers, policy makers, SMEs and citizens? Within the project, a valued map describing the different global and local actors and their connections with optimal approaches will be developed and updated along the project span (March 2016 - September 2018). The map includes both cooperation of global RIs and their connections to researchers, industry and stakeholders.

Novel Alternative Cementitious Maerials for Development of the Next Generation of Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure[Tech Brief

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2015-10-01

Georgia Institute of Technology and collaborators from Oklahoma State University, Tourney Consulting, and the Army Corps of Engineers, for an Exploratory Advanced Research (EAR) Program project funded by the Federal Highway Administrations (FHWA...

Primary care research--a blueprint for action for Singapore.

PubMed

Chuan, T N; Gan, G L

2001-01-01

Primary care research, hitherto overshadowed by research in the tertiary institutions, lacks impetus due to image, limitations of resources and poor infrastructure. This article looks into the current state of research development and the barriers. These hurdles can be overcome by a paradigm shift through the initiation of regular research meetings, training, infrastructure support and a collaborative research network to optimize time and resources. This will open the door to a wide field of primary care research, from basic, clinical research to health service and health system analysis and evaluation. Family physicians can tap on this opportunity to sharpen their critical appraisal skills through research, which can form an integral part of their continuous professional development. A network of pro-research family physicians will foster a vibrant research culture and pave the way to a renaissance of primary care research.

Infrastructure for collaborative science and societal applications in the Columbia River estuary

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baptista, António M.; Seaton, Charles; Wilkin, Michael P.; Riseman, Sarah F.; Needoba, Joseph A.; Maier, David; Turner, Paul J.; Kärnä, Tuomas; Lopez, Jesse E.; Herfort, Lydie; Megler, V. M.; McNeil, Craig; Crump, Byron C.; Peterson, Tawnya D.; Spitz, Yvette H.; Simon, Holly M.

2015-12-01

To meet societal needs, modern estuarine science needs to be interdisciplinary and collaborative, combine discovery with hypotheses testing, and be responsive to issues facing both regional and global stakeholders. Such an approach is best conducted with the benefit of data-rich environments, where information from sensors and models is openly accessible within convenient timeframes. Here, we introduce the operational infrastructure of one such data-rich environment, a collaboratory created to support (a) interdisciplinary research in the Columbia River estuary by the multi-institutional team of investigators of the Science and Technology Center for Coastal Margin Observation & Prediction and (b) the integration of scientific knowledge into regional decision making. Core components of the operational infrastructure are an observation network, a modeling system and a cyber-infrastructure, each of which is described. The observation network is anchored on an extensive array of long-term stations, many of them interdisciplinary, and is complemented by on-demand deployment of temporary stations and mobile platforms, often in coordinated field campaigns. The modeling system is based on finiteelement unstructured-grid codes and includes operational and process-oriented simulations of circulation, sediments and ecosystem processes. The flow of information is managed through a dedicated cyber-infrastructure, conversant with regional and national observing systems.

The importance of national and international collaboration in adult congenital heart disease: A network analysis of research output.

PubMed

Orwat, Melanie Iris; Kempny, Aleksander; Bauer, Ulrike; Gatzoulis, Michael A; Baumgartner, Helmut; Diller, Gerhard-Paul

2015-09-15

The determinants of adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) research output are only partially understood. The heterogeneity of ACHD naturally calls for collaborative work; however, limited information exists on the impact of collaboration on academic performance. We aimed to examine the global topology of ACHD research, distribution of research collaboration and its association with cumulative research output. Based on publications presenting original research between 2005 and 2011, a network analysis was performed quantifying centrality measures and key players in the field of ACHD. In addition, network maps were produced to illustrate the global distribution and interconnected nature of ACHD research. The proportion of collaborative research was 35.6 % overall, with a wide variation between countries (7.1 to 62.8%). The degree of research collaboration, as well as measures of network centrality (betweenness and degree centrality), were statistically associated with cumulative research output independently of national wealth and available workforce. The global ACHD research network was found to be scale-free with a small number of central hubs and a relatively large number of peripheral nodes. In addition, we could identify potentially influential hubs based on cluster analysis and measures of centrality/key player analysis. Using network analysis methods the current study illustrates the complex and global structures of ACHD research. It suggests that collaboration between research institutions is associated with higher academic output. As a consequence national and international collaboration in ACHD research should be encouraged and the creation of an adequate supporting infrastructure should be further promoted. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Distributed Space Exploration Simulation (DSES)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Crues, Edwin Z.; Chung, Victoria I.; Blum, Mike G.; Bowman, James D.

2007-01-01

The paper describes the Distributed Space Exploration Simulation (DSES) Project, a research and development collaboration between NASA centers which focuses on the investigation and development of technologies, processes and integrated simulations related to the collaborative distributed simulation of complex space systems in support of NASA's Exploration Initiative. This paper describes the three major components of DSES: network infrastructure, software infrastructure and simulation development. In the network work area, DSES is developing a Distributed Simulation Network that will provide agency wide support for distributed simulation between all NASA centers. In the software work area, DSES is developing a collection of software models, tool and procedures that ease the burden of developing distributed simulations and provides a consistent interoperability infrastructure for agency wide participation in integrated simulation. Finally, for simulation development, DSES is developing an integrated end-to-end simulation capability to support NASA development of new exploration spacecraft and missions. This paper will present current status and plans for each of these work areas with specific examples of simulations that support NASA's exploration initiatives.

Assessment Report of US-Japan-Europe Collaborative Research on Probe Data International Probe Data Work Group Phase 2.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2016-01-01

The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), the Road Bureau of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT) of Japan, and the European Unions European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Conte...

AstroCloud, a Cyber-Infrastructure for Astronomy Research: Architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao, J.; Yu, C.; Cui, C.; He, B.; Li, C.; Fan, D.; Hong, Z.; Yin, S.; Wang, C.; Cao, Z.; Fan, Y.; Li, S.; Mi, L.; Wan, W.; Wang, J.; Zhang, H.

2015-09-01

AstroCloud is a cyber-Infrastructure for Astronomy Research initiated by Chinese Virtual Observatory (China-VO) under funding support from NDRC (National Development and Reform commission) and CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences). The ultimate goal of this project is to provide a comprehensive end-to-end astronomy research environment where several independent systems seamlessly collaborate to support the full lifecycle of the modern observational astronomy based on big data, from proposal submission, to data archiving, data release, and to in-situ data analysis and processing. In this paper, the architecture and key designs of the AstroCloud platform are introduced, including data access middleware, access control and security framework, extendible proposal workflow, and system integration mechanism.

Supporting Emerging Disciplines with e-Communities: Needs and Benefits

PubMed Central

Butler, Brian S; Schleyer, Titus K; Weiss, Patricia M; Wang, Xiaoqing; Thyvalikakath, Thankam P; Hatala, Courtney L; Naderi, Reza A

2008-01-01

Background Science has developed from a solitary pursuit into a team-based collaborative activity and, more recently, into a multidisciplinary research enterprise. The increasingly collaborative character of science, mandated by complex research questions and problems that require many competencies, requires that researchers lower the barriers to the creation of collaborative networks of experts, such as communities of practice (CoPs). Objectives The aim was to assess the information needs of prospective members of a CoP in an emerging field, dental informatics, and to evaluate their expectations of an e-community in order to design a suitable electronic infrastructure. Methods A Web-based survey instrument was designed and administered to 2768 members of the target audience. Benefit expectations were analyzed for their relationship to (1) the respondents’ willingness to participate in the CoP and (2) their involvement in funded research. Two raters coded the respondents’ answers regarding expected benefits using a 14-category coding scheme (Kappa = 0.834). Results The 256 respondents (11.1% response rate) preferred electronic resources over traditional print material to satisfy their information needs. The most frequently expected benefits from participation in the CoP were general information (85% of respondents), peer networking (31.1%), and identification of potential collaborators and/or research opportunities (23.2%). Conclusions The competitive social-information environment in which CoPs are embedded presents both threats to sustainability and opportunities for greater integration and impact. CoP planners seeking to support the development of emerging biomedical science disciplines should blend information resources, social search and filtering, and visibility mechanisms to provide a portfolio of social and information benefits. Assessing benefit expectations and alternatives provides useful information for CoP planners seeking to prioritize community infrastructure development and encourage participation. PMID:18653443

Lessons for the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure : international case study analysis

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2002-01-01

This report presents a RAND analysis of international collaboration for the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI). Ten in-depth international and regional collaboration case studies were conducted to assess lessons learned for GSDI development an...

Getting from A to IRB: developing an institutional review board at a historically black university.

PubMed

Howard, Daniel L; Boyd, Carlton L; Nelson, Daniel K; Godley, Paul

2010-03-01

Shaw University, the oldest historically black college or university in the southern USA, recently partnered with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a major research institution in North Carolina, to further develop Shaw's research infrastructure. One aim of the partnership involved establishing a human research ethics committee and an accompanying administrative structure and research ethics education program. This paper describes the process of developing an entire human research protection program de novo through collaboration with and mentoring by the members of the human research protection program at a nearby major research institution. This paper provides a detailed description of the aims, procedures, accomplishments, and challenges involved in such a project, which may serve as a useful model for other primarily teaching institutions wishing to develop research infrastructure and ethical capacity.

Getting From A to IRB: Developing an Institutional Review Board at a Historically Black University

PubMed Central

Howard, Daniel L.; Boyd, Carlton L.; Nelson, Daniel K.; Godley, Paul

2011-01-01

Shaw University, the oldest historically black college or university in the southern USA, recently partnered with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a major research institution in North Carolina, to further develop Shaw’s research infrastructure. One aim of the partnership involved establishing a human research ethics committee and an accompanying administrative structure and research ethics education program. This paper describes the process of developing an entire human research protection program de novo through collaboration with and mentoring by the members of the human research protection program at a nearby major research institution. This paper provides a detailed description of the aims, procedures, accomplishments, and challenges involved in such a project, which may serve as a useful model for other primarily teaching institutions wishing to develop research infrastructure and ethical capacity. PMID:20235865

EVER-EST: a virtual research environment for Earth Sciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marelli, Fulvio; Albani, Mirko; Glaves, Helen

2016-04-01

There is an increasing requirement for researchers to work collaboratively using common resources whilst being geographically dispersed. By creating a virtual research environment (VRE) using a service oriented architecture (SOA) tailored to the needs of Earth Science (ES) communities, the EVEREST project will provide a range of both generic and domain specific data management services to support a dynamic approach to collaborative research. EVER-EST will provide the means to overcome existing barriers to sharing of Earth Science data and information allowing research teams to discover, access, share and process heterogeneous data, algorithms, results and experiences within and across their communities, including those domains beyond Earth Science. Researchers will be able to seamlessly manage both the data involved in their computationally intensive disciplines and the scientific methods applied in their observations and modelling, which lead to the specific results that need to be attributable, validated and shared both within the community and more widely e.g. in the form of scholarly communications. Central to the EVEREST approach is the concept of the Research Object (RO) , which provides a semantically rich mechanism to aggregate related resources about a scientific investigation so that they can be shared together using a single unique identifier. Although several e-laboratories are incorporating the research object concept in their infrastructure, the EVER-EST VRE will be the first infrastructure to leverage the concept of Research Objects and their application in observational rather than experimental disciplines. Development of the EVEREST VRE will leverage the results of several previous projects which have produced state-of-the-art technologies for scientific data management and curation as well those which have developed models, techniques and tools for the preservation of scientific methods and their implementation in computational forms such as scientific workflows. The EVER-EST data processing infrastructure will be based on a Cloud Computing approach, in which new applications can be integrated using "virtual machines" that have their own specifications (disk size, processor speed, operating system etc.) and run on shared private (physical deployment over local hardware) or commercial Cloud infrastructures. The EVER-EST e-infrastructure will be validated by four virtual research communities (VRC) covering different multidisciplinary Earth Science domains including: ocean monitoring, natural hazards, land monitoring and risk management (volcanoes and seismicity). Each VRC will use the virtual research environment according to its own specific requirements for data, software, best practice and community engagement. This user-centric approach will allow an assessment to be made of the capability for the proposed solution to satisfy the heterogeneous needs of a variety of Earth Science communities for more effective collaboration, and higher efficiency and creativity in research. EVER-EST is funded by the European Commission's H2020 for three years starting in October 2015. The project is led by the European Space Agency (ESA), involves some of the major European Earth Science data providers/users including NERC, DLR, INGV, CNR and SatCEN.

Regional climate response collaboratives: Multi-institutional support for climate resilience

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Federal investments by U.S. agencies to enhance climate resilience at regional scales have grown dramatically over the last five years. This leads to questions about how best to leverage existing agency-specific research, infrastructure, and capacity while avoiding redundancy. This article discusses...

Analysis of scientific collaboration in Chinese psychiatry research.

PubMed

Wu, Ying; Jin, Xing

2016-05-26

In recent decades, China has changed profoundly, becoming the country with the world's second-largest economy. The proportion of the Chinese population suffering from mental disorder has grown in parallel with the rapid economic development, as social stresses have increased. The aim of this study is to shed light on the status of collaborations in the Chinese psychiatry field, of which there is currently limited research. We sampled 16,224 publications (2003-2012) from 10 core psychiatry journals from Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and WanFang Database. We used various social network analysis (SNA) methods such as centrality analysis, and Core-Periphery analysis to study collaboration. We also used hierarchical clustering analysis in this study. From 2003-2012, there were increasing collaborations at the level of authors, institutions and regions in the Chinese psychiatry field. Geographically, these collaborations were distributed unevenly. The 100 most prolific authors and institutions and 32 regions were used to construct the collaboration map, from which we detected the core author, institution and region. Collaborative behavior was affected by economic development. We should encourage collaborative behavior in the Chinese psychiatry field, as this facilitates knowledge distribution, resource sharing and information acquisition. Collaboration has also helped the field narrow its current research focus, providing further evidence to inform policymakers to fund research in order to tackle the increase in mental disorder facing modern China.

The International Collaboration for Autism Registry Epidemiology (iCARE): multinational registry-based investigations of autism risk factors and trends.

PubMed

Schendel, Diana E; Bresnahan, Michaeline; Carter, Kim W; Francis, Richard W; Gissler, Mika; Grønborg, Therese K; Gross, Raz; Gunnes, Nina; Hornig, Mady; Hultman, Christina M; Langridge, Amanda; Lauritsen, Marlene B; Leonard, Helen; Parner, Erik T; Reichenberg, Abraham; Sandin, Sven; Sourander, Andre; Stoltenberg, Camilla; Suominen, Auli; Surén, Pål; Susser, Ezra

2013-11-01

The International Collaboration for Autism Registry Epidemiology (iCARE) is the first multinational research consortium (Australia, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Norway, Sweden, USA) to promote research in autism geographical and temporal heterogeneity, phenotype, family and life course patterns, and etiology. iCARE devised solutions to challenges in multinational collaboration concerning data access security, confidentiality and management. Data are obtained by integrating existing national or state-wide, population-based, individual-level data systems and undergo rigorous harmonization and quality control processes. Analyses are performed using database federation via a computational infrastructure with a secure, web-based, interface. iCARE provides a unique, unprecedented resource in autism research that will significantly enhance the ability to detect environmental and genetic contributions to the causes and life course of autism.

The European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC): experiences from a successful ERS Clinical Research Collaboration.

PubMed

Chalmers, James D; Crichton, Megan; Goeminne, Pieter C; Loebinger, Michael R; Haworth, Charles; Almagro, Marta; Vendrell, Montse; De Soyza, Anthony; Dhar, Raja; Morgan, Lucy; Blasi, Francesco; Aliberti, Stefano; Boyd, Jeanette; Polverino, Eva

2017-09-01

In contrast to airway diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma, and rare diseases such as cystic fibrosis, there has been little research and few clinical trials in bronchiectasis. Guidelines are primarily based on expert opinion and treatment is challenging because of the heterogeneous nature of the disease. In an effort to address decades of underinvestment in bronchiectasis research, education and clinical care, the European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) was established in 2012 as a collaborative pan-European network to bring together bronchiectasis researchers. The European Respiratory Society officially funded EMBARC in 2013 as a Clinical Research Collaboration, providing support and infrastructure to allow the project to grow. EMBARC has now established an international bronchiectasis registry that is active in more than 30 countries both within and outside Europe. Beyond the registry, the network participates in designing and facilitating clinical trials, has set international research priorities, promotes education and has participated in producing the first international bronchiectasis guidelines. This manuscript article the development, structure and achievements of EMBARC from 2012 to 2017. To understand the role of Clinical Research Collaborations as the major way in which the European Respiratory Society can stimulate clinical research in different disease areasTo understand some of the key features of successful disease registriesTo review key epidemiological, clinical and translational studies of bronchiectasis contributed by the European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) project in the past 5 yearsTo understand the key research priorities identified by EMBARC for the next 5 years.

The European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC): experiences from a successful ERS Clinical Research Collaboration

PubMed Central

Crichton, Megan; Goeminne, Pieter C.; Loebinger, Michael R.; Haworth, Charles; Almagro, Marta; Vendrell, Montse; De Soyza, Anthony; Dhar, Raja ; Morgan, Lucy; Blasi, Francesco; Aliberti, Stefano; Boyd, Jeanette; Polverino, Eva

2017-01-01

In contrast to airway diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma, and rare diseases such as cystic fibrosis, there has been little research and few clinical trials in bronchiectasis. Guidelines are primarily based on expert opinion and treatment is challenging because of the heterogeneous nature of the disease. In an effort to address decades of underinvestment in bronchiectasis research, education and clinical care, the European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) was established in 2012 as a collaborative pan-European network to bring together bronchiectasis researchers. The European Respiratory Society officially funded EMBARC in 2013 as a Clinical Research Collaboration, providing support and infrastructure to allow the project to grow. EMBARC has now established an international bronchiectasis registry that is active in more than 30 countries both within and outside Europe. Beyond the registry, the network participates in designing and facilitating clinical trials, has set international research priorities, promotes education and has participated in producing the first international bronchiectasis guidelines. This manuscript article the development, structure and achievements of EMBARC from 2012 to 2017. Educational aims To understand the role of Clinical Research Collaborations as the major way in which the European Respiratory Society can stimulate clinical research in different disease areas To understand some of the key features of successful disease registries To review key epidemiological, clinical and translational studies of bronchiectasis contributed by the European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) project in the past 5 years To understand the key research priorities identified by EMBARC for the next 5 years PMID:28894479

A knowledge infrastructure for occupational safety and health.

PubMed

van Dijk, Frank J H; Verbeek, Jos H; Hoving, Jan L; Hulshof, Carel T J

2010-12-01

Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) professionals should use scientific evidence to support their decisions in policy and practice. Although examples from practice show that progress has been made in evidence-based decision making, there is a challenge to improve and extend the facilities that support knowledge translation in practice. A knowledge infrastructure that supports OSH practice should include scientific research, systematic reviews, practice guidelines, and other tools for professionals such as well accessible virtual libraries and databases providing knowledge, quality tools, and good learning materials. A good infrastructure connects facilities with each other and with practice. Training and education is needed for OSH professionals in the use of evidence to improve effectiveness and efficiency. New initiatives show that occupational health can profit from intensified international collaboration to establish a good functioning knowledge infrastructure.

New Geodetic Infrastructure for Australia: The NCRIS / AuScope Geospatial Component

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tregoning, P.; Watson, C. S.; Coleman, R.; Johnston, G.; Lovell, J.; Dickey, J.; Featherstone, W. E.; Rizos, C.; Higgins, M.; Priebbenow, R.

2009-12-01

In November 2006, the Australian Federal Government announced AUS15.8M in funding for geospatial research infrastructure through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). Funded within a broader capability area titled ‘Structure and Evolution of the Australian Continent’, NCRIS has provided a significant investment across Earth imaging, geochemistry, numerical simulation and modelling, the development of a virtual core library, and geospatial infrastructure. Known collectively as AuScope (www.auscope.org.au), this capability area has brought together Australian’s leading Earth scientists to decide upon the most pressing scientific issues and infrastructure needs for studying Earth systems and their impact on the Australian continent. Importantly and at the same time, the investment in geospatial infrastructure offers the opportunity to raise Australian geodetic science capability to the highest international level into the future. The geospatial component of AuScope builds onto the AUS15.8M of direct funding through the NCRIS process with significant in-kind and co-investment from universities and State/Territory and Federal government departments. The infrastructure to be acquired includes an FG5 absolute gravimeter, three gPhone relative gravimeters, three 12.1 m radio telescopes for geodetic VLBI, a continent-wide network of continuously operating geodetic quality GNSS receivers, a trial of a mobile SLR system and access to updated cluster computing facilities. We present an overview of the AuScope geospatial capability, review the current status of the infrastructure procurement and discuss some examples of the scientific research that will utilise the new geospatial infrastructure.

China national space remote sensing infrastructure and its application

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Ming

2016-07-01

Space Infrastructure is a space system that provides communication, navigation and remote sensing service for broad users. China National Space Remote Sensing Infrastructure includes remote sensing satellites, ground system and related systems. According to the principle of multiple-function on one satellite, multiple satellites in one constellation and collaboration between constellations, series of land observation, ocean observation and atmosphere observation satellites have been suggested to have high, middle and low resolution and fly on different orbits and with different means of payloads to achieve a high ability for global synthetically observation. With such an infrastructure, we can carry out the research on climate change, geophysics global surveying and mapping, water resources management, safety and emergency management, and so on. I This paper gives a detailed introduction about the planning of this infrastructure and its application in different area, especially the international cooperation potential in the so called One Belt and One Road space information corridor.

The importance of international collaboration for rare diseases research: a European perspective

PubMed Central

Julkowska, D; Austin, C P; Cutillo, C M; Gancberg, D; Hager, C; Halftermeyer, J; Jonker, A H; Lau, L P L; Norstedt, I; Rath, A; Schuster, R; Simelyte, E; van Weely, S

2017-01-01

Over the last two decades, important contributions were made at national, European and international levels to foster collaboration into rare diseases research. The European Union (EU) has put much effort into funding rare diseases research, encouraging national funding organizations to collaborate together in the E-Rare program, setting up European Reference Networks for rare diseases and complex conditions, and initiating the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) together with the National Institutes of Health in the USA. Co-ordination of the activities of funding agencies, academic researchers, companies, regulatory bodies, and patient advocacy organizations and partnerships with, for example, the European Research Infrastructures maximizes the collective impact of global investments in rare diseases research. This contributes to accelerating progress, for example, in faster diagnosis through enhanced discovery of causative genes, better understanding of natural history of rare diseases through creation of common registries and databases and boosting of innovative therapeutic approaches. Several examples of funded pre-clinical and clinical gene therapy projects show that integration of multinational and multidisciplinary expertize generates new knowledge and can result in multicentre gene therapy trials. International collaboration in rare diseases research is key to improve the life of people living with a rare disease. PMID:28440796

The importance of international collaboration for rare diseases research: a European perspective.

PubMed

Julkowska, D; Austin, C P; Cutillo, C M; Gancberg, D; Hager, C; Halftermeyer, J; Jonker, A H; Lau, L P L; Norstedt, I; Rath, A; Schuster, R; Simelyte, E; van Weely, S

2017-09-01

Over the last two decades, important contributions were made at national, European and international levels to foster collaboration into rare diseases research. The European Union (EU) has put much effort into funding rare diseases research, encouraging national funding organizations to collaborate together in the E-Rare program, setting up European Reference Networks for rare diseases and complex conditions, and initiating the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) together with the National Institutes of Health in the USA. Co-ordination of the activities of funding agencies, academic researchers, companies, regulatory bodies, and patient advocacy organizations and partnerships with, for example, the European Research Infrastructures maximizes the collective impact of global investments in rare diseases research. This contributes to accelerating progress, for example, in faster diagnosis through enhanced discovery of causative genes, better understanding of natural history of rare diseases through creation of common registries and databases and boosting of innovative therapeutic approaches. Several examples of funded pre-clinical and clinical gene therapy projects show that integration of multinational and multidisciplinary expertize generates new knowledge and can result in multicentre gene therapy trials. International collaboration in rare diseases research is key to improve the life of people living with a rare disease.

Collaboration and decision making tools for mobile groups

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abrahamyan, Suren; Balyan, Serob; Ter-Minasyan, Harutyun; Degtyarev, Alexander

2017-12-01

Nowadays the use of distributed collaboration tools is widespread in many areas of people activity. But lack of mobility and certain equipment-dependency creates difficulties and decelerates development and integration of such technologies. Also mobile technologies allow individuals to interact with each other without need of traditional office spaces and regardless of location. Hence, realization of special infrastructures on mobile platforms with help of ad-hoc wireless local networks could eliminate hardware-attachment and be useful also in terms of scientific approach. Solutions from basic internet-messengers to complex software for online collaboration equipment in large-scale workgroups are implementations of tools based on mobile infrastructures. Despite growth of mobile infrastructures, applied distributed solutions in group decisionmaking and e-collaboration are not common. In this article we propose software complex for real-time collaboration and decision-making based on mobile devices, describe its architecture and evaluate performance.

Collaboration in crisis and emergency management: Identifying the gaps in the case of storm 'Alexa'.

PubMed

Sawalha, Ihab Hanna Salman

2014-01-01

Failing to collaborate in crisis and emergency situations will increase the vulnerability of organisations and societies towards potential disasters. This paper highlights the significance of effective collaboration at different levels in times of crises. The case of snow storm 'Alexa', which hit Jordan in December 2013, was considered for the purpose of this research. The impact of Alexa raised many questions regarding the country's preparedness and the capacity of its infrastructure to maintain critical business functions across various industry sectors. First, should people individually take all the responsibility to manage crises and emergencies in order to protect themselves and their belongings? Secondly, should organisations join efforts with other organisations within the same or different sectors? Thirdly, should governments seek external collaboration for the ultimate goal of securing their economies? These issues are significant as they underline the element of collaboration. This paper contributes to the understanding of the role of collaboration in times of intense difficulty and loss of control. The proposition made by this research is that an effective collaborative process is positively associated with perceptions of improved disaster risk reduction practices.

Strengthening and Fostering Science and Technology Programs in Latinamerica and the Caribbean

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fucugauchi, J. U.

2013-05-01

An overview and discussion of the status of research and education in Latinamerica and the Caribbean is used for developing a proposal for a research foundation or agency in the region and establishing initiatives for capacity building and promoting and strengthening scientific programs and cooperation. Scientific research increasingly requires global multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches and infrastructure. Developing countries face challenges resulting from small academic communities, limited economic resources, and pressing social and political issues. Science and education are not major priorities as compared with more pressing issues related to poverty, diseases, conflicts, drugs and famine. However, solving major problems require improved educational and research programs. International research collaboration, north-south and south-south, has an immense potential, but basic infrastructure and internal organization at national and regional levels are required. For the analysis we concentrate on current situation, size and characteristics of research community, education programs, facilities, economic support, and bilateral and multinational collaborations. Analysis also includes the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the Yucatan Science and Technology System (SIIDETEY). FAPESP is a highly successful public foundation started more than 50 years ago, dedicated to foster scientific and technological development in the State of São Paulo and which has had a major impact in Brazil. SIIDETEY is a more recent effort of the Yucatan Government, also dedicated to support research and technology innovation within the state. We then move to discussion on perspectives for future development and capacity building in regional and international contexts, including international collaboration programs. We propose to establish a Science Foundation for the Latinamerica and Caribbean and develop an agenda for strengthening scientific programs in the region.

The role of assessment infrastructures in crafting project-based science classrooms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

D'Amico, Laura Marie

In project-based science teaching, teachers engage students in the practice of conducting meaningful investigations and explanations of natural phenomena, often in collaboration with fellow students or adults. Reformers suggest that this approach can provide students with more profitable learning experiences; but for many teachers, a shift to such instruction can be difficult to manage. As some reform-minded teachers have discovered, classroom assessment can serve as a vital tool for meeting the challenges associated with project science activity. In this research, classroom assessment was viewed as an infrastructure that both students and teachers rely upon as a mediational tool for classroom activity and communications. The study explored the classroom assessment infrastructures created by three teachers involved in the Learning through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) Project from 1993--94 to 1995--96. Each of the three teachers under study either created a new course or radically reformulated an old one in an effort to incorporate project-based science pedagogy and supporting technologies. Data in the form of interviews, classroom observations, surveys, student work, and teacher records was collected. From these data, an interpretive case study was developed for each course and its accompanying assessment infrastructure. A set of cross-case analyses was also constructed, based upon common themes that emerged from all three cases. These themes included: the assessment challenges based on the nature of project activity, the role of technology in the teachers' assessment infrastructure designs, and the influence of the wider assessment infrastructure on their course and assessment designs. In combination, the case studies and cross-case analyses describe the synergistic relationship between the design of pedagogical reforms and classroom assessment infrastructures, as well as the effectiveness of all three assessment designs. This work contributes to research and practice associated with assessment and pedagogical reform in three ways. First, it provides a theoretical frame for the relationship between assessment and pedagogical reform. Second, it provides a set of taxonomies which outline both the challenges of project-based science activity and typical assessment strategies to meet them. Finally, it provides a set of cautions and recommendations for designing classroom assessment infrastructures in support of project-based science.

Sustainability considerations for health research and analytic data infrastructures.

PubMed

Wilcox, Adam; Randhawa, Gurvaneet; Embi, Peter; Cao, Hui; Kuperman, Gilad J

2014-01-01

The United States has made recent large investments in creating data infrastructures to support the important goals of patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) and comparative effectiveness research (CER), with still more investment planned. These initial investments, while critical to the creation of the infrastructures, are not expected to sustain them much beyond the initial development. To provide the maximum benefit, the infrastructures need to be sustained through innovative financing models while providing value to PCOR and CER researchers. Based on our experience with creating flexible sustainability strategies (i.e., strategies that are adaptive to the different characteristics and opportunities of a resource or infrastructure), we define specific factors that are important considerations in developing a sustainability strategy. These factors include assets, expansion, complexity, and stakeholders. Each factor is described, with examples of how it is applied. These factors are dimensions of variation in different resources, to which a sustainability strategy should adapt. We also identify specific important considerations for maintaining an infrastructure, so that the long-term intended benefits can be realized. These observations are presented as lessons learned, to be applied to other sustainability efforts. We define the lessons learned, relating them to the defined sustainability factors as interactions between factors. Using perspectives and experiences from a diverse group of experts, we define broad characteristics of sustainability strategies and important observations, which can vary for different projects. Other descriptions of adaptive, flexible, and successful models of collaboration between stakeholders and data infrastructures can expand this framework by identifying other factors for sustainability, and give more concrete directions on how sustainability can be best achieved.

Greening the CWA consent decree - some examples of collaborative research amongst USEPA and municipalities

EPA Science Inventory

Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) violate the Clean Water Act Enforcement of CWA boils down to settlements with US cities – typically billions of dollars Green Infrastructure (GI) has come into view as part of consent decree settlements These settlements are a primary way to rehab...

Collaboratively Architecting a Scalable and Adaptable Petascale Infrastructure to Support Transdisciplinary Scientific Research for the Australian Earth and Environmental Sciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wyborn, L. A.; Evans, B. J. K.; Pugh, T.; Lescinsky, D. T.; Foster, C.; Uhlherr, A.

2014-12-01

The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) at the Australian National University (ANU) is a partnership between CSIRO, ANU, Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and Geoscience Australia. Recent investments in a 1.2 PFlop Supercomputer (Raijin), ~ 20 PB data storage using Lustre filesystems and a 3000 core high performance cloud have created a hybrid platform for higher performance computing and data-intensive science to enable large scale earth and climate systems modelling and analysis. There are > 3000 users actively logging in and > 600 projects on the NCI system. Efficiently scaling and adapting data and software systems to petascale infrastructures requires the collaborative development of an architecture that is designed, programmed and operated to enable users to interactively invoke different forms of in-situ computation over complex and large scale data collections. NCI makes available major and long tail data collections from both the government and research sectors based on six themes: 1) weather, climate and earth system science model simulations, 2) marine and earth observations, 3) geosciences, 4) terrestrial ecosystems, 5) water and hydrology and 6) astronomy, bio and social. Collectively they span the lithosphere, crust, biosphere, hydrosphere, troposphere, and stratosphere. Collections are the operational form for data management and access. Similar data types from individual custodians are managed cohesively. Use of international standards for discovery and interoperability allow complex interactions within and between the collections. This design facilitates a transdisciplinary approach to research and enables a shift from small scale, 'stove-piped' science efforts to large scale, collaborative systems science. This new and complex infrastructure requires a move to shared, globally trusted software frameworks that can be maintained and updated. Workflow engines become essential and need to integrate provenance, versioning, traceability, repeatability and publication. There are also human resource challenges as highly skilled HPC/HPD specialists, specialist programmers, and data scientists are required whose skills can support scaling to the new paradigm of effective and efficient data-intensive earth science analytics on petascale, and soon to be exascale systems.

Contextualizing neuro-collaborations: reflections on a transdisciplinary fMRI lie detection experiment

PubMed Central

Littlefield, Melissa M.; Fitzgerald, Des; Knudsen, Kasper; Tonks, James; Dietz, Martin J.

2014-01-01

Recent neuroscience initiatives (including the E.U.’s Human Brain Project and the U.S.’s BRAIN Initiative) have reinvigorated discussions about the possibilities for transdisciplinary collaboration between the neurosciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. As STS scholars have argued for decades, however, such inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations are potentially fraught with tensions between researchers. This essay build on such claims by arguing that the tensions of transdisciplinary research also exist within researchers’ own experiences of working between disciplines - a phenomenon that we call “disciplinary double consciousness” (DDC). Building on previous work that has characterized similar spaces (and especially on the Critical Neuroscience literature), we argue that “neuro-collaborations” inevitably engage researchers in DDC - a phenomenon that allows us to explore the useful dissonance that researchers can experience when working between a “home” discipline and a secondary discipline. Our case study is a five-year research project in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) lie detection involving a transdisciplinary research team made up of social scientists, a neuroscientist, and a humanist. In addition to theorizing neuro-collaborations from the inside-out, this essay presents practical suggestions for developing transdisciplinary infrastructures that could support future neuro-collaborations. PMID:24744713

Ocean Data Interoperability Platform (ODIP): developing a common global framework for marine data management through international collaboration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glaves, Helen

2015-04-01

Marine research is rapidly moving away from traditional discipline specific science to a wider ecosystem level approach. This more multidisciplinary approach to ocean science requires large amounts of good quality, interoperable data to be readily available for use in an increasing range of new and complex applications. Significant amounts of marine data and information are already available throughout the world as a result of e-infrastructures being established at a regional level to manage and deliver marine data to the end user. However, each of these initiatives has been developed to address specific regional requirements and independently of those in other regions. Establishing a common framework for marine data management on a global scale necessitates that there is interoperability across these existing data infrastructures and active collaboration between the organisations responsible for their management. The Ocean Data Interoperability Platform (ODIP) project is promoting co-ordination between a number of these existing regional e-infrastructures including SeaDataNet and Geo-Seas in Europe, the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) in Australia, the Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R) in the USA and the international IODE initiative. To demonstrate this co-ordinated approach the ODIP project partners are currently working together to develop several prototypes to test and evaluate potential interoperability solutions for solving the incompatibilities between the individual regional marine data infrastructures. However, many of the issues being addressed by the Ocean Data Interoperability Platform are not specific to marine science. For this reason many of the outcomes of this international collaborative effort are equally relevant and transferable to other domains.

S3DB core: a framework for RDF generation and management in bioinformatics infrastructures

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background Biomedical research is set to greatly benefit from the use of semantic web technologies in the design of computational infrastructure. However, beyond well defined research initiatives, substantial issues of data heterogeneity, source distribution, and privacy currently stand in the way towards the personalization of Medicine. Results A computational framework for bioinformatic infrastructure was designed to deal with the heterogeneous data sources and the sensitive mixture of public and private data that characterizes the biomedical domain. This framework consists of a logical model build with semantic web tools, coupled with a Markov process that propagates user operator states. An accompanying open source prototype was developed to meet a series of applications that range from collaborative multi-institution data acquisition efforts to data analysis applications that need to quickly traverse complex data structures. This report describes the two abstractions underlying the S3DB-based infrastructure, logical and numerical, and discusses its generality beyond the immediate confines of existing implementations. Conclusions The emergence of the "web as a computer" requires a formal model for the different functionalities involved in reading and writing to it. The S3DB core model proposed was found to address the design criteria of biomedical computational infrastructure, such as those supporting large scale multi-investigator research, clinical trials, and molecular epidemiology. PMID:20646315

A Community-Academic Partnered Grant Writing Series to Build Infrastructure for Partnered Research.

PubMed

King, Keyonna M; Pardo, Yvette-Janine; Norris, Keith C; Diaz-Romero, Maria; Morris, D'Ann; Vassar, Stefanie D; Brown, Arleen F

2015-10-01

Grant writing is an essential skill necessary to secure financial support for community programs and research projects. Increasingly, funding opportunities for translational biomedical research require studies to engage community partners, patients, or other stakeholders in the research process to address their concerns. However, there is little evidence on strategies to prepare teams of academic and community partners to collaborate on grants. This paper presents the description and formative evaluation of a two-part community-academic partnered grant writing series designed to help community organizations and academic institutions build infrastructure for collaborative research projects using a partnered approach. The first phase of the series was a half-day workshop on grant readiness, which was open to all interested community partners. The second phase, open only to community-academic teams that met eligibility criteria, was a 12-week session that covered partnered grant writing for foundation grants and National Institutes of Health grants. Participants in both phases reported an increase in knowledge and self-efficacy for writing partnered proposals. At 1-year follow-up, participants in Phase 2 had secured approximately $1.87 million in funding. This community-academic partnered grant writing series helped participants obtain proposal development skills and helped community-academic teams successfully compete for funding. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Community–Academic Partnered Grant Writing Series to Build Infrastructure for Partnered Research

PubMed Central

Pardo, Yvette‐Janine; Norris, Keith C.; Diaz‐Romero, Maria; Morris, D'Ann; Vassar, Stefanie D.; Brown, Arleen F.

2015-01-01

Abstract Grant writing is an essential skill necessary to secure financial support for community programs and research projects. Increasingly, funding opportunities for translational biomedical research require studies to engage community partners, patients, or other stakeholders in the research process to address their concerns. However, there is little evidence on strategies to prepare teams of academic and community partners to collaborate on grants. This paper presents the description and formative evaluation of a two‐part community–academic partnered grant writing series designed to help community organizations and academic institutions build infrastructure for collaborative research projects using a partnered approach. The first phase of the series was a half‐day workshop on grant readiness, which was open to all interested community partners. The second phase, open only to community–academic teams that met eligibility criteria, was a 12‐week session that covered partnered grant writing for foundation grants and National Institutes of Health grants. Participants in both phases reported an increase in knowledge and self‐efficacy for writing partnered proposals. At 1‐year follow‐up, participants in Phase 2 had secured approximately $1.87 million in funding. This community–academic partnered grant writing series helped participants obtain proposal development skills and helped community–academic teams successfully compete for funding. PMID:26365589

Collaborative translational research leading to multicenter clinical trials in Duchenne muscular dystrophy: the Cooperative International Neuromuscular Research Group (CINRG).

PubMed

Escolar, Diana M; Henricson, Erik K; Pasquali, Livia; Gorni, Ksenija; Hoffman, Eric P

2002-10-01

Progress in the development of rationally based therapies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy has been accelerated by encouraging multidisciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration between basic science and clinical investigators in the Cooperative International Research Group. We combined existing research efforts in pathophysiology by a gene expression profiling laboratory with the efforts of animal facilities capable of conducting high-throughput drug screening and toxicity testing to identify safe and effective drug compounds that target different parts of the pathophysiologic cascade in a genome-wide drug discovery approach. Simultaneously, we developed a clinical trial coordinating center and an international network of collaborating physicians and clinics where those drugs could be tested in large-scale clinical trials. We hope that by bringing together investigators at these facilities and providing the infrastructure to support their research, we can rapidly move new bench discoveries through animal model screening and into therapeutic testing in humans in a safe, timely and cost-effective setting.

Five strategies for accelerating the war on cancer in an era of budget deficits.

PubMed

Doroshow, James H; Croyle, Robert T; Niederhuber, John E

2009-02-01

In recent years, the National Institutes of Health's largest institute, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), has adapted to difficult economic conditions by leveraging its robust infrastructure -- which includes risk factor surveillance and population monitoring, research centers (focused on basic, translation, clinical, and behavioral sciences), clinical trials and health care research networks, and rigorously validated statistical models -- to maximize the impact of scientific progress on the public health. To continue advancement and realize the opportunity of significant, population-level changes in cancer mortality, the NCI recommends that five national-level actions be taken: (1) significantly increase enrollment of Medicare patients into cancer clinical trials through adequate physician reimbursement, (2) increase NCI/Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services collaboration on clinical trials research to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of anticancer drugs, (3) establish a national outcomes research demonstration project to test strategies for measuring and improving health care quality and provide an evidence base for public policy, (4) leverage existing tobacco-control collaborations and possible new authorities at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to realize the outstanding health gains possible from a reduction in tobacco use, and (5) increase colorectal cancer screening rates though intensified collaboration between federal agencies working to address barriers to access and use of screening. These cost-effective strategies provide the opportunity for extraordinary results in an era of budget deficits. Of the chronic diseases, cancer has the strongest national research infrastructure that can be leveraged to produce rapid results to inform budget prioritization and public policy, as well as mobilize new projects to answer critical public health questions.

Building Nationally-Focussed, Globally Federated, High Performance Earth Science Platforms to Solve Next Generation Social and Economic Issues.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wyborn, Lesley; Evans, Ben; Foster, Clinton; Pugh, Timothy; Uhlherr, Alfred

2015-04-01

Digital geoscience data and information are integral to informing decisions on the social, economic and environmental management of natural resources. Traditionally, such decisions were focused on regional or national viewpoints only, but it is increasingly being recognised that global perspectives are required to meet new challenges such as predicting impacts of climate change; sustainably exploiting scarce water, mineral and energy resources; and protecting our communities through better prediction of the behaviour of natural hazards. In recent years, technical advances in scientific instruments have resulted in a surge in data volumes, with data now being collected at unprecedented rates and at ever increasing resolutions. The size of many earth science data sets now exceed the computational capacity of many government and academic organisations to locally store and dynamically access the data sets; to internally process and analyse them to high resolutions; and then to deliver them online to clients, partners and stakeholders. Fortunately, at the same time, computational capacities have commensurately increased (both cloud and HPC): these can now provide the capability to effectively access the ever-growing data assets within realistic time frames. However, to achieve this, data and computing need to be co-located: bandwidth limits the capacity to move the large data sets; the data transfers are too slow; and latencies to access them are too high. These scenarios are driving the move towards more centralised High Performance (HP) Infrastructures. The rapidly increasing scale of data, the growing complexity of software and hardware environments, combined with the energy costs of running such infrastructures is creating a compelling economic argument for just having one or two major national (or continental) HP facilities that can be federated internationally to enable earth and environmental issues to be tackled at global scales. But at the same time, if properly constructed, these infrastructures can also service very small-scale research projects. The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) at the Australian National University (ANU) has built such an HP infrastructure as part of the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. NCI operates as a formal partnership between the ANU and the three major Australian National Government Scientific Agencies: the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia. The government partners agreed to explore the new opportunities offered within the partnership with NCI, rather than each running their own separate agenda independently. The data from these national agencies, as well as from collaborating overseas organisations (e.g., NASA, NOAA, USGS, CMIP, etc.) are either replicated to, or produced at, NCI. By co-locating and harmonising these vast data collections within the integrated HP computing environments at NCI, new opportunities have arisen for Data-intensive Interdisciplinary Science at scales and resolutions not hitherto possible. The new NCI infrastructure has also enabled the blending of research by the university sector with the more operational business of government science agencies, with the fundamental shift being that researchers from both sectors work and collaborate within a federated data and computational environment that contains both national and international data collections.

Coatings Extend Life of Engines and Infrastructure

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2010-01-01

MesoCoat Inc., of Euclid, Ohio, collaborated with Glenn Research Center to provide thermal barrier coating (TBC) technology, developed by Glenn researcher Dongming Zhu, to enhance the lifespan and performance of engines in U.S. Air Force legacy aircraft. The TBC reduces thermal stresses on engine parts, increasing component life by 50 percent. MesoCoat is also producing metal cladding technology that may soon provide similar life-lengthening benefits for the Nation's infrastructure. Through a Space Act Agreement with Glenn, the company employs the Center's high-density infrared arc lamp system to bond its cladding materials for demonstration prototypes; the coating technology can prevent corrosion on metal beams, pipes, and rebar for up to 100 years.

A Grid Infrastructure for Supporting Space-based Science Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bradford, Robert N.; Redman, Sandra H.; McNair, Ann R. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Emerging technologies for computational grid infrastructures have the potential for revolutionizing the way computers are used in all aspects of our lives. Computational grids are currently being implemented to provide a large-scale, dynamic, and secure research and engineering environments based on standards and next-generation reusable software, enabling greater science and engineering productivity through shared resources and distributed computing for less cost than traditional architectures. Combined with the emerging technologies of high-performance networks, grids provide researchers, scientists and engineers the first real opportunity for an effective distributed collaborative environment with access to resources such as computational and storage systems, instruments, and software tools and services for the most computationally challenging applications.

Building for the future: essential infrastructure for rodent ageing studies.

PubMed

Wells, Sara E; Bellantuono, Ilaria

2016-08-01

When planning ageing research using rodent models, the logistics of supply, long term housing and infrastructure provision are important factors to take into consideration. These issues need to be prioritised to ensure they meet the requirements of experiments which potentially will not be completed for several years. Although these issues are not unique to this discipline, the longevity of experiments and indeed the animals, requires a high level of consistency and sustainability to be maintained throughout lengthy periods of time. Moreover, the need to access aged stock or material for more immediate experiments poses many issues for the completion of pilot studies and/or short term intervention studies on older models. In this article, we highlight the increasing demand for ageing research, the resources and infrastructure involved, and the need for large-scale collaborative programmes to advance studies in both a timely and a cost-effective way.

International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2014

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

The International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2014 will be held at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan from 23-28 March 2014, with co-located events and workshops. The conference is hosted by the Academia Sinica Grid Computing Centre (ASGC).“Bringing the data scientist to global e-Infrastructures” is the theme of ISGC 2014. The last decade has seen the phenomenal growth in the production of data in all forms by all research communities to produce a deluge of data from which information and knowledge need to be extracted. Key to this success will be the data scientist - educated to use advanced algorithms, applications and infrastructures - collaborating internationally to tackle society’s challenges. ISGC 2014 will bring together researchers working in all aspects of data science from different disciplines around the world to collaborate and educate themselves in the latest achievements and techniques being used to tackle the data deluge. In addition to the regular workshops, technical presentations and plenary keynotes, ISGC this year will focus on how to grow the data science community by considering the educational foundation needed for tomorrow’s data scientist. Topics of discussion include Physics (including HEP) and Engineering Applications, Biomedicine & Life Sciences Applications, Earth & Environmental Sciences & Biodiversity Applications, Humanities & Social Sciences Application, Virtual Research Environment (including Middleware, tools, services, workflow, ... etc.), Data Management, Big Data, Infrastructure & Operations Management, Infrastructure Clouds and Virtualisation, Interoperability, Business Models & Sustainability, Highly Distributed Computing Systems, and High Performance & Technical Computing (HPTC).

D3: A Collaborative Infrastructure for Aerospace Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Walton, Joan; Filman, Robert E.; Knight, Chris; Korsmeyer, David J.; Lee, Diana D.; Clancy, Daniel (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

DARWIN is a NASA developed, Internet-based system for enabling aerospace researchers to securely and remotely access and collaborate on the analysis of aerospace vehicle design data, primarily the results of wind-tunnel testing and numeric (e.g., computational fluid dynamics) model executions. DARWIN captures, stores and indexes data, manages derived knowledge (such as visualizations across multiple data sets) and provides an environment for designers to collaborate in the analysis of the results of testing. DARWIN is an interesting application because it supports high volumes of data, integrates multiple modalities of data display (e.g. images and data visualizations), and provides non-trivial access control mechanisms. DARWIN enables collaboration by allowing not only sharing visualizations of data, but also commentary about and view of data.

A Logic Model for Community Engagement within the CTSA Consortium: Can We Measure What We Model?

PubMed Central

Eder, Milton Mickey; Carter-Edwards, Lori; Hurd, Thelma C.; Rumala, Bernice B.; Wallerstein, Nina

2013-01-01

The Clinical Translation Science Award (CTSA) initiative calls upon academic health centers to engage communities around a clinical research relationship measured ultimately in terms of public health. Among a few initiatives involving university accountability for advancing public interests, a small CTSA workgroup devised a community engagement (CE) logic model that organizes common activities within a university-community infrastructure to facilitate community engagement in research. While the model focuses on the range of institutional CE inputs, it purposefully does not include an approach for assessing how community engagement influences research implementation and outcomes. Rather, with communities and individuals beginning to transition into new research roles, this article emphasizes studying community engagement through specific relationship types and assessing how expanded research teams contribute to the full spectrum of translational science. The authors propose a typology consisting of three relationship types—engagement, collaboration and shared leadership—to provide a foundation for investigating community–academic contributions to the new CTSA research paradigm. The typology shifts attention from specific community–academic activities and, instead, encourages analyses focused on measuring the strength of relationships through variables like synergy and trust. The collaborative study of CE relationships will inform an understanding of CTSA infrastructure development in support of translational research and its goal, which is expressed in the logic model: better science, better answers, better population health. PMID:23752038

A Research Graph dataset for connecting research data repositories using RD-Switchboard.

PubMed

Aryani, Amir; Poblet, Marta; Unsworth, Kathryn; Wang, Jingbo; Evans, Ben; Devaraju, Anusuriya; Hausstein, Brigitte; Klas, Claus-Peter; Zapilko, Benjamin; Kaplun, Samuele

2018-05-29

This paper describes the open access graph dataset that shows the connections between Dryad, CERN, ANDS and other international data repositories to publications and grants across multiple research data infrastructures. The graph dataset was created using the Research Graph data model and the Research Data Switchboard (RD-Switchboard), a collaborative project by the Research Data Alliance DDRI Working Group (DDRI WG) with the aim to discover and connect the related research datasets based on publication co-authorship or jointly funded grants. The graph dataset allows researchers to trace and follow the paths to understanding a body of work. By mapping the links between research datasets and related resources, the graph dataset improves both their discovery and visibility, while avoiding duplicate efforts in data creation. Ultimately, the linked datasets may spur novel ideas, facilitate reproducibility and re-use in new applications, stimulate combinatorial creativity, and foster collaborations across institutions.

Herbal medicine research and global health: an ethical analysis.

PubMed

Tilburt, Jon C; Kaptchuk, Ted J

2008-08-01

Governments, international agencies and corporations are increasingly investing in traditional herbal medicine research. Yet little literature addresses ethical challenges in this research. In this paper, we apply concepts in a comprehensive ethical framework for clinical research to international traditional herbal medicine research. We examine in detail three key, underappreciated dimensions of the ethical framework in which particularly difficult questions arise for international herbal medicine research: social value, scientific validity and favourable risk-benefit ratio. Significant challenges exist in determining shared concepts of social value, scientific validity and favourable risk-benefit ratio across international research collaborations. However, we argue that collaborative partnership, including democratic deliberation, offers the context and process by which many of the ethical challenges in international herbal medicine research can, and should be, resolved. By "cross-training" investigators, and investing in safety-monitoring infrastructure, the issues identified by this comprehensive framework can promote ethically sound international herbal medicine research that contributes to global health.

An Infrastructure to Advance the Scholarly Work of Staff Nurses

PubMed Central

Parkosewich, Janet A.

2013-01-01

The traditional role of the acute care staff nurse is changing. The new norm establishes an expectation that staff nurses base their practice on best evidence. When evidence is lacking, nurses are charged with using the research process to generate and disseminate new knowledge. This article describes the critical forces behind the transformation of this role and the organizational mission, culture, and capacity required to support practice that is based on science. The vital role of senior nursing leaders, the nurse researcher, and the nursing research committee within the context of a collaborative governance structure is highlighted. Several well-known, evidence-based practice models are presented. Finally, there is a discussion of the infrastructure created by Yale-New Haven Hospital to advance the scholarly work of the nursing staff. PMID:23482435

An i2b2-based, generalizable, open source, self-scaling chronic disease registry

PubMed Central

Quan, Justin; Ortiz, David M; Bousvaros, Athos; Ilowite, Norman T; Inman, Christi J; Marsolo, Keith; McMurry, Andrew J; Sandborg, Christy I; Schanberg, Laura E; Wallace, Carol A; Warren, Robert W; Weber, Griffin M; Mandl, Kenneth D

2013-01-01

Objective Registries are a well-established mechanism for obtaining high quality, disease-specific data, but are often highly project-specific in their design, implementation, and policies for data use. In contrast to the conventional model of centralized data contribution, warehousing, and control, we design a self-scaling registry technology for collaborative data sharing, based upon the widely adopted Integrating Biology & the Bedside (i2b2) data warehousing framework and the Shared Health Research Information Network (SHRINE) peer-to-peer networking software. Materials and methods Focusing our design around creation of a scalable solution for collaboration within multi-site disease registries, we leverage the i2b2 and SHRINE open source software to create a modular, ontology-based, federated infrastructure that provides research investigators full ownership and access to their contributed data while supporting permissioned yet robust data sharing. We accomplish these objectives via web services supporting peer-group overlays, group-aware data aggregation, and administrative functions. Results The 56-site Childhood Arthritis & Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) Registry and 3-site Harvard Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Longitudinal Data Repository now utilize i2b2 self-scaling registry technology (i2b2-SSR). This platform, extensible to federation of multiple projects within and between research networks, encompasses >6000 subjects at sites throughout the USA. Discussion We utilize the i2b2-SSR platform to minimize technical barriers to collaboration while enabling fine-grained control over data sharing. Conclusions The implementation of i2b2-SSR for the multi-site, multi-stakeholder CARRA Registry has established a digital infrastructure for community-driven research data sharing in pediatric rheumatology in the USA. We envision i2b2-SSR as a scalable, reusable solution facilitating interdisciplinary research across diseases. PMID:22733975

An i2b2-based, generalizable, open source, self-scaling chronic disease registry.

PubMed

Natter, Marc D; Quan, Justin; Ortiz, David M; Bousvaros, Athos; Ilowite, Norman T; Inman, Christi J; Marsolo, Keith; McMurry, Andrew J; Sandborg, Christy I; Schanberg, Laura E; Wallace, Carol A; Warren, Robert W; Weber, Griffin M; Mandl, Kenneth D

2013-01-01

Registries are a well-established mechanism for obtaining high quality, disease-specific data, but are often highly project-specific in their design, implementation, and policies for data use. In contrast to the conventional model of centralized data contribution, warehousing, and control, we design a self-scaling registry technology for collaborative data sharing, based upon the widely adopted Integrating Biology & the Bedside (i2b2) data warehousing framework and the Shared Health Research Information Network (SHRINE) peer-to-peer networking software. Focusing our design around creation of a scalable solution for collaboration within multi-site disease registries, we leverage the i2b2 and SHRINE open source software to create a modular, ontology-based, federated infrastructure that provides research investigators full ownership and access to their contributed data while supporting permissioned yet robust data sharing. We accomplish these objectives via web services supporting peer-group overlays, group-aware data aggregation, and administrative functions. The 56-site Childhood Arthritis & Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) Registry and 3-site Harvard Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Longitudinal Data Repository now utilize i2b2 self-scaling registry technology (i2b2-SSR). This platform, extensible to federation of multiple projects within and between research networks, encompasses >6000 subjects at sites throughout the USA. We utilize the i2b2-SSR platform to minimize technical barriers to collaboration while enabling fine-grained control over data sharing. The implementation of i2b2-SSR for the multi-site, multi-stakeholder CARRA Registry has established a digital infrastructure for community-driven research data sharing in pediatric rheumatology in the USA. We envision i2b2-SSR as a scalable, reusable solution facilitating interdisciplinary research across diseases.

School Resources and Student Achievement: Data from Rural India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chudgar, Amita; Chandra, Madhur; Iyengar, Radhika; Shanker, Rishikesh

2015-01-01

In addition to basic infrastructure, what school resources are important to improve learning? This question is hard to answer due to lack of availability of appropriate data. Collaboration between researchers at US universities and a large, well-established educational foundation in India enabled this study to overcome the challenge of data…

Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) | Division of Cancer Prevention

Cancer.gov

http://edrn.nci.nih.gov/EDRN is a collaborative network that maintains comprehensive infrastructure and resources critical to the discovery, development and validation of biomarkers for cancer risk and early detection. The program comprises a public/private sector consortium to accelerate the development of biomarkers that will change medical practice, ensure data

Creating and Sharing Understanding: GEOSS and ArcGIS Online

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

White, C. E.; Hogeweg, M.; Foust, J.

2014-12-01

The GEOSS program brokers various forms of earth observation data and information via its online platform Discovery and Access Broker (DAB). The platform connects relevant information systems and infrastructures through the world. Esri and the National Research Council of Italy Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research (CNR-IIA) are building two-way technology between DAB framework and ArcGIS Online using the ArcGIS Online API. Developers will engineer Esri and DAB interfaces and build interoperable web services that connect the two systems. This collaboration makes GEOSS earth observation data and services available to the ArcGIS Online community, and ArcGIS Online a significant part of the GEOSS DAB infrastructure. ArcGIS Online subscribers can discover and access the resources published by GEOSS, use GEOSS data services, and build applications. Making GEOSS content available in ArcGIS Online increases opportunities for scientists in other communities to visualize information in greater context. Moreover, because the platform supports authoritative and crowd-sourcing information, GEOSS members can build networks into other disciplines. This talk will discuss the power of interoperable service architectures that make such a collaboration possible, and the results thus far.

Big data analytics as a service infrastructure: challenges, desired properties and solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martín-Márquez, Manuel

2015-12-01

CERN's accelerator complex generates a very large amount of data. A large volumen of heterogeneous data is constantly generated from control equipment and monitoring agents. These data must be stored and analysed. Over the decades, CERN's researching and engineering teams have applied different approaches, techniques and technologies for this purpose. This situation has minimised the necessary collaboration and, more relevantly, the cross data analytics over different domains. These two factors are essential to unlock hidden insights and correlations between the underlying processes, which enable better and more efficient daily-based accelerator operations and more informed decisions. The proposed Big Data Analytics as a Service Infrastructure aims to: (1) integrate the existing developments; (2) centralise and standardise the complex data analytics needs for CERN's research and engineering community; (3) deliver real-time, batch data analytics and information discovery capabilities; and (4) provide transparent access and Extract, Transform and Load (ETL), mechanisms to the various and mission-critical existing data repositories. This paper presents the desired objectives and properties resulting from the analysis of CERN's data analytics requirements; the main challenges: technological, collaborative and educational and; potential solutions.

Sustainability Considerations for Health Research and Analytic Data Infrastructures

PubMed Central

Wilcox, Adam; Randhawa, Gurvaneet; Embi, Peter; Cao, Hui; Kuperman, Gilad J.

2014-01-01

Introduction: The United States has made recent large investments in creating data infrastructures to support the important goals of patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) and comparative effectiveness research (CER), with still more investment planned. These initial investments, while critical to the creation of the infrastructures, are not expected to sustain them much beyond the initial development. To provide the maximum benefit, the infrastructures need to be sustained through innovative financing models while providing value to PCOR and CER researchers. Sustainability Factors: Based on our experience with creating flexible sustainability strategies (i.e., strategies that are adaptive to the different characteristics and opportunities of a resource or infrastructure), we define specific factors that are important considerations in developing a sustainability strategy. These factors include assets, expansion, complexity, and stakeholders. Each factor is described, with examples of how it is applied. These factors are dimensions of variation in different resources, to which a sustainability strategy should adapt. Summary Observations: We also identify specific important considerations for maintaining an infrastructure, so that the long-term intended benefits can be realized. These observations are presented as lessons learned, to be applied to other sustainability efforts. We define the lessons learned, relating them to the defined sustainability factors as interactions between factors. Conclusion and Next Steps: Using perspectives and experiences from a diverse group of experts, we define broad characteristics of sustainability strategies and important observations, which can vary for different projects. Other descriptions of adaptive, flexible, and successful models of collaboration between stakeholders and data infrastructures can expand this framework by identifying other factors for sustainability, and give more concrete directions on how sustainability can be best achieved. PMID:25848610

The European Network of Analytical and Experimental Laboratories for Geosciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Freda, Carmela; Funiciello, Francesca; Meredith, Phil; Sagnotti, Leonardo; Scarlato, Piergiorgio; Troll, Valentin R.; Willingshofer, Ernst

2013-04-01

Integrating Earth Sciences infrastructures in Europe is the mission of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS).The integration of European analytical, experimental, and analogue laboratories plays a key role in this context and is the task of the EPOS Working Group 6 (WG6). Despite the presence in Europe of high performance infrastructures dedicated to geosciences, there is still limited collaboration in sharing facilities and best practices. The EPOS WG6 aims to overcome this limitation by pushing towards national and trans-national coordination, efficient use of current laboratory infrastructures, and future aggregation of facilities not yet included. This will be attained through the creation of common access and interoperability policies to foster and simplify personnel mobility. The EPOS ambition is to orchestrate European laboratory infrastructures with diverse, complementary tasks and competences into a single, but geographically distributed, infrastructure for rock physics, palaeomagnetism, analytical and experimental petrology and volcanology, and tectonic modeling. The WG6 is presently organizing its thematic core services within the EPOS distributed research infrastructure with the goal of joining the other EPOS communities (geologists, seismologists, volcanologists, etc...) and stakeholders (engineers, risk managers and other geosciences investigators) to: 1) develop tools and services to enhance visitor programs that will mutually benefit visitors and hosts (transnational access); 2) improve support and training activities to make facilities equally accessible to students, young researchers, and experienced users (training and dissemination); 3) collaborate in sharing technological and scientific know-how (transfer of knowledge); 4) optimize interoperability of distributed instrumentation by standardizing data collection, archive, and quality control standards (data preservation and interoperability); 5) implement a unified e-Infrastructure for data analysis, numerical modelling, and joint development and standardization of numerical tools (e-science implementation); 6) collect and store data in a flexible inventory database accessible within and beyond the Earth Sciences community(open access and outreach); 7) connect to environmental and hazard protection agencies, stakeholders, and public to raise consciousness of geo-hazards and geo-resources (innovation for society). We will inform scientists and industrial stakeholders on the most recent WG6 achievements in EPOS and we will show how our community is proceeding to design the thematic core services.

Programs | Office of Cancer Genomics

Cancer.gov

OCG facilitates cancer genomics research through a series of highly-focused programs. These programs generate and disseminate genomic data for use by the cancer research community. OCG programs also promote advances in technology-based infrastructure and create valuable experimental reagents and tools. OCG programs encourage collaboration by interconnecting with other genomics and cancer projects in order to accelerate translation of findings into the clinic. Below are OCG’s current, completed, and initiated programs:

Biomedical image analysis and processing in clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bednarz, Tomasz; Szul, Piotr; Arzhaeva, Yulia; Wang, Dadong; Burdett, Neil; Khassapov, Alex; Chen, Shiping; Vallotton, Pascal; Lagerstrom, Ryan; Gureyev, Tim; Taylor, John

2013-10-01

Cloud-based Image Analysis and Processing Toolbox project runs on the Australian National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) cloud infrastructure and allows access to biomedical image processing and analysis services to researchers via remotely accessible user interfaces. By providing user-friendly access to cloud computing resources and new workflow-based interfaces, our solution enables researchers to carry out various challenging image analysis and reconstruction tasks. Several case studies will be presented during the conference.

Collaborative Research to Advance Precision Medicine in the Post-Genomic World | Office of Cancer Genomics

Cancer.gov

My name is Subhashini Jagu, and I am the Scientific Program Manager for the Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTD2) Network at the Office of Cancer Genomics (OCG). In my new role, I help CTD2 work toward its mission, which is to develop new scientific approaches to accelerate the translation of genomic discoveries into new treatments. Collaborative efforts that bring together a variety of expertise and infrastructure are needed to understand and successfully treat cancer, a highly complex disease.

An Overview of the Distributed Space Exploration Simulation (DSES) Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Crues, Edwin Z.; Chung, Victoria I.; Blum, Michael G.; Bowman, James D.

2007-01-01

This paper describes the Distributed Space Exploration Simulation (DSES) Project, a research and development collaboration between NASA centers which investigates technologies, and processes related to integrated, distributed simulation of complex space systems in support of NASA's Exploration Initiative. In particular, it describes the three major components of DSES: network infrastructure, software infrastructure and simulation development. With regard to network infrastructure, DSES is developing a Distributed Simulation Network for use by all NASA centers. With regard to software, DSES is developing software models, tools and procedures that streamline distributed simulation development and provide an interoperable infrastructure for agency-wide integrated simulation. Finally, with regard to simulation development, DSES is developing an integrated end-to-end simulation capability to support NASA development of new exploration spacecraft and missions. This paper presents the current status and plans for these three areas, including examples of specific simulations.

Conservation of biodiversity through taxonomy, data publication, and collaborative infrastructures.

PubMed

Costello, Mark J; Vanhoorne, Bart; Appeltans, Ward

2015-08-01

Taxonomy is the foundation of biodiversity science because it furthers discovery of new species. Globally, there have never been so many people involved in naming species new to science. The number of new marine species described per decade has never been greater. Nevertheless, it is estimated that tens of thousands of marine species, and hundreds of thousands of terrestrial species, are yet to be discovered; many of which may already be in specimen collections. However, naming species is only a first step in documenting knowledge about their biology, biogeography, and ecology. Considering the threats to biodiversity, new knowledge of existing species and discovery of undescribed species and their subsequent study are urgently required. To accelerate this research, we recommend, and cite examples of, more and better communication: use of collaborative online databases; easier access to knowledge and specimens; production of taxonomic revisions and species identification guides; engagement of nonspecialists; and international collaboration. "Data-sharing" should be abandoned in favor of mandated data publication by the conservation science community. Such a step requires support from peer reviewers, editors, journals, and conservation organizations. Online data publication infrastructures (e.g., Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Ocean Biogeographic Information System) illustrate gaps in biodiversity sampling and may provide common ground for long-term international collaboration between scientists and conservation organizations. © 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.

Services supporting collaborative alignment of engineering networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jansson, Kim; Uoti, Mikko; Karvonen, Iris

2015-08-01

Large-scale facilities such as power plants, process factories, ships and communication infrastructures are often engineered and delivered through geographically distributed operations. The competencies required are usually distributed across several contributing organisations. In these complicated projects, it is of key importance that all partners work coherently towards a common goal. VTT and a number of industrial organisations in the marine sector have participated in a national collaborative research programme addressing these needs. The main output of this programme was development of the Innovation and Engineering Maturity Model for Marine-Industry Networks. The recently completed European Union Framework Programme 7 project COIN developed innovative solutions and software services for enterprise collaboration and enterprise interoperability. One area of focus in that work was services for collaborative project management. This article first addresses a number of central underlying research themes and previous research results that have influenced the development work mentioned above. This article presents two approaches for the development of services that support distributed engineering work. Experience from use of the services is analysed, and potential for development is identified. This article concludes with a proposal for consolidation of the two above-mentioned methodologies. This article outlines the characteristics and requirements of future services supporting collaborative alignment of engineering networks.

LifeWatch - a Large-scale eScience Infrastructure to Assist in Understanding and Managing our Planet's Biodiversity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hernández Ernst, Vera; Poigné, Axel; Los, Walter

2010-05-01

Understanding and managing the complexity of the biodiversity system in relation to global changes concerning land use and climate change with their social and economic implications is crucial to mitigate species loss and biodiversity changes in general. The sustainable development and exploitation of existing biodiversity resources require flexible and powerful infrastructures offering, on the one hand, the access to large-scale databases of observations and measures, to advanced analytical and modelling software, and to high performance computing environments and, on the other hand, the interlinkage of European scientific communities among each others and with national policies. The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) selected the "LifeWatch e-science and technology infrastructure for biodiversity research" as a promising development to construct facilities to contribute to meet those challenges. LifeWatch collaborates with other selected initiatives (e.g. ICOS, ANAEE, NOHA, and LTER-Europa) to achieve the integration of the infrastructures at landscape and regional scales. This should result in a cooperating cluster of such infrastructures supporting an integrated approach for data capture and transmission, data management and harmonisation. Besides, facilities for exploration, forecasting, and presentation using heterogeneous and distributed data and tools should allow the interdisciplinary scientific research at any spatial and temporal scale. LifeWatch is an example of a new generation of interoperable research infrastructures based on standards and a service-oriented architecture that allow for linkage with external resources and associated infrastructures. External data sources will be established data aggregators as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) for species occurrences and other EU Networks of Excellence like the Long-Term Ecological Research Network (LTER), GMES, and GEOSS for terrestrial monitoring, the MARBEF network for marine data, and the Consortium for European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF) and its European Distributed Institute for Taxonomy (EDIT) for taxonomic data. But also "smaller" networks and "volunteer scientists" may send data (e.g. GPS supported species observations) to a LifeWatch repository. Autonomous operating wireless environmental sensors and other smart hand-held devices will contribute to increase data capture activities. In this way LifeWatch will directly underpin the development of GEOBON, the biodiversity component if GEOSS, the Global Earth observation System. To overcome all major technical difficulties imposed by the variety of currently and future technologies, protocols, data formats, etc., LifeWatch will define and use common open interfaces. For this purpose, the LifeWatch Reference Model was developed during the preparatory phase specifying the service-oriented architecture underlying the ICT-infrastructure. The Reference Model identifies key requirements and key architectural concepts to support workflows for scientific in-silico experiments, tracking of provenance, and semantic enhancement, besides meeting the functional requirements mentioned before. It provides guidelines for the specification and implementation of services and information models, defining as well a number of generic services and models. Another key issue addressed by the Reference Model is that the cooperation of many developer teams residing in many European countries has to be organized to obtain compatible results in that conformance with the specifications and policies of the Reference Model will be required. The LifeWatch Reference Model is based on the ORCHESTRA Reference Model for geospatial-oriented architectures and services networks that provides a generic framework and has been endorsed as best practice by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The LifeWatch Infrastructure will allow (interdisciplinary) scientific researchers to collaborate by creating e-Laboratories or by composing e-Services which can be shared and jointly developed. For it a long-term vision for the LifeWatch Biodiversity Workbench Portal has been developed as a one-stop application for the LifeWatch infrastructure based on existing and emerging technologies. There the user can find all available resources such as data, workflows, tools, etc. and access LifeWatch applications that integrate different resource and provides key capabilities like resource discovery and visualisation, creation of workflows, creation and management of provenance, and the support of collaborative activities. While LifeWatch developers will construct components for solving generic LifeWatch tasks, users may add their own facilities to fulfil individual needs. Examples for application of the LifeWatch Reference Model and the LifeWatch Biodiversity Workbench Portal will be given.

Community Engagement in Health-Related Research: A Case Study of a Community-Linked Research Infrastructure, Jefferson County, Arkansas, 2011–2013

PubMed Central

Felix, Holly C.; Olson, Mary; Cottoms, Naomi; Bachelder, Ashley; Smith, Johnny; Ford, Tanesha; Dawson, Leah C.; Greene, Paul G.

2015-01-01

Background Underrepresentation of racial minorities in research contributes to health inequities. Important factors contributing to low levels of research participation include limited access to health care and research opportunities, lack of perceived relevance, power differences, participant burden, and absence of trust. We describe an enhanced model of community engagement in which we developed a community-linked research infrastructure to involve minorities in research both as participants and as partners engaged in issue selection, study design, and implementation. Community Context We implemented this effort in Jefferson County, Arkansas, which has a predominantly black population, bears a disproportionate burden of chronic disease, and has death rates above state and national averages. Methods Building on existing community–academic partnerships, we engaged new partners and adapted a successful community health worker model to connect community residents to services and relevant research. We formed a community advisory board, a research collaborative, a health registry, and a resource directory. Outcome Newly formed community–academic partnerships resulted in many joint grant submissions and new projects. Community health workers contacted 2,665 black and 913 white community residents from December 2011 through April 2013. Eighty-five percent of blacks and 88% of whites were willing to be re-contacted about research of potential interest. Implementation challenges were addressed by balancing the needs of science with community needs and priorities. Interpretation Our experience indicates investments in community-linked research infrastructure can be fruitful and should be considered by academic health centers when assessing institutional research infrastructure needs. PMID:26203813

National Institute of Nursing Research Centers of Excellence: a logic model for sustainability, leveraging resources, and collaboration to accelerate cross-disciplinary science.

PubMed

Dorsey, Susan G; Schiffman, Rachel; Redeker, Nancy S; Heitkemper, Margaret; McCloskey, Donna Jo; Weglicki, Linda S; Grady, Patricia A

2014-01-01

The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) Centers of Excellence program is a catalyst enabling institutions to develop infrastructure and administrative support for creating cross-disciplinary teams that bring multiple strategies and expertise to bear on common areas of science. Centers are increasingly collaborative with campus partners and reflect an integrated team approach to advance science and promote the development of scientists in these areas. The purpose of this paper is to present the NINR Logic Model for Center Sustainability. The components of the logic model were derived from the presentations and robust discussions at the 2013 NINR center directors' meeting focused on best practices for leveraging resources and collaboration as methods to promote center sustainability. Collaboration through development and implementation of cross-disciplinary research teams is critical to accelerate the generation of new knowledge for solving fundamental health problems. Sustainability of centers as a long-term outcome beyond the initial funding can be enhanced by thoughtful planning of inputs, activities, and leveraging resources across multiple levels. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Accelerating the translation of research into practice in long term services and supports: a critical need for federal infrastructure at the nexus of aging and disability.

PubMed

Washko, Michelle M; Campbell, Margaret; Tilly, Jane

2012-01-01

The nexus of aging and disability, characterized by the phenomenon of aging with a disability, will become more visible as the population ages and the number of people with disabilities surviving to midlife increases. This article addresses 3 interrelated issues critical to the fields of aging and disability: increasing demand for community-based long-term services and supports, a paucity of evidence-based programs demonstrating effectiveness in facilitating independence for those aging with a disability, and lack of a federal infrastructure to support coordinated investments in research-to-practice for this population. Suggestions for federal interagency collaborations are given, along with roles for key stakeholders.

Industry-university collaborations: a necessity for the future.

PubMed

Davies, R M

1996-01-01

The aim of this discussion document is to consider the potential benefits of collaborations between universities and industry. Universities and industry now exist in a harsh and competitive economic climate. Indeed, their very survival depends increasingly on their ability and willingness to adapt to an unprecedented pace of change. There are a number of compelling reasons for universities and industry to undertake collaborative research. The costs of research have escalated. Universities, of necessity, are increasingly seeking financial support from industry as conventional sources of funding have been systematically reduced. Companies can no longer be self sufficient in terms of the science and technology needed for success. The strength of universities is their science base, and industry recognizes that the rapid exploitation of scientific advances is the key to its survival. Both organizations can benefit from collaborative research programmes. Universities are able to make additional staff appointments which add to their intellectual resource and reputation. In addition the purchase of equipment enhances their infrastructure. Industry has the opportunity to recognize the potential relevance and value of funded research and must harness and commercially exploit new knowledge as rapidly as possible. Ultimately such collaboration will give rise to new approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of dental diseases with benefits to all concerned.

Physician-industry collaboration: conflicts of interest and the imputation of motive.

PubMed

Wadmann, Sarah

2014-08-01

Policies about physicians' involvement with pharmaceutical companies spawn contradictory ideas. One set of policies aims to stimulate collaboration between private companies and publicly employed researchers to spur innovation and economic growth, another addresses what is seen as the problem of physicians' conflicts of interest stemming from industry collaboration. This article explores how these contradictory policies interact with everyday practice in clinical hypertension research in Denmark. I argue that 'corporate' and 'academic' research is entangled as physicians participate in industry trials to pursue their own research. Building on document analysis, observations of contract research, and interviews with clinician researchers and industry executives, I show how the establishment of industry 'ties' can serve as a way for physicians to navigate the constraints of research infrastructures and live up to intergenerational norms that knit the medical collective together. I discuss how this entanglement shapes medical research in ways that may run counter to the aims of medical innovation policies and that conflicts of interest policies do little to address. I conclude that appreciation of the ways in which economic and moral valuations come together is necessary to understand the conditions for medical research in an intertwined public-private research environment.

Trans-Pacific Astronomy Experiment Project Status

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hsu, Eddie

2000-01-01

The Trans-Pacific Astronomy Experiment is Phase 2 of the Trans-Pacific High Data Rate Satcom Experiments following the Trans-Pacific High Definition Video Experiment. It is a part of the Global Information Infrastructure-Global Interoperability for Broadband Networks Project (GII-GIBN). Provides global information infrastructure involving broadband satellites and terrestrial networks and access to information by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Collaboration of government, industry, and academic organizations demonstrate the use of broadband satellite links in a global information infrastructure with emphasis on astronomical observations, collaborative discussions and distance learning.

Bridging research and practice: community-researcher partnerships for replicating effective interventions.

PubMed

Rotheram-Borus, M J; Rebchook, G M; Kelly, J A; Adams, J; Neumann, M S

2000-01-01

Long-term collaborations among researchers, staff and volunteers in community-based agencies, staff in institutional settings, and health advocates present challenges. Each group has different missions, procedures, attributes, and rewards. This article reviews areas of potential conflict and suggests strategies for coping with these challenges. During the replication of five effective HIV prevention interventions, strategies for maintaining mutually beneficial collaborations included selecting agencies with infrastructures that could support research-based interventions; obtaining letters of understanding that clarified roles, responsibilities, and time frames; and setting training schedules with opportunities for observing, practicing, becoming invested in, and repeatedly implementing the intervention. The process of implementing interventions highlighted educating funders of research and public health services about (a) the costs of disseminating interventions, (b) the need for innovation to new modalities and theories for delivering effective interventions, and (c) adopting strategies of marketing research and quality engineering when designing interventions.

Optimising the use of linked administrative data for infectious diseases research in Australia.

PubMed

Moore, Hannah C; Blyth, Christopher C

2018-06-14

Infectious diseases remain a major cause of morbidity in Australia. A wealth of data exists in administrative datasets, which are linked through established data-linkage infrastructure in most Australian states and territories. These linkages can support robust studies to investigate the burden of disease, the relative contribution of various aetiological agents to disease, and the effectiveness of population-based prevention policies - research that is critical to the success of current and future vaccination programs. At a recent symposium in Perth, epidemiologists, clinicians and policy makers in the infectious diseases field discussed the various benefits of, and barriers to, data-linkage research, with a focus on respiratory infection research. A number of issues and recommendations emerged. The demand for data-linkage projects is starting to outweigh the capabilities of exisiting data-linkage infrastructure. There is a need to further streamline processes relating to data access, increase data sharing and conduct nationally collaborative projects. Concerns about data security and sharing across jurisdictional borders can be addressed through multiple safe data solutions. Researchers need to do more to ensure that the benefits of linking datasets to answer policy-relevant questions are being realised for the benefit of community groups, government authorities, funding bodies and policy makers. Increased collaboration and engagement across all sectors can optimise the use of linked data to help reduce the burden of infectious diseases.

FOSS Tools for Research Data Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stender, Vivien; Jankowski, Cedric; Hammitzsch, Martin; Wächter, Joachim

2017-04-01

Established initiatives and organizations, e.g. the Initiative for Scientific Cyberinfrastructures (NSF, 2007) or the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI, 2008), promote and foster the development of sustainable research infrastructures. These infrastructures aim the provision of services supporting scientists to search, visualize and access data, to collaborate and exchange information, as well as to publish data and other results. In this regard, Research Data Management (RDM) gains importance and thus requires the support by appropriate tools integrated in these infrastructures. Different projects provide arbitrary solutions to manage research data. However, within two projects - SUMARIO for land and water management and TERENO for environmental monitoring - solutions to manage research data have been developed based on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) components. The resulting framework provides essential components for harvesting, storing and documenting research data, as well as for discovering, visualizing and downloading these data on the basis of standardized services stimulated considerably by enhanced data management approaches of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). In order to fully exploit the potentials of these developments for enhancing data management in Geosciences the publication of software components, e.g. via GitHub, is not sufficient. We will use our experience to move these solutions into the cloud e.g. as PaaS or SaaS offerings. Our contribution will present data management solutions for the Geosciences developed in two projects. A sort of construction kit with FOSS components build the backbone for the assembly and implementation of projects specific platforms. Furthermore, an approach is presented to stimulate the reuse of FOSS RDM solutions with cloud concepts. In further projects specific RDM platforms can be set-up much faster, customized to the individual needs and tools can be added during the run-time.

The Rise of Global Science and the Emerging Political Economy of International Research Collaborations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peters, Michael A.

2006-01-01

This article charts the rise of global science and a global science infrastructure as part of the emerging international knowledge system exemplifying a geography of knowledge and the importance of new info-communications networks. The article theorises the rise of global science, which still strongly reflects a Western bias and is highly…

Easy, Collaborative and Engaging--The Use of Cloud Computing in the Design of Management Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schneckenberg, Dirk

2014-01-01

Background: Cloud computing has recently received interest in information systems research and practice as a new way to organise information with the help of an increasingly ubiquitous computer infrastructure. However, the use of cloud computing in higher education institutions and business schools, as well as its potential to create novel…

Establishing the Infrastructure to Comprehensively Address Cancer Disparities: A Model for Transdisciplinary Approaches

PubMed Central

Green, B. Lee; Rivers, Desiree A.; Kumar, Nagi; Baldwin, Julie; Rivers, Brian M.; Sultan, Dawood; Jacobsen, Paul; Gordon, Leslene E.; Davis, Jenna; Roetzheim, Richard

2014-01-01

Summary The Center for Equal Health (CEH), a transdisciplinary Center of Excellence, was established to investigate cancer disparities comprehensively and achieve health equity through research, education, training, and community outreach. This paper discusses challenges faced by CEH, strategies employed to foster collaborations, lessons learned, and future considerations for establishing similar initiatives. PMID:24185157

BioenergyKDF: Enabling Spatiotemporal Data Synthesis and Research Collaboration

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Myers, Aaron T; Movva, Sunil; Karthik, Rajasekar

2014-01-01

The Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework (BioenergyKDF) is a scalable, web-based collaborative environment for scientists working on bioenergy related research in which the connections between data, literature, and models can be explored and more clearly understood. The fully-operational and deployed system, built on multiple open source libraries and architectures, stores contributions from the community of practice and makes them easy to find, but that is just its base functionality. The BioenergyKDF provides a national spatiotemporal decision support capability that enables data sharing, analysis, modeling, and visualization as well as fosters the development and management of the U.S. bioenergy infrastructure, which ismore » an essential component of the national energy infrastructure. The BioenergyKDF is built on a flexible, customizable platform that can be extended to support the requirements of any user community especially those that work with spatiotemporal data. While there are several community data-sharing software platforms available, some developed and distributed by national governments, none of them have the full suite of capabilities available in BioenergyKDF. For example, this component-based platform and database independent architecture allows it to be quickly deployed to existing infrastructure and to connect to existing data repositories (spatial or otherwise). As new data, analysis, and features are added; the BioenergyKDF will help lead research and support decisions concerning bioenergy into the future, but will also enable the development and growth of additional communities of practice both inside and outside of the Department of Energy. These communities will be able to leverage the substantial investment the agency has made in the KDF platform to quickly stand up systems that are customized to their data and research needs.« less

Australia's TERN: Building, Sustaining and Advancing Collaborative Long Term Ecosystem Research Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

HEld, A. A.; Phinn, S. R.

2012-12-01

TERN is Australia's Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (www.tern.org.au) is one of several environmental data collection, storage and sharing projects developed through the government's research infrastructure programs 2008-2014. This includes terrestrial and coastal ecosystem data collection infrastructure across multiple disciplines, hardware, software and processes used to store, analyse and integrate data sets. TERN's overall objective is to build the collaborations, infrastructure and programs to meet the needs of ecosystem science communities in Australia in the long term, through institutional frameworks necessary to establish a national terrestrial ecosystem site and observational network, coordinated networks enabling cooperation and operational experience; public access to quality assured and appropriately licensed data; and allowing the terrestrial ecosystem research community to define and sustain the terrestrial observing paradigm into the longer term. This paper explains how TERN was originally established, and now operates, along with plans to sustain itself in the future. TERN is implemented through discipline/technical groups referred to as "TERN Facilities". Combined, the facilities provide observations of surface mass and energy fluxes over key ecosystems, biophysical remote sensing data, ecological survey plots, soils information, and coastal ecosystems and associated water quality variables across Australia. Additional integrative facilities cover elements of ecoinformatics, data-scaling and modelling, and linking science to management. A central coordination and portal facility provides meta-data storage, data identification, legal and licensing support. Data access, uploading, meta-data generation, DOI attachment and licensing is completed at each facility's own portal level. TERN also acts as the open-data repository of choice for Australian scientists required to publish their data. Several key lessons we have learnt, will be presented during the talk.

The Healthy Aging Research Network: Modeling Collaboration for Community Impact.

PubMed

Belza, Basia; Altpeter, Mary; Smith, Matthew Lee; Ory, Marcia G

2017-03-01

As the first Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Prevention Research Centers Program thematic network, the Healthy Aging Research Network was established to better understand the determinants of healthy aging within older adult populations, identify interventions that promote healthy aging, and assist in translating research into sustainable community-based programs throughout the nation. To achieve these goals requires concerted efforts of a collaborative network of academic, community, and public health organizational partnerships. For the 2001-2014 Prevention Research Center funding cycles, the Healthy Aging Research Network conducted prevention research and promoted the wide use of practices known to foster optimal health. Organized around components necessary for successful collaborations (i.e., governance and infrastructure, shaping focus, community involvement, and evaluation and improvement), this commentary highlights exemplars that demonstrate the Healthy Aging Research Network's unique contributions to the field. The Healthy Aging Research Network's collaboration provided a means to collectively build capacity for practice and policy, reduce fragmentation and duplication in health promotion and aging research efforts, maximize the efficient use of existing resources and generate additional resources, and ultimately, create synergies for advancing the healthy aging agenda. This collaborative model was built upon a backbone organization (coordinating center); setting of common agendas and mutually reinforcing activities; and continuous communications. Given its successes, the Healthy Aging Research Network model could be used to create new and evaluate existing thematic networks to guide the translation of research into policy and practice. Copyright © 2016 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Role of GIS and Data Librarians in Cyber-infrastructure Support and Governance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Branch, B. D.

2012-12-01

A governance road-map for cyber-infrastructure in the geosciences will include an intentional librarian core capable of technical skills that include GIS and open source support for data curation that involves all aspects of data life cycle management. Per Executive Order 12906 and other policy; spatial data, literacy, and curation are critical cyber-infrastructure needs in the near future. A formal earth science and space informatics librarian may be an outcome of such development. From e-science to e-research, STEM pipelines need librarians as critical data intermediaries in technical assistance and collaboration efforts with scientists' data and outreach needs. Future training concerns should advocate trans-disciplinary data science and policy skills that will be necessary for data management support and procurement.

Using the iPlant collaborative discovery environment.

PubMed

Oliver, Shannon L; Lenards, Andrew J; Barthelson, Roger A; Merchant, Nirav; McKay, Sheldon J

2013-06-01

The iPlant Collaborative is an academic consortium whose mission is to develop an informatics and social infrastructure to address the "grand challenges" in plant biology. Its cyberinfrastructure supports the computational needs of the research community and facilitates solving major challenges in plant science. The Discovery Environment provides a powerful and rich graphical interface to the iPlant Collaborative cyberinfrastructure by creating an accessible virtual workbench that enables all levels of expertise, ranging from students to traditional biology researchers and computational experts, to explore, analyze, and share their data. By providing access to iPlant's robust data-management system and high-performance computing resources, the Discovery Environment also creates a unified space in which researchers can access scalable tools. Researchers can use available Applications (Apps) to execute analyses on their data, as well as customize or integrate their own tools to better meet the specific needs of their research. These Apps can also be used in workflows that automate more complicated analyses. This module describes how to use the main features of the Discovery Environment, using bioinformatics workflows for high-throughput sequence data as examples. © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The COMET Sleep Research Platform.

PubMed

Nichols, Deborah A; DeSalvo, Steven; Miller, Richard A; Jónsson, Darrell; Griffin, Kara S; Hyde, Pamela R; Walsh, James K; Kushida, Clete A

2014-01-01

The Comparative Outcomes Management with Electronic Data Technology (COMET) platform is extensible and designed for facilitating multicenter electronic clinical research. Our research goals were the following: (1) to conduct a comparative effectiveness trial (CET) for two obstructive sleep apnea treatments-positive airway pressure versus oral appliance therapy; and (2) to establish a new electronic network infrastructure that would support this study and other clinical research studies. The COMET platform was created to satisfy the needs of CET with a focus on creating a platform that provides comprehensive toolsets, multisite collaboration, and end-to-end data management. The platform also provides medical researchers the ability to visualize and interpret data using business intelligence (BI) tools. COMET is a research platform that is scalable and extensible, and which, in a future version, can accommodate big data sets and enable efficient and effective research across multiple studies and medical specialties. The COMET platform components were designed for an eventual move to a cloud computing infrastructure that enhances sustainability, overall cost effectiveness, and return on investment.

The COMET Sleep Research Platform

PubMed Central

Nichols, Deborah A.; DeSalvo, Steven; Miller, Richard A.; Jónsson, Darrell; Griffin, Kara S.; Hyde, Pamela R.; Walsh, James K.; Kushida, Clete A.

2014-01-01

Introduction: The Comparative Outcomes Management with Electronic Data Technology (COMET) platform is extensible and designed for facilitating multicenter electronic clinical research. Background: Our research goals were the following: (1) to conduct a comparative effectiveness trial (CET) for two obstructive sleep apnea treatments—positive airway pressure versus oral appliance therapy; and (2) to establish a new electronic network infrastructure that would support this study and other clinical research studies. Discussion: The COMET platform was created to satisfy the needs of CET with a focus on creating a platform that provides comprehensive toolsets, multisite collaboration, and end-to-end data management. The platform also provides medical researchers the ability to visualize and interpret data using business intelligence (BI) tools. Conclusion: COMET is a research platform that is scalable and extensible, and which, in a future version, can accommodate big data sets and enable efficient and effective research across multiple studies and medical specialties. The COMET platform components were designed for an eventual move to a cloud computing infrastructure that enhances sustainability, overall cost effectiveness, and return on investment. PMID:25848590

Forging new, non-traditional partnerships among physicists, teachers and students

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bardeen, Marjorie; Adams, Mark; Wayne, Mitchell

The QuarkNet collaboration has forged new, nontraditional relationships among particle physicists, high school teachers and their students. QuarkNet provides professional development for teachers and creates opportunities for teachers and students to engage in particle physics data investigations and join research teams. Embedded in the U.S. particle research community, QuarkNet leverages the nature of particle physics research$-$the long duration of the experiments with extensive lead times, construction periods, and data collection and analysis periods. QuarkNet is patterned after the large collaborations with a central management infrastructure and a distributed workload across university- and lab-based research groups. As a result, we describemore » the important benefits of the QuarkNet outreach program that flow to university faculty and present successful strategies that others can adapt for use in their countries.« less

Forging new, non-traditional partnerships among physicists, teachers and students

DOE PAGES

Bardeen, Marjorie; Adams, Mark; Wayne, Mitchell; ...

2016-10-26

The QuarkNet collaboration has forged new, nontraditional relationships among particle physicists, high school teachers and their students. QuarkNet provides professional development for teachers and creates opportunities for teachers and students to engage in particle physics data investigations and join research teams. Embedded in the U.S. particle research community, QuarkNet leverages the nature of particle physics research$-$the long duration of the experiments with extensive lead times, construction periods, and data collection and analysis periods. QuarkNet is patterned after the large collaborations with a central management infrastructure and a distributed workload across university- and lab-based research groups. As a result, we describemore » the important benefits of the QuarkNet outreach program that flow to university faculty and present successful strategies that others can adapt for use in their countries.« less

Commercial biotechnology processing on International Space Station

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deuser, Mark S.; Vellinger, John C.; Hardin, Juanita R.; Lewis, Marian L.

1998-01-01

Commercial biotechnology processing in space has the potential to eventually exceed the $35 billion annual worldwide market generated by the current satellite communications industry (Parone 1997). The International Space Station provides the opportunity to conduct long-term, crew-tended biotechnology research in microgravity to establish the foundation for this new commercial biotechnology market. Industry, government, and academia are collaborating to establish the infrastructure needed to catalyze this biotechnology revolution that could eventually lead to production of medical and pharmaceutical products in space. The biotechnology program discussed herein is evidence of this collaborative effort, with industry involvement from Space Hardware Optimization Technology, Inc., government participation through the NASA Commercial Space program, and academic guidance from the Consortium for Materials Development in Space at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Blending the strengths and resources of each collaborator creates a strong partnership, that offers enormous research and commercial opportunities.

Gaps and strategies in developing health research capacity: experience from the Nigeria Implementation Science Alliance.

PubMed

Ezeanolue, Echezona E; Menson, William Nii Ayitey; Patel, Dina; Aarons, Gregory; Olutola, Ayodotun; Obiefune, Michael; Dakum, Patrick; Okonkwo, Prosper; Gobir, Bola; Akinmurele, Timothy; Nwandu, Anthea; Khamofu, Hadiza; Oyeledun, Bolanle; Aina, Muyiwa; Eyo, Andy; Oleribe, Obinna; Ibanga, Ikoedem; Oko, John; Anyaike, Chukwuma; Idoko, John; Aliyu, Muktar H; Sturke, Rachel

2018-02-12

Despite being disproportionately burdened by preventable diseases than more advanced countries, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) continue to trail behind other parts of the world in the number, quality and impact of scholarly activities by their health researchers. Our strategy at the Nigerian Implementation Science Alliance (NISA) is to utilise innovative platforms that catalyse collaboration, enhance communication between different stakeholders, and promote the uptake of evidence-based interventions in improving healthcare delivery. This article reports on findings from a structured group exercise conducted at the 2016 NISA Conference to identify (1) gaps in developing research capacity and (2) potential strategies to address these gaps. A 1-hour structured group exercise was conducted with 15 groups of 2-9 individuals (n = 94) to brainstorm gaps for implementation, strategies to address gaps and to rank their top 3 in each category. Qualitative thematic analysis was used. First, duplicate responses were merged and analyses identified emerging themes. Each of the gaps and strategies identified were categorised as falling into the purview of policy-makers, researchers, implementing partners or multiple groups. Participating stakeholders identified 98 gaps and 91 strategies related to increasing research capacity in Nigeria. A total of 45 gaps and an equal number of strategies were ranked; 39 gaps and 43 strategies were then analysed, from which 8 recurring themes emerged for gaps (lack of sufficient funding, poor research focus in education, inadequate mentorship and training, inadequate research infrastructure, lack of collaboration between researchers, research-policy dissonance, lack of motivation for research, lack of leadership buy-in for research) and 7 themes emerged for strategies (increased funding for research, improved research education, improved mentorship and training, improved infrastructure for research, increased collaboration between academic/research institutions, greater engagement between researchers and policy-makers, greater leadership buy-in for research). The gaps and strategies identified in this study represent pathways judged to be important in increasing research and implementation science capacity in Nigeria. The inclusion of perspectives and involvement of stakeholders who play different roles in policy, research and implementation activities makes these findings comprehensive, relevant and actionable, not only in Nigeria but in other similar LMICs.

Advanced Optical Burst Switched Network Concepts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nejabati, Reza; Aracil, Javier; Castoldi, Piero; de Leenheer, Marc; Simeonidou, Dimitra; Valcarenghi, Luca; Zervas, Georgios; Wu, Jian

In recent years, as the bandwidth and the speed of networks have increased significantly, a new generation of network-based applications using the concept of distributed computing and collaborative services is emerging (e.g., Grid computing applications). The use of the available fiber and DWDM infrastructure for these applications is a logical choice offering huge amounts of cheap bandwidth and ensuring global reach of computing resources [230]. Currently, there is a great deal of interest in deploying optical circuit (wavelength) switched network infrastructure for distributed computing applications that require long-lived wavelength paths and address the specific needs of a small number of well-known users. Typical users are particle physicists who, due to their international collaborations and experiments, generate enormous amounts of data (Petabytes per year). These users require a network infrastructures that can support processing and analysis of large datasets through globally distributed computing resources [230]. However, providing wavelength granularity bandwidth services is not an efficient and scalable solution for applications and services that address a wider base of user communities with different traffic profiles and connectivity requirements. Examples of such applications may be: scientific collaboration in smaller scale (e.g., bioinformatics, environmental research), distributed virtual laboratories (e.g., remote instrumentation), e-health, national security and defense, personalized learning environments and digital libraries, evolving broadband user services (i.e., high resolution home video editing, real-time rendering, high definition interactive TV). As a specific example, in e-health services and in particular mammography applications due to the size and quantity of images produced by remote mammography, stringent network requirements are necessary. Initial calculations have shown that for 100 patients to be screened remotely, the network would have to securely transport 1.2 GB of data every 30 s [230]. According to the above explanation it is clear that these types of applications need a new network infrastructure and transport technology that makes large amounts of bandwidth at subwavelength granularity, storage, computation, and visualization resources potentially available to a wide user base for specified time durations. As these types of collaborative and network-based applications evolve addressing a wide range and large number of users, it is infeasible to build dedicated networks for each application type or category. Consequently, there should be an adaptive network infrastructure able to support all application types, each with their own access, network, and resource usage patterns. This infrastructure should offer flexible and intelligent network elements and control mechanism able to deploy new applications quickly and efficiently.

An Overview of Seismic Observations Along the Pacific Margin of South America: Opportunities for the SZ4D Initiative

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woodward, R.; Frassetto, A.; Meltzer, A.

2017-12-01

The recent SZ4D Initiative community vision document recognizes the potential to focus community resources on studying subduction processes along, for example, the Pacific margin of South America. Preexisting geophysical infrastructure can play a vital role in establishing such new observational capabilities. For example, an SZ4D backbone observing capability could be established in South America by leveraging existing stations in the region. Such relevant existing seismic and geodetic stations, operated as part of local or national networks in South America, have been identified as a result of recent international collaborations with IRIS and others. Here we discuss the concept and experience of leveraging existing infrastructure in major new observational programs, outline the state of geophysical networks in South America (emphasizing current seismic networks but also looking back on historical temporary deployments), and provide an overview of potential scientific targets in the Americas that encompass a sampling of recently produced research results and datasets. Additionally, we reflect on strategies for establishing meaningful collaborations across South America and elsewhere, an aspect that will be critical to the international partnerships, and associated capacity building, needed for an internationally inclusive and collaborative SZ4D activity.

Clinical Trial Assessment of Infrastructure Matrix Tool to Improve the Quality of Research Conduct in the Community.

PubMed

Dimond, Eileen P; Zon, Robin T; Weiner, Bryan J; St Germain, Diane; Denicoff, Andrea M; Dempsey, Kandie; Carrigan, Angela C; Teal, Randall W; Good, Marjorie J; McCaskill-Stevens, Worta; Grubbs, Stephen S; Dimond, Eileen P; Zon, Robin T; Weiner, Bryan J; St Germain, Diane; Denicoff, Andrea M; Dempsey, Kandie; Carrigan, Angela C; Teal, Randall W; Good, Marjorie J; McCaskill-Stevens, Worta; Grubbs, Stephen S

2016-01-01

Several publications have described minimum standards and exemplary attributes for clinical trial sites to improve research quality. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP) developed the clinical trial Best Practice Matrix tool to facilitate research program improvements through annual self-assessments and benchmarking. The tool identified nine attributes, each with three progressive levels, to score clinical trial infrastructural elements from less to more exemplary. The NCCCP sites correlated tool use with research program improvements, and the NCI pursued a formative evaluation to refine the interpretability and measurability of the tool. From 2011 to 2013, 21 NCCCP sites self-assessed their programs with the tool annually. During 2013 to 2014, NCI collaborators conducted a five-step formative evaluation of the matrix tool. Sites reported significant increases in level-three scores across the original nine attributes combined (P<.001). Two specific attributes exhibited significant change: clinical trial portfolio diversity and management (P=.0228) and clinical trial communication (P=.0281). The formative evaluation led to revisions, including renaming the Best Practice Matrix as the Clinical Trial Assessment of Infrastructure Matrix (CT AIM), expanding infrastructural attributes from nine to 11, clarifying metrics, and developing a new scoring tool. Broad community input, cognitive interviews, and pilot testing improved the usability and functionality of the tool. Research programs are encouraged to use the CT AIM to assess and improve site infrastructure. Experience within the NCCCP suggests that the CT AIM is useful for improving quality, benchmarking research performance, reporting progress, and communicating program needs with institutional leaders. The tool model may also be useful in disciplines beyond oncology.

Open NASA Earth Exchange (OpenNEX): Strategies for enabling cross organization collaboration in the earth sciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Michaelis, A.; Ganguly, S.; Nemani, R. R.; Votava, P.; Wang, W.; Lee, T. J.; Dungan, J. L.

2014-12-01

Sharing community-valued codes, intermediary datasets and results from individual efforts with others that are not in a direct funded collaboration can be a challenge. Cross organization collaboration is often impeded due to infrastructure security constraints, rigid financial controls, bureaucracy, and workforce nationalities, etc., which can force groups to work in a segmented fashion and/or through awkward and suboptimal web services. We show how a focused community may come together, share modeling and analysis codes, computing configurations, scientific results, knowledge and expertise on a public cloud platform; diverse groups of researchers working together at "arms length". Through the OpenNEX experimental workshop, users can view short technical "how-to" videos and explore encapsulated working environment. Workshop participants can easily instantiate Amazon Machine Images (AMI) or launch full cluster and data processing configurations within minutes. Enabling users to instantiate computing environments from configuration templates on large public cloud infrastructures, such as Amazon Web Services, may provide a mechanism for groups to easily use each others work and collaborate indirectly. Moreover, using the public cloud for this workshop allowed a single group to host a large read only data archive, making datasets of interest to the community widely available on the public cloud, enabling other groups to directly connect to the data and reduce the costs of the collaborative work by freeing other individual groups from redundantly retrieving, integrating or financing the storage of the datasets of interest.

Illustrating and analyzing the processes of multi-institutional collaboration: Lessons learnt at Howard University Hospital.

PubMed

Malik, Mansoor; Kumari, Suneeta; Manalai, Partam; Hipolito, Maria

2017-05-01

Multi-institutional collaboration offers a promising approach to the dissemination of resources for capacity building and the improvement of the training of new investigators and residents, especially in areas of novel curricular content. Physicians should keep pace with the rapid growth of curricular content in an era of restricted resources. Such collaborations, in which educational entities work together and share resources and infrastructure, have been employed in health care to improve quality of care, capacity building, disparity reduction, and resident training. This paper examines a federally funded multi-institutional collaboration for the project STRIDE (Seek, Treat, Reach to Identify Pretrial Defendants Enhancement) between Yale University, George Mason University (GMU), and Howard University, a Historically Black University. The STRIDE study collaboration focused on mental health, opioid addiction, and infectious disease/HIV among Africans Americans involved in CJS (Criminal Justice System). We discuss some of the challenges and benefits of collaborative research projects conducted at Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCUs) and highlight the educational opportunities created by such collaborations for residents and other trainees, leading to the development of independent investigators through multi-institutional, structured collaborative research. We identify some unique challenges such as substance use, race, stigma, incarceration among participants, and the cultural and power difference between participating institutions, and thereby address these issues and how it impacted the course of the multi-institutional collaborative effort.

Illustrating and analyzing the processes of multi-institutional collaboration: Lessons learnt at Howard University Hospital

PubMed Central

Malik, Mansoor; Kumari, Suneeta; Manalai, Partam; Hipolito, Maria

2017-01-01

Multi-institutional collaboration offers a promising approach to the dissemination of resources for capacity building and the improvement of the training of new investigators and residents, especially in areas of novel curricular content. Physicians should keep pace with the rapid growth of curricular content in an era of restricted resources. Such collaborations, in which educational entities work together and share resources and infrastructure, have been employed in health care to improve quality of care, capacity building, disparity reduction, and resident training. This paper examines a federally funded multi-institutional collaboration for the project STRIDE (Seek, Treat, Reach to Identify Pretrial Defendants Enhancement) between Yale University, George Mason University (GMU), and Howard University, a Historically Black University. The STRIDE study collaboration focused on mental health, opioid addiction, and infectious disease/HIV among Africans Americans involved in CJS (Criminal Justice System). We discuss some of the challenges and benefits of collaborative research projects conducted at Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCUs) and highlight the educational opportunities created by such collaborations for residents and other trainees, leading to the development of independent investigators through multi-institutional, structured collaborative research. We identify some unique challenges such as substance use, race, stigma, incarceration among participants, and the cultural and power difference between participating institutions, and thereby address these issues and how it impacted the course of the multi-institutional collaborative effort. PMID:28966991

Extreme Precipitation, Stormwater, and Flooding in King County: Co-producing Research to Support Adaptation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mauger, G. S.; Lorente-Plazas, R.; Salathe, E. P., Jr.; Mitchell, T. P.; Simmonds, J.; Lee, S. Y.; Hegewisch, K.; Warner, M.; Won, J.

2017-12-01

King County has experienced 12 federally declared flood disasters since 1990, and tens of thousands of county residents commute through, live, and work in floodplains. In addition to flooding, stormwater is a critical management challenge, exacerbated by aging infrastructure, combined sewer and drainage systems, and continued development. Even absent the effects of climate change these are challenging management issues. Recent studies clearly point to an increase in precipitation extremes for the Pacific Northwest (e.g., Warner et al. 2015). Yet very little information is available on the magnitude and spatial distribution of this change. Others clearly show that local-scale changes in extreme precipitation can only be accurately quantified with dynamical downscaling, i.e.: using a regional climate model. This talk will describe a suite of research and adaptation efforts developed in a close collaboration between King County and the UW Climate Impacts Group. Building on past collaborations, research efforts were defined in collaboration with King County managers, addressing three key science questions: (1) How are the mesoscale variations in extreme precipitation modulated by changes in large-scale weather conditions? (2) How will precipitation extremes change? This was assessed via two new high-resolution regional model projections using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model (Skamarock et al. 2005). (3) What are the implications for stormwater and flooding in King County? This was assessed by both exploring the statistics of hourly precipitation extremes in the new projections, as well as new hydrologic modeling to assess the implications for river flooding. The talk will present results from these efforts, review the implications for King County planning and infrastructure, and synthesize lessons learned and opportunities for additional work.

Quasi-experimental study designs series-paper 12: strengthening global capacity for evidence synthesis of quasi-experimental health systems research.

PubMed

Rockers, Peter C; Tugwell, Peter; Grimshaw, Jeremy; Oliver, Sandy; Atun, Rifat; Røttingen, John-Arne; Fretheim, Atle; Ranson, M Kent; Daniels, Karen; Luiza, Vera Lucia; Bärnighausen, Till

2017-09-01

Evidence from quasi-experimental studies is often excluded from systematic reviews of health systems research despite the fact that such studies can provide strong causal evidence when well conducted. This article discusses global coordination of efforts to institutionalize the inclusion of causal evidence from quasi-experiments in systematic reviews of health systems research. In particular, we are concerned with identifying opportunities for strengthening capacity at the global and local level for implementing protocols necessary to ensure that reviews that include quasi-experiments are consistently of the highest quality. We first describe the current state of the global infrastructure that facilitates the production of systematic reviews of health systems research. We identify five important types of actors operating within this infrastructure: review authors; synthesis collaborations that facilitate the review process; synthesis interest groups that supplement the work of the larger collaborations; review funders; and end users, including policymakers. Then, we examine opportunities for intervening to build the capacity of each type of actors to support the inclusion of quasi-experiments in reviews. Finally, we suggest practical next steps for proceeding with capacity building efforts. Because of the complexity and relative nascence of the field, we recommend a carefully planned and executed approach to strengthening global capacity for the inclusion of quasi-experimental studies in systematic reviews. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Supporting the Emergence of Dental Informatics with an Online Community

PubMed Central

Spallek, H.; Irwin, J. Y.; Schleyer, T.; Butler, B. S.; Weiss, P. M.

2008-01-01

Dental Informatics (DI) is the application of computer and information science to improve dental practice, research, education, and program administration. As an emerging field, dental informatics faces many challenges and barriers to establishing itself as a full-fledged discipline; these include the small number of geographically dispersed DI researchers as well as the lack of DI professional societies and DI-specific journals. E-communities have the potential to overcome these obstacles by bringing researchers together at a resources hub and giving them the ability to share information, discuss topics, and find collaborators. In this paper, we discuss our assessment of the information needs of individuals interested in DI and discuss their expectations for an e-community so that we can design an optimal electronic infrastructure for the Dental Informatics Online Community (DIOC). The 256 survey respondents indicated they prefer electronic resources over traditional print material to satisfy their information needs. The most frequently expected benefits from participation in the DIOC were general information (85% of respondents), peer networking (31.1%), and identification of potential collaborators and/or research opportunities (23.2%). We are currently building the DIOC electronic infrastructure: a searchable publication archive and the learning center have been created, and the people directory is underway. Readers are encouraged to access the DIOC Website at www.dentalinformatics.com and initiate a discussion with the authors of this paper. PMID:18271498

A Virtual Bioinformatics Knowledge Environment for Early Cancer Detection

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Crichton, Daniel; Srivastava, Sudhir; Johnsey, Donald

2003-01-01

Discovery of disease biomarkers for cancer is a leading focus of early detection. The National Cancer Institute created a network of collaborating institutions focused on the discovery and validation of cancer biomarkers called the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN). Informatics plays a key role in enabling a virtual knowledge environment that provides scientists real time access to distributed data sets located at research institutions across the nation. The distributed and heterogeneous nature of the collaboration makes data sharing across institutions very difficult. EDRN has developed a comprehensive informatics effort focused on developing a national infrastructure enabling seamless access, sharing and discovery of science data resources across all EDRN sites. This paper will discuss the EDRN knowledge system architecture, its objectives and its accomplishments.

Intermediate outcomes of a tribal community public health infrastructure assessment.

PubMed

English, Kevin C; Wallerstein, Nina; Chino, Michelle; Finster, Carolyn E; Rafelito, Alvin; Adeky, Sarah; Kennedy, Marianna

2004-01-01

The purpose of this collaborative participatory project was to assess the strengths and needs of a tribal community as part of a larger public health capacity building program. Key project partners included: the Ramah Band of Navajo Indians, the Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board, the University of New Mexico Masters in Public Health Program, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, American Indian Research and Education Center. Principal intervention steps entailed: 1) relationship-building activities among tribal programs and between the Tribe and the scientific community; 2) an orientation to public health; 3) a comprehensive public health infrastructure assessment, utilizing a standardized CDC instrument; and 4) a prioritization of identified needs. The direct outcome was the development and beginning implementation of a community specific public health strategic action plan. Broader results included: 1) increased comprehension of public health within the Tribe; 2) the creation of a community public health task force; 3) the design of a tribally applicable assessment instrument; and 4) improved collaboration between the Tribe and the scientific community. This project demonstrated that public health assessment in tribal communities is feasible and valuable. Further, the development of a tribally applicable instrument highlights a significant tribal contribution to research and assessment.

WE-FG-201-04: Cloud-Based Collaboration for Radiotherapy Clinical Trials, Research and Training

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Palta, J.

Many low- and middle-income countries lack the resources and services to manage cancer, from screening and diagnosis to radiation therapy planning, treatment and quality assurance. The challenges in upgrading or introducing the needed services are enormous, and include severe shortages in equipment and trained staff. In this symposium, we will describe examples of technology and scientific research that have the potential to impact all these areas. These include: (1) the development of high-quality/low-cost colposcopes for cervical cancer screening, (2) the application of automated radiotherapy treatment planning to reduce staffing shortages, (3) the development of a novel radiotherapy treatment unit, andmore » (4) utilizing a cloud-based infrastructure to facilitate collaboration and QA. Learning Objectives: Understand some of the issues in cancer care in low- resource environments, including shortages in staff and equipment, and inadequate physical infrastructure for advanced radiotherapy. Understand the challenges in developing and deploying diagnostic and treatment devices and services for low-resource environments. Understand some of the emerging technological solutions for cancer management in LMICs. NCI; L. Court, NIH, Varian, Elekta; I. Feain, Ilana Feain is founder and CTO of Nano-X Pty Ltd.« less

Collaborative-Large scale Engineering Assessment Networks for Environmental Research: The Overview

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moo-Young, H.

2004-05-01

A networked infrastructure for engineering solutions and policy alternatives is necessary to assess, manage, and protect complex, anthropogenic ally stressed environmental resources effectively. Reductionist and discrete disciplinary methodologies are no longer adequate to evaluate and model complex environmental systems and anthropogenic stresses. While the reductonist approach provides important information regarding individual mechanisms, it cannot provide complete information about how multiple processes are related. Therefore, it is not possible to make accurate predictions about system responses to engineering interventions and the effectiveness of policy options. For example, experts cannot agree on best management strategies for contaminated sediments in riverine and estuarine systems. This is due, in part to the fact that existing models do not accurately capture integrated system dynamics. In addition, infrastructure is not available for investigators to exchange and archive data, to collaborate on new investigative methods, and to synthesize these results to develop engineering solutions and policy alternatives. Our vision for the future is to create a network comprising field facilities and a collaboration of engineers, scientists, policy makers, and community groups. This will allow integration across disciplines, across different temporal and spatial scales, surface and subsurface geographies, and air sheds and watersheds. Benefits include fast response to changes in system health, real-time decision making, and continuous data collection that can be used to anticipate future problems, and to develop sound engineering solutions and management decisions. CLEANER encompasses four general aspects: 1) A Network of environmental field facilities instrumented for the acquisition and analysis of environmental data; 2) A Virtual Repository of Data and information technology for engineering modeling, analysis and visualization of data, i.e. an environmental cyber-infrastructure; 3) A Mechanism for multidisciplinary research and education activities designed to exploit the output of the instrumented sites and networked information technology, to formulate engineering and policy options directed toward the protection, remediation, and restoration of stressed environments and sustainability of environmental resources; and 4) A Collaboration among engineers, natural and social scientists, educators, policy makers, industry, non-governmental organizations, the public, and other stakeholders.

SensorWeb Hub infrastructure for open access to scientific research data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Filippis, Tiziana; Rocchi, Leandro; Rapisardi, Elena

2015-04-01

The sharing of research data is a new challenge for the scientific community that may benefit from a large amount of information to solve environmental issues and sustainability in agriculture and urban contexts. Prerequisites for this challenge is the development of an infrastructure that ensure access, management and preservation of data, technical support for a coordinated and harmonious management of data that, in the framework of Open Data Policies, should encourages the reuse and the collaboration. The neogeography and the citizen as sensors approach, highlight that new data sources need a new set of tools and practices so to collect, validate, categorize, and use / access these "crowdsourced" data, that integrate the data sets produced in the scientific field, thus "feeding" the overall available data for analysis and research. When the scientific community embraces the dimension of collaboration and sharing, access and re-use, in order to accept the open innovation approach, it should redesign and reshape the processes of data management: the challenges of technological and cultural innovation, enabled by web 2.0 technologies, bring to the scenario where the sharing of structured and interoperable data will constitute the unavoidable building block to set up a new paradigm of scientific research. In this perspective the Institute of Biometeorology, CNR, whose aim is contributing to sharing and development of research data, has developed the "SensorWebHub" (SWH) infrastructure to support the scientific activities carried out in several research projects at national and international level. It is designed to manage both mobile and fixed open source meteorological and environmental sensors, in order to integrate the existing agro-meteorological and urban monitoring networks. The proposed architecture uses open source tools to ensure sustainability in the development and deployment of web applications with geographic features and custom analysis, as requested by the different research projects. The SWH components are organized in typical client-server architecture and interact from the sensing process to the representation of the results to the end-users. The Web Application enables to view and analyse the data stored in the GeoDB. The interface is designed following Internet browsers specifications allowing the visualization of collected data in different formats (tabular, chart and geographic map). The services for the dissemination of geo-referenced information, adopt the OGC specifications. SWH is a bottom-up collaborative initiative to share real time research data and pave the way for a open innovation approach in the scientific research. Until now this framework has been used for several WebGIS applications and WebApp for environmental monitoring at different temporal and spatial scales.

Implementation of new clinical programs in the VHA healthcare system: the importance of early collaboration between clinical leadership and research.

PubMed

Wu, R Ryanne; Kinsinger, Linda S; Provenzale, Dawn; King, Heather A; Akerly, Patricia; Barnes, Lottie K; Datta, Santanu K; Grubber, Janet M; Katich, Nicholas; McNeil, Rebecca B; Monte, Robert; Sperber, Nina R; Atkins, David; Jackson, George L

2014-12-01

Collaboration between policy, research, and clinical partners is crucial to achieving proven quality care. The Veterans Health Administration has expended great efforts towards fostering such collaborations. Through this, we have learned that an ideal collaboration involves partnership from the very beginning of a new clinical program, so that the program is designed in a way that ensures quality, validity, and puts into place the infrastructure necessary for a reliable evaluation. This paper will give an example of one such project, the Lung Cancer Screening Demonstration Project (LCSDP). We will outline the ways that clinical, policy, and research partners collaborated in design, planning, and implementation in order to create a sustainable model that could be rigorously evaluated for efficacy and fidelity. We will describe the use of the Donabedian quality matrix to determine the necessary characteristics of a quality program and the importance of the linkage with engineering, information technology, and clinical paradigms to connect the development of an on-the-ground clinical program with the evaluation goal of a learning healthcare organization. While the LCSDP is the example given here, these partnerships and suggestions are salient to any healthcare organization seeking to implement new scientifically proven care in a useful and reliable way.

The BonaRes data infrastructure: Recommendations of standards for the different life stages of soil and agricultural research data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoffmann, Carsten; Schulz, Sina; Svoboda, Nikolai; Zoarder, Muqit; Eberhardt, Einar; Russell, David; Heinrich, Uwe

2017-04-01

Within the research project BonaRes ("Soil as a sustainable resource for the bioeconomy") an infrastructure is being developed to upload, manage, store, and provide the increasing amount of soil and agricultural research data, raw data, and metadata in Germany. Large joint research projects such as BonaRes require rules for data handling. The application and designation of standards, standard methods and widely disseminated and accepted data formats for all stages of data life (from acquisition to provision) is accompanied by a number of advantages for data providers, -managers and -users. Standards enable e.g. an easy data exchange and provision for data re-use, communication with other disciplines, and improve the visibility and accessibility of research activities and results. To harmonize national with international data infrastructures, standards used in the scope of BonaRes should either meet international requirements or be transformable by derivation tools. In the first project phase an overview of standards was compiled including more than 600 relevant norms, directives, exchange formats and code lists. With the collaboration of an international expert consortium we then developed a "Recommendation list Standards" for all project partners and other soil/agricultural data providers. We present and discuss selected recommendations and possible implementations of standards to be used in the BonaRes data infrastructure for data acquisition (e.g. soil description, agronomy), data management (e.g. exchange languages, derivation tools), and data provision (e.g. licenses, geo-data services).

Data and Models as Social Objects in the HydroShare System for Collaboration in the Hydrology Community and Beyond

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tarboton, D. G.; Idaszak, R.; Horsburgh, J. S.; Ames, D. P.; Goodall, J. L.; Band, L. E.; Merwade, V.; Couch, A.; Hooper, R. P.; Maidment, D. R.; Dash, P. K.; Stealey, M.; Yi, H.; Gan, T.; Castronova, A. M.; Miles, B.; Li, Z.; Morsy, M. M.; Crawley, S.; Ramirez, M.; Sadler, J.; Xue, Z.; Bandaragoda, C.

2016-12-01

How do you share and publish hydrologic data and models for a large collaborative project? HydroShare is a new, web-based system for sharing hydrologic data and models with specific functionality aimed at making collaboration easier. HydroShare has been developed with U.S. National Science Foundation support under the auspices of the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) to support the collaboration and community cyberinfrastructure needs of the hydrology research community. Within HydroShare, we have developed new functionality for creating datasets, describing them with metadata, and sharing them with collaborators. We cast hydrologic datasets and models as "social objects" that can be shared, collaborated around, annotated, published and discovered. In addition to data and model sharing, HydroShare supports web application programs (apps) that can act on data stored in HydroShare, just as software programs on your PC act on your data locally. This can free you from some of the limitations of local computing capacity and challenges in installing and maintaining software on your own PC. HydroShare's web-based cyberinfrastructure can take work off your desk or laptop computer and onto infrastructure or "cloud" based data and processing servers. This presentation will describe HydroShare's collaboration functionality that enables both public and private sharing with individual users and collaborative user groups, and makes it easier for collaborators to iterate on shared datasets and models, creating multiple versions along the way, and publishing them with a permanent landing page, metadata description, and citable Digital Object Identifier (DOI) when the work is complete. This presentation will also describe the web app architecture that supports interoperability with third party servers functioning as application engines for analysis and processing of big hydrologic datasets. While developed to support the cyberinfrastructure needs of the hydrology community, the informatics infrastructure for programmatic interoperability of web resources has a generality beyond the solution of hydrology problems that will be discussed.

Effective Team Support: From Modeling to Software Agents

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Remington, Roger W. (Technical Monitor); John, Bonnie; Sycara, Katia

2003-01-01

The purpose of this research contract was to perform multidisciplinary research between CMU psychologists, computer scientists and engineers and NASA researchers to design a next generation collaborative system to support a team of human experts and intelligent agents. To achieve robust performance enhancement of such a system, we had proposed to perform task and cognitive modeling to thoroughly understand the impact technology makes on the organization and on key individual personnel. Guided by cognitively-inspired requirements, we would then develop software agents that support the human team in decision making, information filtering, information distribution and integration to enhance team situational awareness. During the period covered by this final report, we made substantial progress in modeling infrastructure and task infrastructure. Work is continuing under a different contract to complete empirical data collection, cognitive modeling, and the building of software agents to support the teams task.

ENFIN--A European network for integrative systems biology.

PubMed

Kahlem, Pascal; Clegg, Andrew; Reisinger, Florian; Xenarios, Ioannis; Hermjakob, Henning; Orengo, Christine; Birney, Ewan

2009-11-01

Integration of biological data of various types and the development of adapted bioinformatics tools represent critical objectives to enable research at the systems level. The European Network of Excellence ENFIN is engaged in developing an adapted infrastructure to connect databases, and platforms to enable both the generation of new bioinformatics tools and the experimental validation of computational predictions. With the aim of bridging the gap existing between standard wet laboratories and bioinformatics, the ENFIN Network runs integrative research projects to bring the latest computational techniques to bear directly on questions dedicated to systems biology in the wet laboratory environment. The Network maintains internally close collaboration between experimental and computational research, enabling a permanent cycling of experimental validation and improvement of computational prediction methods. The computational work includes the development of a database infrastructure (EnCORE), bioinformatics analysis methods and a novel platform for protein function analysis FuncNet.

The Pioneering Role of the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project (VSD) to Advance Collaborative Research and Distributed Data Networks

PubMed Central

Fahey, Kevin R.

2015-01-01

Introduction: Large-scale distributed data networks consisting of diverse stakeholders including providers, patients, and payers are changing health research in terms of methods, speed and efficiency. The Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) set the stage for expanded involvement of health plans in collaborative research. Expanding Surveillance Capacity and Progress Toward a Learning Health System: From an initial collaboration of four integrated health systems with fewer than 10 million covered lives to 16 diverse health plans with nearly 100 million lives now in the FDA Sentinel, the expanded engagement of health plan researchers has been essential to increase the value and impact of these efforts. The collaborative structure of the VSD established a pathway toward research efforts that successfully engage all stakeholders in a cohesive rather than competitive manner. The scientific expertise and methodology developed through the VSD such as rapid cycle analysis (RCA) to conduct near real-time safety surveillance allowed for the development of the expanded surveillance systems that now exist. Building on Success and Lessons Learned: These networks have learned from and built on the knowledge base and infrastructure created by the VSD investigators. This shared technical knowledge and experience expedited the development of systems like the FDA’s Mini-Sentinel and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)’s PCORnet Conclusion: This narrative reviews the evolution of the VSD, its contribution to other collaborative research networks, longer-term sustainability of this type of distributed research, and how knowledge gained from the earlier efforts can contribute to a continually learning health system. PMID:26793736

Establishment of the International Power Institute. Final technical report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Julius E. Coles

The International Power Institute, in collaboration with American industries, seeks to address technical, political, economic and cultural issues of developing countries in the interest of facilitating profitable transactions in power related infrastructure projects. IPI works with universities, governments and commercial organizations to render project-specific recommendations for private-sector investment considerations. IPI also established the following goals: Facilitate electric power infrastructure transactions between developing countries and the US power industry; Collaborate with developing countries to identify development strategies to achieve energy stability; and Encourage market driven solutions and work collaboratively with other international trade energy, technology and banking organizations.

Translational leadership: new approaches to team development.

PubMed

Harrigan, Rosanne C; Emery, Lori M

2010-01-01

Little is known about how to develop collaborative multidisciplinary research teams. Following a comprehensive needs assessment, we developed a curriculum-based, multi-disciplinary, didactic and experiential Translational Leadership training program grounded in adult learning theory. In addition, we constructed collaborative clinical/translational research experiences for trainees to enhance clinical/translational research skills. KEY PROGRAMMATIC ELEMENTS AND PRELIMINARY FINDINGS: This 15-week Translational Leadership program was generated based on the following premises. Academic translational leadership teams should partner and collaborate, customize, make the program relevant to the culture, create a common language, use the best resources, and establish measurable goals for success. Development of effective collaborative research teams is essential to the management of successful translational research teams. Development of these skills in addition to cultural humility will provide the best infrastructure and human capital committed to the resolution of health disparities. Effective translational research teams are more comfortable with the component team members and the communities where they implement their protocols. Our participants highly valued the diverse experiences from this program; several have succeeded in leading community-based research teams. Our Translational Leadership program offers essential skills using adult learning theory for translational researchers who become capable of leading and participating in translational research teams. We believe including community members in the training of translational research programs is an important asset. The multidisciplinary approach develops skills that are also of significant use to the community and its acceptance of responsibility for its own health.

National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) | Information Center

Science.gov Websites

National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) Contact Information Website: http://www.nbii.gov/ The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the nation's biological resources. The NBII links diverse, high

Inter-Institutional Partnerships Propel A Successful Collaborative Undergraduate Degree Program In Chemistry

PubMed Central

Wang, Qiquan

2013-01-01

Small private liberal arts colleges are increasingly tuition-dependent and mainly attract students by creating student-centered learning communities. On the other hand, larger universities tend to be trendsetters where its faculty tend to seek intellectual independence and are involved in career focused cutting-edge research. The Institutional Development Awards (IDeA) and Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) are federal-state-university partnerships that builds basic research infrastructure and coax the state-wide higher education institutions to collaborate with each other in order to enhance their competitiveness. As a result in Delaware, Wesley College instituted curricular and operational changes to launch an undergraduate program in biological chemistry where its students take three upper division chemistry courses and can choose to participate in annual summer undergraduate internships at nearby Delaware State University. PMID:24273464

Information Infrastructure, Information Environments, and Long-Term Collaboration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baker, K. S.; Pennington, D. D.

2009-12-01

Information infrastructure that supports collaborative science is a complex system of people, organizational arrangements, and tools that require co-management. Contemporary studies are exploring how to establish and characterize effective collaborative information environments. Collaboration depends on the flow of information across the human and technical system components through mechanisms that create linkages, both conceptual and technical. This transcends the need for requirements solicitation and usability studies, highlighting synergistic interactions between humans and technology that can lead to emergence of group level cognitive properties. We consider the ramifications of placing priority on establishing new metaphors and new types of learning environments located near-to-data-origin for the field sciences. In addition to changes in terms of participant engagement, there are implications in terms of innovative contributions to the design of information systems and data exchange. While data integration occurs in the minds of individual participants, it may be facilitated by collaborative thinking and community infrastructure. Existing learning frameworks - from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to organizational learning - require modification and extension if effective approaches to decentralized information management and systems design are to emerge. Case studies relating to data integration include ecological community projects: development of cross-disciplinary conceptual maps and of a community unit registry.

Adaptive management of urban watersheds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garmestani, A.; Shuster, W.; Green, O. O.

2013-12-01

Consent decree settlements for violations of the Clean Water Act (1972) increasingly include provisions for redress of combined sewer overflow activity through hybrid approaches that incorporate the best of both gray (e.g., storage tunnels) and green infrastructure (e.g., rain gardens). Adaptive management is an environmental management strategy that uses an iterative process of decision-making to improve environmental management via system monitoring. A central tenet of adaptive management is that management involves a learning process that can help regulated communities achieve environmental quality objectives. We are using an adaptive management approach to guide a green infrastructure retrofit of a neighborhood in the Slavic Village Development Corporation area (Cleveland, Ohio). We are in the process of gathering hydrologic and ecosystem services data and will use this data as a basis for collaboration with area citizens on a plan to use green infrastructure to contain stormflows. Monitoring data provides researchers with feedback on the impact of green infrastructure implementation and suggest where improvements can be made.

DRIHM: Distributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Meteorology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parodi, A.; Rebora, N.; Kranzlmueller, D.; Schiffers, M.; Clematis, A.; Tafferner, A.; Garrote, L. M.; Llasat Botija, M.; Caumont, O.; Richard, E.; Cros, P.; Dimitrijevic, V.; Jagers, B.; Harpham, Q.; Hooper, R. P.

2012-12-01

Hydro-Meteorology Research (HMR) is an area of critical scientific importance and of high societal relevance. It plays a key role in guiding predictions relevant to the safety and prosperity of humans and ecosystems from highly urbanized areas, to coastal zones, and to agricultural landscapes. Of special interest and urgency within HMR is the problem of understanding and predicting the impacts of severe hydro-meteorological events, such as flash-floods and landslides in complex orography areas, on humans and the environment, under the incoming climate change effects. At the heart of this challenge lies the ability to have easy access to hydrometeorological data and models, and facilitate the collaboration between meteorologists, hydrologists, and Earth science experts for accelerated scientific advances in this field. To face these problems the DRIHM (Distributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Meteorology) project is developing a prototype e-Science environment to facilitate this collaboration and provide end-to-end HMR services (models, datasets and post-processing tools) at the European level, with the ability to expand to global scale (e.g. cooperation with Earth Cube related initiatives). The objectives of DRIHM are to lead the definition of a common long-term strategy, to foster the development of new HMR models and observational archives for the study of severe hydrometeorological events, to promote the execution and analysis of high-end simulations, and to support the dissemination of predictive models as decision analysis tools. DRIHM combines the European expertise in HMR, in Grid and High Performance Computing (HPC). Joint research activities will improve the efficient use of the European e-Infrastructures, notably Grid and HPC, for HMR modelling and observational databases, model evaluation tool sets and access to HMR model results. Networking activities will disseminate DRIHM results at the European and global levels in order to increase the cohesion of European and possibly worldwide HMR communities and increase the awareness of ICT potential for HMR. Service activities will deploy the end-to-end DRIHM services and tools in support of HMR networks and virtual organizations on top of the existing European e-Infrastructures.

Fostering Collaboration Across the U.S. Critical Zone Observatories Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharkey, S.; White, T. S.

2017-12-01

The Critical Zone (CZ) is defined as the permeable layer from the top of the vegetation canopy to the bottom of freely circulating groundwater where rock, soil, water, air and life meet. The study of the CZ is motivated by an overall lack of understanding of the coupled physical, chemical, and biological processes in this zone at differing spatial and temporal scales. Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs), supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation's Geosciences Directorate, are natural laboratories that aim to provide infrastructure, data and models to gain understanding of the evolution and function of the CZ from grain-to-watershed scales. The nine U.S. observatories span a range of climatic, ecologic, geologic, and physiographic environments from California to Puerto Rico, working on site-specific hypotheses and network-scale goals. CZO research infrastructure allows for teams of cross-disciplinary scientists at each site to further CZ science using field and theoretical approaches, education and outreach, and cross-CZO science. Cross-CZO science emerges from a set of common CZ science questions and hypotheses focused on CZ structure and evolution, event-based and continuous fluxes across CZ interfaces, and changes in storage of major CZ reservoirs at the catchment scale. CZO research seeks to understand coupled processes across all timescales using quantitative models parameterized from observations of meteorological variables, streams, and groundwater, and sampling and analyzing landforms, bedrock, soils, and ecosystems. Each observatory strives to apply common infrastructure, protocols and measurements that help quantify the composition and fluxes of energy, water, solutes, sediments, energy, and mass across boundaries of the CZ system through both space and time. This type of approach enables researchers to access and integrate data in a way that allows for the isolation of environmental variables and comparison of processes and responses across environmental gradients. There is opportunity to foster cross-collaborations with existing research infrastructure (i.e. LTER, NEON, international CZOs) to promote cross-site science and expand upon geologic, climatic, ecological, land use and hydrologic gradients required to understand the CZ.

Using CBPR for Health Research in American Muslim Mosque Communities: Lessons Learned

PubMed Central

Killawi, Amal; Heisler, Michele; Hamid, Hamada; Padela, Aasim I.

2015-01-01

Background American Muslims are understudied in health research, and there are few studies documenting community-based participatory research (CBPR) efforts among American Muslim mosque communities. Objectives We highlight lessons learned from a CBPR partnership that explored the health care beliefs, behaviors, and challenges of American Muslims. Methods We established a collaboration between the University of Michigan and four Muslim-focused community organizations in Michigan. Our collaborative team designed and implemented a two-phase study involving interviews with community stakeholders and focus groups and surveys with mosque congregants. Lessons Learned Although we were successful in meeting our research goals, maintaining community partner involvement and sustaining the project partnership proved challenging. Conclusions CBPR initiatives within mosque communities have the potential for improving community health. Our experience suggests that successful research partnerships with American Muslims will utilize social networks and cultural insiders, culturally adapt research methods, and develop a research platform within the organizational infrastructures of the American Muslim community. PMID:25981426

The Future of Nearshore Processes Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elko, N.; Feddersen, F.; Foster, D. L.; Holman, R. A.; McNinch, J.; Ozkan-Haller, H. T.; Plant, N. G.; Raubenheimer, B.; Elgar, S.; Hay, A. E.; Holland, K. T.; Kirby, J. T., Jr.; Lippmann, T. C.; Miller, J. K.; Stockdon, H. F.; Ashton, A. D.; Boehm, A. B.; Clark, D.; Cowen, E.; Dalyander, S.; Gelfenbaum, G. R.; Hapke, C. J.; MacMahan, J.; McNamara, D.; Mulligan, R. P.; Palmsten, M. L.; Ruggiero, P.; Sherwood, C. R.; Hsu, T. J.

2014-12-01

Over 70 members of the nearshore coastal processes research community convened in April 2014 to discuss a vision for the future of nearshore science while celebrating the memories and contributions of our recently departed colleague, Abby Sallenger. The participants reviewed community accomplishments over the past four decades. Federal agencies, including FEMA, NOAA, NPS, USGS, USACE, and NRL discussed the most pressing societal needs within the coastal zone. The group engaged in a retrospective of the last four decades of progress, assessed the current status and limitations of nearshore processes research, and developed a vision for the future that focuses on societally relevant problems. The top research topics identified included: Long-term Coastal Impacts: Meaningfully improve our understanding and prediction of the long-term coastal effects of sea level rise and changes in storminess patterns and associated efforts to protect coastal infrastructure. Extreme Events: Coastal flooding, overland flow, and concurrent morphological evolution during extreme events including the subsequent process of coastal recovery. Human and Ecosystem Health: Linkages between physical coastal processes (transport and mixing) and land-based pollution (pathogens, nutrients, toxic contaminants). Critical for addressing these research questions is enabling infrastructure, such as new observational tools and data sets, models, and nearshore-community communication and collaboration. Idea and concepts developed during the meeting (to be published in Shore and Beach) will be presented to foster collaboration and advocacy amongst the wider nearshore community. Meeting materials are available at: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/centers/nearshorefuture/.

STEPPE: Supporting collaborative research and education on Earth's deep-time sedimentary crust.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, D. M.

2014-12-01

STEPPE—Sedimentary geology, Time, Environment, Paleontology, Paleoclimate, and Energy—is a National Science Foundation supported consortium whose mission is to promote multidisciplinary research and education on Earth's deep-time sedimentary crust. Deep-time sedimentary crust research includes many specialty areas—biology, geography, ecology, paleontology, sedimentary geology, stratigraphy, geochronology, paleoclimatology, sedimentary geochemistry, and more. In fact, the diversity of disciplines and size of the community (roughly one-third of Earth-science faculty in US universities) itself has been a barrier to the formation of collaborative, multidisciplinary teams in the past. STEPPE has been working to support new research synergies and the development of infrastructure that will encourage the community to think about the big problems that need to be solved and facilitate the formation of collaborative research teams to tackle these problems. Toward this end, STEPPE is providing opportunities for workshops, working groups and professional development training sessions, web-hosting and database services and an online collaboration platform that facilitates interaction among participants, the sharing of documentation and workflows and an ability to push news and reports to group participants and beyond using social media tools. As such, STEPPE is working to provide an interactive space that will serve as both a gathering place and clearinghouse for information, allowing for broader integration of research and education across all STEPPE-related sub disciplines.

Collaborative Knowledge Creation in the Higher Education Academic Library

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Young S.; Schottenfeld, Matthew A.

2014-01-01

Collaboration has become a core competency of the 21st century workforce. Thus, the need of collaboration is reshaping the academic library in higher education to produce competent future workforce. To encourage collaboration in the academic library, knowledge commons that integrate technology to infrastructure and system furniture are introduced.…

Understanding Collaboration Environments to Support Green Infrastructure Construction

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2011-12-01

Close collaboration among stakeholders has long been recognized as an important factor of a successful project. In todays climate of a heightened focus on sustainability, collaboration needs to be taken to a new level in the design and constructio...

Linking earth science informatics resources into uninterrupted digital value chains

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woodcock, Robert; Angreani, Rini; Cox, Simon; Fraser, Ryan; Golodoniuc, Pavel; Klump, Jens; Rankine, Terry; Robertson, Jess; Vote, Josh

2015-04-01

The CSIRO Mineral Resources Flagship was established to tackle medium- to long-term challenges facing the Australian mineral industry across the value chain from exploration and mining through mineral processing within the framework of an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable minerals industry. This broad portfolio demands collaboration and data exchange with a broad range of participants and data providers across government, research and industry. It is an ideal environment to link geoscience informatics platforms to application across the resource extraction industry and to unlock the value of data integration between traditionally discrete parts of the minerals digital value chain. Despite the potential benefits, data integration remains an elusive goal within research and industry. Many projects use only a subset of available data types in an integrated manner, often maintaining the traditional discipline-based data 'silos'. Integrating data across the entire minerals digital value chain is an expensive proposition involving multiple disciplines and, significantly, multiple data sources both internal and external to any single organisation. Differing vocabularies and data formats, along with access regimes to appropriate analysis software and equipment all hamper the sharing and exchange of information. AuScope has addressed the challenge of data exchange across organisations nationally, and established a national geosciences information infrastructure using open standards-based web services. Federated across a wide variety of organisations, the resulting infrastructure contains a wide variety of live and updated data types. The community data standards and infrastructure platforms that underpin AuScope provide important new datasets and multi-agency links independent of software and hardware differences. AuScope has thus created an infrastructure, a platform of technologies and the opportunity for new ways of working with and integrating disparate data at much lower cost. An early example of this approach is the value generated by combining geological and metallurgical data sets as part of the rapidly growing field of geometallurgy. This not only provides a far better understanding of the impact of geological variability on ore processing but also leads to new thinking on the types and characteristics of data sets collected at various stages of the exploration and mining process. The Minerals Resources Flagship is linking its research activities to the AuScope infrastructure, exploiting the technology internally to create a platform for integrated research across the minerals value chain and improved interaction with industry. Referred to as the 'Early Access Virtual Lab', the system will be fully interoperable with AuScope and international infrastructures using open standards like GeosciML. Secured access is provided to allow confidential collaboration with industry when required. This presentation will discuss how the CSIRO Mineral Resources Flagship is building on the AuScope infrastructure to transform the way that data and data products are identified, shared, integrated, and reused, to unlock the benefits of true integration of research efforts across the minerals digital value chain.

Involving Users to Improve the Collaborative Logical Framework

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

In order to support collaboration in web-based learning, there is a need for an intelligent support that facilitates its management during the design, development, and analysis of the collaborative learning experience and supports both students and instructors. At aDeNu research group we have proposed the Collaborative Logical Framework (CLF) to create effective scenarios that support learning through interaction, exploration, discussion, and collaborative knowledge construction. This approach draws on artificial intelligence techniques to support and foster an effective involvement of students to collaborate. At the same time, the instructors' workload is reduced as some of their tasks—especially those related to the monitoring of the students behavior—are automated. After introducing the CLF approach, in this paper, we present two formative evaluations with users carried out to improve the design of this collaborative tool and thus enrich the personalized support provided. In the first one, we analyze, following the layered evaluation approach, the results of an observational study with 56 participants. In the second one, we tested the infrastructure to gather emotional data when carrying out another observational study with 17 participants. PMID:24592196

Needs assessment for collaborative network in pediatric clinical research and education.

PubMed

Ishiguro, Akira; Sasaki, Hatoko; Yahagi, Naohisa; Kato, Hitoshi; Kure, Shigeo; Mori, Rintaro

2017-01-01

A collaborative network for pediatric research has not been fully established in Japan. To identify the network infrastructure, we conducted a survey on the support and education for clinical research currently available in children's hospitals. In November 2014, a 27-question survey was distributed to 31 hospitals belonging to the Japanese Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions (JACHRI) to assess clinical research support, research education, research achievements, and their expectations. All the hospitals responded to the survey. Overall, 74.2% of hospitals had clinical research support divisions. Although all hospitals had ethics committees, <30% of the hospitals had a data manager, intellectual property management unit, biostatistician, and English-language editor. Seven hospitals had education programs for clinical research. The number of seminars and workshops for clinical research had significant correlations with the number of physicians (r = 0.927), pediatricians (r = 0.922), and clinical trial management physicians (r = 0.962). There was a significant difference in the number of clinical trials initiated by physicians between hospitals with research education programs and those without (P < 0.01). The number of education programs was significantly correlated with the number of original articles and case reports in English (r = 0.788), and the number of publications in Japanese (r = 0.648). All hospitals recognized the need for a leader to establish a collaborative network for clinical research. Important factors for creating a collaborative system for pediatric research in Japan were identified. Human resources to support clinical research are a key factor to improve clinical research education and research achievements. © 2016 Japan Pediatric Society.

Developing research and recruitment while fostering stakeholder engagement in a National Institutes of Mental Health-funded Interventions and Practice Research Infrastructure Programs grant for depression.

PubMed

Stirman, Shannon Wiltsey; Goldstein, Lizabeth A; Wrenn, Glenda; Barrett, Marna; Gibbons, Mary Beth Connolly; Casiano, Delane; Thompson, Donald; Green, Patricia P; Heintz, Laura; Barber, Jacques P; Crits-Christoph, Paul

2010-01-01

In the context of a National Institutes of Mental Health-funded Interventions and Practice Research Infrastructure Programs (IP-RISP) grant for the treatment of depression, a partnership was developed between a community mental health organization and a team of researchers. This paper describes the collaborative process, key challenges, and strategies employed to meet the goals of the first phase of the grant, which included development of a working and sustainable partnership and building capacity for recruitment and research. This paper was developed through the use of qualitative interviews and discussion with a variety of IP-RISP partners. Communication with multiple stakeholders through varied channels, feedback from stakeholders on research procedures, and employing a research liaison at the clinic have been key strategies in the first phase of the grant. The strategies we employed allowed multiple stakeholders to contribute to the larger mission of the IP-RISP and helped to establish an ongoing research program within the mental health organization.

International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2017

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2017-03-01

The International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2017 will be held at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan from 5-10 March 2017, with co- located events and workshops. The main theme of ISGC 2017 is "Global Challenges: From Open Data to Open Science". The unprecedented progress in ICT has transformed the way education is conducted and research is carried out. The emerging global e-Infrastructure, championed by global science communities such as High Energy Physics, Astronomy, and Bio- medicine, must permeate into other sciences. Many areas, such as climate change, disaster mitigation, and human sustainability and well-being, represent global challenges where collaboration over e-Infrastructure will presumably help resolve the common problems of the people who are impacted. Access to global e-Infrastructure helps also the less globally organized, long-tail sciences, with their own collaboration challenges. Open data are not only a political phenomenon serving government transparency; they also create an opportunity to eliminate access barriers to all scientific data, specifically data from global sciences and regional data that concern natural phenomena and people. In this regard, the purpose of open data is to improve sciences, accelerating specifically those that may benefit people. Nevertheless, to eliminate barriers to open data is itself a daunting task and the barriers to individuals, institutions and big collaborations are manifold. Open science is a step beyond open data, where the tools and understanding of scientific data must be made available to whoever is interested to participate in such scientific research. The promotion of open science may change the academic tradition practiced over the past few hundred years. This change of dynamics may contribute to the resolution of common challenges of human sustainability where the current pace of scientific progress is not sufficiently fast. ISGC 2017 created a face-to-face venue where individual communities and national representatives can present and share their contributions to the global puzzle and contribute thus to the solution of global challenges.

ENVRIplus - European collaborative development of environmental infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asmi, A.; Brus, M.; Kutsch, W. L.; Laj, P.

2016-12-01

European Research Infrastructures (RI) are built using ESFRI process, which dictates the steps towards a common European RIs. Building each RI separately creates unnessary barriers towards service users (e.g. on differing standards) and is not effiicient in e.g. e-science tool or data system development. To answer these inter-RI issues, the European Commission has funded several large scale cluster projectsto bring these RIs together already in planning and development phases to develop common tools, standards and methodologies, as well as learn from the exisiting systems. ENVRIplus is the cluster project for the environmental RIs in Europe, and provides platform for common development and sharing within the RI community. The project is organized around different themes, each having several workpackages with specific tasks. Major themesof the ENVRIplus are: Technical innovation, including tasks such as RI technology transfer, new observation techniques, autonomous operation, etc.; Data for science, with tasks such as RI reference model development, data discovery and citation, data publication, processing, etc.; Access to RIs, with specific tasks on interdicplinary and transnational access to RI services, and common access governance; Societal relevance and understanding, tackling on ethical issues on RI operations and understanding on human-environmental system and citizen science approaches, among others; Knowledge transfer, particularly between the RIs, and with developing RI organizations, organizing training and staff exchange; and Communication and dissemination, working towards a common environmental RI community (ENVRI community platform), and creating an own advisory RI discussion board (BEERi), and disseminating the ENVRIplus products globally. Importantly, all ENVRIplus results are open to any users from any country. Also, collaboration with international RIs and user communities are crucial to the success of the ENVRI initiatives. Overall goal is to do science globally, to answer global and regional critical challenges. The presentation will not only present the project, its state after nearly 2 years of operation, but will alsop present ideas towards building international and even more interdiciplinary collaboration on research infrastructures and their users.

3rd Annual Earth System Grid Federation and 3rd Annual Earth System Grid Federation and Ultrascale Visualization Climate Data Analysis Tools Face-to-Face Meeting Report December 2013

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Williams, Dean N.

The climate and weather data science community gathered December 3–5, 2013, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in Livermore, California, for the third annual Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) and Ultra-scale Visualization Climate Data Analysis Tools (UV-CDAT) Face-to-Face (F2F) Meeting, which was hosted by the Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Infrastructure for the European Network of Earth System Modelling, and the Australian Department of Education. Both ESGF and UV-CDAT are global collaborations designed to develop a new generation of open-source software infrastructure that provides distributed access and analysis to observed andmore » simulated data from the climate and weather communities. The tools and infrastructure developed under these international multi-agency collaborations are critical to understanding extreme weather conditions and long-term climate change, while the F2F meetings help to build a stronger climate and weather data science community and stronger federated software infrastructure. The 2013 F2F meeting determined requirements for existing and impending national and international community projects; enhancements needed for data distribution, analysis, and visualization infrastructure; and standards and resources needed for better collaborations.« less

AmeriFlux and EuroFlux: History of a Strong Collaboration that Provided Unique Resources to the Scientific Community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Papale, D.; Agarwal, D.; Biraud, S.; Canfora, E.; Pastorello, G.; Torn, M. S.; Trotta, C.

2017-12-01

In 1995 scientific communities in Europe and North America using the eddy covariance technique to measure carbon, water, and energy exchanges between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere started to organize their respective regional networks. Although there was a general interest and agreement to collaborate and exchange information and data between the two communities, these mainly occurred at the single site or individual levels through direct communications rather than systematically across networks. Between 2000 and 2008 common strategies to facilitate data sharing, promote data use across the two networks, and outreach to the scientific community, started to be more deeply discussed. Early on, harmonization across networks was deemed necessary to the success of both networks. This actually required major effort including lengthy discussions, compromises, and interactions between the networks for concrete implementation of common platforms and tools. Topics such as measurement units, variable definitions and labeling, data processing methods, data sharing policy, data distribution systems and formats, were key elements that had to be addressed and agreed upon carefully to build integrated and inter-operable research infrastructures (RIs). Today, AmeriFlux and EuroFlux are the basis, not only of the continental research infrastructures (ICOS in Europe), but they are also the driving force behind FLUXNET, where other regional networks are joining this coalition and contributing to the definition of a common system to make complex measurements accessible and comparable across continents. The latest dataset produced from this collaboration includes data contributed by over 200 sites around the world, with records spanning over two decades of data, and has been downloaded by over 900 users in the first 1.5 years of its publication. The core strategy of this collaboration, critical aspects and implemented solutions, as well as the current state of this effort will be presented to stimulate a community discussion aiming at growing the number of participating RIs and/or to stimulate similar processes in other research areas.

A survey of 100 community colleges on student substance use, programming, and collaborations.

PubMed

Chiauzzi, Emil; Donovan, Elizabeth; Black, Ryan; Cooney, Elizabeth; Buechner, Allison; Wood, Mollie

2011-01-01

The objective was to survey community college personnel about student substance use, and infrastructure (staff and funding), programs, and collaborations dedicated to substance use prevention. The sample included 100 administrators, faculty, and health services staff at 100 community colleges. Participants completed a Web-based survey. Participants reported a number of alcohol and other drug (AOD) related concerns. Despite limited staff and funding dedicated to AOD, institutions are implementing a number of programs, although many are not implementing some of the programs popular at traditional 4-year colleges. They are also collaborating with a number of on- and off-campus groups. The availability of staff and funding dedicated to AOD, and the presence of residence halls, is associated with health programming and substance abuse collaborations. Results suggest that there is a need for increased research to understand the most effective AOD prevention strategies for community colleges.

Eco-logical successes : third edition, September 2012

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2012-09-01

Eco-Logical: An Ecosystem Approach to Developing Infrastructure Projects outlines an ecosystem-scale approach to prioritizing, developing, and delivering infrastructure projects. Eco-Logical emphasizes interagency collaboration in order to create inf...

Enhancing Dissemination, Implementation, and Improvement Science in CTSAs through Regional Partnerships.

PubMed

Inkelas, Moira; Brown, Arleen F; Vassar, Stefanie D; Sankaré, Ibrahima C; Martinez, Arturo B; Kubicek, Katrina; Kuo, Tony; Mahajan, Anish; Gould, Michael; Mittman, Brian S

2015-12-01

Challenges in healthcare policy and practice have stimulated interest in dissemination and implementation science. The Institute of Medicine Committee on the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) program recommended expanding the CTSA program's investment and activity in this domain. Guidance is needed to facilitate successful growth of DII science infrastructure, activity and impacts. Several CTSAs in Southern California collaborated to identify and respond to local challenges and opportunities to expand dissemination, implementation and improvement research by strengthening capacity and relationships between DII researchers and community, health system, and population health partners. Planning and outreach by the Southern California CTSAs increased awareness and interest in DII research and generated recommendations for growth. Recommendations include: increasing strong partnerships with healthcare and population health systems to guide policy research agendas and collaborative DII science; promoting multi-sector partnerships that involve researchers and delivery systems throughout DII processes; bringing together multiple disciplines; and addressing national and international barriers as well as opportunities in DII science. CTSAs through regional collaboration can increase their contributions to improved community health via skill-building, partnership development and enhanced outreach to local healthcare and public health agencies and delivery systems. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Enhancing Dissemination, Implementation, and Improvement Science in CTSAs through Regional Partnerships

PubMed Central

Brown, Arleen F.; Vassar, Stefanie D.; Sankaré, Ibrahima C.; Martinez, Arturo B.; Kubicek, Katrina; Kuo, Tony; Mahajan, Anish; Gould, Michael; Mittman, Brian S.

2015-01-01

Abstract Background and Importance Challenges in healthcare policy and practice have stimulated interest in dissemination and implementation science. The Institute of Medicine Committee on the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) program recommended expanding the CTSA program's investment and activity in this domain. Guidance is needed to facilitate successful growth of DII science infrastructure, activity and impacts. Objectives Several CTSAs in Southern California collaborated to identify and respond to local challenges and opportunities to expand dissemination, implementation and improvement research by strengthening capacity and relationships between DII researchers and community, health system, and population health partners. Main outcomes Planning and outreach by the Southern California CTSAs increased awareness and interest in DII research and generated recommendations for growth. Recommendations include: increasing strong partnerships with healthcare and population health systems to guide policy research agendas and collaborative DII science; promoting multi‐sector partnerships that involve researchers and delivery systems throughout DII processes; bringing together multiple disciplines; and addressing national and international barriers as well as opportunities in DII science. Implications CTSAs through regional collaboration can increase their contributions to improved community health via skill‐building, partnership development and enhanced outreach to local healthcare and public health agencies and delivery systems. PMID:26602191

European Scale Earthquake Data Exchange: ORFEUS-EMSC Joint Initiatives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bossu, R.; van Eck, T.

2003-04-01

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) and the Observatories and Research Facilities for European Seismology (ORFEUS) are both active international organisations with different co-ordinating roles within European seismology. Both are non-governmental non-profit organisations, which have members/participants in more than 30 countries in Europe and its surroundings. Although different, their activities are complementary with ORFEUS focusing on broadband waveform data archiving and dissemination and EMSC focusing on seismological parameter data. The main EMSC activities are the alert system for potentially damaging earthquakes, a real time seismicity web page, the production of the Euro-Med. seismological bulletin, and the creation and maintenance of databases related to seismic hazard. All these activities are based on data contributions from seismological Institutes. The EMSC is also involved in a UNESCO programme to promote seismology and data exchange in the Middle-East and Northern Africa. ORFEUS aims at co-ordinating and promoting digital broadband seismology in Europe. To accomplish this, it operates a Data Centre to archive and distribute high quality digital data for research, co-ordinates four working groups and provides services through the Internet. More recently through an EC-infrastructure project MEREDIAN it has accomplished added co-ordination of data exchange and archiving between large European national data centres and realised the Virtual European Broadband Seismograph Network (VEBSN). To accomplish higher efficiency and better services to the seismological community, ORFEUS and EMSC have been working towards a closer collaboration. Fruits of this collaboration are the joint EC project EMICES, a common Expression of Interest 'NERIES' submitted June 2002 to the EC , integration of the automatic picks from the VEBSN into the EMSC rapid alert system and collaboration on common web page developments. Presently, we collaborate in a common EC Infrastructure proposal for European seismology. This presentation will provide a systematic overview of our current collaboration and joint initiatives.

Proceedings of the Inaugural Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance (PeDRA) Conference

PubMed Central

Siegel, Dawn H.; Choate, Keith; Drolet, Beth A.; Frieden, Ilona J.; Teng, Joyce M.; Tom, Wynnis; Williams, Mary; Eichenfield, Lawrence F.; Paller, Amy S.

2014-01-01

Abstract/Statement of the problem Skin disease research involving children currently faces several major hurdles and as a result, many therapies are only available for off-label use in children and many of the most pressing clinical needs of our pediatric population remain unsolved. A strategic planning committee of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology (SPD) identified the need for an organized, inclusive research alliance to augment the resources of individual practitioners and pre-existing smaller collaborative groups and facilitate robust, multicenter basic, translational, and clinical research and therapeutic trials. A December 2011 National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Roundtable on Pediatric Dermatology further detailed the therapeutic gaps and barriers to translation of scientific advances to clinical practice. Building on these forums, in July 2012, a group of interested investigators met in Monterey, CA to develop the infrastructure for collaborative pediatric skin research, now called the Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance (PeDRA). The vision of PeDRA is to create sustainable collaborative research networks to better understand, prevent, treat and cure dermatologic diseases in children. From that starting point, subcommittees and expert members were added, stakeholders identified, and seed funding garnered, with the first PeDRA stand-alone research meeting* realized in Chicago, IL in October 2013. PMID:25318428

Grid computing technology for hydrological applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lecca, G.; Petitdidier, M.; Hluchy, L.; Ivanovic, M.; Kussul, N.; Ray, N.; Thieron, V.

2011-06-01

SummaryAdvances in e-Infrastructure promise to revolutionize sensing systems and the way in which data are collected and assimilated, and complex water systems are simulated and visualized. According to the EU Infrastructure 2010 work-programme, data and compute infrastructures and their underlying technologies, either oriented to tackle scientific challenges or complex problem solving in engineering, are expected to converge together into the so-called knowledge infrastructures, leading to a more effective research, education and innovation in the next decade and beyond. Grid technology is recognized as a fundamental component of e-Infrastructures. Nevertheless, this emerging paradigm highlights several topics, including data management, algorithm optimization, security, performance (speed, throughput, bandwidth, etc.), and scientific cooperation and collaboration issues that require further examination to fully exploit it and to better inform future research policies. The paper illustrates the results of six different surface and subsurface hydrology applications that have been deployed on the Grid. All the applications aim to answer to strong requirements from the Civil Society at large, relatively to natural and anthropogenic risks. Grid technology has been successfully tested to improve flood prediction, groundwater resources management and Black Sea hydrological survey, by providing large computing resources. It is also shown that Grid technology facilitates e-cooperation among partners by means of services for authentication and authorization, seamless access to distributed data sources, data protection and access right, and standardization.

Norwegian Ocean Observatory Network (NOON)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferré, Bénédicte; Mienert, Jürgen; Winther, Svein; Hageberg, Anne; Rune Godoe, Olav; Partners, Noon

2010-05-01

The Norwegian Ocean Observatory Network (NOON) is led by the University of Tromsø and collaborates with the Universities of Oslo and Bergen, UniResearch, Institute of Marine Research, Christian Michelsen Research and SINTEF. It is supported by the Research Council of Norway and oil and gas (O&G) industries like Statoil to develop science, technology and new educational programs. Main topics relate to ocean climate and environment as well as marine resources offshore Norway from the northern North Atlantic to the Arctic Ocean. NOON's vision is to bring Norway to the international forefront in using cable based ocean observatory technology for marine science and management, by establishing an infrastructure that enables real-time and long term monitoring of processes and interactions between hydrosphere, geosphere and biosphere. This activity is in concert with the EU funded European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) roadmap and European Multidisciplinary Seafloor Observation (EMSO) project to attract international leading research developments. NOON envisions developing towards a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). Beside, the research community in Norway already possesses a considerable marine infrastructure that can expand towards an international focus for real-time multidisciplinary observations in times of rapid climate change. PIC The presently established cable-based fjord observatory, followed by the establishment of a cable-based ocean observatory network towards the Arctic from an O&G installation, will provide invaluable knowledge and experience necessary to make a successful larger cable-based observatory network at the Norwegian and Arctic margin (figure 1). Access to large quantities of real-time observation from the deep sea, including high definition video, could be used to provide the public and future recruits to science a fascinating insight into an almost unexplored part of the Earth beyond the Arctic Circle. More information about NOON is available at NOON's web site www.oceanobservatory.com. PIC

The Application of Collaborative Business Intelligence Technology in the Hospital SPD Logistics Management Model.

PubMed

Liu, Tongzhu; Shen, Aizong; Hu, Xiaojian; Tong, Guixian; Gu, Wei

2017-06-01

We aimed to apply collaborative business intelligence (BI) system to hospital supply, processing and distribution (SPD) logistics management model. We searched Engineering Village database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Google for articles (Published from 2011 to 2016), books, Web pages, etc., to understand SPD and BI related theories and recent research status. For the application of collaborative BI technology in the hospital SPD logistics management model, we realized this by leveraging data mining techniques to discover knowledge from complex data and collaborative techniques to improve the theories of business process. For the application of BI system, we: (i) proposed a layered structure of collaborative BI system for intelligent management in hospital logistics; (ii) built data warehouse for the collaborative BI system; (iii) improved data mining techniques such as supporting vector machines (SVM) and swarm intelligence firefly algorithm to solve key problems in hospital logistics collaborative BI system; (iv) researched the collaborative techniques oriented to data and business process optimization to improve the business processes of hospital logistics management. Proper combination of SPD model and BI system will improve the management of logistics in the hospitals. The successful implementation of the study requires: (i) to innovate and improve the traditional SPD model and make appropriate implement plans and schedules for the application of BI system according to the actual situations of hospitals; (ii) the collaborative participation of internal departments in hospital including the department of information, logistics, nursing, medical and financial; (iii) timely response of external suppliers.

Bridging basic and clinical science with policy studies: The Partners with Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers experience.

PubMed

Kobus, Kimberly; Mermelstein, Robin

2009-05-01

The Partners with Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers (TTURCs) initiative was a transdisciplinary team-building program, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to expand the policy research capacity of the TTURCs. EXPANSION INTO POLICY RESEARCh: Policy research activities at the TTURCs fell into four broad domains: (a) health services research, (b) examination of the business case for cessation treatment and funding, (c) collaborative teams with key stakeholders, and (d) direct assessment of smoking-related policies. Examples of each domain are presented. Goals of the initiative included efforts to foster collaborative, transdisciplinary research, to bring new investigators into the field, to develop programs of policy research, to answer next-step translational questions, and to enhance awareness of policy relevance. Success at meeting each of these goals is discussed. We offer recommendations for incorporating programs of policy research into full-spectrum transdisciplinary research initiatives, including the roles of research teams, senior researchers, infrastructure, stakeholders, and communications activities. The TTURC Partners initiative represented a first-generation effort to fill the gap between scientific discovery and research translation through expansion into policy studies. While all aspects of the effort were not equally successful, the effort demonstrated that it is possible to develop successful collaborations that extend more basic and applied research into studies that examine their policy and practice implications.

Integration of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene for the Prevention and Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases: A Rationale for Inter-Sectoral Collaboration

PubMed Central

Jacobson, Julie; Abbott, Daniel; Addiss, David G.; Amnie, Asrat G.; Beckwith, Colin; Cairncross, Sandy; Callejas, Rafael; Colford, Jack M.; Emerson, Paul M.; Fenwick, Alan; Fishman, Rebecca; Gallo, Kerry; Grimes, Jack; Karapetyan, Gagik; Keene, Brooks; Lammie, Patrick J.; MacArthur, Chad; Lochery, Peter; Petach, Helen; Platt, Jennifer; Prabasi, Sarina; Rosenboom, Jan Willem; Roy, Sharon; Saywell, Darren; Schechtman, Lisa; Tantri, Anupama; Velleman, Yael; Utzinger, Jürg

2013-01-01

Improvements of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure and appropriate health-seeking behavior are necessary for achieving sustained control, elimination, or eradication of many neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Indeed, the global strategies to fight NTDs include provision of WASH, but few programs have specific WASH targets and approaches. Collaboration between disease control programs and stakeholders in WASH is a critical next step. A group of stakeholders from the NTD control, child health, and WASH sectors convened in late 2012 to discuss opportunities for, and barriers to, collaboration. The group agreed on a common vision, namely “Disease-free communities that have adequate and equitable access to water and sanitation, and that practice good hygiene.” Four key areas of collaboration were identified, including (i) advocacy, policy, and communication; (ii) capacity building and training; (iii) mapping, data collection, and monitoring; and (iv) research. We discuss strategic opportunities and ways forward for enhanced collaboration between the WASH and the NTD sectors. PMID:24086781

Integration of water, sanitation, and hygiene for the prevention and control of neglected tropical diseases: a rationale for inter-sectoral collaboration.

PubMed

Freeman, Matthew C; Ogden, Stephanie; Jacobson, Julie; Abbott, Daniel; Addiss, David G; Amnie, Asrat G; Beckwith, Colin; Cairncross, Sandy; Callejas, Rafael; Colford, Jack M; Emerson, Paul M; Fenwick, Alan; Fishman, Rebecca; Gallo, Kerry; Grimes, Jack; Karapetyan, Gagik; Keene, Brooks; Lammie, Patrick J; Macarthur, Chad; Lochery, Peter; Petach, Helen; Platt, Jennifer; Prabasi, Sarina; Rosenboom, Jan Willem; Roy, Sharon; Saywell, Darren; Schechtman, Lisa; Tantri, Anupama; Velleman, Yael; Utzinger, Jürg

2013-01-01

Improvements of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure and appropriate health-seeking behavior are necessary for achieving sustained control, elimination, or eradication of many neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Indeed, the global strategies to fight NTDs include provision of WASH, but few programs have specific WASH targets and approaches. Collaboration between disease control programs and stakeholders in WASH is a critical next step. A group of stakeholders from the NTD control, child health, and WASH sectors convened in late 2012 to discuss opportunities for, and barriers to, collaboration. The group agreed on a common vision, namely "Disease-free communities that have adequate and equitable access to water and sanitation, and that practice good hygiene." Four key areas of collaboration were identified, including (i) advocacy, policy, and communication; (ii) capacity building and training; (iii) mapping, data collection, and monitoring; and (iv) research. We discuss strategic opportunities and ways forward for enhanced collaboration between the WASH and the NTD sectors.

The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network: a history of multicenter collaboration in the United States.

PubMed

Tzimenatos, Leah; Kim, Emily; Kuppermann, Nathan

2014-12-01

In this article, we review the history and progress of a large multicenter research network pertaining to emergency medical services for children. We describe the history, organization, infrastructure, and research agenda of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN), and highlight some of the important accomplishments since its inception. We also describe the network's strategy to grow its research portfolio, train new investigators, and study how to translate new evidence into practice. This strategy ensures not only the sustainability of the network in the future, but the growth of research in emergency medical services for children in general.

The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network: a history of multicenter collaboration in the United States.

PubMed

Tzimenatos, Leah; Kim, Emily; Kuppermann, Nathan

2015-01-01

In this article, we review the history and progress of a large multicenter research network pertaining to emergency medical services for children. We describe the history, organization, infrastructure, and research agenda of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network and highlight some of the important accomplishments since its inception. We also describe the network's strategy to grow its research portfolio, train new investigators, and study how to translate new evidence into practice. This strategy ensures not only the sustainability of the network in the future but the growth of research in emergency medical services for children in general.

The Da Vinci European BioBank: A Metabolomics-Driven Infrastructure

PubMed Central

Carotenuto, Dario; Luchinat, Claudio; Marcon, Giordana; Rosato, Antonio; Turano, Paola

2015-01-01

We present here the organization of the recently-constituted da Vinci European BioBank (daVEB, https://www.davincieuropeanbiobank.org/it). The biobank was created as an infrastructure to support the activities of the Fiorgen Foundation (http://www.fiorgen.net/), a nonprofit organization that promotes research in the field of pharmacogenomics and personalized medicine. The way operating procedures concerning samples and data have been developed at daVEB largely stems from the strong metabolomics connotation of Fiorgen and from the involvement of the scientific collaborators of the foundation in international/European projects aimed to tackle the standardization of pre-analytical procedures and the promotion of data standards in metabolomics. PMID:25913579

ESIP Federation: A Case Study on Enabling Collaboration Infrastructure to Support Earth Science Informatics Communities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Robinson, E.; Meyer, C. B.; Benedict, K. K.

2013-12-01

A critical part of effective Earth science data and information system interoperability involves collaboration across geographically and temporally distributed communities. The Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) is a broad-based, distributed community of science, data and information technology practitioners from across science domains, economic sectors and the data lifecycle. ESIP's open, participatory structure provides a melting pot for coordinating around common areas of interest, experimenting on innovative ideas and capturing and finding best practices and lessons learned from across the network. Since much of ESIP's work is distributed, the Foundation for Earth Science was established as a non-profit home for its supportive collaboration infrastructure. The infrastructure leverages the Internet and recent advances in collaboration web services. ESIP provides neutral space for self-governed groups to emerge around common Earth science data and information issues, ebbing and flowing as the need for them arises. As a group emerges, the Foundation quickly equips the virtual workgroup with a set of ';commodity services'. These services include: web meeting technology (Webex), a wiki and an email listserv. WebEx allows the group to work synchronously, dynamically viewing and discussing shared information in real time. The wiki is the group's primary workspace and over time creates organizational memory. The listserv provides an inclusive way to email the group and archive all messages for future reference. These three services lower the startup barrier for collaboration and enable automatic content preservation to allow for future work. While many of ESIP's consensus-building activities are discussion-based, the Foundation supports an ESIP testbed environment for exploring and evaluating prototype standards, services, protocols, and best practices. After community review of testbed proposals, the Foundation provides small seed funding and a toolbox of collaborative development resources including Amazon Web Services to quickly spin-up the testbed instance and a GitHub account for maintaining testbed project code enabling reuse. Recently, the Foundation supported development of the ESIP Commons (http://commons.esipfed.org), a Drupal-based knowledge repository for non-traditional publications to preserve community products and outcomes like white papers, posters and proceedings. The ESIP Commons adds additional structured metadata, provides attribution to contributors and allows those unfamiliar with ESIP a straightforward way to find information. The success of ESIP Federation activities is difficult to measure. The ESIP Commons is a step toward quantifying sponsor return on investment and is one dataset used in network map analysis of the ESIP community network, another success metric. Over the last 15 years, ESIP has continually grown and attracted experts in the Earth science data and informatics field becoming a primary locus of research and development on the application and evolution of Earth science data standards and conventions. As funding agencies push toward a more collaborative approach, the lessons learned from ESIP and the collaboration services themselves are a crucial component of supporting science research.

Application of the dynamically allocated virtual clustering management system to emulated tactical network experimentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marcus, Kelvin

2014-06-01

The U.S Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has built a "Network Science Research Lab" to support research that aims to improve their ability to analyze, predict, design, and govern complex systems that interweave the social/cognitive, information, and communication network genres. Researchers at ARL and the Network Science Collaborative Technology Alliance (NS-CTA), a collaborative research alliance funded by ARL, conducted experimentation to determine if automated network monitoring tools and task-aware agents deployed within an emulated tactical wireless network could potentially increase the retrieval of relevant data from heterogeneous distributed information nodes. ARL and NS-CTA required the capability to perform this experimentation over clusters of heterogeneous nodes with emulated wireless tactical networks where each node could contain different operating systems, application sets, and physical hardware attributes. Researchers utilized the Dynamically Allocated Virtual Clustering Management System (DAVC) to address each of the infrastructure support requirements necessary in conducting their experimentation. The DAVC is an experimentation infrastructure that provides the means to dynamically create, deploy, and manage virtual clusters of heterogeneous nodes within a cloud computing environment based upon resource utilization such as CPU load, available RAM and hard disk space. The DAVC uses 802.1Q Virtual LANs (VLANs) to prevent experimentation crosstalk and to allow for complex private networks. Clusters created by the DAVC system can be utilized for software development, experimentation, and integration with existing hardware and software. The goal of this paper is to explore how ARL and the NS-CTA leveraged the DAVC to create, deploy and manage multiple experimentation clusters to support their experimentation goals.

Opportunities and challenges for comparative effectiveness research (CER) with Electronic Clinical Data: a perspective from the EDM forum.

PubMed

Holve, Erin; Segal, Courtney; Hamilton Lopez, Marianne

2012-07-01

The Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum brings together perspectives from the Prospective Outcome Systems using Patient-specific Electronic data to Compare Tests and therapies (PROSPECT) studies, the Scalable Distributed Research Networks, and the Enhanced Registries projects. This paper discusses challenges faced by the research teams as part of their efforts to develop electronic clinical data (ECD) infrastructure to support comparative effectiveness research (CER). The findings reflect a set of opportunities for transdisciplinary learning, and will ideally enhance the transparency and generalizability of CER using ECD. Findings are based on 6 exploratory site visits conducted under naturalistic inquiry in the spring of 2011. Themes, challenges, and innovations were identified in the visit summaries through coding, keyword searches, and review for complex concepts. : The identified overarching challenges and emerging opportunities include: the substantial level of effort to establish and sustain data sharing partnerships; the importance of understanding the strengths and limitations of clinical informatics tools, platforms, and models that have emerged to enable research with ECD; the need for rigorous methods to assess data validity, quality, and context for multisite studies; and, emerging opportunities to achieve meaningful patient and consumer engagement and work collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams. The new infrastructure must evolve to serve a diverse set of potential users and must scale to address a range of CER or patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) questions. To achieve this aim-to improve the quality, transparency, and reproducibility of CER and PCOR-a high level of collaboration and support is necessary to foster partnership and best practices as part of the EDM Forum.

Skate Genome Project: Cyber-Enabled Bioinformatics Collaboration

PubMed Central

Vincent, J.

2011-01-01

The Skate Genome Project, a pilot project of the North East Cyber infrastructure Consortium, aims to produce a draft genome sequence of Leucoraja erinacea, the Little Skate. The pilot project was designed to also develop expertise in large scale collaborations across the NECC region. An overview of the bioinformatics and infrastructure challenges faced during the first year of the project will be presented. Results to date and lessons learned from the perspective of a bioinformatics core will be highlighted.

Scalability Issues for Remote Sensing Infrastructure: A Case Study.

PubMed

Liu, Yang; Picard, Sean; Williamson, Carey

2017-04-29

For the past decade, a team of University of Calgary researchers has operated a large "sensor Web" to collect, analyze, and share scientific data from remote measurement instruments across northern Canada. This sensor Web receives real-time data streams from over a thousand Internet-connected sensors, with a particular emphasis on environmental data (e.g., space weather, auroral phenomena, atmospheric imaging). Through research collaborations, we had the opportunity to evaluate the performance and scalability of their remote sensing infrastructure. This article reports the lessons learned from our study, which considered both data collection and data dissemination aspects of their system. On the data collection front, we used benchmarking techniques to identify and fix a performance bottleneck in the system's memory management for TCP data streams, while also improving system efficiency on multi-core architectures. On the data dissemination front, we used passive and active network traffic measurements to identify and reduce excessive network traffic from the Web robots and JavaScript techniques used for data sharing. While our results are from one specific sensor Web system, the lessons learned may apply to other scientific Web sites with remote sensing infrastructure.

Strengthening International Collaboration: Geosciences Research and Education in Developing Countries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fucugauchi, J. U.

2009-05-01

Geophysical research increasingly requires global multidisciplinary approaches and global integration. Global warming, increasing CO2 levels and increased needs of mineral and energy resources emphasize impact of human activities. The planetary view of our Earth as a deeply complex interconnected system also emphasizes the need of international scientific cooperation. International collaboration presents an immense potential and is urgently needed for further development of geosciences research and education. In analyzing international collaboration a relevant aspect is the role of scientific societies. Societies organize meetings, publish journals and books and promote cooperation through academic exchange activities and can further assist communities in developing countries providing and facilitating access to scientific literature, attendance to international meetings, short and long-term stays and student and young researcher mobility. Developing countries present additional challenges resulting from limited economic resources and social and political problems. Most countries urgently require improved educational and research programs. Needed are in-depth analyses of infrastructure and human resources and identification of major problems and needs. Questions may include what are the major limitations and needs in research and postgraduate education in developing countries? what and how should international collaboration do? and what are the roles of individuals, academic institutions, funding agencies, scientific societies? Here we attempt to examine some of these questions with reference to case examples and AGU role. We focus on current situation, size and characteristics of research community, education programs, facilities, economic support, and then move to perspectives for potential development in an international context.

Moving research to practice through partnership: a case study in Asphalt Paving.

PubMed

Chang, Charlotte; Nixon, Laura; Baker, Robin

2015-08-01

Multi-stakeholder partnerships play a critical role in dissemination and implementation in health and safety. To better document and understand construction partnerships that have successfully scaled up effective interventions to protect workers, this case study focused on the collaborative processes of the Asphalt Paving Partnership. In the 1990s, this partnership developed, evaluated, disseminated, and achieved near universal, voluntary adoption of paver engineering controls to reduce exposure to asphalt fumes. We used in-depth interviews (n = 15) and document review in the case study. We describe contextual factors that both facilitated and challenged the formation of the collaboration, central themes and group processes, and research to practice (r2p) outcomes. The Asphalt Paving Partnership offers insight into how multi-stakeholder partnerships in construction can draw upon the strengths of diverse members to improve the dissemination and adoption of health and safety innovations and build a collaborative infrastructure to sustain momentum over time. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Regional climate response collaboratives: Multi-institutional support for climate resilience

USGS Publications Warehouse

Averyt, Kristen; Derner, Justin D.; Dilling, Lisa; Guerrero, Rafael; Joyce, Linda A.; McNeeley, Shannon; McNie, Elizabeth; Morisette, Jeffrey T.; Ojima, Dennis; O'Malley, Robin; Peck, Dannele; Ray, Andrea J.; Reeves, Matt; Travis, William

2018-01-01

Federal investments by U.S. agencies to enhance climate resilience at regional scales grew over the past decade (2010s). To maximize efficiency and effectiveness in serving multiple sectors and scales, it has become critical to leverage existing agency-specific research, infrastructure, and capacity while avoiding redundancy. We discuss lessons learned from a multi-institutional “regional climate response collaborative” that comprises three different federally-supported climate service entities in the Rocky Mountain west and northern plains region. These lessons include leveraging different strengths of each partner, creating deliberate mechanisms to increase cross-entity communication and joint ownership of projects, and placing a common priority on stakeholder-relevant research and outcomes. We share the conditions that fostered successful collaboration, which can be transferred elsewhere, and suggest mechanisms for overcoming potential barriers. Synergies are essential for producing actionable research that informs climate-related decisions for stakeholders and ultimately enhances climate resilience at regional scales.

Medical education practice-based research networks: Facilitating collaborative research.

PubMed

Schwartz, Alan; Young, Robin; Hicks, Patricia J

2016-01-01

Research networks formalize and institutionalize multi-site collaborations by establishing an infrastructure that enables network members to participate in research, propose new studies, and exploit study data to move the field forward. Although practice-based clinical research networks are now widespread, medical education research networks are rapidly emerging. In this article, we offer a definition of the medical education practice-based research network, a brief description of networks in existence in July 2014 and their features, and a more detailed case study of the emergence and early growth of one such network, the Association of Pediatric Program Directors Longitudinal Educational Assessment Research Network (APPD LEARN). We searched for extant networks through peer-reviewed literature and the world-wide web. We identified 15 research networks in medical education founded since 2002 with membership ranging from 8 to 120 programs. Most focus on graduate medical education in primary care or emergency medicine specialties. We offer four recommendations for the further development and spread of medical education research networks: increasing faculty development, obtaining central resources, studying networks themselves, and developing networks of networks.

Medical education practice-based research networks: Facilitating collaborative research

PubMed Central

Schwartz, Alan; Young, Robin; Hicks, Patricia J.; APPD LEARN, For

2016-01-01

Abstract Background: Research networks formalize and institutionalize multi-site collaborations by establishing an infrastructure that enables network members to participate in research, propose new studies, and exploit study data to move the field forward. Although practice-based clinical research networks are now widespread, medical education research networks are rapidly emerging. Aims: In this article, we offer a definition of the medical education practice-based research network, a brief description of networks in existence in July 2014 and their features, and a more detailed case study of the emergence and early growth of one such network, the Association of Pediatric Program Directors Longitudinal Educational Assessment Research Network (APPD LEARN). Methods: We searched for extant networks through peer-reviewed literature and the world-wide web. Results: We identified 15 research networks in medical education founded since 2002 with membership ranging from 8 to 120 programs. Most focus on graduate medical education in primary care or emergency medicine specialties. Conclusions: We offer four recommendations for the further development and spread of medical education research networks: increasing faculty development, obtaining central resources, studying networks themselves, and developing networks of networks. PMID:25319404

Collaborative workbench for cyberinfrastructure to accelerate science algorithm development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramachandran, R.; Maskey, M.; Kuo, K.; Lynnes, C.

2013-12-01

There are significant untapped resources for information and knowledge creation within the Earth Science community in the form of data, algorithms, services, analysis workflows or scripts, and the related knowledge about these resources. Despite the huge growth in social networking and collaboration platforms, these resources often reside on an investigator's workstation or laboratory and are rarely shared. A major reason for this is that there are very few scientific collaboration platforms, and those that exist typically require the use of a new set of analysis tools and paradigms to leverage the shared infrastructure. As a result, adoption of these collaborative platforms for science research is inhibited by the high cost to an individual scientist of switching from his or her own familiar environment and set of tools to a new environment and tool set. This presentation will describe an ongoing project developing an Earth Science Collaborative Workbench (CWB). The CWB approach will eliminate this barrier by augmenting a scientist's current research environment and tool set to allow him or her to easily share diverse data and algorithms. The CWB will leverage evolving technologies such as commodity computing and social networking to design an architecture for scalable collaboration that will support the emerging vision of an Earth Science Collaboratory. The CWB is being implemented on the robust and open source Eclipse framework and will be compatible with widely used scientific analysis tools such as IDL. The myScience Catalog built into CWB will capture and track metadata and provenance about data and algorithms for the researchers in a non-intrusive manner with minimal overhead. Seamless interfaces to multiple Cloud services will support sharing algorithms, data, and analysis results, as well as access to storage and computer resources. A Community Catalog will track the use of shared science artifacts and manage collaborations among researchers.

Fragmented Romanian sociology: growth and structure of the collaboration network.

PubMed

Hâncean, Marian-Gabriel; Perc, Matjaž; Vlăsceanu, Lazăr

2014-01-01

Structural patterns in collaboration networks are essential for understanding how new ideas, research practices, innovation or cooperation circulate and develop within academic communities and between and within university departments. In our research, we explore and investigate the structure of the collaboration network formed by the academics working full-time within all the 17 sociology departments across Romania. We show that the collaboration network is sparse and fragmented, and that it constitutes an environment that does not promote the circulation of new ideas and innovation within the field. Although recent years have witnessed an increase in the productivity of Romanian sociologists, there is still ample room for improvement in terms of the interaction infrastructure that ought to link individuals together so that they could maximize their potentials. We also fail to discern evidence in favor of the Matthew effect governing the growth of the network, which suggests scientific success and productivity are not rewarded. Instead, the structural properties of the collaboration network are partly those of a core-periphery network, where the spread of innovation and change can be explained by structural equivalence rather than by interpersonal influence models. We also provide support for the idea that, within the observed network, collaboration is the product of homophily rather than prestige effects. Further research on the subject based on data from other countries in the region is needed to place our results in a comparative framework, in particular to discern whether the behavior of the Romanian sociologist community is unique or rather common.

Fragmented Romanian Sociology: Growth and Structure of the Collaboration Network

PubMed Central

Hâncean, Marian-Gabriel; Perc, Matjaž; Vlăsceanu, Lazăr

2014-01-01

Structural patterns in collaboration networks are essential for understanding how new ideas, research practices, innovation or cooperation circulate and develop within academic communities and between and within university departments. In our research, we explore and investigate the structure of the collaboration network formed by the academics working full-time within all the 17 sociology departments across Romania. We show that the collaboration network is sparse and fragmented, and that it constitutes an environment that does not promote the circulation of new ideas and innovation within the field. Although recent years have witnessed an increase in the productivity of Romanian sociologists, there is still ample room for improvement in terms of the interaction infrastructure that ought to link individuals together so that they could maximize their potentials. We also fail to discern evidence in favor of the Matthew effect governing the growth of the network, which suggests scientific success and productivity are not rewarded. Instead, the structural properties of the collaboration network are partly those of a core-periphery network, where the spread of innovation and change can be explained by structural equivalence rather than by interpersonal influence models. We also provide support for the idea that, within the observed network, collaboration is the product of homophily rather than prestige effects. Further research on the subject based on data from other countries in the region is needed to place our results in a comparative framework, in particular to discern whether the behavior of the Romanian sociologist community is unique or rather common. PMID:25409180

Raising Virtual Laboratories in Australia onto global platforms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wyborn, L. A.; Barker, M.; Fraser, R.; Evans, B. J. K.; Moloney, G.; Proctor, R.; Moise, A. F.; Hamish, H.

2016-12-01

Across the globe, Virtual Laboratories (VLs), Science Gateways (SGs), and Virtual Research Environments (VREs) are being developed that enable users who are not co-located to actively work together at various scales to share data, models, tools, software, workflows, best practices, etc. Outcomes range from enabling `long tail' researchers to more easily access specific data collections, to facilitating complex workflows on powerful supercomputers. In Australia, government funding has facilitated the development of a range of VLs through the National eResearch Collaborative Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) program. The VLs provide highly collaborative, research-domain oriented, integrated software infrastructures that meet user community needs. Twelve VLs have been funded since 2012, including the Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL); Virtual Hazards, Impact and Risk Laboratory (VHIRL); Climate and Weather Science Laboratory (CWSLab); Marine Virtual Laboratory (MarVL); and Biodiversity and Climate Change Virtual Laboratory (BCCVL). These VLs share similar technical challenges, with common issues emerging on integration of tools, applications and access data collections via both cloud-based environments and other distributed resources. While each VL began with a focus on a specific research domain, communities of practice have now formed across the VLs around common issues, and facilitate identification of best practice case studies, and new standards. As a result, tools are now being shared where the VLs access data via data services using international standards such as ISO, OGC, W3C. The sharing of these approaches is starting to facilitate re-usability of infrastructure and is a step towards supporting interdisciplinary research. Whilst the focus of the VLs are Australia-centric, by using standards, these environments are able to be extended to analysis on other international datasets. Many VL datasets are subsets of global datasets and so extension to global is a small (and often requested) step. Similarly, most of the tools, software, and other technologies could be shared across infrastructures globally. Therefore, it is now time to better connect the Australian VLs with similar initiatives elsewhere to create international platforms that can contribute to global research challenges.

Behavioural science at work for Canada: National Research Council laboratories.

PubMed

Veitch, Jennifer A

2007-03-01

The National Research Council is Canada's principal research and development agency. Its 20 institutes are structured to address interdisciplinary problems for industrial sectors, and to provide the necessary scientific infrastructure, such as the national science library. Behavioural scientists are active in five institutes: Biological Sciences, Biodiagnostics, Aerospace, Information Technology, and Construction. Research topics include basic cellular neuroscience, brain function, human factors in the cockpit, human-computer interaction, emergency evacuation, and indoor environment effects on occupants. Working in collaboration with NRC colleagues and with researchers from universities and industry, NRC behavioural scientists develop knowledge, designs, and applications that put technology to work for people, designed with people in mind.

The Importance of Earth Observations and Data Collaboration within Environmental Intelligence Supporting Arctic Research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Casas, Joseph

2017-01-01

Within the IARPC Collaboration Team activities of 2016, Arctic in-situ and remote earth observations advanced topics such as :1) exploring the role for new and innovative autonomous observing technologies in the Arctic; 2) advancing catalytic national and international community based observing efforts in support of the National Strategy for the Arctic Region; and 3) enhancing the use of discovery tools for observing system collaboration such as the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Arctic Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Arctic Collaborative Environment (ACE) project geo reference visualization decision support and exploitation internet based tools. Critical to the success of these earth observations for both in-situ and remote systems is the emerging of new and innovative data collection technologies and comprehensive modeling as well as enhanced communications and cyber infrastructure capabilities which effectively assimilate and dissemination many environmental intelligence products in a timely manner. The Arctic Collaborative Environment (ACE) project is well positioned to greatly enhance user capabilities for accessing, organizing, visualizing, sharing and producing collaborative knowledge for the Arctic.

Cyberhubs: Virtual Research Environments for Astronomy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Herwig, Falk; Andrassy, Robert; Annau, Nic; Clarkson, Ondrea; Côté, Benoit; D’Sa, Aaron; Jones, Sam; Moa, Belaid; O’Connell, Jericho; Porter, David; Ritter, Christian; Woodward, Paul

2018-05-01

Collaborations in astronomy and astrophysics are faced with numerous cyber-infrastructure challenges, such as large data sets, the need to combine heterogeneous data sets, and the challenge to effectively collaborate on those large, heterogeneous data sets with significant processing requirements and complex science software tools. The cyberhubs system is an easy-to-deploy package for small- to medium-sized collaborations based on the Jupyter and Docker technology, which allows web-browser-enabled, remote, interactive analytic access to shared data. It offers an initial step to address these challenges. The features and deployment steps of the system are described, as well as the requirements collection through an account of the different approaches to data structuring, handling, and available analytic tools for the NuGrid and PPMstar collaborations. NuGrid is an international collaboration that creates stellar evolution and explosion physics and nucleosynthesis simulation data. The PPMstar collaboration performs large-scale 3D stellar hydrodynamics simulations of interior convection in the late phases of stellar evolution. Examples of science that is currently performed on cyberhubs, in the areas of 3D stellar hydrodynamic simulations, stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis, and Galactic chemical evolution, are presented.

Role of Scientific Societies in International Collaboration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fucugauchi, J. U.

2007-12-01

Geophysical research increasingly requires global multidisciplinary approaches. Understanding how deeply interrelated are Earth components and processes, population growth, increased needs of mineral and energy resources, global impact of human activities, and view of our planet as an interconnected system emphasizes the need of international cooperation. International research collaboration has an immense potential and is needed for further development of Earth science research and education. The Union Session is planned to provide a forum for analysis and discussion of the status of research and education of geosciences in developing countries, international collaboration programs and new initiatives for promoting and strengthening scientific cooperation. A theme of particular relevance in the analyses and discussions is the role of scientific societies in international collaboration. Societies organize meetings, publish journals and books and promote cooperation through academic exchange activities. They may further assist communities in developing countries in providing and facilitating access to scientific literature, attendance to international meetings, short and long-term stays and student and young researcher mobility. What else can be done? This is a complex subject and scientific societies may not be seen independently from the many factors involved in research and education. Developing countries present additional challenges resulting from limited economic resources and social and political problems, while urgently requiring improved educational and research programs. Needed are in-depth analyses of infrastructure and human resources, and identification of major problems and needs. What are the major limitations and needs in research and postgraduate education in developing countries? What and how should international collaboration do? What are the roles of individuals, academic institutions, funding agencies, scientific societies? Here we attempt to examine some of these questions from analyses and examples in Latin America. We concentrate on current situation, size and characteristics of research community, education programs, facilities, economic support, and bilateral and multinational collaborations, and then move to perspectives for future development in an international context.

WDS/DSA Certification - International collaboration for a trustworthy research data infrastructure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mokrane, Mustapha; Hugo, Wim; Harrison, Sandy

2016-04-01

Today's research is international, transdisciplinary, and data-enabled, which requires scrupulous data stewardship, full and open access to data, and efficient collaboration and coordination. New expectations on researchers based on policies from governments and funders to share data fully, openly, and in a timely manner present significant challenges but are also opportunities to improve the quality and efficiency of research and its accountability to society. Researchers should be able to archive and disseminate data as required by many institutions or funders, and civil society to scrutinize datasets underlying public policies. Thus, the trustworthiness of data services must be verifiable. In addition, the need to integrate large and complex datasets across disciplines and domains with variable levels of maturity calls for greater coordination to achieve sufficient interoperability and sustainability. The World Data System (WDS) of the International Council for Science (ICSU) promotes long-term stewardship of, and universal and equitable access to, quality-assured scientific data and services across a range of disciplines in the natural and social sciences. WDS aims at coordinating and supporting trusted scientific data services for the provision, use, and preservation of relevant datasets to facilitate scientific research, in particular under the ICSU umbrella, while strengthening their links with the research community. WDS certifies its Members, holders and providers of data or data products, using internationally recognized standards. Certification of scientific data services is essential to ensure trustworthiness of the global research data infrastructure. It contributes to building a searchable, distributed, interoperable and sustainable research data infrastructure. Several certification standards have been developed over the last decade, such as the Network of Expertise in long-term Storage and Accessibility of Digital Resources in Germany (NESTOR) seal, German Institute for Standardization (DIN) standard 31644, Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC) criteria and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 16363. In addition, the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) and WDS have set up core certification mechanisms for trusted digital repositories in 2009, which are increasingly recognized as de facto standards. While DSA emerged in Europe in the Humanities and Social Sciences, WDS started as an international initiative with historical roots in the Earth and Space Sciences. Their catalogues of requirements and review procedures are based on the same principles of openness, transparency. A unique feature of the DSA and WDS certification is that it strikes a balance between simplicity, robustness and the effort required to complete. A successful international cross-project collaboration was initiated between WDS and DSA under the umbrella of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), an international initiative started in 2013 to promote data interoperability which provided a useful and neutral forum. A joint working group was established in early 2014 to reconcile and simplify the array of certification options and improve and stimulate core certification for scientific data services. The outputs of this collaboration are a Catalogue of Common Requirements (https://goo.gl/LJZqDo) and a Catalogue of Common Procedures (https://goo.gl/vNR0q1) which will be implemented jointly by WDS and DSA.

Emergency medicine in Dubai, UAE.

PubMed

Partridge, Robert; Abbo, Michael; Virk, Alamjit

2009-08-18

Dubai has rapidly risen to prominence in the Persian Gulf region as a center of global commerce and tourism and as a cultural crossroad between East and West. The health-care infrastructure has undergone rapid development. Collaborations with academic medical centers now exist to advance clinical care, teaching and research. Emergency medicine has also advanced and is undergoing dynamic change. Dubai may soon emerge as a regional leader in emergency medicine training and practice.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Alan M Kaplan

This grant will be used to augment the equipment infrastructure and core support at the University of Kentucky and the University of Alabama particularly in the areas of genomics/informatics, molecular analysis and cell separation. In addition, we will promote collaborative research interactions through scientific workshops and exchange of scientists, as well as joint exploration of the role of immune receptors as targets in autoimmunity and host defense, innate and adaptive immune responses, and mucosal immunity in host defense.

Bachelor of Science-Engineering Technology Program and Fuel Cell Education Program Concentration

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Block, David L.; Sleiti, Ahmad

2011-09-19

The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology education project has addressed DOE goals by supplying readily available, objective, technical, and accurate information that is available to students, industry and the public. In addition, the program has supplied educated trainers and training opportunities for the next generation workforce needed for research, development, and demonstration activities in government, industry, and academia. The project has successfully developed courses and associated laboratories, taught the new courses and labs and integrated the HFCT option into the accredited engineering technology and mechanical engineering programs at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC). The project has alsomore » established ongoing collaborations with the UNCC energy related centers of the Energy Production & Infrastructure Center (EPIC), the NC Motorsports and Automotive Research Center (NCMARC) and the Infrastructure, Design, Environment and Sustainability Center (IDEAS). The results of the project activities are presented as two major areas – (1) course and laboratory development, offerings and delivery, and (2) program recruitment, promotions and collaborations. Over the project period, the primary activity has been the development and offering of 11 HFCT courses and accompanying laboratories. This process has taken three years with the courses first being developed and then offered each year over the timeframe.« less

Strategies for 96-hour critical infrastructure compliance.

PubMed

Storbakken, Steven H; Kendall, Shannon; Lackey, Connie

2009-01-01

Organizations that stand the best chance at survival following a disaster do so because they can depend on the sharing of resources and mutual ideologies, the authors claim, pointing out that when it comes to strategizing for 96-hour critical infrastructure compliance, it is important to keep at the forefront not only the idea of collaborative planning from within the organization--involving security and safety, clinical, facilities and administrative staffs--but also includes collaborative planning with the local and regional businesses surrounding the organization.

Consolidation and development roadmap of the EMI middleware

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kónya, B.; Aiftimiei, C.; Cecchi, M.; Field, L.; Fuhrmann, P.; Nilsen, J. K.; White, J.

2012-12-01

Scientific research communities have benefited recently from the increasing availability of computing and data infrastructures with unprecedented capabilities for large scale distributed initiatives. These infrastructures are largely defined and enabled by the middleware they deploy. One of the major issues in the current usage of research infrastructures is the need to use similar but often incompatible middleware solutions. The European Middleware Initiative (EMI) is a collaboration of the major European middleware providers ARC, dCache, gLite and UNICORE. EMI aims to: deliver a consolidated set of middleware components for deployment in EGI, PRACE and other Distributed Computing Infrastructures; extend the interoperability between grids and other computing infrastructures; strengthen the reliability of the services; establish a sustainable model to maintain and evolve the middleware; fulfil the requirements of the user communities. This paper presents the consolidation and development objectives of the EMI software stack covering the last two years. The EMI development roadmap is introduced along the four technical areas of compute, data, security and infrastructure. The compute area plan focuses on consolidation of standards and agreements through a unified interface for job submission and management, a common format for accounting, the wide adoption of GLUE schema version 2.0 and the provision of a common framework for the execution of parallel jobs. The security area is working towards a unified security model and lowering the barriers to Grid usage by allowing users to gain access with their own credentials. The data area is focusing on implementing standards to ensure interoperability with other grids and industry components and to reuse already existing clients in operating systems and open source distributions. One of the highlights of the infrastructure area is the consolidation of the information system services via the creation of a common information backbone.

Sustaining a Community Computing Infrastructure for Online Teacher Professional Development: A Case Study of Designing Tapped In

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Farooq, Umer; Schank, Patricia; Harris, Alexandra; Fusco, Judith; Schlager, Mark

Community computing has recently grown to become a major research area in human-computer interaction. One of the objectives of community computing is to support computer-supported cooperative work among distributed collaborators working toward shared professional goals in online communities of practice. A core issue in designing and developing community computing infrastructures — the underlying sociotechnical layer that supports communitarian activities — is sustainability. Many community computing initiatives fail because the underlying infrastructure does not meet end user requirements; the community is unable to maintain a critical mass of users consistently over time; it generates insufficient social capital to support significant contributions by members of the community; or, as typically happens with funded initiatives, financial and human capital resource become unavailable to further maintain the infrastructure. On the basis of more than 9 years of design experience with Tapped In-an online community of practice for education professionals — we present a case study that discusses four design interventions that have sustained the Tapped In infrastructure and its community to date. These interventions represent broader design strategies for developing online environments for professional communities of practice.

Scientific Grid activities and PKI deployment in the Cybermedia Center, Osaka University.

PubMed

Akiyama, Toyokazu; Teranishi, Yuuichi; Nozaki, Kazunori; Kato, Seiichi; Shimojo, Shinji; Peltier, Steven T; Lin, Abel; Molina, Tomas; Yang, George; Lee, David; Ellisman, Mark; Naito, Sei; Koike, Atsushi; Matsumoto, Shuichi; Yoshida, Kiyokazu; Mori, Hirotaro

2005-10-01

The Cybermedia Center (CMC), Osaka University, is a research institution that offers knowledge and technology resources obtained from advanced researches in the areas of large-scale computation, information and communication, multimedia content and education. Currently, CMC is involved in Japanese national Grid projects such as JGN II (Japan Gigabit Network), NAREGI and BioGrid. Not limited to Japan, CMC also actively takes part in international activities such as PRAGMA. In these projects and international collaborations, CMC has developed a Grid system that allows scientists to perform their analysis by remote-controlling the world's largest ultra-high voltage electron microscope located in Osaka University. In another undertaking, CMC has assumed a leadership role in BioGrid by sharing its experiences and knowledge on the system development for the area of biology. In this paper, we will give an overview of the BioGrid project and introduce the progress of the Telescience unit, which collaborates with the Telescience Project led by the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research (NCMIR). Furthermore, CMC collaborates with seven Computing Centers in Japan, NAREGI and National Institute of Informatics to deploy PKI base authentication infrastructure. The current status of this project and future collaboration with Grid Projects will be delineated in this paper.

The Breast Cancer Family Registry: an infrastructure for cooperative multinational, interdisciplinary and translational studies of the genetic epidemiology of breast cancer

PubMed Central

John, Esther M; Hopper, John L; Beck, Jeanne C; Knight, Julia A; Neuhausen, Susan L; Senie, Ruby T; Ziogas, Argyrios; Andrulis, Irene L; Anton-Culver, Hoda; Boyd, Norman; Buys, Saundra S; Daly, Mary B; O'Malley, Frances P; Santella, Regina M; Southey, Melissa C; Venne, Vickie L; Venter, Deon J; West, Dee W; Whittemore, Alice S; Seminara, Daniela

2004-01-01

Introduction The etiology of familial breast cancer is complex and involves genetic and environmental factors such as hormonal and lifestyle factors. Understanding familial aggregation is a key to understanding the causes of breast cancer and to facilitating the development of effective prevention and therapy. To address urgent research questions and to expedite the translation of research results to the clinical setting, the National Cancer Institute (USA) supported in 1995 the establishment of a novel research infrastructure, the Breast Cancer Family Registry, a collaboration of six academic and research institutions and their medical affiliates in the USA, Canada, and Australia. Methods The sites have developed core family history and epidemiology questionnaires, data dictionaries, and common protocols for biospecimen collection and processing and pathology review. An Informatics Center has been established to collate, manage, and distribute core data. Results As of September 2003, 9116 population-based and 2834 clinic-based families have been enrolled, including 2346 families from minority populations. Epidemiology questionnaire data are available for 6779 affected probands (with a personal history of breast cancer), 4116 unaffected probands, and 16,526 relatives with or without a personal history of breast or ovarian cancer. The biospecimen repository contains blood or mouthwash samples for 6316 affected probands, 2966 unaffected probands, and 10,763 relatives, and tumor tissue samples for 4293 individuals. Conclusion This resource is available to internal and external researchers for collaborative, interdisciplinary, and translational studies of the genetic epidemiology of breast cancer. Detailed information can be found at the URL . PMID:15217505

FIN-EPOS - Finnish national initiative of the European Plate Observing System: Bringing Finnish solid Earth infrastructures into EPOS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vuorinen, Tommi; Korja, Annakaisa

2017-04-01

FIN-EPOS consortium is a joint community of Finnish national research institutes tasked with operating and maintaining solid-earth geophysical and geological observatories and laboratories in Finland. These national research infrastructures (NRIs) seek to join EPOS research infrastructure (EPOS RI) and further pursue Finland's participation as a founding member in EPOS ERIC (European Research Infrastructure Consortium). Current partners of FIN-EPOS are the University of Helsinki (UH), the University of and Oulu (UO), Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI) of the National Land Survey (NLS), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), CSC - IT Center for Science and MIKES Metrology at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. The consortium is hosted by the Institute of Seismology, UH (ISUH). The primary purpose of the consortium is to act as a coordinating body between various NRIs and the EPOS RI. FIN-EPOS engages in planning and development of the national EPOS RI and will provide support in EPOS implementation phase (IP) for the partner NRIs. FIN-EPOS also promotes the awareness of EPOS in Finland and is open to new partner NRIs that would benefit from participating in EPOS. The consortium additionally seeks to advance solid Earth science education, technologies and innovations in Finland and is actively engaging in Nordic co-operation and collaboration of solid Earth RIs. The main short term objective of FIN-EPOS is to make Finnish geoscientific data provided by NRIs interoperable with the Thematic Core Services (TCS) in the EPOS IP. Consortium partners commit into applying and following metadata and data format standards provided by EPOS. FIN-EPOS will also provide a national Finnish language web portal where users are identified and their user rights for EPOS resources are defined.

Aeronautics Education, Research, and Industry Alliance (AERIAL) Year 2 Report and Year 3 Proposal

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bowen, Brent D.; Box, Richard C.; Fink, Mary M.; Gogos, Geroge; Lehrer, Henry R.; Narayanan, Ram M.; Nickerson, Jocelyn S.; Tarry, Scott E.; Vlasek, Karisa D.

2003-01-01

The Aeronautics Education, Research, and Industry Alliance (AERIAL): a comprehensive, multi-faceted NASA EPSCoR 2000 initiative, contributes to the strategic research and technology priorities of NASA while intensifying Nebraska s rapidly growing aeronautics research and development endeavors. AERIAL enables Nebraska researchers to: (a) continue strengthening their collaborative relationships with NASA Field Centers, Codes, and Enterprises; (b) increase the capacity of higher education throughout Nebraska to invigorate and expand aeronautics research; and (c) expedite the development of aeronautics-related research infrastructure and industry in the state. This report contains a summary of AERIAL's activities and accomplishments during the second year of implementation. The AERIAL Year 3 proposal is also included.

Remote third shift EAST operation: a new paradigm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schissel, D. P.; Coviello, E.; Eidietis, N.; Flanagan, S.; Garcia, F.; Humphreys, D.; Kostuk, M.; Lanctot, M.; Lee, X.; Margo, M.; Miller, D.; Parker, C.; Penaflor, B.; Qian, J. P.; Sun, X.; Tan, H.; Walker, M.; Xiao, B.; Yuan, Q.

2017-05-01

General Atomics’ (GA) scientists in the United States remotely conducted experimental operation of the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST) in China during its third shift. Scientists led these experiments in a dedicated remote control room that utilized a novel computer science hardware and software infrastructure to allow data movement, visualization, and communication on the time scale of EAST’s pulse cycle. This Fusion Science Collaboration Zone infrastructure allows the movement of large amounts of data between continents in a short time scale with a 300-fold increase in data transfer rate over that available using the traditional transmission protocol. Real-time data from control systems is moved almost instantaneously. An event system tied to the EAST pulse cycle allows automatic initiation of data transfers, resulting in bulk EAST data to be transferred to GA within minutes. The EAST data at GA is served via MDSplus to approved US collaborators avoiding multiple US clients from requesting data from EAST and competing for the long-haul network’s bandwidth. At present there are 37 approved scientists from 8 US research institutions.

The Virtual Observatory as Critical Scientific Cyber Infrastructure.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fox, P.

2006-12-01

Virtual Observatories can provide access to vast stores of scientific data: observations and models as well as services to analyze, visualize and assimilate multiple data sources. As these electronic resource become widely used, there is potential to improve the efficiency, interoperability, collaborative potential, and impact of a wide range of interdisciplinary scientific research. In addition, we know that as the diversity of collaborative science and volume of accompanying data and data generators/consumers grows so do the challenges. In order for Virtual Observatories to realize their potential and become indispensible infrastructure, social, political and technical challenges need to be addressed concerning (at least) roles and responsibilities, data and services policies, representations and interoperability of services, data search, access, and usability. In this presentation, we discuss several concepts and instances of the Virtual Observatory and related projects that may, and may not, be meeting the abovementioned challanges. We also argue that science driven needs and architecture development are critical in the development of sustainable (and thus agile) cyberinfrastructure. Finally we some present or emerging candidate technologies and organizational constructs that will need to be pursued.

Methodology of clinical research in rare diseases: development of a research program in juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (JNCL) via creation of a patient registry and collaboration with patient advocates

PubMed Central

de Blieck, Elisabeth A.; Augustine, Erika F.; Marshall, Frederick J.; Adams, Heather; Cialone, Jennifer; Dure, Leon; Kwon, Jennifer M.; Newhouse, Nicole; Rose, Katherine; Rothberg, Paul G.; Vierhile, Amy; Mink, Jonathan W.

2013-01-01

Introduction Juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (JNCL; Batten disease) is a rare, inherited, fatal lysosomal storage childhood disorder. True for many rare diseases, there are no treatments that impact the course of JNCL. The University of Rochester Batten Center’s (URBC) mission is to find treatments to slow, halt, or prevent JNCL. Objectives Our initial objective was to develop clinical research infrastructure preparatory to clinical trials, establish a JNCL research cohort, construct a disease-specific clinical outcome measure, and validate a non-invasive diagnostic sampling method. The long-term objective is to design and implement JNCL clinical trials. Methods The Unified Batten Disease Rating Scale (UBDRS) was developed. The Batten Disease Support and Research Association (BDSRA) referred participants; annual BDSRA meetings provided a mobile research setting for registry enrollment and UBDRS piloting. Neuropsychological examinations were performed, enabling external validation of the UBDRS. Buccal epithelial cell collection for genotyping was introduced. Telemedicine for remote UBDRS assessment was piloted. Results The registry enrolled 198 families representing 237 children with NCL. The UBDRS was piloted, validated and has been used to collect natural history data from 120 subjects. Funding and regulatory approval were obtained for a recently launched phase II clinical trial. Several additional lines of inquiry were reported. Conclusion The registry and BDSRA collaboration have enabled development of a clinical rating scale, natural history and neuropsychological studies, and genetic studies for disease confirmation. This work highlights an approach for preparatory natural history research and infrastructure development needed to facilitate efficient implementation of clinical trials in rare diseases. PMID:23628560

Laser driven nuclear science and applications: The need of high efficiency, high power and high repetition rate Laser beams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gales, S.

2015-10-01

Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) is a pan European research initiative selected on the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures Roadmap that aims to close the gap between the existing laboratory-based laser driven research and international facility-grade research centre. The ELI-NP facility, one of the three ELI pillars under construction, placed in Romania and to be operational in 2018, has as core elements a couple of new generation 10 PW laser systems and a narrow bandwidth Compton backscattering gamma source with photon energies up to 19 MeV. ELI-NP will address nuclear photonics, nuclear astrophysics and quantum electrodynamics involving extreme photon fields. Prospective applications of high power laser in nuclear astrophysics, accelerator physics, in particular towards future Accelerator Driven System, as well as in nuclear photonics, for detection and characterization of nuclear material, and for nuclear medicine, will be discussed. Key issues in these research areas will be at reach with significant increase of the repetition rates and of the efficiency at the plug of the high power laser systems as proposed by the ICAN collaboration.

Implementing a Randomized Controlled Trial through a Community-Academia Partnered Participatory Research: Arte con Salud Research-Informed Intervention.

PubMed

Noboa-Ortega, Patricia; Figueroa-Cosme, Wanda I; Feldman-Soler, Alana; Miranda-Díaz, Christine

2017-06-01

"Arte con Salud" is an HIV/AIDS prevention intervention tailored for Puerto Rican women who have sex with men. The intervention curriculum was refined through a community-academic collaboration between Taller Salud, the UPRCayey Campus, and the UCC-School of Medicine, subsided in 2012-13 by PRCTRC. The collaboration has been crucial to validate the impact of using art as a tool to facilitate sexual negotiation skills and safer sexual practices among adult women have sex with men participating in HIV prevention education. This article describes the vision, valley, victory phases endured to establish a community-academia partnership based on the CPPR framework as an effective mean to implement a randomized controlled trial intervention (RCT). We also discuss the barriers, outcomes, and lessons learned from this partnership. Some of the identified solutions include: setting goals to secure funding, regular meetings, and the inclusion of undergraduate level students to assist in the implementation of the intervention. These solutions helped to build trust among the community and academic partners. As a result of this collaboration, a total of 86 participants were enrolled and 5 competitive research grants have been submitted. The community-academic collaboration was essential in order to build a solid research infrastructure that addresses the complexities of HIV prevention education among groups of Puerto Rican women.

Collaborative Paradigm of Preventive, Personalized, and Precision Medicine With Point-of-Care Technologies.

PubMed

Dhawan, Atam P

2016-01-01

Recent advances in biosensors, medical instrumentation, and information processing and communication technologies (ICT) have enabled significant improvements in healthcare. However, these technologies have been mainly applied in clinical environments, such as hospitals and healthcare facilities, under managed care by well-trained and specialized individuals. The global challenge of providing quality healthcare at affordable cost leads to the proposed paradigm of P reventive, Personalized, and Precision Medicine that requires a seamless use of technology and infrastructure support for patients and healthcare providers at point-of-care (POC) locations including homes, semi or pre-clinical facilities, and hospitals. The complexity of the global healthcare challenge necessitates strong collaborative interdisciplinary synergies involving all stakeholder groups including academia, federal research institutions, industry, regulatory agencies, and clinical communities. It is critical to evolve with collaborative efforts on the translation of research to technology development toward clinical validation and potential healthcare applications. This special issue is focused on technology innovation and translational research for POC applications with potential impact in improving global healthcare in the respective areas. Some of these papers were presented at the NIH-IEEE Strategic Conference on Healthcare Innovations and POC Technologies for Precision Medicine (HI-POCT) held at the NIH on November 9-10, 2015. The papers included in the Special Issue provide a spectrum of critical issues and collaborative resources on translational research of advanced POC devices and ICT into global healthcare environment.

Framework for Deploying a Virtualized Computing Environment for Collaborative and Secure Data Analytics

PubMed Central

Meyer, Adrian; Green, Laura; Faulk, Ciearro; Galla, Stephen; Meyer, Anne-Marie

2016-01-01

Introduction: Large amounts of health data generated by a wide range of health care applications across a variety of systems have the potential to offer valuable insight into populations and health care systems, but robust and secure computing and analytic systems are required to leverage this information. Framework: We discuss our experiences deploying a Secure Data Analysis Platform (SeDAP), and provide a framework to plan, build and deploy a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to enable innovation, collaboration and operate within academic funding structures. It outlines 6 core components: Security, Ease of Access, Performance, Cost, Tools, and Training. Conclusion: A platform like SeDAP is not simply successful through technical excellence and performance. It’s adoption is dependent on a collaborative environment where researchers and users plan and evaluate the requirements of all aspects. PMID:27683665

Towards the Reconciliation of Knowledge Management and e-Collaboration Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Le Dinh, Thang; Rinfret, Louis; Raymond, Louis; Dong Thi, Bich-Thuy

2013-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose an intelligent infrastructure for the reconciliation of knowledge management and e-collaboration systems. Design/Methodology/Approach:Literature on e-collaboration, information management, knowledge management, learning process, and intellectual capital is mobilised in order to build the conceptual…

The Petascale Data Storage Institute

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gibson, Garth; Long, Darrell; Honeyman, Peter

2013-07-01

Petascale computing infrastructures for scientific discovery make petascale demands on information storage capacity, performance, concurrency, reliability, availability, and manageability.The Petascale Data Storage Institute focuses on the data storage problems found in petascale scientific computing environments, with special attention to community issues such as interoperability, community buy-in, and shared tools.The Petascale Data Storage Institute is a collaboration between researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, University of Michigan, and the University of California at Santa Cruz.

EGO: Towards a global glider infrastructure for the benefit of marine research and operational oceanography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Testor, Pierre

2013-04-01

In the 1990 s, while gliders were being developed and successfully passing first tests, their potential use for ocean research started to be discussed in international conferences because they could help us improve the cost-effectiveness, sampling, and distribution of the ocean observations (see OceanObs'99 Conference Statement - UNESCO). After the prototype phase, in the 2000 s, one could only witness the growing glider activity throughout the world. The first glider experiments in Europe brought together several teams that were interested in the technology and a consortium formed naturally from these informal collaborations. Since 2006, Everyone's Gliding Observatories (EGO - http://www.ego-network.org) Workshops and Glider Schools have been organized, whilst becoming the international forum for glider activities. Some key challenges have emerged from the expansion of the glider system and require now setting up a sustainable European as well as a global system to operate glider and to ensure a smooth and sustained link to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). Glider technology faces many scientific, technological and logistical issues. In particular, it approaches the challenge of controlling many steerable probes in a variable environment for better sampling. It also needs the development of new formats and procedures in order to build glider observatories at a global level. Several geographically distributed teams of oceanographers now operate gliders, and there is a risk of fragmentation. We will here present results from our consortium who intends to solve most of these issues through scientific and technological coordination and networking. This approach is supported by the ESF through Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST). The COST Action ES0904 "EGO" started in July 2010 aiming to build international cooperation and capacities at the scientific, technological, and organizational levels, for sustained observations of the oceans with gliders. A major impact of this Action was the elaboration of the EU Collaborative Project GROOM, Gliders for Research, Ocean Observation and Management for the FP7 call "Capacities - Research Infrastructures", which addresses the topic "design studies for research infrastructures in all S&T fields" (see http://www.groom-fp.eu).

[The Competence Network for HIV/AIDS. Data, Samples, Facts].

PubMed

Michalik, Claudia; Skaletz-Rorowski, Adriane; Brockmeyer, Norbert H

2016-04-01

With funding for the Competence Networks in Medicine from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Competence Network for HIV/AIDS (KompNet HIV/AIDS) was established as an interdisciplinary research association. Essential working groups were incorporated all over Germany, which are active in clinical and basic HIV/AIDS research. After successful establishment, providing research infrastructure for national and international cooperation in the field of HIV/AIDS was the focus of the network. By bringing together research activities, preconditions are created for improving HIV infection treatment and increasing life expectancy of HIV-infected patients. The members of KompNet HIV/AIDS are HIV experts from university clinics, HIV physicians, patient representatives, as well as national reference centers. As a scientific research basis, the network established an HIV patient cohort. Clinical and sociodemographic data of HIV patients were documented biannually and complemented by serum and DNA-samples collected twice per year. Furthermore, a child cohort was set up. Within the KompNet HIV/AIDS, a research infrastructure for HIV was established for internal, external as well international scientists. Within the HIV cohort a total of 16,500 patients are documented. The associated biobank comprises ~ 56,000 serum samples and ~ 16,000 DNA samples. The child cohort consists of 647 HIV-exposed and 230 infected children. The KompNet HIV/AIDS cohorts became an important partner in several international collaborations. Nevertheless, the maintenance of such infrastructures without public funding is a challenge.

Improving the analysis, storage and sharing of neuroimaging data using relational databases and distributed computing.

PubMed

Hasson, Uri; Skipper, Jeremy I; Wilde, Michael J; Nusbaum, Howard C; Small, Steven L

2008-01-15

The increasingly complex research questions addressed by neuroimaging research impose substantial demands on computational infrastructures. These infrastructures need to support management of massive amounts of data in a way that affords rapid and precise data analysis, to allow collaborative research, and to achieve these aims securely and with minimum management overhead. Here we present an approach that overcomes many current limitations in data analysis and data sharing. This approach is based on open source database management systems that support complex data queries as an integral part of data analysis, flexible data sharing, and parallel and distributed data processing using cluster computing and Grid computing resources. We assess the strengths of these approaches as compared to current frameworks based on storage of binary or text files. We then describe in detail the implementation of such a system and provide a concrete description of how it was used to enable a complex analysis of fMRI time series data.

Illinois Accelerator Research Center

DOE PAGES

Kroc, Thomas K.; Cooper, Charlie A.

2017-10-26

The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) hosts a new accelerator development program at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. IARC provides access to Fermi's state-of-the-art facilities and technologies for research, development and industrialization of particle accelerator technology. In addition to facilitating access to available existing Fermi infrastructure, the IARC Campus has a dedicated 36,000 ft2 heavy assembly building (HAB) with all the infrastructure needed to develop, commission and operate new accelerators. Connected to the HAB is a 47,000 ft Office, Technology and Engineering (OTE) building, paid for by the state, that has office, meeting, and light technical space. The OTE building, whichmore » contains the Accelerator Physics Center, and nearby Accelerator and Technical divisions provide IARC collaborators with unique access to world class expertise in a wide array of accelerator technologies. Finally, at IARC scientists and engineers from Fermilab and academia work side by side with industrial partners to develop breakthroughs in accelerator science and translate them into applications for the nation's health, wealth and security.« less

Board on Research Data and Information

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sztein, A. Ester; Boright, John

2015-08-14

The Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI) has planned and undertaken numerous activities regarding data citation, attribution, management, policy, publishing, centers, access, curation, sharing, and infrastructure; and international collaboration and cooperation. Some of these activities resulted in National Research Council reports (For Attribution: Developing Data Attribution and Citation Practices and Standards (2012), The Case for International Scientific Data Sharing: A Focus on Developing Countries (2012), and The Future of Scientific Knowledge Discovery in Open Networked Environments (2012); and a peer-reviewed paper (Out of Cite, Out of Mind: The Current State of Practice, Policy, and Technology for the Citation ofmore » Data, 2013). BRDI held symposia, workshops and sessions in the U.S. and abroad on diverse topics such as global scientific data infrastructures, discovery of data online, privacy in a big data world, and data citation principles, among other timely data-related subjects. In addition, BRDI effects the representation of the United States before the International Council for Science’s International Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA).« less

Improving the Analysis, Storage and Sharing of Neuroimaging Data using Relational Databases and Distributed Computing

PubMed Central

Hasson, Uri; Skipper, Jeremy I.; Wilde, Michael J.; Nusbaum, Howard C.; Small, Steven L.

2007-01-01

The increasingly complex research questions addressed by neuroimaging research impose substantial demands on computational infrastructures. These infrastructures need to support management of massive amounts of data in a way that affords rapid and precise data analysis, to allow collaborative research, and to achieve these aims securely and with minimum management overhead. Here we present an approach that overcomes many current limitations in data analysis and data sharing. This approach is based on open source database management systems that support complex data queries as an integral part of data analysis, flexible data sharing, and parallel and distributed data processing using cluster computing and Grid computing resources. We assess the strengths of these approaches as compared to current frameworks based on storage of binary or text files. We then describe in detail the implementation of such a system and provide a concrete description of how it was used to enable a complex analysis of fMRI time series data. PMID:17964812

Illinois Accelerator Research Center

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kroc, Thomas K.; Cooper, Charlie A.

The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) hosts a new accelerator development program at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. IARC provides access to Fermi's state-of-the-art facilities and technologies for research, development and industrialization of particle accelerator technology. In addition to facilitating access to available existing Fermi infrastructure, the IARC Campus has a dedicated 36,000 ft2 heavy assembly building (HAB) with all the infrastructure needed to develop, commission and operate new accelerators. Connected to the HAB is a 47,000 ft Office, Technology and Engineering (OTE) building, paid for by the state, that has office, meeting, and light technical space. The OTE building, whichmore » contains the Accelerator Physics Center, and nearby Accelerator and Technical divisions provide IARC collaborators with unique access to world class expertise in a wide array of accelerator technologies. Finally, at IARC scientists and engineers from Fermilab and academia work side by side with industrial partners to develop breakthroughs in accelerator science and translate them into applications for the nation's health, wealth and security.« less

The Sunrise project: An R&D project for a national information infrastructure prototype

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lee, Juhnyoung

1995-02-01

Sunrise is a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) project started in October 1993. It is intended to a prototype National Information Infrastructure (NII) development project. A main focus of Sunrise is to tie together enabling technologies (networking, object-oriented distributed computing, graphical interfaces, security, multimedia technologies, and data mining technologies) with several specific applications. A diverse set of application areas was chosen to ensure that the solutions developed in the project are as generic as possible. Some of the application areas are materials modeling, medical records and image analysis, transportation simulations, and education. This paper provides a description of Sunrise andmore » a view of the architecture and objectives of this evolving project. The primary objectives of Sunrise are three-fold: (1) To develop common information-enabling tools for advanced scientific research and its applications to industry; (2) To enhance the capabilities of important research programs at the Laboratory; and (3) To define a new way of collaboration between computer science and industrially relevant research.« less

Illinois Accelerator Research Center

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kroc, Thomas K.; Cooper, Charlie A.

The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) hosts a new accelerator development program at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. IARC provides access to Fermi's state-of-the-art facilities and technologies for research, development and industrialization of particle accelerator technology. In addition to facilitating access to available existing Fermi infrastructure, the IARC Campus has a dedicated 36,000 ft2 Heavy Assembly Building (HAB) with all the infrastructure needed to develop, commission and operate new accelerators. Connected to the HAB is a 47,000 ft2 Office, Technology and Engineering (OTE) building, paid for by the state, that has office, meeting, and light technical space. The OTE building, which contains the Accelerator Physics Center, and nearby Accelerator and Technical divisions provide IARC collaborators with unique access to world class expertise in a wide array of accelerator technologies. At IARC scientists and engineers from Fermilab and academia work side by side with industrial partners to develop breakthroughs in accelerator science and translate them into applications for the nation's health, wealth and security.

The Application of Collaborative Business Intelligence Technology in the Hospital SPD Logistics Management Model

PubMed Central

LIU, Tongzhu; SHEN, Aizong; HU, Xiaojian; TONG, Guixian; GU, Wei

2017-01-01

Background: We aimed to apply collaborative business intelligence (BI) system to hospital supply, processing and distribution (SPD) logistics management model. Methods: We searched Engineering Village database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Google for articles (Published from 2011 to 2016), books, Web pages, etc., to understand SPD and BI related theories and recent research status. For the application of collaborative BI technology in the hospital SPD logistics management model, we realized this by leveraging data mining techniques to discover knowledge from complex data and collaborative techniques to improve the theories of business process. Results: For the application of BI system, we: (i) proposed a layered structure of collaborative BI system for intelligent management in hospital logistics; (ii) built data warehouse for the collaborative BI system; (iii) improved data mining techniques such as supporting vector machines (SVM) and swarm intelligence firefly algorithm to solve key problems in hospital logistics collaborative BI system; (iv) researched the collaborative techniques oriented to data and business process optimization to improve the business processes of hospital logistics management. Conclusion: Proper combination of SPD model and BI system will improve the management of logistics in the hospitals. The successful implementation of the study requires: (i) to innovate and improve the traditional SPD model and make appropriate implement plans and schedules for the application of BI system according to the actual situations of hospitals; (ii) the collaborative participation of internal departments in hospital including the department of information, logistics, nursing, medical and financial; (iii) timely response of external suppliers. PMID:28828316

Solar Resource & Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Southwest Solar Research Park (Formerly SolarCAT) Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (RSR); Phoenix, Arizona (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Wilcox, S.; Andreas, A.

2010-09-27

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Enabling scientific teamwork

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hereld, Mark; Hudson, Randy; Norris, John; Papka, Michael E.; Uram, Thomas

2009-07-01

The Computer Supported Collaborative Work research community has identified that the technology used to support distributed teams of researchers, such as email, instant messaging, and conferencing environments, are not enough. Building from a list of areas where it is believed technology can help support distributed teams, we have divided our efforts into support of asynchronous and synchronous activities. This paper will describe two of our recent efforts to improve the productivity of distributed science teams. One effort focused on supporting the management and tracking of milestones and results, with the hope of helping manage information overload. The second effort focused on providing an environment that supports real-time analysis of data. Both of these efforts are seen as add-ons to the existing collaborative infrastructure, developed to enhance the experience of teams working at a distance by removing barriers to effective communication.

Collaboration in academic medicine: reflections on gender and advancement.

PubMed

Carr, Phyllis L; Pololi, Linda; Knight, Sharon; Conrad, Peter

2009-10-01

Collaboration in academic medicine is encouraged, yet no one has studied the environment in which faculty collaborate. The authors investigated how faculty experienced collaboration and the institutional atmosphere for collaboration. In 2007, as part of a qualitative study of faculty in five disparate U.S. medical schools, the authors interviewed 96 medical faculty at different career stages and in diverse specialties, with an oversampling of women, minorities, and generalists, regarding their perceptions and experiences of collaboration in academic medicine. Data analysis was inductive and driven by the grounded theory tradition. Female faculty expressed enthusiasm about the potential and process of collaboration; male faculty were more likely to focus on outcomes. Senior faculty experienced a more collaborative environment than early career faculty, who faced numerous barriers to collaboration: the hierarchy of medical academe, advancement criteria, and the lack of infrastructure supportive of collaboration. Research faculty appreciated shared ideas, knowledge, resources, and the increased productivity that could result from collaboration, but they were acutely aware that advancement requires an independent body of work, which was a major deterrent to collaboration among early career faculty. Academic medicine faculty have differing views on the impact and benefits of collaboration. Early career faculty face concerning obstacles to collaboration. Female faculty seemed more appreciative of the process of collaboration, which may be of importance for transitioning to a more collaborative academic environment. A reevaluation of effective benchmarks for promotion of faculty is warranted to address the often exclusive reliance on individualistic achievement.

A parallel-processing approach to computing for the geographic sciences; applications and systems enhancements

USGS Publications Warehouse

Crane, Michael; Steinwand, Dan; Beckmann, Tim; Krpan, Greg; Liu, Shu-Guang; Nichols, Erin; Haga, Jim; Maddox, Brian; Bilderback, Chris; Feller, Mark; Homer, George

2001-01-01

The overarching goal of this project is to build a spatially distributed infrastructure for information science research by forming a team of information science researchers and providing them with similar hardware and software tools to perform collaborative research. Four geographically distributed Centers of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are developing their own clusters of low-cost, personal computers into parallel computing environments that provide a costeffective way for the USGS to increase participation in the high-performance computing community. Referred to as Beowulf clusters, these hybrid systems provide the robust computing power required for conducting information science research into parallel computing systems and applications.

Factors driving collaboration in natural resource conflict management: Evidence from Romania.

PubMed

Hossu, Constantina Alina; Ioja, Ioan Cristian; Susskind, Lawrence E; Badiu, Denisa L; Hersperger, Anna M

2018-02-03

A critical challenge in natural resource management is to bring all stakeholders together to negotiate solutions to critical problems. However, various collaborative approaches to heading off conflicts and resolving natural resource management disputes have been used. What drives these efforts, however, still needs further research. Our study provides a systematic look at the drivers likely to initiate collaborative problem-solving efforts in four cases in Romania. We use Emerson's et al. (2012) framework for collaborative governance and multi-value qualitative comparative analysis (mvQCA) to analyze cases involving endangered species, restrictions on forest harvest, conflicts associated with infrastructure development projects, and disputes over the management of environmentally sensitive areas. Our findings contribute to the already existing collaborative governance literature indicating which of the four factors: uncertainty, interdependence, consequential incentives, and leadership, in which combination, are necessary and sufficient to spur collaborative resource management efforts. Our results showed that in Romania the initiation of collaboration is best explained by positive consequential incentives (i.e., financial opportunities) which has determined leaders to take initiative. This study provides additional information for the complicated process of natural resource management which is often overriding collaboration by investigating what enables and constrains collaborative efforts in a country where natural resources were managed and used according to the principles of central planning.

Terra Populus and DataNet Collaboration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kugler, T.; Ruggles, S.; Fitch, C. A.; Clark, P. D.; Sobek, M.; Van Riper, D.

2012-12-01

Terra Populus, part of NSF's new DataNet initiative, is developing organizational and technical infrastructure to integrate, preserve, and disseminate data describing changes in the human population and environment over time. Terra Populus will incorporate large microdata and aggregate census datasets from the United States and around the world, as well as land use, land cover, climate and other environmental datasets. These data are widely dispersed, exist in a variety of data structures, have incompatible or inadequate metadata, and have incompatible geographic identifiers. Terra Populus is developing methods of integrating data from different domains and translating across data structures based on spatio-temporal linkages among data contents. The new infrastructure will enable researchers to identify and merge data from heterogeneous sources to study the relationships between human behavior and the natural world. Terra Populus will partner with data archives, data producers, and data users to create a sustainable international organization that will guarantee preservation and access over multiple decades. Terra Populus is also collaborating with the other projects in the DataNet initiative - DataONE, the DataNet Federation Consortium (DFC) and Sustainable Environment-Actionable Data (SEAD). Taken together, the four projects address aspects of the entire data lifecycle, including planning, collection, documentation, discovery, integration, curation, preservation, and collaboration; and encompass a wide range of disciplines including earth sciences, ecology, social sciences, hydrology, oceanography, and engineering. The four projects are pursuing activities to share data, tools, and expertise between pairs of projects as well as collaborating across the DataNet program on issues of cyberinfrastructure and community engagement. Topics to be addressed through program-wide collaboration include technical, organizational, and financial sustainability; semantic integration; data management training and education; and cross-disciplinary awareness of data resources.

Cancer survivorship research in Europe and the United States: where have we been, where are we going, and what can we learn from each other?

PubMed

Rowland, Julia H; Kent, Erin E; Forsythe, Laura P; Loge, Jon Håvard; Hjorth, Lars; Glaser, Adam; Mattioli, Vittorio; Fosså, Sophie D

2013-06-01

The growing number of cancer survivors worldwide has led to of the emergence of diverse survivorship movements in the United States and Europe. Understanding the evolution of cancer survivorship within the context of different political and health care systems is important for identifying the future steps that need to be taken and collaborations needed to promote research among and enhance the care of those living after cancer. The authors first review the history of survivorship internationally and important related events in both the United States and Europe. Lessons learned from survivorship research are then broadly discussed, followed by examination of the infrastructure needed to sustain and advance this work, including platforms for research, assessment tools, and vehicles for the dissemination of findings. Future perspectives concern the identification of collaborative opportunities for investigators in Europe and the United States to accelerate the pace of survivorship science going forward. Copyright © 2013 American Cancer Society.

OSiRIS: a distributed Ceph deployment using software defined networking for multi-institutional research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McKee, Shawn; Kissel, Ezra; Meekhof, Benjeman; Swany, Martin; Miller, Charles; Gregorowicz, Michael

2017-10-01

We report on the first year of the OSiRIS project (NSF Award #1541335, UM, IU, MSU and WSU) which is targeting the creation of a distributed Ceph storage infrastructure coupled together with software-defined networking to provide high-performance access for well-connected locations on any participating campus. The projects goal is to provide a single scalable, distributed storage infrastructure that allows researchers at each campus to read, write, manage and share data directly from their own computing locations. The NSF CC*DNI DIBBS program which funded OSiRIS is seeking solutions to the challenges of multi-institutional collaborations involving large amounts of data and we are exploring the creative use of Ceph and networking to address those challenges. While OSiRIS will eventually be serving a broad range of science domains, its first adopter will be the LHC ATLAS detector project via the ATLAS Great Lakes Tier-2 (AGLT2) jointly located at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. Part of our presentation will cover how ATLAS is using the OSiRIS infrastructure and our experiences integrating our first user community. The presentation will also review the motivations for and goals of the project, the technical details of the OSiRIS infrastructure, the challenges in providing such an infrastructure, and the technical choices made to address those challenges. We will conclude with our plans for the remaining 4 years of the project and our vision for what we hope to deliver by the projects end.

SDH-NET: a South-North-South collaboration to build sustainable research capacities on social determinants of health in low- and middle-income countries.

PubMed

Cash-Gibson, Lucinda; Guerra, German; Salgado-de-Snyder, V Nelly

2015-10-22

It is desirable that health researchers have the ability to conduct research on health equity and contribute to the development of their national health system and policymaking processes. However, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), there is a limited capacity to conduct this type of research due to reasons mostly associated with the status of national (health) research systems. Building sustainable research capacity in LMICs through the triangulation of South-North-South (S-N-S) collaborative networks seems to be an effective way to maximize limited national resources to strengthen these capacities. This article describes how a collaborative project (SDH-Net), funded by the European Commission, has successfully designed a study protocol and a S-N-S collaborative network to effectively support research capacity building in LMICs, specifically in the area of social determinants of health (SDH); this project seeks to elaborate on the vital role of global collaborative networks in strengthening this practice. The implementation of SDH-Net comprised diverse activities developed in three phases. Phase 1: national level mapping exercises were conducted to assess the needs for SDH capacity building or strengthening in local research systems. Four strategic areas were defined, namely research implementation and system performance, social appropriation of knowledge, institutional and national research infrastructure, and research skills and training/networks. Phase 2: development of tools to address the identified capacity building needs, as well as knowledge management and network strengthening activities. Phase 3: identifying lessons learned in terms of research ethics, and how policies can support the capacity building process in SDH research. The implementation of the protocol has led the network to design innovative tools for strengthening SDH research capacities, under a successful S-N-S collaboration that included national mapping reports, a global open-access learning platform with tools and resources, ethical guidelines for research, policy recommendations, and academic contributions to the global SDH discourse. The effective triangulation of S-N-S partnerships can be of high value in building sustainable research capacity in LMICs. If designed appropriately, these multicultural, multi-institutional, and multidisciplinary collaborations can enable southern and northern academics to contextualize global research according to their national realities.

Biomedical informatics research network: building a national collaboratory to hasten the derivation of new understanding and treatment of disease.

PubMed

Grethe, Jeffrey S; Baru, Chaitan; Gupta, Amarnath; James, Mark; Ludaescher, Bertram; Martone, Maryann E; Papadopoulos, Philip M; Peltier, Steven T; Rajasekar, Arcot; Santini, Simone; Zaslavsky, Ilya N; Ellisman, Mark H

2005-01-01

Through support from the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Research Resources, the Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) is pioneering the use of advanced cyberinfrastructure for medical research. By synchronizing developments in advanced wide area networking, distributed computing, distributed database federation, and other emerging capabilities of e-science, the BIRN has created a collaborative environment that is paving the way for biomedical research and clinical information management. The BIRN Coordinating Center (BIRN-CC) is orchestrating the development and deployment of key infrastructure components for immediate and long-range support of biomedical and clinical research being pursued by domain scientists in three neuroimaging test beds.

The expanding role of the HIM professional: where research and HIM roles intersect.

PubMed

Bailey, Jessica; Rudman, William

2004-09-20

This article examines the evolving role of HIM professionals in research. In terms of both growth and credibility, it is important that HIM as a profession become more integrally involved in the research process. Specifically, this article examines the expanding role of the HIM professional in research-related activities and data management activities. For illustrative purposes, examples from research in the areas of medication error detection, utilization of web technologies in QI processes, and creation of an HIT infrastructure to connect healthcare providers in which HIM faculty members are actively involved in collaborative research projects with pharmacy, nursing, and medicine faculty in an academic medical center setting are provided.

Healthy Families America state systems development: an emerging practice to ensure program growth and sustainability.

PubMed

Friedman, Lori; Schreiber, Lisa

2007-01-01

In an era of fiscal constraints and increased accountability for social service programs, having a centralized and efficient infrastructure is critical. A well-functioning infrastructure helps a state reduce duplication of services, creates economies of scale, coordinates resources, supports high-quality site development and promotes the self-sufficiency and growth of community-based programs. Throughout the Healthy Families America home visitation network, both program growth and contraction have been managed by in-state collaborations, referred to as "state systems." This article explores the research base that supports the rationale for implementing state systems, describes the evolution of state systems for Healthy Families America, and discusses the benefits, challenges and lessons learned of utilizing a systems approach.

Building a Generic Virtual Research Environment Framework for Multiple Earth and Space Science Domains and a Diversity of Users.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wyborn, L. A.; Fraser, R.; Evans, B. J. K.; Friedrich, C.; Klump, J. F.; Lescinsky, D. T.

2017-12-01

Virtual Research Environments (VREs) are now part of academic infrastructures. Online research workflows can be orchestrated whereby data can be accessed from multiple external repositories with processing taking place on public or private clouds, and centralised supercomputers using a mixture of user codes, and well-used community software and libraries. VREs enable distributed members of research teams to actively work together to share data, models, tools, software, workflows, best practices, infrastructures, etc. These environments and their components are increasingly able to support the needs of undergraduate teaching. External to the research sector, they can also be reused by citizen scientists, and be repurposed for industry users to help accelerate the diffusion and hence enable the translation of research innovations. The Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL) in Australia was started in 2012, built using a collaboration between CSIRO, the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) and Geoscience Australia, with support funding from the Australian Government Department of Education. VGL comprises three main modules that provide an interface to enable users to first select their required data; to choose a tool to process that data; and then access compute infrastructure for execution. VGL was initially built to enable a specific set of researchers in government agencies access to specific data sets and a limited number of tools. Over the years it has evolved into a multi-purpose Earth science platform with access to an increased variety of data (e.g., Natural Hazards, Geochemistry), a broader range of software packages, and an increasing diversity of compute infrastructures. This expansion has been possible because of the approach to loosely couple data, tools and compute resources via interfaces that are built on international standards and accessed as network-enabled services wherever possible. Built originally for researchers that were not fussy about general usability, increasing emphasis on User Interfaces (UIs) and stability will lead to increased uptake in the education and industry sectors. Simultaneously, improvements are being added to facilitate access to data and tools by experienced researchers who want direct access to both data and flexible workflows.

Intelligent Agents for the Digital Battlefield

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-11-01

specific outcome of our long term research will be the development of a collaborative agent technology system, CATS , that will provide the underlying...software infrastructure needed to build large, heterogeneous, distributed agent applications. CATS will provide a software environment through which multiple...intelligent agents may interact with other agents, both human and computational. In addition, CATS will contain a number of intelligent agent components that will be useful for a wide variety of applications.

Building the Encyclopedia of Life

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mangiafico, P. A.; Patterson, D. J.

2010-04-01

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is a collaborative project that indexes information about species, and makes it freely accessible to anyone. In order to accomplish this, EOL is building collaborative tools and infrastructure to unify the information.

Networking of Icelandic Earth Infrastructures - Natural laboratories and Volcano Supersites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vogfjörd, K. S.; Sigmundsson, F.; Hjaltadóttir, S.; Björnsson, H.; Arason, Ø.; Hreinsdóttir, S.; Kjartansson, E.; Sigbjörnsson, R.; Halldórsson, B.; Valsson, G.

2012-04-01

The back-bone of Icelandic geoscientific research infrastructure is the country's permanent monitoring networks, which have been built up to monitor seismic and volcanic hazard and deformation of the Earth's surface. The networks are mainly focussed around the plate boundary in Iceland, particularly the two seismic zones, where earthquakes of up to M7.3 have occurred in centuries past, and the rift zones with over 30 active volcanic systems where a large number of powerful eruptions have occurred, including highly explosive ones. The main observational systems are seismic, strong motion, GPS and bore-hole strain networks, with the addition of more recent systems like hydrological stations, permanent and portable radars, ash-particle counters and gas monitoring systems. Most of the networks are owned by a handful of Icelandic institutions, but some are operated in collaboration with international institutions and universities. The networks have been in operation for years to decades and have recorded large volumes of research quality data. The main Icelandic infrastructures will be networked in the European Plate Observing System (EPOS). The plate boundary in the South Iceland seismic zone (SISZ) with its book-shelf tectonics and repeating major earthquakes sequences of up to M7 events, has the potential to be defined a natural laboratory within EPOS. Work towards integrating multidisciplinary data and technologies from the monitoring infrastructures in the SISZ with other fault regions has started in the FP7 project NERA, under the heading of Networking of Near-Fault Observatories. The purpose is to make research-quality data from near-fault observatories available to the research community, as well as to promote transfer of knowledge and techical know-how between the different observatories of Europe, in order to create a network of fault-monitoring networks. The seismic and strong-motion systems in the SISZ are also, to some degree, being networked nationally to strengthen their early warning capabilities. In response to the far-reaching dispersion of ash from the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption and subsequent disturbance to European air-space, the instrumentation of the Icelandic volcano observatory was greatly improved in number and capability to better monitor sub-surface volcanic processes as well as the air-borne products of eruptions. This infrastructure will also be networked with other European volcano observatories in EPOS. Finally the Icelandic EPOS team, together with other European collaborators, has responded to an FP7 call for the establishment of an Icelandic volcano supersite, where land- and space-based data will be made available to researchers and hazard managers, in line with the implementation plan of the GEO. The focus of the Icelandic volcano supersite are the active volcanoes in Iceland's Eastern volcanic zone.

NINR Centers of Excellence: A logic model for sustainability, leveraging resources and collaboration to accelerate cross-disciplinary science

PubMed Central

Dorsey, Susan G.; Schiffman, Rachel; Redeker, Nancy S.; Heitkemper, Margaret; McCloskey, Donna Jo; Weglicki, Linda S.; Grady, Patricia A.

2014-01-01

The NINR Centers of Excellence program is a catalyst enabling institutions to develop infrastructure and administrative support for creating cross-disciplinary teams that bring multiple strategies and expertise to bear on common areas of science. Centers are increasingly collaborative with campus partners and reflect an integrated team approach to advance science and promote the development of scientists in these areas. The purpose of this paper is to present a NINR Logic Model for Center Sustainability. The components of the logic model were derived from the presentations and robust discussions at the 2013 NINR Center Directors’ meeting focused on best practices for leveraging resources and collaboration as methods to promote center sustainability. Collaboration through development and implementation of cross-disciplinary research teams is critical to accelerate the generation of new knowledge for solving fundamental health problems. Sustainability of centers as a long-term outcome beyond the initial funding can be enhanced by thoughtful planning of inputs, activities, and leveraging resources across multiple levels. PMID:25085328

Can trainees design and deliver a national audit of epistaxis management? A pilot of a secure web-based audit tool and research trainee collaboratives.

PubMed

Mehta, N; Williams, R J; Smith, M E; Hall, A; Hardman, J C; Cheung, L; Ellis, M P; Fussey, J M; Lakhani, R; McLaren, O; Nankivell, P C; Sharma, N; Yeung, W; Carrie, S; Hopkins, C

2017-06-01

To investigate the feasibility of a national audit of epistaxis management led and delivered by a multi-region trainee collaborative using a web-based interface to capture patient data. Six trainee collaboratives across England nominated one site each and worked together to carry out this pilot. An encrypted data capture tool was adapted and installed within the infrastructure of a university secure server. Site-lead feedback was assessed through questionnaires. Sixty-three patients with epistaxis were admitted over a two-week period. Site leads reported an average of 5 minutes to complete questionnaires and described the tool as easy to use. Data quality was high, with little missing data. Site-lead feedback showed high satisfaction ratings for the project (mean, 4.83 out of 5). This pilot showed that trainee collaboratives can work together to deliver an audit using an encrypted data capture tool cost-effectively, whilst maintaining the highest levels of data quality.

Glenn's Strategic Partnerships With HBCUs and OMUs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kankam, M. David

2003-01-01

NASA senior management has identified the need to develop a strategy for increased contracting with the historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other minority universities (OMUs). The benefits to the institutions, by partnering with NASA, include developing their industrial base via NASA-industry partnerships, strong competitive advantage in technology-based research opportunities, and improved research capabilities. NASA gains increased contributed value to the Agency missions and programs as well as potential future recruits from technology-trained students who also constitute a pool for the nation s workforce. This report documents synergistic links between Glenn Research Center research and technology programs and faculty expertise at HBCUs and OMUs. The links are derived, based on Glenn technologies in the various directorates, program offices, and project offices. Such links readily identify universities with faculty members who are knowledgeable or have backgrounds in the listed technologies for possible collaboration. Recommendations are made to use the links as opportunities for Glenn and NASA, as well as industry collaborators, to cultivate stronger partnerships with the universities. It is concluded that Glenn and its partners and collaborators can expect to mutually benefit from leveraging NASA s cutting-edge and challenging research and technologies; industry's high technology development, research and development facilities, system design capabilities and market awareness; and academia s expertise in basic research and relatively low overhead cost. Reduced cost, accelerated technology development, technology transfer, and infrastructure development constitute some of the derived benefits.

International Collaboration between US and Thailand on a Clinical Trial of Treatment for HIV-associated Cryptococcal Meningitis

PubMed Central

Zimmer, LO; Nolen, TL; Pramanpol, S; Wallace, D; Walker, ME; Pappas, P; Chetchotisakd, P

2010-01-01

Background International clinical trials can provide scientific and logistic benefits in spite of the many challenges. Determining whether a country, especially a developing country, is an appropriate location for the research should include in-country consultation and partnering to assess its social value for the population; that treatments are relevant for the population under study; and that the research infrastructure and ethical oversight are adequate. Collaboration increases the likelihood of study success and helps ensure that benefits accrue to recruited populations and their community. Purpose This paper describes our experiences on a bi-national study and may provide guidance for those planning to engage in future collaborations. Methods A Thai and United States team collaborated to develop and implement a Phase II clinical trial for HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis to assess safety and tolerability of combination therapy versus standard treatment. Clinical and cultural differences, regulatory hurdles and operational issues were addressed before and during the study to ensure a successful collaboration between the 2 groups. Results The international multicenter study allowed for more rapid enrollment, reduced costs to complete the study, sharing of the benefits of research, greater generalizability of results and capacity building in Thailand; quality metrics in Thailand were equivalent to or better than those in the U.S. Conclusions Conducting successful clinical trials internationally requires early and ongoing collaboration to ensure the study meets sites’ requirements and expectations, conforms to varying national regulations, adheres to data quality standards and is responsive to the health needs of studied populations. PMID:19897055

Developing A Large-Scale, Collaborative, Productive Geoscience Education Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manduca, C. A.; Bralower, T. J.; Egger, A. E.; Fox, S.; Ledley, T. S.; Macdonald, H.; Mcconnell, D. A.; Mogk, D. W.; Tewksbury, B. J.

2012-12-01

Over the past 15 years, the geoscience education community has grown substantially and developed broad and deep capacity for collaboration and dissemination of ideas. While this community is best viewed as emergent from complex interactions among changing educational needs and opportunities, we highlight the role of several large projects in the development of a network within this community. In the 1990s, three NSF projects came together to build a robust web infrastructure to support the production and dissemination of on-line resources: On The Cutting Edge (OTCE), Earth Exploration Toolbook, and Starting Point: Teaching Introductory Geoscience. Along with the contemporaneous Digital Library for Earth System Education, these projects engaged geoscience educators nationwide in exploring professional development experiences that produced lasting on-line resources, collaborative authoring of resources, and models for web-based support for geoscience teaching. As a result, a culture developed in the 2000s in which geoscience educators anticipated that resources for geoscience teaching would be shared broadly and that collaborative authoring would be productive and engaging. By this time, a diverse set of examples demonstrated the power of the web infrastructure in supporting collaboration, dissemination and professional development . Building on this foundation, more recent work has expanded both the size of the network and the scope of its work. Many large research projects initiated collaborations to disseminate resources supporting educational use of their data. Research results from the rapidly expanding geoscience education research community were integrated into the Pedagogies in Action website and OTCE. Projects engaged faculty across the nation in large-scale data collection and educational research. The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network and OTCE engaged community members in reviewing the expanding body of on-line resources. Building Strong Geoscience Departments sought to create the same type of shared information base that was supporting individual faculty for departments. The Teach the Earth portal and its underlying web development tools were used by NSF-funded projects in education to disseminate their results. Leveraging these funded efforts, the Climate Literacy Network has expanded this geoscience education community to include individuals broadly interested in fostering climate literacy. Most recently, the InTeGrate project is implementing inter-institutional collaborative authoring, testing and evaluation of curricular materials. While these projects represent only a fraction of the activity in geoscience education, they are important drivers in the development of a large, national, coherent geoscience education network with the ability to collaborate and disseminate information effectively. Importantly, the community is open and defined by active participation. Key mechanisms for engagement have included alignment of project activities with participants needs and goals; productive face-to-face and virtual workshops, events, and series; stipends for completion of large products; and strong supporting staff to keep projects moving and assist with product production. One measure of its success is the adoption and adaptation of resources and models by emerging projects, which results in the continued growth of the network.

20 year IRIS: impact on seismological research at home and abroad

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van der Hilst, R. D.

2004-12-01

: The positive impact of IRIS, through its programs (GSN, PASSCAL, DMS, EO) and its workshops, on seismological research and community building can hardly be overestimated. The Data Management System has been very successful in bringing data to users for research and education anywhere in the world; it enables routine, and in many cases real time, analysis of massive amounts of waveform data for a spectacularly diverse range of studies. (I will give examples of surface wave tomography and inverse scattering studies of the core mantle boundary.) The support that PASSCAL provides for the planning and execution of field campaigns allows seismologists to shift attention from operational issues to exciting science, and the required data dissemination through DMS does not only result in tremendously valuable data sets but also contributes to community building through (international) collaboration. Europe, Australia, and Asia also have rich histories of network and portable array seismometry, and in many areas the cumulative station density exceeds that of North America (even, perhaps, with USArray). Moreover, in some cases, such as the use of temporary, roving arrays of broad band seismometers, activities overseas may have preceded and inspired developments in the US. However, the absence of effective central systems for management and dissemination of quality-controlled data has left many unique historical and regional data sets underutilized. This situation is changing, however. As an example I will mention the NERIES initiative to build a better infrastructure for seismological research and education in Europe. Apart from providing an example, through international collaboration IRIS can continue to play an important role in the improvement of the global seismological infrastructure.

Collaborative Research in Childhood Cancer Survivorship: The Current Landscape

PubMed Central

Bhatia, Smita; Armenian, Saro H.; Armstrong, Gregory T.; van Dulmen-den Broeder, Eline; Hawkins, Michael M.; Kremer, Leontien C.M.; Kuehni, Claudia E.; Olsen, Jørgen H.; Robison, Leslie L.; Hudson, Melissa M.

2015-01-01

Survivors of childhood cancer carry a substantial burden of morbidity and are at increased risk for premature death. Furthermore, clear associations exist between specific therapeutic exposures and the risk for a variety of long-term complications. The entire landscape of health issues encountered for decades after successful completion of treatment is currently being explored in various collaborative research settings. These settings include large population-based or multi-institutional cohorts and single-institution studies. The ascertainment of outcomes has depended on self-reporting, linkage to registries, or clinical assessments. Survivorship research in the cooperative group setting, such as the Children's Oncology Group, has leveraged the clinical trials infrastructure to explore the molecular underpinnings of treatment-related adverse events, and to understand specific complications in the setting of randomized risk-reduction strategies. This review highlights the salient findings from these large collaborative initiatives, emphasizing the need for life-long follow-up of survivors of childhood cancer, and describing the development of several guidelines and efforts toward harmonization. Finally, the review reinforces the need to identify populations at highest risk, facilitating the development of risk prediction models that would allow for targeted interventions across the entire trajectory of survivorship. PMID:26304891

Scalable collaborative risk management technology for complex critical systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, Scott; Torgerson, Leigh; Burleigh, Scott; Feather, Martin S.; Kiper, James D.

2004-01-01

We describe here our project and plans to develop methods, software tools, and infrastructure tools to address challenges relating to geographically distributed software development. Specifically, this work is creating an infrastructure that supports applications working over distributed geographical and organizational domains and is using this infrastructure to develop a tool that supports project development using risk management and analysis techniques where the participants are not collocated.

Regional collaboration in transport infrastructure provision : the case of Denver's FasTracks rail transit program.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2011-06-01

Cities across the United States are grappling with a looming transportation crisis as a : result of ever-increasing passenger and freight transport demands and overburdened : networks of aging infrastructure. All levels of government, but particularl...

Safety and operations of hydrogen fuel infrastructure in northern climates : a collaborative complex systems approach.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2010-10-07

"This project examined the safety and operation of hydrogen (H2) fueling system infrastructure in : northern climates. A multidisciplinary team lead by the University of Vermont (UVM), : combined with investigators from Zhejiang and Tsinghua Universi...

78 FR 34661 - Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-06-10

...: Infrastructure development; collaboration and coordination among partner agencies, organizations, and service...). Project LAUNCH promotes the healthy development and wellness of children ages birth to eight years. A..., build infrastructure, and improve methods for providing services. Grantees implement a range of public...

Scalability Issues for Remote Sensing Infrastructure: A Case Study

PubMed Central

Liu, Yang; Picard, Sean; Williamson, Carey

2017-01-01

For the past decade, a team of University of Calgary researchers has operated a large “sensor Web” to collect, analyze, and share scientific data from remote measurement instruments across northern Canada. This sensor Web receives real-time data streams from over a thousand Internet-connected sensors, with a particular emphasis on environmental data (e.g., space weather, auroral phenomena, atmospheric imaging). Through research collaborations, we had the opportunity to evaluate the performance and scalability of their remote sensing infrastructure. This article reports the lessons learned from our study, which considered both data collection and data dissemination aspects of their system. On the data collection front, we used benchmarking techniques to identify and fix a performance bottleneck in the system’s memory management for TCP data streams, while also improving system efficiency on multi-core architectures. On the data dissemination front, we used passive and active network traffic measurements to identify and reduce excessive network traffic from the Web robots and JavaScript techniques used for data sharing. While our results are from one specific sensor Web system, the lessons learned may apply to other scientific Web sites with remote sensing infrastructure. PMID:28468262

High-performance integrated virtual environment (HIVE): a robust infrastructure for next-generation sequence data analysis

PubMed Central

Simonyan, Vahan; Chumakov, Konstantin; Dingerdissen, Hayley; Faison, William; Goldweber, Scott; Golikov, Anton; Gulzar, Naila; Karagiannis, Konstantinos; Vinh Nguyen Lam, Phuc; Maudru, Thomas; Muravitskaja, Olesja; Osipova, Ekaterina; Pan, Yang; Pschenichnov, Alexey; Rostovtsev, Alexandre; Santana-Quintero, Luis; Smith, Krista; Thompson, Elaine E.; Tkachenko, Valery; Torcivia-Rodriguez, John; Wan, Quan; Wang, Jing; Wu, Tsung-Jung; Wilson, Carolyn; Mazumder, Raja

2016-01-01

The High-performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) is a distributed storage and compute environment designed primarily to handle next-generation sequencing (NGS) data. This multicomponent cloud infrastructure provides secure web access for authorized users to deposit, retrieve, annotate and compute on NGS data, and to analyse the outcomes using web interface visual environments appropriately built in collaboration with research and regulatory scientists and other end users. Unlike many massively parallel computing environments, HIVE uses a cloud control server which virtualizes services, not processes. It is both very robust and flexible due to the abstraction layer introduced between computational requests and operating system processes. The novel paradigm of moving computations to the data, instead of moving data to computational nodes, has proven to be significantly less taxing for both hardware and network infrastructure. The honeycomb data model developed for HIVE integrates metadata into an object-oriented model. Its distinction from other object-oriented databases is in the additional implementation of a unified application program interface to search, view and manipulate data of all types. This model simplifies the introduction of new data types, thereby minimizing the need for database restructuring and streamlining the development of new integrated information systems. The honeycomb model employs a highly secure hierarchical access control and permission system, allowing determination of data access privileges in a finely granular manner without flooding the security subsystem with a multiplicity of rules. HIVE infrastructure will allow engineers and scientists to perform NGS analysis in a manner that is both efficient and secure. HIVE is actively supported in public and private domains, and project collaborations are welcomed. Database URL: https://hive.biochemistry.gwu.edu PMID:26989153

High-performance integrated virtual environment (HIVE): a robust infrastructure for next-generation sequence data analysis.

PubMed

Simonyan, Vahan; Chumakov, Konstantin; Dingerdissen, Hayley; Faison, William; Goldweber, Scott; Golikov, Anton; Gulzar, Naila; Karagiannis, Konstantinos; Vinh Nguyen Lam, Phuc; Maudru, Thomas; Muravitskaja, Olesja; Osipova, Ekaterina; Pan, Yang; Pschenichnov, Alexey; Rostovtsev, Alexandre; Santana-Quintero, Luis; Smith, Krista; Thompson, Elaine E; Tkachenko, Valery; Torcivia-Rodriguez, John; Voskanian, Alin; Wan, Quan; Wang, Jing; Wu, Tsung-Jung; Wilson, Carolyn; Mazumder, Raja

2016-01-01

The High-performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) is a distributed storage and compute environment designed primarily to handle next-generation sequencing (NGS) data. This multicomponent cloud infrastructure provides secure web access for authorized users to deposit, retrieve, annotate and compute on NGS data, and to analyse the outcomes using web interface visual environments appropriately built in collaboration with research and regulatory scientists and other end users. Unlike many massively parallel computing environments, HIVE uses a cloud control server which virtualizes services, not processes. It is both very robust and flexible due to the abstraction layer introduced between computational requests and operating system processes. The novel paradigm of moving computations to the data, instead of moving data to computational nodes, has proven to be significantly less taxing for both hardware and network infrastructure.The honeycomb data model developed for HIVE integrates metadata into an object-oriented model. Its distinction from other object-oriented databases is in the additional implementation of a unified application program interface to search, view and manipulate data of all types. This model simplifies the introduction of new data types, thereby minimizing the need for database restructuring and streamlining the development of new integrated information systems. The honeycomb model employs a highly secure hierarchical access control and permission system, allowing determination of data access privileges in a finely granular manner without flooding the security subsystem with a multiplicity of rules. HIVE infrastructure will allow engineers and scientists to perform NGS analysis in a manner that is both efficient and secure. HIVE is actively supported in public and private domains, and project collaborations are welcomed. Database URL: https://hive.biochemistry.gwu.edu. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

The Materials Commons: A Collaboration Platform and Information Repository for the Global Materials Community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Puchala, Brian; Tarcea, Glenn; Marquis, Emmanuelle. A.; Hedstrom, Margaret; Jagadish, H. V.; Allison, John E.

2016-08-01

Accelerating the pace of materials discovery and development requires new approaches and means of collaborating and sharing information. To address this need, we are developing the Materials Commons, a collaboration platform and information repository for use by the structural materials community. The Materials Commons has been designed to be a continuous, seamless part of the scientific workflow process. Researchers upload the results of experiments and computations as they are performed, automatically where possible, along with the provenance information describing the experimental and computational processes. The Materials Commons website provides an easy-to-use interface for uploading and downloading data and data provenance, as well as for searching and sharing data. This paper provides an overview of the Materials Commons. Concepts are also outlined for integrating the Materials Commons with the broader Materials Information Infrastructure that is evolving to support the Materials Genome Initiative.

Expanding research to provide an evidence base for nutritional interventions for the management of inborn errors of metabolism.

PubMed

Camp, Kathryn M; Lloyd-Puryear, Michele A; Yao, Lynne; Groft, Stephen C; Parisi, Melissa A; Mulberg, Andrew; Gopal-Srivastava, Rashmi; Cederbaum, Stephen; Enns, Gregory M; Ershow, Abby G; Frazier, Dianne M; Gohagan, John; Harding, Cary; Howell, R Rodney; Regan, Karen; Stacpoole, Peter W; Venditti, Charles; Vockley, Jerry; Watson, Michael; Coates, Paul M

2013-08-01

A trans-National Institutes of Health initiative, Nutrition and Dietary Supplement Interventions for Inborn Errors of Metabolism (NDSI-IEM), was launched in 2010 to identify gaps in knowledge regarding the safety and utility of nutritional interventions for the management of inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) that need to be filled with evidence-based research. IEM include inherited biochemical disorders in which specific enzyme defects interfere with the normal metabolism of exogenous (dietary) or endogenous protein, carbohydrate, or fat. For some of these IEM, effective management depends primarily on nutritional interventions. Further research is needed to demonstrate the impact of nutritional interventions on individual health outcomes and on the psychosocial issues identified by patients and their families. A series of meetings and discussions were convened to explore the current United States' funding and regulatory infrastructure and the challenges to the conduct of research for nutritional interventions for the management of IEM. Although the research and regulatory infrastructure are well-established, a collaborative pathway that includes the professional and advocacy rare disease community and federal regulatory and research agencies will be needed to overcome current barriers. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Network Computing Infrastructure to Share Tools and Data in Global Nuclear Energy Partnership

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Guehee; Suzuki, Yoshio; Teshima, Naoya

CCSE/JAEA (Center for Computational Science and e-Systems/Japan Atomic Energy Agency) integrated a prototype system of a network computing infrastructure for sharing tools and data to support the U.S. and Japan collaboration in GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership). We focused on three technical issues to apply our information process infrastructure, which are accessibility, security, and usability. In designing the prototype system, we integrated and improved both network and Web technologies. For the accessibility issue, we adopted SSL-VPN (Security Socket Layer-Virtual Private Network) technology for the access beyond firewalls. For the security issue, we developed an authentication gateway based on the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) authentication mechanism to strengthen the security. Also, we set fine access control policy to shared tools and data and used shared key based encryption method to protect tools and data against leakage to third parties. For the usability issue, we chose Web browsers as user interface and developed Web application to provide functions to support sharing tools and data. By using WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) function, users can manipulate shared tools and data through the Windows-like folder environment. We implemented the prototype system in Grid infrastructure for atomic energy research: AEGIS (Atomic Energy Grid Infrastructure) developed by CCSE/JAEA. The prototype system was applied for the trial use in the first period of GNEP.

CloudMan as a platform for tool, data, and analysis distribution.

PubMed

Afgan, Enis; Chapman, Brad; Taylor, James

2012-11-27

Cloud computing provides an infrastructure that facilitates large scale computational analysis in a scalable, democratized fashion, However, in this context it is difficult to ensure sharing of an analysis environment and associated data in a scalable and precisely reproducible way. CloudMan (usecloudman.org) enables individual researchers to easily deploy, customize, and share their entire cloud analysis environment, including data, tools, and configurations. With the enabled customization and sharing of instances, CloudMan can be used as a platform for collaboration. The presented solution improves accessibility of cloud resources, tools, and data to the level of an individual researcher and contributes toward reproducibility and transparency of research solutions.

Scalable Architecture for Federated Translational Inquiries Network (SAFTINet) Technology Infrastructure for a Distributed Data Network

PubMed Central

Schilling, Lisa M.; Kwan, Bethany M.; Drolshagen, Charles T.; Hosokawa, Patrick W.; Brandt, Elias; Pace, Wilson D.; Uhrich, Christopher; Kamerick, Michael; Bunting, Aidan; Payne, Philip R.O.; Stephens, William E.; George, Joseph M.; Vance, Mark; Giacomini, Kelli; Braddy, Jason; Green, Mika K.; Kahn, Michael G.

2013-01-01

Introduction: Distributed Data Networks (DDNs) offer infrastructure solutions for sharing electronic health data from across disparate data sources to support comparative effectiveness research. Data sharing mechanisms must address technical and governance concerns stemming from network security and data disclosure laws and best practices, such as HIPAA. Methods: The Scalable Architecture for Federated Translational Inquiries Network (SAFTINet) deploys TRIAD grid technology, a common data model, detailed technical documentation, and custom software for data harmonization to facilitate data sharing in collaboration with stakeholders in the care of safety net populations. Data sharing partners host TRIAD grid nodes containing harmonized clinical data within their internal or hosted network environments. Authorized users can use a central web-based query system to request analytic data sets. Discussion: SAFTINet DDN infrastructure achieved a number of data sharing objectives, including scalable and sustainable systems for ensuring harmonized data structures and terminologies and secure distributed queries. Initial implementation challenges were resolved through iterative discussions, development and implementation of technical documentation, governance, and technology solutions. PMID:25848567

Scalable Architecture for Federated Translational Inquiries Network (SAFTINet) Technology Infrastructure for a Distributed Data Network.

PubMed

Schilling, Lisa M; Kwan, Bethany M; Drolshagen, Charles T; Hosokawa, Patrick W; Brandt, Elias; Pace, Wilson D; Uhrich, Christopher; Kamerick, Michael; Bunting, Aidan; Payne, Philip R O; Stephens, William E; George, Joseph M; Vance, Mark; Giacomini, Kelli; Braddy, Jason; Green, Mika K; Kahn, Michael G

2013-01-01

Distributed Data Networks (DDNs) offer infrastructure solutions for sharing electronic health data from across disparate data sources to support comparative effectiveness research. Data sharing mechanisms must address technical and governance concerns stemming from network security and data disclosure laws and best practices, such as HIPAA. The Scalable Architecture for Federated Translational Inquiries Network (SAFTINet) deploys TRIAD grid technology, a common data model, detailed technical documentation, and custom software for data harmonization to facilitate data sharing in collaboration with stakeholders in the care of safety net populations. Data sharing partners host TRIAD grid nodes containing harmonized clinical data within their internal or hosted network environments. Authorized users can use a central web-based query system to request analytic data sets. SAFTINet DDN infrastructure achieved a number of data sharing objectives, including scalable and sustainable systems for ensuring harmonized data structures and terminologies and secure distributed queries. Initial implementation challenges were resolved through iterative discussions, development and implementation of technical documentation, governance, and technology solutions.

Towards a collaborative, global infrastructure for biodiversity assessment

PubMed Central

Guralnick, Robert P; Hill, Andrew W; Lane, Meredith

2007-01-01

Biodiversity data are rapidly becoming available over the Internet in common formats that promote sharing and exchange. Currently, these data are somewhat problematic, primarily with regard to geographic and taxonomic accuracy, for use in ecological research, natural resources management and conservation decision-making. However, web-based georeferencing tools that utilize best practices and gazetteer databases can be employed to improve geographic data. Taxonomic data quality can be improved through web-enabled valid taxon names databases and services, as well as more efficient mechanisms to return systematic research results and taxonomic misidentification rates back to the biodiversity community. Both of these are under construction. A separate but related challenge will be developing web-based visualization and analysis tools for tracking biodiversity change. Our aim was to discuss how such tools, combined with data of enhanced quality, will help transform today's portals to raw biodiversity data into nexuses of collaborative creation and sharing of biodiversity knowledge. PMID:17594421

The Innovation Hyperlab - Linking Student Innovation at University and Pre-College Levels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tagg, Randall

2012-02-01

We have created a laboratory environment to support collaboration between university and pre-college students on innovation and entrepreneurship projects. Called the ``Innovation Hyperlab,'' this facility is located in a K-12 complex called VistaPEAK schools in Aurora, Colorado. The lab is supported by four elements: a research-grade technical infrastructure of supplies and equipment for technical prototyping, a developing curriculum of ``learning modules on demand'' for rapid assimilation of technical skills, mentors from universities / medical schools / industry, and innovation projects stimulated by connections with the regional community. A current focus of projects is on medical technology development, linking tenth graders with university undergraduate research students and coordinated with the University of Colorado Denver's medical school. The Innovation Hyperlab is a work in progress and we will describe challenges that arise in connecting such a collaboration with traditional curriculum at both the university and pre-college levels.

Report on the CEPA activities [Consorcio Educativo para la Proteccion Ambiental/Educational Consortium for Environmental Preservation] [Final report of activities from 1998 to 2002

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cruz, Miriam

This report compiles the instances of scientific, educational, and institutional cooperation on environmental issues and other activities in which CEPA was engaged during the past five years, and includes several annual reports and meeting summaries. CEPA is a collaborative international consortium that brings together higher education institutions with governmental agencies, research laboratories, and private sector entities. CEPA's mission is to strengthen the technical, professional, and educational environmental infrastructure in the United States and Latin America. The CEPA program includes curriculum development, student exchange, faculty development, and creation of educational materials, joint research, and other cooperative activities. CEPA's goals are accomplishedmore » by actively working with Hispanic-serving institutions of higher education in the United States, in collaboration with institutions of higher education in Latin America and other Consortium members to deliver competitive environmental programs.« less

Establishing a clinical trials network in nephrology: experience of the Australasian Kidney Trials Network

PubMed Central

Morrish, Alicia T; Hawley, Carmel M; Johnson, David W; Badve, Sunil V; Perkovic, Vlado; Reidlinger, Donna M; Cass, Alan

2014-01-01

Chronic kidney disease is a major public health problem globally. Despite this, there are fewer high-quality, high-impact clinical trials in nephrology than other internal medicine specialties, which has led to large gaps in evidence. To address this deficiency, the Australasian Kidney Trials Network, a Collaborative Research Group, was formed in 2005. Since then, the Network has provided infrastructure and expertise to conduct patient-focused high-quality, investigator-initiated clinical trials in nephrology. The Network has not only been successful in engaging the nephrology community in Australia and New Zealand but also in forming collaborations with leading researchers from other countries. This article describes the establishment, development, and functions of the Network. The article also discusses the current and future funding strategies to ensure uninterrupted conduct of much needed clinical trials in nephrology to improve the outcomes of patients affected by kidney diseases with cost-effective interventions. PMID:24088955

Application of ESE Data and Tools to Air Quality Management: Services for Helping the Air Quality Community use ESE Data (SHAirED)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Falke, Stefan; Husar, Rudolf

2011-01-01

The goal of this REASoN applications and technology project is to deliver and use Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) data and tools in support of air quality management. Its scope falls within the domain of air quality management and aims to develop a federated air quality information sharing network that includes data from NASA, EPA, US States and others. Project goals were achieved through a access of satellite and ground observation data, web services information technology, interoperability standards, and air quality community collaboration. In contributing to a network of NASA ESE data in support of particulate air quality management, the project will develop access to distributed data, build Web infrastructure, and create tools for data processing and analysis. The key technologies used in the project include emerging web services for developing self describing and modular data access and processing tools, and service oriented architecture for chaining web services together to assemble customized air quality management applications. The technology and tools required for this project were developed within DataFed.net, a shared infrastructure that supports collaborative atmospheric data sharing and processing web services. Much of the collaboration was facilitated through community interactions through the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Air Quality Workgroup. The main activities during the project that successfully advanced DataFed, enabled air quality applications and established community-oriented infrastructures were: develop access to distributed data (surface and satellite), build Web infrastructure to support data access, processing and analysis create tools for data processing and analysis foster air quality community collaboration and interoperability.

Sharing Water-related Information to Tackle Changes in the Hydrosphere - for Operational Needs (SWITCH-ON)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arheimer, Berit

2015-04-01

Recently, a collaborative EU project started called SWITCH-ON (EU FP7 project No 603587) coordinated by SMHI to support the INSPIRE directive and the Open Data Strategy. The overall goal of the project is to establish a "one-stop-shop" web portal for easy access to European water information. The project will use open data, provide infrastructure for sharing and collaboration, and add value to society and research by repurposing and refining data from various sources. The SWITCH-ON project http://www.water-switch-on.eu/ will establish new forms of water research and facilitate the development of new products and services based on principles of sharing and community building in the water society. The SWITCH-ON objectives are to use open data for implementing: 1) an innovative spatial information platform (SIP) to find, bind, transform and publish data, 2) entirely new forms of collaborative research organised in a Virtual Water-Science Laboratory, open for any research group, 3) fourteen new operational products for water management and awareness, 4) outreach facilities for new water business and knowledge in line with the Europe's smart growth and environmental objectives. This poster will describe the overall project goals and especially the recent progress on developing a Virtual Water-Science Laboratory. Contact: waterswitchon@gmail.com

The role of the ADS in software discovery and citation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Accomazzi, Alberto

2018-01-01

As the primary index of scholarly content in astronomy and physics, the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is collaborating with the AAS journals and the Zenodo repository in an effort to promote the preservation of scientific software used in astronomy research and its citation in scholarly publications. In this talk I will discuss how ADS is updating its service infrastructure to allow for the publication, indexing, and citation of software records in scientific articles.

Requirements for plug and play information infrastructure frameworks and architectures to enable virtual enterprises

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bolton, Richard W.; Dewey, Allen; Horstmann, Paul W.; Laurentiev, John

1997-01-01

This paper examines the role virtual enterprises will have in supporting future business engagements and resulting technology requirements. Two representative end-user scenarios are proposed that define the requirements for 'plug-and-play' information infrastructure frameworks and architectures necessary to enable 'virtual enterprises' in US manufacturing industries. The scenarios provide a high- level 'needs analysis' for identifying key technologies, defining a reference architecture, and developing compliant reference implementations. Virtual enterprises are short- term consortia or alliances of companies formed to address fast-changing opportunities. Members of a virtual enterprise carry out their tasks as if they all worked for a single organization under 'one roof', using 'plug-and-play' information infrastructure frameworks and architectures to access and manage all information needed to support the product cycle. 'Plug-and-play' information infrastructure frameworks and architectures are required to enhance collaboration between companies corking together on different aspects of a manufacturing process. This new form of collaborative computing will decrease cycle-time and increase responsiveness to change.

Navy Collaborative Integrated Information Technology Initiative

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-01-11

investigating the development and application of collaborative multimedia conferencing software for education and other groupwork activities. We are extending...an alternative environment for place-based synchronous groupwork . The new environment is based on the same collaborative infrastructure as the...alternative environment for place- based synchronous groupwork . This information is being used as an initial user profile, requirements analysis

The Icelandic volcanological data node and data service

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vogfjord, Kristin; Sigmundsson, Freysteinn; Futurevolc Team

2013-04-01

Through funding from the European FP7 programme, the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO), as well as the local Icelandic government and RANNÍS research fund, the establishment of the Icelandic volcano observatory (VO) as a cross-disciplinary, international volcanological data node and data service is starting to materialize. At the core of this entity is the close collaboration between the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO), a natural hazard monitoring and research institution, and researchers at the Earth Science Institute of the University of Iceland, ensuring long-term sustainable access to research quality data and products. Existing Icelandic Earth science monitoring and research infrastructures are being prepared for integration with the European EPOS infrastructure. Because the VO is located at a Met Office, this infrastructure also includes meteorological infrastructures relevant to volcanology. Furthermore, the FP7 supersite project, FUTUREVOLC cuts across disciplines to bring together European researchers from Earth science, atmospheric science, remote sensing and space science focussed on combined processing of the different data sources and results to generate a multiparametric volcano monitoring and early warning system. Integration with atmospheric and space science is to meet the need for better estimates of the volcanic eruption source term and dispersion, which depend not only on the magma flow rate and composition, but also on atmosphere-plume interaction and dispersion. This should lead to better estimates of distribution of ash in the atmosphere. FUTUREVOLC will significantly expand the existing Icelandic EPOS infrastructure to an even more multidisciplinary volcanological infrastructure. A central and sustainable part of the project is the establishment of a research-quality data centre at the VO. This data centre will be able to serve as a volcanological data node within EPOS, making multidisciplinary data accessible to scientists and stakeholders, and enabling the generation of products and services useful for civil protection, societal infrastructure and international aviation. The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption demonstrated that eruption and dispersion of volcanic ash in the atmosphere can have far-reaching detrimental effects on aviation. The aviation community is therefore an important stakeholder in volcano monitoring, but interaction between the two communities is not well established. Traditionally Met Offices provide services vital to aviation safety and therefore have strong ties to the aviation community, with internationally established protocols for interaction. The co-habitation of a Met Office with a VO establishes a firm connection between these communities and allows adaptation of already established protocols to facilitate access to information and development of services for aviation, as well as sources of support for the VO.

Advancing research opportunities and promoting pathways in graduate education: a systemic approach to BUILD training at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).

PubMed

Urizar, Guido G; Henriques, Laura; Chun, Chi-Ah; Buonora, Paul; Vu, Kim-Phuong L; Galvez, Gino; Kingsford, Laura

2017-01-01

First-generation college graduates, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds are gravely underrepresented in the health research workforce representing behavioral health sciences and biomedical sciences and engineering (BHS/BSE). Furthermore, relative to their peers, very few students from these underrepresented groups (URGs) earn scientific bachelor's degrees with even fewer earning doctorate degrees. Therefore, programs that engage and retain URGs in health-related research careers early on in their career path are imperative to promote the diversity of well-trained research scientists who have the ability to address the nation's complex health challenges in an interdisciplinary way. The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges, lessons learned, and sustainability of implementing a large-scale, multidisciplinary research infrastructure at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) - a minority-serving institution - through federal funding received by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative. The CSULB BUILD initiative consists of developing a research infrastructure designed to engage and retain URGs on the research career path by providing them with the research training and skills needed to make them highly competitive for doctoral programs and entry into the research workforce. This initiative unites many research disciplines using basic, applied, and translational approaches to offer insights and develop technologies addressing prominent community and national health issues from a multidisciplinary perspective. Additionally, this initiative brings together local (e.g., high school, community college, doctoral research institutions) and national (e.g., National Research Mentoring Network) collaborative partners to alter how we identify, develop, and implement resources to enhance student and faculty research. Finally, this initiative establishes a student research training program that engages URGs earlier in their academic development, is larger and multidisciplinary in scope, and is responsive to the life contexts and promotes the cultural capital that URGs bring to their career path. Although there have been many challenges to planning for and developing CSULB BUILD's large-scale, multidisciplinary research infrastructure, there have been many lessons learned in the process that could aid other campuses in the development and sustainability of similar research programs.

Improving the informed consent process in international collaborative rare disease research: effective consent for effective research

PubMed Central

Gainotti, Sabina; Turner, Cathy; Woods, Simon; Kole, Anna; McCormack, Pauline; Lochmüller, Hanns; Riess, Olaf; Straub, Volker; Posada, Manuel; Taruscio, Domenica; Mascalzoni, Deborah

2016-01-01

The increased international sharing of data in research consortia and the introduction of new technologies for sequencing challenge the informed consent (IC) process, adding complexities that require coordination between research centres worldwide. Rare disease consortia present special challenges since available data and samples may be very limited. Thus, it is especially relevant to ensure the best use of available resources but at the same time protect patients' right to integrity. To achieve this aim, there is an ethical duty to plan in advance the best possible consent procedure in order to address possible ethical and legal hurdles that could hamper research in the future. Therefore, it is especially important to identify key core elements (CEs) to be addressed in the IC documents for international collaborative research in two different situations: (1) new research collections (biobanks and registries) for which information documents can be created according to current guidelines and (2) established collections obtained without IC or with a previous consent that does not cover all CEs. We propose here a strategy to deal with consent in these situations. The principles have been applied and are in current practice within the RD-Connect consortia – a global research infrastructure funded by the European Commission Seventh Framework program but forward looking in terms of issues addressed. However, the principles established, the lessons learned and the implications for future research are of direct relevance to all internationally collaborative rare-disease projects. PMID:26860059

Access and preservation of digital research content: Linked open data services - A research library perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kraft, Angelina; Sens, Irina; Löwe, Peter; Dreyer, Britta

2016-04-01

Globally resolvable, persistent digital identifiers have become an essential tool to enable unambiguous links between published research results and their underlying digital resources. In addition, this unambiguous identification allows citation. In an ideal research world, any scientific content should be citable and the coherent content, as well as the citation itself, should be persistent. However, today's scientists do not just produce traditional research papers - they produce comprehensive digital collections of objects which, alongside digital texts, include digital resources such as research data, audiovisual media, digital lab journals, images, statistics and software code. Researchers start to look for services which allow management of these digital resources with minimum time investment. In light of this, we show how the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) develops supportive frameworks to accompany the life cycle of scientific knowledge generation and transfer. This includes technical infrastructures for • indexing, cataloguing, digital preservation, DOI names and licencing for text and digital objects (the TIB DOI registration, active since 2004) and • a digital repository for the deposition and provision of accessible, traceable and citeable research data (RADAR). One particular problem for the management of data originating from (collaborating) research infrastructures is their dynamic nature in terms of growth, access rights and quality. On a global scale, systems for access and preservation are in place for the big data domains (e.g. environmental sciences, space, climate). However, the stewardship for disciplines without a tradition of data sharing, including the fields of the so-called long tail, remains uncertain. The RADAR - Research Data Repository - project establishes a generic end-point data repository, which can be used in a collaborative way. RADAR enables clients to upload, edit, structure and describe their (collaborative) data in an organizational workspace. In such a workspace, administrators and curators can manage access and editorial rights before the data enters the preservation and optional publication phase. RADAR applies different PID strategies for closed vs. open data. For closed datasets, RADAR uses handles as identifiers and offers format-independent data preservation between 5 and 15 years, which can also be prolonged. By default, preserved data are only available to the respective data curators, which may selectively grant other researches access to preserved data. For open datasets, RADAR provides a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to enable researchers to clearly reference and reuse data and to guarantee data accessibility. RADAR offers the publication service of research data together with format-independent data preservation for an unlimited time period. Each published dataset can be enriched with discipline-specific metadata and an optional embargo period can be specified. With these two services, RADAR aims to meet demands from a broad range of specialized research disciplines: To provide a secure, citable data storage and citability for researchers which need to retain restricted access to data on one hand, and an e-infrastructure which allows for research data to be stored, found, managed, annotated, cited, curated and published in a digital platform available 24/7, on the other.

Collaborative Paradigm of Preventive, Personalized, and Precision Medicine With Point-of-Care Technologies

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Recent advances in biosensors, medical instrumentation, and information processing and communication technologies (ICT) have enabled significant improvements in healthcare. However, these technologies have been mainly applied in clinical environments, such as hospitals and healthcare facilities, under managed care by well-trained and specialized individuals. The global challenge of providing quality healthcare at affordable cost leads to the proposed paradigm of P reventive, Personalized, and Precision Medicine that requires a seamless use of technology and infrastructure support for patients and healthcare providers at point-of-care (POC) locations including homes, semi or pre-clinical facilities, and hospitals. The complexity of the global healthcare challenge necessitates strong collaborative interdisciplinary synergies involving all stakeholder groups including academia, federal research institutions, industry, regulatory agencies, and clinical communities. It is critical to evolve with collaborative efforts on the translation of research to technology development toward clinical validation and potential healthcare applications. This special issue is focused on technology innovation and translational research for POC applications with potential impact in improving global healthcare in the respective areas. Some of these papers were presented at the NIH-IEEE Strategic Conference on Healthcare Innovations and POC Technologies for Precision Medicine (HI-POCT) held at the NIH on November 9–10, 2015. The papers included in the Special Issue provide a spectrum of critical issues and collaborative resources on translational research of advanced POC devices and ICT into global healthcare environment. PMID:28560119

Bibliography on Biomass Feedstock Research: 1978-2002

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cushman, J.H.

2003-05-01

This report provides bibliographic citations for more than 1400 reports on biomass feedstock development published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its collaborators from 1978 through 2002. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is engaged in analysis of biomass resource supplies, research on the sustainability of feedstock resources, and research on feedstock engineering and infrastructure. From 1978 until 2002, Oak Ridge National Laboratory also provided technical leadership for the U.S. Department of Energy's Bioenergy Feedstock Development Program (BFDP), which supported research to identify and develop promising energy crops. This bibliography lists reports published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and by its collaboratorsmore » in the BFDP, including graduate student theses and dissertations.« less

Web-Based Integrated Research Environment for Aerodynamic Analyses and Design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ahn, Jae Wan; Kim, Jin-Ho; Kim, Chongam; Cho, Jung-Hyun; Hur, Cinyoung; Kim, Yoonhee; Kang, Sang-Hyun; Kim, Byungsoo; Moon, Jong Bae; Cho, Kum Won

e-AIRS[1,2], an abbreviation of ‘e-Science Aerospace Integrated Research System,' is a virtual organization designed to support aerodynamic flow analyses in aerospace engineering using the e-Science environment. As the first step toward a virtual aerospace engineering organization, e-AIRS intends to give a full support of aerodynamic research process. Currently, e-AIRS can handle both the computational and experimental aerodynamic research on the e-Science infrastructure. In detail, users can conduct a full CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) research process, request wind tunnel experiment, perform comparative analysis between computational prediction and experimental measurement, and finally, collaborate with other researchers using the web portal. The present paper describes those services and the internal architecture of the e-AIRS system.

Collaboration amongst clinical nursing leadership teams: a mixed-methods sequential explanatory study.

PubMed

Lamont, Scott; Brunero, Scott; Lyons, Sarah; Foster, Karlie; Perry, Lin

2015-11-01

To explore intra-professional collaboration amongst nursing leadership teams at a tertiary referral hospital in Sydney. Effective working within a wide network of alliances is critical to patient outcomes. An understanding of collaboration amongst nursing leadership teams is essential within this context. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was used. The Collaborative Behaviour scale was sent to 106 Nurse Unit Managers, Nurse Educators and Clinical Nurse Consultants to measure pairwise collaborative behaviours; two follow-up focus groups with 15 participants were conducted. Data were collected between May 2012 and May 2013. A thematic analysis of focus group data provided a detailed explanation of the questionnaire findings. The findings identified high collaboration between dyad groups. Two themes emerged from the thematic analysis: (1) professional role and expectations; with sub-themes of transparency and clarity of individual roles; and intra/interpersonal aspects of role functioning; and (2) organisational infrastructure and governance. These leadership teams can be effective and powerful vehicles for change and are central to optimum patient outcomes. Organisational strategic planning and evaluation can benefit from understanding how to promote collaborative behaviours in these nurse leaders. To date, little research has explored collaboration amongst nursing leadership teams. Successful collaboration may contribute to the efficient use of nursing resources; improve patient outcomes, and ultimately, nurse satisfaction and retention. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

EUDAT and EPOS moving towards the efficient management of scientific data sets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fiameni, Giuseppe; Bailo, Daniele; Cacciari, Claudio

2016-04-01

This abstract presents the collaboration between the European Collaborative Data Infrastructure (EUDAT) and the pan-European infrastructure for solid Earth science (EPOS) which draws on the management of scientific data sets through a reciprocal support agreement. EUDAT is a Consortium of European Data Centers and Scientific Communities whose focus is the development and realisation of the Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CDI), a common model for managing data spanning all European research data centres and data repositories and providing an interoperable layer of common data services. The EUDAT Service Suite is a set of a) implementations of the CDI model and b) standards, developed and offered by members of the EUDAT Consortium. These EUDAT Services include a baseline of CDI-compliant interface and API services - a "CDI Gateway" - plus a number of web-based GUIs and command-line client tools. On the other hand,the EPOS initiative aims at creating a pan-European infrastructure for the solid Earth science to support a safe and sustainable society. In accordance with this scientific vision, the mission of EPOS is to integrate the diverse and advanced European Research Infrastructures for solid Earth Science relying on new e-science opportunities to monitor and unravel the dynamic and complex Earth System. EPOS will enable innovative multidisciplinary research for a better understanding of the Earth's physical and chemical processes that control earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, ground instability and tsunami as well as the processes driving tectonics and Earth's surface dynamics. Through the integration of data, models and facilities EPOS will allow the Earth Science community to make a step change in developing new concepts and tools for key answers to scientific and socio-economic questions concerning geo-hazards and geo-resources as well as Earth sciences applications to the environment and to human welfare. To achieve this integration challenge and the interoperability among all involved communities, EPOS has designed an architecture capable to organize and manage distributed discipline-oriented centers (called Thematic Core Services - TCS). Such design envisage the creation of an integrating e-Infrastructure called Integrated Core Service (ICS), whose aim is to collect and integrate Data, Data Products, Software and Services, and provide homogeneous access to them to the end user, hiding all the complexity of the underlying network of TCS and National data centers. Therefore, EPOS can take advantage of EUDAT CDI at different levels: at the TCS level, providing technologies, knowledge and B2* services to discipline-oriented communities, and at the ICS level, by facilitating the integration and interoperability of different communities with different level of maturity in terms of technology expertise. EUDAT services are particularly suitable to facilitate this process as they can be deployed across the community centers to complement or augment existing services of more mature communities as well as be used by less mature communities as a gateway towards the EPOS integration. To this purpose, a pilot is being carried on in the context of the EPOS Seismological community to foster the uptake of EUDAT services among centers and thus ensure the efficient and sustainable management of scientific data sets. Data sets, e.g. seismic waveforms, collected through the Italian Seismic Network and the ORFEUS organization, are currently replicated onto EUDAT resources to ensure their long-term preservation and accessibility. The pilot will be extend to cover other use cases such as the management of meta-data and the fine-grained control of access.

Enabling cross-disciplinary research by linking data to Open Access publications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rettberg, N.

2012-04-01

OpenAIREplus focuses on the linking of research data to associated publications. The interlinking of research objects has implications for optimising the research process, allowing the sharing, enrichment and reuse of data, and ultimately serving to make open data an essential part of first class research. The growing call for more concrete data management and sharing plans, apparent at funder and national level, is complemented by the increasing support for a scientific infrastructure that supports the seamless access to a range of research materials. This paper will describe the recently launched OpenAIREplus and will detail how it plans to achieve its goals of developing an Open Access participatory infrastructure for scientific information. OpenAIREplus extends the current collaborative OpenAIRE project, which provides European researchers with a service network for the deposit of peer-reviewed FP7 grant-funded Open Access publications. This new project will focus on opening up the infrastructure to data sources from subject-specific communities to provide metadata about research data and publications, facilitating the linking between these objects. The ability to link within a publication out to a citable database, or other research data material, is fairly innovative and this project will enable users to search, browse, view, and create relationships between different information objects. In this regard, OpenAIREplus will build on prototypes of so-called "Enhanced Publications", originally conceived in the DRIVER-II project. OpenAIREplus recognizes the importance of representing the context of publications and datasets, thus linking to resources about the authors, their affiliation, location, project data and funding. The project will explore how links between text-based publications and research data are managed in different scientific fields. This complements a previous study in OpenAIRE on current disciplinary practices and future needs for infrastructural Open Access services, taking into account the variety within research approaches. Adopting Linked Data mechanisms on top of citation and content mining, it will approach the interchange of data between generic infrastructures such as OpenAIREplus and subject specific service providers. The paper will also touch on the other challenges envisaged in the project with regard to the culture of sharing data, as well as IPR, licensing and organisational issues.

Working Group on Virtual Data Integration

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Williams, D. N.; Palanisamy, G.; van Dam, K. K.

2016-02-04

This report is the outcome of a workshop commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) to examine current and future data infrastructure requirements foundational for achieving CESD scientific mission goals in advancing a robust, predictive understanding of Earth’s climate and environmental systems. Over the past several years, data volumes in CESD disciplines have risen sharply to unprecedented levels (tens of petabytes). Moreover, the complexity and diversity of this research data— including simulations, observations, and reanalysis— have grown significantly, posing new challenges for data capture, storage, verification, analysis, and integration. With the trends ofmore » increased data volume (in the hundreds of petabytes), more complex analysis processes, and growing cross-disciplinary collaborations, it is timely to investigate whether the CESD community has the computational and data support needed to fully realize the scientific potential of its data collections. In recognition of the challenges, a partnership is forming across CESD and among national and international agencies to examine the viability of creating an integrated, collaborative data infrastructure: a Virtual Laboratory. The overarching goal of this report is to identify the community’s key data technology requirements and high-priority development needs for sustaining and growing its scientific discovery potential. The report also aims to map these requirements to existing solutions and to identify gaps in current services, tools, and infrastructure that will need to be addressed in the short, medium, and long term to advance scientific progress.« less

Data And Informatics Working Group On Virtual Data Integration Workshop Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Williams, D. N.; Palanisamy, G.; Dam, K. K.

2015-10-13

This report is the outcome of a workshop that was commissioned by the Department of Energy’s Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) to examine current and future data infrastructure requirements that would be foundational to achieving CESD’s scientific mission goals. Over the past several years, data volumes in CESD disciplines have risen sharply to unprecedented levels (tens of petabytes). So too has the complexity and diversity of the research data (simulation, observation, and reanalysis) needing to be captured, stored, verified, analyzed, and integrated. With the trends of increased data volume (in the hundreds of petabytes), more complex analysis processes, andmore » growing crossdisciplinary collaborations, it is timely to investigate whether the CESD community has the right computational and data support to realize the full scientific potential from its data collections. In recognition of the challenges, a partnership is forming across CESD and with national and international agencies to investigate the viability of creating an integrated, collaborative data infrastructure: a virtual laboratory. The overarching goal of this report is to identify the community’s key data technology requirements and high-priority development needs for sustaining and growing their scientific discovery potential. The report also aims to map these requirements to existing solutions and to identify gaps in current services, tools, and infrastructure that will need to be addressed in the short, medium, and long term so as not to impede scientific progress« less

The Emergence of Dominant Design(s) in Large Scale Cyber-Infrastructure Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Diamanti, Eirini Ilana

2012-01-01

Cyber-infrastructure systems are integrated large-scale IT systems designed with the goal of transforming scientific practice by enabling multi-disciplinary, cross-institutional collaboration. Their large scale and socio-technical complexity make design decisions for their underlying architecture practically irreversible. Drawing on three…

Collaborative decision-making on wind power projects based on AHP method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Badea, A.; Proştean, G.; Tămăşilă, M.; Vârtosu, A.

2017-01-01

The complexity of projects implementation in Renewable Energy Sources (RES) requires finding collaborative alliances between suppliers and project developers in RES. Links activities in supply chain in RES, respectively, transportation of heavy components, processing orders to purchase quality raw materials, storage and materials handling, packaging, and other complex activities requiring a logistics system collaboratively to be permanently dimensioned properly selected and monitored. Requirements imposed by stringency of wind power energy projects implementation inevitably involves constraints in infrastructure, implementation and logistics. Thus, following an extensive research in RES project, to eliminate these constraints were identified alternative collaboration to provide feasible solutions on different levels of performance. The paper presents a critical analysis of different collaboration alternatives in supply chain for RES projects, selecting the ones most suitable for particular situations by using decision-making method Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The role of AHP method was to formulate a decision model by which can be establish the collaboration alternative choice through mathematical calculation to reduce the impact created by constraints encountered. The solution provided through AHP provides a framework for detecting optimal alternative collaboration between suppliers and project developers in RES and avoids some breaks in the chain by resizing safety buffers for leveling orders in RES projects.

A proto-Data Processing Center for LISA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cavet, Cécile; Petiteau, Antoine; Le Jeune, Maude; Plagnol, Eric; Marin-Martholaz, Etienne; Bayle, Jean-Baptiste

2017-05-01

The LISA project preparation requires to study and define a new data analysis framework, capable of dealing with highly heterogeneous CPU needs and of exploiting the emergent information technologies. In this context, a prototype of the mission’s Data Processing Center (DPC) has been initiated. The DPC is designed to efficiently manage computing constraints and to offer a common infrastructure where the whole collaboration can contribute to development work. Several tools such as continuous integration (CI) have already been delivered to the collaboration and are presently used for simulations and performance studies. This article presents the progress made regarding this collaborative environment and discusses also the possible next steps towards an on-demand computing infrastructure. This activity is supported by CNES as part of the French contribution to LISA.

What Have We Learned From Collaborative Partnerships to Concomitantly Improve Both Education and Health?

PubMed Central

Kolbe, Lloyd J; Allensworth, Diane D; Potts-Datema, William; White, Douglas R

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND Collaborative partnerships are an essential means to concomitantly improve both education outcomes and health outcomes among K-12 students. METHODS We describe examples of contemporaneous, interactive, and evolving partnerships that have been implemented, respectively, by a national governmental health organization, national nongovernmental education and health organizations, a state governmental education organization, and a local nongovernmental health organization that serves partner schools. RESULTS Each of these partnerships strategically built operational infrastructures that enabled partners to efficiently combine their resources to improve student education and health. CONCLUSIONS To implement a Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Framework, we need to purposefully strengthen, expand, and interconnect national, state, and local collaborative partnerships and supporting infrastructures that concomitantly can improve both education and health. PMID:26440818

Health impact assessment needs in south-east Asian countries.

PubMed Central

Caussy, Deoraj; Kumar, Priti; Than Sein, U.

2003-01-01

A situation analysis was undertaken to assess impediments to health impact assessment (HIA) in the South-East Asia Region of WHO (SEARO). The countries of the region were assessed on the policy framework and procedures for HIA, existing infrastructure required to support HIA, the capacity for undertaking HIA, and the potential for intersectoral collaboration. The findings show that environmental impact assessment (EIA) is being used implicitly as a substitute for HIA, which is not explicitly or routinely conducted in virtually all countries of the Region. Therefore, policy, infrastructure, capacity, and intersectoral collaboration need strengthening for the routine implementation of HIA. PMID:12894329

BBMRI-ERIC as a resource for pharmaceutical and life science industries: the development of biobank-based Expert Centres.

PubMed

van Ommen, Gert-Jan B; Törnwall, Outi; Bréchot, Christian; Dagher, Georges; Galli, Joakim; Hveem, Kristian; Landegren, Ulf; Luchinat, Claudio; Metspalu, Andres; Nilsson, Cecilia; Solesvik, Ove V; Perola, Markus; Litton, Jan-Eric; Zatloukal, Kurt

2015-07-01

Biological resources (cells, tissues, bodily fluids or biomolecules) are considered essential raw material for the advancement of health-related biotechnology, for research and development in life sciences, and for ultimately improving human health. Stored in local biobanks, access to the human biological samples and related medical data for transnational research is often limited, in particular for the international life science industry. The recently established pan-European Biobanking and BioMolecular resources Research Infrastructure-European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC) aims to improve accessibility and interoperability between academic and industrial parties to benefit personalized medicine, disease prevention to promote development of new diagnostics, devices and medicines. BBMRI-ERIC is developing the concept of Expert Centre as public-private partnerships in the precompetitive, not-for-profit field to provide a new structure to perform research projects that would face difficulties under currently established models of academic-industry collaboration. By definition, Expert Centres are key intermediaries between public and private sectors performing the analysis of biological samples under internationally standardized conditions. This paper presents the rationale behind the Expert Centres and illustrates the novel concept with model examples.

The PBRN Initiative

PubMed Central

Curro, F.A.; Vena, D.; Naftolin, F.; Terracio, L.; Thompson, V.P.

2012-01-01

The NIDCR-supported Practice-based Research Network initiative presents dentistry with an unprecedented opportunity by providing a pathway for modifying and advancing the profession. It encourages practitioner participation in the transfer of science into practice for the improvement of patient care. PBRNs vary in infrastructure and design, and sustaining themselves in the long term may involve clinical trial validation by regulatory agencies. This paper discusses the PBRN concept in general and uses the New York University College of Dentistry’s Practitioners Engaged in Applied Research and Learning (PEARL) Network as a model to improve patient outcomes. The PEARL Network is structured to ensure generalizability of results, data integrity, and to provide an infrastructure in which scientists can address clinical practitioner research interests. PEARL evaluates new technologies, conducts comparative effectiveness research, participates in multidisciplinary clinical studies, helps evaluate alternative models of healthcare, educates and trains future clinical faculty for academic positions, expands continuing education to include “benchmarking” as a form of continuous feedback to practitioners, adds value to dental schools’ educational programs, and collaborates with the oral health care and pharmaceutical industries and medical PBRNs to advance the dental profession and further the integration of dental research and practice into contemporary healthcare (NCT00867997, NCT01268605). PMID:22699662

BBMRI-ERIC as a resource for pharmaceutical and life science industries: the development of biobank-based Expert Centres

PubMed Central

van Ommen, Gert-Jan B; Törnwall, Outi; Bréchot, Christian; Dagher, Georges; Galli, Joakim; Hveem, Kristian; Landegren, Ulf; Luchinat, Claudio; Metspalu, Andres; Nilsson, Cecilia; Solesvik, Ove V; Perola, Markus; Litton, Jan-Eric; Zatloukal, Kurt

2015-01-01

Biological resources (cells, tissues, bodily fluids or biomolecules) are considered essential raw material for the advancement of health-related biotechnology, for research and development in life sciences, and for ultimately improving human health. Stored in local biobanks, access to the human biological samples and related medical data for transnational research is often limited, in particular for the international life science industry. The recently established pan-European Biobanking and BioMolecular resources Research Infrastructure-European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC) aims to improve accessibility and interoperability between academic and industrial parties to benefit personalized medicine, disease prevention to promote development of new diagnostics, devices and medicines. BBMRI-ERIC is developing the concept of Expert Centre as public–private partnerships in the precompetitive, not-for-profit field to provide a new structure to perform research projects that would face difficulties under currently established models of academic–industry collaboration. By definition, Expert Centres are key intermediaries between public and private sectors performing the analysis of biological samples under internationally standardized conditions. This paper presents the rationale behind the Expert Centres and illustrates the novel concept with model examples. PMID:25407005

The CTSA Consortium's Catalog of Assets for Translational and Clinical Health Research (CATCHR)

PubMed Central

Mapes, Brandy; Basford, Melissa; Zufelt, Anneliese; Wehbe, Firas; Harris, Paul; Alcorn, Michael; Allen, David; Arnim, Margaret; Autry, Susan; Briggs, Michael S.; Carnegie, Andrea; Chavis‐Keeling, Deborah; De La Pena, Carlos; Dworschak, Doris; Earnest, Julie; Grieb, Terri; Guess, Marilyn; Hafer, Nathaniel; Johnson, Tesheia; Kasper, Amanda; Kopp, Janice; Lockie, Timothy; Lombardo, Vincetta; McHale, Leslie; Minogue, Andrea; Nunnally, Beth; O'Quinn, Deanna; Peck, Kelly; Pemberton, Kieran; Perry, Cheryl; Petrie, Ginny; Pontello, Andria; Posner, Rachel; Rehman, Bushra; Roth, Deborah; Sacksteder, Paulette; Scahill, Samantha; Schieri, Lorri; Simpson, Rosemary; Skinner, Anne; Toussant, Kim; Turner, Alicia; Van der Put, Elaine; Wasser, June; Webb, Chris D.; Williams, Maija; Wiseman, Lori; Yasko, Laurel; Pulley, Jill

2014-01-01

Abstract The 61 CTSA Consortium sites are home to valuable programs and infrastructure supporting translational science and all are charged with ensuring that such investments translate quickly to improved clinical care. Catalog of Assets for Translational and Clinical Health Research (CATCHR) is the Consortium's effort to collect and make available information on programs and resources to maximize efficiency and facilitate collaborations. By capturing information on a broad range of assets supporting the entire clinical and translational research spectrum, CATCHR aims to provide the necessary infrastructure and processes to establish and maintain an open‐access, searchable database of consortium resources to support multisite clinical and translational research studies. Data are collected using rigorous, defined methods, with the resulting information made visible through an integrated, searchable Web‐based tool. Additional easy‐to‐use Web tools assist resource owners in validating and updating resource information over time. In this paper, we discuss the design and scope of the project, data collection methods, current results, and future plans for development and sustainability. With increasing pressure on research programs to avoid redundancy, CATCHR aims to make available information on programs and core facilities to maximize efficient use of resources. PMID:24456567

Addressing Health Disparities through Multi-institutional, Multidisciplinary Collaboratories

PubMed Central

Fleming, Erik S.; Perkins, James; Easa, David; Conde, José G.; Baker, Richard S.; Southerland, William M.; Dottin, Robert; Benabe, Julio E.; Ofili, Elizabeth O.; Bond, Vincent C.; McClure, Shelia A.; Sayre, Michael H.; Beanan, Maureen J.; Norris, Keith C.

2009-01-01

The national research leadership has recently become aware of the tremendous potential of translational research as an approach to address health disparities. The Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Translational Research Network (RTRN) is a research network that supports multi-institutional, multidisciplinary collaboration with a focus on key diseases and conditions for which disproportionately adverse racial and ethnic health disparities exist. The RTRN is designed to facilitate the movement of scientific advances across the translational research spectrum by providing researchers at different institutions with the infrastructure and tools necessary to collaborate on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects relating to specific health outcomes for which major racial/ethnic disparities exist. In the past, the difficulty of overcoming the restrictions imposed by time and space have made it difficult to carry out this type of large-scale, multilevel collaboration efficiently. To address this formidable challenge, the RTRN will deploy a translational research cluster system that uses “cyber workspaces” to bring researchers with similar interests together by using online collaboratory technology. These virtual meeting environments will provide a number of tools, including videoconferences (seminars, works in progress, meetings); project management tools (WebCT, Microsoft Share Point); and posting areas for projects, concepts, and other research and educational activities. This technology will help enhance access to resources across institutions with a common mission, minimize many of the logistical hurdles that impede intellectual exchange, streamline the planning and implementation of innovative interdisciplinary research, and assess the use of protocols and practices to assist researchers in interacting across and within cyber workspaces. PMID:18646341

Addressing health disparities through multi-institutional, multidisciplinary collaboratories.

PubMed

Fleming, Erik S; Perkins, James; Easa, David; Conde, José G; Baker, Richard S; Southerland, William M; Dottin, Robert; Benabe, Julio E; Ofili, Elizabeth O; Bond, Vincent C; McClure, Shelia A; Sayre, Michael H; Beanan, Maureen J; Norris, Keith C

2008-01-01

The national research leadership has recently become aware of the tremendous potential of translational research as an approach to address health disparities. The Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Translational Research Network (RTRN) is a research network that supports multi-institutional, multidisciplinary collaboration with a focus on key diseases and conditions for which disproportionately adverse racial and ethnic health disparities exist. The RTRN is designed to facilitate the movement of scientific advances across the translational research spectrum by providing researchers at different institutions with the infrastructure and tools necessary to collaborate on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects relating to specific health outcomes for which major racial/ethnic disparities exist. In the past, the difficulty of overcoming the restrictions imposed by time and space have made it difficult to carry out this type of large-scale, multilevel collaboration efficiently. To address this formidable challenge, the RTRN will deploy a translational research cluster system that uses "cyber workspaces" to bring researchers with similar interests together by using online collaboratory technology. These virtual meeting environments will provide a number of tools, including videoconferences (seminars, works in progress, meetings); project management tools (WebCT, Microsoft Share Point); and posting areas for projects, concepts, and other research and educational activities. This technology will help enhance access to resources across institutions with a common mission, minimize many of the logistical hurdles that impede intellectual exchange, streamline the planning and implementation of innovative interdisciplinary research, and assess the use of protocols and practices to assist researchers in interacting across and within cyber workspaces.

A modular (almost) automatic set-up for elastic multi-tenants cloud (micro)infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amoroso, A.; Astorino, F.; Bagnasco, S.; Balashov, N. A.; Bianchi, F.; Destefanis, M.; Lusso, S.; Maggiora, M.; Pellegrino, J.; Yan, L.; Yan, T.; Zhang, X.; Zhao, X.

2017-10-01

An auto-installing tool on an usb drive can allow for a quick and easy automatic deployment of OpenNebula-based cloud infrastructures remotely managed by a central VMDIRAC instance. A single team, in the main site of an HEP Collaboration or elsewhere, can manage and run a relatively large network of federated (micro-)cloud infrastructures, making an highly dynamic and elastic use of computing resources. Exploiting such an approach can lead to modular systems of cloud-bursting infrastructures addressing complex real-life scenarios.

The federal role in the health information infrastructure: a debate of the pros and cons of government intervention.

PubMed Central

Shortliffe, E H; Bleich, H L; Caine, C G; Masys, D R; Simborg, D W

1996-01-01

Some observers feel that the federal government should play a more active leadership role in educating the medical community and in coordinating and encouraging a more rapid and effective implementation of clinically relevant applications of wide-area networking. Other people argue that the private sector is recognizing the importance of these issues and will, when the market demands it, adopt and enhance the telecommunications systems that are needed to produce effective uses of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) by the healthcare community. This debate identifies five areas for possible government involvement: convening groups for the development of standards; providing funding for research and development; ensuring the equitable distribution of resources, particularly to places and people considered by private enterprise to provide low opportunities for profit; protecting rights of privacy, intellectual property, and security; and overcoming the jurisdictional barriers to cooperation, particularly when states offer conflicting regulations. Arguments against government involvement include the likely emergence of an adequate infrastructure under free market forces, the often stifling effect of regulation, and the need to avoid a common-and-control mentality in an infrastructure that is best promoted collaboratively. PMID:8816347

Geospatial-enabled Data Exploration and Computation through Data Infrastructure Building Blocks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Song, C. X.; Biehl, L. L.; Merwade, V.; Villoria, N.

2015-12-01

Geospatial data are present everywhere today with the proliferation of location-aware computing devices and sensors. This is especially true in the scientific community where large amounts of data are driving research and education activities in many domains. Collaboration over geospatial data, for example, in modeling, data analysis and visualization, must still overcome the barriers of specialized software and expertise among other challenges. The GABBs project aims at enabling broader access to geospatial data exploration and computation by developing spatial data infrastructure building blocks that leverage capabilities of end-to-end application service and virtualized computing framework in HUBzero. Funded by NSF Data Infrastructure Building Blocks (DIBBS) initiative, GABBs provides a geospatial data architecture that integrates spatial data management, mapping and visualization and will make it available as open source. The outcome of the project will enable users to rapidly create tools and share geospatial data and tools on the web for interactive exploration of data without requiring significant software development skills, GIS expertise or IT administrative privileges. This presentation will describe the development of geospatial data infrastructure building blocks and the scientific use cases that help drive the software development, as well as seek feedback from the user communities.

SFB754 - data management in large interdisciplinary collaborative research projects: what matters?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mehrtens, Hela; Springer, Pina; Schirnick, Carsten; Schelten, Christiane K.

2016-04-01

Data management for SFB 754 is an integral part of the joint data management team at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, a cooperation of the Cluster of Excellence "Future Ocean", the SFB 754 and other current and former nationally and EU-funded projects. The coalition successfully established one common data management infrastructure for marine sciences in Kiel. It aims to help researchers to better document the data lifecycle from acquisition to publication and share their results already during the project phase. The infrastructure is continuously improved by integration of standard tools and developing extensions in close cooperation with scientists, data centres and other research institutions. Open and frequent discussion of data management topics during SFB 754 meetings and seminars and efficient cooperation with its coordination office allowed gradual establishment of better data management practices. Furthermore a data policy was agreed on to ensure proper usage of data sets, even unpublished ones, schedules data upload and dissemination and enforces long-term public availability of the research outcome. Acceptance of the infrastructure is also backed by easy usage of the web-based platform for data set documentation and exchange among all research disciplines of the SFB 754. Members of the data management team act as data curators and assist in data publication in World Data Centres (e.g. PANGAEA). Cooperation with world data centres makes the research data then globally searchable and accessible while links to the data producers ensure citability and provide points of contact for the scientific community. A complete record of SFB 754 publications is maintained within the institutional repository for full text print publications by the GEOMAR library. This repository is strongly linked with the data management information system providing dynamic and up-to-date overviews on the various ties between publications and available data sets, expeditions and projects. Such views are also frequently used for the website and reports by the SFB 754 scientific community. The concept of a joint approach initiated by large-scale projects and participating institutions in order to establish a single data management infrastructure has proven to be very successful. We have experienced a snowball-like propagation among marine researchers at GEOMAR and Kiel University, they continue to engage data management services well known from collaboration with SFB 754. But we also observe an ongoing demand for training of new junior (and senior) scientists and continuous need for adaption to new methods and techniques. Only a standardized and consistent data management warrants completeness and integrity of published research data related to their peer-reviewed journal publications in the long run. Based on our daily experience this is best achieved, if not only, by skilled and experienced staff in a dedicated data management team which persists beyond the funding period of research projects. It can effectively carry on and impact by continuous personal contact, consultation and training of researchers on-site. (This poster is linked to the presentation by Dr. Christiane K. Schelten)

ICT-infrastructures for hydrometeorology science and natural disaster societal impact assessment: the DRIHMS project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parodi, A.; Craig, G. C.; Clematis, A.; Kranzlmueller, D.; Schiffers, M.; Morando, M.; Rebora, N.; Trasforini, E.; D'Agostino, D.; Keil, K.

2010-09-01

Hydrometeorological science has made strong progress over the last decade at the European and worldwide level: new modeling tools, post processing methodologies and observational data and corresponding ICT (Information and Communication Technology) technologies are available. Recent European efforts in developing a platform for e-Science, such as EGEE (Enabling Grids for E-sciencE), SEEGRID-SCI (South East Europe GRID e-Infrastructure for regional e-Science), and the German C3-Grid, have demonstrated their abilities to provide an ideal basis for the sharing of complex hydrometeorological data sets and tools. Despite these early initiatives, however, the awareness of the potential of the Grid technology as a catalyst for future hydrometeorological research is still low and both the adoption and the exploitation have astonishingly been slow, not only within individual EC member states, but also on a European scale. With this background in mind and the fact that European ICT-infrastructures are in the progress of transferring to a sustainable and permanent service utility as underlined by the European Grid Initiative (EGI) and the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE), the Distributed Research Infrastructure for Hydro-Meteorology Study (DRIHMS, co-Founded by the EC under the 7th Framework Programme) project has been initiated. The goal of DRIHMS is the promotion of the Grids in particular and e-Infrastructures in general within the European hydrometeorological research (HMR) community through the diffusion of a Grid platform for e-collaboration in this earth science sector: the idea is to further boost European research excellence and competitiveness in the fields of hydrometeorological research and Grid research by bridging the gaps between these two scientific communities. Furthermore the project is intended to transfer the results to areas beyond the strict hydrometeorology science as a support for the assessment of the effects of extreme hydrometeorological events on society and for the development of the tools improving the adaptation and resilience of society to the challenges of climate change. This paper will be devoted to provide an overview of DRIHMS ideas and to present the results of the DRIHMS HMR and ICT surveys.

The Secure Medical Research Workspace: An IT Infrastructure to Enable Secure Research on Clinical Data

PubMed Central

Owen, Phillips; Mostafa, Javed; Lamm, Brent; Wang, Xiaoshu; Schmitt, Charles P.; Ahalt, Stanley C.

2013-01-01

Abstract Clinical data have tremendous value for translational research, but only if security and privacy concerns can be addressed satisfactorily. A collaboration of clinical and informatics teams, including RENCI, NC TraCS, UNC's School of Information and Library Science, Information Technology Service's Research Computing and other partners at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed a system called the Secure Medical Research Workspace (SMRW) that enables researchers to use clinical data securely for research. SMRW significantly minimizes the risk presented when using identified clinical data, thereby protecting patients, researchers, and institutions associated with the data. The SMRW is built on a novel combination of virtualization and data leakage protection and can be combined with other protection methodologies and scaled to production levels. PMID:23751029

Effects and mechanisms of an allied health research position in a Queensland regional and rural health service: a descriptive case study.

PubMed

Wenke, Rachel J; Tynan, Anna; Scott, Annette; Mickan, Sharon

2017-10-30

The aim of the present case study is to illustrate the outcomes of a dedicated allied health (AH) research position within a large Queensland regional and rural health service. The secondary aim of the case study is to describe the enabling and hindering mechanisms to the success of the role. Semistructured interviews were conducted with the Executive Director of Allied Health and the current AH research fellow incumbent within the health service. A focus group was also undertaken with six stakeholders (e.g. clinicians, team leaders) who had engaged with the research position. Outcomes of the AH research fellow included clinical and service improvements, enhanced research culture and staff up-skilling, development of research infrastructure and the formation of strategic research collaborations. Despite being a sole position in a geographically expansive health service with constrained resources, key enabling mechanisms to the success of the role were identified, including strong advocacy and regular communication with the Executive. In conclusion, the case study highlights the potential value of an AH research position in building research capacity within a large non-metropolitan health service. Factors to facilitate ongoing success could include additional research and administrative funding, as well as increased use of technology and team-based research. What is known about the topic? Dedicated research positions embedded within health care settings are a well cited strategy to increase research capacity building of allied health professionals (AHPs). However the majority of these positions are within metropolitan health settings and unique challenges exist for these roles in regional and rural areas. Few studies have described the impact of dedicated AH research positions within regional health centres or the factors which facilitate or hinder their role. What does this paper add? Dedicated research positions within a non-metropolitan Australian health service may have a positive impact on AH clinical services, research culture, staff upskilling, research infrastructure and research collaborations. Key enabling mechanisms to support the role may include advocacy from higher level management, strong networks and communication channels. Additional research and administrative funding, the use of technology and team based research may enhance sustainability of such roles. What are the implications for practitioners? AH research positions have potential value in building research capacity within a large non-metropolitan health service. Health managers and researchers should be aware of the unique challenges to these roles and consider mechanisms that may best enhance and sustain outcomes of the positions including: the development of infrastructure (i.e. technology, website of resources), networks, and communication strategies (i.e. regular meetings with leadership and promotion internally).

ELSI practices in genomic research in East Asia: implications for research collaboration and public participation

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Common infrastructures and platforms are required for international collaborations in large-scale human genomic research and policy development, such as the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health and the ‘ELSI 2.0’ initiative. Such initiatives may require international harmonization of ethical and regulatory requirements. To enable this, however, a greater understanding of issues and practices that relate to the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of genomic research will be needed for the different countries and global regions involved in such research. Here, we review the ELSI practices and regulations for genomic research in six East Asian countries (China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan), highlighting the main similarities and differences between these countries, and more generally, in relation to Western countries. While there are significant differences in ELSI practices among these East Asian countries, there is a consistent emphasis on advancing genomic science and technology. In addition, considerable emphasis is placed on informed consent for participation in research, whether through the contribution of tissue samples or personal information. However, a higher level of engagement with interested stakeholders and the public will be needed in some countries. PMID:24944586

The FaceBase Consortium: a comprehensive resource for craniofacial researchers

PubMed Central

Brinkley, James F.; Fisher, Shannon; Harris, Matthew P.; Holmes, Greg; Hooper, Joan E.; Wang Jabs, Ethylin; Jones, Kenneth L.; Kesselman, Carl; Klein, Ophir D.; Maas, Richard L.; Marazita, Mary L.; Selleri, Licia; Spritz, Richard A.; van Bakel, Harm; Visel, Axel; Williams, Trevor J.; Wysocka, Joanna

2016-01-01

The FaceBase Consortium, funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, is designed to accelerate understanding of craniofacial developmental biology by generating comprehensive data resources to empower the research community, exploring high-throughput technology, fostering new scientific collaborations among researchers and human/computer interactions, facilitating hypothesis-driven research and translating science into improved health care to benefit patients. The resources generated by the FaceBase projects include a number of dynamic imaging modalities, genome-wide association studies, software tools for analyzing human facial abnormalities, detailed phenotyping, anatomical and molecular atlases, global and specific gene expression patterns, and transcriptional profiling over the course of embryonic and postnatal development in animal models and humans. The integrated data visualization tools, faceted search infrastructure, and curation provided by the FaceBase Hub offer flexible and intuitive ways to interact with these multidisciplinary data. In parallel, the datasets also offer unique opportunities for new collaborations and training for researchers coming into the field of craniofacial studies. Here, we highlight the focus of each spoke project and the integration of datasets contributed by the spokes to facilitate craniofacial research. PMID:27287806

A Novel Program Trains Community‐Academic Teams to Build Research and Partnership Capacity

PubMed Central

Brown, Jen; LeBailly, Susan; McGee, Richard; Bayldon, Barbara; Huber, Gail; Kaleba, Erin; Lowry, Kelly Walker; Martens, Joseph; Mason, Maryann; Nuñez, Abel

2013-01-01

Abstract The Community‐Engaged Research Team Support (CERTS) program was developed and tested to build research and partnership capacity for community‐engaged research (CEnR) teams. Led by the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS), the goals of CERTS were: (1) to help community‐academic teams build capacity for conducting rigorous CEnR and (2) to support teams as they prepare federal grant proposal drafts. The program was guided by an advisory committee of community and clinical partners, and representatives from Chicago's Clinical and Translational Science Institutes. Monthly workshops guided teams to write elements of NIH‐style research proposals. Draft reviewing fostered a collaborative learning environment and helped teams develop equal partnerships. The program culminated in a mock‐proposal review. All teams clarified their research and acquired new knowledge about the preparation of NIH‐style proposals. Trust, partnership collaboration, and a structured writing strategy were assets of the CERTS approach. CERTS also uncovered gaps in resources and preparedness for teams to be competitive for federally funded grants. Areas of need include experience as principal investigators, publications on study results, mentoring, institutional infrastructure, and dedicated time for research. PMID:23751028

An interoperable research data infrastructure to support climate service development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

De Filippis, Tiziana; Rocchi, Leandro; Rapisardi, Elena

2018-02-01

Accessibility, availability, re-use and re-distribution of scientific data are prerequisites to build climate services across Europe. From this perspective the Institute of Biometeorology of the National Research Council (IBIMET-CNR), aiming at contributing to the sharing and integration of research data, has developed a research data infrastructure to support the scientific activities conducted in several national and international research projects. The proposed architecture uses open-source tools to ensure sustainability in the development and deployment of Web applications with geographic features and data analysis functionalities. The spatial data infrastructure components are organized in typical client-server architecture and interact from the data provider download data process to representation of the results to end users. The availability of structured raw data as customized information paves the way for building climate service purveyors to support adaptation, mitigation and risk management at different scales.

This work is a bottom-up collaborative initiative between different IBIMET-CNR research units (e.g. geomatics and information and communication technology - ICT; agricultural sustainability; international cooperation in least developed countries - LDCs) that embrace the same approach for sharing and re-use of research data and informatics solutions based on co-design, co-development and co-evaluation among different actors to support the production and application of climate services. During the development phase of Web applications, different users (internal and external) were involved in the whole process so as to better define user needs and suggest the implementation of specific custom functionalities. Indeed, the services are addressed to researchers, academics, public institutions and agencies - practitioners who can access data and findings from recent research in the field of applied meteorology and climatology.

The Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI), a collaborative paradigm for institutional and human resources capacity building between high- and low- and middle-income countries: the Mozambique experience

PubMed Central

Noormahomed, Emilia Virginia; Carrilho, Carla; Ismail, Mamudo; Noormahomed, Sérgio; Nguenha, Alcido; Benson, Constance A.; Mocumbi, Ana Olga; Schooley, Robert T.

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Background: Collaborations among researchers based in lower and middle income countries (LMICs) and high income countries (HICs) have made major discoveries related to diseases disproportionately affecting LMICs and have been vital to the development of research communities in LMICs. Such collaborations have generally been scientifically and structurally driven by HICs. Objectives: In this report we outline a paradigm shift in collaboration, exemplified by the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI), in which the formulation of priorities and administrative infrastructure reside in the LMIC. Methods: This descriptive report outlines the critical features of the MEPI partnership. Results: In the MEPI, LMIC program partners translate broad program goals and define metrics into priorities that are tailored to local conditions. Program funds flow to a LMIC-based leadership group that contracts with peers from HICs to provide technical and scientific advice and consultation in a 'reverse funds flow' model. Emphasis is also placed on strengthening administrative capacity within LMIC institutions. A rigorous monitoring and evaluation process modifies program priorities on the basis of evolving opportunities to maximize program impact. Conclusions: Vesting LMIC partners with the responsibility for program leadership, and building administrative and fiscal capacity in LMIC institutions substantially enhances program relevance, impact and sustainability. PMID:28452653

A genome-wide association study platform built on iPlant cyber-infrastructure

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

We demonstrated a flexible Genome-Wide Association (GWA) Study (GWAS) platform built upon the iPlant Collaborative Cyber-infrastructure. The platform supports big data management, sharing, and large scale study of both genotype and phenotype data on clusters. End users can add their own analysis too...

Enabling Data Intensive Science through Service Oriented Science: Virtual Laboratories and Science Gateways

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lescinsky, D. T.; Wyborn, L. A.; Evans, B. J. K.; Allen, C.; Fraser, R.; Rankine, T.

2014-12-01

We present collaborative work on a generic, modular infrastructure for virtual laboratories (VLs, similar to science gateways) that combine online access to data, scientific code, and computing resources as services that support multiple data intensive scientific computing needs across a wide range of science disciplines. We are leveraging access to 10+ PB of earth science data on Lustre filesystems at Australia's National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) node, co-located with NCI's 1.2 PFlop Raijin supercomputer and a 3000 CPU core research cloud. The development, maintenance and sustainability of VLs is best accomplished through modularisation and standardisation of interfaces between components. Our approach has been to break up tightly-coupled, specialised application packages into modules, with identified best techniques and algorithms repackaged either as data services or scientific tools that are accessible across domains. The data services can be used to manipulate, visualise and transform multiple data types whilst the scientific tools can be used in concert with multiple scientific codes. We are currently designing a scalable generic infrastructure that will handle scientific code as modularised services and thereby enable the rapid/easy deployment of new codes or versions of codes. The goal is to build open source libraries/collections of scientific tools, scripts and modelling codes that can be combined in specially designed deployments. Additional services in development include: provenance, publication of results, monitoring, workflow tools, etc. The generic VL infrastructure will be hosted at NCI, but can access alternative computing infrastructures (i.e., public/private cloud, HPC).The Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL) was developed as a pilot project to demonstrate the underlying technology. This base is now being redesigned and generalised to develop a Virtual Hazards Impact and Risk Laboratory (VHIRL); any enhancements and new capabilities will be incorporated into a generic VL infrastructure. At same time, we are scoping seven new VLs and in the process, identifying other common components to prioritise and focus development.

Use of health information technology to advance evidence-based care: lessons from the VA QUERI program.

PubMed

Hynes, Denise M; Weddle, Timothy; Smith, Nina; Whittier, Erika; Atkins, David; Francis, Joseph

2010-01-01

As the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Services Research and Development Service's Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) has progressed, health information technology (HIT) has occupied a crucial role in implementation research projects. We evaluated the role of HIT in VA QUERI implementation research, including HIT use and development, the contributions implementation research has made to HIT development, and HIT-related barriers and facilitators to implementation research. Key informants from nine disease-specific QUERI Centers. Documentation analysis of 86 implementation project abstracts followed up by semi-structured interviews with key informants from each of the nine QUERI centers. We used qualitative and descriptive analyses. We found: (1) HIT provided data and information to facilitate implementation research, (2) implementation research helped to further HIT development in a variety of uses including the development of clinical decision support systems (23 of 86 implementation research projects), and (3) common HIT barriers to implementation research existed but could be overcome by collaborations with clinical and administrative leadership. Our review of the implementation research progress in the VA revealed interdependency on an HIT infrastructure and research-based development. Collaboration with multiple stakeholders is a key factor in successful use and development of HIT in implementation research efforts and in advancing evidence-based practice.

Developing a spinal cord injury research strategy using a structured process of evidence review and stakeholder dialogue. Part III: outcomes.

PubMed

Middleton, J W; Piccenna, L; Lindsay Gruen, R; Williams, S; Creasey, G; Dunlop, S; Brown, D; Batchelor, P E; Berlowitz, D J; Coates, S; Dunn, J A; Furness, J B; Galea, M P; Geraghty, T; Kwon, B K; Urquhart, S; Yates, D; Bragge, P

2015-10-01

Focus Group. To develop a unified, regional spinal cord injury (SCI) research strategy for Australia and New Zealand. Australia. A 1-day structured stakeholder dialogue was convened in 2013 in Melbourne, Australia, by the National Trauma Research Institute in collaboration with the SCI Network of Australia and New Zealand. Twenty-three experts participated, representing local and international research, clinical, consumer, advocacy, government policy and funding perspectives. Preparatory work synthesised evidence and articulated draft principles and options as a starting point for discussion. A regional SCI research strategy was proposed, whose objectives can be summarised under four themes. (1) Collaborative networks and strategic partnerships to increase efficiency, reduce duplication, build capacity and optimise research funding. (2) Research priority setting and coordination to manage competing studies. (3) Mechanisms for greater consumer engagement in research. (4) Resources and infrastructure to further develop SCI data registries, evaluate research translation and assess alignment of research strategy with stakeholder interests. These are consistent with contemporary international SCI research strategy development activities. This first step in a regional SCI research strategy has articulated objectives for further development by the wider SCI research community. The initiative has also reinforced the importance of coordinated, collective action in optimising outcomes following SCI.

ENVRI PLUS: European initiative towards technical and research cultural solutions for across-disciplines accessible Research Infrastructure products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asmi, A.; Kutsch, W. L.

2015-12-01

Environmental Research Infrastructures are often built as bottom-up initiatives to provide products for specific target group, which often is very discipline specific. However, the societal or environmental challenges are typically not concentrated on specific disciplines, and require usage of data sets from many RIs. ENVRI PLUS is an initiative where the European environmental RIs work together to provide common technical background (in physical observation technologies and in data products and descriptions) to make the RI products more usable to user groups outside of the original RI target groups. ENVRI PLUS also includes many policy and dissemination concentrated actions to make the RI operations coherent and understandable to both scientists and other potential users. The actions include building common technological capital of the RIs (physical and data-oriented), creating common access procedures (especially for cross-diciplinary access), developing ethical guidelines and related policies, distributing know-how between RIs and building common communication and collaboration system for European environmental RIs. All ENVRI PLUS products are free to use, e.g. for use of new or existing environmental RIs worldwide.

A European Federated Cloud: Innovative distributed computing solutions by EGI

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sipos, Gergely; Turilli, Matteo; Newhouse, Steven; Kacsuk, Peter

2013-04-01

The European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) is the result of pioneering work that has, over the last decade, built a collaborative production infrastructure of uniform services through the federation of national resource providers that supports multi-disciplinary science across Europe and around the world. This presentation will provide an overview of the recently established 'federated cloud computing services' that the National Grid Initiatives (NGIs), operators of EGI, offer to scientific communities. The presentation will explain the technical capabilities of the 'EGI Federated Cloud' and the processes whereby earth and space science researchers can engage with it. EGI's resource centres have been providing services for collaborative, compute- and data-intensive applications for over a decade. Besides the well-established 'grid services', several NGIs already offer privately run cloud services to their national researchers. Many of these researchers recently expressed the need to share these cloud capabilities within their international research collaborations - a model similar to the way the grid emerged through the federation of institutional batch computing and file storage servers. To facilitate the setup of a pan-European cloud service from the NGIs' resources, the EGI-InSPIRE project established a Federated Cloud Task Force in September 2011. The Task Force has a mandate to identify and test technologies for a multinational federated cloud that could be provisioned within EGI by the NGIs. A guiding principle for the EGI Federated Cloud is to remain technology neutral and flexible for both resource providers and users: • Resource providers are allowed to use any cloud hypervisor and management technology to join virtualised resources into the EGI Federated Cloud as long as the site is subscribed to the user-facing interfaces selected by the EGI community. • Users can integrate high level services - such as brokers, portals and customised Virtual Research Environments - with the EGI Federated Cloud as long as these services access cloud resources through the user-facing interfaces selected by the EGI community. The Task Force will be closed in May 2013. It already • Identified key enabling technologies by which a multinational, federated 'Infrastructure as a Service' (IaaS) type cloud can be built from the NGIs' resources; • Deployed a test bed to evaluate the integration of virtualised resources within EGI and to engage with early adopter use cases from different scientific domains; • Integrated cloud resources into the EGI production infrastructure through cloud specific bindings of the EGI information system, monitoring system, authentication system, etc.; • Collected and catalogued requirements concerning the federated cloud services from the feedback of early adopter use cases; • Provided feedback and requirements to relevant technology providers on their implementations and worked with these providers to address those requirements; • Identified issues that need to be addressed by other areas of EGI (such as portal solutions, resource allocation policies, marketing and user support) to reach a production system. The Task Force will publish a blueprint in April 2013. The blueprint will drive the establishment of a production level EGI Federated Cloud service after May 2013.

PubMed Central

Fernandes, Pedro; Gevaert, Kris; Rothacker, Julie; Saiyed, Taslimarif; Detwiler, Michelle

2012-01-01

This roundtable will feature four international speakers who will discuss national and international collaborative initiatives and outreach efforts in which they participate. They will share how these efforts have facilitated access to cutting-edge technology, fostered new generations of scientists, and ultimately advanced the progression of global scientific research. Open discussion will follow the presentations! Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms, National Centre for Biological Sciences, India: experiences in implementing a national high-end core facility organization with the goals of improving regional technology access and enhancing the quality of research for scientists in academia, biotechnology companies, and the biopharmaceutical industry.Monash University Technology Platforms and Broader Victorian and Australian Networks: Australian initiatives to build global research capabilities and identify means to internationally benchmark regional capabilities to ensure delivery of world class infrastructure. Within the context of the current Australian strategic framework, funding considerations will be discussed, along with expectations for partner facilities to collaborate and be fully accessible to academia and industry.Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, Portugal and beyond: Multiple roles of networking in science and extending outreach while consolidating community integration. Discussion will include achievement of community building and integration using concepts of sharing, training, resource availability, and the value and empowerment gained using acquired skills. The role of networking and institutional visibility will also be discussed.PRIME-XS: This EU-funded consortium provides an infrastructure of proteomics technologies to the European research community. The core is formed by six access facilities through which the consortium provides access to their technologies. Twelve partners work together to develop new resources to aid the community including the development of bioinformatic tools to analyze large-scale proteomics data and novel technologies to analyze protein interaction networks, post-translational modifications and more sensitive ways to detect protein and peptide biomarkers in complex samples.

Rice functional genomics research in China.

PubMed

Han, Bin; Xue, Yongbiao; Li, Jiayang; Deng, Xing-Wang; Zhang, Qifa

2007-06-29

Rice functional genomics is a scientific approach that seeks to identify and define the function of rice genes, and uncover when and how genes work together to produce phenotypic traits. Rapid progress in rice genome sequencing has facilitated research in rice functional genomics in China. The Ministry of Science and Technology of China has funded two major rice functional genomics research programmes for building up the infrastructures of the functional genomics study such as developing rice functional genomics tools and resources. The programmes were also aimed at cloning and functional analyses of a number of genes controlling important agronomic traits from rice. National and international collaborations on rice functional genomics study are accelerating rice gene discovery and application.

Interdisciplinary training in mathematical biology through team-based undergraduate research and courses.

PubMed

Miller, Jason E; Walston, Timothy

2010-01-01

Inspired by BIO2010 and leveraging institutional and external funding, Truman State University built an undergraduate program in mathematical biology with high-quality, faculty-mentored interdisciplinary research experiences at its core. These experiences taught faculty and students to bridge the epistemological gap between the mathematical and life sciences. Together they created the infrastructure that currently supports several interdisciplinary courses, an innovative minor degree, and long-term interdepartmental research collaborations. This article describes how the program was built with support from the National Science Foundation's Interdisciplinary Training for Undergraduates in Biology and Mathematics program, and it shares lessons learned that will help other undergraduate institutions build their own program.

CloudMan as a platform for tool, data, and analysis distribution

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Cloud computing provides an infrastructure that facilitates large scale computational analysis in a scalable, democratized fashion, However, in this context it is difficult to ensure sharing of an analysis environment and associated data in a scalable and precisely reproducible way. Results CloudMan (usecloudman.org) enables individual researchers to easily deploy, customize, and share their entire cloud analysis environment, including data, tools, and configurations. Conclusions With the enabled customization and sharing of instances, CloudMan can be used as a platform for collaboration. The presented solution improves accessibility of cloud resources, tools, and data to the level of an individual researcher and contributes toward reproducibility and transparency of research solutions. PMID:23181507

OOI CyberInfrastructure - Next Generation Oceanographic Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Farcas, C.; Fox, P.; Arrott, M.; Farcas, E.; Klacansky, I.; Krueger, I.; Meisinger, M.; Orcutt, J.

2008-12-01

Software has become a key enabling technology for scientific discovery, observation, modeling, and exploitation of natural phenomena. New value emerges from the integration of individual subsystems into networked federations of capabilities exposed to the scientific community. Such data-intensive interoperability networks are crucial for future scientific collaborative research, as they open up new ways of fusing data from different sources and across various domains, and analysis on wide geographic areas. The recently established NSF OOI program, through its CyberInfrastructure component addresses this challenge by providing broad access from sensor networks for data acquisition up to computational grids for massive computations and binding infrastructure facilitating policy management and governance of the emerging system-of-scientific-systems. We provide insight into the integration core of this effort, namely, a hierarchic service-oriented architecture for a robust, performant, and maintainable implementation. We first discuss the relationship between data management and CI crosscutting concerns such as identity management, policy and governance, which define the organizational contexts for data access and usage. Next, we detail critical services including data ingestion, transformation, preservation, inventory, and presentation. To address interoperability issues between data represented in various formats we employ a semantic framework derived from the Earth System Grid technology, a canonical representation for scientific data based on DAP/OPeNDAP, and related data publishers such as ERDDAP. Finally, we briefly present the underlying transport based on a messaging infrastructure over the AMQP protocol, and the preservation based on a distributed file system through SDSC iRODS.

Regional collaboration among Urban Area Security Initiative regions: results of the Johns Hopkins urban area survey.

PubMed

Errett, Nicole A; Bowman, Calvin; Barnett, Daniel J; Resnick, Beth A; Frattaroli, Shannon; Rutkow, Lainie

2014-01-01

Regional collaboration has been identified as a potential facilitator of public health preparedness efforts. The Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant program, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) since 2003, has provided 64 high-risk metropolitan areas funding to enhance their regional preparedness capabilities. This study describes informal and formal regional collaboration infrastructure, as well as regional collaboration-related activities and assessment methods, in FFY2010 UASI regions. A cross-sectional online survey was administered via Survey Monkey from September through December 2013. Points of contact from FFY2010 funded UASI metropolitan areas completed the survey, with a response rate of 77.8% (n=49). Summary statistics were calculated to describe the current informal and formal regional collaboration infrastructure. Additionally, the cross-sectional survey collected rates of agreement with 8 collaborative preparedness statements at 3 time points. The survey found that UASI regions are engaging in collaborative activities and investments to build capabilities, with most collaboration occurring in the prevention, protection, and response mission areas. Collaborative relationships in preparedness among emergency managers and municipal chief executive officers improved during the FFY2010 UASI performance period compared to the pre-UASI award period, with lasting effects. The majority of UASI regions reported conducting independent assessments of capabilities and their measurement at the UASI region level. Urban areas that received a FFY2010 UASI grant award are engaging in collaborative activities and have established interjurisdictional relationships in preparedness. The use of grant funds to encourage collaboration in preparedness has the potential to leverage limited resources and promote informed investments.

Rationale and Initial Design for a Virtual Undergraduate Internship in Astronomy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berryhill, Katie; Slater, T. F.; Slater, S. J.

2012-01-01

In recent decades, research experiences for undergraduates (REUs) programs have provided students with opportunities to spend a summer working on a research project with a faculty mentor. The aim of these programs has generally been to take up the challenge of the Boyer-2 report to introduce research-based learning into the undergraduate experience (Boyer 1998). Recent efforts have been aimed at encouraging women and underrepresented minorities to pursue STEM careers. With the advent of successful models for online degree programs that can add to the STEM workforce pipeline, there is now the possibility of expanding these research experiences to include the new diverse demographic of previously untapped online learners. Many online learners are working adults, and therefore do not have the same flexibility as traditional undergraduates to attend a summer REU at another institution, nor do they have the opportunity for internships at their home institution. This project is intended to leverage significant developments in rapidly emerging social media; investments in Internet-accessible telescopes for professional and amateur use; and contemporary advances in the learning sciences to build pathways through long-term, collaborative, astronomy research projects. The first stage involves developing initial research protocols and online mentoring infrastructures for establishing an ongoing national program for virtual astronomy internships for undergraduate STEM majors. Underlying this project is a plan for students to work collaboratively alongside active professional and amateur astronomers to conduct original research using remotely controlled and robotic telescopes. We anticipate that by the start of this project, more than 100 robotic and remotely controlled telescopes will exist around the world (mo-www.harvard.edu/OWN, aavso.org/aavsonet, and lcogt.net among others) providing continuous world-wide coverage. We plan to test and iteratively build a successful infrastructure for students to take advantage of these and other rapidly emerging resources and support an expansion of the STEM career workforce.

Comparative case study of two biomedical research collaboratories.

PubMed

Schleyer, Titus K L; Teasley, Stephanie D; Bhatnagar, Rishi

2005-10-25

Working together efficiently and effectively presents a significant challenge in large-scale, complex, interdisciplinary research projects. Collaboratories are a nascent method to help meet this challenge. However, formal collaboratories in biomedical research centers are the exception rather than the rule. The main purpose of this paper is to compare and describe two collaboratories that used off-the-shelf tools and relatively modest resources to support the scientific activity of two biomedical research centers. The two centers were the Great Lakes Regional Center for AIDS Research (HIV/AIDS Center) and the New York University Oral Cancer Research for Adolescent and Adult Health Promotion Center (Oral Cancer Center). In each collaboratory, we used semistructured interviews, surveys, and contextual inquiry to assess user needs and define the technology requirements. We evaluated and selected commercial software applications by comparing their feature sets with requirements and then pilot-testing the applications. Local and remote support staff cooperated in the implementation and end user training for the collaborative tools. Collaboratory staff evaluated each implementation by analyzing utilization data, administering user surveys, and functioning as participant observers. The HIV/AIDS Center primarily required real-time interaction for developing projects and attracting new participants to the center; the Oral Cancer Center, on the other hand, mainly needed tools to support distributed and asynchronous work in small research groups. The HIV/AIDS Center's collaboratory included a center-wide website that also served as the launch point for collaboratory applications, such as NetMeeting, Timbuktu Conference, PlaceWare Auditorium, and iVisit. The collaboratory of the Oral Cancer Center used Groove and Genesys Web conferencing. The HIV/AIDS Center was successful in attracting new scientists to HIV/AIDS research, and members used the collaboratory for developing and implementing new research studies. The Oral Cancer Center successfully supported highly distributed and asynchronous research, and the collaboratory facilitated real-time interaction for analyzing data and preparing publications. The two collaboratory implementations demonstrated the feasibility of supporting biomedical research centers using off-the-shelf commercial tools, but they also identified several barriers to successful collaboration. These barriers included computing platform incompatibilities, network infrastructure complexity, variable availability of local versus remote IT support, low computer and collaborative software literacy, and insufficient maturity of available collaborative software. Factors enabling collaboratory use included collaboration incentives through funding mechanism, a collaborative versus competitive relationship of researchers, leadership by example, and tools well matched to tasks and technical progress. Integrating electronic collaborative tools into routine scientific practice can be successful but requires further research on the technical, social, and behavioral factors influencing the adoption and use of collaboratories.

The Undergraduate ALFALFA Team: A Model for Involving Undergraduates in Major Legacy Astronomy Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Troischt, Parker; Koopmann, Rebecca A.; Haynes, Martha P.; Higdon, Sarah; Balonek, Thomas J.; Cannon, John M.; Coble, Kimberly A.; Craig, David; Durbala, Adriana; Finn, Rose; Hoffman, G. Lyle; Kornreich, David A.; Lebron, Mayra E.; Crone-Odekon, Mary; O'Donoghue, Aileen A.; Olowin, Ronald Paul; Pantoja, Carmen; Rosenberg, Jessica L.; Venkatesan, Aparna; Wilcots, Eric M.; Alfalfa Team

2015-01-01

The NSF-sponsored Undergraduate ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA) Team (UAT) is a consortium of 19 institutions founded to promote undergraduate research and faculty development within the extragalactic ALFALFA HI blind survey project and follow-up programs. The collaborative nature of the UAT allows faculty and students from a wide ​range of public and private colleges and especially those with small astronomy programs to develop scholarly collaborations. Components of the program include an annual undergraduate workshop at Arecibo Observatory, observing runs at Arecibo, computer infrastructure, summer and academic year research projects, and dissemination at national meetings (e.g., Alfvin et al., Martens et al., Sanders et al., this meeting). Through this model, faculty and students are learning how science is accomplished in a large collaboration while contributing to the scientific goals of a major legacy survey. In the 7 years of the program, 23 faculty and more than 220 undergraduate students have participated at a significant level. 40% of them have been women and members of underrepresented groups. Faculty, many of whom were new to the collaboration and had expertise in other fields, contribute their diverse sets of skills to ALFALFA ​related projects via observing, data reduction, collaborative research, and research with students. 142 undergraduate students have attended the annual workshops at Arecibo Observatory, interacting with faculty, graduate students, their peers, and Arecibo staff in lectures, group activities, tours, and observing runs. Team faculty have supervised 131 summer research projects and 94 academic year (e.g., senior thesis) projects. 62 students have traveled to Arecibo Observatory for observing runs and 46 have presented their results at national meetings. 93% of alumni are attending graduate school and/or pursuing a career in STEM. Half of those pursuing graduate degrees in Physics or Astronomy are women. This work has been supported by NSF grants AST-0724918/0902211, AST075267/0903394, AST0725380, and AST-1211005.

EPA’s Summary Report of the Collaborative Green Infrastructure Pilot Project for the Middle Blue River in Kansas City, MO

EPA Science Inventory

The United States Environmental Protection Agency evaluated the performance of a hybrid green-gray infrastructure pilot project installed into the Marlborough Neighborhood by the Kansas City Water Services Department. Kansas City installed 135 vegetated SCMs, 24,290 square feet o...

Toward a Rhetoric of Infrastructure: Doing New Media Writing with Communities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Getto, Guiseppe

2011-01-01

In the following dissertation, I develop heuristics for collaboratively and sustainably contributing to community infrastructures through writing. Based on the findings of an observational study on how students enrolled in my first year composition and service-learning class created new media writing projects with community partners and were able…

Linking Sustainability Research to Intervention Types

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Researchers, funders, and managers of health programs and interventions have become concerned about their long-term sustainability. However, most research about sustainability has not considered the nature of the program to be sustained. Health-related interventions may differ in their likelihood of sustainability and in the factors likely to influence continuation. I suggest a framework for analyzing the sustainability of 6 types of interventions: (1) those implemented by individual providers; (2) programs requiring coordination among multiple staff; (3) new policies, procedures, or technologies; (4) capacity or infrastructure building; (5) community partnerships or collaborations; and (6) broad-scale system change. Hypotheses for future research and strategies that program managers might use to achieve sustainability also differ by program or intervention type. PMID:23409904

Developing Governance for Federated Community-based EHR Data Sharing

PubMed Central

Lin, Ching-Ping; Stephens, Kari A.; Baldwin, Laura-Mae; Keppel, Gina A.; Whitener, Ron J.; Echo-Hawk, Abigail; Korngiebel, Diane

2014-01-01

Bi-directional translational pathways between scientific discoveries and primary care are crucial for improving individual patient care and population health. The Data QUEST pilot project is a program supporting data sharing amongst community based primary care practices and is built on a technical infrastructure to share electronic health record data. We developed a set of governance requirements from interviewing and collaborating with partner organizations. Recommendations from our partner organizations included: 1) partner organizations can physically terminate the link to the data sharing network and only approved data exits the local site; 2) partner organizations must approve or reject each query; 3) partner organizations and researchers must respect local processes, resource restrictions, and infrastructures; and 4) partner organizations can be seamlessly added and removed from any individual data sharing query or the entire network. PMID:25717404

Cultural and Technological Issues and Solutions for Geodynamics Software Citation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heien, E. M.; Hwang, L.; Fish, A. E.; Smith, M.; Dumit, J.; Kellogg, L. H.

2014-12-01

Computational software and custom-written codes play a key role in scientific research and teaching, providing tools to perform data analysis and forward modeling through numerical computation. However, development of these codes is often hampered by the fact that there is no well-defined way for the authors to receive credit or professional recognition for their work through the standard methods of scientific publication and subsequent citation of the work. This in turn may discourage researchers from publishing their codes or making them easier for other scientists to use. We investigate the issues involved in citing software in a scientific context, and introduce features that should be components of a citation infrastructure, particularly oriented towards the codes and scientific culture in the area of geodynamics research. The codes used in geodynamics are primarily specialized numerical modeling codes for continuum mechanics problems; they may be developed by individual researchers, teams of researchers, geophysicists in collaboration with computational scientists and applied mathematicians, or by coordinated community efforts such as the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics. Some but not all geodynamics codes are open-source. These characteristics are common to many areas of geophysical software development and use. We provide background on the problem of software citation and discuss some of the barriers preventing adoption of such citations, including social/cultural barriers, insufficient technological support infrastructure, and an overall lack of agreement about what a software citation should consist of. We suggest solutions in an initial effort to create a system to support citation of software and promotion of scientific software development.

Collaborative Decision Model on Stockpile Material of a Traditional Market Infrastructure using Value-Based HBU

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Utomo, C.; Rahmawati, Y.; Pararta, D. L.; Ariesta, A.

2017-11-01

Readiness of infrastructure establishment is needed in the early phase of real estate development. To meet the needs of retail property in the form of traditional markets, the Government prepares to build a new 1300 units. Traditional market development requires infrastructure development. One of it is the preparation of sand material embankment as much as ± 200,000 m3. With a distance of 30 km, sand material can be delivered to the project site by dump trucks that can only be operated by 2 trip per day. The material is managed by using stockpile method. Decision of stockpile location requires multi person and multi criteria in a collaborative environment. The highest and the best use (HBU) criteria was used to construct a value-based decision hierarchy. Decision makers from five stakeholders analyzed the best of three locations by giving their own preference of development cost and HBU function. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) based on satisfying options and cooperative game was applied for agreement options and coalition formation on collaborative decision. The result indicates that not all solutions become a possible location for the stockpile material. It shows the ‘best fit’ options process for all decision makers.

Solar Resource & Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (RSR); Kalaeloa Oahu, Hawaii (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Wilcox, S.; Andreas, A.

2010-03-16

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Solar Resource & Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (RSR); Los Angeles, California (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Stoffel, T.; Andreas, A.

2010-04-26

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Solar Resource & Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (RSR); Cedar City, Utah (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Wilcox, S.; Andreas, A.

2010-07-13

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (RSR); Escalante Tri-State - Prewitt, New Mexico (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Wilcox, S.; Andreas, A.

2012-11-03

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Solar Resource & Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Sun Spot Two; Swink, Colorado (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Wilcox, S.; Andreas, A.

2010-11-10

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Solar Resource & Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (RSR); Milford, Utah (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Wilcox, S.; Andreas, A.

2010-07-14

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Solar Resource & Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (RSR); La Ola Lanai, Hawaii (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Wilcox, S.; Andreas, A.

2009-07-22

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Solar Resource & Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP): Observed Atmospheric and Solar Information System (OASIS); Tucson, Arizona (Data)

DOE Data Explorer

Wilcox, S.; Andreas, A.

2010-11-03

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory collaborates with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result is high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

Building Evidence-Based Tobacco Treatment in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: Lessons Learned by the Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies

PubMed Central

Asfar, Taghrid; Ward, Kenneth D.; Al-Ali, Radwan; Maziak, Wasim

2016-01-01

The tobacco epidemic in Syria is characterized by high rates of cigarettes smoking in men and dramatic reemergence of waterpipe smoking, especially among youths and women. The Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies (SCTS), an NIH-funded pioneer research and capacity building institution, has developed a research infrastructure and conducted three randomized clinical trials to develop and rigorously test culturally-appropriate tobacco treatment programs integrated into primary healthcare (PHC) centers. This review aimed to discuss challenges and lessons learned from the Syrian experience. Addressing these challenges may inform future cessation research activities in Syria and other developing countries. To develop a research infrastructure, the SCTS has established Syria’s first IRB and trained physicians/medical students in both tobacco treatment and research methods. Main challenges to conduct the cessation trials were difficulties of coordination between the local and international collaborators; high Smoking Rates among PHC providers; lack of pharmacological agents used in tobacco treatment; and difficulties of conducting research in a politically volatile region. Strategies to overcome these challenges were ensuring an active and regular involvement of all investigator; and advocating for a national smoking-cessation plan that involves training health care providers in smoking cessation treatment and make pharmacological agents used in smoking cessation available. PMID:27563356

Research collaboration, hazard modeling and dissemination in volcanology with Vhub

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Palma Lizana, J. L.; Valentine, G. A.

2011-12-01

Vhub (online at vhub.org) is a cyberinfrastructure for collaboration in volcanology research, education, and outreach. One of the core objectives of this project is to accelerate the transfer of research tools to organizations and stakeholders charged with volcano hazard and risk mitigation (such as observatories). Vhub offers a clearinghouse for computational models of volcanic processes and data analysis, documentation of those models, and capabilities for online collaborative groups focused on issues such as code development, configuration management, benchmarking, and validation. A subset of simulations is already available for online execution, eliminating the need to download and compile locally. In addition, Vhub is a platform for sharing presentations and other educational material in a variety of media formats, which are useful in teaching university-level volcanology. VHub also has wikis, blogs and group functions around specific topics to encourage collaboration and discussion. In this presentation we provide examples of the vhub capabilities, including: (1) tephra dispersion and block-and-ash flow models; (2) shared educational materials; (3) online collaborative environment for different types of research, including field-based studies and plume dispersal modeling; (4) workshops. Future goals include implementation of middleware to allow access to data and databases that are stored and maintained at various institutions around the world. All of these capabilities can be exercised with a user-defined level of privacy, ranging from completely private (only shared and visible to specified people) to completely public. The volcanological community is encouraged to use the resources of vhub and also to contribute models, datasets, and other items that authors would like to disseminate. The project is funded by the US National Science Foundation and includes a core development team at University at Buffalo, Michigan Technological University, and University of South Florida, along with a group of collaborators from the international community. The VHub servers reside at Purdue University and the basic software infrastructure (see hubzero.org) is also maintained there.

The Computing and Data Grid Approach: Infrastructure for Distributed Science Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, William E.

2002-01-01

With the advent of Grids - infrastructure for using and managing widely distributed computing and data resources in the science environment - there is now an opportunity to provide a standard, large-scale, computing, data, instrument, and collaboration environment for science that spans many different projects and provides the required infrastructure and services in a relatively uniform and supportable way. Grid technology has evolved over the past several years to provide the services and infrastructure needed for building 'virtual' systems and organizations. We argue that Grid technology provides an excellent basis for the creation of the integrated environments that can combine the resources needed to support the large- scale science projects located at multiple laboratories and universities. We present some science case studies that indicate that a paradigm shift in the process of science will come about as a result of Grids providing transparent and secure access to advanced and integrated information and technologies infrastructure: powerful computing systems, large-scale data archives, scientific instruments, and collaboration tools. These changes will be in the form of services that can be integrated with the user's work environment, and that enable uniform and highly capable access to these computers, data, and instruments, regardless of the location or exact nature of these resources. These services will integrate transient-use resources like computing systems, scientific instruments, and data caches (e.g., as they are needed to perform a simulation or analyze data from a single experiment); persistent-use resources. such as databases, data catalogues, and archives, and; collaborators, whose involvement will continue for the lifetime of a project or longer. While we largely address large-scale science in this paper, Grids, particularly when combined with Web Services, will address a broad spectrum of science scenarios. both large and small scale.

Joint Knowledge Generation Between Climate Science and Infrastructure Engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stoner, A. M. K.; Hayhoe, K.; Jacobs, J. M.

2015-12-01

Over the past decade the engineering community has become increasingly aware of the need to incorporate climate projections into the planning and design of sensitive infrastructure. However, this is a task that is easier said than done. This presentation will discuss some of the successes and hurdles experiences through the past year, from a climate scientist's perspective, working with engineers in infrastructure research and applied engineering through the Infrastructure & Climate Network (ICNet). Engineers rely on strict building codes and ordinances, and can be the subject of lawsuits if those codes are not followed. Matters are further complicated by the uncertainty inherent to climate projections, which include short-term natural variability, as well as the influence of scientific uncertainty and even human behavior on the rate and magnitude of change. Climate scientists typically address uncertainty by creating projections based on multiple models following different future scenarios. This uncertainty is difficult to incorporate into engineering projects, however, due to the fact that they cannot build two different bridges, one allowing for a lower amount of change, and another for a higher. More often than not there is a considerable difference between the costs of building two such bridges, which means that available funds often are the deciding factor. Discussions of climate science are often well received with engineers who work in the research area of infrastructure; going a step further, however, and implementing it in applied engineering projects can be challenging. This presentation will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities inherent to collaborations between climate scientists and transportation engineers, drawing from a range of studies including truck weight restrictions on roads during the spring thaw, and bridge deck performance due to environmental forcings.

On-going collaborative priority-setting for research activity: a method of capacity building to reduce the research-practice translational gap.

PubMed

Cooke, Jo; Ariss, Steven; Smith, Christine; Read, Jennifer

2015-05-07

International policy suggests that collaborative priority setting (CPS) between researchers and end users of research should shape the research agenda, and can increase capacity to address the research-practice translational gap. There is limited research evidence to guide how this should be done to meet the needs of dynamic healthcare systems. One-off priority setting events and time-lag between decision and action prove problematic. This study illustrates the use of CPS in a UK research collaboration called Collaboration and Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC). Data were collected from a north of England CLAHRC through semi-structured interviews with 28 interviewees and a workshop of key stakeholders (n = 21) including academics, NHS clinicians, and managers. Documentary analysis of internal reports and CLAHRC annual reports for the first two and half years was also undertaken. These data were thematically coded. Methods of CPS linked to the developmental phase of the CLAHRC. Early methods included pre-existing historical partnerships with on-going dialogue. Later, new platforms for on-going discussions were formed. Consensus techniques with staged project development were also used. All methods demonstrated actual or potential change in practice and services. Impact was enabled through the flexibility of research and implementation work streams; 'matched' funding arrangements to support alignment of priorities in partner organisations; the size of the collaboration offering a resource to meet project needs; and the length of the programme providing stability and long term relationships. Difficulties included tensions between being responsive to priorities and the possibility of 'drift' within project work, between academics and practice, and between service providers and commissioners in the health services. Providing protected 'matched' time proved difficult for some NHS managers, which put increasing work pressure on them. CPS is more time consuming than traditional approaches to project development. CPS can produce needs-led projects that are bedded in services using a variety of methods. Contributing factors for effective CPS include flexibility in use and type of available resources, flexible work plans, and responsive leadership. The CLAHRC model provides a translational infrastructure that enables CPS that can impact on healthcare systems.

Recent developments in Lambda networking

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Laat, C.; Grosso, P.

About 6 years ago the first baby-steps were made on opening up dark fiber and DWDM infrastructure for direct use by ISP's after the transformation of the old style Telecom sector into a market driven business. Since then Lambda workshops, community groups like GLIF and a number of experiments have led to many implementations of hybrid national research and education networks and lightpath-based circuit exchanges as pioneered by SURFnet in GigaPort and NetherLight in collaboration with StarLight in Chicago and Canarie in Canada. This article looks back on those developments, describes some current open issues and research developments and proposes a concept of terabit networking.

A National contribution to the GEO Science and Technology roadmap: GIIDA Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nativi, Stefano; Mazzetti, Paolo; Guzzetti, Fausto; Oggioni, Alessandro; Pirrone, Nicola; Santolieri, Rosalia; Viola, Angelo; Tartari, Gianni; Santoro, Mattia

2010-05-01

The GIIDA (Gestione Integrata e Interoperativa dei Dati Ambientali) project is an initiative of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) launched in 2008 as an inter-departmental project, aiming to design and develop a multidisciplinary e-infrastructure (cyber-infrastructure) for the management, processing, and evaluation of Earth and Environmental resources -i.e. data, services, models, sensors, best practices. GIIDA has been contributing to the implementation of the GEO (Group of Earth Observation) Science and Technology (S&T) roadmap by: (a) linking relevant S&T communities to GEOSS (GEO System of Systems); (b) ensuring that GEOSS is built based on state-of-the-art science and technology. GIIDA co-ordinates the CNR's digital infrastructure development for Earth Observation resources sharing and cooperates with other national agencies and existing projects pursuing the same objective. For the CNR, GIIDA provides an interface to European and international interoperability programmes (e.g. INSPIRE, and GMES). It builds a national network for dialogue and resolution of issues at varying scientific and technical levels. To achieve such goals, GIIDA introduced a set of guidance principles: • To shift from a "traditional" data centric approach to a more advanced service-based solution for Earth System Science and Environmental information. • To shift the focus from Data to Information Spatial Infrastructures in order to support decision-making. • To be interoperable with analogous National (e.g. SINAnet, and the INSPIRE National Infrastructure) and international initiatives (e.g. INSPIRE, GMES, SEIS, and GEOSS). • To reinforce the Italian presence in the European and international programmes concerning digital infrastructures, geospatial information, and the Mega-Science approach. • To apply the National and International Information Technology (IT) standards for achieving multi-disciplinary interoperability in the Earth and Space Sciences (e.g. ISO, OGC, CEN, CNIPA) In keeping with GEOSS, GIIDA infrastructure adopts a System of Systems architectural approach in order to federate the existing systems managed by a set of recognized Thematic Areas (i.e. Risks, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Air Quality, Land and Water Quality, Ocean and Marine resources, Joint Research and Public Administration infrastructures). GIIDA system of systems will contribute to develop multidisciplinary teams studying the global Earth systems in order to address the needs coming from the GEO Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs). GIIDA issued a Call For Pilots receiving more than 20 high-level projects which are contributing to the GIIDA system development. A national-wide research environmental infrastructure must be interconnected with analogous digital infrastructures operated by other important stakeholders, such as public users and private companies. In fact, the long-term sustainability of a "System of Systems" requires synergies between all the involved stakeholders' domains: Users, Governance, Capacity provision, and Research. Therefore, in order to increase the effectiveness of the GIIDA contribution process to a national environmental e-infrastructure, collaborations were activated with relevant actors of the other stakeholders' domains at the national level (e.g. ISPRA SINAnet).

The future of infrastructure security :

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Garcia, Pablo; Turnley, Jessica Glicken; Parrott, Lori K.

2013-05-01

Sandia National Laboratories hosted a workshop on the future of infrastructure security on February 27-28, 2013, in Albuquerque, NM. The 17 participants came from backgrounds as diverse as federal policy, the insurance industry, infrastructure management, and technology development. The purpose of the workshop was to surface key issues, identify directions forward, and lay groundwork for cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary collaborations. The workshop addressed issues such as the problem space (what is included in infrastructure problems?), the general types of threats to infrastructure (such as acute or chronic, system-inherent or exogenously imposed) and definitions of secure and resilient infrastructures. The workshop concludedmore » with a consideration of stakeholders and players in the infrastructure world, and identification of specific activities that could be undertaken by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other players.« less

CO2 Urban Synthesis and Analysis ("CO2-USA") Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, J. C.; Hutyra, L.; Loughner, C.; Stein, A. F.; Lusk, K.; Mitchell, L.; Gately, C.; Wofsy, S. C.

2017-12-01

Emissions of carbon associated with cities comprise a large component of the anthropogenic source. A number of cities have announced plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the scientific knowledge to quantitatively track emissions and assess the efficacy of mitigation is lacking. As the global population increasingly resides in urban regions, scientific knowledge about how much, where, and why a particular city emits carbon becomes increasingly important. To address this gap, researchers have initiated studies of carbon emissions and cycling in several U.S. cities, making it timely to develop a collaborative network to exchange information on community standards and common measurements, facilitate data sharing, and create analysis frameworks and cross-city syntheses to catalyze a new generation of researchers and enable new collaborations tackling important objectives that are difficult to address in isolation. We describe initial results from an incipient network focusing initially on cities in the U.S. with low barriers of entry that entrains a cross-section of U.S. urban centers with varying characteristics: size, population density, vegetation, urban form, infrastructure, development rates, climate, and meteorological patterns. Results will be reported that emerge from an initial workshop covering data harmonization & integration, inventory comparison, stakeholder outreach, network design, inverse modeling, and collaboration.

Essential drugs production in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS): opportunities and challenges.

PubMed

Ezziane, Zoheir

2014-12-01

The objective of this work is to elucidate various essential drugs in the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries. It discusses the opportunities and challenges of the existing biotech infrastructure and the production of drugs and vaccines in member states of the BRICS. This research is based on a systematic literature review between the years 2000 and 2014 of documents retrieved from the databases Embase, PubMed/Medline, Global Health, and Google Scholar, and the websites of relevant international organizations, research institutions and philanthropic organizations. Findings vary from one member state to another. These include useful comparison between the BRICS countries in terms of pharmaceuticals expenditure versus total health expenditure, local manufacturing of drugs/vaccines using technology and know-how transferred from developed countries, and biotech entrepreneurial collaborations under the umbrella of the BRICS region. This study concludes by providing recommendations to support more of inter collaborations among the BRICS countries as well as between BRICS and many developing countries to shrink drug production costs. In addition, this collaboration would also culminate in reaching out to poor countries that are not able to provide their communities and patients with cost-effective essential medicines.

Essential drugs production in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS): opportunities and challenges

PubMed Central

Ezziane, Zoheir

2014-01-01

The objective of this work is to elucidate various essential drugs in the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries. It discusses the opportunities and challenges of the existing biotech infrastructure and the production of drugs and vaccines in member states of the BRICS. This research is based on a systematic literature review between the years 2000 and 2014 of documents retrieved from the databases Embase, PubMed/Medline, Global Health, and Google Scholar, and the websites of relevant international organizations, research institutions and philanthropic organizations. Findings vary from one member state to another. These include useful comparison between the BRICS countries in terms of pharmaceuticals expenditure versus total health expenditure, local manufacturing of drugs/vaccines using technology and know-how transferred from developed countries, and biotech entrepreneurial collaborations under the umbrella of the BRICS region. This study concludes by providing recommendations to support more of inter collaborations among the BRICS countries as well as between BRICS and many developing countries to shrink drug production costs. In addition, this collaboration would also culminate in reaching out to poor countries that are not able to provide their communities and patients with cost-effective essential medicines. PMID:25489593

Offering Global Collaboration Services beyond CERN and HEP

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernandes, J.; Ferreira, P.; Baron, T.

2015-12-01

The CERN IT department has built over the years a performant and integrated ecosystem of collaboration tools, from videoconference and webcast services to event management software. These services have been designed and evolved in very close collaboration with the various communities surrounding the laboratory and have been massively adopted by CERN users. To cope with this very heavy usage, global infrastructures have been deployed which take full advantage of CERN's international and global nature. If these services and tools are instrumental in enabling the worldwide collaboration which generates major HEP breakthroughs, they would certainly also benefit other sectors of science in which globalization has already taken place. Some of these services are driven by commercial software (Vidyo or Wowza for example), some others have been developed internally and have already been made available to the world as Open Source Software in line with CERN's spirit and mission. Indico for example is now installed in 100+ institutes worldwide. But providing the software is often not enough and institutes, collaborations and project teams do not always possess the expertise, or human or material resources that are needed to set up and maintain such services. Regional and national institutions have to answer needs, which are growingly global and often contradict their operational capabilities or organizational mandate and so are looking at existing worldwide service offers such as CERN's. We believe that the accumulated experience obtained through the operation of a large scale worldwide collaboration service combined with CERN's global network and its recently- deployed Agile Infrastructure would allow the Organization to set up and operate collaborative services, such as Indico and Vidyo, at a much larger scale and on behalf of worldwide research and education institutions and thus answer these pressing demands while optimizing resources at a global level. Such services would be built over a robust and massively scalable Indico server to which the concept of communities would be added, and which would then serve as a hub for accessing other collaboration services such as Vidyo, on the same simple and successful model currently in place for CERN users. This talk will describe this vision, its benefits and the steps that have already been taken to make it come to life.

Lighting the Blue Touchpaper for UK e-Science - Closing Conference of ESLEA Project. ESLEA, March 26-28, 2007, Edinburgh

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clarke, Peter; Davenhall, Clive; Greenwood, Colin; Strong, Matthew

ESLEA, an EPSRC-funded project, aims to demonstrate the potential benefits of circuit-switched optical networks (lightpaths) to the UK e-Science community. This is being achieved by running a number of "proof of benefit" pilot applications over UKLight, the UK's first national optical research network. UKLight provides a new way for researchers to obtain dedicated "lightpaths" between remote sites and to deploy and test novel networking methods and technologies. It facilitates collaboration on global projects by providing a point of access to the fast growing international optical R&D infrastructure. A diverse range of data-intensive fields of academic endeavour are participating in the ESLEA project; all these groups require the integration of high-bandwidth switched lightpath circuits into their experimental and analysis infrastructure for international transport of high-volume applications data. In addition, network protocol research and development of circuit reservation mechanisms has been carried out to help the pilot applications to exploit the UKLight infrastructure effectively. Further information about ESLEA can be viewed at www.eslea.uklight.ac.uk. ESLEA activities are now coming to an end and work will finish from February to July 2007, depending upon the terms of funding of each pilot application. The first quarter of 2007 is considered the optimum time to hold a closing conference for the project. The objectives of the conference are to: 1. Provide a forum for the dissemination of research findings and learning experiences from the ESLEA project. 2. Enable colleagues from the UK and international e-Science communities to present, discuss and learn about the latest developments in networking technology. 3. Raise awareness about the deployment of the UKLight infrastructure and its relationship to SuperJANET 5. 4. Identify potential uses of UKLight by existing or future research projects

A Survey of 100 Community Colleges on Student Substance Use, Programming, and Collaborations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chiauzzi, Emil; Donovan, Elizabeth; Black, Ryan; Cooney, Elizabeth; Buechner, Allison; Wood, Mollie

2011-01-01

Objective: The objective was to survey community college personnel about student substance use, and infrastructure (staff and funding), programs, and collaborations dedicated to substance use prevention. Participants: The sample included 100 administrators, faculty, and health services staff at 100 community colleges. Methods: Participants…

Proposed Requirements-driven User-scenario Development Protocol for the Belmont Forum E-Infrastructure and Data Management Cooperative Research Agreement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wee, B.; Car, N.; Percivall, G.; Allen, D.; Fitch, P. G.; Baumann, P.; Waldmann, H. C.

2014-12-01

The Belmont Forum E-Infrastructure and Data Management Cooperative Research Agreement (CRA) is designed to foster a global community to collaborate on e-infrastructure challenges. One of the deliverables is an implementation plan to address global data infrastructure interoperability challenges and align existing domestic and international capabilities. Work package three (WP3) of the CRA focuses on the harmonization of global data infrastructure for sharing environmental data. One of the subtasks under WP3 is the development of user scenarios that guide the development of applicable deliverables. This paper describes the proposed protocol for user scenario development. It enables the solicitation of user scenarios from a broad constituency, and exposes the mechanisms by which those solicitations are evaluated against requirements that map to the Belmont Challenge. The underlying principle of traceability forms the basis for a structured, requirements-driven approach resulting in work products amenable to trade-off analyses and objective prioritization. The protocol adopts the ISO Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) as a top level framework. User scenarios are developed within RM-ODP's "Enterprise Viewpoint". To harmonize with existing frameworks, the protocol utilizes the conceptual constructs of "scenarios", "use cases", "use case categories", and use case templates as adopted by recent GEOSS Architecture Implementation Project (AIP) deliverables and CSIRO's eReefs project. These constructs are encapsulated under the larger construct of "user scenarios". Once user scenarios are ranked by goodness-of-fit to the Belmont Challenge, secondary scoring metrics may be generated, like goodness-of-fit to FutureEarth science themes. The protocol also facilitates an assessment of the ease of implementing given user scenario using existing GEOSS AIP deliverables. In summary, the protocol results in a traceability graph that can be extended to coordinate across research programmes. If implemented using appropriate technologies and harmonized with existing ontologies, this approach enables queries, sensitivity analyses, and visualization of complex relationships.

Regional Collaboration Among Urban Area Security Initiative Regions: Results of the Johns Hopkins Urban Area Survey

PubMed Central

Bowman, Calvin; Barnett, Daniel J.; Resnick, Beth A.; Frattaroli, Shannon; Rutkow, Lainie

2014-01-01

Regional collaboration has been identified as a potential facilitator of public health preparedness efforts. The Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant program, administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) since 2003, has provided 64 high-risk metropolitan areas funding to enhance their regional preparedness capabilities. This study describes informal and formal regional collaboration infrastructure, as well as regional collaboration–related activities and assessment methods, in FFY2010 UASI regions. A cross-sectional online survey was administered via Survey Monkey from September through December 2013. Points of contact from FFY2010 funded UASI metropolitan areas completed the survey, with a response rate of 77.8% (n=49). Summary statistics were calculated to describe the current informal and formal regional collaboration infrastructure. Additionally, the cross-sectional survey collected rates of agreement with 8 collaborative preparedness statements at 3 time points. The survey found that UASI regions are engaging in collaborative activities and investments to build capabilities, with most collaboration occurring in the prevention, protection, and response mission areas. Collaborative relationships in preparedness among emergency managers and municipal chief executive officers improved during the FFY2010 UASI performance period compared to the pre-UASI award period, with lasting effects. The majority of UASI regions reported conducting independent assessments of capabilities and their measurement at the UASI region level. Urban areas that received a FFY2010 UASI grant award are engaging in collaborative activities and have established interjurisdictional relationships in preparedness. The use of grant funds to encourage collaboration in preparedness has the potential to leverage limited resources and promote informed investments. PMID:25398073

EPOS-GNSS - Improving the infrastructure for GNSS data and products in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernandes, Rui; Bos, Machiel; Bruyninx, Carine; Crocker, Paul; Dousa, Jan; Socquet, Anne; Walpersdorf, Andrea; Avallone, Antonio; Ganas, Athanassios; Gunnar, Benedikt; Ionescu, Constantin; Kenyeres, Ambrus; Ozener, Haluk; Vergnolle, Mathilde; Lidberg, Martin; Liwosz, Tomek; Soehne, Wolfgang

2017-04-01

EPOS-IP WP10 - "GNSS Data & Products" is the Working Package 10 of the European Plate Observing System - Implementation Phase project in charge of implementing services for the geo-sciences community to access existing Pan-European Geodetic Infrastructures. WP10 is currently formed by representatives of participating European institutions but in the operational phase contributions will be solicited from the entire geodetic community. In fact, WP10 also includes members from other institutions/countries that formally are not participating in the EPOS-IP but will be key players in the future services to be provided by EPOS. Additionally, several partners are also key partners at EUREF, which is also actively collaborating with EPOS. The geodetic component of EPOS is dealing essentially with implementing an e-infrastructure to store and disseminate the continuous GNSS data from existing Research Infrastructures. Present efforts are on developing geodetic tools to support Solid Earth research by optimizing the existing resources. However, other research and technical applications (e.g., reference frames, meteorology, space weather) can also benefit in the future from the optimization of the geodetic resources in Europe. We present and discuss the status of the implementation of the thematic and core services (TCS) for GNSS data within EPOS and the related business plan. We explain the tools and web-services being developed towards the implementation of the best solutions that will permit to the end-users, and in particular geo-scientists, to access the geodetic data, derived solutions, and associated metadata using a transparent and standardized processes. We also detail the different DDSS (Data, Data-Products, Services, Software) that will be made available for the Operational Phase of EPOS, which will start to be tested and made available during 2017 and 2018.

The Joint Space Operations Center Mission System and the Advanced Research, Collaboration, and Application Development Environment Status Update 2016

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murray-Krezan, Jeremy; Howard, Samantha; Sabol, Chris; Kim, Richard; Echeverry, Juan

2016-05-01

The Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) Mission System (JMS) is a service-oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure with increased process automation and improved tools to enhance Space Situational Awareness (SSA) performed at the US-led JSpOC. The Advanced Research, Collaboration, and Application Development Environment (ARCADE) is a test-bed maintained and operated by the Air Force to (1) serve as a centralized test-bed for all research and development activities related to JMS applications, including algorithm development, data source exposure, service orchestration, and software services, and provide developers reciprocal access to relevant tools and data to accelerate technology development, (2) allow the JMS program to communicate user capability priorities and requirements to developers, (3) provide the JMS program with access to state-of-the-art research, development, and computing capabilities, and (4) support JMS Program Office-led market research efforts by identifying outstanding performers that are available to shepherd into the formal transition process. In this paper we will share with the international remote sensing community some of the recent JMS and ARCADE developments that may contribute to greater SSA at the JSpOC in the future, and share technical areas still in great need.

ROSE Version 1.0

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Quinlan, D.; Yi, Q.; Buduc, R.

2005-02-17

ROSE is an object-oriented software infrastructure for source-to-source translation that provides an interface for programmers to write their own specialized translators for optimizing scientific applications. ROSE is a part of current research on telescoping languages, which provides optimizations of the use of libraries in scientific applications. ROSE defines approaches to extend the optimization techniques, common in well defined languages, to the optimization of scientific applications using well defined libraries. ROSE includes a rich set of tools for generating customized transformations to support optimization of applications codes. We currently support full C and C++ (including template instantiation etc.), with Fortran 90more » support under development as part of a collaboration and contract with Rice to use their version of the open source Open64 F90 front-end. ROSE represents an attempt to define an open compiler infrastructure to handle the full complexity of full scale DOE applications codes using the languages common to scientific computing within DOE. We expect that such an infrastructure will also be useful for the development of numerous tools that may then realistically expect to work on DOE full scale applications.« less

The Role of Free/Libre and Open Source Software in Learning Health Systems.

PubMed

Paton, C; Karopka, T

2017-08-01

Objective: To give an overview of the role of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in the context of secondary use of patient data to enable Learning Health Systems (LHSs). Methods: We conducted an environmental scan of the academic and grey literature utilising the MedFLOSS database of open source systems in healthcare to inform a discussion of the role of open source in developing LHSs that reuse patient data for research and quality improvement. Results: A wide range of FLOSS is identified that contributes to the information technology (IT) infrastructure of LHSs including operating systems, databases, frameworks, interoperability software, and mobile and web apps. The recent literature around the development and use of key clinical data management tools is also reviewed. Conclusions: FLOSS already plays a critical role in modern health IT infrastructure for the collection, storage, and analysis of patient data. The nature of FLOSS systems to be collaborative, modular, and modifiable may make open source approaches appropriate for building the digital infrastructure for a LHS. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart.

An informatics research agenda to support precision medicine: seven key areas

PubMed Central

Avillach, Paul; Benham-Hutchins, Marge; Breitenstein, Matthew K; Crowgey, Erin L; Hoffman, Mark A; Jiang, Xia; Madhavan, Subha; Mattison, John E; Nagarajan, Radhakrishnan; Ray, Bisakha; Shin, Dmitriy; Visweswaran, Shyam; Zhao, Zhongming; Freimuth, Robert R

2016-01-01

The recent announcement of the Precision Medicine Initiative by President Obama has brought precision medicine (PM) to the forefront for healthcare providers, researchers, regulators, innovators, and funders alike. As technologies continue to evolve and datasets grow in magnitude, a strong computational infrastructure will be essential to realize PM’s vision of improved healthcare derived from personal data. In addition, informatics research and innovation affords a tremendous opportunity to drive the science underlying PM. The informatics community must lead the development of technologies and methodologies that will increase the discovery and application of biomedical knowledge through close collaboration between researchers, clinicians, and patients. This perspective highlights seven key areas that are in need of further informatics research and innovation to support the realization of PM. PMID:27107452

NASA'S SERVIR Gulf of Mexico Project: The Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaborative (GoMRC)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Quattrochi, Dale A.; Irwin, Daniel; Presson, Joan; Estes, Maury; Estes, Sue; Judd, Kathleen

2006-01-01

The Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaborative (GoMRC) is a NASA-funded project that has as its goal to develop an integrated, working, prototype IT infrastructure for Earth science data, knowledge and models for the five Gulf U.S. states and Mexico, and to demonstrate its ability to help decision-makers better understand critical Gulf-scale issues. Within this preview, the mission of this project is to provide cross cutting solution network and rapid prototyping capability for the Gulf of Mexico region, in order to demonstrate substantial, collaborative, multi-agency research and transitional capabilities using unique NASA data sets and models to address regional problems. SERVIR Mesoamerica is seen as an excellent existing framework that can be used to integrate observational and GIs data bases, provide a sensor web interface, visualization and interactive analysis tools, archival functions, data dissemination and product generation within a Rapid Prototyping concept to assist decision-makers in better understanding Gulf-scale environmental issues.

Development of the Finse Alpine Research Station towards a platform for multi-disciplinary research on Land-Atmosphere Interaction in Cold Environments (LATICE)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burkhart, John F.; Decker, Sven; Filhol, Simon; Hulth, John; Nesje, Atle; Schuler, Thomas V.; Sobolowski, Stefan; Tallaksen, Lena M.

2017-04-01

The Finse Alpine Research Station provides convenient access to the Hardangervidda mountain plateau in Southern Norway (60 deg N, 1222 m asl). The station is located above the tree-line in vicinity to the west-eastern mountain water divide and is easily accessible by train from Bergen and Oslo. The station itself offers housing and basic laboratory facilities and has been used for ecological monitoring. Over the past years, studies on small-scale snow distribution and ground temperature have been performed and accompanied by a suite of meteorological measurements. Supported by strategic investments by the University of Oslo and ongoing research projects, these activities are currently expanded and the site is developed towards a mountain field laboratory for studies on Land-Atmosphere Interaction in Cold Environments, facilitated by the LATICE project (www.mn.uio.no/latice). Additional synergy comes from close collaborations with a range of institutions that perform operational monitoring close to Finse, including long-term time series of meteorological data and global radiation. Through our activities, this infrastructure has been complemented by a permanent tower for continuous Eddy-Covariance measurements along with associated gas fluxes. A second, mobile covariance system is in preparation and will become operational in 2017. In addition, a wireless sensor network is set up to grasp the spatial distributions of basic meteorological variables, snow depth and glacier mass balance on the nearby Hardangerjøkulen ice cap. While the research focus so far was on small scale processes (snow redistribution), this is now being expanded to cover hydrological processes on the catchment and regional scale. To this end, two discharge stations have been installed to gauge discharge from two contrasting catchments (glacier dominated and non-glacierized). In this presentation, we provide an overview over existing and planned infrastructure, field campaigns and research activities, accompanied by available data, the result of some preliminary analysis and discuss opportunities for future collaboration.

Author identities an interoperability problem solved by a collaborative solution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fleischer, D.; Czerniak, A.; Schirnick, C.

2012-12-01

The identity of authors and data providers is crucial for personalized interoperability. The marketplace of available identifiers is packed and the right choice is getting more and more complicated. Even though there are more then 15 different systems available there are still some under development and proposed to come up by the end of 2012 ('PubMed Central Author ID' and ORCID). Data Management on a scale beyond the size of a single research institute but on the scale of a scientific site including a university with student education program needs to tackle this problem and so did the Kiel Data Management an Infrastructure. The main problem with the identities of researchers is the quite high frequency changes in positions during a scientist life. The required system needed to be a system that already contained the potential of preregistered people with their scientific publications from other countries, institutions and organizations. Scanning the author ID marketplace brought up, that there us a high risk of additional workload to the researcher itself or the administration due to the fact that individuals need to register an ID for themselves or the chosen register is not yet big enough to simply find the right entry. On the other hand libraries deal with authors and their publications now for centuries and they have high quality catalogs with person identities already available. Millions of records internationally mapped are available by collaboration with libraries and can be used in exactly the same scope. The international collaboration between libraries (VIAF) provides a mapping between libraries from the US, CA, UK, FR, GER and many more. The international library author identification system made it possible to actually reach at the first matching a success of 60% of all scientists. The additional advantage is that librarians can finalize the Identity system in a kind of background process. The Kiel Data Management Infrastructure initiated a web service at Kiel for mapping from one ID to another. This web service supports the scientific workflows for automation of the data archiving process at world data archive PANGAEA. The long-lasting concept of the library identifier enables the use of these identifiers beyond the employment period, while it has nothing to do with the institutional IDM. The access rights and ownership of data can be assured for very long time since the national library with its national scope hosts the basic system. Making use of this existing system released resourced planed for this task and enabled the chance of interoperability on an international scale for a regional data management infrastructure.

The Research Library and the E-Science Challenge: New Roles Building on Expanding Responsibilities in Service of the Science Community

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neal, J. G.

2008-12-01

Research libraries provide a set of core services to the scholarly and educational communities. This includes: information acquisition, synthesis, navigation, discovery, dissemination, interpretation, presentation, understanding and archiving. Researchers across the science disciplines and increasingly in multi disciplinary projects are producing massive amounts of data, and they seek the infrastructure, the strategies and the partnerships that will enable rigorous and sustained tools for extraction, distribution, collaboration, application and permanent availability. This paper will address the role of the research library from three perspectives. First, the view of scientific datasets as information assets that would benefit from traditional library collection development practice will be explored. Second, the agenda on e-science developed by the Association of Research Libraries will be outlined with a focus on the need for policy and standards development, for resources assessment and allocation, for new approaches to the preparation of the library professional, and library leadership in campus planning and innovative collaborations for research cyberinfrastructure. And third, the responses to the call for proposals from the National Science Foundation's DataNet program will be analyzed and the role of the research library in these project plans will be summarized as an indicator of the expanding responsibility of the library for research data stewardship.

EPOS-WP16: A coherent and collaborative network of Solid Earth Multi-scale laboratories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calignano, Elisa; Rosenau, Matthias; Lange, Otto; Spiers, Chris; Willingshofer, Ernst; Drury, Martyn; van Kan-Parker, Mirjam; Elger, Kirsten; Ulbricht, Damian; Funiciello, Francesca; Trippanera, Daniele; Sagnotti, Leonardo; Scarlato, Piergiorgio; Tesei, Telemaco; Winkler, Aldo

2017-04-01

Laboratory facilities are an integral part of Earth Science research. The diversity of methods employed in such infrastructures reflects the multi-scale nature of the Earth system and is essential for the understanding of its evolution, for the assessment of geo-hazards and for the sustainable exploitation of geo-resources. In the frame of EPOS (European Plate Observing System), the Working Package 16 represents a developing community of European Geoscience Multi-scale laboratories. The participant and collaborating institutions (Utrecht University, GFZ, RomaTre University, INGV, NERC, CSIC-ICTJA, CNRS, LMU, C4G-UBI, ETH, CNR*) embody several types of laboratory infrastructures, engaged in different fields of interest of Earth Science: from high temperature and pressure experimental facilities, to electron microscopy, micro-beam analysis, analogue tectonic and geodynamic modelling and paleomagnetic laboratories. The length scales encompassed by these infrastructures range from the nano- and micrometre levels (electron microscopy and micro-beam analysis) to the scale of experiments on centimetres-sized samples, and to analogue model experiments simulating the reservoir scale, the basin scale and the plate scale. The aim of WP16 is to provide two services by the year 2019: first, providing virtual access to data from laboratories (data service) and, second, providing physical access to laboratories (transnational access, TNA). Regarding the development of a data service, the current status is such that most data produced by the various laboratory centres and networks are available only in limited "final form" in publications, many data remain inaccessible and/or poorly preserved. Within EPOS the TCS Multi-scale laboratories is collecting and harmonizing available and emerging laboratory data on the properties and process controlling rock system behaviour at all relevant scales, in order to generate products accessible and interoperable through services for supporting research activities into Geo-resources and Geo-storage, Geo-hazards and Earth System Evolution. Regarding the provision of physical access to laboratories the current situation is such that access to WP16's laboratories is often based on professional relations, available budgets, shared interests and other constraints. In WP16 we aim at reducing the present diversity and non-transparency of access rules and replace ad-hoc procedures for access by a streamlined mechanisms, objective rules and a transparent policy. We work on procedures and mechanisms regulating application, negotiation, evaluation, feedback, selection, admission, approval, feasibility check, setting-up, use, monitoring and dismantling. In the end laboratories should each have a single point providing clear and transparent information on the facility itself, its services, access policy, data management policy and the legal terms and conditions for use of equipment. Through its role as an intermediary and information broker, EPOS will acquire a wealth of information from Research Infrastructures and users on the establishment of efficient collaboration agreements.

GEO Supersites Data Exploitation Platform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lengert, W.; Popp, H.-J.; Gleyzes, J.-P.

2012-04-01

In the framework of the GEO Geohazard Supersite initiative, an international partnership of organizations and scientists involved in the monitoring and assessment of geohazards has been established. The mission is to advance the scientific understanding of geohazards by improving geohazard monitoring through the combination of in-situ and space-based data, and by facilitating the access to data relevant for geohazard research. The stakeholders are: (1) governmental organizations or research institutions responsible for the ground-based monitoring of earthquake and volcanic areas, (2) space agencies and satellite operators providing satellite data, (3) the global geohazard scientific community. The 10.000's of ESA's SAR products are accessible, since beginning 2008, using ESA's "Virtual Archive", a Cloud Computing assets, allowing the global community an utmost downloading performance of these high volume data sets for mass-market costs. In the GEO collaborative context, the management of ESA's "Virtual Archive" and the ordering of these large data sets is being performed by UNAVCO, who is also coordinating the data demand for the several hundreds of co-PIs. ESA is envisaging to provide scientists and developers access to a highly elastic operational e-infrastructure, providing interdisciplinary data on a large scale as well as tools ensuring innovation and a permanent evolution of the products. Consequently, this science environment will help in defining and testing new applications and technologies fostering innovation and new science findings. In Europe, the collaboration between EPOS, "European Plate Observatory System" lead by INGV, and ESA with support of DLR, ASI, and CNES are the main institutional stakeholders for the GEO Supersites contributing also to a unifying e-infrastructure. The overarching objective of the Geohazard Supersites is: "To implement a sustainable Global Earthquake Observation System and a Global Volcano Observation System as part of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)." This presentation will outline the overall concept, objectives, and examples of the e-infrastructure, which is currently being set up for the GEO Supersite initiative helping to advance science.

Mapping and Modeling Web Portal to Advance Global Monitoring and Climate Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chang, G.; Malhotra, S.; Bui, B.; Sadaqathulla, S.; Goodale, C. E.; Ramirez, P.; Kim, R. M.; Rodriguez, L.; Law, E.

2011-12-01

Today, the principal investigators of NASA Earth Science missions develop their own software to manipulate, visualize, and analyze the data collected from Earth, space, and airborne observation instruments. There is very little, if any, collaboration among these principal investigators due to the lack of collaborative tools, which would allow these scientists to share data and results. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), under the Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project (LMMP), we have built a web portal that exposes a set of common services to users to allow search, visualization, subset, and download lunar science data. Users also have access to a set of tools that visualize, analyze and annotate the data. These services are developed according to industry standards for data access and manipulation, such REST and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services. As a result, users can access the datasets through custom written applications or off-the-shelf applications such as Google Earth. Even though it's currently used to store and process lunar data, this web portal infrastructure has been designed to support other solar system bodies such as asteroids and planets, including Earth. The infrastructure uses a combination of custom, commercial, and open-source software as well as off-the-shelf hardware and pay-by-use cloud computing services. The use of standardized web service interfaces facilitates platform and application-independent access to the services and data. For instance, we have software clients for the LMMP portal that provide a rich browsing and analysis experience from a variety of platforms including iOS and Android mobile platforms and large screen multi-touch displays with 3-D terrain viewing functions. The service-oriented architecture and design principles utilized in the implementation of the portal lends itself to be reusable and scalable and could naturally be extended to include a collaborative environment that enables scientists and principal investigators to share their research and analysis seamlessly. In addition, this extension will allow users to easily share their tools and data, and to enrich their mapping and analysis experiences. In this talk, we will describe the advanced data management and portal technologies used to power this collaborative environment. We will further illustrate how this environment can enable, enhance and advance global monitoring and climate research.

A comprehensive framework for data quality assessment in CER.

PubMed

Holve, Erin; Kahn, Michael; Nahm, Meredith; Ryan, Patrick; Weiskopf, Nicole

2013-01-01

The panel addresses the urgent need to ensure that comparative effectiveness research (CER) findings derived from diverse and distributed data sources are based on credible, high-quality data; and that the methods used to assess and report data quality are consistent, comprehensive, and available to data consumers. The panel consists of representatives from four teams leveraging electronic clinical data for CER, patient centered outcomes research (PCOR), and quality improvement (QI) and seeks to change the current paradigm where data quality assessment (DQA) is performed "behind the scenes" using one-off project specific methods. The panelists will present their process of harmonizing existing models for describing and measuring clinical data quality and will describe a comprehensive integrated framework for assessing and reporting DQA findings. The collaborative project is supported by the Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum, a three-year grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to facilitate learning and foster collaboration across a set of CER, PCOR, and QI projects designed to build infrastructure and methods for collecting and analyzing prospective data from electronic clinical data .

Virtual Labs (Science Gateways) as platforms for Free and Open Source Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lescinsky, David; Car, Nicholas; Fraser, Ryan; Friedrich, Carsten; Kemp, Carina; Squire, Geoffrey

2016-04-01

The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement promotes community engagement in software development, as well as provides access to a range of sophisticated technologies that would be prohibitively expensive if obtained commercially. However, as geoinformatics and eResearch tools and services become more dispersed, it becomes more complicated to identify and interface between the many required components. Virtual Laboratories (VLs, also known as Science Gateways) simplify the management and coordination of these components by providing a platform linking many, if not all, of the steps in particular scientific processes. These enable scientists to focus on their science, rather than the underlying supporting technologies. We describe a modular, open source, VL infrastructure that can be reconfigured to create VLs for a wide range of disciplines. Development of this infrastructure has been led by CSIRO in collaboration with Geoscience Australia and the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) with support from the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) and the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). Initially, the infrastructure was developed to support the Virtual Geophysical Laboratory (VGL), and has subsequently been repurposed to create the Virtual Hazards Impact and Risk Laboratory (VHIRL) and the reconfigured Australian National Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (ANVGL). During each step of development, new capabilities and services have been added and/or enhanced. We plan on continuing to follow this model using a shared, community code base. The VL platform facilitates transparent and reproducible science by providing access to both the data and methodologies used during scientific investigations. This is further enhanced by the ability to set up and run investigations using computational resources accessed through the VL. Data is accessed using registries pointing to catalogues within public data repositories (notably including the NCI National Environmental Research Data Interoperability Platform), or by uploading data directly from user supplied addresses or files. Similarly, scientific software is accessed through registries pointing to software repositories (e.g., GitHub). Runs are configured by using or modifying default templates designed by subject matter experts. After the appropriate computational resources are identified by the user, Virtual Machines (VMs) are spun up and jobs are submitted to service providers (currently the NeCTAR public cloud or Amazon Web Services). Following completion of the jobs the results can be reviewed and downloaded if desired. By providing a unified platform for science, the VL infrastructure enables sophisticated provenance capture and management. The source of input data (including both collection and queries), user information, software information (version and configuration details) and output information are all captured and managed as a VL resource which can be linked to output data sets. This provenance resource provides a mechanism for publication and citation for Free and Open Source Science.

Mind the Gap: furthering the development of EU-US collaboration in marine geoscience.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glaves, H.; Miller, S.; Schaap, D.

2012-04-01

There is a large and ever increasing amount of marine geological and geophysical data available throughout Europe, the USA and beyond. The challenges associated with the acquisition of this data mean that the cost of collecting it is very high and there is therefore a need to maximise the potential re-use of this data wherever possible. Facilitating this is becoming an increasingly important aspect of marine geosciences data management as the need for marine data increases at a time when the financial resources for data acquisition are being dramatically reduced. A significant barrier to the re-use of marine geoscience data is the variety of different formats, standards, vocabularies etc which have been used by the various organisations engaged with the collection and management of marine geosciences data at a regional, national and international scale. This is also proving to be a barrier to the development of interoperability with other data types at a time when there is a need to develop a more holistic approach to marine research. These challenges are currently being addressed within Europe by a number of EU funded initiatives, the objectives of which are an improvement in the discovery and access to marine data. The Geo-Seas project is just one of these initiatives, the focus of which is the development of an e-infrastructure for the delivery of standardised marine geological and geophysical data across Europe. The project is developing this e-infrastructure by adopting and adapting the methodologies of the SeaDataNet project which currently provides an e-infrastructure for the management of oceanographic data. This re-use of the existing technologies has lead to the development a joint multidisciplinary e-infrastructure for the delivery or both geoscientific and oceanographic data. In order to expand these initiatives further and bridge the gap between these European projects and those being undertaken by colleagues in both the US and elsewhere a number of collaborative relationships have been developed. To further these growing collaborative relationships a new EU initiative has recently been proposed in parallel with the relevant funding agencies in the USA and Australia with the objective of developing common standards and methodologies which will allow the development of a common multidisciplinary approach to marine science on an international scale.

The AGING Initiative experience: a call for sustained support for team science networks.

PubMed

Garg, Tullika; Anzuoni, Kathryn; Landyn, Valentina; Hajduk, Alexandra; Waring, Stephen; Hanson, Leah R; Whitson, Heather E

2018-05-18

Team science, defined as collaborative research efforts that leverage the expertise of diverse disciplines, is recognised as a critical means to address complex healthcare challenges, but the practical implementation of team science can be difficult. Our objective is to describe the barriers, solutions and lessons learned from our team science experience as applied to the complex and growing challenge of multiple chronic conditions (MCC). MCC is the presence of two or more chronic conditions that have a collective adverse effect on health status, function or quality of life, and that require complex healthcare management, decision-making or coordination. Due to the increasing impact on the United States society, MCC research has been identified as a high priority research area by multiple federal agencies. In response to this need, two national research entities, the Healthcare Systems Research Network (HCSRN) and the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers (OAIC), formed the Advancing Geriatrics Infrastructure and Network Growth (AGING) Initiative to build nationwide capacity for MCC team science. This article describes the structure, lessons learned and initial outcomes of the AGING Initiative. We call for funding mechanisms to sustain infrastructures that have demonstrated success in fostering team science and innovation in translating findings to policy change necessary to solve complex problems in healthcare.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

National Research Council

The United States has jurisdiction over 3.4 million square miles of ocean expanse greater than the land area of all fifty states combined. This vast marine area offers researchers opportunities to investigate the ocean's role in an integrated Earth system, but also presents challenges to society, including damaging tsunamis and hurricanes, industrial accidents, and outbreaks of waterborne diseases. The 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon oil spill and 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami are vivid reminders that a broad range of infrastructure is needed to advance our still-incomplete understanding of the ocean. The National Research Council (NRC)'s Ocean Studies Boardmore » was asked by the National Science and Technology Council's Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology, comprised of 25 U.S. government agencies, to examine infrastructure needs for ocean research in the year 2030. This request reflects concern, among a myriad of marine issues, over the present state of aging and obsolete infrastructure, insufficient capacity, growing technological gaps, and declining national leadership in marine technological development; issues brought to the nation's attention in 2004 by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. A 15-member committee of experts identified four themes that encompass 32 future ocean research questions enabling stewardship of the environment, protecting life and property, promoting economic vitality, and increasing fundamental scientific understanding. Many of the questions in the report (e.g., sea level rise, sustainable fisheries, the global water cycle) reflect challenging, multidisciplinary science questions that are clearly relevant today, and are likely to take decades of effort to solve. As such, U.S. ocean research will require a growing suite of ocean infrastructure for a range of activities, such as high quality, sustained time series observations or autonomous monitoring at a broad range of spatial and temporal scales. Consequently, a coordinated national plan for making future strategic investments becomes an imperative to address societal needs. Such a plan should be based upon known priorities and should be reviewed every 5-10 years to optimize the federal investment. The committee examined the past 20 years of technological advances and ocean infrastructure investments (such as the rise in use of self-propelled, uncrewed, underwater autonomous vehicles), assessed infrastructure that would be required to address future ocean research questions, and characterized ocean infrastructure trends for 2030. One conclusion was that ships will continue to be essential, especially because they provide a platform for enabling other infrastructure autonomous and remotely operated vehicles; samplers and sensors; moorings and cabled systems; and perhaps most importantly, the human assets of scientists, technical staff, and students. A comprehensive, long-term research fleet plan should be implemented in order to retain access to the sea. The current report also calls for continuing U.S. capability to access fully and partially ice-covered seas; supporting innovation, particularly the development of biogeochemical sensors; enhancing computing and modeling capacity and capability; establishing broadly accessible data management facilities; and increasing interdisciplinary education and promoting a technically-skilled workforce. The committee also provided a framework for prioritizing future investment in ocean infrastructure. They recommend that development, maintenance, or replacement of ocean research infrastructure assets should be prioritized in terms of societal benefit, with particular consideration given to usefulness for addressing important science questions; affordability, efficiency, and longevity; and ability to contribute to other missions or applications. These criteria are the foundation for prioritizing ocean research infrastructure investments by estimating the economic costs and benefits of each potential infrastructure investment, and funding those investments that collectively produce the largest expected net benefit over time. While this type of process is clearly subject to budget constraints, it could quantify the often informal evaluation of linkages between infrastructure, ocean research, the value of information produced, societal objectives, and economic benefits. Addressing the numerous complex science questions facing the entire ocean research enterprise in 2030 from government to academia, industry to nonprofits, local to global scale represents a major challenge, requiring collaboration across the breadth of the ocean sciences community and nearly seamless coordination between ocean-related federal agencies.« less

Northwest Tribal Interaction with Washington State University: Research and Education Opportunities Afforded Through the Center for Multiphase Environmental Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rumburg, B.; Yonge, D.; Jacob, J.

2003-12-01

The under-representation of Native Americans in engineering and science at the student and practicing engineer or scientist level is a national problem. To begin addressing this problem Washington State University (WSU) has initiated discussio with local Native American tribes to strengthen the relationship between WSU and the tribes and to improve the educational opportunities available to tribal members. The Center for Multiphase Environmental Research (CMER) received a 1999 National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) grant to train Ph.D. students. The main goal of the program is to foster multidisciplinary research and education for future scientists and engineers in the broad field of study that incorporates the fate and transport of environmentally significant species between interfaces. We are also focused on recruiting and educating Native American students. CMER is committed to cultivating its relationship with Native American tribes by identifying the environmental concerns of the tribes and developing collaborative research efforts utilizing CMER's infrastructure. Through these collaborative projects the CMER hopes to better understand the social and cultural aspects important to the tribes and develop the familiarity needed to effectively enhance student recruitment. This poster highlights the CMER's interdisciplinary research and teaching efforts and focuses on Native American recruitment.

Virtual Geophysics Laboratory: Exploiting the Cloud and Empowering Geophysicsts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fraser, Ryan; Vote, Josh; Goh, Richard; Cox, Simon

2013-04-01

Over the last five decades geoscientists from Australian state and federal agencies have collected and assembled around 3 Petabytes of geoscience data sets under public funding. As a consequence of technological progress, data is now being acquired at exponential rates and in higher resolution than ever before. Effective use of these big data sets challenges the storage and computational infrastructure of most organizations. The Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL) is a scientific workflow portal addresses some of the resulting issues by providing Australian geophysicists with access to a Web 2.0 or Rich Internet Application (RIA) based integrated environment that exploits eResearch tools and Cloud computing technology, and promotes collaboration between the user community. VGL simplifies and automates large portions of what were previously manually intensive scientific workflow processes, allowing scientists to focus on the natural science problems, rather than computer science and IT. A number of geophysical processing codes are incorporated to support multiple workflows. For example a gravity inversion can be performed by combining the Escript/Finley codes (from the University of Queensland) with the gravity data registered in VGL. Likewise, tectonic processes can also be modeled by combining the Underworld code (from Monash University) with one of the various 3D models available to VGL. Cloud services provide scalable and cost effective compute resources. VGL is built on top of mature standards-compliant information services, many deployed using the Spatial Information Services Stack (SISS), which provides direct access to geophysical data. A large number of data sets from Geoscience Australia assist users in data discovery. GeoNetwork provides a metadata catalog to store workflow results for future use, discovery and provenance tracking. VGL has been developed in collaboration with the research community using incremental software development practices and open source tools. While developed to provide the geophysics research community with a sustainable platform and scalable infrastructure; VGL has also developed a number of concepts, patterns and generic components of which have been reused for cases beyond geophysics, including natural hazards, satellite processing and other areas requiring spatial data discovery and processing. Future plans for VGL include a number of improvements in both functional and non-functional areas in response to its user community needs and advancement in information technologies. In particular, research is underway in the following areas (a) distributed and parallel workflow processing in the cloud, (b) seamless integration with various cloud providers, and (c) integration with virtual laboratories representing other science domains. Acknowledgements: VGL was developed by CSIRO in collaboration with Geoscience Australia, National Computational Infrastructure, Australia National University, Monash University and University of Queensland, and has been supported by the Australian Government's Education Investment Funds through NeCTAR.

NCI's High Performance Computing (HPC) and High Performance Data (HPD) Computing Platform for Environmental and Earth System Data Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evans, Ben; Allen, Chris; Antony, Joseph; Bastrakova, Irina; Gohar, Kashif; Porter, David; Pugh, Tim; Santana, Fabiana; Smillie, Jon; Trenham, Claire; Wang, Jingbo; Wyborn, Lesley

2015-04-01

The National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) has established a powerful and flexible in-situ petascale computational environment to enable both high performance computing and Data-intensive Science across a wide spectrum of national environmental and earth science data collections - in particular climate, observational data and geoscientific assets. This paper examines 1) the computational environments that supports the modelling and data processing pipelines, 2) the analysis environments and methods to support data analysis, and 3) the progress so far to harmonise the underlying data collections for future interdisciplinary research across these large volume data collections. NCI has established 10+ PBytes of major national and international data collections from both the government and research sectors based on six themes: 1) weather, climate, and earth system science model simulations, 2) marine and earth observations, 3) geosciences, 4) terrestrial ecosystems, 5) water and hydrology, and 6) astronomy, social and biosciences. Collectively they span the lithosphere, crust, biosphere, hydrosphere, troposphere, and stratosphere. The data is largely sourced from NCI's partners (which include the custodians of many of the major Australian national-scale scientific collections), leading research communities, and collaborating overseas organisations. New infrastructures created at NCI mean the data collections are now accessible within an integrated High Performance Computing and Data (HPC-HPD) environment - a 1.2 PFlop supercomputer (Raijin), a HPC class 3000 core OpenStack cloud system and several highly connected large-scale high-bandwidth Lustre filesystems. The hardware was designed at inception to ensure that it would allow the layered software environment to flexibly accommodate the advancement of future data science. New approaches to software technology and data models have also had to be developed to enable access to these large and exponentially increasing data volumes at NCI. Traditional HPC and data environments are still made available in a way that flexibly provides the tools, services and supporting software systems on these new petascale infrastructures. But to enable the research to take place at this scale, the data, metadata and software now need to evolve together - creating a new integrated high performance infrastructure. The new infrastructure at NCI currently supports a catalogue of integrated, reusable software and workflows from earth system and ecosystem modelling, weather research, satellite and other observed data processing and analysis. One of the challenges for NCI has been to support existing techniques and methods, while carefully preparing the underlying infrastructure for the transition needed for the next class of Data-intensive Science. In doing so, a flexible range of techniques and software can be made available for application across the corpus of data collections available, and to provide a new infrastructure for future interdisciplinary research.

Tools and data for meeting America's conservation challenges

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gergely, Kevin J.; McKerrow, Alexa

2013-01-01

The Gap Analysis Program (GAP) produces data and tools that help meet critical national challenges such as biodiversity conservation, renewable energy development, climate change adaptation, and infrastructure investment. The GAP is managed by the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. GAP supports a wide range of national, State, and local agencies as well as nongovernmental organizations and businesses with scientific tools and data. GAP uses a collaborative approach to do research, analysis, and data development, resulting in a history of cooperation with more than 500 agencies and organizations nationally.

4-D COMMON OPERATIONAL PICTURE (COP) FOR MISSION ASSURANCE (4D COP) Task Order 0001: Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Autonomy Collaboration in Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), Electronic Warfare (EW)/Cyber and Combat Identification (CID)

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-10-27

Domain C2, Adaptive Domain Control, Global Integrated ISR, Rapid Global Mobility , and Global Precision Strike, orgnanized within a framework of...mission needs. (Among the dozen implications) A more transparent, networked infrastructure that integrates ubiquitous sensors, automated systems...Conclusion 5.1 Common Technical Trajectory One of the most significant opportunities for AFRL is to develop and mobilize the qualitative roadmap

Astrophysics Source Code Library -- Now even better!

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allen, Alice; Schmidt, Judy; Berriman, Bruce; DuPrie, Kimberly; Hanisch, Robert J.; Mink, Jessica D.; Nemiroff, Robert J.; Shamir, Lior; Shortridge, Keith; Taylor, Mark B.; Teuben, Peter J.; Wallin, John F.

2015-01-01

The Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL, ascl.net) is a free online registry of codes used in astronomy research. Indexed by ADS, it now contains nearly 1,000 codes and with recent major changes, is better than ever! The resource has a new infrastructure that offers greater flexibility and functionality for users, including an easier submission process, better browsing, one-click author search, and an RSS feeder for news. The new database structure is easier to maintain and offers new possibilities for collaboration. Come see what we've done!

Patient participation in ERS guidelines and research projects: the EMBARC experience

PubMed Central

Timothy, Alan; Polverino, Eva; Almagro, Marta; Ruddy, Thomas; Powell, Pippa; Boyd, Jeanette

2017-01-01

The European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) is a European Respiratory Society (ERS) Clinical Research Collaboration dedicated to improving research and clinical care for people with bronchiectasis. EMBARC has created a European Bronchiectasis Registry, funded by the ERS and by the European Union (EU) Innovative Medicines Initiative Programme. From the outset, EMBARC had the ambition to be a patient-focussed project. In contrast to many respiratory diseases, however, there are no specific patient charities or European patient organisations for patients with bronchiectasis and no existing infrastructure for patient engagement. This article describes the experience of EMBARC and the European Lung Foundation in establishing a patient advisory group and then engaging this group in European guidelines, an international registry and a series of research studies. Patient involvement in research, clinical guidelines and educational activities is increasingly advocated and increasingly important. Genuine patient engagement can achieve a number of goals that are critical to the success of an EU project, including focussing activities on patient priorities, allowing patients to direct the clinical and research agenda, and dissemination of guidelines and research findings to patients and the general public. Here, we review lessons learned and provide guidance for future ERS task forces, EU-funded projects or clinical research collaborations that are considering patient involvement. Educational aims To understand the different ways in which patients can contribute to clinical guidelines, research projects and educational activities. To understand the barriers and potential solutions to these barriers from a physician’s perspective, in order to ensure meaningful patient involvement in clinical projects. To understand the barriers and potential solutions from a patient’s perspective, in order to meaningfully involve patients in clinical projects. PMID:28894480

Patient participation in ERS guidelines and research projects: the EMBARC experience.

PubMed

Chalmers, James D; Timothy, Alan; Polverino, Eva; Almagro, Marta; Ruddy, Thomas; Powell, Pippa; Boyd, Jeanette

2017-09-01

The European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) is a European Respiratory Society (ERS) Clinical Research Collaboration dedicated to improving research and clinical care for people with bronchiectasis. EMBARC has created a European Bronchiectasis Registry, funded by the ERS and by the European Union (EU) Innovative Medicines Initiative Programme. From the outset, EMBARC had the ambition to be a patient-focussed project. In contrast to many respiratory diseases, however, there are no specific patient charities or European patient organisations for patients with bronchiectasis and no existing infrastructure for patient engagement. This article describes the experience of EMBARC and the European Lung Foundation in establishing a patient advisory group and then engaging this group in European guidelines, an international registry and a series of research studies. Patient involvement in research, clinical guidelines and educational activities is increasingly advocated and increasingly important. Genuine patient engagement can achieve a number of goals that are critical to the success of an EU project, including focussing activities on patient priorities, allowing patients to direct the clinical and research agenda, and dissemination of guidelines and research findings to patients and the general public. Here, we review lessons learned and provide guidance for future ERS task forces, EU-funded projects or clinical research collaborations that are considering patient involvement. To understand the different ways in which patients can contribute to clinical guidelines, research projects and educational activities.To understand the barriers and potential solutions to these barriers from a physician's perspective, in order to ensure meaningful patient involvement in clinical projects.To understand the barriers and potential solutions from a patient's perspective, in order to meaningfully involve patients in clinical projects.

Do regions of ALICE matter? Social relationships and data exchanges in the Grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Widmer, E. D.; Carminati, F.; Grigoras, C.; Viry, G.; Galli Carminati, G.

2012-06-01

Following a previous publication [1], this study aims at investigating the impact of regional affiliations of centres on the organisation of collaboration within the Distributed Computing ALICE infrastructure, based on social networks methods. A self-administered questionnaire was sent to all centre managers about support, email interactions and wished collaborations in the infrastructure. Several additional measures, stemming from technical observations were produced, such as bandwidth, data transfers and Internet Round Trip Time (RTT) were also included. Information for 50 centres were considered (60% response rate). Empirical analysis shows that despite the centralisation on CERN, the network is highly organised by regions. The results are discussed in the light of policy and efficiency issues.

Do regions matter in ALICE?. Social relationships and data exchanges in the Grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Widmer, E. D.; Viry, G.; Carminati, F.; Galli-Carminati, G.

2012-02-01

This study aims at investigating the impact of regional affiliations of centres on the organisation of collaborations within the Distributed Computing ALICE infrastructure, based on social networks methods. A self-administered questionnaire was sent to all centre managers about support, email interactions and wished collaborations in the infrastructure. Several additional measures, stemming from technical observations were collected, such as bandwidth, data transfers and Internet Round Trip Time (RTT) were also included. Information for 50 centres were considered (about 70% response rate). Empirical analysis shows that despite the centralisation on CERN, the network is highly organised by regions. The results are discussed in the light of policy and efficiency issues.

Collaborative Oceanographic Research Opportunities with Schmidt Ocean Institute

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zykov, V.

2014-12-01

Schmidt Ocean Institute (http://www.schmidtocean.org/) was founded by Dr. Eric Schmidt and Wendy Schmidt in 2009 to support frontier oceanographic research and exploration to expand the understanding of the world's oceans through technological advancement, intelligent, data-rich observation and analysis, and open sharing of information. Schmidt Ocean Institute operates a state-of-the-art globally capable research vessel Falkor (http://www.schmidtocean.org/story/show/47). After two years of scientific operations in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Eastern and Central Pacific, R/V Falkor is now preparing to support research in the Western Pacific and Eastern Indian Oceans in 2015 and 2016. As part of the long term research program development for Schmidt Ocean Institute, we aim to identify initiatives and projects that demonstrate strong alignment with our strategic interests. We focus on scientific opportunities that highlight effective use of innovative technologies to better understand the oceans, such as, for example, research enabled with remotely operated and autonomous vehicles, acoustics, in-situ sensing, telepresence, etc. Our technology-first approach to ocean science gave rise to infrastructure development initiatives, such as the development of a new full ocean depth Hybrid Remotely Operated Vehicle, new 6000m scientific Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, live HD video streaming from the ship to YouTube, shipboard high performance supercomputing, etc. We also support projects focusing on oceanographic technology research and development onboard R/V Falkor. We provide our collaborators with access to all of R/V Falkor's facilities and instrumentation in exchange for a commitment to make the resulting scientific data openly available to the international oceanographic community. This presentation aims to expand awareness about the interests and capabilities of Schmidt Ocean Institute and R/V Falkor among our scientific audiences and further develop the network of our research collaborations. We would also like to inform interested scientists and technology developers about our program development and proposal selection processes and explain how they can participate in future collaborations with Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Data harmonization and federated analysis of population-based studies: the BioSHaRE project

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Abstracts Background Individual-level data pooling of large population-based studies across research centres in international research projects faces many hurdles. The BioSHaRE (Biobank Standardisation and Harmonisation for Research Excellence in the European Union) project aims to address these issues by building a collaborative group of investigators and developing tools for data harmonization, database integration and federated data analyses. Methods Eight population-based studies in six European countries were recruited to participate in the BioSHaRE project. Through workshops, teleconferences and electronic communications, participating investigators identified a set of 96 variables targeted for harmonization to answer research questions of interest. Using each study’s questionnaires, standard operating procedures, and data dictionaries, harmonization potential was assessed. Whenever harmonization was deemed possible, processing algorithms were developed and implemented in an open-source software infrastructure to transform study-specific data into the target (i.e. harmonized) format. Harmonized datasets located on server in each research centres across Europe were interconnected through a federated database system to perform statistical analysis. Results Retrospective harmonization led to the generation of common format variables for 73% of matches considered (96 targeted variables across 8 studies). Authenticated investigators can now perform complex statistical analyses of harmonized datasets stored on distributed servers without actually sharing individual-level data using the DataSHIELD method. Conclusion New Internet-based networking technologies and database management systems are providing the means to support collaborative, multi-center research in an efficient and secure manner. The results from this pilot project show that, given a strong collaborative relationship between participating studies, it is possible to seamlessly co-analyse internationally harmonized research databases while allowing each study to retain full control over individual-level data. We encourage additional collaborative research networks in epidemiology, public health, and the social sciences to make use of the open source tools presented herein. PMID:24257327

The SCEC Community Modeling Environment(SCEC/CME): A Collaboratory for Seismic Hazard Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maechling, P. J.; Jordan, T. H.; Minster, J. B.; Moore, R.; Kesselman, C.

2005-12-01

The SCEC Community Modeling Environment (SCEC/CME) Project is an NSF-supported Geosciences/IT partnership that is actively developing an advanced information infrastructure for system-level earthquake science in Southern California. This partnership includes SCEC, USC's Information Sciences Institute (ISI), the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the Incorporated Institutions for Research in Seismology (IRIS), and the U.S. Geological Survey. The goal of the SCEC/CME is to develop seismological applications and information technology (IT) infrastructure to support the development of Seismic Hazard Analysis (SHA) programs and other geophysical simulations. The SHA application programs developed on the Project include a Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis system called OpenSHA. OpenSHA computational elements that are currently available include a collection of attenuation relationships, and several Earthquake Rupture Forecasts (ERFs). Geophysicists in the collaboration have also developed Anelastic Wave Models (AWMs) using both finite-difference and finite-element approaches. Earthquake simulations using these codes have been run for a variety of earthquake sources. Rupture Dynamic Model (RDM) codes have also been developed that simulate friction-based fault slip. The SCEC/CME collaboration has also developed IT software and hardware infrastructure to support the development, execution, and analysis of these SHA programs. To support computationally expensive simulations, we have constructed a grid-based scientific workflow system. Using the SCEC grid, project collaborators can submit computations from the SCEC/CME servers to High Performance Computers at USC and TeraGrid High Performance Computing Centers. Data generated and archived by the SCEC/CME is stored in a digital library system, the Storage Resource Broker (SRB). This system provides a robust and secure system for maintaining the association between the data seta and their metadata. To provide an easy-to-use system for constructing SHA computations, a browser-based workflow assembly web portal has been developed. Users can compose complex SHA calculations, specifying SCEC/CME data sets as inputs to calculations, and calling SCEC/CME computational programs to process the data and the output. Knowledge-based software tools have been implemented that utilize ontological descriptions of SHA software and data can validate workflows created with this pathway assembly tool. Data visualization software developed by the collaboration supports analysis and validation of data sets. Several programs have been developed to visualize SCEC/CME data including GMT-based map making software for PSHA codes, 4D wavefield propagation visualization software based on OpenGL, and 3D Geowall-based visualization of earthquakes, faults, and seismic wave propagation. The SCEC/CME Project also helps to sponsor the SCEC UseIT Intern program. The UseIT Intern Program provides research opportunities in both Geosciences and Information Technology to undergraduate students in a variety of fields. The UseIT group has developed a 3D data visualization tool, called SCEC-VDO, as a part of this undergraduate research program.

Identification of Transportation Infrastructure at Risk Due To Sea-Level Rise and Subsidence of Land In Coastal Louisiana

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tewari, S.; Palmer, W.; Manning, F.

2017-12-01

Climate change can affect coastal areas in a variety of ways. Coasts are sensitive to sea level rise, changes in the frequency/intensity of storms, increase in precipitation and storm surges. The resilience of transportation infrastructure located in Louisiana's coastal zone, against storm surges and climatic sea-level rise is critical. The net change in sea-level is affected by the increase in global sea level as well as land movement up or down. There are many places in coastal Louisiana that have a high subsidence rate. The subsidence could be related to excess extraction activities of oil and water, natural and/or human induced compaction, and tectonic movement. Where the land is sinking, the rate of relative sea level rise is larger than the global rate. Some of the fastest rates of relative sea level rise in the United States are occurring in areas where the land is sinking, including parts of the Gulf Coast. For example, coastal Louisiana has seen its relative sea level rise by eight inches or more in the last 50 years, which is about twice the global rate. Subsiding land in the Gulf area worsens the effects of relative sea level rise, increasing the risk of flooding in cities, inhabited islands, and tidal wetlands. The research team is investigating the trends for sea-level rise and land subsidence in coastal region of Louisiana. The variability in storm surges and its potential implication on the transportation infrastructure in the region is the focus of the study. The spatial maps will be created for spatial trends. This is extremely useful in being prepared for long-term natural hazards. The results of this study will be helpful to LADOTD and infrastructure managers and officials who are tasked with resiliency planning and management. Research results will also directly benefit university researchers in the state, Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and LADOTD/LTRC through collaborative activity which will educate both professionals and the general public on issues related to transportation infrastructure in coastal areas while increasing overall public awareness. Also, the outcomes of the project will serve as an educational and research tool to convey to undergraduate and graduate students on how climate changes affect the transportation infrastructure safety/stability in the coastal region of the state.

Research for Change: the role of scientific journals publishing mental health research.

PubMed

Saxena, Shekhar; Sharan, Pratap; Saraceno, Benedetto

2004-06-01

There is an enormous gap between the burden of mental disorders and mental health resources in low- and middle-income countries. The Mental Health: Global Action Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) envisions an active role for research in the multidimensional efforts required to change the current mental health situation in these countries (Research for Change). WHO's strategies to achieve this include developing a research policy and a priority agenda at country level with active collaboration from all stakeholders, building research capacity and infrastructure and involving scientific journals to stimulate and disseminate public health oriented research. A recently agreed joint statement by editors of prominent journals publishing mental health research and WHO sets major objectives and some possible strategies for achieving this. WHO is committed to making Research for Change a reality by working with partners who share this aim.

The Evolving Landscape of Healthcare-Associated Infections: Recent Advances in Prevention and a Road Map for Research

PubMed Central

Safdar, Nasia; Anderson, Deverick J.; Braun, Barbara I.; Carling, Philip; Cohen, Stuart; Donskey, Curtis; Drees, Marci; Harris, Anthony; Henderson, David K.; Huang, Susan S.; Juthani-Mehta, Manisha; Lautenbach, Ebbing; Linkin, Darren R.; Meddings, Jennifer; Miller, Loren G.; Milstone, Aaron; Morgan, Daniel; Sengupta, Sharmila; Varman, Meera; Yokoe, Deborah; Zerr, Danielle M.

2014-01-01

This white paper identifies knowledge gaps and new challenges in healthcare epidemiology research, assesses the progress made toward addressing research priorities, provides the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Research Committee’s recommendations for high-priority research topics, and proposes a road map for making progress toward these goals. It updates the 2010 SHEA Research Committee document, “Charting the Course for the Future of Science in Healthcare Epidemiology: Results of a Survey of the Membership of SHEA,” which called for a national approach to healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and a prioritized research agenda. This paper highlights recent studies that have advanced our understanding of HAIs, the establishment of the SHEA Research Network as a collaborative infrastructure to address research questions, prevention initiatives at state and national levels, changes in reporting and payment requirements, and new patterns in antimicrobial resistance. PMID:24709716

Research for Change: the role of scientific journals publishing mental health research

PubMed Central

Saxena, Shekhar; Sharan, Pratap; Saraceno, Benedetto

2004-01-01

There is an enormous gap between the burden of mental disorders and mental health resources in low- and middle-income countries. The Mental Health: Global Action Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) envisions an active role for research in the multidimensional efforts required to change the current mental health situation in these countries (Research for Change). WHO's strategies to achieve this include developing a research policy and a priority agenda at country level with active collaboration from all stakeholders, building research capacity and infrastructure and involving scientific journals to stimulate and disseminate public health oriented research. A recently agreed joint statement by editors of prominent journals publishing mental health research and WHO sets major objectives and some possible strategies for achieving this. WHO is committed to making Research for Change a reality by working with partners who share this aim. PMID:16633460

Abstract - Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between Environmental Defense Fund and National Energy Technology Laboratory

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rose, Kelly K.; Zavala-Zraiza, Daniel

Here, we summarize an effort to develop a global oil and gas infrastructure (GOGI) taxonomy and geodatabase, using a combination of big data computing, custom search and data integration algorithms, and expert driven spatio-temporal analytics to identify, access, and evaluate open oil and gas data resources and uncertainty trends worldwide. This approach leveraged custom National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) tools and capabilities in collaboration with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Carbon Limits subject matter expertise, to identify over 380 datasets and integrate more than 4.8 million features into the GOGI database. In addition to acquisition of open oil and gasmore » infrastructure data, information was collected and analyzed to assess the spatial, temporal, and source quality of these resources, and estimate their completeness relative to the top 40 hydrocarbon producing and consuming countries.« less

Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS): A Collaborative Effort Between Nebraska EPSCoR and NASA Langley Research Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2000-01-01

Implementing SATS in Nebraska will require a number of changes, both technical and administrative. SATS will require major improvements in the infrastructure of Nebraska airports. Improving airport infrastructure so that it can accommodate SATS is first and most obvious goal. A second goal is to make airports financially sustainable over the long term with limited federal assistance. A third goal, closely related to the second, is to link the implementation of SATS with anticipated local economic growth. This can leverage local funds without tax increases, enhance the equity of the finance approach, improve planning of facility size, and reduce long-term per unit cost. Many of these goals are national issues, and presumably federal policy will determine how these goals are addressed. This study examines several financing options and discusses their ease of application to Nebraska's airports.

Executable research compendia in geoscience research infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nüst, Daniel

2017-04-01

From generation through analysis and collaboration to communication, scientific research requires the right tools. Scientists create their own software using third party libraries and platforms. Cloud computing, Open Science, public data infrastructures, and Open Source enable scientists with unprecedented opportunites, nowadays often in a field "Computational X" (e.g. computational seismology) or X-informatics (e.g. geoinformatics) [0]. This increases complexity and generates more innovation, e.g. Environmental Research Infrastructures (environmental RIs [1]). Researchers in Computational X write their software relying on both source code (e.g. from https://github.com) and binary libraries (e.g. from package managers such as APT, https://wiki.debian.org/Apt, or CRAN, https://cran.r-project.org/). They download data from domain specific (cf. https://re3data.org) or generic (e.g. https://zenodo.org) data repositories, and deploy computations remotely (e.g. European Open Science Cloud). The results themselves are archived, given persistent identifiers, connected to other works (e.g. using https://orcid.org/), and listed in metadata catalogues. A single researcher, intentionally or not, interacts with all sub-systems of RIs: data acquisition, data access, data processing, data curation, and community support [3]. To preserve computational research [3] proposes the Executable Research Compendium (ERC), a container format closing the gap of dependency preservation by encapsulating the runtime environment. ERCs and RIs can be integrated for different uses: (i) Coherence: ERC services validate completeness, integrity and results (ii) Metadata: ERCs connect the different parts of a piece of research and faciliate discovery (iii) Exchange and Preservation: ERC as usable building blocks are the shared and archived entity (iv) Self-consistency: ERCs remove dependence on ephemeral sources (v) Execution: ERC services create and execute a packaged analysis but integrate with existing platforms for display and control These integrations are vital for capturing workflows in RIs and connect key stakeholders (scientists, publishers, librarians). They are demonstrated using developments by the DFG-funded project Opening Reproducible Research (http://o2r.info). Semi-automatic creation of ERCs based on research workflows is a core goal of the project. References [0] Tony Hey, Stewart Tansley, Kristin Tolle (eds), 2009. The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery. Microsoft Research. [1] P. Martin et al., Open Information Linking for Environmental Research Infrastructures, 2015 IEEE 11th International Conference on e-Science, Munich, 2015, pp. 513-520. doi: 10.1109/eScience.2015.66 [2] Y. Chen et al., Analysis of Common Requirements for Environmental Science Research Infrastructures, The International Symposium on Grids and Clouds (ISGC) 2013, Taipei, 2013, http://pos.sissa.it/archive/conferences/179/032/ISGC [3] Opening Reproducible Research, Geophysical Research Abstracts Vol. 18, EGU2016-7396, 2016, http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2016/EGU2016-7396.pdf

Clinical trial network for the promotion of clinical research for rare diseases in Japan: muscular dystrophy clinical trial network.

PubMed

Shimizu, Reiko; Ogata, Katsuhisa; Tamaura, Akemi; Kimura, En; Ohata, Maki; Takeshita, Eri; Nakamura, Harumasa; Takeda, Shin'ichi; Komaki, Hirofumi

2016-07-11

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most commonly inherited neuromuscular disease. Therapeutic agents for the treatment of rare disease, namely "orphan drugs", have recently drawn the attention of researchers and pharmaceutical companies. To ensure the successful conduction of clinical trials to evaluate novel treatments for patients with rare diseases, an appropriate infrastructure is needed. One of the effective solutions for the lack of infrastructure is to establish a network of rare diseases. To accomplish the conduction of clinical trials in Japan, the Muscular dystrophy clinical trial network (MDCTN) was established by the clinical research group for muscular dystrophy, including the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, as well as national and university hospitals, all which have a long-standing history of research cooperation. Thirty-one medical institutions (17 national hospital organizations, 10 university hospitals, 1 national center, 2 public hospitals, and 1 private hospital) belong to this network and collaborate to facilitate clinical trials. The Care and Treatment Site Registry (CTSR) calculates and reports the proportion of patients with neuromuscular diseases in the cooperating sites. In total, there are 5,589 patients with neuromuscular diseases in Japan and the proportion of patients with each disease is as follows: DMD, 29 %; myotonic dystrophy type 1, 23 %; limb girdle muscular dystrophy, 11 %; Becker muscular dystrophy, 10 %. We work jointly to share updated health care information and standardized evaluations of clinical outcomes as well. The collaboration with the patient registry (CTSR), allows the MDCTN to recruit DMD participants with specific mutations and conditions, in a remarkably short period of time. Counting with a network that operates at a national level is important to address the corresponding national issues. Thus, our network will be able to contribute with international research activity, which can lead to an improvement of neuromuscular disease treatment in Japan.

Nurturing educational research at Dartmouth Medical School: the synergy among innovative ideas, support faculty, and administrative structures.

PubMed

Nierenberg, David W; Carney, Patricia A

2004-10-01

In recent years, Dartmouth Medical School has increased its commitment to educational research within the school, and in collaboration with other schools across the country. Passionate faculty members with ideas and expertise in particular curricular areas are one critical component needed for a successful educational research program. Other components include an atmosphere that fosters research collaborations and mentoring, and various types of institutional support structures. This same model has effectively supported basic science and clinical research for decades. Because of the complexities involved in studying medical education, Dartmouth Medical School has invested in support structures for educational grant and manuscript development, financial support for pilot projects and partial salary support for investigators and key staff members, and other support targeted toward specific research projects. Ultimately, the goal is to use the results of the school's educational research projects to improve the curriculum through cycles of hypothesis development and testing, providing evidence for subsequent curricular change. When some research findings are relevant and applicable for use in other medical schools, that is an additional benefit of the educational research process. In this report, the authors describe the development of Dartmouth Medical School's infrastructure for supporting educational research, which has helped to accelerate the educational research productivity teaching faculty now enjoy. The authors also address some of the challenges that they anticipate in the near future.

National Report Norway: Arctic Access to Space

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brekke, P.

2015-09-01

Norway has long traditions as a space nation, much due to our northern latitude. Our space science activities are concentrated into relatively few areas. This concentration is necessary due to limited resources, both in funding and personnel. The main scientific activities are within Solar-terrestrial physics and cosmology. The first field has been a priority since before the space age and is still the major priority. The usage of the ground infrastructure in Northern Norway and on Svalbard is essential in studying the middle and upper atmosphere and the interaction with the Sun. This includes the utilization of sounding rockets, both small and large, and ground based installations like radars, lidars and other optical instrumentation. The planned use of Svalbard as a launch site for large stratospheric balloons may allow the cosmology community access to our northern infrastructure. The solar physics community is also heavily involved in the HINODE and IRIS missions and Norway is supporting downlink of data via the Svalbard Station for these missions. The sounding rocket program is in close collaboration with many countries like Germany, USA, France, Canada and Japan. Two scientific sounding rocket programs are currently being pursued: The ICI series (from Svalbard) and MaxiDusty (from Andoya). A series of scientific publications have recently appeared from the ECOMA campaign a few years ago. A significant improvement of today's polar and ionospheric research infrastructure in Northern Norway and Svalbard has recently been put on the ESFRI roadmap for European research infrastructure through the 5105 and EISCAT 3D initiatives. The Norwegian government has recently decided to upgrade the VLBI facilities at Svalbard.

Sharing Data and Analytical Resources Securely in a Biomedical Research Grid Environment

PubMed Central

Langella, Stephen; Hastings, Shannon; Oster, Scott; Pan, Tony; Sharma, Ashish; Permar, Justin; Ervin, David; Cambazoglu, B. Barla; Kurc, Tahsin; Saltz, Joel

2008-01-01

Objectives To develop a security infrastructure to support controlled and secure access to data and analytical resources in a biomedical research Grid environment, while facilitating resource sharing among collaborators. Design A Grid security infrastructure, called Grid Authentication and Authorization with Reliably Distributed Services (GAARDS), is developed as a key architecture component of the NCI-funded cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG™). The GAARDS is designed to support in a distributed environment 1) efficient provisioning and federation of user identities and credentials; 2) group-based access control support with which resource providers can enforce policies based on community accepted groups and local groups; and 3) management of a trust fabric so that policies can be enforced based on required levels of assurance. Measurements GAARDS is implemented as a suite of Grid services and administrative tools. It provides three core services: Dorian for management and federation of user identities, Grid Trust Service for maintaining and provisioning a federated trust fabric within the Grid environment, and Grid Grouper for enforcing authorization policies based on both local and Grid-level groups. Results The GAARDS infrastructure is available as a stand-alone system and as a component of the caGrid infrastructure. More information about GAARDS can be accessed at http://www.cagrid.org. Conclusions GAARDS provides a comprehensive system to address the security challenges associated with environments in which resources may be located at different sites, requests to access the resources may cross institutional boundaries, and user credentials are created, managed, revoked dynamically in a de-centralized manner. PMID:18308979

Institutional Transformation Model

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

2015-10-19

Reducing the energy consumption of large institutions with dozens to hundreds of existing buildings while maintaining and improving existing infrastructure is a critical economic and environmental challenge. SNL's Institutional Transformation (IX) work integrates facilities and infrastructure sustainability technology capabilities and collaborative decision support modeling approaches to help facilities managers at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) simulate different future energy reduction strategies and meet long term energy conservation goals.

Building a sustainable Academic Health Department: the South Carolina model.

PubMed

Smith, Lillian Upton; Waddell, Lisa; Kyle, Joseph; Hand, Gregory A

2014-01-01

Given the limited resources available to public health, it is critical that university programs complement the development needs of agencies. Unfortunately, academic and practice public health entities have long been challenged in building sustainable collaborations that support practice-based research, teaching, and service. The academic health department concept offers a promising solution. In South Carolina, the partners started their academic health department program with a small grant that expanded into a dynamic infrastructure that supports innovative professional exchange and development programs. This article provides a background and describes the key elements of the South Carolina model: joint leadership, a multicomponent memorandum of agreement, and a shared professional development mission. The combination of these elements allows the partners to leverage resources and deftly respond to challenges and opportunities, ultimately fostering the sustainability of the collaboration.

Joint Solar Power Industry and Department of Energy Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilcox, Steve; Myers, Daryl

2009-08-01

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has embarked on a collaborative effort with the solar industry to establish high quality solar and meteorological measurements. This Solar Resource and Meteorological Assessment Project (SOLRMAP) provides high quality measurements to support deployment of concentrating solar thermal power projects in the United States. The no-funds-exchanged collaboration brings NREL solar resource assessment expertise together with industry needs for measurements. The end result will be high quality data sets to support the financing, design, and monitoring of large scale solar power projects for industry in addition to research-quality data for NREL model development. NREL provides consultation for instrumentation and station deployment, along with instrument calibrations, data acquisition, quality assessment, data distribution, and summary reports. Industry participants provide equipment, infrastructure, and station maintenance.

The EPOS Architecture: Integrated Services for solid Earth Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cocco, Massimo; Consortium, Epos

2013-04-01

The European Plate Observing System (EPOS) represents a scientific vision and an IT approach in which innovative multidisciplinary research is made possible for a better understanding of the physical processes controlling earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, unrest episodes and tsunamis as well as those driving tectonics and Earth surface dynamics. EPOS has a long-term plan to facilitate integrated use of data, models and facilities from existing (but also new) distributed research infrastructures, for solid Earth science. One primary purpose of EPOS is to take full advantage of the new e-science opportunities coming available. The aim is to obtain an efficient and comprehensive multidisciplinary research platform for the Earth sciences in Europe. The EPOS preparatory phase (EPOS PP), funded by the European Commission within the Capacities program, started on November 1st 2010 and it has completed its first two years of activity. EPOS is presently mid-way through its preparatory phase and to date it has achieved all the objectives, milestones and deliverables planned in its roadmap towards construction. The EPOS mission is to integrate the existing research infrastructures (RIs) in solid Earth science warranting increased accessibility and usability of multidisciplinary data from monitoring networks, laboratory experiments and computational simulations. This is expected to enhance worldwide interoperability in the Earth Sciences and establish a leading, integrated European infrastructure offering services to researchers and other stakeholders. The Preparatory Phase aims at leveraging the project to the level of maturity required to implement the EPOS construction phase, with a defined legal structure, detailed technical planning and financial plan. We will present the EPOS architecture, which relies on the integration of the main outcomes from legal, governance and financial work following the strategic EPOS roadmap and according to the technical work done during the first two years in order to establish an effective implementation plan guaranteeing long term sustainability for the infrastructure and the associated services. We plan to describe the RIs to be integrated in EPOS and to illustrate the initial suite of integrated and thematic core services to be offered to the users. We will present examples of combined data analyses and we will address the importance of opening our research infrastructures to users from different communities. We will describe the use-cases identified so far in order to allow stakeholders and potential future users to understand and interact with the EPOS infrastructure. In this framework, we also discuss the global perspectives for data infrastructures in order to verify the coherency of the EPOS plans and present the EPOS contributions. We also discuss the international cooperation initiatives in which EPOS is involved emphasizing the implications for solid Earth data infrastructures. In particular, EPOS and the satellite Earth Observation communities are collaborating in order to promote the integration of data from in-situ monitoring networks and satellite observing systems. Finally, we will also discuss the priorities for the third year of activity and the key actions planned to better involve users in EPOS. In particular, we will discuss the work done to finalize the design phase as well as the activities to start the validation and testing phase of the EPOS infrastructure.

Lessons learned: Infrastructure development and financial management for large, publically funded, international trials

PubMed Central

Larson, Gregg S; Carey, Cate; Grarup, Jesper; Hudson, Fleur; Sachi, Karen; Vjecha, Michael J; Gordin, Fred

2015-01-01

Background/Aims Randomized clinical trials are widely recognized as essential to address world-wide clinical and public health research questions. However, for many conditions, their size and duration can overwhelm available public and private resources. To remain competitive in international research settings, advocates and practitioners of clinical trials must implement practices that reduce their cost. We identify approaches and practices for large, publicly-funded, international trials that reduce cost without compromising data integrity, and recommend an approach to cost reporting that permits comparison of clinical trials. Methods We describe the organizational and financial characteristics of INSIGHT, an infectious disease research network that conducts multiple, large, long-term, international trials, and examine challenges associated with simple and streamlined governance and an infrastructure and financial management model that is based on performance, transparency, and accountability. Results It is possible to reduce costs of participant follow-up and not compromise clinical trial quality or integrity. The INSIGHT network has successfully completed four large HIV trials using cost-efficient practices that have not adversely affected investigator enthusiasm, accrual rates, loss-to-follow-up, adherence to the protocol, and completion of data collection. This experience is relevant to the conduct of large, publically funded trials in other disease areas, particularly trials dependent on international collaborations. Conclusion New approaches, or creative adaption of traditional clinical trial infrastructure and financial management tools, can render large, international clinical trials more cost-efficient by emphasizing structural simplicity; minimal up-front costs; payments for performance; and uniform algorithms and fees-for-service, irrespective of location. However, challenges remain. They include institutional resistance to financial change, growing trial complexity, and the difficulty of sustaining network infrastructure absent stable research work. There is also a need for more central monitoring, improved and harmonized regulations, and a widely-applied metric for measuring and comparing cost efficiency in clinical trials. ClinicalTrials.gov is recommended as a location where standardized trial cost information could be made publicly accessible. PMID:26908541

Lowering the barriers to computational modeling of Earth's surface: coupling Jupyter Notebooks with Landlab, HydroShare, and CyberGIS for research and education.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bandaragoda, C.; Castronova, A. M.; Phuong, J.; Istanbulluoglu, E.; Strauch, R. L.; Nudurupati, S. S.; Tarboton, D. G.; Wang, S. W.; Yin, D.; Barnhart, K. R.; Tucker, G. E.; Hutton, E.; Hobley, D. E. J.; Gasparini, N. M.; Adams, J. M.

2017-12-01

The ability to test hypotheses about hydrology, geomorphology and atmospheric processes is invaluable to research in the era of big data. Although community resources are available, there remain significant educational, logistical and time investment barriers to their use. Knowledge infrastructure is an emerging intellectual framework to understand how people are creating, sharing and distributing knowledge - which has been dramatically transformed by Internet technologies. In addition to the technical and social components in a cyberinfrastructure system, knowledge infrastructure considers educational, institutional, and open source governance components required to advance knowledge. We are designing an infrastructure environment that lowers common barriers to reproducing modeling experiments for earth surface investigation. Landlab is an open-source modeling toolkit for building, coupling, and exploring two-dimensional numerical models. HydroShare is an online collaborative environment for sharing hydrologic data and models. CyberGIS-Jupyter is an innovative cyberGIS framework for achieving data-intensive, reproducible, and scalable geospatial analytics using the Jupyter Notebook based on ROGER - the first cyberGIS supercomputer, so that models that can be elastically reproduced through cloud computing approaches. Our team of geomorphologists, hydrologists, and computer geoscientists has created a new infrastructure environment that combines these three pieces of software to enable knowledge discovery. Through this novel integration, any user can interactively execute and explore their shared data and model resources. Landlab on HydroShare with CyberGIS-Jupyter supports the modeling continuum from fully developed modelling applications, prototyping new science tools, hands on research demonstrations for training workshops, and classroom applications. Computational geospatial models based on big data and high performance computing can now be more efficiently developed, improved, scaled, and seamlessly reproduced among multidisciplinary users, thereby expanding the active learning curriculum and research opportunities for students in earth surface modeling and informatics.

Rural Oregon community perspectives: introducing community-based participatory research into a community health coalition.

PubMed

Young-Lorion, Julia; Davis, Melinda M; Kirks, Nancy; Hsu, Anna; Slater, Jana Kay; Rollins, Nancy; Aromaa, Susan; McGinnis, Paul

2013-01-01

The Community Health Improvement Partnership (CHIP) model has supported community health development in more than 100 communities nationally. In 2011, four rural Oregon CHIPs collaborated with investigators from the Oregon Rural Practice-based Research Network (ORPRN), a component of the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute (OCTRI), to obtain training on research methods, develop and implement pilot research studies on childhood obesity, and explore matches with academic partners. This article summarizes the experiences of the Lincoln County CHIP, established in 2003, as it transitioned from CHIP to Community Health Improvement and Research Partnership (CHIRP). Our story and lessons learned may inform rural community-based health coalitions and academicians who are engaged in or considering Community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships. Utilizing existing infrastructure and relationships in community and academic settings provides an ideal starting point for rural, bidirectional research partnerships.

Aeronautics Education, Research, and Industry Alliance (AERIAL) Progress Report and Proposal for Funding Continuation NASA Nebraska EPSCoR

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bowen, Brent; Fink, Mary; Gogos, George; Moussavi, Massoum; Nickerson, Jocelyn; Rundquist, Donald; Russell, Valerie; Tarry, Scott

2004-01-01

The Aeronautics Education, Research, and Industry Alliance (AERIAL), which began as a comprehensive, multi-faceted NASA EPSCoR 2000 initiative, has contributed substantially to the strategic research and technology priorities of NASA, while intensifying Nebraska's rapidly growing aeronautics research and development endeavors. AERIAL has enabled Nebraska researchers to: (a) continue strengthening their collaborative relationships with NASA Field Centers, Codes, and Enterprises; (b) increase the capacity of higher education throughout Nebraska to invigorate and expand aeronautics research; and (c) expedite the development of aeronautics-related research infrastructure and industry in the state. Nebraska has placed emphasis on successfully securing additional funds from non-EPSCoR and non-NASA sources. AERIAL researchers have aggressively pursued additional funding opportunities offered by NASA, industry, and other agencies. This report contains a summary of AERIAL's activities and accomplishments during its first three years of implementation.

Comparative Case Study of Two Biomedical Research Collaboratories

PubMed Central

Teasley, Stephanie D; Bhatnagar, Rishi

2005-01-01

Background Working together efficiently and effectively presents a significant challenge in large-scale, complex, interdisciplinary research projects. Collaboratories are a nascent method to help meet this challenge. However, formal collaboratories in biomedical research centers are the exception rather than the rule. Objective The main purpose of this paper is to compare and describe two collaboratories that used off-the-shelf tools and relatively modest resources to support the scientific activity of two biomedical research centers. The two centers were the Great Lakes Regional Center for AIDS Research (HIV/AIDS Center) and the New York University Oral Cancer Research for Adolescent and Adult Health Promotion Center (Oral Cancer Center). Methods In each collaboratory, we used semistructured interviews, surveys, and contextual inquiry to assess user needs and define the technology requirements. We evaluated and selected commercial software applications by comparing their feature sets with requirements and then pilot-testing the applications. Local and remote support staff cooperated in the implementation and end user training for the collaborative tools. Collaboratory staff evaluated each implementation by analyzing utilization data, administering user surveys, and functioning as participant observers. Results The HIV/AIDS Center primarily required real-time interaction for developing projects and attracting new participants to the center; the Oral Cancer Center, on the other hand, mainly needed tools to support distributed and asynchronous work in small research groups. The HIV/AIDS Center’s collaboratory included a center-wide website that also served as the launch point for collaboratory applications, such as NetMeeting, Timbuktu Conference, PlaceWare Auditorium, and iVisit. The collaboratory of the Oral Cancer Center used Groove and Genesys Web conferencing. The HIV/AIDS Center was successful in attracting new scientists to HIV/AIDS research, and members used the collaboratory for developing and implementing new research studies. The Oral Cancer Center successfully supported highly distributed and asynchronous research, and the collaboratory facilitated real-time interaction for analyzing data and preparing publications. Conclusions The two collaboratory implementations demonstrated the feasibility of supporting biomedical research centers using off-the-shelf commercial tools, but they also identified several barriers to successful collaboration. These barriers included computing platform incompatibilities, network infrastructure complexity, variable availability of local versus remote IT support, low computer and collaborative software literacy, and insufficient maturity of available collaborative software. Factors enabling collaboratory use included collaboration incentives through funding mechanism, a collaborative versus competitive relationship of researchers, leadership by example, and tools well matched to tasks and technical progress. Integrating electronic collaborative tools into routine scientific practice can be successful but requires further research on the technical, social, and behavioral factors influencing the adoption and use of collaboratories. PMID:16403717

The Italian Cloud-based brokering Infrastructure to sustain Interoperability for Operative Hydrology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boldrini, E.; Pecora, S.; Bussettini, M.; Bordini, F.; Nativi, S.

2015-12-01

This work presents the informatics platform carried out to implement the National Hydrological Operative Information System of Italy. In particular, the presentation will focus on the governing aspects of the cloud infrastructure and brokering software that make possible to sustain the hydrology data flow between heterogeneous user clients and data providers.The Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, ISPRA (Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale) in collaboration with the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection in the Emilia-Romagna region, ARPA-ER (Agenzia Regionale per la Prevenzione e l´Ambiente dell´Emilia-Romagna) and CNR-IIA (National Research Council of Italy) designed and developed an innovative platform for the discovery and access of hydrological data coming from 19 Italian administrative regions and 2 Italian autonomous provinces, in near real time. ISPRA has deployed and governs such a system. The presentation will introduce and discuss the technological barriers for interoperability as well as social and policy ones. The adopted solutions will be described outlining the sustainability challenges and benefits.

Community Capacity Building as a vital mechanism for enhancing the growth and efficacy of a sustainable scientific software ecosystem: experiences running a real-time bi-coastal "Open Science for Synthesis" Training Institute for young Earth and Environmental scientists

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schildhauer, M.; Jones, M. B.; Bolker, B.; Lenhardt, W. C.; Hampton, S. E.; Idaszak, R.; Rebich Hespanha, S.; Ahalt, S.; Christopherson, L.

2014-12-01

Continuing advances in computational capabilities, access to Big Data, and virtual collaboration technologies are creating exciting new opportunities for accomplishing Earth science research at finer resolutions, with much broader scope, using powerful modeling and analytical approaches that were unachievable just a few years ago. Yet, there is a perceptible lag in the abilities of the research community to capitalize on these new possibilities, due to lacking the relevant skill-sets, especially with regards to multi-disciplinary and integrative investigations that involve active collaboration. UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), and the University of North Carolina's Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), were recipients of NSF OCI S2I2 "Conceptualization awards", charged with helping define the needs of the research community relative to enabling science and education through "sustained software infrastructure". Over the course of our activities, a consistent request from Earth scientists was for "better training in software that enables more effective, reproducible research." This community-based feedback led to creation of an "Open Science for Synthesis" Institute— a innovative, three-week, bi-coastal training program for early career researchers. We provided a mix of lectures, hands-on exercises, and working group experience on topics including: data discovery and preservation; code creation, management, sharing, and versioning; scientific workflow documentation and reproducibility; statistical and machine modeling techniques; virtual collaboration mechanisms; and methods for communicating scientific results. All technologies and quantitative tools presented were suitable for advancing open, collaborative, and reproducible synthesis research. In this talk, we will report on the lessons learned from running this ambitious training program, that involved coordinating classrooms among two remote sites, and included developing original synthesis research activities as part of the course. We also report on the feedback provided by participants as to the learning approaches and topical issues they found most engaging, and why.

A Human-Centered Approach to CV Care: Infrastructure Development in Uganda.

PubMed

Longenecker, Christopher T; Kalra, Ankur; Okello, Emmy; Lwabi, Peter; Omagino, John O; Kityo, Cissy; Kamya, Moses R; Webel, Allison R; Simon, Daniel I; Salata, Robert A; Costa, Marco A

2018-04-20

In this case study, we describe an ongoing approach to develop sustainable acute and chronic cardiovascular care infrastructure in Uganda that involves patient and provider participation. Leveraging strong infrastructure for HIV/AIDS care delivery, University Hospitals Harrington Heart and Vascular Institute and Case Western Reserve University have partnered with U.S. and Ugandan collaborators to improve cardiovascular capabilities. The collaboration has solicited innovative solutions from patients and providers focusing on education and advanced training, penicillin supply, diagnostic strategy (e.g., hand-held ultrasound), maternal health, and community awareness. Key outcomes of this approach have been the completion of formal training of the first interventional cardiologists and heart failure specialists in the country, establishment of 4 integrated regional centers of excellence in rheumatic heart disease care with a national rheumatic heart disease registry, a penicillin distribution and adherence support program focused on retention in care, access to imaging technology, and in-country capabilities to treat advanced rheumatic heart valve disease. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

2014 Earth System Grid Federation and Ultrascale Visualization Climate Data Analysis Tools Conference Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Williams, Dean N.

2015-01-27

The climate and weather data science community met December 9–11, 2014, in Livermore, California, for the fourth annual Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) and Ultrascale Visualization Climate Data Analysis Tools (UV-CDAT) Face-to-Face (F2F) Conference, hosted by the Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Infrastructure for the European Network of Earth System Modelling, and the Australian Department of Education. Both ESGF and UVCDATremain global collaborations committed to developing a new generation of open-source software infrastructure that provides distributed access and analysis to simulated and observed data from the climate and weather communities.more » The tools and infrastructure created under these international multi-agency collaborations are critical to understanding extreme weather conditions and long-term climate change. In addition, the F2F conference fosters a stronger climate and weather data science community and facilitates a stronger federated software infrastructure. The 2014 F2F conference detailed the progress of ESGF, UV-CDAT, and other community efforts over the year and sets new priorities and requirements for existing and impending national and international community projects, such as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase Six. Specifically discussed at the conference were project capabilities and enhancements needs for data distribution, analysis, visualization, hardware and network infrastructure, standards, and resources.« less

Integrating software architectures for distributed simulations and simulation analysis communities.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Goldsby, Michael E.; Fellig, Daniel; Linebarger, John Michael

2005-10-01

The one-year Software Architecture LDRD (No.79819) was a cross-site effort between Sandia California and Sandia New Mexico. The purpose of this research was to further develop and demonstrate integrating software architecture frameworks for distributed simulation and distributed collaboration in the homeland security domain. The integrated frameworks were initially developed through the Weapons of Mass Destruction Decision Analysis Center (WMD-DAC), sited at SNL/CA, and the National Infrastructure Simulation & Analysis Center (NISAC), sited at SNL/NM. The primary deliverable was a demonstration of both a federation of distributed simulations and a federation of distributed collaborative simulation analysis communities in the context ofmore » the same integrated scenario, which was the release of smallpox in San Diego, California. To our knowledge this was the first time such a combination of federations under a single scenario has ever been demonstrated. A secondary deliverable was the creation of the standalone GroupMeld{trademark} collaboration client, which uses the GroupMeld{trademark} synchronous collaboration framework. In addition, a small pilot experiment that used both integrating frameworks allowed a greater range of crisis management options to be performed and evaluated than would have been possible without the use of the frameworks.« less

Innovation networks for improving access and quality across the healthcare ecosystem.

PubMed

Carroll, Mark; James, Judith A; Lardiere, Michael R; Proser, Michelle; Rhee, Kyu; Sayre, Michael H; Shore, Jay H; Ternullo, Joseph

2010-01-01

Partnerships between patient communities, healthcare providers, and academic researchers are key to stepping up the pace and public health impact of clinical and translational research supported by the National Institutes of Health. With emphasis shifting toward community engagement and faster translation of research advances into clinical practice, academic researchers have a vital stake in widening the use of health information technology systems and telehealth networks to support collaboration and innovation. However, limited interaction between academic institutions and healthcare providers hinders the ability to form and sustain the integrated networks that are needed to conduct meaningful community-engaged research that improves public health outcomes. Healthcare providers, especially those affiliated with smaller practices, will need sustainable infrastructure and real incentives to utilize such networks, as well as training and additional resources for ongoing technical assistance.

An informatics research agenda to support precision medicine: seven key areas.

PubMed

Tenenbaum, Jessica D; Avillach, Paul; Benham-Hutchins, Marge; Breitenstein, Matthew K; Crowgey, Erin L; Hoffman, Mark A; Jiang, Xia; Madhavan, Subha; Mattison, John E; Nagarajan, Radhakrishnan; Ray, Bisakha; Shin, Dmitriy; Visweswaran, Shyam; Zhao, Zhongming; Freimuth, Robert R

2016-07-01

The recent announcement of the Precision Medicine Initiative by President Obama has brought precision medicine (PM) to the forefront for healthcare providers, researchers, regulators, innovators, and funders alike. As technologies continue to evolve and datasets grow in magnitude, a strong computational infrastructure will be essential to realize PM's vision of improved healthcare derived from personal data. In addition, informatics research and innovation affords a tremendous opportunity to drive the science underlying PM. The informatics community must lead the development of technologies and methodologies that will increase the discovery and application of biomedical knowledge through close collaboration between researchers, clinicians, and patients. This perspective highlights seven key areas that are in need of further informatics research and innovation to support the realization of PM. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association.

An Overview of the CERC ARTEMIS Project

PubMed Central

Jagannathan, V.; Reddy, Y. V.; Srinivas, K.; Karinthi, R.; Shank, R.; Reddy, S.; Almasi, G.; Davis, T.; Raman, R.; Qiu, S.; Friedman, S.; Merkin, B.; Kilkenny, M.

1995-01-01

The basic premise of this effort is that health care can be made more effective and affordable by applying modern computer technology to improve collaboration among diverse and distributed health care providers. Information sharing, communication, and coordination are basic elements of any collaborative endeavor. In the health care domain, collaboration is characterized by cooperative activities by health care providers to deliver total and real-time care for their patients. Communication between providers and managed access to distributed patient records should enable health care providers to make informed decisions about their patients in a timely manner. With an effective medical information infrastructure in place, a patient will be able to visit any health care provider with access to the network, and the provider will be able to use relevant information from even the last episode of care in the patient record. Such a patient-centered perspective is in keeping with the real mission of health care providers. Today, an easy-to-use, integrated health care network is not in place in any community, even though current technology makes such a network possible. Large health care systems have deployed partial and disparate systems that address different elements of collaboration. But these islands of automation have not been integrated to facilitate cooperation among health care providers in large communities or nationally. CERC and its team members at Valley Health Systems, Inc., St. Marys Hospital and Cabell Huntington Hospital form a consortium committed to improving collaboration among the diverse and distributed providers in the health care arena. As the first contract recipient of the multi-agency High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Initiative, this team of computer system developers, practicing rural physicians, community care groups, health care researchers, and tertiary care providers are using research prototypes and commercial off-the-shelf technologies to develop an open collaboration environment for the health care domain. This environment is called ARTEMIS — Advanced Research TEstbed for Medical InformaticS. PMID:8563249

Space weather in the EU's FP7 Space Theme. Preface to the special issue on "EU-FP7 funded space weather projects"

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chiarini, Paola

2013-11-01

Technological infrastructures in space and on ground provide services on which modern society and economies rely. Space weather related research is funded under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FP7) of the European Union in response to the need of protecting such critical infrastructures from the damage which could be caused by extreme space weather events. The calls for proposals published under the topic "Security of space assets from space weather events" of the FP7 Space Theme aimed to improve forecasts and predictions of disruptive space weather events as well as identify best practices to limit the impacts on space- and ground-based infrastructures and their data provision. Space weather related work was also funded under the topic "Exploitation of space science and exploration data", which aims to add value to space missions and Earth-based observations by contributing to the effective scientific exploitation of collected data. Since 2007 a total of 20 collaborative projects have been funded, covering a variety of physical phenomena associated with space weather, from ionospheric disturbances and scintillation, to geomagnetically induced currents at Earth's surface, to coronal mass ejections and solar energetic particles. This article provides an overview of the funded projects, touching upon some results and referring to specific websites for a more exhaustive description of the projects' outcomes.

An evaluation of the 'Designated Research Team' approach to building research capacity in primary care.

PubMed

Cooke, Jo; Nancarrow, Susan; Dyas, Jane; Williams, Martin

2008-06-27

This paper describes an evaluation of an initiative to increase the research capability of clinical groups in primary and community care settings in a region of the United Kingdom. The 'designated research team' (DRT) approach was evaluated using indicators derived from a framework of six principles for research capacity building (RCB) which include: building skills and confidence, relevance to practice, dissemination, linkages and collaborations, sustainability and infrastructure development. Information was collated on the context, activities, experiences, outputs and impacts of six clinical research teams supported by Trent Research Development Support Unit (RDSU) as DRTs. Process and outcome data from each of the teams was used to evaluate the extent to which the DRT approach was effective in building research capacity in each of the six principles (as evidenced by twenty possible indicators of research capacity development). The DRT approach was found to be well aligned to the principles of RCB and generally effective in developing research capabilities. It proved particularly effective in developing linkages, collaborations and skills. Where research capacity was slow to develop, this was reflected in poor alignment between the principles of RCB and the characteristics of the team, their activities or environment. One team was unable to develop a research project and the funding was withdrawn at an early stage. For at least one individual in each of the remaining five teams, research activity was sustained beyond the funding period through research partnerships and funding successes. An enabling infrastructure, including being freed from clinical duties to undertake research, and support from senior management were found to be important determinants of successful DRT development. Research questions of DRTs were derived from practice issues and several projects generated outputs with potential to change daily practice, including the use of research evidence in practice and in planning service changes. The DRT approach was effective at RCB in teams situated in a supportive organisation and in particular, where team members could be freed from clinical duties and management backing was strong. The developmental stage of the team and the research experience of constituent members also appeared to influence success. The six principles of RCB were shown to be useful as a framework for both developing and evaluating RCB initiatives.

Training Community Modeling and Simulation Business Plan: 2008 Edition

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-12-01

Collaborative information environment. Collaborative tools will help CCDRs and joint staffs plan and disseminate operations, link the staffs to subject matter...anticipating direct and indirect effects as they propagate through political, military, economic, sociological, and information infrastructures. Capabilities...will also 5-11 enhance training for joint staffs and task forces; crisis management; JUO; information warfare; interagency, intergovernmental, and

A Joint Learning Activity in Process Control and Distance Collaboration between Future Engineers and Technicians

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Deschênes, Jean-Sebastien; Barka, Noureddine; Michaud, Mario; Paradis, Denis; Brousseau, Jean

2013-01-01

A joint learning activity in process control is presented, in the context of a distance collaboration between engineering and technical-level students, in a similar fashion as current practices in the industry involving distance coordination and troubleshooting. The necessary infrastructure and the setup used are first detailed, followed by a…

Establishment of a Research Pharmacy to Support Ebola Clinical Research in Liberia

PubMed Central

Pierson, Jerome F.; Kirchoff, Matthew Carl; Tyee, Rev Tegli; Rhie, Julie K.; Montello, Michael J

2017-01-01

Objective This paper describes the establishment of a research pharmacy to support the PREVAIL vaccine study for Ebola Virus Disease. Setting This paper describes the establishment of the pharmacy element to support the overall research program during an Ebola outbreak in Monrovia, Liberia in 2014 and 2015. Practice Innovation The need to rapidly establish infrastructure to support the Liberian-US joint clinical research partnership in response to the emerging Ebola Virus Disease provided the opportunity for collaboration among Liberian and US pharmacists. Evaluation and Results Experiences of the Liberian and US pharmacists involved in the program are described. Conclusion The partnership was successful in the conduct of the study, but more importantly, capacity for Liberian pharmacists to support clinical research was established. Additionally, the US team learned several important lessons that will help prepare them for responding to research needs in future infectious disease outbreaks. PMID:28610940

A collaborative approach to investigating the risk of thrombocytopenic purpura after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in England and Denmark.

PubMed

Andrews, Nick; Stowe, Julia; Miller, Elizabeth; Svanström, Henrik; Johansen, Kari; Bonhoeffer, Jan; Hviid, Anders

2012-04-19

The assessment of rare adverse events following vaccination may not be possible within a single country due to an insufficiently large denominator population. In 2008 a European consortium (VAESCO) was funded to perform collaborative vaccine safety studies. To help assess the feasibility of multi-country collaboration England and Denmark, who have established vaccine safety research infrastructures, undertook to work to a common protocol and share results and data to estimate the risk of a known true adverse event, thrombocytopenic purpura (TP) following measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination. TP is a known rare reaction to MMR and therefore provided an opportunity to assess whether two countries would produce similar results when working collaboratively. Despite some initial problems with ensuring data were comparable, the two countries gave very similar estimates of the relative incidence in the 6 weeks after vaccination and a pooled relative incidence estimate of 2.13 (95% confidence interval 1.55-2.94) and attributable risk of 1 in 50,000 doses. Both countries used hospital admissions for TP and the analysis was performed using the self controlled case series method which is particularly suited to collaborative studies because of its implicit control for individual level confounding. The study therefore shows the potential for vaccine safety collaborations across Europe to detect true associations through use of common protocols and sharing of results or data. Copyright © 2011 Brighton Collaboration. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Forging a critical alliance: Addressing the research needs of the United States critical illness and injury community.

PubMed

Cobb, J Perren; Ognibene, Frederick P; Ingbar, David H; Mann, Henry J; Hoyt, David B; Angus, Derek C; Thomas, Alvin V; Danner, Robert L; Suffredini, Anthony F

2009-12-01

Discuss the research needs of the critical illness and injury communities in the United States. Workshop session held during the 5 National Institutes of Health Symposium on the Functional Genomics of Critical Illness and Injury (November 15, 2007). The current clinical research infrastructure misses opportunities for synergy and does not address many important needs. In addition, it remains challenging to rapidly and properly implement system-wide changes based upon reproducible evidence from clinical research. Author presentations, panel discussion, attendee feedback. The critical illness and injury research communities seek better communication and interaction, both of which will improve the breadth and quality of acute care research. Success in meeting these needs should come from cooperative and strategic actions that favor collaboration, standardization of protocols, and strong leadership. An alliance framed on common goals will foster collaboration among experts to better promote clinical trials within the critically ill or injured patient population. The U.S. Critical Illness and Injury Trials Group was funded to create a clinical research framework that can reduce the barriers to investigation using an investigator-initiated, evidence-driven, inclusive approach that has proven successful elsewhere. This alliance will provide an annual venue for systematic review and strategic planning that will include framing the research agenda, raising awareness for the value of acute care research, gathering and promoting best practices, and bolstering the critical care workforce.

Leveraging Field Trips in Higher Education for Local Engagement and Impact: An Example from Guatemala

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Riker, J.; Watson, M.; Liu, E. J.; Chigna, G.; Purvis, M.; Naismith, A.

2016-12-01

For over ten years, the University of Bristol (U.K.) has run a field trip for masters students in Natural Hazards in the volcanically active areas of southern Guatemala, home to more than 13 million people. This trip has obvious benefits to its participants - it serves as an immersive and formative experience for students studying volcanic hazard, as well as a springboard for the work of the researchers who lead it. Over the years, it has helped to build strong collaborative ties between academic researchers at Bristol and Guatemala's geologic survey (INSIVUMEH) and emergency management agency (CONRED), facilitating the sharing of data, expertise, and monitoring equipment. The students' regular presence has also enabled infrastructure improvements at Fuego Volcano Observatory, which is itself hosted and partly staffed by the residents of Panimache, a small village just a few miles from the volcano's summit. This field trip does raise challenges, however - an influx of foreign students can draw questions from community members for whom the benefits are indirect (i.e., local job creation or infrastructure improvement) or intangible (i.e., incremental contributions to the body of knowledge regarding volcanic hazard). In this presentation, we'll share stories of our experiences of effective community collaboration in Guatemala. In the spirit of discussion, we would also like to explore the opportunities that exist to better utilise this trip, along with the energy and expertise of its participants, to maximise the positive impact on (and resilience of) local communities, particularly those in the small and largely indigenous villages that populate Fuego Volcano's flanks.

Critical Infrastructure Interdependencies Assessment

DOE PAGES

Petit, Frederic; Verner, Duane

2016-11-01

Throughout the world there is strong recognition that critical infrastructure security and resilience needs to be improved. In the United States, the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) provides the strategic vision to guide the national effort to manage risk to the Nation’s critical infrastructure.”1 The achievement of this vision is challenged by the complexity of critical infrastructure systems and their inherent interdependencies. The update to the NIPP presents an opportunity to advance the nation’s efforts to further understand and analyze interdependencies. Such an important undertaking requires the involvement of public and private sector stakeholders and the reinforcement of existing partnershipsmore » and collaborations within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other Federal agencies, including national laboratories; State, local, tribal, and territorial governments; and nongovernmental organizations.« less

Clemson University Science Master's Program in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure: A program evaluation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Sell, Elizabeth Eberhart

The Clemson University Science Master's Program (SMP) in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure is a program which aims to link engineering, materials, construction, environment, architecture, business, and public policy to produce graduates with unique holistic perspective and expertise to immediately contribute to the workforce in the area of sustainable and resilient infrastructure. A program evaluation of the SMP has been performed to study the effectiveness of the SMP and identify areas where the goals and vision of the SMP are achieved and areas where improvements can be made. This was completed by analysis of trends within survey responses, review of Master's thesis reports, and review of courses taken. It was found that the SMP has facilitated new interdisciplinary research collaborations of faculty in different concentration areas within the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering, as well as collaboration with faculty in other departments. It is recommended that a course which provides instruction in all eight competency areas be required for all SMP students to provide a comprehensive overview and ensure all students are exposed to concepts of all competency areas. While all stakeholders are satisfied with the program and believe it has been successful thus far, efforts do need to be made as the program moves forward to address and improve some items that have been mentioned as needing improvement. The concerns about concentration courses, internship planning, and advising should be addressed. This evaluation provides benefits to prospective students, current SMP participants, and outside program supporters. The goal of this evaluation is to provide support that the SMP is an effective and worthwhile program for participating students, while attempting to identify any necessary program improvements and provide recommendations for achieving these improvements. This goal has been accomplished.

Unraveling the complexities of disaster management: a framework for critical social infrastructure to promote population health and resilience.

PubMed

O'Sullivan, Tracey L; Kuziemsky, Craig E; Toal-Sullivan, Darene; Corneil, Wayne

2013-09-01

Complexity is a useful frame of reference for disaster management and understanding population health. An important means to unraveling the complexities of disaster management is to recognize the interdependencies between health care and broader social systems and how they intersect to promote health and resilience before, during and after a crisis. While recent literature has expanded our understanding of the complexity of disasters at the macro level, few studies have examined empirically how dynamic elements of critical social infrastructure at the micro level influence community capacity. The purpose of this study was to explore empirically the complexity of disasters, to determine levers for action where interventions can be used to facilitate collaborative action and promote health among high risk populations. A second purpose was to build a framework for critical social infrastructure and develop a model to identify potential points of intervention to promote population health and resilience. A community-based participatory research design was used in nine focus group consultations (n = 143) held in five communities in Canada, between October 2010 and March 2011, using the Structured Interview Matrix facilitation technique. The findings underscore the importance of interconnectedness of hard and soft systems at the micro level, with culture providing the backdrop for the social fabric of each community. Open coding drawing upon the tenets of complexity theory was used to develop four core themes that provide structure for the framework that evolved; they relate to dynamic context, situational awareness and connectedness, flexible planning, and collaboration, which are needed to foster adaptive responses to disasters. Seven action recommendations are presented, to promote community resilience and population health. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Civil Protection issues in urban management of natural hazards

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bostenaru, Maria; Georgescu, Sever; Goretti, Agostino; Markus, Michael

2010-05-01

This paper reviews different approaches of collaboration with the Civil Protection across Europe, from the experience of the author. The first contact came working as a research assistant at the Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Germany, in frame of the SFB (Collaborative Research Centre) 461 "Strong earthquakes", which featured a collaboration Germany-Romania. The subproject C7, where involved, about Novel Rescue technologies was a collaboration between the Institute for Technology and Management in Construction, formerly Institute for Construction Management and Machinery, and the Romanian Civil Protection. The scientific results of the project were to be lated implemented by the Civil Protection. In course of the work contacts were done also through the work of the research associate, sub-project leader, in the THW (German Technical Assistance). Later on work continued at the same institute but in frame of the Research Training Network "Natural Disasters" when also contacts with the Romanian representative to the European Earthquake Engineering Association, were established. Working further in the same field of Natural Disasters, especially seismic risk, brought the author to the ROSE School in Pavia, Italy, researches of which closely collaborate with the EUCENTRE, founded, among other institutions, by the Italian Civil Protection. Particularly the collaboration with specialists from the Italian Civil Protection resulted in several initiatives, such as: - paper contribution to a special issue edited by the author, - organisation of EGU sessions on the topic of "Natural Hazards' Impact on Urban Areas and Infrastructure", - invited review of papers, - attendance of short course coordinated at the ROSE School on post-earthquake safety assessment, - ellaboration of scientific projects submitted for funding on the topic of earthquake hazard impact at various geographic scales, - further publication collaborations are in work, - it is intended to improve the collaboration between urban planning specialists and specialists in vulnerability studies at the Civil Protection in order to enhance the role of urban planning in disaster mitigation, - collaboration of the Italian Civil Protection with Romania with the National Institute for Building Research, the scientific director and EAEE representative, within the STEP project, on post-earthquake safety assessment, in l'Aquila, before and after the earthquake. This collaboration continued with invitation to the Global Earthquake Model Outreach Meeting of the Scientific Director, supported by the Italian Civil Protection as public participant, and to which we hope to be able to contribute, given the background in socio-economic aspects of the author (research topics in Karlsruhe) and the possibilities of dissemination of results on risks. More recently a training school in the framework of the COST action TU0801 "Semantic enrichment of 3D city models for sustainable urban development" on 3D for natural disaster management brought the author in contact with similar authorities from the Netherlands. More even, she has information first hand about the training held by the Hungarian Civil Protection with school children, where a further collaboration is envisaged. The lessons learned from these experiences are important because recently the author was invited to collaborate with the Centre for Emergency Architecture of the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism. Emergency interventions are the field where collaboration with the Civil protection is required. In frame of the collaboration she is co-teaching a course on "Risks", from both natural and anthropic hazards. Especially the inclusion of the lessons from l'Aquila was discussed with the specialists mentioned above, but also the way the risk mapping can be done. Thus the lessons from scientific collaboration can be included in the teaching process.

Unifying the RET design flow with portable modeling information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sweis, Jason; Staud, Wolf; Naber, Bob; Laidig, Tom; Van Denbroeke, Doug

2006-05-01

The RET Design Flow has become a conglomeration of various point tools and methodologies. Deep sub-wavelength DFM requirements have forced the design and manufacturing communities into very tight collaboration. EDA is also driven to provide an infrastructure to facilitate communication for these communities. Having this infrastructure in place has a direct impact on productivity and quality for which the value added is emphasized here.

Automatic publishing ISO 19115 metadata with PanMetaDocs using SensorML information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stender, Vivien; Ulbricht, Damian; Schroeder, Matthias; Klump, Jens

2014-05-01

Terrestrial Environmental Observatories (TERENO) is an interdisciplinary and long-term research project spanning an Earth observation network across Germany. It includes four test sites within Germany from the North German lowlands to the Bavarian Alps and is operated by six research centers of the Helmholtz Association. The contribution by the participating research centers is organized as regional observatories. A challenge for TERENO and its observatories is to integrate all aspects of data management, data workflows, data modeling and visualizations into the design of a monitoring infrastructure. TERENO Northeast is one of the sub-observatories of TERENO and is operated by the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) in Potsdam. This observatory investigates geoecological processes in the northeastern lowland of Germany by collecting large amounts of environmentally relevant data. The success of long-term projects like TERENO depends on well-organized data management, data exchange between the partners involved and on the availability of the captured data. Data discovery and dissemination are facilitated not only through data portals of the regional TERENO observatories but also through a common spatial data infrastructure TEODOOR (TEreno Online Data repOsitORry). TEODOOR bundles the data, provided by the different web services of the single observatories, and provides tools for data discovery, visualization and data access. The TERENO Northeast data infrastructure integrates data from more than 200 instruments and makes data available through standard web services. Geographic sensor information and services are described using the ISO 19115 metadata schema. TEODOOR accesses the OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) interfaces offered by the regional observatories. In addition to the SWE interface, TERENO Northeast also published data through DataCite. The necessary metadata are created in an automated process by extracting information from the SWE SensorML to create ISO 19115 compliant metadata. The resulting metadata file is stored in the GFZ Potsdam data infrastructure. The publishing workflow for file based research datasets at GFZ Potsdam is based on the eSciDoc infrastructure, using PanMetaDocs (PMD) as the graphical user interface. PMD is a collaborative, metadata based data and information exchange platform [1]. Besides SWE, metadata are also syndicated by PMD through an OAI-PMH interface. In addition, metadata from other observatories, projects or sensors in TERENO can be accessed through the TERENO Northeast data portal. [1] http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2012/EGU2012-7058-2.pdf

EUDAT: A New Cross-Disciplinary Data Infrastructure For Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lecarpentier, Damien; Michelini, Alberto; Wittenburg, Peter

2013-04-01

In recent years significant investments have been made by the European Commission and European member states to create a pan-European e-Infrastructure supporting multiple research communities. As a result, a European e-Infrastructure ecosystem is currently taking shape, with communication networks, distributed grids and HPC facilities providing European researchers from all fields with state-of-the-art instruments and services that support the deployment of new research facilities on a pan-European level. However, the accelerated proliferation of data - newly available from powerful new scientific instruments, simulations and the digitization of existing resources - has created a new impetus for increasing efforts and investments in order to tackle the specific challenges of data management, and to ensure a coherent approach to research data access and preservation. EUDAT is a pan-European initiative that started in October 2011 and which aims to help overcome these challenges by laying out the foundations of a Collaborative Data Infrastructure (CDI) in which centres offering community-specific support services to their users could rely on a set of common data services shared between different research communities. Although research communities from different disciplines have different ambitions and approaches - particularly with respect to data organization and content - they also share many basic service requirements. This commonality makes it possible for EUDAT to establish common data services, designed to support multiple research communities, as part of this CDI. During the first year, EUDAT has been reviewing the approaches and requirements of a first subset of communities from linguistics (CLARIN), solid earth sciences (EPOS), climate sciences (ENES), environmental sciences (LIFEWATCH), and biological and medical sciences (VPH), and shortlisted four generic services to be deployed as shared services on the EUDAT infrastructure. These services are data replication from site to site, data staging to compute facilities, metadata, and easy storage. A number of enabling services such as distributed authentication and authorization, persistent identifiers, hosting of services, workspaces and centre registry were also discussed. The services being designed in EUDAT will thus be of interest to a broad range of communities that lack their own robust data infrastructures, or that are simply looking for additional storage and/or computing capacities to better access, use, re-use, and preserve their data. The first pilots were completed in 2012 and a pre-production ready operational infrastructure, comprised of five sites (RZG, CINECA, SARA, CSC, FZJ), offering 480TB of online storage and 4PB of near-line (tape) storage, initially serving four user communities (ENES, EPOS, CLARIN, VPH) was established. These services shall be available to all communities in a production environment by 2014. Although EUDAT has initially focused on a subset of research communities, it aims to engage with other communities interested in adapting their solutions or contributing to the design of the infrastructure. Discussions with other research communities - belonging to the fields of environmental sciences, biomedical science, physics, social sciences and humanities - have already begun and are following a pattern similar to the one we adopted with the initial communities. The next step will consist of integrating representatives from these communities into the existing pilots and task forces so as to include them in the process of designing the services and, ultimately, shaping the future CDI.

Supporting Effective Data Sharing and Re-Use: What Can Funders Really Do?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Uhle, M. E.

2017-12-01

Most research funding agencies have data policies that grantees must abide to receive financial support for projects and activities. These policies however are typically not uniform, can be inconsistent and in some cases, can be contradictory preventing national and international collaboration. In addition, disciplinary divisions within a single agency may implement agency policy differently. These barriers are particularly profound for multi, inter- and/or transdisciplinary research needed to address many global environmental challenges. Recognizing the crucial role of open and effective data and information exchange to support effective international transdisciplinary research for understanding, mitigating and adapting to global environmental change, the Belmont Forum adopted Open Data Policy and Principles in 2015. This policy signals a commitment by these 25 funders to increase access to scientific data, a step widely recognized as essential to making informed decisions in the face of rapid changes affecting the Earth's environment. Through collaborative research actions and community driven activities, the Belmont Forum seeks to widen access to data, and promote its long-term preservation in global change research; encourage re-use of existing data; help improve data management and exploitation; coordinate and integrate disparate organizational and technical elements; fill critical global e-infrastructure gaps; share best practices; and foster new data literacy.

Radiotherapy physics research in the UK: challenges and proposed solutions

PubMed Central

Mackay, R I; Burnet, N G; Green, S; Illidge, T M; Staffurth, J N

2012-01-01

In 2011, the Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Research Working Group (CTRad) of the National Cancer Research Institute brought together UK radiotherapy physics leaders for a think tank meeting. Following a format that CTRad had previously and successfully used with clinical oncologists, 23 departments were asked to complete a pre-meeting evaluation of their radiotherapy physics research infrastructure and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within their own centre. These departments were brought together with the CTRad Executive Group and research funders to discuss the current state of radiotherapy physics research, perceived barriers and possible solutions. In this Commentary, we summarise the submitted materials, presentations and discussions from the meeting and propose an action plan. It is clear that there are challenges in both funding and staffing of radiotherapy physics research. Programme and project funding streams sometimes struggle to cater for physics-led work, and increased representation on research funding bodies would be valuable. Career paths for academic radiotherapy physicists need to be examined and an academic training route identified within Modernising Scientific Careers; the introduction of formal job plans may allow greater protection of research time, and should be considered. Improved access to research facilities, including research linear accelerators, would enhance research activity and pass on developments to patients more quickly; research infrastructure could be benchmarked against centres in the UK and abroad. UK National Health Service departments wishing to undertake radiotherapy research, with its attendant added value for patients, need to develop a strategy with their partner higher education institution, and collaboration between departments may provide enhanced opportunities for funded research. PMID:22972972

Radiotherapy physics research in the UK: challenges and proposed solutions.

PubMed

Mackay, R I; Burnet, N G; Green, S; Illidge, T M; Staffurth, J N

2012-10-01

In 2011, the Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Research Working Group (CTRad) of the National Cancer Research Institute brought together UK radiotherapy physics leaders for a think tank meeting. Following a format that CTRad had previously and successfully used with clinical oncologists, 23 departments were asked to complete a pre-meeting evaluation of their radiotherapy physics research infrastructure and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within their own centre. These departments were brought together with the CTRad Executive Group and research funders to discuss the current state of radiotherapy physics research, perceived barriers and possible solutions. In this Commentary, we summarise the submitted materials, presentations and discussions from the meeting and propose an action plan. It is clear that there are challenges in both funding and staffing of radiotherapy physics research. Programme and project funding streams sometimes struggle to cater for physics-led work, and increased representation on research funding bodies would be valuable. Career paths for academic radiotherapy physicists need to be examined and an academic training route identified within Modernising Scientific Careers; the introduction of formal job plans may allow greater protection of research time, and should be considered. Improved access to research facilities, including research linear accelerators, would enhance research activity and pass on developments to patients more quickly; research infrastructure could be benchmarked against centres in the UK and abroad. UK National Health Service departments wishing to undertake radiotherapy research, with its attendant added value for patients, need to develop a strategy with their partner higher education institution, and collaboration between departments may provide enhanced opportunities for funded research.

Collaborative Social and Medical Service System

PubMed Central

Petermann, Cynthia A.; Bobroff, Risa B.; Moore, Dwight M.; Gilson, Hillary S.; Li, Yizhen; Dargahi, Ross; Classen, David W.; Fowler, Jerry; Moreau, Dennis R.; Beck, J. Robert; Buffone, Gregory J.

1994-01-01

This paper describes the Collaborative Social and Medical Services System, a robust information infrastructure for integrated social and medical care. The Collaborative Social and Medical Services System design and architecture address the primary goals of creating a readily extensible social and ambulatory care system. Our initial step toward reaching this goal is the delivery of an application supporting the operations of the Baylor Teen Health Clinics. This paper discusses our protoype experiences, system architecture, components, and the standards we are addressing. PMID:7950001

Laboratory-Directed Research and Development 2016 Summary Annual Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pillai, Rekha Sukamar; Jacobson, Julie Ann

The Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) reports its status to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by March of each year. The program operates under the authority of DOE Order 413.2C, “Laboratory Directed Research and Development” (April 19, 2006), which establishes DOE’s requirements for the program while providing the laboratory director broad flexibility for program implementation. LDRD funds are obtained through a charge to all INL programs. This report includes summaries of all INL LDRD research activities supported during Fiscal Year (FY) 2016. INL is the lead laboratory for the DOE Office of Nuclearmore » Energy (DOE-NE). The INL mission is to discover, demonstrate, and secure innovative nuclear energy solutions, other clean energy options, and critical infrastructure with a vision to change the world’s energy future and secure our critical infrastructure. Operating since 1949, INL is the nation’s leading research, development, and demonstration center for nuclear energy, including nuclear nonproliferation and physical and cyber-based protection of energy systems and critical infrastructure, as well as integrated energy systems research, development, demonstration, and deployment. INL has been managed and operated by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (a wholly owned company of Battelle) for DOE since 2005. Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC, is a partnership between Battelle, BWX Technologies, Inc., AECOM, the Electric Power Research Institute, the National University Consortium (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, North Carolina State University, University of New Mexico, and Oregon State University), and the Idaho university collaborators (i.e., University of Idaho, Idaho State University, and Boise State University). Since its creation, INL’s research and development (R&D) portfolio has broadened with targeted programs supporting national missions to advance nuclear energy, enable clean energy deployment, and secure and modernize critical infrastructure. INL’s research, development, and demonstration capabilities, its resources, and its unique geography enable integration of scientific discovery, innovation, engineering, operations, and controls into complex large-scale testbeds for discovery, innovation, and demonstration of transformational clean energy and security concepts. These attributes strengthen INL’s leadership as a demonstration laboratory. As a national resource, INL also applies its capabilities and skills to the specific needs of other federal agencies and customers through DOE’s Strategic Partnership Program.« less