Computing power

In principle any PC can be used, provided it has the necessary computing power and memory installed and can be equipped with the processor board, which requires an empty PCI slot in the PC. For using the system in the field, it is recommended to use an industrial PC, designed to be used in a harsh environment. 

Progress in the theoretical description of reaction rates in solution of course correlates strongly with that in other theoretical disciplines, in particular those which have profited most from the enonnous advances in computing power such as quantum chemistry and equilibrium as well as non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of liquid solutions where Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations in many cases have taken on the traditional role of experunents, as they allow the detailed investigation of the influence of intra- and intemiolecular potential parameters on the microscopic dynamics not accessible to measurements in the laboratory. No attempt, however, will be made here to address these areas in more than a cursory way, and the interested reader is referred to the corresponding chapters of the encyclopedia. 

The quality of the results that can be obtained with point charge or dipole models depends critically on the input solvation shell structure. In view of the computer power available today, taking the most rigorous route... 

Progress in experiment, theory, computational methods and computer power has contributed to the capability to solve increasingly complex structures [28, 29]. Figure Bl.21.5 quantifies this progress with three measures of complexity, plotted logaritlmiically the achievable two-dimensional unit cell size, the achievable number of fit parameters and the achievable number of atoms per unit cell per layer all of these measures have grown from 1 for simple clean metal... 

Flead and Silva used occupation numbers obtained from a periodic FIF density matrix for the substrate to define localized orbitals in the chemisorption region, which then defines a cluster subspace on which to carry out FIF calculations [181]. Contributions from the surroundings also only come from the bare slab, as in the Green s matrix approach. Increases in computational power and improvements in minimization teclmiques have made it easier to obtain the electronic properties of adsorbates by supercell slab teclmiques, leading to the Green s fiinction methods becommg less popular [182]. 

With the rapid development of computer power, and the continual hmovation of simulation methods, it is impossible to predict what may be achieved over the next few years, except to say that the outlook is very promising. The areas of rare events, phase equilibria, and quantum simulation continue to be active. 

Iterative approaches, including time-dependent methods, are especially successfiil for very large-scale calculations because they generally involve the action of a very localized operator (the Hamiltonian) on a fiinction defined on a grid. The effort increases relatively mildly with the problem size, since it is proportional to the number of points used to describe the wavefiinction (and not to the cube of the number of basis sets, as is the case for methods involving matrix diagonalization). Present computational power allows calculations... 

It can be said that these three main strategies have been applied equally and very often in combination. Basically, the first approach implies the use of a faster computer or a parallel architecture. To some extent it sounds like a brute force approach but the exponential increase of the computer power observed since 1970 has made the hardware solution one of the most popular approaches. The Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) [10] was among first to use the hardware solution by distributing the CAS database onto several machines. 

The mathematical form of the PEF is in almost every case a compromise between speed and accuracy. As computer power continually increases, ideally following Moore s Law, and the cost/performance ratio is getting better, one might think that there is no longer a need to sacrifice accuracy to save computational time. This is not really true, because in direct proportion to the CPU speed is the rise in the scientists interest in calculating larger and larger molecules (in fact, their interest always rises faster than the CPU speed). 

There has been considerable interest in the simulation of lipid bilayers due to their biological importance. Early calculations on amphiphilic assemblies were limited by the computing power available, and so relatively simple models were employed. One of the most important of these is the mean field approach of Marcelja [Marcelja 1973, 1974], in which the interaction of a single hydrocarbon chain with its neighbours is represented by two additional contributions to the energy function. The energy of a chain in the mean field is given by ... 

The configuration interaction calculation with all possible excitations is called a full Cl. The full Cl calculation using an infinitely large basis set will give an exact quantum mechanical result. However, full Cl calculations are very rarely done due to the immense amount of computer power required. 

Many computational chemistry techniques are extremely computer-intensive. Depending on the type of calculation desired, it could take anywhere from seconds to weeks to do a single calculation. There are many calculations, such as ah initio analysis of biomolecules, that cannot be done on the largest computers in existence. Likewise, calculations can take very large amounts of computer memory and hard disk space. In order to complete work in a reasonable amount of time, it is necessary to understand what factors contribute to the computer resource requirements. Ideally, the user should be able to predict in advance how much computing power will be needed. 

Mass-produced workstation-class CPUs are much cheaper than traditional supercomputer processors. Thus, a larger amount of computing power for the dollar can be purchased by buying a parallel supercomputer that might have hundreds of workstation CPUs. 

It may be desirable to predict which crystal structure is most stable in order to predict the products formed under thermodynamic conditions. This is a very difficult task. As of yet, no completely automated way to try all possible crystal structures formed from a particular collection of elements (analogous to a molecular conformation search) has been devised. Even if such an effort were attempted, the amount of computer power necessary would be enormous. Such studies usually test a collection of likely structures, which is by no means infal-... 

Because of limitations in computer power and time, it is frequently impractical to run a constant energy molecular dynamics simulation. Several approximations to the energy (usually to the potential energy) are possible, which require modifying the Hamilto-... 

Equation 5 is the practical equation for computing power dissipation in materials and objects of uniform composition adequately described by the simple dielectric parameters. 

Most modeling codes are a time-averaging technique. Depending upon the process, a time-dependent technique may be more suitable. Time-dependent modeling requires much more computing power than does time averaging. 

Production. When the simulation is equilibrated, the dynamic simulation is considered reliable. Prom this point on, the trajectory generated is stored for further analysis. Typical production runs take from several hundred picoseconds up to tens of nanoseconds (depending on the size of the system and the available computer power). 

The only problem with the foregoing approach to molecular interactions is that the accurate solution of Schrddinger s equation is possible only for very small systems, due to the limitations in current algorithms and computer power. Eor systems of biological interest, molecular interactions must be approximated by the use of empirical force fields made up of parametrized tenns, most of which bear no recognizable relation to Coulomb s law. Nonetheless the force fields in use today all include tenns describing electrostatic interactions. This is due at least in part to the following facts. 

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