Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

Networking and Information Technology 

Research and Development

Advanced Foundations for

American Innovation

Supplement to the President’s 

FY 2004 Budget

THE EMERGING 

AGE OF INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY:

SCOPE OF FEDERAL

R&D IMPACTS

The graphic timeline at left (please fold

out front cover) provides an overview of

the role of Federally funded research in

the history of information technologies in

the United States. The timeline’s aim is

to show the developing outlines of the

digital revolution and some societal

indicators of technological

transformation. It is not intended to be

comprehensive.

Reading the timeline

Four information technology areas are

highlighted by color (computers, software,

components, and networks). Numbered

descriptions of developments in each IT

area, by decade, run across the top, with

Federally funded activities in yellow. Below,

corresponding timelines for each area show

the sequence of these developments.

Arrows indicate impact milestones.

Selected sources: Federal agencies and laboratories;

IT industry Web sites; Funding a Revolution, National

Research Council, National Academy Press,

Washington, D.C., 1999; Computer History Museum;

Greatest Engineering Feats of the 20th Century,

National Academy of Engineering; History of

Computing Project; IEEE History Center; History of

Computing, J.A.N. Lee, former editor, IEEE Annals of

the History of Computing; History in the Computing

Curriculum, Association for Computing Machinery

(ACM); Chronology of Personal Computers, Ken

Polsson; Common Gateway Interface (CGI) Historical

Timeline, Wayne E. Carlson.

Disclaimer: Dates given for key developments often vary

among IT histories. The variations typically do not change

the broad direction of advances. Nonetheless, the editors

regret any inadvertent errors in this timeline.

A Report by the Interagency Working Group 

on Information Technology Research and Development

Committee on Technology

National Science and Technology Council

September 2003
About the National Science and Technology Council

The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) was established by Executive Order on November

23, 1993. This Cabinet-level council is the principal means for the President to coordinate science, space,

and technology policies across the Federal government. NSTC acts as a "virtual agency" for science and

technology to coordinate the diverse parts of the Federal research and development enterprise. The

NSTC is chaired by the President. Membership consists of the Vice President, Assistant to the President

for Science and Technology, Cabinet Secretaries, agency heads with significant science and technology

responsibilities, and other White House officials.

The NSTC Web site is: www.nstc.gov. To obtain additional information regarding the NSTC, please

contact the NSTC Executive Secretariat at (202) 456-6100. 

About the Office of Science and Technology Policy

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was established by the National Science and

Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act of 1976. OSTP's responsibilities include advising the

President in policy formulation and budget development on all questions in which science and technology

are important elements; articulating the President's science and technology policies and programs; and

fostering strong partnerships among Federal, state, and local governments, and the scientific communities in

industry and academe. The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology serves as the Director

of the OSTP and directs the NSTC on behalf of the President. 

The OSTP Web site is: www.ostp.gov. For additional information about OSTP, please call (202) 456-7116. 

Cover and Book Design

The cover, book design, historical timeline, and selected illustrations for this report are the work of James J.

Caras of NSF’s Design and Publishing Division. The cover illustration suggests the 21st century digital world

and its metaphoric and scientific connections with the fundamental elements of earth, wind, fire and water.

Copyright Information

This is a work of the U.S. Government and is in the public domain. It may be freely distributed and copied,

but it is requested that the National Coordination Office for Information Technology Research and

Development (NCO/IT R&D) be acknowledged. Requests to use any images must be made to the

provider identified in the image credits, or to the NCO if no provider is identified.
THIS PAGE 

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INTENTIONALLY 
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

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INVISIBLE WORLDS: In NSF’s Bugscope Project (http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu),

state-of-the-art scanning electron microscopy enables grade-school students to examine

nature’s extraordinary complexity. This high-definition digital image made 

for the program by scientist Scott J. Robinson reveals the intricacy in 

a tiny part of one elegant winged creature. For details, see page 50.
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

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Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

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HUMIDITY, NOT CLOUDS: Visualizations of computed specific humidity from a highresolution run of the general circulation model (GCM), which simulates global

atmospheric dynamics. The GCM is a joint effort of NASA and the NSF-supported

National Center for Atmospheric Research. GCM data play a central role in climate

research and weather prediction. Technical details on page 50.
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NTRODUCTION

1. The NITRD Program: E Pluribus Unum

2. Foundations for National Security

NITRD Technologies at Work on

the Front Line

3. Foundations for Scientific Leadership 

Research Directions for the 21st Century 

New Ways to ‘See’ and Understand

Large-Scale Scientific Collaboration 

Working on the Grid

Being There: Instruments and Visualization 

Crossing Boundaries – Interdisciplinary 

Science

Nanoscale Science and Technology

4. Foundations for Research and Learning 

Shared Knowledge, Shared Resources

5. Foundations for 21st Century Society

Education, Training, Technologies, 

Opportunities

6. The NITRD Agencies: Research Directions 

FY 2004 Agency Research Plans

By Program Component Area (PCA)

Agency NITRD Budgets by PCA

Interagency Working Group on IT R&D

Participation in Federal NITRD Activities

Agency Contacts

Acknowledgements

Image Credits and Technical Descriptions

Abstract inside back cover

Buy American Report inside back cover

To Request Additional Copies inside back cover

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Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

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THE SHAPES OF FIRE: Images from simulations of a spreading heptane-pool fire show

3-D dynamics of fire temperatures (darker areas hottest). Generated from data by the

Center for the Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions (C-SAFE), part of

DOE/NNSA’s Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASCI) program. C-SAFE’s aim is to

use high-end modeling techniques to improve understanding of fire and explosive

processes to aid emergency planning and response activities. Details on page 50.
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

he American imagination, challenged to invent

new technologies to meet vital national needs,

launched and powered a digital revolution that

ultimately swept around the globe. Today U.S.

ingenuity is extending advances in computing,

networking, software, and information management

technologies to a vast array of new applications and

devices that are shaping national defense and national

security capabilities, driving rising economic

productivity, supporting leading-edge scientific and

medical research, and adding powerful new dimensions

to the ways citizens work, learn, communicate, and

interact with government. 

The Federal agencies whose fundamental information

technology (IT) research is described in this document

sponsored many of the scientific breakthroughs that

set the foundations for the information age (see

timeline on front-cover foldout). Working

collaboratively in the multiagency Federal Networking

and Information Technology Research and

Development (NITRD) Program, these agencies

continue to foster an unrivalled U.S. capacity for

innovation – the Nation’s most vital resource for

national security, economic development, and

continuous improvements in living standards for all

Americans.

This Supplement to the President’s Budget for Fiscal

Year (FY) 2004 summarizes the NITRD agencies’

coordinated research activities and FY 2004 plans, as

required by the High-Performance Computing Act of

1991. The FY 2004 Supplement, also known as the Blue

Book, focuses in particular on the critical role of

fundamental IT research in providing advanced

foundations for innovation in every dimension of the

national interest.

Networking and computing technologies are often

called “enabling” technologies because their utility – and

broader significance – are realized in the human

advances and capabilities they make possible. It is these

advances that are the focus of the report’s main sections

– Foundations for National Security, Foundations for

Scientific Leadership, Foundations for Research and

Learning, and Foundations for 21st Century Society. The

broad-based impacts of the NITRD Program cited in this

document represent achievements not only of the

NITRD research community, but also of other Federal

programs, public-private partnerships, and the private

sector. The FY 2004 Blue Book places Federal NITRD

research in its context as a strategic national resource,

which provides the essential technological underpinning

for far-reaching innovations that will influence the

Nation’s development over the course of the 21st

century. 

For an overview of the NITRD Program, please see

pages 2 and 3. Additional details about the NITRD

agencies’ specific research interests, proposed research

activities for FY 2004, and NITRD Program budgets are

presented on pages 35-41.

1

The role of government is not to create wealth. The role of our government is

to create an environment in which the entrepreneur can flourish, in which minds

can expand, in which technologies can reach new frontiers.

– President George W. Bush

INTRODUCTION

T
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

2

123456

hartered by Congress under the High-Performance

Computing Act of 1991 (P.L. 102-194) and the Next

Generation Internet Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-305), the

NITRD Program is the collaborative framework of Federal

agencies that conduct fundamental R&D in advanced networks,

computing systems, software, and information-management

technologies, as well as in the socioeconomic and workforce

implications of these new technologies. One of the few formal

interagency enterprises in the Federal government, the

successful NITRD effort enables the major IT research agencies

to coordinate their plans and activities to leverage strengths,

avoid duplication, and increase the interoperability of research

accomplishments to maximize the utility of Federal R&D

investments.

The NITRD agencies’ balanced, diversified portfolio of R&D

efforts across Federal laboratories, universities, research

institutions, and partnerships with industry helps meet critical

Federal requirements for leading-edge IT capabilities, which are

rarely available in the commercial marketplace. The multiagency

push toward highest-performance and next-generation

technologies yields not only advances for national defense,

national security, and scientific research but broader

applications that directly contribute to overall U.S. preeminence

in the sciences, in engineering, and in advanced industrial

technologies. 

Flow of results to private sector

The Federal emphasis on long-range IT progress

complements the private sector’s necessary competitive focus

on short-term research and rapid product development. IT

industry leaders point out that NITRD activities serve the

essential purpose of filling the American research pipeline with

revolutionary ideas and technological concepts that can be

turned downstream into new generations of commercial

innovations. Moreover, NITRD research dollars constitute the

principal source of support for the advanced education and

training of the Nation’s leading IT researchers, entrepreneurs,

inventors, and technical professionals.

The flow of ideas from Federal R&D into the larger economy

is cited by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and

Technology (PCAST) in a 2002 study assessing the role of

Federally funded research. The PCAST notes that “activities

emanating from R&D investments that produced new

The NITRD Agencies THE NITRD PROGRAM: E PLURIBUS UNUM

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

(AHRQ)

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

(DARPA)

Defense Information Systems Agency

(DISA)

Department of Defense, Office of the Director,

Defense Research & Engineering

(ODDR&E)

Department of Energy

National Nuclear Security Administration

(DOE/NNSA)

Department of Energy

Office of Science

(DOE/SC)

Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA)

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration 

(NASA)

National Institutes of Health

(NIH)

National Institute of 

Standards and Technology

(NIST)

National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration

(NOAA)

National Security Agency

(NSA)

National Science Foundation

(NSF)

C
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

economic growth have never been higher, including increasing

numbers of patents and discovery disclosures.” Fully 40

percent of all patents, the PCAST reports, cite Federal research

as their source even though Federal R&D constitutes only 30

percent of total U.S. R&D investment.

FY 2004 Administration R&D priority

The President’s Budget for FY 2004 highlights the strategic

national significance of Federal R&D, proposing a record $123

billion for R&D activities over all, up 7 percent from FY 2003.

The NITRD Program is a top Administration R&D priority that

is critical to achieving the President’s goals of winning the war

on terrorism, protecting the homeland, and strengthening the

U.S. economy. The FY 2004 plan provides $2,147 million for

the NITRD Program, a $171 million increase over the FY 2003

appropriations of $1,976 million. For more information on the

NITRD agencies’ research plans for FY 2004, please see pages

36-39. Details of the NITRD budget appear on page 39.

Coordinated management

NITRD activities are coordinated by an Interagency Working

Group (IWG) of the Committee on Technology, National

Science and Technology Council (NSTC). The IWG members

include representatives from each of the participating agencies

and from OSTP, NSTC, the Office of Management and Budget

(OMB), and the National Coordination Office (NCO) for IT

R&D. The IWG is co-chaired by one agency representative

(currently NSF’s Assistant Director for the Computer and

Information Science and Engineering Directorate) and the

Director of the NCO. Participating agencies, working with

OMB and the Congress, fund their NITRD research through

standard agency budgeting processes and appropriations

measures that are signed into law by the President.

The NCO provides overall support for the NITRD Program,

including extensive technical and administrative activities on

behalf of the IWG and planning, budget, and assessment

activities for the Program. The NCO also supports the

President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee

(PITAC), a private-sector panel appointed by the President to

provide independent reviews and guidance on IT research and

development questions. 

Copies of NCO publications, including this report, information about NITRD

activities, and links to participating agency and related Web sites can be found at:

http://www.nitrd.gov/

The collaborative research agenda of the NITRD agencies is

carried out in Program Component Areas (PCAs), which focus

on particular aspects of fundamental, long-term research in

computing and networking technologies. In each PCA, a

Coordinating Group made up of agency program managers in

the relevant research fields meets monthly to exchange

information and support multiagency activities in their areas.

The PCAs and their major research interests are: 

• High End Computing (HEC) has two PCAs – Infrastructure

& Applications (I&A) and R&D – which together include

advances in hardware, software, architecture, and application

systems; advanced concepts in quantum, biological, and optical

computing; algorithms for modeling and simulation of complex

physical, chemical, and biological systems and processes; and

information-intensive science and engineering applications.

• Human Computer Interaction & Information Management

(HCI & IM) – R&D in advanced technologies that expand

modes and methods of human-computer interaction, improve

human ability to manage and make use of information

resources, and enable preservation and utility of electronic

information archives

• Large Scale Networking (LSN) – R&D in wireless, optical,

and mobile communications; networking software for

distributed applications and for information dissemination;

measuring, modeling, and scaling the Internet; improving endto-end performance; and testbeds and R&D infrastructure.

LSN also fields three special teams: Joint Engineering Team

(JET), Middleware and Grid Infrastructure Coordination

(MAGIC), and Networking Research Team (NRT).

• Software Design and Productivity (SDP) – R&D to

improve software development and software quality, including

understanding the trade-offs between cost and quality;

software engineering of complex systems; end-user

programming (such as domain-specific languages and

programming by example); component-based software

development; embedded and autonomous software;

middleware for distributed systems

• High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS) – R&D in

critical technologies needed to enable computer systems to

achieve high levels of availability, reliability, safety, security,

survivability, protection and restorability of information services

• Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT and IT

Workforce Development (SEW) – Multidisciplinary R&D in

complex interactions of information technologies with people

and society, such as IT impacts on organizations, economic

markets, and communications processes; privacy and

intellectual property rights; and participation in digital society

PCA R&D Structure

3
he NITRD Program is the principal source of

fundamental advances in the digital technologies

powering vital national defense, national security, and

homeland security capabilities – from precision command-andcontrol, communications, and weapons systems, to advanced

systems for intelligence gathering and analysis, to technologies

and tools for detecting and preventing terrorist attacks on U.S.

soil and increasing security for all Americans. The NITRD

agencies’ expertise is also aiding Administration efforts to

coordinate and mobilize Federal technological resources in

support of Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

applications.

High-priority NITRD research plans for FY 2004 continue to

focus on strengthening the overall security, reliability, and

robustness of critical U.S. networks, high-end computing

systems, and digital infrastructures. This work includes

development of “trust” technologies for broadband, optical,

wireless, and other ad hoc networks; cost-effective methods for

designing highly reliable software; and new science and

engineering approaches to achieve unprecedented dependability

and security – called “high confidence” – in complex systems

and software. Other efforts focus on advanced computational

capabilities, such as data mining and language translation, for

national security applications. Working with NSTC, the NITRD

agencies are also developing a comprehensive plan to guide

federal investments in high-end computing to meet critical

mission needs ranging from national security and defense to

basic science.

Advanced battlefield capabilities

Applications of NITRD research have been and continue to

be deployed on many fronts in the war on terrorism. In Iraq,

the unprecedented ensemble of networked high-performance

communications, reconnaissance, distributed information

management, and precision-guided munitions systems

supporting U.S. battlefield operations led Business Week to term

the conflict the world’s first “digital war.” Among the new

capabilities were DARPA’s Phraselator language-translation

devices and translingual information detection, extraction, and

summarization (TIDES) software for intelligence analysis.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), one of the “advanced

concept” capabilities to play a prominent role in Iraq, has

achieved a high level of sophistication that reflects NITRD

technological advances in hardware and software components,

including remote-sensing, telemetry, and secure wireless

networking technologies for remote command and control.

Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

4

a

T

a) U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter over southern Iraq during Operation Iraqi

Freedom. Research on methods and tools for enhancing battlespace visualization

for decision making in mobile units and multi-display command-and-control

centers is a focus of ODDR&E’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative.

1 2 3 4 5 6 

Foundations for

NATIONAL SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES AT WORK ON THE FRONT LINE
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

These airborne systems, being deployed by several services in a

range of sizes and equipped for varying tasks, provide versatile

platforms for wide-area, persistent (many hours at a time), and

multimodal (many kinds of sensing and scanning devices)

reconnaissance and attack without putting soldiers at risk.

Sensor technologies for hazard detection

The NITRD agencies’ research in robotics and in the

miniaturization, communications capabilities, and integration of

digital components with micro-electromechanical systems

(MEMS) such as sensors, actuators, and signal processors

enables advanced remote-sensing and networked embedded

systems not only for military applications but also for space

exploration and scientific research. In the war on terrorism,

these technologies are also being applied in small, low-cost

5

e) Navigator on a B-52 “Superfortress” checks flight details with ground

control on wireless computer communications system.

f) NASA March 25, 2003, satellite image of Iraq shows severe dust storms

(orange streaks). Computer weather models developed by Johns Hopkins

University and the University of Colorado also helped coalition forces

anticipate dust conditions.

b) U.S. Air Force Predator unmanned aerial vehicle

(UAV) receives ground check before mission.

c) Precision-guided Tomahawk cruise missile is fired

from U.S.S. Winston Churchill in eastern Mediterranean.

d) Air Force officers at coalition operations center in

Qatar coordinate multinational mission information.

d

e

b c

f
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

6

devices for detecting and

identifying biological

pathogens, chemical and

radiation hazards, and

explosive materials.

SnifferSTAR, the result

of a DOE/SC-Lockheed

Martin Corporation

partnership, is a half-ounce

unit designed to ride on

UAVs to detect nerve

gases and blister agents.

Operating on half a watt

of power, it consists of a butter-pat-sized sensor

platform on top of a microprocessor board. The

airstream is sampled every 20 seconds by the sensors,

which register the mass of airborne particles as

electronic frequencies and send the signals to the

processor; the digital data are transmitted to the UAV

or to a ground link, where they are immediately

compared against a library of data patterns for many

dangerous gases. Other new sensor technologies

include inexpensive microarrays of DNA sensors on a

chip that can detect multiple pathogens, such as

anthrax and smallpox; acoustic sensors that use sound

waves to determine the chemical composition of

materials in closed containers; and handheld radiation

detectors, now commercially produced and deployed

in homeland security activities.

Networks of tiny devices

NITRD advances in software and networking now

also make it possible to federate microsensor arrays in

ad hoc wireless networks, with potential not only for

battlefield reconnaissance but for industrial, health, and

environmental monitoring. “Smart dust,” a DARPA

project in sensor miniaturization, incorporates these

new capabilities as a result of work funded by DARPA

and NSF at the University of California at Berkeley and

a partnership with the Intel Corporation. Researchers

re-engineered a sensor prototype to turn it into a

modular, component-based computing platform with a

processor, sensor, radio, and power distribution

system. Because the operating system – TinyOS – and

database – TinyDB – are open source software, and

Intel is sharing wireless networking technology,

developers in many domains are now working on

commercial applications.

DOE/SC, NOAA, and corporate partners are linking

sensor and mass spectrometry technologies, wireless

and wired networking, meteorological instruments,

remote telemetry, and computer modeling in a

prototype SensorNet, a nationwide system for real-time

detection and assessment of chemical, biological,

radiological, and nuclear threats. The goal of this effort is

to provide immediate, scientifically accurate information

to first responders about the nature, severity, and likely

dispersion of such agents in the environment. This work

complements fundamental investigations by NIH and

NSF aimed at developing new methods both to prevent

biological and chemical agents from causing harm and to

mitigate the severity of contamination incidents.

Assuring technology quality

As the primary measurement and standards laboratory

for the United States, NIST conducts research in ultraprecision sensors and works closely with other Federal

agencies and industry to develop standards that ensure

the accuracy of measurements made by new hazarddetection technologies. A NIST initiative with the

Federal Aviation Administration, for example, is using

mass spectrometry – a powerful laboratory method

supported by IT that identifies a substance’s unique

chemical fingerprint – to assess the effectiveness of

walk-through explosive detectors. Developed with EPA

and NIH, NIST’s digital library of mass spectral prints for

140,000 chemical compounds is included as the

standard reference guide with most mass spectrometers

sold today.

Help for first responders

With funding from the National Institute of Justice,

NIST is working with the public safety community to

standardize techniques and protocols in wireless

telecommunications and IT applications for emergency

response networks. NIST is also developing Web-based

technologies for integrating sensors, real-time video,

“smart tags,” and embedded microprocessor devices in a

next-generation distributed information-gathering and

interactive communications system for field deployment

by first responders.

Powerful tools for emergency planning

Today, computational modeling, simulation, and

visualization capabilities pioneered in NITRD research

are helping emergency planners, first responders, publichealth officials, and building engineers better understand

a

a) “Sniffer Star,” a butter-pat-size sensor, samples air for toxic

agents and relays findings via wireless system to be checked

against digital archive of known toxic gases.

1 2 3 4 5 6 
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

and prepare for the complex impacts of catastrophic

events. Some examples:

• DOE/SC researchers have developed highresolution structural dynamics models to simulate the

effects of bomb blasts on buildings and other structures.

The simulations, which require very high-performance

computing capabilities, can be used to evaluate

structural vulnerabilities and assist in development of

blast-resistant architectural designs and retrofits for

existing structures.

• A NIST-developed

computational model, the

Fire Dynamic Simulator, and

related software called

SmokeView are enabling

investigators of the World

Trade Center disaster to

study how building

geometry, fuel distribution,

and wind conditions interacted with the smoke and fires

within and outside the towers. In conjunction with its

ongoing evaluation of building materials in collaboration

with industry, NIST is also preparing a technical

assistance package including software tools to help

building owners, contractors, designers, and emergency

personnel consider how building attributes would factor

in a crisis.

• TRANSIMS 

(Transportation Analysis

and Simulation System) –

developed for the

Department of Transportation by scientists at the

National Infrastructure

Simulation and Analysis

Center (transferred from

DOE/SC to DHS) – is a high-end software tool that can

integrate tens of millions of interacting variables to

represent transportation and traffic flows across an

entire urban area over time, from the level of a single

pedestrian and traffic light to the aggregate. Designed to

provide metropolitan planners with a highly accurate,

comprehensive picture of traffic impacts, congestion,

and air quality, the tool now is helping emergency

planners analyze the effects of disruption on complex

urban infrastructures to improve disaster preparedness.

IBM Business Consulting Services has licensed

TRANSIMS and is working with state and local officials

to integrate the tool into their analyses.

• A derivative tool,

EpiSIMS (Epidemiological

Simulation System),

couples models of disease

transmission with

population-mobility data so

that planners can test the

efficacy of various publichealth response strategies.

NITRD guidance for improving cybersecurity

The NITRD agencies are key contributors to Federal

efforts in partnership with the private sector to

improve the security of existing networks and

computing installations. Work by NIST, NSA, and

other DoD agencies underlies the set of “security

benchmarks” distributed nationwide in 2002 by the

Center for Internet Security, a voluntary consortium of

public and private organizations. These instructions and

software tools for enhancing security in today’s most

widely used operating systems and networking

technologies are termed “the gold standard” by the IT

industry because they reflect public-private consensus

on best practices based on thorough evaluation and

testing. NIST and NSA jointly support the National

Information Assurance Partnership, an international

compact among countries that apply validated security

standards to assess commercial IT products.

NSF and NIST were authorized by the Cybersecurity

R&D Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-305) to take immediate

action to address critical national needs in this area.

NSF, chartered to take the lead in cybersecurity

research and education, has more than doubled its

research investment in fundamental security

technologies and is supporting training of cybersecurity

professionals. NSF plans are underway to expand

educational and capacity-building activities in this

critical area of workforce development. NIST’s

responsibilities under the new law include assessing

national infrastructure vulnerabilities, fostering publicprivate partnerships to advance security technologies

and standards, establishing postdoctoral cybersecurity

fellowships, and coordinating on the IT security

research agenda with NSF and other Federal agencies.

NITRD Program representatives participate in

NSTC’s Critical Information Infrastructure Protection

Interagency Working Group, contributing research

perspectives and results from long-term NITRD R&D

for application in security-related technologies.

b

d

c

b) EPA used computational fluid dynamics simulations after 9/11 to

help evaluate the spread of materials from the World Trade Center.

c) TRANSIMS enables simulations incorporating millions of data

points from disaggregated variables, such as pedestrians, vehicles,

mass transport, traffic signals, and road characteristics.

d) DOE/SC researchers worked with Portland, Oregon officials to

simulate the geographic spread (purple shows cases) of a smallpox

epidemic in the city, using the EpiSIMS model. Effects of various

interventions versus inaction were examined.

7
Supplement to the President’s 2004 Budget

8

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Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP RESEARCH DIRECTIONS for the 21st CENTURY

Visualization by Chris Henze, from data by Gwen Jacobs, of a cricket interneuron, a highly branched

nerve cell that “reads” a neural map of input signals transmitted by sensory axons projecting into

the insect’s abdomen. About 10,000 color bands show precise 3-D geometry of the cell’s dendritic

branching points and changes in diameter. Details on page 50.

HOW A CRICKET KNOWS

NASA computational scientists are examining the complex

neural signaling systems of crickets to learn more about the

information-processing capabilities of their nerve cells’ threedimensional branching, tree-like circuitry. In such biological

systems for generating and transmitting signals, they hope to

find revolutionary new models for tiny computing and other

electronic devices.
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

n the Nation’s science and engineering research 

laboratories, high-performance computing,

networking, software, and information

management capabilities enabled by NITRD work

are not only accelerating the pace of discovery but

transforming the scientific enterprise, from the way

individual scientists work to the relationships

among the disciplines. Across the physical and

biological sciences, at every scale from the vast to

the minute, explorations of the structures,

properties, and processes of life and of inanimate

matter now converge in the high-end virtual

laboratory environment made possible by ongoing

NITRD advances. 

Fundamental breakthroughs in component

technologies, system and storage architectures,

systems software, and scientific programming

environments provide the U.S. scientific community

with the world’s most extensive and diversified

array of high-end computing capabilities for cuttingedge research. NITRD research and engineering in

broadband, optical, and wireless networking

technologies provides U.S. researchers with access

to high-speed research networks. Moreover,

NITRD researchers’ invention of grid computing

and the Globus ToolkitTM of open-source grid

software expands the versatility of this high-end

connectivity, making possible networked

integration and sharing of state-of-the-art

instrumentation, data storage, and computing

resources.

NITRD advances in high-performance hardware

and software tools equip scientists with new ways

to perform experiments and manage and work

with massive data sets. The NITRD focus on digital

library technologies, information management,

foundational information archives, and new forms

of human-computer interaction provide the

research and education sectors with

unprecedented resources for investigation and

learning. 

From this growing suite of IT capabilities – almost

unimaginable just a decade ago – new modes of

21st century inquiry are rapidly taking shape.

I

9
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

10

Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP NEW WAYS TO ‘SEE’ AND UNDERSTAND

1 2 3 4 5 6 

e) Chesapeake Bay looking south, with major tributaries at

right. Image shows computed salinity, (high levels red,

freshwater dark blue). Rendered from a coupled hydrodynamic/water quality model

developed by Army Corps of Engineers and EPA. The first fully 3-D, time-varying

model of an estuarine environment, the model has enabled new understanding of

multiple eutrophication factors, such as nitrogen from air pollution.

NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics

Laboratory models: a) Atmospheric 

carbon (red) concentration. b) Atmospheric warming

patterns. c) Temperature anomalies. d) El Niño/La Niña

effects on water temperature.

a

b

e

c

d

f

AIR AND WATER AT EVERY SCALE
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

11

of the results. In the case of tornadoes, for example, fullcolor imagery can highlight such invisible factors as air

pressure and wind velocity, revealing relationships that

would not be apparent in raw data or photographs.

Because they make complex systems visible and

testable, modeling and simulation have become the

tools of choice for designing, evaluating, and managing

elaborate structures and systems, such as aircraft and

avionics, automobiles, buildings, manufacturing machinery

and processes, and power grids. Military planners use

simulations to assess large-scale, multidimensional staging

and battlefield scenarios with such variables as

personnel, weaponry, vehicles, portable infrastructure,

communications systems, and supply chains.

NITRD modeling applications

But developing modeling and simulation capabilities for

cutting-edge U.S. science and engineering remains one

of the most technically difficult challenges in advanced

computing. The more complex the phenomena to be

modeled, the more demanding the software

development issues. Current and FY 2004 NITRD

research continues its focus on the advanced

mathematical and computer-science underpinnings for

scientific modeling and simulation. Recent NITRD

achievements point to their increasingly critical role in

sustaining U.S. technological preeminence.

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric

Research (NCAR), with support from DOE/SC and NSF,

in 2002 produced a high-resolution millennium-length

global climate simulation. The 1,500-year simulation was

generated using NCAR’s Parallel Climate Model, which

dynamically couples the major components of Earth’s

climate system, such as atmosphere, oceans, land, and sea

ice. The simulation took 456 days to run on the IBM SP

supercomputer at DOE/SC’s National Energy Research

Scientific Computing (NERSC) facility. Among the findings

was the discovery that the familiar climate mode of El

Niño can change its activity substantially over the centuries,

even when not influenced by outside forcing. As a result,

the scientists cautioned that interpretations of changes in

eyond the technologies that make highperformance computing and networking possible,

no NITRD advances are more profoundly

influencing scientific research and industrial innovation

than computational modeling, simulation, and

visualization. Modeling and simulation enable

investigators to examine and experiment with very

complex phenomena – such as the chemistry and

kinetics of fire, or the mechanisms of viral infection –

that exist far outside the boundaries of human vision.

These phenomena can be infinitesimal (interactions of

atomic particles), hazardous (biotoxins, radiation),

multidimensional (combustion, neural signaling systems,

air-traffic control), vast (the structures of galaxies), or a

combination of factors at many scales (influences on

global climate, stress factors in ship design).

Hard to perceive, such aspects of the physical world

are even more difficult to explain because they typically

represent the interplay of large numbers of disparate

processes. Even if we understand individual processes,

we cannot easily predict the results of their interactions.

With high-performance modeling and simulation

techniques, researchers can for the first time create

“likenesses,” or simulations, of enormously complicated

and dynamic realities – such as the development of

tornadoes – and make them visible in imagery.

Trillions of calculations per second

Computational models break a phenomenon under

study into very small pieces, each described by

mathematics. The model is the scientist’s approximation

of how the physical process works as a whole. Very

powerful computing platforms then perform the

calculations – often many trillions of operations –

specified in the model. The resulting simulation also is an

approximation, but by comparing the results to

observational data, researchers can evaluate how closely

the model matches reality. If the data validate the model,

it can then be used to predict behavior for which no data

exist. Visualization software plays a key role, turning

simulation data into three- or four-dimensional renderings

B

g

f) In one of the largest molecular simulations yet achieved (106,000 atoms interacting over 5 million time steps), computational

biophysicists at the University of Illinois have discovered a key mechanism enabling proteins called aquaporins, which make up the

membranes surrounding cells, to transport large amounts of water – up to 250 liters daily in humans. For details, see page 51. 

g) Visualization of scientific data begins with exacting mathematics. Cubes test curvature-based transfer functions in a synthetic

data set from a quartic polynomial implicit function, serving to debug/demonstrate correctness of convolution-based measurements

and show their effectiveness in a volume rendering context. Cube at right is Gaussian curvature.
Supplement to the President’s 2004 Budget

12

NEW WAYS TO ‘SEE’ AND UNDERSTAND

Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP

1 2 3 4 5 6 

d) University of California-Davis researchers are experimenting with new ways to

visualize multidimensional data sets. Image renders isosurfaces, vorticity, and velocity

of wakes. e) Image of F-16 flying at Mach .9 shows levels of stress on surfaces from

highest (red) to lowest (blue). A University of Colorado researcher’s innovative model

integrating fluid dynamics and structural stress data evaluates “flutter” – a dangerous

vibration in high-speed flight – in aircraft designs.

Stages of a supernova explosion over 50

milliseconds: a) Initial implosion. b) In-falling gas

approaches the core, where neutrinos heat and

make the gas buoyant. c) Process causes enough

convective energy transfer to create explosion.

a

c

b

f

e

d
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

13

g) Acceleration of concentrated particle beams is a core technique

in the search to understand the elemental forms and properties of

matter. Simulation shows formation of a halo around a single

particle, a sign of incorrect injection of beamline into cyclotron.

El Niño need to be evaluated with caution, and that physical mechanisms

of these changes require further exploration. 

The first 3-D simulations of the spectacular explosion marking the

death of a massive star, called a supernova, were achieved by DOE/SC

scientists in 2002. Such explosions, among the most violent events in

nature, unleash power that can briefly outshine a galaxy of 100 billion

stars. The work confirmed that the explosion process is critically

dependent on convection, the mixing of the matter surrounding the

iron core of the collapsing star. Understanding the nature of star

deaths is considered a key to explaining the expansion of the universe.

Supernova calculations are exceedingly computation-intensive because

many processes, involving all four fundamental forces of physics, must

be modeled for more than 100,000 time steps. Typical simulations 

(a million particles) took three months on the IBM SP at NERSC.

The Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) developed by

NASA scientists addresses one of the most costly and time-consuming

elements of modern aviation manufacturing – testing the design,

structure, and performance of jet engines. A first-of-its-kind tool for

modeling and analyzing jet propulsion systems in a single package, 

NPSS can interact with and integrate externally generated data and

design tools, and it allows geographically distributed teams to

collaborate on simulations. This design advance was named one of the

top 100 R&D achievements of 2002 by R&D Magazine and received

the 2002 NorTech Innovation Award.

Researchers at the University of California-San Diego supported by

NIH and NSF have developed a modeling technique that applies

computational chemistry rather than “wet” laboratory methods to

assess how well potential medications will work. Drug molecules bind

to specific “receptor” proteins in the body, and pharmaceutical

designers try to figure out where on the protein that binding will best

occur. The computational model calculates the possible variations in a

protein’s shape and then tests the candidate drug’s binding ability with

all the variants, accounting for the molecular stretching and bending

that can affect binding but are not captured in static models. This highspeed technique can be used with any drugs and proteins for which

three-dimensional structural information exists – accelerating the

search for alternatives to medications with severe side effects. Similar

methods are helping immunologists identify the chemical triggers of

immune response, a key step in the search for new vaccines.

A massively parallel structural dynamics software code named Salinas,

developed by DOE/NNSA researchers for simulating the responses of

structures to varying loads and stresses, earned a special 2002 Gordon

Bell Award, the supercomputing field’s top honor. The software

supports the Federal nuclear stockpile stewardship program, which

uses high-end computational capabilities to ensure the safety, security,

and structural integrity of the Nation’s nuclear weapons. 

f) The physics and chemistry of combustion, one of the most complex

processes in nature, remain a major scientific challenge. DOE/SC

scientists have developed the first fully resolved 3-D simulation of

turbulent methane combustion (image at left), winning the 2003

SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering.

g
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

14

Never would I have dreamed in 1953

that my scientific life would encompass

the path from DNA’s double helix to

the 3 billion steps of the human

genome. The completion of the Human

Genome Project is a truly momentous

occasion for every human being around

the globe.

James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the

structure of DNA, during DOE/NIH double

celebration in April 2003 marking the

discovery’s 50th anniversary and the

successful conclusion of the decoding effort

it made possible.

Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP LARGE-SCALE SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION

1 2 3 4 5 6 

a) Spray of subatomic particles produced by high-speed collision of gold ion beams in DOE/SC’s Relativistic Heavy

Ion Collider. A 1,200-ton instrument called the Solenoid Tracker at RHIC (STAR) records data from collision. Highend computation and data-sharing are critical in such unique experiments, enabling many scientists to reconstruct

and visualize the sequence of events from the moment of impact and to analyze the data for evidence of new forms of

matter – a central goal of high-energy physics research.

a

b

c
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

The High Performance Wireless

Research and Education Network

(HPWREN) sponsored by NSF at

the University of California-San

Diego uses advanced wireless

capabilities to provide Internet links

at educational institutions in remote

sites, such as Native American

communities. HPWREN is also

prototyping a variety of distributed

data-collection applications for highspeed wireless networking, including

real-time measurement and

multicasting of seismic events in

southern California along the San

Jacinto fault, wildfire tracking, and

sensor networks for ecological

monitoring in remote habitats. 

b) DNA molecule in liquid crystalline form.

c) Perspectives of HIV-1 protease, showing protease inhibitor indinavir in green. Red mesh

represents computed solvent accessible surface, a key indicator of protein structure. Such

computational modeling is greatly speeding the work of identifying the structures of the some

100,000 proteins in the human genome, which will enable new treatments for diseases like HIV.

the capacity of all but the largest supercomputing

systems to store or process. 

The NITRD agencies are leaders in envisioning and

developing revolutionary IT capabilities to connect

people in any location to such massive data sets, as well

as to colleagues and computing resources, in secure highbandwidth infrastructures for real-time scientific

collaboration. In FY 2003, efforts funded by DOE/NNSA,

DOE/SC, NASA, NIH, and NSF continue to build out

the high-speed networks, terascale computing and

petabyte storage resources, and advanced software for

grid computing that enable large groups from all points

of the compass to work together in a joint enterprise. In

these leading-edge research environments, the NITRD

community is exploring and prototyping technologies and

methods for large-scale collaborative human activity that

will become the norm for many American workers in the

21st century. Citing the cost-effectiveness of

collaboration and resource sharing, businesses are

already adopting NITRD-developed grid technologies to

connect distributed teams and computing resources.

In a significant milestone for large-scale collaboration,

NITRD-engineered high-speed networks (including

DOE/SC’s Energy Sciences Network, ESnet, and the

NSF-sponsored TeraGrid and StarLight links) in February

2003 enabled an international team of particle physicists

and corporate IT partners to set a new world networkspeed record. The team sent 6.7 gigabytes of

uncompressed data – the equivalent of four hours of

DVD-quality movies – from Sunnyvale, California to

Amsterdam, Netherlands in 58 seconds.

he first great scientific triumph of this century –

the decoding of the human genome announced

in February 2001 – dramatically introduced the

new era of large-scale collaboration enabled by

computing and networking. When DOE/SC and NIH

launched the Human Genome Project in 1990, the

most powerful computers were 100,000 times slower

than today’s high-end machines, the private citizens

using networks could send data at only 9600 baud (bits

per second), and many geneticists did calculations by

hand. The challenge – figuring out how the genetic

instructions for life are organized in the four chemical

compounds that make up the biomolecule

deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), called life’s blueprint –

was understood to be critical to the future of medical

science. But the work was expected to take decades.

Ultimately, the international decoding effort, in which

more than 1,000 scientists participated, became a

showcase for the central role of IT in advanced

research. The distributed teams of Human Genome

Project researchers each computed pieces of possible

chemical sequences and transmitted them over highspeed networks to the project’s data repositories for

other scientists to examine and use. Researchers

devised new software tools that automated sequence

computations and analyses. In a sign of the enormous

IT-driven acceleration of the work, a June 2000

announcement of a “rough draft” of the genome noted

that more than 60 percent of the code had been

produced in the prior six months alone, at a rate of

1,000 bases (sequences of DNA’s four nucleotides) per

second around the clock. The total raw sequence

calculations submitted numbered more than 22 billion.

Connecting people and resources

In every scientific domain today, investigating complex

phenomena requires a great many minds, multiple skills,

and state-of-the-art tools. Such research can be

staggeringly data-intensive, often involving unique

measurements generated by one-of-a-kind instruments.

Just one collision experiment in an advanced particle

accelerator, for example, produces millions of physics

“events” per second, amounting to 40 or more

terabytes of data all told, filling 8,000 high-capacity

magnetic tapes. If the tapes were stacked, the pile

would be 500 feet high. Such massive data sets exceed

T

15
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

16

Legend

From the foundation of Federal R&D investments in networking

technologies, a working partnership among the NITRD agencies,

universities, and industry has developed a broadband infrastructure for

research, providing connectivity not only to research facilities

throughout the U.S. but to research networks around the globe. The

optical backbone links (shown in white) are the Abilene network,

supported by the Internet2 consortium of universities and partners

Cisco, Nortel, and Qwest. The OC-192 backbone, able to transmit

data at nearly 10 gigabits per second, connects to Federal research

networks at Next Generation Internet Exchange Points (NGIXs,

shown as blue stars). These Federal “peering” points transparently

route traffic from one network to another. International exchange

points to networks in Asia, Europe, and South America are shown as

yellow stars. NSF’s new StarLight facility (shown as green star) at the

University of Illinois-Chicago adds to to these capabilities an advanced

optical infrastructure and proving ground for network services

optimized for high-performance applications.

The Federal research networks are:

DREN – Defense Research and Engineering Network, DoD

vBNS – very high-performance Backbone Network Services, NSF

NREN – NASA Research and Education Network

ESnet – Energy Sciences Network, DOE

BOSSnet – Boston-South Network, DARPA

Abilene ................................................

Links to international networks

NGIXs.................................................

StarLight...............................................

Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP WORKING ON THE GRID

1 2 3 4 5 6 

Seattle

San

Francisco

Los

Angeles

San

Diego

El Paso

Houston

Denver Kansas City

Chicago

Indianapolis

Atlanta

Miami

Washington

New York

and work with nearly 7 terabytes of data, which ultimately were

rendered into 70,000 high-resolution frames on the Blue Horizon

platform at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. The processing took a

day at a rate of 1.7 trillion operations per second. 

a) Image of interstellar gas and dust opens 8-minute simulation of

the solar system’s birth developed for the Hayden Planetarium by

a distributed multidisciplinary research team. The team used

advanced computational techniques and grid technologies to share

a

A Working Partnership U.S. HIGH-PERFORMANCE RESEARCH NETWORKS
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

Particle Physics Data Grid (PPDG) – Creating highbandwidth connectivity, storage and data access, and

software tools for researchers in the most data-intensive

of all the physical sciences. In a collaboration with NSF’s

Grid Physics Network, PPDG scientists have successfully

simulated more than 1.5 million particle-collision events

over a nationwide five-node grid.

NASA

Earth System Modeling Framework and Earth Observing

System (EOS) testbed – In collaboration with DOE,

NOAA, and NSF, this NASA effort has the ambitious

goals of making the world’s richest and most dynamic

stores of scientific data about Earth both more accessible

and more useful to a broad range of researchers. A

central goal is to develop a single software framework

that will enable researchers for the first time to integrate

data from many different climate, weather, and

environmental models. The testbed will create a datastorage and networking infrastructure to accommodate

the growing volume of empirical data being generated by

DOE/SC, EOS, NOAA, and the NSF-supported National

Center for Atmospheric Research as well as tools to

make the data accessible to the wider U.S. research

community.

NSF

Geosciences Network (GEON) – In collaboration with

the U.S. Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of

Canada, this effort involving researchers from 13

universities is building digital libraries of high-quality

geological information and integrated software tools for

data access, analysis, modeling, and visualization. GEON

will be a national resource for researchers, students,

teachers, and the public.

Grid Physics Network (GriPhyN) – Using grid

technologies to make the results of experiments at the

world’s largest experimental physics facilities accessible to

the broader academic community.

Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation

(NEESgrid) – Creating a high-performance infrastructure

for real-time collaboration among the scientists and

engineers who study earthquake dynamics in order to

design materials and structures that reduce their threat to

life and property. More details on page 27.

Collaboratory for Multi-Scale Chemical Sciences 

(http://cmcs.ca.sandia.gov)

Earth System Grid II (http://www.earthsystemgrid.org)

Earth System Modeling Framework (http://www.esmf.ucar,edu)

Geosciences Network (GEON) (http://www.geongrid.org)

he Globus software suite for grid computing –

first developed by researchers in a joint effort by

DARPA and DOE/SC and still being elaborated

in the DOE/SC Science Grid, NSF’s TeraGrid, and

NASA’s Information Power Grid – makes possible

large-scale collaborative research frameworks in key

domains of 21st century science. The NSF-funded

National Virtual Observatory, for example, is developing

grid-based tools to enable scientists for the first time to

access and work with experimental data from more

than 50 astronomical research facilities. The initiative

aims to close the gap between the output of the

international array of land- and space-based telescopes

and sensors – now generating more empirical data

annually than existed in the field of astronomy before

1980 – and the ability of researchers to make use of it.

Major IT vendors worldwide also are adopting the

Globus ToolkitTM, named “most promising new

technology” of 2002 by R&D Magazine. The NITRD

agencies are founding participants in the Global Grid

Forum, the leading organization working to expand grid

technologies for international scientific collaboration. A

major related initiative in middleware research at NSF

supports grid development by strengthening the

underlying software technologies that make distributed

computing possible.

IT frameworks for large-scale scientific collaboration

being developed with NITRD support include:

DOE/SC

Collaboratory for Multi-Scale Chemical Sciences –

Developing a Web portal and informatics infrastructure

to enable sharing of validated data and collaborative

investigation by researchers working in combustion

science at scales from the atomic level to the macro

level of turbulent combustion phenomena.

Earth System Grid II – Integrating storage,

management, access, and collaboration technologies for

massive data generated in DOE/SC climate research.

National Fusion Collaboratory – As the

Administration moves to renew U.S. participation in

development of the International Thermonuclear

Experimental Reactor (ITER), this project is establishing

secure frameworks for fusion scientists to work

collaboratively with the massive data sets generated by

the Nation’s three large fusion facilities. The ensemble

will include data repositories and advanced applications

and collaboration software.

PROJECT

URLs

Grid Physics Network (GriPhyN)

(http://www.griphyn.org/index.php)

National Fusion Collaboratory (http://www.fusiongrid.org)

Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEESgrid)

(http://www.neesgrid.org)

Particle Physics Data Grid (http://www.ppdg.net)

T

17
Supplement to the President’s 2004 Budget

18

a) From cryoelectron microscopy and image reconstruction, the

most detailed view to date (8-angstrom resolution) of a

microtubule, a weave of proteins in a cell's skeleton. 

b) “Baby picture of the universe,” made from microwave afterglow of the Big Bang – light that has traveled for 13 billion years.

Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP BEING THERE: INSTRUMENTS AND VISUALIZATION

1 2 3 4 5 6 

c) To exploit nuclear fusion as a renewable energy source will require new

knowledge about the properties of superheated gases, or plasmas. Scientists

with the Center for Extended Magnetohydrodynamic Modeling, a DOE/SC

collaboration of Federal labs and universities, are developing techniques to

visualize plasma behaviors, such as the stable toroidal state shown. 

a

b

c

e

d f
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

nformation technologies pioneered in Federal

research underlie the generation of highly sensitive

diagnostic and research instruments now speeding

advances throughout the sciences. These capabilities

include the world’s most powerful telescopes and

instrumented satellites; magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI,

which measures absorption of radio waves by tissue

within a magnetic field), computed tomography (CT, an

X-ray technique), and other non-invasive techniques for

looking inside the body; electron, atomic-force, and other

forms of microscopy and spectrometry that examine

matter at the atomic level, and large-scale facilities that

generate data about atoms by focusing concentrated light

beams on them or creating high-speed particle collisions.

All of these technologies are governed by IT hardware

and software systems, with a top-layer software interface

enabling human operators to manage the equipment and

software components that translate measurements into

digital data that can be displayed graphically.

Advanced visualization techniques developed through

NITRD research have made it possible to render

instrument data as high-resolution images in three

dimensions, to show the dynamics of three-dimensional

processes over time, to see and manipulate an image

from all angles, and to generate sophisticated composites

representing many layers of data.

Like modeling and simulation techniques, visualizations

of data generated by state-of-the-art instruments are

providing not just scientists but students and the public

with views of the intricacy of matter at scales too tiny or

too vast to be seen any other way. In biomedical

research, for example, imaging is rapidly expanding

knowledge about proteins, the complex biomolecules that

are life’s core workforce. Investigation of their genetically

determined shapes and functions is a top national

research priority today. Scientists believe these molecules

hold the keys to revolutionary new treatments for human

diseases and those affecting other species.

Remarkable bits of software-driven engineering in atomscale microscopy instruments even make it possible for

users not just to see the invisible world of atoms and

molecules, but to physically maneuver and experiment

with them. These inventions, which include IT-guided

optical “tweezers” and tiny probes, are helping propel a

remarkable new science and technology of matter at the

nano scale. (The prefix nano- means a billionth of, or 10-9;

a row of 10 hydrogen atoms is about one nanometer wide. For

more about nanoscale science, please see page 24.)

I

show topologically equivalent regions (varying by color, opacity).

g), h) Virtual reality hardware and software technologies enable scientists

to physically manipulate data-based 3-D structures. Details on page 52.

i) Water molecule – vector-field techniques show electronic charge

density. Details on page 52.

19

d) Computationally rendered image of specialized cardiac cells called

myocytes that make hearts beat; cells are stained to show

mitochondria (red), DNA (blue), and F-actin (green). e) Unidentified

diatom sitting on a cockleburr seed. Details on page 52.

f) 3-D data, like terrain, have a topology; image of fuel injected into

chamber, from automated techniques for data analysis and transfer to

g

h

i
Supplement to the President’s 2004 Budget

20

Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP BEING THERE: INSTRUMENTS AND VISUALIZATION

1 2 3 4 5 6 

PHONE HOME: Communications with NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity (launched June

10 and July 7, 2003, on their six-month, 34-million-mile journey) may benefit from the fact that Mars will be closer to

Earth than at any time in the last 73,000 years. One-way transmission time will be 11 minutes, compared with 19

minutes during the 1976 Viking mission. In the agency’s most elaborate deployment of IT capabilities to date, scientists

and engineers are running the Mars mission using advanced hybrid networks, a new class of interactive collaborative
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

Telescience Project developers are prototyping an

additional grid-enabled capability that will allow

microscope users to generate 3-D tomographic images

immediately via distributed parallel processing.

Making another kind of specialized resource – human

expertise – more widely accessible is the focus of NIH

efforts employing networking and telepresence

capabilities for advanced medical training. Expertise in

clinical medicine is more than intellectual; it also derives

from “hands-on” experience in examining patients and

performing surgical procedures. Researchers at Stanford

University are using NITRD-developed “haptic”

technologies – software and hardware tools for

simulating the sense of touch – to help students

experience surgical techniques over the Internet. A

master surgeon at one location “traces” a surgical

procedure with a haptic instrument connected to a

computer, which translates the actions into software. A

student at a remote computer receives a copy over the

Net and, holding the haptic device, lets the software

guide his or her hand several times. After a few practice

tries, students rehearse the technique independently.

These interactions can be stored and reused.

In addition to connecting users to unique resources,

NITRD efforts connect distributed data-gathering

instruments via networks delivering types and quantities

of real-time empirical data that a lone scientist could not

hope to amass in a lifetime. Remote-sensing, imaging,

and wireless networking technologies developed by

DARPA, DOE/SC, NASA, NIST, NOAA, and NSF

support real-time monitoring systems for many domains

of the national interest, such as air and water quality, rain

acidity, drought and fire conditions, seismic and volcanic

activity, and melting of the polar icecaps. 

As a key weather-monitoring agency relied upon

around the world, NOAA expects to collect an average

of 2.5 terabytes of data daily from a global network of

satellite-based sensors, 156 Doppler radars (a technology

developed jointly by NOAA and NSF researchers),

ocean vessels and buoys, radiosondes and surface

observation stations, and makes much of the information

publicly available online. NOAA’s real-time observations

are the mainstays of major U.S. sectors, including armed

services’ and civilian weather forecasting, emergency

preparedness, aviation and ground transport, agriculture

and fisheries, and recreation and tourism. 

At the intersection of diagnostic devices, computer

science and engineering, and medical practice,

visualization technologies are also providing powerful

new clinical tools. Physicians and surgeons can see

exactly what form an individual patient’s condition –

such as broken bones, a tumor, or a vascular

obstruction – takes inside the body and work with that

information visually in considering approaches for

treatment. A physician can custom-engineer prostheses,

such as joint replacements, using computer modeling

and then evaluate the designs in the context of a

patient’s particular anatomy. 

Harvard University researchers supported by NIH and

NSF are leading developers of such next-generation

tools. Starting with the megabytes of data produced by

CAT and MRI cross-sectional scanning, traditionally

rendered as long sequences of 2-D grayscale images, the

researchers computationally segment data representing

the key anatomical features under diagnosis. Advanced

visualization techniques translate the data into highfidelity, 3-D color models of the features. These images

from an individual patient can be layered with

contextual information, such as the surrounding

anatomical environment, the shape and position of the

feature relative to statistical averages, and possible

surgical routes. In neuroanatomy, one focus of the

project, the imaging methods are especially useful in

illuminating 3-D structural relationships not captured in a

diagnostic scan. Brain surgeons are using the tools both

in pre-planning and as guides in the operating room. 

Long-distance investigation

Across the fabric of high-end connectivity woven of

advanced networking and grid technologies for

resource-sharing, NITRD-funded research is now linking

researchers and students to the Nation’s most advanced

instruments for scientific and medical research and

providing the computational and storage resources they

need to work online. The Alpha Telescience Project, a

collaboration of NSF’s National Partnership for

Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI) and

the NIH-sponsored National Center for Microscopy and

Imaging Research, puts distant users at the controls of

the center’s high-voltage transmission electron

microscope, with real-time streaming video to the

desktop. An accompanying application allows the user

to create a quick low-resolution version of any

microscopic feature to see if it is of interest before

deciding to acquire the full tomographic data.

21

computing platform, and custom software tools for real-time distributed mission planning, rover remote

control, data analysis, and imaging – all integrated to enable large-scale collaborative management of the

intricate enterprise. The 400-lb. rovers are equipped with camera, microscopic imager, spectrometers, and

robotic drilling arm to look for signs of life amid the red rocks.
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

22

Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP

1 2 3 4 5 6 

Today the boundaries between all disciplines overlap and converge at an

accelerating pace. Progress in one area seeds advances in another. New

tools can serve many disciplines, and even accelerate interdisciplinary work.

Rita R. Colwell, Director, National Science Foundation, February 2003

uch disciplinary interconnections, many scientists believe, will

shape the scientific enterprise for the rest of this century, with

teams of investigators tackling complex problems whose

solutions call for knowledge, methods, and technical skills from a

variety of fields. One early indicator of the trend: In 1990, only 6

percent of 1,600 researchers using DOE’s synchotron light sources

to study atomic particles were from the life sciences; today more

than 40 percent of the more than 6,000 researchers using these

instruments are bioscientists.

Scientists traditionally have tried to understand Earth’s environment

by taking sample observational measurements – such as of water

tables, rainfall, cloud cover, air flows and temperatures, ocean

currents, vegetation and animal distributions, photosynthesis rates,

polar ice thickness – and theorizing about how all these factors fit

together. In this century, advanced information technologies will

make it possible to see how such influences work together and to

develop deeper knowledge of the environment as a complex system

of systems interacting with and affected by humans. 

Complexity in biological systems

A major NSF initiative, Biocomplexity in the Environment, is

funding a wide range of multidisciplinary efforts to map

biocomplexity systemically, from the genetic and submolecular scale

to macroclimatic forces and effects of human activities. Researchers

at the University of North Carolina, for example, have developed a

real-time environmental scanning system that couples chemicaldetection technologies with tomographic mapping capabilities to

compute pollution maps covering large geographic areas. The maps

can depict multiple chemicals at once, a significant factor in

examining chemical constituents and dispersal of industrial and

agricultural residues. 

The emerging field called chemical genetics depends on IT

capabilities for rapid discovery of microscopic research tools that will

S

CROSSING BOUNDARIES – 

INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE

a) Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC), a new form of matter demonstrated by NIST

researcher Eric Cornell and colleagues, earning them a 2001 Nobel Prize in

Physics. BEC is created when atoms are supercooled to an almost motionless

state. Simulation images show unique vortical patterns formed by BEC (bright

areas indicate lower atom density) in quantum trapping experiments.

a
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

narrow the gap between what bioscientists are learning

about human proteins and applications of these findings

in clinical medicine. Chemical genetics aims to identify

small molecules that either activate or deactivate protein

functions. Researchers can use these “molecular probes”

to more quickly analyze how proteins malfunction in

such diseases as cancer, multiple sclerosis, and

Parkinson’s. Harvard University chemists sponsored by

NIH’s National Cancer Institute have created

ChemBank, an online repository of small-molecule

chemical structures and properties and accompanying IT

analysis tools for biologists to contribute to and use.

The Harvard lab is systematically identifying molecular

probes in an automated screening process that uses

imaging and software tools to capture data on the

effects of various small molecules on protein behavior.

How the other half lives

In DOE/SC’s Genomes to Life program, hundreds of

Federal, industry, and university researchers from the

biological, environmental, physical, and computing

sciences are engaged in a long-term effort to extend ITbased genetic research methods to the world of

microbes. These tiny organisms, which make up more

than 50 percent of Earth’s total biomass, control

biogeochemical cycles and affect soil productivity, water

quality, and global climate. 

In that sophisticated biomachinery – which can use

even toxic wastes as energy sources and can produce

such diverse energy products as hydrogen and methane

– scientists see means for developing clean energy,

removing excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,

and remediating contaminated environments left as a

legacy of the Cold War. The research is applying “highthroughput” computational methods developed in the

Human Genome Project to identify microbial proteins

and their functions. But it will also require computing

power and tools far beyond today’s levels to develop

data about and analyze the behavior of large microbial

systems and colonies, as well as their multiscale,

multidimensional interactions with the environment.

Scientists with multiple skill sets

Even the work of individual scientists – such as Surya

Mallapragada, an Iowa State University researcher named

one of the world’s top 100 technical innovators for

2002 by Technology Review – highlights the

multidisciplinary flow of contemporary science. In

research supported by DOE and NSF, the materials

chemist and chemical engineer is combining

biomolecular chemistry, advanced IT capabilities, and

nanotechnology in a technique to regenerate nerve cells,

which are not amenable to methods used with other

types of cells. On an ultrathin (a few thousandths of an

inch) biodegradable polymer film that she and her team

engineered, the researcher uses digitally controlled laser

and ion-reactive etching instruments to make grooves a

few microns (millionths of a meter) deep. The grooves

are then coated with protein and Schwann cells (which

in the body form nerve cells’ myelin sheath) and

peripheral nervous system axons are placed in each

sheath-like groove. The axons have grown at a rate of

three or four millimeters daily, and Mallapragada has

successfully applied the technique to regenerate sciatic

nerves in rats. She is examining how to extend the

concept to central nervous system cells, such as those of

the optic nerve, which pose even more difficult

regeneration problems.

23

c b

b) University of Michigan researchers are experimenting with

dendrimers – spherical polymer molecules with a uniquely

consistent branching chemical structure – as vehicles for identifying

diseased cells, reporting their location, and delivering targeted

therapies. Details on page 53.

c) DOE/SC-funded work at the University of Illinois Center for

Microanalysis of Materials aims to understand the electrical

properties of nanoscale heterostructures such as layered oxide thin

films for future electronics.
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

24

1 2 3 4 5 6 

CROSSING BOUNDARIES – 

NANOSCALE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Foundations for

SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP

properties unlike any we know today, revolutionary

techniques for combating disease and maintaining health,

and ultra-miniaturization of computing and other

mechanical and electronic systems. But the nanoscale

realm holds many mysteries. We do not yet understand,

for example, how the laws of physics operate in nanoscale

structures – their behavior cannot be predicted from

physics at the macro scale. Even so, nanotechnology

promises an extraordinarily diverse range of innovations

ahead, as suggested in the following examples of current

research advances.

In work awarded the top honor of the International

Conference on Computational and Experimental

Engineering and Sciences, a NASA computational

nanoscientist and his team have engineered a process to

fabricate carbon nanotubes – the strongest new material

yet devised, with the ability to be either a semiconductor

or a metal – and have successfully demonstrated

nanotubes in semiconductor logic circuits. The goal of this

and related research is nanoscale computing, sensing,

telecommunications, and avionics components to radically

reduce the weight and scale of spacecraft. The versatile

nanotubes are also being used in strong lightweight

polymer composites for structural applications. NASA

studies indicate that replacing aluminum aircraft structure

with carbon nanotube composites could reduce the dry

weight of large commercial aircraft by 80 percent, with a

25 percent reduction in fuel use.

Biomolecular motors

One of the most astonishing areas of nanoscale discovery

is molecular biology, where scientists, such as those in the

Genomes to Life effort, are trying to understand how the

work of life actually gets done at Feynman’s “bottom” level.

Like tiny vehicles, many types of protein physically move or

transport subcellular material. Following on the new

nterdisciplinary science is perhaps most dramatically

displayed in the new field of nanotechnology,

where, as OSTP Director John H. Marburger puts

it, “the notion that everything is made of atoms finally

becomes operational.”

Nanotechnology, with IT as both a major driver and an

enabler, is developing at the intersection of materials

science, engineering, physics, chemistry, and biology. With

dimensions of only a few billionths of a meter, nanoscale

structures are typically investigated with advanced IT

capabilities that enable scientists to see and manipulate

individual atoms and molecules as well as simulate

nanostructural dynamics with mathematical precision. The

NITRD agencies, which pioneered tools for nanoscience

through research on next-generation semiconducting and

superconducting materials, chip architectures and

microfabrication processes, MEMS devices,

optoelectronic/photonic technologies, and visionary

molecular computing concepts, remain at the forefront of

nanoscale discovery. DARPA, DOE/SC, EPA, NIH, NIST,

NSA, and NSF are core participants in the National

Nanotechnology Initiative, an Administration R&D priority

for FY 2004 as is the NITRD Program.

Nanotechnology research leads in many long-term

directions, including custom-designed materials with

A biological system can be exceedingly small. Many of the cells are very tiny,

but they are very active. They manufacture various substances, they walk

around, they wiggle, and they do all kinds of marvelous things – all on a very

small scale. Also, they store information. Consider the possibility that we, too,

can make a thing very small which does what we want – that we can

manufacture an object that maneuvers at that level.

Richard Feynman, 1959 speech, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”

a) Elaborate lab technologies and data mining enabled NSFsupported researchers to identify a protein – glucose-6-phosphate

isomerase, necessary to initiate pregnancy in ferrets – that also plays

a role in cancer metastasis. b) An international team, using

visualization software developed for NIH’s “Visible Human” data, has

a

b

I

discovered a secret of whales’ and dolphins’ swimming skill – 3-D

image reconstructions from CT scans of early and contemporary skulls

show even the earliest cetaceans had mammals’ tiniest semicircular

canals for their size. Left to right, dolphin, early whale, bushbaby.
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

Revolutionary computing devices

Just as IT is critical to the future of nanotechnology,

nanoscale science is seen as the means of surmounting

IT’s “red brick wall” – the approaching physical limit to

the miniaturization of chip architectures, and thus to

advances in computing speeds. The NITRD Program

encompasses research in biomolecular chemistry and

quantum physics as potential sources of revolutionary

computation and data-storage technologies. One gram of

DNA, for example, stores the equivalent of 108 terabytes

of digital data – about ten thousand times the capacity of

today’s largest mass storage systems. In 2002, University

of Southern California researchers funded by DARPA,

NASA, NSF, and the Office of Naval Research achieved a

notable biocomputing success, using DNA molecules to

reach the correct answer to a computational problem

with 20 variables and more than a million possible

solutions. Previous DNA experiments had solved

problems with a maximum of nine variables. “This

landmark study,” said Science, “proves that molecular

computation is not a far-fetched possibility but a quickly

evolving discipline that may have major impact on more

established disciplines such as biotechnology.”

Quantum IT research begins with the fact that

subatomic particles (atomic nuclei, photons, electrons,

etc.), which follow the unique laws of quantum

mechanics, exist – in computing terms – partly in both

the binary 0 and 1 states at the same time. In theory, a

particle’s superposed quantum states, called “qubits,”

could provide the basis for exponentially higher

calculation speeds than are possible in the binary world. 

In 2001, NIST researcher Eric A. Cornell and two other

Americans shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for proving

the existence of a near-motionless atomic state – the

Bose-Einstein Condensate – that had long been theorized

but not achieved empirically. Since the evanescence of

quantum states (they disappear in quadrillionths of a

second as atoms spin and move) is a fundamental barrier

to quantum computing, the ability to generate the lowenergy Bose-Einstein state marked a significant advance.

NIST and Massachusetts Institute of Technology

researchers have proposed a quantum computer design

based on this work. DARPA, DOE/SC, NASA, NSA, and

NSF researchers also are exploring ways to exploit

nanoscale phenomena in quantum information systems.

25

knowledge about proteins’ complex shapes, investigators

are examining “biomolecular motors,” proteins that

change shape to generate force, or torque, in order to

carry out tasks. 

In an elegant application of electron microscopy and ITdriven optical tweezer techniques, researchers funded by

DOE, NIH, and NSF have not only measured in real

time the power of a biomotor but demonstrated what

may be a key mechanism of viral infection. The research

showed that bacteriophage phi-29 – a virus that destroys

soil bacteria – packs large amounts of its DNA into its

external shell, called a capsid, a space about 6,000 times

smaller than the DNA’s normal volume. The packing

action requires 57 to 60 piconewtons of force – which

the researchers describe as the equivalent of lifting six

aircraft carriers if scaled up to human dimensions. The

internal pressure generated in the capsid is 60

atmospheres – about 10 times the pressure in a

champagne bottle. The researchers propose that, like a

champagne cork, the compressed viral DNA, which

cannot replicate unless it enters a host cell, explodes into

the healthy cell to which the virus has attached.

Getting themselves together

Another facet of nanoscale molecular research

examines how both organic and inorganic atoms and

molecules organize themselves into larger structures.

Understanding what scientists call “self-assembly” is a

critical step toward the ability to custom-design novel

materials for such uses as targeted delivery of drugs and

therapies inside the body, protective coating and

encapsulating, imaging, and automated microfabrication.

Advanced IT techniques have confirmed the fantastically

intricate lattice structures formed by inorganic atoms and

molecules such as in metal alloys. But self-assembly

processes in organic matter, governed by genetic

instructions, are less well understood. NSF-supported

researchers in February 2003 reported a milestone in

such work, achieving a self-assembled liquid crystal lattice

of 255,240 atoms in branching molecules called

dendrons, which make up the protein coat around

viruses. The result, published on the Web site of the

journal Science, was not only the most complex organic

structure yet created via self-assembly, but also the first

organic compound to assume an intricate structural form

previously seen only in metals.

c) Carbon nanotubes, made with NASA fabrication technique. Each

tube is about 100 nanometers wide. d) In biomolecular motor built by

Cornell University researchers, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) enzyme

powers nickel propeller at 8 revolutions per second. Post is 200

nanometers tall, propellers about 750 nanometers long. c d
Supplement to the President’s 2004 Budget

26

b)

f)

e)

d)

c)

1 2 3 4 5 6 

Foundations for

RESEARCH AND LEARNING

SHARED KNOWLEDGE.

SHARED RESOURCES

There is a growing mountain of research. ... The investigator is staggered

by the findings and conclusions of thousands of other workers –

conclusions which he cannot find time to grasp, much less to remember,

as they appear. ... Professionally, our methods of transmitting and

reviewing results of research are generations old and by now are totally

inadequate for their purposes.

Scientist Vannevar Bush, in a 1945 Atlantic Monthly article proposing “Memex,” a configurable device for information storage and retrieval

g) Thomas Edison films in Open Video Project include first America’s Cup

race, Cushing/Leonard boxing match (right). (http://www.open-video.org)

a) Cuneiform tablets, one of humankind’s earliest data

storage and information management technologies (ca.

3300- 2000 B.C.), and new translation research are focus

of the Cuneiform Digital Library (http://cdli.ucla.edu).

Details on page 53.

a

g
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

27

The significance of sharing resources is highlighted when

the resources in question are costly specialized research

facilities, such as this multi-ton “shake table” under

construction at the University of Nevada at Reno as part

of NSF’s Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation

(NEES). Only a small number of universities have built

the structurally fortified labs equipped with unique heavy

machinery required to shake experimental loads on such

tables with the forces of an earthquake. Yet, other than

measuring damage after a real event, shake tables have

been the principal scientific tool for studying how to

design structures to withstand quakes.

Using high-end computing and broadband networking

capabilities, the NEESgrid will enable earthquake

engineering researchers nationwide to observe and

participate in these experiments in real time, make use of

data stored in a common archive, and share advanced

modeling and simulation software to study earthquake

impacts and design resilient structures. 

NO ORDINARY TABLE

unpublished research in progress are fundamental

resources for the U.S. research community. The 

E-PRINT Alerts feature allows users to specify their

interests and receive notification as relevant new

information is added. Scientific papers in biology,

chemistry, computer science, engineering, environmental

sciences, materials science, mathematics, physics, and

other areas of interest to DOE are included.

(http://www.osti.gov/preprints/)

E-Specimens – NSF-funded projects at the University

of Texas at Austin provide online access to libraries of

biological specimens. The DigiMorph specimen library is

an archive of X-ray-computed tomography data whose

animations and details are used in research labs and

classrooms around the world. The e-Skeletons Project

lets users examine the bones of a human, gorilla, and

baboon and information about them in an osteology

database. (http://www.digimorph.org/ and

http://www.eskeletons.org/)

oday, more than half a century after Vannevar

Bush described information overload in a dataintensive world, high-performance networking,

computing, and information-management technologies

are making possible the far-reaching support system for

human thought that he envisioned. Although they rarely

make news themselves, the diversified digital libraries of

core knowledge developed through NITRD agency

investments have become a necessary, and invaluable,

resource for rapid innovation, not only in research but in

education and training, medical practice and health care,

heavy industry and manufacturing, pharmaceutical design,

business-to-business technologies, agriculture, and many

other fields of endeavor. 

Digital collections take many forms. Some are built and

managed by a single organization in one location; others

are actually Web-based frameworks and protocols that

enable users to access widely distributed digital archives.

Materials can include images and animations, software,

sound, and video as well as data and texts. In addition,

NITRD-sponsored research originated the IT capabilities

that make it possible for people to discover the

information they need, organize it, and work with it on

their desktops. These technologies – for example, Web

browsers; search engines; data-mining, analysis, and

management tools; metadata frameworks (information

that helps users understand the origin and nature of a

digital record); data display and manipulation tools; and

language translation methods – provide the technical

foundations for a universal digital knowledge system.

But the work is far from finished. Research across the

NITRD agencies continues in FY 2003 and FY 2004 on

substantial technical issues – such as interoperability

among file formats, indexing protocols, and interfaces;

data management, storage, and validation; networking

bottlenecks; and long-term preservation – that impede

development of digital libraries. These efforts reflect

urgent demand in every field for deep reservoirs of

sharable knowledge to maximize the value of existing

findings and enhance the potential for significant

advances. Some examples of NITRD digital-library

achievements and works in progress:

E-PRINT Network – DOE manages the world’s largest

“one-stop shopping” site for preprint reports in science

and technology. These papers by scientists on their

Head of Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, oldest

known dinosaur, from Upper Triassic Period.

Discovered in Argentina in 1959. Image from

Digimorph collection, University of Texas.

Spiders”R”Us, a University of Arizona

Artificial Intelligence Laboratory program, is

developing next-generation search-agent tools

for knowledge discovery on the Web.

(http://ai.bpa.arizona.edu/spidersrus/)

T
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

28

Digital libraries supported by the NITRD agencies are

making vast stores of cultural, educational, technical,

and scientific information available to the public

1 2 3 4 5 6 

SHARED KNOWLEDGE.

SHARED RESOURCES

Foundations for

RESEARCH AND LEARNING

a) A new online resource for students, teachers, and the public, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Tapestry of Time and

Terrain interactive map merges the most accurate and detailed agency data on the topography and geology of North

America. Users can explore the geological history of mountain formation, river erosion and deposition, glaciation,

volcanic action, and other processes over 26 billion years. Details on page 53. (http://tapestry.usgs.gov)

A TAPESTRY 

OF TIME AND TERRAIN

a

a
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

29

GenBank and related databases – The National Library

of Medicine’s National Center for Biotechnology

Information maintains public, searchable databases of the

genomic sequences submitted in the Human Genome

Project, the current draft of the genome, and completed

genomic sequences for 800 other organisms. Scientists

from around the world continue to upload new data to

GenBank as they refine the original human draft

sequences or develop sequences for other species. The

Web site provides a variety of tools for working with the

databases as well as archives of related information, such

as a catalog of inherited human disorders.

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/)

International Children’s Digital Library – In this NSFsupported effort, the University of Maryland, the Internet

Archive, and international partners are developing a

library of 10,000 children’s books from 100 cultures and

new technologies to serve young readers. The library will

serve children ages 3 to 13 worldwide.

(http://www.icdlbooks.org)

NASA Cosmic Collection – In a large-scale technology

transfer, the agency has released more than 500 NASAdesigned software programs as publicly available opensource resources. The software, used in such fields as

chemistry, aerodynamics, and engineering design, is being

made available online by the OpenChannel Foundation.

(http://www.openchannelfoundation.org)

National Guidelines ClearinghouseTM and National

Quality Measures ClearinghouseTM – These online

archives established by AHRQ provide a unique national

resource for medical clinicians and health-care

professionals, amassing for the first time comprehensive

databases of the codified treatment knowledge, formal

practice guidelines, and evidence-based quality indicators

that have been developed by medical, health-care, and

government organizations in clinical medicine. The

guidelines clearinghouse, a partnership with the American

Medical Association and the American Association of

Health Plans, contains guidelines on diseases and

conditions, treatments and interventions, source

organizations, and related resource documents. Users can

apply an online software utility to compare the contents

of various guidelines. The quality measures clearinghouse

provides objective summaries of quantitative measures of

clinical performance (such as hospital pneumonia rates)

developed by organizations throughout the health-care

field. Software enabling users to compare measurement

information is also provided. (http://www.guideline.gov/)

and (http://www.qualitymeasures.ahrq.gov/) 

National Science Digital Library – In FY 2004, NSFfunded work will continue on development of a

comprehensive collection of core knowledge, teaching

materials, and learning resources for nationwide highschool and college-level education in the sciences,

technology, engineering, and mathematics.

(http://www.nsdl.org/)

NIST Data Gateway – Through one online portal, users

can access more than 80 NIST-developed databases of

fundamental scientific information and validated reference

data on topics ranging from atomic spectra, chemistry,

mathematics, and physical constants, to calibration and

manufacturing standards, product design, properties of

materials, and thermophysical data.

(http://srdata.nist.gov/gateway/)

Protein Data Bank (PDB) – As the international

repository for 3-D data on the structures of biological

macromolecules, the PDB is playing a critical supporting

role in current research on the complex shapes and

activities of proteins and their relationships to causes and

mechanisms of disease. Funded collaboratively by DOE/SC,

NIH, NIST, and NSF, this free interactive resource –

accessed some 50 million times in 2002 – enables

researchers to find and download validated structural data

on more than 10,000 individual proteins generated with

several techniques (X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic

resonance imaging, and computational modeling).

Researchers can also submit results of their own work to

the collection. (http://www.pdb.org)

PubMed – The world’s largest online collection of

contemporary scientific literature related to the biomedical

sciences and medicine, this public resource established and

managed by NIH’s National Library of Medicine contains

12 million abstracts from 4,500 journals. In FY 2003, it will

be searched more than 400 million times.

(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/)

MEDLINEplus, a companion online library designed

especially for consumers, will approach 100 million

searches. (http://www.medlineplus.gov)
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

30

b

a c

a) NASA hyperspectral imaging technologies capture

fine-grained information about surface features and

vegetation. Scientific farming methods now incorporate

imaging to regulate cultivation and improve yields.

b) Funded by DOE/SC, a public-private collaborative team is developing tiny MEMS

technologies to restore vision. Eye diseases such as macular degeneration damage the

rods and cones that convert light into electrical messages to the brain. c) In prototype, a

video camera, which could be attached to glasses, transmits signals via loop antenna to

MEMS devices inside the eye that stimulate retinal nerves.

123456

EDUCATION, TRAINING,

TECHNOLOGIES, OPPORTUNITIES

Foundations for

21st CENTURY SOCIETY
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

nnovation emerges in many forms and across all

walks of life, supported by access to education,

rich sources of information and ideas, and enabling

technologies. The following examples suggest the

breadth of this diversity.

Engineering at the California Institute of Technology,

clearly distinguished between patients who were infected

and those who were not. Now being commercialized by

Cyrano Sciences, Inc. of Pasadena, the “Cyranose” sensor

array of carbon-black/polymer composites, which can be

tailored to detect any type of chemical vapor, interacted

with molecules in patients’ exhaled breath to produce a

unique electrical response displayed as a dot pattern on a

computer screen. Rather than prescribing antibiotic

treatments to all at-risk patients as a precaution, doctors

could give antibiotics only to those signaling infection

while awaiting confirmation from the more timeconsuming tests, said the doctor who directed the study.

Life-saving IT network

In 2002, 171 Americans were rescued in personal

aircraft and marine emergencies through an IT-based

international search-and-rescue alert network cosupported by NOAA, the Coast Guard, the Air Force,

and NASA. The Cold War-era program, started in 1982

by the U.S., Canada, France, and Russia, now includes 36

countries and operates around the clock, relaying radiobeacon distress signals picked up by U.S. and Russian

satellites and a network of ground computer stations to a

central facility for location analysis and on to the nearest

rescue teams. All told, the COSPAS-SARSAT system

(see page 54 for acronym details) has rescued some

14,500 people worldwide, including 4,500 Americans.

Following a request by NOAA to the Federal

Communications Commission, as of July 1, 2003,

outdoor adventurers anywhere in the continental U.S.

are also authorized to carry 406-megahertz personal

locator beacons (PLBs). Unlike personal aircraft and

vessels, which are required to carry such equipment,

citizens who want COSPAS-SARSAT protection on

wilderness trips are urged to register their PLBs with

NOAA to speed rescue operations if they are needed.

A father’s software discovery

An 11-year-old New York girl named Jen, confined to

her home by spinal muscular atrophy, a severe form of

muscular dystrophy, now uses the family computer to

communicate with friends, surf the Web, and connect to

school lessons because her father came across some free

software developed by DARPA- and NSF-supported

A man with a plan

In the 1990s, a North Dakota farmer had an idea

about how to help fellow farmers in his region costeffectively improve the productivity of their land. With

technical support from NASA, Montana State University,

and the University of Minnesota, he created Agri ImaGIS,

the first Web-enabled provider of satellite remotesensing imagery and analysis software for precision

agriculture across the U.S. and Canada. Clients log on to

www.SATshot.com, where they download the free

AI/Satshot Viewer, based on NASA imaging software

customized by the farmer and university colleagues for

the agricultural application. Through partnerships with

major satellite companies, the Agri ImaGIS site lets users

select the exact coordinates of the near-infrared imagery

they wish to purchase, download the package, then apply

the software to mine the images for information,

pinpointing areas of high or low productivity indicated by

vegetation density and vigor, soil condition, and moisture

levels. A tool called Map ImaGIS enables users to build

base maps of their fields and boundary lines, which they

can overlay with zone-management information such as

variable watering, seeding, and fertilization metrics.

Diagnostic alert

At the University of Pennsylvania Medical School,

physicians treating critically ill patients on ventilators who

are at high risk of pneumonia have tested a handheld

“acoustic nose” sensor array as an early-warning device

for detecting the disease. Traditional diagnostic X-ray and

bacterial culture methods can take several days. The

“nose,” a technology developed by researchers at the

NSF-supported Center for Neuromorphic Systems

I

31

Information and communication technology are having a profound

effect on the way of life of people in many different cultures

throughout the world. No other technology in the past has spread

so rapidly and with such transforming effect. ... The transformation

of societies around the globe is just beginning.

John H. Marburger III, Director of OSTP, March 2003
Supplement to the President’s 2004 Budget

32

a

b

c d

c) NASA’s new braille book about astronomy was evaluated by students at the

Colorado School for the Blind. 

d) Schematic shows operation of NOAA COSPAS-SARSAT international 

search-and-rescue network, which has saved thousands of lives.

b) NSF’s QuarkNet initiative with DOE brings highschool physics teachers and students to Fermi National

Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). Last summer, Fermi

scientists helped teachers build a cosmic ray detector.

EDUCATION, TRAINING,

TECHNOLOGIES, OPPORTUNITIES

Foundations for

21st CENTURY SOCIETY

123456
researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. The two

pieces of software, designed as part of a project looking

at new uses for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in

conjunction with desktop computers, are posted on the

Web for any interested parties to “beta test.” One turns

a PDA into a remote keyboard and mouse; the other

enables the user to create shortcut buttons on the PDA

to automate computer processes. Jen, who has good fine

motor control, finds the PDA’s pencil stylus and touchscreen capabilities easy to use. As a result of her father’s

serendipitous discovery, the CMU team is working on

ways to make the technology even more helpful to

people with physical limitations.

Lights that talk

At Boston’s Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital,

researchers funded by NIH and NSF have demonstrated

a technology that uses the flickering of ordinary

fluorescent lighting to transmit information to PDAs with

photocells carried by patients, alerting them to

appointments, room locations, and other useful in-patient

details. The invention, which enabled even patients with

traumatic brain injuries to navigate autonomously, won a

2002 R&D 100 Award and is being marketed by Talking

Lights, LLC of Boston.

Next-generation microprocessors

A research team at DOE laboratories has transferred to

the chip industry a microprocessor fabrication technology

that is considered the next generation in chip-making,

capable of producing processors tens of times faster than

today’s and memory chips with 40 times the storage

capacity. The new lithographic technology uses extreme

ultraviolet light (EUVL), which has 10 times shorter

wavelengths than plain ultraviolet light (UVL). EUVL can

etch a far greater number of features on each chip than is

possible with current UVL techniques. The industry

consortium that will further refine the prototype under a

cooperative research and development agreement is

headed by Intel and includes Advanced Micro Devices,

IBM, Infineon, Micron Technologies, and Motorola. In

February 2003, the DOE team was awarded the

laboratories’ Excellence in Technology Transfer award for

its accomplishment.

33

e

f

a) Students of researcher Terry Winograd (second from left) test

capabilities of interactive workspace called “iRoom” in NSFfunded project at Stanford University to investigate the future

roles of advanced technologies in collaborative work.

e) NASA researchers work with Stanford Medical School cardiac

specialists to apply agency fluid-dynamics modeling technologies to

create innovative surgical planning tools that enable physicians to

view and analyze patient blood flows and blockages. 

f) High-school students assemble an electronic logic board at

Fermilab.
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

34

submit comments (http://www.regulations.gov). 

NITRD support for human development

When minds can expand, new ideas – and inventions –

flourish. For that reason, one ongoing focus of NITRD

research is technologies to help all people enhance their

individual capacities and skills. Assistive technologies and

devices developed from NITRD-funded research in

robotics, speech recognition, voice activation, multimodal

interfaces, and wireless remote-control systems are

making it possible for people of all ages with disabilities to

participate more fully and independently in society. 

NITRD research investments play a direct human-capital

role in the national interest, underwriting the advanced

education and training of tomorrow’s top-level U.S.

technological workforce and supporting the work of

today’s IT research leaders. NITRD agencies also support

the Nation’s main training programs to expand IT talent

pools in such strategic fields as bioinformatics,

cybersecurity, and advanced scientific computing. 

The NITRD agencies actively champion innovation in

science, mathematics, engineering, and technology

education, encouraging use of their online archives for

educational purposes and providing special Web sites

with learning activities for children and young adults. NSF,

unique among the agencies in its broad mission to

advance U.S. research and education across the sciences,

supports fundamental investigations of human cognitive

development and innovative IT applications for education

and training at every level. NASA’s Learning Technologies

Project develops advanced multimedia curricula for

teachers to use to engage students in grades K-14 in the

excitement of Earth and space sciences. 

An emerging area of NITRD research sponsored by

NSF – interdisciplinary studies of the social, economic, and

workforce implications of IT – is developing baseline

empirical findings and new knowledge that will help

policymakers and citizens better evaluate and make

informed decisions about IT applications in 21st century

society. This work is exploring such topics as effects of

new information technologies in work, education,

commercial, and research environments; barriers to IT

careers for women and minorities; intellectual property

and information privacy issues; citizen participation in the

digital society; and human values in technology design.

E-gov: Streamlining services for citizens

Across the Federal government, new structures to

improve citizen services and streamline operations are

arising today from the foundations of IT R&D. Under the

Administration’s E-Government Strategy, agencies are

moving rapidly toward two ambitious goals: quick, easy,

and secure online access for citizens to government

services and information, and a radical reduction in

internally duplicative record-keeping, transactional, and

information-processing systems through coordinated

development of IT standards and procedures. (See

http://www.egov.gov/.)

In April 2003, for example, DoD and the Department

of Health and Human Services announced that they

would adopt the framework of the highly regarded

Veterans Administration (VA) electronic health-records

system as a key step toward a secure national health

information infrastructure. The VistA system (Veterans

Health Information Systems and Technology

Architecture), with its Enterprise Single Sign-On

developed by NIST for the VA, is considered a leading

example of a patient-centric, secure health-records

infrastructure that improves care and reduces paperwork. 

E-gov projects are also working toward IT-based

simplification of Federal procurement, grant-making, and

benefits systems. The NITRD Program is supporting 

E-gov technical activities to ensure universal citizen

accessibility to services and to build state and local

government and private-sector partnerships around the

program’s goals. In addition, NSF’s Digital Government

program supports a variety of technical R&D efforts to

develop new technologies that expand public access to

government services at all levels (http://www.diggov.org/).

In a grassroots collaborative project, digital archivists

from NITRD agencies and others have created a highly

visible symbol for a more user-oriented government – a

new Web portal called science.gov that organizes in one

place, by category and alphabetically, links to the national

treasure of scientific and technical information in the

online archives of 10 Federal science agencies

(http://www.science.gov). Other FY 2003 E-gov

developments include a free online Federal tax-filing

system, used by several million people in its first season,

and a Web portal called regulations.gov, through which

citizens can access the texts of proposed rules and
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

AHRQ – the Agency for Healthcare Research and

Quality – focuses on research into state-of-the-art IT for

use in health care applications such as computer-based

patient records, clinical decision support systems, and

standards for patient care data, information access, and

telehealth.

DARPA – the Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency – is focused on future-generations computing,

communications, and networking as well as embedded

software and control technologies, and human use of

information technologies in national defense applications

such as battlefield awareness.

DOE/NNSA – the Department of Energy National

Nuclear Security Administration, Advanced Simulation and

Computing (ASCI) – was established to develop new

means of assessing the performance of nuclear weapon

systems, predict their safety and reliability, and certify their

functionality through high-fidelity computer models and

simulations.

DOE Office of Science is exploring, developing, and

deploying computational and networking tools that enable

researchers in the scientific disciplines to model, simulate,

analyze, and predict complex physical, chemical, and

biological phenomena important to DOE. The Office also

provides support for the geographically distributed research

teams and remote users of experimental facilities whose

work is critical to DOE missions. FY 2004 is the fourth year

of the Office’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced

Computing (SciDAC) initiative, which is focused on the

next generation of scientific simulation and collaboration

tools for the scientific areas that are the focus of DOE

research.

EPA – the Environmental Protection Agency – has the IT

research goal of facilitating multidisciplinary ecosystem

modeling, risk assessment, and environmental decision

making at the Federal, state, and local levels, and by other

interested parties, through advanced use of computing and

other information technologies.

NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration – is extending U.S. technological leadership

to benefit the U.S. aeronautics, Earth and space science,

and spaceborne research communities.

NIH – the National Institutes of Health – is applying the

power of computing, both to manage and analyze

biomedical data and to model biological processes, in its

goal to develop the basic knowledge for the understanding,

diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of human disease.

NIST – the National Institute of Standards and

Technology – is working with industry and with educational

and government organizations to make IT systems more

useable, secure, scalable, and interoperable; to apply IT in

specialized areas such as manufacturing and biotechnology;

and to encourage private-sector companies to accelerate

development of IT innovations. It also conducts

fundamental research that facilitates measurement, testing,

and the adoption of industry standards.

NOAA – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration – is an early adopter of emerging computing

technologies for improved climate modeling and weather

forecasting, and of emerging communications technologies

for disseminating weather forecasts, warnings, and

environmental information to users such as policymakers,

emergency managers, industry, and the general public.

NSA – the National Security Agency – is addressing

some of the most challenging problems in the country in

computing, storage, communications, networking, and

information assurance in order to help ensure our national

security.

NSF – the National Science Foundation – supports basic

research in all NITRD areas, incorporates IT advances in

science and engineering applications, supports computing

and networking infrastructure for research, and educates

world-class scientists, engineers, and IT workforce.

ODDR&E – the Office of the Director, Defense

Research & Engineering, Department of Defense –

manages the University Research Initiative, which focuses

on IT R&D for Department of Defense applications,

research infrastructure, and science and engineering

education.

Other Federal agencies participate in networking and

information technology research and development, and

coordinate with NITRD activities, using funds that are not

budgeted under the program.

35

THE NITRD AGENCIES: RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

123456
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

36

High End Computing Infrastructure 

and Applications (HEC I&A)

NSF: Terascale cyberinfrastructure; grid resource management;

application of high-performance computing for science and

engineering research

NIH: Creating models and visualizations for both basic and

applied science sciences

NASA: Develop terrestrial information grid with numerous

geographic locations containing resources including computing,

networking, data, and instruments (both fixed and mobile) to

solve problems of interest to the NASA aerospace, earth

science, and space science enterprises

DOE Office of Science: Partnerships for terascale science

DOE/NNSA: Innovations in high-end systems architecture and

software, and in visualization techniques to enable modeling and

simulation for U.S. stockpile stewardship

NIST: Creating models and visualization for basic sciences (e.g.,

physics) and applications (e.g., building structure and material

strength)

NOAA: Development and dissemination of modeling

frameworks and tools for parallelizing geophysical fluid dynamics

equations for the research and development of advanced

weather and climate models and the resources to support these

applications

EPA: Paradigms, techniques, and tools for modeling complex

environmental phenomena – such as interactions of air, water,

and soil – and for analyzing simulations’ sensitivities and

uncertainties

High End Computing Research

and Development (HEC R&D)

NSF: Systems software, middleware, software environments,

libraries, visualization, data management, and algorithms for

heterogeneous distributed high-end systems; quantum and

biological concepts

DARPA: High Productivity Computing Systems; polymorphous

architectures; networked embedded sytems; biocomputational

systems; cognitive computing systems

NASA: Simulated autonomous science exploration; collaborative

science and engineering technologies; biomolecular probe for

disease detection and astronaut health monitoring; Intelligent

Vehicle Health Management system; advanced methods to assist

in complex, distributed mishap investigation; prototype Concept

Design and Risk Tool that identifies, tracks, and trades risks

NIH: Bioinformatics; computational biology; tools for determining

3-D molecular structures; visualization and analysis of images

from instrumentation data

DOE Office of Science: Scalable mathematical algorithms and

software infrastructure (operating systems, component

technologies, optimal mathematical solvers) for terascale

modeling and simulation applications

DOE/NNSA: Science and engineering innovations in high-speed

computation and visualization to enable supercomputer modeling

and simulation for U.S. nuclear stockpile stewardship

NSA: Collaborations with high-end systems manufacturers;

operating system and programming language improvements;

fundamental technologies for special-purpose devices (optical

interconnects, power controls, cooling, switches, and design

tools); computer memory interconnects performance;

fundamental physics of quantum information systems

NOAA: Earth System Modeling Framework; improved climate

and weather models via enhanced Modular Ocean Model,

Flexible Modeling System, and Scalable Modeling System; highperformance scalable systems

NIST: Research in quantum computing, secure quantum

communication, optimization and computational geometry,

photonics, nanotechnologies, optoelectronics, and new chip

designs and fabrication methods

ODDR&E: University-based research in novel information

processing, including quantum communications and memory

FY 2004 AGENCY RESEARCH PLANS

BY PROGRAM COMPONENT AREA (PCA)

The long-term research agenda of the NITRD Program is embodied in agency activities designed to achieve critical agency mission goals.

It is through steady year-by-year progress toward those goals that far-reaching advances emerge, as the early sections of this FY 2004

Blue Book attest. The following summary of agency FY 2004 research plans by PCA suggest current high-priority areas of investigation,

such as R&D in high-end computing architectures, the Grid, middleware, cognitive systems, quantum technologies, modeling and

simulation, visualization, networking (optical, wireless, mobile, adaptive, scalable, networked sensors, modeling and management,

scalability), software in many dimensions (specification, engineering, testing, software for embedded systems, software-enabled control,

cost issues), large scale digital libraries, the Web, speech and language translation, assistive technologies, collaboration technologies,

assurance, dependability, robustness, security, standards, IT infrastructure for research, social and economic issues.
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

Human-Computer Interaction 

and Information Management (HCI & IM)

NSF: Innovative IT applications for learning; stochastic models of

human interaction with computing systems; interactive

multimodal devices and assistive technologies; technologies for

collaborative work; development of new online collections of

scientific and educational resources; research in architectures,

tools, and technologies for digital libraries; preservation of digital

records; knowledge discovery, analysis, and visualization in

multiscale, heterogeneous data sets; multilingual access to audio

archives

DARPA: Rapid, two-way, natural language speech translation

interfaces and platforms; rich, accurate, automatic speech-to-text

transcription; multilingual detection, extraction, and

summarization of information; augmented cognition

NIH: Modeling and simulation tools for exploring biomedical

data; aggregatation and management of large-scale data resources

for the medical community

NASA: Use neuro-engineering to develop and integrate

technologies for task management, enhanced cognitive

performance of teams; model knowledge use in context of work;

develop “smart” software and autonomous devices; novel

algorithms and software tools for extraction and visualization of

very-large-scale, multisource data sets

DOE Office of Science: Integrated set of software tools for

scientific collaboratory environments; research in software and

infrastructure to manage very-large-scale data, instrumentation,

and research results; integration of massive, heterogeneous 

data sets

NIST: Evaluation methods to measure relevance of content

extraction; metrics, standards, and testing to advance

technologies for access to and use of multimedia information;

measuring performance of robotic and intelligent systems;

pervasive computing and “smart spaces”; study of modes for

effective human-robot communication

NOAA: Collaborative tools and information management

techniques for distributed research and collaboration

ODDR&E: University-based research in computer-assisted

tutorial systems; reasoning across data with diverse measures of

uncertainty; representations of uncertainty for decision making

AHRQ: Information management to enable studies of health

care and delivery system effectiveness; supports research in tools

to enhance patient safety by reducing medical errors; funds

studies of IT methods enabling providers to share information

with patients; established and maintains both the National

Guidelines Clearinghouse and the National Quality Measures

ClearinghouseTM with detailed online information about health

care metrics

EPA: Prototype tools to support evaluation of results from

diverse environmental models

Large Scale Networking (LSN)

NSF: Support expansion of Extensible Terascale Facility providing

high-end computing and networking infrastructure for colleges

and universities; continue National Middleware Initiative to

develop common enabling middleware and domain-specific

cybertools for grid computing; fund development of disciplinebased networks for collaboration; research in cybersecurity

technologies

NIH: Distributed biology resources, knowledge management and

discovery, training and education, telemedicine, re-engineering

the clinical research enterprise

DARPA: Adaptive networking; network modeling and simulation 

NASA: Distributed operation of advanced aerospace simulation;

distributed access for computational modeling and simulation of

the Earth’s environment; networking for seamless access to

ground, air, and space-based distributed computing, information,

and knowledge

DOE Office of Science: Collaboration applications development,

distributed applications environments, high-performance network

facilities for science

NSA: Wide-area optical networking including optical

transparency, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM),

physical-layer transmission impairments, and high data-rate signal

encoding

NIST: Sensor interfacing and networking for interoperability and

integration, cybersecurity, security and effectiveness of wireless

and ad hoc networks

NOAA: Networking to support real-time access to

environmental data and information; innovative data access

including Web-based tools and agents; support for visualization

and collaboration; network tools for crisis management

ODDR&E: Adaptive protocols for mobile wireless networks;

scalable optical networking; and mobile wireless, scalable, peerto-peer networking

AHRQ: Supports practice-based research networks of primary

care physicians across the U.S. and an online medical journal of

patient safety incidents including root cause analyses

Software Design and Productivity (SDP)

NSF: Empirical software engineering research; continuous change

management of component-based software; profiles and patterns

of software evolution; strategic software design to move from a

risk-driven to a value-driven development model 

DARPA: Model-based integration of embedded software;

software-enabled control

37

123456
Supplement to the President’s 2004 Budget

38

NIH: Software investigations in support of biomedical computing

applications

NSF/NASA: Cooperative program in Highly Dependable

Computing and Communication Systems Research for projects

to design, implement, test, evolve, and certify dependable, costeffective software-based systems, using a new NASA testbed

facility to evaluate research findings on real-world hardware and

software artifacts

NASA: Automated software engineering methods, including

technologies and tools for embedded and robotic devices;

specification using Bayesian techniques; experimental evaluation

of software

DOE/NNSA: Create common software development/execution

environment for all Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC,

formerly ASCI) high-end platforms that supports end-to-end

ASC application needs for robustness and scalability as well as

I/O, storage, and visualization needs

NIST: Develop a common reporting format for sharing usability

data with consumer organizations; determination of software

quality using automated and knowledge-based methods; with

industry partners, plan shared manufacturing business-to-business

interoperability testbed; improve software engineering processes

and the profession’s development through international

cooperation in defining its body of knowledge

NOAA: Develop a component-based modular research model

of the geophysical environment

ODDR&E: University-based research in software model checking

for embedded systems; real-time fault-tolerant network protocols

High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS)

NSF: Innovative research in trustworthy computing, including

scientific principles for construction of high-confidence systems,

component technologies, composition and decomposition

methods, modeling and analysis techniques, design tradeoffs

between security and performance; safety, security, and privacy

for Internet-enabled systems; real-time distributed, embedded,

and hybrid systems; fault-tolerance approaches for critical

infrastructure protection

DARPA: Self-regenerative systems (natural robustness through

biological metaphors, self-rejuvenating software, scalable

redundancy, diagnosis and healing, and probabilistic measurement

and validation)

NIH: Assurance methods and technologies for life-critical medical

devices and telemedicine applications; reliability, privacy, and

security of medical data and IT infrastructures for research

NASA: Software design for safety, including development of High

Dependability Software Consortium with leading universities and

industry for improving methods and techniques to achieve very

high reliability in mission-critical software; artificial intelligence and

formal methods techniques for specification, automated fault

detection, and validation

NSA: Research in secure network management, secure switched

network technologies, and advanced research in cryptography

(key management, algorithms); advanced research in highconfidence software and system technologies (formal

specification, synthesis, and verification tools and techniques,

domain-specific languages, reliability engineering, and functional

programming); and continuing advanced research in securing enduser systems (security middleware such as the security-enhanced

operating system LINUX kernel, Object Request Brokers)

NIST: Security technologies for critical infrastructure protection;

standards, methods, and metrics in authorization and

authentication, including biometric techniques; tools for NIST’s

advanced encryption standard; with NSA, support the National

Information Assurance Partnership to promote cost-effective

international standards for software evaluation, testing, and

certification; conformance testing for adherence to standards

ODDR&E: University-based research on Decision Making under

Information Uncertainty

Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT

and IT Workforce Development (SEW)

NSF: Support for fundamental research on the complex

processes of adaptation and interchange between society and

new information technologies, including studies of large-scale

technologies for collaboration and information integration in

research, education, and work; human values in IT design; impacts

of IT on socio-technical systems such as markets, professions, and

communities; human aspects of cybersecurity and system

vulnerabilities; technologies and tools for independence

throughout life; and computational approaches in the economic,

social, and organizational sciences. Development and evaluation

of IT applications in education and training; research on barriers

to IT careers for women and minorities; multidisciplinary research

opportunities for students

NIH: Support opportunities for IT training, especially in

bioinformatics; individual and program grants for advanced IT

R&D training for health professionals

NASA: Foster public-private collaborations to develop advanced

technologies, such as interactive, virtual-presence, and immersive

environments and interfaces to remote instruments, that

integrate agency science and engineering capabilities to

strengthen K-12 science and mathematics education in alignment

with national education standards

DOE Office of Science: Computational Science Graduate

Fellowship Program, a nationwide competitive program to train

the next generation of leaders in computational science for DOE

and the Nation
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

39

Agency (HEC I&A) (HEC R&D) (HCI & IM) (LSN) (SDP) (HCSS) (SEW) Totals

High End

Computing

Infrastructure

and

Applications

High End

Computing

Research

and

Development

Human 

Computer

Interaction and

Information

Management

Large

Scale

Networking

Software

Design

and

Productivity

High

Confidence

Software

and

Systems

Social,

Economic,

and

Workforce

Agency NITRD Budgets by Program Component Area

FY 2003 Budget Estimates and FY 2004 Budget Requests (dollars in millions)

NSF (2003) estimates

NSF (2004) requests

NIH

NIH

NASA

NASAa

DARPA

DARPA

DOE Office of Science

DOE Office of Science

AHRQ

AHRQ

NSA

NSA

NIST

NIST

NOAA

NOAA

EPA

EPA

ODDR&E

ODDR&E

Subtotals

Subtotals

DOE/NNSA

DOE/NNSA

DISA

DISA

211.7

218.1

77.1

87.6

35.2

45.9

98.4

88.9

3.5

3.5

13.5

13.5

1.6

1.6

441.0

459.1

40.5 

41.5

TOTALSb

TOTALS

b

481.5

500.6

381.1

394.4

337.1

471.3

328.1

373.3

215.9

178.5

142.3

128.1

90.0

100.8

1,976

2,147

76.0

97.9

37.8

41.7

26.0

34.6

109.8

108.5

37.3

51.3

51.3

21.3

1.8

1.8

3.6

343.6

357.1

37.5

37.3

128.8

125.3

93.1

99.0

40.8

67.1

42.9

78.4

16.2

16.4

6.4

32.0

6.2

6.2

0.5

0.5

0.2

0.2

2.0

337.1

425.1

46.2

109.0

103.4

128.8

132.2

12.6

28.9

17.6

18.2

28.7

30.0

5.2

25.0

2.1

1.9

3.2

3.2

2.8

2.8

4.7

314.6

345.5

13.5

14.4

13.2

53.4

55.0

6.8

9.2

55.8

59.2

58.6

13.3

7.5

7.5

1.5

1.5

1.0

184.6

145.7

31.3

32.8

63.8

59.9

3.7

3.7

34.7

24.2

3.2

4.0

28.1

28.1

2.0

2.0

0.7

136.2

122.0

6.1

6.1

65.9

74.0

12.1

12..2

4.2

6.7

3.5

3.5

85.6

96.4

4.4

4.4

708

734

359

386

209

267

232

222

184

190

12

57

82

51

22

22

20

20

2

2

12

1,843

1,951

127

130

6

66

Notes: a NASA FY 2004 budget reflects full cost

b These totals include discrepancies from what appears in the President’s FY 2003 and FY 2004 budgets

due to a combination of rounding and shifts in program estimates

123456
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

40

Interagency Working Group on IT R&D

Co-Chairs

Peter A. Freeman, NSF

David B. Nelson, NCO

NSF

Representative

Peter A. Freeman

Alternates

Deborah L. Crawford

C. Suzanne Iacono

DARPA

Representative

Ronald J. Brachman

Alternate

Barbara L. Yoon

NIH

Representative

Karen Skinner

Alternates

Michael J. Ackerman

Robert L. Martino

Judith L. Vaitukaitis

NASA

Representative

Walter F. Brooks

Alternate

John H. Lee

DOE Office of Science

Representative

C. Edward Oliver

Alternates

Daniel A. Hitchcock

Norman H. Kreisman

NSA

Representative

George R. Cotter

Alternate

Barbara Wheatley

NIST

Representative

Susan F. Zevin

Alternate

Larry H. Reeker

NOAA

Representative

William T. Turnbull

AHRQ

Representative

J. Michael Fitzmaurice

ODDR&E

Representative

André M. van Tilborg

Alternate

Steven E. King

EPA

Representative

Steven Fine

Alternate

Robin L. Dennis

DOE/NNSA

Representative

José L. Muñoz

OMB

Representative

David S. Trinkle

NSTC

Representative

Simon Szykman

NCO

Representative

David B. Nelson

Alternate

Sally E. Howe

High End Computing (HEC)

Coordinating Group

Co-Chairs

José L. Muñoz, DOE/NNSA

Vacant

Human Computer Interaction and

Information Management (HCI & IM)

Coordinating Group

Co-Chairs

William S. Bainbridge, NSF

Jean C. Scholtz, NIST

Large Scale Networking (LSN)

Coordinating Group

Co-Chairs

George O. Strawn, NSF

Daniel A. Hitchcock, DOE/SC

LSN Teams:

Middleware and Grid Infrastructure 

Coordination (MAGIC) Team

Co-Chairs

Mary Anne Scott, DOE/SC

Kevin L. Thompson, NSF

Joint Engineering Team (JET)

Co-Chair

Thomas J. Greene, NSF

Vice-Chair

Paul E. Love, Internet2

Networking Research Team (NRT)

Co-Chairs

Taieb F. Znati, NSF

Thomas Ndousse-Fetter, DOE/SC

Software Design and Productivity (SDP)

Coordinating Group

Co-Chairs

Frank D. Anger, NSF

Thuc T. Hoang, DOE/NNSA

High Confidence Software and Systems

(HCSS) Coordinating Group

Co-Chairs

Helen Gill, NSF

Gary M. Koob, DARPA

Social, Economic, and Workforce

Implications of IT and IT Workforce

Development (SEW) 

Coordinating Group

Co-Chairs

C. Suzanne Iacono, NSF

Vacant

Universal Accessibility Team

Chair

Susan B. Turnbull, GSA

PCA Coordinating Groups and Team Chairs
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

Participation in Federal NITRD Activities

The following are criteria developed by the multiagency IT research program that agencies 

considering participation can use to assess whether their research activities fit the NITRD profile.

NITRD Goals

Assure continued U.S. leadership in computing, information, and communications technologies to

meet Federal goals and to support U.S. 21st century academic, industrial, and government interests

Accelerate deployment of advanced and experimental information technologies to maintain world

leadership in science, engineering, and mathematics; improve the quality of life; promote long-term

economic growth; increase lifelong learning; protect the environment; harness information

technology; and enhance national security

Advance U.S. productivity and industrial competitiveness through long-term scientific and

engineering research in computing, information, and communications technologies

Evaluation Criteria for Participation

Relevance of Contribution

The research must significantly contribute to the overall goals of the Federal Networking and Information

Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program and to the goals of one or more of the

Program’s seven Program Component Areas – High End Computing Infrastructure and Applications (HEC

I&A), High End Computing Research and Development (HEC R&D), Human Computer Interaction and

Information Management (HCI & IM), Large Scale Networking (LSN), Software Design and Productivity

(SDP), High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS), and Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications

of Information Technology and Information Technology Workforce Development (SEW) – in order to

enable the solution of applications problems that address agency mission needs and that place great

demands on the technologies being developed by the Program.

Technical/Scientific Merit

The proposed agency program must be technically/scientifically sound and of high quality and must be the

product of a documented technical/scientific planning and review process.

Readiness

A clear agency planning process must be evident, and the organization must have demonstrated capability

to carry out the program.

Timeliness

The proposed work must be technically/scientifically timely for one or more of the Program Component

Areas.

Linkages

The responsible organization must have established policies, programs, and activities promoting effective

technical and scientific connections among government, industry, and academic sectors.

Costs

The identified resources must be adequate to conduct the proposed work, promote prospects for

coordinated or joint funding, and address long-term resource implications.

Agency Approval

The proposed program or activity must have policy-level approval by the submitting agency.

41
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

42

AHRQ

* J. Michael Fitzmaurice, Ph.D., FACMI

Senior Science Advisor for Information

Technology, Immediate Office of the Director

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

540 Gaither Road, Suite 3026

Rockville, MD 20850

(301) 427-1227

FAX: (301) 427-1210

mfitzmau@ahrq.gov

DARPA

* Ronald J. Brachman, Ph.D.

Director, Information Processing Technology

Office

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

3701 North Fairfax Drive

Arlington, VA 22203-1714

(703) 696-2264

FAX: (703) 696-4534

rbrachman@darpa.mil

Michael J. Foster, Ph.D.

Program Manager, Information Processing

Technology Office

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

3701 North Fairfax Drive

Arlington, VA 22203-1714

(703) 696-2245

FAX: (703) 696-4534

mfoster@darpa.mil

Robert Graybill

Program Manager, Information Processing

Technology Office

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

3701 North Fairfax Drive

Arlington, VA 22203-1714

(703) 696-2220

FAX: (703) 696-4534

rgraybill@darpa.mil

Gary M. Koob, Ph.D.

Program Manager, Information Processing

Technology Office

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

3701 North Fairfax Drive

Arlington, VA 22203-1714

(703) 696-7463

FAX: (703) 696-4534

gkoob@darpa.mil

** Barbara L. Yoon, Ph.D.

Deputy Director, Information Processing

Technology Office

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

3701 North Fairfax Drive

Arlington, VA 22203-1714

(703) 696-7441

FAX: (703) 696-4534

byoon@darpa.mil

DoD

John Grosh

General Engineer, Office of the Deputy

Under Secretary of Defense (Science and

Technology)

Department of Defense

1777 North Kent Street, Suite 9030

Rosslyn, VA 22209

(703) 588-7413

FAX: (703) 588-7560

john.grosh@osd.mil

Cray J. Henry

Director, High Performance Computing

Modernization Office, Office of the Deputy

Under Secretary of Defense (Science and

Technology)

Department of Defense

1010 North Glebe Road, Suite 510

Arlington, VA 22201

(703) 812-8205

FAX: (703) 812-9701

cray@hpcmo.hpc.mil

David W. Hislop, Ph.D.

Program Manager, Software and Knowledge

Based Systems

U.S. Army Research Office

P.O. Box 12211

Research Triangle Park, NC 27709

(919) 549-4255

FAX: (919) 549-4354

hislop@aro-emh1.army.mil

Rodger Johnson

Program Manager, Defense Research and

Engineering Network, High Performance

Computing Modernization Office, Office of

the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense

(Science and Technology)

1010 North Glebe Road, Suite 510

Arlington, VA 22201

(703) 812-8205

FAX: (703) 812-9701

rjohnson@hpcmo.hpc.mil

** Steven E. King, Ph.D.

Special Advisor for Critical Infrastructure

Protection, Information Systems Directorate,

Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of

Defense (Science and Technology)

Department of Defense

1777 North Kent Street, Suite 9030

Rosslyn, VA 22209

(703) 588-7414

FAX: (703) 588-7560

steven.king@osd.mil

* André M. van Tilborg, Ph.D.

Director, Information Systems

Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of

Defense (Science and Technology)

Department of Defense

1777 North Kent Street, Suite 9030

Rossyln, VA 22209

(703) 588-7443

FAX: (703) 588-7560

andre.vantilborg@osd.mil

Ralph F. Wachter, Ph.D.

Program Manager

Office of Naval Research

800 North Quincy Street

Code 311/361

Arlington, VA 22217-5660

(703) 696-4304

FAX: (703) 696-2611

wachter@onr.navy.mil

DOE/NNSA

Thuc T. Hoang

Computer Engineer, ASC PathForward &

PSE Programs, Office of Advanced

Simulation and Computer Science

National Nuclear Security Administration

Department of Energy

Forrestal Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585

(202) 586-7050

FAX: (202) 586-0405

thuc.hoang@nnsa.doe.gov

Agency Contacts

* IWG Representative

** IWG Alternate
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

43

* José L. Muñoz, Ph.D.

Acting Director, Office of Advanced

Simulation and Computer Science

National Nuclear Security Administration

Department of Energy, DP-14

Forrestal Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585

(202) 586-5132

FAX: (202) 586-0405

jose.munoz@nnsa.doe.gov

DOE/SC

** Daniel A. Hitchcock, Ph.D.

Senior Technical Advisor for Advanced

Scientific Computing Research, Office of

Advanced Scientific Computing Research

(OASCR)

Department of Energy

OASCR, SC-30

Germantown Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585-1290

(301) 903-6767

FAX: (301) 903-4846

daniel.hitchcock@science.doe.gov

Frederick C. Johnson, Ph.D.

Program Manager, Mathematical,

Information, and Computational Sciences

(MICS) Division, Office of Advanced

Scientific Computing Research (OASCR)

Department of Energy

OASCR/MICS, SC-31

Germantown Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585-1290

(301) 903-3601

FAX: (301) 903-7774

fjohnson@er.doe.gov

** Norman H. Kreisman

Advisor, International Technology

Department of Energy, SC5

Mail Stop 3H049-FORS

Forrestal Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585

(202) 586-9746

FAX: (202) 586-7719

norman.kreisman@science.doe.gov

Thomas Ndousse-Fetter, Ph.D.

Program Manager for Networking,

Mathematical, Information, and

Computational Sciences (MICS) Division,

Office of Advanced Scientific Computing

Research (OASCR)

Department of Energy

OASCR/MICS, SC-31

Germantown Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585-1290

(301) 903-9960

FAX: (301) 903-7774

tndousse@er.doe.gov

* C. Edward Oliver, Ph.D.

Associate Director, Office of Advanced

Scientific Computing Research (OASCR)

Department of Energy

OASCR, SC-30

Germantown Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585-1290

(301) 903-7486

FAX: (301) 903-4846

ed.oliver@science.doe.gov

Aristides Patrinos, Ph.D.

Associate Director for Biological and

Environmental Research

Department of Energy, SC-70

Germantown Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585-1290

(301) 903-3251

FAX: (301) 903-5051

ari.patrinos@science.doe.gov 

Charles H. Romine, Ph.D.

Program Manager, Mathematical,

Information, and Computational Sciences

(MICS) Division, Office of Advanced

Scientific Computing Research (OASCR)

Department of Energy

OASCR/MICS, SC-31

Germantown Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585-1290

(301) 903-5152

FAX: (301) 903-7774

romine@er.doe.gov

Mary Anne Scott, Ph.D.

Program Manager, Mathematical,

Information, and Computational Sciences

(MICS) Division, Office of Advanced

Scientific Computing Research (OASCR)

Department of Energy

OASCR/MICS, SC-31

Germantown Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585-1290

(301) 903-6368

FAX: (301) 903-7774

scott@er.doe.gov

George R. Seweryniak

Program Manager, Mathematical,

Information, and Computational Sciences

(MICS) Division, Office of Advanced

Scientific Computing Research (OASCR)

Department of Energy

OASCR/MICS, SC-31

Germantown Building

1000 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20585-1290

(301) 903-0071

FAX: (301) 903-7774

seweryni@er.doe.gov

EPA

** Robin L. Dennis, Ph.D.

Senior Science Program Manager, 

MD E243-01

Environmental Protection Agency

Research Triangle Park, NC 27711

(919) 541-2870

FAX: (919) 541-1379

rdennis@hpcc.epa.gov

* Steven Fine, Ph.D.

Networking and Information Technology

R&D Program Manager

Environmental Protection Agency

MD 243-01

Research Triangle Park, NC 27711

(919) 541-0757

FAX: (919) 541-1379

fine.steven@epa.gov
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

44

FAA

Ernest R. Lucier

Advisor on High Confidence Systems

Federal Aviation Administration

FAA/AIO-4

800 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, DC 20591

(202) 366-0633

FAX: (202) 366-3064

ernest.lucier@faa.gov

Marshall Potter, Ph.D.

Chief Scientist for IT

Federal Aviation Administration

FAA/AIO-4

800 Independence Avenue, S.W. 

Washington, DC 20591

(202) 267-9878

FAX: (202) 267-5080

marshall.potter@faa.gov

FDA

Paul L. Jones

Senior Systems/Software Engineer, MCSE,

CDP, CSQE

Food and Drug Administration

12720 Twinbrook Parkway (HZ-141)

Rockville, MD 20857

(301) 443-2536 x 164

FAX: (301) 443-9101

pxj@cdrh.fda.gov

GSA

Susan B. Turnbull

Director, Center for IT Accommodation

General Services Administration

1800 F Street, N.W. (MKC) Room 2236

Washington, DC 20405

(202) 501-6214

FAX: (202) 219-1533

susan.turnbull@gsa.gov

NASA

* Walter F. Brooks, Ph.D.

Chief, NASA Advanced Supercomputing

Facility, NASA Ames Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 258-5

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-5699

wbrooks@mail.arc.nasa.gov

Ricky W. Butler

Senior Research Engineer, Airborne Systems

Competency Division, NASA Langley

Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 130

Hampton, VA 23681-2199

(757) 864-6198

FAX: (757) 864-4234

r.w.butler@larc.nasa.gov

James R. Fischer

Project Manager, Earth and Space Sciences

Project, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Code 930 - NASA/GSFC

Greenbelt, MD 20771

(301) 286-3465

FAX: (301) 286-1634

james.r.fischer.1@gsfc.nasa.gov

Kenneth Freeman

HPCC/NREN Project Manager, 

NASA Ames Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 233-21

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-1263

FAX: (650) 604-3080

kfreeman@mail.arc.nasa.gov

Marjory Johnson

Associate Project Manager, NREN, NASA

Ames Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 233-21

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-6922

FAX: (650) 604-3080

mjjohnson@arc.nasa.gov

Kevin L. Jones

Network Engineer, NASA Ames Research

Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 233-21

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-2006

FAX: (650) 604-3080

kjones@mail.arc.nasa.gov

Patricia M. Jones, Ph.D.

NASA Ames Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 262-11

Room 204

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-1345

FAX: (650) 604-3323

pmjones@mail.arc.nasa.gov

Nand Lal, Ph.D.

Computer Scientist, Digital Library

Technologies, NASA Goddard Space Flight

Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Code 933 - NASA/GSFC

Greenbelt, MD 20771

(301) 286-7350

FAX: (301) 286-1775

nand@voyager.gsfc.nasa.gov

** John H. Lee

Chief Information Officer, 

Office of Aerospace Technology

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Code R

300 E Street, S.W.

Washington, DC 20546

(202) 358-0856

FAX: (202) 358-3197

jlee@hq.nasa.gov

Michael R. Lowry

Senior Research Scientist and Area Chief,

Automated Software Engineering, 

NASA Ames Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 269-2

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-3369

FAX: (650) 604-3594

lowry@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov

Piyush Mehrotra, Ph.D.

Senior Research Scientist

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

M/S T27A-1

NASA Ames Research Center

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-5126

FAX: (650) 604-3957

pmehrotra@arc.nasa.gov * IWG Representative

** IWG Alternate
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

45

Stephen Scott Santiago

Chief Information Officer, NASA Ames

Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 233-7

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-5015

FAX: (650) 604-6999

ssantiago@mail.arc.nasa.gov

Michael G. Shafto, Ph.D.

Program Manager, Human-Centered

Computing, NASA Ames Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 269-4

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-6170

FAX: (650) 604-6009

mshafto@mail.arc.nasa.gov

Eugene Tu, Ph.D.

Program Manager, Computing, Information,

and Communications Technologies (CICT)

Office, NASA Ames Research Center

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

Mail Stop 258-2

Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000

(650) 604-4486

FAX: (650) 604-4377

eugene.l.tu@nasa.gov

NIH

** Michael J. Ackerman, Ph.D.

Assistant Director for High Performance

Computing and Communications, National

Library of Medicine

National Institutes of Health

Building 38A, Room B1N30

8600 Rockville Pike

Bethesda, MD 20894

(301) 402-4100

FAX: (301) 402-4080

ackerman@nlm.nih.gov

James C. Cassatt, Ph.D.

Director, Division of Cell Biology and

Biophysics, National Institute 

of General Medical Sciences

National Institutes of Health

4500 Center Drive, MSC 4500

Bethesda, MD 20892

(301) 594-0828

FAX: (301) 480-2004

cassattj@nigms.nih.gov

Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D.

Director, National Library of Medicine

National Institutes of Health

Building 38, Room 2E17B

8600 Rockville Pike

Bethesda, MD 20894

(301) 496-6221

FAX: (301) 496-4450

lindberg@nlm.nih.gov

Jacob V. Maizel, Ph.D.

Biomedical Supercomputer Center, 

National Cancer Institute, 

Frederick Cancer Research and

Development Center

National Institutes of Health

P.O. Box B, Building 469, Room 151

Frederick, MD 21702-1201

(301) 846-5532

FAX: (301) 846-5598

jmaizel@ncifcrf.gov

Michael Marron, Ph.D.

Director, Biomedical Technology,

National Center for Research Resources

National Institutes of Health

One Rockledge Center

6705 Rockledge Drive, Room 6160

Bethesda, MD 20892-7965

(301) 435-0753

FAX: (301) 480-3659

marron@nih.gov

** Robert L. Martino, Ph.D.

Director, Division of Computational

Bioscience and Chief, Computational

Bioscience and Engineering Laboratory,

Center for Information Technology (CIT)

National Institutes of Health

12 South Drive, MSC 5654

Building 12A, Room 2033

Bethesda, MD 20892-5654

(301) 496-1112

FAX: (301) 402-2867

Robert.Martino@nih.gov

* Karen Skinner, Ph.D.

Deputy Director for Science and Technology

Development, Division of Neuroscience and

Behavior Research, National Institute on

Drug Abuse

National Institutes of Health

6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 4255

Bethesda, MD 20892-9651

(301) 435-0886

ks79x@nih.gov

** Judith L. Vaitukaitis, M.D.

Director, National Center for Research

Resources

National Institutes of Health

31B Center Drive

Building 31, Room 3B11

Bethesda, MD 20892-2128

(301) 496-5793

FAX: (301) 402-0006

vaitukaitis@nih.gov

NIST

Judith E. Devaney, Ph.D.

Group Leader, Scientific Applications and

Visualization Group, Mathematical and

Computational Sciences Division,

Information Technology Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8911

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8911

(301) 975-2882

FAX: (301) 975-3218

judith.devaney@nist.gov

Cita M. Furlani

Chief Information Officer

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 1000

Gaithersburg, VA 20899-1000

(301) 975-3543

FAX: (301) 926-9524

cita.furlani@nist.gov

Martin Herman, Ph.D.

Chief, Information Access and User

Interfaces Division, Information Technology

Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8940

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8940

(301) 975-4495

FAX: (301) 670-0939

herman@nist.gov

Doug Montgomery

Manager, Internetworking Technologies

Group, Advanced Network Technologies

Division, Information Technology

Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8920

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8920

(301) 975-3630

FAX: (301) 590-0932

dougm@nist.gov
Supplement to the President’s 2004 Budget

46

Steven R. Ray, Ph.D.

Chief, Manufacturing Systems Integration

Division, Manufacturing Engineering

Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8260

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8260

(301) 975-3524

FAX: (301) 258-9749

ray@nist.gov

** Larry H. Reeker, Ph.D.

Senior Computer Scientist, Information

Technology Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8901

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8901

(301) 975-5147

FAX: (301) 948-1784

larry.reeker@nist.gov

Ronald S. Ross, Ph.D.

Computer Science Division, Information

Technology Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8930

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8930

(301) 975-5390

ronald.ross@nist.gov

Jean C. Scholtz, Ph.D.

Information Access Division, Information

Technology Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8940

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8940

(301) 975-2520

FAX: (301) 975-5287

jean.scholtz@nist.gov

* Susan F. Zevin, Ph.D.

Acting Director and Deputy Director,

Information Technology Laboratory

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8900

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8900

(301) 975-2900

FAX: (301) 840-1357

susan.zevin@nist.gov

NOAA

Brian Gross

Deputy Director, Geophysical Fluid

Dynamics Laboratory

National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration

Forrestal Campus, U.S. Route 1

P.O. Box 308

Princeton, NJ 08542

(609) 452-6597

FAX: (609) 987-5070

brian.gross@noaa.gov

Ants Leetmaa, Ph.D.

Director, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics

Laboratory

National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration

Forrestal Campus, U.S. Route 1

P.O. Box 308

Princeton, NJ 08542-0308

(609) 452-6502

FAX: (609) 987-5070 

Ants.Leetmaa@noaa.gov

Alexander E. MacDonald, Ph.D.

Director, Forecast Systems Laboratory

National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration

325 Broadway

Boulder, CO 80303

(303) 497-6378

FAX: (303) 497-6821

macdonald@fsl.noaa.gov

* William T. Turnbull

Deputy Chief Information Officer

and Director, HPCC Office

National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration

Room 9636

1315 East-West Highway 

Silver Spring, MD 20910

(301) 713-9600 x 133

FAX: (301) 713-4040

Bill.Turnbull@noaa.gov

Louis Uccellini

Director, National Centers for

Environmental Prediction

National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration

5200 Auth Road, Room 101

Camp Springs, MD 20746

(301) 763-8000

FAX: (301) 763-8434

louis.uccellini@noaa.gov

Gary M. Wohl

New Technology Coordinator, National

Weather Service

National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration

5200 Auth Road, Room 307

Camp Springs, MD 20746-4304

(301) 763-8000 x7157

FAX: (301) 763-8381

gary.wohl@noaa.gov

NSA

* George R. Cotter

Office of Corporate Assessments

National Security Agency

9800 Savage Road, Suite 6217

Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6217

(301) 688-6434

FAX: (301) 688-4980

ajgrcot@fggm.osis.org

Craig Holcomb

Senior Computer Scientist/Technical

Director, NSA/CSS CIO, Information and

Technology Governance and Policy Office

National Security Agency

9800 Savage Road, Suite 6459

Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6459

(301) 688-8762

FAX: (301) 688-4995

lcholco@nsa.gov

William Bradley Martin

Senior Computer Scientist

National Security Agency

9800 Savage Road, Suite 6511

Fort George G. Meade, MD 20750-6511

(301) 688-1057

FAX: (301) 688-6766

wbmarti@alpha.ncsc.mil

William J. Semancik, Ph.D.

Director, Laboratory for

Telecommunications Sciences

National Security Agency

c/o U. S. Army Research Laboratory

Adelphi Laboratory Center

2800 Powder Mill Road, Building 601, 

Room 131

Adelphi, MD 20783-1197

(301) 688-1709

FAX: (301) 291-2591

wjseman@afterlife.ncsc.mil

* IWG Representative

** IWG Alternate
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

47

** Barbara Wheatley, Ph.D.

Office of Corporate Assessments

National Security Agency

9800 Savage Road, Suite 6217

Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6217

(301) 688-8448

FAX: (301) 688-4980

bjwheat@fggm.osis.gov

James Widmaier

Senior Infosec Researcher

National Security Agency

9800 Savage Road, Suite 6511

Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6511

(301) 688-1043

FAX: (301) 688-0255

jcwidma@orion.ncsc.mil

NSF

S. Kamal Abdali, Ph.D.

Division Director, ComputerCommunications Research Division,

Directorate for Computer and Information

Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1145

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8910

FAX: (703) 292-9059

kabdali@nsf.gov

Frank D. Anger, Ph.D.

Deputy Division Director and Program

Director, Software Engineering and

Languages, Computer-Communications

Research Division, Directorate for Computer

and Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1145

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8911

FAX: (703) 292-9059

fanger@nsf.gov

William S. Bainbridge, Ph.D.

Deputy Division Director and Program

Director, Information and Intelligent Systems

Division, Directorate for Computer and

Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1115

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8930

FAX: (703) 292-9073

wbainbri@nsf.gov

Lawrence E. Brandt

Program Manager, Experimental and

Integrative Activities Division, Directorate

for Computer and Information Science and

Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1160

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8980

FAX: (703) 292-9030

lbrandt@nsf.gov

John C. Cherniavsky, Ph.D.

Senior EHR Advisor for Research, Research,

Evaluation and Communication Division,

Directorate for Education and Human

Resources

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 855

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-5136

FAX: (703) 292-9046

jchernia@nsf.gov

** Deborah L. Crawford

Deputy Assistant Director, Directorate for

Computer and Information Science and

Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1105

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8900

FAX: (703) 292-9074

dcrawfor@nsf.gov

Frederica Darema, Ph.D.

Program Director, Advanced Computational

Infrastructure and Research Division,

Directorate for Computer and Information

Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1160

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8980

FAX: (703) 292-9030

fdarema@nsf.gov

* Peter A. Freeman, Ph.D

Assistant Director for Computer and

Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1105

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8900

FAX: (703) 292-9074

pfreeman@nsf.gov

Helen Gill, Ph.D.

Program Director, ComputerCommunications Research Division,

Directorate for Computer and Information

Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1145

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8910

FAX: (703) 292-9059

hgill@nsf.gov

Thomas J. Greene, Ph.D.

Senior Program Director, Advanced

Networking Infrastructure and Research

Division, Directorate for Computer and

Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1175

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8948

FAX: (703) 292-9010

tgreene@nsf.gov

Stephen M. Griffin

Program Manager, Digital Libraries

Initiative, Information and Intelligent

Systems Division, Directorate for Computer

and Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1115

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8930

FAX: (703) 292-9073

sgriffin@nsf.gov

Richard Hilderbrandt, Ph.D.

Program Director, Advanced Computational

Infrastructure and Research Division,

Directorate for Computer and Information

Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1122

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8963

FAX: (703) 292-9060

rhilderb@nsf.gov

** C. Suzanne Iacono, Ph.D.

Program Director, Computation and Social

Systems, Information and Intelligent Systems

Division, Directorate for Computer and

Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1115

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8930

FAX: (703) 292-9073

siacono@nsf.org
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

48

Clifford A. Jacobs, Ph.D.

Section Head, UCAR and Lower

Atmospheric Facilities Oversight 

Section, Atmospheric Sciences Division,

Directorate for Geosciences

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 775

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8521

FAX: (703) 292-9022

cjacobs@nsf.gov

Carl E. Landwehr, Ph.D.

Program Director, ComputerCommunications Research Division,

Directorate for Computer and Information

Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1145

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-7339

FAX: (703) 292-9059

clandweh@nsf.gov

Stephen R. Mahaney, Ph.D.

Senior Advisor for Budget, Management and

Planning, Directorate for Computer and

Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1105

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8900

FAX: (703) 292-9074

smahaney@nsf.gov

Michael J. Pazzani, Ph.D.

Division Director, Information and

Intelligent Systems Division, Directorate for

Computer and Information Science and

Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1115

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8930

FAX: (703) 292-9073

mpazzani@nsf.gov

Barry I. Schneider, Ph.D.

Program Director, Physics Division,

Directorate for Mathematical and Physical

Sciences

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1015

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-7383

FAX: (703) 292-9078

bscneid@nsf.gov

George O. Strawn, Ph.D.

Chief Information Officer

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 305

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8102

FAX: (703) 292-9084

gstrawn@nsf.gov

Kevin L. Thompson

Special Projects Program Director,

Advanced Networking Infrastructure and

Research Division, Directorate for Computer

and Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1175

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8948

FAX: (703) 292-9010

kthompso@nsf.gov

Xiaodong Zhang, Ph.D.

Program Director, Advanced Computational

Infrastructure and Research Division,

Directorate for Computer and Information

Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1122

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8962

FAX: (703) 292-9060

xzhang@nsf.gov

Taieb F. Znati, Ph.D.

Senior Program Director, Advanced

Networking Infrastructure and Research

Division, Directorate for Computer and

Information Science and Engineering

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1175

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-8949

FAX: (703) 292-9010

tznati@nsf.gov

OMB

David S. Trinkle

Program Examiner

Office of Management and Budget

Room 8225

New Executive Office Building

725 17th Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20503

(202) 395-4706

FAX: (202) 395-4652

dtrinkle@omb.eop.gov

NSTC

Simon Szykman, Ph.D.

National Science and Technology Council

Eisenhower Executive Office Building

1650 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20502-0001

(202) 456-6054

FAX: (202) 456-6021

sszykman@ostp.eop.gov

Executive Office of the President
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

National Coordination Office (NCO)

for Information Technology Research and Development (IT R&D)

David B. Nelson, Ph.D.

Director

nelson@itrd.gov

Sally E. Howe, Ph.D.

Associate Director

FY 2004 Blue Book Executive Editor

howe@itrd.gov

Martha K. Matzke

FY 2004 Blue Book Editor

Suite II-405

4201 Wilson Boulevard

Arlington, VA 22230

(703) 292-4873

FAX: (703) 292-9097

nco@nitrd.gov

Internet Web Site

http://www.nitrd.gov/

Michael J. Ackerman, NIH

Walter F. Brooks, NASA

George R. Cotter, NSA

Steven Fine, EPA

J. Michael Fitzmaurice, ARHQ

Peter A. Freeman, NSF

Ed Garcia, NCO

Helen M. Gigley, NCO

Helen Gill, NSF

Daniel A. Hitchcock, DOE

Geoff Holdridge, NNCO

C. Suzanne Iacono, NSF

LaShante Jenkins, NCO

Steven E. King, ODDR&E

Betty J. Kirk, NCO

Gary M. Koob, DARPA

Zachary Lemnios, DARPA

Stephen R. Mahaney, NSF

Grant Miller, NCO

Virginia Moore, NCO

José L. Muñoz, DOE/NNSA

Larry H. Reeker, NIST

Mary Anne Scott, DOE

George O. Strawn, NSF

Clayton Teague, NNCO

Alan Tellington, NCO

Diane R. Theiss, NCO

William T. Turnbull, NOAA

Barbara Wheatley, NSA

Susan F. Zevin, NIST

Contributors

Acknowledgments

This Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget reflects contributions by a great many individuals – in

Federal agencies, universities, and the IT industry. The editors extend sincerest thanks to all those who helped

us highlight the impact of Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

activities not only on vital Federal missions but also on the broad national interest in economic development,

education, and scientific research leadership. 

We are grateful to the NITRD agency program managers. Their vision and commitment shapes the research

goals and accomplishments of the unique NITRD enterprise. We thank our NCO colleagues, who provided

ready and able support in all aspects of this report’s production and distribution processes. Special thanks to

Helen Gigley, who contributed many helpful insights and background materials, and to Alan Tellington, who

expeditiously responded with a solution to every call for technological assistance.

Many scientists went out of their way to provide high-quality images and technical descriptions of their

work for this document. Our thanks to them all, especially Bernd Hamann, Chris Henze, Klaus Schulten, and

their colleagues.

To NSF designer-scientific illustrator James J. Caras, who designed the book and its cover, we express our

great appreciation for the superior originality, creative energy, and professional skill of the work and his

commitment to the project’s success. We also thank Peggy Gartner and Kelly DuBose of NSF’s Design and

Publishing Division, whose professional efforts ensured the high-quality printing of the Blue Book.

49
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

50

Page ii

Wing scale of a Monarch butterfly. Image by Scott J. Robinson,

Imaging Technology Group, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science

and Technology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Robinson comments: A wing scale is what makes a butterfly or moth feel

slick when you handle it by the wings. Scales are tiny and fragile – they’re

easily dislodged from the wing. Being so loose, they are notoriously difficult

to photograph, because they cannot easily be electrically grounded. They

readily charge up with electrons, producing horizontal streaks, or worse, that

can ruin an image. Even my image has some evidence of charging in it.

Single scales vary in size but can be about 180 microns (micrometers) long

by 70 microns wide and maybe 15 or 20 microns thick. For comparison, a

human red blood cell can be 8 to 14 microns across, and a rod-shaped

bacterium is often 2 microns long. The image size is about 10.7 megabytes.

The microscope is a Philips/FEI environmental scanning electron microscope

(SEM) with a field emission electron gun (XL30 ESEM-FEG). The ultrahigh-definition option is something we’ve had for only a few months. It

required a new high-end video card and software that allows us to collect

images with many more lines per frame than previously possible – enabling

us to enlarge images without making the scan lines visible to the viewer. With

older SEMs, we used film, but the film had to be exposed, line by line, to the

signal from a small high-definition TV monitor. Now we take digital images,

without film and without the extra monitor, but we still have to depend on

line-by-line assembly of the image.

Page iv

Visualizations by Chris Henze, NASA Advanced Supercomputing

Division

Henze comments: The high-resolution GCM runs on a “half-degree”

computational grid: The dimensions are 576 (east-west) x 361 (north-south) 

x 32 (up-down) = 6.65 million gridpoints. I’m plotting the dynamical variable

“q,” which is the specific humidity. This is the ratio of the mass of water

vapor to the total mass of air in a parcel, and it varies from about 2 to 25 g/kg

as you go from the poles to the equator. For the images, I integrated q in the

vertical direction across all 32 model layers – that’s the white swirly stuff.

Note that the specific humidity is not the same as cloud cover – clouds are

not directly resolved by large-scale models like this one. The continental

background shows various surface and vegetation types provided by the

GCM’s “land surface model.” The distinct light-gray area in the arctic

regions, and north of Antarctica, is sea ice. I also calculated the gradient of

the surface pressure and used this in a bump map to produce relief shading.

This is largely obscured by q, but you can see shadows in high-gradient areas

like the Andes.

Page vi

Simulations by Phil Smith, Rajesh Rawat, and James Bigler, Center for

the Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions (C-SAFE). Images

courtesy of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the

University of Utah

The authors comment: These simulations of the spread of a fire in a 10-meter

heptane pool were performed on a 3003 uniform computational mesh, using

sophisticated highly scalable radiation and turbulence models to show the

temperatures from 2503 and 3003 data sets. From the simulation data

generated by C-SAFE, the real-time ray tracer software can visualize multiple

time steps of the fire using direct volume rendering. The time-dependent data

are visualized using a flip book- style animation to show the progression of

the fire. The simulations capture the fine vortical structures formed at the

base of real large-scale fires and also the roll-up of vortices observed in real

fires. [NOTE: Full-color versions of these images showing temperature

variations in red, yellow, and gray are viewable in the Web gallery of the

Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah

(http://www.sci.utah.edu/galleries_front.html).]

Pages 4-5

a) U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo

b) U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jeremy T. Lock

c) DoD photo by Chief James Krogman, U.S. Navy

d) U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Terry L. Blevins

e) U.S. Air Force photo by Tech Sgt. Richard Freeland

f) Image courtesy of Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor

(SeaWIFS) Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and

ORBIMAGE

Pages 6-7

a) Photo by Randy Montoya, DOE/SC

b) Image courtesy of U.S. EPA Scientific Visualization Center; research

principal investigator Dr. Alan Huber

c) Image courtesy of IBM Business Consulting Services

d) Image by Christopher L. Barrett, National Infrastructure Simulation

and Analysis Center

Pages 8-9

Visualization by Chris Henze, NASA Advanced Supercomputing

Division

Henze comments: This image is from work I’m doing with Gwen Jacobs at

Montana State University. The research area is neurobiology, or

neuroinformatics, or neurophysiology, etc. We are investigating the cricket

cercal sensory system, which works roughly as follows: On the hind end of

the cricket (or any orthopteran) are two antenna-like structures called cerci.

Each cercus is covered with approximately 1,000 fine hairs that are deflected

by impinging air currents. Each hair is mechanically constrained to move in a

plane, and when it does so a transducer at its base creates electrical signals in

an associated sensory neuron. The axons from all the sensory neurons project

in an orderly fashion into the abdomen of the cricket, where they form a

three-dimensional “neural map,” whose global excitation patterns correspond

to global movement patterns of the entire ensemble of receptor hairs.

The neural map is “read” by interneurons, whose intricate dendritic arbors

(input branches) form synapses (electrical connections) with the sensory

neurons. There are far fewer interneurons than sensory cells, and many of

them are “identified,” which means they can be found reproducibly – with

largely the same branching pattern – in any cricket. Each identified

interneuron receives input from a substantial volume of the three-dimensional

neural map, and by a computational process it converts this time-varying

spatial pattern into a sequence of action potentials, or “spikes” – essentially a

bitstream. These bitstreams can represent simple air movement parameters,

such as direction or velocity, or they may represent complex features like

vortices shed from the wings of an approaching predatory wasp. The

Image Credits and Technical Descriptions
processing and representation of information about the environment in terms

of neural activity is the essence of “neural coding” and “neural computation.”

The image shows an identified interneuron (named “10-2”). Gwen collected

the geometric information (“morphometric data”) for the identified

interneurons by painstaking 3D microscopy. The 3D location and diameters

of every branch point or place where the diameter changes (about 10,000

such segments here) are recorded. Here I’ve colored each segment by four

stripes – red-black-white-black – partly for fun, but partly to visualize the

extent of each segment. This is important because we are constructing

electrical models of these cells, and the models’ accuracy is dependent on the

segment lengths.

Pages 10-11

a), b), c), d) NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

e) Visualization by National Center for Supercomputing Applications;

model and data by Carl Cerco, Environmental Laboratory, Engineer

Research and Development Center, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

in partnership with EPA Chesapeake Bay Project

f) Visualization by Emad Tajkhorshid, Peter Nollert, Morten O. Jensen,

Larry J. W. Miercke, Joseph O’Connell, Robert M. Stroud, and

Klaus Schulten, Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group,

Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University

of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Tajkhorshid explains: The image illustrates the results of computer simulation

of a protein complex that forms channels in the membranes surrounding cells

of bacteria, plants, and higher animals, including man. The simulation

describes the protein complex (four identical proteins forming the complex)

in a membrane made of 320 lipid molecules (bright red) immersed in more

than 17,000 water molecules (blue). The system includes 106,000 atoms the

motion of which has been calculated, dividing time into 5 million small

steps. For each step the forces between all 106,000 atoms needed to be

calculated. The computer simulations of these proteins, conducted at the

NIH-funded Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics, are

a prime example of advances in biomedical computing. The computations not

only for the first time simulated completely the transport of materials across

the membranes of living cells in full detail, but also answered questions that

had puzzled biomedical researchers for many years.

The simulated protein, called aquaporin, forms membrane water channels

that can transport water efficiently across cell membranes. In the human

body, more than ten different types of aquaporin have been found. These

proteins play critical roles in control of water in various organs, and in

kidneys conduct large volumes of water, concentrating urine through

reabsorption of more than a bathtub (200-250 liters) of water every day.

Impaired function of aquaporins is associated with several common diseases,

such as diabetes insipidus and congenital cataracts. Although each single

protein provides an independent conduit for water transport, water channels

form tetramers (sets of four) in the membrane. These proteins are shown as

rods of four different colors in the image.

The main puzzle was how aquaporins conduct water very quickly and in

large amounts, but prevent any electrically charged molecules, in particularly

protons, the smallest charged atom, from participating in the flow. If charges

would move along, cells would loose their electrical potential that provides

the energy fueling for many cellular processes. To prevent such discharging,

the import and export of water needs to be very carefully screened against

charges; the ensuing problem is what one witnesses at border crossings where

careful screening necessarily leads to slow traffic. But somehow aquaporins

manage screening against protons without any traffic delay.

The solution to the puzzle was revealed by a combination of observation and

calculation, where calculation showed the key detail: The flow of water

molecules through the channel was found to arise with water molecules

streaming fast, but always in single file through a narrow channel, as shown

in the figure for one of the four channels by highlighting water molecules

(small blue elements in center). During their passage, the water molecules are

forced to line up all in the same direction and rotate in the middle of the

channel by 180 degrees before they continue their path. This orientation of

the flowing molecules turned out to be the basis of an extremely strict

selectivity that prevents the discharge of electrical charge through a proton

current.

g) Simulation images by Gordon Kindlmann, courtesy of the Scientific

Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah

Pages 12-13

a), b), c) Michael S. Warren, Los Alamos National Laboratory,

DOE/SC

d) Image generated by Aleksander Stompel, courtesy of Visualization

and Computer Graphics Group, Center for Image Processing and

Integrated Computing (CIPIC), University of California, Davis

e) Image by Charbel Farhat, University of Colorado, Boulder

f) Simulation by John B. Bell and Phillip Colella, Center for

Computational Sciences and Engineering, Lawrence Berkeley

National Laboratory, DOE/SC

g) Andreas Adelmann and Cristina Siegerist, Lawrence Berkeley

National Laboratory, DOE/SC

Pages 14-15

a) STAR Project, Brookhaven National Laboratory

b) Image courtesy of Michael W. Davidson, Florida State University

c) Image by Dr. Jiri Vondrasek, Macromolecular Crystallography

Laboratory, National Cancer Institute. Courtesy of HIV Protease

DataBase, NIH and NIST

Page 16

a) Visualization by David R. Nadeau and Erik Engquist, San Diego

Supercomputer Center, University of California, San Diego. Data by

Stuart Leavy and Bob Patterson. National Center for

Supercomputing Applications, Urbana-Champaign; Ryan Wyatt,

Clay Budin, Mordecai Mac Low, and Li, Norman, Heitsch, and

Oishi, Hayden Planetarium, American Museum of Natural History,

New York; Tom Abel, Pennsylvania State University, and John

Hawley, University of Virginia

Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

51
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

52

Pages 18-19

a) Kenneth Downing and colleagues, Lawrence Berkeley National

Laboratory, DOE/SC

b) NASA/Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Science Team

c) Center for Extended Magnetohydrodynamic Modeling, DOE/SC

d) Perspective views of rat ventricular myocytes rendered by Alex

DeCastro at the San Diego Supercomputer Center using NPACI

Scalable Visualization Tools. The work is from John W. Adams, Amy

L. Pagel, Christoper K. Means, Donna Oksenberg, Robert C.

Armstrong, Joan Heller Brown, Department of Pharmacology,

University of California, San Diego.

e) Image by Don Appleman, Imaging Technology Group, Beckman

Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of

Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (http://www.itg.uiuc.edu)

Appleman comments: The original image is black & white (gray scale),

because it was made using a HiVac Environmental Scanning Electron

Microscope (ESEM), which produces images with electrons rather than

photons, and therefore does not capture color information. I later colorized

the image.

“HiVac” refers to “high vacuum.” The ESEM pumps the air out of the

chamber that holds the sample so that air molecules will not interfere with

the electron beam. The magnification was 13,199x. The reason the diatom is

unidentified is that there are over 10,000 varieties of diatom. I can tell you

that this is a “pennate” diatom, but as I am not a marine biologist, I cannot

narrow it down further. The holes in the hard, outer silica shell of the diatom

allow the soft internal parts of the diatom to contact the environment. When

the diatom dies, the silica shell is left behind. That’s what is shown here.

f) Image generated by Gunther Weber, courtesy of Visualization and

Computer Graphics Group, Center for Image Processing and

Integrated Computing (CIPIC), University of California, Davis

g) Image courtesy of Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute,

University of Utah

Institute researchers comment: Visualization by means of a computer monitor

is only the first step in presenting information to the viewer. Threedimensional displays are one of the next steps and provide a much more

realistic rendering of physical space. SCI Institute investigators seek to

provide even more complete interaction with data by making use of

additional sensory input and control mechanisms. Specific examples include

the use of position and motion tracking devices, three-dimensional cursors,

and "data gloves" that provide intuitive ways of merging the user and image

spatial domains. We also employ "haptic" feedback devices that generate

physical forces in the user's hands based on the material properties of the

data sets under examination. The goal of this research is a complete

immersion of the user into the data to provide more intuitive, efficient, and

synergistic interaction than is possible with conventional visualization

techniques.

By doing a good job with design and implementation, we hope to achieve

bounded error interaction, where a single bound describes the combined

system errors throughout the workspace. Ultimately, we want our system to

be capable of quantifying the synergistic effects through user studies.

Our software architecture is an integration of custom components and

commercial application program interfaces (APIs). The individual software

components communicate via shared memory and UDP messages to the

application process. The two custom software components are the Synergistic

Data (SD) Library and the Virtual GL (VGL) Library. The SD Library

provides visualization methods, haptic rendering methods, data set support,

and interface widgets. The VGL Library provides the device and display

management for virtual environment rendering. We currently use SensAble's

GHOST API for basic PHANToM interface and NCSA's Vanilla Sound

Server (VSS) for simple audio-reinforcement feedback.

Our very first demonstration using the prototype system was an analytic

simulation of an electrostatic point charge field. We have two sources (red

and green spheres) and one sink (blue sphere) in this field. In the image, a

researcher explores the electrostatic point charge field on the Visual Haptic

Workbench. Streamlines show the global structure of the field, colored by

proximity to the charge sources (red and green spheres) and charge sink (blue

sphere). A bounding box widget shows the extents of the data set. The

streamspheres between the red and blue spheres are locally advected in both

directions from the local interaction point, shown as a purple proxy widget

and yellow force vector to the left of the PHANToM stylus.

h) Image by Chris Henze, NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division

Henze explains: “Virtual mechanosynthesis” (VMS) is a computational

steering facility that couples an ongoing molecular dynamics simulation with

a virtual-reality environment. The molecular dynamics part uses the “Brenner

potential,” which is an empirical reactive bond order force field specifically

parameterized for hydrocarbons. The “reactive” part means you can make or

break atomic bonds. The virtual-reality environment consists of a

headtracked active stereo display (the glasses I'm wearing have high-speed

shutters that alternately block one eye or the other – allowing different left

and right eye views, with stereo disparity; the glasses also have a sensor –

the wire appearing to come out of my ear – that relays my head position to

the graphics engine so I can change the view appropriately), a six-degree of

freedom handtracked input device (essentially a 3-D mouse, the wand in my

left hand), and a haptic (force feedback) device (black device in my right

hand). The total effect is that you can float around in 3-D and grab and

rearrange atoms, and they respond “realistically.” So you can try to build

things and the molecular dynamics keep you honest – insofar as the

dynamics are accurate, you should only be able to build physically plausible

structures. This facility allows nanotechnologists to explore structures on an

atomic scale, to rehearse and debug complicated assembly sequences, and in

general to develop chemical intuition.

In this mock-up, I'm manipulating a piece of hydrogen-terminated graphite.

The gray spheres represent carbon atoms, and the green spheres around the

edge are hydrogens. I've just inserted the pink atom (another carbon, but

colored pink because I'm hanging on to it) into the graphite sheet, creating a

seven-membered ring (a septagonal defect) that gives rise to negative

curvature (potato-chip, or saddle-like).

i) Image by Chris Henze, NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division

Henze comments: This is a visualization of quantum chemistry data. It is a

portrayal of a water molecule. The surfaces are separation and attachment

surfaces (precisely analogous to those in fluid flow fields) in the gradient

field of the Laplacian of the electronic charge density. The black stripes are

contour lines in the Laplacian field (clearly indicating that the surfaces are

*not* isosurfaces). The green and red lines are streamlines showing the

stable and unstable (respectively) manifolds of saddle points in the gradient

field.

Following ideas of Richard Bader, we are trying to understand the electronic

structure of matter by applying vector field topological techniques to the

Image Credits and Technical Descriptions, continued
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

53

charge density of atoms and molecules. The Laplacian of the charge density is a

measure of its curvature, or “lumpiness” – and its structure reveals a wealth of

chemical behavior. 

Page 20

Illustration by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Cornell/Daniel Maas/

Maas Digital LLC

Pages 22-23

a) Visualizations by David Feder and Peter Ketcham, NIST

b) Image by Paul Trombley, Center for Biologic Nanotechnology,

University of Michigan

Nicholas W. Beeson, senior research associate in the NIH-supported work,

comments: This image is a composite of several sources. The background green

is a microscopic image of living cells stained with a fluorescent dye. Overlaying

it are computer-generated models of the PAMAM dendrimer, which were used

to guide our initial synthetic work three years ago. These models depict

generations 3 to 5 of the dendrimer. Then our graphics artist overlaid these

models with a highlighting semi-transparent sphere. The final image is an

artist’s conception of how the nanodevice targets cancer cells.

We are currently testing a nanodevice in mice with cancer. This nanodevice

recognizes cancer cells, enters them, and then delivers a chemotherapeutic agent

(an anti-cancer drug). Since the anti-cancer drug never gets to any of the

healthy cells, the systemic toxic effects of the drug are greatly reduced (the

mice do not lose their hair). Since the anti-cancer drug is specifically delivered

to cancer cells, the tumor is greatly reduced in size. The nanodevice work has

progressed to the point where we are conducting our third set of animal trials.

We are seeing a 100-fold improvement in therapeutic index. The therapeutic

index is a combination of reduced toxicity and increased efficacy. In short, the

mice receiving our nanodevice are not showing toxic effects, and their tumors

are dying.

There is much testing yet to do, but we have in hand a real nanodevice that

performs a biomedical function.

c) Image by J.C. Lee, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea, courtesy

of the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, Seitz Materials Research

Laboratory, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Pages 24-25

a) U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

b) Images by F. Spoor, University College, London, using Voxel-man

c) NASA Advanced Supercomputing, NASA Ames Research Center

d) Image courtesy of Montemagno Research Group/Cornell University

Pages 26-27

a) Image by Nissen, H., Damerow, P. and Englund, R. (1991) _Frühe

Schrift und Techniken der Wirtschaftsverwaltung im alten Vorderen

Orient : Informationsspeicherung und -verarbeitung vor 5000 Jahren_.

Bad Salzdetfurth [Germany]: Franzbecker, pp. 92-93. Courtesy of

Cuneiform Digital Library, University of California, Los Angeles

CDLI staff comments: This large tablet, known as Erlenmeyer 152, is an

account of workmen from the Southern Mesopotamian city of Umma (modern

Tell Jokha, Iraq), from the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2036 B.C.). A

fuller description and translation of this text can be found in the electronic

publication, Englund, R. “The Year: “Nissen returns joyous from a distant

island”,” _Cuneiform Digital Library Journal_ 2003:1, §21 

(http://cdli.ucla.edu/Pubs/CDLJ/2003/CDLJ2003_001.html).

b) Image courtesy of Digital Content Group, University of WisconsinMadison Libraries. Copyright 2000 © Board of Regents of the

University of Wisconsin System

c) Image courtesy of Todd Library, Middle Tennessee State University

d) Image courtesy of Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University

e) Image courtesy of the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson

Manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical Society. The “Thomas Jefferson

Papers: An Electronic Archive” project is supported by the Save

America’s Treasures program established by Congress in 1999.

f) Image courtesy of the Hoagy Carmichael Collection, Indiana

University Digital Library, Bloomington, Indiana. Project supported by

the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.

g) Images courtesy of the Open Video Project, Interaction Design

Laboratory, School of Information and Library Science, University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill

No Ordinary Table: Image courtesy of Large-Scale Structures Laboratory,

University of Nevada, Reno

Page 28

a) North America Tapestry of Time and Terrain compiled by Kate E.

Barton, David G. Howell, and José F. Vigil, U.S. Geological Survey,

Department of the Interior

Vigil comments: The North America Tapestry of Time and Terrain is a product

of the U.S. Geological Survey in the 2003 Geologic Investigation series

(I-2781). The map was prepared in collaboration with the Geological Survey of

Canada and the Mexican Consejo Recursos de Minerales. 

This cartographic Tapestry is digitally woven from a geologic map and a shaded

relief image. This digital combination reveals the geologic history of North

America through the interrelation of rock type, topography, and time. Regional

surface processes as well as continent-scale tectonic events are exposed in the

three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension, geologic time. 

The geologic map carries two types of information - the age of surface or nearsurface bedrock and the type of rock. The topographic map started as a digital

elevation model (DEM), a data file containing measurements (spaced at a 1-

kilometer interval) of height of the land surface above sea level. From that we

prepared the shaded relief map, produced using Spatial Analyst extension with

HILLSHADE command in ArcGIS. Vertical exaggeration is 10x. The bedrock

and relief maps were merged by computer to form the Tapestry.

The geology was generalized from the forthcoming Geologic Map of North

America, compiled by John C. Reed (USGS) and John O. Wheeler (Geological

Survey of Canada) for the Decade of North American Geology and sponsored

by the Geological Society of America. Geologic map data were processed and

reprojected in ArcINFO geographic information system (GIS) software. The

shaded relief map, derived from a DEM contributed by EROS Data Center,

provides the underlying cartographic structure. The two component maps were
Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget

54

georeferenced to one another using GIS software, and the final images were

combined using graphics software. Scale: 1:8,000,000; Projection: Lambert

Azimuthal Equal Area.

The colors on the main Tapestry represent different ages of the bedrock that

makes up North America. For example, the various rocks that form the

ancient Canadian Shield are shown in shades of red. For some areas, we do

not know exactly when the rocks formed, but only a general range of likely

ages. We have grouped these rocks of uncertain age into broad categories, so

that instead of representing a brief geologic Period, they are assigned to an

Era or combination of Eras.

Page 30

a) Satellite image courtesy of NASA Earth Science Enterprise

b) Photo by Randy Montoya, DOE/SC

c) Sandia National Laboratories, DOE/SC

Pages 32-33

a) Image courtesy of Interactivity Lab, Computer Science Department,

Stanford University

b) Photo by Thomas Jordan, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Education Office, DOE/SC

c) Photo courtesy of NASA and Colorado School for the Deaf and the

Blind, Colorado Springs, Colorado

d) COSPAS-SARSAT schematic courtesy of NOAA

[NOTE: Reflecting its Cold War origin, COSPAS stands for Cosmicheskaya

Sistyema Poiska Avariynich Sudov (Space System for the Search of Vessels

in Distress). SARSAT stands for Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided

Tracking.]

e) Screenshot of ASPIRE software courtesy of Cardiovascular

Biomechanics Research Laboratory, Division of Vascular Surgery,

Stanford University

f) Photo by Pote Pothongusan, Cape Henry Collegiate School, Virginia

Beach, Virginia

Image Credits and Technical Descriptions, continued
Abstract

The Federal agencies that participate in the Networking and Information Technology Research and

Development (NITRD) Program coordinate their IT research activities both to support critical agency

missions and to maintain U.S. leadership in advanced computing, networking, and information

technologies. The NITRD Program’s collaborative approach enables agencies to leverage strengths, 

avoid duplication, and increase the interoperability of research accomplishments to maximize the 

utility of Federal R&D investments. This Supplement to the President's FY 2004 Budget summarizes 

FY 2003 NITRD accomplishments and FY 2004 plans, as required by the High-Performance Computing

Act of 1991. 

The report highlights in particular the end results of NITRD research – innovative applications of

information technologies in every sphere of the national interest, from national defense and homeland

security to advanced scientific and engineering research, business and industry, education, and health care.

Buy American Report

Congress requires information concerning non-U.S. high-performance computing and communications

funding activities. In FY 2003, DARPA was the only NITRD agency that entered into grants, contracts,

cooperative agreements, or cooperative research and development agreements for information

technology research and development with either 1) a company other than a company that is either

incorporated or located in the U.S. and that has majority ownership by individuals who are citizens of

the U.S., or 2) an educational institution or nonprofit institution located outside the U.S. DARPA funded

an IT research-related award of $1.075 million to Cambridge University, Cambridge (UK). In FY 2003, no

NITRD procurement exceeds $1 million for unmanufactured articles, materials, or supplies mined or

produced outside the U.S., or for manufactured articles, materials, or supplies other than those

manufactured in the U.S. substantially all from articles, materials, or supplies mined, produced, or

manufactured in the U.S.

To Request Additional Copies

To request additional copies of this Supplement to the President’s FY 2004 Budget or other publications

of the National Coordination Office for Information Technology Research and Development, please

contact: National Coordination Office for IT R&D, Suite II-405, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington,

Virginia 22230; (703) 292-4873; fax: (703) 292-9097; e-mail: nco@nitrd.gov.