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Most of the real world WebTop Systems will involve multi-user collaboratory modules. Even for scientific computing, complex toolkits such as WebAMR will be most conveniently supported by interactive consultation between developers and users.
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Collaboratory multi-user components will be further enhanced in enterprise, commerce and community systems.
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This is illustrated in our recent telemedicine prototype for nursing triage. Here we start from the collaboratory component involving nurses, nurse practioners and pediatricians and add HPCC components such as medical imaging and agent based diagnosis.
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We view the Bridge topology (Warner & Balch '95), underlying such telemedicine systems, as a promising generic framework, applicable also for other problem domains.
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A generic bridge includes "points of need", "points of expertise" and intelligent middleware that manages information resources and provides connectivity between customers and optimal services.
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Bridge point of expertise consistent with Anchor desk in JWID military exercises
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We present here examples of the bridge topology, instantiated in various application domains:
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Domain Points of Need Points of Expertise Typical Services
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TeleMedicine Nurses, Nurse Practioners Diagnosis
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Command Troops Commanders Decision
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and Control Making
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Distance Learners Teachers Mentoring
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Education Students Consultants
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Commerce Consumers Vendors Product Support
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Science Schools Scientists Popular Science
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Collaboratory Small Businesses Technology Transfer
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MATLAB -- note not parallel but very succesful
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AVS -- different level of abstraction from MATLAB -- also succesful and not (correctly) parallel.
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PDElab/ELLPACK and other partial differential equation packages
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DSI / SIMNET and distributed event driven simulation for military applications
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VRML and growing distributing interactive gaming applications
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Global Arrays (Pacific Northwest Lab) -- very succesful toolkit for matrix formulated chemistry applications -- can they/should they extend to finer grain molecular dynamics
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ASOP -- Multidisciplinary Design Systems -- and lessons from prototypes Engineous (GE), FIDO(Langley), NPSS(Lewis)
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Note link to databases and need for wrappers for legacy systems
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WebWork -- Boston NPAC -- use Web for (initially) coarse grain software integration
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Collaborative computing technology
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Configuration control and human-in-the-loop (Computational steering)
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Computational geometry and grid generation
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Scalable algorithms
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Scalable solver libraries
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Parallel/Distributed computing --- metacomputing
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Fault tolerance and security
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Federated multi-media databases
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File system and I/O technologies
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Visualization including virtual reality, televirtuality etc.
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Interactive interface development (GUI) technologies
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Symbolic manipulation and automatic code generation
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Artificial intelligence and expert systems
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Performance monitoring and modeling
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"Low-level" virtual machine such as MPI, PVM etc.
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"Fine grain high-level" languages (C++, HPF etc.)
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Software engineering and coarse grain software (software bus) integration
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"Web-ware" and scripting middle-ware(Perl, Java, VRML, Python, etc.)
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Agent search and communication systems
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Wrapper technology for legacy systems and interoperability
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Interface specification support and information exchange protocols (such as CORBA, Opendoc, metadata and web standards)
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Object oriented software technology - object transport and management
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PSE templates and frameworks
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This is future model for (inter)national distributed research
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Rich Collaboration environment essential as collaborative research requires nontrivial person to person interactions
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Searching distributed databases basis of much scholarly work (infoVision and Digital Library)
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Metacomputing for multidisciplinary, multi-institutional simulations and for control and data storage and analysis from remote instruments whether satellites, telescopes, accelerators etc.
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Distributed (people) Software Engineering support for production of distributed computing software
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Needs workflow support as distributed enterprise
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We discuss here the multi-prong evolution path of the Web computing, starting form the "Web Revolution '95/'96' and extrapolating from the current 'Web Expansion Phase' towards the WebWindows based WebTop Systems to come
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We review both the base Web Technologies under development (commercially and in academia) and selected pilot projects / prototype applications at NPAC
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Base NPAC Technologies include: WebTools, WebVM, WebWork, WebFlow, Bridge Topologies, WebWindows, WebTop Systems
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Prototype NPAC Applications include: Telemedicine, Command and Control, and Large Scale Computation Problems such as RSA Factoring-by-Web, Adaptive Mesh Refinement and Visible->Virtual Human
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Some factors that contributed to this phase transition are:
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Netscape2 plug-in support that attracted many software vendors to the Netscape platform
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Successful Java marketing by Sun
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Netscape's agile response to and support for Java, augmented by JavaScript/LifeWire add-on
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Success of VRML/VAG forum that caused all major computer vendors to compete in the open VRML 2.0 design proposal contest
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Aggressive use of the Web itself (and all of us...) by Netscape/Sun for marketing, distribution, debugging and customer feedback support of the Web software products via the sequence of ever changing/never really working alpha/beta releases
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Why do we put up with so many bugs!
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As of today (May '96), we are in the middle of the "expansion phase", triggered by the '95/'96 "revolution"
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Netscape3 is out with support for Live3D (inlined VRML) and CoolTalk (Internet Phone). LiveMedia (inlined video based on OpenDVE/RTP) is coming soon. FastTrack Web servers offer now page authoring, site management, mailing services, scripted database interfaces and so on. A mortal Netscape-Microsoft war is imminent.
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Meanwhile, JavaSoft expands with a different strategy , by collaborating with Microsoft, seeking new niches such as support for transparent database backends (JDBC), distributed computing (DMI), CASE tools (JDE) and open browser technology (beta HotJava), family of extension API's -- Media, Commerce, Security, Collaboration .
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Meanwhile, Sun attempts at JavaVM based JavaOS and GNU is addressing open multiplatform JavaVM implementation.
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Meanwhile, open Web community (with the major concentration in the VRML forum) starts addressing "open JavaScript" that would challenge JavaScript/LiveWire and eventually Java.
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At NPAC, we follow a two-prong strategy, including component technology prototyping and integration technology development. --
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Some component technology prototype projects are short lived -- their goal is to provide us with 'look ahead' and placeholders for the industry modules to come
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For example, NPAC '95 prototypes such as WebTools, WebMail or WebDBMS are now being (partially) offered by Netscape in their '96 browsers and servers.
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Meanwhile, however, we were able to make the next step in the conceptual design and start addressing the larger scope Web software system integration issues in terms of our '95 component technology prototypes.
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We call them WebTop Systems or distributed applications based on leading edge Web technologies and the emergent WebWindows operating system.
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WebTools -- PDA-like Web based environment using CGI (to be improved)-extended personal Web servers to handle file management, e-mail etc.
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WebWisdom -- JavaScript prototype for managing information hierarchies in the electronic presentation space for Virtual University
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WebWork -- a mesh of WebTools-like servers, coordinated to perform a common (potentially world-wide) distributed computational task
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WebVM -- an abstract VM implemented in terms of / on top of computationally extended evolving Web technologies
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WebFlow -- a dataflow paradigm for visual programming on top of WebVM in terms of interactive browser tools (Java based visual flow editor)
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WebHPL -- a high level object-oriented interpreted language on top of WebVM to support Web based HPCC
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WebSpace -- pervasive collaboration support, based on Web/Oracle and Java collaboratory servers
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WebWindows -- a Web(VM) based operating/windowing environment under collaborative development by the Web community
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WebTop Systems -- an ensemble of toolkits and integration framework for WebWindows application development
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WebTools -- CGI/Perl prototype in '95, now being augmented by / integrated with Java, JavaScript and Web/Oracle.
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WebWisdom -- Prototype done -- Productize next!
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WebWork -- proof-of-the-concept application to factor RSA130 by a tree of Web servers (completed Apr'96)
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WebVM -- minimal CGI prototype operational; work in progress on Java server support.
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WebFlow -- simple Java applet for visual Web programming operational. Near term application testbeds: AMR, 3D Visible Human.
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WebHPL -- WebHPF operational. Simple interpreted "little language" layer planned for WebAMR.
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WebWindows -- exploring all three current platform candidates: UNIX, WindowsNT, JavaOS (HotJava, JDE, DMI, JDE).
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WebTop Systems -- exploring Bridge topology as a reusable integration framework.
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We illustrate here how the individual component technologies cooperate in a complete application, WebAMR (Adaptive Mesh Refinement)
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A mesh of computationally extended Web servers, connected via HTTP based message passing, acts as WebVM that runs PDE solver modules for individual grids
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In a simple static AMR topology (WebWork model), a tree of refined meshes is constructed by the user via the AVS like visual programming tools (WebFlow)
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Dynamic AMR trees require interpreted programming support -- a pilot "little language" design towards WebHPL
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WebAMR applications can be configured and run on heterogeneous clusters, including any WebWindows compliant platform
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Example of WebTop System in this domain in a set of WebVM/WebFlow modules, packaged and customized as a PDE Toolkit for a given Grand Challenge community.
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CareWeb for Telemedicine -- local community network to support electronic student health record database and collaborative diagnosis by nurses, nurse practitioners and pediatricians.
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Command and Control -- innovative use of Web technologies for integrating a suite of large scale applications (weather, electromagnetic scattering, telemedicine, GIS) contributing to a military Command and Control.
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Distance Education and Science Collaboratory -- content (Virtual University, Living Schoolbook) and technology (WebFoil, WebSpace/LabSpace) development for delivering education over the Internet and providing collaboratory links between students and mentors.
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Large Scale Numerical Computing -- A set of pilot projects that explore Web based HPCC starting from simple computational topologies. Current prototypes include: RSA Factoring-by-Web, Adaptive Mesh Refinement for PDEs, 3D Visible Human.
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Computational Geometry and Grid generation
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Collaborative Computing linked to configuration controlled databases with humans and computers in the loop
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Multi-level object technology for reusable, maintainable, robust software which is performance portable -- focus on complete PSE and not just computational kernels
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Mechanisms for validating correctness of numerical code
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Metacomputing -- PSE's are naturally set up as cross-country (institution) distributed computing systems
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Wrapper technology for legacy Systems (Rockwell tells me next DoD aircraft needs 10,000 separate programs to be run!)
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Large scale knowledge base systems for particular domains -- real engineers must use these PSE's
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As well as normal scalable algorithms, software, filesystems, databases etc.
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Many researchers (e.g. Grand Challenge collaborations) are developing independently what are essentially PSE's for physics, chemistry, engineering ....
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Most do not know they are developing a PSE and that by using such a framework, they could (re)use work of others.
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Need to gather these communities -- academia, government, industry, computer technology, application development -- together to establish framework for development of standards, exchange experiences (what works and what doesn't) and requirements
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This discussion should include libraries, interfaces, data-structures, representation, middleware and PSE components
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Of course all this basic research needs to be tested and evaluated!
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We should create some complete scientific and/or engineering prototype PSE's
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This should be multi-disciplinary on both computer technology side (algorithms, software, user-interface, artificial intelligence, database, collaboration etc.) and on application side
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Choose an area where PSE adds value to an established computational area rather than proposing a new solution
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So we test PSE approach and not role of computation in a particular area
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Set-up as microcosm of proposed general case with distributed loosely coupled development as well "entries" in key components
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Abstract * Foil Index for this file
See also color IMAGE
