ORCI is now ARC

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To clarify our mission, ORCI will now be known as Advanced Research Computing at U-M, or ARC. This name reflects our goal of providing high-performance computing resources and support for the U-M advanced research computing community.

ARC’s mission is to:

  • Ensure the availability and accessibility of advanced computing resources
  • Assess researchers’ computing needs and connect you to the appropriate resources on an ongoing basis
  • Help researchers explore the potential of advanced computing
  • Promote collaboration in proposal writing, mentoring, and best practices relating to advanced research computing
  • Inform the research community of the latest developments and capabilities in advanced computing.

ARC will continue to operate under the Office of the Vice President for Research. We will continue to be the provider of the Flux cluster and organizer of the annual CI Days event, as well as other initiatives and programs to enhance advanced computing resources on campus.

SC13 conference in Denver seeking student volunteers

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The Supercomputing 2013 conference in Denver from Nov. 17-22 is seeking undergraduate and graduate students volunteers. Participants will be able to take part in activities geared toward career development, as well as technical talks by leading researchers and practitioners. Volunteers will be expected to work 4-5 hours a day during the conference. Meals and conference registration will be covered, and limited support is available for housing and transportation.

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/.

 

Data analysis with Python workshop — June 10-14

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This workshop sponsored by CSCAR and ARC will explore the use of Python and its numerical libraries as a tool for analyzing and managing data, with a focus on data that arise in research.  The workshop will be taught through a series of analyses of specific datasets drawn from health sciences, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Participants will be provided with all data and code discussed in the workshop.

The workshop will include a morning presentation, and a hands-on session in the afternoon. It is tailored to people who have some programming experience (i.e., familiarity with basic programming concepts including control structures and simple data structures). Some analyses will involve basic or intermediate statistics.

The workshop will focus on Python, IPython, and the following libraries: Numpy, Scipy, Matplotlib, Pandas, Statmodels, and Scikit-learn. All this software is freely available, and participants will be provided with instructions for obtaining and installing this software on their computers.

A consultant will be at the afternoon sessions to help participants install Python and the code and examples shown in the morning presentations on their laptops.

Presenter: Kerby Shedden, CSCAR

Times/Locations: The workshop presentations will be held Monday through Friday from 9 a.m.-noon in the Earl Lewis Room in Rackham. Afternoon lab sessions will run Monday through Friday from 1-4 p.m. in East Hall Room B745.

Registration: Please fill out this form to register.

HPC 101: How to use the Flux Computing Cluster — June 6

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Here’s an opportunity for Flux cluster users and potential users to learn more about the Flux computing cluster, creating and submitting jobs, understanding the available tools, and avoiding common pitfalls.  This will be a hands-on experience, in which you will log in to the cluster and work with jobs.  Basic Linux command-line skills are a pre-requisite, as the Flux cluster is implemented on Linux.

The class will be offered Thursday, June 6, from 1-5 PM in Room B745 East Hall.  Full details at http://unix.lsa.umich.edu/HPC101/ .  Course registration link at https://www.engin.umich.edu/form/hpc101_20130606

We plan on teaching this course again next term, so folks can take it later if they can’t make it this time.

We think graduate students will want to attend, and faculty and admins are certainly welcome as well.

Copyright and research data — Thursday, June 20

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Michael Carroll, Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University’s Washington College of Law and a founding Board Member of Creative Commons, will speak at “Copyright Camp 2013: Data,” scheduled for June 20.

Carroll will talk about the copyright framework that applies automatically to research data, new requirements likely to come out of Washington, D.C., and the role of informal expectations in scientific disciplines in sharing data.

A series of breakout sessions addressing copyright issues relevant to our institution will follow.

The event is free, but registration is encouraged for planning purposes. For more information, see http://www.lib.umich.edu/events/copyright-camp-2013-data.

Time and Date: 1-5 p.m., June 20

Location: Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery

Host Unit: Copyright Office, Michigan Publishing

Cosponsors: Advanced Research Computing at U-M (ARC), the Open.Michigan initiative in the Office of Enabling Technologies at the Medical School, the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), and Information and Technology Services (ITS).

Extreme Scaling Workshop — Aug. 15-16

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Blue Waters and XSEDE are presenting the 7th annual Extreme Scaling workshop in Boulder, Colo., on Aug. 15-16. The workshop will address large-scale heterogeneous computing through a series of talks and discussions for sharing experiences and successes making use of the new types of resources of GUPs and manycore processors.

This workshop is set up to provide enough time for research teams to gain understanding on utilizing these systems to advance their applications while still having time to exchange and learn best practices.

The goal is to inform research and education communities about how to effectively utilize large numbers of accelerated nodes.

For more information and registration, visit https://www.xsede.org/web/xscale/.

Scientific Computing with Python conference set for June 24-29

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SciPy 2013, the 12th annual Scientific Computing with Python conference, is scheduled for June 24-29 in Austin, Texas. The conference will have two specialized tracks that run parallel in the general conference:

Machine Learning: Python makes machine learning algorithms more accessible. Learn about machine learning libraries and how they have been used as effective tools. Visit http://conference.scipy.org/scipy2013/presentations.php#Machine%20Learning for more information.

Reproducible Science: The Open Science movement has stoked renewed interest in reproducible research. Hear how Python is used to achieve reproducible scientific computing. See http://conference.scipy.org/scipy2013/presentations.php#Reproducible%20Science for more information.

To register and for more information, visit http://conference.scipy.org/scipy2013/index.php.

Call for speakers for conference in Portugal — High-Scale Computing: Turning Big Data into Smart Data

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The Fifth Annual High-Scale Computing: Turning Big Data into Smart Data conference in Lisbon, Portugal, December 4-5, 2013, is accepting speaker proposals until May 24. The conference is sponsored by Bio-IT World and the Cambridge Healthtech institute, and is part of the Fifth International Clinical Genomics and Informatics Europe conference (December 4-6).

The management and analysis of the massive amounts of genomic data generated by next-generation sequencing (NGS) are demanding. The system flexibility, sustainability and scalability of IT infrastructure are vital to support genomic research and translation into the clinic. CHI’s Fifth Annual High-Scale Computing conference showcases innovative network applications, architectures, protocols and interfaces for genomic data management and analysis. These best practices for applying, using and improving critical systems and for services, networking and storage turn big data into smart data. Topics to be covered include:

  • Data infrastructure for peta-scale science
  • Integrated storage, file and disk management systems
  • Data transfer
  • Genomic data privacy and security
  • Cloud computing infrastructure and platforms
  • Discovery and provisioning with hybrid cloud
  • Real-time estimation of distributed parameters systems
  • Digital imagery network applications
  • Application-aware network performance management
  • Ultra-scale visualization of life science data
  • GPU-enabled applications
  • Other advances and developments in the field

Proposals can be submitted online at http://www.clinicalgenomicsinformatics.com/cgie_content.aspx?ekfrm=125535. Please note that due to limited speaking slots, preference will be given to abstracts from those within academic centers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and regulators.

For more information on the overall conference, visit http://www.clinicalgenomicsinformatics.com.

 

Registration open for summer training on data-intensive and multi-core computing at Michigan State University

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Registration is now open for the 2013 Virtual School of Computational Science and Engineering, workshops organized by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) and supported by the NSF.

The workshops are held at dozens of locations across the country; the closest to U-M is at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Two sessions are offered this year:

  • Data Intensive Summer School, July 8 – 10
  • Proven Algorithmic Techniques for Many-Core Processors, July 29 – August 2

The workshops are aimed at helping graduate students, post-docs and young professionals from all disciplines and institutions across the country gain the skills they need to use advanced computational resources to advanced their research.

For more information, visit http://www.vscse.org/index.html. To register, visit https://portal.xsede.org/course-calendar.

Job listing: Assistant Director for Research Cyberinfrastructure, University of Minnesota

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The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute at the University of Minnesota is seeking an Assistant Director for Research Cyberinfrastructure.

The listing seeks candidates with particular experience and expertise in data intensive research, and sound knowledge and demostrable abilities in high-performance computing hardware platforms,scientific software environments, and disciplinary research in a data intensive field.

For more information, see https://www.msi.umn.edu/content/assistant-director-research-cyberinfrastructure and for information on applying, visit https://employment.umn.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=111219.

Lecture: Increasing Your Computing Power with XSEDE — Friday, May 10

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Does your research or teaching involve computing at a level that’s outgrown your personal computer’s capabilities? Do your computing tasks involve people at multiple institutions?   Do you have Big Data analysis needs that are currently unmet? If you said yes to any of these, or if you are keen to learn where to get lots of free computing cycles, then this session on national supercomputing resources is for you. The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) is a heavy-duty cyberinfrastructure collection billed as “a single virtual system that scientists can use to interactively share computing resources, data and expertise.” In this session, the presenter will review the current set of hardware, software, and services available at XSEDE sites, demonstrate the application process, and provide some examples of XSEDE use by Michigan researchers.

Time: 10-11 a.m., Friday, May 10

Location: Gallery Lab, 100 Hatcher Graduate Library, 913 South University, Central Campus

Session level: All

Sponsor(s): Advanced Research Computing at U-M (ARC)

Presenter: Prof. August Evrard, Physics Department, Advanced Research Computing at U-M (ARC)

For more information and to register, please visit https://ttc.iss.lsa.umich.edu/ttc/sessions/increasing-your-computing-power-with-xsede/