Top 10 supercomputers

The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful publicly-known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The project aims to provide a reliable basis for tracking and detecting trends in high-performance computing and bases rankings on Linpack NN Benchmark, a yardstick of performance that is a reflection of processor speed and scalability. Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems involving quantum mechanical physics, weather forecasting, climate research (including research into global warming), molecular modeling (computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, and crystals), physical simulations (such as simulation of airplanes in wind tunnels, simulation of the detonation of nuclear weapons, and research into nuclear fusion), cryptanalysis, and the like. Major universities, military agencies and scientific research laboratories are heavy users.The TOP500 ranking of supercomputers is released twice a year by researchers at the Universities of Tennessee and Mannheim, Germany, and at NERSC Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The latest list saw five new entrants into the top 10. The BlueGene/L System, jointly developed by IBM and the US Department of Energy, remains the world's fastest supercomputer, a record it has held for the past four years. The BlueGene/L System has held the No. 1 spot since November 2004. The current IBM system has been significantly expanded, achieving a Linpack benchmark performance of 478.2 teraflops. A teraflop (TFlop/s) equals a trillion calculations per second. Six months ago, the BlueGene held the top position with 280.6 TFlop/s.

Making its first entry in the Top 10 was a newer version of the same type of IBM system. The BlueGene/P system, called Jugene, debuted at No. 2. This supercomputer has a peak Linpack benchmark performance of 167.3 teraflops. (The Linpack benchmark is the standard used to measure the performance of these supercomputers.) The system is installed at the German computer research center Forschungszentrum Juelich. Founded in 1956 as the Kernforschungsanlage Julich (nuclear research institute Julich, short KFA) it was originally focused on nuclear research. It was the site of three nuclear reactors, all now shut down. Recent scientific breakthroughs at the research centre include the discovery of the giant magnetoresistive effect in 1988 (simultaneously with the Universite de Paris Sud).

The No. 3 system is not only new, but also the first system for a new supercomputing center, the New Mexico Computing Applications Center (NMCAC) in Rio Rancho, NM. The system, built by SGI and based on the Altix ICE 8200 model, posted a speed of 126.9 TFlop/s. One of the world's largest systems dedicated to non-confidential projects, the new supercomputer is the largest Altix ICE system purchased to date, and will fuel scientific and engineering breakthroughs both for private industry and public research institutions. The acquisition is part of an economic growth initiative spearheaded by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

For the first time ever, India placed a system in the Top 10. The Computational Research Laboratories, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd in Pune, India, installed a Hewlett-Packard Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c system. They integrated this system with their own routing technology and achieved 117.9 TFlop/s performance.

The No.5 system is also a new Hewlett-Packard Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c system and installed at a Swedish government agency. It was measured at 102.8 TFlop/s. Hewlett-Packard had the second most supercomputers on the list with 166. HP actually had a few more computers on the list than IBM six months ago. For most of the past several years, IBM has had the most computers on the list.

At No. sixth is Red Storm supercomputer, which is installed at Sandia National Laboratory. Cray Red Storm takes Opteron processors and their HyperTransport links and marries it to a high-bandwidth, low latency interconnect called SeaStar designed by Cray to put thousands and thousands of processors into a single complex. The XT3, which is the first commercialised product based on the Red Storm design, was in volume production in early 2005 and was followed by the XT4 in late 2006 and its upgraded Opterons and SeaStar-2 interconnect. Based on Red Storm design, with XT5 family of machines, Cray is tweaking the blade-style packaging for its compute and I/O blades; its rival in the HPC market, Silicon Graphics, has also moved to blade packaging for its Itanium and Xeon clusters with recent designs.

At no. 7 is Cray XT4/XT3 system, called Jaguar, with 101.7 TFlop/s. The supercomputer is installed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. ORNL is a multiprogramme science and technology laboratory managed for the US Department of Energy. Scientists and engineers at ORNL conduct basic and applied research and development to create scientific knowledge and technological solutions that strengthen the country's leadership in key areas of science; increase the availability of clean, abundant energy; restore and protect the environment and contribute to national security. ORNL also performs other work for the Department of Energy, including isotope production, information management, and technical programme management, and provides research and technical assistance to other organisations.

Following the Cray system was IBM's eServer Blue Gene at the IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, where it achieved 91.29 TFlop/s. IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center is the headquarters for the IBM Research Division -- the largest industrial research organisation in the world with eight labs worldwide. Established in 1961, the Watson Research Center is located in Westchester County, New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts and spans three sites and four buildings. The main laboratory is located in Yorktown Heights, two buildings in Hawthorne, and one building in Cambridge. An approximate 1,790 people are employed between these four facilities. The research focuses primarily on IT hardware (ranging from exploratory work in the physical sciences to semiconductors and systems technology); software (including areas as diverse as security, programming, mathematics and speech technologies); and services, with a focus on applying them to transform businesses in a wide range of industries.

At no. 9 is Cray XT 4 installed at NERSC/LBNL United States. The next-generation supercomputer is used to advance a broad range of scientific research. Named Franklin in honor of the first internationally recognized American scientist, Benjamin Franklin, the Cray XT4 system enables researchers to tackle the most challenging problems in science by conducting more frequent and increasingly detailed simulations and analyses of massive sets of data. NERSC is the flagship scientific computing facility for the Office of Science in the US Department of Energy and a world leader in accelerating scientific discovery through computation. NERSC is located at Berkeley Lab in Berkeley, California.

At no. 10 is an eServer Blue Gene system, called New York Blue, at the Stony Brook/BNL, New York Center for Computational Services. The IBM system measured 82.161 TFlop/s. The New York Center for Computational Sciences (NYCCS) is a joint venture of Stony Brook University (SBU) and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The Center was formed in 2007 to foster high performance massively parallel computing on the whole range of science and technology topics. Its hardware consists of an 18 rack IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer owned by SBU and located at BNL. New York State, with the leadership of the NYS Assembly, provided funds for the machine, and NYS and US DOE funds supported renovation of laboratory space to house it.

Why is Shah Rukh king??????

The man has something that many others don't...the love, respect and support from his peers simply because he loves, respects and supports them in return. Shah Rukh Khan is good with his friends and worst with his competitors. But when it comes to friends, SRK is always willing to give much support and help. Like he lent E Niwas, when he attended the music launch of his film My Name Is Anthony Gonsolves . He also stood by a newcomer like a Nikhil Diwedi, who hails from a non-film background. When asked about how and why he associated with the film he said, "Everyone including E Niwas, Sahara and T-series thought of making this film and I decided to be part of it. It's not just because they all are my friends but all of them are hardworking people and I like hardworking people. My Red Chillies' team helped them in line production because they all are new. Today films don't need big budgets, they need good talent and people who work hard. I believe in hard work and my company too." He continues, "E Niwas and his team is very gifted. I feel proud of these people because they worked very hard against all the odds. I am sure My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves will be a very beautiful film and insha allah it will be a big hit." One more reason for SRK to promote the film is his good relationship with newcomer Nikhil Dwivedi who knows Shah Rukh since he was a Videocon employee. Shah Rukh is a self made man in the industry and without having any film background he made it big. And now when newcomers like Nikhil Dwivedi have similar dreams. SRK is ready to lend his support to the likes of him and Deepika Padukone, who no big and known film family support. It can be also recalled that when his film was released with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Saawariya he said, "Why do they want to come up against my release? Don't they know, I'll finish them?" Saawariya introduced two star kids Rishi and Neetu Kapoor's son Ranbir and Anil Kapoor's daughter Sonam. Though SRK had no grudges for star kids, he didn't like the way Bhansali promoted the film. King Khan is someone who never underestimates his competitors. He smartly planned promotions of his film OSO , and proved that he is the real king of Bollywood.

Row over Sania's ad shoot at Mecca Masjid

HYDERABAD: The shooting of a commercial advertisement featuring tennis star Sania Mirza at the historic Mecca Masjid here has sparked a row with the minorities welfare department seeking a report from the mosque officials. The ad was shot on Tuesday without the permission of the department, which is responsible for the upkeep of the 17th century mosque. The shooting also evoked protest from the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), a powerful Muslim political party in the Muslim-majority old city. MIM and some locals objected to the shooting and Sania Mirza's participation in it. The advertisers had informed the police about the shooting and Sania's arrival but did not bother to take permission from the minorities welfare department. The police reportedly used mild force twice to disperse locals objecting to the shooting. The mosque employees said the attitude of some of the members of shooting unit was also objectionable. They were reportedly wearing shoes when they entered the mosque and pushed away a mosque watchman who tried to stop them. Sheikh Karmeeullah, the district minority welfare officer, Hyderabad, has sought a report from the superintendent and manager of the mosque on the incident. Khaja Nayeemuddin, superintendent of the mosque, said he had no information about the film shooting. The two-hour shooting was over before the mosque custodians could reach the spot. The mosque officials pointed out that the shooting of films and commercials was not permitted in the mosque premises. MIM has protested to the minorities welfare department. "This is an attack on the sanctity of the mosque and it has hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims," said MIM legislator from Charminar Ahmed Pasha Khadri. He said while Sania was free to act in any commercial, the mosque could not be used for such activities. The mosque, located in the heart of the city, is a major tourist centre. Tight security is in place at the mosque since the May 18 bomb blast that killed nine people. Muslims constitute 40 per cent of the city's seven million population.

'I appeal to all human rightists to help Malaysian minorities'

The man who shook the Malaysian government is currently in India trying to garner support for the agitating Hindus of Indian origin under the banner of the Hindu Rights Action Force. P Wytha Moorthy, HINDRAF's president, met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi in Chennai, the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani in New Delhi and leaders of various other parties, capping it with a speech at the Indian Law Institute.
An unassuming and simple person, his eyes show anger and sadness when he speaks about how Malaysian citizens of Indian origin, mostly Hindus, have been treated in Muslim-dominated Malaysia, and recounts the incidents: temples trashed, married women forced to get Islamised, Hindus buried as Muslims, and doors closed for employment and business opportunities.
Malaysia has been a region with a marked Hindu influence since the second century Gangga-Negara era to the Sri Vijay Empire ending in the 14th century. The Islamic influence grew through traders and battles in the 15th century, yet the Hindu marks show up everywhere. 'Malay' in the country's name and 'Pur' in its capital Kuala Lumpur are Sanskrit words, and its national language is Malay Bahasa (or bhasha), sons of the soil are called Bhumiputras.
Yet, the growth of Arab money and the Wahabbi influence has resulted in the denial of the country's heritage and a discriminatory policy towards non-Muslim minorities, as evidenced by the recent protests in the country. Wyatha Moorthy spoke to Tarun Vijay in New Delhi about the conditions in Malaysia.
What brings you here when Malaysian Hindus of Indian origin are agitating back home?
I am here to request Indian leaders and the media, who have always supported human rights of persecuted people the world over, to give voice and support to Malaysian citizens of Indian origin reeling under the torturous attitude of an oppressive Malaysian government.
The way our November 26 protest rally was crushed and people praying before the Batu Caves temple were arrested and later attempt to murder charges were registered against them, clearly shows that the government doesn't have any sympathies for the issues we have raised and wants to throttle the voice of reason through brute force.
I am going to the United Kingdom and the United States of America to seek international support.