The OSG Open Facility: an on-ramp for opportunistic scientific computing

The Open Science Grid (OSG) ties together individual experiments’ computing power, connecting their resources to create a large, robust computing grid; this computing infrastructure started primarily as a collection of sites associated with large HEP experiments such as ATLAS, CDF, CMS, and DZero. In the years since, the OSG has broadened its focus to also address the needs of other US researchers and increased delivery of Distributed High Through-put Computing (DHTC) to users from a wide variety of disciplines via the OSG Open Facility. Presently, the Open Facility delivers about 100 million computing wall hours per year to researchers who are not already associated with the owners of the computing sites; this is primarily accomplished by harvesting and organizing the temporarily unused capacity (i.e. opportunistic cycles) from the sites in the OSG. Using these methods, OSG resource providers and scientists share computing hours with researchers in many other fields to enable their science, striving to make sure that these computing power used with maximal efficiency. We believe that expanded access to DHTC is an essential tool for scientific innovation and work continues in expanding this service.

Throughout the last decade the Open Science Grid (OSG) has been fielding requests from user communities, resource owners, and funding agencies to provide information about utilization of OSG resources. Requested data include traditional accounting - core-hours utilized - as well as users certificate Distinguished Name, their affiliations, and field of science. The OSG accounting service, Gratia, developed in 2006, is able to provide this information and much more. However, with the rapid expansion and transformation of the OSG resources and access to them, we are faced with several challenges in adapting and maintaining the current accounting service. The newest changes include, but are not limited to, acceptance of users from numerous university campuses, whose jobs are flocking to OSG resources, expansion into new types of resources (public and private clouds, allocation-based HPC resources, and GPU farms), migration to pilot-based systems, and migration to multicore environments. In order to have a scalable, sustainable and expandable accounting service for the next few years, we are embarking on the development of the next-generation OSG accounting service, GRACC, that will be based on open-source technology and will be compatible with the existing system. It will consist of swappable, independent components, such as Logstash, Elasticsearch, Grafana, and RabbitMQ, that communicate through a data exchange. GRACC will continue to interface EGI and XSEDE accounting services and provide information in accordance with existing agreements. We will present the current architecture and working prototype.

We present a system that allows individual researchers and virtual organizations (VOs) to access allocations on Stampede2 and Bridges through the Open Science Grid (OSG), a national grid infrastructure for running high throughput computing (HTC) tasks. Using this system, VOs and researchers are able to run larger workflows than can be done with OSG resources alone. This system allows a VO or user to run on XSEDE resources (with their allocation) using the same framework used with OSG resources. The system consists of two parts: the compute element (CE) that routes workloads to the appropriate user accounts and allocation on XSEDE resources, and simulated access to the CernVM Filesystem (CVMFS) servers used by OSG and VOs to distribute software and data. This allows jobs submitted through this system to work on a homogeneous environment regardless of whether they run on XSEDE HPC resources (like Stampede2 and Bridges) or OSG.

A roadmap for accounting researchers: the ‘how to’ of successful international collaboration

The primary aim of this research report is to analyse the dynamics and structure of the publications of Russian authors, as well as to define the place of Russian science in the global scientific process. Bibliometric analysis methods are the main methods for quantitative analysis of scientific cooperation, efficiency, and other aspects of scientific activity. The information base for this research includes materials from science citation databases containing bibliographic descriptions of the articles published in scientific journals (mainly written in English) in a significant number of fields of science. Various parameters (e.g. dynamics of the number of publications, the number of citation, the level of co-authorship, the scientific specialization index, etc.) at various levels of aggregation (e.g. individual researchers, research organizations, countries and regions of the world) can be calculated based on these data. The results of bibliometric studies can be used in a number of ways: - analysis of latest trends in the development of various scientific fields; - evaluation of the effectiveness of research organizations; - overall assessment of the scientific potential of Russia (its strengths and weaknesses); - identification the most productive scientists in various fields of science; - drawing the international comparisons of publications; - analysis of collaboration networks of scientific teams. The paper analyses the basic indicators of the publication activity of scientists in Russia and the leading countries over the period between 2001 and 2011. Publication activity of Russian scientists is analysed in the context of specific areas of science. This allows the identification of areas of specialization of Russian publications. The paper also examines the dynamics of highly-cited publications and the indicators of the international scientific collaboration of Russian researchers. In this paper, materials of Web of Science database were used for analysis of publication activity.

In the mid-1990s, I was one of a number of women who recognised the importance of having an on-campus child-care facility for staff and students at the University of Limerick.1 Up until our child-care facility, Silver Apples, opened in November 1999, we had no on-campus child care available to us. The facility opening was due mainly to the efforts of a small group of women who used many opportunities to talk to management about the issue we had. As a direct result of this lobbying, the University of Limerick applied for and received funding; this would partly fund the building of the facility. More recently, the facility’s management, in conjunction with our local primary school (first level), opened a purpose-built after-school club, the first of its kind in Ireland. This anecdote is an indicator of how Irish society saw the need for child care 10 years ago: It was not high on the political, educational, or business agenda. During local elections at this time, I spoke with politicians about the issue of child care. Many of them had not come across this as an issue previously, or else they chose to ignore it. Things have changed! One of the current hot political topics in Ireland is the provision of child care to all sectors of employees. It is discussed in the media and in political circles. Questions are being asked as to how this will be funded: whether working parents can claim tax allowances or the government will make direct payments to the facilities providing child care. This change in attitude has come about not solely because of lobbying, but also because the demand for child-care provision in Ireland has grown significantly. In recent years, the workforce demographic has changed. Women are staying in or returning to the workforce, and this is being encouraged at the highest levels within our government. The changing child-care situation is an indicator of this. In Ireland, the economy performed very well throughout the 1990s. This improving economy has given an opportunity to women to return to the workforce. In 1990, less than 36% of women aged 15 and over were employed; in 2004, this statistic increased to 45% (Central Statistics Office, http://www.cso.ie). Women return to the workplace after becoming mothers and so take maternity leaves and/or parental leaves, which may be as short as 4 months and as long as 2 years. Furthermore, women who broke their career paths to become full-time parents, which may have extended to 20 years, are also returning to work.

Beyond the Eurozone in cardiovascular nursing research: Filling the scatter plot

Pegasus Small Group education for GPs is a professional development programme that has been delivered in Canterbury, New Zealand for over 30 years. Peer-developed content is delivered in small groups supporting interactive discussions informed by evidence and locally relevant data. An international collaboration between South Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group in the UK and Pegasus Health in Canterbury, New Zealand aimed to determine whether the Canterbury model of Small Group professional development for GPs was transferrable to the South Tyneside context. This was a pilot qualitative study testing proof of concept for the Pegasus Small Group GP education model of professional development in another country. To test the concept, three pilot sessions on persistent pain, screening, and optimising treatment were delivered between November 2021 and March 2022. Four UK GPs were trained as Small Group leaders, and a member of the Pegasus team liaised with various UK GPs in South Tyneside to adapt topics for the local context. The use of videoconferencing (Microsoft Teams and Zoom) to deliver support, training, and the programme itself had been developed and refined during the COVID-19 pandemic, so that it could be run entirely online without losing its core components or interactive nature. Of the 68 registered GPs, 31, 50, and 61 GPs attended the three sessions, respectively, 90% of whom rated the overall quality as good or excellent. These results and other positive feedback from attendees provided a mandate for a further extension of the programme over the following months. The pilot proved the potential for health systems to collaborate globally despite geographical distance. A wider evaluation to assess the impact of the education initiative is needed to determine the impact on patient care and to demonstrate the benefits of supporting the small group peer education model.

Silencing of researchers refers to informal or formal actions that restrict what scientists can study, say, publish, or teach. Reasons for silencing can be related to political, economic, or ideological interests. It is widely recognized as a threat to academic freedom and to the public’s access to independent knowledge.Internationally, climate change research has been one of the topics most often targeted with silencing attempts. In the Finnish context, one branch of the polarized climate change discussion has revolved around forest management and use. In 2024, the national broadcasting company Yle brought up a story about silencing attempts of both individual researchers and academic institutions by forestry companies and their lobbying organizations but also by policymakers.The equality and work wellbeing group at the Institute of Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR) of the University of Helsinki, Finland, wanted to find out how much our researchers have faced silencing attempts or exterior pressure, how it has affected them, and how they have reacted. We designed a short survey that was sent to all staff members.We received a total of 55 answers (about 20% of the staff members). 13 respondents had personal experiences of pressure or silencing. In the majority of these experiences, the attempted suppressing came from within the academia, although a few reported silencing attempts also came from the public administration, private sector, and social media.Reactions of the respondents who had experienced silencing or pressure varied from self-censorship and giving in to the pressure to having a dialogue with the source of the pressure. Discussions with peers were considered important.In the survey, we also asked the respondents to suggest actions to make our work and research community stronger against such pressures. Three kinds of actions were suggested. First, education on the topic, focusing especially on early-career scientists and non-Finnish speakers. Second, provision of resources and tools for individual researchers, for example a guide for identifying this kind of pressure, common guidelines for responding to silencing attempts, as well as easy and anonymous channels for reporting. Third, introducing institutional policies and enhancing scientific culture, for example strengthening mentorship practices and peer support, and more ambitious promotion of open and honest science.We presented the results of the survey in our institute’s weekly seminar. We had also three experts of experience sharing their stories, discussions in small groups, and an external expert’s note by a representative of the national committee for public information.In conclusion, carrying out this survey was helpful for getting an idea of what kinds of silencing attempts our researchers experience and how common it is. It is clear that the consequences of this are serious for both the individual targeted scientists and the integrity of science. We need to respond as a research community, and we now have good ideas about how to do that.

This short paper introduces the u-index, a simple and objective metric to evaluate the impact and relevance of academic research output, as a possible alternative to widespread metrics such as the h-index or the i10-index. The proposed index is designed to address possible issues with standard metrics such as inflated ratings resulting from self-citations or by means of extended co-authorship numbers where every citation has the same impact as for works written by smaller groups, despite limited individual contributions. The new index makes also possible to differentiate scholars who would otherwise fall into the same h-index group, hence providing further insights into the actual impact of a specific individual researcher.

The study examines the collaboration structure in Chinese meteorology research over the last 10 years in order to develop a deeper understanding of the process by which Chinese meteorologists communicate with international colleagues. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is applied to explore the patterns of co-authorship and to identify those active internationally-recognized researchers connecting groups. Both national and international collaborations were studied and a qualitative method was adopted taking the individual researcher as the focus of analysis. The result highlights those core scientists and we can draw a conclusion that authors show a tendency to collaborate preferentially with individuals in their institution or in limited regions.

Global research connections are an increasingly important focus for all universities and for governments seeking to position themselves as providers of high quality research, as partners in education and practice. Value is now recognised for research proposals and projects that enhance international cooperation and collaboration between individual researchers, and the opportunities for exploring uncharted research terrain and pedagogy within the creative writing discipline is encouraged under a raft of new funding schemes and through additional openings within previously limited and targeted schemes. Australian creative writing programs now have an imperative to expand our existing national and international collaborative research linkages and include areas such as children’s writing and other hitherto under-represented areas within our course offerings to ensure and, where necessary, establish valued course and research cultures - and vibrant national and international linkages in this area of creative arts and writing. Creative writing and the creative arts generally are no longer positioned at the margins of the higher education system. Increasingly our practice and expertise is valued as central to Australian economic and cultural development as the foundation for a 21st-century knowledge-based economy.

We study the possible influences of the Russia-Ukraine War on Russia’s research productivity and international collaboration in science. For this purpose, we introduce and apply two recently developed indicators of relative intensity and balance in international collaboration. To see whether longitudinal trends have changed recently, we combine a long-term perspective based on annual updates since the year 2000 with a short-term perspective based on monthly updates since the beginning of 2022. The clearest change is that the productivity of Russian science, as measured within Web of Science, has dramatically decreased after several years of growth. There is also a clear decline in the degree of international collaboration in fields of research that heavily rely on large multinational infrastructures established through state agreements. In other fields, however, the degree of international collaboration is more stable. The general decline in Russian science seems to be more driven by internal factors than by loss of partnerships abroad.

Learning a creativity-based skill like programming requires practice and dedication. In “traditional” programming courses, instructors spend most of their time lecturing to large groups of students, with little class time to spend on active exercises or personal interaction. Students are not in control of the content delivery or its pacing, nor is it effectively communicated that practice is needed to master programming. Moreover, most practice is individual and graded strictly, meaning students suffer heavy penalties for minor slips while learning or collaborating. This past year we experimented with a self-paced version of introductory programming, where students spend class time working on problems in small groups at their own pace. Learning is intentional because students take responsibility for their learning, rather than waiting for the instructor. Our pass rates in the course improved by 25% with these modifications. This design could be adapted to other disciplines. We propose to demonstrate our innovations by leading the audience in a simulation of our self-paced, active learning, class by teaching the 'students' to solve a simple puzzle. Members of our instructional team will play the role of teaching assistants, who offer peer learning opportunities in our classrooms. Like students, the audience will have varying levels of previous exposure to these puzzles, so they will move through the exercises at their own pace. We will demonstrate how faculty can use immediate automated feedback, asynchronous online content, individual assessments with the ability to test up to five times, interventions, peer-learning, and mini-lectures to allow students to learn new skills at their own pace. Suggestions for adapting this to other disciplines will also be discussed.

The paper summarises many years of discussions and experience of biodiversity publishers, organisations, research projects and individual researchers, and proposes recommendations for implementation of persistent identifiers for article metadata, structural elements (sections, subsections, figures, tables, references, supplementary materials and others) and data specific to biodiversity (taxonomic treatments, treatment citations, taxon names, material citations, gene sequences, specimens, scientific collections) in taxonomy and biodiversity publishing. The paper proposes best practices on how identifiers should be used in the different cases and on how they can be minted, cited, and expressed in the backend article XML to facilitate conversion to and further re-use of the article content as FAIR data. The paper also discusses several specific routes for post-publication re-use of semantically enhanced content through large biodiversity data aggregators such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) and others, and proposes specifications of both identifiers and XML tags to be used for that purpose. A summary table provides an account and overview of the recommendations. The guidelines are supported with examples from the existing publishing practices.