# Presentation: 079938

## Cyberinfrastructure Opportunities for Antarctic Research

**Dan Lubin**
- Cyberinfrastructure Program Manager
- NSF Office of Polar Programs
- dlubin@nsf.gov

- Overview of the NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure
- Specific Funding Opportunities
- Preliminary Proposal Process

## Cyberinfrastructure by Components

- Learning  & Work Force Needs & Opportunities

- Virtual Organizations for Distributed  Communities

- High Performance Computing

- Data Visualization & Interaction

- Courtesy
- Lucy Nowell, OCI

## Required Reading!

- Cyberinfrastructure Vision, March 2007
- Available on NSF Office of Cyberinfrasturcture web site
- www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf0728/index.jsp

## Cyberinfrastructure in Practice

**Transformative Application** - to enhance discovery & learning

**R&D** to enhance technical and *social* effectiveness of future CI environments

**Provisioning **-Creation, deployment**  **and operation of  advanced CI

- Courtesy Dan Atkins, OCI Director

**Borromean Ring**: The three rings taken together are inseparable, but remove any one ring and the other two fall apart. See _[www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/](http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/)_

**Notes:**
Borromean Ring: The three rings taken together are inseparable, but remove any one ring and the other two fall apart. See www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/. 
Technologial determinism alone will not acheive the potential impact.

## High Performance Computing

- Track 1: One solicitation funded over 4 years: $200M acquisition + additional O&M cost.

- Track 2: Four solicitations over 4 years: $30M/yr acquisition + additional O&M cost. First track 1 approved 8-07

**TeraGrid**
-  Large-scale operational CI for national open science community
- 11 resource providers
- 1 Grid Infrastructure Group (GIG)
-  Single unified allocation process
-  Comprehensive user support
- Advanced applications & software integration
- Science gateways
-  RS & Modeling: Don’t be afraid to check it out!

## Mechanisms

- Activities

- DataNet
- Partners

- Exec-level Review of NSF Data Policies

- Blue Ribbon task force on sustainable data repositories

- Lucy Nowell, OCI

## Time

**Time**

- Same
- (synchronous)

- Different
- (asynchronous)

**Geographic Place**

- Same

- Different

- Virtual Organizations offer additional modes of interaction between People, Information, and Facilities

- Courtesy
- Diana Rhoten, OCI

## Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation

- Preliminary Proposal Windows
- 08 NOV 08 – 08 DEC 08 (Type I)
- 09 NOV 08 – 09 DEC 08 (Type II)
- Full Proposal Window (Invitation Only)
- 20 APR 09 – 20 MAY 09
- Multi-disciplinary research seeking contributions to more than one area of science or engineering, by innovation in, or innovative use of computational thinking
- Computational thinking refers to computational...
- ...Concepts
- ...Methods
- ...Models
- ...Algorithms
- ...Tools

## CDI is Unique within NSF

- five-year initiative
- all directorates, programmatic offices involved
- to create *revolutionary* science and engineering research outcomes
- made possible by innovations and advances in computational thinking
- emphasis on bold, multidisciplinary activities
- radical, paradigm-changing science and engineering outcomes through computational thinking

## CDI Philosophy

- “Business as usual” need not apply
***“******Projects that make straightforward use of existing computational concepts, methods, models, algorithms and tools to significantly advance only one discipline should be submitted to an appropriate program in that field instead of to CDI.”****  *
- No place for incremental research
- Untraditional approaches and collaborations welcome
- New on Transformative Research: to what extent does the proposed activity suggest and explore creative, original, or potentially transformative concepts?

## Additional CDI Review Criteria

- The proposal should define a bold multidisciplinary research agenda that, through computational thinking, promises paradigm-shifting outcomes in more than one field of science and engineering.
- The proposal should provide a clear and compelling rationale that describes how innovations in, and/or innovative use of, computational thinking will lead to the desired project outcomes.
- The proposal should draw on productive intellectual partnerships that capitalize upon knowledge and expertise synergies in multiple fields or sub-fields in science or engineering and/or in multiple types of organizations.
- potential for extraordinary outcomes, such as,
- revolutionizing entire disciplines,
- creating entirely new fields, or
- disrupting accepted theories and perspectives
- ... as a result of taking a fresh, multi-disciplinary approach.
- Special emphasis will be placed on proposals that promise to enhance competitiveness, innovation, or safety and security in the United States.

## Three CDI Themes

- CDI seeks transformative research in the following general themes, via innovations in, and/or innovative use of, computational thinking:
**From Data to Knowledge:** *enhancing human cognition and generating new knowledge from a wealth of heterogeneous digital data;*
**Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social Systems:** *deriving fundamental* *insights on* *systems comprising multiple interacting elements;*  and
**Building Virtual Organizations:** *enhancing discovery and innovation by* *bringing people and resources together across institutional, geographical and cultural boundaries*.

## From Data to Knowledge

- Efficient knowledge extraction accounting for uncertainties and noise, statistics
- Modeling, data assimilation, inverse problems; validation;
- Operations on data (algorithms for off-line and real-time applications)
- Algorithms for analysis of large data sets, dimension reduction
- Human interaction with data

**Notes:**
From Data to Knowledge
Extracting useful information and deriving new knowledge from data efficiently, while accounting for the presence of uncertainty and dependency, leads to several sub-themes in which transformative ideas are needed:
Modeling
Operations on data
Algorithms
Human interaction with data

## Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social Systems

- Identifying general principles and laws that characterize complexity and capture the essence of complex systems  -- Nonlinear couplings across multiple scales; emergent behavior
- Attaining the breakthroughs, to overcome these
- challenges, requires transformative ideas in
- the following areas:
- Simulation and Computational Experiments
- Methods, Algorithms, and Tools
- Design, control, operation and diagnostics of engineered complex systems

## Virtual Organizations (VOs)

- Design, development, and assessment of VOs
- Bringing domain needs together with algorithm development, systems operations, organizational studies, social computing, and interactive design
- Flexible boundaries, memberships, and lifecycles, tailored to particular research problems, users and learner needs or tasks of any community, providing opportunities for:
- Remote access
- Collaboration
- Education and training

## DataNet: Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network

- Preproposal by 13 NOV 08, Full proposal by 15 MAY 09
- Lead Program Officer: Lucy Nowell
- Challenge: How to develop the new methods, management structures and technologies to manage the diversity, size, and complexity of current and future data sets and data streams?
- Answer: Create a set of exemplar national and global data research infrastructure organizations (dubbed DataNet Partners) that provide unique opportunities to communities of researchers to advance science and/or engineering research and learning.
- The new types of organizations envisioned in this solicitation will integrate library and archival sciences, cyberinfrastructure, computer and information sciences, and domain science expertise.

## INTEROP: Community-based Data Interoperability Networks   

- Full proposal target date: 23 JUL 09.
- Lead Program Officer: Lucy Nowell
- Goal: Foster the ability to re-purpose data – to use it in innovative ways and combinations not envisioned by those who created the data.
- Interoperability: Ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged.
- This program supports community efforts to provide for broad interoperability through the development of mechanisms such as robust data and metadata conventions, ontologies, and taxonomies.
- Support is provided for Data Interoperability Networks that will be responsible for consensus-building activities and for providing the expertise necessary to turn the consensus into technical standards with associated implementation tools and resources.

## Success with CDI Preliminary Proposalsand NSF Preliminary Proposals in General

- Write your preliminary proposal to succeed in _Interdisciplinary Panel Review_.
- Even if mail review will also be used.
- Convince the reader that your topic is important beyond your research community.
- Don’t “hype” or “oversell”; don’t load proposal with buzzwords.
- Do craft ~2-4 sentences at a Scientific American readership level.
- State your objectives in language common to all scientists.
- Example: What is known, What is not known, How your project will make a transformative impact on the unknown.
- Example: Statement of Hypothesis and strategy for testing (real hypothesis, not a baloney hypothesis!).
- Include a complete business plan.
- Who is doing what, and for what support. Explain all CVs, letters of support included.
- Do not drop names.
- Explain clearly how the computational thinking will be done! No “token” computer scientist!
- Broader Impacts must be well thought out and credible, not boilerplate!

## Cyberinfrastructure and OPP

- OCI will very likely set the standard for future OPP investments in data management and interoperability, cyber-enabled collaboration, and other requirements for computational resources.
- Most of the OCI solicitations lend themselves very well to polar concerns. Do consider submitting proposals!
- There has already been good interest in OCI proposal submission by polar researchers in 07-08. Can we keep it up next year?
- Polar Researchers: I’m on your side! (dlubin@nsf.gov, 703-292-7416)