GOVERNMENT
Universities enhance computational science programs with Visual Numerics
University of Virginia, University of Waterloo among others investing in students' analytical future: Visual Numerics, Inc., celebrating 36 years of producing advanced numerical analysis and visualization software, today announced that five universities have successfully expanded their computational science education programs with robust commercially-viable computational libraries and analytical tools from Visual Numerics. Following the company's April 2007 announcement regarding its University Department Special Pricing for IMSL Numerical Libraries and PV-WAVE visualization software, the University of Virginia, College of Staten Island and University of Hawaii at Manoa in the U.S., as well as the University of Western Ontario and University of Waterloo in Canada, have registered for the program. For the remainder of 2007, Visual Numerics' University Department Special Pricing program will stay open to universities in the U.S. and Canada. 
Lack of funding often hampers universities from buying the best mathematical and computational analysis tools available for their classrooms. As a result, most computational tools used today in graduate schools and academic laboratories are limited in performance, robustness and scalability, and are not equipped to teach students how to solve complex problems or develop sophisticated analytical and programming skills. These five universities are taking advantage of Visual Numerics' university licensing program to use the same computational tools across computing platforms, expand their use to different classrooms and departments, and offer them to students. In fact, under the agreement, students can use the software for free. The University of Virginia, a long-time user of the IMSL Fortran Library and a recent recipient of a National Science Foundation grant for cyberinfrastructure training and education, has added the IMSL C Library to their licensed technical software at a significantly reduced cost. The University plans to incorporate these libraries into some of the computational science curricula for the Engineering and Science faculties, and views the use of both libraries as a critical step forward in enriching their offerings to students and researchers in these areas. "Our goal at the Research Computing Lab is to instill a culture of computation and incubate the next generation of scientists and engineers," said Katherine Holcomb, Ph.D., a member of the Research Computing Support Group at the University of Virginia. "By purchasing multiple IMSL licenses, we're able to expand our high performance computing practice, offer more advanced computational science techniques, and provide faculty and students at all levels with the best technical support available." Canada's University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics forms one of the world's largest concentrations of researchers in the mathematical, statistical and computing sciences -- home to over 200 full-time professors and 500 graduate students in the Departments of Applied Math, Pure Math, Combinatorics & Optimization, Statistics & Actuarial Science and the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. Dean of Math Thomas Coleman, whose primary interest is the development of computational methods and tools for large-scale problems, immediately realized the benefits of adopting Visual Numerics' IMSL C Library, IMSL Fortran Library, and the JMSL Library for Java as an important part of the University's computational science expansion. "One of our growing areas of research is the application of mathematical modeling, statistical analysis and computer simulation to the fields of medicine and health care," said Coleman. "With Visual Numerics' academic pricing offer, we can provide more robust computational analysis tools to faculty who are building mathematical models for medicine, performing biostatistical analysis applied to pre-clinical drug trials, and data mining collected healthcare data. Now we don't have to make budget tradeoffs on the quality of the computational software we purchase for our faculty and students." "Visual Numerics is committed to providing universities with the best mathematics tools available to teach students the rigors of scientific computing and analysis," said Tim Leite, Director of Corporate Development and Educational Programs for Visual Numerics. "By offering a cost-effective way for faculty to use the same commercially-viable numerical libraries and visualization software as government agencies and global financial institutions, we can help them better prepare students for real world analytical challenges." Availability Visual Numerics' academic licensing program is still available today. For more information, call 800-222-4675 or 713-784-3131 or email academicprograms@vni.com.
Lack of funding often hampers universities from buying the best mathematical and computational analysis tools available for their classrooms. As a result, most computational tools used today in graduate schools and academic laboratories are limited in performance, robustness and scalability, and are not equipped to teach students how to solve complex problems or develop sophisticated analytical and programming skills. These five universities are taking advantage of Visual Numerics' university licensing program to use the same computational tools across computing platforms, expand their use to different classrooms and departments, and offer them to students. In fact, under the agreement, students can use the software for free. The University of Virginia, a long-time user of the IMSL Fortran Library and a recent recipient of a National Science Foundation grant for cyberinfrastructure training and education, has added the IMSL C Library to their licensed technical software at a significantly reduced cost. The University plans to incorporate these libraries into some of the computational science curricula for the Engineering and Science faculties, and views the use of both libraries as a critical step forward in enriching their offerings to students and researchers in these areas. "Our goal at the Research Computing Lab is to instill a culture of computation and incubate the next generation of scientists and engineers," said Katherine Holcomb, Ph.D., a member of the Research Computing Support Group at the University of Virginia. "By purchasing multiple IMSL licenses, we're able to expand our high performance computing practice, offer more advanced computational science techniques, and provide faculty and students at all levels with the best technical support available." Canada's University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics forms one of the world's largest concentrations of researchers in the mathematical, statistical and computing sciences -- home to over 200 full-time professors and 500 graduate students in the Departments of Applied Math, Pure Math, Combinatorics & Optimization, Statistics & Actuarial Science and the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. Dean of Math Thomas Coleman, whose primary interest is the development of computational methods and tools for large-scale problems, immediately realized the benefits of adopting Visual Numerics' IMSL C Library, IMSL Fortran Library, and the JMSL Library for Java as an important part of the University's computational science expansion. "One of our growing areas of research is the application of mathematical modeling, statistical analysis and computer simulation to the fields of medicine and health care," said Coleman. "With Visual Numerics' academic pricing offer, we can provide more robust computational analysis tools to faculty who are building mathematical models for medicine, performing biostatistical analysis applied to pre-clinical drug trials, and data mining collected healthcare data. Now we don't have to make budget tradeoffs on the quality of the computational software we purchase for our faculty and students." "Visual Numerics is committed to providing universities with the best mathematics tools available to teach students the rigors of scientific computing and analysis," said Tim Leite, Director of Corporate Development and Educational Programs for Visual Numerics. "By offering a cost-effective way for faculty to use the same commercially-viable numerical libraries and visualization software as government agencies and global financial institutions, we can help them better prepare students for real world analytical challenges." Availability Visual Numerics' academic licensing program is still available today. For more information, call 800-222-4675 or 713-784-3131 or email academicprograms@vni.com.