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Global-Scale Projects and Research Networks
The National Science Foundation plays a lead role in more
than two dozen international-scale projects and is a major
participant in many others. The Foundation provides substantial
financial support for these projects and the Foundation's
senior management and staff play major roles in shaping, managing,
and coordinating the programs in both national and international
contexts. The following gives an overview of the major international
initiatives undertaken or supported by the NSF.
One of the largest and most extensive internationally
coordinated research programs ever undertaken,the US
Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), involves major
resource commitments from ten
US government agencies, about 1.7 billion. Created as
a Presidential Initiative in 1989 and formalized in 1990 by
the Global Change
Research Act of 1990, since that time global change research
has remained a key science initiative. Continuing to improve
scientific understanding of the Earth system is a priority
of the National
Science and Technology Council's Committee on Environment
and Natural Resources.
USGCRP scientists coordinate many of their programs with
those of their counterparts in other countries to aggregate
the scientific and financial resources needed for the study
of global processes on a cohesive and comprehensive basis.
This coordination is achieved through a series of global and
regional programs. Some of the most important of these international
connections are identified in Our
Changing Planet (FY2002), the latest in a series
of yearly reports on the USGCRP that accompany the President's
Annual Budget. Also, the
US Global Change Research Information Office (GCRIO) provides
access to data and information on global environmental change
research and global change related educational resources on
behalf of the USGCRP
The Foundation's Global
Change Research Program supports research to advance fundamental
understanding of dynamic physical, biological, and socioeconomic
systems and the interactions among them. The programs encourage
interdisciplinary activities with particular focus on Earth
system processes and the consequences of change.
NSF's Office of Polar Programs (OPP) supports the
the Polar UV Radiation Monitoring Network, a high-latitude
network of scanning spectroradiometers operated since 1988
at three sites in Antarctica (McMurdo
Station, Palmer
Station, and South
Pole Station), two sites in the US (
Barrow, Alaska and
San Diego, California),and one site in Ushuaia,
Argentina. Data from these sites has proved invaluable
in research on the effects of increased UV radiation due to
ozone depletion.
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LEFT: The Ushusia instrument is installed in the roof of
the main CADIC building and is surrounded by mountains ranging
in elevation from 2.5° (at bearings of 120° - 206°) to 17°
(at bearings of 298° - 302°). Progress on global change research
topics would be impossible without advanced instrumentation.
For example, the NSF
Polar UV Monitoring Network is made up of six SUV-100
scanning spectroradiometers.
The
Ushuaia, Argentina installation, the fourth system added
to the network, is located near the southern port city of
Ushuaia, Argentina, at the Centro Austral de Investigaciones
Cientificas (CADIC) facility. CADIC is a regional research
center of the National
Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). The installation
is located in the foothills of the Andes, an area subject
to frequent clouds.
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In order to achieve understanding of world wide
sea level changes, the NSF's global geodetic program is
supported through the
University NAVSTAR Consortium (UNAVCO), which has an international
membership; a substantial fraction of the currently-supported
projects are outside the U.S., and involve cooperation with
the national geodetic agencies of other countries.
The
primary objective
of Ridge Interdisciplinary
Global Experiments (RIDGE) is to understand the geological,
chemical, biological, and physical oceanographic interactions
between the oceans and hydrothermal circulation of seawater
through the ocean crust.
The RIDGE Program was phased out recently and a new RIDGE
2000 Program took its place. RIDGE 2000 is a community-based
science initiative focused on integrated geological and biological
studies of the Earth-encircling mid-ocean ridge system.
Central to the RIDGE 2000 Science Plan is the recognition
that the origin and evolution of life in deep-sea ecosystems
are inextricable linked to, and perhaps an inevitable consequence
of, the flow of energy and material from Earth's deep mantle,
through the volcanic and hydrothermal systems of the oceanic
crust, to the deep ocean.
The program recognizes that the complex linkages between
life and planetary processes at mid-ocean ridges can only
be understood through tightly integrated studies that span
a broad range of disciplines and three sites have been chosen
as the initial RIDGE 2000 Integrated Study sites
The four major international elements of the international
global change research effort are the World
Climate Research Program (WCRP), the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP), the
International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP) and Diversitas.
How humans interact with the environment, how individuals
and societies can mitigate or adapt to environmental change,
and how policy responses to such changes influence economic
and social conditions are at the center of research on the
human dimensions of global environmental change within the
IHDP. Key IHDP programs underway address Land Use and Land
Cover Change and the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental
Change.
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The focus of Indiana University's
Center for the Study
of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change.
is a long-term study of how institutions and humans
at the household and community level affect deforestation
and replacement. Under the direction of anthropologists
and political scientists, studies will employ satellite
and aerial photo data, data bases, surveys and interviews.
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NSF also plays a key role in hemispheric or regional
global change research efforts, One of the three regional
institutes for global change research – Inter-American
Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) is an intergovernmental
organization with U.S. participation dedicated to global change
research, to augmenting the scientific capacity of the Americas,
and to providing information in a useful and timely manner
to policymakers. The primary objectives of the support that
the NSF provides to the IAI on behalf of the United States
are to encourage comparative research and focused global change
research important to the region as a whole and beyond the
scope of individual national programs.
The other two regional networks, the European Network for
Research in Global Change (ENRICH) and the Asia-Pacific
Network for Global Change Research (APN), were also created
to facilitate the integration of global change research programs
on a regional basis. The Global
Change System for Analysis, Research, and Training (START)
program involves developing countries more fully in global
change research. See also GEO
International Activities.
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GCRP major international studies and experiments involving
NSF support currently include:
See also:
US GLOBEC
The Georges Bank Study
The North Pacific site
The Southern Ocean site
International
GLOBE
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In one ARCSS
project, the Greenland
Ice Sheet Project II (GISP2), an ice core was recovered
from the Summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet where ice thickness
is greater than 3000m.
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In addition to the research focused on global change, NSF
continues to conduct research on
topics closely related to global change. In addition,
many NSF-sponsored research projects consider interactions
linking ecosystems and human activities with other factors
including climate variability and change. Examples include
the Long-term Ecological Research
sites, which provide perspectives on ecological responses
to climate change and other stresses: Antarctic Ecosystems;
and Coastal Long-Term Ecological Research
NSF's Geosciences Directorate (GEO) also supports the interagency
National Space Weather Program (NSWP), upper atmosphere
research to provide timely, accurate and reliable space environment
observations and forecasts. These are enriched by data from
state-of-the-art facilities from Sondestrom,
Greenland to Jicamarca,
Peru, which provide arrays of optical and radio wave remote
sensing instruments for observing and measuring changes in
Earth's upper atmosphere and near-space environment.
In the lower atmosphere/ocean interface, NSF's Geosciences
Directorate (GEO) supports the Global
Tropospheric Chemistry Program(GTCP), a major contributor
to a number of IGBP and WCRP programs, and the WCRP's Climate
Variability and Predictability Program (CLIVAR).
See also US CLIVAR
site and International CLIVAR
sites.
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The NSF/GEO Ocean Drilling
Program (ODP) represents a $45 million per year multinational
project. In this program, about half the funds support
research, and the other half, ship operations. NSF supports
the major share of the program with significant contributions
from eight international members representing over 20
countries. They
are: Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, United Kingdom,
US, Australia/Canada/Chinese Taipei/Korea Consortium for
the Ocean Drilling, European Science Foundation Consortium
for the Ocean Drilling (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland,
Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden,
and Switzerland), France, and the People's Republic of
China. See also ODP
Member Sites. Post-2003, the program will be called
the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, with its own website:
www.iodp.org.
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Facilities and infrastructure for the above programs is provided
through the interagency funded U.S. academic research fleet
of more than two dozen vessels; a number of research aircraft;
sample storage facilities for the ODP;the upper atmosphere
observatories in Greenland (Kangerlussuaq (Sondre
Stomfjord)) and in Peru (Jicamarca
Radio Observatory).
(See photo: Optical backscattering from arctic noctilucent
clouds at 85 km altitude measured with the Rayleigh lidar
at Kangerlussuaq (Sondre Stomfjord), Greenland.)
Facilities supported under
NSF CEDAR(Coupling Energetic and Dynamics of Atmospheric
Regions) include the Bear Lake Observatory in Utah, the Longyearbyen
Optical Station in Norway, and the Early Polar Cap Observatory
in Resolute Bay, Canada. With international collaborations
from the Far East to Europe, the
Center for Clouds, Chemistry, and Climatefacilities are
supported as an NSF Science and Technology Center.
NSF/GEO and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) support the large deployment of facilities for the
field experiment of the
Fronts and Atlantic Storm-Track EXperiment (FASTEX).
The NSF/GEO Global
Seismic Network (GSN) is the U.S. component of an international
set of globally deployed seismographs. The United States participates
with France, Japan, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, and
Italy in a federation of networks that provides shared access
to seismic data. GSN is managed by the Incorporated
Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). GEO is also
involved in the international system for the exchange of scientific
data and information, through geographic information systems
(GIS), and related activities.
NSF/OPP is charged with managing all U.S. activities in
the Antarctic as a single, integrated program. NSF/OPP participates
on the delegations of two Antarctic treaties: the
Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica for peaceful
purposes and encourages international scientific collaborations
and the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine
Living Resources, which regulates commercial fishing and directs
scientific research to preserve the marine ecosystem.
The US
Antarctic Program (USAP) maintains Antarctica as an area
of international
cooperation reserved for peaceful purposes, to pursue
unique opportunities for scientific research to understand
Antarctica and its role in global environmental systems, to
protect the relatively pristine environment and its associated
ecosystems, and to assure the conservation and sustainable
management of the living resources in the surrounding oceans.
OPP international work includes
International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE),
an international effort to collect and interpret a continental
wide array of environmental parameters including transfer
functions between the atmosphere and snow/ice interface.
Scientists from 15 countries are traversing Antarctica, collecting
ice cores and gathering data that will describe climate and
environmental change over the past 200 years.
US ITASE
is, collecting surface and near surface snow and ice samples
and conducting radar studies to determine the internal stratigraphy
and bedrock topography of the terrain along a traverse in
West Antarctica. (See Map: West Antarctica Showing US ITASE
traverse corridors.)
One major large-scale multinational project is Man
and the Biosphere Program (MAB) coordinated under the
auspices of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO). NSF supports U.S. participation in such projects
as the Biological
Research Inventorying and Monitoring (BRIM) program and
the Northern
Sciences Network.
The Arabidopsis
Genome Initiative (AGI)is a major international plant
biology effort that involves more than 2,500 laboratories
and 8,000 scientists worldwide using a new generation of tools
to probe this plant's genome.
The AGI began in 1996, unifying the efforts of international
teams who had been decoding this important genome sequence
since the early 1990s. Representatives from each of the major
Arabidopsis sequencing centers met at the NSF to agree on
a collaborative approach. In the US, an interagency program
began in 1996 with funds from NSF,
the Department of Energy
and the Department of Agriculture
. The
European Union, the
Government of France, and the
Chiba Prefectural Government in Japan similarly support
AGI research.
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In mid-December 2000, the first-ever complete plant genome sequence
was announced as the international team completed the Arabidopsis
thaliana genome sequence. (See NSF press release 00-94.)
Arabidopsis thaliana had emerged as the plant counterpart
of the laboratory mouse, offering clues to how all sorts of
living organisms behave genetically, with potentially widespread
applications for agriculture, medicine and energy.
This achievement, by the AGI international consortium of
scientists became public in the journal
Nature's December 14 issue, describing how researchers
sequenced the entire genome of this weed in the mustard family.
For a list of the individuals worldwide who contributed to
the Nature issue, see
Arabidopsis Genome Initiative Contributors. Also, the
Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) provides a comprehensive
resource for scientific communities working withArabidopsis
thaliana.
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Also, in the biological sciences, the Human
Frontier Science Program (HFSP) is a multinational effort
to enhance international collaboration in basic research focused
on complex mechanisms of living organisms; fields supported
range from brain functions to biological functions at the
molecular level.
The Foundation and other three federal agencies contribute to the program
which involves involve extensive collaboration
among teams of scientists working in different countries,
fellowships available to scientists who wish to work
in a laboratory in another country, with emphasis on individuals
early in their careers, and
workshops.
In 1999, to mark the tenth anniversary of the Human Frontier
Science Program, ceremonies were organized on three continents:
one in Tokyo
, one in
Strasbourg, and a third in
Washington in December 1999.
The 10th Anniversary
brochure captures outstanding achievements of the program
over the decade, including the awarding of five
Nobel Prizes to researchers from four countries (Germany,
Switzerland, UK, and US) after being involved in a Human Frontier
Science Program project. An essential component of the Human
Frontier Science is "
Intercontinentality" Between 1990 and 1998, 372 research
grants were awarded. In most cases, cooperation extended to
three, four or five laboratories, situated in as many countries,
linking up as many as four continents in a common research
effort. Four-fifths of the projects involved two or more continents—and
a third at least three continents.
The NSF/BIO supports the
Protein Data Bank (PDB), the single worldwide repository
for the processing and distribution of 3-D biological macromolecular
structure data. The NIH, DOE and the NSF fund the PDB, managed
by the Research Collaboratory
for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB), a consortium comprised
of: Rutgers, the
State University of New Jersey, the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the
San Diego Supercomputer
Center (SDSC)
The PDB allows for complex queries and facilitates access
to other databases through linkage and integration. In addition
to PDB partner
sites in the US, PDB supports
sites in the UK, Singapore, Japan, and Brazil, and
updates for sites in Argentina,Australia, China France,
India, Israel, Poland, and Taiwan.
NSF/BIO also supports expanding an international group of
Long-term Ecological Research
(LTER) Network sites. Global scientific interest in developing
long-term ecological research (LTER) programs is expanding
very rapidly, reflecting the increased appreciation of their
importance in assessing and resolving complex environmental
issues. As of May 2000,
twenty-one countries had established formal national LTER
programs and joined the ILTER network. Ten more were actively
pursuing the establishment of national networks and many others
had expressed interest in the model. Most member networks
contributed to a 1998 book on the ILTER network. Country
chapters may be consulted on line. There is also a
table summarizing characteristics of the networks.
This group meets annually in one of the member countries.
Reports of
past meetings are available. The 1999
Annual International LTER Meeting was held in Kruger National
Park, South Africa, August 16, 1999 There was extensive discussion
of opportunities for network-wide research collaboration,
including several activities coordinated by international
environmental networks associated with ILTER the
Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS)and GTNET.
(See photos
from the Kruger National Park field trip.)
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Members of
the ILTER Network:
- Canada,US
- Costa Rica,
Brazil,Colombia,
Uruguay,
Venezuela
- UK,
Switzerland
- Czech
Republic,Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine
- Australia,China,
Mongolia, South Korea,
Taiwan
- Israel
- Nambia
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Other NSF/BIO large-scale projects include the interagency
NeuroLab (NASA/NSF/NIH/NIMH/ONR
and international
partners). Neurolab is a collaborative effort of many nations
of the
world, responsive to the congressionally declared
Decade of the Brain. A NASA Neurolab Mission in April
1998 was dedicated to neuroscience-related experiments on
animals and humans.Data from the flight has not yet been analyzed.
NSF/BIO expects such work will advance research on how microgravity
and other features found only in space flight affect nervous
systems, add to public education about neuroscience and space
technology, and provide potential benefits to applied aspects
of neuroscience.
Another large-scale NSF/BIO project is FLYBRAIN,
an online atlas and database of the Drosophila nervous
system involving
Germany and Japan.
Facility support and research grants to the Organization
for Tropical Studies (OTS) a nonprofit consortium of 64
universities and research institutions in the US, Costa Rica,
Perú, Canada, South Africa, México and Australia are also
funded by NSF/BIO, including the Arthropods
of La Selva Project (ALAS), a large-scale inventory of
arthropod diversity in a lowland tropical rainforest, The
project represents a collaboration not only between disciplines,
but also between OTS and Costa Rica's
National Biodiversity Institute (INBio).
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Partially supported by the NSF Office of International Science
and Engineering(INT), students in OTS
Duke University courses visit a series of OTS biological
field stations, including the
Palo Verde Research Station, in northwest Costa Rica,
and the LaSelva
Biological Station, one of the world's leading centers for
research on tropical rainforest ecology. With advice and assistance
from faculty, students design and carry out their own short
research projects.
NSF/BIO funds
International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups(ICBG), an
interagency (NSF/NIH/USDA) activity to support "bioprospecting"
for potential therapeutic agents in the context of biodiversity
conservation and sustainable economic development in developing
countries.
A second cohort of 5-year awards was announced in FY 2000
(NIH
Press Release ). Six groups of diverse private and public
institutions, including universities, pharmaceutical companies
and environmental organizations, will collaborate on projects
in ten countries. Support for this program will total approximately
$3.5 million per year over the next five years, shared among
the NIH, NSF, and USDA.
As one example, the
Bioactive Agents from Dryland Biodiversity of Latin America
project is an extension of ICBG research begun in 1993. The
project involves discovery and development of pharmaceuticals
and crop-protection agents from plants and microbes of arid
and semi-arid ecosystems in Chile, Argentina and Mexico. Results
show promise for developing prescription medicines that may
aid in treatment of infectious diseases, cardiovascular, central
nervous system and gastrointestinal disorders.
Extension of the grant allows expanding into new ecosystems
such as islands off the coast of Chile, parts of southern
Mexico, and the Chaco area of northern Argentina The project
involves
participants in the US, Chile, Argentina and Mexico.
Biocomplexity
in the Environment(BE)is a multi-year NSF
competition designed to promote new approaches to investigating
the interactivty of biota and the environment -- the interrelationships
that arise when living things at all levels- from molecular
structures to genes to ecosystems--interact with their environment.
Researchers work in diverse fields that go beyond biology
to physics, systems engineering, economics, geochemistry and
others, on studies from the submolecular to mass changes in
climate with potential for worldwide impact.
The
FY2000 Competition supported research to advance understanding
of interacting biological, physical and social systems, so
that our ability to predict system behavior is enhanced (NSF
Press Release
00-73). The
FY 2001 Competition promoted comprehensive, integrated
investigations of environmental systems using advanced scientific
and engineering methods. Investigators were encouraged to
adopt a global
perspective .
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...Investigators are encouraged to identify international
research partners, as appropriate. Planning visits for groups
of researchers to consider larger scale collaborative efforts
may be requested, as well as support for collaboration between
individuals. For some developing countries, funds for equipment
as well as support for human resources development in those
countries may be requested....NSF may also be interested in
other means of developing support for collaborative research,
education, and outreach in the topical areas of this competition....For
information on international collaborative programs, see NSF
00-138.
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Initial awards were announced in November 2000 to fund 12
research projects under a new Ecology of Infectious Diseases
initiative. The NSF/BIO and NIH initiative supports efforts
to understand the underlying ecological and biological mechanisms
that govern relationships between human-induced environmental
changes and the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases.
(NSF Press Release
00-86) Awards include:
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Researchers at the
University of Salford (UK), together with investigators
in China, France, Ireland, Japan, and the US, will study
the transmission of human alveolar echinococcosis (a highly
pathogenic disease resulting from infection by a tapeworm)
in farming communities in China.
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University of California
(Berkeley) investigators will collaborate with investigators
from South Africa to study the spread and impact of bovine
tuberculosis in the African buffalo in South Africa’s
Kruger National Park.
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Researchers at Case Western
Reserve University, will lead a collaboration of investigators
from the United States, Israel, and Kenya to research
the impact of human population growth and climate variation
on human infection rates by the blood fluke Schistosoma
haematobium in Kenya.
In order to bring biodiversity information to the Internet,
where it will be freely accessible to anyone, a consortium
of 28 interested countries and intergovernmental organizations
is coordinating plans to form the
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). NSF/BIO
senior management chairs the interim steering committee for
GBIF, consisting of a series of interconnected databases containing
information about the worldís living organisms, from bacteria
to plants to mammals. (NSF Press Release
00-67).
For the NSF Computer & Information Science and Engineering
Directorate (CISE), the number of large-scale multi-institutional
projects with international partners continues to grow.
Historically,from the early days of the NSFNET, international
networking activities have helped to connect the US research
and education community with academic counterparts and resources
around the world.
The International Connections Management (ICM) project (1991-96)
assisted about 25 countries in connecting to the NSFNET. One
highlight of the ICM project was a satellite teleport gateway
for Latin America in Homestead, Florida. Another was a connection
for
Mongolia in 1996. Among ICM's "firsts" was a 45 Mbps trans-Atlantic
link to London in July, 1995 (a record-breaking capacity at
that time). The link continued on at 34 Mbps to Stockholm
to join NSFNET with NORDUnet.
This opened the door to what are now many transoceanic fiber
links at 45 and 155 Mbps.
More recently, international networking activity established
the Science, Technology
and Research Transit Access Point (STAR TAP) in Chicago
as a persistent anchor for interconnecting NSF's very-high-performance
Backbone Network Service (vBNS) with advanced networks that
are dedicated to supporting high-performance applications
and developing new networking technologies. By early 1999,
about 15 country nets as well as the U.S.
Next Generation Internet (NGI) networks and Abilene
had been interconnected at STAR TAP. The High-Performance
International Internet Services (HPIIS) project made awards
for sharing some of the costs of the high-performance connections
to TransPAC, a U.S.-
Asia-Pacific consortium, to
MirNET, a U.S.- Russia consortium, and to Euro-Link,a
connection of European and Israeli National Research Networks
(NRNs) to the high-performance vBNS and Abilene networks.
Today,STAR TAP is the
premier global exchange point for advanced international networking,
in support of applications, performance measuring, and technology
evaluations. STAR TAP is documenting the international collaborations
it helps foster. The complete set of applications
as of October 20, 2000 is available by category and event.
Examples of STAR TAP iGrid
2000 applications demonstrate how the power of today's
research networks enables access to remote computing resources,
distribution of digital media, and collaboration with distant
colleagues.
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Distributed
Particle Physics Research
[United States and CERN]
California Institute of Technology, USA; CERN, Switzerland
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Distributed
Simulation Analysis between Scientists Located in Germany,
USA, and Japan
[United States, Germany and Japan]
Sandia National Laboratories, USA
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GiDVN:
Global Internet Digital Video Network
[United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Singapore,
The Netherlands, Sweden, CERN and Spain]
International Center for Advanced Internet Research
(iCAIR), Northwestern University, USA
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Funds from NSF and other sponsors are helping the African
Network Operators Group (AFNOG) prepare African network
engineers to manage email, mailing lists, World Wide Web,
domain name servers and help desks as demand for services
expands rapidly.
AFNOG’s first benefits emerged due to an intensive, five-day
series of courses held at the University of Cape Town, South
Africa in May 2000. Organizers from Ghana, Kenya and Uganda
arranged for sessions led by instructors from Ghana, Togo,
Mali, South Africa, the US, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
(NSF
PR 00-50)
Founded in 1999, AFNOG works with the Network
Startup Resource Center (NSRC), a non-profit organization
that for the past decade has helped design and deploy computer
networks in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and
the Middle East. Under an
NSF/CISE award, the NSRC works in collaboration with the
Advanced Network Technology
Center (ANTC) at the University of Oregon to help international
academic institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
gain Internet access.
The need for such grass-root efforts to bridge the international
Digital
Divide was affirmed at the July 2000 G-8
Economic Summit in Okinawa, Japan. The participating nations
agreed to establish a Digital Opportunity Task Force to promote
the adoption of information technologies in developing nations.
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DLI2 International Digital Libraries Projects
Building on and extending prior Foundation efforts in digital
libraries research, CISE and the Office of International
Science and Engineering (INT) issued the International Digital
Libraries Collaborative Research Program Solicitation
NSF 99-6 intended to contribute to the fundamental knowledge
required to create information systems that can operate in
multiple languages, formats, media, and social and organizational
contexts. Collaborative creation of new research understandings,
tools and ideas exploiting the different opportunities offered
by materials and technologies in use in different countries
was strongly encouraged.
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Also, a series of joint NSF-European Union (EU) Working Groups
on Future Directions for Digital Libraries Research were set
up and reported
on their efforts to jointly explore technical, social
and economic issues, plan common research agendas, share research
results, and explore national, technical, and social expectations
about digital libraries.
NSF Partnerships in digital libraries also were encouraged:
- NSF-JISC (US-UK)
- NSF-DFG (US-Germany)
- NSF-EU (US-European Union)
Regarding large-scale projects, the NSF Directorate for Physical
and Mathematical Sciences (MPS) supports the Global
Oscillation Network Group (GONG), a project to conduct
a detailed study of solar internal structure and dynamics
using
helioseismology. (NSF Press Release 00-15)
Helioseismology
utilizes waves that propagate throughout the Sun to measure,
for the first time, the invisible internal structure and dynamics
of a star. In order to exploit this new technique, GONG
has developed a six-station network of solar velocity
imagers located around the Earth to obtain continuous observations
of the oscillations of the
Sun. The six sites
comprising the GONG Network are:
NSF/MPS, NSF/ENG, and the Office of International Science
& Engineering (INT) is attempting to create an internet-based
worldwide materials research network to enhance scientific
and educational collaborations. With this objective, a series
of international workshops
have been sponsored to help stimulate enhanced collaboration
among materials researchers and create networks linking the
participating countries. (See also the newsletter of the International
Union of Materials Research: http://iumrs.org)
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In August 2000, the U.S.-Africa Materials Workshop
was held in Pretoria, South Africa to explore opportunities
for US-African cooperation.
Participants focused on six thematic areas: materials education
and training; civil infrastructural materials; materials characterization;
the materials value chain; advanced and emerging materials;
and polymers and composites. The workshop
attracted more than 60 participants including about 45 from
African nations.
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Other regional workshops also identified possible areas for
mutually beneficial collaborations.
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U.S.-Asian Pacific Materials Research, Technology, and
Education for the 21st Century in Service of Society Workshop,
Hawaii, November 1998, participants from the United States
and Asian Pacific countries
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Frontiers in Materials Research, Technology and Education:
A Workshop
to Advance Panamerican Collaboration, Brazil, June 1998,
participants from the United States and Pan American countries,
including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Venezuela
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Workshop on Materials
for Future Technologies, Belgium, December 1996, a joint
National Science Foundation-European Commission venture
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Trilateral Materials
Workshop, Mexico, May 1995, researchers from the United
States, Canada, and Mexico
A sixth workshop involving the Middle East countries is
being explored.
As a result of the NSF-EC workshop, and as part of the implementation
of an Agreement
for Scientific and Technological Cooperation Between the European
Community and the Government of the United States of America,
the NSF entered into an implementing arrangement with a European
Union program that supports materials research. Since December
1999 three "Dear Colleague" letters have been issued
announcing opportunities for cooperative activities in materials
research between US and European researchers to be supported
by NSF and the EC.
One project
under this competition, Current Induced Magnetic Switching
in Sub-micron Sized Multilayers, is a joint undertaking between
Michigan State University's Condensed
Matter Physics - Experimental group and the Université
de Paris Laboratoire de Physique
des Solides in Orsay, France. The research concerns the
current induced magnetic switching in sub-micron sized multilayers.
This topic is of great importance both on account of its intrinsic
interest, as well as for its technological relevance.
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The Antarctic Muon
and Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) neutrino telescope
project at South Pole Station -- a US-Sweden-Germany-Belgian
collaboration,
jointly supported by NSF's OPP and MPS, the Department of
Energy (DOE), and several European agencies -- is the world's
largest detector of the neutrino--and the first that can claim
to be an astronomical instrument rather than a physics experiment.
AMANDA was featured in Scientific
American's "Extreme Engineering" February 2000 issue,
in the article "
Seven Wonders of Modern Astronomy " --
The Wierdest Wonder.
AMANDA trades sensitivity for the sheer size needed to catch
high-energy neutrinos from distant objects, which include
the swirling gas around black holes, the innards of stellar
explosions, the decomposition of the unidentified matter that
dominates our cosmos.
So far the $7-million collaboration consists of 424 glass
orbs, each the size of a basketball. Scientists watch for
the glow indirectly emitted when neutrinos collide with atomic
nuclei in the ice or underlying rock. The orbs point downward
so that Earth will screen out extraneous particles. Ultimately,
scientists want 5,000 orbs on 80 cables throughout a cubic
kilometer of ice. (Images: University of Wisconsin The Amanda
Collaboration)
The major participation of NSF's Education and Human Resources
Directorate (EHR) in large-scale international efforts is
through support of a series of multinational studies in education
to help inform US education priorities.
TIMSS 1999, a successor to the acclaimed 1995
Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS),
focused on the mathematics and science achievement of eighth-grade
students.The TIMSS-
1999 Benchmarking Report news conference on April 4, 2001
in Washington, D.C. included remarks
by the NSF Director (NSF Press Release
01-24 )
The
Executive Summary shows US eighth graders performed significantly
above the TIMSS international average in science, but about
in the middle of the achievement distribution of the 38 participating
countries (above 18 countries, similar to 5, and below 14).
World class performance levels were set essentially by four
Asian countries and a central European one. Chinese Taipei,
Singapore, Hungary, Japan, and the Republic of Korea had the
highest average performance.
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The Foundation also supports U.S. participation in the International
Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), its constituent societies,
and several of its scientific committees such as the Committee
on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), the Scientific
Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Special
Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), the
Countries in bold also participated in the TIMSS
1995 eighth-grade assessment. |
Scientific
Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE). Support
for these components totals about $2 million annually.
In convening a
World Conference on Science for the Twenty-First Century ,
from 26 June to 1 July 1999 in Budapest, Hungary, ICSU and
the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in co-operation
with other partners, provided a unique forum for discussion
between the scientific community and society. The World Conference
on Science was conceived as a process consisting of a preparatory
phase, the Conference
itself and a follow-up
program on science for the twenty-first century.
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