HPC Happenings
Virtua; School Offers Two Computational Science Courses
Graduate students, post-docs and professionals from academia, government, and industry are invited to sign up now for two summer school courses offered by the Virtual School of Computational Science and Engineering. These Virtual School courses will be delivered to sites nationwide using high-definition videoconferencing technologies, allowing students to participate at a number of convenient locations where they will be able to work with a cohort of fellow computational scientists, have access to local experts, and interact in real time with course instructors. Registration fees for each course are $100, with some sites waiving the fees. To register, first visit the user portal for the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE): https://portal.xsede.org/. If this is your first use of the XSEDE portal, follow the guidelines to create a free portal account. Once you have an XSEDE portal account, you may sign up for the Virtual School courses through the XSEDE course calendar: https://portal.xsede.org/course-calendar. For more information about the Virtual School, go to http://www.vscse.org/. Questions about the summer school can be sent to info@vscse.org.
Make It a Family Affair! XSEDE13 Offers Robotics Workshop for Your Kids
In conjunction with XSEDE13, a robotic course is being offered for students in grades 5-8. It uses Lego Mindstorm™ Robots to facilitate the understanding of computer programming concepts. Students will learn to program pre-built robots to do simulate a robotic mission to Mars. The course fee is $100, which includes lunch each day. Space is limited to 15 participants. Parents can register their children during the XSEDE13 registration process and will then receive email instructions. The class will meet July 22-25, 2013, at the Marriott Marquis and Marina (the XSEDE13 conference location) from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. For more information, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/xsede13/ready-set-robots1.
Call for Entries: International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge
Submission Deadline - September 30, 2013
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the journal Science created the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge to celebrate the grand tradition of science visualization and to encourage its continued growth. The spirit of the competition is to communicate science, engineering and technology for education and journalistic purposes. Judges appointed by NSF and Science will select winners in five categories: Photography, Illustration, Posters & Graphics, Games & Apps, and Video. The winning entries will appear in a special section of Science (with one entry chosen for the front cover) and be hosted at ScienceMag.org and NSF.gov. In addition, each winner will receive a one-year online subscription to Science and a certificate of appreciation. If you have questions, please email them to scivis@nsf.gov. More information about the challenge can be found at http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis/challenge.jsp.
CASC Brochure/Website Image Competition
Submission Deadline - May 31, 2013
The CASC Brochure/Website Image Competition is underway and will determine the visualization to be used on the cover of the 2014 CASC Brochure. Please note that visualizations not appearing on the cover may be used on pages inside the brochure and on the CASC website. In terms of resolution, 3K x 3K pixels or better for the cover images. The web-based application/submission form outlines the additional information that must be included with every image.
The judges will be using the following criteria:
- Illustrative of research underway at the center submitting the proposed images
- Focus on research that offers a broad representation of what CASC members have undertaken
- Timeliness of visualization (e.g. the Gulf Oil Spill viz last year)
- Exhibits Intellectual merit
- Provides scientific, cultural, economic impact
- Compelling, visually interesting, lively, colorful images in a high-resolution format
For submissions, please visit http://apps.ccr.buffalo.edu/casc/.
XSEDE 13 Student Day Receives Record Number of Applications
Local San Diego area high school students have expressed an enthusiastic interest in Student Day, part of the upcoming XSEDE13 conference taking place in July at the San Diego Marriott Marquis. Applications have topped the fifty mark, which is the goal number sought by the conference organizers. With substantial funding assistance from the National Science Foundation, students will be able to participate in a national, high performance computing conference right in their own backyard. For more information on Student Day, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/xsede13/students.
HPC Conference Call for Participation
4th Workshop on Scientific Cloud Computing (ScienceCloud) 2013 - Call for Participation -Co-located with ACM HPDC 2013
June 17, 2013 - New York City, New York
The 4th workshop on Scientific Cloud Computing (ScienceCloud) will provide the
scientific community a dedicated forum for discussing new research, development,
and deployment efforts in running 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. For more information and submission guidelines, please visit http://datasys.cs.iit.edu/events/ScienceCloud2013/program.html.
Pan American Advanced Studies Institute on Data Discovery - Call for Participation
July 15-26, 2013 - Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Guatemala
Submission Deadline – June 9, 2013
The objective of this Pan American Advanced Studies Institute (PASI) is to introduce researchers early in their careers to Methods in Computation-Based Discovery (CBD). In the quest for solutions to major problems (e.g., biodiversity, modeling of natural systems, water ecology, digital cultural heritage, etc.), researchers across the natural and social sciences as well as the humanities and arts are generating massive and/or highly complex data sets that extend well-beyond humans’ capacities to perceive or analyze without sophisticated technological augmentation. CBD allows researchers to gather, transform and analyze data from a range of sources, including, for example, sensors, video archives, telescopes, and supercomputers. Researchers today need both access to advanced computational resources and sophisticated skills in data acquisition, management, transformation, visualization, analytics, and preservation. The Institute will be offered through a joint effort of seven organizations: (1) the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE); (2) the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), including the Blue Waters Petascale Supercomputer project; (3) the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (I-CHASS) (4) the Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL); (5) the Advanced Research and Technology Collaboratory for the Americas (ARTCA); (6) the Latin American Cooperation of Advanced Networks (RedCLARA); and (7) the Organization of American States (OAS). These organizations believe research collaboration to be essential to building strong international partnerships to address grand challenges. For more information, please visit http://artcaonline.org/pasi.html.
IEEE Cluster 2013 Call for Participation
September 23-27, 2013 - Indianapolis, Indiana
Paper Deadline – May 25, 2013
Cluster 2013 requests submission of tutorials, technical papers, posters, panels, and visualizations as part of the conference this year. A one-week extension for full submissions will automatically be granted upon the submission of an abstract by the deadline. To view all deadlines, please visit http://internal.pti.iu.edu/ieeecluster-2013/cluster-2013-important-dates. For complete information, please visit http://internal.pti.iu.edu/ieeecluster-2013.
HiPC 2013 - 20th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing - Call for Papers
December 18-21, 2013, Hyderabad, INDIA
Submission Deadline – June 8, 2013
You are invited to submit original unpublished research work that demonstrate current research in all areas of high performance computing including design and analysis of parallel and distributed systems, embedded systems, and their applications in scientific, engineering, and commercial areas. The details the call for papers) can be found at http://www.hipc.org/hipc2013/papers.php. In addition to technical sessions consisting of contributed papers, the conference will include invited presentations, a student research symposium, tutorials, and vendor presentations in the industry, user and research symposium. Further details about call for student research symposium, workshops, tutorials, and exhibits, as well as submission guidelines are available at http://www.hipc.org/hipc2013/index.php.
Upcoming Conferences and Workshops
SSTIC 2013
July 22-26, 2013 - Tarragona, Spain
Registration Deadline – May 26, 2013
SSTiC 2013 will be an open forum for the convergence of top class well recognized computer scientists and people at the beginning of their research career (typically PhD students) as well as consolidated researchers. SSTiC 2013 will cover the whole spectrum of computer science by means of 67 six-hour courses dealing with hot topics at the frontiers of the field. By actively participating, lecturers and attendees will share the idea of scientific excellence as the main motto of their research work. For more information and to register, please visit http://grammars.grlmc.com/SSTiC2013/.
2013 SACNAS National Conference
October 3–6, 2013 - San Antonio, Texas
SACNAS is a way for you to expose your students to incredible resources and the validating and inspiring environment of SACNAS where they have the unique opportunity to engage with science, culture, and community. The SACNAS National Conference also provides an important place for you to recharge as a professional, as you connect with peers, build your own networks, and recruit new students. For complete conference information, please visit http://sacnas.org/events/national-conf?.
SC13
November 17 - 22, 2013 - Denver, Colorado
SC13, the premier annual international conference on high-performance computing, networking, and storage, will be held in Denver, Colorado. The Technical Papers Program at SC is the leading venue for presenting the highest-quality original research, from the foundations of HPC to its emerging frontiers. The conference committee solicits submissions of excellent scientific merit that introduce new ideas to the field and stimulate future trends on topics such as applications, systems, parallel algorithms, and performance modeling. For more information, please visit http://sc13.supercomputing.org/content/papers.
Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World
UC San Diego Team Achieves Petaflop-Level Earthquake Simulations on GPU-Powered Supercomputers
A team of researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, has developed a highly-scalable computer code that promises to dramatically cut both research times and energy costs in simulating seismic hazards throughout California and elsewhere. The team, led by Yifeng Cui, a computational scientist at SDSC, developed the scalable GPU (graphical processing units) accelerated code for use in earthquake engineering and disaster management through regional earthquake simulations at the petascale level as part of a larger computational effort coordinated by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). San Diego State University (SDSU) is also part of this collaborative effort in pushing the envelope toward extreme-scale earthquake computing. To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR040213_earthquake.html.
Laureates Urge No Cuts to Budgets for Research
New York Times
More than 50 Nobel laureates are urging Congress to save the federal research establishment from budget cuts, which they say could endanger the innovation engine that is essential to the U.S. economy. "We urge you to keep the budgets of the agencies that support science at a level that will keep the pipelines full," the laureates say in a letter to Congress. The group's concern is mostly for young scientists who might be poised to produce the breakthroughs of tomorrow, but who are not at the top of the list for federal funding. To read further, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/science/nobel-laureates-urge-congress-not-to-cut-research-budget.html.
The Potential and the Risks of Data Science
New York Times
Columbia University recently held a symposium to introduce its new Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering, a collection of interdisciplinary centers, including cybersecurity, financial analytics, health analytics, new media, and smart cities. The event featured presentations by Columbia professors as well as computer scientists from companies such as Google, Facebook, and Bloomberg on the potential of the technology in a range of fields. Although privacy issues did not play a significant role in the symposium, Google CIO Ben Fried said his biggest "concern is that the technology is way ahead of society,” suggesting risks associated with public rejection or runaway technology if only a limited number of people understand big data. To read further, please visit http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/the-potential-and-the-risks-of-data-science/.
The University of Wisconsin Welcomes Us to the Data Driven World
NextGov.com
The University of Wisconsin's GeoDeepDive is a huge database that aims to leverage big data in the field of geosciences by helping geologists access data that otherwise would have been buried under mountains of accumulated information. Funded by a White House initiative launched in March 2012 to help government agencies, businesses, and researchers make better use of big data, GeoDeepDive will cull scanned pages from pre-Internet science journals, generations of websites, archived spreadsheets, and video clips into a database that aims to include all geological data. The system will eventually use contextual clues and technology similar to IBM’s Watson to enable geologists to query what professors Miron Livny and Christopher Re, the project's creators, refer to as dark data. "These new tools have that promise--to change the types of questions we’re able to ask and the nature of answers we get," University of Wisconsin geologist Shanan Peters says. To read further, please visit http://www.nextgov.com/big-data/2013/04/welcome-data-driven-world/62319/.
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Scientists Patent Software for Protecting Supercomputing Results Against System Failures
Scientists at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) have patented ZEST, a piece of software that takes a rapid “snapshot” of a supercomputer’s calculations as it works. ZEST greatly speeds the ability to store complex calculations as a hedge against a system failure, saving precious supercomputing time and slowing calculations down far less than current methods. PSC co-inventors of ZEST included Paul Nowoczynski, Jason Sommerfield, Nathan Stone, and Jared Yanovich. Just as we all hit “save” as we work, scientists carrying out vast computations such as those required for detailed weather predictions or earthquake science need to periodically store — “checkpoint” — the machine’s computational state. In the case of a system malfunction, this allows them to avoid having to start from the beginning after hours or days of work. To read further, please visit http://www.psc.edu/index.php/newscenter/90-2013press/815-psc-scientists-patent-software-for-protecting-supercomputing-results-against-system-failures.
Educator Opportunities and Information
Modeling Workshop for Hish School Educators
June 17-28, 2013 - San Luis Obispo, California
Registration Deadline – June 1, 2013
This workshop I for high school physics and physical science teachers interested in creating student-based, active-inquiry classrooms. Registration priority is given to teachers in Northern California. For more information, please visit http://www.ptec.org/pd/detail.cfm?ID=5099.
UC San Diego Computer Scientists Develop First-person Player Video Game That Teaches How to Program in Java
UCSD News
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) researchers have developed CodeSpells, an immersive, first person player video game designed to teach students how to program in Java. The researchers tested the game on a group of 40 girls, ages 10 to 12, who had never been exposed to programming before. The researchers found that within just one hour of play, the girls had mastered some of Java's basic components and were able to use the language to create new ways of playing with the game. "CodeSpells is the only video game that completely immerses programming into the game play," says UCSD professor William Griswold. The researchers plan to release the game for free and make it available to any educational institution that requests it. The researchers designed the game to keep children engaged while dealing with the difficulties and frustrations of programming. "We’re hoping that they will get as addicted to learning programming as they get addicted to video games," says UCSD graduate student Stephen Foster. To read further and to view a video slip, please visit http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/uc_san_diego_computer_scientists_develop_first_person_player_video_game_tha.
When a Teacher Is 2 Feet Tall
Wall Street Journal
In a move hailed as the first of its kind in U.S. education, classrooms in California and New York are experimenting with robotic teachers in a range of subjects. Slated to launch this spring, the Los Angeles trial will use a robotic dragon to teach healthy lifestyle habits to first graders. The first of several planned projects involves students showing the robot how to prepare for a race, which is intended to help the students remember their lessons. The Los Angeles project will be conducted by researchers from Yale University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Southern California, and Stanford University. The researchers say the robots will serve as engaging assistants rather than replacements for teachers. To read further, please visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323820304578410730962208740.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth.
Student Engagement and Information .
Scholarship For Underrepresented Undergraduates in Engineering, Geology, Physics
Application Deadline - May 31, 2013
Did you know that Shell offers scholarships for under-represented undergraduate students at selected universities?
Participating Universities: Colorado School of Mines, Cornell, Florida A&M, Georgia Tech, SITY-Baton Rouge, MIT, Michigan State, North Carolina A & T, Ohio State-Columbus, Penn State, Prairie View A&M, Purdue, Rice, Stanford, Texas A&M-College Station, University of CO-Boulder, UH, U Michigan-Ann Arbor, U of Oklahoma-Norman, UTEP, UT-Austin, U of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
Information on Sid: Shell Oil Company offers $5,000 annual scholarships through its Shell Incentive Fund Scholarship program to under-represented students pursuing an undergraduate degree in a specific technical field of study at certain colleges. The scholarship can be used to pay for tuition and/or school expenses. For more information and to apply, please visit http://www.shell.us/aboutshell/careers-tpkg/students-and-graduates/scholarships.html.
Call for Fellowship Applications for the Third LinkSCEEM General User Meeting
June 25-27, 2013 - Alexandria, Egypt
The LinkSCEEM-2 FP7 project is organizing a 3-day general user meeting in Alexandria Egypt. The General User Meeting is part of the LinkSCEEM-2 project training activities aiming to prepare the Eastern Mediterranean scientific community for the use of HPC systems. The meeting targets young researchers from the region and will address programming training needs of current and prospective HPC users both from Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. For application information, please visit http://cyprusinstitute.limequery.org/21658/lang-en. More information about the program of the event can be found at http://www.linksceem.eu/ls2/component/rsevents/event/26-Third-linksceem-general-user-meeting-june-2013.html.
Career Opportunities
Creative Software Developer (multiple openings)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Req # 75566
In the upcoming year, the Scientific Networking Division will embark on an important challenge: expanding its program in applied research, development and integration. With the vision to be a pioneer in developing innovative network technologies, the Division is seeking an exceptionally competent, flexible and innovative software engineer that is willing to think beyond the conventional. We are working at the leading edge of software-defined networking, OpenFlow, dynamic network infrastructure, network visualization, network knowledge plane, multi-domain and multi-layer architectures. The successful candidate will be the one that brings strong and diverse coding skills, focus, and ability to work with a fast-paced team. For more information and to apply, please visit https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=75566.
Entry Level Programmer
Oak Ridge National Laboratory - Knoxville, Tennessee Area
The successful applicant will contribute to the development of an integrated environment for modeling and simulation that covers many areas of computational science, including applications in batteries, nuclear reactors and fuels, plasma-facing components in fusion reactors and quantum computer simulations and quantum information. The successful applicant would simultaneously contribute to software development activities and original research. Further information on the project can be found at https://niceproject.sourceforge.net . Technical questions may be directed to: Jay Billings, billingsjj@ornl.gov. For more information, please visit http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=5636000&trk=eml-anet_dig-b_premjb-ttl-cn&ut=1QKe-0nXHc9BM1.
Advanced CI Application Specialist
Arizona State University
The ASU Advanced Computing Center (A2C2) seeks an Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Application Specialist staff member to:
* support the high-performance computing (HPC) needs of sponsored research projects across ASU;
* engage domain specific ASU faculty and their research groups to efficiently run their research applications;
* lead workshops for beginner and advanced users on how to effectively use ASU's research computing platforms;
For more information, please visit http://a2c2.asu.edu/about/jobs-a2c2/.
On the Lighter Side - Computational News of Interest
Essay-Grading Software Offers Professors a Break
New York Times
The EdX consortium has unveiled automated software that grades student essays and short written answers using artificial intelligence, and it will freely offer the program online to any institution. EdX president Anant Agrawal expects the assessment tool to help students repeatedly take tests and write essays to improve the quality of their answers, enhancing the learning process with instant feedback. The tool requires human graders to first grade 100 essays or essay questions, and then employs various machine-learning methods to train itself to automatically grade any number of essays or answers almost instantly. The software assigns a grade according to the scoring system developed by the teacher, and provides general feedback. To read further, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/science/new-test-for-computers-grading-essays-at-college-level.html?_r=0.
As Web Search Goes Mobile, Competitors Chip at Google’s Lead
New York Times
People increasingly want to use their mobile devices to find all types of information, which is fueling a shift in the nature of search. Consequently, Google and others are developing smarter search apps designed to generate more customized and relevant results. “What people want is, ‘You ask a very simple question and you get a very simple answer,’” says University of Washington professor Oren Etzioni. "We want to know the closest sushi place, make a reservation, and be on our way.” Google has changed its search model to display answers rather than just links if a person uses search terms such as “March Madness” or “weather.” In 2012, Google debuted the knowledge graph, which employs semantic search to comprehend and find meanings of and linkages among people, places, and things. To read further, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/technology/as-web-search-goes-mobile-apps-chip-at-googles-lead.html
