Access Magazine Issue Archive, 2008

Ready on day 1

To ensure that scientists and engineers can achieve sustained petaflop performance on Blue Waters from day one, intensive work is under way now to port, optimize, and scale a range of applications to effectively use the system's more than 200,000 processors.

A stimulating test of abilities

Collaborative teams are working now to ensure that a range of applications can take full advantage of Blue Waters when it comes online in 2011.

Realizing the dream

The University of Illinois launched a new institute that will combine arts and technology. Called edream, the institute will be headed by Donna Cox, who leads NCSA's Advanced Visualization Laboratory.

They love a challenge

University of Illinois engineers use NCSA resources to score in an international data retrieval competition and to advance automatic speech and video recognition.

Exotic molecules

Understanding of the chemical bonding of many elements has been fundamentally changed by chemists at the University of Virginia, who rely on NCSA resources to verify their results.

Smart searching

To address the need for more focused, faster searching, the Army and private companies teamed up with NCSA researchers.

Closing the gaps

Biophysicists at the University of Pennsylvania used NCSA's Abe to clarify a mysterious interaction between cholesterol and neurotransmitter receptors.

Building toward Blue Waters

NCSA has several systems that are being used as stepping stones for the sustained petaflop system that will come online in 2011.

A new approach to structural analysis

Hilton, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NCSA's senior academic lead for structural and solid mechanics, has developed a radical approach to designing material structures.

Reimaging performance

Visionary artists set out to break through the imaginary “fourth wall” that separates audience members from performers.

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