About 1.82 million jobs were run on Flux in fiscal 2012, compared to 1.27 million in 2011.

Flux, provided by ARC, also had a 49 percent increase in users (from 482 to 718) and a 31 percent increase in departments with researchers using the service (from 45 to 59).

“The rising numbers we’ve seen in users, jobs, and departments using Flux reflect the increasingly crucial role that high-performance computing plays in research across fields,” said Ken Powell, Interim Associate Vice President for Research – Cyberinfrastructure.

Most users of Flux come from LSA, the Medical School, and the College of Engineering. Those three academic units, along with OVPR and the Provost, were the original funders of the service.

But a growing number of users come from outside those disciplines as well.

For example, David Bieri, an assistant professor of Urban Planning in the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and his colleagues had a research question that needed an extraordinary amount of computing power to address: How much do consumers spend on local amenities, as reflected in housing prices and wages? The answer was contained in massive datasets that could not be handled by a standard computer.

“Our work involves huge amounts of microdata from the census and other sources … we had a sample that contained 30 million observations and over 2,000 variables,” Bieri said. “We were quickly outpacing the computational abilities of a laptop or even the most expensive desktop computer.”

Bieri used Flux and the multiprocessor version of Stata, which is included in the cost of an allocation, to analyze the data.

Bieri also relied the support offered by ARC and CoE — from seminars introducing Flux to Web resources to in-person help from CAEN HPC staff member Bennet Fauber. CAEN operates Flux and provides user support.

Bieri’s findings, that spending on local amenities varies greatly across the country, and can be as high as 25 percent of household income in some places, are being reviewed for publication by an applied economics journal.

CI Days, the annual event for the U-M advanced computing research community organized by ARC, will take place Nov. 13-14 at the Rackham Graduate School on U-M’s Central Campus.

Rumsey has been working with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress to develop a national strategy to identify, collect, and preserve digital content of long-term value.

Adamic’s research focuses on the structure and dynamics of social and information networks, with an emphasis on information diffusion, expertise sharing, and online communities.

The committee was created by Dan Atkins with the charge of evaluating existing visualization technologies and methods on campus; developing an action plan for addressing deficiencies in visualization needs; establishing a group of visualization leaders; and communicating with the community on visualization topics. It is composed of faculty members and staff from ARC, University Libraries, Dentistry, LSA, the Medical School, ITS, Architecture and Urban Planning, Atmospheric and Oceanic and Space Sciences, and the College of Engineering.

The hubs envisioned by the committee would leverage existing resources and consist of advanced workstations, high bandwidth connectivity, and collaborative learning spaces, with a support model based on that of the UM3D Lab and Flux. The hardware and software would be configured to allow departments or individuals to purchase their own resources in a way that would reduce fragmentation and allow for efficient support, training, and maintenance.

A full copy of the report is available here: Report_VisualizationOnCampus_2013.

See http://vis.uky.edu/blog/2013/04/23/vis-center-director-search/ for more information.

The competition is open to any researchers affiliated with at least one of the EYR Global organizations. Researchers from any discipline are encouraged to apply with submissions that highlight how access to world-class research networks would significantly improve their research and discovery process.

Winning proposals will have access to:

• high-performance network infrastructure operated by the participating organizations
• support and consultation with expert network engineers on devising the best end-to-end network connectivity plan to support the proposed research
• commitment from each participating organization for an agreed level of network resource provisioning and ongoing support during the competition period.

For more information, visit https://www.enlightenyourresearch.net/.

The deadline for applications is July 31.

For more information about the volunteer program, visit http://sc13.supercomputing.org/content/student-volunteers. Applications can be downloaded from https://submissions.supercomputing.org/.

For more about the conference, see http://sc13.supercomputing.org/.

The webinar will provide an introduction to customizing simulations by developing models directly with partial differential equations. Participants will also learn how to add ordinary differential equations and algebraic equations to a model.

For more information and to register, visit http://comsol.com/c/oix.

To read the testimony and watch an archived webcast of the hearing, visit http://science.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-energy-hearing-exascale-computing-challenges-and-opportunities

Horst Simon, Deputy Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, also made news with his prediction that exascale computing won’t be achieved by 2020 (see http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2013-05-15/no_exascale_for_you_an_interview_with_nersc_s_horst_simon.html), and his willingness to bet $2,000 of his own money to back up that prediction (see http://www.extremetech.com/computing/155941-supercomputing-director-bets-2000-that-we-wont-have-exascale-computing-by-2020).

A podcast from Nicole Hemsoth, Editor of HPCwire, and Addison Snell, CEO of InterSect360 Research, posted at HPCWire, discusses the congressional hearing: http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2013-05-24/podcast:_exascale_equals_no_nukes_ibm_says_lets_build_a_smarter_hpc.html.

Part 1: Basic Linux/Mac Commands
Where: https://univofmichigan.adobeconnect.com/flux  (Select as a Guest)
When: 1:30-2:30 p.m., May 30th

Learn basic Linux/Mac commands for navigating and manipulating the basic features of a Linux system all from the command line. Learn tips on how to be more productive, including how to edit files directly in the terminal window.

Part 2: Introduction to File and Input/Output Control
Where: https://univofmichigan.adobeconnect.com/flux  (Select as a Guest)
When: 1:30-2:30 p.m., June 6th

The follow-on to Part 1, learn how to find subsets within your data, using many simple but powerful tools to find patterns, sort, count, and capture, all using standard Linux commands available on any Linux/Mac system.

The Tech Transfer Fellow works under the supervision of the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) to assist in the technical and commercial evaluation of new inventions at University of Michigan in a variety of fields. Typical projects include:

• Scientific, market, prior art and patent research and analysis
• Assessing commercial viability of new inventions
• Categorizing inventions into application specific or industry segments
• Technology marketing abstract composition
• Identifying potential licensees or investors

For further details, please visit http://www.techtransfer.umich.edu/resources/students/fellows.php.  Candidates interestedin applying should submit a cover letter and resume in PDF format via e-mail (moynihkl@umich.edu) by 8am on Monday, June 17, 2013.