International Symposium on Integrative Bioinformatics
http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/bab/conf/ib2010/
CAmbridge.JPGBiological data are scattered across thousands of biological databases and hundreds of scientific journals. Current high throughput genomics technologies generate large quantities of high dimensional data. Microarray, NMR, mass spectrometry, protein chips, gel electrophoresis data, Yeast-Two-Hybrid, QTL mapping, gene silencing, and knockout experiments are all examples of technologies that capture thousands of data points, often in single experiments.
NGS research featured in Scientific Computing World
A recent article in Scientific Computing World (SCW) examined how science and scientific computing are helping us to tackle the problem of feeding an ever increasing population. The article featured the research of Tina Sarkinen from the University of Oxford who is a user of the NGS. Tina has been using the NGS to combine DNA sequencing data, molecular dating and fossil data to reconstruct densely sampled plant phylogenies over a period of 10 to 15 million years.
NGS Training for Cranfield University
The NGS will be hosting a training session for students at Cranfield University.
Presentations now available from the University of Hull roadshow
Recently the NGS held a successful roadshow event at the University of Hull which was hosted locally by Dr Helen Wright. The event was filled to capacity and full advantage was taken of our Roaming RA service so attendees could leave the event in possession of a grid certificate.
NGS Surgery meeting: Special Topic: Editing your site pages on the NGS website
The NGS website is managed by a content management system (Drupal) which allows member institutions to edit their web pages within the NGS website. An introduction to the NGS website CMS and pointers to website documentation will be given during this surgery.
NGS Surgery meeting: Special Topic: Eucalyptus Cloud services
The NGS has been working on deploying "cloud services" using Eucalyptus. An overview and technical information about the deployments will be given at this surgery.
NGS Surgery meeting: Special Topic: SARoNGS in production
SARoNGS stands for Shibboleth Access to Resources on the NGS. The service allows people to obtain short-lived grid credentials based on institutional login using Shibboleth mechanisms. The service is now in production and will be demonstrated at this surgery event.
Staff positions announced at EGI.eu
The EGI.eu (European Grid Infrastructure) was offically established on the 3rd of February 2010 when the EGI Council, formed under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in July 2009 by 38 National Grid Initiatives and research organisations, agreed on a set of statutes to govern EGI.eu.
EGI.eu is a new organisation with an objective to:
GlobusWorld 2010
GlobusWORLD Conference series will focus on users of the Globus software, including talks and tutorials on using new and old software, and presentations and discussions by Globus users on their experiences. John Kewley from the NGS will be giving a presentation on authentication in the NGS.
Condor Week 2010
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/CondorWeek2010/
madison.jpgNGS Training for Scottish Bioinformatics Forum - open to all
The course will cover accessing the facilities of the NGS to run high through put applications across multiple nodes for bioinformatics. Attendees will launch jobs using command line and GUI interfaces and use some of the pre-installed bioinformatics applications available from the NGS nodes. Also included will be a short introduction to the practicalities of translating bioinformatics formats between XML formats. Use of the NGS facilities is free at the point of use to UK researchers. Users need to acquire a UK eScience digital certificate for access.
Call for Workshop Proposals for AHM 2010
Ninth UK e-Science All Hands Meeting
13-16 September 2010
The Ninth UK e-Science All Hands Meeting (AHM 2010) is scheduled to be held 13-16 September 2010 at the City Hall in Cardiff. Workshops have been a successful feature of previous AHM programmes, and proposals for workshops are now invited. Other modes of participation in AHM 2010 will include oral presentations of selected submitted papers, posters, birds-of-a-feather sessions and tutorials. A call for these will be issued in March 2010.
NGS Surgery meeting: Special Topic: NGS Communities
The NGS Communities service help NGS users find other NGS users in similar research areas. The service aims to foster interaction between NGS users and enable collaboration and a sense of community. The NGS Communities service allows NGS members to search for other NGS Community members by keywords or institution etc and contact other community members.
The presentations at this Surgery will provide a general overview and technical information about the service.
Behind The Wizard's Curtain
One of the underpinning technologies of the grid are the digital certificates which authenticate users. This creates a single sign on for users and can make grid life a whole lot easier once in place. However it is this last piece which is important, "once in place". For some users the use of digital certificates is new and not necessarily very clear. However, certificates themselves are not difficult: it is the tools that we use to manage them that need to become easier, optimised to help users with the things they have to do.
New poll on the NGS website
There is a new poll available on the homepage of the NGS website asking which research council you are mainly funded by. The NGS is funded by JISC and EPSRC and, in turn, they often ask about the funding sources of our users and interested visitors therefore we would be very grateful if you would take a second to complete the poll which can be found just below the NGS load monitor. Thank you!
Dinosaurs and the NGS
It's always nice to see other grid outreach channels featuring research performed using NGS resources and this week one of our users has made the headlines in iSGTW.
JISC Roadshow, University of East Anglia
UK eScience experiences in relation to developing eScience in Croatia
NGS Training for Scottish Bioinformatics Forum
JISC Roadshow Liverpool: How new technologies can enhance research and collaboration
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2010/02/liverpoolroadshow.aspx
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