[Apologies for multiple postings]

*    GRAND Seminar


Spatial Computing: Utilizing spatial principles to optimize
distributed computing for enabling the physical science discoveries


Oct/05/2010, Tuesday noon-1:00pm. ENGR 4201


Chaowei (Phil) Yang
Associate Professor
Geography, GeoInformation Sciences (GGS)


Contemporary physical science studies rely on the effective analyses
of geographically dispersed spatial data and simulations of physical
phenomena. Single computers and generic high-end computing are not
sufficient to process the data for complex physical science analysis
and simulations, which can only be successfully supported through
distributed computing, best optimized through the application of
spatial principles. Spatial computing refers to a computing paradigm
that utilizes spatial principles to optimize distributed computers to
catalyze advancements in the physical sciences. Spatial principles
govern the interaction among different scientific parameters and
phenomena across space and time by providing the spatial connections
and constraints to drive the progression of the parameters and
phenomena. Therefore, spatial computing studies could better position
us to leverage spatial principles in simulating physical phenomena and
by extension, advance the physical sciences. Using geospatial science
as an example, this paper illustrates through three research examples
how spatial computing could a) enable data intensive science with
efficient data/services search, access, and utilization, b) facilitate
physical science studies with enabling high-performance computing
(HPC) capabilities, c) empower scientists with multidimensional
visualization tools to understand observations and simulations. The
research examples demonstrate that spatial computing is of critical
importance to design computing methods to catalyze physical science
studies with better data access, phenomena simulation, and analytical
visualization. We envision that spatial computing will become a core
technology that will drive the physical science advancement in the
21st century.

*Short Bio*

Chaowei (Phil) Yang is the Chief Architect and Technical Lead for NASA
Spatial Cloud Computing and Data as a Service (DaaS, hosted by GSFC)
and associate professor at George Mason University, where he founded
and co-directs (with Dr. Paul Houser, the previous NASA Hydrological
Branch Head at GSFC) the NASA/GMU joint Center of Intelligent Spatial
Computing for water/energy science (CISC) based on the concept of
spatial computing he proposed in 2005 and the hydrological leadership
of Dr. Houser. Spatial Computing refers to utilize spatial principles
widely exist to arrange, select, and optimize distributed computing to
facilitate the advancements of physical sciences, such as Earth and
environmental sciences.

His research, education, and service interests include Geospatial
Cyberinfrastructure, Distributed GIS, Spatial Computing and Geographic
Information Science. He has extensive research and development
experience as reflected by his over 50 peer reviewed publications and
over $3M research funding in the past decade. He co-edited the
Advanced GeoInformation Science book and is writing the book of
Network GIS. His research is funded by NASA, UCAR/NSF, FGDC, EPA, NPS,
and other agencies/companies with over $3M as PI and He also
participate in several large projects total over $10M. He receives
numerous national and international awards, such as the US
presidential national environment protection stewardship award in

*Jyh-Ming Lien*
Assistant Professor, George Mason University