Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health conducts activities to assure safe and healthful conditions for American workers. The mining industry presents particularly challenging safety and health needs. In particular, miners are continuously exposed to methane, carbon monoxide, diesel fumes and particulate matter, and dust. At low concentration ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Distraction Osteogenesis is becoming the preferred method to obtain the skeletal expansion necessary to correct congenital and acquired craniomaxillofacial deformities. The procedure consists of an osteotomy at the expansion site and a mechanical device to separate the resulting segments at 1mm/day. Natural osteogenic processes produce new bone to fill the exp ...

Measurement of the ratio of the concentrations of the stable isotopologues of CO2 in the atmosphere can provide new understanding of the dynamics of CO2 exchange between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems. On the local scale, such measurements enable the study of the net ecosystem exchange of CO2. On larger, continental-to-global scales, isotopically resolved concentration measurements of ...

Precise measurements of CO2 are important to carbon cycle studies and global warming research, especially with respect to the characterization of sources and sinks. New, miniaturized and low cost instrumentation is required to make measurements of the vertical concentration profiles of CO2 from balloons and small unmanned aircraft. This project will design and develop a new sensor for high preci ...

Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries are used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). In order to increase automobile market share, NiMH costs need to decrease by providing a higher energy density and longer lifetimes. This project will develop a non-fracturing, low-cost, TiMn2 metal hydride negative electrode material. The proposed protective coating on the TiMn2 electrode particles will enable ce ...

In order to meet the objectives of the U.S. contribution toward diagnostics on the ITER fusion reactor, which is being built by an international team, the CO2 laser frequency doubler must achieve a significantly higher conversion efficiency, in order to enable very low noise operation of the sensing interferometer. This project will develop nonlinear optical (NLO) orientation-patterned gallium ar ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) is a rapid and cost-effective procedure that uses a syringe to sample fluid from a cyst or remove clusters of cells from a solid mass for diagnostic purposes. The effectiveness of FNAB is operator-dependent and the diagnostic yield could be low, especially for adipose- rich tissue and masses where the percentage of non-diagn ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal addresses a need for an improved technology for both diagnosis and treatment of patients with cystic neoplasms of the pancreas. Currently, endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) technology is used as a first line of diagnosis for pancreatic lesions. However, the complex regional anatomy of the pancreas and the very difficult ...

N/A

The major goal of cancer proteomics is detection and identification of human tumors based on 'protein signatures' characteristic for different malignancies, Early tumor detection is critical for effective treatment and patient survival. Simultaneous identification of multiple cancer specific protein biomarkers in body fluids would dramatically increase specificity and accuracy of cancer detection ...