Research Advisory: Meeting Minutes

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[edit]

September 10, 2008

Attending:

  • Richard Redner – University of Tulsa
  • James Guikema – Kansas State University
  • David Swanson – University of Nebraska at Lincoln
  • John Ruffolo – South Dakota State University
  • Bruce McMillin – Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • Dennis Brewer – University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
  • Gordon Springer – University of Missouri at Columbia
  • Greg Monaco – Great Plains Network

Minutes

  1. Greg Monaco provided a brief update on GENI and the multi-institution proposal that was submitted and recommended for funding.
  2. Bruce McMillin provided an update on an award he received for a Cyber Physical Systems workshop. Part of the goal is to bring together both technical/engineering researchers and social scientists. There were one or two recommendations from the group for social scientists to consider. Any other recommendations may be sent to the list.
  3. Greg Monaco asked for and received positive feedback on the idea for a Regional Cyberinfrastructure Brainstorming Summit. Group consensus seemed to be that it is a good idea and to proceed to look for dates to hold the summit.
  4. Greg Monaco discussed a proposal to visit to member university campuses for the purpose of explaining about GPN, some of the initiatives GPN has been assisting with, and to get input on areas of potential collaboration. Greg pointed out that in some cases meeting face to face has facilitated involvement and interaction in cases where email alone does not. Dennis Brewer mentioned that Greg is always welcome in Arkansas. Greg will take the concept of campus visits up, individually, with campus representatives to determine gauge further interest and determine suitable times and dates.
  5. Greg mentioned an upcoming presentation at Quilt Meeting on GPN Research Coordination efforts. The Quilt is an organization made up of research and education networks in the US. Recently, Quilt members conducted a membership survey, and it came to light that GPN is somewhat unique in its attempts to engage the broader research community.
  6. Greg presented the history of association with and a brief outline of a partnership opportunity (“Entrepreneurial Universities”) with the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education (Jelel Ezzine, Director of Higher Ed, Tunisia). It was noted that this is usually a campus type of initiative and that interested campuses might care to get in touch directly with Jelel. (This opportunity originally came to Greg’s attention through a contact in the US State Department.) Gordon Springer said that the topic of entrepreneurship is of interest at the University of Missouri and that he would bring it to the attention of the appropriate parties there. Greg will provide contact info to anyone else interested in following up on this.
  7. The proposal by Mel Ciment to assist in developing a large-scale regional proposal was discussed. Board members recommended tabling the proposal until after the regional CI brainstorming summit (#3, above) to narrow down and to get a better sense from that meeting of the topics that the region might pursue.
  8. Finally, Gordon Springer noted that there is an upcoming Shibboleth training in Kansas City on September 26. (http://collaboration.greatplains.net)
[edit]

March 12, 2008

  1. GENI proposal
    • 4 universities - 4 nodes: KU, UNL, UMKC, Kansas State
    • Researchers and networking tech folks
    • Letters of support from state networks, KS EPSCoR, Internet2
    • Budget of 750K which is not a lot, but permits getting in on the ground floor
    • Additional nodes if we obtain this award
  2. GPN Strategic Planning session
    • Group of people from GPN region, including the Exec Council (EC) and some other members representing GPN past, present, future
    • Strong recommendations to secure a large award & revisit the makeup of GPN Councils
    • I recommended adding some at-large positions to the GPN Exec Council – researchers, CIO, Administrators
    • Concern from Exec Council that there could be some potential for conflict – e.g., if a research administrator from Oklahoma is on the EC then s/he might influence the Oklahoma state reps decision
    • RAB Member Ideas:
      • Do things by task force and then report to EC.
      • Include researchers in this group.
      • Deadline for comments on GPN Organizational Structure: March 26, 2008
  3. Upcoming EPSCoR Cyberinfrastructure Solicitation
    • Greg: It is my understanding that the EPSCoR office will create a solicitation inviting regional CI proposals.
  4. Cyber-physical systems initiative & related IGERT proposal
    • May be time to identify another initiative in addition to this.
[edit]

December 12, 2007

Prior to the meeting the following documents were circulated. They were discussed during the meeting.

  1. The report that was delivered by John Connally of University of Kentucky to the state EPSCoR Directors in Hawaii. This was based on the work of representatives from EPSCoR states, some on this board. (CI Report v.4).
  2. A letter of intent for a multi-university project to the NSF Cyber-enabled discovery program. (GPN ced LOI.pdf). The purpose of this project is to build and share the tools and infrastructure for a GPN virtual organization in bioscience. It combines our efforts in middleware and bioinformatics. We would like to extend this work to include tools used by multiple investigators.
  3. Notes from the most recent Cyber-Physical Systems meeting lead by Bruce McMillin (member of this Board) and describing several potential projects that can be undertaken using the Great Plains Network infrastructure as a potential test bed. Although we have several participants from other GPN institutions, Bruce asked me to encourage you to try to help broaden participation to include more researchers from among our membership. Some specific areas of inquiry have been developed and are in the notes. Bruce will not be on the call tomorrow, but may want to comment via email. (Cyber Physical Systems taxonomy...doc)
  4. The announcement for an upcoming bioinformatics meeting in Oklahoma -- MCBIOS. GPN is a sponsor of this meeting and is defraying some of the expenses for graduate students who attend and present a poster. We would like to more broadly encourage faculty, post-docs and graduate students in the area to attend.
  5. The presentation for the GPN Geni initiative is located at http://collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki/images/4/4e/2007_GPN-GENI_Presentation_at_Minneapolis_final.pdf. For more information about GENI, please visit http://www.geni.net/news_52107.html.

Next meeting will be March 12, 2008.

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September 12, 2007

  • Update on Cyber Physical Systems by Bruce McMillin
    • Bruce and Greg will work on seeking a champion in each of the three areas
  • Update on GPN GENI initiative by Greg Monaco
    • White paper in development and meeting with BBN program manager planned
  • Update on GPN Strategic Planning by Greg Monaco
    • To be held in November
  • Member updates (All)
    • Cyberinfrastructure for EPSCoR states and NSF
    • American Competitiveness Initiative
    • DUSEL awarded to South Dakota but still awaiting funding
  • Meetings will be held quarterly: Next meeting in December
[edit]

April 11, 2007

Discussion Topic: Response to forming a team around the cyber physical systems (CPS) program was discussed:

  • Dennis Brewer (UAF) will send info regarding a group that may be interested in power management aspects of the program.
  • Gordon Springer is preparing to circulate the note more widely at UMC.
  • Bruce will try to speak with the NSF CPI program director, Helen Gill, at NSF this week. Greg can follow up next week. (This might be something more of us will want to do as the project grows.)
  • Respondents were diverse: For example, one, a psychologist at KSU with expertise in expert decision-making, brings needed skills to the team.
  • On further investigation, the problem domains (transportation, power management, river management) may present similar issues and may encompass other focus areas--there is a group of networking researchers at KSU, for example, focusing on issues of detecting hazardous materials delivered by car, truck or bus, over a wide area.
  • Greg will create a new email list for gp-cyberphysical. This Board will be kept in the loop on the correspondence.
  • We will work to arrange for interested parties to meet together at GPN2007 in Kansas City.
  • Next time for this group to touch base is in a month.


[edit]

March 14, 2007

The discussion on Wednesday, March 14, centered on taking the initial outline by Bruce McMillin (UMRolla) for an NSF Cyber Physical Systems project in the area of either power management or environmental management (e.g., water resources) and seek participation across universities and across disciplines. Bruce agreed to act as champion for this initiative.

The upcoming GPN2007 Annual Meeting can also provide an opportunity for a face-to-face meeting among interested parties.

Greg will come up with a brief description to send out to the gp email list after consultation with Bruce. We can also circulate this deeper within our respective communities (e.g., Greg at Kansas State, John R. at SDSU).

We can use this as a pilot for the other initiatives which are described at http://collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki/index.php/Research_Advisory_Board:_Workspace

[edit]

February 14, 2007

  1. Reviewed the list of proposed areas for inter-university collaboration (more details at http://collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki/index.php/Research_Advisory_Board:_Workspace)
    • Nanoscience and Genomics -- Scott Meyer
    • Bioprocessing of Alternative Fuels -- Scott Meyer
    • Sustainability -- Dennis Brewer
    • Shared Graduate/Undergraduate Education -- Dennis Brewer
    • NSF Cyber Physical Systems -- Bruce McMillin
    • Grid Computing -- David Swanson
    • Geospatial -- Gordon Springer
    • Water Resource Management -- Greg Monaco
    • Networking Research -- Greg Monaco
  2. Discussion of Next Steps
    • Identify and contact those interested on their campus
    • Identify their conception of a Grand Challenge problem in their area (e.g., similar to the list Bruce McMillin provided for Cyber Physical Systems at the web site above)
    • Send names to Greg or to list
  3. The name of the email list has been changed from "gp-advisory at greatplains.net" to "gp-researchadvisory at greatplains.net"
  4. GPN Annual Meeting scheduled for May 30, 31 and June 1, 2007 in Kansas City, Missouri
  5. Next Research Advisory Board meeting on 3/14/2007 at 1PM.
[edit]

January 10, 2007

Attending:

  • John Ruffolo, South Dakota State University
  • Dennis Brewer, UA Fayetteville
  • Bruce McMillin, UM Rolla
  • David Swanson, UN Lincoln
  • Gordon Springer, UM Columbia
  • Greg Monaco, GPN

Regional News

GPN Research Project Approach

  • Consensus that GPN should be flexible and facilitate a variety of types research and education projects, not just those that start with high performance computing or advanced networking.
  • Keep the broadest possible scope.

Ideas for new areas of collaboration:

  • Sustainability - Rocky Mountain meeting coming up (ecenter.colorado.edu/rmss2007)
  • Could involve sensor networks, simulation/modeling
  • Cyber physical systems – http://varma.ece.cmu.edu/cps/


It was suggested that we come up with a list of potential projects for joint collaboration to circulate among vp-research offices and among the gpn representative council.

For the next meeting, we will put together a list of possible projects and brief descriptions, one from each university. These may be potential or currently going on at the university.

Next Meeting: February 14 at 1PM.

[edit]

December 13, 2006 (First Meeting)

  1. Introductions – It was noted that there are no members from Kansas, Oklahoma or North Dakota
  2. Greg reviewed the list of responsibilities from the Research Advisory Board Charter (http://collaboration.greatplains.net/wiki/index.php/Portal:Research_Advisory_Board)
  3. Greg reviewed Research Activities and Groups (http://collaboration.greatplains.net).
    • David Swanson discussed the CMS project at UNL and the benefits that will be realized in terms of connectivity for the region.
    • There was also discussion of changes coming in the area of federal funding—single sign on, certificates, trust relationships.
  4. It was decided that, initially, the meetings be scheduled monthly on Wednesdays at 1PM.
  5. For the next meeting, the Board will identify areas for potential new collaborative research projects, based on their university expertise and/or priority areas.
  6. The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for the second Wednesday in January, January 10, at 1PM. If there are problems with that date, please let me know.
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