UM Inventions of the Year

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The development of a new kind of software with applications for video surveillance, health care monitoring and animation, the discovery of an organism for use in bio-ethanol production, and the creation of a method for making artificial micro machines are the winners of the University of Maryland's 20th Annual Invention of the Year Awards, presented on Wednesday, April 19, by the university's Office of Technology Commercialization.

The winners were announced at an afternoon reception, which was attended by over 120 members of the university and business communities at the University of Maryland Golf Course. The reception honored inventors who disclosed new technologies to the university in 2006.

The awards are presented annually to honor outstanding inventions and inventors from the previous year. Each year, an independent panel of judges made up of University of Maryland personnel and industry experts select the winners from groups of finalists in each of three categories: information science, life science and physical science. The winners are chosen based on the creativity, novelty and potential benefit to society of their inventions.

The Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) at the University of Maryland was established in 1986 to facilitate the transfer of information, life and physical science inventions developed at the university to business and industry. In the past 20 years, the University of Maryland's Office of Technology Commercialization has: recorded more than 1,660 invention disclosures; secured more than 300 U.S. patents; licensed more than 785 technologies to business; signed more than 600 license agreements; generated more than $25.4 million in technology transfer income; and assisted in the creation of more than 50 high-tech start-up companies founded on the basis of technologies developed at the university. Of the 32 start-up companies founded in the last five fiscal years (FY 2002-FY 2006). 26 are located in Maryland.

This year's winners:

Information Science

Researchers at the University of Maryland model the human body as a set of super-quadrics, or three-dimensional objects, that are connected in an articulated structure and propose algorithms to estimate the parameters of the model from video sequences. Tracking algorithms have been generated that use this model to track human pose. The tracker estimates articulated human motion using multiple cues that combine both spatial and temporal information in a novel manner. Results have been obtained using data collected from eight to sixteen cameras. The emphasis of the work is on models and algorithms that are able to scale with respect to the requirement for accuracy. The software finds use in sports instruction (ones golf swing), homeland security, motion picture animation and simulation, patient rehabilitation, etc.

The ultimate objective is to build an end-to-end system that can integrate the above mentioned components into a completely automated markerless motion capture system. This technology is currently licensed in the field of sports.

A U.S. patent application is pending.

Runners up:

OASYS Version 1.0, by Venkatramanan Siva Subrahmanian, Diego Recupero Reforgiato, Antonio Picariello, Bonnie J. Dorr, Carmine Cesarano, Amelia Sagoff

Saliency-Guided Visual Enhancement, by Amitabh Varshney, Youngmin Kim

****

Life Science

The major complex polysaccharide found in plant cell walls is cellulose, the most abundant organic material found on the planet. Because of its structural complexity, plant cell wall degradation often requires several microorganisms working together.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have identified a complete plant cell wall degrading system in a marine bacterium. This organism produces a greater variety of plant wall carbohydrases than any other known aerobe. It has the ability to process a variety of materials, including Avicel, filter paper, phosphoric acid-swollen cellulose, carboxymethyl cellulose and xylan, among others, as a sole source of carbon and energy to glucose. The system also is able to completely saccharify whole plant material such as Spartina, a saltmarsh cordgrass.

This extreme ability to saccharify lignocellulosic material can be used as part of the bio-ethanol production process. The application and uses of ethanol produced from cellulosic material are enormous.

The technology is exclusively licensed to a University of Maryland spin-out company based in College Park, Maryland. A U.S. patent application is pending.

Runners up:

A Guard Cell-Specific Tool for Molecular Manipulation of Drought Tolerance/Water Loss in Plants, by Heven Sze, Senthilkumar Padmanaban, June Kwak

Genetic Polymorphisms Associated with Body Fat, by Tom E. Porter, Michael Muchow

****

Physical Science

There is an increasing drive toward miniaturization of scientific and technological devices. Thus far, the micro technology of these minute structures uses silicon as the major construction material, thereby limiting its potential applications. Also, current fabrication methods of 3-D microfluidic devices or micro technology require that the system be built one layer at a time with a delicate registration step for each step of the fabrication process. This makes the procedure very difficult and economically inefficient.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a method that not only incorporates a broad range of materials, including metal, but also makes these micro machines in large quantities and in a single step. The method involves generating a single master structure that can then be used to create unlimited copies of molds. This will economically allow the creation of a new generation of sensors, actuators and other devices.

Presently, uses of these micro machines are included in the deployment of airbags and cell phone functions. The inexpensive fabrications of multiple micro machines will expand and enable their use in many applications in scientific and biomedical instrumentation and consumer devices as well. A U.S. patent application is pending.

Runners up:

Integrating Sensor Monitoring the Allowable Heat Exposure Time for Firefighters, by Marino DiMarzo, Amr M. Baz

Transient Liquid Phase High Temperature Solder Paste Attach, by F. Patrick McCluskey, Pedro Quintero

Media Contacts: Dan Lamothe
Communications Assistant
Office of Technology Commercialization
University of Maryland
(301) 405-3947, dlamothe@umd.edu

or

Lee Tune
University Communications
University of Maryland
301-405-4679, ltune@umd.edu