Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will develop a digital wireless transceiver integrated circuit (IC) and antenna for a companion microphone system that can be packaged in an in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aid. The use of companion microphones has been shown to improve perception of a companion's speech in noise filled environments such as restaurants, entertainment events, and urban are ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposed project seeks to prove the feasibility of an ultra-low power, digital wireless transceiver integrate circuit (1C) which would enable communication between two hearing aids. Wireless synchronization between the digital signal processors of two hearing instruments is a new technology for next generation hearing instruments. Approximately 70% of fitt ...

ABSTRACT: Busek Co. Inc. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) propose to explore the physical limits of ionic liquid propulsion via development of new theory to explain effects of close packing emission density and to predict performance limits. The research is motivated by observations and tests demonstrating that emission from 2-dimensional porous surfaces yields order of magnitude g ...

The specific opportunity to be addressed in this research is the exploitation of new scientific understanding about electrospray phenomena and novel micro-fabrication technology for use in new space missions that call for precise, flexible and efficient propulsion. Information gained during the course of this program should enable the production of electrosprays consisting of droplets or ions whi ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) of 2008, 7.2 million Americans are in need of treatment for Substance-Related Disorders (SRDs), and a large proportion of those need treatment for opiate pain reliever, heroin, and alcohol addiction. Naltrexone (NTX), an opioid antagonist, is currently used in oral tablet form to help maintain opio ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cisplatin is a cornerstone therapy for a number of cancers including testicular, bladder, ovarian and lung. It is also used to treat cancers in children. In all cases there is a high incidence of acute kidney injury (AKI) that can also lead to later stage kidney damage. This risk limits its use. We have found in pilot studies that renalase, or peptide fragment ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Clinicians and investigators alike rely on tests of attention and memory in a host of fields -- among them psychology, neurology, psychiatry, pediatrics, gerontology, and epidemiology. Yet one segment of the population has been passed by in these assessment efforts: individuals who have limited verbal communication abilities, a group that includes persons with ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this project is to develop a nanoparticle-based drug delivery system for use in the treatment of the exudative form of aged-related macular degeneration (ARMD). ARMD is the leading cause of blindness for individuals over fifty-five years of age that live in the industrialized world. It affects approximately 10 million people in the US and as many ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Type 2 diabetes is a particularly debilitating disease and is endemic for a large proportion of the world's population. The unmet challenges in disease management are the lack of long-term efficacy in reducing hyperglycemia and the inability to stop progression. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a natural gut hormone, provides a platform for therapeutics to ...

The work proposed in this Phase II STTR project is aimed at developing (1) a prototype speech synthesizer capable of manipulating the vocal effort of speech for use in text-to-speech synthesis, and (2) a prototype real-time system dedicated to modifying the apparent vocal effort of an arbitrary speech signal input. These two technical objectives will be achieved by (1) thorough acoustic analysis o ...