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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Special Features:
USC RECEIVES $75,000 GRANT FOR
ACCESS GRID VISUALIZATION WALL
The University of Southern California announced that it has received a
$75,000
grant from AT&T to support the creation of a data visualization wall at USC.
The new technology will provide faculty and students with an interactive,
multimedia research and teaching resource that enables collaboration on
complex data and monitoring of large, long-term scientific computations.
To acknowledge the corporate support for this advanced technology, the wall
will be known as the AT&T Data Visualization Wall, in recognition of the
company's position as a global leader in local, long distance, Internet and
transaction-based voice and data services.
"AT&T is committed to investing in programs that use technology to improve
the
quality of teaching and learning," said AT&T sales vice president Diana Clark,
Los Angeles. "With AT&T's longstanding commitment to education, we are proud
to support USC's creation of a data visualization wall, which will use
advanced technologies to help students and faculty in their research,
communications and collaboration in the years to come."
The data visualization wall, also known as an access Grid, consists of a
collection of technologies designed to share complex information in visual,
aural and written formats. The data visualization wall project, led by USC's
Center for High Performance Computing and Communications, will involve
building a room featuring wall-sized, high-resolution video screens surrounded
by monitors and audio equipment.
The room will include high-speed network access for sharing data over wide
geographic areas, and computers to link the equipment and perform data
processing. In such a multimedia environment, users will be able to distribute
and share complex data and information, collaborate on group work and even
interact with scholars at other universities. It will, in essence, help
de-mystify what goes on inside the supercomputer when it performs a gigantic
calculation using parallel technologies.
"USC has been a leader in Grid computing and multimedia technologies.
Installation of the AT&T Data Visualization Wall represents an important
advance in our effort to use these technologies on campus, and will help to
enhance USC's reputation as a leading research university," said Jerry D.
Campbell, USC's chief information officer and dean of university
libraries.
The data visualization wall system is designed for real-time,
group-to-group
communications that require heavy computing power to analyze complex data. It
is particularly beneficial for groups working on large-scale research
projects, such as geologists studying earthquakes or medical researchers
investigating computational biology. It can also be used to support large
groups in teleconferenced meetings, seminars, lectures, tutorials and
training.
USC students taking specialized "directed study" courses -- courses in
which
students work one-on-one with faculty on special projects -- may participate
in collaborations using the AT&T Data Visualization Wall during their studies.
For example, a geology student might take part in a collaborative session to
examine data from an earthquake simulation. Participants in the session could
see diagrams of the earth's crust, analyze data from an onscreen table and
discuss the results with scientists at external institutions.
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