HPC in the News
2015 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
October 14-16, 2015 - Houston, Texas
Registration Opens – June 2, 2015
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is the World's Largest Gathering of Women Technologists. It is produced by the Anita Borg Institute and presented in partnership with ACM. For complete information, please visit http://gracehopper.org/ .
XSEDE15 Student Program – Call for Participation
High School and College Students are Encouraged to Participate in the XSEDE15 Student Program
XSEDE15, the fourth conference of XSEDE, the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, will be held July 26-30, 2015, at the Marriott Renaissance Grand Hotel in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. XSEDE15 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. For details on the Student Program, please see the Call for Participation:
https://conferences.xsede.org/technical-program/student-program.
2015 TACC Summer Supercomputing Institute
July 6-10, 2015 – Austin, Texas
The TACC Summer Supercomputing Institute will provide researchers with an intensive introduction to TACC's computing resources. The Institute is appropriate for all levels of researchers, faculty, staff, and graduate students, from new users of advanced computing technologies to those who have research projects requiring powerful computing, visualization, storage, or software. For more information about the TACC Summer Supercomputing Institute, please visit https://portal.tacc.utexas.edu/training/summer-institute.
The Most Popular Programming Languages Are Rapidly Changing|
Quartz
There has been a rapid shift in the programming languages developers use most, according to an annual survey of developers by Stack Overflow. The poll found JavaScript has been the most popular programming language for the past two years. SQL led in 2013 but has fallen substantially, as have many of the C languages. The biggest growth in usage involved Node.js and AngularJS, Stack Overflow found. One reason the popularity of programming languages changes so fast is so many developers are self-taught, rather than the product of a four-year degree in computer science. To read further, please visit http://qz.com/378939/the-most-popular-programming-languages-are-rapidly-changing/.
XSEDE Partners and Friends in the News
SDSC Debuts New Website
SDSC’s website is now live! in addition to the new site’s fresh look and audience-friendly layout, SDSC has focused more on the people behind our expertise, resources, and services. With revised, intuitive navigation and multiple content-access points, it will take fewer clicks to reach content that used to be buried and hard to find. The website’s responsive design provides easier access “on the go” using mobile devices with smaller screens, such as tablets and cell phones. During the coming weeks and months, SDSC will add even more features, including a dynamic projects and experts database, Q&A profiles and short videos of many of our PIs, as well as tighter integration with our social media sites to get the word out about the wealth of research opportunities, services, and events at SDSC. To view the new website, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/.
Blue Waters Enables Realistic 3D Simulations of Colliding Black Holes
When astronomers try to simulate colliding giant black holes, they usually rely on simplified approximations to model the swirling disks of matter that surround and fuel these gravitational monsters. Researchers now report that, for the first time, they have simulated the collision of two supermassive black holes using a full-blown treatment of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, allowing a 3D portrayal of these disks of magnetized matter. The simulations more accurately describe the radiation that might be detected from such mergers. This includes electromagnetic radiation blasted into space and ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves. Stuart Shapiro of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign presented movies of the simulations at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Baltimore, Maryland, on 13 April. His team had described elements of the study last November, in Physical Review. To read further, please visit http://www.nature.com/news/3d-simulations-of-colliding-black-holes-hailed-as-most-realistic-yet-1.17360.
HPC Call for Participation
Call for Papers: IEEE International Conference on Cloud and Autonomic Computing
September 21 - 25, 2015 – Cambridge, Massachusetts
Submission Deadline – May 15, 2015
Notification – June 15, 2015
Enterprise-scale cloud platforms and services systems, present common and cross-cutting challenges in maximizing power efficiency and performance while maintaining predictable and reliable behavior, and at the same time responding appropriately to environmental and system changes such as hardware failures and varying workloads. Autonomic computing systems address the challenges in managing these environments by integrating monitoring, decision-processing and actuation capabilities to autonomously manage resources and applications based on high-level policies. Research in cloud and autonomic computing spans a variety of areas, from computer systems, architecture, middleware services, databases and data-stores, and networks to machine learning and control theory. The purpose of the 3rd International Conference on Cloud and Autonomic Computing (CAC) is to bring together researchers and practitioners across these disciplines to address the multiple facets of self-management in computing systems and applications. For more information, please visit http://autonomic-conference.org/.
Call for Papers: 24th International Conference on Software Engineering and Data Engineering (SEDE)
October 12 – 14, 2015 – San Diego, California
Submission Deadline – May 30, 2015
Notification – July 15, 2015
The 24th SEDE Conference is interested in gathering researchers and professionals in the domains of Software Engineering and Data Engineering to present and discuss high-quality research results and outcomes in their fields. SEDE 2015 aims at facilitating cross-fertilization of ideas in Software and Data Engineering, and hence especially encourages high-quality research integrating both domains. SEDE 2015 is in conjunction with The 28th International Conference on Computer Applications in Industry and Engineering (CAINE 2015). For more information, please visit http://www.cse.unr.edu/SEDE/.
Call for Papers: 11th International Congress Technological Trends in Computing
October 12-16, 2015 – Mexico City, Mexico
Submission Deadline – May 18, 2015
Notification Deadline – June 29, 2015
CTTC-2015 will be held at the Centro de Innovación y Desarrollo Tecnológico en Cómputo of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico City. It is an International Congress which annually brings together an international community of researchers and practitioners in the field of innovation or technological development in computing and related areas to discuss the latest advancements of the discipline. Participant can send in original and previously unpublished research articles in English, in any of the following disciplines: parallel processing, mechatronics, virtual reality, computer networks, computer security, intelligent computer technology, and any other related field. For more information, please visit http://www.cidetec.ipn.mx/cttc/ev/Paginas/index.aspx.
2015 CyberGIS All Hands Meeting (CyberGIS
September 15-17, 2015 – Reston, Virginia
Submission Deadline - May 31, 2015
Notification - June 30, 2015.
This meeting will provide a forum for sharing cutting-edge research, development, education and training experiences on science and technology of cyberGIS and related scientific problem solving.
To foster active participation, we invite submissions of position papers each with approximately 1000 words addressing innovative theories, methods, and applications of cyberGIS along with a 2-page biosketch of the first author. A position paper may not exceed 2 pages, and should conform to the following formatting requirements: 1) Times New Roman font type at a size of 11 points or larger; and 2) the margins must be at least one inch on all sides. The organizing committee will review your submission and if selected, will extend you an invitation.
Submissions should be sent via email to ahm15@cybergis.org with subject 'CyberGIS AHM'15 Position Paper'. Contributors of accepted position papers will be invited to present their work at the meeting. Travel awards supported by the National Science Foundation may be available for selected participants. To read further, please visit ```````````````````````
http://cybergis.cigi.uiuc.edu/cyberGISwiki/doku.php/ahm15/index.
Call for Abstracts: 2nd Annual omen in HPC Workshop
November 20, 2015 - Austin, Texas
Deadline for submission: 1 June 2015, 5pm GMT
In collaboration with Supercomputing 2015
As part of the second International Women in HPC workshop at ISC 2015 we invite female early-career researchers to present their work in a supportive environment that promotes their involvement in HPC research and applications, and provides opportunities for peer-to-peer networking and to meet female role models. Applicants must be female and either PhD candidates or early-career researchers who have been awarded their PhD within 5 years of July 2015.|
Submissions (papers or posters) are invited for the following categories:
• Extended abstract (max 500 words) for a hot topic 20-minute presentation on research in any area that makes use of high performance computing
• Short abstract (250 words max) for a poster in any area that makes use of high performance computing.
Full details can be found at www.womeninhpc.org.uk/isc15#Call.
Upcoming Conferences, Webinars, and Seminars
2015 Blue Waters Symposium
May 10-13, 2015 – Sunriver, Oregon
Leaders in high-performance computing and data innovation and discovery will gather to share results obtained using the Blue Waters petascale supercomputer, techniques to improve performance, the integration of computing and data, and education and workforce development related to high-performance computing and data. The symposium also serves as the official meeting for National Science Foundation PRAC principal investigators—all PIs with active Petascale Computing Resource Allocations are expected to attend. For more information, please visit http://illinois.edu/calendar/detail/772?eventId=32227683&calMin=201504&cal=20150428&skinId=9177.
NSF Day at Texas Tech University
May 20, 2015, Lubbock Texas
NSF Days are one day workshops that are designed to share with prospective NSF-funded PIs best practices and tips to writing strong proposals in order to secure funding for valuable research. NSF is trying to engage as many early career researchers in the region as possible (we have a capacity of 200!). For more information, please visit http://1.usa.gov/1DQLPCi.
Summer Workshop: Introduction to Computational Thinking
June 15-18, 2015 – Orem, Utah
This workshop aims to expose participants to and inspire them with new techniques, teaching materials, and applications to use computational models in the undergraduate curriculum. By bringing faculty and teachers from different disciplines together so that they can learn how to incorporate computational models into their classrooms and research projects, it will advance the use of computing in undergraduate science education. We desire to have participants from a broad range of disciplines, including computer science, mathematics, and the physical and life sciences. For more information and to register, please visit http://www.computationalscience.org/workshops/9979.
2015 Unidata Users Workshop
June 22-25, 2015 – Boulder, Colorado
Registration Deadline – May 20, 2015
The Unidata Users Committee invites you to join Unidata staff, community members, and distinguished speakers this June in Boulder, Colorado. The goal of this year's workshop is to raise awareness of important new trends in geoscience technology, including cloud computing, data management, and the place of the Python language in geoscience computing infrastructure. The workshop is a chance for the academic community and share hands-on activities, course materials, and ideas for improving research and education. The workshop will feature oral presentations, hands-on demonstrations of Unidata and related technologies, collaborative work sessions, and a poster session for those who wish to share their work with workshop participants. Additional details on speakers and session topics for the workshop is available on the 2015 Users Workshop page. For more information, please visit http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/events/2015UsersWorkshop/.
Research News From Around the World
Sinking Feeling: Study Suggests by Depleting Groundwater, California Increases Quake Risk
It’s not enough that the drought is toasting our lawns to an unlovely shade of umber, turning our forests into tinder and threatening our salmon runs with extinction; now we have to worry about it causing earthquakes. Well, only obliquely, and only to a small degree. It’s not so much that the lack of rain and snowpack is directly ratcheting up seismicity in the Golden State. Rather—according to a study published online in the journal Nature—temblor frequency seems on the upswing in Central California because of groundwater depletion. And our aquifers, of course, are recharged by precipitation (or not recharged, as is the current parched case). Actually, the process has been going on for decades, rain, snow, or their lack, notwithstanding—ever since intensive agriculture began in the Central Valley, in fact. Before Euro-American settlement, the valley was a vast complex of wetlands and lakes. To read more, please visit http://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2014-05-16/sinking-feeling-study-suggests-depleting-groundwater-cal.
UC San Diego Speeds Up Simulations
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have developed a new family of methods to significantly increase the speed of time-resolved numerical simulations in computational grand challenge problems. Such problems often arise from the high-resolution approximation of the partial differential equations governing complex flows of fluids or plasmas. The breakthrough could be applied to simulations that include millions or billions of variables, including turbulence simulations. Modern computers are generally built from commodity hardware developed for serving and surfing the web. When applied to cutting-edge problems in scientific computing, computers built from such general-purpose hardware usually spend most of their time moving data around in memory, and the hardware dedicated to floating point computations (that is, the actual addition and multiplication of numbers) spends most of its time idle. The small memory footprint of the new schemes developed at UC San Diego means that numerical problems of a given size will run much faster on a given computer, and that even larger numerical problems may be considered. To read further, please visit http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=1713.
PSC’s Blacklight "Trains" Video Search System for Competition Victory
A good example that we live in the era of Big Data is that, as we’ve moved from super-8-film home movies to ever-present smartphones, we’ve all begun to generate so much visual imagery that we seldom look at a given video more than once. Worse, when we do want to find a video clip, it’s lost among thousands of others.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
Machine intelligence researchers Shoou-I Yu and Lu Jiang, working with colleagues on Carnegie Mellon University’s Alexander Hauptmann’s Informedia project and at PSC have developed E-Lamp, a system of “event detectors” designed to search for events in videos without human intervention. Such a detector could help us all keep better tabs of our videoelectronic lives. To read further, please visit http://www.psc.edu/index.php/teaching-the-machine.
TACC Hosts 3rd National Data Service Consortium in Austin
The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin this week hosted the National Data Service (NDS) Consortium's third meeting, which included the first tutorial session introducing the capabilities of the NDS Labs facility. he NDS Consortium is an emerging organization working to advance the frontiers of discovery and innovation by enabling open sharing of data and increasing collaboration within and across fields, disciplines, and institutions. This will be achieved by developing an open environment of federated, interoperable, and integrated national-scale services. To read further, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/-/tacc-hosts-3rd-national-data-service-consortium-in-austin.
Educator News, Conferences, and Opportunities
Shifts in Computer Science Interest
Inside Higher Ed
A new study presented at the American Educational Research Association's 2015 annual meeting found although interest in computer science among both men and women has fluctuated over the last four decades, women have consistently been underrepresented. The study is based on the responses of first-year, full-time students at four-year institutions drawn from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program's Freshman Survey run by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. The survey asks students about their intended majors, so the study does not reflect what degrees students actually pursued. The study found interest in computer science among both men and women spiked in the early 1980s and the late 1990s, but the share of women expressing interest in computer science has been in decline since the early 1980s. To read further, please visit https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/21/study-measures-causes-gender-gap-computer-science.
2015 Lunar Workshop for Educators Teaching Grade 6-9
July 6-10, 2015 - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
July 13-17, 2015 - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, mission is sponsoring a pair of workshops for educators of students in grades 6-9. Each workshop will focus on lunar science, exploration and how our understanding of the moon is evolving with the new data from current and recent lunar missions. Workshop participants will learn about these and other recent discoveries. They will reinforce their understanding of lunar science concepts; gain tools to help address common student misconceptions about the moon; and interact with lunar scientists and engineers. Participants will work with LRO data and learn how to bring the data and information to their students using hands-on activities aligned with grades 6-9 Next Generation Science Standards. For more information and to register to attend, visit http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/lwe/index.html.
NSTA National STM Forum and Expo 2015
May 20-23, 2015 - Minneapolis Minnesota
The 2015 STEM Forum is a unique, focused event that brings together (informal and formal) educators, administrators, and exhibiting companies who are interested in and/or who have tools and resources to share that will ensure successful implementation of STEM education into our schools and communities. It is intended to provide resources for educators and organizations seeking to learn more about STEM education, associated outreach programs, partnerships, schools, and curricula. For complete information and to register, please visit http://www.nsta.org/conferences/stem.aspx.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
A Day at Code Camp
UChicago
It’s yet another wintry afternoon in Cobb Hall, but today things look a little different. The people rushing about the hallways are a lot tinier than the regular collegiate crowd. They’re more cheerful and energetic too, even though there’s no coffee in sight. And nobody seems to be talking about Kant. On this particular Saturday, Cobb is home to Code Camp, the capstone event for Females Excelling More in Mathematics, Engineering, and Science (FEMMES). An offshoot of a club founded at Duke in 2006, FEMMES is a student organization devoted to helping local middle school girls develop key skills in computer science. The group has been working all year to bring 100 students from the Hyde Park area to campus for a daylong program full of speakers, snacks, and hands-on activities. The day kicks off with a talk from keynote speaker Jenna Suarez of Code.org, a nonprofit that helps bring computer science education to groups underrepresented in the tech industry. To read more, please visit http://college.uchicago.edu/uniquely-chicago/story/day-code-camp.
Applications Now Open for Student Volunteers at SC15!
Application Deadline – June 1, 2015
This year the Student Volunteers program will accept an increased number of students, both local and international. Students will be required to work a maximum of 8 hours during the conference, which will give them more time to engage in important education and career-advancing activities such as tutorials, technical talks, panels, poster sessions and workshops. There is limited support for transportation expenses, such as airfare, but housing will be provided by the conference. Students who are unable to obtain funding for their transportation to and from the conference can apply for a travel grant. Diversity is recognized as an important initiative for the conference and we strongly encourage traditionally underrepresented groups in HPC to apply!. For more details and to apply please visit the SC15 website (http://sc15.supercomputing.org/conference-program/student-programs/student-volunteers). For questions regarding the program, email student-vols@info.supercomputing.org.
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowships\
Annual Application Deadlines - July 1 and November 1, 2015
The NASA Postdoctoral Program, or NPP, supports NASA's goal to expand scientific understanding of the Earth and the universe in which we live. Selected by a competitive peer-review process, NPP fellows complete one- to three-year fellowships that offer scientists and engineers unique opportunities to conduct research in fields of science relevant to NASA. U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents and foreign nationals eligible for J-1 status as a research scholar may apply. Applicants must have completed a doctorate or equivalent degree before beginning the fellowship, but may apply while completing degree requirements. Applicants who earned the Ph.D. more than five years before the deadline date are categorized as senior fellows; all applicants, no matter their category, must apply and become eligible for an NPP award via the same process. For more information and application procedures, please visit http://nasa.orau.org/postdoc/.
2015 NSBRI First Award Fellowship Program
Application Deadline - June 5, 2015
The National Space Biomedical Research Institute, or NSBRI, is accepting fellowship applications for the First Award Fellowship Program. The one-year fellowships are available in any U.S. laboratory carrying out space-related biomedical or biotechnological research. Applicants are required to submit proposals with the support of a mentor and an institution, and all proposals will be evaluated by a peer-review committee. Selected applicants receive a stipend, allowance for health insurance and travel funds for related scientific meetings. This year's applicants also can request to be considered to spend part of the fellowship in Russia, via a program involving NSBRI and the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. Detailed program and application submission information is available at http://www.nsbri.org/firstaward/. For more information about NSBRI's First Award Program, please visit http://www.nsbri.org/firstaward/.
Computational Science News of Interest
IBM Gets Closer to Real Quantum Computing
ExtremeTech
There’s been a lot of talk about Moore’s Law this month, now that it’s 50 years old, and whether it can continue in its current state or need additional adjustments. Either way, at some point, the law is going to break down — probably within the next 10 years — as there’s only so far we can shrink the transistors on a chip. Quantum computing is often considered one of the most logical successors to traditional computing. If pulled off, it could spur innovation across many fields, from sorting through tremendous Big Data stores of unstructured information — which will be key in making discoveries — to designing super materials, new encryption methods, and drug compounds without trial-and-error lab testing. For all of this to happen, though, someone has to build a working quantum computer. And that hasn’t happened yet, arguably aside from that giant (and controversial) D-Wave machine. To read more, please visit http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/204553-ibm-gets-closer-to-real-quantum-computing.
Apple Looking into Built-In Telephoto iPhone Camera Lenses
TechCrunch
Apple’s iPhone is just about the best smartphone camera you can get, but a new patent application provides a good indication of how it could get even better. The patent is for a “small form factor telephoto camera (via AppleInsider) and describes how the company might make a camera with a narrower field of view, but a much higher magnification factor, as well as how such a camera might be paired with a wider angle unit like the one that’s already used in your current iPhone to give you a range of options on a single smartphone device. The patent describes the mechanics behind creating a small lens suitable for use in a device like the iPhone, or the iPad and mobile Macs. In one version, the small camera would be built in such a way that you could adjust zoom using different focal ratios for true optical magnification. Apple’s current iPhone camera uses digital zoom, but this results in far more degradation of quality versus true optical magnification like those found in DSLR telephoto lenses, and compact cameras with traditional zoom lenses. To read more, please visit http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/30/apple-looking-into-built-in-telephoto-iphone-camera-lenses/#.0e434q:VhmN.
Disney Researchers Show Soft Sides With Layered Fabric 3D Printer
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research have developed a three-dimensional (3D) printer that layers laser-cut sheets of fabric to form soft, squeezable objects. Although the fabric printer is similar in principle to laminated-object manufacturing, fabric presents cutting and handling challenges, which the researchers addressed in the design of the new printer. The printer includes an upper cutting platform and a lower bonding platform. Fabric is fed into the device, where a vacuum holds the fabric against the upper cutting platform while a laser moves below it, cutting a rectangular piece out of the fabric. The laser then cuts the layer's desired two-dimensional shapes within that rectangle. To read further, pleas visit http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/dr-drs041615.php.
Social Media
Google Wants to Speed Up the Web With Its QUIC Protocol
TechCrunch
Google recently disclosed about half of all requests from Chrome to Google's servers are now served over its experimental, low-latency Internet transportation protocol over [User Datagram Protocol] UDP called Quick UDP Internet Connection (QUIC). The protocol is often used by gaming, streaming media, and Voice over Internet Protocol services. QUIC aims to combine some of the best features of UDP and [Transmission Control Protocol] TCP with modern security tools. A browser using QUIC can immediately start talking to a server it has talked to before. In addition, QUIC features new tools such as congestion control and automatic re-transmissions, which make the protocol more reliable than pure UDP. "QUIC allows us to test and experiment with new ideas, and to get results sooner," says Google's development team. To read further, please visit http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/18/google-wants-to-speed-up-the-web-with-its-quic-protocol/#.kvst5w:c1SG.
Facebook Adds Free Video Calling to Messenger
ComputerWorld
Users can now place free video calls with Messenger, as Facebook continues to extend the app beyond simple text-based chats. With the feature, Facebook is also taking a jab at competing products like Apple's FaceTime, Microsoft's Skype and Google Hangouts. Facebook previously allowed video calling through its site on the desktop, but not within its Messenger app. The video calling feature is available in the iOS and Android Messenger apps. iOS users will be able to video chat with Android users, and vice versa. It began rolling out Monday in the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries including Mexico, Nigeria and Uruguay, with availability in more regions slated for the coming months, Facebook said in a blog post. The feature arrives as Facebook makes Messenger a platform for a variety of digital tasks. Other app developers can now integrate their software into Messenger, and users will soon be able to interact with businesses via the app to check the status of their orders. In March, Facebook began letting Messenger users send each other money through the app. Messenger already handles more than 10 percent of all Internet-based voice calls, according to Facebook. The company sees video as an important extension of its functionality, especially when a voice call won't do. To start a video call, users tap the video camera icon in the upper right corner of the chat window. With Messenger now available on the desktop, the feature could become a useful communications tool for businesses. It's designed to work over Wi-Fi and LTE even when the signal strength is low. To read more, please visit http://www.computerworld.com/article/2915149/video-conferencing/facebook-adds-free-video-calling-to-messenger.html.
Facebook Says EU's Privacy Investigations Hurt Innovation, Economy
CNET
The world's largest social network has a message for the European Union: stay the course or risk hurting our users.In a lengthy editorial published Wednesday, Facebook's vice president of public policy in Europe, Richard Allan, issued a retort to European regulators who have started investigations into the company's privacy practices. Allan argues that the many countries now investigating Facebook are undermining European law and could ultimately hurt both Facebook's users and smaller Internet companies trying to become the next Facebook. Some EU countries are at odds with Facebook -- which has 1.4 billion users worldwide, including 83 percent active outside the US and Canada -- over how regulations should be handled in the euro zone. Earlier this month, privacy regulators in France, Spain, Italy and elsewhere launched probes into how Facebook collects user data. They're most interested in how Facebook combines its own information with that from the other companies it owns, like photo-sharing service Instagram, as well as how it tracks people after they have used Facebook's "like" button. To read more, please visit http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-says-eus-privacy-investigations-hurt-innovation-economy/.
