OSTIblog Articles in the e-science Topic

Federated Search: An Often Overlooked Example of e-Science

A term of art now catching on is “e-Science.”  According to Wikipedia, “The term e-Science (or eScience) is used to describe computationally intensive science that is carried out in highly distributed network environments, or science that uses immense data sets that require grid computing; the term sometimes includes technologies that enable distributed collaboration, such as the Access Grid. The term was created by John Taylor, the Director General of the United Kingdom's Office of Science and Technology in 1999 and was used to describe a large funding initiative starting in November 2000. Examples of the kind of science include social simulations, particle physics, earth sciences and bio-informatics.”

Our “federated search”  is not what most folks mean by e-Science, but “federated search” nevertheless fits the definition.  Indeed, it seems quite reasonable to think of federated search as the text-based manifestation of e-Science.

As the Wikipedia article notes, the technology that enables e-Science is “grid computing.”  Back several years ago, the DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research had a Small Business Innovation Research...

Related Topics: e-science, federated search