Webinars, Seminars and Symposiums
Rice University’s ELA Mentoring Program Webinar: Conferencing: Publishing and Presenting Your Work
February 9, 2012 – 10:00am PT, 12:00pm CY, 1:00pm ET
The ELA Mentoring Program is hosting its next webinar session featuring Dr. Yolanda Rankin who will discuss "Conferencing: Publishing and Presenting Your Work". To join the hour-long session, sign up online at here by Thursday, February 9, 8am CT.
Upcoming XSEDE Training Opportunities
Please visit the XSEDE Course Calendar, which can be found at https://www.xsede.org/web/xup/course-calendar, to view all the upcoming training courses at XSEDE partner sites. The calendar provides links to the course descriptions.
XSEDE also maintains a list of great online training courses, which can be found at https://www.xsede.org/web/xup/online-training. These materials are of relevance to all XSEDE users.
News at 11:00: XSEDE Staff in the News
Dan Stanzione, Director of Training at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, is featured in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT_8lUktlTg&feature=youtu.be. Stanzione, who will lead the two February webinar sessions on Parallel Programming, discusses the expanded data center at TACC for the new supercomputer, Stampede.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
Geek' Perception of Computer Science Putting Off Girls, Expert Warns
Excerpt from The Guardian
University of Southampton professor Dame Wendy Hall warns that girls still think of computer science as a subject for geeks and that this has proved to be a very difficult cultural obstacle to overcome. Hall says that instead of showing students how computers work, secondary school classes teach students how to use computers to produce documents, which has discouraged girls from choosing computer science as a career field. In 2004, women made up about 19 percent of all students pursuing undergraduate computer science degrees in the United Kingdom, but that number fell to 16 percent in 2009, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. "Women and girls use technology as much if not more than boys and men do and it's important that women are part of creating the future of this industry," Hall says. Although the scientific community has made several attempts to encourage girls to take up science, there are fewer initiatives that focus solely on computer science, according to UKRC, an organization that works to address the under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. To read further, please visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/10/fewer-girls-taking-computer-science?newsfeed=true.
Program Aims to Help Girls, Minorities Succeed in Math and Science
Excerpt from the Baltimore Sun
Maryland educators are receiving training in how to interact with girls and minorities to boost their performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). "We're really focusing on the little messages, the implicit messages that add up over time," says Tara Ebersole, STEM liaison for the Community College of Baltimore County. The training will help educators better understand the impact of calling more often on boys than girls or lowering expectations of minority students, for example. "It all comes down to the perception of inclusion, or the belief that you are capable of being successful," notes Claudia Morrell of the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity Education Foundation. The Educators' Equity STEM Academy will target high school teachers and community college teachers. The program is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. To read further, please visit http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-01-09/news/bs-md-co-stem-academy-20120109_1_training-program-high-school-teachers-professors.
Research News in the World of Supercomputing
Chinese Crunch Human Genome With Videogame Chips
Excerpt from Wired News
BGI, a Chinese supercomputer lab, recently switched to servers that use graphics processing units (GPUs) built by NVIDIA, which enabled it to cut its genome analysis time by more than an order of magnitude. The feat that enabled BGI and NVIDIA to accomplish this was porting key genome analysis tools to NVIDIA’s GPU architecture, a nontrivial accomplishment that the open source community and others have been working toward, says the Jackson Laboratory's Gregg TeHennepe. With GPUs, BGI gets faster results for its existing algorithms or it can use more sensitive algorithms to achieve better results, says bioinformatics consultant Martin Gollery. In addition, GPUs can be used to analyze genomes that could allow researchers studying biology and drug development to better treat patients. To read further, please visit http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/01/genomes-and-gpus/.
