Award Data

It is estimated that 220,000 people suffer cardiac arrest each year in the US, of whom only 10,000 survive to hospital discharge. The number of survivors could increase 10-fold if paramedical attention and/or defibrillation were available within a few min

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A coupling mechanism with the strength to fix a forcefully contracting muscle to a totally inert prosthesis, or to bone, would meet a serious and common need in clinical orthopaedics. We have explored a new approach t o such a coupling. The hypothesis was that a coupling prosthesis with a low-mass, high-surface configuration designed to transfer force by shea ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective is to design, build, and clinically assess a Wireless Movement Disorder Monitor (WMDM) specifically tailored to Parkinson's disease (PD). Major PD symptoms that affect quality of life include tremor, bra

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this Compact Membrane Systems (CMS) program is to develop a new platform technology for fire suppression and fire prevention systems around membrane supplied nitrogen enriched air (NEA). The limitation that the atmospheres used in the fire suppression be breathable to occupants in the proximity of a fire is easily accomplished by CMS technolog ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Industrial metabolic engineering is a method for performing strain improvement in industrial microorganisms by harnessing the power of random in vitro transposition mutagenesis. The organisms we aim to improve in this s tudy are the actinomycetes, a group of soil bacteria that are best known for their ability to produce over two thirds of the worlds naturally d ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Experimental investigations have demonstrated that the delivery of HIFU (High Intensity Focused Ultrasound) to cancerous tumors results in the release of heat shock proteins and generates a beneficial immune response. T he release of proteins into the blood as a result of HIFU therapy is further demonstrated by the spike of the serum prostate specific antigen ( ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): It has been repeatedly emphasized in various reports and workshops [1-2] that the development of better X- ray fluorescence detector systems is urgently needed to solve the saturation problems with the currently availab le detectors. The multilayer analyzer array detector (MAAD) using linearly graded multilayers has been successfully developed to handle the lar ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long term goal of this project is to develop rapid, accurate and reliable methods and test kits for iodine determination in urine. The methods and test kits must be inexpensive and easy-to-use to perform determinati ons of iodine under field conditions. Dry-reagent test strip methods for detection of iodine in urine will be developed. The test strip method ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bladder cancer is the 5th most expensive cancer in the US accounting for estimated $5.3 billion in direct medical costs in 2005. With bladder cancer patients having a 10 year survival rate of 77% and its known high rate of recurrence and progression, there is a need for the development of more sophisticated surveillance tools. Currently up to 6 random biopsies ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Image reconstruction in x-ray computer tomography (CT) scanners lags far behind the data acquisition. For example a whole-body scan using the latest 64-slice medical CT scanners, with sub-millimeter slice thickness, wh ich takes about 10 seconds to acquire, requires about 20 times as long to reconstruct. This computational lag occurs despite the use of expensi ...