HPCwire: SDSC Supports Tsunami Data Collection

The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing

HPCwire >> Off the Wire

September 01, 2005

SDSC Supports Tsunami Data Collection

More than 20 National Science Foundation-funded scientific reconnaissance teams have gone to work in Asia capturing data from 2004's terrible Tsunami -- the deadliest in recorded history. The information collected will be preserved, curated and used by researchers to better understand the far-ranging impact of tsunamis on communities, buildings, ecology and people.

The research is being led by San Diego Supercomputer Center's Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Cyberinfrastructure Center (NEESit) team. This group operates and supports an extensive central information technology infrastructure for earthquake scientists and researchers.

"The teams are working with regional partners to gather and translate data in support of research projects aimed at better understanding the impact of this unique event." said Anke Kamrath, director of NEESit. "We're looking forward to capturing and preserving these findings to support research endeavors on this tsunami which may continue for decades or even centuries from now."

More than 20 teams were deployed from the NSF looking at many types of impact the tsunami had on the world. Six teams focused on collecting social, environmental, geological and ecological data. They spent several months in the region. Below are details on the half-dozen teams:

Team 1 collected social data from survivors along the Andaman coast in Thailand -- one of the most severely hit areas -- to understand human behavior and responses to the recent Tsunami.
Team 2 focused on social data on the recovery process in Southern Thailand. This data will be used in models to test the hypothesis of coupling between physical and social systems and how this relates to tourism.
Team 3 studied government and non-government responses to body recovery, identification and disposal of deceased victims and how this compares to traditional Western methods.
Team 4 collected census data, local government records and household interviews and remote sensing data such as satellite images. They will also address the gaps in scientific research on social and physical vulnerability assessments.
Team 5 studied and provided insight into ecosystem degradation, remote sensing as a research tool and environmental conservation as a mitigation strategy.
Team 6 collected a variety of data such as tsunami deposits, paleo-tsunami data, sedimentology data, fishing records, interviews and plans for recovery.

The teams were comprised of researchers from University of Southern California, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Albany, Millersville University, Texas A&M, University of North Carolina, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oregon. Their data will be made public through the NEES tsunami data repository, which is targeted for deployment at tsunami.nees.org in 2006.

Article Tools

Share Options

(Digg, Technorati, more)

Subscribe

Subscribe to HPCwire

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Join the Discussion

You must be a registered user in order to comment on HPCwire stories.

Members enjoy:

	Access to Special Content, including Podcasts, Webcasts, and Whitepapers and more!
	Ability to take an active role in the discussions that are shaping the HPC technology discipline!
	Special offers available only to HPCwire members!

Become a Registered User Today!

Registered Users Log in Here to Comment

Email Address:	Password (case sensitive)

Remember me	Forgot Password?

RSS Feeds

Feeds by Topic

Feeds by Industry

Feeds by Content Type

Feature Articles

The Week in Review

C-DAC announces plans for a petaflop system; IBM researchers are working on vertical integration techniques to extend Moore's Law another 15 years. We recap those stories and more in our weekly wrapup.
Read More...

Moscow State University Supercomputer Has Petaflop Aspirations

The Moscow State University supercomputer, Lomonosov, has been selected for a high-performance makeover, with the goal of tripling its processing power to achieve petaflop-level performance in 2010. T-Platforms, who developed and manufactured the supercomputer, is the odds-on favorite to lead the project.
Read More...

Intel Ups Performance Ante with Westmere Server Chips

Right on schedule, Intel has launched its Xeon 5600 processors, codenamed "Westmere EP." The 5600 represents the 32nm sequel to the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem EP) for dual-socket servers. Intel is touting better performance and energy efficiency, along with new security features, as the big selling points of the new Xeons.
Read More...

Read more HPCwire features...

Top Headlines

Australia Commissions Cray Supercomputer

Mar 19 | OfficialWire | New super to support intelligence work Down Under. Read more...

Intel Partners See 'Easy' Upgrade Path With Xeon 5600 Chips

Mar 18 | ChannelWeb | Westmere parts already showing up in HPC machines. Read more...

AMD: OEMs primed for Opteron 6100s

Mar 17 | The Register | But what about the tier ones? Read more...

Arrival of the Desktop Supercomputer

Mar 17 | Cadalyst Magazine | A new generation of workstations is changing the nature of technical computing. Read more...

Scheduling HPC In The Cloud

Mar 17 | Linux Magazine | Latest iteration of Sun Grid Engine able to tap into Cloud. Read more...

Read more headlines...

Featured Whitepapers

Virtualization for Aggregation And The vSMP Architecture™

Jan 12 | | In-depth look at vSMP Foundation server virtualization technology, technical implementation, use cases and capabilities. The technical whitepaper provides an architectural overview and details on the three vSMP Foundation products: vSMP Foundation for SMP, vSMP Foundation for Cluster and vSMP Foundation for Cloud.

Copper Cable Technologies for High Performance Computing

Jan 18 | | This white paper discusses Gore’s copper cable assemblies, and how they continue to exceed the standards for providing reliable, cost-effective solutions for high-performance computer applications.

View the White Paper Library

Multimedia

Webcast: Virtualized Data Center Roundtable

Join this online panel discussion for live Q&A with leading industry experts, analysts, and end-users to discuss the latest innovations, best practices, barriers to implementation, and measurable benefits of server virtualization with a particular focus on today's real world solutions.

Webcast: Watch SC09 Birds of a Feather Video: Scalable Fault-Tolerant HPC Supercomputers

Learn about scalable fault-tolerant architectures and examples of energy efficient and scalable supercomputing clusters using dual QDR InfiniBand to combine capacity computing with network failover capabilities with the help of programming languages such as MPI and a robust Linux cluster management package.

Webcast: High Performance Computing for a Smarter Planet

LIVE@SCO9: The IBM team discusses new innovations in hardware, software and services that help clients better understand their workloads and get insight from their R&D efforts. Technology demonstrations include the soon-to-be-released Power7 HPC processor, the DCS990 system with 2.4 petabytes of storage, the xCAT management tool, secure HPC cloud computing and more. Winners of two HPCwire Readers' and Editors’ Choice Awards! Take the IBM virtual tour at SC09 or more information go online to: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing/sc09.html