September 2017 National eResearch Newsletter

On 5 September RDS, Nectar and ANDS partnered with AeRO for a day-long workshop in Canberra on the challenges and future of National e-Infrastructure for Research. Over 100 people from across Australia enjoyed 3 sessions of lightning talks and lively audience discussion, around Platforms, Software and Professional Services, each viewed by disciplines, institutions and eResearch providers. It also included a brief update on the emerging process towards an Australian Research Data Cloud framework. We’re considering similar future events in other cities and will be looking for input soon.

The slides and notes will be accessible at http://aero.edu.au/NIRW/.

On the last Wednesday of every month, the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre opens its doors to the public for tours inside the centre and its whitespace. The Centre in Kensington houses some of the most powerful supercomputers in the Southern Hemisphere!

This interactive and informative tour is a great opportunity to learn how supercomputing is enabling researchers across the nation do ground-breaking work.

The Tours are FREE, however registrations are essential, at https://www.pawsey.org.au/pawsey-monthly-tours-registration-form/.

Our next tour will be on Wednesday 27 September at 4pm.
For more information on the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, see www.pawsey.org.au.

At the end of every other month, the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre hosts a sundowner – Pawsey Fridays! The afternoon is an opportunity to learn about researchers’ experiences with Pawsey systems and their outcomes in a relaxed and informal setting.

29 September will see special guest Associate Professor Brett Harris, from Curtin University, present his team’s 3D aquifer modelling including the structure and connections of Perth’s underground aquifers, the impact of the drying climate and the use of Perth’s aquifers for water supply.

RSVPs are important for catering purposes. Click https://www.pawsey.org.au/pawsey-fridays-rsvp-form-september-29-2017/ for September’s Pawsey Friday

eRSA invites you to attend the ‘Innovation Symposium: AI Beyond the Myths’ on Thursday, 5-Oct-17 09:30-13:00 as a part of our partnership with Open State.

This myth-busting symposium will look at all things AI related.  Sentience vs intelligence, AI ethics and practical implications.

The featured speakers include:

• Dr Leanna Read, Chief Scientist of South Australia
• Mary Hobson, CEO, eRSA
• Professor Lyle Palmer, University of Adelaide, School of Public Health
• Professor Anton van den Hengel, Director, Australian Centre for Visual Technologies
  and more!
  Register to attend at https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/innovation-symposium-ai-beyond-the-myths-tickets-37085816676.

The next Monthly Tech Talk, organised by the ANDS/Nectar/RDS partnership, is on Friday 6 October (3pm AEST) on the topic of ‘Data Computing in Humanities’. This will explore the computational approaches to analysing data objects such as text, painting, film and other artefacts. Tech Talks are live-linked discussion events at various venues around Australia. The discussion is followed by networking with refreshments.
Please register to attend. See the Monthly Tech Talk Meetup page for more details at https://www.meetup.com/monthlytechtalk.

Due to popular demand, ANDS is hosting a second Drones and Big Spatial Data workshop following a similar event in Canberra in June. This one will take place in Melbourne on 9 October. The event includes a mix of presentations and hands-on workshops to support those using drones to collect data (or who plan to in future).

More details and register: http://www.ands.org.au/news-and-events/events/drones-in-research-series.

The agenda for the IWSG-Australia on 16-17 October in Brisbane is now available.

A Science Gateway is a community-developed set of tools, applications, and data collections that are integrated through a tailored web-based environment. At this workshop participants will be able to engage with other members of the Science Gateways community, exploring common issues and successes. A Pacific Rim Applications and Grid Middleware Assembly (PRAGMA) workshop will be co-located, and registration at the IWSG-A workshop will enable participants to also access the PRAGMA workshop.

Register through the eResearch-Australasia conference registration process (https://conference.eresearch.edu.au/).

synch&share (ownCloud, etc) operators’ BoF at eRA’17.
AARNet are calling a BoF at eResearch Australasia 2017, aimed at R&E operators of “dropbox replacements” (ownCloud, NextCloud, Pydio, etc). We’ve all seemingly been pleasantly surprised by their popularity – time perhaps to discuss collaboration and interworking, keeping in mind plans for ARDC/NRDC.

Depending on your suggestions, we aim to table these items:
• Technical as well as procedural and policy concerns – is harmonisation desirable and/or attainable?
• Joint operation and joint articulation of interests to vendors.
• Interoperability and reduction of silo development; use of OpenCloudMesh.

If you are interested, reach us at eresearch@aarnet.edu.au.

With the end of year approaching, there will be Pawsey Fridays in both September (see above) and October. 27 October will feature Professor George Milne, from the University of Western Australia. Prof Milne will outline how his team has designed and developed models of dengue transmission and how they have used them to quantify the effectiveness of interventions.

To register for October’s Pawsey Friday, click https://www.pawsey.org.au/pawsey-fridays-rsvp-form-august/.

Catchment Environmental Data. This collection is made up of a suite of environmental layers calculated based on the Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric (‘Geofabric’) network that represents stream segments and their catchments. There are over 16 catchment or stream segment datasets integrated into the BCCVL (eg Climate, Substrate, Vegetation, Connectivity, Land Use, etc) within which there are 132 data layers ready for you to visualise and use in your environmental niche models.

Read more details on this release here: http://bit.ly/2vJZjAs.

This new chemistry preprint server for the global chemistry community is now available in a fully functioning Beta version for use and feedback by researchers. The launch has drawn on strategic input from the American Chemical Society (ACS), Royal Society of Chemistry, German Chemical Society and other not-for profit organisations, as well as other scientific publishers and preprint services. The free-of-charge service, originally announced late 2016, is managed on behalf of the chemical science community by ACS and is powered by Figshare, an online digital research repository, utilising its new preprint capabilities.

See https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2017/august/chemrxiv-beta-open-for-submissions-and-powered-by-figshare.html.

HPC, Cloud, innovation, food and pinball – the TANGO launch event had it all.

Thursday 24 August saw the official unveiling of the TANGO HPC and Cloud infrastructure at the YourDC data centre, where a crowd of 50+ people gathered to celebrate and learn about the new technology.

Read more at https://www.ersa.edu.au/hellotango-our-tango-launch-event/.

Specialising in different areas of research innovation, newcomers Alexis Tindall and Quang Doan make up our Research and Engagement Specialist (RES) team, along with Joey Gerlach. Say hi to the team and see how they can help your research project.

Read more about eRSA’s RES team at https://www.ersa.edu.au/meet-res-team/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=https%3A//www.ersa.edu.au/meet-res-team/&utm_campaign=C%26C%20August%202017%20Newsletter.