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Summer Student Program 2012 - Presentation Abstracts

Talks/Events:

Building a Community of Leaders with the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Programs (Top)

Who: Mary Ann Leung, Krell Institute
When: June 7, 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Where: 70-191

In this seminar, attendees will learn about graduate studies in the computing sciences and how the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF) provides not only financial support for doctoral work but also is working towards building a community of leaders in computational science and engineering. The DOE CSGF program, its benefits, requirements, and unique approach to supporting Ph.D. students will be discussed as well as information about current fellows, alumni, and the application process. The seminar will include discussion from a current program fellow.

Powerpoint presentation


Introduction to High Performance Computing (HPC) (Top)

Who: Richard Gerber
When: June 12, 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Where: 70A-3377

I will address a number of question about HPC, including (1) What is HPC? (2) Who uses HPC and what are they doing with it? (3) What is a supercomputer? (4) How do you use a supercomputer? and (5) Challenges in HPC. Those with a laptop and an SSH client will be able to log into a NERSC supercomputer and run some test codes.

Powerpoint Presentation

Science DMZ (Top)

Who: Eli Dart
When: June 14, 3:00 -4:00 p.m.
Where: 50F-1647

The Science DMZ is a portion of the network, built at or near the campus or laboratory's local network perimeter that is designed such that the equipment, configuration, and security policies are optimized for high-performance scientific applications. This talk will discuss the Science DMZ, as well as the aspects of scientific collaborations that drive the architecture and configuration of science networks and their integration with Science DMZ resources.

Powerpoint Presentation

Security at NERSC (Top)

Who: Jim Mellander
When: June 21, 1:30-3:00 PM
Where: OSF

My presentation will focus on the scope of the cybersecurity threat at NERSC, information on good net citizenship at NERSC, and some general guidelines on how to remain safe and secure on the net.

Science Gateways (Top)

Who: David Skinner
When: June 21, 1:30-3:00 PM
Where: OSF

Science gateways are web destinations for scientific analysis, computing, or data that bring High Performance computing (HPC) workflows to the web browser. Many science teams that use HPC today rely on a subset of their team to be trained in command line HPCisms who become conduits to HPC capabilities. Such barriers to ease of use in computing limit the range of impact of NERSC and the Office of Science resources. Science gateways promise to broaden access to HPC and the science areas to which computing may be applied. We will discuss modern web technologies and tools for developing HPC on the web.

High-Order Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for Conservation Laws (Top)

Who: Per-Olof Persson
When: June 28, 12:00-1:00 PM
Where: 70-191

It is widely believed that high–order accurate numerical methods, for example discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods, will eventually replace the traditional low–order methods in the solution of many problems, including fluid flow, solid dynamics, and wave propagation. I will explain what DG methods are and demonstrate what these methods can do in real-world problems, such as the analysis of flapping flight (e.g. the flight of birds and bats), microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and wind turbines.

Data-Intensive Science in the Clouds and Beyond (Top)

Who: Lavanya Ramakrishnan
When: July 05, 12:00-1:00 PM
Where: 50A-5132

Cloud computing has served the needs of web applications for the last few years. Scientific applications are increasingly investigating cloud models and technologies to manage their computation and data. In this talk, I will talk about our work with using cloud infrastructure as well as using cloud technologies at HPC centers for data-intensive science workflows.

Improvisation: Essential Skills in Learning and Working in Computational Science (Top)

Who: Raquell M. Holmes
When: July 10, 12:00-1:00 PM
Where: 50A-5132

Computational biology is a broad field that draws on areas of computation, physics, mathematics and biology. In addition to the technical aspects of creating computational models of phenomena in cell biology, Dr. Holmes speaks to the integral role of culture and improvisation in learning and research. In this talk, she introduces modeling of reaction diffusion systems in the Virtual Cell problem solving environment and highlights the significance of improvisational activity for breaking down disciplinary barriers and creating work environments that support human development.

Visualization and Analysis of Large Data From Simulations (Top)

Who: Hank Childs
When: July 12, 12:00-1:00 PM
Where: 2-100B

Visualization and analysis are critical to the success of the simulation process; they help realize the value of computing by increasing the rate at which new science is discovered. Their techniques are used to confirm that simulations are running correctly, to communicate simulation results to an audience, and, most importantly, to explore data, which is often where new insights are obtained.

As supercomputers get ever larger, simulations are producing increasingly massive data sets, create two major challenges for visualization and analysis: (1) how to handle the scale of the data and (2) how to reduce its complexity to produce results that will truly enable insight. In this presentation, I will primarily focus on the scale issue and describe the barriers to scalable parallel performance. Finally, this field is rapidly changing, as supercomputers will soon be heavily power-constrained. I will describe why visualization and analysis processing techniques must evolve and how.

Unit Origami Workshop (Top)

Who: Terry Ligocki
When: July 19, 12:00-1:00 PM
Where: 70A-3377

Unit origami is a form of origami where individual pieces, "units", are folded and then these are assembled into more complex, beautiful geometric shapes.

This is a "hands on" workshop where everyone will learn to fold an origami unit and then, in groups, we will assemble them. If time permits, I will demonstrate a second type of unit and we can try to complete an second type of assembly.

I will bring unit origami objects I've folded and I will supply all the folding paper. No previous experience folding is necessary or required—come and have fun!

Numerical algorithms for electronic structure analysis (Top)

Who: Lin Lin
When: July 26, 12:00-1:00 PM
Where: 70-191

Electronic structure theory describes the arrangement of electrons in molecules and in condensed matter phases. Among all the electronic structure theories, Kohn-Sham density functional theory (KSDFT) is the most widely used theory due to its best balance between efficiency and accuracy, and is widely used in physics, chemistry and material science. In this talk I will introduce the background of KSDFT, how applied mathematics can be used to effectively reduce the computational complexity of KSDFT in practice!

The Data Revolution in Astronomy: A Case Study of the Palomar Transient Factory (Top)

Who: Peter Nugent
When: August 09, 12:00-1:00 PM
Where: 50A-5132

Astrophysics is transforming from a data-starved to a data-swamped discipline, fundamentally changing the nature of scientific inquiry and discovery. New technologies are enabling the detection, transmission, and storage of data of hitherto unimaginable quantity and quality across the electromagnetic, gravity and particle spectra. The observational data obtained in the next decade alone will supersede everything accumulated over the preceding four thousand years of astronomy. Within the next year there will be no fewer than 4 large-scale photometric and spectroscopic surveys underway, each generating and/or utilizing tens of terabytes of data per year. Some will focus on the static universe while others will greatly expand our knowledge of transient phenomena. Maximizing the science from these programs requires integrating the processing pipeline with high-performance computing resources coupled to large astrophysics databases with near real-time turnaround. Here I will present an overview of the first of these programs, DeepSky and the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF), the processing and discovery pipeline we have developed at LBNL and NERSC for them and several of the great discoveries made during the first 3 years of observations with PTF.