Introducing the
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Transcript of Introducing the
Introducing the
Prof. Marta Kwiatkowska
Launched 7th May, 2003
www.MeSC.ac.uk
Overview The Midlands e-Science Centre
– Area of Excellence Modelling and Analysis of Large Complex Systems
– Applications focus, rather than Grid middleware– Hope to work with Grid middleware developers…
Partner institutions – University of Birmingham– University of Warwick, Centre for Scientific Computation– University of Coventry– University of Wolverhampton
Infrastructure and resources Projects Next steps
Complex systems
New field of science - study how parts of a system give rise to the collective behaviours, and how it interacts with its environment.
Social science, medicine, weather, engineering, economy, management...
Meeting the complexity challenge Why study and analyse?
– knowledge, discovery, prediction Sources of complexity
– millions of components– huge data sets – interaction, motion in space– unpredictability
Solutions– mathematical modelling– computational modelling, simulation– high-performance visualisation– collaboration
Delivery via e-Science– harness the power of global computer– answers in real-time
Model
Simulate
Predict
Control
Avoid disaster
The Midlands e-Science Centre
Virtual Centre– open, possible still to join
University of Birmingham– home Computer Science– Physics and Astronomy– Chemical Sciences– Biosciences– Engineering– Geography, Earth and Env. Sci.– Mathematics and Statistics– Medical School– Information Services
University of Warwick– Centre for Scientific Computing
University of Coventry University of Wolverhampton
MeSC objectives
Connect the Midlands– provide accessibility and connectivity for the Grid for the
Midlands region
Excellence in Complex Systems – focus on modelling of very large complex systems – act as source of relevant expertise for industry
Enable long-term research– numerical algorithms– simulation techniques for the Grid
Foster collaboration – different disciplines in science and engineering– academics and industry
Research at MeSC
Research themes– Simulation of evolving systems of interacting components– Large-scale Grid-enabled distributed simulation– Mathematical solutions of large complex systems– Data mining and large-scale visualisation
Hope to stimulate crossover of techniques– from evolutionary techniques to organisation management– from physics motion models to understanding mobile
processes– from concurrency formalisms to modelling particulate
processes – from algorithms research to bioinformatics– etc
People at MeSC
Management Board– Marta Kwiatkowska, CS, Director– Peter Watkins, Phys– Peter Knowles, Chem– Georgios Theodoropoulos, CS– Andrew Chan, Eng– John Owen, IS– Peter Taylor, CSC, Warwick– Keith Burnham, Eng, Coventry– Richard Hall, Eng, Wolverhampton
Technical/User Support– Paul Hatton, IS– Steve Jarvis, CS, Warwick– PDRA (offer made)
Many more existing/potential collaborators
Infrastructure
Networking– High-speed campus network, multi-million pound
investment (SRIF and University)– midMAN
Computing facilities– SRIF-2 funding, £200K, currently considering future strategy– About to purchase dedicated cluster for e-Science Centre– HPC facility at Birmingham, and various clusters
Access Grid Node – at Birmingham (2x), Warwick and Wolverhampton– for virtual meetings and and collaboration
VISTA – State-of-the-art visualisation centre
Visual and Spatial Technology Centre
Set up in partnership with HP £4M investment Association with several
industrial partners (AVS, CFX, Fakespace, etc)
Scientific visualisation– geodata, medical imaging
Information visualisation– knowledge discovery
Data representation– understanding complex data
Immersive environments
Image fusion of a
series of MRI
scans.
Part of the internal
structure of a
hydrogen atom.
www.vista.bham.ac.uk/index.htm
Complexity in… Hardware DesignMicroprocessorSize 7.5x3.5mmMillions of transistors on chip
Errors found after manufacture (cf Intel)
www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/systems/, www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~gkt/Research/par-lard/
Research in Modelling and Analysis of Systems Group– distributed simulation to assess performance– automatic verification to ensure no design errors– also can find errors in software (security protocols, etc)– funding from EPSRC, DTI, QinetiQ, BT, EU
The Grid technology enables– larger models, faster analysis, improved reliability– reduced costs & time to manufacture
Complexity in… Social Science
Managing complex social scenarios– develop new ways of thinking about
social processes, modelling and complex organisations (e.g. hospitals)
– uses agent technology and evolutionary computation
– real-time disaster management response with the Grid
Research in Natural Computation Group – also includes neural networks,
evolvable hardware, self-organising systems, ...
– funding from EPSRC, EU, Advantage West Midlands, Marconi, Honda
Real situation
Model
Agent-based simulation
www.irit.fr/COSI/, www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/NC/
Complexity in… the Human Genome
Paxillin
FilaminPS1
PS2
Notch 4
Profilin
Connexin
AdenosineA2B Receptor
IL-2
Integrin
CalmodulinCalcineurin
Components of a probabilistic model describing a lymphocyte in a chronic
inflammatory disease
Modelling of biology of immune response– large-scale genomics
– data mining, computationally intensive
– modelling physiology of the immune response
– understanding molecular basis
Research in ImmunoGenomics Group – gene expression profiling,
infection modelling
Cancer Research – childhood cancer
www.irit.fr/COSI/, www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/NC/
Complexity in… Urban Pollution Control
www.ges.bham.ac.uk/research/physical/Atmospheric/atmospheric.htm, www.eng.bham.ac.uk/civil/
Difficult to model– air movement in street – effect of road dust
The Grid technology– better accuracy– feasibility of response
on regional/national scale
Research in Climate and Atmospheric Research and Wind Engineering Groups– various project concerning the effect of wind, turbulence, dispersion of particles,
etc– large eddy simulation– funding from NERC, EPSRC, industry
Concentration of pollutants in street lanes
Complexity in… Fluids and Flows
Modelling bubble formation– relevant for laser surgery,
bubble contrast agents in ultrasound imaging, underwater explosions, water waves, ship bow waves, etc
– computationally demanding, would benefit from the Grid
Research in Applied Mathematics Group – also detonation and flame
processes (Fuel Cells, to be displayed at Royal Society)
– cancer modelling– funding from EPSRC, Kodak,
Unilever, Nestle, Pilkingtons, etc Laser-generated bubble near boundary
www.mat.bham.ac.uk/research/applied/applied1.htm
Complexity in… Granular Substances
Modelling and Simulation (DEM) of Particulate Processes– discontinuous, composed of many millions of particles– particles interact in various ways– aim to calculate properties of substance: elasticity, texture,
feel– Grid technology needed because of sheer scale of models
Research in Chemical and Civil Engineering– funding from EPSRC, Cadbury, Unilever, BNFL
Pharmaceuticals,foods, powders,aerosols, soils, ...
www.eng.bham.ac.uk/chemical/
Colliding black holes (courtesy NCSA)
Complexity in… the Universe
Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity
Mass-energy produces space-time warpage
Black hole collisions, Supernovae, The Big Bang, ...
Gravitational waves are time dependent gravitational fields produced by the acceleration of masses.
Gravitational Waves and e-Science
Measure the stretch and squeeze of space with light beams, approx. 10-16 cm
Signals drastically dominated by noise
Extract signals from the noise while keeping up with the data flow (approx. a few Mb/sec)
Research in Gravitational Waves Group– partners in LIGO and LISA international scientific collaborations – funding from PPARC
Grid technology the only solution
www.sr.bham.ac.uk/research/gravity/, www.ligo.caltech.edu/, http://lisa.jpl.nasa.gov/
4km
LIGO - Livingston
Research examples: Warwick New methods for
quantum-chemical calculations (Chemistry/Maths)
Monte Carlo simulation of condensed matter (Physics/Statistics)
Analysis of turbulence simulations: distributed data visualisation via the Grid (Eng/Maths/Com-puter Science)
Studying molecular properties
of aromatic systems
with
DALTON.
Simulation of molecular structures
and
interactions.
http://qcwizards.warwick.ac.uk/~taylor/research.htm, www.phys.warwick.ac.uk/molecularsim/home.html
Research examples: Coventry
Control methods for improving annealing furnace
Control, optimisation
Industrial collaborators– Corus,
Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, TRW, Walsgrave Hospitals NHS Trust, etc
Funding from – EPSRC, DTI
and HEFCE
Research examples: Wolverhampton
Simulation of a new hip
and joint replacemen
t.
VR simulation of a prototype
gear
assembly.
Projects At Birmingham
– GridPP – LIGO & LISA (GW) and STAR (Nuclear Physics)– Grid-enabled distributed simulation and numerical solutions– COSI (Complexity in Social Sciences, EU)– BioSimGrid– Integrative Biology (cancer modelling, fluid dynamics)
– e-TUMOUR (EU FP6 IP)– Bioinformatics (Bioinformatics Regional Institute)– Randomised trials (Primary Care, national network)– Pollution modelling and control (Geography and Env. Science)
Projects continued… At Warwick
– PACE, Performance Analysis and Characterisation Environment
– Molecular modelling– Turbulence
At Coventry – Biomedical engineering – Industrial control, optimisation
At Wolverhampton – VR – Simulation for manufacturing, SMEs
Next steps Infrastructure improvements
– AGN rooms, dedicated cluster, etc
Application areas– medical applications– bioinformatics– pervasive e-Science? (sensor networks, mobile wearable
computing)– industrial solutions– etc
Collaborate and build on collaborations– with other e-Science centres– collaborate with e-Science ontology, workflow and
visualisation tool developers