CENTER FOR COMPUTATION & TECHNOLOGY

CCT Weekly June 29, 2010

Red Stick International Animation Festival Unveils Plans for 2010 Princess Ball

An annual highlight of the Red Stick International Animation Festival is the Princess Ball, an evening of dancing, dress-up and fairytale fun at Louisiana’s Old State Capitol.  

As Red Stick changes seasons for its sixth year, taking place Nov. 10-13 in downtown Baton Rouge’s Arts District, the Princess Ball again will be part of the festivities. Festival staff have spent the past several weeks soliciting input from previous attendees to make this event a more magical experience for families.

The theme for the 2010 Princess Ball will be “Storybook Princesses from Around the World … and Beyond,” to highlight the arrival of “Fandemonium,” Red Stick’s new Con event that will premiere at the sixth annual festival.  Guests are welcome to attend Princess Ball dressed as princesses from stories, games, and cultures of their choosing, from this planet or others.

“We are excited about the enthusiasm for Princess Ball, which attracted more than 2,000 people last year,” said Stacey Simmons, Ph.D., Red Stick International Animation Festival Director. “With so much interest from the community, we wanted to ask our guests for their suggestions to help us plan an enjoyable evening that will improve their experience.”

For the past two years, the Princess Ball took place on a Friday night during the festival. Many parents indicated this presented challenges with rushing to get downtown after work, and also with finding available parking. This year, to make it easier for families to come downtown and attend the event, Red Stick will host Princess Ball the Sunday preceding the festival, Nov. 7, and the ball will begin in the afternoon.  

Another change the festival will make for the Princess Ball, based on feedback from previous guests, is implementing a ticket system to purchase passes in advance.

“Most people indicated they would prefer to purchase tickets that would guarantee them a place inside the magical Old State Capitol, which only holds 300 people, than take chances with a first-come, first-served system, as we did last year,” Simmons said. “In 2009, we were delighted with the enthusiasm of the community, but somewhat overwhelmed by the 2,000 attendee response.  The top suggestion by parents for us to improve future Princess Balls was that we have paid tickets instead of free passes, so we took their advice.”

Red Stick will begin selling Princess Ball tickets for $20 each this fall, via the festival Web site, www.redstickfestival.org. Tickets are non-refundable. The festival will announce Princess Ball ticket sales opening and information about other festival events as the dates approach. 

“We thank everyone who took the time to participate in the feedback and focus groups to make Princess Ball a memorable evening for their children, and we feel these changes will improve the event, making this year’s ball our most successful,” Simmons said.

Red Stick is the largest animation festival in the United States. CCT sponsors the festival in partnership with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President’s Office, Shaw Center for the Arts, Manship Theatre, Louisiana Art & Science Museum, and Louisiana Old State Capitol. 

For more information about the festival, please visit www.redstickfestival.org.

Pats on the Back:
•    Gabrielle Allen was invited to be one of three keynote speakers at the TeraGrid 2010 conference (TG’10), which will take place Aug. 2-5 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  In her talk, “Importance of Cyberinfrastructure for Numerical Relativity,” she will discuss how computational modeling of complex systems (black holes and neutron stars) has enabled advanced breakthroughs. The other keynote speakers are Tim Killeen, National Science Foundation Assistant Director, and Bob Wilhelmson, with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

•    Juana Moreno was invited to participate in the U.S.-Japan symposium "Connections -  Bringing Together the Next Generation of Women Leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics," which will be held July 5-7, 2010 at the National Women's Education Center in Saitama, Japan. During her trip, Dr. Moreno also will visit three Japanese universities.

•    Professor Thomas Sterling was invited to participate as a member of the External Review Committee of the Computer Science and Mathematics Division (CSMD) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He was among six national experts in a diversity of fields and positions reviewing the research program of the division, providing in-depth analysis of the quality and comprehensive coverage of the science program with respect to the division responsibilities and objectives. 

•    Professor Thomas Sterling gave an invited keynote presentation at the VECPAR 2010 conference on high-performance computational science at the University of California, Berkeley. Sterling’s talk, “HPC in Phase Change: Towards a New Execution Model" discussed the technical trends forcing a revolutionary change in HPC systems and methods. Sterling’s talk was introduced by Dr. Robert Lucas of USC ISI.

CCT in the News:
Keynote Speakers Announced for TeraGrid 2010
Source: HPC Wire

Please Note:

•    The University will be closed on Monday, July 5, in observance of Independence Day. All business operations and classes resume Tuesday, July 6.

•    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.

•    LAST CALL FOR REGISTRATION: The Virtual School of Computer Science and Engineering is now accepting registrations from graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and professionals from academia, government and industry for a course on Petascale Programming Environments and Tools, which will take place July 6-9. In this course, participants will learn how to scale up computational science applications and cyberinfrastructure for petascale-class machines. This course is offered as a distributed program among 10 sites, including CCT. To register or learn more, visit http://www.vscse.org/summerschool/2010.

•    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.

•    HPC@LSU is offering assistantships for graduate or undergraduate students. HPC@LSU offers a great environment in which to learn about high performance computing (HPC), and gain experience with the various support activities. The work ranges from vetting user account and password requests, to trouble shooting user problems with application development tools and job scripting. The depth of involvement is limited only by interest and willingness to learn. Starting stipend is dependent on experience. HPC@LSU will award up to three assistantships. Interested students should submit an e-mail outlining their interests and background experiences to Dr. Jim Lupo, HPC User Services Manager, at jalupo@cct.lsu.edu. Applications will be considered through Aug 6, 2010.

•    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.

High Performance Computing (HPC) R&D Demonstration Projects for Oil Spill Disaster Response (LONI)
The Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI) has issued a request for proposals from Louisiana’s research community that use the HPC capabilities available through LONI toward assessing and responding to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Successful projects awarded under this program may be included as part of Louisiana’s spotlight at the national SC10 conference in New Orleans this November. LONI will provide up to $10,000 per award for this program, which may be used to support students, travel, and the purchase of scientific equipment and supplies.  LONI also will make available as a part of each award an allocation of LONI HPC resources for project use at no charge. Additionally, high priority status on computer usage can be assigned for awarded projects. The expected project start date is August 1, 2010, with project duration of two months, ending on September 30, 2010. Individuals who hold a regular tenured or tenure-track S&E position at any Louisiana public institution of higher education are eligible to apply. The deadline for questions and answers about this RFP is July 1, 2010. Proposals are due July 16, 2010. For more information, contact LONI Executive Director Donald Vandal at dvandal@lsu.edu.

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