HPC In the News

 

Cray Launches Hadoop into HPC Airspace
HPCwire

There has been little doubt that the convergence of traditional high performance computing with advanced analytics has been steadily underway, fed in part by a rush of new tools, frameworks and platforms targeting the big data deluge. And when one thinks about the old guard of supercomputing, Cray is one of the first vendors to come to mind, although they’ve been steadily ramping up efforts to mesh into the broader world of enterprise systems with their own slant on the big data phenomenon. First came the company’s Urika graph analytics appliance just a little over two years ago, which has powered everything from large-scale life sciences applications to the big leagues. As of this morning, Cray will be adding a second machine to their lineup of big data-geared systems with the Urika-XA platform—a Cloudera-based Hadoop appliance, which happens to sport. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/10/15/cray-launches-hadoop-hpc-airspace/.

Women Talk Tech and Science at MIT Panel
The Boston Globe

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently hosted a panel on women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, providing an opportunity for women to discuss their experiences in the tech industry. Many of the women expressed feeling discouraged from even pursuing technology in school and feeling excluded once they did break into the industry. "In high school, I was told [by my guidance counselor and my teachers] to pursue something that was a little bit less demanding," says Intel's Gabriela Gonzalez. The panelists also said women in STEM careers may feel pressure to present themselves in a certain way just to be acknowledged or recognized. To read further, please visit http://www.boston.com/business/technology/2014/10/06/women-talk-tech-and-science-mit-panel/zvz5wBBwI6uaYBaGpmXCZN/story.html.

Fostering Geospatial Discovery and Innovation Through a National CyberGIS Facility
CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies

The earth and environment are facing a changing climate and the accelerated degradation of natural resources, issues that create a host of societal problems. Advancing geographic information science and systems (GIS) and related applications in fields such as environmental engineering, hydrology and water resources, public health, and urban studies can help address these important geospatial concerns. Once collected, geospatial data—or information that is linked to location and time—can be complex, irregular, and difficult to analyze. The CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign was established to tackle these issues by managing, processing, and visualizing massive and complex geospatial data, while performing associated analysis and simulation. CyberGIS can provide insights to scientists about trends, tipping points, and hidden connections. To read further, please visit http://cybergis.illinois.edu/news/141017_mri.html.

Towards Big Data Computing at Extreme-Scales
CCCBlog

Former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Computing Innovation Fellow (CI Fellow), Dr. Ioan Raicu, now an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and a research faculty member in the Math and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, focuses on the relatively new distributed systems paradigm called Many-Task Computing (MTC). MTC aims to bridge the gap between two predominant paradigms, namely High-Throughput Computing (HTC) and High-Performance Computing (HPC). His work has focused on defining and exploring both the theory and practical aspects of realizing MTC (with special emphasis on data-intensive computing)  across a wide range of large-scale distributed systems, ranging from many-core systems, clusters, grids, and clouds to supercomputers. To read further, please visit http://www.cccblog.org/2014/10/15/towards-big-data-computing-at-extreme-scales/.

NIH invests $32 million for Biomedical Big Data

The National Institute of Health (NIH) has announced an initial investment of nearly $32 million for NIH’s Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative which is projected to have a total investment of nearly $656 million through 2020. The BD2K initiative, launched in 2013, is a trans-NIH program that will develop new strategies to analyze and leverage the explosion of increasingly complex biomedical data sets, referred to as Big Data. To read further, please visit http://www.cccblog.org/2014/10/14/nih-invests-32-million-for-biomedical-big-data/.

Disney Rendered its New Animated Film on a 55,000-Core Supercomputer

Disney's upcoming animated film Big Hero 6, about a boy and his soft robot (and a gang of super-powered friends), is perhaps the largest big-budget mash-up you'll ever see. Every aspect of the film's production represents a virtual collision of worlds. The story, something co-director Don Hall calls "one of the more obscure titles in the Marvel universe," has been completely re-imagined for parent company Disney. Then, there's the city of San Fransokyo it's set in -- an obvious marriage of two of the most tech-centric cities in the world. And, of course, there's the real-world technology that not only takes center stage as the basis for characters in the film, but also powered the onscreen visuals. It's undoubtedly a herculean effort from Walt Disney Animation Studios, and one that's likely to go unnoticed by audiences. To read further, please visit http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/18/disney-big-hero-6/.
 

SC14 Women in HPC News

 

Women in HPC Workshop at Supercomputing 2014
Friday, November 21, 2014

There are now just four weeks until the beginning of SC14 and just three weeks to register to attend the first Women in HPC workshop at Supercomputing in New Orleans. We have an exciting program bringing together women working with HPC to discuss their work and also to help us create a roadmap to gender equality in HPC. There will be talks and posters from early career women on a variety of areas in HPC from the road to exascale in software and hardware, cosmology, ocean modeling, wind turbines and much more! We are also delighted to have Professor Barbara Chapman from The University of Houston discussing the under representation of women in the field of HPC and will be finishing up with a Q&A session with a panel. To find out more about the workshop and to register please visit our website: www.womeninhpc.org.uk/sc14.

Women in HPC BoF
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Women in HPC is also helping to organize a second event at SC14 - the fourth Women in HPC Birds of a Feather (BoF) session. The evening discussion will feature talks from leading women in HPC on their experiences of mentoring and leadership. For more details please visit: http://sc14.supercomputing.org/schedule/event_detail?evid=bof116.

 

HPC Call for Participation

 

NSFCloud Experimental Support for Cloud Comp
December 11-12, 2014 – Arlington, Virginia
Position Papers-- October 31, 2014

The NSFCloud solicitation was established in 2013 as a track within the NSF CRI program with the goal to provide an
experimental platform enabling the academic research community todrive research on a new generation of innovative applications of cloud computing and cloud computing architectures. To submit a position paper, please visit https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/NSFCW2014.

 

Upcoming Workshops, Conferences and Webinars

 

NICS's Seminar Series in HPC available this fall semester 2014
October 21, 2014 - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The National Institute for Computational Sciences invites you to a Seminar Series on High Performance Computing, every Tuesday and Thursday from 2:10pm ET to 3:10pm EDT starting Tuesday October 21st, 2014. This is a joint effort between different leadership organizations (NICS, JICS, OLCF, XSEDE) to increase HPC awareness among the academic community. Different topics will be introduced starting with the most basic and building up to more advanced aspects in HPC. For more information, please visit https://www.nics.tennessee.edu/aggregator/sources/1.

Introduction to High Performance Computing at OSC
November 10, 2014 – Ohio State University

This two-hour workshop will provide an introduction to Ohio Supercomputer Center resources and how to access them. For more information, please visit https://www.osc.edu/events.

STACS 2015 - 32nd Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science
March 4-7, 2015 - München, Germany

STACS is an academic conference in the field of computer science. It is held each year, alternately in Germany and France, since 1984. Typical themes of the conference include algorithms, computational and structural complexity, automata, formal languages and logic. To read further and register, please visit http://www14.in.tum.de/STACS2015/.

 

Research News From Around the World

 


TACC Participates in IEEE Cluster14 in Madrid\

Executive Director of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin, Dan Stanzione, delivered a keynote address last month at IEEE Cluster 2014 in Madrid. The keynote highlighted one of TACC’s upcoming new systems to be deployed in January 2015 titled: Wrangler: A New Generation of Data Intensive Cluster Computing. Clusters have become the workhorse for computational science and engineering research, powering innovation and discovery that advance science and society. They are the base for building today's rapidly evolving cloud and HPC infrastructures, and are used to solve some of the most complex problems. Cluster 2014 welcomed paper submissions on innovative work from researchers and practitioners in academia, government, and industry that describe original research and development efforts in cluster computing. For more information on the conferences that took place last month, please visit http://www.cluster2014.org/.

New Records Set for Silicon Quantum Computing
University of New South Wales

Two research teams working in the same laboratories at UNSW Australia have found distinct solutions to a critical challenge that has held back the realization of super powerful quantum computers. The teams created two types of quantum bits, or "qubits" -- the building blocks for quantum computers -- that each process quantum data with an accuracy above 99%. The two findings have been published simultaneously today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. "For quantum computing to become a reality we need to operate the bits with very low error rates," says Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, who is Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at UNSW, where the devices were made. "We've now come up with two parallel pathways for building a quantum computer in silicon, each of which shows this super accuracy," adds Associate Professor Andrea Morello from UNSW's School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications. To read further, please visit http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141012134851.htm.

UC Berkeley Researchers: Earth’s Magnetic Field Could Flip Within a Human Lifetime

It’s not as bizarre as it sounds. Earth’s magnetic field has flipped – though not overnight – many times throughout the planet’s history. Its dipole magnetic field, like that of a bar magnet, remains about the same intensity for thousands to millions of years, but for incompletely known reasons it occasionally weakens and, presumably over a few thousand years, reverses direction. Left to right, Biaggio Giaccio, Gianluca Sotilli, Courtney Sprain and Sebastien Nomade sitting next to an outcrop in the Sulmona basin of the Apennine Mountains that contains the Matuyama-Brunhes magnetic reversal. A layer of volcanic ash interbedded with the lake sediments can be seen above their heads. Sotilli and Sprain are pointing to the sediment layer in which the magnetic reversal occurred. (Photo by Paul Renne). Now, a new study by a team of scientists from Italy, France, Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrates that the last magnetic reversal 786,000 years ago actually happened very quickly, in less than 100 years – roughly a human lifetime. To read further, please visit http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/10/14/earths-magnetic-field-could-flip-within-a-human-lifetime/.

The Ethics of Hacking 101
The Washington Post

Some of the U.S.'s most prestigious cybersecurity university programs make a point of teaching their students offensive skills, but in doing so also must address the thorny ethical issues surrounding the gray-hat world. At the University of Tulsa, students who mostly go on to careers with government agencies such as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency are taught to hack into oil pipelines and energy infrastructure and carry out penetration testing for clients, while Carnegie Mellon University has developed an elite team of hackers who dominated this year's capture-the-flag hacking competition at Defcon in Las Vegas. Professors from both universities say they take great pains to teach ethics to their students and ensure they are not teaching offensive skills to individuals who might use them for malicious purposes. To read further, please visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/postlive/the-ethics-of-hacking-101/2014/10/07/39529518-4014-11e4-b0ea-8141703bbf6f_story.html.

 

Educator News and Opportunities

 

Tech Companies Hope to Introduce Coding to 100 Million Students
The Wall Street Journal

The CEOs of two dozen major tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, have announced their support on Wednesday for a project by nonprofit Code.org that seeks to introduce computer science to 100 million students worldwide. The companies will promote Code.org's Hour of Code campaign, which encourages students to explore computer coding through hour-long online tutorials. The support will take the form of encouraging their employees to try out Hour of Code tutorials and encourage students to do the same during Computer Science Education Week this December. The companies also will encourage their employees to contribute to an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that seeks to raise $5 million to help train teachers in providing computer science education. To read further, please visit http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/08/tech-companies-hope-to-introduce-coding-to-100-million-students/.

Google Code-in 2014
Contest Dates - December 1, 2014 - January 19, 2015

The 2014 Google Code-in contest has launched to introduce pre-university students (ages 13-17) to the many kinds of contributions that make open source software development possible. For many students the Google Code-in contest is their first introduction to open source development. For Google Code-in, Google works with open source organizations, each of whom has experience mentoring university students in the Google Summer of Code program, to provide "bite sized" tasks for participating students to complete during the seven week contest. There will be a variety of different coding languages represented by the mentoring organizations. Generally there will be some that use Java, C++, Python, C, PHP, etc. Students earn one point for each task completed. Students will receive a certificate for completing one task and can earn a t-shirt when they complete three tasks. At the end of the contest each of the open source organizations will name two (2) grand prize winners for their organization based upon the students’ body of work. The grand prize winners will receive a trip to Google’s Mountain View, California Headquarters for themselves and a parent or legal guardian for an award ceremony, an opportunity to meet with Google engineers, explore the Google campus and have a fun day in the San Francisco, California sun. 

For more information and to view the list of tasks, please visit http://www.google-melange.com/gci/homepage/google/gci201.

Carnegie Mellon Hosts Second Annual picoCTF Competition Openin
Competition Dates -- October 27- November 7, 2014

Carnegie Mellon University’s hacking team is designing and hosting the second annual picoCTF competition, a free online nationwide computer security event for middle and high school students. From October 27 2014 to November 7 2014, picoCTF ( http://picoctf.com ) will challenge students to learn and practice authentic hacking techniques in the context of a story-driven game created by Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center. The competition consists of a series of challenges where participants must reverse engineer, break, hack, decrypt, or do whatever it takes to solve the task. Students, with experience ranging anywhere from the somewhat computer savvy to well-versed programmers, will learn how to identify security vulnerabilities and perform real-world attacks. For more information on the competition, as well as early registration information, please visit our website at https://picoctf.com/.

Calling All CS Teachers: Hour of Code 2014

Please, work with your principal to introduce your entire school to computer science. It can be a recruiting tool to inspire students to sign up CS classes. We want to reach 100 million students total and prove that anyone can learn the basics. Computer science is a foundation for every student today. As you know, just one hour can inspire students to keep learning. Too many students think programming isn’t for them. New tutorials are designed to demystify and inspire. To sign up, please visit http://hourofcode.com.

Bringing Modeling & Simulation into the Classroom with the Shodor Foundation (Podcast)

In this RCE podcast, Brock Palen and Jeff Squyres meet with Dr. Robert Panoff to discuss Shodor, a national resource for computational science education. To view the podcast, please visit http://insidehpc.com/2014/10/rce-podcast-bringing-modeling-simulation-classroom-shodor-foundation/.

 

Student Engagement and Opportunities

14-Year-Old Prodigy Programmer Dreams In Code

Fourteen-year-old programmer and software developer Santiago Gonzalez might just be the next Steve Jobs. He already has 15 iOS apps to his name and dreams of designing for Apple. At age 12, Santiago became a full-time college student and is on track to earn his bachelor's degree in computer science and electrical engineering by age 16. By 17, when most teenagers are excited to just have their driver's license, Santiago will have his masters degree. A self-professed computer nerd, Santiago is fluent in a dozen different programming languages and thousands of people have downloaded his apps for the Mac, iPhone and iPad. To read more and view the video, please visit             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBXZWB_dNsw.

Stokes Educational Scholarship Program for High School Students
Application Deadline –November 15, 2014

Stokes provides a tremendous opportunity to gain valuable experience in your field while attending college and getting a degree. Stokes is open to high school seniors planning on majoring in computer science or computer/electrical engineering. As an NSA employee with the Stokes Program, you will attend college full-time, receive up to $30,000 per year for tuition and mandatory fees; and work during the summers at NSA for 12 weeks in areas that are related to your course of study. You'll acquire real-world experience and receive a year-round salary.  To eligibility requirements and to apply, please visit https://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/stokes.shtml.

The SMART Program
Application Deadline – December 15, 2014

The Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship for Service Program has been established by the Department of Defense (DoD) to support undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The program aims to increase the number of civilian scientists and engineers working at DoD laboratories. Applicants must be pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in one of the disciplines listed on the About SMART page. For more information and to apply, please visit http://smart.asee.org/apply_/application_instructions.

Grace Murray Hopper Award
Nomination Deadline – November 30, 2014

Awarded to the outstanding young computer professional of the year, selected on the basis of a single recent major technical or service contribution. This award is accompanied by a prize of $35,000. The candidate must have been 35 years of age or less at the time the qualifying contribution was made. Effective with the 2013 award, the financial sponsor of the Grace Murray Hopper Award is Microsoft Research. To read more and nominate, please visit http://awards.acm.org/hopper/nominations.cfm.

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in STEM or STEM Education
Application Deadline – October 31, 2014

The successful candidate will have a doctoral degree in a STEM or STEM Education related field; experience with human subjects research; strong quantitative statistics background and an interest in secondary STEM education. Applications should include a letter of application addressing qualifications, curriculum vitae and contact information for three professional reference. Please send application packet to Lisa Harris lisah@umbc.edu, UMBC Education Department, Sherman Hall A wing, Baltimore, MD 21250. Please address any inquiries to Dr. Jonathan Singer. To apply, please visit http://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=175964053&Title=Post-Doctoral%20Research%20Fellow%20in%20STEM%20or%20STEM%20Education.

Computer Science Intern Program (CSIP)
pplication Deadline –October 31, 2014

The Computer Science Intern Program (CSIP) is an intense and exciting 12-week immersive internship open to select college undergraduate and graduate students majoring in Computer Science or closely related disciplines. Interns are assigned to projects that contribute to NSA's mission. Projects culminate in a short presentation and technical paper. Projects are typically in the areas of:

• Big Data
• Information Retrieval
• Information Visualization, etc.

Please email the requested documentation to Summer_Interns@nsa.gov. To read more about this program and to apply, please visit https://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/undergraduate/csip.shtml.

Summer Intern Program for Science and Technology (SIP/ST) for College Juniors
Application Deadline –October 31, 2014

The Summer Intern Program for Science and Technology (SIP/ST) is a full time 12-week summer internship program open to college juniors who are concentrating their studies in the disciplines of computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, computer systems engineering, network engineering, mechanical engineer or telecommunications. The SIP/ST participants have an opportunity to work with leading computer scientists and engineers on the nation’s toughest cyber problems while enhancing their skills in assignments related to their major. The students work closely with a project mentor on a specific, mission-focused problem while learning in an exciting high-tech environment. Please also send an unofficial transcript to ajneal@nsa.gov. To read further, please visit https://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/undergraduate/sipst.shtml.

Security & Counterintelligence Summer Intern Program (SCSIP)
Application Deadline –October 31, 2014

This program brings college students into the Security and Counterintelligence (S&CI) world for internships during the summer(s) between their sophomore to senior years (college). This program permits summer interns to actively participate in or support on-going S&CI mission activities in areas such as personnel security investigations, security clearance adjudications, physical security and access control, antiterrorism/force protection, and/or counterintelligence programs. S&CI interns will work directly under the guidance of veteran security professionals responsible for protecting NSA personnel, facilities, and operations worldwide and, in the process, gain an understanding of how the S&CI Directorate supports and interacts with the larger NSA/CSS enterprise and counterpart organizations across the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense. To read more and apply, please visit https://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/undergraduate/scsip.shtml.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Open to High School Students
Nomination Deadline – May 1, 2015

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is the world's largest international pre-college science competition. Held each May, it has been administered since 1950 by the Society for Science & the Public. Each year, ACM recognizes outstanding projects related to the field of computing with a series of ACM ISEF prizes. The awards are presented at ISEF and include prizes of $1,000 for first place, $500 for second place, $300 for third place, and $200 for honorable mention. All winners also receive complimentary Student Memberships to ACM for the duration of their undergraduate education. All high school students with projects related to computing are automatically considered as candidates for the awards. To read further and apply, please visit http://awards.acm.org/isef/index.cfm#nominate.
 

Faculty Opportunities
 

ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award
Nomination Deadline – October 31, 2014

The ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award celebrates women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to Computer Science. Each year ACM will honor a preeminent woman computer scientist as the Athena Lecturer. Speakers are nominated by SIG officers. The Athena Lecturer will give a one-hour invited talk at an ACM conference determined by the speaker and the SIG which nominated her. A video of the talk will appear on the ACM website. The award includes travel expenses to the meeting and a $10,000 honorarium. Financial support for the Athena Lecturer Awards is being provided by Google. To read further, please visit http://awards.acm.org/athena/ and to nominate, please visit https://campus.acm.org/public/acmw/athena_nomination.cfm.

IEEE Internet Award
Nomination Deadline – January 31, 2015

The IEEE Internet Award was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in June of 1999. Recipient selection is administered through the Technical Field Awards Council of the IEEE Awards Board. An individual or multiple recipients up to three in number For exceptional contributions to the advancement of Internet technology for network architecture, mobility, and/or end-use applications The award consists of bronze medal, certificate, and honorarium. In the evaluation process, the following criteria are considered: innovation, leadership in the field, contributions to open system, specification, honors or other achievements, and the quality of the nomination. IEEE policy requires that its awards be presented at major IEEE events that are in keeping with the nature of the award and the cited achievement. To read more and nominate please visit http://www.ieee.org/about/awards/tfas_internet.html.
 

Social Media News

 

New Web Privacy System Could Revolutionize the Safety of Surfing
University College London

Researchers at University College London (UCL), Google, Stanford University, Chalmers, and Mozilla Research say they have developed an open source system that protects Internet users' privacy while increasing the flexibility for Web developers to create applications that combine data from different websites, thereby improving the safety of surfing the Web. The system, called Confinement with Origin Web Labels (COWL), works with Mozilla's Firefox and the open source version of Google's Chrome Web browsers and prevents malicious code in a website from leaking sensitive information to unauthorized parties. "COWL achieves both privacy for the user and flexibility for the Web application developer," says UCL professor Brad Karp. "Achieving both these aims, which are often in opposition in many system designs, is one of the central challenges in computer systems security research.”mTo read further, please visit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1014/061014_COWL.

Google Working on Large-Scale Video Displays
The Wall Street Journal

Google's advanced-projects lab, Google X, is developing a giant display consisting of smaller screens that fit together to create a seamless image. The modular pieces can be arranged to form different sizes and shapes. The large screen could be used to watch TV or movies, browse the Internet, and read email, perhaps simultaneously, says NPD DisplaySearch research director Riddhi Patel. However, the project is still in the early stages of development because of the technical challenges associated with building such large screens and making the borders between the screen modules appear seamless. "The big challenge is to electronically, and through software, do the stitching between the seams," according to a person familiar with the project. To read further, please visit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1014/061014_COWL.