It’s 6 a.m., and the Clarks awake to fresh coffee served to them by Millie, one of the family’s personal robots. As they get ready for work, Millie makes the bed, and their robotic dog Mickey gently reminds Mr. Clark to take his medicine.
Once at work, Mrs. Clark, a hospital nurse, assigns a personal robot to deliver blood samples to the lab while she talks with a patient. Meanwhile, Mr. Clark catches the morning news while his autonomous car navigates the traffic into the city.
At day’s end, the family returns to a spotlessly clean home courtesy of Millie’s untiring work. The Clark children do math homework with tutoring from Margie, another robot. After a dinner the Clarks prepared based on a menu suggested by Millie, the family enjoys the rest of the evening free from chores. They sleep soundly knowing that Mickey is always alert to any trouble.
This scenario is not a page from a lost “Jetsons”script. It’s likely to be a normal day in the life of a family in as few as 20 years from now, according to robotics experts at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Already, the global market for personal robots is growing 400 percent a year, says Professor Henrik Christensen, director of the newly formed Robotics and Intelligent Machines Center in the Georgia Tech College of Computing.
“Personal robots are becoming more popular as people want to do more and more with their lives,” Christensen says. “Technology is making it possible…We live stressful lives now, and we can use technology to take away the boring parts of everyday life.”
Robots are not novel technology in industry, the military and even space exploration. But a new generation of intelligent machines called personal robots — ones that work with and directly for humans, especially in the home, workplace and school — have begun to emerge only recently. A confluence of smart materials, low-cost, high-speed computing power, better batteries and knowledge of how humans interact with machines is creating an explosion in the market for personal robots, researchers say.
“To have a personal robot that does things you need, you have to have onboard processing, perception, motion and power,”says roboticist Tucker Balch, an associate professor in the College of Computing.“Until two or three years ago, you couldn’t put all of that on one small, light platform. Motors and computers take a lot of energy, and the batteries we had couldn’t do the job.
“Now, demand for better cell phone and laptop batteries is driving improvements,” Balch adds. “Until recently, you couldn’t get enough processing power without drawing lots of electricity. Also, robots on the market now have addressed the high power requirements of motors. Finally, we have all the technologies that can support a consumer robot that is not too expensive.”
Balch predicts that truly useful, multi-function personal robots will cost between $1,000 and $1,500. Single-purpose robots, such as the Roomba vacuum cleaner already on the market, cost between $150 and $300.
While some personal robots are already available, important research is under way to address the remaining technical and societal challenges. Georgia Tech researchers in computer science, engineering, psychology and the liberal arts are collaborating under the umbrella of the new Robotics and Intelligent Machines Center that Christensen directs. That cooperation is vital to creating the best-designed personal robots.
“If you just have computer scientists designing robots, you’re not going to build a robot that’s as good as one that could be built by computer scientists and mechanical engineers working together,” Christensen says. “We are leveraging Georgia Tech’s world-class expertise in all of these domains and want to make something that no one else in the United States is doing today.”
The center’s research agenda draws upon Georgia Tech’s long tradition of robotics study, as well as findings from an ongoing analysis of 40 Georgia companies. Christensen and Professor Steven Danyluk, who heads Georgia Tech’s Manufacturing Research Center, are identifying the problems preventing companies from integrating robots into their operations.
Solving industry and workplace problems — such as robotic robustness and perception — will lead to better robots in the home and school, researchers say.
“In our lifetimes, we will have a Rosie (of ‘Jetsons’ fame), the ultimate home assistant,”Christensen says.
Before personal robots become part of daily life, improvements are needed in personal robot software, robustness, materials, component integration, power and human-machine interaction, researchers say.
“Two key chunks of missing technology are perception and reliability, and research is focusing deeply on these issues,” Balch says.
Perception involves the processing of information from a robot’s sensors so the robot understands the outside world — at least enough to know what it should be doing.
“Robots need to be able to interpret their world,” Christensen explains. “If they go in a new environment, they need to be able to recognize, for example, a chair even though it’s a different chair from one they’ve seen before.”
From a reliability standpoint, the robot needs to be able to realize when it’s stuck and call for help. “Even better would be that it not get stuck or that it can get itself unstuck,” Balch says.
Personal robots must be robust, able to function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in a variety of environments. Their industrial counterparts already are being asked to work in an array of environments, including temperature extremes ranging from freezing to 100 degrees or more. Emerging industrial application areas, including poultry processing, require units to work 16 hours a day and also endure a daily cleanup process that employs high-pressure
water and caustic chemicals.
“Designing a robot to survive in this environment is difficult,” says Gary McMurray, a senior research engineer in the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). “You have to protect the electronics and sensors, so material selection is important. We’ll have to move away from lubricant use for robot joints, and we’ll need the right types of motors and drive systems.”
Materials used to build robots must not only protect components, but also protect the humans that interact with the machines. That requires the development of flexible materials, Christensen says.
For example, robotic arms need to be as flexible as the human arm, which won’t break easily, yet as stiff as the human arm when it lifts and pushes, he explains. An example is a lightweight robot that naturally yields when pushed upon; it is based upon Georgia Tech research and manufactured by the Atlanta company CAMotion Inc.
Another technical challenge is the integration of various products into one robotic system. Microsoft is attempting to address this problem with its new Robotics Studio operating system, though it will face competition from other companies vying to create the robotics operating system of choice, Christensen says.
Balch predicts that a standard operating system will accelerate robotics development like IBM’s PC did in the early 1980s. “Microsoft is now helping define a standard that’s not been there, and I think that companies waiting to enter the robotics marketplace now will enter it,” Balch says. “Combined with the hardware that’s available, this will be the last domino to fall.”
If component integration is the final piece of the puzzle, issues of robot power and human interaction must be addressed first. Better batteries might allow robots to operate untethered for long periods of time, says robotics expert Wayne Book, a Georgia Tech professor of mechanical engineering.
But current batteries are way below the necessary levels of operation. Alternatives are being studied in the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power funded by the National Science Foundation. In building a robot called the Compact Rescue Crawler, Book and his colleagues at Vanderbilt University are addressing the power issue by using energy generated by chemical fluids called monopropellants, such as hydrogen peroxide.
In human-robot interaction, hurdles remain in ease-of-use and communication. Balch likens the goal for personal robot ease-of-use to the simplicity of the TiVo digital video recorder interface. “It is a technology that you can give to a 70-year-old and not have to worry about helping her with it,” Balch says.
For humans to effectively communicate with personal robots, the machines need to be able to understand spoken language and gestures, Christensen says. For now, those capabilities are limited.
“The big question is, ‘How can people tell a robot what they want it to do?’” Balch says. “People need to be able to show their robot how to do something. Researchers have lots of ideas on how to do this, but the problem is not solved yet.”
One researcher in GTRI is seeking insight by focusing on opportunistic human-robotic interactions that will enable people to work with robots, rather than commanding them.
Researcher Lora Weiss is analyzing both social and mathematical networks to understand the dynamics of robot-to-robot and robot-to-human interactions. She is studying these relationships via software and assessing the larger network of dynamic interaction. Her goal is to mathematically capture how humans behave toward machines from a systems perspective.
“Within software, you can provide some intelligent automation to the bots, and then have a system of real people interacting with the machines,” Weiss says. “The software approach allows one to rapidly populate scenarios with disparate entities and evaluate the emerging and evolving behaviors of the larger system.”
Robots running amok has often been a theme of science fiction. “One of our biggest enemies is Hollywood,” Christensen says. “The view of robots that Hollywood projects is almost always negative.”
Christensen believes the public’s concern about robots running amok is unrealistic because technology developers place so much emphasis on safety.
“We have to overcome misconceptions about robots,” Christensen says. “We cannot afford one failure….We need to make robots that are cute and fun and interact socially with people, but actually help them in their everyday lives.”
In the workplace, for example, Book says convincing people that a lightweight robot can work safely hand in hand with humans, while also being durable and effective, is a more significant challenge than the technical issues.
“Once we can overcome the perception that lightweight robots are flimsy, then every industry will be happy to save money by using these robots,” Book says. “When industry starts to accept that lightweight robots can do the job, the perception problem will become a non-issue.”
To build robots that people will accept and even like, researchers draw upon studies in psychology and human-computer interaction.
“There is a general hypothesis that robots similar in appearance to what is familiar to us will ease acceptance,” Balch notes. “If you see a robot that looks and acts like a puppy, you’re going to treat it as somewhat of a subordinate, but gently. You will guide it.”
On the other end of the spectrum, there are human-looking robots. “You then expect it can do things like a person, and you’re less patient with it,” Balch says.
That raises the question of whether robots should look like humans. “The more a robot looks like a person — it’s called the uncanny valley theory — the creepier it seems to humans,” Balch explains. “If you could design a robot that truly looks like a person, people might accept it, but if it’s off target, it’s creepy.”
Challenges remain for researchers and society in assimilating personal robots into everyday life.
Opportunities exist for business, industry, schools and our lives at home. Also, questions of ethics arise, and people are likely to wrestle with these issues.
For business and industry, robots are another technology that helps countries compete in the global marketplace, says Craig Wyvill, chief of GTRI’s Food Processing Technology Division. “While industrial robotic technology continues to evolve, it is already demonstrating it can increase product quality and help companies establish themselves as leaders in their fields,” he explains. “In the process, the workforce must change to support the technology. These changes are essential to staying competitive.”
In schools, personal robots are expected to capture the attention of a new generation of computer scientists and engineers by “embedding learning in an interesting physical thing that moves around,” Balch says.
Home may become an easier and more pleasant place to live with personal robots that “take away the boring parts of life,” Christensen says.
As robots become more commonplace in people’s lives, society must address the ethical questions.
“Researchers must involve many others — such as philosophers and priests — to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between humans and machines,” Christensen says. “If we just address these issues as computer scientists and engineers, we may come up with robots that look like what Hollywood creates.”
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The pilot program began in January 2007 with about 30 students at the Georgia Institute of Technology and another 30 at its partner, Bryn Mawr College, an all-women’s school in Pennsylvania. The goal is to spark student interest in computer science as a career amid declining enrollment nationwide.
“Classic introductory computer science courses are dry,” says Tucker Balch, director of the new Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE) based at Georgia Tech. “The most exciting thing students do is print out a prime number. But if you have robots you can drive around and that makes computer science exciting and fun.”
As early as this fall, the $150 robot and a related textbook packaged together will be available in student bookstores at more than 50 U.S. universities, including Georgia State University and the University of Georgia. The program is being funded for three years with $1 million from Microsoft and another $1 million from the Georgia Tech College of Computing and Bryn Mawr.
Students taking the introductory computer science class first learn how to drive their robots in a straight line for 12 inches before making a right turn. That means they have learned how to write two lines of code. Then they discover that by executing these two lines of code three times, the robot moves along the path of a square.
“So now they have learned the first important thing in computer science: A program is a set of instructions that are executed in a certain order,” explains Balch, an associate professor in the College of Computing. “You don’t have to write the code four times; you do a loop to make it do this thing four times. Now, they have learned the second most fundamental thing. The whole time this learning is embedded in this interesting physical thing that moves around.”
Other universities are using robots teach computer science, Balch notes, but he believes Georgia Tech’s approach is better for two primary reasons. Elsewhere, students typically write a program on their computers, download it and run it on a robot. But if the robot fails to do what it’s supposed to do, the student has no idea where the program failed.
“With our concept, the program runs on a laptop, and the robot is the peripheral,” Balch explains. “The robot sends information to the laptop from its sensors. We had to create our own robots to work this way.”
The other big difference between Georgia Tech’s class and others using robots is that every Tech student gets his or her own personal robot. Elsewhere, students use expensive robots in a lab.
Georgia Tech and Bryn Mawr are able to give students their own robot by using an existing commercial robot called Scribbler™, which is sold to the universities at a discounted rate of about $55 each by Parallax. Researchers have added wireless connectivity to it, bumping the cost to $150 each. Balch believes that cost will eventually drop.
“It’s a robust robot,” Balch says. “Students have dropped them on the ground and run them off desks, but it doesn’t stop them.”
As more students at Georgia Tech and elsewhere use the Scribbler and textbook in introductory computer science classes, Balch and his colleagues will gather feedback and use it to improve the curriculum, he says. Eventually, they want to make the robots available for use in middle and high schools to spur interest in computer science at that level.
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]]>For example, Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, argues that robotics is sufficiently dangerous to call for complete cessation of all research on the subject. Others, such as Carnegie Mellon University robotics researcher Hans Moravec, forecast, somewhat gleefully, the day when robots will replace humanity and will serve as our natural successors. Indeed in his vision we, as humans, may become them.
Recently, I have engaged in considerable introspection, largely due to my long-term involvement in robotics research. As a scientist I have explored many different domains, all of which impinge on ethical concerns, and I will share a few here.
Robots in warfare are becoming the standard for the United States military of the future. A congressional mandate requires that by 2010, one-third of all operational deep-strike aircraft be unmanned and by 2015, one-third of all ground combat vehicles be unmanned.
While reducing the number of our soldiers on the battlefield seems at first an easy decision, there are many questions related to the viability of this approach. One concerns the issue of lethality, i.e., will intelligent robots be allowed to make decisions regarding the application of lethal force against humans in war without requiring direct human intervention (can a robot pull the trigger on its own)? Can robotic soldiers ultimately be more humane (humane-oids?) than actual warfighters by incorporating a means for ensuring that the laws of war are strictly followed? Our laboratory is currently exploring these questions for the Army, while concurrently designing complex, multi-robot mission software for the Navy.
On the entertainment front, I have been involved with the development of entertainment robots for almost a decade with Sony Corporation’s AIBO (dog) and QRIO (humanoid) robots. The seemingly benign goal here is to create robots that bring joy and happiness into people’s lives, especially among the elderly, and that can serve as life-long partners, not unlike pets or companions.
The real question from an ethical perspective involves the incorporation of human psychological models to tap deeply into an emotional vein unbeknownst to the observer. This in many ways is in common with advertising, cinema, video gaming and other forms of entertainment. The physical embodiment of these robots, however, adds a special dimension that has caused concern among some ethicists and philosophers, particularly in terms of our society abrogating its responsibility for maintaining and enriching human-human contact with the aging. The use of such robots, according to this view, essentially provides an artifact displaying an illusion of life, thus encouraging a further loss of contact with reality by the elderly.
Related to this is the notion of human-robot intimacy and sexuality. The VCR and the Internet have been propelled by pornography to the ubiquity they possess today. It will not be a surprise to see the robotics field also move rapidly in this direction, which it already has in limited ways. We as a society might do well to consider where this might lead: the impact of sex industries built up around this new technology (not simply advanced sexual toys); the consequences of robotic sex therapy perhaps targeted for the rehabilitation or management of sex offenders; robot prostitution; and ultimately, the choices regarding human-robot intimacy on a more permanent basis. As I’ve said in the past, would you want your daughter to marry a robot?
A more traditional ethical question for robotics is its impact on unemployment. What would happen if instead of concentrating on the traditional robotic tasks of the 3 Ds (dull, dirty and dangerous), we moved into more mundane environments, such as babysitting, housecleaning and other service industries? What are our responsibilities to displaced workers as a society? Are there lessons from the previous revolutions (industrial and computer) that we can apply here? In the extreme, what if the cost of labor drops to near zero? Will we have a utopian environment of leisure and wealth for all people? Or instead a dystopian future, including humanity’s return to a slavery mindset (albeit robotic), governmental instabilities due to the outsourcing of all work for our species, and a complete dependency on robotic technology where people can no longer function without these machines at all?
If you find some of these issues unsettling, you are not alone. Hence there is now a strong push within the roboethics community, which originated from a series of workshops involving scientists from the robotics community, as well as representatives from the Vatican, the Pugwash Institute and the Geneva Convention, among others, to engage in this debate.
Some evidence of progress is the release of the recent EURON Roboethics Roadmap (www.roboethics.org). At the IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation (www.roboethics.org/icra07), members of the roboethics community attempted to further engage society in what many of us see as the need to manage critical choices in our field pro-actively as we move closer and closer to the upcoming robot revolution.
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]]>"I am truly honored to have been named an OSA Fellow by my peers," said Kippelen. "Being recognized by those colleagues who served as my role models means a lot to me, and I want to share this recognition with all the mentors, students, scientists, and collaborators with whom I have worked over the years and who shared with me the desire to make new discoveries in the field of optics.
"With this OSA honor, I have a new responsibility to earn the trust that has been given to me by continuing to generate new scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations. I will also endeavor to serve as a role model for younger students and scientists, encouraging them to live their passions."
Kippelen has played a pioneering role in the development of photorefractive polymers for real-time holographic applications, a field that began in the early 1990s. He also has made significant contributions to the development of organic compounds for transport and organic light-emitting devices (OLEDS).
Kippelen's recent work has focused on developing flexible organic photovoltaic cells for power generation, and he has demonstrated high-efficiency cells based on polycrystalline materials. Other current research interests include creating low-cost printed electronics for radio frequency identification (RFID), developing organic field-effect transistors and circuits, and using liquid crystals for switchable electro-active diffractive lenses.
A prolific and frequently cited researcher, Kippelen holds 10 patents and has co-authored six conference proceedings, 11 book chapters, and more than 100 refereed journal articles. He has acted as chair and co-chair of numerous international conferences on organic optoelectronic materials and devices, and he regularly gives invited talks at international conferences and seminars worldwide. He is the recipient of both a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award (2000) and a 3M Corporation Young Faculty Award (2000).
At Tech, Kippelen is the ECE Optics and Photonics group chair as well as associate director of Tech's Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics. He is also an associate director of research for Materials and Devices for Information Technology Research, a Science and Technology Center funded by the NSF. A senior member of the IEEE, Kippelen serves on the IEEE EDS Organic Electronics Committee. In addition to his scholarly activities, he has co-founded several spin-off companies, including NP Photonics, Inc., and LumoFlex, LLC.
Kippelen earned a maitrise in solid-state physics in 1985 and a Ph.D. in nonlinear optics in 1990, both from the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. Before coming to Tech in 2003, he performed research at the Institute of Physics in Strasbourg and was a faculty member at the University of Arizona.
"Becoming a Fellow of a distinguished professional society such as OSA was inconceivable to me when I began studying optics as an undergraduate student," said Kippelen. "It was certainly not in my thoughts when I had to overcome a long series of failed experiments during my graduate studies and in my early days as a postdoctoral researcher. This honor reminds me that hard work, tenacity, and passion bring reward some day."
]]>Because of its high dielectric properties, barium titanate has long been of interest for use in capacitors, but until recently materials scientists had been unable to produce good dispersion of the material within a polymer matrix. By using tailored organic phosphonic acids to encapsulate and modify the surface of the nanoparticles, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology's Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics were able to overcome the particle dispersion problem to create uniform nanocomposites.
"Our team has developed nanocomposites that have a remarkable combination of high dielectric constant and high dielectric breakdown strength," said Joseph W. Perry, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics. "For capacitors and related applications, the amount of energy you can store in a material is related to those two factors."
The new nanocomposite materials have been tested at frequencies of up to one megahertz, and Perry says operation at even higher frequencies may be possible. Though the new materials could have commercial application without further improvement, their most important contribution may be in demonstrating the new encapsulation technique - which could have broad applications in other nanocomposite materials.
"This work opens a door to effectively exploit this type of particle in nanocomposites using the coating technology we have demonstrated," explained Perry. "There are many ways we can envision making advances beyond what we've done already."
The results were reported in the April 2007 edition (Vol. 19, issue 7) of the journal Advanced Materials. The research was supported by the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation. Georgia Tech has filed a patent application on the nanoparticle encapsulation technique.
Because of their ability to store and rapidly discharge electrical energy, capacitors are used in a variety of consumer products such as computers and cellular telephones. And because of the increasing demands for electrical energy to power vehicles and new equipment, they also have important military applications.
Key to developing thin-film capacitor materials with higher energy storage capacity is the ability to uniformly disperse nanoparticles in as high a density as possible throughout the polymer matrix. However, nanoparticles such as barium titanate tend to form aggregates that reduce the ability of the nanocomposite to resist electrical breakdown. Other research groups have tried to address the dispersal issue with a variety of surface coatings, but those coatings tended to come off during processing - or to create materials compatibility issues.
The Georgia Tech research team decided to address the issue by using organic phosphonic acids to encapsulate the particles. The tailored organic phosphonic acid ligands, designed and synthesized by a research group headed by Seth Marder - a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry - provide a robust coating for the particles, which range in size from 30 to 120 nanometers in diameter.
"Phosphonic acids bind very well to barium titanate and to other related metal oxides," Perry said. "The choice of that material and ligands were very effective in allowing us to take the tailored phosphonic acids, put them onto the barium titanate, and then with the correct solution processing, to incorporate them into polymer systems. This allowed us to provide good compatibility with the polymer hosts - and thus very good dispersion as evidenced by a three- to four-fold decrease in the average aggregate size."
Though large crystals of barium titanate could also provide a high dielectric constant, they generally do not provide adequate resistance to breakdown - and their formation and growth can be complex and require high temperatures. Composites provide the necessary electrical properties, along with the advantages of solution-based processing techniques.
"One of the big benefits of using a polymer nanocomposite approach is that you combine particles of a material that provide desired properties in a matrix that has the benefits of easy processing," Perry explained.
Though the new materials may already offer enough of an advantage to justify commercializing, Perry believes there are additional opportunities for boosting their performance. The research team also wants to scale up production to make larger samples - now produced in two-inch by three-inch films - available to other researchers who may wish to develop additional applications.
Perry and Marder are working with Bernard Kippelen, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, on the use of these new nanocomposites in organic thin-film transistors in which solution-based techniques are used to fabricate inexpensive electronic components.
"Beyond capacitors, there are many areas where high dielectric materials are important, such as field-effect transistors, displays and other electronic devices," Perry added. "With our material, we can provide a high dielectric layer that can be incorporated into those types of applications."
In addition to those already mentioned, the research team included Philseok Kim, Simon Jones, Peter Hotchkiss and Joshua Haddock.
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]]>The patent covers a device called a digital crystal video receiver (DCVR), a vital part of the radar warning receiver (RWR) system that alerts an aircraft crew to enemy ground-radar activity. GTRI researchers Michael J. Willis and Michael L. McGuire, working with Air Force scientist Charlie W. Clark, have patented a way to use digital circuitry to perform many functions formerly allotted to more-problematic analog chips.
Specifically, the researchers have moved a critical operation -- the logarithmic transfer function -- from the analog to the digital domain. The logarithmic transfer function coordinates the input and output of a radar warning receiver's signal-processing system.
"Electronic analog technologies have a number of error sources and limitations when subjected to the extended temperature range that our military requires," said Willis, a principal research engineer with GTRI's Electronic Systems Laboratory (ELSYS). "By moving the logarithmic transfer function into the digital signal-processing domain, we've improved the stability of the circuit."
Analog circuits, traditionally used to detect real-world phenomena such as sound or temperature, hold a multitude of continuous values across any given range. By contrast, digital circuits process information in discrete steps governed by the binary code that computers use.
In radar warning receivers, Willis explains, the continuous-scale analog implementation has been difficult to calibrate and maintain. By contrast, the digital domain needs no calibration and is more robust.
The digital version is also far less expensive to manufacture.
"Moving the logarithmic transfer function from analog to digital probably reduces production costs of a radar warning receiver by a factor of between five and 10," he said. "The cost of the digital video portion could become nearly insignificant in comparison to the cost of the remainder of the RWR system."
The new digital crystal video receiver is comprised of an analog-to-digital converter and a programmable logic component. Together, they're able to transfer most received analog signals to the more-reliable digital domain.
Earlier crystal video receiver architectures, Willis explains, detected radio-frequency (RF) signals immediately, without intermediate processing. Such analog "direct-conversion" receivers often needed multiple receivers to detect radar signals over a range of frequencies.
By contrast, the DCVR's improvements include a capacity to readily detect RF signals through a wide range of frequencies using up-to-date broadband receiver techniques.
Scientists use the word "video" to describe this technology because the receiver demodulates received radar signals into video waveforms. The new digital crystal video receiver approach subjects those video waveforms to digital signal processing, producing a digital equivalent with a logarithmic function applied to it to make processing easier.
"Adding the word "digital" to the older term "crystal video receiver" emphasizes that technology advances have allowed us to overcome many limitations of the older-generation, crystal-based, direct-conversion receivers," Willis said.
The initial sponsored research involved a radar warning receiver used on a number of U.S. military aircraft, Willis said. The discovery may have other military applications as well.
Commercial applications are also possible, he said. The discovery could be applied not only to radar warning receivers but to any receiver that requires a logarithmic transfer function. Thus, it could be used in many types of radios or in other devices that involve signal receiving and processing capabilities.
The recent patent, shared by GTRI and the U.S. government, is significant because it protects the technology. Still, Willis said, the patent is only another step in an ongoing process leading to field deployment.
Currently, he said, GTRI is studying how to implement the new technology. He expects it will take two years to complete the design process and transition the final implementation into production.
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]]>There are more than three million of these safety devices, called raised pavement markers (RPMs), in service on Georgia highways. They are installed and then need to be replaced about every two years by road crews who consider the task one of the riskiest they face. Workers typically ride on a seat cantilevered off the side of a trailer just inches from highway traffic.
Manual RPM placement is not only risky for personnel, but it is also expensive and time-consuming. A typical RPM placement operation includes four vehicles and a six-person crew. All the vehicles must stop at each marker location, so there is tremendous wear on the equipment and increased fuel use.
The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) believed there was a better way to do it and funded the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) to develop a first-of-its-kind system capable of automatically placing RPMs along the lane stripes while in motion. After almost three years of research and development, GTRI expects to deliver a prototype system early this year. Because of widespread interest in the system, researchers will present a report on their project on Jan. 23 at the National Research Council's Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
"The advantages of our automated system are: it's less labor-intensive, it's faster and safer, uses less fuel, and it causes less wear and tear on GDOT equipment," explained project manager Wiley Holcombe, a GTRI senior research engineer.
Engineers conducted the work in two phases. First, they designed an RPM-placement mechanism using pressure-sensitive adhesive and a lane-stripe tracking system. Then, they developed a full-scale, truck-mounted RPM placement system. It is based on a single GDOT-owned truck and includes the lane-stripe tracking system, and electrical power, compressed air, hydraulic power, and adhesive melting and dispensing systems. Some components of the system were off-the-shelf parts, but the GTRI Machine Services shop fabricated most of the custom components for the system, Holcombe notes.
After some field-testing, the project resulted in a prototype system capable of dispensing an RPM onto the pavement along with the necessary hot-melt adhesive applied at 380 degrees Fahrenheit while traveling at 5 miles an hour. A pattern-change mechanism can position two placement mechanisms to accommodate any of GDOT's five specified RPM placement patterns, Holcombe explains.
Operation of the system only requires two people. An operator on the back of the truck loads the adhesive melters with adhesive and stacks RPMs in the hoppers from which they are dispensed, depending on the placement pattern. Meanwhile, the driver of the truck must maintain alignment between the stripe pattern on the road and a caster wheel on a boom in front of the truck. Also, the driver touches a computer screen in the cab to indicate to the placement system the new stripe pattern each time the caster wheel crosses a stripe pattern change.
RPMs are dispensed from the hoppers onto a loader arm, which deposits them onto a telescoping slide that connects to a placement mechanism on an attached carriage. The carriage has a 3-foot range of travel and is moved laterally to keep the placement mechanism centered along the road stripe. RPMs are then typically applied about 80 feet apart. It takes about 35 milliseconds from the time the edge of the RPM hits the ground to the time it's flush with the road, Holcombe notes.
"The GDOT's primary use for the automated RPM placement machine will be placing markers on the skip lines for interstate and multi-lane highways," said GDOT spokeswoman Karlene Barron. "These types of routes pose the highest safety risks to our employees and equipment."
"The GDOT also plans to use the system on high-traffic-volume secondary or two-lane roads, when possible," Barron added. "Using the automated system, we will not have to stop at every placement, which will increase safety and productivity plus reduce wear and tear on GDOT equipment. Plus the operator will be high on the back of the machine instead of near ground level."
Six of GDOT's seven district offices have their own RPM placement crews, and there are four other crews that work statewide. GDOT also plans to use the system in the metro Atlanta area.
GTRI's automated raised pavement marking system could be used outside Georgia, though Holcombe explains that its design is most appropriate for Southern states with warmer climates. In regions that get a lot of snow, RPMs must be applied somewhat differently to reduce the risk of damage to RPMs by snow-clearing equipment.
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Technical Contact: Wiley Holcombe (404-407-8836); E-mail: (wiley.holcombe@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: Jane Sanders
]]>Using a chemical process that converts the shells' original silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) into the semiconductor material silicon, researchers have created a new class of gas sensors based on the unique and intricate three-dimensional (3-D) shells produced by microscopic creatures known as diatoms. The converted shells, which retain the 3-D shape and nanoscale detail of the originals, could also be useful as battery electrodes, chemical purifiers - and in other applications requiring complex shapes that nature can produce better than humans.
"When we conducted measurements for the detection of nitric oxide, a common pollutant, our single diatom-derived silicon sensor possessed a combination of speed, sensitivity, and low voltage operation that exceeded conventional sensors," said Kenneth H. Sandhage, a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "The unique diatom-derived shape, high surface area and nanoporous, nanocrystalline silicon material all contributed towards such attractive gas sensing characteristics."
The unique devices, part of a broader long-term research program by Sandhage and his research team, were described in the March 8 issue of the journal Nature. The research was sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
Scientists estimate that roughly 100,000 species of diatoms exist in nature, and each forms a microshell with a unique and often complex 3-D shape that includes cylinders, wheels, fans, donuts, circles and stars. Sandhage and his research team have worked for several years to take advantage of those complex shapes by converting the original silica into materials that are more useful.
Ultimately, they would like to conduct such conversion reactions on genetically-modified diatoms that generate microshells with tailored shapes. However, to precisely alter and control the structures produced, further research is needed to learn how to manipulate the genome of the diatom. Since scientists already know how to culture diatoms in large volumes, harnessing the diatom genetic code could allow mass-production of complex and tailored microscopic structures.
Sandhage's colleagues, Prof. Nils Kröger (School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech) and Dr. Mark Hildebrand (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) are currently conducting research that could ultimately allow for genetic engineering of diatom microshell shapes.
"Diatoms are fabulous for making very precise shapes, and making the same shape over and over again by a reproduction process that, under the proper growth conditions, yields microshells at a geometrically-increasing rate," Sandhage noted. "Diatoms can produce three-dimensional structures that are not easy to produce using conventional silicon-based processes. The potential here is for making enormous numbers of complicated 3-D shapes and tailoring the shapes genetically, followed by chemical modification as we have conducted to convert the shells into functional materials such as silicon."
Silicon is normally produced from silica at temperatures well above the silicon melting point (1,414 degrees Celsius), so that solid silicon replicas cannot be directly produced from silica structures with such conventional processing. So the Georgia Tech researchers used a reaction based on magnesium gas that converted the silica of the shells into a composite containing silicon (Si) and magnesium oxide (MgO). The conversion took place at only 650 degrees Celsius, which allowed preservation of the complex channels and hollow cylindrical shape of the diatom.
The magnesium oxide, which makes up about two-thirds of the composite, was then dissolved out by a hydrochloric acid solution, which left a highly porous silicon structure that retained the original shape. The structure was then treated with hydrofluoric acid (HF) to remove traces of silica created by reaction with the water in the hydrochloric acid solution.
The researchers then connected individual diatom-derived silicon structures to electrodes, applied current and used them to detect nitric oxide. The highly porous silicon shells, which are about 10 micrometers in length, could also be used to immobilize enzymes for purifying drugs in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and as improved electrodes in lithium-ion batteries.
"Silicon can form compounds that have a high lithium content," Sandhage said. "Because diatom-derived silicon structures have a high surface area and are thin walled and highly porous, the rate at which you can get lithium ions into and out of such silicon structures can be high. For a given battery size, you could store more power, use it more rapidly or recharge the battery faster by using such structures as electrodes."
In testing, the researchers showed that the silicon they produced was photoluminescent - meaning it glows when illuminated by certain wavelengths of light. That shows the fabrication process produced a nanoporous, nanocrystalline structure - and may have interesting photonic applications in addition to the electronic ones.
Though Sandhage and his collaborators have demonstrated the potential of their technique, significant challenges must be overcome before they can produce useful sensors, battery electrodes and other structures. The sensors will have to be packaged into useful devices, for example, connected into arrays of devices able to detect different gases and scaled up for volume manufacture.
The Aulacoseira diatoms used in the research reported by Nature were millions of years old, obtained from samples mined and distributed as diatomaceous earth. To provide samples with other geometries, Sandhage's group has set up a cell culturing lab, with the assistance of Georgia Tech colleagues Nils Kröger and Nicole Poulson, to grow the brownish-colored diatoms.
Sandhage, who is a ceramist by training, would now like to work directly with electronics engineers and others who have specific interests in silicon-based devices.
"We can target diatoms of a certain shape, generate the right chemistry, and then work with applications engineers to get these unique structures into practice," he said. "We are now at the point where we have a good idea of the chemical palette that is accessible with the conversion approaches we have taken. The next step is really to start making packaged devices."
In addition to Sandhage, other researchers who contributed to the paper included Zhihao Bao, Michael R. Weatherspoon, Samual Shian, Ye, Cia, Phillip D. Graham, Shawn M. Allan, Gul Ahmad, Matthew B. Dickerson, Benjamin C. Church, Zhitao Kang, Harry W. Abernathy III, Christopher J. Summers and Meilin Liu.
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Writer: John Toon
]]>MedShape Solutions Inc.'s research focuses on 'shape-memory' polymers and alloys -- solid materials that can change shape on demand. Company leaders say these materials- ability to mold actively to human bone and tissue will make them useful in several types of reconstructive surgery.
MedShape's shape-memory approach - which is patent-pending and expected to go into human trials soon -- derives from the work of Ken Gall, a Georgia Tech associate professor. Gall and several other scientists have been developing these materials at Georgia Tech and the University of Colorado for several years.
"Most of the materials used in medicine are inactive, such as titanium, stainless steel, polyurethane, and acrylic - they cannot respond to anything," said Gall, who has appointments in both the School of Materials Science and Engineering and the School of Mechanical Engineering. "By contrast, our materials are mechanically active - they respond to the human body by changing shape."
One MedShape product application, called ShapeLoc(TM), has been designed for use in knee surgery. Currently, Gall explains, surgeons drill tunnels in bone and then anchor tendons into those tunnels with plastic or metal screw threads that often intrude into and injure tissue. By contrast, ShapeLocs' shape-memory polymer fits into a surgical tunnel along with the tendon, conforming around the delicate tendon to hold it in place.
"This approach provides an easier surgical approach and stronger initial fixation, as well as better bone-tendon healing," explains MedShape president and CEO Kurt Jacobus, who has a mechanical engineering science doctorate as well as five years of management-consulting experience with McKinsey & Co.
MedShape expects to soon market another product application called the DynaNail(TM) system, a shape-memory alloy designed to help patients with diabetes and other conditions who suffer from soft-tissue damage in their lower extremities, resulting in debilitating ankle pain.
Currently, doctors address this tissue-damage problem with a procedure called ankle fusion, Gall said. This approach has a fairly low success rate because titanium and stainless-steel surgical nails often fail to maintain compression during the healing process. The DynaNail device employs 'pseudo elastic' properties that allow it to achieve compression until bone fusion and healing can take place, avoiding the need for additional surgery or possible amputation.
MedShape has several other follow-on devices in the pipeline, Jacobus said. He expects these product applications to be useful in several areas of orthopedic surgery.
The work underlying MedShape's current product applications began about 10 years ago at the University of Colorado, where Gall began his academic career. The basic research, performed by Gall and others, received about $4 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation over a number of years, as well as about $1 million in private-placement funding.
Gall moved to Georgia Tech in 2005, and MedShape has received significant State of Georgia support since then. VentureLab -- a unit of Georgia Tech Commercialization Services that aids fledgling companies based on faculty discoveries - helped the company win $125,000 in Georgia Research Alliance commercialization grants. Moreover, in recent months Medshape has moved into on-campus research and office space.
"MedShape stood out above many other startup projects," said Greg Dane, a Commercialization Services technology-evaluation manager who advises the company. "The first reason is the technology itself, which has received major funding for years and has a strong patent position. Second, the management is quite strong - you don't often find someone like Kurt Jacobus, who has a Ph.D.-level background in the science itself as well as extensive management experience."
The company's founders include several staff scientists, including Reed Bartz, M.D., a specialist in orthopedic surgery and team physician for the University of Nebraska; Douglas Pacaccio, D.P.M., a specialist in foot and ankle reconstruction, and Chris Yakacki, M.S., a doctoral candidate and shape-memory materials scientist.
MedShape's leaders are currently weighing several options for funding their initial products' path to the market, which will include further product development, U.S. Food & Drug Administration clearance, human trials and manufacturing. At this time, they say, they have not decided between a round of venture-capital funding or a strategic partnership with a large company or consortium.
"No matter which path we take, we're still going to bring the same products to market," Jacobus said. "We now have seven full-time employees, and we expect to have a product to market in two years."
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Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>By 2015, the international community hopes to reduce by half the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
This target for sustainable water and sanitation is just one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals adopted in September 2000 at the Millennium Summit. These goals serve as the world's time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty.
Local communities in the developing world and professional researchers are working to meet this goal. Researchers recently presented their work toward this end at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
In the developed world, the moment a drop of water hits the ground, it goes into the water system until it becomes wastewater. Then it's treated and put it back into the system.
"We have a large-scale infrastructure in the United States to provide clean water," said Joseph Hughes, chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "Using our current approach will not provide the rapid fix the United Nations is looking for in developing countries. It would take decades."
Hughes outlined four steps in solving the developing world's water and sanitation problems. First, researchers must determine how big the problem is, then analyze the dynamics of water distribution, understand the complexity of the systems required and, finally, create new approaches to water supply and sanitation through research and development. This includes new methods of storing, treating and disinfecting water and developing sanitation systems that minimize pathogen release.
Urbanization, climate changes, water scarcity and economic development will affect where water will be available in the future and where concentrated amounts of water will be required to meet the needs of large populations, Hughes says. The United Nations projects that by 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will live in areas that face water scarcity.
"Historically we've tried to go to groundwater sources, such as a well, to initiate improved water sources, but there's a very finite capacity in groundwater," Hughes noted. "We have to work much harder to make ocean or surface waters safe."
The water must be safe and reliable in quality and quantity.
"We need to go beyond providing better water," Hughes added. "We need to provide water that you and I would drink and consider safe. If a pregnant woman drank it, she wouldn't be worried about her health or the baby's health."
International research has been under way for some time to help improve the water supply and sanitation in developing countries. Georgia Tech Professor of Public Policy Susan Cozzens is leading new research, funded by the National Science Foundation, to determine whether these efforts have been effective.
In the United States, the only thing consumers need to know about their water supply is how to pay their bill and call a plumber if there's a leak, said Cozzens, who organized the AAAS session on water and sanitation in developing countries. But a family in a developing country with a latrine needs to know a tremendous amount - how to build the latrine and how to maintain it.
"If a part breaks, what does that family do? Does the family stay in touch with the organization that came and provided the service or part originally? Is there someone who assumes the role of civil engineer in every town?" asked Cozzens, who is also director of the Georgia Tech Technology Policy and Assessment Center.
Cozzens also plans to investigate how communities in developing countries share their knowledge. She will conduct case studies in urban and rural locations in four countries-- Mozambique, South Africa, Costa Rica and Brazil -- to answer these questions.
Cozzens' interest lies in how different places are addressing a lack of safe water and sanitation, and whether engineering, health and social science research plays any role in that.
"There's a research front out there, but we still need to think innovatively about problems with water supply and sanitation in developing countries," Cozzens said. "Even though there's only a little bit of social science (research) literature on water supply and sanitation, about half of it is about developing countries."
Cozzens' goal is to provide insight to international and local water authorities in developing countries on how to set the right conditions for people to learn and solve the problems of unsafe water and sanitation. This insight will come from studying the limitations of research knowledge in relation to this problem and studying communities in the developing world that have solved the problem, she added.
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WRITER: Abby Vogel
]]>The statistics are contained in 'Connecting the Dots: Creating a Southern Nanotechnology Network,' a study done through the Program in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy - a joint initiative of the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute and the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy - for the Southern Growth Policies Board. Published in April 2006, the study evaluated the South's competitive position in the budding nanotechnology industry. The study's research team evaluated five factors in nanotechnology - human capital, knowledge generation, research and development funding, patents and commercialization - for the period 1995-2004.
"Traditionally, the South hasn't been viewed as having strengths in nanotechnology research, but in this study we show that there is a substantial amount going on here," said Jan Youtie, one of the study's co-authors and a principal research associate in the Enterprise Innovation Institute "The big strengths are that 20 percent of all nanotechnology research publications in the United States come from the Southern region, and that four of the top 25 institutions in nanotechnology funding support are in this region."
In addition to Georgia Tech, the other three top-25 institutions from the region are Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University. Though the collaboration between Georgia Tech and Emory University has won large federal grants for studying nanotechnology in the life sciences, those awards came after the report's study period, noted Youtie, who is also an adjunct associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Public Policy.
Sponsored by the Technology Transfer and Economic Development Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the study examined nanotechnology activity in 13 states - plus Puerto Rico - served by the Southern Grown Policies Board, a public policy think-tank. Texas and Florida, two significant players in nanotechnology, are not part of the Board's regional focus and so were not included in the study.
Within the South, the study reported that the state of Georgia ranks:
- First in the number of nanotechnology prize winners;
- Second in the number of nanotechnology publications;
- Second in the number of highly cited primary researchers;
- Second in the number of doctoral dissertations;
- Third in the dollar value of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards in nanotechnology areas;
- Third in the number of nanotechnology patents;
- Fourth in the dollar amount of nanotechnology-related grants from the National Science Foundation.
One of Georgia Tech's strengths is its connections to other national and international nanotechnology research institutions. "Part of the reason that Georgia Tech has a leading position in the South is that we have a lot of researchers who are networked outside their departments to researchers elsewhere," she explained. "This is a strength because many research advances occur by cross-fertilization with other departments and disciplines."
Though Georgia has strengths in nanotechnology research and development, it faces significant weakness in patents and the commercialization of technology, both key elements needed for a robust nanotechnology industrial community. That's also true for other Southern states - and in other technologies, notes Philip Shapira, another co-author and a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Public Policy.
"We have growing research capabilities, but the real issue is whether we have the commercialization capabilities," he noted.
Though Georgia has invested in developing startup companies, it's not yet clear what role early-stage companies will play in turning nanotechnology innovations into commercial products.
"Nanotechnology is very pervasive across industry because it facilitates improvement in a broad range of products and processes," Shapira said. "For example, we are seeing nanoparticles and nanofibers being introduced as parts of tires, microelectronics, clothing and biomedicine. These industries are dominated by big companies, so this may be an area where big companies have a more important role to play than startups."
Because the nanotechnology industry is young and will likely advance through several distinct growth phases, state efforts to gain leadership still have time to pay off, Shapira says. To take advantage of the nanotechnology revolution, he adds, Georgia will not only have to attract more venture capital for startups, but also develop linkages with well-funded companies that have the resources to bring new products to market.
"None of these are easy or automatic, but they are areas that we have to push," he said. "I think there is a window during which Georgia could emerge as a bigger player in nanotechnology commercialization if we can develop strategic policy action, as well as leadership on the business side."
This article appears in the Fall 2006 issue of Research Horizons, the Georgia Tech Research Magazine.
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Writer: John Toon
]]>The new platinum nanocrystals, whose "tetrahexahedral" structure had not previously been reported in the metal, could improve the efficiency of chemical processes such as those used to catalyze fuel oxidation and produce hydrogen for fuel cells.
"If we are going to have a hydrogen economy, we will need better catalysts," said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "This new shape for platinum catalyst nanoparticles greatly improves their activity. This work also demonstrates a new method for producing metallic nanocrystals with high-energy surfaces."
The new nanocrystals, produced electrochemically from platinum nanospheres on a carbon substrate, remain stable at high temperatures. Their sizes can be controlled by varying the number of cycles of "square wave" electrical potential applied to them.
"This electrochemical technique is vital to producing such tetrahexahedral platinum nanocrystals," said Shi-Gang Sun, an Eminent Professor in the College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Xiamen University in China. "The technique used to produce the new platinum nanostructures may also have applications to other catalytic metals."
The research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China, Special Funds for Major State Basic Research Project of China and the U.S. National Science Foundation. Details were reported in the May 4 issue of the journal Science.
Platinum plays a vital role as a catalyst for many important reactions, used in industrial chemical processing, in motor vehicle catalytic converters that reduce exhaust pollution, in fuel cells and in sensors. Commercially available platinum nanocrystals - which exist as cubes, tetrahedra and octahedra - have what are termed "low-index" facets, characterized by the numbers {100} or {111}. Because of their higher catalytic activity, "high-index" surfaces would be preferable - but until now, platinum nanocrystals with such surfaces have never been synthesized - and therefore have not been available for industrial use.
The nanocrystals produced by the U.S.-Chinese team have high energy surfaces that include numerous "dangling bonds" and "atomic steps" that facilitate chemical reactions. These structures, characterized by {210}, {730} or {520} facets, remain stable at high temperatures - up to 800 degrees Celsius in testing done so far. That stability will allow them to be recycled and re-used in catalytic reactions, Wang said.
Though the process must still be fine-tuned, the researchers have learned to control the size of the particles by varying the processing conditions. They are able to control the size such that only 4.5 percent of the nanocrystals produced are larger or smaller than the target size.
"In nanoparticle research, two things are important: size control and shape control," said Wang. "From a purity point of view, we have been able to obtain a high yield of nanocrystals whose shape was a real surprise."
Depending on conditions, the new nanocrystals can be as much as four times more catalytically active per unit area than existing commercial catalysts. But since the new structures tested are more than 20 times larger than existing platinum catalysts, they require more of the metal - and hence are less active per unit weight.
"We need to find a way to make these nanocrystals smaller while preserving the shape," Wang noted. "If we can reduce the size through better control of processing conditions, we will have a catalytic system that would allow production of hydrogen with greater efficiency."
Production of the new crystals begins with polycrystalline platinum spheres about 750 nanometers in diameter that are electrodeposited onto a substrate of amorphous - also known as "glassy" - carbon. Placed in an electrochemical cell with ascorbic acid and sulfuric acid, the spheres are then subjected to "square wave" potential that alternates between positive and negative potentials at a rate of 10 to 20 Hertz.
The electrochemical oxidation-reduction reaction converts the spheres to smaller nanocrystals over a period of time ranging from 10 to 60 minutes. The role of the carbon substrate isn't fully understood, but it somehow enhances the uniformity of the nanocrystals.
"The key to producing this shape is to tune the voltage and the time period under which it is applied," Sun noted. "By changing the experimental conditions, we can control the size with a high level of uniformity."
Scanning electron microscopy shows that the sizes average 81 nanometers in diameter, with the smallest just 20 nanometers. The microscopy also found that the structures were composed of single crystals with no dislocations.
"Not only do we have a beautiful shape - which was observed for the first time in this research - but we also have a very valuable catalyst," Sun added. "And because these nanocrystals are stable, the shape is preserved after the catalytic reaction, which will allow us to use the same nanocrystals over and over again."
In addition to Sun and Wang, the research team included Na Tian and Zhi-You Zhou from the College of Chemistry and Engineering at Xiamen University in China and Yong Ding from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech in the United States.
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Writer: John Toon
]]>Fabricating such small features normally requires expensive electron beam or extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment. However, using a technique called 3D multi-photon lithography simplifies the process and reduces the cost. The technique could compete with existing processes for fabricating nanoscale electronic, photonic and microfluidic devices.
"Being able to obtain line widths down to 65 nanometers, which is substantially below prior published work of 100 nanometers, opens up new applications for multi-photon lithography," said Joseph Perry, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics.
The technique scans a laser beam across a substrate coated with a polymer resin containing a unique dye to create a desired hardened polymer structure. The laser writing process takes advantage of the fact that the chemical reaction of cross-linking occurs only where molecules have absorbed two photons of light. Since the rate of two-photon absorption drops off rapidly with distance from the laser's focal point, only molecules at the focal point receive enough light to absorb two photons.
The fabrication method and dye were described in the March 19 issue of Optics Express. The research was supported by the Office of Naval Research APEX Consortium and the National Science Foundation, through the Science and Technology Center for Materials and Devices for Information Technology Research.
Seth Marder and Stephen Barlow, also researchers in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, synthesized the unique molecule called DAPB, 4,4'-bis(di-n-butylamino)biphenyl, to initiate the chemical reaction leading to the hardening of the polymers when exposed to laser light.
"We needed a dye with good two-photon absorption at a wavelength of 520 nanometers, so we tried DAPB," explained Perry. "DAPB proved to be very effective in this kind of lithography."
The molecule developed by Marder and Barlow is about ten times more efficient at absorbing light by two photon absorption than commercial ultraviolet photoactive materials. That efficiency allowed Perry and graduate students Wojciech Haske and Vincent Chen, research scientist Joel Hales and postdoctoral associate Wenting Dong to create 3D patterns with nanoscale lines at light intensities low enough to avoid damaging the polymers.
For the experiments, a film of the polymer resin containing DAPB was formed. When the film was exposed to the focused laser, DAPB was excited and triggered cross-linking, leaving the insoluble scanned structure on the surface of a substrate when placed in a developer solution.
Since Perry controls where the Ti: Sapphire pulsed laser scans with a computer program, the polymers can be cross-linked in any pattern including 3D stacks of straight lines that are connected and sturdy. The laser beam is turned on to expose lines of polymer and off when no line should be drawn.
Conventional lithography involves creating a specific pattern on a mask for each new layer and exposing each layer to light and developing it. With this new technique, three-dimensional layered nanostructures can be created simply by having a computer program scan a different pattern for each layer. Mask templates become unnecessary and the coating, exposing and developing processes only have to be conducted once.
"We can create essentially any pattern we want. For this work, some of the patterns look like walls or lines suspended across walls and some are like a tall stack of crisscrossed lines," noted Perry.
Perry and Marder co-founded a company in 2003 called Focal Point Microsystems that is working to commercialize this fabrication technology.
"We can write very small lines and create stacked-up grids of lines called photonic crystals," explained Perry. "This work shows that we can fabricate functional photonic micro-devices with tailored transmission capabilities."
It takes only 10 minutes to create a 20 micron by 20 micron structure with 30 layers, Perry added. Perry envisions using this technology to create compact micro-spectrometers on a chip for use in telecommunications and sensors. It may also be used as a compact way to separate the multiple wavelengths traveling through a fiber optic cable.
This type of simple, table-top technology may also be useful to fabricate customized types of circuits with many layers, which would be extremely expensive with standard methods because each layer would require a special mask.
"With the combination of the right molecule and short wavelength light, we've demonstrated that we can obtain nanoscale features. We're at 65 nanometers now and we're still trying to go smaller," said Perry.
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Writer: Abby Vogel
]]>The discovery is a first step toward a bioremediation strategy that would naturally detoxify the chemicals without risky removal of the sediments in which they persist. The research results will be published April 15 in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
Researchers have known for more than two decades that naturally occurring microorganisms could slowly dechlorinate PCBs, which were once commonly used by industry. The compounds were banned from production in the United States in 1977 because of their toxicity to humans and animals.
In research funded by the National Science Foundation and General Electric, a PCB expert at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) collaborated with microbiologists at the Georgia Institute of Technology. They studied microbial degradation in Aroclor 1260, a common, highly chlorinated PCB mixture.
RPI Professor of Biology Donna Bedard collected PCB-contaminated sediment samples from the Housatonic River in Massachusetts. In microcosm studies in her lab, Bedard found that Aroclor 1260 was indeed being degraded by native sediment microbes, and she developed sediment-free enrichment cultures.
She then worked with Georgia Tech researchers Frank Loeffler and Kirsti Ritalahti to further characterize these Aroclor 1260-dechlorinating enrichment cultures. Through a series of experiments, the team was able to determine that bacteria in the Dehalococcoides (Dhc) group were responsible for the dechlorination of Aroclor 1260. These microbes replace the chlorine atoms in Aroclor 1260 with hydrogen, which fuels their growth and initiates the PCB degradation process, explained Loeffler, an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the School of Biology.
The research indicates that the Dhc bacteria active in the enrichment cultures also contribute to PCB dechlorination in situ (i.e., in the Housatonic River sediment). Once Dhc bacteria dechlorinate Aroclor 1260 to a certain level, other microbial species will degrade it further and completely detoxify PCBs, Loeffler added.
"Identifying the bacteria responsible for Aroclor degradation represents a crucial step. Now we can start to design tools to look for these microbes in sediments and then develop engineering approaches to stimulate their growth and activity in river or lake sediments," Loeffler said. "Then the decontamination will occur more rapidly. Instead of taking decades, the microbes might be able to degrade the PCBs in a few years."
Loeffler is optimistic about a bioremediation strategy for PCBs because of his lab's earlier success in identifying microbes that degrade the common solvents tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE). These toxic compounds, which contaminated subsurface environments and groundwater decades ago when their use was unregulated, are primarily used in dry cleaning operations and degreasing of metal components. Following Loeffler's discovery, it took less than five years for scientists and engineers to develop and implement bioremediation strategies that use these microbes to detoxify PCE and TCE.
"The situation with PCBs is a little more complicated because they are in river and lake sediments instead of groundwater and subsurface environments, but in principle, the same sequence of events could occur," Loeffler said. "We need industry, engineers and scientists to work together to develop a bioremediation approach for PCBs."
Loeffler predicts that bioremediation technologies for addressing PCB detoxification will be developed first for lakes, such as PCB-contaminated portions of Lake Hartwell in South Carolina. Then it will be refined to clean up river sediments, where the flow rate is greater and bioremediation may be more difficult to implement, he added.
Development of bioremediation technologies for PCB cleanup would offer an alternative to sediment dredging and disposal in landfills, which is the most commonly used method for removing PCBs. Dredging is controversial because of the invasive nature of this technology and the risk of spreading contaminants.
"Now, because of our research, regulators know these microbes exist, that they are native to certain environments and that natural degradation processes are at work," Loeffler said. "Maybe this will influence decision-making processes, and bioremediation will be implemented. This could save millions of dollars spent on controversial dredging projects."
In the meantime, Loeffler and his colleagues continue to characterize Dhc bacteria. They hope to develop molecular biology tools to quickly detect the presence of these microbes, their population size and level of activity in the environment, Loeffler said. After that, they will be ready to work with engineers to develop feasible bioremediation strategies.
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Writer: Jane M. Sanders
]]>These new arrays would detect quiet underwater targets, while also providing unambiguous directional information.
Using optical fibers, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found a way to create a sensor that detects the direction from which a sound is coming under water. This directional component is an important improvement over the current technology, researchers said.
"Detecting quiet sounds under water can be very difficult," said Francois Guillot, a research engineer in Georgia Tech's George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. "But our sensor detects small sounds over the noise of the ocean and also provides directional information."
The sensor uses a mechanism inspired by how fish hear under water. Inside a fish's ear, there are thousands of tiny hairs that move when a sound wave passes through the fish. These hairs then communicate with nerves allowing fish to hear under water. Because fish excel at detecting sound so they don't get eaten, the Georgia Tech researchers chose the fish hearing system as their model, they said.
Guillot described the novel underwater sensor late last fall at the 4th joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Acoustical Society of Japan in Honolulu, Hawaii. His presentation was part of a session titled "Underwater Acoustics: Array Processing, Sensors, and Technology."
In the field of underwater acoustics, there is always a need to develop more sophisticated sensors, researchers said. The Navy currently tows long lines of hydrophones to listen to sound under water -- much like a microphone listens to sound in the air. A hydrophone measures the pressure change associated with the propagation of a sound wave. It converts acoustic energy into electrical energy and is used in passive underwater systems to listen only. One hydrophone identifies a sound nearby, and multiple hydrophones can help tell the direction from which it's coming. But directional ambiguity exists. A line array of hydrophones cannot tell if the sound is coming from the left or right.
Guillot and collaborators David Trivett, a principal research scientist, and Peter Rogers, a professor -- both in the School of Mechanical Engineering -- have developed a more compact, more sensitive sound detector that can provide unambiguous directional information. In addition, the sensor can be modified to measure the water deformation, known as shear, associated with a sound wave -- a quantity typically difficult to measure because it requires very sensitive instruments. This new sensor shows promise that it can be successfully modified to detect this acoustic shear, which will enhance the directional information, the researchers said.
The sensor is designed with two small plates attached by a hinge. One plate is held rigidly, and the other plate -- made of a composite material with the same density as water -- is free to move. The freely moving plate shifts in the sound field and follows the motion of water. A light signal sent through an optical fiber glued to both plates is modified by the motion of the freely moving plate. Analyzing the light signal with a photodetector provides information relative to the sound waves.
The sensor developed at Georgia Tech offers advantages over existing systems, researchers said. Guillot hopes the new sensor changes the way the Navy detects sound under water.
"If the Navy tows an array of hydrophones thousands of feet long, it makes it difficult to maneuver the ship," Rogers said. "Since we can cut that length by a factor of more than five, it will cost less money to operate and be easier to handle."
The current prototype sensor has been tested in the School of Mechanical Engineering's large underwater acoustic tank facility to observe the behavior of the sensor under water. The facility includes a rectangular concrete water tank 25 feet deep, 25 feet wide and 34 feet long; it contains about 160,000 gallons of water. The researchers hope to field test the prototype system soon to see if it outperforms current technology.
The research has been supported by a grant from Mike Traweek at the Office of Naval Research.
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Writer: Abby Vogel
]]>The resulting analog spectral processors (ASP), to be developed at the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC), would have a range of uses, from aiding battlefield communication to enabling cellular phones to find less-crowded frequencies.
ASP technology is related to the 'cognitive radio' (CR) concept, which involves utilizing less-busy frequencies for optimal cell-phone and radio performance.
Farrokh Ayazi, a GEDC researcher who is co-director of the Center for MEMS and Microsystems Technology (CMMT), is principal investigator on the project. The project, led by BAE Systems Inc, has received $11 million from DARPA, of which $3.5 million will go to Georgia Tech over three years. Purdue University is also on the BAE Systems team.
"The project's goal is basically to create a small, low-power handheld device that combines a spectrum analyzer and a truly powerful communication device," said Ayazi, who is an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). "The spectrum analyzer would scan the frequency spectrum all the way from 20 MHz to 6 GHz to find empty spots -- channels that are receiving less use."
This extensive range would allow ASPs to be useful in a range of applications, Ayazi said. Such a wide-band spectral processor would help soldiers switch channels quickly to avoid enemy jamming measures at military-use frequencies, while also enhancing military and civilian communications at other frequencies.
"Prof. Ayazi's award continues to establish the GEDC as a world leader in the development of technologies for cognitive radio applications," said Joy Laskar, GEDC's director and the Schlumberger Chair in Microelectronics in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "The GEDC is a major player in the IEEE 802.22 CR standard, and this award will look to provide critical enabling analog-technology blocks that should impact both the DoD and commercial markets."
Two other DARPA-funded teams are also working on spectral processors. A Rockwell-led team includes the University of San Diego, Stanford and Cornell University, while Honeywell is leading a team includes the University of California Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania.
Central to the BAE Systems/Georgia Tech/Purdue effort will be extensive use of analog micro- and nano-mechanical circuits, rather than digital circuits, in designing spectral processors. In the analog domain, chips and other devices work by moving between signal levels in a continuous fashion, while digital chips and devices move between separate and discontinuous levels and do not recognize the transition between levels.
Micromechanical circuits have a number of advantages over electronic digital chips. They typically use far less power and run cooler than digital circuits, and are also smaller, offer much better communications quality, and are relatively inexpensive to manufacture.
"What we're proposing is to solve the cognitive-radio problem in the analog domain rather than the digital domain, with virtually no added power," Ayazi said.
To develop analog spectral processors, the Georgia Tech team will use micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), which are tiny analog machines that operate at the microscale - one millionth of a meter.
To scan and move swiftly between far-flung frequencies, the researchers will use MEMS technology in constructing arrays of micro-mechanical resonators, also known as bulk acoustic-wave (BAW) resonators. These devices play a role in finding and holding a radio-frequency signal.
In constructing extensive arrays of signal-seeking BAW resonators, researchers must choose between two approaches. One is to use resonators to create an array of many fixed filters -- each tuned to a specific frequency -- that will cover the entire spectrum. The other approach involves tunable filters that can move back and forth to some degree between frequencies. Ayazi said that further research will determine the optimal approach.
The structural material of choice for acoustic-wave resonators will be nano-crystalline diamond, micro-machined to reach frequencies of up to 10 GHz.
Researchers will also use silver, the highest-conductivity metal, in micro-machining the analog arrays. Silver will aid in achieving high-quality inductors and capacitors, the components that aid tuning to a specific frequency.
"This is a very exciting challenge, and it also involves a lot of advancement in the packaging technology for MEMS," Ayazi said. "These ultra-small micro-mechanical components must be free to move, so the packaging is totally different than the traditional integrated circuit."
He explained that the packaging material - 'the substance that holds and protects the ASPs' - cannot come into contact with the vibrating structures of the micro-mechanical resonators. Working at microscale, researchers must create a small cavity on top of the electronics to achieve a hermetic environment that will seal out damaging moisture.
A key to ASP packaging will be advanced organic materials that possess low signal-loss properties and are strong and semi-hermetic. Working with Prof. Paul Kohl of Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Ayazi will use specially-tailored polymers to develop an effective package for the filter arrays.
"The combination of all these elements will eventually produce an array of highly improved tunable filters," Ayazi said. "We are basically looking for orders of magnitude improvement in performance, size and cost. The ultimate goal is to integrate ASP's with high-speed electronics on a single chip and bring unprecedented capabilities to the wireless world."
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Technical Contact: Farrokh Ayazi (404-894-9496); E-mail: (farrokh.ayazi@ece.gatech.edu).
Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>Based on arrays of vertically-aligned zinc oxide nanowires that move inside a novel 'zig-zag' plate electrode, the nanogenerators could provide a new way to power nanoscale devices without batteries or other external power sources.
"This is a major step toward a portable, adaptable and cost-effective technology for powering nanoscale devices," said Zhong Lin Wang, Regents' Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "There has been a lot of interest in making nanodevices, but we have tended not to think about how to power them. Our nanogenerator allows us to harvest or recycle energy from many sources to power these devices."
Details of the nanogenerator are reported in the April 6 issue of the journal Science. The research was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Emory-Georgia Tech Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence.
The nanogenerators take advantage of the unique coupled piezoelectric and semiconducting properties of zinc oxide nanostructures, which produce small electrical charges when they are flexed.
Fabrication begins with growing an array of vertically-aligned nanowires approximately a half-micron apart on gallium arsenide, sapphire or a flexible polymer substrate. A layer of zinc oxide is grown on top of substrate to collect the current. The researchers also fabricate silicon 'zig-zag' electrodes, which contain thousands of nanometer-scale tips made conductive by a platinum coating.
The electrode is then lowered on top of the nanowire array, leaving just enough space so that a significant number of the nanowires are free to flex within the gaps created by the tips. Moved by mechanical energy such as waves or vibration, the nanowires periodically contact the tips, transferring their electrical charges. By capturing the tiny amounts of current produced by hundreds of nanowires kept in motion, the generators produce a direct current output in the nano-Ampere range.
Wang and his group members Xudong Wang, Jinhui Song and Jin Liu expect that with optimization, their nanogenerator could produce as much as 4 watts per cubic centimeter - based on a calculation for a single nanowire. That would be enough to power a broad range of nanometer-scale defense, environmental and biomedical applications, including biosensors implanted in the body, environmental monitors - and even nanoscale robots.
Nearly a year ago, in the April 14, 2006 issue of the journal Science, Wang's research team announced the concept behind the nanogenerators. At that time, the nanogenerator could harvest power from just one nanowire at a time by dragging the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) over it. Made of platinum-coated silicon, the tip served as a Schottky barrier, helping accumulate and preserve the electrical charge as the nanowire flexed - and ensuring that the current flowed in one direction.
With its multiple conducting tips similar to those of an AFM, the new zig-zag electrode serves as a Schottky barrier to hundreds or thousands of wires simultaneously, harvesting energy from the nanowire arrays.
"Producing the top electrode as a single assembly sets the stage for scaling up this technology," Wang said. "We can now see the steps involved in moving forward to a device that can power real nanometer-scale applications."
Before that happens, additional development will be needed to optimize current production. For instance, though nanowires in the arrays can be grown to approximately the same length - about one micron - there is some variation. Wires that are too short cannot touch the electrode to produce current, while wires that are too long cannot flex to produce electrical charge.
"We need to be able to better control the growth, density and uniformity of the wires," Wang said. "We believe we can make as many as millions or even billions of nanowires produce current simultaneously. That will allow us to optimize operation of the nanogenerator."
In their lab, the researchers aimed an ultrasound source at their nanogenerator to measure current output over slightly more than an hour. Though there is some fluctuation in output, the current flow was continuous as long as the ultrasonic generator was operating, Wang said.
To rule out other sources of the current measured, the researchers substituted carbon nanotubes - which are not piezoelectric - for the zinc oxide nanowires, and used a top electrode that was flat. In both cases, the resulting devices did not produce current.
Providing power for nanometer-scale devices has long been a challenge. Batteries and other traditional sources are too large, and tend to negate the size advantages of nanodevices. And since batteries contain toxic materials such as lithium and cadmium, they cannot be implanted into the body as part of biomedical applications.
Because zinc oxide is non-toxic and compatible with the body, the new nanogenerators could be integrated into implantable biomedical devices to wirelessly measure blood flow and blood pressure within the body. And they could also find more ordinary applications.
"If you had a device like this in your shoes when you walked, you would be able to generate your own small current to power small electronics," Wang noted. "Anything that makes the nanowires move within the generator can be used for generating power. Very little force is required to move them."
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Writer: John Toon
]]>The incubator, the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), has turned out 112 science and technology companies since 1986 - including 31 that have been represented on the public markets through IPOs or acquisitions.
At a May 10 event held to showcase the incubator's companies, ATDC 'graduated' six early-stage firms - three Internet companies, two semiconductor firms and a developer of homeland security technology. Together, those six early-stage firms raised more than $50 million while in the incubator.
"ATDC is a source of exciting deal flow, and we have invested in many ATDC companies," said Fred Sturgis, managing director of Miami-based venture capital firm H.I.G. Ventures, a $4 billion fund. "ATDC attracts leading entrepreneurs in Georgia and increases the probability of success for its companies."
The billion dollars raised by ATDC companies included 160 deals in 75 companies from 138 venture investors. The average deal size was $6.7 million, though funding amounts varied, with 32 companies raising less than $5 million and 10 raising more than $25 million. More than 90 of the 160 deals involved investors from outside Georgia.
"ATDC is an invaluable resource to Georgia, as the leading organization for advancing business incubation and entrepreneurship," said Susan O'Dwyer, national director of venture capital research for PricewaterhouseCoopers. "Over its 26-year history, ATDC's staff has provided hundreds of entrepreneurs at early-stage companies with the right experience, business planning advice and networking resources needed to grow their companies - while contributing to Georgia's reputation for innovation."
ATDC companies accounted for one of every five venture capital deals done in Georgia over the last eight years, and 15 percent of the total dollars raised in the state. The one billion includes funds raised by companies throughout their growth, including their time in the incubator and after they graduated. The amount does not include the value of mergers and acquisitions - which would add another $830 million in shareholder value.
While Georgia has pursued traditional economic development strategies, it has also made substantial, long-term investments in supporting startup companies. In 2005, ATDC companies - including both graduates and current members - generated $1.7 billion in revenues and provided 4,326 jobs.
The incubator is an example of how universities are making an increasingly important contribution to local and state economies, noted Wayne Hodges, vice provost for Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute - ATDC's parent organization.
"Through ATDC, Georgia Tech is helping build a strong community of experienced entrepreneurs," Hodges noted. "The billion-dollar celebration demonstrates that the strategy of supporting the development and growth of startup companies has paid off for the state."
About a quarter of ATDC companies grew out of technology developed at Georgia Tech. Two of the 2007 graduates, Jacket Micro Devices and Qcept Technologies, got their start in the Georgia Tech VentureLab program, an initiative that helps form companies from research innovations.
At the May 10 event, VentureLab graduated seven companies, of which three - Asankya, Sentrinsic and Vivonetics - have already been accepted into the ATDC.
"Because of its focus on real-world applications, Georgia Tech's research program generates a large number of innovations - nearly one a day - that have potential commercial value," Hodges added. "We want to move those innovations in the marketplace, through startups where those make sense and through transferring technology to existing companies."
For more information about the ATDC's billion-dollar milestone, please visit (www.atdc.org/billion/).
About the ATDC: The Advanced Technology Development Center is a nationally-recognized science and technology incubator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. ATDC provides strategic business advice and connects its member companies to the people and resources they need to succeed.
More than 110 companies have emerged from the ATDC, including publicly-traded firms such as MindSpring Enteprises - now part of EarthLink. Headquartered at Technology Square on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, ATDC has been recognized by both BusinessWeek and Inc. magazines as among the nation's top nonprofit incubators. Since 1999, ATDC companies have attracted more than a billion dollars in venture capital funding.
ATDC was formed in 1980 to stimulate growth in Georgia's technology business base and now has locations in Atlanta, Savannah and Warner Robins. ATDC is part of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute. For more information, please visit (www.atdc.org).
ATDC Facts
1) As of June 2007, ATDC had 34 member companies in its program. The companies are working in the following technologies:
- Software and Information Technology - 38 percent
- Bioscience and Health Care - 26 percent
- Electronics - 21 percent
- New Media and the Internet - 15 percent
2) ATDC companies do business in four Georgia cities:
- Atlanta (25 companies)
- Columbus (1 company)
- Savannah (5 companies
- Warner Robins (3 companies)
3) Ten of the top 25 venture capital deals included in the MoneyTree- Report for 2006 involved ATDC companies. (The report is a collaboration between PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data provided by Thomson Financial.) The five largest deals involving ATDC companies were:
- Air2Web ($25 million)
- CardioMEMS ($22.6 million)
- EGT ($14 million)
- Jacket Micro Devices ($12 million)
- iVivity ($9.9 million)
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]]>The researchers developed a technique to simultaneously or sequentially add optical and magnetic nanoparticles into the beads. Adding magnetic nanoparticles allows the use of a magnetic field to attract and easily remove the beads from a liquid sample.
"These nanoparticles enter the pores of the microbeads so quickly and so completely -- essentially more than 99 percent of the nanoparticles go into the pores of the beads," explained Shuming Nie, the head researcher on the project and the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Engineering and director of Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center.
The beads are mixed in a liquid such as urine. Viruses, proteins or other biomarkers are captured on the bead surface. After the beads are removed from the liquid, optical imaging is used to determine the concentration of a specific protein or virus in the liquid sample based on the number of proteins or viruses attached to the surface of the beads.
Tushar Sathe, a graduate student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, described the process of creating these novel beads and their clinical applications on Jan. 20 at SPIE Photonics West in San Jose, California. The work was also published in the Aug. 15 issue of Analytical Chemistry.
The technology involves embedding fluorescent quantum dots and magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles inside the beads to create dual-modality magneto-optical beads. Nie and Sathe synthesize the quantum dots in different colors by varying their size, giving the beads a unique optical signature. Having different color beads allows the researchers to detect several target molecules at the same time in the same liquid sample.
"We use the quantum dots to create a set of beads that are unique and can be distinguished from each other. It's similar to bar-coding -- once you barcode the beads and put them in the urine or blood sample, you can remove them and decode what proteins or viruses have attached to individual beads based on their spectral signature," explained Sathe.
The process of creating these beads is quite simple, according to Sathe. The surface of the beads contains a long-chain carbon molecule that makes the beads hydrophobic, meaning they repel water. The beads are dissolved in butanol and washed several times. Then the beads are counted and optical and magnetic nanocrystals are added to the suspension either simultaneously or sequentially.
After 15-20 minutes, the butanol is removed to get rid of any remaining nanoparticles that didn't get incorporated into the beads and the beads are washed with ethanol. Then the beads are coated with a polymer that creates a hydrophilic surface on the beads. This allows the beads to be functionalized by adding antibodies or DNA molecules to the surface that will capture the target molecules.
These beads are dual-function -- both optical and magnetic -- but according to Sathe, more functions can be added to the beads. "Adding them is as easy as adding the nanoparticles into the solution. You just have to make sure the nanoparticle surface is hydrophobic so that it interacts with the beads," said Sathe.
The primary biomedical applications for this new technology will be to detect cancer and neurological diseases by identifying certain molecules present in human blood or urine that indicate specific diseases, according to Nie, who is also professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry, materials science & engineering, and hematology and oncology at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
"Some of the biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease have very low concentrations in the blood so you need highly sensitive techniques that can find a specific molecule to diagnose this disease," explained Nie. "Our technique could also be used to monitor therapeutic response. For example, if the viral level decreases in samples taken at later dates, then we know the drug is probably working."
This new technology allows the researchers to analyze very low concentrations of target molecules. "Instead of analyzing a liter of sample where the concentration could be very dilute and you might not see the target molecule you're looking for, you can let the beads capture the molecules on their surface, remove them from the liquid, and then just measure the number of molecules attached to the beads," said Nie.
This ongoing research is funded by the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Energy's Genomes to Life (GTL) Program, the Department of Defense and the Georgia Cancer Coalition, a public-private partnership established by the Georgia General Assembly in 2001.
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Writer: Abby Vogel
]]>In a paper published June 11 in the online version of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report the first evidence that a common species of saltwater algae - also known as phytoplankton - can change form to protect itself against attack by predators that have very different feeding habits. To boost its survival chances, Phaeocystis globosa will enhance or suppress the formation of colonies based on whether nearby grazers prefer eating large or small particles.
"Based on chemical signals from attacked neighbors, Phaeocystis globosa enhances colony formation if that's the best thing to do for survival, or it suppresses the formation of colonies in favor of growing as small solitary cells if that's the best thing to do," said Mark E. Hay, Teasley Professor of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "These changes in form made nearly a 100-fold difference in the alga's susceptibility to being eaten. It's certainly surprising that a single-celled organism can chemically sense the presence of nearby consumers, identify those consumers and change in opposing ways depending on which consumers are present."
The behavior could have implications for global climate change because Phaeocystis blooms play a key role in the carbon cycle of cold oceans, accounting for up to 85 percent of local productivity during some time periods. This complex defensive behavior also shows how environmental factors can affect even simple organisms, Hay noted.
Conducted largely at Georgia Tech's marine lab in Savannah, Ga., the research was sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Phaeocystis has two primary predators: small grazers such as ciliates, which prefer to eat small solitary cells that are four to six microns in diameter, and the larger shrimp-like copepods, which prefer to eat large, ball-shaped colonies.
When copepods are attacking the phytoplankton, therefore, the best survival strategy of Phaeocystis is to form solitary cells. When ciliates are attacking, the best strategy is to form colonies that are too large for those predators to consume.
Lead author Jeremy D. Long, along with collaborators Gabriella W. Smalley, Todd Barsby, Jon T. Anderson and Mark Hay found that's just what Phaeocystis does. Chemicals that signaled attacks from copepods suppressed the formation of colonies by 60 to 90 percent, while signals from ciliates enhanced colony formation by more than 25 percent.
The transformations took place over periods of three to six days, and the overall size difference could be dramatic. "When one of these cells changes to the biggest colony form, although it takes a while, it's like changing from a mosquito to 76 blue whales or 3,000 bull elephants," Hay explained. "That's a pretty dramatic difference."
Defensive responses are often seen in higher plants, but this is believed to be the first report of such a complex and species-specific response in marine phytoplankton. Hay suspects scientists may find other examples of complex defensive strategies when they look more closely at other single-celled organisms.
The response of Phaeocystis could be important to scientists studying climate change because the predator that ultimately consumes the phytoplankton determines the fate of the carbon it contains. If eaten by copepods, for example, the carbon becomes part of fecal packages that sink into the deep ocean where a portion of that carbon is sequestered - thereby reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas. If consumed by smaller creatures like ciliates, less of the carbon sinks to the deep sea and more remains in the surface waters.
"This could alter the flow of energy and nutrients from deep to shallow, depending on what might be trying to eat it, and how the organism responds to the chemical signals of what's attacking it," Hay said.
Experimentally, the researchers attempted to separate the chemical signals from the actual predators. They grew Phaeocystis in the presence of either ciliates or copepods. They then filtered out both the phytoplankton and predators, leaving only water containing the chemical signals of attack.
Water samples containing signals from the two predators were then separately introduced into Phaeocystis cultures that had not been attacked. The scientists then studied how the different chemical signals affected the percentage of Phaeocystis living in colonies or as solitary cells. Finally, they examined whether this response affected how much the predators ate to determine if the change conferred a survival advantage.
"We found that these organisms were making the right choice," Hay said. "They were shifting to the shape that made them largely immune to whichever predator was attacking, and this shift suppressed either the feeding or growth and reproduction of the consumer to which they were responding."
The role of this phytoplankton has been controversial in the scientific community, with some arguing that Phaeocystis makes a good food source for higher creatures in the cold oceans, while others contend its food role is small. While this paper won't resolve the dispute, Hay believes it shows that both points of view could be correct - depending on which form the organism has taken.
"It depends on the environmental context, which we are appreciating more and more in ecology and in biomedical research," he added. "Some of these differences are small, but they can have a large effect."
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Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
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Writer: John Toon
]]>The new 3D solar cells capture photons from sunlight using an array of miniature 'tower' structures that resemble high-rise buildings in a city street grid. The cells could find near-term applications for powering spacecraft, and by enabling efficiency improvements in photovoltaic coating materials, could also change the way solar cells are designed for a broad range of applications.
"Our goal is to harvest every last photon that is available to our cells," said Jud Ready, a senior research engineer in the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). "By capturing more of the light in our 3D structures, we can use much smaller photovoltaic arrays. On a satellite or other spacecraft, that would mean less weight and less space taken up with the PV system."
The 3D design was described in the March 2007 issue of the journal JOM, published by The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society. The research has been sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Air Force Research Laboratory, NewCyte Inc., and Intellectual Property Partners, LLC. A global patent application has been filed for the technology.
The GTRI photovoltaic cells trap light between their tower structures, which are about 100 microns tall, 40 microns by 40 microns square, 10 microns apart -- and built from arrays containing millions of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes. Conventional flat solar cells reflect a significant portion of the light that strikes them, reducing the amount of energy they absorb.
Because the tower structures can trap and absorb light received from many different angles, the new cells remain efficient even when the sun is not directly overhead. That could allow them to be used on spacecraft without the mechanical aiming systems that maintain a constant orientation to the sun, reducing weight and complexity - and improving reliability.
"The efficiency of our cells increases as the sunlight goes away from perpendicular, so we may not need mechanical arrays to rotate our cells," Ready noted.
The ability of the 3D cells to absorb virtually all of the light that strikes them could also enable improvements in the efficiency with which the cells convert the photons they absorb into electrical current.
In conventional flat solar cells, the photovoltaic coatings must be thick enough to capture the photons, whose energy then liberates electrons from the photovoltaic materials to create electrical current. However, each mobile electron leaves behind a "hole" in the atomic matrix of the coating. The longer it takes electrons to exit the PV material, the more likely it is that they will recombine with a hole -- reducing the electrical current.
Because the 3D cells absorb more of the photons than conventional cells, their coatings can be made thinner, allowing the electrons to exit more quickly, reducing the likelihood that recombination will take place. That boosts the "quantum efficiency" - the rate at which absorbed photons are converted to electrons - of the 3D cells.
Fabrication of the cells begins with a silicon wafer, which can also serve as the solar cell's bottom junction. The researchers first coat the wafer with a thin layer of iron using a photolithography process that can create a wide variety of patterns. The patterned wafer is then placed into a furnace heated to 780 degrees Celsius. Hydrocarbon gases are then flowed into furnace, where the carbon and hydrogen separate. In a process known as chemical vapor deposition, the carbon grows arrays of multi-walled carbon nanotubes atop the iron patterns.
Once the carbon nanotube towers have been grown, the researchers use a process known as molecular beam epitaxy to coat them with cadmium telluride (CdTe) and cadmium sulfide (CdS) which serve as the p-type and n-type photovoltaic layers. Atop that, a thin coating of indium tin oxide, a clear conducting material, is added to serve as the cell's top electrode.
In the finished cells, the carbon nanotube arrays serve both as support for the 3D arrays and as a conductor connecting the photovoltaic materials to the silicon wafer.
The researchers chose to make their prototypes cells from the cadmium materials because they were familiar with them from other research. However, a broad range of other photovoltaic materials could also be used, and selecting the best material for specific applications will be a goal of future research.
Ready also wants to study the optimal heights and spacing for the towers, and to determine the trade-offs between spacing and the angle at which the light hits the structures.
The new cells face several hurdles before they can be commercially produced. Testing must verify their ability to survive launch and operation in space, for instance. And production techniques will have to scaled up from the current two-inch laboratory prototypes.
"We have demonstrated that we can extract electrons using this approach," Ready said. "Now we need to get a good baseline to see where we compare to existing materials, how to optimize this and what's needed to advance this technology."
Intellectual Property Partners of Atlanta holds the rights to the 3D solar cell design and is seeking partners to commercialize the technology.
Another commercialization path is being followed by an Ohio company, NewCyte, which is partnering with GTRI to use the 3D approach for terrestrial solar cells. The Air Force Office of Scientific Research has awarded the company a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant to develop the technology.
"NewCyte has patent pending, low cost technology for depositing semiconductor layers directly on individual fullerenes," explained Dennis J. Flood, NewCyte's president and CTO. "We are using our technology to grow the same semiconductor layers on the carbon nanotube towers that GTRI has already demonstrated. Our goal is to achieve performance and cost levels that will make solar cells using the GTRI 3D cell structure competitive in the broader terrestrial solar cell market."
In addition to Ready, other Georgia Tech researchers contributing to the work include R.E. Camacho, A.R. Morgan, M.C. Flores, T.A. McLeod, V.S. Kumsomboone, B.J. Mordecai, R. Bhattacharagjea, W. Tong, B.K. Wagner, J.D. Flicker and S.P. Turano.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Kirk Englehardt (404-407-7280); E-mail: (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Jud Ready (404-407-6036); E-mail: (jud.ready@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>It's all to see if the $80 million to $100 million a year Georgians pay for vehicle emissions inspections and repairs is well spent.
These numbers describe the scope and impact of a long-term research study on vehicle emissions and air quality in 21 metro Atlanta counties, plus four more in Macon and Augusta, Ga. The study, conducted by Georgia Institute of Technology researchers, is meeting the monitoring needs of Georgia's state government and offering significant insights that help direct both research and policy, says Michael Rodgers, associate director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute's (GTRI) Aerospace, Transportation and Advanced Systems Laboratory and group leader of air quality research.
Rodgers and his team began monitoring vehicle emissions in 1991 with a pilot program that began in the Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. With funding from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, he and his staff designed the Continuous Atlanta Fleet Evaluation (CAFÃ) study and have systematically collected this data using remote sensing technology since the spring of 1993.
The study continues to validate the effectiveness of the state's vehicle emissions inspection program in 13 metro Atlanta counties that are part of a federal ozone level non-attainment area, Rodgers says.
"Georgians spend a major chunk of change on inspections and repairs, so you want to make sure the inspections program is working," Rodgers says."We've found that it is indeed reducing vehicle emissions in the region. The state is investing less than 1 percent of the cost of the program to monitor it. So that's a cost-effective solution."
CAFÃ is noted among environmental monitoring programs for the length and depth of the study, Rodgers says. "When you gather systematic data over a long period of time, you can better understand how things change," he explains. "Over time, you can gradually see how the vehicle fleet changes, how its operation changes and how emissions change."
The vehicle emissions database has revealed some interesting trends, Rodgers notes. Highlights include:
- In comparison with the late 1970s, total emissions have declined in the 20-county metro area CAFÃ tracks. This measure peaked in the early 1980s and has declined since then, despite a doubling of the Atlanta fleet size. "Whether we can continue this trend indefinitely is a different question as Atlanta continues to grow," Rodgers says.
- Newer, cleaner-burning fuels have had a very positive effect - comparable to the inspections program - in reducing vehicle emissions.
- Also, only 1 percent of vehicles in the Atlanta fleet now run on carburetor-based systems. The second generation of fuel injection vehicles has helped reduce emissions.
- As vehicles became more durable in the early 1990s, Atlantans kept their automobiles longer. But a new-car-buying trend began in Atlanta by the end of the 1990s and lasted for several years. Even though more vehicles are on the road now, per vehicle emissions has declined by about half."It's an open question as to what we'll see between 2009 and 2012 when these vehicles are much older," Rodgers says.
- Researchers monitored the rise of the minivan and the sport utility vehicle (SUV). When they began monitoring, the Atlanta fleet was composed mostly of passenger vehicles and trucks. Minivans became popular in the early 1990s and then SUVs by the mid-1990s. Now, large SUVs, minivans and pick-up trucks dominate the fleet. These vehicle types also have demonstrated a comparable reduction in emissions.
"We've been able to monitor these changes as they have occurred, so it's been enormously enlightening," Rodgers says."We're not speculating on whether what we think is true is true; we can actually look at the data."
Rodgers also conducts research on vehicle emissions modeling under his joint appointment in the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The Mobile Emission Assessment System for Urban and Regional Evaluation (MEASURE) model he helped develop estimates vehicle production of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and oxides of nitrogen in space and time. MEASURE differs from previous models in that it estimates vehicle emissions as a function of vehicle operating modes - such as cruise and idle - rather than average vehicle speeds. Because it is a modal model, researchers believe MEASURE more accurately reflects on-road emissions.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Michael Rodgers (404-407-8278); E-mail: (michael.rodgers@ce.gatech.edu).
Writer: Jane Sanders
]]>"The general assumption was that if you were near the coast where the earthquake took place, you would feel it and be able to run to higher ground," said Hermann Fritz, first author of a new Geophysical Research Letters paper about the July 17, 2006 tsunami. "This event caught people by surprise and showed that it's not always that simple."
The earthquake was slow rupturing, so it didn't produce strong ground shaking on Java that might have alerted people on the beach, he explained.
No local warning was issued for the tsunami waves, which arrived only tens of minutes after the earthquake. Fortunately, the event took place on a Monday. Had the massive waves hit the day before, which was a major national holiday, the popular beach would have been much more crowded - and the toll higher.
"Warning systems typically don't work very well for locations near earthquakes, where there are only tens of minutes between the earthquake and the tsunami's arrival," noted Fritz, a Georgia Institute of Technology assistant professor who led an inspection team to Java a week after the event. "It's pretty much a spontaneous self-evacuation. You normally feel the earthquake or see the ocean withdraw. If you hear the noise in the last tens of seconds before it hits, then it's just a matter of who makes it and who doesn't."
The survey team, which included scientists from five different countries, interviewed survivors and studied evidence left behind by the tsunami, including debris fields. Beyond the quiet nature of the catastrophe, they discovered evidence of a 21-meter (65-foot) wave that hit a portion of the coastline near the island of Nusa Kambangan, indicating a second event that may have added to the severity of the disaster.
Elsewhere along the 300 kilometers of coastline studied by the International Tsunami Survey team, the waves ranged from 5 to 7 meters, 16 to 24 feet.
"This event indicates that there was likely a combination of both a tectonic tsunami and a submarine landslide or a canyon failure triggered by the earthquake," said Fritz, whose research is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation. "The runup was unusually high along one portion of the coast, too much for a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. The only explanation we could think of is that a submarine mass movement triggered by the earthquake could have added to the effect of the earthquake, given the essentially straight coastline with little room for large-scale tsunami focusing."
For people in seismically-active areas like Indonesia, an earthquake usually provides the first warning of a tsunami. Whether caused by an earthquake or an underwater landslide, the first visible sign of an oncoming tsunami is often a rapid withdrawal of the ocean that exposes the seafloor or coral reefs. When that appears, the first tsunami wave won't be far behind.
In the July 2006 Java tsunami, lifeguards did not notice the withdrawal because the water was receding anyway because of a normal low tide - and because of large wind-produced waves.
"The lifeguards did not recognize the precursors of the tsunami, either the shaking of the earth or the drawing down of the sea," said Fritz, who also interviewed survivors of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. "The irony is that many of the lifeguards survived because they were in tall concrete structures sitting more than four meters above the ground, getting just their feet wet - a classic example of vertical evacuation in engineered structures. We interviewed one of them, and it was quite moving. It was his job to watch out for the people on the beach, and what happened was pretty tough on him."
Survivors compared the sound of the tsunami to that of an aircraft landing or a loud boiling sound. "That primarily comes from the bore forming, or breaking of the waves a couple of hundred meters off shore," Fritz explained. "In high impact areas, the first tsunami wave then comes in as a rolling wave of water, whereas in low-impact areas it may only be recognized as an unusually fast and high tide."
A tsunami normally produces more than one wave, and the waves can be 10 or 20 minutes apart. Often, the second or third wave is the largest, so many deaths occur when victims return to low-lying areas to look for relatives or assess damage after the first wave hits.
In Indonesia, the government has instituted education programs to help residents respond to tsunami warning signs by quickly moving to higher ground. In many cases, safety can mean moving a mile inland or 10 meters up a hill.
"It's always going to be difficult to provide a warning in Java because the earthquake zone is so near," explained Fritz, a faculty member at Georgia Tech's Savannah, Ga. campus. "It's most critical for people to be able to evacuate themselves."
In other locations, such as the Hawaiian Islands, warning systems are useful because tsunamis caused by continental earthquakes take hours to reach the islands, he said.
In the deep ocean, tsunami waves move at the speed of a jet aircraft. However, when they approach land, the waves slow as their height builds and energy dissipates. By the time they roll onto a beach, the waves may be moving at vehicle highway speed, but that quickly drops as they encounter structures and vegetation.
"If you start running from the beach when the tsunami strikes, chances are you are not going to make it," Fritz said. "But if you have a head-start, you have a much better chance - if you know where you're going."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Hermann Fritz (912-966-7947); E-mail (hermann.fritz@gtsav.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>Plenty, says Daniel Ortiz, manager of Georgia Tech's Safety & Health Consultation Program, which is housed within Georgia Tech Research Institute's (GTRI) Electronic Systems Laboratory (ELSYS). Embalmers are exposed to a number of pathogenic microorganisms and chemicals, Ortiz explains.
In fact, preliminary data from a GTRI occupational health study indicates that up to 20 percent of embalmers in Georgia funeral homes may be exposed to formaldehyde levels above regulatory limits.
Some other unusual occupational hazards:
- Formaldehyde exposure can be a problem for workers who cut and sew wrinkle-resistant fabric.
- Jewelers who make and repair gold chains may be exposed to cadmium-a toxic metal.
- Nurses face a high risk of contracting blood-borne diseases from needles and other sharp instruments.
Although workplace safety has come a long way since the Industrial Revolution, reducing occupational hazards remains a challenge for U.S. employers, especially for smaller companies with fewer resources. In response, Georgia Tech's consultation program (www.oshainfo.gatech.edu) provides technical expertise and training to help Georgia companies create cleaner, safer environments for their workers.
In 2005, consultants visited more than 350 companies and identified 3,838 serious hazards, saving employers about $3.8 million in potential penalties from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). "Yet that's just the tip of the iceberg," Ortiz said. "It's hard to put a number on costs because any accident has far-reaching effects that go beyond workers' compensation and lost time."
For example, when an injured worker leaves a production line, it interrupts workflow, Ortiz explains. A replacement may need to be trained, causing further delays, and colleagues may need time to adjust to the new worker. Another performance factor is worker morale, which can be negatively affected by the accident.
Funded by the OSHA, Georgia Tech's consultation program is free to companies with fewer than 250 workers. What's more, the program is confidential. "Our only requirement is that companies must agree to correct all hazards and provide written verification of their actions within a reasonable time frame," said Art Wickman, a GTRI research scientist who supervises the consultation program's industrial hygienists.
Georgia Tech's consultation program serves a diverse clientele, ranging from food processors to construction companies to nursing homes. Companies can ask for help with a specific issue already known to be a problem or they can request a broader inspection.
When consultants arrive on the scene, they focus on three key areas:
- Safety issues, such as fire protection, emergency response, electrical safety and machine guarding, fall protection and machine hazards.
- Health hazards, which includes exposure to chemicals, noise and blood-borne pathogens.
- Ergonomic problems that can cause musculoskeletal disorders.
Consultants will also evaluate safety programs that may already be in place and help strengthen them.
Too often, employers may regard safety as an extraneous cost that doesn't contribute to their business. Yet reducing injuries can make a huge difference to rates for worker's compensation insurance, which is a significant expense for smaller companies.
OSHA supports more than 50 safety-and-health consultation programs throughout the United States, but most are housed within state agencies. "Having the program based at Georgia Tech is a real advantage," Ortiz said. "We're able to collaborate with experts in other areas and leverage cutting-edge knowledge and research."
That's important since workplace safety is constantly changing due to new technologies and regulations.
For example, a new OSHA regulation lowers the permissible exposure limit for hexavalent chromium, which is linked with a higher risk of lung cancer, asthma and skin damage. Metalworkers come in contact with hexavalent chromium through airborne particles emitted through sanding and grinding on painted surfaces, welding and other tasks associated with metalworking, such as chrome plating.
Nanotechnology is also becoming a hot issue. Although no regulatory standards exist yet, experts are studying the issue to determine what hazards might be associated with nano manufacturing and assess the toxicity levels of nanoparticles.
"There are also diseases and exposures that we've known about for a long time but many employers think are no longer an issue," Wickman noted. "Silicosis used to be big threat in mining and although things have improved there, exposure to silica exists in other industries." He points to workers who cut concrete or stone, such as granite countertops for kitchens.
Demographic shifts have also introduced new challenges for employers. Wickman points to the increasing number of Spanish-speaking immigrants in Georgia's labor force.
"These are primarily Mexican workers and though many have previously worked in construction, Mexico's regulatory framework isn't comparable to OSHA in the United States," he said. "So the concept of safety standards is new for them and requires a lot of education."
To help increase awareness, Georgia Tech's consultation staff has been translating many of its training materials into Spanish and offering free seminars in Spanish.
"Partnerships and alliances have become an important tool for reaching more workers through the sharing of resources and collaboration among participants," said Paul Schlumper, a GTRI research engineer who supervises the program's safety consultants.
For example, Georgia Tech's safety and health program teamed with Brasfield & Gorrie, the general contractor for the Georgia Aquarium, a $200 million project that required several hundred workers.
The partnership began in May 2004 and when completed in late 2005, there were no fatalities. During the period Georgia Tech consultants worked on the project, total number of injuries dropped from 7.5 to 2 per 100 workers - with average cost per injury falling from $11,000 to $3,000.
Among its current partnerships and alliances, Georgia Tech has been working with Atlantic Skanska, a large Atlanta-based construction firm that is building a new pollution-control plant in Rome, Ga. "This marks our second partnership where we're offering on-site safety training for workers," said Thomas Dean, a senior technical leader with the safety program.
Partnerships not only help with outreach, but increase chances for successfully reducing injuries and illness. "Partnerships involve repeat visits to a site, which helps our consultants build trust with the workers," Dean explained. "Also, we're not overwhelming employers with a lot of issues they have to tackle right away."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Kirk Englehardt (404-407-7280); E-mail: (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Dan Ortiz (404-407-8276); E-mail: (daniel.ortiz@gtri.gatech.edu) or Art Wickman (404-407-8088); E-mail: (art.wickman@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>So far, the researchers have demonstrated field-effect transistors, diodes, sensors - and current-producing nanogenerators - that operate by bending zinc oxide nanowires and nanobelts. The new components take advantage of the relationship between the mechanical and electronic coupled behavior of piezoelectric nanomaterials, a mechanism the researchers call 'nano-piezotronics.'
"Nano-piezotronics utilizes the coupling of piezoelectric and semiconducting properties to fabricate novel electronic components," said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "These devices could provide the fundamental building blocks that would allow us to create a new area of electronics."
For example, in a nano-piezotronic transistor, bending a one-dimensional zinc oxide nanostructure alters the distribution of electrical charges, providing control over the current flowing through it. By measuring changes in current flow through them, piezotronic sensors can detect forces in the nano- or even pico-Newton range. Other piezotronic sensors can determine blood pressure within the body by measuring the current flowing through the nanostructures. And, an electrical connection made to one side of a bent zinc oxide nanostructure creates a piezotronic diode that limits current flow to one direction.
The nano-piezotronic mechanism takes advantage of the fundamental property of nanowires or nanobelts made from piezoelectric materials: bending the structures creates a charge separation - positive on one side and negative on the other. The connection between bending and charge creation has also been used to create nanogenerators that produce measurable electrical currents when an array of zinc oxide nanowires is bent and then released
Development of a piezotronic gated diode based on zinc oxide nanowires was reported February 13 in the online advance issue of the journal Advanced Materials. Other nano-piezotronic components have been reported in the journals Nano Letters and Science. The research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Institutes of Health (NHI) and NASA.
"The future of nanotechnology research is in building integrated nanosystems from individual components," said Wang. "Piezotronic components based on zinc oxide nanowires and nanobelts have several important advantages that will help make such integrated nanosystems possible."
These advantages include:
-Zinc oxide nanostructures can tolerate large amounts of deformation without damage, allowing their use in flexible electronics such folding power sources.
-The large amount or deformation permits a large volume density of power output.
-Zinc oxide materials are biocompatible, allowing their use in the body without toxic effects.
-The flexible polymer substrate used in nanogenerators would allow implanted devices to conform to internal structures in the body.
-Nanogenerators based on the structures could directly produce power for use in implantable systems.
In comparison to conventional electronic components, the nano-piezotronic devices operate much differently and exhibit unique characteristics.
In conventional field-effect transistors, for instance, an electrical potential - called the gate voltage - is applied to create an electrical field that controls the flow of current between the device's source and its drain. In the piezotronic transistors developed by Wang and his research team, the current flow is controlled by changing the conductance of the nanostructure by bending it between the source and drain electrodes. The bending produces a 'gate' potential across the nanowire, and the resulting conductance is directly related to the degree of bending applied.
"The effect is to reduce the width of the channel to carry the current, so you can have a 10-fold difference in the conductivity before and after the bending," Wang explained.
Diodes, which restrict the flow of current to one direction, have also been created through nano-piezotronic mechanisms to take advantage of a potential barrier created at the interface between the electrode and the tensile (stretched) side of the nanowire by mechanical bending. The potential barrier created by the piezoelectric effect limits the follow of current to one direction.
Nanogenerators, which were announced in the April 14, 2006 issue of the journal Science, harvest energy from the environment around them, converting mechanical energy from body movement, muscle stretching, fluid flow or other sources into electricity. By producing current from the bending and releasing of zinc oxide nanowires, these devices could eliminate the need for batteries or other bulky sources for powering nanometer-scale systems.
Piezotronic nanosensors can measure nano-Newton (10 -9) forces by examining the shape of the structure under pressure. Implantable sensors based on the principle could continuously measure blood pressure inside the body and relay the information wirelessly to an external device similar to a watch, Wang said. The device could be powered by a nanogenerator harvesting energy from blood flow.
Other nanosensors can detect very low levels of specific compounds by measuring the current change created when molecules of the target are adsorbed to the nanostructure's surface. "Utilizing this kind of device, you could potentially sense a single molecule because the surface area-to-volume ratio is so high," Wang said.
In addition to Wang, the research team included J.H. Song, X.D. Wang, P.X. Gao, J.H. He, J. Zhou, N.S. Xu, L.J. Chen and J. Liu from Georgia Tech, the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and Sun Yat-Sen University in China.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Zhong Lin Wang (404-894-8008); E-mail: (zhong.wang@mse.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>Wolf will occupy the Rhesa 'Ray' S. Farmer, Jr., Distinguished Chair in Embedded Computer Systems at Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), where he will continue his research and commercialization activities.
"The results of Dr. Wolf's work have clear implications for how surveillance and homeland security applications are now developed and will be in the future," said Gary May, professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "They are also of critical importance to the economic and overall security of Atlanta and the state as a whole."
Wolf has been a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University in New Jersey. There, he focused his research and teaching on embedded computing, VLSI design (very large scale integration, the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistor-based circuits into a single chip), computer architecture and multimedia. He also led the school's Embedded Systems Group, which studies a wide variety of aspects of embedded computing systems (computers as part of larger systems).
Wolf is the 57th scientist attracted to Georgia research universities under the GRA Eminent Scholars program, a national model for attracting world-class scientific talent.
"Wayne Wolf is a highly valuable addition to our GRA Eminent Scholar program," said GRA President C. Michael Cassidy. "A key GRA goal is to recruit superior scholars to Georgia who have a proven record of converting research into useful applications. Dr. Wolf's knowledge of video and computer technology and successful forays into commercialization can lead to products that will benefit many."
Wolf is a prolific author and a sought-after lecturer in industry and academia. He has written several crucial textbooks currently in use at colleges and universities around the world, including High-Performance Embedded Computing, Computers as Components: Principles of Embedded Computer System Design and Modern VLSI Design. He co-founded several technical conferences, including the Hardware/Software Co-Design Workshop and the Multiprocessor System-on-Chip Symposium. He also founded and serves as editor-in-chief of the Association of Computing Machinery Transactions on Embedded Systems Computing.
Wolf and his research group developed new distributed smart-camera systems. These cameras cooperate in real time to analyze activities in a scene, such as movements of people, vehicles and other objects. Distributed smart-camera systems can be used in many applications ranging from security and medicine to smart rooms, which automatically track and adjust to the preferences of people in them.
In 2003, Verificon Corporation spun out of Princeton University to commercialize this technology. With Wolf serving as its chairman, Verificon is now finalizing two product lines. One system, jointly developed with Yokogawa Electric of Japan, is designed for security in large areas like stadiums and airports. The other system analyzes the activity of customers in stores to help retailers better plan their merchandise displays. Verificon is already searching for part-time programmers in Atlanta and plans to hire full-time employees in the area over the next year.
Verificon is not Wolf's first experience with new companies. In 2001-2002, he was the chief technical officer for MediaWorks Technology, a start-up devoted to systems-on-chips for consumer multimedia devices. The company designed integrated circuits that dramatically improved the cost and performance of CD/MP3 players, digital cameras, cell phones, broadband wireless set-top boxes, digital TVs, PDAs and flat panel displays.
"I'm excited about my move to Georgia Tech," said Wolf. "It's a world-class institution with lots of exciting people and projects and a great attraction to me. As for commercial opportunities, I expect this to be a great place to hire talented engineers and programmers to help us build our systems at Verificon. And, because Atlanta is home to so many companies, we hope to find some important clients there as well."
Wolf received his bachelor's, master's and doctor of philosophy degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Before becoming a faculty member at Princeton in 1989, he worked with AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J.
About GRA
A model public-private partnership between Georgia universities, business and state government, the Georgia Research Alliance helps build Georgia's technology-rich economy in three major ways: through attracting Eminent Scholars to Georgia's research universities; through helping create centers of research excellence and through converting research into products, services and jobs that drive the economy. To learn more about GRA, visit www.gra.org.
Additional Contacts:
John Toon, Research News & Publications Office,
(404-894-6986); jtoon@gatech.edu
Kathleen Robichaud, Georgia Research Alliance, (404-332-9770); krobichaud@gra.org
]]>In its bulk liquid form, water is a disordered medium that flows very readily. When most substances are compressed into a solid, their density increases. But water is different; when it becomes ice, it becomes less dense. For this reason, many scientists reasoned that when water is compressed (as it is in a nanometer-sized channel), it should maintain its liquid properties and shouldn't exhibit properties that are akin to a solid. Several earlier studies came to that very conclusion - that water confined in a nano-space behaves just like water does in the macro world. Consequently, a number of scientists considered the case to be closed.
But when Georgia Tech experimental physicist Elisa Riedo and her team directly measured the force of pure water in a nanometer-sized channel, they found evidence suggesting that water was organized into layers. Riedo conducted these measurements by recording the force placed on a silicon tip of an atomic force microscope as it compressed water. The water was confined in a nanoscale thin film on top of a solid surface.
"Since water usually has a low viscosity, the force you would expect to feel as you compress it should be very small," said Riedo, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Physics. "But when we did the experiment, we found that when the distance between the tip and the surface is about one nanometer, we feel a repulsive force by the water that is much stronger than what we would expect."
As the tip compresses the water even more, the repulsive force oscillates, indicating that the water molecules are forming layers. As the tip continues to increase its pressure on a layer, the layer collapses and the water flows out horizontally.
"In effect, the confined water film behaves effectively like a solid in the vertical direction by forming layers parallel to the confining tip and surface, while maintaining its liquidity in the horizontal direction where it can flow out - resembling some phases of liquid crystals," said Uzi Landman, director of the Center for Computational Materials Science, Regents' and Institute professor, and Callaway Chair of Physics at Georgia Tech.
A theoretical physicist, Landman conducted the first-ever computer simulations of these forces for tip-confined water films and found good correspondence between his team's theoretical predictions and the experiments.
So why did Riedo and Landman's results differ from their peers? According to Landman, most previous studies on confined water were limited by technology at the time and could not directly measure the behavior in the last two nanometers. Instead they had to measure other properties and infer the forces acting in films of one nanometer thickness or less.
"If you want force, it is preferable to measure it," he said. "This is the first experiment to directly measure the force and it's the first simulation done of these forces. The fact that we have direct measurements married with theoretical results is rather conclusive."
Riedo and Landman conducted their experiments in several different environments. They found that the layering effect was more pronounced when water was placed on top of hydrophilic surfaces that allow water to wet the solid surface, such as glass. When the water was confined by hydrophobic surfaces where water tends to bead up, like graphite, the effect was still present, but less pronounced.
At the same time, Riedo's team was measuring the vertical force exerted on the tip by the confined water film, they also measured the film viscosity by measuring the lateral force. They found that when water was placed on a hydrophilic surface, the viscosity began to increase dramatically as the thickness of the confined film reached the 1.5 nanometer range. As they continued to compress the water and measure the lateral forces, the viscosity increased by a factor of 1,000 to 10,000.
On hydrophobic surfaces, they did not see such an increase in viscosity. The results of the molecular dynamics simulations support these findings, showing a dramatically decreased mobility for sub-nanometer thick water films under hydrophilic confinement.
"Water is a wonderful lubricant," said Riedo, "but it flows too easily for many applications. At the one nanometer scale, water is a viscous fluid and could be a much better lubricant."
Understanding the properties of water at this scale could also be important for biological and pharmaceutical research, especially in understanding processes that depend on hydrated ionic transport through nanoscale channels and pores.
Riedo and Landman's next steps are to introduce impurities in the water to study how that affects its properties.
Tai-De Li, Robert Szoszkiewicz and Jianping Gao also contributed to this research, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, the American Chemical Society Petroleum Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the U.S. Department of Energy.
]]>Immelt is the ninth chairman in General Electric's 128-year history and was appointed to his post in September 2001. He had previously served as president and chairman-elect of General Electric (GE) beginning in November 2000.
Immelt began his GE career in 1982. Over the last 24 years, he has held a series of global leadership roles in GE's plastics, appliance and medical businesses. He became an officer of GE in 1989 and joined the GE Capital Board in 1997.
In 2005 and 2006, Barron's named Immelt one of the World's Best CEOs. Under his leadership, GE has been named "America's Most Admired Company" three times in a poll conducted by FORTUNE magazine and the world's most respected company in polls conducted by Barron's and the Financial Times.
Chairman of The Business Council, Immelt serves on the boards of three non-profit organizations: Catalyst, devoted to advancing women in business; Robin Hood, focused on addressing poverty in New York City; and the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Immelt holds a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College (1978) and an MBA from Harvard University (1982). He and his wife, Andrea, have one daughter.
Dr. Ray Orbach, Undersecretary for Science, Department of Energy, will address the Ph.D. graduates during a Thursday evening ceremony on May 3, 2007. The Ph. D. ceremony will be held in the Ferst Center for the Arts on the Georgia Tech campus at 7 p.m.
]]>"P53 has long been recognized as a key player in directing chemotherapy-damaged cancer cells to self annihilate, but less attention has been paid to p53's role in repairing damaged cells,"said John McDonald, chair of Georgia Tech's School of Biology and chief research scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute.
When a cell is malfunctioning or injured, the gene p53 is called into action and tries to repair the cell. If the cell can't be repaired, p53 starts a process known as apoptosis that kills the cell. It's p53's role as one of the genes involved in initiating cell death that has led cancer researchers to long believe that the gene is essential to successful chemotherapy. The idea is that p53 assists in killing the cancerous cells that the chemo treatment injures.
But in this latest trial, Georgia Tech researchers found that p53 may be a 'double-edged sword.' Chemotherapy patients whose tumors had a mutated p53 gene that didn't work had a much better survival rate than those who had normal p53.
In the study, researchers took malignant and benign ovarian tumors straight from the operating room and compared their gene expression profiles. Some of the cancer patients had been treated with chemotherapy prior to surgery, and some had not. At this point researchers didn't consider whether the patients actually had malignant tumors or had been treated with chemotherapy. However, they found that the gene expression profiles of the tumors clustered the chemotherapy-treated patients into two groups: those whose profiles were similar to cancer patients who had not been treated with chemo and those whose profiles were similar to patients with benign tumors.
As they continued their analysis, they found that the main difference between the groups' genetic profiles was the gene p53. While both groups had roughly the same amount of the protein encoded by p53, the cancer group had mutations in their p53 that caused the gene's corresponding protein not to function.The benign group's p53 was normal.
Five years later, only 30 percent of the chemotherapy cancer patients clustering in the benign group were alive, while 70 percent of those clustering in the cancer group were still alive. The stage of cancer at the time of surgery had no correlation to who survived and who didn't. What did seem to have an effect was whether p53 was working or not in the chemotherapy-treated tumors.
A standard belief in cancer research is that a working p53 is essential in helping chemo patients because it turns on the killing mechanism for the cells that were damaged by chemo. But McDonald points out that p53 can also help repair damaged cells. If p53 is repairing cancer cells, that may lead to cancer recurrence.
"We think p53 may actually help some cancer cells make a comeback," he said. "Based on our results, we propose that p53 may help repair some of the cancer cells damaged by chemotherapy leading to tumor recurrence and explaining the higher mortality rate of patients whose tumors had a functioning p53. If we are correct, inhibiting p53 in tumors being treated with chemotherapy may substantially improve patients' long-term survival."
McDonald and colleagues are continuing to test their theory by conducting studies in cell cultures and mice. If it bears out, then disabling the gene in tumors, through medications or new genetic techniques during chemotherapy may help patients survive.
In addition to McDonald, the research team consisted of: Benedict Benigno, gynecologic oncologist and founder of the Ovarian Cancer Institute; Lilya Matyunina, Erin B. Dickerson, Nina Schubert, and Nathan J. Bowen from Georgia Tech and the Ovarian Cancer Institute; Sanjay Logani from Emory University; and Carlos Moreno from Emory's Winship Cancer Institute.
The research was supported by the Georgia Cancer Coalition, the Georgia Tech Research Foundation, the Robinson Family Foundation and the Larry and Beth Lawrence Foundation.
About the Ovarian Cancer Institute:
The Ovarian Cancer Institute (OCI) was founded by Dr. Benigno in 1999. The OCI's laboratory moved to Georgia Tech in 2004 and currently has collaborating researchers at Emory University, the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Clark Atlanta University and the Medical College of Georgia. The lab is headed by John McDonald, professor and chair of the School of Biology at Georgia Tech and chief research scientists at the OCI.
]]>The Mentor Award is given to an individual for extraordinary leadership that increases the involvement of underrepresented groups in the science and engineering fields. These groups include women, African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics and people with disabilities. Honorees must have mentored significant numbers of underrepresented students through completion of their doctorates or helped to increase the diversity of doctoral students in a department or institution.
"I am honored to have received this prestigious award and to have been recognized by my peers at the national level," May said. "I am particularly grateful to the AAAS, to the National Society of Black Engineers, who nominated me, and to my students, who have worked so hard and made this important work possible."
May founded, and continues to direct, two Georgia Tech programs that increase the diversity of people pursuing advanced studies in engineering: SURE and FACES, both funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). He launched SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering/Science) in 1992, modeling the program on a similar one he had developed as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. May established FACES (Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Science) at Georgia Tech in 1998.
SURE is a ten-week summer program of full-time research for talented minority undergraduates. The program exposes these students to ECE research and encourages them to pursue graduate studies in engineering and science. Approximately 30 juniors and seniors are teamed with a faculty mentor and a graduate student mentor to undertake projects in the College of Engineering, the College of Sciences, and the Packaging Research Center. The SURE program has been very successful, with 90 percent of participants going on to graduate school.
May, in collaboration with ECE Assistant Professor Paul Voss, has led recent efforts to secure funding for SURE International. This new initiative involves summer undergraduate research at the Georgia Tech Lorraine campus in Metz, France. May learned in January that the NSF has granted three years of funding for the project.
"SURE International adds a globalization component to our students' undergraduate research experience," May said. "Through the NSF grant, we will give five students per year the opportunity to perform research overseas. These students will work with the faculty at Georgia Tech Lorraine as well as with our partner laboratories."
Like SURE, FACES encourages minorities to pursue advanced degrees. FACES has the added goal of increasing the number of underrepresented students who choose an academic career in engineering or science. The program is a collaborative effort among partner schools Georgia Tech, Morehouse College, Emory University, and Spelman College. FACES features an academic year undergraduate research program to stimulate student interest in attending graduate school.
"Programs like SURE and FACES are so vital because having qualified scientists and engineers is critical to U.S. competitiveness in a global economy," May said. "We have traditionally underutilized people from underrepresented groups, and this has adversely affected our domestic talent pool of scientists and engineers."
Currently, only 6.8 percent of science and engineering tenure-track positions at American universities are held by minorities. Georgia Tech is committed to building a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff, and it is one of the top producers of underrepresented minority Ph.D.s in the country. Programs like SURE and FACES are crucial to increasing the numbers of minorities and women who receive advanced degrees in science, math, and engineering, and who go on to careers in these areas.
"Diversity adds quality and creativity to any enterprise, including science," May said. "Doing a better job of educating America's minorities will ultimately lead to a more thriving scientific community and one that better reflects our increasingly heterogeneous society."
May received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1985 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1987 and 1991, respectively. He joined the ECE faculty in 1991. Working in the microelectronics group, May has focused his research on computer-aided manufacturing of integrated circuits. In 2001, he was named Motorola Foundation Professor and was appointed associate chair for faculty development. May served as executive assistant to Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough from 2002 to 2005.
May has authored more than 200 articles and technical presentations in the area of IC computer-aided manufacturing, and he served as editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing from 1997 to 2001. He was an NSF "National Young Investigator" (1993-98) as well as an NSF and an AT&T Bell Laboratories graduate fellow. He has also worked as a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J. May is a member of the National Advisory Board of the National Society of Black Engineers.
]]>"With the continued growth and expansion of the global technology sector, the term 'computer science' has become too narrow in scope to encompass the number of different disciplines rapidly growing out of this sector," said Rich DeMillo, Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech. "At the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, we have identified the need to further segment the 'computing' field so that proper attention is given to emerging sub-disciplines such as media computation or robotics. With the creation of these new schools, we are taking the next logical step make sure future generations of computing students are educated in the context most relevant to their interests and talents."
The new School of Computer Science (SCS), chaired by Dr. Ellen Zegura, will focus on the roots of the computing discipline. Students will be exposed to mathematical foundations and system building principles and practices. Research questions will address foundational issues such as algorithms and complexity, to systems issues of robustness and performance. SCS will naturally engage mathematics, electrical and computer engineering, systems engineering and management to collaborate on multidisciplinary problems.
Dr. Aaron Bobick will chair the School of Interactive Computing (SIC), focusing on computing's interaction with users and the environment. Students learn as much about modeling people or the world as they do about computers. Research questions focus broadly on how computers impact the quality of people's lives. SIC connects to a large range of non-computing disciplines including psychology, mechanical engineering, music and art.
Both the School of Computer Science and School of Interactive Computing will officially begin operation immediately.
"When creating the College back in 1990, the Institute foresaw the limitations of calling it the College of Computer Science," said Gary Schuster, Provost of the Georgia Institute of Technology. "As an educational program, the College of Computing has always been at the forefront of transformation and it's exciting that today we are still taking the lead on defining what the field will become."
About the College of Computing at Georgia Tech
The College of Computing at Georgia Tech is a national leader in the creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress. With its graduate program ranked 11th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College's unconventional approach to education is pioneering the new era of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on human centered solutions. For more information about the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, its academic divisions and research centers, please visit http://www.cc.gatech.edu.
"Looking at the future of computing and its impact on global societies and cultures, the College of Computing at Georgia Tech is creating a 'new face' and charting a new direction for the discipline - one that is focused on affecting change for people, with technology," said Richard A. DeMillo, John P. Imlay Dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. "With the support of our colleagues throughout industry and academia, we are setting the course in people-centric computing that will drive the scientific and cultural breakthroughs of the future."
More than 200 corporate executives, industry leaders and technologists from across the country attended the New Face of Computing Symposium. DeMillo joined featured speaker, Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft Corporation, for an onstage discussion focused on computing's impact across industries, societies and cultures.
"We share Georgia Tech's vision of evolving computer science in ways that will excite students today, and prepare them to tackle the challenges of tomorrow," said Mundie. "Reinventing how computing is taught will inspire innovations across the information-technology landscape."
Throughout the course of the day-long Symposium, industry and academic technologists participated in panel discussions to enlighten the audience on the future of computing as related to key research and educational areas. Panel topics included the following: Computing Education; Emerging Tools for Large-Scale Problem Solving; Social Computing; Robotics and Intelligent Machines; Providing Usable Security; and Next-Generation Computing. The panelists also discussed how the computing field has evolved to where it is today, identified current technological, social and culture challenges, and debated the research and educational approaches required to ensure the sustainability and growth of the discipline.
For more information about the New Face of Computing Symposium and the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, please visit http://www.cc.gatech.edu/symposium. To watch a pre-recorded Web cast of the event, please visit http://www.cc.gatech.edu/symposium/webcast.
About the College of Computing at Georgia Tech
The College of Computing at Georgia Tech is a national leader in the research and creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress. With its graduate program ranked 11th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College's unconventional approach to education is pioneering the new era of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on human centered solutions. For more information about the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, its academic divisions and research centers, please visit http://www.cc.gatech.edu.
In a brain imaging study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Eric Schumacher, assistant professor of psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, along with colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, Berkeley, monitored the activity of brain regions in subjects while they responded to visual stimuli.
The researchers predicted that when they gave the subjects a cue that they were about to perform a hard task, only the superior parietal cortex, known for its involvement in spatial attention, and the premotor cortex, known for planning movements, would activate. Then, the prefrontal cortex, known for its role in decision-making, would activate after the stimulus was presented. But they were wrong.
"We found that all of these regions began to activate when the subjects prepared to do the task, even the prefrontal, which is the region that makes the decision on what to do," said Schumacher. "Activating the decision-making region even before the stimulus is presented seems to allow for a quicker response, it allows the brain to get a running start."
Subjects were loaded into an MRI scanner and then shown a disk on a screen prompting them to press a button. They had two different tasks to perform, one labeled easy, and one hard. During the easy task, subjects were asked to push a button using the fingers of their left hand if the disk appeared on the left of the screen and their right hand if the disk appeared on the right. The hard task was manually incompatible, so that if the disk appeared on the left, they were to push the buttons using their right hand and vice-versa. Sometimes a visual cue prompted them that they were about to perform the hard or the easy task, sometimes it did not.
When the tasks were cued, all three regions of the brain increased their activity. When there was no cue, there was less activity.
So what does this mean in the real world?
"One analogous situation might be when you're driving and coming up on an intersection where there is a stale green light. You may get ready for the light to change to yellow and then red. My research suggests that this preparation for the upcoming change and appropriate responses involves the same brain regions that are involved in actually pressing the brake (or gas) once the light turns red or yellow," said Schumacher.
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Veterans Administration.
]]>"Our finding sustains the promise of a molecular genetic understanding of different cancers and emphasizes the importance of describing cancer in the context of normal human development that has gone awry due to genetic and epigenetic alterations," said Nathan Bowen, Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scientist at Georgia Tech and the Ovarian Cancer Institute (OCI).
Using cancerous and non-cancerous tissue straight from the operating room, Bowen and fellow OCI researchers are engaged in investigating the molecular profile of ovarian cancer tissue in order to discover the causes of ovarian cancer, develop a reliable diagnostic blood test and understand the genetic basis of resistance to chemotherapy.
In 2003, a group from Stanford University researching breast cancer discovered that paired box gene 8 is expressed in ovarian cancer tissue, but not in breast cancer. Taking note of the Stanford group's results, OCI researchers began to investigate the possibility that the gene and its products may be an important biomarker for detecting and researching the causes of ovarian cancer. They began to look for evidence of PAX8, the protein made by paired box gene 8, which was the next step in establishing the gene as a biomarker. Not only did they find PAX8 in the ovarian cancer cells, but they also found it in the cells that form fallopian tubes, the secretory cells. In addition, they discovered that the protein is not expressed in the normal ovarian surface epithelium.
Bowen proposes that ovarian cancer begins by using PAX8 to direct an adult stem cell population found on the ovarian surface to proliferate and ultimately form ovarian cancer. When this gene is turned on in an embryo, it leads to the development of fallopian tubes. When the gene is expressed in healthy adult ovarian cells that migrate into the body of the ovary, it leads to the development of ovarian inclusion cysts. Normally, the growth of cysts is kept in check by the cells' feedback mechanisms that turn off cell growth. But in cancer, when these feedback mechanisms are mutated, the cysts grow out of control until they metastasize.
"It's a way of molecularly characterizing tumors that may lead to designing specific therapies based on the molecular profile," said Bowen. "Biology is basically an information processing system to generate end products, and there are a lot of decisions that have to be made by the regulatory genes, like paired box gene 8, before the end products can be made.
Bowen's next steps are to find out why paired box gene 8 gets turned on and to discover its targets in order to find out of it turns on another decision-making gene or an endpoint gene.
"That's the daunting task of cancer biologists," he said. "Now that we've sequenced the human genome, we have to make sense out of the thousands of genes that are expressed in cancer at the same time."
This research was supported by grants from the Georgia Cancer Coalition and a gift in remembrance of Josephine Crawford Robinson for support of the Ovarian Cancer Institute Laboratory.
The Ovarian Cancer Institute (OCI) was founded by gynecologic oncologist Benedict Benigno in 1999. The OCI's laboratory moved to Georgia Tech in 2004 and currently has researchers located at Emory University, the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Clark Atlanta University and the Medical College of Georgia. The lab is headed by John McDonald, professor and chair of the School of Biology at Georgia Tech and chief scientific officer at the OCI.
]]>The Edison Medal is bestowed for a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science, electrical engineering or the electrical arts. Dupuis' award commemorates his innovative contributions to metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and continuous-wave room-temperature quantum-well lasers. MOCVD is a method for depositing high-quality complex semiconductor structures that contain many layers, some only 0.1 millionths of an inch thick.
"Today, we are still using the same basic MOCVD approach that I developed in 1977 for the growth of III-V compound semiconductors to produce much more advanced structures and more challenging materials," explained Dupuis. "This technology is used worldwide for many important device applications in both research and production areas."
The complex semiconductor 'sandwiches' produced with MOCVD are currently used to create light sources (lasers) for optical devices such as laser pointers, DVD lasers, solar cells, photodiodes, and the latest high-density DVD disc technology called 'Blu-Ray,' which is expected to replace DVDs. Other applications include LED-based indicator lamps and solid-state light sources like those in flashlights and large display panels such as the NASDAQ sign in Times Square.
"MOCVD is used for virtually all high-brightness LEDs in traffic signals, automotive lighting, and LCD back lighting, and soon this technology will be widely used to illuminate public buildings and eventually your home," said Dupuis. "I hope that my students can use the knowledge they gain at Georgia Tech and contribute to even greater future advances in this field."
LED technology, based on Dupuis' MOCVD process, is already transforming the lighting industry. LEDs provide a highly efficient and reliable light source. As they become increasingly useful for general illumination and displace the incandescent light bulb, the United States will save billions in energy costs. Carbon emissions from traditional power plants will also be significantly reduced.
"The Edison Medal is a very special and truly wonderful honor for me, both because of the outstanding and innovative inventor and engineer for whom it is named and for the very many truly exceptional individuals who have received it before me," remarked Dupuis. "I am especially honored to acknowledge the impact that Dr. Nick Holonyak Jr., has had on my academic and professional career."
Holonyak was Dupuis' thesis advisor and mentor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Dupuis earned his B.S. (with Highest Honors--Bronze Tablet), his M.S., and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering. Holonyak was instrumental in launching the field of multi-element semiconductors, and Dupuis has continued his own research in this area, specializing in semiconductor materials and devices, epitaxial growth, and heterojunction devices in III-V compound semiconductors. He currently directs the Center for Compound Semiconductors at Georgia Tech.
A Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, Dupuis has received many awards and distinctions. Among these is the 2002 National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor for work in science and technology. President George W. Bush awarded this medal to Dupuis and two colleagues for their work on developing and commercializing LEDs.
Dupuis is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the IEEE, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Optical Society of America. An author of more than 360 technical papers in refereed journals and a sought-after lecturer, he has held numerous leadership positions within IEEE and the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society, as well as with various conferences and workshops associated with semiconductor devices in the optoelectronic and photonics areas.
Before joining Georgia Tech in 2003, Dupuis held the Judson S. Swearingen Regents Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin for 14 years. He previously worked in industry positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Rockwell International and Texas Instruments.
The Edison Medal is the oldest medal in engineering. It was created by Thomas Edison's friends and associates in 1904, 25 years after Edison introduced his incandescent electric light bulb. Past Edison Medal honorees include Alexander Graham Bell, Nikola Tesla and other pioneers of the modern electronics era.
]]>Since fall 1996, the residence halls have housed Georgia State students, and with the transfer, will be occupied by Georgia Tech students, beginning with the fall 2007 semester. As Georgia State has continued to create on-campus housing adjacent to its downtown campus, University System officials realized that the Olympic Dorm complex would be a better fit with the adjacent Georgia Tech campus.
"On behalf of the Board of Regents, we are pleased with this outcome that keeps this valuable property within the University System," said Davis. "This is an optimal result for the System and will benefit both Georgia State and Georgia Tech."
"Thanks to the efforts of many individuals within the University System, the transfer of Georgia State's Village will provide resources needed to build more student housing on our campus, a component of our updated master plan that calls for an additional 4,500 beds over the next 10 years," said Georgia State University President Carl Patton. "Also, research shows that students who live on campus are more involved in campus life, get better grades and graduate more quickly."
The four residence halls, initially constructed for a cost of $79.6 million, currently can house 2,000 students in 3-6 bed apartments.
"I would like to express my appreciation to Chancellor Davis and everyone who made this possible," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "Acquiring the Georgia State Olympic residence halls will help us meet the housing demands of a growing student body at Georgia Tech and allow us new options as to how we use the land on our campus."
]]>The program is one of three that PBS is broadcasting this month in their quest to find their next hit science show. 'Science Investigators' will premiere nationally on Wednesday, January 10 at 8 p.m. Eastern time. 'Wired Science,' a program that translates Wired magazine's journalism into a television show aired January 3 while '22nd Century,' a program that uses scientists and futurists to imagine what the world will look like 100 years from now, airs January 17.
PBS is asking viewers to weigh-in on which show they'd like to see turned into a 10-episode series this fall. The network will use that information, combined with Nielsen ratings and other tools of the broadcast trade, to decide which series makes it and which doesn't. Beginning January 1, PBS put pilot episodes for all three shows, plus extra footage, on their Web site (www.pbs.org/science). Viewers can either watch the show on TV and then go to the Web site to comment, or do it all on the Web.
Azizi said that it's the hosts' science backgrounds and the investigative nature of 'Science Investigators' that she thinks sets the program apart from the competition.
"We actually put our own insights into the show and the investigations. As a scientist you're curious about how things work; you don't have to pretend that you're interested because you really are," said Azizi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She earned her doctorate in biochemistry at Tech.
The pilot undertakes two main stories and several smaller ones. The first segment, hosted by British physicist Basil Singer and best-selling science writer and filmmaker Victoria Bruce, investigates Neanderthal DNA and answers whether it can be used someday to bring them back to life. The segment was spurred by questions that a Connecticut middle school teacher submitted on behalf of her class.
In her first segment, Azizi and co-host astrophysicist Kevin Hand examine why a certain species of frogs has disappeared from Long Island, NY and how it may be an early warning for humans.
"That's a very serious issue because any changes in the environment, even small changes, they can detect," said Azizi. "And if we have a die-off of certain types of species, that means there's something in our environment that's affecting us, but we may not be able to feel it, yet."
During the segment, Azizi enlists the help of the amphibian conservation program at the Atlanta Botanical Garden to help them understand what may be responsible for the disappearing frog species on Long Island.
In Azizi's other segment she takes a spin in an electric race car that accelerates from 0 mph to 60 mph in three seconds.
"We were going, I think, 120 mph, but when Kenny Shepherd, the NASCAR driver, got in there he actually took the car even faster," she said.
Azizi said she was looking for faculty jobs on a science career Web site when she saw the posting looking for a host of the show.
"I thought, oh yeah, I'll apply, whatever," she said, not really expecting much. "But then I got a callback to send in my picture and then to send in my tape."
After not hearing from the producers for a while, and just as she had given up hope, she got a call asking her to fly to Oregon to interview a professor for the frog segment.
All in all, filming the pilot took about six days. Azizi said she flew to San Francisco to film at the Altamont race track, filmed lab segments in New York, and interviewed people at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
"It's been much fun. Those days went by so fast, it's incredible," she said.
Using real scientists to host the show, instead of actors, gives the show an interesting dynamic, she said.
"There were a lot of times where my experience as a scientist really came into play because we actually do experiments on the show," said Azizi. "At the same time, TV is all about the image, so when we were filming the DNA experiments, we used our expertise to use the brightest DNA marker we could find, so it would look good on camera."
Azizi said her experience in the Ph.D. program at Tech and teaching a freshman chemistry course helped her immensely in hosting the show.
"Tech prepares you so much for the real world. It taught me discipline and to work as hard as I can," she said. "The toughness of the program gives you endurance. When you're filming 14 hours a day - if I didn't have experience putting in 14 hour days in the lab, I would have had a harder time at the shoots."
Azizi also noted that teaching an 8 a.m. class of freshman chemistry gave her the ability to communicate complicated topics in everyday language.
"I used a lot of analogies with real life for my students, because I think what captures their curiosity the most is how they can relate it back to their lives," said Azizi. "That's the cool thing about science. People actually take what they learn in the lab and apply it to life."
]]>Ranked 44th in the magazine's Top 50 list of best undergraduate business programs, Georgia Tech placed second in the nation for return on investment among public colleges. The school also ranked 44th in student engagement (the number of hours spent on class work each week) and 49th for internship opportunities. Among corporate recruiters, Georgia Tech is number 12.
"I am extremely proud of the excellent quality of the business school's undergraduate program," says College of Management Dean Steve Salbu. "We're gratified that the rankings are increasingly reflecting all we have to offer students."
To identify the best undergraduate programs, BusinessWeek surveyed nearly 80,000 business majors at top schools as well as undergraduate recruiters. The magazine considered starting salaries, how many graduates each school sent to top MBA programs, and academic quality (determined by five measures including average SAT scores and faculty-student ratios).
BusinessWeek published rankings of undergraduate business programs for the first time in 2006, when Georgia Tech was not eligible for inclusion because of a shortage of survey responses from students and recruiters.
This year, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania topped the overall list for the second time. Emory (fourth, up from fifth) is only other business school in Georgia in the Top 50. The University of Georgia slid from 40th in 2006 to 56th this year.
In the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of undergraduate business programs, Georgia Tech is 35th in the nation.
Writer: Brad Dixon, College of Management
]]>Application deadlines for enrollment are May 1 for fall 2007 and October 1 to start in spring 2008.
Most students will take two courses each semester (attending classes two nights per week) and complete the program in approximately three years. Georgia Tech College of Management's prestigious full-time MBA program takes two years.
"Our evening MBA students will enjoy the same benefits as full-time students," says Steve Salbu, dean of the business school. "Taught in small classes by professors with world-class reputations for their research and teaching, our students learn how to take advantage of the many business opportunities made possible by emerging technologies and to succeed in an increasingly global economy."
Standards for evening MBA students will remain as high as those required for acceptance into the full-time program, Salbu notes. "Our commitment to technology, innovation, ethical and sustainable business practices, and international education consistently draws top-notch students," he says.
Paula Wilson, director of MBA admissions for Georgia Tech, says interest in the evening option was high before the College of Management even announced it. "We've gotten calls for years from people wanting a part-time MBA program with the Georgia Tech brand and the academic rigor that entails," Wilson says. "Demand for our full-time program remains strong as well. Now people have a choice."
For details on the evening MBA curriculum, tuition, upcoming information sessions, and the online application process, visit http://mgt.gatech.edu/eveningmba, or contact the MBA Graduate Office at 404-894-8722 or mba@mgt.gatech.edu.
Writer: Brad Dixon, College of Management
]]>"I am deeply saddened by this news," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "Tom Galloway was my dear friend and respected colleague. His profound dedication to his students and his unique contributions to the Institute are a remarkable legacy in the true tradition of Georgia Tech's outstanding leaders."
Galloway came to Georgia Tech in 1992 from the College of Design at Iowa State University, where he served as dean and professor from 1985 to 1992. He also held faculty and administrative appointments at the University of Rhode Island and the University of Kansas.
During his tenure as dean, he was instrumental in shaping the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech in light of profound transformation. Under Galloway's leadership, the College realized many changes and milestones. In 1993, the college established a new partnership for its Paris Study Abroad Program with the Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture de Paris LaVillette and established the Shenyang Program at Shenyang Technological University in China. In recent years, he extended Georgia Tech's relationship with the United Arab Emirates, chairing a team that reviewed a new College of Engineering and Design at the University of Abu Dhabi and served as an urban planning consultant to the Sheik.
Galloway focused his efforts to redefine the mission of the College, strengthen its academic programs, integrate research programs with academic instruction and fully engage the College with the expanded academic, research and service missions of the Institute. The initiation of the Common First Year, the creation of two endowed chairs-the Harry West Chair for Quality Growth and Regional Development and the Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design-and the increase in the number of Ph.D. students are all a testament to his leadership and commitment to interdisciplinary education and research.
"Dean Galloway was a true champion for the College of Architecture," said Thomas W. Ventulett III, friend of the Galloway family, Georgia Tech alumnus (1957, College of Architecture) and chairman emeritus of the College of Architecture Development Council, Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates, Atlanta. "His relentless work ethic and gift for recognizing and attracting talent enabled him to leave a profound legacy at Georgia Tech and in the larger community. Tom created an environment at the College of Architecture that enabled his talented faculty and staff to flourish."
Ventulett continued, "Tom was a wonderful communicator who was able to unite people on campus and throughout the built-environment professions. He was a civic-minded person who truly cared about Georgia Tech, Midtown and Atlanta as a whole."
Some of Galloway's most recent academic and professional honors include a listing among the '30 Leaders Who Bridge Practice and Education' in America's Best Architecture and Design Schools, published in the 2005 edition of Design Intelligence, and as a Lexus Leader of the Arts by Public Broadcasting Atlanta.
Tom Galloway was a loving husband, father and friend with an infectious smile and humble spirit. He is survived by his wife and best friend of 40 years, Sharon Perry Galloway, their children-Stacy and Derek Haywood, Rick and Shannon Galloway, and Kelly and Adam Eby-and grandchildren Thomas Galloway, Cara Galloway, Max Galloway, and Kace Galloway. He is preceded in death by his parents, the Reverends Ruth (Jones) and Roy Galloway. He is also survived by his beloved sisters and brothers.
The family has planned a memorial service for Friday, March 16, at 10:00 a.m. in the Ferst Center for the Arts on the Georgia Tech campus. A reception will follow at the College of Architecture Atrium, West Architecture Building, 247 Fourth Street.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the Dean Thomas D. Galloway Memorial Fund for the College of Architecture in care of the Georgia Tech Foundation. Gifts of remembrance should be made out to the Georgia Tech Foundation, with the name of the fund on the memo line, or with an accompanying note and sent to:
Georgia Tech Foundation, Inc.
760 Spring Street, N.W., Suite 400
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
In its bulk form, gold is treasured for its property as a non-reactive metal. Its use in electronics, dentistry, jewelry and art, depends on this inertness. But at the nano scale, when gold clusters contain only a small number of atoms, gold shows very different properties, which exhibit chemical reactivity that make them potent catalysts. Because their chemical and physical properties depend greatly on their physical structures, significant efforts have been invested by scientists to determine what the most stable configurations of gold clusters are in this size range. Understanding this is of great importance for elucidating the chemical properties of these clusters and in research aiming to discover the physical patterns that govern how the clusters are put together.
Between 2000 and 2002, a Georgia Tech team, led by Uzi Landman, director of CCMS, Regents' and Institute professor, and Callaway chair of physics at Georgia Tech, predicted that negatively charged gold nanoclusters, up to 13 atoms in size, would exhibit two-dimensional, flat structures. The appearance of two-dimensional structures for such relatively large metal clusters is unique to gold, and the researchers showed that it is related to the strong relativistic effects for this metal. When these predictions were verified experimentally, research in Landman's group and in other places focused on what happens when the nanoclusters are even larger.
"We wanted to know, what happens after 13 atoms," said Landman. "What happens when these clusters become three-dimensional and what is their structural motif?" For the past few years, scientists at the CCMS have made theoretical predictions about the structures of gold nanoclusters in the larger size range. Now, working with two independent experimental groups, Landman and his collaborators have found firm evidence pertaining to the size-dependent structural development of these nanoclusters.
One of these collaborations involved researchers from the University of Freiburg and the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials, both in Germany, and a scientist from the University of Jväskylä in Finland. The Freiburg team performed photoemission experiments, in which a laser is shot at the gas-phase cluster causing it to eject an electron. Measuring the energy profiles of the emitted electrons using lasers of different wavelengths allowed the researchers to gain knowledge about the occupied electronic energy levels in the clusters. The distribution of these levels depends on the specific geometric arrangement of atoms in the clusters. Indeed, the theoretical analysis of the correlation between the distributions of the electronic energy levels and the atomic spatial arrangements allowed the researchers to determine the clusters' electronic properties, as well as geometric structures.
In the other collaboration, the Georgia Tech researchers worked with a team from the Rowland Institute at Harvard University. They used electron diffraction, a technique in which a beam of electrons is fired at the clusters, causing the electrons to scatter. By measuring the intensity of the scattered electrons and comparing it to the change in momenta of the electrons caused by their collisions with the atoms of the clusters, they obtaines information about the spatial arrangements of the atoms in the clusters. Theoretical analysis of the interference patterns in these measured intensities allowed them to determine the clusters' structures.
"It turns out that close to all the stable structures that were found through our theoretical analysis of the photoemission measurements were the same as those that emerged from analysis of the electron scattering experiments," said Landman. "In our analysis we have used first-principles electronic structure calculations based on density-functional theory, in conjunction with structural optimization techniques. This is likely the first time that two separate and independent experimental tools, in conjunction with a common theoretical analysis, have shown such a high degree of agreement in the challenging area of structural determination of nano clusters."
To avoid any bias, and ensure that the groups' analyses weren't being unintentionally influenced by knowledge of each other, neither experimental group saw the results of the other until the publication of their respective papers.
The results of the Georgia Tech collaborative investigations with the European group are published in the journal ChemPhysChem Volume 8, (2007), and those obtained from the collaboration with the Rowland Institute are published in The Physical Review B volume 74, (2006).
Through this comparison between experiment and theory, the teams found that the clusters start out as two-dimensional structures till 13 or 14 atoms in size, changing to three-dimensional hollow cages from about 16 atoms, and developing a face-centered-cubic tetrahedral structure at 20 atoms, resembling the bulk gold crystalline structure. However, at 24 atoms the gold clusters take an unexpected capped tubular cigar shape.
"These results assist us not only in determining the structures of the clusters, but also provide insight into the factors that underlie their self-assembly," said Landman. "In some ways, we are determining the 'structural grammar' of these gold nanoclusters and by understanding that, we may better understand what motifs appear as we continue to search for the structures of clusters larger than 24 atoms.
The Georgia Tech team consisted of Uzi Landman and research scientist Bokwon Yoon. The collaborations consisted of Pekka Kosiken, Bernd Huber and Michael Moseler from the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials and the University of Freiburg, Oleg Kostko and Bernd von Issendorff from the University of Freiburg and Hannu Hakkinen from the University of Jyvaskla. The Rowland Institute team was made up of Xiaopeng Xing and Joel H. Parks.
Caption for hi-res image
Theoretical electron scattering intensities from negatively charged gold nanclusters containing 24 atoms, calculated for the structures shown at the top. Each of the curves is denoted by a symbol that corresponds to a particular structure. Shown at the bottom is the experimental scattering data (solid red line) together with the calculated one that fits it in the best way (dotted line) -- that is, the tubular, capsule-like, structure marked G. The theoretically predicted best-fit structure is shown also on the right, with atoms in individual layer of the nanotube colored differently. The green strip accompanying the experimental data shows the experimental uncertainty.
"It is unusual for a major research university to receive such an award, particularly an institution with a strong emphasis on science and technology," said Howard Rollins, associate vice provost for International Programs. "Georgia Tech has put together an incredible array of international initiatives that go well beyond the traditional areas including study abroad, overseas campuses and research centers, and the integration of international programs into all undergraduate majors and international distance learning. The receipt of the Paul Simon Internationalization Award provides national recognition for these significant efforts that are challenging for any university."
Georgia Tech, Calvin College, Elon University and the University of Oklahoma will be featured in the NAFSA report, Internationalizing the Campus 2007: Profiles of Success at Colleges and Universities, to be published this fall. The awardees will also be recognized at the NAFSA annual conference in Minneapolis in May.
"Georgia Tech is arguably among the very best of the major research universities in its successes at internationalization," said Rollins. "A primary justification for this claim is the sheer number of international programs under way."
According to Rollins, Georgia Tech has two main initiatives that stand out in their approach to internationalizing the campus. The first initiative is the International Plan designed to integrate international education into any undergraduate major whether it is engineering, science, computing, management, architecture or liberal arts.
"The International Plan is unique because of this curricular integration and because it helps students learn how their own major is impacted by cultural differences," said Rollins. "We expect graduates of this program to be ready to use their disciplinary knowledge in global collaborations here in the United States as well as anywhere else in the world."
Secondly, Georgia Tech is one of a very small number of universities conducting research and offering degrees outside the United States. Georgia Tech Lorraine in Metz, France, has been in operation for more than 15 years providing U.S. style graduate education to European students and study abroad opportunities for Atlanta-based students. More recently, Georgia Tech established The Logistics Institute Asia Pacific in Singapore, which offers a Georgia Tech master's degree to students from Asia. In addition, the Georgia Tech Research Institute recently established Georgia Tech's first international research center in Ireland.
Named for the late Senator the Paul Simon, the award recognizes innovative and creative efforts in campus internationalization. Simon was a strong advocate for international education throughout his career, diligently promoting initiatives designed to dramatically increase the number of U.S. college students studying abroad.
]]>"The core computer science curriculum first established in the 1960's has become too narrow in focus and too antiquated in application to satisfy the educational objectives of a technology-driven world," says College of Computing at Georgia Tech Professor Mark Guzdial. "In anticipation of the expansive and extensive impact that technology will continue to have on our culture and society, it is imperative that educators engage a broader base of potential computer science students, particularly women and minorities, thorough more contextualized and appealing methods and practices. With this grant, the College of Computing at Georgia Tech has an exciting opportunity to integrate a new and highly-creative approach to computer science education across the learning spectrum - from kindergarten to college, and beyond."
Potential projects funded with this grant include: partnerships with state and local youth-oriented organizations to develop engaging computer science programs to increase participation at the K-12 level; involvement of computer science college undergraduate and graduate level students as mentors; workshops for faculty at other institutions to teach vanguard educational approaches developed by College of Computing at Georgia Tech faculty; support in disseminating curriculum ideas among a developing set of users; and creating streamlined methods of communicating results to peer institutions considering curriculum changes. Work in support of these initiatives began in fall 2006 and will continue through the 2008-2009 academic year.
Guzdial based the winning proposal on his experience in helping create a Bachelor of Science in Computational Media degree program in 2003, and rebuilding the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science curriculum on the Threads platform in 2006. Developed in recognition of computing's significant and increasing impact in non-traditional subject areas, these highly-contextualized and transformational approaches have proven successful in engaging a wider spectrum of computer science students. Presently, 23 percent of Computational Media students are women, and the total number of enrolled students has increased 77 percent from 2005 to 2006.
"The computing industry can only achieve its full potential when it best resembles and reflects the users and communities whose lives we are trying to impact," said Richard A. DeMillo, John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of the College of Computing. "At the College of Computing we are defining the new face of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through lifelong, relevant education focused on real-world issues. The model for broadening computing participation here in Georgia will serve as a model for our industry, and the entire United States."
About the College of Computing at Georgia Tech
The College of Computing at Georgia Tech is a national leader in the creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress. With its graduate program ranked 11th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College's unconventional approach to education is defining the new face of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on human centered solutions. For more information about the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, its academic divisions and research centers, please visit www.cc.gatech.edu.
Dr. Willie Pearson Jr., sociology professor in the School of History Technology and Society, has been involved with this NOVA program from concept through production. Several years ago, Pearson, who specializes in science and technology policy-related research on the production of Ph.D. scientists and engineers, was contacted by NOVA to help with a proposal for a program about Julian. He reviewed the producers- materials, critiqued their proposals and served as a member of the program's advisory board.
"My contribution to this program was to help the producers find materials and validate facts and provide the broader context of what was happening in the science field during Julian's life," says Pearson. "This project has turned into a much bigger project than NOVA originally anticipated. To see this project come into final production is very rewarding."
Pearson, whose on-camera interview appears in the program, emphasizes what an extraordinary man Julian was. "In addition to his remarkable accomplishments as a chemist, entrepreneur and philanthropist, he was a gifted writer of both scientific and literary works which is an unusual combination," says Pearson. "His life story has some controversy as well, and it is interesting to see how those aspects of his life are handled in the final program as well."
More background about Julian, including education materials and a preview of 'Forgotten Genius' are available online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/julian.
]]>"For this third year of the Living Game Worlds symposium, we decided to focus the discussion on a specific aspect of gaming - games that tackle real-world themes and topics," says Celia Pearce, assistant professor of digital media, Georgia Tech School of Literature, Communication and Culture and lead organizer of Living Game Worlds III. "There's a growing understanding that games can be about more than 'just entertainment,' but like film documentaries, can open people's eyes to serious issues ranging from social, political, health and education."
"Georgia Tech is a leader in multimedia, gaming and interactive technologies," says Elizabeth Mynatt, director of the GVU Center at Georgia Tech and associate professor in the Georgia Tech College of Computing. "Through the annual Living Game Worlds symposium, we offer a multidisciplinary look at these converging technologies and how they impact and represent the real world."
"Living Game Worlds exemplifies the Digital Media program's commitment to expanding the expressive power of the computer, and to exploring ways in which new genres of expression can advance knowledge and human community," says Janet Murray, professor and director of the Digital Media Graduate Program in Tech's School of Literature, Communication and Culture.
Georgia Tech's Digital Media Graduate Program in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture and the GVU Center at Georgia Tech present Living Game Worlds III in the third year of this successful symposium exploring digital media, gaming and interactive technologies.
Living Game Worlds III also includes keynote addresses by Katie Salen, executive director, Gamelab Institute of Play and associate professor in Design and Technology, Parsons The New School for Design (New York) and Tracy Fullerton, co-director, Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab and assistant professor, Interactive Media Division, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Panel discussions will feature experts from industry, non-profits and academia discussing issues in digital media including design process, interactive design, games, and games addressing political, social, health and environmental issues. The day closes with demos and exhibits. The live webcast and detailed agenda are available at http://gameworlds.gatech.edu/.
About the Digital Media Graduate Program
The Georgia Tech Digital Media Graduate Program provides both the theoretical and the practical foundation for careers as digital media researchers and designers in academia and industry. The advent of a new medium of human communication and representation is a significant event in human social and cultural history, and introduces the possibility of new genres of artistic expression as well as new forms of information and knowledge transmission. The study of these new forms - from the point of view of the creators and the analysts - is an emerging field, one that requires a convergence of the methodologies of several traditional disciplines, and one that is also defining its own methodologies of research and practice. The Graduate Program in Digital Media is in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture (LCC) in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech.
http://www.dm.gatech.edu
About the GVU Center
The GVU Center is a university-wide, interdisciplinary research center that spans the Georgia Tech campus and includes many outside collaborators. Its faculty and students are drawn from disciplines in science, engineering, the humanities and design. The Center enables collaborative research that is often difficult to achieve in traditional academic and industrial settings. The unique combinations of research interests and expertise are the catalyst for significant insights into the rapidly evolving landscape of people and computation. The GVU Center conducts research in crucial areas of human experiences with computing including health care, education, work and home life, and entertainment. The Center consistently leads the forefront of research in fields such as human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, mixed and augmented reality, animation and graphics, wearable computing, information visualization, educational technologies, new media and communications, intelligent systems and robotics.
http://www.gvu.gatech.edu
Picking up where Georgia's HOPE scholarship and other financial aid options leave off, the Tech Promise program will be individually tailored for each applicant. Assistance will include scholarships, grants, and job opportunities that will allow eligible in-state students to attend Georgia Tech without the burden of student loan debt.
The Tech Promise program is expected to make a Georgia Tech education accessible to hundreds of qualified, economically disadvantaged students. Funding for the program, which is initially being provided by the Georgia Tech Foundation, will come from private philanthropy and is expected to initially require $2 million during the first year of implementation. The Institute has a permanent endowment goal of $50 million, the income of which will generate ongoing funding for need-based scholarships for Georgia residents that may be directed for the Tech Promise program. The Georgia Tech Foundation is providing support for the program's initial stages while fund-raising is underway.
"Georgia Tech has a long tradition of providing access to young Georgians through low tuition rates and one of the world's oldest and largest voluntary cooperative education programs, which enables students to gain valuable job experience while working their way through school," said Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough. "This new financial aid program provides yet another tool to help us remain true to our long-term commitment to open doors of opportunity to all qualified students, especially those from financially disadvantaged families who may be reluctant to apply because of the daunting financial burden attending college will place on their families."
Under the terms of the program, student eligibility requirements and criteria include:
-Legal resident of Georgia
-Pursuing a first undergraduate degree
-Eligible applicant for federal student financial aid
-Dependent students whose parents: have less than $30,000 in total annual income and/or benefits; and are eligible to file an IRS Form 1040A or 1040EZ for the most recent tax year
-Achieve and maintain a minimum 2.0 cumulative grade point average (out of a possible 4.0); be in good standing with the Institute and maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress standards
An annual application is required for Tech Promise and individual evaluations will be conducted to calculate each candidate's specific financial needs. Students may reapply for up to four academic years (eight semesters) of full-time enrollment. Levels of support/award in subsequent years will be based on the student's family's financial situation, and academic standing. The funding made available through Tech Promise will cover the published cost of attendance at Georgia Tech.
]]>"Although these rankings are not the sole measure of our success, it is good to see our programs so well recognized," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "Engineering continues to maintain a top position, our sciences are showing growing strength and the Business School reached it highest level, up from #34 last year to #25 this year."
Tech's graduate engineering curriculum maintained its national stature, ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. This year nine of the 11 programs within the College of Engineering ranked among the top 10 in their respective disciplines, led by Industrial and Systems Engineering. That program was ranked number one for the 17th straight year, an achievement almost unheard of in U.S. News rankings. The nine engineering programs ranked in the top 10 are: aerospace (5th), biomedical (2nd), civil (4th), computer (6th), electrical (7th), environmental (6th), industrial and systems (1st), materials (9th) and mechanical (7th).
]]>The 500-page book was edited by Uzi Landman, director of the Center for Computational Materials Science, Regents' & Institute professor and Callaway chair of physics at Georgia Tech, and Ueli Heiz, professor of chemistry at the Technical University of Munich.
The work contains five chapters, the first, a 220-page chapter on the properties of gold as a catalyst authored by T.M. Bernhardt, Heiz and Landman. The other five chapters were penned by noteable researchers in the field of nanocatalysis.
"This is important book because nanocatalyis is a field that introduces the uniqueness of nano-sized materials. It's not simply an extension of surface science," said Landman. "It focuses on the effect of dimensionality and size as bringing new and unique chemical properties."
]]>"By combining the data from the electrical conductance experiments with high-level first principles quantum mechanical calculations, we've been able to draw an accurate picture of the physical mechanisms that govern these properties. It's like measuring current through an object you can't see to tell you what it looks like," said Uzi Landman, director of the Center for Computational Materials Science, Regents' and Institute professor, and Callaway chair of physics at Georgia Tech.
Leading the experimental team, Alexei Marchenkov, assistant professor in the School of Physics, formed niobium nanowires using the mechanically controlled break junction technique - that is bending a thin nanofabricated strip of niobium until it breaks. In the final stage before the strip breaks completely, all that's left is a nanowire made of a short chain of niobium atoms that bridge the gap between the two sides of the strip. Working at low temperatures, Marchenkov was able to hold the nanowires at successive stretching stages for many hours, long enough to perform thorough conductance measurements, and much longer than the seconds typically characteristic of this technique.
Conducting the experiment at 4.2 degrees Kelvin (far below niobium's superconductivity transition temperature of 9.2 Kelvin), as well as performing measurements above the transition temperature, Marchenkov's team measured the electrical conductance of the atomic nanowire as it is stretched during the bending of the strip. As this bending occurs, the atoms separate from each other. The researchers were capable of controlling this separation with a precision better than 1 picometer (one thousandth of a nanometer), which is about 100 times smaller than the typical size of atoms.
As the nanowire is slowly pulled, the conductance drops. The drop in conductance was gradual until a rapid decrease in the conductance was observed in a narrow region of just 0.1 angstrom . Upon further pulling of the wire, the conductance resumed its gradual decline.
"Focusing on this narrow region, we found that this steep drop in conductance wasn't as smooth as it seemed at first," said Marchenkov. "We saw that the conductance actually jumps between two values. Close to the onset of the rapid drop, the conductance was mostly rather high and then there would be random short periods were it drops to a significantly lower value. On the other side of the interval, the pattern reversed itself and mostly the low conductance values were spotted with the random occurrence of sharp spikes of high conductance," said Marchenkov.
"That's where the theoretical simulations come in," said Landman. "We needed to find out what physical phenomenon would account for these sharp drops and spikes in the conductance."
At first, the team thought a single atom must be randomly shuttling itself back and forth between two positions in the space separating the electrical leads, but the data didn't fit. So, they tried running the simulations with a connected pair of atoms, or dimer.
"When we performed electronic structure and electrical conductance calculations on a shuttling dimer, we found good agreement with the experimentally measured conductance and its variation with the wire length," said Landman.
When the dimer is closer to one lead, the electrons that make up the electrical current have a longer way to hop from the dimer to the other lead, making current flow more difficult. When the dimer is in the center between the leads, the distance the electrons have to hop is shorter and more manageable, allowing the current to flow better. As the wire bends more and more, the dimer begins to spend more of its time closer to one electrical lead than in the center, accounting for the overall decrease in conductance.
"Determining the structures of nanowires is a very big challenge in this field," said Landman. "This research shows that if you make detailed measurements and analyze them theoretically, you can determine the physical structures. In this way, measurements of electronic transport can serve not only as a probe of the electronic state of nanowires but also as a microscopy of the atomic arrangements," said Landman.
]]>Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have pinpointed the elusive factor that makes the ancient amphitheater an acoustic marvel. It's not the slope, or the wind - it's the seats. The rows of limestone seats at Epidaurus form an efficient acoustics filter that hushes low-frequency background noises like the murmur of a crowd and reflects the high-frequency noises of the performers on stage off the seats and back toward the seated audience member, carrying an actor's voice all the way to the back rows of the theater.
The research, done by acoustician and ultrasonics expert Nico Declercq, an assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Georgia Tech Lorraine in France, and Cindy Dekeyser, an engineer who is fascinated by the history of ancient Greece, appears in the April issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
While many experts speculated on the possible causes for Epidaurus' acoustics, few guessed that the seats themselves were the secret of its acoustics success. There were theories that the site's wind - which blows primarily from the stage to the audience - was the cause, while others credited masks that may have acted as primitive loudspeakers or the rhythm of Greek speech. Other more technical theories took into account the slope of the seat rows.
When Declercq set out to solve the acoustic mystery, he too had the wrong idea about how Epidaurus carries performance sounds so well. He suspected that the corrugated, or ridged, material of the theater's limestone structure was acting as a filter for sound waves at certain frequencies, but he didn't anticipate how well it was controlling background noise.
"When I first tackled this problem, I thought that the effect of the splendid acoustics was due to surface waves climbing the theater with almost no damping," Declercq said. "While the voices of the performers were being carried, I didn't anticipate that the low frequencies of speech were also filtered out to some extent."
But as Declercq's team experimented with ultrasonic waves and numerical simulations of the theater's acoustics, they discovered that frequencies up to 500 Hz were held back while frequencies above 500 Hz were allowed to ring out. The corrugated surface of the seats was creating an effect similar to the ridged acoustics padding on walls or insulation in a parking garage.
So, how did the audience hear the lower frequencies of an actor's voice if they were being suppressed with other background low frequencies? There's a simple answer, said Declercq. The human brain is capable of reconstructing the missing frequencies through a phenomenon called virtual pitch. Virtual pitch helps us appreciate the incomplete sound coming from small loudspeakers (in a laptop or a telephone), even though the low (bass) frequencies aren't generated by a small speaker.
The Greeks' misunderstanding about the role the limestone seats played in Epidaurus' acoustics likely kept them from being able to duplicate the effect. Later theaters included different bench and seat materials, including wood, which may have played a large role in the gradual abandonment of Epidaurus' design over the years by the Greeks and Romans, Declercq said.
]]>"The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts is proud to award Charles and Lessie Smithgall the 2007 Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service in recognition of their generous gift made nearly 20 years ago as well as to their commitment to the arts, the environment and educational initiatives in Georgia," says Sue V. Rosser, dean of the Ivan Allen College. "In a testament to their friendship, Charles Smithgall wished to keep the gift a secret from his friend and classmate. When Ivan Allen died in 2003, he went to his grave never knowing of the extraordinary act of friendship and generosity that had led to the naming of a college in his honor."
This year marks the first time since the Ivan Allen Prize was first given in 2001 that the College will present its highest honor posthumously and also is the first time the Prize will be given to a couple. As in the past, the Prize will be awarded at the College's annual Founder's Day luncheon on March 15, the birthday of Mayor Allen.
Previous recipients of the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service include Jesse Hill Jr., Atlanta businessman and civil rights leader (2006); Will Wright, co-founder of Maxis and original designer of SimCity and The Sims computer games (2005); former Senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (2004); Molly Ivins, nationally syndicated columnist (2003); Jimmy Carter, former U.S. President and Georgia Governor (2002); and Zell Miller, former U.S. Senator and Georgia Governor (2001).
The Smithgalls have a long history of giving to Georgia Tech, Atlanta and Georgia. They have contributed more than $20 million in property and money over the course of their lifetimes, which has had an extraordinary impact upon the natural environment and the arts and academic arenas.
Their gifts to the state and city include:
* Smithgall Woods, the 5,600-acre nature preserve and lodge in north Georgia that Charles Smithgall assembled over his lifetime and then acceded to the state in a gift-purchase agreement in 1994;
* The 168-acre Smithgall Woodlands Gardens in Gainesville, Ga., which the Smithgalls donated to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in 2000 to allow the landlocked urban setting room to expand its native and endangered plant conservation program;
* Major endowments for the Atlanta Symphony, the Gainesville Arts Council and the Atlanta Zoo.
At Georgia Tech, the Smithgalls' philanthropy is responsible for three endowed chairs in the College of Sciences as well as the building that houses the Student Services division and support for student athletic facilities.
Charles Smithgall began his radio career with WGST (which stood for Georgia School of Technology), later moving to WSB. He doubled as a radio host and ad salesman boosting the revenue on his own successful show. He later purchased WRNG (later WCNN), started WGGA in Gainesville, and acquired the Gainesville Eagle (now the Gainesville Times) and the Gwinnett Daily News. He also owned a string of weekly newspapers and half-interest in the Gwinnett Daily News, which he sold to the New York Times in 1987.
More details about Founder's Day celebration and the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service are available online at http://www.foundersday.iac.gatech.edu/index.html.
]]>The Honeywell-Nobel Initiative is a global education effort launched in 2006 that is designed to connect students across the globe with Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry and Physics. The Initiative combines on-campus events, Honeywell-Nobel Laureate Lecture Series, with web-based educational content created with Nobel Laureates, and broadcast programming.
General Lecture
11 a.m. -12:30 p.m. April 12
Howey Physics Building
Lecture Hall 1
"Honeywell takes great pride in our relationship with Georgia Tech," said Tom Buckmaster, president Honeywell Hometown Solutions, the company's corporate citizenship initiative. "Our partnership allows us to bring one of the world's leading scientists directly to our next generation of aspiring physicists here at Georgia Tech."
Klaus von Klitzing discovered the Quantum Hall Effect, work for which he was recognized with the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics. As part of his visit, Dr. von Klitzing will deliver a lecture entitled "Micro- to Nanoelectronics," on Thursday, April 12 to Georgia Tech students and faculty. In his talk, von Klitzing will provide an overview of physics, technology and the application of semiconductor quantum structures and discuss some of the recent research activities undertaken by his group in this field. Details of his Nobel Prize can be found at: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1985/
The von Klitzing constant, RK = h / e2 = 25812.807449(86)Ω, named in honor of Dr. von Klitzing's discovery of the Quantum Hall Effect and listed on The National Institute of Standards and Technology Reference on Constants, Units and Uncertainty, describes a phenomenon exhibited by certain semiconductor devices at low temperatures and high magnetic fields, whereby the Hall resistance becomes precisely equal to (h/e2)/n, where h is Planck's constant, e is the electronic charge, and n is either an integer or a rational fraction.
"It's an honor to welcome Dr. von Klitzing to our campus," said Mei-Yin Chou, Chair of the School of Physics. "His discovery of the quantized Hall Effect has allowed for the definition of a new practical standard for electrical resistance. I know his presence and presentations will be inspiring for both our students and faculty."
Klaus von Klitzing was born in 1943, in German-occupied Poland. At the end of World War II, he and his parents relocated to West Germany. There, von Klitzing attended the Technical University of Brunswick and went on to earn a doctorate in physics at the University of Wurzburg in 1972. In 1980, he became a professor at the Technical University of Munich and in 1985 was appointed the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart, Germany and Honorary Professor at the University of Stuttgart.
von Klitzing discovered that, under appropriate conditions, the resistance offered by an electrical conductor is quantized; that is, it varies by discrete steps rather than smoothly and continuously. He demonstrated that electrical resistance occurs in very precise units by using the Hall Effect. The Hall Effect denotes the voltage that develops between the edges of a thin current-carrying ribbon placed between the poles of a strong magnet. The ratio of this voltage to the current is called the Hall Resistance.
The significance of von Klitzing's discovery, made in 1980, was immediately recognized. His experiments enabled other scientists to study the conducting properties of electronic components with extraordinary precision. His work also aided in determining the precise value of the fine structure constant and in establishing convenient standards for the measurement of electrical resistance.
Today, von Klitzing's research focuses on the properties of low dimensional electronic systems, typically in low temperatures and in high magnetic fields.
For exclusive, first-hand access to some of the most important scientists of our time talking about the future of science, please visit: www.honeywellscience.com.
]]>"We find that product introduction delays have a statistically significant negative effect on profitability," says Vinod Singhal, an operations management professor at Georgia Tech College of Management. "The effect of the delay is negative regardless of when it occurred in the product development process or the time of year of the announcement."
Companies in the pharmaceutical, hardware, and software industries are particularly susceptible to negative fallout from delayed launches because their products tend to be much more highly anticipated than, say, a new brand of soda, note Singhal and his research collaborator, Kevin Hendricks, operations management professor at the Wilfrid Laurier University.
"Software and hardware firms operate in a highly dynamic environment, characterized by short product life cycles, intense competition, rapid changes in product and process technology, and high growth rates in demand," Singhal says. "Although product life cycles in the pharmaceutical industry are longer, delays in product introductions shorten the period of exclusivity granted by patent protection. In the meantime, doctors start prescribing other drugs."
Surprisingly, little previous research has attempted to estimate the economic consequences of postponed product launches on these industries, write Singhal and Hendricks in their study, "The Effect of Product Introduction Delays on Operating Performance."
In the recent case of Microsoft, the company lost 10 percent of expected sales from June to December 2006 because of delays getting Vista and Office 2007 into the marketplace. Sony also suffered greatly last year when design issues kept its highly anticipated Playstation 3 videogame machines off store shelves for months longer than originally planned.
Product introduction delays can have a number of negative consequences on revenues, note the researchers. "In a competitive industry, customers may not be willing to wait, choosing to buy a competitor's product instead," Singhal says. "When product life cycles are short, delays reduce the window of opportunity to generate revenues. Delays can also cause the product to become obsolete faster."
Singhal and Hendricks analyzed the financial performance of a diverse set of over 450 publicly traded firms that experienced product introduction delays from 1987 to 2003. In the study, the researchers used operating income to measure profitability. They consider operating income (sales minus the cost of goods sold as well as general, administrative, and selling expenses) the best measure because it is not obscured by tax considerations, interest expenses, etc.
Examining operating performance both before and after product delay announcements, the researchers found that the median decline in return on assets ranged from 2.7 to 3.4 percent (mean decline of 6.0 to 7.7 percent) over a three-year period around the year of the delay announcement. The median decline in return on sales ranged from 1.5 to 3.1 percent (mean decline of 12.6 to 19.6 percent), while the median decline in sales over assets ranged from 5.9 to 11.0 percent (mean decline of 9.3 to 11.5 percent).
Announcements of product delays decreased average shareholder value by about 12 percent, according to the researchers. "Our results suggest that negative stock market reaction to product introduction delays is actually quite rational given the impact of delays on profitability," they write.
Reasons for delayed product launches vary, including poor management of the development process, lack of coordination among different functional areas, and shortages of resources, note the researchers. "Our results underscore the importance of planning and executing the launch of new products," Singhal says. "More attention should be paid to product development and innovation issues."
Writer: Brad Dixon, College of Management
]]>Francois Sainfort, director of the Health Systems Institute (HSI) at Georgia Tech and Emory University and the associate dean of Georgia Tech's College of Engineering, signed the initiative on behalf of Georgia Tech and the Health Systems Institute.
"Georgia Tech is pleased to host this event to draw attention to the need for electronic systems for health care," said G. Wayne Clough, president of Georgia Tech. "Through our Health Systems Institute, Georgia Tech and our partner, Emory University, are working to make many of the goals outlined in this national initiative a reality."
The Health Systems Institute was chosen to host the event because it is developing many of the technologies needed to make these health care improvements technically possible. The institute creates systems and technologies designed to help improve communication among all the players in health care, from the patients to the doctors, administrators and insurers. It partners with local, regional and national health care organizations to research, develop, implement, test and distribute improved technologies for health care that will integrate state-of-the-art information, decision support, communication and biomedical technologies.
"HSI's mission is to create novel methods and technologies to transform health care delivery systems and lead the nation away from an ineffective, reactive, disease-focused system to achieve a cost-effective, proactive, high quality, health- and wellness-focused system," Sainfort said. "The Value-Driven Health Care initiative represents one important step for this transformation to happen."
For example, one of HSI's projects focuses on the development of a comprehensive electronic patient record that contains everything from a genetic profile and socio-demographic information to detailed clinical and insurance information to help doctors and health professionals make better-informed and more efficient decisions about a patient's health care.
The Georgia businesses and organizations signed a pledge to provide quality and price information about doctors, hospitals and other medical providers for all enrollees in their health care insurance programs. This information will help employees choose health care providers based on the quality of care they deliver and the prices they charge.
In addition, the employers agreed to support health information technology by encouraging the use of recognized interoperability standards in the health IT products used by their health plans. They also pledged to develop incentives for achieving better value in health care, including incentives for high quality care and for more active involvement by employees in choosing their health care services.
These four actions are the 'cornerstones' of an initiative launched last November by Secretary Leavitt. By committing to these actions, Georgia employers are joining a growing number of states and companies that are pledging to make quality and price information available to health plan enrollees in order to enable them to compare providers when they purchase health care services.
President Bush committed federal health programs to these four 'cornerstones' through an Executive Order last August. In November, Secretary Leavitt invited all employers, in both the private and public sectors, to take these same four steps. By committing to these goals, he said, "Our individual actions will be aligned toward reaching the common national goal of better health care at lower cost."
]]>The IEEE grade of Fellow is conferred by the board of directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest.
Chatterjee, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, was recognized for his contributions to testing analog and mixed signal circuits. Hughes, professor and senior associate chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was recognized for his contributions to engineering education program development, assessment and accreditation activities.
Chatterjee's research focuses on designing multi-Ghz RF front end systems (hardware as well as software) that can adapt to process variations in scaled CMOS technologies, environmental operating conditions and interference. The work is driven by prior studies that have shown that system-level self-tuning capability is a must for future broadband software defined radio (SDR) systems to be successful. The project is developing built-in test, measurement and adaptation techniques for RF systems.
From 1996-1997, Chatterjee was a partner in NASA's New Millennium project. He has published more than 250 papers in refereed journals, conferences and workshops, has written several book chapters and has 7 patents. He co-founded Ardext Technologies Inc., a mixed-signal test solutions company, and served as chairman and chief scientist from 2000 until 2002. He serves on the program committees of several international conferences and workshops, co-founded the Multi-Ghz Test Workshop and received an IEEE Service Award for his contributions in 2005. He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990.
After earning his doctorate from Stanford University, Hughes joined Georgia Tech in 1986 as the computer engineering program was just beginning. Early in his career, Hughes led the development of the undergraduate and graduate computer engineering curricula, student recruitment and application for program accreditation, which was initially approved by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in 1990. Since 1994, he has held coordinator and associate chair positions in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He now serves as senior associate chair, with responsibility for academic operations and administration, including accreditation and assessment, course planning, projected class schedules and faculty workload assignments.
Hughes was the computer engineering program coordinator for Georgia Tech Savannah (GTS) from 1998-2002 as that program was being founded and established. A past division officer of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), he was elected a Fellow of ASEE in 2006. Hughes currently serves as president of the IEEE Education Society, following several terms in other leadership positions within the society.
]]>"Given his background and experience, Rick is uniquely qualified to lead NEETRAC to a preeminent position in the field of electric energy research," said Gary S. May, Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
For the first 20 years of his career, Hartlein worked at the Georgia Power Research Center. In 1996, he came to Georgia Tech to help establish NEETRAC, a merger of the Georgia Power Research Center and Georgia Tech's research and instructional programs in electric power.
While at Tech, Hartlein has served as the center's underground systems program manager, where he develops and manages research and testing projects related to electric utility underground cable systems and markets NEETRAC to prospective members. A graduate of Tech's Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Hartlein also serves in several leadership roles in industry technical organizations related to this field.
One of the world's foremost electric energy research and testing centers, NEETRAC has 31 industrial members, both manufacturers and utilities, involved in the transmission and distribution of electric energy. NEETRAC electric utility members provide more than 50 percent of the electric energy used by U.S. consumers. Members collaborate in baseline projects of broad interest to the membership, and they may also direct a portion of their membership to projects that focus on their individual needs. In addition to the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Schools of Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering and Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are also involved in NEETRAC activities.
]]>"This award derives from the hard work and accomplishments of Library staff," said Richard Meyer dean and director of Libraries. "Our staff has contributed to organizational change, the re-engineering of services and jobs, and a fresh and focused engagement with our students, faculty and staff. Their dedication overrides concerns for personal reward. We and our campus partners are 'caught up' in this good work. So it's particularly sweet that winning this award gives us pause to take pride in our accomplishments and service to Georgia Tech. It helps our staff to know that our work has made a national impact."
The prestigious national award, which is funded by Blackwell Book Services, recognizes the achievements of a community college, college and university library each year. Criteria for the award include demonstrating outstanding leadership; providing advanced resources for students, faculty and staff; and the development of innovative services and programs that respond to the diverse educational needs of an institution.
"Judges made note of the speed, comprehensiveness and relevance of our transformations 'into the heart and soul of the university,'" said Crit Stuart, associate director for Public Services. "Our experiments in individual and group study spaces, the West and East Commons, coupled with a superb information technology training program in the Multimedia Studio, have a national influence."
Stuart continued, "We doubled library attendance in four years. Judges made note of our digital initiatives, which include the creation of a rapidly growing and heavily used institutional repository (SMARTech), and of award-winning programs to improve access to and usability of electronic resources and Web-based services. Our transformation provides a model for other academic libraries."
In its announcement of this year's winners, the ACRL commended Georgia Tech's Library and Information Center for creating a stimulating and engaging physical environment and making imaginative use of a public space for two information commons, a café, a presentation room and a multimedia center, which have transformed the library into a vibrant gathering place. The ACRL also praised programs such as CeLIBration during Freshman Week and Tuesday Talks, a showcase for faculty research, that invite the community to the library.
"We want to publicly recognize that this distinction is shared with our students, faculty and staff, as well as with our library colleagues," said Meyer. "We especially note the contributions of our Georgia Tech partners: Office of Information Technology, CETL, Success Programs, Counseling Center, Undergraduate Academic Advising, the Class of 1955, and several academic units. Our strong ties to Georgia Tech students are cemented through our Student Advisory Council, which helped to spearhead several of our big initiatives. And we have many productive relationships with outstanding teaching faculty and researchers at Tech."
In addition to a plaque, honorees are awarded $3,000 and receive special recognition during the ACRL President's Program at the annual American Library Association Conference in Washington, D.C. on June 25.
The library will be marking the achievement with a campus celebration on April 10.
]]>"It is kind of exciting and terrifying at the same time because we put a lot of thought into the design, but there are always things you don't think about - especially from a construction perspective," said Jodi Bell-Quinn, a master's student in the Architecture Program.
The construction site is at 575 14th Street, which is on the corner of 14th Street and Hemphill Avenue. The house will be built in the parking lot behind the Institute of Paper Science and Technology (IPST) building.
The team won't actually start building for a couple of weeks because it is waiting on materials and supplies, but the evolution of the house is well under way. Students from across campus have been collaborating on the design of the house and learning from each other.
"Working with other majors has been very educational," said Nadine Cafhlan, a fourth-year Architecture student. "Our thought processes are different from one major to the next. This project allows you to see how engineers and architecture students go about finding a solution differently. We all come at it from different angles, but in the end we are striving for the same conclusion."
"Working with engineers brings a new aspect to the design because they think about things we haven't considered before," said Bell-Quinn. "It makes the project more like the real world and I think the more collaboration we have during the process the richer the project will be in the end."
Team members will continue to develop the design and are well under way with their marketing and communication efforts that are part of the competition. Please visit the Solar Decathlon Web site at www.solar.gatech.edu for more information.
]]>"We are pleased that Dr. Carol Couch, a leader and proponent of environmental policy in Georgia and a Georgia Tech alumna, will help us celebrate the legacy of Charles and Lessie Smithgall, this year's recipients of the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service," says Sue V. Rosser, dean of the Ivan Allen College. "The Smithgalls' love of the environment shows in their many gifts to the state of Georgia, Georgia Tech and other Georgia institutions so it is fitting that Dr. Couch will speak about the changing landscape in Georgia."
Couch, the first woman to lead EPD in its 35-year history, was appointed by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue and the Board of Natural Resources in October 2003. As director, she is responsible for an 850-person agency that implements and enforces 26 state and four federal laws designed to protect, conserve and restore Georgia's environmental resources.
Dr. Couch chairs the Water Council, a coordinating committee charged with overseeing the development of a comprehensive statewide water plan. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Clean Air Campaign and is on the Board of Trustees of the Livable Communities Coalition.
Before joining EPD, Dr. Couch was a member of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), leading nationally distributed, multi-disciplinary teams of engineers, hydrologists, chemists and biologists in the design, conduct and reporting of water resource investigations. She also served as southeastern regional biologist in the southeastern region, and as hydrologist in the Georgia District of the USGS Water Resources Division.
Couch received her Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Georgia, her master's degree from the University of South Carolina and a bachelor's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her graduate studies focused on the ecology of coastal rivers and estuaries.
She was born in Nuremberg, Germany and settled in Columbus, Georgia upon her father's retirement from the U.S. Army. Her love of nature grew from fishing and hunting with her father in Georgia's beautiful and diverse outdoors. Couch is an avid hiker, landscape painter, sometime golfer and is currently writing a series of travel essays.
At the Founder's Day celebration, the Ivan Allen College will honor the recipients of the 2007 Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service-Charles and Lessie Smithgall. Previous recipients of the Prize include Jesse Hill Jr., Atlanta businessman and civil rights leader (2006); Will Wright, co-founder of Maxis and original designer of SimCity and The Sims computer games (2005); former Senator Sam Nunn, co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (2004); Molly Ivins, nationally syndicated columnist (2003); Jimmy Carter, former U.S. President and Georgia Governor (2002); and Zell Miller, former U.S. Senator and Georgia Governor (2001).
More details about Founder's Day celebration and the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service are available online at http://www.foundersday.iac.gatech.edu/index.html.
Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
Ivan Allen College was founded in 1990, and today provides a forum for extending the traditional liberal arts into new fields that address the complex relationship between technology and society. Offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees, Ivan Allen College includes the Schools of Economics; History, Technology and Society; the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs; Literature, Communication and Culture; Modern Languages; and Public Policy, as well as Air Force, Army, and Navy Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) units.
Wilf received his bachelor's degrees in both biology and international affairs from Tech in the spring of 2006. Last August, he traveled to Syria on a Fulbright language grant to study Arabic. He's now in Kuwait working with a local scholar to study whether views on women's rights among the youth indicate that positive changes are likely in the future for women in the country.
"I want to know how women in Kuwait are shaping the national discourse, introducing their agenda for reform and to study how these reforms are received by the youth," he said.
Wilf became interested in the issue while studying abroad for a year in Egypt on a National Security Education Program Scholarship."In my classes, I saw how Islamic law is used to limit the rights of women in the Middle East," he said.
This fall he'll pursue a PhD in the biochemistry department at the University of Cambridge working in the lab of George Salmond.
"Cambridge is a pioneer in genetic and biochemical studies; it's where James Watson and Francis Crick proposed the double-helical structure of DNA," said Wilf.
While at Cambridge, Wilf will study the complex regulatory mechanisms involved in bacterial communication and gene expression of virulence in pathogens.
"The overly simplified view of bacteria is changing," he said. "A better understanding of bacterial communication and gene expression will lead to the development of new antibiotics and a better understanding of how infections develop."
Wilf credits the undergraduate research program at Georgia Tech for giving him the opportunity to gain valuable research experience. "The growing Biosciences sector is a real plus for Tech," he said.
Wilf worked in the molecular biology lab of Professor Roger Wartell, investigating the process by which small RNAs regulate the expression of genes in E. coli.
After Cambridge, Wilf intends to help promote and build the biotech sector in the Middle East, combining his scientific and social science interests.
"I don't want to be one of those people who goes to a country, learns the language and then comes back and forgets about it," he said. "Having this scholarship may make this a possibility."
Started with funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, the Gates Cambridge Trust chooses approximately 100 students from across the globe to study at Cambridge University in England. This year 48 students from the United States were named Gates Cambridge Scholars. The award covers the cost of tuition, airfare and a stipend.
]]>Although Georgia Tech is unaware of any misuse of the information from the compromised computer account, as a precautionary measure, individuals affected by this incident are being contacted and encouraged to notify the appropriate credit reporting agencies that their personal information may have been compromised. In addition, Georgia Tech has alerted the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"Georgia Tech regrets that this potential loss of data occurred and will work with the affected individuals to mitigate their exposure," said James Fetig, associate vice president of Institute Communications and Public Affairs. "Our investigation is continuing, and we apologize for any inconvenience this incident may cause."
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premiere research universities. Ranked eighth among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech has17,000 students enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
]]>The efficient satellite engine uses up to 40 percent less fuel by running on solar power while in space and by fine-tuning exhaust velocity. Satellites using the Georgia Tech engine to blast off can carry more payload thanks to the mass freed up by the smaller amount of fuel needed for the trip into orbit. Or, if engineers wanted to use the reduced fuel load another way, the satellite could be launched more cheaply by using a smaller launch vehicle.
The fuel-efficiency improvements could also give satellites expanded capabilities, such as more maneuverability once in orbit or the ability to serve as a refueling or towing vehicle.
The Georgia Tech project, lead by Dr. Mitchell Walker, an assistant professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, was funded by a grant from the U.S. Air Force. The project team made significant experimental modifications to one of five donated satellite engines from aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney to create the final prototype.
The key to the engine improvements, said Walker, is the ability to optimize the use of available power, very similar to the transmission in a car. A traditional chemical rocket engine (attached to a satellite ready for launch) runs at maximum exhaust velocity until it reaches orbit, i.e. first gear.
The new Georgia Tech engine allows ground control units to adjust the engine's operating gear based on the immediate propulsive need of the satellite. The engine operates in first gear to maximize acceleration during orbit transfers and then shifts to fifth gear once in the desired orbit. This allows the engine to burn at full capacity only during key moments and conserve fuel.
"You can really tailor the exhaust velocity to what you need from the ground," Walker said.
The Georgia Tech engine operates with an efficient ion propulsion system. Xenon (a noble gas) atoms are injected into the discharge chamber. The atoms are ionized, (electrons are stripped from their outer shell), which forms xenon ions. The light electrons are constrained by the magnetic field while the heavy ions are accelerated out into space by an electric field, propelling the satellite to high speeds.
Tech's significant improvement to existing xenon propulsion systems is a new electric and magnetic field design that helps better control the exhaust particles, Walker said. Ground control units can then exercise this control remotely to conserve fuel.
The satellite engine is almost ready for military applications, but may be several years away from commercial use, Walker added.
]]>Understanding the motion of fluids is the basis for a tremendous amount of engineering and technology in contemporary life. Planes fly and ships sail because scientists understand the rules of how fluids like water and air behave under varying conditions. The mathematical principles that describe these rules were put forth more than 100 years ago and are known as the Navier-Stokes equations. They are well-known and understood by any scientist or student in the field. But now that researchers are delving into the realm of the small, an important question arisen: namely, how do these rules work when fluids and flows are measured on the nanoscale? Do the same rules apply or, given that the behavior of materials in this size regime often has little to do with their macro-sized cousins, are there new rules to be discovered?
It's well-known that small systems are influenced by randomness and noise more than large systems. Because of this, Georgia Tech physicist Uzi Landman reasoned that modifying the Navier-Stokes equations to include stochastic elements - that is give the probability that an event will occur - would allow them to accurately describe the behavior of liquids in the nanoscale regime.
Writing in the August 18, 2000, issue of Science, Landman and post doctoral fellow Michael Moseler used computer simulation experiments to show that the stochastic Navier-Stokes formulation does work for fluid nanojets and nanobridges in a vacuum. The theoretical predictions of this early work have been confirmed experimentally by a team of European scientists (see the December 13, 2006, issue of Physical Review Letters). Now, Landman and graduate student Wei Kang have discovered that by further modifying the Moseler-Landman stochastic Navier-Stokes equations, they can accurately describe this behavior in a realistic non-vacuous environment.
"There was a strong opinion that fluid dynamics theory would stop being valid for small systems," said Landman, director of the Center for Computational Materials Science, Regents' and Institute professor, and Callaway chair of physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "It was thought that all you could do was perform extensive, as well as expensive, molecular dynamic simulations or experiments, and that continuum fluid dynamics theory could not be applied to explain the behavior of such small systems."
The benefit of the new formulations is that these equations can be solved with relative ease in minutes, in comparison to the days and weeks that it takes to simulate fluid nano structures, which can contain as many as several million molecules. Equally difficult, and sometimes even harder, are laboratory experiments on fluids in this regime of reduced dimensions.
In this study, Landman and Wei simulated a liquid propane bridge, which is a slender fluid structure connecting two larger bodies of liquid, much like a liquid channel connecting two rain puddles. The bridge was six nanometers in diameter and 24 nanometers long. The object was to study how the bridge collapses.
In the study performed in 2000, Landman simulated a bridge in a vacuum. The bridge broke in a symmetrical fashion, pinching in the middle, with two cones on each side. This time, the simulation focused on a model with a nitrogen gas environment surrounding the bridge at different gas pressures.
When the gas pressure was low (under 2 atmospheres of nitrogen), the breaking occurred in much the same way that it did in the previous vacuum computer experiment. But when the pressure was sufficiently high (above 3.5 atmospheres), 50 percent of the time the bridge broke in a different way. Under high pressure, the bridge tended to create a long thread and break asymmetrically on one side or the other of the thread instead of in the middle. Until now, such asymmetric long-thread collapse configuration has been discussed only for macroscopically large liquid bridges and jets.
Analyzing the data showed that the asymmetric breakup of the nanobridge in a gaseous environment relates to molecular evaporation and condensation processes and their dependence on the curvature of the shape profile of the nanobridge.
"If the bridge is in a vacuum, molecules evaporating from the bridge are sucked away and do not come back" said Landman. "But if there are gas molecules surrounding the bridge, some of the molecules that evaporate will collide with the gas, and due to these collisions the scattered molecules may change direction and come back to the nanobridge and condense on it."
As they return they may fill in spaces where other atoms have evaporated. In other words, the evaporation-condensation processes serve to redistribute the liquid propane along the nanobridge, resulting in an asymmetrical shape of the breakage. The higher the pressure is surrounding the bridge, the higher the probability that the evaporating atoms will collide with the gas and condense on the nanobridge. Landman and Wei have shown that these microscopic processes can be included in the stochastic hydrodynamic Navier-Stokes equations, and that the newly modified equations reproduce faithfully the results of their atomistic molecular dynamics experiments.
"Knowing that the hydrodynamic theory, that is the basis of venerable technologies around us, can be extended to the nanoscale is fundamentally significant, and a big relief" said Landman. "Particularly so, now that we have been able to use it to describe the behavior of nanofluids in a non-vacuous environment - since we expect that this is where most future applications would occur."
Caption for Photo one, hi-res download
A typical break-up process of a propane liquid bridge (blue) at 185 K in an ambient nitrogen gas (yellow) environment (density of 6:0 kg=m3, with a corresponding partial pressure of 0.36 MPa), recorded in a MD simulation at t=0 (a), 400 (b), 760 (c), and 840 ps (d). The break-up profile is shown in (d), exhibiting a geometry of a long thread pinching on the left. The length of the nanobridge is 30 nm, and its initial average radius is 3 nm.
Caption for Photo two, hi-res download
A typical break-up process of a propane liquid bridge in vacuum at 185 K, recorded in a MD simulation, at t= 0 (a), 200 (b), 400 (c), and 547 ps (d). The break-up profile is shown in (d), exhibiting a geometry of two cones joined at the apex and pinching in the middle. The length of the nanobridge is 30 nm, and its initial average radius is 3 nm. Note also some evaporation of the bridge molecules.
This research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research
]]>Bellamkonda was recruited from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he had developed a successful research laboratory. As a part of the Brain Tumor Program at the Winship Cancer Center at Emory, he is developing collaborations for researching a patient-specific, targeted anti-tumor therapy. Bellamkonda studied engineering at Osmania University in India; earned his Ph.D. at Brown University in Rhode Island; and completed his fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
"He is forging a truly interdisciplinary approach to cancer nanotherapeutics and diagnostics," said Don Giddens, dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. "His work to develop nanotechnology-based strategies for early detection of cancer, targeted therapeutics and patient specific medicines is very promising."
The coalition cooperates with Georgia's research universities, medical schools, hospitals and nursing programs in recruiting research scientists, with the goal of strengthening the state's research talent, capacity and infrastructure. Since its inception in 2001, the Georgia Cancer Coalition has named 91 Distinguished Scholars; eight have been from Georgia Institute of Technology. The scholar funding is an investment not only in Georgia's future as a national leader in cancer control, but also is valuable in attracting increased funding to Georgia for cancer research. For starters, the coalition contracts with the sponsoring institution to provide at least a dollar-for-dollar match. The review committee examines the scholars' history of grants, publications and patents, and considers the researcher's potential for attracting future funding. In fiscal year 2006, Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholars were responsible for securing $48 million in privately and federally funded research grants to the state of Georgia.
Scholar selection is based on how the applicant's research relates to the goals of the coalition, the research priorities of the National Cancer Institute and the strategic plan of the sponsoring institution. Each application is reviewed by both an external scientific review committee and an advisory review committee, appointed by the coalition in cooperation with Georgia's research universities. Kate Canterbury, director of research programs, staffs the coalition committees. Members rank scholars according to predetermined scientific and technical criteria.
"The National Cancer Institute has identified areas of discovery that hold promise for making significant progress against all cancers. The Distinguished Cancer Clinicians and Scientists program is the cornerstone of the Georgia Cancer Coalition's efforts to advance scientific discovery into the prevention, treatment, causes, and cures of cancer. These scientists play an important role in positioning Georgia as a national leader in cancer research," says Bill Todd, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Georgia Cancer Coalition.
The Georgia Cancer Coalition is an independent, not-for-profit organization that unites government agencies, academic institutions, civic groups, corporations and health care organizations in a concerted effort to strengthen cancer prevention, research and treatment in Georgia, with the ultimate goal of making Georgia one of the nation's premier states for cancer care. The mission is to reduce the number of cancer-related deaths in Georgia. The coalition is the first of its kind in the nation and is fast becoming a national model.
]]>"This symposium focuses on music technology, and the College of Architecture Music Department just introduced Tech's first degree program in music," said Dean Thomas Galloway, College of Architecture. "The symposium helps us roll out our master's degree in music technology and demonstrates to the arts community throughout Georgia and beyond that music is alive and well at Georgia Tech."
The symposium, which will be held March 3, 2007, will highlight three areas of interest in each session. The morning will begin with a session entitled 'Technology Meets Tradition: The Impact of Technology on Music Education'. The second session discusses 'Cognition and Analysis: The "Why" of Music'. The third session,'Making Music and Performance,' will follow lunch. The final session of the day will focus on the relationship between 'Music and Architecture'.
"The Dean's Symposium is a wonderful event with a number of substantive outcomes," said Frank Clark, director of the Music Department. "Each year the event brings hundreds of visitors to the Tech campus, produces meaningful scholarship, generates debate, adds to our visibility and credibility, and celebrates the diversity and richness of the Georgia Tech College of Architecture."
Organizers are expecting a wide array of attendees, including several from other Georgia universities. Presenters include Georgia Tech professors Parag Chordia, Athanassios Economou, Jason Freeman, Ronald Lewcock, Jerry Ulrich, Bruce Walker, Gil Weinberg, and Music Department Director Frank Clark. Other presenters include David Huron, The Ohio State University; George Lewis, Columbia University; Henry Panion III, University of Alabama-Birmingham; Thomas Rudolph, director of music at School District of Haverford Township (PA); Pierre Ruhe, music critic for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Jessica Peek Sherwood, Sonic Generator (flutist).
These scholars and practitioners will discuss ideas and demonstrate developments in areas ranging from new interfaces for musical expression and algorithmic composition to music information retrieval, music networks, and machine musicianship.
The College of Architecture has a unique relationship with its Music Department, and together they are forging a new future for Georgia Tech and music. So what's the future of Tech's music program?
"That's a question we ask every day and there are so many answers: new degree programs, new classes, new ensembles, groundbreaking research, innovative instruments, new modes of expression, and new partnerships combining music, architecture, computing, engineering, science and math," said Clark. "The future of music at Tech is ours to write, and I sincerely hope that it will be an Institute-wide composition."
The symposium is jointly sponsored by the Georgia Tech College of Architecture and the College of Architecture Alumni Committee and is organized by the College and its Music Department.
]]>"We are profoundly grieved and saddened by this horrible tragedy, and our hearts and prayers go out to the campus community of Virginia Tech, especially to the families of those who were killed or wounded," said Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough. "Virginia Tech is our sister technological university and partner school in the ACC, and the connections between Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech run broad and deep."
Georgia Tech has received dozens of inquiries from concerned parents regarding campus preparedness and response capabilities. The Institute conducts vulnerability assessments on facilities throughout campus and continually reviews preparedness and response procedures to enhance campus safety. Plans are also in place to address incidents ranging from natural disasters to bomb threats on campus.
"These plans are routinely exercised with local first responders, including the Atlanta Police Department (APD), Atlanta Fire Department (AFD) and the Atlanta/Fulton County Emergency Management Agency (AFCEMA)," said Andy Altizer, Georgia Tech Emergency Preparedness director. "To assure that we address ongoing concerns, Georgia Tech has an active Emergency Preparedness Advisory Group that meets monthly on campus, and includes members from these key agencies. In addition, campus first responders, emergency personnel and building managers are committed to participating in ongoing safety education to help improve preparedness and response capabilities. We are also a part of the Board of Regents' Emergency Operations Planning Committee."
Georgia Tech continues to improve its notification procedures and uses multiple means for campus notification when an emergency occurs. These include posting information on the Georgia Tech Web site (www.gatech.edu), distributing campus wide e-mails, implementing a building manager notification system, broadcasting voicemails, and notifying media and the campus broadcast stations, WREK and GTCN. The Institute is also in the process of evaluating text messaging systems as another means to contact students. A recent grant from the Department of Homeland Security will fund the installation of a campus siren warning system.
With over 6,300 residents in Georgia Tech Housing's 32 residence halls, members of the Residence Life and Housing staff place a great emphasis on for emergency preparedness and response. For example, Residence Life staff are trained in crisis management and have protocols designed to handle most emergencies, in coordination with Georgia Tech Police, Counseling Center, Dean of Students, and other Atlanta and State agencies. Residence Life's Emergency Alert Plan spells evacuation and communication plans for emergencies. Find out more at http://www.housing.gatech.edu/policies/reslife_security-alert-policy.cfm
The Georgia Tech Dean of Students and Counseling Center stands ready to provide emotional support to the campus community in response to the recent tragic events. For more information on the services offered by the Center, please visit its Web site at http://www.counseling.gatech.edu/ or call 404-894-2575.
"Safety is a joint effort," said Altizer. "We ask our students to be alert and report suspicious activities, to check our Web site, to tune into the news media when an event occurs and to ensure that their emergency contact information is on file and updated under the personal information icon in the student registration system."
]]>Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered an important step in cortisol production, finding that although the output of the hormone is continuous, the molecular production is cyclic in nature - involving a rhythmic binding and unbinding of a protein essential to its production. The research, which increases understanding of how the brain and the endocrine system work together to regulate health, appears in the February issue of the journal Molecular Endocrinology.
Turning cholesterol into the stress hormone cortisol involves many reactions and begins when the hypothalamus sends a signal to the adrenal glands. Proteins then flood into the nucleus to bind to the DNA, creating the gene CYP 17. What happens next is well understood; CYP 17, along with a battery of other enzymes, transforms cholesterol into cortisol. But what isn't understood is how this protein binding creates CYP 17, or which proteins are important. So, graduate students Eric Dammer and Adam Leon, along with Marion Sewer, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Biology, decided to model the events that occur after the adrenal gland receives the signal.
One of the things the signal does is cause adrenal cells to increase their production of cyclic AMP (cAMP), a chemical that encourages proteins to interact. So they began by causing the cells to make more cAMP. Then as the proteins assembled on the DNA, they tested the cells at different intervals in order to get a snapshot of which proteins were interacting, both with each other and the DNA and in which order this occurred. Then they mutated the proteins to stop them from fulfilling their roles.
"One of the best ways to try and figure out the function of a protein or a gene is to get rid of it or mutate it so that it's not acting normally. Then you compare it with one that is acting normally," said Sewer.
In this study, they focused on a protein known as steriodogenic factor 1 (SF-1), which is essential for making all steroid hormones. Researchers were interested in discovering what events have to occur in order for SF-1 to bind to DNA.
The first thing they found was that because DNA is so tightly packed in the nucleus, SF-1 can't bind to it until it's unpacked by a group of proteins. Once that happens, SF-1 binds to the genes, beginning the process that makes CYP 17 and ultimately cortisol. But it's not a continuous process, they found.
"Once SF-1 binds, it leaves. A few minutes later other proteins come in and condense the DNA," said Sewer. "After that SF-1 binds again, then leaves, and the proteins cause the DNA to contract again."
This cycle goes on as long as the adrenal gland is receiving the signal.
"Even though you get a sustained production of cortisol, the actual molecular events that happen in the nucleus are dynamic," said Sewer. "It's an extremely complex series of events that starts within minutes of the adrenal gland receiving the signal. Without all these transient binding events, the adrenal gland fails to produce optimal levels of cortisol."
Next the team will investigate how small molecules - ligands - regulate cortisol production by binding to SF-1 and controlling the receptor's ability to bind to DNA.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Georgia Cancer Coalition.
]]>Chen, a junior from Sterret, Ala., was also named to USA Today's 2007 all-USA College Academic Team earlier this year. At Tech she is working on collaborative projects in regenerative medicine as well as creating novel tissue engineering and stem cell therapies for clinical use. Along with her BME degree, Chen is working toward a certificate in Engineering Entrepreneurship to bring new therapies to the market. She has also volunteered with Engineering World Health as a biomedical engineer in the hospitals of El Salvador. A daughter of first-generation immigrants from Taiwan, Chen came to Georgia Tech as a President's Scholar and has excelled both academically and as a campus leader.
Zou, a sophomore from Lilburn, Ga., said his interest in BME came at a high school Science Olympiad tournament. His long-term goal is to pursue a career in biomedical research and pursue an MD/PhD degree in medical physics with a concentration in neuron imaging. He wants to develop non-invasive imaging technologies to study changes in the brain on the synaptic and cellular levels. He hopes to translate research findings into better medical care for patients with neurological diseases. Zou has tutored elementary school science class students as part of Tech's community outreach program and has spent a summer as an intern at the National Institutes of Health.
"Having these Goldwater recipients from the College of Engineering continues to reflect and enhance Georgia Tech's national reputation for academic excellence and its standing among America's premiere research institutions," said Don Giddens, dean of Georgia Tech's College of Engineering. "They speak directly to the quality of the undergraduate experience at Tech and the high caliber of faculty who help nurture these exceptional students."
Established by Congress in 1986 to foster and encourage excellence in science, engineering and mathematics, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation operates an educational scholarship program designed to provide opportunities for American undergraduate students with excellent academic records and outstanding potential. Goldwater Scholarships support study in the fields of mathematics, engineering and the natural sciences as preparation for careers in these areas.
The Foundation awarded 317 Goldwater Scholarships to students who will be college juniors or seniors during the 2007-2008 academic year. Awards are made on the basis of merit. Each award covers eligible expenses, including tuition, fees, books, and room and board, up to a maximum of $7,500 per year. Goldwater Scholars are eligible for one or two years of support.
]]>Solvay is an international chemical and pharmaceutical group headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, with units in more than 50 countries and a strong presence in Georgia. It recently entered into a long-term partnership in the field of organic electronics with Georgia Tech and COPE. Solvay has a long tradition of organizing high-impact symposia, dating back to the prestigious 'Conseils Solvay' (Solvay Conferences) of the early 20th century.
Last April, Solvay and COPE began a three-year, $3 million partnership for research into organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). OLEDs are thin-films of organic molecules that give off light when electricity is applied. They could potentially be used in everything from television and computer monitors to household lighting to handheld computing devices, such as iPods and personal digital assistants.
Since then, the partnership has expanded to include research on organic solar cells and is valued at $5 million.
The First Solvay-COPE Symposium on Organic Electronics will feature four distinguished speakers with strong international reputations in organic electronics:
Professor Sir Richard Friend, University of Cambridge, UK;
Professor George Malliaras, Cornell University;
Professor Antoine Kahn, Princeton University; and
Professor Samson Jenekhe, University of Washington.
Four Georgia Tech faculty will also deliver invited lectures at the Symposium: Professors David Collard, Greg Durgin, Ken Sandhage, and David Sherrill.
The Solvay-COPE Symposium series will provide the Solvay and Georgia Tech organic electronics communities and other interested parties with the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with the top researchers in the field. Attendees will be exposed to the most recent advances at the cutting edge of science and technology. With applications emerging in the areas of displays, solid-state lighting, solar cells, transistors and sensors, organic electronics is predicted to be one of the fastest growing markets over the next decade. It is projected to grow into a $30 billion industry by 2015.
Participation in the First Solvay-COPE Symposium on Organic Electronics is free. However, registration is requested. The registration form can be found at www.cope.gatech.edu.
The Symposium will be held at Georgia Tech's Molecular Sciences and Engineering (MS&E) Building from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8.
]]>The film is a Russian-language historical narrative based on a woman who attempted to assassinate Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin in 1918. The movie credits Kaplan's attempt with helping to start the Red Terror, in which thousands of people were arrested and executed without trial by Lenin's government.
Gluzman, an industrial design major, met Herrmann, a mechanical engineering student, at the Campus MovieFest competition last year. Herrmann had entered his film 'Casuality,' while Gluzman showed his movie 'Vendetta.' In addition to competing in CMF, Herrmann also runs the student organization Buzz Studios.
"We got to talking and made small talk about working together next year," said Gluzman.
Unlike most small talk, this conversation actually led to something and the two decided that this year they wanted to make a war movie. Gluzman came across Kaplan's story while doing research and decided that bringing it to fruition would be difficult enough to make it worthwhile.
The biggest challenge was filming the movie in Russian. None of the actors, except for Gluzman, knew the language, so he and friend Ildar Musin taught the actors all they needed to know for the film in about a week. Gluzman spent six hours working with lead actress and Herrmann's fiancée, Becky Tucker, and spent two hours working with co-star Matt Perry. In addition to the one-on-one language lessons, Gluzman gave his actors MP3s of himself reading the lines, so they could hear how they should sound.
"There was a lot of doubt as to whether we could pull it off in Russian," Gluzman said. "The other option was accents."
Like most historical films, the piece does take some liberties with the material. Gluzman said they added the roles of Kaplan's accomplices and a scene in an interrogation room to heighten the drama.
Born in the Soviet Union, Gluzman moved with his family to Atlanta in 1990, when he was three years old. He hadn't heard about Kaplan's story before he began researching for the film, but once he discovered it he found that his family was well-versed in the tale. According to Gluzman, even though Kaplan wasn't successful in assassinating Lenin that day, he was seriously wounded. The bullets, which were never removed from his neck, are speculated by some historians to have caused the stroke that took his life six years later.
The film was written by Gluzman's friend Wesley Wingo, a film student at New York University, and the original music was composed by Tech student Rolan Duvvury. Gluzman's father played the old Russian revolutionary song 'Varshavianka' on the accordion for part of the soundtrack.
Gluzman said he and Herrmann plan to restore a scene they had to cut to pare the film down to the regulation length of six minutes. The scene doubles the running time of the film, but would make it closer to their original vision. They plan to enter this newly edited director's cut into film festivals.
]]>"Georgia Tech is honored that President Mary McAleese visited our campus today," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "Her visit is another step in the growing relationship between Ireland and Georgia Tech. Only last year, through an agreement with the Irish government, we announced the creation of Georgia Tech Ireland, an innovative initiative in which the Georgia Tech Research Institute is working with Irish industry and the research universities of Ireland to enhance commercialization of research. This relationship is already opening doors of economic opportunity between Georgia and Ireland."
Georgia Tech Ireland, located in Athlone, Ireland, focuses on industry research and development needs. Over the next five years, the Irish operation plans to build up a portfolio of research programs and collaborations with industry valued in excess of $24 million, and at full operation, it will employ 50 highly qualified researchers.
"The relationships are just as important as the technology, if not more so," said David Parekh, executive director, Georgia Tech Ireland. "I am convinced that this initiative will be a tremendous success because of the strong commitment and genuine collegiality among all the participants."
The institute works closely with Irish corporations and universities, the Georgia Tech research community and U.S. companies to provide companies on both sides of the Atlantic with industry-focused research and development that bridge the gap between academic discovery and commercial success.
"During President McAleese's visit, we had the opportunity to highlight the broad range of interdisciplinary research at Georgia Tech and the major achievements of the university's programs in commercialization and applied research," said Parekh. "It was clear throughout our discussions how this collaboration for innovation would bring tremendous value to both Georgia and Ireland."
GTRI, which conducts nearly $140 million in research and development each year for industry, government and academic institutions across the world, receives support from IDA Ireland, the Irish Government's economic development agency. The new institute focuses on four technology areas that mirror Ireland's research strengths digital media, radio frequency identification (RFID), biotechnology and energy.
The institute's digital media research includes development of a national test bed for Internet protocol television (IPTV), a fully interactive digital television service offered to subscribers via an Internet-based broadband connection. By bringing together designers and users, the institute is exploring the potential applications of this emerging technology.
The research with RFID centers on authentication and identification technologies from acoustics to optics for the commercial sector. For instance, because Ireland has a thriving pharmaceutical industry, some of the institute's research targets pill-tracking accuracy, ensuring authenticity and dosage.
The institute's biotechnology research focuses primarily on medical devices for preventive and predictive medicine and manufacturing of medical devices. The institute's energy and environmental research focus is on enabling technologies and systems models for sustainable energy alternatives, a research area of critical importance to both the United States and Ireland.
GT Ireland's Athlone location leaves it well situated for collaborative research with a broad range of companies and universities throughout the country. Athlone is between Dublin on the east coast and Galway on the west coast. Cork, home of the renowned Tyndall Institute, is on the southern coast. Elan Pharmaceutical and Ericsson are both headquartered in Athlone, and other major corporations have plans to come to the region.
GTRI, established since 1934, has an international standing for its excellence in many areas of science and technology. It employs 1,300 people, including 600 full-time engineers and scientists, of which 73 percent hold advanced degrees.
]]>Every year, the Franz Edelman competition recognizes outstanding examples of operations research (O.R.) projects that have transformed companies, entire industries and people's lives. O.R. uses advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions and is a disciplined way by which management can improve organizational performance in a wide variety of situations, in nearly any type of organization in the public or private sector.
This year's Franz Edelman finalists included Coca-Cola, The U.S. Coast Guard, Hewlett-Packard and Daimler-Chrysler. Past winners have included Motorola, Merrill Lynch, Canadian Pacific Railway and IBM.
Eva K. Lee, an associate professor at Georgia Tech's H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, worked with Dr. Marco Zaider, head of Brachytherapy Physics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), to devise sophisticated optimization modeling and computational techniques to implement an intra-operative 3D treatment planning system for brachytherapy (the placement of radioactive 'seeds' inside a tumor) that offers a safer and more reliable treatment.
Lee's optimization models and algorithms guide doctors toward the most effective dose provided by each radioactive seed, the shape of the organ being treated, the locations of tumor cells within the organ and critical structures for which radiation dose should be limited, the sensitivity of tissues to radiation, and the expected shrinkage of the organ after treatment. The system's goal is to provide consistent tumor-killing radiation doses to the tumor cells while limiting potentially damaging doses to nearby critical structures.
"The system can be used in real time," said Lee. "The patient can come in, the imaging is done and we can then do the planning and implantation right away. There is no delay between the imaging, planning and implantation of the seeds."
The real-time intra-operative planning system eliminates pre-operation simulation and post-implant imaging analysis. Based on the range of costs of these procedures, Lee estimates conservatively that their elimination nationwide could save on the order of $450 million a year for prostate cancer care alone.
By exposing healthy tissue to lower doses of radiation, the system reduces treatment complications by 40 percent to 65 percent and has a profound impact on the cost for interventions to manage side-effects. The procedure also uses significantly fewer seeds and needles compared to current best-practice procedures, according to Lee and Zaider, reducing procedure time, invasiveness and blood loss. As a result, patients experience less pain and have faster recoveries.
National distribution of this system will allow achievement of consistent treatment planning across different clinics, thus reducing the variability in the quality of treatment plans. The resulting plans limit urethral dose, decrease operator dependency and reduce the influence of the learning curve associated with prostate brachytherapy. These all have important consequences for the outcome of treated patients.
The system allows for dynamic dose correction, thus helping the training of clinicians and residents to develop effective and safe treatment plans.
The patented system is based on optimization techniques known as mixed integer programming. It was licensed to Prowess in 2004 and converted to a commercial product. Prowess added the new algorithms to treatment planning systems it already has in operation at more than 700 clinics in the United States.
Beyond prostate cancer therapy, the mixed-integer algorithms can also be used to optimize radioactive seed and external beam radiation treatment for a broad range of other cancers.
With support from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Whitaker Foundation, Lee has also been working with medical specialists on improving treatments for breast, lung, cervical, brain and liver cancers.
"The cancer instances are really hard to solve, and our team has worked very hard in advancing the algorithmic frontier. Now we can use this in many different applications and it works very well for improving local tumor control," Lee said. "I feel really good about seeing this applied in the clinic to improve treatment to patients."
]]>A group of 60 logistics students, led by logistics expert John Bartholdi, a professor in the Stewart School, sends identical boxes bound for places like Lomé, Togo and Split, Croatia. With no indication that there's a competition underway, each carrier picks up its parcel, and the race begins. The progress of the packages is tracked online and students follow the often byzantine journey (across oceans, rivers and jungles and sometimes by bicycle) from Atlanta, Georgia, to a location that may not even have an official street address.
Admittedly, the race is an extreme test of the carriers' ability to deliver anywhere in the world, Bartholdi said. This year's packages were sent on April 13 to Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Burma); Tikrit, Iraq (one of the centers of Sunni insurgency); Floranopolis, Brazil (a small island); Harare, Zimbabwe and Apia, Samoa. Most packages arrived within a week or two, but one has yet to be delivered or returned.
DHL beat the competition this year, delivering first to three of the five locations and second to the remaining two. FedEx managed to deliver to three locations, and UPS delivered parcels to two. The remaining packages from FedEx and UPS went undelivered for a variety of reasons. In past races, the carriers traded wins in different locales.
While carriers usually have no trouble getting the package to the general vicinity of the package address, the last part of the package's journey slows things down considerably.
"The world's not quite flat," Bartholdi said. "The last mile is always the hardest."
Each year, the race results are often mixed and entertaining. Two carriers once showed up at the exact same time to deliver their packages. One package was carried back-and-forth across the Atlantic nine times before delivery. Another was sent to Costa Rica instead of Croatia. And one carrier claimed that the destination country didn't exist at all.
Bartholdi started the Great Package Race back in 2003 as a fun exercise for his logistics students. Each package provided a window into how the carriers operate, revealing everything from which hubs carriers route packages through to what types of operations functions can go wrong when a package is shipped internationally.
The carriers themselves are good sports about the race and sometimes communicate with the students about what went wrong and what went right, Bartholdi said.
The packages, containing Georgia Tech goodies such as a shirt and mug, are sent to the group's friends and acquaintances all over the world, provided that their addresses present a suitably sadistic challenge for the carriers.
]]>"Ward Winer has been an advocate, teacher, colleague, friend and a leader for the Woodruff school," said College of Engineering Dean Don Giddens. "We owe him a great debt for his effective leadership and stewardship of mechanical engineering. The Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering has flourished under Ward's watchful eye to being in the top ten programs in the country."
Under Winer's leadership, Tech's mechanical engineering program has grown exponentially to become the largest in the country (in addition to being the largest undergraduate program at Tech), and is consistently ranked as one of the best in the country by U.S. News & World Report. The school's rank has moved from between No. 26 and No. 50 in the early 1980s to No. 6 and No. 7 this year for its mechanical engineering undergraduate and graduate programs, respectively. The Woodruff School endowment has increased from $3 million in 1988 to $100 million this year, including the $65 million George W. Woodruff endowment.
When Winer joined mechanical engineering (ME) in 1969, the school had 25 faculty members. Now, it has more than 100, including research faculty and academic professionals. When he became chair (then called director) in 1988, the school had two endowed chairs and three professorships; now the school boasts 10 endowed chairs and 5 professorships.
"I am very pleased to have played a role in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech," said Winer. "I consider my greatest achievement as chair to have been my ability to hire and retain excellent faculty and staff. It is these people who attract outstanding students, which results in outstanding alumni, which, in turn, makes the reputation of the school."
As chair, Winer also helped oversee the establishment of cornerstone mechanical engineering programs at two new campuses, Georgia Tech Savannah and Georgia Tech Lorraine in Metz, France.
"During his time as chair, the school and its programs have soared, so that as he now hands off the leadership, it is clearly recognized as one of the finest in its field," said Ronald Rousseau, chair of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. "I have often watched with admiration as he brought grace to countless events, always knowing just the right thing to say in introducing a guest, asking a difficult question or presenting a point of view."
Winer came to Georgia Tech from the University of Michigan in 1969 as an associate professor of mechanical engineering and was named director of the mechanical engineering school in 1988.
Winer is an honorary member and a Life Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the Tribology Gold Medal from the British Tribology Trust in 1986. Winer was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988 and has served on the mechanical engineering advisory boards for Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan.
]]>"As an emerging global leader in robotics research and innovation, Georgia Tech is pleased to host RoboCup 2007," said Tucker Balch, Georgia Tech College of Computing associate professor and RoboCup 2007 Atlanta general chair. "We welcome the international robotics community to our campus and look forward to the exciting competition."
RoboCup 2007 Atlanta invites interested media to register online to attend and receive updates at www.robocup-us.org/press/ .
Other major sponsors include CITIZEN, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft and the National Science Foundation.
This summer is Robot Summer at Georgia Tech. In addition to RoboCup 2007 Atlanta, Georgia Tech will also host several other robotics-related events, including the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) conference and an International Aerial Robotics Competition.
RoboCup 2007 Atlanta Schedule:
July 3: RoboCup Opening Ceremony
July 3-6: RoboCup Qualifying Competitions
July 7-8: RoboCup Finals
July 9-10: RoboCup Symposium
About RoboCup:
RoboCup is an international research and education initiative. Its goal is to foster artificial intelligence and robotics research by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies can be examined and integrated. The concept of soccer-playing robots was first introduced in 1993. In July 1997, the first official conference and games were held in Nagoya, Japan, followed by Paris, Stockholm, Melbourne, Seattle, Fukuoka/Busan, Padua, Lisbon, Osaka and Bremen. This year, the 11th anniversary of RoboCup, the competition and symposium are being held in Atlanta, Georgia. For more details about RoboCup 2007 including participants and updated schedule, visit http://www.robocup-us.org/.
Houston succeeds Gary Schuster, who assumed duties as Tech's provost last fall. Houston previously served as senior associate dean of Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences, where he balanced a diverse set of departments and programs. Schuster said Houston's qualifications - a respected professor and researcher who understands the process of conducting faculty business - matched the needs of the College.
"As a fellow chemist, I have been familiar with Paul's work for a number of years," he said. "What impressed me most are the breadth of his interests and the rigor of his research. Given his knowledge and experience, I have no doubt he will bring the same enthusiasm in guiding the College of Sciences to new heights."
Houston indicated he would like to continue the work Schuster began, positioning Tech's core science departments to meet modern research challenges in fields such as bioinformatics, photonics and nanoscience.
"Research strengths like these form a great base of both infrastructure and knowledge from which to attack new problems, bring new faculty research programs to Georgia Tech, develop new teaching programs and inspire new commercial ventures," he said. "The challenge for me as the next dean will be to strengthen and expand the College in areas where Georgia Tech has scientific advantages due to infrastructure or collaborative capabilities."
Professionally, Houston is regarded as a researcher who seeks opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. He has some ideas for fostering that kind of activity at Tech, but stressed that it won't be the only measure of success.
"Strengthening the sciences is important both for the health of the College and for the future growth of the Institute. It is neither necessary nor desirable that all the improvement in the College of Sciences be in fields with some overlap with engineering or computation, but it is likely that these areas of overlap will be among those that can find the most support from both internal and external funding sources."
At Cornell, Houston led an active research group in the fields of materials and physical chemistry, pursuing lines of investigation in photodissociation dynamics, crossed molecular beam studies of reactions, light emitting devices, and exploration of biofilms. He chaired the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology from 1997 to 2001.
Anselm Griffin, chair of the School of Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering and head of the search committee, said Houston's experience stood out.
"Our committee found Dr. Houston to be an excellent candidate, whose academic and administrative record was without peer. With much enthusiasm, we welcome him to Georgia Tech."
Houston earned his bachelor's degree at Yale University in 1969 and his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973. He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the faculty at Cornell as an assistant professor in 1975.
Writer: Michael Hagearty
]]>"We deplore this conduct," said James Fetig, associate vice president for communications and public affairs. "Georgia Tech expects the highest standards of integrity from its employees, and we are cooperating fully with law enforcement."
The fraud was brought to the attention of Georgia Tech officials in April 2007 by state auditors who were reviewing purchasing card practices. The employee was terminated on May 4, 2007. No other current or past Georgia Tech employees have been implicated in this investigation.
Georgia Tech is reviewing procurement card controls to see if improvements or further administrative actions are needed. "The Institute has stringent internal controls," Fetig said. "A review of the actions of the employees who had oversight responsibilities in this case is underway."
Georgia Tech is insured against this type of fraud and will seek reimbursement for the stolen funds, and also will seek repayment from the employee.
Georgia Tech employees are encouraged to report PCard waste, fraud or abuse at the Internal Audit anonymous hotline: 1-866-294-5565 or on the Internal Audit web site: https://secure.ethicspoint.com/domain/en/report_custom.asp?clientid=7508
PCards are widely used in business, government and higher education to provide significant cost savings over other purchasing tools. A Visa purchasing card is the Institute's primary tool for purchases of non-equipment, business related items. Cardholders must follow State and Georgia Tech purchasing guidelines. The PCard provides significant cost savings to Georgia Tech while providing electronic control and accountability. PCards may not be used for personal purchases. The Georgia Tech PCard policy is located at:
http://www.admin-fin.gatech.edu/business/purchasing/0500218.html
He assumed the leadership of International Education at Georgia Tech in 2003, with the initial title of director of International Education. Over a four-year period, he has contributed substantially to the internationalization of Georgia Tech and to the recognition of Georgia Tech as one of the leading U.S. universities in international education.
Perhaps his single most important contribution is his leadership in the creation of the International Plan, a new initiative intended to graduate globally competent undergraduates. Professor Rollins chaired the university-wide faculty committee that developed this initiative, facilitated its progress through school, college and campus-wide committees, and then led the faculty committee in the implementation of the plan. Currently, students may receive the International Plan designation for 23 different majors, and nearly 300 have elected to participate in its first two years of operation.
The International Plan has been widely acclaimed as one of the most innovative new international programs because it tightly integrates international learning and experience into each student's major. In 2005, the International Plan was awarded second place in a national competition for the Heiskel Award for Innovation in Internationalization by the Institute for International Education (IIE). Last year, Georgia Tech was honored to receive the Senator Paul Simon Internationalization Award from NAFSA (the international association of international educators) for all of its internationalization efforts.
Rollins has been instrumental in assisting with the development of a number of programs for Georgia Tech students, expanding the range of study abroad programs and providing new programs for international students. He also facilitated the development of the International House (I-House), a living-learning program that enables both U.S. and international students to live together and learn about international studies.
As chair of the Singapore Steering Committee, Rollins helped develop a long-range plan for Georgia Tech's growing presence and importance in Singapore. This initiative resulted in a recommendation to establish a more substantial physical presence in Singapore, and may soon lead to other important new initiatives.
Rollins has always sought out opportunities to tackle new and complex challenges. With the provost's recent reorganization, Rollins contemplated other opportunities.
"The Provost's reorganization of his office reflects an expansion of focus in Georgia Tech's internationalization efforts," Rollins said. "This shift led me to consider whether I might best serve the university as an academic rather than as an administrator. Much of my 39-year career has been devoted to teaching, research and leadership within psychology. Even though I have been a full-time administrator for more than a decade, I have always considered myself first and foremost to be a member of the faculty, and so it gives me great pleasure to return to this role now."
Anderson Smith, senior vice provost for Academic Affairs said, "Howard has been responsible for much of Georgia Tech's success in building our International Plan and for the recognition given to Georgia Tech for its international educational programs. While we regret his decision to leave the position, we understand his desire to return to an academic role within the Tech community."
]]>The new research guidelines and results were published in the May 3 issue of Nature Protocols.
Using prostate cancer specimens, researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology have confirmed that bioconjugated quantum dots are effective in simultaneously identifying multiple molecular biomarkers in cancer tissue. The technology is a variation of immunohistochemistry, the laboratory staining process commonly used by pathologists to identify proteins in a tissue section from a cancer patient.
The scientists developed detailed protocols for using the technology, including antibody conjugation, preparation of tissue specimens, multicolor quantum staining, image processing and biomarker quantification. They also have developed bioinformatics and software tools for automated feature extraction and biomarker quantification.
The Emory-Georgia Tech team was led by Shuming Nie, a distinguished professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and by May Dongmei Wang, assistant professor in the Coulter Department and Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar. Key faculty investigators at Emory also include Leland Chung, professor of urology, Ruth O'Regan, MD, associate professor of hematology and oncology and Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar, John Petros, MD, professor of urology and Jonathan Simons, MD, professor of biomedical engineering, hematology and oncology.
"I would like to thank all our investigators for their contributions to this tour de force project, which took more than two years to complete involving 12 investigators in five academic departments," says Nie.
"We have now resolved a major bottleneck in the use of multicolor quantum dot probes for cancer immunohistostaining," says Nie. "Quantum dot probes used in tissue diagnosis are considered to be one of the most important and clinically relevant applications for cancer technology in the near term. We believe that this technology will be ultimately useful in correlating a panel of biomarkers with disease progression and therapeutic response."
"Personalized medicine is poised to transform healthcare over the next several decades," says Wang, director of the bioinformatics and biocomputing core in the Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center (CCNE). "New diagnostic and prognostic tools will increase our ability to predict the likely outcomes of drug therapy. Essential to this endeavor is the use of bioinformatics and systems biology to link each individual's molecule profile with disease diagnosis and treatment decisions."
Nanoparticles, which can be as tiny as 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, have special 'quantum' properties, including changes in color according to minute differences in size. Bioconjugated quantum dots are collections of different sized nanoparticles embedded in tiny beads made of polymer material. In a process called "multiplexing," they can be finely tuned to a myriad of lumninescent colors that can tag a multitude of different protein biomarkers or genetic sequences in cells or tissues.
Because the quantum dots have a cadmium core, scientists have been concerned about their potential toxicity if infused into the bloodstream of patients. Using the dots in the laboratory to detect biomarkers in cells and tissues outside the human body eliminates this concern. Quantum dots also have advantages over traditional dyes and stains often used in imaging. They are more brightly fluorescent, they resist photo bleaching and they can emit a broad range of colors simultaneously.
These properties make bioconjugated quantum dots highly promising for improving the sensitivity of disease diagnosis in the laboratory, and they are particularly important for detecting and analyzing cancer biomarkers that are present at low concentrations or in small numbers of cells. Biomarkers include altered or mutant genes, RNA, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and small metabolite molecules.
"Aggressive cancer behaviors also could be better understood and rapidly predicted using these kinds of biomarkers," says Nie. "By defining the interrelationships between biomarkers, it could be possible to diagnose and determine cancer prognosis based on a patient's molecular profile, leading to personalized and predictive medicine."
The Emory and Georgia Tech scientists also believe the bioconjugated quantum dots will be useful in detection of bioterrorism agents such as anthrax, plague, botulism and viral hemorrhagic fevers.
Wang's group in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech has developed a number of software tools for cancer nanotechnology, leading a major effort in 'bio-nano-info' integration for personalized medicine.
The research was supported by a Bioengineering Research Partnership (BRP) award and a Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) award, both from the National Cancer Institute. The work was also supported by the Microsoft eScience Program, the Georgia Cancer Coalition (GCC) and the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA).
]]>The twelve students selected for this inaugural program will begin their journey by reading "Into the Wild" by John Krakauer. Once on the trip, students and leaders will learn about the local geography, environment and culture. The group will study and practice the use of GPS devices, map and compass skills; "Leave No Trace" principles; and expedition behavior. Led by four guides, each with more than 10 years' experience in outdoor recreation and education, students will build self-confidence, self-motivation, and critical thinking, social, and judgment skills. This opportunity is also an excellent way for students to build lasting relationships.
According to Leigh Jackson-Magennis, trip leader, "I think this orientation experience will challenge, motivate and help to build transferable skills and friendships for the students who choose to join us. I lived in Alaska for nine years and led a similar trip for students at Western Carolina University. I can tell you that the impressions and lessons learned on this adventure will last a lifetime. I am looking forward to seeing the smiles and awe on the faces of all the incoming freshmen as they learn more about Alaska, themselves and their fellow adventurers."
This backpacking expedition to South Central Alaska will take place July 28-August 10 and costs $1,800 plus airfare. Incoming freshmen who have been accepted to Georgia Tech can apply online at www.crc.gatech.edu/orgt/freshmenorientation.php. Students must write an essay based on their desire for outdoor adventure in Alaska, willingness to participate in the planned activities and ability to adapt to the challenges of a small group setting. The first twelve qualified participants will be selected on a first come, first served basis. For information on payment plans, please contact the trip leader at leigh.jackson@crc.gatech.edu.
]]>Using play as an engine for social change, ActionQuest: ATL is believed to be the first "Big Game" with activist aims and the first "Big Game" ever held in Atlanta. Hosted in conjunction with U.S. Social Forum (www.ussf2007.org), the game
engages players in a series of cooperative quests that involve taking real-world social action in specific locations, such as identifying shelter needs for the homeless or beautifying neighborhoods by planting wildflowers on vacant lots, to name just two. After completing a "quest action," players e-mail or text message photographic evidence of its completion to an online action map that is created from the collective evidence that all the players have turned in. The more quest actions, the more complete the map becomes.
"Every day, millions of people log onto online games and spend hours working collaboratively on very difficult problems in imaginary worlds," said Pearce, director of Georgia Tech's Emergent Game Group and the Experimental Game Laboratory. "We wanted to see if we could harness that same energy and apply it to real-world problems."
She and her collaborators at DS4SI also saw the opportunity to connect Atlantans with the 10,000 social activist attendees of the U.S. Social Forum. By spreading activist activities all over the city, game organizers hope to not only raise awareness of the conference, but also give locals a fun way to engage with social justice issues in Atlanta. The game also gives attendees of the conference an alternate way to tour the city.
"We are partnering with activist organizations like the Mad Housers and Citizens for Progressive Transit to develop a wide range of challenge levels for players, from throwing seeds in empty lots to trying to navigate Atlanta in a wheelchair," said Peace. "We also think this will be a great weekend outing for families who can have fun together while learning about social justice issues."
Unlike a standard video or board game that's typically played indoors by one or a few people at a time, "Big Games" involve hundreds of people and are played outdoors over a large geographical area. Perhaps the best known of these was PacManhattan, produced by students at New York University, who dressed up in costume and played the basic rules of the video game classic Pac-Man in the streets of New York. ActionQuest:ATL channels the excitement and enthusiasm of this concept, bringing a new dimension of fun to social activism.
"Whether or not ActionQuest: ATL can actually change the world remains to be seen," said Pearce. "But at the very least, we hope it changes the way people see the world. Hopefully they'll see that collectively, they have the power to change it."
ActionQuest: ATL runs daily from noon to 8 p.m., June 28-July 1, 2007. Players can register online at http://www.actionquest.us or in-person at one of two base camps at the Little Five Points Community Center (1083 Austin Ave. N.E. 30307) or Renaissance Park (Piedmont & Pine). For information send e-mail to info@actionquest.us .
]]>"One of RoboCup's great strengths is its diverse international flavor," said Tucker Balch, Georgia Tech College of Computing associate professor and RoboCup 2007 Atlanta general chair. "We are able to get people together from many countries and backgrounds to share our research and ideas for making robots more effective."
China, Japan, Iran, Israel, Germany and Brazil are just a few of the countries being represented at the robotics showcase. In all, approximately 1,700 students and faculty from leading universities, high schools, middle schools and elementary schools will compete in events ranging from four-legged and humanoid robotic soccer games to search-and-rescue competitions. This year's event features a demonstration of the Nanogram League, a competition between microscopic robots.
This year's contest also marks the first time since 2001 that RoboCup has been held on a university campus.
"RoboCup has an ambitious goal -- namely to field a robot soccer team that can defeat the human world champions by 2050. This goal is meant to drive robotics research and education forward faster, and nearly all RoboCup participants come from research universities," said Balch. "So, it makes perfect sense that RoboCup should return to its roots on a university campus."
RoboCup 2007 Atlanta invites interested media to register online to attend and receive updates at www.robocup-us.org/press/.
KUKA Robotics Corporation, a leading global manufacturer of industrial robots, is the event's premier sponsor. Other major sponsors include Microsoft, CITIZEN, Lockheed Martin and the National Science Foundation.
This summer is Robot Summer at Georgia Tech. In addition to RoboCup 2007 Atlanta, Georgia Tech will also host several other robotics-related events, including the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) conference and an International Aerial Robotics Competition.
Countries represented at RoboCup 2007 Atlanta:
Australia
Austria
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Finland
Germany
Greece
Hungary
India
Iran
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Portugal
Romania
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Slovakia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
"Georgia Tech takes every breach seriously, and the security of our students' personal information is of paramount concern," said Matt Nagel, Georgia Tech spokesperson. "In this case, the information involved is not financial in nature, but it is data that we would not normally publish as directory information."
Georgia Tech is unaware of any misuse of the demographic information from the computer account, and the breach has been isolated. Immediate steps have been taken to isolate the impacted electronic file, and additional technical and administrative safeguards are under way.
]]>The following finalists were selected by a committee comprised of faculty members and campus leaders chaired by College of Engineering Dean Don Giddens.
Mark Allen
- Regents' professor and J.M. Pettit Professor in Microelectronics, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Joseph Hughes
- Professor and chair, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering
Francois Sainfort
- William W. George Professor of Health Systems and director, Health Systems Institute, Department of Biomedical Engineering
- Associate dean for Interdisciplinary Programs, College of Engineering
- Professor, Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Adjunct professor, College of Management
William Wepfer
- Vice Provost, Distance Learning and Professional Education
- Professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
In the coming weeks, the finalists will participate in full interviews, which will include an open forum where each will address his vision and its implementation for research and innovation at Georgia Tech. For updates on the dates and location of these public forums, visit the Web site to the Office of the Provost.
]]>Under the new agreement, Georgia Tech will accept transfer students who meet admissions requirements from South Georgia College and have earned an associate in science (AS) degree in pre-engineering. After completing the program, students will be awarded a bachelor's degree in engineering.
"With Douglas as my hometown, I'm pleased that this new partnership with South Georgia College will ensure that students in south Georgia are able to take advantage of a Georgia Tech education," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough.
"The new partnership will allow a smooth academic route for students to pursue a career in engineering. We are looking forward to a long and rewarding partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology and especially with Georgia Tech Savannah," said South Georgia College President Torri Lilly.
South Georgia College will begin offering the Associate of Science in Pre-Engineering degree this fall.
]]>"We are profoundly grieved and saddened by this horrible tragedy, and our hearts and prayers go out to the campus community of Virginia Tech, especially to the families of those who were killed or wounded," said Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough. "Virginia Tech is our sister technological university and partner school in the ACC, and the connections between Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech run broad and deep."
Georgia Tech has received dozens of inquiries from concerned parents regarding campus preparedness and response capabilities. The Institute conducts vulnerability assessments on facilities throughout campus and continually reviews preparedness and response procedures to enhance campus safety. Plans are also in place to address incidents ranging from natural disasters to bomb threats on campus.
"These plans are routinely exercised with local first responders, including the Atlanta Police Department (APD), Atlanta Fire Department (AFD) and the Atlanta/Fulton County Emergency Management Agency (AFCEMA)," said Andy Altizer, Georgia Tech Emergency Preparedness director. "To assure that we address ongoing concerns, Georgia Tech has an active Emergency Preparedness Advisory Group that meets monthly on campus, and includes members from these key agencies. In addition, campus first responders, emergency personnel and building managers are committed to participating in ongoing safety education to help improve preparedness and response capabilities. We are also a part of the Board of Regents' Emergency Operations Planning Committee."
Georgia Tech continues to improve its notification procedures and uses multiple means for campus notification when an emergency occurs. These include posting information on the Georgia Tech Web site, distributing campus wide e-mails, implementing a building manager notification system, broadcasting voicemails, and notifying media and the campus broadcast stations, WREK and GTCN. The Institute is also in the process of evaluating text messaging systems as another means to contact students. A recent grant from the Department of Homeland Security will fund the installation of a campus siren warning system.
With over 6,300 residents in Georgia Tech Housing's 32 residence halls, members of the Residence Life and Housing staff place a great emphasis on for emergency preparedness and response. For example, Residence Life staff are trained in crisis management and have protocols designed to handle most emergencies, in coordination with Georgia Tech Police, Counseling Center, Dean of Students, and other Atlanta and State agencies. Residence Life's Emergency Alert Plan spells evacuation and communication plans for emergencies.
The Georgia Tech Dean of Students and Counseling Center stand ready to provide emotional support to the campus community in response to the recent tragic events. For more information on the services offered by the Center, please visit its Web site at www.counseling.gatech.edu or call 404-894-2575.
"Safety is a joint effort," said Altizer. "We ask our students to be alert and report suspicious activities, to check our Web site, to tune into the news media when an event occurs and to ensure that their emergency contact information is on file and updated under the personal information icon in the student registration system."
]]>Sponsored by the Government of Liberia, the event will include participation from Microsoft, Cisco Systems, the Soros Foundation's Open Society Initiative for West Africa, the World Bank, the International Financial Corporation, USAID, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Participants from Liberia, the region, and the international community will explore how best to revitalize and rebuild Liberia's ICT capacity, and consider how these technologies can reinforce Liberia's poverty reduction strategy.
During the conference, two new national ICT facilities will be inaugurated: a community-based PC laboratory sponsored by (1) Microsoft's Unlimited Potential program and implemented by Georgia Tech and the Center for Empowerment of Women and Children, and (2) a multi-media PC laboratory at the University of Liberia implemented by Socketworks of Nigeria and supported by the International Finance Corporation.
"We are very pleased to be associated with the Government of Liberia and its development efforts," says Aloy Chife, CEO of Socketworks. "Our aim for the multi-media PC laboratory at the University of Liberia (the "Liberia Digital Bridge" project) is to partner with Liberia to accelerate its transition to a knowledge-based society in which the currency of exchange is information. Our goal is to improve economic opportunities by introducing Liberian students to the use of computers as a productivity tool. In so doing, we help to develop skills and competencies that enable the use of IT for economic and social development."
Microsoft's Unlimited Potential (UP) is a global initiative designed to help broaden digital inclusion and aid global workforce development by providing technology skills through community technology centers. Georgia Tech has been a long-time research partner with the UP program and is the lead organization in their Liberia activities. These programs include a computer center at Monrovia's Center for Empowerment of Women and Children focused on livelihood development and training among women displaced by the civil war. In addition, under the UP program a computer facility and training center will be implemented at the JFK Hospital, Liberia's largest health center. This center will be used to train hospital staff in computer literacy, health informatics, and tele-health services.
Socketworks offers full-range IT services for universities in developing countries from student laboratories and network connectivity to university administration software services and support. Their technologies allow administrators, teachers, students, and parents to be better connected to each other and to the university. But most importantly, they connect students to the information they need to excel in today's world. Socketworks has pioneered a financially self-sustaining business model based on affordable student subscription fees.
During E-Liberia Vision 2010, Dr. Michael Best, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and in the College of Computing, will co-organize a two-day workshop examining the Liberian vision for ICT. Sessions will focus on: education; rebuilding infrastructure in a post-conflict country; regional cooperation; and cultural issues. Over the past year, Dr. Best has directed an active research project for Liberia, which is supported by the Open Society Institute for West Africa. Five Georgia Tech graduate students have spent time in Monrovia studying Liberian ICT conditions and challenges, and are currently providing technical assistance.
"Our research in Liberia has been truly life-changing for the many Georgia Tech students who have worked there on our projects," remarked Best. "And we hope that the work continues to assist the people of Liberia develop their ICT infrastructure and rise from the terrors of civil conflict."
Additionally, Cisco is providing a one-day ICT development training program to public and private sector leaders. A significant delegation from Cisco will lay the groundwork for accelerating the proliferation of Liberia's ICT infrastructure in the local, regional, and global context. The government workshops will focus on: leapfrogging in infrastructure development; implementing the new national ICT policy; identifying key areas for Cisco NetAcademies; e-Government best practice models. The technical workshops will focus on IP enabled technology: optical; wireless; access networks (GPRS, CDMA, IP); services and revenue generation models.
E-Liberia Vision 2010 is sponsored by the Government of Liberia and co-sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, Microsoft Corporation, Georgia Institute of Technology, USAID, The World Bank and Cisco Systems. More information can be found at: http://www.mopt.gov.lr/
For More Information Contact:
Amara Konneh, Deputy Minister of State
Republic of Liberia
akonneh@emansion.gov.lr
Elizabeth Campell
Georgia Institute of Technology
elizabeth.campell@icpa.gatech.edu
Ndidiamaka Victoria Uwadoka
Microsoft Nigeria
i-victou@microsoft.com
Riva Levinson
KRL International LLC for Socketworks
riva@KRLinternational.com
Funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the Bioenergy Science Center will be located on the ORNL campus in a new facility funded by the state and owned by the University of Tennessee. The center, one of three funded from more than 20 proposals, will employ the interdisciplinary expertise of the team's partners in biology, engineering and agricultural science and commercialization to develop processes for converting plants including switchgrass and poplar trees into fuels.
The ORNL-led project will focus on new methods of processing plants into biofuel. The strategy involves breaking down into simple sugars the lattice of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin that makes plant cell walls resistant to the stress of weather, insects and disease. These sugars can then be processed into fuel. To date, no cost effective bioprocessing methods for cellulose-based bioenergy sources have been developed.
Georgia Tech's primary role in the center will focus on characterization, or the fundamental study of plant cell walls. Tech's goal will be to study switchgrass' chemical bonds to help create more efficient methods of breaking the plant down into the sugar needed to make ethanol.
"As part of the center, Georgia Tech will develop new techniques that allow for a very fine detailed analysis of switchgrass," said Arthur Ragauskas, one of the primary investigators for Georgia Tech's portion of the project and a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The DOE Bioenergy Science Center will focus on achieving the specific goals of:
* Modifying plant cell walls to reduce their resistance to breakdown, with a focus on the poplar tree - whose genome ORNL researchers helped sequence last year-and switchgrass, a native grass that can be easily grown in most of the United States. Such modification would decrease or eliminate the need for costly chemical pretreatments now required.
* Consolidated bioprocessing, which involves the use of a single microorganism or group of organisms to break down plant matter through a one-step conversion process of biomass into biofuels.
In announcing the awards, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said, "These centers will provide the transformational science needed for bioenergy breakthroughs to advance President Bush's goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012, and assist in reducing America's gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years. The collaborations of academic, corporate, and national laboratory researchers represented by these centers are truly impressive and I am very encouraged by the potential they hold for advancing America's energy security."
In addition to ORNL, other DOE Bioenergy Science Center partners include the University of Tennessee, Dartmouth College, the University of Georgia, the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and companies ArborGen in Summerville, S.C.; Diversa (now Verenium Corp.) in San Diego, and Mascoma in Cambridge, Mass. The team also includes seven individual researchers from across the country. ORNL's Martin Keller will serve as director for the center.
Other key participants at Georgia Tech include the Strategic Energy Institute; Eberhard Voit, a GRA Eminent Scholar in systems biology in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University; Cameron Sullards, a principal research scientist and director of the Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry Facility in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Biology; and Charles Liotta, a distinguished professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and former vice provost of research at Georgia Tech.
]]>In addition, Friday, at 11:59 a.m., the Georgia Tech campus is invited to join in a moment of silence to honor the victims. At noon, the Tech whistle will blow 33 times - 32 times for each victim and one time for the Virginia Tech community, the families of the victims and the many first responders associated with the incident. At 11:55 a.m., at the Earth Day venue (Tech Green), SGA president-elect Anu Parvatiyar, will make brief remarks on behalf of the Georgia Tech student body.
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