1. De Novo Hierarchical Simulations of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Materials Priya Vashishta (University of Southern California), DMR 0427188 Multimillion-atom molecular dynamics simulation of nanoindentation on amorphous silica reveals novel plasticity & flow mechanisms. Plasticity due to the migration of non- bridging oxygens & their recombination with undercoordinated silicons. The simulation result for hardness (8 GPa) agrees well with the experimental value (10 GPa) using atomic force microscopy. Defect pair (Si & O) recombinationDefect (non-bridging O atom) migration Si O

2. De Novo Hierarchical Simulations of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Materials Priya Vashishta (University of Southern California), DMR 0427188 Implemented a scalable parallel algorithm for lattice- Boltzmann flow simulation on a low-cost Linux cluster consisting of 9 PlayStation3 consoles. Achieved multi-threading parallel efficiency 0.88 on 6 synergistic processing elements (SPEs) on a Playstation3 cluster. Simulated fluid flow through fractured silica glass (prepared by atomistic simulation), which is important for stress corrosion cracking. CACS PS3 cluster PowerPC synergistic processing elements

3. De Novo Hierarchical Simulations of Stress Corrosion Cracking in Materials Priya Vashishta (University of Southern California), DMR 0427188 Organized the 7th computational science workshop for underrepresented groups on May 18-25, 2008 at USC. 25 undergraduate students & 12 faculty mentors, primarily from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) & Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), built a parallel computer from components & performed parallel computing exercises on it. 7 experts (including a Turing Award winner) made presentations on emerging opportunities for research & education in computational sciences.