Job opportunity at ReSC: Scientific Software Engineer

Grade 6 - £27,428 to 34,745 per annum
Closing date: 18/12/2011
Interview data: 10/1/2012

We need an imaginative and talented Researcher/Programmer to develop innovative software applications in support of cutting-edge research in climate science, oceanography and meteorology.

You will have a strong computer programming background and a keen interest in environmental science. You will need to be able to work individually and in small teams and to be able to communicate with colleagues from different disciplines.

This post will offer many opportunities for career development through collaborations with academic partners, industry and government agencies.

For full details and to apply, search for job reference RS11039 in the keywords at http://www.reading.ac.uk/jobs.

UK e-Science All Hands Meeting Press Release

Press Release

16 August 2011

Media Information: Caron Lett 01904 322029

Towards the cloud

A major international e-Science conference at the University of York will explore the concept of cloud computing to enable better use of software and data from research and industry.

The tenth UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, Towards the Cloud – Infrastructures, Applications, Research, from 26 to 29 September will bring together over 200 international delegates from industry and the academic community.

The main themes will be shared infrastructures, using the cloud in research, end-user engagement and applications, including e-Science, e-social science and research in the arts and humanities.

The meeting will be co-chaired by Professor Jim Austin, from the Department of Computer Science at the University of York and Professor Jie Xu, from the School of Computing at the University of Leeds.

Professor Austin said: “We are very pleased to host such a prestigious event in York and will be welcoming delegates from companies such as Rolls Royce and BT, and from countries including the United States, Germany and Sweden.

“Cloud computing is an exciting development which is now being rolled out world-wide as a major approach to cost-saving in computing – essential in the current economic climate.”

Cloud providers deliver applications via the internet which are accessed by a web browser, with business software and data being stored in servers at a remote location. Cloud provides businesses and other organisations with a means of increasing capacity or adding capabilities without the need to increase infrastructure or license new software.

Professor Xu said: “Ten years ago, e-Science was something we worked on in our labs. Today it underpins a revolutionary technology – cloud computing – that is going to change the way industry uses IT. With cloud computing, IT services can be delivered and developed in a far more open and seamless way.

“By 2020, the cloud computing market is predicated to top $241 billion. And by the same year, large US companies that use it are predicated to be able to achieve annual energy savings of $12.3 billion. Many companies, large and small, are now starting to see how this technology can improve the way they work and do business, hence the interest we have seen in this conference.”

The event, held in the superb Ron Cooke Hub which sits at the heart of the University’s £750 million campus expansion at Heslington East, will feature keynote presentations, workshop sessions, poster presentations and demonstrations.

The conference has sponsorship from Microsoft, Esteem, Cybula Ltd, the Technology Strategy Board Information and Communications Technologies Knowledge Transfer Network and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) as well as workshops run by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

A series of tutorials for delegates will be held on Monday, 26 September. Papers will be peer reviewed and a selection of these will be published in a special issue journal. There will also be an exhibition area and opportunities for networking.

For more information or to register for the conference visit www.allhands.org.uk.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

• For further information on the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2011 visit www.allhands.org.uk

• More information on the Department of Computer Science at the University of York at www.cs.york.ac.uk

• More information on the School of Computing at the University of Leeds on www.comp.leeds.ac.uk

Research Environments of the Future: e-Research South Newsletter, March 2011

The March 2011 issue of the e-Research South quarterly newsletter is themed on "Research Environments of the Future".  Articles include:

• Research Environments of the Future by Anne Trefethen
• Computational Neuroscience and the Neurohub Project by Phillip L Newland
• A Virtual Research Environment for Cancer Imaging by Susana Avila Garcia and Anne Trefethen

View the newsletter here, from where you can also subscribe to future editions.

UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2011: Call for Abstracts

The tenth e-Science All Hands Meeting (AHM) will be held from 26th-29th September 2011, in the historic city of York, United Kingdom. The conference will feature keynote presentations, workshop sessions, poster presentations and demonstrations, from the domains of e-Science, e-Social science and the arts and humanities.

Authors are invited to submit abstracts of unpublished, original work of not more than 3 pages in length to AHM2011 themes and workshops, using single spaced 10 point size on A4 pages - including 2 pages of text and (optionally) 1 page of figures and tables. Authors are to submit abstracts satisfying the Formatting Guidelines as a PDF file using the AHM 2011 Abstract Submission system.

Submission to Themes

Authors are asked to submit to one of the following themes or as a

'general paper':

* Theme 1: Cloud computing for e-Research

* Theme 2: Shared Infrastructures, Systems and Tools for e-Research

* Theme 3: Applications and end-user engagement in e-Research

* Theme 4: Data-intensive Research

* Theme 5: Organisation, Trust, Security and Validation

* General Paper

All themes are applicable to the domains of e-Science, e-Social Science, and the arts and humanities. This year, we especially encourage industry collaborators to engage fully in the conference (we will shortly be including information on the website detailing Exhibit and Sponsorship opportunities), including contributing to papers.

As in previous years, authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit full papers (after AHM 2011) to be considered for inclusion in a special edition of a journal (to be confirmed). It should be noted that conference proceedings will not be published.

Workshops and Tutorials

The 2011 All Hands Meeting has scheduled time for a limited number of half day workshops. Interested parties may submit proposals for workshops (1 A4 page) to tom.jackson@cs.york.ac.uk. The deadline for workshop proposals is 3rd April 2011.

Important Dates:

23 May 2011 - The deadline for abstract submission

25 July 2011 - Decisions to authors.

Website:  http://www.allhands.org.uk

Press release: Reading research to help improve the world’s environmental data

Released on 1 March 2011 via University of Reading website

The University of Reading is part of a European project to improve the use of environmental information to ensure the correct global policy decisions are made on issues such as climate change and catastrophic events.
The £3.5 million research project will ensure that the users of the data have the information they require concerning the quality of the various available sources. Thus, when a catastrophic event occurs, such as the New Zealand earthquake, users can make confident and properly-informed decisions about which information they should use to reduce the disaster's impact.

The three-year GeoViQua project is led by the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) in Catalonia with partners in France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands as well as the UK, and the European Space Agency. GeoViQua will contribute to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), through which its results will be put into action.

The goal of GEOSS is to provide decision-support tools to a variety of users, through which decision-makers can access information from huge and diverse observing systems and data repositories around the world, directly addressing several areas of societal benefit, including climate, biodiversity, agriculture, energy and health.

Reading researchers are leading the visualization tasks within GeoViQua and will be surveying various end users in academia, agencies and industry to ascertain their requirements and provide them with the tools to gather and visualize information about data quality. Information about quality will be provided through a diverse set of end-user tools, from professional Geographic Information Systems, through ‘consumer' tools such as websites and Google Earth, to mobile devices, including tablets and phones.

Dr Jon Blower, Technical Director at the University's Reading e-Science Centre, said: "The results of the project will have a global impact, improving decision-making and helping to address global problems like climate change, catastrophic events or loss of biodiversity.  Most problems in these areas rely on the synthesis of many diverse sources of data and it is extremely important that users are aware of the quality of the datasets, how they were produced, and what their strengths and weaknesses are for a particular situation. Unfortunately, this vital information is not currently always available and that is what we will address in this project."

PRESS RELEASE ENDS
For more information please contact Rona Cheeseman, press officer, on 0118 378 7388 or email r.cheeseman@reading.ac.uk

Notes to editors
Reading e-Science Centre specialises in environmental e-science with particular expertise in geographical data visualization on the web.  It develops and applies new and innovative tools for visualizing and fusing diverse sources of data using interactive techniques, helping to drive scientific discoveries.

The Reading e-Science Centre also represents Reading in the e-Research South consortium (with the University of Oxford, University of Southampton and the Science and Technology Facilities Council e-Science department) which is creating a sustainable e-Research platform across the South of England.

Job opportunity at ReSC: Scientific Software Engineer

Grade 6 - £27,428 to £33,734 per annum
Closing date: 28/03/2011

We need an imaginative and talented Researcher/Programmer to develop innovative software applications in support of cutting-edge research in climate science, oceanography and meteorology.

You will have a strong computer programming background and a keen interest in environmental science. You will need to be able to work individually and in small teams and to be able to communicate with colleagues from different disciplines.

This post will offer many opportunities for career development through collaborations with academic partners, industry and government agencies.

For full details and to apply, search for job reference RS11009 in the keywords at http://www.reading.ac.uk/jobs.

e-Research South Quarterly Newsletter, December 2010

The December 2010 issue of the e-Research South quarterly newsletter has been published (sorry this post is a little late!).  It is themed on Data and contains updates on the two new ReSC-led data projects MashMyData and BlogMyData.

View the newsletter here, from where you can also subscribe to future editions.