[IP] Science agency seeks place at 'cutting edge' of data mining

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Jim Warren <jwarren@well.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 11:57:11 -0700
To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: fwd: Science agency seeks place at 'cutting edge' of data mining

At 10:57 AM -0400 4/22/03, the American Library Association's
"Patrice  McDermott" <pmcdermott@alawash.org> posted to the E-GOV
listserv:

>http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0403/041803td1.htm
>
>April 18, 2003
>
>       Science agency seeks place at 'cutting edge' of data mining
>
>       By William New, National Journal's Technology Daily
>
>       The National Science Foundation funds research "right at the
>cutting edge of discovery," Director Rita Colwell said in a recent
>interview. So it is only fitting that the foundation announced on Friday
>that it is funding eight projects that go beyond the technologies
>currently being developed to mine large amounts of data.
>
>       The projects are being supplemented by $4 million over two years
>as part of the Management of Knowledge Intensive Dynamic Systems (MKIDS)
>program, which is part of NSF's charter to support science and
>engineering research related to national security.
>
>       "The systems envisioned by the MKIDS program go beyond even
>today's leading-edge data-mining systems, which attempt to monitor vast
>streams of data and pinpoint events of interest," the agency said in a
>release.
>
>       The projects are examining ways to use technology to help
>organizations make better decisions. An MKIDS system would use tools to
>help decision-makers use the information mined from databases to
>allocate physical resources, technology services and human resources. It
>also would have controller functions to monitor the organization's
>response to those decisions and provide ways to fine-tune the process,
>NSF said.
>
>       In one project being developed at Carnegie Mellon University,
>external data sources such as e-mail, phone calls and personnel
>databases will be fed into computational models. The models will
>extrapolate an organization's structure and highlight likely "failure
>points."
>
>       "We want to develop computational tools to help managers design
>organizations the way engineers design bridges," said Ray Levitt, who is
>managing another project at Stanford University. "There is so little
>predictive ability for organizations in this area.  It's all based on
>managers' experience and intuition."
>
>       NSF uses 95 percent of its roughly $5 billion annual budget to
>fund grants and contracts. It funds research at nearly 2,000
>universities and institutions. It receives about 30,000 requests for
>funding every year and makes about 10,000 funding awards. It has long
>been involved in Internet-related issues, having brought the Internet to
>the nation's universities through the .edu domain.
>
>       NSF has put its focus in recent years on interdisciplinary
>research in new areas, Colwell said. "I would say right now, the
>interface between nano, bio, info and cognotechnology is where the
>exciting discoveries are occurring, and I would urge you to keep an eye
>on those developments in the future," she said.
>
>       NSF is the lead agency on two interagency initiatives, on
>information technology and nanotechnology. The foundation is targeting
>new software development and moving toward providing access to high-end
>computing through cyber infrastructure in the next few years, Colwell
>said. It is working with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
>on developing technologies to move from data to "wisdom" by mining large
>databases, she added.
>
>       Colwell also offered a glimpse of what the future may hold thanks
>to nanotechnology. "Some of the bright information technology folks tell
>me that when we get to molecular computers," she said, "we will have
>computers a hundred-billion times faster than our current computers."
>
>                          Brought to you by GovExec.com


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