Award Data

The purpose of this Phase II SBIR project is to improve technical capabilities and develop commercial products that record spoken conversations in a privacy-protecting manner. The primary aim is to support the homeland security mission with solutions that enable more effective law enforcement while simultaneously protecting the privacy and civil liberties of individuals. A secondary aim is to pu ...

AOSense proposes to develop a cold-atom gravity gradiometer for nonintrusive, passive detection of shielded special nuclear material (SNM) within a human occupied vehicle. Both SNM and SNM shielding consist of high-Z materials that are substantially denser than background. Theoretical studies have demonstrated the efficacy of gravity tomography for identification of shielded SNM. The proposed g ...

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 ...

The long-term objective is to develop a rare variant (SNPs) detection pipeline, based on high throughput sequencing (HTS) and advanced bioinformatics, with the goal of detecting mutations present in ratio as low as 1:1000. To achieve this goal, we propose to: (1) Develop statistical and computational approaches to evaluate the effects of sequencing platform, target genome, and mapping algorithm o ...

This SLI proposal for development of a Multisensor Wand, which we designated the MultiFunction Wand, describes a carefully planned program to reach the overarching objective of providing a sound design concept that will address the vital need for a Handheld Multisensor tool to improve the checkpoint screeners ability to quickly make a judgment call on whether someone is concealing illicit objects ...