The House on Wednesday passed by a voice vote a bipartisan bill that would authorize federal agencies to create their own working capital funds to update their information technology systems, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and other lawmakers introduced on April 28 the Modernizing Government Technology Act that would direct appropriators to authorize $250 million in annual funds for a central modernization fund over two years.

Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), Steve Daines (R-Montana) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) also proposed a similar version of the bill in April, according to the report.

Hurd said the MGT Act seeks to build up information security, facilitate the federal government’s adoption of cloud computing and other modern technology platforms and provide incentives to cost-saving efforts and chief information officers, MeriTalk reported Wednesday.

“Under MGT, savings obtained by federal agencies by doing things like streamlining IT systems, replacing legacy products, and transitioning to cloud computing can be placed in a working capital fund that can be accessed throughout the three years for further modernization efforts,” Hurd added.

CSRA President and CEO Larry Prior, an inductee into Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 for 2017, said the bill’s passage in the House marks an important step to facilitate updates to the federal IT infrastructure amid cyber threats, the report added.

The Department of Homeland Security‘s Science and Technology Directorate and its partner agencies from the Netherlands will invest up to $2.6 million in collaborative cybersecurity research projects.

DHS S&T will collaborate with the Netherlands’ organization for scientific research and national cyber security center in efforts increase research and development collaboration between cybersecurity researchers from both countries, the department said Wednesday.

Participating research organizations will focus on the development of data acquisition, distributed denial of service, industrial control systems, domain name systems and supervisory control applications.

“With this joint call we reaffirm our joint mission to foster stronger research links between the Netherlands and the U.S. and strengthen collaboration between our nations’ best cybersecurity researchers,” said Patricia Zorko, director of cybersecurity at the Netherlands’ security and justice ministry.

DHS noted it will obligate half of the available R&D funds under the bilateral initiative from its $9.5 million Cyber Security International Collaboration Research and Development Program.

The partnership seeks to help fund up to five joint research proposals through the program.

A bipartisan group of five lawmakers has introduced a bill that seeks to add accountability and transparency in the federal government’s vulnerabilities equities process.

Sens. Brian Schatz’s (D-Hawaii) office said Wednesday the Protecting our Ability To Counter Hacking Act aims would update the current process for agencies to determine if they should  disclose or withhold vulnerabilities in technology products, applications, services and systems.

Schatz crafted the bill with fellow Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) and Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) as well as Reps. Ted Lieu (D-California) and Blake Farenthold (R-Texas).

“The PATCH Act requires the government to swiftly balance the need to disclose vulnerabilities with other national security interests while increasing transparency and accountability to maintain public trust in the process,” said Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The bill would establish a Department of Homeland Security-led interagency review board to develop a consistent policy on how the government should assess vulnerabilities for disclosure and retention.

The Coalition for Cybersecurity Policy and Law and companies such as McAfee and Mozilla support the bill.

Lawmakers proposed the PATCH Act in the wake of a global ransomware attack that compromised at least 200,000 computers.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has developed mathematical tools and methods to help designers understand risks associated with the design and modeling of large military systems such as aerospace vehicles and engines.

Research teams under DARPA’s Enabling Quantification of Uncertainty in Physical Systems program have developed uncertainty quantification tools to increase chances that new military systems will perform as designed, DARPA said Wednesday.

“We aim to make UQ a tractable part of simulation and modeling even for the most complex of design problems,” said Fariba Fahroo, a DARPA program manager.

Mathematical tools developed under DARPA’s EQUiPS program are intended to support various systems such as aerospace structures and integrated circuits, Fahroo added.

A Brown University-led EQUiPS research group is creating theoretical foundations for the Design Under Uncertainty tool that aims to simplify design processes for defense systems that face numerous development uncertainties.

The team — composed of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech, University of California and the Naval Postgraduate School — is also developing an unconventional hydrofoil surface sea vessel designed to function at a speed of more than 120 knots in calm sea states and 60 knots in extreme sea states.

Another research team, led by Stanford University, uses EQUiPS methods in a project that looks to optimize the design for a supersonic jet engine exhaust nozzle and provide maximum thrust efficiency.

Stanford collaborates with the Colorado School of Mines, University of Michigan and Sandia National Laboratories on the supersonic nozzle study, DARPA said.