BIG DATA

A leader in the field of reproducibility in computational science and disseminating the code and data behind published results, two big issues in today’s data-driven research, will be among the featured speakers at HUBbub 2014. HUBbub is the annual conference for users and would-be users of HUBzero, an open source ready-made cyberinfrastructure for research and education developed at Purdue University, originally to power nanoHUB, nanohub.org.

 

HUBzero, hubzero.org, now powers more than 60 interactive, Web-based hubs driving research in fields such as nanotechnology, cancer treatment, pharmaceutical manufacturing, earthquake mitigation and disaster management, volcanology, environmental modeling, biofuels, and the bonds between humans and companion animals.

 

The two-day conference for researchers, practitioners, educators and IT professionals is September 29 and 30, with an opening reception Sept. 28 and a post-conference Hub Hero Challenge hack-a-thon event on Oct. 1. The conference will be held at the Sheraton Indianapolis City Centre Hotel, 31 W. Ohio St., in downtown Indianapolis. For more information and to register, visit hubzero.org/hubbub.

 

The gathering has something for everyone, from hub developers and users who want to learn more about the platform to those curious about hubs or interested in deploying the open source HUBzero to establish one.

 

HUBbub 2014’s morning sessions feature invited speakers who are experts in cyberinfrastructure, team science and community sharing. Hands-on sessions in the afternoon give participants experience with cyberinfrastructure building.

 

The Hub Hero Challenge the day after the conference is a chance to delve even further by developing a HUBzero extension or tool, with hub development veterans on hand to answer questions and a chance to win a Raspberry Pi starter kit.

 

Among the other featured speakers at HUBbub 2014:

 

* Victoria Stodden, assistant professor of statistics at Columbia University. She will discuss problem solving environments for computational research, which are expected to become standard in years ahead. Stodden’s research focuses on such computational science reproducibility issues as robustness in replicated results, validation systems, openness standards for data and code sharing, and legal and policy barriers to disseminating reproducible research. She is a co-founder of RunMyCode.org, an open platform for disseminating the code and data associated with published results.

 

* David Lifka, director of the Center for Advanced Computing at Cornell University. Lifka will talk about how the HUBzero community can leverage Red Cloud, an Infrastructure as a Service from Cornell that runs the open source Eucalyptus cloud computing platform, and was built to support parallel MATLAB runs and other general computing tasks.

 

* Laura Paglione, technical director at ORCID, on open, non-profit, community-based effort to provide a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to those identifiers that works across disciplines and national borders. The latest version of HUBzero integrates ORCID capabilities.

 

Other sessions will cover topics such as creating real-time applications within the HUBzero framework; collaborative informatics for cancer research using HUBzero; hub-based geospatial, hydrology and nanoelectronic modeling; supporting STEM education and teaching big data analysis in the social sciences using hubs; and more. 

 

In addition, the latest open source bundle of HUBzero will be released at HUBbub 2014. HUBzero 1.3 includes dozens of new features. Some highlights:

 

* Integration of ORCID, which issues unique identifiers for authors and links diverse sources of publications, lectures, presentations and even HUBzero tools they’ve created.

 

* A redesigned, simpler login page with InCommon integration permitting a hub’s users to use their home institution credentials for secure HUBzero logins.

 

* Incorporation of the WYSIWYG rich text editor CKEditor.

 

* Improved password encryption for added security.

 

Originally developed at Purdue to power nanoHUB.org, the award-winning HUBzero is an interactive Web-based platform energizing communities for scientific research as well as education. A major HUBzero feature is its ability to rapidly deploy computational research codes, and visualize and analyze results, while interfacing seamlessly with high-performance computing resources on the back end, all through a Web browser. Built-in social networking creates communities in almost any field or subject matter and facilitates communication and collaboration, distribution of research results, training and education. Moreover, the platform has a growing set of data management and interactive database capabilities.