MRI: Acquisition of a Computer Server for Research, Research Training and Education in the STEM Departments at Indiana University South Bend

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This project, acquiring a single dedicated server as a turnkey solution for enhancing access to data storage spaces, aims to promote student participation in research projects in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) areas that use large data sets. The departments of biology, informatics, physics, and mathematics at IUSB will take advantage of the instrument in an institution where professors with substantial teaching loads serve mainly undergraduate students. Many of the research programs involve compute intensive tasks, for example, analysis of genomes and Hi-C Data. Hi-C, an extension of 3C (chromosome confirmation capture) is capable of identifying long range interactions in an unbiased, genome-wide fashion. Data mining, bioinformatics, and genomics courses already in place at the institution teach students from different disciplines the skills needed for analysis of big data, which in turn require the use of a server to carry on the compute intensive tasks. Hence, this server enhances the computational structure of the campus and enables research studies across multiple disciplines to gain a better understanding of decision making under complex situations.Broader Impacts:This acquisition provides a useful technology capability for research and education within the institution. The server will:- Be used to teach data intensive courses like data mining, genomics, and bioinformatics;- Significantly improve the opportunities for training students in handling big data; and- Enable research projects involving undergraduates to be presented in conferences and scientific meetings.The data intensive courses will be taken by undergraduates from biology, biochemistry, computer science, informatics, and graduate students from applied mathematics and computer science programs. The instrument will be shared rather than duplicated, encouraging field-crossing that might at least enable knowledge crossing or even open new research avenues.