Award Data

The accurate identification of seafood species and origin has become an extremely important topic in the food industry. Mislabeling a lower valued seafood product to represent a species of higher value constitute economic fraud. In addition, this mislabeling compromises proper geographic origin labeling and fishery management efforts. DNA barcoding for seafood species identification provides re ...

NOAA has identified a problem with the display and usability of satellite imagery on NWS websites. This proposal provides analysis of the feasibility and usability of a proposed system to address this concern. Our goal in the project is to create a heuristically sound conceptual design and tool set for display and interaction with satellite imagery on the NWS site. The project will also explore ...

To build a climate-smart and resilient nation, we need to foster a climate-literate public that understands its vulnerabilities to a changing climate and makes informed decisions. A core component of this challenge is to develop simple, intuitive and high-impact visualizations of climate data--data that is and will be made available through the President’s Climate Data Initiative--for education ...

In this project, researchers will evaluate the potential for utilizing biofuel co-products for high value biobased materials. The two key biobased materials that will be investigated are glycerol carbonate and sucrose esters. The goal of the project is to develop commercially viable, energy efficient routes for these biobased materials using enzymatic catalysis and solvent free conditions. Glycero ...

Sturgeons have very high potential to become an important and profitable aquaculture species in the US, as males are grown for meat and brood stock and female sturgeon are primarily raised for their eggs (caviar). In fact, sturgeon caviar is the highest-valued aquaculture product worldwide, selling for $104 - $250 per 50 grams (depending on the quality). One 60 kg adult female can produce approxim ...

A safe food supply is critical to the well being of any society. However, in highly urbanized societies, the number of people affected by a contaminated food source can be huge. Antibiotic resistant disease in the U.S. is an escalating problem [2, 3]. Much of this problem is a result of the use of antibiotics in production animals, where they prevent disease. Chronic use results in the emergence o ...

Strawberries are the 2nd largest non-citrus fruit crop in the U.S., trailing grapes and surpassing apples (USDA 2012). With strawberries harvested for processing (as a value-added food ingredient), the calyx (the stem cap with green crown leaves) must be removed to avoid having inedible leaves in the food product. The current in-field labor intensive de-capping process using cutting tools risks fi ...

Well over 50 % of US land area constitutes low wind-speed sites, yet current wind turbines are not effective in low winds. To extract significantly more energy from such DOE Class 1 or Class 2 wind sites requires substantially increasing turbine blade rotor diameter (wind power is proportional to the square of the blade diameter).Recently, we have successfully demonstrated advanced low-RPM generat ...

Lameness in dairy cows is a growing and severe problem. Current methods to detect lameness are inadequate for all but the smallest herds and suffer from high levels of subjectivity. At this point, no device is able to constantly monitor dairy cows for lameness using an automated, non-invasive, objective method.The 3D StepMetrix system being validated in Phase II will correctly identify sound and l ...