ABOUT US

NSSTC Headquarters

The Information Technology and Systems Center (ITSC) conducts multidisciplinary research at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in many facets of information technology. Basic and applied research is performed to develop new techniques and systems that ultimately solve real-world problems by the transfer of innovative technologies and knowledge. Students, faculty and research scientists are involved in all aspects of the center. ITSC serves as the focal point for UAH research endeavors in information technology and systems and provides leadership in applications of information technology for multiple disciplines and computational environments.

The center is actively involved in local, state, regional, national, and international information technology activities and serves as a catalyst in innovative pursuits in information technology. In support of these activities, the center is currently performing research and development in the areas of distributed information systems, next generation internet, data mining and knowledge discovery, information system interoperability, image processing, and data security.

Within the center, there is well-established expertise in processing image data from many different sources and formats. ITSC scientists have worked closely with several organizations to produce tools and algorithms for processing raw imagery and creating higher level data products. Pattern recognition and neural network capabilities have been developed for many types of data and have been integrated into the center's data mining system, allowing researchers to more easily analyze large volumes of data.

Researchers at the ITSC have developed Noesis, a new, more effective search engine that focuses or expands a user's search terms based on domain specific ontologies. Noesis is a meta search engine and a resource aggregator that is capable of searching a number of online resources simultaneously and then grouping the results accordingly. It uses ontologies to guide users to refine their search query, thus producing better search results and reducing the user’s burden. In addition, Noesis also serves as an educational tool since it allows users to browse and traverse different concepts in a given ontology. Noesis provides users a single site to find all the right resources in the selected domain. These resources include web pages, publications, datasets, educational materials, books, and more.

The Global Hydrometeorology Resource Center (GHRC) is the data management and user services arm of the Global Hydrology & Climate Center (GHCC). It encompasses data and information management, supporting product generation, archival, and distribution of research quality and operational datasets for a variety of data types, including lightning, passive microwave, radar, and others. The GHRC houses both historical and current Earth science data, information, and products from satellite, airborne, and surface-based instruments. The GHRC acquires basic data streams and produces derived products from many instruments spread across a variety of instrument platforms. The GHRC is supported by NASA and is one of the Earth Science Data Centers within the NASA DAAC Alliance.