F. Budget Justification
Senior Personnel
We request funding for a Principal Investigator and a co-Principal Investigator.
Leonard McMillian, Associate Professor, PI, will lead the overall project year-round and will be
technical lead for the research on creating avatars with various levels of visual and motion fidelity.
The University of North Carolina pays McMillan’s academic year salary. We request one month of
summer support for Dr. McMillan.
Mary C. Whitton, Research Assistant Professor, Co- PI, will manage the research project year-round
and will be technical lead on the design and execution of the user study and other evaluation
components of the project, including building the test bed system. She will supervise the
undergraduate (REU) RAs during the summer months. We request one month of support for Prof.
Whitton.
Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. will serve as an Investigator and Advisor to the project, particularly on
system and user study issues, and will commit approximately 100 hours of his time to this endeavor.
We request no funds for Dr. Brooks’s time.
Other Personnel
Post-Doctorial Associate. We request funding for one full-time post-doctoral associate for each
academic year. This individual will perform the majority of the research work on avatar creation. The
Post Doc will guide the undergraduate research assistants during the academic year.
While our ability to complete the research proposed does not depend on it, we hope and expect to be
able to attract graduate students to work on elements of this project either as RAs who have their own
funding (e.g. fellowships) or as class projects. The Post Doc will supervise the day-to-day work of
these individuals, particularly those working on the avatar research.
Undgergraduate Research Assistants funded by the REU mechanism. Should the supplement be
awarded, these students, depending on their interests, will work under the direction of the Post Doc
and/or graduate students on appropriate projects in the avatar creation, system building, and evaluation
studies.
Salaries and Benefits
Salaries are inflated at 4% per year for years two and three. Faculty fringe benefits are calculated at
19% of salary plus health insurance at $3431 for the year starting October 1, 2003. Post Doctoral
Associates benefits include health insurance at $1604 for the year starting October 1, 2003. All
health insurance rates for Year 1 are based on 10% inflation over current actual costs. All health
insurance costs are inflated at 10% per year for years 2 and 3.
REU Supplement (shown as Participant Costs, Line F.1 and an element of F&A, Line I)
Undergraduate Student Research Assistants. We request stipend support for two undergraduate
students through the mechanism of an REU supplement. The undergraduates will work 10 hours/week
during the academic year and full time for 12 summer weeks. These students will be full members of
the research team and work with more senior members of the team according to assigned task. See
Supplemental Information, section I, for further information.
Undergraduate research assistants are paid $1650/semester in our department for roughly 10
hours/week over 15 weeks. Summer salary for undergraduates is $10/hour for 12 weeks at 40
hours/week. Administrative Costs of 25% of the salary line are included in Line I.
F-1
REU Supplement Request to support two (2) undergraduate RAs
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Total
Academic Year
$1650/sem (Yr 1)
6,600
6,864
7,139
20,603
Summer Months
$10/hour,
12 weeks full time
9,600
9,984
10,383
29,967
16,200
16,848
17,522
50,570
Total Salary
Admin Fee
25% of salary line
4,050
4,212
4,380
12,642
Totals
Line 3+line4
20,250
21,060
21,902
63,212
Equipment
No funds for equipment are requested in this proposal
Travel
Domestic. We request $1000 for domestic travel in year 1, inflated 4% in years 2 and 3. The funds
will be used to support travel by the PIs and/or Post Doc to attend and/or present papers at relevant
conferences such as ACM CHI, ACM SIGGRAPH, or IEEE Virtual Reality ‘XX.
International. We request $1000 for international travel in year 1, inflated 4% in years 2 and 3. The
funds will be used to for support travel by the PIs and/or Post Doc to present papers at relevant
conferences such as Eurographics Workshops on Virtual Reality, ACM CHI, IEEE Virtual Reality
‘XX or to meet with international collaborators. ACM CHI and IEEE VR each regularly meet outside
of North America and Eurographics Workshops are almost exclusively held in Europe.
Other Direct Costs
Materials and Supplies: We request $5000 over the life of the award for project-specific software
and research supplies. No routine office supplies are charged to sponsored research projects. The
funds are weighted (60%) to year 1, in which we will purchase several desktop personal computers for
use by project personnel over the three years. In years 2 and 3 we request $1000/year for software
and/or hardware upgrades. We expect to upgrade the add-on graphics processors in the PCs at the
mid-point of the award period.
Other Costs
Communications: $500 per year is required to cover the costs of long distance telephone charges
and the use of Federal Express or other expedited package delivery services.
-
Computer Services: The Department of Computer Science distributes the cost of maintaining its
shared computing infrastructure among all users through its Computer Services Recharge Center.
The University reviews this Recharge Center each year to ensure that it is in compliance with all
applicable federal and state regulations, including OMB Circulars A-21 and A-110, as well as the
Federal Cost Accounting Standards. Rates are adjusted annually to ensure that the Recharge
Center is operating on a strict cost recovery basis. This Recharge Center is subject to, and has
passed, both federal and state audits. All records are available for review by authorized federal
and state representatives. The rate beginning July 1, 2004 is $535 per Full Time Equivalent
(FTE) per month. The rates rise to $588/FTE month and $647/FTE month on July 1 of 2005 and
2006 respectively. Rates apply to each user and are charged according to salary distribution, e.g.,
F-2
if a person works 50% on one project and 50% on another during the month, each project pays
50% of the fee for that month. All employees and students are assessed the same rate without
regard to their salary source (federal, state, foundation, commercial). No additional fees are
charged, and all services included within the Recharge Center are available to all users. The
Department's computing environment includes more than 500 computers integrated by means of
high-speed networks, including an integrated voice/data switch and video switches. E-mail,
internet access, routine backups, a host of personal productivity and development software, the
services of the Help Desk, UNIX System Administration, PC and Macintosh System
Administration, and the labor for most hardware repair are available services.
Where an exact value is not known, all categories of Other Direct Costs are inflated by 4% in years 2
and 3 except for Line G-4, computer services, which is formula-driven.
Facilities and Administration Costs/Indirect Costs
UNC-CH has an approved indirect cost rate agreement at 46% of MTDC, effective 1 July 2003. In
this budget this rate applies to costs in Lines C (Salaries and Fringe Benefits), E (Travel), and G
(Other Costs), except as explained below.
The REU stipends carry the allowed maximum 25% administrative allowance, per the REU program
announcement, NSF-03-577.
Line G.4, Computer Services, contains costs for both personnel paid by the grant request and REU
students who would be paid by the supplement. The Computer Services Fees associated with the
personnel paid by the grant carry indirect costs of 46%; those costs related to the REU students do not
carry indirect costs. The table below shows the computation of the Line G base amount.
Computing Line G Base for Indirect
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Line G.4 (made up of two components):
Comp Ser for grant paid personnel
Comp Ser for REU
11,503
5,885
5,618
12,165
5,991
6,174
12,936
6,515
6,412
Total Line G less Comp Ser for REU
15,003- 13,665- 14,4365,618
6,174
6,412
9,385
7,491
8,015
Line G Base for 46% Indirect
F-3
Summary
Years 1-3
36,604
18,391
18,212
43,10418,212
24,892