This award is made under the high performance connections portion of NCRI's "Connections to the Internet" announcement, NSF 96-64. It provides partial support for a connection to enhance and accommodate research needs for the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham by establishing a connection to the Very High Performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS) in coordination with the Alabama Research and Education Network. Projects in this proposal include: collaboration on thin film and particulate materials for ultra high-density information storage, simulation of virus capsid assembly from individual coat proteins, remote interactive design of inhibitors using molecular modeling techniques, multisite three-dimensional brain visualization, digital transmission of pediatric cardiology, remote use of astronomy observatories, medical videoscope computer-assisted neurosurgery, ATM network stress testing based on telepath paradigm, mobile network applications test-bed, distributed parallel processing in "tuple-space", simulations of action potential propagation in models of cardiac tissue, large scale simulations of materials, and distance learning. With this high performance network capability the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham will expand current research and collaboration with both academic institutions and federal laboratories. On this project, collaborating institutions include: Washington University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Minnesota, Harvard University, University of Nebraska, George Washington University, University of California at San Diego, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of Kentucky, MIT, Yale University, Columbia University, Auburn University, University of Arizona, Georgia Institute of Technology, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Ohio State University, University of North Carolina, and Henry Ford Hospital.
