Ian Foster

Globus MEDICUS wins award

I wrote a while back about the Globus MEDICUS work being done in LA. They've now won an Internet2 IDEA Award. Stephan Erberich, project leader and Director Functional Imaging and Biomedical Informatics at the University of Southern California, writes:

Today we routinely expect information to be available on the Internet, but this is still not the case with medical information. We believe that making it available, in a secure fashion, is crucial: it has the potential to deliver better, more informed care at reduced cost. We believe that our Globus MEDICUS project takes important first steps toward this goal. Our system lets doctors and patients utilize the power of high-speed Internet to easily and securely share information. Much remains to be done, but we are gratified by the benefits that are already apparent.

Carr on Grid

An interesting article from GridToday reporting on a talk by Nicholas Carr, included below in full.

Back in the USA

I've been offline for a while due to travel to South Africa (a wonderful week vacation, and then a week at an excellent summer school organized by Judith Bishop), then a few days back, then a week in New Zealand (attending another fine meeting, the New Zealand Computer Science Students Research Conference), two days in Australia to see foolish family members who emigrated their from New Zealand, and then back to Berkeley to attend a DOE meeting on future computing and computational science research programs. Finally home tomorrow. My heading is spinning ...

Zettabytes!

A recent IDC report claims that:

• The world created 161 exabytes (1.6 x 10^20 bytes) of digital data in 2006
• By 2010, annual data output will reach one zettabyte (1 x 10^21 bytes)
• In 2006, there were one billion devices capable of capturing digital images

The 2003 Berkeley study estimated 5 exabytes were produced in 2002, and a 30% annual growth rate. Thus the IDC estimates are considerably higher. The reason is that IDC takes a much broader definition of "created", including digital cameras, local copies of data, etc.

Hegira

I came across recently a word I did not recall seeing before, Hegira, and was inspired to look it up. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, it means "a flight to escape danger." It's origins are given as "Medieval Latin, from Arabic hijra, emigration, flight, from hajara, to depart." It seems to me to be a useful word, particularly when dealing with difficult people (-:

Reading this reminded of the wonderful old Joni Mitchell album, Hejira. Its Wikipedia article talks about a Hejira/Hegira as "a journey of religious or mystical experience." It seems that the sense of "escape from danger" is not mandatory. Indeed, just yesterday I saw the word used again, in James Michener's "The Covenant" (which I'm reading following my trip to South Africa), in this case referring to  a journey of exploration taken by two young men. In their case, more of a journey into danger.

Jobs at the Computation Institute

We're ramping up hiring at the Computation Institute. There are currently six open positions posted, and more will be appearing soon. Please let us know of talented individuals!

Computer Systems Programmer
Coordinator of Education, Open Science Grid
Scientific Research Programmer
Scientific Research Programmer, Parallel Computing
Senior Software Developer
Software Developer

Back from Africa; CO2 is a pollutant

I returned from South Africa on Sunday. A wonderful trip. More to say later.

Meanwhile a significant development on the climate change front: The US Supreme Court ruled today that "the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide from automobile emissions, and has shirked its duty in not doing so." This was in a case brought by Massachusetts and other states. Justice Paul Stevens argued: "E.P.A.'s steadfast refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions presents a risk of harm to Massachusetts that is both 'actual' and 'imminent.'"