Mark Green - US grants

The Cancer Center at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine is 3 years old. Building upon a firm laboratory research base, a strong and rapidly expanding clinical research program has developed, utilizing both local and national trials. This has led to appointment of an Assistant Director to corrdinate the clinical cancer research program, chair the Center's Protocol Review Committee, and supervise the planned data management system. The basic research program has also grown in a number of areas, including studies of human tumors in athymic mice, tumor cell culture in serum-free medium, and development of monoclonal antibodies to lymphocyte subpopulations. Construction of the new Theodore Gildred Cancer Facility, which was funded jointly by an NCI grant and a community drive, began in February 1981. When the facility is completed in early 1983, it will house many of the Center's research programs as well as a combined oncology clinic. In the past year the University has greatly increased its fiscal and philosophical commitment to the Cancer Center. This includes providing salary support for the Director, planning new faculty positions with joint appointments to the Center and an academic department, stimulating the formation of a foundation which will raise research funds for the Center, providing increased adminstrative funds, and allocating future additional laboratory research space for the Center's use. The Cancer Center Core Support Grant currently supports shared resource laboratories with expertise in pharmacology, serum-free culture medium, athymic mice, surface markers, cytogenetics, radiobiology, radioiodination, and biostatistics. A new immunology shared resource is planned and developmental funds for new research projects are needed. The Center anticipates continued development and expansion in its varied basic research, clinical research and education programs.

This application seeks support for the activities of CALGB investigators, participating through the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and adjunct institutions, in the programs of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B. During the coming grant period, we will continue to make major contributions to group accrual, Group science, and group administration. We project a modest increase in accrual over the 5 year upcoming grant cycle based on enhanced activities both at the main member institution and in our adjuncts, with a minimum goal of 250 accrued cases in the first year of this application. We expect women to be approximately 50% of all patients we accrue to clinical trials. Increased emphasis will be placed on accruing minorities to CALGB studies. We expect to continue to contribute extensively to the intellectual productivity of the Group by designing and chairing protocols, presenting pilot observations for Group validation and expansion, and by stimulating more basic research components to Group activities. We plan to continue direct service to the group by developing one or more reference laboratories for new CALGB correlative science projects in lung cancer. Members of our institution expect to continue their major contributions to Group science/administration as committee chairs (Seagren - Radiation Modality Committee; Green - Respiratory Committee), Core Committee members, or members of standing Group scientific and administrative committees. We will continue to serve as a clinical resource and research base for CCOP activities of our CCOP adjunct in Las Vegas, Nevada, and at Kaiser CCOP San Diego and are working to further strengthen our clinical trials Outreach Network as a means to both assure accrual and stimulate and strengthen the intellectual vitality and state-of-the-art quality of overall oncology care delivered in the entire San Diego area. Ongoing participation in CALGB continues to serve as an important educational vehicle for Faculty, Fellows, and House staff at UCSD, the Veterans Administration Medical Center, the Naval Regional Medical Center, Santa Barbara, Hoag and Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation as well as for all the affiliated participants in private practice of hematology and medical oncology who share in our CALGB activities.

As a participating institution in the Primary Breast Cancer Therapy Group, NSABP, we are contributing data from patients previously entered into Protocols B-04, B-06, B-09, B-10,C-01 and R-01, and entering new patients on Protocols B-06, C-01, R-01 and the new Breast Cancer Adjuvant Therapy Protocols B-11, B-12, B-13 and B-14. The present application A) - seeks funding to permit continued patient accrual in ongoing protocols (numbers B-06, C-01, R-01 and B-11, B-12, B-13 and B-14), B) - to continue follow-up of patients entered into protocols which have already terminated, (numbers B-04, B-08, B-09, and B-10), and C) - to collect appropriate biological material and information relevant to such protocols. The ongoing protocols are: 1) B-06 "A Protocol to Compare Segmental Mastectomy and Axillary Dissection With and Without Radiation of the Breast and Total Mastectomy and Axillary Dissection." All patients undergo axillary dissection and those with histologically positive nodes receive adjuvant chemotherapy. 2) C-01 "A Clinical Trial to Evaluate Postoperative Immunotherapy and Postoperative Systemic Chemotherapy in the Management of Resectable Colon Cancer". 3) R-01 "A Clinical Trial to Evaluate Postoperative Radiation and Postoperative Systemic Chemotherapy in the Management of Resectable Rectal Carcinoma". 4) B-11 "A Clinical Trial to Compare PF With and Without Adriamycin in the Management of Patients with Primary Breast Cancer and Positive Axillary Nodes Whose Tumors are Negative for Estrogen Receptors". 5) B-12 "A Clinical Trial to Compare PFT With and Without Adriamycin in the Management of Patients with Primary Breast Cancer and Positive Axillary Nodes Whose Tumors Are Positive for Estrogen Receptors. 6) B-13 "A Clinical Trial To Assess Sequential Methotrexate 5-Fluorouracil In Patients With Primary Breast Cancer and Negative Axillary Nodes Whose Tumors are Negative for Estrogen Receptors. 7) B-14 "A Clinical Trial To Assess Tamoxifen in Patients With Primary Breast Cancer and Negative Axillary Nodes Whose Tumors Are Positive for Estrogen Receptors.

This project is in the general area of materials chemistry. It involves the chemical synthesis of "effect" polymers which will exhibit non-linear optical properties. Stiff polymers with extended axial dimensions may possess a wide variety of material properties of interest, including special optical properties, and the ability to exhibit extraordinary strength. The polymers under investigation are characterized by extended helical conformations which arise because of the interplay between conjugative and steric forces. The helical dissymmetry of these systems allows control of the axial dimension through stereochemistry. This research will provide a correlation between the materials properties and those chemical factors which impart chain stiffness. The materials chemistry aspects of this research have important implications in telecommunications and optical information processing.

This application seeks support for the activities of CALGB investigators participating through the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and adjunct institutions, in the programs of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B. During the coming grant period, we aim to make major contributions to Group accrual, Group science, and Group administration. We project some increase in accrual based on enhanced activities both at the main member institution and in our adjuncts, with a minimum goal of 200 accuerd cases in the first year of this application. We expect to continue to contribute extensively to intellectual productivity of the Group by designing and chairing protocols, presenting pilot observations for Group validation and expansion, and by stimulating more basic research components to Group activities. We plan to continue direct service to the Group by maintaining an active Cell Surface Marker Reference Laboratory of exceptionally high technical quality and scientific sophistication, and use new techniques available within that laboratory to further broaden Group science. Members of our institution expect to continue their major contributions to Group science/administration as chairs (Seagren - Radiation Modality Committee; Johnson - Data Management Committee; Green - Respiratory Disease Committee) or vice-chairs (Royston - Immunology Committee) or Core Committee members of standing Group scientific and administrative committees. We will continue to serve as a clinical resource and research base for CCOP activities of our CCOP adjunct in Las Vegas, Nevada, and are working to further strengthen our clinical trials Outreach Network as a means to both increase accrual and stimulate and strengthen the intellectual vitality and state-of-the-art quality of overall oncology care delivered in the entire San Diego area. Ongoing participation in CALGB continues to serve as an important educational vehicle for Faculty, Fellows, and Housestaff at UCSD, the Veterans Administration Medical Center, the Naval Regional Medical Center, as well as for all the affiliated participants in private practice of hematology and medical oncology who share in our CALGB activities.

This award will support Dr. Mark M. Green of the Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York, to collaborate with Professor Koichi Hatada and Yoshio Okamoto of the Department of Chemistry, Osaka University, for six months beginning in September, 1989. They will work on the synthesis of copolymers of specific composition and microstructure from isocyanates and from methacrylates to test the idea that secondary conformational information can be transmitted across a diblock boundary in the growth process. Controlled anionic polymerization will be used for the copolymer synthesis, and chiral optical techniques will be used to characterize the resulting structure. This cooperative project will provide Dr. Pearse access to the anionic techniques used to produce conformationally chiral and optically active molecules which have been developed by the Japanese col- laborators. This research will also complement that currently supported by the National Science Foundation's Materials-Chemistry Initiative, and may have important implications in the development of synthesis techniques for commercially important polymers.

This awards supports the research of Professor M. Green to work in algebraic geometry. He will work on Hodge theory, the geometry of projective varieties, and algebraic curves. The techniques used will be a mixture of algebraic and differential- geometric. The research is in the field of algebraic geometry, one of the oldest parts of modern mathematics, but one which blossomed to the point where it has, in the past 10 years, solved problems that have stood for centuries. Originally, it treated figures defined in the plane by the simplest of equations, namely polynomials. Today, the field uses methods not only from algebra, but also from analysis and topology, and conversely it is extensively used in those fields. Moreover, it has proved itself useful in fields as diverse as physics, theoretical computer science, cryptography, coding theory and robotics.

This grant from the Organic Dynamics Program of the Chemistry Division and the Polymers Program of the Division of Materials Research supports the continuing work of Professor Green and Dr. Levon at the Polytechnic University. The results of this research will give new understanding and insight to the right or left hand helical nature of polymers. The factors that control the preferential formation of right- or left- handed helices will be explored. Since bio-polymers, such as peptides and DNA, can exist in right- or left- handed helices, this work is of particular interest. Drs. Green and Levon will provide new and important information in three areas, of which all are related to how the chirality of the monomers effect the helical chirality of the polymers. In the first area, the effect of a chiral center on the chiral helicity of isocyanate polymers will be studied. It has been found that a chiral center by virtue of deuterium substitution in R-1- deuteriohexylisocyanate had a profound effect on the helical chirality of the polyisocyanate. This observation will be studied further as well as the helical chirality of the polymer resulting from R-2-deuteriohexylisocyanate. In the second area, a study will be made of the relationship between helical twist of a side chain containing a biphenyl group in an N-carboxyanhydride monomer and helicity of the polyglutamate polymer. In the third area, the gelation of polyisocyanides as function of the stereochemistry of the monomer will be investigated.

In recent years, there has been a great deal of interest, from different points of view, in vector bundles in algebraic geometry. Several topics of interest in this field include moduli of vector bundles on a Riemann surface, moduli of vector bundles on algebraic surfaces, linear series and vector bundles, and vector bundles on projective spaces. This project will support the Workshop on Algebraic Vector Bundles to be held from October 16-19, 1992 at the University of California, Los Angeles. It is anticipated that researchers will be brought together from several subareas of the field, in the hope of stimulating interaction between different outlooks. One of the principal objectives of the workshop will be to expose newer researchers in algebraic geometry to this area.

neoplasm /cancer chemotherapy; cancer information system; biomedical facility; publications; pharmacy; training; human data;

9401256 Green Professor Green will investigate problems in the geometry of projective varieties and commutative algebra. These include problems in Castelnuovo theory, syzygies of algebraic curves and generic initial ideals. This is research in the field of algebraic geometry. Algebraic geometry is one of the oldest parts of modern mathematics, but one which has had a revolutionary flowering in the past quarter- century. In its origin, it treated figures that could be defined in the plane by the simplest equations, namely polynomials. Nowadays the field makes use of methods not only from algebra, but from analysis and topology, and conversely is finding application in those fields as well as in physics, theoretical computer science, and robotics.

The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) wishes to plan for the development of a comprehensive cancer center, Hollings Oncology Center (HOC) to reduce the morbidity and mortality of cancer in its area. MUSC is making a major investment towards this goal by constructing a new building devoted to cancer research as well as renovating additional hospital areas for cancer. The entire administrative structure of MUSC is committed to this build-up both in academic terms and in infrastructure development. Statistically, South Carolina leads or almost leads the states in the mortality of six significant cancers. This region presents an extraordinary opportunity to make an impact on underserved and minority populations. Outreach and prevention are major components by which specific objectives can be realized. These include: 1) an extension of the incipient regional SEER-compatible tumor registry to the entire geographic area; 2) coalition and programs in primary prevention with the regional Trident Health District and State Dept. of Health and Environmental Control; 3) outreach activities with proven minority organization; 4) entering of substantial numbers of minority patients and cooperative group trials; 5) expanding early screening for breast and cervical cancer to underserved populations with integration into full- service follow through via HOC; 6) initiating appropriate consultation and prevention-oriented professional education. The institution has the goal of increasing its cancer research base in basic science and clinical areas, with particular stress in the areas of translational multidisciplinary approaches. Recruitment for a center director concomitant with a major research group is into final stages. Five vacant department chair positions are targeted preferentially for various cancer specific or related disciplines. Research programs are to be initiated and planned in basic molecular and biochemical areas. Recent advances at MUSC in stem cell biology are uniquely provocative to develop novel opportunities in bone marrow transplantation and gene therapy. Cutting edge monoclonal antibody technology including single chains and immunotoxins are to be integrated into clinical trials. Both of these activities involve ongoing or incipient collaborations with four major NCI laboratory chiefs. Optimal governance models have to be explored for the final administrative identity of HOC. Plans for specific authorities and prerogatives for the director are being discussed including the interface between the center and all other cancer-related programs at MUSC. In all new program development, the goal is to organize three working groups comprised of internal and regional planners with key external advisory experts and additional consultants. An assembly of a significant financial base is being planned for successful start-up and development of the HOC which is the number one agreed-upon priority of the entire administrative structure at MUSC. Several unique program opportunities dedicated to MUSC are being targeted to cancer activities.

Abstract

Proposal: 9810282 Date: 03-09-1999
PI: Green and Tadmore Institution: University of
California at Los Angeles


The Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) is an institute at the University of California-Los Angeles, and is directed by Dr. Eitan Tadmor and Dr. Mark Green. This institute is designed to encourage cross-fertilization between pure and applied mathematics and other areas of science. IPAM is supported as a Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and is funded by the Division of Mathematical Sciences.

IPAM will host two or three intensive scientific programs each year designed to forge links across fields. Each program will bring in four experts and ten postdoctoral scholars interested in learning the area. Half of these will be mathematicians and half will come from the scientific disciplines related to the program. Each program will have two streams, one with a mathematical flavor and the other focusing on the scientific problems addressed. A program will consist of tutorials from both streams, followed by seminars and conferences, and culminating in a one-week conference at Lake Arrowhead.

IPAM will have no permanent faculty. A vertically integrated group of fourteen scholars from the mathematics and scientific community will spend an intensive ten-week period at IPAM being exposed to an interdisciplinary topic. This group will be supplemented by a hundred visitors coming for shorter periods of time.

9970307

Professor Green will continue his investigations of algebraic cycles, and in particular the image of the Abel-Jacobi map, higher Abel-Jacobi maps, extension classes of arithmetic Hodge structures, and the arithmetic Gauss-Manin connection. The project will also consider the geometric uses of lexicographic initial ideals and their connection with certain regularity questions. Finally Professor Green will return to the study the roots of Steiner polynomials of convex bodies. He hopes that recent advances will allow the generalization of the established curvature inequalities to higher dimensions.

This is a project in algebraic geometry. In this important branch of modern mathematics, geometric objects like curves and surfaces are modeled using algebraic constructions. The abstract nature of the new algebraic objects makes them easier for mathematicians to study. Nevertheless, newly discovered properties of the algebraic models translate back to new properties of the geometric curves and surfaces. One key to this algebraic approach to geometry is the study of symmetries. Mathematical symmetries are more complex and abstract than the familiar geometric symmetries, but they are just as useful in simplifying our view of the an entire object. The Hodge structures that are a focus of this project are a kind of systematic accounting of tiered algebraic symmetries.

9975592
Balsara

This award will provide partial support for the acquisition of a rheometer. It will be used in a multi-user facility to study the rheological properties of a variety of polymer solids, melts, and solutions, including: (1) rheology studies of complex polymer mixtures such as polymer microemulsions, hydrogen-bonded polymer blends, and polysaccharide solutions; (2) the relationship between rheological properties and microscopic motion in polynorbornenes; and (3) dynamics of network- and glass-forming liquids.

The rheometer will be an integral part of polymer education at Polytechnic University. A rheology experiment will be added to the existing graduate Polymer Lab course. Students will work on simple homopolymer melts to see the consequences of well-established phenomena such as entanglement and time-temperature superposition. In addition, it will be used to demonstrate the rheology of more complex systems such as block copolymer melts in the graduate Solid State of Polymers course.
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The rheometer will be dedicated for polymer research and educational activities in the Department(s) of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, and Materials Science at Polytechnic University.
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The Gordon Research Conference on Polymers (East) will take place June 10-15, 2000 at Connecticut College and will be devoted to the range of subjects in polymer science that are seen to project developments in the future century. The entire conference can be found on the web at [http://www.grc.uri.edu/programs/2000/polyeast.htm]. As a bridge between the 20th and 21st centuries there will be a program titled "Stories from the 20th Century," to offer a context for the lectures on cutting-edge developments in polymer science. Distinguished contributors to polymer science in the 20th century have been invited to this program and many of them will also act as discussion leaders for the regular program.

The NSF contributions will allow graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to attend the conference and present their work in the form of posters. These young people will act as an interesting counterpoint to the senior investigators from the Stories section. A committee of speakers and discussion leaders from he program will choose the best of these poster presentations and these presenters will be asked to give oral presentations before the whole conference.

ABSTRACT

The widespread penetration of mathematics into almost every area of science and technology has vastly expanded the opportunities available to mathematicians, both in traditional areas of pure and applied research and in emerging interdisciplinary areas. The UCLA Vigre Program will seek to create an environment in which students and post-docs can explore and participate in these important mathematical developments. Building on the strength of existing UCLA programs, we will introduce new initiatives that will broadly impact the department at both structural and cultural levels. The overall goals are to (1) encourage interaction between faculty, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates, (2) enhance the already close cooperation at UCLA between pure and applied mathematics, and (3) facilitate interaction between mathematics and other sciences. To accomplish this, the Department of Mathematics will take advantage of its position as a major research center, its excellent faculty, and its large and wide-ranging graduate and undergraduate programs. The new national Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM), located nearby on the UCLA campus will also provide an exciting focus for VIGRE-related interdisciplinary activities.

Vertical integration and broadening will be enhanced through the following initiatives:

* Research clusters, in both traditional and emerging areas, via participating seminars and group projects to achieve vertical integration and to involve graduate students and advanced undergraduates in research as early as possible.

* Faculty Research Seminars: to be given regularly by senior faculty to provide overviews of their research specialties.

* Strengthening of our on-going internships with industry and government laboratories.

* An annual retreat conference with faculty, postdocs and senior graduate students.

The UCLA VIGRE Program has three major components: postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate.

POSTDOCTORAL: VIGRE Post-doctoral Fellows will play a pivotal role in our integration efforts. They will form a link in the research interaction between faculty and students via participation in research clusters. Vigre Postdoctoral Fellows will benefit from:

* Reduced teaching.

* Formal mentoring by senior faculty in both research and teaching, including guidance in formulating a research program and grant proposal preparation.

* Summer research support and travel/equipment allowance.

GRADUATE: At the graduate level, the following programs will help graduate students to progress more rapidly from classroom learning to active participation in research and to become more effective teachers:

* New summer program of preparatory courses for graduate students prior to beginning graduate study to provide a solid foundation for the first year qualifying exam courses.

* Streamlined first-year graduate curriculum and qualifying exam process, to enable an early start on research and create more opportunities for interdisciplinary research.

* No teaching in the first and dissertation years.

* Teacher training and mentoring.

These programs are expected to ensure that the average time to PhD is five years or less.

Recruitment at the graduate level will be enhanced through contacts established with colleges and universities in Southern California and visitation days for prospective recruits.

UNDERGRADUATE: At the undergraduate level, our goal is to attract more students into the mathematical sciences broadly construed. The following programs will enhance recruitment of undergraduates, enrich their educational experience, and allow them to make contact with mathematical research in the junior and senior years:

* The Mathematics Scholars Program to attract beginning undergraduates into the mathematical sciences and to enhance their educational experiences in mathematics. It consists of an intensive summer program prior to the Freshman and Sophomore years, collaborative learning groups during the academic year, and special projects with faculty.

* Special Pre-research Courses to prepare undergraduates to participate in research projects.

* Research experiences for undergraduates, including summer research internships.

These new programs will be closely integrated with existing departmental activities. Together, they will create an exciting and enriching educational and scientific environment which will provide a broad mathematical culture and an early entrance into a wide variety of research areas.

Funding for this activity was provided by the Division of Mathematical Sciences and the MPS Office for Multidisciplinary Activity.

This award is made to Polytechnic University in support of the research of Prof. Mark M. Green by the Advanced Materials Program in the Chemistry Division and the Polymer Program in the Division of Materials Research. The objective of the research is to develop stereochemical approaches for elucidating the nature of polymers and the materials states they form. The material states investigated will be single polymer chains in solution, lyotrophic liquid crystals from concentrated solutions, thermally reversible gels, and the amorphous glassy state. Single chain studies will show how polymers amplify chirality. Liquid crystal studies will probe the mechanism of how nematic states are converted to cholesteric states. Studies with thermally reversible gels will define the responsible aggregate states unique to stiff chains and how to predict and control polymer properties. In all cases, chiral pendant groups attached to the polymers will be used as probes to influence and modify polymer properties.

The study of the role of chirality on polymer properties will have both fundamental and technological impact. Chiral amplification in polymers can provide a basis for optical switching, how conversion of liquid crystals between the nematic and twisted nematic states relates to LC display devices, and how the effect of temperature on polymer chirality can be used to optically measure temperature. More broadly, chiral amplification may provide clues to the relationship between circularly polarized light in outer space and the origin of optical activity on earth.

ABSTRACT:
Green/9984708
This CAREER award provides funding to investigate the relationship between the seasonal patterns of calcium carbonate diagenesis and the time-dependent changes of benthic foraminifera and meiofaunal-sized bivalves in the nearshore deposits of Casco Bay, Maine. This work will contribute to our understanding of the marine cycling of CaCO3 and atmospheric CO2. In the educational portion of this proposal, the PI requests funding to develop and implement educational programs that integrate "hands-on" and "minds-on" research opportunities into undergraduate students' experiences at a small liberal arts college. The program will be designed to encourage female undergraduates to pursue careers in science.

This project is a three-week summer school that looks at the interactions between atmospheric and oceanic sciences on the one hand and modern applied mathematics on the other. It is built around the three themes of numerics, stochastics and asymptotics. The numerics component emphasizes the development of modern conservative advection schemes and interface tracking schemes for geophysical transport problems. The asymptotics component emphasizes the dynamics of balanced flows, reduced models and homogenization. The stochastics component covers a variety of topics including particle models, stochastic calculus, kinetic theory and applications to Lagrangian stirring and moist convection. Approximately 15 faculty provide lectures and mentor the students as they conduct short projects to apply the lecture material. The student body consists of 20 or more graduate students and approximately 12 post-doctoral researchers. Faculty and students are drawn from both the geosciences and the mathematics communities.

With the support of the Organic Dynamics Program in the Chemistry Division and the Polymer Program in the Division of Materials Research, Professors Mark Green at Polytechnic University of New York will continue a research program to develop new ways to control the relationship between temperature and the optical properties of liquid crystals that arise from the competition between structurally different enantiomers to control the helical sense of a polymer. A material consistent with the liquid crystal properties noted above will be obtained by synthesis of a helical forming polymer with a pair of randomly dispersed pendant groups that are enantiomerically highly enriched but of different structure and which are competing to control the helical sense of the polymer. This arises from the fact that the temperature dependence for the free energy term favoring one or the other helical sense differs for each of the chiral groups. Based on statistical physical theory it can be shown that the proportion of the competing chiral groups, determined by synthesis, fixes the temperature at which the helical senses are equally populated. Formation of lyotropic liquid crystals from such polymers yields a series of materials in which a nematic phase will be formed at a unique predetermined temperature while above and below this temperature cholesteric phases of opposite sense will arise with tightening pitch as the temperature deviates from the nematic temperature. Experiments are proposed to yield new kinds of information on intramolecular chiral interactions in the polymer and intermolecular chiral interactions in the derived liquid crystal. Moreover, the recent observation that cholesteric lyotropic liquid crystals with incorporated dyes of appropriate fluorescence characteristics give rise to lasing, opens the possibility of producing lasers with unprecedented temperature dependent and circular polarization properties.
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The Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program in the Chemistry Division and the Polymer Program in the Division of Materials Research supports Professor Mark Green at Polytechnic University of New York who will attempt to extend basic findings in polyisocyanates to a variety of helical forming polymers including polyacetylenes, peptides and peptide nucleic acids. This will involve the interdisciplinary training of graduate students, which will involve stereochemistry, polymer chemistry, liquid crystals and optics. The results may lead to unique ideas and even devices for measuring temperature, a property that is fundamental to all technology and life. The beautiful colors arising from the temperature dependent liquid crystals have been shown to intrigue elementary school students so Professor Green is planning to approach organizations such as museums to present explanatory demonstrations. The work will involve collaborations with a start-up company in New Jersey, a government laboratory, with scientists in other academic institutions and also in Japan.

AST-0442015
Green

The emergence of powerful new mathematical techniques motivates the need for training a new generation in the many challenges relevant to national security. This award supports a three-week summer school to be held in 2005 at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) at the University of California-Los Angeles. Leading experts will lecture on the techniques of interpreting data from images, high dimensional geometric structures, and graphs, and approximately half of the program will be devoted to high dimensional data analysis. Main themes will include graph mining, relational data mining, and social networks analysis. IPAM, a national institute with an intrinsically interdisciplinary mission to connect mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, is well suited to run such a program, designed to integrate cutting-edge research with workforce development. With roughly 200 participants each week, including students, postdocs, faculty, industry, and intelligence community staff, there will be a broad range of impacts, including training in the mathematical challenges facing the intelligence community, and the acquisition of important professional contacts.

This award is supported jointly by the NSF and the Intelligence Community. The Approaches to Combat Terrorism Program in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences supports new concepts in basic research and workforce development with the potential to contribute to national security.

Abstract

Award: DMS-0439872
Principal Investigator: Mark L. Green, Stanley Osher

The Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) is a national
research institute that focuses on fostering interactions that bring
together researchers in the mathematical sciences with scientists and
engineers. The Institute operates without permanent faculty or
research staff. IPAM conducts semester-length programs, short
workshops, a summer research program for undergraduates, graduate
summer schools, outreach programs, and workshops to develop and
enhance the careers of researchers from groups underrepresented in the
mathematical sciences.

The IPAM web site at http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/ describes upcoming and
past programs, solicits ideas for future programs, and offers
application forms for Institute activities.

Abstract

Program: NSF 04-588 CISE Computing Research Infrastructure
Title: CRI: Developing the Lemur Toolkit into a Community Resource
Proposal: CNS 0454114
PI: Russ Miller
Institution: SUNY at Buffalo



This project builds on the Western New York Bio-informatics and Life Sciences initiative headquartered in Buffalo, NY. Partners include SUNY-Buffalo, Niagara University, and SUNY-Geneseo. Collaborators include the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the Center for Computational Research at SUNY-Buffalo, and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute The project will focus on the design, analysis and implementation of a computational and data grid serving the research, teaching, education and outreach needs of computer science, technology, bioinformatics, and life sciences in western New York. Research will include enabling technologies for lightweight, efficient monitoring of a the grid, methods to allow subsets of processors to seamlessly join and leave the grid, data collection and mining to support predictive scheduling, improve backfill usage, and providing a ubiquitous interface to users. Applications supported include bioinformatics, structural biology and life sciences. Broader impacts include outreach activities to the K-16 programs, a certificate program in high-performance computing, and diverse recruiting.

ABSTRACT

Proposal # OCE-0622999

Despite major advances towards understanding the factors controlling invertebrate recruitment to benthic communities, many questions remain regarding causes of the extreme juvenile mortality of post-larval bivalves. It is now widely recognized that carbonate undersaturation is a common feature in temperate, coastal, organic-rich surface sediments that are dominated by deposit feeding benthos where many organisms have calcium carbonate shells. Such undersaturation may make it difficult for recently settled, juvenile bivalves to form their shell, and so shell dissolution could represent a significant source of mortality for juvenile bivalves. If true, there would be important implications for benthic community recruitment, survivorship, and the coupling between early diagenetic processes and benthic community form and function.

In this research, a PI from St. Joseph's College will conduct a multi-faceted study that will: (1) determine the effect of carbonate saturation state at the sediment-water interface on recruitment and survivorship of juvenile bivalves following their transition from pediveligers to new juveniles in intertidal mud, (2) evaluate the chemical (reaction) and biotic (transport) processes that control saturation state in these same muds and, (3) develop coupled stage-based/diagenetic models of juvenile bivalve shell dissolution mortality under "scenarios" of carbonate saturation due to variability in the carbonate cycle. Studies will be conducted on the commercially valuable species Mya arenaria and Mercenaria mercenaria. Fieldwork will be conducted at two sites in Casco Bay, Gulf of Maine, that differ in their biological and diagenetic characteristics, yet both have substantial sets of Mercenaria and Mya. The field research will focus on cohort monitoring of Mya and Mercenaria and the effect of carbonate mineral saturation state on the variability in juvenile abundance. "Sediment buffering" experiments will be used to discern if CaCO3 buffering of surface sediments immediately following the set prevents undersaturation by limiting external shell dissolution of juveniles. The site comparisons will permit examination of the importance of dissolution mortality as a function of both the biotic and diagenetic setting. Sampling at low water and mid-upper intertidal heights within each site will examine variability in dissolution mortality as a function of tidal exposure. Laboratory experiments will artificially regulate surface sediment saturation state, and thus juvenile bivalve habitat, while maintaining supersaturated conditions in the overlying water. Dissolution mortality experiments will determine "threshold" saturation states below which external shell dissolution mortality occurs for specific size classes of Mercenaria and Mya (<2.0 mm). Additional laboratory experiments will determine the immediate response of bivalves to sediment surfaces of different saturation states using a combination of direct observations and flume experiments. The collective results from the field and laboratory will be used to model scenarios of dissolution mortality in both species due to anthropogenic and natural changes in carbonate cycling.

Broader impacts of this study include both an extremely strong educational component and important societal benefits. Saint Joseph's College of Maine is an undergraduate institution with about 70% of women in the student body. The immersion of students into research will build on the PI's prior CAREER award and promote students attending and/or presenting research results at national/international conferences contributing as coauthors on manuscripts. Improved understanding of juvenile bivalve mortality could have important impact on management of coastal fisheries. Finally, this research would place coastal populations of juvenile bivalves into context with open ocean plankton with carbonate shells and corals that are currently expected to suffer from similar problems with shell formation and subsequent mortality.

The proposed workshop, 'Probabilistic Models of Cognition: The Mathematics of Mind,' will bring together leaders from cognitive science, computer science, mathematics, and statistics who are interested in developing a common mathematical framework for all aspects of cognition, and review how it explains empirical phenomena such as vision, memory, reasoning, learning, planning, and language. This program is motivated by recent advances which offer the promise of modeling human cognition mathematically. The workshop will entail presentations by leading faculty-level lecturers and an audience of graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and more senior researchers interested in focusing their efforts on probabilistic models of cognition and their applications. Attendees will represent a number of disciplines, including cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, mathematics, physics, statistics, engineering, and education. Researchers interested in education should be equipped with a wide range of new computational, mathematical and statistical tools that can be used to improve educational technology, curriculum design and assessment, through the development of qualitatively more powerful models of human learning. Researchers in all of these fields, as well as basic cognitive-science researchers, should benefit immensely from interacting with each other and learning about this new generation of cognitive modeling approaches in an unprecedented interdisciplinary environment, with both basic and applied research themes represented among the lectures and discussions.

The UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) will offer Research in Industrial Projects (RIPS)- Beijing, a summer program for undergraduates, starting in 2007. The goal is to integrate an international research experience with the established and successful RIPS format. The students will gain not only a better appreciation for the applications of math and the demands of industrial research, but will also benefit from an international research experience.

Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) will sponsor five projects, each involving cutting-edge mathematics, at Microsoft's Beijing facility. Ten U.S. students and 10 Chinese students will work on teams of four, with two members from each country. Each team will have a faculty mentor (recruited by IPAM) and an industry mentor (representing the MSRA research group). The students will engage in research for 8 weeks and ultimately present a final report as well as give an oral presentation to the research group.

The RIPS-Beijing program will add to the pipeline each year 10 top US students and 10 top Chinese students who will have experienced working at one of the world's most exciting industrial research centers as part of an international team, and experiencing first-hand the power of mathematics to solve important real-world problems. We expect that most of the U.S. students will find this research experience attractive and compelling, and will decide to go on to graduate school and to careers utilizing their capability to work in an Asian setting. The faculty mentors from the U.S. who participate each year will acquire skills in guiding a team and in working in an international setting. The cooperation between IPAM and MSRA in jointly running this program will lay the groundwork for further joint activities as well.

Estuaries are productive, complex and have great economic value by virtue of their fisheries, ecosystem services and recreation potential. They are typically less buffered to acid than open oceans due to the combined effects of acid production during heterotrophy and acidic inputs from both land and atmosphere. Within estuaries, it is important to understand how varying acid burdens impact living resources, particularly those that provide ecosystem services and/or generate income as fisheries. The bivalve Mya arenaria, the focal species of this proposed research, is one such resource that sustains a valuable coastal fishery while providing service via its filtration capacity. Because Mya shells are constructed from a relatively soluble form of calcium carbonate (aragonite), and the clams often inhabit eutrophic waters, they may be particularly vulnerable as pH declines. Planktonic larvae and benthic juveniles are critical life stages -- even small reductions in theier abundances could substantially decrease adult populations.

This proposed research addresses four distinct hypotheses concerning the roles of riverine and sediment interactions on the viability of larval and juvenile Mya. Research activities include the following.

1. Fieldwork will evaluate the spatial and seasonal changes in aragonite saturation state within the Kennebec River Estuary and Casco Bay. Seasonal sampling will be coupled with high-frequency sampling during the annual Mya spawn to observe and document the effect of lowered aragonite saturation state on the health status of larval Mya.

2. Using larval Mya, laboratory experiments will mimic the aragonite saturation state observed in Casco Bay during the high-frequency cruises. Metamorphic change (veligers, pediveligers, and metamorphosed juveniles), growth rate, and survivorship of Mya will be evaluated as a function of aragonite saturation state.

3. Spatially intensive daily cohort monitoring of the intertidal mud flats in Falmouth, Maine, will establish the link between changes in abundance of settling juveniles and aragonite saturation state during the period of Mya set. Cohort monitoring of settling Mya will be examined in reference to sediment pH and aragonite saturation state in nearby deposits to ascertain if sediment saturation state is a primary settlement cue for transitioning larvae.

4. A diagnostic model will be developed for the shellfish management community that can be used to detect aragonite saturation state of the water column. The model would run on routine oceanographic measurements (salinity, temperature, oxygen and chlorophyll fluorescence).

Intellectual merit of study: The chemical consequences of increasing atmospheric CO2 and resulting hydrolysis of carbonic acid is well understood and resultant ocean acidification has been accurately predicted with the current generation of global circulation models. These predictions have accelerated research into the effects of ocean acidification on marine organisms, particularly those with CaCO3 exoskeletons. Estuarine waters are far less buffered than oceans, are subject to a variety of acid loadings, and are quite possibly acidifying at a faster rate than the open ocean. Yet, these regions have been largely ignored in 'acidification' research. Effects of acidification on calcifying organisms are similar regardless of whether of acid origin -- atmospheric exchange, net heterotrophy, or discharge of acidic river water. Likewise, each of these acid fluxes is being perturbed via anthropogenic activity (e.g. fossil fuel use, deforestation, agriculture). The proposed research will further understanding of the combined and cumulative impacts of varied acid burdens on calcifying organisms in coastal waters.

Broader impacts of study: Saint Joseph's College of Maine is an undergraduate institution with many potential opportunities to introduce students to the excitement of scientific research and discovery. This project will have special significance to the 70% of women that make up the student body at Saint Joseph's College, many of whom will experience research science for the first time. The immersion of students into research will be modeled after other sponsored research at SJC, resulting in a new marine science major, in over 35 SJC undergraduates attending and/or presenting research results at national/international conferences (12 as co-authors), and in 4 students co-authoring recent papers for publication.

1025159
Furlani
This five year award is to provide a technology audit service for the eXtremeDigital (XD) program, the follow on to the successful NSF TeraGrid program. The technology audit service is designed to; continually test the user environment and capabilities provided by XD to ensure delivery of the highest possible quality of service, to provide internal quality assurance and quality control for XD, measuring quantitative and qualitative metrics of quality of service and to periodically report to the coordinating body for the XD. The award provides the objective metrics of XD quality of service that will be reviewed and revised by the XD in consultation with NSF as the technology evolves. The technology audit service will have user-level access to all XD computational, storage and visualization services and will use these for testing advanced software in partnership with the relevant service providers.

Technical Description
This four-year, field- and lab-intensive work extends the paleo-North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) record to 2000 years BP, building on existing paleolimnological datasets of pollen, organic and inorganic chemistry, mineral magnetism and particle-size that show strong qualitative linkages with NAO activity on Iceland. It develops new quantitative linkages with the NAO from these same proxies in northwest Iceland lake, soil and stream deposits of the last 2000 years, using calibration datasets of watershed soil and lake sediments derived from current depositional environments. It identifies the specific environmental mechanisms responsible for creating distinct, 80-100 year cycles in the mineral deposits of Icelandic lakes and tests these hypotheses:
1. periods of intensified storminess and precipitation on Iceland, such as occur when the NAO index is high and positive, consistently and predictably mobilize minerals from watershed soil reserves and alter lake water characteristics to form distinctive lake sediment deposits, and
2. watershed disturbances related to human occupation and land-use increase the amplitude and/or recurrence interval of the decadal cycle, and
3. conservation protection of the lakes' watersheds in the last 30 years has resulted in a trend towards that of a pre-occupation state, as documented in the lake sediment geochemistry.

Broader impact
The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is part of a global-scale circulation pattern that dominates Northern Hemisphere atmospheric conditions. It is linked to patterns of drought, flooding and severe weather in North America, Europe and the Middle-East. Prior work has shown that the NAO undergoes regular cycles that disturb watershed soils and alter nutrient inflows to lakes and rivers, at least on Iceland. This works uses that lake effect to "see" into the past 2000 years and identify when the NAO was most active. Because human occupation of Iceland began just over 1000 years ago, and this project produces records of change covering the last 2000 years, it offers a unique look at the human role in magnifying the impacts of NAO-related climate changes on fragile landscapes, such as occur in Iceland and in many other previously glaciated regions. By assessing the response of watersheds to repeated climate disturbances, like the NAO, before and after human land use and before and after conservation management, this work provides insight on the usefulness of conservation efforts in mitigating human aspects of climate change. This project also provides much needed research, education, field and laboratory training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students at institutions with relatively limited research opportunities (Plymouth State University and Salem State College), providing access and engagement with three tier-one, research institutions (U. Maine, U. Colorado and U. Minnesota). Students are involved at every level of the project and learn state-of-the-art interdisciplinary approaches typically practiced at research-oriented institutions. It creates opportunities for students to communicate complex ideas associated with research findings in oral and written publications. The five senior researchers involved in this project also receive training in state-of-the-art cross-disciplinary approaches and applications, which enhances their teaching and research capabilities. This work involves significant use of National Laboratory facilities at LacCore and Large Lakes Observatory and combines efforts of 3 New England campuses, leveraging existing facilities and human resources and building new regional capacity.

This project will facilitate the collaboration of a group of scientists interested in delivery, transport and transformation of organic matter in a variety of surface waters. The group will synthesize data across spatial and temporal scales and bring together a multi-disciplinary team at the John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis. The effort will re-evaluate the fundamental relationships between discharge and DOM concentration and composition and focus on synthesizing mature datasets from small headwater basins to large coastal basins using statistical techniques and modeling. Data are available that represent a range of temporal sampling intensities from seasonal samples, to more frequent samples from automated samplers, and finally to data from continuous optical sensors.

This synthesis collaboration is expected to advance scientific understanding of the processes and patterns of organic matter transport by exploring key data sets at a level of detail and scale that has not previously been attempted. The work is expected to also benefit the policy and management communities that rely on data, models, and understanding of the controls on nutrient, trace metal, and pollutant transport in river networks and to estuaries. This is a joint synthesis projects with the USGS Powell Center, Fort Collins Colorado.

A US-Japan Joint Seminar in hydrology will be held has to foster exchange of ideas, bridge gaps in research approaches, and to jointly develop prospective research directions. Historically, there has been limited interaction among scientists between the two countries because language, culture, and research foci separate these scientific communities. These differences highlight a potential for scientific discovery and are the reasons for this US-Japan Joint Seminar in hydrology. The purpose of this forthcoming seminar is to expand the theme of linking hydrology and biogeochemistry to consider effects of climatic and environmental change, as well as emerging measurement and analytical techniques used in catchment science research that allow fundamental scientific advancements. The meeting will host approximately 20 scientists from each country, including students and early career scientists, to present and discuss cutting-edge research in catchment sciences in an open forum to foster collaboration and exchange. The seminar will focus on the following aspects of hydrological and biogeochemical catchment sciences: (1) the role of hydrologic connectivity in regulating carbon and nitrogen cycling and export from catchments in the face of climatic and environmental change; (2) synthesis and cross-site comparison along climatic gradients to understand mechanisms of solute yields from catchments; (3) advances in techniques (trace gas fluxes, isotopic mass balances) for balancing nutrient budgets and better understanding processes (denitrification, transport, uptake, mineralization, etc.); and (4) integrating field observations with theory to inform better model predictions

The US-Japan Joint Seminar will 1) foster interaction and develop new collaborative research between US and Japanese catchment scientists, 2) stimulate and engage the next generation of scientists who will become leaders in research and support future interaction between the two countries, and 3) advance understanding of how catchments respond to climatic and environmental changes. Cross-continental synthesis is a challenge, yet a necessity for determining how catchments will respond to global environmental change. To meet that challenge, the proposed multi-perspective seminar in catchment hydrology and forest biogeochemistry will bring together established researchers and early career scientists, providing invaluable opportunities for synthesis in catchment sciences.

In response to national and state concerns, New Hampshire?s public systems of higher education set a goal of a 50% increase in STEM graduates by 2020 and to double that by 2025. Recruiting, retaining, and graduating undergraduate students in STEM disciplines, like geoscience, is a major challenge especially at Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs). The Lake Watershed Geosystems Path (LWGP) directly responds to these local and regional mandates while helping meet national needs to augment the geoscience trained workforce. Students learn scientific concepts quicker and more permanently when the concepts are provided as relevant applications. This project uses this educational principle of a problem-based, field-intensive, applied interdisciplinary science approach and seamlessly scaffolds it into existing curriculum and research opportunities. It also includes faculty and peer mentoring and links participants to applied geoscience internships and career opportunities.

The Lake Watershed Geosystems Path (LWGP) project seeks to increase STEM preparation and graduates in the following ways: 1) partnering with the Plymouth State University Admissions to recruit a diverse cohort of first-year students in STEM fields, 2) encouraging participating students to enroll in a newly created first-year seminar course that develops critical thinking through a geoscience lens, 3) engaging students in extracurricular field- and lab-based research as part of a new PSU Cluster project which spans the major hydrological components of watershed systems, including atmospheric deposition, land surface runoff, stream flow, and resulting effects on lake basins, and 4) assisting participating students in entering into pre-arranged internships and externships which leverage their newly acquired geoscience training. LWGP alumni will be recruited to help peer mentor and train subsequent participants via a 1-credit independent study elective. Ultimately, LWGP will blend field and laboratory student experiences oriented around hydrologic pathways in lake watersheds with community partnerships and faculty/peer mentoring to: 1) introduce geoscience principles, systems thinking and skill development at the onset of student university experiences; 2) increase student retention and success in non-geoscience degree programs that serve as pathways into geoscience fields; 3) foster strong cohort identification, and 4) apply knowledge and skills gained by students in this project to enhance their future work experiences, education goals, and career objectives.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.