October 2, 2013: Informatics Research Seminar featuring Xinghua Mindy Shi, PhD (presenting from UNC-Charlotte) — Duke Center for Health Informatics. Abstract: Understanding genetic variation in human genomes and its contribution to human health is one of the central goals in biology and medicine.
Substantial progress has already been made to associate genetic variants with various human phenotypes including diseases. Moreover, the advent of large amounts of genomic and transcription data has created opportunities to integrate these datasets to identify expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) and dissect the underlying genetic architecture for regulatory variation. However, the plethora of genetic variants discovered through recent technological advances and the complexity brought about by the large number of potential interactions of these variants and genes present computational challenges at an unprecedented level.
In this talk, Dr. Biosketch: Xinghua (Mindy) Shi is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics, College of Computing and Informatics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Dr. Health Informatics Coordinator. Health Informatics Coordinator. N.C. gets $3M for bioterror warning system - Triangle Business Journal. Ivan Bliznetsov System being developed to detect bioterrorism threats.
North Carolina’s early warning system for bio threats nabbed a $3 million cash infusion this week. U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, announced that the North Carolina Bio-Preparedness Collaborative (NCB-Prepared) had netted the additional funding from the Department of Homeland Security. The project, spearheaded by local universities and private businesses, is developing what it hopes will be an innovative bio-threat early warning system. “By pooling data from systems that currently ‘don’t talk to each other,’ NCB-Prepared will help first responders and health professionals see the whole picture and act decisively to end the threat posed by a health incident or biological or chemical attack,” says Price in prepared statement. May_3_2013_Lightning_Talk_Slides.
Search Industry Track at SIGIR 2012. Although the entirety of the ACM SIGIR 2012 conference, from tutorials to cutting-edge research, will be of interest to those concerned with search systems and algorithms, the Industry Track on the Wednesday (August 15) of the conference will likely be of most interest to those in “tech” industry.
In the Industry Track, a series of speakers from all of the major search vendors, most of whom are also sponsors of the conference, will present on their latest works. More information on this track is available, as is information on the conference itself from a local perspective. The opening speaker of the Industry Track will be Eric Brown of IBM Research, who will present an overview of IBM’s Watson and the DeepQA technology upon which it is built, and explore future applications of this technology.
Graduate student seizes the opportunity to start a company on his way to a degree – University Gazette. People do not use last names in Myanmar, so Oakkar, on the left, has used his first name also as his last name since he came to the United States.
Oakkar Oakkar chose to come to Carolina so he could help start a company while earning his graduate degree. His business partners at Keona Health include Jason Skowronski, center, and Jimmy Kaanapu, right. Like most parents, Oakkar’s father – a jeweler in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Burma) – wanted his son to have a chance at a better life. But he also knew his son would have to flee the country to pursue it. When Oakkar turned 19, his father told him he was sending him away to college. Whenever Oakkar recalls his father’s words on that fateful night, his first impulse still is to laugh. “What kind of a question is that?” He made the most of that opportunity. Oakkar soon met Jimmy Kaanapu, a classmate at the University of Hawaii. Oakkar’s story could have had a happily-ever-after ending at that point. Oakkar remembers Mostafa’s reaction. Health informatics expert to build on SILS and RTI International partnership.
Release date: January 20, 2012 CHAPEL HILL - A recent partnership between the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and RTI International's Center for the Advancement of Health Information Technology (CAHIT) has been strengthened with the joint appointment of Tom Caruso, an expert in the area of health informatics.
Dr. Caruso, who joined SILS and RTI International as health informatics liaison research associate on Jan. 3, 2012, has an extensive background in biomedical informatics, health information management and technology. He comes to North Carolina from T.P. Caruso's new responsibilities include developing research programs between SILS and RTI International, pursuing collaborative grant and contract opportunities in health informatics and creating and facilitating an internship program for the Health Informatics professional master’s degree program at UNC at Chapel Hill.