Research IT News

“Research has shown that evidence-based decision making has greater returns than gut instinct based,” said Business Administration Associate Professor Ramanath Subramanyam, who teaches data analytics courses in the Gies Business MBA program.

The registration pages for the 2018 Summer Boot Camp event are now available.

This 4 day event will include MPI, OpenMP, OpenACC and accelerators and run June 4-7. This event will be presented using the Wide Area Classroom(WAC) training platform and will conclude with a special hybrid exercise contest that will challenge the students to apply their skills over the following 3 weeks and be awarded the Fifth Annual XSEDE Summer Boot Camp Championship Trophy.  In addition, an XSEDE Badge will be available to those who complete the Challenge.

https://www.psc.edu/hpc-workshop-series/summer-bootcamp-2018

https://portal.xsede.org/web/xup/course-calendar

What makes pathogenic bacteria so persistent? Researchers from the Beckman Instituteat the University of Illinois and the University of Munich (LMU) are using the National Center for Supercomputing Applications' (NCSA) Blue Waters supercomputer to simulate and decipher the physical adhesion mechanism of a widespread pathogen virulence factor.

This workshop, held May 15, 2018 at 9am, will teach students components and methods for modern scientific software and model development. This event offers hands-on lectures and tutorials by the developers of the major software packages PETSc and MOOSE. Topics will include numerical modeling, finite element modeling, multiphysics simulation and integrating components into a target software application.

Join MATLAB expert and U. of I. alumnus, James Kristoff, on April 11 or 12 for a webinar to learn how to utilize MATLAB for Data Analysis. Both sessions will cover how to import data from sources like Excel, SQL Database, .txt files and more. You'll also learn how to manipulate and visualize data and share your results with others. Register for this free webinar through WebStore.

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is one of many host-sites for XSEDE's upcoming HPC Workshop, focused on MPI and parallel programming. If you are a researcher interested in adding high-performance computing to your research, this workshop offers a hands-on introduction. To register, sign up at https://www.xsede.org/web/xup/course-calendar/-/training-user/class/593/session/153

Designed to train the next generation of supercomputer users, the Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing (ATPESC) is scheduled for its sixth year in the Chicago area from July 29 - August 10. Deadline extended to March 15.

New result rivals precision of cosmic microwave background measurements, supports view that dark matter and dark energy make up most of the cosmos.

Read the full story on the NCSA website.

The Bio Imaging Lab at Beckman Institute decreased their processing time from over 260 days to just a few hours by leveraging Amazon Web Services at Illinois, provided by Technology Services. This is their story.

Jian Peng, NCSA Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Illinois and graduate student, Yang Liu, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, have discovered a major breakthrough in protein structure predictions using deep learning data processed by NCSA’s  Blue Waters supercomputer published in Cell Systems journal.

Read the full story.

Researchers around the world can now explore the first three years of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) processed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Read the full story

Introductory Workshop

May 14-18, 2018

University of Nebraska – Holland Computing Center, Lincoln, NE

If you are a Linux system administrator new to HPC, this is the workshop for you!  In just five days you will:

Learn HPC system administration concepts and technologies and how to apply themGet hands-on skills building a small test cluster in lab sessionsHear real-life stories and get to ask experts questions in panel discussions

More information: http://linuxclustersinstitute.org/workshops/intro18/

Register: http://linuxclustersinstitute.org/workshops/intro18/register.php

Intermediate Workshop

August 13-17, 2018

Yale University, New Haven, CT

If you have some experience as an HPC system administrator and want to expand your skills, this is the workshop for you! In just five days you will:

Strengthen your overall knowledge of HPC system administrationFocus in depth on file systems and storage, HPC networks, and job schedulersGet hands-on training and discuss real-life stories with experienced HPC administrators

Those who have attended an Introductory LCI workshop in the past are especially encouraged to attend!

More information: http://linuxclustersinstitute.org/workshops/interm18/

Register: http://linuxclustersinstitute.org/workshops/interm18/register.php

We would like to call your attention to upcoming events being held at NCSA:

March 6 - GPU Programming Using OpenACC

Throughout the year, the Blue Waters and Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) projects, led by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), support a variety of interdisciplinary training sessions, workshops and webinars to assist researchers in expanding their computational and data analytics knowledge and providing skills to advance their research.

The training sessions are offered as hands-on workshops that provide a convenient way for researchers to learn about the latest techniques and technologies of current interest in high performance computing (HPC). 

Registration is free and required. The sessions are scheduled for 10 AM until 4 PM Central Time in Room 1030 of the NCSA building at 1205 W. Clark St. in Urbana. RSVP on Facebook to receive regular updates.

If you need assistance finding relevant training sessions, contact us and we’ll work with you to help address your needs – bw-eot@ncsa.illinois.edu 

The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) is a single virtual system that scientists can use to interactively share computing resources, data and expertise. People around the world use these resources and services — things like supercomputers, collections of data and new tools — to improve our planet. XSEDE is supported by the National Science Foundation.

Amazon Web Services at Illinois gives students and faculty the opportunity to explore and optimize data analysis.

Thanks to the campus contract between Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, both faculty and student researchers have access to Amazon’s cloud computing platform, and they’re already doing amazing things.

Katherine Kendig, a research coordinator and partner with Public Affairs at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), reports that students are capitalizing on the partnership to optimize data analysis in computational genomics research. To learn more about this exciting work,visit https://cloud.illinois.edu.

Jian Peng, NCSA Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Illinois and graduate student, Yang Liu, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, have discovered a major breakthrough in protein structure predictions using deep learning data processed by NCSA’s  Blue Waters supercomputer published in Cell Systems journal.

Read the full story.

Amazon Web Services has announced new per-second billing for EC2 and block volumes.

For more information visit cloud.illinois.edu.

The article These are the world's most powerful supercomputers by Popular Science not only highlights those with the most power, but also describes what a supercomputer is and how it differs from a server farm.

Dr. Lindsay Clark, a Research Specialist in the department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, needed a gel imager for her work. She didn't want to spend $10,000, so built her own for considerably less.

Read the full story

The Illinois Campus Cluster Program (ICCP) was utilized for processing research done by Professor Jean-Pierre Leburton, a member of the Beckman Institute's Nanoelectronics and Nanomaterial Group. Leburton's work has recently been featured in numerous articles for his work on the future of transistors and the role of nanopores in DNA.

XSEDE is pleased to announce a regular series of remote workshops on High-Performance Computing topics.  These hands-on workshops provide a convenient way for researchers to learn about the latest techniques and technologies of current interest in HPC. 

USIgnite, a nonprofit organization that fosters the development and deployment of next-generation gigabit applications, created a national network of Smart Gigabit Communities, which includes Urbana-Champaign. The USIgnite team is interested in working with students, faculty and researchers to showcase innovative applications.

University of Illinois students interested in high-performance and extreme-scale computing can sign up now for the Joint Laboratory for Extreme-Scale Computing (JLESC) Summer School, which takes place July 20-21 at NCSA. The summer school will feature two days of talks on topics like Python, MPI, OpenACC and more. Seating is first-come, first-serve. Register today.

Add event to your calendar:   iCal    Outlook 2010

New measurements from data processed by the Dark Energy Survey Data Management (DESDM) project at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign verify the theory that 26 percent of the Universe is in the form of mysterious dark matter and that space is filled with an also-unseen dark energy, which is causing the accelerating expansion of the universe and makes up 70 percent of the Universe’s contents.

To read the full story, visit http://illinois.edu/emailer/newsletter/135889.html

Tornados are more common in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world. But to really understand these intense wind funnels of destruction, you need lots and lots of data. That's what scientist Leigh Orf with the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is working on, with the help of one very important tool—a massive supercomputer.

Read more...

Technology Services has a new story looking at the tiny differences in gut bacteria that may lead to large discoveries like curing autism. The Illinois Campus Cluster makes it possible for Professor Tandy Warnow and Ph.D. student Michael Nute to run complex computations to analyze billions of DNA sequences.

Check out What Makes Us Human on the Technology Services website.

A tornado visualization done using Blue Waters at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois has won the XSEDE 2015 People's Choice Award.

Peer into the Guts of a Monster Tornado (by Gizmodo).

Dr. Felipe Menanteau, a Research Scientist at NCSA and Research Associate Professor of Astronomy, and the Dark Energy Survey team study the universe and use sky mapping exercises to try to understand where everything came from and if we are alone.

Read the full story

Dr. Xiaohui Chen, Assistant Professor in Statistics, and his team are mining data to help neuroscientists find the mechanism that makes neurodegenerative diseases tick.

Read the full story

Dr. Eliu Huerta Escudero and his team are extending our understanding of gravitational wave astronomy by developing new tools that detect and characterize wave sources in dense stellar environments.

Read the full story

Dr. Maria L. Chu, Assistant Professor in Agricultural and Biological Engineering, studies how a variety of factors alter how water moves in the watershed—affecting its quantity and quality.

Read the full story

Jian Peng, NCSA Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Illinois and graduate student, Yang Liu, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, have discovered a major breakthrough in protein structure predictions using deep learning data processed by NCSA’s  Blue Waters supercomputer published in Cell Systems journal.