Swansea will feel benefit of HPC super computer project
Swansea University is one of the Welsh academic institutions which will benefit from the launch of the new HPC super computer project for Wales.
(See earlier posts starting at http://sirgarblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-40m-super-computer-project-for.html)
Here are some short case study examples of how Swansea will benefit from the HPC Wales project.
Linking with business
The ITWales project is part of the School of Physical Sciences at Swansea University.
ITWales believes that the HPC project will open up huge opportunities for businesses that require the highest level of support in terms of leading edge computing resources.
Professor Min Chen said: “With ITWales already engaging with Welsh SMEs from a wide range of sectors it could stimulate business awareness of this unique facility.
“ITWales has played a significant role in putting Swansea University and our Computer Science Department on the business map. It has been an integral project that has linked academia with business and this HPC will provide excellent opportunities for some of those businesses to utilise the HPC technology to advance knowledge economy in Wales.
“ITWales has proved so successful that the University has recently secured European funding for a new project, Software Alliance Wales, which will further enhance the links with the ICT sector across Wales.”
ITWales is the industrial liaison unit of the Department of Computer Science, Swansea University. The Department is one of the most distinguished in the UK, with a growing reputation in research both nationally and internationally.
ITWales provides practical, accessible support to business in Wales, enabling them to embrace ICT development. ITWales identifies what businesses are likely to need from Information Technology and exploits its unique links with academia to help business to remain competitive, innovative and ahead of the game.
ITWales services include:
Student and graduate IT placements - ITWales has been successfully placing IT students with companies in Wales since 1993.
The ITWales Business Club - bringing the latest IT information to business in Wales through seminars and workshops.
Research and Development Partnerships - free assistance can be offered to companies that wish to develop IT products and processes.
itwales.com - a free online IT magazine for business in Wales, bringing the latest news, features, interviews and more to your desktop.
Healthcare Delivery Modelling
David Ford is the University Director of Health Informatics Research Laboratories at Swansea University. The Research Labs have been created through a collaboration between Centre for Health Information, Research and Evaluation (CHIRAL), School of Medicine, Swansea University and Informing Healthcare, the national programme for NHS IT for Wales and provide a state-of-the-art facility to design, prototype, test and evaluate innovative new information technologies for use in improving health and healthcare.
Working with industrial partners large and small, researchers at Swansea University are using datasets to explore trends in the efficacy of treatments.
This provides a unique perspective of the healthcare system, allowing enterprises large and small; to identify opportunities for new products and services, and to develop and validate them before taking them to market. However, these opportunities are often limited by the absorptive capacity of SMEs to make use of such resources. The accurate and safe management and analysis of vast and complex medical datasets required very high performance computer systems. Only an initiative as large and innovative as HPC Wales can deliver the massively powerful computer platform to deliver the benefits of this work for health and economic benefit.
HPC will provide a unique coupling of massive data systems and high performance parallel processing capacity in one well managed architecture.
Researchers, health organisations, and businesses across Wales will be able to gain access to unique health data and powerful analytical resources. The new powerful data management and analytical environment provided by HPC will lead to a range of new data analytical services and research activities that span every sector and every business domain.
Studying tidewater glaciers
In February 2010, student Sue Cook from Swansea University Glaciology Group visited CSC, a supercomputing facility in Finland to collaborate with Dr. Thomas Zwinger, an expert in glaciological modelling.
The project used the supercomputing facilities at CSC to model Columbia Glacier, a temperate tidewater glacier in Alaska, which has undergone a significant retreat since the 1980s.
The team used the open source, finite-element software Elmer, developed at CSC to produce a 2D flowline model of the glacier. The model solves the Navier-Stokes equation to predict velocity and stress within the ice, which can be used to predict the depth of surface crevasses.
The aim of this project is to validate a model which relates crevasse depth to rate of mass loss through calving of icebergs. Such a model will be of great importance in predicting future contributions to sea level rise from marine terminating ice masses.
The work was supported by funding Sue Cook successfully raised from the HPC-Europa2 programme and access to data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey. Sue’s PhD is funded by Swansea University. Sue has a 1st Class MPhys from Oxford and is currently in her 2nd year of PhD study. Sue will return to Finland in August 2010 on a second longer visit when she will further develop the model and continue using the supercomputer facilities. This type of resource will be available in house when HPC Wales comes on line.
(See earlier posts starting at http://sirgarblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-40m-super-computer-project-for.html)
Here are some short case study examples of how Swansea will benefit from the HPC Wales project.
Linking with business
The ITWales project is part of the School of Physical Sciences at Swansea University.
ITWales believes that the HPC project will open up huge opportunities for businesses that require the highest level of support in terms of leading edge computing resources.
Professor Min Chen said: “With ITWales already engaging with Welsh SMEs from a wide range of sectors it could stimulate business awareness of this unique facility.
“ITWales has played a significant role in putting Swansea University and our Computer Science Department on the business map. It has been an integral project that has linked academia with business and this HPC will provide excellent opportunities for some of those businesses to utilise the HPC technology to advance knowledge economy in Wales.
“ITWales has proved so successful that the University has recently secured European funding for a new project, Software Alliance Wales, which will further enhance the links with the ICT sector across Wales.”
ITWales is the industrial liaison unit of the Department of Computer Science, Swansea University. The Department is one of the most distinguished in the UK, with a growing reputation in research both nationally and internationally.
ITWales provides practical, accessible support to business in Wales, enabling them to embrace ICT development. ITWales identifies what businesses are likely to need from Information Technology and exploits its unique links with academia to help business to remain competitive, innovative and ahead of the game.
ITWales services include:
Student and graduate IT placements - ITWales has been successfully placing IT students with companies in Wales since 1993.
The ITWales Business Club - bringing the latest IT information to business in Wales through seminars and workshops.
Research and Development Partnerships - free assistance can be offered to companies that wish to develop IT products and processes.
itwales.com - a free online IT magazine for business in Wales, bringing the latest news, features, interviews and more to your desktop.
Healthcare Delivery Modelling
David Ford is the University Director of Health Informatics Research Laboratories at Swansea University. The Research Labs have been created through a collaboration between Centre for Health Information, Research and Evaluation (CHIRAL), School of Medicine, Swansea University and Informing Healthcare, the national programme for NHS IT for Wales and provide a state-of-the-art facility to design, prototype, test and evaluate innovative new information technologies for use in improving health and healthcare.
Working with industrial partners large and small, researchers at Swansea University are using datasets to explore trends in the efficacy of treatments.
This provides a unique perspective of the healthcare system, allowing enterprises large and small; to identify opportunities for new products and services, and to develop and validate them before taking them to market. However, these opportunities are often limited by the absorptive capacity of SMEs to make use of such resources. The accurate and safe management and analysis of vast and complex medical datasets required very high performance computer systems. Only an initiative as large and innovative as HPC Wales can deliver the massively powerful computer platform to deliver the benefits of this work for health and economic benefit.
HPC will provide a unique coupling of massive data systems and high performance parallel processing capacity in one well managed architecture.
Researchers, health organisations, and businesses across Wales will be able to gain access to unique health data and powerful analytical resources. The new powerful data management and analytical environment provided by HPC will lead to a range of new data analytical services and research activities that span every sector and every business domain.
Studying tidewater glaciers
In February 2010, student Sue Cook from Swansea University Glaciology Group visited CSC, a supercomputing facility in Finland to collaborate with Dr. Thomas Zwinger, an expert in glaciological modelling.
The project used the supercomputing facilities at CSC to model Columbia Glacier, a temperate tidewater glacier in Alaska, which has undergone a significant retreat since the 1980s.
The team used the open source, finite-element software Elmer, developed at CSC to produce a 2D flowline model of the glacier. The model solves the Navier-Stokes equation to predict velocity and stress within the ice, which can be used to predict the depth of surface crevasses.
The aim of this project is to validate a model which relates crevasse depth to rate of mass loss through calving of icebergs. Such a model will be of great importance in predicting future contributions to sea level rise from marine terminating ice masses.
The work was supported by funding Sue Cook successfully raised from the HPC-Europa2 programme and access to data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey. Sue’s PhD is funded by Swansea University. Sue has a 1st Class MPhys from Oxford and is currently in her 2nd year of PhD study. Sue will return to Finland in August 2010 on a second longer visit when she will further develop the model and continue using the supercomputer facilities. This type of resource will be available in house when HPC Wales comes on line.
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