[Colloquium] Tomorrow: Zhao/Dissertation Defense/7-12-07

[Margaret Jaffey]

This is a reminder about Yong Zhao's dissertation defense tomorrow.

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		Department of Computer Science/The University of Chicago

				*** Dissertation Defense ***


Candidate:  Yong Zhao

Date:  Thursday, July 12, 2007

Time and Location:  2:30 p.m. in Ryerson 276

Title:  A Virtual Data Language and System for Scientific Workflow  
Management in
Data Grid Environments

Abstract:
With advances in scientific instrumentation and simulation, scientific
data is growing fast in both size and analysis complexity. So-called  
Data
Grids aim to provide high performance, distributed data analysis
infrastructure for data-intensive sciences, where scientists distributed
worldwide need to extract scientific information from large  
collections of
data, and they would like to share both data products and the resources
needed to produce and store them.

However, the description, composition, and execution of even logically
simple scientific workflows are often complicated by the need to deal  
with
messy issues like heterogeneous storage formats and ad-hoc file system
structures. We show how these difficulties can be overcome via a typed
workflow notation called virtual data language, within which issues of
physical representation are cleanly separated from logical typing,  
and by
the implementation of this notation within the context of a powerful
virtual data system that supports distributed execution. The resulting
language and system are capable of expressing complex workflows in a
simple compact form, enacting those workflows in distributed  
environments,
monitoring and recording the execution processes, and tracing the
derivation history of data products.

We describe the motivation, design, implementation, and evaluation of  
the
virtual data language and system, and the application of the virtual  
data
paradigm to various science disciplines including astronomy and  
cognitive
neuroscience.

Candidate's Advisor: Prof. Ian Foster

A draft copy of Mr.  Zhao's dissertation is available in Ry 161A.

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Margaret P. Jaffey                             margaret at cs.uchicago.edu
Department of Computer Science
Student Support Rep (Ry 161A)        (773) 702-6011
The University of Chicago                  http://www.cs.uchicago.edu
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