Ian
Administrator
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2002
- Messages
- 19,873
- Reaction score
- 1,499
Q. What is the minimum specification to run THINK?
A. A PC with at least 128MB memory, 10 MB of free disk space and an internet connection (even dial-up).
Q. What if I have a slow processor?
A. Don't worry. It may take awhile, but the results returned are just as good as those of a faster machine. And hey, it'll probably be some old rusted 486 somewhere that discovers a cure for Cancer or HIV or whatever you’re ‘crunching’ for. But fast processors are always welcome too; you can do a lot of jobs in a short amount of time.
Q. Will FaD interfere with my normal computer usage?
A. No it won't. For windows users it sort of replaces the system idle process. Meaning it only uses leftover computer power that no other application wants to claim. For Linux/MacOS users, and other Operating Systems, it does the same exact thing; I just don't know the words for it there.
Q. Can I opt in or out of projects?
A. Yes, just run the Find-a-Drug control panel (fadsetup.exe, or use the Icon in your taskbar) and change the toggles.
Q. What's in it for me?
A. Nothing … But if the warm fuzzy feeling of trying to find a cure for cancer or HIV isn't enough … if a hit, or inhibitor (possible cure or treatment) is shown in laboratory tests to work like its supposed to you get a nice shiny certificate. If you’re a top number cruncher, you can get a shiny certificate for that too. In fact you can get lots of certificates.
Q. What happens after my computer finds something?
A. That depends on a couple of things. If there is an external partner with FaD, they decide what molecules to make and test. But the molecule hits that look promising are made and tested, and if they continue to look promising, they will most likely make it into medical trials. Just think, every hit your computer makes is a possible cure for cancer, or HIV, or MS, or whatever you're running. Kind of mind boggling isn't it?
Q. Can I run THINK under Linux?
A. Yes using a command line interface. Graphics are not currently implemented.
Q. What does the software do?
A. The Find-a-Drug software downloads a job consisting of a protein target and a set of 100 molecules from the server. When your PC is otherwise idle, it generates about 100 derivatives for each molecule giving a total of 10,100 molecules. The software then generates all the possible shapes or conformations of each molecule and determines whether it can interact favourably with the receptor in the protein target.
Q. How frequently does THINK connect to the internet?
A. You can control the frequency of planned connections in the Find-a-Drug control panel. If THINK completes all queued jobs, then an unplanned connection will occur if there are no molecules files from previous protein targets which can be re-used on the current target. If you select "When On-line" then no attempt to dial-up will be made. The "None" setting should be used when you wish to manually download jobs and upload results.
Points
For an average PC 100 points are awarded per CPU hour. The time taken for each job varies quite significantly with the jobs giving the most hits often taking longer. The time spent on a job also depends on the speed of the computer and other activities which use CPU time. A simple benchmark is used to estimate the speed of the CPU and the average load. While this approach is approximate, it aims to provide the best measure of a members contribution.
Updated by Mucks 23/09/05
A. A PC with at least 128MB memory, 10 MB of free disk space and an internet connection (even dial-up).
Q. What if I have a slow processor?
A. Don't worry. It may take awhile, but the results returned are just as good as those of a faster machine. And hey, it'll probably be some old rusted 486 somewhere that discovers a cure for Cancer or HIV or whatever you’re ‘crunching’ for. But fast processors are always welcome too; you can do a lot of jobs in a short amount of time.
Q. Will FaD interfere with my normal computer usage?
A. No it won't. For windows users it sort of replaces the system idle process. Meaning it only uses leftover computer power that no other application wants to claim. For Linux/MacOS users, and other Operating Systems, it does the same exact thing; I just don't know the words for it there.
Q. Can I opt in or out of projects?
A. Yes, just run the Find-a-Drug control panel (fadsetup.exe, or use the Icon in your taskbar) and change the toggles.
Q. What's in it for me?
A. Nothing … But if the warm fuzzy feeling of trying to find a cure for cancer or HIV isn't enough … if a hit, or inhibitor (possible cure or treatment) is shown in laboratory tests to work like its supposed to you get a nice shiny certificate. If you’re a top number cruncher, you can get a shiny certificate for that too. In fact you can get lots of certificates.
Q. What happens after my computer finds something?
A. That depends on a couple of things. If there is an external partner with FaD, they decide what molecules to make and test. But the molecule hits that look promising are made and tested, and if they continue to look promising, they will most likely make it into medical trials. Just think, every hit your computer makes is a possible cure for cancer, or HIV, or MS, or whatever you're running. Kind of mind boggling isn't it?
Q. Can I run THINK under Linux?
A. Yes using a command line interface. Graphics are not currently implemented.
Q. What does the software do?
A. The Find-a-Drug software downloads a job consisting of a protein target and a set of 100 molecules from the server. When your PC is otherwise idle, it generates about 100 derivatives for each molecule giving a total of 10,100 molecules. The software then generates all the possible shapes or conformations of each molecule and determines whether it can interact favourably with the receptor in the protein target.
Q. How frequently does THINK connect to the internet?
A. You can control the frequency of planned connections in the Find-a-Drug control panel. If THINK completes all queued jobs, then an unplanned connection will occur if there are no molecules files from previous protein targets which can be re-used on the current target. If you select "When On-line" then no attempt to dial-up will be made. The "None" setting should be used when you wish to manually download jobs and upload results.
Points
For an average PC 100 points are awarded per CPU hour. The time taken for each job varies quite significantly with the jobs giving the most hits often taking longer. The time spent on a job also depends on the speed of the computer and other activities which use CPU time. A simple benchmark is used to estimate the speed of the CPU and the average load. While this approach is approximate, it aims to provide the best measure of a members contribution.
Updated by Mucks 23/09/05