Center for Computational Earth Sciences at the SCI Institute
Ross Whitaker (PI), Chuck Hansen, Claudio Silva, Valerio Pascucci, and Greg Jones have been awarded funding to create the Center for Computational Earth Sciences at the SCI Institute.
Visualizing Election Polls
A New, Animated, Interactive Way to Analyze Opinion DataMedia Contacts
Oct. 6, 2008 - Do you want to know the percentage of white women who support vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin? What about college-educated versus high school-educated white women? Or those who also hunt?
University of Utah computer scientists have written software they hope eventually will allow news reporters and citizens to easily, interactively and visually answer such questions when analyzing election results, political opinion polls or other surveys.
NVIDIA Recognizes University Of Utah as a CUDA Center Of Excellence
University of Utah Latest in a Growing List of Exceptional Schools Demonstrating Pioneering Work in Parallel ComputingSanta Clara, CA & Salt Lake City, UT - July 31, 2008 - NVIDIA Corporation, the worldwide leader in visual computing technologies, and the University of Utah today announced that the university has been recognized as a CUDA Center of Excellence, a milestone that marks the beginning of a significant partnership between the two organizations.
CRCNS: Fighting Blindness
Despite great advances in neuroscience and medical technology in recent decades, nearly ten million Americans still suffer blindness due to retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP), age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma. Unfortunately, current treatments available for these conditions are still quite limited. A primary challenge to developing effective treatments is the need for a complete understanding of the highly complex and delicate systems that compose the retina and how those systems change in response to degenerative disorders.Remodeling processes that occur in the neuronal pathways within the retina during the course of retinal deterioration are of particular importance to the development of treatments for these conditions. Researchers at the Robert E. Marc Laboratory at the Moran Eye Center are collaborating with the SCI Institute on a project supported by the NIH-NIBIB (grant number 5R01EB005832) to develop high-throughput techniques for reconstructing and visualizing the neural structures that compose the retina in order to meet these challenges.
Scientific Background
Remembering Gene Golub - Salt Lake City, Utah
Those attending the event in Salt Lake City were:
Nelson Beebe, Department of Mathematics, University of Utah
Adam Bargteil - Carnegie Mellon University
Martin Berzins, School of Computing and SCI Institute, University of Utah
Mary Anne Berzins, Human Resources, University of Utah
Elaine Cohen, School of Computing, University of Utah
Kate Coles, Department of English, University of Utah
Steve Corbato, Office of Information Technology, University of Utah
Chuck Hansen, School of Computing and SCI Institute, University of Utah
Chris Johnson, School of Computing and SCI Institute, University of Utah
Greg Jones, SCI Institute
Tom Lyche, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
Rich Riesenfeld, School of Computing, University of Utah
Kris Sikorski, School of Computing, University of Utah
Claudio Silva, School of Computing and SCI Institute, University of Utah
Barry Weller (Gene's Cousin), Department of English, University of Utah
Autism Research Profiled in Salt Lake Magazine
The February 2008 Issue of Salt Lake magazine includes a profile of groundbreaking research being conducted at the University of Utah on the problem of Autism. Advancements in brain image analysis techniques developed by SCI researchers Guido Gerig, Ross Whitaker and P. Thomas Fletcher are specifically mentioned. (print version only)
Guido Gerig Joins Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute
Guido Gerig joins the University of Utah's Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute as a USTAR faculty member. The Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute has established itself as an international research leader in the areas of scientific computing, scientific visualization, and image processing. USTAR is an innovative, aggressive and far-reaching effort to bolster Utah's economy with high-paying jobs and keep the state vibrant in the Knowledge Age. The USTAR Support Coalition and the Salt Lake Chamber sought public and private investment to recruit world-class research teams in carefully targeted disciplines. These teams will develop products and services that can be commercialized in new businesses and industries.
Neuro Image Analysis Team Joins SCI Institute
 (L-R) Dr. Guido Gerig, Dr. Marcel Prastawa, Casey Goodlett, Sylvain Gouttard |
Developing the Next Generation Tools for Preoperative Planning for Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators
 BioPSE visualizing the electrical field generated by an ICD device. |
The use of ICDs has greatly increased over the last few years due to their efficacy in preventing sudden cardiac death (SCD) in patients with congenital heart defects or heart disease. These devices work by continually monitoring the rhythm of the patient's heart and immediately delivering a corrective electric shock if a life-threatening tachycardia is detected. Through this innovation, thousands of lives are saved each year. Surprisingly, these devices are sometimes implanted in newborns and older children with congenital heart defects. Pediatric patients present a particular challenge to the surgeons planning an implantation due to the wide variety of shapes and sizes of torsos. It often has proven difficult for physicians to determine the ideal placement and orientation of the electrodes prior to surgery. Accurate placement of the electrodes is crucial to ensure successful defibrillation with a minimum amount of electric current and to minimize potential damage to the heart and the surrounding tissues.
Building a Better Brain Atlas
 In 1909 the Broadman areas map was published which localized various functions of cortex. |
Although we've identified many structures and characteristics that are common in all human brains, in reality every brain is different and we need to improve our understanding of how brains vary between individuals. One problem that persists is that most current atlases have been based on arbitrarily chosen individuals. Even today, when intense research has been directed toward the development of digital three-dimensional atlases of the brain, most digital brain atlases so far have been based on a single subject's anatomy. This introduces a bias into the analysis when comparing individual brains to the atlas and does not provide a meaningful baseline with which to measure individual anatomical variation.