OARS funding Architecture

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 Course Hero-Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching will support rising stars in the academy who love teaching, demonstrate excellence as educators, and are making their mark as exceptional researchers, poised to shape their fields. Designed for young scholars working towards tenure, the Course Hero-WW Fellowship is a "genius grant" that will emphasize the balance between scholarly excellence and commitment to teaching practice that draws on new approaches to pedagogy, creating a new level of engagement for students in and beyond the classroom. In short, Fellows will be emerging heroes in their fields, on a clear trajectory to become great college educators. In its inaugural year, the Course Hero-WW Fellowship will identify five outstanding junior faculty members. Fellows will receive a one-year grant of $40,000-approximately $30,000 to support the engagement of a student assistant and the balance to be used for research and travel support. Exceptional candidates teach in ways that build student confidence and mastery of a subject; encourage critical thinking; explore foundational concepts through the lens of broader themes and global events; promote the power of learning communities beyond the classroom; leverage technology to complement the classroom experience; consider and serve different learning styles; prepare students for lifelong learning; and can serve as replicable teaching models for other educators. Selection takes place in June 2018. The five Fellows will be invited to attend the Course Hero Education Summit in July 2018, where their Fellowships will be announced.

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.

The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) announces its interest in receiving applications to explore of the suitability of various implementations of quantum computing hardware for science applications. This foundational research will facilitate the development of device architectures well-suited for scientific applications of quantum computing and improve our understanding of the advantages and limitations of various approaches to quantum computing for science applications. The purpose of this FOA is to invite applications for foundational research in the following two areas: 1. Exploring the relationship between device architecture and application performance 2. Developing meaningful metrics for evaluating the suitability of quantum computing hardware for science applications Applications may address one or both of these themes. Proposed research should focus on devices that are already available or that become available during the term of the award rather than large-scale, high-fidelity, fault-tolerant machines. Funded teams will be expected to collaborate externally with researchers working to develop applications and algorithms that can expand the frontiers of scientific discovery. Funded teams will also be expected to participate in community engagement activities that support the growth of an active, integrated research community committed to the common goal of developing quantum computing resources for advancing scientific discovery. Topics that are out of scope include: development and optimization of quantum algorithms; development of new candidate qubit systems; schemes based on qubits that have not yet demonstrated high-fidelity gates; schemes to improve the performance and functionality of qubits; quantum transduction; quantum communication, networking, and key distribution; cryptography and cryptanalysis; and logical qubits beyond considerations given to scaling to ~10 qubit devices.

The New Era of University Innovation & Commercialization This panel discussion examines the future of university and business collaboration, with a focus on inclusive innovation. Thursday, April 19, 2018 from 3:30 PM to 4:45 PM (EDT) Oxford, OH

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications from the Program Directors/Principal Investigators of the current Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) awards. BUILD is part of the Enhancing the Diversity of the NIH-Funded Workforce Program, also known as the Diversity Program Consortium (DPC), consists of three integrated initiatives: BUILD, the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) and the Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC). The purpose of the funding is to allow BUILD sites to continue to implement and evaluate the multi-pronged student, faculty, and institutional interventions to enhance diversity in the NIH biomedical research workforce. In preparation for the second phase of the BUILD initiative, the applicants are expected to provide plans to transition into sustainable models for enhancing diversity in the biomedical research fields at their institutions. Applicants are also expected to develop an effective training, mentoring, or research capacity building intervention that will be disseminated to other institutions to increase the national impact of the initiative.

With this publication, HUD is making available up to $5,000,000 for Planning Grants, including Planning and Action Grants.1. Planning Grants are two-year grants that assist communities with severely distressed public or HUD-assisted housing in developing a successful neighborhood transformation plan and building the support necessary for that plan to be successfully implemented.2. Planning and Action Grants are three and a half year planning grants that pair planning with action. Experience shows that tangible actions taken early on help communities build momentum for further planning and the eventual transition from planning to implementation of that plan. These actions improve neighborhood confidence, which in turn sustains the community’s energy, attracts more engagement and resources, and helps convince skeptical stakeholders that positive change is possible. Under these grants, the planning process activities would take place during the first 24 months of the grant period. The planning process will identify Action Activities that will be carried out during the latter portion of the grant period. Action Activities must build upon the planning for the target housing and neighborhood.

The proliferation of mobile and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, and their pervasiveness across nearly every sphere of our society, continues to raise questions about the architectures that organize tomorrow's compute infrastructure. At the heart of this trend is the data that will be generated as myriad devices and application services operate simultaneously to digitize a complex domain like a smart building or smart industrial facility. A key shift is from edge devices consuming data produced in the cloud to edge devices being a voluminous producer of data. This shift reopens a broad variety of system-level research questions concerning data placement, movement, processing and sharing. Importantly, the shift also opens the door to compelling new applications with significant industrial and societal impact in domains such as healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, public safety, energy, buildings, and telecommunications.

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).

To that end, the foundation has issued a Request for Proposals for its seventh annual Transform Research Grants, which provide essential funding to applied research projects that address critical gaps in industry knowledge, advance design understanding, and transform the practice of interior design. Funds will be awarded through two grant categories: Seed/Start-Up Funds and Research Projects.

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.

Founded in 1956, the Chicago-based Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts provides project-based grants to individuals and organizations and produces public programs to foster the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society.

The Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence (RBA) is a national design award that recognizes transformative urban places distinguished by their economic and social contributions to America's cities. Founded in 1986 by architect Simeon Bruner, the award promotes innovative thinking about the built environment by celebrating and sharing the stories of creative and inspiring urban development.

2019 Preservation Technology and Training Grants (PTT Grants) are intended to create better tools, better materials, and better approaches to conserving buildings, landscapes, sites, and collections. The PTT Grants are administered by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT), the National Park Services innovation center for the preservation community. The competitive grants program will provide funding to federal agencies, states, tribes, local governments, and non-profit organizations. PTT Grants will support the following activities: 1. Innovative research that develops new technologies or adapts existing technologies to preserve cultural resources (typically $25,000 to $30,000) 2. Specialized workshops or symposia that identify and address national preservation needs (typically $15,000 to $25,000) 3. How-to videos, mobile applications, podcasts, best practices publications, or webinars that disseminate practical preservation methods or provide better tools for preservation practice (typically $5,000 to $15,000) The maximum grant award is $30,000. The actual grant award amount is dependent on the scope of the proposed activity. NCPTT does not fund bricks and mortar grants.

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.

Miami University researchers can provide input about the professional development opportunities they'd like to see OARS offer in the next year by completing this 5-minute survey.

Through funding of national organizations with expertise in rural housing and community development, the Rural Capacity Building (RCB) program enhances the capacity and ability of rural housing development organizations, Community Development Corporations (CDCs), Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDOs), local governments, and Indian tribes to carry out community development and affordable housing activities that benefit low- and moderate-income families and persons in rural areas. a. Eligible Program Activities. Funds may be used to provide the following services: Training, education, support, and advice to enhance the technical and administrative capabilities of rural housing development organizations, CDCs, CHDOs, local governments, and Indian tribes, including the capacity to participate in consolidated planning, as well as in fair housing planning and Continuum of Care homeless assistance efforts that help ensure community-wide participation in assessing area needs; consulting broadly within the community; cooperatively planning for the use of available resources in a comprehensive and holistic manner; and assisting in evaluating performance under these community efforts and in linking plans with neighboring communities in order to foster regional planning; Loans, pass-through grants or other financial assistance to rural housing organizations, CDCs, CHDOs, local governments, and Indian tribes to carry-out community development and affordable housing activities that benefit low-income or low- and moderate-income families and persons by building the capacity of those eligible beneficiaries to serve rural communities over time. Such other activities as may be determined by the grantees in consultation with the Secretary or his or her designee. Program Priorities.

The LEAP HI program challenges the engineering research community to take a leadership role in addressing demanding, urgent, and consequential challenges for advancing America’s prosperity, health and infrastructure. LEAP HI proposals confront engineering problems that are too complex to yield to the efforts of a single investigator --- problems that require sustained and coordinated effort from interdisciplinary research teams, with goals that are not achievable through a series of smaller, short-term projects. LEAP HI projects perform fundamental research that may lead to disruptive technologies and methods, lay the foundation for new and strengthened industries, enable notable improvements in quality of life, or reimagine and revitalize the built environment. LEAP HI supports fundamental research projects involving collaborating investigators, of duration up to five years, with total budget between $1 million and $2 million. LEAP HI proposals must articulate a fundamental research problem with compelling intellectual challenge and significant societal impact, particularly on economic competitiveness, quality of life, public health, or essential infrastructure. One or more CMMI core topics must lie at the heart of the proposal, and integration of disciplinary expertise not typically engaged in CMMI-funded projects is encouraged. LEAP HI proposals must highlight engineering research in a leadership role. LEAP HI proposals must demonstrate the need for a sustained research effort by an integrated, interdisciplinary team, and should include aresearch integrationplan and timeline for research activities, with convincing mechanisms for frequent and effective communication.

The Spencer Foundation is accepting proposals for its Conference Grants program, which provides support to scholars for small research conferences and focused symposia. The program intends to bring together researchers whose substantive knowledge, theoretical insight, and methodological expertise can be assembled in ways that build upon and advance best practices in education research. The foundation rotates the programs area of focus periodically to generate fresh ideas and perspectives on pressing educational challenges. Currently, it is seeking proposals from scholars whose interests are related to creating and sustaining equitable educational spaces. The program will support conference proposals with budgets of up to $50,000. Principal investigators and Co-PIs applying for a conference grant must have earned a doctorate degree in an academic discipline or professional field, or demonstrate appropriate experience in an education research-related profession. In addition, the PI must be affiliated with a college, university, school district, nonprofit research facility, or non-profit cultural institution that is willing to serve as the fiscal agent if the grant is awarded.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) hereby requests applications for assistance to result in the award of a Cooperative Agreement (Agreement), entitled "Development and Deployment of Innovative Asphalt Pavement Technologies." The purpose of this proposed Agreement is to stimulate, facilitate, and expedite the deployment and rapid adoption of new and innovative technology relating to the design, production, testing, control, construction, and investigation of asphalt pavements. The proposed project is a cooperative effort between the FHWA and the Recipient to improve the quality and performance of asphalt pavements. Products shall include developing marketing/implementation plans, engaging subject matter experts to aid in conducting forensic investigations pertaining to deployment and in the refinement of specifications and practices, developing web-based training tools, marketing of case studies, data analysis, market analysis, specification tracking, compilation of findings, and supporting stakeholder engagement. This effort will leverage the unique technology capabilities and facilities of the Recipient with FHWA's mission.