HPC Happenings

 

NSF 14-034 Dear Colleague Letter: Special Guidelines for Submitting Collaborative Proposals under the US NSF/BIO

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Research Councils UK (RCUK) have signed a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on Research Cooperation. The MoU provides an overarching framework to encourage collaboration between US and UK research communities and sets out the principles by which jointly supported activities might be developed. The MoU provides for a lead agency arrangement whereby proposals may be submitted to either NSF (via FastLane) or one of the UK Research Councils (via Je-S). The NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences (NSF/BIO) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) are pleased to announce a pilot program for the NSF/BIO - BBSRC lead agency arrangements under the NSF / RCUK Research Cooperation MoU. The pilot program allows for reciprocal acceptance of peer review through unsolicited mechanisms and its goal is to help reduce some of the current barriers to working internationally.  For more information, please visit http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14034/nsf14034.jsp?WT.mc_id=USNSF_25&WT.mc_ev=click.

Scientific Computing Consultant Opening

We are searching for qualified candidates for a Scientific Computing Consultant at the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago.  The work will be in the context of the Campus Grids program of the Open Science Grid.  The  successful candidate will advance scientific computing at knowledge frontiers across many science domains using a variety of local and national-scale computing,  storage and network resources, while working closely with faculty, students and  researchers at institutions affiliated with the OSG Consortium among others. The successful candidate will provide an additional source of expertise in  distributed high-throughput computing (HTC), data intensive computing, and high-performance computing (HPC) for the OSG and its Campus Infrastructures Community. More details and application process can be found here: https://jobopportunities.uchicago.edu/applicants/jsp/shared/position/JobDetails_css.jsp.

HPC University is Now Accepting XSEDE Training Materials

We would like to make you aware of two methods for sharing your training materials – 1) sharing PDF versions of your materials with the public, and 2) sharing source materials with other XSEDE staff. Whether for a large event such as SC with multiple presentations and workshops to a standalone presentation, these are perfect solutions for sharing your materials, and provide a common place for posting and sharing XSEDE presentations. HPC University (http://www.hpcuniversity.org/) now has the capacity to accept training materials and presentations in an easy step-by-step process for sharing with the public. Simply go to the HPC University site and
•            Click on Resources in the top gray navigation bar
•            Now click on Training Materials in the gray sub-navigation bar
•            Then click on the blue box on the top right of the page that says Add Training Materials
Follow each step of the easy to follow submission form and click Submit. It’s that easy! Your materials will become a resource for faculty and students alike. For questions, please email Ange Mason at amason@ucsd.edu.

Get a Room! SC14 Housing Site Now Open for Business

SC14 has officially opened their housing site. The conference takes place Nov. 16-21 in New Orleans. You may be in for some sticker shock compared to past years. Available conference hotel rooms start at $184 per night, plus taxes, and go all the way up to $264 per night. In fact, the place I stayed in the French Quarter the last time we were in New Orleans has doubled to $300 per night.  For more information, please visit http://sc14.supercomputing.org/exhibit/exhibitor-housing.

Indiana University  Partners in Nation’s Digital Lab for Manufacturing

IU President Michael McRobbie reports IU has been named a partner in the $320-million initiative announced February 26 by President Obama. The partnership, which McRobbie says is designed to “transform and reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing, create new jobs and spur future innovation,” will leverage faculty and laboratories from the School of Informatics and Computing at IUB and IUPUI, and the School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI; UITS personnel and assets, including the Advanced Visualization Lab; and access to IU’s high-performance computing resources, including the Big Red II supercomputer. IU can be expected to provide support and expertise in cloud research and technologies, cyberinfrastructure, cybersecurity, and in developing software for large-scale, decentralized systems. IU is among 70 partners from industry and more than 500 supporting companies, says IU VP for Research, Jorge Jose’, and is part of Obama’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, comprising regional hubs to accelerate development and adoption of cutting-edge manufacturing technologies for making new, globally competitive products. McRobbie recognized the efforts of Jose’ and Geoffrey Fox, associate dean of research at the IUB School of Informatics and Computing, as key in developing the successful proposal to the Department of Defense.  For more information, please visit http://rt.uits.iu.edu/ci/newsletter/march-2014.php#partners.

Google Encourages Developers to Create Art Using Code Submission Deadline – March 28, 2014
eWeek

Google isn't just about code. It's also about

art and creativity and the expression of new ideas, which is why Google is now helping promote a global competition to find an up-and-coming developer artist who pushes the boundaries of art using code. That's the idea behind a new Google initiative to join with the Barbican in London, Europe's largest multi-arts and conference venue, to find, publicize and sponsor a developer who will join a rising group of interactive artists who are creating amazing projects and work using code. "As part of this exhibition, we're looking for the next up-and-coming developer artist," he wrote. "This is your opportunity to express your creativity in new ways, and to have your work featured in the Barbican and seen by millions of people around the world." and be a part of a new movement in art." Interested developers can enter the competition and begin creating their projects using a Github account and a browser to visit g.co/devart to show Google what they intend to create, according to the rules. For more information, contest rules and to apply, please visit https://devart.withgoogle.com/#/enter-now.
February 24, 2014

 HPC Call for Participation

 

Global Biotechnology Conference 2014
June 16–19, 2014 – Boston, Massachusetts
Application Deadline – April 14, 2014

Limited financial support for students available on first come first served basis.

This event aims to highlight the translational nature of modern biotechnological research, with emphasis on both basic and applied science.  Presentations would focus among others on pharmaceutical biotechnology, vaccines, CNS, cancer, antibodies, protein engineering, plant and environmental biotechnology, transgenic plants and crops, bioremediation, microbial diversity, business development, strategic alliances, partnering trends, product opportunities, growth business models, strategies, and licensing in biotechnology. The principal goal of this conference will be to present some of the latest outstanding breakthroughs in Biotechnology, to bring together both young and experienced scientists from all regions of the world, and to open up avenues for research collaborations at regional and global level.    This is an excellent opportunity to showcase your research, findings and practices in the various thematic sessions stated below. Please visit the web site http://biotechnology-conference.us/ for details.

 

Upcoming Conferences, Workshops and Webinars

 

Big Data at Work
March 12, 2014 – La Jolla, California

Join faculty and industry leaders in this TED-style presentation as they discuss various activities surrounding big data, including the latest development in research, services and education.  A limited number of free tickets are available to SDSC Staff.  Contact Susan Rathbun at susan@sdsc.edu if interested in attending. For more information, please visit

http://extension.ucsd.edu/studyarea/index.cfm?vAction=singleCourse&vCourse=PROF-70022.

TED2014: The Next Chapter
March 17 – 21, 2014 - Vancouver, British Columbia

2014 marks TED’s 30th anniversary, and the theme for TED2014 is simply this: “The Next Chapter.” We’ll be seeking to understand what are truly the most significant developments of the last 30 years … and applying that knowledge to understand what’s ahead. The theme makes it easy for us to reach out to the world’s greatest minds and challenge them to help shape a program better than any in our history — in an unforgettable custom theater designed for talk. Come to Vancouver to help celebrate “The Next Chapter.” For more information, please visit http://conferences.ted.com/TED2014/.

GeekWire’s 3rd Anniversary
March 20, 2014 - Seattle, Washington

Not interested in playing ping-pong or foosball? That’s great, because this is a party first and foremost. The GeekWire Bash is a unique setting to mix and mingle with hundreds of key members of the Seattle tech community. Find your next great tech job, employee, customer, business connection, startup partner — heck, maybe even your future husband or wife. We’ll have great prizes, special guests, good friends, good times and lots of food and drink.

Seattle Hardware Startups
March 18, 2014 - Seattle, Washington

Seattle Hardware Startups Meetup Group holds a monthly meeting at the Nytec Innovation Center which is a new State-Of-The-Art Design and Engineering Facility located in Kirkland. Nytec (www.nytec.com) is an industry leader in engineering services and resources to make on-demand engineering happen.

Code for the Kingdom
March 21 - 23, 2014 - Seattle, Washington

Code for the Kingdom is a weekend Hackathon and an on-going ecosystem where global issues are tackled with a Christian perspective. If you are passionate about impacting the world, join us at our next stop, Seattle, WA, as we release the creativity of the entrepreneurial community to address the challenges confronting our society, our churches, and our spiritual lives. For more information, please visit Website: http://www.codeforthekingdom.org


Go Behind the Scenes of the World’s Biggest Cloud! Event
March 25, 2014 - San Francisco, California

Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure, and the senior engineering leadership of Google Cloud Platform will be hosting a day-long developer summit and evening celebration to announce new features for Google Cloud Platform, take a deep dive on tips, tricks and technology, and share our vision for the future of cloud computing. We will be talking about new approaches to computing that move beyond traditional divisions of PaaS and IaaS, models for processing big data at Google speed and scale, and how we are building a developer experience that aims to make you more productive. For more information, please visit https://cloud.google.com/events/google-cloud-platform-live/

Packet Analysis and Intrusion Detection Course
March 24 - March 28, 2014 - Lynnwood Washington

The Packet Analysis and Intrusion Detection course through CyberSecurity Academy is a great class if you are interested in analyzing traffic to learn how a program or application works, or determining if a networked device is infected with malware. If you perform incident response or are involved with investigations, this course will help you take your skills to the next level. Wireshark will be used as the primary analysis tool. For more information, please visit Website: http://cybersecurityacademy.com/Packet-Analysis-And-Intrusion-Detection.html.

 

Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World

 

NSF Funds Next-Gen Network Research
Campus Technology

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided $2.1 million for seven university research projects involving next-generation network technologies. The awards of $300,000 each are part of the Japan-United States Network Opportunity program, which is intended to help support network-connected devices as the Internet of Things explodes in growth. The research projects are expected to advance networking technologies in optical networking, mobile computing, and network design and modeling. For example, researchers at Rutgers University are working on Virtual Mobile Cloud Network for Realizing Scalable, Real-Time Cyber Physical Systems, while development of Energy-Efficient Hyper-Dense Wireless Networks With Trillions of Devices involves a team from Florida International University and the University of Miami. To read further, please visit http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/02/14/nsf-funds-next-gen-network-research.aspx.

Heavy Metal in the Early Cosmos at TACC
Ab initio: "From the beginning."

It's a term used in science to describe calculations that rely on established mathematical laws of nature, or "first principles," without additional assumptions or special models. But when it comes to the phenomena that Milos Milosavljevic is interested in calculating, we're talking really ab initio, as in from the beginning of time onward. Things were different in the early eons of the universe. The cosmos experienced rapid inflation; electrons and protons floated free from each other; the universe transitioned from complete darkness to light; and enormous stars formed and exploded to start a cascade of events leading to our present-day universe. To read further, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/feature-stories/2014/heavy-metal-in-the-early-cosmos.

XSEDE Helps HPC Hack Hadoop

XSEDE-allocated training opportunities are affording numerous faculty and researchers at universities nationwide to use the Gordon supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to teach courses in how Hadoop power data-intensive corners of scientific computing applications to success. Dr. Glenn K. Lockwood, who provides XSEDE user support and serves as User Services Consultant at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), is one of the key sources for information about specific challenges and opportunities when it comes to the intersection of HPC and Hadoop. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/02/11/hpc-hacking-hadoop/.

Open Science and Industry Collaboration—Addressing New Problems While Improving the Bottom Line

Consumers are happy when products flow nicely, whether the items are tubes of toothpaste or bottles of shampoo, while people in open-science research and private industry, respectively, like workflows that result in better problem-solving and higher profits.   A new program from the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) called the Industry Challenge brings the scientific and industrial communities together in multidisciplinary collaborative teams and connects them with XSEDE's world-class advanced digital services.” The Industry Challenge solicits open science proposals that are fundamental to modeling and simulation problems in industry," said David Hudak, director of the program. "By solving these basic problems, we hope industry will advance." To read further, please visit https://www.xsede.org/open-science-and-industry-collaboration.

Carnegie Mellon University Partners With Yahoo! for $10-Million Machine Learning Initiative
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Yahoo! have launched Project InMind, a five-year, $10-million partnership that gives university researchers access to a mobile toolkit of Yahoo's real-time data services and its infrastructure in order to advance machine learning and personalization of smartphone apps. Project InMind aims to create customized services that can anticipate users' needs and interests on an ongoing basis, whether a user is at home playing video games or navigating the streets of a foreign country. "This feels like the next very large step in a journey towards a grand dream...where computers will work in very close partnership with humans in ways that are very natural--anticipating what people want at the right time in the right place, being very responsive to requests, being able to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, and also being very supportive and friendly rather than--perhaps--intimidating," says Yahoo Labs' Ron Brachman. To read further, please visit http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/02/12/CMU-partners-with-Yahoo-for-10-million-machine-learning-initiative/stories/201402120140.

 

Education News and Opportunities

 

MOOC: Try, Try Again
Inside Higher Ed

Massive open online course (MOOC) instructors say that after two years of experimentation with mixed success, some MOOCs are beginning to reach their potential. For example, Stanford University researcher Keith Devlin recently launched the fourth iteration of his "Introduction to Mathematical Thinking" MOOC, and says the number of students remaining in the course through the first and second weeks has increased each time it has been offered. Although the course's content has remained the same, Devlin says he changed the experience of taking the MOOC. Devlin modeled his changes on massively multiplayer online role-playing games that require players to persevere through repetitious tasks and enter into collaborations to earn rewards. The success of these games is due to the fact that they encourage community building, says Devlin, who has sought to replicate that in his course's discussion forum. To read further, please visit http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/18/stanford-u-mooc-instructors-trial-and-error-breeds-success.

Computer Science for Non-Majors
Computing Community Consortium

As interest in computer science grows among non-majors, many students wish to continue beyond introductory courses, creating an ideal opportunity to develop new courses and curricula for non-majors, writes Harvey Mudd College computer science professor and department chair Ran Libeskind-Hadas. He says college students across all disciplines realize that all well-educated people need an understanding of computing as it becomes more ubiquitous, and that computing skills are likely to be beneficial in any field. Libeskind-Hadas says courses for non-majors should cover programming at a "high level of abstraction," with a focus on understanding the basics of everyday software. In addition, non-majors should be exposed to a wide range of applications, either across many fields or in one specific discipline, depending on course design. To read further, please visit http://www.cccblog.org/2014/02/17/computer-science-for-non-majors/.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Time Warner Cable Partner to Spark Youth Interest in STEM

Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Boys & Girls Club of America (BGCA) today announced details of a new partnership designed to help address America’s declining proficiency in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). TWC, as part of its Connect a Million Minds (CAMM) initiative, will provide $500,000 in cash and in-kind support to help BGCA engage and inspire youth around the country to become interested in STEM subjects. The $500,000 in support from TWC will enable BGCA to launch a new Do-It-Yourself (DIY) STEM program for Boys & Girls Clubs around the country. Available for all Clubs this summer, the DIY STEM program curriculum will engage Club youth ages 10 to 18 in a different strand of STEM—from robotics to electrodynamic propulsion—each week. Aligning to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the project-based STEM activities will provide opportunities for critical thinking and peer exchange. To read further, please visit http://blog.stemconnector.org/boys-girls-clubs-america-and-time-warner-cable-partner-spark-youth-interest-stem.

DNA Activity Kits for Middle and High School Science Teachers!

Presenting curriculum kits based on the popular activities from the Salk Institute Mobile Science Lab for use by middle and high school science teachers in their classrooms.  Teachers who participate in the below required workshop will be able to check out these kits to use in your own classrooms on your own schedule!  Now THREE locations to serve you: kits are housed and maintained at Miramar Community College, Grossmont Community College and our newest partner location at Mira Costa Community College – Oceanside! For complete information, please visit http://sdsa.org/resources/science-alliance-e-news/2014/february/dna-activity-kits-for-middle-and-high-school-science-teachers.

Annual Tijuana Estuary Middle & High School Teacher Training
May 15-16, 2014 – San Diego, San Diego, California

What is so special about this training? See and experience science being done at Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve (Tijuana Estuary) and learn how you can use it to enhance your teaching. You will interact with Reserve researchers, visit wetland restoration sites, and see the long-term monitoring that is used to manage these projects (living experiments). Find out how to integrate your training experiences with the online nationwide Reserve data and our monitoring-based field trip lessons. Reserve your spot: Contact Anne Marie Tipton, Education Coordinator, at 619.575.3613 x304 or annemarie.tipton@parks.ca.gov.

Google Debuts Online Education Tool Oppia to Let Anyone Create Interactive Activities for Teaching Others

Google today launched a new online education tool called Oppia, currently an open source project with the goal of making it easy for anyone to create online interactive activities that others can learn from. Called explorations, these activities can be built and contributed to by multiple people from around the world through a Web interface, without any programming required. To read further, please visit http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/02/27/google-debuts-online-education-tool-oppia-help-anyone-create-interactive-activities-teaching-others/#!y5QHb.

 2014 Life Sciences Summer Institute (LSSI) Teacher Professional Development Program
Application Deadline – March 29, 2014

 2014 Life Sciences Summer Institute (LSSI) Teacher Professional Development Program

• Learn first-hand biotech techniques that are being used by scientist in the field of biotechnology using the Amgen Biotech Experience curriculum.
• Visit biotechnology companies and interact with science professionals
• Get paid!
• Receive curriculum implementation support with lab equipment and supplies
• Collaborate with other San Diego Teachers to align materials to Common core and Next Generation Science Standards to meet the needs of your particular students!

 For more program information, please visit: www.sdbioteched.org or by email: biotech@workforce.org.

 

Student Engagement and Opportunities

 

Revamped Computer Science Classes Attracting More Girls
San Francisco Chronicle

A growing number of universities are overhauling their computer science courses to attract more women, and the efforts appear to be working. Last spring, a University of California, Berkeley introductory computer science class enrolled more women than men for the first time. Berkeley professor Dan Garcia says he broadened the class' scope beyond programming to focus on the impact and relevance of computing in the world, and included pair exercises. Although Garcia says the course redesign was not exclusively for the purpose of drawing greater female participation, the changes removed some of the aspects of computer science that tend to repel women. As universities strive to draw more women into technology fields, they walk a fine line of trying to appeal without diminishing the technical aspects of a subject or making women feel targeted. A 2012 University of Michigan study found that gender-neutral role models were actually more effective than feminine role models in capturing the interest of middle school girls in science and math fields. Women appear to misperceive computer science, according to a 2008 ACM study, which found college-bound girls associated computing with words such as "typing," "math," and "boredom." However, many women change their notions about computer science after studying the subject, particularly when exposed to its creative aspects and ability to impact the world. To read further, please visit http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Revamped-computer-science-classes-attracting-more-5243026.php.

ACM/IEEE HPC Fellowship
Application Deadline - May 1, 2014

The ACM/IEEE-CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship is open to submissions from exceptional PhD students whose research focus is on high-performance computing applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analysis using the most powerful computers that are currently available. Recipients receive a $5000 honorarium, travel and registration for SC14, and recognition at the SC14 Awards Ceremony. For information see: http://sc14.supercomputing.org/program/awards/acmieee-cs-george-michael-memorial-hpc-fellowship/.

Summer 2014 Undergraduate Computational Research Experience at The University of Texas, Austin
Application Deadline – March 29, 2014
Eligibility: Sophomore, Junior, Senior graduating in December 2014

The Integrative Computational Education Research Traineeship (ICERT) Research Experience for Undergraduates at The University of Texas at Austin transfers the best practices of the NSF IGERT (Integrated Graduate Education Research Traineeship) to undergraduate computational research training.  From June 1 to August 2, selected participants will engage in a weeklong computational science training institute for undergraduates presented by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), additional introductory training in scientific visualization, seminars on innovation and discovery in computational science and engineering, workshops on communicating science to the public, and immersion in a faculty research group with a faculty and graduate student mentor.  For more information, please visit http://www.icertreu.org/.

Coding for a Cause

Sneha Jayaprakash, a sophomore at UC San Diego, is passionate about two things: computer science and social change. As part of the 2013 Microsoft YouthSpark Challenge for Change contest, she developed a winning proposal for a mobile app to engage students with volunteerism and social issues—and received a prize of $2,500 to get the project going. Now, with an additional $10,000 awarded by the Microsoft Imagine Fund last month, Jayaprakash is getting the opportunity to turn her idea into a successful startup.

Named Bystanders to Upstanders (B2U), Jayaprakash’s app presents simple, service-related challenges for users to complete in order to earn rewards. The challenges are personalized to the interests and skills of the participant. In addition, users can compete with their friends and use their earned points to make real donations to a variety of nonprofits. To read further, please visit http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/feature/coding_for_a_cause?utm_campaign=thisweek&utm_medium=email&utm_source=tw-2014-03-06.

Summer Internship Opportunity - Space Life Sciences Training Program at NASA
Application Deadline – March 15, 2014

Research internship opportunities are available at NASA Ames Research Center in the San Francisco Bay Area for upper division undergraduate students in the biosciences who are interested in spaceflight research.  The Space Life Sciences Training program is now seeking applicants.   In this rigorous 10-week summer program, students work closely with renowned NASA scientists and engineers on cutting-edge research, benefiting from the concentration of bioscience expertise at Ames. In addition to conducting hands-on research, SLSTP students attend technical lectures given by experts on a wide range of topics and tour NASA research facilities. Participants in the program receive a stipend and housing accommodations for the summer. In addition to learning about NASA life sciences, interns get an opportunity to experience life in the Silicon Valley. For more information, please visit http://sdsa.org/resources/science-alliance-e-news/2013/december/summer-internship-opportunity-space-life-sciences-training-program-at-nasa-ames-research-center.

California Space Grant Consortium 2014 Rocket Project Solicitation
Submission Deadline -  March 17,^, 2014

The California Space Grant Consortium will provide funding for student team participation in national High Power Rocketry (HPR) competitions this year. We have allocated $10,000 to support up to five student teams at $2,000 per team. The objectives of this funding are to:

• Encourage the formation of student led rocket teams that participate in national rocket competitions and
• Support high-quality hands-on interdisciplinary Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) team projects.

Proposals are to be submitted by student teams and their faculty advisors by March 17, 2014. Solicitation can be found here: http://casgc.ucsd.edu/?p=5198.

Salk Institute High School Scholars Program
Application Deadline – April 4, 2014

Students from throughout the San Diego area gather at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies every summer to participate in hands-on laboratory experiences under the mentorship of a Salk scientist. Founded more than 30 years ago, the program helps fulfill Dr. Jonas Salk’s vision of providing opportunities for local high school students to experience life in a scientific laboratory, and explore the possibility of a career in science. Through the eight-week program (June 23 - Aug 15, 2014), students are involved with a full- Students learn how to formulate and test hypotheses, prepare experiments and draw conclusions from those experiments. They also learn to maintain laboratory notebooks and take part in regular lab meetings and group discussions. At the end of the program, students present their research projects to their mentors, lab members and families. To read further, please visit http://sdsa.org/resources/science-alliance-e-news/2014/january/salk-institute-high-school-scholars-program-2014-applications-now-available.

2014 Life Sciences Summer Institute High School Application
Application Deadline – April 4, 2014

High School Student Internship program includes a one-week pre-internship “boot camp” training at either Miramar or Grossmont College.  Boot Camp is unpaid, however, college credit is available to those who qualify.  Full-time science research internship is Monday-Friday at $9.50/hr for 7 weeks. For more program information, please visit: www.matsc.org or by email: biotech@workforce.org.

How Hackathons Can Become More Female-Friendly
TWorld.com

Hackathons intended to encourage engagement with technology appear to not be attracting participation from women, who are already underrepresented in technology fields. Anecdotal evidence suggests women sometimes feel they do not fit in at hackathons, and they are noticed as female participants rather than for their work. In addition, some female programmers lack the confidence to compete with men in a high-profile hackathon environment. Many women, like some of their male counterparts, do not want to participate in overnight coding events because of time limitations and family responsibilities. Experts say hackathon organizers can take steps to encourage more women to participate. For example, a pre-registration period for women can make them feel more comfortable participating in an event, says Google's Amy Quispe, who organized hackathons as a student at Carnegie Mellon University. Organizers can minimize potential intimidation by not focusing on the competition aspect of an event. To read further, please visit http://www.pcworld.com/article/2098246/how-hackathons-can-become-more-female-friendly.html.

 

On the Lighter Side – Computational Science News on the Edge

 

Yahoo Expands Research Labs in Search of Personalized, Mobile Experiences
MIT Technology Review

Yahoo has significantly expanded its research division Yahoo Labs under the direction of CEO Marissa Mayer, who took the helm in 2012, as the company focuses on innovation, personalization, and new mobile hardware. When Mayer arrived, Yahoo Labs was in a decline and she asked that 50 new Ph.D.s be hired in 2013, which the company exceeded significantly by the end of the year, says Yahoo Labs head and chief scientist Ron Brachman. Yahoo Labs is aligning its focus with Mayer's priorities of mobile technology and personalization. The research division's technology helps drive the popular weather app launched last April, which uses images from Yahoo's Flickr, which match a user's location and forecast data, as a background to weather forecast information. To read further, please visit http://www.technologyreview.com/news/524161/yahoo-expands-research-labs-in-search-of-personalized-mobile-experiences/.

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road — A searchable digital scroll

A digitized scroll of Kerouac’s novel now has an interface that lets readers explore the typescript. The Advanced Visualization  Lab created the interface with open tools so the software can be used. For more information, please visit http://rt.uits.iu.edu/ci/newsletter/march-2014.php#partners.

Half of Americans Want to Live in a Smart City With Driverless Cars
Computerworld

Almost 50 percent of Americans want to live in a city where all vehicles are driverless, and 33 percent think that might happen in the next 10 years, according to an Intel survey of 12,000 people in eight countries. The survey also found that 40 percent of respondents think driverless vehicles would reduce the number of traffic accidents, while 38 percent said it would decrease traffic congestion, and 34 percent said it would reduce carbon emissions. Intel's Steve Brown says he is surprised by the survey's results. "They're probably overly optimistic, but it's nice to see that they're excited about the idea and think it will happen soon," Brown says. "I think it tells us that people are excited about a future that has some intelligence in it to make the world more convenient, more efficient, and safer." To read further, please visit http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9246418/Half_of_Americans_want_to_live_in_a_smart_city_with_driverless_cars.

 

Facebook Tells the Computer Who You Love

Cornell Chronicle

 

Cornell University researchers have developed algorithms that can correctly identify a person's spouse, fiance, or other romantic partner, based on a map of Facebook friends, with about 70-percent accuracy. "We are trying to build up a sort of chemistry kit for finding different elements of a network," says Cornell professor Jon Kleinberg. He says the method works best when the couple is married, and works better the longer the relationship has been in force. However, if the algorithm does not select the person who is the relationship partner, there is a significantly increased chance that in a month or two the couple will break up, according to the researchers. The researchers tested their algorithms on anonymized data from 1.3 million randomly selected Facebook users aged 20 or older who listed their status as "married," "engaged," or "in a relationship." To read further, please visit http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/02/facebook-tells-computer-who-you-love