Ibercivis was a

volunteer computing Volunteer computing is a type of distributed computing in which people donate their computers' unused resources to a research-oriented project, and sometimes in exchange for credit points. The fundamental idea behind it is that a modern desktop ...

platform which allows

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

users to participate in scientific research by donating unused computer cycles to run scientific simulations and other tasks. The original project, which became operational in 2008, was a scientific collaboration between the Portuguese and Spanish governments, but it is open to the general public and scientific community, both within and beyond the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

. The project's name is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of ''

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, compri ...

'' and the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word , meaning '

citizen Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality ...

'. In April 2020, the volunteer computing platform was restarted by the Ibercivis Foundation and the

Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council (, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote research that will help bring about scientific and techn ...

in order to screen existing drugs for antiviral activity against

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the respiratory illness responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had the Novel coronavirus, provisional nam ...

, the causative agent of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

History

Ibercivis was developed in Spain with the cooperation of the Institute of Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems at the

University of Zaragoza The University of Zaragoza, sometimes referred to as Saragossa University () is a public university with teaching campuses and research centres spread over the three provinces of Aragon (Spain). Founded in 1542, it is one of the List of oldest u ...

, CIEMAT, CETA-CIEMAT, the

(CSIC) and RedIris. The project tasks are issued by different scientific and technological centers in Spain with the aim of creating a functional platform for volunteer-based scientific computing. The project is a

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an counterpart to the successful United States-based

SETI@home SETI@home ("SETI at home") is a project of the Berkeley SETI Research Center to analyze radio signals with the aim of Search for extraterrestrial intelligence, searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. Until March 2020, it was run ...

and

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC, pronounced rhymes with "oink") is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing (a type of distributed computing). Developed originally to support SETI@home, it became ...

(BOINC) volunteer computing projects. Ibercivis' predecessor, the University of Zaragoza-based volunteer computing project Zivis, began operation in 2007, and Ibercivis itself started operating in June 2008. The Zivis project was a local volunteer computing application funded by the ''

ayuntamiento ''Ayuntamiento'' ()In other languages of Spain: * (). * (). * (). is the general term for the town council, or ''cabildo'', of a municipality or, sometimes, as is often the case in Spain and Latin America, for the municipality itself. is mai ...

'' (city council) of the city of

Zaragoza Zaragoza (), traditionally known in English as Saragossa ( ), is the capital city of the province of Zaragoza and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributaries, the ...

. The larger-scale Ibercivis infrastructure has been used for a variety of calculating applications, including

nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction, reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei combine to form a larger nuclei, nuclei/neutrons, neutron by-products. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the rele ...

research,

protein folding Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein, after Protein biosynthesis, synthesis by a ribosome as a linear chain of Amino acid, amino acids, changes from an unstable random coil into a more ordered protein tertiary structure, t ...

and

materials A material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their ge ...

simulations. In July 2009, the Ibercivis platform was extended to Portugal following an agreement signed by the governments of both countries during the Luso-Spanish Summit held in

Zamora, Spain Zamora () is a city and municipality of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital of the province of Zamora. The city straddles the Duero river. With its 24 characteristic Romanesque style churches of the ...

, in January 2009. Several Portuguese institutions subsequently affiliated themselves with Ibercivis, including the Ministry of Science, the

Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology The Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) is a nonprofit research institute founded in 1990, aiming to foster research in biomedicine and biotechnology and multidisciplinary graduate teaching at the University of Coimbra. CNC was the fi ...

at the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; , ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537. The university ...

, and the

LIP The lips are a horizontal pair of soft appendages attached to the jaws and are the most visible part of the mouth of many animals, including humans. Mammal lips are soft, movable and serve to facilitate the ingestion of food (e.g. sucklin ...

experimental

high-energy physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and neutrons, while the stu ...

laboratory. In April 2020, a new Ibercivis project was launched to support researchers efforts to fight

Coronavirus disease 2019 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include f ...

Number of participants

At its inception in June 2008, Ibercivis had 3,000 registered users hosting its various projects. By December 2012, this figure had risen to over 19,800, distributed across 124 countries. There were around 55,000 individual hosting devices registered with the project, of which over 3,600 were active on a weekly basis. As of April 2020, there were 917 active users and 2375 active hosts in the new inception of Ibercivis.

Projects

Ibercivis was intended to run indefinitely, and is designed to run several simultaneous applications belonging to different scientific disciplines in a manner similar to World Community Grid. Users can select which projects they wish to contribute to via the project's website. As of May 2020, Ibercivis encompassed eight different active projects:

Active Projects

COVID-Phym: Screen existing drugs for antiviral activity against

, the causative agent of the

Completed projects

Ibercivis projects that have been completed or discontinued as of May 2020 include: * Fusion: a star on your screen: this application helped scientists at the Research Center for Energy Environment and Technology (CIEMAT) and at the Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI) perform simulations of the plasmas that will be produced in the

International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy through a fusion process s ...

(ITER). The ITER project, which will begin operation in 2018, seeks to make

nuclear fusion power Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices ...

a reality, replicating on Earth conditions typically found inside

stars A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of ...

. * Docking: looking for anti-cancer drugs: the Docking application assisted the search for new

medicines Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

through the simulation of protein docking. The Bioinformatics Unit of the Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa ( CSIC-UAM) developed a platform to allow the automatic simulation of interactions of proteins and small molecules. Its purpose was to find effective drugs to treat serious illnesses, such as

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

. * Materials: simulation of magnetic systems: the Materials application aided physicists from the

Universidad Complutense de Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

, Universidad de Extremadura and the Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems in discovering how non-magnetic impurities in

magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, m ...

materials modify the properties of their transition from a magnetic state to a non-magnetic one. The knowledge of these transitions is important not only from a theoretical point of view but also may help develop many fields of

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

, such as magnetic

hard disks A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

and

superconducting Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in superconductors: materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ordinary metallic conductor, whose resistance decreases g ...

materials. * Nanoluz: light at a nanoscale: knowing how

light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400– ...

reacts at a

nanometer 330px, Different lengths as in respect to the Molecule">molecular scale. The nanometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: nm), or nanometer (American spelling Despite the va ...

scale is a scientific challenge with important implications for the construction of new materials, development of new computing and communication systems and the improvement of technologies such as

solar panels A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

. Using the Nanoluz application, scientists at the Institute of Optics Daza Valdés CSIC investigated the behavior of light in metal

nanoparticles A nanoparticle or ultrafine particle is a particle of matter 1 to 100 nanometres (nm) in diameter. The term is sometimes used for larger particles, up to 500 nm, or fibers and tubes that are less than 100 nm in only two directions. At ...

, seeking to develop systems that could simplify medical and biological analysis. * IberNet: let's research inside Ibercivis: with this project, researchers sought to study and represent the structure of Ibercivis as a

social network A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

and try to export their conclusions to other social networks, to help with the study and prediction of the dynamics of a mass social environment. *Amiloide: searching for drugs against neurodegenerative amyloid diseases: the AMILOIDE project aims to search digital libraries of millions of compounds for potential drugs to interfere with the formation of aggregates and

amyloid Amyloids are aggregates of proteins characterised by a fibrillar morphology of typically 7–13 nm in diameter, a β-sheet secondary structure (known as cross-β) and ability to be stained by particular dyes, such as Congo red. In the human ...

fibers, which can lead to neurodegenerative diseases. Currently, the main target diseases being studied are familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP) and

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...

. This project is the responsibility of scientists of the Structural and Computational Biology Group at the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC) of the

. *Neurosim: an immersion in the molecular structure of memory: scientists at the Institute of Matter Structure, CSIC use the results of the Neurosim application to analyze the structural properties of

amino acids Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although over 500 amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the Proteinogenic amino acid, 22 α-amino acids incorporated into p ...

and small

peptides Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. A polypeptide is a longer, continuous, unbranched peptide chain. Polypeptides that have a molecular mass of 10,000 Dalton (unit), Da or more are called proteins. Chains of fewer t ...

(sequences of a few tens of amino acids) that act in the human

brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...

and

nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...

. By simulating the so-called energy landscape for each amino acid, key steps can be made in reconstructing the three-dimensional structure of proteins from the amino acid sequence, advancing the study of the structure and function of the human brain. *Adsorption: behaviour of confined fluids in limited spaces: the Adsorption application helps researchers from the Instituto de Química-Física Rocasolano from CSIC study the

adsorption Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions or molecules from a gas, liquid or dissolved solid to a surface. This process creates a film of the ''adsorbate'' on the surface of the ''adsorbent''. This process differs from absorption, in which a ...

properties of the pillared clays that are widely used as industrial catalysers, materials for gas storage, and industrial separation agents. This kind of clay is used in industrial processes such as the production of

biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from Biomass (energy), biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels such as oil. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricu ...

s from

vegetable oil Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of edible plants. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed ...

s, the storage of

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

at room temperature and the storage of

greenhouse gas Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the gases in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of planets such as the Earth. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb the radiations that a planet emits, resulting in the greenhouse effect. T ...

es produced by industry. *Cuanticables: quantic wires simulations: scientists of the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...

use this application to study the degree to which the faults in the material of

quantum wire In mesoscopic physics, a quantum wire is an electrically conducting wire in which quantum effects influence the transport properties. Usually such effects appear in the dimension of nanometers, so they are also referred to as nanowires. Quantum ...

s has on their

electric current An electric current is a flow of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is defined as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface. The moving particles are called charge c ...

. For this purpose, they develop a theoretical model which simulates the quantum wire, the impurities and the

electrode An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or a gas). In electrochemical cells, electrodes are essential parts that can consist of a varie ...

s to which the quantum wire connects, and study the behaviour of the current that is generated across the wire when an external voltage is applied to it. *Sanidad: improved diagnostics:

ionizing radiation Ionizing (ionising) radiation, including Radioactive decay, nuclear radiation, consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that have enough energy per individual photon or particle to ionization, ionize atoms or molecules by detaching ...

is used in health applications ranging from basic

diagnostic Diagnosis (: diagnoses) is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in a lot of different academic discipline, disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " ...

tests in a modern hospital (in

radiology Radiology ( ) is the medical specialty that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide treatment within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiation), but tod ...

nuclear medicine Nuclear medicine (nuclear radiology, nucleology), is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactivity, radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging is, in a sense, ''radiology done inside out'', ...

and laboratory tests) to the treatment of cancer by

radiotherapy Radiation therapy or radiotherapy (RT, RTx, or XRT) is a treatment using ionizing radiation, generally provided as part of cancer therapy to either kill or control the growth of malignant cells. It is normally delivered by a linear particle ...

. For these purposes, both actual

radioactive material A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess numbers of either neutrons or protons, giving it excess nuclear energy, and making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ...

s (in the form of seeds or injectable material) and complex equipment that generates

photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless particles that can ...

beams and

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...

s can be utilised. Physicists from Andalucía use the Sanidad simulations to improve knowledge of the safe use of radiation in healthcare, and to explore potential new applications. *Criticalidad: electron transport in disordered systems with fractal properties: the Criticalidad project helps Mexican investigators understand the properties and effects of

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a Shape, geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scale ...

ity in the transport of

s through disordered systems in the Anderson transition. *Soluvel: researching solubility of toxic and pharmaceutical compounds: the aim of the Soluvel project is to calculate the

solvation Solvations describes the interaction of a solvent with dissolved molecules. Both ionized and uncharged molecules interact strongly with a solvent, and the strength and nature of this interaction influence many properties of the solute, includi ...

energies of certain soluble compounds, so as to identify through computation which compounds may prove toxic to humans, and which may serve as effective medical drugs. The project is being conducted by researchers from the Laboratory of Molecular Simulation of Separation and Reaction Engineering (LSRE), a division of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. *Primalidad: search for Wilson primes: a "citizen science" project open to all mathematicians, the Primalidad application searches for the next

Wilson prime In number theory, a Wilson prime is a prime number p such that p^2 divides (p-1)!+1, where "!" denotes the factorial function; compare this with Wilson's theorem, which states that every prime p divides (p-1)!+1. Both are named for 18th-century ...

– the first three having been 5, 13 and 563. It is conjectured that the fourth Wilson prime must be larger than 5 × 10⁸.Ibercivis.pt - Primalidad
. Retrieved 2011-10-15.

References

External links

*
Official Portuguese website

Official Spanish website

Ibercivis - BOINC Spanish website

Ibercivis - BOINC Portuguese website

BIFI - Institute of Complex Systems Biocomputing and Physics

Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology

University of Zaragoza

CIEMAT - Centro de Investigationes Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas

ITER - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibercivis Science in society Free science software Volunteer computing projects Cross-platform free software