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PUTTING FEDERAL RESEARCH INTO ACTION
National Grand Challenge Applications
Most of the IT enabling technologies that the Nation needs - and that constitute
the core work of the Federal NITRD enterprise - are invisible to the public.
It is the combination of these component technologies in far-reaching applications
that marks the visible ultimate goal and crowning achievement of fundamental
IT research. Many people think such applications are the main focus of IT
research. But as this report explains, applications are effectively the
final step in an R&D process that begins with methodical, multidisciplinary
investigations across a variety of basic and applied sciences.
The bulk of the Federal investment in IT R&D supports this fundamental
research in enabling technologies. But the NITRD agencies also propose to
test and validate these technologies in prototypes and demonstrations of
advanced IT applications in future multi-year efforts. Examples of such
National Grand Challenge Applications are summarized in the following brief
descriptions. Several descriptions are devoted to specific IT applications.
Others point to broad areas of the national interest in which integration
of many advanced applications is needed. Though these areas lie beyond the
scope of NITRD activities, the NITRD agencies could play a key role in developing
prototypes and testbed demonstrations in later fiscal years.
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Next-Generation National Defense and National Security
Systems
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Graphic from DARPA's ubiquitous computing research program
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The Federal NITRD investment provides the base technologies
to ensure that the U.S. maintains its dominant position in the application
of information technologies to critical national defense and national
security needs. This Federal research provides the national defense
and national security communities with the advanced information technologies
needed to support weapons programs, military and intelligence operations,
and effective information operations environments. Systems with these
capabilities are needed to perform the computationally intensive fine
grain simulation of new aircraft and smart weapons, and to permit
full maintenance and reliability simulation of the Nation's nuclear
weapons stockpile. NITRD will enable the efficient design and development
of robust and reliable software with the high fault tolerance and
high levels of security assurance and intrusion resistance that are
vital to the Defense command, control, communications, and intelligence
infrastructure. R&D in both microsensors and embedded and autonomous
devices will enable the modeling and the management of huge battlespaces
involving hundreds of thousands of objects in dynamic combat, support,
and intelligence operations. As a result, it will be possible to link
autonomous sensor, surveillance, and combat weapon systems to battle
management and cyber warfare systems in order to support both defensive
and offensive operations with minimum risk of casualties.
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The NITRD agencies propose to develop and demonstrate
new generations of highly secure, fault-tolerant computing, networking,
and storage technologies, including high-end computing systems and
distributed autonomous and embedded devices and systems, needed in
weapons systems, battlespace, and national security applications.
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Improved Health Care Systems for All Citizens
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Secure high-speed networks and software that is reliable,
interoperable, and safe from intrusion will enable basic improvements
in the national health care infrastructure, such as high-confidence
software for medical devices including life-support systems; management
and usability of patient information; interactions between patients
and health care providers; timely analysis of provider and institutional
quality; and hospital systems, inventory, and procurement management.
More dramatic will be the extension of monitoring, diagnosis, care,
emergency treatment, and even surgery to citizens in remote locations,
or unable to reach the hospital, or housebound. Experimentation with
telemedicine is showing the enormous promise in combining high-speed
networking, two-way real-time video, embedded and robotic devices,
and remote visualization and instrumentation to get needed care to
citizens immediately wherever they are located. These capabilities
will also make it possible to help maintain the independence of aging
citizens and of citizens with physical limitations. In addition, this
set of technologies will enable a whole new generation of techniques
and practices in medical training and physician and health care professional
continuing education.
The NITRD agencies propose to prototype and demonstrate high-confidence
medical devices; multimodal systems for remote and emergency on-site
patient care; advanced home devices and services for individuals with
physical limitations; and advanced, distributed multimedia capabilities
for medical education, biomedical research, and clinical practice.
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Creating Scientifically Accurate, 3-D Functional
Models
of the Human Body
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Image of the enzyme cAMP dependent protein kinase. The
NSF-funded Molecular Interactiv Collaborative Environment (MICE) developed
at the San Diego Supercomuter Center enables researchers and students
to see, manipulate, and annotate 3-D versions of complex molecules
through the Web browsers on their own computers |
Advances in computational speeds, visualization
software, and data storage capacities are bringing us closer to being
able to generate large-scale 3-D models and simulations of enormously
complex phenomena such as the human body. To suggest how computationally
challenging such models are: It is taking the world's fastest computing
platforms in the Federal government's national research laboratories
to begin to create quantitatively accurate visualizations of the Nation's
nuclear weapons stockpile. It will take substantially more computational
capacity to generate a precise 3-D visual model of the human body,
starting from atoms, molecules, and cells, through organs and the
circulatory and musculo-skeletal systems.
Federally funded researchers are working today on visualizing the
neuronal structure of the brain. The scale of this problem alone is
exemplified by the fact that one cubic millimeter of cerebral cortex
may contain on the order of five billion interdigitated synapses of
different shapes and sizes and a wide variety of subcellular chemical
signaling pathways. Being able to visualize, manipulate, and test
representations of structures and processes at this level of matter
will mark an invaluable innovation for both scientific research and
education.
The NITRD agencies propose to harness IT advances to create a complete,
functional digital model of the human body.
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IT Tools for Large-Scale Environmental Modeling
and Monitoring
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Visualization of energy transfer in the Blizzard of 1993
developed by NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
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Advanced IT modeling, simulation, visualization, and
analysis tools will also improve our ability to study and understand
such complex phenomena as global warming, food shortages, energy depletion,
drought, natural disasters, and human/environment interactions. More
accurate measurement and analysis of such phenomena will provide better
information for decision making in both the private and public sectors.
Developing a next-generation environmental monitoring, modeling, and
prediction system will require real-time monitoring and observations
above the Earth, on the Earth's surface, and below it. Because these
real-time observations will be global in scale, the system will require
high-speed digital connectivity and high-end computing platforms.
The data must then be integrated with timely contextual knowledge
in such disciplines as geophysics, biology, chemistry, and atmospheric
and oceanic sciences. A key challenge in developing this application
is the great complexity of assimilating observational data with models.
Scientists will need new methods of visualization to understand the
complexity and the spatial and time evolution of the underlying processes.
Integration and synthesis of multidisciplinary data with advanced,
high-resolution models will require coordination of component technologies,
specialized languages for scientific software, storage strategies
with very large capacities and good access characteristics, and metadata
and search capabilities that include environmental semantics, data
fusion, and data mining and/or automated pattern recognition.
The NITRD agencies propose to develop and demonstrate climate and
environmental monitoring and modeling systems that improve environmental
decision making, such as in forecasting of dangerous weather events,
evolution of hazardous spills, ecosystem response to climate and environment
change, and earthquake impacts.
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Creating the World's Best Infrastructure for Lifelong Learning
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Lifelong education, training, and development have become
necessities of the Information Age. With human knowledge estimated
to be doubling every two years and dynamic work environments calling
for continuous skills development and adaptability to new information,
the ability to keep learning is perhaps this era's core requirement
for successful employment and career development. We currently have,
or will soon, the enabling technologies in high-speed networks, software
for information management, real-time collaboration, 3-D visualization,
and the like to create multifaceted learning environments and experiences
for learners of every age with every kind of academic, vocational,
or personal learning focus. IT can provide ubiquitous access to structured
knowledge (systematic course work, laboratory activities, and rich
digital libraries) as well as immersive environments for experiencing
scientific phenomena and different cultures and environments. IT interfaces
and experiences can be tailored to individual learning styles, ages,
physical and mental capacities and preferences, and interests, with
automated feedback systems to guide progress.
The NITRD agencies propose to demonstrate prototypes of advanced learning
systems for education, training, and development across age groups
and needs.
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Integrated IT Systems for Crises Management
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Photo by John McColgan of the Alaska Fire Service, taken
during August 2000 fire in Bitterroot Valley, Montana. Fires burned
more than 7 million acres in the U.S. in 2000, more than double the
10-year average acreage.
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In a major natural or human-caused disaster, there is
a great need for an instantaneous common communication system and
a common capability for real-time distribution of precise information,
disaster guidance and directives, situational updates and analyses,
and instructions for distributed disaster workers. To date, we have
not put development of such a coordinated crises management system
on the national agenda. It is time to bring the mobile wireless, nomadic,
and satellite communications technologies now available together with
scalable wireline networking capabilities, advanced microsensing technologies,
data analysis and system-management software, and with our extensive
multidisciplinary experience in crises management (for example, public
health, emergency response, medical triage, fire, and policing). Combining
these capabilities would make possible a state-of-the-art crises coordination
and management system that could be deployed immediately and effectively
in any kind of catastrophic situation.
NITRD agencies propose to support creation of a collaborative, interdisciplinary
effort to develop and demonstrate this comprehensive IT framework.
Federal agencies, with state and local government and private-sector
partners, have the technologies, the personnel, and the broad experience
in major environmental and other disasters to successfully build this
much-needed grand challenge application.
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Technologies and Systems for Advanced Aviation Management
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Simulation of integrated IT controls and data-monitoring
systems in an airplane cockpit. NASA's Aviation Safety Program, in
partnership with the FAA and industry, is developing advanced technologies
to increase the safety of air travel.
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Few U.S. air travelers or business people
who ship goods today avoid encountering significant difficulties in
air transportation. Aviation safety and capacity have become national
issues. The air transportation system is on the verge of gridlock,
with delays and cancelled flights reaching all-time highs and passenger
rage skyrocketing. As demand for air transportation continues to increase,
fueled by a strong economy and the package-delivery needs of e-commerce,
the capacity of the air traffic control system to accommodate the
rapid growth is falling farther behind. It has become painfully clear
that the present air traffic control system cannot continue to be
scaled up to handle the increased capacity that will be required over
the next 15 to 25 years. We need a fundamental change in the management
of the aviation system, and information technology is the key.
High-performance computational and networking technologies, in combination
with advanced applications in visualization, modeling, simulation,
and distributed instrumentation make it possible now to design a fully
integrated, large-scale aviation system encompassing both air and
ground components. Such a next-generation IT infrastructure could
help substantially increase the capacity of the air transport system
to move people and cargo through integrated airspace operations. This
integrated system would enable real-time sharing of information from
distributed sources such as weather stations, air-traffic management
systems, flight controllers, passenger managers, and other transport-related
nodes. IT challenges include developing:
- The critical core component technologies to meet the requirements
of the air transportation system
- A virtual airspace transportation environment for simulating
the air traffic components at the system level with the
requisite degree of fidelity
- Evaluation of candidate system-level concepts and architectures
making use of the "virtual air transportation environment"
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The expertise of the NITRD agencies could significantly contribute
to a Federal initiative to transform the Nation's current air traffic
control system into an advanced integrated system of systems for the
21st century.
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