Basic Research and Human Resources (BRHR)

The BRHR component is designed to increase the flow of innovative ideas by encouraging investigator-initiated, long-term research in scalable high performance computing; to increase the pool of skilled and trained personnel by enhancing education and training in high performance computing and communications; and to provide the infrastructure needed to support these research and education activities.

The BRHR component is organized into four elements:

I. Basic Research

This element supports increased participation by individual investigators in conducting disciplinary and multidisciplinary research in computer science, computer engineering, and computational science and engineering related to high performance computing and communications. Research topics include:

• Foundations of future high performance computing systems.

• High performance hardware components and systems, high density packaging technologies, and system design tools.

• Mathematical models, numeric and symbolic algorithms, and library development for scalable and massively parallel computers.

• High level languages, performance prediction models and tools, and fault tolerant strategies for parallel and distributed systems.

• Large scale database processing; knowledge based processing; image processing; digital libraries; visualization; and multimedia computing.

• Resource management strategies and software collaboratory environments for scalable parallel and heterogeneous distributed systems.

II. Research Participation and Training

This element addresses the human resources pipeline in the computer and computational sciences, at undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral (training and re-training) levels. Activities include:

• Workshops, short courses, and seminars.

• Fellowships in computational science and engineering and experimental computer science.

• Career training in medical informatics through grants to young investigators.

• Institutional training and postdoctoral programs; knowledge transfer exchange programs at national laboratories, centers, universities, and industry.

• Software dissemination through national databases and libraries.

III. Infrastructure

This element seeks to improve university and government facilities for computer science, computer engineering, and computational science and engineering research related to high performance computing. Activities include:

• Improvement of equipment in computer science, computer engineering and computational science and engineering academic departments, centers, and institutions; development of scientific databases and repositories.

• Distribution of integrated system building kits and software tools.

IV. Education, Training, and Curriculum

This element seeks to expand existing activities and initiate new efforts to improve K-12, undergraduate, and graduate level education and training opportunities in high performance computing and communications technologies, computational science and engineering for both students and educators. The introduction of associated curriculum and training materials at all levels is an integral part of this effort. Activities include:

• Bringing people, especially teachers, to national centers and laboratories, for summer institutes and other training, technology transfer, and educational experiences.
• Utilizing professional scientists and engineers to provide curriculum development materials and instruction for high school students in the context of high school supercomputer programs, supercomputer user workshops, summer institutes, and career development informatics for health sciences.

BRHR Component Implementation

Each agency that participates in the BRHR component sponsors research participation and education/training programs designed to meet specific mission needs. Some of these activities are as follows.

• ARPA supports basic research in such areas as high performance components, high density packaging, scalable concepts, system design tools and foundations of petaops systems.

• NSF's basic research programs promote innovative research on the foundation sciences and technologies of HPCC as well as specific disciplinary activities in HPCC. NSF coordinates its basic research and infrastructure activities to foster balance in the multiagency HPCC Program. Through its "research experiences for undergraduates," SuperQuest, postdoctoral, graduate fellowship, educational and minority infrastructure programs, NSF addresses long term national needs in HPCC.

• DOE supports basic research to advance the knowledge of mathematical, computational, and computer sciences needed to model complex physical, chemical, and biological phenomena involved in energy production and storage systems. DOE also is actively involved in education and training activities at all levels.

• NASA conducts basic research through NASA research institutes and university block grants, including support at the graduate and postdoctoral level.

• NIH supports basic research and training in the use of advanced computing and network communications. Predoctoral and postdoctoral grants for career training in medical informatics are being expanded.

• NOAA conducts basic research in computational fluid dynamics applications in atmospheric and oceanic processes.

• EPA sponsors targeted fellowships and basic research activities, and develops and evaluates training methods and materials to support transfer of advanced environmental assessment tools to Federal, state, and industrial sectors.

Partnerships with industry, universities, and government help accomplish BRHR objectives.

FY 1993 Accomplishments

In FY 1993, more than 1,000 research awards funded the following activities:

• Basic research in high performance computational approaches to materials processing, molecular structures, fluid dynamics, and structural mechanics.

• Basic research on scalable parallel systems in fundamental areas of mathematical models, algorithms, performance evaluation techniques, databases, visualization and multimedia computing, digital libraries, and collaboratory technologies.

• An increased number of computer and computational science and engineering postdoctoral awards and graduate fellowships.

• High school honors programs, teacher training programs and "research experience for undergraduates" in HPCC.

• The introduction of the computational science textbook, which involved 24 authors in 10 different disciplines, into classrooms as part of a pilot project for Computer Science for High School Teachers.

• Institutional infrastructure awards to support experimental and novel high performance computing research at universities and national laboratories.

• Educational and minority infrastructure awards in undergraduate institutions.

FY 1994 Plans

• Develop a program to apply the principles of artificial intelligence to advanced intelligent manufacturing.

• Develop a program to integrate virtual reality technology into high performance computing and communications systems.

• Develop an initiative in digital libraries.

• Increase research in real time, three-dimensional imaging and multimedia computing.

• Increase support of information intensive applications of HPCC technologies in health care, information libraries development, education, and manufacturing.

• Increase support for scalable parallel computers.

• Increase education and training activities in HPCC through establishment of network-based educational testbeds.

• Increase number of postdoctoral and graduate fellowship awards.

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