NIC Symposium 2012 in Retrospect

The NIC symposium is held every two years and provides an overview of the activities and results of research groups who were granted computing time on the supercomputers at Jülich through the John von Neumann Institute for Computing (NIC). The 6th NIC Symposium took place at Forschungszentrum Jülich from 7 to 8 February 2012 and was attended by about 130 scientists.

The participants were welcomed by Prof. Bachem (Board of Directors of Forschungszentrum Jülich), who gave an overview of recent developments in the European supercomputing landscape, and by Prof. Lippert (JSC), who presented new perspectives in supercomputing.

This symposium also marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum (HLRZ), which became the NIC in 1998. Prof. Binder (University of Mainz), who is one of the founding fathers of the HLRZ and currently serves as chairman of the NIC scientific council, gave a historical overview of HLRZ/NIC. In particular, he emphasized that HLRZ/NIC's structure and peer-review system serve as a model for other supercomputing organizations.

In the scientific programme, recent results in various research fields, ranging from astrophysics to turbulence were presented in 14 invited talks and 60 posters. Both attendance and the number of poster presentations were a new record high. Ample discussion sessions after the talks and the poster session gave the participants rich opportunities to exchange ideas and methods in an interdisciplinary setting.

The detailed programme, talks, posters, proceedings, and pictures from the symposium are available at http://www2.fz-juelich.de/nic/symposium/symposium-2012.html
(Contact: Dr. Walter Nadler)

from JSC News No. 202, 26 March 2012