Grace Hwang and Elaine Mullen have received the 2008 Ronald Fante Best Paper Award for their paper "Plasmonic Sensing of Biological Analytes Through Nanoholes." The paper, coauthored by Dr. Lin Pang and Professor Yeshaiahu Fainman of the Ultrafast & Nanoscale Optics Group of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), appeared in the December 2008 issue of the IEEE Sensors Journal. It describes a novel design for a tiny sensor that can detect biomolecules, including air- and water-borne pathogens in real time.
According to Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Steve Huffman, who chairs the Best Paper Awards Committee, "The work reported in this paper is both novel and of high technical quality. In addition, the presentation is both clear and thorough. The research itself makes a fundamental contribution to the development of single-particle sensors for biological agents, a topic that has been recognized and reported on in several prestigious journals, including Nature. This paper exemplifies the qualities MITRE values in our research and technical publications."
The biosensor described in the winning paper discerns the presence of a pathogen by monitoring how a polarized laser beam interacts with a gold-coated surface perforated with nanoholes. The gold layer, in turn, is coated with glycoproteins that act as carbohydrate receptors. The sensor functions by directing a beam of polarized laser light into a tiny chamber containing the receptor layer. When a target pathogen comes in contact with the glycoproteins, adhesive structures on the pathogen bind to the carbohydrate receptors. This changes the refractive index of the glycoprotein, which in turn changes the amount of coupling between the laser beam and waves of electrons at the surface of the metal (also called surface plasmon polaritons, or SPPs). A detector registers the change, which indicates the presence and quantity of the pathogen.
By offering rapid, highly sensitive detection for a range of bioagents, the sensor could help to provide early warning of environmental pollution, disease outbreak, or biological attacks. The sensor's small size (approximately 4-inches long, 4-inches wide, and 3-inches thick in its final form) and its energy efficiency would enable officials to sample air and water unobtrusively wherever they suspect contamination has taken place. The sensor has the additional advantage of being able to test for multiple pathogens at the same time.
Professor Fainman's laboratory conducted basic research and the preliminary demonstration of the device's sensing capabilities in 2006 as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's University Photonics Research Center for Opto-Fluidic Integration. "I am indebted to Lin and Shaya for sharing so much of their research with Elaine and me," said Hwang. "I'm equally delighted that Elaine generously shared her glycoprotein expertise with me to allow the MITRE-UCSD team to bring the SPP sensor to the next level of demonstration."
Under the "Bio-Threat Aircraft Warning System" (BTAWS) MITRE Sponsored Research (MSR) project, Hwang and Mullen are currently investigating additional molecules that could be used in the development of a biosensor for human and avian influenza.
The award came as a pleasant surprise to Hwang. "The Ronald Fante Best Paper Award is a great honor," she said. "I'm grateful to the Engineering Council for enabling me to continue to do biosensor research. I am especially thankful to Rick Sciambi and Glenn Roberts, both of whom patiently mentored me through the research program here at MITRE, starting as far back as when the BTAWS MSR project was a little Innovation Grant in the Center for Enterprise Modernization."
The 2008 competition recognized 51 additional papers with Incentive Awards, while one short paper received a Communication Award. The complete list of the winners follows.
An, Myoung, Andrzej K. Brodzik, and Richard Tolimieri, 2008, Ideal Sequence Design in Time-Frequency Space—Applications to Radar, Sonar, and Communication Systems, Basle: Birkhδuser Verlag.
Arnason, Sigurjon Thor, and Keith D. Willett, 2008, How to Achieve 27001 Certification—An Example of Applied Compliance Management, Boca Raton, FL: Auerbach Publications.
Barr, Stanley J., Samuel J. Cardman, and David M. Martin, Jr., November 2008, "A Boosting Ensemble for the Recognition of Code Sharing in Malware," Journal of Computer Virology, Vol. 4, 335345.
Bell, William D., September 2008, "The 800-Pound (364 kg) Gorilla," ITEA Journal of Test and Evaluation, Vol. 29, 275277.
Best, Steven R., 2008, "Electrically Small Multiband Antennas," in Multiband Integrated Antennas for 4G Terminals, David Sanchez-Hernandez, ed., Norwood, MA: Artech House.
Best, Steven R., 2008, "Small and Fractal Antennas," in Modern Antenna Handbook, Constantine A. Balanis, ed., New York: Wiley Interscience.
Best, Steven R., and Drayton L. Hanna, December 2008, "Design of a Broadband Dipole in Close Proximity to an EBG Ground Plane," IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 50, No. 6, 5264.
Bhadra, Dipasis, David Chin, Anthony Dziepak, and Katherine Harback, Fall 2008, "Analysis of Cost at FAA's en Route Centers: An Empirical Perspective," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Vol. 47, No. 3, 1944.
Bhadra, Dipasis, and Brendan Hogan, JanuaryFebruary 2008, "Choice of Route Networks: A Qualitative Model for Over-Land and Over-Water Routes," Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 45, No. 1, 5663.
Bhadra, Dipasis, and Jacqueline Kee, January 2008, "Structure and Dynamics of the Core US Air Travel Markets: A Basic Empirical Analysis of Domestic Passenger Demand," Journal of Air Transport Management, Vol. 14, 2739.
Braff, Ronald, Winter 2008, "GPS III-Galileo/Altimeter Landing System for CAT IIIB: Concept and Analysis," Navigation, Vol. 55, No. 4, 267281.
Brown, Winton G., Yaakov S. Weinstein, and Lorenza Viola, April 2008, "Quantum Pseudorandomness from Cluster-State Quantum Computation," Physical Review A, Vol. 77, No. 4, 040303(R).
Colella, David, February 28, 2008, "On the Safety of IR Illumination for Iris Recognition Applications," Journal of Intelligence Community Research and Development [classified journal; posted on Intelink February 28, 2008].
daCosta, Paulo C.G., Kathryn B. Laskey, and Kenneth J. Laskey (E544), September 2008, "PR-OWL: A Bayesian Ontology Language for the Semantic Web," in Uncertainty Reasoning for the Semantic Web I, Paulo C.G. da Costa, Claudia d'Amato, Nicola Fanizzi, Kathryn B. Laskey, Kenneth J. Laskey, Thomas Lukasiewicz, Matthias Nickles, and Michael Pool, eds., Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
daCosta, Paulo C.G., Claudia d'Amato, Nicola Fanizzi, Kathryn B. Laskey, Kenneth J. Laskey (E544), Thomas Lukasiewicz, Matthias Nickles, and Michael Pool, eds., 2008, Uncertainty Reasoning for the Semantic Web I, Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Demaree, Heath A., Michael A. DeDonno, Kevin J. Burns (E543), and E. Erik Everhart, 2008, "You Bet: How Personality Differences Affect Risk-Taking Preferences," Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 44, No. 7, 14841494.
Drury, Jill L., and Erika Darling, March 2008, "A 'Thin-Slicing' Approach to Understanding Cognitive Challenges in Real-Time Command and Control," Journal of Battlefield Technology, Vol. 11, No. 1, 915.
Drury, Jill L., and Stacey C. Scott, October 2008, "Awareness in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Operations," International C2 Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1.
Euliss, Gary W., Paul B. House, and Joseph P. Marques, June 20, 2008, "(U) A Fundamental Investigation of Super-Resolution for Iris Recognition," Journal of Intelligence Community Research and Development, Article #173 [classified journal; posted on Intelink June 20, 2008].
Gilbert, Gerald, Michael Hamrick, and Yaakov S. Weinstein, November 2008, "End-to-End Fault Tolerance," Quantum Information Processing, Vol. 7, 263274.
Gilbert, Gerald, Michael Hamrick, and Yaakov S. Weinstein, August 2008, "Use of Maximally Entangled N-photon States for Practical Quantum Interferometry," Journal of the Optical Society of America B, Vol. 25, No. 8, 13361340.
Gilbert, Gerald, and Yaakov S. Weinstein, November 2008, "Aspects of Practical Remote Quantum Sensing," Journal of Modern Optics, Vol. 55, No. 1920, 32833291.
Guharay, Samar K., August 2008, "Ion Mobility Spectrometry: Ion Source Development and Applications in Physical and Biological Sciences," IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 36, No. 4, 14581470.
Hager, Creighton, Dong-Jye Shyy, and Jamie Ma, September 2008, "Cooperative Cross-Layer Design for Wireless Networks," Journal of Communications, Vol. 3, No. 4, 4958.
Halavi, Maryam, Sridevi Polavaram, Duncan E. Donohue, Gail Hamilton, Jeffrey Hoyt, Kenneth P. Smith, and Giorgio A. Ascoli, 24 October 2008, "NeuroMorpho.Org Implementation of Digital Neuroscience: Dense Coverage and Integration with the NIF," Neuroinform, Vol. 6.
Hawker, Kenneth, Thomas McEntee, and Thomas Carroll, 2008, "The State of Scientific and Technical and Weapons Intelligence Analysis: Survey Findings," Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Web Supplement). Paper is FOUO.
Hegarty, Christopher J., and Eric Chatre, December 2008, "Evolution of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)," Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 96, No. 12, 19021917.
Jain, Prem P., and Ben C. King, June 2008, "Mission-Model Driven Process: Test and Evaluate Composition of SOA Services," ITEA Journal, Vol. 29, 179189.
Kehoe, Timothy D., Irene N. Chang, David S. Czulada, Howard Kong, and Dino Konstantopoulos (with Linus Chow and Charles Medley), 2008, "Air Force SOA Enterprise Service Bus C4I Integration Study," in BPM Excellence in Practice 2008: Using BPM for Comparative Advantage, Layna Fischer, ed., Lighthouse Point, FL: Future Strategies, Inc.
Kessler, Otto, and Franklin E. White, 2008, "Data Fusion Perspectives and Its Role in Information Processing," in Handbook of Multisensor Data Fusion, 2nd ed., Martin E. Liggins, David L. Hall, and James Llinas, eds. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Kostoff, Ronald N., October 2008, "Comparison of China/USA Science and Technology Performance," Journal of Informetrics, Vol. 2, No. 4, 354363.
Land, Susan K., William C. Hobart, Jr., and John W. Walz, June 11, 2008, A Practical Metrics and Measurements Guide for Today's Software Project Manager, IEEE Ready Notes, Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society.
Lehner, Paul E., Leonard Adelman, Brant A. Cheikes, and Mark J. Brown, May 2008, "Confirmation Bias in Complex Analyses," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics—Part A: Systems and Humans, Vol. 38, No. 3, 584592.
Liggins, Martin E., David L. Hall, and James Llinas, eds., 2008, Handbook of Multisensor Data Fusion, 2nd ed., Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Marques, Joseph P., January 4, 2008, "(U) Iris Recognition from Video—Examining Performance with Continuous Observation," Journal of Intelligence Community Research and Development, Article #174 [classified journal; posted on Intelink January 4, 2008].
Maybury, Mark T., ed., November 2008, AAAI Fall Symposium on Multimedia Information Extraction, Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press.
McCarter, Beverly Gay, and Brian E. White, 2008, "Emergence and SoS, Sociocognitive Aspects," in Systems of Systems Engineering—Principles and Applications, Mo Jamshidi, ed., Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Moertl, Peter M., Steven L. Estes, Craig A. Bonaceto, and Kevin J. Burns, 2008, "Macrocognition in Systems Engineering: Supporting Changes in the Air Traffic Control Tower," in Naturalistic Decision Making and Macrocognition, Jan Maarten Schraagen, Laura G. Militello, Tom Ormerod, and Raanan Lipshitz, eds., Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 251274.
Mork, Peter, Len Seligman, Arnon Rosenthal, Joel Korb, and Chris Wolf, December 2008, "The Harmony Integration Workbench," Journal on Data Semantics, Vol. XI, 6593.
Samuel, Ken, Leo Obrst, Suzette Stoutenburg, Karen Fox, Paul Franklin, Adrian Johnson, Ken Laskey, Deborah Nichols, Steve Lopez, and Jason Peterson, May 2008, "Translating OWL and Semantic Web Rules into Prolog: Moving Toward Description Logic Programs," Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, Vol. 8, No. 3, 301322.
Sanyal, Probal K., David M. Zasada, and Richard P. Perry, January 2008, "Detecting and Georegistering Moving Ground Targets in Airborne QuickSAR via Keystoning and Multiple-Phase Center Interferometry," EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, Vol. 8, No 2.
Smirnoff, James P., and Michael J. Hicks, January 2008, "The Impact of Economic Factors and Acquisition Reforms on the Cost of Defense Weapon Systems," Review of Financial Economics, Vol. 17, 313.
Smith, Ken, Len Seligman, and Vipin Swarup, September 2008, "Everybody Share: The Challenge of Data Sharing Systems," IEEE Computer, Vol. 41, No. 9, 5461.
Spiewak, Rick, and Karen McRitchie, December 2008, "Using Software Quality Methods to Reduce Cost and Prevent Defects," CrossTalk, Vol. 21, No. 12, 2327.
Stanford, Jean, Robert V. Mikula, Steven Decker, Jordan Feidler, Brandon Higgs, Joseph Mitola, Olivia Peters, Peter Mork, Matthew Seguin, Sandra Sinay, Gary Vecellio, and Marion Warwick, 2008, "A Model for Online Collaborative Cancer Research: Report of the NCI caBIG Project," International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, Vol. 9, No. 3, 231246.
Weinstein, Yaakov S., Winton G. Brown, and Lorenza Viola, November 2008, "Parameters of Pseudorandom Quantum Circuits," Physical Review A, Vol. 78, No. 5, 052332.
Wigfield, Edward, Kelly Connolly, John Morris, Alexander Alshtein, James DeArmon, Richard Flournoy, William Hershey, John James, Paula Mahoney, Jennifer Mathieu, John Maurer, and Paul Ostwald, April 2007 [accepted in Spring 2008, but published in a 2007 volume], "Mission Effectiveness and European Airspace: U.S. Air Force CNS/ATM Planning for Future Years," Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, Vol. 4, No. 2.
Willett, Keith D., 2008, Information Assurance Architecture, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Withers, Lang P., Jr., Robert M. Taylor, Jr., and David M. Warme, September 2008, "Echo-MIMO: A Two-Way Channel Training Method for Matched Cooperative Beamforming," IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 56, No. 9, 44194432.
Yaghjian, Arthur, Teresa O'Donnell, Edward Altshuler, and Steven R. Best, 14 May 2008, "Electrically Small Supergain End-Fire Arrays," Radio Science, Vol. 43, RS3002.
