Read the research blog Further Findings.
Research Prizes and Honors
[Have you or a colleague won a research-related prize or honor? Let the Research Alert know.]
ENGINEERING PROF RECEIVES DARPA YOUNG FACULTY AWARD
John Zhang, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has received a 2010 Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The award, which DARPA gives to roughly 30 recipients annually across the nation, identifies and engages rising research stars in junior faculty positions in academia. DARPA seeks high-risk/high-payoff ideas and research that enables revolutionary advances in core technology areas to benefit the Department of Defense and national security.
News and Information
OSP OFFERS GUIDANCE ON RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH CONDUCT
Find information about online training in responsible conduct in research from the university’s Office of Sponsored Projects.
NEW FEDERALLY NEGOTIATED FandA COST RATE EFFECTIVE SEPT. 1, 2010
The rates for Facilities and Administrative (FandA) Costs have been re-negotiated for The University of Texas at Austin. From a memo sent July 1, 2010 by OSP Director Susan Sedwick:
“The current on-campus federally negotiated indirect costs rate applies to all proposals including those submitted to for-profit and federal entities … Proposal budgets must use the effective rate that corresponds with the proposed start date for the project and should be calculated on modified total direct costs (MTDC) … For proposals with a proposed start date of Sept. 1, 2010 through Aug. 31, 2011, use 53.5 percent.”
Read the memorandum. A copy of the negotiated rate agreement can be found on the Office of Sponsored Projects Web site.
QuotedUT Researchers in the News
[A sampling of recent quotes by university faculty members and researchers. To be included in this section, let the Research Alert know when you or a colleague have been quoted.]
CNN
July 5, 2010
HEADLINE: Latinos not flexing political muscle — yet
“The issue is not that Latinos are disinterested in politics,” said David Leal, an associate professor of government who focuses on Latino politics at The University of Texas at Austin. “Instead, Latino turnout reflects the larger underlying factors that structure the vote for everyone.”
Research Opportunities
Important university research deadlines:
Awards and Grants
Limited Submissions
AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT
The University of Texas at Austin Stimulus Package Web page is online.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Laser Effects on Materials, Structures and Sensors
Deadline: Intent to propose, July 21, 2010; Proposal, Aug. 13, 2010
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Office of Science Early Career Research Program
Deadlines: Preapplication, Aug. 13, 2010; Application, Nov. 9, 2010
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Cooperative Training Partnership in Aquatic Toxicology and Ecosystem Research
Deadline: Sept. 28, 2010
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Advancing Novel Science in Women’s Health Research
Deadline: Oct. 16, 2010
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Physics of Living Systems
Deadline: July 31, 2010
Joint DMS/NIGMS Initiative to Support Research at the Interface of the Biological and Mathematical Sciences
Deadline: Oct. 1, 2010
Partnerships for Innovation
Deadline: Letter of Intent, Oct. 1, 2010; Full Proposal, Dec. 4, 2010
Interface between Computer Science and Economics and Social Science
Deadline: Oct. 5, 2010
ARTS, HUMANITIES AND CULTURE
Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin
William And Madeline Welder Smith Research Travel Award
Deadline: July 31, 2010
National Endowment for the Arts
Creativity and Aging in America: Lifelong Learning in the Arts
Deadline: July 21, 2010
The Arts on Radio and Television
Deadline: Sept. 2, 2010
National Endowment for the Humanities
Bridging Cultures through Film: International Topics
Deadline: July 28, 2010
Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions
Deadline: Aug. 17, 2010
OTHER FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
Social Science Research Council, Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, and the American Council of Learned Societies
Abe Fellowship (for international multidisciplinary research on topics of pressing global concern)
Deadline: Sept. 1, 2010
Pew Charitable Trusts
Pew Latin American Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences
Deadline: Oct. 1, 2010
Research Project
[Let the Research Alert know about your research projects.]
TeXIT: (Texas) X-lingual Interpretation of Texts
RESEARCHERS: Jason Baldridge, assistant professor, Department of Linguistics, principal investigator; David Beaver, associate professor, Department of Linguistics, and Katrin Erk, assistant professor, Department of Linguistics, co-principal investigators
AGENCY: New York Community Trust
AMOUNT: $120,000
The TeXIT project is to develop algorithms and applications that connect language to time and space. This project builds on the researchers’ prior work on computational analyses of word meaning and linguistic structure.
It simultaneously addresses two central issues in multilingual language understanding: (1) analyzing texts in terms of their discourse structure and the underlying semantic concepts they express; and (2) grounding texts by explicitly anchoring representations of their meaning to geographic regions and time periods.
The ideas and theoretical developments are put to practice in TextGrounder, a system that automatically interprets references to times and places in free text in multiple languages and uses that information to visualize texts using geobrowsers like Google Earth. Examples of the kinds of texts the project is working with are multilingual Wikipedia pages that have been geolocated, testimonies from the Rwandan genocide (in English, French, and Kinyarwanda), and Civil War era texts.
The project’s activities include complementary education and outreach activities aimed at engaging university students in research, and communicating linguistics and computer science to high-school students, with an emphasis on broadening the participation of traditionally under-represented groups.
