Workshop on Instrumentation Needs of Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal #: CNS 08-36228 PI(s): Fortes, Jose A. Institution: University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611-2002 Title: Workshop on Instrumentation Needs of Computer and Information Science and Engineering Project Proposed: This proposal, planning a workshop to examine the nature, needs, importance, challenges, and funding mechanisms of instrumentation development, acquisition, utilization, and sharing, for purposes of ongoing and/or anticipated research in different CISE areas, brings together recognized CISE research leaders to conduct such an assessment and produce a report that can be shared with the CISE community, colleagues, academic administrators, government funding agencies, and industry. CISE research is increasingly concerned with extremely large and complex objects whose behavior cannot be entirely distilled from first principles or investigated using reduction models. Among other factors, scale is a consequence of Moore?s law and pervasive networking. Complexity arises from the embedding of computing into artifacts, interconnection of many components and/or multiple layers of functionality. Research needed to design and/or model such objects often requires special instruments to either peer into individual components at very small space/time granularity or to observe/emulate/simulate many objects at large enough scale and during long enough times. Over the last two decades the CISE research instrumentation needs, and mechanisms to address them, have changed as a reflection of the evolution of IT technology, both from the standpoint of the research challenges to be faced and the instruments enabled. The amazing progress of computer and information technologies (IT) has led to the current era of microprocessors with billions of transistors, software environments with millions of lines of code, multi-layered IT systems, and networks of thousands of computers, users, and applications. As a consequence, the objects computer scientists and engineers study often have an unprecedented scale and complexity. CISE instruments often grow by connecting many other artifacts (in some cases, on the fly) leading to complexity that cannot be mastered by any single designer or user of those objects. Thus, an urgent need exists for such assessment. Broader Impact: IT is increasingly being embedded into artifacts which might include non-IT components whose natures include mechanical, electrical, communication, energy production, chemical, transportation, entertainment, medical, and defense. Thus, instrumentation touches society overall.