[sf-lug] Linux Users' Group of Davis, Feb. 17: Parallel Processing in "R"

[nbs]

The Linux Users' Group of Davis (LUGOD) will be holding the following meeting:

  Monday
  February 17, 2014
  7:00pm - 9:00pm

Presentation:
  Parallel Processing in R

  presented by Dr. Norm Matloff, Computer Science Dept., UC Davis

  The R programming language <http://www.r-project.org/> has become the
  lingua franca of the data science world.  It takes an object-oriented,
  functional programming point of view, and has outstanding graphics
  libraries.  Best of all, it is open source.

  R is not inherently parallel, lacking threads and message-passing
  operations.  However, due to a tremendous need for parallelism,
  especially in this era of Big Data, a number of parallel libraries
  have been developed.  Dr. Matloff will discuss several in this talk,
  one each for these platforms: clusters; multicore; cloud; and GPU.
  (Most of these are OS-agnostic, but the multicore solutions run only
  on Linux and other Unix-family systems.)

  R is close enough to C that those without background in R should be
  able to follow the presentation easily[*].  Similarly, though the talk
  will assume a passing familiarity with threads, those lacking such
  background should be able to follow the presentation as well.

  [*] Dr. Matloff has an R Quick Start tutorial located here:
  http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/132/PLN/ProbStatBook.pdf


About the speaker:

  Dr. Norm Matloff is a professor of computer science at the University
  of California at Davis, and was formerly a professor of statistics at
  that university. He is a former database software developer in Silicon
  Valley, and has been a statistical consultant for firms such as the
  Kaiser Permanente Health Plan.

  Professor Matloff was a founding member of the UC Davis Department of
  Statistics.  He designed the undergraduate majors in Statistics, and
  for many years was a faculty member of the Graduate Group in Statistics,
  which administered the Statistics PhD and Master's program.
  He served on the GGCS Executive Committee, and continues to have ties
  with the Statistics Dept., through service on PhD examining committees,
  presenting seminars and so on.

  Dr. Matloff is a recognized expert on statistical computing and the
  R data language.  His book on the R programming language, "The Art of
  R Programming", published in 2011, is considered one of the leading
  works of its kind, and has been translated to Japanese, Korean and
  Chinese.  He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Statistical
  Software, and has recently presented invited papers in this field at
  Interface 2012--the Future of Statistical Computing, userR! 2012 and
  JSM 2013.  He is on the organizing board of the Bay Area useR Group.


This meeting will be held at:

  Explort Nature Center
  3141 5th Street
  Davis, CA 95616


For more details on this meeting, visit:

  http://www.lugod.org/meeting/

For maps, directions, public transportation schedules, etc., visit:

  http://www.lugod.org/meeting/explorit/on.php


------------
About LUGOD:
------------

  The Linux Users' Group of Davis is a 501(c)7 non-profit organization
  dedicated to the Linux computer operating system and other Open Source
  and Free Software.

  Since 1999, LUGOD has held regular meetings with guest speakers
  in Davis, California, as well as other events in Davis and the greater
  Sacramento region.  Events are always free and open to the public.

  You can 'like' LUGOD on Facebook at:
  https://www.facebook.com/LinuxUsersGroupOfDavis
  join the LUGOD group on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lugod/
  and find us on LinkedIn at: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=35879

  Please visit our website for more details:  http://www.lugod.org/


-- 
Bill Kendrick
pr at lugod.org
Public Relations Officer
Linux Users' Group of Davis
http://www.lugod.org/

(Your address: sf-lug at linuxmafia.com )