Collaborative Research: CompSustNet: Expanding the Horizons of Computational Sustainability

合作研究：CompSustNet：拓展计算可持续性的视野

• 批准号: 1521672
• 负责人: Douglas Fisher
• 金额: $ 19万
• 依托单位: Vanderbilt University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-15 至 2021-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1521672&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; CompSustNet; Expanding; Horizons

Poverty, saving species, repowering the world with renewable energy, lifting people up to live better lives - there are no easy answers to guiding our planet on the path toward sustainability. Complex problems require sophisticated solutions. They involve intricacy beyond human capabilities, the kind of big-data processing and analysis that only advanced large-scale computing can provide. This NSF Expedition in Computing launches CompSustNet (http://www.compsust.net), a vast research network powered by the nation's recognized university computer science programs, charged with applying the emerging field of computational sustainability to solving the world's seemingly unsolvable resource problems. Put simply, the project will enlist some of the top talents in computing, social science, conservation, physics, materials science, and engineering to unlock sustainable solutions that safeguard our planet's future.Computational Sustainability is, at its core, the belief that with sufficiently advanced computational techniques, we can devise sustainable solutions that meet the environmental, societal, and economic needs of today while providing for future generations. In much the same way IBM's supercomputer Watson could defeat any challenger in Jeopardy!, computational sustainability posits that a computer-engineered solution can be applied to world's difficult and challenging problems - from helping farmers and herders in Africa survive severe droughts to developing a smart power grid fueled entirely by renewable energy. CompSustNet is a large national and international multi-institutional research network led by Cornell University and including 11 other US academic institutions: Bowdoin, Caltech, CMU, Georgia Tech, Howard University, Oregon State, Princeton, Stanford, UMass, University of South California, and Vanderbilt University, as well as collaborations with several international universities. But CompSustNet is not just an academic enterprise, as it also includes key governmental and non-governmental organizations that specialize in conservation, poverty mitigation, and renewable energy, such as The Nature Conservancy, The World Wildlife Fund, The International Livestock Research Institute, The Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.CompSustNet's core mission is to significantly expand the horizons of computational sustainability and foster the advancement of state-of-the-art computer science to achieve the scale to tackle global problems. Research will focus on cross-cutting computational topics such as optimization, dynamical models, simulation, big data, machine learning, and citizen science, applied to sustainability challenges. For example, computational sustainability is being put to work to resolve the problem of providing wetlands for shorebirds that migrate from the Arctic through California during a time of drought. As California gets drier, the shorebirds have nowhere to stop, rest, and refuel by eating wetland invertebrates. Scientists are developing new dynamic precision conservation techniques that use complex, big-data models to tackle the problem with NASA satellite imagery, meteorological forecasts, and citizen science in the form of thousands of bird location sightings from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's eBird checklisting app for birdwatchers. Through partnership with The Nature Conservancy, the program forecasts when and where wetland habitat would be needed for shorebirds, and the Conservancy pays Central Valley rice farmers to flood their fields at opportune times - providing benefits for birds and farmers at a time when extreme drought is making life tough for both. In similar ways, computational sustainability projects will also be hard at work innovating automated monitoring networks to protect endangered elephant population from poachers, promoting the discovery of novel ways to harvest energy from sun light, and designing algorithms to manage the generation and storage of renewable energy in the power grid. Advancements in computational sustainability will lead to novel, low-cost, high-efficiency strategies for saving endangered species, helping indigenous peoples improve their way of life, and scaling renewables up to meet 21st century energy demand. CompSustNet is like the seed, the venture capital, to help the field of computational sustainability achieve what's possible.

消除贫困、拯救物种、用可再生能源为世界提供动力、让人们过上更好的生活——要引导我们的星球走上可持续发展的道路，没有简单的答案。复杂的问题需要复杂的解决方案。它们涉及超出人类能力的复杂性，这种大数据处理和分析只有先进的大规模计算才能提供。这次美国国家科学基金会计算机探险启动了CompSustNet (http://www.compsust.net)，这是一个由美国公认的大学计算机科学项目提供支持的庞大研究网络，负责应用计算可持续性这一新兴领域来解决世界上看似无法解决的资源问题。简而言之，该项目将招募计算机、社会科学、环保、物理、材料科学和工程领域的一些顶尖人才，以解锁保护我们星球未来的可持续解决方案。计算可持续性的核心理念是，通过足够先进的计算技术，我们可以设计出满足当今环境、社会和经济需求的可持续解决方案，同时为子孙后代提供服务。以同样的方式，IBM的超级计算机沃森可以击败Jeopardy！《计算可持续性》认为，计算机工程解决方案可以应用于世界上困难和具有挑战性的问题——从帮助非洲的农民和牧民度过严重的干旱，到开发完全由可再生能源驱动的智能电网。CompSustNet是一个大型的国家和国际多机构研究网络，由康奈尔大学领导，包括其他11所美国学术机构：鲍登大学、加州理工学院、CMU、佐治亚理工学院、霍华德大学、俄勒冈州立大学、普林斯顿大学、斯坦福大学、马萨诸塞大学、南加州大学和范德比尔特大学，并与几所国际大学合作。但CompSustNet不仅仅是一个学术企业，它还包括专门从事自然保护、减轻贫困和可再生能源的关键政府和非政府组织，如大自然保护协会、世界野生动物基金会、国际牲畜研究所、泛非水文气象台和国家标准与技术研究所。CompSustNet的核心使命是显著扩展计算可持续性的视野，促进最先进的计算机科学的进步，以实现解决全球问题的规模。研究将集中在跨领域的计算主题，如优化、动态模型、仿真、大数据、机器学习和公民科学，应用于可持续性挑战。例如，计算可持续性正被用于解决在干旱时期为从北极到加利福尼亚迁徙的滨鸟提供湿地的问题。随着加州变得越来越干燥，滨鸟没有地方停下来，休息，并通过吃湿地无脊椎动物来补充能量。科学家们正在开发新的动态精确保护技术，使用复杂的大数据模型来解决美国宇航局卫星图像、气象预报和公民科学的问题，这些问题来自康奈尔鸟类学实验室为观鸟者提供的电子鸟类检查清单应用程序中数千种鸟类的位置观测。通过与大自然保护协会的合作，该项目预测了何时何地滨鸟需要湿地栖息地，而大自然保护协会则付钱给中央山谷的稻农，让他们在适当的时候淹水——在极端干旱使鸟类和农民生活艰难的时候，这对他们都有好处。以类似的方式，计算可持续性项目也将努力创新自动化监测网络，以保护濒临灭绝的大象种群免受偷猎者的侵害，促进发现从阳光中获取能量的新方法，并设计算法来管理电网中可再生能源的产生和储存。计算可持续性的进步将带来新颖、低成本、高效率的策略，以拯救濒危物种，帮助土著人民改善他们的生活方式，并扩大可再生能源的规模，以满足21世纪的能源需求。CompSustNet就像一颗种子，一笔风险投资，帮助计算机可持续性领域实现一切可能。