of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering
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Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to CT
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A message to our readers... |
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Thank you to members and guests who attended the Academy’s 48th Annual Meeting and Dinner and to our sponsors for their generous support. It was great to get together in person for the first time since 2019 to celebrate STEMM in Connecticut.
The meeting highlighted our new members for 2023, two honorary members, middle and high school student CASE award recipients, and the Academy’s Fellow. Many thanks to CASE Member Albert Ko, Raj and Indra Nooyi Professor of Public Health at Yale School of Public Health, who presented the keynote, and congratulations again to Akiko Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunology, Yale School of Medicine, as the 2023 CT Medal of Science recipient. Due to a schedule conflict, Professor Iwasaki will have the medal bestowed at the Academy’s 49th Annual Meeting and Dinner in the spring of 2024. If you missed the Annual Meeting and Dinner or you did attend but want to learn more about those recognized and celebrated at the meeting, please visit CASE 48th Annual Meeting and Dinner website.
We hope to see you, if not sooner, at next year’s Annual Meeting and encourage you to continue as a reader of the Bulletin, a subscriber to our podcast series, Learning and Living STEMM in Connecticut, and a follower of our LinkedIn page.
Have a great summer and watch for the Academy’s next edition of the CASE Bulletin in late August.
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John Kadow, President CT Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to CT
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ANNUAL MEETING |
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CASE Annual Meeting & Dinner
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The 48th CASE Annual Meeting and Dinner was held at the Woodwinds in Branford on May 24, 2023. If you were not able to attend or would like to revisit the event, the Annual Meeting website features profiles of each member elected in 2023, the 2023 Honorary Members, the Connecticut Medal of Science recipient Akiko Iwasaki, the CASE keynote presenter Albert Ko, and the middle and high school student awardees recognized this year in science and engineering competitions. Read more.
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CASE PODCAST |
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Learning & Living STEMM in Connecticut
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The CASE Podcast series, Learning and Living STEMM in Connecticut now has four episodes to enjoy – from the Stickleback fish, to BioPath, to HIV, and student STEM accomplishments – subscribe and never miss an episode. Read more.
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SOCIAL MEDIA |
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CASE LinkedIn Page
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The Academy has an active LinkedIn page that we encourage the Bulletin’s readership to follow. The page will connect you to news on the Academy, its members, and science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine topics of interest to Connecticut. Follow CASE and stay up to date.
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To learn more about the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, please visit ctcase.org.
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Science and Engineering Notes from Around Connecticut
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Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition |
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The CT Department of Agriculture (CT DoAg) joined with Gov. Ned Lamont, Lt. Susan Bysiewicz, and the US Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Jenny Lester Moffit to highlight efforts to support Connecticut farmers and increase access to healthy, locally grown food. CT DoAg has leveraged federal funding to increase opportunities available for socially disadvantaged producers. Read more.
The CT Department of Agriculture has a new website resource to aid new and beginning farmers looking to grow their agricultural business. The tools and resources were compiled by CT DoAg, UConn, Connecticut Farm Bureau Association, New CT Farmer Alliance, CT Northeast Farming Association, and the US Department of Agriculture. Read more.
Record of the Year reports are compiled by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, with the most recent report released in June 2023 for the year 2021-2022. The station has laboratories, offices, and greenhouses in New Haven, as well as other labs and research facilities in CT. Research is conducted by members in departments including Analytical Chemistry, Entomology, Environmental Science and Forestry, Plant Pathology and Ecology, and more generally research conducted at the stations’ Valley Laboratory (Windsor). CAES has been Putting Science to Work for Society since 1875. Read more.
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Biomedical Research & Healthcare |
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A new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends that researchers and scientists who utilize genetic and genomic data should rethink and justify how and why they use race, ethnicity, and ancestry labels in their work. To improve genomics research, the report presents a new framework and decision tree to help researchers choose descriptors and labels that are most appropriate for their study. Read more.
CASE Emeritus Member Thomas Carpenter, Professor of Pediatrics (Endocrinology) and of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, and Clinical Professor of Nursing at Yale School of Medicine, has been named President of the Pediatric Endocrine Society. The Society is in its 51st year of advancing and promoting the endocrine health and well-being of children and adolescents. Read more.
CASE Member and Chair of CASE’s Biomedical Research and Healthcare Technical Board Ron Adelman, professor of ophthalmology and visual science and director of the Retina and Macular Service at Yale School of Medicine, was featured in a WebMD article on dietary ways to protect and improve eyesight for those with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), including recommendations to include plenty of colorful fruits and vegetables – the darker, the better. These fruits and vegetables contain carotenoids, the chemicals that give plants their color, which are antioxidants that may guard against vision damage caused by AMD. Read more.
Over the next 10 years from the $200M Connecticut Bioscience Innovation Fund, Connecticut Innovations will make investments in grants, equity investments, and loans to speed the commercialization of bioscience breakthroughs to market. Startup and early-stage businesses may apply for secured convertible loans or equity. Read more.
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Communication & Information Systems |
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Gov. Ned Lamont signed SB1103, Public Act 23-16: An Act concerning Artificial Intelligence, Automated Decision-Making, and Personal Data Privacy. The bill had bipartisan agreement, with support from both the House and Senate. Senator James Maroney, the author of the bill, stated prior to the passage of the bill, “It is so important that we begin to regulate the state government’s use of Artificial Intelligence, We need to require impact assessments ahead of implementing AI in the decision-making process and ensure that there are no disparate impacts. We have seen how AI can impact us all. Hiring algorithms have been shown to discriminate based on age and some algorithms have given higher interest rates for loans based on race. A method needs to be put in place to eliminate discrimination based on internal data stored online.” CASE will be involved in the working group, as detailed in Section 5 of the public act. Read more.
Yale and UConn are heading a coalition seeking funds to establish the state as a quantum leader. The coalition, Quantum-CT, received a $1M Engines Development Award from the National Science Foundation for a two-year development effort, with the goal of positioning Connecticut to become the nation’s accelerator for quantum technologies and providing the opportunity to compete for an NSF Engines award of up to $160M over 10 years. Read more.
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The global economy has become increasingly interconnected over the last century, and that trend continued despite the COVID-19 pandemic. A new Brookings Papers on Economic Activity research paper by CASE Member Pinelopi Goldberg, Elihu Professor of Economics and Professor of Management at Yale University, and colleague Tristan Reed shows a slowing in globalization beginning around 2015. In a conversation on the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, the authors discuss their findings and the outlook for globalization going forward. Read more.
In the “U.S. Life Sciences Research Talent 2023” by real estate firm, CBRE Group, Inc., New Haven ranked 24th in an analysis of the country’s life sciences research talent pool. The report shows New Haven’s total number of employees in life science occupations as of 2022 was 1,120. The average wage for a biochemist was $126,586. The report evaluated each of the 74 largest U.S. life sciences labor markets with criteria including the number and concentration of life sciences researchers, number of new graduates with life sciences degrees, and local job concentration. Read more.
AdvanceCT announced a jump in corporate expansions in Connecticut with five German companies growing their operations in the state. TRUMPF, a leader in machine tools and lasers for industrial manufacturing, is adding a smart factory to their existing facility; BioMed X, a biomedical research institute, announced its first US location in New Haven; Roehm, a manufacturing company, will add an innovation center to its existing production facility; Eppendorf North America, a producer of laboratory equipment and supplies, opened a state-of-the-art distribution facility, adding to their presence in the state; and BYK North America, a chemical and measuring instrument manufacturer, has committed to expanding their headquarters in the state. Read more.
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Energy Production, Use, and Conservation |
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A new solar-powered STEAM tree will allow UConn community members to charge their personal devices as they enjoy time on the Student Union Mall. The solar power generated from the panels is stored in batteries, which allows users to charge devices, like phones and laptop computers. “This is about more than just solar power, batteries, and clean energy – it is really about the mindfulness that comes from being together in nature,” said CASE Member and UConn President Radenka Maric. “I am looking forward to more initiatives like this at UConn that we are going to bring to the community.” Read more.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $42 million in funding for 22 projects in 14 states across the U.S. to advance critical technologies for producing, storing, and deploying clean hydrogen, and $17.8 million to establish a new North American university research consortium to assist in implementing electric grid resilience programs and achieve national decarbonization goals. The funding will reduce the cost of clean hydrogen production, reduce reliance on fossil fuels consumption, and create more high-quality jobs across the U.S. Read more.
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A new study has discovered that the widely accepted model of how reverse osmosis works is fundamentally incorrect. The research team, led by CASE Member Menachem Elimelech, Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale, and published in Science Advances, conducted experiments and computer simulations which demonstrated that reverse osmosis is driven by pressure changes within the membrane and challenges the conventional understanding that has been taught for over 50 years. This new understanding could lead to more effective uses of reverse osmosis in applications such as desalination, wastewater treatment, and energy production. Read more.
The Lamont Administration announced the award of approximately $3.7 million in state funding to aid in the purchase and protection of more than 1,025 acres of open space in 14 communities throughout Connecticut. Additionally, the funding, through the Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program and the Urban Green and Community Gardens Grant Program, both administered by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), will aid in the creation of five new community gardens and green spaces in Hamden, a targeted investment community. Read more.
Governor Ned Lamont and Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes have announced $9 million in state grants for the Connecticut Recreational Trails Program to plan, build, expand, and improve 50 multi-use trails across Connecticut. DEEP has seen demand for outdoor recreation increase dramatically since the onset of COVID-19 - visits to locations in the Connecticut State Parks and Forests system reached an estimated 17 million in 2022 – a 75% increase from pre-pandemic levels. Read more.
The State of Connecticut Mosquito Management Program is monitoring mosquitoes for the presence of viruses that can cause illness in people, including the West Nile virus (WNV) and the eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus. The mosquito trapping and testing program is coordinated by The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) which maintains a network of 108 mosquito-trapping stations in 88 municipalities from May 30 until the end of October. Positive findings are reported to local health departments and on the CAES website. Read more.
The Connecticut General Assembly passed Senate Bill 1147, “An Act Concerning the Environmental Justice Program of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.” This significant legislation, raised at DEEP’s request, builds upon Connecticut's longstanding commitment to environmental justice and marks another milestone in our state's efforts to protect vulnerable communities and ensure equitable access to a clean and healthy environment. Read more.
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Human Resources and Education |
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This summer, the University of New Haven's Board of Governors will launch a comprehensive national search to identify the next president of the university. The search committee is being chaired by CASE Member Michael Ambrose, a 1984 graduate of the university and vice chair of the board, who spent nearly 40 years at Sikorsky, rising to the position of vice president of engineering and technology, "This is an exciting time for the university as we look to advance the incredible momentum established by Dr. Kaplan during his distinguished nearly 20-year tenure," said Ambrose. "As a proud graduate of the University, I am excited to take a leadership role in this important initiative and to work with the Charger community to identify the next president of the university." Read more.
CASE Member Nilay Hazari, the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Chemistry, has been awarded the Dylan Hixon ’88 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences at Yale College for exceptional undergraduate teaching recognizing the effort, energy, and imagination put into his teaching. Hazari was nominated by his students for making them feel both inspired and transformed. Read more.
The University of Chicago conferred an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters to CASE Member James P. Comer, the Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine. One of the world’s leading child psychiatrists, Comer is a groundbreaking scholar who transformed the fields of education and child development with seminal contributions that have profoundly shaped the field of educational research and practice. Read more.
CASE Member Cindy A. Crusto, professor of psychiatry (psychology) and associate dean for gender equity at Yale School of Medicine, received the 2022 Outstanding Contributions for Mentorship in Racial Justice Award from the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA). The award was presented at a ceremony at SCRA’s biennial conference in Atlanta. Read more.
CASE Member, Peter Schiffer, professor of applied physics and physics at Yale University and the director for strategic projects at Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences was named Princeton’s next dean for research, “I am honored and excited. My personal research background is in a multidisciplinary area of physics, and I’ve interacted substantially with scholars across the academic spectrum through my administrative roles. I’m looking forward to engaging with new colleagues across the humanities, social sciences, sciences, and engineering.” Read more.
“Science 1 is transforming the way we educate,” CASE Member and UConn President Radenka Maric said at a recent ribbon-cutting ceremony for Science 1, the new home of the Institute of Materials Science. The almost 200,000-square-foot facility significantly expands UConn’s educational and research work in STEM fields and was also designed to incorporate best practices in sustainability and energy efficiency, as part of UConn’s effort to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. Read more.
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A new study offers clues on why COVID-19 causes severe illness in some patients, but not others. In May 2020, an observational study was launched to profile COVID-19. IMPACC (IMmunoPhenotyping Assessment in a COVID-19 Cohort) is directed at Yale by CASE Members Ruth Montgomery, professor of medicine and of epidemiology (microbial diseases), and David A. Hafler, MD, chair, and William S. and Lois Stiles Edgerly Professor of Neurology. Now, a team co-led by CASE Member Steven H. Kleinstein, the Anthony N. Brady Professor of Pathology, has analyzed the first set of deep immunophenotyping data collected from the IMPACC cohort. The research is designed to help scientists predict early on who is most likely to suffer severe infection and potentially death, while also identifying aspects of the immune response that might be modulated to help at-risk patients experience better outcomes. Read more.
A new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reveals a staggering disparity in life expectancy between Black Americans and their white counterparts between 1999 and 2020. Researchers led by CASE Member, Harlan Krumholz, Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine, professor of public health, director of the Yale-based Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), and CASE Member Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate dean for health equity research at Yale, found 1.63 million excess deaths in the Black population compared with white Americans. Read more.
CASE Member, Marcella Nunez-Smith, Associate Dean for Health Equity Research and C.N.H. Long Professor of Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine, explains in this NYT article how chronic stress affects your health and how it shapes public health policy. Read more.
Only four percent of state legislators across the nation bring scientific training and expertise to their job as elected officials and policymakers, according to new data released by the Eagleton Science and Politics Program at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. The number of healthcare professionals, scientists, and engineers in state legislatures has increased since 2021 - today, 316 scientists (220 healthcare professionals, 74 scientists, and 22 engineers) serve in statehouses across the country. Read more.
A paper by CASE Member Jeffrey Townsend, Elihu Professor of Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics, and his research team, “Attribution of Cancer Origins to Endogenous, Exogenous, and Preventable Mutational Processes” was awarded the 2022 Yale School of Public Health Reduce Disease Risk Award. The team of researchers is now able to quantify the factors causing changes in the DNA that contribute most to cancer growth in tumors of most major tumor types. The team of researchers is now able to quantify the factors causing changes in DNA that contribute most to cancer growth in tumors of most major tumor types. Read more.
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A team of researchers, led by CASE Member Hui Cao, professor of applied physics and physics at Yale University, answered the question of whether light can be localized in three dimensions. This groundbreaking discovery could open a wide range of avenues in both fundamental research and practical applications using 3D localized light, leading to advancements in lasers and photocatalysts, among other applications. Read more.
The University of New Haven held a mini-conference - The Constitution State of Play - on the university’s contributions to education and technology. A $30K CT Higher Education Tech Talent Accelerator award from the New England Board of Higher Education helped support its efforts, with the grant focused on “Embedding Unity Credentials to Catapult Connecticut’s Workforce in Game Design and Development.” Read more.
The Army Research Laboratory invites exceptional early-career researchers to apply for a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship. This fellowship provides recipients the opportunity to pursue independent research while working alongside some of the nation's best scientists and engineers. Successful candidates will have already tackled a major scientific or engineering problem or will have provided a new approach or insight, evidenced by a recognized impact in their field. Online applications must be submitted by July 13, 2023. Read more.
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CASE Member Clara Fang, professor of civil engineering at the University of Hartford is the principal investigator of a two-year project with the CT Department of Transportation using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze data gathered over the past three decades. Fang and her team are combining civil engineering with AI to predict the future deterioration patterns of the more than 5,000 bridges in the state and develop a more efficient, reliable bridge infrastructure system. Read more.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation recently completed the first-ever comprehensive analysis of the New Haven Line to determine what can be done to speed up service. The study recommends an investment program of $8 to $10 billion to rebuild the railroad for faster service and reduce trip times by as much as 25 minutes for CTRail, Metro-North, and Amtrak to attract more people to switch from cars to trains and strengthen the regional economy. Read more.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) is receiving a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to develop a unified, statewide public transit information system for mobile devices that will integrate public transit information across Connecticut, while also allowing users to pay fares directly from their smartphones. The system will incorporate real-time arrival information for the state’s entire public transportation system, resulting in a better customer experience while promoting equitable access to transportation. Read more.
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Items that appear in the In Brief section are compiled from previously published sources including newspaper accounts and press releases.
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From the National Academies |
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The following is excerpted from press releases and other news reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (nationalacademies.org).
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Nonhuman primates represent a small fraction of animals used in biomedical research, but they remain important research models due to their similarities to humans with respect to genetic makeup, anatomy, physiology, and behavior. Limitations in the availability of nonhuman primates have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and recent restrictions on their exportation and transportation, impacting National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research necessary for both public health and national security. At the direction of the U.S. Congress, NIH asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene an expert committee to conduct a landscape analysis of current and future use of nonhuman primates in NIH-supported biomedical research, as well as opportunities for new approach methodologies to complement or reduce reliance on nonhuman primate models. This report provides the committee's findings and conclusions. Read more.
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In the face of climate change, technological innovation, and global strategic competition, the U.S. Coast Guard will need to respond to many developments in the maritime domain over the next decade. The Coast Guard likely has sufficient statutory authority to respond to most of these developments, but some developments may call for new or clarified statutory authority as well as coordination with international bodies. Current statutory manning requirements, for example, will limit the Coast Guard’s ability to authorize the regulated use of uncrewed vessels with autonomous systems. New authority may also be needed to establish spaceflight-related safety zones applicable to foreign-flagged vessels within 200 nautical miles of the U.S. coastlines. Read more.
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The field of quantum information science (QIS) has witnessed a dramatic rise in scientific research activities in the 21st century as excitement has grown about its potential to revolutionize communications and computing, strengthen encryption, and enhance quantum sensing, among other applications. While, historically, QIS research has been dominated by the field of physics and computer engineering, this report explores how chemistry - in particular the use of molecular qubits - could advance QIS. In turn, researchers are also examining how QIS could be used to solve problems in chemistry, for example, to facilitate new drug and material designs, health and environmental monitoring tools, and more sustainable energy production. Read more.
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The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) provides benefits to adults and children who meet the eligibility requirements for a disability as described in Title II and Title XVI of the Social Security Act. To determine whether more accurate or precise techniques exist for determining if a previously evaluated physical impairment is either more or less severe, SSA requested the National Academies assemble a committee to review new or improved diagnostic or evaluative techniques that have become generally available within the past 30 years for cardiovascular, neurological, respiratory, hematological, and digestive conditions. This publication presents a summary of the evidence and information around a selected subset of diagnostic and evaluative techniques. Read more.
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The history of the U.S. criminal justice system is marked by racial inequality and sustained by present-day policy. Large racial and ethnic disparities exist across the several stages of criminal legal processing, including in arrests, pre-trial detention, and sentencing and incarceration, among others, with Black, Latino, and Native Americans experiencing worse outcomes. The historical legacy of racial exclusion and structural inequalities form the social context for racial inequalities in crime and criminal justice. Racial inequality can drive disparities in crime, victimization, and system involvement. Read more.
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The National Science Foundation (NSF) asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a quadrennial review of the NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, in accordance with a legislative mandate. Drawing on published research plus existing data, a review of the SBIR and STTR Programs at the National Science Foundation analyzes the effectiveness of NSF award selection process and post-award assistance; the effectiveness of the STTR program in stimulating new collaborations; the economic and non-economic impacts of the programs; effectiveness of the programs in stimulating technological innovation and supporting small, new firms across the technological spectrum; and the role of the programs in providing early capital to firms without other significant sources of support. Read more.
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The main wireless applications at airports—passenger connectivity and airport staff communications—are imposing increasing demands on wireless capacity. Demand for passenger mobile connectivity is skyrocketing as high-speed-capable devices proliferate, and passengers require enhanced connectivity either for work or entertainment during dwell times, including location-based services for a custom travel experience. This research report, and included assessment tool, are intended as a resource for airports as they navigate through the existing taxonomy of wireless technologies and their use cases. Read more.
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The Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering |
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The purpose of the Academy is to "provide guidance to the people and the government of the State of Connecticut... in the application of science and engineering to the economic and social welfare."
OFFICERS OF THE ACADEMY
John Kadow, President ViiV Healthcare (ret.)
Sten Vermund, Vice President Yale School of Public Health
Eric Donkor, Secretary UConn
Edmond Murphy, Treasurer Lumentum (ret.)
Christine Broadbridge, Past President Southern Connecticut State University
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Terri Clark
EDITORS Leon Pintsov, Executive Editor - Engineering Pitney Bowes, Inc.
Mike Genel, Executive Editor - Medicine Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics Yale University School of Medicine CASE President, 2008-2010
Amy R. Howell, Executive Editor - Science Department of Chemistry University of Connecticut
COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT Rebecca Mead, INQ Creative
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The Bulletin is published by the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, Inc, 222 Pitkin Street, Suite 101, East Hartford, Connecticut, 06108. 860.282.4229, tclark@ctcase.org. To subscribe, visit ctcase.org.
The Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering is a private, nonprofit public service organization established by Special Act No. 76-53 of the Connecticut General Assembly.
COPYING PERMITTED, WITH ATTRIBUTION
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