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The CATS IRB system simplifies the process and replaces the PRAMS system; it is a newer electronic Centralized Application Tracking System (CATS) for Instructional Review Board (IRB) submissions. Researchers who are required to submit to the IRB must use this system to submit their IRB protocol and manage their study. There are various components to the system, including protocol smartforms, templates, checklists and video tutorials. More information regarding the CATS IRB implementation and the PRAMS to CATS conversion can be found on the CATS home page at irb.psu.edu.
The summer training sessions will introduce researchers to CATS IRB, Penn State’s new online IRB submission program, as well as cover the basics of CATS IRB, including navigation and system features. Faculty, staff, and students are welcome.
Participants will learn:
The in-person objectives are the same as the above Adobe Connect outline, with the exception that participants will also have the opportunity to practice creating and modifying a study during the hands-on portion of the in-person course.
The summer training schedule is listed below.
Registration for in-person classroom session: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/spring-2017-adobe-connect-cats-irb-system-overview-registration-30055576037
Adobe Connect registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/spring-2017-adobe-connect-cats-irb-system-overview-registration-30055576037
Penn State currently offers Research Networking as a service; researchers are able to request assistance, information, and service through this platform. Service Level Agreements, research toolkits, and access to policy are all available to researchers and their staff.
Find out more about the service, and see an extended list of relevant resources here.
DEADLINE: Midnight EST, December 2, 2016
The Great Lakes Consortium for Petascale Computation (GLCPC) has been allocated 3.5 million node hours (equivalent to approximately 50 million core hours) annually as part of the Blue Waters project. This allocation provides the GLCPC member institutions with an unprecedented opportunity to advance their programs in computation, data, and visualization intensive research and education. This Call For Proposals (CFP) describes the process for submitting a proposal to the GLCPC Allocations Committee for allocations on the Blue Waters system. Details on the Blue Waters system can be found at https://bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu/blue-waters and http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/enabling/bluewaters.
The GLCPC is seeking innovative proposals that fall into four categories:
Full details of the CFP can be found at http://www.greatlakesconsortium.org/2016cfp.html.
The GLCPC Allocations Committee anticipates 3-8 projects/allocations annually of ~50 million core hours, and is especially interested in researchers who can scale to several thousand cores or take advantage of parallel-GPU resources.
PIs are encouraged to submit proposals in Category 1 (Scaling Studies), which could reuse text from previous proposals.
Biochemistry researchers, B. Franklin Pugh, Evan Pugh University Professor and Willaman Chair in molecular biology, and Shaun Mahony, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, are currently invested in researching the human cell genomes and the regulation of genes.
“We’re in the era of personalized genomic medicine,” said Pugh. “Cancer is really thousands of different diseases, because there are many different kinds of organs or cell types that start to proliferate uncontrollably. We’re trying to learn more about the defining components of these diseases to hopefully improve treatment.”
Penn State researchers are using a sophisticated gene sequencer and the Penn State Research Network — a high-speed, secure network funded in 2012 by the National Science Foundation that allows for better data transfers. Tasks that once took a week to complete, such as the sequencing of a DNA sample, can now occur overnight; allowing Pugh’s team maximum data efficiency and the best possible time-management scenario. Prior to joining the network, the team says it took 36 hours or longer before the sequencing data could be transferred and viewed by researchers’ now, more complete and comprehensive results are available within just 18 to 24 hours.
Read the full article here.
If you have questions or are interested in connecting to the Penn State Research Network, contact researchnetwork@psu.edu or visit the Penn State Research Network website.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has been awarded $3.3 million in grants to the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub to create solutions to address technology and data sharing in relation to high-priority areas such as education and health care. Researchers are working to promote data literacy and seek to resolve issues unique to big data usage and research. Big data offers unique opportunities for data-mining, but the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub and its affiliates are combating concerns about security, privacy, legal challenges, and other policies that frequently limit researchers ability to utilize big data to its maximum potential.
Read more at the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub’s news page.
Original infographic produced by Wilcon Operations and originally posted here.
Post excerpted from a statement released by Andrew Sears, Dean of IST and Interim Chief Information Security Officer
I would like to provide an update about some recent changes for The Office of Information Security (OIS). This includes realignment of teams internal to OIS as well as the integration of the Privacy Office and certain aspects of identity and access functions. I believe these recent changes strengthen the organization, will allow OIS to be more responsive in addressing the mission of the university, and better position OIS to address the university’s evolving needs in this are.
OIS was formed from ITS’s Security and Services (SOS) group a little over a year ago. We have made a lot of progress during the past year focusing on operational excellence, data protection, and developing relationships across the University.
OIS had been operating using a four team structure that was carried over from SOS. The teams were built around the core functions of intrusion detection, incident response, forensics, and compliance. While this structure met the need of the old SOS organization, the new OIS has found this organization had limitations. To become more proactive and agile, OIS has decided to consolidate to three teams built around Consulting and Services, Enterprise Security, and Compliance. The new organization took effect on October 24th.
The new Consulting and Service’s team was created to help match challenges with solutions. This team will ensure that services such as sensitive data discovery, encryption, and Modulo continue to be delivered with a strong customer focus. Forensics will fall under this team as well and is expected to benefit from cross training and leveraging additional team members to meet peak demand for the service. Consulting is expected to be a key component of this team over time as OIS seeks to become more involved in providing guidance to units early in the development and procurement cycles of technologies. Randy Hegarty has moved to this team and will be assuming many of the consulting duties.
The Enterprise Security team will continue to focus on providing core security functions. System and web application assessments, pentesting activities, and some elements of incident response have moved into this team. We expect this collection of activities will align with ongoing intrusion detection and prevention efforts to facilitate increased information sharing and improved responsiveness.
The Compliance team, under the management of Joe Gridley, will continue a transition into a more proactive group focused on helping university stakeholders understand and meet compliance issues that impact academic, administrative, and research computing.
We anticipate this new structure will help us respond quicker, better utilize information and skills, and become more agile. A search will begin shortly for new managers for both the Consulting and Services team as well as the Enterprise Security team.
I am also pleased to announce that the Privacy Office has become part of OIS. This transition from Compliance and Ethics is a natural fit as privacy continues to be an important consideration for the university and many of the data protections discussions coincide with OIS.
Finally, I am also pleased to announce that aspects of Identity Management have become part of OIS. This includes responsibility for developing and maintaining policy and procedures intended to help the university make sound access management decisions. In the near future, OIS will be launching a search for a new Director of Identity and Access Management to to support this position.
RCCI is pleased to announce major enhancements to ICS-ACI that will triple the capacity of our high-performance research cloud and add new services within our first year of operations. While we are expanding our HPC capabilities dramatically, we are also reducing our energy usage, helping to meet the university’s environmental goals.
Demand for high-performance computing has grown rapidly, and we are scaling up rapidly to meet it. Key additions to ICS-ACI include new compute cores to augment the 6,000 cores purchased in the initial deployment, expanded storage, and a bulk storage service. We are excited about lower rates for our services through ACI Funds for Research.
The upgrade is scheduled to begin in September and continue throughout the fall semester. When all of the enhancements are complete, we will have over 23,000 cores and 20 PB of storage.
Below are some of the most exciting changes to our system:
Expanded Standard Compute and Active Storage
We are deploying 4992 new standard-memory cores across 208 Dell M630 servers, almost doubling the amount of standard-memory cores available to researchers. We are also integrating roughly 6 PB of storage using DDN 12KX40 and GS7K flash storage arrays. The new DDN storage system has lower latency and higher internal bandwidth than other storage solutions, speeding up data I/O. Data encryption will be available for users’ group spaces, helping you meet increasingly rigorous security regulations.
New Capability – Basic Compute Cores
In addition to the new standard-memory cores, we will be integrating 6912 basic-memory (128 GB RAM, Ethernet connectivity) cores into our compute offerings. These cores will allow researchers who do not require the capabilities of the standard- or high-memory cores to access the resources they need at a far lower price. With the addition of the basic compute cores, you will have more freedom to pick which level of compute power is right for you.
New Capability – GPU Computing
We are offering a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) accelerated compute environment, enabling you to perform parallel compute-intensive applications faster than ever before. Our GPU compute environment features Tesla K80 GPU Accelerators, dual intel PHI, and quad Nvidia GeForce components.
New Capability – Archival Storage
We are adding 12 PB of near-line storage for archival purposes using Oracle’s FS1 flash storage appliance and an SL8500 Tape Library. This storage will allow you to keep your data secure and accessible in the long term. Data encryption will be available for our archival storage.
Rapid Networking
Our new hardware will be connected with FDR InfiniBand low-latency interconnects, as well as an expanded Ethernet fabric boasting 10/40/100 GBe capabilities. Together, these networks will ensure that your data can be moved around our systems as quickly as possible.
If you would like to know more about the enhancements to ICS-ACI, or about the system in general, contact us at aci-info@ics.psu.edu
The CATS IRB system simplifies the process and replaces the PRAMS system; it is a newer electronic Centralized Application Tracking System (CATS) for Instructional Review Board (IRB) submissions. Researchers who are required to submit to the IRB must use this system to submit their IRB protocol and manage their study. There are various components to the system, including protocol smartforms, templates, checklists and video tutorials. More information regarding the CATS IRB implementation and the PRAMS to CATS conversion can be found on the CATS home page at irb.psu.edu.
The summer training sessions will introduce researchers to CATS IRB, Penn State’s new online IRB submission program, as well as cover the basics of CATS IRB, including navigation and system features. Faculty, staff, and students are welcome.
Participants will learn:
The in-person objectives are the same as the above Adobe Connect outline, with the exception that participants will also have the opportunity to practice creating and modifying a study during the hands-on portion of the in-person course.
The summer training schedule is listed below.
In-person registration: http://fall2016-catsirb-training.eventbrite.com
Adobe Connect registration: http://fall2016-catsirb-training-ac.eventbrite.com