NACSE in the News
January 31, 2012
New Plant Hardiness Map is now complete! This map was created by Dr. Christopher Daly and the PRISM/NACSE Team (see entry for April, 2009 below). The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree F zones.For the first time, the map is available as an interactive GIS-based map, for which a broadband Internet connection is recommended, and as static images for those with slower Internet access. Users may also simply type in a ZIP Code and find the hardiness zone for that area.
Read the Washington Post article here ...
See the Washington Post Sliding Interactive mpa here ...
See the USDA Interactive Plant Hardiness Map here ...
April 16, 2011
Oregon State University tsunami expert Harry Yeh visited Japan and thought he'd seen every kind of damage a giant wave could inflict, until a sight in this devastated fishing town stopped him cold.Read the article here ...
March 30, 2011
The PRISM Group precipitation map in use. A February 2011 precipitation map generated with measured data by Oregon State UniversityÆs PRISM Climate Group shows the ridiculousness that is spring in OregonÆs mid Willamette Valley and Coast Range.Read the article here ...
November 9, 2010
The USDA Research Management , is working with Chris Daly and the PRISM Climate Group to create system to help adjust farmers' crop losses and improve the agency's ability to underwrite a sound crop insurance program.Read the First Science article here ...
.. and the Sustainable Business Oregon article here ...
April 28, 2010
Chris Daly, PRISM Group, has had his recently published climatology report featured in a 60-second science podcast at Scientific American On-Line. His recently released paper linking climate change issues in a climate/mountaintop study done at H.J. Andrews Forest recently has had lots of press!Listen to the Scientific American podcast here...
Read Dr. Daly's paper here...
Read the NSF News spot on his report...
Read the OSU News Release on his report...
Read the Science Daily feature...
February 22, 2010
Dylan Keon of NACSE presents at GIS Conference. At the Redlands GIS Week in Redlands, California on February 22nd, Dylan Keon gave a "lightning talk" on "Web-Based Geovisualization of Tsunami Simulation Modeling". Dylan's research involves agent-based and technology for Web-based geovisualization of spatiotemporal data, particularly the design of systems that incorporate remote user interaction with rapid response.See the Agenda for the Redlands GIS Conference...
July 31, 2009
Dynamic Maps Now on Bald Eagle Site. The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) in collaboration with Oregon State University, Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering (NACSE) hosts the Midwinter Bald Eagle Database, a long-term national data set on bald eagle observations.Read entire article in the NBII Summer 2009 Newsletter, page 2...
May 27, 2009
Our PRISM maps are the "centerfold" in a new report from the Congressional Budget Office on "Potential Impacts of Climate Change in the United States." In the document link below, the PRISM contribution is "Figure 3" - Historical Climate Patterns in the Continental United States, 1971 to 2000.Check out Figure 3 - pages 33 and 34 in the CBO document...
Link to the Congressional Budget Office Climate Change website...
April 24, 2009
PRISM Group is working with USDA to revise the gardener's Plant Hardiness Map.Every gardener is familiar with the multicolor U.S. map of climate zones on the back of seed packets. It's the Department of Agriculture's indicator of whether a flower, bush or tree will survive the winters in a given region. It's also 18 years old.
The new map to be released soon by the USDA is being prepared by the Prism group at Oregon State University, known for doing sophisticated climate modeling. The 1990 map designated growing zones as small as counties; the new one will narrow the focus to square miles.
Read more about the new Plant Hardiness Maps in US Today article...
March 31, 2009
Congratualtions to Dylan Keon , Senior Reseach Associate at NACSE! He took first place in Las Vegas at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) 2009 Annual Meeting in the Cyberinfrastructure Specialty Group (CISG) Student Paper Competition. His extended abstract and presentation were entitled, "The Tsunami Computational Portal: Distributed Infrastructure for Executing and Comparing Multiple Computational Models." Dylan wins a $300 cash prize, a 1-year renewal membership in the AAG and the CISG, and other little goodies.Read more about Dylan's paper on the AAG Website...
November 8, 2008
Rozeanne Steckler of NACSE to host Oregon Game Project Challenge and Game Maker Workshop in Corvallis at NACSE.Oregon has a new after-school program for middle- and high-school teams called Oregon Game Project Challenge. The goal is to get students interested in computer science through projects to create computer games addressing a societal issue. Energy was the theme for the pilot season in 2008, and this year it will probably be water resources.
From January to May, each team will use Game Maker (free software) to create a game. NACSE is hosting the workshop that will train coaches/teachers/administrators in use of the software. At a statewide tournament in Salem on May 16, the students will be able to share what they've created, learn from others, and compete in many different award categories.
Read more about the OGPC...
More about Game Maker...
September 25, 2008
Dr. Chris Daly, Assistant Director of NACSE, has received a promotion from Associate Professor to Professor. Dr. DalyÆs professional background spans several disciplines, including meteorology and climatology, geography, and ecology. Since 1990, Chris has been at Oregon State University. His current appointment is in the Department of Geosciences, College of Science.Chris Daly is the founder and director of the PRISM Group, a unique group dedicated to producing the highest-quality spatial climate data sets and analyses worldwide. Chris is the developer of the PRISM spatial climate modeling system, which produces state-of-the-science spatial climate products currently used in thousands of applications worldwide. Spatial data sets include official USDA temperature and precipitation maps for the United States and possessions, the US climate atlas, detailed climate maps for China/Mongolia and the European Alps, and a century-long monthly time series of digital maps of temperature, precipitation, and dew point for the US spanning 1895-present. For his efforts in developing PRISM spatial climate data sets for users worldwide, Chris received the 2004 Applied Meteorology Award from the American Meteorological Society, the highest award in his discipline.
See the PRISM Group Website...
August 4, 2008
Tsunami Shelter Challenge Teachers Workshop held at NACSE in Corvallis, OR. Attended by 22 rural middle school teachers, this workshop brought back together teachers who attended last summers workshop. This year's highlight was speaker, Robert Panoff, from North Carolina, from Shodor whose mission is ro advance science and math education through the use of computational science, modeling and technology. A great success and enjoyed by all!Read about Workshop 2 of the Tsunami Shelter Challenge Project...
More about Shodor...
July 6, 2008
NACSE Director Cherri Pancake was appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to serve on NIH's National Advisory Council for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. This board makes recommendations to NIH on how to better support biomedical research and research training activities.Read more about NIBIB...
NIBIB Roster...
May 1, 2008
Tsunami Shelter Showcase held at OSU! Over 400 middle schoolers and their teachers showcased their Tsunami Shelters at this widely news covered event. This was the capstone of the Tsunami Shelter Challenge where the construction of physical models of the students' shelters were tested at the NEES Tsunami Research Facility here at OSU in partnership with tsunami researchers. Students had the opportunity to see firsthand how their computational models redicted what actually happens, using an world-class experimental lab.See television coverage...
More in general website coverage...
April 23, 2008
PRISM group spotlighted in USA Today article covering the changes in Plant Hardiness Maps. From the article: "The map to be released soon by the USDA is being prepared by the Prism group at Oregon State University, known for doing sophisticated climate modeling. The 1990 map designated growing zones as small as counties; the new one will narrow the focus to square miles."http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2008-04-23-gardening-map_N.htm Read more of the article...
January 15, 2008
NACSE staff key in USGS Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey information sharing. Coordinated through the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), this project was a collaboration between the USGS Forest and Rangeland E cosystem Science Center (FRESC) Scientist Karen Steenhof and NACSE Researchers at Oregon State University. Using the database provided by Steenhof, NACSE developed a public web site to the results of the statistical study of Bald Eagle Mid-Winter counts. The data in the public view is updated every 5 years when the FRESC studies provide new trend data. In addition, NACSE developed an on-line private site for the Mid-Winter counts to be entered by each of the 43 states to a single database. A harvester for the newly entered data was d eveloped by NACSE so that the FRESC scientists can download the data for their statistical studies. N ACSE is now coordinating with the Army Corp of Engineers as they take over data management for the study.Read more about Winter Bald Eagle Database...
October 27, 2007
Chris Daly, Associate Director of NACSE has contributed two of the visually stunning pages of the new National Geographic Atlas of China. This this essential new atlas dramatically highlights the tremendous changes occurring within China, the world's fastest growing economy and most populous place, as well as their global implications.See the first of two pages included in the Atlas... Page 38
See the second of the two pages in the Atlas... Page 39
September 29, 2007
Website developed by NACSE programmers to facilitate access to the IHNV database. The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) announced the new Infectious Hematopeietic Necrosis Virus (IHNV) website and database in their newletter NBII Access, Volume 10 Issue 3. The article explores in-depth the website, the fish disease and the database of the IHNV virus which can cause severe damage to stocks of salmon and trout.This new interface allows fish health managers and researchers to dynamically access information about different strains of IHNV helping with new and continuing research and control of the disease.
Read more about this NACSE developed website...
August 25, 2007
NACSE Projects Highlighted by NBII. The National Biological Information Infrastructure's (NBII) Pacific Northwest Information Node (PNWIN) recently released a newly updated section on their web site. The section, Live Maps and Data, highlights projects developed by NACSE in collaboration with several Federal Agencies, including the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDAFS), and the National Park Service (NPS).The new site features information about research on fish, bald eagles, air quality monitoring, and trees plus an image-rich site featuring information about key plant species in the Olympic National Park.
Access this interesting web site at PNWIN Live Maps and Data...
July 30, 2007
The first of two workshops for the 20 rural Oregon teachers selected to guide thier participating schools and students through the two year Tsunami Shelter Challenge was held in at NACSE July 23rd through July 27th! The teachers traveled to the workshop in Corvallis from as far away as 295 miles for fun week of fun summer learning. They learned everything from how to manipulate CAD software to gluing blocks of wood for model tsunami shelters.Read more about this workshop ...
May 28, 2007
The Tsunami Computational Portal is now available! This joint project between NACSE and the Actic Region Supercomputing Center is a shared resource and discussion forum for members of the tsunami research community. It maintains community models of tsunami behavior which draw input from a geospatial database describing costal bathymetry and topography.Enter the Tsunami Computational Portal ...
March 8, 2007
Cherri Pancake, Director of NACSE is being celebrated in a "Faces of OSU" Banner on Jefferson Street here at OSU. The banners celebrate 14 staff, students and alums of OSU. Dr. Pancake's entry -- excerpted from OSU This Week --".. Pancke is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Her research focus is usability engineering, or the study of how to engineer software to be more usable. The particular target audience she focuses on is practicing scientists and engineers and the problems they have when they access large databases across the Internet. Over the past 15 years, she has served as PI or co-PI on research grants totaling over $125 million." Congratulations Cherri!
Read the OSU This Week Article...
View the Full Banner...
February 1, 2007
Rozeanne Steckler of NACSE (Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering) has received a $75,000 grant from the Symantec Foundation to purchase laptop computers and projectors for 20 middle school teachers in rural and coastal Oregon schools, to enhance the impact of the Tsunami Shelter Challenge project recently funded by NSF.Read more about the Symantec Foundation ...
More on the Tsunami Shelter Challenge ...
January 4, 2007
NACSE is working in partnership with OSU Department of Geosciences on the Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database Website, updating the website script to PHP and working on various other web-enabled tasks for the TFDD staff. This website has international recognition and usage - see the article in a recent UN Newsletter below.Read more about TFDD on their website ...
TFDD article in United Nations Newsletter ...
More NACSE news ....