Real world impact
Using the Apple Xserve cluster to run sophisticated modelling software developed in-house at MACCS, the research is providing the research team with a greater understanding of acquired dyslexia (reading impairment caused by brain damage in formerly skilled readers) and developmental dyslexia.

The result of the research has enormous potential to aid in the treatment of dyslexia, particularly in children. “The general consensus is that anywhere between 10 and 15 per cent of children aged 7-to-12 have reading difficulties that are of different kinds and so require different treatments,” Coltheart says. “In the UK particularly, the research we’re doing is being taken up and used to develop treatments that identify and help those children.”

Fewer nodes but greater performance
The calculations required for simulating visual word recognition and reading aloud are so complex that one of the significant factors contributing to the Apple Xserve decision was the platform’s single-precision floating-point performance – a feature that delivers a marked performance advantage. System Administrator Craig Richardson comments: “For the money we had, we could have purchased more x86-based units than Xserves, but the resulting performance would actually have been less.

“Added to this is that as the system administrator, I need to have equipment that is as reliable as possible,” Richardson continues. “Even though the resource management software would automatically deal with reallocating processing in case of a node failure, in over 12 months the reliability of the cluster and each of its nodes has been nothing short of excellent.”

System management is also close to Richardson’s heart and whilst the Xserve cluster generally operates fully unattended, the Apple administration tools ensure Richardson spends minimum time configuring and managing systems.