E-Science
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The term e-Science (or eScience) is used to describe computationally intensive science that is carried out in highly distributed network environments, or science that uses immense data sets that require grid computing. The term was created by John Taylor, the Director General of the United Kingdom's Office of Science and Technology in 1999 and was used to describe a large funding initive starting in November 2000. Examples of the kind of science include social simulations, particle physics, earth sciences and bio-informatics. Particle physics has a particulally well developed e-Science infrastructure due to their need for adequate computing facilities for the analysis of results and storage of data originating from the CERN Large Hadron Collider, which is due to start taking data in 2007.
Characteristics and examples of e-Science
Due to the complexity of the software and the backend infrastructural requirements, e-Science projects are usually involve large teams managed and developed by research laboratories, large universities or governments. Currently there is a large focus in e-Science is in the United Kingdom, where the UK e-Science programme provides significant funding.Development of e-Science is also advanced in Europe where the development of computing capabilities to support the CERN Large Hadron Collider has led to the development of eScience and Grid infrastructures which are also used by other disciplines.
The UK e-Science programme
The UK e-Science programme comprises 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.
Within the UK there are eight regional e-Science centres, which support their local universities and projects including the [Belfast e-Science Centre] (BeSC), the [Cambridge e-Science Centre] (CeSC), the [CLRC e-Science Centre] (CLRCeSC), [e-Science North West] (eSNW), the [Grid Support Centre] (GSC), [London e-Science Centre] (LeSC), [North East Regional e-Science Centre] (NEReSC), [Oxford e-Science Centre] (OeSC), [Southampton e-Science Centre] (SeSC), and the [Welsh e-Science Centre] (WeSC).
There are also various centres of excellence and research centres which have a strong impact on e-Science.
The US projects
US-based initiatives, where the term cyberinfrastructure is typically used to define e-Science projects, are centered at the nation's supercomputing centers including the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Argonne National Laboratory, San Diego Supercomputer Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and others.
External links
- [U.K. Research Council's E-science program]
- [U.K. National e-Science Centre]
- [U.K. National Centre for e-Social Science] and their *[Wiki on e-Social Science]
- [CERN]
- [Large Hadron Collider]
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