RENCI tools for disaster management featured at NCEMA spring conference

Published: March 18, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, March 18, 2008 – The 2008 North Carolina All Hazards Conference, the semi-annual meeting of the North Carolina Emergency Management Association (NCEMA), featured a variety of projects and programs of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) aimed at helping emergency managers.

Emergency managers and researchers from across the state attended the conference, held March 2 -5 at Sunset Beach. RENCI, in collaboration with emergency management partners at the state and county levels, conducted two sessions about deploying Web-based tools and prototypes of new technologies for disaster planning and response. RENCI also set up an exhibitor’s booth to showcase and demonstrate its various disaster management tools. Read more

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‘Spectacular Justice’ uses art and technology to examine the death penalty

Published: March 13, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, March 13, 2008 – It’s easy to separate yourself from the raw emotions associated with the death penalty when you read about a far off execution or hear a 30-second news sound bite.

Artist Joyce Rudinsky, an associate professor of communications studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wants to force you to get close–uncomfortably close–to the human side of the death penalty issue. Her interactive media installation Spectacular Justice, created in collaboration with the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), uses video, audio and electronic tracking to personalize an issue from which most of us would prefer to distance ourselves. Read more

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UNC School of Medicine teams with RENCI to battle skin cancer

Published: March 11, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, March 11, 2008 – A new collaboration between melanoma researchers in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), and researchers from the departments of computer science, epidemiology, biostatistics, and statistics and operations research at UNC Chapel Hill aims to use image analysis techniques to aid doctors in the fight against melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer. Read more

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The future perfect storm

Published: March 6, 2008

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, the most active in recorded history, brought catastrophe to the U.S. Gulf Coast and Central America: at least 2,280 deaths from Katrina and other storms; record damages of more than $128 billion and thousands of people displaced who have yet to return home. Read more

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NCEMA Conference to feature RENCI tools for disaster management

Published: February 27, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, February 27, 2008 – The 2008 North Carolina All Hazards Conference, the semi-annual meeting of the North Carolina Emergency Management Association (NCEMA), will feature a variety of projects and training programs of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) aimed at helping emergency managers. Read more

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Grant helps REALTROMINS, RENCI develop medical devices to aid critically ill children

Published: February 22, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, February 22, 2008 – Keith Kocis, a collaborator with the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), professor of pediatrics, and M.D. in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has received funding for further research and development of a new medical device to revolutionize how critically ill infants and children are monitored and cared for in pediatric intensive care units. Read more

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Rain, snow, sleet or ice

Published: February 19, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, February 19, 2008 – Information about the atmosphere above the ground is severely lacking across North Carolina. This information, such as the temperature of the air and the type of precipitation falling aloft, is critical to short-term forecasts during hazardous weather events such as ice storms. Read more

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New observation site to provide data on marine environments, climate change

Published: February 6, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, February 6, 2008–A platform to be built this spring three miles offshore in the Pamlico Sound will give researchers across North Carolina a site to conduct scientific experiments and collect environmental data that will be critical to understanding the behavior of this huge body of water, its role in North Carolina’s marine ecosystem and its response to climate change. Read more

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NC counties could win weather stations through RENCI Weather Web project

Published: January 24, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, January 24, 2008 – Counties in North Carolina that lack weather stations–and therefore lack detailed weather data–will have the chance to acquire a research and operational grade weather station through a new RENCI project aimed at enhancing weather-related K-12 education and at improving the quantity and quality of weather data in underserved areas of the state. Read more

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RENCI joins CineGrid digital media community

Published: January 23, 2008

CHAPEL HILL, NC, January 23, 2008–A new RENCI partnership will give North Carolina the opportunity to contribute digital films, scientific visualizations, and filmed performances to a worldwide network of high-resolution digital media content. Read more

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