HPC Happenings
Expect a Stampede at TACC – Save the Date
March 27, 2013 – 3:00pm-5:00pm CT
The Texas Advanced Computing Center extends an invitation to join the celebration for the official dedication of Stampede - A World-Class Supercomputer to Enable Scientific Discoveries. Details to follow at http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/stampede-dedication-save-the-date.
Indiana University’s Mason Cluster to Join XSEDE SP Participation
Indiana Universities’ Mason cluster will be joining the XSEDE as an SP with a target date of April 1, 2013 for startup type allocations. The SP Coordination team has started discussions with the Indiana University team to make this happen. For questions, please contact Victor Hazlewood at vhazlewo@utk.edu.
San Diego High School Student Wins NCWIT Award
Noa Glaser, SDSC high school intern and Torrey Pines High School senior has been selected as a National Winner of the 2013 National NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing. She is being recognized for her computing-related aspirations and for her demonstrated, outstanding aptitude and interest in information technology/computing, solid leadership ability, academic history, and plans for post-secondary education. Ms. Glaser will be honored on March 9, 2013. For more information on this program, please visit http://ww2.ncwit.org/award/award.index.php.
HPC Call for Participation
International Conference in Computational Science – Call for Participation
June 5-7, 2013 – Barcelona, Spain
WEAIB 2013 Submission Deadline - January 15, 2013
This year the International Conference on Computational Science (ICCS 2013) will be held in beautiful Barcelona, Spain, June 5 - June 7, 2013 and two workshops will focus on education: “The Workshop on Teaching Computational Science” (WTCS 2013; http://webs.wofford.edu/shifletab/iccs) and “The Workshop on Educational Approaches for Integrating Bioinformatics into Computer and Life Science” (WEAIB 2013; http://ccli.ist.unomaha.edu/iccs2013). Please let us know if you have any questions. For more information, please visit http://www.iccs-meeting.org/iccs2013/ <http://www.iccs-meeting.org/.
13th Annual CSTA Conference - Call for Proposals
July 15-16 2013 - Quincy, Massachusetts
Submission Deadline – January 24, 2013
The CSTA 2013 Program Committee seeks proposal submissions related to the practice of teaching and learning computer science and information technology in K-12. Proposals will be accepted for one-hour presentations or panels or for three-hour workshops. Review of proposals will occur shortly thereafter and notification of decision will be made on or about March 7, 2013. Successful proposers should expect to be asked to submit a reasonably final copy of their presentation by June 20, 2013. For more information, including proposal guidelines, please visit https://www.softconf.com/d/csta2013/.
Upcoming Conferences and Workshops.
2013 Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference
February 7-9, 2013 – Washington, DC
The 2013 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference has issued a call for participation, inviting submissions for panel discussions, student research posters, birds-of-a-feather sessions and workshops. Additionally, applications are now being accepted for the Doctoral Consortium and student scholarships to attend the conference. Confirmed speakers include Vint Cerf (Google VP and ACM President), Armando Fox (UC Berkeley), Anita Jones (University of Virginia), Jeanine Cook (New Mexico State University), Annie Anton (Georgia Tech), and Hakim Weatherspoon, (Cornell University), among others. For more information, please visit the http://tapiaconference.org/2013/.
UTEP Regional XSEDE Workshop
February 19 – 20, 2013 - UTEP University Library
Registration Deadline – January 18, 2013
The workshop agenda includes overviews of XSEDE, TACC, and UTEP computational, data analysis, visualization, and data storage resources and hands-on sessions on parallel programming, scientific visualization, and simulation and modeling tools for the classroom. There will be parallel tracks to allow training at different levels and coverage of different topics. Learn how you can harness the power of these resources to accelerate your research and enrich your teaching by registering for this free workshop at the XSEDE User Portal training calendar. (If you do not have an XSEDE portal user account, you will be prompted to create one before you can register for the workshop.) A pre-event survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZTHK5Y3 is required for your registration to be complete.
Emerging Researchers National Conference in STEM
February 28- March 2, 2013 – Washington, DC
The Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Education and Human Resources Programs (EHR) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Human Resource Development (HRD), within the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR). The conference is aimed at college and university undergraduate and graduate students who participate in programs funded by the NSF HRD Unit, including underrepresented minorities and persons with disabilities. The objectives of the conference are to help undergraduate and graduate students to enhance their science communication skills and to better understand how to prepare for science careers in a global workforce For more information, please visit http://www.emerging-researchers.org/.
7th International Technology, Education and Development Conference
March 4-6, 2013 – Valencia, Spain
The 7th International Technology, Education and Development Conference is an international forum to present and share your experiences in the fields of Education, Technology and Development. The attendance of more than 600 delegates from more than 70 countries is expected, being an annual meeting point for lecturers, researchers, academics, educational scientists and technologists from all disciplines and cultures. For more information, please visit http://www.iated.org/concrete2/login.php?event_id=15.
Research Features from Across the Country and Around the World
New '4-D' Transistor Is Preview of Future Computers
Purdue University News
Researchers at Purdue and Harvard universities have developed a transistor that consists of three nanowires made out of indium-gallium-arsenide. The three nanowires are progressively smaller, resulting in a tapered cross section that resembles a Christmas tree. The researchers say the transistors could enable engineers to build faster and more efficient and compact integrated circuits that generate less heat than existing devices. New research has shown that a device's performance can be improved by linking the transistors vertically in parallel. "Stacking them results in more current and much faster operation for high-speed computing," says Purdue professor Peter Ye. "This adds a whole new dimension, so I call them 4D." To read further, please visit http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2012/Q4/new-4-d-transistor-is-preview-of-future-computers.html.
U.S. Government Needs Cybersecurity Doctrine, Experts Say
Computerworld
A comprehensive cybersecurity policy could play a critical role in improving security vulnerability, according to a group of experts from technology and science think tanks. The experts have written "#Cyberdoc No Borders--No Boundaries," a book they hope will start a dialogue on U.S. cybersecurity doctrine. The book argues that the current patchwork of policies inhibits efforts to work with other countries, and provides little deterrence for groups that attack the country. The Battelle Memorial Institute's Timothy Sample, co-author of the book, says the U.S. will "lurch from crisis to crisis" without a doctrine that details the government's response to cyberthreats. A doctrine could address how the government will respond to attacks, what kinds of attacks it will respond to, ways to safely use the Internet, and other aspects of cybersecurity, says book co-author Michael Swetnam, chairman of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. To read further, please visit http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9234323/U.S._government_needs_cybersecurity_doctrine_experts_say?taxonomyId=17.
TAAC is Solving Society's Most Pressing Problems With Visualization
Vision is our most powerful sense and we use it for interpreting the world around us. It gives us the ability to process colors, shapes and differences, and provides us with a tremendously powerful capability when analyzing data. Visualization is the process by which we transform data into images and animations and is one of the most important, commonly used methods of analyzing and interpreting data. Visualization techniques allow us to convert numbers into visual representations that our brain can interpret. To read further, please visit http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/newsletter/1212/visualization.
A Bridge to the Quantum World: Dirac Electrons Found in Unique Material
University of Michigan News Service
University of Michigan researchers have found Dirac electrons in copper-doped bismuth selenide, a discovery that could lead to the development of quantum computers. Dirac electrons are particles with such high energy that they exhibit properties of both classical and quantum physics. The researchers were able to observe the Dirac electrons by cooling the material to cryogenic temperatures and exposing it to a strong magnetic field. The Dirac electrons within the copper-doped bismuth selenide can clump together into a new kind of qubit that changes the properties of the material in a way that is detectable to an observer but not to the qubits. The researchers say this phenomenon enables the qubits to carry out calculations without knowing they are being measured. To read further, please visit http://www.ns.umich.edu/new/releases/21012-a-bridge-to-the-quantum-world-dirac-electrons-found-in-unique-material.
DARPA Program Aims to Find, Shut Backdoor Malware Holes in Commercial IT Devices
Network World
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's) Vetting Commodity IT Software and Firmware (VET) program aims to develop systems that can verify the security of commercial IT devices. "Backdoors, malicious software, and other vulnerabilities unknown to the user could enable an adversary to use a device to accomplish a variety of harmful objectives, including the exfiltration of sensitive data and the sabotage of critical operations," according to DARPA. VET will developed a method for Department of Defense (DoD) analysts to produce a prioritized checklist of software and firmware components and broad classes of hidden malicious functionality. "The most significant output of the VET program will be a set of techniques, tools, and demonstrations that will forever change this perception," says DARPA's Tim Fraser. To read further, please visit http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/darpa-program-aims-find-shut-backdoor-malware-holes-commercial-it-devices.
Educator Curriculum and Information
Where are the Minorities in Computing?
Excerpt from article by Valerie Taylor and Richard E. Ladner
It is well recognized that increasing the diversity of the workforce is very important to the field of computing. In this article we focus on diversity within doctoral programs because it has a significant impact on diversity among both faculty members and researchers in industry and government labs. In particular, we focus on the source of minority students for graduate programs in computer science with respect to the following underrepresented groups: African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indian or Alaska Natives. In the December 2011 issue of the CACM, the authors published an article on the need to consider different sources of data when investigating trends about the demographics of the computing field. We use this as a starting point for this article to address the issue of where the minorities are with respect to the bachelor's degree because these students are the candidates for the graduate programs. To read further, please visit http://cra.org/resources/crn-archive-view-detail/where_are_the_minorities_in_computing1/.
CSEdWeek Faces of Computing Poster Contest Winners Announced
The Computer Science Teachers Association is pleased to announce the winners of the Faces of Computing poster contest as part of the Computer Science Education Week celebration. The winning posters were selected based on the creative design of images that reflect the diversity of student interests and experiences around computing. In the Elementary School Competition, the winners are 4th graders Khal Bashawaty, Tyler DiMartino, Danie Meder, and Sanjana Vakacharla and from Fraser Woods Montessori School in Newtown, CT. Their teacher is Ms. Patrice Gans. In the Middle School Competition, the winners are 8th graders Shaakira Bannister, Kayla Davis, Ayana McClanahan, and Freedom Watson from Kelly Miller Middle School in Washington, D.C. Their teacher is Mr. Carlos Baez. In the High School Competition, the winner is Jerome Williams from Lincoln Park High School in Chicago, Illinois. His teacher is Ms. Deb Wilson.Over a hundred posters were entered into this competition from 23 different schools. Fifteen states/districts were represented amongst the entries, including: CA, CT, DC, FL, GA, IL, MA, MI, NY, OR, PA, VA, WA. For more information, please visit http://csta.acm.org/Resources/sub/BrochuresPostersVideos.html.
UC San Diego Researchers Launch Innovative, Hands-on Online Tool for Science Education
Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego and at St. Petersburg Academic University in Russia, have developed a one-of-a-kind, hands-on online learning tool that weaves together for the first time science and programming education—and automatically grades homework too. “While modern biology is inundated with computation, biology students at U.S. universities are taught neither programming nor bioinformatics and as a result are unprepared for the challenges that await them in their own discipline,” said Pavel Pevzner, a computer science professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. “We provide a tool to fill that learning gap.” The new tool, called Rosalind (http://rosalind.info), diverges from large-scale, online open education platforms such as Coursera and Udacity. Instead of listening to a lecture, students are required to complete increasingly difficult problems at their own pace. To read further, please visit http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=1278.
Student Engagement and Information
Search for Summer 2013 Undergraduate Internship Opportunities
If you an undergraduate interested in pursuing research this summer, you can find out about paid summer 2013 undergrad research placements at http://www.pathwaystoscience.org/Undergrads.asp. This site offers over 800 research placements.
NCAR Offers Summer 2013 Opportunities for Undergraduate and Graduate Students
The SIParCS Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) offers graduate students and undergraduate students, who have completed their sophomore year by summer, significant hands-on R&D opportunities in high performance computing (HPC) and related fields that use HPC for scientific discovery and modeling. For more information, please visit http://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/siparcs.
Tuition and Stipend Support for Graduate Students
For those who plan to apply to graduate school, please visit http://www.pathwaystoscience.org/Grad.asp to find out more about financial support for graduate studies. This link includes information about Bridge to the Doctorate, IGERT and NSF Grad Research Fellowship programs that provide generous stipend and tuition support for students through the National Science Foundation.
NASA Opportunities for Undergraduate and Graduate Students
Find out information about NASA-supported internships, fellowships, and scholarships at intern.nasa.gov/<http://intern.nasa.gov/.
Career Opportunities
Administration Analyst II
HPC Group at Clemson University
Provide technical support for researchers using high-performance and high-throughput computing systems Provide direct assistance to High Performance Computing (HPC)/High Throughput Computing (HTC) users regarding use of available systems, commercial and custom application software, and training materials. Develop and maintain training materials. Develop software for high-performance computing applications using appropriate computer languages (Fortran, C, C++, R), libraries (MPI), programming models (OpenMP, CUDA, OpenCL), tools (TotalView), scripting languages (Python, Perl, bash), web programming (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP), databases (MySQL, SQLite), and applications (ABAQUS, ANSYS, COMSOL, MATLAB). For additional information, please visit http://www.clemson.edu/cao/humanresources/prospective/.
Systems Administrator (Berkeley Center for Structural Biology)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Req #75194
The Systems Administrator will be responsible for system administration for the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology (BCSB) research group. Beyond the system administration duties, the incumbent will also be involved in installation and maintenance of a variety of lab electronic and mechanical systems. Specifically, configuration and development of Delta Tau motion controllers and Wago IO systems. For more information and to apply, please visit https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=75194.
UNIX Systems Administrator
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Req #75048
Berkeley Lab, a pioneer in scientific research, has an immediate opening for a Senior Unix Systems Administrator in the IT Systems, Applications, and Middleware Group. Define and develop computing and storage system architectures. Manage the Laboratory’s production Unix/Linux servers that provide web, database, and application services for internal and external users. Work with development groups to provide systems engineering for upgrades and maintenance of existing and new web based applications. Provide assistance in the design and integration of applications and infrastructure components using industry accepted best practices. For more information and to apply, please visit https://lbl.taleo.net/careersection/2/jobdetail.ftl?lang=en&job=75048.
Last But Not Least – Computational News of Interest
Why Google's Ingress Game Is a Data Gold Mine
New Scientist
Google spinoff Niantic Labs recently released Ingress, the beta version of an invite-only Android game that uses ubiquitous and accurate augmented reality (AR) technology. The game has players annotate real-world objects with a virtual layer of information that is displayed on a smartphone's camera as they move around the game's environment. Ingress is tied to the real world using the phone's global positioning system. The combination of physical and virtual reality, using accurate location data to tie them together, places Ingress somewhere between an interactive map and true AR. Meanwhile, a detailed record of where all of the Ingress players go is a data gold mine for Google to use to improve its location-based services. Users in less well-covered areas can suggest that landmarks of interest to them should become new game portals by snapping a geotagged photo with their smartphones. To read further, please visit http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628936.200-why-googles-ingress-game-is-a-data-gold-mine.html.
Increasing Control Over Release of Information Leads People to Divulge More Online, Carnegie Mellon Researchers Find
Carnegie Mellon News
When users think they have more control over their personal information, they tend to increase their willingness to disclose sensitive information that allows them to be personally identified, according to a Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) study. The study examined how users respond when given control over their personal information, enabling them to choose how much they reveal about themselves. The researchers found that users given more privacy controls share more sensitive information with larger and riskier audiences. "People who felt more in control of their information took more privacy risks more often," says CMU professor Alessandro Acquisti. To read further, please visit http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2012/november/nov26_informationcontrol.html
