through the President's National Science and Technology Council.
The program's intent is to increase the nation's capacity for
computing and computer networking in order to spur productivity,
build economic competitiveness, support research that requires high
levels of computing power, promote innovation in software design,
and create education and training opportunities for individuals of all
ages.
An award from NSF's Academic Research Infrastructure Program to
the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York,
supported RPI's acquisition of a parallel supercomputer system as a
centralized campus resource. Modern research is increasingly
dependent on computer systems that can assist in the visualization,
modeling, simulation, and analysis of complex technical phenomena.
RPI's Scientific Computation Research Center now provides
campus-wide access to an IBM parallel computer and servers, several
very high performance visualization systems, and 20 advanced
desktop graphics workstations. These instruments are being used by
scientists, engineers, and their students in a number of university
departments for research in manufacturing, materials and design, the
environment, and other areas of strategic importance.
The University of Alaska-Fairbanks has received support from
NSF's Academic Research Infrastructure Program for the purchase
of a bench-top mass spectrometer. This instrument measures stable
isotopes which provide important information for a variety of
environmental research problems. Isotopes are useful in studying the
mechanisms used by plants to take up nutrients, particularly carbon
and nitrogen. Tracing the movement of these nutrients through nature
yields important information on plant productivity, the biological and
geological cycling of these nutrients, and the impact of these cycles
on the environment. These impacts include the effects of variations in
carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, on other aspects of the
environment. The new spectrometer is portable and has been used for
shipboard aquatic studies by undergraduate student interns drawn
from Alaska's diverse population.
NSF's Academic Research Infrastructure Program has provided
instrumentation support to the Microelectronics Facility of Brown
University's Center for Advanced Materials Research. Researchers at
the facility need access to sophisticated instruments that provide
extremely fine control over the deposition of layers for the growth of
compounds in microelectronic and optical devices. Investigators rely
on these instruments to develop and test new approaches to
fabricating ever-smaller semiconductors, as well as optoelectronic
devices (such as solar cells) with greater capabilities. The research
performed on these new instruments has potential industrial
applications and could increase the nation's competitiveness in the
manufacturing domain.
An award from the Academic Research Infrastructure Program to Purdue University will create a unique and specialized research facility that advances global change research. The Purdue Rare Isotope Measurement Laboratory (PRIME Lab), using accelerator mass spectrometry, will be able to analyze radioisotopes in very small samples of earth materials with unprecedented accuracy. Researchers from a variety of disciplines in the earth sciences will use the NSF- funded instruments in the PRIME Lab to increase our understanding of important processes involving the biosphere, geosphere, and climate.
Biotechnology is already producing benefits in the form of new
pharmaceuticals, better crop species, and new ways to remove
hazardous waste such as oil spills. Biotechnology also includes
computationally intensive research in areas such as
neuroscience and molecular biology. The NSF biotechnology
initiative focuses support on areas of opportunity for U.S. economic
development and competitiveness. For example, research in
environmental, marine, and agricultural biotechnology, and the social
and economic implications of biotechnology, are all topics of national
importance.
The Academic Research Infrastructure Program has provided support
to the Mellon-Pitt-Carnegie Corporation, a nonprofit organization
facilitating joint research activity between the University of
Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, for the acquisition of a
massively parallel computer for research in biotechnology. Using
sophisticated and computation-intensive hardware and software
resources, researchers at Pitt and Carnegie Mellon are developing and
testing highly complex computer simulations of neuron activity in the
human brain. These models help test and refine our understanding of
human cognition, which includes such processes as reading and
learning.
NSF's Academic Research Infrastructure Program has provided support to the University of California-Berkeley for expansion of the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) chamber located in the university's Microfabrication Facility. MBE chambers are used to fabricate material structures on the scale of hundreds of nanometers (less than 1/1,000th of a millimeter) that improve control over the flow of electrons in semiconductors. Three new vacuum chambers will enable research on fabrication and processing of small-scale materials structures and research training of students using a wider variety of microelectronic structures. Many industries depend on ever-smaller electronic devices to remain competitive, and the expansion of this research instrument will help create and test new materials and processes with potential commercial application.
testing and maintenance protocols will yield social and economic
dividends for a long time to come. This NSF initiative supports
research on how materials break down and wear out; techniques for
monitoring, evaluating, and replacing structures; decision-making
processes related to public infrastructure; and a variety of
interdisciplinary topics.
The Academic Research Infrastructure Program has provided support for testing instruments used for civil infrastructure research to the Constructed Facilities Center at the University of West Virginia. These instruments will increase our understanding of how construction materials behave in roads and bridges and will test the utility of new materials -- especially composite materials -- for infrastructure projects. For example, a new thermal chamber will allow research on materials during freeze-thaw cycles and at high temperatures. New instruments will allow materials to be monitored and tested in the field under normal use conditions. Research using these instruments has the potential for increasing the safety and decreasing the cost of our nation's infrastructure.
