Misc. – Page 106 – Jonathan Eisen's Lab

Have a bite while talking about bits & bytes #UCDavis

Just found out about this …

Bits & Bites lunch club at UC Davis

“Bits & bites is a new lunch club that aims to meet once a week at UC Davis and talk about various aspects of sequence analysis. The idea is to gather together people in a very informal environment and share expertise on various subjects relating to bioinformatics and genomics.”

More detail from the site:

The plan will be to meet on Thursdays between 12:00 and 1:00 at various venues on the UC Campus, possibly including the Genome Center, and Life Sciences Addition – as well as possible forays into Davis. Occasionally – maybe once a month – we would try to host an invited speaker to give deeper insights into a specific topic.

To find out more details please join the bits & bites mailing list (a low traffic list which will mostly be used to announce the venue and discussion topics each week).

Sounds good to me.

His fees are hella high – perspective from a #UCDavis student #OccupyUCDavis

Perspective from a UC Davis student

#UCDavis Genome Center Omics Office Hours

The UC Davis Genome Center will be holding an Omics Office Hour from 9:00-10:00am each month in Room 5206 GBSF on the Davis campus. These drop-in sessions are open to anyone with questions regarding Genomics, Epigenomics and Gene Expression, Proteomics, Metabolomics, Network Biology and Bioinformatics.

The mission of the Genome Center is to facilitate your “omics” research at UC Davis. Genome Center staff and faculty will be on hand for consultation in a friendly, informal setting. If you have ideas that you would like to explore, we would be happy to discuss it as well as the possibility of pilot grants.

The next session will be Friday, December 9.

More fun with stitching panoramas: Glacier 2004

Submit Ideas and Vote on Ideas for Presentation Topic Ideas for Special Session at the ASM General Meeting in SF 2012

Calling all microbiology fans – The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) is doing something very different for the 2012 General Meeting in San Francisco that might be of interest. There will be a special session, organized by the Communications Committee (of which I am a member) where everyone/anyone can propose topics and then these get voted on to determine the winners (see Your Topics, Your Votes, Your Choice).

From the web site

Submit your scientific presentation topic for ASM2012 and then vote and comment on your colleagues’ ideas. The people who submit the top 5 entries will receive a travel subsidy of $800 (or $1200 for international submitters) and will present their topics at the General Meeting in San Francisco, on Tuesday, June 19 at 2:30 p.m., PT.

The submission deadline closes Feb. 1, 2012 at noon, GMT. The top 5 voted topics will then be approved by March 1, 2012.

The rules of the system are as follows (also from the web site)

All scientists are encouraged to submit, especially undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs and technical staff.

Registered site users get 10 votes to allocate among topics, with a maximum of 3 votes per topic. However, votes can be reallocated up to the Feb. 1, 2012 deadline.

Topics must be submitted with a title. A 3 to 5 sentence description is strongly encouraged. You may also include links to additional or background materials by inserting an http:// before a URL in the description field.

While multiple topics may be submitted. Only one topic per submitter will be selected. In other words, if a submitter gets 3 topics in the top 5 by Feb. 1, 2012, that person will only be allowed to present on one topic at the meeting.

The submitter must be the presenter.

No pseudoscience allowed. If you see an entry that looks suspicious, please flag the idea as inappropriate at the end of the topic’s description. ASM reserves the right to remove improper submissions and comments.

Topics must be presented within a 30 minute time slot, 10 minutes of which will be allotted for questions and answers.

Speakers for invited sessions at ASM2012 are not eligible to participate in this session.

So – please consider submitting ideas and voting on ideas and spreading the word.

Letter from Chair of #UCDavis Academic Senate re: Friday assembly #occupyucdavis

Posting this email I just received

Forwarded on behalf of Chair Linda F. Bisson

Dear Colleagues,

I wish to thank you those of you available to attend the Special Meeting of the Representative Assembly on Friday, December 2, 2011. We estimate the audience at approximately 300 and including 69 voting members of the Representative Assembly. The discussion of the action on November 18, 2011, was frank, constructive and important.

I wish to apologize to those of you who waited in line and were unable to speak before we ran out of time. I also apologize for the visible presence of the Cal Aggie Hosts, and the posting of a notice to be courteous to the facility. I agree with the speakers who complained that they were absolutely not necessary. However, those responsible for the Mondavi Center asked for such measures to protect the facility. We refused many of their requests but did acquiesce to some. It is standard practice for the facility to ask the audience to be courteous before each performance meaning to shut off cell phones, not bring food into the auditorium or large bags that may block an aisle.

I called the meeting to allow the faculty to address the Chancellor in a candid and direct manner, as well as to hear from each other. Our colleagues asked tough questions and raised significant concern for our students and community overall in light of the action on November 18th. We also had a chance to begin discussing how to move on, radically change our policies and practices and how we can begin working together with our students to strengthen the campus and focus on assuring access to affordable public education.

The resolution passed unanimously by the Representative Assembly to commend our students is available on the Academic Senate home page. Additionally, there are links to recent communications associated with this event and we will keep you informed.

Finally, the Special Committee reviewing the police action on November 18, 2011, will be announced this week.

Sincerely,
Linda F. Bisson, Chair
Davis Division of the Academic Senate

Letter from Chancellor Katehi to #UCDavis Community #OccupyUCDavis

I received this by email last night:

Dear UC Davis Community,

I want to thank everyone for attending the recent student and then faculty and staff town hall meetings. I sincerely appreciated the opportunity to not only share my thoughts, but also hear from you.

There are a number of investigations underway that will help us truly understand what happened on November 18. As you know, I requested that the UC Office of the President investigate this matter; the goal was to ensure an independent review. We have also launched our own internal investigation. More details on these and other independent investigations can be found in the fact sheet which was posted on our website on Tuesday:

http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/local_resources/pdfs/20111129_Fact%20Sheet-FINAL_crx.pdf .

As Chancellor, I feel accountable for everything that happens on this campus and deeply regret what happened on Friday, November 18. We were all shocked by the pepper spray incident on our quad and wish that it had never happened. But it did, and now our community needs to come together, to heal and move forward. I promise to redouble my efforts to engage in a positive meaningful dialogue with everyone that is a part of the UC Davis community.

Meetings with the various colleges are underway and more are being scheduled. Following winter break, I am also planning to meet with students in the dorms and at other locations throughout the campus. I will also be talking to our parents and alumni about our campus’ plans going forward. Lawmakers in Sacramento will hear from me about our shared concerns with rising cost of education. I’ve given a great deal of thought on various ways we can continue to engage in a positive, meaningful dialogue. More details can be found in my remarks at the recent faculty and staff town hall:

http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/speeches-writings/2011/faculty_staff_town_hall_11.29.11.html .

Your input is critical to making this process a success, and I look forward to continuing our conversations. Thank you for your strength and commitment to our UC Davis community.

Sincerely,

Linda P.B. Katehi

Chancellor