Acquisition of a Cluster of Workstations for Departmental Computing

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This award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities Program will assist the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh in the purchase of a cluster of SGI Indigo workstations. This equipment will enhance research in a number of areas including the following: (a) simulation of the properties of clusters and colloidal suspensions, (b) the investigation of the dynamics of excited molecules in condensed phases, (c) the modeling of electron transfer reactions in donor-bridge-acceptor compounds and proteins, (d) the use of electronic structure calculations to characterize electronically excited states, and (e) to study reactions of hydrogen on silicon surfaces, and the design of optical waveguides. On the instructional side, the proposed workstations will be used in several undergraduate and graduate courses to introduce our students to modern methods in molecular modeling and theoretical chemistry. A workstation network of fast, modern computer workstations is a new way to satisfy the computing needs of chemistry departments. Such a "computer network" also serves as a development environment for new theoretical codes and algorithms, provides state-of-the-art graphics and visualization facilities and supports research in state-or-the-art applications of parallel prmcessing.