VMASC 2010 Annual Report (PDF) - the Virginia Modeling, Analysis ...

a message from
the executive director
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Despite the sluggish economy, VMASC had
a prosperous year both in terms of funded
research and in the various activities that
we supported throughout the term. New
research and technical support awards
totaled nearly $9.6 million. Maintaining
this level of funding in these challenging
fiscal times is a direct result of the effort put
forth by our talented researchers, technical
staff, and administrative support staff.
Without their energy and persistence this
achievement would not have been possible.
We continue to apply our research
capabilities in seven areas: military/
homeland security, transportation, medical/health care, supply chain and
business processes, social science, virtual environments, and game-based
learning. VMASC researchers are now analyzing unexplored problems and
real-time challenges in these established domains. For example, the lead
researcher (and his graduate student) for supply chain and business processes
joined expertise with a faculty member from ODU’s College of Business to
develop a model capable of analyzing the real estate foreclosure market. This
innovative research provides a new method of analysis and a new assessment
of a national issue that is seemingly unanswerable. Significantly, this effort
can have major implications in developing national economic policy.
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Medical and health care professionals have recognized a great need for
M&S to support their training and education process. Medical schools are
adopting Violent Acts M&S technology to both increase their student throughput and to
raise the quality of the training to levels unachievable without M&S support.
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M&S has the ability Loss to expose of these students to many situations and patient
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conditions that they would not likely experience in the traditional medical
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school Influence education process because that process is solely dependent on the
cases on hand during the course of their residency. M&S can provide a broad
set of challenges with guaranteed consistency and availability.
VMASC continued to foster a strong collaborative relationship
among academia, industry, and government partners. This
past year saw a significant effort to develop substantial M&S
funding requests involving these partners. VMASC brought
together several state universities and various industry
members to work on joint proposals that benefited participants
while addressing substantial topics of government concern.
This process was very successful and will be continued in the
coming years.
This past year saw M&S achieve more national recognition.
Its designation as a national critical technology has fueled
the realization that it is vital to both our national security and
to the United States’ position in the global market. Efforts
are underway to have M&S formally recognized as its own
industry, a move that will solidify its place in the economy.
M&S is clearly emerging as its own academic discipline with
several universities offering graduate degrees. ODU has once
again led the way by developing an accredited undergraduate
M&S engineering degree supported by the first M&S academic
department. These are significant steps to ensuring the
academic legitimacy of M&S.
As with any large R&D Center, I know that this next year will
have its own set of challenges, but VMASC and its partners
are well-positioned to meet these challenges. VMASC’s
mission and goal is to provide valuable skills and technology
to address complex problems and to assist difficult decisionmaking.
John Sokolowski, Ph.D.
VMASC Executive Director
Cultural Religious Economic Security
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