2006-12-05: AQO PropReviews

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Contents 1 The NSF Air Quality Observatory Proposal has been Declined. Proposal Panel Report: 2 Intellectual Merit 3 Integration of Research and Education 4 Integrating Diversity into NSF Programs, Projects, and Activities 5 Other Broad Impacts

[edit] The NSF Air Quality Observatory Proposal has been Declined. Proposal Panel Report:

(1) What disciplines are included?
Atmospheric chemistry and meteorology, information technology.

(2) What is the main component of cyberinfrastructure for environmental observatories that will be deployed?
Two interconnected networks, the Unidata LDM ?push? network that will receive air quality data from DataFed and the AQO network that will disseminate meteorological data in a ?pull? type data flow.

(3) What are the questions about how cyberinfrastructure for environmental observatories might be designed and function and how will these be addressed by the project?
An Air Quality Observatory would be build that would link meteorology with air quality data from a variety of sources. Would contribute to interoperability of different data sets. Might be too narrow. The panel felt that other disciplines could have been included, such as aquatic domains, biology, etc.

(4) What is/are the compelling environmental research question or questions that the prototype will be used to address within the lifetime of the project?
The proposed work will be an extension of DataFed and Unidata. The AQO will accommodate a variety of data sources; respond to different types of AQ events; offer simplicity via a Common Data Model; foster interoperability through standard protocols (OGC standards such as WFS and WCS); provide userprogrammable components for data filtering, aggregation and fusion; employ a service-oriented architecture for linking loosely coupled web-services; and facilitate the creation of user-configurable monitoring consoles.

(5) What real environmental data will be used?
The AQO would be an extension of the recently developed (2004) DataFEd infrastructure which provides access to over 30 distributed air quality data sets along with web-based processing capabilities.

(6) How will the project attract users other than the people directly involved in the project?
The results will be made available to other researchers. The observatory will support other federal and state AQ managers

(7) By what mechanism(s) will general users be able to access the prototype?
Not explicitly described.

(8) How will users' experiences with the prototype be documented?
Not explicitly described.

(9) To what extend does the project leverage the products of existing cyberinfrastructure development efforts?
This proposal seems to effectively leverage ongoing IT efforts by the principal constituent institutions. However, the panel felt it was very difficult to tell from this proposal how significant a step this represents from the existing DataFed and Unidata cyber0infrasturcture.

(10) If further IT development is needed and part of the project, what is the gap that this development seeks to fill and what is its importance to environmental observatory cyberinfrastructure, in general?
Not explicitly stated.

(11) Is the prototype capable of working with representative data and being operated by representative users performing tasks that are themselves representative of those needed in the pursuit of environmental research or education activities?
The proposed work is based on existing DataFed and Unidata work.

(12) How will the project advance the technological capabilities of the environmental research community beyond what is currently possible?
See 4).

(13) Does the project involve extensive use of existing data streams or data sets, or leverage data that can be expected to come online as a result of other environmental observation projects during the lifetime of the proposed project?
The proposed work is based on usage of existing DataFed infrastructure.

(14) Will the project lead to a flexible cyberinfrastructure prototype that is amenable to extension and upgrade as technology evolves?
The panel felt that the description of the system implementation is not explicit enough to answer this question.

(15) Will a substantial fraction of the requested funds be used for the collection of new data, the development of new numerical models, or the augmentation of existing numerical models?
No.

(16) Does the proposal overlap substantially with an existing project or fall within the scope of an existing funding opportunity?
No.

[edit] Intellectual Merit

The panel found some obvious flaws from the perspective of cyber infrastructure. There is a doubt regarding the usability. The panel found the key idea of the proposal (connecting Area Quality and Meteorological community), not so separate in reality. The connection is already here. Multidisciplinary approach is not emphasized.

So we missed the Intellectual Merit: Air Quality and Meteorological communities are already reasonably well connected, so cyberinfrastructure prototyping does not have much intellectual merit for an Environmental Observatory.

[edit] Integration of Research and Education

See broader impacts.

[edit] Integrating Diversity into NSF Programs, Projects, and Activities

The proposal stated historical numbers on Unidata universities regarding underrepresented and minority groups.

[edit] Other Broad Impacts

Broader impacts are general. The proposal describes Unidata?s past success in teaching and training students but id does not show how the AQO, designed with scientific end-points, will fulfill these functions. The proposal addresses the participation of underrepresented groups in the proposed project by describing the accessibility of Unidata to these groups. .Unidata set the standard already, and it is undoubtedly valuable to community.

The panel felt this proposal belongs to Do Not Recommend for Funding category