HPC in the News
Weekend Workshop Hones Researchers’ Computational Skills
A new skillset is in demand among scientists: As the size of datasets increases with enhanced data collection technologies, researchers must be proficient not only in their selected field of study, but also in the ability to use computers to analyze, interpret, and visualize increasingly larger datasets. This means that many researchers, who are usually untrained in computer sciences, must independently acquire these computational skills in order to thrive in their career fields. A workshop held on the University of Arizona campus last weekend, hosted by the iPlant Collaborative in partnership with its affiliate organization, Software Carpentry, helped to ease that burden. The two-day session offering instruction to researchers, students, and educators on how to run computational analyses as well as store, share, and visualize data. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/weekend-workshop-hones-researchers-computational-skills/.
PRACE Invites Students to Participate in Summer of HPC 2015
The Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) invites students to participate in the summer programme Summer of HPC 2015. The programme enables students to go to 10 PRACE member centres around Europe, where they will work on various projects with the help of the most advanced supercomputer systems. Applications are open until 8 March 2015.Summer of HPC is a PRACE programme that offers summer placements at HPC (high-performance computing) centres across Europe to late stage undergraduates and early stage postgraduate students. Up to 20 top applicants from all across Europe will be selected to participate and work at HPC centres in UK, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Czech Republic, Italy, Cyprus, Slovenia and Hungary. For complete information, please visit https://summerofhpc.prace-ri.eu.
NIH Data Science wants to hear from YOU!
The new NIH Data Science blog needs your help to start a conversation about Computational and Quantitative Collaborative Projects. Many biomedical challenges require collaborations between biomedical scientists and computational/quantitative scientists. Some of these collaborations are already well established, others are in the early stages of forming, and many more will be forming in the near future. The NIH supports established collaborations through research project grants, including multi-PI R01’s and large Center grants. Soon, the NIH will support travel to establish new collaborations through the Training Coordination Center. To read further, please visit http://www.cccblog.org/2015/02/23/nih-data-science-wants-to-hear-from-you/.
Research News From Around the World
NCSA is Mapping Atoms
When Illinois researchers set out to investigate a method to control how DNA moves through a tiny sequencing device, they did not know they were about to witness a display of molecular gymnastics. Fast, accurate and affordable DNA sequencing is the first step toward personalized medicine. Threading a DNA molecule through a tiny hole, called a nanopore, in a sheet of graphene allows researchers to read the DNA sequence; however, they have limited control over how fast the DNA moves through the pore. In a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, University of Illinois physics professor Aleksei Aksimentiev and graduate student Manish Shankla applied an electric charge to the graphene sheet, hoping that the DNA would react to the charge in a way that would let them control its movement down to each individual link, or nucleotide, in the DNA chain. To read further, please visit http://news.illinois.edu/news/14/1009DNA_AlekseiAksimentiev.html.
SDSC Participates in CalWater Extreme Precipitation Project
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the University of California, San Diego, is providing data management, visualization and modeling resources, and expertise to a two-month wintertime field campaign to study “atmospheric rivers” and particles of dust, smoke, sea spray, and organic materials called aerosols along the western U.S. coast to better understand variability in the region’s water supply, flood and drought hazards, infrastructure requirements, and optimal reservoir operations. The latest initiative, called the CalWater 2015 project, assembled a team of federal and state agencies plus academic research institutions collaborating in a tightly-coordinated effort involving ground-based observations, air and sea-borne measurements, and advanced weather forecast models.
To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR021115_calwater.html.
UCSD’s Lab-in-a-Box Takes Aim at Doctors’ Computer Activity
They call it “the Lab-in-a-Box.” According to Nadir Weibel, a research scientist in the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department at the University of California, San Diego, inside the box are assorted sensors and software designed to monitor a doctor’s office, particularly during consultations with patients. The goal is to analyze the physician’s behavior and better understand the dynamics of the interactions of the doctor with the electronic medical records and the patients in front of them. The eventual goal is to provide useful input on how to run the medical practice more efficiently. To read further, please visit http://www.calit2.net/newsroom/release.php?id=2491.
Sophisticated Medicine: A Must See Video for Aspiring Female Researchers
MIT Spectrum
"I’m mostly driven by how to fix things,” states Sangeeta Bhatia. “I’m always thinking about how to solve problems by repurposing tools.” Although not a mechanic, Bhatia, the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), does run a repair shop of sorts. As director of the Laboratory for Multiscale Regenerative Technologies, she tackles some of medicine’s most intractable problems, developing sophisticated devices and methods for diagnosing and treating human disease. Bhatia’s research defies traditional academic categories, drawing simultaneously on biological and medical sciences, and multiple engineering disciplines. She has generated dozens of patents, several business spinouts, and earned a host of major scientific honors, including the 2014 Lemelson-MIT Prize, a $500,000 award recognizing an outstanding American midcareer inventor, and the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, given to the nation’s most promising young professors in science and engineering. To read further and view the video, please visit https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/sophisticated-medicine-sangeeta-bhatia-1215?goback=.gde_1791816_member_5951753440379039745#share-choices.
Educator News and Opportunities
California HSHacksII Sets New World Record!
San Jose area Hackathon High school students organized and held a hackathon this weekend in San Jose for 1200 high school students. This number of students breaks last year’s record of over 700 students. This is the second year of the event, named “HSHacks II” which was conceived, organized and funded by high school students through industry sponsorships. To best understand the projects students attending HSHacks II are capable of building, here are the competition categories and winning entries:
Advent: Best First Time Hack
Znapper: Most Creative
Sound Sieve: Most Innovative/Technically Challenging
Drone Buddy: Best Hardware Hack
Here is a link to event photos: here
It’s exciting to see many girls and female leadership for this event! Follow the event leader, Theresa Gao on Twitter Theresa at: @theresagao.
How Elementary School Teachers' Biases Can Discourage Girls From Math and Science
The New York Times
The biases of elementary school teachers have a profound effect on whether or not girls pursue studies in math and science, suggests a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Beginning in 2002, NBER researchers began following three groups of Israeli students from sixth grade through the end of high school. Students were given two exams covering multiple subjects, one that was graded by their teachers and another one that was graded by outsiders who did not know the students. The researchers found girls outscored boys in math when graded by outsiders, but this was reversed when they were scored by their teachers, an effect that was not seen in other subjects such as English and Hebrew. The effects of the biased grading showed up in junior high and high school, with those girls who had been underscored by their teachers being much less likely to pursue advanced math and science courses than the boys who had been scored better. To read further, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/upshot/how-elementary-school-teachers-biases-can-discourage-girls-from-math-and-science.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0.
Girls Dropping Math? Blame Teachers
Bloomberg View
The U.S. has a pressing need to increase the number of well-educated graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, pretty much everyone agrees. Jeb Bush contends that we're not producing “anything approaching the numbers we need to sustain and grow our economy, much less to maintain our leadership in global technology.” President Barack Obama says “we've got a whole bunch of talent” that's being wasted -- because we're not getting enough girls interested in these fields. But why, exactly, aren’t more girls focusing on math and science? It's a persistent questions and, over the years, many people have answered it by suggesting that girls are simply less interested. Others have said boys have more talent; maybe their spatial skills are better (perhaps for evolutionary reasons) and that gives them higher aptitude in math. Still others suggest that boys and girls respond differently in competitive situations and that, in math and science, high levels of competition end up advantaging boys. To read further, please visit http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-23/girls-dropping-math-blame-teachers.
2015 Mathematics & Science Education Research Seminar Series
The UCSD/SDSU Mathematics and Science Education Ph.D. program is excited to announce the 2015 Mathematics and Science Education Research Seminar Series. They have a terrific line-up of 8 speakers. This year the seminars will feature authors from the forthcoming NCTM Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning. Additionally, two of the seminars will include both science and math education researchers to prompt integration and discussion across domains. All talks will be held at UCSD from 9 am to 10:30 am (half on Mondays and half on Fridays). For more information and seminar dates for the year, please visit http://sdsa.org/e-news/mathematics-science-education-research-seminar-series-2015/.
School Leaders Mostly Mystified by Computer Science Education
THE Journal
A disparity exists in the type of computer science (CS) education available
students in higher- versus lower-income schools, according to a new Oracle
Academy survey of U.S. teachers administered by the Computer Science
Teachers Association. The survey of more than 500 secondary school
teachers found that 77.5 percent reported their schools offered CS courses,
although this could refer to anything from business management to robotics\
courses. However, only 60 percent of those schools where a majority of
students qualified for free or reduced lunch offered CS courses, compared to
80 percent of more prosperous schools. The numbers were similar for
extracurricular CS programs, as only 40 percent of poorer schools offered\
such programs compared to 100 percent of the wealthier schools. The broad
range of subjects considered computer science was another problem, as was
the fact that only 40 percent of schools permitted a CS class to count
towards a requirement in math, science, or technology.To read further,
please visit http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/02/02/school-leaders
mostly-mystified-by-computer-science-education.aspx.
Faster Raspberry Pi Brings Low-Price Computing Power to Education
The Engineer (United Kingdom)
The latest version of Raspberry Pi is six times faster than its predecessor and delivers the same amount of power as a standard personal computer. The extremely low price point was the biggest challenge, says Raspberry Pi Foundation founder Eben Upton. The Foundation promotes credit card-sized Raspberry Pi computers as an affordable tool that children can use to learn programming. Priced at about $35, the Raspberry 2 has four times as many processor cores and twice as much memory as its predecessor, and can run the new Windows 10. Upton says the other challenge was moving from a package-on-package system, in which the memory was part of the main system-on-chip, to a discrete system with a separate chip that could provide more memory but that required a more complex way of communicating with the rest of the computer. To read further, please visit http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/faster-raspberry-pi-brings-low-price-computing-power-to-education/1019814.article.
The 5th Annual California STEM Summit
March 16-17, 2015 - Los Angeles, California
The theme for the 5th California STEM Summit, hosted by the California STEM Learning Network, is Unleashing Curiosity Through STEM. Workshops and presentations will focus on new ways and opportunities to engage all students, parents and educators. This year’s Summit will bring together 400 leaders from PK-12 education, higher education, business and industry, government, and informal education to develop an action plan to increase quality, equity and innovation in STEM education throughout California. For more information about the agenda, speakers and workshops, please visit http://www.castemsummit.com/overview/.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
REU Summer 2015 in High Performance Computing
July 15- August 7, 2015 - Baltimore, Maryland
Extended Application Deadline – March 15, 2015
UMBC is excited to host this unique Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site in scientific, parallel, and statistical computing, all extremely hot areas of current research. Participants will work in teams on projects brought in by high caliber researchers from academia and industry, closely supported by experienced graduate students and faculty members in collaboration with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Consulting. The participants will acquire the skills necessary to perform hands-on high performance computing on a state-of-the-art distributed-memory cluster in the UMBC High Performance Computing Facility. For all information and to apply by March 01, 2015, please visit
http://www.umbc.edu/hpcreu.
Advanced Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Training and Research (ASTAR) Fellowships
The NASA Office of Education Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) solicits proposals from students pursuing graduate degrees in NASA relevant STEM disciplines. NASA OE MUREP ASTAR Fellowship seeks independently conceived fellowship proposals from student applicants, specifically in areas of projected deficiencies in the NASA future STEM workforce. Selected students will perform graduate student research at their respective campuses during the academic year as well as conduct research at a designated NASA field Center during an annual 10 – 15 week Center based research Experience (CBRE). Funding is provided for a maximum of three years. For complete information, please visit http://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/. Questions concerning Appendix K, NASA OE MUREP ASTAR Fellowships, may be directed to Brenda Collins, NASA OE Fellowships Manager, NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), E-mail: NASA.Fellowships@nasaprs.com.
University of Central Florida Research Experience for Undergraduates in Computer Vision
Application Deadline – March 15, 2015
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has designated the Center for Research in Computer Vision at the University of Central Florida (UCF) as a site for Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in the area of Computer Vision for 2015-2017. The purpose of the REU is to encourage undergraduate students to pursue graduate school and research careers. UCF has continued to be an REU site in Computer Vision since the inception of REU by NSF in 1987. During the last quarter century more than 270 undergraduate students from more than 65 different schools all over the U.S. have participated in this program. These undergraduates have co-authored 79 research papers (in reputed journals ike PAMI, PR, CVGIP, and conferences like ICCV, CVPR, ICPR). For more information, please visit http://crcv.ucf.edu/REU/.
San Diego Air & Space Museum Scholarship Program
Application Deadline – April 1, 2015
The San Diego Air & Space Museum administers four competitive scholarships for San Diego County graduating seniors who plan to attend a four-year college or university. The Bill Gibbs, R.A. Rearwin, and Jennings Kelly Scarborough scholarships are reserved for students with strong aviation or aerospace related interests, who plan to pursue a degree in mathematics, physics, the sciences or engineering. Each has a different emphasis. The Convair Alumni Association scholarships are reserved for direct descendants (either natural or adopted) of former San Diego area employees of Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, or the Convair, Astronautics or Space Systems Divisions of General Dynamics Corporation. There are no restrictions as to the applicant’s field of study. Over the past 25 years, 255 talented San Diego County high school seniors have received a total of $710,500 through these scholarships. For more information and a list of available scholarships, please visit http://sdsa.org/e-news/san-diego-air-space-museum-scholarships/.
2015 Creative Scholarship Recycled Material Competition for College Students
Applications Application Deadline - April 30, 2015
858Graphics Creative Annual Scholarship Competition
This year’s competition and how to participate: Time to get creative and think outside the This competition is to not only to show off your creative side but to also show how you can make a difference by re-using recycled material. Students must take recycled material and re-purpose it to create something completely new that can be re-used again. Students are free to have fun and create whatever they desire, but the object must only be made from 100% recycled material. Students are allowed to use glue or other adhesives to hold together their recycled objects. Once the projects are submitted through the online application form, the 858Graphics Scholarship Committee will be reviewing the projects based on level of creativity and innovation. For more information, please visit http://sdsa.org/e-news/2015-creative-scholarship-competition/.
YouTube Kids: What Parents Need to Know About the New App
Google’s newest app, named YouTube Kids, aims to give very young children a safe and easy video viewing experience. The Google-owned video sharing website announced the launch of a kid-friendly video app today in the United States for Android and iOS. YouTube Kids aims to provide entertaining and educational videos for children while giving parents control over their viewing habits. "We're as focused on kids' safety as you are, so we've built the YouTube Kids app to be a family-friendly place to explore," Shimrit Ben-Yair, the YouTube Kids product manager and mother of two wrote in a blog post today. With more than 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, policing the site is a monumental task. Think of YouTube Kids as a fenced in playground where parents don't have to worry about their kid stumbling upon something that isn't age appropriate. To read further, please visit http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/youtube-kids-parents-app/story?id=29164483.
Computational Science News of Interest
The Hot Yet Little-Known Trend That’ll Supercharge AI
Wired
When Andrew Ng trained Google’s army of computers to identify cat videos using artificial intelligence, he hit a few snags. Google’s worldwide network of data centers housed more computers than he needed for the job, but harnessing all that power wasn’t easy. When a server broke down—an everyday occurrence when you’re using 1,000 machines at a time—it slowed down his calculations. According to Ng, this is one of the big unreported stories in the world of deep learning, the hottest trend these days in big data and artificial intelligence: it’s not necessarily suited to cloud computing—i.e. the techniques the Googles and the Amazons and the Facebooks typically use to run software across tens of thousands of machines. To read further, please visit http://www.wired.com/2015/02/hot-yet-little-known-trend-thatll-supercharge-ai/.
Cornell University: Twitter Reveals the Language of Persuasion
Cornell University researchers are using automated text analysis to identify features that make Twitter messages more likely to get noticed. They developed an algorithm that, compared to humans, more accurately predicted which version of a tweet would be retweeted more. Cornell professor Lillian Lee and colleagues conducted a controlled experiment that eliminated the effects of a topic's or writer's popularity, collecting and comparing thousands of tweets on the same topic but used different wording. The algorithm searched for the occurrence of certain keywords, and compared combinations of two words that may indicate a linguistic style. To read further, please visit http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/02/twitter-reveals-language-persuasion.
Meet Poppy, the Printable Robot
Prague Post
European researchers have developed Poppy, an open source, 3D-printed, humanoid robot. The researchers hope to make Poppy part of vocational training in schools, giving students the opportunity to learn and experiment. "Very little has been done to explore the benefits of 3D printing and its interaction with computer science in classrooms," says European Research Council scientist Pierre-Yves Oudeyer. "With our Poppy platform, we are now offering schools and teachers a way to cultivate the creativity of students studying in areas such as mechanics, computer science, electronics, and 3D printing." Oudeyer notes Poppy's body was created using a 3D printer and the robot's behavior is controlled by freely available software, which makes it easy for users to experiment with building personal robots. In addition, Poppy is compatible with the Arduino platform, enabling the robot to interface with other electronic devices. Oudeyer says. To read further, please visit http://www.praguepost.com/education/44318-meet-poppy-the-printable-robot.
Social Media and HPC
2015 World Cup - The BIG BLOGGER Contest!
If you are a BIG DATA enthusiast and LOVE CRICKET or SPORTS, then share your article combining BIG DATA + SPORTS with us for a chance to win an awesome prize. Be sure to vote for your story and share with friends. For more information, please visit http://cwc15.hpc-asia.com/contest/.
Facebook, LinkedIn Join to Help Women in Tech
Facebook and LinkedIn have launched a collaborative initiative to boost the shrinking numbers of women studying engineering and computer science in order to fill thousands of lucrative Silicon Valley jobs that are traditionally dominated by men. The initiative includes mentoring and support programs at colleges to get more women involved in studying technology in general, but also as future employees. "If everybody who creates a product looks the same, you know the results won't be nearly as interesting," says Anita Borg Institute CEO Telle Whitney. "We want for the sake of our future to have women involved in all the projects that will change our lives." Although the executives would not disclose how much of a financial commitment they are making, the initiative is different in that it is more focused on peer groups and a mentoring process already established through Lean In Circles, an international conversation about the lack of women in positions of power, launched by Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg in 2011. "A lot of our consumers, at least half, sometimes more, are women," Sandberg says. "We build a product that gives people a voice. We know we can't build a product for the world unless our teams reflect the diversity of the people who use the product." To read further, please visit http://www.inc.com/associated-press/facebook-linkedin-join-to-help-women-in-tech.html.
