Europe

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to solve problems before they occur? Unfortunately, predicting the future is difficult when it comes to complex systems like industrial production lines or wind farms. But a group of European researchers and industry experts have joined forces to build a system of sensors and computers that could help us solve problems in high tech environments.

New technologies for deep sequencing of DNA and RNA are paving the way for unprecedented opportunities in genomic medicine. Norwegian medical scientists enlist the Abel supercomputer in Oslo to transform numbers and genome sequences into improved and more personalized cancer treatment.

In a unique collaboration, French research and education network RENATER will provide infrastructure connecting public administration sites from 15 ministries.

Research and education networks are not only about fibres, routers and switches. They also try to contribute to the common good of internet users. Enter CrypTech, making the Internet a little bit safer for everybody.

Finnish post-doctoral researcher Tuomo Hiippala is part of a new generation of humanist researchers, using powerful computational resources to boost their research. Combining a PhD in English Philology with a keen interest in computer vision and machine learning Hiippala is developing new ways of handling large collections of images.

Latin America plays a vital role in the worldwide computing grid essential for processing the massive amounts of data generated from particle smashing experiments at the Large Hadron Collider that reveal information about the origins of the Universe.

Three research networks are working together to provide the lifeline of a new meteorology supercomputer running on renewable energy. Through a 10 Gbps redundant fiberoptic cable running 2250 km across the North Atlantic, the Danish Meteorology Institute in Copenhagen connects to its new supercomputer located on Iceland.

"Space and earth science are drivers of technical development, and with better instruments and more computing power we hope to realise many more ideas in the future," says Eskil Varenius from the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at Chalmers University of Technology.

Academy Professor Petri Toiviainen's research team at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, has set out to understand what happens in the brain when listening to music. Their experiments utilize Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and a supercomputer cluster provided by the Finnish research and education network CSC.

Several research and education networks are breaking new ground in their effort to develop a system for digitizing exams. But still there is a long way to go.

Moroccan and French researchers are using high-speed networks to combine their expertise in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing to produce new thematic maps of Agadir, Morocco and to monitor this fragile landscape.

Understanding how the environment is altering through ongoing monitoring is key to coping with the effects of climate change. Working with European partners, the Central Asian Institute of Applied Geosciences (CAIAG) in Kyrgyzstan is able to monitor melting glaciers and mitigate the risks to the local population.