As part of this, we are inviting researchers to participate via a call for proposals to undertake research as part of the centre. I am very excited by this new opportunity for the DAFNI community to explore these vital questions.
We also have further news on how the DAFNI consortium is contributing to research, via supporting hardware at Newcastle and Birmingham and through working with the Environment Agency. And we hope that we can meet you to demonstrate these projects and more at our annual conference, taking place this year in London in September.
Finally I am pleased to introduce Bethan Perkins to you. Bethan has recently been promoted to DAFNI team leader, where she performs the vital role of coordinating platform development, and working with users.
Contents
- New Centre of Excellence for Resilient Infrastructure Analysis
- DAFNI Conference 2023: Building a Secure and Resilient World
- News from our central team:
> Include DAFNI in your research proposal
> DAFNI hardware boosts Covid transmission research at Newcastle National Urban Observatory
> How the DAFNI platform supports water modelling in the UK
>DAFNI funds High Performance Computing and visualisation kit for Digital Twins at National Buried Infrastructure Facility - New team leader for DAFNI
- Apply for a DAFNI account
- DAFNI training dates
- New DAFNI features
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has awarded £4M to STFC Scientific Computing to establish a national Centre of Excellence for Resilient Infrastructure Analysis, and move the Data & Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure (DAFNI) into its new phase.
Starting in April 2023, the new Centre of Excellence will foster research in the area of resilience in the natural and built environment as part of the overarching UKRI programme ‘Building a Secure and Resilient World’, a programme which seeks to tap the UK’s research and innovation system to tackle large-scale, complex challenges.
Using the DAFNI platform, researchers in the Centre of Excellence will be able to collaborate online, scale research, integrate computational models, model workflows and deposit and share models and data with the infrastructure research community in the UK and further afield.
Call for research projects
DAFNI is launching a call for research projects to support the Centre of Excellence, with applications accepted from 12th April 2023.
Researchers and academics active in infrastructure research as well as those working in multidisciplinary areas from across the UK are invited to apply for funding from the £1.4M available. We welcome single and multi-institution bids.
The funding is split into three key areas:
- Supporting key models
- Developing a resilience framework
- Exploring resilience scenarios
If you are interested in getting involved or applying for this new funding opportunity, you can find out more on the Centre of Excellence for Resilient Infrastructure Analysis research grants page.
On Day 2, join us for a sandpit where we will be inviting pitches for small grants to explore and develop themes around building a secure and resilient world and to bring the artefacts developed onto the DAFNI platform.
Join our mailing list to keep updated: https://dafni.mhp.ukri.org/#subscribe
News from our central team
Calling all researchers who are submitting a proposal to Research Councils
DAFNI has been added to the Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) grant submission system and you will see us listed as a new facility which can be added to your grant proposal.
If your grant application requires novel workflows or you have particular requirements we would advise a conversation prior to submission. This is so we can advise accordingly. Look forward to joining your proposals.
Contact: marion.samler@stfc.ac.uk
DAFNI hardware boosts Covid transmission research at Newcastle National Urban Observatory
Read our case study on how DAFNI hardware is a key component of Newcastle National Urban Observatory’s work with the Transport Risk Assessment for Covid Knowledge project. This seeks to better understand and model disease transmission on public transport.
Phil James, Director National Urban Observatory Facility Newcastle, School of Engineering, Newcastle University explains:
“Science takes a long time but Covid happened very quickly, so rather than trying to find immediate answers around transmission risk, the TRACK project will help us to better prepare for the next pandemic and to provide advice to give transport operators for the future.
“Having the GPUs funded by the DAFNI monies enables us to do more research faster, as it increases our ability to process video. The new GPUs bring us a distinct escalation in terms of speed and scalability and allows us to use our own dedicated servers rather than relying on expensive cloud computing options.”
How the DAFNI platform supports water modelling in the UK
Dr Jonny Wilson, Water Resources Modelling Lead at The Environment Agency, introduces an ambitious national scale water modelling project involving regulators, academic researchers and consultants.
Phil James, Director National Urban Observatory Facility Newcastle, School of Engineering, Newcastle University explains:
“Science takes a long time but Covid happened very quickly, so rather than trying to find immediate answers around transmission risk, the TRACK project will help us to better prepare for the next pandemic and to provide advice to give transport operators for the future.
“Having the GPUs funded by the DAFNI monies enables us to do more research faster, as it increases our ability to process video. The new GPUs bring us a distinct escalation in terms of speed and scalability and allows us to use our own dedicated servers rather than relying on expensive cloud computing options.”
DAFNI funds High Performance Computing and visualisation kit for Digital Twins at National Buried Infrastructure Facility
The DAFNI hardware funds have been spent on purchasing High Performance Computing, some visualisation equipment, including a set of VR goggles, and a large screen in the National Buried Infrastructure Facility’s visualisation room.
The National Buried Infrastructure Facility (NBIF) at the University of Birmingham is a ‘one of a kind’ facility spanning research, innovation, education, CPD and training in buried infrastructure-ground interaction. It is part of the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC).
Dr Asaad Faramarzi, Associate Professor in Civil Engineering, explains: “We have a number of projects within NBIF – they always involve physical experiments but for the majority of them we now also have a digital twin model of them. I am leading the Digital Twins and computational modelling theme of NBIF, so I was particularly interested to be involved with DAFNI and to make the most of the hardware funding available.”
New team leader for DAFNI
Bethan Perkins was promoted to the position of DAFNI Team Lead in November 2022 after three years of working on DAFNI as a Senior Software Engineer. In those three years, she developed an understanding not only of the technical DAFNI platform but also of the fantastic team who keep it alive and growing.
Bethan says, “As Team Lead, I look forward to bringing my background to bear to support the brilliant DAFNI team in building a platform which tangibly supports the collaborations of the UK research community
To request your account, please go to the DAFNI website and complete the short questionnaire:
DAFNI technical training
A great opportunity to get up to speed quickly on DAFNI and to ask our technical experts your burning questions. Our regular technical training events on DAFNI are available to book via Eventbrite.
- 22 March 2023
- 24 May 2023
To attend the event you will need experience of entering code through a command line interface, for more information and to book, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/dafni-31793198351.