Belgrade MC and all WG Meetings

Big Data Era in Sky and Earth Observation
(BIG-SKY-EARTH)

Since the identified challenges are similar in astronomy and Earth observations, with computer science as the common denominator, the Action proposal aims at boosting the communication within and between disciplines by identifying and clustering relevant common solutions developed within research and industrial environments. These solutions can be aided by methodologies and tools for large distributed data management and processing, developed by computer scientists in academia or industry. For example, metadata is extensively exploited in multimedia Digital Asset Management to provide effective access to deep repositories of audio-visual content. This approach can contribute a valuable know-how to natural scientists working with similar type of data structures in large databases. Visual Analytics is another example of a growing field in computer science, with interesting implications for astronomy and Earth observation that inherently depend on visual datasets. Therefore, the objectives are set in a logical framework where a diverse network of experts identifies the issues to be addressed, followed by joint utilization of their existing resources to tackle the problems related to these issues, with the emphasis on building bridges between disciplines needed for success and disseminating the acquired knowledge, know-how and results to a wider circle of stakeholders.

WG1: Optimisation of database tools in astro- and geophysics contexts: this group is focused more on the back-end tools providing support for knowledge extraction from large datasets (database management systems, hardware configurations, heterogeneous environments, location of processing of large users' data-requests).

WG3: Education of a new generation of experts in knowledge extraction from massive datasets: this group has the task of identifying critical gaps in the Big Data users' skills, organizing materials needed for training and education of users, and organizing training sessions.

WG2: Data mining and machine learning in the petabyte era as frontiers in astronomy and Earth observation: this group is inclined more toward front-end solutions visible to the users, where often tools used to date fail or are too slow on petabyte datasets.

WG4: Visualization of high dimensional data: this group explores various aspects of visualization of large datasets under scientific and outreach requirements, promotes the role of visualization in data-mining (visual analytics) and assesses various visualization tools.

Action Fact Sheet

Memorandum of Understanding