# Presentation: 569917

## The George E. Brown Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) How Cyberinfrastructure is Revolutionizing Earthquake Engineering

**Cherri Pancake**
**NACSE (Oregon State University)**
**pancake@nacse.org**

## Goal of NEES:  Re-Engineer the Nature of EE

**Goal of NEES:  Re-Engineer the Nature of EE**

**Extend national capacity for EE through new facilities**
**Unique large-scale physical experimentation**
**Integration of numerical and physical experiments**
**Integrate them with an IT infrastructure that**
**Captures and preserves all relevant information**
**Enables remote participation in real-time**
**Facilitates re-use of knowledge gained from experiments**
**Enhances effectiveness of EE researchers**

## NEES:  Distributed Resources and Users

**NEES:  Distributed Resources and Users**

**K-14**
**Education**

**NEESgrid**

**NEES**
**Consortium**

- Data Repositories &
- Computational Resources

## NEES’s Complex, Distributed Organization

**NEES, 2000-2004**
**17 projects, proposed and funded independently**
**15 equipment sites:  construct EE facilities**
**“****System integration” team:  develop NEESgrid**
**“****Consortium development” team:  create not-for-profit to manage system**

**NEES, 2004-2014**
**NEES Consortium, Inc. will operate and manage**
**15 equipment sites**
**Centralized data/network center**
**Distributed IT services at the sites**

## Focus:  Exploit IT So Researchers Can...

**Control and observe experiments from remote sites**
**Reduce requirement for **_**on-site presence**_
**Gain more from experiments**
**Exploit technology to **_**enhance human observation**_
**Share experiments with colleagues/students**
**Broaden **_**participation**_** in experiments**
**Extend **_**useful lifetime**_** of experimental processes**
**Exploit corpus of experiment results**
**Facilitate **_**re-use**_** of previous experimentation**
**Support **_**integration**_** of computational and experimental modeling**

## Telepresence:  The Raw Ingredients

**Sensor data:  raw, filtered, graphical summaries**
**10s to 100s of devices operating concurrently**
**Eventually must scale to 1000s of devices**
**Data streams from remotely operable cameras and microphones**
**10s of devices at eye level, suspended from roof, and underwater**
**Includes some ultra high-resolution images**
**Use of computation to merge/analyze real-time data streams**
**Eventually will use simulation to “play what-if” and change course of experiment**

## Without attention to usability ...

**Without attention to usability ...**

**Usability essentials:**
**Seamless synchronization of data streams**
**“****Intelligent” choice of what to display**
**No requirement for user to download software**
**First experience “pays off” for later ones**

## Data Reuse:  The Raw Ingredients

**Extremely large quantities of data must be archived and made publicly available**
**Storage requirements for video/images will dwarf others **
**Diverse data formats must be integrated**
**Synchronization markers must be added**
**Most instruments have no concept of “time”**
**Metadata will be critical ingredient**
**Need to be standardized, but no appropriate standards exist**
**Must rely on EE researchers for much input**
**Must be possible to compare experimental data with data from simulations**

## Engineering NEES for Usability

**3 examples from the Tsunami Wave Basin**
**Experiment Design**
**Metadata Creation**
**Experiment Replay**
**Caveat:  still in “early release” stage**

## Example 1:  Experiment Design

**Researchers shouldn’t have to visit site just to get familiar with it**

**Key needs**
**Learn about facility layout, capabilities**
**See details about equipment and instruments**
**Plan layout of models/specimens and instruments**
**Plan locations of cameras**
**Learn about setups that worked well for other researchers**
**Tsunami Wave Basin approach**
**Create accurate virtual model of lab**
**Animated walkthroughs for newcomers**
**Virtual lab tool for experiment design**

## Example 1:  Experiment Design

**Virtual wave basin is “better than being there”**
**See future facilities**
**Fly above scene**

**“****Try out” positions**
**Study setups from past tests**

## Example 2:  Metadata Creation

**Metadata is critical to the NEES concepts of sharing and reuse**

**Key issues**
**Who defines the format?**
**Who creates the metadata for experiments?**
**What are the incentives for providing high-quality metadata?**
**Tsunami Wave Basin approach**
**Minimize the amount of metadata users must enter**
**Ensure that user is only entering metadata relevant to his/her role**
**Provide simple-to-use tools that catch as many potential errors as possible**

## Where TWB Metadata Will Come From

**Metadata about sensor settings for a particular configuration**

**position of sensor**

**sensor calibrations**

**sensor setup**

## Carrot-and-Stick Approach

**Carrot-and-Stick Approach**

**Stick**
**Users will be required to enter key metadata before experiment can begin**
**Part of agreement with PIs**
**Carrot**
**Metadata will be used to automatically generate lab reports**
**Previously, this was tediously done by hand**

- We’re asking users to type
- minimal info ahead of time,
- rather than typing more
- after-the-fact

## Example 3:  Experiment Replay

**Long-term archiving of experimental data is central to NEES**

**Key needs**
**Ability to understand what experimenter was trying to do**
**Access to all details of instrumentation and experiment design**
**Ability to accurately “replay” what happened**
**Ability to search data using fuzzy criteria, e.g.**
**Experiments with “similar results”**
**Experiments “like this one”**
**Tsunami Wave Basin approach**
**Search-and-query tool that “understands” experiments**
**Lab notebook style tool for viewing data**
**Easy downloading**

## Example 3:  Experiment Replay

**Lab notebook provides access to **_**everything**_** (even operator comments)**

## Lessons Learned – Biggest Challenges 

**First-ever IT infrastructure is central to NEES concept**
**Key challenges have to do with the human element**
**Diverse users**
**Broad range of skill sets and familiarity with advanced IT**
**Broad spectrum of needs**
**Little experience with data/facilities sharing**
**Extremely high expectations (!)**
**Ultimate success/failure rides on whether users can access facilities and data in ways that are**
**“****Natural”**
**Useful**
**Safe**

## Extrapolating to Cyberinfrastructure

**Cyberstructure is fundamentally a “human problem”**

## Lessons Learned – Priorities Are Key

**NEES computer scientists put initial emphasis on IT challenges**
**Telepresence**
**Collaboration technology**
**Security**
**Earthquake engineers have made it clear that their priorities are the human challenges**
_**Reliability**_
**System must be “production-level” (not research product)**
_**Data accessibility**_
**Mechanisms must be flexible and useful for daily tasks **
_**Usability**_
**User doesn’t need special expertise or software**

## Extrapolating to Cyberinfrastructure

**Recommendation 2:****  **_**All infrastructure should be developed with incremental roll-outs and reviews**_

**Lots of projects to develop prototypes**
**Yield concepts & new technologies**
**Subset selected to proceed to initial deployment stage**
**Products useful to limited communities or domains**
**Chosen few are carried to full production stage**
**Robust, full-featured products for broad use**