N.C. A&T to lead $5 million USAF research project on controlling teams of unmanned military vehicles

A $5 million grant from the U.S. Air Force will fund a research team led by North Carolina A&T State University that will develop control systems for a new dimension in battlefield strategy: large teams of unmanned vehicles.

The five-year project will expand the use of autonomous vehicles, such as drones, to a larger and more diverse scale.

The vision is to manage future battlefields with autonomous vehicles working together in the air, on the ground and/or underwater. The vehicles could be controlled remotely by human operators or they could maneuver autonomously in complex environments. Teams of autonomous vehicles working in concert with soldiers, sailors and fliers would be capable of a variety of cooperative missions, such as surveillance and reconnaissance.

“The concept of systems of vehicles is new,” says Dr. Abdollah Homaifar, Duke Energy Eminent Professor of computer engineering at N.C. A&T and leader of the project. “It’s about teaming and cooperation among the autonomous vehicles.

“Teams of these vehicles could provide an advantage on the battlefield, but we need to learn how to move beyond controlling, for example, one drone at a time, and how they can work together. These are complex systems that will operate together in extreme conditions.”

N.C. A&T awarded $1.6 million to increase cybersecurity research and education

As cyber attacks become more powerful and frequent, North Carolina A&T State University is again expanding its graduate-level cybersecurity program.

A national initiative announced Thursday will provide funding for the Department of Computer Science to expand enrollment in its master’s and doctoral programs. The growth comes just a year after the department admitted its first students at the Ph.D. level.

N.C. A&T will work with 12 other historically black colleges and universities and two national laboratories to dramatically grow the workforce of professionals, researchers and academics prepared to lead the nation’s defense against cyber attacks.

The project will be funded by the federal Cybersecurity Workforce Pipeline Consortium, a program to spark interest in cybersecurity in students from elementary school to graduate school.  The $25 million, five-year program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration.

A&T will be involved at the master’s and doctorate levels. Graduates from the other colleges and universities will study and conduct research at A&T.

Research will focus on cyber-identity protection and privacy in addition to cybersecurity in general.

Welcome back! Here’s a summer news recap: Hypoallergenic peanuts, EPICS, NC TraCS & more

To all who were gone over the summer, welcome back. Here’s a rundown of the top research-related news at A&T since May:

• Advisory for travelers who have been to West Africa, August 15

• New catalog of Piedmont Triad’s aerospace assets
  features N.C. A&T and JSNN research capabilities, August 13

• Save the date — An EPICS Workshop at N.C. A&T:
  Engineering Projects in Community Service, August 5

• Translational and clinical sciences researchers:
  Hold Wednesday Oct. 1 for NC TraCS open house, July 25

• Latest trend seen in comments from NSF reviewers:
  Give more specifics on how mentoring is assessed, June 24

• Aggieland is part of a #nationofmakers, June 18

• Eco-Core: N.C. A&T composite material for the Navy
  provides a productive use for problematic coal ash, June 18

• Hypoallergenic peanuts developed by N.C. A&T
  licensed for use in food products, immunotherapy, June 10

• NIH seeks input on racial disparities in R01 grants, June 6

• A&T researcher’s work on COPD among ag workers
  wins support from NC TraCS program for scholars, May 19

• A&T and UNC-CH researchers launch investigation
  into triple-negative breast cancer’s link to viral RNA, May 6

Faculty members, department chairs, and deans: We want to write about your research, scholarly and creative activity!  Let us know about it; click here for email.

A&T and 3 Triad partners in solar electricity project

A&T, UNCG, WFU, and WSSU researchers are working on low-cost solar concentrators as a key to economically viable electricity generated from sunlight.

Four Triad universities are working together on a project to significantly reduce the cost of generating electricity from sunlight.

The Four Universities Solar Consortium is composed of scientists and engineers from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Wake Forest University, and Winston-Salem State University. 

The team’s specific goal is to develop a low-cost solar concentrator that will make the production of electricity from sunlight economically viable and widespread.

To do that, the team will have to advance the science of using concentrated sunlight to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and then develop a way to store the hydrogen on site for capacity leveling. “This further requires developing and integrating, through industrial partnerships, three important supporting technologies for mirrors, waste-heat recovery, and high-temperature photovoltaics and catalytic reactors,” the team’s proposal says.

The project was one of three finalists for a $100,000 grant from the four schools’ Triad Interuniversity Planning Project (TIPP). The provosts of the schools are funding the one-year project. Each finalist previously received a one-year TIPP planning grant of $20,000. 

“We were betting in the planning phase that an acre of mirrors could be constructed more cheaply than an acre of efficient photovoltaics, and that the higher temperature of waste heat from concentrator systems will open routes for reclaiming some of it as electricity,” the team said in its proposal.

NSF grant proposal workshop April 25

3 diverse new research projects at N.C. A&T explore blood-brain barrier, risk management, wheat bran

Three new research projects at N.C. A&T aim to explore the weakening of the blood-brain barrier in  Alzheimer’s disease patients, to apply risk management to supply chain logistics, and to find a way to make dietary fiber taste better.

The projects are the first ones funded at A&T for each of the three principal investigators. All were funded in October.  They were among 29 new or continuing projects receiving external funding during the month, totaling more than $10 million.

The complete list of projects receiving external sponsored funding in October

The projects are (click the links for one-page summaries):

• “Brain pericyte and amyloid-beta peptide interaction,” Dr. Donghui Zhu, Department of Bioengineering, $142,000, National Institutes of Health. One hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is a compromised blood-brain barrier  characterized by significant reductions in critically important pericyte cells on the exterior walls of endothelia.  Our long-term goal is to determine the role of brain pericytes in the development of Alzheiner’s disease and to develop drugs to preserve pericytes functioning in Alzheimer’s patients.
• “Understanding Risks and Disruptions in Supply Chains and their Effect on Firm and Supply Chain Performance,” Dr. Mahour Mellat-Parast, Department of Applied Engineering Technology, $200,000, National Science Foundation. This project provides the first comprehensive view of managing risks and disruptions within supply chains in different industries with respect to the stage and scope of the risk. As such, it facilitates the formation and establishment of an integrative discipline (risk engineering/risk management) utilizing engineering, technology, and management foundations.
• “Modification of Wheat and Corn Brans by Microfluidization Process,” Dr. Guibing Chen, Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies, N.C. Research Campus, $299,000, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Numerous studies indicate that dietary fiber plays a protective role against obesity, but it’s difficult for anyone eating a typical Western diet to consumer adequate fiber.  Research is needed to improve sensory properties of high-fiber foods and to enhance the fiber ingredients’ nutritional value. We propose to modify physicochemical and nutritional properties of wheat and corn brans using a microfluidization process. This technique will significantly improve palatability and nutritional value.

The N.C. A&T grant of the month for August 2012: Health Informatics Security and Privacy Program

The Sponsored Funding Report for August:

N.C. A&T received 13 grants totaling $6.59 million in August.

The complete list of grants received in August.

One highlight of the month’s funding was $29,640 from the National Science Foundation toward a $329,000 grant to Dr. Dorothy Yuan of  the Department of Computer Science.  The project is titled, “Targeted Infusion Project Grant: Developing Health Informatics Security and Privacy Program.” Working with Dr. Yuan on the project are Drs. Gerry Dozier of the Department of Computer  Science; Hong Wang, Department of Management; Jinsheng Xu, Department of Computer Science; Justin Zhan, Department of Computer Science; and Kossi Edoh, Department of Mathematics.

The issue: Health informatics is one of the economy’s largest growth areas. With the government’s growing interest in electronic health records and with the growing investment by healthcare organizations in technology, there is an increasing demand for health informatics and health information technology professionals. To make health information systems secure,  the systems’ designers and administrators must be well educated in information assurance, with an understanding of security, privacy, integrity and reliability.

Abstract: The goal of this project is to establish a concentration in Health Informatics Security and Privacy in the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science program. This interdisciplinary project will be a  joint effort of  the departments of Computer Science,  Management, and Mathematics.

The N.C. A&T grant of the month for July: $239,000 to increase minority engineering grads

The Sponsored Funding Report for July:

N.C. A&T received eight grants totaling $512,946 in July.  One highlight of the funding was a grant worth $239,950 from the U.S. Department of Education to Dr. Stephanie Luster-Teasley of the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering.  Other faculty members involved in the project are Clay Gloster, Leotis Parrish, Matthew McCullough, and Ronnie Bailey.

The complete list of grants received in July.

The project: ENGAGE 2BE Engineers: Engaging the Next Generation of African-American Graduates Entering Biomedical, Biological and Environmental Engineering Careers

The issue: The numbers of under-represented minority engineering students continue to remain low in comparison to the representation in the general population. Despite efforts to increase the diversity of the engineering profession, at the national level African
Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics collectively represent only 11% of students completing BS level engineering degrees.  The total percentage of undergraduate students pursuing engineering degrees in the United States has increased very modestly over the last 10 years. Compared to other nations such as China and India, the United States falls significantly behind in production of BS level engineers. It is clear that engineering as well as other STEM fields must attract more students to meet the future demand for STEM professionals.

Abstract:  The goal of the ENGAGE 2BE Engineers proposal is to focus on providing mentoring, academic support, stipends and professional development for students at North Carolina A&T State University interested in pursuing careers in Biomedical, Biological and Environmental Engineering. The proposal seeks to develop a program within the College of Engineering focused on:

1) Increasing the number of minority students who complete college and are academically prepared to pursue graduate degrees in biomedical, biological and environmental engineering.

2) Provide support, mentoring and on-campus resources to increase retention and persistence of non-traditional and high-needs students who may have additional challenges — such as students with disabilities, students from low-income families, students from immigrant and migrant worker families, and students with children — enrolled in the departments of Chemical and Bioengineering (CBEN) and Civil, Architectural, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (CAAE). This support will be in the form of academic mentoring, motivation, and advisement to assist their progression and acclimation at A&T and in the CBEN or CAAE
departments.

3) Implement data management methods to increase real-time advising and mentoring, and

4) Establish a sustainable mentoring program that will continue to serve students in CBEN and CAAE thus increasing the number of  underrepresented students and high-needs/non-traditional A&T students who graduate with STEM undergraduate degrees long-term.

‘Zombie nouns’: You love them, don’t you?

Whether it’s a peer-reviewed article, a funding proposal, or a syllabus, no one reads academic writing for the fun of it. Researchers and other faculty members tend to write for each other, which is to say, for people who get paid to read each other’s stuff. And for students, who, sadly, pay dearly for the privilege.

But just because most or all of your audience is under some degree of obligation to read what you write, that doesn’t give you license to be obscure, muddy and uninspiring. If there’s anything that can beat the life out of academic writing, it’s the overuse of nominalizations.  If that’s a new word to you, don’t feel bad.  Great numbers of people probably came across it for the first time when reading The New York Times website this morning:

“Nouns formed from other parts of speech are called nominalizations. Academics love them; so do lawyers, bureaucrats and business writers. I call them ‘zombie nouns’ because they cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings. …

“At their best, nominalizations help us express complex ideas: perception, intelligence, epistemology. At their worst, they impede clear communication. I have seen academic colleagues become so enchanted by zombie nouns like heteronormativity and interpellation that they forget how ordinary people speak. Their students, in turn, absorb the dangerous message that people who use big words are smarter – or at least appear to be – than those who don’t.“

Isn’t it great to be lumped together with lawyers, bureaucrats and zombies? By the way, I added the emphasis at the end, partly because it’s a good point and partly because some of us probably picked up the same idea the same way when we were students.

Writing is hard, and not just for you — it’s hard for everyone who cares about doing it well.  We can all use as much good advice as we can get. And this Times column qualifies.

N.C. A&T grant of the month: Monitoring strucutral integrity of armor, weapons

The Sponsored Funding Report for June:

N.C. A&T received 23 grants totaling $17.19 million in June.

The complete list of grants received in June.

One highlight was a grant worth $616,956 from the Army Research Office to Dr. Mannur Sundaresan of the Department of Mechanical Engineering.  Dr. Albert Esterline of the Department of Computer Science also will work on the project.

The project: Prognostic Health Management of DoD Assets

The issue: Acoustic emission-based structural health monitoring techniques have great potential for determining the current state of health of critical structures, such as Army vehicles and weapons systems, and predicting their future performance.  However, current technology relies mostly on empirical approaches for interpreting AE signals, a technique that has been plagued by ambiguity and false positives.

With a better understanding of the physics of acoustic emission (AE) signal propagation and the development of signal processing techniques, AE-based techniques can play a larger role in developing highly efficient, adaptive, and survivable vehicles, armor, and machinery and the assurance of their safety and integrity.

Abstract:  This research will develop numerical models, experiments, algorithms, web architectures, and other tools applicable to prognostic health management. The research will address identification of critical damage states in composite structural elements and strategies for sensing such states with multiple sensors.