Agenda

Supercomputing is becoming an important scientic instrument for a wide range of disciplines. The VU University already applies supercomputers in various fields. The UC-IT invites you to a seminar on the subject, in which scholars of different disciplines show how they apply supercomputing in their research. Supercomputing is often seen as a tool that is especially suitable to mathematics and natural sciences. Other disciplines, however, such as psychology, biology or the humanities, also have problems that can be solved by supercomputing. The university has made a major commitment to supercomputing as a scientic instrument. As a result we are co-owners of the supercomputer Lisa, that can be used by every VU scholar at no charge. There is expert staff on hand (at SARA ) that can assist you in exploring supercomputer solutions to problems. Supercomputing can be applied in the following ways:

Search:

For instance, to explore how proteins can be folded, or how fragments of shattered archaeological objects fit together.

Evaluation of complex models and predicting:

Supercomputing can predict how the climate on earth develops, or how influenza viruses spread themselves over the world.

Automatic analysis of large data quantities:

Automatic analysis, for example, of large quantities of medical images. An example from the arts would be the automatic linguistic analysis of a large text corpus in search of philological relationships.

Several research teams within the VU use supercomputers successfully. The UC-IT seminar features scholars from various disciplines who show how they apply supercomputing to their problems and presents the way that scientists at the VU can be supported to realise their supercomputer projects.

Programme

Location: hg 11 a 05 .

13:45 Welcome coffee
14:00 Opening remarks
14:15 Spyros Kotoulas MSc (Artificial Intelligence). "Marvin and the `Billion Triples Challenge' "
14:45 Danielle Posthuma, PhD (Biological Psychology). "The search for genes with the genetic cluster computer"
15:15 Keith Cover ( VUMC ). "Examples of high performance computing in medical imaging"
15:45 Break
16:00 Frank Seinstra (high-performance computing). "Real-World Distributed Computing with Ibis"
16:20 Walter Lioen. "Sara computing and networking services"
16:40 Discussion
17:00 Cocktail in the schilderijengalerie

Registration

If you intend to attend, please notify us before 10 september at seminar@dienst.vu.nl , or contact
Brigitte Beekveld, room 0E-28 , telephone 82986 . Information about the seminar: Paul Huygen, tel: 86216
or Evert van de Belt, tel: 89785