Janice E. Cuny - US grants

9413532 Conery This award is for the purchase of a parallel computer to do research in Problem Specific Programming Environments (PSPE). These environments will be built to use domain specific information in order to aid the scientist developing application programs for that area. The three PSPEs to be experimented with on this parallel computer are: Computation of the electronic structure of superconductors; simulation of mutations over generations; and constraint-based computations in molecular evolution. All of these domains are computation intensive needing the power of a parallel computer. ***

Toomey 9522531 This research which is a cooperative effort between seismologists and computer scientists at the University of Oregon - aims to develop a high performance computing (HPC) environment for marine seismic tomography and to test that environment by applying it to existing delay-time data from the east Pacific Rise (EPR) at 9 degrees 30 minutes north. This project will develop a problem-specific programming environment (PSPE) for seismologists, initially designed around an existing tomographic code. The environment will extend infrastructure (already developed by the PIs) that supports "models of observability " for uniform tool interaction at the programming language level. The extensions will raise the model abstractions to the applications level, giving the seismologist a familiar environment for interacting with development tools. The environment will be tested first by applying it to delay-time data from the EPR. This data has already been analyzed in publications addressing the velocity and attenuation structure of axial magma chambers but efforts to image the P wave velocity structure have focused only on the upper crustual sect. Significant performance improvements in the code will, for the first time, allow a simulations analysis of the complete data set, resulting in an unprecedented image of the full crustal.

9523629 Pancake This NSF Metacenter Regional Alliance(MRA) will Link the Oregon Joint Graduate School of Engineering to the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The objective is to improve access to high performance computing (HPC) for engineers and scientists in the Pacific Northwest. Facilitating this collaborative work will be a high speed fiber optic network, the Network for Engineering and Research in Oregon (NERO), which was first deployed in 1994. The proposed MRA will exploit that infrastructure to expand the HPC user community through distributed access to HPC platforms, to tools and environments supporting parallel programming, to online training materials and example applications, and to key human resources via several types of remote collaborative sessions. The MRA will exploit the NERO infrastructure to provide: a distributed, network-based repository of information on HPC tools and environments network-based, interactive training materials and example applications developed specifically for non-computer scientists network-wide interactive broadcasts of seminars, remote user group meetings, and interactive consulting sessions, both real-time and as after-the-fact replay desktop videoconferencing, shared white boards and shared file system for MRA collaboration over the NERO wide area network highspeed network access to parallel computing platforms within Oregon dedicated network access to the San Diego Supercomputer Center a framework for collaboration with other national and regional metacenters

9601802 Cuny, Janice E. Humphreys, Eugene D. University of Oregon Academic Research Infrastructure: Collaborative Research Between Geological Sciences, Astrophysics, and Computer Science: Infrastructure Support for a Visualization Laboratory This Academic Research Infrastructure award supports the development of high speed computational, networking, and graphics facility. The research projects supported by the facility include: 1. Geophysical studies of mid-ocean ridges. 2. Kinematic and dynamic modeling of the deformation of the western United States lithosphere. 3. Geological and environmental fluid mechanics. 4. Characterization of fault rupture and the recurrence behavior of large earthquakes: and 5. Retrieving and processing observational astrophysical data by representing it as a virtual N-dimensional universe.

This award will support graduate student participation in the 2nd SIGMETRICS Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Tools, to be held on August 3-4. 1998 at Welches, OR and is the successor to the biannual parallel debugging workshop. This premier symposium on parallel tools typically brings together the top researchers from around the world. Being a small conference, graduate students have many opportunities to meet informally and interact with leaders in the field. The workshop traditionally puts out a document that summarizes both the papers presented and the discussion they evoked. The graduate student recipients of these travel grants will produce the web document, each reporting on one of the sessions.

The University of Oregon CSEM Scholar program provides extensive support to students, aimed at increasing their retention through graduation, encouraging their enrollment in advanced degree programs, and ultimately securing their desired employment outcomes in Oregon's changing economy. Much of the support will be gleaned from services already available within the University: services provided by Academic Learning Services, the Career Center, the Information Technology Curriculum, the Teaching Effectiveness Program, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs. The support will be delivered in the form of a required, integrated five quarter seminar sequence. The sequence will be organized and taught by the PI, with the liberal use of guest speakers to increase the students' contact with mentors, role models, and research advisers. In addition, the students will be required to take independent research or internship credit for at least one quarter. The goals of these curricular requirements are fourfold: (1) to introduce students to research and graduate school options; (2) to assist the students in career planning, internship placement, and securing post graduate employment; (3) to broaden the students' perspectives on Mathematics and Computer Science; and (4) to allow the students to develop presentation skills while providing outreach to other students potentially interested in pursuing math and computer science degrees.

The sequence will include two new courses -- a Mentoring course and a Great Ideas course -- that could become a permanent part of the UO curriculum. The Mentoring course (cotaught with staff from the Careers Center) will introduce students to the use of informational interviews. The students will conduct interviews with professionals in their chosen field to assess their interest in specific careers and to "size up" organizations. Students can use the information they get to promote themselves to a prospective employer or to network, opening the door to future contacts and job possibilities. The course also gives students practice in presenting their findings and it gives them a chance to hear reports on all of the interviews, expanding their knowledge of related career paths. The Great Ideas course aims to broaden the students' view of Computer Science and Mathematics beyond the content of their required departmental courses. The course will consist of a series of distinguished, guest lectures from the Math and Computer Science faculty discussing the truly great ideas of the field. Topics will come from Computer Science, from Math, and from the bridges between the two fields.