Got Data? Research Computing Offers Affordable Project Storage
Did you know that Research Computing offers an affordable home for large research data? Did you also know it is about to get a lot bigger?
Working with partners at Dell, Research Computing is deploying a large-scale research data storage system, offering 4 Petabytes of capacity. That's 4,000 Terabytes - more than twice what was available on the previous system! This project storage will be available as a "network drive" on individual PCs as well as on the Agave supercomputing cluster and the cost will remain $50/TB/year. The new storage is expected to go live later this semester.
Our services and pricing page has detailed information and our staff is always happy to answer questions by visiting https://rto.asu.edu/request-help.
ASU Research Computing Town Hall - Feb 23, 2021 at 3PM
ASU Research Computing invites our research community to join our leadership and staff for our first Annual Research Computing Town Hall on Tuesday, February 23, 2021, from 3:00-3:50 pm.
This platform will provide us an opportunity to share the latest news and developments in high performance computing and data storage at ASU. All are welcome to attend!
We encourage you to bring questions and ideas to help shape the future of Research Computing at ASU. If you have questions that you would like to send us ahead of time to address during the RC Town Hall, please email marisa.brazil@asu.edu.
Agenda
- Welcome (Douglas Jennewein, Senior Director)
- Introductions
- Research Computing Staff
- Research Computing Governance Board (Chair: Shawn Walker)
- Gil Speyer (Scientific Software Engineering)
- Phillip Tarrant (Research Data Management)
- Topics
- What is New for RC at ASU?
- What is coming up?
- How can we help? (Marisa Brazil, Associate Director)
- Discussion
- Audience questions and ideas
Registration: https://researchacademy.asu.edu/events/2021-02-23/annual-research-computing-town-hall
Core Facilities News - February 2021
ASU Core Facilities continue to safely operate and are ready to support our community's research needs. We are excited to announce the launch of our new LinkedIn page, please follow us for additional resources and community information.
Articles
Using Sapphire for Biosensing: A New Way to Shape the Gemstone
ASU researchers, Chao Wang and Pengkun Xia demonstrate the first sapphire-supported nanopore membrane with improved cost-effective, low-noise performance over conventional silicon-based platforms for biomolecular sensing.
These devices were fabricated in the NanoFab using a variety of tools including Plasma Enhance Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) silicon dioxide, Reactive Ion Etching (RIE), photolithography and Low-Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (LPCVD) of the silicon nitride membrane. Solid state nanopores devices have considerable interest as a potentially high-speed, portable and low-cost solution for detecting a variety of biomolecules, such as proteins, RNA and DNA, as well as studying molecular interactions.
Publications
Phylogenomic analysis of Clostridioides difficile ribotype 106 strains reveals novel genetic islands and emergent phenotypes
Clostridioides difficile infection is a major healthcare- and antibiotic-associated diarrheal disease. Consistent with trends across the United States, C. difficile RT106 emerged as the second-most prevalent molecular type in our surveillance in Arizona from 2015-2018. We focused on genomic and phenotypic characterization of all recovered RT106 isolates with the goal of identifying genetic factors contributing to the increased prevalence of this molecular type.
University of Arizona & Southern Arizona VA Health Care system authors include: Bryan Angelo P Roxas, Jennifer Lising Roxas, Rachel Claus-Walker, Anusha Harishankar, Asad Mansoor, Farhan Anwar, Shobitha Jillella, Alison Williams, Jason Lindsey, Sean P Elliott, Kareem W Shehab,V K Viswanathan, Gayatri Vedantam and ASU's KE Genomics Core.
Learn more about this research here!
Greigite (Fe₃S₄) is Thermodynamically Stable: Implications for its Terrestrial and Planetary Occurrence
The new experimental thermodynamic studies of bulk, nanophase, and monoclinic high-pressure forms of greigite (Fe₃S₄) confirm its stability in the Fe–S system and explain its common occurrence in sediments, magnetotactic bacteria and other ambient temperature environments under anoxic conditions.
ASU's School of Molecular Sciences authors include: Tamilarasan Subramani, Kristina Lilova, Mykola Abramchuk, Alexandra Navrotsky and Kurt Leinenweber from the Eyring Materials Center.
Learn about Greigite's thermodynamic stability and those implications!
ASU Research Computing Spring 2021 Workshops
ASU Research Computing is offering over 20 workshops for the spring 2021 semester. The workshops are tailored to various audiences, from introductory training on how to use our cluster to advanced workshops on Python and R. We have something to offer all levels of users and offer a supportive learning environment. Let us help support your research and educational projects!
A full list of our workshops can be found here.
Core Facilities News - January 2021
Happy New Year! ASU Core Facilities continue to safely operate and are ready to support our community's research needs. Please check out the latest news, events and seminars taking place in January.
Articles
Identification of a SARS-CoV-2 variant
Dr. Efrem's lab identified a SARS-CoV-2 sample from an individual in Arizona with the S gene dropout (deletions of amino acids 69/70 in the Spike protein) which is of interest as the U.K. B.1.1.7 variant of concern shares this same deletion. The sample was sequenced and found belonging to the B.1.375 lineage that has been circulating the U.S. in low levels over the past couple of month, confirming that the B.1.375 lineage is present and likely circulating in Arizona. Note that this does not necessarily mean that there is a more infectious/deadly variant in the state.
Results can be found in the GISAID database with the accession ID EPI_ISL_812144
ASU authors includeAuthors: LaRinda A. Holland, Peter T. Skidmore, Emily A. Kaelin, Nicholas J. Mellor & Joy M. Blain (Genomics Core), Kristina Buss (Bioinformatics Core), Valerie Harris, Joshua LaBaer, Vel Murugan, & Efrem Lim
Seminal fluid protein divergence among populations exhibiting postmating prezygotic reproductive isolation
Seminal fluid protein comparisons for GO Biological Process terms across species. Circle size is associated with level of significance with increasing size indicating increasing significance. Node colour indicates proportion of genes from each species associated with a term: Drosophila montana (red; Dmon), D. melanogaster (pink; Dmel) and D. pseudoobscura (blue; Dpse), shared terms are shown in grey. Min. GO level = 3, max. GO level = 8. Number of genes/% genes per group: D. montana 3/3%, D. pseudoobscura 6/6%, D. melanogaster 12/12%. Percentage significance = 55%, kappa‐score threshold = 0.25
This paper was a collaboration between Associate Research Professor, Tim Karr, (Mass Spectrometry Core), Caris Life Sciences and several European Universities.
Equipment Higlight
Woollam M-2000 Spectroscopic Ellipsometer
ASU's Advanced Electronics and Photonics Core Facility (AEP) located at the MacroTechnology Works provides comprehensive electronics capabilities bridging the high risk resource-intensive gap between innovation and product development. Here are just a few of the possible research applications utilizing the Woollam M-2000 Spectroscopic Ellipsometer.
The M-2000 Spectroscopic Ellipsometer measures the change in polarization state of light reflected on a surface and the change compared to the model. Ellipsometry characterizes thickness, optical constants, conductivity, roughness, and crystallinity. Most recent examples of the application are:
- An anti-reflection coating for a specific wavelength of visible light.
- Compares the relative film density of PECVD dielectric films.
- Checks for deposition film consistency.
- Determine if the deposited film is amorphous or features some crystallinity.