News

Open Education Cup honors two Connexions writers
Two writers for Connexions (Ken Busbee, a computer science professor at Houston Community College and Tim Stitt of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre) were among winners in the 2008-09 Open Education Cup, a competition for those who create modules on high-performance computing for the Rice-sponsored repository for open-access educational materials. -  November 19, 2009

High Performance Computing Book - Republished on Connexions
 Thanks to my publisher (O'Reilly and Associates) and my editor Mike Loukides, and the Connexions team, (Daniel Williamson, Kathi Fletcher, and Jan Odegard) my "High Performance Computing" book has been republished on Connexions (www.cnx.org). The book is freely available on the web and in PDF and on-demand printable for the cost of printing and shipping. The entire contents of the book is CC-BY license so it can be remixed and republished by anyone who wants to adapt the book. -  November 14, 2009

HPC Open Education Cup Winners Announced
Connexions, in cooperation with the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University, is pleased to announce the winners of the 2008-2009 Open Education Cup. The competition, introduced during the SC08 conference, challenged educators and researchers to produce open access education and training modules on various aspects of high performance computing. The winners, Tim Stitt, Ph.D., of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) and Kenneth Leroy Busbee of Houston Community College, each received $500 cash prizes.  -  November 13, 2009

Lecture to examine "A National Initiative for Technology-Mediated Social Participation"
According to Shneidermann, as national initiatives are launched in several countries to dramatically increase research and education on social media, a coordinated approach will be helpful. In his lecture, Shneidermann will discuss potential short-term interventions, including universities changing course content, adding courses and offering new degree programs; industry helping researchers by providing access to data and platforms for testing; and government agencies applying these strategies in pilot studies related to national priorities. -  October 29, 2009

K2I's Micheal Deem Leads Hunt For New Zeolites
In all the world, there are about 200 types of zeolite, a compound of silicon, aluminum and oxygen that gives civilization such things as laundry detergent, kitty litter and gasoline. But thanks to computations by Rice University professor Michael Deem and his colleagues, it appears there are -- or could be -- more types of zeolites than once thought. -  October 29, 2009

Cyber Expert to Discuss Cyberspace in US at Baker Institute
Dale Meyerrose, vice president and general manager of cyber and information assurance at Harris Corporation, will speak on "Cyberspace in America: A Status Report" Nov. 3 at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. -  October 27, 2009

CAAM grad student wins Ken Kennedy-Cray Inc. Graduate Fellowship Award
Igor Terentyev, a doctoral student in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics, has won the Ken Kennedy-Cray Inc. Graduate Fellowship Award for 2009. The award, managed by the Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice, supports graduate students involved in high-performance computing. It was established in 2007 by the supercomputer manufacturer Cray Inc. to honor the late Ken Kennedy, a Rice computing pioneer and a former Cray board member.   -  October 19, 2009

K2I's Richard Baraniuk Featured in SURF
On 10 and 11 November the annual conference Dé Onderwijsdagen will take place again in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. One of the keynote speakers is Dr. Richard Baraniuk, professor of signal and image processing at Rice University in Houston and the founder of Connexions, an internet platform for open education. -  October 7, 2009

CACM Editorial by Vardi "The Financial Meltdown and Computing"
For many of us, the past year has been one of the most unsettling in our lifetime. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, we watched communism collapse of its own dead weight. In late 2008, we saw capitalism nearly crumble. Lehman Brothers, a major U.S. investment bank, declared bankruptcy last September, sending the world's financial system into a tailspin. Only a massive intervention by central banks saved the system from collapse. -  October 1, 2009

K2I Member, Tapia, Receives Award
Rice University mathematician Richard Tapia received the Hispanic Heritage Award for Math and Science on Sept. 29 at a star-studded 22nd Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards ceremony on Capitol Hill. Tapia, University Professor, the Maxfield-Oshman Professor in Engineering and director of Rice's Center for Excellence and Equity in Education, is internationally known for his research in the computational and mathematical sciences and is a national leader in education and outreach. -  September 29, 2009