PolarGrid Equipment Heads to Greenland
The PolarGrid 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 Indiana University's PolarGrid partner organizations, Elizabeth City State University and the Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, will collect data from Greenland's 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 practice, when data was taken back to the U.S. for 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 video about the PolarGrid project at www.polargrid.org .
Attend the IEEE eScience 2008 Conference
The IEEE eScience 2008 Conference, hosted by Indiana University, is accepting proposals for tutorials through July 20. Papers, posters, exhibits and demos may be submitted until August 10. For more information, visit the conference website. |
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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 at 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/.
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I-Light, a high-speed, fiber-optic network, will provide every college campus in Indiana with digital communications at least twenty times faster than a typical home Internet connection. "The I-Light network will allow Indiana's colleges and universities to collaborate at a much higher level than was ever thought possible," Indiana President Michael McRobbie said. "It will strengthen every aspect of the state's educational offerings, and it will greatly expand Indiana's capacity to conduct basic scientific research. It will also ensure that Indiana continues its growth as one of the nation's premier destinations for life sciences and biotechnology investment."
The Research Technologies division of UITS maintains some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, as part of a comprehensive strategy which includes computers, data storage systems, data collections, instruments and sensor networks, and technical support.
The mission of the Research Technologies division of UITS is to develop, deliver, and support advanced technology solutions that enable new possibilities in research, scholarly endeavors, and creative activity at Indiana University and beyond; and to complement this with education and technology translation activities to improve the quality of life of people in Indiana, the nation, and the world. Our values statement is also available online.
