HPC in the News

Toni Collis’, a HPC Reasearcher at EPCC, Work with Women in HPC

Access’ Elizabeth Murray spoke with Toni Collis, applications consultant in HPC Research and Industry at Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) at the University of Edinburgh, about her work with Women in HPC, a network dedicated to women in the field. My role involves working with academics and industry partners to develop and improve software for supercomputers. I specialize in software used for molecular simulation and stencil-based codes, but have been known to work on a wide variety of topics. My work often involves working with academics with no prior software engineering or HPC training to help them improve their results so that they can make new scientific discoveries, which might not have been possible otherwise. I also take a similar role as part of the team that supports scientists using the UK National Supercomputing Facility, ARCHER. I run ARCHER training courses for academics using HPC, and I also teach part of EPCC’s MSc on High-Performance Computing and Data Science. To read more, please visit http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/news/story/women_in_hpc.

XSEDE HPC Workshop: OpenACC
December 3, 2015 – Varies Locations

XSEDE, along with the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois will be presenting an OpenACC GPU programming workshop on December 3, 2015. OpenACC is the accepted standard using compiler directives to allow quick development of GPU capable codes using standard languages and compilers. It has been used with great success to accelerate real applications within very short development periods. This workshop assumes knowledge of either C or Fortran programming. It will have a hands-on component using the Blue Waters which is deployed at NCSA. Due to demand, this workshop will be telecast to several satellite sites. This workshop is NOT available via a webcast. Please note that the hands-on accounts will be limited to 200 students, available across all sites and awarded by order of registration. For more information and find out the closest location to you, please visit http://www.psc.edu/index.php/training-category-list/2090-xsede-hpc-workshop-december-3-2015-openacc.

SDSC’s ‘Comet’ Supercomputer Blazing Trails via Science Gateways

Just six months after coming online, Comet, the new petascale supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, is already blazing new paths of discovery, thanks in part to its role as a primary resource for an assortment of science gateways that provide scientists across many research domains with easy access to its computing power. Simply described, science gateways provide web browser access to applications and data used by specific research communities. Gateways make it possible to run the available applications on supercomputers such as Comet, so results come quickly, even with large data sets. Browser access offered by gateways allows researchers to focus on their scientific problem without having to learn the details of how supercomputers work and how to access and organize the data needed. For the most recent quarter ended September 30, there were 3,310 gateway users across all XSEDE systems, according to data compiled by Wilkins-Diehr. There were 64,377 research jobs run by all gateways across all systems during the quarter, and 86 percent of them were run on either Comet or SDSC’s data-intensive Gordon supercomputer. To read more, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR20151113_Comet_Gateways.html.

 

XSEDE News from Partners and Friends

 

Cornell Leads New National Science Foundation Federated Cloud Project

Cornell University will lead a five-year, $5 million project sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build a federated cloud comprised of data infrastructure building blocks (DIBBs) designed to support scientists and engineers requiring flexible workflows and analysis tools for large-scale data sets, known as the Aristotle Cloud Federation. The federated cloud will be deployed at Cornell University (CU), the University at Buffalo (UB), and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and shared by seven science teams with over forty global collaborators. David Lifka, Director of the Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) will lead the project with colleagues Tom Furlani, Director of the UB Center for Computational Research, and Rich Wolski, Professor of Computer Science at UCSB. Initial users of the cloud federation—earth and atmospheric sciences, finance, chemistry, astronomy, civil engineering, genomics, and food science—were selected based on the diversity of their data analysis requirements and cloud usage modalities. Their use cases will demonstrate the value of sharing resources and data across institutional boundaries. The overarching goal is optimizing “time to science”—the actual time it takes a researcher to obtain their scientific results. The elasticity provided by sharing resources means researchers don’t have to wait for local resources to become available to get their science started. To read more, please visit http://www.cac.cornell.edu/about/news/aristotle.aspx.

Measuring the Activity of Our Now, Very Active Sun:

Three hundred years ago, the Sun began to wake up. For 70 years—from about 1645 to 1715—the Sun had been eerily quiet, with very few sunspots erupting on its surface. This prolonged period of muted activity, known as the Maunder Minimum, is the most dramatic so-called "grand minimum" ever recorded by humans. Scientists think that grand minima of a similar scale occurred before the Maunder Minimum and that more are likely in the future. But their origins remain an enigma. Recently, however, scientists at NCAR's High Altitude Observatory—using a 3-D computer model of the same wild and swirling magnetic processes that are thought to be unfolding in the real Sun—may have uncovered an important clue. Their model, which they hoped would simply mimic the Sun's more workaday (though still mysterious) 11-year solar cycle, spontaneously plunged into its own grand minimum. And then, maybe more importantly, it recovered. This is the first time such a simulation has slid into, and out of, a grand minimum. The result, published in The Astrophysical Journal, is exciting because it tells researchers that the fundamental equations they've used to program their models are providing a closer representation of the Sun. To read further, please visit https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/just-published/17743/capturing-sleeping-sun.

IU School of Education to Celebrate Opening of 'Maker Space'

The maker movement at the Indiana University School of Education now has a space of its own. The school is opening the Make Innovate Learn Lab, a creative space available for tinkering, crafting, prototyping and exploring creative solutions to pedagogical problems. The lab, known as the MILL, will formally launch with a ribbon-cutting ceremony from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16, beginning in the atrium of the Wright Education Building on the IU Bloomington campus. Paulo Blikstein, assistant professor of education at Stanford University, will be the featured speaker. Tours of the space, presentations and a question-and-answer session with School of Education faculty using the maker space for research will follow. The ceremony is open to the public. A video about the project is available online. The MILL provides opportunities for students and faculty who are involved in the increasingly popular maker culture or maker movement, which combines a do-it-yourself ethos with technological innovation to develop new approaches to teaching subjects ranging from art literacy to the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The lab, on the second floor of the Wright Education Building, is a multipurpose creative space equipped with a variety of art materials, sewing machines, hand tools and other equipment, including a laser cutter and 3-D printers. To read more, please visit http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2015/11/maker-space-launch.shtml.

Illinois to lead NSF Midwest Big Data Hub

In the future, big data could help unlock the mysteries of fields ranging from the natural sciences to medicine, and Illinois has a new opportunity to take a leading role. To accelerate advancements in the rapidly emerging field of big data analysis, the National Science Foundation has given $5 million to establish four regional Big Data Hubs. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will lead the Midwest Big Data Hub, a consortium of public and private partners. Catalyzed by an initial award from the National Science Foundation called SEEDCorn, which stands for “Sustainable Enabling Environment for Data Collaboration,” its goal is to provide a “big data brain trust” that will allow researchers to better collect, mine, and analyze data, leading to greater efficiency and, ultimately, a higher quality of life. Joining Illinois in the Midwest Big Data Hub are the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Iowa State University, Indiana University, the University of North Dakota and dozens of other partners from academia, industry, government, and non-governmental organizations. The Midwest BD Hub will focus its efforts on three sectors: To read further, please visit http://csl.illinois.edu/news/illinois-lead-nsf-midwest-big-data-hub.

Goddard to Discuss Theoretical Chemistry at the Ohio State University

The Pitzer Lecture in Theoretical Chemistry is organized and supported by the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) and The Ohio State Department of Chemistry. Goddard’s lecture is titled, “Progress in First Principles Based Multiscale Methods for Reaction Dynamics with Applications to Catalysis, Water Splitting, Electrochemistry, CO2 Reduction, Ductile Ceramics, and Novel Medicinal Therapies.” Goddard is the Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry and Applied Physics, and Director of the Materials and Process Simulation Center at the California Institute of Technology. Goddard has been published in 1,028 peer-reviewed articles – as of July 2013 – and has made many contributions to theoretical chemistry. Some of those contributions include generalized valance bond (GVB) method for ab initio electronic structure calculations and the ReaxFF force field for classical molecular dynamics simulations. He is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In August 2007, the American Chemical Society celebrated Goddard’s 70th birthday at its biannual national convention with a five-day symposium titled, “Bold Predictions in Theoretical Chemistry.” To read more, please visit https://www.osc.edu/press/goddard_to_discuss_theoretical_chemistry_at_the_ohio_state_university.

 

Call for Papers and Participation

 

XSEDE16 Call for Participation
July 17-21, 2016 – Miami, Florida
Submission Deadline - April 1, 2016
Notification – April 29, 2016

XSEDE16, the 5th annual conference, will showcase the discoveries, innovations, challenges and achievements of those who use and support XSEDE resources and services, as well as other digital resources and services throughout the world. This year's theme is DIVERSITY, BIG DATA, & SCIENCE AT SCALE: Enabling the Next-Generation of Science and Technology. The XSEDE16 conference is designed to engage and directly benefit diverse communities including students, educators, researchers and practitioners across all fields of study and scholarly research, with particular emphasis placed on engaging under-represented minorities, women, and people with disabilities. The conference will provide numerous opportunities for developers, applications teams, students, innovators, CIOs, IT staff, and policy makers from academia, government, industry and other organizations to engage in discussions that will assist them in significantly advancing their effective utilization of digital resources. From experts in the field, to people who are novices to the applications of digital resources, the XSEDE16 Conference will provide a range of formal and informal opportunities for diverse communities to interact and address their needs and interests. Full papers will be included in the Conference Proceedings and submitted to the ACM Digital Library. For more information, please visit https://conferences.xsede.org/web/xsede16/call-for-participation.

National Science Foundation Workshop on Applications and Services in the Year 2021
January 27-28, 2016 – Washington D.C.
Submission Deadline – November 20, 2015
Notification – December 1, 2015

The NSF "Looking Beyond the Internet" planning group led by Chip Elliott, Dave Farber and Larry Landweber is conducting a series of workshops intended to uncover new research opportunities in the broad area of potentially integrated infrastructure for the year 2021 Internet, Cloud, and Wireless/Mobile domains. The goal is to engage the research community and identify potentially transformative network and infrastructure architectures, enabling technologies and applications in three broad categories: software-defined infrastructure and exchanges low-latency and highly resilient city-scale networks (both wired and wireless), and novel applications and services that leveragethese new technologies for transformative benefit. Today's digital infrastructure is undergoing deep technological changes and new paradigms are rapidly taking shape in both the core and edge domains. These paradigms leverage the growing footprint of ultra-high-speed broadband networks, pervasive wireless, cloud computing, and software defined infrastructure and are positioned to connect smart/mobile devices, as well as their data on a massive scale. This has the potential to enable applications and services in the decade beginning in 2021 that will transform and enhance the quality of people's lives. In addition, these new technologies may bridge and unite today's cutting edge applications such as the Internet-of-Things, Big Data Analytics, Robotics, Industrial Internet, and Immersive Virtual/Augmented Reality, yielding application environments that are not obvious or even possible at this time. For more information, please visit https://web.stanford.edu/~allison/looking-beyond-the-internet.html.

 

SC15 News

 

SC15: Understanding User-Level Activity on Today's Supercomputers with Xalt

Robert McLay of TACC co-leads a session at the SC15 supercomputing conference about XALT, a software tool that drills down on supercomputer analytics to the level of individual batch submissions, users, and binaries. Robert McLay manages the software tools group in high performance computing at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. Dr. McLay is one of the developers of XALT, a software tool developed with funding by the National Science Foundation. XALT tracks user codes and environments on a computer cluster. Robert McLay and Mark Fahey of the Argonne National Laboratory will be co-leading a session called "Understanding User-Level Activity on Today's Supercomputers with XALT" at SC15. The SC15 supercomputing conference takes place in Austin, November 15-20, 2015. SC15 showcases the latest in high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis to advance scientific discovery, research, education and commerce. To read more, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/-/sc15-understanding-user-level-activity-on-today-s-supercomputers-with-xalt.

 

Upcoming Conferences, Webinars, and Seminars  

 

Leveraging Distributed Databases in CyberGIS
December 4, 2015 – Urbana – Champaign, Illinois

This course focuses on the technologies for Big Data management by introducing a suite of state-of-the-art distributed databases, specifically, MongoDB, Cassandra and Redis. In particular, we will discuss what distributed databases are, when and how to use them, and what are the key differences among them. We will showcase the functionalities of these distributed databases with a focus on their applications for geospatial Big Data. In addition, through the crafted hands-on sessions, participants will learn how these distributed database are deployed and configured in different computing environment, as well as how to work with the spatial databases, e.g. loading and querying the data. For more information, please visit http://illinois.edu/emailer/newsletter/83994.html.

 

Research News From Around the World

 

Looking At Swells in 3D

Scientists have long been interested in studying how winds influence ocean waves.  NCAR Senior Scientist Peter Sullivan wanted to examine the relationship in reverse: How do waves affect the atmosphere? The result is this striking 3D animation showing the influence of ocean waves on the air above. While strong winds from storms create waves on the ocean surface, those waves don’t just stop. They travel away from the storm, sometimes thousands of miles, to areas with lighter winds. There, in those new areas, the waves, which have become swells, influence the atmosphere. Understanding how this happens provides insight into global weather and climate patterns, as well as into major storms such as hurricanes, which draw energy from the ocean. Sullivan simulated what would happen if a spectrum of small and big waves moved into an area with light winds. He used a technique called large eddy simulation, first developed by NCAR scientists in the 1960s to account for turbulence in computer models. To read more, please visit https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/perspective/17759/looking-swells-3d.

Energy-Efficient Reaction Drives ORNL Biofuel Conversion Technology

A new study from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory explains the mechanism behind a technology that converts bio-based ethanol into hydrocarbon blend-stocks for use as fossil fuel alternatives. Scientists have experimented for decades with a class of catalysts known as zeolites that transform alcohols such as ethanol into higher-grade hydrocarbons. As ORNL researchers were developing a new type of zeolite-based conversion technology, they found the underlying reaction unfolds in a different manner than previously thought. The researchers’ analysis found that this energy-consuming intermediary step is not necessary for the conversion to happen. Instead, an energy-producing “hydrocarbon pool” mechanism allows the zeolite catalysts to directly produce longer hydrocarbon chains from the original alcohols. ORNL researchers tracked the molecular transition in labeling experiments with deuterium, a hydrogen isotope, to confirm the hydrocarbon pool mechanism. The research, supported by DOE’s BioEnergy Technologies Office, has implications for the energy efficiency and cost of catalytic upgrading technologies proposed for use in bio-refineries. To read further, please visit https://www.ornl.gov/news/energy-efficient-reaction-drives-ornl-biofuel-conversion-technology.

 

Educator News, Conferences, and Opportunities

 

Colorado Science Conference
November 20, 2015 – Denver, Colorado

CAR Center for Science Education staff members Lisa Gardiner, Eileen Carpenter, Marc Mueller and Randy Russell are presenting four workshops at the Colorado Science Conference for Professional Development on November 20, 2015 in Denver, Colorado. The Colorado Science Conference is a professional development event for teachers that is not open to the general public. Registration is open till November 17th. For more information and to register, please visit http://scied.ucar.edu/events/colorado-science-conference-2015.

NIMBioS: New Approaches to Assess Science Education and Research Efforts

What works in science and what doesn’t and how do we know? As the academic community faces greater scrutiny from external funders as to how and why research or education programs work, the need for external evaluation has never been more apparent. The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) is now offering evaluative services to aid scientific research and education efforts. The newly formed NIMBioS Evaluation Services was established to provide independent, rigorous and transparent formative and summative evaluations of both research and educational programs in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) sector, particularly programs that are interdisciplinary. NIMBioS uses a systems-based model of evaluation, which examines the organization as a whole, assesses the quality and significance of outcomes while still examining the inputs and processes leading to outcomes. NIMBioS also incorporates new research methods, such as bibliometrics to analyze publication output, network analysis to examine cross-disciplinary collaborations, and mapping of scientific output. To read further, please visit http://tntoday.utk.edu/2015/11/13/nimbios-approaches-assess-science-education-research-efforts/.\

 

Student Engagement and Opportunities

 

NCAR’s SIParCS Program for Undergraduates
Application Deadline – January 16, 2016
Location – Boulder, Colorado

The SIParCS Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research is aimed at university students who are interested in pursuing a career in such areas as:

• Computational science
• Data analysis
• Geostatistics
• Computer science
• Visualization
• Computational geosciences

The goal of the SIParCS program is to make a long-term, positive impact on the quality and diversity of the workforce needed to use and operate 21st century supercomputers. Graduate students and undergraduate students (who have completed their sophomore year by summer 2015) gain significant hands-on experience in high-performance computing and related fields that use HPC for scientific discovery and modeling. This program embeds students as summer interns in the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, an organization within NCAR charged with provisioning supercomputing and data systems to the geosciences research community. The roles of service and research in CISL support NCAR’s broad scientific mission of discovery in the atmospheric and related sciences. For more information, please visit https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/siparcs.

 

Computational Science News of Interest             

 

SpaceX Completes Testing of Superdraco Engines (with Video)

SpaceX and NASA announced that the propulsion system designed to safely abort the upcoming crewed Dragon capsule — dubbed SuperDraco — has been successfully fired 27 times and completed development testing. The SuperDraco thrusters are scaled up versions of the small Draco thruster used for maneuvering and docking control on the upper stages of the Falcon 9 rocket, the upcoming Falcon Heavy, and the Dragon spacecraft. SuperDraco provides roughly 200x more thrust than its little brother, and is designed for a variety of use-cases and capabilities. Each spacecraft will be fitted with eight SuperDraco thrusters, and each thruster provides roughly 1/9 the performance of a single Merlin 1D. The Falcon-9 launches with nine Merlin 1D engines, to give you an idea of how the systems compare. SuperDraco is a 3D printed engine that’s designed to be throttled from 20% to 100% of thrust and can be restarted multiple times. The SuperDraco engines are going to be used to ensure that a crew capsule can abort a mission safely and either land or splashdown. Spacecraft that carry the SuperDraco system will also have redundant parachutes to ensure that the crew’s survival doesn’t depend on a single mechanism, and the SuperDraco engines have enough thrust to safely abort a mission even with one engine failure. To read more, please visit http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/218020-spacex-completes-testing-of-superdraco-engines-with-video.

Ford to Test Autonomous Vehicles at Mcity
TechNewsWorld

Ford on Friday announced that it will be the first automaker to test its autonomous vehicles at Mcity, a full-scale simulated urban environment that was developed as part of the University of Michigan's Mobility Transformation Center. The site will allow Ford to test its autonomous vehicle fleet close to its Dearborn, Michigan, headquarters, taking advantage of the diverse roads and realistic neighborhoods Mcity offers. The Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle, which includes driver-assist technology such as including front-facing cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors and LiDAR systems, will undergo testing. The Mcity facility opened in July. It was designed to replicate an urban environment, complete with real-world scenarios that would be difficult to re-create on public roads -- such as a vehicle that runs a red light. The location includes street lights, crosswalks, lane delineators, curb cuts and even bike lanes as well as trees, hydrants and sidewalks. It also offers traffic-control devices and construction barriers to help simulate those things that break up the driving routine. To read further, please visit http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Ford-to-Test-Autonomous-Vehicles-at-Mcity-82744.html.

 

Social Media

 

Facebook Activates 'Safety Check' During Paris Attack
CNN

Facebook users who were in Paris during the Friday night terror attacks were able to notify friends and family that they were safe through the site's "Safety Check" tool. Users began getting notifications that friends who were in Paris were safe on Friday evening as those in the area were able to check in. The "Safety Check" tool was launched in 2014 and has been used five times. This is the first time the feature has been used in a non-natural disaster setting. A Facebook spokeswoman told CNNMoney that the site did not immediately have the numbers to share on how many were marked safe in Paris due to the feature just being activated. When first launched, Facebook noted that "Safety Check" would help users let friends and family know they are safe, check on others in the area, and mark friends as safe. Facebook determines the location of a user in the area by "looking at the city you have listed in your profile, your last location if you've opted in to the Nearby Friends product, and the city where you are using the internet," according to its site. To read further, please visit http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/13/media/facebook-safety-check-paris-attack/index.html?iid=Lead.