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Within Mid-scale RI-1, proposers may submit two types of projects, "Implementation" and "Design". Design and Implementation projects may comprise any combination of equipment, infrastructure, computational hardware and software, and necessary commissioning. Design includes planning (preliminary and final design) of research infrastructure with an anticipated total project cost that is appropriate for future Mid-scale RI-1,Mid-scale RI-2 or MREFC-class investments. Mid-scale RI-1 uses an inclusive definition of implementation, which can include traditional stand-alone construction or acquisition and can include a degree of advanced development leading immediately to final system acquisition and/or construction. Mid-scale RI-1 "Implementation" projects may have a total project cost ranging from $6 million up to below $20 million. Projects must directly enable advances in fundamental science, engineering or science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education research in one or more of the research domains supported by NSF. Implementation projects may support new or upgraded research infrastructure. Only Mid-scale RI-1 "Design" projects may request less than $6 million, with a minimum request of $600,000 and a maximum request below $20 million as needed to prepare for a future mid-scale or larger infrastructure implementation project.

Our goal is to develop and enable advanced, physics-based GaN models unified with compact models, and the associated processes for extracting parameters that accurately capture device phenomenology at the nanoscale level yet allow fast simulation convergence at the design level across RF, analog, and digital domains. Such advanced physics-based GaN models coupled to PDKs are expected to enable accurate trade-off decisions between performance and reliability at the design stage, resulting in higher fidelity modeling results and fewer design-build-test iterations. The expected value to the Air Force is that fewer design iterations should lead to dramatic component and system cost reductions while maintaining high reliability and quality assurance for next generation AF and DoD systems. The accompanying value to industry is that system designers will be able to capture costs associated with performance normalized for time-to-failure with the goal of ultimately achieving Hi-Rel parts at commercial consumer prices.

While there have been a few independent studies of the noise associated with various rumble strip designs, they are difficult to compare because they use different vehicle types, acoustical equipment and procedures, and rumble strip designs. Due to the scope of the issue, expertise from both transportation safety and noise professionals are required to study the issue. Providing state, local, and federal agencies with recommended rumble strip designs that offer adequate alerting driver feedback and reduced external noise would potentially increase their use and expand opportunities for agencies to reach safety performance goals. The objectives of this research are to: (1) identify or design and evaluate alternative rumble strips that provide effective alerting noise and vibration within vehicles and minimize perceived external noise, while considering several variables (e.g., vehicle types, pavement types, and speed); (2) recommend low-noise rumble strip designs that accommodate all users; and (3) develop recommendations for standard testing and measurement protocols

NSF-supported science and engineering research increasingly relies on cutting-edge infrastructure. With its Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program and Major Multi-user Facilities (Major Facilities) projects, NSF supports infrastructure projects at the lower and higher ends of infrastructure scales across science and engineering research disciplines. The Mid-scale Research Infrastructure Big Idea is intended to provide NSF with an agile, Foundation-wide process to fund experimental research capabilities in the mid-scale range between the MRI and Major Facilities thresholds. NSF defines Research Infrastructure (RI) as any combination of facilities, equipment, instrumentation, or computational hardware or software, and the necessary human capital in support of the same. Major facilities and mid-scale projects are subsets of research infrastructure. The NSF Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-1 Program (Mid-scale RI-1) supports the design or implementation of unique and compelling RI projects. Mid-scale RI-1 implementation projects may include any combination of equipment, instrumentation, cyberinfrastructure, broadly used large-scale datasets, and the commissioning and/or personnel needed to successfully complete the project, or the design efforts intended to lead to eventual implementation of a mid-scale class project. Mid-scale RI-1 design projects will include the design efforts intended to lead to eventual implementation of a mid-scale class RI project. Mid-scale RI-1 projects should fill a research community-defined scientific need or enable a national research priority to be met. Mid-scale RI-projects should also enable US researchers to remain competitive in a global research environment and involve the training of a diverse workforce engaged in the design and implementation of STEM infrastructure.

Recent advances in communications, computation, and sensing technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for the design of cyber-physical systems with increased responsiveness, interconnectivity and automation. To meet new challenges and societal needs, the Energy, Power, Control and Networks (EPCN) Program invests in systems and control methods for analysis and design of cyber-physical systems to ensure stability, performance, robustness, and security. Topics of interest include modeling, optimization, learning, 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 adaptive dynamic programing, brain-like networked architectures performing real-time learning, and neuromorphic engineering. EPCN supports innovative proposals dealing with systems research in such areas as energy, transportation, and nanotechnology. EPCN places emphasis on electric power systems, including generation, transmission, storage, and integration of renewables; power electronics and drives; battery management systems; hybrid and electric vehicles; and understanding of the interplay of power systems with associated regulatory and economic structures and with consumer behavior. Also of interest are interdependencies of power and energy systems with other critical infrastructures. Topics of interest also include systems analysis and design for energy scavenging and alternate energy technologies such as solar, wind, and hydrokinetic. The program also supports innovative tools and test beds, as well as curriculum development integrating research and education. In addition to single investigator projects, EPCN encourages cross-disciplinary proposals that benefit from active collaboration of researchers with complementary skills.

Recent advances in communications, computation, and sensing technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for the design of cyber-physical systems with increased responsiveness, interconnectivity and automation. To meet new challenges and societal needs, the Energy, Power, Control and Networks (EPCN) Program invests in systems and control methods for analysis and design of cyber-physical systems to ensure stability, performance, robustness, and security. Topics of interest include modeling, optimization, learning, 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 adaptive dynamic programing, brain-like networked architectures performing real-time learning, and neuromorphic engineering. EPCN supports innovative proposals dealing with systems research in such areas as energy, transportation, and nanotechnology. EPCN places emphasis on electric power systems, including generation, transmission, storage, and integration of renewables; power electronics and drives; battery management systems; hybrid and electric vehicles; and understanding of the interplay of power systems with associated regulatory and economic structures and with consumer behavior. Also of interest are interdependencies of power and energy systems with other critical infrastructures. Topics of interest also include systems analysis and design for energy scavenging and alternate energy technologies such as solar, wind, and hydrokinetic. The program also supports innovative tools and test beds, as well as curriculum development integrating research and education. In addition to single investigator projects, EPCN encourages cross-disciplinary proposals that benefit from active collaboration of researchers with complementary skills.

The SD2 program aims to develop data-driven methods to accelerate scientific discovery and robust design in domains that lack complete models. Engineers regularly use high-fidelity simulations to create robust designs in complex domains such as aeronautics, automobiles, and integrated circuits. In contrast, robust design remains elusive in domains such as synthetic biology, neuro-computation, cyber, and polymer chemistry due to the lack of high-fidelity models. SD2 will develop tools to enable robust design despite the lack of complete scientific models.

The Engineering and Systems Design (ESD) program supports fundamental research leading to new engineering and systems design methods and practices for specific global contexts.  In particular, ESD seeks intellectual advances in which the theoretical foundations underlying design and systems engineering are operationalized into rigorous and pragmatic methods for a specific context.  In addition, the program funds the rigorous theoretical and empirical characterization of new or existing methods for design and systems engineering, identifying in which global contexts and under which assumptions these methods are effective and efficient.  Such a global context includes both a domain (such as energy systems, consumer products, cyber-physical systems) and an economic, socio-political, environmental and technological context.

The objective of the DARPA Biological Control program is to build new capabilities for the control of biological systems across scales - from nanometers to centimeters, seconds to weeks, and biomolecules to populations of organisms - using embedded controllers made of biological parts to program system-level behavior. This program will apply and advance existing control theory to design and implement generalizable biological control strategies analogous to conventional control engineering, for example, for mechanical and electrical systems. The resulting advances in fundamental understanding and capabilities will create new opportunities for engineering biology. Specifically, the Biological Control program will demonstrate tools to rationally design and implement multiscale, closed-loop control of biological systems, through the development of biological controllers, testbeds to evaluate control of system-level behavior, and theory and models to predict and design effective control strategies. The resulting capabilities will be inherently generalizable to a variety of biological systems. Successful teams will integrate and apply these capabilities to demonstrate a practical proof-of-principle biological solution to a proposer-defined application relevant to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

The objective of the DARPA Biological Control program is to build new capabilities for the control of biological systems across scales - from nanometers to centimeters, seconds to weeks, and biomolecules to populations of organisms - using embedded controllers made of biological parts to program system-level behavior. This program will apply and advance existing control theory to design and implement generalizable biological control strategies analogous to conventional control engineering, for example, for mechanical and electrical systems. The resulting advances in fundamental understanding and capabilities will create new opportunities for engineering biology. Specifically, the Biological Control program will demonstrate tools to rationally design and implement multiscale, closed-loop control of biological systems, through the development of biological controllers, testbeds to evaluate control of system-level behavior, and theory and models to predict and design effective control strategies. The resulting capabilities will be inherently generalizable to a variety of biological systems. Successful teams will integrate and apply these capabilities to demonstrate a practical proof-of-principle biological solution to a proposer-defined application relevant to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is issuing a Disruption Opportunity (DO) Special Notice (SN) inviting submissions of innovative basic or applied research concepts in the technical domain of molecular scaffold design. Molecular Scaffold Design Collective (MSDC) will test a new model for materials design that pairs synthesis and formulation experts from different areas, reduces barriers to apply new ideas to a particular application space and explicitly considers formulation as part of molecular scaffold design.

Successful projects will address at least one of ARPA-E?s two Mission Areas: 1. Enhance the economic and energy security of the United States through the development of energy technologies that result in: a. reductions of imports of energy from foreign sources; b. reductions of energy-related emissions, including greenhouse gases; and c. improvement in the energy efficiency of all economic sectors; and 2. Ensure that the United States maintains a technological lead in developing and deploying advanced energy technologies. This program seeks to fund the development of transformational electrochemical energy storage technologies that will accelerate widespread electric vehicle adoption by dramatically improving their driving range, cost, and reliability. To achieve this long-term objective, this program aims to maximize specific energy and minimize cost of energy storage systems at the vehicle level. Central to this system-level approach is the use of robust design principles for energy storage systems. Robust design is defined as electrochemical energy storage chemistries and/or architectures (i.e. physical designs) that avoid thermal runaway and are immune to catastrophic failure regardless of manufacturing quality or abuse conditions. In addition, this program seeks multifunctional energy storage designs that use these robust storage systems to simultaneously serve other functions on a vehicle (for example, in the frame, body, and/or crumple zone), thus further reducing an energy storage syst em?s effective weight when normalized to the entire electric vehicle weight.

ecoTech™ Grants were created to combat the notion that students needed to choose between "the screen" or "the green" and to encourage educators and students to explore the role technology can play in designing and implementing solutions to some of our most pressing environmental challenges. We believe that technology can present innovative ways to address environmental challenges - and that when dealing with digital natives, we do ourselves a disservice by asking them to unplug. Originally developed in partnership with the Ray C. Anderson Foundation and now funded with ongoing support from Voya Financial Foundation, ecoTech™ Grants are specifically offered to engage children in inquiry-based, STEM-related projects that leverage technology and/or use nature-based design to address environmental problems in local communities. Examples of previous ecoTech™ Grant funded projects have involved: the integration of robotics and sensors to explore water bodies, collect data, and organize clean-ups; the development of aquaponic and hydroponic systems using arduinos and remote sensing; renewable energy design challenges; biotechnology research; nature-based design applications; and many others.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) seeks applications for the design and development of technologies to monitor health or deliver care in a real-time, accessible, effective, and minimally obtrusive way for older adults with a chronic heart, lung, blood, or sleep (HLBS) condition. These technologies may be novel sensor or monitoring systems, home-use point-of-care devices, home or mobile therapy or rehabilitation tools, or information systems and should have the goal of fostering healthy and independent living for aging adults with HLBS conditions. The development of such technologies should incorporate specific human factors for aging adults including disabilities, mild impairments, as well as chronic HLBS conditions. Technology usability for these populations must be incorporated early in the development of the design. Usability considerations include but are not limited to patient-facing displays, hearing and visual impairments, tactile limitations, literacy, and design preferences between men and women. These improvements in technology design could yield more accurate and earlier detection of changes that may interfere with healthy and independent living for older adults.

The eXploration Systems and Habitation (X-Hab) 2019 Academic Innovation Challenge is a university-level challenge designed to develop strategic partnerships and collaborations with universities. It has been organized to help bridge strategic knowledge gaps and increase knowledge in capabilities and technology risk reduction related to NASA's vision and missions. In 2016, the X-Hab Challenge scope was formally extended to include other areas of Exploration Systems as well as habitation topics. The competition is intended to link with senior- and graduate-level design curricula that emphasize hands-on design, research, development, and manufacturing of functional prototypical subsystems that enable functionality for space habitats and deep space exploration missions. NASA will directly benefit from the challenge by sponsoring the development of innovative concepts and technologies from universities, which will result in novel ideas and solutions that could be applied to exploration. The Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Division will offer multiple awards of $15k - $50k each to design and produce studies or functional products of interest to the AES Division (see Section 3.2, X-Hab Proposal Topic List) as proposed by university teams according to their interests and expertise. The prototypes produced by the university teams (examples of which are shown in Figure 1) may be integrated into existing NASA-built operational prototypes. Universities interested in participating will submit X-Hab proposals, which will be reviewed by technical experts; subsequent down-selection will determine which projects will be funded. X-Hab university teams will be required to complete their products for evaluation by the AES Division in May 2019. Universities may form collaborations to perform as a single distributed project team.

This FOA seeks applications for projects to design, construct, and operate large-scale pilots of transformational coal technologies aimed at enabling step change improvements in coal powered system performance, efficiency, and cost of electricity. The FOA will be carried out in three phases, with a down-select between phases. Phase I, Feasibility, will be aimed at supporting recipients' efforts to secure team commitments, including host sites and recipient cost share for Phase II, update the preliminary cost estimate and schedule for design, construction, and operation, and complete an environmental information volume. Projects selected for Phase II, Design, will complete a Front End Engineering Design study, secure construction-operation cost share funding, and complete the National Environmental Policy Act process. Finally, at least two projects will be selected for Phase III, Construction-Operation, which will support construction and operation of the large-scale pilot facilities. Any recipients proceeding to Phase III will be required to utilize domestic coal and/or domestic coal-derived fuels in the operation period. Applicants to Phase I who plan to primarily use other fuel sources during operations will be judged non-responsive. While only detailed Phase I applications are being solicited at this time, information relating to preliminary plans to carry out Phases II and III will be required to assess the potential viability of the overall project.

This Agreement requires the Recipient to develop and implement (1) technical requirement and five (5) tasks during the performance period, as follows:Technical Requirements:1. Design and produce outreach materials for Naval Base GuamTasks:Task 1 - Design graphics for use in various outreach materials.Task 2 - Design and produce educational printed material for distribution.Task 3 - Design and produce outreach materials.Task 4 - Project Planning.Task 5 - Project Management.

Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (hereinafter referred to as RED) is designed to build upon previous efforts in engineering education research. Specifically, previous and ongoing evaluations of the NSF Engineering Education and Centers Division program and its predecessors, as well as those related programs in the Directorate of Education and Human Resources, have shown that prior investments have significantly improved the first year of engineering students' experiences, incorporating engineering material, active learning approaches, design instruction, and a broad introduction to professional skills and a sense of professional practice - giving students an idea of what it means to become an engineer. Similarly, the senior year has seen notable change through capstone design experiences, which ask students to synthesize the technical knowledge, skills, and abilities they have gained with professional capacities, using reflective judgment to make decisions and communicate these effectively. However, this ideal of the senior year has not yet been fully realized, because many of the competencies required in capstone design, or required of professional engineers, are only partially introduced in the first year and not carried forward with significant emphasis through the sophomore and junior years.

A recent report suggests that more than 50 percent of domestic practicing physicians experience burnout. Due to the extremely stressful work environment, patient population, and 24/7 operations with irregular work hours in emergency departments (EDs), ED physicians experience an even higher prevalence of burnout, with up to 65 percent of physicians and residents meeting criteria for burnout. The Reducing Burnout through Emergency Department Design RPF seeks proposals with the potential to reimagine how academic medical center emergency departments are designed by sparking innovation in an environment that has remained largely unchanged for decades. Through the RFP, a single grant of $40,000 will be awarded in support of research that investigates how the design of emergency department environments in academic medical centers impacts physician and resident burnout. Interdisciplinary collaboration is strongly encouraged.

The focus of this BAA is primarily on projects that continue to advance the systems engineering approach needed for the design, fabrication, and manufacture of structural components to address challenges in system weight, performance, affordability, and/or survivability. The foundation of this approach should include the integration of materials information, captured in computational tools, with engineering product performance analysis and manufacturing-process simulation termed commonly as Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME). From this foundation it is expected the integration of manufacturing process information and product performance information utilizing the full range of engineering and analytical tools, processes, and principles to improve efficiency and effectiveness of their integrated approach. The intent is to bring together materials designers, materials suppliers, product designers, and manufacturers to collaborate on the design, production, and commercialization of novel affordable, manufacturable systems. Projects may include basic and applied research, technology and component development, and prototyping; but may also focus on manufacturing supply-chain technical support and integration, workforce development, and manufacturing education.

The Civil Infrastructure Systems (CIS) program supports research leading to the engineering of infrastructure systems for resilience and sustainability without excluding other key performance issues.  Areas of interest include intra- and inter-physical, information and behavioral dependencies of infrastructure systems, infrastructure management, construction engineering, and transportation systems.  Special emphasis is on the design, construction, operation, and improvement of infrastructure networks with a focus on systems engineering and design, performance management, risk analysis, life-cycle analysis, modeling and simulation, behavioral and social considerations not excluding other methodological areas or the integration of methods. This program does not encourage research proposals primarily focused on structural engineering, materials or sensors that support infrastructure system design, extreme event modeling, hydrological engineering, and climate modeling, since they do not fall within the scope of the CIS program.

To potentially support the full-scale testing of MHK wave energy devices, the Water Power Program intends to evaluate site locations, designs, and estimated costs for an open water, fully energetic domestic wave test facility. It is expected that a viable grid-connected facility will be capable of testing both scaled prototypes and full-scale (utility-scale) wave energy conversion devices in order to evolve reliable, low cost, renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuel. Prototype testing is essential to mature existing wave technologies, validate performance against analytic models, demonstrate compliance with applicable design standards and thereby mitigate the technical and financial risk of developing and deploying mass-produced wave energy devices, plants, technologies and related products. Construction and operation of a full-scale domestic wave test facility will assist the U.S. industry by identifying design and manufacturing deficiencies early in the development cycle and validate modifications and improvements prior to commercial deployment. Ultimately, this new testing capability will improve the country?s competitiveness in MHK energy technology, encourage domestic manufacturing, job creation, and provide a new technology that utilizes an untapped renewable resource to help achieve the nation?s energy goals. This FOA is intended to identify possible site locations and evaluate the potential to establish a national wave testing facility within U.S. territorial waters.