Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering - (Archive)

ABE Weekly Newsletter for October and November

Koziel and Hoff Featured in Nature News

Dr. Jacek Koziel and Dr. Steven Hoff have been featured in Nature publication.

From Nature.com:

"Hooking yourself up to Jacek Koziel's olfactometer is a little like having a photo album of your childhood shoved in your face. It can be offensive, sometimes painful, yet distinctly nostalgic.

Seated in Koziel's Iowa State University laboratory in Ames — with my eyes closed, and my ears covered by soundproof headphones to isolate the sense of smell — a glass cup over my nose delivers an olfactory slide show. The scents come at regular intervals. Some are strong, some less so. My job is to categorize them on a screen in front of me."

Read the full article here.

 

ABE Researchers Developing Wireless Soil Sensors to Improve Farming

Dr. Stuart Birrell, Dr. Amy Kaleita, and ABE graduate students are featured in an article on developing soil sensors:

AMES, Iowa -- Ratnesh Kumar keeps his prototype soil sensors buried in a box under his desk. He hopes that one day farmers will be burying the devices under their crops.

Kumar is leading an Iowa State University research team that's developing transceivers and sensors designed to collect and send data about soil moisture within a field. Eventually the researchers are hoping the sensors will also collect data about soil temperature and nutrient content.

Read the full article.

 

Dr. Tang: System to Find Contaminated Corn Kernels

Dr. Lie Tang has been working on an automatic inspection system for corn kernels that can rapidly find bacteria and fungi contamination that is harmful to both humans and animals. The machine uses ultraviolet light to excite the dried and harvested corn kernels to generate fluorescence images for hyperspectral analysis.

The project is called Fluorescence Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imaging for Food and Biological Material Inspection, and is funded by the Institute for Technology Development, MS.

The machine takes images of the kernels as they travel down a conveyor belt in an enclosed box, taking images in 15 different wavelengths to get a comprehensive image of the kernels. The conveyor belt moves slowly and stops at a constant distance interval for the camera to take the images, and an apparatus gently vibrates the kernels so they lay flat and evenly across the belt.

ABE graduate student Jian Jin has helped Dr. Tang on this project, working on algorithms and the applied computational intelligence used in the machine. The project also utilizes image processing techniques to analyze the kernels.

 

ABE Leads Sustainable Development Efforts

Recent years have witnessed wide publicity of a variety of global sustainability issues reaching across political and natural borders. While some of these challenges have been around for decades, recent renewed interest has brought them to the forefront of societal importance. For example, this past year's increases in food prices and food shortages have highlighted the pervasive issue of global poverty, and recent flooding and droughts in the United States and tsunamis in Asia have led to renewed emphases in ecosystem services and water supply issues. Dismal statistics about our current global situation and ominous forecasts about our future can be heard or read on a daily basis in nearly all media news outlets. The good news? The time has never been more appropriate for agricultural and biological engineers to play a leading role in problem-solving on the global stage.

Read the full article.

 

Final Oral

Student name: Melissa Montalbo-Lomboy
Major professor: Dr David Grewell
Degree seeking: PhD
Schedule for oral: October 31, 2008 (Friday) at 2pm
Location of the oral: CCUR conference room # 1053 (Food Science building)
Topic of research: “Ultrasonic pretreatment for enhanced saccharification and fermentation in ethanol production from corn”

Recent Publications

Isci, A., P.T. Murphy, R.P. Anex, K.J. Moore. A Rapid Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF) Technique to Determine Ethanol Yields. BioEnergy Research, published on-line 30 July 2008.

Isci, A., J. N. Himmelsbach, J. Strohl, A. L. Pometto III, D. R. Raman, R. P. Anex. Pilot scale fermentation of aqueous ammonia soaked switchgrass. Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology, published online 21 August 2008.