Open Science Grid launches effort to build new cyber communities

CHAPEL HILL, NC, April 15, 2008—The Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), an Open Science Grid partner, will lead an effort to involve more university research teams and more campuses in using cyberinfrastructure (CI) as a tool for research and discovery. Read more

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RENCI visualizations show rapid expansion of urban areas by 2030

At RENCI at UNC Charlotte, the new engagement center that involves UNC Charlotte’s Center for Applied Geographic Information Science, the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the Charlotte Visualization Center, researchers are developing visual models to illustrate the impacts of urban growth. Read more

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RENCI at Duke to present workshop on human-computer interaction

CHAPEL HILL, NC, April 3, 2008 – A two-day, invitation-only workshop at Duke University’s R. David Thomas Executive Conference Center will bring together a select group of thought leaders from government, industry and academia to develop a guiding vision and cross-cutting research agenda for human-computer interface and interaction design over the next decade. Read more

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RENCI offers “food for the mind” at informational ‘Bistros’

CHAPEL HILL, NC, March 27, 2008 – The public is invited to feed their minds—as well as their stomachs—at the Renaissance Computing Institute’s (RENCI) Renaissance Bistro. RENCI’s informal informational bistro session will focus on the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute Visual History Archive (VHA) and how to use it for personal and professional research. Read more

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RENCI tools for disaster management featured at NCEMA spring conference

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

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

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

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

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

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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