Please Find My Input in Black Embedded in Your E-Mail Below in Red Text

Please find my input in black embedded in your e-mail below in red text:

Thanks to everyone who have responded so far. This is a reminder that information for the LA-SiGMA annual report is due tomorrow (Friday, 12 June 2015). No need to be fancy, just send the material plain text or whatever is most comfortable.

Here are the instructions:

It is time for the LA-SiGMA annual report for this FY, 1 October 2014 to 30 September 2015 [sic]. Please send the requested information to us no later than Friday, 12 Jun 2015.

The report must be submitted using the forms on Research.gov. Most of these forms are restricted to 8000 characters (including whitespace) for the whole project, which means that we will have very little space. In addition, we may attach four 5 MB files containing only figures, tables and captions.

Please send a summary of your activity for the reporting period by responding to the relevant questions below. Plain text responses are preferred. If appropriate also send an illustration and caption for each response. The figure can be in any common image format.

1. Please provide a short paragraph, no more than 600 characters, and one figure+caption, summarizing your key research accomplishments for the past year. Since space is very limited, please focus on research from new collaborations that have emerged as a result of LA-SiGMA CTCI.

Two talks were presented at the International Conference on Advanced Materials and Energy Technology (ICAMET) 2014. The first acknowledged NSF-EPSCoR (for support under CyberTools) and the second acknowledged LA-SiGMA: 1. S. Kodiyalam, S.Roy, and A. Jana, "Computation and Cave-based Visualization of Streamlines and Pathlines in a Stirred Tank", International Conference on Advanced Materials and Energy Technology (ICAMET), December 17-19, 2014, IIEST Shibpur, Howrah, West Bengal, India. 2. S. Kodiyalam, M. Benissan, S. Akwaboa, P. F. Mensah, A. Jana, and D. Bagayoko, "A Short Ranged Empirical Potential for Yttria Stabilized Zirconia", International Conference on Advanced Materials and Energy Technology (ICAMET) 2014 IIEST Shibpur, December 17-19, 2014, Howrah, West Bengal, India.

(1) involved development of MPI-based parallel Molecular dynamics Fortran 77/90 code that was run on the LONI machines. Data was transferred to the CAVE at SUBR’s College of Engineering and Computer Science for stereographic visualization.

The following publication acknowledging LA-SiGMA is under review: 1. R. Nutsugah, S. Akwaboa, P. F. Mensah, “Gas Pressure and Thermophysical Property of Gas Dependence of Effective Thermal Conductivity of a Porous Silica Insulator,” ASME 2015 IMECE-53011, Nov 13-19, Houston, Texas.

2. Please provide a short description of workforce development, educational programs, outreach, cyber education, professional development etc. that you or your group members have participated in (nanodays, organization of workshops, attendance of training workshops, postdoc mentoring, etc.). Note that all of CTCI is limited to 500 characters for this part, so please keep your response short, no more than 100 characters and at most one figure+caption.

Mentored research associate Sanjay Kodiyalam and graduate student Redeemer Nutsugah (both co-advised by Dr.Patrick Mensah)..

3. Please include any information about external engagement that is not already available through OASIS (1000 characters for all of CTCI).

4. Please let us know of any new initiatives, collaborations, etc. that help us to meet the LA-SiGMA goals (1300 characters for CTCI).

Work of postdoctoral research associate Dr. Kodiyalam is being co-advised by Dr. Patrick Mensah of the Advanced Materaials Research Laboratory (AMRL). This collaboration is of high importance as we perform joint research and co-lead the project. Figure 1. Banner of the International Conference on Advanced Materials and Energy Technology (ICAMET 2014) jointly organized by the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur, India and Southern University Baton Rouge (SUBR).

An international conference on Advanced Materials and energy Technology was jointly organized by the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur, India and Southern University Baton Rouge (SUBR) (Fig. 1). The foundation for this event was laid by a Memorandum of Agreement signed between the two universities in the summer of 2013 following visits to IIEST by Dr. Amitava Jana of Southern’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and visits to SUBR by professors from IIEST’s Departments of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.

At this conference, Dr. Mensah represented the Dean of Southern’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, Dr. Mohamadian. He presented a brilliant keynote welcome address, and was sought after for closing remarks also. The conference had an international character with top scientists & researchers from US, Australia, Europe, China and different universities in India. It included a symposium on Simulation and Visualization organized by Dr. Jana and Dr. Arabinda Roy of IIEST. Drs. Mesah and Ibekwe presented their research work together with Dr. Kodiyalam whose work, partly supported by LA-SiGMA, was presented in the symposium on Simulation and Visualization. As a result of this conference, collaborations in research, pedagogy and other areas are expected.

5. Please briefly say how what you described in parts 1 and 2 is important to the field, write this for a scientifically literate layperson. (Limit 2000 characters for CTCI, so no more than 600 characters and one figure/caption each). The simulation study of zirconia is aimed towards determining and understanding the origin of thermal insulating properties of thermal barrier coatings like Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia. These coatings are used in high temperature applications like gas turbine blades. Structural transformations in Zirconia have also been successfully simulated beginning with the low symmetry monoclinic structure of its mineral form Baddeyelite. Visualizing simulation results helps to confirm the coordination number and bond angles of the different structures. The study of insulating properties under pressure from different gases seeks to determine the appropriate insulation thickness for eventual use in applications like the insulations on NASA’s Venus lander.

6. Please briefly say how what you described in parts 1 and 2 is important to other fields, write this for a scientifically literate layperson. (Limit 2000 characters for CTCI, so no more than 600 characters and one figure/caption each).

7. Please very briefly describe the impact of your LA-SiGMA work on human resources development (500 characters for CTCI).

Visited IIEST, Shibpur, India, with the explicit intention of recruiting students to graduate programs on my campus.

Participated in Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) st SUBR.

8. Please describe the impact of your LA-SiGMA efforts on physical infrastructure. (Limit 4000 characters for CTCI.)

9. Please describe the impact of your LA-SiGMA efforts on information resources that form infrastructure. Include code repositories, data repositories, etc. (Limit 6000 characters for CTCI.)

The maintenance of the CAVE visualization facility and the platform for developing visualization/simulation codes is driven in part by LA-SiGMA research activities.

10. Please very briefly describe any technology transfer (1300 characters for CTCI).

11. Please very briefly describe any impact on society beyond STEM (1300 characters for CTCI).

Please send this to us no later than Friday, 12 June 2015.

The attached PDF file provides a few more details on the requested information, its all the detail that we could get from the NSF.