New Study Details the Searing Future of Extreme Heat

Heat waves that typically strike once every 20 years could become yearly events across 60 percent of Earth’s land surface by 2075, if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked. If stringent emissions-reductions measures are put in place, however, these extreme heat events could be reduced significantly, finds a new study by Claudia Tebaldi of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Michael Wehner of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and published in the journal Climatic Change, quantified the benefits society would reap, in terms of avoiding extreme heat events, if action is taken now to mitigate climate change. »Read more.

NERSC Director Dosanjh to Deliver Keynote at Australian Computational Sciences Conference

NERSC Director Sudip Dosanjh will deliver an invited keynote address at the Computational and Simulation Sciences and eResearch Annual Conference 2016 held March 1-4 in Melbourne, Australia. His talk is entitled “Exascale and Extreme Data Science at NERSC.” The conference is sponsored by CSIRO, Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

Skinner, Collela to Represent Computing Sciences at ARPA-E Meeting

As part of the Berkeley Lab booth at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit being held February 29 to March 2 in Washington, D.C., NERSC Strategic Partners Lead David Skinner will talk about a range of industry collaborations in areas such as renewable energy, better batteries and advanced manufacturing. Phil Collela, head of the Applied Numerical Algorithms Group, will be on hand to talk about Chombo, a structured adaptive mesh framework developed by the group. The lab booth will showcase Berkeley Lab’s world-class facilities, translational R&D and public-private partnership programs.

ESnet Bids Greg Bell Farewell

On Thursday, Computing Sciences’ staff gathered to wish Greg Bell well upon his departure from ESnet to become full-time CEO of Broala. The company deploys the Bro network monitoring software first developed here at Berkeley Lab. Bell joined the lab 15 years ago with LBLnet. He became ESnet’s as chief information strategist in April 2010 and was named ESnet director in June 2013.

As a parting gift to ESnet, Bell and Brooklin Gore, lead for ESnet’s Infrastructure, Identity & Collaboration Group, created an “OSCARS” tribute at ESnet’s headquarters in  Berkeley Lab’s Shyh Wang Hall. One OSCARS refers to ESnet’s On-Demand Secure Circuits and Advance Reservation System, a software service that creates dedicated bandwidth channels for scientists who need to move massive, time-critical data sets around the world. Developed by ESnet engineers at Berkeley Lab, the software won an R&D100 award in 2013. The other Oscar’s refers to the iconic Shattuck Avenue restaurant that has primarily been a burgers and fries destination for UC Berkeley students for 65 years. When the restaurant closed last year, Bell and Gore purchased the sign for the ESnet offices.

Venture Capitalist Expert at March 2 BLIC Meeting

Get a fresh view of the VC landscape at the next Berkeley Lab Innovation Corps (BLIC) meeting at noon Wednesday, March 2, in the Bldg. 66 auditorium with venture capitalist expert Doug Collom.

Collom is Professor of Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Management at the Wharton School’s Executive MBA Program and partner with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. BLIC is open to all Berkeley Lab staff interested in moving technologies from lab to market.

BLIC advances lab-to-market efforts for Berkeley Lab technologies and provides commercialization training. All Lab employees are welcome to BLIC events.

his Week’s CS Seminars

»CS Seminars Calendar

Improving density functional theory for warm dense matter

Monday, Feb. 29, 4 to 5pm, Bldg. 50F, Room 1647
Aurora Pribram-Jones, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Warm dense matter is a high-energy state of matter with characteristics of both solids and plasmas. It is found within planetary interiors, created during shock experiments, and observed along the path to ignition of inertial confinement fusion. The effects of these environments’ high temperatures and pressures demand a mixed quantum-classical treatment. Due to this complicated behavior, simulation of warm dense matter is notoriously challenging for both condensed matter and traditional plasma methods. One of the most successful methods for modeling warm dense matter to date uses density functional theory to describe the electrons within a material and classical molecular dynamics to describe its ions. We know, however, that this treatment ignores an important piece of the electronic energy’s explicit temperature dependence. In this talk, ensemble and other temperature effects on static and time-dependent electronic structure are examined through the lens of mathematical density functional theory. In addition, a new method uniquely suited to warm dense matter simulation will be presented: finite-temperature potential functional theory. Highly accurate, systematically improvable, and computationally efficient, it bridges the theoretical gap between condensed matter and plasma treatments and skirts the computational bottleneck of high-temperature density functional theory.

CITRIS Research Exchange Seminar: Artificial Intelligence Arriving for Everyone

Wednesday, March 2, 12 to 1pm, Banatao Auditorium in Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley campus
Adam Coates, Baidu Silicon Valley AI Lab

Abstract unavailable. »Free registration required.  »Live webcast available.

CAMERA Seminar: Model-Based Iterative Reconstruction Algorithms for X-ray Absorption and Phase Contrast Tomography

Wednesday, March 2, 3 to 4pm, Bldg 50B Room 4205
K. Aditya Mohan,Purdue University

X-ray absorption and phase contrast tomography are widely used for 3D and 4D characterization of material and biological samples. The conventional approach to reconstruction makes use of analytical inversion methods that make various limiting assumptions about the object and the measurement physics. Furthermore, they are also sensitive to noise and limited data. For instance, the analytical filtered back projection algorithm used in X-ray tomography requires Nyquist sampling of projection data and an unchanging sample. In phase contrast tomography, the analytical phase retrieval algorithms make the near-field assumption for diffraction that limits the spatial resolution and image contrast. In this talk, I will present model-based iterative reconstruction algorithms for X-ray absorption and phase contrast tomography that makes efficient use of all the available data and is robust to noise. I will present a time interlaced model-based iterative reconstruction (TIMBIR) method, which can significantly, improve the temporal resolution of time-space reconstructions. TIMBIR is a synergistic combination of two innovations. The first innovation, interlaced view sampling, is a novel approach to data acquisition, which distributes the view angles more evenly in time. The second innovation is a 4D model based iterative reconstruction algorithm (MBIR), which can produce time resolved volumetric reconstructions of the sample from the interlaced views. I will also present a model-based iterative reconstruction (MBIR) algorithm for X-ray phase contrast tomography called complex refractive index tomographic iterative reconstruction (CRITIR). CRITIR is based on a non-linear physics based model for X-ray propagation and a prior model for the complex refractive index of the object being imaged. Unlike conventional methods, CRITIR is designed to work within and beyond the near-field diffraction region.

Applied Math Seminar: Hybrid Quantum-Classical Algorithms for Large Eigenvalue Problems

Wednesday, March 2, 3:30 to 4:30pm, 939 Evans Hall, UC Berkeley
Jarrod McClean, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Quantum computation has the potential to dramatically speed up the solution to a number of important problems in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Unfortunately, many quantum algorithms are infeasible on current and near-term quantum devices. In this talk, I will show how combining classical and quantum resources allows one to maximally utilize available quantum resources in the solution of eigenvalue problems, with a particular emphasis on quantum chemical applications. Moreover, this approach will help to highlight the origin of a potential quantum speedup over classical calculations. The talk will be designed to appeal to a broad mathematical audience and will not assume an extensive background in quantum mechanics.

BIDS Data Science Lecture: How to Manipulate Science Journalists (for Good)

Friday, March 4, 1:10 to 2:30pm, 190 Doe Library, UC Berkeley
John Bohannon, Science

Ever wonder what science journalists do all day? In this talk I’m going to give you the stories behind the stories I worked on last week: 

Science journalism is how people learn about your research and about you. When we journalists do our job well, the public gets informed efficiently and accurately. When we fall asleep at the wheel, millions of people start believing that vaccines are best avoided, that climate change is a fantasy, or that chocolate causes weight loss. (Wait, that last one was me!)

One of these days you’re going to get a call from a science journalist. In this talk, I will offer three easy tips on how to manipulate the journalist into doing the right thing, or at least getting the science less wrong.

Also, I will be giving a sneak preview at a data-driven story due to come out in Science later this month. It’s a doozy.