World Community Grid

Infobox Organization
name = World Community Grid


image_border =
size = 250px
caption =


msize =
mcaption =
motto = technology solving problems
formation = November 16, 2004cite press release
url=http://www-03.ibm.com/grid/grid_press/pr_1116.shtml
title=IBM Introduces 'World Community Grid'
publisher=IBM
date=2004-11-16
accessdate=2007-07-28]
extinction =
type = distributed computing project
headquarters =
location =
membership = over 400,000 registered user accountscite web |url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/stat/viewGlobal.do |title=Global Statistics |publisher=World Community Grid |accessdate=2008-06-08]
language =
leader_title =
leader_name =
key_people =
num_staff =
budget =
website = [http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ www.worldcommunitygrid.org]

World Community Grid (WCG) is an effort to create the world's largest public computing grid to tackle scientific research projects that benefit humanity.cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewAboutUs.do
title=About Us
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] Launched November 16, 2004, it is funded and operated by IBM with client software currently available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and FreeBSD operating systems.cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=minimumreq
title=System Requirements
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/get_project_config.php
title=get_project_config.php
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28]

Using the idle time of computers around the world, World Community Grid's research projects have analyzed aspects of the human genome, HIV, dengue, muscular dystrophy, and cancer. The organization has so far partnered with over 350 other companies and organizations to assist in the work and has over 400,000 registered user accounts.

History

IBM and other research participants sponsored the United Devices Smallpox Research Grid Project to accelerate the discovery of a cure for smallpox. The smallpox study used a massive distributed computing grid to analyze compounds' effectiveness against smallpox.cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/archives/viewSmallpoxResearch.do
title=Smallpox Research Project
work=Completed Research
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] The project allowed scientists to screen 35 million potential drug molecules against several smallpox proteins to identify good candidates for developing into smallpox treatments. In the first 72 hours, 100,000 results were returned. By the end of the project, 44 strong treatment candidates had been identified. Based on the success of the Smallpox study, IBM announced on November 16, 2004 the creation of World Community Grid with the goal of creating a technical environment where other humanitarian research could be processed.

World Community Grid initially only supported Windows, using the proprietary Grid MP software from United Devices which powered the grid.org distributed computing projects. Demand for Linux support led to the addition in November 2005 of open source BOINC grid technology which powers projects such as SETI@home and Climateprediction. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=4224#33880
title=Linux is here!!!
author=knreed
publisher=World Community Grid
date=2005-10-31
accessdate=2007-07-30] Mac OS X and Linux are now officially supported.

As of September 21, 2008, World Community Grid had over 404,000 registered user accounts with over 1 million registered computers. Over the course of the project, over 186,000 years of computing time have been donated and over 207 million workunits have been completed. [http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/stat/viewGlobal.do]

How it works

The World Community Grid software uses the idle time of Internet-connected computers to perform research calculations.cite news
url=http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/gridcomputing/story/0,10801,97577,00.html
title='World Community Grid' seeks to harness unused computers
last=Weiss
first=Todd
publisher=Computerworld
date=2004-11-17
accessdate=2007-07-28] Users install WCG client software onto their computers. This software works in the background, using spare system resources to process work for WCG.cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/viewMemberPolicy.do
title=Member Policy
work=Privacy and Security
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] When a piece of work or "workunit" is completed, the client software sends it back to WCG over the Internet and downloads a new workunit. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=results#29
title=Returning Results: What is a Work Unit?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05] To ensure accuracy, the WCG servers send out multiple copies of each workunit. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=install#62
title=Installing the Windows Agent: If I re-install the software, will the work that I am doing be lost forever?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05] Then, when the results are received, they are collected and validated against each other. [cite web
url=http://www.tryscience.org/grid/home.html
title=The Grid
publisher=Tryscience
accessdate=2007-07-28] [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=points#174
title=Points: What is validation?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28]

Users may choose to use graphics output by the current workunit as a screensaver.

While many public computing grids such as SETI@home and Folding@home are devoted to a single project, World Community Grid offers multiple humanitarian projects under a single umbrella. Projects are approved by an advisory board, with members from many major research institutions and universities, as well as the U.S. federal government and WHO. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=aboutwcg#9
title=What is World Community Grid?: How does World Community Grid get new projects?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewAdvisoryBoard.do
title=Advisory Board
work=About Us
publisher=World Community grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] Users are included in all projects by default, but may opt out of projects as they choose. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=start#203
title=Getting Started: I'm using the BOINC agent, how do I choose which project my computer processes work for?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05]

When World Community Grid launched, they used the proprietary Grid MP client from United Devices. After adding support for the open source BOINC client in 2005, World Community Grid eventually discontinued the Grid MP client and consolidated on the BOINC platform in 2008.cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=15715
title=BOINC Migration Announcement
author=bbover3
publisher=World Community Grid
date=2007-08-17
accessdate=2007-08-17]

Even though WCG makes use of open source client software, the actual applications that perform the scientific calculations may not be. However, several of the science applications are available under a free license, although the source is not available directly from WCG. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=wcgagent#215
title=Agent: I have a platform that isn't supported by World Community Grid. Could I receive the code and compile it myself?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05]

Potential problems

Because the World Community Grid software increases CPU usage by consuming unused processing time, it is possible for the software to cause abnormal behavior on volunteered computers. Despite the unobtrusive nature of the software, decreases in system performance could still occur. High CPU usage could also cause a computer to overheat.

The BOINC client avoids this using a variety of limits that suspend computation when there are insufficient free resources. Unlike other BOINC projects, World Community Grid set the BOINC defaults conservatively, making the chances of computer damage extremely small. The default CPU throttle is 60%. The throttle is coarse-grained; for example, if usage is set to 60% it will work at 100% for 3 seconds, then at 0% for 2 seconds, resulting in an average decrease of processor use. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=cpuuse#33
title=CPU Usage: Why does my PC show high CPU use?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05 ]

For linux users, particularly very stable distributions such as Debian that rely on older and more mature software, the software requires libraries that are more current than is available for those distributions.

Statistics and competition

The contributions of each user are recorded and user contribution statistics are publicly available. Due to the fact that the processing time of each workunit varies from computer to computer depending on the difficulty of the workunit, the speed of the computer and the amount of idle resources available, contributions are usually measured in terms of "points". Points are awarded for each workunit depending on the effort required to process that workunit. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=points#27
title=Points: What are points?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28]

Upon completing a workunit, the BOINC client will request the number of points it thinks it deserves based on software benchmarks ("see BOINC Credit System#Cobblestones"). Since multiple computers process the same workunit to ensure accuracy, the World Community Grid servers can look at the points claimed by each of those computers. The WCG servers disregard statistical outliers, average the remaining values and award the resulting number of points to each computer. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=points#177
title=Points: How are points calculated for the BOINC agent?
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05] [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=9545
title=BOINC Points
author=knreed
publisher=World Community Grid
date=2006-11-02
accessdate=2007-07-28]

Within the grid, users may join teams that have been created by organizations, groups, or individuals. Teams allow for a heightened sense of community identity and can also inspire competition. As teams compete against each other, more work is done for the grid overall. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewTopic.do?shortName=teams
title=Teams
work=Help
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28]

Outreach

World Community Grid recognizes companies and organizations as "partners" if they promote WCG within their company or organization. As of August 25, 2008, WCG had 396 partners. [http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewOurPartners.do]

Also, as part of its commitment to improving human health and welfare, the results of all computations completed on World Community Grid are released into the public domain and made available to the scientific community.

In the fall of 2006, IBM sponsored an online and print advertisement campaign for WCG. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/newsletter/viewNewsletterMain.do
title=News & Media
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05] Print advertisements appeared in "Exceptional Parent", "Ability Magazine", "Forbes" magazine, "The Wall Street Journal", "The Economist", and "Fortune" magazine. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/newsletter/ads06/viewPrintAd1.do
title=Magazine Print Ad #1
work=News & Media
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05] [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/newsletter/ads06/viewPrintAd2.do
title=Magazine Print Ad #2
work=News & Media
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-05]

Active projects

Infobox WCG project
name=FightAIDS@Home
launched=November 21, 2005 [cite press release |url=http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/112105.html |title=World Community Grid Targets AIDS in Giant Research Effort |date=2005-11-21 |accessdate=2007-07-28 ]

FightAIDS@Home

FightAIDS@Home was World Community Grid's second project and its first to target a single disease. Each individual computer processes one potential drug molecule and tests how well it would dock with HIV protease, acting as a protease inhibitor. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/viewFaahResearch.do
title=FightAIDS@Home
work=Research
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] Scripps Research Institute published its first peer-reviewed scientific paper about the results of FightAIDS@Home on April 21, 2007. [cite web
url=http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jcisd8/2007/47/i03/html/ci700044s.html
title=Analysis of HIV Wild-Type and Mutant Structures via in Silico Docking against Diverse Ligand Libraries
publisher=American Chemical Society
author=Chang, Max W.
coauthors=William Lindstrom, Arthur J. Olson, and Richard K. Belew
date=2007-04-21
accessdate=2007-07-30
doi=10.1021/ci700044s] This paper explains that the results up to that point will primarily be used to improve the efficiency of future FightAIDS@Home calculations. [cite web
url=http://fightaidsathome.scripps.edu/news/vol3.pdf
title=FightAIDS@Home News Volume 3
publisher=The Scripps Research Institute
date=2007-05-10
accessdate=2007-07-30]

Infobox WCG project
name=Human Proteome Folding Phase 2
launched=June 23, 2006cite web |url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/viewResearch.do |title=Active Research |work=Research |publisher=World Community Grid |accessdate-2007-07-28]

Human Proteome Folding Phase 2

Human Proteome Folding Phase 2 (HPF2) was the third project to run on World Community Grid. This project, following on from HPF1, focuses on human-secreted proteins, with special focus on biomarkers and the proteins on the surface of cells as well as Plasmodium, the organism that causes malaria. HPF2 generates higher-resolution protein models than HPF1. Though these higher-resolution models are more useful, they also require more processing power to generate. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/viewHpf2Research.do
title=Human Proteome Folding - Phase 2
work=Research
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28]

Infobox WCG project
name=Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together
launched=August 21, 2007

Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together

:main|Discovering Dengue Drugs – TogetherDiscovering Dengue Drugs – Together is sponsored by scientists at the University of Texas and the University of Chicago and will run in two phases. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=14561#109721
title=Re: Project about dengue ever
author=Didactylos
publisher=World Community Grid
date=2007-06-21
accessdate=2007-08-07] Phase 1, launched August 21, 2007, will use AutoDock 2007 (the same software used for FightAIDS@Home) to test potential antiviral drugs (through NS3 protease inhibition) against viruses from the family flaviviridae. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/dddt/viewDddtAbout.do
title=Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together: About the Project
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-24] Phase 2 "will use a more computationally intensive program to screen the candidates that make it through Phase 1."cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=15192#114871
title=Re: Results...
author=lawrencehardin
publisher=World Community Grid
date=2007-07-10
accessdate=2007-08-07] The drug candidates that make it through Phase 2 will then be lab-tested.

Infobox WCG project
name=Help Conquer Cancer
launched=November 1, 2007

Help Conquer Cancer

The Help Conquer Cancer project is sponsored by the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI), Princess Margaret Hospital and University Health Network of Toronto, Canada. The project involves X-ray crystallography.

Infobox WCG project
name=Nutritious Rice for the World
launched=May 12, 2008

Nutritious Rice for the World

:main|Nutritious Rice for the World

This research in the field of agronomy is sponsored by the University of Washington's Computational Biology Research Group [http://compbio.washington.edu/] . The purpose of this project is to predict the structure of proteins of major strains of rice, in order to help farmers breed better rice strains with higher crop yields, promote greater disease and pest resistance, and utilize a full range of bioavailable nutrients that can benefit people around the world, especially in regions where malnutrition is a critical concern.

Completed projects

Infobox WCG project
name=Human Proteome Folding Phase 1
launched=November 16, 2004
completed=July 18, 2006

Human Proteome Folding Phase 1

The first project launched on World Community Grid was the Human Proteome Folding Project, or HPF1, which aims to predict the structure of human proteins. This project was unique in that computation was done in tandem with the grid.org distributed computing project. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=7683
title=Launch of Human Proteome Folding Phase 2 project
author=Viktors
publisher=World Community Grid
date=2006-06-26
accessdate=2007-08-04] Devised by Richard Bonneau at the Institute for Systems Biology, the project used grid computing to produce the likely structures for each of the proteins using a Rosetta Score. From these predictions, researchers hope to predict the function of the myriad proteins. This increased understanding of the human proteins could prove vital in the search for cures to human diseases. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/archives/viewHpfResearch.do
title=Human Proteome Folding Project
work=Research
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-04] Computing for this project was officially completed on July 18, 2006. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/archives/viewHpfOverview.do
title=Human Proteome Folding Project Overview
work=Research
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] Research results for the yeast portion of HPF1 have been published. [cite web
url=http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050076
title=Superfamily Assignments for the Yeast Proteome through Integration of Structure Prediction with the Gene Ontology
work=Research
publisher=PLoS Biology
accessdate=2007-07-30]

Infobox WCG project
name=Help Defeat Cancer
launched=July 20, 2006cite web |url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/archives/hdc/viewHdcOverview.do |title=Help Defeat Cancer Project Overview |work=Research |publisher=World Community Grid |accessdate=2007-08-04]
completed=April 2007

Help Defeat Cancer

The Help Defeat Cancer project seeks to improve the ability of medical professionals to determine the best treatment options for patients with breast, head, or neck cancer. The project worked by identifying visual patterns in large numbers of tissue microarrays taken from archived tissue samples. By correlating the pattern data with information about treatment and patient outcome, the results of this project could help provide better targeted treatment options. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/archives/hdc/viewHdcAbout.do
title=About the Project
work=Research: Help Defeat Cancer
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-04]

Infobox WCG project
name=Genome Comparison
launched=November 21, 2006
completed=July 21, 2007

Genome Comparison

The Genome Comparison project is sponsored by the Brazilian research institution Fiocruz. The project seeks to compare gene sequences of different organisms against each other in order to find similarities between them. Scientists hope to discover what purpose a particular gene sequence serves in a particular function of one organism, via comparing it to a similar gene sequence of known function in another organism. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/fgc/viewFgcMain.do
title=Genome Comparison Overview
work=Research
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28]

Inactive projects

Infobox WCG project
name=AfricanClimate@Home
launched=August 31, 2007 [cite web |url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=16044 |title=Launch of AfricanClimate@Home Project |author=knreed |publisher=World Community Grid |date=2007-08-31 |accessdate=2007-09-01]

AfricanClimate@Home

The mission of AfricanClimate@Home is to develop more accurate climate models of specific regions in Africa. This will serve as a basis for understanding how the climate will change in the future so that measures designed to alleviate the adverse effects of climate change can be implemented. World Community Grid's tremendous computing power will be used to understand and reduce the uncertainty with which climate processes are simulated over Africa.

Infobox WCG project
name=Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy
launched=December 19, 2006
completed=June 11, 2007 [cite web |url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=14142 |title=Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy Phase 1 has completed |author=uplinger |publisher=World Community Grid |date=2007-06-11 |accessdate-2007-07-28]

Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy

Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy is run by Décrypthon, a collaboration between French Muscular Dystrophy Association, French National Center for Scientific Research and IBM, and Phase 1 investigated protein-protein interactions for 40,000 proteins whose structures are known, with particular focus on those proteins that play a role in neuromuscular diseases. The database of information produced will help researchers design molecules to inhibit or enhance binding of particular macromolecules, hopefully leading to better treatments for muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular diseases. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/hcmd/viewHcmdMain.do
title=Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy
work=Research
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-07-28] This project was available only to agents running the Grid MP client, making it unavailable to users running BOINC. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=10647
title=Launch of the Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy Project
author=Viktors
publisher=World Community Grid
date=2006-12-19
accessdate=2007-07-28]

Phase 2 of the Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy project will start once the results from the first phase are analysed. Phase 2 will run on the BOINC platform. [cite web
url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/hcmd/viewHcmdFaq.do
title=Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy
work=Research - Project FAQs
publisher=World Community Grid
accessdate=2007-08-04]

References

External links

* [http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ World Community Grid]
* [http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/stat/viewGlobal.do World Community Grid global statistics]
* [http://www.ibm.com/podcasts/howitworks/021307/index.shtml IBM - How it works - World Community Grid - United States]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/16/technology/16grid.html The New York Times > Technology > Unused PC Power to Run Grid for Unraveling Disease]
* [http://www.volunteerathome.com/ [e-mail]] All about volunteer computing