Earmarks: Department of Defense

Materials to Destroy Airborne Toxins
Purpose/Description: Develop novel non-woven materials capable of trapping and destroying airborne biological and chemical toxins. Efforts will focus on testing to further characterize material properties and developing methods to scaling production. 
Amount Requested: $2.6 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Lincoln
Suggested Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
Taxpayer Interest: Material would improve personal protective gear by trapping and destroying airborne biological and chemical toxins, supporting continued improvements in U.S. Department of Defense’s chemical biological defense program.

Software Development for Unmanned Aircraft
Purpose/Description: Develop and implement software framework for monitoring systems to enable unmanned aircraft to examine and automatically adjust to their environment in real-time, making them more resilient to Global Positioning System (GPS) denial or degradation, reducing system energy consumption to enable longer missions and increasing flexibility to operate in scenarios for which they were not specifically designed.
Amount Requested: $5 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Lincoln
Suggested Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
Taxpayer Interest: Research directly supports Air Force’s need to allow UAVs to operate in GPS-denied environments.

Carbon Material for Energy Storage
Purpose/Description: to support research and development of advanced carbon materials for high-density energy storage devices.
Amount Requested: $6 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Lincoln
Suggested Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
Taxpayer Interest: Advances in high-density energy storage may enable many defense applications, such as electric vehicle fleets and warships.

Support for Military Medics
Purpose/Description: Create a handheld decision-support device to assist military medics in making quick, effective decisions to assess and care for injured soldiers, without performing unnecessary pre-surgical testing.
Amount Requested: $6.5 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Medical Center
Suggested Location: Omaha, NE
Taxpayer Interest: Several existing programs within DoD including the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Program, the Combat Casualty Care Research Program and the Medical Chemical Defense Research program outline priorities to which this research is relevant. These include improving the delivery and quality of medical/surgical care throughout the battlespace and developing medical techniques and materials including medical devices, allowing for early intervention in life-threatening battle related injuries.

Retinal Implant Development
Purpose/Description: Develop wireless, high-resolution prosthetic retinal implant to restore vision in military personnel blinded due to trauma, macular degeneration, and retinitis pigmentosa. 
Amount Requested: $5 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Medical Center
Suggested Location: Omaha, NE
Taxpayer Interest: Eye damage is among most common wounds for U.S. personnel engaged in combat situations, and vision impairment in military personnel is double the number of amputations.

Nerve-Agent Exposure Test Kit
Purpose/Description: Develop test kit to immediately detect nerve-agent exposure in military personnel on battlefield, which could also be used in homeland defense emergency response actions. Research will focus on developing tests of antibodies reacting to presence of nerve agents in blood work to determine individual exposure and required medical treatment. 
Amount Requested: $2.95 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Medical Center
Suggested Location: Omaha, NE
Taxpayer Interest: Efforts address high costs and long processing times for mass spectrometry currently in use to diagnose exposure.

Preventing Trauma-Related Epilepsy
Purpose/Description: Prevent individuals who have suffered head trauma from developing acquired epilepsy, by developing methods to increase body’s levels of natural enzyme protecting brain cells. Acquired epilepsy can develop as result of trauma from vehicle accidents and explosions. 
Amount Requested: $4.3 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Medical Center
Suggested Location: Omaha, NE
Taxpayer Interest: U.S. Department of Defense reports that greatest physical distribution of injuries in soldiers occurs to head and neck, and data suggests that majority of these individuals develop cognitive impairments, including acquired epilepsy.

Software to Prevent Cyber Attack
Purpose/Description: Develop and test software system to monitor web activity and forecast likelihood of cyber attacks based on set of systematically-monitored social, political, economic and cultural factors of turmoil, coupled with Internet activity monitoring.  
Amount Requested: $2.6 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Omaha
Suggested Location: Omaha, Nebraska
Taxpayer Interest: Research addresses published Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) need to develop technologies allowing for improved cyberspace situational awareness to support offensive and defensive operations.

Collaborative Software for Warfighters
Purpose/Description: Develop and test collaboration software for high-efficiency collaborative work practices for warfighters designed to reduce military decision cycles. Funding continues collaboration with Nebraska and Iowa National Guards, U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) and Global Innovation and Strategy Center (GISC) to develop and expand applications for crisis response planning, strategic deterrence planning, and multi-agency intelligence analysis.
Amount Requested: $2.76 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Omaha
Suggested Location: Omaha, Nebraska
Taxpayer Interest: Military decision cycles are measured in the time and effort required to detect, interpret and respond to mission-relevant changes on the battlefield. The military organization with the shortest, most accurate and effective decision cycle can dominate the battlespace making this research relevant to the Department of Defense.

Virtual Enterprise Infrastructure
Purpose/Description: Provide virtual enterprise infrastructure capability and deliver vitally needed commercialization acceleration capability to Heartland’s geographically-disadvantaged innovator firms. U.S. Department of the Navy currently runs an accelerator service out of its small business office, but its service is generally not accessible to geographically-separated firms. This effort will extend existing services to these disadvantaged firms through virtual enterprise infrastructure.
Amount Requested: $3.5 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska-Omaha – Nebraska Business Development Center/Dawnbreaker
Suggested Location: Omaha, Nebraska
Taxpayer Interest: The need to facilitate commercialization for small business innovations is evidenced by the recent authorization and creation of the Commercialization Pilot Program within the Department of Defense (DOD). However, the need to specifically target rural businesses still exists. The VBA-SP will identify, select and bring to maturity technologies of critical need to the DOD with dual-use applications. Through the VBA-SP the DOD will substantially improve access to technology originators who today are effectively geographically-disconnected from the DOD rapid commercialization process and its current innovation support infrastructure. A pilot for the new American enterprise paradigm, VBA-SP will bring forth the underutilized Heartland talent as a cost-effective alternative to off-shoring of American skilled labor.

Vaccine Delivery Systems
Purpose Description: to develop new nanoscale delivery systems for vaccines to prevent a variety of central nerve diseases.
Amount Requested: $6 million
Suggested Recipient: University of Nebraska Medical Center and Iowa State University
Suggested Location: Omaha, NE and Ames, IA
Taxpayer Interest: Disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) such as Parkinson’s disease develop through a combination of environmental and genetic factors. Exposure to toxins, including chemical weapons, contributes to CNS disorders. Stockpiles of chemical weapons exist and if deployed will attack the central nervous system to incapacitate, injure, or kill military personnel or civilians. An important goal of the Department of Defense is to develop effective countermeasures should these destructive agents ever be used against civilians or military personnel. Development of effective vaccines to protect the CNS from chemical weapons addresses this goal.

Additional Request:

• Additionally, Senator Nelson asked the Appropriations subcommittee to support a funding level of $60 million for the Impact Aid program. The Department of Defense’s Impact Aid program provides financial assistance to eligible school districts which serve the children of men and women in the military.

Updated 5.12.10