OeRC and the South East Regional e-Research

ConsortiumAnne Trefethen, David Wallom

Overview

• OeRC

• Projects

• Reuse

• Oxford-Reading joint position

The OeRC• A new department within the Mathematical, Physical and Life

Sciences Division– Remit to connect across the divisions to use innovative computational

and information science in multidisciplinary collaborations

• Engagement based on collaborative work– Support current projects– Expand e-Research into other research areas

• Done through...– Shared posts– Working collaboratively in areas of research– Making our areas of expertise accessible– Helping prepare new grant applications– Providing supporting e-Infrastructure– Connecting with other groups regionally, nationally and internationally

ClimatePrediction.net

• 10 million years of climate models run.

• ~300,000 registered volunteers donating compute resources

• New projects sponsored by Microsoft to demonstrate regional as well as global modelling of two areas of interest, North West USA and Southern Africa.

Building a Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities

(BVREH)

– creating a workspace and tools for humanities research.

• C18th Document

workspace• Digital pens, Access Grid• Research Discovery

Service• Ancient Document

workspace

OptIPputer

• Linking materials (Oxford) and biomedical (San Diego) expertise for shared visualisation and electron microscopy using world leading facilities

• Using high performance UK Lightpath network to establish dedicated connection with suitable QOS

Cancer and Cardiac Imaging

• Develop an architecture, and prototype to create dynamically configurable research environments

• Develop algorithms for locating the mesorectal facia for improved ability for successful surgery

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Reusing Tools and Technologies within OeRC and SeReRC

• Harvest and re-use technologies and tools from across e-Research projects– Development of volunteer computing infrastructure from CPDN for other areas

including drug discovery, transport and other public interest science – Tools and techniques developed for Virtual Research Environments from

BVREH and Integrative Biology can be reused, e.g. Archaeology, History, Linguistics.

– Architecture for remote microscopy of electron microscopes can be repurposed for other imaging equipment, e.g. optical microscopy

– Algorithms and toolkits for colorectal cancer identification can be used for other image shape based projects, e.g. Study of Ancient documents.

• Development of programming techniques and algorithms to fully utilise hybrid systems arriving due to multi-core and easily available accelerator technology

Oxford-Reading Joint position

• Already benefiting from inter institutional collaboration

• Completing survey of research computing activities within Oxford

• User outreach– Development of usage and possible collaboration

• Development of campus grid infrastructure– VM based node for departmental condor pools– Accounting infrastructure using GOLD

Conclusion

• SEReRC is of strategic importance to the OeRC and the region

• Reusing developed tools and technologies will give significant benefits to new research areas

• Sharing staff between collaborating institutions will give head start for collaborative projects