This summer, 48 fellows from around the world have come to Chicago to tackle these and other missions as part of the 2014 Data Science for Social Good Summer Fellowship, a University of Chicago program dedicated to making a better world through innovative data science projects. For 12 weeks, fellows work with non-profit and government organizations to make the most of their data and create positive impact in education, healthcare, energy conservation, economic development and more. To read more, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/uchicago-program-train-data-scientists/.

Computerworld

Although China has the world's most powerful supercomputer, which is capable of speeds of up to 33.86 petaflops per second, the United States produces more supercomputers than any other country, according to the latest Top500 supercomputer list. IDC analyst Steve Conway estimates about 90 percent of the systems on the Top500 ranking are manufactured by U.S. vendors, including 65 of the 76 Chinese systems on the most recent list. Still, U.S. dominance in supercomputer production is by no means assured, given intensifying global competition. The U.S. accounted for 233 systems on the Top500 list last month, slipping below 50 percent for the first time. Conway attributes this decline to the Chinese push. To read further, please visit http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249506/China_has_the_fastest_supercomputer_but_the_U.S._still_rules_.

Nomination Deadline – August 22, 2014

We are excited to announce the first phase of our annual HPCwire Reader's Choice Awards as nominations are now open. Were you particularly impressed in 2014 by a company or their products in the HPC community? ...This is your chance to help them get recognized! Candidates with the most nominations per category will move on to elections. Be sure to nominate worthy candidates and share with co-workers. For more information, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014-hpcwire-readers-choice-awards/.

Creating an infrastructure supporting data from across all disciplines of science, engineering, and humanities so that researchers can easily find, reuse, and publish data in a world where researchers generate immense amounts of it daily was the focus of the kickoff meeting for the National Data Service (NDS). More than 70 representatives from organizations across the United States and around the world gathered in Boulder, Colorado, in June to begin turning the vision into reality. To read further, please visit http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/news/story/national_data_services_kickoff.

Application Deadline – August 30, 2014

Louisiana Tech University is teaming up with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to offer a 10-week course for educators interested in putting a space-themed twist on learning. The course is designed to be a self-paced, online professional development experience focusing on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, education resources available from NASA. These resources have application methods for use in grades 4-9 classrooms with the goal of advancing high quality STEM education utilizing NASA's unique capabilities. For more information and to enroll in the course, visit http://scitecatlatech.weebly.com/opeo.html.

ACM Application Deadline – August 16, 2014
SIGHPC Application Deadline - September  7, 2014

There are two travel grant opportunities available for students (undergraduates through doctoral) for attending SC14. These grants will provide up to $600US for students in North America and up to $1200US for students outside of North America towards attending this year’s conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Up to 3 grants may be awarded to female students by ACM-W and up to 5 grants will be awarded by SIGHPC. SIGHPC grants require student membership in SIGHPC; this is not a requirement for ACM-W grants. Additional information and links to the application sites are available at www.sighpc.org/resources/travel.  Please address questions concerning these grants to students@sighpc.org.

Adobe has committed over $300 million in software and professional development services to the White House's ConnectED initiative. As part of this $2 billion+ effort from the private sector, Adobe will deliver creative tools and teacher professional development to schools across the United States—all with the goal of helping youth express their creativity and build their skills for future success  If you work in a Title 1 School, you may be eligible to apply for this software donation. To learn more about the Adobe ConnectED donation program for Title 1 schools, please visit http://edex.adobe.com/connected.

SUMMARY:
This problem challenges you to create a program in C or Fortran that simulates the described phenomenon.

QUESTION:
Particles in a 2-D environment move in single directions and bounce off walls and each other. Particles move diagonally (Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, or Southwest), one square per time step, with no change in velocity. 20 particles are initially placed in an environment in random positions, moving in random initial directions (Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, or Southwest). The particles move for 5 time steps, and the environment is 11 squares wide by 12 squares high.

To help with validation and verification of your program, you must include a simple text-based or other kind of visualization that shows each time step of the simulation, e.g. using "o"s to represent particles, "|"s to represent vertical walls, "-"s to represent horizontal walls, and " "s to represent empty spaces.

SOLUTION:
Will be posted July 28, 2014

LINK:
http://hpcuniversity.org/students/weeklyChallenge/79

Why does #HPCMatter? Watch (and like) this video about a world without supercomputers. To view the video, please visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3aI4sEUJ_Y.

Digital certificates accredited by the Interoperable Global Trust Federation (IGTF) are now available to subscribers of Internet2’s InCommon Certificate Service. These certificates enable secure connections between services in XSEDE (the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment) and other cyberinfrastructure providers, including Open Science Grid and the European Grid Infrastructure. I n contrast to the digital certificates used on web sites, IGTF server certificates secure the distributed computing systems that provide access to supercomputers, data archives, and other research infrastructure. The InCommon IGTF server certificates are an additional option, provided at no additional charge to subscribers, alongside the other certificate types already available. Subscribers should choose the IGTF certificate option when working with IGTF relying “This joint effort with XSEDE has enabled InCommon to develop another service of value to the research community,” said John Krienke, director of trust services at Internet2 and InCommon’s chief operating officer. “The InCommon Certificate Service and InCommon Federation together provide an interoperable framework for authentication of users and servers increasingly relied upon for research collaborations.” For more information, visit https://www.incommon.org/certificates/igtf/ .

If you were to go back far enough into the Earth’s cosmic ancestry, you might be surprised to find it all started with a supernova explosion. These explosive cosmic events are like laboratories in space, generating elements that enable the creation of life later on; in fact, most of what makes up the Earth, including us humans, evolved from these fundamental elements. This is why simulating the process of a star going supernova is so important—it could potentially be the key to unlocking some of the bigger mysteries of how we came to be in the universe. To read further, please visit http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/news/story/xsede_and_blue_waters_go_supernova.