Meeting: Driving eResearch Across the Tasman

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:08:00 +1200

eResearch Australasia attendees (or any other KAREN members who happen to be in Melbourne next week) are invited to attend this event that will explore opportunities for eResearch collaborations across the Tasman.

The session aims to build a shared view of the drivers for and issues in achieving collaboration between research groups in Australia and New Zealand, with focus on application level programmes and services.

Further information

See http://www.karen.net.nz/tasman-research/

OzeConferences: Real Time Communication Roadshow 2008

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:05:00 +1200

AARNet are broadcasting each keynote session from their Real Time Communications Roadshow, and you can participate via video conference.

Held between 11 and 25 September, the 14 OzeConferences will cover:

VC adoption and use case studies

Access Grid case studies
Immersive multimedia communications
Optiportal
EVO update
VC solutions
and much more

Sessions will also be recorded for playback at your convenience.

Visit AARNet's OzeConference page for a full schedule and instructions on how to participate.

MoRST vacancy: eScience Adviser

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:17:00 +1200

MoRST are advertising a vacancy for an Adviser eScience and Research. Play a key role in ensuring that the research sector gets the maximum benefit from KAREN.

Job description and further info

Visit http://www.morst.govt.nz/careers/vacancies/Adviser--Senior-Adviser-eScience--Research/

Watch the LHC startup

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:42:00 +1200

Physicist or interested individual? You can view the startup of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tonight in EVO or via satellite broadcast or a live webcast.

The first beam will be injected into the LHC tonight, and you can watch it as it happens.

EVO live video

Visit http://evo-wiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/EVOPublic/CERNFirstBeamDay

Watch the LHC startup in EVO. For the world wide LHC first beam event that will take place at CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, we are going to provide the live videos in EVO. A special meeting in Universe community will be available the 10th of September, 9am CEST (GMT+2).

Other viewing options and further info

Visit http://lhc-first-beam.web.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam/Welcome.html

Other options include satellite broadcast and a live webcast

Thanks to Nick Jones for the pointer.

Visualisation

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:30:00 +1200

HIT Lab's researchers are developing a 3D plug in for remote visualisation over AccessGRID.

The usage of visual information has demonstrated over the centuries its potential for resolving problems, describing a phenomena, or providing a perceptual shared representation in collaborating work.

KAREN enables New Zealand researchers to visualize in real-time dynamic, large, sparse or dense amount of remote data (images, videos, 3D models, etc).

To find out more about this 3D plug in visit http://avcc.karen.net.nz/wiki/Remote_Visualization or contact raphael.grasset@hitlabnz.org to be involved in trialling the tool for your research purposes.

Set your creativity free

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:14:00 +1200

The new Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand (CCANZ) web project enables you to choose your own Creative Commons New Zealand 3.0 Licence, read about other Kiwi CC users, join the CC community and promote your work.

Some rights reserved

The CCANZ website allows you to choose “some rights reserved” copyright for your own creative works. The international Creative Commons movement towards internet-friendly copyright is embraced in more than 40 countries and its generic licences have been recently tailored to New Zealand’s legal jurisdiction.

Sharing your creations online

Creative Commons licences encourage sharing. Every CC licence requires that users credit the owner properly, but licence holders can choose other restrictions too. Some licences do not allow commercial use or derivative versions.

With a sharp rise in citizen authorship and online sharing, Creative Commons licences are essential tools for anyone wishing to free up their creations for the benefit of online fans. The terms of CC licences are simple to read, and will usually appear in the form of a hyperlink alongside licensed work

Get involved

Visit the CCANZ website and become part of the movement.

Video conference service going strong

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:30:00 +1200

KAREN video conference trial participants are making the most of this service and simplifying real-time collaboration. Are you taking advantage of this fantastic service?

This video conferencing bridge allows high and standard definition and desktop video conferencing units to communicate with each other while maintaining the highest quality of your connection.

Fill your boots

There are no volume related charges for use of the bridge so you can conference to your heart's content.

Tools and functionality

Online booking, scheduling and conference management tools
High and standard definition capability
Desktop video conferencing software client capability
Supports ISDN and IP based video conferencing end-points
Recording capability

How to use the bridge

Step-by-step details on how to register and use the bridge are available at http://avcc.karen.net.nz/wiki/KAREN_Video_Conferencing_Services

This service is brought to you by REANNZ, in partnership with Agile, Tandberg and InSPire Net.

Reminder: IPv6 workshops

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:20:00 +1200

Reminder: Spaces are filling up for the upcoming IPv6 workshops in Christchurch and Auckland. Registration is first come, first served. Entry is free for InternetNZ and KAREN members.

The 5 day programme will run in Christchurch from Saturday 30 August to Wednesday 3 September, and in Auckland from Monday 8 September to Friday 12 September.

These technical workshops are brought to you by InternetNZ, in conjunction with REANNZ, Cisco, Packet Clearing House, NZRS, auDA and FX Networks.

See the InternetNZ website for further details

Lincoln University eResearch vacancy

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:12:00 +1200

Job opportunity available to contribute to eResearch activities at Lincoln University, Christchurch.

Position description summary

Lincoln University
Research Assistant (Vacancy 08-183)
(eResearch)

To increase the efficiency and improve the effectiveness of research activities the University has received funding to assess the potential contribution of the wider use of eResearch capabilities across the scope of its research portfolio.

You will provide development, support and collaboration on diverse and interesting research projects by utilising your analytical, problem-solving and communication skills. You will have a research degree in science or technology or equivalent experience and practical experience in a research environment.

You should have experience as an analyst/programmer in a technical or scientific environment. You should also have experience of working in a team based research environment, preferably in an environment which made use of eResearch and grid computing tools and technologies.

Lincoln University offers a vibrant, dynamic and cooperative workplace that encourages a good work-life balance, and the opportunity to steer your career towards achieving your goals. The position requires a results-driven, enthusiastic individual who can manage their own workloads to meet multiple deadlines.

Applications must be received by 4 pm on 31st August 2008

Visit http://www.lincoln.ac.nz/section270.html#j6 for further details

Cyberinfrastructure for education explained: EDUCAUSE Review

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:46:00 +1200

Check out the latest edition of EDUCAUSE Review for enlightening articles on the use of cyberinfrastructure (high performance computing, data, visualisation, virtual organisations and advanced networks) for research and education.

The July/August edition of EDUCAUSE Review explores:

evolution of cyberinfrastructure
development of digital resources for the arts and humanities, and the paradigm shift needed to take advantage of these new resources, tools and services
how technologies will change research, teaching and learning in the near future

EDUCAUSE website

REANNZ CEO appointed to InternetNZ Council

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:25:00 +1200

REANNZ Chief Executive, Donald Clark, appointed Councillor of InternetNZ for a three-year term.

InternetNZ recently announced the results of its Council election, which included the appointment of Donald as a new Councillor. InternetNZ takes the lead in protecting and promoting the Internet in New Zealand and fostering a coordinated, cooperative approach to its ongoing development. The Council is InternetNZ’s governing body.

“InternetNZ’s vision is for an open, uncapturable Internet. REANNZ applies very similar principles to KAREN – delivering an open, interoperable, neutral platform for advanced collaboration and innovation. I am delighted to be able to contribute to ensuring such an essential infrastructure for New Zealand continues to operate for the benefit of all”, said Donald.

Neil James joins Donald as a newly elected Council member. Jamie Baddeley, Michael Wallmannsberger, Chris Streatfield and Jonny Martin have been re-elected as Councillors.

InternetNZ website
Computerworld article

Data management report released

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:45:00 +1200

For those interested in data management and curation - check out a recent report on data management from Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR).

APSR at the Australian National University Canberra has released a report on Investigating Data Management Practices in Australian Universities.

This report presents all the findings of the Data Management Survey conducted at The University of Queensland, The University of Melbourne and Queensland University of Technology in late 2007.

The report, based on the responses of 879 researchers, sheds light on all aspects of data management practice including data:

management plans
storage
backup
sharing
ownership

The report also shows how the three participating Universities have used the results of the surveys to progress their own provision of support for eResearch.

You can find this report and other data information and resources at the APSR website.

Call for papers: AusGrid 2009

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:50:00 +1200

A call for papers has been issued for the 7th Australasian Symposium on Grid Computing and e-Research (AusGrid 2009).

AusGrid 2009 is being held in conjunction with the Australasian Computer Science Week, Wellington, New Zealand, 20 - 23 January, 2009.

Papers are requested on the following topics:

Grid applications and e-Research
Grid computing middleware and tools
Data Grids - applications, middleware, infrastructure, data and metadata management and integration
Grid infrastructure - experiences with building, managing and using grids
Grid portals and problem-solving environments
Grid economy
Web services
Semantic Web and Semantic Grid
Collaboration using the Grid and Access Grids
Performance evaluation and modelling
Next generation grid

Full papers are due 7 September 2008. See the AusGrid 2009 website for a run down of key dates.

IPv6 Workshops

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:06:00 +1200

InternetNZ, in conjunction with REANNZ, Cisco, Packet Clearing House, NZRS, auDA and FX Networks, is offering IPv6 technical workshops in Christchurch and Auckland.

KAREN members are invited to take part in these workshops. Attendance is limited to 28 with preference given to KAREN and InternetNZ members.

The 5 day programme will run in Christchurch from Saturday 30 August to Wednesday 3 September, and in Auckland from Monday 8 September to Friday 12 September.

Please confirm your attendance by emailing Richard Wood at richard@internetnz.net.nz. Include your daytime telephone contact number. More information is available in the attached flyer.

Research symposium programme will impress

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:00:00 +1200

Pete Beckman and Jim Basney join other trail-blazers in eresearch as speakers at the High Performance Research Symposium.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to not only listen to world leaders in HPC and Grid technology and management, but to discuss your ideas and issues in an intimate workshop setting.

Download the attached HPRS flyer (and pass it around), or visit http://www.bluefern.canterbury.ac.nz/events/index.shtml

The University of Canterbury's BlueFern™ super computer facility is hosting this event in conjunction with APAN26, on 4 August 2008 at the Millennium Hotel, Queenstown.

Hands-on training: APAN26

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:16:00 +1200

For the technically inclined, APAN26 features hands-on training and know-how workshops on advanced networking technologies and equipment.

Training workshops

Enabling Seamless Unified Communications

TANDBERG (Agile NZ)

how to provide transparent communication between any SIP and H.323 endpoint
features the TANDBERG Video Communications Server (VCS) and the TANDBERG Codian MCU

Managing Peer to Peer (P2P) Traffic

Allot Communications (Renaissance)

how to manage and control peer to peer traffic
balance network security with the demands of network monitoring

Juniper JUNOS as a second language

Business Technology Group

the detail and the benefits of JUNOS network operating system software
be able to confidently work with a JUNOS powered device

Principles of High Performance Wi-Fi: How to get the most out of your Current Wi-Fi and plan for the future

Xirrus

how to plan for and deploy a high-performance Wi-Fi network, including physical and MAC layer, security and switching architecture considerations
how to ensure that infrastructure (wired and wireless) decisions will support the upcoming 802.11n standard

Being a good neighbour, providing aggregated access for your community

Foundry Networks

learn a blueprint for configuring and implementing an aggregated KAREN connection
this includes suitable monitoring technologies and optional policies and controls

View the detailed list of training workshops

High Performance Research Symposium – Last chance for standard rates

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +1200

The University of Canterbury is hosting the High Performance Research Symposium on 4 August 2008 at the Millennium Hotel in Queenstown, New Zealand. This event is a lead-in to the Asia-Pacific Advanced Network Consortium meeting (APAN26), Asia Pacific’s foremost event for showcasing advanced broadband networking applications and technologies for research and education.

The symposium will set the scene for APAN26 by showcasing best practice e-Research projects, programmes and tools.

Full details, including speakers and abstracts of presentations, are now available on the Symposium web pages - http://www.bluefern.canterbury.ac.nz/events/index.shtml
Please note that standard registration rates finish on Monday 30 June – increased late registration rates kick in from 1 July
Please also note that the Symposium and APAN26 have separate registration – registration for one event does not include registration for the other event. Registration information is posted on the webpage.

Enquiries can be made to Stuart Broughton at stuart.broughton@canterbury.ac.nz

APAN26 registrations can be made through the KAREN website: http://www.karen.net.nz/apan26-registration/

PDCAT08 workshops call for papers

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:41:00 +1200

Get involved in the PDCAT associated workshops in high performance computing, sensor networks, multi-core programming, data grids, and web 2.0 applications, 1-4 December 2008, Dunedin.

PDCAT08 has five associated workshops open for submissions now.

[Apologies for cross posting]

New Zealand Workshop in High Performance and Grid Computing

http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/pdcat08/nzhpc08/index.html
Organiser: Dr. Slava Kitaeff (slava.kitaev@aut.ac.nz), Auckland University of Technology
Submission deadline: August 3, 2008

Sensor Networks and Ambient Intelligence (SeNAmI 2008)

http://www.aut.ac.nz/schools/engineering/senami_2008/
Organiser: Dr. Boon-Chong Seet (boon-chong.seet@aut.ac.nz), Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Auckland University of Technology
Submission deadline: July 1, 2008

PPAM 2008: Programming Parallel Applications for Multi-cores

http://secml.otago.ac.nz/ppam2008/index.html
Organiser: Mariusz Nowostawski (mariusz@nowostawski.org), University of Otago and World45
Submission deadline: August 3, 2008

Workshop on High Performance Data Grid (HPDataGrid)

http://grelc.unile.it/HPDataGrid08/
Organiser: Sandro Fiore (sandro.fiore@unile.it), Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy
Submission deadline: July 25, 2008

Web 2.0: Applications, Modelling and Simulation (WAMS)

http://www.searchforum.org.cn/research/proposal_pdcat2008.html
Organisers: Xueqi Cheng, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Jirong Wen, Microsoft Research Asia Kun Yang, University of Essex, United Kingdom Haiyan Yu, Institute of Computing Technology
Submission deadline: August 3, 2008

PDCAT08 conference website

More NZ presenters on board: APAN26

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:45:00 +1200

NZ researchers from the fields of education, agriculture, and SIP and network security join our impressive line up of presenters at APAN26.

Full line up of New Zealand presenters at APAN26

eCulture

Are we there yet? Crafting a Research Agenda to Understand the Potential of ICT-Enabled Learning: the Marvin Case Study - Annick Janson

Annick and her team of collaborators are developing a research agenda to pilot the educational uses of Marvin, an Avatar-based eLearning application. Marvin allows for the rapid creation of culturally specific and multi-lingual resources in communities, by communities, and for communities, in real time. After successful implementation within social contexts, Marvin is now being distributed to education systems globally.

Inquiry by KAREN: How can a scientist participate in running a scientific inquiry in schools using a high speed network? - Andrew Dunningham

The presentation will introduce Scion's Science for Life and Forests of Life programmes, inquiry based science programmes for schools. Andrew will explain how they intend to investigate and modify the methods, pedagogy and classroom practice developed in Science for Life to allow for effective engagement of students with scientists using KAREN.

Agriculture

Assembling the sheep genome via KAREN - John McEwan

John will present on the current progress and future directions for the International Sheep Genomics Consortium's sheep gene mapping programme. This programme will develop public genomic resources that will help researchers find genes associated with production, quality and disease traits in sheep. Raw sequence and results are stored on a central database at AgResearch Invermay (https://isgcdata.agresearch.co.nz/) and transferred between collaborators via KAREN.

SIP and network security

Advanced Flooding attack on a SIP Server - Malcolm Shore and Xianglin Deng

In this paper Malcolm and Xianglin demonstrate how such firewalls can be defeated and a SIP flooding attack achieved, and then describe a firewall mechanism to counter this form of attack. A further improvement involving enhancements to the SIP server is also described and test results detailed. This work has involved use of the innovative JAIN SLEE environment to develop an enhanced SIP Server, and the advantages of this environment are discussed.

3rd NZ Workshop in High Performance and Grid Computing

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:14:00 +1200

The workshop provides an ideal forum for professionals from both academia and industry to participate and learn about the latest research and development in high performance, reconfigurable and grid computing, advanced networks, e-science, education and other related areas in New Zealand.

This event is being held in conjunction with the Ninth International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (PDCAT'08) in Dunedin, 1-4 December.

Workshop details

How R&E networks can help reduce global warming: Bill St. Arnaud at APAN26

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:30:00 +1200

Bill St. Arnaud will be beaming into Queenstown for APAN26 to give a plenary presentation on the development of new types of computational and network architectures that can reduce CO2 emissions and benefit eScience.

Saving the Planet at the Speed of Light - How R&E networks can help reduce global warming

Setting the scene: cyber-infrastructure and CO2

One of the greatest threats to our future society and economy is global warming. It is estimated that the ICT industry alone produces as much CO2 as the entire output of the entire aviation industry.

University researchers are now an increasingly major contributor to these CO2 emissions because of the demand for new cyber-infrastructure equipment which is essential to the future of scientific discovery. As a result some universities and R&E networks are starting to explore new types of computational and network architectures that not only benefits eScience but also reduces CO2 emissions.

Architecture solutions

Optical high speed research networks and distributed zero carbon cyber-infrastructure data centers with network virtualization, web services and grids will be a critical component of this architecture. These developments have the potential of creating new revenue opportunities for R&E networks and their associated members through carbon offset trading.

Since consumer control or influence 60% of all CO2 emissions, universities and R&E networks can help pioneer programs to encourage students and faculty to reduce their personal carbon footprint through trading "bits and bandwidth for carbon" such as offering free eProducts such as eTextbooks, eMusic etc (which almost have a zero carbon footprint) as a reward mechanism to those who reduce their personal CO2 output in other activities. Carbon rewards may be more effective than carbon taxes in modifying consumer behaviour.

About Bill

Bill is Senior Director Advanced Networks for CANARIE Inc., Canada's Advanced Internet Development Organization. At CANARIE Bill has been responsible for the coordination and implementation of Canada's next generation optical Internet initiative called CA*net 4.

He has been the principal architect of the User Controlled LightPath concept of applying Service Oriented Architecture to network elements to allow users to create their own Internet network topologies and architectures fully integrated with their specific application and instrument needs.

NZ network players take gold and silver spots at APAN26

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:13:00 +1200

TelstraClear, Endace, Chorus and Verizon Business have demonstrated their commitment to New Zealand and the wider Asia Pacific region’s education and research communities by sponsoring the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference, 4-8 August 2008, Queenstown.

REANNZ is pleased to announce TelstraClear as Gold sponsor of the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference.

TelstraClear Head of Enterprise and Government Mark Wilson says the company’s Gold sponsorship recognises their commitment to research and education in the Asia Pacific region through the provision of connectivity and technical support to the conference venues.

“TelstraClear is a proud supporter of the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference, and we look forward to being part of this event showcasing the capability of KAREN to attendees in Queenstown.”

TelstraClear is also providing a $500,000 contribution to the New Zealand government’s Capability Build Fund to support projects aimed at building research expertise in using applications over KAREN.

REANNZ is also delighted to welcome Endace, Chorus and Verizon Business as Silver sponsors of this event.

Additional sponsors will be at APAN26 providing hands-on training and development updates on technologies and equipment to support advanced networking applications and services.

Deadline extended: student innovation competition

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:18:00 +1200

Happy news for students - APAN26 KAREN Student Innovation Competition deadline has been extended to 30 June 2008.

Calling tertiary students with an idea for or who are using KAREN. You now have an extra 3 weeks to create and submit your e-poster to be in the running to win cash and a free spot at the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference.

APAN26 is your chance to get up close with leaders in advanced networking from across the Asia Pacific region - share ideas, make connections, and learn about the biggest and best in advanced network applications and services.

Enter the competition by sending us an e-poster showcasing a project or activity that uses the unique capabilities of KAREN and you could attend the conference for free and win a cash prize.

Get the low-down at http://www.karen.net.nz/apan26-innovation-comp/

This competition is sponsored by InternetNZ, with support from Endace.

Otago Uni shares content over KAREN

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:36:00 +1200

The University of Otago has made audio and visual tracks of lectures, seminars and other content available on iTunes U. These tracks are hosted at the university meaning they're available over KAREN for super quick download.

iTunes U is part of the iTunes Store featuring free lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and more.

Universities and higher education providers in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, the U.S. and Canadian can now offer their content on the free service.

iTunes U demonstration

NZ eScience leaders presenting at APAN26

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:41:00 +1200

Five leading New Zealand academics/researchers have been confirmed as speakers in the eScience stream at APAN26.

eScience is computationally intensive science performed through distributed global collaborations enabled by the internet, using very large data collections, terascale computing resources and high performance visualisations. The APAN26 eScience stream will feature presentations and demonstrations from e-Science leaders from across the Asia Pacific.

New Zealand eScience presentations

Current Research Activities in Next Generation Network Planning - Richard Harris, Massey University

Witness research in techniques for:

measurement and forecasting of network service demand
optimal routing
network traffic management
delay and jitter minimisation on real-time traffic streams

Graphical planning tools (that provide a platform for development of models, algorithms and simulation test beds) will also be shown to illustrate how the research is implemented in practical systems.

Developing eResearch: Challenges and possibilities for the Social Sciences - David Thorns, University of Canterbury

Hear about the role that Access Grid technology has played in the building of a national social science research network (BRCSS) and the key issues in developing both the technological platform for collaboration and a new culture and methodology of research practice.

Virtual Laboratories for Nanotechnology - Shaun Hendy, Industrial Research Ltd

Shaun will discuss both the role of virtual experiments in nanotechnology and the potential implications of virtual discovery for the development of intellectual property in nanotechnology.

Visualisation on the Grid: Helping with Sustainability - Stuart Charters, Lincoln University

This presentation will outline approaches taken to visualisation using grid computing techniques and examine how these approaches can help with sustainability through increased utilisation of resources, flexible collaboration models and by reducing the need for travel.

Advanced Networks & the Geospatial Domain: Novel Research, Commercial Opportunities, Sector Sustainability - David Park, Geospatial Research Centre

This paper will present case studies that demonstrate the benefits already being realised from advanced networking connectivity at the Geospatial Research Centre in:

Facilitating global collaboration on world-leading research
Supporting nascent global commercial opportunities
Enabling the NZ geospatial sector itself to become sustainable

Further information

Biographies of NZ APAN26 working group presenters

International connectivity and broadband boost for research and education: Budget 08

Thu, 22 May 2008 16:58:00 +1200

Media release

International connectivity

“REANNZ warmly welcomes the Government’s initiative to invest in additional international telecommunications capacity to meet the future needs of the research and education sector. This will provide a step-change in opportunities for the KAREN community to collaborate and innovate”, said Donald Clark, REANNZ Chief Executive, today after the Government budget announcements.

“As one of New Zealand’s biggest users of international bandwidth, support for additional capacity, resilience, and increased value is welcomed. We look forward to working with the government agencies and supplier community to achieve these outcomes” says Donald Clark.

KAREN, the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network, enables New Zealand science and innovation to play its full part on the global stage. In modern science, access to the right people, data and equipment is essential, irrespective of where those assets may physically be. KAREN delivers location independence to New Zealand’s research teams.

Already KAREN has enabled New Zealand researchers to participate in a major international sheep genome project with Australia and the USA by being able to host databases and expertise here. KAREN is also enabling improved regional decision making on environmental hazards by allowing data from multiple sources and the expertise from different research bodies to be combined easily.

Currently, KAREN’s international links are significantly smaller than its national network. This has to-date limited research activities such as high-performance grid computing, astronomy and high-end genomics. A step change in the capacity of KAREN’s international links will provide new opportunities for New Zealand institutions to access international science funding, get more value out of national investment in science and increase the profile of Kiwi innovation internationally.

Broadband boost

KAREN has a mandate to connect all the schools and Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs) in New Zealand. Some early adopters have already connected to KAREN and are experiencing the benefits of sharing scarce teaching expertise around the country and internationally.

“It is immensely encouraging to see the Government investing more in, and getting greater leverage out of, broadband and ICT spend in our schools. REANNZ is continuing to work with closely with related government agencies to that we can switch on the digital generation that will underpin the future economy of New Zealand.”

Contact

For more information contact Julie Watson, mobile 021 674 954 or email julie.watson@reannz.co.nz

New Zealand partners in network and applications research sought

Fri, 16 May 2008 15:01:00 +1200

The National Information Society Agency (NIA) in Korea has issued an invitation for international partners in network technology and applications research and working groups.

Research partnerships

New Zealand researchers interested in collaborating with Korean researchers and institutions utilising TEIN2 and the APII (Asia-Pacific Information Infrastructure) testbed have the chance to participate in joint projects.

Projects that were funded year last include:

Future Internet Mesh-based Access Network
Telemedicine Application Servic
IPTV Overlay Multicast Application
High-Energy Data Grid
WiBro Terminal and Services
u-Media Transmission and Collaboration System
Safety support for MIPv6 network
Physics working group
eLearning working group

Technology partnerships

NIA is also looking for international partners to test future internet technologies, equipment and devices, such as IP-USN, WSN, traffic measurement.

Contact

If you are interested in partnering with Korean researchers in these areas contact:

Byung-Kyu Kim, Ph.D.
Executive Principal Researcher
u-Infrastructure Planning Team, u-Infrastructure Division National Information Society Agency (NIA)
bkkim[at]nia.or.kr

CFP: Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies

Thu, 15 May 2008 09:06:00 +1200

[Apologies for cross posting]

The International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (PDCAT) is a major forum for scientists, engineers, and practitioners throughout the world to present the latest research, results, ideas, developments and applications in all areas of parallel and distributed computing.

Following PDCAT'00 in Hong Kong, PDCAT'01 in Taipei, PDCAT'02 in Kanazawa, Japan, PDCAT'03 in Chengdu, China, PDCAT'04 in Singapore, PDCAT'05 in Dalian, China, PDCAT'06 in Taipei, Taiwan, and PDCAT'07 in Adelaide, Australia, PDCAT'08 will be in Dunedin, New Zealand. We are inviting new and unpublished papers on, but not limited to, the following topics:

1. Networking and Architectures
1-01 Interconnection networks
1-02 Parallel/distributed architectures
1-03 Heterogeneous and multimedia Systems
1-04 Multi-core related technologies
1-05 Reliability, and fault-tolerance
1-06 Ubiquitous computing systems
1-07 Computer networks
1-08 Communication and telecommunication
1-09 Wireless networks and mobile
1-10 Optical networks
1-11 Grid computing systems
1-12 Reconfigurable architecture

2. Software Systems and Technologies
2-01 Formal methods and programming languages
2-02 Internet computing
2-03 Image processing and computer vision
2-04 Agent technologies
2-05 Operating systems
2-06 Software tools and environments
2-07 Parallelizing compilers
2-08 Web services
2-09 Component-based and OO Technology
2-10 Simulation and Visualization

3. Algorithms and Applications
3-01 Parallel/distributed algorithms
3-02 Task mapping and job scheduling
3-03 Distributed data and knowledge based systems
3-04 Image processing and computer graphics
3-05 High-performance scientific computing
3-06 Reconfigurable high-performance computing
3-07 Resource allocation and management
3-08 Network routing and communication algorithms
3-09 Bioinformatics
3-10 Database applications and data mining
3-11 Intelligent computing and neural networks

4. Security and Privacy
4-01 Access control and authorization
4-02 Authentication, biometrics, smartcards
4-03 Distributed systems security
4-04 Mobile code and mobile agent security
4-05 RFID applications
4-06 Privacy preserving computation
4-07 Applied cryptography
4-08 Database security
4-09 Intrusion detection and survivability
4-10 P2P and ad-hoc networks
4-11 Security protocols

Key Dates:

Paper submission deadline: June 1, 2008
Author notification: Aug 1, 2008
Camera-ready version due: Sep 1, 2008
Conference: Dec 1-4, 2008

Paper submission guidelines

Papers reporting original and unpublished research results and experience are solicited. Papers will be selected based on their originality, timeliness, significance, relevance, and clarity of presentation. Accepted and presented papers will be published in the conference proceedings.

Submissions should include abstract, key words, the e-mail address of the corresponding author, and must not exceed 10 pages of single column, including tables and figures. Submissions imply the willingness of at least one author to register, attend the conference, and present the paper.

Submissions to PDCAT'08 are made electronically. Authors should upload their manuscripts in the PDF format with file name including an appropriate topic code in the file name of each manuscript. For example, if author Ray submits a paper in the topic of Interconnection networks, the file name should be 1-01_Ray. If you cannot find a suitable topic for your paper, please use the subject code "0-00".

The conference proceedings of PDCAT'08 will be published in English by IEEE Computer Society and cited by Engineering Information (EI). Extended versions of selected papers are to be published in a special issue of The Journal of Supercomputing.

More information can be found at http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/pdcat08

Cheaper registration ends tomorrow: APAN26

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:34:00 +1200

Register now for APAN26

Tomorrow (15 May) is the last day for you to catch the cheaper registration rate for APAN26.

APAN26 brings you both discipline and technology-specific seminars and workshops from New Zealand and international leaders in the use and development of advanced networks and applications for research and education.

High Performance Research Symposium

Take the opportunity to register for the University of Canterbury's High Performance Research Symposium. This event will be held in the lead up to APAN26 on 4 August in Queenstown, and will showcase best practice e-Research projects, programmes and tools.

HPRS website

Wireless security and VC room design seminars

Wed, 14 May 2008 13:08:00 +1200

If wireless security or video room design are your thing register to participate in an Ozeconference.

Wireless security -A Review of Actual IEEE 802.11 Deployment Practices

14 May (today), 3pm-4pm (NZ time)

David Ross from the Information Security Institute and Faculty of Information Technology, Queensland University of Technology will discuss the difference between theory and practice — between WEP, WPA, WPA2, IEEE802.11i, RSN and TSN — and their application in private, commercial and government environments.

The intended audience for this talk are wireless and wired network engineers, network security staff, network managers, IT Directors.

For full details see: http://www.aarnet.edu.au/Article/EventDetail.aspx?p=65&id=68

Video Room Design Essentials

19 May, 6pm-7pm (NZ time)

Ulrich Schwenn from the Computing Center Garching of the German Max-Planck-Society, will discuss the evaluation of customer needs, consulting, planning and supervising of installation of high quality multimedia & videoconferencing solutions from small meeting rooms to university lecture halls, with emphasis on specific demands of multi-site organizations.

The intended audience for this talk are Audio Video and IT staff responsible for delivery video conferencing services on campus.

For full details see: http://www.aarnet.edu.au/Article/EventDetail.aspx?p=65&id=69

How to participate

You can participate in either ozeconference via video conference, teleconference or by watching the live stream.

The Ozeconferences are run by AARNet, the Australian Advanced Resreach and Education Network.

Consultation extended: Draft Digital Strategy 2.0

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:10:00 +1200

The consultation period on the Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 has been extended to 5.00pm Friday 23 May, 2008.

The Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 is available on the Digital Strategy website.

Consultation runs now until 23 May 2008, and will include opportunities for feedback to be given via new tools, such as a wiki and online dialogue boxes.

Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 (pdf, 1.4MB)

APAN26: Register now for cheaper rates

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:55:00 +1200

Cheaper standard registration rates for APAN26 end on 15 May, so make your booking now to enjoy our diverse programme.

APAN26 keynote speakers lining up

Confirmed keynote presenters include:

Ian Foster, Argonne National Laboratory - Services for Science
Merryn Dunmill, University of Canterbury - Up with the Beat: e-Music Masterclass

New Zealand presenters showcasing New Zealand research and education at APAN26

The session/workshop programme is also hotting up, featuring demonstrations of eResearch and eEducation from a wide range of disciplines and from presenters from across the Asia Pacific region.

New Zealand presenters confirmed to date include:

David Thorns, University of Canterbury - Developing eResearch: Challenges and possibilities for the Social Sciences
John McEwan, AgResearch - Sequencing and assembling the sheep genome

We have many more New Zealand presentations in the pipeline and will update you on these soon.

For more information

Check out the draft programme outline

Contact Julie Watson or Stuart Broughton to get on the APAN26 programme

Techblog 3: Access collaboration is encouraged!

Fri, 02 May 2008 14:52:00 +1200

The question

A question has recently arisen about REANNZ’s attitude to collaboration over getting the physical connection to KAREN. The answer is quite straightforward from our perspective.

The answer

REANNZ would encourage any and all parties; especially those collocated in the same building, to consider sharing the physical assets used to gain connection to KAREN. Organisations could consider sharing routers and the physical fibre connection to the nearest KAREN connection point. Multiple organisations sharing the same physical connection would simply establish a separate VLAN each to the network to maintain their own independence, and accept the joint liabilities/responsibilities for maintenance of the shared components.

In some cases, an organisation may wish to offer a KAREN aggregation service to its (admissible) friends and neighbours such as schools, libraries, other researchers etc. This way, all the connecting parties are able to enjoy better connection economics, although they do all still need to separately join the KAREN community if they are not already members, and pay their own KAREN member fees.

It is possible that some tail circuit providers may have rules or restrictions that prevent this from happening. In those situations, organisations have, of course, to abide by their supply agreements, but we would encourage early reviews of these agreements to remove or reduce these types of restrictions, and/or that more favourable consideration is given in tendering situations to providers who do permit sharing, unless the economics clearly don’t make sense.

For more information

Contact Mark Cordy, Operations Manager

04 913 1092, mark.cordy@reannz.co.nz

$1.6m awarded for KAREN-enabled research and education

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:20:00 +1200

KAREN project fund recipients announced

5 projects will receive total funding of $785,000 from the Capability Build Project Fund. The successful projects take full advantage of KAREN's capabilities, and will accelerate collaboration, skill development, and the use of KAREN.

The successful applicants are:

An AgResearch project that will allow researchers from New Zealand and around the world to use their specialised electron microscopes remotely
A project led by Crop and Food that will allow the real-time remote identification of invasive pests and diseases for biosecurity
A University of Canterbury led project that will establish 3 working PlanetLab nodes in New Zealand, allowing New Zealand researchers to participate via KAREN in a global research network which is used to develop and study new technologies
A GNS project that will enable researchers and educators around the world to access and interpret New Zealand’s seismographic data with unprecedented speed and volume
A project that will use KAREN as part of a Scion educational programme, Forests of life

Members champion KAREN

We're pleased to announce that all applications to the Institutional Capability Build Fund have been accepted, making $50,000 available to each core KAREN Member to accelerate institutional capability to exploit KAREN’s full value.

We look forward to engaging with you and your KAREN Champion as you implement your plans to accelerate awareness of KAREN and capability development.

Funding for travel and events up for grabs

The Travel and Event Fund is open for applications to support your attendance at national and international events, the visiting of international experts and costs for Member-held events to raise capability in advanced networking, eResearch and eEducation.

CBF Travel and Event Fund: criteria

The Capability Build Fund is provided by the New Zealand Government through the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology.

perfSONAR: Network measurement/monitoring workshop at APAN26

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:47:00 +1200

Network engineer or specialist in network measurement and monitoring? You can not miss the perfSONAR workshop at APAN26 Sustainable Networking, 4-8 August.

What is perfSONAR?

perfSONAR is an infrastructure for network performance monitoring, making it easier to solve end-to-end performance problems on paths crossing several networks. It contains a set of services that act as an intermediate layer, between the performance measurement tools and the diagnostic or visualisation applications.

perfSONAR workshop at APAN26

This workshop will introduce perfSONAR as a platform for network measurement and monitoring for National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and member organisations, and provide detailed information to encourage implementation.

This workshop is being jointly organised by Internet2, GEANT2 and TransPAC2 in cooperation with APAN.

Visit the perfSONAR website

KAREN wiki: make your contribution

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:19:00 +1200

Share knowledge and make suggestions on KAREN and eResearch related services, applications projects and strategies at the new KAREN wiki.

Contribute to existing topics or create a new one. The first seeded community - identity and access management (IAM) - includes an overview of the state of IAM in New Zealand and profiles international IAM activities and resources. Create an account to have your say on IAM in New Zealand.

If you would like a username and password for this wiki, please e-mail karenwiki@reannz.co.nz with your name and the name of the organisation you work for.

KAREN wiki: http://www.wiki.karen.net.nz/index.php/Main_Page

Hyphen newsletter issue 6 out now

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:15:00 +1200

Issue 6 of our newsletter hyphen is out now bringing you news, reviews and information on KAREN and the successes of our members.

Some of the highlights include:

APAN26 NZ's digital event for 2008 - Queenstown, 4-8 August
Identity and access management group formed
KAREN weathermap upgrade
Review of visit from Amazon web services guru

See this and previous issues of hyphen on our website.

Registrations now open: High Performance Research Symposium

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:44:00 +1200

Further speakers confirmed for the High Performance Research Symposium (HPRS)

Three speakers have been confirmed to speak alongside Ian Foster at HPRS:

Dr Bill Appelbe, the Chief Executive Officer of Victorian Partnership For Advanced Computing (VPAC) and formerly the Head of the Computer Science Department at RMIT.
Dr Marienne Hibbert, the Project Director of BioGrid Australia
Dr Richard Blaikie, Deputy Director of The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, and Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Canterbury.

Why and how to attend the Symposium

The Symposium will:

demonstrate the benefits of e-Research projects currently underway in New Zealand, and introduce overseas best practise examples
act as an informal catalyst for collaboration and further development of e-Research networks

HPRS is being hosted by the University of Canterbury's BlueFern™ super computer facility.

When and where

Monday 4 August 2008
Millennium Hotel, Queenstown, New Zealand

Visit the Symposium's website

Draft Digital Strategy 2.0: public consultation from 14 April

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:00:00 +1200

Today Communications and Information Technology Minister David Cunliffe announced the release the Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 for public consultation.

Digital Strategy 1.0 was released during 2005. It was designed as an action plan to maximise ICT opportunities and create a vision of a digital future for New Zealand.

The refreshed Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 builds on input from a series of workshops held in late 2007, the Digital Future Summit 2.0 held last year, as well as the significant progress on Digital Strategy 1.0. The Digital Strategy Report on Progress 2007 sets out those achievements.

New Zealand’s research community is essential to innovation. It is responsible for the creation of new technologies and has a key role in supporting new education topics and methodologies. Hence your participation and feedback is important to shape New Zealand's digital future and the development of an updated Digital Strategy.

The Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 is available on the Digital Strategy website. Consultation on the Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 will be for ~~four~~ six weeks, from 14 April to 12 23 May 2008, and will include opportunities for feedback to be given via new tools, such as a wiki and online dialogue boxes.

Draft Digital Strategy 2.0 ( pdf, 1.4MB)

Updated 8 May 2008

Parallel and Distributed Computing: call for workshops

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:20:00 +1200

The PDCAT08 Organising Committee invites workshop/tutorial proposals for PDCAT08 to be held in Dunedin, New Zealand, in December 2008.

Workshop/tutorial proposals are invited on specific aspects of parallel and distributed computing, particularly relating (but not limited) to:

Multi-Core systems
Parallel programming models
Wireless networking
Grid computing
Ubiquitous computing
Agent technologies
Virtualisation
Cloud computing
Bioinformatics
P2P systems
Security and privacy

See http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/pdcat08/

Digital humanities report

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:33:00 +1200

The Arts and Humanities e-Science Support Centre (AHeSSC) at King’s College London has published a report entitled Text and Grid: Research Questions for the Humanities, Sciences and Industry.

The 2007 All Hands Meeting featured a workshop that explored engagement between the existing body of expertise and experience in the text-driven digital humanities and the advanced network and grid technologies ushered in by the e-science programme.

This report summarises the main points that emerged from that workshop, and contains some gems for New Zealand digital humanities practitioners.

Thanks to Sam Searle (VUW) for the pointer to this report.

See the full report

NZ granted access to research 2.0 beta service

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:28:00 +1300

ResearchChannel has invited New Zealand researchers to take part in the public beta test of Research1.

Research1 is a web-based collaboration platform that allows researchers to quickly and easily collaborate with peers and share information with the general public.

Use of Research1 is free – all they ask for in return is your valuable feedback.

Key benefits

Public access to the fruits of government-funded research, even while it is in progress
Direct interaction with and between experts at the leading edge of their respective disciplines
Participation in a community that encourages and supports a level of discourse not commonly available to those outside of academia

How it works

Individual researchers or teams can establish a Research1 "Project Hub" for each research project.

This public-facing webspace may contain up to 10 GB of text, photographs, audio and video that may be shared with the general public or act as a private collaboration space.

A simple set of Web-based tools are provided to create each Project Hub, upload and publish content, launch a blog to discuss ongoing work and facilitate interaction through project- or discipline-specific e-mail forums.

How to take part

To participate in the Research1 beta test, visit http://betasignup.research1.org.

Your feedback about the platform and suggestions for features you would like to see in future releases will be extremely helpful.

Further information

If you have questions about the project, please contact Jim DeRoest (deroest@washington.edu) or Gary Bissiri (gbissiri@washington.edu ).

Jim DeRoest
Director, Technology Initiatives
ResearchChannel (http://www.researchchannel.org/)
University of Washington

Presentation by the architects of Research1 (October 2007)

Call for papers: eResearch Australasia 2008

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:57:00 +1300

Members of the international research and higher education community are invited to participate in eResearch Australasia 2008, to be held 28 Sep - 3 Oct 2008 at the Sebel and Citigate Hotels, Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia.

Submissions are invited for presentations, workshops, and BoFs. These must be received by 23 May 2008. Submissions for posters and live demonstrations are also invited and must be received by 15 August.

Please see http://www.eresearch.edu.au/participation for further information.

The conference aims to provide:

A catalyst for innovation and collaboration, by bringing together the architects, builders, users, and managers of eResearch infrastructures and services
A forum to support the development, enhancement, and harmonisation of national, regional, and discipline-specific eResearch infrastructures and services
A showcase for innovative science and research enabled through these technologies and services

This conference comes highly recommended from New Zealand participants of the 2007 conference.

Travel funds available to get to supercomputing workshops

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:30:00 +1300

Registration for the SC08 Education Program Summer workshops is now open and KAREN members can apply to the KAREN travel fund to help get you there.

The SC Education program provides week-long workshops in High Performance Computing (HPC) education and HPC curriculum development for faculty, administrators, and students. These week-long workshops focus on curriculum change and professional development derived from today's high performance computing environments.

Faculty areas being covered include:

chemistry
biology
physics
humanities, arts and social sciences

We encourage you to apply to the REANNZ travel fund if you're keen to attend a workshop as an opportunity for capability building and to learn about how to incorporate HPC approaches into your curricula.

Further information

http://sc-education.org
http://www.karen.net.nz/criteria/#travel

Internet changing science

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:58:00 +1300

Is the internet changing science? Yes, according to Ben Shneiderman, a University of Maryland computer science professor. It's time for science to incorporate social networking and collaboration too.

Wired Science opens the discussion on Shneiderman's article and Science 2.0.

Read the Wired blog post and make your comment at http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/the-internet-is.html

Free attendance at APAN26 and cash prizes up for grabs

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:35:00 +1300

A message to all tertiary students: Get creative with the KAREN Student Innovation Competition to win cash and a free spot at the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference.

APAN26 is your chance to get up close with leaders in advanced networking from across the Asia Pacific region - share ideas, make connections, and learn about the biggest and best in advanced network applications and services.

Enter the competition by sending us an e-poster showcasing a project or activity that uses the unique capabilities of KAREN and you could attend the conference for free and win a cash prize.

Get the low-down at http://www.karen.net.nz/apan26-innovation-comp/

This competition is sponsored by InternetNZ, with support from Endace.

APAN26: Fellowship program opens

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:30:00 +1300

Students (graduates and undergraduates) and young researchers are invited to apply to the APAN Fellowship Program for sponsorship to attend the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference in Queenstown, 4-8 August 2008.

The aim of the APAN Fellowship Program is to promote global collaboration by providing grants to encourage broad participation in APAN meetings.

Fellowship covers:

Registration fee - access to all sessions/workshops/tutorials
Accommodation - 4 nights
Food - 4 days
Local transportation - to/from Queenstown airport and accommodation

Applications are due by 15 May 2008.

Further information

Visit the APAN website at http://www.apan.net/meetings/newzealand2008/fellowship.html for detailed information on how to make your application.

Announcing the High Performance Research Symposium

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:40:00 +1300

REANNZ and BlueFern^TM at the University of Canterbury has joined forces to bring you two fantastic events in August 2008 - APAN26 Sustainable Networking and the High Performance Research Symposium.

The University of Canterbury's High Performance Research Symposium - 4 August 2008, Queenstown - will set the scene for APAN26, showcasing best practice e-Research projects, programmes and tools.

Speakers include Professor Ian Foster (Director, Computation Institute, Argonne National Laboratory & University of Chicago).

Ian Foster is an expatriate New Zealander and University of Canterbury graduate of who pioneered the concept of grid computing and cyber-infrastructure.

Visit http://www.bluefern.canterbury.ac.nz/hprs

APAN26 - New Zealand’s premier digital event for 2008 - showcases first-hand how ICT developments and advanced networks like KAREN are accelerating research and collaboration in the Asia Pacific region and are contributing towards environmental, regional and operational sustainability. The conference is being held 4 - 8 August 2008 in Queenstown, New Zealand.

Registrations are now open for APAN26 at http://www.karen.net.nz/apan26-registration/

APAN Network Research group: call for papers

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:15:00 +1300

Calling all network graduate students and researchers: get involved in the APAN26 Sustainable Networking conference in Queenstown by submitting a paper to the Network Research Working Group.

The APAN Network Research Working Group is holding a one-day workshop on 4 August as part of APAN26.

Graduate students and researchers from New Zealand and the Asia Pacific are invited to submit a paper on their research activities in the following areas:

Network Technology: wireless/optical networks, future network technology, network security, traffic measurement, performance analysis
Network Application: distributed application, ubiquitous computing, grid computing
Sustainable Networking Technology: energy-aware network management and control, power-saving in sensor networks, delay-tolerant networks

Full papers are due 30 April 2008.

For full details on paper submission see the call for paper page on the APAN website

ICCMSN: Paper submission extension

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:00:00 +1300

The deadline for the submission of papers for the International Conference on Computer Mediated Social Networking has been extended to Sunday 9 March.

This conference aims to explore issues in the context of social networking such as formation of online communities and how collaboration and cooperation can be achieved.

Applications that can benefit from models of social network structure include, social norm spreading, disease propagation, opinion dynamics, and collective knowledge construction. The network topologies play an important role in these applications. This conference will address the links between these topics. Additional topics of interest include:

Facilitating effective structure in a Social Network environment
Agent-based simulation for studying the dynamic behaviour in on-line societies
Issues and solutions in modelling virtual collaborative environments
Integration of various communication tools such as Wikis, Blogs, Discussion Boards etc.

For further information view the conference website at http://www.business.otago.ac.nz/infosci/conferences/isn2008/

APAN 26: Registrations now open

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:55:00 +1300

Book your place now at APAN 26 - Registrations are now open for the APAN 26 Sustainable Networking conference, 4-8 August 2008, Queenstown, New Zealand.

Experience first-hand how ICT developments and advanced networks are changing the look and feel of research and collaboration in the Asia Pacific region and are contributing towards environmental, regional and operational sustainability; participate in demonstrations of applications and services that are only possible over advanced networks like KAREN.

The 5-day programme will feature seminars, workshops and presentations from experts who are developing advanced network applications and middleware for medical, e-Science, and e-Culture, natural resource research. The programme will also include technology sessions in IPV6, network engineering and security.

Plans are also underway to bring you an international experts and commentary on the role of research and education networks in mitigating the impact of global warming.

Visit http://www.karen.net.nz/apan26-registration/ to register.

APAN 26 is being hosted for the first time in New Zealand by Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd (REANNZ). For information on APAN visit http://www.apan.net/

4-8 August 2008
Millennium Hotel, Queenstown, New Zealand
http://www.karen.net.nz/apan26/

Call for papers: Computer Mediated Social Networking conference

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:10:00 +1300

Final call for papers for International Conference on Computer Mediated Social Networking (ICCMSN - 2008)

Dunedin, New Zealand
11-13 June 2008
http://www.business.otago.ac.nz/infosci/conferences/isn2008/

Submission date: 27 February 2008

Although the use of HTML and early Web browsers expanded the Internet experience from mostly one-to-one interactions to that of one-to-many, this development still did not afford the sophisticated kinds of social interactions undertaken by people in the real world.

Recently, however, new technologies (such as Weblogs, Web services, RSS/Atom, tagging with folksonomies, and Wikis – sometimes collectively called “Web 2.0") have appeared that offer more socially-oriented network interactions. This has led to the new system development mode of employing lightweight scripting languages to bundle various Web 2.0 elements, or plugins, and then deploying them on network servers, thereby establishing Social Network Systems (SNS).

The physical nature of the new network architectures is increasingly heterogeneous, comprising more lightweight portable devices (cell phones and PDAs) interacting with ever-more powerful network servers that host SNS. From these developments have merged such popular services such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, Flickr, and YouTube. But analysts and observers predict that SNS have much greater potential than merely exchanging media files: these are expected to afford opportunities to meet and engage in extended, creative, and more meaningful (in fact, unforeseeable) interactions that will greatly enhance their Internet experiences. How can this vision be achieved?

An important new platform technology where all these developments come together is that of the new virtual environments, such as Second Life and There, which enable people to meet and engage in virtual, three-dimensional social interactions. The future of SNS will certainly be played out on these platforms.

Key Issues

In all societies, whether electronic or real, there is a fundamental tension between freedom and rules. If the interaction rules of behaviour are too rigid, people feel constrained and leave the society. On the other hand, if interaction rules are too lax, aimless inhabitants become bored – plus the society can be overrun by vandals and free-riders. To address this concern we need to explore the following questions:

How can we facilitate effective structure in a SNS?
How can we enable collaboration/cooperation in social networking application areas such as education, e-commerce, world-wide research etc?
How can collective knowledge be constructed and shared?
What is the role of network topologies (scale free, small world, random) in the areas such as disease spreading, opinion dynamics, and norm spreading?
How can we model the dynamic growth and shrinkage of online communities?
How can software agents be used in the development and simulation of on-line societies?
How can various Web 2.0 tools be integrated to satisfy the needs of electronic communities in a holistic manner?
How can realistic virtual environments be modelled, designed and developed? What are the issues and solutions?
How can high speed networks such as KAREN (Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network facilitate the real world experience of virtual environments?
How can privacy, security, and trust issues be addressed in on-line communities?

Important dates

Submission: 27 February 2008
Acceptance notification: 25 March 2008
Camera-ready submission: 5 April 2008
Conference: 11-13 June 2008

The conference organisers invite your participation by submitting research papers in the relevant areas of your interest. Inter-disciplinary research papers are also encouraged.

This event is supported by REANNZ Ltd.

Webcast: Building successful virtual teams

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:42:00 +1300

Webcasts of all key presentations at the recent 'Building effective virtual organizations' workshop are now available online.

The event brought together internationally renowned experts with first-hand experience in managing and participating in virtual teams - teams separated by institution, discipline and countries brought together to solve new and complex problems.

Check out the presentations for valuable advice on building successful virtual teams for research and collaboration at http://www.ci.uchicago.edu/events/VirtOrg2008/index.php?pg=agenda

KAREN features at Google

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:40:00 +1300

On a recent trip to the US Donald Clark was invited by Vint Serf, Chief Internet evangelist at Google, to present at a Google tech talk session on the opportunities and challenges faced by KAREN and the research and education community in New Zealand.

Donald's talk drew on work by the local eResearch and education community, referenced international presentations at the first KAREN event in NZ and the issues raised by the Capability Build Fund Roadmap.

View this presentation here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ6KUNMNdIw

Reminder: 14 March deadline for fund applications

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:01:00 +1300

The application deadline for making applications to the $50,000 building institutional capability component of the Capability Build Fund is fast approaching.

KAREN foundation member institutions (universities and CRIs) are invited to submit an investment plan to the Fund by 14 March 2008.

See http://www.karen.net.nz/criteria/ for application forms and fund criteria.

Contact Bill Choquette at bill.choquette (at) reannz.co.nz or 04 913 1099 for further information.

Call for papers: Managing identity conference

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:00:00 +1300

Victoria University of Wellington is hosting the International Conference 'Managing Identity in New Zealand: User-Centric Identity in the 21st Century', Wellington, 29-30 April 2008.

The conference will focus on the development and future directions of identity management (IdM) in New Zealand, and its wider implications for users, with particular reference to the introduction and use of new digitised forms of IdM. A major issue for future IdM will be establishing user-centric IdM: individuals’ ability to control the (digital) representation of their identity and its potential uses.

Call for papers

Interested participants are invited to submit abstracts for management, case study or policy papers, research papers, or student research papers. Contributions do not need to exclusively focus on New Zealand. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

User-centric IdM (characteristics, conditions, applications)
Management and implementation of IdM
National IdM policy strategies
Identity vs digital identity
Accessibility; transparency
E-Authentication
New identification technologies
Standardisation
Open-Source
and many more

Further information

Visit the conference webpage at http://www.identityconference.victoria.ac.nz/

Correction: Amazon web services evangelist in NZ

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:42:00 +1300

Mike Culver's visit to REANNZ is taking place at 1pm Tuesday 19 February.

See http://www.karen.net.nz/web-services/ to read the full (updated) news item.

Many thanks to our eagle-eyed members for spotting the error :)

Amazon web services evangelist in NZ

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:31:00 +1300

Mike Culver an Evangelist for Amazon Web Services is visiting REANNZ as part of his February trip to Australia and New Zealand.

Like IBM, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, Amazon is investing in infrastructure and software for next generation web services - cloud-based computing services such as data storage, processing and analysis.

Come along to hear about Amazon's Web Services and discuss the potential of web services for scientists and researchers in New Zealand.

For those of you in other parts of the country, Mike is also meeting groups in Christchurch, Hamilton and Auckland. Check out the trip details below for his itinerary.

Further information

Trip details: http://evangelists.wetpaint.com/page/Mike+Culver+NZ+Australia+Feb+2008

Amazon web services: http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=3435361

Details

When: 1pm, Tuesday 19 February 2008

Where: REANNZ offices, Level 4, Railway West Wing, Featherston Street, Wellington

RSVP: Contact Vicki Lindsay (vicki.lindsay@reannz.co.nz, 04 913 1098) if you are keen to participate

Webcast: Virtual organisation workshop

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:51:00 +1300

Virtual organisations, entities linked by electronic communication tools to support collaborative relationships in distributed work environments, are increasingly central to collaborative projects across all disciplines.

BEVO will help researchers and educators learn how to establish virtual teams and make them successful, and will introduce current technologies that can help them function effectively.

The plenary sessions of the workshop will be Webcast. Sessions begin at 8:00am on 15 January. Note: New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of Washington, which makes for a 2:00am start on the 16th NZ time. For those of you in bed at this time recorded plenary sessions will be accessible 24 hours after the workshop.

Visit http://www.ci.uchicago.edu/events/VirtOrg2008/index.php?pg=main to view the agenda and for details on how to participate.

Bioinformatics software first for BeSTGRID

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:20:00 +1300

Biomatters Limited and New Zealand’s Bioinformatics Institute announce the first release of new Geneious software for grid computing on BeSTGRID, the Broadband enabled Science and Technology Grid running on KAREN, the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network that provides high-speed, high-capacity internet to New Zealand academics, researchers and educators.

The new software allows researchers in New Zealand to use bioinformatics applications on BeSTGRID, taking advantage of high-speed internet access and grid-computing.

The Bioinformatics Institute and Biomatters are working together to make available a complete suite of grid-computing bioinformatics applications for BeSTGRID users, with funding support from REANNZ (Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand). Additional software releases will take place through 2008. All applications developed under the project will be open source and freely available to researchers in New Zealand. All of the applications will work with Biomatters’ free basic version of Geneious desktop software, as well as Biomatters’ expanded product Geneious Pro.

Biomatters’ Geneious Grid Plugin allows users to seamlessly connect their desktop to BeSTGRID and run the applications from Geneious. Computing jobs act as though they were submitted locally, but the speed of research is greatly accelerated as a result of the offloading of complex calculations to the Grid. Under the project, Biomatters is making the BeSTGRID version of the Geneious Grid Plugin freely available to researchers in New Zealand.

The first grid application available in this release is a version of MrBayes specifically tailored to run on BeSTGRID. This first release also includes a function that allows users to run any other bioinformatics program currently available on the Grid, including ClustalW, BayesPhylogenies, and ModelTest.

Research in the biosciences is undergoing a transformation as a result of huge amounts of information generated in genome projects and other high throughput systems, and increasingly depends upon bioinformatics for the effective organization and analysis of such data and management of experiments. Many of the bioinformatics tools available require significant computing power and computing time, and are prime candidates for grid computing.

Geneious is an integrated, cross-platform bioinformatics software suite developed in New Zealand by Biomatters for manipulating, finding, sharing, and exploring biological data such as DNA sequences or proteins, phylogenies, 3D structure information and publications. It features sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis, contig assembly, primer design and restriction analysis, access to the NCBI and UniProt databases, BLAST, protein structure viewing, automated PubMed searching, and more.

KAREN and BeSTGRID provide collaborative access to biological data resources and to distributed computing power. The adaptation of Geneious for BeSTGRID gives desktop access to public databases, to standardized workflows or pipelines for data analyses, and to the shared computational capacity of New Zealand’s research network. The combination of Geneious with BeSTGRID overcomes the major limitations of current bioinformatics grid portals by coupling desktop data organization with grid-enhanced data analysis.

BeSTGRID users can go to http://www.geneious.com/default,766,geneious_karen_network_plugin.sm to download a free copy of the Geneious Grid Plugin and MrBayes for BeSTGRID. The Plugins run with Geneious Basic (which is free) or Geneious Pro, which can be downloaded and installed simply by going to the download page at http://www.geneious.com.

Queries about future versions of the client, and requests for additional features, should be directed to Professor Allen Rodrigo (a.rodrigo@auckland.ac.nz), Director of the Bioinformatics Institute and Principal Investigator on the project. Software support is available by contacting support@geneious.com.

KAREN Fund oversubscribed by 700%

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:30:00 +1300

KAREN Members have been quick to take advantage of the REANNZ Capability Build Fund (CBF), with round two of the project fund now under consideration by judges on the Advisory Panel. An unenviable task judging a fund that is oversubscribed by 700%; but a strong indication that the KAREN community is recognising the need for capability growth to participate in the new potential offered through eResearch and education collaborations over KAREN.

The CBF is open to KAREN members to assist with building skills and applications to enhance eResearch. Round two of the project fund will be announced at the end of March 2008. The CBF Travel Fund is currently open and application forms are on the Royal Society website. A special solicited fund to accelerate institutional capability - to free up time for researchers and educators to take advantage of new tools and applications - is open until 14 March 2008. Find out more about this fund on the KAREN website.

New connections round off successful first year for KAREN

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:42:00 +1300

Saturday 15 December marked the first-year anniversary of KAREN.

One year on and KAREN is continuing to break new ground for education, research and innovation in New Zealand.

We have 20 members connecting at over 40 locations; we have allocated $2.7 million of the Capability Build Fund to development projects and travel grants; traffic on KAREN is regularly topping 9 Terabytes a day; and - most importantly - we are starting to see data-centric research and education activity transformed through KAREN.

Our aggregators, service and content partners, and research and education partners are also further broadening the reach and richness of KAREN.

In the education space we are on track to have our first school connected to KAREN before the end of the year. We have also just announced our KAREN experience programme offering free memberships to ITPs and wānanga for 2008 in exchange for trial projects enabled by KAREN. These developments are exciting news for new and current members alike and will enrich the teaching and learning experience for both.

We look forward to working with the expanding community in 2008 to further crystallise KAREN’s place as essential infrastructure for an innovative New Zealand.

KAREN experience for ITPs and wānanga

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:00:00 +1300

Media release

ITPs and wānanga offered free KAREN membership for 2008

REANNZ Ltd is accelerating the reach of KAREN by offering free network membership to institutes of technology and polytechnics (ITPs) and wānanga for the 2008 calendar year.

The KAREN Experience Programme will expose ITPs and wānanga to the transformational benefits of KAREN, allowing them to develop new approaches to teaching and learning through supporting access to online collaborative tools, rich media content and data repositories. ITPs and wānanga can also take advantage of KAREN to streamline their IT operations through managed internet access, data storage, voice over IP, and access to shared services.

“This programme will allow the ITP and wānanga sectors to realise the important role KAREN has in helping them achieve their plans in a rapidly evolving tertiary education system,” says Donald Clark, Chief Executive, REANNZ.

In exchange for free membership, ITPs and wānanga will be asked to make an ‘in-kind’ investment of equal value through committing to a series of projects during the year that would not have been possible without KAREN. This will help ensure that ITPs and wānanga realise the greatest benefit from their connection.

Full media release and frequently asked questions (pdf, 102KB)

Institutional capability build fund now open

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:50:00 +1300

The Institutional Capability Build Fund is now open for applications. The purpose of this negotiated round of the Capability Build Fund is to accelerate our members’ institutional capability to exploit KAREN’s full value. $50,000 per member institution is available to support staff time investment in KAREN capability development and awareness raising activities.

Members are invited to submit an investment plan detailing activities that will best accelerate KAREN capability build and use in their institution.

See the CBF criteria on our website for further information.

Australian Access Federation Workshop

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:20:00 +1300

If you are quick off the mark you might be able to attend the next AAF Workshop at Macquarie University in Sydney, 17 - 18 December.

RSVP by 13 Dec to Bruc Liong at bliong@melcoe.mq.edu.au

Visit the website for more information: http://federation.org.au/AAFWorkshop

MAMS and AAF are hosting a free 2-day Federation Workshop at Macquarie University in Sydney. The workshop is aimed at providing background and necessary skills for minigrant recipients (and others) to contribute their projects to the AAF. It covers technical information and guidance for participants to join the Shibboleth-based MAMS Testbed Federation.

There are some limited spaces available for non-minigrant recipients to attend the workshop, hence if you know any colleagues who would like to attend, forward them this message and ask them to register (first come, first go).

Objectives of this hands-on workshop:

participants will be able to Shibbolize service providers by themselves
participants will be able to setup and manage their Identity Provider
discussions on issues pertinent to AAF from perspective of Identity Provider and Service Provider

The intended audience is technical architects and developers at higher education and research institutions, in particular the members of institutions who received recent AAF minigrants.

The first day will focus on the Shibboleth component of AAF with the second day on discussions on different approaches and problem solving.

Contact details

Bruc Lee Liong
MAMS Project Manager (MELCOE)
http://mams.melcoe.mq.edu.au
Ph:0408 008 733 Fax:+61 2 9850 4148

Learn grid computing online

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:40:00 +1300

Aspiring grid researchers are invited to participate in an international grid school, hosted by The International Collaboration to Extend and Advance Grid Education.

The International Winter School on Grid Computing '08 will bring together world experts and enthusiastic students. It will be delivered fully online: participants will be able to attend the School without travelling.

Experts will provide exciting practical exercises, discuss the challenges of building and sustaining e-Infrastructure, report its rapid influence on the way we research, design and make decisions. They will share their vision of the developments and challenges ahead.

Applications are invited from enthusiastic and ambitious young researchers who have recently started (or are about to start) working on Grid projects. Students may be planning to pioneer or enable new forms of e- Infrastructure, engage in fundamental distributed systems research or to develop new methods in any discipline that depends on the emerging capabilities of e-Infrastructure.

Applications close on 14 December, so be in quick!

More information: http://www.iceage-eu.org/iwsgc08/

Geoscience collaboration and GEON workshop

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:27:00 +1300

26-28 November, University of Auckland

Research coordination and collaboration for geoscience in New Zealand is leaping forward with the recent initiation of the SCENZ-GRID project to establish a grid infrastructure for geoscientists in New Zealand and the larger scale NCRIS funded AuScope project in Australia.

This three-day workshop will explore these and other geoscience collaborations, and give participants a detailed look at the workings of cyberinfrastructure and grid computing, based around the Geosciences Network (GEON).

The first day is a discussion session with scientists and cyberinfrastructure developers from the USA, New Zealand and Australia, targeted at opening up knowledge of opportunities and improving collaboration within a broad range of e-science initiatives.

Day two and three are GEON-related workshop sessions. The workshop will get into the nitty gritty of e-science and cyberinfrastructure, and will appeal to domain scientists, computer and information scientists with an interest in cyberinfrastructure and grid computing.

To register visit http://www.bestgrid.org/index.php/WorkShop:Geoscience_collaboration_and_GEON_Auckland