Summary Report Indiana University, Purdue University, and the University of Notre Dame collaborated to present a high-tech display demonstrating Indiana's growing stature as a force in information technology innovation. This conference, held this year Nov. 5-10th in Dallas, Texas, is the largest and most important national and international conference in the area of supercomputing and high performance networking. Participants, observers, and conference organizers all regarded the Indiana/Purdue/Notre Dame display, called Research@Indiana, as a great success. Research@Indiana showcased developments within Indiana in several areas of advanced information technology, including supercomputing systems and applications, massive data storage systems, high performance telecommunications, virtual reality, and e-commerce. The technology featured in Research@Indiana has applications in science, engineering, medicine, the arts, and informatics. Research@Indiana organizers estimate that at least a quarter of the 5000 conference attendees visited the booth and watched a demonstration or read the literature in the booth. The vast majority of conference attendees observed the booth and were aware that something special had happened for the first time ever at the SuperComputing conference series: all of the research universities in one state came together to promote their own research, collaborations among the Universities, and the entire state's high technology achievements. Michael A. McRobbie, Vice President for Information Technology and CIO of Indiana University, said, "this effort promotes the excellent advanced research being carried out at these three great universities, and also shows how the whole State is cooperating to advance the vision of Indiana as a major mid-western high tech center." Louis Turcotte, now CIO at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, said "As the SuperComputing2000 General Chair, and a resident of Indiana, I was extremely proud of Indiana's participation. Any attendee quickly realized that Indiana is on the forefront of advanced computing and the state is well positioned as a national leader. Most importantly, Indiana's consolidated exhibit showcased the great benefits that can be achieved when several organizations work closely towards a common agenda." More than 50 representatives of Indiana University, Purdue University, and the University of Notre Dame participated in the SuperComputing2000 conference. The Research@Indiana display included demonstrations of 20 advanced computer applications. In addition, a virtual poster display featured brief snapshots of more than 50 other innovations created by universities in the State of Indiana. Highlights of Research@Indiana included: IU Computer Science professors Dennis Gannon and Randall Bramley demonstrated science portal technology being developed as the next step in web-based access to supercomputing resources. Notre Dame Computer Science Professor Andrew Lumsdaine demonstrated LAM/MPI, an interoperable system for parallel computing designed to make programming easier and to make the operation of parallel programs across multiple, heterogeneous supercomputers simple. Purdue Computer Science Professor José Fortes and postdoctoral researcher Nirav Kapadia demonstrated the PUNCH system. PUNCH (Purdue University Network Computing Hubs) is a means for network-based distributed high performance computing, and is one of the technology transfer opportunities featured by Purdue researchers. Notre Dame Computer Science Professor Jesús Izaguirre demonstrated virtual reality applications making use of haptic feedback devices — devices that enable a person to 'feel' as well as see in 3D. Purdue Computer Science Graduate Student Matthew Knepley, and his advisor, Purdue Computer Science Department Chair Ahmed Sameh, demonstrated GVec. GVec simulated particles in complex fluids using a fully coupled finite element model, capable of some of the largest such simulations ever performed. IU researchers demonstrated new software being developed by Indiana University as part of the High Performance Storage System in the Research@Indiana booth, the Sun Microsystems, Inc. booth, and the HPSS booth. IU, IBM Inc., and RIKEN Research Institute (Japan) collaborated on a live demonstration of molecular interactions of sodium chloride in a water solution. This simulation was performed using a special-purpose MD-GRAPE2 system in the RIKEN display, controlled in real time and visualized via a 3-D display by Indiana University researchers. IU Library and Information Science Professors Katy Börner and Howard Rosenbaum taught classes in e-commerce and information science from the exhibit floor of SC2000 to IU classrooms in Indianapolis and Bloomington. Fine Arts Professor Margaret Dolinsky delivered a 3-D virtual reality art work presentation 'virtually' on the SC2000 exhibit floor via collaborative software while she was physically located in IU's CAVE virtual reality system in Bloomington, IN. John T. Korb, Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University and a member of the Research@Indiana Organizing Committee said, "This display was an excellent opportunity for Purdue researchers to interact with other Indiana researchers and develop ties for future collaborations. As a team, all of us from the state were able to show to the national and international research communities the exciting high tech work taking place in Indiana." Craig Stewart, Director of Research and Academic Computing at Indiana University and project manager for Research@Indiana added "this display highlights the considerable array of advanced computing systems located in Indiana — including multiple supercomputers listed among the world's 500 most powerful such systems and the Global Network Operations Center located in Indianapolis." During the SC200 conference Storage Technology Corp. announced the donation of a PowderHorn 9310 automated cartridge system to Indiana University (view the press release). The system, valued at $750,000, was quickly put to use. Gerry Bernbom, director of Research and Academic Computing at Indiana University, says that "the massive data storage capacity of the PowderHorn tape library is already in use by researchers in a number of disciplines including astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics." In addition, Indiana University and representatives of IBM, Inc. completed final discussions prior to finalization of a $1M hardware grant of supercomputing equipment to IU. The Research@Indiana booth occupied 1600 square feet, making it one of the largest research exhibits at the conference. The booth featured two ImmersaDesks, virtual reality systems that create a 3-D viewing environment. The Research@Indiana web site (http://www.indiana.edu/~rindiana/) provides a summary of the accomplishments of this display, and will serve as an ongoing source of information about the importance of university research in advanced computing technology as a source of economic growth for Indiana. Financial contributions from the Indiana Technology Partnership, Indiana Pervasive Computing Research Initiative, and the Indiana Information Technology Association assisted Indiana University, Purdue University, and the University of Notre Dame in funding this display. Compaq Computer Corporation, IBM Corporation. Intel Corporation, Storage Technology Corporation, and Sun Microsystems all provided equipment loans in support of Research@Indiana.   [ Top of Page ]