Researchers at The Ohio State University
    Principal Investigator:   Dr. Gagan Agrawal, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
    Co-Investigator:          Dr. Rongxing (Ron) Li, Professor and Director, Mapping and GIS Laboratory 
                                     Dr. Keith W. Bedford, Professor, The Great Lakes Forecasting System 
                                     Dr. Hakan Ferhatosmanoglu, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering

    Post-Doctoral Researcher and Research Associates:
       GIS & Mapping Laboratory: Dr. Xutong Niu and Sagar Deshpande
       Computer Science: David Chiu, Qian Zhu and Guadalupe M. Canahuate
       The Great Lakes Forecasting System: Panagiotis Velissariou

Collaborators at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
    Dr. Frank Aikman, National Ocean Service (NOS)
    Dr. David Schwab, Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL)
      

Timeline                          September 2006 - August 2009

Proejct Overview

Over the years, much work has been done on observing and modeling the environment. Many complex systems have been, or are being, built. Despite advances in the amount of data being collected (including larger numbers of sources as well as increased spatio-temporal granularity) and enhancements in the techniques being used for analyzing these datasets, a number of challenges remain in this area.

Firstly, the current systems are very tightly coupled. There is hardly any reuse of algorithm implementations across different systems. Secondly, it is extremely hard to test or incorporate new analysis algorithms. The implementations are closely tied to the available resources, and finally, the existing systems cannot adapt the granularity of analysis to resource availability and time constraints. The emerging trend towards (closely related) concepts of service-oriented architectures and grid computing can alleviate the above problems. They can enable development of services that are not tied to specific datasets or end applications, and implementation of applications using these services. However, this also requires advances in grid middleware components that are able to support streaming applications and data virtualization/integration.

This project proposes to develop and evaluate a cyberinfrastructure component for environmental applications. This will include developments in middleware, model integration, analysis, and mining techniques, and the use of a service model for supporting two closely related applications. These applications will be real-time coastal now casting and forecasting, and long-term coastal erosion analysis and prediction.

The specific problems addressed are as follows.

• In the first application, focus will be on real-time now casting and forecasting of coastal conditions. Middleware and service-oriented implementation will be used to allow new algorithms to be inserted (for example, for beach closings and coliform forecasts), allow more complex models to be used based on resource and time constraints, allow new data streams to be inserted flexibly, and allow new algorithms for analysis and interpretation to be operated on data being produced from forecasting/now casting models.
  
• In the second application, advanced models will be developed for long-term coastal changes and erosion patterns in order to allow larger scale, distributed, and flexible data analysis. Implementation and evaluation will be in the context of the Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS) and will be performed jointly with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
  

• This research will carry out realistic design, deployment, and evaluation of cyberinfrastructure.
  
• In addition, it has the opportunity to impact the long-term design and operation of a real environmental observation system.

This project will be a joint effort between The Ohio State University (OSU) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The OSU team includes two computer science researchers: Gagan Agrawal (grid middleware systems) and Hakan Ferhatosmanoglu (databases and data analysis), and two environmental researchers: Keith Bedford (environmental modeling) and Ron Li (geospatial data analysis and remote sensing). The NOAA collaborators include Dr. Frank Aikman, NOAA - National Ocean Service (NOS), and Dr. David Schwab, NOAA - Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL).

For more information, contact Dr. Rongxing Li at li.282@osu.edu