The CrossGrid project

There are many large-scale problems that require new approaches to computing, such as earth observation, environmental management, biomedicine, industrial and scientific modeling. The CrossGrid project addresses realistic problems in medicine, environmental protection, flood prediction, and physics analysis and is oriented towards specific end-users: Medical doctors, who could obtain new tools to help them to obtain correct diagnoses and to guide them during operations; industries, that could be advised on the best timing for some critical operations involving risk of pollution; flood crisis teams, that could predict the risk of a flood on the basis of historical records and actual hydrological and meteorological data; physicists, who could optimize the analysis of massive volumes of data distributed across countries and continents. Corresponding applications will be based on Grid technology and could be complex and difficult to use: the CrossGrid project aims at developing several tools that will make the Grid more friendly for average users. Portals for specific applications will be designed, that should allow for easy connection to the Grid, create a customized work environment, and provide users with all necessary information to get their job done.