HPC in the News

 

XSEDE14 Spotlighted Recent Work, Future Plans

The recent XSEDE14 Conference was touted by chairperson Scott Lathrop and project director John Towns as a networking opportunity for attendees. The number of training event attendees topped 14,000, signifying that "we're training a larger community than just those that only use XSEDE resources, we're extending ourselves out there," Towns says. XSEDE has conducted $767 million in work in the past year, about 50 percent of which is accomplished via U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) grants. The U.S. Defense Department, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are largely responsible for the rest of XSEDE's funding. XSEDE also has cultivated relationships with many other resource, service, and infrastructure providers such as Compute Canada, NAREGI, RIKEN, and PRACE. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/07/23/xsede14-spotlights-recent-work-future-plans/.

Extreme Scaling Workshop 2014 -
August 14-15, 2014 - University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado

The National Science Foundation-funded Blue Waters and eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) projects are hosting the 8th Extreme Scaling Workshop taking place this month.  The Extreme Scaling Workshop 2014 will showcase the discoveries, innovations, and achievements of those who use, build, and/or support advanced architectures at extreme scales around the world. The workshop will also provide a forum for researchers, professional staff, students, high-performance computing center staff, and representatives from funding agencies to explore and discuss current successes and challenges as well as future needs and plans. For more information, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/xscale/xscale14

First Hands-On Workshop on Leveraging High Performance Computing Resources for Managing Large Datasets
October 27, 2014 – Washington, DC
Collocated with the 2014 IEEE Big Data Conference, Oct 27-30, Washington DC

This one-day workshop will be collocated with the 2014 IEEE Big Data Conference. For a detailed agenda and additional information about the workshop, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/events/2014/ieee/managing-large-datasets.

Application to Use Blue Waters Resources
Application Deadline - September 15, 2014.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are invited to apply by Sept. 15 for allocations of time on the powerful Blue Waters supercomputer. Blue Waters is one of the world's most powerful computing systems. Each year, 3-4 million node-hours will be allocated to projects from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As each node has many powerful cores, this is significantly more computing power than most universities have available for their use, and this resource provides Illinois faculty, staff, and students with a unique opportunity to perform groundbreaking work in computational science. [System details are available at https://bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu/hardware-summary.] These allocations are intended for problems that need the unique capabilities of Blue Waters at large scale, which need not be just floating‐point speed; it could be total memory, data size or data bandwidth, or even computational scale. Project proposals are expected to demonstrate that no other resource would be suitable for a given problem, as Blue Waters is not merely a large source of compute cycles. For more information, please visit http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/news/story/illinois_applications_to_use_blue_waters_are_due_by_sept._15.

Danes Take Back Fastest Data Transfer Title

The team that broke the terabit barrier in 2009 is at it again. This time the High-Speed Optical Communications (HSOC) team at the Technical University of Denmark accomplished a record-smashing 43 terabits per second (Tbps) transfer speed over a single optical fiber with just one laser transmitter. That’s equivalent to a transfer rate of around 5.4 terabytes per second. The High-Speed Optical Communications group at the university’s photonics engineering department beat the previous record – 26 terabits per second – set by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2011. As worldwide Internet traffic grows by 40–50 percent annually, driven by the popularity of cloud services and streamed music and video applications, network vendors are struggling to meet this demand. Read more at http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/08/06/danes-take-back-fastest-data-transfer-title/.

What’s it like to Unbox a supercomputer? Surprisingly, just like Unboxing a normal PC
ExtremeTech

I don’t know about you, but unboxing new gadgets gets me pretty excited. For me, it’s knowing that soon — very soon now, after I cut through the bubble wrap or peel back the protective plastic — the device will burst into life for the very first time. If I’m honest, it actually makes me feel like Frankenstein breathing life into his monster for the first time — especially when I unbox a bunch of components and build them into a new PC. What, then, must it feel like to unbox a brand new petascale supercomputer? Recently, the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Australia received a new Cray XC30 supercomputer, dubbed Magnus2. Remarkably, unboxing an XC30 is basically just like unboxing a new computer — just on a much larger scale. As you can see in the photos above and below, the Pawsey engineers basically just cracked open a bunch of crates, wired them up, and voila: a supercomputer with more than 35,000 Xeon cores and peak performance of around 1 petaflop. Cray has previously said that the XC30, with its Aries interconnect, is technically capable of scaling to 100 petaflops or more. To read further, please visit  http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/187387-whats-it-like-to-unbox-a-supercomputer-surprisingly-just-like-unboxing-a-normal-pc. View the installation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Y77efFW-I#t=86.

Extracting audio from visual information
MIT News

Researchers at MIT, Microsoft, and Adobe have developed an algorithm that can reconstruct an audio signal by analyzing minute vibrations of objects depicted in video. In one set of experiments, they were able to recover intelligible speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag photographed from 15 feet away through soundproof glass. In other experiments, they extracted useful audio signals from videos of aluminum foil, the surface of a glass of water, and even the leaves of a potted plant. The researchers will present their findings in a paper at this year’s Siggraph, the premier computer graphics conference. “When sound hits an object, it causes the object to vibrate,” says Abe Davis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and first author on the new paper. “The motion of this vibration creates a very subtle visual signal that’s usually invisible to the naked eye. People didn’t realize that this information was there.” To read further, please visit  http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/algorithm-recovers-speech-from-vibrations-0804.

SC14 Publishes Technical Program
November 16-20, 2014 – New Orleans, Louisiana

When viewing the Technical Program schedule, on the far right hand side is a column labeled "PLANNER." Use this planner to build your own schedule. Once you select an event and want to add it to your personal schedule, just click on the calendar icon of your choice (outlook calendar, ical calendar or Google calendar) and that event will be stored there. As you select events in this manner, you will have your own schedule to guide you through the week. To view the schedule and create your planner, please visit http://sc14.supercomputing.org/schedule/.

 

HPC Call for Participation

 

Call for papers: Workshop on Women in HPC at SC14
Showcasing Women in High Performance Computing
Friday 21 November 2014 - Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, LA
Submission Deadline – August 14, 2014

Early career researchers who wish to present their work in any field are invited to join us for a half-day workshop on Women in HPC at Supercomputing 2014. The workshop aims to address gender issues in HPC research and innovation, the challenges facing women and how gender inequality can impact efficacy of the scientific method and research quality. The workshop will include talks from female early career researchers and invited talks by world-leading women working in the field of HPC, describing the challenges facing women in HPC careers and how to improve the representation of women in supercomputing. For complete information, please visit http://www.womeninhpc.org.uk/sc14.  Or email info@womeninhpc.org.uk.

13th International Conference WWW/Internet 2014
October 25-27, 2014 - Porto, Portugal
Submission Deadline – September 2, 2014

The WWW/Internet 2014 conference aims to address the main issues of concern within WWW/Internet. WWW and Internet had a huge development in recent years. Aspects of concern are no longer just technical anymore but other aspects have aroused. This conference aims to cover both technological as well as non-technological issues related to these development The conference accepts submissions in the following five main areas: Web 2.0; Semantic Web and XML; Applications and Uses; Services, Architectures and We b Development; Research Issues. For more details please visit http://www.internet-conf.org/call-for-papers.

Second International Conference on Computer Science, Computer Engineering, & Education Technologies (CSCEET2014) – Call for Participation
November 17-19, 2014 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Submission Deadline - October 17, 2014

To provide a medium for professionals, engineers, academicians, scientists, and researchers from over the world to present the result of their research activities in the field of Computer Science, Engineering and Information Technology. CSCEET2014 provides opportunities for the delegates to share the knowledge, ideas, innovations and problem solving techniques. Submitted papers will be reviewed by the technical program committee of the conference.  For more information, please visit http://www.allconferences.com/c/second-international-conference-on-computer-science-computer-engineering-education-technologies-kuala-lumpur-2014-november-17.

Call for Papers -- The NACA Centenary: A Symposium on 100 Years of Aerospace Research and Development
March 3-4, 2015 - Washington, DC
Abstract Submission Deadline – September 15, 2014

The Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, or NASM, and NASA's History Program Office invite proposals for papers to a special symposium commemorating a century of aerospace research and development. On March 3, 1915, the U.S. Congress established the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, “to separate the real from the imagined and make known the overlooked and unexpected” in the quest for flight. In honor of that centennial, NASA and NASM will team to present a symposium on the history of the NACA.
Major themes to be addressed in the symposium include:

-- The NACA organizational and institutional structure and evolution.

-- The NACA model of public/private partnerships in aerospace research.

-- The NACA's contributions to aerospace theory, ground research and flight operations.

             -- Individual projects.

             -- Broad themes in the history of the agency.

             -- Research projects versus other structural attributes.

-- The social, economic and/or political history of the NACA.

-- The NACA culture and its evolution.

-- The relationship of the NACA to other entities, both private and public.

-- Innovation in aerospace research.

-- Models of partnership.

For more information about the Call for Papers, please visit http://www.nasa.gov/naca100years/.

 

Upcoming Workshops, Conferences and Webinars

 

Euro-Par 2014 –
August 25 - 29, 2014 Porto, Portugal

Euro-Par is an annual series of international conferences dedicated to the promotion and advancement of all aspects of parallel and distributed computing. Euro-Par covers a wide spectrum of topics from algorithms and theory to software technology and hardware-related issues, with application areas ranging from scientific to mobile and cloud computing. Euro-Par provides a forum for the introduction, presentation and discussion of the latest scientific and technical advances, extending the frontier of both the state of the art and the state of the practice. The main audience of Euro-Par are the researchers in academic institutions, government laboratories and industrial organisations. Euro-Par's objective is to be the primary choice of such professionals for the presentation of new results in their specific areas. As a wide-spectrum conference, Euro-Par fosters the synergy of different topics in parallel and distributed computing. Of special interest are applications which demonstrate the effectiveness of the main Euro-Par topics. Foe more information, please visit http://www.nics.tennessee.edu/event/euro-par-2014.

International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP 2014 )
September 9- 12, 2014 - Minneapolis, MN, USA

Parallel and distributed computing is a central topic in science, engineering and society. ICPP, the International Conference on Parallel Processing, provides a forum for engineers and scientists in academia, industry and government to present their latest research findings in all aspects of parallel and distributed computing. ICPP 2014 will be organized around the following tracks:

•  Algorithm Design
• Applications
• Architectures
• Cloud Computing and Big Data Analytics
• Compilers
• Networking and Mobile Computing
• Software Systems and Programming Models
• Performance Modeling and Evaluation

For more information, please visit  http://www.nics.tennessee.edu/event/icpp-2014.
 

NASA Office of Small Business Programs - Partnership Meeting
September 17, 2014 - Huntsville, Alabama

NASA Office of Small Business Programs is hosting a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institution Partnership Meeting. To register please visit http://www.osbp.nasa.gov. For more information email MSFC-SmallBusiness@mail.nasa.gov.

ISC Big Data
October 1-2, 2014 - Heidelberg, Germany

Our second annual ISC Big Data conference will build on the success of the 2013 event, presenting attendees with the latest developments in data-centric computing from both industry players and researchers. Our conference theme – From Data to Knowledge – reflects the nature of all big data applications, encapsulating the challenges as well as the solutions. ISC Big Data will explore all aspects of that data-to-knowledge path. At center-stage is Hadoop, a rapidly evolving parallel framework for digesting some of the largest datasets in the world. But there are many other software solutions from a growing array of companies offering alternatives to Hadoop. This surge of solutions reflects not only the relative youth of the big data market, but its application diversity as well. For more information, please visit http://www.isc-events.com/bigdata14/.

15th International Cloud Expo Silicon Valley –
November 4-6, 2014 - Santa Clara, California

Cloud Expo offers a vast selection technical and strategic Industry Keynotes, General Sessions, Breakout Sessions, and signature Power Panels. The exhibition floor features 100+ exhibitors offering specific solutions and comprehensive strategies. For more information, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh1_AjLW26s.

 

Research Features from Around the World

 

Message from TACC Executive Director, Dan Stanzione

Though it's the middle of the summer, things aren't running any slower at TACC. The center continues to grow, and the demands for the cyberinfrastructure services provided by TACC continue to grow faster than we can possibly meet them. As part of that growth, we need a bigger home, and our project to expand the TACC facilities is taking shape. The image below shows a concept drawing for our new addition to be located adjacent to our current facilities on the J.J. Pickle Research Campus at UT Austin. This building will set a new architectural standard for the PRC. In addition to giving us space for nearly 70 additional staff and 20 new students, we will add a new training facility, a large auditorium, outdoor reception space, shop space to support the datacenter, and a new visualization lab. We expect to break ground by the end of 2014. To read further, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/about/message-from-the-director.

Living cyberinfrastructure: An Emerging Model at Indiana University

According to IU Research Technology Manager of Campus Bridging and Research Infrastructure Rich Knepper, living cyberinfrastructure implies a close link between technology and scientific outcomes. Science becomes part of the technology that supports it. In a talk at the International Conference on Infrastructures and Cooperation in E-science and E-humanities, Leipzig, Germany, in June 2014 titled “Living cyberinfrastructures and their impact on scientific research,” Knepper explored the evolving model of center-based cyberinfrastructure and some of the challenges that attend that model. Computation centers like XSEDE are alternatives to declining single-scientist resources.  But there are trade-offs.  In exchange for the free cycles they provide, scientists may need to agree to center requirements or adapt their software, which may curb experimentation. Watch the presentation on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQygr2p-EPM.

XSEDE and Blue Waters Go Supernova

If you were to go back far enough into the Earth’s cosmic ancestry, you might be surprised to find it all started with a supernova explosion. These explosive cosmic events are like laboratories in space, generating elements that enable the creation of life later on; in fact, most of what makes up the Earth, including us humans, evolved from these fundamental elements. This is why simulating the process of a star going supernova is so important—it could potentially be the key to unlocking some of the bigger mysteries of how we came to be in the universe. To read further, please visit http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/news/story/xsede_and_blue_waters_go_supernova.

Cloud Gives DNA Compiler Wings at Penn State University
HPCwire

Imagine being able to turn bacteria into molecular factories, capable of producing everything from earth-friendly biofuels to personalized medicines? This is the promise of synthetic biology, which has made remarkable advances over the last decade, taking tools and concepts from physics, engineering and computer science to design new biological systems. One of the foremost researchers in the field is Professor Howard Salis. An assistant professor at Penn State University, Salis developed a cloud-based software platform, called DNA Compiler, to support the efforts of synthetic biology researchers around the world. In an interview with HPCwire, Salis explains that even the simplest bacterium has more moving parts than an automobile, but nature did not provide exact design specifications for how those living organisms function. Read more at http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/08/05/cloud-gives-dna-compiler-wings/.

UK Council Calls for Partners to Develop Alan Turing Institute

The U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) wants to partner with U.K. universities on an initiative to establish the Alan Turing Institute. The U.K. government, which plans to provide 42 million British pounds over five years to fund the national center, has turned to EPSRC to coordinate the effort. The government sees the Institute as an opportunity to position the nation as a global leader in the analysis and application of big data. "Big data is a key component in how we conduct science today and its importance will only increase in the future," says Greg Clarke, the U.K. Minister for Universities, Science, and Cities. The national center will promote advanced research and translational work in the application of data science and associated computational algorithms. To read further, please visit http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/partnerstodevelopalanturinginstitute/.

Austria's New Green Super Computer

The Vienna University of Technology will house the new VSC-3 supercomputer, a cluster that consists of more than 32,000 individual processor cores. The VSC-3, Austria's most powerful computer, will enable scientific calculations to be performed in a variety of research areas. The initial plans for the supercomputer are focused on energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact, leading to the use of a new oil-cooling technique. "This collaborative project between eight universities, which covers many disciplines and fields of study, is a prime example of cooperation in practice and shows the added value that can result for all involved," says Austrian federal minister Reinhold Mitterlehner. VSC-3 features 2,020 nodes, each with 16 processor cores, giving the system more than 600 teraflops of computing power. To read further, please visit http://phys.org/news/2014-07-austria-green-super.html.

 

Educator News and Opportunities

 

Coding Classes: Students, Dogged Teachers Overcome Obstacles to Add Computer Science Classes
San Jose Mercury News

Although California businesses and political leaders have been encouraging high schools to increase the number of computer science classes offered to young students, it has proven problematic to get the programs off the ground. For starters, it is difficult to find qualified teachers because California does not offer a computer science teaching credential. "We don't have people with the knowledge to teach those classes, nor are those people showing up when we're looking for them," says San Jose Unified curriculum director Jackie Zeller. In addition, because computer science is not required for admittance into public universities, it must vie for enrollment with other elective courses such as music and art. Despite these obstacles, about half of the comprehensive high schools in San Jose Unified, San Jose's East Side Union, and San Mateo Union will offer coding classes in the coming fall. To read further, please visit http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_26192415/coding-classes-students-dogged-teachers-overcome-obstacles-add.

A Message from CodeHS- Learning to Code is as Easy as 1,2,3!

CodeHS is a program for teaching computer science to high schoolers. It was great to meet many of you at the CSTA conference, and we hope to meet many more of you next year! If you, your school, or a school nearby is looking for a great program to get started teaching intro CS in your school this year, makes sure to check out CodeHS. Educators will be provided with: 

* Web-based step by step curriculum in JavaScript, starting with Karel the Dog
* Lots of teachers tools for managing classes
* Progress tracking, managing rosters, and managing grading
* Autograding system with immediate feedback on student programs (<< a favorite for CS teachers)
* Sandbox to let students create creative programs (HTML/CSS, python, graphics programs)

To sign up for a teacher account, please visit https://codehs.com/signup/teacher. For more on CodeHS, please visit https://codehs.com/.

More on Computer Programming: Train Kids Early
Digits

Starting this September, every single K-12 student in Great Britain will start taking classes in computer programming. That is, kids at the age of five will take programming, and they won’t stop until they’re 16 at least. A majority of these children will be using the free online learning platform Codecademy, says co-founder Zach Sims. Ditto France, Estonia and Buenos Aires. In China, Codecademy, which has programming lessons contributed by more than 100,000 people from around the world, has been cloned multiple times. Meanwhile in the U.S., where education is controlled by the states, fewer than 20 even recognize computer science as a science; the rest consider it an elective. To read further, please visit  http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/05/more-on-computer-programming-train-kids-early/.

Computer Science Education Act Hits Critical Milestone
HPCwire

As the saying goes, to outcompete, a nation or business must out-compute. An explosion in the number of computationally-driven disciplines has created a huge demand for highly-trained scientists and engineers. Congress is currently considering a bill that would help bridge the skills gap and bolster national competitiveness. The Computer Science Education Act (HR 2536) seeks to make computer science a core competency by strengthening elementary and secondary computer science education. While science and engineering were hallmarks of innovation over the 19th and 20th centuries, what sets the 21st century apart is the rise of information technology and the knowledge-based economy. As the bill’s authors point out, computer science drives the information technology sector of the United States, which is a key contributor to the economic output of the nation. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/08/04/computer-science-education-act-hits-critical-milestone/.

Call for Papers: NSTA The Science Teacher
Submission Deadline – August 15, 2014

The Science Teacher (TST) is seeking manuscripts that describe new and creative ideas for the secondary science classroom. Manuscripts should provide worthwhile ideas and practical help for teachers as they relate to the themes listed below. TST also always encourages manuscripts outside of the listed themes (see “The Fine Print”). For complete information, please visit http://www.nsta.org/highschool/call-tst.aspx.

California MOUSE Squad Mini Grants Available
Application Deadline 0 August 29, 2914

MOUSE Squad of California’s mission is to empower underserved youth, grades 4 – 12, to learn, lead, create and collaborate with technology, preparing them with skills essential for their academic and career success. The MOUSE Squad of California (MSCA) program prepares students to become digital media and technology experts, providing access to STEM education. MSCA strives to improve the use of technology to enhance learning for our students, while also building confidence and developing skills for 21st century innovation. Schools and agencies that apply by the application deadline can implement a program in school year 2014 – 2015, and will have preference for a MSCA mini-grant and time to participate in the September/October 2014 Instructor/Coordinator trainings. For more information about MSCA, please visit http://www.mousesquadca.org/contactus/ or call Jan Half, Executive Director of California MOUSE Squad by phone at 408-712-5912 or email at jan@mousesquad.org.

NYU Offers STEM Summer Classes to City Students

Nearly 500 city students are taking classes in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — in mostly free summer camp programs operated by New York University. The classes focus on cybersecurity, video games, renewable energy, computer coding and other white-hot fields and are taught by staffers and students at NYU’s Polytechnic School of Engineering in downtown Brooklyn. Fifty city teachers are also working with NYU staffers this summer to bolster their own ability to deliver STEM classes, said Katepalli Sreenivasan, NYU School of Engineering president and dean. To read further, please visit http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/stem/nyu-offering-summer-stem-classes-city-kids-article-1.1862881#ixzz3A11vr0sY.

 

Student Engagement and Opportunities

 

2015 ICESat-2 Mission Hexacopter Engineering Challenge
April 17, 2015 - Greenbelt, Maryland,
Application Deadline – September 12, 2014

The Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, mission will host the 2015 ICESat-2 Mission Hexacopter Engineering Challenge at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.  This challenge will task teams of students with measuring the height of Earth around us, from tree canopies to bodies of water. This challenge will be the first of its kind in a yearly series of ICESat-2 engineering challenge events. Student teams will be selected to participate in this challenge through a proposal and selection process. Participating teams will design and build hexacopter multirotors that can create a digital elevation model of a specific area within a predetermined amount of time. Students will also submit technical and educational reports describing in detail their efforts throughout the competition process. For more information about the 2015 ICESat-2 Mission Hexacopter Engineering Challenge, visit http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/icesat2/epo_hex.php.

Send Your Name to the Asteroid Bennu!
Application Deadline – September 30, 3014

NASA is inviting people around the world to submit their names to be etched on a microchip aboard a spacecraft headed to the asteroid Bennu in 2016. The "Messages to Bennu!" microchip will travel to the asteroid aboard the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, spacecraft. The robotic mission will spend more than two years at the asteroid, which has a width of approximately 1,760 feet (500 meters). The spacecraft will collect a sample of Bennu's surface and return it to Earth in a sample return capsule. For more information and to submit your name, visit http://planetary.org/bennu.

Travel Grants Available: First Hands-On Workshop on Leveraging High Performance Computing Resources for Managing Large Datasets
October 27, 2014 – Washington, DC
Application Deadline – August 26, 2014
Collocated with the 2014 IEEE Big Data Conference, Oct 27-30, Washington DC, USA

With the support from NSF, travel grants are now available to support the participation of students from underrepresented groups in the workshop and in the 2014 IEEE Big Data Conference. Consideration will be given to the applicants from groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in HPC, and Big Data. These groups include women, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders and people with disabilities. The travel grant will cover air-fare, hotel, workshop/conference registration fees, ground transportation, and per diem for the selected applicants. There are mentoring activities planned for the selected students before and after the workshop/conference. For an application, please visit https://docs.google.com/a/tacc.utexas.edu/forms/d/1zy4L9IEbbQ8QU-k9GVs8DZvayPDYNta0YXvmYxe3n5w/viewform.

California MOUSE Squad Serves Students in Grades 4-12

The MOUSE Squad of California (MSCA) Student Tech Leadership program, now in its 10th year, is a mature student technology program that empowers students in Grades 4-12 to learn 21st Century technology, leadership, and workplace skills, while participating in tech projects that serve the school community. The MSCA curriculum, projects, and activities are aligned with Common Core, Next Generation Science, National Education Technology, California Career Tech Education and Partnership for 21 Century Skills standards and frameworks. MOUSE Squads may be funded from sources such as STEM, After-School, Career Tech Ed, and Common Core, site or district magnet program allocations, local businesses, foundations, or service organizations, i.e. Lions Club or Rotary. For more information, please visit http://www.mousesquadca.org/.

Level Playing Field Institute: Diversity Data Shows Need to Focus on Women of Color
Huffington Post Blog

The floodgates holding back the tech industry's dismal diversity data are now wide open. First Google, then LinkedIn and Yahoo, and now Facebook have soaked Silicon Valley watchers with what many of us already assumed: the tech community is mostly white and male. The statistics about racial and gender diversity in the technology field are disheartening and signal the need for efforts to increase the presence of women and African American, Latino, and Native American professionals in computing and technology fields. There is currently a fair amount of dialogue and momentum, focused on increasing numbers of women and underrepresented people of color in the tech industries -- as there is a great need for it. The nation is recognizing the benefits of engaging and preparing diverse groups in the rapidly-growing tech industry in order to keep pace with economic demands. To read further, please visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-scott/diversity-data-shows-need_b_5571685.html.

 

Faculty Opportunities

 

NSF Call for Participation - Research Experiences for Undergraduates  (REU
Submission Deadline - August 27, 2014

The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supports active research participation by undergraduate students in any of the areas of research funded by the National Science Foundation. REU projects involve students in meaningful ways in ongoing research programs or in research projects specifically designed for the REU program. This solicitation features two mechanisms for support of student research: (1) REU Sites are based on independent proposals to initiate and conduct projects that engage a number of students in research. REU Sites may be based in a single discipline or academic department or may offer interdisciplinary or multi-department research opportunities with a coherent intellectual theme. Proposals with an international dimension are welcome. (2) REU Supplements may be included as a component of proposals for new or renewal NSF grants or cooperative agreements or may be requested for ongoing NSF-funded research projects. To read further, please visit http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5517&WT.mc_id=USNSF_39&WT.mc_ev=click.

 

The Lighter Side – Computational News and Innovations

 

Share Button May Share Your Browsing History, Too
KU Leuven (07/21/14)

A recent KU Leuven and Princeton University study provides the first large-scale investigation of a previously undetected cookie-like tracking mechanism embedded in the "share" buttons of websites. The researchers found 5.5 percent of the world's top 100,000 websites track users using the mechanism, called canvas fingerprinting, which uses special scripts to exploit the browser's canvas, a browser functionality that can be used to draw images and text. When a user visits a website with canvas fingerprinting software, a first script tells the user's browser to print an invisible string of text on the browser's canvas, while another script instructs the browser to read back data about the pixels in the rendered image; this grouping of data is highly unique for each user and it can be reliably associated to individual users. To read further, please visit http://www.kuleuven.be/english/news/share-button-may-share-your-browsing-history-too.

The Story of WebP: How Google Wants to Speed Up the Web, One Image at a Time

Google is hoping its new image format, WebP, will help to speed up the Web by shrinking the size of the average image file. Google already has realized tremendous bandwidth savings by introducing the format into its platforms and services; the average page load time of the Chrome Web Store was reduced by nearly a third and the Google+ mobile apps are saving 50 terabytes of data everyday after the switch to WebP. Other Internet giants, including Netflix and Facebook, also have adopted the WebP format, which grew out of work on Google's WebM video format and offers image compression about a third better than the JPEG format. WebP also combines features of several different formats. For example, it can compress high-detail images like a JPEG, animate images like a GIF, and feature transparency like a PNG. To read further, please visit http://gigaom.com/2014/07/19/the-story-of-webp-how-google-wants-to-speed-up-the-web-one-image-at-a-time/.