PRAGMA — Pacific Rim Applications and Grid Middleware Assembly

Welcome Letter from the PRAGMA 18 Committee

On behalf of Pacific Rim Applications and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA) and the PRAGMA 18 Organizing Committee, it is our privilege to invite you to register for the 18th PRAGMA Workshop, March 3-4, 2010, in San Diego, California, USA! We are honored to host this event, for the 3rd time (PRAGMA 1, 7, and now 18), and look forward to welcoming our friends and colleagues from around the Pacific Rim.

The theme of PRAGMA 18 is “Culture, Cultivation, Computing, and Collaboration,” and our meeting activities reflect these four elements: Culture in what we hope to share, both in our social activities and in new areas where our technologies can support a sharing of culture; Cultivation in the activities we plan to develop with our next generation of contributors, students, as well as developing new technologies and applications; Computing as a means of driving forward diverse applications impacting our lives in academic and social functions, and embracing new technologies in a pragmatic fashion; and Collaboration, the hallmark of PRAGMA permeating through all our activities. As a particularly relevant example, the PRAGMA 18 website is powered by the Duckling software developed by CNIC, host of PRAGMA 6 in May, 2004.

The Program Committee has set broad objectives for this workshop, to allow PRAGMA to explore each of the thematic elements, building upon concrete success from PRAGMA 17 in Hanoi, and laying out plans to be carried out before PRAGMA 19 in Changchun, Jilin, China.

In the past four and a half years since the workshop was last hosted in San Diego, PRAGMA has continued to expand to more than 30 institutions. It has created a new working group on Global Earth Observation (GEO) and has built strong collaborations with key applications: antivirals for pandemic influenza; environmental observation in lakes; and extension of telescience capabilities to education and new means of sharing content. At this meeting we will continue to advance these activities, and actively explore the role of virtualization of resources in advancing computing and data technologies, and the role of advanced visualization in every aspect of our activities, through diverse, cutting edge and crucial scientific application drivers.

On March 2, a PRAGMA Institute on Implementation will include a focused in-person collaboration to actually build and disseminate software from the PRAGMA community. A much anticipated PRAGMA 18 reception starts in the evening, the Eve of PRAGMA 18. The PRAGMA 18 program features keynote speeches from Prof. Thomas DeFanti, a world expert on advanced visualization, and from Prof. Larry Smarr, a tireless advocate of advanced networking, computing, and visualization in modern society. On March 5-6, a workshop follows on technologies for coral reef observation and environmental protection.

While attending PRAGMA 18 in San Diego we hope that you feel completely at home, as we try our best to match the hospitality offered by earlier hosts of PRAGMA workshops. We have planned several social and cultural events for you to enjoy and learn more about America, well known for her own cultural diversity. We hope that you will take the opportunity to socialize and network with new acquaintances, and build upon those relationships which have already been established to sustain our collaboration. Registration is open on January 18, 2010, and hotel reservation may be made directly with the hotel by phone or email. We extend the warmest welcome to all, and hope that you enjoy PRAGMA 18 in San Diego.

Wilfred Li (UCSD and NBCR)
Chair, PRAGMA 18 Program Committee
on behalf of the PRAGMA 18 Committee Members