April 20, 2020 — Nearly 200 million core hours were granted via PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) to research groups led by Finnish researchers. The allocated computing resources are highly valued and belong to the so called tier-0 level. The results of the call are excellent and indicate that computational science is at a high level in our country.
The research group led by Prof. Ilpo Vattulainen (University of Helsinki) was awarded 67 million core hours on the supercomputer Joliot-Curie-Rome in France. By studying the operating principle of the tear fluid lipid layer in non-equilibrium and its malfunctions the team aims to unravel the cause of dry eye syndrome from which one third of the world´s population suffer annually.
Dr. Vivek Sharma (University of Helsinki) and his multidisciplinary research group will contribute toward the atomistic picture of mitochondria and its components by examining one specific enzyme. They anticipate the project to have a breakthrough potential in opening novel routes of drug discovery against mitochondrial dysfunction. The group was awarded 25,7 million core hours on the supercomputer Marconi100 in Italy.
Prof. David Weir (University of Helsinki) and his international research group will utilize high-performance computing to investigate cosmological sources of gravitational waves and the processes through which the Higgs boson may have turned on. The group was awarded 47 million core hours on the supercomputer Hawk in Germany.
Prof. Maari Käpylä (Aalto University) leads a Finnish-German research group in the field of universe sciences. The group aims to increase the understanding of the solar and stellar magnetic activity by studying interplay of large- and small-scale dynamos in rotating stellar convection zones. The group was awarded 57 million core hours on the supercomputer SuperMUC in Germany.
In addition, Docent Mika Juvela (University of Helsinki) participates as a collaborator in a research group led by University of Barcelona that studies self-consistent Supernova Driven Star Formation.
The 20th Call for Proposals for PRACE Project Access received 59 eligible proposals, of which 45 were awarded a total of 2.11 billion core hours. More information on the results is available here.
On top of all this, prof. Gerrit Groenhof (University of Jyväskylä) was successful in the special call for proposals to mitigate impact of COVID-19 pandemic. He was awarded 15 million core hours on Joliot-Curie-Rome supercomputer in France. The COVID-19 fast track was opened in March and the call is open until further notice. More information is available here.
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Source: CSC