Education and Training
Computational Science Minor
Computational Science is an interdisciplinary graduate minor program. Below is an example of some of the information available on the program website.
- What is the Computational Science Graduate Minor?
- What Courses do Students Need to Take?
- What are the Core Courses?
- What Other Courses can be used for the PhD Minor?
- Who is Currently Enrolled in the Minor?
- How does a Student Apply for the Minor?
Introduction to Multi–core Performance
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is offering a Web-based course, "Introduction to Multi–core Performance". This tutorial helps current and prospective users of multi–core systems understand and utilize multi–core technology to accelerate their research. Multi–core processors, which hold the promise of enhanced performance and more efficient parallel processing, are a key stepping stone on the path to petascale computation. Applications that run on multi–core systems must be optimized to take full advantage of the improved performance offered by multi–core technology.
The introductory tutorial covers topics on terminology, cache performance, multi–core and cache effects with respect to MPI using simple MPI benchmarks, and application optimization. Each of the sections in the multi–core performance course offers a statement of objectives and a brief introduction. The examples that are provided throughout the tutorial were run on three TeraGrid systems with multi–core processors, each consisting of many multi–core machines assembled as a Linux cluster. Self–tests help users check their understanding of the material resented.
The new multi–core performance course uses NCSA’s CI–Tutor, a Web–based course tool. CI–Tutor currently offers 11 courses covering high–performance computing topics such as code debugging, MPI, scientific visualization, and performance tuning. There are no restrictions on who can take a course. Anyone can create a login to access the available courses.
To browse the course catalog, go to http://ci–tutor.ncsa.uiuc.edu/browse.php.
To create a login and take a course, go to http://ci–tutor.ncsa.uiuc.edu/.
Virtual School of Computational Science and Engineering
The Virtual School of Computational Science and Engineering (VSCSE) helps graduate students, post–docs and young professionals from all disciplines and institutions across the country gain the skills they need to use advanced computational resources to advance their research.
Often the practical aspects of computational science fall between the cracks, as computer science departments focus on what computer scientists need to know and domain science and engineering departments focus on the applications of computer science to those disciplines. The Virtual School was created to help students fill those knowledge gaps, preparing them to use emerging petascale (and then exascale) computing resources. Participating in the Virtual School also helps students build networks of fellow researchers who they can turn to for support and collaboration.
Virtual School courses are delivered simultaneously at multiple locations across the country using high–definition videoconferencing technology.
Courses for 2012 were:
- Programming Heterogeneous Parallel Computing Systems
- Science Cloud Summer School
- Proven Algorithmic Techniques for Many–core Processors
We will be posting information on the 2013 VSCSE Summer School Courses
as it becomes available
For more information about VSCSE go to http://www.vscse.org