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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / SEPTEMBER 29, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 39
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Breaking News -
General:
Cray First Member Of PRAGMA
Inudustrial Affiliate Program
Enabling the sharing of expertise, as well as computational resources
between
universities, research institutes and industry will be an essential thrust of
the new alliance between the Pacific Rim Application and Grid Middleware
Assembly (PRAGMA) and Cray Inc. This alliance focuses on advancing the
development of applications that take advantage of computational Grids --
crossing organizational and geographical boundaries.
Recognizing the valuable role of industry in Grid development, PRAGMA
initiated the Industrial Affiliate program to encourage mutually beneficial
collaborations between industry and the research community, with the goal of
promoting the adoption and use of Grid technologies. In addition to
participation in PRAGMA meetings and workshops, Industrial Affiliate members
are involved in technical projects and may provide resources to support
PRAGMA's efforts.
"We are delighted to have Cray join PRAGMA as our first Industrial
Affiliate
Member," says Dr. Peter Arzberger, chair of the PRAGMA steering committee.
"PRAGMA will benefit from Cray's expertise in high-performance computing,
desire to help us reach our goals and understanding of the application needs
of the scientific community."
Cray has been working with PRAGMA affiliates over the past year on a
project
to demonstrate successful use of Nimrod/G and GAMESS on computational Grids.
The demonstration, unveiled at the PRAGMA Workshop in June, showed utilization
of Grid technology to parameterize a quantum chemical pseudo-potential.
"The results of the demonstration significantly reinforced our early work
in
computing pseudo-potentials for organic functional groups, which play a key
role in many chemical processes ," said Dr. Wibke Sudholt, a collaborator on
the project, together with Dr. David Abramson of Monash University and the
Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing, Dr. Kim Baldridge of the
University of California San Diego and the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and
researchers at Victoria Partnership for Advanced Computing, Kasetsart
University, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology,
and Cray Inc Japan. "Most importantly, this technology will allow us to
explore many more parameter combinations than we have been able to do in the
past."
Future applications of this technology could range from understanding
complex
biochemical reactions, to the design of new drugs, to understanding the basic
structural-functional relationships in materials.
"Cray's involvement is a win-win situation from which everyone involved
benefits," says Dr. Jysoo Lee, deputy chair of the PRAGMA Steering Committee.
"We look forward to a long-standing relationship with industry, and we are
delighted that Cray is the first participant. They provide a coherent vision
and an excellent model for others."
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