Graduate student award winners receive access to Blue Waters supercomputer

The two winners of the 2012 Graduate Student Award in Computational Physical Chemistry, given means of the American Chemical Society's Theoretical Subdivision, desire receive 100,000 service units (3,125 excrescence hours) on the Blue Waters supercomputer to urge forward their research.

Protein puzzle

Illinois researchers practice Blue Waters to determine the correct chemical structure of the protein strip the from encasing HIV's genetic material. Their results strike one as being in the journal Nature.

Augmented reality app brings Alma back for commencement!

Artists and programmers from one side of to the other the Illinois campus, including NCSA's Alan Craig, came in the same place to create a free augmented substantiality app that ensures the Class of 2013 wish be able to share in a beloved U of I tradition by having their photo taken with a photo-realistic, high-resolution digital Alma Mater.

The National Archives hosts committee on Nazi-era looted art records

The National Archives hosts committee on Nazi-era looted art records

09 May 2013

Members of the Nazi-era cultural property project met yesterday at The National Archives, Kew, to report on progress of the online international research portal for families, historians and researchers to access records on looted art from the Nazi era.

Two years after the signing of a global agreement in Washington D.C. to widen public access to all records related to looted cultural artefacts from the Nazi era, the project has gained momentum with an additional six international cultural organisations joining and access provided to a larger number and range of newly digitised documents.

Anne Webber, Co-Chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, said: 'The increase in collaboration from institutions across Europe and the USA in this global international project demonstrates the importance of the Portal for claimants and researchers all over the world. The extended range of participants means that the scope of materials has expanded exponentially, providing crucial information on losses which is not elsewhere available. These new developments will be of immense help for claimants in identifying and recovering their missing property.'

Access to new material

The National Archives has completed a description and digitisation project which provides access to over 4,350 searchable items on Nazi-era cultural property, in partnership with the Commission for Looted Art in Europe.

Oliver Morley, Chief Executive and Keeper of The National Archives, said: 'We are delighted to have completed the digitisation and linking of all archival looted art records held by The National Archives. These records complement the extensive range of material made accessible through the portal, helping people to uncover the rightful origins of many more looted artefacts.'

The records, from a number of government departments including the Foreign Office and the Treasury, date from 1939 to 1961 and include seizure orders, inventories and images of looted works of art, as well as field reports and claim forms for seized property. They also include interrogation reports of art dealers and reports of the transfer of looted artworks to neutral countries. All the original UK government files have been newly scanned in colour and are searchable by name, place, subject and date.

Highlights from the files digitised by The National Archives include:

Record relating to the famous 'Portrait of a Youth' by Raphael Santi from the Czartoryski Museum in Cracow (FO 371/53105/19)

Telegram from the British High Commissioner in Rome, dated September 1944, states that the Petacci sisters (Mussolini's mistresses) and their brother have arrived in Spain under a false name and are said to be carrying jewels and valuables (FO 371/40996/30 & FO 371/40997/16)

List of stolen works of art from France, dated 4 April 1947. The list contains the names of approximately 50 artists (which include Van Gogh, Tiepolo, Titian, Monet, Goya, Vermeer and Renoir), details of the stolen works as well as the owners of the works (FO 371/65055/4)

Correspondence relating to a snuff box of Frederick the Great in the possession of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, dated June 1951 (FO 371/94079/1)

Nationwide industrial action on Thursday 9 May

Nationwide industrial action on Thursday 9 May

07 May 2013

Due to nationwide industrial action by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) on Thursday 9 May from 11:00 to 12:00, The National Archives will be offering a reduced service to the public during this time.

Visitors may experience delays when registering for or renewing readers' tickets, and document delivery may take longer.

We ask visitors to please be patient with us during this period. We expect services to resume as normal in the afternoon.

Undergraduate SPIN fellows to present their NCSA projects on May 1

University of Illinois faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend the SPIN Fellows Symposium from 3:30 to 5:30 pm May 1 at the NCSA Building, Room 1040. Students participating in the National Center for Supercomputing Applications' SPIN Fellows program will present their work, and a pizza reception will follow.

XSEDE, Blue Waters help team improve earthquake simulation code

A research team led by Yifeng Cui, a computational scientist at SDSC, developed the scalable GPU accelerated code for use in earthquake engineering and disaster management through regional earthquake simulations at the petascale level as part of a larger computational effort coordinated by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC).

The National Archives releases new MI5 files

The National Archives releases new MI5 files

17 February 2012

New records released today by the Security Service (MI5) include files on the silent-era film star Charlie Chaplin, the Dutch double-agent Folkert Van Koutrik and details of a Nazi plan to produce fake British banknotes.

This release contains 86 files and brings the total number of Security Service records held at The National Archives to 4,926.

Many of the files are available to view online and will be free to download for one month.

The official historian of MI5, Professor Christopher Andrew, has recorded a podcast about the new files.

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin's Security Service file reveals that MI5 mounted an investigation into the mysterious circumstances of his birth (KV2/3700-01). Chaplin, one of the silent era's biggest stars, was viewed with suspicion in the United States because of his alleged links to Communism but MI5 concluded that he was a 'progressive or radical' rather than a Communist.

Folkert van Koutrik

The Dutch agent, Folkert van Koutrik, was employed by both MI5 and MI6 during the Second World War. However the interrogation of German prisoners after the war revealed that he had in fact been a double agent employed by the Nazis using the codename 'Walbach'. His betrayal led to the kidnapping of two MI6 officers at Venlo in 1939 (KV2/3643).

Fraudulent bank notes

Another file in the latest release reveals a Nazi plan to produce fraudulent Bank of England notes during the Second World War and to scatter them over the British Isles (KV4/465). The object was to 'create a loss of confidence and general confusion'. The Germans also used forged British bank notes to pay their secret agents including Snow, Rainbow, Cheese and Pogo. By the end of the war, the file notes, the German strategy had largely succeeded as 'at present no one will accept a Bank of England note in any neutral country…except at a very large discount'.