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The U.S. Army Research Office (ARO) in collaboration with the National Security Agency (NSA) is soliciting proposals for research in High Performance Superconducting Qubit Systems. This BAA has two primary goals; (a) substantially improve the fidelity of one and two-qubit operations over current state-of-the-art performance, and (b) design and test qubits with built-in error protection. While proposals that advance both primary goals in an integrated approach are encouraged, proposers may focus on either goal individually, given the state-of-the-art of their approach. There are two types of proposals with different research scopes covered in this announcement: 1. High performance superconducting qubit systems a. High Fidelity 2-qubit gates b. Error protected qubits 2. Key supporting technology to high-performance superconducting qubits

This NOFO will support achievement of national targets for 2018 antiretroviral therapy (ART) scale-up towards the UNAIDS Fast Track Targets in Ukraine. The recipient will implement innovative and effective recruitment and case management models for persons who inject drugs (PWID) and men who have sex with men (MSM) at the community level. These innovative changes will increase uptake of HIV community based testing and increase ART initiation for these populations. The recipient will pilot risk network-based testing using point-of-care recency assays to link recently infected PWID to care. The project will focus on the six regions with the highest HIV burden (Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolayiv, Odesa, government controlled areas (GCA) of Donetsk, Kyiv City, and Kherson) and continue to work in six additional medium burden oblasts (Cherkasy, Poltava, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhya, Kirovohrad, and Kyiv). The recipient will also increase the capacity of the Government of Ukraine’s Center for Public Health (CPH) and regional monitoring and evaluation (M&E) centers specialists to conduct data analysis using statistical software and build institutional capacity to conduct economic evaluations of HIV interventions. Illustrative strategic information (SI) activities include development of trainings to support the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the newly established CPH in using statistical software, routine analysis of surveillance data, study design, and research protocol development.

The U. S. Air Force is seeking to reinvigorate and expand its NC3 capabilities, updating the capabilities of legacy systems and incorporating new platforms and communication systems. Toward this goal the Information Directorate is working closely with the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and the Air Force Global Strike Command to define the art of the possible for future NC3 architectures and survivable and enduring communication systems. Each new NC3 capability also brings with it the potential to introduce new cyber vulnerabilities. Understanding these risks and their potential consequences can help the Air Force shape future operating concepts for the NC3 architecture.

The U. S. Air Force is seeking to reinvigorate and expand its NC3 capabilities, updating the capabilities of legacy systems and incorporating new platforms and communication systems. Toward this goal the Information Directorate is working closely with the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and the Air Force Global Strike Command to define the art of the possible for future NC3 architectures and survivable and enduring communication systems. Each new NC3 capability also brings with it the potential to introduce new cyber vulnerabilities. Understanding these risks and their potential consequences can help the Air Force shape future operating concepts for the NC3 architecture.

The Battelle Memorial Institute-Ohio State partnership fosters programs that examine the complex relationship between science and technology and broader social and cultural issues. Strong emphasis is placed on educational and public service projects rather than pure research. Interdisciplinary collaborations within the university and collaborations with other institutions are especially encouraged. Projects that address engineering-related topics or feature collaborations between engineering and the social sciences or arts/humanities are particularly welcomed.

The International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program supports high-performance network connectivity required by international science and engineering research and education collaborations involving the NSF research community. NSF expects to make 1-2 awards to link U.S. research networks with peer networks in Europe and Africa and leverage existing international network connectivity. High-performance network connections funded by this program are intended to support science and engineering research and education applications, and preference will be given to solutions that provide the best economy of scale and demonstrate the ability to support the largest communities of interest with the broadest services. Funded projects will assist the U.S. research and education community by enabling state-of-the-art international network services and access to increased collaboration and data services. Through extended international network connections, additional research and production network services will be enabled, complementing those currently offered or planned by domestic research networks.

The International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program supports high-performance network connectivity required by international science and engineering research and education collaborations involving the NSF research community. NSF expects to make 1-2 awards to link U.S. research networks with peer networks in Europe and Africa and leverage existing international network connectivity. High-performance network connections funded by this program are intended to support science and engineering research and education applications, and preference will be given to solutions that provide the best economy of scale and demonstrate the ability to support the largest communities of interest with the broadest services. Funded projects will assist the U.S. research and education community by enabling state-of-the-art international network services and access to increased collaboration and data services. Through extended international network connections, additional research and production network services will be enabled, complementing those currently offered or planned by domestic research networks.

AFOSR is seeking proposals to provide independent, objective analysis of scientific and technical topics of relevance to the Air Force and national defense. The activity would include refining areas of interest provided by the Air Force into organized, rigorous studies concerning, for many scientific and technical fields, determining the state of the art, projecting trends, utilizing science and technologies for national defense purposes, and identifying promising or necessary areas of additional study. This announcement solicits proposals for up to five (5) years of performance and up to $25M of funding, dependent on the needs of the Air Force and the availability of funding. All proposals must be unclassified, but work under any award may be classified.

AFOSR is seeking proposals to provide independent, objective analysis of scientific and technical topics of relevance to the Air Force and national defense. The activity would include refining areas of interest provided by the Air Force into organized, rigorous studies concerning, for many scientific and technical fields, determining the state of the art, projecting trends, utilizing science and technologies for national defense purposes, and identifying promising or necessary areas of additional study. This announcement solicits proposals for up to five (5) years of performance and up to $25M of funding, dependent on the needs of the Air Force and the availability of funding. All proposals must be unclassified, but work under any award may be classified.

The Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation (ATI) program provides grants to support the development and construction of state-of-the-art astronomical detectors and instruments for the visible, infrared, submillimeter, and radio regions of the spectrum.  Successful proposals will involve the application of new hardware and software technology and/or innovative techniques in astronomical research in any of a broad range of fields, including (but not limited to) imaging instruments and spectrometers, semiconducting and superconducting detector arrays for astronomy, precision radial velocity hardware, polarization measurement hardware and techniques, correlator hardware, interferometric imaging, and adaptive optics.

The Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation (ATI) program provides grants to support the development and construction of state-of-the-art astronomical detectors and instruments for the visible, infrared, submillimeter, and radio regions of the spectrum.  Successful proposals will involve the application of new hardware and software technology and/or innovative techniques in astronomical research in any of a broad range of fields, including (but not limited to) imaging instruments and spectrometers, semiconducting and superconducting detector arrays for astronomy, precision radial velocity hardware, polarization measurement hardware and techniques, correlator hardware, interferometric imaging, and adaptive optics.

The U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City invites proposals for projects that focus on at least one of the priority women's empowerment programs and target audiences specified including Professional Skills, Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) and Business, Media & Arts, Civil Society, Women in Politics and Governance, and Underprivileged and Vulnerable Groups.

The U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for organizations to submit applications to carry out a program (or project) in the following focus areas: - improve the quality of English language education at the secondary and higher education levels; - improve the quality of, and access to, science, technology, engineering, arts and design, and mathematics (STEAM) education for girls at the secondary and higher education levels; - inspire entrepreneurship among youth in under-represented communities particularly among women, Afro-descendent, and indigenous communities.

The NSF's vision for Advanced Computing Infrastructure (ACI), which is part of its Cyberinfrastructure for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21), focuses specifically on ensuring that the science and engineering community has ready access to the advanced computational and data-driven capabilities required to tackle the most complex problems and issues facing today's scientific and educational communities. To accomplish these goals requires advanced computational capabilities within the context of a multilevel comprehensive and innovative infrastructure that benefits all fields of science and engineering. Previous solicitations have concentrated on enabling petascale capability through the deployment and support of a world-class High Performance Computing (HPC) environment. In the past decade the NSF has provided the open science and engineering community with a number of state-of-the art HPC assets ranging from loosely coupled clusters, to large scale instruments with many thousands of computing cores communicating via fast interconnects, and more recently with diverse heterogeneous architectures. Recent developments in computational science have begun to focus on complex, dynamic and diverse workflows. Some of these involve applications that are extremely data intensive and may not be dominated by floating point operation speed. While a number of the earlier acquisitions have addressed a subset of these issues, the current solicitation emphasizes this even further.

DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals of interest to the Defense Sciences Office. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science and technology. Specifically excluded is research that results primarily in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of the art.

This BAA focuses on developing new technologies to allow secure data sharing; trusted computing; smart routing; cyber defense; Multi-Level Security (MLS) trust at the tactical edge; and a comprehensive, multi-security domain, user-defined operational picture to effectively and efficiently improve the state-of-the-art for defense enterprise, cloud, and mobile/tactical computing/operations.

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 Battelle Memorial Institute-Ohio State partnership fosters programs that examine the relationship between science and technology and its impact on broader social and cultural issues. Emphasis is placed on educational and public service projects rather than pure research. Interdisciplinary collaborations within the university and collaborations with other institutions are especially encouraged. Projects that address engineering-related topics or feature collaborations between engineering and the social sciences or arts/humanities are particularly welcomed. Typically, three to six awards are granted, ranging from $10,000 to $60,000.

The Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity (PFI:BIC) program supports academe-industry partnerships which are led by an interdisciplinary academic research team collaborating with a least one industry partner. In this program, there is a heavy emphasis on the quality, composition, and participation of the partners, including their appropriate contributions. These partnerships focus on the integration of technologies into a specified human-centered service system with the potential to achieve transformational benefits, satisfying a real need by making an existing service system smart(er) or by spurring the creation of an entirely new smart service system. The selected service system should function as a test bed. PFI:BIC funds research partnerships working on projects that operate in the post-fundamental/translational space; the proposers must be mindful of the state of the art and the competitive landscape. However, a clear path to commercialization does not need to be a central part of this proposal. These projects require additional effort to integrate the technology into a real service system, incorporating human factors considerations to assure the system's efficacy. The research tasks in turn might spawn additional discoveries inspired by this interaction of humans with the technology.

The U.S. Mission to UNESCO (USUNESCO) announces the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for a new program to design and administer a three-year grants program aimed at identifying, developing, and expanding the most promising grassroots-led initiatives in Africa to help address the persistent gender gap in science, technology, engineering, arts/design, and math (STEAM) fields. The targeted African countries for the proposed grants program would be: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. This program aims to make progress toward eventually achieving gender parity in STEAM-related fields so that more African women and girls are empowered by the socioeconomic benefits derived from acquiring expertise in these fields and so that more women and girls contribute to innovation by creating, rather than just using, technology.

The goal of the Energy for Sustainability program is to support fundamental engineering research that will enable innovative processes for the sustainable production of electricity and fuels, and for energy storage. Processes for sustainable energy production must be environmentally benign, reduce greenhouse gas production, and utilize renewable resources. Research projects that stress molecular level understanding of phenomena that directly impacts key barriers to improved system level performance (e.g. energy efficiency, product yield, process intensification) are encouraged. Proposed research should be inspired by the need for economic and impactful conversion processes. All proposals should include in the project description, how the proposed work, if successful, will improve process realization and economic feasibility and compare the proposed work against current state-of-the-art. Highly integrated multidisciplinary projects are encouraged.

The Nano-Biosensing program is part of the Engineering Biology and Health cluster, which includes also 1) Cellular and Biochemical Engineering; 2) Engineering of Biomedical Systems; 3) Biophotonics; and 4) Disability and Rehabilitation Engineering. The Nano-Biosensing program supports fundamental engineering research on devices and methods for measurement and quantification of biological analytes. Proposals that incorporate emerging nanotechnology methods are especially encouraged. Areas of interest include: -Multi-purpose sensor platforms that exceed the performance of current state-of-the-art devices. -Novel transduction principles, mechanisms and sensor designs suitable for measurement in practical matrix and sample-preparation-free approaches. These include error-free detection of pathogens and toxins in food matrices, waterborne pathogens, parasites, toxins, biomarkers in body fluids, and others that improve human condition. -Nano-biosensors that enable measurement of biomolecular interactions in their native states, transmembrane transport, intracellular transport and reactions, and other biological phenomena. -Studies that examine intracellular measurements must include discussion on the significance of the measurement. 

The objective of this program is to conduct research and advance the current state-of-the-art in photonic materials technologies, interactions, and applications using unique and innovative solutions for improved hardened materials and increased survivability of sensors, structures, systems, and aircrew members. Separate Task Orders will contain specific requirements relative to a particular program's technical objectives. Some of the key technical areas of interest include Optical Materials and Processing, Hardening Materials and Processing, Electro-Optic/Infrared (EO/IR) Sensor Protection, Warfighter Protection, Structural Protection, Optical Technology, Computational and Theoretical Studies on Functional Materials, Proactive Threat Defeat, and High Energy Laser Source Materials. The following initial Task Orders are anticipated:

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to provide regional access for cryoelectron microscopy (cryoEM) laboratories to state-of-the-art data collection capabilities. NIGMS will support consortia of established and early stage investigator laboratories whose research has an established specialization in and dependence on cryoEM. These laboratories will coordinate with each other to share facilities and resources for direct electron detection. Consortia will consist of a host institution which already has a modern high-performing cryoEM installation and proven capabilities for high-resolution data collection, partnered with regional participating institutions. A consortium will support surplus capacity for cryoEM data collection (infrastructure and services) at the host institution and make it available as a resource for the participating regional institutions. Projects will support access for cryoEM laboratories at participating institutions to resources and services at host sites. Projects will (a) contribute to the fixed costs of maintaining the host facility and extend services in proportion to the resources dedicated to the regional users and (b) support access to the facility by the regional laboratories. The host institution need not already have an electron detector; this FOA can help fund acquisition of direct detection equipment. Support is limited to enabling the participating cryoEM laboratories to collect data and perform the initial stages of processing raw images, and does not include other research activities. Consortia will consist of a minimum of 3-5 institutions; award budgets will depend on the number and data collection needs of the regional participating cryoEM laboratories. This initiative is not intended to support service centers of the traditional type in which the host laboratory performs the cryoEM analysis for non-specialist collaborators.