BSC-CNS Newsletter March 2018

EC Vice-President Andrus Ansip visits BSC

Andrus Ansip, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, visited BSC and highlighted the importance that European Union to build its own supercomputers. “EU member states aren’t big enough to build next-generation supercomputers individually. We have to join forces, which is why we have launched the EuroHPC project. In the EU we have to build our own exascale supercomputers,” Ansip said.

Step forward for the EuroHPC project

The European Commission proposes to invest EUR 1 billion in world-class European supercomputers. A new legal and funding structure, the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, shall acquire, build and deploy across Europe a world-class HPC infrastructure. BSC, as one of the promoters of this initiative, highly values the involvement of the EC in this strategic project of vital importance for Europe, which also supports a research and innovation programme to develop hardware and software.

BSC reanalysis of public data opens the way to a cost-effective research on personalized medicine

BSC identifies new risk variants for T-2 Diabetes by the reanalysis of public data with innovative computational methods. The study represents a new way of exploiting preexisting genetic data to obtain new and relevant discoveries for genetics and biomedicine, highlighting the importance of data sharing initiatives and policies in science.

More cardiac simulations leading to less animal testing and human clinical trials

BSC and Medtronic have signed a collaboration agreement to advance cardiac simulation as an alternative to animal testing or human clinical trials. This joint research will focus on the cardiovascular system, for more realistic analysis with potential impact on medical devices such as pacemakers, cardiac valves or stents.

BSC researcher Carlos Pérez García-Pando to participate in a NASA-funded space sensor

NASA has selected a sensor from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with science team that includes BSC researcher Carlos Pérez García-Pando to map the world's dust sources. The project, called EMIT, will determine the mineralogical composition of the world´s dust sources and contribute to constrain the effects of atmospheric dust aerosols upon climate.

Improved seasonal climate prediction for maize yield forecasts in Europe

A team of scientists from the Joint Research Centre and BSC has developed a novel approach that integrates seasonal climate predictions to forecast maize yields for Europe. They show that seasonal climate forecast initialised with realistic land surface data helps better forecast the impact of seasonal climate on maize yields. This new approach can greatly help make reliable forecasts of crop yields.

Developing the technology for future smart cities and autonomous cars

Smart cities and autonomous vehicles are the near future. The European project CLASS, coordinated by BSC, aims to develop a novel software architecture that will help software developers to design and efficiently execute big-data workloads with real-time requirements, increasing significantly the data analytics capabilities of smart systems.

BSC launches the first call for candidatures for outstanding postdoc fellows

BSC launches the BSC STARS International Research Fellow programme which aims at fostering the training of highly skilled post-doc in all fields of HPC and related applications. The initiative is part of COFUND call of the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions within the Horizon 2020 Programme. The application deadline is the 30th of April 2018.

BSC collaborates with Portugal in the creation of the Advanced Supercomputing Center

The new Advanced Computing Center will be located in the Portuguese city of Braga and will have the strategic help and experience of BSC, also contributing to the implementation of the AIR_DataNet project, as an integral part of the AIR Center. This is a new international distributed research center promoted by Portugal with the participation of Spain and other countries.

BSC participates in over 100 Horizon2020 projects

BSC continues to be among the most successful Spanish institutions in Horizon 2020 (H2020). At the beginning of this year, the number of H2020 in which the centre participates rose to over 100, with 103 projects awarded. According to the EC’s statistics, BSC ranks sixth among Spanish institutions in terms of revenue from this programme. This funding is of vital importance, as it finances projects of great importance for Spanish and international research.

BSC presents SuperGeek, a mascot to bring supercomputers closer to the youngest

SuperGeek’s mission is to bring supercomputers closer to young people and stimulate their interest in science and technology. The first public appearance of the mascot has been in the form of a shirt during the YoMo Barcelona 2018 Festival.This initiative is part of the actions carried out by BSC to bring its technological and research activity to the whole society.

Success of the Datathon on air quality in Barcelona

Some 60 participants took part in the Datathon on air quality in the city of Barcelona, held on 20 and 21 January organised by Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), CCCB, BcnAnalytics, Big Data CoE d'Eurecat and Leitat. Scientists, data analysts, statisticians and mathematicians concerned about the environment met at the CCCB to improve the system for predicting air quality in Barcelona, as well as its understanding.

RecerCaixa programme distinguishes two BSC researchers

BSC researchers Maria-Ribera Sancho and Cristina Marinescu have got a RecerCaixa 2017 grant for their project “LinDaFIX: Linked Data for Fighting Inequality in Complex Societies”. Through this project, their main objectives are the timely detection of individuals at risk, the discovery of patterns that predict inequality, and the development of a set of vulnerability indicators.