Team Discovery → Re: *** United Devices Team Information ***

Well, I'll give it a try. We'll see what happens. So far it can't create an account, the server is too busy.

[text was edited by author 2001-04-04 14:58:19]

Just a little more information on the project...

The United Devices* Cancer Research Program
The United Devices* cancer research program sponsored by Intel has been developed specifically to search for new drugs to treat leukemia. United Devices Inc.* developed this program in conjunction with the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR)* and the University of Oxford*.
As a first step to finding new drugs and a potential cure for leukemia—the No. 1 cause of childhood death by disease—researchers must evaluate the cancer-fighting potential of hundreds of millions of molecules. NFCR scientists estimate that this task will require a minimum of a staggering 24 million hours of number-crunching, which was previously unimaginable. Linking computers like yours to this project will enable the what could become the largest biological computation in history and produce faster results. Depending on the results of this program, the time required to develop a new treatment and drugs could be cut from twelve years to as little as five years.

This particular drug optimization program is evaluating four proteins. One of these four proteins has been identified as critical to the growth of leukemia; shutting it down might mean finding a potential cure for leukemia. The other three proteins in the simulation are very important to the growth of leukemia, and they have implications for the growth of other cancers as well. Stopping one of these proteins will likely reduce the growth of leukemia and have benefits for other cancers too

Hi yossiea,
at the moment the servers appear to be DoS'ed (they got lots of press yesterday (here in Europe anyway, they were even mentioned in a scientific TV show, today, here in Germany, plus slashdot... keep on trying ).
This PC is only a meager P133 (well, my parents mainly type letters and surf ), but it crunches slowly, yet steadily.
I'm currently on 62% after 18 hours and have already found 13 'hits' (candidate molecules).
I think this is an ideal situation: as the client/servers seems to be stable (not the login server, I agree...) and the client has self-updating, it is the best choice for running unattended here while I'm away and studying...
At home, as I said, I'll stick to G@H and F@H at the moment, where my roots lie .
P.S: it supports HTTP, too, and I must say that the GUI is superb...
Jerome

Thanks,
I will probably put this on my home computer that sometimes loses the net connection. This hits the net much less than folding. Folding I do around 1 an hour so sometimes my computer is just sitting there waiting to connect.
And the GUI really is fantastic! I guess that's what happens when you have money to spend on a GUI.

definatley, i see you joined !! cool

Now, i have a project that i can recommend people to join...
[text was edited by author 2001-04-04 16:43:25]

did someone say mc bumpy?

said by yossiea:

---

Well, I'll give it a try. We'll see what happens. So far it can't create an account, the server is too busy.

[text was edited by author 2001-04-04 14:58:19]

---

I'm with you, will try it out cautiously. Presently I don't know what it's doing. Can't you minimize this screen to the task bar and get it out of the way? I still think it is an Intel Promotion or they wouldn't have a comparison check of their system to yours in the lower right hand corner of the screen telling you how stinky your system is vs theirs.. then your lured on with kiddy prizes like a carrot on the end of the stick..You can believe, if there is a penny to be made with this, Big Blue Gene will have his arm in the pot up to the armpit. We are probably doing the grunt work for his processors..:)

I think it's a pretty cool interface. I have it running minimized and am starting a protein. My mom died of lung cancer at 54, this is just my game.

Hi webbot,
I grant you that I wouldn't look at the 'benchmark' (your PC vs. P4 1.5GHz) too much. It might look that way because of Intel being the main sponsor, or simply, which I deem likely and which has been suggested on the official UD forum, because this 'benchmark' is way too simple and mainly compares pure MHz (1.5GHz=10*150 MHz ) Now we all know this is a bit too simple and especially for a comparison Thunderbird/P4, but well: I never trust benchmarks anyway
As for minimizing: if you haven't found out already, here's what to do: click on the triangle/arrow on the far right You'll then also be able to properly exit UD (if you want to play a game...) by right-clicking on the UD symbol in the systray and choosing exit.
Hope this helps,
Jerome

First: What is to be our Icon symbol for messages, if there is one and do we continue our discussions in this forum?

I did get the screen straightened out..I use large fonts on my monitor settings and for some reason the UD page would not extend to its limits..I am on a 19" monitor and have never had a problem with another screen ever. So it took me a while to figure out what the hangup was..The minimize buttons and others were hidden under the frame of the UD screen page and I could not access them..I reset the fonts and then, of course I had to reboot. Well here is where I almost had a heart attack. Coming back up after the boot, everything looked and sounded normal, I got this quick flash of a window on black DOS screen saying "???XXX is missing, re-install windows" I never saw what was supposed to be missing it was too fast and caught me completely off guard. Lordy, that was the last thing I expected. I reached down and hit the old 'Sock It To Em' Button and it re-booted properly. I will run maintenance on it tomorrow, too tired tonight.

Do you have to be online to run UD Agent?

No, buddah, only to get and retrieve work which, depending on your PC and the molecules in the packet/WU might be from every few hours to days.
Hope this helps,
Jerome

Looks like it takes very long, It's been at 3% for the last
20 minutes. One more question; Can f@h be running also?

Hi buddah,
the size and complexity of the 100 molecules that make up a packet (1% step per molecule completed) varies wildly. So the progress is not smooth. Some 1% steps take long, others are fast, but as the molecules are randomly attributed and the stats credit is based on the difficulty, it all even out in the end
Hope this helps,
Jerome
Btw:
already 35 hits while 70% done with my first packet (don't worry if you've got none or a few yet: it's pure luck, and some molecules seem a very good fit, as I got 12 hits for 1 molecule, while other yield no hit at all.

I don't know if it's frozen or what, It's been at 3% for 4 hours and 8 minutes. I seriously doubt it takes that long.

It depends, it depends...
What's your processor? Are other CPU-intensive tasks running? As long as the conformers counter (lower left) changes, you're probably OK. As I said: the next 1% might very well be much faster, depending on the type of molecule.
On this (admittedly slow) P133, with very little system load besides UD, some molecules took 4 hours and more, others simply 5-10 minutes...
Hope this helps.
Jerome

It's on a pentuim II 300Mhz, 128MB. When I first started up the program, 10 minutes after it was at 3% and it hasn't moved since then.

said by Buddah:

---

I don't know if it's frozen or what, It's been at 3% for 4 hours and 8 minutes. I seriously doubt it takes that long.

---

Oh, yes it can!!
Check the application window (the 2nd button) and see what the conformer count currently is - I've had one single count going now for over 5 hours (it's currently now at 280 million), and reading the UD member boards, some have had counts go on for days. The only problem is, you can't stop the program in the middle of a marathon count, otherwise it has to start that count all over again (kinda like stopping G@H at 80 or 90% thru an iteration.)
If you can stick it out, though, it gets you a heck of a lot of points for returning a long WU.

Ah, and I have F@H running too, But that's about it. My resources are at 88%, I notice it doesn't use much resource, When I opened UD my resources when down only 1% not bad.

said by MRK:

---

The only problem is, you can't stop the program in the middle of a marathon count, otherwise it has to start that count all over again (kinda like stopping G@H at 80 or 90% thru an iteration.)

---

You're right, MRK, but UD is actively working on checkpointing more often.
Hope they'll do it soon ,
Jerome

said by jlandgr:

---

You're right, MRK, but UD is actively working on checkpointing more often.
Hope they'll do it soon

---

I hope they find a way to do it. Having to shut down (or crashing) and losing maybe several days worth of CPU time would be a heartbreaker!

btw, that long conformer count just finished - 315 million!

Jerome, The thread shows you replied to this thread last but I don't see your post.

Oops, Never mind, I didn't see the third page...lol