This project will enhance research in computational science on state-of-the-art high performance computers, clusters, and intercontinental GRID computing environments. We will extend parallel methods to solve very large-scale problems in computational neurology, science, and engineering using hardware-assisted algorithms. The applications to be investigated include computational neurology, imaging and noninvasive blood flow analysis, ocean modeling, and general computational fluid dynamics. We will develop better algorithms, including ones for algebraic multigrid, parallel methods, for solution of partial differential equations, saddle point problems, eigencomponents, optimization methods, and hardware-assisted methods. The new algorithms will be incorporated into the applications in order to demonstrate usefulness besides just creativity.
This project will solidify broad based collaborations between faculties at three universities: one U.S. (University of Kentucky) and two Austrian (Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz and the Karl-Franzens- Universitat Graz). The collaboration will expose a number of U.S. graduate students to international research opportunities, including minority or Appalachian students. Typical University of Kentucky students do not have much experience with top-fliight, internationally oriented universities and are at a serious disadvantage upon graduation. This project will give the students an edge they cannot hope for by just staying on campus. The experience they will receive from this project will be similar to doing a postdoctoral fellowship before graduation.
This project will vastly broaden the horizons of University of Kentucky students, who typically only see local researchers or one-day visitors whose schedules do not include more than an hour to talk to students. While visitors sometimes motivate students, there is no replacement for actually working for an extended time with the same visitors and their own research groups. The U.S. members will also teach short courses and participate in active seminar series in Austria during the summer months. Both faculties will personally benefit from exposure to a larger and diverse audience for their research skills and will be able to disseminate results to a much wider audience.
