We were very pleased to hear some familiar names mentioned in the recent ‘Awards for Game-Changing Impact‘. We would like to congratulate all the award winners but in this blog post, we are going to focus on those winners who make use of BEAR services to enable their research. The various BEAR services provided by Advanced Research Computing include our supercomputer, BlueBEAR, and Research Data Store which provides secure storage for petabytes (1000 times a terabyte) of research data. Whilst the impact of some research might not be immediately obvious; all research contributes valuable knowledge, understanding, and insights, and has the potential to create change for future generations.
The award for impact on the environment was won by WM Air, led by Professor William Bloss
WM-Air and West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) co-created the first West-Midlands-wide air quality framework to improve air quality for the 2.9 million residents. A network of air quality (AQ) sensors across the region have been deployed to implement and support a behavioural-change programme.
BEAR provided the computational resources, support and storages which enabled the West Midlands air quality modelling (WRF-CMAQ and ADMS-Urban) that fed into the Air Quality Framework.
Professor William Bloss
Dr Jian Zhong, a Research Fellow in Urban Air Quality Modelling, has described the use of BlueBEAR for urban air quality modelling in a case study here.
The award for outstanding impact (of any type) by an Early Career Researcher was won by Dr Nicole Wheeler
Dr Nicole Wheeler’s research focuses on the development of screening tools for identifying DNA from emerging biological threats, establishing genomic pathogen surveillance in resource-limited settings. She has provided expertise on machine learning for genomic pathogen surveillance for several international programs, including a world-first AI-driven One Health AMR surveillance system.
I developed free open-source software for checking orders of DNA to make sure they don’t contain dangerous parts of infectious diseases. Our team used BlueBEAR to perform extensive testing and optimisation of the software before launch. We are now working with NIST in the United States to develop a verification dataset for assessing the performance of DNA screening software.
Dr Nicole Wheeler
Our researchers (whether staff or students) are conducting research that changes people’s lives through new technologies, new ways of viewing the world and real policy change. BEAR services supports these research opportunities, it also enables:
- Increased efficiency/sustainability;
- Effective decision making;
- Improved innovation;
- Greater competitiveness;
- Potential savings.
Let us know how use of BlueBEAR HPC has helped your research
At this time of year in particular, we look for good examples of use of High Performance Computing (HPC) to nominate for the HPCwire Awards – see our recent winners. These prestigious awards, now in their 21st year, are an annual international recognition of outstanding developments in HPC, and are nominated and voted for by the global HPC community. They encompass both Readers’ and Editors’ Choice categories, celebrating achievements across various domains including life sciences, energy, and AI. If you have any examples of how BlueBEAR has helped your research, then do get in contact with us at bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk – note the deadline for nominations is usually the last week in August.