In November
National Computational Infrastructure - Call for Applications to the Merit Allocations Scheme
This call seeks applications from researchers in universities and publicly funded research organisations (covered by the NCRIS
Capabilities) for computational resources (processor time and related data storage) on the NCI National Facility (http://nf.nci.org.au).
Under the MAS, resources are allocated to researchers on merit through a process which assesses applications on their research quality and computational requirements and needs.
In 2010, the facilities that will be available are:
* the new peak system - a Sun Constellation Cluster (vayu) with 11936 cores.
* the SGI Altix XE 1300 (xe) with 1248 cores.
Access under the MAS is provided for by Commonwealth (NCRIS) funding and thus researchers provided with resources under this scheme are not charged by NCI for the services provided. For 2010, the value of these resources is approximately $0.12 per core hour, an amount which can be stated as an in-kind contribution to research granting bodies (e.g., ARC, NHMRC).
**The closing date for applications is Monday, November 9**
All applications are completed online using a form which is available at http://nf.nci.org.au/accounts/
Click here for additional background and information about the NCI Merit Allocation Scheme.
"Mobile Me - Creativity on the Go" - Nov 30 - Dec 2, Griffith University's Brisbane South Bank Campus
The AUC will be holding CreateWorld 2009, a 3 day performance, presentation, and technical development event, specifically for Academic and Higher-Education Technical staff in the digital arts disciplines.
The conference will feature a wide range of academic and technical presenters from the University and industry sectors as well as hands-on technical workshops. There will be a range of keynotes and the very popular panel sessions and hypotheticals.
Based on the success of CreateWorld 2008, optional workshops will be offered on Sunday 29 November. Presentations will be enhanced with the inclusion of integrated performace and panel sessions.
Full details about the conference including; agenda, keynote speakers, panel discussions, performances, sessions, AUC subsidies, travel and accommodation information and registration are now available from the following link.
<http://www.auc.edu.au/Create+World+2009>
** Subsidies
Each full member AUC University has 4 subsidised places to send a delegate to CreateWorld 2009. The subsidy includes:
- Subsidised Registration Fee
- Airfare Subsidy*
- Accommodation Subsidy*
To apply for a subsidised place at CreateWorld 2009 please contact your local AUC Representative <http://www.auc.edu.au/Contact+Us>
* Limits apply on airfares and accommodation subsidies. Full subsidy details are available at: <http://www.auc.edu.au/Create+World+Subsidies>
Life Sciences Computation Summer School?
The VLSCI is interested in assessing whether a summer school program for life sciences computation would be valuable to postgraduates and others interested in computational systems.
We would like your comments on the following proposal:
It is envisaged at this early stage that the 'summer school' would:
* occupy 1 week in February
* would be comprised of around 4-5 topics, e.g.
* Visualization and Image Processing
* Computational Biochemistry
* Cloud and Grid Computing
* Data Mining/Data Analysis
* each topic would be comprised of a short introductory lecture, followed by a 1/2 - 2/3 day tutorial in a computer lab.
* the lecture would be general, rather than specific, in order that we attract the most number of students possible. This would
present "the state of the art and future projections".
* the tutorial would involve an introduction to some of the 'tools of the trade', i.e. online resources, computer applications,
methods of computation.
* the tutorial activities would be carried out on VPAC systems.
* the tutorial sessions may involve assistance from VPAC and other organisations.
Please contact Mark Graham at VLSCI if a) you (or a colleague) would be interested in teaching into these sessions, b) you would have students (at any
level) interested in attending, and c) any comments or feedback you might have that would help the summer school work best.
In December
The Monash e-Research Centre is hosting OzVis 2009 - 3rd & 4th December, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria
The workshop provides an occasion for participants to present research outcomes, share innovative ideas, publicize work and meet colleagues. It is highly multidisciplinary, with participants from fields such as mathematics, geoscience, architecture, biology, medicine and astronomy presenting alongside computer graphics and visualisation experts. We are pleased to announce the keynote speaker will be Professor Rob Lewis, foundation chair of X-ray and Synchrotron Physics at Monash University and the Director of the Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science. There will also be a joint session on 3D Bioimaging in conjunction with the Live Cell Imaging Workshop (LCI09) organised by Monash Micro Imaging. This session will feature a keynote presentation by Dr Marius Messerli, CEO of Bitplane which develops the Imaris toolbox and other speakers who utilise 3D visualisation and analysis for micro imaging datasets. To propose a presentation, please submit an abstract and images by the 1st of November 2009.
http://sites.google.com/site/ozvizworkshop/ozviz-2009
UK e-Science All Hands 2009 - 7-9 Dec, Oxford, UK
The All-Hands Meeting has become the annual event where computational scientists and technologists can come together to share, discuss and advance the research that has grown out of the e-Science Programme.
An exciting element of AHM 2009 is that it will be the central venue for the RCUK Review on e-Science. This provides the opportunity to showcase the activities of the e-Science programme and the community it has created.
(The closing date for submissions was 30 June)
eScience 2009 - 9-11 Dec, Oxford, UK
The 5th IEEE e-Science conference is designed to bring together leading international and interdisciplinary research communities, developers, and users of e-Science applications and enabling IT technologies. It will serve as a forum to present the results of the latest research and product/tool developments and to highlight related activities from around the world.
Some themes to be developed include:
1. Arts and Humanities and e-Social Science
2. Bioinformatics and Health
3. Climate and Earth Sciences
4. Digital Repositories and Data Management
5. eScience Practice and Education
6. Physical Sciences and Engineering
7. Research Tools, Workflow and Systems
There is also the opportunity to submit a workshop programme that is
focussed on newer and less well developed areas of research.
Important Dates
Papers Due: Friday 31st July, 2009
Notification of Acceptance: Tuesday 1st September, 2009
Camera Ready Papers Due: Friday 18th September, 2009
General Interest
Update on the VLSCI (Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative) from Professor John O’Callaghan,
Director, VLSCI
On 8 July, Professor Peter Rathjen, DVC (R) University of Melbourne, advised that the VLSCI Business Plan had been accepted by the Victorian Government and that the implementation of the plan had started with my appointment as interim Director.
Since that time, considerable progress has been made with the implementation of the plan.
The VLSCI Steering Committee had its first meeting on 31 August and provided guidance on the development of the initiative. Since that meeting, Professor John Zillman has accepted the invitation to be the chair of this committee. We will be making the agenda and a summary of the meetings available on our website.
We are planning to acquire a large X86 cluster computing system through a Request for Tender process. We expect that the system acquired through this process will be available in early 2010.
Life sciences researchers will get access to most of the resources on this system by applying for grants through a Resource Allocation Scheme. The scheme will follow the National Computational Initiative (NCI) Merit Allocation Scheme and will be based on a number of criteria including the merit of the research and the need of the research for the system. A call for applications will be announced on the VLSCI website shortly.
We have initiated a number of outreach activities including support for the Bio21 Cluster Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), support for the Masters in Bioinformatics program at the University of Melbourne and support for 6 postgraduate students to attend a special workshop at the SC’09 Supercomputing Conference and Exhibition in the US next month. More activities are planned and will be announced on the VLSCI website.
High Performance Computing
The High Performance Computing Cluster, Hercules, has been piloted with great success and usage has grown tremendously. For the past three months La Trobe is at the limit of its cpu allocation at VPAC. From May to June 2009 the cluster has been used between 40% and 80% of its capacity.
The cluster has now been upgraded to double its capacity, we now have 177 cores for computation - plus we have gone from 2.1 to 2.4 GHz.
For access instructions please click here
if you have any suggestions on software to run on the cluster please contact: eresearch@latrobe.edu.au
The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) announces release for public comment its draft content checklist for a data management plan
In addition to a recent summary of main UK research funders' policies and the support infrastructure they provide, the checklist is intended to act as an aide when producing data management plans as part of new research projects. Following the public consultation, the content checklist will be developed into an interactive, web-based tool into which researchers can insert their own information and automatically generate customised data management plans.
Comments and suggestions on the draft checklist and/or desired functionality for the online tool are invited at http://www.dcc.ac.uk/feedback-dmp-checklist/
Australian National Data Service (ANDS) launches online services
The Australian National Data Service (ANDS) is launching a number of online services to support data intensive research. The first of these were made public in the month of May:
The Register My Data services allow you to register descriptions of your research data. These descriptions are then published in a number of discovery environments. The first of these is the Research Data Australia gateway (to be launched by ANDS in July) which aspires to include any Australian publicly funded data relevant to research and enable innovative cross-disciplinary re-use. Data descriptions registered with ANDS are also fed into other data discovery portals in Australia and internationally, including the big search engines such as Google. The Identify My Data services allocate persistent identifiers to data. These identifiers enable continuity of access even when the location of the data on the internet changes. These new services have been established by ANDS to help realise the vision of a global research data commons.
ANDS Resource Centre
ANDS Guides provide information about ANDS services and about some fundamental issues in data-intensive research and research data management.
At present there are five guides available:
- Data Management Planning
- Metadata
- Persistent Identifiers
- Research Data Policy and the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
- Scholarly Communications
ANDS is also developing a number of topic-based resources. The first of these is about responding to the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. You can find it at http://ands.org.au/resource/code.html
Expanded eResearch Infrastructure
Within the Super Science initiatives announced in the May Commonwealth budget, $312M was allocated across 2009-2013 to expand the eResearch infrastructure development activities currently funded by NCRIS.
These proposals arise from the review of the Strategic Roadmap for Australian Research Infrastructure carried out last year in consultation with the research sector, and from the Government’s response to the Recommendations of the Review of the National Innovation System.
The budget measures summarised below, represent a significantly enhanced investment in eResearch infrastructure, as recommended in the Roadmap.
- $130M is allocated for supercomputing, extending the current NCI, focussed on climate, water and ecosystem research, and to establish a second national centre in Perth, focussed on supporting SKA, mining and related research. With the investment by Victoria of the order of a further $100M in a third centre focussed on life sciences, a transformative lift in computational research and data analysis capability will be realised over the next five years.
- $97M is allocated for data storage and collaboration infrastructure, to build on and build out the collaboration services and data fabric initiatives under way in ARCS. While the full cost of data management across the research sector is enormous, the establishment of a new national infrastructure for research data, including a contribution to the cost of storage, represents a second transformative initiative.
- $48M is allocated to advance the development of the Australian Research Data Commons, working through ANDS and engaging the research sector more broadly, to increase the federated re-use of data assets. This investment focuses on the long term needs to more rigorously manage content in support of research.
- $37M is allocated to significantly enhance the Australian Research Network, to ensure world class connectivity continues to be provided between major research centres, both within universities and within the broader research sector, to interconnect research related infrastructure and data assets to support the huge growth expected in data volumes, and to provide a dedicated production and developmental network platform for eResearch service providers.
Twittering is spreading throughout the international e-Research community
Increasing numbers in the international eScience/eResearch community seem to be starting to utilise Twitter for two-way communication (broader than instant messaging), e.g: Chris Rusbridge at DCC http://twitter.com/cardcc and Sarah Gentleman at RIN http://twitter.com/research_inform
There's also a strong digital humanities presence on Twitter in the US, e.g: Brett Bobley at ODH NEH http://twitter.com/brettbobley and Dan Cohen at CHNM GMU http://twitter.com/dancohen
If you're using or considering Twitter, you might like to look at the hashtag #eresearch: see
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23eresearch
which allows you to follow the tag on the web or by newsfeed. If you'd like to add the tag #eresearch to your own posts on Twitter, at least high-level ones like overall announcements of events or resources (not necessarily detailed discussion), it will help others to find your posts and perhaps follow you.
AARNET to sponsor 2009 Eckermann-TJA Prize
AARNet has announced it will be providing $20,000 worth of in-kind network services for the winner of the 2009 Eckermann-TJA Prize. The Eckermann-TJA Prize calls for papers which demonstrate the tangible benefits that an innovative use of broadband communications technology can deliver in supporting a sustainable environment. The $20,000 worth of AARNet network services will be available to the 2009 prize winning entrant for one year, to bolster his/her research program. This will accompany the $20,000 cash prize awarded to the winner by Alcatel-Lucent, major sponsor of this year’s competition. The competition is open until 3 November, 2009 and the winning entry will be published in the Telecommunications Journal of Australia in February 2010.
Formation of Intersect - the peak eResearch body for NSW
Intersect was formally established as a not-for-profit company on 25th June 2008. It is a University-established research support company, focusing on eResearch. Part of their services portfolio is the development of the skills base in their members, including researchers and support staff, as well as Intersect’s own staff. Current members of Intersect are the University of Sydney, the University of NSW, Macquarie University, the University of Newcastle, University of Technology Sydney, Southern Cross University and SIRCA Ltd.
Spatial Data Handling Conference - Hong Kong 2010 - call for abstracts
The 14th International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling will be held in Hong Kong 26-28th May 2010.
Important Dates:
August 31st 2009 - Deadline for abstract
September 30th 2009 - Notification of accepted abstracts
November 30th 2009 - Deadline for full paper
January 15th 2010 - Notification of full paper acceptance
February 15th 2010 - Deadline for revised full paper
May 26th-28th 2010 - Symposium
PILIN (Persistent Identifier Linking Infrastructure) project
This project supported adoption and use of persistent identifiers and services in Australia, a key component for a successful digital education implementation. The project also strengthened Australia's ability to use global identifier infrastructure and laid the foundations for a sustainable, shared identifier management infrastructure.
Announcing the ARCS Data Fabric - An easy to use data storage service
The ARCS Data Fabric is a simple production service allowing researchers, research groups, research organizations and research communities to store data. It can also provide features for data collaboration, replication and transfer and for building into other e-Research services as required.
What storage options are available and at what cost?
• Free storage of 25GB: Researchers and/or research groups will be provided with their own free virtual storage of 25GB on request - (free storage quota may be reduced if demand becomes excessive).
• Additional storage at hardware cost: ARCS will also provide additional raw storage at hardware cost. Given current hardware costs and useful lifetimes of three years, ARCS expects to supply 3 years of storage for $2,500 per Terabyte of RAID and $1,000 per Terabyte of tape silo to researchers.
Continuation beyond 3 years will be charged at the prevailing hardware cost.
• Managed storage: Additional managed services, e.g., enduring storage, archiving, backups, data replication etc can also be provided at the effective cost to ARCS. Information on costs will be provided on request.
What storage capabilities are available?
• ARCS storage: ARCS will provide storage at a location within its members’ facilities, however a user will be able to select a location if desired.
• Easy to use desktop access: There will be an easy to use graphical interface to this storage, command line tools and a web interface.
• Choice of location and replication: ARCS will work with users to replicate or move their data within ARCS should data locality become important.
• Data caching: It will be possible to cache user's data in locations close to other resources to improve the performance of compute workflows.
• Seamless integration with ARCS services: The ARCS Data Fabric will integrate well with other ARCS services such as compute job submission.
• Cooperation with ANDS: There will be close cooperation between ARCS and ANDS (Australian National Data Service) in the operation of the ARCS Data Fabric so that it is tightly integrated with the services to be provided by ANDS.
• Exemplars and use cases: Examples and common use cases will soon be available on the ARCS web site www.arcs.org.au.
International Science Linkages
Science is becoming an increasingly globalised activity and opportunities for international collaboration are growing. As a result, governments and researchers around the world are paying increased attention to ensuring that their engagement is productive, effective and well targeted. International engagement enables Australian science to achieve much more than it could on its own by providing the following benefits: Global influence and maintenance of friendly relations, knowledge transfer, the ability to address national/global challenges, enhanced international reputation, access to expensive infrastructure, foreign investment in Australian science, skills development and recruitment, contribution to national and global security and capacity building.
Competitive Grants: targeting collaborative scientific research - From 2008, applications for joint research projects will be invited from Australian researchers collaborating with partners from the following countries and areas of research:
Brazil - Agriculture, biotechnology, minerals & mining, nanotechnology
European Union - Clean energy technologies, Bioeconomy (including industrial biotechnology & agriculture), climate change
Germany - Nanotechnology, water resources, clean energy technologies
Japan - Clean energy technologies
United Kingdom - Climate change, biosciences, clean energy technologies
USA - Climate change, clean energy technologies, advanced computing, nanotechnology, biotechnology
Singapore - Biotechnology
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