CREST Phase II: Cyber-ShARE Center of Excellence

德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校（UTEP）卓越中心成立于2007年，其使命是通过支持信息交换和集成以及跨学科合作研究的网络基础设施来推进教育和研究。该中心进行研究并培养一支能够解决社会面临的一些最具挑战性问题的劳动力队伍。中心的跨学科研究产生了工具和方法，通过促进共享知识、概念、方法和观点的能力来支持学术跨学科合作。中心在协同科学与工程研究方面处于全国领先地位，开发并应用了团队合作、合作学习、跨学科团队合作和知识整合等模式。网络基础设施（CI）的进步领域包括数据管理、数据分析和支持协作的虚拟组织。特别是，CI研究侧重于科学家记录数据收集和产品开发的能力，通过使用来源和其他关键信息增强结果，从而实现科学结果的共享和重用。该中心的横切专业知识是在协作和协作环境，基于语义的知识合成和表示方法（本体和来源），以及集成分析中不确定性的传播。这种专业知识将超越的子项目如下：(1)知识表示、谈判和整合：通过语义连接人类和机器知识模型(2)利用网络基础设施推进对生态系统过程的理解(3)地球结构三维模型开发的集成分析通过CI支持的跨学科方法，recycle - share在气候变化对环境的影响分析和地球结构建模方面的研究取得了进展。我们的环境科学小组正在通过创新的多尺度数据收集和分析，以及减少误差传播和确保数据质量的新方法，推进对极端沙漠和北极环境中碳通量的理解。我们的地球物理研究小组正在通过数据集成和模型融合的计算方法开发更精确的里约热内卢大裂谷系统模型。该中心开发了新颖的工具，使研究人员能够更有效地分析通过这些项目和全国各地的环境和地震传感器网络收集的大量数据。传感器数据对于了解短期和长期全球变化至关重要，能够更好地了解气候变化对水和能源的影响，以及地球结构对地震风险的影响。在下一阶段的资助中，Cyber-ShARE中心将继续在CI的支持下，在环境科学和地球科学领域开展创新、协同的STEM研究。作为三个子项目的一部分，将调查的大量研究问题包括：我们如何在先进的网络基础设施的推动下，为跨学科研究创建一个机器可理解的个人心理模型和综合概念框架的表示？在沙漠和北极陆地生态系统中，什么因素控制着碳、水和能量的陆地-大气交换？在什么样的空间和时间尺度上？如何使用语义网技术来增强开放访问环境数据的共享、发现、检索、集成、分析和可视化？b里约热内卢大裂谷的演化过程是怎样的？它与其他活跃的裂谷有什么关系，比如东非裂谷系？科学家们能否理解、相信并接受西南（和其他地区）构造演化的新见解，这些新见解是通过CI和基于CI的应用程序的发展产生的，这些应用程序可以无缝地集成和优化融合现有的信息源？该中心对于扩大跨学科、ci知识公民的培训和教育至关重要，包括获得高等学位并代表21世纪人口结构的STEM学生。与地质、环境和计算机科学研究生的全国平均水平（NSF 2008）相比，Cyber-ShARE的学生中有82.7%是西班牙裔，而全国平均水平为4.7%；女性占36.5%，而全国平均水平为30.8%。该中心的目标是在第二阶段让代表性不足的群体的公民更高层次地参与进来。该中心将扩展Cyber-ShARE合作网络，包括其他主要CI项目、国际合作者和行业合作伙伴。

The Cyber-ShARE ("Cyberinfrastructure for Sharing resources to Advance Research and Education") Center of Excellence at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) was established in 2007 with a mission to advance education and research through cyberinfrastructures that support information exchange and integration, as well as collaborative interdisciplinary research. The Center conducts research and prepares a workforce that can tackle some of the most challenging problems confronting society. The interdisciplinary research at the Center has resulted in tools and approaches that support scholarly interdisciplinary collaboration by facilitating the ability to share knowledge, concepts, approaches, and perspectives. As national leaders in the study of collaborative science and engineering, the Center has developed and applied models of team-based, cooperative learning, interdisciplinary teamwork, and knowledge integration. Areas of advancement in cyberinfrastructure (CI) have been in data management, data analysis, and virtual organizations in support of collaboration. In particular, CI research has focused on scientists' ability to document data collection and product development in ways that enable sharing and reuse of scientific results by enhancing results with provenance and other critical information.The Center's crosscutting expertise is in collaboration and collaborative environments, semantic-based approaches to knowledge synthesis and representation (ontologies and provenance), and propagation of uncertainty in integrated analyses. The subprojects through which this expertise will transcend are as follows:(1) Knowledge Representation, Negotiation and Integration: Linking Human and Machine Knowledge Models through Semantics(2) Advancing Understanding of Ecosystem Processes Using Cyberinfrastructure(3) Integrated Analysis for Development of 3-D Models of Earth StructureCyber-ShARE's research in analysis of climate change impacts on the environment and the modeling of Earth's structure has advanced through the Center's interdisciplinary approaches supported by CI. Our environmental science group is advancing understanding of carbon flux in extreme desert and arctic environments through innovative multi-scale data collection and analysis, along with novel methods for minimizing error propagation and ensuring data quality. Our geophysics research group is developing more accurate models of the Rio Grande Rift System through computational approaches to data integration and model fusion. The Center has developed novel tools that allow researchers to more effectively analyze the large amounts of data being collected through environmental and seismic sensor networks in these projects and around our nation. Sensor data are critical for understanding short and long term global change, enabling better understanding of the effects of climate change on water and energy, and the effects of earth structure on earthquake risk. In the next phase of funding, the Cyber-ShARE Center will continue to conduct innovative, synergistic STEM research supported by CI in the areas of environmental science and geosciences. Among a large number of research questions to be investigated as part of the three subprojects are the following: How can we create a machine understandable representation of individual mental models and integrated conceptual frameworks for interdisciplinary research, facilitated by advanced cyber-infrastructure?What factors control land-atmosphere exchange of carbon, water and energy in desert and arctic terrestrial ecosystems and over what spatial and time scales?How can Semantic Web technologies be used to enhance open access environmental data sharing, discovery, retrieval, integration, analysis, and visualization?What is the evolution of the Rio Grande Rift and how does this relate to other active rifts, for example, the East Africa Rift System?Can scientists understand, believe and accept new insights in the tectonic evolution of the southwest (and other regions) that were produced through the development of CI and CI-based applications that can seamlessly integrate and optimally fuse existing information sources?The Center is critical to broadening training and education of interdisciplinary, CI-knowledgeable citizens, including STEM students who receive advanced degrees and represent the 21st century demographics. Compared to the national averages for graduate students in geology and environmental and computer science (NSF 2008), Cyber-ShARE students are 82.7% Hispanic while the national average is 4.7%, and 36.5% female while the national average is 30.8%. The Center aims to reach even higher levels of involvement of citizens from underrepresented groups during Phase II. The Center will extend the network of Cyber-ShARE collaborations to include other major CI projects, international collaborators, and industry partners.