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On Wednesday, December 2, 2020, MSI staff will perform scheduled maintenance and upgrades to various MSI systems. Primary Storage, Mesabi, and Mangi will be unavailable throughout much of the day. A global system reservation will start at 5:00 a.m. on December 2. Jobs that cannot be completed before 5:00 a.m. on December 2 will be held until after maintenance and then started once the system returns to production status. December maintenance will include:
Thirteen MSI PIs are among the 22 U of M researchers listed on the 2020 Highly Cited Researchers list, published recently by Clarivate Analytics. High citation counts indicate that work is highly regarded by a researcher’s peers. The MSI PIs on the list are:
In a recent paper, researchers led by the University of Minnesota describe a method of measuring changes in biodiversity by using spectral images taken from an aircraft. The paper was published in the journal Natural Ecology & Evolution: Remote spectral detection of biodiversity effects on forest biomass.
MSI PIs are among the researchers who have teamed up to create artificial intelligence technology that can detect whether a patient is infected with COVID-19 from chest X-rays. X-rays are non-invasive and accessible, and using an AI that can identify COVID in the images speeds up diagnosis. The M Health Fairview hospital system has begun using the technology. A story about this project appears on the College of Science and Engineering website: Artificial Intelligence, Real-Life Results.
Research by MSI PI Jason Hill (professor, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering) and colleagues shows that, in order to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming, changes will need to be made to worldwide agriculture and food consumption.
The University of Minnesota will lead a five-year project to create an international “network-of-networks” to develop quantum information systems. The project, called Global Quantum Leap, is funded by a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. It will bring together nanofabrication and quantum technology. The Principal Investigator is MSI PI Steven Koester (professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering), with co-PIs from the U of M, Cornell University, Georgia Tech, and the University of Chicago.
MSI PI Marc Jenkins (Regents Professor, Microbiology and Immunology) provides some insights into the development of a vaccine for COVID-19 in a story posted in the Fall 2020 issue of the University of Minnesota Foundation’s Discovery magazine: From Lab to Community Immunity. The story includes an interactive graphic that explains some of the most promising approaches to developing a vaccine.
In a recent paper in the American Journal of Botany, MSI PI George Weiblen (professor, Plant and Microbial Biology; Science Director and Curator of Plants, Bell Museum) and colleagues have developed a genetic test to determine the levels of THC and CBD in the plant Cannabis sativa. If it contains too much THC, the main compound that causes the sensation of being high, federal regulations require that the farmer destroy the crop.
On Wednesday, November 4, 2020, MSI staff will perform scheduled maintenance and upgrade to various MSI systems. During this month’s scheduled maintenance period, there will be no global reservation system on Mesabi and Mangi, and jobs will run normally.November maintenance will include: Tier 2 may be unavailable periodically during maintenance Systems status is always available on our Status page.
Agriculture is critical to human civilization and is one of the greatest factors in impacts on natural resources and the environment. Gathering and using agricultural data has become critical to creating a sustainable and healthy world. Creating a system whereby all interested groups can make use of these data is a challenging project being undertaken by a number of organizations, including researchers at the University of Minnesota.

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