Welcome to the BEAR Newsletter, bringing you the latest news from the BEAR team (Birmingham Environment for Academic Research), as well as other relevant computing and data-related news from both within the University of Birmingham and outside.
April sees us welcome five new members to the Advanced Research Computing team! It is also a busy month for events, with the Baskerville Showcase taking place this week (we’ll provide a summary in a future newsletter), and the BEAR Conference the following week – see the exciting line up of talks detailed below.
Included in this month’s BEAR newsletter:
- Five new starters in Advanced Research Computing
- Last chance to book for the BEAR Conference – 23rd-24th April
- BEAR training courses
- Introduction to CFD using OpenFOAM – Wednesday 1st May
- Meet the Data Scientists drop-in session – Monday 29th April
- Postgraduate Research Festival – Research Poster Competition and BEAR session
- Transkribus for research involving handwritten text
- Case study on using BlueBEAR to investigate the design and synthesis of new fluorescent probes
- BEAR drop-in sessions
Five new starters in Advanced Research Computing
In April, we are pleased to welcome five new people to the continuously growing Advanced Research Computing (ARC) team. Neil Butcher, Thomas Neep, and Catherine Smith have all joined the Research Software Group as Senior Research Software Engineers (RSEs), whilst Alex Lyttle has joined as a RSE – see the announcement on Twitter/X here. Lastly, Simon Atack joins the Architecture, Infrastructure and Systems Group as a Principal Research Infrastructure Engineer.
Last chance to book for the BEAR Conference 23rd-24th April
There is just one week to go until the BEAR Conference 2024 on Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th April. The theme of the conference is ‘High-Performance Computing Across Disciplines’ and the full programme of Keynote and PGR (PostGraduate Researcher) speakers is now available on the programme webpage here. This year’s conference also features sessions from BEAR Special Interest Groups including the R, CFD and FEM/Abaqus User Groups. Book your place to attend via the BEAR Conference website.
BEAR training courses
We have some new dates and spaces available on our upcoming courses, including Python, R, Introduction to BlueBEAR and NVIDIA Fundamentals of Deep Learning. For more information and to sign up, see our training webpages.
Introduction to CFD using OpenFOAM – Wednesday 1st May
Are you curious about diving into the world of Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations? The BEAR OpenFoam Special Interest Group (SIG), chaired by Dr Chandan Bose, is kicking off with an immersive workshop on the essential concepts of CFD on Wednesday 1st May, 14:00-16:00, room GC13 in building G6 (Met & Mat). The workshop will introduce you to OpenFOAM, a versatile tool that empowers you to simulate and analyse a wide range of fluid flow and heat transfer phenomena. For more information on the session, including how to sign up to join the Teams group, see the CFD SIG blog post.
Meet the Data Scientists drop-in session – Monday 29th April
A team of research data scientists is available for hire within the University and they will be holding a drop in session on Monday 29th April at 12:00-13:00 in Elm House (ground floor common room). This is a great opportunity to chat to the team to find out more about the new Research Data Science Service and what it can do for you. Coffee, tea and cake will be provided! If you can’t make this time, or would like to have an in-depth discussion about a potential project, you can also contact them via the IT Service Portal to arrange a meeting.
Postgraduate Research Festival – Research Poster Competition and BEAR session
The University Graduate School’s annual Research Poster Competition is UoB’s largest PGR event, and part of the Postgraduate Research Festival, held over 18th-19th June. Postgraduate researchers are invited to present an A1 poster about their research to a general audience, including members of the public. You can find out more about the prizes, key dates and registering your interest via the research poster webpage here.
As part of the Postgraduate Research Festival, we will be running an interactive session on BEAR on Tuesday 18th June at 14:00-14:30, including case studies on how PGRs have made use of BEAR services.
Transkribus for research involving handwritten text
Library Services are excited to announce that they now offer access to Transkribus, a cutting-edge service designed for those who work with handwritten documents. Transkribus utilises advanced technology to recognise, transcribe, and search handwritten texts with remarkable accuracy, allowing users to analyse handwritten documents in new ways. If this sounds useful to you, then please register for the 90 minute webinar that will be run by Transkribus staff on Monday, 22nd April, from 13:30 to 15:00 (UK time).
A couple of days after the online webinar the Copyright and Licensing Team, who are running the Transkribus pilot, will be available for a drop-in chat in room 214/215 of Elm House at 10:00-11.30 on Wednesday 24th April to discuss with you any projects that you think Transkribus could support.
Case study on using BlueBEAR to investigate the design and synthesis of new fluorescent probes
In this month’s featured case study, Jake Barker (PhD student in Chemistry) explains how he has used our supercomputer BlueBEAR and the Research Data Store to enable his research into the design and synthesis of new fluorescent probes. Jake uses computational techniques to screen potential molecules to assess their predicted properties, which is speeded up considerably by using BlueBEAR – on a regular laptop a standard calculation would take around 32 hours, using BlueBEAR it takes less than 25 minutes! Have a read of Jake’s case study to find out more.
BEAR drop-in sessions
We are holding both virtual and in-person drop-in sessions this term. Further details, including how to join the virtual sessions are available on our drop-in webpage. Upcoming dates are also listed below:
- Via Zoom – Friday 26th April, 10:00 – 11:00
- Via Zoom – Thursday 9th May, 11:00 – 12:00
- Thesis Submission Event, Westmere House – Tuesday 21st May, 10:00 – 13:00
Missed last month’s newsletter?
Find March’s newsletter here. Sign up to receive the newsletter direct to your inbox by joining our bear-updates mailing list here (UoB login required), or ask to join via email at bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk