HPC Happenings

 

Data Intensive Research Projects Request for Proposals
Pre-Application Deadline - February 24, 2014 by 5 pm Pacific Time

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is inviting pre-applications for data-driven research projects through its Data-Driven Discovery Initiative, which seeks to advance the practice of data-intensive science and take advantage of the increasing volume, velocity, and variety of scientific data available to spur new discoveries. The goal of the program is to support research by individuals who exemplify multidisciplinary, data-driven science. These innovators are striking out in new directions and are willing to take risks that have the potential to deliver a huge payoff with respect to some aspect of data-intensive science. Successful applicants must make a strong case for developments in the natural sciences (biology, physics, astronomy, etc.) or science-enabling methodologies (statistics, machine learning, scalable algorithms, etc.); applicants that credibly combine the two are especially encouraged. (Please note: the program does not fund disease research.)  The foundation expects to award about fifteen five-year grants of up to $1.5 million each   For complete program guidelines, an FAQ, and pre-application instructions, see the Moore Foundation Web site. http://www.moore.org/programs/science/data-driven-discovery/ddd-investigators

Google & McAfee on Cloud/Virtualization, Security, Storage
Seminar at the San Diego Supercomputer Center
Feb 13, 2014 – La Jolla, California

Angelbeat is holding its annual half-day San Diego seminar covering the related topics of security/compliance, storage/backup and cloud/virtualization/SDN. There will be expert speakers from Google, McAfee and many more top firms. Attendees receive CPE credits, breakfast and lunch, complimentary self-parking and wi-fi, plus can win great prizes. Please visit http://www.eventbrite.com/e/san-diego-feb-13-angelbeat-seminar-cloudvirtualization-storage-security-registration-9832513312 to attend and see the agenda.

IEEE Women in Engineering Leadership Conference
May 1-3 2014 - San Francisco, California

This year our theme is Lead Beyond. Developing Inspirational Women Who Change the World. Please join us as we create communities that fuel innovation,facilitate knowledge sharing and provide support through highly interactive sessions designed to foster discussion and collaboration. Participate in four incredible tracks to inspire, engage and advance women in engineering...

* Empowerment: skills to help women advance in their careers

* Engagement: hands-on skills development workshops

* Inspiration: presentations/skills to inspire women to achieve their goals

* Enjoyment: work/life balance, reducing stress, enjoying life

For more information, please visit http://ieee-wie-ilc.org/.

PRACE Scientific and Industrial Conference 2014

HPC for Innovation: when Science meets Industry
May 20-22, 2014 - Universitat Politècnica de Ca talunya (UPC) campus, Barcelona, Spain

In 2014, PRACE will organize its first Scientific and Industrial Conference – the first edition of the PRACE days - under the motto HPC for Innovation – when Science meets Industry. The conference combines the previously separate PRACE Scientific Conferences and PRACE Industrial Seminars and will bring together experts from academia and industry who will present their advancements in HPC-supported science and engineering. The program will include invited keynotes, scientific presentations and a poster session. A Call for Contributions has been opened to select the scientific presentations and posters. The PRACE Scientific and Industrial Awards as well as a prize for Best Poster will be presented. The PRACE User Forum will meet on Tuesday afternoon. For more information, registration and the Call for Contributions please visit:
http://www.prace-ri.eu/pracedays14

Dan C. Stanzione Jr. Named Acting Director of Texas Advanced Computing Center

TACC Deputy Director Dan C. Stanzione Jr. has been named as acting director of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin. After more than 12 years of leading the center, Jay Boisseau resigned as director on Jan. 15, 2014. TACC has a national reputation as one of the leading academic supercomputing centers in the United States providing high-end advanced computing resources and services to researchers nationwide; conducting leading research and development projects; and providing training and education for the local and national scientific community. To read further, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/press-releases/2014/dan-c.-stanzione-jr.-named-acting-director-of-texas-advanced-computing-center.

HPC Conference Calls for Participation

 

19th Mardi Gras Conference: Application Development for Exascale Computing
February 27-March 1 2014 – Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Center for Computation & Technology (CCT) at Louisiana State U is pleased to invite you to campus to attend our 19th Mardi Gras Conference. The Mardi Gras conference, now a biannual event,  concentrates each year on a different computational theme of current relevance. This year our theme is Application Development for Exascale Computing, designed to introduce possible solutions to large scalability problems. Creators of modern runtime systems will be put into direct contact with application developers providing an avenue for application developers to hear about innovative, new approaches to computation, and vice versa. For more information and to register, please visit https://www.cct.lsu.edu/mardigras14/.

5th Workshop on Scientific Cloud Computing (ScienceCloud)- Call for Participation
held in conjunction with ACM HPDC 2014
June 23-24, 2014 - Vancouver, Canada
Paper Submission Deadline – March 1, 2014

The 5th workshop on Scientific Cloud Computing (ScienceCloud) will provide the scientific community a dedicated forum for discussing new research, development, and deployment efforts in running these kinds of scientific computing workloads on Cloud Computing infrastructures. The ScienceCloud workshop will focus on the use of cloud-based technologies to meet new compute-intensive and data-intensive scientific challenges that are not well served by the current supercomputers, grids and HPC clusters. The workshop will aim to address questions such as: What architectural changes to the current cloud frameworks (hardware, operating systems, networking and/or programming models) are needed to support science? Dynamic information derived from remote instruments and coupled simulation, and sensor ensembles that stream data for real-time analysis are important emerging techniques in scientific and cyber-physical engineering systems. This workshop encourages interaction and cross-pollination between those developing applications, algorithms, software, hardware and networking, emphasizing scientific computing for such cloud platforms. For more information and submission guidelines, please visit http://datasys.cs.iit.edu/events/ScienceCloud2014/.

SC14 Call for Workshops Proposals
November 16-21, 3014 – New Orleans, Louisiana
Submission Deadline – February 7, 2014

SC14 will include nearly 30 full-day and half-day workshops that complement the overall Technical Program events, expand the knowledge base of its subject area, and extend its impact by providing greater depth of focus. These workshops are geared toward providing interaction and in-depth discussion of stimulating topics of interest to the HPC community. Following the example of last year, in SC14, workshop submissions and acceptance dates are early in the year to accommodate the expanded focus on peer review. SC’s continuing goal is to provide an informative, high-quality technical program that meets the highest academic standards. Workshop submissions will be reviewed in a rigorous academic and competitive review process. Submitters should ensure to provide convincing arguments for the value of the workshop to the academic community. For more information and submission guidelines, please visit http://sc14.supercomputing.org/program/workshops?goback=.gde_1775643_member_5826707576301047810#!.

Call for Participation – IEEE Cluster 2014
September 22-26, 2014 – Madrid, Spain
Abstracts Submission Deadline – April 24, 2014
Full Paper Deadline – May 2, 2014

Clusters have become the workhorse for computational science and engineering research, powering innovation and discovery that advance science and society. They are the base for building today's rapidly evolving cloud and HPC infrastructures, and are used to solve some of the most complex problems. Cluster 2014 welcomes paper submissions on innovative work from researchers and practitioners in academia, government, and industry that describe original research and development efforts in cluster computing.  For more information, including topics of interest and submission guidelines, please visit http://www.cluster2014.org/?goback=.gde_4178444_member_5819103751662755843#!.

 

Upcoming Conferences, Workshops and Webinars

 

Cyberinfrastructure for Non-Research-Intensive & EPSCoR Institutions
February 18-19 2014 - Kansas City, Missouri

Broadening the Reach: A Cyberinfrastructure Program for Non-Research-Intensive and EPSCoR Institutions is an NSF funded Internet2 project aimed at supporting the enhancement of campus network infrastructure and external connectivity of small colleges and universities and schools in EPSCoR states having notable research projects, even though the institution may not be primarily research-focused. The program will consist of three Broadening the Research Workshop and up to 30 tiger team campus visits. The workshop is aimed at campus IT professionals at small colleges and universities and schools in EPSCoR states who are responsible for the planning, design and implementation of the campus IT infrastructure in support of research and teaching activities, as well as at those on campus familiar with the research and teaching activities and priorities. For complete information on the program, location, hotel information and registration details, please visit http://www.broadeningthereach.net/

2014 UC San Diego Series of PACE Data Mining Boot Camps
February 26-27, 2014 – La Jolla, California

Each day, our society creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data (that’s 2.5 followed by 18 zeros). Conventional statistical analysis and business intelligence software are not designed to capture, curate, manage and process large quantities of data generated by most enterprises. The PACE Boot Camps provide the Big Data community with conceptual and hands-on training. Learn the critical predictive data analytics techniques and tools that contribute to accurate, actionable and agile insights. For more information, please visit http://pace.sdsc.edu/boot-camps.

Rice University 2014 Oil & Gas HPC Workshop
March 6, 2014 – Houston, Texas

The Oil and Gas HPC Workshop, hosted annually at Rice University, is a premier meeting place for engaging in discussion focused on high performance computing and computational science and engineering for the oil and gas industry. The program committee is pleased to invite you to participate in the 7th annual workshop and encourages you to submit abstract(s) for consideration for the technical program. For more information, please visit http://rice2014.og-hpc.org/?utm_source=Oil+%26+Gas+HPC+Workshop+Community&utm_campaign=6928632946-Rice_2013_OG_HPC_Call4Abstracts&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_59170dce43-6928632946-31504533

ACM HPDC 2014
June 23-27, 2014 - Vancouver, Canada

The ACM International Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing (HPDC) is the premier annual conference for presenting the latest research on the design, implementation, evaluation, and the use of parallel and distributed systems for high-end computing. For more information, please visit http://www.hpdc.org/2014/.

2014 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS)
September 7-10, 2014 - Warsaw, Poland

The FedCSIS Multiconference consists of Events (conferences, symposia,workshops, special sessions). Each Event may run over any span of time within the conference dates (from half-day to three days). The FedCSIS Events provide a platform for bringing together researchers, practitioners, and academia to present and discuss ideas, challenges and potential solutions on established or emerging topics related to research and practice in computer science and information systems. Since 2012, Proceedings of the FedCSIS conference are indexed in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science. For more information including submission guidelines, please visit https://fedcsis.org/.

Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World

 

SDSC and Leidos to Help Develop New Cybersecurity Reference Architecture for Electrical Microgrids

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, is collaborating with Leidos (formerly Science Applications International Corporation) to develop a reference system architecture aimed at increasing security levels of microgrid control and IT systems used to manage electrical microgrids worldwide.  Microgrids are small-scale versions of traditional larger power grids that draw energy from clean sources such as the wind and sun, as well as from conventional technology. They can be connected to a larger electric grid, but can also work independently. In addition, microgrids can more efficiently manage real-time demand, supply, and storage of energy at a lower cost and with less pollution than a conventional grid. To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR012114_microgrids.html.

TACC Addresses Need for User-Friendly, Inexpensive Science Gateways

The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin has released the Agave API, a cloud-based science-as-a-service platform for gateway development, and Gateway DNA, a collection of open source components enabling the rapid development of science gateways. "Historically, science gateways have been built by small teams of extremely passionate and talented individuals," said Rion Dooley, lead architect of the Agave API and manager of TACC's Web and Cloud Services group. "Each gateway would recreate infrastructure from the ground up with very little code sharing between them. While the results were impressive, the cost was enormous. As a result, innovation slowed to a crawl year over year as the majority of time on new projects was spent reinventing the wheel." To read further, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/press-releases/2014/tacc-addresses-need-for-user-friendly-science-gateways.

Stanford and Google Team Up to Simulate Key Drug Receptor
Stanford News

Researchers at Stanford University and Google have led a first-of-its-kind atom-level simulation of a cell's G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that could help improve drug design and lead to specialized scientific projects on cloud computer systems. The project was the first to be completed using Google Exacycle's cloud computing platform, which lets scientists use Google servers during low network demand times to run big data queries. The team simulated a GPCR called beta 2 adrenergic receptor site transforming between its two base configurations. Approximately 40 percent of all medications act on GPCRs, and knowing exact atom locations is critical for drug development. In the past, maps of atoms and other receptors have been generated using X-ray crystallography, but the technique can only visualize a molecule in its resting state and intermediate forms could be medically significant. To read further, please visit http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/december/google-protein-research-121713.html.

 

Educator News and Opportunities

 

Girls, Math & Science- Tour Your Future

March 22, 2014, 01:00pm - 03:00pm EST, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Tour Your Future is a career exploration program that give tweens and teens in middle and high school, with careers an opportunity to meet female professionals who work in various organizations. The program shows girls that they can find a place in science by introducing them to diverse STEM careers, from avian zoologists to accountants, software engineers to surgeons.  At PSC, the event will focus on careers in computational science. Are you a problem solver who loves teamwork? A computer wiz who’s interested in the awesome things women do in STEM careers? Get a closer look at computational thinking: How to think about problems involving very big and very small numbers. Learn about network engineering: How to keep data flowing through high-speed networks. Also, learn about computational science: Using computer models to study drug design. Can’t make a tour or don’t live near Pittsburgh? Check out the role models we meet at http://canteengirl.org/exploreyourfuture/livin-it/.

Contact : Please contact Nina at BarbutoN@carnegiesciencecenter.org or for more information, please visit

http://canteengirl.org/exploreyourfuture/tours/future-tours/

 

Promising Models to Improve Outcomes for Low-Income Students

Earlier this month the White House released a report entitled Increasing College Opportunity for Low-Income Students: Promising Models and a Call to Action. The promising models included in this report may be very helpful to school leaders that will apply for grants from the state's new $250 million California Career Pathways Trust fund and that are developing Local Control Accountability Plans. Leadership is needed at all levels to improve the educational outcomes for low-income students.

The report:

-        Emphasizes a need to better prepare and draw high-performing students from disadvantaged backgrounds to college, and more importantly, help them graduate.

-        Highlights interventions that will help low-income students overcome barriers to college success that exist at every stage of the education pipeline.

-        Found just 1 in 10 people from low-income families have a bachelor's degree by age 25, compared with half of all people from high-income families. And by earning a college degree, the report says, the chance for children born in the bottom quintile of income distribution to move to the top quintile nearly quadruples.

-        Categorized major barriers facing low-income students into the following four areas:

To read further, please visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/white_house_report_on_increasing_college_opportunity_for_low-income_students_1-16-2014_final.pdf.

Preview of Writing Code for Future
Boston Globe

About 200 schools in Massachusetts participated in the Hour of Code, a nationwide campaign sponsored by Code.org aimed at introducing millions of students to programming. "We think that computer science is emerging as a 21st-century literacy," says Massachusetts Computing Attainment Network (MassCAN) executive director Jim Stanton. "Computer science provides the tools to become creators of technology, and we think that's where there is huge excitement." The Hour of Code was designed to make computer science less intimidating by guiding students through introductory coding tutorials. The event took place during the recent Computer Science Education Week, and introduced approximately 15 million students in 170 countries to basic coding. In addition, Computer Science Education Week organizers said more girls participated in computer science in U.S. schools during the event than in the last 70 years. Nine out of 10 schools do not offer programming courses, despite the fact that jobs in computer-related fields are predicted to outnumber students by 1 million by 2020, according to Code.org. To read further, please visit http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/west/2013/12/29/more-schools-try-crack-code-computer-programming/6E7r6lhgwDL6ugGVKWe7xO/story.html.

STEM Initiative Introduces High-Tech Careers to Minority Students
Google in Education Pennsylvania STEM Summit
March 1-2, 2014 - Temple University
Philly.com

Pennsylvania Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA), hosted by Temple University, offers technology courses and mentoring to low-income students to encourage them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The program, which focuses on African-American and Latino students who are underrepresented in STEM fields, has served about 3,500 middle school and high school students in Philadelphia over the past two and a half years. MESA is showing impressive results, as the senior mobile-apps team won the $5,000 grand prize at the citywide 2013 AT&T Edutech Hackathon. Participants also earned four team medals and 18 individual awards at the 2013 MESA USA National Engineering Championships. STEM education has become a national priority, with only 16 percent of U.S. high school seniors proficient in math and interested in STEM careers, according to the Department of Education. Among STEM majors in college, only about half pursue STEM employment. The Obama administration has invested $265 million in STEM education, aiming to produce an additional 1 million STEM graduates over the next decade. To read further, please visit http://articles.philly.com/2014-01-03/news/45837968_1_stem-education-stem-careers-temple-university.

Interdisciplinary Research Experiences for Teachers in Materials Science
Louisiana Stat University
Application Deadline is March 1, 2014

This Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) project is a six-week program where teachers work collaboratively on a wide variety of materials science projects for an inside look into materials science research and computer-based modeling. Teachers will meet world-class researchers, visit labs that are closed to the public, and work on meaningful research first hand. AND they will get ideas and projects to take back to their classroom! Eighteen teachers will be selected to do research at Louisiana State University, Louisiana Tech University, Tulane University, or University of New Orleans. The total budget for each RET participant is $7,000, which includes up to $1,000 in travel, the RET stipend, materials and supplies, housing (if needed), meals, and materials and supplies for your classrooms. The specifics of the breakdown of the total amount among these categories is left up to each host campus and may be determined in consultation with the teachers. For more information, qualifications and to apply, visit: http://ret.lasigma.loni.org/
 

Student Engagement and Opportunities

 

2014-2015 XSEDE Scholars Program Now Accepting Applicants
Application Deadline: April 1, 2014 at 11:59 p.m. (CST)
Notification of Award: April 15, 2014 at 5:00 p.m. (CST)

Are you interested in learning more about high performance computing (HPC) and the exciting and valuable digital resources available to research scientists for free?  If so, the XSEDE Scholars Program (XSP) is now accepting applications for its selective year-long program for U.S. students from underrepresented groups in the computing sciences to learn more about high performance computing and XSEDE resources. The focus is on the following underrepresented groups: African Americans, Hispanic/Latinos, Native Americans, and women. As a part of the XSP, you will:

-          Receive a travel grant to attend XSEDE 14 in Atlanta, Georgia on July 13 – 18, 2014 (https://conferences.xsede.org/xsede14).

-          Meet other Scholars in special session at XSEDE14 and via an online community throughout the year.

-          Join a select community of over 100 former XSEDE Scholars.

-          Network with other academicians and leaders in the XSEDE research community.

-          Learn about research, internships, fellowships, and career opportunities.

-          Participate in at least six online technical training and mentoring webinars with other Scholars for free. For more information and to apply, please visit http://bit.ly/1drMGeI.

REU: Interdisciplinary Research Experience in Computational Sciences
Louisiana Stat University
Application Deadline is March 1, 2014.

The Center for Computation & Technology (CCT) hosts a ten week Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program where students work collaboratively on a wide variety of computational science projects. Each student receives a stipend of $5,000, free housing in university dormitories, and up to $600 in travel expenses to and from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Nine students will be selected. The research activities of the CCT are organized into five Focus Areas: Core Computing Sciences, Coast to Cosmos, Material World, Cultural Computing, and System Science and Engineering. These are broad, and sometimes overlapping areas where faculty from diverse departments (Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Civil Engineering, Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Petroleum Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computing Engineering, Music, Business, etc.) collaborate in multidisciplinary projects. Our REU students learn how to use some of the nation's largest supercomputers, may participate in the setup and management of large-scale simulations, and may take on an important role in the analysis and visualization of the simulation results. 
For more information, qualifications,  and to apply, visit:  http://reu.cct.lsu.edu/



REU:  Interdisciplinary Research Experiences in Materials Science
Louisiana Alliance for Simulation-Guided Materials Application (LA-SiGMA)
Application Deadline is March 1, 2014.

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) project is a nine or ten week program where students work collaboratively on a wide variety of materials science projects. Each student receives a stipend of $4,500, free housing in university dormitories, and up to $400 in travel expenses. Thirty students will be selected, five each at Louisiana State University, Louisiana Tech University, Southern University at Baton Rouge, Tulane University, University of New Orleans, and Xavier University of Louisiana. The research activities of LA-SiGMA are organized into three Science Drivers: Electronic Materials, Energy Materials, Biomolecular Materials and the CyberTools and Cyberinfrastructure group. These are broad, and sometimes overlapping areas where faculty from diverse departments (Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computing Engineering, Biomolecular Engineering, Biology, Chemistry, etc.) collaborate in multidisciplinary projects. Our REU students learn how to use some of the nation's largest supercomputers, may participate in the setup and management of large-scale simulations, and may take on an important role in the analysis and visualization of the simulation results. for more information, qualifications  and to apply, visit: http://reu.lasigma.loni.org/

1. Daniel Greenwald, New York University
2. Amir Gholaminejad, UT Austin
3. Dhairya Malhotra, UT Austin
4. Seyed Mohammad Mirzadeh, UCSB
5. Miles Detrixhe, UCSB
6. Josh Vermaas, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
7. Tianhao Zheng, UT Austin
8. James Carleton, UT Austin
9. Gunja Pandav, UT Austin
10. Kun Huang, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

For more information or additional questions, email Dr. Ritu Arora at rauta@tacc.utexas.edu.

 

On the Lighter Side – Computational Science News on the Edge

 

Basketball, Football, and Hockey Are All the Same Game
Slate

University of Colorado researchers used data analysis techniques to analyze every point scored in every game over a decade of college football, and professional football, hockey, and basketball and found that the games are much less complicated than most people think. The researchers found that scoring rhythms remained mostly stable throughout all of the sports. At the beginning of a game, the scoring rate is relatively slow before rising to a plateau and spiking before the end of a period when the opportunity to score becomes narrower. These stable tempos suggest that each scoring play is an independent process--that "there is very little correlation between one point and the next," says University of Colorado professor Aaron Clauset. The researchers also found no evidence of momentum in any of the sports, and what looks like a hot streak is just a random sequence of events. In addition, the researchers found that although hockey and football teams tend to extend their leads, pro basketball teams play worse when they have the lead. To read further, please visit http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2014/01/aaron_clauset_how_big_data_reveals_that_basketball_football_and_hockey_are.html