LANL REPORTS ON SOLAR PANEL-WINDOW

FROM:  LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY 

Right:  This schematic shows how the quantum dots are embedded in the plastic matrix and capture sunlight to improve solar panel efficiency.


Shiny quantum dots brighten future of solar cells
Photovoltaic solar-panel windows could be next for your house

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., April 14, 2014—A house window that doubles as a solar panel could be on the horizon, thanks to recent quantum-dot work by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers in collaboration with scientists from University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB), Italy. Their project demonstrates that superior light-emitting properties of quantum dots can be applied in solar energy by helping more efficiently harvest sunlight.

“The key accomplishment is the demonstration of large-area luminescent solar concentrators that use a new generation of specially engineered quantum dots,” said lead researcher Victor Klimov of the Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP) at Los Alamos.

Quantum dots are ultra-small bits of semiconductor matter that can be synthesized with nearly atomic precision via modern methods of colloidal chemistry.  Their emission color can be tuned by simply varying their dimensions. Color tunability is combined with high emission efficiencies approaching 100 percent. These properties have recently become the basis of a new technology – quantum dot displays – employed, for example, in the newest generation of the Kindle Fire ™ e-reader.

Light-harvesting antennas

A luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) is a photon management device, representing a slab of transparent material that contains highly efficient emitters such as dye molecules or quantum dots. Sunlight absorbed in the slab is re-radiated at longer wavelengths and guided towards the slab edge equipped with a solar cell.

Klimov explained, “The LSC serves as a light-harvesting antenna which concentrates solar radiation collected from a large area onto a much smaller solar cell, and this increases its power output.”

“LSCs are especially attractive because in addition to gains in efficiency, they can enable new interesting concepts such as photovoltaic windows that can transform house facades into large-area energy generation units,” said Sergio Brovelli, who worked at Los Alamos until 2012 and is now a faculty member at UNIMIB.

Because of highly efficient, color-tunable emission and solution processability, quantum dots are attractive materials for use in inexpensive, large-area LSCs.   One challenge, however, is an overlap between emission and absorption bands in the dots, which leads to significant light losses due to the dots re-absorbing some of the light they produce.

“Giant” but still tiny, engineered dots

To overcome this problem the Los Alamos and UNIMIB researchers have developed LSCs based on quantum dots with artificially induced large separation between emission and absorption bands (called a large Stokes shift).

These “Stokes-shift” engineered quantum dots represent cadmium selenide/cadmium sulfide (CdSe/CdS) structures in which light absorption is dominated by an ultra-thick outer shell of CdS, while emission occurs from the inner core of a narrower-gap CdSe. The separation of light-absorption and light-emission functions between the two different parts of the nanostructure results in a large spectral shift of emission with respect to absorption, which greatly reduces losses to re-absorption.

To implement this concept, Los Alamos researchers created a series of thick-shell (so-called “giant”) CdSe/CdS quantum dots, which were incorporated by their Italian partners into large slabs (sized in tens of centimeters) of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). While being large by quantum dot standards, the active particles are still tiny - only about hundred angstroms across. For comparison, a human hair is about 500,000 angstroms wide.

“A key to the success of this project was the use of a modified industrial method of cell-casting, we developed at UNIMIB Materials Science Department” said Francesco Meinardi, professor of Physics at UNIMIB.

Spectroscopic measurements indicated virtually no losses to re-absorption on distances of tens of centimeters. Further, tests using simulated solar radiation demonstrated high photon harvesting efficiencies of approximately 10% per absorbed photon achievable in nearly transparent samples, perfectly suited for utilization as photovoltaic windows.

Despite their high transparency, the fabricated structures showed significant enhancement of solar flux with the concentration factor of more than four. These exciting results indicate that “Stokes-shift-engineered” quantum dots represent a promising materials platform. It may enable the creation of solution processable large-area LSCs with independently tunable emission and absorption spectra.
Publication: A research paper, “Large-area luminescent solar concentrators based on ‘Stokes-shift-engineered’ nanocrystals in a mass-polymerized PMMA matrix,” is published online this week in Nature Photonics.

Funding: The Center for Advanced Solar Photophyscis (CASP) is an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy.

The work of the UNIMIB team was conducted within the UNIMIB Department of Materials Science and funded by Fondazione Cariplo (2012-0844) and the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013; grant agreement no. 324603).

NSF LOOKS FOR INTEGRATED COMPUTER MODELING SYSTEM

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 

An integrated computer modeling system for water resource management

Water resource management involves numerous and often distinct areas, such as hydrology, engineering, economics, public policy, chemistry, ecology and agriculture, among others. It is a multi-disciplinary field, each with its own set of challenges and, in turn, its own set of computer models.

Jonathan Goodall's mission is "to take all these models from different groups and somehow glue them together," he says.

The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientist and associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Virginia, is working to design an integrated computer modeling system that will seamlessly connect all the different models, enabling everyone involved in the water resources field to see the big picture.

"We are trying to computationally design models as components within a larger modeling framework so that we can integrate them," he says. "We want to be able to look at connections across the systems. For example, if you grow corn for ethanol for fuel, there are economic, water quality and agricultural aspects. How do you look at the issues and problems holistically? How do you look at all the components of the system and their interactions? We need to have this perspective if we want to understand all the consequences that happen to water, so we can manage it properly."

In doing so, "it will make the models we use to address water resources challenges more accurate and more robust," he says. "There are a lot of current water challenges that require sophisticated computational models."

He lists, among others, the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, where fertilizer runoff has created dead zones; Southern California, which faces water shortages resulting from an over allocation of the Colorado River, and depleted groundwater resources; and floods along rivers in the Midwest, which prompted difficult decisions about releasing water through levies, and flooding lands, to avoid significant downstream flooding of cities, such as New Orleans.

"Models are used by water resource engineers every day to make predictions, such as when will a river crest following a heavy rain storm, or how long until a city's water supply runs dry during a period of drought," he adds. "One of the problems with our current models is that they often consider only isolated parts of the water cycle. Our work argues that when you look at all the pieces together, you will come up with a more comprehensive picture that will result in more accurate predictions."

His work was motivated and builds off an initiative funded by the European Union called Open Modeling Interface, known as OpenMI, originally conceived to facilitate the simulation of interacting processes, particularly environmental ones, by enabling independent computer models to exchange data as they ran.

Later, it became a generic solution to the problem of data exchange among any models, not just environmental, and soon after, not just models but software components, thereby connecting any combination of models, databases and analytical and visualization tools.

"We are trying to advance the software that bridges all the models," Goodall says. "One of the ways we are trying to strengthen the software is by trying to understand which kinds of problems it can handle."

For example, one challenge with bridging models of different systems is that one system might be more dynamic than another. In water resources, water movement in the atmosphere is more dynamic than water movement in deep aquifers.

"When the models are bridged, you need to allow for the flexibility that allows for these differences, otherwise you may run into significant computationally efficiencies," Goodall says.

"Also, you can quickly get into semantics problems, where different models have different vocabularies in their internal systems," he adds. "You may need to have a variable passed between two different models, but each model might have its own semantics for naming the variable. Computers do not handle this well without very specific runs, such as unified, controlled vocabulary, or clear rules for how to translate terminology between the two models."

These semantic differences can be complex, since variables in models may have slight differences in units or dimensions that, if not properly handled, can cause major problems when linking the models together, he says.

While this work applies generally across water resource modeling challenges, Goodall and his team are applying the work specifically to the challenge of modeling water and nutrient transport within watersheds. They are using the Neuse River Basin in North Carolina as a case study, running widely used models alongside their new modeling framework system in order to test and verify whether the new system reaches the same answers as well-tested models.

"The modeling framework system will then be used to go beyond the capabilities of current models by including new disciplines into the watershed modeling process, and then eventually allowing specialized groups to advance components of the overall modeling system," he says.

Goodall is conducting his research under an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, which he received in 2009 as part of NSF's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The award supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organization. NSF is funding his work with $408,042 over five years.

Goodall is using the educational component of the grant to plan courses, as well as a workshop for graduate students across different water-related disciplines who "will come up with a water problem that is cross-disciplinary, and then construct a model using the new modeling system that can really test our approach," he says. "We will be talking about the integration we have to do so we can have an integrated system where each person contributes his or her own component."

In 2013, Goodall volunteered as a mentor at a local middle school, where he guided students through design a city of the future and "specifically think about how that city would handle its storm water," he says. "We discussed the general problems cause by storm water," which is runoff caused by heavy rain storms, "falling on impervious surfaces such as roads, roofs and parking lots.

"Because this rain does not infiltrate into the soil, it can cause problems such as flooding or erosion of river beds," he adds. "We talked about the ways engineers handle storm water so that it does not cause these problems, as well as how the philosophy for handling storm water runoff has changed over the years."

While many urban storm water systems were designed in the past simply to remove rain water from a city as quickly as possible--for example, by using large concrete channels--the focus has changed in recent years. Many cities now employ new practices, such as using pervious surfaces for roads or lots, or capturing rainfall in ponds or rain gardens distributed across the city, allowing water to slowly infiltrate into the soil.

"Storm water is something that most people spend very little time thinking about and these students were no different," he says. "But as they began to think about the problem and the challenge of not only solving the problem, but doing it in a sustainable way, they were hooked. You could see their minds go as they tried to come up with solutions to the problem, and that was fun."

3-D CHIPS COULD EXPAND MICROPROCESSOR CAPACITY

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 
Scientist developing 3-D chips to expand capacity of microprocessors

Novel design would consume less power and provide higher performance
Many researchers in the field of integrated circuits worry that the fast paced progress of "miniaturization" will start to slow unless they find new ways to expand the capacity of the conventional two-dimensional chips used today in virtually all electronics.

Emre Salman, an assistant professor of computer and electrical engineering at Stony Brook University, is trying to design new technology, circuits and algorithms for the next generation of microprocessors, mobile computing devices and communication chips, in order "to overcome the fundamental limitations of current electronic systems, such as high power consumption," he says.

Specifically, the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded scientist is working on developing three-dimensional integration, an emerging technology that would vertically stack multiple wafers, a technique with the potential to enhance significantly the capability of the current two-dimensional chips.

"Today's typical electronic system on a circuit board consists of multiple chips connected with wires that are at the millimeter and centimeter scale," he explains. "These bulky connections not only slow down the circuit, but also consume power and reduce the reliability of the system."

In 3-D integration technology, on the other hand, those discrete chips, now called tiers, are stacked on top of each other before they are packaged, he says. "The entire 3-D system is placed in a single package," he says. "Vertical connections that achieve communication among the tiers are now in the micrometer scale, and getting even shorter with advances in 3-D manufacturing technology, thereby consuming less power and providing more performance. Essentially, 3-D technology enables higher and heterogeneous integration at a smaller form factor."

This goal, however, faces any number of challenges. "This expansion comes with a variety of difficulties," says Salman, who also directs Stony Brook's Nanoscale Circuits and Systems (NanoCAS) Laboratory. "For example, it is highly challenging to ensure that the diverse planes of a 3-D chip work in harmony as a single entity."

He points out that many scientists have been working on wafer level 3-D integration for more than a decade. However, "the primary emphasis has been on high performance and somewhat homogeneous chips, such as microprocessors," he says.

On the other hand, citing the 2011 edition of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), an important guide for researchers in the field, "the third phase and long term application of 3-D technology includes highly heterogeneous integration, where sensing and communication planes are stacked with conventional data processing and memory planes," he says.

This means that a single 3-D chip will be able detect data from environment, then process and store this data using advanced algorithms, and then wirelessly transmit these data to a remote center, he says.

Unlike the dominant existing research, this relatively long term application has become his team's primary focus, an approach with the potential to enlarge the three-dimensional domain from high performance computing to relatively low power systems-on-chip (SoCs). These low power SoCs have capabilities beyond the boundaries of traditional general purpose processors, since they integrate multiple functions, including sensing, processing, storage and communication into a single 3-D chip, he says.

"Numerous applications exist in health care, energy efficient mobile computing, and environmental control, since a smaller form factor can be achieved at lower power while offering significant computing resources," he says. "Our fundamental objective is to develop a reliable 3-D analysis and design platform for these applications which will host future electronics systems that are increasingly more portable, can interact with the environment, consume low power, yet still offer significant computing capability."

He is conducting his research under an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. The award supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organization. NSF is funding his work with $453,809 over five years.

"We are developing design methodologies to reliably distribute power to each tier of a 3-D chip," he says. "We are also exploring novel circuit topologies for 3-D power management, thereby increasing energy efficiency. We are investigating various noise coupling paths within a 3-D system, and finding ways to protect sensitive transistors from noise. All of these activities serve for the common goal of improving power, signal and sensing integrity of a heterogeneous 3-D chip."

At the NanoCAS lab, their workstations are equipped with the latest electronic design automation software that allows the researchers to verify their algorithms, models and design methodologies. "We primarily rely on these state-of-the-art IC simulation tools that the semiconductor industry uses to design and verify their chips," he says.

As part of the grant's educational component, Salman plans to integrate these research activities at the secondary, undergraduate and graduate levels, and will involve the NanoCAS lab in an engineering summer camp for high-school students organized at Stony Brook. The program, organized jointly by the department of electrical and computer engineering and the student branch of IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a world-wide professional association) at Stony Brook, consists of a two-week residential camp at the university campus.

"While the primary goal is to introduce motivated high school students to the field of electrical engineering through theoretical classes and hands-on projects, the students also have an opportunity to learn and experience the university campus life," Salman says.

"At the NanoCAS lab, we offer an experimental course on fiber optic communication," he adds. "The course starts with an interesting history of communication technologies from prehistoric times to modern day. The students then learn the fundamentals of optical voice link and design their own communication link by soldering electronic components. We believe that an efficient link between education and research is essential for the advancement of science and technology to prevail."

NSF INVESTS IN 3-D PRINTING AND CUSTOM MANUFACTORING

FROM:  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 
3-D printing and custom manufacturing: from concept to classroom
Strategic investments from NSF help engineers revolutionize the manufacturing process.

Additive manufacturing, the technological innovation behind 3-D printing, has revolutionized the way we conceive of and build everything from electronic devices to jewelry to artificial organs.

It is not surprising that this field has enjoyed enormous economic returns, which are projected to grow over the coming decade. According to a recent industry report prepared by Wohlers Associates, 3-D printing contributed to more than $2.2 billion in global industry in 2012 and is poised to grow to more than $6 billion by 2017.

While both public and private investments contributed to the development of this technology, the National Science Foundation (NSF) provided early funding and continues to provide support for additive manufacturing, totaling approximately $200 million in 2005 adjusted dollars from more than 600 grants awarded from 1986-2012.

Although a wide range of programs across NSF have supported this endeavor, greater than two-thirds of the awards and more than half of the agency's total financial support for additive manufacturing was provided by NSF's Directorate for Engineering, which promotes fundamental and transformative engineering research and education through a broad range of programs and funding mechanisms.

"Additive manufacturing is a great example of how early NSF support for high-risk research can ultimately lead to large-scale changes in a major industry," says Steve McKnight, director of the Engineering Directorate's division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI).

What is additive manufacturing?

Compared to traditional manufacturing techniques, in which objects are carved out of a larger block of material or cast in molds and dies, additive manufacturing builds objects, layer by layer, according to precise design specifications.

Because there are no dies or molds to be cast, design changes can be made more quickly and at a lower cost than ever before, increasing the level of customization that individuals and businesses can achieve "in house."

"Additive manufacturing technologies have changed the way we think about the manufacturing process," says NSF Assistant Director for Engineering Pramod Khargonekar. "It has reduced the time, cost, and equipment and infrastructure needs that once prevented individuals and small businesses from creating truly customized items, and accelerated the speed at which new products can be brought to market."

Recognizing potential in risky ideas

The Engineering Directorate's Strategic Manufacturing (STRATMAN) Initiative, led by CMMI in the late 1980s and early 1990s, proved pivotal in establishing the foundational technologies of additive manufacturing.

Five awards, totaling nearly $3.5 million in 2005 dollars, were made under this initiative to additive manufacturing-related research projects. Two of the four patents identified as foundational for the field of additive manufacturing were associated with STRATMAN-funded projects.

"The STRATMAN came at an incredibly important time," says University of Texas at Austin mechanical engineer Joseph Beaman. "We had some of the IP [intellectual property] there, but we needed a way to get the basic engineering done to show that we could really make it work."

Beaman and then UT graduate student Carl Deckard were the first to demonstrate and commercialize a process known as selective laser sintering, in which a high powered laser is used to fuse small particles into precise 3-D shapes.

"The purpose of the STRATMAN Initiative was to provide critical early funding to radically new ideas with the potential to impact future manufacturing technology," says Bruce Kramer, the CMMI program officer who made the original award to Beaman. "The research that Joe and Carl did with the STRATMAN hit a home run by laying the foundation for one of the key additive manufacturing technologies in use today."

Setting goals for a fledgling field

In addition to contributing to transformative fundamental research, the Engineering Directorate has supported a number of workshops and conferences designed to establish roadmaps and benchmarks for the field as it evolves.

Together with support from agencies including the Department of Energy, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Engineering Directorate has sponsored workshops on rapid prototyping, additive and subtractive manufacturing and has consistently provided support for student travel to additive manufacturing conferences.

A 2009 workshop sponsored by NSF and ONR intended to identify the future of freeform processing is widely recognized as having been critical in defining future research directions in the field.

Transitioning research to the marketplace

Initial investments by the Engineering Directorate's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program also were made to two key early firms in the additive manufacturing field including: DTM, acquired by 3D systems and founded by Carl Deckard, to develop the selective laser sintering process and Helisys, formerly Hydronetics and founded by Michael Feygin, to commercialize the sheet lamination process.

"The SBIR program helps scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs at early-stage start-ups mitigate risks, develop the technology into a marketable and scalable product and be better positioned in the marketplace," says Grace Wang, director of the Engineering Directorate's Industrial Innovation and Partnerships division.

While neither firm exists today, their contributions live on in the form of the universal industry standards they helped establish.

Preparing the next-generation workforce

Perhaps one of the greatest impacts additive manufacturing has had is in the realm of education and outreach. With the advent of desktop 3-D printers, students can experience the challenges and opportunities of manufacturing first-hand. The NSF-funded RapidTech Center at the University of California, Irvine, brings additive manufacturing to the classroom, engaging UCI students and students from a number of community college partners in the manufacturing process. Educational programs like RapidTech enhance engineering curriculum and boost interest in engineering as a profession.

"The RapidTech Center has increased the number of students who transfer into UCI Engineering programs and improved current engineering student's performance," says Celeste Carter, a program director in NSF's Directorate for Education and Human Resources. "Programs like this are, and will continue to be, incredibly important in preparing the future engineering workforce."

Looking to the future

As part of the president's plan to catalyze manufacturing innovation, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, recently rebranded as "America Makes," was launched in August 2012.

The institute, which was convened on the recommendation of experts from NSF, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, represents a partnership that includes manufacturing firms, government agencies, universities, community colleges and non-profit organizations. The goal of the institute is to accelerate additive manufacturing innovation by bridging the gap between basic research and scalable technologies.

In addition to contributing oversight and management to the America Makes initiative, NSF has invested in programs designed to facilitate collaboration and engage NSF-sponsored researchers and educational programs in the institute's activities.

"We are only beginning to see what is now possible because of additive manufacturing," Khargonekar says. "The Engineering Directorate is proud to have been among the many public and private organizations to provide early and continued research support leading to this significant and impactful innovation."

EDUCATION AWARDS $14 MILLION IN GRANTS TO 31 NATIVE AMERICAN AND ALASKA NATIVE ENTITIES

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
U.S. Department of Education Awards $14 Million in Grants to 31 Native American and Alaska Native Entities
SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

The U.S. Department of Education today announced the award of about $14 million in grants to 31 Indian tribes, tribal organizations, and Alaska Native entities to help them improve career and technical education programs.

Under the 2013 Native American Career and Technical Education Program (NACTEP) competition, the Department encouraged applicants to propose projects that included promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and the use of technology within career and technical education programs. Career and technical education in the STEM fields is important to providing students with education that can lead to employment in high growth, in-demand industry sectors.

"In today's global and knowledge-based economy, it's critical that we prepare all students for jobs that lead to a success career," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "These grants will help underrepresented groups attain the necessary resources to earn an industry certification and postsecondary certificate or degree, while also strengthening our country’s global competitiveness."

The NACTEP requires the Secretary to ensure that activities will improve career and technical education for Native American and Alaska Native students. Additionally, NACTEP grants are aligned with other programs under the Carl D. Perkins Career & Technical Education Act of 2006 that require recipients to provide coherent and rigorous content aligned with challenging academic standards. NACTEP projects also include preparing students for the high-skill, high-wage, or high-demand occupations in emerging or established professions.

Below is a list of the 2013 NACTEP Grantees:

Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. (Alaska) $417,543

Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments (Alaska) $470,022

Pascua Yaqui Tribe (Ariz.) $411,460

Hoopa Valley Tribe (Calif.) $470,130

Coeur d’ Alene Tribe (Idaho) $469,362

Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College (Mich.) $341,938

Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (Mich.) $452,804

Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (Miss.) $470,689

Aaniiih Nakota College (Mont.) $467,256

Blackfeet Community College (Mont.) $386,966

Blackfeet Tribal Employment Rights Office (Mont.) $464,890

Fort Peck Community College (Mont.) $469,785

Salish Kootenai College (Mont.) $471,559

Stone Child College (Mont.) $473,556

Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska (Neb.) $469,345

Cankdeska Cikana Community College (N.D.) $450,564

Fort Berthold Community College (N.D.) $452,874

Sitting Bull College (N.D.) $415,660

Turtle Mountain Community College (N.D.) $471,466

Alamo Navajo School Board, Inc. (N.M.) $471,937

Coyote Canyon Rehabilitation Center, Inc. (N.M.) $473,912

Cherokee Nation (Okla.) $470,425

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Okla.) $468,923

Shawnee Tribe (Okla.) $434,613

Pawnee Nation College (Okla.) $470,956

Oglala Lakota College (S.D.) $467,835

Sinte Gleska University (S.D.) $466,900

Muckleshoot Indian Tribe (Wash.) $437,674

Northwest Indian College (Wash.) $416,097

The Tulalip Tribes of Washington (Wash.) $451,113

College of Menominee Nation (Wis.) $472,994

OFFICIAL PREDICTS MILITARY WILL HAVE A "BLEAK BUDGET" FOR FISCAL 2014

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT 
Official Predicts Bleak Budget Picture for Fiscal 2014
By NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, Md.
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5, 2013 - Budget pressures mean defense acquisition workers' lives "are going to stay difficult for a while," their chief told the workforce here this week, but he reminded them that they have a critical mission for the country.

Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, visited here Sept. 3 to discuss the Pentagon's Better Buying Power 2.0 initiative and listen to workforce feedback after what he acknowledged has been a challenging summer.

"Pax River," as it's commonly known, is home to Naval Air Systems Command and Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division headquarters, as well as more than 50 tenant activities. Staffs here provide the full spectrum of acquisition management, research and development capabilities, air and ground test and evaluation, aircraft logistics and maintenance management. The installation supports land-based and maritime aircraft and engineering, test, evaluation, integration, and life cycle support for ship and shore electronics.

Kendall told workers the now-completed civilian furloughs, which cut workers' hours and pay by one day a week for six weeks, were a last resort in the face of steep sequestration-mandated spending cuts that might otherwise have left the military in a dangerously low state of readiness.

"I'm sorry we had to do it," he said, emphasizing that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other Pentagon leaders exhausted all other possibilities before reluctantly approving what amounted to short-term layoffs.

Kendall said he can't predict what the new fiscal year will bring to the Defense Department when it begins Oct. 1.

"The budget situation we're in is pretty much unprecedented," he said. "I have not [before] seen this kind of gridlock on Capitol Hill."

Kendall said he doubts that sequestration, the provision in budget law that imposes across-the-board spending cuts to counteract budget deficits, will go away this year. Congress can de-trigger the automatic cuts, he said, but he added that he sees no appetite for doing so.

"The impact of sequestration, while it is very real, is also very distributed," Kendall said. He noted that wholesale program cancellations, which people might expect to see, have been avoided so far, "because we're trying to do our jobs."

Sequester will cut about $52 billion from the 2014 defense budget, he said, and leaders will begin implementing those cuts in October. While the Office of Management and Budget hasn't issued guidance yet for fiscal year 2014, Kendall said, "my expectation is we will start assuming sequestration from Day One."

Military personnel cuts take time, he explained, and military pay is likely to be exempt, so the burden of those cuts essentially falls on the civilian workforce and contractors, along with investment accounts -- his area of acquisition, technology and logistics.

The military culture is to "put your head down and get the job done" no matter the circumstances, he said, and the acquisition workforce continues its push to get the best value for taxpayer dollars.

"I do think we have to be vocal about what's going on, though. ... And I think it's going to be a lot worse going into [fiscal 2014]," he said.

Kendall said he hopes furloughs will not be repeated, but that while he also hopes DOD can avoid a reduction in force of the civilian workforce, it may be necessary.

"The odds of a [reduction in force] not happening are not so good," he acknowledged, though he added that defense leaders are researching alternatives.

"I don't see us getting to a time soon where we get out of the mess," Kendall said. "But I do think that as the damage becomes more visible, Congress will have to act and de-trigger [sequestration.] I just don't know how long it's going to take."

U.S.-MEXICO FORUM ON HIGHER EDUCATION

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
United States-Mexico Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation, and Research
Fact Sheet
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
May 2, 2013

Today President Obama and President Pena Nieto announced the formation of a Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation, and Research to expand economic opportunities for citizens of both countries and to develop a 21st century workforce for our mutual economic prosperity. The Presidents reaffirmed their belief that greater educational opportunities will further our shared goals in all areas of the rich and extensive partnership between the United States and Mexico.

Through the High-Level Forum on Higher Education, Innovation, and Research, the U.S. and Mexican Governments will encourage broader access to quality post-secondary education for traditionally underserved demographic groups, especially in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. They will also expand educational exchanges, increase joint research on education and learning, and share best practices in higher education and innovation.

This forum will build upon the many positive educational and research linkages that already exist through federal, state, and local governments, public and private academic institutions, civil society, and the private sector. It will bring together government agency counterparts to deepen cooperation on higher education, innovation, and research. It will also draw on the expertise of the higher education community in both countries.

The United States and Mexico have a long history of educational collaboration. More than 18,000 Mexican and U.S. university students study in each other’s countries annually. The Mexico-U.S. Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange (COMEXUS) oversees the Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholarship Program, the flagship program in U.S.-Mexico academic exchanges, through which more than 4,000 Mexicans and Americans have participated in bilateral exchange programs since 1990. Fulbright and other exchange students from Mexico contribute to President Obama’s hemisphere-wide goal of seeing 100,000 Latin American and Caribbean young people studying in the United States and 100,000 young Americans studying across the Western Hemisphere. Through U.S.-Mexican public-private partnerships such as Jóvenes en Acción (Youth in Action), Mexican public high school students build leadership, English, and communication skills, learning ways to serve their communities. In addition, federal and state officials from Mexico and the United States work together to improve the quality of education for migrant students in both countries.

U.S. OFFICIAL'S REMARKS AT U.S.-RUSSIA INNOVATION WORKING GROUP EXECUTIVE SESSION

Map of Russia From CIA World Factbook

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

Remarks for the U.S. - Russia Innovation Working Group Executive Session
Remarks
Robert D. Hormats
Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment
Washington, DC
April 24, 2013
As Prepared

Thank you, Lorraine, for the kind introduction, and thank you and Oleg for coordinating the working group. I would also like to thank Microsoft – specifically Daniel Lewin and Dorothy Dwoskin – for hosting today’s meeting. I am very grateful to our Russian colleagues for their hard work and participation. And, of course, I would like to thank all of the working group members who attended and presented today.

Both the United States and Russia have a long and proud history of invention. We train some of the world’s best scientists and engineers. And we are home to some of the most innovative businesses. Bloomberg Business Week recently released a list of the 50 Most Innovative Countries. I was impressed—though not surprised—at how quickly Russia has advanced in the rankings. Russia has positioned itself to seize upon fast-growing global innovative sectors, such as aerospace and information and communications technology. We strongly supports Russia’s efforts to create a innovation economy because bringing new technologies to market is good not just for Russia, it is also beneficial to the U.S. economy and society as a whole.

This understanding is embedded in U.S.-Russia Innovation Working Group’s mission. Members of the U.S.-Russia Innovation Working Group have been working on an exciting array of initiatives to support commercialization. I will highlight three key areas of cooperation.

First, the working group has helped advance a series of regional partnerships. I am delighted that Deputy Governor Ivanov has joined today’s meeting to present on the cooperation plan between Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and the State of Maryland. Our goal is to spur future regional partnerships and, in particular, to broaden cooperation to include other regional clusters and other industries. The United States is home to a number of lesser-known, but equally impressive innovation clusters. There is a tremendous aerospace sector in Oklahoma, Florida, and Mississippi; Minnesota and Utah are home to a booming information technology sector; and Arizona is making strides in nanotechnology.

The Working Group should consider these clusters for future collaboration.

The second major area of discussion today was on the commercialization of innovative technologies. Working group members provided an update on their ongoing programs, including the American Councils’ Enhancing University Research and Entrepreneurial Capacity – or EURECA – program. This partnership between U.S. and Russian research universities is aimed at building the innovation ecosystem and expanding entrepreneurial and technology transfer capacities. In addition to the EURECA program update, CRDF Global and the National Business Incubators Association spoke about their efforts and ideas on promoting innovation in the United States and Russia.

Last, the working group has helped better delineate the government’s role in innovation. My good friend Alan Wolff—who is one of our foremost experts on comparative innovation policy—shared his thoughts on the U.S. experience and the role of our government. As I mentioned earlier, the United States is an innovation nation but, of course, we have learned hard lessons along the way.

So, there is a tremendous opportunity for others to benefit from our path. Tomorrow, many of you will visit the National Institutes of Health, where you will see firsthand an example of the government’s role in biotech innovation. You will also meet with officials from the Small Business Administration and learn about their "Small Business Innovation Research" program. This program helps small businesses by providing funds for the critical startup and development stages of technology commercialization. One of the most important things a government can do to promote innovation is to establish a legal and regulatory framework that is conducive to entrepreneurial thinking and bringing new ideas to market. You heard today recommendations by an expert group of U.S. and Russian lawyers for both of our governments. I have seen the policy recommendations and look forward to a read-out of the discussion during this session. I would like to thank all those who contributed to this report.

Now it is our turn.

The United States is—and will remain—and innovation economy. That’s why our government takes these recommendations seriously. The Russian government has also heeded the call to action. Russia has placed a very high priority on implementing policies that foster and facilitate innovation. The Bloomberg statistic I quoted earlier is testament to this fact. My colleague and co-chair of the U.S.-Russia Innovation Working Group, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and Government Chief of Staff Vladislav Surkov will speak to the Russian perspective. Mr. Surkov has been a prominent voice for the promotion of innovation in Russia and a strong supporter of our bilateral innovation cooperation agenda. Vladislav Yuryevich it is a pleasure to have you here, and I now turn the microphone over to you.

Thank you.