e-Science
E-Science or eScience is computationally intensive
E-Science revolutionizes both fundamental legs of the scientific method: empirical research, especially through digital big data; and scientific theory, especially through computer simulation model building.[6][7] These ideas were reflected by The White House's Office and Science Technology Policy in February 2013, which slated many of the aforementioned e-Science output products for preservation and access requirements under the memorandum's directive.[8] E-sciences include particle physics, earth sciences and social simulations.
Characteristics and examples
Most of the research activities into e-Science have focused on the development of new computational tools and infrastructures to support scientific discovery. Due to the complexity of the software and the backend infrastructural requirements, e-Science projects usually involve large teams managed and developed by research laboratories, large universities or governments. Currently[when?] there is a large focus in e-Science in the United Kingdom, where the UK e-Science programme provides significant funding. In Europe the development of computing capabilities to support the CERN Large Hadron Collider has led to the development of e-Science and Grid infrastructures which are also used by other disciplines.
Consortiums
Example e-Science infrastructures include the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, a federation with various partners including the European Grid Infrastructure, the Open Science Grid and the Nordic DataGrid Facility.
To support e-Science applications,
- neutrino physics, nuclear physics
- structural biology, computational biology, genomics, proteomics, medicine
UK programme
After his appointment as Director General of the Research Councils in 1999 John Taylor, with the support of the Science Minister
In November 2000 John Taylor announced £98 million for a national UK e-Science programme. An additional £20 million contribution was planned from UK industry in matching funds to projects that they participated in. From this budget of £120 million over three years, £75 million was to be spent on grid application pilots in all areas of science, administered by the Research Council responsible for each area, while £35 million was to be administered by the
The UK e-Science programme comprised a wide range of resources, centres and people including the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) which is managed by the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, with facilities in both cities.[9] Tony Hey led the core programme from 2001 to 2005.[10]
Within the UK regional e-Science centres support their local universities and projects, including:
- White Rose Grid e-Science Centre (WRGeSC)
- Belfast e-Science Centre (BeSC)
- Centre for eResearch Bristol[permanent dead link] (CeRB)
- Cambridge e-Science Centre (CeSC)
- STFC e-Science Centre (STFCeSC)
- e-Science North West (eSNW)
- National Grid Service (NGS)
- OMII-UK
- Lancaster University Centre for e-Science
- London e-Science Centre (LeSC)
- North East Regional e-Science Centre (NEReSC)
- Oxford e-Science Centre (OeSC)
- Southampton e-Science Centre Archived 2005-03-08 at the Wayback Machine (SeSC)
- Welsh e-Science Centre Archived 2005-03-24 at the Wayback Machine (WeSC)
- Midlands e-Science Centre (MeSC)
There are also various centres of excellence and research centres.
In addition to centres, the grid application pilot projects were funded by the Research Council responsible for each area of UK science funding.
The
- First Phase (2001–2005) were CombEchem, DAME, Discovery Net, GEODISE, myGrid and RealityGrid.
- Second phase (2004–2008) were GOLD and Integrative biology
- Third phase (2005–2010) were PMSEG (MESSAGE), CARMEN and NanoCMOS
The
(phase 1 for £17 million, phase 2 for £5.9 million, phase 3 for £30 million and a 4th phase running from 2011 to 2014) and Astrogrid (£14 million over 3 phases).The remaining £23 million of phase one funding was divided between the application projects funded by BBSRC, MRC and NERC:
- BBSRC: Biomolecular Grid, Proteome Annotation Pipeline, High-Throughput Structural Biology, Global Biodiversity
- MRC: Biology of Ageing, Sequence and Structure Data, Molecular Genetics, Cancer Management, Clinical e-Science Framework, Neuroinformatics Modeling Tools
- NERC: Climateprediction.com, Oceanographic Grid, Molecular Environmental Grid, NERC DataGrid
The funded UK e-Science programme was reviewed on its completion in 2009 by an international panel led by Daniel E. Atkins, director of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure of the US NSF. The report concluded that the programme had developed a skilled pool of expertise, some services, and had led to cooperation between academia and industry, but that these achievements were at a project level rather than by generating infrastructure or transforming disciplines to adopt e-Science as a normal method of work, and that they were not self-sustainable without further investment.
United States
United States-based initiatives, where the term cyberinfrastructure is typically used to define e-Science projects, are primarily funded by the National Science Foundation office of cyberinfrastructure (NSF OCI)[11] and Department of Energy (in particular the Office of Science). After the conclusion of TeraGrid in 2011, the ACCESS program was established and funded by the National Science Foundation to help researchers and educators, with or without supporting grants, to utilize the nation’s advanced computing systems and services.
The Netherlands
Dutch eScience research is coordinated by the Netherlands eScience Center in Amsterdam, an initiative founded by NWO and SURF.
Europe
Plan-Europe is a Platform of National e-Science/Data Research Centers in Europe, as established during the constituting meeting 29–30 October 2014 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and which is based on agreed Terms of Reference. PLAN-E has a kernel group of active members and convenes twice annually. More can be found on PLAN-E.
Sweden
Two academic research projects have been carried out in Sweden by two different groups of universities, to help researches share and access scientific computing resources and knowledge:
- Swedish e-Science Research Center (SeRC): Karolinska institutet (KI) and Linköping University (LiU)[12]
- eSSENCE, The e-Science Collaboration (eSSENCE): Uppsala University, Lund University and Umeå University[13]
Comparison with traditional science
Traditional science is representative of two distinct philosophical traditions within the history of science, but e-Science, it is being argued, requires a
Modelling e-Science processes
One view [14] argues that since a modern discovery process instance serves a similar purpose to a mathematical proof it should have similar properties, namely it allows results to be deterministically reproduced when re-executed and that intermediate results can be viewed to aid examination and comprehension. In this case, simply modelling the provenance of data is not sufficient. One has to model the provenance of the hypotheses and results generated from analyzing the data as well so as to provide evidence that support new discoveries. Scientific workflows have thus been proposed and developed to assist scientists to track the evolution of their data, intermediate results and final results as a means to document and track the evolution of discoveries within a piece of scientific research.
Science 2.0
Other views include Science 2.0 where e-Science is considered to be a shift from the publication of final results by well-defined collaborative groups towards a more open approach, which includes the public sharing of raw data, preliminary experimental results, and related information. To facilitate this shift, the Science 2.0 view is on providing tools that simplify communication, cooperation and collaboration between interested parties. Such an approach has the potential to: speed up the process of scientific discovery; overcome problems associated with academic publishing and peer review; and remove time and cost barriers, limiting the process of generating new knowledge.
See also
- Citizen science
- Cyberinfrastructure
- Distributed computing
- E-research
- e-Science librarianship
- e-Social Science
- Grid computing
- List of e-Science infrastructures
- Science 2.0
- Scientific workflow system
References
- ^ a b c d Bohle, S. "What is E-science and How Should it Be Managed?" Nature.com, Spektrum der Wissenschaft (Scientific American), http://www.scilogs.com/scientific_and_medical_libraries/what-is-e-science-and-how-should-it-be-managed/.
- ^ IEEE International Conference on eScience, homepage, accessed December 18, 2014, https://escience-conference.org/
- ^ a b DT&SC 7-2: Computational Social Science. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEo0Au1brHs From the DT&SC online course at the University of California: https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/949415
- ISBN 978-0-9825442-0-4.
- S2CID 9743327.
- ^ DT&SC 7-1: Introduction to e-Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x3d75ZMuYU . From the DT&SC online course at the University of California: https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/949415
- ^ a b Hilbert, M. (2015). e-Science for Digital Development: ICT4ICT4D. Centre for Development Informatics, SEED, University of Manchester. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2015-08-13.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, "Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies: Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research." February 22, 2013, accessed July 7, 2013, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_public_access_memo_2013.pdf.
- ^ "National e-Science Centre". official website. Archived from the original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved 29 September 2011.
- ^ Richard Poynder (12 December 2006). "A Conversation with Microsoft's Tony Hey". Open and Shut? blog. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
It just happens that in the US they chose another name. Personally, I think e-Science is a much better name than cyberinfrastructure.
Full transcript Archived March 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine updated 15 December 2006. - ^ "Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI)". Retrieved 19 September 2011.
- ^ "Swedish e-Science Research Center(SeRC)".
- ^ "eSSENCE, The e-Science Collaboration".
- S2CID 16212949.
External links
- DOE and NSF Open Science Grid
- The eScience Institute at the University of Washington
- The Dutch Virtual Laboratory for e-science (VL-e) project
- UK Research Council's e-Science program
- e-science : personnalisation des résultats de recherches Google et sociologies du web
- UK National Centre for e-Social Science and their Wiki on e-Social Science[permanent dead link]
- NSF TeraGrid Project
- Arts and Humanities E-Science Support Centre (AHESSC)
- E-Science and Data Services Collaborative (EDSC)
- The European Commission's e-Infrastructures activity
- Swedish e-Science Research Centre
- eSSENCE the e-Science Collaboration