Technology + SoftwareTechnology + Software
Faster, more targeted searching. Faster data transfer. It adds up—quickly—to a dynamic environment for technology and software development at the University of South Carolina.
The need for speed
The University is working closely with new Innovista tenant Collexis, a Columbia-based knowledge software developer, on applications that provide smarter contextual searching, data mining, and use of
industry-specific thesauri. The latest project, funded with $200,000 from the S.C. Research Authority, will develop an online portal, or dashboard, as a search interface for research data related to hydrogen fuel cells and other alternative energy areas.
The University's School of Medicine is using Collexis search software in a pilot project that also includes locations at the National Institutes of Health, Johns Hopkins University, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Lockheed Martin, and the World Health Organization. Collexis applications target not only research in medicine, health care, and alternative energy, but also in law, and financial services.
A University startup company has produced software that creates a 3-D model of hydrogen fuel cells, another key research area.
More data, faster
The University of South Carolina—and research partners at Clemson and the Medical University of South
Carolina—are pursuing a fiber-optic digital infrastructure known as LightRail to transfer more research
data at a higher speed.
The state Legislature in 2007 approved $4.5 million in funding--$1.5 for each of the three schools.
Bill Hogue, the University of South Carolina's chief information officer, says a 2 ½-hour movie would take that same amount of "real" time, a full 150 minutes, to transfer over a traditional cable broadband connection, compared to 10 seconds with LightRail.
Nanophysics researcher Thomas Crawford is also pursuing faster data access in his research of hard drives. Recruited from private Seagate Technologies in Pittsburgh, Crawford and his research team are pushing the fundamental boundaries of magnetic materials. The result will be ever-smaller devices—think iPod shuffle—without losing (and perhaps even gaining) storage capacity and rate of access.
Technology + Software Links
Collexis
Produces specialized search engine software
$200,000 project to fund free access to S.C. research community
Health Science faculty piloting Collexis
University Medical School is pilot location for Collexis
Nanotechnology Research
Nano-scale research involves objects that measure only .000000001 meters (10-9)
in size
