Universitat de Barcelona Departament d’Astronomia i Meteorologia

Universitat de Barcelona
Departament d’Astronomia i Meteorologia
The use of Java in large scientific applications
in HPC environments
Mem`oria presentada per
Aidan Fries
per optar al grau de
Doctor per la Universitat de Barcelona
Barcelona, novembre de 2012

Programa de doctorat en F´ısica
The use of Java in large scientific applications
in HPC environments
Mem`oria presentada per
Aidan Fries
per optar al grau de
Doctor per la Universitat de Barcelona
Barcelona, novembre de 2012
Directors de la tesi:
Dr. Jordi Portell
Dr. Ra¨ul Sirvent
Tutor:
Dr. Xavier Luri

Acknowledgements
Firstly, and most importantly, I would like to acknowledge the help and advise that I received
from my two advisors — Jordi Portell and Ra¨ul Sirvent. Jordi, thank you so much for all your
help and encouragement during my PhD. You have much responsibility on your shoulders, but
I have never seen you in a bad mood, you always had good advice and knew the best way
forward. Ra¨ul, thanks for your help and advice, it was a great benefit for me to get some
guidance and input from outside of the Gaia team. You both always made time for me, and I
will be forever in your debt.
Jordi T., thanks for giving me the opportunity to work on this thesis. Thanks to everyone in
the Gaia team at the UB (past and present). It is a fantastic group of people — hard working,
dedicated to the success of the Gaia mission, and very welcoming. Javier “el crack” Casta˜neda,
you helped me get to know Barcelona, and you always had time to explain Gaia software to
me. Marysia, we started on our PhD journeys at the same time, and it has been a pleasure to
have shared some experiences with you, thanks for helping me along at times, congratulations
on your achievements, and I wish you every happiness in the future. Lola, thanks for your help,
and for putting up with my talent for losing boarding passes. Yago, thanks for sharing your
experience and ideas. Cesca, thanks for being so nice, and eager to help. Dani, thanks for fixing
every problem that Miranda and I experienced over the years! I would also like to mention
Xavier, Edward, Merc`e, Eva, Raul B., Nadia, Marwan, Maria M., Carme, Josep Manel, Claus,
Holgar, Teresa, Oscar, and all of the other members of the Gaia family at the UB.
Thanks to Lennart Lindegren, and everyone else who was involved with the ELSA programme,
for all your efforts. I benefited a lot from this programme. I would like to mention the ELSA
fellows: Berry, Daniel, Michael, Ummi, Alex, Paola, Maya, Dagmara, Ester, Thibaut, Tenay,
Luca and Mih´aly. It was a pleasure getting to know you all.
Thanks to everyone working within DPAC on the Gaia data reduction. It has been an honour
and a privilege to have been involved with this project, and I wish it every success in the
future. Thanks to everyone working at the BSC and at CESCA for the facilities and support
that they provided. Thanks to Guillermo and Roberto, at the University of A Coru˜na for their
collaboration, support and advise on Java-based high-performance data communication.
Thanks to everyone in the department of Astronomy and Meteorology, and the members of
cafedam who have helped me or offered words of encouragement, including JR, Gaby, Jordi.
I would like to mention Ben and Julia, Sean and Mallika. I wish you lots of happiness in the
future. I will always remember our runs up Montju¨ıc, and the view from the top.
And finally, thanks to my Mum and Dad. Thanks to you, I have had many opportunities in
my life, which you didn’t have. The hard part was being away from you.
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