Award Data

Mosaic crystalline monochromators define performance of neutron scattering devices employed in condensed matter research on research nuclear reactors. This project is devoted to development of a manufacturing technique for slow neutron Germanium mosaic monochromators with reflectivity exceeding reflectivity of pyrolytic graphite crystals. Germanium has small slow neutron absorption; its diamond cr ...

A-ACPTS Phase 2 transitions NIST Access Control Policy Tool (ACPT) R&D with innovative enhancements into commercialization, developing a commercially successful access control policy testing product that improves access control policy testing (minimizes error potential, faster, more usable, more efficient). A-ACPTS Phase 2 extends ACPT through a number of innovations that improve testing beyond th ...

The aquaculture industry lags in genetically based selective breeding programs when compared to terrestrial commercial crops. This aggravates the United States’ (U.S.) $11 billion dollar seafood deficit, puts U.S. aquaculture entrepreneurs at an early disadvantage for success, and increases risk of bivalve crop degradation from climate change. Heterosis in bivalve crops, the phenomenon in which ...

The pH of the global ocean is becoming more acidic as a consequence of oceanic absorption of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This process, termed “ocean acidification” (OA), will likely affect the aquaculture of marine shellfish. Maintaining current levels of commercial mollusc production will require the identification and commercialization of resilient seedstock. Through Phase I r ...

NOAA seeks to characterize the impact of severe weather on coastal areas with a cost-effective, responsive multi-mission sensor system. In response Areté Associates proposes a conceptual design for an affordable, responsive, compact airborne sensor system called “Coastal Eyes” which will rapidly provide land and surface water topography, surface current, debris and storm surge mapping over wi ...

The bloom-forming algae Karenia brevis produces neurotoxins known as brevetoxins (PbTx) that can cause illness in humans and marine wildlife. During K. brevis blooms, also known as red tides, elevated levels of brevetoxins have been linked to massive bird, fish, and marine mammal kills. In addition, human consumption of brevetoxin contaminated shellfish leads to neurotoxic shellfish poisoning. The ...

Using a novel concept for humidity control, based on a proprietary saturated air source, MAC will construct and evaluate a prototype of an environmental chamber for use with NIST’s SPHERE UV source, in weathering or other UV degradation studies. The chamber will interface to the exit ports of the SPHERE, maintaining the material coupons, mounted in a standardized sample holder, at a programmed t ...

Toyon proposes to develop a system that can automatically count the number of gray whales that pass nearby a shore-based installation. The system will be comprised of infrared cameras and a set of computers, which automatically scan the video for whale blows. We have implemented and tested such an algorithm using Matlab during Phase I and we propose to extend this algorithm to run in real time dur ...

The goal of the Phase II project is to develop a prototype of the Marine Acoustic Propagation System (MAPS). MAPS is a computer system designed in a client-server archi9tecture that provides NOAA marine scientists, who do not have an extensive background in underwater acoustics, with a tool that selects the appropriate acoustic model for estimating underwater propagation loss for anthropogenic no ...

Technology research and development in such areas as next-generation atomic clocks, quantum information processing with trapped ions, and atomic spectroscopy is impeded by the lack of commercially available laser sources that meet the required specifications of wavelength tuning range, output power, frequency-stability and reliability. Arete Associates is developing frequency-stable Optically Pump ...