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

在国家科学基金会James McClelland博士和认知神经基础中心(CNBC)的支持下，卡内基梅隆大学和匹兹堡大学的一个财团将购买一台24处理器的计算服务器和一个500 GB的磁盘阵列，以及用于备份、档案存储和数据演示的必要辅助设施。这些资源将由个人研究人员访问这些资源所需的桌面显示站加以扩充。该中心为科学家提供了一个联系，他们希望了解认知过程是如何从潜在的神经机制中产生的，认知的异常形式是如何从生物干扰中产生的，以及经验和大脑发育如何相互作用来产生认知功能的出现。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，试图了解感知、注意力、记忆和语言等功能是如何从大脑中神经元之间的相互作用中产生的。该中心的研究重点广泛，可分为记忆和学习、语言、注意力和加工控制、感知和空间认知等领域。此外，有几个实验室处理与认知的许多方面相关的神经功能的一般原理，还有几个实验室为计算建模或功能成像研究工具的开发做出了贡献。为了理解认知的神经基础，需要开发计算技术。这既适用于从功能成像和神经元记录研究中获得的实验数据的分析领域，也适用于认知和神经功能的计算建模领域。尤其是功能成像研究产生了大量的原始数据，必须对这些数据进行处理和仔细处理，以便从噪声输入中提取小信号。同样，要对认知进行建模，也对计算技术提出了越来越高的要求，因为它们被应用于理解大脑生理的详细方面如何影响认知的时间进程和结果。这一奖项为CNBC提供了一个强大的、具有成本效益的中央计算设施，它将显著加强17名教职员工的研究，并帮助21名博士后研究员和44名研究生的研究和培训。该仪器也将被本科生使用，因此具有有价值的研究和培训功能。

With National Science Foundation support Dr. James McClelland and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) , a consortium of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh will purchase a 24 processor compute server and a 500 Gb disk array, together with necessary ancillary facilities for backup, archival storage and data presentation. These will be augmented by desktop display stations necessary for individual researchers to access these resources. The center provides a nexus for scientists who wish to understand 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 interactions among neurons in the brain. The research in the Center has a range of foci, which can be grouped into the areas of memory and learning, language, attention and control of processing and perception and spatial cognition. In addition, several laboratories address general principles of neural function relevant to many aspects of cognition and several have contributed to the development of tools for computational modeling or functional imaging research. The effort to understand the neural basis of cognition requires the exploitation of computational technologies. This applies both in the area of analysis of experimental data obtained from functional imaging and neuronal recording studies, and in the area of computational modeling of cognitive and neural functions. Functional imaging studies in particular generate masses of raw data that must be processed and carefully treated to extract small signals from noisy inputs. To model cognition, likewise, places greater and greater demands on computing technologies as they are applied to understanding how detailed aspects of the physiology of the brain may influence the time-course and the outcome of cognition. This award provides the CNBC with a powerful cost-effective centralized computing facility which will significantly enhance the research of 17 faculty members and assist in the research and training of 21 post-doctoral fellows and 44 graduate students. The instrumentation will also be utilized by undergraduates and therefore serve valuable research and training functions.