Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter December was an exciting month for the team, as one of the student teams from BEAR Challenge won the national Computing Insight UK Cluster Challenge! Team ‘Beariables’ gave an amazing performance to beat 16 teams from across the UK, and now go on to represent the UK at the International Supercomputing Conference … Continue reading “January 2026 BEAR Newsletter”
Tag: HPC
Cooling works in data centre – upcoming service disruption
We would like to advise BEAR users of upcoming essential maintenance on cooling systems that will impact our services over Easter, in particular the HPC-facility, BlueBEAR, which will be unavailable for two weeks. Background behind the maintenance The Park Grange Data Centre is where the University’s High-Performance Computing systems, BlueBEAR and Baskerville reside, as well … Continue reading “Cooling works in data centre – upcoming service disruption”
Building a community for research computing
Research Computing and Data Community – RCDC The Advanced Research Computing team at the University of Birmingham have been providing several different Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for researchers for many years, to enable interdisciplinary communities to come together with shared interests in particular programming languages, or coding in general. As these SIGs have grown over … Continue reading “Building a community for research computing”
Modelling accelerator-based neutron sources using the BlueBEAR cluster
In this case study we hear from Louis Butt, a doctoral researcher from Metallurgy and Materials, who has been using BlueBEAR to research accelerator-based neutron sources. I am a PhD student researching accelerator-based neutron sources in the School of Metallurgy and Materials. My work involves taking measurements with our source at the University’s MC40 Cyclotron … Continue reading “Modelling accelerator-based neutron sources using the BlueBEAR cluster”
The value of version control
The Research Software Group’s mission is rooted in the observation that most current research requires software, often written by researchers themselves, and that the application of a few core software engineering principles leads to more effective research. This is neatly captured by the Software Sustainability Institute‘s tag line: “better software, better research”. A core technology … Continue reading “The value of version control”
Investigating the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT)
In this case study we hear from Ronan and Anubrata, both research staff in Cancer and Genomic Sciences, who have been using BlueBEAR to find therapeutic targets and biomarkers for the diagnosis of ALT-reliant cancers such as high-grade glioma. Our lab is investigating the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) process; a molecular mechanism used by … Continue reading “Investigating the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT)”
HPCwire Award 2025 winners!
For the third year running (see previous awards), we are pleased to announce that a research group who use our advanced computing facilities has been recognised as award-winning in the HPCwire 2025 awards! Advanced Research Computing is very proud to provide Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) to support high-impact research at the University, which … Continue reading “HPCwire Award 2025 winners!”
Molecular simulations of small peptides as a means to interpreting mass spectra
In this case study we hear from Edwin, a PhD student in Biochemistry,who has been using BlueBEAR to evaluate the effectiveness of different Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation protocols at assigning structural information to Ion Mobility data Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS), Traveling Wave Ion Mobility Spectrometry (TWIMS) and High-Field Asymmetric Wave Ion Mobility Spectrometry (FAIMS) are … Continue reading “Molecular simulations of small peptides as a means to interpreting mass spectra”
Energy Data Landscape – Challenges and Opportunities
Edward Barbour and Grant Wilson, Associate Professors in Chemical Engineering, explored detailed domestic heat pump demand data and became interested in their operational costs under different energy tariffs. They quickly discovered that tariff data was difficult to obtain and compare across different suppliers. With help from Mingxue (Jean) Du, a Research Software Engineer, they identified … Continue reading “Energy Data Landscape – Challenges and Opportunities”
SMLM Data Exploration with Nano-org and BlueBEAR
This case study highlights the ongoing collaboration between the Research Software Group, Professor Dylan Owen, and Dr Sandeep Shirgill in the development of Nano-org. Nano-org has recently been published in Nature Communications. Nano-org uses ultra-precise coordinate data to represent the nanoscale distributions of individual proteins within cells. The unique functionality provided by Nano-org supports a … Continue reading “SMLM Data Exploration with Nano-org and BlueBEAR”