CANARIE Network-Enabled Platforms Programs

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Funded Projects

CANARIE’s flagship Network-Enabled Platform (NEP) Program funds the development of tools and software that help researchers, in a wide range of disciplines, to fully exploit and share the massive amount of data and research that flow along the CANARIE Network. To-date, the NEP Program has awarded $25.5 million in funding to 20 exciting IT research projects across the country. From deep sea to deep space exploration, the project descriptions below highlight the ground-breaking achievements of Canadian researchers, powered by the CANARIE Network.

 

Active Network Interchange for Scientific Experimentation (ANISE)    

ANISE builds on the success of Science Studio to create a high-speed network platform accessible by users worldwide and capable of processing in near real time, the results from more than one synchrotron experiment simultaneously.

The CANARIE-funded Science Studio project was a major Canadian software advance which, for the first time, used web-based software to enable remote experiment management at the Canadian Light Source. This means users no longer have to be physically present for the experiments or to access the data collected.

Project Lead: University of Western Ontario

 

Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research (CANFAR)    

CANFAR is a system that helps unlock the universe by leveraging “cloudcomputing” environments, allowing researchers to successfully access and use the vast and growing amounts of astronomical images and data.

This data flows across the high-capacity, high-speed CANARIE Network to scientists and researchers around the world.

Project Lead: University of Victoria
Participant: University of British Columbia

 

Canadian Bioinformatics Resources as Semantic Services (CBRASS)    

The CBRASS project is developing a common framework for Canada’s online biological and bioinformatics resources. CBRASS aims to simplify access to diverse biological data and sophisticated bioinformatic analysis services so researchers will find it easier to locate and use data and services. This, in turn, will accelerate data-intensive investigations.

CBRASS enables data and services from different sources to be seamlessly combined by exploiting new machine-understandable descriptions. These descriptions are crafted using formal ontologies, which capture the essence of biological knowledge, and are readily accessible to both machines and experts analyzing and conducting the research.

Project Lead: University of British Columbia

 

Canadian Brain Imaging Research Network (CBRAIN)    

CBRAIN is a research platform that provides scientists with unprecedented and immediate access to vast volumes of three- and four-dimensional brain-imaging data that is stored or being created across the country. These data are available to a broad range of researchers via CANARIE’s high-speed network.

CBRAIN allows researchers to access brain-related information and to visualize, manipulate, and exchange images of the human brain throughout various stages of development, and during progression of neurological disorders such as autism, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

Project Lead: McGill University
Participants: Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, University of Western Ontario, Université de Montréal, University of British Columbia

 

Canadian Space Science Data Portal (CSSDP)    

CSSDP provides a seamless single point of access to a wide range of space-weather data, observations, and investigative tools. It allows multidisciplinary and internationally distributed research teams to come together in an on-line community to access these resources from a custom Web portal.

Project Lead: Cybera Inc.
Participants: University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan, University of New Brunswick

 

Cloud-Enabled Space Weather Modeling & Data Assimilation Program (CESWP)    

The Cloud-Enabled Space Weather Modeling Platform (CESWP) is a next-generation expansion of the valuable science and research capabilities provided by the Canadian Space Science Data Portal (CSSDP), a secure web portal providing a single point of access to a wide range of space data, observations, and investigative tools.

Project Lead: Cybera Inc.

 

CyberSKA Canada    

CyberSKA is an innovative, custom-designed platform that will meet evolving data and information handling needs of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the largest radio-telescope ever to be built. Over the next decade, the architecture and functionality of the Canadian-led CyberSKA will allow unprecedented quantities of astrophysical data collected by the SKA to be efficiently and effectively stored, transformed, analyzed, and re-used by collaborating scientists around the world.

CyberSKA will be deployed using the CANARIE high-speed network as a distributed system consisting initially of sites from several North American universities. These sites will host data management, processing, visualization and other services that can be accessed via a portal enhanced with social networking features.

Project Lead: University of Calgary

Data from the Deep, Judgments from the Crowds    

This project leverages the power of the NEPTUNE Canada underwater observatory to enable scientists from around the global community to investigate how different species of marine mammals communicate in a group. It will also develop an Internet-based sensor network to be located in areas of scientific and educational interest, and will address the issue of the detection and classification of massive quantities of video data by enabling both scientists and the public to access and contribute to the identification of acoustic marine data.

This project will enable a greater understanding of marine ecosystems and marine mammals and provide an opportunity for the general public to participate in ocean science.

Project Lead: University of Victoria

 

Disaster Response Network Enabled Platform
(DR-NEP)    

The Disaster Response Network-Enabled Platform is a dynamic online disaster response and training environment. It links experts with specialized and diverse disaster knowledge through an online command centre that enables disaster responders to explore the impact of their decisions in a simulated disaster environment.

This integrated virtual community enables disaster responders to prepare for and respond effectively to tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, ice storms, terrorist attacks, pandemics, floods, forest fires, and other disasters.

As part of this project, two scenarios will be tested: the recent Japan disaster of March 2011,with actual data from the event, and a simulated event occurring on the campus of the University of Western Ontario. Using the CANARIE high-speed network, scenarios will be run in real time with Canadian and international partners.

Project Lead: University of British Columbia

 

GeoChronos    

GeoChronos is a Web-based collaboration environment that enables earth scientists to access, process and share data from distant locations in a social-network-like format.

In this case, the “friends” are high-performance research teams who connect with each other and access GeoChronos through a Web portal that includes applications for data management and processing.

Project Lead: Cybera Inc.
Participants: University of Calgary, University of Alberta, University of Victoria

 

Geospatial Cyberinfrastructure for Environmental Sensing (GeoCENS)    

GeoCENS is a web platform for biogeoscientists. It allows scientists to gain new insights into our climate, species and water systems, as well as better understand how our biosphere is changing.

GeoCENS uses the CANARIE high-speed network and its connections to international research networks to allow users to remotely and transparently access, interchange, understand and use different sensor networks and their data, independent of the underlying programming.

Through GeoCENS, scientists are able to collaborate across geo- and biological sciences on a scale not previously possible.

Project Lead: Cybera Inc.

 

Global Brain Imaging Research Network (GBRAIN)    

McGill will develop a high-bandwidth international network to connect brain researchers from around the world. This network will allow real-time, joint exploration of large brain datasets, resulting in improved medical research in Canada and abroad.

Project Lead: McGill University

 

Health Services Virtual Organisation (HSVO)    

HSVO is a unique medical research and learning platform that combines software, hardware and advanced networking and computing technologies in a single, Web-based, integrated, simulation system.

The high-speed CANARIE Network enables these sophisticated resources to be combined to deliver innovative and powerful learning environments to multiple locations simultaneously.

Healthcare practitioners, university professors, scientists and students in multiple locations use these resources either on-demand or as part of multi-site collaborative activities.

Project Lead: Lakehead University
Participants: Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM), McGill University, iDEAL Consulting, NRC, CRC

 

HEP Legacy Data Project    

This project builds an environment for the preservation of data and software from the BaBar high-energy physics (HEP) project. BaBar is a project at the SLAC National Accelerator lab at Stanford University that is trying to find out why the universe is made of matter and not anti-matter. It stopped recording electron and positron collisions on schedule in 2008, but the analysis of data will continue for many years.

The goal of this legacy-data project is to provide a technical solution that will enable the analysis of the BaBar data for ten or more years. In order to preserve both the data and the software environment from BaBar, this project is focusing on three aspects:

  • Understanding how to run complex HEP applications in a virtual computing environment;
  • Development of science cloud facilities in Canada, and use of commercial cloud resources such as the Amazon EC2 cloud; and
  • Investigation of how to manage the virtual computing environment, the scientific data and the use of multiple clouds seamlessly as a single entity, regardless of their geographic location.

The project uses the CANARIE high-speed network to transmit data flows and connect data, tools and researchers in Canada and the US.

Project Lead: University of Victoria

 

Oceans 2.0: A Platform to Create and Support Ocean Science Virtual Organizations    

Oceans 2.0 is a virtual Web-based environment where ocean scientists work with interactive, real-time access to data from a broad range of instruments located on the sea floor, via CANARIE’s high-speed network.

These instruments are part of the VENUS and NEPTUNE Canada Ocean Observatory Networks and provide scientists and researchers with an unprecedented view of ocean ecosystems. Access to multiple applications and instruments is made simple via a Web portal that even allows users to share ndings through blogs and chats.

Research collaboration using these massive datasets and visualizations increases our knowledge of the ocean and its inhabitants.

Project Lead: University of Victoria
Participants: Memorial University of Newfoundland, McGill University

 

Online Network-Enabled Intelligent Transportation System (ONE-ITS)    

This project aims to create an online information hub that enables researchers from multiple disciplines to exchange, manage and analyze transportation data in real time; collaborate more effectively; and collectively tackle key transportation challenges facing Canadians. The ONE-ITS platform will support the development of unprecedented pan-Canadian, internationally connected research network in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). It will bring together a wealth of ITS data, resources and expertise online, making them readily accessible to researchers who aim to discover, develop and validate potential transportation solutions, from new ways to mitigate traffic congestion on highways to more effective plan for evacuations and other emergency situations.

Project Lead: University of Regina
Participant: University of Toronto

 

Open Orchestra    

Imagine: you are a musician in an orchestra, or a soloist, playing a concerto or singing an aria with orchestral accompaniment. You would like to practice far more often than the average orchestra is able to accommodate; Open Orchestra fills in for the real thing. It's a high-fidelity immersive music simulator!

Playing in an orchestra is not the same as playing alone, but the opportunities to practice with an orchestra are very limited for many students. Using advanced technologies and the CANARIE high-speed network, students get to practice with high-fidelity simulations of the full ensemble and have an expert instructor review their performance.

But unlike Karaoke, Open Orchestra gives the student the same "seat" as the real musician. This means that students see and hear the rest of the orchestra members just as they would if they were playing with a “live” orchestra.

Project Lead: McGill University

 

Platform for Ocean Knowledge Management (POKM)    

Human survival is directly linked to stable oceanic life. The Platform for Ocean Knowledge Management (POKM) lets marine scientists unlock the mysteries of the deep by enabling access to vast sources of data and the tools to explore them.

Sensors that observe and monitor our oceans are scattered around the globe and generate a massive amount of marine-life and ocean data. POKM allows the seamless and efficient collection, exploration and sharing of massive amounts of this data, thus realizing a range of ecological, educational and economic benefits.

POKM uses CANARIE’s high-speed network to enable researchers from around the world to acquire and dive into large volumes of data, helping them understand the many mysteries of our oceans.

Project Lead: Dalhousie University

 

Science Studio    

Science Studio is a Web-based application for remote experiment management that lets scientists anywhere experiment with x-ray beams at the Canadian Light Source or to use the electron microscope at the University of Western Ontario via CANARIE's high-speed network.

From the comfort of their own ofces and when they want, researchers log onto a website, conduct experiments and get real-time results.

Users can share their experiment data on Science Studio with other researchers anywhere in the world.

Project Lead: University of Western Ontario
Participants: Canadian Light Source Inc, Concordia University

 

Service-Oriented Scientific Grid Computing (SOSGC)    

SOSGC is a comprehensive computing “grid” that provides researchers access to a rich trove of remote-sensing data about Canada’s forests.

Supercomputers, data-storage facilities, databases, collaborative tools, and people are linked by CANARIE’s high-speed network.

This supports sustainable management and development of Canada’s vast forest resources.

Project Lead: University of Victoria

 


For additional information on NEP projects, please contact:

Hervé Guy
Manager, Technology Innovation
herve.guy@canarie.ca
(613) 944-5606



"CANARIE's support in developing new web services tools, combined with real-time observations, means that scientists can respond to events such as storms, plankton blooms, fish migrations, earthquakes, tsunamis and underwater volcanic eruptions as they happen. The global reach of the CANARIE Network also makes it possible to continuously feed data, sounds and images from the ocean depths to laboratories, classrooms and science centres across Canada and around the world."

Chris Barnes, D. Ph., chef de projet, NEPTUNE Canada, Université de Victoria