Praveen Kumar

2016

Praveen Kumar (2016): Extreme-scale modeling - Understanding ecohydrologic dynamics under climate change, 2016 Blue Waters Annual Report, pp64-65

Blue Waters Illinois allocations awarded to 26 research teams


Mar 7, 2017

Twenty-six research teams at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been allocated computation time on the National Center for Supercomputing Application's (NCSA) sustained-petascale Blue Waters supercomputer after applying in Fall 2016. These allocations range from 25,000 to 600,000 node-hours of compute time over a time span of either six months or one year. The research pursuits of these teams are incredibly diverse, ranging anywhere from physics to political science.


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Improving Photosynthesis May Be Our Best Bet To Feed More People


Nov 4, 2015

Science has made huge progress in improving the productivity of plants. Through breeding to increase the edible parts of crops, planting in new arrangements, and by developing new fertilizers and pesticides, scientists have helped feed ever more people. The Green Revolution in the 1950s and ’60s doubled and quadrupled yields of wheat, rice, and other crops around the world, and we’ve seen productivity increases ever since. The question now is how science continues to make improvements as the global population grows, and demand for food keeps rising. We will need 70% more calories globally by midcentury, according to U.N. estimates. Stephen Long, a plant scientist at the University of Illinois, says techniques developed during the Green Revolution are hitting their limits. ... Long is modeling the entire photosynthetic system using computers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications on the Urbana-Champlain campus. He breaks down the process to hundreds of equations, and then, using an “evolutionary algorithm” that selects at random, he sees which molecular combinations might produce the best results.


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