[BOINC] [天文类] MilkyWay@home

lonelyghost_li

Milkyway@Home: Separation Project Coming To An End
Dear Volunteers,

We are beginning to sunset the Separation project (note that this is different from the N-Body project, which still needs your help!!!). Thanks to your computational contributions, we have completed the goals that we set out to accomplish with this the project, so we are going to shut down the Separation project in the near future. We are planning on submitting a paper containing the final results of the Separation project to an academic journal in the near future. It is possible that the reviewer may request revisions that involve re-running Separation data, in which case we might bring it back for a short time, but until that happens we do not need your computer time for this. We would like to sincerely thank you for all the time and effort that you spent helping us complete this substantial task. We owe the success of the project to you all.

With this announcement comes a few updates to MilkyWay@home: MilkyWay@home will continue to exist, but only as the Nbody project. Because of the complexity of running Nbody tree codes on GPUs, there is little speed-up from running Nbody on a GPU compared to an equivalent CPU. Although we did beta-test a full GPU Nbody application, we have decided not to deploy it due to concerns over maintaining its support; among other issues, supporting GPU Nbody would require changing the GPU code every time the CPU code is updated, and making sure every change is tested and works identically on both platforms. Since we are actively working on extensions of the Nbody code that include such things as the effects of the Large Magellanic Cloud's gravity and the consequences of self-interacting dark matter on the formation of tidal streams, this parallel support would be difficult. So, when Separation shuts down, we will be ending GPU support for MilkyWay@home. This will have the greatest impact on people who crunch lots of Separation work units on high-end GPUs; these users can expect to earn a much lower amount of credit per time than they did before. If you contribute only CPU cycles, your ability to earn credit will be unaffected. We still want as many people to contribute CPU time to MilkyWay@home as possible! However, we understand that if your goal is to use GPUs to obtain a large amount of credit quickly, there are more efficient ways to do this and other projects that can better use your resources.

We would appreciate your input on this because we expect that it will probably take some time for GPU-oriented users to swap that hardware over to different projects. How long would you like us to wait before we shut down Separation?

Again, thank you so much for letting us use your processors! They have not only increased our knowledge of the Milky Way galaxy that we live in, but they have also contributed to five PhD theses and trained dozens of undergraduate students to build and maintain large and complex computing systems. These students and I thank you for your contributions. We will be posting the results of the final Separation project results probably later this year, after they have gone through the peer review process (which takes about six months on average, with wide variability).

Best,
Tom & Prof. Newberg


======================================================【机翻】

Milkyway@Home：the Separation project项目即将结束
尊敬的志愿者们：

我们开始关闭the Separation project 项目（请注意，这与 the N-Body project项目不同， the N-Body project 项目仍然需要您的帮助!!!）。感谢您的计算贡献，我们已经完成了我们设定的目标，因此我们将在不久的将来关闭the Separation project项目。我们计划在不久的将来向学术期刊提交一篇包含the Separation project项目最终结果的论文。审阅者可能会请求涉及重新运行the Separation project数据的修订，在这种情况下，我们可能会在短时间内将其恢复，但在此之前，我们不需要您的计算机时间来完成此操作。我们衷心感谢您为完成这项艰巨任务所花费的所有时间和精力。我们将项目的成功归功于你们所有人。

随着这一宣布，MilkyWay@home有一些更新：MilkyWay@home将继续存在，但只是作为Nbody项目。由于在 GPU 上运行 Nbody 树代码的复杂性，与等效的 CPU 相比，在 GPU 上运行 Nbody 几乎没有加速。尽管我们对完整的GPU Nbody应用程序进行了beta测试，但由于担心维护其支持，我们决定不部署它;除其他问题外，支持 GPU Nbody 需要在每次更新 CPU 代码时更改 GPU 代码，并确保每个更改都经过测试并在两个平台上以相同的方式工作。由于我们正在积极研究Nbody代码的扩展，其中包括大麦哲伦星云引力的影响以及自相互作用暗物质对潮汐流形成的影响，因此这种平行支持将是困难的。因此，当the Separation project关闭时，我们将终止对MilkyWay@home的 GPU 支持。这将对在高端 GPU 上处理大量分离工作单元的人产生最大的影响;这些用户每次获得的信用额度可能比以前低得多。如果您只贡献 CPU 周期，则您赚取积分的能力将不受影响。我们仍然希望尽可能多的人为MilkyWay@home贡献 CPU 时间！但是，我们理解，如果您的目标是使用 GPU 快速获得大量积分，那么有更有效的方法可以做到这一点，以及其他可以更好地利用您的资源的项目。

我们非常感谢您对此的意见，因为我们预计面向 GPU 的用户可能需要一些时间才能将该硬件交换到不同的项目。你希望我们在关闭分离之前等待多久？

再次感谢您让我们使用您的处理器！他们不仅增加了我们对我们所居住的银河系的了解，而且还为五篇博士论文做出了贡献，并培训了数十名本科生来构建和维护大型复杂的计算系统。这些学生和我感谢你们的贡献。我们将在今年晚些时候发布最终分离项目结果的结果，在它们经过同行评审过程（平均需要大约六个月，差异很大）之后。

最好
汤姆和纽伯格教授