AE Tree Newsletter 15
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Report on Mission Award of Newly 2000 Annual Meeting to Croatia Gold Medal elected members page 3 page 4 page 6 pages 9-11 Academia Europaea ~19 88~ TheTreeNewsletter of Academia Europaea • Issue 15 • August 2000 Academia statement on bandwidth persuades ministers statement on the need for research and higher education but also transparent access to data. In spite of European investment in High to promote an area of major recent improvements to networking in ABandwidth for higher importance for European society and Europe, both within and between education and research, prepared jointly economic activity. countries, Europe continues to lag by the Academia Europaea and the substantially behind the state of European Science Foundation, was Joint Statement of the Academia development in the USA. presented to ministers early in 2000. Its Europaea and the European If this state of affairs is allowed to recommendations were firmly endorsed Science Foundation on the need continue, Europe will be left out of at the European Summit held in Lisbon for High Bandwidth Computer- major advances in research and in March. based Networking in Europe education.The negative impact will fall The statement was prepared at a not only on individual areas of research, workshop organised by the Academia Summary but will also affect important and ESF,held at Durdent Court near improvements in the methods by which Heathrow in November 1999 and The role of computer-based research and education are performed. attended by 25 selected persons networking has grown enormously in Advanced research computing has representing users, suppliers and public the past decade, and has transformed the provided an initial “pull” for the policy makers. Even before the final potential for research and education. development of technology and version of the statement had been This trend is expected to continue in a applications, and continuing lag in printed, drafts were being used by the dramatic fashion. It has led to new ways Europe could also have a negative Portuguese Presidency to prepare for of working in science which have led, impact on European industry.Therefore, the EU Summit. in turn, to the opening up of new lines European governments and institutions Endorsement by the Summit of all of investigation. It has also enabled must recognise the need to continue to the main recommendations in the widely dispersed groups to form fully sustain strong long-term investment in statement confirms that the Academia collaborative research communities, significant increases in the bandwidth of has acted in a timely and effective breaking down the barriers of distance their networks and in ubiquitous access fashion not only in the interests of and permitting wider and more to them.k ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROP EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADE ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROP EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADE ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROPAEA ACADEMIA EUROP E A E A E A E A E A 2 that healthy networking contributes uThe current high bandwidth Key points to many other areas of the network already in place needs to economy.At the same time, as be maintained and developed. uNetworking (i.e. world-wide pressure for bandwidth increases Following the launch of TEN-155, communication between computer from these sectors, progressive the present European research systems) has become in recent years increases in bandwidth must also be backbone, planning has already a fundamental part of higher provided in order to protect the begun for the subsequent education and research.This trend is services available to research and expansion, known by the working expected to accelerate rapidly, education.Advanced methods of name of GÉANT. Due to the demanding regular increase in the organising distributed computing, transition between the EU’s Fourth bandwidth available for electronic known as computational and data and Fifth Framework Programmes, transmission. “grids”, will add further pressure. and various other factors, progress has been delayed.This emphasises uEnhanced networking not only uWhile the emphasis being placed the difficulties in operating within permits an increase in the volume on access by schools to electronic the short-term funding approach of or speed of transmission, but networking is welcomed, this the Framework Programme.All encourages the development of potentially enormous increase in parties, and especially the European totally new research methods and usage does carry some threat to the Commission, must face up to their directions and new developments in capacity available for higher responsibilities and reach a definite the delivery of higher education. education and research. Steps must conclusion in the coming weeks on This has been recognised in the be taken to provide the necessary the detailed mechanisms by which new Prodi initiative for e-Europe bandwidth required by these two the transition from TEN-155 to and the acceleration of Europe into communities while protecting the GÉANT will be handled, in order an “Information Society”.This needs of the research and higher that GÉANT can be fully initiative recognises the particular education sector. operational by November 2000. needs of the research and higher education community, which are uCongestion and poor network uDespite significant falls taking place reflected in the recent discussion performance may potentially occur in the unit cost of bandwidth, the document “Towards a European at any point on the transmission overall level of funding for research Research Area” from EU Research path invoked.Attention has to be and educational networking in Commissioner Busquin. High given to the capacity and quality of Europe still needs to grow for quite bandwidth networking is an the network infrastructure at all some time to come.This is in order essential prerequisite for these sites, such as university campuses, to meet the rapidly increasing concepts. where end-users work, as well as to demands for higher bandwidth and the capacity of the national network more access points.The potential uWhile Europe has made significant and the international connections. rewards for research in Europe advances in its networking capacity, clearly warrant this investment both both within and between countries, uEuropean researchers need good for research and the health of the it continues to lag well behind the intercontinental network overall economy. facilities available in the major connectivity. For this, a well- educational and research centres in organised distributed access to the the United States. If this situation is pan-European network backbone is allowed to continue, Europe could required which can provide the link find itself excluded from major new to North America and elsewhere. developments in research techniques. uBoth national authorities and the EU must recognise the need to uAs electronic communication secure a long-term commitment to comes to play a larger role in many invest in the provision of high areas of society (for example in e- bandwidth networks for Europe commerce, business and in the and to ensure that all regions have home) evidence is accumulating full access to them. Academia Europaea August 2000 3 Concepts of Time 12th Annual Meeting of the Academia Europaea, Prague, June 2000 Prague philosopher Jan Sokol set the theme for the 2000 Annual Meeting in his opening lecture “The Two Faces of Time”.The two faces he identified were scientific time, measurable and definable; focused, according to their disciplinary Ruelle analysed the role of entropy in and time experienced, a much more perspective, on one or other of these preventing the reversal of some slippery and difficult concept, with its twin foci: measurable time or macroscopic physical changes. Jan sense of tenses, past, present and future experienced time. Disciplines were Vondrak gave a comprehensive survey of events which can be realised together, deliberately mixed within single sessions, the measurement of time from its and the agonising disappearance of the to give breadth and wholeness to the historical beginnings to its present-day present into a single point of conference theme. Philosophy was sophistication, while Jürgen Mittelstrass nothingness.These two faces of time, followed by physics, then concentrated on the human experience one precise and the other impossible to geochronology, then psychology.A of time and the significance of this grasp, were to recur in many of the biologist gave the floor to an expert in process for revealing the nature of presentations. time measurement, himself followed by human beings. Jim Waterhouse explored The City of Prague provided a a cosmologist. Music, mathematics and the fascinating world of biological memorable and symbolic location, with genetics were also included.The rhythms (plenty of scope for subjective its beautifully preserved streets consensus of participants was that this questions!), Petr Horava raised representing many periods of European risky experiment had been brilliantly participants’ awareness of the latest history, and its famous astronomical successful, thanks to the adaptability of thinking about time in quantum clock lending a visual motif for the the speakers and their excellent sense of mathematics, and Martin