NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION update

What’s hot in science and engineering? Check out NSF research news for the day of May 16, 2022 05/16/2022 Keep up with today’s research news from the U.S. National Science Foundation. This is a daily look at noteworthy scientific findings from researchers around the country. Mon, 16 May 2022 Warming of the oceans due to climate change will mean fewer productive fish species Study results present a mixed picture of ocean health Warming of the oceans due to climate change will mean fewer productive fish species to catch in the future, according to a new study. As temperatures warm, changing predator-prey interactions ... Continue Reading   Mon, 16 May 2022 New regional diagnostic uses DNA testing to evaluate microbial ocean life Results improve understanding of forces that drive seafood supply, planet's ability to remove greenhouse gases Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other institutions have used tools of genetics akin to those in genealogical ... Continue Reading   For more National Science Foundation news, visit our news site. Please contact the news team for our news items. And, for our Research News items please contact the research news team.     Dear Colleague Letter: Cloud Computing for CISE Grantees 05/17/2022 Available Formats: HTML: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22087/nsf22087.jsp?WT.mc_id=USNSF_27&WT.mc_ev=click PDF: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22087/nsf22087.pdf?WT.mc_id=USNSF_27&WT.mc_ev=click Document Number: nsf22087 Public Comment: This is an NSF Program Announcements and Information - Computer/Information Sciences item. Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology (SGP) 05/17/2022 Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology (SGP) Available Formats: HTML: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22597/nsf22597.htm?WT.mc_id=USNSF_32&WT.mc_ev=click PDF: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22597/nsf22597.pdf?WT.mc_id=USNSF_32&WT.mc_ev=click Document Number: nsf22597 Public Comment: This is an NSF Program Announcements and Information - Geosciences item. Centers for Chemical Innovation (CCI) Phase I Awards and New Phase II Centers 05/17/2022    Centers for Chemical Innovation (CCI) Phase I Awards and New Phase II Centers Available Formats: HTML: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22596/nsf22596.htm?WT.mc_id=USNSF_34&WT.mc_ev=click PDF: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22596/nsf22596.pdf?WT.mc_id=USNSF_34&WT.mc_ev=click Document Number: nsf22596 Public Comment: This is an NSF Program Announcements and Information - Math/Physical Sciences item. What’s hot in science and engineering? Check out NSF research news for the day of May 17, 2022 Keep up with today’s research news from the U.S. National Science Foundation. This is a daily look at noteworthy scientific findings from researchers around the country. Tue, 17 May 2022 New study exonerates some urban pests as one-of-a-kind disease reservoirs Researchers studying whether animals living in cities carry different viruses A research team led by U.S. National Science Foundation-grantee scientists at Georgetown University has found that city wildlife might pose less threat for future pandemics than once thought. In a study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the researchers ... Continue Reading   Tue, 17 May 2022 Forests' ability to regenerate after disturbances depends on seed production Findings could boost recovery and replanting after disasters A forest's ability to regenerate after devastating wildfires, droughts or other disturbances depends largely on seed production. Findings from two U.S. National Science ... Continue Reading   For more National Science Foundation news, visit our news site. Please contact the news team for our news items. And, for our Research News items please contact the research news team.     What’s hot in science and engineering? Check out NSF research news for the day of May 18, 2022 05/18/2022 Keep up with today’s research news from the U.S. National Science Foundation. This is a daily look at noteworthy scientific findings from researchers around the country. Wed, 18 May 2022 Wastewater treatment process produces "greener" ammonia Removes ammonia from wastewater, step toward making polluted water potable Access to a safe and steady supply of water is a requirement for all life on the planet. How to manage and sustain this resource is a persistent consideration, and managing ammonia-containing wastewater is a pressing concern. Could nanotechnology provide a way to treat ... Continue Reading   Engineers fabricate microfluidic chips for biomedical applications 05/17/2022 08:00 PM EDT Wed, 18 May 2022 Engineers fabricate microfluidic chips for biomedical applications 3D-printing technique could transform medical testing devices Microfluidic devices have important applications in medical research, drug development and diagnostic tools. The compact devices have channels carved into a resin chip that enable testing on a microscale and are ... Continue Reading   For more National Science Foundation news, visit our news site. Please contact the news team for our news items. And, for our Research News items please contact the research news team.     What’s hot in science and engineering? Check out NSF research news for the day of May 19, 2022 05/19/2022 Keep up with today’s research news from the U.S. National Science Foundation. This is a daily look at noteworthy scientific findings from researchers around the country. Thu, 19 May 2022 Bioprinting bone with genes for growth factors improves bone repair Technique promotes healing and regeneration in rat skulls Researchers at Penn State, with support from a U.S. National Science Foundation grant, are bioprinting bone with encoding genes that enhance healing and regeneration. The researchers successfully used the technique... Continue Reading   Thu, 19 May 2022 Social connections influence brain structures of rhesus macaques Number of grooming partners predicts the size of certain brain areas What's the link between social life and brain structure?  A team of researchers is one step closer to understanding that  ... Continue Reading     For more National Science Foundation news, visit our news site. Please contact the news team for our news items. And, for our Research News items please contact the research news team.     NSF CISE Newsletter: May 2022 05/20/2022 Fast Links and Funding Opportunities Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Graduate Fellowships (CSGrad4US) Deadline: Application and reference letter deadline extended to June 30, 2022 Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) Deadline: Full proposal due June 27, 2022 Future of Semiconductors- Teaming for Co-Design Research Capacity (FuSe) Deadline: Full proposal due July 18, 2022 A Message from CISE Leadership Dear CISE community.  I would like to start this newsletter by announcing our new Deputy Directors, Dr. Dilma Da Silva, who will lead the Division of Computing and Communication Foundations, and Dr. Michael Littman, who will lead the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems. Dilma is joining us from Texas A&M University, and Michael joins us from Brown University. Both of them have outstanding track records of research, leadership, and outreach. We are extremely excited to have them join the CISE family in the next few months You can learn more about them in the Faces of CISE section of this newsletter.  Next, I want to call your attention to the new NSF Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) initiative that seeks regional teams drawn from academia, industry, government, nonprofits, civil society, and communities of practice, to catalyze and foster innovation ecosystems across the U.S. The CISE community clearly plays an important role in many of the technical themes outlined in the recently issued Broad Agency Announcement. I encourage you to register for upcoming events to learn more about the initiative.   Speaking of opportunities, the IUSE: CUE program can be your opportunity to rework your curriculum. For example, if students need more understanding of topics like cloud systems and cloud programming, or if you want to modernize the AI portion of your offerings, the Transformation track may be a great fit. Clearly, the Pathways and Mobilizing track are very important as well, as our field navigates better approaches for different dimensions of inclusiveness.  Last but not least, the National Academies Computer Science and Telecommunications Board recently published a report entitled, Fostering Computing Research: Foundations and Practices. This report recommends practical steps that researchers; organizations that sponsor and carry out research in academia, industry, and government; scientific societies; and scholarly publishers should take to help identify and mitigate potential harms as well as promote research providing ethical and societal benefits. I encourage everyone to read it.   I hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter and please continue to share it within your networks.  Best, Margaret Martonosi NSF Assistant Director for CISE News & Announcements NSF ACCESS awardees will advance innovations in cyberinfrastructure accessibility, user support and integration services Image Credit : U.S. National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation announced an additional investment of $52 million through the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support, or ACCESS, program. ACCESS will improve the accessibility of national cyberinfrastructure centers and increase integration with systems and research communities on campuses across the nation.   NSF announces 2022 Expeditions in Computing awardees Image Credit : A Kitterman/NSF   The U.S. National Science Foundation announced the 2022 awardees of the Expeditions in Computing awards—University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Southern California. The two awardees plan ambitious undertakings to explore emerging and transformative computing technologies to innovate superconducting materials, devices and circuits and develop organic, neuron-based computing systems.  NSF announces investment in multi-sector partnership to accelerate research in next generation networking and computing systems Image Credit: jamesteohart/Shutterstock The U.S. National Science Foundation announced a new investment of over $37 million aimed at the development of intelligent, resilient, and reliable next generation -- or NextG -- networks. The investment called RINGS—short for Resilient and Intelligent Next-Generation Systems— is a public-private partnership that focuses on accelerating research to increase the competitiveness of the U.S. in NextG networking and computing technologies.  ColdQuanta Acquires Super.tech and Announces the Commercial Availability of Hilbert, the World's First Cold Atom Quantum Computer Image Credit : ColdQuanta ColdQuanta announces the acquisition of Chicago-based Super.tech, a world leader in quantum software application and platform development. Super.tech is a company that was spun out of pioneering quantum computing research from EPiQC, an NSF Expedition in Computing at the University of Chicago.  Bringing Health Care’s Vision of Tomorrow Into Focus   Image Credit : University of Maryland   With $5 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and technology titans including Google, Microsoft and Meta (formerly known as Facebook), a trio of academic institutions are collaborating with industry and the federal government to develop, test and certify XR technologies in medicine and health care.  Get more NSF News Events May 25, 2022 NITRD 30th Anniversary Symposium May 26, 2022 NSF CAREER Proposal Submission Logistics Webinar May 26, 2022 Shaping Science: How organizations matter for interdisciplinary science June 2, 2022 Informational Webinar: Sunset of the National Robotics Initiative June 14, 2022 ACCESS Public Town Hall Webinar Program Spotlight Human-Centered Computing (HCC) Image Credit: Mary Knox Merrill, Northeastern University The CISE Human-Centered Computing (HCC) core program supports research in human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, social computing, human factors, and related areas. Broadly, HCC research addresses the intersection of computing and people, bringing together expertise from a wide range of disciplines, including social, behavioral, and computer and information sciences, as well as expertise in the problems and contexts being considered in a given project. Together, HCC projects touch many areas of social import, including work, health, education, civic life, and social interaction.  One key outcome of HCC research is deeper understanding of how humans and technologies interact. For instance, projects might study what about robots and people matters when they work in teams, or how people make sense of and draw insights from information. Other projects might focus on how social networking systems impact social interaction (and vice versa); how collaboration systems can affect work, healthcare, and education; and how machine learning, natural language processing, and related technologies might change the way we interact with systems and other people. Importantly, HCC seeks to understand the potential benefits, risks, and unintended consequences of computing systems, as called for by a recent National Academies report on “Fostering Responsible Computing Research”.   HCC research often leads to new ideas for designing or redesigning systems that leverage that understanding. Many projects develop new techniques aimed at enhancing people’s capabilities: novel methods in augmented and virtual reality, new touch- and gesture-based interfaces; systems that support new forms of collaboration and decision-making; systems that model people’s behavior and react appropriately to support creativity, learning, or other work. HCC researchers may ground these designs in specific contexts, working carefully with the people affected to make the systems more useful, accessible and effective for people with a wide range of physical and cognitive capabilities, expertise, characteristics, and backgrounds.  Human-Centered Computer Program Highlights  Pathways to Community Success: Advancing a Comparative Science of Online Collaborative Organization  Image Credit: Venessa Miemis/Flickr   The objective of this collaborative research between Northwestern University and University of Washington was to understand the factors that encourage success in computer-supported peer production—the form of online collaborative organization used to create public information goods like Wikipedia and Linux.   In the past decade, a growing number of users have turned to collaborative online content as a source of information. In parallel, organizations have looked to distributed collaboration managed through virtual and volunteer communities as a source of innovation and customer support. But why do some peer production systems mobilize large communities of contributors and create valuable information goods while others do not? One answer for this challenging question is that success-related factors may change as a collaborative organization grows, such that conditions that encouraged explosive growth in the beginning may prevent further growth later.   “The original hopes for wikis, of which there are tens of thousands beyond Wikipedia, have been only partially achieved, and they seemed to be in decline,” said NSF Program Director William Bainbridge. “Objective scientific research was needed, first to measure what was actually happening, then to develop and test hypotheses about the causes of apparent stagnation and the possible remedies that might facilitate a renaissance.”   This project provided insights about managers of online collaborative organizations: what motivates them, how they think about change, and how they moderate and manage their communities. It also gave new knowledge of how communication and moderation affect the working of communities, as well as an ecosystem perspective on how communities compete against, compare to, and merge with other communities with similar interests. Results from the project advanced scientific understanding of collaborative organizations by testing several of the most important theories of peer production and evaluating them through large-scale longitudinal comparison of many peer production systems. It also led to valuable datasets and computational social science methods that can be taken up by other people in this space. Virtual Body Ownership Illusions for Bias Reduction and Fostering Inclusivity in STEM Classrooms        Image Credit: Adrian Nestor and Michael J. Tarr, Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University Stereotypes about a person’s age, race, gender, and intellectual abilities are known to negatively affect their performance on a test or exam. Furthermore, stereotypes about mental aptitude have been linked to the underrepresentation of women and minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, which can limit innovation and creativity in technological fields.   This project led by scientists at Davidson College will investigate novel uses of virtual reality technology to combat the negative effects of stereotypes about women and underrepresented minorities that currently deter them from participating in STEM disciplines. Virtual reality technology enables its users to see the world through the eyes of, and take on certain behavioral characteristics of, someone else. This project will advance the understanding of the effects of virtual reality by investigating its ability to buffer people from negative stereotypes by briefly taking on the characteristics of people who are different from them. This virtual perspective change is expected to limit the negative effects of stereotype threat that deter students from underrepresented groups from majoring in STEM disciplines, and therefore increase recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups in STEM. Scientists expect the results of this multi-institutional experiment to be used to assess and demonstrate the potential of virtual reality to mediate negative effects caused by stereotype threat and implicit bias.  “This project takes a detailed look at the sense of inhabiting a different body in virtual reality: how systems can induce it, and how often they need to repeat it in order to enable lasting behavioral changes. If successful, the research is expected to provide a better understanding of stereotype threat in academic performance and insights into such threats in other disciplines like workplace team performance,” said NSF Program Director Balakrishnan Prabhakaran.  Healthcare Professionals Teaching Robots Communication Strategies for Effective Intervention Delivery  Image Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology   There is a persistent shortage of healthcare workers in the USA. Occupations such as behavioral therapists, nurses, physical therapists, and home care workers are among the most in demand present and future healthcare professions. Socially assistive robots are a new strategic technology that has the potential to alleviate labor concerns in the healthcare industry by amplifying the capabilities of our existing labor force in delivering healthcare interventions to individuals in need. However, these robotic technologies remain difficult to scale and to integrate in real-world healthcare intervention delivery due to the diverse and rapidly changing needs of healthcare service consumers.   This project led by Oakland University seeks to build enabling technologies for healthcare professionals to generate and customize robot-mediated interventions according to the needs of their consumers as well as their clinical settings. The goal is to allow healthcare professionals to teach robots communication strategies for effective intervention delivery so that socially assistive robots can provide services on par with their human teachers. Doing this may help address existing labor concerns for the healthcare industry and make healthcare services more accessible and adaptable to consumers through these socially assistive robots. The outcomes of this research will advance knowledge in effective human-robot communication, robot learning, and human-robot teaching interfaces.  “This project has produced a number of valuable contributions to both computer science and to the autism therapy community,” said Prabhakaran. “It has also directly impacted the lives of children with autism, helping to teach them valuable social and communication skills.”    Pervasive Data Ethics for Computational Research  Image Credit: U.S. National Science Foundation   This collaborative project led by University of Maryland, College Park, seeks to promote fair and just computational research. With the advancement and growth of technology, big data and online services, new ethical challenges have risen.  National debates have erupted over online experiments, leaked datasets, and the definition of “public” data. While investigators struggle to advise students on engaging vulnerable populations or navigating terms of service, regulators debate on how to translate traditional ethical principles into workable policy guidance.   Research addressing these challenges has hit roadblocks caused by a lack of empirical knowledge about emerging norms and expectations. This project discovers how diverse stakeholders—big data researchers, platforms, regulators, and user communities—understand their ethical obligations and choices, and how their decisions impact data system design and use. It also compares stakeholder perspectives against the risks and realities of pervasive data itself, answering fundamental questions about the fairness and ethics of such research.   To meet these goals, this project enables a collaboratory—a virtual center combining data and analytical resources—to collect empirical data on research ethics at diverse scopes and scales. The research includes multiple ethical issues (privacy, risk, respect, beneficence, justice) as well as the full network of stakeholders involved in research ethics (user communities, computing research communities, technical platforms, and regulations).   Faces of CISE: Dilma Da Silva and Michael Littman   Dilma Da Silva, Ph.D. Professor Department of Computer Science and Engineering Texas A&M University   Image Credit: Texas A&M University   Dilma Da Silva, Ph.D., is a professor and holder of the Ford Design Professorship II at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Her previous roles at TAMU include department head (2014-2019), associate dean (2019-2020), and interim director of the Institute of Data Science (2017-2018) and Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center (2021). Before joining Texas A&M, she worked at Qualcomm Research (2012-2014), IBM Research (2000-2012), and the University of São Paulo (1996-2000).  Da Silva received her doctoral degree in computer science from Georgia Tech in 1997, and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She has worked on parallel computing, distributed systems, operating systems, computer architecture, computer science education, and data analytics.   Da Silva is an Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Distinguished Scientist, a member of the board of CRA-W (Computer Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research), and a co-founder of the Latinas in Computing group. She served as an officer at ACM Special Interest Group in Operating Systems from 2011 to 2015 and chaired the ACM Senior Award Committee in 2015. She is an associate editor for several journals and is on the steering committee of many conferences. She has chaired more than 35 conferences and workshops and participated in more than 100 program committees. Recent leadership roles include program co-chair for IEEE ICDCS'21, ACM Middleware'20, Supercomputing'19, and IPDPS'19. She has published more than 100 papers and has 15 awarded patents.  “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to serve CISE and work with the CCF community. It is such an exciting time for our field! The research and education funded by CCF have had a tremendous impact on the evolution of computing, and this is just the beginning. Computer technology is now embedded in virtually all aspects of our society, amplifying the need for foundational research and the urgency in enabling emerging technologies that advance our well-being,” said Da Silva.     Michael Littman, Ph.D. Professor Department of Computer Science Brown University         Michael L. Littman, Ph.D., is the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in Computer Science at Brown University. He holds Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in computer science from Yale University, and a doctoral degree in computer science from Brown University. He also holds an adjunct appointment in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he has contributed to its online Master of Science in Computer Science program. He is co-director of Brown's Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative, and a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and Association for Computing Machinery.  Littman began his research career almost 35 years ago working at Bell Communications Research (Bellcore)—the research arm of regional telephone companies. He worked in the Cognitive Science Research Group, where his interests spanned the areas covered by the Information and Intelligent Systems division. He contributed to papers on machine learning, information retrieval, human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, and informational visualization.  His later work focused on decision-making under uncertainty and environment models that are of central interest in artificial intelligence—partially observable Markov decision processes to capture uncertainty in perception, and Markov games to capture uncertainty in the behavior of other decision makers. His work on these topics as well as on reinforcement learning and crossword-puzzle solving has received awards from major machine learning and artificial intelligence organizations.   Littman's teaching has received top honors including the Robert B. Cox Award (Duke University), the Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching (Rutgers University), and the Philip J. Bray Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Physical Sciences at Brown University. He is passionate about communicating computer science to the public, producing a collection of parody song videos on YouTube, TEDx talks on the future of artificial intelligence and our role in it, and co-hosting a monthly podcast called “Computing Up.” He was selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as a Fellow of the Leshner Leadership Institute for Public Engagement with Science in Artificial Intelligence. Littman chaired the panel that wrote the 2021 report for The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100), entitled, “Gathering Strength, Gathering Storms.” His book “Code-Dependent No More: How We Tell Machines What To Do and Why Everyone Should Learn” is on schedule to be released by The MIT Press in 2023.  “Throughout my career, I've benefited from government research funding through DARPA and ONR, but primarily from NSF CISE/IIS. It's an honor to become a part of the team that does so much to support our diverse and creative research community,” said Littman. “It's hard to imagine a time in history when information and intelligent systems have played a more significant role in shaping the future of society.”  CISE Units Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS) CNS invents new computing and networking technologies, while ensuring their security and privacy, and finds new ways to make use of current technologies. Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) CCF advances computing and communication theory, algorithms for computer and computational sciences and architecture and the design of computers and software.   Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) IIS studies the interrelated roles of people, computers and information to increase the ability to understand data, as well as mimic the hallmarks of intelligence in computational systems. Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) OAC supports and coordinates the development, acquisition and provision of state-of-the-art cyberinfrastructure resources, tools and services essential to the advancement and transformation of Science and engineering. Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) 05/20/2022   Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) Available Formats: HTML: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22598/nsf22598.htm?WT.mc_id=USNSF_27&WT.mc_ev=click Document Number: nsf22598 Public Comment: This is an NSF Program Announcements and Information - Computer/Information Sciences item.