E-science effort will try to tame data torrents

A growing number of scientific fields suffer from a stifling embarassment of riches: data pile up much faster than they can be analyzed. A team of researchers at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute is now building a prototype of a system that will address the problem by automating scientific workflows.

ISI computer scientist Yolanda Gil leads the newly funded $13.8 million Windward project, aiming at (in its full title) "Scaleable Knowledge Discovery through Grid Workflows."

Windward will bring to the analysis of scientific problems an approach similar to that of industrial engineering, where engineers create optimal workflows to bring together raw material and machinery in the most efficient fashion to create product.

Gil has long been active in developing the semantic web, which creates a digital universe that AI can explore and understand, and which will be a building block of the Windward system.