Vol. 17, No. 29	April 30, 1998

UDRF announces 14 award recipients for 1998-99

The University of Delaware Research Foundation has announced 14 awards for 1998-99 totaling $406,390.

According to Provost Mel Schiavelli, this is a significant increase of more than $76,000 in awards over last year, and the largest ever grant from UDRF.

"It is a superb vote of confidence in our faculty," he said.

Established in 1942 as the Haskell Research Associates, the foundation supports fundamental research in all fields of science and engineering and focuses on assisting junior faculty in research projects in promising areas. The awards are determined by a committee representing area industries.

The 14 award recipients are

• Kenneth Barner, electrical and computer engineering, "Interference Cancellation for Non-invasive Extraction of Transabdominal Fetal Electroencephalography," $28,287;

• Daniel K. Cha, civil and environmental engineering, "Fatty Acid Analysis for Monitoring Microbial Communities in Wastewater Treatment Processes," $29,610;

• Melinda K. Duncan, biological sciences, "Expression and Association of B-Crystallin Subunits," $30,000;

• Yan Jin, plant and soil sciences, "Study of Transport of Dense Organic Vapor Released from Non-aqueous-phase Liquids in Subsurface Soil," $29,786;

• Ashfaq A. Khokhar, electrical and computer engineering, "Communication-efficient Techniques for Progressive Transmission of Images on Lossy Networks," $30,000;

• Mary Ann McLean, medical technology, "Molecular Basis for Disintegrin Selectivity and Potency with Integrin Receptors," $30,000;

• Colin Phillips, linguistics, "Biomagnetic Studies of Speech Processing," $29,850;

• Pamela Plotkin, entomology and applied ecology, "Fitness Consequences of Divergent Reproductive Behavior," $29,484;

• Dennis W. Prather, electrical and computer engineering, "Development of Vector-based Design Techniques for Diffractive Optical Elements," $30,000;

• Carl Schmidt, animal and food sciences, "Subcellular Localization of Marek's Disease Virus with Green Fluorescent Protein," $29,570;

• Allan Shapiro, plant and soil sciences, "Identification of Disease Resistance Signaling Genes through Suppression of ndr1-1," $30,000;

• Mark VanGessel, plant and soil sciences, "Influence of Poultry Litter on Early-season Weed Growth," $29,056;

• Xiang-Gen Xia, electrical and computer engineering, "Modulated Coding: A New Wireless Digital Communication System," $30,000; and

• Qing Xiang, mathematical sciences, "Hadamard Matrices, Difference Sets and Codes," $20,747.