Next Generation Grid Enabled Cluster Computers: Performance Optimisation for e-Science. In partnership with a local computer company this project will develop cost effective cluster computing solutions assembled from off-the-shelf parts for $50,000-$200,000. This price range is currently relatively poorly serviced by the multinational computer vendors, who tend to focus on the high density compute systems necessary for very large cluster systems. As a consequence the development of high performa ....Next Generation Grid Enabled Cluster Computers: Performance Optimisation for e-Science. In partnership with a local computer company this project will develop cost effective cluster computing solutions assembled from off-the-shelf parts for $50,000-$200,000. This price range is currently relatively poorly serviced by the multinational computer vendors, who tend to focus on the high density compute systems necessary for very large cluster systems. As a consequence the development of high performance computing in Australia has been somewhat stifled compared to the US or UK, where there exist small niche companies servicing this market sector. This project aims to change this, developing affordable high performance cluster computing systems for the Australian market place and beyond.Read moreRead less
Open Agent Architectures for Intelligent Distributed Decision Making. Sophisticated software systems are part of the essential infrastructure of our daily lives. Complex systems such as the internet, finance, or telecommunications software cannot have a centralised point of control or a single developer. The aim of this project is to develop an architecture and support infrastructure enabling intelligent agents to locate and use services in such open systems. The fundamental questions that must ....Open Agent Architectures for Intelligent Distributed Decision Making. Sophisticated software systems are part of the essential infrastructure of our daily lives. Complex systems such as the internet, finance, or telecommunications software cannot have a centralised point of control or a single developer. The aim of this project is to develop an architecture and support infrastructure enabling intelligent agents to locate and use services in such open systems. The fundamental questions that must be addressed include issues such as how agents will find and use newly added services and how services will communicate with each other, given that they are developed independently.Read moreRead less
GriddLeS: Building Grid Applications from Legacy Software. Grid computing is emerging as a major new capability for modern, high performance technical computing. Such Grids couple geographically distributed resources such as high performance computers, workstations, clusters, and scientific instruments. Traditional methods of producing software for Grids are inefficient and error prone, and will not allow the rapid deployment of new applications. This project concerns the development of a tool t ....GriddLeS: Building Grid Applications from Legacy Software. Grid computing is emerging as a major new capability for modern, high performance technical computing. Such Grids couple geographically distributed resources such as high performance computers, workstations, clusters, and scientific instruments. Traditional methods of producing software for Grids are inefficient and error prone, and will not allow the rapid deployment of new applications. This project concerns the development of a tool that will facilitate the construction of complex Grid application using legacy software components. It will test the new ideas with a range of scientific demonstrators, including atmospheric science, geo-science and mechanical engineering.Read moreRead less
Planning and Learning in BDI Agents. Intelligent agents are becoming increasingly important in a range of complex and dynamic applications. BDI agent systems are extremely successful robust and flexible, in real time applications. However they are not actually able to do any traditional planning. Nor do they incorporate learning. This project will incorporate learning and planning capabilities into a BDI system framework, in a focussed and integrated manner that allows benefits from these approa ....Planning and Learning in BDI Agents. Intelligent agents are becoming increasingly important in a range of complex and dynamic applications. BDI agent systems are extremely successful robust and flexible, in real time applications. However they are not actually able to do any traditional planning. Nor do they incorporate learning. This project will incorporate learning and planning capabilities into a BDI system framework, in a focussed and integrated manner that allows benefits from these approaches where appropriate, but without compromising the real-time capability of existing BDI systems. Learned information and new plans will then be fully incorporated for later use by the standard BDI mechanisms.Read moreRead less
A scalable debugging framework for petascale computers. Supercomputing underpins a wide range of areas of importance to the Australian economy; mining, agriculture, engineering, medical research and pharmaceutical development to name a few. It is of critical importance that software solutions in these areas behave correctly and do not generate erroneous results. This project will develop software tools and techniques that make it possible to detect and locate errors as software is converted to r ....A scalable debugging framework for petascale computers. Supercomputing underpins a wide range of areas of importance to the Australian economy; mining, agriculture, engineering, medical research and pharmaceutical development to name a few. It is of critical importance that software solutions in these areas behave correctly and do not generate erroneous results. This project will develop software tools and techniques that make it possible to detect and locate errors as software is converted to run on the next generation of 'petascale' supercomputers. We will deploy the tools both commercially through our industry partner, and also on national high performance computing facilities.Read moreRead less
Programming Paradigms, Tools and Algorithms for Electronic Structure Calculations on Clusters of Non-Uniform Memory Access Parallel Processors. In recent years Australian academia has invested heavily in high performance computing systems. A significant fraction of these resources are devoted to performing computational chemistry studies, such as those used in drug design. This project links Australian researchers with the company responsible for a particularly widely used computational chemistr ....Programming Paradigms, Tools and Algorithms for Electronic Structure Calculations on Clusters of Non-Uniform Memory Access Parallel Processors. In recent years Australian academia has invested heavily in high performance computing systems. A significant fraction of these resources are devoted to performing computational chemistry studies, such as those used in drug design. This project links Australian researchers with the company responsible for a particularly widely used computational chemistry application package, and also with a major international computer company. Our aim is to substantially improve the performance of this code on cluster based compute systems. This, as well as our generic performance evaluation tools, would be of substantial benefit to the Australian research community. The project will forge links with researchers in Singapore, Japan and the USA.Read moreRead less
Programming Paradigms, Tools and Algorithms for the Spectral Solution of the Electronic Schroedinger Equation on Non-Uniform Memory Parallel Processors. We propose to develop software tools and methods that are appropriate for current and future generations of large scale shared memory computer systems. Our purpose is to enable a more productive utilization of these architectures for scientific computation. We will focus on algorithms for solving differential equations appropriate to quantum che ....Programming Paradigms, Tools and Algorithms for the Spectral Solution of the Electronic Schroedinger Equation on Non-Uniform Memory Parallel Processors. We propose to develop software tools and methods that are appropriate for current and future generations of large scale shared memory computer systems. Our purpose is to enable a more productive utilization of these architectures for scientific computation. We will focus on algorithms for solving differential equations appropriate to quantum chemistry. In particular an exciting new class of methods whose computational cost scales linearly with system size. Our goal is to develop scalable parallel implementations of these methods. If realized this will revolutionize computation, enabling first principles calculations on truly nanoscale systems, such as enzymes and molecular electronic devices.Read moreRead less
Accurate Performance Modelling and Prediction of Cluster Computers. The tools, methodologies and data produced by this project will assist
Australian academic and industrial organisations in choosing the most
cost-effective cluster configurations for their specific high
performance computing requirements. It will also help an Australian
company to compete with increasing strength against the major
multinationals. The project will also draw together and promote future
research links between ....Accurate Performance Modelling and Prediction of Cluster Computers. The tools, methodologies and data produced by this project will assist
Australian academic and industrial organisations in choosing the most
cost-effective cluster configurations for their specific high
performance computing requirements. It will also help an Australian
company to compete with increasing strength against the major
multinationals. The project will also draw together and promote future
research links between two major academic institutions in this field.
Finally, the project will provide high-level training in research,
with industrial grounding, in the high performance computing industry.
Read moreRead less
Flexible and Robust Protocol-Based Interaction between Agents in Open Systems. There has been much discussion of the importance of software agents for supporting a wide variety of interaction between businesses and individuals over the internet. Important applications include e-commerce and b2b applications. For the potential of software agents to be realised in open systems, issues of flexibility, robustness, and extensibility are critical. This project addresses the development of flexible ....Flexible and Robust Protocol-Based Interaction between Agents in Open Systems. There has been much discussion of the importance of software agents for supporting a wide variety of interaction between businesses and individuals over the internet. Important applications include e-commerce and b2b applications. For the potential of software agents to be realised in open systems, issues of flexibility, robustness, and extensibility are critical. This project addresses the development of flexible and powerful mechanisms for interaction, within the context of FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) standards. The project uses FIPA's Agentcities as a test bed, enabling us to build on and co-operate with a large European project starting mid 2001.Read moreRead less
Structures and Protocols for Inference. The proposed research is expected to lead to increased adoption and efficiency of use of machine learning technologies. It will develop new and better ways to use existing machine learning software in a manner that allows easier integration into commercial products. It will increase the competitiveness of Australian industry.