Technology from “Harry Potter” Movies Brings Magic of Brain into Focus
Software lets scientists explore the brain in 3-D and perform "virtual dissections"
By Bahar Gholipour, Spectrum on November 19, 2017Article originally appears in Scientific American
The same techniques that generate images of smoke, clouds and fantastic beasts in movies can render neurons and brain structures in fine-grained detail.
Best Paper: CANDAR 17
Best Paper: ESPM2 2017
Air Quality & U, Empowering Citizens through Science
Miriah Meyer and Kerry Kelly talk with KRCL's RadioActive, hosted by Billy Palmer and Lara Jones, on Air Quality and You: Empowering Citizens Through Science. Low-cost commodity sensors are changing how cities and citizens measure and manage air quality. Through a suite of projects at the U we are building infrastructure that will enable real-time, fine-grained estimates of air quality both inside and outside of homes across Salt Lake City. In this presentation we’ll talk about the science of air quality, the computational challenges of developing rigorous air quality estimates, and our efforts to engage with citizens across the city.
Listen to the discussion on RadioActive
Valerio and Kree Receive IEEE Visualization 15 Year Test of Time Award
Congratulations to Valerio Pascucci and Kree Cole-McLaughlin on receiving the IEEE Visualization 15 Year Test of Time Award for their paper "Efficient computation of the topology of level sets."Using topological approaches to analyze level sets from scalar field has been an important branch of methods in the SciVis community. While the theories of contour trees had been known prior to this paper, efficient and robust computation of contour trees and other topological features from a discrete data set has been a challenge. In this paper, the authors provided a detailed account of the implementation of contour tree computation. The improved efficiency and the enhanced feature namely the Betti number makes the topological approach more practical and accessible to the scientific community. Considering the citation counts, the importance of the work, and the potential impact to the application areas, the SciVis Test of Time award committee selected this paper as the 2002 SciVis Test of Time award winner.
2017 NERSC Award for Innovative Use of HPC
https://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/nersc-center-news/2017/nersc/
Nothing is Certain
"The only certainty...," it is said, "is that nothing is certain."
And so it goes with computational forecasts of important events such as weather, finance, and climate. Among all of this uncertainty, however, there are patterns, likelihoods, and rarities that inform important decisions that may affect billions of dollars in resources and thousands, or even millions, of lives. In the hurricane season on the eastern U.S., computational forecasting plays a central role in critical decisions that can determine allocations of emergency resources and the movements of people. The uncertainty and accuracy of these forecasts is an important part in making effective use of these sophisticated tools.
Driving Visualization at the SH/EAHP Workshop 2017
ViSOAR is set to drive the visualization for the 2017 Workshop on Molecular Genetics of Hematopoietic Neoplasms, September 7-9, in Chicago, IL.The Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute and the Center for Extreme Data Management, Analysis, and Visualization (CEDMAV), in collaboration with ARUP Laboratories and the University of Utah, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, have developed ViSOAR--a multi platform visualization application for accessing and processing very large imaging data.
Need for Speed
Whether it’s coming up with the best design for a Formula 1 race car or understanding the effects of atrial fibrillation on the heart, developing the right simulation model for research sometimes involves equal parts applied math, engineering and computer science.University of Utah School of Computing professor Mike Kirby sees himself as the person who connects these disciplines so he can take trailblazing ideas and help create better simulation software to aid researchers.
SCI Acquires Nvidia DGX-1
The SCI Institute, in partner with the School of Computing, is excited to announce the acquisition of an Nvidia DGX-1 deep learning system. This will be a shared resource that will be made available freely to all campus researchers interested in deep learning, machine learning and related areas.Big data and machine learning are major factors shaping research and innovation now and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. Deep learning represents the state-of-the-art in machine learning and data analysis.