Crowd Computing 2014 Crowd Computing 2014

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Crowd Computing 2014

Citizen Science Technology Platforms

Date Workshop: 25 September 2014 (One day)

Welcome reception: 24 September 2014

The topic of "Crowd Computing 2014" is "Citizen Science Technology Platforms".

Interest in Citizen Science is growing rapidly. Crowd Sourcing and Crowd computing are giving it a boost. Most Citizen Science projects start out as a project developing their own support platform or using some general available packages.

Recently more general Citizen Science Platforms are emerging that try to support more projects. In Crowd computing some technology platforms are already in use for about a decade and have accumulated a wealth of experience.

Although each citizen science project is different and can appeal to a different need there are a number of services and tools that can be used and shared among many projects. This could also help citizens move easily between projects.

Topics:

The workshop will focus on common tools and common services for Citizen Science Technology Platforms.

Topics include:

  • Crowd Computing technologies
  • Citizen/user management
  • Identity management across projects (Federated Identity management)
  • Data management
  • Portals and Gateways
  • Mobile app development
  • Security
  • Sensor networking
  • Cloud computing
  • Novel science and technology communication tools
  • Green IT

All of these will be addressed with a focus on Citizen Science Technology Platforms.

Audience

Crowd Computing 2014 is targeted at diverse audiences. The goal is to bring together: 

  • Persons running Citizen Science projects
  • Citizen Science technology platform operators and developers
  • Data management experts
  • Representatives from R&D projects that are developing tools that could be used by Citizen Science Technology Platforms
  • Crowd computing experts
  • Desktop Grid technology experts
  • Science communication experts
  • e-Infrastructure operators and developers
  • Representatives from European and national science policy organisations

Programme

9:00  Opening & keynote: Volunteer Crowd computing and federated Cloud developments, David Wallom, University of Oxford and EGI Federated Cloud Task force 

Volunteer Crowd Computing and Federated Cloud Developments, David Wallom, Oxford Research Centre from Desktop Grid Federation on Vimeo.

9:30  Distributed Computing on Browsers, Reginald Cushing, University of Amsterdam

Distributed Computing on Browsers, Reginald Cushing, University of Amsterdam from Desktop Grid Federation on Vimeo.

10.00 Novel approaches to Crowd computing
 
In traditional volunteer computing a citizen donates computing time for free and in return gets info on the science to which his computer contributes.
 
 In the recent years completely new models have emerged and are currently being implemented.

10:00 CrowdProcess, browser powered distributed computing, Pedro Fonseca (remote)
10:30 Crowdca.lc, Philip Skinner

CrowdCa.lc, Philip Skinner from Desktop Grid Federation on Vimeo.

11.00 High Performance Computing Cost killing, Oleg Lodygensky, CNRS/INRIA

High Performance Computing Cost killing, Oleg Lodygensky, CNRS/INRIA from Desktop Grid Federation on Vimeo.

11:30 Qarnot Computing, Paul Benoit (remote)

Computing HPC Everywhere, Qarnot Computing, Paul Benoit, remote presentation from Desktop Grid Federation on Vimeo.

12:00 Zennet, Ohad Asor (remote)

 

Zennet - Public supercomputer, Ohad Asor, Israel from Desktop Grid Federation on Vimeo.

In this talk Ohad Asor will discuss decentralized and monetized crowd computing by introducing Zennet, a public, fully decentralized crowd HPC cloud. For distributed computations, it is a free market alternative to AWS. Ohad Asor will touch selected topics about the market, design considerations, and applications.

12:30  Green IT and Crowd computing
    
Measuring performance in Crowd computing infrastructures, Peter Hanappe, Sony Research Laboratory

Measuring performance in Crowd Computing Infrastructures, Peter Hanappe, Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris from Desktop Grid Federation on Vimeo.

    
There is much discussion about how  "Green"  volunteer Crowd computing is. However, there is not much data available to support any view on this topic. Problem is the variety of machines and environments used. This session will take a practical approach. There is a practical set-up in which the workshop participants can hook up their laptop to measurement network including  a volunteer Crowd Computing infrastructure, and do their normal activities for some time. Meanwhile power measurements will be collected.
    
The presentation will introduce the concepts of Green Crowd computing, and the actual experiment.
     
13:00 Lunch (including Green IT measurements)

 

14:00 Data centres or Crowd computing - Which is "greener"? Bernhard Schott, AlmereGrid

14:30  Sensor networking
 
 Latest developments in sensor networking and smart cities, Antonio Puliafito, Messina University (remote)

15:00 Coffee break (and more perfromance measurements)
 
15:30  Charity Engine, Mark McAndrew

16:00  Financial aspects of Crowd Computing - Summary of IDGF-SP Findings, Peter Hanappe

16:30  Novel science and technology communication tools

Posters, flyers, a website,  expensive booklets and even more expensive videos. That were the main science and technology communication tools until recently. New very inexpensive computer boards, pioneered by the Raspberry Pi, opened up the possibility to create a completely new range of communication tools that can be used by communication experts even with a smaller budgets. These range from video-walls to fully functional parallel and Crowd computers.

The Crowd Computing demo corner based on Raspberry Pi, Ad Emmen, AlmereGrid
 

The Crowd Computing demo corner based on Raspberry Pi from Desktop Grid Federation on Vimeo.