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The Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs' (OES) Office of Environmental Quality and Transboundary Issues at the U.S. Department of State (DOS), announces the Notice of Funding Opportunity ("NOFO") for activities under the "Building Air Quality Management Capacity in Central Asia" project. The agreement awarded will use U.S. Fiscal Year 2019 Economic Support Funds, subject to Congressional approval and availability of funds. The "Building Air Quality Management Capacity in Central Asia" project intends to strengthen regulatory and monitoring capacity of government actors and expand awareness of air quality issues among decision makers and the general public in at least one Central Asian country. More specifically, the project would target key host government entities to develop and enhance air quality monitoring capacity with low cost sensors, educational materials on AQI PM2.5 and PM10, formal expert workshops, and through the services of a professional monitoring and evaluation expert to develop and design a monitoring and evaluation plan to be used by key agencies.

The Microsoft Foundation is inviting applications for its Dissertation Grants program. The program supports PhD students at North American universities who are underrepresented in the field of computing and pursuing research aligned to the research areas carried out by Microsoft Research. Through the program, recipients will receive funding of up to $25,000 for the 2020-21 academic year as well as an invitation to the PhD Summit, a two-day workshop in the fall held at one of Microsoft Research's labs where fellows will meet with Microsoft researchers and other top students to share their research. Fellows must be aligned in research areas as defined by Microsoft Research, which include artificial intelligence; audio and acoustics; computer vision; graphics and multimedia; human-computer interaction; human language technologies; search and information retrieval; data platforms and analytics; hardware and devices; programming languages and software engineering; security, privacy, and cryptography; systems and networking; algorithms; mathematics; ecology and environment; economics; medical, health, and genomics; social sciences; and technology for emerging markets.

To strengthen local capacity to monitor air quality and expand awareness of air quality issues among decision makers and the general public in at least two Southeast Asian countries. The project will target key host government entities, universities, and NGOs to develop and enhance air quality monitoring capacity with low or medium cost sensors, educational materials on AQI PM2.5 and or PM10, formal expert workshops, and through the services of a professional monitoring and evaluation expert to develop and design a monitoring and evaluation plan to be used by key agencies.

This project will build upon a wildlife conservation partnership established between 6 ⿿sister parks⿝ and other reserves in Arizona and Sonora and Baja California, Mexico that share similar ecological communities and resources. Montane springs occur in all the parks but their hydrology and biological value are poorly understood. We will seek to better understand the dynamics, groundwater connections, and threats to springs, while engaging with our international partners to address critical conservation issues through workshops, field work, and water chemistry analysis.

Cracking is a primary mode of distress in asphalt pavements. There are several modes of asphalt pavement cracking-thermal, reflection, fatigue, and top-down-and all are affected by numerous factors and their interactions. Recent research has evaluated a variety of laboratory tests and models to assess the cracking potential of asphalt mixtures and several are recommended for routine use. As asphalt mix designs become more complex with the use of asphalt modifiers, RAP and RAS, and warm mix asphalt technologies, highway engineers have recognized the need to establish and implement reliable performance tests that can be used to evaluate asphalt mixes and ultimately extend the life of asphalt pavements. NCHRP Project 09-57, "Experimental Design for Field Validation of Laboratory Tests to Assess Cracking Resistance of Asphalt Mixtures," developed experimental designs for the ruggedness testing and field validation of candidate laboratory tests to assess the resistance of asphalt mixtures to the four cracking types noted above. Candidate test methods were selected through (a) a critical review of relevant research and state mixture design practices and (b) a workshop with invited experts held in February 2015. The findings and conclusions of the project are summarized in NCHRP Research Results Digest 399: Field Validation of Laboratory Tests to Assess Cracking Resistance of Asphalt Mixtures: An Experimental Design; the contractor's final project report is available at http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/docs/NCHRP09-57_FR.pdf. This project is the first in a series proposed to accomplish the field validation designed in Project 09-57. Research is needed to conduct ruggedness testing of the candidate test methods in anticipation of future field validation experiments.

A number of travel bursaries are available for postgraduates and early career researchers to participate in this project on Friday 7th June 2013 at Birkbeck, University of London, which uses Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to explore the relationship between arts and science research.