Award Data

Opportunity: Guayule, a US native plant, is the only alternate rubber crop with an established, mechanized, agronomic system. Problem: Low rubber yields and lack of effective resin and bagasse coproduct valorization, have prevented widespread adoption by American farmers and processors. Rubber is only made when the cytoplasmic monomer pool (isopentenyl-pyrophosphate; IPP) is larger than that requi ...

Methods for interconversion between cell types (cellular reprogramming) are currently discovered through resource intensive trial and error. Experiments may test a multitude of transcription factors to identify correct combinations that influence cell fate. In addition, reprogramming approaches commonly use stem cell intermediates such as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are generated ...

The objective of this proposal is to examine the feasibility of defining and measuring key dimensions of an urban system to include its essential functions and networks, and whether they can be modelled in a computational framework for assessing robustness and resilience of DUTs (and their tipping points) under conditions of volatility and stress. This proposal will conduct a comprehensive review ...

Traumatic injuries account for 30% of all life years lost in the US and is the leading cause of death for people under 46 years of age. Uncontrolled bleeding or hemorrhage constitute 30-40% of trauma related deaths and are considered to be a major cause o

The prolific nature of Advanced Battlefield and Ground surveillance radar (BSR/GSR) in military markets is driving the need to develop new methods of reducing infantry forces’ radar cross section (RCS) in effort to avoid detection and more freely move throughout the battlespace. One approach to combat the growing threat of BSR/GSR surveillance is through the development of advanced textiles that ...

ABSTRACT: In this Phase I STTR project, we propose to demonstrate the feasibility of developing a low cost, compact, time-domain terahertz (TD-THz) spectrometer specifically for the characterization of semiconductor materials over a range of temperatures, electric fields, and magnetic fields. In phase I, we will configure fiber optic coupled TD-THz instrumentation to make measurements on a sampl ...

Approximately 5-6% of military injuries involve some form of major peripheral nerve injury with little chance of spontaneous healing. Currently these injuries lead to major impairment of voluntary muscle function in the limbs and extremities, making tasks of walking, reaching, grasping, etc. very difficult or impossible for many patients. It is not enough to focus therapeutic treatment on the se ...

This proposal is in response to the Defense Health Agency 2017 Phase I SBIR topic 17B-005.The approach is the use of a membrane oxygen pump using newly developed nano-thickness membranes with all the layers less than 1 micron total.Nanometer thickness membranes enable more oxygen output per surface area at temperatures of 300-600 C than current state-of-the -art 600-800 C membranes that are 50-300 ...

Legacy satellite command and control capabilities and their related telemetry operate in a largely stove piped framework. Satellites are still commanded, controlled, and communicated with their ground station in a specific constellation structure. Each ground station is unique to a given constellation and the communications and telemetry are aligned to the specific constellation, underscoring an o ...

NDI of composite Pi/T-Joints presents significant challenges to existing inspection technologies resulting in a barrier to implementation in production. We will investigate feasibility of developing an active thermography NDI solution for real-world inspection of composite structures with T / Pi- joints during the manufacturing process (both green and cured states). Based on the extensive experien ...