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eMaterials Newsletters

 

Thursday, February 19, 2004Volume 4, Issue 2

 

Materials Day 2004

 

3rd Annual Materials Day at Penn State
Materials for Advanced Manufacturing
April 15, 2004
HUB-Robeson, Alumni Hall
8:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.
http://www.mri.psu.edu/Events/materialsday/

 

Materials faculty at Penn State are invited to participate in the 3rd Annual Materials Day program. The program has been completely revised to benefit you. We have invited key government agency and industry speakers to discuss future needs. In order to get the most out of this program, you should plan on allocating the entire day to participating. Materials faculty should plan on submitting an overview poster, instructions appear below.

 

Overview and Purpose

 

Schedule

8:00 - 12:00: Plenary Lectures

 

12:00 - 1:00: Special closed poster session with industry representatives, government agency representatives and faculty

 

1:00 - 3:00: Poster session and lunch with Penn State Materials Community, and presentation of Student Awards

 

3:00 - 4:00: Breakouts with facilitated discussions

 

4:30 - 6:00: Special Reception for industry representatives, government agency representatives and faculty

Faculty should submit a poster title and abstract information that reflects your group's research emphasis by February 27, 2004. Other posters on specific research projects will be accepted but it is important to submit your research group's overview poster first.

 

Reminder: Research Awards

The MRI Student and Post-Doc Awards for outstanding accomplishments based on a published paper, thesis or formal report will be given out during the Materials Day Program on April 15th, 2004. Please take a moment to reflect on the students and post-docs in your area who might qualify.

 

Deadline for MRI Student and Post-Doc Awards is March 19, 2004

 

The criteria, eligibility requirements can be found at:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/ematerials/v04i01/Criteria.pdf

 

The nomination form can be found at:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/ematerials/v04i01/Nomination_form.pdf

 

NOW, is the right time to take a look and begin to put the package together.

R&D at DHS Slated for 13.8% Increase

With Congressional approval, the Department of Homeland Security's principal research unit could receive a substantial increase in its fiscal year 2005 budget. The Administration's FY05 request for the Science and Technology Directorate is $1.039 billion -- 13.8 percent higher than the FY04 appropriation level of $913 million.

 

The agency's Budget in Brief, released on Monday, only highlights $77 million of the $119 million increase requested for the directorate's Research, Development, Acquisition and Operations line item.

 

The most significant item is the additional $65 million requested for the Bio-Surveillance Program Initiative. Currently, the program receives $53 million, much of which provides support for BioWatch, a bio-aerosol warning for most of the nation's metropolitan areas. The new funds would support research and development (R&D) for an integrated, real-time, human-animal-plant surveillance system.

 

A portion of the directorate's increase also would support an acceleration of R&D on next-generation environmental monitoring systems. The Budget in Brief reports new classes of detectors, which can identify bio-agents in two minutes or less with significantly low false alarm rates, will make 'detect-to-protect' possible for key facilities.

 

Another new initiative proposed is an integrated attack warning and assessment system known as BWICS (BioWarning and Incident Characterization System). The BWICS pilot will integrate real-time bio-surveillance and environmental monitoring data with plume hazard predictions, epidemiological forecasts, population and critical infrastructure databases, and other available resources in two of the highest threatened cities.

 

A $12.9 million increase is proposed for the $20 million Plum Island Animal Disease Center. According to the Budget in Brief, the new funds would be used to address the "highest priority deficiencies" on the island as outlined in the GAO's report, Combating Terrorism - Actions Needed to Improve Security at Plum Island Animal Disease Center; Report Number GAO-03-847.

 

The Franklin Institute Awards

 

Piezoelectric Composites and Their Applications
Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Wednesday, April 28, 2004

 

A special symposium given in recognition of Professor Robert E. Newnham, Emeritus Professor, recipient of the 2004 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering

 

Contracts & Grants

Materials research accounted for more than $4.6 million in contracts and grants for the months of December and January! The largest of these contracts and grants (those greater than $200K) are listed below, along with a link to the complete list of contracts and grants. These data are provided by OSPs Strategic Information Management System.

 

Motta, Arthur T; Advanced Corrosion Resistant Zr Alloys for High Burnup and Generation IV Applications, U.S. Department of Energy

 

Shrout, Thomas R; Cao, Wenwu; Tutwiler, Richard L; Stitt, Joseph P; A Resource on Medical Ultrasonic Transducers Technology, University of Southern California

 

Shrout, Thomas R; Randall, Clive A; High performance, High Temperature Peroviskite Piezoelectrics for Acceleromters, Industry

 

Tressler, Richard E; Liu, Zi-Kui; Development of ITM Oxygen Technology for Integration in IGCC and Other Advanced Power Generation Systems, Industry

 

Winograd, Nicholas; Surface Chemistry Studies with Ion Beams and Lasers, National Science Foundation

 

Winograd, Nicholas; Ewing, Andrew G; Molecular Imaging of Biomaterials - Single Cells, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

 

For a complete list of the contracts and grants for December and January go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/awards.asp?awardperiod=0401

Materials Seminars

Thursday, February 19, 2004
Time: 12:15 PM
Location: S5 Osmond
Title: Patterning Organic and Inorganic Reactions on Semiconductor Surfaces
Speaker: Jillian Buriak, University of Alberta
Series: Chemistry Colloqium
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: 301 Steidle
Title: Mechanisms of Adsorption and Wetting at Internal Interfaces
Speaker: Dr. Rowland Cannon, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

For a complete list of upcoming materials-related seminars go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/seminars.asp

Funding Opportunities