Tag: cambridge

Asite scores Cambridge University challenge

Posted on July 14, 2017 by - News

GUTTENPLAN2_1605556cThe University of Cambridge has chosen Asite to make the Adoddle platform their Project Information Management tool of choice for their BIM Level 2 project portfolio.

The Estate Management Division at the University of Cambridge is a multi-disciplinary organisation responsible for the development, management and maintenance of the University estate.

Adoddle is a cloud-based collaboration platform . Together, this relationship will establish Adoddle as the pivotal Common Data Environment for the University of Cambridge and allow project teams to realise a global connection with the most up-to-date information in real-time, directly from the Adoddle Cloud Model Server.

Chris Hinton, Technology and Innovation Lead, Estate Management, University of Cambridge said: “Our challenge within a diverse estate is to structure data and define assets to clear and industry recognised standards. The procurement of Adoddle as our Common Data Environment is the foundation for this and our vision of a digitally enabled estate.”

The non-residential estate is valued at £2.7 billion (Insurance Replacement Cost) and its broad and complex nature presents many demanding challenges. Some buildings are 800 years old, Grade I Listed and protected by English Heritage, whilst others are new with highly sustainable building fabrics and buildings management systems.

The capital development pipeline is £4.7 billion. The current building programme has committed funding of £640 million and provides a rich mix of activities that utilise best practice ‘risk-averse’ methods of planning, design, development and construction.

Cambridge boffin dismisses the existence of a general processor

Posted on November 10, 2014 by - News

martin-luther-nails-thesis-1David Chisnall, of Cambridge University become the general processor’s first atheist, by refusing to believe in the existence of a general-purpose chip.

Writing in Queue  he said that there was a general trend to categorise processors and accelerators as “general purpose.” Of the papers published at this year’s International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA 2014), nine out of 45 referred to general-purpose processors; one additionally referred to general-purpose FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays), and another referred to general-purpose MIMD (multiple instruction, multiple data) supercomputers, stretching the definition to the breaking point.

However Chisnall nailed a statement on the door of the Intel research division that there was no such thing as a truly general purpose processor and that the belief in such a device was harmful.

Risking the wrath of the great Intel God he said that many of the papers presented at ISCA 2014 that did not explicitly refer to general-purpose processors or cores did instead refer to general-purpose programs, typically in the context of a GPGPU (general-purpose graphics processing unit), a term with an inherent contradiction.

He said that a modern GPU has I/O facilities, can run programs of arbitrary sizes (or, if not, can store temporary results and start a new program phase), supports a wide range of arithmetic, has complex flow control, and so on. Implementing Conway’s Game of Life on a GPU is a common exercise for students, so it’s clear that the underlying substrate is Turing complete.

Chisnall argues that it is not enough for a processor to be Turing complete in order to be classified as general purpose; it must be able to run all programs efficiently. The existence of accelerators (including GPUs) indicates that all attempts thus far at building a general-purpose processor have failed. If they had succeeded, then they would be efficient at running the algorithms delegated to accelerators, and there would be no market for accelerators.

Harry Potter dumps Hogwarts for Cambridge

Posted on September 17, 2014 by - News

HarryPotterSorc01Muggles at Cambridge University have worked out a way of creating Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility claiming that it could have military uses against You Know Who.

Ventsislav Valev, who we thought was one of the competitors in the Goblet of Fire, is apparently behind the idea. He said that the finished product will more likely resemble a rigid, externally powered suit of armour than Harry’s magical cloak.

At this point, the cloak is a little small for anyone to wear. The Cambridge researchers constructed nanoscale building blocks called “metamaterials.” These nanoparticles that, due to their geometry, are capable of controlling the way light interacts with them.

Valev has made a lot of them in water, which effectively makes them invisible to mermaids and Durmstrang Ships.

The metamaterials alter the way the object is seen. Light is guided around the object as if it was never there.

The technology makes it possible to not only hide something but also make it appear as something else.

Needless to say this cloak of invisibility is a long way off so it will be a while before anyone says mischief made on this one.