HPC in the News
Registration for XSEDE14 Now Open
July 13-18, 2014 – Atlanta, Georgia
Registration is now open for XSEDE14, the annual conference that brings together the extended community of individuals interested in advancing research cyberinfrastructure and integrated digital services for the benefit of science and society. XSEDE14 will take place at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis and will showcase the discoveries, innovations, challenges and achievements of those who utilize and support XSEDE resources and services, as well as other digital resources and services throughout the world. The theme of XSEDE14 is “Engaging Communities,” to engage both traditional users of digital resources and people who have not traditionally used digital resources but would benefit from their usage. For more information and to register, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/conference/xsede14.
SDSC’s Gordon Supercomputer Assists in Whole-Genome Sequencing Analysis through Collaboration with Janssen
Janssen Research and Development, LLC (Janssen), in collaboration with SDSC and the Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI), recently launched a project to conduct whole-genome sequencing of 438 patients with rheumatoid arthritis to better understand the disease, as well as explore genetic factors of patient response to a biologic therapy discovered, developed, and currently marketed by Janssen in the United States. The analysis began with 50 terabytes of “read” data generated by DNA sequencers from samples originally obtained from each of the study participants. These source data were fed into a 14-step processing “pipeline” using open source software tools. Key components of the analysis were mapping the DNA read sequences from each patient against a reference genome and calling to identify the variants between the t To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR031914_janssen.html.
Volunteers and Algorithms Need Training to Find MH370
The Conversation
As the search continues for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, crowdsourcing has emerged as a solution that could enable the public to help scan satellite imagery to find the missing jetliner. U.S.-based satellite imagery firm DigitalGlobe has created a website that enables the public to study satellite images square by square, and more than 2 million people worldwide are participating. Disaster responders are increasingly relying on images from satellites, planes, and volunteers to map out important features of an area. Volunteers can then access these images through Web-based platforms and collaboratively identify specific elements in the pictures. During the Haiti earthquake response effort, for example, satellite maps helped identify collapsed buildings and navigable routes. Although mapping projects been successful, search efforts are far more difficult, requiring good eyesight, an understanding of debris features, and contextual knowledge such as the angle from which the picture was taken. To read further, please visit http://theconversation.com/volunteers-and-algorithms-need-training-to-find-mh370-24364.
Silicon Valley's Youth Problem
The New York Times Magazine
The growing chasm between Silicon Valley's next-generation of technology workers and the old guard might limit the creation of truly meaningful technology, as young professionals strive to rapidly create cool apps while ignoring other areas of technology, writes Columbia University computer science graduate student Yiren Lu. Many young workers lack interest in the less glamorous areas of technology such as semiconductors, data storage, and networking, although these tools provide the foundation for Web 2.0 applications. Startups are recruiting the best technology talent, leaving some observers to wonder why today's top engineers are choosing to work for sexting apps rather than helping to cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, Lu writes. Young people are drawn to work for startups because they offer a cachet and excitement that established firms lack. To read further, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/silicon-valleys-youth-problem.html
NCAR and CU-Boulder to Join Intel Parallel Computing Centers Program
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) announced today that they will join the Intel Parallel Computing Centers program. Participants in the program will develop methods to increase the performance of applications that use advanced microprocessor technologies and will help train the next generation of scientists and engineers who will apply these new technologies to challenges of societal importance. The NCAR/CU team will focus on weather and climate applications, including the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model (CESM), Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), and Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS), three of the most widely used applications in the field. The Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, will also collaborate with the NCAR/CU-Boulder team on the project. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/ncar-cu-boulder-join-intel-parallel-computing-centers-program/.
Emerging System Sets Stage for Exascale Science
Today we welcome a new large-scale system into the high performance computing fold with the formal announcement of Cori, a new supercomputer set to be installed at NERSC in the mid-2016 timeframe. Known in its RFP stages as NERSC-8, the new machine will sport over 9300 nodes, featuring the next-generation Knights Landing architecture housed within a Cray XC environment. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/04/29/emerging-system-sets-stage-exascale-science/.
HPC Call for Participation
Call for Participation – 2014 University of New Mexico Mentoring Conference
October 21-24, 2014 - Albuquerque, New Mexico
Abstract Proposal Deadline – May 15, 2014
The Mentoring Institute at the University of New Mexico is now seeking proposals for its seventh annual Mentoring Conference. This year’s conference theme is Developmental Networks: Mentoring & Coaching at Work. We seek to facilitate discourse on the utilization of developmental networks, and mentoring and coaching relationships in the workplace. We are particularly keen to receive proposals that are informative and relevant to the field of developmental relationships (including mentoring), supported by theory and research, and demonstrate ideas that are applicable to the conference theme. The term developmental relationship includes, but is not limited to mentoring, coaching, networking, and sponsorship relationships. For more information and submission guidelines, please visit http://mentor.unm.edu/conference.
SC Broader Engagement Program – Applications Now Open
Submission Deadline – June 15, 2014
At SC14, we will be organizing our funded participants into two tracks: On-Ramp and Superhighway. Competitive grants will be awarded to participants in both tracks. We expect On-Ramp participants to be new to HPC and/or the SC conference, to participate fully in BE, and to stay through at least the end of Thursday to get the most out of the SC14 Technical Program. Applicants who have participated in an SC conference/program in the past are not eligible for the On-Ramp track. We expect Superhighway participants to have basic HPC experience, and to at least partially fund their participation in SC14. The Superhighway participants will get the opportunity to participate in the SC14 Tutorials without any direct cost to them, but will be required to cover their own Technical Registration fee. To read further, please visit http://sc14.supercomputing.org/engage/broader-engagement.
Upcoming Conferences, Workshops and Webinars
Scalable Bioinformatics Boot Camp
May 22nd, 2014, 9 am - 5 pm
San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), La Jolla, California
In the Big Data era, scalability is becoming a prerequisite for a bioinformatics application to be able to efficiently process large-scale datasets. This boot camp will explain how you can turn your bioinformatics applications into scalable workflows by analyzing available options, techniques and tools. There is no-charge to attend this introductory event, space is limited and registration is required. Graduate students and researchers who are responsible from building bioinformatics and computational biology workflows, evaluating workflow systems as a means to conduct reproducible research, and curious to learn more about what workflows help with are welcome to attend. Although the hands-on examples are in the bioinformatics domain, the content on the workflow-driven reproducible science is set up to benefit a larger multidisciplinary audience. For further details and registration: http://www.biokepler.org/workshops/registration-boot-camp-2014
SSTiC 2014
July 7-11, 2014 - Tarragona, Spain
Registration Deadline - May 10, 2014
SSTiC 2014 is the second edition in a series started in 2013. SSTiC 2014 will be a research training event mainly addressed to PhD students and PhD holders in the first steps of their academic career. It intends to update them about the most recent developments in the diverse branches of computer science and its neighboring areas. To that purpose, renowned scholars will lecture and will be available for interaction with the audience. For more information and to register, please visit http://grammars.grlmc.com/sstic2014/.
Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World
NCAR Breaking out of the digital graveyard
A group from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is using XSEDE-allocated resources to extract meaning from cursive script. Scanned PDF images, the low-cost, high-speed method for digitizing images, can be duplicated and stored in many places. But you can't find anything in them, except by a human being searching through the handwritten text by eye. This team from NCSA is working to create a framework for automatically extracting the meaning from these images—in essence, teaching machines to read cursive script. The project employed XSEDE-allocated Steele supercomputer at Purdue University along with Ember at NCSA to do much of their initial data processing; then turning to XSEDE-allocated Blacklight supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's (PSC's) for its large shared memory to enable their search system to enter alpha testing. To read further, please visit https://www.xsede.org/breaking-out-of-the-digital-graveyard.
Brain Cancer, Alzheimer’s Share Cellular Process
Using the advanced computational resources at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin, researchers uncovered a link between Alzheimer’s disease and cancer that may pave the way for better treatment options and new medicines. The two afflictions share a pathway in gene transcription, a process essential for cell reproduction and growth. The team, led by Houston Methodist Research Institute (HMRI), published its findings in December 2013 in the open access journal Scientific Reports by the Nature Publishing Group. To read further, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/2014/feature-stories/alzheimers-and-cancer-link-found.
Podcast: A Tale of Two Data-Intensive Computing Paradigms With Geoffrey Fox, Indiana University
On today’s edition, Dr. Geoffrey Fox from Indiana University will tell us a tale of two data-intensive computing paradigms. On the one hand, there is a great deal of work being done in the area of Hadoop and MapReduce, which constitutes one part of this story. On the other side, of course, there’s high performance computing. While both share a few critical elements in common, they require some different approaches—even if the lines between them seem blurred. You can find more on Dr. Fox and team’s research by visiting http://arxiv.org/pdf/1403.1528.pdf. To listen to the podcast, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/soundbite/tale-two-data-intensive-computing-paradigms/.
SDSC’s Trestles Supercomputer Used to Calculate the Top-down Activities of the Brain
The Holy Grail of neuroscience has been to understand how and where information is encoded in the brain.” Thomas R. Insel, Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health, November 2012 Insel’s quote appeared in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release that described a newly published study of monkeys in the journal Science, where researchers for the first time found that in-sync large-scale brain waves affecting various regions of the brain hold memories of objects just viewed. “This study provides more evidence that large-scale electrical oscillations across distant brain regions may carry information for visual memories,” added Insel. To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR041414_short_term_memory.html.
Britain’s Alan Turing Institute to Be Set Up to Research Big Data
BBC News
British Chancellor George Osborne recently announced that the government will provide 42 million UK pounds (nearly $70 million US) to fund a research center that will carry the name of computer pioneer Alan Turing. The Alan Turing Institute will focus on new ways of collecting, organizing, and analyzing big data. Britain's government says big data "can allow businesses to enhance their manufacturing processes, target their marketing better, and provide more efficient services." Turing's work at Bletchley Park during World War II helped accelerate Allied efforts to read German naval messages enciphered with the Enigma machine. However, in 1952 Turing was convicted of gross indecency in connection to homosexual activity, lost his security clearance, and had to stop the code-cracking work. He received a posthumous royal pardon in 2013. To read further, please visit http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26651179.
Computer Software Accurately Predicts Student Test Performance: UC San Diego Study
Computer scientists have developed a technology that uses facial expression recognition to detect how engaged students are during a class and to predict how well they will do in that class. The team, led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego and Emotient, a San Diego-based provider of facial expression recognition, showed that the technology was able to detect students’ level of engagement in real time just as accurately as human observers. The team also included researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia State University. To read further, please visit http://www.calit2.net/newsroom/release.php?id=2326.
Educator News and Opportunities
Private Colleges Produce Prepared STEM Graduates
U.S. News & World Report
A recent report by the Council of Independent Colleges says small and midsized colleges are just as capable at educating and supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students as larger public research institutions. The report says a significant percentage of STEM graduates from smaller, private colleges elect to continue their education and earn a master's or doctoral degree, and students at such institutions are more likely to complete their degrees in a timely fashion. About 300,000 students graduate from U.S. colleges with bachelor's or associate's degrees in STEM fields every year, according to a 2012 report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. However, only 40 percent of students who intend to major in a STEM field currently complete the degree program. The report found that about 1 million additional STEM professionals than the U.S. will generate at the current rate are needed in the next 10 years if the nation is to sustain its science and technology leadership. To read further, please visit http://www.usnewsuniversitydirectory.com/careers/private-colleges-produce-prepared-stem-graduates_13812.aspx#.U11Cq8c2SnA.
Bootstrap Summer Workshops for Educators
May 17, 2014 - San Francisco, California
June 25-27, 2014 - Waltham, Massachusetts
August 20-21, 2014 - New York, New York
Bootstrap is a curricular module for students ages 12-16, which teaches algebraic and geometric concepts through computer programming. In this workshop, you’ll learn how videogame programming can be directly aligned with algebraic and geometric concepts. Work with your peers to discuss classroom experiences, and spend the day in your students' shoes. You'll be able to debrief with other teachers, talk pedagogy with the trainers, and try out the materials and software firsthand. And finally, you'll go home with a video game that you created! Choose the one that best meets your needs. To register for the San Francisco workshop, please visit http://www.iammath.org/. To register for the Massachusetts workshop, please visitor athttp://www.eventbrite.com/e/bootstrap-summer-professional-development-june-25th-26th-27th-registration-9697608809. For more information on the New York workshop, please contact Rosanna Sobota at rosanna@bootstrapworld.org. For more information, please contact Emmanuel Schanzer at schanzer@bootstrapworld.org, or visit the Bootstrap website [http://www.BootstrapWorld.org].
Lawmakers Call for More Computer Science in California Schools
The California state Legislature is considering six bills that address the growing concern that California students do not have the computer science skills necessary to succeed in the modern workforce. If all six bills become law, the California State Board of Education would have to develop computer science standards for grades 1 through 12 and the state higher education systems would be asked to created guidelines for courses they would be willing to accept for admission credit. One of the bills would allow school districts to offer students a third year of math credit for a computer science course, which is currently considered an elective. "Right now there is a disincentive for schools to offer computer science [courses] and a disincentive for students to take them," says Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen (R-Modesto). Most California high schools currently do not offer high-level computer science courses and just 13 percent of the state's high school seniors took the Advanced Placement computer science exam last year. To read further, please visit http://edsource.org/2014/lawmakers-call-for-more-computer-science-in-california-schools/59532#.U11EZsc2SnA.
TED Ed Lessons Worth Sharing: The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees (video)
In the past decade, the US honeybee population has been decreasing at an alarming and unprecedented rate. While this is obviously bad news for honeypots everywhere, bees also help feed u. To view the video, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz1Cz8ko8iY&list=PLJicmE8fK0Eh88ix1co6RG4pDcRjpaPj4.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
Apply for 2014 Women’s Institute in Summer Enrichment
June 16-20, 2014 – Cornell University, Ithica, New York
WISE is a week-long workshop that provides themed power courses, networking, and mentoring tailored toward women who would like to successfully climb the academic career ladder. The themes for WISE 2014 are cloud computing and big data. Scholarships and travel grants are available. Please visit the conference website at http://www.truststc.org/education/wise/index.html.
HSFCTF: A Cybersecurity Competition For High School Students
May 18-25, 2014
HSCTF, an online competition that will educate high school students across the country about computer security. Competitors in High School Capture the Flag (or HSCTF) will learn computer science skills, and use ingenuity to discover a series of increasingly hard to find “flags” encrypted, hidden, or otherwise stored somewhere difficult to access. While HSCTF is primarily about educating students in computer security, it will also include other computer science topics such as programming, algorithm design, and programming language design. The approach is unique in that it extends the CTF model to other areas of computer science. HSCTF is inspired by Carnegie Mellon's enormously successful picoCTF: https://picoctf.com/. To learn more, see sample problems, and sign up to receive more information about registration, visit:http://hsctf.com/. For questions, contact Jacob Edelman, HSCTF Lead Founder/Organizer at:jacob@HSCTF.com.
ACM/IEEE-CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship Application
Application Deadline – May 1, 2014
The ACM/IEEE-CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship is seeking applications from exceptional Ph.D. students whose research focus is on high performance computing applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analysis using the most powerful computers currently available. Fellowship winners are selected based on overall potential for research excellence, the degree to which technical interests align with those of the HPC community, academic progress to date, recommendations by their advisor and others, and a demonstration of current and anticipated use of HPC resources. The Fellowship includes a $5,000 honorarium, plus travel and registration to receive the award at the annual SC conference. Moore about the fellowship can be found at http://awards.acm.org/hpcfell/
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ACM Gordon Bell Prize
Application Deadline - May 1, 2014
The ACM Gordon Bell Prize tracks the progress of parallel computing over time. It emphasizes and rewards HPC pioneers who demonstrate innovative HPC applications in science, engineering, and large-scale data analytics. Prizes may be awarded for peak performance or special achievements in scalability and time-to-solution on important science and engineering problems.
More about the prize can be found at http://awards.acm.org/bell/.
San Diego Archaeological Center Outreach Programs
Cast Making Workshop- Saturday, May 10th 10:00 am-12:00pm
The San Diego Archaeological Center is a museum and educational facility where students can learn the story of how people have lived in San Diego County for the past 10,000 years. We offer K-12 education field trips and outreach programs as well as many fantastic events and workshops. We still have some spots available for field trips and outreach programs for this school year in May and June. To view their outreach commercial of their K-12 education programs, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65uiBNFujuY (Preview). This workshop listed above will give participants hands on experience in making museum quality casts of artifacts. For more information on our field trips and education programs or our special events, please send Cara Ratner an email at cratner@sandiegoarchaeology.org or give her a call at (760) 291-0370.
A Degree Where Techie Meets Business Smarts
The New York Times
Science and technology graduates increasingly are pursuing a hybrid professional science master's degree, or science M.B.A., to broaden their career opportunities. Enrollment in professional science master's degree programs increased 23 percent from 2010 to 2013, according to the Council of Graduate Schools, while overall graduate enrollment is growing only in the single digits. Computer and information sciences are the most popular of these degrees, followed by environmental sciences and natural resources, mathematics and statistics, and biotechnology. "More than 90 percent of professional science master's graduates that we surveyed for 2013 were employed in a job related to their field of study," says Council of Graduate Schools president Debra W. Stewart, noting that students increasingly are pursuing degrees that prepare them for a range of career settings. To reach further, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/education/a-degree-where-techie-meets-business-smarts.html?_r=0.
Student Wins 2014 Cyber Security Challenge as U.K. Seeks Top IT Talent
More than 40 competitors participated in the Masterclass Final of Britain's Cyber Security Challenge, and 19-year-old student William Shackleton emerged as the winner. The finalists competed to defend London from a simulated cyberattack, in a challenge developed by cybersecurity experts from BT, the Government Communications Headquarters, the National Crime Agency (NCA), Juniper Networks, and Lockheed Martin. Shackleton will have the opportunity to take advantage of 100,000 UK pounds worth of prizes, including training courses, industry events, paid internships, and scholarship money. The government-sponsored challenge is designed to help attract more people to the information security industry. The United Kingdom is currently facing a shortage of cybersecurity skills. "Events such as the Cyber Security Challenge provide a fantastic opportunity for us to not only test the skills of those taking part but also provide them with pathways which allow them to exploit their sought-after cyber skills," says NCA's Kevin Williams. To read further, please visit http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2334762/student-wins-2014-cyber-security-challenge-as-uk-seeks-top-it-talent.
Asia Supercomputer Challenge (ASC14) Winners Announced
On April 25, the largest student supercomputer challenge, ASC14, concluded with great success. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) was the champion, and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) won the silver prize. “The Highest Linpack award” went to Sun Yat-sen University. The brand new “e Prize” was awarded to Shanghai Jiao Tong University. ASC14 is organized by the Asia Supercomputer Community, Sun Yat-sen University, and INSPUR Group. The goal of the challenge is to promote the exchange and cultivation of young talent in all countries and regions in supercomputers, as well as to improve supercomputer application level and R&D capacity, and to enhance technical and industrial innovation via the technical driving force of supercomputers. Since launching in November 2013, ASC14 has had 82 teams from five continents register. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/asc14-winners-announced/.
New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge Winners Revealed
The 24th annual New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge took place this week at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM. Open to any New Mexico high-school, middle-school or elementary school student, the project-based learning event is geared to teaching a wide range of skills, including research, writing, teamwork, time management, oral presentations and computer programming. This year’s Challenge welcomed more than 240 students, which made up about 70 teams from schools around the state. The winning teams were honored in a ceremony on Tuesday. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/04/23/new-mexico-supercomputing-challenge-winners-revealed/.
On the Lighter Side – Computational News and Innovations
TED Ed Talk: Why is Ketchup So Hard to Pour? (video)
Published on Apr 8, 2014
Lesson by George Zaidan, animation by TOGETHER.
Ever go to pour ketchup on your fries...and nothing comes out? Or the opposite happens, and your plate is suddenly swimming in a sea of red? George Zaidan describes the physics behind this frustrating phenomenon, explaining how ketchup and other non-Newtonian fluids can suddenly transition from solid to liquid and back again. To view the video, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB43fM_ozKQ&app=desktop.
To view the full lesson, please visit http://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-is-ketchup-so-hard-to-pour-george-zaidan. why-is-ketc...
