If you have anything to report on your ESP projects—accomplishments, or efforts currently underway—I would appreciate an email to [email protected] with relevant bullets. Of particular interest are efforts on the items presented in the “6-month plan” slides at the Kick-Off workshop. (This is for giving DOE some status on the program.)

Please refer any candidates for ESP postdoc appointments to the ANL jobs website to apply:

http://www.anl.gov/jobsearch/detail.jsp?userreqid=316934+LCF&lsBrowse=POSTDOC

There is a longer description on the ALCF web site:

http://www.alcf.anl.gov/esp-postdoc-opportunities

If you are interested in advertising the position for your ESP project in some appropriate venue for your science area, please let me know via an email [email protected] .

I am compiling a final list of institutions participating in the Early Science projects that do not yet have a signed AECI agreement with IBM (nondisclosure agreement enabling people at the institution to access confidential IBM Blue Gene/Q information.) Here are the remaining institutions in need of agreements that I know of. If your institution is not on this list and you intend to participate in one of the ESP projects, please let me know by emailing [email protected] .

• University of Virginia
• University of Utah
• MIT
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Jefferson Lab
• Columbia University

The Kick-Off Workshop happened this week, Monday-Tuesday at the Argonne TCS Conference Center. Thanks to all who attended, presented, and gave us feedback about the workshop. Thanks to the IBM participants, whose presentations were highlights of the workshop, and thanks also to IBM for co-sponsoring Monday’s reception.

We are in discussion with IBM about having them email out encrypted PDFs of the IBM confidential presentations to workshop attendees. The slides from the project presentations are now hyperlinked to the agenda on the workshop website, http://http://press.mcs.anl.gov/esp10/agenda . Other presentations without confidential information will be linked in as well.

One discussion point at the workshop was how to manage collaboration with project members at our own institutions, given that the AECI (nondisclosure) agreements are between IBM and the institution. Most likely this will be managed using a “working-group” structure. I’ll report when that’s been worked out (probably including an email to project investigators).

The Early Science web pages have been integrated better with the rest of the ALCF website. From the ALCF page (http://www.alcf.anl.gov), the “Research Collaborations” pull-down menu entry “Early Science Program” brings up the new ESP main page. Individual ESP project descriptions have been moved out into individual web pages, consistent with our INCITE and ALCC project pages.

The convenience URL http://esp.alcf.anl.gov that many of us have been using to get to the ESP website now points to the new main ESP page.

If you are thinking about registering for the Early Science Program Kick-Off Workshop, please note that if your institution does not already have an AECI agreement signed with IBM (or is one of a few institutions with agreements in progress), there will not be time to get this done before the Workshop, so you will not be able to attend. If you want to inquire about whether your institution is covered by or in the process of signing an agreement, email [email protected] . (AECI is the acronym for IBM’s flavor of nondisclosure agreement.)

If you are not planning to attend the Workshop, but do intend to work on one of the Early Science Program projects, please notify [email protected], indicating your institution (university/lab/company where you work). We need to get IBM a complete list of institutions requesting AECI agreements for ESP work as soon as possible. The number is already getting large; at some point we’ll have to close the door and not accept any additional new institutions. If you’ve already let us know about your institution via email or registering for the Workshop, you don’t need to send anything further.

It’s important that you register for the upcoming Kick-Off Workshop, if you plan to attend. If you think you may attend, but don’t want to register yet, send email to [email protected] to let us know. (If you’ve already let us know of your intent, you don’t need to send another mail.) Most importantly, we need to know your home institution, so we know which institutions will need a nondisclosure agreement. Please also compare your citizenship with the lists in the earlier post on export control, to make sure you won’t have a problem attending because of that.