About Caltech: With an outstanding faculty that has been honored with 32 Nobel prizes and 66 National Medals of Science and Technology, and such off-campus facilities as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Palomar Observatory and the W. M. Keck Observatory, the California Institute of Technology is one of the world’s major research centers and a premier institution of learning. The Institute conducts instruction in science and engineering for a student body of approximately 950 undergraduates and 1,400 graduate students who maintain a high level of scholarship and intellectual achievement. Caltech’s 124-acre campus is situated in Pasadena, California, a city of 135,000 at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, approximately 30 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and 10 miles northeast of the Los Angeles Civic Center. Caltech is an independent, privately supported university, and is not affiliated with either the University of California system or the California State Polytechnic universities. http://www.caltech.edu
About CACR: The mission of the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR) is to ensure that Caltech is at the forefront of computational science and engineering. CACR provides an environment that cultivates multidisciplinary collaborations and its researchers take an applications-driven approach and currently work with Caltech research groups in aeronautics, applied mathematics, astronomy, biology, engineering, geophysics, materials science, and physics. Center staff have expertise in data-intensive scientific discovery, physics-based simulation, scientific software engineering, visualization techniques, novel computer architectures, and the design and operation of large-scale computing facilities. http://www.cacr.caltech.edu
About University of Victoria: The University of Victoria, one of Canada’s leading universities, provides both students and faculty with a unique learning environment. UVic has earned a reputation for commitment to research, scholarship and co-op education. The university is widely recognized for its innovative and responsive programs, interdisciplinary and international initiatives, and a diverse and welcoming learning community. For more information, see http://www.uvic.ca
About the University of Michigan: The University of Michigan, with its size, complexity, and academic strength, the breadth of its scholarly resources, and the quality of its faculty and students, is one of America’s great public universities and one of the world’s premier research institutions. The university was founded in 1817 and has a total enrollment of 59,933 on all campuses. The main campus is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and has 42,716 students (fall 2011). With over 600 degree programs and $1.2 billion in 2010-2011 research expenditures, the university is one of the leaders in innovation and research. For more information, see http://vpcomm.umich.edu/forum/michigan.php
About Brookhaven National Lab: Established in 1947 on Long Island, Upton, New York, Brookhaven is a multi-program national laboratory operated by Brookhaven Science Associates for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Seven Nobel Prizes have been awarded for discoveries made at the Lab. Brookhaven has a staff of approximately 3,000 scientists, engineers, technicians and support staff and over 4,000 guest researchers annually. Brookhaven National Laboratory’s role for the DOE is to produce excellent science and advanced technology with the cooperation, support, and appropriate involvement of our scientific and local communities.
The fundamental elements of the Laboratory’s role in support of the four DOE strategic missions are the following: 1) to conceive, design, construct, and operate complex, leading edge, user-oriented facilities in response to the needs of the DOE and the international community of users, 2) to carry out basic and applied research in long-term, high-risk programs at the frontier of science, 3) To develop advanced technologies that address national needs and to transfer them to other organizations and to the commercial sector, and 4) to disseminate technical knowledge, to educate new generations of scientists and engineers, to maintain technical capabilities in the nation’s workforce, and to encourage scientific awareness in the general public.
About Politehnica University (Bucharest, Romania): Founded in 1818, Politehnica University of Bucharest (UPB: http://www.upb.ro) is the largest and the best Technical University in Romania. UPB is a full member of several international organizations such as CESAER, EUA and AUF, and has bilateral co-operation agreements with similar universities, mainly in Europe, the U.S., Singapore and Japan. UPB also participates in projects funded by NATO and the EU 6th and 7th Frameworks. 26,000 undergraduate, masters and Ph. D students are enrolled at UPB, including more than 1,500 in diverse areas of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE). The Romanian National Center for Information Technology (NCIT) is part of UPB and is run by the CSE Department.
About BCNET: BCNET is a not-for-profit, shared information technology services consortium led by its members, British Columbia’s research universities and institutes. owned, governed and funded primarily by its members, BCNET facilitates a unique, collaborative inter-institutional environment—one based on common goals—to explore and evaluate shared IT solutions for mutual technology challenges. BCNET’s shared services approach is designed to help member institutions cut costs, minimize technology duplication, improve operational efficiency and better serve their students, faculty, staff and communities.
About CANARIE: CANARIE Inc. is Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Network. Established in 1993, CANARIE manages an ultra high-speed network that supports leading-edge research and big science across Canada and around the world. One million researchers, scientists and students at over 1,100 Canadian institutions, including universities, colleges, research institutes, hospitals, and government laboratories have access to the CANARIE Network. Together with 12 provincial and territorial advanced network partners, CANARIE enables researchers to share and analyze massive amounts of data, like climate models, satellite images, and DNA sequences that can lead to groundbreaking scientific discoveries. CANARIE is a non-profit corporation supported by membership fees, with the major investment in its programs and activities provided by the Government of Canada.
CANARIE keeps Canada at the forefront of digital research and innovation, fundamental to a vibrant digital economy. For additional information, please visit: www.canarie.ca
About SARA:
In 1971 SARA was founded by the University of Amsterdam, VU University Amsterdam and CWI, the national research center for mathematics and computer science in the Netherlands. It was especially dedicated to high performance computing. Nowadays, SARA is an independent organization which supports scientific research by offering the most advanced services and expertise in the areas of computing, data storage, visualization, networking, cloud and e-Science. In 2010 SARA accommodated its ICT services for the commercial market at daughter company Vancis. SARA now exclusively addresses to the support of scientific research. For additional information, please visit: https://www.sara.nl/about-sara
About USLHCNet: US LHCNet is a Wide Area Network (WAN) infrastructure project that supports the high energy physics research mission of the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, with a focus on the U.S. Large Hadron Collider (LHC) program.
US LHCNet supports the agencies’ and the high energy physics community’s strategic and tactical goals and objectives by providing interoperable, effective, and reliable transatlantic communications infrastructure and leading-edge network facilities and services in support of the US LHC program, as well as the other major programs supported by the DOE Office of High Energy Physics (OHEP).
The highest priority mission of US LHCNet is to provide reliable, dedicated, high bandwidth connectivity between the U.S. Tier1 centers and CERN (e.g., the LHC Optical Private Network (OPN) physical links). An additional mission is to support high bandwidth traffic flows as needed, between the U.S. LHC Tier1 and European Tier2 centers as well as between the U.S. Tier2 centers and European Tier1 centers. For additional information, please visit: http://www.uslhcnet.org
About iCAIR: The International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) has been established to provide a focal point for leading edge Internet research, innovation, and early deployment. iCAIR undertakes basic R&D research projects, designs and implements leading edge prototypes, and manages several large scale advanced communication facilities. An international research center, the majority of iCAIR projects are established with its world-wide partners. For additional information, please visit: http://www.icair.org/about/index.html
About Internet2: Internet2 is an advanced networking consortium led by the research and education community. An exceptional partnership spanning U.S. and international institutions who are leaders in the worlds of research, academia, industry and government, the Internet2 community is developing breakthrough network technologies that support the most exacting applications of today—and spark the most essential innovations of tomorrow.
Led by its members and focused on their current and future networking needs since 1996, Internet2 blends its unsurpassed human, IP and optical networks to develop and deploy revolutionary Internet technologies. Activating the same partnerships that produced today’s Internet, our community is actively promoting the kinds of collaboration and innovation that can have—and has already had—a fundamental impact on the future of the Internet, and its fast-growing world of users. For additional information, please visit: http://www.internet2.edu/about/
About Padtec S/A: Padtec is based in Brazil and is the largest optical communications manufacturer in South America, besides providing commercial equipment and solutions in over 30 countries and in all continents. Padtec is a company with a strong focus on technological innovation and a leader in providing solutions for large telecommunication networks, including long haul, metropolitan, access, and storage applications. Padtec is partners with important telecom operators and public and private utilities and communication companies, and is is present in various countries, with its headquarters located in Campinas – São Paulo, Brazil. For more information visit: www.padtec.com.br
About the National Science Foundation: The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…” With an annual budget of about $6.9 billion (FY 2010), we are the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing.
About the DOE Office of Science: The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the lead federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for energy and the Nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. The Office of Science portfolio has two principal thrusts: direct support of scientific research and direct support of the development, The Office of Science also manages 10 world-class national laboratories with unmatched capabilities for solving complex interdisciplinary problems, and it builds and operates some of the nation’s most advanced R&D user facilities, located at national laboratories and universities. These facilities are used by more than 24,000 researchers from universities, other government agencies, and private industry each year.