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Inside this Issue |
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| Interns Get Real-World Training During Out-Of-This-World Summer Program | |||||
Frank Williams,
Director, ARSc
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Story by Lorien Nettleton
There are two certainties that come with summertime in Fairbanks: the days will be long and the UAF campus will be teeming with interns. This year, the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center hosted 16 undergraduate interns and five graduate interns, providing them with opportunity to increase their skill under the midnight sun. Twelve undergraduate interns in the Alaska Research Summer Challenge Research Experience for Undergraduates program (ARSC REU), sponsored by the National Science Foundation, faced new challenges and opportunities to strengthen their research and computer science skills. The ARSC REU interns, drawn from a wide range of backgrounds, were presented with high expectations and were rewarded with intensive research activity. Remote Sensing and Glacial DatabasesHuynh Nguyen, from Mississippi State University, and Luis Perez, from University of Texas at El Paso, worked with Research Associate Professor Matt Nolan and Peter Prokein to provide easier access to glacier databases in the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Nguyen created an information systems interface that will allow users to graphically search, query and visualize glacier data through the EarthSLOT web application. Nguyen used EarthSLOT to overlay two NSIDC glaciological databases with UAF airborne laser altimetry and NSIDC’s glacier photograph archive, making both searchable from a web-based front-end. Perez created an interactive online SQL database to retrieve information about glaciers through the EarthSLOT server, and incorporated glaciology and meteorology studies, as well as streaming server capabilities. In the process, Perez wrote three programs to acquire, check for duplicates and format the glacier database files for each glacier in the database. Perez then coded a front-end interface to allow users to select their query using a series of check boxes.Accessibility for Alaska Native Languages
Upgrading Ionosphere Information GatheringLarisa Stoltzfus of Grinnell College, Iowa, was mentored by Dr. Sergei Maurits and Dr. Anton Kulchitsky as she worked on correcting the UAF Polar Ionospheric Model to reconcile differences between modeled ionosphere distance data and data retrieved from ionosondes – radar transmitters that emit pulses and collect the returning signals to analyze the ionosphere. Stoltzfus analyzed data, collected every five minutes for 30 months from up to 20 ionosondes, to identify systematic error bias. Stoltzfus edited database scripts to identify the bias, and wrote scripts to perform numerical corrections on the model input data. Frost Boil Modeling and VisualizationTheresa Turner, of the University of South Carolina Aiken, worked with Professor Debasmita Misra and Dr. Ron Daanen to adapt the WIT3D frost boil modeling program for multiprocessor compatibility using UNIX, Fortran, MPI and Open MPI. Turner streamlined the program to dramatically speed-up execution time by converting the code to read and write intermediate files as binary rather than ASCII. Cory Mohn of Northland College, Wisconsin, was challenged with creating the program to display the WIT3D output dataset three-dimensionally. Mohn used C++, OpenGL and VR Juggler to visualize the temperature, hydrological and vegetative data, and to provide a tool to allow vertical flux to indicate heave. He then developed a tool to navigate the visualization and manipulate multiple internal and external angles of the freezing and heaving scenarios. (See Challenges, page 18.)Sea Ice Microstructure
BioinformaticsGuifeng Guan, from Arizona State University, and Joel McEwen, of Texas Southern University, worked on configuring a molecular visualization tool to display a three-dimensional representation of the Protein Data Bank (PDB). Working with UAF President’s Professor Tom Marr and Dr. Roger Edberg, ARSC, the interns ported the Generic Genome Browser, open source software developed at ARSC, to a windows environment, and then configured the software to run without error.Remote Imaging and SecurityChristian Servin and Jesus Corral, both from The University of Texas at El Paso, worked with mentor Dr. Buck Sharpton and research associates Jay Cable and Dayne Broderson to develop a software and hardware system for motion detection using digital cameras and instant messaging protocols for immediate notification of anomalous intrusion and movement. The interns incorporated basic motion detection, image modification, data storage, and communication capabilities into their functional prototype, and provided proof of concept for statistical image analysis for identifying motion that exceeds a certain threshold. Possible future applications include security, analysis, and monitoring.Mapping Terrain in 3D for FlightMichael Bauer, of New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, worked with Dr. Sergei Maurits, ARSC, to use Geographical Information System (GIS) software to incorporate a USGS digital elevation model into interactive terrain visualization covering the state of Alaska. Data from Landsat satellites, obtained through the UAF Geographic Information Network Alaska (GINA) project, were overlaid onto the terrain model and integrated with a previously- created flight simulator program. Bauer created three-dimensional maps that convey location and elevation change, analyzed the flight simulation code to determine if the TerraVista software package format could be integrated with the flight simulator, and examined graphic displays for efficient use on a desktop machine.GWU Grads Evaluate FPGA Performance
Esam El-Araby, Mohamed Taher, Abdullah Kayi, Kun Xi and Yiyi Yao worked with Professor Tarek El-Ghazawi, of GWU, to run benchmarking evaluations and speed-up diagnostics. Undergraduate intern Preston Lopez, from the United States Military Academy at West Point, also worked on this project. DoD InternsARSC also hosted four military academy interns sponsored by the Department of Defense. Each intern spent two to four weeks on research-based technical problems. Cadet Preston Lopez from West Point worked in close cooperation with Mohamed Taher Esam El-Araby from The George Washington University on benchmarking and diagnostics for ARSC’s Cray XD1™ computer using and evaluating the FPGAs. Cadet Dwight Rabe, from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and Ensign Robert Syre, recent graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, worked under the guidance of Dr. Don Morton from the University of Montana at Missoula on weather modeling using Weather Research Forecast (WRF). They worked on ARSC’s IBM p690+/p655+ cluster, Iceberg, as well as the new Cray XD1™. These interns were able to perform basic forecasting runs with WRF, and define geographical areas (domains) for the forecast. (See Challenges, page 4.) Midshipman Mark Daniel, from the U.S. Naval Academy, worked with Greg Newby on Web services and Grid services. Daniel coordinated with ARSC student employee Aaron Luptak, to develop an information retrieval system to distribute queries over multiple datasets. This work was based on the Apache web services engine, Tomcat, with some experimental work using Globus Toolkit version 4. In addition to challenging themselves in a technical programming environment, the interns had abundant opportunities for adventures in the heart of the far north. From trips to the Brooks Range, hiking across glaciers in Denali and camping in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the interns experienced one of the most beautiful landscapes in America – interior Alaska in the summertime. This material is based upon material supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number 0131634. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.”
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| Challenges Index | |||||
