Intelligence in Scientific Computing

Combining numerical techniques with ideas from symbolic computation and with methods incorporating knowledge of science and mathematics leads to a new category of intelligent computational tools for scientists and engineers. These tools autonomously prepare simulation experiments from high-level specifications of physical models. For computationally intensive experiments, they automatically design special-purpose numerical engines optimized to perform the necessary computations. They actively monitor numerical and physical experiments. They interpret experimental data and formulate numerical results in qualitative terms. They enable their human users to control computational experiments in terms of high-level behavioral descriptions.

Compiling Scientific Code Using Partial Evaluation

Scientists are faced with a dilemma: either they can write abstract programs that express their understanding of a problem, but which do not execute efficiently; or they can write programs that computers can execute efficiently, but which are difficult to write and difficult to understand. We have developed a compiler that uses partial evaluation and scheduling techniques to provide a solution to this dilemma.

Partial Evaluation for Scientific Computing: The Supercomputer Toolkit Experience

We describe the key role played by partial evaluation in the Supercomputer Toolkit, a parallel computing system for scientific applications that effectively exploits the vast amount of parallelism exposed by partial evaluation. The Supercomputer Toolkit parallel processor and its associated partial evaluation-based compiler have been used extensively by scientists at M.I.T., and have made possible recent results in astrophysics showing that the motion of the planets in our solar system is chaotically unstable.

Variability in the Stability and Productivity of Transfected Genes in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells

In the field of biologics production, productivity and stability of the transfected gene of interest are two very important attributes that dictate if a production process is viable. To further understand and improve these two traits, we would need to further our understanding of the factors affecting them. These would include integration site of the gene, gene copy number, cell phenotypic variation and cell environment. As these factors play different parts in the development process, they lead to variable productivity and stability of the transfected gene between clones, the well-known phenomenon of “clonal variation”. A study of this phenomenon and how the various factors contribute to it will thus shed light on strategies to improve productivity and stability in the production cell line. Of the four factors, the site of gene integration appears to be one of the most important. Hence, it is proposed that work is done on studying how different integration sites affect the productivity and stability of transfected genes in the development process. For the study to be more industrially relevant, it is proposed that the Chinese Hamster Ovary dhfr-deficient cell line, CHO-DG44, is used as the model system.

Japanese Scientific And Technology Information in the United States - Public Policy and Private Initiatives

In January 1983 a group of US government, industry and university information specialists gathered at MIT to take stock of efforts to monitor, acquire, assess, and disseminate Japanese scientific and technical information (JSTI). It was agreed that these efforts were uncoordinated and poorly conceived, and that a clearer understanding of Japanese technical information systems and a clearer sense of its importance to end users was necessary. That meeting led to formal technology assessments, Congressinal hearings, and legislation; it also helped stimulate several private initiatives in JSTI provision. Four years later there exist better coordinated and better conceived JSTI programs in both the public and private sectors, but there remains much room for improvement. This paper will recount their development and assess future directions.