IMPACT June 2012
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"What's New in XSEDE" (previously "News from XSEDE") is a monthly e-newsletter providing information on scientific discoveries made possible by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, as well as the people, places, and programs involved. XSEDE is a five-year high-performance computing project supported by the National Science Foundation.
READ THIS NEWSLETTER IN A BROWSER | XSEDE NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
Husband-and-wife team set out to improve breast cancer exams
Researchers from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology are using Ranger at the Texas Advanced Computing Center to run simulations of a new breast cancer detection method. Their innovative work of the husband and wife team exploits the difference in stiffness between regular and cancerous tissue, and the team is working to speed up and improve the new method before pursuing clinical testing. The hope is that this new test will become an inexpensive, painless way to aid early detection as part of routine exams. Image: A typical result from the stiffness-mapping algorithm for a simulated breast tumor. The predicted tumor location is shown in red, while the green shows the true location. Computed using TACC's Ranger supercomputer.
Read more about breast cancer detection simulations made possible by TACC 
PICTURED HERE: Lorraine G. Olson, professor of mechanical engineering, and her husband, Robert Throne, head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. They are working together to change the way breast cancer is diagnosed.
Tracking white-nose syndrome
University of Tennessee researchers are using the supercomputer Kraken to explore what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls "the worst wildlife crisis in memory" -- a lethal disease called white-nose syndrome that is devastating North American bat populations. A 2011 study estimated that bats may be worth at least $3 million per year to U.S. agriculture because of the volume of crop-eating insects they consume.
Read more about white-nose syndrome
PICTURED HERE: A map showing the counties that have confirmed cases of white-nose syndrome. This map is updated as info from a number of sites is provided. Image courtesy of batcon.org.
SDSC supercharges its ‘Data Oasis' storage system
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) recently deployed its Lustre-based Data Oasis parallel file system, which will enhance the handling of data-intensive research projects through its four petabytes of capacity and a sustained transfer rate of 100 gigabytes per second. "We are entering the era of data-intensive computing, and that means positioning SDSC as a leading resource in the management of ‘big data' challenges that are pervasive throughout genomics, biological and environmental research, astrophysics, Internet research, and business informatics, just to name a few," says SDSC director Michael Norman. .
Read more about SDSC's new Data Oasis
PSC network upgrades now link West Virginia sites to XSEDE resources
The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's (PSC) network collaboration through its high-performance Internet hub, 3ROX, with West Virginia University and with WVNET, the West Virginia Network that serves schools, government agencies and non-profits in West Virginia, has significantly upgraded network bandwidth and connectivity in West Virginia, providing a high-performance path for network access to XSEDE resources for West Virginia-based research facilities.
Read more about the PSC link to WVU
TACC researcher develops HPC utility to enable rapid testing and porting of scientific computing codes
The Texas Advanced Computing Center has developed a new tool to help scientists and developers on a national basis. It's called "idev," and it's a simple tool that allows a quick turnaround for testing and porting by allowing researchers to skip over the most tedious part of the process – waiting in queues each time they want to run a test. The tool has many other benefits as well..
XSEDE in a nutshell
Following are events, deadlines and opportunities related to XSEDE. There is still time to register for both of these Chicagoland events, but space is limited.