• Titanium Boride Surface Hardening, U.: Commercializing harder, longer-lived components and devices — ranging from armor to bearings and orthopedic implants — for the military, biomedical and industrial markets.

The companion spinout companies receiving Centers funding are:

• Flying Sensors: A spinout from Miniature Unmanned Air Vehicles, it is developing commercial applications for such vehicles.

• Glycosan Biosciences: A spinout commercializing the compounds from Therapeutic Biomaterials for 3-D cell culture, tissue engineering, drug toxicity testing and skin care.

Those assigned a business team for 2006-07 are:

• Cell Therapy, U.: Capabilities to build a "bank" for stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood (so-called "cord blood"), which can be used for many clinical applications in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

• Electronic Mathematics Education, eMath@USU: Creation and worldwide dissemination of dynamic, computer-based instruction software for K-16 mathematics, including the award-winning National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.

• MIMO Communications System, U.: New algorithms for signal detection and reception that significantly improve the performance and throughput of multiple-input multiple-output wireless communication systems. The developed algorithms offer low complexity and near optimal performance, and are adaptable to any standard.

• Solar Biofuels Technology, USU: Developing a solar-powered photobioreactor using minimal land and water resources to efficiently grow high-oil-content microalgae as a feedstock for biofuels such as biodiesel.

• Universal Application System, USU: Commercialization of a Web-based system that processes applications for multiple agencies in the government services industry.