The Download: Tech Talks by the HPCC Systems Community, Episode 12
On March 15, HPCC Systems hosted the latest edition of The Download: Tech Talks. This series of workshops is specifically designed for the community by the community with the goal to share knowledge, spark innovation, and further build and link the relationships within our HPCC Systems community.
Links to resources mentioned in Tech Talk 12:
Blog: In pursuit of perils: Geo-spatial risk analysis through HPCC Systems
Episode Guest Speakers and Subjects:
Itauma Itauma, PhD Candidate, Keiser University – Conducting Exploratory Data Analysis in Educational Research Using HPCC Systems®
Itauma is a doctoral candidate at Keiser University, a computer science instructor at Wayne State University and an online instructor at Southern New Hampshire University. His interests lie in learning analytics and utilizing HPCC Systems for educational research. He has an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Ilorin and two Masters Degrees, a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, majoring in human-robot interaction and a Master of Science in Computer Science from Wayne State University where his thesis was based on leveraging HPCC Systems for Big Data analytics.
Ignacio Calvo, Software Engineering Lead, LexisNexis Risk Solutions – Big Data and Geospatial with HPCC Systems®
Ignacio is a Software Engineering Lead with 17 years of experience in the development of IT projects for different markets (insurance, finance, telecom, retailing). He has been working for 5 years in LexisNexis creating Big Data solutions with geospatial capabilities using HPCC Systems. He is the organizer of the HPCC Systems meetup group in Dublin and a CoderDojo mentor.
Bob Foreman, Senior Software Engineer, HPCC Systems, LexisNexis Risk Solutions – The Top Ten Common ECL Compiler/Runtime Errors and How to Correct Them
Bob has worked with the HPCC Systems technology platform and the ECL programming language for over 5 years and has been a technical trainer for over 25 years. He is the developer and designer of the HPCC Systems Online Training courses and is the Senior Instructor for all classroom and WebEx/Lync based training.
Key Discussion Topics:
1:35 – Flavio Villanustre provides community updates:
HPCC Systems Platform updates
- 6.4.12 is the latest gold version / Community Changelog
- 7.0.0 Beta planned for early Q2 – among the key features:
- Roadmap items for 2018 and beyond
New Case Study
Latest Blogs
Reminder: 2018 Summer Internship Proposal Period Open Through April 6, 2018
- Interested candidates can submit proposals from the Ideas List
- Program runs late May through mid-August
- Visit the Student Wiki for more details
Coming Soon – 10K Trees Campaign for Earth Day
World Planting Day, March 21 through Earth Day on April 22
- Help us help the environment on behalf of our community!
- HPCC Systems is dedicated to the environment and is giving you the opportunity to take action and be a small part of a big impact.
- HPCC Systems, partnering with the National Forest Foundation, is growing and promoting awareness of environmental sustainability with their 10,000 Trees challenge.
Coming Soon – 2018 HPCC Systems Community Day. Details to be announced soon!
11:00- Itauma Itauma, PhD Candidate, Keiser University – Conducting Exploratory Data Analysis in Educational Research Using HPCC Systems®
Itauma provides an informative discussion on Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA), what it is, and why it is important. He also provides insights on different types of EDA before addressing the importance of EDA in educational research.
Itauma wraps things up by sharing his research, which illustrates the use of HPCC Systems for quantitative data analysis in educational research. Utilizing HPCC Systems, an exploration of the dataset of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) is performed. HSLS:09 is a national study of over 23,000 ninth graders from 944 schools in 2009 through their secondary and post-secondary years. Analysis will include an examination of the association between Math identity and Math self-efficacy in high school.
30:00- Q&A
Q: What are the benefits of using ECL in educational research?
A: ECL has great benefits and supports a wide variety of different data and value types. From my experience while working with images in ECL, it does not disappoint. I see that as a very significant benefit.
Q: What are you currently doing with EDA?
A: Great question. I am currently using EDA for my research in educational analysis to gain new insights into big data. Educational data can be regarded as big data because large volumes of homogenous learning data are being generated worldwide. In educational analysis, patterns are discovered from generated data. Big data analysis methods are done using educational analysis in learning environments and provide endless possibilities for personalized learning. Each student has a unique combination of background, interests, and strengths, which can be used to create optimized learning environments. That is how I am currently using EDA.
Q: Do you use the HPCC Systems visualization bundle?
A: Yes.
If you have additional questions, please contact Itauma Itauma.
32:40 – Ignacio Calvo, Software Engineering Lead, LexisNexis Risk Solutions – Big Data and Geospatial with HPCC Systems®
Ignacio’s presentation covers one topic that LexisNexis Risk Solutions has mastered after several years: Geospatial. Ignacio will reveal how we deal with very specific spatial challenges in our day-to-day use cases:
- Introduction to Geospatial
- Answer questions combining the best of Big Data and geospatial analysis.
- Ingestion and use of raster and vector data with our Massive Parallel Processing platform (Thor).
- Store and query spatial information with sub-second queries, using our data refinery (ROXIE)
- And much more…
56:36 – Q&A
Q: Is there an open source bundle for Geospatial data processing that can be used for this?
A: The libraries I referred to are open source licenses, so you can use them for your own application.
Q: From the blog on Geospatial, I can understand HPCC support geometry objects for all polygons or point features. Will HPCC Systems support any other Geospatial data types like GeoJSON?
A: If you look at the blog post, we are using those libraries and you can build your wrapper on top of it. What we are using, at the moment, in our implementation is usually well-known text format for X and Y or latitude and longitude. So, when we ingest that so our providers or customers are able to send that in any format. GeoJSON is very easy to PARSE with a few lengths of code to PARSE it in the ingestion process. You find out that GDAL is very good wrapping up that type of data.
If you have additional questions, please contact Ignacio Calvo.
1:01:13 – Bob Foreman, Senior Software Engineer, LexisNexis Risk Solutions – ECL Tip: The Top Ten Common ECL Compiler/Runtime Errors, and how to correct them.
In this edition of ECL Tips, Bob talks about the Top Ten Common ECL Compiler/Runtime Errors, and how to correct them. In all of the ECL training classes over the many years, there are consistent ECL compiler/runtime errors that surface in every class. The HPCC Systems training and documentation team have assembled a list of these most common errors, why they occur, and how you can fix them.
1:28:19 – Q&A
Q: I love the funny descriptive names and classification of the errors, have you written this in a blog or white paper?
A: No, but I will put that on my to do list!
Q: If I receive an error that I cannot troubleshoot, what are my options?
A: You can email me, Bob Foreman, or Richard Taylor. Alternatively, you can visit https://hpccsystems.com and post the question on our forum. You must first register on the site and then you can post or review material on the forum. You can also use the search function on the forum because someone might have already asked the same question.
Q: Is there a definitive list of all possible Compiler/Runtime Errors?
A: Yes, but it is not published. Ask yourself why do you want a complete list of errors? What is the benefit of that? Often people think if they have a list, there will be a boilerplate fix. That is not always the case. Sometimes errors are caused by multiple reasons and you have to determine what lead you to this particular error.
Q: How can I find out who aborted my work unit?
A: I don’t think you can, but contact the administrator and they might be able to find out who aborted it.
Q: What errors are being reported that are specific to Git Source Code Control?
A: I will have to look at that offline.
If you have additional questions, please contact Bob Foreman.
Mark your calendar for the April 19 Tech Talk! Topics include Developing a Custom, Pluggable HPCC Systems Security Manager. Watch our Events page for details.
Have a new success story to share? We would welcome you to be a speaker at one of our upcoming The Download: Tech Talks episodes.
• Want to pitch a new use case?
• Have a new HPCC Systems application you want to demo?
• Want to share some helpful ECL tips and sample code?
• Have a new suggestion for the roadmap?
Be a featured speaker for an upcoming episode! Email your idea to Techtalks@hpccsystems.com.
Visit The Download Tech Talks wiki for more information about previous speakers and topics.
Watch past episodes of The Download:
The Download: Tech Talks by the HPCC Systems Community, Episode 4
The Download: Tech Talks by the HPCC Systems Community, Episode 5
The Download: Tech Talks by the HPCC Systems Community, Episode 6
The Download: Tech Talks by the HPCC Systems Community, Episode 7
The Download: Tech Talks by the HPCC Systems Community, Episode 9
The Download: Tech Talk by the HPCC Systems Community, Episode 10
The Download: Tech Talk by the HPCC Systems Community, Episode 11