| Active Distributed Computing Projects - Science |
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These links take you to other project categories on this site:
Mathematics Art Puzzles/Games Miscellaneous Distributed Human Projects Collaborative Knowledge Bases Charity See the bottom of this page for a description of the icons on the page. |
| Project Information | Project % Complete | Major Supported Platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Science | ||
Search for extra-terrestrial radio signals at
SETI@home.
The project passed 2 billion credits on July 14, 2005. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 4.18 of the SETI@home application (which runs inside the BOINC client) is available for Windows and Mac OSX as of June 22, 2005. Version 4.02 is available for Linux and Solaris as of August 29, 2004. Version 5.27 of the SETI@home Enhanced client is available for Windows and Linux as of August 8, 2007. Version 5.28 is available for Linux and Mac OSX as of October 8, 2007. Version 5.12 is available for Solaris and Linux as of May 1, 2006. SETI@home Enhanced "is a factor of two more sensitive to Gaussian signals and to some kinds of pulsed signals than the original SETI@home." As of January 3, 2008, seven new receivers on the Arecibo telescope are generating 500 times more data for the project, and the project needs many more volunteers to process the new data. See a guide for customizing the SETI@Home BOINC client graphics, and unsupported add-on tools available for the client. See information about porting and optimizing the BOINC SETI@home client. See a Powerpoint slide presentation about Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), the open-source software architecture used for the new SETI@home. These slides were used for a presentation at the 2002 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. See the status of the project servers. Also see the project's latest technical news and its future plans. See The Planetary Society's latest newsletter about SETI@home, published January 15, 2008. See the SETI@home bookstore and learn more about SETI and the science behind it. View the SETI@home BOINC discussion forum. |
SETI@home: 28,326,820,049 credits |
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evolution@home
is a grand-challenge computation research
program to study evolution. The first simulator for the project "helps
uncover potential genetic causes of extinction for endangered and
not-yet-endangered species by investigating Mullers Ratchet. Your help to
improve understanding of such genomic decay might one day be used to fight it."
As of October 24, 2002, more than 16.3 years of CPU time have been contributed
to the project.
On October 24, 2002, Laurence Loewe published the first scientific paper, "evolution@home: Experiences with work units that span more than 7 orders of magnitude in computational complexity," based on the results of the project. This paper was presented at CCGrid 2002 in May, 2002. To participate, download the client, then select a run-file based on the amount of RAM you can dedicate to the application and the amount of time you want the application to run, then run the application and email the results file. See more information about the client in a quick start guide. Release 6, for Windows and Macintosh, is available as of October 7, 2002. Please upgrade to this version if you are using an older version. Scheduling session 7 of the run-files is available as of March 27, 2003. BOINC users can participate in this project via the yoyo@home EvoHo project. evolution@home GUI, a third-party tool, provides a graphical interface for the semi-automated version of the evolution@home client. See high scores for the project. See the latest changes to the project website. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing: 539,862.391 billion individuals observed in 37.704 years of CPU time since mid-March, 2003 |
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The project posted its most recent news update on April 8, 2007. Recently the project "has implemented several strategies to increase the simulation time, accuracy, and system size scaling." A paper about these methods will be published in the next 6 months. Also, the project has received a U.S. National Science Foundation research grant which will allow it to "use quantum mechanics to evaluate the interactions between atoms" so that it can "simulate more interesting systems, including chemical reactions at surfaces, and the computational design of catalysts." The application is built on the Fida and Mithral distributed computing platforms. The Windows client can run as a screensaver (which doesn't show any information about what it's doing), or as a command-line client (run the client.exe executable in the installed directory). Note that although you have the option to install the client in any directory, the screensaver expects it to be installed in C:\Program Files\UW Chemistry\ Eon (this bug will be fixed soon). The Linux client is command-line only. The application supports users behind proxy servers. Edit the client.cfg file: change active to yes, and add your proxy server hostname and port number. Note: on Windows, only use notepad to edit client.cfg. wordpad and the DOS edit command strip off important end-of-line characters in the file and client.exe will reset it to its default values. In dtpad you will see an empty rectangle character after each field: this is the end-of-line character and it must not be removed. The latest version of the Windows client is available as of February 28, 2005. The latest version of the Linux client is available as of February 28, 2005. The latest version of the Windows GUI client is available as of March 25, 2005. A benchmark program is available on the download page as of August 20, 2005. Join an unofficial discussion forum, hosted by Free-DC, about the project. |
ongoing: 568,273,865 total results |
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On February 14, 2006, the project began the BBC Climate Change Experiment in collaboration with the BBC and BOINC. That project uses the Transient Coupled Model, with a dynamic ocean, rather than the "slab model," or unchanging ocean, used in previous climateprediction.net experiments. Work units for this experiment took about 2.3 times longer to complete than climateprediction.net's sulphur cycle work units, and about 6.6 times longer than climateprediction.net's slab model work units. Results from the BBC Climate Change Experiment were published on February 10, 2007. The BBC Climate Change Experiment is closed to new participants, but existing participants can still submit their results during the next year or two. As of August 8, 2005, the project been approved for funding to build a regional climate model into the project. This model will generate higher-resolution forecasts for limited areas of the world. Scientists from countries which cannot perform their own client modeling can propose regions for which to generate forecasts, and project participants can choose a region they want to help. This feature will be integrated into the project by the end of 2006. The first climate models for a full 45-year beta-test simulation were successfully completed on March 6, 2003. The project received its 5,000th result on November 7, 2003. See some normal and abnormal results. In the 3 months after the project launch, it achieved: 9,796 completed full runs, 882,272 modelled years, 43,548 registered users, and the web site was translated into 14 languages. By April 6, 2004, the project completed 1.5 million years of simulation in over 22,000 runs. By July 5, 2004, the project completed 2 million years of simulation in over 30,000 runs. By October 18, 2004, the project completed 3 million years of simulation in over 40,000 runs. By December 14, 2004, the project completed 50,000 runs. By January 25, 2005, the project completed 60,000 runs. By July 14, 2005, the project completed 100,000 standard runs. By August 16, 2005, the project completed 8 million years of simulation in over 110,000 runs. The project began supporting a BOINC-based client on August 26, 2004. The project turned 1 on September 14, 2004: by that date "78,000 people in over 130 countries had completed 35,000 45-year GCM runs, computed 2.5 million model years and donated 6,000 years of computing time." On September 17, 2004, a book about using new technologies to sustain and protect natural ecosystems was released: chapter 12 of the book is about climateprediction.net and was written by several climateprediction.net team members. By December 22, 2005, the project completed 10 million model years. The project clients have some large requirements. In particular, one work unit will take up to 6 weeks to complete on a 1.4 GHz CPU. Please study the requirements on the download page before downloading the clients, and please do not download the clients if you are not willing to commit to completing a work unit. The classic client runs as a graphical application (GUI) or as a service. The BOINC-based client is similar to other BOINC-based clients. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. The clients support users behind firewalls and proxy servers (see this page for details for the classic client). Users may run either client, but new features will only be added to the BOINC-based client. Version 2.2.28 of the classic client is available for Windows as of February 13, 2004: it adds some new features and fixes some bugs from previous versions. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 5.41/5.40/5.39 of the HadCM3 Coupled Model Experiment Optimised File I/O client is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX as of April 11, 2007. This client reduces disk I/O by 92% and includes a version for X86-based Macs. Note that BOINC version 5.0 or greater is required to use this HadCM3 client. An advanced visualization package is available for some Windows platforms as of July 15, 2004. Also, Windows users with Photoshop can download a Photoshop plug-in to make a 3D model of their simulation results. Version 2.0 of the package is available for the classic and BOINC clients, for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX, as of April 8, 2005. A research paper about the project "has been accepted for the 1st IEEE International Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing in Melbourne, Australia this December. It outlines the challenges of running a large-scale, long-term application via volunteer computing, compares CPDN with other volunteer computing projects, and shows how using BOINC has really helped the project both obtain and retain users." Students and teachers can access school resources for the project. Subscribe to the project's RSS feed. Join a discussion forum for this project. |
ongoing: 10.1 million model years completed; 139,248 HadSM3 runs completed; 1,075 sulphur cycle runs completed; 962,881,818 credits (92,879 BOINC runs) completed |
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Help design a more efficient particle accelerator in
Stephen Brooks'
Muon1 Distributed
Particle Accelerator Design project. The project "simulates the
pion-to-muon decay channel (grey cylinders surrounding a straight blue path)
of the RAL Neutrino Factory front end design. This is different to the
previous versions of the solenoid-channel-only optimisation because it varies
all parameters of the solenoids independently of one another. The bending
chicane featured in versions 4.0-4.2x will be replaced by a linear accelerator
and a muon 'cooling ring' in version 5."
See technical reports and papers from this project. The client does not need to contact a project server to get work. It submits results via ftp whenever it accumulates more than 100 Kbytes of results. The software also includes a separate ftp client which you can use to submit results manually. The Windows version of the client can be run as a screen-saver or from the command-line. Version 4.44d of the client is available for Windows as of January 11, 2008. Version 4.33 and later can be run under Linux using Wine. BOINC users can participate in this project via the yoyo@home Muon project. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing: 57,023596 simulations completed |
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The project released its first status report on November 3, 2004. It successfully completed over 500,000 jobs by that date, with the help of 6,000 registered users and 7,500 active computers. It released its fourth status report on September 8, 2005. The project is in production mode as of July 13, 2005. The project officially relaunched in the UK (where it is now based) on October 12, 2007. The project will run the SixTrack application until the LHC starts in 2008, and will continue running after the LHC launch to compare simulation data with real data. The project will also begin running the Garfield application (which simulates two- and three-dimensional drift chambers (i.e. gaseous detectors) sometime in the near future, and may eventually run another application "simulating particle collisions for the ATLAS experiment, one of the four major LHC experiments." The project uses a BOINC-based client, which runs an application called SixTrack. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. SixTrack's graphical screensaver displays a cross-section of the beam of particles that SixTrack is simulating. Version 4.67 of the application is available for Windows as of April 12, 2005. Version 4.66 is available for Linux as of April 8, 2005. Linux users with NFS-mounted work directories should read the Known Bugs for the client. Version 7.11 of the Garfield application is available for Windows and Linux as of September 7, 2007. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing; 185,789,008 credits |
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Help
Einstein@Home search for evidence
of gravitational waves,
predicted in 1916 by
Albert Einstein's
General Theory of Relativity,
but never detected. The project searches for "spinning
neutron stars
(also
called pulsars) [which are likely to emit gravitational waves] using data
from the LIGO and
GEO gravitational wave
detectors. Einstein@home is a
World Year of Physics 2005 project
supported by the American Physical Society
(APS) and by a number of international organizations." The first production
run of Einstein@Home "carried out a search for pulsars over the entire sky,
using the most sensitive 600 hours of data from LIGO's third science run, S3,
which made observations between October, 2003 and January, 2004. Analysis
of the S3 data was completed on May 3, 2005. Analysis of S4 data began on
June 28, 2005. A status report
with the results of the S3 data analysis was published on September 11, 2005.
See the discussion forum thread about the status report. Bruce Allen gave a talk about
the final S3 results (see
report (PDF))
on January 2, 2006, at the 10th annual Gravitational Wave Data Analysis
Workshop.
As of January 27, 2006, the project had more than 100,000 participants with computation credit. The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. The project initially ran one application, an all-sky pulsar search. On December 23, 2005, it began releasing Albert, an improved and more sensitive version of the pulsar search application. Note: Each work unit is 12 MB, and the deadline for returning the results of a work unit is 7 days. A work unit takes about 9 hours to finish on a Pentium 4 2.5 GHz CPU. Because of these factors, the project is recommended for users with faster systems and a broadband Internet connection. The graphical screensaver displays "a rotating celestial sphere showing the known constellations, along with the current zenith positions of three gravity wave detectors. Also shown are the positions of the known pulsars and supernovae remnants, and a marker indicating the positions being searched as the calculations proceed." See a detailed description of the screensaver. Version 4.79 of the pulsar search application is available for Windows as of February 11, 2005. Version 4.81 of the pulsar search application is available for Linux as of August 7, 2005. Version 4.78 of the pulsar search application is available for Mac OSX as of February 11, 2005. A beta testing page contains test clients for the project. Version 0.12 of the Mac OSX test client is available as of August 13, 2005. Version 0.06 of the Linux test client is available as of July 29, 2005. See the status of the project servers. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing: 6,964,550,352 credits |
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Help the
BBC Climate Change Experiment study
global climate warming due to different processes in the 20th century and
to predict the "transient climate response," the actual climate change
expected to occur for various scenarios over the next 80 years. The project
uses the
Transient Coupled Model,
with a dynamic ocean, rather than the "slab model," or unchanging ocean, used
in previous climateprediction.net
experiments. The project is a collaboration among the
BBC, climateprediction.net, and
BOINC. The project is described in
a BBC television documentary Meltdown (BBC-4, February 20, 2006). Early
results of the project will be described in a second BBC television program
in May, 2006. As of April 11, 2007, "the BBC Climate Change Experiment
including the documentaries 'Meltdown' and 'Climate Change: Britain Under
Threat' have been nominated for an award in the Interactivity category by the
British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)." The winner will be
announced on May 20, 2007.
The project simulates 160 years of climate change, between the years 1920 and 2080. Work units for the project take about 2.3 times longer to complete than climateprediction.net's sulphur cycle work units, and about 6.6 times longer than climateprediction.net's slab model work units. The project clients have some large requirements. In particular, one work unit will take up to 6 months to complete. Please study the requirements in the project's Help/FAQ page before downloading the client, and please do not download the client if you are not willing to commit to completing a work unit. You can participate by downloading the simplified project client, or if you are already participating in other BOINC-based projects, by attaching to http://bbc.cpdn.org in the BOINC client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. The clients support users behind firewalls and proxy servers, and modem users (although modem users should be aware that the application is about 35 MB). The BOINC client is available for Windows and Linux. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing |
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Join the
Leiden Classical
project, and help create a desktop computing grid for any scientist or
science student to use to study general
classical dynamics.
This is the first project which allows its users to submit calculations for the project to compute.
To submit a calculation to the project, download a standalone version of the Classical client and follow the instructions for using it, then submit your calculation to the project's computing grid. As of March 13, 2007, the project has a Classical-Builder Java 3D graphical user interface tool for building input files for the Classical application. The project uses a BOINC-based client, which runs five applications: Classical, upperCASE, trajtou-cu111, trajtou-pt111, and trajtou-pd110paw. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 5.50 of Classical is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and FreeBSD as of December 10, 2007. Version 5.36 of the trajtou clients is available for Windows and Linux as of June 12, 2007. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing; 70,047,824 credits |
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Help
QMC@home improve the Quantum Monte
Carlo method for general use in Quantum Chemistry. Quantum Chemistry
"invents smart approximations to Quantum Theory to predict molecular
information with high accuracy." "Reactions between molecules are important
for virtually all parts of our lives. The structure and reactivity of
molecules can be predicted by Quantum Chemistry." The project published
its first results ("'Toward the Exact Solution of the Electronic
Schrödinger Equation for Noncovalent Molecular Interactions: Worldwide
Distributed Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations' - Our DNA base pair and
JSCH2005-S22 benchmark set results, published in the Journal of Physical
Chemistry A (JPCA) issued by the American Chemical Society (ACS)") in
January, 2008.
The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. The project reached its beta test phase, and released a new screensaver, on May 23, 2006. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing; 1,017,512,831 credits |
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Help
NanoHive@Home "accurately
simulate nanosystems too large to be calculated via normal means, and thereby
enable further scientific study in the field of nanotechnology."
The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
beginning soon |
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Help μFluids@Home
simulate "two-phase fluid behavior in microgravity and microfluidics problems"
in order to "design better satellite propellant management devices and address
two-phase flow in microchannel and MEMS devices."
The project uses the BOINC computing platform to run various applications. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 4.10 of the project's evolver software application is available for Windows as of August 14, 2006. The client is currently only available for Windows, but the project owners will develop a Linux client in the near future, followed by a Mac OSX client. Join a discussion forum about this project. |
ongoing; 61,568,486 credits |
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The project uses the BOINC computing platform to run various applications. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 2.42 of the project's Monte Carlo Metropolis software application is available for Windows as of August 29, 2006. The client is currently only available for Windows, but a Linux client will be available eventually. Join a discussion forum about this project. |
ongoing; 383,059,413 credits |
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Help
Cosmology@Home
find temperature and polarization anisotropies
in
cosmic microwave background radiation. Studying these anisotropies helps
scientists to learn what the universe was like when it was only 300,000
years old. The project is in a beta testing phase as of October 26, 2007.
The project uses the BOINC computing platform to run various applications. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 2.00 of the project's CAMB software application is available for Windows and Linux as of October 24, 2007. Join a discussion forum about this project. |
ongoing; 357,856,511 credits |
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PS3GRID
"is a volunteer computing project based on the
PlayStation3 and BOINC for full-atom molecular dynamics simulations and
other scientific applications specially optimized for the Cell processor.
Your contribution is very important because our Cell MD molecular dynamics
software runs over an order of magnitude faster on the PlayStation3 opening
the way to innovative computational experiments." Participants who wish
to participate in the beta test of the project, and who are capable
of and willing to install Linux on their PS3, should send email to ps3grid@gmail.com to get an invitation code.
The project uses the BOINC PS3 computing platform to run various applications. Join a discussion forum about this project. |
ongoing; 69,815,887 credits |
PS3 |
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The project uses the BOINC computing platform to run various applications. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. If you already have BOINC installed, you can join this and other World Community Grid BOINC-based project by attaching to the project URL www.worldcommunitygrid.org. You can select/de-select World Community Grid projects in your World Community Grid member page, under My Grid --> My Projects. This project is discussed in the World Community Grid forums. |
ongoing; 32,694 results returned |
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Help
MilkyWay@home
model and determine the evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy. Note that the
project is in alpha phase. The project's software client and work units are
under development. The project published its first results, "Asynchronous Genetic Search for
Scientific Modeling on Large-Scale Heterogeneous Environments," on January 27,
2008.
The project uses the BOINC computing platform to run various applications. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 1.13 of the project's MilkyWay@home software application is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Solaris and FreeBSD as of December 13, 2007. Join a discussion forum about this project. |
ongoing; 115,105,488 credits |
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Help
APS@Home research "the effects of
atmospheric dispersion as it relates to the accuracy of measurements used in
climate prediction." The project may research other topics in atmospheric
science soon.
The project uses the BOINC computing platform to run various applications. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 1.00 of the project's Lagrangian stochastic transport model software application is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and Solaris as of September 26, 2007. Join a discussion forum about this project. |
on hold until May, 2008; 3,187,744 credits |
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Help
QCN Alpha Test perform
computations for the Quake Catcher Network,
"a collaborative initiative for developing the world's largest, low-cost
strong-motion seismic network by utilizing sensors in and attached to
Internet-connected computers." The project turns your computer into a desk-top
seismometer. "Currently only Mac (OS X) PPC and Intel laptops which have a
built-in accelerometer" are supported.
The project uses the BOINC computing platform to run various applications. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 2.27 of the project's QCN Alpha software application is available for Windows and Mac OSX as of February 7, 2008. Join a discussion forum about this project. |
ongoing |
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yoyo@home EvoHo is
a BOINC-based wrapper for
evolution@home.
The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 1.04 of the project's evolution@home client is available for Windows as of January 6, 2008. Join a discussion forum about yoyo@home. |
70,543,602 credits for all yoyo@home projects |
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yoyo@home Muon is
a BOINC-based wrapper for
Muon1.
The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 1.06 of the project's Muon client is available for Windows as of March 8, 2008. Join a discussion forum about yoyo@home. |
70,543,602 credits for all yoyo@home projects |
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Help evolve digital creatures which move
more efficiently in
Intelligent Design,
a Darwin@Home project. The project's
results are stored in publically-accessible XML files. See screenshots and more information
about the project.
To participate in the project, click on the Intelligent Design logo on the project's main web page. This will launch a Java Webstart application on your computer which will automatically download and run the Intelligent Design application. Instructions for using the application are displayed within the application itself. The application should run on any computing platform which supports Java. You may need to install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in order to run the application. Version 20070511 of the application is available as of May 11, 2007. |
ongoing |
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The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 1.06 of the project's Muon client is available for Windows as of March 8, 2008. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing; 478,944 credits |
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See the project's latest results. As of April 2, 2008, the project has simulated over 3.6 billion neurons. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons. The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 1.05 of the project's Neuronal Simulator client is available for Windows and Linux as of March 18, 2008. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing; 3,569,002 credits |
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Help
BRaTS@Home (BRaTS Ray Trace
Simulator) "do various calculations in Gravitational Ray Tracing. As of
August 8, 2007, participation in the project is by invitation only.
The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 4.00 of the project's ray_trace_ellipse client is available for Windows and Linux as of February 18, 2008. Version 4.00 of the project's test_app client is available for Windows as of February 12, 2008. Version 4.01 of test_app is available for Linux as of February 15, 2008. Join a discussion forum about the project. |
ongoing; 16,912 credits |
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Help orbit@home
"monitor the impact hazard posed by Near Earth Objects." The project uses
the Orbit Reconstruction, Simulation and Analysis (ORSA) framework. More information can be found at the
ORSA@work website and
in a presentation poster titled Distributed Computing and Near Earth Objects Hazard Monitoring, published by Pasquale
Tricarico of Washington State University on November 14, 2004.
The project uses a BOINC-based client. See the BOINC platform information for the latest version of the BOINC client. Version 1.18 of the project's SurveySimulator client is available for Windows, Linux and MacOSX as of April 23, 2008. Join a discussion forum about this project. |
ongoing; 220,259 credits |
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