JISC

Six hundred and fifty delegates attended the 5 ^thUK e-Science All Hands Meeting in Nottingham last month, making it one of the best attended yet. Submission of papers and ideas for workshops and sessions were also at record levels. 

Two of the workshops explored UK-China and UK-Korea links, demonstrating the on-going international interest in the UK e-Science Programme. Thirty two organisations had booths in the exhibition area which attracted crowds, especially for demonstrations. The National e-Science Centre (NeSC) organised the event with funding from the e-Science Core Programme. JISC was the main sponsor again this year, holding sessions about its e-framework and e-infrastructure programmes. 

Highlights of the event included: presentations on how large scale computer simulations - performed using the JISC/CCLRC/EPSRC-funded National Grid Service - are revealing ways in which the human immunodeficiency virus evades the action of drugs; a demonstration of an AHRC-funded project which is using grid technologies to enable scholars in distributed, remote locations to collaborate over the study of medieval manuscripts; and a grid-based system to integrate genomic data across species and so capture details of the relationship between and across species.

Keynote speakers included Dan Atkins, Director of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure, NSF on the NSF’s cyberinfrastructure programme, Robert Gurney, Director, Environmental Systems Science Centre at ReadingUniversity on how e-Science is addressing pressing environmental issues and Stephen Emmott, Director European Science Programme, Microsoft Research, on the intellectual challenges and potential rewards of considering biological systems as information processing systems. 

AHM 2006 Proceedings are available at www.allhands.org.uk