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Bheki Cwele with Andrew Terhorst of CSIRO at the Tasmanian ICT Centre
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A six-week visit by CSIR researcher Bheki Cwele to CSIRO's Tasmanian ICT Centre, is part of a growing trend in collaborative partnerships between sensor web enablement (SWE) researchers across the globe.
Cwele was invited to work during March and May 2009 at the Tasmanian ICT Centre by Andrew Terhorst, a former Meraka Institute staffer, who is part of its team of 32 researchers (including 10 doctoral and five postdoctoral students) from all over the world. Cwele explains the aim of the visit, "The main activity was to learn more on scientific workflows modelling using the Kepler tool. Kepler is one of the most promising tools for scientific workflows modelling for various disciplines."
Sensory information clearly enhances experience of the environment and adds to real-time understanding. The sensor web is an observation system that provides a comprehensive, continuous monitoring presence of the earth, from which one can determine drivers of change. By combining information about large spatial areas, the sensor web gets an environmental awareness and can literally become a thinking presence within the environment.
A sensor web can be seen as one huge instrument of which the surveying area can be expanded by using multiple sensors. Just as the connections between neurons in the brain give rise to intelligent behaviour, the sensor web measurements are shared and interpreted as they pass among its many pods.
Cwele explains that a scientific workflow is the process of combining data and processes into a configurable, structured set of steps that implement semi-automated computational solutions of a scientific problem. Scientific workflow systems often provide graphical user interfaces to combine different technologies along with efficient methods for using them, and thus increase the efficiency of the scientists.
Kepler is a free-software system for designing, executing, and sharing scientific workflows. "The Tasmanian ICT Centre has several projects," Cwele explains. "The Hydrological Sensor Web project is one example, where Kepler has been used to model scientific workflows activities on practical instances. This includes the sensor observation service (SOS)." This project covers a major river catchment in north-eastern Tasmania and is the biggest of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
He confirms the benefits of this visit, "I have learnt a lot about SOS, including its operations in xml-format*, how to develop a scientific workflow program and how to create actors on Kepler." He explains that expertise on sensor web services, sensor web and SWE are key on the research agenda of the ICT for earth observation research group at the CSIR.
"One way to achieving an edge is to expose individual researchers to groups around the globe that share common interests to ours and to learn something about their approaches in SWE activities," he points out. The ICT4EO is keen to form collaborations and partnerships with different EO-interested groups.
Terhorst affirms this, "We would like to develop a common and shared research agenda around SWE through visits such as Bheki's. My hope is that Bheki learns enough from his visit to excite his colleagues back in South Africa about what we are doing in SWE in the Tasmanian ICT Centre. Hopefully this will lead to other (and even reciprocal) visits."
The other benefit has been for Cwele's personal experience and exposure to practical developments in the area of EO. "As a relative newcomer to the ICT4EO team with a background in wireless networks, I am grateful for this good exposure to practical implementations in the field, rather than only acquiring knowledge through theoretical terms and concepts."
"I look forward to becoming a Kepler specialist and sharing knowledge with my colleagues," Cwele concludes.
* An extensible language, which allows the user to define the mark-up elements. XML's purpose is to aid information systems in sharing structured data, especially via the internet.
Enquiries: CSIR Communication
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