HPC Happenings
Save the Date: SDSC Discover Big Data Summer Institute
August 5-9, 2013 - San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego
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 week-long 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.
XSEDE Scholars Program Accepting Applications
Application Deadline – April 1, 2013
The XSEDE Scholars Program (XSP) is a program for U.S. students from underrepresented groups in the area of computational sciences provides opportunities to learn more about high performance computing and XSEDE resources, network with cutting-edge researchers and professional leaders, and belong to a cohort of student peers to establish a community of academic leaders. In particular, the focus is on the following underrepresented groups: African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and women. Apply to be an XSEDE Scholar at bit.ly/xsedescholars. View the flyer about the XSEDE Scholars Program here.
SDSC Wins Award for Innovation in Data Storage
San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) was recognized by HPCwire for the Center’s innovative Data Oasis parallel file storage system. SDSC earlier this year completed deployment of its Lustre-based Data Oasis parallel file system, which has four petabytes of capacity and 100 gigabytes per second to handle the data-intensive needs of the center’s new Gordon supercomputer, in addition to its Trestles and Triton compute clusters. SDSC was presented with ‘Editor’s Choice: Best HPC Storage Product or Technology, for the Data Oasis Storage File System on Gordon’ as part of the publication’s annual awards announced at Supercomputing Conference '12 (SC12) in Salt Lake City in back in November, 2012. To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR111412_hpcwire_award.html.
People in the News
Shawn Brown Directing New Public Health Group at PSC
Shawn T. Brown, PhD, has been named Director of Public Health Applications at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC). During the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, Dr. Brown provided decision support through modeling and advised a number of government offices on the response to the pandemic. He has also led workshops with partners in Vietnam, Senegal, Thailand and Benin on using computational modeling for strengthening vaccine supply chains and the introduction of new vaccines in developing countries. In this role, he will lead a new group at PSC whose research addresses the problems of predicting disease spread via large-scale agent-based modeling, vaccine supply chain logistics in developing countries, and public health decision-making support via high performance computational modeling. Dr. Brown comes to PSC from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, where he was an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics.
Ken Chiacchia Named New Senior Science Writer at PSC
Mike Schneider has retired after 25 years at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC). During that time Mike was a part of a remarkable evolution in technology and in the social structures, such as TeraGrid & XSEDE, by which supercomputing has provided a path. Kenneth B. Chiacchia, PhD, joins PSC as Senior Science Writer and XSEDE as a member of the External Relations team in Mike's place. Ken comes to PSC after more than 20 years in biomedical science writing, including staff writing and editorial positions at Harvard Medical School and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In addition to his staff positions, Ken has done freelance writing for outlets such as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Allegheny Front public radio environmental news program, and fiction publications including Cicada magazine. Ken received the Carnegie Science Center Journalism Award in 2007 and the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania Award for Best Writing, Radio, in 2011.
HPC Call for Participation
Call for Participation for XSEDE13 (March 8, 2013)
Submission Deadline – March 9, 2013
XSEDE13: Gateway to Discovery is coming to San Diego July 22-25, 2013. The conference will support and enhance the world of advanced digital resources and services and highlight scientific discovery facilitated through Science Gateways. As the second annual conference of XSEDE, XSEDE13 is a forum for the presentation of high-quality technical papers, posters, tutorials, and Birds of a Feather sessions that will facilitate greater communication among scientists and students who use XSEDE and other cyberinfrastructure resources; For more information, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/xsede13/call-for-participation.
Call for Participation for Cluster 2013
September 23-27, 2-13 - Indianapolis, Indiana
Submission Deadline – March 29, 2013
Indiana University's Pervavsive Technology Institute is hosting Cluster 2013 in Indianapolis this September 2013. The conference will explore cluster technology, both present and possible future, with a focus on campus cyberinfrastructure and bridging. Cluster 2013 will also include poster, panel, workshop and tutorial sessions for face-to-face interactions with the technology leaders in cluster computing. For more information, please visit http://ovpitnews.iu.edu/news/page/normal/23625.html.
Call for Papers The International Conference on Culture and Computing
September 16-18, 2013
- Kyoto, Japan
Submission Deadline – April 5, 2013
Culture and Computing is a new research area, which aims to overcome different cultural issues in international communities using information and communication technologies (ICT). There are various research directions in the relations between culture and computing:
to archive cultural heritages via ICT (cf. digital archives),
to empower humanities researches via ICT (cf. digital humanities),
to create art and expressions via ICT (cf. media art),
to realize a culturally situated agent (cf. cultural agent),
to support multi-language, multi-cultural societies via ICT (cf. intercultural collaboration),
and to understand new cultures born in the Internet and Web (cf. net culture).
The International Conference on Culture and Computing provides an opportunity to share research issues and discuss the future of culture and computing, which has been held in cultural cities including Kyoto, Japan (2010, 2011) and Hangzhou, China (2012). The fourth conference (Culture and Computing 2013) will be back to Kyoto, the cultural heart of Japan, organized with an exhibition on the integration of state of the art cultural computing technologies and Japanese traditional culture, along with a number of co-located events.
For complete information on submission topics, submission guidelines, please visit http://www.media.ritsumei.ac.jp/culture2013/.
Upcoming Conferences and Workshops.
LittleFe Buildout at SIGCSE 2013
March 6-9, 2013 – Denver, Colorado
Thinking of attending SIGCSE13 in Denver this year? The LittleFe group (http://LittleFe.net) will be hosting a buildout as a set of two workshops (sessions 24 and 25) at the conference. If you're accepted for the SIGCSE LittleFe buildout, then during the workshop, you will assemble your LittleFe, install the Bootable Cluster CD (http://BCCD.net) and learn how to setup and use it for teaching parallel programming and distributed computing. At the end you and your partner will be able to take the LittleFe back to your institution for use in your classes. Both you and your partner must register for and attend both workshop 24 and workshop 25 to be eligible to receive the free LittleFe unit. For more information on the conference, please visit http://www.sigcse.org/sigcse2013/. For more information on LittleFe, please visit http://LittleFe.net.
Hands-On Workshop on Computational Biophysics
June 10-14, 2013 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
This workshop will be presented by members of the BTRC Center for Multiscale Modeling of Biological Systems from the University of Pittsburgh and the members of the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group (www.ks.uiuc.edu) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The workshop is designed for students and researchers in computational and/or biophysical fields who seek to extend their research skills to include computational and theoretical expertise, as well as other researchers interested in theoretical and computational biophysics. Theory sessions in the morning will be followed by hands-on computer labs in the afternoon in which students will be able to set up and run simulations. Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptop for use in workshop tutorial sessions but computer workstations are also available. For more information and to register for this event, please visit http://www.nrbsc.org/education/workshops/computational_biophysics_2013//
Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World
Virginia Tech Computer Scientists Win Award for Their Research on a New Way to Study Molecular Networks
Virginia Tech News
The use of hypergraphs could lead to a more complete computational analysis of the multi-way interactions molecules can have within cells, suggest researchers at Virginia Tech. The team used hypergraphs, a generalization of a graph in which an hyperedge can connect multiple molecules, to capture the uncertainty in reverse engineering gene-to-gene networks from systems biology datasets. The researchers developed an algorithm that can discover hyperedges supported by sets of networks, and they sought to use hyperedges to suggest new experiments. They believe that incorporating data from the experiments might help refine hyperedges and resolve the interactions among molecules, which could lead to fruitful interplay and feedback between computation and experiment. The team's research received the Best Paper Award at the recent 2012 ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Biomedicine. To read further, please visit http://www.eng.vt.edu/news/virginia-tech-computer-scientists-win-award-their-research-new-way-study-molecular-networks.
White House Announces 'National Day of Civic Hacking'
PC World
The White House Office of Science Technology and Policy has announced the National Day of Civic Hacking, which will take place June 1-2. The White House says the event marks the first time local developers from across the country will come together for such a purpose. The National Day of Civic Hacking is "an opportunity for software developers, technologists, and entrepreneurs to unleash their can-do American spirit by collaboratively harnessing publicly released data and code to create innovative solutions for problems that affect Americans," according to the White House. A coalition of organizations, companies, and government agencies will support the event and host activities nationwide. Federal agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Labor will offer specific challenges for hackers. To read further, please visit http://www.pcworld.com/article/2026139/white-house-announces-national-day-of-civic-hacking.html.
MIT Scientists Achieve Molecular Data Storage Breakthrough
TPM Idea Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a method for storing data on individual molecules at room temperature, which could lead to a 1,000-fold improvement in storage density. The method was demonstrated on a type of "supramolecule," which was created by binding graphene molecules to zinc atoms. "Each molecule is around one nanometer in dimension and hence this will let us achieve storage as high as 1,000 terabytes per square inch," says MIT's Jagadeesh Moodera. The researchers were able to get the molecules to store binary data by placing them between two electrodes, which were used to change the conductivity of the molecules between two states, representing the 1 and 0 of binary code. “The idea here is to be able to have more and more information available in your portable pocket device,” says MIT's Karthik Raman. To read further, please visit http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/mit-scientists-achieve-molecular-data-storage-near-room-temperature.php.
Educator Opportunities and Information
WIPTTE 2013
March 21-23, 2013 - Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, California
Early Registration Deadline - March 8, 2013
If you are interested in the use of Tablet PCs, slates, or other types of touch or pen-based technology to support teaching and learning in varied disciplines, please visit www.wiptte.org to learn more about WIPTTE -- the Workshop on the Impact of Pen & Touch Technology on Education. The workshop covers multiple subject areas and is intended to identify and share best practices related to the use of Tablet PCs and pen-based computing in both higher education and K-12. Each WIPTTE peer reviewed paper presentation includes an assessment component as an important part of the presentation. The WIPTTE program also includes three keynote speakers: Poster presentations, hands-on sessions and vendor booths are also included in the meeting. While the program for Thursday and Friday will contain research and practice papers from higher education as well as K-12, Saturday will be dedicated to a workshop environment focused on K-12 alone. Additional information including the workshop schedule, travel information and links to an online registration form are available at www.wiptte.org. For further information please contact Eric Hamilton Eric.Hamilton@pepperdine.edu or Joe Tront jgtront@vt.edu
Code.org Building New Database of CS Classrooms
Code.org is a recently launched public 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to the vision that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn to code. (see recent features on TechCrunch and in the NY Times). They are a few weeks from launching a 5-min short film starring Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and other tech and media celebrities to help motivate students (and their parents) to learn to code. The film is directed by Lesley Chilcott, producer for An Inconvenient Truth. They are building a database of every classroom that teaches computer programming - whether in elementary school, college, full-time, or afterschool/summer. However, Code.org is only looking to list classrooms that teach programming (as opposed to computer usage/literacy). You can search the existing database and if your class/course/university isn't listed, please add it at http://www.code.org.
Student Engagement and Information
2013 Texas Tech REU in Cybersecurity, Robotics, and Software Engineering Program Dates - June 3-August 9, 2013
Application Deadline - March 8, 2013
The Texas Tech NSF REU Site program provides the opportunity for undergraduate students to conduct research in cybersecurity, robotics, and software engineering through mentoring that guides students towards becoming independent researchers in a welcoming and enriching environment. Our goal is to influence students to conduct research in the engineering of secure and intelligent software systems and to instill in students the methods and desires to continue with graduate research in these disciplines. Each participant will receive a stipend of $5000, university residential housing and meal plan, and up to $600 in travel expenses. Additional project and application information can be found online at http://www.depts.ttu.edu/cs/research/reu
NEES REU Program Call for Applicants
Submission Deadline – February 28, 2013
The George E. Brown Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) hosts a 10 week research experience for undergraduates at 8 large scale seismic testing facilities around the U.S. for upper division undergraduate students interested in Civil, Electrical or Computer Engineering, and other fields related to seismic risk mitigation. The NEES network includes state-of-the-art equipment to support physical simulations of earthquakes and tsunamis. Each participant will be assigned to an individual project that contributes to the goals of an existing NEES research project or to development of cyberinfrastructure tools and/or educational modules. For more information, please visit http://nees.org/education/for-students/reu-program.
REU Summer Program at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Application Deadline – February 28, 2013
The Research Experiences for Undergraduates program based at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences offers 10-week internships in a variety of science and engineering topics, including scientific computing, computer science, data security and privacy, robotics, as well as industrially relevant team-based projects in computational science and applied math. Apply at reusite.seas.harvard.edu/application or send inquiries to reu@seas.harvard.edu.
Summer Internship Opening at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
The IBM T.J. Watson Research Center has an internship opportunity available in the Database Research group in the Intelligent Information Management department. In our department, we are working on database management technologies in relational database servers and emerging NoSQL data store. We are looking for candidates knowledgeable and interested in studying the exploitation of storage class memory and/or distributed, parallel processing algorithms in graph database. Phd candidates that have demonstrated ability to conduct research independently and have a publication track record in the areas of interest are preferred. For more information, please visit https://jobs3.netmedia1.com/cp/faces/job_summary?job_id=RES-0555967.
Faculty Opportunities
Seeking Chair of Computer Science at Jackson State University-
Under its new leadership, JSU is providing a very rich experience for its students. It is a premier research institution focused on diversifying its student body and providing rich experiential learning experiences for its students. We are expanding our Graduate MS and PhD Programs. Many windows of opportunity exist as we move to plan for our new eight story Engineering and Science Learning Building, participate in the development of the planned State of Mississippi Public Health and Technology corridors (in Jackson, the capital city), and expand our national and international collaborations. JSU and CSET are exciting places to be. For more information and to apply, please visit http://www.jsums.edu/facultypositions/compsci/chair-position.pdf
Career Opportunities
Creative Software Developer
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Req # 75566
Are you an exceptional software developer who likes working on truly challenging projects? Are you passionate about learning and open minded about the way that networks are built? Have you delivered software for commercial networking products or built and tested important parts of a network infrastructure? Do you have a passion for organizing and visualizing data to aid in the understanding and development of network systems? Consider joining the research and development team for Berkeley Lab’s Scientific Networking Division. We’re a dynamic organization, highly-motivated and focused on results. Our mission: to accelerate science by delivering unparalleled networking capabilities, tools, and innovations. As an organization, we are small enough to be agile, but large enough to offer rewarding challenges on a global scale. For more information and to apply, please visit https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=75566.
Senior HPC Unix Systems Administrator
Wake Forest University
This is an exciting full-time, exempt opportunity within our Information Systems Department in Winston Salem, North Carolina! Wake Forest seeks to recruit and retain a diverse workforce, and encourages qualified candidates across all group demographics to apply. Responsible for the installation, configuration, and maintenance of Linux operating systems and server hardware used in high performance computing environments. For more information and to apply, please visit https://wakejobs.silkroad.com/ all (336) 758-4700 for complete details or to apply.
Computational Research Division Administrator
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Req # 75608
The Division Administrator will support the Computation Research Division’s (CRD) office activities. Specifically, providing executive level support for the CRD Director and Department Heads. Responsibilities include communications, planning and logistical support for the Division office, managing information and data pertaining to science, budgets and human resources and coordinating inter-office/divisional support for Computing Sciences. This position reports to the Office Supervisor of the Computing Sciences Executive Support Team. For more information and to apply, please visit
https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=75608.
Infrastructure Services System Administrator: Service
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Req # 75622
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab), a pioneer in research and science, has an immediate opening for an Infrastructure Services System Administrator (Computer Systems Engineer (CSE) 2) within the Scientific Networking Division.
The primary responsibilities of this position are to perform system administration for ESnet’s Service-Now implementation, including coding, scripting and configuring items in ESnet’s Service-Now instances. Additional responsibilities include supporting core services, and security services, and network measurement servers. Work will include new infrastructure deployment projects, as well as operational support of established systems and services For more information and to apply, please visit https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=75622.
Software Engineer - Core Software Development
MulticoreWare, Inc - Chennai Area, India
Excellent opportunity to work on cutting-edge Parallel programming and High Performance Computing (HPC) technologies like OpenCL, CUDA, Renderscript, Open ACC, compilers and C++ AMP with some of the brightest engineers and researchers in the world.
Requirements:
- Very Strong in C/C++ Programming
- Good understanding of Data Structures & Memory Management
- Good knowledge on Processor Architecture - CPUs/GPUs
- Good understanding of complex algorithms
- Good oral and written communication skills
- Exposure to Image/Video processing preferred
For more information and to apply, please visit http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=4901590&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_premjb-ttl-cn&ut=3TZ4uHEwEfe5E1.
On the Lighter Side – Computational News of Interest
Study Uses Grins and Frowns to Predict Online Game Hits
Phys.Org
Researchers at Academia Sinica's Institute of Information Science have developed a method for predicting an online game's success by studying gamers' initial emotional response. The researchers analyzed the movements of gamers' smile and frown muscles during the first 45 minutes of play. The model should be able to forecast a game's addictiveness according to facial electromyography (EMG) measures from a focus group, according to the researchers. First, the researchers used archival game data and several EMG experiments for a forecasting model that could predict a game's ability to retain active players for a long time. Next, they analyzed the account activity records of 11 games, generated a general addictiveness index, and then gathered 155 hours of facial-expression data from 84 gamers. The researchers hope to help game publishers avoid wasting money on bad investments and to proceed with developing games that are more likely to succeed. To read further, please visit http://phys.org/news/2013-02-frowns-online-game.html.
Android Paternity Test App Developed by UC Irvine Computer Scientists
eWeek
University of California, Irvine researchers have developed GenoDroid, a genomic application that conducts real-time paternity tests and could be used in personalized medicine. GenoDroid relies on encryption techniques to preserve the privacy of people's DNA. The system "shows that today it's practical to run privacy-preserving genomic applications [and] operations, on modern smartphones--these ubiquitous personal devices," says Irvine professor Gene Tsudik. The researchers tested the application with publicly available genomic data and found that it can determine in less than a second whether one person is the father of another. "The paternity test app compares the lengths of specific DNA segments from two individuals to determine how many of them match in the two samples," Tsudik says. The program uses a double-blind technique that only indicates whether the DNA is a match or not, and does not reveal any other information about the DNA. To read further, please visit http://www.eweek.com/mobile/android-paternity-test-app-developed-by-uc-irvine-computer-scientists/.
Using Twitter to Track the Flu
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a tweet-screening method that delivers real-time data on flu cases and filters out online discussions that are not linked to actual flu infections. The researchers say their method tracks more closely with government disease data than other Twitter-tracking methods. "We wanted to separate hype about the flu from messages from people who truly become ill," says Johns Hopkins professor Mark Dredze. In order to improve on existing methods, the researchers developed statistical methods based on human-language processing technologies, which are designed to filter out unimportant data. The Johns Hopkins system also provides real-time results, an advantage over the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which provides flu-related symptoms two weeks after the data is collected. The researchers also have used their method to produce U.S. maps that document the year-to-year differences in flu outbreaks. "This new work demonstrates that Twitter posts can be used to guide public health officials in their response to outbreaks of infectious diseases," Dredze says. To read further, please visit http://hub.jhu.edu/2013/01/24/using-twitter-to-track-flu
