NA Digest Friday, February 27, 1987 Volume 87 : Issue 5 This weeks Editor: Gene Golub Today's Topics: Argonne's ACRF Class invitation Dear colleague letter ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Feb 87 10:39:15 cst From: dongarra@anl-mcs.ARPA (Jack Dongarra) To: na.dis@su-score.arpa Subject: Argonne's ACRF Class Argonne National Laboratory has set up an Advanced Computing Research Facility (ACRF) for the study of parallel computing. It currently features an 8-processor Alliant FX/8, a 20-processor Encore Multimax, a 24-processor Sequent Balance 21000, a 32-processor Intel iPSC hypercube machine, and a 16-processor Intel iPSC hypercube with vector processors. Local projects utilizing the ACRF include investigations in parallel logic programming and parallel linear algebra and the development of portable parallel programming methodologies. To encourage use of the ACRF as a national user facility, Argonne is sponsoring various classes to familiarize potential users with the ACRF multiprocessors and with parallel programming in general. The next class will be held on March 11 - 13 and another April 29 - May 1. The first two days will cover parallel programming on the Alliant, Encore, Sequent, and Intel computers; the third day will be devoted to consideration of each attendee's particular project. Fortran will be emphasized as the primary programming language, although C will be discussed. This will be a hands-on class; at its completion participants will have written and run a number of programs on each machine, and should be familiar with the ACRF environment. Those interested in the March or April class should contact Teri Huml Mathematics and Computer Science Division Argonne National Laboratory Argonne, IL 60439-4844 (312) 972-7163 huml@anl-mcs.arpa There will be no charge for this class, nor is any financial support for attendees available. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 87 14:28:30 snt From: Sven Holmquist To: na.dis@score.stanford.edu Subject: invitation Att: Gene Golub By suggestion from Axel Ruhe at Chalmers in Goteborg I'm sending you a copy of the invitation sent to usnet for further distribution as you find suitible Best regards Tony Elmroth Volvo Data Goteborg Sweden /Thru Sven Holmquist: ***************************************************************************** Sven Holmquist, Volvo Data AB, DVF, S-405 08 GOTEBORG Tel: +46 31 669176 UUCP: sven@volvo.UUCP or {seismo,mcvax,cernvax,diku,ircam,prlb2,tut,ukc,unido}!enea!volvo!sven ARPA: enea!volvo!sven@seismo.arpa ***************************************************************************** Keywords: CAD, approximation, shape control 25-26 Mars 1987 Goteborg INVITATION TO A SYMPOSIUM ON COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN and SHAPE PRESERVING APPROXIMATION Volvo, Torslanda, Goteborg The Department of Mathematics at Chalmers University of Technology, Volvo Data AB and the Swedish Institute of Applied Mathematics have the pleasure of inviting you to a symposium on COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN and SHAPE PRESERVING APPROXIMATION to be held at Volvo, Torslanda on March 25 and 26, 1987. A reception will be arranged on the evening of March 24. The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AB Volvo, Med Dr h c Pehr G. Gyllenhammar will take part in the initial deliberations on March 25. The purpose of the symposium is to bring together users of computer aided design with mathematicians working in the fields of optimization or approximation theory. The further advance of CAD-technology requires the development of automatic procedures for the generation of curves and surfaces. This leads to difficult mathematical and computational problems, especially when one wants the object designed to have a given quality. This symposium will provide a status report on this exciting interface between CAD and mathematics. Guest speakers include: Prof. Xavier Benveniste Ecole Polytechnique and Dassault Systemes FRANCE Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Dahmen Universitat Bielefeld WEST GERMANY Prof. John A. Gregory Brunel University UNITED KINGDOM Prof. Michael A. Lachance University of Michigan USA Prof. Tom Lyche University of Oslo NORWAY Prof. Charles A. Micchelli IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center USA Lennart Johansson CAE-manager Product Design Department Volvo Car Corporation SWEDEN Prof. Bjorn E. J. Dahlberg University of Goteborg and Chalmers University of Technology SWEDEN Dr Roger Andersson Volvo Data AB SWEDEN Programme RECEPTION : March 24, 7.00 - 9.00 PM, Park Avenue Hotel SYMPOSIUM : March 25, 8.15 AM, buses leave Park Avenue Hotel. Proceedings at Exhibition Hall, Volvo, Torslanda from 9.00 AM to 6.30 PM, when buses leave for Park Avenue Hotel. March 26, 8.15 AM, buses leave Park Avenue Hotel. Proceedings at Exhibition Hall from 9.00 AM to 4.30 PM when buses leave for Park Avenue Hotel and Landvetter Airport. BANQUET : March 25, 8.00 PM, Park Avenue Hotel. General information: COST : Symposium, including lunch March 25-26, SEK 250. Banquet, March 25, SEK 250. HOTEL : Park Avenue Hotel is recommended. Single room per night SEK 630 incl. Breakfast. Registration and further information: call +46-31-66 17 07 or write to: Central Services Dept 38210, HA BV S AB Volvo S 405 08 Goteborg Information on the scientific programme at the symposium can be obtained from: Dr. Roger Andersson Volvo Data AB Tel: +46-31-66 91 40. MEMO-id: VD.2930RA Prof. Bjorn E. J. Dahlberg Deparment of Mathematics University of Goteborg and Chalmers University of Technology Tel. +46-31-16 79 77. MEMO-id: VD.CTHBD ------------------------------ To: na@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU From: "Dr. Mel Ciment" Subject: Dear colleague letter Date: Fri, 27 Feb 87 08:56:52 -0500 Attached is a copy of a "Dear Colleague Letter" which is self-explanatory. In essence it is announcing NSF's initiative in Computational Science and Engineering and CISE's involvement in that initiative. Please bring this information to the attention of all interested parties. Questions should be referred to: Dr. Mel Ciment or Dr. Al Harvey (202) 357-9776 (202) 357-7727 MCIMENT@NSF.BITNET MCIMENT@NSF-NOTE.ARPA AHARVEY@NSF-NOTE.ARPA NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION Computer and Information Science and Engineering 1800 G Street, NW Washington, DC 20550 January 30, 1987 Dear Colleague: This letter is being sent to you in order to inform the scientific community of important activities presently taking place at the National Science Foundation. The fiscal 1987 Budget for the National Science Foundation includes funds of several million dollars in support of an initiative known as: "Computational Science and Engineering" (CSE). These funds are being distributed among the various disciplines: Biological, Behavioral and Social Sciences; Computer and Information Science and Engineering; Mathematical and Physical Sciences; Science and Engineering Education; Engineering; and Geosciences. It is anticipated that this new program will stimulate activity at the interface between the sciences and advanced computer technology. The NSF strongly urges investigators to inquire further about the details of the initiative with the various program directors at the Foundation. Enclosed with this letter is a program announcement (NSF 86-91) that describes the goals of the overall NSF/CSE programs. Many of you may know that there have been a number of organizational changes at NSF. One is the creation of a new Directorate for Computer and Information Science & Engineering (CISE), which combines several preexisting computer activities from other directorates, the Division of Computer Research, the Division of Information Science and Technology, and programs in Computer Engineering, Communications and Signal Processing, and the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing. CISE supports research in computer science, information systems and processing, robotics, networking and communications, microelectronics, advanced scientific computing and intelligent systems. The overall goal of the effort is to improve the knowledge base, research infrastructure and professional labor force needed to understand and improve the nature, synthesis and use of computing and information processing devices and systems. The current structure of CISE includes 5 divisions: * Computer & Computation Research * Advanced Scientific Computing * Information, Robotics & Intelligent Systems * Networking & Communications Research & Infrastructure * Microelectronic Information Processing Systems FORMATION OF RESEARCH TEAMS Although many of the efforts described below can be performed by single investigators, and will be, to some extent, supported in that form, this new initiative will emphasize strong inter-disciplinary approaches to the enhanced computing capability and environment of the scientist and engineer. Proposals involving computer scientists, mathematicians, scientists and engineers, and specialists in such areas as computer graphics, might be integrated in such a way as to form an inter-disciplinary group or team, addressing specific problems of importance to one or more scientific or engineering disciplines. For example, such proposals might be strongly coupled with the efforts of innovators of state-of-the-art algorithms and software for application on machines with highly parallel architecture. Such approaches could develop new paths for entire disciplines to follow. They will be coordinated among CISE programs and the NSF scientific and engineering disciplines. RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN CISE Proposals with a strong interdisciplinary approach are being encouraged in the following computational areas, although this list is not intended to be complete: * Software and Algorithm Development * Application of Advanced Technologies to problem solving * Visualization, Graphics and Image Processing * Formation of Novel Computational Strategies * Network and Communication Systems * Performance Evaluation of Computer Systems and Software * Distributed and Parallel Processing and Vectorization Software and Algorithm Development: It is widely accepted that software lags hardware development. This fact is especially true for supercomputers and other machines of advanced architectures. Within CISE, the Computational Science and Engineering Initiative will focus on research that addresses the development of novel algorithms and their implementation into useful software packages, the creation of friendly working environments, and the automatic production of fast, efficient code for scientists and engineers working on advanced computers. Innovations in languages, user-friendly interfaces, software tools, etc. might address issues related to the speed up of code development and therefore the productivity of researchers. Methods which assist in the portability of code across a variety of advanced machines will also be considered. Visualization, Graphics and Image Processing: More powerful visualization capability is being demanded to take advantage of the most powerful machines. Substantial insights are already being gained from graphics, which is the only way to understand many scientific phenomena. Among the many research topics in graphics and image processing are: extemporaneous, interactive steering of numerically intensive calculations; dynamic visualization of fields in higher dimensions; high bandwidth graphics, networks and protocols; massive data set handling and standards; vectorization and parallelized algorithms for visualization; workstation-driven remote use of supercomputers; standard graphics-oriented scientific programming environments. Performance Evaluation: A recent NAS/NRC report on "An Agenda for Improved Evaluation of Supercomputer Performance" remarks on the severe lack of scientific foundation, regarding our ability to evaluate the performance of advanced computers. Investigations into the definition and techniques for performance evaluation of parallel or other computer systems are encouraged either as the principal subjects of proposals, or as components of other research projects in this initiative. Distributed and Parallel Processing and Vectorization: The direction of advanced scientific computing is clearly headed toward parallelism to achieve increased capacity. Since the complexities of programming in parallel environments with optimally vectorized code place even more challenging demands on software and algorithm development, the Computational Science and Engineering Initiative will emphasize means to provide effective scientific computing in vector and highly parallel environments. For example, the initiative will consider methods for automatically parallelizing existing scientific codes or rewriting them for efficient use on machines of advanced architectures. Also, software tools for increasing productivity of the programming environment on parallel and distributed architectures will be encouraged especially, for vector and multiprocessor computers. Advanced Technologies: The Science and Engineering Initiative welcomes proposals concerned with areas of technology that have a strong impact on the conduct of future computing. Examples include high capacity and/or high performance mass storage coupled with appropriate file and data base management systems, optical computing, neural networks, non-binary computing, or any such ideas that could influence the nature of advanced scientific computing. The CSE Initiative will cooperate with other programs on the potential application of advanced computing technologies and systems to scientific and engineering problems. Proposals of this type will be coordinated as appropriate both within and outside the Foundation. Formulation of Novel Computational Strategies: New computer architectures, communications technologies, languages, and other software or hardware advances becoming available offer promise of greatly enhanced speed, flexibility, or cost-effectiveness in performing scientific and engineering research. However, the hope for significant increases in insight to discipline specific problems may demand a fundamental revision in the strategic approach taken toward solving problems to make effective use of these options. Investigations into alternate ways of formulating and computing important scientific and engineering problems are encouraged. Network and Communication Systems: Recently increased accessibility of advanced computing resources opens possibilities for new, computationally-based, advances in the understanding - i.e., analysis and especially design/synthesis - of computer networks and communication systems generally. This Initiative will entertain proposals for computational research in such problem areas as: event-based, Monte Carlo, or other simulation methodology applied to very large scale computer networks with attention to realistic detail; protocol design based on computational studies of state-machine models of networks with state spaces so large as to render such studies hitherto impracticable; specialized, interdisciplinary studies of Presentation- and Application-layer protocols; knowledge-based or other expert aids for intelligent dynamic network management; and research using symbolic computation in studies of algebraic coding theory. Proposals in these and other appropriate topical areas will emphasize the innovative computational nature of the proposed investigations, and may include the use of advanced (e.g., highly parallel) architectures in the research. Sincerely, C. Gordon Bell, Assistant Director Computer and Information Science and Engineering For further information write or call the program director of the program most related to your area of interest or Dr. Mel Ciment, Division of Advanced Scientific Computing (202-357-9776). ------------------------------ End of NA Digest ************************** -------