CENTER FOR COMPUTATION & TECHNOLOGY

CCT Weekly June 22, 2010

LSU Physics Professor Jorge Pullin Chairs Selection Committee for Einstein Prize

Jorge Pullin, a professor in the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy and Interim co-Director of the LSU Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, is chairing the American Physical Society’s selection committee for the prestigious Einstein Prize.

The Einstein Prize is an international honor awarded every two years that recognizes outstanding achievements in gravitational physics research. Previous winners are Peter Bergmann, John Wheeler, Bryce DeWitt, Rainer Weiss, Ronald Drever and Jim Hartle. Most of the previous winners are members of the National Academy of Sciences, and Bergmann and Wheeler were collaborators of Albert Einstein. The Einstein Prize is the most important honor the American Physical Society awards in this field.

The society established the Einstein Prize in 1999. The recipient receives $10,000 and a certificate citing his or her contributions to advance understanding of gravitational physics.

Pullin, who is a member of the American Physical Society, served as vice chair for the committee that selected the 2009 Einstein Prize recipient, James Hartle of University of California - Santa Barbara. The society selected Pullin to chair the committee that will select the 2011 recipient.

Society members can submit nominations through July 1, 2010, which Pullin and his committee will review. Pullin then will represent the committee in making a recommendation to the Council of the American Physical Society, and the 2011 recipient will be announced in November 2010. The chosen candidate will receive his or her award at the American Physical Society meeting April 30 - May 3, 2011, in Anaheim, California.

“This is one of the top physics research awards given worldwide, and I am honored to be part of the selection process, reviewing the research of international physics scholars to choose the 2011 recipient,” Pullin said.

For more information on the Einstein Prize, please visit http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/einstein.cfm.

Pats on the Back:
•    Congratulations to Dr. Thomas Sterling and his research group for a successful Beowulf Boot Camp 2010 last week. Nearly 40 students from around Louisiana spent a week learning HPC basics, assembling a mini supercomputing cluster and programming basic applications. The camp lectures and presentations will be included on the CCT YouTube channel so other students and teachers can access the material.

•    The Einstein Toolkit Consortium is pleased to announce the first release (code name "Bohr") of the Einstein Toolkit, an open, community-developed software infrastructure for relativistic astrophysics.  The Einstein Toolkit, led by Gabrielle Allen, is a collection of more than 130 software components and tools for simulating and analyzing general relativistic astrophysical systems that builds on numerous software efforts in the numerical relativity community, including CactusEinstein, the Whisky hydrodynamics code, and the Carpet AMR infrastructure. The Einstein Toolkit Consortium comprises several international universities, laboratories and research centers. The members from LSU are Ernazar Abdikamalov, Gabrielle Allen, Eloisa Bentivegna, Steven Brandt, Peter Diener, Linda Holyoke, Colby Jordan, Oleg Korobkin, Frank Löffler, Megan Miller, Erik Schnetter, Jian Tao, Michael Thomas and Ashley Zebrowski. For more information, please visit http://einsteintoolkit.org.

CCT in the News:
LSU Physics Professor Jorge Pullin Chairs Selection Committee for Einstein Prize
Source: HPC Wire

Dell, Appro, Cray, Juniper Networks, SGI Among TeraGrid 2010 Sponsors

Source: HPC Wire

Please Note:

•    Prior approval is required for Special Meal Requests.  Employees who make meal purchases without prior approvals may find that they must cover the cost of any monies spent for an unapproved event out of pocket, especially now that state funds are under a spending freeze.  Please contact Susie Poskonka (susie@cct.lsu.edu) prior to any special meal with visitor(s) to file the appropriate request for approval.  Prior approval could take up to one week, so please plan accordingly.

•    Please note that the University has frozen all LaCarte spending, unless cardholders receive written approval for a purchase from Accounts Payable or Purchasing. If you have a purchase you wish to make that you feel may warrant an exemption to the spending freeze, please contact Theresa Markey or Andrew Cox in the CCT Business Office for guidance.

•    The Louisiana Optical Network Initiative and CCT will host LONI Technical Forum July 19 and 20 at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center – Conference Center Auditorium. This is open to network users, researchers and LONI members. The forum will consist of two half-day sessions. The first session will take place Monday, July 19 from 1-4 p.m., and will cover cloud computing, which is Internet-based sharing of computational resources, software and data on demand. For the second half-day session, which will take place Tuesday, July 20 from 9 a.m. until noon, representatives of Cisco Systems, Inc. will lead a discussion of current trends, issues and networking challenges in high-performance computing. Registration for LONI Technical Forum is free but required. Interested participants must complete the registration form at http://www.cct.lsu.edu/loniforum2010 by Monday, July 12, to attend.

•    LSU Day, a celebration of the University’s sesquicentennial anniversary that highlights the various research and education accomplishments of different areas of campus, will take place on Saturday, Nov. 13, concurrent with LSU Homecoming. This event originally was scheduled for April 24, but the University canceled it because of severe weather. At LSU Day, CCT will host an exhibit showcasing student research projects and visualization work. If you would like to participate, please contact CCT PR Manager Kristen Sunde at ksunde@cct.lsu.edu.

•    Supercomputing Conference 2010 Information and Deadlines:

o    Follow SC10 with social media to get the latest news, information, and deadlines -- Twitter @ SuperComputing; Facebook group: SC10.

o    SC10 is now accepting nominations for the 2010 Seymour Cray Computer Engineering Award, the Sidney Fernbach Memorial Award, and the Ken Kennedy Award. These awards will be presented during the conference, Nov. 13-19 in New Orleans. Nominations are due Thursday, July 1, 2010. Links to nomination forms and more information about these awards is available at http://sc10.supercomputing.org/?pg=awards.html.

o    This year, SC10 is adding a special communities track on workforce development, which will bring experts from industry and academia together to collaborate on ways to address the upcoming shortage of skilled high-performance computing researchers and practitioners. The conference is now taking submissions for papers and panel proposals in this area. The deadline to submit these materials toward the workforce development communities program is Thursday, July 15. All submissions should be uploaded to the SC10 submissions site at https://submissions.supercomputing.org.

o    SC10 is seeking submissions for posters and ACM student posters that display cutting-edge, interesting research in high-end computing, storage, networking and analytics. Posters provide an excellent opportunity for short presentations and informal discussions with conference attendees. Posters will be prominently displayed for the duration of the conference, giving presenters a chance to showcase their latest results and innovations. One poster will be honored with a Best Poster Award. A limited number of active displays will be part of the poster session. Students who are ACM members also are encouraged to submit posters as part of the ACM Student Research Competition (SRC), with awards and special recognition at SC10 plus the chance to compete in the SRC grand finals. Submissions are due July 15, 2010. For questions, contact: posters@info.supercomputing.org, or visit the submission site, http://submissions.supercomputing.org.

o    A Symposium on High Performance Computing Workforce Development will take place during SC10, Nov. 16-18, 2010. This symposium will address the skills, training and expertise needed to develop a strong, effective high-performance computing-based workforce. The symposium now is accepting paper submissions and proposals for panels that address high-performance computing and cyberinfrastructure workforce development. Suggested topics include current problems, proposed or demonstrated solutions, and future considerations. Papers should not be longer than 10 pages, and panel suggestions should include a 150-word maximum abstract. Paper and panel submissions are due July 15, 2010 at the SC10 submission site,
http://submissions.supercomputing.org. The program committee will review each submission, and notify participants of acceptance by Aug. 15, 2010.

o    The SC10 Doctoral Research Showcase invites Ph.D. students in high-performance computing, networking, storage, analytics, and visualization who anticipate graduating within a year to submit a short summary of their research for consideration toward the conference program. Those selected will have an opportunity to present a 15-minute summary of their research to experts from academia, industry and research laboratories. Students should submit a single page summary of their doctoral research, along with a publications list and three slides on their key findings and results for consideration by Monday, July 26. For more information, please contact doc-showcase@info.supercomputing.org, or visit the Web site, http://sc10.supercomputing.org/?pg=doctsc.html.

o    The SC10 Education Program is now accepting applications for travel support to attend the conference, which will take place Nov. 13-19 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The program is open to undergraduate faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, and high school teachers interested in learning how to use supercomputing and computational science in their classrooms. Participants are encouraged to stay through the entire conference, where they will be engaged in hands-on activities to encourage them to apply computational science, grid computing and high-performance computing resources in education. The deadline to apply for the SC10 Education Program event is July 31. For more information, please visit http://sc10.supercomputing.org/?pg=edprog.html or e-mail education@info.supercomputing.org

o    The SC 10 Education Program introduces undergraduate faculty and pre-college educators to HPC and computational tools, resources and methods. During a four-day, intensive workshop at the conference, educators learn ways to integrate HPC and computational techniques into their classrooms and research programs. Special events scheduled for SC10 include a teacher’s day and support for high school field trips. Limited travel support is available; those who do not receive travel support may participate by paying a separate registration fee. Travel support applications are due July 31; details are available at: http://sc10.supercomputing.org/?pg=edprog.html. For more information, email: education@info.supercomputing.org.

o    The SC10 Broader Engagement Program, which offers students, faculty and professionals from groups traditionally underrepresented in high-performance computing an introduction to SC through networking and technical sessions, is now taking applications. Participants will attend sessions immediately preceding the conference that provide an introduction to and professional development in HPC and computational science. Community building activities include the mentor /protégé program, which matches Broader Engagement and Student Volunteer protégés with self-identified mentors attending SC. As part of the Broader Engagement Program, the SC10 Student Job Fair will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 17.Applications for participation grants in Broader Engagement are due Aug. 16. Details are available at: http://sc10.supercomputing.org/?pg=broadeng.html. For more information, email: be@info.supercomputing.org

o    Applications for Student Volunteers for SC10 are now being accepted. The deadline to apply is Sunday, Aug. 27. The conference already has half of its needed volunteers, so interested students are encouraged to sign up now to be part of this program. Undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to apply as volunteers to help with the administration of the conference. In exchange, students will receive complimentary conference registration, housing (for out-of-town volunteers) and some meals. Volunteers will be expected to be available for a total of 4-5 hours of work per day during the week of the conference, which will take place Nov. 13-19 in New Orleans. Successful applicants will be notified of their acceptance by Sept. 30. If you have any questions please e-mail student-vols@info.supercomputing.org.

•    Please remember to send your news concerning grants, awards, conferences, or other pertinent information to PR Manager Kristen Sunde at ksunde@cct.lsu.edu.

•    Follow CCT with social media to access photos and see news, events or updated information. These pages are public; you do not need an account to view the information.  
o    Facebook group: LSU Center for Computation & Technology
o    Twitter:  LSUCCT
o    YouTube channel: LSUCCT

Upcoming Grant Deadlines:

Note: Please check the CCT deadline Web site, since it is updated daily.

Expeditions in Computing
September 10 2010 10:00 am
At Least $ 10,000,000.00 available