Note that this month we are meeting on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday!
Please join us at the Boulder Outlook Hotel for a presentation and demo of:
NOAA Earth Information Services and TerraViz
Eric Hackathorn, Julien Lynge, Jeff Smith, TerraViz, NOAA
Jebb Stewart, Chris MacDermaid, NEIS, NOAA
The NOAA Earth Information Services (NEIS) is a framework of layered services designed to help the discovery, access, understanding, and visualization of data from the past, present, and future. It includes a visualization component named TerraViz that is a multi-platform tool, running on desktops, web browsers, and mobile devices. The goal is to ingest "big data" and convert that information into efficient formats for real-time visualization. Designed for a world where everything is in motion, NEIS and TerraViz allow fluid data integration and interaction across 4D time and space, providing a tool for everything NOAA does and the people NOAA affects.
TerraViz is built using the Unity game engine. While a game engine may seem a strange choice for data visualizations, our philosophy is to take advantage of existing technology whenever possible. Video games are a multibillion-dollar industry, and are quite simply the most powerful tools for pushing millions of points of data to the user in real-time. Our presentation illustrated displaying environmental data in TerraViz at a global scale, visualizing regional data in “scenes” such as the flooding of the Washington DC area or rotating a coastal ecosystem in three axes, and developing environmental simulations/games like exploring the ocean floor in a submarine.
The NEIS backend similarly takes lessons from private industry, using Apache Solr and other open source technologies to allow faceted search of NOAA data, much as sites like Amazon and Netflix do.
We believe that to have an impact on society, data should be easy to find, access, visualize, and understand. NEIS simplifies and abstracts searching, connectivity, and different data formats, allowing users to concentrate on the data and science.
Please contact us if you want to explore including your environmental data within NEIS/TerraViz or if you want to talk to us about developing custom visualizations or educational simulations to showcase your important data.
NOAA / Earth System Research Lab / Global Systems Division, Boulder, Colorado
NEIS/TerraViz: NEIS/TerraViz
Schedule
4:00 - 5:00 Presentation
5:00 - 6:00 Social
This month marks the two year anniversary of the BESSIG! Please join us at the Boulder Outlook Hotel for a remote presentation:
Chris Lynnes, Chief Systems Engineer of the Goddard DAAC, NASA, "The Earth Science Collaboratory"
The Earth Science Collaboratory is a proposed framework for supporting the sharing within the Earth science community of data, tools, analysis methods, and results, plus all the contextual knowledge that go with these artifacts. The likely benefits include:
- access to expert knowledge about how to work with data safely and efficiently
- full reprocability of results
- efficient collaboration within multi-disciplinary and/or geographically distributed teams
- a social network to bring together researchers and data users with common interests
Currently, there are some nascent efforts to construct such a collaboratory. However, by its very (inclusive) nature, this construction is likely to be most successful as an emergent process, evolving from many point-to-point connections to an eventual ecosystem of cooperating components supporting collaboration.
In particular, we are actively seeking scientists and other potential users of such a collaboratory to provide an end user perspective of system functionality. Would you find such a collaboratory helpful? Do you have ideas about how it could be better? Would you like to influence its design? Those that are actively engaged will be heard and could end up with a tool that particularly suits their needs. If this role interests you, please attend this talk and/or otherwise let us know of your interest.
Schedule
4:00 - 5:00 Presentation
5:00 - 6:00 Social
Drop on by!
Post presentation material
The slides for the talk are available here:ESC BESSIG slides.
The recorded version of the talk is available here. Please note that the talk actually starts 21 minutes into the recording, as the first 15 minutes were intended to be for testing. (Sorry, we had serious technical difficulties at the hotel! It will be better next time!)
Please join us at the Boulder Outlook Hotel for:
Doug Lindholm, LASP, "LaTiS: a data model, an API, a web service AND a floor wax"*
LaTiS is a data model, a data analysis API, and a REST-ful web service for accessing scientific data via a common interface.
The LaTiS data model provides a scientific domain independent, unifying, mathematical foundation for describing datasets that captures the functional relationships between parameters. The Scala implementation of this model provides an API for reading data directly from their native source, the ability to compute with high level abstractions appropriate for the task at hand, and options for filtering, transforming, and writing data in various formats.
This talk will discuss how these capabilities are used to enable a modular web service framework that can easily be installed and configured by a data provider, and that allows users to dynamically reformat a dataset, including its time representation, storage format, missing values, etc.
This talk will be a preview (i.e. beta release) of the talk I will give at UCAR Software Engineering Assembly Conference in April.
Schedule
4:00 - 5:00 Presentation
5:00 - 6:00 Social
Come on by!
* [Open on suburban kitchen, Wife and Husband arguing]
Wife: New LaTiS is a floor wax!
Husband: No, new LaTiS is a data model!
Wife: It's a floor wax!
Husband: It's a data model!
Wife: It's a floor wax, I'm telling you!
Husband: It's a data model, you cow!
Spokesman: [enters quickly] Hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two. New LaTiS is both a floor wax and a data model! Here, I'll spray some on your mop. [sprays LaTiS onto mop] ..and some for your data server. [sprinkles LaTiS onto laptop]
[Husband computes while Wife mops]
Husband: Mmmmm, works great!
Wife: And just look at that shine! **
** with apologies to SNL
Due to the constraints of our speaker, we're meeting the 2nd week of February instead of the 3rd.
Yet more around semantics! Please join us at the Boulder Outlook Hotel for:
Beth Huffer, Lingua Logica, "ODISEES: An Ontology-Driven Interactive Search Environment for Earth Sciences"
As part of an on-going effort at NASA Langley’s Atmospheric Science Data Center, and in cooperation with the Computational & Information Sciences & Technology Office at the Goddard Space Flight Center, we have developed a semi-automated method for finding and comparing equivalent data and climate model output variables across disparate datasets. We will demonstrate an ontology-driven variable matching service that provides an automated mapping among comparable variables from multiple data products and climate model output products. The interactive user interface is driven by a queriable ontological model of the essential characteristics of data and climate model output variables, the products they occur in, the atmospheric parameters represented in the data, and the instruments and techniques used to measure or model the parameters. Queries of the ontology and triple store are used to match comparable variables by enabling users to search for those that share a user-specified set of essential characteristics.
The application addresses an emerging need among Earth scientists to compare climate model outputs to other models and to satellite observations, and addresses some of the barriers that currently make such comparisons difficult. In particular, the application
- Eliminates the need for users to be familiar with the multiple data vocabularies and standards that exist within the Earth sciences community; and
- With a few mouse clicks, provides ready access to the information needed by scientists to understand the similarities and differences between two or more data or climate model products, enabling them to quickly determine which products best suit their requirements.
Schedule
4:00 - 5:00 Presentation
5:00 - 6:00 Social
Come on by!
More on semantics! Please join us at the Boulder Outlook Hotel for:
Stephen Williams, Office of Faculty Affairs, CU Boulder, "VIVO, VITRO, DataStar, and Beyond - The VIVO Project"
The VIVO project was started at Cornell University in 2003 as a faculty profiling system for Mann Library. The profiling system that is VIVO was designed in two parts, VITRO the semantic engine that is ontology agnostic and VIVO the ontology specific pages and data for presenting faculty profiles. This concept of a two tied system was taken into the third tier with location specific changes (Cornell and CU-Boulder) and ontologies that build upon VIVO (data star). This talk will focus on the VIVO project as a whole, its history, its ancillary projects, and its future. We'll also try to cover difficulties and lessons in semantic programming and the experiences of building ETL tools for semantic data.
Schedule
4:00 - 5:00 Presentation
5:00 - 6:00 Social
Note: this month we're meeting on a Tuesday!
Please join us back at the Boulder Outlook Hotel for:
Nate Wilhelmi, NCAR/CISL, "Experiences Using RDF and a Triple Store for Metadata Storage and Search"
4:00 - 5:00 presentation
5:00 - 6:00 social
See you there!
"Informing Science Policy: the Role for Scientists and Engineers"
A Panel Discussion
Note: This meeting will be held at NEON Headquarters, instead of our usual location. Details below.
This month Brian Wee, Steve Aulenbach, and I are delighted to have representatives from law, government and science come together to discuss various aspects of science policy. We've asked them to consider questions like these:
- What does "science policy" mean to you? To your organization? What impact does it have?
- What are the roles in science policy and what impacts do they have? Who are the main players?
- How have you or your organization tried to impact science policy? What worked and what did not work? What did you learn?
- How does one prepare for a science policy discussion? Any do's and don'ts?
- Scientists and engineers are trained to think and communicate in certain ways. Should those same skills be applied to policy discussions?
- If someone wanted to move more heavily into science policy, how would you advise them? What career moves would be good? Any bad career moves?
Panelists
Peter Backlund
Director, NCAR External Relations and the Integrated Science Program
Director, Research Relations, NCAR
Dan Baker
Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences
Director, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
Alice Madden
Wirth Chair in Sustainable Development, UC Denver
Colorado House Representative (2001 - 2010), Majority Leader (2004 - 2008)
Climate Change Adviser, Deputy Chief of Staff for Gov. Ritter
Senior Fellow on Climate Change, Center for American Progress
Andy Schultheiss
District Director at Office of Congressman Jared Polis
Campaigns Director at League of Conservation Voters
Boulder City Council (2003 - 2007)
Logistics
This meeting is being hosted by NEON, Inc. It will be held at NEON Headquarters, 1685 38th Street #100, Boulder, CO.
4:00 - 5:15 Panel Discussion
5:15 - 6:00 Social
Beverages will be provided courtesy of NEON. Thank you Brian and NEON!
Very light snacks to be covered by donations.
Please join us for this interesting discussion!
The discussion will be available via Web Ex, info to follow.
Another BLAST! Many thanks to Anna and Dave for their willingness to share ideas with us this month.
Anna Milan, NOAA/NESDIS/NGDC, Metadata for the Archive: Transition to ISO, Approaches, Challenges, and Opportunities
Dave Fulker, President, OPeNDAP, Inc., A (Very) Rough Idea: Raster Binning and Masking Services (see attachment)
I'll sketch my idea for a new type of data query/response service built (perhaps for EarthCube) around a standardized space-time raster that has a dual function. Tentatively dubbed "Raster Binning & Masking Services" or RBinMasks, users would gain a (potentially standard) way to specify (irregular) space-time regions of interest and a (potentially standard) way to gain information about the space-time distributions of pertinent data, without -- or before -- retrieving actual values.
Come join us at the Boulder Outlook Hotel!
4:00 - 5:00 Presentations
5:00 - 6:00 Social
Note: Meeting on Wednesday this month!
Brian Wee, NEON, Inc., "NEON: A continental-scale research and operations platform for the environmental sciences"
As NEON, Inc.’s Chief of External Affairs, Brian is the organization's liaison to Congress, US Federal agencies, and other scientific organizations. He also represents the informatics needs of the large-scale environmental sciences before the computer science and Federal data community. Brian joined the NEON Project Office at the American Institute of Biological Sciences in 2004 as a post-doctoral associate, then became a staff scientist before transitioning to the role of Administrative Director. Previously he worked for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) designing and implementing IT solutions and then served as Senior Instructional Designer leading instructional design, knowledge management, business-process redesign, and web development projects.
Brian holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.Sc. degree in Computer Science – Artificial Intelligence at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and a B.Sc. in Information Systems and Computer Science from the National University of Singapore. His M.Sc. studies focused on designing and implementing computer augmented learning solutions for high-school classrooms and corporate training at the Institute for the Learning Sciences. His Ph.D. focused on investigating the relative effects of behavioral, physiological and landscape barriers on the genetic structure of insect populations by integrating genetic, behavioral, and GIS analyses.
Come join us at the Boulder Outlook Hotel!
4:00 - 5:00 Presentation
5:00 - 6:00 Social
NB: This is a slightly different scheduling than we've had in past! Tuesday instead of Wednesday, 4th week of the month instead of the third.
Jeffrey Morisette, USGS, “Developing a common modeling framework for the Department of Interior’s North Central Climate Science Center”
This month we welcome Jeff Morisette, visiting us from USGS in Fort Collins to talk about, among other things, his experience with VisTrails. From the page VisTrails Overview , "VisTrails was designed to manage rapidly evolving scientific workflows and provenance that support simulations, data exploration and visualization." Jeff's group added a package to that software: SAHM, Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling.
Jeff is currently the director of the DOI North Central Climate Science Center where he manages and conducts research on how natural and cultural land management can respect the non-stationary nature of climate. A current research theme is how dynamic species distribution models can contribute to vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning.
We'll meet at the Boulder Outlook Hotel. Come on by!
Schedule
4:00 - 5:00 Presentation
5:00 - 6:00 Social
More around semantics!
Who
SiriJodha Khalsa, NSIDC, "Modeling the Model - the Semantics of the CCSM4 Sea Ice Model "
Don Elsborg, LASP, "Applied Semantic Web Technology - A use case with Semantic Mediawiki"
Where
Schedule
4:00 - 6:00 PM
Please come!
This month we continue exploring ontology and semantic-related areas.
Who
Stephan Zednick, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) "Data Models and Ontologies, describing structure and classification"
When
Wednesday, May 16, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Where
Schedule
4:00 - 5:00 Presentation and discussion
5:00 - 6:00 social
Please join us!
Note the time change: 5:00 instead of 4:00!
This month we'll review the recent UCAR data citation workshop, then make a foray into ontology and semantic-related areas.
In May and June we'll continue with speakers on ontology and semantic-related topics. The site calendar contains more information. If you have experiences in this area that you are willing to share, please contact Anne.
Speakers
Matt Mayernik, NCAR Library, "UCAR Workshop Review - Bridging Data Lifecycles: Tracking Data Use via Data Citations." (Note: Many of these slides were taken from the workshop presentations posted at http://library.ucar.edu/data_workshop/. Original slide authors are noted in red text in the top left of the slides.)
Ruth Duerr, NSIDC, "Early Experiences in Semantics "
When: Wednesday, April 18, 5:00 - 7:00
Where: Boulder Outlook Hotel
Schedule
5:00 - 6:00: speakers
6:00 - 7:00: social
Organized by Mike Daniels and Matt Mayernik, UCAR's EOL/CDS is hosting a BESSIG social hour in the Atrium at the Boulder Outlook Hotel, on Tuesday, April 3, 2012, at 5:30. The occasion is the visit of our out of town friends and ESIP colleagues Carol Meyer and Erin Robinson. EOL/CDS will provide hors d'oeuvres and non alcoholic drinks. Alcoholic beverages will be available for purchase.
In particular, this is an opportunity to discuss ESIP activities. Of course, any topic is fair game. Please join us!
Thank you, UCAR, EOL/CDS, Mike, and Matt!!
RESEARCH DATA SUPPORT
POSITION DESCRIPTION
University of Colorado at Boulder Research Computing
Research Data Support (Part-Time/Temporary 15 hours per week for 6 months)
Research Computing
POSITION SUMMARY: The Research Data Support position is part-time, reporting to the Research Data Manager. Primary job duties include website content creation for the new collaborative portal for Research Data Services. Research Data Services is a collaborative partnership between many campus groups though initially the primary groups are Libraries and Research Computing. The position will work with the Research Data Manager and Metadata Librarian to write and organize content to be used in the Drupal web site. The Research Data Services group and website will act as a nexus for coordinating activities to support researchers with a multitude of research data needs.
JOB RESPONSIBILITIES
- Research and write up information about various topics for use as content for the Research Data Services website.
- Assist with design and organization of the Research Data Services website following standards and best practices for information architecture.
- Perform other related duties as assigned.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Effective research and communication skills.
- Knowledge of data management, familiarity with various stages of the data lifecycle (e.g., collection, access, preservation), and awareness of ongoing national/international discussions and literature on these topics.
- Strong technical skills and ability to learn to use new software quickly.
- Drupal development knowledge/experience desired but not required.
To Apply or Ask Questions:
Send an e-mail to Kimberly Stacey, Research Data Manager with Research Computing at kimberly.stacey@colorado.edu
Include a resume and/or relevant information related to job qualifications.