This project, focusing on methodologies and architectures for extracting information and integrating heterogeneous information systems, and mining multimedia/multimodality data collected in real time, services a large community of users with common interests in the areas of biosignal analysis and biocomputation. The infrastructure is a hybrid partly Windows- and partly Unix-based system, designed to acquire, analyze, integrate, securely store, and visualize large volumes of multimodal/multisensor data obtained from an experimental subject, all in real time. The data are generated locally by sensing systems that currently exist in the laboratories, and include thermal cameras, 3D stereo video cameras, and brain activity scanners. Capable of integrating data collected at remote collaborating institutions, the system may include MRI and CT scans or live neurophysiological activity. The facility compliments the systems already available where the existing high-performance computers, primarily devoted to number crunching, are intended to run for a long time without interruption. Currently, these researchers have separate labs, each specializing in a different image modality. The proposal seeks to unify these labs, extend the range of modalities, and add computational and visualization resources. Relying on an interdisciplinary team of experts to integrate the best existing tools and practice of information technology, and to develop software tools specific to the common needs of real-world biomedical applications, the project addresses the needs of the ever-increasing complexity of biomedical data collection, and analysis and distribution of digital information upon which computational biosciences are dependent today. The infrastructure supports ongoing projects in -Functional imaging (computational tracking of human learning), -Thermal and Optical Imaging, and -Distributed computing.
Broader Impact: This work should significantly advance the state-of-the-art in computational biomedicine and bioengineering and should provide answers to complex problems currently under investigation. It may lead to new applications in the areas of human-computer interface and biometrics-based security. The facilities, opened to researchers from academia and industry, serve as research and training grounds for scientists, impacting directly the educational activities by providing hand-on experience to students.
