NCSA-TRECC Hosts First Annual ACCELERATOR Awards Workshop;
Announces 2006-2007 Awardees
by Kathleen Ricker

Thomas Anastasio of UIUC describes his work on Intelligent Multisensor Fusion at the ACCELERATOR Awards Workshop.
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Since it first received funding from the Office of Naval Research six years ago, TRECC's mission has been to bring together collaborators from government, academia, and the private sector to provide cutting-edge technological solutions to emerging problems.

That mission was very much in evidence on May 16, as attendees from all three groups convened at NCSA and participated remotely at TRECC's West Chicago facility and ACCESS Center in Arlington, VA for the First Annual ACCELERATOR Awards Workshop, which showcased the work of the 2005-2006 TRECC ACCELERATOR Program award recipients and introduced the 2006-2007 funding recipients.

The Accelerator Program's goal is to accelerate the commercialization of outstanding University of Illinois research into the marketplace sooner, transfer research technologies into the Navy faster, and promote economic development through start-up businesses.  The TRECC ACCELERATOR Program provides a moderate infusion of funds—up to $50,000—to University of Illinois researchers with outstanding technologies who could use the money to show substantial gains in their timelines toward commercialization.

"It is heartening to see the momentum of resounding support of this program," says Shalini Dewan, Manager of the Accelerator Program and Technology Programs Coordinator for Commercialization.  "We have worked with the Offices of Technology Management at both campuses and have received not only the active involvement and support of the NCSA leadership but also of the University leadership.  We are gaining the increased interest of government agencies, particularly the Office of Naval Research and of private businesses."

Five of the 2005-2006 ACCELERATOR Awards recipients: Maniotis, Morrissey, Courtney, Bajcsy, and Anastasio.
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The research highlighted this year includes work on high-efficiency hemostatic agents to treat uncontrolled bleeding in trauma and surgery (James H. Morrissey, Lawrence B. Schook, Stephen G. Sligar, UIC), a diagnostic for detection of pathogenic viruses that minimizes or eliminates false positives and other uncertainties(Andrew Maniotis, Robert Folberg, Tibor Valyi-Nagy, Klara Valyi-Nagy, UIC), and a modeling and analysis tool used to investigate the reliability, availability, and security of a given complex system(William H. Sanders, UIUC; Tod Courtney, NCSA).  Also highlighted was a surveillance system that mimics the brain by using a broad variety of audio and visual inputs to monitor a given environment (Thomas Anastasio, Sylvian R. Ray UIUC), a prototype system that combines radio-frequency identification sensors with active sensors to create hazard-aware spaces (Peter Bajcsy, Rob Kooper, NCSA), and the development of microsensors capable of providing measurements in extreme environments (Mark Shannon, UIUC).

Andrew Maniotis of UIC (right) receives a plaque of recognition and congratulations from Danny Powell, NCSA Executive Director.
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"The success of a program like the ACCELERATOR sometimes takes years to evidence and is therefore hard to measure," says Dewan.  "However, there are already early indications that the hard work in getting this program up and going may be paying off." She notes that some researchers are already attracting interest in the form of speaking invitations and expressions of interest in the technology transfer potential of their research.

Awardees for the 2006-2007 funding year include:

• Paul Braun and Scott White, UIUC, "Self-Healing Anti-Corrosion Polymer Coatings"
• J. G. Eden, UIUC, "Large Scale Arrays of Microcavity Plasma Devices for Medical, Display, and Photochemical Processing Applications"
• P. M. Ferreira, UIUC, "High-Performance Parallel-kinematics Nanopositioning Stages"
• Daniel Graupe, UIC, "Extraction of Fetal ECG from Maternal ECG for Early Detection of Fetal Cardiac Disorders"
• Pat Banerjee, UIC, "Enhancing ImmersiveTouch Technology for Procedure-based Medical Simulations."