RT Impact: The nation
Enabling ease of use and delivering fast calculations
RESEARCH DESKTOP ASSISTS WITH DATA ANALYSIS
Colleen Rosales, an environmental science Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, says radicals―tiny, short-lived, notoriously hard to measure chemical species―play a major role in the chemistry of air pollution. Her research aims to improve the measurement of radicals and build upon science’s understanding of both indoor and outdoor air pollution. To power her calculations using Mathematica software, Rosales uses Indiana University’s Research Desktop (RED), which allows her to expedite data analysis.
“The graphical interface of RED helps me easily share and show people how to use IU’s supercomputers, from colleagues to undergraduate students.” – Colleen Rosales, Ph.D. candidate in environmental science at Indiana University
FAST CALCULATIONS
Researchers from IU, University of North Texas, and West Virginia University used IU’s Karst and Big Red 3 to perform 18 billion text comparisons in order to determine why companies are using boilerplate risk factor disclosures rather than original, company-specific language as required by federal guidelines.
“Instead of waiting eight to ten months [for the jobs to complete on a slower machine], I was able to finish my work in a couple of weeks [on Karst and Big Red 3].” – Jeff McMullin, assistant professor, Accounting, IU
COLLABORATION SUPERCHARGED
The Collaborative Archive & Data Research Environment (CADRE) enables collaboration amongst researchers across institutions. It also ensures that researchers can reproduce and replicate each other’s research. RT’s Research Data Services and the Indiana University Network Science Institute (IUNI) worked together, running tests on IU supercomputers like Karst and Carbonate as well as Jetstream, to shorten query times for CADRE from several weeks to just a few minutes, ensuring researchers can perform their research more efficiently.
“By encouraging these types of collaborative relationships, we’re not duplicating work, and we’re creating a more open environment and encouraging more data to be open so that more researchers can work on it, collaborate, and share work, which in turn should increase reproducibility.” – Jaci Wilkinson, head, Discovery and User Experience at Indiana University Libraries