In case you missed it — here's a recap of news from the Unidata Program Center for the month of April, 2023.
Upcoming deadlines to be aware of:
| 12 May | Registration for Unidata Users Workshop |
| 5-8 June | Unidata Users Workshop |
| 21 July | Governing Committee Nominations |
| 21 July | Student Representative Nominations |
Highlights from last month:
AWIPS Tips: Unidata AWIPS 20.3.2-0.2 Beta CAVE Software Release
AWIPS 20.3.2-0.2 is a beta release of CAVE. This release adds installers for MacOS and Windows as well as made updates to the Linux and virtual machine option.
Free Online Courses for Machine Learning
There are a lot(!) of free online resources available if you want to learn practical machine learning skills, workflows, and processes. This post highlights some recommendations by Thomas Martin, an AI/ML Software Engineer at the Unidata Program Center.
AWIPS Tips: Adding Shapefiles to the Maps Menu with EDEX
If you are running your own EDEX and have a shapefile that you use consistently, this edition of AWIPS Tips shows you how to import it into the maps database and add it to the CAVE Maps menu.
Why are GPUs Exciting for Machine Learning Research?
Machine Learning systems are often configured around Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) rather than Central Processing Units (CPUs). Why should this be the case, in an era when CPUs are powerful and (relatively) inexpensive? This article provides some insights into what GPUs are and why they provide advantages for certain types of computations, including some commonly used for machine learning and modeling.
Wanted: Student Representative for Unidata Users Committee
The Unidata Users Committee is seeking nominations for a Graduate Student representative to join the group of university faculty members who serve on this committee. Nominees should be Graduate Students who use Unidata software, hold a strong interest in the Unidata program, and have an interest in learning how a community-based program like Unidata is governed. Nominations may be made by any community member, and self-nominations are acceptable.
And a reminder:
Register Now for the 2023 Unidata Users Workshop
Registration for the 2023 Unidata Users Workshop is open through May 12, 2023. The Unidata Users Committee invites you to join Unidata staff, community members, and distinguished speakers this June in Boulder, Colorado. The goal of this year's workshop is to raise awareness about how to access and use Earth Systems Science data, and to explore approaches to tell the stories of our science in a way that is reproducible, responsible, and robust. Scientists and educators from the Earth Systems Science community will present ideas and techniques for making effective use of geoscience data and share activities, course materials, and ideas for improving education and research.
On the Developer's Blog
Unidata Program Center developers write regularly on technical topics on the Unidata Developer's Blog. The ongoing MetPy Mondays series looks at plotting individual US counties, debugging Python code with decorators, and using the tempfile package to avoid file clutter.
Governing Committee News
Unidata's Users Committee met March 30-31, 2023 at the Unidata Program Center in Boulder, CO. The fall meeting will be a joint meeting with the Strategic Advisory Committee, scheduled for November 1-3, 2023 in Boulder, CO.
Unidata's Strategic Advisory Committee met at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL on April 17-18, 2023. The fall meeting will be a joint meeting with the Users Committee, scheduled for November 1-3, 2023 in Boulder, CO.
