Category: ERO

Posted on

Postdoctoral position in Data Science for Food Systems

The eResearch Office at UWC is a division under the Deputy Vice-Chanellor Research and Innovation that promotes the use of information technology to enable fast and high impact research. Part of its mission is to drive and coordinate advanced uses of data-driven approaches to multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary research in a dynamic environment for skills development and academic growth. A postdoctoral fellowship position is available for an outstanding candidate to undertake cutting-edge research in the development of data technology for sustainable food systems. The fellow will be awarded a tax-free fellowship for up to 2 years with opportunities for academic and personal development.

Prerequisites:

The prospective candidate should be a holder of a doctoral degree obtained within the past five years in the field related to Natural, Computer, Mathematical or Agricultural Sciences. The applicant should have interest and/or experience in modelling data of biological systems, be familiar with the concepts of sustainability within food systems and able to work without supervision, as well as in a team.

The successful candidate will be involved in the following roles:

– Conducting research in the area of data science applied to food systems
– Develop original research and publication
– Involvement in sourcing research grants
– Science engagement 
– May be requested to assist with various activities that support the eResearch agenda for the University.
– Mentor and support postgraduate students.


Interested candidates can send their CV and motivation letter to Dr Frederic Isingizwe at fisingizwe@uwc.ac.za or to Prof Clement Nyirenda at cnyirenda@uwc.ac.za.

The position remains open until filled.

Posted on

Coding Summer School 2025 – Registration Open

The in collaboration with the are organizing a Coding Summer School which

The registration has opened for the annual Coding Summer School (CSS) 2025. This is a joint effort between the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) and the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS). 

The CSS will take place from the 27th January 2025 to the 8th February 2025. It will take the format of a hybrid event where participants will be required to attend specific university locations around the country in-person. 

Aim of the School:

“Train researchers across South Africa and Southern Africa in the fundamentals of scientific computing and data science.”

Topics Covered in Python:

– Data Science with Pandas
– ETL and EDA best practices
– Computational Thinking
– Probability Theory & Statistics
– Machine Learning & AI

Note: Students must have some experience in Python.

Format:

– School will run for 2 weeks 
– Lectures/tutorials occur Monday to Friday
– Lecture/tutorial times: 09:30 – 16:00 with breaks each day
– Notes and exercises provided
– Certificates awarded to qualifying students

Registration:

The CHPC and NITheCS calls for all talented students registered for Honours, Masters, PhD including postdoc in South Africa to submit their applications. The registration fee is free for all successful Applicants. As public-funded institutions, the CHPC and NITheCS support the transformation of South Africa and thus the School organizers highly encourage students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds to submit their applications. 

There will be no scholarship for successful applicants as the school will be hosted on at university locations. 

Should you wish to attend the CSS, kindly complete the application form and register online at: https://events.chpc.ac.za/event/145/  before 13 December 2024. 

Once registered, students must complete the entrance test found here: https://events.chpc.ac.za/event/145/surveys/8

Successful candidates will be notified within a month of registration and completing the entrance test.

We look forward to receiving your applications.

For more information see: https://events.chpc.ac.za/event/145/overview

For general inquiries please submit a ticket here: https://chpc.freshdesk.com/support/tickets/new and choose the “Coding Summer School” category.

Posted on

INVITATION: Webinar 11 June 2024

The eResearch Office, University of the Western Cape (UWC) cordially invites you to a lecture to be conducted by visiting Prof. Temidayo Akenroye from the College of Business Administration at the University of Missouri – St Louis (UMSL).

ATTEND

Prof. Temidayo Akenroye Bio

Prof. Temidayo Akenroye is a Supply Chain Professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, USA. He obtained his PhD in Supply Chain Management from the University of Salford, UK, and his MS. in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge, UK. He is a globally respected scholar and expert in supply chain sustainability and public procurement. His recent works focus on addressing healthcare challenges, food security, and conflict minerals issues in the Global South through data-driven strategic interventions. Dr Akenroye’s pioneering study to enhance the supply chains of blood products and human organs in Africa has earned him widespread recognition. In the past, his research to improve the school feeding procurement systems in Kenya, Ghana, and Mali enabled more than 20,000 smallholder farmers to connect with supply opportunities. Due to the critical nature of Dr. Akenroye’s contributions, he has been invited to present his research at international conferences and symposia, and his work has been cited by researchers globally. His research is listed in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 Research Database as a significant contribution to pandemic preparedness. He is a member of the Peer Review College of the British Academy of Management and the Research Advisory Board for the Africa Resource Centre (ARC). He is also an academic adviser for the Kuehne Foundation in Germany and a senior visiting fellow at Lagos Business School in Nigeria. Before entering academia, he worked for organizations in the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom, Germany, Kenya, Nigeria, and the United States. Dr Akenroye is an Agenda Contributor to the World Economic Forum and has been widely sought to comment on supply chain issues on global TV channels, including Al-Jazeera and BBC News.

Seminar Topic:

Connecting African Smallholder Farmers to Structured Demand Markets: The Power of Inclusive Procurement

Abstract
Public or non-profit bodies with regular and reliable food demand create Structured Demand (SD) marketplaces. A well-known example is Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF), which connects smallholder farmers in poor nations to markets. Despite the explicit purpose of the HGSF program, smallholders’ direct involvement as suppliers has been minimal in most African nations. In this seminar, Professor. Akenroye will present his research on interventions designed to mitigate barriers facing smallholder farmers.

Date: 11 June 2024

Time: 10.00 -12.00 hours

Webinar Link: https://uwc.zoom.us/s/94213044526

Posted on

Webinar: Precision Medicine and Regenerative Medicine

The eResearch Office at the University of the Western Cape, in collaboration with the Computer and Communication Centre (CCC) and the Precision Medicine Center (PMC) at Taichung Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) in Taiwan, cordially invites you to a webinar that will focus on Precision Medicine and Regenerative Medicine. 

Date:  Thursday, 6 June 2024

Time:  09h00-11h00 (SAST)

Programme:

Speaker 1: Dr Yi-Ming Chen – Navigating New Frontiers: Precision Medicine and Polygenic Insights in Autoimmune Disease Management

Speaker 2：Dr Huey-En Tzeng – Empower precision oncology: implementing tumor board profiling solutions into MTB practice

Speaker 3：Tzu-Hung Hsiao – Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative: The Experience from Taichung Veterans General Hospital

Speaker 4：Meng-Yin Yang – Cell therapy in cord injury

REGISTER

Posted on

The Smart Hospital Innovation at Taichung Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan

The eResearch Office at the University of the Western Cape, in collaboration with the Computer and Communication Centre at Taichung Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) in Taiwan, cordially invites you to a webinar that will focus on the Smart Hospital Innovation at Taichung Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan. TVGH has been listed in the top 300 World’s Best Smart Hospitals in 2023 and 2024. Furthermore, TVGH is a recipient of many smart hospital awards.   

Date:  Tuesday, 26th March, 2024
Time:  09h00-11h00 (SAST)

Registration Link: https://uwc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KSTNGhYCQYWQ9iEwZHgkJQ

Programme
This webinar is composed of four presentations, by the team from the Computer & Communications Center (CCC) at TVGH, as follows:

Session #1:Information System of Smart Hospital; Presenter: Mr Lai-Shiun Lai, Director, CCC, TVGH
Session #2:The E-Paper Use Cases in Taichung Veterans General Hospital; Presenter: Mr Yi-Chun Wu, Deputy Leader of Application Development Section, CCC, TVGH
Session #3:Smart Operation Room Management System; Presenter: Mr Chien-Chung Huang, Leader of Clinical Information Section, CCC, TVGH
Session #4:Telehealth of Hospital Information System; Presenter: Mr Ching-Tsung Chen, Leader of System Foundation Section, CCC, TVGH
Posted on

REDCap Webinar – 19 September 2023

The eResearch Office (ERO) in collaboration with the Research Development and Postgraduate Support (RDPS) are organizing a seminar on the use of REDCap, a web application for collecting and managing research data.

The purpose of this session is to comprehensively cover the many stages involved in a REDCap project, from a general overview, the initial setup, progressing through data entry and data export processes as well as using advanced features and specialized modules.

To sign up for the webinar, Click on REGISTER


Email queries: Ms Aasiyah Chafekar (RDPS) at achafekar@uwc.ac.za or
Dr Frederic Isingizwe (eResearch) at fisingizwe@uwc.ac.za

Posted on

Welcome to Dr Clement Nyirenda – Director of eResearch

The eResearch Office has the pleasure to welcome Dr Clement Nyirenda, its new Director as of August 1st, 2023.

Dr Clement Nyirenda was a Senior Lecturer and acting Head of Department in the Computer Science, while highly active in interdisciplinary research projects, collaborating with various departments at UWC. His past partnership with the eResearch Office in supporting the University’s data intensive research initiative has been emphasized by his academic commitment for research, teaching and leadership roles.

We are looking forward to his leadership, skills and expertise in advancing the eResearch agenda at UWC.

Posted on

CHPC-NITHeCS Coding Summer school — 29 January to 9 February 2024

Registration has opened for the Coding Summer School (CSS) 2024.

This is a joint effort between the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the National Institute for Theoretical Computational Science (NITheCS) aimed at training researchers across South Africa and Southern Africa in the fundamentals of programming, data science, HPC, and computational sciences. 
The CSS will take the format of a hybrid event where participants will be required to attend specific universities and research locations. The University of the Western Cape will be one of these locations for the CSS, taking place from Monday 29 January 2024 until Friday 9 February 2024.
Eligible Applicants:

The CSS is aimed at postgraduate students and researchers in STEM fields focusing on the fields of astronomy, biology, computer science, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medical, and physics.
Format:

- Lectures/tutorials occur Monday to Friday
- Lecture/tutorial times: 10:00 - 16:00 with breaks each day
- Notes, quizzes, and assignments provided
- Certificates awarded to qualifying students
Week 1:

Participants will learn the fundamentals of Python and data science which will allow them to analyze and manipulate various datasets. They will also be introduced to Linux and Bash in order to learn HPC skills.

Week 2:

In week two, participants are exposed to Python applications, covering machine learning, probability & statistics, and various domain specific topics.
How To Apply:

For more information and if you wish to attend the CSS, kindly follow the link below to register:

https://events.chpc.ac.za/event/120/

Space is limited at the various locations so make sure to register soon to book your place.

There are representatives from each university and some research institutes, known as champions. For any further queries and logistics @UWC, contact fisingizwe@uwc.ac.za

For general inquiries please contact: training.chpc@csir.co.za
Posted on

CHPC-NITheCS Coding Summer School 2023

30 January 2023 – 10 February 2023

The Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) and the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS) are organizing a coding summer school that offers introductions to Foundations of Theoretical and Computational Sciences on topics such as Data Visualization, Data Analysis, Modelling and Simulation, Stochastic Methods, Machine Learning and Software Management.

A basic programming course that introduces participants to Linux (Ubuntu) command line and bash scripting, and the Python programming language will be given as a foundational tool for the school.

Students registered for Honours, Masters and PhD studies as well as postdoc fellows, in South Africa are eligible to apply and the attendance is free of charge. The school will take on a physical form at various university locations around the country, therefore participants will be required to attend one of the university locations.

The University of the Western Cape will provide one of these locations on its campus, and all interested candidates are encouraged to apply.

Course content

  • Daily lectures and interactive tutorials
  • Moodle used as the learning management environment
  • PDF notes, exercises, and YouTube videos provided
  • Zoom used for live streaming
  • Slack used as official communication medium
  • Prizes awarded to select students

Requirements and Registration

Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops but where it is not possible, the organizers might assist to access an on-site computer. No programming skills and basic Linux knowledge are required, although that would be an advantage. Applications can be done at this registration link and more information on the can be obtained here.

Important dates

  • Closing date for registration: Saturday, 31 December 2022
  • Notification of successful candidates: by 16 January 2023
  • School start and orientation: Monday, 30 January 2023
  • School end: Friday, 10 February 2023
Posted on

Basics of R: a Training Module

In collaboration with DPGS, a ‘Basics of R’ training module will begin on 5 July. The module will include an introductory session, after which training materials will be available through iKamva. The purpose of this training module is to equip postgraduate students with basic knowledge and skills to begin using R.

R is a programming language that is widely used by researchers in various disciplines for data manipulation, calculations and graphical display and visualisations. Anyone who would like to begin working with R as part of their research or skills development will benefit from this training module, and the lessons are aimed at people with no previous experience.

Interested participants can register at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-DvVWWGV9OU4uoEQGDTI9vrDvvRpPPO_z_W8y5fBHrM_ZYg/viewform

Intro-to-R-poster-finalDownload