This book will expand the body of literature on capacity-building in science and improve public understanding of the issues regarding geographical concentration of federal research funding. The federal government has been the primary sponsor of academic research in the U.S., and the peer-review system has been the primary mechanism for distributing federal government funding for research among universities. The peer-review system ensures the production of the best science by funding the most capable researchers in the country. As a result, federal research funding has been concentrated in high-capacity states where many of the most capable researchers reside. Despite official action - such as the implementation of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), which targets low capacity jurisdictions for federal funding - the amount of resources going to each state for research is highly uneven. This book provides recommendations on how to improve policy design and program implementation for better research capacity-building outcomes. The book lends itself to a wide audience, as it does not focus entirely on high-level statistical analysis, but will have specific appeal to researchers in science policy, federal budgeting and higher education policy.

Periphyton: Functions and Application in Environmental Remediation presents a systematic overview of a wide variety of periphyton functions and applications in environmental remediation, providing readers with an understanding of the biological/ecological features of periphyton, the methodology of their study, and their application in environmental conservation. With increases in environmental stress, anthropogenic impacts, and the global decline in biodiversity, there is a pressing need for methods to assess and improve environmental quality that are rapid, reliable, and cost-effective. Periphyton is an important component of benthic communities and plays a crucial role in the functioning of microbial food webs. Because of a number of advantages, such as a short lifecycle, relative immobility, more rapid responses to environmental stress and anthropogenic impact than any metazoa, ease of sampling, availability of taxonomic/molecular identification, and standardized methodologies for temporal/spatial comparisons, there has, in recent decades, been an increased interest in periphyton as a tool in biological conservation in aquatic ecosystems.

Broadband, or high-speed internet, has been called the most important infrastructure challenge of the century. It has the potential to connect remote communities, streamline health care services, and support innovation across education, economics, and numerous other fields. Given the growing and widespread investments in broadband, how can citizens and policymakers determine whether the promise of broadband is being fulfilled? Transforming Everything? offers a comprehensive guide to the complexities and possibilities of broadband as a social technology. It addresses challenges for evaluating broadband initiatives across diverse contexts and proposes guidance and methods for evaluation for policymakers and researchers. Contributors draw on pioneering research in program evaluation and information technology to explore broadband applications in health, education, and civic engagement. They also address key measurement and evaluation challenges in the field today, including issues in privacy and security and inadequate research methods for target populations. Collectively, the chapters in this volume raise important questions for improving research and evaluation in broadband use and producing actionable evidence in a highly dynamic environment. Transforming Everything? prepares readers with a critical understanding of broadband technology and the necessary evidence to assess whether broadband programs and policy are truly empowering the communities they serve.