INSTRUCTIONS FOR PROPOSAL REVIEW

Please provide detailed comments on the quality of this proposal with respect to each of the two NSF Merit Review Criteria below, noting specifically the proposal's strengths and weaknesses. As guidance, a list of potential considerations that you might employ in your evaluation follow each criterion. These are suggestions and not all will apply to any given proposal. Please comment on only those that are relevant to this proposal and for which you feel qualified to make a judgment.

Criterion 1. What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?

Potential considerations: How important is the proposed activity to advancing knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields? How well qualified is the proposer (individual or team) to conduct the project? (If appropriate, please comment on the quality of prior work.) To what extent does the proposed activity suggest and explore creative and original concepts? How well conceived and organized is the proposed activity? Is there sufficient access to the necessary resources?

Criterion 2. What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?

Potential considerations: How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning? How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)? To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships? Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding? What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

Please provide an overall rating and summary statement which includes comments on the relative importance of the two criteria in assigning your rating. Please note that the criteria need not be weighted equally.

YOUR POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS
If you have an affiliation or financial connection with the institution or person submitting this proposal that might be construed as creating a conflict of interests, please describe those affiliations or interests on a separate page and attach it to your review. Regardless of any such affiliations or interests, we would like to have your review unless you believe you cannot be objective. An NSF program official will examine any statement of affiliations or interests for the existence of conflicts. If you do not attach a statement we shall assume that you have no conflicting affiliations or interests.

YOUR OBLIGATION TO KEEP PROPOSALS CONFIDENTIAL
The Foundation receives proposals in confidence and protects the confidentiality of their contents. For this reason, you must not copy, quote from, or otherwise use or disclose to anyone, including your graduate students or post-doctoral or research associates, any material from any proposal you are asked to review. Unauthorized disclosure of confidential information could subject you to administrative sanctions. If you believe a colleague can make a substantial contribution to the review, please obtain permission from the NSF Program officer before disclosing either the contents of the proposal or the name of any applicant or principal investigator. When you have completed your review, please be certain to destroy the proposal.

PRIVACY ACT AND PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENTS
The information requested on this reviewer form is solicited under the authority of the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended. It will be used in connection with the selection of qualified proposals and may be disclosed to qualified reviewers as part of the review process, to government contractors, experts, volunteers and researchers as necessary to complete assigned work, to other government agencies needing information as part of the review process or in order to coordinate programs, and to another Federal agency, court or party in a court or Federal administrative proceeding if the government is a party. See Systems of Records, NSF- 50,"Principal Investigator/Proposal File and Associated Records", 60 Federal Register 4449 (January 23, 1995), and NSF-51,"Reviewer/Proposal File and Associated Records", 59 Federal Register 8031 (February 17, 1994). The Foundation does not otherwise disclose reviews and identities of reviewers who reviewed specific proposals to persons outside the government, except that verbatim copies of reviews without the name, affiliation, or other identifying information of the reviewer will be sent to the principal investigator. Submission of the requested information is voluntary.

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 5 hours per response, including the time for reviewing instructions. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to:

Attachment A
6/25/97