Collaborative Research: Conceptualizing an Institute for Using Inter-Domain Abstractions to Support Inter-Disciplinary Applications

协作研究：概念化一个使用跨域抽象来支持跨学科应用的研究所

• 批准号: 1216788
• 负责人: David Padua
• 金额: $ 13.5万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-10-01 至 2016-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1216788&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Conceptualizing; Institute; Using

This grant is a planning grant to fund the conceptualization of an institute for software infrastructure for sustained innovation. It funds the planning of the technical and organizational aspects. To understand community requirements, it involves workshops and outreach to gather community requirements. To fully understand the behavior of a complex physical phenomenon such as a burning building, it is often necessary to understand both large-scale effects such as the buildup of heat on each floor, and small-scale effects, such as how a steal beam in the foundation deforms as it gets hotter. Computational simulations that study such effects in tandem are called "multi-scale" simulations, and are exceedingly difficult to write. This is because the computational models that represent the different scales differ widely, and the software components used to simulate each scale are often incompatible. Combining these disparate components requires painstaking and error prone programmer labor. This project will conceptualize an institute devoted to providing solutions to scientists investigating multi-scale problems. The project centers around reaching out to computational scientists and computer systems researchers to determine both what kinds of programming abstractions may be useful for different computational models and how to best adapt existing abstractions to the challenges of multi-scale simulation. The goal is to enable the establishment of an institute that will study the use of various programming abstractions to bridge the gap between differing software components, hence easing the pain of writing multi-scale simulations. The ultimate effect will be to allow multi-scale systems to be simulated accurately and efficiently, providing deeper insights into the behavior of complex physical systems.

这笔赠款是一项规划赠款，旨在资助可持续创新软件基础设施研究所的概念化。它为技术和组织方面的规划提供资金。为了了解社区需求，需要举办研讨会和外展活动来收集社区需求。为了充分理解复杂物理现象（例如燃烧的建筑物）的行为，通常需要了解大规模效应（例如每层楼的热量积聚）和小规模效应（例如钢梁如何在建筑物中燃烧）。随着温度升高，地基会变形。串联研究此类效应的计算模拟称为“多尺度”模拟，并且非常难以编写。这是因为代表不同尺度的计算模型差异很大，并且用于模拟每个尺度的软件组件通常不兼容。将这些不同的组件组合起来需要程序员的艰苦且容易出错的劳动。该项目将概念化一个研究所，致力于为研究多尺度问题的科学家提供解决方案。 该项目的重点是联系计算科学家和计算机系统研究人员，以确定哪些类型的编程抽象可能对不同的计算模型有用，以及如何最好地使现有抽象适应多尺度模拟的挑战。目标是建立一个研究所，研究各种编程抽象的使用，以弥合不同软件组件之间的差距，从而减轻编写多尺度模拟的痛苦。最终的效果将是能够准确有效地模拟多尺度系统，从而为复杂物理系统的行为提供更深入的见解。