XSEDE Happenings
XSEDE Scholars Win First Place in XSEDE12Cluster Competition
An integral part of XSEDE12, the inaugural conference of the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment held in July, was the inclusion of a day-long Student Programming Contest, and a group of XSEDE Scholars from several universities earned the top honors. The programming competition engages students and creates an excitement for high-performance computing. Participants attending the Chicago conference included high school, undergraduate and graduate students, who formed 11 teams representing Clark Atlanta University, the University of Michigan, the University of Notre Dame Summer Scholars Program, and the XSEDE Scholars program. Each team received identical computational resources -- a LittleFe unit running the Bootable Cluster CD software stack -- and a set of 10 problems from various scientific problem domain areas, and they had seven hours to complete solutions to the problem set and submit them to contest organizers. The winners were announced during the awards luncheon held on the final day of the conference.
Petascale Day is Coming on October 15, 2012
"Petascale" refers to computing and data in the quadrillions, like the more than 11 quadrillion calculations Blue Waters will be able to perform and the more than 380 quadrillion bytes that will be available in NCSA's new tape archive. In scientific notation, 1 quadrillion is 10 to the 15th (1015). So on 10.15 (October 15) NCSA will celebrate PETASCALE DAY! We're planning a variety of informative and fun activities, and we hope our science and engineering partners, other campus units, and other computing centers will be inspired to create their own celebrations. Stay tuned to petascale.ncsa.illinois.edu for updates. For more information, please visit http://petascale.ncsa.illinois.edu/.
Visit XSEDE in Booth2031 at SC12
November 12-16, 2012 – Salt Lake City, Utah
Visit the XSEDE booth at SC12 and meet some of the nation’s top computational researchers and technical staff as they share their knowledge and expertise. Learn more about XSEDE and take away some great giveaways for the whole family. For more information, please visit http://sc12.supercomputing.org/.
Upcoming Conferences and Workshops
HUBbub 2012: The HUBzero Conference
September 24-25, 2012 – Indianapolis, Indiana
HUBzero is a platform for creating web sites that support scientific research, education, and collaboration. Released as open source during HUBbub 2010 and a new version being released this year at HUBbub 2011, the HUBzero Platform is the basis of nanoHUB.org and 25 other sites, delivering hundreds of scientific tools and seminars to more than 450,000 visitors each year. HUBzero is supported by a consortium of universities including Purdue, Indiana, Clemson, and Wisconsin. See how the unique HUBzero solution has empowered a wide spectrum of projects in nanotechnology, healthcare research, and other areas of engineering and science. Learn through hands-on tutorials how to set up your own hub using HUBzero's open source software, how to create and publish scientific tools on your hub, how to connect the tools to computing clusters and other Grid resources, and how to add new capabilities to the platform For more information and to register, go to: http://hubzero.org/hubbub.
8th IEEE International Conference on eScience
October 8-12, 2012 – Chicago, Illinois
Researchers in all disciplines are increasingly adopting digital tools, techniques and practices, often in communities and projects that span disciplines, laboratories, organizations, and national boundaries. The eScience 2012 conference is designed to bring together leading international and interdisciplinary research communities, developers, and users of eScience applications and enabling IT technologies. The conference serves as a forum to present the results of the latest applications research and product/tool developments and to highlight related activities from around the world. Also, we are now entering the second decade of eScience and the 2012 conference gives an opportunity to take stock of what has been achieved so far and look forward to the challenges and opportunities the next decade will bring. A special emphasis of the 2012 conference is on advances in the application of technology in a particular discipline. Accordingly, significant advances in applications science and technology will be considered as important as the development of new technologies themselves. Further, we welcome contributions in educational activities under any of these disciplines. For more information, please visit http://www.ci.uchicago.edu/escience2012/
SACNAS
October 11-14, 2012 - Seattle, Washington
Registration Deadline – September 12, 2012
The 2012 SACNAS National Conference "Science, Technology, and Diversity for a Healthy World" will take place in Seattle, Washington. Join over 3,500 attendees for four days of scientific research presentations, professional development, networking, exhibits, culture, and community. One of the largest annual gatherings of minority scientists in the country, the interdisciplinary, inclusive, and interactive SACNAS National Conference motivates and inspires. For more information and to register, please visit https://sacnas.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=42.
EDUCAUSE
November 6-9, 2012 - Denver, Colorado
The EDUCAUSE Annual Conference is the premiere gathering for higher education IT professionals. It provides content and exploration of today's toughest technology issues facing campuses around the world, and convenes some of the brightest minds in the community. When colleagues from around the world converge with some of the most innovative corporate solution providers, you have an event that creates invaluable networking opportunities and professional development. For more information, please visit http://www.educause.edu/annual-conference.
SC12
November 10-16, 2012 - Salt Lake City, Utah
Exhibition - November 12-15, 2012
For 24 years, SC has been at the forefront in gathering the best and brightest minds in supercomputing together, with our unparalleled technical papers, tutorials, posters and speakers. SC12 will take a major step forward not only in supercomputing, but in super-conferencing, with everything designed to make the 2012 conference the most ‘you' friendly conference in the world. We're streamlining conference information and moving to a virtually real-time method of determining technical program thrusts. No more pre-determined technical themes picked far in advance. Through social media, data mining, and active polling, we'll see which technical interests and issues emerge throughout the year, and focus on the ones that interest you the most. For more information and to register, please visit http://sc12.supercomputing.org/content/exhibitor-prospectus.
XSEDE Training at a Glance.
XSEDE Training: Introduction to Scientific Visualization on Longhorn 9/6
September 6, 2012 – 9:00am- 5:00pm CDT in person workshop
For more information, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/xup/course-calendar/-/training/class/50.
International Conference on Parallel Processing
September 10-13, 2012 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
For more information, please visit http://psc.edu/index.php/component/jevents/icalrepeat.detail/2012/09/10/28/53|55/international-conference-on-parallel-processing.
Extending High-Performance Computing Beyond its Traditional User Communities
October 8-9, 2012 – Chicago, Illinois
For more information, please visit http://psc.edu/index.php/component/jevents/icalrepeat.detail/2012/10/08/20/53|55/extending-high-performance-computing-beyond-its-traditional-user-communities-.
For a complete list of past and future XSEDE training opportunities, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/xup/course-calendar.
Research Features from Across XSEDE and Campus Champion Partners
SDSC’s CIPRES Science Gateway Clarifies Branches in Evolution’s ‘Tree of Life’
A new Web resource developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego is helping thousands of researchers worldwide unravel the enigmas of phylogenetics, the study of evolutionary relationships among virtually every species on the planet. The CIPRES Science Gateway (CIPRES stands for Cyber Infrastructure for Phylogenetic RESearch), created by SDSC researchers, allows these studies to proceed in significantly shorter times without having to understand how to operate complex computers. Scientists anywhere in the world upload their data via a Web browser free of charge under a grant provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
To read further, please visit http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR070312_cipres.html.
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center’s MARC Program Builds Bioinformatics Expertise at Minority Universities
A training program of the National Resource for Biomedical Supercomputing (NRBSC) at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) has taken a unique pro-active role toward filling the gap in scientific training at minority-serving institutions (MSIs). Since 2001, with funding from NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, PSC’s MARC (Minority Access to Research Careers) program has evolved from providing individual training in what was at first a newly emerging discipline, bioinformatics, to a focus on the development of curricula and research programs at partner universities. “We’ve implemented a multi-disciplinary course in sequence-based bioinformatics at more than 10 universities,” says PSC scientist Hugh Nicholas, who directs the MARC program. As of 2011, with renewal of the program from NIH for five years, the effort of Nicholas and his PSC colleagues, Troy Wymore and Alex Ropelewski, in working with five partner MSIs — North Carolina AT & T; University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez; Johnson C. Smith University; Tennessee State University; and Jackson State University — is to build a concentration or minor in bioinformatics. To read further, please visit http://www.psc.edu/index.php/newscenter/71-2012press/700-pscs-marc-program-builds-bioinformatics-expertise-at-minority-universities.
Educator News and Curriculum
Textbook' That Helps Students Learn
The Inquire system aims to be the world's first intelligent textbook. The system, being developed by Vulcan, is an electronic version of Campbell Biology. It includes a machine-readable map of all the concepts covered in the printed textbook, as well as information on how they are related. When a student asks a question, the system converts it to a structured query, and then uses the question to search and find results from the concept map. The researchers recruited 72 De Aza College students to test the system. Students were either presented with the full Inquire system, the Inquire system with the query function deactivated, or a paper copy of Campbell Biology. They were then asked to spend an hour reading a section of the textbook, 90 minutes on homework problems, and to take a 20-minute quiz. Those students who used the full Inquire system scored a grade better on a quiz than the students who did not. To read further, please visit http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528765.700-the-intelligent-textbook-that-helps-students-learn.html.
Student Engagement Opportunities and Information
STEM Competition for High School Students
Submission Deadline – October 1, 2012
Siemens Foundation, in partnership with the College Board, is sponsoring the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology, which recognizes remarkable talent early on, fostering individual growth for high school students who are willing to challenge themselves through science research. Through this competition, students have an opportunity to achieve national recognition for science research projects that they complete in high school. Students or teams of students can enter to win scholarships of up to $100,000 for their work. For more information, please visit http://siemens.collegeboard.org/.
Rice University Offers August PhD Webinar Discussions: Proposal Writing & The Final Defense
Registration Deadlines – August 27 and August 29, 2012 respectively
The ELA Mentoring Program is excited to announce that we will be hosting two Ph.D. workshops in August. Both sessions will be led by presenters Dr. Rubin Landau, Dr. Renetta Tull and Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale.
Proposal Writing: Tuesday, August 28, 10AM Pacific, 12PM Central, 1PM Eastern. To register, please visit https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDNheWZYUTBDcWNOTEFleVlmVVhhYkE6MA#gid=0 by Monday, August 27, 2012.
The Final Defense: Thursday, August 30, 10AM Pacific, 12PM Central, 1PM Eastern. To register, please visit https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGt5dmNXOU1oRE5iUFlCSUZhVjdpWkE6MA#gid=0 by Wednesday, August 29, 2012.
News at 11:00: XSEDE Partners and Staff in the News
| TACC in the News: PBS NEWSHOUR – Charged up About Smart Power |
| In July of this year, PBS NewsHour highlighted TACC in a segment about Pecan Street Inc., a first-of-its-kind smart grid project in Austin. TACC acts as the 'big data' powerhouse crunching the numbers behind the scenes. To view the video, please visit http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/news/tacc-in-the-news. | |
Last But Not Least – Computational News of Interest
Touch Your Philodendron and Control Your Computer: Technology Turns Any Plant Into an Interactive Device
Disney Research scientists have developed Botanicus Interactus, technology that enables houseplants to control a computer or other digital device. Once a single wire is placed anywhere in the plant's soil, the technology can detect if and where a plant is touched. Botanicus Interactus is based on capacitive-touch sensing, the same principle underlying touchscreen technology. However, Disney's technology uses the Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing technique to monitor capacitive signals across a wide range of frequencies, which makes it possible to detect how and where the plant is being touched. Machine-learning algorithms are used to recognize frequency changes associated with touches in particular locations on the plant. "Giving plants a voice, a possibility to respond and engage us, could lead to new forms of entertainment, enhance our lifestyles, and create a new computational platform that could be used for both education and entertainment," says Disney Research scientist Ivan Poupyrev. To read further, please visit http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120806094053.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29.
A Battery That Folds!
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) researchers have developed a super-thin, flexible, all-solid-state battery that could one day lead to phones and gadgets that can be folded. "The technological advance of thin and light flexible displays has encouraged the development of flexible batteries with a high power density and thermal stability," the KAIST researcher says. The advent of a high-performance, flexible, and thin film battery will accelerate the development of next-generation fully flexible electronic systems in combination with existing flexible components such as display, memory, and light-emitting diodes, the KAIST team notes. To read further, please visit http://www.eetindia.co.in/articleLogin.do?artId=8800672256&fromWhere=/ART_8800672256_1800004_NT_0c978568.HTM&catId=1800004&newsType=NT&pageNo=null&encode=0c978568.
Cornell Develops Technique to Share Personal Data While Keeping Secrets Safe
Cornell University researchers have developed a new mathematical technique that allows for the sharing of large data sets of personal data without compromising any one individual's privacy. "We want to make it possible for Facebook or the U.S. Census Bureau to analyze sensitive data without leaking information about individuals," says Colgate University professor Michael Hay, who helped develop the new technique while he was a researcher at Cornell. The Cornell researchers used an approach called crowd-blending privacy, which involves limiting how a data set can be analyzed to ensure that any individual record is indistinguishable from a large group of other records. "The hope is that because crowd-blending is a less strict privacy standard it will be possible to write algorithms that will satisfy it, and it could open up new uses for data," Hay says. To read further, please visit http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428733/how-to-share-personal-data-while-keeping-secrets/.
