May 2020 National eResearch Newsletter

The International HPC Certification Forum is holding a short virtual workshop on May 20th from 18:00-20:00 AEST.  The workshop is to discuss certification, teaching, and learning HPC content to establish an internationally recognised certificate for HPC users.

Virtual Workshop:  Toward a Globally Acknowledged and Free HPC Certification
May 20th, 9-11 BST; 18-20 AEST

Details and registration here:
https://www.hpc-certification.org/2020/05/04/workshop.html.

The research community is facing many challenges around continuing research with labs and campuses closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.  To support researchers, the AARNet eResearch team is hosting fortnightly webinars, starting 7-May, focused on remote research challenges and solutions.  This is a timely series of webinars offering advice to researchers about tools and methods that can make life easier while working remotely.  Recordings are available for past webinars.

See https://news.aarnet.edu.au/aarnet-webinar-series-supporting-remote-research/.

The National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme is currently calling for Expressions of Interest from researchers to join the NCMAS Committee.  The application deadline has been extended to the 22nd of May.

Find out more about the role and how to apply at https://ncmas.nci.org.au/2020/NCMAS-Committee-EOI.

The ARDC Platforms program will be calling for expressions of interest for their 2020 platforms open call soon.  Find out more about the process and indicative timelines here:  https://ardc.edu.au/collaborations/strategic-activities/platforms/platforms-open-call-2020/.

Each year the AAF conducts two surveys that help inform our future developments.

The AAF is seeking your feedback so we can continue to provide your organisation with high quality services.  Please answer the short 10-minute survey relevant to you, to tell us how we’re doing.

Complete the survey relevant to you:
Technical Federation feedback – https://bit.ly/3aw9jqu.
Federation Planning feedback – https://bit.ly/2vuwi5f.

This three-part webinar series will guide you through using containers in bioinformatics to bring benefits like software portability, data reproducibility and improved collaboration.

To participate, all you’ll need is command line familiarity, but ideally bring along your own computer and get hands-on.

Join us for these free 60-90min webinars starting at 2pm AEST / 12pm AWST / 1:30pm ACST:
Part 1 – Getting Started with Containers: Monday 15 June 2020
Part 2 – Customising your Containers: Tuesday 16 June 2020
Part 3 – Scaling Research using Containers: Wednesday 17 June 2020

Further information and registration details: https://www.biocommons.org.au/events.

As part of the global Galaxy network, the Galaxy Australia team are pleased to be helping to organise the Bioinformatics Community Conference (BCC2020) Online, over 17-26 July.   It will be global, affordable and accessible to all.  Two training days, a 3 day meeting, a 4 day collaboration fest – on eastern and western time zones.

Registrations now open: https://bcc2020.github.io/.

MRtrix3 is an open source software, it provides a large suite of tools for image processing, analysis and visualisation, with a focus on the analysis of white matter using diffusion-weighted MRI.  The software is currently capable of handling DICOM, NIfTI and AnalyseAVW image formats, amongst others.  The source code is distributed under the Mozilla Public License (http://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/).

On 24-Apr-20 a new release of version 3.0.0 was announced https://community.mrtrix.org/t/mrtrix-3-0-0-has-arrived/3558.

This is an international collaboration, Robert Smith is in Australia and works at The Florey and is also a National Imaging Facility Informatics Fellow.

Australian researchers can now rapidly analyse their SARS-CoV-2 data using published tools and workflows by using a new dedicated Galaxy COVID-19 compute node hosted at Pawsey Supercomputing Centre.

Full story:  https://www.biocommons.org.au/pawsey-covid-grant.

Australia is at the forefront of the COVID-19 vaccine development with key researchers using institutional and national research infrastructures and cooperating with commercial providers to accelerate COVID-19 responses.

An article highlighting how NCRIS facilities are helping researchers tackle COVID-19 can be seen at:  https://ardc.edu.au/news/australias-digital-research-infrastructures-at-the-forefront-in-helping-researchers-tackle-covid-19/.

The Research Data Alliance COVID-19 Working Group has released recommendations and guidelines on data sharing and reuse to help researchers follow best practices to maximise the efficiency of their work.  RDA members are invited to review and comment.

See https://rd-alliance.org/rda-covid-19-recommendations-and-guidelines-3rd-release-open-comments.

Recap on the Research Data Alliance Virtual Plenary which had over 2,000 registrations (more than 900 individuals) across 45 virtual breakout sessions and 2 keynotes.  Recordings of the sessions are being added to the Virtual Plenary programme page as they become available.

See https://www.rd-alliance.org/virtual-plenary-15-recap.

NCI has announced the recipients of the inaugural Australasian Leadership Computing Grants.  The researchers receiving these highly competitive grants will tackle some of the biggest computational science problems at the highest resolution, in the shortest time, thanks to record-breaking access to NCI’s new supercomputer.  The successful recipients have been allocated an unprecedented 180 million units of computing time between them.

Read more at https://bit.ly/ALCG2020.

NCI Australia and the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, supported by the Federal Government’s NCRIS program, are proud to be supporting COVID-19 research with prioritised and expedited access to computation and data resources.  NCI has announced support for three targeted projects with over 40 million units of computing time, investigating aspects of drug design and drug selection based on the molecular structures of virus-human interactions.

Read more at https://bit.ly/ALCGCOVID.

Along with all our customers in the research and education sector, AARNet is operating in unprecedented times.  The sudden and mass movement of students, faculty and staff to working and learning from home has resulted in some remarkable changes to the internet ecosystem and the way data flows across the AARNet network.  Even with campuses across the country closed, AARNet is playing a vital role to support the research and education sector.  Research traffic continues to move across the AARNet network and we are providing critical video and collaboration services for enabling remote working and learning.

See https://news.aarnet.edu.au/aarnets-race-to-upgrade-network-and-services-as-universities-send-staff-and-students-home/.