1. Objective
The Administrative Core will
maintain all Core and Project budgets, provide renewal applications,
oversee the travel budget and approve travel arrangements as they relate
to the program project, and arrange and chair Executive Committee and Core
Committee meetings. In addition, the Administrative Core will manage
Advisory Board interactions. As chair of the Executive Committee, the
Program Director will receive and distribute applications for new projects
and will be responsible for new uses of the Core staff and facilities. The
Director will review all requests to redistribute funds in the Program
budgets and in the budgets of grant or protocol applications that include
the use of Program Core units.
2. Organizational Chart
See
Organizational Chart
The Administrative Core will oversee all aspects of the programs and cores
as detailed above. The interactions among the projects are illustrated
above. An important part of the program project is the External Advisory
Board. This Board will meet as a group each
spring in Memphis (funds have been requested to cover travel expenses and
a small honorarium). The External Advisory Boards main purpose is to
guide and critique plans and our implementation. A secondary goal is to
provide us with their insight into new methods and problems that the
project as a whole should consider implementing. A senior member of the
Human Brain Project will also be invited to participate in the annual
review of the PPG.
Members of the board were selected by the PIs
of the projects on the basis of their stature in major fields of
bioinformatics and neuroscience. At present the board consists of
1. Adrianne Noe,
Director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington. Dr.
Noe is in charge of several major research collections, including the
Yakovlev-Hakem Human Brain Collection. She is currently collaborating with
Dr. Wally Welker on developing and distributing the Wisconsin Brain
Collection, now known as the Brain Biodiversity Project. Dr. Noe brings a
great deal of expertise to our PPG pertaining to the organization and
long-term maintenance of collections of slides and digital images.
2. Arthur Toga,
Associate Director of the Neuroimaging Center at UCLA. Dr. Toga is one of
the worlds leading authorities on brain mapping and imaging. He will be
advising us particularly regarding software systems and algorithms used to
reconstruct and segment images as part of the NeuroCartographer project.
3. John Belknap,
Professor of Neuroscience, Oregon Health Science Center. Dr. Belknap is
one of the foremost experts on complex trait analysis as it pertains to
the study CNS structure and function in mice. He is a strong statistician
and behavioral neuropharmacologist who has done a great deal to advance
the use of recombinant inbred strains in neuroscience. Dr. Belknap brings
to this PPG a particular interest in behavioral variation among mice that
will provide an excellent counterpoint and complement to our own focus on
anatomical variation.
4. Joel Richardson,
Senior Programmer, co-PI of the Mouse Genome Database, Jackson Laboratory,
Bar Harbor, Maine. Joel Richardson is the senior database programmer for
the Jackson Laboratorys bioinformatics program. He wrote and designed
much of the Mouse Genome Database web interface. He has a strong
background is large relational and object databases such as Informix and
Oracle. He will provide us with criticism and advice as to how best to
implement and support our informatics superstructure.
5. Unfilled. We have intentionally
left one position free to be filled early in the first year. When this
application is reviewed we will reassess what areas would most benefit
from an external advisor: robotics, video production, web design,
distributed database structure, image warehousing, cell-level image
segmentation.
3. Staffing
Director (Robert W. Williams, 5% effort). The
directors functions are as described above. A half-time Administrative
Assistant will be responsible for the following duties: (1) assist in
scheduling meetings and progress reports, (2) help with database entry and
backups, (3) help to prepare/convert documents to html for uploading onto
the web, (4) maintain a listing of databases and publications, (5) order
supplies,
and (6) arrange for all travel specifically related to the PPG; for
example Human Brain Project annual meetings, meetings with External
Advisory Board members, etc.
4.
Resources and Environment
The Administrative Core will be housed in the Department
of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of Tennessee, Memphis. After
renovations of the Neuroscience complex, the Administrative Office will
move to the fifth floor of the Wittenborg Building (see Letter from S.T.
Kitai, Chair).
As noted in the Introduction, the University of Tennessee, Memphis, has
demonstrated a strong commitment to this project, demonstrated by the
commitment of funds, space, and equipment.
5.
Services provided
The
services provided are listed in the Objectives.
|
