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Research
CRPC research is both interdisciplinary and interinstitutional. Projects
are shared among the six CRPC sites and collaborations with industry,
academic institutions, and government laboratories are commonplace. The
strength of the research is in the combined efforts and use of shared
resources among the scientists. Most of the research falls within five
principal areas: Fortran Parallel Programming Systems, Parallel Paradigm
Integration, Linear Algebra, Optimization and Automatic Differentiation,
and Differential Equations. Research results are evaluated within several
CRPC applications projects. The principal research efforts are:
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The
Fortran Parallel Programming Systems group is developing a
programming system that can be used to write parallel code more
easily. Initially, the focus has been on extending Fortran to support
data parallelism in a machine-independent way with a special emphasis
placed on enabling programmers to develop scalable code.
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The
Parallel Paradigm Integration group has a similar goal of making
parallel computers easier to program by introducing modular parallel
extensions to common languages, such as Fortran and C. They have also
developed programming templates for scientists to build customized
programs and have developed interactive electronic programming
tutorials.
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The
Linear Algebra group has already developed an extensive library of
routines to solve several major problems in linear algebra on scalable
parallel machines and to improve communication between processors when
performing computations. New research seeks to develop templates for
interactive solution methods that can be incorporated into numerical
simulation models.
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The
Parallel Optimization and AutomaticDifferentiation group is
developing parallel algorithms for a broad range of numerical
optimization problems. Of particular interest to industry is
groundbreaking work in the parallel implementation of
"multidisciplinary design optimization" (MDO), in which the objective
function involves numerical simulations from more than one physical
discipline.
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The
Parallel Algorithms for Physical Simulation group is developing
parallel algorithms for a broad range of numerical optimization
problems. Of particular interest to industry is groundbreaking work in
the parallel implementation of "multidisciplinary design optimization"
(MDO), in which the objective function involves numerical simulations
from more than one physical discipline.
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Applications projects use technologies developed through the five
main research thrusts for specific purposes in areas as diverse as
aerospace engineering, petroleum engineering, and computational
biology. The CRPC has recently established a program called PCE-TECH
to increase the use of CRPC technologies for specific
applications. Because of their applied nature, these projects generate
frequent collaborations with researchers from industry and other
academic institutions.
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