The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) will present Collaborations for the 21st Century -- a showcase of projects setting the tone for Ohio's future in high performance computing and communications -- at SC98: High Performance Networking and Computing, Nov. 7-13, in Orlando.
OSC will join other regional centers, the national centers and labs, and members of the high performance computing industry for a week-long session of idea sharing and discussion on the future of computational science, advanced architectures, and the next generation of networking. The conference, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, will reflect on the giant leaps forward the field took over the last decade. Participants also will take a look at the steps necessary to continue pushing new frontiers in computing, networking, and computational science.
OSC's collaborative efforts with its users benefits Ohio research and possibly affects the way the world will turn in the next millennium. This year, OSC will showcase the work of researchers from 12 Ohio universities. This research ranges from using molecular modeling to develop new drugs that may someday help individuals with Alzheimer's disease regain their memory, to examining ways to improve industrial mixing processes. This work will impact both equipment manufacturers and the polymer processing industry.
The Center's networking division helps position Ohio as an information state. OSC Networking's role in next generation networking initiatives today assists Ohio to become the advanced education and research state of tomorrow. Constantly-changing technology and improved networking influence the way tomorrow's students will learn in and out of the classroom. Networking initiatives highlighted at this year's conference include OSC's participation in the Internet2 project and an ATM testbed project, called OCARnet, that involves seven Ohio universities that are preparing a new network for Ohio.
OSC's efforts in national initiatives reap benefits for the state because the Center brings home new technologies for its users. These new projects also provide users more pathways to collaborate with researchers across the nation, as well as access to the national centers' high performance computing resources. OSC will showcase its involvement in two national initiatives at SC98.
The first is the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program. OSC currently is in the middle of a five-year contract to help DoD scientists and engineers stay on top of advances in computing and networking through training and visualization support. OSC also plays an important role in the National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance), which is designed to help transform computational science in the United States. The Alliance is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation and is led by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. OSC is a national partner in the Alliance and is a member of Partners for Advanced Computational Services, or PACS.
The Center's work in high performance networking and communications gives it an edge in presenting the latest educational technologies to the state. Staff knowledge and expertise helps Ohio foster interest in computational science in the state's next generation of scientists and engineers. Some initiatives highlighted at this year's conference include Summer Institute and EOT PACI.
The Summer Institute program brings high school students from across the state to the Center each year for a two-week journey into the world of high performance computing. The EOT PACI Riverweb project is another example of OSC's role in transforming the ways students learn and teachers teach. OSC is providing a large regional water quality database and other aquatic biological diversity data that will be implemented into science, math, and related lesson plans for high school and college students.
Check out OSC's booth, number R766, located in the SC98 Research Exhibits area.
