Issue 117 April/May 2011 CONTENTS
Laboratory and Statistical Science News and products
Counting on war and peace
Statistical software is infl uencing the study of war and peace. Felix Grant reports
Cover feature: Information integration and beyond
Beth Sharp explores how informatics solutions are meeting the needs of pharmaceutical companies
High-Performance Computing News and products
Big data, big dreams
How do we deal with the vast amounts of data modern science produces? Paul Schreier fi nds out
HPCAC workshop: High info bandwidth, low cost
Paul Schreier fi lls us in on the HPC Advisory Council’s Switzerland workshop 2011 Working towards higher performance
Beth Sharp discovers why HPC integrators should be chosen with care
Modelling and Engineering News and products
Power from thin air
As advancements are made in tapping the free energy that surrounds us, Paul Schreier investigates the options
A climate of change within modelling
Three scientists explain how climate modelling is being driven by scientifi c computing
Resources Diary dates
Suppliers’ directory Inside view
44 45 46
40
33 36
28 29
21 25
14
4 8
Changing times
During an interview for the feature on climate modelling (page 40) the US-based University of Illinois’ Donald Wuebbles remarked that, when he became an atmospheric scientist in the 1970s, the supercomputers he and his colleagues used were akin to the calculators of today. Looking back, it is sometimes hard to believe that modern mobile phones offer more in terms of functionality and fl exibility than the machines that drove our science. This leap in capabilities has meant that
we are generating more data than ever before – which, of course, has presented its own issue: data management. Paul Schreier investigates the issue of data intensive computing and how to effectively manage ‘big data’ (page 25) before turning his attention to energy harvesting (page 36). On a fi nal and more personal note,
all of us here would like to express our sympathies to those affected by the disaster in Japan. The long-term impact this will have on the nation, and more specifi cally within the fi eld of scientifi c computing, remains to be seen.
Beth Sharp EDITORIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE TEAM
Editor Beth Sharp
editor.scw@
europascience.com
Specialist Reporters Felix Grant, Paul Schreier Circulation/readership enquiries Viv Ruskin
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Cover image Montage by Dan Taylor
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