Seymour Cray and the Supercomputer

Many of us are familiar with computers. You’re likely using one now to read this blog post as devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets are essentially the same underlying computing technology. Supercomputers, on the other hand, are somewhat esoteric as they’re often thought of as hulking, costly, energy-sucking machines developed, by and large, for government institutions, research centers, and large firms. Take for instance China’s Sunway TaihuLight, currently the world’s fastest supercomputer, according to Top500’s supercomputer rankings. It’s comprised of 41,000 chips (the processors alone weigh over 150 tons), cost about $270 million and has a power rating of 15,371 kW. On the plus side, however, it’s capable of performing quadrillions of calculations per second and can store up to 100 million books. And like other supercomputers, it’ll be used to tackle some of the most complex tasks in the fields of science such as weather forecasting and drug research. When Supercomputers Were Invented The notion of a supercomputer first arose in the 1960s when an electrical engineer named Seymour Cray, embarked on creating the world’s fastest computer. Cray, considered the â€Å"father of supercomputing,† had left his post at business computing giant Sperry-Rand to join the newly formed Control Data Corporation so that he can focus on developing scientific computers. The title of world’s fastest computer was held at the time by the IBM 7030 â€Å"Stretch,† one of the first to use transistors instead of vacuum tubes.   In 1964, Cray introduced the CDC 6600, which featured innovations such as switching out germanium transistors in favor of silicon and a Freon-based cooling system. More importantly, it ran at a speed of 40 MHz, executing roughly three million floating-point operations per second, which made it the fastest computer in the world. Often considered to be the world’s first supercomputer, the CDC 6600 was 10 times faster than most computers and three times faster than the IBM 7030 Stretch. The title was eventually relinquished in 1969 to its successor the CDC 7600.  Ã‚   Seymour Cray Goes Solo In 1972, Cray left Control Data Corporation to form his own company, Cray Research. After some time raising seed capital and financing from investors, Cray debuted the Cray 1, which again raised the bar for computer performance by a wide margin. The new system ran at a clock speed of 80 MHz and performed 136 million floating-point operations per second (136 megaflops). Other unique features include a newer type of processor (vector processing) and a speed-optimized horseshoe-shaped design that minimized the length of the circuits. The Cray 1 was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. By the 1980s Cray had established himself as the preeminent name in supercomputing and any new release was widely expected to topple his previous efforts. So while Cray was busy working on a successor to the Cray 1, a separate team at the company put out the Cray X-MP, a model that was billed as a more â€Å"cleaned up† version of the Cray 1. It shared the same horseshoe-shape design, but boasted multiple processors, shared memory and is sometimes described as two Cray 1s linked together as one. The Cray X-MP (800 megaflops) was one of the first â€Å"multiprocessor† designs and helped open the door to parallel processing, wherein computing tasks are split into parts and executed simultaneously by different processors.   The Cray X-MP, which was continually updated, served as the standard bearer until the long-anticipated launch of the Cray 2 in 1985. Like its predecessors, Cray’s latest and greatest took on the same horseshoe-shaped design and basic layout with integrated circuits stacked together on logic boards. This time, however, the components were crammed so tightly that the computer had to be immersed in a liquid cooling system to dissipate the heat. The Cray 2 came equipped with eight processors, with a â€Å"foreground processor† in charge of handling storage, memory and giving instructions to the â€Å"background processors,† which were tasked with the actual computation. Altogether, it packed a processing speed of 1.9 billion floating point operations per second (1.9 Gigaflops), two times faster than the Cray X-MP. More Computer Designers Emerge Needless to say, Cray and his designs ruled the early era of the supercomputer. But he wasn’t the only one advancing the field. The early ’80s also saw the emergence of massively parallel computers, powered by thousands of processors all working in tandem to smash though performance barriers. Some of the first multiprocessor systems were created by W. Daniel Hillis, who came up with the idea as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The goal at the time was to overcome to the speed limitations of having a CPU direct computations among the other processors by developing a decentralized network of processors that functioned similarly to the brain’s neural network. His implemented solution, introduced in 1985 as the Connection Machine or CM-1, featured 65,536 interconnected single-bit processors. The early ’90s marked the beginning of the end for Cray’s stranglehold on supercomputing. By then, the supercomputing pioneer had split off from Cray Research to form Cray Computer Corporation. Things started to go south for the company when the Cray 3 project, the intended successor to the Cray 2, ran into a whole host of problems. One of Cray’s major mistakes was opting for gallium arsenide semiconductors – a newer technology -- as a way to achieve his stated goal of a twelvefold improvement in processing speed. Ultimately, the difficulty in producing them, along with other technical complications, ended up delaying the project for years and resulted in many of the company’s potential customers eventually losing interest. Before long, the company ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy in 1995. Cray’s struggles would give way to a changing of the guard of sorts as competing Japanese computing systems would come to dominate the field for much of the decade. Tokyo-based NEC Corporation first came onto the scene in 1989 with the SX-3 and a year later unveiled a four-processor version that took over as the world’s fastest computer, only to be eclipsed in 1993. That year, Fujitsu’s Numerical Wind Tunnel, with the brute force of 166 vector processors became the first supercomputer to surpass 100 gigaflops (Side note: To give you an idea of how rapidly the technology advances, the fastest consumer processors in 2016 can easily do more than 100 gigaflops, but at the time, it was particularly impressive). In 1996, the Hitachi SR2201 upped the ante with 2048 processors to reach a peak performance of 600 gigaflops. Intel Joins the Race Now, where was Intel? The company that had established itself as the consumer market’s leading chipmaker didn’t really make a splash in the realm of supercomputing until towards the end of the century. This was because the technologies were altogether very different animals. Supercomputers, for instance, were designed to jam in as much processing power as possible while personal computers were all about squeezing efficiency from minimal cooling capabilities and limited energy supply. So in 1993 Intel engineers finally took the plunge by taking the bold approach of going massively parallel with the 3,680 processor Intel XP/S 140 Paragon, which by June of 1994 had climbed to the summit of the supercomputer rankings. It was the first massively parallel processor supercomputer to be indisputably the fastest system in the world.   Up to this point, supercomputing has been mainly the domain of those with the kind of deep pockets to fund such ambitious projects. That all changed in 1994 when contractors at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, who didn’t have that kind of luxury, came up with a clever way to harness the power of parallel computing by linking and configuring a series of personal computers using an ethernet network. The â€Å"Beowulf cluster† system they developed was comprised of 16 486DX processors, capable of operating in the gigaflops range and cost less than $50,000 to build. It also had the distinction of running Linux rather than Unix before the Linux became the operating systems of choice for supercomputers. Pretty soon, do-it-yourselfers everywhere were followed similar blueprints to set up their own Beowulf clusters.  Ã‚   After relinquishing the title in 1996 to the Hitachi SR2201, Intel came back that year with a design based on the Paragon called ASCI Red, which was comprised of more than 6,000 200MHz Pentium Pro processors. Despite moving away from vector processors in favor of off-the-shelf components, the ASCI Red gained the distinction of being the first computer to break the one trillion flops barrier (1 teraflops). By 1999, upgrades enabled it to surpass three trillion flops (3 teraflops). The ASCI Red was installed at Sandia National Laboratories and was used primarily to simulate nuclear explosions and assist in the maintenance of the country’s nuclear arsenal. After Japan retook the supercomputing lead for a period with the 35.9 teraflops NEC Earth Simulator, IBM brought supercomputing to unprecedented heights starting in 2004 with the Blue Gene/L. That year, IBM debuted a prototype that just barely edged the Earth Simulator (36 teraflops). And by 2007, engineers would ramp up the hardware to push its processing capability to a peak of nearly 600 teraflops. Interestingly, the team was able to reach such speeds by going with the approach of using more chips that were relatively low power, but more energy efficient. In 2008, IBM broke ground again when it switched on the Roadrunner, the first supercomputer to exceed one quadrillion floating point operations per second (1 petaflops).

Essay On Dna Methylation - 1075 Words

In this study, we describe DNA methylation and gene expression of SLC22A1, SLC22A3, and SLC47A1, which respectively encode the three metformin transporters OCT1, OCT3, and MATE1, in the human liver. In agreement with a previous study where OCT1 was found to be the most expressed drug transporter in the liver [15], we found higher mRNA expression of SLC22A1 than SLC22A3 (Additional file 1: Figure S2A). SLC47A1 was also highly expressed in the liver, as previously reported [16]. Metformin transporter genes have been studied in vivo in rodents to explain metformin pharmacodynamics. The distribution of metformin to the liver in Oct1 −/− mice was reduced 30-fold compared with wild-type mice [6], and the glucose-lowering effects of metformin†¦show more content†¦The fact that methylation of some studied CpG sites was not affected by the exposure in vitro does not exclude that longer metformin or insulin treatments could have effects. T2D patients are given a long-term therapy, whereas the cells were treated for 8 h mimicking an acute therapy. Overall, our in vivo and in vitro data support that metformin therapy is associated with lower DNA methylation of metformin transporter genes in the liver suggesting that epigenetics could be a potential mechanism for metformin action in the human liver. Accordingly, a recent study has shown that metformin alters DNA methylation in endometrial cancer cells [22]. The demethylation process in metformin tr ansporters induced by metformin could have occurred passively or actively by ten-eleven translocation (TET) enzymes [23], since these enzymes play an important role in the development and function of the human liver [24]. Moreover, AMPK pathway, activated by metformin, elevates ÃŽ ±-ketoglutarate metabolite which is required by TET catalytic reaction for the DNA demethylation process [25]. Nevertheless, more studies are needed to dissect this mechanism. In addition, diabetics who were only on metformin therapy had a similar or lower degree of methylation in these metformin transporter genes compared to non-diabetic people, suggesting a possibleShow MoreRelatedA Study Of Changes Throughout Gene Expression1567 Words   |  7 Pagesbe inherited with no changes to the DNA sequence itself- it may account for non-Mendelian population inheritance patterns. Transgenerational inheritance requires a chromosomal or epigenetic change in the germline allowing the information to be passed on fro m one generation to another (Anway et al 2005a). In order for epigenetic marks to be passed down, the gametes need to conserve their epigenomes by avoiding two reprogramming events; in the gamete and zygote. 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In his 1825 work, â€Å"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,† John Locke posits the tabula rasa theory: â€Å"Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: How comes it to be furnished?...To this I answer, in one word, from experience†Read MoreThe Central Nervous System ( Cns ) Development1575 Words   |  7 Pagesit is known that folate is crucial for the biosynthesis of nucleotides, amino acids, vitamins, and neurotransmitters; it provides the one carbon unit to S-adenosylmethonine (SAM) biosynthesis, which is the primary methyl donor for DNA, RNA, protein, and lipid methylation (Wallis, et al., 2010; Copp, Stanier, and Greene, 2013; Kao, et al., 2014; Reynolds, 2014). Folate Deficiency FD in pregnant mothers increases the risk for NTD in a child. NTD are congenital malformations along the neuraxis, whichRead MoreAp Biology2177 Words   |  9 PagesAP ESSAY ANSWERS: 16-20 1. 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I will also talk about how our knowledge of cells has changed

Amendments Free Essays

There are Ten Amendments ratified to the United States Constitution. These amendments are called and known as the â€Å"Bill of Rights†. The first amendment in the Bill of Rights talks about how the freedom of establish of religion, freedom of press, freedom of assembly right to petition, freedom of speech. We will write a custom essay sample on Amendments or any similar topic only for you Order Now They all have to do with people talking free in the United States and doing what they can with this amendment. The first part talks about the freedom of religion. In these case the freedom of religion lets you be in any kind of religion you want to be in the United States. In the contrary some other countries you could not be any different from others because you can be considered an outsider or an enemy to the people of that country. In addition, freedom of religion is known to be a human right. The first amendment rights to freedom of the press guarantees me the right to read any news paper, read any magazine, or right about any story, or watch any movie without having any fear that my government would censor my right to do these things. For example, if I want to release a video on the internet containing any nudity or foul language, I have the right to do so without any censorship. The government can only regulate by putting some sort of warning label on it but can not prohibit me from doing so. Also, the freedom to assemble allows us the people to gather up for harmonious and legal purposes. Implicit within this right is the right to association and belief. In other words this amendment protects us from what we believe. For example, people can organize a parade for immigration rights, and the government would be ok with it because it falls down in legal purposes to assemble. Furthermore, people can also gather up to celebrate a â€Å"Quinsenera† without any problems because this would fall down under the peacefully assemble. Now the government may also prohibit people from associating in groups that engage and promote illegal activities. The right to petition the government for justice of grievances guarantees people the right to ask the government to provide a second chance of relief to change something wrong to a right. This petition is made my court or by any other governmental action. For example, a person gets a ticket for speeding , but he or she is more than sure that he wasn’t. That person is going to try to appeal that ticket by going to court and standing in front of a judge to try to dismiss that ticket. The right to freedom of speech allows an individual to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government. This amendment gives us the right to express what we feel. We have the symbolic and the uttered way on expressing ourselves. We don’t necessarily have to speak in order to show our emotions; we could use the symbolic method to do so. We can express it by wearing clothing that symbolizes what we feel. In the other hand we also have the most common way, which is uttered. Most people express themselves by making a speech. However, our right is also limited because the government prohibits some speech that may cause a breach of peace or may cause violence. For example, someone might make a judgment that they hate someone. But just because they hate them doesn’t mean they have to kill them. How to cite Amendments, Essay examples

Marketing Growth Analysis of Holmes O Malley Sexton Solicitors

Question: Discuss about the Marketing Growth Analysis of Holmes O'Malley Sexton Solicitors. Answer: HOMS has always been dedicated towards providing high quality legal services to its clients. The firm has been awarded by the Legal Research and Standards Institute for achieving Q9000 Legal Quality Standards. The company is making good use of technologies in the areas of payments and taking it to the top priority. The firm is expanding its branches and is attracting business offers by conducting seminars. The firm understands the importance of EU data protection related to safe habour by using AI (Alice, 2015) The success of HOMS lies in its interest of getting recovery of benefits, adopting assistance schemes and dealing with latest cases. The firm has recently won a case of surrogacy which has created a lot of effect on the new European Regulations. Holmes O'Malley Sexton Solicitors has a huge scope for adopting Artificial Intelligence. As per the IBM companys Ireland based natural programming research program Artificial Intelligence will in future help the law industry a lot. There are lot if Artificial Intelligence systems provided by huge suppliers like IBM, Neota Logic, Kira Systems and Ravn Systems, one of them is the Watson technology provided by IBM has a huge scope of handling the structured and non structured data which will definitely aid the advocacy and legal issues related to advocacy (O.Andrew, 2013). Till date most of the Lawyers are reluctant towards the use of Artificial Intelligence as they think it is based for solving lower level of research work. But there are few big firms like IBM, Neota Systems who are trying hard to push their capabilities and use through Artificial Intelligence wants to give a competitive advantage to clients to make their work done faster. One of the technologies is Waston Computers introduced by IBM and is based on artificial intelligence which can help the client in completing theirs deals of three months to three weeks. In Britain there is a Riverview Law, who is pioneering in use of Artificial Systems in the legal Sector and is now focussing on creating virtual assistants for the lawyers. With such technology lawyers will get a chance of improving their quality of work with a good speed and giving support in paralegal work (O. Andrew, 2013). Watson Computers although is not used in Law industry, but it has a huge scope for the lawyers. With such technology the practice of waiting for hours for meeting clients will disappear. Lawyers can create their bills on the basis of expertise instead of time dependent. Most of the lawyers who are not in favour of using this technology believe that this technology will eat their jobs and brings to unemployment for the lawyers. But they have to realise that the legal profession will evolve with this change, similar to IT industry (O. Andrew, 2013). Thus looking at the marketing plan and an urge for use of Artificial Intelligence the HOMS have been declared as the most thriving, excellently managed a corporate firm which works with a commitment of excellence in the field of law (Alice, 2015) References Alice. (2015). HOMS News Issue 2 2015. Retrieved from https://www.ilntoday.com/files/2015/12/HOMS-News-Issue-2-2015.pdf Law Society gazette. (Jan, 2016). The Risen People. Retrieved from https://www.lawsociety.ie/Documents/Gazette/Gazette%202016/jan-feb16-gazette.pdf Andrew. (May, 2013). Legalwise. Retrieved from https://www.lawsociety.ie/Documents/Gazette/Gazette%202013/May2013.pdf