Supercomputers help Researchers Calculate Mass Difference

NEWSLETTER 15
June / July 2015
PRACE
Supercomputers help Researchers
Calculate Mass Difference between
Neutrons and Protons
Inside This Issue:
PRACE Supercomputers help Researchers
03
PRACE SHAPE Resources for 11 SMEs
05
4th PRACE Implementation
Phase Project
07
PRACEdays15: HPC Brings Industry and Academia Together
10
PRACE PCP First Phase
Completed
12
www.prace-ri.eu
Click HERE to subscribe
to the PRACE newsletter!
Colophon
Content
Editors:
Stelios Erotokritou
Audrey Gerber
Emma Hogan
Anni Jakobsson
Leon Kos
Tiina Leiponen
Mateja Maffi
Marjolein Oorsprong
Barbara Pavlakovič
Karina Pesatova
PRACE Supercomputers help Researchers Calculate Mass Difference between
Neutrons and Protons
03
PRACE SHAPE Resources for 11 SMEs
05
4th PRACE Implementation Phase Project
08
PRACEdays15: HPC Brings Industry and Academia Together
09
© PRACE, 2015
The Intellectual Property
Rights of any images used
remain with their original
owners / creators.
PRACE has Completed the First Phase of
Pre-Commercial Procurement "Whole-System
Design for Energy Efficient HPC"
11
Design:
PRACE @ the Sofia Science Festival
12
Robert Srebrnič,
Graphic designer & illustrator
PRACE @ PRIDE 2015
13
SUMMER OF HPC 2015
14
PRACE @ ISC15
16
PRACE Annual Report 2014 17
PRACE Women in HPC Magazine 2015
17
MEP Awards 2015
18
PRACE Advanced Training Centres (PATCs)
19
Photo:
© PRACE, 2015
The Intellectual Property
Rights of any images used
remain with their original
owners / creators.
Video:
LEGAL NOTICE
By the Partnership for
Advanced Computing
in Europe (PRACE).
Neither PRACE nor any
person acting on its behalf
is responsible for the use
which might be made of the
information contained in the
present publication. PRACE
is not responsible for the
external web sites referred
to in the present publication.
The views expressed in this
publication are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the official PRACE
view on the subject.
Reproduction is authorised
provided the source is
acknowledged.
Cover image / shutterstock
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACE Supercomputers
help Researchers Calculate
Mass Difference between
Neutrons and Protons
With the help of PRACE HPC resources, a team
of physicists from France, Germany, and Hungary headed by Zoltán Fodor, a researcher from
Wuppertal, has successfully calculated the tiny
neutron-proton mass difference. The results of
this research, published in the 27 March 2015
edition of Science, are considered a milestone
by many physicists and confirm the theory of
the strong interaction.
The fact that the neutron is slightly more massive
than the proton is what gives atomic nuclei the
properties affecting the existence and stability of
atoms – the foundation of our world. Eighty years
after the discovery of the neutron, Zoltán Fodor’s
team successfully calculated this tiny neutron-proton mass difference. The measured mass
difference is only 0.14% of the average of the two
masses. A slightly smaller or larger value would
have led to a dramatically different universe. For
example, a relative neutron-proton mass difference smaller than about one third of the observed
0.14% would cause hydrogen atoms to undergo
inverse beta decay, leaving predominantly neutrons. A value slightly larger than 0.05% would
have resulted in the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
(BBN), producing much more helium-4 and far
less hydrogen than it did in our universe. As a result, stars would not have ignited in the way they
did: no sun in our solar system would have meant
no life on Earth. On the other hand, a value considerably larger than 0.14% would have resulted
in a much faster beta decay for neutrons. This
3
would have led to far fewer neutrons at the end of
the BBN epoch and would have made the burning
of hydrogen in stars and the synthesis of heavy
elements more difficult.
The Standard Model of Particle Physics is a gauge
theory with massless fermions. During the expansion of the early universe, the Higgs mechanism
broke this symmetry down and elementary particles acquired masses proportional to their couplings to the Higgs field. As the universe continued
to expand, a QCD (quantum chromo dynamics)
transition took place, confining quarks and gluons
into hadrons and giving those particles most of
their mass. This same theory today is believed to
be responsible for the tiny isospin splittings, which
were the topic of investigation for Fodor’s team.
To carry out the necessary calculations, the team
developed a new class of simulation techniques
combining the laws of quantum chromodynamics
with those of quantum electrodynamics in order to
precisely determine the effects of electromagnetic
interactions.
“Up to now, the most advanced simulations have
included up, down, and strange quarks in the sea
but neglected all electromagnetic and up-down
mass difference effects. Such calculations have
irreducible systematic uncertainties. This limits
their accuracy to the percent level,” says Zoltán
Fodor. “With the calculating power of JUQUEEN
and FERMI that we were allocated by PRACE, we
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
were able to reduce these uncertainties significantly, yielding a complete description of the interactions of quarks at low energy, accurate below
the per mil level. This is definitely a major step forward in my field. We have provided an indication of
the extent to which the constants of nature must
be fine-tuned to yield a universe that resembles
ours.” Fodor added.
According to Professor Kurt Binder, Chairman of
the Scientific Council of the John von Neumann
Institute for Computing (NIC) and member of the
German Gauss Centre for Supercomputing, “Only
using world-class computers, such as those available to the science community at Forschungszentrum Jülich, was it possible to achieve this milestone in computer simulation.” Computation time
on JUQUEEN is allocated to users via the PRACE
Calls for Proposals. The hours on JUQUEEN were
complemented in the process by national resources provided by CNRS and GENCI in France, as
well as GCS in Germany at the computing centres
of Garching (LRZ) and Stuttgart (HLRS).
“Forschungszentrum Jülich is supporting the work
of excellent researchers in many areas of science
with its supercomputers. Basic research such
as elementary particle physics is an area where
methods are forged, and the resulting tools are
also welcomed by several other users,” says Prof.
Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt, member of the Board
of Directors at Jülich who has supported and encouraged these scientific activities for years.
Fodor’s research team was made of physicists
from France, Germany, and Hungary. Fodor is a
researcher at University of Wuppertal, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, and Eötvös University. The
results of Fodor’s research were recently published
in Science (Journal reference: Science 347:14521455, 2015 – see www.arxiv.org/abs/1406.4088).
This publication is considered a world-premiere in
fundamental physics.
Project details
4
•
His project entitled “QCDpQED –
QCD plus QED and the stability of
matter” received 91 million core hours
on JUQUEEN @ GCS@FZJ, Germany
through the PRACE 6th Call for Proposals for Project Access
Further work
•
•
•
Zoltán Fodor spoke at the DEISA
PRACE Symposium (11-13 May 2009)
on “QCD Breakthrough 2008” (See
here: www.prace-ri.eu/deisa-pracesymposium-11-13-may)
He received 63 million core hours on
JUGENE @ GCS@FZJ, Germany via
the PRACE Early Access Call for his
project entitled “QCD Thermodynamics with 2+1+1 improved dynamical
flavors”.
He collaborated in the project entitled “FREEZEOUT - Heavy ion phenomenology from lattice simulations” led by Szabolcs Borsanyi of
the Bergische Universität Wuppertal,
Germany. That project received 18
million core hour on JUQUEEN @
GCS@FZJ, Germany and 73.2 million
core hour on FERMI @ CINECA, Italy,
under the 8th Call for Proposals for
PRACE Project Access.
Credits
The quotes of Kurt Binder and Sebastian
M. Schmidt in this article are republished
from the article that appeared in supercomputing online on Thursday, 26 March
2015: www.supercomputingonline.com/
latest/latest-stories/58513-juqueen-calculates-mass-difference-between-neutron-proton
Some of the text in this article is republished from “Ab initio calculation of the
neutron-proton mass difference” found
at arXiv:1406.4088v2 [hep-lat] 7 Apr
2015. See www.arxiv.org/abs/1406.4088
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACE SHAPE
Resources for
11 SMEs
At the London 2012 Olympics, Sweden’s Fredrik Lööf
and Max Salminen won the gold medal in the Star division
using sails made by WB-Sails.
Ingenieurbüro Tobias Loose Test the
Parallellization Feasibility of Welding
Analysis Tools
After the success of the SHAPE Pilot Call
in 2014, SHAPE became a permanent service of the PRACE Research Infrastructure.The second call for applications was
launched in November 2014 and closed
in January 2015. Eleven innovative projects from European SMEs got access
to HPC resources. The awarded projects
come from a diverse range of industrial
domains: electromagnetics, aeronautics, agriculture, sailing and naval industry, renewable energies, welding and
heat transfer, and steel casting optimisation. In this newsletter we will introduce
six of the eleven awarded projects.
5
Ingenieurburo Tobias Loose (www.tl-ing.de/en/
home/) is a German engineering company specialized on simulations for welding and heat treatment. Welding simulations and heat treatment
simulations aim on one hand to determine the
final state of the assemblies after these manufacturing processes: distortion, residual stress, material properties and microstructure. On the other
hand these simulations aim to optimize the processes. Loose provides consultings for industrial
customers, training and software for customer applications. Moreover, Loose is involved in its own
reseach projects concerning welding and heat
treatment simulations. The SHAPE resources will
be used for scaling out of LS_DYNA for welding
simulations. The Finite Element Code LSDYNA
provides good performance and permits parallelized computation using domain decomposition.
The common method for welding is the implicit
analysis. SHAPE project will test the feasibility of
parallelized welding analysis with LS-DYNA and
its performance.
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
Ocean Analytics Solutions - Open Ocean
Ocean waves / shutterstock
Ocean may be the answer of today’s challenges:
energy (marine and fossile energy), food (fish and
algues) and health (marine biology). Converting
ocean waves, tides, currents, temperature, salinity and wind into electricity will be a vital part of
the future energy mix. A French company, Open
Ocean (www.openocean.fr) offers high-end services and products to the renewable marine energy sector.
Open Ocean develops the meto-ocean analytics,
the first on-demand meto-ocean study offer. It is
an online support decision making tool for offshore
project management and operations analyzing in
details atmospheric and oceanic conditions in a
simple and intuitive way. Open Ocean will use the
awarded SHAPE resources for high performance
processing chain. SHAPE will enable Open Ocean
to produce an online support decision making tool
for offshore project management and operations.
This tool will meet the offshore project requirements thanks to HPC facilities.
6
Optimization of PRINCIPIA´s Codes
PRINCIPIA (www.principia.fr) is a French scientific
engineering company that performs engineering
studies and develops and industrialises addedvalue numerical software solutions for large industrial companies
It´s core expertise focuses on simulation of complex physics phenomena such as structural mechanics, fluids dynamics, including hydrodynamics, and coupling such as fluid/structure.
PRINCIPIA develops products that capitalises
know-how and R&D results. These products are
used internally to perform projects and also distributed with associated services such as training,
support, expertise, maintenance and specific developments. PRINCIPIA uses its SHAPE allocation
to port and optimise their DIODORE code on HPC
infrastructure in order to improve the Deepline
HPC product line which is under construction.
DIODORE is a fluid mechanics software designed
to solve a large number of problems in ocean
engineering (offshore, marine applications etc).
By parallelizing this product line generation,
their users would take full advantage of the HPC
resources and save time in these studies.
PRINCIPIA relies on access to PRACE machines,
but also on PRACE experts associated to the project for optimisation and parallelisation. Depending on the time remaining, they will apply the same
methodology to another code as well.
Code Porting to Intel Phi by Hybrid
Strategy for Optimad
Optimad Engineering, (www.optimad.it) an Italian engineering and software company develops
software for aerodynamic analysis, design and
optimization. The project RAPHI (Rarefied Flow
Simulations on Intel Phi) by Optimad in collaboration with INRIA was one of the project accepted in
the SHAPE call. Optimad and INRIA will work together with HPC experts of the hosting computing
center in order to port the Immersed Boundary/
BGK code to an Intel PHI based cluster using a
hybrid parallelisation strategy.
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
Wind Turbines without Blades
by Vortex Bladeless SL, Spain
Vortex Bladeless SL (www.vortexbladeless.com)
will use the awarded resources to develop and
design a wind turbine without blades. The technology is a technological leap forward and a revolution in wind energy. A more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly way to produce
wind energy without blades in the wind farms.
Wind turbines without blades by Vortex Bladeless SL
Optimising Sailboat Performance
for the next Olympics
Yacht Racing / shutterstock
WB-Sails Ltd Oy, is a small Finnish sails manufacturer company (www.wb-sails.fi/en). They have
developed the first sail design software already in
the 70´s. In the SHAPE project they will perform
CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations
of sails and sailboat performance. The development project of the company is linked to the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016. The
aim is to optimize sails and sailboat performance
for Rio.
Several projects will be using open source software or commercial HPC applications with the
involvement of the software vendors. They will receive support and expertise via PRACE Preparatory Access Type C to port, develop, and optimise
their codes through the PRACE-4IP project, which
is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon
2020 research and innovation programme (20142020) under grant agreement 653838.
About SHAPE
SHAPE (SME HPC Adoption Programme in Europe) is a pan-European programme supported by
PRACE. For more information, see www.prace-ri.
eu/shape
7
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
4th PRACE Implementation
Phase Project
Members of the 4th PRACE Implementation Project
together on the steps of the VŠB-Technical University in Ostrava, Czech Republic at the occasion of
the PRACE-4IP Kick-Off Meeting
On 1 February 2015 the PRACE-4IP project
started. The kick-off meeting open for project
participants was held in the picturesque Ostrava, Czech Republic. The meeting was organised on the campus of the VŠB-Technical University on 28-29 April 2015. PRACE aisbl and its
Members collaborate in the PRACE-4IP project,
a 27 month project funded by the EU’s Horizon
2020 research and innovation programme. The
project is coordinated by Forschungzentrum
Jülich (JUELICH) on behalf of PRACE aisbl.
PRACE-4IP is designed to build on and seamlessly
continue the successes of PRACE and start new
innovative and collaborative activities that fit with
the main objectives of the PRACE-4IP project:
•
•
Assisting the transition to PRACE 2
Strengthening the internationally
recognised PRACE brand
Preparing strategies and best practices
towards exascale computing
Coordinating and enhancing the operation
of the multi-tier HPC systems and services
Supporting and educating users to exploit
massively parallel systems and novel
architectures
•
•
•
8
The successful and well-organized meeting was
hosted by the local PRACE partner, IT4Innovations.
The two-day meeting provided an excellent opportunity for all the PRACE-4IP partners to meet
and discuss planned activities and first steps in
the seven different work packages.
An enjoyable social event took place in the Ostrava
Planetarium on 28 April. This offered an excellent
opportunity for partners to get to know one another
and conduct informal discussions. Participants
also enjoyed time to stroll the streets of scenic
Ostrava, the third largest city in the Czech Republic, in the northeast of the country that forms the
heart of the Moravian-Silesian region.
More information about PRACE-4IP:
www.prace-ri.eu/prace-fourth-implementationphase-prace-4ip-project
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACEdays15:
HPC brings
Industry and
Academia
Together
Participants at PRACEdays15 listen
to high-level keynote speeches
PRACEdays15, which ran from 26 to 28 May in
Dublin, Ireland, marked another successful edition of the annual PRACE Scientific and Industrial
Conference. The Irish Centre for High End Computing hosted the conference and satellite events
locally and, with this year’s theme being “Enable
Science Foster Industry”, attracted close to 200
experts from academia and industry. The two satellite events focussing on Women in HPC and Exascale European projects proved to be very popular
on 25 and 26 May and the EESI2 Project held
its final conference on 28 and 29 May to round
off the week. The PRACE User Forum invited all
participants to an Open Session on Wednesday
afternoon.
Highlights of the week included the keynote sessions given by well-known academic and industrial
researchers from Europe and Asia, including the
keynote speech by Masahiro Seki, President of
9
the Research Organisation for Information Science and Technology (RIST), Japan. The European
Commission added their vision to the programme
with a presentation entitled “Implementing the European Strategy on High Performance Computing”. There were six heavily subscribed parallel
streams across various scientific and industrial
themes, which proved very successful. The final
panel discussion on 28 May entitled “Science and
Industry: Partners for Innovation”, was moderated by Tom Wilkie of Scientific Computing World
and brought together high level representatives
from the European Commission, industry and academia. The full programme can be found www.
prace-ri.eu/pracedays15
Finally, the PRACEdays15 Award for Best Poster was presented to Panchatcharam Mariappan
for his poster entitled GPU accelerated finite element method for radio frequency ablated cancer
treatment. All posters can be found www.prace-ri.
eu/pracedays15-posters and presentations www.
prace-ri.eu/pracedays15-presentations
PRACEdays16 will take place in Prague,
Czech Republic from 10 to 12 May 2016.
More information will be published on:
www.prace-ri.eu/pracedays16
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
Panchatcharam Mariappan of NUMA Engineering Services
Ltd., Ireland won the PRACEdays15 Best Poster Award.
Delegates at PRACEdays15 gather
at the Avia Stadium in Dublin, Ireland.
The PRACEdays15 conference bag
The final panel session at PRACEdays15 provided
interesting insights into HPC in Europe and beyond.
10
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACE has completed the
First Phase of Pre-Commercial
Procurement "Whole-System
Design for Energy Efficient HPC"
On 9 March 2015 PRACE completed Phase I of
its Pre-commercial Procurement (PCP).
This PCP, the first one in the field of HPC in Europe, is a multi-country and multi-partner joint
effort, implemented by a consortium composed
of several partners of PRACE (CINECA (Italy)
as Procuring Entity with CSC (Finland), EPCC
(UK), Forschungszentrum Juelich (Germany)
and GENCI (France)). PRACE aisbl is involved
as an advisory body in a PCP pilot executed
in the context of PRACE’s 3rd Implementation
Project (PRACE-3IP) supported by the European Commission. The process of this PCP is organised in two stages:
1. Tendering stage aimed to assess the eligibility of
the bidders and their offers. Four bidders have signed
the Framework Contract and Phase I Contract:
•
•
•
•
BULL SAS (www.bull.com)
E4 Computer Engineering SpA
(www.e4company.com)
MEGWARE Computer Vertrieb Services
GmbH (www.megware.com)
Maxeler Technologies Limited
(www.maxeler.com)
11
2. In the Execution stage the selected companies
are performing the R&D services described in their
offers. Execution stage consists of three phases:
•
•
•
Phase I was sucsesfully completed on 9
March 2015, when the selected companies
explored the various possible solutions
Phase II is in progress at the moment during
which prototypes for the three most promising solutions will be built.
Phase III is expected to start in 10 months
during which pre-commercial small scale
product will be developed.
More info about the PCP can be found in the material of the workshop organised by PRACE on the
usage of Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) in
HPC (see: www.prace-ri.eu/workshop-on-the-usage-of-pre-commercial-procurement-pcp-in-hpcorganised-by-prace).
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACE at the Sofia
Science Festival
PRACE volunteers at the PRACE booth
PRACE presented a lively, entertaining and informative booth at the Sofia
Science Festival, Bulgaria, 14-17 May.
The festival is an annual event, created
by the British Council and Forum Democrit under patronage of the Bulgarian
Ministry of Education and Science. This
year, PRACE, represented by the Bulgarian National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA-BG) presented
supercomputing and supercomputers
to an audience of over 1000, including
250 attendees to a prime-time lecture
entitled “Supercomputers – from Nobel
Prizes to High-Speed Trains”.
12
The PRACE booth proved one of the most popular of the 30 booths spread among 13 pavilions in
Zaimov Park. Guests at the PRACE booth played
the PRACE “Shooting Stars” and “Parallel Racing” games, which illustrate some of the benefits and applications of Supercomputers through
engaging gameplay. In addition to the games,
PRACE videos, posters and printed material were
displayed and guests had the opportunity to discuss science, computing and supercomputing
with PRACE staff.
The event was a great success, reaching over one
thousand young people, informing them of the benefits of HPC and encouraging them on the path to
becoming the next generation of HPC users.
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACE @ PRIDE 2015
PRIDE 2015 is part of the 38th
International Convention MIPRO 2015
PRIDE 2015 (Project Information and Dissemination Event 2015) was held in Croatia as a part of the
38th International Convention MIPRO 2015 during
the week of 25 to 29 May 2015. MIPRO is a big
international convention (more than 1000 participants from 30 – 40 countries) dedicated to information and communication technology, electronics
and microelectronics. More than 370 papers from
Participants at MIPRO 2015.
13
38 countries were presented at 10 conferences. At
PRIDE 2015 PRACE presented its activities within
a booth among other research infrastructures and
projects.
More on PRIDE 2015:
www.mipro.hr/MIPRO2015.PRIDE/ELink.aspx
Visitors browse publications ate the PRACE booth at PRIDE 2015.
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
A traditional PRACE’s outreach programme Summer of HPC (SoHPC) is currently hosting twenty
undergraduate and graduate students at one of
the ten HPC centres throughout Europe.
Summer of HPC is a PRACE programme that offers summer placements at HPC centres across
Europe. Students are spending two months (July
and August) working on projects related to PRACE
scientific or industrial work and ideally produce a
visualisation or video of their results. This year’s
projects aim to enable 3D visualisations for medical purposes, to design the users own Supercomputer cluster, to help exploring Mars surface, to
create an interactive visualisation application for
the weather and climate regime, which are influenced by many physical parameters and much
more. More about the projects can be found at
www.summerofhpc.prace-ri.eu/projects-2015.
Students participating in the
PRACE Summer of HPC
14
SoHPC 2015 started with a Training week in Barcelona at Barcelona Supercomputing Center at the
end of June 2015. All participants gathered together to get better acquainted with HPC, programming, visualization and social media usage.
After the exciting and inspiring first week by the
Mediterranean Sea, students were appointed to
the hosting sites where they will enjoy the rest of
the summer while working on their HPC projects
with their mentors. Nevertheless, the summer
placements are not all about work and scientific
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
Students participating in the 2014 edition
of the PRACE Summer of HPC
advancement, they are also an excellent opportunity to explore another county and learn about
new culture. All this experience combined together is a guarantee for a great summer.
At the end of the programme, two best participants will be awarded for their contribution at the
Awards Ceremony on 1 October 2015 with the
award for Best Visualisation and be named HPC
Ambassador. The progress, the projects results
and the personal experiences of the participating students will be published at the SoHPC site
www.summerofhpc.prace-ri.eu and you can also
follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
SoHPC 2015 quick facts:
•
•
•
•
•
77 applicants from 19 countries including EU
countries, India, Russian Federation, Serbia,
Taiwan (Province of China) and Turkey.
Most applicants come from Italy (12),
Ireland (9) and Turkey (9).
20 selected participants.
2 months of summer placement at hosting
HPC centres: BSC Spain, CaSToRC Cyprus,
CINECA (SCAI) Italy, EPCC UK, ICHEC Ireland, IT4I Czech Republic, Juelich Germany,
NIIFI Hungary, UL and FIS Slovenia.
1 training week in BSC Barcelona,
29 June – 3 July 2015.
15
The Award Ceremony for the 2014 edition of the PRACE Summer
of HPC was held in at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACE @ ISC15
PRACE booth at ISC14 in Leipzig, Germany
This year’s winning paper is: Lattice-CSC: Optimizing & Building an Efficient Supercomputer for
Lattice-QCD & to Achieve First Place in Green500
by David Rohr, University of Frankfurt.
PRACE is pleased to announce that we are going to
be present at the International Supercomputing
Conference in Frankfurt, Germany 12-16 July 2015.
Please visit us at booth #1201 and find out about:
•
•
•
the future of the PRACE Project
and Preparatory Acces,
Industrial Access and SME HPC
Adoption Programme (SHAPE),
PRACE Training and Women in HPC
during our mini presentations.
Visitors are invited to enjoy a cocktail reception,
test their skills in a Tatra car race video game
based on HPC simulations, and win valuable prizes in the traditional PRACE Treasure Hunt.
PRACE ISC Award
PRACE will award a prize to the best paper submitted to the ISC Research Paper Sessions. The
Award will be presented by Kenneth Ruud (University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway)
during the Opening Session of the Conference.
The winner will receive sponsorship for participation in a training event or a conference relevant to
petascale computing, and will have the opportunity to present a keynote talk on their work during
the Research Papers Sessions.
16
Opening Session
Gauss Award & PRACE ISC Award: 09:15 - 09:25
Research Papers 01 - Award Session
PRACE ISC Award Ceremony: 13:50 - 13:55
PRACE ISC Award Winning Paper: 13:55 - 14:25
Other Highlights
•
•
•
•
•
•
Keynote by the Chair of the PRACE Industrial
Advisory Committee (IAC) - Jürgen Kohler
Monday 13 July, 10:30-11:30, Panorama 2+3
Session talk by the Chair of the PRACE
Board of Directors - Sergi Girona
Monday 13 July, 16:24, Panorama 3
BoF on Women in HPC
An industry focused session featuring
women’s contribution to HPC industry
activities such as SHAPE and ETP4HPC
Tuesday 14 July, 11:15-12:15, Booth #210
BoF on “Motivating, Engaging & Educating
the Young into the HPC World”
Wednesday July 15, 11:15-12:15, Booth #210
Half-day Workshop on PRACE Training
Thursday 16 July, 9:00-13:00, Marriott Hotel
Half-day Workshop on Women in HPC
Thursday 16 July, 14:00-18:00, Marriott Hotel
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACE Annual
Report 2014
The cover of the PRACE Annual Report
The PRACE Annual Report 2014 is already the third
issue of a series that is promising to become a
yearly highlight in the work of the Partnership for
Advanced Computing in Europe. With more pages, more success stories, more articles and more
highlights, this report sets the standard for the
years to come. While the report looks back on the
past year as a successful one for PRACE as well
as for HPC-driven science and industry in Europe,
you will notice that some articles already carefully
look forward to developments that we will be in the
middle of when this report is published.
To download and / or read the PRACE Annual Report 2014, go here: www.prace-ri.eu/ar-2014
If you want to order printed copies, please go here
www.prace-ri.eu/documents to make your request.
17
PRACE Women in
HPC Magazine
2015
PRACE Women in HPC Magazine 2015
PRACE, in collaboration with the Women in HPC
initiative, is embracing a year celebrating the contribution women make to HPC and computational science. This magazine puts the spotlight not
just on the scientific advances made by PRACE,
but also on the women that contribute to make
PRACE a world-leading force in HPC-enabled science and in the move towards Exa-scale computing.
This publication is a pre-taste of what PRACE will
publish in the next edition of the PRACE Digest
which will be published in November 2015.
To download and / or read the PRACE Women in
HPC Magazine, go here: www.prace-ri.eu/womeninhpc
If you want to order printed copies, please go here
www.prace-ri.eu/documents to make your request.
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
MEP Awards 2015
MEP Awards 2015
Each year, The Parliament Magazine presents Awards to Members of
the European Parliament (MEPs) who have made special efforts or
achieved outstanding results in their portfolio(s). PRACE sponsors the
Award for ICT, as Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
are critical to improving the competitiveness of EU industry and meeting the changing demands of its society and economy. This award
recognises an MEP’s tireless work in modernising public services and
advancing science and technology.
2015 was the first year the MEP Award for ICT was included, and Anwar Osseyran, Vice-Chair of the PRACE Council presented the award
to Paul Rübig from Austria, at the Award Ceremony on 18 March at
the Concert Noble in Brussels.
© Jean Yves Limet
Paul Rübig - EPP, Austria
www.europarl.europa.eu
/meps/en/2278/PAUL_
RUBIG_home.html
© Paul Rübig
The Ceremony was moderated by Vivian Reding, MEP and former
European Commissioner for Information Society and Media (www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/nl/1185/VIVIANE_REDING_home.html)
Paul Rübig has been an MEP since 1996 and
has worked extensively on the enforcement of
intellectual property rights in the internal market,
as well as on reducing roaming charges in the
EU. He is also chair of parliament’s science and
technology options assessment panel, which
carries out independent assessments of the impact of new technologies. See all winners here:
www.mepawards.eu/2015-awards-winners
PRACE will sponsor again the MEP Award
for ICT in 2016, stay tuned!
18
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PRACE
Advanced
Training Centres
(PATCs)
Impression of a PATC course
Short overview
since establishment
in March 2012
Key output from the six PATCs
until January 2015
Duration
The mission of the PRACE Advanced Training Centres (PATCs) is
to serve as European hubs of advanced high-quality training for researchers working in the computational sciences. Six PATCs have
been operational since early 2012: BSC (Spain), CINECA (Italy), CSC
(Finland), EPCC (UK), GCS (Germany) and Maison de la Simulation (France). Each PATC is responsible for the implementation of
a programme of events aimed to meet the training needs of the research community (including industry) and to foster HPC skills in general. Since their establishment in March 2012, the key function of the
PATCs is to devise and to implement a jointly developed curriculum
on an annual basis per academic year. The table below summarises
the key output from the six PATCs until January 2015.
Mar’12 - Jul’12
Aug’12 - Jul’13
Aug’13 - Jul’14
Aug’14 - Jan’15
Number of courses
19
71
81
26
Total duration (days)
56
204
233
74
Number of participants
511
1,547
1,682
604
Female (%)
-
12.9%
14.4%
12.7%
Nonacademic (%)
-
9.9%
12.3%
13.1%
Non-host country (%)
-
20.6%
25.4%
36.1%
Non-PATC country (%)
-
13.8%
17.7%
28.1%
Feedback response rate (%)
-
63%
64%
(in progress)
Average overall rating (0 –
waste of time; 10 - excellent)
-
8.5
8.4
(in progress)
19
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
PATC Curriculum
2015-16
The PATCs have outlined a 2015-16 joint curriculum that builds on
previous successes with evolutionary adjustments to address the
recommendations from the PRACE BoD. The 73 courses (200 days
of training) cover a wide range of topics that caters for participants
from academia and industry with particular emphasis on some of the
more advanced topics. The activities of the PATCs have already been
shown to be a resounding success and its continuation remains to
be an extremely valuable asset in the European HPC ecosystem.
Trainees at a PATC course
Closer look at the machine
20
PRACE NEWSLETTER 15
Forthcoming PRACE
PATC Training Events
The following list shows forthcoming PATC Training Events. Stay
tuned for further information,the list is continuously updated on the
PRACE Events website: www.events.prace-ri.eu/category/1
Forthcoming PRACE PATC Training Events
Date
PATC Event Name
September 2015
17 Sep - 18 Sep
Advanced Fortran Topics @ LRZ
22 Sep - 24 Sep
Introduction to Fortran Programming @ CSC
23 Sep - 25 Sep
Industrial Workshop on COMSOL and OpenFOAM @ KTH
28 Sep - 02 Oct
Parallel Programming with MPI and OpenMP and Advanced Parallel
Programming @ HLRS
28 Sep - 02 Oct
Parallel Programming Workshop (Train the Trainer Program) @ HLRS
October 2015
20 Oct - 22 Oct
Introduction to Parallel Programming @ CSC
December 2015
01 Dec - 03 Dec
Introduction to Accelerators @ CSC
10 Dec - 11 Dec
Node-Level Performance Engineering @ LRZ
April 2016
04 Apr - 07 Apr
21
Advanced Topics in High Performance Computing @ LRZ
www.prace-ri.eu