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e-Infrastructures for e-Science: A Global View

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Abstract

In the last 10 years, a new way of doing science is spreading in the world thank to the development of virtual research communities across many geographic and administrative boundaries. A virtual research community is a widely dispersed group of researchers and associated scientific instruments working together in a common virtual environment. This new kind of scientific environment, usually addressed as a “collaboratory”, is based on the availability of high-speed networks and broadband access, advanced virtual tools and Grid-middleware technologies which, altogether, are the elements of the e-Infrastructures. The European Commission has heavily invested in promoting this new way of collaboration among scientists funding several international projects with the aim of creating e-Infrastructures to enable the European Research Area and connect the European researchers with their colleagues based in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In this paper we describe the actual status of these e-Infrastructures and present a complete picture of the virtual research communities currently using them. Information on the scientific domains and on the applications supported are provided together with their geographic distribution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Catania, Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Via S. Sofia, 64, 95123, Catania, Italy

    Giuseppe Andronico, Valeria Ardizzone, Riccardo Bruno, Antonio Calanducci, Marco Fargetta, Emidio Giorgio, Giuseppe La Rocca & Diego Scardaci

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania, Viale A. Doria, 6, 95125, Catania, Italy

    Roberto Barbera

  3. Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics - Division of Catania, Viale A. Doria, 6, 95125, Catania, Italy

    Roberto Barbera

  4. Meraka Institute, Building 43, CISR, Meiring Naude Road, PO Box 395, Pretoria, 0001, Pretoria, South Africa

    Bruce Becker

  5. Centro Federal de Educaçãao Tecnológica Celso Suckow da Fonseca, Av. Maracanã, 229, 20271-110, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Diego Carvalho

  6. Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa, R. Lauro Müller 116/1103, 22290-906, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Leandro Ciuffo

  7. Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Division of Cagliari, Complesso Universitario di Monserrato, S.P. per Sestu km. 0.700, 09042, Monserrato (CA), Italy

    Alberto Masoni

  8. Department of Physics of the University of Milano Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza, 3, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Marco Paganoni

  9. Division of Roma Tre, Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Via della Vasca Navale, 84, 00146, Rome, Italy

    Federico Ruggieri

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  1. Giuseppe Andronico
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  2. Valeria Ardizzone
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  4. Bruce Becker
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Correspondence to Diego Scardaci.

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Andronico, G., Ardizzone, V., Barbera, R. et al. e-Infrastructures for e-Science: A Global View. J Grid Computing 9, 155–184 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10723-011-9187-y

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