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Software for Science
Marten Teitsma, Ed Kuijpers, Patrick Hendriks, Mats Otten
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Computer Sciences
Abstract
In Software for Science teams of students conduct research on the use of cutting edge computer technology to assist scientists in their experiments. Best
practices for scientific programming will be taught and realised in projects for renown scientific institutes.
Introduction
One of the pillars of scientific research is its reproducibility. Due to the
extensive use of software and specific hardware this is more and more
problematic. Special attention should be given to this aspect of scientific
research. Furthermore, contemporary research in science such as provided
by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) or ASTRON (the
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy) generates an enormous amount
of data due to the statistical method of discovery. To compute and show
the data, knowledge of the newest hardware, software and analysis
techniques is needed which can only be supplied by experts in the field of
Computer Sciences and Human Machine Interaction.
Educational model
Software for Science offers assignments for teams of students and interns
to broaden their horizon and develop software for scientific experiments.
IPersonalised educational route
Students choose several technical and social competences they want to
enhance during the minor.
IBoot camp
Each student starts with a boot camp to learn the specific tools and
skills needed for being successful during the minor or internship. Tools
such as GitHub, CMake, C++, etc. but also domain knowledge will be
taught.
ICourses
The subjects scientific programming and methodology are taught in a
course of 10 weeks.
IDeveloping a product with a team
Students work in a team of 3 or 4 member on a specific project which is
part of the experiments done by CERN, ASTRON or as being hosted by
the eScience Center.
IAcademic writing skills
A team writes a technical report on their product. Each student writes
a research paper on their specific assignment.
IEvaluation by an overall assessment
At the end of the minor an assessment composed of a presentation and
review of the product and several tests will be organised.
ASTRON directs several experiments from its headquarters in Dwingeloo
and collaborates in a new international project to create the Square
Kilometre Array (SKA). This project combines telescopes in South Africa
and Australia creating a larger apparatus to detect radio waves from the
Universe. The amount of data generated could amount to one exabyte a
day. ASTRON would like the AUAS do research on one of these projects
to enhance the computation of data.
Figure: The Meerkat telescope, a precursor to SKA, currently being built in South Africa.
The SKA research carried out by AUAS focusses on exposing detailed
energy consumption metrics to general purpose system monitoring tools for
trend analysis. Monitoring should lead to more efficient use of resources.
ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is one of the seven detectors
making use of CERN’s Large Hydron Collider (LHC) near Geneva. ALICE
is developed for the collision of Pb-Pb (lead to lead) ions. When colliding
these heavy ions produce a so called Quark-Gluon Plasma which is
assumed to have exist also less than one second after the Big Bang.
During this period quarks and gluons supposedly existed independently
before they were bound to hadrons and other particles.
Figure: The ALICE detector
Since 2017 the AUAS is an associate member of the ALICE collaboration
and does research in the fields of system control and data acquisition, i.e.
a logging system and monitoring job distribution on the grid.
The Dutch national hub for the development and application of
cross-domain software and methods for the scientific community.
Figure: Representation of a pulsar
For the eScience Center we are doing research on developing a pipeline for
pulsar detection using hardware accelerators. And improving the
maintainability of the software (written too long ago) by refactoring,
documenting, etc.
Participants
In this minor we are working together with students from:
IAUAS departments:
IComputer Science
ICommunication, Media and Design
IElectrical Engineering
IMoscow Polytechnic
IExchange students from different universities in Europe
http://www.hva.nl m.teitsma@hva.nl