Research Councils UK: UK e-Science Programme Press Release

UK e-Science All Hands Meeting hits records

Six hundred and thirty delegates attended the 5th UK e-Science All Hands Meeting in Nottingham last month. Submission of papers and ideas for workshops and sessions were at record levels. 84 papers were accepted out of 128 submitted, 10 out of 25 workshop proposals were accepted and 5 out of 13 session proposals.

Two of the workshops explored UK-China and UK-Korea links, demonstrating the on-going international interest in the UK e-Science Programme. Thirty two organisations had booths in the exhibition area which attracted crowds, especially for demonstrations. The National e-Science Centre (NeSC) organised the event with funding from the e-Science Core Programme. JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) was the main sponsor again this year, holding sessions about its e-framework and e-infrastructure programmes.

Best paper awards were presented for the first time at an AHM. These went to Phil Greenwood and team from Lancaster University and Daniel Goodman from Oxford University who won the best student paper award. The Lancaster team’s paper describes an innovative flood warning system based on a network of intelligent sensors. The work, which is funded by the North West Development Agency, uses software developed under the Core Programme-funded Open Overlays Project. Daniel’s winning paper describes how he developed a workflow language ‘Martlet’ to enable the analysis of data in distributed databases, a problem encountered by NERC’s ClimatePrediction.Net project.

Other highlights included:

• the use of workflows, developed under the EPSRC-funded myGrid project, to deduce the proteins a bacterium secretes from the sequence of its genes and consequently its lifestyle. The work has shed light on the unusual lifestyle of the anthrax bacterium;
• how the MRC’s VOTES project is using grid computing and e-Science techniques to support the recruitment of patients for a clinical trial;
• new insights, gained by NERC’s e-minerals project, into the capacity of different iron bearing minerals to immobilise arsenic in water;
• how the ESRC’s GEMEDA project used grid computing to study the distribution of poverty within different ethnic minority groups;
• how large scale computer simulations, performed using the JISC/CCLRC/EPSRC-funded National Grid Service, are revealing ways in which the human immunodeficiency virus evades the action of drugs;
• a demonstration of an AHRC-funded project which is using grid technologies to enable scholars in distributed, remote locations to collaborate over the study of medieval manuscripts;
• how PPARC’s AstroGrid infrastructure will be used to analyse data from the Japan/UK/US Solar-B satellite which was launched the day after the AHM closed;
• a grid-based system, developed under the BBSRC’s ComparaGRID project, to integrate genomic data across species and so capture details of the relationship within and across species.
• Keynote speakers included Dan Atkins, Director of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure, NSF on the NSF’s cyberinfrastructure programme, Robert Gurney, Director, Environmental Systems Science Centre at Reading University on how e-Science is addressing pressing environmental issues and Stephen Emmott, Director European Science Programme, Microsoft Research, on the intellectual challenges and potential rewards of considering biological systems as information processing systems.

AHM 2006 Proceedings are available at www.allhands.org.uk/2006/proceedings/