Award Data

he contamination of shellfish with marine toxins produced during Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB)have become an increasingly common occurrence near U.S. shores. Consumption of contaminatedshellfish causes serious nervous and intestinal system illnesses which often require hospitalizationand fishing closures. The only way to minimize the risk to the consumer is to ensure that theshellfish product does no ...

Distributed wind turbines present an opportunity for rural end-users to significantly reduce theirexposure to high and volatile electricity prices while increasing their electric security. The criticalproblems that limit the deployment of distributed wind turbines particularly small-scale systemsless than 100kW are fundamental inabilities to compete on cost with other sources of generationand achi ...

We propose an innovative robotic technology to tap slash pine trees and collect their oleoresinfor processing using an unmanned fully autonomous long-range robotic forest rover as part ofthe strategy to revive the dormant turpentine industry in the Southeastern United States. Thisintegrated system will replace the labor-intensive work of collecting slash pine oleoresin.The objectives of this Phase ...

BUILDERS Classroom represents a revolutionary and transformative advance for teachingK12 students crucial skills for Computer Aided Design (CAD) spatial cognition modeling andComputational Thinking (CT).BlocksCAD Inc. will leverage the widely popular BlocksCADsoftware to create BUILDERS Classroom. BUILDERS Classroom supports Topic Area 8.6 -Rural and Community Development - with a focus on improvi ...

The east coast of the United States has a prospering and growing shellfish aquaculture industry withover 1000 small farms producing $45 million annually in dockside revenue. However there arecurrently no marine finfish aquaculture operations outside of limited salmon operations in the stateof Maine. This is partially due to difficulty in securing permits for finfish operations and partiallydue to ...

In the U.S. small and mid-size farms account for 78% of the beef cattle industry's $29.5B in annual sales. Unlike large producers who commonly develop and utilize comprehensive marketing plans most small and mid-size producers do not work to optimize their production and marketing strategies. In short smaller producers must view the expected benefits of such actions as not exceeding their expected ...

With over a trillion cups of caffeinated beverages consumed each year caffeine is arguably theworld's most frequently consumed stimulant. Caffeine is widely used to enhance athleticperformance body composition pain relief and mental acuity. Naturally caffeinated beveragesinclude coffee black and green tea cola cocoa guarana yerba mat© and Yaupon tea.According to the Tea Association of the USA tea ...

Despite an extensive system of inspections and regulatory requirements for good sanitarypractices food poisoning due to bacterial contamination remains a significant issue. Manydifferent disease-causing microbes or pathogens can contaminate foods and lead to foodborneillnesses. Every year as many as one in six Americans experiences a foodborne illness. There isan ongoing need in the food industry ...

The Precision Targeting High Accuracy Mortar Fire Control System (HAM-FCSt) is a sensor suite and ballistic solution providing equipment that is mounted to the mortar tube and provides the user with real-time critical system information on the fire solution. The intuitive user controls and display system allow the user to focus on the employment of the mortar system and less on the positioning and ...

There exists a challenge in observing laser designated targets in full daylight conditions for currently fielded near-infrared (NIR) laser designators. The visibility difficulty arises primarily from the significant background signal produced by the sun, which closely mimics the spectral signature of a blackbody . By extending the wavelength region in which laser designators/markers operate into t ...