by Boris L Ioffe, Victor S Fadin and Lev N Lipatov, Cambridge University Press. Hardback ISBN 9780521631488, £110.00 ($180). E-book ISBN 9780511717444 $144.
The latest addition to the large library of books devoted to the strong interaction, Quantum Chromodynamics: Perturbative and Nonperturbative Aspects, is a long awaited gem. For a long time I witnessed the efforts of one of the editors, Peter Landshoff, waiting for the manuscript finally to come to life. The authors, Boris Ioffe, Victor Fadin and Lev Lipatov, are outstanding theoretical physicists and true masters in the field. They have made crucial contributions to a theory that, despite Titanic efforts, has kept its most intimate mysteries as secret as in its childhood days.
Before highlighting its content, it is fair to say that this is not an easy book to read; it is more of a wise companion to work with. There is a clear intention to present the results from first principles, departing from other more “user friendly” textbooks. There are numerous references to research papers to help the reader reach a deep understanding of the discussions presented in the text. The underlying spirit is that learning must follow from full control of the technical details, leaving analogies and “pretty pictures” for “amateurs”.
In almost 600 pages, the authors have been able to cover only selected topics in line with their research interests. The final result, a collage of perturbative and nonperturbative aspects of the theory, is nevertheless attractive. In many newspapers there are weekly columns dedicated to reviews of the best moves of famous chess games: the final results are known but we are still delighted with the details of certain moves. Let us follow this philosophy and comment on the most remarkable “games” in this book.
It begins by introducing quantization, with a lucid discussion of the Gribov ambiguity and renormalization schemes. It continues with the spontaneous violation of chiral symmetry and introduces chiral-effective theories at low energies. The axial and scale anomalies are then presented with care. The nontrivial structure of the QCD vacuum is also explored, first introducing tunnelling in quantum mechanics, followed by a superb description of instantons and topological currents. To illustrate the divergent nature of quantum field theory, the authors provide many examples on how to estimate higher-order corrections ranging from renormalons to functional approaches – this is highly recommendable. QCD sum rules are then explained in detail, together with a nice discussion on the determination of the running of the strong coupling and condensates from low-energy data. Different meson and baryon properties are derived in depth.
When the perturbative window is opened, the evolution equations in the parton model take central stage. The presentation here is very original, full of useful intermediate steps and dealing with less well known subjects such as parton-number correlators. Parton distributions for unpolarized and polarized nucleon targets, quasipartonic operators and infrared evolution equations at small Bjorken x are included in the menu. Jet production, starting with e+e– annihilation into hadrons, also appears. I recommend that the reader pay special attention to the sections devoted to colour coherence.
The last two chapters are closest to my heart: the Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) approach and high-energy QCD. This subject attracted a great deal of attention in physics at the HERA collider at DESY, and is returning in a rather unexpected way: the anti de Sitter/conformal-field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence. The original derivation of the BFKL equation, including the next-to-leading-order kernel, is presented. Special emphasis is put on using the dominant degrees of freedom at high energies, the reggeized gluons and the solid bootstrap conditions that they fulfil. The book closes with a presentation of an effective action to describe reggeized gluon interaction, the appearance of integrability, the current view of the hard pomeron in supersymmetric theories and its connection to graviton exchange in dual theories. This line of research has a bright future, but this will be the subject for other books. For the time being, remember to keep this one, not at your bedside, but on your work table.
by Peter K F Grieder, Springer. Hardback ISBN 9783540769415, £314 (€368.20, $469).
Peter Grieder has compiled an exceptional collection of information and data on a major area of cosmic-ray physics: the air showers that are the observable results of energetic cosmic rays incident on the Earth’s atmosphere. The subtitle correctly identifies this two-volume (1000 pages) book as a very complete and valuable resource for physicists working in this domain of cosmic-ray physics. It is also a most relevant and appropriate follow-on to Grieder’s 2001 book, Cosmic Rays at Earth.
The flux of cosmic rays falls approximately as the cube of the energy (at energies above a few giga-electron-volts), so the flux above about 1014 eV is too low to study by direct (balloon or satellite) observation. Hence our knowledge of this astroparticle physics domain at higher energies is totally dependent on observations from the Earth, which in turn relate to the interactions of the primary cosmic rays in the Earth’s atmosphere and the subsequent cascades – the air showers. For example, at energies above about 1019 eV, the flux of primary cosmic rays is only about one per square kilometre per year per steradian. The nuclear composition, energy spectrum, and astronomical sources of these unusually energetic particles are of great interest, but the means of studying them are totally dependent on understanding their interactions in the atmosphere and the resulting air showers.
These two volumes provide an excellent resource for understanding all of the relevant consequences and observables of these air showers: the hadron, muon, electron-photon, and even neutrino fluxes, their spatial and angular distributions, and their energy spectra. Grieder also discusses the various detection technologies: surface arrays of scintillation or water Cherenkov counters, muon counters, atmospheric fluorescence and air Cherenkov radiation detectors. Even novel technologies, such as the radio detection and study of air showers, are presented and discussed. The first volume, Part I, deals mainly with the basic theoretical framework of the processes that determine an air shower, while the second volume, Part II, consists primarily of a compilation of experimental data and related discussions, as well as predictions and discussions of individual air-shower constituents.
The collection of data and graphs from a great multitude of experimental observations is overwhelming, and most interesting. The strong-interaction physics that governs the behaviour of the interactions and the consequent reaction product numbers, energies, and angular distributions are also discussed, together with various Monte Carlo models that form the basis for the calculations of the observables. As the primary interactions of the higher-energy cosmic rays are at energies above those for which detailed inclusive distributions have been studied with particle accelerators, there remain uncertainties in the Monte Carlos and the consequent interpretation of these air-shower observables. Hence, while the energies of the primary cosmic rays can be reasonably well determined (from the total energy of the electromagnetic cascade plus observed muons and hadrons), some uncertainty in the atomic masses of the observed highest energy incident cosmic rays remains.
Although the most energetic cosmic rays are nuclei, astronomical gamma rays also initiate air showers, and it is relevant to discriminate between these and hadron-initiated showers. As with nuclear cosmic rays, direct satellite observation of the gamma radiation is being actively pursued. However at higher energies (above about 1 TeV), surface installations that observe the gamma-initiated air showers, often with air Cherenkov detectors, are important. The characteristics of gamma-ray initiated showers and the relevant detector technologies are also discussed.
An extensive appendix in Part II identifies 65 air-shower observation installations, past and present, around the world, and notes their relevant properties such as altitude (many at elevations above 3000 m) and atmospheric depth, the energy thresholds of their muon detectors, and other characteristics. Sketches of the detector configurations of about half of them are also included. In addition, more than 30 underground (and underwater/under-ice) muon and neutrino detectors – past and present – are described.
This two-volume book certainly merits acquisition by groups working actively on air showers, the installations, data analysis, and physics interpretation. I am sure that it will prove to be an invaluable resource in this lively area of astroparticle physics.
by Hans Stephani, Dietrich Kramer, Malcolm MacCallum, Cornelius Hoenselaers and Eduard Herlt, Cambridge University Press. Hardback ISBN 9780521461368, £107 ($208). Paperback ISBN 9780521467025 £50 ($94.99). E-book ISBN 9780511059179 $140.
Soon after Einstein formulated his relativistic theory of gravitation – general relativity – two of the most celebrated solutions where found: the Schwarschild solution, describing the gravitational field outside a spherically symmetric, static body, in 1915 about a month after the publication of Einstein’s work; and the Friedmann solutions in 1922 and 1924, which provide the basics of modern cosmology. Since then, in the nearly 100 years that have elapsed, thousands of solutions have been found.
Trying to enter, unguided, into the world of exact solutions is a formidable task. It is great news that this classic monograph has been re-edited in expanded form (the first edition dates from 1980). The authors have gone through the herculean job of looking at 4000 new papers since the first edition with a cut off at the end of 1999. Five new chapters have been added, and many of the previous ones have been substantially rewritten.
The book provides an excellent introduction to the mathematical structure of general relativity, and it is a useful companion to any regular course in the subject. The authors have concentrated on solutions to vacuum space–times, Einstein-Maxwell and perfect fluids. They describe in great detail the known solutions, possible equivalences, algebraic classifications, solution-generating methods etc. The exposition is always clear and elegant. It contains a thorough presentation of space–times with different groups of motion. We should be thankful to the authors for having undertaken this project. The second edition, like the first one, is a real masterpiece.
A two-day Symposium on Nuclear Physics and Nuclear Physics Facilities, held at TRIUMF on 2–3 July, provided the opportunity for proponents of nuclear science across the world to learn about and discuss present and future plans for research in nuclear physics, as well as the upgraded and new research facilities that will be required to realize these plans.
The Working Group on International Cooperation in Nuclear Physics (WG.9) of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) organized the symposium. It was held as a response to the mandate given to the group by the OECD Global Science Forum in a missive from its chair, Hermann-Friedrich Wagner, following the recent report of the OECD Global Science Forum Working Group on Nuclear Physics. Three half-day presentations were arranged by the US Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC), by the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC) and by the Asian Nuclear Physics Association (ANPhA), which was formed about two years ago on the urging of IUPAP WG.9.
The presentations at the symposium focused on five main themes of nuclear physics today: “Can the structure and interactions of hadrons be understood in terms of QCD?”, “What is the structure of nuclear matter?”, “What are the phases of nuclear matter?”, “What is the role of nuclei in shaping the evolution of the universe, with the known forms of matter comprising only a meagre 5%?” and “What is the physics beyond the Standard Model?”
The presentations led to extensive discussions among the various representatives. On the final half day, after a synopsis of the presentations and discussions by Robert Tribble of Texas A&M University, a panel discussion took place between the three nuclear-physics groupings of NSAC, NuPECC and ANPhA. This was followed by a series of statements by science administrators from the US Department of Energy, the Office of Science Nuclear Physics, the National Science Foundation Nuclear Physics, the INFN Third Commission, the French research bodies IN2P3/CNRS and the CEA/Service de Physique Nucleaire, the Japan Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, the Korea Research Council and the China Institute of Atomic Energy.
For the first time, the symposium brought together nuclear-physics researchers, laboratory directors and nuclear-science administrators in an international setting. It showed a vigorous field of nuclear physics with demanding forefront challenges and large nuclear physics facilities being upgraded or coming on line presently or in the near future: CEBAF 12 GeV at Jefferson Laboratory, FRIB at Michigan State University, SPIRAL2 at GANIL, ISAC at TRIUMF, RIBF at RIKEN Nishina Center, J-PARC, FAIR at GSI, the upgraded RHIC at Brookhaven and in the more distant future EIC at Brookhaven or Jefferson Lab, ENC at FAIR, EURISOL (Europe charts future for radioactive beams) and LHeC at CERN. There are also several nuclear-physics facilities planned for China and Korea.
IUPAP WG.9 has given great encouragement to efforts aimed at strengthening co-operation in regional and international nuclear physics. At the symposium the nuclear-physics community was informed of the formation of a Latin America Nuclear Physics Association (ALAFNA) to strengthen nuclear physics in Latin America. Similar attempts may be undertaken in Africa.
In this era of fiscal uncertainty, several key agencies in Canada have stepped up and made firm commitments to TRIUMF and the future of particle and nuclear physics in Canada. In March, TRIUMF’s five-year core operating budget was renewed at the level of C$222.3 million for the 2010–2015 period. Then, in mid-June, the final pieces of the funding puzzle were put into place for the launch of the new flagship Advanced Rare IsotopE Laboratory (ARIEL) facility at TRIUMF, when the Province of British Columbia announced its C$30.7 million investment, completing the C$63 million package. The project includes a new, high-power, superconducting radio-frequency electron linear accelerator for isotope production.
As Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, TRIUMF is owned and operated by a consortium of 15 Canadian universities. Its core operating funds are supplied in five-year blocks by the federal Ministry of Industry through the National Research Council Canada. The previous five-year cycle ended on 31 March 2010; new funding for the laboratory for the 2010–2015 period was unveiled in March as part of the federal budget. The announcement completes a process of more than two years’ effort to secure the funding. This included both an international review by some of the world’s most accomplished scientists and an economic-impact study that analysed the direct, indirect and induced impacts on the provincial and federal economies of public spending at TRIUMF.
TRIUMF celebrated its 40th anniversary last year. Over the years it has evolved from covering only medium-energy nuclear physics to include high-energy physics, materials science, rare-isotope beam physics, accelerator science and technology, and most recently, nuclear medicine. TRIUMF regularly produces intense beams of exotic isotopes using proton beams of up to 50 kW extracted from the main 500 MeV cyclotron. These isotopes are produced and studied in the Isotope Separator and Accelerator (ISAC) facility, which includes an impressive suite of experiments and detectors for research in nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics, and for tests of fundamental symmetries. TRIUMF recently completed an upgrade of the ISAC-II facility to provide acceleration of radioactive ions of up to 5 MeV/u. This linear accelerator was developed using superconducting radio-frequency cavities manufactured in Canada by PAVAC Industries in co-operation with TRIUMF. In nuclear medicine, TRIUMF has a 30-year history of producing medical isotopes using small cyclotrons in partnership with MDS Nordion for global sales and distribution.
The five-year vision
The federal contribution for operations will not support all of the TRIUMF community’s aspirations (nor should it), but it does support and strengthen key initiatives in particle physics, nuclear physics, materials science, nuclear medicine and accelerator science and technology. In nuclear physics, the programme will focus on exploiting the existing ISAC-I and ISAC-II facilities. An aggressive programme in target development will continue and deliver beams of novel isotopes from actinide targets for physics experiments in the next 2–3 years. A programme for the production and characterization of uranium-carbide foils for use in ISAC has begun and the first physics run using novel isotopes from actinides is scheduled for December 2010.
In materials science, construction work on additional muon beamlines will be completed to offer greater flexibility and more time for scientific usage. A new initiative in nuclear medicine is being launched that expands TRIUMF’s historic activities in medical-isotope production into radiochemistry for the development and preclinical qualification of new radiotracers. The nuclear-medicine programme will include new equipment, full-time personnel and stronger partnerships across Canada.
In particle physics, the ATLAS Canada Tier-1 Data Centre will continue its operations; it serves as one of the 10 global data-storage and distribution centres for physics data from the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s LHC. Canada’s involvement in the Japan-based Tokai-to-Kamioka neutrino experiment will continue to receive support from TRIUMF as the research moves into the data-collection and analysis phase.
ARIEL takes off
The ARIEL facility will be the new flagship of the TRIUMF programme, which includes a new underground beam tunnel surrounding a next-generation linear accelerator – the e-linac, a project led by the University of Victoria. This facility substantially expands TRIUMF’s isotope-production capabilities by adding the technique of photo-fission to the suite of available technologies. Canada will be unique in having electron- and proton-based capabilities for isotope production within the same laboratory. Moreover, for the first time in 35 years, TRIUMF’s main cyclotron will have a fully fledged younger sibling to drive the breadth of the laboratory’s research.
The lower floors of ARIEL will house the e-linac, which will produce an intense beam of electrons up to 50 MeV. An underground beam tunnel will connect the accelerator to the isotope-production area, where the beam of electrons will strike a convertor to create an intense beam of photons via bremsstrahlung. This beam will in turn be directed at targets made of beryllium, tantalum or actinide materials, for example. The isotopes will be extracted, separated and accelerated in real time and sent to the ISAC experimental areas.
The focus of ARIEL will be on “isotopes for physics and medicine”. In terms of nuclear physics with rare isotopes, ARIEL is expected to increase TRIUMF’s annual scientific productivity by a factor of 2–3 above current levels by providing a second primary “engine” for producing isotopes. ISAC will move from being a “one-at-a-time” facility to running several experiments simultaneously. The e-linac will expand the materials-science capabilities at TRIUMF by enabling high-volume production of lithium-8 for β-NMR studies using a beryllium target. In terms of isotopes for medicine, the facility is intended to develop and study next-generation medical isotopes that may have applications in therapy (e.g. via alpha emission). ARIEL will also be used to demonstrate and benchmark the use of photo-fission technology for larger-scale production of key medical isotopes that are currently only produced in reactors, such as 99Mo/99mTc. Photo-fission at ARIEL could produce at least one six-day Curie of 99Mo per gram of natural uranium target material for a 100 kW irradiation period.
Construction of the ARIEL facility and e-linac began on 1 July, providing immediate stimulus to the civil-construction and technical communities in British Columbia and Canada. The facility will be completed in 2013 and the e-linac will then be installed. Isotope production for physics and medicine will be commissioned in 2014 and round-the-clock operations will become routine in 2015. ARIEL is designed to support two target stations – one initially for electrons and a future one for a new proton beamline extracted from the main 500 MeV cyclotron.
The e-linac will begin with a 30 MeV, 100 kW beam by 2014, with plans for it to be upgraded to a full 500 kW beam in the 2015–2020 era. The superconducting radio-frequency technology selected for the accelerator expands an emerging core competency at TRIUMF in partnership with a local electron-beam welding company, PAVAC Industries. The e-linac will be built using 1.3 GHz technology, recognizing the global move to parameters similar to those of the TESLA and International Linear Collider projects. The injector cryomodule is being designed and constructed in collaboration with India’s Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre in Kolkata.
With a broad set of opportunities and programmes facing it, TRIUMF is optimistic about the next decade of scientific activity. Together with its national and international partners, the laboratory hopes to bring a “gold medal” home to Canada in subatomic physics.
At its 155th session, on 18 June, the CERN Council opened the door to greater integration in particle physics when it unanimously adopted the recommendations of a working group that was set up in 2008 to examine the role of the organization in the light of increasing globalization in particle physics.
“This is a milestone in CERN’s history and a giant leap for particle physics,” said Michel Spiro, president of the CERN Council. “It recognizes the increasing globalization of the field, and the important role played by CERN on the world stage.”
The key points agreed at the meeting were:
• All states shall be eligible for membership, irrespective of their geographical location;
• A new associate membership status is to be introduced to allow non-member states to establish or strengthen their institutional links with the organization;
• Associate membership shall also serve as the obligatory pre-stage to full membership;
• The existing observer status will be phased out for states, but retained for international organizations;
International co-operation agreements and protocols will be retained. “Particle physics is becoming increasingly integrated at the global level,” explained CERN’s director-general Rolf Heuer. “The decision contributes towards creating the conditions that will enable CERN to play a full role in any future facility, wherever in the world it might be.”
CERN currently has 20 member states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the US, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have observer status. Applications for membership from Cyprus, Israel, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey have already been received by the CERN Council, and are currently undergoing technical verification. At future meetings, Council will determine how to apply the new arrangements to these states.
In other business, Council recognized that further work is necessary on the organization’s medium-term plan, in order to maintain a vibrant research programme through a period of financial austerity, and endorsed CERN’s new code of conduct.
by Steven Weinberg, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press. Hardback ISBN 9780674035157, $25.95.
This book collects some essays and book reviews written by Steve Weinberg between the years 2000 and 2008. They were written in his study at home, from where the author can see Lake Austin. In 25 chapters he covers an impressive number of subjects ranging from military history to his review of Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, passing through fundamental physics, missile defence, the boycott of Israeli academics and even offering some advice to young students and postdoctoral fellows.
As with previous books, one is captivated by the depth and breadth of his knowledge, the elegance of his prose and his intellectual honesty. In each chapter there is a preamble where he explains the origin of the article, whether it was asked for by different journals or as an exposition to a learned society; an afterword reveals some of the reactions his views have elicited.
An important part of the book is dedicated to the current theory of multiverses and string landscapes. To a certain extent all of these developments were inspired by his remarkable work in the late 1980s (explained in the book) where he used anthropic reasoning to understand (if not explain) the possible value of the cosmological constant, also known as the dark energy of the universe. It is quite remarkable that the value derived from the observations carried out by groups studying galactic redshifts, as well as from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite, are in good agreement with the values favoured by his analysis. The sections of the book describing this work, dealing with Einstein’s famous blunder, are a masterpiece of insight and deep mastery of physics.
In other chapters, covering the humanities or religion, he takes his usual “rationalist, reductionist, realist and devoutly secular” viewpoint. Unlike Dawkins, his discourse is not the one of a “born-again atheist” (my quotes), but rather he explains his point of view in a relaxed form not devoid of humour. The effect of the relevant chapters is probably much stronger in US society, where religion plays a much bigger role than in Europe, where a large number of scientists, humanists, politicians and ordinary citizens would easily agree with his discourse. He raises provocation to the level of an art.
Another theme addressed in these essays is the ongoing discussion with philosophers or theologians on the notion of whether science explains only the “how” and not the “why” of things. He makes it very clear that the laws of nature have no purpose, and that the only legitimate purpose of science is to understand the basic laws that rule the universe. Finality is not the aim of science, but that does not make it a lesser element in the human endeavour to understand the universe that we live in.
Weinberg has not lost his punch. Far from that. This book is thought provoking, informative, challenging and fun to read. A single fault: it is too short.
by Anil Ananthaswamy, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Hardback ISBN 9780547394527, $25. Paperback ISBN 9780547394527 $15.95.
In his recent book The Edge of Physics, Anil Ananthaswamy, a science writer for New Scientist, covers the most extreme physics and astronomy experiments that are set to uncover the secrets of neutrinos, dark matter and dark energy, galaxy formation, supersymmetry and extra dimensions. The author takes us on an extraordinary journey over five continents to tour the best telescopes and particle detectors, from the summits of the Andes to deep down in the Soudan mine, stopping by the South Pole and paying a visit to CERN. Following him on this trip is already exciting, but reading his account of discussions with physicists, astronomers and engineers along the way is simply fascinating. He tells us about each experiment as he discovered them through discussions with the scientists involved. For example, he writes about the ATLAS experiment through the eyes of Peter Jenni, Fabiola Gianotti and François Butin, with added insight from a meeting with Peter Higgs.
This makes for lively reading about all of these experiments. He not only tells us the most striking details about how each one was built, but he also includes accurate information about the science and technology behind them, avoiding clichés in his efforts to make it understandable to all. You read about his stay at Lake Baikal, discussing neutrino physics with enthusiastic and dedicated physicists such as Igor Belolaptikov and Ralf Wischnewski, sharing stories and vodka with them on the shores of Lake Baikal in the midst of winter – the only time that the photomultiplier tubes of the underwater neutrino experiment can be serviced from the frozen surface of the lake. The reader learns about the scientific research at all of these places through personal accounts from the scientists involved. At times, it felt as if I was meeting old friends at a conference and hearing their best stories about their experiments, sharing their enthusiasm and discovering unknown details about their research.
The Edge of Physics also allowed me to learn more about the best astronomy instruments, some located in idyllic places such as Hawaii, while others are under construction in the least life-sustaining places, such as in the Karoo desert in South Africa or the Hanle Valley in India. Ananthaswamy’s book is as much a tribute to the science as it is to the dedicated scientists pushing the limits of knowledge. His clear explanations and entertaining style will appeal to scientists and non-scientists alike. A book not to be missed.
More than half of the world’s people live in Asia. Even putting aside the two titans India and China, there are some 600 million inhabitants – 100 million more than in the entire EU – in the region that is commonly referred to as South-East Asia. From Myanmar in the west to Indonesia’s Papua province in the east, the territory is nearly twice the width of the continental US. Most of the Asian partners in EUAsiaGrid hail from this region, which has more than its fair share of natural disasters in the form of earthquakes, volcano eruptions, typhoons and tsunamis, not to mention enduring political tensions.
Despite these challenging circumstances, EUAsiaGrid has managed to make a significant impact in a relatively short time. This has been driven by increased sharing of data storage and processing power between participating institutions in the region. It was achieved through a concerted effort by the project leaders to encourage the adoption across the region of the gLite middleware of Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE), which is the same middleware used by the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG).
As the head of EUAsiaGrid, Marco Paganoni, who is based at INFN and the University of Milan-Bicocca, points out: “This technological push has enabled researchers in some of the participating countries to become involved in international science initiatives that they otherwise might not be able to afford to participate in.”
EUAsiaGrid owes its origins to the pioneering efforts of the global high-energy physics community
Like many other international Grid projects, EUAsiaGrid owes its origins to the pioneering efforts of the global high-energy physics community to promote Grid technology for science, and to the nurturing role of the European Commission in spreading Grid technical know-how throughout the world through joint projects. In addition, a key catalyst for EUAsiaGrid has been Simon Lin, project director of Academia Sinica Grid Computing (ASGC). His efforts established ASGC as the Asian Tier-1 data centre for WLCG. He and his team have been bringing Asian researchers together for nine years at the annual International Symposium on Grid Computing (ISGC) held each spring in Taipei.
The EUAsiaGrid project, launched as a “support action” by the European Commission within Framework Programme 7 in April 2008, focuses on discovering regional research benefits for Grid computing. “We realized that identifying and addressing local needs was the key to success in this region,” says Paganoni. From the outset, capturing local e-science requirements was an important component of the project’s objectives. Moreover, comparing those requirements revealed a great deal of common ground amid all of the regional diversity.
One common theme was the region’s propensity for natural disasters and the ability of Grid technology and related information technology solutions to help mitigate the consequences of such events. For example, EUAsiaGrid researchers have helped build links between different national sensor-networks, such as those of Vietnam and Indonesia. Researchers in the Philippines are now benefiting from the Grid-based seismic modelling experience of their Taiwanese partners. Sharing data and Grid know-how in this manner means that the scientists involved can better tune local models of earthquake and tsunami propagation.
At the most recent ISGC, which was held in March, a special EUAsiaGrid Disaster Mitigation Workshop devoted a day to the latest technological progress in monitoring and simulating both earthquakes and tsunamis. Nai-Chi Hsiao of the Central Weather Bureau in Taipei explained in a talk about the early-warning system for Taiwan that it takes just 60 s for an earthquake to travel from the south to the north of the island, leaving precious little time to make a decision about shutting down nuclear reactors or bringing high-speed trains to a grinding halt and so avoid the worst consequences that a large earthquake might cause.
Where could Grid technology fit into this picture? The island is rocked by earthquakes, both large and small, all of the time. It is simply not viable to shut down power plants and stop trains every time that a tremor is detected. What is needed is a quick prediction of the impact that a particular earthquake may have on key infrastructure across the island. However, the level of shaking that an earthquake produces 100 km away can depend strongly on, for example, the depth at which it occurs.
There is certainly no time to do a full simulation once an earthquake is detected. According to Li Zhao of the Institute of Earth Sciences at Academia Sinica, it might instead be possible to pull out a pre-processed simulation from a database and make a quick decision based on what it predicts. This would require processing and storing the results of simulations for a huge number of possible earthquake epicentres – a task that is well suited to Grid computing.
Neglected diseases
Another common thread of the research sponsored by EUAsiaGrid has been searching for cures to diseases that plague the region but which have been largely neglected by pharmaceuticals companies because they do not affect more lucrative markets in the industrialized world.
Consider dengue fever, for example. For most sufferers, the fever and pain produced by the disease pass after a very unpleasant week, but for some it leads to dengue haemorrhagic fever, which is often fatal. Like malaria, dengue is borne by mosquitoes. But unlike malaria, it affects people as much in the cities as it does in the countryside. As a result, it has a particularly high incidence in heavily populated parts of South-East Asia and it is a significant source of infant mortality in several countries.
As yet there are no drugs designed to specifically target the dengue virus. So EUAsiaGrid partners launched an initiative last July called Dengue Fever Drug Discovery, which will start a systematic search for such drugs by harnessing Grid computing to model how huge databases of chemical compounds would interact with key sites on the dengue virus, potentially disabling it.
This is not the first time that Grid technology has been used to amplify the computing power that can be harnessed for such ambitious challenges. Malaria and avian influenza have been targets of previous massive search efforts, dubbed by experts “in-silico high-throughput screening”.
Leading the effort on dengue at Academia Sinica in Taipei is researcher Ying-Ta Wu of the Genomics Research Centre. He and colleagues prepared some 300,000 virtual compounds to be tested in a couple of months, using the equivalent of more than 12 years of the processing power of a single PC. The goal of this exercise was not just to get the processing done quickly but also to encourage partners in Asia to collaborate on sharing the necessary hardware, including institutes in Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
It is not just hard sciences such as geology and biology that benefit from Grid know-how. Indeed, as Paganoni notes: “Modelling the social and economic impacts of major disasters and diseases is a Grid-computing challenge in itself, and is often top of the agenda when EUAsiaGrid researchers have discussions with government representatives in the region.”
Even the humanities have benefited from these efforts. Capturing culture in a digital form can lead to impressive demands for storage and processing. Grid technology has a role to play in providing those resources. For instance, it can take more than a week using a single desktop computer to render a 10-minute recording of the movements of a Malay dancer performing the classical Mak Yong dance into a virtual 3D image of the dancer, using motion-capture equipment attached to the dancer’s body. Once this is done, though, every detail of the dance movement is permanently digitized, and hence preserved for posterity, as well as being available for “edutainment” applications.
The problem, however, is that a complete Mak Yong dance carried out for ceremonial purposes could last a whole night, not just 10 minutes. Rendering and storing all of the data necessary for this calls for Grid computing.
Faridah Noor, an associate professor at the University of Malaya, became involved in the EUAsiaGrid project because she saw great potential for Grid-enabled digital preservation of traditional dances and artefacts for posterity. She and her colleagues are working on several projects to capture and preserve digitally even the most ephemeral cultural relics, such as masks carved by shamans of the Mah Meri tribe used to help cure people of their ailments or to ward off evil. The particular challenge here is that the shamans deliberately throw the masks into the sea as part of the ritual, to cast away bad spirits.
As Noor, who works in the area of sociolinguistics and ethnolinguistics, points out: “We have to capture the story behind the mask.” Each mask is made for an individual and his or her illness, so capturing the inspiration that guides the shaman while preparing the mask is as important as recording the way in which he carves the wood, and rendering 3D images of the resulting mask.
An important legacy of the EUAsiaGrid project, Paganoni says, will be the links that it has helped to establish between researchers in the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, both within South-East Asia and with European institutions. These links trace their origin to a common interest in exploiting Grid technology.
• Based on articles previously published in International Science Grid This Week, with permission.
Would you employ me to run the LHC? Or perhaps to run an experiment at CERN with antimatter? After all, I have an abiding interest in physics – ever since an inspiring science teacher sparked my imagination with the Van de Graff generator and the laws of gravity. I have no expertise and little experience in physics – just a school girl’s love of equations combined with joyful enthusiasm and a wish to understand and engage with what it is that makes the world work.
Now turn this question round: would you ask a physicist to devise an arts programme or CERN’s first cultural policy for engaging with the arts? What would your answer be? All right, I admit it. This is deliberate provocation. So let me explain.
Much has been written about the two cultures – art and science. It is a false distinction, which was imposed in the Age of Enlightenment and which in the 21st century we are finally beginning to shake off. Leonardo da Vinci made no such distinction between art and science. Aristotle most definitely did not. As the physicist-turned-poet Mario Petrucci says: “I have found that the rigour and precision of the scientist is not foreign to the poet, just as the faith-leaps of poetry are not excluded from the drawing boards of science.” The arts and science are kissing cousins. Their practitioners love knowledge and discovering how and why we exist in the world. They just express it in different ways.
Where there is a distinction between art and science – which has contributed to the this misunderstanding of how intimately related they really are – is in the ways in which people’s work is judged and evaluated. Cultural knowledge and expertise in the arts can seem totally mystifying. Why is one artist judged as great, and another not? There are no equations to evaluate and therefore no absolutes. The arts seems to be a muddy water of individual will, taste and whimsical patronage. But this is a simplistic distortion of a more complex and nuanced picture.
Arts specialism is all about knowledge and understanding. It is about knowing inside-out the history of art forms – whether dance, music, literature, the visual arts or film – and possessing the expertise to evaluate contemporary work; to spot the innovative and the boundary-bursting, as well as the great and exceptional. History lies at its heart – arts knowledge exists on a space–time continuum of reflection and understanding of the creative processes. Moreover, at the heart of this is what every scientist understands: peer review. Experts who are used to working with artists, who know what they are realistically capable of, as well as understanding the past and therefore the present and the future, choose and select projects and individuals for everything from exhibitions and showings, to competitions and grants, for example.
Which takes us to a new bold and brave experiment at CERN and my presence there. Don’t worry. I am not tinkering with the LHC. The collisions and interactions that I will be working with are all of the cultural kind. My expertise, knowledge and experience is in the field of arts and culture – 25 years of working in that arena, working with science too. The director-general, Rolf Heuer, has the vision and the wish to express the crucial inter-relationship of arts and science that makes culture. To do this, I am raising the partnerships and funds for “Collide” – an international arts residency programme at CERN – in which artists will come every year from different art forms to engage with scientists in a mutual exchange of knowledge and understanding through workshops, lectures and informal talks, and to begin to make new work. Who knows what the artists will create? Or the scientists for that matter? A spark chamber of poetry? A dance that defies gravity? Light sculptures that tunnel into the sky? Who knows? That depends on the serendipity of who applies and how they interact with whom and what is at CERN.
Crucially, the artists in residence will be selected by a panel of leading scientists working alongside leading arts specialists – directors, producers, curators, artists – so that mutual understanding and appreciation of how cultural knowledge works, and how expert judgements are made, can develop and be exchanged. This is one of the key strategies of a new cultural policy for engaging with the arts that I have devised for CERN. After all, great science deserves great art. Nothing less will do for the place that pushes knowledge to beyond known limits.
Nevertheless, at the heart of the arts at CERN is the critical connection between the lateral and logical minds that artists and scientists both have. “Collide” will be a way of showing this, of encouraging scientists and artists to work together in a structured programme of interplay and exchange. It will also be a way of creating an all-encompassing vision of CERN to the outside world and on different platforms – from stage and screen to canvas and the orchestra – showing CERN’s status as a major force in culture, as befits the home of the LHC and what some consider is possibly the biggest, most significant experiment on Earth.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
