HPC in the News
Plants + HPC at NCSA
Many fields of research are seeing changes in how that research is conducted thanks to advances in technology. Plant science is one of those, and NCSA is playing a role in two large projects. Historically, successful trait selection in plant breeding has involved manual measurement of individual plants. This requirement limits the number of plants that can be evaluated, and the scope of properties that can be measured. A new grant from the Department of Energy to researchers at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and multiple partner institutions, including the University of Illinois and NCSA, will fund the development of a system to automate the measurement of plants using cameras and other sensors mounted on drones, tractors, and robots, and analysis of the resulting large data sets to facilitate the development of high-yielding strains of sorghum, a key bioenergy crop. The $8 million grant was one of several awarded by the DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture (TERRA) program. Todd Mockler, the Geraldine and Robert Virgil Distinguished Investigator at the Danforth Center, is the principal investigator. To read more, please visit http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/news/story/plants_hpc.
XSEDE Powers Polymer Research at MIT
Researchers at MIT are using XSEDE resources to study polymers, the chemical compounds used to make plastic, rubber, and more. Details of the project are contained in the paper “Tube Curvature Slows the Motion of Rod–Coil Block Copolymers through Activated Reptation.” Wang and Brad Olsen, project principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT, in collaboration with Alexei Likhtman, professor of mathematical physics at the University of Reading in the U.K., performed fundamental research on what are called rod–coil block copolymers, polymers with characteristics that make them good study models because not only are they are a class of organic electronics, they also have molecules that are part rigid and part flexible. Polymers similar to these might be used to make electronics that are lighter and more compact, or so flexible they could be rolled up; clothes that have stronger fibers; plastic automotive parts that are lighter and yet very durable; and plastic materials mostly composed of enzymes that could catalyze chemical reactions, explains Olsen. To read further, please visit http://insidehpc.com/2015/08/xsede-powers-polymer-research-at-mit/.
Seven NCAR Scientists Named AMS Fellows
Seven scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have been elected Fellows of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) for making outstanding contributions to the atmospheric sciences or related fields for a substantial period of time. The seven honorees are among 29 experts nationwide selected as fellows this year by the AMS, which has more than 13,000 members. They will be recognized at a ceremony in January at the AMS annual meeting in New Orleans. NCAR’s new AMS Fellows are: Jeffrey Anderson, Christopher Davis, Rolando Garcia, James Moore, Bette Otto-Bliesner, Chris Snyder, and Jothiram Vivekanandan. To read more, please visit https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/17611/seven-ncar-scientists-named-ams-fellows
Cloud Computing Finally Gets Some Startups
For years, getting into the business of renting out extra computing power through the cloud has been a bit like getting into the business of nuclear power. First, you have to spend a few hundred million dollars on ginormous hardware and the pricey software to run it. Next, you have to hire a team of Ph.D.s to make sure the equipment always runs pretty much perfectly, because one screw-up means a customer—probably a big corporate IT department—leaves forever. That formula is changing as cloud startups such as DigitalOcean and Backblaze begin to compete for customers with the likes of Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Google. The startups have managed to underbid the giants in certain markets by keeping expenses relatively low, either by writing their own versions of the software needed to run a cloud or by handcrafting the hardware needed to house one. “All the tools we’re using really pay dividends,” says DigitalOcean Chief Executive Officer Ben Uretsky. “I think that gives us a leg up.” Uretsky’s New York-based company sells its cloud services predominantly to software developers—whose priority is cheap storage and equipment they can customize. To read more, please visit http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-08/cloud-computing-finally-gets-some-startups.
XSEDE News from Partners and Friends
Star Trak: November 2015
Dazzling white Jupiter will rise in the east just after 2 a.m. as November begins and two hours earlier by month’s end. The giant planet will easily outshine the background stars of the constellation Leo the Lion. The best telescopic views will be when Jupiter is highest in the predawn hours. Its four brightest moons will be visible with binoculars. Venus and Mars will follow Jupiter into the morning sky about half an hour later at the start of the month. The two planets will immediately move away from Jupiter and have a close conjunction with each other. From Nov. 2 to 5 they will be about 1 degree apart, with brilliant white Venus more than 200 times brighter than red-orange Mars. The two will be closest on the morning of Nov. 3, when Venus will be just 0.7 degree to the lower left (east) of Mars. On these mornings, a medium-power telescope will show both planets in the same field of view. In the following several days, the crescent moon will pass close to each of these three planets as well as several bright stars. Before dawn on the morning of Nov. 26, the full moon will pass very close by the bright orange star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus the Bull. To read more, please visit http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2015/10/star-trak-november-2015.shtml. Brad Wheeler
Named Interim Dean for Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing
Bradley C. Wheeler, Indiana University vice president for information technology and chief information officer, has been appointed interim dean of the IU School of Informatics and Computing effective Nov. 1, subject to approval of the Board of Trustees. Wheeler, who will also continue in his current position, succeeds Robert B. Schnabel, who steps down as dean Oct. 31. The university is conducting a broad-ranging search to find a permanent successor. A member of IU's information technology leadership team for the past 14 years, Wheeler has led university-wide IT services for IU's eight campuses since his appointment in 2007 as vice president for information technology and chief information officer. He is also a professor of information systems in the IU Kelley School of Business. Previously, Wheeler served as associate dean for teaching and learning IT, associate vice president for research and academic computing, associate vice president for community source initiatives, dean of IT for the Bloomington campus and acting chief information officer. As interim dean of the IU School of Informatics and Computing, Wheeler will serve as the chief academic and administrative officer for the school and lead an organization of about 150 faculty, 100 staff and 3,500 undergraduate and graduate students across the school’s two campuses in Bloomington and Indianapolis. To read further, please visit http://news.iu.edu/releases/iu/2015/10/interim-school-of-informatics-computing-dean.shtml. .
It’s Really Rocket Science: Firefly Space System Designs Rocket with TACC’s Stampede Supercomputer
Back in 2014, Firefly CEO Tom Markusic noticed a void in the space industry. Small satellites, which have many uses from telecommunications to scientific research, could not easily launch into space. To fill this niche, Markusic founded Firefly Space Systems, the Austin-based startup that aims to provide low-cost space launch capabilities for the small satellite market. While most space companies can take up to a decade to design and launch a new rocket, Firefly plans to do it in less than two years. From concept to execution, their first engine test in September took less than a year — nearly inconceivable for the space industry. How do you make a small satellite rocket, and how do you make it fast? One key ingredient is supercomputing, which provides the power to rapidly test and retest design variations. For this supercomputing prowess, Firefly turned to their next-door neighbor, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). Through TACC’s Science Technology and Research Affiliates (STAR) program, Firefly runs simulations on Stampede, the 8th most powerful supercomputer in the world. In addition to allocations, the startup also receives technical support, visualization resources, and expertise from TACC staff, allowing them to make better business decisions. To read more, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/firefly/.
SC15 News
Reminder: SC15 Annual Conference
November 15-20, 2015 – Austin, Texas
HPC is transforming our everyday lives, as well as our not-so-ordinary ones. From nanomaterials to jet aircrafts, from medical treatments to disaster preparedness, and even the way we wash our clothes; the HPC community has transformed the world in multifaceted ways. For its 27th anniversary, the annual SC Conference will return to Austin, TX, a city that continues to develop new ways of engaging our senses and incubating technology of all types, including supercomputing. SC15 will yet again provide a unique venue for spotlighting HPC and scientific applications, and innovations from around the world. SC15 will bring together the international supercomputing community—an unparalleled ensemble of scientists, engineers, researchers, educators, programmers, system administrators and developers—for an exceptional program of technical papers, informative tutorials, timely research posters and Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions. The SC15 Exhibition Hall will feature exhibits of the latest and greatest technologies from industry, academia and government research organizations; many of these technologies making their debut in Austin. No conference is better poised to demonstrate how HPC can transform both the everyday and the incredible. For more information, please visit http://www.psc.edu/index.php/component/jevents/eventdetail/45/83/sc15-annual-conference?Itemid=1.
Call for Papers and Participation
Call for Participation - CLAW 2015: IEEE 1st International Workshop on Legal and Technical Issues in Cloud Computing
March 9-13, 2015 – Tempe, Arizona
Submission Deadline – December 7, 2015
The rapid emergence and uptake of cloud computing services brings a number of legal concerns. Existing (and proposed) regulatory and governance regimes place obligations on those who manage (process, use and collect) data. The end-users of applications provisioned in the cloud also have certain rights that must be respected: tenants and cloud providers bear various degrees of responsibility, which must be properly managed. From a technical perspective, these issues concern the capacity for management: the mechanisms that enable control and compliance within cloud services. While cloud computing has been a revolution in IT provisioning, concerns of interaction with law and policy are now gaining prominence. Recent discussion has concerned issues of locality, including where data physically resides and/or is processed (regional clouds), and the services/information available within a locale (such as the "right to be forgotten"). Further, despite the surge toward the cloud in many commercial contexts, some sectors are hesitant in adopting cloud services due to a mismatch between the legal environment and the technology. Such issues will adversely impact new directions such as the green cloud or incorporating the Internet of Things (IoT) through "Fog". For more information, please visit http://www.claw-workshop.org/.
Call for Papers: NAACL-HLT 2016: The 15th Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies
June 12-17, 2016 – San Diego, California
Submission Deadline – January 6, 2016
Notification Deadline – March 2, 2016
NAACL HLT 2016 will feature long papers, short papers, demonstrations, and a student research workshop, as well as associated tutorials and workshops. In addition, some of the presentations at the conference will be of papers accepted for the new Transactions of the ACL journal (http://www.transacl.org). The conference invites the submission of long and short papers on substantial, original, and unpublished research in all aspects of automated language processing and creation of language resources. The short paper format may also be appropriate for a small, focused contribution, a work in progress, a negative result, an opinion piece or an interesting application nugget. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the study of the following language areas, tasks, genres and approaches to language analysis:
* Linguistic Areas of Study *
- Discourse: anaphora resolution, discourse relation tagging, theories and systems for text organization evaluation, methods for analysis of dialog structure (spoken or written) and discourse semantics
- Morphology
- Phonology and phonetics
- Pragmatics
- Prosody
- Semantics: event, lexical, distributional, formal, extra-propositional, grounding and ontologies
- Tagging, chunking, syntax and parsing
For more information, please visit http://naacl.org/naacl-hlt-2016/.
Upcoming Conferences, Webinars, and Seminars
NSF PRAC Webinar
November 2, 2015
The purpose of this webinar is to describe the upcoming request for proposals for the “Petascale Computing Resource Allocation” solicitation (NSF 14-518), also known as PRAC. Specifically, the webinar will describe the goals of the solicitation, an overview of what constitutes a responsive proposal submission, details of the additional solicitation-specific review criteria that will be used to evaluate proposals, and other solicitation-specific proposal preparation requirements. The webinar will also present answers to some frequently asked questions, and provide potential submitters with an opportunity to ask questions to the cognizant program officer. For more information, please visit https://www.xsede.org/news/-/news/item/7370.
XSEDE HPC Monthly Workshop: Big Data
November 3, 2015 – Purdue University
XSEDE along with the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center are pleased to announce a one day Big Data workshop, to be held November 3, 2015. XSEDE, the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, is the most advanced, powerful, and robust collection of integrated digital resources and services in the world. It is a single virtual system that scientists and researchers can use to interactively share computing resources, data, and expertise. XSEDE integrates the resources and services, makes them easier to use, and helps more people use them. For more information, please visit https://portal.xsede.org/course-calendar/-/training-user/class/445/session/819.
Software-Defined Visualization: Data Analysis for Current and Future Cyber infrastructure by TACC
November 3, 2015 – Austin, Texas
Supercomputing system design has moved from raw performance to performance-per-watt, and as a result, supercomputing architectures are converging on processors with wide vector units and many processing cores per chip. Such processors are capable of performant image rendering purely in software. This improved capability is fortuitous, since the prevailing homogeneous system designs lack dedicated, hardware-accelerated rendering subsystems for use in data visualization. Reliance on this “software-defined” rendering capability will grow in importance since, due to growing data sizes, visualizations must increasingly be performed on the same machine where the data is produced. Further, as data sizes outgrow disk I/O capacity, visualization will be increasingly incorporated into the simulation code itself. Fortunately, a number of recently-developed software packages capture the improved rendering performance of general-purpose processors and expose that performance through common visualization toolkits. In this webinar, I will present a brief primer on rasterization and ray tracing and how Intel’s Software-Defined Visualization toolkits OpenSWR and OSPRay can be used. Upon completion of this webinar you will be familiar with the benefits and tradeoffs between rasterization and ray tracing for rendering; experience real-world use cases for software-defined rendering concepts; gain hands-on experience with software-defined rendering using TACC computing resources. For more information, please visit https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4906575406550438913.
The 6th Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE 2015)
December 16-17, 2015 – San Diego, California
CAIDA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will host the (invitation-only) 6th interdisciplinary Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE) at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, CA. The goal of this workshop series is to provide a forum for researchers, commercial Internet facilities and service providers, technologists, economists, theorists, policy makers, and other stakeholders to empirically inform emerging regulatory and policy debates. Both current events and trends, as well as our past discussions, shape the themes for this year's WIE. The FCC's latest open Internet order changes the landscape of regulation by using Title II as a basis for Internet regulation. We prefer not to use this workshop to debate what the court will do. Instead, we hope to discuss issues that will arise if the courts uphold the law. What are the implications of Title II regulation for some of the issues we have looked at in the past, or which are now emerging as important factors in shaping the future of the Internet? For more information, please visit http://www.caida.org/workshops/wie/1512/.
Seventh Workshop on Big Data Benchmarking
December 14-15, 2015 – New Delhi, India
The workshop is being organized in collaboration with the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Delhi Centre, and Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), Hyderabad. Formed in 2012, WBDB has become a leading international forum for discussing and disseminating the latest trends, challenges, and ideas around big data benchmarking and related applications scenarios in industry and research. Discussions initiated in these workshops have led to industry benchmark standards activities, including creation of the TPCx-HS (for Hadoop Systems) benchmark; formation of the TPC-BigBench subcommittee; and formation of the SPEC Research Group on Big Data. The 7th WBDB workshop will feature the first WBDB Benchmarking Challenge, to further promote the development of big data benchmarks.
- The winning submission will receive a US$1,500 travel stipend.
- The top three submissions will be invited to present their work at the meeting in India.
- Please monitor this website for further details about the challenge.
For more information, please visit http://clds.sdsc.edu/wbdb2015.in.
Research News From Around the World
University of Tennessee Study: Lack of ZZZZs May Zap Cell Growth, Brain Activity
Lack of adequate sleep can do more than just make you tired. It could short-circuit your system and interfere with a fundamental cellular process that drives physical growth, physiological adaptation, and even brain activity, according to a new UT study. Albrecht von Arnim, a molecular biologist based in the Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology, studied plants but said the concepts may well translate to humans. His team examined how protein synthesis—the process that determines how organisms grow and how cells renew themselves—changes over the course of the daily day-night cycle. He also explored whether any such changes are controlled by the organism’s internal time keeper, the circadian clock. Proteins are newly created in every cell by translating messages made from the cell’s own DNA, the genome. Von Arnim’s findings, published in the journal Plant Cell, show not only that protein synthesis activity changed over the course of the day, but also that it was under the influence of the circadian clock. To read more, please visit http://tntoday.utk.edu/2015/10/30/study-lack-zzzzs-zap-cell-growth-brain-activity/.
ORNL Research: Chemical Complexity Promises Improved Structural Alloys for Next-Gen Nuclear Energy
Designing alloys to withstand extreme environments is a fundamental challenge for materials scientists. Energy from radiation can create imperfections in alloys, so researchers in an Energy Frontier Research Center led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are investigating ways to design structural materials that develop fewer, smaller flaws under irradiation. The key, they report in the journal Nature Communications, is exploiting the complexity that is present when alloys are made with equal amounts of up to four different metallic elements. Radiation can harm spacecraft, nuclear power plants and high-energy accelerators. Nuclear reactions produce energetic particles—ions and neutrons—that can damage materials as their energy disperses, causing the formation of flaws that evolve over time. Advanced structural materials that can withstand radiation are a critical national need for nuclear reactor applications. Today, nuclear reactors provide one-fifth of U.S. electricity. Next-generation reactors will be expected to serve over longer lifetimes and withstand higher irradiation levels. To read further, please visit https://www.ornl.gov/news/chemical-complexity-promises-improved-structural-alloys-next-gen-nuclear-energy.
UC San Diego Develops New Computational Strategy Finds Brain Tumor-Shrinking Molecules
Patients with glioblastoma, a type of malignant brain tumor, usually survive less than 15 months following diagnosis. Since there are no effective treatments for the deadly disease, University of California, San Diego researchers developed a new computational strategy to search for molecules that could be developed into glioblastoma drugs. In mouse models of human glioblastoma, one molecule they found shrank the average tumor size by half. The study is published October 12 by Oncotarget. The newly discovered molecule works against glioblastoma by wedging itself in the temporary interface between two proteins whose binding is essential for the tumor’s survival and growth. This study is the first to demonstrate successful inhibition of this type of protein, known as a transcription factor. Transcription factors control which genes are turned “on” or “off” at any given time. For most people, transcription factors labor ceaselessly in a highly orchestrated system. In glioblastoma, one misfiring transcription factor called OLIG2 keeps cell growth and survival genes “on” when they shouldn’t be, leading to quick-growing tumors. To read more, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR20151020_BrainTumor.html.
Educator News, Conferences, and Opportunities
CSTA’s Faces of Computing Competition Guidelines
In honor of CSEdWeek, CSTA will be hosting its annual video competition. This year's theme will be "Computing for the Common Good." We are encouraging entries to show groups of students showcasing how computing is used to better the world. The video could promote their schools' computer science program and the ways it works to teach computing for good; it could demonstrate a potential or completed computer science project that exemplifies the theme; or it could highlight existing ways that computing is a force for good in any field. Another area to consider is volunteering in a way that involves computing. For example, maybe you work on a Wikipedia project or work with a non-profit on their website or managing data. These, too, can be included in the theme of Computing for the Common Good. The format of the video can be a commercial, a trailer, a public service announcement, or simply informational. For a description of the criteria, please visit http://www.csta.acm.org/Advocacy_Outreach/sub/FOC.html.
Take Part in CSEdWeek
December 7-13, 2015
Join CSTA in celebrating and advocating for computer science education during the 7th Annual CSEdWeek. Since it was established by Congress in 2009, CSEdWeek has brought together teachers, students, parents, administrators, and community members to promote awareness and heighten participation in our field. Please look at the resources below and consider doing something in your school, district, or state. This is the time to show the world all of the wonderful things you and your students are achieving together. Take advantage of the great resources and information available to CS teachers at the new CSEdWeek microsite. While you are there, don't forget to post your CSEdWeek events! For more information, please visit http://www.csta.acm.org/Advocacy_Outreach/sub/CSEdWeek.html.
Google – Computational Thinking for Educators Online Course
Now – December 20, 2015
Who: Humanities, Math, Science, and Computing educators. Now through December 20th.The goal of this course is to help educators learn about computational thinking (CT), how it differs from computer science, and how it can be integrated into a variety of subject areas. As a course participant, you will increase your awareness of CT, explore examples of CT integrated into your subject areas, experiment with examples of CT-integrated activities for your subject areas, and create a plan to integrate CT into your own curricula. The course is divided into five units, each focusing on the following:
· Introducing Computational Thinking: What is CT? – What is computational thinking, where does it occur, why should you care, and how is it being applied?
· Exploring Algorithms – Walk through examples of algorithms used in your subject area. Recognize why algorithms are powerful tools to increase what you can do and that technology can be useful for implementing and automating algorithms.
· Finding Patterns – Explore examples of patterns in various subjects and develop your own processes for approaching a problem through pattern recognition.
For more information, please visit http://sites.utexas.edu/trccsblog/google-computational-thinking-for-educators/.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
Think Computer Science 2015
Think Computer Science, an annual student event hosted by Microsoft Research Cambridge, is an educational, inspirational day that showcases the field of computer science. Through a programme of exciting talks, demonstrations and workshops, we hope to inspire students to consider the fantastic opportunities available to them in becoming part of the next generation of computer scientists. To register, please visit http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/events/thinkcomputerscience/.
Computational Science News of Interest
Google’s Mobile Quest May Lead to Android, Chrome Merger
CNet
For Google, smartphones, tablets, laptops and more may all soon answer to Android. The Mountain View, California, company is looking to bring its Android mobile software to laptop computers, according to a report Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. As part of that push, Google may annex some parts of its Chrome OS software, which mainly powers its Chromebook laptops, with Android, its operating system for smartphones and tablets, according to the report. The search giant plans to release this newly unified software in 2017, the report says, with Google showing it off for the first time next year. Chrome OS will continue to be available to other companies, but Google will focus on extending Android to laptops, according to the report. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment. While this would be a monumental development in the tech industry, it wouldn't make much difference to consumers. Of all the laptops shipped globally last year, Google's Chromebooks accounted for around 3 percent, according to research firm IDC. Chrome OS is different from Google's Chrome Web browser, which is widely used on Macs and PCs. To read more, please visit http://www.cnet.com/news/googles-mobile-quest-may-lead-to-android-chrome-merger/.
Google’s Project Loon Internet Balloons Will Soon Cover the Indonesian Sky
Extremetech
Google plans to deploy hundreds of Project Loon balloons in an effort to make fast internet more accessible to the citizens of Indonesia. The company will collaborate with Indonesian network operators for transmitting LTE-speed connections to around 100 million people in the region. To that end, Google has signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesian telecom operators — Indosat, Telkomsel, and XL Axiata. The testing of Project Loon airborne base station technology across Indonesia will start next year. In comparison with many countries in Africa and other parts of Asia, Indonesia is somewhat ahead in internet connectivity, but it still ranks lowest across southeast Asia. Going by the estimates, the southeast Asian nation has a population of around 256 million, which distributes across more than 17,000 islands. Local data suggests that only one-third of the population has access to the internet. However, internetsociety.org estimates Indonesia ranks 135th in the world with 15.8 percent internet user penetration. To read further, please visit http://www.extremetech.com/internet/217199-googles-project-loon-internet-balloons-to-layer-indonesian-sky.
Social Media
Instagram Launches New App 'Boomerang' For Making GIF-Like Videos
Forbes
Instagram built a new video app for making short, action-packed video loops. The standalone app, called “Boomerang,” rolled out on iOS and Android devices on Thursday. The bare-bones app combines photos into one-second videos that play forward and backward in a loop. Videos can be shot in portrait or landscape and automatically save to users’ camera rolls. Although Boomerang videos must be shot within the app, they can be shared on Instagram or elsewhere online. Fast and simple to use, the app doesn’t require users to have Instagram accounts. Boomerang bears some resemblance to “Vine,” a six-second video app owned by Twitter TWTR -3.57%, and the new Apple AAPL -0.84% “Live Photos” feature on the iPhone 6S. The new tool could help Instagram introduce more variety into its flagship app without complicating its interface. Boomerang isn’t Instagram’s first standalone app. This year, the photo-and-video sharing service launched the app “Layout” for making photo collages. Last August, Instagram created ”Hyperlapse” for making time lapse videos using stabilization technology. And last July, Instagram debuted a Snapchat-like photo sharing app called “Bolt.” To read more, please visit http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2015/10/22/instagram-launches-new-app-boomerang-for-making-gif-like-videos/.
