National project · Citizen science infrastructure
Ibercivis BOINC
The volunteer computing platform where Ibercivis began, with members of the public donating their computers’ idle time to scientific calculations
About the project
Ibercivis began as a volunteer computing platform: members of the public lent the processing power of their personal computers, whenever they were not using them, so that research groups could run their simulations.
It was launched on 20 June 2008 at CSIC headquarters in Madrid as ‘the first citizen computer’. Unlike initiatives such as SETI@home, where a single research project asked the public for help, Ibercivis was designed as a stable, open infrastructure that brought several research projects together. That is why its director, Alfonso Tarancón, described it as a citizen computing network rather than simply a volunteer computing platform.
The initiative grew out of an earlier experience, the Zivis project, set up by the University of Zaragoza and CIEMAT with the support of Zaragoza City Council. In Zivis, members of the public contributed almost 800,000 hours of scientific computing, 20 times more than expected. Ibercivis extended the idea to the whole of Spain and to a larger number of research projects.
The platform ran on BOINC, free software developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It had three operations centres: Valencia, where researchers’ programs were adapted to BOINC; Zaragoza, which sent the jobs out to computers; and Madrid, which received the results.
Project objectives
- Give research groups access to large-scale computing power, contributed by members of the public’s computers.
- Allow anyone to take part directly in research projects from home.
- Bring research from very different fields together in a single infrastructure: fusion energy, drug discovery, materials physics, biomedicine and mathematics.
The role of Ibercivis
Ibercivis created and ran the platform. It received programs from research groups, adapted them to BOINC, shared the jobs out among volunteers’ computers and collected the results to return them to the researchers.
The first phase started with three projects (fusion, protein docking and materials). Over time, new research from centres in Spain and Portugal joined, up to the fifteen projects described below.
How people took part
All you had to do was visit the Ibercivis website, register and download the BOINC application. In your user profile you could choose which projects you wanted to contribute to.
When the computer was switched on but not in use, the program requested jobs from Ibercivis and ran them. While it was calculating, an Ibercivis screensaver appeared, which stopped as soon as you touched a key or the mouse. When each calculation was finished, the results were sent back to the server.
The platform used open-source and free software, worked on all kinds of computers and only needed an internet connection. Volunteers decided when their computer could be used.
The research projects
- Adsorción (adsorption): simulated how fluids are retained on the surface of porous materials, specifically PILC clays, which are of industrial interest as catalysts or for storing gases. It was developed by the Theoretical Physical Chemistry group at the Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry (CSIC).
- Amiloide (amyloid): searched for compounds able to slow down the formation of amyloid aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or familial amyloid polyneuropathy. It was led by the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology at the University of Coimbra.
- BINDSURF: applied a virtual screening method that analyses the whole surface of a protein to find where potential drugs can bind. It was developed by the University of Murcia and the Catholic University of Murcia San Antonio.
- Biosoft: simulated the degradation of nanoscale polymer fibres that release drugs into the body in a controlled way. Partners included CEIT, the Materials Physics Center (CSIC-UPV/EHU), DIPC and TECNUN (University of Navarra).
- Criticalidad (criticality): studied how fractal states affect electron transport in disordered systems, at the so-called Anderson metal–insulator transition.
- Cuanticables (quantum wires): analysed how defects in materials affect a quantum wire’s ability to conduct current. It was developed by researchers at the University of Buenos Aires.
- Docking de proteínas (protein docking): simulated binding between proteins and millions of small molecules to find candidates for new cancer drugs. It started with the MGMT protein, which makes some tumour cells resistant to chemotherapy. It was carried out by the Bioinformatics Unit at the Severo Ochoa Centre for Molecular Biology (CSIC-UAM).
- Fusión (fusion): calculated the trajectories of plasma nuclei in magnetic confinement fusion reactors, based on experiments at the TJ-II Stellarator and with ITER in mind. Partners were CIEMAT and BIFI at the University of Zaragoza.
- Ibernet: studied the social network formed by Ibercivis users themselves (who invited whom) to analyse phenomena such as the spread of rumours, epidemics or information. It was developed by the Complex Networks and Society group at BIFI.
- Materiales (materials): simulated how impurities change phase transitions in magnetic materials and studied spin glasses. Partners were the Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Extremadura and BIFI.
- Nanoluz (nanolight): solved Maxwell’s equations to describe how light behaves in metal nanoparticles, with a view to designing highly sensitive biosensors. It was developed by a CSIC team.
- Neurosim: simulated the possible structures of amino acids and small neuropeptides to build their energy landscapes, a step towards understanding how proteins fold. It was developed by the GEMPPO group at the Institute for the Structure of Matter (CSIC).
- Sanidad (health): used Monte Carlo techniques (the PENELOPE code) to simulate particle transport in medical applications of ionising radiation, such as diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy.
- Solúvel: calculated the solvation free energy of many compounds in different solvents to predict the solubility of drugs and toxins. It was carried out by the LSRE laboratory at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto.
- Wilson: searched for the next Wilson prime (until then only 5, 13 and 563 were known) by checking the primes between 5×108 and 4×109.
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Project details
Type of project
National
Duration
Since 2008
Consortium
CSIC, CIEMAT, BIFI (University of Zaragoza), Complutense University of Madrid, University of Extremadura, ITACA and RedIRIS, in collaboration with Madrid and Zaragoza city councils
Area
Citizen science infrastructure