Category Archives: Math & Science

OSTI Requirements for Submission of Final Peer-Reviewed Accepted Manuscripts

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In support of the DOE Public Access Plan, this message is to remind recipients of SC funded awards that it is a term and condition of the award to submit, to DOE, the final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts for any published journal articles based on work supported by your award. Submissions are to be made to the DOE corporate E-Link system, and it is expected that recipients will submit final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts as soon as they are accepted for publication, but no later than one-year after the date the journal article is published online, and before closeout After the one-year period, final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts will be made available through DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV. Details describing this requirement can be found here.

Instructions to submit final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts are included in the Federal Assistance Reporting Checklist and Instructions (DOE F 4600.2) and the award provision entitled, “Reporting Requirements”. A video demonstrating the process is also available.

When publishing work that is supported by your award, it is important to remember to acknowledge DOE and the award appropriately. Requirements for acknowledgement of federal support can be found here.

Also, for journal articles listed in your Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPRs), please see instructions provided under “B. Scientific/Technical Reporting” of the 4600.2 for submission of final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts to ensure the journal articles reported are in compliance with the requirements for public access.

For questions regarding announcement and submission of your final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts, please contact elink_Helpdesk@osti.gov.

Call for White Papers for National Academies: Powering the US Army of the Future Study

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Submission Deadline: 03/09/20

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is issuing a call for white papers in support of an ongoing study activity to assess existing and novel electric power and energy (P&E) technologies to support Army multi-domain operations (MDO) in the 2035 environment. This call for white papers is soliciting input on candidate P&E technologies (existing or under development) with the potential to achieve operational readiness to support Army MDO in 2035. The white papers will serve as the primary data-gathering effort to inform the larger study report. The authors of the most promising white papers will be invited to join a public forum in May to discuss their ideas with the study committee

Army Modernization Strategy and Multi-Domain Operations

The Army Modernization Strategy (AMS) describes how the Army will transform into a multi-domain operations (MDO) force by 2035 to meet its enduring responsibility as part of the Joint Force to provide for the defense of the United States. The essence of Army’s MDO concept is to support the Joint Force in the rapid and continuous integration of all domains of warfare – land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace – to deter short of conflict but fight and win if deterrence fails. The enabling technology for multi-domain operations will be advanced communications and information processing technology which will place new demands on the Army’s deployed P&E infrastructure to ensure that it can meet the demands of the MDO environment in 2035.

The tenets of MDO create significant performance challenges for several technologies over the next fifteen years. Calibrated force postures, multi-domain formations, and the ability to rapidly converge effects from multiple domains will require a highly integrated and rapidly reconfigurable force that can execute and sustain complex operations with great speed and precision. Rapidly evolving technologies, especially information technologies and those that enable and sustain them, particularly power and energy (P&E), will be fundamental to achieving these goals. The purpose of this call is to solicit white papers outlining feasible and practical technology options that could address potential P&E needs of the Army as it executes its MDO vision in 2035.

The Army’s MDO strategic goals and the future importance of sensing and information technologies

The continuous integration of all domains of warfare demands a proliferation of sensors and intelligent devices, supported with increased communication bandwidth and high-speed processing of data sets into actionable information for use at all operational levels. Evolving 5G technologies in the commercial world can help with these technical challenges and offer a good pacing technology for assessment. However, commercial technology and infrastructure development will not fully satisfy the Army’s unique operational challenges, which require worldwide deployability and functionality under degraded/hostile conditions.

For example, little or no ground-based commercial communications infrastructure may be available within the battlespace; in future operations, even space-based networks may be challenged. This circumstance requires the Army to have a self-contained, mobile, and resilient integrated sensor, communications and information infrastructure. Furthermore, complex battlespace environments create significant technical challenges for modern cellular network technologies. For example, the Army typically fights in complex terrain while experiencing variable climates such as rain, snow, hail, dust, fog, etc. Emerging 5G communications, which promise disruptive bandwidth, are relatively short range and particularly sensitive to signal strength and environmental conditions (to include weather and terrain). These limitations can require increases in the density of nodes and signal strength; longer transmission duration; and proliferation of mobile processing stations. These trends alone will challenge mobile power and energy capabilities in terms of both power demand and energy endurance.

Mobile P&E to support network-enabled MDO

Mobile P&E is fundamental to all Army capabilities; however, the P&E that support communications and information needs varies significantly depending upon the use case. During maneuver, the power plants for the Abrams and many other ground combat vehicles expend a small fraction of their energy on communications and processing. Technologies being developed to support onboard power needs for mobility and lethality over the next 15 years should be more than adequate to meet information processing and communication needs when underway. However, at times ground combat vehicles will enter “silent watch” which requires then to minimize all acoustic and infrared signal emissions. This in turn normally requires them to remain stationary and operate without the use of their main or auxiliary engines. As a result, a platform’s information and communications systems will need to operate without the main engine output.

Meanwhile, dismounted soldiers, small electric and hybrid drones, micro-autonomous sensors, systems, and communication nodes, autonomous ground vehicles, manned vehicles on “silent watch,” and mobile command posts and data centers each will require significant improvement in P&E technology over the next 15 years to support network-enabled MDO. Moreover, the ability to operate mobile command posts and the proliferation of persistent sensors, processors, and transceivers at the forward edge of the battlespace represent an important new focus area that supplements past soldier, platform (e.g. vehicle or drones), and forward operating base use cases.

In the past, P&E performance parameters were generated as an afterthought to new technology aspirations. Twenty-first century capabilities, however, require more sophisticated treatment of energy as an integral component within the system design process. Sensing, processing, and communicating technologies, for example, fundamentally involve the physics and management of energy. How effectively can a sensor distinguish electromagnetic or other signals from noise; convert the information into usable form; and securely transmit the signal to become integrated into the operational picture? Not only energy density but also power management, conversion efficiency, EM radiation and coupling efficiencies, environmental tolerance and reliability are just a few energy attributes that are fundamental to technology performance that will support MDO.

Multi-Domain Operations represents a new warfighting concept for which we lack field data regarding key performance parameters and constraints. The present study represents an opportunity to inform “the art of the possible”, with an emphasis on what is practical and feasible by identifying technologies that could significantly contribute to envisioned operations and feasibly could be made available. To that end, this white paper call will take a technology push approach to future mobile P&E technologies, especially taking account of the opportunities and demands of distributed information technologies (such as 5G) within the adverse environments the Army would be expected to fight.

Two-tiered approach to estimating P&E technology performance for distributed information enabled MDO

For this call for white papers, all P&E technologies will be considered; however, it is crucial to keep in mind that the emphasis will be on those most practical and feasible technologies relevant for sustaining the support of distributed information capabilities associated with MDO. To effectively evaluate the performance headroom of P&E technologies out to the year 2035, this call for white papers will take a two-tiered approach to assessment. The first-tier involves P&E technologies that would achieve a five-year system demonstration from TRL 5-7 to TRL 7-8, then ten years to acquire an operational system by 2035. The second-tier sources would deliver a concept to feasibility demonstration from TRL 4-6 to TRL 6-8 in fifteen years with an operational system acquired sometime after the demo. The metrics used to assess technology and system performance will include specific energy and power output, efficiency, weight, volume, endurance (time to refuel, recharge, or replace), durability (performance in austere or hazardous environments or under shock or damage), vulnerability to attack and disruption, portability/mobility, supply and maintenance concerns (e.g. challenges of material and fuel sourcing and rarity of materials), investment and unit cost, safety issues, personnel training requirements, and policy and regulatory concerns. Physics and engineering principles will be used to judge the credibility of the P&E sources for each tier. To be considered, detailed engineering and system descriptions, which support the performance characteristics of each P&E source will be required.

White Paper Guidelines – Summary

The white papers should describe and evaluate existing or emerging P&E technologies and technical solutions that are feasible and practical to support Army P&E needs for MDO in the 2035 timeframe. The demands for distributed information technologies should be considered as a pacing technology but responses need not be limited to the specifics of systems available today (such as 5G); they should include alternative communications technologies that might also support Army MDO operations as described in the previous section. Papers may and should to the extent possible, consider all relevant P&E aspects of the architecture, including energy storage, conversion, transmission, and relay requirements, and power management technologies. Energy/power sources to be considered can range from as little as two watt systems, for individual soldier platforms and distributed and proliferated sensors, processors and transceivers in the battlespace, to more than 10 megawatt systems for forward and remote operating bases. Each technology or technical solution should be categorized into one of the following categories:

  • Tier 1 – System demonstration achievable within 5 years from TRL 5-7 and TRL 7-8, and an operational system acquirable by 2035.
  • Tier 2 – Concept or System demonstration achievable in 15 years with an estimate of the additional time required for an acquired system

The white papers should assess the following parameters for each technology or technical solution presented: specific energy and power output, efficiency, weight, volume, endurance (time to refuel, recharge, or replace), durability (performance in austere or hazardous environments or under shock or damage), vulnerability to attack and disruption, portability/mobility, supply and maintenance concerns (e.g. challenges of material and fuel sourcing and rarity of materials), investment and unit cost, safety issues, personnel training requirements, and policy and regulatory concerns. The white papers may also offer additional or alternative assessment parameters that are critical or otherwise relevant but not listed here.

Selection Process and Next Steps

White papers will be selected on their level of detail and analysis and the extent to which they meet the parameters provided above. In April, the white paper authors selected to advance will be provided with additional details and parameters regarding the MDO operating environment in 2035 to adapt their proposals and presentations at the public forum to be held on May 18-21, 2020. Selected white paper authors will be asked to provide presentations and engage in dialogue with the study committee at the May forum.

The white paper submissions will be evaluated by the study committee and used to inform report content. The authors of the most promising white papers will be invited to participate in a public forum to discuss their ideas with the committee and engage with the authors of other selected white papers. The papers and discussions with paper authors will provide the primary source of data gathering for the report findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

Information gathered will be used by the committee solely to inform this project and the study report. However, per the requirements established in the Federal Advisory Committee Act, to which this effort and committee is subject, all white papers will be collected in a Public Access File (PAF). Materials contained within the PAF are subject to release per the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Please do not include any proprietary information in your responses. Responses must be Distribution A. This activity is unclassified.

Submission Formatting and Guidelines

  • Papers should be no longer than 10 pages, double spaced, including figures
  • Text should be in size 12 Times New Roman font, with standard one-inch margins
  • Papers should include a cover page (not included in the 10 page limit) with the paper title, the authors’ names, times and organizational affiliations (if applicable)
  • If the paper includes citations, then standard Chicago Style or APA format applies

White papers should be submitted HERE no later than 5:00PM EST on 03/09/2020

If your white paper is selected by the committee to be presented at the public forum on May 18-21, 2020 you will be contacted via the email address entered on your submission form.

Please contact Steven Darbes (sdarbes@nas.edu) or Aanika Senn (ASenn@nas.edu) with any questions regarding the call for white papers or the Powering the U.S. Army of the Future study.

Additional Information

The work of the committee is overseeing by the Board on Army Research and Development (BOARD) at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The BOARD provides project oversight and sponsor engagement for a portfolio of studies, workshops, forums, and roundtables in support of the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army turns to us for independent advice on topics related to research, development, and application of science and technology in support of military matters. Our board members are widely recognized industry, academic, and former military experts. See their website for more information.

This study was sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Research and Technology)

NIJ New Solicitation: Research and Evaluation of Domestic Terrorism Prevention

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The National Institute of Justice recently published a solicitation that supports research and evaluation of domestic terrorism prevention. The solicitation, “…seeks to build knowledge and evidence related to strategies for effective prevention of terrorism in the United States.”

Areas of specific research interest to NIJ include:

  • Evaluations of programs and practices to prevent terrorism
  • Research to inform terrorism prevention efforts
  • Research on the reintegration of offenders to the community

Funded projects will apply an approach that engages researchers and practitioners in an active partnership to develop more effective solutions to specific problems, and to produce lessons and strategies that may be adapted to help other localities with similar problems.

All applications are due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on April 1, 2020.

DARPA Young Faculty Award Program

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Federal Agency Name: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Sciences Office (DSO)

Due Dates:

  • Executive Summary (strongly encouraged): September 18, 2019, 4:00 p.m.
  • Full Proposal: November 19, 2019, 4:00 p.m.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award (YFA) program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior faculty positions in academia and equivalent positions at non-profit research institutions and expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) and National Security challenges and needs. In particular, this YFA will provide high-impact funding to elite researchers early in their careers to develop innovative new research directions in the context of enabling transformative DoD capabilities. The long-term goal of the program is to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers in the research community who will focus a significant portion of their future careers on DoD and National Security issues. DARPA is particularly interested in identifying outstanding researchers who have previously not been performers on DARPA programs, but the program is open to all qualified applicants with innovative research ideas.

Participation in the YFA program is limited to any current tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professors and to tenured Assistant or Associate Professors within three (3) years of their tenure appointment at a U.S. institution of higher education or equivalent at a U.S. non-profit science and technology research institution.

Topic Areas:

  • Unlocking the Secrets of Roman Concrete – Developing new, extremely durable, and crack resistant materials for use in the marine environment is of great national interest.
  • In Vivo Biosensors – To monitor biological changes in response to military-relevant injuries, DARPA is seeking innovative biosensor technologies and platforms to detect a range of relevant biomolecules. These minimally invasive sensors should collect and transmit the concentration of a target molecule in real-time or near real-time and should be biocompatible for use in vivo.
  • Decision Making Algorithm for Medical Countermeasure (MCM) Development – DARPA seeks to develop algorithms to address the ability to predict the translation efficiency of a monoclonal antibody from a nucleic acid construct in vivo. It is envisioned that the proposed work will consist primarily of three components: data generation, computational analysis and in vivo validation of the computational results.
  • Microbial Community Modeling – For this YFA topic, novel modeling approaches are sought to generate predictive models of dynamic multi-organism systems and their environmental interactions that account for the following: intracellular metabolism, extracellular chemical/biochemical processes, maintenance of membrane chemical/charge potentials, associations with other organisms, and dynamic extracellular conditions.
  • Biological Systems for Sensing, Reporting, and Mitigating Air Contamination – The aim of this topic is to develop platform technologies that allow complex engineered living communities to sense, report, and mitigate airborne pollutants and toxins.
  • Distributed Intelligence in Flexible Robots – This YFA topic area builds upon this material computation concept that utilizes the computing power inherent in the diverse dynamics of actuating soft materials to achieve a form of distributed intelligence.
  • Bioinspired Soft-Matter Electrical Circuits – DARPA is interested in new approaches to develop ion-based circuit models that incorporate soft-matter components with functionality that may be inspired by a biosystem.
  • Room-temperature Chip-scale Quantum Opto-mechanical Sensors – This topic seeks development of technologies that enable the coupling between single phonons and photons, i.e. quantum optomechanic, to enable mechanical sensors with ultimate sensitivity.
  • AI System Engineering – This effort should focus on extending state-of-the-art software and system engineering design, implementation, application, and evaluation methods, techniques, and tools that are appropriate, effective, and scalable for large, complex, heterogeneous, adaptable cyber-physical systems comprising AI and other types of components.
  • Advanced Corrosion Control – This topic seeks combined theoretical-experimental efforts to connect atomic-level corrosion nucleation mechanisms with mesoscale chemistry and the surface/interface microstructural features conducive to nucleation. An understanding of how transient environmental conditions affect nucleation kinetics is also desired.
  • Economics-driven Secure Multiparty Computation (MPC) – This effort should focus on looking to further bridge the gap of using sophisticated understandings of economics in order to create novel secure multiparty computation that critically rely on understanding of economics notions (e.g., utility functions, equilibrium theories) to enable breakthrough new capabilities for MPC, particularly those that examine more realistic use cases (and greater incentives for use) via economic analyses.
  • Cross-Cultural Extrapolation of Privacy-Oriented Human-Technology Interactions – This effort looks to create greater understandings of human-technology interaction for privacy amongst communities that have not previously been examined.
  • Scientific Model Aware Computing – Model Aware Computing would be the automated generation of specialized, optimal software tailored to the needs of a specific scientific model under consideration without the complexity of highly generic simulations capable of representing many possible phenomena, which fundamentally changes how scientists interact with software development. Model Aware Computing will support the improvement of scientific software and the automating of scientific reasoning, but it will also expose, represent, and realize the interconnected nature of the modeling structures within and between scientific domains.
  • Push Science – This topic seeks the development of technologies to build and maintain rich models of complex systems (scientific, social, etc.) by identifying new data and information resources automatically, extracting useful information (causal relations, correlations, context, parameters, etc.), and integrating this into machine-curated expert models.
  • Visualization Innovations for Cyber Terrain Operations Representation (VICTOR) – VICTOR research efforts should be focused on disruptive and novel approaches to a physics of cyberspace. This physics will aid situational awareness for US cyberwarriors operating in cyber terrain, e.g., heatmaps, selective revelation of information, and its urgency and persistence.
  • Reducing Errors in Quantum Systems – This topic seeks to accomplish two objectives: 1) improve the realism of error correction in gate-based quantum computation and 2) finding advantages for computation and/or sensing by combining error correction and sensing techniques.
  • Dielectrics for High-Temperature CMOS FETs – Investments in wide bandgap (WBG) materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) have enabled new commercially available power electronics. The WBG material foundation can be leveraged for other applications such as high temperature capable electronics.
  • A Physics-Based Re-exploration of Spectrum Allocation – In this topic, DARPA wants to rethink approaches to EMS management through a holistic and physics-driven methodology. The research should first contextualize the problem based on the history of applications, spectrum regulations, and technology. The work should produce a new perspective on EM spectrum device capabilities to inform new approaches to spectrum sharing and point the way to inform the next generation of EM devices.
  • Detecting Cognitive Dissonance & Belief Shift Over Time – This topic seeks to develop and validate methods: 1) for detecting and identifying cognitive dissonance – or when a person or community holds two beliefs that are in conflict, and specifically when a belief is in conflict with an action, and 2) for predicting when confronted with the conflict, what action the conflicted will take to resolve the tension (e.g., change beliefs, change actions, add rationalizing thoughts, trivialize the inconsistency, etc.). Of particular interest is how repeated and recursive cycles of confrontation and resolution shift belief and/or actions over time – weeks, months or even years.
  • Chip-scale Blind Sampled Wideband Periodogram and Time Transfer by Machine Learning – This topic seeks to explore how machine learning chip-scale solutions can provide low latency detection, synchronization and timing transfer of accurate clocks between cognitive mobile devices operating in the absence of centralized reference clock signals, such as provided by a basestation or GPS.
  • Practical Antineutrino Detectors – This topic seeks to advance antineutrino detector technology toward the practical use of antineutrinos as a tool for national security applications.
  • RF Power Harvesting for Remote Sensing – DARPA is seeking innovative methods for harvesting RF energy with high efficiency in regions with low RF power (<<1mW).
  • Low Loop Latency Distributed Time Transfer – This topic seeks innovative solutions for significantly reducing the effect of loop latency for the purpose of maintaining tightly synchronized reference clocks from multiple radios (>10) across long distances (>> 1 km) despite the presence of substantial phase nose.
  • High-Entropy Alloys Study – DARPA seeks proposals that investigate ultra-low density materials (<1% wt. bulk) comprised of high-entropy alloys, that could be used for a low density “skin”. We also seek ideas for deposition of these skins (such as electrodeposition from ionic solutions) or their creation via in situ nuclear decay.
  • Ocean Object Identification via Distributed Sensors – This topic seeks new methods or technologies that enable detection of man-made objects in an ocean environment utilizing ‘through the sensor’ environmental data from large distributed arrays of in-situ sensors.
  • Flame Stability and Ignition in Partially-Premixed High-Speed Flows – This effort should be focused on the application of modern diagnostics and computational modeling to better understand the mechanisms by which these flames ignite and stabilize relative to flame stratification, degree of partial-premixing, and burning location.
  • On-Orbit Servicing Architectures for Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Constellations – This topic seeks innovative approaches to on-orbit servicing of proliferated LEO constellations.

Additional information can be found on the DARPA YFA FedBizOpps page or in the Research Announcement, available on grants.gov.

Limited Submission Opportunity: NSF Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Program

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Internal Limited Submission Deadline to the Office of Research Administration: Friday, August 30, 2019 at 5pm.

NSF Deadline: September 27, 2019

Synopsis of the Program:

The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, and potentially transformative approaches to STEM graduate education training. The program seeks proposals that explore ways for graduate students in research-based master’s and doctoral degree programs to develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM careers.

IGE focuses on projects aimed at piloting, testing, and validating innovative and potentially transformativeapproaches to graduate education. IGE projects are intended to generate the knowledge required for theircustomization, implementation, and broader adoption. The program supports testing of novel models or activities withhigh potential to enrich and extend the knowledge base on effective graduate education approaches.

The program addresses both workforce development, emphasizing broad participation, and institutional capacitybuilding needs in graduate education. Strategic collaborations with the private sector, non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs), government agencies, national laboratories, field stations, teaching and learning centers,informal science centers, and academic partners are encouraged.

Goals of the IGE Program are to:

  • Catalyze rapid advances in STEM graduate education broadly as well as those responsive to the needs of particular disciplinary and interdisciplinary STEM fields, and
  • Generate the knowledge base needed to inform the development of models as well as their implementation and adaptability.

The IGE Program calls for proposals to:

  • Design, pilot, and test new, innovative and transformative approaches for inclusive STEM graduate education;
  • Examine the potential to extend a successful approach developed in one discipline or context to other disciplines, or transfer an evidence-based approach to a new context; and,
  • Develop projects that are informed by learning science and the existing body of knowledge about STEM graduate education.

Limit on the Number of Proposals per Organization: Institutions are restricted to submitting two (2) proposals to this solicitation.

For full details on this opportunity please visit the NSF IGE webpage or the solicitation (NSF 17-585).

For details regarding the University of Akron’s limited submission process, visit the ORA Limited Submission webpage.