The Iowa Neuroimaging Consortium (INC) is an 8,000 square foot facility at the University of Iowa in the Department of Psychiatry. Approximately 900 square feet is dedicated to the imaging computer lab and 300 square feet is dedicated to a state of the art conference room/training center. The remaining space supports our image analysis technicians, systems programmers, research assistants, and core data management as well as postdoctoral fellows and other trainees working in our program. The imaging computer lab provides several Windows, MacOS, and Linux workstations that can be used for hands on training sessions or as a general workspace for visiting researchers. The wide range of operating systems gives us the flexibility to meet the needs of researchers and permanent staff. Several systems and laptops are equipped with Adobe Creative Suite giving us the ability to capture and edit images and videos. Ample institutionally funded printing facilities are available to the project that includes multiple copiers and printers.

 

Researchers have access to the state of the art conference room and training center which is outfitted with a high definition video projection system that provides an optimal environment for presentations and training sessions. This system is specially designed for displaying high-end medical images. A computer system is located in the conference room that provides access the imaging computer lab machines to provide the largest possible number of applications for training and presentations.

 

In conjunction with ITS Research Services, the Department of Psychiatry engages in a tier 3 backup of all imaging computer data. All data is backed up on several different servers located in different areas around the UI campus. One of these sites is the Research Services managed Information Technology Facility (ITF). The ITF is an off-site energy-efficient data center that provides a safe and secure location for the university’s vital IT infrastructure. Construction for this facility was strongly focused on environmental design and was completed in late 2011.

 

Researchers have access to the ITS Research Service High Performance Computing (HPC) systems consisting of two separate clusters.  Argon, the newest cluster, has 272 compute nodes, each of which contain 28 2.4GHz Intel Broadwell processor cores, running CentOS-7.3 Linux.  There are also 24 machines with Nvidia P100 accelerators and 2 machines with an Nvidia K80 accelerator.  Neon, the second cluster, consists of 4256 Standard Processor Cores and 2280 Xeon Phi Cores. This system runs CentOS 6.4 Linux.

 

The Iowa Neuroimaging Consortium (INC) lab is the major resource for image analysis software development and processing. All image analyses (registration of MR and PET images, segmentation techniques, measurements, 3-D visualization, etc.) are performed in this lab. Locally developed software resources include an image segmentation program, an automated surface generation program, and neural net software for delineating structures in MR images.

 

The Iowa Neuroimaging Consortium (INC) employs systems managers and programmers who assist with experiment design, software development and acquisition, hardware set-up, end user support, and training of users. INC is also linked via a Gigabit switched Ethernet network to all the computer resources of the Iowa Institute for Clinical and Translational Science as well as the MR and PET facilities at the University of Iowa.