How has humanities scholarship influenced biomedical research and civil liberties and how can scholars serve the common good? Entrepreneur and scholar Donald Drakeman will discuss his new book exploring the value and impact of the humanities in the 21st century with:

– Stefan Collini (Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature, University of Cambridge and author of What Are Universities For?)
– Richard Ekins (Tutorial Fellow in Law, St John’s College, University of Oxford)
– Jay Sexton (Associate Professor of American History, University of Oxford)

Chaired by Helen Small (Professor of English Literature, University of Oxford and author of The Value of the Humanities)

Free, all welcome. Join us for a sandwich lunch from 12:30, with discussion from 13:00 to 14:00. No booking required, seats will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

About the book

An entrepreneur and educator highlights the surprising influence of humanities scholarship on biomedical research and civil liberties. This spirited defence urges society to support the humanities to obtain continued guidance for public policy decisions, and challenges scholars to consider how best to fulfil their role in serving the common good.

The event is part of Book at Lunchtime, a fortnightly series of bite size book discussions, with commentators from a range of disciplines.

The Technology and Management Centre for Development at the Department of International Development will be hosting two research seminars in the coming weeks – The afternoons of May 19 and June 1st.

We invite researchers currently researching topics relating to our centre’s work to present and stir discussion. These research seminars are intended to connect active researchers and students on the topics of innovation, technology and management for development. This is a chance to exchange ideas, learn and connect not just with TMCD staff, researchers and fellows but also the innovation research community at large at Oxford. These afternoons are a great opportunity to seek feedback from our peers and gain new perspective on our own work.

Light food and beverages will be provided given the lunch time start.

Presentations for June 1st

Guillermo Casasnovas “How is ambiguity resolved in the early stages of market formation? Insights from the UK social investment market.”
Kaihua Chen “How can we measure innovation systems? From sciento-metrics to inno-metrics.”
Yawen Li “When do firms undertake international open innovation?”
Hao Xu “Social network and knowledge transfer in MNEs.”

Moisés Hernández-Fernandez from the Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain, University of Oxford, UK will present a seminar on the
1st of June 2016, (at 1pm) entitled

“White Matter Tractography and Human Brain
Connections Using GPUs”

Abstract

Understanding the human brain is one of the key scientific challenges of the 21st century. A key component for gaining insight into brain functional mechanisms is understanding the underlying anatomical and structural organisation and how functional subunits are interconnected at the global and local scale. Studying brain organisation (and its potential disruptions) is also a necessary first step for investigating the etiology, progression and pathology of neurological and psychiatric diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. Diffusion MRI (dMRI) uniquely allows us to study such organisation, reveal the wiring diagram of the brain, and provide estimates of tissue microstructure non-invasively and in-vivo. Despite its great potential and its wide use, the analysis includes the very time-consuming statistical modelling of four-dimensional datasets that restrict the potential and the clinical applicability of the technology. We present a novel parallel framework for analysis of dMRI data that exploits the immense computational power provided by modern GPUs and allows accelerations of up to two orders of magnitude when comparing GPU performance with a single-threaded CPU implementation.

This talk details the research that led to the NVIDIA 2016 GPU Centre of Excellence Achievement Award.

About the speaker

Moisés Hernández-Fernandez is a DPhil student at the Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain, University of Oxford. His research focuses on high performance computing applied to the analysis of diffusion MRI (dMRI) data. He is interested in how parallel computer architectures, such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), can be used in scientific applications that require very high computational resources. His current work uses GPUs for resolving tissue microstructural patterns and for estimating long-range brain connectivity.

This seminar is open to all and will start at 1pm in the OeRc Conference Room
(Room 278)

****Lunch will be made available****

Three high-profile SPC alumni return to their college to discuss the impending EU Referendum in a forum chaired by the Master, Mark Damazer CBE.

Join the Editor of the Sunday Times, Martin Ivens (BA Modern History – 1977), the Deputy Editor of the New Statesman, Helen Lewis (BA English – 2001), and the BBC’s Political Correspondent Ben Wright (BA Modern History – 1996) for a panel discussion in which they will cut through the rhetoric surrounding this most controversial of issues in contemporary British politics, and who will then face your questions.

We’ve all seen it: A renegade detective pores over the scene of a grizzly murder. They find an overlooked clue; a hair, a footprint, a shell casing. Detailed forensic analysis matches the clue to the bad guy, and the bad guy goes to jail. This is how modern day forensics are portrayed in shows such as ‘CSI’ and ‘Silent Witness’; forensic evidence is seen as conclusive when it comes to catching suspects and deciding if someone is guilty in a criminal trial. But, at a time when shows like Serial and Making a Murderer have brough miscarriages of justice to international prominence, Emma McClure will explain how the traces left behind at a crime scene can sometimes lie.

The science in areas such as DNA collection has progressed enormously in recent decades allowing for breakthroughs in many old and cold cases. However, we have also seen many high profile exonerations of those previously convicted of the most serious of crimes on seemingly ‘conclusive’ forensic evidence. This has lead to increasing scrutiny of the way it is analysed, interpreted and presented in the courtroom.

In this talk, prison lawyer Emma McClure examines the issues with forensic techniques, highlighting the amusing, confusing and sometimes tragic consequences of failing to take a skeptical approach to evidence in the field of forensic science.

Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/797735430370840/

7.30PM start at St. Aldates Tavern, and entry is free, although we do suggest a donation of around £3 to cover speaker expenses. We tend to get busy, so arrive early to make sure you get a seat. Come along and say hello! All welcome. http://oxford.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/7986/The-Phantom-of-Heilbronn-and-other-Forensic-Faux-Pas

Sir Nicholas Stadlen is a former Barrister (Fountain Court Chambers) and High Court Judge and is currently a Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford.

As a QC he was voted Barrister of the Year in 2006 after his successful defence of the Bank of England in its epic legal battle with the liquidators of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), giving the longest speech in English legal history (119 days).

As a High Court Judge, he sat in the Queen’s Bench Division principally hearing public law judicial review cases from 2007 to 2013.

In 2006/07 he conducted a series of one hour podcast interviews for The Guardian with Gerry Adams, Desmond Tutu, FW DeKlerk, Simon Peres, Hanan Ashrawi, Tony Benn and David Blunkett. They can still be heard on The Guardian website under the series title Brief Encounter.

Amongst other things, Sir Nicholas will be speaking about the Rivonia Trial lawyers, defendants and other anti-apartheid activitists in the 1960s about whom he is currently writing a book. The Rivonia Trial took place following the arrest of 10 ANC leaders, working with Nelson Mandela, who were tried for 221 acts of sabotage.

The event will take the form of a conversation with the Principal of LMH, Alan Rusbridger, and will be followed by a Q&A session and drinks. If you would like to attend, please book online at https://lmh-law-society-sir-nicholas-stadlen.eventbrite.co.uk

A free chance to see the 2015 film directed by Stephen Spielberg and based on a true story. Bridge of Spies stars Tom Hanks, who plays Jim Donovan, an American lawyer recruited by the CIA in 1957 to represent Rudolph Abel at trail, after the European artist, living in the US, was arrested for spying for the Russians.

Set during the Cold War, during a time of intense distrust and fear of nuclear capabilities, the move was to ensure Abel had a fair trail. That small act of fairness played out into a drama of complexities, as Donovan successfully pleads for Abel to get life imprisonment, rather than the death sentence. His argument was that Abel may be a fair future exchange for any US citizens imprisoned by the Russians.

An introductory talk of about twenty minutes, followed by Q&As and an hour or so’s discussion among the audience. You’re welcome to come along just to listen, or to take an active part in the discussion.

Phil Barry is the founder of Blokur and will be talking about how blockchain might be used to transform the music industry, including a demonstration of Ujo.

Phil’s work with Imogen Heap attracted major media attention
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/06/imogen-heap-saviour-of-music-industry
This promises to be a fascinating talk and a great example of how the potential of Ethereum is already being realised.

How good is your metadata? Helping readers find the content they want in a well-organised way, is fundamental to selling more books online. There are set rules aimed at standardizing how publishers, booksellers and others describe each book. Kieron Smith (Digital Director, Blackwells Bookshops) will walk us through what we should be thinking about and what will ultimately lead to more online sales. An unmissable talk for commercially minded publishing teams to attend.

In such a competitive and fast-moving industry, what measures can publishers take to remain fresh and unique? Today, innovation in publishing goes far beyond the e-book.

From crowdfunding to creating book apps, to interacting directly with book-buyers, digital publishers are doing some inventive and original things to get their books to the top of your reading list. Xander Cansell, Head of Digital at Unbound and Anna Jean Hughes, Founder and Editorial Director of The Pigeonhole join us on the 8th June to discuss the importance of innovation in publishing, and reveal some of the exciting new ways to publish and connect with readers. Come along and discover what the future of publishing looks like!

Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy and Law, New York University, will deliver the annual Wolfson Berlin Lecture.

Speaker
Kwame Anthony Appiah is a philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Kwame Anthony Appiah grew up in Ghana and earned a Ph.D. at Cambridge University.

The World Post listed Professor Appiah on its Global Thought Leaders Index in December 2015, which was led by Pope Francis (#1), Paul Coehlo (#2) and Muhammad Yunus (#3).

An introductory talk of about twenty minutes, followed by Q&As and an hour or so’s discussion among the audience. You’re welcome to come along just to listen, or to take an active part in the discussion.

Drawing upon sociology of culture and digital rhetoric literature, this talk will illuminate the persuasive function of hashtags in the context of the UK EU membership referendum. What makes a hashtag more influential, or more successful?

The hashtag is not just a category or community marker—it has also become a vehicle through which rhetorical strategies are being used to influence thoughts and feelings. Many scholars have explored hashtag success by examining popularity and longevity. This talk presents an expanded definition of success that takes hashtag hijacking into account. The data that will be presented are being gathered live from the Twitter Streaming API; over two hundred hashtags and usernames relating to the EU referendum are being tracked. The talk will also highlight the challenges and opportunities afforded by big ‘linguistic’ data on social media.

Yin Yin Lu is a DPhil Candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and Balliol College, as well as a Clarendon Scholar. She is fascinated by the intersection between language and technology, and her research focuses on the hashtag, one of the most notable sociotechnical phenomena of the 21st century. Prior to joining the OII, Yin obtained a Masters in English Language from the University of Oxford (Lincoln College) and a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University. Between these degrees, she worked at Pearson Education and 10 Speed Labs, a digital media agency in Manhattan. She is the founder and co-convenor of the #SocialHumanities network at TORCH, and her ultimate objective is to reinvent the novel—along with the very acts of reading and writing—through new media technologies.

Dr Paul Richmond
University of Sheffield
June 15, 2016 – 13:00 to 14:00
Conference Room
Oxford e-Research Centre, 7 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3QG

7 Keble Road
Oxford
OX1 3QG
No booking required Open to all Many-Core Series Sandwich Lunch provided
Demand on transport services and infrastructure is a growing problem around the globe, for instance traffic demand is projected to increase by up to 55% in the UK by 2040. Existing infrastructure is often incapable of meeting current demand resulting in congestion, overcrowding and disruption to travellers.

Predictive simulations are urgently required to help design transport management systems and to increase the capacity and effectiveness of current infrastructure. This talk will describe ongoing work with commercial partners in the transport sector to accelerate large scale network flow simulations. This work aims to allow increasingly large scenarios to be explored within reasonable time constraints allowing the simulation of national infrastructure. More specifically, this talk will introduce the network flow simulation techniques and describe in detail the process and lessons learned from optimising the algorithms for Maxwell generation NVIDIA GPUs. The techniques described use state of the art graph traversal techniques and block level load balancing. Performance of up to 40x is reported compared to an optimised serial version and over 6x against a 16-core multi-core version.

About the speaker:

Dr Richmond is a research focused Research Software Engineer who has recently been awarded one of only six EPSRC Early Career Research Software Engineering (RSE) Fellowships. The focus of this fellowship is in facilitating the use of accelerated architectures such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to accelerate scientific discovery. He is developing software techniques, a provision of skills and training material and building a community to help drive the use of accelerators into mainstream science and engineering.

Dr Richmond has a proven track-record of forming inter-disciplinary collaborations to achieve agenda-driven research. His work focuses on developing software which facilitates the pioneering use of emerging high-performance computing architectures for complex systems simulation within computational science and engineering. He is an excellent communicator with a long term record of engaging scientists and engineers from diverse interdisciplinary fields to deliver requirement-driven software solutions.

– See more at: http://www.oerc.ox.ac.uk/events/Paul_Richmond

There is increasing recognition over the last decade that conservation, while conserving biodiversity of global value, can have local costs. Understanding these costs is essential as a first step to delivering conservation projects that do not make some of the poorest people on the planet poorer. Using examples from Madagascar and Bolivia, we explore the challenges of quantifying the impact of conservation on local wellbeing.
Julia Jones is Professor in conservation science at the School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, Bangor University. Julia is interested in how people interact with natural resources and how incentives can be best designed to maintain ecosystem services; for example the growing field of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and how schemes such as REDD+ can effectively deliver global environmental benefits while also having a positive impact on local livelihoods. She also has a strong interest in the design of robust conservation monitoring using different types of data, and in analysing the evidence underpinning environmental policies and decisions.

Telegraph writer Helen Yemm brings her column Thorny Problems to life by answering your gardening conundrums and dispensing invaluable advice in the picturesque setting of the Botanic Garden.

Bird strikes pose serious problems for both civil and military aircraft. This seminar will discuss a Visual Analytics approach to working with and understanding the raw incident reporting data.

Visual analytics is the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interface. This Visual Analytics lecture series aims to provide some basic understanding of visual analytics and it applications to a number of different real-world applications in: aviation safety, cyber security, maritime situation awareness, financial risk management, healthcare and social media analysis.

We all know that our satnav systems use GPS and weather forecasting uses meteorological satellites, but do you know that satellites are also used in farming, finance, transport systems, helping with natural disaster management, tracking wildlife and helping to eradicate illegal fishing? Learn about the latest satellite
technology, and how space is part of our everyday life.

Book on http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/space-day.html

Date/Time: Saturday 25 June, 15:00
Venue: Oxford Town Hall, Long Room
Admissions: £5/£4(conc.)/£16(fam.)
Suitability: 14+
Book here:
http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/sat-opening-weekend.html

Neural implants, nanomedicine, brain enhancing drugs, genetic engineering…
Many human enhancement technologies are emerging and raise ethical and legal
challenges. This interactive event will present scenarios and take you on a
journey to the edge of technologies and ethics.

How to create in the lab the process taking place at the heart of the stars? How to harvest this energy to power the world? Nuclear fusion is arguably the hardest technical challenge humanity works on at the moment. The UK significantly contributes to this world-wide research effort with the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. Get insights from the lab, and learn everything you need to know about nuclear fusion!

Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/sun-opening-weekend.html

In the era of the development of technologies like robotics and artificial intelligence, machines are more and more capable of outperforming human beings at work tasks. What will be the decline of today’s professions? What are the prospects for
employment, and how will professions like doctors, teachers, architects, the clergy, lawyers, and many others adapt to this emerging world? What could be the new models to produce and distribute expertise in society?

Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/monday.html

Date/Time: Thursday 30 June, 19:00
Venue: Larkmead School, Abingdon
Admissions: £6/£4(conc.)/£19(fam.)
Suitability: 14+
Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/abingdon-events.html
Although the dramatic increase in life expectancy we have witnessed over the past century is arguably one of medicine’s greatest successes, it is also responsible for the increasing incidence of chronic and degenerative diseases in developed countries around the world. Harnessing the properties of stem cells offers an attractive strategy to addressing some of the health-care challenges that lie ahead. In this lecture, Paul Fairchild will discuss the various types of stem cells and the properties that distinguish them from other cell types of the body, while providing an overview of the likely impact that tapping this resource will have on modern medicine in the future.

Gain insights into the space programme thanks to astronomer Fred Taylor. How can the motivations of researchers and politicians merge to generate the large budgets required? How is the technology planned and developed to make various feats like landing on Mars or Titan possible? How has the space programme evolved during the last few decades?

Nicola Blackwood, local MP, is Chair of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons. Science and technology are central for the development of the region, and fundamental for the country: boosting innovation and enterprise,
developing employment, advancing health and promoting knowledge. Engage in a conversation chaired by Hannah Devlin, science correspondent for the Guardian. Get insights from your local MP and take part in a reflection about the future of science and technology in the UK.

Date/Time: Sunday 3 July, 19:00
Venue: Amey Theatre, Abingdon School, Abingdon-on-Thames
Admissions: £7/£5(conc.)/£22(fam.)
Suitability: 16+
Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/grand-finale.html

What are the next steps for human evolution? Natural changes or technologies? Combining gene splicing and trans-humanism, medical advancement and surgical enhancement, biology and ambition, Level Up Human takes a light hearted look at what it means to be human, and what the alternatives might be. Join science writer and TV presenter Simon Watt, and his guests, for the live recording of an exciting podcast series.

David Pugmire
July 8, 2016 –
14:00 to 15:00
Access Grid Room (room 277)
Oxford e-Research Centre, 7 Keble Road, Oxford

The scientific data that are being generated today, and in the near future, will quickly outpace our ability to process and understand it. The data generated are growing in multiple ways, including the size of the data, the rate at which it arrives, and the varying types of data. Additionally, data are available from multiple sources, including for example, computational simulations and sensor data extracted from experiments. In such situations, workflows for the movement and management of data, as well as the analysis and visualization while the data are in transit, become even more critical, and increasingly challenging.

At the same time, revolutionary changes are emerging in the architectures of supercomputers. These changes include tremendous increases in concurrency on each node, as well as a deep hierarchy of memory. These architectures are a challenge for currently running HPC codes, as well as visualization and analysis algorithms. We are, along with collaborators at other national laboratories, and universities, researching and developing a cohesive framework that will enable scientists to manage the growing data problem, and to enable them to extract knowledge and insight. Central to this work is a “Service Oriented Architectures” (SOA) framework that provides a clear separation from the data producers and consumers.

Our framework is based on the ADIOS middleware layer, that manages the data as they are produced, and orchestrates movement through the deep memory hierarchy. The data consumers, in this case visualization and analysis services built from tools like VisIt, ParaView, VTK-m, and pbdR, will interact with the middleware layer for access to data, and for coordination to optimize access across the deep memory hierarchy. These services, which will be self-consistent, interoperable operations will enable scientists to construct multiple complex workflows.

This talk will present the preliminary research on the development of this framework and the associated services as well as the initial results obtained working with several large-scale simulation codes running on the Titan supercomputer at ORNL. And finally, a detailed discussion on the future research plans and directions that will enable scientific insight on exascale computing systems.

Profile

I am a Senior Staff Scientist in the Scientific Data Group, Computer Science and Mathematics Division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I also have a Joint Faculty Professor appointment in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Tennessee. I am interested in scientific visualization and high performance computing.

Seminar – no booking required – open to all – coffee and cakes

August 4, 2016 – 14:00 to 15:00
Access Grid Room 277
Oxford e-Research Centre, 7 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3QG

Open to all. Coffee and cakes.

This week’s seminar reports upon the work of the two 2016 recipients of the Oxford-Illinois Digital Libraries Placement Programme positions which have taken place in the Oxford e-Research Centre and the Bodleian Libraries. It is presented in collaboration with the University of Oxford Centre for Digital Scholarship.

Digital Safe: Creating a Trusted Repository for High-Security Content
Alex Kinnaman

In addition to the treasures and data held by the Bodleian libraries that are in the process of being digitally preserved, there is an urgent need for unified, long-term preservation of University of Oxford records. Administrative, financial, medical, and personal records of University personnel are increasing rapidly on a daily basis. Digital Safe, created by the Electronic Archives Pilot Project, has sought to solve this problem by outsourcing the data management technology to Arkivum and managing it locally. This will allow all 38 colleges and other various departments to have a single technology for secure storage. Priority has recently been placed on completing Digital Safe, which calls for a final review of its trustworthiness, sustainability, and infrastructure.

My project focused on conducting a comprehensive audit for Digital Safe. However, given that this data is not for openness and reuse and is in need of controlled, long-term storage, the metrics in current trusted digital repository audits are not entirely sufficient. Of the Assessment Tools approved by the Center for Research Libraries, TRAC was chosen to informally review Digital Safe for its universal use and thoroughness. While conducting a final review for Digital Safe has also revealed areas in TRAC that do not include aspects of non-traditional closed repositories. Further investigation has led this audit of Digital Safe to also act a first step to developing metrics to examine high-security, closed repository trustworthiness.

Redesigning and Extending the User Interface of the Semantic Alignment and Linking Tool (SALT)
Catherine Blauvelt

Large scale dataset comparison is becoming increasingly relevant to current digital projects. Comparing these datasets often poses challenges, however, when identifiers, names, and language are not the same for each. The Semantic Alignment and Linking Tool (SALT) is a tool developed by David Weigl at the Oxford e-Research Centre that helps users establish connections between complementary datasets that lack common identifiers. SALT aligns these datasets by generating possible match candidates for confirmation or disputation by the user.

The tool uses semantic context from the two datasets in question to prioritize candidates for alignment, as well as their extracted features, in datasets that would be difficult to compare otherwise. The extensive features and complexity of this tool require a straightforward and user-friendly interface. This project has focused on redesigning and extending the SALT user interface to incorporate derived features as additional semantic context. Drawing from user evaluations of the tool and from other similar tools, the new interface incorporates audio features provided by the FAST project and text derived features from the WCSA+DC project, and serves as a successful remodeling of a complex semantic alignment tool.

September 23, 2016 –
14:00 to 15:00
Access Grid Room (room 277)
Oxford e-Research Centre, 7 Keble Road, Oxford

Seminar No booking required Open to all Coffee and cakes
The Oxford e-Research Centre is pleased to welcome Professor Clive Bowman from the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Olivier Delrieu from C4X Discovery Ltd. They will present a seminar entitled “How can new mathematics and GPUs help us understand Parkinson’s disease and other complex disorders?”.

This event is open to all and no booking is required. Coffee and cakes will be provided and there will be the opportunity to talk to the speakers after the event.

About our speakers

Clive Bowman, CSci FRSM FRSS FLS
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford

Professor Clive Bowman is a Royal Society Industrial Fellow. His research at the University of Reading and Mathematical Institute, Oxford while at Daiichi-Sankyo, covered high dimensional visualisation of diverse clinically relevant data. The ‘individualised divergences‘ methodology allows simultaneous analysis of all data types filtered by reference to a base group. Passionate about success in medical ‘Big Data’, he is an EU expert, entrepreneur and has held a variety of novel and challenging senior pharmaceutical industry, government regulation, academic body and governance committee posts. He is willing and ideally placed to bring considerable analytical expertise to generate collaborative success.

Olivier Delrieu, MD, MSc, MBA
VP Clinical Development & Mathematics, C4X Discovery Ltd

Olivier Delrieu trained in Neurology at the Faculty of Medicine of Lille, France, received an MSc in Human Genetics at the Pasteur Institute of Paris and achieved an executive MBA at the EDHEC Business School. He has international academic and pharmaceutical experience in clinical development, target discovery and genetics. His personal interest is in technologies and business models supporting the development of personalized medicines and reduction of attrition.

Abstract

The objective of C4X Discovery is to deliver better and safer medicines that could reach patients more quickly. One of our technologies is a new mathematical method, Taxonomy3. Applied to large genetic datasets it allows us to better understand complex disorders, and to provide robust biological hypothesis to develop new medicines. These analyses are computer-intensive, and so we recently moved our software from CPUs to GPUs in collaboration with Mike Giles, Wes Armour and Nassim Ouannoughi at the Oxford e-Research Centre.

R&D in the pharmaceutical industry is a long, expensive and complex process. At the start, a new biological hypothesis drives the discovery of new drug candidates. When proven safe in animals and healthy volunteers these candidates are then tested in patients to confirm their efficacy as medicines. This process takes about 10 years. Unfortunately, the initial biological hypothesis is proven wrong 50% of the time. This figure is worse for neurodegenerative disorders.

Encouragingly, when the initial biological hypothesis is based on genetic clues, the probability of success in clinical development is significantly higher. However, classical statistical methods can explain only a fraction of the genetic load expected to be found in complex disorders. This gives a significant opportunity for new mathematical methods to add value by extracting more genetic insights.

The Taxonomy3 method is based on ‘individualised divergences’ (for an introduction to these negentropies see: – Geometry Driven Statistics (ed: Dryden, I L & Kent, J T). John Wiley 337-355). Decomposing the dimensionality of this nonlinear transform of data highlights the evidence particular features carry for the comparison of interest. Here whether a person has a characteristic disorder or not.

The method is implemented as a C++ / openMPI program running on an Amazon cloud Linux cluster. A typical resampling analysis requires several thousand CPUs for a couple of weeks. To allow a cost-effective analysis of large datasets, we recoded some modules in CUDA to make use of GPUs. Some modules now run about 100 times faster, with an overall cost reduction of 5 to 10 fold.

This work allowed us to apply this technology to a Parkinson’s disease genetic dataset. We discovered evidence for new genes of interest specific to patient subgroups. These findings had a significant business impact for our company.