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.]
SCHMIDT ELECTED FELLOW OF BMES
Christine Schmidt, professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society‘s (BMES) 2010 class. She has actively participated with BMES and has served in a number of leadership roles, including as General Chair for the society’s 2010 annual meeting which will be held in Austin, Oct. 6-9.
Schmidt and 14 other fellows will be inducted at the meeting.
News and Information
BE CLEAR ABOUT RESEARCH VALUE IN NIH APPLICATIONS
In her monthly column, the director of the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Extramural Research reminds researchers to write their research grant materials in such a way that the public will understand the value of the research.
Sally Rockey offers several tips about effectively communicating research in the newsletter, Extramural Nexus. She also lists several places where the NIH offers help in communicating about research.
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.]
The New York Times
Aug. 2, 2010
HEADLINE: Tracing Oil Reserves to Their Tiny Origins
University geologists William Galloway of the Institute for Geophysics, and Scott Tinker helped explain why the geology that formed the Gulf of Mexico makes it such a rich source of oil. Here’s the passage from Tinker, the head of the Bureau of Economic Geology, which also makes him the state geologist.
Scott W. Tinker, the state geologist of Texas, said the abundant flows of mud and sediment not only fed microscopic life but also formed rocky barriers that sealed off the organic remains from the outer world. A main barrier was shale, a sedimentary rock made of clay and silt.
“The organics got buried quickly because of the heavy sediment flow,” Dr. Tinker said. “So they didn’t get biodegraded as quickly. You preserved the organic richness.”
He said the flow was so heavy that the growing accumulations keep pressing the lower sediment layers deeper into the earth, forcing them into hot zones where the organic material got transformed into oil. The process involves a long series of chemical reactions that slowly turn life molecules into inanimate crude.
“The gulf has miles and miles of sediments,” he said. “So that gets the source rocks down into the kitchen where they cook.”
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.
The University of Texas at Austin has received $96 million for 195 projects through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE): Promoting Rigorous Career and Technical Education Programs of Study
Deadlines: Notice of Intent to Apply, Aug. 16, 2010; Application, Sept. 7, 2010
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant program
Deadline: Aug. 16, 2010
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Title VIII Combined Research and Language Training Program Research and Training on Eastern Europe and Eurasia (Independent States of the Former Soviet Union)
Deadline: Oct. 1, 2010
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Biobehavioral Research Awards for Innovative New Scientists (BRAINS)
Deadlines: Letter of Intent, Sept. 20, 2010; Application, Oct. 19, 2010
Developmental Mechanisms of Human Structural Birth Defects
Deadlines: Letter of Intent, Oct. 30, 2010; Application, Nov. 30, 2010
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Biosensing
Deadlines: Proposal Window, Aug. 15, 2010-Sept. 23, 2010
Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development
Deadlines: Letter of Intent, Sept. 16, 2010; Full Proposal, Nov. 16, 2010
Solid State and Materials Chemistry
Deadline: Proposal Window, Sept. 1, 2010-Oct. 31, 2010
East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students
Deadline: Nov. 10, 2010
Systematic Biology and Biodiversity Inventories
Deadline: Jan. 9, 2011
NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDS COMMISSION
Publication Subventions
Deadline: Sept. 9, 2010
TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Pilot Test the Ecological Approaches to Environmental Protection
Developed in Capacity Research Projects C06A and C06B
Deadline: Sept. 27, 2010
ARTS, HUMANITIES AND CULTURE
National Endowment for the Arts
The Arts on Radio and Television
Deadline: Sept. 2, 2010
National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellowship Programs at Independent Research Institutions
Deadline: Aug. 17, 2010
Picturing America School Collaboration Projects
Deadline: Oct. 7, 2010
Scholarly Editions and Translations
Deadline: Oct. 28, 2010
Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections
Deadline: Nov. 16, 2010
OTHER FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Inc.
Dreyfus Senior Scientist Mentor Initiative (for emeritus faculty to mentor undergraduates)
Deadline: Nov. 11, 2010
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR CANCER RESEARCH
Grants for Carcinoid Tumor and Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor Research
Deadline: Sept. 15, 2010
The Raymond and Beverly Sackler AACR Fellowships for Ileal Carcinoid Tumor Research
Deadline: Sept. 15, 2010
Research Project
[Let the Research Alert know about your research projects.]
Collaborative Research: Languages and Tools for Multilingual Systems
RESEARCHER: Kathryn McKinley, professor, Department of Computer Science, principal investigator
AGENCY: National Science Foundation
AMOUNT: $64,705 (continuing grant)
Software developers are increasingly building applications in multiple languages both to reuse existing software libraries and to leverage the languages best suited to their problems. In fact, multilingual programs are already prevalent, as essentially all programs written in Java use code written in C as well. But developing multilingual programs poses more challenges and difficulties than developing single language programs. Current programming interfaces between multiple
languages tend to be tedious and unsafe; and most programming tools only support a single language. As a consequence, real-world multilingual programs are full of cross-language bugs.
This research seeks to substantially improve the correctness and development of multilingual programs. The investigators build on their prior multilingual language design (the Jeannie Java/C language), compilers (the xtc Jeannie compiler), and debuggers (the Blink Java/C debugger). Here, the investigators are designing and implementing
novel approaches for validating the safety of existing multilingual interfaces and for creating safe multilingual programs. (1) The investigators are developing a framework for concisely capturing safety rules for multilingual interfaces and then automatically synthesizing the corresponding dynamic checker. (2) The investigators are exploring novel program analysis to refactor programs automatically that use unsafe multilingual interfaces into programs that use safe multilingual interfaces. If successful, the research impact will be improved correctness, efficiency, and reliability of multilingual programs.
