Federation Of Resources Research Articles

Food security in Ukraine: opportunities and reality

The article substantiates the relevance of the study of the current state of ensuring food security under martial law and its problems and prospects. It is determined that an adequate food security system in the country should provide the population with the necessary food based on the national agro-industrial complex. The state's food security is an essential component of the overall economic security, which is also part of the country's public security. The indicators by which it is possible to assess the state's food security degree are allocated. The authors found that modern research on food security is limited to the problems of its provision in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, the current situation requires further scientific development. The conditions and measures to ensure the food security of our state are determined. During the study, it was noted that modern national and global food security systems are very vulnerable to the impact of crises: armed conflicts, deliberate blocking of the supply of agricultural products to foreign markets by the aggressor country, rising world prices, and crop failures. In addition, it was noted that food can also become the basis for blackmail of the world community by the aggressor. The paper analyzes the losses caused to the agricultural sector as a result of the full-scale Russian invasion and their consequences for Ukraine and the countries of the world. It was found that the Government of Ukraine, to ensure national food security, has prepared an action plan to ensure food security under martial law and created a National Food Security Platform. The study gives grounds to assert that despite the military aggression of the Russian Federation and significant losses of material, economic, and labor resources, Ukraine can ensure its food security and remains an essential exporter of the food security of many countries. The need for joint concerted efforts of the world community to counter the aggressor to ensure national and global food security is also determined. Keywords: food security, economy, production system, agricultural products, exports, imports, risks, martial law.

CONTENT OF OWNERSHIP OF NATURAL RESOURCES

The question of the content of the right of ownership of natural resources in the article is studied as an essential element of the theory of ecological and natural resource law. At the same time, such a theoretical approach shows not only the defectiveness of the stable and persistent claims of civilists to the possession of nature as a civil law thing, but also the scientific inconsistency of the actions of the federal legislator, who unreasonably established many natural resource norms in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The content of the right of ownership of natural resources is studied as an objective and subjective right regulated by the norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, ecological and natural resource law. Taking into account the claims of civilists to the regulation of relations of ownership of land and other natural resources in the civil legislation special attention is paid to the position of E. A. Sukhanov, according to which the content of the subjective right of ownership is usually characterized only through the constituent powers of possession, use and disposal. At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that the theory of natural resource law emphasizes the understanding of the right of disposal in civil law, which is unacceptable in relation to natural objects, as the ability to determine the legal fate of a thing up to its alienation or destruction. The issue of the rights and obligations of the holder of the right of ownership of natural resources as a subjective right is investigated as in accordance with the natural resource and ecological legislation of the Russian Federation is an important and essential element of the content of the right of ownership of natural resources. The position is substantiated that the fulfillment by the owner of legal natural resource requirements, assessed in the context of the content of the right of ownership management.

Unleashing JupyterHub: Exploiting Resources Without Inbound Network Connectivity Using HTCondor

In recent years Jupyter notebooks have conquered class rooms and some scientists also enjoy their convenience to quickly evaluate ideas and check whether a more detailed study is justified. To lower the threshold for getting started with Jupyter notebooks and to ease sharing and collaborative use, offering a JupyterHub service is tempting. However, offering such a service for a larger science class also requires a compute backend with sufficient resources such that hundreds of notebooks can be run simultaneously. Since resource usage for teaching activities typically fluctuates significantly over the year, dedicated compute resources seem inefficient. In this paper we present an alternative by exploiting an existing high throughput computing cluster (BAF2) at the University of Bonn, which comes with the additional advantage that scientific users may use the very same software and data environment they also select for their batch jobs. To implement this, we used a novel approach which allowed us to integrate BAF2 execute nodes although they do not have inbound network connectivity. Therefore, it does not touch the security concept of the cluster. The very same technique can be used to integrate any compute resources without inbound network connectivity and thus allows one to overcome usual firewall restrictions. This design also simplifies exploiting remote resources e.g. offered by resource federations or cloud providers.

EXPPO: EXecution Performance Profiling and Optimization for CPS Co-simulation-as-a-Service

A co-simulation may comprise several heterogeneous federates with diverse spatial and temporal execution characteristics. In an iterative time-stepped simulation, a federation exhibits the Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) computation paradigm in which all federates perform local operations and synchronize with their peers before proceeding to the next round of computation. In this context, the lowest performing (i.e., slowest) federate dictates the progression of the federation logical time. One challenge in co-simulation is performance profiling for individual federates and entire federations. The computational resource assignment to the federates can have a large impact on federation performance. Furthermore, a federation may comprise federates located on different physical machines as is the case for cloud and edge computing environments. As such, distributed profiling and resource assignment to the federation is a major challenge for operationalizing the co-simulation execution at scale. This paper presents the Execution Performance Profiling and Optimization (EXPPO) methodology, which addresses these challenges by using execution performance profiling at each simulation execution step and for every federate in a federation. EXPPO uses profiling to learn performance models for each federate, and uses these models in its federation resource recommendation tool to solve an optimization problem that improves the execution performance of the co-simulation. Using an experimental testbed, the efficacy of EXPPO is validated to show the benefits of performance profiling and resource assignment in improving the execution runtimes of co-simulations while also minimizing the execution cost.

A First National Seismic Network for the Maltese Islands—The Malta Seismic Network

AbstractThe Sicily Channel, situated on the leading edge of the African plate as it collides with Europe, presents a range of interesting and complex tectonic processes that have developed in response to various regional stress fields. The characterization and interpretation of the seismic activity, however, still presents a challenge. The Maltese islands, lying approximately 100 km to the south of Sicily, are known to have been affected by a number of earthquakes in the Channel, with some of these events estimated to be very close to the islands. Yet, in the absence of nearby seismic instruments, an accurate evaluation and mapping of small magnitude seismicity, and, hence, the identification of unmapped active faults in the region, remains a challenge. This situation is being partially addressed through the deployment of more seismic stations on the Maltese archipelago. The Malta Seismic Network (MSN; International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks code ML, see Data and Resources), managed by the Seismic Monitoring and Research Group, within the Department of Geosciences, University of Malta, currently comprises eight broadband, three-component stations covering an area of, approximately, 315 km2. Continuous seismic monitoring is possible following upgrades to real-time data transmission and automated epicenter location, coupled with a virtual seismic network established through SeisComP3, and focused mainly on the Mediterranean region. Such a dense national network, besides improving epicentral location in the Sicily Channel, will provide valuable information on microearthquake activity known to occur in close proximity to the islands, which has been very difficult to study in the past. It will also provide opportunities to study shallow crustal structure, site response on different geological substrates, microseismic noise propagation, and effects of anthropogenic activities. Here, we give a technical description of the MSN and an appraisal of its potential.

Political economy of renewable resource federalism.

The authority to manage natural capital often follows political boundaries rather than ecological. This mismatch can lead to unsustainable outcomes, as spillovers from one management area to the next may create adverse incentives for local decision making, even within a single country. At the same time, one-size-fits-all approaches of federal (centralized) authority can fail to respond to state (decentralized) heterogeneity and can result in inefficient economic or detrimental ecological outcomes. Here we utilize a spatially explicit coupled natural-human system model of a fishery to illuminate trade-offs posed by the choice between federal vs. state control of renewable resources. We solve for the dynamics of fishing effort and fish stocks that result from different approaches to federal management that vary in terms of flexibility. Adapting numerical methods from engineering, we also solve for the open-loop Nash equilibrium characterizing state management outcomes, where each state anticipates and responds to the choices of the others. We consider traditional federalism questions (state vs. federal management) as well as more contemporary questions about the economic and ecological impacts of shifting regulatory authority from one level to another. The key mechanisms behind the trade-offs include whether differences in local conditions are driven by biological or economic mechanisms; degree of flexibility embedded in the federal management; the spatial and temporal distribution of economic returns across states; and the status-quo management type. While simple rules-of-thumb are elusive, our analysis reveals the complex political economy dimensions of renewable resource federalism.

Determination of the level of regional morbidity of the population based on data on anthropogenic load

The aim of the work is to determine the external, anthropogenic environmental factors that negatively affect the morbidity of the population and associated nosologies. The knowledge gained in this area will allow us to identify the adverse impacts of man-made nature and identify tools for environmental quality management to promote public health. Geoinformation data will help to identify the areas with the most intense environmental situation in the Murmansk region. It will also identify the dominant diseases in these areas. Mining and metallurgical enterprises mainly contribute to the pollution of the territory of the region: Kola MMC, Severonikel, Phosagro, Kovdor mining and processing plant, North-Western Phosphorus Company, Olkon and Rusal, as well as the nuclear fleet and fish processing enterprises, power supply facilities. The air basin is dominated by fluoride compounds, which are the emissions of ethylene into the atmosphere. Data on the demographic situation and medical statistics, including data on general morbidity and mortality, were obtained from the Territorial Body of the Federal State Statistics for Murmansk Region, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Department of Monitoring, Analysis and Strategic Development of Health Care, Federal State Budgetary Institution “Central Research Institute for the Organization and Informatization of Health Care” of Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of Murmansk Region. The medical and environmental analysis of adverse factors in the regions of Murmansk region was carried out taking into account the environmentally dependent diseases of the adult population. The assessment of the morbidity of the population in the Murmansk region showed that several areas with a tense environmental situation are identified in the region. Diseases of the respiratory system, digestive system, genitourinary system, and musculoskeletal system are leading in the structure of overall morbidity.

УСЛОВИЯ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ ПЕСЧАНЫХ ПЛАСТОВ-КОЛЛЕКТОРОВ ЯКОВЛЕВСКОЙ СВИТЫ НА ТЕРРИТОРИИ ЛОДОЧНОГО НЕФТЕГАЗОКОНДЕНСАТНОГО МЕСТОРОЖДЕНИЯ

Актуальность исследования обусловлена необходимостью расширения ресурсного потенциала Российской Федерации за счет прироста месторождений углеводородов. На сегодняшний день нефть относится к полезным ископаемым, достигнутые уровни добычи которых недостаточно обеспечены запасами разрабатываемых месторождений. Подробное изучение строения продуктивных песчаных пластов-коллекторов в пределах Ванкорской группы месторождений на севере Красноярского края в перспективе даст возможность для прогноза и открытия новых залежей углеводородов в нижнемеловых отложениях Сибири. Цель: определить условия формирования продуктивных песчаных пластов по данным изучения кернового материала, изучить причины неоднородности сформированных отложений и выявить их характерные признаки для последующего прогноза нижнемеловых нефтеносных отложений на территории Красноярского края. Объект: продуктивные песчаные пласты яковлевской свиты нижнего мела Лодочного нефтегазоконденсатного месторождения. Методы: петрографический анализ шлифов, стадиальный анализ, гранулометрический анализ, фациальный анализ, исследование фильтрационно-емкостных и петрофизических свойств пород. Результаты. По данным петрографического анализа был изучен вещественный состав продуктивных песчаных отложений верхне- и нижнеяковлевской подсвит Лодочного месторождения, дана их сравнительная характеристика. Определена степень влияния постседиментационных процессов на формирование современного облика изучаемых отложений. Предложена фациальная модель, наиболее точно описывающая условия формирования продуктивных пластов. Установлено влияние условий осадконакопления в комплексе с последующими постседиментационными преобразованиями пород на фильтрационно-емкостные параметры песчаников. Объяснены причины наличия карбонатизированных прослоев во флювиальных отложениях. Сделаны выводы о возможности прогноза продуктивности отложений яковлевской свиты, накопленных в различных фациальных обстановках.

Lightweight site federation for CMS support

There is a general trend in WLCG towards the federation of resources, aiming for increased simplicity, efficiency, flexibility, and availability. Although general VO-agnostic federation of resources between two independent and autonomous resource centres may prove arduous, a considerable amount of flexibility in resource sharing can be achieved in the context of a single WLCG VO, with a relatively simple approach. We have demonstrated this for PIC and CIEMAT, the Spanish Tier-1 and Tier-2 sites for CMS, by making use of the existing CMS xrootd federation infrastructure and profiting from the common CE/batch technology used by the two centres. This work describes how compute slots are shared between the two sites, so that the capacity of one site can be dynamically increased with idle execution slots from the remote site, and how data can be efficiently accessed irrespective of its location. Our contribution includes measurements for diverse CMS workflows comparing performances between local and remote execution, and can also be regarded as a benchmark to explore future potential scenarios, where storage resources would be concentrated in a reduced number of sites.

Federated Learning-Based Computation Offloading Optimization in Edge Computing-Supported Internet of Things

Recently, smart cities, smart homes, and smart medical systems have challenged the functionality and connectivity of the large-scale Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Thus, with the idea of offloading intensive computing tasks from them to edge nodes (ENs), edge computing emerged to supplement these limited devices. Benefit from this advantage, IoT devices can save more energy and still maintain the quality of the services they should provide. However, computational offload decisions involve federation and complex resource management and should be determined in the real-time face to dynamic workloads and radio environments. Therefore, in this work, we use multiple deep reinforcement learning (DRL) agents deployed on multiple edge nodes to indicate the decisions of the IoT devices. On the other hand, with the aim of making DRL-based decisions feasible and further reducing the transmission costs between the IoT devices and edge nodes, federated learning (FL) is used to train DRL agents in a distributed fashion. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the decision scheme and federated learning in the dynamic IoT system.

Proposals for Equitable Governance and Management of Natural Resources in Nigeria

The current regime of centralized natural resource governance poses one of the greatest threats to the stability of the Federation of Nigeria. The centralization of natural resource ownership and government is perceived by the ethnic minorities of the oil-producing Niger Delta Region of Nigeria as a tool of ethnic domination by the majority ethnic groups. Given the centrality of natural resources to the growth of Nigeria’s economy and the desirability of maintaining a stable federation, this research seeks to propose an equitable regime of natural resource governance that recognises and accommodates both national and regional interest in Nigeria’s abundant natural resources and thereby strengthens federal stability. This paper which adopts analytical and comparative research methodologies, argues that the current regime of natural resource governance in Nigeria is divisive and that only the participation of the federating states in the governance of natural resources exploited within their respective geographic boundaries would conduce to peace and inter-regional harmony and enhance the capacities of the federating states to develop at their varying speed according to the dreams of the Founding Fathers of Nigerian federalism. The paper concludes by recommending resource federalism whereby competence over natural resource governance could be shared between the federal government and the federating states.

Supporting Data-Intensive Workflows in Software-Defined Federated Multi-Clouds

Cloud computing is emerging as a viable platform for scientific exploration. Elastic and on-demand access to resources (and other services), the abstraction of “unlimited” resources, and attractive pricing models provide incentives for scientists to move their workflows into clouds. Generalizing these concepts beyond a single virtualized datacenter, it is possible to create federated marketplaces where different types of resources (e.g., clouds, HPC grids, supercomputers) that may be geographically distributed, are collectively exposed as a single elastic infrastructure. This presents opportunities for optimizing the execution of application workflows with heterogeneous and dynamic requirements, and tackling larger scale problems. In this paper, we introduce a framework to manage the end-to-end execution of data-intensive application workflows in dynamic software-defined resource federation. This framework enables the autonomic execution of workflows by elastically provisioning an appropriate set of resources that meet application requirements, and by adapting this set of resources at runtime as the requirements change. It also allows users to customize scheduling policies that drive the way resources federated and used. To demonstrate the benefits of our approach, we study the execution of two different data-intensive scientific workflows in a multi-cloud federation using different policies and objective functions.

ACROSS: A generic framework for attribute-based access control with distributed policies for virtual organizations

Research interests about access control mechanisms for distributed resources have recently increased. In this scenario, users from different institutions access distributed resources, maintained by different organizations, in order to participate in a common research project, network, or testbed. Several challenges arise from these virtual organizations in order to give different types of access privileges to distinct types of resources, depending on the user profile and considering local and global access policies from partners. This work presents a generic and extensible authentication and authorization framework, named ACROSS, based on policies and attributes for virtual organizations. Our proposal creates a granular and scalable access control, which supports different authentication technologies and is independent of the kind of resource federation. In addition, ACROSS introduces a new concept of attribute generalization for access control, providing a transparent management based on access level computed from user attribute values and weights. Other works with similar goals have limitations restricting their integration with any kind of identity and resource federations. Also, these works present restrictions concerning environment and resource types. Hence, they are specific for usage in grid computing, testbed experimentation, or other distributed-resource environment. Differently from other proposals, ACROSS is a framework for supporting the development of new virtual organizations using any kind of resource sharing. ACROSS provides all A&A functionalities so that creating the virtual organization is no longer a challenge for new applications. We validate ACROSS using it on two scenarios: a real testbed and a testing environment composed of resources simulating a distributed open lab. The results show the feasibility to apply the proposal to different scenarios.

FedIDS: a federated cloud storage architecture and satellite image delivery service for building dependable geospatial platforms

ABSTRACTEarth observation satellites produce large amounts of images/data that not only must be processed and preserved in reliable geospatial platforms but also efficiently disseminated among partners/researchers for creating derivative products through collaborative workflows. Organizations can face up this challenge in a cost-effective manner by using cloud services. However, outages and violations of integrity/confidentiality associated to this technology could arise. This article presents FedIDS, a suite of cloud-based components for building dependable geospatial platforms. The Fed component enables organizations to build shared geospatial data infrastructure through federation of independent cloud resources to withstand outages, whereas IDS avoids violations of integrity/confidentiality of images/data in sharing information and collaboration workflows. A FedIDS prototype, deployed in Spain and Mexico, was evaluated through a study case based on a satellite imagery captured by a Mexican antenna and another based on a satellite imagery of a European observation mission. The acquisition, storage and sharing of images among users of the federation, the exchange of images between Mexican and Spanish sites and outage scenarios were evaluated. The evaluation revealed the feasibility, reliability and efficiency of FedIDS, in comparison with available solutions, in terms of performance, storage consume and integrity/confidentiality when sharing images/data in collaborative scenarios.

World Federation of Occupational Therapists human resources project 2016: Demographic profile of WFOT member organisations

ABSTRACTThe World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) Human Resources Project 2016 provides demographic statistics of the occupational therapy profession for 96% of WFOT Member Organisations. These data demonstrate the diversity of the profession’s demography between countries and regions in established and newly established organisations in both low and high resource countries. Some Member Organisations were unable to access or collect the required information for this report. This report recognises the limitation that some Member Organisations might have in providing these data, but equally this report places importance in maintaining national demographics as a contributing factor to the profession’s development and global identity. The Human Resources Project is a key part of WFOT’s business, and is aligned to its strategic and operational objectives. This project is part of a continuing collaboration with the World Health Organization and various government ministries and departments. WFOT encourages the dissemination of the information presented in this report to increase global recognition and commissioning of the contribution of the occupational therapy profession.

World Federation of Occupational Therapists human resources project 2012 and 2014: Demographic profile of WFOT member organisations

ABSTRACTThe World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) Human Resources Project 2012 and 2014 provides demographic statistics of the occupational therapy profession for 97% in 2012 and 99% in 2014 of WFOT Member Organisations. The data show the diversity of the profession’s demography between countries and regions, established and newly established organisations in both low and high resource countries. Some Member Organisations are unable to collect or have limited access to the information that is requested as part of the Human Resources Project. This report respects the limitations that some Member Organisations might have in providing data; equally, it reinforces the importance of maintaining national demographics as a contributing factor to the profession’s development and global identity. The Human Resources Project is an integral part of WFOT’s business, aligned to its strategic and operational objectives. The project has formed part of its continued collaboration with the World Health Organization and various government ministries and departments. WFOT supports the widespread dissemination of this information to facilitate global recognition and commissioning of the valued contribution of the occupational therapy profession.

Protein Data Bank (PDB): The Single Global Macromolecular Structure Archive.

The Protein Data Bank (PDB)--the single global repository of experimentally determined 3D structures of biological macromolecules and their complexes--was established in 1971, becoming the first open-access digital resource in the biological sciences. The PDB archive currently houses ~130,000 entries (May 2017). It is managed by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank organization (wwPDB; wwpdb.org), which includes the RCSB Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB; rcsb.org), the Protein Data Bank Japan (PDBj; pdbj.org), the Protein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe; pdbe.org), and BioMagResBank (BMRB; www.bmrb.wisc.edu). The four wwPDB partners operate a unified global software system that enforces community-agreed data standards and supports data Deposition, Biocuration, and Validation of ~11,000 new PDB entries annually (deposit.wwpdb.org). The RCSB PDB currently acts as the archive keeper, ensuring disaster recovery of PDB data and coordinating weekly updates. wwPDB partners disseminate the same archival data from multiple FTP sites, while operating complementary websites that provide their own views of PDB data with selected value-added information and links to related data resources. At present, the PDB archives experimental data, associated metadata, and 3D-atomic level structural models derived from three well-established methods: crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), and electron microscopy (3DEM). wwPDB partners are working closely with experts in related experimental areas (small-angle scattering, chemical cross-linking/mass spectrometry, Forster energy resonance transfer or FRET, etc.) to establish a federation of data resources that will support sustainable archiving and validation of 3D structural models and experimental data derived from integrative or hybrid methods.

Studying the History of Social Science Data Archives as Knowledge Infrastructure

We map out a new arena of analysis for knowledge and cyberinfrastructure scholars: Social Science Data Archives (SSDA). SSDA have influenced the international development of the social sciences, research methods, and data standards in the latter half of the twentieth century. They provide entry points to understand how fields organise themselves to be ‘data intensive’. Longitudinal studies of SSDA can increase our understanding of the sustainability of knowledge infrastructure more generally. We argue for special attention to the following themes: the co-shaping of data use and users, the materiality of shifting revenue sources, field level relationships as an important component of infrastructure, and the implications of centralisation and federation of institutions and resources. We briefly describe our ongoing study of primarily quantitative social science data archives. We conclude by discussing how cross-institutional and longitudinal analyses can contribute to the scholarship of knowledge infrastructure.Keywords: social sciences; data archives; institutional sustainability

Kepler + CometCloud: Dynamic Scientific Workflow Execution on Federated Cloud Resources

The widespread availability and variety of cloud offerings and their associated access models has drastically grown over the past few years. It is now common for users to have access to multiple infrastructures (e.g., campus clusters, cloud resources), however, deploying complex application workflows on top of these resources remains a challenge. In this paper we propose an approach that allows users to build and run scientific workflows on top of a federation of multiple clouds and traditional resources (e.g., clusters). We achieve this by integrating the Kepler scientific workflow platform with the CometCloud framework. This allows us to: 1) dynamically and programmatically provision and aggregate resources, 2) easily compose complex workflows, and 3) dynamically schedule and execute these workflows based on provenance and overall objectives on the resulting federation of resources. We demonstrate our approach and evaluate its capabilities by running a bioinformatics workflow on top of a federation composed of a campus cluster and two clouds.

PanDA: Exascale Federation of Resources for the ATLAS Experiment at the LHC

After a scheduled maintenance and upgrade period, the world’s largest and most powerful machine – the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) – is about to enter its second run at unprecedented energies. In order to exploit the scientific potential of the machine, the experiments at the LHC face computational challenges with enormous data volumes that need to be analysed by thousand of physics users and compared to simulated data. Given diverse funding constraints, the computational resources for the LHC have been deployed in a worldwide mesh of data centres, connected to each other through Grid technologies.The PanDA (Production and Distributed Analysis) system was developed in 2005 for the ATLAS experiment on top of this heterogeneous infrastructure to seamlessly integrate the computational resources and give the users the feeling of a unique system. Since its origins, PanDA has evolved together with upcoming computing paradigms in and outside HEP, such as changes in the networking model, Cloud Computing and HPC. It is currently running steadily up to 200 thousand simultaneous cores (limited by the available resources for ATLAS), up to two million aggregated jobs per day and processes over an exabyte of data per year. The success of PanDA in ATLAS is triggering the widespread adoption and testing by other experiments. In this contribution we will give an overview of the PanDA components and focus on the new features and upcoming challenges that are relevant to the next decade of distributed computing workload management using PanDA.