International conference features Ohio Supercomputer Center experts

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Nov 9, 2007) — 

 

Staff members at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) are being tapped for their valuable expertise to deliver numerous presentations at SC07, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno, Nev., Nov. 10-16.

OSC experts will be making a series of presentations throughout the week from the center’s high-tech display booth on the exhibit floor. Among the 18 booth presentations, major topics will include:

  1. Blue Collar Computing, an OSC initiative to provide high performance computing resources to industry;
  2. Buckeye Bullet 2, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle designed by a team of researchers from The Ohio State University using OSC resources;
  3. OSCnet, Ohio’s nationally leading research and education network, and the state’s Broadband Ohio initiative to expand broadband access by leveraging OSCnet; and
  4. the Ralph Regula School of Computational Science, a virtual school training students and the workforce in computer modeling and simulation.

The OSC display also will feature video presentations to highlight the center’s four functions, supercomputing, networking, research and education, as well as a large model of the Buckeye Bullet 2 used to study the streamliner race vehicle’s aerodynamics.

In addition to the center’s booth activities, OSC experts will be delivering additional conference-wide technical presentations. On Nov. 12, David Hudak, director of cyberinfrastructure and software development at OSC, will deliver a workshop presentation on “Optimizations and Extensions to pMatlab,” a high-level language and interactive environment that enables computationally intensive tasks on high performance parallel computers to be performed faster than with traditional programming languages such as C, C++, and Fortran.

On Nov. 15, OSC authors Hudak, Neil Ludban, Vijay Gadepally and Ashok Krisnamurthy will present a poster that explains the new pMatlab optimization strategy. On Nov. 14, OSC authors Ananth Devulapalli, Dennis Dalessandro, Pete Wyckoff, Nawab Ali and P. Sadayappan will present a paper describing new ways to dramatically increase the computational performance of a parallel file system by using intelligent peripheral components known as “object-based storage devices,” or OSDs.

Several members of the OSC staff have been heavily involved in the three-year planning efforts for the conference. OSC Executive Director Stan Ahalt is serving as co-chair of Masterworks, an interactive session at the conference where leading chief technology officers and chief information officers will explore the strategic value of giving businesses a competitive edge through supercomputing.

Kathryn Kelley, senior director for outreach, has been serving her second year as chair of the communications committee. Kevin Wohlever, director of supercomputer operations, is serving as co-chair of the registration committee, and Research Scientist Pete Wyckoff is serving as a member of the networks program committee.

The SC07 conference aims to demonstrate “how high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis touch all disciplines to enhance people's ability to understand information and lead to new understanding, promote interdisciplinary projects, affect the educational process through the use of computers in modeling and simulation in the classroom, and solve heretofore unsolvable problems in nanoscience, biotechnology, climate research, astrophysics, chemistry, fusion research, drug research, homeland defense, nuclear technologies and many other fields.” This is the 19th SC conference, and attendance this year is expected to be even greater than the 8,000 participants at SC06.

Additional information on OSC at SC07 can be found at: http://www.osc.edu/research/sc/2007/index.shtml.

Additional information on the SC07 conference can be accessed at: http://sc07.supercomputing.org/index.php.

Celebrating 20 years of service, the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) is a catalytic partner of Ohio universities and industries that provides a reliable high performance computing and high performance networking infrastructure for a diverse statewide/regional community including education, academic research, industry, and state government. OSC promotes and stimulates computational research and education in order to act as a key enabler for the state's aspirations in advanced technology, information systems, and advanced industries. For additional information, visit http://www.osc.edu.

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