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The Civil Infrastructure Systems (CIS) program supports fundamental and innovative research necessary for designing, constructing, managing, maintaining, operating and protecting efficient, resilient and sustainable civil infrastructure systems. Research that recognizes the role that these systems play in societal functioning and accounts for how human behavior and social organizations contribute to and affect the performance of these systems is encouraged. While component-level, subject-matter knowledge may be crucial in many research efforts, this program focuses on the civil infrastructure as a system in which interactions between spatially-distributed components and intersystem connections exist. Thus, intra- and inter-physical, information and behavioral dependencies of these systems are also of particular interest. Topics pertaining to transportation systems, construction engineering, infrastructure systems and infrastructure management are a focus of this program. Research that considers either or both ordinary and disrupted operating environments is relevant. Methodological contributions pertaining to systems engineering and design, network analysis and optimization, performance management, vulnerability and risk analysis, mathematical and simulation modeling, exact and approximate algorithm development, control theory, statistical forecasting, dynamic and stochastic systems approaches, multi-attribute decision theory, and incorporation of behavioral and social considerations, not excluding other methodological areas or the integration of methods, specific to this application are encouraged. Additional research of interest exploits data/information, and takes advantage of relevant technological advances, such as social media. In general, research that has the promise of long-lasting, cascading (hopefully escalating) impact on the wider research community through its theoretical, scientific, mathematical or computational contributions is valued. The program d

The Energy, Power, Control, and Networks (EPCN) Program supports innovative research in modeling, optimization, learning, adaptation, and control of networked multi-agent systems, higher-level decision making, and dynamic resource allocation, as well as risk management in the presence of uncertainty, sub-system failures, and stochastic disturbances. EPCN also invests in novel machine learning algorithms and analysis, adaptive dynamic programming, brain-like networked architectures performing real-time learning, and neuromorphic engineering. EPCN's goal is to encourage research on emerging technologies and applications including energy, transportation, robotics, and biomedical devices & systems. EPCN also emphasizes electric power systems, including generation, transmission, storage, and integration of renewable energy sources into the grid; power electronics and drives; battery management systems; hybrid and electric vehicles; and understanding of the interplay of power systems with associated regulatory & economic structures and with consumer behavior.

PD 15-1637, Structural and Architectural Engineering (SAE) program replaces Hazard Mitigation and Structural Engineering (HMSE) program. The overall goal of the Structural and Architectural Engineering (SAE) program is to evolve sustainable structures, such as buildings, that can be continuously occupied and /or operational during the structure's useful life. The SAE program supports fundamental research for advancing knowledge and innovation in structural and architectural engineering that enables holistic approach to design, construction, operation, maintenance, retrofit, repair and end-of-life disposal of structures. For buildings, holistic approach incorporates the foundation-structure-envelope-nonstructural system, as well as the façade and roofing. Research topics of interest for sustainable structures include the following: strategies for structures that over their lifecycle are cost-effective, make efficient use of resources and energy, and incorporate sustainable structural and architectural materials; deterioration due to fatigue and corrosion; serviceability concerns due to large deflections and vibrations; and advances in physics-based computational modeling and simulation. Research is encouraged that integrates discoveries from other science and engineering fields, such as materials science, building science, mechanics of materials, dynamic systems and control, reliability, risk analysis, architecture, economics and human factors. The program also supports research in sustainable and holistic foundation-structure-envelope-nonstructural systems and materials as described in the following reports: * National Science and Technology Council, High Performance Buildings; Final Report: Federal R & D Agenda for Net Zero Energy, High-Performance Green Buildings. Building Technology Research and Development (BTRD) Subcommittee, OSTP, U.S. Government, September 2008. http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/ostp/NSTC%20Reports/Federal%20RD%20Agenda%20for%20N

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are engineered systems that are built from, and depend upon, the seamless integration of computation and physical components. Advances in CPS will enable capability, adaptability, scalability, resiliency, safety, security, and usability that will expand the horizons of these critical systems. CPS technologies are transforming the way people interact with engineered systems, just as the Internet has transformed the way people interact with information. New, smart CPS drive innovation and competition in a range of application domains including agriculture, aeronautics, building design, civil infrastructure, energy, environmental quality, healthcare and personalized medicine, manufacturing, and transportation. Moreover, the integration of artificial intelligence with CPS creates new research opportunities with major societal implications.

The Engineering for Civil Infrastructure (ECI) program supports fundamental research that will shape the future of our nation's constructed civil infrastructure, subjected to and interacting with the natural environment, to meet the needs of humans. In this context, research driven by radical rethinking of traditional civil infrastructure in response to emerging technological innovations, changing population demographics, and evolving societal needs is encouraged. The ECI program focuses on the physical infrastructure, such as the soil-foundation-structure-envelope-nonstructural building system; geostructures; and underground facilities. It seeks proposals that advance knowledge and methodologies within geotechnical, structural, architectural, materials, coastal, and construction engineering, especially that include collaboration with researchers from other fields, including, for example, biomimetics, bioinspired design, advanced computation, data science, materials science, additive manufacturing, robotics, and control theory. Research may explore holistic building systems that view construction, geotechnical, structural, and architectural design as an integrated system; adaptive building envelope systems; nonconventional building materials; breakthroughs in remediated geological materials; and transformational construction processes. Principal investigators are encouraged to consider civil infrastructure subjected to and interacting with the natural environment under “normal” operating conditions; intermediate stress conditions (such as deterioration, and severe locational and climate conditions); and extreme single or multi natural hazard events (including earthquakes, windstorms, tsunamis, storm surges, sinkholes, subsidence, and landslides).

The Defense Sciences Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of optical systems capable of extreme performance and/or capabilities, which utilize Engineered optical Materials (EnMats). Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, and/or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.

The Defense Sciences Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of optical systems capable of extreme performance and/or capabilities, which utilize Engineered optical Materials (EnMats). Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, and/or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.

The overall goal of the Structural and Architectural Engineering and Materials (SAEM) program is to enable sustainable buildings and other structures that can be continuously occupied and/or operated during the structure's useful life. The SAEM program supports fundamental research for advancing knowledge and innovation in structural and architectural engineering and materials that promotes a holistic approach to analysis and design, construction, operation, maintenance, retrofit, and repair of structures. For buildings, all components including the foundation-structure-envelope (the façade, curtain-wall and roofing) and interior systems, are of interest to the program. Research in new engineering concepts and design paradigms for buildings that have significantly reduced dependence and interdependence on municipal infrastructure through, for example, self-hydrating (closed-loop water system) and self-heating-cooling-ventilating (energy usage) is encouraged. In addition, the program targets research in the building systems that are reconfigurable for rapid construction, disassembly and disposal, are reliable and resilient, and are less complex. Research topics of interest for sustainable structures include the following: strategies for structures that over their lifecycle are cost-effective, make efficient use of resources and energy, and incorporate sustainable structural and architectural materials; mitigation of deterioration due to fatigue and corrosion; serviceability related to large deflections and vibrations; and advances in physics-based computational modeling and simulation.

The purpose of the NOAA Research to Operations (R2O) Initiative is to expand and accelerate critical weather forecasting research to operations to address growing service demands and increase the accuracy of weather forecasts. This will be achieved through: (1) accelerated development and implementation of improved global weather prediction models, and inclusion of the coupling of atmosphere, ocean, wave, land surface and ice system components; (2) improved data assimilation techniques; (3) nested regional prediction capabilities; (4) improved hurricane and tropical cyclone modeling techniques; (5) improved ensemble techniques; (6) post-processing forecast tools and techniques; and (7) improved software architecture and system engineering.

The Geotechnical Engineering and Materials Program (GEM) supports fundamental research in soil and rock mechanics and dynamics in support of physical civil infrastructure systems. Also supported is research on improvement of the engineering properties of geologic materials for infrastructure use by mechanical, biological, thermal, chemical, and electrical processes. The Program supports the traditional areas of foundation engineering, earth structures, underground construction, tunneling, geoenvironmental engineering, and site characterization, as well as the emerging area of bio-geo engineering, for civil engineering applications, with emphasis on sustainable geosystems. Research related to the geotechnical engineering aspects of geothermal energy and geothermal heat pump systems is also supported. The GEM program encourages knowledge dissemination and technology transfer activities that can lead to broader societal benefit and implementation for provision of physical civil infrastructure. The Program also encourages research that explores and builds upon advanced computing techniques and tools to enable major advances in Geotechnical Engineering.

The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to seek information from developers and manufacturers of gasifier equipment, power generation equipment manufacturers, utilities, power plant architects and engineers, and other stakeholders that can be used as input to a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) research and development (R&D) program for versatile gasification technology for modular or small-scale conversion/consumption of a wide range of feedstocks, including coal, biomass, municipal solid waste (MSW), energetic materials and munitions, and other opportunity feedstocks. Modular implementations of gasification imply unit sizes of approximately 1 to 5 MWe equivalent, while applications for the syngas produced could range from power generation to fuels synthesis and beyond. Modular gasification implementations or systems are expected to find a place in the market through high efficiency, thoughtful integration of system components, and reduction of costs. For example, combined heat and power (CHP) applications of modular gasification technology would enable higher overall efficiencies and diversity of product value.

Weigh-in-motion (WIM) systems are a vital means for collecting traffic data-critical input for pavement and bridge designs-used for making transportation and freight planning decisions and in highway safety investigations. There are, however, many potential sources of error in WIM measurements which make it difficult for data collectors to evaluate data accuracy and consistency. For over a decade, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program collected a massive amount of WIM data, along with information about the performance of WIM equipment. This includes the WIM validation and calibration data from 24 LTPP Specific Pavement Studies (SPS) test sites across North America. This and other data sets provide an opportunity to develop more advanced WIM tools to help state highway practitioners perform WIM site selection, sensor selection, maintenance, development of calibration procedures including frequency, and data quality acceptance. These tools could help improve WIM data accuracy and consistency by considering factors such as temperature and seasonal effects, vehicle speed, pavement condition, changes in truck population and configurations, data sampling frequencies, system age, and other factors.

Building America Industry Partnerships and Research Priorities for High Performance Housing Innovation - 2018 The mission of BTO's Residential Buildings Integration (RBI) Program is to accelerate energy performance improvements in existing and new residential buildings using an integrated building systems approach to achieve peak energy performance. The RBI Program's market outcome goal is to reduce, by 2025, the energy used for space conditioning and water heating in single-family homes by 40% from 2010 levels. RBI's focus on space conditioning and water heating offers the best opportunities for influencing residential energy use. With this FOA, RBI will select building science project teams in 2018 for the Building America Program to accelerate energy performance improvements in existing and new residential buildings using an integrated building systems approach, and achieve optimal home energy performance. These Building America teams will work with industry partners and real world homes to develop and validate technologies and practices that achieve optimal energy and cost performance while effectively managing related risks (e.g., indoor air quality and moisture durability).

On October 18, 2015, a flash flood swept through Grapevine Canyon, flooding the grounds of the Death Valley Scotty Historic District (Scottyâ¿¿s Castle), a historic mansion complex that is the focus of a robust interpretive tour program. Scottyâ¿¿s Castle is unique in that the historic house is filled with the actual objects of the owners during the period of significance. House tours provide visitors with an opportunity to connect to a unique cast of characters and an unforgettable story that typifies early twentieth century themes of westward expansion, mining, the 1920s as the prosperity decade, early development of national parks, and the impacts of western settlement on tribal cultures. During the flood, mud and debris up to four feet thick filled two buildings, patios and courtyards. Eight miles of roadway were washed out, as well as water, power, telephone, and internet lines. The waste water treatment system was destroyed, and heating, cooling, and fire sprinkler systems were severely damaged. The site is now closed to the public, and park managers have embarked on a course of action intended to repair all the damage and reopen the site in 2019. Operating and maintaining a historic this historic complex is costly and presents many logistical challenges. DVNHA has had a long history of supporting the operation and maintenance of Scottyâ

Developments in bridge design and analysis in recent years have created the need for improvements to cross-frame analysis and design for steel girder bridges. In the past, the configuration of cross-frame systems was generally based upon standard designs in which member sizes and layouts were dependent upon geometry and minimum member cross-section requirements. The opportunities for improvements to cross-frame analysis and design cover a variety of topics including: (1) improved definition of fatigue loading for cross frames in curved and/or severely skewed steel girder bridges analyzed using refined analysis methods; (2) implementation of stability bracing strength and stiffness requirements in the context of AASHTO Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) bridge design; and (3) additional guidance for adjustment of the effective stiffness of cross-frame members in refined analysis models to reflect the influence of end connections on cross-frame member stiffness. Addressing these topics could result in a dramatic improvement in reliability and economy of cross frames for steel I-girder bridges.

Developments in bridge design and analysis in recent years have created the need for improvements to cross-frame analysis and design for steel girder bridges. In the past, the configuration of cross-frame systems was generally based upon standard designs in which member sizes and layouts were dependent upon geometry and minimum member cross-section requirements. The opportunities for improvements to cross-frame analysis and design cover a variety of topics including: (1) improved definition of fatigue loading for cross frames in curved and/or severely skewed steel girder bridges analyzed using refined analysis methods; (2) implementation of stability bracing strength and stiffness requirements in the context of AASHTO Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) bridge design; and (3) additional guidance for adjustment of the effective stiffness of cross-frame members in refined analysis models to reflect the influence of end connections on cross-frame member stiffness. Addressing these topics could result in a dramatic improvement in reliability and economy of cross frames for steel I-girder bridges.  

The Board of Regents is seeking high quality, focused cooperative education and internship program proposals from Ohio institutions of higher education and their partners. This program has been funded  through one-time casino licensing fees; it is expected that the funds will be awarded to build systems to sustain co-ops and internships beyond the direct investment from the State and to ensure these workbased learning opportunities are relevant to the needs of students and businesses. Funds will be awarded to build the capability and capacity of programs to engage more students, more businesses,  and more faculty members in co-op and internship programs. The programs should address the talent needs of JobsOhio key industries.

This program seeks to accelerate fundamental, broad-based research on wireless-specific machine learning (ML) techniques, towards a new wireless system and architecture design, which can dynamically access shared spectrum, efficiently operate with limited radio and network resources, and scale to address the diverse and stringent quality-of-service requirements of future wireless applications. In parallel, this program also targets research on reliable distributed ML by addressing the challenge of computation over wireless edge networks to enable ML for wireless and future applications. Model-based approaches for designing the wireless network stack have proven quite efficient in delivering the networks in wide use today; research enabled by this program is expected to identify realistic problems that can be best solved by ML and to address fundamental questions about expected improvements from using ML over model-based methods.

The objective of this study is to assess the effect of truck traffic on bridge performance by conducting the following: Collect quality truck traffic and loads data (volumes, classifications, size, weights, and other relevant data) by installing, maintaining, calibrating, and utilizing state of art instrumentation at selected bridge sites nationally, for the purpose of calibrating bridge specifications and quantifying load-induced deterioration of bridge elements and systems to establish bridge performance and serviceability criteria for improved long-term bridge performance, management and operations. This research requires the deployment of market-ready, low risk, state-of-practice technologies to monitor in-service bridges, collect bridge load and response data, and bridge component deterioration and establish correlations that are applicable to illustrate the impact of vehicular live loads on bridge component performance.

The GLCPC is seeking innovative proposals that fall into four categories: Scaling studies: The scaling of codes which will operate efficiently on large numbers of parallel processors presents a number of challenges.  Therefore, projects of particular interest include those that optimize and/or scale community codes to very large scales. Examples include scaling of multilevel parallel applications (MPI+OpenMP), accelerators (CUDA, OpenACC or OpenCL), I/O and Data intensive applications, or novel communication topologies.  Multi-GLCPC-institutional projects addressing focused scientific projects. An example might be a Great Lakes Ecosystems Modeling initiative (Digital Great Lakes). Proposals for applications well-suited for the BW system architecture. Proposals from non-traditional and underserved communities.  

The following programs have due dates that fall between October 1 - 25, 2013, and these dates are being revised due to the Federal  government shutdown. These revised dates apply whether the proposal is being submitted via the NSF FastLane System or  Grants.gov. Due to compressed proposal deadlines resulting from the shutdown, proposers are advised that they may experience a  delay when contacting IT Help Central with technical support questions. Frequently asked questions regarding these date changes  are available on the Resumption of Operations page on the NSF website at: http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/postshutdown.jsp. 

The confluence of transistor scaling, increases in the number of architecture designs per process generation, the slowing of clock frequency growth, and recent success in research exploiting thread-level parallelism (TLP) and data-level parallelism (DLP) all point to an increasing opportunity for innovative microarchitecture techniques and methodologies in delivering performance growth in the future. The NSF/Intel Partnership on Foundational Microarchitecture Research will support transformative microarchitecture research targeting improvements in instructions per cycle (IPC). This solicitation seeks microarchitecture technique innovations beyond simplistic, incremental scaling of existing microarchitectural structures. Specifically, FoMR seeks to advance research that has the following characteristics: (1) high IPC techniques ranging from microarchitecture to code generation; (2) "microarchitecture turbo" techniques that marshal chip resources and system memory bandwidth to accelerate sequential or single-threaded programs; and (3) techniques to support efficient compiler code generation. Advances in these areas promise to provide significant performance improvements that continue the trends characterized by Moore's Law.