Matt Dillon and Misha Kanevskiy display ice samples from the glacial remnants at Kaktovik, Alaska

Yuri is dwarfed by the glacial exposure


CREDIT FOR PHOTOS:
Tom Moran, Alaska EPSCoR

A chance discovery by Alaska EPSCoR researchers is rewriting the geologic history of Alaska's Arctic Coastal Plain.

In August 2008, physical scientists Torre Jorgensen, Yuri Shur, Misha Kanevskiy and Matt Dillon noticed a massive bluff near the village of Kaktovik, on Barter Island in the Beaufort Sea. A July storm had broken off a huge chunk of shore­line, exposing a panorama of frozen soil and ice more than a mile and a half long.  It was basal glacial ice—the remnant of an historic glacier and a gold mine for the permafrost researchers.

Jorgensen believes the Kaktovik glacier was part of an ice sheet that extended from the Canadian Arctic to Alaska's Northwest Arctic during the Late Pleistocene epoch, reaching its fullest extent around 20,000 years ago and retreating 8,000-13,000 years ago.

The discovery may cast new light on the distribution of sediments and permafrost on the North Slope--which may have implications for oil develop­ment--and on the prehistoric distribution of animals and humans. "It may lead us to radically reinterpret the paleoecol­ogy of Northern Alaska," Jorgensen said.  (Highlight ID: 19002)

Buildup of sediment in Wax Lake Delta, the NCED study site

Credit: Gary Parker, National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics

Land in the Mississippi River Delta is slowly disappearing, as the sediment that would normally replenish it is channeled by man-made dikes directly into the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers at the National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics (NCED), an NSF Science and Technology Center led by the University of Minnesota, are investigating how natural, self-maintaining deltas work in order to identify ways to restore the one at the mouth of the Mississippi.

By studying sedimentary deposits beneath the surface, which record how deltas maintain themselves under natural conditions, researchers learn about the land-building process over a range of time and space scales.  NCED is studying the process at the Wax Lake Delta field site in coastal Louisiana, which receives water and sediment from the lower Atchafalaya River. Wax Lake Delta has been building out into Atchafalaya Bay since roughly 1973.  This delta, which has evolved with little human interaction, provides the researchers with a subaqueous and sub aerial topographic template for predicting delta land growth. (Highlight ID: 19190/18585)

Stroke + NRG1

Graphics show a simplified rat brain slice after stroke given either a vehicle (placebo) or neuregulin.

Permission Granted
Credit: Byron Ford, Ph.D.,
Morehouse School of Medicine

A naturally occurring growth factor called neuregulin-1 could possibly extend the window for therapeutic treatments for stroke victims.

With pilot funding from the NSF, a research team led by the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience Science and Technology Center's Byron Ford examined the effects of administering neuregulin-1, a protective compound which neurons produce naturally in rats after they suffered strokes. Ford discovered neuregulin-1 reduced cell death by 90 percent when compared to rats that did not receive it. The compound also protected neurons from damage even when administered as long as 13 hours after the stroke's onset.

In further analysis of the affected brain tissue, Ford and his team determined neuregulin-1 produces its protective effects by turning on or off nearly 1,000 genes that regulate cell death and inflammation. Neuregulin-1 also blocks the production of free radicals, compounds that have been implicated in cell injury and aging.

"The biggest potential benefit of neuregulin-1 is that its therapeutic window is much longer," said Ford. "It also appears to easily cross the blood-brain barrier and does not produce any obvious side effects in rats."
(Highlight ID: 18977)

The History Channel visited the NAMOS research crew in summer of 2008 to film and conduct interviews on the role of sensor networks in monitoring coastal waters for harmful algal blooms such as 'red tides'.

Permission Granted
Credit: David A. Caron

Networked Aquatic Microbial Observing System (NAMOS) is a CENS-supported application to develop autonomous sensors networks in support of monitoring and experimental studies of coastal water quality.

NAMOS has established a strong collaboration with the City of Redondo Beach to develop in-situ sensing systems - wireless sensor buoys and a robotic surface vehicle. This network provides water quality monitoring of environmental parameters (dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, algal biomass) towards the long-term goal of developing an understanding of the factors leading to recent adverse environmental events (fish kills) and guiding management decisions to prevent future events. Accomplishments to date have included the design, build-out and deployment of an environmental monitoring network within the harbor to characterize pertinent parameters and to correlate increases in phytoplankton blooms with water quality chemistry and physics. The network is being used to establish the immediate factors leading to fish kills within the harbor.

CENS is an NSF Science and Technology Center overseen by the Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) in coordination with the Office of Integrative Activities (OIA).  
(Highlight ID: 19186)

Background:
Mercury (Hg2+) is a highly toxic and widespread environmental pollutant that can cause severe health problems, including brain damage, kidney failure, and various cognitive and motion disorders.  Therefore, sensitive and selective mercury detection in the environment and in the food industry is in high demand, especially in environmental-monitoring applications such as mercury detection in drinking water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets the maximum contamination level for mercury in water at 10 nanomolars (nM) or approximately 2 parts per billion (ppb).  However, few sensors are sensitive and selective enough to detect mercury in water.  Thus, a simple sensor with high sensitivity and selectivity for facile on-site and real-time mercury detection is needed.

Results:
The research group at the Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, under the direction of Professors Mark Shannon and Yi Lu and funded by WaterCAMPWS, has demonstrated a simple design of highly sensitive and selective "turn-on" fluorescent mercury sensor based on structure-switching DNA.  The sensing process can be completed in less than 5 minutes, with a detection limit of 3.2 nM (0.6 parts per billion).  Furthermore, mercury detection in pond water was performed to demonstrate the practical use of this sensor.

The sensor system contains a 33 unit DNA strand (Strand A) with a flourescent molecule attached at the end and a 10 unit DNA strand (Strand B) with a "Quencher" molecule at the end.  In the absence of mercury ions (Hg2+), as DNA strands A and B approach one another, the fluoroscent molecule and quencher are close to each other, resulting in fluorescence quenching.  However, in the presence of mercury ions, the folding of Stand A will release Strand B, "turning-on" a signal from the flourescent molecule, resulting in a visual color change.

Studies have shown that the sensor has a detection limit of 3.2 nM (0.6 ppb) which is lower that the U.S. EPA defined toxic level of mercury in drinking water.  The current detection range for the sensor is 3 nM to 800 nM or 0.6 ppb to 150 ppb.  The sensor was also tested with pond water.  Mercury ions were added into the sensor solution in the pond water to the final concentration of 200 nM (~40 ppb) and fluorescence enhancement was observed. This result is similar to the fluorescence enhancement observed for the sensor in pure water in the presence of 200 nM mercury ions, indicating that the sensor is able to detect mercury in pond water with little interference. (Highlight ID: 19180)

The Rhode Island (RI) EPSCoR Academy manages the education-outreach component of the RI EPSCoR award, with a charge to expand research capacity and assist with workforce training and economic development in the life sciences throughout the state. Two essential components of reaching these goals are the expansion of graduate programs in the STEM disciplines and increased undergraduate participation in research.  In collaboration with the Rhode Island IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), RI EPSCoR established the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program (SURF) in 2008. SURF student fellows in Biomedical Sciences, Genomics, Proteomics and Marine Life Sciences completed 10 weeks of research and participated in career-building workshops, presentations and trips.

The summer program concluded with a poster conference highlighting the research of over 80 undergraduates from a variety of institutions throughout Rhode Island. Poster topics included cardiac development in zebrafish, selective estrogen receptor modulators and their role in the treatment and prevention of breast cancer, pathology involved in Crohn's Disease, and mercury bioaccumulation in fish of Narragansett Bay. The research could lead to the development of antibiotics to battle quickly evolving pathogens, new techniques for detecting cancer biomarkers, and technology for more efficient and cheaper gene sequencing.

The RI EPSCoR Academy places a particular emphasis on "getting more kids more interested and more engaged in science and technology and making sure they're coming from more diverse backgrounds," said Jeffrey Seemann, the Rhode Island EPSCoR Project Director. (Highlight ID: 18929)

It is difficult enough to get to Antarctica, but to get through the frozen sea ice and into the ocean beneath is even more challenging.  Dr. Stacy Kim and Bob Zook have developed a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) specifically built to operate through the frozen ocean surface in polar regions as a result of support from NSF's Major Research Instrumentation.  SCINI, the Submersible Capable of under Ice Navigation and Imaging, is "skinny" and needs only a small, 15 cm hole in the ice to reach the liquid sea.  This new tool frees marine researchers from dependence on the substantial logistic support required to make large holes in the ice, and increases the scope of polar science.  SCINI has relocated experiments lost on the seafloor for 40 years at depths unreachable by SCUBA divers, and has discovered a remarkably rich marine community 80 kms back under a permanent ice shelf where lack of light and food had suggested few organisms should survive.

Twenty four people have contributed substantially to the success of SCINI, working to smoothly integrate the engineering, science, and educational aspects of the project.  Of the ten students directly supported, 6 are graduate, and 4 undergraduate.  In cooperation with the PolarTREC program and local schools, the researchers also work with three K-12 teachers and dozens of their students to expand awareness of engineering, science, and the polar regions.  The researchers also work to communicate via popular media (YouTube, blogs, TV) to reach the broadest possible audience of potential learners.  This includes local talks and Open House activities to expand awareness of Antarctica and the global relevance of the research that is done there.  SCINI is a versatile tool, easily adaptable to many different uses and modular to allow rapid changes in tasking, and is incorporated in proposals to support research projects on sea ice dynamics, geology, pelagic food webs, and fish recruitment. (Highlight ID: 18688)

Three project investigators at three different universities in Arkansas are working together on a collaborative research project that could possibly mitigate or eradicate certain diseases, including neurodegenerative and heart diseases, by adapting nanomaterials to neural prosthetic devices. 

Dr. Vijay Varadan, Chair of the College of Engineering at University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, along with Dr. Malathi Srivatsan, Assistant Professor of Biology at the Arkansas State University, and Dr. Seshadri Mohan are creating neural prosthetic devices from 3-D nanostructures, which exhibit biocompatibility and histocompatibility in a living environment of neural tissue.  These prosthetics could provide deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's patients and Tourette's patients, as well as restore urinary tract function and regain control of a paralyzed limb.  Neural prosthetic devices do exist, but the excellent biocompatibility of nanowire electrodes could drastically improve the reliability and utility of neural prosthetic devices.  The potential application of these devices not only allows patients and health-care professionals more freedom, but could one day lead to the recovery of failing limbs and organs, including the brain.

For example, one aspect of their research involves implanting wireless nanosensors into a patient which in turn gives the patient the freedom to live their life while health-care professionals can monitor them outside of a hospital setting.  This kind of technology requires sensor data to be securely transmitted from one place to another.  Researchers at UAF are fabricating multiple unique antennas that can be applied to numerous implantable devices.  Additionally, researchers at UALR, with Dr. Seshadri Mohan as the Campus Lead and Principal Investigator, are differentiating the antennas at the anechoic chamber facility at UALR.  Once the wireless nanosensors equipped with antennas are networked, they must them be able to effectively and securely transmit biomedical information to base computer.  Devices like this can be implanted in a variety of places, including the brain, and can monitor and relay information such as heart rate and temperature.    
(Highlight ID: 18941)

video using legacy WiFi system



video using cooperative communications

NSF-funded researchers at Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU) are developing two medium-scale programmable cooperative computer networking testbeds in order to illustrate the feasibility of cooperative communications and provide a platform for testing and developing new signal protocols.  Cooperative networking is a new paradigm in wireless communications that significantly improves data rates and reliability. Unlike traditional wireless networks, in a cooperative network, users exploit the broadcast nature of the wireless medium to "overhear" each other's transmitted signals and help by forwarding to the intended destination.

The first testbed is based on commercial WiFi cards (driver testbed), while the second one uses fully programmable software defined radios (software radio testbed).  While the theoretical benefits of cooperative communications are well known, the testbeds at NYU's Polytechnic Institute, funded through the Major Research Instrumentation Program, establish for the first time that the expected gains can be  translated into practice.

The testbeds also support educational and research efforts involving undergraduate and graduate students.  Thirty-two Masters students and 13 undergraduates so far have worked on the testbeds.  A demonstration developed by two of the Masters students received the Third Place in WiNTECH 2008 MobiCom Workshop Research Demo contest.  An undergraduate summer intern was selected as a finalist for the Google Women in Engineering Award 2009.  A wireless networking class based on the testbeds has been developed, making NYU-Poly one of the few institutions in the country with an implementation-based wireless networking class. (Highlight ID: 18310)  

The CENS High School Scholars Program is an eight-week summer internship program that engages fifteen high school students in authentic hands-on computer science research in collaboration with undergraduate interns and under the guidance of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate mentors. CENS Education staff, together with the program mentors, implement a comprehensive program that links the scholars' research experience to their academics and future educational career goals. Research projects are connected directly to societal applications and within the context of broader topics in computer science. Most recently, the summer's carefully designed research projects featured CENS distributed- and wireless-sensing technology, specifically focused on environmental, participatory, image, and urban sensing. One project involved designing an application for using Eco-PDA's for beach water quality research, with a team of high school students leading the effort on writing code and programming the small hand held devices. As a result of participation in the program, CENS High School Scholars become part of an active computer science research community and gain first-hand experience in a university setting working on teams with high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. (Highlight ID: 19185)

Moving up and down the side of a building is not longer the sole purview of cartoon heroes such as Spiderman.  Researchers and students from the City College of the City University of New York are developing a new generation of miniature wall-climbing robots and artificial intelligence techniques. Unlike traditional wall-climbing robots, the City-Climber robots use aerodynamic attraction which achieves good balance between strong adhesion force and high mobility and does not require perfect sealing.  As a result, they can operate on both smooth and rough surfaces with reasonably large payloads. Equipped with a camera, motion sensor, rotary laser range sensor and computing board, the robot is capable of constructing a complete 3D-laser map of indoor environments in collaboration with three ground robots.  Using artificial intelligence techniques, inspired from genetic improvements of living creatures, City Climbers will be equipped with software modules to allow them to spread uniformly over given areas. City-climber robot technology has wide applications in various defense, security and inspection missions. Variant prototypes may be eventually used for tasks such as building inspections and window cleaning. (Highlight ID: 18955)

Secondary and postsecondary teachers of science, mathematics and technology are armed with the tools needed to better prepare and excite students about the computational sciences and biotechnology after attending a professional development workshop on bioinformatics.  Participants were exposed to research, development and application of computational tools and approaches for expanding their use in biological, medical, behavioral and health related areas.  The hands-on experiences in computational sciences and biotechnologies increased participants' awareness of and knowledge in the field while better preparing them to implement activities in the classroom and share the excitement of computational science with their students.  They received research-based curriculum materials developed through Mississippi-EPSCoR (NSF) and the Human Genome Project (NIH). Contributors to the workshop included experts from BioRad Laboratories in California and research/education faculty from Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi and University of Southern Mississippi. (Highlight ID: 18900)

The National Center for Earth Surface Dynamics and St. Anthony Falls Laboratory hosted a grand opening celebration for their Outdoor StreamLab in Minnesota. The lab is a premier research facility using two abandoned flood-bypass channels associated with the St. Anthony Falls. The lab enables groundbreaking science and both formal and informal education opportunities.  Historically, research in habitat restoration, dam removal, channel realignment and bank stabilization has been limited to separate indoor laboratory and field work studies. The Outdoor StreamLab enables laboratory-quality measurements within a field-scale reach, bringing the best of both worlds together in one publicly visible facility. Water has been flowing in the Riparian Basin since the grand opening and multiple research projects are underway.  Plans are to develop the adjacent Riverine Corridor in the next couple years.  Interest in the StreamLab spans many areas, including agricultural engineering, biology, civil engineering, ecology, geology, soil sciences and water resources sciences.  Research participation will include educators, federal and state agencies, and consultants from private industry. (Highlight ID: 19192)

The Professional Development Program (PDP) is at the heart of an education program developed through the Center for Adaptive Optics (CfAO). Since 2001, the PDP has been instrumental in developing and advancing a growing community of scientist-and engineer-educators. Participants come to the PDP early in their careers mostly as graduate students—and they emerge as leaders who integrate research and eduation in their professional practice. More...