Abstract of High Performance Computing (HPCC) Based on Commodity 
Technologies
See: http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/HPcc/HPcc.html
	We review emerging approaches to HPCC for both tightly coupled parallel 
hardware and computational grids -- geographically distributed metacomputers. We base 
the discussion on the growing power and capability of commodity computing and 
communication technologies largely driven by commercial distributed information 
systems. These systems are built from CORBA, Microsoft's COM, Javabeans, and less 
sophisticated web and networked approaches. One can abstract these to a three-tier model 
with largely independent clients connected to a distributed network of servers. The latter 
host various services including object and relational databases and of course parallel and 
sequential computing. High performance can be obtained by combining concurrency at 
the middle server tier with optimized parallel back end services. The resultant system 
combines the needed performance for large-scale HPCC applications with the rich 
functionality of commodity systems. Further the architecture with distinct interface, 
server and specialized service implementation layers, naturally allows advances in each 
area to be easily incorporated. We show that this approach can be applied to both 
metacomputing and to provide improved parallel programming environments. We 
describe exploitation issues within a CORBA context and illustrate how performance can 
be obtained within a commodity architecture. Examples are given from collaborative 
systems, support of multidisciplinary interactions, proposed visual HPCC 
ComponentWare, distributed simulation and the use of Java in high performance 
computing.

Abstract of WebWisdom - an Object Web approach to Education and 
Training
See: http://www.webwisdom.org and http://www.npac.syr.edu/Education 
Combining Web based training material with collaborative technology allows 
simultaneous support of asynchronous (exploratory) learning with traditional teacher 
driven synchronous learning. This can be used for distance and classroom education and 
training scenarios. We describe the prototype system built at NPAC using Web delivery 
and the Web collaboration system Tango. We show how this can be generalized to a 
distributed object based system.
WebWisdom integrates a database core with public key-based security, 
collaboration, multimedia streaming delivery, online computer laboratories, audio-video 
conferencing, legacy and JavaBean based authoring with tools for assessment, 
administration and searching.
Our experience comes from K-12 area where the Living SchoolBook project used 
ATM connections to three Central New York schools; undergraduate teaching in the 
Physics department of science for non-science majors; and graduate teaching of computer 
science including synchronous and asynchronous semester length courses . We also learn 
from the design of interfaces for disabled children where assessment tools are a particular 
focus. 
We believe that these ideas are applicable in every country in the world and for 
education between countries. They can be used to serve remote areas and further 
education must be affordable and indeed will become less and not more expensive when 
electronic support is increased.