Africa ONE: the Africa Optical Network

Marra, W.C.; Schesser, J.

doi:10.1109/35.481244

Cited by 28 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Already by the end of 1994, electronic mail connected all countries together through virtual gateways. AT&T's Africa One Project [56] and the Global Information Infrastructure vision of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore accelerated the internet growth in developing countries [57] The internet represents one of the most powerful agents of change in the world affecting everything from science and religion to politics and medicine. It is becoming the first location for the discussion of new ideas, publishing, advertising, and commerce.…”

Section: Global Challenge 6: Information Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

A gaze into the crystal ball: Biomimetics in the year 2059

Gebeshuber

Gruber²,

Drack

2009

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C:

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biomimetics is a field that has the potential to drive major technical advances. It might substantially support successful mastering of major global challenges. In the first part of the article, the current state of biomimetics is reviewed, and goals and visions of biomimetics are presented. Subsequently, possible biomimetic scenarios to overcome the major global challenges, as indicated by the Millennium Project, are envisaged. Those of the 15 challenges (sustainable development, water, population and resources, democratization, long-term perspectives, information technology, the rich—poor gap, health, capacity to decide, peace and conflict, status of women, transnational crime, energy, science and technology, and global ethics) where biomimetics might provide relevant contributions are considered in more detail. The year 2059 will mark the 100th anniversary of Part C of the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science. By this time, some of these challenges will hopefully have been successfully dealt with, possibly with major contribution from biomimetics. A new Leitwissenschaft and a new type of ‘biological technology’ are emerging, and in biology more and more causation and natural laws are being uncovered. In order to estimate the fields of biology from which technical innovations are likely to appear, the amount of causal knowledge is estimated by comparing it with correlational knowledge in the respective fields. In some fields of biology, such as biochemistry and physiology, the amount of causal laws is high, whereas in fields such as developmental biology and ecology, we are just at the beginning. However, sometimes ideas and inspirations can also stem from nature when the causations are not known. The biomimetic approach might change the research landscape and the engineering culture dramatically, by the blending of disciplines (interdisciplinarity). The term ‘technoscience’ denotes the field where science and technology are inseparably interconnected, the trend goes from papers to patents, and the scientific ‘search for truth’ is increasingly replaced by search for applications with a potential economic value. Although the trend in many scientific fields goes towards applications for the market, a lot of disciplines will stick to the traditional picture of science. An open question left to the future is whether the one development or the other (technoscience or pure science) is an advantage for the future of humans. In the subsequent section, the article gives information about organizations active in biomimetics. It shows the relevance of biomimetics on a global scale, and gives reasons for promoting transdisciplinary learning. Increasing interdisciplinarity calls for novel ways to educate the young. Brian Cambourne's ‘Conditions of Learning’ theory is recommended in this respect. This dynamic and evolving model for literacy learning comprises the concepts immersion, demonstration, engagement, expectations, responsibility, employment, approximation, and response. Each of these conditions supports both the student and the teacher in their discovery of learning, helps provide a context within which to learn, and creates an interactive and dynamic experience between the learner and the content. In the year 2059, researchers and developers who routinely think across boundaries shall successfully implement knowledge in solving the major challenges of their time!

show abstract

Section: Global Challenge 6: Information Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

A gaze into the crystal ball: Biomimetics in the year 2059

Gebeshuber

Gruber²,

Drack

2009

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C:

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Despite these proposals, only a few have focused on the underlying network architecture required to support such inter-continental collabo-rations. In [42], the authors considered an optical network to link Africa, while in [3], a dual ring network topology was proposed for interconnecting African countries. In [44], the role of the Internet on the evolution of communication infrastructure in 8 west African countries was considered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Africa 3: A Continental Network Model to Enable the African Fourth Industrial Revolution

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is widely recognised that collaboration can help fast-track the development of countries in Africa. Leveraging on the fourth industrial revolution, Africa can achieve accelerated development in health care services, educational systems and socioeconomic infrastructures. While a number of conceptual frameworks have been proposed for the African continent, many have discounted the Cloud infrastructure used for data storage and processing as well as the underlying network infrastructure upon which such frameworks would be built. This work therefore presents a continental network model for interconnecting nations in Africa through its data centres. The proposed model is based on a multilayer network engineering approach, which first groups African countries into clusters of data centers using a hybrid combination of clustering techniques; then utilizes Ant Colony Optimisation with Stench Pheromone, that is modified to support variable evaporation rates, to find ideal network path(s) across the clusters and the continent as a whole. The proposed model takes into consideration the geo-spatial location, population sizes, data centre counts and intercontinental submarine cable landings of each African country, when clustering and routing. For bench-marking purposes, the path selection algorithm was tested on both the obtained clusters and African Union's regional clusters.

show abstract

“…Rings are suitable for LAN's and MAN's. Some combinations of meshes and rings have also been seriously considered and deployed; for example, the ring-of-rings architecture [32] and the mesh-ofrings architecture [33]- [35]. A network that is studied in the literature but does not really have a practical implementation consists of families of several multidimensional networks, such as the mesh-torus [36], [37].…”

Section: Network Topologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of WDM transport networks

Karasan

Ayanoğlu²

1998

IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-Wavelength division multiplexed point-to-point transport is becoming commonplace in wide area networks. With the expectation that the next step is end-to-end networking of wavelengths (in the optical domain without conversion to electronics), there is a need for new design techniques, a new understanding of the performance issues, and a new performance evaluation methodology in such networks. This paper describes approaches to that end, summarizes research results, and points to open problems.

show abstract

Africa ONE: the Africa Optical Network

Cited by 28 publications

References 3 publications

A gaze into the crystal ball: Biomimetics in the year 2059

A gaze into the crystal ball: Biomimetics in the year 2059

Africa 3: A Continental Network Model to Enable the African Fourth Industrial Revolution

Performance of WDM transport networks

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About