Two NC State research teams to participate in new campus info viz program

Published: December 16, 2010

Digital Elevation Model (DEM) showing preferred paths of water flow on a tilled field. The project is part of the new Applied and Scientific Visualization Program at RENCI@NC State.

RALEIGH, December 16, 2010—Two North Carolina State University research teams will work with RENCI visual analytics experts through the new RENCI@NC State Faculty Engagement Program in Applied Scientific and Information Visualization.

The program is an effort to expand the use of visualization tools and technologies among NC State researchers.  Each research team will receive up to $12,000 to support their work over the next year and will be expected to develop new research methods, models, applications or prototypes that can lead to larger projects supported by grant money. Read more

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Carolina Launch Pad welcomes Rheomics, Inc.

Published: November 15, 2010

From left to right, Russell Taylor, Ph.D., Richard Spero, Ph.D. and Richard Superfine, Ph.D.

CHAPEL HILL, NC—Carolina Launch Pad, the pre-commercial technology business accelerator located at RENCI (the Renaissance Computing Institute), this month welcomed Rheomics Inc. to the program.

Rheomics builds systems that fuel the mechanical revolution in biology, and will lead to diagnostics of clotting disorders and cancer metastasis. The company’s patented technologies make it possible to pull on blood clots, individual cells, or small particles—the size of a bacterium or smaller—with precise forces. Rheomics sees a market opportunity for this technology in new cancer diagnostics, point-of-care blood clotting analysis, biofluid rheology and lab instruments to advance biological research. Read more

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RENCI partners with DICE at UNC and UCSD to sustain iRODS software

Published: November 10, 2010

CHAPEL HILL, NC, November 10, 2010 – RENCI Director Stan Ahalt announced today the creation of iRODS@RENCI as a major component of an institute-wide effort to establish robust, sustainable software platforms and practices that support scientific research and innovation.

iRODS@RENCI will support expanded development of the Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) as a leading data management system and will work to enhance iRODS as a sustainable software platform for research teams that need to securely manage, share and archive large data sets over the long term. Read more

CI-BER project plans to store billions of electronic records

Published: November 10, 2010

The result of a recent three-way partnership between The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Cyberinfrastructure for Billions of Electronic Records project (CI-BER) held its official kickoff meeting on Thursday, October 28, 2010 in Chapel Hill.

One of the first federally-funded projects of its kind to bring the benefits of social media and public reports of its progress via a blogging format, CI-BER will create master copies of NARA’s Center for Advanced Systems and Technologies’ testbed collections of electronic records and  store them at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Read more

RENCI and North Carolina partners to exhibit at SC10

Published: November 9, 2010

North Carolina research universities will present their latest work in high performance computing, data management and preservation, networking and scientific and information visualization at SC10, the international conference of high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis, beginning at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 15.   Read more

Open Data Center Alliance sets out to define requirements for next generation data centers and cloud infrastructure

Published: November 2, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – The Open Data Center Alliance, an independent consortium of global IT leaders this week announced its formation and previewed the Alliance’s 0.5 vendor-agnostic Usage Model Roadmap. Read more

Documenting the Battle of the Atlantic

Published: October 27, 2010


Video: John McCord, Coastal Studies Institute

One of the most overlooked battles of World War II played out in our own backyard, claiming 80 ships and hundreds of lives.

The waters off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, commonly known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, are also the resting place of merchant vessels, German U boats, and American and British navel ships lost in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942. The Germans aimed to sink U.S. merchant ships that were carrying supplies to England. U.S. and Royal Navy ships patrolled the coast to protect them and, when necessary, engage the Germans. Read more

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RENCI at UNC Asheville presented with Friends of the River Award

Published: October 20, 2010

RENCI at UNC Asheville Director Jim Fox (right) receives the Friends of the River Award from Bob Davy of the Land-of-Sky Regional Council at the group’s annual dinner.

ASHEVILLE, NC—RENCI at UNC Asheville received the Friends of the River Award by the Land-of-Sky Regional Council at the 33rd annual Friends of the River Dinner held Sept. 29.

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East Carolina celebrates science at regional festival

Published: September 30, 2010

RENCI at ECU Director Tom Allen, far right, helps a youngster view a hurricane track on a laptop computer as his dad looks on.

RENCI at East Carolina University was one of the organizations that planned and participated in the Eastern North Carolina Science Festival, held Friday, Sept. 24, at the East Carolina Heart Institute in Greenville.

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Mathematicians to tackle climate change issues through new NSF-funded virtual organization

Published: September 23, 2010

Chris Jones, lead investigator of the Mathematics and Climate Change Network

CHAPEL HILL, NC, Sept. 23, 2010—A new project funded by the National Science Foundation links researchers at leading U.S. universities to study the mathematical problems related to climate change research.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill leads the Mathematics and Climate Change Network, with the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) providing logistical support and cyber tools to support the creation of a virtual organization spanning the U.S. The NSF will provide $1 million a year for five years to support the network. Read more