Application for a PIPSS Fellowship at the Cambridge Centre for Scientific Computing

从事粒子物理学和天文学工作的科学家利用大量的计算机以“网格”的形式连接在一起，处理来自加速器和望远镜的数据。例如，当大型强子对撞机于2008年开始运行时，多达10万台计算机将共同工作，分析来自该对撞机的数据。天文学家通过将许多望远镜的图像组合成天空的组合图像，创造了一个“虚拟天文台”。这些工作需要大量的计算能力，以及处理来自世界各地的数据的能力。在这些项目中使用的专门知识可以应用于许多其他问题。例如，剑桥大学与一家互联网初创公司合作，分析存储在互联网上的数百万张图像的内容，以便开发一种搜索特定图像的商业服务。计算能力由STFC资助的粒子物理网格（GridPP）提供。我们还与微软合作，与他们的专业软件开发人员合作，扩大我们的研究网格的容量。在这个项目中，我们已经能够在Windows机器上运行粒子物理分析，而不是通常使用的Linux操作系统。我们希望扩大我们在这些领域的知识转移活动，无论是从行业，以提高我们的能力，做科学，并帮助行业，从而英国经济。为此，我们将聘请PIPPS研究员与行业发展新的关系，并汇集新的知识转移项目。

Scientists working in particle physics and astronomy make use of very large numbers of computers linked together in 'grids' to process data from accelerators and telescopes. For example, up to 100,000 computers will be working together to analyse data from the Large Hadron Collider when it begins operating in 2008. Astronomers have created a 'virtual observatory' by combining images from many telescopes into combined images of the sky. These efforts require large amounts of computing power, and the ability to handle data from all over the world. The expertise which is used in these projects can be applied to many other problems. For example, Cambridge University has worked with an internet startup company to analyse the content of millions of images stored on the internet, in order to develop a commercial service to search for particular images. The computing power was supplied by the particle physics grid (GridPP) funded by the STFC. We have also worked with Microsoft to expand the capacity of our research grids, in partnership with their expert software developers. In this project, we have been able to run particle physics analysis on Windows machines, rather than the linux operating system usually used. We wish to expand our activities in these areas of knowledge transfer, both to and from industry, in order to improve our ability to do science, and to help industry and hence the UK economy. In order to do so, we will employ a PIPPS Fellow to develop new relationships with industry, and bring together new knowledge transfer projects.