Sustainability and swag

As we planned for Portland, we tried to keep the SC09 focus on sustainability in mind. We recycled our booth components, created electronic information kits, worked to keep paper printing to a minimum, and put some extra thought into our swag selection, the goodies that we hand out at the booth to remind our guests of where they can get more information about the interdisciplinary research, education, and outreach supported by the Texas Learning & Computation Center at the University of Houston.

We started with 60+% pre-consumer recycled cotton t-shirts from Anvil, with a design from our communications coordinator Theresa Escobedo.

Then we found the EA-Free reusable Purebot water bottle, made by Hydrapak of safe plastic from Texas-based PlastiPure.

In honor of our host city, Portland, we designed pub coasters and temporary tattoos.

And we have organic lip balm and pens made of recycled plastic. Stop by Booth 1801 and let us tell you a little something about the HPC, biomedical, and environmental work our faculty members are doing, and take home a souvenir.

One Last Day for Learning and Luck

Every person who attends a talk at the GCAS booth at Supercomputing gets an entry in our daily drawing for an 8GB iPod nano with video. Tuesday’s winner came along to a talk with a friend of his who found out about it via one of our tweets. Yesterday’s winner came to an early talk and then remembered to check back by at 4.

Stop by Booth 1801 for a talk at 11, noon, 12:45, and 3, fill out an entry slip, and be at the booth at the end of the 3 p.m. presentation as we draw names for our last iPod.

Thursday talks

* Zhiqiang Wang of the University of Houston, Seismic Data Evaluation Algorithm Development in Physics at UH, 11 a.m.

* Udit Patidar of the University of Houston, Parallel Granger Causality for Large-Scale Time Series Causality Analysis, noon

* Chuangying Chen of the University of Houston, The Association and Reaction Pathway of Protein and DNA, 12:45

* Deepak Eachempati of the University of Houston, Dynamic Performance Data Collection Using the OpenMP Collector Interface, 3 p.m.

Another Fair Exchange of Information for Swag

Every person who attends a talk at the GCAS booth at Supercomputing gets an entry in our daily drawing for an 8GB iPod nano with video. Yesterday’s winner came along to a talk with a friend of his who found out about it via one of our tweets. What will today’s winner’s story be? Come to booth 1801 at 4 p.m. and find out.

Four more chances to enter with tomorrow’s talks:
* Seismic Data Evaluation Algorithm Development in Physics at UH, 11 a.m.
* Parallel Granger Causality for Large-Scale Time Series Causality Analysis, noon
* The Association and Reaction Pathway of Protein and DNA, 12:45
* Dynamic Performance Data Collection Using the OpenMP Collector Interface, 3 p.m.

And because tomorrow is the final day of Supercomputing, our final drawing will be held immediately following the 3 p.m. talk.

Analyzing the Genome

Dr. Raffaele Montuoro, from Texas A&M’s Supercomputing Facility, presents his research on high throughput genome analysis at the GCAS booth.

Advanced Computing Research Laboratory collaborates on new energy-efficient 4-socket blade server

Here at the GCAS booth, we proud to be displaying the latest and most energy-efficient computing technology currently under development.

The University of Houston’s Advanced Computing Research Laboratory in collaboration with AMD and Supermicro, with support of the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE), the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), and the University of Houston, has developed a new highly energy-efficient blade server based on AMD’s 8000 series Istanbul six-core CPUs and chipset supporting PCI-Express Gen2.

The blade server fits in a new chassis with a built-in 36 port QDR Infiniband switch and highly efficient power supplies. A prototype system for SNIC and PRACE is deployed at KTH in Stockholm.

AMD High-Efficiency CPUs were selected for maximum performance/W for compute-intensive workloads. Prototype characteristics are:
* 180 4-socket blade servers in 18 7U chassis
* 720 AMD 8425 High-Efficiency 2.1 GHz CPUs, 4320 cores
* Four DIMMs per socket populated with 8GB/CPU, 32GB/node
* Full bisection QDR Infiniband fat tree interconnect

Wednesday Talks

Talks at the GCAS booth today include:

* Dr. Lei Huang of the University of Houston, Evolving OpenMP Toward Petascale Platforms, at 11 a.m.

* Maanasa Madiraju of the University of Houston, Improved Network Provisioning Through Physical Layer Measurements in Optical Networks Using ORCA, at noon.

* Dr. Federico Carminati of CERN, Distributed Interactive Parallel Data Analysis for HEP, at 1 p.m.

* Dr. Mark Huang of the University of Houston, Energy Concerns: Air Quality and Global Climate Change, at 2 p.m.

* Dr. Raffaele Montuoro of Texas A&M University, High Throughput Genome Analysis, at 3 p.m.

GCAS talk attendees are eligible for a daily drawing for an 8G iPod nano. GCAS is in Booth 1801.

Having a green old time!

The Texas Learning & Computation Center at the University of Houston and Texas A&M’s Supercomputing Facility were thrilled to learn that our Gulf Coast Academic Supercomputing booth here at SC09 earned a Sustainable Exhibit designation. We’re displaying our plaque proudly on our booth wall.

Present to Learn, Present to Win

At each day’s booth talks here at Supercomputing 09, GCAS collects names for a daily drawing for an iPod 8GB nano. Drawings are held each day at 4 p.m., and you do have to be present to win. If your name isn’t pulled one day, your card stays in the fishbowl for the next day, so keep checking back at 4 p.m.

The first drawing takes place in about 30 minutes. Booth 1801, with the big round turquoise sign. Who’ll get lucky? Come find out.

Measuring the Safety of Cancer Therapy

In collaboration with medical teams at Houston’s world-renowned University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, UH researcher Dr. Larry Pinsky is modifying particle physics simulation packages (FLUKA) originally developed for high-energy experimental physics to directly calculate dose-equivalents as a standard scoring option for proton therapy, leading to lower dosages with better efficiency. Other applications of the FLUKA tools include target design, calorimetry, detector design, and neutrino physics.

Dr. Pinsky will discuss his cutting-edge work at Booth 1801 at 1:30 p.m. Please join us!