Thanks to our friends at the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority for sharing an update below about what’s going on at the STEM Academy at UAPB.

America, it seems, is falling behind in areas related to math and science. Indeed, we’ve become a nation of dummy algebra students. And that’s not so good in a growing, high-tech global economy.

From Gov. Beebe on down, state officials sing the praises of STEM, and rightly so. (Who needs more bloggers, right?) The academy at UAPB was started in 2003 and is funded by NSF grants to foster STEM at historically black colleges and universities. The UAPB program targets students from eight school districts in the Pine Bluff area.

Here’s more from UAPB:

The STEM Program consists of personal growth, research, study skills, and related activities to assist students to complete a degree in the STEM areas while attending UAPB. Key components include a summer academy, a mentoring program, research, and revised STEM courses.

STEM students will be guided and advised by their major advisor throughout the academic year. They will carry a course load of 15 to 18 hours per semester.

We mentioned an update…Here’s a link to videos produced by ASTA highlighting the program. And here’s a tip of the hat to everyone involved with laying a foundation for high-tech entrepreneurs in a region of the state that sometimes gets overshadowed in terms of entrepreneurship and economic development.

Given the recent economic development activity at Pine Bluff Arsenal and the public-private collaboration taking place at NCTR, and the potential impact on future development at Jefferson County’s Bioplex, perhaps the tide is beginning to turn in southeast Arkansas.

And perhaps many of the students who go through the STEM Academy at UAPB will be help bring that turn about.

Vivione Biosciences is taking over about 2,000-SF of lab space at the Pine Bluff Arsenal.

Read the story from Arkansas Business here.

Local officials hope Vivione’s presence at the lab and its collaboration with neighboring NCTR will one day lead to a biotech cluster originating out of Pine Bluff. Vivione’s expansion to the arsenal promises many future, good — great — jobs for the area, long stuck in the shadow of Little Rock and NWA in terms of economic development.

Vivione is the IA client whose rapid-B technology can, among other things, detect food pathogens in minutes or hours as opposed to days or longer. There are other applications –  chemical, defense-oriented — that make the move to the arsenal a logical one.

Here’s video from Arkansas Business news partner KTHV.

More big news for an Arkansas tech-based startup. The momentum continues to build…

Reports that Cosmo Kramer was spotted at AQ Chicken in Fayetteville recently are unsubstantiated.

An e-bra?

Or, in the spirit of Title IX, an e-bro?

Essentially, researchers on The Hill led by Vijay Varadan have come up with one, or rather, have come up with textile sensors that can be attached to sports bras and vests to monitor cardiac information and send results to doctors via smartphones.

Ladies and gentlemen, the e-bra.

No word on whether the pool of test subjects included one Cosmo Kramer….

All kidding aside, this is very cool. Here’s the full release from the UA:

Engineers Develop Textile Sensors that Monitor Cardiac Signs and Communicate with Smart Phones

Textile-based sensors integrated into conventional sports bra and vest

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – An interdisciplinary team of engineers at the University of Arkansas has developed a wireless health-monitoring system that gathers critical patient information, regardless of the patient’s location, and communicates that information in real time to a physician, hospital or the patient herself.

The system includes a series of nanostructured, textile sensors integrated into a conventional sports bra for women and vest for men. Via a lightweight and wireless module that snaps onto these garments, the sensors communicate with system software that relies on a smart phone to collect information, compress it and send it over a variety of wireless networks.

“Our e-bra enables continuous, real-time monitoring to identify any pathophysiological changes,” said Vijay Varadan, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering. “It is a platform on which various sensors for cardiac-health monitoring are integrated into the fabric. The garment collects and transmits vital health signals to any desired location in the world.”

The system monitors blood pressure, body temperature, respiratory rate, oxygen consumption, some neural activity and all the readings provided by a conventional electrocardiograph (ECG), including the ability to display inverted T waves, which indicate the onset of cardiac arrest. The system does not require a cuff or any extra accessories to measure blood pressure and could therefore replace conventional blood-pressure monitors. It could also replace the cumbersome combination of ECG sensors and wires attached to patients while they walk on treadmills.

The sensors, which are smaller than a dime, include gold nanowires, as well as flexible, conducting textile nanosensors. The sensors are made of arrays of gold nano-electrodes fabricated on a flexible substrate. The textile sensors are woven into the bra material. These sensors do not require conventional sticky electrodes or the use of gel.

Electrical signals and other physiological data gathered by the sensors are sent to the snap-on wireless module, the contents of which are housed in a plastic box that is slightly smaller than a ring box. As the critical wireless component, the module is essentially a low-powered laptop computer that includes an amplifier, an antenna, a printed circuit board, a microprocessor, a Bluetooth module, a battery and various sensors. The size of the module depends heavily on power consumption and minimum battery size. Varadan said that anticipated battery and Bluetooth upgrades will allow the researchers to build a smaller – 1.5 inches long, 0.75 inch wide and 0.25 inch deep – lighter and flexible module that will replace the rigid box.

Data from the sensors then stream to commercially available cell phones and hand-held devices, which expand the use of the system beyond health care. By carrying a cell phone, athletes can monitor all signs mentioned above and other metrics, such as number of calories burned during a workout. To render clean data, the software includes filtering algorithms to mitigate problems due to motion of the hand-held device during exercise.

Whether on a computer or cell phone, the software is set up so that users can view all data on one screen or window, or they can view each measurement on its own unique window. The software also includes a global positioning system that tracks the exact latitude and longitude of the patient or athlete. The geographic information is transferred to a cloud cluster and stored in a secured database that doctors or other health-care personnel can access to view location of the patient as well as historic or real-time ECG data. The system can also be programmed to send emergency messages, via voice or text messaging, if it detects extreme or abnormal conditions.

Varadan has not yet published findings on the e-bra, but results on the system, which he calls an e-Nanoflex Sensor System, were published in the Journal of Nanotechnology in Engineering and Medicine. The research is supported by the Global Institute for Nanotechnology in Engineering and Medicine.

Varadan holds the College of Engineering’s Twenty-First Century Endowed Chair in Nano- and Bio-Technologies and Medicine and the college’s Chair in Microelectronics and High Density Electronics. He is director of the High Density Electronics Center and the Center for Wireless Nano-, Bio- and Info-Tech Sensors and Systems, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. Varadan is also a professor of neurosurgery in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Ark.

Anyone even remotely interested in Innovate Arkansas clients, the startup community or entrepreneurship in general, just might want to pick up a copy of Arkansas Business this week.

This week’s issue doesn’t have a startup or small business focus, but it may as well have. Ten — count ‘em, 10 — stories in AB are related to IA client firms, VCs and entrepreneurship, and make this issue a treasure trove of good stuff for entrepreneurs. Perhaps even an all-you-can-eat buffet. Well, a solid booty, for sure.

Let’s take a look at what you can find in this week’s issue…

UA startup NanoWatt Design may be poised on the brink of big things, and Ron Foster and crew are profiled in AB’s monthly look at an IA client:

NanoWatt Design Poised for Big ‘Breakthrough’

Foster even provides a little advice, some really good advice, to aspiring entrepreneurs (and it starts with NETWORKING):

Ron Foster’s 5 Tips for Startup Success

AB ace reporter Mark J. Friedman tells us how VC investments dropped nationally over the first quarter of 2012:

Venture Capital Investments Drop Nationwide in 1Q

But hold on, Friedman writes. Those numbers may be misleading, especially in Arkansas:

More Money Available for In-State Startups

Judd Hollas of IA client firm EquityNet, for one, likes the recent Jobs Act signed by President Obama. He sees it increasing the pool of potential investors in the country from 2 million to 50 million:

EquityNet Expects Jobs Act Explosion

Meanwhile, the SBA’s lending assistance program isn’t back to where it was pre-recession, but it’s slowly getting there:

SBA Lending Assistance on Slow Hike From Recession Depths

Speaking of SBA, IA client BioStrategies received some nice recognition:

Jonesboro Startup Recognized by SBA

Kevin Kuykendall, CEO of IA’s own Vivione Biosciences, is the subject of this week’s Exec Q&A:

Executive Q&A: Kevin Kuykendall, CEO of Vivione Biosciences, Discusses Startup Companies

Over in Oak Forest, UALR went big for nano last week:

UALR Dedicates $15M Nanotechnology Center

And finally, the editorial writers at AB joined the fray, addressing the accountability of Little Rock Technology Park Authority board members as well as the awesomeness that was the UALR dedication:

The Right Thing (Editorial)

There you have it. Ten stories in this week’s AB, right up our alley. Happy reading.