GovInfo-notes

US DOE Announces New ARPA-E Funding Opportunity

nksinfo2 — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 13:20:40 +0000

I just posted news of ARPA-E’s most recent funding opportunity on my TechInfo-notes blog. Rather than post the whole thing here, I’ll just invite you to view “ARPA-E Offers Good News for Advanced Energy Research“.

Want to see where ALL the ARPA-E projects? Take a look at the ARPA-E interactive project map! Who’s working on what?

Need assistance with research? Perhaps I can help.

Nora Stoecker, NKS Info Services

Finally a Fiscal Year 2011 Budget?

nksinfo2 — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:34:19 +0000

More than six months into the fiscal year Congress has finally – maybe – put forth a FY2011 funding bill that will be voted on this week. And passed, one hopes. Late last night, or was it early this morning, a copy of the bill was posted on the House Rules Committee website – http://rules.house.gov/Media/file/PDF_112_1/Floor_Text/FINAL2011_xml.pdf

It will take time to read through the 300+ page bill and accompanying documents to understand the potential impact. More to come.

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

On vacation for three weeks!

nksinfo2 — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:18:47 +0000

I’ll be on vacation and essentially off the internet until March 4th; will begin posting again thereafter. Regards!

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

ScienceCinema – DOE Search Engine for Videos

nksinfo2 — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:56:23 +0000

Thanks to colleague Peggy Garvin for her blog post on the SLA Government Information Division blog (Feb. 9); I’ve lifted the following straight from her!

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has launched a new search engine for videos from the national laboratories and other DOE research facilities.

ScienceCinema (http://www.osti.gov/sciencecinema/) searches the audio in these research and development lectures and presentations and links directly to the video files. As decribed in the DOE press release (8 February 2010):

ScienceCinema uses innovative, state-of-the-art audio indexing and speech recognition technology from Microsoft Research to allow users to quickly find video files produced by the DOE National Laboratories and other DOE research facilities. When users search for specific scientific words and phrases of interest to them, precise snippets of the video where the specific search term was spoken will appear along with a timeline. Users can then select a snippet or a segment along the timeline to begin playing the video at the exact point in the video where the words were spoken. The timeline is synced with transcripts of the targeted portion of video.

It is anticipated that scientific videos, animations, interactive visualizations, and other multimedia will become an increasingly prominent form of scientific communications. ScienceCinema was produced, in part, as a proof of concept to demonstrate the value of speech recognition in the complex vocabulary of science.

The audio search is supplemented with a bibliographic search that includes fields for creator/author, title, description/abstract, identifier numbers, publication date, and system entry date. Some fields–such as the description–may not be populated for some records, so you may wish to try several approaches to search.

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

Roll Call had it right – Obama and Ryan were both right and both wrong

nksinfo2 — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 03:17:01 +0000

The January 27 edition of Roll Call had it right. They said President Obama was right to say that the US needs to invest more in education and R&D and Rep. Paul Ryan, in the GOP response, was right to say that spending has to be brought under control.

At the same time Obama barely mentioned the call to reform entitlement programs — and Ryan never mentioned the “obvious need to improve education”.

Let’s hope this is the opening stages of negotiations, and that both sides are willing to bargain in good faith to come up with reasonable compromises that can be built on for the future. –nks

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

Starting the year as it will continue? President’s budget to be delayed

nksinfo2 — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:12:46 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I was fairly disenchanted with our Congress last year, which failed to pass even one appropriations bill, and kicked the can down the road repeatedly with three continuing resolutions (the most recent running until March 4th.)

And now this morning’s news – the Administration will delay the release of its 2012 budget proposal until mid-February, from the traditional “first Monday in February” date of Feb. 7th. An omen of more governmental inaction to come? I hope not; I fear so.

I have just one thing to say to every Senator and member of Congress who dares to step foot on Capitol Hill this year — get over yourselves and your d–m partisan crapola, and start governing the country like mature grownups. And that goes for the Administration as well.

Wish I thought they’d listen! –nks

NKS Info Services – Your research and writing partner

Sneak Peek: Small Business Association to Relaunch Its Website

nksinfo2 — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:39:40 +0000

The U.S. Small Business Association website offers a treasure trove of information for small business owners and entrepreneurs, and for those who want to start a small business. But the SBA believes its time to update the website and the customer experience, so is planning to launch a redesigned website offering an “interactive and customizable online experience”. The first phase is scheduled to launch this Fall (I guess that means “soon”!), with additonal enhancements to be rolled out in early 2011.

Part of the upgrade will include a feature called SBA Direct. SBA Direct will enable users to customize or personalize a home page to bring up targeted resources directly. For a sneak peek and to keep up on the progress toward the the launch wander over to the sba.gov/next page.

Kudos to SBA for its look to the future. I’m eagerly awaiting the launch and will let you know more when it happens! –nks

Need more information like this? Perhaps I can help.

http://www.nksinfoservices.com

Expediting Manufacturing With Use of Computer Modeling and Simulation – Comments Sought

nksinfo2 — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:10:01 +0000

The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) of the U.S. federal government recently stood up a “fast-track action committee” to identify gaps and challenges in using modeling and simulation, especially as related to industrial product design and engineering.

In its draft report Simulation-Based Engineering and Science for Discovery and Innovation, the committee asserts that the use of simulation-based engineering and science (SBE&S) is not exploited as routinely as it should be for industrial product design and innovation. The result, they say, is lost opportunity for discovery and innovation that will be critical for [industrial?] leadership in the 21st century. The draft report states that government can play an important role in funding research and catalyzing the development of critical infrastructure necessary for widespread deployment of SBE&S.

The committee is now seeking thoughtful comments via an IdeaScale idea management platform used by many government agencies, in this case called OpenNSTC. Feedback is especially sought on the following topics:

Key barriers to adoption of modeling tools

Competitive advantages offered by such tools

Limitations of existing tools

Use and value of cloud computing platforms

Use and value of of stochastic models

Software scalability

Education and training

I encourage you to read the report and participate in the dialogue. –nks

Need additional information? Perhaps I can help.

http://www.nksinfoservices.com

U.S. Debt at 80% of GDP by 2020? National Academies Report Offers Options.

nksinfo2 — Sat, 22 May 2010 19:39:53 +0000

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that by 2020 – just ten years from now – the federal debt will rise to 80% of gross domstic product (GDP) if there are not significant changes in both spending (must go down) and taxes (must go up.)

Reasons for the projected increase in debt are many and complex, although a large driver is the aging population and accompanying rising health care costs, which in turn drive up spending in the big entitlement programs – social security, medicare, and medicaid. Taxes to pay for the increases have not kept pace.

As the debt rises, so too do the interest payments on the debt, leaving less money for important services programs – education, transportation, homeland security, and defense, for example.

Choosing the Nation’s Fiscal Future, a new joint report from the National Research Council and National Academy of Public Administration, provides an in-depth analysis of the situation. It also describes four possible options (not including “doing nothing”):

1. Low spending and revenue: revenues are held near their recent average level of 18 to 19 percent of GDP, and spending is 2 to 3 percentage points higher than revenues. This path would require sharp reductions in projected growth rates for health and retirement programs, as well as reductions in the proportion of the economy’s resources available for all other federal responsibilities.

2. High spending and revenue: spending and revenues are increased substantially, with spending eventually reaching one-third of GDP. Because this spending level is still less than under a continuation of current policies, it would require an eventual reduction in the rate of growth of health spending. It would, however, accommodate the spending needed to maintain currently scheduled Social Security benefits. And it would allow spending on all other federal programs to be higher than the level implied by current policies.

3. Intermediate path 1: spending and revenues rise gradually to about one-fourth of GDP and spending on the elderly population would be constrained to support only modest expansion of other federal spending. The growth rates for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would be slower than under current policies. This path reflects the view that the federal government should make selective new public investments to promote economic growth, preserve the environment, and build for the future.

4. Intermediate path 2: spending and revenues would eventually rise to a little more than one-fourth of GDP. Spending growth for health and retirement benefits for the elderly population would be slowed but less constrained than in the intermediate-1 path. Spending for other federal responsibilities would be reduced. This path reflects the view that the government’s implicit promises for the elderly are a higher priority than other spending.

Like it or not, we are going to have to deal with this looming debt crisis. Choosing the Nation’s Fiscal Future provides some credible information for us all to take into consideration. –nks

Need related information? Perhaps I can help.

http://www.nksinfoservices.com

SEC offers investment guidance

nksinfo2 — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:05:31 +0000

You may have noticed an “ad” by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the back of your federal tax refund envelope – “information is the investors best tool” it says, and points to www.investor.gov/

The site looks quite useful. There are tips and stories on savings and investment basics, and on protecting your money, as well as tips and articles for seniors or others planning for retirement. There are also links to the SEC Investor Bulletin, and a sidebar of SEC investor alerts. Not to mention links to various tools and educational resources.

I’m not sure how often the main site is updated, since there are no dates on any of the pages, however one of the “investor alerts” is dated April 14, 2010, so that, at least, is quite current.

Don’t know about you, but I’m going to bookmark this site for ongoing reference. –nks

Need more information on this or related topics? Perhaps I can help.

http://www.nksinfoservices.com