Consortium: Research Computing Facility for the CMU/Pitt Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，卡内基梅隆大学和匹兹堡大学认知神经基础联合中心将获得仪器，以改善15个实验室使用的计算设施。该中心正在为超大规模计算项目建立一个基于可扩展并行处理系统的计算设施，最近通过IBM的赠款获得了该系统的核心。利用NSF的资金，该中心将购买一台快速、对称的多处理计算服务器，为探索性建模和交互式数据分析提供脉冲计算能力;以及桌面显示站，以方便访问资源。该服务器将由四个最先进的HP PA-8000处理器、512 Mb内存和近100 Gb磁盘组成，并将提供广泛的预编软件工具，用于认知和生物水平的模拟建模以及功能成像和多电极记录研究数据的分析。 该中心致力于了解认知过程如何从潜在的神经机制中产生，认知的异常形式如何从生物干扰中产生，以及经验和大脑发育如何相互作用以产生认知功能。该中心汇集了行为分析，神经生理学，功能成像和计算建模的方法，以了解感知，注意力，记忆和语言等功能如何从大脑神经元之间的相互作用中产生。15个实验室有一系列的重点，包括记忆和学习，语言，注意力和处理控制，感知和空间认知。此外，几个实验室解决了与认知的许多方面相关的神经功能的一般原理，其中一些实验室为计算建模和功能成像研究工具的开发做出了贡献。 仪器也将提供给研究生和缺乏足够计算设施的有关领域的研究人员。因此，它将发挥教育功能，并协助广泛的研究社区。

With National Science Foundation support, the Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh joint Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition will acquire instrumentation to improve the computational facilities used by a group of 15 laboratories. The Center is creating a computing facility based on a scaleable parallel processing system for very large-scale computational projects and has recently acquired the core of the system through a grant from IBM. With NSF funds the Center will purchase a fast, symmetric multi-processing compute server to provide impulse computing power for exploratory modeling and interactive data analysis; and desktop display stations to facilitate accessing resources. The server will consist of four state-of-the-art HP PA-8000 processors, 512 Mb of memory and nearly 100 Gb of disk and would provide a wide range of pre-compiled software tools for simulation modeling at the cognitive and biological levels as well as for analysis of data from functional imaging and multi-electrode recording studies. The Carnegie-Pittsburgh center is dedicated to understanding how cognitive processes arise from underlying neural mechanisms, how anomalous forms of cognition arise from biological disturbances and how experience and brain development interact to give rise to the emergence of cognitive functions. The Center brings together the methods of behavioral analysis, neurophysiology, functional imaging and computational modeling, in an effort to understand how functions such as perception, attention, memory and language emerge from the interactions among neurons in the brain. Fifteen laboratories have a range of foci which include memory and learning, language, attention and control of processing, and perception and spatial cognition. In addition, several labs address general principles of neural function relevant to many aspects of cognition and several have contributed to the development of tools for computational modeling and functional imaging research. The instrumentation will also be made available to graduate students and to researchers in related areas who lack adequate computing facilities. Thus is will serve an educational function and assist a broad research community.