Eco-eScience in the Cloud
Speaker: Catharine van Ingen, Microsoft Research, San Francisco
When: 2008-03-19 11:00:00
Venue: 78-420
Host: Prof Jane Hunter
Abstract:There is a flood of ecological data due to the confluence of cheap
sensors, web services, and satellites. Collecting just the data you
want in that avalanche is the first step to using that data for
science. Mixing that data with previous published results, site
properties and event occurrences such as fires is a next
step. Curating that data to enable reuse is an often overlooked
step.
Many ecological and hydrological science collaborations are starting
to use relational databases to collect, curate and archive their
data. Over the past year, we've been exploring how database and data
cube (OLAP) technologies can be used to enable browsing for science
data availability, applicability, and early analysis. Along the way,
we've built a number of data cubes to support different ecological
science goals. This talk explores the commonalities between these
cubes and the differences along with some of the reasons for
each. While we are hand crafting each cube today, our goal is a
methodology that produces a family of cubes from a common database
schema that can be used across a number of scientific investigations
and related disciplines.
Biography:Catharine van Ingen is a researcher in the eScience group of
Microsoft Research. She collaborates with computer scientists at the
Berkeley Water Center, San Diego Super Computing Center, and
University of Virginia as well as a number of hydrologists and
carbon-climate scientists around the world. She holds a PhD in Civil
Engineering and thinks that a terabyte of data is a nice start.
Type: ITEE Seminar
Contact:Prof Jane Hunter, seminar host (janeh@itee.uq.edu.au)
or Guido Governatori (ITEE seminar co-ordinator)
(guido@itee.uq.edu.au)