Scientist Translation Needed!

DoD has announced the award of $227 Million in University research projects.  These are the kind of things that get tucked away into DoD spending bills in Congress to benefit the constituencies of powerful Congressmen.  That is not to say that these are or are not worthy research projects that the Military needs answers to.  But I don't trust politicians and I am inept at reading the language of Scientific Professors.

Can someone tell us what these subjects are in plain English and tell us how these might pertain to military matters.

1. Optical Metamaterials
   ONR Large-Area 3D Optical Metamaterials with Tunability and Low Loss

Adaptive Cognitive Maps for Autonomous Systems
ONR Grid Cells and Cognitive Maps for Autonomous Systems

Non-linear Mediums Converting Frequencies of Propagating E/M and Pressure Waves
ONR Sound and Electromagnetic

Biofuels: Microbial Communities, Biogeochemistry and Surface Interactions
ONR Fundamental Research on the Biological Stability of Future Naval Fuels and Implications for the Biocorrosion of Metallic Surfaces

 Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of Electro-Active Polymers for Dielectric Energy Storage

Reasoning for Image Understanding in Uncertain Environments
ONR Rich Representations with Exposed Semantics for Deep Visual Reasonings

Fundamental Study of High – and Low-K Dielectrics for III-V Electronic Devices
ONR Dielectric Enhancements for Innovative Electronics

Provably-Safe Perception-Based Control of Autonomous UAS Operations around Complex, Unstructured Terrain ONR Animal Inspired Robust Flight with Outer and Inner Loop Strategies

Dynamical Systems Theory in 4D Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
ONR Dynamical Systems Theory and Lagrangian Data Assimilation in 4D Geophysical Fluid Dynamics

Hyperspectral, Radar and EO/IR Signatures in the Littorals
ONR Remote Sensing and Data-Assimilative Modeling in the Littorals

Novel Catalytic Mechanisms for the Chemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Energy-Dense Liquids
AFOSR Novel Catalytic Mechanisms for the Chemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Energy-Dense Liquids

Third-order Nonlinear Optical Organics
AFOSR Center for Organic Materials for All Optical Switching

Fundamental Processes in High Temperature Gas-Surface Interactions
AFOSR Fundamental Processes in High-Temperature Hypersonic Flows

Propagation of Ultrashort Laser Pulses Through Transparent
AFOSR Mathematical Modeling and Experimental Validation of Ultrafast Nonlinear Light-Matter

Coupling Associated with Filamentation in Transparent Media Superconducting Semiconductors
AFOSR Quantum Preservation, Simulation & Transfer in Oxide

Human-Machine Adversarial Networks
AFOSR Multi-Layers and Multi-Resolution Networks of Interacting Agents in Adversarial Environments

Biologically-Engineering of Adherent / Spectroscopically Interrogated Microstructures
AFOSR Bio-enabled Particle Adherents for Interrogated Spectroscopy

Control of Information Collection and Fusion
AFOSR Control Science for Next Generation Sensing

Stable Metrics for Global Inference in Social Networks to Predict Collective Behavior
AFOSR Inferring Structure and Forecasting Dynamics on Evolving Networks

Solid State Cooling
AFOSR Cryogenic Peltier Cooling

Neuronal Behavior in Primary Blast
ARO Blast Induced Thresholds for Neuronal Networks

Identifying and Extracting the Mathematical Signatures of Prokaryotic Activity in DNA: Developing a Theoretical Foundation for Predicting DNA Stability
ARO Prokaryotic Genomic Instability

Tomography of Social Networks of Asymmetric Adversaries
ARO Measuring, Understanding, and Responding to Covert Social Networks

Adaptive Perception and Autonomous Agility in Severe Environments
ARO Neuro-Inspired Adaptive Perception and Control for Agile Mobility of Autonomous Vehicles in Uncertain and Hostile Environments

Structured Modeling for Low-Density Languages
ARO An Omnivorous Framework for Translation and Analysis of Low Density Language

“Atomtronics”: A generalized electronics
ARO Atomtronics: Material and Device Physics of Quantum Gases

Bio-Electronic Templates for Interfacing to the Nanoscale
ARO Near and Far-Field Interfaces to DNA-Guided Nanostructures from RF to Lightwave: Exploiting the Spectrum

Ion Transport in Complex Heterogeneous Organic Materials
ARO An Integrated Multi-Scale Approach for Understanding Ion Transport in Complex Heterogeneous Organic Materials

Defect Reduction in Superlattice Materials
ARO Fundamental Study of Defects and their Reduction in Type-II Superlattice Materials

Like I said, it's not that I categorically believe these are pork projects.  But I don't like when my money is spent on things described in an incomprehensible language.  Too often politicians use incomprehensible language to hide things they don't want to own up to.

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