Re: Planning of a computing school Sienna (Florence-2005)

["I. David Brown" <idbrown@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca>]

David Watkins has made a start by listing four possible topics that the
computing school could address.  I would like to suggest a further one
that should form at least part of the program.

The emphasis in crystallography is shifting from programs that solve and
refine crystal structures to the manipulation of large amounts of
information.  Synchrotrons and high flux neutron sources provide large
numbers of measurements that need to be processed and transmitted to home
laboratories (NEXUS, CIF), refined structures are routinely shipped
straight from the diffractometer to the journals and databases (CIF) and
there is increasing interest in the analysis of the large amount of
information stored in these databases (rather inelegantly referred to as
data mining - CCDC, PDF).  Fast throughput of macromolecular structures
will increase this flow of information, and the genomic project will need
software that can combine information from multiple databases and reduce
it all to a form that brings out the essential relationships (PDB).  We
would be serving the younger members of our community well if we can give
them some help in finding their way through the information revolution and
the software that will be needed to handle it, for example, by introducing
them to the capabilities, and relative virtues, of CIF and XML.

This topic would probably not provide hands-on experience and therefore
would not require more than the usual AV facilities with some external
computer hook-ups for demonstrations.

				David


*****************************************************
Dr.I.David Brown,  Professor Emeritus
Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research,
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Tel: 1-(905)-525-9140 ext 24710
Fax: 1-(905)-521-2773
idbrown@mcmaster.ca
*****************************************************