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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY For more information about the Office of Science, go to Office of Science |
To DOE National Laboratories LAB 07-21 Scientific Discovery Through Advanced Computing: Plasma Turbulence and Transport
SUMMARY: The Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (OFES) of the Office of Science
(SC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), hereby announces its interest in receiving
proposals for the development and application of high performance scientific simulation
codes on topical areas that are important to burning plasma physics experiments, such as
ITER, and which will contribute to establishing the scientific foundation for an integrated
fusion simulation in the future. The goal is the creation of codes that achieve high
performance on a single node, scale to thousands of nodes and tens-of-thousands of
processors, and have the potential to be ported to future generations of high performance
computers.
DATES: A Letter of Intent (LOI) to submit a proposal is REQUIRED and should be
submitted by April 17, 2007. Failure to submit a Letter of Intent by a proposer may
preclude the full proposal from due consideration.
The purpose of the Letter of Intent (LOI) is to facilitate the OFES in planning the peer
review and the selection of potential reviewers for the proposal. For this purpose, the LOI
must include a one-page abstract of the proposed research and list the names and
institutional affiliations of Principal Investigators, any Co-Principal Investigators, key
investigators, collaborators or consultants, so as to identify any potential conflict of
interest in the selection of qualified reviewers for the proposal.
Full proposals submitted in response to this Announcement must be submitted to the
DOE Electronic Proposal Management Application (ePMA) system
(https://epma.doe.gov) no later than 4:30 p.m., Eastern Time, May 29, 2007, to be
accepted for merit review and to permit timely consideration for award in Fiscal Year
2008. It is important that the entire peer reviewable proposal be submitted to the ePMA
system as a single PDF file attachment.
Please see the "Addresses" section below for further instructions on the methods of
submission for the full proposal.
ADDRESSES: Letters-of-Intent, referencing Program Announcement LAB 07-21 should
be sent to Mr. John Sauter by E-mail: John.Sauter@science.doe.gov, with a copy to Dr.
John Mandrekas at: John.Mandekas@science.doe.gov. Please use "Program
Announcement LAB 07-21 Letter-of-Intent" as the subject of the email.
A complete formal FWP in a single Portable Document Format (PDF) file must be
submitted through the DOE ePMA system (
https://epma.doe.gov) as an attachment. To
identify that the FWP is responding to this program announcement, please fill in the
following fields in the "ePMA Create Proposal Admin Information" screen as shown:
* Please use the wording shown when filling in these fields to identify that the
FWP is responding to this Program Announcement.
In order to expedite the review process, please submit a CD and one paper copy of
the proposal and FWP using the following address by U.S. Postal Service Express
Mail, any commercial mail delivery service, or when hand-carried.
Mr. John Sauter
DOE National Laboratories should submit using ePMA as instructed above.
Researchers from other Federal agencies and Non-DOE Federally Funded Research
and Development Centers (FFRDCs) should follow the format at
http://www.science.doe.gov/grants/fed_prop.html and submit the proposal as a CD and
one paper copy using the above address, by U.S. Postal Service Express Mail, any
commercial mail delivery service, or when hand-carried.
In the proposal package, include an extra copy of the one-page abstract.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. John Mandrekas, Research
Division, SC-24.2/Germantown Building, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, Office of
Science, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, D.C.
20585-1290, telephone: 301-903-0552, e-mail: John.Mandrekas@science.doe.gov, fax:
(301) 903-4716. Communications related to the formal proposal should use "Program
Announcement LAB 07-21 FORMAL" in the subject line.
Communications related to the formal proposal should use "Program Announcement
LAB 07-21" in the subject line.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Proposals are solicited for the development and application of high-performance
nonlinear gyrokinetic simulation codes for the study of plasma turbulence and transport
in magnetically confined plasmas. The proposed work should focus on advancing our
understanding and ability to predict and control the transport of ion and electron thermal
energy, momentum, and particles from the core of magnetically confined plasmas in
toroidal configurations, with emphasis on burning plasmas and ITER. The codes should
include all relevant physics-such as electromagnetic effects, non-adiabatic species, and
realistic collision operators-and should be able to simulate plasmas in experimentally
relevant geometries. Codes based on both the Particle-In-Cell (PIC) and the continuum or
Eulerian methodologies are of interest. In addition to descriptions of the physical models
in the code, proposals should include information on the proposed mathematical
algorithms, computer science methods, and data management and visualization
techniques. Researchers should include information on the readiness of their codes to run
on today's terascale computing facilities supported by the Office of Science-including
results from realistic scaling studies, if available-and should discuss their plans for
taking advantage of the emerging availability of petascale resources. In particular,
researchers should address the question of how access to increasingly powerful
computational resources will make a difference in achieving their targeted research goals
and how it will enhance the overall physics fidelity of their simulation models.
A strong verification and validation (V&V) component is essential for this effort and
therefore researchers should discuss their V&V plans in sufficient detail. In addition, since
cross-benchmarking of different codes is an indispensable and often-used verification
tool for large-scale simulation codes, successful researchers are expected to share data and
other supporting information in a timely fashion with other researchers. Researchers are
expected to follow the OFES data sharing guidelines for large-scale computational
projects which can be found at:
http://www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov/FusionDocuments/OFES_DataSharingGuidelines.pdf.
Researchers should also discuss their plans for forming substantive partnerships that
integrate applied mathematics and computer science enabling technologies with their
proposed efforts, as well as their plans for collaboration and interaction with the other
SciDAC projects in the OFES portfolio, including the Fusion Simulation Project (FSP)
prototype centers.
Proposals should include a timeline for the major activities of the proposed project and
should indicate which project personnel will be responsible for which activities. Tables of
quarterly milestones should also be provided by each of the collaborating institutions for
each year of proposed work.
Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing
Beyond the scientific computing and computational science research embedded in the
Office of Science (SC) core research programs, SC invests in a portfolio of coordinated
research efforts directed at exploiting the emerging capabilities of terascale and petascale
computing under the collective title of Scientific Discovery through Advanced
Computing (SciDAC). The research projects in the SciDAC portfolio respond to the
extraordinary difficulties of realizing sustained peak performance for scientific proposals,
such as simulating combustion, making multi-century climate predictions, understanding
and controlling a burning plasma, and designing new particle accelerators that require
terascale and petascale capabilities to accomplish their research goals. In recognition of
these difficulties, the SciDAC research projects are collaborative efforts involving teams
of physical scientists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and computational scientists
working on major software and algorithm development for problems in the core research
programs of the Office of Science. Research funded in the SciDAC portfolio is enabling
teams of laboratory and university researchers to solve some of the most challenging
scientific problems in the core programs of the Office of Science at a level of accuracy
and detail never before achieved. A complete description of the SciDAC program can be
found at: http://www.scidac.gov/
Background: Advanced Simulation of Fusion Plasmas
U.S. participation in the international ITER Project-a Presidential Initiative-is an
important next step in fusion research. ITER is designed to produce, control, and sustain
a burning plasma and research on ITER is expected to provide sufficient information on
the complex science of burning plasmas to make a definitive assessment of the scientific
feasibility of fusion power. The U.S. and the other ITER partners signed a 35-year
agreement on November 21, 2006, to construct, operate, and decommission the ITER
facility.
Following the signing of the ITER agreement, the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences
decided to focus its part of the SciDAC program on burning plasma physics needs.
Accordingly, the new and renewal proposals for the fusion SciDAC program will
concentrate on developing reliable computational modeling capabilities for dealing with
burning plasma physics issues relevant to ITER, and on establishing the scientific
groundwork for an integrated fusion simulation project. Such a project is needed to
develop the predictive capability necessary to improve experimental planning for ITER
and enhance scientific understanding gained from the operation of ITER.
The scope and complexity of these projects will require close collaboration among
researchers from the computational and theoretical plasma physics, computer science,
and applied mathematics disciplines. Thus, this solicitation calls for the creation of
topical centers as the organizational basis for a successful proposal. A topical center is a
multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary team that will:
Collaborative research projects with other institutions, such as universities, industry, non-
profit organizations, and Federally Funded Research and Development Centers
(FFRDCs), including the DOE National Laboratories, are encouraged under this
Announcement. Proposals submitted from different institutions, which are directed at a
single research activity, should clearly indicate they are part of a proposed collaboration
and contain a brief description of the overall research project. However, each proposal
must have a distinct scope of work and a qualified principal investigator who is
responsible for the research effort being performed at his or her institution. Further
information on preparation of collaborative proposals may be accessed via the Internet at:
http://www.science.doe.gov/grants/Colab.html.
Program Funding
It is anticipated that up to $900,000 will be available for awards to be made in Fiscal
Year 2008, contingent on the availability of appropriated funds. Proposals may request
project support up to three years, with out-year support contingent on the availability of
funds, progress of the research and programmatic needs. The number of awards will
depend on the number of proposals received and selected for award and the availability of
appropriated funds. Up to two collaborative projects may be funded. DOE is under no
obligation to pay for any costs associated with preparation or submission of proposals.
Formal Proposals
The research project description must be 25 pages or less, exclusive of attachments and
must contain an abstract or summary of the proposed research. All collaborators should
be listed with the abstract or summary. Attachments include curriculum vitae, a listing of
all current and pending federal support and letters of intent when collaborations are part
of the proposed research. Curriculum vitae should be limited to no more than two pages
per individual.
Full proposals adhering to DOE Field Work Proposal format (Reference DOE Order
412.1) are to be prepared and submitted consistent with policies of the investigator's
laboratory and the local DOE Operations Office. Laboratories may submit proposals
directly to the SC Program Office listed above. A copy should also be provided to the
appropriate DOE Operations Office.
The instructions and format described below should be followed. You must reference
Program Announcement LAB 07-21 on all submissions and inquiries about this program.
GUIDE FOR PREPARATION OF SCIENTIFIC/TECHNICAL PROPOSALS TO BE SUBMITTED BY NATIONAL LABORATORIES Proposals from National Laboratories submitted to the Office of Science (SC) as a result of this program announcement will follow the Department of Energy Field Work Proposal process with additional information requested to allow for scientific/technical merit review. The following guidelines for content and format are intended to facilitate an understanding of the requirements necessary for SC to conduct a merit review of a proposal. Please follow the guidelines carefully, as deviations could be cause for declination of a proposal without merit review. 1. Evaluation Criteria Proposals will be subjected to scientific merit review (peer review) and will be evaluated against the following evaluation criteria which are listed in descending order of importance codified at 10 CFR 605.10(d):
2. Appropriateness of the proposed method or approach 3. Competency of the researcher's personnel and adequacy of the proposed resources 4. Performance under existing award (for renewal proposals): 5. Reasonableness and appropriateness of the proposed budget.
2. Summary of Proposal Contents
2.1 Number of Copies to Submit A complete formal FWP in a single Portable Document Format (PDF) file must be submitted through the DOE ePMA system ( https://epma.doe.gov) as an attachment. To identify that the FWP is responding to this program announcement, please fill in the following fields in the "ePMA Create Proposal Admin Information" screen as shown:
Fiscal Year: Proposal Reason: Program Announcement Number: LAB 07-21 * Program announcement Title: Scientific Discovery Through Advanced Computing: Plasma Turbulence and Transport * Proposal Purpose: Estimated Proposal Begin Date: HQ Program Manager Organization: * Please use the wording shown when filling in these fields to identify that the FWP is responding to this Program Announcement. In order to expedite the review process, please submit a CD and one paper copy of the proposal and FWP using the following address by U.S. Postal Service Express Mail, any commercial mail delivery service, or when hand-carried.
Mr. John Sauter 3. Detailed Contents of the Proposal Adherence to type size and line spacing requirements is necessary for several reasons. No researcher should have the advantage, or by using small type, of providing more text in their proposals. Small type may also make it difficult for reviewers to read the proposal. Proposals must have 1-inch margins at the top, bottom, and on each side. Type sizes must be at least 11 point. Line spacing is at the discretion of the researcher but there must be no more than 6 lines per vertical inch of text. Pages should be standard 8 1/2" x 11" (or metric A4, i.e., 210 mm x 297 mm). 3.1 Field Work Proposal Format (Reference DOE Order 412.1A) (DOE ONLY) The Field Work Proposal (FWP) is to be prepared and submitted consistent with policies of the investigator's laboratory and the local DOE Operations Office. Additional information is also requested to allow for scientific/technical merit review. Laboratories may submit proposals directly to the SC Program office listed above. A copy should also be provided to the appropriate DOE operations office. 3.2 Proposal Cover Page The following proposal cover page information may be placed on plain paper. No form is required.
SC Program announcement title Name of laboratory Name of principal investigator (PI) Position title of PI Mailing address of PI Telephone of PI Fax number of PI Electronic mail address of PI Name of official signing for laboratory* Title of official Fax number of official Telephone of official Electronic mail address of official Requested funding for each year; total request Use of human subjects in proposed project:
Signature of official, date of signature* *The signature certifies that personnel and facilities are available as stated in the proposal, if the project is funded.
Provide the initial page number for each of the sections of the proposal. Number pages consecutively at the bottom of each page throughout the proposal. Start each major section at the top of a new page. Do not use unnumbered pages and do not use suffices, such as 5a, 5b. 3.4 Budget and Budget Explanation A detailed budget is required for the entire project period and for each fiscal year. It is preferred that DOE's budget page, Form 4620.1 be used for providing budget information*. Modifications of categories are permissible to comply with institutional practices, for example with regard to overhead costs. A written justification of each budget item is to follow the budget pages. For personnel this should take the form of a one-sentence statement of the role of the person in the project. Provide a detailed justification of the need for each item of permanent equipment. Explain each of the other direct costs in sufficient detail for reviewers to be able to judge the appropriateness of the amount requested. Further instructions regarding the budget are given in section 4 of this guide. * Form 4620.1 is available at web site: http://www.science.doe.gov/grants/budgetform.pdf 3.5 Abstract Provide an abstract of less than 400 words. Give the project objectives (in broad scientific terms), the approach to be used, and what the research is intended to accomplish. State the hypotheses to be tested (if any). At the top of the abstract give the project title, names of all the investigators and their institutions, and contact information for the principal investigator, including e-mail address. 3.6 Narrative (main technical portion of the proposal, including background/introduction, proposed research and methods, timetable of activities, and responsibilities of key project personnel). The narrative comprises the research plan for the project and is limited to 25 pages (maximum). It should contain enough background material in the Introduction, including review of the relevant literature, to demonstrate sufficient knowledge of the state of the science. The major part of the narrative should be devoted to a description and justification of the proposed project, including details of the methods to be used. It should also include a timeline for the major activities of the proposed project, and should indicate which project personnel will be responsible for which activities. More specifically, the project narrative must include:
Background and Recent Accomplishments Proposed Research and Tasks
Management plan, including work breakdown structure showing the level of effort for each task. 3.7 Literature Cited Give full bibliographic entries for each publication cited in the narrative. 3.8 Biographical Sketches This information is required for senior personnel at the institution submitting the proposal and at all subcontracting institutions (if any). The biographical sketch is limited to a maximum of two pages for each investigator. To assist in the identification of potential conflicts of interest or bias in the selection of reviewers, the following information must be provided in each biographical sketch.
Graduate and Postdoctoral Advisors and Advisees: A list of the names of the individual's own graduate advisor(s) and principal postdoctoral sponsor(s), and their current organizational affiliations. A list of the names of the individual's graduate students and postdoctoral associates during the past five years, and their current organizational affiliations. Facilities to be used for the conduct of the proposed research should be briefly described. Indicate the pertinent capabilities of the institution, including support facilities (such as machine shops), that will be used during the project. List the most important equipment items already available for the project and their pertinent capabilities. Include this information for each subcontracting institution (if any). 3.10 Other Support of Investigators Other support is defined as all financial resources, whether Federal, non-Federal, commercial, or institutional, available in direct support of an individual's research endeavors. Information on active and pending other support is required for all senior personnel, including investigators at collaborating institutions to be funded by a subcontract. For each item of other support, give the organization or agency, inclusive dates of the project or proposed project, annual funding, and level of effort (months per year or percentage of the year) devoted to the project. 3.11 Appendix Information not easily accessible to a reviewer may be included in an appendix, but do not use the appendix to circumvent the page limitations of the proposal. Reviewers are not required to consider information in an appendix, and reviewers may not have time to read extensive appendix materials with the same care they would use with the proposal proper. The appendix may contain the following items: up to five publications, manuscripts accepted for publication, abstracts, patents, or other printed materials directly relevant to this project, but not generally available to the scientific community; and letters from investigators at other institutions stating their agreement to participate in the project (do not include letters of endorsement of the project).
4. Detailed Instructions for the Budget 4.1 Salaries and Wages List the names of the principal investigator and other key personnel and the estimated number of person-months for which DOE funding is requested. Proposers should list the number of postdoctoral associates and other professional positions included in the proposal and indicate the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) person-months and rate of pay (hourly, monthly or annually). For graduate and undergraduate students and all other personnel categories such as secretarial, clerical, technical, etc., show the total number of people needed in each job title and total salaries needed. Salaries requested must be consistent with the institution's regular practices. The budget explanation should define concisely the role of each position in the overall project. 4.2 Equipment DOE defines equipment as "an item of tangible personal property that has a useful life of more than two years and an acquisition cost of $25,000 or more." Special purpose equipment means equipment which is used only for research, scientific or other technical activities. Items of needed equipment should be individually listed by description and estimated cost, including tax, and adequately justified. Allowable items ordinarily will be limited to scientific equipment that is not already available for the conduct of the work. General purpose office equipment normally will not be considered eligible for support. 4.3 Domestic Travel The type and extent of travel and its relation to the research should be specified. Funds may be requested for attendance at meetings and conferences, other travel associated with the work and subsistence. In order to qualify for support, attendance at meetings or conferences must enhance the investigator's capability to perform the research, plan extensions of it, or disseminate its results. Consultant's travel costs also may be requested. 4.4 Foreign Travel Foreign travel is any travel outside Canada and the United States and its territories and possessions. Foreign travel may be approved only if it is directly related to project objectives. 4.5 Other Direct Costs The budget should itemize other anticipated direct costs not included under the headings above, including materials and supplies, publication costs, computer services, and consultant services (which are discussed below). Other examples are: aircraft rental, space rental at research establishments away from the institution, minor building alterations, service charges, and fabrication of equipment or systems not available off- the-shelf. Reference books and periodicals may be charged to the project only if they are specifically related to the research. a. Materials and Supplies The budget should indicate in general terms the type of required expendable materials and supplies with their estimated costs. The breakdown should be more detailed when the cost is substantial. b. Publication Costs/Page Charges The budget may request funds for the costs of preparing and publishing the results of research, including costs of reports, reprints page charges, or other journal costs (except costs for prior or early publication), and necessary illustrations. c. Consultant Services Anticipated consultant services should be justified and information furnished on each individual's expertise, primary organizational affiliation, daily compensation rate and number of days expected service. Consultant's travel costs should be listed separately under travel in the budget. d. Computer Services The cost of computer services, including computer-based retrieval of scientific and technical information, may be requested. A justification based on the established computer service rates should be included. e. Subcontracts Subcontracts should be listed so that they can be properly evaluated. There should be an anticipated cost and an explanation of that cost for each subcontract. The total amount of each subcontract should also appear as a budget item. 4.6 Indirect Costs Explain the basis for each overhead and indirect cost. Include the current rates.
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