Scientific Merit The principal investigators (PIs) will create a computing system that tightly couples extremely large-scale online disk storage with high-performance computing. This infrastructure will be shared among several research projects, each of which has a temporary need for large amounts of online storage when processing raw data, but has reduced storage requirements when operating on processed data. Computer Graphics: The PIs will perform precise measurement of the light scattering properties of objects. This will be the most accurate study of this kind ever undertaken, and will lead to a new generation of multidimensional, multi-object graphical rendering techniques. The World Wide Web: The PIs will perform studies measuring and quantifying the evolution of the World Wide Web. Until now, the sheer scale of the Web constrained reported studies of the Web to be performed exactly once. The new large-scale storage facility will enable the PIs to analyze multiple independent snapshots of the Web, to develop precise models for how the Web evolves over time. Astronomy: The PIs will store and analyze data from the newly upgraded Arecibo radio telescope, leading to discovery of new pulsars, including pulsars with millisecond spin periods and those in binary orbits with other neutron stars or black holes. The pulsar data will provide opportunities for research on the equation of state of nuclear matter, gravitation physics, gravitational waves, stellar evolution, relativistic plasma physics, and the magnetized, ionized gas in the Milky Way. The storage system will be hosted at the Cornell Theory Center. Analyzed data products from all projects will be made available over the Internet. Raw data will be shared with researchers throughout the U.S., either through visits to the Cornell Theory Center or by shipping data sets on disk drives.
Broader Impact. The PIs have concrete plans for coupling the research with educational activities at all levels, as well as for general public outreach. The CURIE Academy: The PIs will develop novel projects for the Cornell CURIE Academy, a one-week summer engineering immersion experience for high school girls. The first CURIE project will use data obtained with the facility to illustrate fundamental principles of optics and computer graphics.
Undergraduate Education: The work will impact undergraduate education in three different ways: (1) Several undergraduate courses are being adapted to make use of Web and astronomical data that will be available through the facility; (2) Cornell undergraduates will be invited to participate in supervised research related to the facility; and (3) The PIs will increase their interaction with Smith College, an undergraduate women's college in Massachusetts.
Graduate Education: The facility will naturally provide opportunities for Ph.D. level research. In addition, several graduate courses are planning to address both the research being done on the facility and the general area of data-intensive computing. Public Outreach: The PIs research will be displayed in SciCentr, a virtual science museum run by the Cornell Theory Center accessible on the Web at www.SciCentr.org. SciCentr received museum accreditation through the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) in May 2004. The PIs will develop a SciCentr exhibition for each research project associated with the new facility.
