HPC Happenings
Women in Computer Science Group Launches Inaugural Conference
Harvard Crimson
Harvard University's Women in Computer Science group this year launched the WECode conference, which took place Feb. 8-9. Women from 40 colleges and universities were in attendance, according to WECode chief organizer JN Fang. Fang was inspired to organize a coding conference for women after reading "Lean In," a book by Facebook chief operating officer (COO) Sheryl K. Sandberg that encourages women to pursue their ambitions in spite of the challenges facing them. "It frustrated me that there had to be a book...there had to be this prominent COO to speak in order for this to be a public issue that people would talk about," Fang says. Although representatives from several private-sector companies were in attendance at the conference, recruitment was not the primary purpose of the conference. "This was created for one purpose, and that is to create community," Fang says. To read further, please visit http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/2/9/women-in-computer-science/#.
NSF CISE Distinguished Lecture: AP Computer Science Principles
March 5, 2014 - 11:00 am (EST)
Registration Deadline - March 4, 2014, 11:59 pm (EST)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is pleased to announce a Distinguished Lecture by Owen Astrachan and Amy Briggs titled AP Computer Science Principles. Astrachan is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Computer Science and Professor of the Practice at Duke University where he has taught in four decades and two millennia. In addition to teaching computer science, he builds curricula and approaches to teaching intended for broad adoption and adaptation. Briggs is Professor of Computer Science at Middlebury College in Vermont where she teaches undergraduate courses in introductory computer science, data structures, theory of computation, discrete mathematics, programming languages, and software development. Her research interests are in computer science education and mobile robotics. Astrachan and Briggs are co-PI’s on the NSF/College Board CS Principles project. To view the webinar of the Lecture, please register at https://nsf.webex.com/cmp0306ld/webcomponents/widget/preference.do?siteurl=nsf&needPost=false&detect=true&backUrl=%2Fmw0306ld%2Fmywebex%2Fdefault.do%3Fservice%3D1%26siteurl%3Dnsf%26nomenu%3Dtrue%26main_url%3D%252Fmc0805ld%252Fe.do%253Fsiteurl%253Dnsf%2526AT%253DMI%2526EventID%253D243051062%2526UID%253D0%2526Host%253D0a666a7f0b022b42434d%2526RG%253D1%2526FrameSet%253D2
PRACE Scientific and Industrial Conference
May 20 – May 22, 2014 - Barcelona Spain
PRACEdays14 will be held in Barcelona at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) from 20 to 22 May 2014. The program includes keynotes, parallel and poster sessions and a meeting of the PRACE User Forum. The PRACE Scientific and Industrial Awards and a Best Poster prize will be presented. For more information, please visit http://www.prace-project.eu/pracedays14.
Scheduling HPC as a Service
HPC has always been the go-to field for solving large-scale scientific and engineering problems. However, running applications on HPC systems requires significant technical know-how of the underlying systems software to effectively run applications. To address the tedium of setting up HPC environments, HPC as a Service (HPCaaS) has recently been proposed to move HPC into the cloud. Borrowing from the success of Software as a Service (SaaS), HPCaaS purports to do the same — simplifying and commoditizing HPC to the masses via an automated cloud delivery system. The emphasis is making the process of scheduling jobs on HPC resources as transparent as possible. A user need not know how many processors to use but that a job gets executed with a specified amount of parallelism. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/02/19/scheduling-hpc-service/.
New Manufacturing Institutes to be Led by DOD
President Barack Obama announced two new manufacturing innovation institutes led by the Defense Department and supported by a $140 million federal commitment combined with more than $320 million in private-sector commitments. A consortium of businesses and universities headquartered in the Detroit area will a focus on lightweight and modern metals manufacturing, and a Chicago-headquartered consortium of businesses and universities will concentrate on digital manufacturing and design technologies. To read further, please visit http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121722.
Cray to Present at Investor Conferences This Month
Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. announced that company management will present at two investor conferences next month. Brian Henry, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Paul Hiemstra, Treasurer and Investor Relations, will present at the Morgan Stanley Media & Telecom Conference at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Calif. The Cray presentation will be held on Tuesday, March 4, at 2:05 p.m. PST (5:05 p.m. EST). The Cray presentation at the Morgan Stanley conference will be available to the public via live audio webcast. To listen to the webcast, go to the Investors section of the Cray website at http://investors.cray.com. An archived version of the webcast will be available on the Cray website for 90 days. To read further, please visit http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cray-to-present-at-two-investor-conferences-in-march-2014-02-25.
LLNL Joins with ORNL and Argonne to Develop New Supercomputers
The Lab has joined forces with two other national labs to deliver next generation supercomputers able to perform up to 200 peak petaflops (quadrillions of floating point operations per second), about 10 times faster than today’s most powerful high performance computing (HPC) systems. The Collaboration of Oak Ridge, Argonne and Livermore (CORAL) national labs will produce systems in the 2017-2018 timeframe to support the research missions at their respective institutions. At LLNL, the system will serve NNSA’s Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program in support of stockpile stewardship. To read further, please visit https://www.llnl.gov/news/aroundthelab/2014/Feb/ATL_22614_computers.html#.UxJH_142SnA.
A Comprehensive and Flexible Software Stack for HPC Clusters
HPCwire
Throughout most of the history of supercomputers and the rapid rise of large-scale HPC clusters, hardware has been in the spotlight. But recently software has begun to take center stage. IDC notes that the increasing commoditization of highly parallel HPC hardware systems has had two contradictory effects – price/performance has greatly improved, but, at the same time, these systems have become increasingly more difficult to use efficiently and economically. There is a lot at stake. HPC clusters account for about two-thirds of the HPC servers sold today. IDC predicts that by 2016 the market for large-scale clusters in the supercomputer and divisional segments will reach $7.3 billion and the server market for high-performance data analysis (HPDA) will be about $1.3 billion. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/02/24/comprehensive-flexible-software-stack-hpc-clusters/.
Gauss Centre for Supercomputing Allocates Computing Core Hours to European Research: PRACE is Cited
The Gauss Centre for Supercomputing continues to significantly contribute to European large-scale scientific and engineering research activities. The most recent Call for Proposals by PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe, resulted in the allocation of 438+ mill core hours of computing time on the GCS supercomputing infrastructure to 20 projects from ten different European countries. Researchers awarded access to the supercomputing infrastructure of the three GCS member centres HLRS, LRZ, and JSC may use their allocated core hours for a period of 12 months, starting in March 2014. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/gcs-allocates-computing-core-hours-european-research/.
Upcoming TECH Conferences, Workshops and Webinars
GigaOM Structure Data
March 19 - March. 20, 2014 - New York, New York
The volume of enterprise data has moved past terabytes and into the petabyte scale. Companies need to determine the best way for them to store, manage and analyze all that data. Gigaom’s Structure Data assembles the world’s leading technologists, practitioners and business leaders to share how to drive business success with big data. Missed our 2013 event? Watch the Livestream replay here and stay tuned for 2014 updates. For more information, please visit http://events.gigaom.com/structuredata-2014/.
GPU Technology Conference
March 24 - March 27, 2014 - San Jose, CA United States
Join us at GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2014 – the world's biggest and most important GPU developer conference. Taking place in Silicon Valley, GTC offers unmatched opportunities to learn how to harness the latest GPU technology, along with face-to-face interaction with industry luminaries and NVIDIA experts. GTC includes:
- 500 sessions on the latest scientific discovery and innovations
- Hands-on parallel programming labs
- Opportunities to connect one-on-one with NVIDIA experts
- Cutting-edge technology demos
For more information, please visit http://www.gputechconf.com/page/registration-pricing.html.
National High Performance Computer and Communications Council Conference
March 25 - March 27, 2014 - Newport, Rhode Island
The National High Performance Computer and Communications Council Conference (HPCC 2014) is one of HPC’s most enlightening and informational networking conferences in North America. Join us as HPC’s leading thought leaders and technology contributors discuss the most challenging issues facing the world today and tomorrow. The theme for this year’s conference is “Supercomputing –What Does the Future Hold?” For more information, please visit http://hpcc-usa.org/.
International Supercomputing Conference
June 22 – June 26, 2014 - Leipzig Germany
Early Bird Registration Begins – March 14, 2014
The International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) is the most significant conference and exhibition in Europe for the HPC community. The 2014 focus is on supercomputers solving real life problems, extreme computing challenges, and emerging trends for big data and HPC, and much more. The exhibition will showcase comprehensive range of systems and services from top vendors and research organizations. For more information, please visit http://www.isc-events.com/isc14/.
Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World
Crackdown Successfully Reduces Spam Thanks to Google Researchers
Nearly a decade in the works, Internet-wide projects designed to keep e-mail safe from scams, spam, and identity-thieving phishing attempts are paying off thanks to the development of e-mail authentication standards, according to a pair of Google security researchers. Internet industry and standards groups have been working since 2004 to get e-mail providers to use authentication to put a halt to e-mail address impersonation. The challenge was both in creating the standards that the e-mail's sending and receiving domains would use, and getting domains to use them. To read further, please visit http://cacm.acm.org/news/170473-crackdown-successfully-reduces-spam/fulltext.
Research Publication on Global HPC Market Introduced by Reportstack
HPCwire
Reportstack has announced a new market research publication on Global High Performance Computing (HPC) Market 2014-2018. The following companies are the key players in Global High Performance Computing (HPC) Market: Cray Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., and IBM Corp. “HPC as a Service is fast gaining in popularity in the Global HPC market since it offers high performance on demand and a scalable HPC computing environment. The computing resources provided by the service providers can vary in power, technology, and latency. HPCaaS helps optimize the environment for HPC; with the help of HPCaaS, enterprises can solve the problem of surge capacity for time-critical analysis by having resources available as and when needed. HPCaaS has a centralized system so that enterprises can minimize the impact of remote collaboration issues. HPCaaS is designed to leverage the financial benefits of a managed solution, cloud, while providing an infrastructure focused around HPC. This gives enterprises the capability to meet an organization’s research and engineering compute requirements without incurring the capital and operational costs associated with setting up an in-house HPC cluster.” To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/research-publication-global-hpc-market-introduced-reportstack/.
NIH and George Washington University Researchers Partner to Accelerate Genomics Research
Researchers announced today that scientists running genomic analyses at George Washington University’s Colonial One High Performance Computing Center will pilot ultra high-speed 40 Gigabit per second data transfers from the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine (NLM) using both organizations’ new 100 Gigabit per second links to the Internet2 Network. “Biomedical researchers need high-bandwidth access to the extremely large data sets used in today’s medical research,” commented Don Preuss, who heads the Systems group at the NLM’s National Center for Biotechnology Information. “Our new 100 Gigabit connection to the Internet2 backbone will provide researchers at GW and other research centers with state-of-the-art connectivity.” To read further, please visit http://smhs.gwu.edu/news/nih-and-george-washington-university-researchers-partner-accelerate-genomics-research-using.
Liquid-Cooled Supercomputers, to Trim the Power Bill
The New York Times
Submerging supercomputers and servers in oil or other liquids to cool them off might offer a way to reduce massive energy consumption. Mineral oil and liquid fluoroplastics do not conduct electricity, and therefore present no risk of short-circuiting or damaging equipment as water would, experts say. Submersion technology can save a facility millions of dollars a year in air conditioning electricity expenses and reduces the need for air conditioning and filtering equipment. The Tokyo Institute of Technology is cooling its Tsubame KFC supercomputer with mineral oil developed by Green Revolution. The institute made only a few adjustments to prepare the Tsubame KFC for submersion, including removing moving parts such as hard drives and fans. In November, Tsubame KFC was named the greenest supercomputer in the Green500 industry ranking. Although Cray used submersion cooling for one of its systems in the 1980s, concerns about cost and the impact of those coolants on the ozone prevented the method from gaining popularity. To read further, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/business/international/improving-energy-efficiency-in-supercomputers.html?_r=0.
Education News and Information
National Air and Space Museum Super Science Saturday Events
Join the National Air and Space Museum on the second Saturday of each month for Super Science Saturday at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. Through demonstrations and hands-on activities, visitors of all ages will become immersed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics topics related to aviation and space exploration. Upcoming topics include:
April 12, 2014 -- Astronomy
May 10, 2014 -- Energy
For more information, please visit http://airandspace.si.edu/events/superscience/.
Historical NASA Space Artifacts Available for Educational Use
NASA invites eligible U.S. educational institutions, museums and other organizations to screen and request historical artifacts of significance to spaceflight. This is the 21st screening of artifacts since 2009. Eligible schools, universities, museums, libraries and planetariums may view the artifacts and request specific items through March 17, 2014. Online registrations should include an assigned Department of Education number. Registration also can be made through the State Agency for Surplus Property (SASP) office in their state. For instructions, registration, and to view and make requests for artifacts online, visit http://gsaxcess.gov/NASAWel.htm. The artifacts are free of charge and are offered "as-is." Organizations must cover shipping costs and any handling fees. Shipping fees on smaller items will be relatively inexpensive, while larger items may involve extensive disassembly, preparation, shipping and reassembly costs. NASA will work closely with eligible organizations to address any unique handling costs. Questions about this opportunity should be directed to GSAXcessHelp@gsa.gov.
MAVEN Educator Ambassador Workshop
July 14-18, 2014 – Boulder, Colorado
Application Deadline - March 7, 2014
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, mission will explore the planet's upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the solar wind. Set to arrive at the Red Planet in September 2014, the mission will provide invaluable insights into the history of Mars' atmosphere and climate, liquid water and planetary habitability. The MAVEN Educator Ambassador, or MEA, workshop will bring together educators from around the country for in-depth learning experiences centered around MAVEN science. The goal of the MEA workshop is for participants to develop the knowledge and skills needed to train other teachers on NASA's educational resources. Participants will attend a weeklong professional development workshop and receive training on a variety of standards-based classroom activities. The expectation is that participants will implement some of the lesson plans and resources in their classrooms, as well as conduct teacher trainings in their local areas on the MAVEN mission and related educational activities. For more information about the workshop and to apply online, visit http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven/education-outreach/for-educators/mea/.
Keeping Women in High-Tech Fields Is Big Challenge, Report Finds
The Washington Post
A recent Center for Talent Innovation (CTI) report found U.S. women working in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields are 45 percent more likely than their male peers to leave the industry within a year. The study also found that about 33 percent of STEM leaders reported a woman would never reach the top position in their companies. "Even the senior guys who are in a position to make change for the women in their company don't feel like they can do it," says CTI's Laura Sherbin. The survey questioned 5,685 college-educated adults, 2,349 of whom were women, with experience in a private-sector science, engineering, or technology company. The study found gender bias underpins why women either do not think they can get ahead or are choosing to leave their organizations. To read further, please visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/keeping-women-in-high-tech-fields-is-big-challenge-report-finds/2014/02/12/8a53c6ac-93fe-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html.
UTeach STEM Teacher Prep Program Expands With $22.5-Million Grant
Campus Technology
Drexel University, Florida International University, Oklahoma State University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Maryland, College Park will implement the UTeach program in the fall of 2014. UTeach recruits math, science, and computer science students and prepares them to teach science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) at the secondary school level. Participants in the program can earn a teaching certificate without adding time or cost to their four-year STEM degree program. Each university will receive a $1.45-million grant to cover the cost of implementing the program over a five-year period. Developed first at the University of Texas at Austin in 1997, UTeach partnered with the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) in 2008 to expand the program. NMSI says UTeach will produce more than 9,000 math and science teachers by 2020. Five more universities will join in 2015, which will bring the total number implementing UTeach to 45. A $22.5-million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has made the expansion possible. To read further, please visit http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/02/05/uteach-stem-teacher-prep-program-expands-with-22.5-million-grant.aspx.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
Society of Women Engineers San Diego County Scholarships
Application Deadline – April 1, 2014
Every year the San Diego County Section of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE-SD) awards monetary scholarships to young women enrolling in engineering schools or university engineering programs leading to a first degree in engineering. Contact the Scholarship Chair scholarships@swesandiego.org with any questions. For eligibility requirements, please visit http://sdsa.org/resources/science-alliance-e-news/2014/january/society-of-women-engineers-san-diego-county-scholarships.
SC14 Student Cluster Competition Applications Are Now Being Accepted
Application Deadline – April 11, 2014
Students interested in demonstrating their high-performance computing skills on a global stage are invited to form teams and sign up to compete in the eighth annual Student Cluster Competition at the SC14 conference to be held Nov. 16-21, 2014, in New Orleans. SC14 is the premier international conference on high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis. The Student Cluster Competition is a high-energy event featuring young supercomputing talent from around the world competing to build and operate powerful cluster computers. For more information, please visit http://sc14.supercomputing.org/engage/hpc-interconnections/sc14-student-cluster-competition.
AutoDesk Software for Students
Autodesk supports the student community by providing the tools you need to create your next 3D project and get prepared for academic and career success. Get a free*36-month license of Autodesk products for students: To learn more, please visit http://www.autodesk.com/education/student-software.
2014-2015 XSEDE Scholars Program (XSP)
Application. Deadline: April 1, 2014 at 11:50 p.m. (CST)
XSEDE, the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, is the most advanced, powerful, and robust collection of integrated digital resources and services in the world. 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. For more information and to apply, please visit https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?usp=sharing&formkey=dGxXQkZtRERsclMxdDVoZ0VJbmhOb0E6MA#gid=0.
Deadline Just Around the Corner: Blue Waters Student Internship Program
Application Deadline – March 21, 2014
This program is open to undergraduate students interested in participating in a year-long science or engineering internship. The program is sponsoring 20 research interns in 2014. The goal is to engage undergraduate students in petascale computing research and development projects. The program provides each student a stipend totaling $5000, a two-week intensive high-performance computing workshop, and travel to The Blue Waters Symposium 2015. This program includes support for undergraduate internship activities at any accredited degree granting institution in the U.S. The internship awarded through this program may be for students working with a faculty mentor on their home campus or at another campus. Interested faculty may work with a particular student that they identify or may select a qualified student with Blue Waters support through the program. Additional information about the program is available at https://bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu/interships.
2014 IBM Research and Development Opportunities
IBM seeks underrepresented African Americans, Latinos/Hispanics, and Native American men and women students in Computer Science, Math, Statistics, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Material Science, and Chemistry. More specifically, IBM seeks:
· PhD students completing their education by Spring 2014 and looking for full-time Research or Development opportunities,
· Continuing Ph.D. students in the Fall of 2014 seeking summer 2014 IBM Research or Development opportunities,
· MS and BS students completing their education by Spring 2014 and looking for full-time Development opportunities, and
· Continuing MS and BS students in the Fall of 2014 seeking summer 2014 IBM Development opportunities.
For additional information, please visit: http://www.research.ibm.com or http://www-03.ibm.com/employment. All students are considered for IBM opportunities, but this is an outreach for an underrepresented group in the STEM fields.
Research Experience for Undergrads (REU) in Data-Intensive Computing at Clemson University
Application Deadline – March 20, 2014
Students will be matched with a faculty mentor at the beginning of the summer program, and each student will participate in a focused research project. Faculty mentors participating in the program have a broad range of interests in data-intensive computing, from "Big Data" analytics and architectures to biomedical informatics to computational ecology to reliable software engineering, and much more. The program also includes extensive training in tools and technology used in data-intensive computing research, as well as enrichment lectures, excursions, and social events. For more information and to apply, please visit http://www.cs.clemson.edu/reu/.
REU at University of Central Florida
There is an REU program at the University of Central Florida that is actively looking for underrepresented students and women to apply to their fully paid summer program. For more information and to apply, please visit http://crcv.ucf.edu/REU/.
On the Lighter Side – Computational Science News on the Edge
Twitters Aims to Slash Phishing Emails Sent From “Twitter.com”
Cnet
If you get an e-mail saying it's from Twitter, the social-networking company wants to assure you that it's really from Twitter and that there's no need to worry that someone's out to steal your password. At least, it's almost certain that the e-mail you just got from a Twitter.com address is not a phishing attack, the company said in a blog post today. Twitter said it has adopted a new security protocol known as DMARC that was designed by a consortium in order to cut way down on phishing attempts. To read further, please visit http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57570540-93/twitter-aiming-to-slash-phishing-e-mails-sent-from-twitter.com/?part=authorRss&subj=news&tag=latestNewsRss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=230197.
