The Indiana University-led PolarGrid cyberinfrastructure project
will reach a major milestone this month, as researchers take the
new PolarGrid computing equipment to the ice sheets of northern
Greenland.
Expedition scientists from PolarGrid partner organizations, the
Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) and Elizabeth
City State University, will collect data from GreenlandÕs shrinking
ice sheets in an effort to better understand the effects and
implications of rising global temperatures.
The new PolarGrid equipment will allow scientists to process data
in the field during the course of the expedition and use the
results to direct their data collection strategies. The ability to
analyze data while still in the field will also help the research
team assess the quality of the data and adjust sensors as needed.
This is a significant improvement over past methods, in which data
was taken back to the U.S. for later analysis.
Technologists from Indiana University have been working throughout
the spring to prepare the field equipment, which includes IBM
servers and storage arrays, as well as Dell and Panasonic laptops,
designed to withstand hard use in extremely harsh conditions. The
equipment recently left Indiana University, and is expected to
arrive in Greenland later this month. PolarGrid is funded by a grant
from the National Science Foundation under award number CNS-0723054.
Watch a new video about the PolarGrid project at www.polargrid.org .
Indiana University Cyberinfrastructure News
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The Core Services group in Research Technologies is now offering
source code repository services for Indiana University researchers'
software projects. If you write your own code for research projects
that you run on IU systems, and would like to manage source code
revisions under subversion, you can request a project by sending
email to rtadmin@rtinfo.indiana.edu.
Subversion is already installed on Big Red and Quarry. If you want
to use subversion on your personal computer you will need to install
subversion on your system. Documentation for subversion is available
at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/ -
Indiana University's School of Medicine will be home to the National
Gene Vector Biorepository and Coordinating Center (NGVB) for gene
therapy research. Researchers use gene vectors, such as disabled
viruses, to carry genetic materials in the body in hopes of treating
or preventing disease. For example, genes important for fighting
infections may be inserted into immune system cells that have been
rendered inactive by genetic mutations.
The NGVB at Indiana University will help university scientists share
research information and substances to promote discoveries, patient
safety and compliance with regulations of the Food and Drug
Administration. The NGVB's services will include maintaining a
warehouse of important reagents, disseminating the results of
safety studies, and the storage of biological materials and patient
specimens in accordance with FDA regulations.
Scientists are using gene transfer techniques in studies involving
a broad range of diseases including cancer, heart disease, cystic
fibrosis, immune disorders including arthritis, and infectious
diseases. An NIH database lists more than 500 such trials currently
under way.
Research Technologies staff, in collaboration with the IU School of
Medicine's Bioinformatics Core, are building the web-based systems
that will be used to manage and share this information.
For more, see
http://medicine.indiana.edu/news_releases/viewRelease.php4?art=887 -
The backbone of a high-speed, fiber-optic network has been completed
that will provide every public and private college campus in Indiana
with digital communications at least 20 times faster than a typical
home Internet connection. Known as I-Light, the network involves
more than 1,000 miles of fiber-optic cable reaching every corner of
the state. It is larger, per capita, than similar networks in
neighboring states. More than 40 higher education institutions will
use the system for educational and research purposes.
In addition to providing more bandwidth than most Indiana colleges
and universities could otherwise afford, the system offers a variety
of other capabilities, including:
* Connecting classrooms at distant locations with high-quality
video-streaming,
* Allowing researchers at any location to exchange large digital
data files and access supercomputers and scientific data storage
facilities at IU and Purdue,
* Making possible multi-campus collaborative research projects,
* Enabling the use of high-definition learning tools, such as
telepresence, a new way of videoconferencing that gives the
users the appearance of being at the same location.
More information: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/print/8449.html
I-Light web page: http://www.ilight.net/ -
TeraGrid proposals for the allocation period from Oct. 1, 2008 thru
Sept. 30, 2009, are now being accepted. The proposal deadline is
July 15th, midnight local time.
You should submit your proposals at the URL:
https://pops-submit.teragrid.org/
Please note the availability of these new resources:
* Purdue's Dell 1950 Cluster, Steele,
* for Gateways, IU's IBM HS21 Bladeservers, Quarry.
This is for medium and large allocations; development allocations
are accepted and approved at any time. -
Research Technologies Round Table
* The Indiana Spatial Data Portal
* Thursday, July 31, 12:30-1:30pm
* IUB: Radio-TV Building Room 180
* IUPUI: ICTC Room 497
* Live URL: mms://wms.indiana.edu/rt_round_table
The Indiana Spatial Data Portal provides students, staff,
researchers, and the general public access to terabytes of Indiana
geospatial imagery. Geographic Information Systems staff will
describe the current database and online services and their plans.
Staff from the Indiana Geological Survey and The Polis Center will
also be on hand to discuss their projects which rely on these
services.
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IEEE 2008 eScience Conference Call for Participation
Organizing committees for the 2008 IEEE eScience Conference are now
accepting papers and proposals for tutorials; posters, exhibits, and
demos; workshops and special sessions on topics related to eScience,
grid, and cloud computing. The conference is being hosted by Indiana
University in partnership with Microsoft Research and will take
place on December 7-12, 2008 at the University Place Conference
Center in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Submission Deadlines:
* Workshops and Special Sessions: June 20, 2008
* Papers and Tutorials: July 20, 2008
* Exhibits, Demos, and Posters: September 14, 2008
For more information please visit the conference Web site at
http://escience2008.iu.edu/ -
The maintenance window for all systems is the first Tuesday of each
month, 7am - 7pm EDT.
Outage reports are available online at:
http://racinfo.indiana.edu/hps/research/bigred/outages.shtml
http://racinfo.indiana.edu/hps/research/libra/outages.shtml
http://racinfo.indiana.edu/hps/research/quarry/outages.shtml -
If you have questions pertaining to IU's cyberinfrastructure, or you
are encountering some difficulty, there are several ways to obtain
help.
The IU Knowledge Base (http://kb.iu.edu) is an excellent source of
help on how to do things.
An introduction and overview titled "Indiana University's
CyberInfrastructure: The least you need to know" is available at
http://rtinfo.uits.indiana.edu/documentation/
For more information, go to:
http://rtinfo.uits.indiana.edu/
http://racinfo.indiana.edu/hps/
If you have problems which the KB does not enable you to solve,
questions about system outages, or if you just have a problem and
you don't know who to contact, send email to
researchtechnologies@iu.edu.
