Award Data

An important problem facing rural America is the lack of job opportunities. This is particularly true in much of the arid southwestern U.S. These rural communities have little that they can export into commodity priced markets. Hence, this region has among the highest incidence (% of county population) of poverty in the U.S. Yet, the southwestern U.S. has abundant solar energy which could provide ...

Unregulated dioxin-like polybrominated diphenyl ether - PBDE, in particular PentaBDE commonly used as a fire retardants in furniture foam and plastic consumer goods are spreading rapidly in the environment with levels in the human system doubling every 5 years. While many European countries have already banned the use of PentaDBE in foams, there is a growing public demand in the USA to replace th ...

Surface water quality impacts associated with intensive, largescale poultry production are significant and pervasive in many parts of the country. Production Specialities, Inc. (PSI) has developed process technology for converting waste (poultry litter and manure) into commercial eneefty and chemical products. While major technical problems have been successfully resolved, economic perforamcne o ...

The short read range of current cattle electronic identification ear tags threatens to hinder the widespread adoption and utility of the USDA-developed National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Tag readers that require placement within inches of an animal's ear in order to read the NAIS number introduce obstacles at various points in the beef production cycle. This project will determine if be ...

Surface water quality impacts associated with intensive, large-scale poultry production are significant and pervasive in many parts of the country. Production Specialties, Inc. has developed process technology for converting waste (poultry litter and manure) into commercial energy and chemical products. Although major technical problems have been successfully resolved, economic perfo ...

Unregulated dioxin-like polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), in particular pentaBDE, commonly used as a fire retardant in furniture foam and plastic consumer goods, is spreading rapidly in the environment with levels in the human system doubling every 5 years. Although many European countries already have banned the use of pentaDBE in foams, there is a growing public demand in the ...

The use of sub-therapeutic concentrations of anti-microbial agents in animal feed has contributed to theproductivity of the U.S. meat and dairy industries by preventing infectious diseases, by decreasing theamount of feed required and by increasing the rate of animal weight gain. However, failure to observerecommended practices of drug withdrawal can result in concentrations of antibiotic residue ...

The use of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect contaminants such as solvents, fuels, and pesticides in soil and water samples is now well established. Although ELISA and related methods can facilitate analysis of samples, several washing and separation steps are involved that require 30 to 120 minutes per sample to reach equilibrium. Recently, near infrared fluorescence immunoassa ...

The ready-to-assemble (RTA) construction system is a new method for assembling wood structuresbuilt from the following engineered wood products: parallel strand lumber (PSL), laminated strandlumber (LSL), and laminated veneer lumber (LVL). The RTA system is designed for rapid assemblyby small crews of unskilled labor using common hand tools. The design of the RTA systemincorporates engineered w ...

Equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) is a retrovirus that causes a chronic infection in horses. In theabsence of a vaccine, the control of this disease depends on the diagnosis and elimination of infectedhorses. Currently approved diagnostic procedures utilize agar gel diffusion (AGID), or enzyme-linkedimmunosorbant (ELISA) methodologies to detect antibodies against the virus in horse sera as e ...