2018 Accelerator Grant

Design of Floating Wind Turbine Concrete Hull

PI: Anthony Viselli (Advanced Structures and Composites Center, UMaine) Abstract: The RRF funding will be used to complete final design engineering efforts of two VolturnUS floating concrete hulls that support 6MW offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind is Maine’s largest untapped renewable resource with 156 GW of capacity within 50 miles of shore. Floating turbine technology […]

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Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Peripheral Neuropathy

PI: Townsend, Kristy Abstract: We propose the creation and commercialization of a transdermal, microelectrode array for measuring nerve conduction of free nerve endings in the skin during the progression to diabetic neuropathy, in order to provide earlier and non-invasive detection and diagnosis; as well creation of an accompanying microneedle device for subdermal drug delivery using […]

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Investing in Maine’s future forest with high-value, low-cost geoinformatics

PI: Simons-Legaard, Erin Abstract: The forest products industry contributes nearly $8.5 billion annually to Maine’s economy, and by some estimates this contribution could more than double with value-added processing, biodiversity offsets, forest carbon trading, and other ecosystem service credits. Realization of this potential will require adaptation of forest management strategies. Forest managers in Maine have […]

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Patterned Release Paper Microfluidics as a Platform Technology in Biomedical Applications: Customer Discovery

PI: Howell, Caitlin Abstract: The purpose of this project is to identify and contact potential customers to explore and identify the most promising pathway(s) to the integration of release-paper microfluidic platforms into current and future point-of-care (POC) medical diagnostic devices. An ongoing industry-university collaboration between the Release Paper Group at Sappi North America and the […]

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Bee Hive Activity Monitoring System: Phase 2

PI: Emanetoglu, Nuri Abstract: A Doppler radar based bee activity monitor has been developed, which is placed closed to the hive entrance, without disturbing the bees. Based on a 10.5 GHz motion detector, the unit measures the total energy in the return signal due to Doppler signals from flying bees and records it. The activity […]

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RRF Phase II Acceleration of beverage spoilage yeast test to market

Principal Investigator: Connell, Laurie Partners: Maine Technology Institute Abstract: Our handheld, point-of-use (POU) instrument will provide the only near-instantaneous solution to detect certain environmental microbes from complex matrices with minimal sample preparation. The system is based on prior-art developed at UMaine funded through Federal, State, and Private sources. The initial target application is the detection […]

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