MRI:"Acquisition" of Rice Computational Research Cluster (RCRC)

该项目获得了一个大规模的（512个处理器）Linux计算集群，为计算密集型研究和教育项目提供了一个研究工具，可以帮助推进不同领域的知识和理解，同时使系统和编译器、多尺度计算生物学、生物物理学、生物工程、地球科学和心理学方面的技术成为可能。与32名研究人员和50个nsf资助的项目共享万亿级计算能力的好处，这种先进的高性能计算仪器也促进了工具制造团队和科学计算团队在生物计算、地球动力学和磁共振分析方面的跨学科合作。软件工具构建解决了性能问题、动态网站的缓存和集群方案，以及设计改进的TCP/IP接口。消除了在不同部门中对许多单独的临时集群的需求，集群服务，其中包括以下特定的计算研究项目：*研究异构网格系统的软件和性能问题。*为集群计算设计改进的TCP/IP接口，*多尺度计算生物学、生物物理学和生物工程，*组织、细胞的建模，计算机辅助药物发现、PDE约束优化算法、大规模数值线性代数新算法、利用计算流体动力学模拟地幔热对流、地球过程粒子动力学模拟、多尺度地震学模拟、功能磁共振成像（fMRI）数据分析、脑电图和ERP信号源建模、*视觉理想观察者的建模。更广泛的影响：该设施将使100多名博士生，50名本科生和30名博士后研究员受益，并直接影响32名研究人员，将用于本科生和研究生水平的课程，并通过现有的联盟活动（AGEP：研究生教育和教授联盟以及“与科学家一起度过一个夏天”的推广计划）作为招聘工具。此外，这项工作强调跨学科的学习、交流和互动。

This project, acquiring a large scale (512 processors) Linux computational cluster, provides a research instrument for computing intensive research and education projects that can help advance knowledge and understanding in a diversity of fields, while enabling technologies in systems and compilers, multiscale computational biology, biophysics, bioengineering, earth sciences, and psychology. Sharing benefits of terascale computational power with 32 investigators and 50 NSF-funded projects, this advanced high performance computing instrument, also promotes cross-disciplinary collaboration between tool-building teams and scientific computing teams in bio-computing, geodynamics, and magnetic resonance analysis. Software tool-building addresses performance issues, caching and clustering schemes for dynamic web sites, and designing improved TCP/IP interfaces. Eliminating the need for many, separate ad-hoc clusters in different departments, the cluster services, among others, the following specific computational research projects:* Studying software and performance issues for heterogeneous Grid systems.* Caching and clustering schemes for web sites with dynamic content,* Designing improved TCP/IP interfaces for cluster computing,* Multiscale computational biology, biophysics, and bioengineering,* Modeling of tissues, cells, and cell populations,* Modeling of flow and hemolysis in implantable blood pumps,* Computer-aided drug discovery,* Algorithms for PDE constrained optimization,* Novel algorithms for large-scale numerical linear algebra,* Using computational fluid dynamics to model thermal convection in the Earth's mantle,* Particle dynamic simulations of earth processes,* Multiscale seismological simulation,* Analysis of functional MRI (fMRI) data,* Source modeling of EEG and ERP signals, and* Modeling of visual ideal observers.Broader Impact: The facility, benefiting more than 100 PhD students, 50 undergraduates, and 30 Postdoctoral fellows, and directly impacting 32 investigators, will be used in classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels and also as a recruiting tool through existing alliance activity (AGEP: Alliance for the Graduate Education and the Professoriate and a "Spend a Summer with a Scientist" outreach program). Furthermore, the work exhibits strong emphasis on learning, communication, and interaction across disciplines.