(P.I.'s-Ramon Arrowsmith, Department of Geological Sciences and Frederick Steiner, School of Planning and Landscape Architecture, Arizona State University)
Background: ASU is submitting a pre-proposal on the above topic to the
NSF-Information Technology Research Program (Information Management and
Applications). The
purpose is: (1) to evaluate the past, present, and future distribution
of materials, energy, environments, and processes in an expanding urban
region, and (2) determine the controls
and drivers of change. The ASU faculty and students hope to establish
an interactive ecological data bank and decision theater for the Phoenix
Metropolitan region. The main focus
is handling diverse data sets over different time scales and resolutions.
The research focus will be application of information technology for analysis
and synthesis of information,
data fusion, data mining, visualization, and simulation for multiple
users. (The NSF IT program is focusing on information technology challenges)
This proposal is part of "Greater Phoenix 2100-Building a National Urban
Environmental Research Agenda," a multidisciplinary effort centered at
ASU. It builds upon the ongoing
NSF-sponsored "Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research"
project.
The Proposed Role for Los Alamos: We are wanted as partners in this
pre-proposal, focusing our efforts on modeling, using large and diverse
data sets (like the "framework" part
of Urban Security). Of special interest is the airflow and runoff studies
done by Mike Brown, Steve Burian, and Tim MacPherson and L2F by the Georges.
The It proposal focuses
on tools, but the test bed is the urban e-atlas. They are also interested
in visualization and have involved ESRI as collaborators. Other issues
are the quality and validation of data.
In some respects, this proposal follows the "vision" of Urban Security.
The challenge is to find some funding (as ever). Some of the NSF money
could be applied to the computing
needs here, but wouldn't cover what is needed to do the job right.
Deadline: The 1-page pre-proposal is due at NSF on November 27, 2000.
They need an informal commitment from us. Any comments or suggestions at
this point should go
directly to Ramon Arrowsmith ( ramon.arrowsmith@asu.edu ).
He said that things are moving so fast that he has the following
recommendations:
(1) Most everything that we did is now on Open Source at www.sourceforge.net
To build upon what we have done that would be best for your purposes
would take about 6 months.
(2) The tools that we paid for are now free, including Development,
CORBA-ORB, and Data Buses.
(3) Using XML/XSL for input specifications
(4) Worry about authentication and security as your project grows.
I'm not a computer person, but am forwarding his recommendations.
I'll get together with the rest of the folks next week; most were out
of town this week.
Grant