Fraunhofer-Institut für Algorithmen und Wissenschaftliches Rechnen SCAI

European industry and research centres join forces to create a European Technology Platform for High Performance Computing

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:51:00 +0100

Barcelona, 10^th November 2011: Major European suppliers of High Performance Computing (HPC) technologies, Allinea, ARM, Bull, Caps Entreprise, Eurotech, ParTec, STMicroelectronics and Xyratex associated with HPC research centres BSC, CEA, CINECA, Fraunhofer, Forschungszentrum Juelich and LRZ have decided to combine forces to create a European Technology Platform (ETP), building on the previous work of PROSPECT and Teratec.

The objective of the ETP is to define Europe’s research priorities to develop European technology in all the segments of the HPC solution supply chain. It will strengthen European competitiveness in HPC, a key capability for future research and innovation. The effort will be beneficial to a wide range of social and economic challenges. HPC is an indispensable instrument to resolve problems of the highest complexity that require extremely large and very efficient computational and storage capabilities for activities such as modelling natural phenomena (weather, climate change or epidemics), optimizing energy resources, researching novel materials and shortening engineering development cycles, which would foster innovation across the region.

The ETP will be an industry led forum that will propose a Strategic Research Agenda taking advantage of European industry strengths to increase the value created in Europe from future HPC systems. Currently the design of supercomputer solutions face significant challenges such as management of the extreme parallelism experienced in HPC architectures or the reduction of the power consumption, addressing these presents opportunities for European players to improve their position in the worldwide market.

To achieve these objectives the current consortium will set up an organization that will be open to any businesses, groups or individuals who have R&D activities in any aspect of HPC and are located in Europe. The goal is to bring together all the research forces in Europe including R&D activities of SMEs, European corporations, international corporations and research centres to benefit from their competences and to foster these capabilities by proposing an ambitious research plan to the European Commission.

The consortium will act promptly to create the ETP and to propose a Vision Paper. The ETP will prepare the Strategic Research Agenda seeking acknowledgement from the European Commission to provide inputs towards the Horizon 2020 program that will define the future European research objectives.

This initiative is an important step to encourage and strengthen the position of the European HPC industry. The impressive set of competencies of the members gathered on this initiative show that Europe can be at the forefront of the HPC industry in coming years if an ambitious R&D program is put in place. The ETP will provide the catalyst for such a movement and the impact will be a stronger European HPC industry that will create employment, added value, and a stimulus for students and academic researchers in the area. Through this improved capability and capacity, HPC users will gain the ability to achieve new results in science and technology and to design more innovative products and services.

For more information : www.allinea.com www.arm.com www.bsc.es www.bull.com www.caps-entreprise.com www.cea.fr www.cineca.it www.eurotech.com www.fraunhofer.de www.fz-juelich.de www.lrz.de www.par-tec.com www.prospect-hpc.eu www.st.com www.teratec.eu www.xyratex.com

Fraunhofer SCAI successfully completes pilot project on information extraction from Chinese Scientific Literature.

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:02:00 +0200

Sankt Augustin / Darmstadt, September 2011 The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI) today reports the successful completion of a pilot project in the area of Chinese Text Mining, conducted at Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. The pilot project was initiated as a feasibility study to evaluate how far current text mining technology is able to support automated information extraction from Chinese text sources such as scientific publications and the patent literature. In the course of this project, ProMiner, the named entity recognition software developed at Fraunhofer SCAI, has been adapted to the specific requirements of text mining in Chinese scientific biomedical and pharmaceutical literature. Most commercial text mining technology is able to analyse English text, and some solutions provide functionalities for the analysis of German or French text. However, due to the steep increase in Chinese scientific output and the ever growing importance and attractiveness of the Chinese market to Western companies, the ability to automatically analyse Chinese unstructured information sources is of utmost importance for scientific and competitive intelligence aiming to closely follow what happens in China. Evaluation of the performance of the pilot system jointly demonstrates that Chinese literature can be mined for biomedical terms with similar performance as English literature. However, “the challenge of Chinese Text Mining cannot be regarded as being solved”, Dr. Juliane Fluck, Head of the Text Mining Team at Fraunhofer SCAI makes clear: “we have just demonstrated that we are able to mine the Chinese biomedical scientific literature automatically. The real work – which is aiming at providing all functionalities needed for true knowledge discovery from Chinese unstructured text sources – starts now, after the proof-of-principle”. Prof. Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Head of the Department of Bioinformatics at Fraunhofer SCAI sheds some light onto another, rather “academic” aspect of this work: “we were in the favourable situation that we have Chinese students doing their Master degree in Life Science Informatics at Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (B-IT). The next steps in this collaboration will see an extension to another Fraunhofer Institute: the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI). ISI in Karlsruhe has strong ties to China and is specialized on monitoring Chinese research, innovation and markets. Through collaboration with the Chinese Institute of Policy and Management, an institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), ISI is a premier partner when it comes to understanding science and innovation in China. Fraunhofer is Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization. Research of practical utility lies at the heart of all activities pursued by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Founded in 1949, the research organization undertakes applied research that drives economic development and serves the wider benefit of society. At present, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft maintains more than 80 research units in Germany, including 60 Fraunhofer Institutes. The majority of the more than 18,000 staff are qualified scientists and engineers, who work with an annual research budget of EUR 1.65 billion. The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI conducts research in the field of computer simulations for product and process development. SCAI designs and optimizes industrial applications, implements custom solutions for production and logistics, and offers HPC and Cloud solutions. Services are based on industrial engineering and methods from applied mathematics and information technology. Contact:
Prof. Dr. Martin Hofmann-Apitius
Head of the Department of Bioinformatics
Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI
53754 Sankt Augustin
Germany
Tel: +49 2241 14-2802
Email: martin.hofmann-apitus@scai.fraunhofer.de

Fraunhofer SCAI explores new ways of utilizing scientific information in collaboration with Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA.

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:00:00 +0200

Sankt Augustin / Darmstadt, September 2011 The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI) has extended its collaboration with Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, with a three-year agreement in the area of scientific information utilization, modelling and mining in unstructured information sources. The joint research and development program focuses – amongst other aspects - on:

development of new methods to identify unwanted drug effects from unstructured text sources
identification of biomarkers from scientific text
mining in medical documents such as electronic patient records and patient blogs
information extraction from Chinese scientific literature including patent literature

The contractual framework provides the basis for close collaboration between both partners. Besides joint research activities, Fraunhofer SCAI will also make its information extraction technology ProMiner (a leading named entity recognition software) and SCAIView (an unstructured information mining environment) available to Merck Serono. ”A collaboration between the Department of Bioinformatics at Fraunhofer SCAI and the Knowledge Department of Merck Serono has been established some years ago. It has already produced substantial scientific results, of which some aspects have already been published or are going to be published soon” says Prof. Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Head of the Department of Bioinformatics at Fraunhofer SCAI. Juliane Fluck, Head of the Text Mining Team at Fraunhofer SCAI, is looking forward to three years of intensive collaboration: “Our collaboration covers a wide spectrum of application fields. We will contribute technologies and content for indexing, for information retrieval, information extraction and modelling of knowledge. And the nice side effect is: we are allowed to publish some of our joint research findings, which is not always possible in industry collaborations”. Fraunhofer is Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization. Research of practical utility lies at the heart of all activities pursued by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Founded in 1949, the research organization undertakes applied research that drives economic development and serves the wider benefit of society. At present, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft maintains more than 80 research units in Germany, including 60 Fraunhofer Institutes. The majority of the more than 18,000 staff are qualified scientists and engineers, who work with an annual research budget of EUR 1.65 billion. The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI conducts research in the field of computer simulations for product and process development. SCAI designs and optimizes industrial applications, implements custom solutions for production and logistics, and offers HPC and Cloud solutions. Services are based on industrial engineering and methods from applied mathematics and information technology. Contact:
Prof. Dr. Martin Hofmann-Apitius
Head of the Department of Bioinformatics
Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI
53754 Sankt Augustin
Germany
Tel: +49 2241 14-2802
Email: martin.hofmann-apitus@scai.fraunhofer.de

German Climate and Environment Innovation Prize for Researchers at Fraunhofer SCAI

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:03:00 +0100

Fraunhofer SCAI’s awarded team: Stefan Rank, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Trottenberg (Director Fraunhofer SCAI), Johannes Zühlke, Lydia Franck, Dr. Onno Garms, Dr. Ralf Heckmann (Head of Department Optimization) Photo: Christian Kruppa, Berlin A research group from the Department of Optimization at the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI won the 25,000 Euro innovation prize for Climate and Environment (IKU) in the "Environmentally friendly products and services" category. The award is donated by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI). The award was handed to the researchers in a ceremony on March 15 in Berlin. Worldwide, over 7,000 companies use the optimization solutions provided by Fraunhofer SCAI. The best known applications are AutoNester (automatic placement of pieces onto textiles, leather, metal sheets and wood) and PackAssistant (optimizing packing configurations of identical parts into containers). The potential savings are enormous: "When cutting metal, wood or leather skins our software saves up to 30 percent of material, depending on the industry," says Dr. Ralf Heckmann, Director of the Department of Optimization at Fraunhofer SCAI. The packing optimization also offers great savings potential, as Heckmann explains, "In the automotive industry, up to 25 percent more components are packed into a container. With such an improvement one out of every five trucks for transportation can be saved." http://www.iku-innovationspreis.de

Computing on multiple graphic cards accelerates numerical simulations by orders of magnitude

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0100

Two-phase fluid flow with coupled particle droplets © M. Griebel, P. Zaspel (INS, University of Bonn) SANKT AUGUSTIN / BONN Because of their leading research in numerical simulation using parallel computing practices, the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI and the Institute for Numerical Simulation (INS) at the University of Bonn have officially become one of the first German NVIDIA CUDA Research Centers. The research on parallelization of existing simulation codes to run on machines with multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) is led by Prof. Dr. Michael Griebel, director of the INS and director of the Fraunhofer Institute SCAI.

»Our vision is to develop a massively parallel, completely multi-GPU based high performance molecular dynamics software package, as well as a massively parallel, completely multi-GPU based high performance fluid dynamics code,« says Griebel. »Our customers from industry and research institutes will profit from our ability to solve general challenges of high-performance computing in this way.«

Today, numerical simulations are indispensable in industrial production. Examples are the creation of new materials, the modeling of manufacturing process chains, and the simulation of material strength and fluid dynamics. However, these simulations require computing times from hours to days – even on high performance computers. This is why industry and science are very interested to shorten processing times.

Computing on multiple graphics cards promises an enormous acceleration of these simulations. NVIDIA’s CUDA parallel computing architecture, enables a dramatic increase in computing performance by harnessing the tremendous power of the GPU. Especially for software that is well suited for parallel computing, the graphics processor is faster than conventional CPUs by orders of magnitude. For example, the INS successfully ran the fluid solver package NaSt3DGPF on eight traditional processors coupled with eight graphics processors. Performing a benchmark study showed that the multiple GPU configuration was even slightly faster than a system using 256 conventional processors.

The researchers from INS and SCAI hope to gain similar effects from adapting the software package Tremolo-X for use on multiple graphics cards. Tremolo-X is used for the molecular dynamics of atoms or molecules. This software simulates materials at the nano scale, and therefore makes it possible to efficiently design new and innovative materials.

Computing on graphics cards not only promises an enormous acceleration of numerical simulations. The GPUs also require much less electricity, delivering a much higher performance per watt benefit. A particular computing task on a conventional parallel computer with 256 processors uses up to 70 kilowatts, compared to only 3 kilowatts on the machine with multiple GPUs. Furthermore, companies profit from GPU computing because the hardware is cheaper. Further information:
http://research.nvidia.com/content/fraunhofer-unibonn-crc-summary About Fraunhofer SCAI:
The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI conducts research in the field of computer simulations for product and process development, and is a prominent corporate partner in the industrial and science sectors.
SCAI designs and optimizes industrial applications, implements custom solutions for production and logistics, and offers calculations on high-performance computers. Our services are based on industrial engineering, combined with state-of-the-art methods from applied mathematics and information technology.
http://www.scai.fraunhofer.de About the Institute for Numerical Simulation:
The Institut für Numerische Simulation of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn is devoted to the design and implementation of computational tools for scientific applications. We develop novel numerical techniques for the simulation of e.g. chemical, physical, engineering and economic processes. Our research and development activities are application driven.
The INS's core competencies include high performance scientific computing, numerical mathematics, computational chemistry and physics, as well as financial engineering. We conduct collaborative scientific investigations which require the power of high performance computers and the efficiency of modern computational methods.
http://www.ins.uni-bonn.de About NVIDIA:
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. Since then, it has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking, interactive graphics available on devices ranging from tablets and portable media players to notebooks and workstations. NVIDIA's expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. The Company holds more than 1,600 patents worldwide, including ones covering designs and insights that are essential to modern computing. For more information, see
http://www.nvidia.com

Knowledge Computing offers new perspectives in scientific computing

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:06:00 +0100

SANKT AUGUSTIN / JÜLICH. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI) and at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) of Forschungszentrum Jülich have used their substantial computing grid infrastructures for a new application in scientific computing: the large-scale annotation of biomedical and chemical texts and images in pharmaceutical patents. This will allow patent searches of an unparalleled power. Now, queries provide interesting insights into intersections between biology and chemistry, and the analysis of chemistry is truly multi-modal in the sense that text- and image-based information can be analyzed simultaneously. More than 50,000 patents describing inventions in pharmaceutical chemistry have been processed on the large-scale computing grid infrastructures at SCAI and JSC. Automated “named entity recognition” services have identified and annotated:

biological entities in text (e.g. protein names; gene names; gene polymorphisms; cell types),
medical entities in text (e.g. disease names; pathology terms; risk factor terminology) as well as
chemical information in text (e.g. drug names; expressions following the naming standards of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)) and
images (e.g. chemical structure depictions).

The grid middleware UNICORE (Uniform Interface to Computing Resources) was used to manage the annotation services in the grid infrastructure, to control the streams of input and output data from the patents database to the annotation services, and to monitor the overall progress. “This large-scale experiment opens new perspectives in scientific computing,” says Prof. Dr. Martin Hofmann-Apitius, head of the Department of Bioinformatics at Fraunhofer SCAI. “This type of application goes way beyond the usual simulation applications that we are used to in the scientific computing community.” So far, text mining applications have only been run on bibliographic databases of life sciences and biomedical information such as MEDLINE. But the extension towards a multimodal analysis including annotation of text- and image-based information in full text documents on grid infrastructures has never been done before. “We are pleased to see that our institute, which has a strong record in numerical simulation, has contributed to a new field of applications for supercomputers: what we call knowledge computing is likely to become a new discipline on its own,” emphasizes Prof. Dr. Ulrich Trottenberg, Director of Fraunhofer SCAI. “UNICORE made it possible to run this experiment at such a large scale in computing grid infrastructures at SCAI and JSC,” says Dr. Achim Streit, head of Distributed Systems and Grid Computing at JSC. “The powerful workflow and data management capabilities of UNICORE allowed to annotate the patents in a seamless and automated way. A supercomputer connected by UNICORE to the infrastructure of the German Grid Initiative (D-Grid) was used to perform the knowledge extraction. This initial step of the experiment demonstrates what is possible today and shows the potential for more complex production runs in the future, using HPC systems connected in grid infrastructures”. “This is a very good example of how powerful supercomputers at JSC equipped with world-class grid technologies like UNICORE can generate synergies to enable new fields of research. I am proud that JSC is a member of the international UNICORE open source community and leads its development,” explains Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Lippert, Director of JSC. The team at SCAI, led by Dr. Marc Zimmermann for the image analysis annotators and by Dr. Juliane Fluck and Dr. Christoph Friedrich for the text analytics part, is currently working on the in-depth analysis of the meta-information generated in the course of this large-scale in silico-experiment. Their colleague on the side of JSC in Jülich, Mathilde Romberg, is happy that after weeks of intensive work the first “production runs” have been completed. However, the teams on both sides know that there are another 1.5 million patents waiting for them.

Fraunhofer SCAI presents new software licensing solutions for Grids and Clouds and offers professional services for High Performance Computing

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:28:00 +0200

SANKT AUGUSTIN. Flexible software licensing solutions for Grids, Clouds and SOA may reduce costs for companies with the need for complex computational simulations. The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI presents a new product developed in the project SmartLM, funded by the European Commission. Further highlights of SCAI at the International Supercomputing Conference from 23rd until 26th June, 2009 in Hamburg are professional services in the field of High Performance Computing. “elasticLM” is a new licensing framework of web services that facilitates treating and implementing software licenses as Grid services. This innovative technology provides users and customers with a maximum of flexibility while offering new business opportunities for software vendors and application service providers. “elasticLM” is based on open standards to ease the integration into existing environments and to leverage interoperability. Researchers at Fraunhofer SCAI developed “elasticLM” in the context of the research project SmartLM, funded by the European Commission. In the framework of SmartLM, CAE software vendors like ANSYS, INTES and LMS International are pilot users. Customers profit from SCAI’s high-capacity computer infrastructure High Performance Computing for scientific and technical applications is one of Fraunhofer SCAI’s key competences. SCAI develops individual algorithms, ports software on different systems and guarantees best implementation as well as a high performance of applications. Target architectures include x86 multi-core systems, GPGPUs and clusters of these. SCAI customers benefit from the deep expertise in advanced software development tools such as CUDA, MPI, OpenMP, OpenCL and Intel Ct. Porting high-performance open-source software to Windows Fraunhofer SCAI offers services in porting and integration of open source software applications for Linux on Windows HPC. In this regard, the institute’s IT specialists deploy and develop numerical and engineering codes on Windows HPC, and accomplish benchmarking of codes on Windows HPC clusters, for example. Currently, SCAI organises and mentors a student project: A team of students establishes a web portal for open source software, developed and ported by Fraunhofer SCAI running on Microsoft Windows Operation Systems. Fraunhofer SCAI’s HPC and Grid specialists are going to present selected software products and professional services in Hamburg. The International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) is Europe’s leading conference and exhibition on High Performance Computing, Networking and Storage. Fraunhofer SCAI and its distribution partner scapos AG are looking forward to welcoming you at the Congress Center in Hamburg, Germany, from 23rd until 26th June, 2009 at booth 700. Contact: Diplom-Journalist Michael Krapp
Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI
Corporate Communications
Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany
michael.krapp@scai.fraunhofer.de
phone: + 49 2241-14-2935, fax: + 49 2241-14-42935

New edition: MpCCI proceedings cover best practices for multiphysics simulations in industry

Tue, 19 May 2009 09:44:00 +0200

The "MpCCI proceedings" 2009 summarize the state of the art in multiphysics simulation SANKT AUGUSTIN. Renowned experts from industry and research presented best practices for multiphysics simulations in industry at the “MpCCI User Forum” 2009. The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI regularly arranges this well-known event in the numerical simulations community. This year, Fraunhofer SCAI´s developers introduced version 4.0 of the coupling software with many important new features. The talks of researchers and development engineers are bundled in the yearly-published MpCCI proceedings issue. Due to increasing demands on the quality of simulation results and innovative products, the coupling of several simulation codes becomes more and more important for industry. In the field of engineering, like wind engine and power plants, the coupling of simulations facilitates interactions of different parameters such as fluid flow and structure in the construction process. This is of great use for an efficient product realisation. MpCCI allows the coupling of numerous commercial simulation codes and is constantly being updated. A free edition of the MpCCI proceedings is available as a PDF file: www.mpcci.de/mpcci_userforum_proceedings.html To order a print edition, please contact katrin.berkler(at)scai.fraunhofer.de Further information: www.mpcci.de Contact: Katrin Berkler
Marketing & Communications
Fraunhofer-Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI
Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 2241 - 14 - 2931
Fax: +49 (0) 2241 - 14 - 4-2931
E-Mail: katrin.berkler(at)scai.fraunhofer.de

Innovative simulation solutions facilitate perfect logistics planning

Wed, 06 May 2009 14:49:00 +0200

Material flow simulation: model of a production line in Flexsim. In industry, engineers and warehouse managers are often confronted with the challenge to find solutions for efficient packing and logistics planning. Several criteria, such as numerous packing attempts, unfavourable loads of container space or oversized quantities stored cause high costs in production processes and internal logistics. Simulation can define exact solutions for the best possible arrangement of components in containers or for the load of production systems. The simulation results optimize production and logistic processes in companies.
The Fraunhofer Institute SCAI is a corporate partner in computer simulations for product and process development. The institute conducts innovative software development as well as research services customized for different industrial sectors in order to increase the efficiency of intralogistics.
“PackAssistant”: computers reveal packing mysteries
“PackAssistant”, the industry-leading software, is being used in production and logistics planning for optimizing packing of identical components in containers. The simulation and calculation of best possible container loads leads to a fast, space-saving and economic planning for the packing of components. This results in enormous benefits for packing planners and warehouse managers as well as the possibility of planning transport, container and storage capacities in time.
Fraunhofer SCAI’s software engineers constantly maintain and enhance the software and provide support to customers. “PackAssistant” now has the ability to estimate the loading of containers with bulk goods. The software allows the calculation of models with a vast data volume in a fast, efficient, memory saving and accurate way.
“Material flow simulation”: SCAI supports customized concepts for intralogistics
An efficient and accurate planning of production systems and in-house logistics is essential for utilizing capacities in an optimal way, enhancing productivity and minimizing investment costs.
Fraunhofer SCAI simulates, analyses and optimizes individual production and logistic concepts in cooperation with the customer. Sensitivity analyses give information about the behaviour of production systems in exceptional circumstances. Based on this information, the SCAI team develops customized strategies for material flow processes. Material flow simulation aims at identifying room for improvement, optimizing processes and increasing a company’s efficiency of production and storage.
An example of a successful material flow simulation project is a process enhancement for BPW Bergische Achsen in Wiehl, Germany. The company is a leading manufacturer of axles and running gear technology for trailers and semi-trailers. In cooperation with BPW, the Fraunhofer SCAI team developed ideas to improve processes and guarantee best performance under extreme conditions. Subsequently, the SCAI researchers simulated and evaluated the most promising ideas. Already during the project, the customer initiated the implementation of the optimization activities. Peter Schmitz, manager of the logistics centre at BPW, emphasizes: “We took great advantage of the project. The simulation affirmed the effectiveness of certain activities. Consequently, we are now able to implement these activities by knowing about their effectiveness.” For more information on Fraunhofer SCAI as well as on our products and services for intralogistics, please visit:
www.scai.fraunhofer.com
www.packassistant.com
www.scai.fraunhofer.de/logistiksimulation

Fraunhofer SCAI and Flowmaster Limited implement MpCCI Flowmaster Adaptor

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:31:00 +0200

Co-operation partners from Flowmaster Limited & Fraunhofer SCAI at the MpCCI UGM in Germany (left to right): Klaus Wolf (Fraunhofer SCAI), Morgan Jenkins (Flowmaster Ltd), Henning Staufenberg (Flowmaster Ltd), Ing. Inf. Pascal Bayrasy (Fraunhofer SCAI) & David Kelsall (Flowmaster Ltd). SANKT AUGUSTIN. MpCCI (Mesh-based parallel Code Coupling Interface) has been developed by the Fraunhofer-Institute SCAI to link a wide variety of simulation programs including the 3D CFD applications, Star-CD (from CD-adapco) and Fluent.

Under a formal cooperation agreement, Fraunhofer SCAI have partnered with Flowmaster to develop the coupling adaptor which enables 'best-in-class' 1D-3D co-simulation between Flowmaster (for calculations of the entire flow system) and CFD (to perform detailed computational calculations).

Driven by the need from organisations with large multidisciplinary, multifunctional project teams, the MpCCI Flowmaster Adaptor has been developed to give stakeholders in the design process the ability to understand how various simulation models interact with each other in pursuit of a virtual prototype.

David Kelsall, Product Manager for Flowmaster Limited, explains: "Developing a 3D CFD model for an entire system - such as an automotive cooling system - presents significant challenges. Creating the computational models and their meshes may take a long time and the total number of cells required may make the calculations intractable (i.e. they may take too long, if they can be done at all). By co-simulating 1D with 3D CFD, more realistic boundary conditions and component models can be obtained, providing a deeper understanding of complex engineering systems. Already we are beginning to see the benefit of the MpCCI Flowmaster Adaptor as we have been working with key customers to run pilot projects using MpCCI to link their 1D Flowmaster (system) models with 3D-CFD (Fluent) models, modelling very detailed behaviour in part of the system."

"During the last two or three years we received an increasing number of requests for this type of 1D-3D solution. In particular engineers from the automotive, aerospace and turbine sectors have asked for a standardised software solution to combine their overall system design with realistic 3D fluid analysis of critical components. The MpCCI Flowmaster Adaptor will provide these industrial users with a new level of design and analysis capabilities," adds Klaus Wolf, Deputy Head of Simulation Engineering Department at Fraunhofer SCAI.

MpCCI and the Flowmaster code adaptor have been developed and are distributed by Fraunhofer SCAI.

Contact:
Klaus Wolf, stv. Leiter der Abteilung Simulationsanwendungen
Fraunhofer-Institut für Algorithmen und Wissenschaftliches Rechnen SCAI
Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin
Tel.: 02241 14 2557
Fax: 02241 14 4 2557
Klaus.Wolf@scai.fraunhofer.de

Additional Information:
www.mpcci.de
www.scai.fraunhofer.de

Ceetron and Fraunhofer SCAI sign contract

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:28:00 +0100

Screen image from MpCCI Visualizer. Ceetron and the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI today announce the signature of a software agreement between the organizations. The contract gives Fraunhofer SCAI access to use all of Ceetrons software tools for 3D visualization with new versions of CAE software from Fraunhofer SCAI. As part of the agreement, Ceetron GmbH will develop a new on-line visualization component (MpCCI Visualizer) for the application MpCCI. MpCCI is the leading and open interface to couple different simulation codes for multi-disciplinary applications www.mpcci.de. The first software release from Fraunhofer SCAI that includes Ceetron technology will be MpCCI 3.1 – scheduled for release in January 2009. The MpCCI Visualizer that will be part of this release is currently under development by Ceetron GmbH on specifications from Fraunhofer SCAI. An important part of the development project is to include features for online monitoring of coupled analyses – for this part of the project, software developers from Fraunhofer SCAI and Ceetron GmbH will be cooperating closely. Klaus Wolf, head of the Multiphysics-Application group at SCAI, says: “The cooperation with Ceetron provides Fraunhofer SCAI with an enhanced visualization tool. By integrating this customized tool into the MpCCI environment Fraunhofer SCAI can invest more effort into the core development of MpCCI itself. Fraunhofer SCAI will also use the GLview API to develop new pre- and post-processing software. These tools will offer advanced solutions for multi-physics data mapping, optimization in manufacturing process chains, and sensitivity analysis of input/output correlations in CAE.” “I am very satisfied and proud that we have reached an agreement with Fraunhofer SCAI, and I am convinced that the Ceetron technology will enable Fraunhofer SCAI to implement state-of-the-art visualization solutions for their CAE applications. The agreement with Fraunhofer SCAI will further strengthen Ceetrons position as a leading provider of 3D Visualization solutions to the CAE market worldwide. We see this as starting-point for a long lasting cooperation between the two organizations” says Ceetrons CEO Dr. Tor Helge Hansen. About Ceetron Ceetron supplies state-of-the-art technology for 3D visualization to companies that develop software for Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) in the prototyping and simulation segment worldwide. The product portfolio comprises both software developer tools (GLview Developer Suite) and end-user software (GLview Inova Suite). From its base in Trondheim, Norway Ceetron AS delivers software for 3D visualization to major companies like Airbus, Bosch, BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen. Approximately 1500 companies world-wide are currently utilizing Ceetron technology within design, simulation and construction of their products. Ceetron also offers custom made applications for visualization based on the company’s own technology. The company has 13 employees and offices in Trondheim and Tønsberg, Norway, and the subsidiary Ceetron GmbH in Fellbach, Germany. Ceetron AS was founded in 1996 as a spin-off from SINTEF. For more information about the company and its services, please visit http://www.ceetron.com About Fraunhofer SCAI The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI) conducts research in the field of computer simulations for product and process development, and is a prominent corporate partner in the industrial and science sectors. SCAI designs and optimizes industrial applications, implements custom solutions for production and sales procedures, and offers calculations on high-performance computers. Our services are based on industrial engineering, combined with state-of-the-art methods from applied mathematics and information technology. SCAI especially excels in coupled simulation of different physical disciplines, and develops software for visualization of calculation results. In bioinformatics, SCAI offers workflow-oriented and integrated IT infrastructures for information extraction. SCAI has accumulated specialized expertise in both structured storing and administration of data and research results, and in the organization of projects. The Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, umbrella organization of SCAI, undertakes applied research of direct use to private and public enterprise. For more information about Fraunhofer SCAI, please visit http://www.scai.fraunhofer.de For more information, please contact: Tor Helge Hansen Ceetron AS Postboks 1247, Pirsenteret, N-7462 Trondheim Norway Phone: +47 73 54 61 50 Fax: +47 73 54 61 44 tor.hansen@ceetron.com Diplom-Journalist Michael Krapp Fraunhofer-Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI Marketing and Communications Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin Germany Phone: +49 2241 14 2935 Fax: +49 2241 14 42935 michael.krapp@scai.fraunhofer.de

Fraunhofer strikes a new path in software marketing with scapos AG

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:06:00 +0100

Karl Solchenbach, CEO scapos AG SANKT AUGUSTIN. In order to strengthen marketing and sales of their products, Fraunhofer has launched the scapos AG at the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI. The name "scapos" stands for "scientific applications, optimization and simulation", and refers to SCAI's software products which the company starts distributing immediately. In addition, scapos offers its services to other Fraunhofer institutes and research organizations; Fraunhofer is a partner and shareholder of scapos. "With its unique simulation and optimization software, Fraunhofer SCAI has built a successful track record in the market over many years", says Professor Dr. Ulrich Trottenberg, director of the institute. "With the formation of scapos AG, we would like to expand our leading position in software sales within Fraunhofer." According to Trottenberg, the ambitious goal is to double current earnings from software licenses by 2012. "Customers of Fraunhofer SCAI will benefit from the concentration of software marketing in scapos through enhanced support, dedicated contact persons, and simplified business transactions", says Karl Solchenbach, CEO of scapos AG. Mr. Solchenbach has a degree in applied mathematics and offers many years of experience in marketing of software from technical computing. From 1992 to 2003, he served as director of the Pallas GmbH, a software developer for High Performance Computing, and later as Director for Cluster Computing at Intel Corporation. Chairman of the Supervisory Board is Professor Dr. Ulrich Trottenberg, vice-chairman is Professor Dr. Norbert Szyperski, chairman of SCAI's Advisory Committee. The scapos office is located at the campus of Fraunhofer's institutional center, Schloss Birlinghoven, to maintain a close connection to product development. Contact: Diplom-Journalist Michael Krapp, Fraunhofer-Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI Marketing and Communications Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany phone: +49-2241-14-2935, fax: +49-2241-14-42935 michael.krapp@scai.fraunhofer.de

New Grid-based SIMDAT technologies for CAE-CAT Integration successfully evaluated at AUDI AG

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:52:00 +0100

Integration of different disciplines across diverse geographical and organisational locations Stuttgart / Munich / Karlsruhe. AUDI AG, Automotive Application Activity leader of the EU-funded SIMDAT project has deployed a CAE-CAT integration demonstrator in its industrial infrastructure for further evaluation. Professor Ulrich Trottenberg, head of Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI that co-ordinates the SIMDAT project describes the demonstrator’s objectives as “to demonstrate that the technologies developed in SIMDAT allow all parties involved in the functional design of cars to access and leverage product development data across distributed locations and disciplines.” The demonstrator supports the demand of automotive engineers to correlate data from simulation with data from physical test, also known as CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) and CAT (Computer Aided Testing) data. Today, the data resulting from simulation, and test processes are stored in separate data management systems with heterogeneous data models, without common interfaces. This makes data correlation a tedious and error-prone task. The CAE-CAT integration demonstrator developed by the SIMDAT Automotive Activity partners AUDI AG, MSC.Software and ontoprise GmbH integrates this heterogeneous data from CAE and CAT via ontologies with SIMDAT Grid technologies ensuring secure communication. While SIMDAT Grid technologies ensure the seamless access of remote data sources the use of semantic technologies assures the seamless integration of heterogeneous data models. The demonstrator has successfully proven the value-add of the combination of the two technologies. “The CAE-CAT demonstrator proves the leading-edge achievements of the SIMDAT project,” explains Senior Manager Dr. Stefan Mayer (MSC.Software). “Within Audi’s CAE data and process management system MSC SimManager three real use-cases were defined: user navigation, curve comparison and comparison reporting.” The key accomplishment is that the user is now able to view and use CAT data – resulting from physical test – in the same manner as CAE data, extracted by a virtual simulation. The user can even compare mixed data from both CAE and CAT. MSC SimManager acts as aggregated visualisation platform to provide a graphical user interface. Users can easily navigate through CAE simulations and CAT experiments and access corresponding data like curves, movies, values and pictures. Today, the growing competition in the automotive industry requires continuous reduction of development and innovation cycles while the demands on quality, safety and comfort are increasing. “Advances in CAE, CAD and CAT technologies and processes have contributed significantly to the ability of the automotive industry to keep up with these requirements,” summarizes Audi’s Head of CAE Methods, Dr. Karl Gruber. “The SIMDAT CAE-CAT integration demonstrator was developed to meet these challenges, and Audi will evaluate its usable industrial solutions and competitive advantage for the automotive application area.” SIMDAT has received research funding by the European Commission under the Information Society Technologies Programme (IST), contract number IST-2004-511438. Maximum Community contribution to project: 11 Mio Euro, Project start: 1 September 2004, Duration: 48 months, Partners involved: 27. The project is coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute SCAI in Sankt Augustin, Germany. AUDI AG AUDI AG is a manufacturer of exquisite cars – attractive, sophisticated and technically perfect. The company sold a total of 964,151 cars of the Audi brand in 2007 in more than 100 markets worldwide. AUDI AG’s wholly owned subsidiaries include Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy, and quattro GmbH in Neckarsulm. Audi employs more than 54,000 people worldwide, including 45,000 in Germany. The brand with the four rings invests more than 2 billion Euros each year in order to sustain the company’s technological lead embodied in its “Vorsprung durch Technik” slogan. For additional information about Audi’s products and services, please visit www.audi.com MSC.Software Corporation MSC.Software (NASDAQ: MSCS) is the global leader of enterprise simulation solutions, that help companies make money, save time and reduce costs associated with designing and testing manufactured products. MSC.Software works with thousands of companies in hundreds of industries to develop better products faster by utilizing information technology, software, services and systems. MSC.Software employs 1100 people in 23 countries. For additional information about MSC.Software's products and services, please visit www.mscsoftware.com ontoprise GmbH Ontoprise is the leading independent software vendor for industry-proven SemanticWeb infrastructure technologies and products used to support dynamic semantic information integration and information management processes at the enterprise level. With its mature and standards-based products and its know-how ontoprise is delivering a key portion for the upcoming SemanticWeb. ontoprise has developed a comprehensive product suite designed to support the deployment of semantic technologies in the enterprise. For additional information about our products and services visit www.ontoprise.com Contacts: Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI Clemens-August Thole Head of Department Numerical Software, SIMDAT coordinator +49 (0) 2241 14 27 39 clemens-august.thole@scai.fraunhofer.de www.scai.fraunhofer.de AUDI AG Josef Reicheneder CAE/CAT-Datenmanagement, CAE-Bench +49-841-89-43840 Fax +49-841-89-84-43840 Josef.Reicheneder@AUDI.DE MSC.Software GmbH Dr. Stefan Mayer Senior Manager, SDM Europe +49 89 431987-161 stefan.mayer@mscsoftware.com ontoprise GmbH Henrik Oppermann Director Professional Services Tel.: +49 721 509809-30 oppermann@ontoprise.de www.ontoprise.com More information: www.simdat.eu

Step change in life sciences: Novel drug discovery leverages SIMDAT Grid technology

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:37:00 +0200

Gene sequence analysis at GSK "One of the most important R&D strategies to achieve a significant gain of efficiency is to tap into external knowledge and expertise through a network of external alliances, sharing the risk, reward and control. Given the large investments in drug research, Virtualisation provides a great savings potential," summarizes Professor Ulrich Trottenberg, director of Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI, the SIMDAT project co-ordinator, the current challenges in pharmaceutical drug discovery. GSK, with its firm foundation in science and a track record of turning its research into powerful, marketable drugs, spends more than £300,000 (US$562,000) every hour to find new medicines to treat six major disease areas – asthma, virus control, infections, mental health, diabetes and digestive conditions. GSK is also a leader in the important area of vaccines and develops new treatments for cancer. "With the distributed nature and diverse location of biological data for disease and medical treatment, it is becoming vital to be able to fast and flexible connect to these resources. Grid as a key part of Information Technology supports the organisations’ rapid movement into the virtualised and now more globalised information market," says Rob Gill, Head of Biology Domain Architecture at GSK. "The SIMDAT Grid technologies developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), NEC, Inpharmatica (Galapagos), InforSense and Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI provide a new business model in the life science sector, which can be considered as a success of the project as a whole." Usually, establishing new relationships by creating a new virtual organisation (VO) may take up to several months. But the "Data Grid" paradigm can reduce this to weeks or even days. The VO in this case demonstrates how a pharmaceutical company could partner with an academic group and a vendor company to look at a specific disease and drug target. The duration of this relationship depends on the questions asked and the costs incurred by the interaction. Biotech, on the other hand, has the opportunity to get access to new markets and, hence, is in the position to increase its commercial offer by implementing a finer grained product portfolio. Knowledge exchange within SIMDAT is not bound to local infrastructure but is tending away from organisational, process and technology limitations. Thus, pharmaceutical companies like GSK have now the possibility to scale their business relationship with both biotech companies like Inpharmatica (Galapagos) and academic partners. That is, they can restrict themselves to exactly those resources they are interested in and are not forced to subscribe to a complete and costly product. This can be realised by new, grid-based middleware components, used to securely and transparently integrate distributed data repositories, in combination with distributed execution of process chains. Through Virtualisation pharmaceutical companies like GSK are now capable of scaling their business relationship with both industrial and academic partners and take advantage of its great savings potential. In addition Globalisation is getting more and more crucial to keep up in an international context, especially considering the rate of growth of scientific and technical graduates in Asia is already outpacing the United States and Europe. Virtualisation has also the means to benefit from this wealth of knowledge along with developments in the global market. Current industry applications can already take advantage of SIMDAT technologies. This was successfully demonstrated by a workflow-based test system implemented at GSK by InforSense, consisting of five different remote sites and including data services of two external companies. The development of this workflow is driven by the need to get high quality, state of the art analysis for pharmaceutical companies from wherever it is best sourced. Thus was shown that pharmaceutical R&D processes can be outsourced across multiple organizations, even if they are using different specifications. Thereby the central industrial requirement for a controlled and secure interaction has been fully addressed through internet security models provided by NEC. As a powerful tool for knowledge exchange, SIMDAT technology broadens the scope of the drug discovery chain and is able to import the best of bread analysis from both academia and vendors at appropriate costs. It is an ideal showcase for potential providers who are interested in working with pharmaceutical partners in a more collaborative and beneficial manner rather than purely in a simple vendor consumer relationship. SIMDAT has received research funding by the European Commission under the Information Society Technologies Programme (IST), contract number IST-2004-511438. Maximum Community contribution to project: 11 Mio Euro, Project start: 1 September 2004, Duration: 48 months, Partners involved: 27. The project is coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute SCAI in Sankt Augustin, Germany. GSK is one of the few pharmaceutical companies researching both medicines and vaccines for the World Health Organization’s three priority diseases – HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and has developed some of the leading global medicines in these fields. Headquartered in the UK and with operations based in the US, it is one of the industry leaders, with an estimated seven percent of the world's pharmaceutical market. The Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI conducts research in the field of computer simulations for product and process development, designs and optimizes industrial applications, and offers calculations on high-performance computers. The Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, umbrella organisation of SCAI, undertakes applied research of direct use to private and public enterprise. InforSense goes beyond traditional business intelligence to provide a completely integrated suite of agile, visual and predictive intelligence solutions, enabling organizations to gain business and scientific insights and optimize their business-critical decision-making processes. Leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, consumer goods, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and communications companies around the world rely on InforSense to quickly, easily deliver intelligence and identify trends in data. The company is privately held, with European headquarters in London, UK and North American headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. NEC Laboratories Europe’s IT Research Division (NLE-IT) in St. Augustin, Germany, focuses on the area of Parallel and Distributed Computing, including Grid Technologies and High Performance Computing (HPC) software technologies and applications. Current Grid activities address future enterprise service infrastructures and integrated security solutions. NLE-IT develops technology to enable Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based business processes, such as enterprise applications, to be created, managed and deployed on demand. Strategic research areas for realizing the vision of a global service economy include: next-generation SOA for cross-enterprise collaboration and eCommerce, future SOA runtime systems, Service Level Agreement (SLA) lifecycle management, service quality assurance, virtualization, and semantic technologies. Contacts: Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI Clemens-August Thole Head of Department Numerical Software, SIMDAT coordinator +49 (0) 2241 14 27 39 clemens-august.thole@scai.fraunhofer.de GSK Robert Gill & Li Du MRD-IT Enterprise Architecture +44 (0) 143 876 8121 & +44 (0) 143 876 3384 rob.w.gill@gsk.com & li.5.du@gsk.com www.gsk.com NEC Falk Zimmermann Chief Researcher +49 (0) 2241 92 52 35 zimmermann@it.neclab.eu www.it.neclab.eu InforSense Moustafa Ghanem Director of Research +44 (0) 207 594 8357 mmg@inforsense.com www.inforsense.com For more information see the SIMDAT Pharmaceutical Activity flyer.

New cooperation for clinical text-mining research builds on ProMiner™

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:00:00 +0200

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY. LIFE Biosystems GmbH announced today that it has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Department of Bioinformatics at the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI. As part of this agreement, LIFE has licensed the ProMiner™ entity recognition software, which will become an integral part of LIFE’s text-mining infrastructure. In addition, both parties will work to collaboratively advance the development of information extraction algorithms in the clinical research domain. These efforts will focus on the identification and modelling of therapeutically relevant information from clinical/lexical data, with particular emphasis on drug mode of action and clinical outcomes. "We have been extremely impressed by the advances made by SCAI in the field of biological information extraction" stated Dr. David Jackson, Director of in silico Discovery at LIFE Biosystems. "The synergies created as a result of this collaboration will enable us to efficiently bridge the gap between the clinical and molecular information domains. In so doing, we aim to achieve a new level of innovation in the analysis and application of patient derived data". "The collaboration with LIFE Biosystems fits perfectly with our overall strategy to further develop our text-mining technologies for application areas beyond biology” says Dr. Juliane Fluck, Head of the Text Mining Group at Fraunhofer SCAI. "The domain of clinical information requires dedicated solutions for information extraction and the collaboration with LIFE Biosystems will help us to develop specialized ProMiner™ functionalities supporting mining in unstructured clinical data". About LIFE Biosystems LIFE Biosystems is an in silico-driven discovery company dedicated to the field of predictive medicine. Working together the biopharmaceutical industry and comprehensive cancer centers, we strive to address the key issues facing clinical research and therapeutic development today. As expert practitioners of in silico discovery in molecular medicine, our goal is to transform patient information and molecular data into a new level of clinical discovery, intellectual property and ultimately, patient benefit. For additional information about the company, please visit: www.lifebiosystems.com Contact: Dr. David Jackson, Poststr 34, 69117, Heidelberg Germany Tel: +49 (0)6221 328 4197 Email: Media contact: Tracy C. Donahue TMC Communications Tel: +1 (857) 919-9975 Email: About the Department of Bioinformatics at the Fraunhofer Institute. The Department of Bioinformatics at the Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI is renowned in the field of text-mining and information extraction in the field of life sciences. Excellence in biological named entity recognition has been independently established through successful participation in the two BioCreative text-mining competitions and through several high-ranking publications in the field. Two widely recognized software solutions for the advanced analysis of bibliographic information have been developed to date: ProMiner™ and ChemoCR™. ProMiner™ is a specialized tool for named entity recognition in biology, medicine and chemistry, while ChemoCR™ is a new development, capable of translating depictions of chemical structures into explicit chemical nomenclatures. For additional information about the Department of Bioinformatics please visit: scai.fraunhofer.de/bio.html?L=1 The department is also widely recognized for its annual text mining symposium: scai.fraunhofer.de/tms08.html?L=1 Contact: Michael Krapp Fraunhofer Institute SCAI 53754 Sankt Augustin Germany Tel: +49 2241 14 2935 Fax: +49 2241 144 2935 E-Mail: