These case studies describe work done by our N8 Researchers and how they have benefitted from collaboration and working with the centre. We have categories for all our research and cross-cutting themes including: RIE Case Studies, RSE Case Studies, Bede, Digital Health Case Studies, Digital Humanities Case Studies, Other Case Studies, and General Case Studies.
RIE Case Studies
Nick Chilton
Cloudbursting With AWS
The Chilton Group at the University of Manchester are researching the properties of magnetic molecules.
The group’s interests include novel metal coordination geometries and oxidation states, the link between molecular structure and magnetic anisotropy, and magnetic relaxation dynamics.
Cloudbursting with AWS
Joe Clarke
Edge Compute
The University of Manchester’s Research Lifecycle Programme is a series of investments of over £15 million, rolled out over five years.
There are more than 20 projects spread across three broad areas; research information, research processes and e-research infrastructure. Taken together, they will remove administrative and technological barriers and enable researchers to focus on their work.
Edge Compute
George Leaver
Bede Utilisation at the University of Manchester
Bede is N8 CIR's high-performance computing platform.
In this case study George Leaver, of Research IT at the University of Manchester, explains his role in supporting researchers to access the system and the capabilities its unique GPU-accelerated architecture adds.
Bede Utilisation at the University of Manchester
These case studies offer an insight in to how RSEs work with researchers to overcome challenges and accelerate discovery. If you are a researcher and would like to discuss how your local RSE group could support and accelerate your work please visit: https://n8cir.org.uk/supporting-research/rse/research-software-engineering-groups/
Bede Case Studies
OCF
As High Performance Computing experts, OCF were able to deliver a new supercomputer to cater to several northern universities that met those needs and allowed them to possess the computing power capable of carrying out their research tasks quickly and efficiently
Bede case study N8 CIR OCF.pdf
Paul Richmond
University of Sheffield
Dr Paul Richmond is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the
University of Sheffield and is the Director of the Sheffield Research Software
Engineering Group.
He is a recipient of an EPSRC Early Career Research Software Engineering Fellowship, the focus of this award is harnessing the power of specialised architectures, such as graphics processing units (GPUs) to accelerate scientific discovery.
Agent-Based Simulation with FLAME GPU 2
Marta Camps Santasmasas
University of Manchester
Dr Marta Camps Santasmasas is a PDRA in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester.
Her research is focused on new ways of modelling urban wind flow using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Highly accurate simulations of sub-regions are run on GPUs and combined with less accurate, CPU-derived, models for very large areas of the domain. The result is faster, higher accuracy predictions for key regions of the model.
Modelling Turbulent Flows with GASCANS
Julie Wilson
Digital Health - University of York
Dr Julie Wilson is a professor in applied statistics in the Department of Mathematics at the University of York. She develops methods for data pre-processing and analysis and has experience in statistical pattern recognition, classification and machine learning techniques.
RSEs were able to help her research by rewriting code (originally in C) in R, which significantly reduced computation time.
Cell Morphology.pdf
Elizabeth Dickinson
Digital Health - University of York and Croda Europe Ltd
Dr Elizabeth Dickinson is a Post-Doctoral Knowledge Tranfer Partnership Associate at the Department of Mathematics, University of York and Croda Europe Ltd. She works on multivariate statistics primarily applied to data from analytical chemistry techniques (chemometrics) and machine learning.
She found working with an RSE helpful as they were able to fix bugs, optimise code, and annotate changes.
Croda Shiny.pdf
Chris Jewell
Digital Health - Lancaster University
Dr Chris Jewell is a computational epidemiologist. Much of his work is based on using epidemic models to predict the spread of infectious diseases amongst human, animal or plant populations. His current project, GEM: Generalised Epidemic Modelling, is intended to bridge a skills gap between epidemiology, statistics and computationally intensive statistics.
It will make it easier for epidemiologists to access cutting edge statistical tools for modelling epidemics during new disease outbreaks. Methods developers will also benefit as it will be easier and quicker to integrate new statistical innovations and approaches into the investigation of those outbreaks.
GEM: Generalised Epidemic Modelling
Helena Tendedez
Digital Health - Lancaster University
Respire is a data dashboard that brings together data about patients who have about Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder from two collaborating NHS trusts. The information is presented to clinicians in a way that ensures that care decisions are based on reliable data, saving time and improving patient care.
In this project RSEs helped to develop visual prototypes of the app to help increase user engagement with the project.
Respire Dashboard for COPD
Richard Williams
Digital Health - University of Manchester
https://getset.gais a web app that enables researchers to construct sets of these clinical codes for their research. Once created they can be saved, validated and reused by other researchers.
GetSet - Clinical Codes for Research
Peter-John Mäntylä Noble
Digital Health - University of Liverpool
SAVSNET collects clinical notes and questionnaire data from UK veterinary practices alongside results from the UK’s larger veterinary laboratories.
This data is analysed to help monitor disease trends, identify at risk animal populations, provide data to academics, improve public awareness of small animal diseases and provide a route to clinical benchmarking.
In this project RSEs help to manage the software and server architecture required for data collection and added a data dashboard to make it easier to analyse the results.
Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET)
Fiona Menger, Julie Morris,
Matt Forshaw and Becky Osselton
Digital Health - Newcastle University
DAAWN, Digitised Assessment for Aphasia of Written Naming, is a web-based application used to gather information about the process of writing in patients with aphasia, communication challenges in the wake of a stroke or brain injury.
This information is then used to support clinicians speech and language therapy research.
DAAWN - Digitised Assessment for Aphasia of Written Naming
Thea Pitman
Digital Humanities - University of Leeds
Thea Pitman is a Professor of Latin American Studies in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds. AIAI: Artificial Intelligence, Art and Indigeneity was a pilot research project that set out to explore the ways in which new generative AI programmes for visual art represent Indigenous peoples and cultures.
Mark Turner and Stephen Downsland
Digital Humanities - Newcastle University
Caring for pre-historic rock art can be incredibly challenging as the rocks are often in remote places.
In this project RSEs developed a mobile app that enabled the general public and and specialists to provide photographs and condition reports about the rocks. These reports could then be used by those responsible for caring for the rocks to ensure their conservation and preservation.
Condition and Risk Assessment Portal (CARE)
Susan Fitzmaurice and Seth Mell
Digital Humanities - University of Sheffield
Professor Susan Fitzmaurice and Dr. Seth Mell's project is called 'The Linguistic DNA'. It has analysed more than 1 billion words from 60,000 printed English documents from the 16th and 17th centuries in the search for patterns of words and meaning.
In this project the RSEs developed a bespoke computational linguistics tool to perform computational tasks; something that was impossible to achieve with existing software.
The Linguistic DNA (LDNA)
Michael Richardson and Kate Court
Digital Humanities - Newcastle University
Dr Michael Richardson's project was a proof of concept application to create a mobile web app to help young dads connect with their children. This pilot project will provide evidence to support future funding bids.
Using 3D Augmented Reality for Virtual Storytelling
Dan Birks and Alex Coleman
Digital Humanities - University of Leeds
This project aimed to build a proof-of-concept that would utilise data collected by public sector agencies to model and forecast rates of crime on a daily basis within a specific geographic area.
Demand and Supply Modelling for Modern Policing
Case Studies from Other Areas
Pete Edwards
University of York
Much of Pete Edwards' research relies on the creation, management and manipulation of data. In this case study he talks about how working with RSEs has increased the capabilities within his group and enabled him to work on more ambitious projects.
Affordable Air Quality Monitoring for Improved Air Quality Management in West Africa
Mark Leake
University of York
In this case study Mark Leake explains how his group worked with a research software engineer to develop new analysis routines for the huge volumes of data generated by the latest generation of fluorescence microscopes.
Efficient and Extensible Single Molecule Analysis with PySTACHIO
Peter Tymms
Durham University
In this case study Peter Tymms explains how working with Advanced Research Computing at Durham University enabled him to scale his analysis from the laptop to high-performance computing platforms.
Peter Tymms - Agent Based Modelling in the Classroom
Mariann Hardey and Marion Weinzierl
Durham University
Since N8 CIR became a chapter of the Women in HPC organisation they have been working to find new ways of promoting equality and diversity within the RSE community.
Find out more about their success in this case study.
Improving Diversity in Research Software Engineering
Ed Ruck-Keene
Durham University
Since the summer of 2017 Advanced Research Computing at Durham University have been working to create a central research software engineering team to support researchers across the institution.
In this case study Ed Ruck-Keene talks about the process of undertaking this work and introduces the RSEs who are already part of the team.
Growth of an RSE Team in Durham
Mark Richardson
University of Leeds
In this case study Mark Richardson talks about his work at CEMAC, the Centre for Environmental Modelling and Computation.
Mark and his team of software scientists work with academics to improve and add capabilities to research groups across the University of Leeds.
CEMAC - Centre for Environmental Modelling and Computation
