MRI: Acquisition of an Enterprise Level System for Research and Research Training

Marist College, Poughkeepsie NY

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal #: 11-25520 PI(s): Norton, Roger; Coleman, Ron G.; Lauria, Eitel Institution: Marist College Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-1387 Title: MRI/Acq.: An Enterprise System for Research and Research Training Project Proposed: This project from a mainly undergraduate-serving institution, acquiring an enterprise computing processor and associated storage and network peripherals, aims to introduce research training in enterprise computing to faculty, undergraduates, and K-12 teachers and students and to bring existing and new research applications onto the new system. Enterprise computing (EC) research and research training has steadily declined at universities for over three decades. Although enterprise systems and data are vital to national security and economic growth, many CS and ITS faculty are ill equipped to train the next generation of instrumentalists. This new equipment will be used to fill a major gap in computer science research and research training. Also, since many technological advances in systems hardware and software appear first on enterprise systems and are later adopted by smaller systems, access to an enterprise system will allow faculty researchers and students to explore technologies only encountered on large systems and to explore them earlier. This proposal focuses on research training of faculty and students on the system itself and its use by individual researchers to consolidate and upscale their projects from smaller systems to this larger system. Research projects in computer science, information technology, and mathematics will be moved to the new equipment where a wide scope of applications in different disciplines can be run simultaneously. The work consists of three primary activities: - Business analytics as a solution to the problems associated with manual medical coding. The new equipment will allow analysis of much larger datasets than are currently feasible. As medical records expand and become more complex, the equipment will be able to accommodate the growth. - Location aware mobile devices for historical sites will be dependent on the ability to rapidly deploy virtual Linux environments for new historical sites as well as high-speed access to large data stores that house the archives and artifacts associated with his system. - Research training for faculty and students will prepare the next generation of instrumentalists and improve the computer science, information technology, and mathematics curriculum and introduce researchers in other disciplines to a technology that can benefit their research. Business analytics and data mining have broad applications in correcting errors in medical diagnoses. The instrument would contribute to a model for data cleansing in large complex data sets. In location-aware mobile devices, the instrumentation would contribute in modeling other research projects to explore ways to give users in-depth information and navigation in large geographical areas. Broader Impacts: The institution seeks to revitalize research and research training within a predominantly undergraduate setting. Faculty engaged in applied research and the 800 plus members of the NSF-funded Enterprise Computing (EC) Community have expanded training opportunities and provided resources to support their research. Although some of the research proposed has broad application in the medical field, the methodology under development can be applied wherever there is a need to detect errors and ensure greater accuracy in large complex data sets. Other research, digital information from an enterprise system to common handheld GPS devices, aims to prepare the next generation of researchers and industry professionals who will be responsible for the design and operation of the technology infrastructure that provides the rapid, reliable and secure backbone required by the national economy, the US, state and local governments, and academic researchers. This proposal aims to counter the decline trend in researchers by retraining current faculty and introducing a new generation of undergraduates and, through the Greystone Consortium, K-12 teachers and students to EC research and research training. Research conducted on the requested equipment will be made available to the broader community through a new website and online collaboration site that Marist will host.