Frequently asked questions about the BOINCSIMAP project |
| log in |
Both application analyze the protein sequences in SIMAP. While the simap application calculates similarities between sequences using the algorithm, hmmer (say it like "hammer") searches for , mathematically described as , within the sequences from SIMAP. See our project description to get an overview what their results are used for.
No. Your BOINC client switches automatically to the appropriate application if the workunits from BOINCSIMAP change.
There are two subprojects, represented by the two applications: The similarity calculation will not need the whole compute power of the BOINCSIMAP project any longer, as the complete backlog from 2005/2006 (caused by updates and expansion) could be calculated until september 2006. The second subproject - the protein domain pre-calculation - will need much more compute power as there has been only a small dataset calculated yet. For the year 2007 we expect to have enough work for hmmer to utilize the whole power of BOINCSIMAP.
BOINCSIMAP has implemented workunit-specific credits (also called "fixed credits per workunit"). Therefore the credits you get for valid results is not calculated from the credits your (optimized/non-optimized) BOINC client claimed, but from the amount of sequences/models in the workunit (hmmer and simap) and the number of hits in the result (simap only due to the expensive post-processing of hits). This makes the credits fair and really related to the compute power you have donated to our project. As this is not the default way to grant credits in BOINC projects, we are open for discussions about our workunit-specific credits (please visit our message boards).
BOINCSIMAP uses a dynamic daily result quota. Every host gets a minimal quota of 10 results per CPU and day. Depending on the average turnaround time of the results the quota increases to up to 100 results per CPU and day. Thus we send more results to hosts that return results quickly, which speeds up the SIMAP update process. It you have started to calculate BOINCSIMAP workunits recently, please stay tuned. It takes some time until the average turnaround time of your host has adapted to a stable value.
Not really. We are currently working on a 7zip-compression of workunits and results. This will decrease the up-/downloads by several percent. But the data transfer volume is directly related to the technique of biological sequence analysis: it is necessary to transfer the sequence data to be analyzed. Local caching is not an option, as the chance to get several workunits containing the same sequences or domain models is extremely low. Therefore we would like to suggest users with low internet bandwidth to limit the BOINCSIMAP project in the BOINC manager to a percentage that is still acceptable for you.
Yes, we want to implement graphics for our applications, but until now we could not make it because the (few) C++ programmers in our team were busy with the functional part of the applications. Therefore we plan to provide static graphics (for a description see the ) displaying some information about the workunit currently being processed.
Currently the BOINC client cannot select an application based on the CPU type, but on the major platforms. Therefore we provide applications for the platforms that are typically used within BOINC projects. There are discussions ongoing in the BOINC developer community about an application selection mechanism based on the CPU type. As soon as such a method will be available we will provides different application builds for the most important CPU types.
In our message boards you will find more FAQ and discussion boards. Please feel free to use it actively. Writing to the boards requires a separate login, different from the BOINC account.