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title: "BOINC Credit System"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOINC_Credit_System"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:11:38.564783+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
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Within the BOINC platform for volunteer computing, the BOINC Credit System helps volunteers keep track of how much CPU time they have donated to various projects. This ensures users are returning accurate results for both scientific and statistical reasons.
== Purposes for a credit system ==
Online distributed computing relies heavily, if not entirely, on volunteer computers. For this reason, projects such as SETI@home and other BOINC projects depend on a complicated balance among long-term users and the cycle of new users and retiring users.
=== Reasons for participation ===
Efficiency: Using a computer's resources which would otherwise be idle.
To contribute to scientific research in general.
To advance a specific field.
To stress test computers, as with overclocking.
For competition's sake (by joining a team).
Some individuals and teams run numerous computers, with some dedicated specifically to BOINC in hopes of climbing to the top of the world charts. Some teams are institutional, e.g. universities and research centers.
For personal benefit and recognition.
Projects such as NASA's PlanetQuest plan on allowing individuals to name those planets discovered using their computers.
Projects such as BURP, and Leiden Classical allow users to submit their own operations for use in the system. BURP allows a user to submit models to be rendered, and Leiden Classical allows users to submit physics calculations.
Cryptocurrency projects such as Gridcoin have their proof of work reward tied to BOINC credits.
Note that these reasons are not mutually exclusive.
== Cobblestones ==
The basis for the BOINC credit system is the cobblestone, named after Jeff Cobb of SETI@home. By definition, 200 cobblestones are awarded for one day of work on a computer that can meet either of two benchmarks:
1,000 double-precision MFLOPS based on the Whetstone benchmark
1,000 VAX MIPS based on the Dhrystone benchmark
The actual computational difficulty needed to run a given work unit is the basis for the number of credits that should be granted. The BOINC system allows for work of any length to be processed and have identical amounts of credit issued to a user. In so doing, BOINC uses benchmarks to measure the speed of a system, combining that figure with the amount of time required for a work unit to be processed. The interface then can "guess" at the amount of credit a user should receive. Since systems have many variables, including the amount of RAM, the processor speed, and specific architectures of different motherboards and CPUs, there can be wide discrepancies in the number of credits that different computers (and projects) judge a user to have earned.
Most projects require a consensus to be reached by having multiple hosts return the same work unit. If they all agree, then the credit is calculated and all hosts receive the same amount regardless of what they asked for. Each project can use their own policy depending on what they see is best for their specific needs. In general, the top and bottom claimed credits are dropped and an average of the remaining is taken. However, certain other projects award a flat amount per work unit returned and validated.
== Total credit ==
Credits are tracked internally for computers, users, and teams. When a computer processes and returns a work unit, it receives no credit for that action alone. It must first have that work unit validated by the given, project-specific method. Once validated, the computer is granted credit, which can be less than, equal to, or greater than what was requested. This amount is immediately added to the computer, user, and team total. If a work unit is returned past the given deadline (in most cases) or is found to be inaccurate, it is marked as invalid and results in no credit. Users and teams commonly determine world rank by comparing the total number of credits accumulated. This highly favors users and teams that have been around for the longest time. This makes it extremely difficult for new users to rapidly gain ground in the rankings, even if they are running many computers. That said, given the exponential increase in computing power of the average PC, it is relatively easy to surpass inactive BOINC users who have earned all of their points on obsolete machines even if they were at one time ranked highly. Thus, the highest ranked BOINC users will generally be the ones who are actively crunching.
== Recent average credit ==
To find the useful amount of work provided by a computer, a special calculation called recent average credit (RAC) is used. This calculation is designed to estimate the number of credits a computer, user, and team will accumulate on an average day.
== Controversies ==
The credit allocation has been challenged for several projects like EON and Asteroids@Home. These concerns have led to the shut down of many such projects over time and have also led to several alternative allocation strategies.
== Third-party statistics sites ==
BOINC projects export statistical information in the form of XML files, and make it available for anyone to download. Many different third-party statistical websites have been developed to track the progress of BOINC projects. These sites track computers, users, teams, and countries within individual projects and across many projects. Many different sites provide summary graphics, which can be used on web pages that automatically update to contain the statistical information for the specified user or team:
BOINCstats.com by Willy de Zutter
Free-DC Stats by Bok
BOINC Combined Statistics by James (gracefully defunct since September 2025)
== References ==
== External links ==
Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)

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title: "BOINC clientserver technology"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOINC_clientserver_technology"
category: "reference"
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BOINC clientserver technology refers to the model under which BOINC works. The BOINC framework consists of two layers which operate under the clientserver architecture. Once the BOINC software is installed in a machine, the server starts sending tasks to the client. The operations are performed client-side and the results are uploaded to the server-side.
== Design and structure of BOINC ==
BOINC is designed to be a free structure for anyone wishing to start a distributed computing project.
BOINC consists of a server system and client software that communicate with each other to distribute, process, and return workunits.
== Server structure ==
A major part of the BOINC system is the backend server. The server can run on one or many machines to allow BOINC to scale easily to projects of any size. BOINC servers run on Linux-based computers and use Apache, PHP, and MySQL for their web and database systems.
Scientific computations run on participants' computers. After uploading from the user's client to a science investigator's database, the backend server validates and analyzes the results. The validation process involves running all tasks on multiple contributor PCs and comparing the results.
BOINC servers also provide these features:
homogeneous redundancy (sending workunits only to computers of the same platform — for example: Win XP SP2 only)
workunit trickling (sending information to the server before the workunit completes)
locality scheduling (sending workunits to computers that already have the necessary files and creating work on demand)
work distribution based on host parameters (workunits requiring 512 MB of RAM, for example, will only be sent to hosts having at least that much RAM)
The server consists of two CGI programs and (normally) five daemons, written in C++. Computations to be performed by clients are called workunits. A result describes an instance of a workunit, even if it hasn't been completed. A project does not explicitly create results; the server creates them automatically from workunits.
The scheduler CGI program handles requests from clients, receiving completed results and sending new work to compute. The scheduler doesn't get available results directly from the database. Instead, a feeder daemon loads tasks from the database and keeps them in a shared-memory block, which the scheduler reads. The feeder periodically fills empty "slots" in the shared-memory block after the scheduler has sent those results to a client.
When all the results from a workunit are completed and returned, the validator checks them. One popular method would be to compare the results against each other. The validator can have custom project-code to do fuzzy comparison between results, or it can perform a bitwise comparison. If the validator determines that at least some of the results are valid, it marks the work unit and the valid results as valid, users who returned legitimate results are granted credit for it, and a "canonical result" is chosen. If the results don't agree, or if one of the results is not reported by its deadline, the server generates an additional instance of the job, and sends it to a third host. This is repeated until a quorum of matching results is found or a limit on the number of instances is
reached.
Next, the assimilator daemon processes the canonical result using project-specific code. For example, some projects may parse the file and store information in a database, others may just copy the file somewhere else. An assimilator may also generate more workunits based on the returned data.
The file_deleter daemon deletes output files after the assimilator has processed them, and deletes input files that aren't needed anymore.
The transitioner daemon handles state transitions of workunits and results. It also generates results from workunits when they are first created, and when more are needed (for example, if a result turns out invalid).
== Client structure ==
BOINC on the client is structured into a number of separate applications. These intercommunicate using the BOINC remote procedure call (RPC) mechanism.
These component applications are:
The program boinc (or boinc.exe) is the core client.
The core client is a process which:
Takes care of communications between the client and the server.
The core client also downloads science applications, provides a unified logging mechanism, makes sure science application binaries are up-to-date, and schedules CPU resources between science applications (if several are installed).
Although the core client is capable of downloading new science applications, it does not update itself.
On Unix, the core client is generally run as a daemon (or occasionally as a cron job).
On Windows, BOINC initially was not a Windows service, but an ordinary application. BOINC Client for Windows, Versions 5.2.13 and higher add, during installation, the option of "Service Installation".
Depending on how the BOINC client software was installed, it can either run in the background like a daemon, or starts when an individual user logs in (and is stopped when the user logs out). The software version management and work-unit handling provided by the core client greatly simplifies the coding of science applications.
One or several science applications. Science applications perform the core scientific computation. There is a specific science application for each of the distributed computation projects which use the BOINC framework. Science applications use the BOINC daemon to upload and download workunits, and to exchange statistics with the server.
boincmgr (or boincmgr.exe), a GUI which communicates with the core application using remote procedure calls. By default a core client only allows connections from the same computer, but it can be configured to allow connections from other computers (optionally using password authentication); this mechanism allows one person to manage a farm of BOINC installations from a single workstation. A drawback to the use of RPC mechanisms is that they are often felt to be security risks because they can be the route by which hackers can intrude upon targeted computers (even if it's configured for connections from the same computer).
The GUI is written using the cross-platform WxWidgets toolkit, providing the same user experience on different platforms. Users can connect to BOINC core clients, can instruct those clients to install new science applications, can monitor the progress of ongoing calculations, and can view the BOINC system message logs.
The BOINC screensaver. This provides a framework whereby science applications can display graphics in the user's screensaver window. BOINC screensavers are coded using the BOINC graphics API, OpenGL, and the GLUT toolkit. Typically BOINC screensavers show animated graphics detailing the work underway, perhaps showing graphs or charts or other data visualisation graphics.
Some science applications do not provide screensaver functionality (or stop providing screensaver images when they are idle). In this circumstance the screensaver shows a small BOINC logo which bounces around the screen.
Since BOINC has features that can render it invisible to the typical user, there is risk that unauthorized and difficult to detect installations may occur. This would aid the accumulation of BOINC-credit points by hobbyists who are competing with others for status within the BOINC-credit subculture.
== Client platforms ==
== See also ==
Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)
Volunteer Computing
== References ==

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title: "Charity Engine"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charity_Engine"
category: "reference"
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date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:11:39.893406+00:00"
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Charity Engine is a free PC app based on Berkeley University's BOINC software, run by The Worldwide Computer Company Limited. The project works by selling spare home computing power to universities and corporations, then sharing the profits between eight partner charities and periodic cash prize draws for the users; those running the Charity Engine BOINC software on their home computers. When there are no corporations purchasing the computing power, Charity Engine donates it to existing volunteer computing projects such as Rosetta@home, Einstein@Home, and Malaria Control, and prize draws are funded by donations.
The company was founded by former journalist Mark McAndrew, who was writing a science fiction novel featuring a similar organisation. He abandoned the book in favour of creating the idea in real life, with the assistance of professor David Anderson from UC Berkeley who created BOINC. The company was incorporated in 2008, but did not start trading until 2011.
The company received €70,000 of EU innovation funding through the Framework Programme 7 (FP7).
== Protein folding ==
In August 2014 the Rosetta@home project reported Charity Engine had contributed over 125,000 new PCs to its grid.
In January 2017, Charity Engine was credited as a significant contributor to solving protein-folding problems in the paper "Protein structure determination using metagenome sequence data" published by the journal Science.
== Sums of three cubes problem ==
In September 2019 a team led by Andrew Booker at the University of Bristol and Andrew Sutherland at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used Charity Engine to solve the sums of three cubes problem for the number 42, as well as finding solutions for four other numbers in the same problem. The numbers found by Charity Engine are:
3
=
569
936
821
221
962
380
720
3
+
(
569
936
821
113
563
493
509
)
3
+
(
472
715
493
453
327
032
)
3
,
{\displaystyle 3=569\ 936\ 821\ 221\ 962\ 380\ 720^{3}+(-569\ 936\ 821\ 113\ 563\ 493\ 509)^{3}+(-472\ 715\ 493\ 453\ 327\ 032)^{3},}
42
=
(
80
538
738
812
075
974
)
3
+
80
435
758
145
817
515
3
+
12
602
123
297
335
631
3
,
{\displaystyle 42=(-80\ 538\ 738\ 812\ 075\ 974)^{3}+80\ 435\ 758\ 145\ 817\ 515^{3}+12\ 602\ 123\ 297\ 335\ 631^{3},}
165
=
(
385
495
523
231
271
884
)
3
+
383
344
975
542
639
445
3
+
98
422
560
467
622
814
3
,
{\displaystyle 165=(-385\ 495\ 523\ 231\ 271\ 884)^{3}+383\ 344\ 975\ 542\ 639\ 445^{3}+98\ 422\ 560\ 467\ 622\ 814^{3},}
579
=
143
075
750
505
019
222
645
3
+
(
143
070
303
858
622
169
975
)
3
+
(
6
941
531
883
806
363
291
)
3
,
{\displaystyle 579=143\ 075\ 750\ 505\ 019\ 222\ 645^{3}+(-143\ 070\ 303\ 858\ 622\ 169\ 975)^{3}+(-6\ 941\ 531\ 883\ 806\ 363\ 291)^{3},}
906
=
(
74
924
259
395
610
397
)
3
+
72
054
089
679
353
378
3
+
35
961
979
615
356
503
3
.
{\displaystyle 906=(-74\ 924\ 259\ 395\ 610\ 397)^{3}+72\ 054\ 089\ 679\ 353\ 378^{3}+35\ 961\ 979\ 615\ 356\ 503^{3}.}
== References ==
== External links ==
Charity Engine Website

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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Energy_Project"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climateprediction.net"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:24:05.363360+00:00"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:11:42.306440+00:00"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climateprediction.net"
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tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology@Home"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:24:12.720963+00:00"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:11:43.586816+00:00"
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title: "Discovering Dengue Drugs Together"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovering_Dengue_Drugs__Together"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:11:44.894086+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---
Discovering Dengue Drugs Together (DDDT) was a World Community Grid project launched in 2007 sponsored by scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the University of Chicago. Its goal was to identify new antiviral drugs effective against viruses from the family Flaviviridae. The project closed in 2015.
Like all World Community Grid projects, Discovering Dengue Drugs Together used a computational grid made up of thousands of client computers belonging to independent volunteers, in conjunction with servers that distribute portions of the work to the clients.
== Phase 1 ==
The first phase of the project launched on August 21, 2007 and used AutoDock 2007 (the same software used for FightAIDS@Home) to test how well antiviral drug candidates are predicted to bind to the target virus's proteases. The specific viruses targeted by the project were:
Dengue virus
Hepatitis C virus
West Nile virus
Yellow fever virus
Compounds predicted to bind strongly (protease inhibitors) were identified as potential antiviral drug candidates. Around 2.2 million compounds were examined in Phase 1, with around 20,000 of the best scoring compounds being passed to the second phase of the project.
In 2008, the project was temporarily suspended because of Hurricane Ike. Processing resumed in January 2009, with the server function transferred from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston to the Texas Advanced Computing Center in Austin. Phase 1 ended in August 2009.
== Phase 2 ==
The second phase of the project was designed to reduce the number of false positive predictions made during Phase 1, using the CHARMM software package to predict how tightly small drug-like molecules bind to the different flavivirus proteases.
Drug candidates that make it through Phase 2 were lab-tested, and in 2014, a novel small-molecule inhibitor of dengue virus protease was announced. Phase 2 of the project was closed in March 2015.
== References ==

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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EOn"
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tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein@Home"
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tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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