The VISR will include equipment much like this rack of high performance servers.

RENCI and the UNC-Chapel Hill Odum Institute for Research in Social Science are combining their expertise in technology and the social sciences to begin development of a Virtual Institute for Social Research (VISR). The VISR will be a multifaceted high performance data and computing research environment that brings together researchers from across the world to collaboratively address the challenges facing social science.

“VISR will enable collaborative social science research of unprecedented scope and scale,” Odum Institute Director Tom Carsey said. “Launching VISR at UNC will capitalize on our historic strengths in social science, the incredible partnership we have between Odum and RENCI, and should help to position UNC at the forefront of computational social science and the big data revolution in social science.” Read more

CHAPEL HILL, NC, and SANTA BARBARA, CA – Open Science for Synthesis is a unique bi-coastal training opportunity offered for early career scientists who want to learn new software and technology skills needed for open, collaborative, and reproducible synthesis research.

UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and University of North Carolina’s Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) will co-lead the three-week intensive training workshop with participants in both Santa Barbara, CA, and Chapel Hill, NC.

The workshop will run July 21 – August 8, 2014.

Read more

CHAPEL HILL, NC – Yufeng Xin, a senior researcher in RENCI’s networking research group, continues to work with Aranya Chakrabortty, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University, and researchers at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign on a project to develop new algorithms for controlling and monitoring large distributed power systems. Read more

An old family photo used in the new “Cedars in the Pines” exhibit at the N.C. Museum of History.

RENCI Web Interface Designer Joe Hope is working with staff at the Digital Innovation Lab at UNC Chapel Hill and Akram Khater, Professor of History and Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at NC State University, to build a set of interactive maps for “Cedars in the Pines,” an exhibit opening Saturday, February 22 at the North Carolina Museum of History.

“Cedars in the Pines” is the first exhibition to commemorate the history of the Lebanese immigrants who have made North Carolina their home since the 1880s. The multimedia exhibit will feature personal stories, photographs, home movies, letters, artifacts, and audio recordings that will highlight the diverse experiences and contributions of Lebanese Americans in the state. Other interactive components will include maps, computer games, Arabic music, and a dance floor to learn dance steps. The exhibit runs through August 31, 2014. Read more

Chapel Hill, NC, February 18, 2014 – The iRODS Consortium today announced the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a leading institution in the Human Genome Project now focused on understanding the role of genetics in health and disease, as its newest member. The Sanger Institute is located in Hinxton, UK, near Cambridge. Read more

CHAPEL HILL, NC — Leading researchers in data science and genomics are recommending strategies to help genomic scientists better manage, share, analyze and archive massive research and clinical data sets in an effort to ensure that the big data explosion results in better health outcomes and faster research discoveries. Read more

Image courtesy of CERN

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, smashes tiny particles into each other in an effort to reproduce the conditions that existed within a billionth of a second after the Big Bang.

But simulating collisions of these particles and their activity during an infinitesimal slice of time creates major computational challenges. When particles collide at high speeds, not only is energy released, but many subatomic particles pop into existence briefly. Different LHC detectors register results differently, and computational simulations must be able to account for these differences in hardware and sort through the background noise in order to accurately simulate an event.

Read more