Award Data

By 2020, fully one quarter of Americans will be over 60. Some 77 million Baby Boomers ages 42 to 60 are just beginning to face this critical juncture in their lives. In Maine, the oldest state in the nation, some people, due to lack of planning, may leave their homes and enter assisted living facilities or nursing homes at a huge economic and social cost to themselves, their heirs and public resou ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility of developing a novel lateral field excited (LFE) sensor for use as an organophosphate pesticide sensor. The technical objectives of the proposed project are: 1) to determine the selectivity to phosmet of the LFE sensor coated with polyepichlorohydrin and porous films; 2) to determine if the sensor is capable ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I grant will demonstrate the feasibility of using a Lateral Field Excited (LFE) acoustic wave sensor platform coated with a selective chemical film for the rapid in situ detection of saxitoxin (STX). Shellfish containing STX, a product of a Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) such as Red Tide, is one of the primary causes of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) i ...

The goal of this project is to investigate the feasability of a unique sampling method that will lead to the development of a reagentless infrared (IR) based BW agent detection system. The current JPBDS uses lateral flow immunoassay technology as the final step in detecting bioagents, and has a detection limit of 10^5 spores/ml[ref 1]. Preliminary data from our infrared approach indicates a mini ...

Biofouling is a costly and serious problem for all types of aquaculture and with certain types of shellfish, culture is highly vulnerable. Fouling organisms not only clog gear, stopping water flow and food delivery, they can also settle and grow on the cultured organisms themselves, causing reduced growth rates, decreased product quality and mortality. In response to increasing problems with biofo ...

The high cost of producing microalgae as food for bivalves constrains the size to which large quantities of bivalve seed can be grown in controlled hatchery conditions prior to transfer into a nursery. Larger hatchery seed translates to larger juveniles planted in the fall, and dramatically improves yields at harvest. Based on preliminary bench-top studies conducted by Mook Sea Farm, the SBIR Phas ...

To properly measure (and understand) the performance of a standoff detector, properties of the challenge cloud must be known. Meteorological models, such as HPAC and VLSTRACK, have proven to be reasonably good tools for predicting cloud properties. However, a problem with these tools is that they deliver ensemble averages and may not describe a specific cloud to the detail required. The Dugway ...

On a worldwide basis, Maine is famous for its lobster and enjoys an inherent brand equity that is unparalleled. Yet, no company has taken advantage of leveraging this perceived quality from a mass marketing perspective. In its Phase II effort, Saltwater Marketing proposes to continue developing a business model that will do exactly that. Phase I research indicated that seafood consumers want to ea ...

Stabilized plant propagation media are used throughout the agricultural industry for mechanized planting, to ease transplant and shipping of young plants and to increase efficiencies in greenhouses and nurseries. Rynels Grow-Tech division manufactures a growing medium used by foresters and commercial growers to start seeds or cuttings, but it is only partially organic due to a polyurethane compone ...

The primary objective of this effort is to design and develop a database management system (DBMS) and enable the integrated interpretation of the vast amounts of genomic and proteomic data in proper biological context. This DBMS will enable the development of diagnostic assays for human exposure to specific biological threat agents using an existing suite of systems biology tools. The DBMS design ...