Collaborative Research: Conceptualizing an Institute for Using Inter-Domain Abstractions to Support Inter-Disciplinary Applications

这项拨款是一项计划拨款，用于资助用于持续创新的软件基础设施研究所的概念化。它为技术和组织方面的规划提供资金。为了了解社区需求，它包括研讨会和外联活动，以收集社区需求。为了充分理解一个复杂的物理现象的行为，如燃烧的建筑物，通常有必要了解大规模的影响，如每层楼的热量积聚，以及小规模的影响，如基础上的钢梁如何随着温度的升高而变形。同时研究这些效应的计算模拟被称为“多尺度”模拟，而且非常难以编写。这是因为代表不同尺度的计算模型差异很大，而且用于模拟每个尺度的软件组件通常不兼容。将这些完全不同的组件组合在一起需要程序员付出艰苦且容易出错的劳动。该项目将构想一个致力于为研究多尺度问题的科学家提供解决方案的研究所。该项目围绕着与计算科学家和计算机系统研究人员接触，以确定哪种编程抽象可能对不同的计算模型有用，以及如何最好地适应现有的抽象来应对多尺度模拟的挑战。其目标是建立一个研究所，研究各种编程抽象的使用，以弥合不同软件组件之间的差距，从而减轻编写多尺度模拟的痛苦。最终的效果将是允许多尺度系统被准确和有效地模拟，为复杂物理系统的行为提供更深入的见解。

This grant is a planning grant to fund the conceptualization of an institute for software infrastructure for sustained innovation. It funds the planning of the technical and organizational aspects. To understand community requirements, it involves workshops and outreach to gather community requirements. To fully understand the behavior of a complex physical phenomenon such as a burning building, it is often necessary to understand both large-scale effects such as the buildup of heat on each floor, and small-scale effects, such as how a steal beam in the foundation deforms as it gets hotter. Computational simulations that study such effects in tandem are called "multi-scale" simulations, and are exceedingly difficult to write. This is because the computational models that represent the different scales differ widely, and the software components used to simulate each scale are often incompatible. Combining these disparate components requires painstaking and error prone programmer labor. This project will conceptualize an institute devoted to providing solutions to scientists investigating multi-scale problems. The project centers around reaching out to computational scientists and computer systems researchers to determine both what kinds of programming abstractions may be useful for different computational models and how to best adapt existing abstractions to the challenges of multi-scale simulation. The goal is to enable the establishment of an institute that will study the use of various programming abstractions to bridge the gap between differing software components, hence easing the pain of writing multi-scale simulations. The ultimate effect will be to allow multi-scale systems to be simulated accurately and efficiently, providing deeper insights into the behavior of complex physical systems.