Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter It’s been great to meet so many new PhD students at various college and school inductions over the last few weeks, and to see so much interest in the new training workshops that we are providing. To help spread the word about the many ways that BEAR services can help … Continue reading “October 2025 BEAR Newsletter”
Tag: training
September 2025 BEAR Newsletter
Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter We kicked off September with a BEAR Champion meetup, celebrating all the help that our expanding team of volunteers have given over the past academic year and going on a data centre tour to meet our supercomputer, BlueBEAR. As we head into the new academic year, we have updated our training homepage to accommodate … Continue reading “September 2025 BEAR Newsletter”
How green is the BEAR? 2025 updates
In 2022, we took part in the University’s Sustainability Town Hall and published a blog post highlighting Advanced Research Computing’s efforts in sustainable computing over the previous decade. Since then, we’ve continued to explore and develop initiatives in this space. With growing concerns around the energy demands of data centres – such as a recent … Continue reading “How green is the BEAR? 2025 updates”
Bayesian Modelling of Rising Decision Thresholds in DDMs using BlueBEAR
In this case study we hear from Sophie Wetz, a Masters student in Psychology, who has been using BlueBEAR to investigate whether a dynamic, rising boundary improved the fit of the full Drift Diffusion Model (DDM) to Random Dot Kinematogram (RDK) task data. I’m a Master’s student on the Computational Neuroscience stream in the School … Continue reading “Bayesian Modelling of Rising Decision Thresholds in DDMs using BlueBEAR”
Atomic Simulation to Build Better Batteries
In this case study we hear from Oskar Soulas, a PhD student in Chemistry, who has been using BlueBEAR to investigate lithium–sulphur–nitrogen solid electrolytes for next-generation battery technologies. I am a second year PhD student in the Scanlon Materials Theory Group (SMTG) based at the University of Birmingham. The group uses powerful computational tools to understand … Continue reading “Atomic Simulation to Build Better Batteries”
BEAR helps delve into the infant gut and malnutrition
In this case study we talk to Leon, a PhD student in the Department of Microbes, Infection and Microbiomes, who is using bioinformatics of microbes that encompass the human gut microbiome. The human gut is inhabited by trillions of microbial cells and most of those cells have very important roles in human health. My work … Continue reading “BEAR helps delve into the infant gut and malnutrition”
Reflections from the BEAR Conference 2025
The 14th annual BEAR Conference, a vibrant event organised by postgraduates for postgraduates, took place on 22 May 2025 at the Alan Walters Building—and what a fantastic day it was! With 55 attendees, the conference was packed with insightful talks, lively discussions, and a strong sense of community. Dietmar Heinke, Chair of the BEAR User … Continue reading “Reflections from the BEAR Conference 2025”
May 2025 BEAR Newsletter
Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter As we head into summer, we have a busy events season starting this week with the HPC-SIG in Cambridge, the Thesis Submission event for PGRs, and the BEAR Conference. Hopefully you will have seen that our summer programme of BEAR training workshops (being held online) has now been released, and you can … Continue reading “May 2025 BEAR Newsletter”
Utilising BEAR workshops for Multimodal Analysis in Cognitive Translation Research
In this case study, we hear from Mingjie Zhang, a postgraduate researcher in the Department of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music (LCAHM), who has been leveraging BEAR workshops to apply digital humanities methods in her project “Translating between Minds: Cognitive Insights of the Dao De Jing.” By integrating tools such as R, Python, Matlab, and GitHub—learned … Continue reading “Utilising BEAR workshops for Multimodal Analysis in Cognitive Translation Research”
February 2025 BEAR Newsletter
Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter This month we will be meeting new staff starters at the Central Induction and delivering the ‘Data and AI for Researchers’ session for the fully-booked UoB Data Conference, with researchers from across the University describing how they are using our services to benefit their research – we will provide … Continue reading “February 2025 BEAR Newsletter”