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 ...

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 ...

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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 ...

THE ARCHITECTURAL FEASIBILITY OF A GENERIC COMPUTER VISION SYSTEM COMPOSED OF HETEROGENEOUS PROCESSORS IS EXAMINED. THE STUDY FOCUSSES ON ISSUES SUCH AS THE NATURE OF THE HETEROGENEOUS PROCESSORS FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES, NETWORK REALIZATION TRADEOFFS, AND COMMON MODULE INTERFACES. THE GENERIC COMPUTER VISION SYSTEM IS DESIGNED TO MEET THE DEMANDS IMPOSED BY FUTURE INDUSTRIAL VISION APPLICATIONS, I ...

MULTILAYER COATINGS VASTLY IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF MOST X-RAY OPTICAL ELEMENTS AND ALLOW OPERATION AT ANGLES AND WAVELENGTHS OTHERWISE INACCESSIBLE. THEY HAVE BEEN USED SUCCESSFULLY IN ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENTS, ASTRONOMICAL TELESCOPES ON SATELLITES, AND IN PLASMA DIAGNOSTIC INSTRUMENTS, AND WILL LIKELY BE AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF X-RAY MICROLITHOGRAPHY EXPOSURE SYSTEMS IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUS ...

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 ...

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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 ...