Volume 4, Issue 1
March 31, 2008

The Western Hemisphere Research and Education Networks (WHREN)-Links Interconnecting Latin America (LILA) Report summarizes activities from participating networks. The WHREN-LILA Report is published under National Science Foundation (NSF) Award # 0441095 and Academic Network at São Paulo (ANSP) award Projeto Fapesp no. 04/14414-2.

March 2008 Issue:

• WHREN-LILA Activities
• FIU-CIARA Activities
• CENIC Activities
• Atlantic Wave Activities
• Pacific Wave Activities
• CUDI Activities
• CLARA Activities
• RNP Activities
• ANSP/NARA Activities

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

WHREN-LILA Activities

The final report from the INRC workshop is now available at the WHREN-LILA website. The NSF International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program has provided international leadership in establishing networking connections to support science since its inception. It is the foundation of the global cyberinfrastructure and the future of collaborative science and virtual teams, and a cornerstone for NSF ( US science) strategic investments in international research and educational activities. Since the IRNC program is nearing the end of its 2nd round of awards (2009), a series of international meetings and an invitation-only workshop have been conducted to get input and recommendations directly from scientists involved in international collaborative research. The question posed to the scientists at the workshop and the international meetings was this: what types of cyberinfrastructure is required to support international scientific collaboration in the year 2010 and beyond? This report is a summary of the findings and recommendations.

Read the report at http://www.ciara.fiu.edu/whren/pubs/IRNC%20Workshop-FINAL%20REPORT.pdf

FIU-CIARA Activities

The Global CyberBridges Fellowship Award Announcement for 2008 for year 2 of 3 has been made. The Global CyberBridges Co-PIs and External Advisory Committee conducted an e-mail review of the proposals and statements of interest submitted by the fellows. Congratulations are extended to all Global CyberBridges Fellows and their faculty advisors. Four CyberBridges Fellows from FIU will be receiving awards. They are Javier Delgado (student) and Malek Adjouadi (faculty); Konstantinos Menelaou (student) and Ping Zhu (faculty); Michael Robinson (student) and Giri Narasimhan (faculty); and Kasturi Chatterjee is a FIU computer science graduate student.  She will receive a special fellowship to work with Professor Sadjadi and Dr. Heidi Alvarez to support the project teams.

To view the projects of all of the fellowship winners, visit http://www.cyberbridges.net/news.htm

For more information on Global CyberBridges, visit http://www.cyberbridges.net

For more information on CIARA, visit their website at http://ciara.fiu.edu/

CENIC Activities

CENIC’s twelfth annual conference, “CENIC 08: Lightpath to the Stars,” was held at the Oakland Marriott City Center from March 10-12, 2008 . Among those attending were the 2008 winners of CENIC's Innovations in Networking Awards. CENIC highlights network applications by identifying exemplary innovations that leverage the network and have the potential to improve the way instruction and research is conducted, even when the impact of the innovation may not be felt immediately.   Four innovative, cutting-edge educational and research projects in the state of California and the Governor’s leadership on broadband access for all Californians have been recognized by the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) as Innovations in Networking Award Winners for 2008. Awards and presentations were given on March 11, 2008 .   For more information on the awards and to view the presentations, visit http://www.cenic.org

Atlantic Wave Activities

Julio Ibarra gave a presentation at the NLR all-hands meeting about the concept, services, topology and research using AtlanticWave. He presented about current project underway to establish two 1GigE vlans to connect Brazil’s Tier2s to CERN using WHREN-LILA, AtlanticWave, CaveWave and TransLight/StarLight.

View the presentation slides at http://www.atlanticwave.net/downloads/pdf/NLR-AllHands022608_AboutAtlanticWave.pdf

For more information about AtlanticWave, visit http://www.atlanticwave.net

Pacific Wave Activities

PacificWave was part of a Melbourne University and Calit2 medical demonstration over a 1Gbps link which was routed through Australian and American research networks. Other participating networks included the Australia Academic Research Network (AARNet3), the Southern Cross Trans-Pacific Optical Research Testbed (SX TransPORT), Calit2, and the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC).

A 96 million pixel screen, dubbed the OzIPortal, has been developed by the University of Melbourne and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) as a realistic cinema for observation of complex surgery, underwater exploration using submersible robots, and the use of supercomputers and scientific equipment.

AARNet3 has connected the world's foremost academia to lecture students from universities, TAFEs and colleges across Australia, and broke new ground in astronomy when it streamed a 3Gb feed of the Southern Hemisphere sky to scientists across Europe.

Read the full article at: http://www.biotechnews.com.au/index.php/id;82671191;fp;16;fpid;1

For more on this and other efforts, visit the Pacific Wave website at http://www.pacificwave.net/

CUDI Activities

The University Corporation for the Development of Internet (CUDI) and the Independent University of Chiapas, are pleased to invite participants to the Spring Meeting of CUDI 2008. It will take place in the city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, from April 16-18. This meeting will provide an opportunity to foster relations between institutions, to work on collaborative projects and to learn more about the Internet2 community. The topics for this meeting include: Regional networks, Networks of the New Generation, Services of New the Generation, Mathematical Education, Libraries, Shared Earth Astronomy, Health, Sciences, Laboratories, Grids and Student Television.

For more information about the meeting and other CUDI activities, visit http://www.cudi.edu.mx/

CLARA Activities

The Inter-American Development Bank announced the approval of a US$650,000 grant from its Regional Public Goods Program to support the Caribbean Advanced High Speed Network (C@ribNET) to enhance the region’s connectivity and competitiveness.

Latin America has recently made remarkable advances in the interconnection of the national research and education networks in 16 countries through RedCLARA, a similar advanced high-speed network. 

“C@ribNET complements in the Caribbean what RedCLARA has recently achieved in Latin America with an advanced high-speed network that made remarkable advances in the interconnection of the national research and education networks in 16 countries,” explained IDB program coordinator Laura Bocalandro. The IDB has also financed through the Regional Public Goods Program the consolidation of the RedCLARA initiative.

C@ribNET is an advanced high-speed broadband network infrastructure interconnecting the national research and education networks of each Caribbean country, which in turn, interconnects the country’s higher education, research and development institutions.

Read the full article at http://www.iadb.org/NEWS/articledetail.cfm?artid=4417&language=En

For more information about CLARA, visit http://www.redclara.net

RNP Activities

On March 18, 2008, in partnership with the Federal University of the Rio Grande Do Sul (UFRGS) and its Foundation of Support, the National Net of Education and Pesquisa (RNP) inaugurated the Superior School of Nets of Porto Alegre (ESR-POA).

The Superior School of Nets of the RNP provides a practical education for students. The laboratories are equipped with tools that reproduce a real work environment. In Porto Alegre, the coursework focuses on the areas of network administration, security and support. The laboratories have a capacity for 24 pupils – each of whom will have their own computer. The inaugural course - Treatment of security guard incidents - will be take place from March 31, 2008 to April 4, 2008.

The ESR has more than has 10 years managing the academic InterNet in Brazil, the National Net of Education and Research created the Superior School of Nets, with the goal of spreading knowledge information technology.

View the full press release at http://www.esr.rnp.br/noticias/?noticia=75

For more information on RNP, visit their website at http://www.rnp.br/en/index.php

ANSP/NARA Activities

ANSP celebrated its 20 th anniversary at a campus party February 12-14. Luis Fernandez Lopez, the main investigator of Net ANSP - an academic network at São Paulo – gave a brief history of ANSP. Equating Net ANSP to the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet), Lopez highlighted 1989 as the year where the Net received domain BR and the o Ministry of Science and Technology created the National Net of Education and Research.

By joining NLR, ANSP now has access to many academic networks in the United States and Europe. Participants got the chance to view demos of several ongoing projects which use these links in the areas of astronomy, biology, chemistry and electronic learning.

On the 14 th, the participants were treated to the presentation of John Maddog Hall, who runs Linux International with Linus Torvalds.

To read more about the party, visit: http://www.nara.org.br/central-de-noticias/palestras-ressaltam-a-importancia-das-novas-tecnologias-no-pais/

For more information on ANSP/NARA, visit their website at http://www.nara.org.br/

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

The WHREN-LILA newsletter is intended to provide useful, up-to-date information about WHREN-LILA through short articles with web links and email addresses. Newsletters will be posted on the WHREN-LILA website (www.ciara.fiu.edu/whren). If you have colleagues who would like to subscribe to this monthly newsletter, send them to: http://www.ampath.net/mailman/listinfo/whren-today.

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