Enhancing Linkages between Universities and Small Businesses in EPSCoR Jurisdictions

This conference will be held October 15-16, 2007, in the Portland, Maine, area. The objective of the conference is development of research and economic infrastructure in EPSCoR states through enhancing linkages between universities and small businesses. Research focus areas of alternative energy, environmental science and engineering, and communication technology will be featured in the conference sessions, and were chosen to correspond with NSF, USDA, and commercial opportunities. Presentations within these focus areas will be made by people from a variety of successful small businesses, federal agencies, state government organizations, economic and social development organizations, and private and public research centers and universities. Specific sessions will also be allotted to technology transfer and incubator programs, finding seed/venture/angel capital, instrumentation, and protecting technology through contracts and patents. Conference presentations and materials will be publicly disseminated via the Maine EPSCoR website

Collaborative Research: North East Cyberinfrastructure Consortium

The North East Cyberinfrastructure Consortium has finished its third year of Track-2 funding. In this report we summarize our overall progress and progress for Year 3. In 2006, we began to organize as the five North Eastern EPSCoR states (ME, NH, VT, Rl, DE) around cyberinfrastructure. The box below describes the state of cyberinfrastructure in 2008 by which time we had developed the North East Cyberinfrastructure Consortium to position ourselves for grant opportunities that would help us to address our cyber deficits. The Track-2 collaborative proposal submitted in January 2009 was designed to address these barriers in order enable our researchers to access and share data and compute resources that will make them more competitive and allow their research to have a broader impact on society. Summary of our goals: • Provide cyberinfrastructure for research and education in the North East EPSCoR region by creating fiber networks within and between jurisdictions; • Establish regional distributed data centers to support cyber-enabled research • Develop human infrastructure to create a virtual organization for distributed bioinformatics and data analysis; • Launch pilot cyber-enabled research projects to develop the regional expertise to analyze genomics data, especially deep sequencing data, in a distributed manner;• Encourage pilot projects to foster collaborations around water research across the region for future collaborations; • Establish collaborations on cyber education in order to foster cyber-knowledgeable workforce development, diversity and outreach; • Leverage resources to accomplish our goal

Maine\u27s Sustainability Science Initiative

Goals: Maine\u27s Sustainability Science Initiative (SSI) seeks to catalyze and expand the state\u27s interdisciplinary research capacity for understanding the coupled dynamics of social-ecological systems (SES) and determining how such knowledge can best inform stakeholders and their decision-making processes. The core SSI objective is to create a new statewide Center for Sustainability Solutions (CSS) where place-based systems research, knowledge to action focus, and strong stakeholder partnerships will serve as a testbed for developing solutions to sustainable development challenges in and beyond Maine. The research focuses on three interacting drivers of landscape change (urbanization, forest ecosystem management, and climate change) that affect Maine and other regions. Although Maine has faced some serious environmental challenges, its ecosystems have not reached crisis points. As a result, Maine can be a valuable model for exploring proactive, cost-effective approaches to sustainable development, The proposed research will employ three innovative strategies: 1) model development and testing based on an integrated analysis of interactions among drivers of landscape change; 2) a quasi-experimental approach to evaluate the ability of alternative modeling techniques to account for SES thresholds, feedbacks, and resilience; and 3) close stakeholder partnerships to ensure that the work is shaped by the demands of social and institutional systems to enhance the value of the research for decision-making. These strategies depend upon a high-level of interdisciplinary integration, and build on past EPSCoR investments that created research teams characterized by diverse expertise. This project aims to increase the capacity and productivity of those teams, and create the foundation for a green innovation economy in Maine. In concert with the novel approach to innovative research, the project activities effectively integrate research and education to bolster the STEM training and scientific expertise of Maine\u27s future workforce. In collaboration with Maine STEM Coalition Initiative , the project engages K-12 students, integrates the Center for Sustainability Solutions\u27 research (a center that would be created with funding requested in this proposal) with K-12 education, and coordinates teacher professional development. At the postsecondary education levels, the project includes design of new courses that emphasize interdisciplinary and systems modeling and that integrate stakeholders into service-learning activities; development of interdisciplinary academic research and private sector internships; design of a mentoring program; and engagement of students in the development of use of innovative technology

Maine EPSCoR End-to-End Connectivity for Sustainability Science Collaboration

This NSF EPSCoR C2 project allowed Maine EPSCoR to continue the state’s momentum to enhance the connectivity of the state’s research, higher education, and K-12 institutions through Maine’s Research and Education Network (MaineREN). Over the last few years, multi-million dollar investments have built networking and computing power at the state level, including: 1) the installation of 1,100 miles of middle-mile fiber optic cable; 2) investments in shared computing resources for high performance computing and cloud computing; 3) the Maine School and Library Network; 4) the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (grade 6-12 laptops); and 5) investments in high-performance visualization and videoconferencing. This C2 project allowed Maine EPSCoR to address the cyberinfrastructure gaps at the seven campuses of the University of Maine System that had still been preventing the delivery of true end-to-end connectivity between Maine’s researchers and the new advanced networking services provided over MaineREN. The research and education focus that was enabled by this C2 project is the Maine EPSCoR Sustainability Science Initiative (SSI) Rll Track 1, with the goal of providing SSI researchers and students at the seven campuses of the University of Maine System true end-to-end connectivity. Cyberinfrastructure is an important key to helping SSI to advance their sustainability science objectives to: 1) examine interactions between social and ecological systems (SES) as landscapes change in response to urbanization, forest management, and climate variability; 2) investigate how such SES knowledge affects, and is influenced by, the actions and decisions of diverse stakeholders, with a goal of strengthening connections between knowledge and action; 3) evaluate the factors that facilitate and impede interdisciplinary collaboration, with a goal of identifying and implementing individual and institutional best practices that are needed to support successful interdisciplinary research programs in sustainability science. In particular, the C2 connectivity improvements that are now in place will support the Track 1 SSI research agenda by addressing various data management, visualization, and virtual proximity challenges that were present. Except for a small amount of support towards the AAAS review, all of the C2 budget was allocated for the capital cyberinfrastructure improvements, with the goal of enabling the effectiveness of the research and education activities of the SSI Track 1 project. This then means that there is a high degree of leveraging and synergy between the two projects, and that the personnel participation, research, diversity, and workforce development activities were supported from a variety of other sources including SSI Track 1, state funds, university funds, and UMaine System funds (and therefore are not a direct part of this award). While somewhat confusing for reporting purposes, this high degree of leveraging resulted in a tightly integrated and effective manner of furthering Maine’s research and education capacity in Sustainability Science. The implementation and administration of all three NSF EPSCoR projects (Track 1, 2, C2) has been through the Maine EPSCoR office at the University of Maine, which allowed for effective coordination and leveraging of resources and investments for the maximum benefit to Maine researchers

Nonlinear Analysis of the Space Shuttle Super-Lightweight External Fuel Tank

The results of buckling and nonlinear analyses of the Space Shuttle External Tank super-lightweight liquid oxygen (LOX) tank are presented. Modeling details and results are presented for two prelaunch loading conditions and for two full-scale structural tests conducted on the original external tank. These results illustrate three distinctly different types of nonlinear responses for thin-walled shells subjected to combined mechanical and thermal loads. These nonlinear response phenomena consist of bifurcation-type buckling, short-wavelength nonlinear bending, and nonlinear collapse associated with a limit point. For each case, the results show that accurate predictions of nonlinear behavior generally require a large scale high-fidelity finite element model. Results are also presented that show that a fluid filled launch vehicle shell can be highly sensitive to initial geometric imperfections. In addition, results presented for two full scale structural tests of the original standard weight external tank suggest that the finite element modeling approach used in the present study is sufficient for representing the nonlinear behavior of the super lightweight LOX tank

Buckling Behavior of Compression-Loaded Quasi-Isotropic Curved Panels with a Circular Cutout

Results from a numerical and experimental study of the response of compression-loaded quasi-isotropic curved panels with a centrally located circular cutout are presented. The numerical results were obtained by using a geometrically nonlinear finite element analysis code. The effects of cutout size, panel curvature and initial geo- metric imperfections on the overall response of compression-loaded panels are described. In addition, results are presented from a numerical parametric study that indicate the effects of elastic circumferential edge restraints on the prebuckling and buckling response of a selected panel and these numerical results are compared to experimentally measured results. These restraints are used to identify the effects of circumferential edge restraints that are introduced by the test fixture that was used in the present study. It is shown that circumferential edge restraints can introduce substantial nonlinear prebuckling deformations into shallow compression-loaded curved panels that can results in a significant increase in buckling load

Nonlinear Analysis of the Space Shuttle Superlightweight External Fuel Tank

Results of buckling and nonlinear analyses of the Space Shuttle external tank superlightweight liquid-oxygen (LO 2 ) tank are presented. Modeling details and results are presented for two prelaunch loading conditions and for two full-scale structural tests that were conducted on the original external tank. The results illustrate three distinctly different types of nonlinear response for thin-walled shells subjected to combined mechanical and thermal loads. The nonlinear response phenomena consist of bifurcation-type buckling, short-wavelength nonlinear bending, and nonlinear collapse associated with a limit point. For each case, the results show that accurate predictions of nonlinear behavior generally require a large-scale, highfidelity finite-element model. Results are also presented that show that a fluid-filled launch-vehicle shell can be highly sensitive to initial geometric imperfections. In addition, results presented for two full-scale structural tests of the original standardw..