Making Research and Education Cyberinfrastructure Real
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Making Research and Education Cyberinfrastructure By Francine Berman REALhe Industrial Age transformed the world through the application of technology to research, practice, and everyday life. Technology revolutionized manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and communications and created deep social and eco- nomic changes that continue today. In the last century, the explosion of information technologies ushered in an Information Age with similar transformative poten- tial. In 2008, it is hard to imagine modern life and work without the ability to access, manipulate, organize, and understand a sea of digital information on almost every conceivable topic. Francine Berman is Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center and is Professor and High Performance Computing Endowed Chair in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. 18 EDUCAUSE review July/August 2008 © 2008 Francine Berman Illustration by Dung Hoang, © 2008 Comprised of dynamically The driving engine for the Informa- evolving information tion Age is cyberinfrastructure (CI): the orga- nized aggregate of information technolo- technologies, CI is both a gies (computers, storage, data, networks, scientific instruments) that can be coordi- continuous work-in-progress and nated to address problems in science and society. Fundamental to modern research, a stable infrastructure driver for education, work, and life, CI has the po- tential to overcome the barriers of geog- invention and innovation. raphy, time, and individual capability to create new paradigms and approaches, to Technology, Leadership Under Challenge: progression of Parkinson’s is an active catalyze invention, innovation,1 and dis- Information Technology R&D in a Competitive area of research. Modern efforts to under- covery, and to deepen our understanding World, and by many other assessments of stand the behavior of Parkinson’s involve of the world around us. the state of U.S. research and education.4 molecular modeling, molecular dynam- However, CI in the academic sector The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), ics simulations, and biochemical analysis often falls short of its remarkable poten- the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and rely on integrated computational and tial. Comprised of dynamically evolving the Library of Congress, the National Ar- data-analysis CI to support simulations of information technologies, CI is both a chives and Records Administration, the disease progression and to vet drug thera- continuous work-in-progress and a stable National Endowment for the Humanities, pies at sufficient scale. infrastructure driver for invention and and other federal agencies have priori- As noted in a recent article, familial innovation. It is this duality, as well as the tized CI for targeted initiatives. Clearly, as studies suggest that the progression of challenge of creating an environment that a core component of the research and Parkinson’s is associated with “defects that effectively supports both the invention education landscape, CI is here to stay. cause increased aggregation of a protein and the broad use of CI for research and In addition to federal agencies, univer- known as alpha-synuclein, . which, in education, that is the focus of this article. sities and colleges in the United States, and turn, leads to harmful ring-like or pore- indeed throughout the world, are creating like structures in human membranes.”5 Cyberinfrastructure CI initiatives to increase participation in, Igor Tsigelny, Eliezer Masliah, and their as a National Initiative and competitiveness for, national efforts. collaborators used simulation studies The “parents” of CI, as a U.S. national We focus herein on CI as a national U.S. to investigate molecules that block the research and education initiative, are argu- research and education initiative, leaving propagation of alpha-synucleins into ably Ruzena Bajcsy, who served as assistant for others the discussion of related efforts more harmful structures, providing a director of the Computer and Information on university and college campuses to de- model for a new type of therapeutic ap- Science and Engineering (CISE) Director- velop research CI to support local faculty proach. Their approach holds promise for ate at the National Science Foundation and students, international efforts in CI, retarding the progression of the disease (NSF) from 1998 to 2001, and Dan Atkins, and efforts within the private sector to use and has applicability beyond Parkinson’s who served as the founding director of CI products and facilities developed for to other diseases within the same family NSF’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI). commercial use to also support research (e.g., Alzheimer’s, rheumatoid arthritis, During her tenure at NSF, Dr. Bajcsy con- and education. type 2 diabetes mellitus). vened a Blue Ribbon Panel to study the emergence and importance of CI, a panel The Promise of Cyberinfrastructure Enabling Cyberinfrastructure chaired by Dr. Atkins. The report from for Research and Education Tsigelny, Masliah, and their collaborators’ the Blue Ribbon Panel still stands as a fun- At its best, CI has greatly expanded the ar- work involves modeling the behavior of damental and compelling document on senal of tools and approaches for twenty- alpha-synuclein by generating hypoth- the promise of CI in twenty-first-century first-century academics. The following eses about its structural tendency to ag- research and education.2 examples illustrate how key questions gregate and undergo pore formation and Since the publication of the Blue from distinct academic domains are being insertion into biological membranes. Ribbon Panel report in January 2003, addressed through the creative use of Calibrations of the disease simulation CI has become a major priority for NSF community CI. models with wet lab studies serve to vet (as described in NSF’s Strategic Plan FY and improve the accuracy of the compu- 2006–2011)3 and also a priority for virtu- Can the Progression of tational models, making them effective ally every research funding agency in the Parkinson’s Disease Be Stopped? tools for investigating drug therapies.6 United States. The importance of research Every nine minutes, an individual is di- The CI that enabled this breakthrough and education CI is strongly underscored agnosed with Parkinson’s, a devastating is representative of what is required for by the American Competitiveness Initiative, disease characterized by a decrease in many applications in computational sci- by the August 2007 report from the Presi- limb mobility over time. The search for ence. Tsigelny, Masliah, and their team dent’s Council of Advisors on Science and new drug therapies that could halt the used parallel versions of community codes 20 EDUCAUSE review July/August 2008 The ability to access remote systems need to adapt to irregular data- data from field instruments transmission patterns, power and battery constraints, and emergency situations. and sensors in real time is Moreover, HPWREN is accelerating the development of cost-effective, “green” revolutionizing a broad set of CI. For example, recent CI research by Tajana Simunic Rosing and her students disciplines. used HPWREN as a test bed to focus on techniques for maximizing battery lifetime and throughput in sensor net- (NAMD, DOT, and MAPAS) to develop a resulted in the “demotion” of Pluto as a work environments.7 As power costs and computational model that could simulate planet. HPWREN supported real-time requirements threaten to escalate out alpha-synuclein behavior at scale. Their transmission of astronomical image of control for modern campuses, such application was run on resources avail- data from the telescope to various research is key to developing solutions able through NSF’s TeraGrid and at IBM’s institutions. that benefit both the environment and research facility. Next-generation inves- n The ability to operate a variety of field campus budgets. tigations by this team will involve greater equipment remotely and to transmit data resolution of the computational model, and video streams from field sites in real Family vs. Neighborhood: Which Has necessitating increased software scal- time. For example, HPWREN supports a Greater Effect on Educational Attainment? ability, more powerful machines, and/or remote observation of wolf behavior The impact of the surrounding environ- longer run-times. This will require next- at the California Wolf Center by biol- ment on the human condition is an im- generation CI resources that are both more ogy researchers at the University of portant focus for social analysts, as well as capable and of higher capacity than their San Diego, UCSD, and San Diego State for every parent who has ever considered a current CI environment. University. move to a better neighborhood to provide n Distance learning, tutoring, and Internet “greater opportunities for the kids.” This How Can Data from Field Instruments and classes for participants at the Learning Cen- was the subject of a Review of Economics and Sensors Be Efficiently Delivered in Real Time? ter on the Pala Native American Reservation Statistics article that investigated the ques- The ability to access remote data from in East San Diego and UCSD. HPWREN- tion: Which matters more in educational field instruments and sensors in real initiated connectivity of Pala led to the attainment: family or neighborhood?8 time is revolutionizing a broad set of development of networking expertise The authors of the