HPC Happenings
XSEDE 13 Student Day Applications Due May 15, 2013
High school and undergraduate students are invited to spend a day immersing themselves in computational science research during the XSEDE13 conference’s Student Day on Wednesday, July 24, 2013. Participants will have the opportunity to meet peers with similar interests from across the country during a full day and evening featuring hands-on experiences, a bioinformatics panel discussion with national leaders, student-focused talks, a luncheon with researchers, a student poster session, an internship and job fair and a visualization showcase. Student Day applications are due May 15, 2013. An application form is available on the XSEDE13 Student Program website at https://www.xsede.org/web/xsede13/students. For more information, contact Ange Mason, San Diego Supercomputer Center Education and Outreach, at 858-534-5064 or amason@ucsd.edu. Registration for Student Day is limited to 50 high school and undergraduate students. A non-refundable $25 registration fee includes meals and registration materials. The National Science Foundation subsidizes the full cost of Student Day.
Registration Now Open: Rice 2013 HPC & Big-Data Summer Institutes
Register now to take advantage of the 10% discount early bird registration for the upcoming HPC Summer Institute and Big-data Summer Institute.
All available webcasts for the 2013 Oil & Gas HPC Workshop can be found on the http://rice2013.og-hpc.org/technical-program/.
SC13 Student and Faculty Sponsorship Opportunity
To help extend the benefits of the HPC Interconnections program to even more attendees, we are asking organizations to make contributions that will provide scholarships and travel support to students and educators who would like to attend SC, but may not be able to do so on their own. For those of us who have attended SC for years (or even decades), it can be hard to remember the excitement of participating for the first time or of returning and finding new professional connections and research resources. Please consider our request to make a real difference in someone's career. Each contribution will go towards enabling the HPC Interconnections Broader Engagement program, HPC Educators program, Student Volunteers program, HPC Undergraduate program, Student Cluster Competition, or Doctoral Showcase. For more information and to discuss sponsorship levels and benefits, please contact Tony Baylis, SC13 HPCI Fundraising Chair, at 925-424-4954 or baylis3@llnl.gov.
Broader Engagement program at SC13
Submission Deadline - June 19, 2013
The Broader Engagement program at SC13 is accepting applications till June 19th. Competitive grants are available for travel to and participation in SC13 conference through this program. Consideration is given to applicants from groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in High Performance Computing (HPC), such as African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, women and people with disabilities. People in all computing-related disciplines - from research, education, and industry – are encouraged to apply. For additional information or questions about the BE program, please send an email to: be@info.supercomputing.org.
SC13 George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship
Submission Deadline – May 1, 2013
The ACM/IEEE-CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship honors exceptional PhD students throughout the world whose research focus is on high-performance computing applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analysis using the most powerful computers that are currently available. The ACM/IEEE-CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship supports the two societies’ (ACM and IEEE-CS) long-standing commitment to workforce diversity. We encourage applications from women, minorities, and all who contribute to diversity. The award committee is selected by the two societies and includes past winners as well as leaders in the field. For more information, please visit http://sc13.supercomputing.org/content/acmieee-cs-george-michael-memorial-hpc-fellowship. For questions or to request a flyer that can be posted, please contact: hpc-fellowship-questions@info.supercomputing.org.
XSEDE Partner News
SDSC Hosts First Annual Industry Partners Research Review
July 12, 2013 – La Jolla, California
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego will host its first annual research review for current and prospective industrial partners and affiliates as part of a broader strategy to foster increased collaborations that may benefit from the center’s extensive research capabilities. The 2013 Industry Partner Program Research Review will be held from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. on June 12 at SDSC, an Organized Research Unit of UC San Diego located on the northwest end of campus. Existing partners from sectors such as information technology, biotech, utilities, transportation, and civil engineering are encouraged to register. Prospective partners from these and any other areas also are invited to attend. For more information, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR041713_industry.html.
TACC Hosts 7th Annual Summer Supercomputing Institute
July 8-12, 2013 – Austin, Texan
Application deadline – May 17, 2013
The TACC Summer Supercomputing Institute will provide researchers with an intensive introduction to TACC's computing resources. The Institute is appropriate for all levels of researchers, faculty, staff, and graduate students, from new users of advanced computing technologies to those who have research projects requiring powerful computing, visualization, storage, or software. For more information about the TACC Summer Supercomputing Institute, please contact Chris Hempel, TACC Director of User Services, at hempel@tacc.utexas.edu or 512-475-9479. For more details and to apply online, please visit the Summer Supercomputing Institute web page at http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/summer-institute/.
TACC’s Jay Boisseau Named to “People to Watch” List in 2013 by HPCwire
HPCwire's annual list pays tribute to an exemplary group of the best and brightest minds of HPC whose hard work, dedication and contributions reach beyond the spectrum of HPC to influence the direction that technology will lead us in 2013 and in the future. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/specialfeatures/people_to_watch_2013/JayBoisseau.html.
Upcoming Conferences and Workshops.
SDSC 2013 Summer Institute: Discover Big Data
August 5-9, 2013 – La Jolla, California
This year the SDSC Discover Big Data Summer Institute will focus on big data analytics, helping attendees explore their data using a wide variety of predictive data analytics tools. This weeklong summer institute combines both presentations and hands-on experience to introduce attendees to the latest approaches and tools to extract meaning and new insights from very large data sets. Participants will use SDSC’s Gordon data-intensive supercomputer as well as other computational resources at SDSC. An agenda and schedule will be posted in the coming months, but please hold the date now so you can attend! We also welcome expressions of interest by individuals and companies who would like to lecture, sponsor student attendees, or provide other forms of support for the institute. For more information, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/Events/summerinstitute/index.html.
Extreme Scaling Workshop
August 15-16, 2013 – Boulder, Colorado
The NSF funded Blue Waters and eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) projects are hosting the seventh in a series of Extreme Scaling workshops. Scientists, engineers, scholars, and high-performance technologists from colleges, universities, laboratories, industry, HPC centers, and other organizations conducting related to this type of work are encouraged to submit presentations. Workshop proceedings will be produced that will include the accepted papers and white papers and a summary of recommendations from the discussions among the presenters and participants. Send submissions to Scott Lathrop at lathrop@illinois.edu by May 15, 2013. Notice of acceptances will be issued by June 1, 2013. Further information on this year's Extreme Scaling Workshop can be found at https://www.xsede.org/web/xscale/xscale13.
The 2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2013)
August 25-28, 2013 - Niagara Falls, Canada
The international conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2013) will primarily provide an interdisciplinary venue that will bring together practitioners and researchers from a variety of SNAM fields to promote collaborations and exchange of ideas and practices. ASONAM 2013 is intended to address important aspects with a specific focus on the emerging trends and industry needs associated with social networking analysis and mining. The conference solicits experimental and theoretical works on social network analysis and mining along with their application to real life situations. For more information, please visit http://asonam.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/index.php.
2013 SACNAS National Conference
October 3–6, 2013 - San Antonio, Texas
SACNAS is a way for you to expose your students to incredible resources and the validating and inspiring environment of SACNAS where they have the unique opportunity to engage with science, culture, and community. The SACNAS National Conference also provides an important place for you to recharge as a professional, as you connect with peers, build your own networks, and recruit new students. For complete conference information, please visit http://sacnas.org/events/national-conf?.
SC13
November 17 - 22, 2013 - Denver, Colorado
SC13, the premier annual international conference on high-performance computing, networking, and storage, will be held in Denver, Colorado. The Technical Papers Program at SC is the leading venue for presenting the highest-quality original research, from the foundations of HPC to its emerging frontiers. The conference committee solicits submissions of excellent scientific merit that introduce new ideas to the field and stimulate future trends on topics such as applications, systems, parallel algorithms, and performance modeling. SC also welcomes submissions that make significant contributions to the "state of the practice" by providing compelling insights on best practices for provisioning, using, and enhancing high performance computing systems, services, and facilities. For more information, please visit http://sc13.supercomputing.org/content/papers.
Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World
Supercomputing Transforms Data into Knowledge
Advances in data-intensive supercomputing have set the stage for tremendous strides in the study of genetics. In a recent blog post, Cray's Marketing Director Maria McLaughlin reveals that sophisticated supercomputing capabilities enabled scientists to pinpoint the genetic patterns underlying autism-spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and similar brain conditions. With funding from the National Science Foundation, scientists from the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC) and the Institute Pasteur "identified a time-dependent gene-expression process that could help medical professionals" one day eradicate these types of disorders. According to a report in the Genes, Brain and Behavior journal, these life-changing breakthroughs are the result of a confluence in computational and life sciences. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2013-04-17/supercomputing_transforms_data_into_knowledge.html.
UC San Diego Computer Scientists Develop First-person Player Video Game that Teaches How to Program in Java
Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have developed an immersive, first-person player video game designed to teach students in elementary to high school how to program in Java, one of the most common programming languages in use today. The researchers tested the game on a group of 40 girls, ages 10 to 12, who had never been exposed to programming before. They detailed their findings in a paper they presented at the SIGCSE conference in March in Denver. Computer scientists found that within just one hour of play, the girls had mastered some of Java’s basic components and were able to use the language to create new ways of playing with the game. “CodeSpells is the only video game that completely immerses programming into the game play,” said William Griswold, a computer scientist at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. For more information, please visit http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=1347.
SDSC’s Gordon Supercomputer Assists in Crunching Large Hadron Collider Data
Gordon, the unique supercomputer launched last year by the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, recently completed its most data-intensive task so far: rapidly processing raw data from almost one billion particle collisions as part of a project to help define the future research agenda for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Under a partnership between a team of UC San Diego physicists and the Open Science Grid (OSG), a multi-disciplinary research partnership funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, Gordon has been providing auxiliary computing capacity by processing massive data sets generated by the Compact Muon Solenoid, or CMS, one of two large general-purpose particle detectors at the LHC used by researchers to find the elusive Higgs particle. To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR040413_lhc.html.
Cool It: Is the Internet Too Hot for Data Centers to Handle?
Scientific American
The growth of cloud-based services is forcing data centers to provide greater speed and more storage capacity. However, data centers generate a lot of heat that must be released by their cooling systems to keep them from overheating. Internet traffic volume doubles every three years, yet this increase in usage has not been matched by a similar increase in network energy efficiency, and the world's data centers will consume 19 percent more energy in 2013 than they did in 2012, according to University of Catania researcher Diego Reforgiato Recupero. He says to avoid becoming energy hogs and adding more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, data centers need to find a smarter approach. One approach is called smart standby, which places unused portions of computer server and networking equipment into very low power states. Another approach, called dynamic frequency scaling, allows computer central processing unit usage to be held back when there is light data traffic on a network. However, Recupero notes that both approaches require the servers to be started back up when network traffic increases. One possible solution is to program greater intelligence into individual servers, network routers, and other data center equipment that enables them to monitor their individual heat output. To read further, please visit http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=greening-the-internet.
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Scientists Patent Software for Protecting Supercomputing Results Against System Failures
Scientists at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) have patented ZEST, a piece of software that takes a rapid “snapshot” of a supercomputer’s calculations as it works. ZEST greatly speeds the ability to store complex calculations as a hedge against a system failure, saving precious supercomputing time and slowing calculations down far less than current methods. PSC co-inventors of ZEST included Paul Nowoczynski, Jason Sommerfield, Nathan Stone, and Jared Yanovich. Just as we all hit “save” as we work, scientists carrying out vast computations such as those required for detailed weather predictions or earthquake science need to periodically store — “checkpoint” — the machine’s computational state. In the case of a system malfunction, this allows them to avoid having to start from the beginning after hours or days of work. The problem, according to J. Ray Scott, Director of Systems and Operations at PSC, is that retrieving and storing these data takes time away from calculation, which is carefully rationed to researchers using highly in-demand supercomputers. In fact, he adds, over the last seven years the memory available in the largest machines has increased about 25-fold, while the capacity for retrieving that memory has increased only about four-fold. To read further, please visit http://www.psc.edu/index.php/newscenter/90-2013press/815-psc-scientists-patent-software-for-protecting-supercomputing-results-against-system-failures.
Video: Community HPC Clusters at Purdue University
n this video from the Adaptive Computing booth at SC12, Andrew Howard from Purdue discusses how the community cluster program has moved forward with the help of Moab software at the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing. To view the video, please visit http://insidehpc.com/2012/12/10/video-community-hpc-clusters-at-purdue-university/.
Educator Opportunities and Information
CS4HS at Stanford University
June 27-28, 2913 – Stanford, California
The Computer Science Department at Stanford University, with generous support from Google, is holding a CS4HS workshop in the Gates Computer Science building on the Stanford campus. The workshop is aimed at helping K-12 teachers and administrators learn more about computing through hands-on activities, presentations, and discussions with Stanford faculty, industry speakers, and other educators. The workshop requires no previous programming experience, For more information and to register, please visit http://cs4hs.stanford.edu/.
National Center for Women & IT Identifies Top 10 Ways of Recruiting High School Women into Your Computing Classes
How do young people choose careers? The factors that affect their choices include: interest, confidence that they can succeed in this career, feeling like they belong with others in this occupation, and identifying themselves as this "type of person", e.g., a "computing person." Recruiting, therefore, requires that you promote students' interest and confidence, create an inclusive community, and help students form an identity as a computing person. To read further, please visit http://www.ncwit.org/resources/top-10-ways-recruiting-high-school-women-your-computing-classes/top-10-ways-recruiting.
Co-Founder of Codde.org to be Keynote for CSTA Conference
July 15-16, 2013 - Quincy, Massachusetts
The Computer Science Teachers Association is proud to announce the keynotes for the 2013 CSTA Annual Conference. As the co-founder of Code.org, Hadi Patrovi’s vision is to fill the world with computer programmers. Code.org is an education non-profit dedicated to growing computer programming education. Hadi grew up in Iran under the Khomeini regime, including through the Iran-Iraq war, and went on to study Computer Science at Harvard, paying his own way through by working as a section leader teaching CS to underclassmen. After working at Microsoft (twice!), he went on to co-found Tellme and iLike. For more information and to register, please visit http://csta.acm.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/sub/CSTAConference.html.
Student Engagement and Information
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Accepting Applications for the Techno Economic Summer Student Program for Undergraduates
Under the direct supervision of the research staff, the student assistant will receive training in Techno Economic and Carbon Footprint analysis using software developed at the DOE. The student will also learn about and work, if appropriate, after proper training in pilot-plant scale lignocellulosic/algal biomass processing, novel feedstocks, fermentation and recovery for the production of advanced biofuels. Training will include scientific principles, safety, good laboratory practices, data recording/analysis and laboratory maintenance. For full consideration, follow the link to the job posting and apply directly to Berkeley Lab. As part of the online application process, please complete a profile, including uploading attachments relevant to the opportunity. Be sure to reference where you found the position. For more information, please visit https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=75787.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Seeks a Computational Biologist Postdoctoral Fellow
The focus of the postdoctoral fellow is to develop new methods for the structure determination and refinement of protein structures using the PHENIX software system. This position works under the direction of the Principal Investigator for this project. Primary duties and responsibilities will include development and implementation of numerical methods, and mechanisms for user interaction. For more information and to apply, please visit https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=75785.
CMD-IT Student Professional Development Workshop – Call for Applications
August 9-10, 2013 – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
The CMD-IT Student Professional Development Workshop (SPD) will be held at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. The workshop will provide in-depth professional development for undergraduate and masters level students in the broad areas of computing, with a focus on students from underrepresented groups. Workshop panels and keynotes are led by industry professionals. Scholarship applications are available for underrepresented students (African-American, Hispanic, Native American/Native Hawaiian/Native Alaskan, and People with Disabilities) interested in participating. For more information, including application guidelines and requirements, please visit http://www.cmd-it.org/workshops/ProfDevWorkshop.html.
Fewer Foreigners Eye U.S. Graduate Science Programs
Wall Street Journal
Applications from Chinese citizens to U.S. graduate schools declined five percent for the coming academic year because of reports of unstable funding for science programs and tight immigration policies. Budget disputes in Washington have thrown into question the funding of academic programs that rely on federal contributions, such as those in science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (STEM), according to Council of Graduate Schools president Debra Stewart. Students pursuing STEM degrees often receive multiyear financial-aid packages in the form of fellowships, but many schools currently cannot guarantee long-term assistance because of the uncertainty of federal funding. The Council of Graduate Schools found that international applications fell in the life sciences, physical sciences, earth sciences, and engineering. Meanwhile, increased competition from schools in Canada and Australia, which generally have less restrictive immigration policies than the United States, are adding to the pressure. To read further, please visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323916304578405060631410012.html.
Princeton Student Work Fuels Effort to Make Smartphones Smarter
Princeton University
Princeton University's EDGE lab is working on a research project that aims to use time-dependent pricing to ease network congestion for wireless operators. The project originated as a term paper by Carlee Joe-Wong, who is now a doctoral student. The paper explored methods through which wireless companies could ease congestion by adjusting prices based on the time of day. The original work focused on time-dependent pricing and moving traffic to off-peak times with incentives, which was tested with a pricing experiment in the summer of 2011. "We said we will pay your current Internet bills, and then we will charge you according to our time-dependent algorithm," Joe-Wong says. The goal is to move just enough people to less congested times to make the system more efficient. The researchers developed an approach that uses past wireless usage data to learn how time-dependent pricing affects behavior. The analysis helps determine the most effective prices for balancing network use. To read further, please visit http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S36/44/93M74/index.xml.
On the Lighter Side _ Computational News of Interest
Software Uses LinkedIn Network to Guide Your Career
New Scientist
New software provides career guidance based on the profiles of LinkedIn users. Computer scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have designed LinkedVis to analyze the information of LinkedIn users and recommend companies and the positions for which they are best qualified. The software scans their networks and ranks people in order of similarity in career paths, skill sets, and qualifications. LinkedVis then uses their current position and company to suggest career paths. The software also explores what-if scenarios, such as how someone's prospects would be affected by obtaining a Ph.D. To read further, please visit http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829116.700-software-uses-linkedin-network-to-guide-your-career.html.
Race to Build Driverless Cars Rev Up
Associated Press
Google and other researchers claim they are just five years away from having all of the tools and the knowledge needed to market a fully autonomous vehicle. "The days of human drivers deserve to be numbered," says Missouri University of Science & Technology professor Don Wunsch. "Humans are lousy drivers. It's about time computers take over that job." Since 2011, California, Nevada, and Florida have enacted laws legalizing driverless vehicles, and Michigan, Oklahoma, and New Jersey have similar bills under consideration. One Australian mining company has ordered 150 autonomous trucks for its operations, saving more than $100,000 a year on each driver it does not need to employ. Google says its fleet of self-driven cars has logged more than 300,000 miles of testing without the computer systems causing a single accident. To read further, please visit http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2013/04/race-to-build-driverless-cars-is-in-full-throttle.
