From gears@eng2.uconn.eduMon Feb 12 17:35:54 1996 Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 11:46:16 -0500 (EST) From: ** Dagitim ** To: ** ITUMD ** Istanbul Teknik Universitesi Mezunlari Dernegi Uluslararasi Kurulusu Cc: c_c++@ciragan.cc.itu.edu.tr Subject: SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING NEWS _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ To: ITU Alumni Scattered All Around The World _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ CTC Releases ARCH Library of Parallel Programming Tools 02.09.96 ============================================================================= Ithaca, NY -- Cornell Theory Center (CTC) has announced the availability of ARCH, an object-oriented library of tools for parallel programming on machines using the MPI (message passing interface) communication library. Based on C++, ARCH was developed by Jean-Marc Adamo, CTC visitor and professor in the Ecole Superieure de Chimie Physique et Electronique and the Universite Claude-Bernard, Lyon, France. ARCH offers researchers a set of flexible programming constructs for parallel software development for asynchronous and loosely synchronous system programming, creating the illusion of shared memory on distributed memory machines. Adamo visited CTC in 1995 in order to extend ARCH's capabilities, implement the library on the Center's IBM RS/6000 POWERParallel System (SP), and convert the tools to be compatible with MPI. Over a six-month period, he focused on applying ARCH to an image segmentation application in remote sensing that involved two particularly complex data structures -- quadtrees and globally distributed connectivity graphs. The work was supported by CTC and the French government, as well as his home institution. "The library provides an alternative to the use of fixed languages for parallel programming and encourages a parallel programming style that relies on the object-oriented approach," said Adamo, who began his work on ARCH while visiting Berkeley on sabbatical. He noted that the library is well-suited to irregular and dynamic problems. In addition, it adds functionality and custom capabilities to existing applications. "ARCH allows distribution not just of arrays, but also of general, user-defined data structures, including pointers to remote data," said CTC parallel programming specialist David Schneider. "In addition, because it allows essentially arbitrary mapping of data objects to processors, as well as facilities for dynamic load balancing via lightweight threads, ARCH should be of particular interest to researchers tackling complicated, irregular dynamic problems." Detailed information on ARCH is available in a Cornell Theory Center Technical Report (CTC95TR228), which can be accessed via Web site http://www.tc.cornell.edu/Research/tech.rep.html. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_?_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_?/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ UCLA'S VIRTUAL WORLD DATA SERVER SIMULATES CITIES IN REAL TIME 02.09.96 by Alan Beck, managing editor ============================================================================ Los Angeles, Calif. -- With principal funding from the NSF (National Science Foundation) and the HPCC (High Performance Computing & Communication) Interdisciplinary Program, UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) is creating a simulation environment, the Virtual World Data Server (VWDS), that digitally recreates an entire city in real time and on a fully interactive basis -- accurately detailed down to features as small as plants in windows and graffiti on walls. The project, a joint effort between the departments of computer science and architecture & urban design, will operate as an ATM-based distributed multiuser client/server system. Its Real Time Storage Server (RTSS) is complemented by a 3-D simulation system capable of storing and retrieving more than one terabyte of spatially distributed heterogeneous data, including information derived from satellite-fed GISs (geographic information systems). "The application, which we wrote, sits on top of an SGI (Silicon Graphics, Inc.) Performer API (application programming interface)," William H. Jepson, director of computing for UCLA's Department of Architecture and Urban Design, told HPCwire. "And although it originated in the school of architecture, it can easily be extended into medical, scientific, and other realms." When fully functional, the VWDS is expected to accommodate a bandwidth of 2-5 MBytes per second per user. Presently, the client is a single-processor SGI Indigo2 Impact machine, but eventually this will be upgraded to a 4-processor Onyx RealityEngine. The server is now an HP735 workstation but is slated to become a 16-20 processor Sun UltraSPARC 2000 this summer. Sun Microsystems is a sponsor of the project. "Most other 3-D interactive systems require data to be memory-resident, and that's been a limitation" commented Richard Muntz, professor and chair of UCLA's computer science department. "Here it's disk-resident. Communication between the rendering engine and the RTSS is such that the user's location, direction of view, etc. will be communicated in real time...The job here is to make sure the proper data get back to the rendering engine. The system must be intelligent because the load will vary, and bottlenecks will appear in different places. The system must know how to trade off quality of service in a reasonable way." It is anticipated that VWDS or similar systems will be maintained by municipalities, since such extremely accurate urban models rendered in real time are expected to play a significant role in enhancing the efficiency of emergency response teams. "A watch captain might not only track all emergency response vehicles and have traffic signals change on their approach, but he could see where each person was and allocate manpower appropriately," noted Jepson. The VWDS will be demonstrated in single-user mode by UCLA's computer science department on Feb. 15. More information plus graphics are available at Web site http://www.gsaup.ucla.edu/bill/uSim.html. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_?_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_?/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ CTC CORPORATE PARTNER PARALLELIZES QUANTUM CHEMISTRY SOFTWARE 02.09.96 SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS ============================================================================= Ithaca, NY -- Schrodinger, Inc., of Pasadena, Calif., has joined the Cornell Theory Center's (CTC) Corporate Partnership Program to develop a parallelized version of its quantum chemistry software suite for scalable computing architectures. "Access to the Theory Center's corporate program will help Schrodinger deliver a parallelized version of PS-GVB quantum chemistry software to the U.S. research community faster and more efficiently," explained Schrodinger President Murco Ringnalda. "Researchers in both industry and education are excited about the prospect of seeing the duration of their quantum chemistry calculations reduced from one week to less than one day." Timely and accurate calculations of realistic molecular systems require fast computer execution speeds and highly efficient software. Scalably parallel computing architectures, such as the IBM RS/6000 SP, use standardized components that are designed to maintain performance as they scale from a few to dozens or even hundreds of processors. Schrodinger is committed to the development of highly refined and efficient software to solve electronic structure problems. In recent years, Schrodinger has developed new approaches to solving ab initio electronic structure equations that involve pseudospectral methods. These new algorithms are now available in Schrodinger's PS-GVB software suite. "The Cornell Theory Center is eager to accelerate the development of robust parallel applications for the high performance computing market," emphasized Peter M. Siegel, director of the Corporate Partnership Program. "Our partnership with Schrodinger is an important example of our work with software developers; other software partners and users include ADAPCO, BIOSYM, Candle Corporation, GrammaTech, MathWorks, and Ronin Systems." _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_?_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_?/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/