Award Data

Cooling and drying of feed pellets are the most important operations in the feed manufacturing industry. These operations are carried out simultaneously, in a single machine, by passing ambient air through a moving bed of pellets. However, simultaneous control of both these processes is very difficult. Overdrying of pellets is a common problem that costs several million dollars to feed processi ...

PRESENT SOIL FIELD INSTRUMENTS DETERMINE ONLY ONE SOIL PHYSICAL PARAMETER AT ONE TIME AND AT ONE POINT. THE COMBINATION OF FIBEROPTIC TECHNIQUES WITH INFRARED AND VISIBLE OPTICAL SENSORS PROVIDES A MEANS FOR PROBING, VIEWING AND SENSING SIMULTANEOUSLY IN SITU SOIL PHYSICAL CHANGES. A FIBEROPTIC DEVICE WILL BE DEVELOPED TO INVESTIGATE IN SITU SIMULTANEOUS CHANGES OF SOIL WATER CONTENT AND SOIL TEMP ...

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of western wildfires.The threat to peopleand infrastructure is growing with more population living in the wildland-urban interface.Advances in technology provide the opportunity to improve wildfire mapping accuracy timelinessand dissemination. An un-stabilized airborne fire mapping sensor is proposed utilizing an array ofminiature thermal inf ...

Beef tenderness is the most important trait influencing consumer satisfaction. Currently there is no method for real-time classification of beef by tenderness. Current beef marketing is based on USDA quality grades (Prime, Choice, and Select). Therefore, the beef industry needs an integrated system that can simultaneously predict beef tenderness and also USDA grades. In the Phase I study, we succe ...

Despite its clean and green nature when utilized in fuel cells and other devices, most hydrogen is currently produced primarily from non-renewable sources, such as natural gas, oil, and coal. Anaerobic digestion provides a potentially improved alternative to manufacturing hydrogen from petroleum and natural gas. Anaerobic digesters can produce hydrogen from inexpensive and renewable energy sources ...

THERE EXISTS TODAY, A PAUCITY OF COST EFFECTIVE METHODS IN BILINGUAL EDUCATION. AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH IS PROPOSED WHICH UTILIZES AN INTELLIGIBLE, COST EFFECTIVE COMPUTER SYNTHESIZED SPEECH MODULE POSSESSING: -PROGRAMMABILITY IN ENGLISH, SPANISH, GERMAN, AND POSSIBLY OTHER LANGUAGES. -PHONETIC ACCURACY OF COMPUTER PRONOUNCED WORDS THROUGH A USER MAINTAINED EXCEPTION DICTIONARY. -LITTLE OR NO MAINT ...

High Tunnels (commonly called poly tunnels or hoop houses) are a type of field protected agriculture. They are essentially an intermediary between the full environmental risk-taking of outdoor production, and the controlled conditions, and relatively high energy use, of a conventional greenhouse. There are hundreds of thousands of acres in cultivation under high tunnels across the world. Domestica ...

Disease outbreaks are being increasingly recognized as a significant constraint to aquacultureproduction and trade and are affecting economic development. Monitoring fish health for earlydetection of diseases is paramount to secure a safe and sustainable aquaculture industry.Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a promising tool that has not yet delivered its disruptive potentialfor aquaculture health monit ...

Childhood obesity and overweight continue to be one of the greatest public health threats in the United States (DHHS, 2001; Visscher & Seidel, 2001; Rugg, 2004). Childhood weight and behavior are significant predictors of adult overweight and obesity (Whitaker, 1997; Dietz & Gortmaker, 2001; ACS, 2004). While programs that attempt to address weight issues continue to be developed, the problem cont ...

Rural America has significantly less access to broadband networks and telecominfrastructure. The disparity between network coverage in rural areas versus urban areas isreferred to as the "digital divide." This divide limits those in Rural America in many ways; withthings as simple as inadequate or unreliable means of communication to the more seriousimplications of having limited to no access to a ...