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Phase I research proved the feasibility of EnerTech's Slurry Carbonization technology for economically producing clean and marketable fuels from high-moisture agricultural residues and wastes, especially animal manures. The Slury Carbonization technology effectively transformed low-grade animal residues, through a moderate temperature and pressure carbonization process, into a uniform and especial ...

Jewelweed has a long history of medicinal use in treatment of poison ivy and other itchingconditions. There is evidence that jewelweed is as effective as currently available systemicsteroids, and that it causes fewer side effects.Commercial development of jewelweed-based skin care products, however, is limited byjewelweed's inconsistent results when applied to affected skin. The inconsistency ap ...

This research proposes development of a low-cost, Wide Area Differential GPS (WADGPS) capability utilizing a dense network of multiple reference receivers (RR). The research will focus on determination of possible resolution with the dense network of reference receivers as applied to precision farming applications. "Resolution" is defined as repeatability vs. accuracy at a location once a Differ ...

Water quality and soil erosion are high priority issues for U.S. agriculture. In more humid areas of theU.S., vegetation filter strips have proven to be an effective method of reducing erosion and improvingwater quality. Filter strips are less effective in the West due to sparser vegetation and more variablerainfall. In addition, establishment of vegetation is more difficult in many western wat ...

This project is designed to investigate an innovative remotely delivered needle-less controlled release implant to provide antimicrobial (ceftiofur) therapy to calves with bovine respiratory disease complex. Bovine respiratory disease complex is the most economically important (an economic impact of $624 million in 1992) infectious disease of calves in North American feedlots. Although antimicro ...

Insect pests are annually responsible for multi-million dollar grain losses. A promising detectionsystem is the ARS-developed Acoustic Location Fingerprinting Insect Detector (ALFID) which countsinsects in a grain sample by pinpointing sounds from individual adult and larval (potentially the mostdestructive in wheat) stages. The low-cost piezo-electric microphones currently used are sufficiently ...

Current designs for rural safety mailboxes combined with a lack of safety design regulations, produce a hazardous situation for errant rural motorists. When impacted, rural mailboxes have been shown to dislodge from their posts and penetrate automobile windshields. In addition, rural residents are faced with a constant maintenance problem from winter snow plows, vandals, and vehicle impacts. A ...

Simulation models that replicate the dynamics of rural growth and decline would provide aninvaluable analytical tool for rural leaders, program administrators, educators and communityprofessionals. A Rural Community Modeler (RCM) was developed in a previous Phase I effortusing the system dynamics methodology to interrelate social, educational, economic,demographic, environmental and agricultural ...

A major problem in the hardwood lumber industry is the loss of production as the result of theformation of splits, checks, or ring failure during kiln drying. A primary cause of these drying defectsis the degradation of the green lumber as a result of bacterial infection. The optimum drying scheduleis dependent on the initial quality of the green lumber. Unfortunately, it is currently not possi ...