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DISCO at SC2002

NCF, SARA, NIKHEF, Surf, Surfnet, CWI, NWO, Gigaport and the University of Amsterdam Advanced Internet Research Group combine forces in DISCO (Dutch Information technology, Supercomputing & Communications Overview), a joint presentation at SC2002 in Baltimore. On this page you find the presentations from the various participants.

For more information contact NCF.
DISCO 2002 logo

Bandwidth on Demand using the principles of Generic Authentication, Authorization and Accounting
University of Amsterdam – Bas van Oudenaarde

High quality videostreaming/conferencing
Surfnet – Bart Kerver

Distributed Data Assimilation
Utrecht University – Aad van der Steen

D0 Data Analysis
NIKHEF (National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics) – Antony Antony/Willem van Leeuwen

Augmented Virtuality
SARA – Paul Wielinga/Bram Stolk

Quantum computer emulator
University of Groningen - J.S. Kole

The Personal Space Station: Bringing 3D Interaction Within Reach.
National Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science – Jurriaan Mulder

Black hole eats star cluster
University of Amsterdam – Simon Portegies Zwart

Bandwidth on Demand using the principles of Generic Authentication, Authorization and Accounting

University of Amsterdam – Bas van Oudenaarde

What's the direction of the Internet? Large scale grid applications require massive amounts of network throughputs. Optical networks promise to deliver cost effective solutions by dedicating Lambda's to specific dataflows. This emerging differentiated service tailored architecture will have tremendous impact on the Internet Architecture. The (optical) high bandwidth connections represent value and therefore need to be authorized and provisioned. The scale of the Grid activities make this implicitly a multiple administrative domain problem.

The NetherLight facility is used to investigate novel concepts of optical provisioning and gain experience with these techniques, specially dealing with authorization and provisioning through multi domains. Research questions are how to handle the policies in multiple domains, how to handle SLA's between the domains, how to build a tailored topology etc. The AAA concepts as studied by the IRTF AAA-Architecture Research Group help to factorize the problem of distributed authorization and decision taking by disentangling the decision logic from the knowledge of the resource to be authorized, in this case the Network elements. The principles can be found in RFC 2903-2906 and 3334.

A Bandwidth on Demand (BoD) service based on Generic AAA will be demonstrated. An AAA server will handle incoming BoD requests and fetch the necessary policies to make a decision to authorize the usage of requested resources. In a multi domain case, a chain or tree of AAA servers are involved to make this decision.

High quality videostreaming/conferencing

Surfnet – Bart Kerver

At November 2, 2001 The University of California at Berkeley, the University of Tennessee and SURFnet, the national computer network for higher education and research in the Netherlands, have implemented the first live transatlantic broadband audio and video streams using MotionJPEG-over-IP. The implementation of this technology demonstrates how full-screen, near-TV quality video can be delivered over the Internet using simple, inexpensive hardware and freely available, open source software.

Standard desktop PCs running the Linux operating system and fitted with affordable graphics cards that can compress and decompress MotionJPEG images were used in the trial. Open source software developed by the University of California at Berkeley was used to transport the datastream over the Internet, and adapted by SURFnet to support the European PAL video format. The transmitted signal was sent at 16 megabits per second between SunSITE at the University of Tennessee and the SURFnet offices in Utrecht, the Netherlands, using the broadband connection made possible by Internet 2 and SURFnet. The use of these technologies provides significantly better video quality than those relying on the H.323 standard. H.323 is the current standard governing interactive audio, video, and data communications in a networked environment.

High-quality real-time video, video-on-demand and videoconferencing are critical for applications such as distance education, telemedicine, and remote scientific collaboration. Based on this initial success, Berkeley, Tennessee and SURFnet will continue to explore ways MotionJPEG-over-IP can be used to strengthen and expand academic instruction and research.

Distributed Data Assimilation

Utrecht University – Aad van der Steen

The Distributed Data Assimilation Demo is concerned with the integration of sparse satellite observation data into an ocean flow model such that the data optimally fit the model and the model is steered by the data in a stochastic way:

Many realisations of the data with randomly distributed parameters forming an ensemble are run. Periodically these runs are integrated with the satellite data and an optimal ensemble average is computed. The sequence of ensemble averages over time describes the development of the ocean's currents best fitting the observations.

This procedure is very time consuming and therefore the various realisations are distributed on a Computational Grid using Globus. After every timestep the global averaging occurs providing a starting point for the next distributed timestep. The result of each timestep is displayed for visual inspection and evaluation.

D0 Data Analysis

NIKHEF (National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics) – Antony Antony/Willem van Leeuwen

The D0 Experiment, which relies on the Tevatron Collider at Fermilab, is a worldwide collaboration of scientists conducting research on the fundamental nature of matter. The research focuses on precise studies of interactions of protons and antiprotons at the highest available energies as part of an intensive search for subatomic clues that reveal the character of the building blocks of the universe.

Currently, raw data from the D0 detector is processed at Fermilab’s computer farm and results are written to tape. It is possible for Fermilab to send raw data to Nikhef (Dutch National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics) for processing and then have NIKHEF send the results back to Fermilab by using the transoceanic Starlicht/Nether Light network.

Augmented Virtuality

SARA – Paul Wielinga/Bram Stolk

SARA will be demonstrating Augmented Virtuality technology on Super Computing 2002. SARA has a track-record in the field of Virtual Reality. The VR worlds created by SARA have so far been 100% virtual. However, it is possible to augment a virtual world with real-life components.

Together with Surfnet, SARA has been investigating the possibilities of doing teleconferencing in a VR environment. This has resulted in a system that is capable of putting live video feeds into an immersive virtual world. For a demonstration, visit the Disco booth. We intend to show you live video streams from a local SC2002 location, as well as live video from Amsterdam over the Internet.

Other VR demos at the DISCO booth include the Virtual Reality data mining on the human genome, as seen in Science magazine, issue oct 25th 2002.

Quantum computer emulator

University of Groningen - J.S. Kole

Quantum computation can in principle offer exponential decrease of computation time for solving certain ‘hard’ problems. The development of elementary scalable quantum processors is of importance to achieve larger-scale quantum computing, and the development of new microprocessor technology heavily relies on the ability to emulate the new hardware design on currently available technology. In the case of quantum processors this will not be different. It is important to develop software that simulates the physical model of each particular hardware design for a quantum computer, thereby strictly abiding to the laws of quantum mechanics. We have developed a Quantum Computer Emulator (QCE), a unique software tool to

validate hardware designs for scalable quantum processors

assist in the interpretation of experimental results.

debug and execute quantum algorithms.

Demonstration include:

Shor’s number factoring algorithm

Number partitioning algorithm

Grover’s database search algorithm

…

The Personal Space Station: Bringing 3D Interaction Within Reach.

National Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science – Jurriaan Mulder

Virtual reality offers a user the possibility to look at and manipulate a virtual three-dimensional world, generated by a computer. Besides obvious applications in the amusement industry , virtual reality can also contribute considerably to (scientific) research or product development in various areas of application, like biomedical modeling.

At the Center for Mathematics and Computer Science CWI in the Netherlands, the 'Personal Space Station' (PSS) has been developed. This environment enables the user to interact with the virtual world in a direct and intuitive way. During the development of the Personal Space Station special attention was paid to aspects like image quality, ergonomic use, natural interaction, multi-user cooperation and small initial expense.

The Personal Space Station is built of standard components, entailing minimal costs. The user looks at the monitor via a mirror. This enables the user to bring his hands into the same environment as the virtual 3D-objects without interrupting the visual image. Thus, interaction with virtual objects can take place in a direct, natural and intuitive way. Hand-eye coordination and 'proprioception' (the subconscious perception of the position of muscles and joints) are used to the full, which has a favorable effect on user convenience and task performance. The user is 'attracted' to the objects he sees; his natural reaction is usually to grab and manipulate them.

To facilitate wireless tracking of the interaction a custom optical tracking system was developed. A user has interaction devices in his hands, like a marked pen, cube or thimble. Using infrared lighting, two cameras with infrared-pass filters, and retro-reflective markers these interaction devices can easily be constructed and applied. Device recognition is based on projection-invariant pattern characteristics. Reconstruction is realized through stereo correspondence and so-called epipolar geometry. Once it is determined which point in the left camera image corresponds with which point in the right camera image, and the internal and external camera parameters are known, the position of the matching marker in the 3D environment can easily be determined.

A unique aspect of the Personal Space Station is that it enables more people to look at and manipulate the same virtual world simultaneously. By cascading several Personal Space Stations a virtual reality environment is created in which multiple users share the same physical and virtual workspace. This is of the utmost importance for applications where several persons want to cooperate, communicate and interact. For the communication and synchronization of the connected stations, a software model was developed based on a 'publish and subscribe' paradigm. Through a central 'Data Manager' the important simulation, tracker, and synchronization parameters are communicated.

At Supercomputing 2002, a prototype Personal Space Station is installed. Visitors can experience the advantages of the Personal Space Station through one of the example applications.

Black hole eats star cluster

University of Amsterdam – Simon Portegies Zwart

Animation of a cluster with 65536 stars which initially was on a circular orbit around the Galactic center. The initial density profile was chosen to be a King model with W0=3 and a virial radius of 0.167pc. Stars are selected from the Scalo initial mass function between 0.3Msun and 100Msun, and initial positions and velocities of the stars are given independent of the stellar mass.

The cluster rotated initially at 60\% of its break-up speed with angular momentum axis parallel to the angular momentum axis of the clusters' orbit around the Galactic center. These calculations are performed with the worlds' fastest computer, the GRAPE-6 (see http://www.astrogrape.org).

The cluster was born at a distance of 4pc from the Galactic center, but it spirals in due to the dynamical friction between the cluster and the background stellar population in the Galactic center. The dynamical friction terms are computed analytically and the stars which make up the Galactic background are not shown. The entire animation covers about 0.75Myr (only a small portion is shown here) of the evolution of the cluster, one orbit around the Galactic center takes about 100 000 years. The crossing time in the cluster is about 12 000 years.

More information is available via http://www.manybody.org

These calculations are performed for a research project in collaboration with Simon Portegies Zwart (University of Amsterdam), Steven McMillan (Drexel University), Piet Hut (Institute for Advanced Study) and Junichiro Makino (Tokyo University).


	Home - What are SC's? - SC's in The Netherlands - Links - Downloads - Contact

	DISCO at SC2002 NCF, SARA, NIKHEF, Surf, Surfnet, CWI, NWO, Gigaport and the University of Amsterdam Advanced Internet Research Group combine forces in DISCO (Dutch Information technology, Supercomputing & Communications Overview), a joint presentation at SC2002 in Baltimore. On this page you find the presentations from the various participants. For more information contact NCF. Bandwidth on Demand using the principles of Generic Authentication, Authorization and Accounting University of Amsterdam – Bas van Oudenaarde High quality videostreaming/conferencing Surfnet – Bart Kerver Distributed Data Assimilation Utrecht University – Aad van der Steen D0 Data Analysis NIKHEF (National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics) – Antony Antony/Willem van Leeuwen Augmented Virtuality SARA – Paul Wielinga/Bram Stolk Quantum computer emulator University of Groningen - J.S. Kole The Personal Space Station: Bringing 3D Interaction Within Reach. National Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science – Jurriaan Mulder Black hole eats star cluster University of Amsterdam – Simon Portegies Zwart Bandwidth on Demand using the principles of Generic Authentication, Authorization and Accounting University of Amsterdam – Bas van Oudenaarde What's the direction of the Internet? Large scale grid applications require massive amounts of network throughputs. Optical networks promise to deliver cost effective solutions by dedicating Lambda's to specific dataflows. This emerging differentiated service tailored architecture will have tremendous impact on the Internet Architecture. The (optical) high bandwidth connections represent value and therefore need to be authorized and provisioned. The scale of the Grid activities make this implicitly a multiple administrative domain problem. The NetherLight facility is used to investigate novel concepts of optical provisioning and gain experience with these techniques, specially dealing with authorization and provisioning through multi domains. Research questions are how to handle the policies in multiple domains, how to handle SLA's between the domains, how to build a tailored topology etc. The AAA concepts as studied by the IRTF AAA-Architecture Research Group help to factorize the problem of distributed authorization and decision taking by disentangling the decision logic from the knowledge of the resource to be authorized, in this case the Network elements. The principles can be found in RFC 2903-2906 and 3334. A Bandwidth on Demand (BoD) service based on Generic AAA will be demonstrated. An AAA server will handle incoming BoD requests and fetch the necessary policies to make a decision to authorize the usage of requested resources. In a multi domain case, a chain or tree of AAA servers are involved to make this decision. High quality videostreaming/conferencing Surfnet – Bart Kerver At November 2, 2001 The University of California at Berkeley, the University of Tennessee and SURFnet, the national computer network for higher education and research in the Netherlands, have implemented the first live transatlantic broadband audio and video streams using MotionJPEG-over-IP. The implementation of this technology demonstrates how full-screen, near-TV quality video can be delivered over the Internet using simple, inexpensive hardware and freely available, open source software. Standard desktop PCs running the Linux operating system and fitted with affordable graphics cards that can compress and decompress MotionJPEG images were used in the trial. Open source software developed by the University of California at Berkeley was used to transport the datastream over the Internet, and adapted by SURFnet to support the European PAL video format. The transmitted signal was sent at 16 megabits per second between SunSITE at the University of Tennessee and the SURFnet offices in Utrecht, the Netherlands, using the broadband connection made possible by Internet 2 and SURFnet. The use of these technologies provides significantly better video quality than those relying on the H.323 standard. H.323 is the current standard governing interactive audio, video, and data communications in a networked environment. High-quality real-time video, video-on-demand and videoconferencing are critical for applications such as distance education, telemedicine, and remote scientific collaboration. Based on this initial success, Berkeley, Tennessee and SURFnet will continue to explore ways MotionJPEG-over-IP can be used to strengthen and expand academic instruction and research. Distributed Data Assimilation Utrecht University – Aad van der Steen The Distributed Data Assimilation Demo is concerned with the integration of sparse satellite observation data into an ocean flow model such that the data optimally fit the model and the model is steered by the data in a stochastic way: Many realisations of the data with randomly distributed parameters forming an ensemble are run. Periodically these runs are integrated with the satellite data and an optimal ensemble average is computed. The sequence of ensemble averages over time describes the development of the ocean's currents best fitting the observations. This procedure is very time consuming and therefore the various realisations are distributed on a Computational Grid using Globus. After every timestep the global averaging occurs providing a starting point for the next distributed timestep. The result of each timestep is displayed for visual inspection and evaluation. D0 Data Analysis NIKHEF (National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics) – Antony Antony/Willem van Leeuwen The D0 Experiment, which relies on the Tevatron Collider at Fermilab, is a worldwide collaboration of scientists conducting research on the fundamental nature of matter. The research focuses on precise studies of interactions of protons and antiprotons at the highest available energies as part of an intensive search for subatomic clues that reveal the character of the building blocks of the universe. Currently, raw data from the D0 detector is processed at Fermilab’s computer farm and results are written to tape. It is possible for Fermilab to send raw data to Nikhef (Dutch National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics) for processing and then have NIKHEF send the results back to Fermilab by using the transoceanic Starlicht/Nether Light network. Augmented Virtuality SARA – Paul Wielinga/Bram Stolk SARA will be demonstrating Augmented Virtuality technology on Super Computing 2002. SARA has a track-record in the field of Virtual Reality. The VR worlds created by SARA have so far been 100% virtual. However, it is possible to augment a virtual world with real-life components. Together with Surfnet, SARA has been investigating the possibilities of doing teleconferencing in a VR environment. This has resulted in a system that is capable of putting live video feeds into an immersive virtual world. For a demonstration, visit the Disco booth. We intend to show you live video streams from a local SC2002 location, as well as live video from Amsterdam over the Internet. Other VR demos at the DISCO booth include the Virtual Reality data mining on the human genome, as seen in Science magazine, issue oct 25th 2002. Quantum computer emulator University of Groningen - J.S. Kole Quantum computation can in principle offer exponential decrease of computation time for solving certain ‘hard’ problems. The development of elementary scalable quantum processors is of importance to achieve larger-scale quantum computing, and the development of new microprocessor technology heavily relies on the ability to emulate the new hardware design on currently available technology. In the case of quantum processors this will not be different. It is important to develop software that simulates the physical model of each particular hardware design for a quantum computer, thereby strictly abiding to the laws of quantum mechanics. We have developed a Quantum Computer Emulator (QCE), a unique software tool to validate hardware designs for scalable quantum processors assist in the interpretation of experimental results. debug and execute quantum algorithms. Demonstration include: Shor’s number factoring algorithm Number partitioning algorithm Grover’s database search algorithm … The Personal Space Station: Bringing 3D Interaction Within Reach. National Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science – Jurriaan Mulder Virtual reality offers a user the possibility to look at and manipulate a virtual three-dimensional world, generated by a computer. Besides obvious applications in the amusement industry , virtual reality can also contribute considerably to (scientific) research or product development in various areas of application, like biomedical modeling. At the Center for Mathematics and Computer Science CWI in the Netherlands, the 'Personal Space Station' (PSS) has been developed. This environment enables the user to interact with the virtual world in a direct and intuitive way. During the development of the Personal Space Station special attention was paid to aspects like image quality, ergonomic use, natural interaction, multi-user cooperation and small initial expense. The Personal Space Station is built of standard components, entailing minimal costs. The user looks at the monitor via a mirror. This enables the user to bring his hands into the same environment as the virtual 3D-objects without interrupting the visual image. Thus, interaction with virtual objects can take place in a direct, natural and intuitive way. Hand-eye coordination and 'proprioception' (the subconscious perception of the position of muscles and joints) are used to the full, which has a favorable effect on user convenience and task performance. The user is 'attracted' to the objects he sees; his natural reaction is usually to grab and manipulate them. To facilitate wireless tracking of the interaction a custom optical tracking system was developed. A user has interaction devices in his hands, like a marked pen, cube or thimble. Using infrared lighting, two cameras with infrared-pass filters, and retro-reflective markers these interaction devices can easily be constructed and applied. Device recognition is based on projection-invariant pattern characteristics. Reconstruction is realized through stereo correspondence and so-called epipolar geometry. Once it is determined which point in the left camera image corresponds with which point in the right camera image, and the internal and external camera parameters are known, the position of the matching marker in the 3D environment can easily be determined. A unique aspect of the Personal Space Station is that it enables more people to look at and manipulate the same virtual world simultaneously. By cascading several Personal Space Stations a virtual reality environment is created in which multiple users share the same physical and virtual workspace. This is of the utmost importance for applications where several persons want to cooperate, communicate and interact. For the communication and synchronization of the connected stations, a software model was developed based on a 'publish and subscribe' paradigm. Through a central 'Data Manager' the important simulation, tracker, and synchronization parameters are communicated. At Supercomputing 2002, a prototype Personal Space Station is installed. Visitors can experience the advantages of the Personal Space Station through one of the example applications. Black hole eats star cluster University of Amsterdam – Simon Portegies Zwart Animation of a cluster with 65536 stars which initially was on a circular orbit around the Galactic center. The initial density profile was chosen to be a King model with W0=3 and a virial radius of 0.167pc. Stars are selected from the Scalo initial mass function between 0.3Msun and 100Msun, and initial positions and velocities of the stars are given independent of the stellar mass. The cluster rotated initially at 60\% of its break-up speed with angular momentum axis parallel to the angular momentum axis of the clusters' orbit around the Galactic center. These calculations are performed with the worlds' fastest computer, the GRAPE-6 (see http://www.astrogrape.org). The cluster was born at a distance of 4pc from the Galactic center, but it spirals in due to the dynamical friction between the cluster and the background stellar population in the Galactic center. The dynamical friction terms are computed analytically and the stars which make up the Galactic background are not shown. The entire animation covers about 0.75Myr (only a small portion is shown here) of the evolution of the cluster, one orbit around the Galactic center takes about 100 000 years. The crossing time in the cluster is about 12 000 years. More information is available via http://www.manybody.org These calculations are performed for a research project in collaboration with Simon Portegies Zwart (University of Amsterdam), Steven McMillan (Drexel University), Piet Hut (Institute for Advanced Study) and Junichiro Makino (Tokyo University).