NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the steering committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine .
Support for this project was provided by the Department of the Navy, Office of the Chief of Naval Research, under grant number N00014-93-1-0166. The project was conducted at the request of the Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The content of this workshop report does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the federal government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
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International Standard Book Number 0-309-05540-7
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On the cover: A photograph provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency shows urban search and rescue workers in action at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, April 1995. A computer graphic produced by the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, depicts a simulation of Hurricane Emily off the North Carolina Coast, September 1993.
STEERING COMMITTEE, WORKSHOP SERIES ON HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING AND COMMUNICATIONS
KEN KENNEDY,
Rice University,
Chair
FRANCES E. ALLEN,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
VINTON G. CERF,
MCI Telecommunications
GEOFFREY FOX,
Syracuse University
WILLIAM L. SCHERLIS,
Carnegie Mellon University
BURTON SMITH,
Tera Computer Company
KAREN R. SOLLINS,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Staff
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director
JAMES E. MALLORY, Program Officer (through April 1995)
JOHN M. GODFREY, Research Associate
GAIL E. PRITCHARD, Project Assistant
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
WILLIAM A. WULF,
University of Virginia,
Chair
FRANCES E. ALLEN,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
DAVID D. CLARK,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JEFF DOZIER,
University of California, Santa Barbara
HENRY FUCHS,
University of North Carolina
CHARLES GESCHKE,
Adobe Systems Incorporated
JAMES GRAY,
Microsoft Corporation
BARBARA GROSZ,
Harvard University
JURIS HARTMANIS,
Cornell University
DEBORAH A. JOSEPH,
University of Wisconsin
BUTLER W. LAMPSON,
Microsoft Corporation
BARBARA LISKOV,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JOHN MAJOR,
Motorola
ROBERT L. MARTIN,
AT&T Network Systems
DAVID G. MESSERSCHMITT,
University of California, Berkeley
WILLIAM H. PRESS,
Harvard University
CHARLES L. SEITZ,
Myricom Incorporated
EDWARD H. SHORTLIFFE,
Stanford University School of Medicine
CASIMIR S. SKRZYPCZAK,
NYNEX Corporation
LESLIE L. VADASZ,
Intel Corporation
MARJORY S. BLUMENTHAL, Director
HERBERT S. LIN, Senior Staff Officer
PAUL SEMENZA, Staff Officer
JERRY R. SHEEHAN, Staff Officer
JEAN E. SMITH, Program Associate
JOHN M. GODFREY, Research Associate
LESLIE M. WADE, Research Assistant
GLORIA P. BEMAH, Administrative Assistant
GAIL E. PRITCHARD, Project Assistant
COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS
ROBERT J. HERMANN,
United Technologies Corporation,
Chair
PETER M. BANKS,
Environmental Research Institute of Michigan
SYLVIA T. CEYER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
L. LOUIS HEGEDUS,
W.R. Grace and Company (retired)
JOHN E. HOPCROFT,
Cornell University
RHONDA J. HUGHES,
Bryn Mawr College
SHIRLEY A. JACKSON,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
KENNETH I. KELLERMANN,
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
KEN KENNEDY,
Rice University
THOMAS A. PRINCE,
California Institute of Technology
JEROME SACKS,
National Institute of Statistical Sciences
L.E. SCRIVEN,
University of Colorado
LEON T. SILVER,
California Institute of Technology
CHARLES P. SLICHTER,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ALVIN W. TRIVELPIECE,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
SAMUEL WINOGRAD,
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
CHARLES A. ZRAKET,
MITRE Corporation (retired)
NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Preface
From August 1994 to August 1995, the National Research Council's (NRC's) Computer Science and Telecommunications Board conducted a series of three workshops on research issues in high-performance computing and communications. The goal of the series w as to bring together specialists in selected, nationally important application areas and researchers from the high-performance computing and communications (HPCC) research community to explore unmet technology needs and their implications for research. The workshops were held at the request of the Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). They also drew on the interest and input of other agencies that are major supporters of HPCC research, in particular the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The agendas and participant lists for Workshops I through III are given in Appendix A.
The applications discussed in the workshops were selected both for their importance to economic and societal goals and for the diversity of challenges they pose for computing and communications research. The first workshop was held in August 1994 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in Irvine, California. It considered applications in four areas of national importance: manufacturing (e.g., simulation, collaborative design) ; health care (e.g., computerized patient records, medical information, telemedicine); digital libraries (e.g., electronic storage, search and retrieval of multiple forms of information); and electronic commerce and banking (e.g., secure, distributed transactions).
Although significant insights were gained from examining this broad set of
applications, the steering committee decided to explore a single application area in detail to enhance understanding of computing and communications requirements both for that area and for national applications in general. In consultation with DARPA, the steering committee selected crisis management for focused study. Crisis management incorporates preparation for, response to, and recovery from natural and technological disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and oil spills; political-military crises; and related emergencies. Crisis management seemed an ideal focus because its diverse problems create demands for a number of different high-performance technologies. These range from high-performance computation to high-bandwidth, intelligent, and secure communications and information systems, as well as tools to support decision making and management of distributed groups of actors in a complex, uncertain, and rapidly changing environment (analogous to command and control in military operations). Crisis management also provides a context for evaluating both where specifically high-performance technologies can make a significant contribution and where knowledge gained from research can lead to valuable advances in more mainstream (i.e., nonhigh-performance) technologies.
The second workshop, held at the Beckman Center in June 1995, examined the problems presented by crisis management and the strengths and shortcomings of existing computing and communications technologies for addressing them. Both civil and military crisis management were considered, although civil applications received more attention. The steering committee and workshop participants found crisis management to be an especially fruitful source of research topics that have the potential to advance the state of computing and communications on a broad front, in addition to meeting some of the pressing technology needs of civilian and military crisis managers.
The final workshop, held in August 1995 at the National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington, D.C., focused on defining key research opportunities that should be pursued to meet the needs of application areas addressed in the first two workshops . That workshop continued the emphasis on crisis management but also revisited the other application areas from the first workshop as additional sources of input and as a test of the generality of conclusions about crisis management needs.
This report synthesizes and elaborates on what was learned in the three workshops. The steering committee emphasizes that it was not the goal of the series to provide recommendations on how to solve the specific problems of crisis management and other application areas in the nation today. Solving crisis management problems such as slow or incomplete delivery of food, medicine, information, and financial assistance to people affected by a disaster requires resources, expertise, and effort in many areas in addition to computing and communications (e.g., effort to address budget constraints for local and state crisis management agencies, interagency coordination, personnel training). Rather, the workshops' goal was to explore applications to gain insights into problems that
computing and communications research could address, thereby helping to alleviate, with more capable or cheaper technologies, problems faced in crisis management and other nationally important application areas. In that respect the workshops proved to be a rich source of ideas for the research community to consider.
The steering committee for the Workshop Series on High Performance Computing and Communications acknowledges the contributions of the workshop speakers and participants. Their insights and creativity were central to this effort. We especially thank James Beauchamp, of the U.S. Commander in Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC); John Hwang, Federal Emergency Management Agency; Robert Kehlet, Defense Nuclear Agency; David Kehrlein, Office of Emergency Services, State of California; and Lois Clark McCoy, National Institute of Urban Search and Rescue, as well as other crisis management professionals who educated, stimulated, and challenged a diverse group of computing and communications researchers. In addition, workshop participants Joel Saltz, of the University of Maryland, and Clifford Lynch, of the Office of the President, University of California, made valuable written contributions to the final report.
The steering committee also thanks the NRC staff for their diligent assistance throughout the workshop series and preparation of the final report, including Marjory Blumenthal, John Godfrey, Gail Pritchard, and James Mallory. The steering committee and I are especially grateful to John Godfrey for his resourcefulness in identifying experts and information sources and his conscientious assistance in developing this report. His efforts to attract both crisis management and computing experts to join in this collaborative project and his consistent support in integrating materials and ideas from both perspectives were key to the successful outcome of this project. Gail Pritchard's assistance in ensuring the smooth running of the workshops and providing organizational support to the steering committee was also essential and much appreciated. Finally, the steering committee is grateful to the anonymous reviewers for helping to sharpen and improve the report through their comments. Responsibility for the report remains with the steering committee.
Ken Kennedy, Chair
Steering Committee, Workshop Series on High Performance Computing and Communications
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