HPC in the News
NCSA on why #HPCMatters
Why does high-performance computing matter? Because science matters! Discovery matters! Human beings are seekers, questers, questioners. And when we get answers, we ask bigger questions. HPC extends our reach, putting more knowledge, more discovery, and more innovation within our grasp. With HPC, the future is ours to create! #HPCMatters! To view the video, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FfYGGeRjD8&feature=youtu.be.
Apply for the Broader Engagement (BE) Program at SC14
Application Deadline – June 5, 2014
The Broader Engagement (BE) Program’s goal is to increase the participation of individuals who have been traditionally under-represented in HPC. The program offers special activities to introduce, engage and support a diverse community in the conference and in HPC. Competitive grants will be available to support limited travel to and participation in the SC14 Technical Program. Consideration will be given to applicants from groups that traditionally have been under-represented in HPC, including women, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders and people with disabilities. We encourage applications from people in all computing-related disciplines—from research, education and industry. For more information and to apply, please visit http://sc14.supercomputing.org/engage/broader-engagement.
Registration for XSEDE14 Now Open
July 13-18, 2014 – Atlanta, Georgia
Registration is now open for XSEDE14, the annual conference that brings together the extended community of individuals interested in advancing research cyberinfrastructure and integrated digital services for the benefit of science and society. XSEDE14 will take place at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis and will showcase the discoveries, innovations, challenges and achievements of those who utilize and support XSEDE resources and services, as well as other digital resources and services throughout the world. The theme of XSEDE14 is “Engaging Communities,” to engage both traditional users of digital resources and people who have not traditionally used digital resources but would benefit from their usage. For more information and to register, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/conference/xsede14.
CyberGIS Fellowships at the University of Illinois
Proposal Submission Deadline - May 30, 2014
CyberGIS -- geographic information science and systems (GIS) based on advanced cyberinfrastructure -- has emerged during the past several years as a vibrant interdisciplinary field impacting a broad swath of scientific domains and research areas. The NSF CyberGIS Project (www.cybergis.org) has contributed significantly to the development of this field. The CyberGIS Fellows Program established by the NSF CyberGIS Project aims to catalyze the development of cutting edge cyberGIS education materials and curricula. The Fellows will hold visiting appointments within the CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies and National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and have opportunities to develop collaborations with these two interdisciplinary programs. For complete details, please visit http://cybergis.illinois.edu/news/140501_fellows.html.
Research Holds Promise for Atomic-Scale Circuitry
HPCwire
Researchers at the University of Rochester and Duke University say they have made a breakthrough in atomic-scale circuitry design by employing a bi-layered molecular interface to transmit an electric charge across a one-molecule-wide circuit. The research team used a single layer of organic molecules to link the positive and negative electrodes in a molecular-junction organic light-emitting diode, while a second, inert molecular layer was added to better control the current. Atop that inert layer is the one-molecule-thin active layer, which conducts the charge while the lower layer acts as insulation and reduces interference. The current was controlled through small modifications to the organic molecules' functional groups, in which some groups were used to accelerate the charge transfer and others were used to decelerate it. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/04/23/research-holds-promise-atomic-scale-circuitry/.
TACC Camp C3 for Middle School Students
Monday-Thursday July 28th – July 31, 2014 AND Monday, August 4, 2014
Camp C3 is a one-week, summer program for students entering the eighth grade who have an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In Summer 2014, TACC is partnering with UTeach Outreach to support UT PREP 1. Registration is currently open to students from Bedichek Middle School and Martin Middle School. For more information and to register, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/education/k-12-programs/tacc-summer-camp. Please email us at summercamps@tacc.utexas.edu if you'd like to be on the distribution list for 2015 camps.
Ready, Set, Robots! 2-day Camp at Indiana University
First session: June 12-13, 2014 – Bloomington, Indiana
Second session: June 19-20, 2014 – Bloomington, Indiana
Now in its 9th year this 2-day summer workshop introduces kids to technology-related fields and ideas as they work side-by-side with IU IT professionals. For more information and to register for the camp, please visit http://go.iu.edu/btv (click the + symbol next to the words "See available dates and register for this workshop" To watch a video, please visit http://www.youtube.com/v/SlPskGm4PO0&rel=1&autoplay=1.
Americans Wary of Futuristic Science, Tech: Pew Research Center Survey|
CNN.com
The majority of Americans think tech developments will make life in the next half-century better, but 30 percent said they would make life worse, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Although nearly two-thirds of survey respondents disliked the idea of robots being used to care for the sick and elderly, 51 percent think computers will be able to create art as skillfully as humans do. "The American public anticipates that the coming half-century will be a period of profound scientific change, as inventions that were once confined to the realm of science fiction come into common usage," the survey's report says. The survey found many respondents were leery of some possible near-term technological advances, such as the use of personal drones and the ability of parents to manipulate the DNA of their unborn children. To read further, please visit http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/tech/innovation/future-technology-pew/index.html.
Carnegie Mellon Partners with IBM to Offer Cognitive Computing Course Featuring Watson
A new computer science course offered this fall at Carnegie Mellon University will give students unprecedented access to IBM’s Watson cognitive technology as they develop mobile applications for the system, which famously beat Jeopardy! champions in a 2011 on-air showdown. The IBM Watson Group is working with Carnegie Mellon and six other universities to offer cognitive computing courses this fall that will give students the technical knowledge and hands-on experience they need to create new applications for Watson. “The home run we’re looking for is to add our vision to IBM’s technology to create an application that is useful and worthy of being spun off as a product,” said Eric Nyberg, a professor in CMU’s Language Technologies Institute (LTI) and a leading researcher in question-answering computer systems. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/carnegie-mellon-partners-ibm-offer-cognitive-computing-course-featuring-watson/.
HPC Call for Participation
CALL FOR PAPERS - ACM Journal of Dataand Information Quality
The ACM Journal of Data and Information Quality JDIQ is a multi-disciplinary journal that attracts papers ranging from theoretical research to algorithmic solutions to empirical research to experiential evaluations. Its mission is to publish high impact articles contributing to the field of data and information quality (IQ). IQ covers a wide range of dimensions including accuracy and completeness, provenance, lineage and trust, understandability and accessibility. Research contributions can range from modeling and measurement of quality, to improvement of quality with data cleansing methods, to organizational management of quality, to evaluations of quality in real scenario. For more information and submission guidelines, please visit http://jdiq.acm.org/.
Upcoming Conferences, Workshops and Webinars
Harness the Power of GPUs: Introduction to GPGPU Programming
June 16-20, 2014 – Bloomington, Indiana
In order to train more scientists to use graphics processor units (GPUs) for their research, training focused on this new level of parallelism is needed. We have partnered with Virtual School of Computational Science and Engineering (VSCSE), to provide such training. VSCSE classes broadcast over the web to a set of remote participating sites. To ensure that the education is done well, there is typically a facilitator located at each remote site to aid the class participants locally. For more information, please visit http://ittraining.iu.edu/training/Browse.aspx?workshop=GPU-1#workshop602.
International Supercomputing Conference - ISC’14
June 22-26, 2014- LEIPZIG, Germany
Early Bird Registration Deadline – May 15, 2014
Now in its 29th year, ISC is the world’s oldest and Europe’s most important conference and networking event for the HPC community, offering a strong five-day technical program focusing on HPC technological development and its application in scientific fields, as well as its adoption in an industrial environment. Once again to be held in historical Leipzig, Germany, the ISC’14 Conference and Exhibition anticipates an attendance of 2500 participants from around the world. For more information and to register, please visit http://www.isc-events.com/isc14/.
Research & Technology Development 2014
September 15-16, 2014 – Missouri University of Science and Technology Rolla Missouri
Missouri S&T will be hosting the fourth annual Research & Technology Development conference (RTD2014) in Rolla, Missouri. In addition to extensive networking opportunities, this year's conference will feature two days of useful workshops and presentations in each of three distinct research pillars: Computational Science, Large Data Visualization, and Additive Manufacturing. Six universities are joining to lead the coordination of workshops, talks, presentations, and hands-on demonstrations:
* University of Oklahoma and University of Nebraska-Lincoln Computational Science
* Indiana University and University of Texas Visualization
* University of Louisville and Missouri S&T Additive Manufacturing
While admission is free to attendees, registration is required and early registration is encouraged to receive hotel discounts. For more information, please visit https://rtd2014.mst.edu/. To view the two-day schedule, please visit https://rtd2014.mst.edu/attend.
Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World
Winter Olympics on a Sphere: Indiana University
The Winter Olympics capture interest worldwide. Begun in 1924, the Olympics have grown from 20 participating countries to a record 88 in 2014. Countless such facts exist about the Olympics, and the Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) has created a way to visually communicate the rich history of the games to global audiences using Science on a Sphere (SOS) technology. Viewers can see the growth in participation by women (16 in the first games; 1,050 in 2010), or learn that Norway is the all-time medal leader, followed by the US, with the Soviet Union in fifth place. Datasets developed so far show historic participation by country and gender, medal counts and the evolution of events, and ways to scale and represent participation and medal data based on population and economic factors. This work will enrich future efforts to disseminate information with displays like Science on a Sphere, now used in more than 100 exhibits around the world. To read further, please visit http://pti.iu.edu/research/scholarly-highlights/articles/mapping-the-winter-olympics-with-sos.php.
UIUC Research Shows Smartphone Sensors Leave Trackable Fingerprints
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have demonstrated that fingerprints exist within smartphone sensors because of imperfections during the hardware manufacturing process. The researchers focused on the accelerometer, which tracks three-dimensional movements of the phone, but the findings suggest other sensors could leave equally unique fingerprints. When hardware is manufactured, the factory cannot produce the identical result in millions of units, and the imperfections create fingerprints, according to UIUC professor Romit Roy Choudhury. However, he notes the fingerprints are only visible when accelerometer data signals are analyzed in detail. Most applications do not require this level of analysis, but the data shared with all applications still holds the fingerprints, and if a cybercriminal wanted to perform the necessary analysis, they could do so. To read further, please visit http://www.ece.illinois.edu/mediacenter/article.asp?id=7897.
Stanford University Students Create 3D Printer Technology That Can Print a Game Controller, Electronics and All
Computerworld
Stanford University graduate students have created the Rabbit Proto, an open source three-dimensional (3D) printer attachment that lays down functioning circuitry right alongside the thermoplastic extruder head of an existing machine, enabling it to make functioning electronic prototypes. "Our project enables 3D printers to deposit conductive material along with traditional plastic," says Stanford's Alex Jais. "The conductive material can be embedded within the 3D model and printed in the same 3D printing process." The Rabbit Proto 3D print head is designed to fit onto several different versions of a RepRap printer, which is a style of machine designed to print most of their own components. To read further, please visit http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247934/This_3D_printer_technology_can_print_a_game_controller_electronics_and_all.
Ohio Surgeons Hope Chip in Man's Brain Lets Him Control Paralyzed Hand With Thoughts
The Washington Post
Ohio State University researchers are hoping to take the field of bionics a step closer by enabling a paralyzed patient to move his hand by thought via a computer chip implanted in his brain. The electrode-studded chip reads commands from the brain region responsible for hand movement, while a wire connecting the chip to a port in the patient's skull transmits the neural signals along a cable linked to a computer. An algorithm then decodes the commands and adds additional instructions that would normally come from the spinal cord. The computer connects to a sleeve of electrodes wrapped around the patient's arm, which fire in a sequence to trigger muscle fibers the subject is thinking of moving. The algorithm's thought-reading ability is based on researchers decoding and engineering brain impulses transmitted by other paralyzed patients to correspond with muscle movements. To read further, please visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ohio-surgeons-hope-chip-in-mans-brain-lets-him-control-paralyzed-hand-with-thoughts/2014/04/29/c45515e2-ccaf-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html.
Educator News and Opportunities
Google’s CS4HS Program at the University of Northern n Iowa
June 16 - 27, 2014 0 Introduction to Programming with Scratch
July 21 - August 1, 2014 - Programming with AppInventor for Android
The University of Northern Iowa is pleased to announce it's fifth year of participation in Google's CS4HS program. This year we will be teaching two summer content courses and one fall implementation course. Each of these tracks will be taught via online materials including instructional videos, guided "laboratory" activities, and programming assignments. For more information, please visit http://www.cs.uni.edu/~schafer/outreach/cs4hs2014/. For questions contact UNI's CS4HS coordinator, Dr. Ben Schafer at schafer@cs.uni.edu or 319-273-2187.
Integrating Computing & Robotics into Mathematics & CTE for Educators
May 21, 2014 - UC Davis, Davis, California
Application Deadline – May 14, 2014
This workshop will provide teachers with hands-on experience on how to use a new integrative curriculum that aligns with the Common Core, Math and ICT Sector standards. The University of California at Davis (UC Davis) C-STEM Center is holding this free workshop for Middle School and High School teachers to help close the achievement gap and better prepare student for college and careers. For more information and to apply, please visit http://cstem.ucdavis.edu/teachers-administrators/professional-development/2013-2014/cde-sponsored-training/. For questions about the workshop, please contact Heidi Espindola, C-STEM Program Manager at: hespindola@ucdavis.edu.
Harvard Researchers Need Your Help
Response Request Deadline – May 24, 2014c ccfc
What do you do in your classroom (and in extracurricular activities) that gives students a good preparation for succeeding in computer science (CS) or informational technology (IT) at the college level? A great variety of activities and approaches are being tried out across the nation. We would like to hear about them and, in a rigorous study, find out which ones work best. You can support this research by filling out a very brief web survey, relating your experiences and insights. The Science Education Department (SED) at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study this important topic in a systematic way. The 2-year project, titled “Factors Influencing College Success in Information Technology (FICSIT)” and headed by Dr. Philip Sadler, will collect and analyze data from approximately 12,000 students in computer science classes at 40 colleges and universities, with the goal of identifying the factors within their high school computer science/IT experience that help them perform well in their college classes. We believe that high school computer science teachers have a tremendous amount of insight into this issue and have developed innovative and potentially beneficial initiatives. Hence we turn to you, asking you to respond to our web-based survey, which will take only a few minutes of your time. Please visit https://harvard.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8CkWCVsDUUhKjEZ.
The STELAR Center WEBINAR: Youth Motivation in STEM
Thursday, June 19th, 2014 - 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT.
This webinar will focus on current findings from the ITEST program related to youth motivation and STEM career development. Participants will hear from ITEST projects working across the U.S. to learn specific strategies for as well as successes and challenges with fostering and assessing youth motivation and STEM career interest. The presentation will include project-level findings of youth development in these areas. To register for the webinar, please visit http://stelar.edc.org/events/itest-program-strand-youth-motivation.
Games-Based Learning Conference at USC Announced for Educators
July 21-24, 2014 – USC, Los Angeles, California
Visionary K-12 educators working to improve student engagement as well as higher education faculty teaching the use of serious games may want to carve out time this summer to attend the 4th annual Serious Play Conference at the University of Southern California (USC). Sessions will feature teachers already using Minecraft, Google Apps, MMORPGs and iPad and mobile games as well as game developers, publishers, consultants and analysts and faculty talking about their experience with games in the classroom and games for home use. Presentations will include instruction on teaching students to design their own games. A pre-conference workshop on Monday, July 21 offers hands-on instructions for teachers new to game-based instruction. For more information, please visit www.seriousplayconference.com.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
The Association of American Indian Physicians hosts National Native American Youth Initiative (NNAYI)
Application Deadline – May 23, 2014
The NNAYI program is available to high school sophomores, juniors and seniors who are at least 16 years of age and students and counselors are housed at the George Washington University campus. For those selected students, AAIP will pay for travel, lodging and most meals. For more information, please visit http://www.aaip.org/programs/student-programs/subscribe-to-programs/.
In Italy, a First, Modest All-Female Hackathon
The Wall Street Journal
Microsoft recently sponsored a three-day hackathon in Italy called Nuvola Rosa, or pink cloud, which was designed to encourage young women to aspire to jobs in technology and science. Nuvola Rosa involved about 700 17- to 24-year-old women from across Italy. Less than 10 percent of female Italian university graduates currently get degrees in technical or scientific fields, according to a McKinsey & Company study, which puts Italy behind Finland, France, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. Italian women entering universities tend to avoid computer programming and the hard sciences because they are perceived as too difficult and require a level of determination they are convinced they do not have, according to La Sapienza professor Tiziana Catarci. About 29 percent of Microsoft's workforce in Italy is female, putting the company about five percent above average for the IT sector in Europe. To read further, please visit http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/04/28/in-italy-a-first-modest-all-female-hackathon/?mod=WSJBlog.
Dartmouth Celebrates Half Century of BASIC Language
Dartmouth University faculty, students, and national experts late last month gave a series of presentations as part of a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) computing language and time-sharing computing being developed at Dartmouth. BASIC was developed by former Dartmouth mathematics professor John Kemeny and then student programmer Thomas Kurtz, and quickly gained popularity for its accessibility and ease of use. The conference will begin with the premiere of a documentary on the history of BASIC and it will end with a panel of experts discussing where they think computing will be in another 50 years. To read further, please visit http://thedartmouth.com/2014/04/30/news/college-celebrates-half-century-of-basic-language.
| STEM Opportunity for School Districts: Student Spaceflight Experiments Program |
| The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education, and NanoRacks announce Mission 7 to the International Space Station. This STEM education opportunity immerses grades 5–14 students across a community in an authentic, high-visibility research experience, in which student teams design and propose real microgravity experiments to fly in low Earth orbit on the International Space StationEach participating community will be provided a real microgravity research mini-laboratory capable of supporting a single experiment. They will also receive and all launch services to fly it to Space Station in Spring 2015 and return it safely to Earth for student harvesting and analysis. A 9-week experiment design competition in each community, to be held September through November 2014 and engaging typically 300 students, will allow student teams to design and formally propose real experiments that will vie for their community's reserved mini-lab on Space Station. A formal 2-step proposal review process, mirroring professional review, will determine the community's flight experiment. All interested communities are asked to inquire by May 30, 2014. For more information, contact Jeff Goldstein, SSEP Program Director; 301-395-0770. |
Hopscotch: Programming for All Ages
Hopscotch is an iPad app that lets kids drag and drop blocks of code to create their own programs! Games, stories, animations, interactive art, apps...if you can imagine it, you can make it with Hopscotch! You'll learn problem solving, critical thinking, and the fundamentals of computer programming. To learn more, please visit https://www.gethopscotch.com/.
CodeDay Spring 2014 Announced
May 24-25, 2014 - San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles, California
Code.Org has organized 20 different hackathons all over the United States for high school students and middle school students who can behave independently. In California, events are scheduled from noon-noon. Teachers who sign up can observe the teamwork, provide support, and:
- Understand why students are so excited about coding and see what languages are being used. Use this information to inform instruction and curriculum.
- Meet with other teachers to learn what they are teaching and network with them for on-going help and feedback.
Please visit http://codeday.org, for more information and to register
Faculty News and Opportunities
NSF CFP: Wireless Innovation between Finland and the US (WiFiUS)
Full Proposals Due = August 30, 2014
In 2011, the National Science Foundation (NSF), Tekes - the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, and the Academy of Finland jointly funded the Wireless Innovation between Finland and US (WiFiUS) SAVI (Science Across Virtual Institutes) to help build long-term research and education collaborations between the two world leaders of wireless networking. Given the success of the WiFiUS SAVI, NSF, Tekes, and the Academy of Finland have agreed to embark on a collaborative research program to enlarge the SAVI effort and address compelling research challenges on novel frameworks, architectures, protocols, methodologies and tools for the design and analysis of robust and highly dependable wireless networks, including cognitive radio networks. To read further, please visit http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14563/nsf14563.htm?WT.mc_id=USNSF_27&WT.mc_ev=click.
The Lighter Side – Computational News and Innovations
Google: Driverless Cars Are Mastering City Streets
Associated Press
Google's self-driving cars have made tremendous progress over the past several years, and can now accommodate thousands of previously unworkable urban challenges, according to project director Chris Urmson. "We're growing more optimistic that we're heading toward an achievable goal--a vehicle that operates fully without human intervention," he says. The driverless technology currently equipped on about 24 Lexus RX450H SUVs includes radar and laser sensors that generate three-dimensional maps of the auto's surroundings in real time, and software that identifies objects as moving vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, or static things such as signs, curbs, and parked cars. Among the milestones the project has realized is the technology's ability to read stop signs, including handheld ones, says Google's Courtney Hohne. To read further, please visit http://www.pddnet.com/news/2014/04/google-driverless-cars-are-mastering-city-streets.
Pig Farmers Get Smart
Youris.com
The ALL-SMART-PIGS project is a European Union-backed research effort that is developing technologies for turning pig farms into smart farms. "ALL-SMART-PIGS aims to come up with a package of technologies to make pig farming more profitable while at the same time improving animal welfare," says project coordinator Heiner Lehr. The researchers are using sensors to detect animals' needs, and satisfying those needs more quickly will result in healthier animals that grow faster, Lehr notes. The equipment is designed to generate valuable insight into feed efficiency conversion, which is a key metric for both farmers and feed companies to evaluate how efficiently animals convert feed to weight gain. Lehr says these types of projects require a high level of coordination. To read further, please visit http://www.youris.com/Bioeconomy/Agriculture/Pig-Farmers-Get-Smart.kl.
