I would first like to say how pleased I am to see so many people from around the world contributing to help a noble cause. It gives me hope that maybe our species will produce positive results in the long run.

I have been trying to recruit people from my university in Canada (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) but have had minimal success due to a couple small facts. I try to explain the program to the best of my abilities but it seems to fall short of their 'acceptance threshold'. I am sure that most people have encountered this situation so perhaps someone might have created some sort of webpage link to explain things. My major problem is explaining the safety issue. People get paranoid when I tell them their computer will be communicating with another throughout the day. They immediately think of viruses, trojans, etc etc. Of course this is pure ignorance towards how computers and networking on their behalf but I can't seem to get by this wall they put up.

Does anyone have something that can help? I have no problem making one, however I just do not have the time (middle of exams currently) and I do not have the expertise in the subject to simplify and summarize a rather complicated process.

Thanks everyone.

J.
~ From the Snowbelt of Waterloo, Ontario

Hey there my fellow Canuk; these links may help you in your quest for knowledge.

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/rah_graphics.php
this will explain the graphics screen.

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/rah_medical_relevance.php
this explains the relevence of the project.

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=254#3575
this is a link that explains what the file names represent and explains a little more about rosetta.

Glad that your a fellow member of rosetta

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/team_display.php?teamid=175
this is a extra link to the project team I am in, its a canadain team and its simply called "Canada". so far we have 75 members and would love to get more members.

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Wow, fantastic response.

The relevance link is probably the most helpful out of all those since it is fairly down to the point and lets people what they are helping without the numbers and exact method behind it. I might end up throwing a pitch to a couple of the science directors at the university to see if they are interested in joining up. Regarding the offer to join the team - maybe down the road. For now I would like to build at my team to see if it works out.

Thank you very much.

J.

Wow, fantastic response.

The relevance link is probably the most helpful out of all those since it is fairly down to the point and lets people what they are helping without the numbers and exact method behind it. I might end up throwing a pitch to a couple of the science directors at the university to see if they are interested in joining up. Regarding the offer to join the team - maybe down the road. For now I would like to build at my team to see if it works out.

Thank you very much.

J.

As regards the safety / virus issue, the following observation may help. There's thousands of people running Rosetta alone, and millions running various distributed projects. If one started sending out bad code, it'd be all over the major news sites it a matter of minutes. Both places like CNN, and "geek news" sites like slashdot. It'd also be an instant death warrant for the project in question.

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To the point fo safety:

Mheanwhile, you can easily run BOINC in a sandbox (on Windows Systems).

Before installing BOINC, create a specialized-user-account, that only has rights to BOINC-directory. If done, install BOINC as a service, running within and only with this user-account.

Then, you have the maximum of safety, because, if you would get malicious code, it never could do anything bad.

I run all my normal boxes as described above; it works great and without problems; only we can't see the graphics.

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Supporting BOINC, a great concept !

I apologize for my lack of knowledge.. I have no idea what you just said yeti.

Perhaps you could clarify from the ground up?

Thanks! :)

Hi J.

Yeti is saying he creates a new user account in Windows that BOINC will run under, rather than running it under the currently logged in user.

As part of Windows security you can set permissions on exactly what folders can be accessed by programs running under this account, so Yeti sets the BOINC folder as the only one accessible to this account. That means that in the VERY unlikely event of a virus etc being downloaded and started, the virus would only have access to the BOINC folder.

It's another level of security that's available.

HTH
Danny

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Hi J.

Yeti is saying he creates a new user account in Windows that BOINC will run under, rather than running it under the currently logged in user.

As part of Windows security you can set permissions on exactly what folders can be accessed by programs running under this account, so Yeti sets the BOINC folder as the only one accessible to this account. That means that in the VERY unlikely event of a virus etc being downloaded and started, the virus would only have access to the BOINC folder.

It's another level of security that's available.

HTH
Danny

Thanks Danny, you described it better than I could have done

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Supporting BOINC, a great concept !

That is a very good idea. I am suprised I havent thought of that for other applications in the past.

Thank you both for bringing this to mind.

J is for Josh.

:)

Could this method be used to run simultaneaous instances of rosetta ?

Would that matter?

Set it to use 100% processing power and it would be the same as having 5 using all processing power. Max output is 100% isn't it?

Could this method be used to run simultaneaous instances of rosetta ?

When you run more than one instance of an application on a CPU you actually "waste" resources switching back and forth.

So, at a maximum, you want to run just one instance of a Science Application per availble CPU.

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Here is my attempt at explaining it to people. I realize that they aren't ACTUALLY modeling people per se, but I think this description is something most people can understand, and it pretty clearly shows the level of abstraction away from the actual cure seekers.

Please give me some feedback. Do you think this description is helpful? Confusing? Too long? Too far removed from amino acid strands?


Rosetta@Home isn't directly seeking the cure for cancer, or HIV, or Alzheimer's. Rather it seeks to understand the proteins of those diseases. Once this is understood, cures for most any infecteous disease are obtainable.

Think of it this way, out of a billion people, some will have a natural resistence to any given virus. The Rosetta project uses a computer program to model millions and millions of people and test which would have the immunity. This is why it presently takes so much computing power.

As the computer model is improved, scientists will be able to find those with immunity with fewer and fewer trials. Once perfected, Rosetta will allow a single computer to model a few dozen people and devise a vaccine that protects everyone.

The Rosetta@Home project is developing these improvements to the model, and you can help! Sign up to use your computer's spare time to help with the monumental task of improving the science that will save our lives.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Here is my attempt at explaining it to people. I realize that they aren't ACTUALLY modeling people per se, but I think this description is something most people can understand, and it pretty clearly shows the level of abstraction away from the actual cure seekers.

Please give me some feedback. Do you think this description is helpful? Confusing? Too long? Too far removed from amino acid strands?


Rosetta@Home isn't directly seeking the cure for cancer, or HIV, or Alzheimer's. Rather it seeks to understand the proteins of those diseases. Once this is understood, cures for most any infecteous disease are obtainable.

Think of it this way, out of a billion people, some will have a natural resistence to any given virus. The Rosetta project uses a computer program to model millions and millions of people and test which would have the immunity. This is why it presently takes so much computing power.

As the computer model is improved, scientists will be able to find those with immunity with fewer and fewer trials. Once perfected, Rosetta will allow a single computer to model a few dozen people and devise a vaccine that protects everyone.

The Rosetta@Home project is developing these improvements to the model, and you can help! Sign up to use your computer's spare time to help with the monumental task of improving the science that will save our lives.

Feet1st....your ideas are generally fantastic..

My point of view on this current one follows:

By saying 'rosetta is not directly seeking the cure for cancer'..and the related statements.....it comes across to the end user as a non worthwhile project.

Rosetta does in fact DO THOSE things in a way that it is best left to the scientists to understand. Don't include vocabulary that improperly associates Rosetta with 'experimental' or 'hypothetical' science. This terming does that. Drive the issue with a 'salesman's' attitude involved.....(I am a salesman, and understand that the positives should be communicated before the negatives)

Take this advice seriously. It's good advice.

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Founder of BOINC GROUP - Objectivists - Philosophically minded rational data crunchers.

Yea, I hesitated to use a negative in paragraph one. Do I get anywhere by replacing paragraph 1 with this slight reword (keeping it positive):

Rosetta@Home is seeking cures and vaccines for cancer, HIV, and Alzheimer's by understanding the proteins they are made of. Once these proteins are fully understood, cures for these and most any infecteous disease are obtainable.

I didn't follow how I may have implied "experimental" or "hypothetical". Was it my use of the word "model", or "once perfected..."? I was trying to avoid words like "refined", "fine tuned", "high resolution". Suggestions welcome.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Yea, I hesitated to use a negative in paragraph one. Do I get anywhere by replacing paragraph 1 with this slight reword (keeping it positive):

Rosetta@Home is seeking cures and vaccines for cancer, HIV, and Alzheimer's by understanding the proteins they are made of. Once these proteins are fully understood, cures for these and most any infecteous disease are obtainable.

I didn't follow how I may have implied "experimental" or "hypothetical". Was it my use of the word "model", or "once perfected..."? I was trying to avoid words like "refined", "fine tuned", "high resolution". Suggestions welcome.

This is good. My research group is actively trying to design a vaccine for HIV and anti Malaria drugs; these efforts aren't currently running on rosetta@home but we hope to launch them soon.

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for your consideration feets

Rosetta@Home is seeking cures and vaccines for cancer, HIV, Alzheimer's, and you can help. By using your computer together with computers from all over the world, Dr. Baker and his team from the University of Washington are researching the proteins that make up these and other diseases.

<insert the main message>
then at the end.........

The Rosetta@Home project is developing these improvements to the model, and WE NEED YOU!

here's how you can help.........and then the directions for download...etc.

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The primary goal for us at the moment is to get the application tested out so that it will be useful for the intended use - finding cures/vaccines/etc for a whole range of ailments that is much larger than the few that the Baker labs are currently studying. And as Dr. Baker stated, they're not using Rosetta@Home for that work, yet.

Of the last group of results on my 2Ghz Athlon 64, the slowest WU was averaging about 6 models per hour. If a vaccine sized WU only averaged 1 model per hour on this hardware, and required 100,000 models for a few useful models to be found - then we'll be at the point where it's economically feasible for some researchers and all drug companies to rent Sun's Opteron Grid at $1 per cpu hour and get the results back in a day or 4.

We spend the time helping to get the Rosetta application improved, and then it'll get used as another technique (hopefully much faster and more precise) to find cures for a wide range of ailments.

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Yea, I hesitated to use a negative in paragraph one. Do I get anywhere by replacing paragraph 1 with this slight reword (keeping it positive):

Rosetta@Home is seeking cures and vaccines for cancer, HIV, and Alzheimer's by understanding the proteins they are made of. Once these proteins are fully understood, cures for these and most any infecteous disease are obtainable.

I didn't follow how I may have implied "experimental" or "hypothetical". Was it my use of the word "model", or "once perfected..."? I was trying to avoid words like "refined", "fine tuned", "high resolution". Suggestions welcome.

This is good. My research group is actively trying to design a vaccine for HIV and anti Malaria drugs; these efforts aren't currently running on rosetta@home but we hope to launch them soon.

Yes, yes. This is inline with what I was thinking....

I mean, this is truly a great project. I love being a part of it and love the fact that the success of it will be apparent in fairly short order as compared to some of the others. Please remember that most end users simply want to understand what it is they are doing... They, for the most part, are not scientists or computer enthusiasts. They just want to be told how this project is useful to them and how to apply it on their machine(s) and be done with it...

The people reading this message right now are not the targeted audience of solicitation for new members....

Think of the principle of authorship 101. Speak to your audience.

Please pardon me if I come across as 'speaking down to anyone'. It is not my intention to do so. It just seems that sometimes the 'basics' need to be stressed so the messenger correctly reorients himself to the reality of the situation. :-)

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Founder of BOINC GROUP - Objectivists - Philosophically minded rational data crunchers.