essconf08 Archives - Digital Urban

Should Laptops be Banned in Conferences?

Andy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:51:00 +0000

We are at the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science listening to a talk by Alex Voss entitled ‘Widening Uptake of e-Infrastructure Services’. The worrying thing is that the majority of the people in the room are using their laptops to check email/surf the web/write blog posts (like us) rather than listen to the presentation.

This poses the questions whether laptops should be banned from such conferences during presentations? It would mean less blog posts but as a presenter myself it can be disheartening to look up only to view a sea of laptops and people typing.

Ok time to stop typing and to listen….

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Grid Computing: Waves of Hype and Disillusionment

Andy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:41:00 +0000

Wolfgang Gentzsch, adjunct professor of computer science at Duke University in Durham, and visiting scientist at RENCI Renaissance Computing Institute at UNC Chapel Hill, is currently presenting a key note at the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science. Focusing on Grid Computing of note is his view that the Grid is currently in the ‘trough of disillusionment’ in terms of the Gartner’s Hype Cycle.

A hype cycle in Gartner’s interpretation comprises 5 steps:

“Technology Trigger” — The first phase of a hype cycle is the “technology trigger” or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.
“Peak of Inflated Expectations” — In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.
“Trough of Disillusionment” — Technologies enter the “trough of disillusionment” because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.
“Slope of Enlightenment” — Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the “slope of enlightenment” and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.
“Plateau of Productivity” — A technology reaches the “plateau of productivity” as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market. (see Wikipedia for more info)

In terms of e-Social Science the Grid is yet to deliver compared to the hype, personally at CASA we have moved away from Grid based services, time will tell if the Grid can reach a Plateau of Productivity?

Perhaps the key to the Grids move down the cycle is its complexity for the end user, especially compared to Cloud Computing. The consumer wave is heading towards the Cloud as it is service based, Grid Computing is still over complex and perhaps it has lost the perspective of the end user…

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Posts: 4th International Conference on e-Social Science

Andy — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:27:00 +0000

We are currently in Manchester for the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science, running for three days the conference covers a number of subjects relevant to the blog.
I’m presenting a paper entitled ‘Agent-Based Geospatial Simulation: Techniques, Tools and Advances in Three-Dimensional Visualisation‘, for those interested the abstract is below.

The use of agent-based modeling for geospatial simulation has traditionally been a two-dimensional activity with the third dimension rarely ventured into. In many ways this is due to the nature of the discipline and a focus on theory rather than outreach and end of game visualization. The world of video entertainment has made significant advances in artificial intelligence over the recent years, combined with the rise of graphic card technologies these developing ‘sandbox’ environments provide a new opportunity for agent-based modeling.

Standard three-dimensional modeling packages such as 3D Studio Max offer a level of built in agent-based modeling capabilities through ‘crowd and delegate’ logic systems. While these are limited to some extent, it is possible to take x/y/z output from standard geospatial agent-based modeling approaches and import them into visual software. This approach allows loose coupling between model and visualisation systems allowing a more realistic view of any given models output.

We explore the use of 3D Studio Max and gaming technologies, such as Crysis, though a series of examples before concluding with a look at using collaborative virtual environments such as Second Life to both visualise and run agent-based geospatial models.

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