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Information Technology Frontiers for a New Millenium
NGI Demonstrations at SC98 |
 
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Introduction
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On November 9-12, 1998, six agency members of the LSN Working Group -- DARPA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF -- held eleven NGI demonstrations at SC98 in Orlando, Florida. This marked the first time a group of NGI demonstrations was held outside of Washington, DC. The NCO hosted the demonstrations in its research exhibit in an effort to foster industry awareness about the Federal government's investments in networking technologies. Six additional NGI demos were held at agency booths in the research area, including NASA, NCSA, the National Laboratory for Applied Networking Research (NLANR), NPACI, NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT), and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.  Pictured left is the entrance to the NCO-supported exhibits at the Orlando
Convention Center at SC98. NGI technologies were demonstrated here and at other
agency booths throughout the exhibit area.
SC98 demonstrations included:
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Realtime Functional MRI
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The "brain in action" allows remote viewing of brain activity that occurs while a patient is executing cognitive or sensory-motor tasks. Neurosurgeons, neurologists, psychiatrists, and brain scientists can use this technology to investigate brain function and diagnose and treat brain diseases. With this technology, neurosurgeons will be able to plan the surgical removal of a tumor by pinpointing -- and avoiding -- those unique cognitive and sensory-motor abilities located near a tumor site. NGI advances will improve interactive realtime capability, patient confidentiality, and reliable data delivery between the fMRI acquisition site, the processing site, and the visualization site.
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Distributed Image Spreadsheet
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With the Distributed Image Spreadsheet (DISS), scientists visualize, manipulate, and analyze massive geologic, atmospheric, and oceanographic data sets transmitted to their desktops from NASA's Earth Observing System satellites. Government agencies, universities, corporations, and weather services use DISS data for atmospheric, oceanographic, biospheric, and land use studies. NGI advances will improve I/O performance of multimedia digital libraries, the use of distributed file systems, and visualization technologies.  NASA- and NOAA-supported researchers demonstrate the Distributed Image
Spreadsheet (DISS) at SC98.
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Hurricane Forecasting
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While it is not a funded NGI agency, NOAA will derive benefits from NGI R&D. The NCO hosted an exhibit by NOAA's GFDL Hurricane Prediction System (HPS) -- a comprehensive computer forecast system that predicts the behavior of hurricanes, such as the recent Georges and Bonnie, up to three days in advance. Predictions include not only storm motion, but also intensity, precipitation, and 3-D fields, such as wind, temperature, and humidity. The system incorporates information about atmospheric conditions ranging from large scale to hurricane scale. Since 1995, NOAA's NCEP has used the HPS for operational hurricane prediction at the National Weather Service. Since then, the GFDL model has, on average, predicted storm tracks more accurately than any other model and has helped save lives, national resources, and millions of dollars in evacuation costs. NGI technologies will lead to improved collection of observational data and more effective dissemination of storm warnings to the public.
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Interactive Video Dialogues
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Voice-controlled multimedia scenarios engage users and virtual characters in face-to-face, realistic, dramatic dialogue for education and training using the Conversim interface software developed by Interactive Drama, Inc. Interactive Video Dialogues applications include combat casualty triage training, knowledge systems, and language training. For example, military linguists located anywhere in the world can sustain language proficiency by routinely conversing in virtual dialogue with native speakers. NGI will enhance network capacity to accommodate large quantities of full-motion, broadcast-quality video in a speech recognition environment.
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Remote Access Multidimensional Microscopy (RAMM)
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This online microscope system non-invasively digitizes 3-D images of living organisms as their cellular and subcellular structures evolve. Examples include a worm embryo undergoing division and a fruit fly's wings taking form. The system can remotely acquire, view, and analyze 4-D data sets (3-D space plus time). The RAMM project allows medical research groups, scientists, and educators to access the system remotely and collaboratively for observation and experimentation, without having to invest in technology or equipment. NGI will improve realtime imaging essential for remotely manipulating the microscope without affecting an organism's development and will increase bandwidth to transmit 100+ MB data sets.  Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrated the use of
Remote Access Multidimensional Microscopy (RAMM) technology to remotely view 4-D
datasets.
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Broadcast News Navigator
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mmcomputing.html A search and retrieval application, Broadcast News Navigator indexes, summarizes, and displays recorded broadcast news stories. Government agencies and broadcasters identify and view news stories on issues, people, organizations, and locations of interest. The objective is a breakthrough in language understanding technologies to increase one's ability to find information in speech, text, or printed source; analyze it; and produce reports based on it. This will result in high performance, task-independent, language-independent algorithms that are trained from example data to perform information extraction of events from news. Those results will have the following impact: 1) technology that successfully extracts the content in context; 2) more portable software because of the combination of domain-independent algorithms and statistical learning techniques; and 3) far more affordable language understanding software, since the learning algorithms will greatly reduce the cost of applying the Navigator to a given task. NGI will provide access to user groups with advanced networking capabilities who can evaluate and help improve application performance.  Supported by DARPA and NSA, the Broadcast News Navigator indexes, summarizes,
and displays recorded broadcast news stories, an effort aimed at more
efficiently extracting specific content from the massive information-overload
faced today by both the Government and consumers.
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Collaborative Remote Robotic Arc Welding
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Collaborative robotic arc welding brings engineers and equipment at a welding cell site together with weld engineers at a remote laboratory to collaborate on R&D to improve industrial welding practices. Networking technologies enable video connectivity between the two sites, along with remote monitoring, sharing, and analysis of weld quality information. The collaborative arc welding program develops and demonstrates methods for improving practices of the American welding community, which includes the automobile, heavy equipment, and shipbuilding sectors. NGI will provide high performance networking with high speeds, low latencies, guaranteed quality of service, and secure connections to enable full-motion video between sites and remote instrument/cell control.
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Exploring the Earth System on the "Second Web"
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3-D virtual worlds on the Web teleport viewers into high resolution, stereo/ 3-D animations of tropical storms, forest fires, clear air turbulence, cyclones, and El Niño. Researchers and educators create and share Earth system data to study the patterns and behaviors behind naturally occurring, and sometimes dangerous, phenomena. New Web technologies make it possible to share detailed, intricate Earth system observations and simulations in stereo/3-D with other researchers, educators, and the public. NGI will provide high bandwidth wide area networks coupled with 3-D Web technologies and realtime data compression, allowing multiple remote users to share and explore science in virtual 3-D worlds.
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GeoWorlds
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Creating synergy between two technologies -- digital libraries and geographic information technologies -- GeoWorlds retrieves, organizes, and displays everything that is known about a region in a rich display format, allowing teams of users in disparate locations to collaboratively assess disaster situations and develop appropriate responses. GeoWorlds supports humanitarian assistance and disaster relief by helping response teams assess the impact of disasters, identify assets and partners that can contribute to a response, and evaluate geographic constraints on response plans. GeoWorlds can also be applied to business planning, local government land use, law enforcement, and intelligence analysis. For maximum effectiveness, GeoWorlds needs extremely high bandwidth and controlled QoS to move massive amounts of map, image, and document information. NGI technologies will improve access to realtime geographic information system data from remote sources and support multiple collaborative disaster relief sessions.
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Internet Security Technology
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More than 200 researchers and product developers use NIST tools for R&D on new security protocols and products. For example, NIST Cerberus/Pluto++ is a prototype reference implementation of IP security and IKE protocols. IPSec WIT, a Web-based interoperability test system, lets researchers and developers conduct interoperability tests of security protocols anytime and anywhere without relocating systems or software. NGI supports research on the integration of security protocols/key management/certificate systems, the configuration and management of security policies, and incorporation of security into QoS architecture and other new NGI network services.  NIST conducts NGI research on the integration of security protocols/key
management/certificate systems, the configuration and management of security
policies, and the incorporation of security into QoS and other new NGI network
services.
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Internet Protocol Quality of Service
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More than 300 Internet researchers and product developers use NIST's IP QoS testing tools and prototypes when developing QoS-sensitive products. NIST Net emulates arbitrary performance characteristics of complex IP networks, enabling controlled and reproducible QoS sensitivity experiments for application/protocol R&D. NIST Switch is an experimental, prototype platform for research in MPLS, QoS routing, and QoS signaling protocol mechanisms. DIPPER, a Distributed Internet Protocol and PERformance test system, allows a researcher to test IP QoS signaling and forwarding mechanisms between multiple remote locations. NGI will support research on scalable architectures and mechanisms to support QoS routing, signaling, and management, as well as on advanced test, measurement, and analysis tools for new NGI protocol capabilities and networks.
 NCO staffers assisting SC98 conference attendees at the NCO booth on the floor
of the Orlando Convention Center.
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