Award Data

Diversifying and Adding Value to the Food Industry: Mealworm Powder as an IngredientThe goal of this SBIR effort is to begin diversifying the insects as a food market currently valued at $105M and growing to $1.53 billion by 2021. Currently, crickets have been the primary focus of the market, but mealworms offer a strong alternative. To become competitive in the larger protein market, the insect b ...

In recent years, consumer's concerns over hen well-being in conventional small wire cages (called battery cages) has resulted in some of the poultry farms to switch to cage-free housing where hens have freedom to walk around spread their wings, and lay their eggs in real nest boxes. This push towards cage-free egg production was further magnified in 2015 when many of the large fast food, resta ...

Hydropower is now increasingly operated outside of original design conditions due to changing water availability and environmental induced operating parameters. Fifty percent of operational hydroelectric dams in the United States are 50 years or older and nearly all were designed to operate steadily as a primary base load resource. Compounding these issues is the increasing prevalence of intermitt ...

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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 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 ...

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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 ...

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PREDICTING THE RATE OF SOIL WATER MOVEMENT AND THE IMPACT OFAGRI-CHEMICALS ON WATER RESOURCES IS VITALLY IMPORTANT TO MANAGING AGRICULTURE, FOR OPTIMIZING PRODUCTIVITY AND MINIMIZING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT. SOPHISTICATED MODELS FOR MAKING SUCH PREDICTIONS ARE AVAILABLE, BUT DATA ON SOIL HYDRAULIC PROPERTIES ARE DIFFICULT AND OFTEN EXPENSIVE TO OBTAIN. IN FACT, AT DEPTHS BELOW THE ROOT ZONE THERE IS ...