To help researchers from different areas of science understand and unlock the potential of the Polish Grid Infrastructure and to define their requirements and expectations, the following 13 pilot communities have been organized and involved in the PLGrid Plus project: Acoustics, AstroGrid-PL, Bioinformatics, Ecology, Energy Sector, Health Sciences, HEPGrid, Life Science, Materials, Metallurgy, Nanotechnologies, Quantum Chemistry and Molecular Physics, and SynchroGrid. The book describes the experience and scientific results achieved by the project partners. Chapters 1 to 8 provide a general overview of research and development activities in the framework of the project with emphasis on services for different scientific areas and an update on the status of the PL-Grid infrastructure, describing new developments in security and middleware. Chapters 9 to 13 discuss new environments and services which may be applied by all scientific communities. Chapters 14 to 36 present how the PLGrid Plus environments, tools and services are used in advanced domain specific computer simulations; these chapters present computational models, new algorithms, and ways in which they are implemented. The book also provides a glossary of terms and concepts. This book may serve as a resource for researchers, developers and system administrators working on efficient exploitation of available e-infrastructures, promoting collaboration and exchange of ideas in the process of constructing a common European e-infrastructure.
