Center for Computation and Technology

CCT

CCT: Center for Computation & Technology at Louisiana State University

The Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, is an interdisciplinary research center located on the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La. CCT advances LSU’s Flagship Agenda and promotes economic development for the state by using computational applications to aid research and develop solutions that benefit academia and industry.

LSU previously housed the Center for Applied Information Technology & Learning, called LSU CAPITAL. In 2003, LSU CAPITAL was integrated as a full research center on LSU’s campus and renamed the Center for Computation & Technology.

CCT is an innovative research environment, advancing computational sciences, technologies and the disciplines they touch. Researchers at CCT use the advanced cyberinfrastructure – systems that incorporate high-speed networks, high-performance computing, advanced data storage and analysis and hardware and software development – available on campus to enable breakthroughs in many academic fields, from physics to computer science to art and animation.

CCT’s Director is Ed Seidel, Ph.D., who is internationally renowned for his work in numerical relativity. Seidel was the recipient of the 2006 Sidney Fernbach award, an international honor from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers that recognizes career achievements in using high-performance computer technology to solve problems in demanding application areas, such as physics or engineering. Seidel was honored for his work to develop collaborative, high-performance computing approaches to solve complex problems in physics, such as Einstein’s equations of general relativity, specifically for colliding black holes.

In addition to Director Ed Seidel, staff at the CCT include Gabrielle Allen, Ph.D., computer scientist and co-creator of the Cactus Framework; Thomas Sterling, Ph.D., former NASA scientist and co-creator of the Beowulf class cluster that is a building block of the world’s supercomputers; and Susanne Brenner, Ph.D., recipient of the 2005 Humboldt Research Award.

CCT employs 25 full-time faculty members, all of whom hold joint appointments with other LSU departments, such as Department of Computer Science, College of Basic Sciences and College of Music and Dramatic Arts. The center also has six post-doctoral staff, 30 research staff and 44 graduate students. CCT recruits researchers from all disciplines to create an environment where scientists work side by side with artists and musicians to advance the future through high-performance computing.

The CCT is primarily located in Johnston Hall on the LSU campus, but offices and cyberinfrastructure also are housed in the Frey Computing Services Center. LSU’s Supercomputer, SuperMike, was located in Frey and used for nearly five years for advanced research. In June 2007, SuperMike began being dismantled to make way for construction of the University’s new supercomputer, Tezpur.

Named for one of the world’s hottest peppers, Tezpur is nearly three times as fast as SuperMike, and is one of the most powerful supercomputers owned by any university in the nation. Tezpur also is one of the 50 most powerful supercomputers in the world.

Tezpur will be an integral part of allowing CCT researchers to use the resources of the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, or LONI. LONI is a high-speed, fiber optic network that links supercomputers at the state’s major research institutions, allowing greater collaboration on research that produces results faster and with greater accuracy. LONI puts the state on the National Lambda Rail, allowing Louisiana researchers to collaborate with scientists around the country. With LONI, Louisiana possesses one of the most advanced networking environments in the world.

CCT also houses the Laboratory for Creative Arts & Technology, or LCAT, which provides a forum and facility for faculty and researchers from across the LSU campus to interact with CCT. The lab, located in Frey, houses dedicated research labs for audio, video and tangible technologies, as well as an Access Grid-enabled classroom, a10-Gbit networking and the Imaginarium (a large, open room with space for visualization research.)

All CCT research activities are organized into broad, interdisciplinary “focus areas,” each led by a CCT faculty member. Staff within the focus areas develop research agendas that share expertise and technologies across LSU departments, which makes them eligible for federal grants. Focus Areas are coordinated by the CCT Assistant Director for Computing Applications, Gabrielle Allen, Ph.D., one of the lead creators of the Cactus toolkit.

The four CCT Focus Areas for research are:

Core Computational Science This focus area, led by Dr. Allen, is researching and developing methods, tools and techniques to enable a broad array of applications areas. The Focus Area integrates faculty from the LSU Departments of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mathematics in the development of software, algorithms and hardware. Research groups in this area include:

• Grid Computing
• Computational Mathematics
• Scientific Computing
• Networks and Sensors
• Computational Frameworks
• Lanet: An Advanced Networking Research Group

Coast to Cosmos The Coast To Cosmos focus area, led by Joel Tohline, Ph. D., is building research groups that are concerned with modeling the complex physical world in which we live. The research groups have common needs for advanced software to support large-scale simulations, collaborative tools to enable diverse sets of scientists to interact and visualization and analysis tools to understand results and compare to experiments. This area currently includes faculty from the LSU Departments of Physics and Mechanical Engineering, with research groups in:

• Numerical Relativity
• Computational Fluid Dynamics

Human and Social World The Human & Social World focus area, led by Stephen David Beck, Ph.D., concentrates on complex computational problems as they relate to applications in the humanities, arts, business and social sciences. This focus area explores the intersection of technology with all forms of human expression and creativity and how such technology can be effectively used and adopted with non-traditional application groups, such as animation and visualization. It investigates how new technologies can be used to complement research in social sciences and the humanities, as well as provide new tools, platforms and environments for artistic expression. The Laboratory for Creative Arts and Technologies is integral to this focus area.

Two research groups make up this focus area:

• Emerging Computational Applications
• Technology Adoption

Material World The Material World focus area, led by Jorge Pullin, Ph.D., works to develop research groups in the computational fields of material science, chemistry and biology. Current activity in this area involves faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering working on problems in experimental material science.

Some research highlights of CCT include:

Numerical Relativity: CCT researchers work to prove the existence of gravitational waves by observing black hole collisions. Using the high-performance software that CCT researchers developed to model black hole collisions will enable researchers to make predictions on what gravitational waves would look like, and the supercomputing technology at CCT allows teams of researchers from different fields to work together at mapping the collisions.

Hurricane visualizations: Integrating data from multiple sources, a team of CCT researchers has built a three-dimensional scientific visualization of Hurricane Katrina’s path. Such visual tools are important for scientists to interpret and improve their complex models, as well for educating the public on the devastating effects of hurricanes. Since hurricanes will always be an aspect of life on the Gulf Coast, CCT researchers have used the technology of supercomputing to develop methods of more accurately predicting storm surge, sediment deposits and flooding. By expanding the window of opportunity to run these models, CCT will be better able to warn the public about the dangers of these storms.

Lake Pontchartrain Forecast System: Built in collaboration with coastal scientists at University of North Carolina, the Lake Pontchartrain Forecast System uses the networks and supercomputers of the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative to run numerous on-demand storm surge models. The automated system is used to predict surge levels in New Orleans, and in particular provides information to the Army Corps of Engineers, which uses this data to make decisions about when to close and then reopen the canal gates at 17th Street, London Avenue and Orleans Street. This system was developed and tested throughout the 2006 Hurricane Season and will be improved and used again in other hurricane seasons.

“High-Performance Computing: Concepts, Methods and Means” : This course, which premiered in the Spring 2007 semester at LSU, offers an interdisciplinary look at using high-performance computing is the first use of high-definition video over the Internet for distributed classroom instruction in the United States. It is offered for credit through LSU and broadcast to other universities nationally and internationally. This course was developed by CCT Professor Thomas Sterling to address the “graying of the scientific community” by ensuring that more students have the opportunity to learn about high-performance computing.

HARC co-allocator: The Highly-Available Robust co-allocator was designed and implemented by Louisiana State University. HARC provides a means for reliably coordinating both computer and network resources internationally. In 2006, HARC was used in the largest worldwide co-allocation demonstration to date. Researchers in the United States and Japan demonstrated "automated" interoperability between network and computing resources in two national Grid computing research test beds -- the first such demonstration of this scale between two countries of new, integrated computing and communication technology that can be used to exponentially enhance next-generation Internet performance.

CCT is also the lead sponsor of the Red Stick International Animation Festival, [Red Stick http://www.redstickfestival.org], an annual event in downtown Baton Rouge that brings together artists, animators, filmmakers, computer scientists and also animation enthusiasts to showcase the latest developments in Louisiana's digital arts and technology sectors, which is leading to economic development for the state and the city.

Red Stick International Animation Festival is sponsored by CCT, Baton Rouge Convention & Visitors Bureau, Baton Rouge Area Foundation, City of Baton Rouge and the Governor’s Office of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, and is hosted by CCT’s Laboratory for Creative Arts & Technologies, Louisiana Arts & Sciences Museum, the Manship Theatre, the LSU Museum of Art and the Old State Capitol.

For more information on CCT research activities, visit [CCT http://www.cct.lsu.edu.]