The rise of Citizen Cyberscience and its impact on professional research

1
The rise of Citizen Cyberscienceand its impact
on professional research

• Dr. Miguel Angel Marquina
• CERN, Switzerland

2
Another Slant on Open ScienceCitizens vs
Researchers

• In Science and Innovation, can ordinary citizens
• Co-fund it with their own means?
• Influence (proactively) its trends?
• Participate (meaningfully) in its progress?

3
Assets in the hands of citizens

• Around the world there are...
• 1000-2000 million computers and devices alike
  (game consoles, intelligent electrical
  appliances)
• 5000 million mobile, smartphone and tablets
  locationimaging enabled
• in the hands of 7000 million humans

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Science and InnovationTraditional approach

• Sizeable infrastructures (RD sites, labs,
  universities)
• Work developed in teams
• Relevance assessed/ranked/approved by restricted
  bodies of experts
• Institutional funding
• Direct impact on society may not be a prime
  directive

5
Science and InnovationImagine

• What if citizens could contribute
• their computers
• their mobile devices
• their own brain power
• to RD projects?

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Science and InnovationCitizen approach

• Individual researchers may explore novel ideas
  without engaging institutional resources
• Funding based on attracting volunteers to their
  cause
• Expert assessment shifts to Selected by
  popular demand
• Impact on society citizens drive it

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Citizen CyberscienceVolunteer Computing

• Contribution Passive volunteers CPUs
• Most projects based on an open-source platform
  called BOINC
• http//boinc.berkeley.edu

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Physics (e.g. CERN)

• LHC_at_home http//cern.ch/LHCathome
• Sixtrack 700 years
• T4T 44K CPUs
• GEANT(4) studies
• Interactions of particles/radiation with matter
• Popular code in Medical Physics
• GARFIELD simulation of gas detectors

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Astrophysics

• SETI_at_home http//setiathome.berkeley.edu
• 9M years
• 5M clients
• Einstein_at_home http//einsteinathome.org
• Search for sources of gravitational waves 6800
  years
• 137K CPUs()
• 1 CPU 1 KSfp2K 2.8 GHz Xeon

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Life Sciences

• Predictor_at_home http//predictor.chem.lsa.umich.edu
  
• 1700 years
• 84K CPUs
• To predict proteine structure from sequence
• Rosetta_at_home http//boinc.bakerlab.org
• New proteins for cures of human diseases (HIV,
  malaria, cancer)
• Folding_at_home http//folding.stanford.edu
• Proteine (mis)folding degenerative diseases
  (Alzheimer, Huntington)

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Geology/Climate

• Climateprediction.net http//climateprediction.net
  
• 10000 years
• 115K clients
• Climate_at_home
• Climate change (variant of above, non-overlapping
  targets)

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Helping Developing Countries

• Africa_at_home http//cern.ch/africa-at-home/
• African humanitarian causes
• Project kick-off initiated by CERN
• Malariacontrol.net http//malariacontrol.net/
• Malaria propagation studies (within the framework
  of Africa_at_home)
• Computing for Clear Water (ref. paper)
• Water flow through nanotubes Sponsored by CCC

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Volunteer ComputingAll kinds, all flavours
SCIENCE SETI_at_home (BOINC) evolution_at_home eOn
climateprediction.net (BOINC) Muon1 LHC_at_home
(BOINC) Einstein_at_Home(BOINC) BBC Climate Change
Experiment (BOINC) Leiden Classical (BOINC)
QMC_at_home (BOINC) NanoHive_at_Home (BOINC)
µFluids_at_Home (BOINC) Spinhenge_at_home (BOINC)
Cosmology_at_Home (BOINC) PS3GRID (BOINC) Mars
Clickworkers
LIFE SCIENCES Parabon Computation Folding_at_home
FightAIDS_at_home Übero Drug Design Optimization
Lab (D2OL) The Virtual Laboratory Project
Community TSC Predictor_at_home (BOINC)
XGrid_at_Stanford Human Proteome Folding (WCG)
CHRONOS (BOINC) Rosetta_at_home (BOINC)
RALPH_at_home (BOINC) SIMAP (BOINC)
malariacontrol.net (BOINC) Help Defeat Cancer
(WCG) TANPAKU (BOINC) Genome Comparison (WCG)
Docking_at_Home (BOINC) proteins_at_home (BOINC)
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy (WCG)
MATHEMATICS AND CRYPTOGRAPHY Great Internet
Mersenne Prime Search Proth Prime Search ECMNET
Minimal Equal Sums of Like Powers MM61 Project
3x 1 Problem Distributed Search for Fermat
Number Divisors PCP_at_Home Generalized Fermat
Prime Search PSearch Seventeen or Bust
Factorizations of Cyclotomic Numbers Goldbach
Conjecture Verification The Riesel Problem The
32n-1 Search NFSNET Search for Multifactorial
Primes 15k Prime Search ElevenSmooth Riesel
Sieve The Prime Sierpinski Project P.I.E.S. -
Prime Internet Eisenstein Search Factors of
k2n1 XYYXF 12121 Search 2721 Search
Operation Billion Digits SIGPS Primesearch
Lone Mersenne Hunters Factoring 100 Million
digits prefactor project Repdigit Prime Problems
Mersenneplustwo Factorizations
Sierpinski/Riesel Base 5 SZTAKI Desktop Grid
(BOINC) Riesel Prime Search
Proth Sieve Twin Internet Prime Search Pi
Segment Rectilinear Crossing Number (BOINC)
ABC_at_home (BOINC) WEP-M2 Project (BOINC)
distributed.net PrimeGrid (BOINC) M4
HashClash (BOINC) Assault on 13th Labour Free
Rainbow Tables IT PERFORMANCE Gómez Performance
() Network Peer NETI_at_home dCrawl DIMES Red
Library DLV Majestic-12 Boitho PeerFactor
DepSpid Pingdom GIGRIB Project Neuron
(BOINC) PUZZLES AND GAMES ChessBrain
Chess960_at_home (BOINC) FINANCIAL MoneyBee
GStock ART electric sheep Internet Movie
Project RenderFarm_at_Home (BOINC)
Source http//distributedcomputing.info/
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Citizen CyberscienceVolunteer Information
Discovery

• Contribution Active - In the field
• Using GPScamera-enabled devices for data
  gathering, mapping, geotagging
• (often associated to Google Earth)

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Information Discovery in ActionCybermappr
http//cybermappr.unige.ch

• UNOSAT/UniGe partnership in CCC, sponsored by HP
• Used currently for geotagging of regions under
  humanitarian conflicts/crisis
• See Google group Geotag Libya
• http//groups.google.com/group/geotag-libya

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Information Discovery in ActionEpiCollect -
http//www.epicollect.net/

• Framework for associating information to maps

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Information Discovery in ActionHP Gloe -
http//www.hpgloe.com

• Platform for location-based information discovery

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Citizen CyberscienceVolunteer Thinking

• Contribution proactive volunteers HPUs
• Brain power to its best

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Thinking in Action Innocentive -
http//www.innocentive.com

• Citizen Problem Solving (A.Bingham)

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Thinking in action Galaxy Zoo -
http//www.galaxyzoo.org/

• Galaxy classification (pattern recognition)

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Thinking in action FoldIt - http//fold.it/porta
l

• Protein folding strategies

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Thinking in action Old Weather -
http//www.oldweather.org/

• Source http//www.climatecentral.org/news/partner
  -news/old-weather-data-aids-climate-science-one-sh
  ip-at-a-time

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Citizen Cyberscience Centre http//citizencybersc
ience.net

• In essence
• A network to foster citizen cyberscience
  worldwide, focus on developing countries
• An open place for exchange, collaboration
• A Think Tank lab to explore new cyberscience
  concepts

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Arthur C. Clarke2001 A Space Odyssey

• When a distinguished but elderly scientist
  states that something is possible, he is almost
  certainly right. When he states that something is
  impossible, he is very probably wrong.
• The only way of discovering the limits of the
  possible is to venture a little way past them
  into the impossible.