Branislav Simo

A distributed framework for multi-risk assessment of natural hazards used to model the effects of forest fire on hydrology and sediment yield

Within the European Commission-funded MEDIGRID project, Grid computing technology is used to integrate various natural hazard models and data sets, maintained independently at different centres in Europe, into a single system, accessible to users over the internet. Each centre forms a process (application) or data storage node and has been fitted with the Globus toolkit, which provides the distributed computing environment functionality that is required for the system set up. In addition, several Grid data management components were developed to allow the system to operate on different computing platforms. Access to the data and application management services is enabled through a Grid Portal. A series of portlets enable users to access the system, providing a personalised interface to the Grid. Integration of the individual models required them to be modified as web services, so as to be run remotely over the internet. As the models have different data characteristics, a common data format was adopted for creating harmonised data sets and allowing the exchange of data between the models. As an example, the Fire Spread Engine model is used to derive a map of areas that have been burnt by fire. This forms an input to the SHETRAN hydrology, soil erosion and landslide model, which in turn could provide data for other models such as vegetation regeneration. The use of the system is demonstrated for a site in south-west Spain where a large forest fire occurred on 2 August 2003. The MEDIGRID system marks an advance in the integration of independently constructed models to provide improved hazard assessment technology.

Problem‐solving environment for flood forecasting

This paper presents a prototype of the collaborative problem solving environment (PSE) for flood forecasting. Flood forecasting is a complex problem that requires cooperation of many scientists in different areas. To enable this cooperation in a manner comfortable to hydrometeorological experts, a part of the CrossGrid project is aimed towards developing a PSE, whose prototype is described here. The PSE consists of a cascade of simulation models, a storage system for computed and measured data and other used datasets, a Web‐based portal with collaboration tools and a powerful computation facility. The whole system is tied together by grid technology and is used to support a virtual organization of experts, developers and users.

Flood Forecasting in CrossGrid Project

This paper presents a prototype of flood forecasting system based on Grid technologies. The system consists of workflow system for executing simulation cascade of meteorological, hydrological and hydraulic models, data management system for storing and accessing different computed and measured data, and web portals as user interfaces. The whole system is tied together by Grid technology and is used to support a virtual organization of experts, developers and users.

Grid Based Flood Prediction Virtual Organization

The topic of natural disaster management -- prediction, prevention, or minimization of their impact is an important topic for scientific research. The advances in computer simulation and highperformance computing in recent years have highly extended the possibilities in this field, and have changed the ways in which natural disaster management systems operate. This paper describes evolution of one such system -- a flood prediction application. The application consists of a set of simulation models, visualization tools, and various support components. During past six years it has evolved from a simple hydraulic modeling scenario into a sophisticated cascade of simulations, using state-of-the art grid, workflow and knowledge management technologies, and is one of the first applications of the SOKU [1]concept in the field of computer simulations.

Service oriented architecture for risk assessment of natural disasters

The new FP6 programme project Medigrid is targeted in Global Change and Ecosystems sub-priority. This paper will discuss this project and will describe its primary aim — development of a framework for multi-risk assessment of natural disasters. We have considered several aspect and user requirements during the design of architecture. The service oriented architecture based on the Globus Toolkit 4 has been chosen. The data management services will be implemented on the top of the OGSA-DAI framework with several improvements and extension. We will use a workflow management system for integration purpose. A portal technology has been chosen as user interface.

Flood Forecasting in a Grid Computing Environment

This paper presents a prototype of a flood forecasting sys- tem based on Grid computing. Flood forecasting is a complex problem that requires cooperation and coupling of many simulation models. To enable this coupling in an effective way, a part of the CrossGrid project is aimed towards developing a Grid Computing Environment (GCE) for flood forecasting, as described here. The Grid computing environment consists of a cascade of simulation models, a storage system for com- puted and measured data and other used datasets, a web-based portal with collaboration tools and a powerful computation facility. The whole system is tied together by Grid technology and is used to support a virtual organization of experts, developers and users.

Concept of a Problem Solving Environment for Flood Forecasting

Flood forecasting is a complex problem that requires cooperation of many scientists in different areas. In this paper, the concept of a Collaborative Problem Solving Environment for Flood Forecasting a part of the CrossGrid project - is presented. This paper also focuses on the parallel numerical solution of hydraulic simulation module that is one the most computational-intensive parts of the whole system.

Automatic Data Reuse in Grid Workflow Composition

Many papers, research projects, and software products have tackled the problem of automatic composition of a workflow of computer processes, which computes certain data or performs a specific task. In recent years this has also gained popularity in grid computing, especially in connection with semantic description of resources usable in the workflow. However, most of the works dealing with semantically-aided workflow composition propose solutions only for workflows of processes, without the data necessary to execute them. We describe the design of a system, which will be able to find not only the processes, but also the content for their execution, based solely on the list of available resources and a description of the required target of the workflow. The solution is based on our previous work in the project K-Wf Grid, utilizes semantic description of resources by means of ontologies, and operates on a SOA-based grid composed of web services. It is being developed in the context of a project called SEMCO-WS.

Infrastructure for Grid-Based Virtual Organizations

This paper presents architecture of a collaborative computation environment based on a Grid infrastructure, used as a support for large scientific virtual organizations. The environment consists primarily of a collaboration-supporting user interface, workflow system capable of submission of jobs to the Grid and a Grid-based data management suite. A prototype of such an environment is deployed and tested for a flood forecasting system. The system consists of workflow system for executing simulation cascade of meteorological, hydrological and hydraulic models, data management system for storing and accessing different computed and measured data, and a set of web portals.

Distributed secure agent platform for crisis management

This article proposes a mobile agent platform based on Jini services deployed over IP-based networks. The role of agents in the proposed architecture is primarily coordinated collection of information. The overall agent infrastructure is designed as a secure, robust and fail resistant system. Trust for agents can be based on a special hardware module which provides trusted computing functionality. In the article we describe such architecture in terms of requirements and design. Core agent types are proposed to access different kinds of distributed resources. Specialized agents for access to legacy information sources, communication with end-users and configuration of IP-based network devices are described. We conclude with current state of the architecture implementation and with further plans concerning the development of the described architecture.