rag900@csc.anu.oz (12/13/88)
First Australian National Supercomputer Conference The Supercomputing Society Tuesday and Wednesday, 13-14 December 1988 The Australian National University Announcement This announcement conveys an invitation to attend the First Australian National Supercomputer Conference to be held in Canberra on Tuesday and Wednesday, 13-14 December 1988, with the possibility of a workshop to follow for one of both of Thursday and Friday, 15-16 December. The primary aim of the Conference is to bring together participants from the growing number of Australian organizations which use supercomputers in their day-to-day operations and from the major vendors marketing supercomputers in this country. The Conference is, however, open to anyone interested in this new and exciting technology. This announcement is being sent to a large number of recipients, but it is probable that, on this first occasion, some interested people will have been missed from the mailing list. If you know of anyone who has not received this mailing, but who would like to register, could you provide them with a photocopy of the Registration Form; or else supply their name and address with your own response, and we will see that they obtain all of the enclosed material. Programme A copy of the Preliminary Programme is enclosed. Following the Keynote Address, the other sessions have been arranged into a number of categories: The Present Australian Scene There will be 20-minute talks given by some existing Australian supercomputer sites Q The Australia Telescope, The Australian National University, The Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, Leading Edge Technologies, and The University of NSW. The speakers have been asked to concentrate on the aims and aspirations of their organizations, their areas of activity, and on their motivation for making the considerable resource allocations that they have. There will be only a brief outline of hardware, software, organizational structure, etc. The Vendor Perspective There will be 45-minute talks given by representatives from Control Data Australia Pty Ltd, Convex Computer Australia Pty Ltd, Cray Research (Australia) Pty Ltd, Fujitsu Australia Limited, IBM Australia Limited, and NEC Information Systems Australia Pty Ltd. The speakers have been asked to include descriptions of some of the more exciting application areas in which their products have been used, and to indicate the directions in which their companies see the leading edge of computer technology to be moving. The Impact and Practicalities of Supercomputing There will be a number of 20-minute talks on various topics under this heading. Speakers and topics have still to be arranged for some of these, and suggestions are invited from the recipients of this mailing. Parallel Processing Although current nomenclature tends to equate the term supercomputing with vector processing, there are a number of alternative approaches to parallel computation which are presently generating a good deal of interest and experimentation, and even supporting some production work. There will be a presentation which provides an overview of these exciting developments. The Government Perspective Professor Don Aitkin, Chairman of the newly created Australian Research Council, has agreed to head the session dealing with this topic. The Way Ahead The Conference will conclude with a panel discussion chaired by The Honourable Barry Jones, OpMP, Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business. The Panel will include the Keynote Speaker, and will be representative of the various supercomputing interest groups attending the meeting. A very general presentation style has been adopted for this inaugural Conference, and all the contributions will be invited. It is hoped, however, that this might become the first of a series of annual events which, on future occasions, will include contributed papers, and more detailed technical sessions on system design and architecture, algorithms, important computational results, etc. Even on this occasion it would be possible to follow up the Conference with a workshop to air such topics, and the organizers will be guided by your input concerning this. The availability of the Conference venue can be extended to allow participants to stay on in Canberra for one or both of Thursday and Friday, 15-16 December. If you would like to see the Conference continue into workshop sessions, and, in particular, if you would like to present a paper in the workshop, please indicate this when you mail your registration, and we will follow it up individually and announce the outcome with the second mailing. The Keynote Speaker Dr Larry Smarr, 39, is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Director of the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA). An internationally recognized astrophysicist and a UI faculty member since 1979, Smarr continues to be one of the pioneers in the movement to obtain federal support for supercomputing power at United States universities for basic scientific research. His 1982 paper on 'The Supercomputer Famine at American Universities' is regarded as a landmark in that movement. It was written after he had to travel to West Germany to gain access to an American-made supercomputer to conduct his research, and it resulted in his successful initiation of a proposal to the National Science Foundation to establish the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at Illinois. This proposal was the first to the National Science Foundation, and it was the catalyst which focused national policy and eventually led to the establishment of the supercomputer centres. Although himself an astrophysicist, Smarr has been very influential in promoting cross-field collaboration at the NSCA, where there is an Interdisciplinary Research Center catering for up to 500 visitors per year. Larry earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Missouri, a master's from Stanford University, and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught and conducted research while at Stanford and Texas, and later at Princeton and Yale Universities. For the three years before he joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1979, Smarr was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard University Society of Fellows. Dr Smarr has been a guest scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in West Germany and the Institute of Astrophysics in Cambridge, England. He has also been a Harlow Shapley Lecturer for the American Astronomical Society. He is a consultant to several government and professional scientific agencies, and is co-founder of the Illinois Alliance to Prevent Nuclear War. His many awards include National Science Foundation, Woodrow Wilson, and Alfred P Sloan Research Fellowships. In 1984, Esquire magazine named Smarr one of the 'Best of the new Generation, Men and Women Under Forty Who Are Changing America.' Dr Smarr has spent an enormous amount of time helping to educate the United States public, Congress, industry leaders, scientists, and university administrators about the need for the national supercomputing programme. In addition to dozens of speaking engagements, there have been hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles published in the last few years quoting him, including articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Business Week, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Chronicle of Higher Education, Esquire, Washington Post, Boston OpGlobe, USA Today, Science, and Science News. He has testified before US Congressional OpCommittees twice since becoming NCSA Director, and this testimony has been entered into the Congressional Record. He has also appeared on numerous radio and television programmes. In Orecent months he has hosted visits from high-level delegations of industrial leaders from fifty of the largest companies in America. Dr Smarr stands in the long tradition of brilliant scientists who realized the potential of a new technology to vastly expand human knowledge and who had the skill, enthusiasm, and endless energy necessary to organize the people and resources required to build a great centre to explore the possibilities. In his Keynote Address, Larry Smarr will be discussing the computational science revolution, reviewing his programmes at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and reporting on the NSF supercomputer initiative in general, and how it is progressing approximately half-way through its initial funding window. He has entitled his address 'Supercomputers, Visualization, and the US National Computational Infrastructure.' The Public Lecture Professor Smarr has also been invited to present a public lecture on the evening of Tuesday, 13 December. This will be in the format of one of the Australian National University's series of Public Lectures, and will be held at the ANU. Larry has been asked to cast this talk in a more popular style. He will be seeking to raise public awareness by providing several good illustrations of how supercomputers are becoming an indispensible part of the modern technological society, and of the economic returns which can flow from investment in these new and exciting tools. He will also touch upon two of his particular interests Q visualization, and the use of microcomputers in connection with supercomputers. The title of this lecture will be that of the Conference itself Q 'The Supercomputing Society.' Conference Sponsors This inaugural Australian National Supercomputer Conference is being hosted by the Australian National University. The organizers gratefully acknowledge sponsorship by the following companies, whose generous support has made possible the attendance of the Keynote Speaker, and has met, in very large part, the organizational expenses of the meeting. Control Data Australia Pty Ltd Convex Computer Australia Pty Ltd Cray Research (Australia) Pty Ltd Fujitsu Australia Limited IBM Australia Limited NEC Information Systems Australia Pty Ltd Conference Arrangements Time and Location The Conference venue is: The Leonard Huxley Lecture Theatre, Computer Services Centre (Leonard Huxley Building), Australian National University, Canberra The Conference will commence at 0915 on Tuesday, 13 December 1988 (Conference desk open from 0800), and the final session concludes at 1630 on Wednesday, 14 December. If it is decided that a workshop should follow, this will be held in the same venue on one or both of Thursday and Friday, 15-16 December (a decision on this will be announced in the second mailing). A buffet lunch will be provided on both Tuesday and Wednesday, and a barbecue at Old Canberra House will precede the Public Lecture on Tuesday evening. The cost of these meals is included in the registration fee. Registration People wishing to attend the conference are asked to complete the attached Registration Form, and return it, with the registration fee, to the contact address below by Friday, 28 October 1988. The Registration fee is $75.00 ($90.00 for registrations received after Friday, 28 October). Logistical arrangements have been made for 240 participants, and, in the event that more registrations are received, participation may have to be limited on a first come first served basis. Registration must be by mail, and no registration will be made without payment of the registration fee. An official receipt for the fee, a map of the ANU campus, and an updated programme will be distributed in the second mailing early in November. The final programme, list of participants, etc., will be available to participants at the conference desk on arrival on Tuesday, 13 December. The desk will be located in the foyer of the Leonard Huxley Theatre, and will open at 0800 on 13 December. Accommodation Participants are asked to make their own accommodation arrangements. The conference venue is approximately 2 km from Civic Centre in Canberra. A list of hotels and motels in and around central Canberra is enclosed. Contact Address First Australian National Supercomputer Conference ANU Supercomputer Facility Computer Services Centre Australian National University GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601 contact: Dr D J Faulkner, Academic Director Telephone: (062) 493437 or (062) 492046 Fax: (062) 473425 REGISTRATION FORM Name and Title: Affiliation: Address for second mailing: Telephone ( ) FAX ( ) Name for Name Tag: The Conference Registration Fee is enclosed. $75 before 28 October 1988; $90 after that date. Cheque payable to 'The Australian National University' If you know of other interested people who have not received this mailing, would you please write their names and addresses in this space. If you would like to have a following workshop, and (in particular) if you would like to present a contributed paper at a workshop could you also indicate this in this space: Mail to: First Australian National Supercomputer Conference ANU Supercomputer Facility,Computer Services Centre Australian National University GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601