CENTER FOR COMPUTATION & TECHNOLOGY

CCT Leads State Universities to Create LONI Institute Six state universities, led by CCT, received funding to create a state-of-the-art research collaborative that will enhance Louisiana's scientific and economic development capacity. Funding for this project, totaling more than $15 million, will create a bold new multi-institutional, multidisciplinary endeavor called the LONI Institute. The primary funding will come from the Louisiana Board of Regents' Post-Katrina Support Fund Initiative, or PKSFI, and from significant matching funding from all institutions involved. The PKSFI program provides funding for state projects designed to boost scientific research and economic development for Louisiana following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Under this grant, the six research institutions collaborating on the project – LSU, Louisiana Tech University, Southern University, Tulane University, University of Louisiana-Lafayette and University of New Orleans – will receive $7 million throughout a five-year period, with a match of more than $8 million coming from the six universities. The LONI Institute will capitalize on the resources of the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, or LONI, a high-speed, fiber optic network that connects supercomputers at the state's major research institutions. LONI allows greater collaboration to tackle complex scientific research problems, and also gives Louisiana one of the most advanced computational and networking environments in the world. The six universities that will develop the LONI Institute are all LONI schools included as sites on the LONI network, along with the LSU Health Sciences Centers in New Orleans and Shreveport, and the Louisiana community and technical Colleges. “With this advanced network in place at the major research institutions in Louisiana, we are ready to take the next step and create a collaborative that allows people at those universities to fully use LONI to advance academics and business,” said Charlie McMahon, LONI executive director. “With the LONI Institute, we will create such an environment, maximizing the state's research base potential.” The LONI Institute would not be located in a single building; rather, it would be a collaboration of researchers among the six LONI sites that creates a multi-disciplinary environment. The CCT will serve as the central hub of the distributed Institute, coordinating activities from LSU. With the LONI Institute, the six partner sites will conduct research primarily in biology, materials science and computational sciences. The Institute will use the advanced resources of LONI to drive research and education, which will lead to economic development for the state. The LONI Institute would create several new faculty, staff and graduate student research positions at the six universities. In addition, the Institute will initiate projects in cooperation with industry to advance economic development in the state. LSU will hire a scientific and economic development coordinator for the LONI Institute, who will coordinate these projects across the six member sites and will oversee the Institute's economic development activities. CCT Director Ed Seidel, the principal investigator for this proposal, explained how the LONI Institute would catalyze Louisiana's work to build up its cyberinfrastructure base. “Louisiana has made great investments in IT through its Vision 2020 initiative and through the creation of LONI,” Seidel said. “Now that we have the resources in place, we need to develop research projects and find the staff who can use the advanced technology in Louisiana to further academics and create more opportunities for business and industry so we can fully capitalize on these investments.” In the LONI Institute proposal, Seidel noted strong computational science efforts in Illinois produced an estimated trillion-dollar impact on the world economy, generating more than $120 million in corporate partnerships, $400 million in grants and spawning numerous companies in the past two decades. Seidel and the other project partners believe the LONI Institute could lead to significant economic development for Louisiana, making the state much more competitive for industrial partnerships with companies that depend on computing advances for their competitive edge. Industries that depend on computational sciences include petro-chemical, aerospace, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and many others. The LONI Institute sites currently are working to hire the coordinator, with plans to begin hiring computational staff scientists and faculty members for the Institute in the fall. High School Students to Take Part in CCT Digital Arts and Technology Camp After hosting the Red Stick International Animation Festival in April, CCT staff will expand their involvement with animation enthusiasts to the high school level. Nearly 20 high school juniors and seniors will participate in CCT's first Digital Arts and Technology Camp, a five-day seminar on the latest innovations in animation and digital media. LSU's School of Art will co-host the camp. Students will learn basic digital concepts, artistic requirements and creative processes, traits that will strengthen their understanding of the digital technology field. Teachers will host seminars on drawing concepts, scriptwriting, storyboarding, story telling and animation. Activities throughout the week will create a strong foundation for students pursuing careers in animation, video games, visual effects, filmmaking and digital arts. The camp will take place June 25-29 on the LSU campus. Students also will experience college life by touring the campus, staying in residence halls and eating in the cafeteria. The Shaw Center for the Arts, which holds CCT's Laboratory for Creative Arts and Technologies offices, will provide an off-campus site for the students to explore. CCT in the News Louisiana's "Queen Bee" Supercomputer Headed for Top 25
6-15-2007/ HPC Wire
Have you heard the buzz? There's a new "Queen Bee" in Baton Rouge, but this bee won't be making speeches or signing any bills into law. What Queen Bee is expected to do, however, is vault Louisiana into the world's upper echelons of supercomputing research capacity.
http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/1609045.html New supercomputer boosts state
6-12-2007/ The Advertiser
The state's newest supercomputer is expected to place Baton Rouge in the top 25 supercomputing sites in the world, according to a release from the Louisiana Board of Regents.
http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070612/BUSINESS/706120324/1046 Pats on the Back • The National Lambda Rail's newsletter highlighted CCT Chief Scientist Thomas Sterling's “High-Performance Computing: Concepts, Methods and Means” course as a signature project using advanced fiber optic networks. • Shantenu Jha was awarded an LSU faculty research grant to study elements of drug resistance bacteria. The co-PI for his proposal, “Investigating the Conformational Flexibility of the S-box Riboswitch Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations,” is Fareed Aboul-ela of LSU's biology department. Lectures This Week: • The CCT Colloquium Series, held each Friday at 3 p.m. in Johnston 338, will return in the fall with Shantenu Jha in charge of the speaker line-up. If you have a speaker wish list, please send it to Shantenu at sjha@cct.lsu.edu. • There are no lectures scheduled this week. Please Note: • The deadline for compliance with the LSU Visual Identity Program is June 30. More than a year ago, the University introduced a new and comprehensive visual identity system to present a consistent and unified brand image. With this deadline approaching, all parts of campus are reminded to order new business system items (envelopes, letterhead, business cards, etc.) and to recycle any old materials after June 30. All promotional and printed items for CCT must have the correct logo from this point forward. Graphic Services will be checking items for compliance and will not print items containing logos that do not comply with the policy. Also, since Graphic Services is busy printing revised materials for many sections of campus, if you will need any items printed in the coming month, it is best to send your request in early. More information about the University's policy and downloadable versions of the LSU logo are available at www.lsu.edu/pa. If you have any questions or wish to receive a copy of the LSU/CCT logo, please contact CCT Manager of Public Relations Kristen Sunde at 225-578-3469 or ksunde@cct.lsu.edu. • The next All CCT meeting will be Wednesday, June 20, at 3 p.m. in Johnston 338. • LSU's Trek the MRT employee wellness challenge began last week. If you are participating, please remember to record your steps daily and report your weekly totals to your team captain. • Registration is now open for Challenges of Large Applications in Distributed Environments (CLADE) Workshop at: http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~schopf/CLADE2007/ . The CLADE 2007 workshop will be held in conjunction with the 16th International Symposium on High-Performance Distributed Computing in Monterey Bay, Calif. on Monday, June 25. CLADE 2007 authors will discuss a wide variety of applications. In addition, the program includes a several invited speakers, a panel addressing the challenges of distributed data and a keynote speech by Scott Oster from Ohio State University, who will discuss the National Cancer Institute's cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid, caBIG. • A Post-Katrina forum, "Gulf States Alliance: Network Science and Recovery," will take place at the Beau Rivage Hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi on August 19-21, 2007. This forum is sponsored by the National Science Foundation Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Programs in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Forum registration is free and includes forum-sponsored meals, and breaks. Space is limited so participants are strongly urged to pre-register in order for forum planners to know in advance how many will be in attendance. The deadline for pre-registration is July 25, 2007. For more information and to register, please visit: http://forum2007.laepscor.org. • If you have any news for the CCT Weekly, please e-mail PR Manager Kristen Sunde directly at ksunde@cct.lsu.edu. Upcoming Grant Deadlines: Measurement, Science and Engineering Research Grants Programs June 29 2007 10 a.m. At Most $ 150,000.00 available http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?oppId=12347&mode=VIEW Communications and Networking Technology June 29 2007 10 a.m. http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=12359 Lars Onsager Prize July 01 2007 10:15 a.m. At Most $ 15,000.00 available http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/onsager.cfm NSF Biological Databases and Informatics NSF BD&I July 09 2007 5 p.m. A Portion Of $ 7,000,000.00 available http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05577/nsf05577.htm NSF Division of Molecular & Cellular Biosciences NSF MCB July 12 2007 5 p.m. http://www.nsf.gov/bio/mcb/about.jspSupport%20is%20provided%20for%20basic%20research%20and%20related%20activities%20that