2016 — 2019 |
Ramachandran, Ravi Dahm, Kevin Bouaynaya, Nidhal Nazari, Rouzbeh Moore, John |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Engaging in Stem Education With Big Data Analytics and Technologies: a Rowan-Cove Initiative
Large amounts of data have become available across fields in science, industry, government, healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Big data analytics and technologies hold tremendous promise to boost economic productivity, enhance national security and improve the quality of life. Recognizing the acute need for big data technology, the aim of this proposal is to create a national model by developing multi-year curricular material that allows course content in separate classes to be naturally inter-connected. In collaboration with industry (Lockheed Martin Inc. and HP Enterprise), this project designs a series of laboratory experiments in big data analytics and technologies that become more complex from the freshmen to the senior year. The proposed approach will cut across artificial course boundaries and introduce fundamental, contemporary and multidisciplinary big data concepts through a series of problem-oriented laboratory experiments. Students will also gain a better knowledge of policy, ethical, and societal impact issues of big data.
The collaboration with Palmyra Cove Education Foundation will bring big data activities to K-12 and further evaluate the educational impact and increase related dissemination efforts. The activities run at Cove will excite K-12 students about engineering and enhance teacher expertise in mathematics, science and technology. Palmyra Cove will reach out to local underrepresented K-12 school districts targeting women and minorities. The Foundation will also organize a workshop for undergraduate students, university faculty and K-12 students and teachers on big data as applied to environmental engineering and the geosciences. The results will be disseminated through technical and educational conferences and journal articles.
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0.966 |
2018 — 2020 |
Nazari, Rouzbeh |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
I-Corps: An Innovative Framework For High Resolution Quantitative Assessment of Flood Resiliency
The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to provide technical services to homeowners, local municipalities, engineering and insurance companies to enhance community resilience and sustainability against multi-hazard events such as hurricane that can bring strong wind, storm surge and wide spread inundation. The proposed resilience technology contributes to a paradigm shift in practice from engineering design code methods to performance-based approach that considers structural resiliency concepts and quantifies property hazard risk and value over time. The in-house developed technology utilizes the hydrodynamic simulations to calculate the flood impacts and combines it with the structural and socioeconomic features of built environment. The multi-faceted tool will inform individuals, local municipalities, coastal building designers, increasing the performance and resiliency of this building stock and ensuring greater post-event community function, insurance companies underwriting flood insurances and calculating premiums. Progress and information to be gained through the I-Corps program, in interactions with hazard insurance and risk assessment companies as well as engineering and information service groups will enable our team to expedite the translation of the proposed technology to the market. The developed technologies will be scalable and broadly applicable to other hazard types and regions with potentials of expanding to at international markets.
This I-Corps project aims to offer a comprehensive predictive tool that provides a pin-point quantitative assessment of the damage and resiliency scenarios of individual properties and up-scaling it to larger infrastructure cluster to introduce a new understanding of the community wide vulnerability considering available social and human capitals. The innovative and ground breaking aspect of this work is that this project for the first time consolidating hydrodynamic, structural and socioeconomic information through a massive big data campaign followed by interactive analysis to open a new window in understanding impacts of extreme events. Specifically, the intellectual merit of this approach resides in its (a) Holistic approach to performance-based design of building (b) Application of state-of-the-art data driven predictive models and advanced computational technologies in flood damage and resiliency assessment of buildings (c) High modularity in building design and prototyping process which supports expansion to other hazards and building types, and (d) Potential to create new knowledge regarding optimal multi-hazard building design. The approach provides comprehensive support to decision makers and designers by estimating building vulnerability and resiliency over construction property, operation and hazards, and by balancing competing 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.
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0.966 |
2022 — 2026 |
Nazari, Rouzbeh Ho, Shuk-Mei (co-PI) [⬀] Subbaraman, Harish Murray, Teresa [⬀] Arumugam, Prabhu |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Fii Track-2 Fec: Facilitating Ubiquitous Technology Utilizing Resilient Eco-Friendly Sensors @ Louisiana Tech University
Water pollution is a widespread problem. According to a recent Gallup Poll, ground and drinking water pollution are Americans' top environmental concerns. Some of the most serious pollutants include pesticides and heavy metals, such as lead and arsenic. These substances not only get into our drinking water, but their accumulation in plants and animals can make food unsafe in many communities, adversely affecting human health. Yet, bodies of water are often tested only once a year due to manual collection procedures and large, costly equipment to measure pollutants. This project will create small, printable sensors to simultaneously measure toxic heavy metals and pesticides on-site to enable widespread environmental surveillance in bodies of water, and to measure levels of heavy metals in human populations. The project will recruit and train a diverse workforce to design, test, and produce these new types of sensors. Through collaborations at four universities, the project will leverage the unique skills and facilities at Boise State University, Louisiana Tech University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences to produce and test the sensors. In addition to traditional K-12 outreach activities and recruitment to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), this project has developed a novel, hybrid pre-mentoring research experience (PRE Program) to recruit and train underrepresented minority students that will enhance training and increase retention. The PRE Program will be run by the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, an HBCU institution. Students will engage in learning and professional development activities for several months prior to working in one of the other four universities for a summer research experience, gaining essential knowledge and experience to ensure success in a STEM career. Furthermore, the project leadership will work with economic development teams to establish manufacturing capabilities to commercialize the sensors for large global markets and to employ project trainees, which will amplify investment in this project. The sensors have the potential to enable a future convergence with the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and consumer cell phone apps to provide widespread surveillance and analysis of environmental toxins in water and in human populations. This convergence will create new research and commercialization opportunities contributing to the sustainability of the project beyond the life of the award.<br/><br/>The project will advance chemical and materials engineering, sensor design, environmental research, and human safety. Our research will produce databases of eco-friendly, printable sensor inks for microelectronic devices and functionalized photonic carbon dots for detection of toxic chemicals, as well as electronic and photonic sensor detection methods for multianalyte measurements. Using this fundamental research, the project team will design and optimize economical, multianalyte, eco-friendly sensors that avoid or use only a minute amount of precious metals. The project will develop non-invasive, human HM sensors for on-site use in the home and in community screening clinics. Sensors will be deployed to areas with toxic spills or persistent leakage to evaluate initial exposure and monitor exposure over time, and to gage the progress of remediation procedures. This research project will (1) provide a fundamental understanding of the emergent electrochemical properties of nanocomposite network coatings (NNCs) that avoid or use only minute amounts of precious metals versus Si-based sensors; (2) discover catalytic effects of NNC inks and their sensing mechanisms; (3) develop optimal jet printing parameters for NNC inks; (4) explore novel dopant and functionalization methods for luminescent carbon dot (CD) sensors, including upcycling of papermill and plastics industry waste; (5) learn how the electronic energy gap shifts between functionalized CDs and specific heavy metals; and (6) optimize sensing parameters for multianalyte detection for printed ink and CD sensors. These economical sensors will enable wider use and more frequent monitoring of toxic chemicals which will facilitate a greater understanding of the impact of human activity in the environment and how to minimize the spread of toxic chemicals to humans.<br/><br/>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.
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0.936 |