From na-net@patience.Stanford.EDU Mon Oct 16 09:23:36 1989 Received: from crfsun.EPM.ORNL.GOV by cs.utk.edu with SMTP (5.61++/2.3-UTK) id AA23541; Mon, 16 Oct 89 09:23:19 -0400 Received: from antares.mcs.anl.gov (MCS.ANL.GOV) by crfsun.EPM.ORNL.GOV (4.1/1.34) id AA11483; Mon, 16 Oct 89 09:23:38 EDT Received: from beauty.stanford.edu by antares.mcs.anl.gov (4.0/SMI-DDN) id AA00421; Mon, 16 Oct 89 08:14:03 CDT Received: from patience.stanford.edu by beauty.stanford.edu (4.0/inc-1.5) id AA09934; Sun, 15 Oct 89 22:52:44 PDT Received: from bravery.stanford.edu by patience.stanford.edu (4.0/inc-1.5) id AA06834; Sun, 15 Oct 89 22:48:53 PDT Received: by bravery.stanford.edu (4.0/inc-1.5) id AA16005; Sun, 15 Oct 89 22:49:00 PDT Date: Sun, 15 Oct 89 22:49:00 PDT From: na-net@patience.Stanford.EDU Message-Id: <8910160549.AA16005@bravery.stanford.edu> Return-Path: Subject: NA-NET distribution message Maint-Path: maintainer@na-net.stanford.edu To: na-net@patience.Stanford.EDU Reply-To: na-net@patience.Stanford.EDU Comment: requests, comments or problems to nanet@na-net.stanford.edu Comment: submissions to na@na-net.stanford.edu Status: RO NA Digest Sunday, October 15, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 40 Today's Editor: Cleve Moler Today's Topics: netlib@mcs.anl.gov is moving Dongarra's New Address Positions at University of Utah Large Dense Linear System Survey Department Chair Position at NYU Solving PDEs on the Sphere CONPAR 90 in Zurich Panel on Scientific Computing Curriculum ------------------------------------------------------- From: Jack Dongarra and Eric Grosse Date: Mon, 16 Oct 89 00:23:39 PDT Subject: netlib@mcs.anl.gov is moving We are in the process of moving the machine running netlib from Argonne to Oak Ridge. The machine (a Sequent Balance 8000) was shut down on Monday, October 9, 1989. We hope to have it back on the air in a week. During this period, mail to the old Argonne address netlib@mcs.anl.gov will automatically be forwarded to Bell Labs, so users should see no disruption in service. You can get faster service and save a little network traffic by sending requests directly to netlib@research.att.com instead of forwarding through Argonne. The contents of the collection at Argonne/Oak Ridge and Bell Labs are nearly identical. Interesting exceptions are the approximation catalog and Fortran-to-C converter at research.att.com, ANL tools and reports at mcs.anl.gov. The address for netlib at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be netlib@ornl.gov Mail to the old address netlib@mcs.anl.gov will continue to work for a month or so by automatically forwarding mail to Oak Ridge. We will send a message when netlib@ornl.gov is up. Regards, Jack and Eric ------------------------------ From: Jack Dongarra Date: Mon, 16 Oct 89 00:29:49 PDT Subject: Dongarra's New Address I am now at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee. I can be reached at the following numbers: Jack Dongarra Computer Science Department University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996-1301 Phone: 615-974-8295 Internet: dongarra@cs.utk.edu Fax number 615-974-8296 Regards, Jack ------------------------------ From: Peter Alfeld Date: Mon 9 Oct 89 10:33:29-MDT Subject: Positions at University of Utah The Department of Mathematics of the University of Utah has several faculty positions open at all ranks. We are particularly interested in people working in Numerical Analysis or Scientific Computing. When I mention the above fact to people at conferences I usually get a blank stare and questions like: Where is Utah? Do they have a University? We do, and we are on the map! The Department of Mathematics has about 60 faculty. Our computing facilities are excellent. Departmental resources include a DEC-20 (which we are in the process of replacing with a Unix based multiprocessor), a Vax 8600, an Ardent Titan, a network of (public and private) Sun Workstations, an uncountable number of Macintoshes (I did try to count them), and an outstanding staff of 5.5 FTE, including the current president of the national TeX User's Group (Nelson Beebe). University facilities include an IBM 3090 supercomputer. The Department ranks in the top group of US Math Departments according to the classification by the American Mathematical Society. This is a spectacular place to live, particularly if you like the outdoors. You can go 500 miles in any direction before reaching a settlement of comparable size. Some of the world's best skiing (proposed by the US as the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics) is within less than an hour driving distance. On the other hand, there are about a million people within 50 miles North and South of the University, so you have all the advantages of modern civilization. Housing is cheap (you can get a 3,000 square foot home close to the University for under $100,000). A major international airport is within 20 minutes from the University. The Department is congenial, and the working atmosphere superb. Inquire today! I'll be happy to provide any information you may require. Call or write: Peter Alfeld Department of Mathematics University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 801-581-6842 or 801-581-6851 ALFELD@SCIENCE.UTAH.EDU ------------------------------ From: Alan Edelman Date: Tue, 10 Oct 89 16:50:14 EDT Subject: Large Dense Linear System Survey In reaction to my often being asked whether people really want to solve large dense systems of equations, I thought I would ask: Who wants to (or has experience) solving LARGE DENSE linear systems? Large means n=5000 or greater. Please no mention of SPARSE matrices, for purposes of this survey. I wish to put together a survey, hopefully gathering information on 1. In what fields do the solutions of large dense systems of linear equations arise? Please send a description. 2. For what values of n are solutions currently being obtained, and what kinds of n would the application really want given faster, cheaper, computing power? 3. What kind of accuracy is obtained (what precision machine? conditioning of problem?) What kind of accuracy is desired? 4. References, vague leads to others not directly reachable via this request, etc., would be appreciated. Thank you very much Alan Edelman alan@math.mit.edu na.edelman ------------------------------ From: Olof Widlund Date: Tue, 10 Oct 89 10:31:57 EDT Subject: Department Chair Position at NYU NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Computer Science Department Chair Search A senior computer scientist with outstanding credentials as a researcher as well as administrative experience is being sought to serve as Chair of the Computer Science Department at New York University. The resources of the department have grown substantially in recent years and it now has thirty-two full-time faculty members and a substantial research staff. The department is part of New York University's Faculty of Arts and Science and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, a major research institute which has a large computing center and several large research groups in computer science and applied mathematics. Major funding in parallel computing, robotics, computer vision, high level programming languages, the Ada language, software prototyping, natural language processing and numerical analysis is provided by a number of federal agencies. A laboratory for robotics and computer vision, funded in part by a CER grant from NSF, opened in 1983. The university, one of the largest private institutions in the country, is located in one of the most attractive residential areas of Manhattan. Resumes should be sent to: Professor Martin Davis, Chair, Department of Computer Science, New York University, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, 251 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012. Internet: davism@cs.nyu.edu. New York University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. ------------------------------ From: Phil Rasch Date: 15 Oct 89 20:39:21 GMT Subject: Solving PDEs on the Sphere I am interested in learning of innovative and/or powerful methods for solving partial differential equations on the sphere that are relatively unknown in my particular discipline (meteorology). More precisely, I am interested in solving primarily hyperbolic and elliptic equations associated with fluid flow and transport in this geometry, and I want to avoid the following problems. P1.) Numerical problems associated with the singularities in the natural coordinate system (spherical polar coordinates) at the pole. P2.) CFL problems associated with the convergence in the vicinity of the pole of natural (e.g. latitude, longitude) grids. P3.) The overshoot/undershoot phenomena (and computational expense at high resolution) associated with spectral transform methods. There is quite a large body of work in meteorology on finite difference (on approximately rectilinear grids) and spectral transform methods in meteorology, but in my opinion, no really satisfactory accurate and conservative methods exists which also: A.) resolve in space in an optimal fashion. This could be construed to be in an approximatly uniform fashion (both for esthetic reasons, and to reduce CFL type problems), or in a fashion to resolve the small scale features. B.) can be extended to a monotonic or non-oscillatory form. Rare, or entirely missing in this body of work are methods which use: 1.) triangular meshes: these might include finite element, or control volume approaches. 2.) numerically generated (and/or) adaptive grids: These might include also moving to other (possibly) patched curvilinear coordinate systems with singularities off the sphere. 3.) monotone, total variation diminishing, or essentially non-oscillatory techniques 4.) Adaptive Lagrangian Eulerian codes. I would like to hear about particularly successful techniques used elsewhere which could contribute to solving P1-P3. Solutions which use spherical geometry are obviously the easiest to map to my applications, but I would also be interested in untested candidates with potential. I intend to work on these problems myself, but want to avoid repeating previous work. It seems likely to me that others in fields like physics, engineering, aerodynamics, geophysics, and computational mathematics must have considered these problems, but a comprehensive search seems difficult. Thanks in advance for your help. Phil Rasch Climate and Global Dynamics Division National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder CO, 80303 (303) 497-1368 Internet: pjr@cgdra.ucar.edu ------------------------------ From: Peter Arbenz Date: 11 Oct 89 15:03:20+0100 Subject: CONPAR 90 in Zurich C O N P A R 9 0 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zuerich, Switzerland September 10-13, 1990 Sponsored by Schweizer Informatiker Gesellschaft SI IEEE Switzerland Section in cooperation with Gesellschaft fuer Informatik GI-PARS British Computer Society BCS-PPSG Computer Society of the IEEE Swiss Chapter of the ACM The past decade has seen the emergence of the two highly successful series of CONPAR and of VAPP conferences on the subject of parallel processing. TheVector and Parallel Processors in Computational Science meetings were held in Chester (VAPP I, 1981), Oxford (VAPP II, 1984) and Liverpool (VAPP III, 1987). The International conferences on Parallel Processing took place in Erlangen (CONPAR 81), Aachen (CONPAR 86) and Manchester (CONPAR 88). The format of the joint meeting will follow the pattern set by its predecessors. It is intended to review hardware and architecture developments together with languages and software tools for supporting parallel processing. Another objective of the conference will be to highlight advances in algorithms and applications software on vector and parallel architectures. It is expected that the programme will cover languages/software tools, hardware/architecture, algorithms/software and applications. Also special sessions will be devoted to the field of application and/or programming language specific architectures; i.e. machines, where performance has been gained through limiting the field of applications, or systems designed according to a joint optimization of programming language and architecture. Other topics of special interest are * performance analysis for real-life applications * testing and debugging of parallel systems * portability of parallel programs * paradigms for concurrency and their implementation The conference should appeal to anyone with an interest in the design and use of vector and parallel machines. Call for Papers Original papers are invited for the conference. Five copies of the full paper (maximum of 10 pages) are to be submitted no later than Feb 1, 1990. The proceedings of the joint VAPP/CONPAR conference will be published as a volume in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Further Information Prof. Dr. Helmar Burkhart Institut fuer Informatik Universitaet Basel Mittlere Strasse 142 CH-4056 Basel Switzerland phone: +41 61 449967 e-mail: burkhart@urz.unibas.ch ------------------------------ From: Dan Sorensen Date: Fri, 13 Oct 89 11:58:00 CDT Subject: Panel on Scientific Computing Curriculum SC89 Panel Discussion on Scientific Computing Curriculum The preliminary program of the SC89 meeting did not contain a description of the panel discussion on a University Curriculum in Scientific Computing that is to be held during session 11A at 4:30 pm on Thursday 16 Nov. Here is a description of that panel discussion. PANEL: University Education in Scientific Computing The purpose of this panel will be to discuss the nature of a University curriculum in Scientific Computing. The goal will be to outline the structure of such a program. The panel will attempt an overview of some programs that are already in place and then discuss additional concepts that might be incorporated to improve the existing programs. One goal of the panel discussion is to produce an outline of a "model" curriculum that might be used to initiate new Scientific Computing programs at those institutions that do not already have one in place. For example, a program in scientific computing might contain the core material for a Masters Degree. Recipients of this degree would be prepared to bring the full potential of modern computing capabilities to the industrial research environment. In addition to this master's degree track, there could be courses and graduate seminars designed to prepare Ph.D. students for beginning thesis work. A major component of the program would be a central one semester course designed to appeal to all the sciences which now rely on computing. The intent would be to offer a unified approach to computing which would prepare a student to take a selection of special topic courses. The primary course would be a prerequisite for the subsequent courses, but they could be somewhat independent of each other and be drawn in many cases from existing courses with minor alterations to content. This would give the program more flexibility to incorporate students from science & engineering. The topics courses would foster sound computational science techniques, introduce state of the art numerical techniques, cover concepts in high-performance computing and promote the use of visualization and graphics. Hands-on experience with state of the art super computers and parallel computers, perhaps culminating with a significant project, would be a major component of this program. FORMAT: Each panelist will give brief description of their program in Scientific Computing and will express their view of what such a program should consist of. Then there will be a discussion among the panel members about the various proposals. Finally, the discussion will be opened to audience participation. The entire session will be recorded and a written report will be produced based upon the content of the discussion. The report will be distributed with the intent of fostering further interaction and eventually some recommendations from the scientific community. PANELISTS: Prof. Geoffrey Fox Physics Department California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California 91125 gcf@procyon.caltech.edu Prof. Gene Golub Computer Science Dept. Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 golub@patience.stanford.edu Prof. R. J. Plemmons Mathematics Department North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-8205 plemmons%matple@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu Prof. Garry Rodrigue Dept. of Applied Science Univ. of California, Davis PO Box 808 Livermore, California rodrigue@lll-crg.llnl.gov Prof. Ahmed Sameh, Assoc. Director Center for Supercomputer Research and Development University of Illinois 305 Talbot Lab, 104 S. Wright St. Urbana, Illinois 61801 sameh@s12.csrd.uiuc.edu Prof. D.C. Sorensen (Chair) Department of Mathematical Sciences P.O. Box 1892 Rice University Houston, Texas 77251 sorensen@rice.edu ABSTRACTS: PHYSICAL COMPUTATION AND COMPLEX SYSTEMS (PCCS) Prof. Geoffrey Fox California Institute of Technology This is a new Ph.D. program within the Physics option whose objective is a unified approach to abstraction, modeling, and computation applied to the natural world. The program involves fundamental education in mathematical physics, simple classical and quantum physical systems, fundamental properties of complex systems, physical optimization methods, and the appropriate computational techniques needed for solving large scale scientific problems. Physical Computation and Complex Systems gives a thorough training in basic physics, but unlike traditional physics programs, these physical techniques are applied to topics in computation and complex systems. PCCS has been motivated by the success and growing importance of two multidisciplinary research thrusts, namely, computational science and complex systems. These two themes are synergistically linked by their reliance on high performance computers. SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING AND COMPUTATIONAL MATHEMATICS AT STANFORD Prof. Gene Golub Director, Scientific Computing/ Computational Math, Stanford University For the last three years we have had a new program in place for granting degrees in Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics at Stanford. The Program is an interdisciplinary program and can admit students and grant degrees. The Faculty is made up of faculty from other departments; we currently reside in the School of Engineering. I shall describe the requirements of our program and its scope. SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING AT NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY Prof. Robert J. Plemmons North Carolina State University There is a selection of programs in Scientific Computing at North Carolina State University. The Computer Science and Mathematics Departments both offer joint courses and degree programs with scientific computing components. In addition, the Colleges of Engineering and Physical & Mathematical Sciences have a broadly based interdisciplinary program. The student receives a degree in a specific department but is required to select certain courses in scientific computing from the Mathematics and Computer Science Departments. Course topics here include parallel processing and supercomputing, with hands-on experience. The courses formerly used the ACRF computing facilities at the Argonne National Lab, but we now have our own equipment, including Alliant and Sequent shared memory computers and an Intel hypercube distributed memory system. A Cray Y-MP is now available in our Research Triangle Park so we no longer use the NSF Supercomputing sites. Interest in advanced scientific computing at North Carolina State University is fostered by our Center for Research in Scientific Computation, which was established by the Board of Governors in 1986. THE NEW ACADEMIC FIELD OF COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES. Prof. Garry Rodrigue Univ. of California, Davis The University of California at Davis has started a new graduate educational program in the area of Computational Sciences. The program is a joint program involving the fields of Applied Science, Chemistry, and Computer Science. In contrast to Computer Science, the field of Computational Sciences is mathematically based with Computational Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, and a new course entitled Computational Science as its core. The curriculum for students will include classes in Mathematical Physics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Computational Mathematics. The main strength of the program is in its affiliation with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Students can participate in the ongoing Computational Science research at LLNL through laboratory sponsored research assistantships and at the same time pursue their graduate degree as a full-time student at a U.C. Davis satellite campus located next to LLNL. COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING Prof. Ahmed Sameh University of Illinois The availability of powerful new computers has made it possible to use computational methods in larger and broader areas of science and engineering. Yet, making effective use of such computers is difficult, partly due to the complexity of their architecture and system software. The extensive knowledge required to use effectively this new technology can best be provided through the formal education and training of students in the field of Computational Science and Engineering. Unlike what is now regarded as traditional computer science, a CSE program would attempt to focus on the whole computational process. Such a program has been established at the University of Illinois within the departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering. It covers the following topics: (I) Computer Architecture and Design (II) System Software and Compiler Technology (III) Applications Software and Algorithm Development (IV) Performance Evaluation ------------------------------ End of NA Digest ************************** -------