Research interests
My research interests basically regard parallel computational models and their applications for modelling and simulating complex natural phenomena. In particular I exploit the computational power of Cellular Automata for the definition of models of geological processes, such as debris and lava flows, or soil erosion, and Genetic Algorithms for their calibration. I am also interested in Parallel Computing principally as a mean to perform my experiments in reasonable times! By the way, with my friend William Spataro, I maintain the Cosca Beowulf Cluster at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Calabria and, at the same time, use supercomputers of the High Performance Computing Centre of the same University. We basically use MPI and MPI-based programs, as the CAMELOT Cellular Automata programming environment and the PGAPack library for Parallel Genetic Algorithms. These latter are used principally as search algorithms for the calibration of the above mentioned Cellular Automata models.
In the 2001, I had the opportunity to attend a exciting Summer School on Parallel Computing at the CINECA Institute (Bologna - Italy), were I was introduced to multithreading programming and to the OpenMP and MPI libraries. I, therefore, exploited the new knowledge by introducing Parallel Genetic Algorithms as a new research topics in my group.
In the 2005, I had a new opportunity to attend another exciting Summer School at the CINECA Institute, this time on Computer Graphics. I learned the basics of the 3D visualisation and different software as OpenGL and VTK. I, therefore, exploited the new knowledge by introducing 3D graphics in my applications. The following images show some examples.
|
|
In particular, the image on the left shows a wire frame representation in which the adopted hexagonal lattice is visible.
|
|
In particular, the image on the left shows a wire frame representation in which the adopted hexagonal lattice is visible.
Recently, togheter with my research group and Hideaki "Hirdy" Miyamoto of the University of Tokyo (Japan), I am working on a new model for debris flow simulation, which represents a significant innovation with respect to the previous ones. Moreover, I am collaborating to a project which involves lava flows simulations on the Etnean area.