Category Archives: bioinformatics

big data, bioinformatics, Data Visualization, economics, event, finance, Statistics

Upcoming MATLAB Training at Duke

MATLAB is an integrated technical computing environment that combines numeric computation, advanced graphics and visualization, and a high-level programming language.  Duke’s license agreement offers MATLAB licenses to faculty and staff for work or personal computers, as well as students through on-campus use.  The Duke Office of Information Technology (OIT) maintains instructions on installing MATLAB at Duke.  MATLAB is used by many communities at Duke, including Engineering, Econometrics, Medical Sciences, Computational Biology, and Business.

On Tuesday, June 18, OIT in partnership with Duke University Libraries will host a one-day course on MATLAB that focuses on using this software for Data Processing and Visualization.  The course will cover importing data, organizing data, and visualizing data in a hands-on format (detailed outline).  Seats are limited to 20; please register soon to reserve your spot.

MATLAB for Data Processing and Visualization
(outline)
Laura Proctor, Academic Training Engineer at MathWorks
Tuesday, June 18
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (lunch break from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., lunch not provided)
Library Computer Classroom, Bostock 023
Registration (seats limited to 20)

The course assumes some existing familiarity with MATLAB.  New potential MATLAB users may want to attend an overview seminar on the software that will be held on Thursday, May 30.  This overview will not be hands on, but it will include live demonstrations and examples of both MATLAB and Simulink, an environment for multi-domain simulation and model-based design.

Introduction to Data Analysis and Visualization with MATLAB & Simulink
(details and registration)
Mehernaz Savai, Applications Engineer at MathWorks
Thursday, May 30
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
FCIEMAS Building, Schiciano Auditorium – side A

If you would like to begin learning to use MATLAB, MathWorks offers a self-directed MATLAB Fundamentals course, and the Duke library collection also includes several introductory MATLAB texts, such as MATLAB Primer and MATLAB: A Practical Approach.

bioinformatics, biology, Data Curation

Catching up on computational biology resources

With the arrival of summer, now is great time to catch up on these resources in computation biology and bioinformatics:

BioStar: Have a question on bioinformatics, computational genomics and biological data analysis but not sure who to ask? Try BioStar, which is an online open community of biologists ready to answer questions, even from “newbies”. You are also welcome to answer and comment on the questions. The more you do, the more reputation points you can earn toward your BioStar badge.

OpenHelix: The site provides a searchable collection of tutorials,  training materials, and exercises on the most popular genomic resources. The folks at OpenHelix also contract with resource providers to offer onsite, hands-on workshops at institutions. While most of their tutorials and training materials require a subscription, they do provide a suite of free tutorials, including ones on the UCSC Genome Browser and the RCSB Protein Data Bank.

Database: The Journal of Biological Databases and Data Curation: While maybe not beach reading, Database is a nice complement to the Nucleic Acids Research annual database issue. This open-access journal, launched in 2009, aims to provide a “platform for the presentation of novel ideas in database research and biocuration, and aims to help strengthen the bridge between database developers, curators, and users.”

Have a computation biology resource you would like to recommend? Please leave a comment.