Stay in touch with CI-related news & events with UC San Diego CyberLink!
UC San Diego CyberLink is a monthly digest of news and events related to cyberinfrastructure from San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego Libraries, Administrative Computing & Telecommunications (ACT) and Center for Research in Biological Structures (CRBS). If you have news to share about cyberinfrastructure-related research, applications or activities on the UC San Diego campus, please send them to cyberlink@ucsd.edu.
Neuroscience Information Framework Releases Version 2.0
At the 39th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), a national collaboration led by UC San Diego – the Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF) – unveiled its second iteration as a resource to improve information retrieval in the neurosciences. Apart from a redesigned site, NIF 2.0 makes Framework resources available as open access data, and it marks the start of a transition for SfN's Neuroscience Database Gateway to the NIF platform.
Waitt Family Foundation Project Develops Whole Brain Catalog™
Researchers in UCSD's Center for Research in Biological Systems (CRBS) will demo a beta version of this cyberinfrastructure-connected resource at Neuroscience 2009 starting Oct. 18 in Chicago. In time, the resource “may constitute the largest single gateway to brain science research data,” says Ted Waitt, whose Waitt Family Foundation is funding the effort. The Catalog™ will integrate diverse brain data sets, at many different scales, and give researchers everywhere access to the data via 3D, high-resolution visualization tools.
Encrypted Wireless Required Starting November 9
ACT is nearing completion of a broad upgrade to the campus wireless networking services. The final phase involves the use of the encrypted wireless network, UCSD-PROTECTED. All faculty, staff, and students who use WiFi on campus and need access to restricted UCSD resources are required to configure their computers to use UCSD-PROTECTED by Nov. 9. The old "UCSD" unencrypted wireless network, which doesn't protect communications, is expected to be turned off on that date. Visitors can use the UCSD-GUEST network, which provides general Internet access (but no access to restricted campus resources). The ACT Help Desk will offer support sessions on different areas of the campus the week of November 2.
Online 'Museum' Compares Humans with Our Closest Evolutionary Relatives
The cyberinfrastructure experts at SDSC and Calit2 have helped create an online Museum of Comparative Anthropogeny. It's the online presence of a joint UC San Diego and Salk Institute Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA), linking researchers and the public to a web-based collection of comparisons between humans and our closest evolutionary relatives, including chimps and gorillas.
National LambdaRail Turns Six and Celebrates Calit2, Other Early Adopters
To celebrate the sixth anniversary of its backbone going operational, NLR published an online report about early adopters, including Calit2 and its partner in the OptIPuter project, EVL at the University of Illinois at Chicago. EVL and Calit2 leased a dedicated 10 Gbps circuit between San Diego and Chicago in September 2004, and it was extended to NASA Goddard and J. Craig Venter Institute in Maryland, and last year another switch was installed by CENIC/NLR to hook up HP Labs to the EVL/Calit2 “CAVEwave” at 10 Gbps for joint research.
SDSC Part of $15 Million Project to Create 'FutureGrid' Network
SDSC is part of a team chosen by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build and run an experimental high-performance grid test-bed, allowing researchers to collaboratively develop and test new approaches to parallel, grid and cloud computing.
HPWREN Enhances Situational Awareness for First Responders
Emergency responders are typically hampered by a lack of real-time situational awareness when making critical decisions in response to rapidly changing conditions and life-threatening situations. In order to provide enhanced situational awareness to responders on the ground, MIT Lincoln Laboratory -- with the assistance of the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN) -- has installed a camera system with real-time video downlink capability on a Cal Fire emergency-response aircraft.
New Saudi University Opens Its Doors -- and Stunning Visualization Facilities
Half a dozen advanced visualization facilities prototyped at UCSD by Calit2 before being built in Saudi Arabia were on display when the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) officially opened its doors on Sept. 23. Highlights included the CORNEA VR environment (with the world's highest resolution “CAVE” environment), which also sports the most advanced spatial/surround sound system in the world.
Calit2 Researchers Model Ancient Maya City in Google SketchUp
Archaeologists affiliated with Calit2's Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3) used an open-source Google download to create detailed, 3D visualizations of the Mayan ruins at Chichén Itzá. The ultimate goal of the project: a Web-based interactive research environment, or “virtual city,” accessible via cyberinfrastructure from anywhere in the world.
Netflix Turned to Computer Science Professor for Million Dollar Competition
Data mining expert and computer science professor Charles Elkan served as a contest designer, consultant and judge for the Netflix Prize. Elkan runs his own annual data mining contest.
Fast and Accurate Analog-to-Digital Converters
Analog-to-digital pioneer and electrical engineering professor Ian Galton is the featured innovator in the September 2009 newsletter from the UC San Diego Technology Transfer Office.
Cyberinfrastructure Is Part of $105 Million NSF Earthquake Engineering Center
Jacob s School structural engineers are part of a $105 million grant from the National Science Foundation to create a headquarters —including extensive cyberinfrastructure—for the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES).
MARK YOUR CALENDAR…… for these upcoming cyberinfrastructure-connected events and training sessions. All events will be held at UC San Diego (except where noted otherwise).
October 14, 2009 – 1:00-3:00pm – Weaver Center, Institute of the Americas, UC San Diego
3rd Annual SysAdmin Expo – Part One UCSD systems administrators and department network managers are encouraged to attend the annual SysAdmin Expo. Part One offers the opportunity to meet the people who provide many of the technical services on campus, including: ACMS and ACT Help Desks; Campus Web Office; Hostmaster; SDSC; Security; and UCSD Network. See below for more on Part Two, scheduled for Nov. 18.
October 22, 2009 – 5-7pm – SDSC Auditorium, San Diego Supercomputer Center
Newton's Laws of Gravity: From the Celestial to the Terrestrial
The basic ideas worked out by Galileo, Newton and others will be explored and made accessible with a combination of in-class experiments, “thought experiments” realized by animations, and selected video clips for our recent but rich history of space exploration.
October 24, 2009 – 9am-Noon – SDSC Auditorium, San Diego Supercomputer Center
Students Modeling A Research Topic
The San Diego-based SMART Team program, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute-supported pre-college science outreach program to introduce high school students to basic concepts in protein structure, will focus during this session on “Using RasMol for Protein Visualization.”
November 6, 2009 – 11am-Noon – Auditorium, Room 1202, CSE Building, UC San Diego Powering Future System Innovations
Intel Labs VP Wen-Hann Wang, who also directs Intel's Circuits and System Research, will talk about the need for “revolutionary” thinking in research on the building blocks of systems. Wang will focus on five key sub-system vectors: security and trust; resiliency; memory hierarchy, I/O, and energy efficiency. This talk is part of the 2009-10 UCSD Center for Networked Systems (CNS) Lecture Series.
November 18, 2009 – 1:00-3:00pm – Weaver Center, Institute of the Americas, UC San Diego 3rd Annual SysAdmin Expo – Part Two
UCSD systems administrators and department network managers are encouraged to attend the annual SysAdmin Expo. Part Two of the SysAdmin Expo (Part One took place on Oct. 14) features an update on ACT activities – a review of the past year and what's in store for the 2009-‘10 academic year.
The agenda will include talks by CNS's industry affiliates on current research challenges and concerns, progress reports from UCSD researchers conducting CNS-sponsored projects, a graduate student research poster session, and numerous opportunities for information interactions with CNS faculty, researchers and graduate students. Attendance is limited to industry sponsors and invited guests. For more information, contact Kathy Krane at mailto:kkrane@ucsd.eduor call 858-822-5964.
Jan. 25 - 28, 2010 – Calit2 Auditorium, Atkinson Hall, UC San Diego
8th International Conference on Creating, Connecting & Collaborating through Computing
The C5 conference focuses on ways to transform computer-based human activities for creating and collaborating as a knowledge society emerges from now-pervasive computers, networks and other technologies. Talks will focus on visualization; collaboration and communication; technology-human interaction; virtual worlds; social networks; learning and much more. Paper submission deadline: Oct. 23.
