Mathematics, Hybrid computing and HPC

International audienceHPC appears more and more as a key player in the field of numerical simulation and data processing. This trend comes of course with the desire to perform simulations that are closer and closer to real world situations, and with the development of clusters and platforms that provide access to hundreds to thousands CPU/GPU nodes. The application domains encompass many fields, from fluid mechanics to biology and nano-sciences, in academic research as well as for industrial applications. Concerning industrial applications, major groups have often already a good practice of HPC, with dedicated manpower and available in-house platforms. The access of SMEs to HPC is more problematic as they do not have the appropriate resources in hardware and manpower, and it is sometimes hard for them to have a clear idea of the gain they will obtain through HPC. In the first part of the talk, I will talk about a national initiative led by INRIA, GENCI and BPI, to promote the access of SMEs to HPC. This initiative provides support both in terms of market analysis, access to hardware and technical environment. It now involves middle-size HPC platforms that are distributed in French universities. This initiative will therefore give new opportunities to researchers, in particular mathematicians, to be connected to industrial collaborations. HPC is actually not only a question of accessing hardware and adapting existing codes to massively parallel platforms. It also raises questions about mathematical and numerical models that optimize the emerging hardware and analyze the huge amount of data associated with these simulations, and software engineering to distribute algorithms on heterogeneous clusters. Mathematicians therefore can use HPC as a mean to access challenging industrial collaborations in which they can contribute through new methods and algorithms, in both scientific computing and statistics

From traditional essay to 'Ready Steady Cook' presentation: Reasons for innovative changes in assignments

The prose essay, case study and laboratory report, composed by individual students in isolation from their peers, used to be the mainstay of undergraduate writing. However, in recent years an array of alternative assignment types such as blogs, letters and e-posters have widened the repertoire of texts expected. This article attempts to describe the reasoning behind changes in assignment types at undergraduate and master’s level at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Data from 58 semi-structured interviews with lecturers in three UK universities is used together with course handbooks and some clarifications with lecturers via email. Suggested reasons for new assignment types are grouped into three categories: external, lecturer-driven and student-driven. The article surmises that, because of these pressures, students are now expected to produce a wide variety of text types, and greater attention should be paid to guidance in new assignments for both native and non-native speaker students

The Case for Improving U.S. Computer Science Education

Despite the growing use of computers and software in every facet of our economy, not until recently has computer science education begun to gain traction in American school systems. The current focus on improving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the U.S. school system has disregarded differences within STEM fields. Indeed, the most important STEM field for a modern economy is not only one that is not represented by its own initial in "STEM" but also the field with the fewest number of high school students taking its classes and by far has the most room for improvement—computer science

"Going back to our roots": second generation biocomputing

Researchers in the field of biocomputing have, for many years, successfully "harvested and exploited" the natural world for inspiration in developing systems that are robust, adaptable and capable of generating novel and even "creative" solutions to human-defined problems. However, in this position paper we argue that the time has now come for a reassessment of how we exploit biology to generate new computational systems. Previous solutions (the "first generation" of biocomputing techniques), whilst reasonably effective, are crude analogues of actual biological systems. We believe that a new, inherently inter-disciplinary approach is needed for the development of the emerging "second generation" of bio-inspired methods. This new modus operandi will require much closer interaction between the engineering and life sciences communities, as well as a bidirectional flow of concepts, applications and expertise. We support our argument by examining, in this new light, three existing areas of biocomputing (genetic programming, artificial immune systems and evolvable hardware), as well as an emerging area (natural genetic engineering) which may provide useful pointers as to the way forward.Comment: Submitted to the International Journal of Unconventional Computin