Feedback, Neighbourhood Algorithm and an interesting link

Hi all,


Feedback:
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First of all I'd like to say that I really enjoyed the class. It is nice to get such a broad overview of topics, some of which I had never realized could be useful for my research as well. So thanks!

One thing that I missed a little is more material on object-oriented programming concepts. I am aware of the fact that this is *not* a programming course, but we touched upon it quite often during several lectures. Maybe this is something for next term?


Neighbourhood Algorithm:
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At Dr. Jewell's lecture I promised to put some references here concerning the Neighbourhood Algorithm, a direct search technique for global optimization. It is used in geophysics, but I am convinced it can have many uses in other fields as well.

One of the main inventors of this algorithm is Malcom Sambridge at ANU. I had the fortune of taking a class with him when he was a visiting professor in the Caltech GPS department last year.

You can find source code, paper references etc here:
http://rses.anu.edu.au/~malcolm/na/
References to the two original 1999 papers in the 'Papers' section.

Let me know what you think, and if it is useful for you!


Interesting link:
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I have just started using the computational resources on Teragrid, a national supercomputing network. They have a link to several online courses by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, on the topics of Parallel Computing, Debugging, and Visualization.
http://ci-tutor.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
Registration is required, but it's all free.


Looking forward to next term!

cheers,
-Laura