8/8/2016 $13.7 Million NSF Grant Creates Natural Hazards Engineering Center at UT Austin | UT News | The University of Texas at Austin UTNews The University of Texas at Austin $13.7 Million NSF Grant Creates Natural Hazards Engineering Center at UT Austin July 21, 2015 Tumblr Reddit AUSTIN, Texas — A new cyberinfrastructure effort funded by a $13.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation will help engineers build safer structures that can better withstand natural hazards such as earthquakes and windstorms. The Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin is leading the effort to build a software platform, data repository and tools that will help the United States design more resilient buildings, levees and other public infrastructure that could protect lives, property and communities. The Cockrell School team will use analytics, storage, visualization and cloud technologies at the university’s Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to develop DesignSafe, a resource-sharing Web platform that will enable computer models and simulations of natural hazards that can be validated against real-world data, creating an easily accessible resource for natural hazards researchers across the United States. “We are bringing together our expertise in engineering and information technology to develop the best tools to help engineers better understand the impact of natural hazards on our cities and infrastructure,” said Ellen Rathje, a civil engineering professor in the Cockrell School and principal investigator on the project. “There is tremendous potential to save lives and property through better engineering, design and planning. The platform we develop here will help engineers use data and simulation to improve the design and planning processes.” Rathje, an expert in earthquake engineering, will lead the UT Austin team, which will include aerospace engineering professor Clint Dawson, who brings hurricane modeling expertise, and TACC director Dan Stanzione, a leader in high-performance computing. The team is partnering with Jamie Padgett of Rice University, Jean-Paul Pinelli of the Florida Institute of Technology and researchers from other universities across the country. http://news.utexas.edu/2015/07/21/nsf­funds­cyberinfrastructure­effort­at­ut­austin 1/3 8/8/2016 $13.7 Million NSF Grant Creates Natural Hazards Engineering Center at UT Austin | UT News | The University of Texas at Austin The cyberinfrastructure grant is part of the NSF’s new Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) program. NHERI was created to enable research and educational advancements aimed at preventing natural hazard events from becoming societal disasters. “Collaborative engineering research is critical to making our buildings and lifelines resistant to earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes,” said Joy Pauschke, NSF program director for NHERI. “The NHERI cyberinfrastructure will help spur engineering advances and bring together the natural hazards research community with an accessible platform for sharing data, computational (or simulation) tools and other resources.” A primary goal of DesignSafe is to enable engineers to inexpensively and efficiently run hazard simulations and create models to compare and evaluate different alternatives for a building, levee or other structure before selecting a design. Running large-scale simulations requires efficient, open source computer codes. To meet this need, the DesignSafe team will incorporate open source software systems into the platform, including the NSFsupported OpenSees program for earthquake engineering simulations, originally developed by UT Austin President Gregory L. Fenves. The image (above) represents the potential flooding that could occur in the HoustonGalveston area if a hurricane with significant storm surge was to impact the region. These results were achieved using a storm surge model run on TACC's supercomputer Stampede by Professor Clint Dawson’s group, Computational Hydraulics. Image courtesy of the Cockrell School of Engineering Another key component of DesignSafe is that it will allow researchers to consider a holistic view of infrastructure construction. Researchers will be able to integrate not only data on types of materials, building costs and designs, but also societal data about residents living in and around infrastructure. Additionally, the DesignSafe team will build a Reconnaissance Integration Portal that provides access to RAPID (NSF-funded Rapid Response Research) reconnaissance data, and a Developer’s Portal for users to innovate new capabilities. http://news.utexas.edu/2015/07/21/nsf­funds­cyberinfrastructure­effort­at­ut­austin 2/3 8/8/2016 $13.7 Million NSF Grant Creates Natural Hazards Engineering Center at UT Austin | UT News | The University of Texas at Austin “NHERI will empower us to bring together experiments, experimental data, computational simulation and field reconnaissance data in a single computational environment so we can make advances that could significantly impact our ability to create safer, stronger buildings,” Stanzione said. “The cyberinfrastructure will incorporate new innovation from the community over time.” The team plans to launch DesignSafe during the next eight months. As part of the grant, DesignSafe will offer online training materials, virtual communities, hands-on education workshops and student competitions. About NSF’s Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure program: The larger NHERI effort will create various shared-use research facilities that will replace the George E. Brown Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. From 2015 through 2019, NHERI will be a distributed, multiuser, national facility created to provide the natural hazards engineering community with access to research infrastructure (earthquake and wind engineering experimental facilities, cyberinfrastructure, computational modeling and simulation tools, and research data), coupled with education and community outreach activities. For more information, visit: www.designsafe-ci.org. For more information, contact: Sandra Zaragoza, Cockrell School of Engineering, 512-4712129; Faith Singer, Texas Advanced Computing Center, 512-232-5771. UTNews About UT News Media Resources Media Contacts Experts Guide Archive Related Links UT Austin Home Emergency Information Site Policies Web Accessibility Policy Web Privacy Policy Disability Resources © The University of Texas at Austin 2016 http://news.utexas.edu/2015/07/21/nsf­funds­cyberinfrastructure­effort­at­ut­austin 3/3 DesignSafe-ci: A Cyberinfrastructure for the Natural Hazards Engineering Community DesignSafe-ci.org will provide a comprehensive environment for experimental, theoretical, and computational engineering and science, providing a place not only to steward data from its creation through archive, but also the workspace in which to understand, analyze, collaborate and publish that data. Our vision is that DesignSafe-ci will be an integral part of research and discovery, providing researchers access to cloud-based tools that support their work to analyze, visualize, and integrate diverse data types. As a result, researchers will Figure 1 Proposed Architecture of DesignSafe-ci want to store and share their data in the DesignSafe-ci data repository, even if not required to do so, because of the access to these capabilities. To achieve this vision, DesignSafe-ci will provide a flexible data repository with straightforward mechanisms for data/metadata upload and will enable the next generation of research discovery through a cloud-based interface that allows data analysis and visualization tools to work directly on data stored in the data repository. These functionalities will allow researchers to use the CI to interact with their data in the cloud, bypassing time-consuming downloads/uploads. Not only will the cloud-based interface allow researchers to analyze, visualize, and integrate data, but they will also be able to share analysis scripts and link tasks to support workflows that facilitate research discovery. DesignSafe-ci will be comprised of the following services and components (Figure 1): • DesignSafe-ci.org front end web portal • The Data Depot, a multi-purpose data repository for experimental, simulation, and field data that uses a flexible data model applicable to diverse and large data sets and is accessible from other DesignSafe-ci components. • A web-based Discovery Workspace that represents a flexible, extensible environment for data access, analysis, computational simulation, and visualization. • A Reconnaissance Integration Portal that facilitates sharing of reconnaissance data within a geospatial framework. • A Learning Center that provides training and online access to tutorials. • A Developer’s Portal that provides a venue for power users to extend the Discovery Workspace or Reconnaissance Integration Portal, and to develop their own applications to take advantage of the DesignSafe-ci infrastructure’s capabilities. 1 • A foundation of storage and compute systems, to provide both on-demand computing and access to scalable computing resources. • A middleware layer to expose the capabilities of the CI to developers, and to enable construction of diverse web and mobile interfaces to data products and analysis capabilities • A marketplace of Community Defined Interfaces; the extension capability of the CI will allow other projects to leverage DesignSafe.ci to build an interface of their own choosing; we expect, for instance, to work with each EF awardee to provide a unique interface to their facility and its data. DesignSafe-ci.org web portal The portal will be a primary point of entry for users of the DesignSafe-ci capabilities and the NHERI community. The portal will provide NHERI wide information on experimental facilities, the Facility Scheduling Dashboard, and Education and Community Outreach (ECO) activities. To ensure maximum interoperability with diverse software architectures and modes of access, the portal will be developed according to current web standards for accessibility and performance, ensuring a consistent and responsive experience on any modern web browser or mobile device. Furthermore, the portal will be powered by an extensive set of flexible and reusable Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), enabling full programmatic access to all aspects of the center’s infrastructure. Data Depot The Data Depot will be built upon a foundation of highly reliable storage. We will construct the data repository in TACC’s existing Corral data collections system. On top of the physical layer, the Data Depot will use the IRODS (Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System) software for data management (Moore 2008). IRODS supports connection of arbitrary metadata to all data objects, rule-based access to data, and policy based mirroring and archiving. IRODS supports microservices to trigger actions on data, such as running a quality check each time a new data object is uploaded. The repository will use these features of IRODS to support the creation and storage of metadata and support data integration features. Above the IRODS layer, the team will construct an ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) system for the repository to support integration of data. Upload/download will be streamlined by providing a range of options, including Dropbox-style drag and drop file upload, bulk data uploads via command line interfaces that can be automated by power users, and interactive web tools that will lead the user through an interactive interface to input data and create the minimum necessary metadata. The repository will be expanded to accept any data the user wishes to supply into a local workspace, even if the data type is unknown or only partial metadata is provided (with corresponding limits on publication and search functionality). The data repository will also provide direct support for data sharing and collaboration. DesignSafe-ci will support the sharing of all objects in the CI with a simple click to go from a user’s private data, to data shared with a peer, with a research team, or to make the data fully public and web accessible. Data may be a file, a set of notes from the Discovery Workspace, an image, a movie, or a pointer to a saved workspace to allow the collaborator to share the same analysis. It will be possible to not only set an access control list to enable permissions to the data, but to set a unique public URL to the data, or even create a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for the object. 2 Discovery Workspace Figure 2. Web-based interactive R workspace from TACC Analytics Portal. Applications like R, MATLAB, and commercial applications will be adapted to run within the Discovery Workspace in similar containers. Workspace will allow users to take advantage of powerful explore their data, all within the cloud. The Discovery Workspace will be a web-based environment that provides researchers with access to data analysis tools, computational simulation tools, visualization tools, educational tools, and user-contributed tools within the cloud to support research workflows, learning, and discovery. The portal will provide a desktop metaphor, with a data window to give the user access to the contents of the Data Depot (which includes experimental, simulation, and reconnaissance data, as well as others) and a tools window giving the user access to a list of available tools, scripts, etc. For example, Figure 2 shows an embedded R Workspace that is currently available from the TACC Analytics Portal and allows researchers to use the program R to analyze their data. This type of interface within the Discovery analysis capabilities to fully investigate and The software tools made available within the Discovery Workspace will be identified through discussions with the NHERI research community and will also include those developed by the SimCenter awardee. Our initial discussions with a subset of the community have identified a range of new software tools that are of interest to the community. These tools encompass both data analytics and visualization tools (e.g. MATLAB, ParaView), as well as computational simulation tools (e.g., OpenSees, ABAQUS, ADCIRC, OpenFOAM). Additionally, the tools span all of the technical domains included in NHERI. In particular, the wind community has unique computational simulation and data requirements through its use of Database Assisted Design, called DAD. We will facilitate and promote DAD through the availability of wind data from multiple sources and a suite of DAD simulation tools (e.g., windPRESSURE from NIST) within the Discover Workspace. DesignSafe-ci will make commercial codes available through a “Bring-Your-Own-License” approach, which allows the CI to confirm that a user has an active license for the software at their home institution. This functionality has been used at TACC for widely-used software packages, such as MATLAB. We will expand the “Bring-Your-OwnLicense” functionality to the commercial software packages required for the NHERI community. The Discovery Workspace will be implemented using TACC’s highly scalable and extensible Agave science-as-a-service platform, which is the evolution of the successful iPlant Foundation API (Dooley et al. 2012). Agave has generalized the core functionality of the Foundation API to provide a science-as-aservice platform for gateway development that works seamlessly in High Performance Computing (HPC), campus, commercial, and cloud environments alike. Using Agave as a platform to develop the Discovery Workspace will provide several advantages: • Agave provides many of the features necessary for developing a portal that makes use of complicated computational infrastructure. • Agave’s simple, RESTful, programming interfaces provides a straightforward, language agnostic method of integration of existing data and content, and for building web interfaces for other awardees in the program. 3 • Agave has built-in functionality for tracking and recreating workflows, enabling provenance tracking and experiment reproducibility. Reconnaissance Integration Portal The Reconnaissance Integration Portal will be the main access point to data collected during the reconnaissance of windstorm and earthquake events. These data may be collected by the RAPID experimental facility, its users, or other researchers participating in reconnaissance. The reconnaissance data may include infrastructure performance data (e.g., damage estimates, ground movements, subsurface information), remotely sensed data (e.g., photos, video, LIDAR point clouds, satellite imagery data), or human experiential data (e.g., social media data, societal impact data). These data represent diverse data types with different metadata requirements, but their use hinges on information regarding the location from which the data were collected. Therefore, a geospatial framework (GoogleEarth and GIS) will be used to interface with much of the data to provide the contextual location of the data with respect to the windstorm or earthquake event. The reconnaissance data will be physically located in the Data Depot and accessible by analytics and visualization tools, but the Reconnaissance Integration Portal will provide the initial interface to the data. TACC has developed geospatial interfaces for other and will take advantage of this experience to develop the Reconnaissance Integration Portal in coordination with the RAPID facility awardee. Our collaboration with the RAPID facility awardee will ensure that we meet the needs of this community. Learning Center The Learning Center will be the central repository for self-paced, on demand materials to teach users (e.g., undergraduate students, graduate students, researchers, and faculty) to take advantage of the CI capabilities of DesignSafe-ci. The availability of on demand instructional materials at DesignSafe-ci will ensure that the NHERI community has access to training when and where they need it. Online materials in the Learning Center will be built based on the principle that online content requires attention to format and content unique to the interactive online metaphor; simple posting of slide decks and recorded lectures are insufficient. Learning Center modules will be interactive, include exercises, and navigation to allow users to mark and save progress, and jump quickly to needed content. The Learning Center will be extensible, and support publication of modules developed by all NHERI awardees. Developer’s Portal The Developer’s Portal will be the central place for users and developers wishing to extend the capabilities of the DesignSafe-ci infrastructure. Through the portal, users can access a tool builder which will support the deployment of new Apps (ranging from simple data conversion scripts to complex simulation applications) to the Discovery Workspace, or access complete information on the DesignSafeci Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). All capabilities of DesignSafe.ci will be exposed through the API layer. While most users will simply use the Discovery Workspace, Data Depot, or Reconnaissance Integration Portal, all of the capabilities in these tools will be exposed to programmers through the API. API functions will include the ability to ingest or download data, run analysis jobs, translate data types, or create public identifiers for data. Through this interface, users can embed DesignSafe-ci capabilities in other applications. The Developer’s Portal transforms the DesignSafe-ci from simply a static web application built by the design team, to a user extensible “App store” that can grow with changes in the community and the creativity of individual research teams. 4 The Next Generation CI for the Natural Hazards Community 1 Natural Hazard Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) • National, shared-use research infrastructure to enable transformative research − − − − − Network Coordinating Office (NCO) Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Seven experimental facilities (EF) Post-disaster, rapid response research facility (RAPID) Computational Modeling and Simulation Center (SimCenter) • Replaces similar program for earthquake engineering (NEES) but expanded to include windstorms and associated hazards 2 DesignSafe-ci Vision • Provide a CI that becomes an integral and dynamic part of research discovery • Cloud-based tools that support the analysis, visualization, and integration of diverse data types − Key to unlocking the power of “big data” • Support end-to-end research workflows and the full data lifecycle • Enhance, amplify, and link the capabilities of the other NHERI components 3 DesignSafe-ci Components • • • • Web Portal Data Depot Discovery Workspace Reconnaissance Integration Portal • Developer’s Portal • Learning Center 4 DesignSafe-ci Web Portal 5 6 DesignSafe: Enabling Research 7 8 DesignSafe-ci.org Leadership Director Ellen Rathje Univ. of Texas Simulation Clint Dawson Univ. of Texas Data Jean-Paul Pinelli Florida Inst. Tech. ECO Jamie Padgett Rice Univ. CI Dan Stanzione Univ. of Texas TACC 9 User Requirements • Definition: user requirements describe what the user expects the software to be able to do • Identify user requirements − Use cases: what do users want to do? − Requirements Gathering Workshop − Informal discussions • Prioritize user requirements • Software developers use the requirements to design the software 10 User Requirements Req User Requirement DesignSafe.ci Component Brief Description 1 Facilitate upload by Data Depot simplifying the data model and the information provided Flexible data model with enhanced data upload, metadata, etc. for diverse data types 2 Online software and tools for generating data products from raw data Discovery Workspace Cloud environment to invoke analytics, visualization, and collaboration tools. More online simulation codes, both open source and commercial codes Ability to use and access the data repository via remote software or services (expert user) Discovery Workspace Cloud environment to invoke simulation tools. Developer’s Portal Information on DesignSafe.ci extensions/APIs, to allow construction of new interfaces and addition of new tools. 3 4 11 DesignSafe-ci Organization 12 Simulation and Analytics • Vision: Provide access to open source and commercial software within Discovery Workspace and provide a venue to share simulation/analysis results • Simulation Requirements Team − Represents the broad natural hazards community − Interact with the larger community to identify user requirements − Prioritize user requirements 13 Simulation and Analytics • Identify initial simulation codes/tools to be deployed • Access to commercial codes: “Bring Your Own License” (BYOL) approach • Discovery Workspace will provide mechanism for users to share simulation codes/tools • Application programming interfaces (APIs) will be available through the Developer’s Portal to develop additional interfaces • DesignSafe-ci Extended Collaborative Support Services (ECSS) can assist users 14 Data • Vision: Allow users to easily store, share, document, and publish the data associated with their research, supporting the full data lifecycle • Data Requirements Team − Represents the broad natural hazards community − Interact with the larger community to identify user requirements − Prioritize user requirements • NSF new Proposal Guide (Jan 2016) will require public access of data created as part of NSF projects 15 Data Management Philosophy • Progressive curation, integrated with the research lifecycle • Focus on achieving community’s research goals • Modular data model that supports how researchers organize their data • Drag and drop upload and cloud import will encourage users to use the Data Depot throughout the data/research lifecycle • Should not be a burden to researchers • Work with NHERI awardees to gather data model/metadata requirements 16 Flexible Data Model • Represent the structure of research and its functions • Different metadata for different research functions and domain specific datasets • With flexibility comes responsibility − EF defines standards for their site (data model, organization, metadata requirements) and helps users use the standards appropriately − Trust researchers to use the data model and provide the metadata required to document their experiments 17 Data Workflow: Dilbert Diagram 18 Step-by-step Workflow: Example 19 20 21 23 Public View of Data: Flexible Digital Rocks Portal https://pep-dev.tacc.utexas.edu 33 DesignSafe for Data Publishing • Researchers may not want to/be able to develop their own interface to share their data • Easy-to-use data management interface will encourage broad use of DesignSafe across natural hazards engineering to share data • Ability to aggregate data from different sources • Creators of data linked with their data • Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) assigned to data with authors, title, citation language, etc. 34 Datasets Interoperable with DesignSafe • Creators/collectors of data want to maintain ownership of data • Data easily discoverable from existing data repository through DesignSafe search or developed “App” • Examples − Use App within DesignSafe to search PEER ground motion database to identify input motions for analysis − Search for data from centrifuge or shaking table facilities located across the globe − Collecting use cases for “killer apps” from community 35 Data Re-use • Sharing well-documented and valuable data sets for re-use by others must be recognized by academic community as scholarly work • Data needs a permanent, digital location (DOI) similar to journal article, not just a URL − List curated data sets on your CV • Promote available data via Data Papers (e.g., EERI Earthquake Spectra) or Data Journals • Users of data must cite it using DOI, citation language 36 Tracking Data Re-use • Papers that cite data using DOI, citation language − Make our data DOIs discoverable by Google Scholar − Thomson and Reuters Data Citation Index tracks data DOIs, but it is a service separate from Web of Science • Tracking Re-Use within DesignSafe − Data processing/analysis in the cloud will allow us to directly track re-use within the CI • Citations to the DesignSafe “marker” paper − Description of DesignSafe CI published in journal paper − To track meaningful use of the CI, researchers will be asked to cite this “marker” paper 37 Important Schedule Milestones • September 30, 2015: NEEShub transitioned to UT/TACC • September 30, 2015: Initial DesignSafe website released (www.designsafe-ci.org) • Fall/Winter 2015: Visit with each Experimental Facility • January 2016: Community User Requirements Workshop (Austin, TX) − October 2015: Community User Requirements Webinars • Spring 2016: DesignSafe-ci Release 1 including Discovery Workspace and Data Depot 38 User Requirements Workshop: What do you do now? • Learn about your research workflows and how DesignSafe can improve/enhance them − Document your research workflow to share at workshop (narrative and sketch) − What tools/codes do you use? − Describe data types, file sizes, etc. − Explain data organization, considering the need to share the data 39 User Requirements Workshop: What do you want to do in the future? • What do you want the CI to enable for your work? − − − − − Search How do you want to present and organize your data? Integrated visualization Publication support New interfaces 43 Action Items • Send us your documented workflows • Suggested break out session topics • Please send information to Natalie Henriques − natalie@tacc.utexas.edu 44 the Numerical Analysis of Variability slide package and generate the following statistics of the data set below: 1) Sample mean, variation, and standard deviation for Rainfall and Max Flood Levels 2) The correlation coefficient between the Rainfall and Max Flood Levels 3) Plot a scattergram (Rainfall vs. Max. Flood Level) Please shyour Excel spreadsheet and write-up (1 – 2 pages) Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Annual Rainfall Data Esopus Creek Watershed Rainfall Year (in) Max. Flood Level (ft) 1918 43.3 16.19 1919 53.02 20.82 1920 63.52 28.74 1921 45.93 15.38 1922 48.26 17.69 1923 50.51 21.49 1924 49.57 23.06 1925 43.93 14.88 1926 46.77 19.38 1927 59.12 20.24 1928 54.49 17.06 1929 47.38 20.14 1930 40.78 18.13 1931 45.05 20.22 1932 50.37 21.26 1933 54.91 28.04 1934 51.28 23.26 1935 39.91 14.38 1936 53.29 23.18 1937 67.59 30.14 1938 58.71 20.35 1939 42.96 22.72 1940 55.77 29.26 1941 41.31 18.65 1942 58.83 23.86 1943 48.21 20.59 1944 44.67 19.74 1945 67.72 31.04 1946 43.11 19.76 Objectives: This homework aims to introduce students a cyberinfrastructure (cloud-based interface) for the natural hazards engineering community. Supported by NSF, the DesignSafe infrastructure will provide a comprehensive environment for experimental, theoretical, and computational engineering and science, providing a place not only to steward data from its creation through archive, but also the workspace in which to understand, analyze, collaborate and publish that data. www.designsafe-ci.org Eligibility: The DesignSafe Cyberinfrastructure is open to all users performing open (unclassified) research in engineering resilient infrastructure in the face of natural hazards. Preference on resources is given to researchers supported by the NSF Engineering for Natural Hazards (ENH) program and those using NHERI experimental facilities. However, as resources permit, all users in these scientific fields of study are welcome to use the infrastructure, both in the United States and Internationally. Study Materials: − − − − DesignSafe Launch – Press Release DesignSafe - Overview (Posted on Canvas) DesignSafe: New Cyberinfrastructure for Natural Hazards Engineering (Rathje et al. 2017) DesignSafe Pre-Workshop Recording (YouTube Link) and slides Assignment: Please read the workbench user guide (Link) and visit the research workbench (Link). Please go to the Data Depot → Published subfolder, and select three projects. In NO LESS than 300 words (that is your own words) provide a summary of these projects. In your work, please do not copy-paste from external sources, please do not pull text verbatim from other sources, and please make proper citations.
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