Students applying for this distinction were asked to write an essay about their "greatest intellectual endeavor," said Lafleur. He chose to submit his conceptual design for Daedalon, a morphing wings spacecraft for navigation on Mars.
"The concept was that you would enter (Mars' atmosphere) as a blunt body aeroshell and that aeroshell would transform into wings, which could change shape as you got to a lower speed. You could morph your wings into a low-speed configuration as you slow down," he said.
Lafleur worked on the project for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts in 2003-04. As a co-op student, he has worked with the Johnson Space Center for three semesters, spending two semesters in Houston working on mission operations and design for an orbital space plane, and one at the White Sands, N.M., testing facility.
Currently, Lafleur is researching what type of propulsion is needed to slow down a large spacecraft trying to land on Mars. That's a difficult problem because the Martian atmosphere is very thin and doesn't slow down a spacecraft as much as it would on Earth.
"We were finding that if you have this 100 ton payload entering the atmosphere and just let it fall, without any propulsion to help slow it down, you'd hit the ground at Mach 2 or 3 ," he said. "My part of the project is studying what type of propulsion would be required, whether you could use propulsion alone, or with a parachute."
In 2005, Lafleur received a scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. Founded in 1984 by the six surviving astronauts of Mercury 7 and the widow of the seventh, the foundation says on its Web site that scholarships are awarded to "college students who exhibit motivation, imagination and exceptional performance in the science or engineering field of their major."
Originally from Rhode Island, Lafleur was attracted to Tech's top-flight aerospace engineering program. But that wasn't all. Lafleur has played flute and piccolo for the marching, concert and symphonic bands, the flute choir and the chamber winds ensemble. About his decision to attend Tech, he said, "I knew I could keep up with music while I was here and I could get the strong aerospace background that I wanted. Those were probably the biggest draws."
"Jarret is one of the rising stars in our aerospace engineering program. He is extremely talented academically and is a credit to our school," said John Olds, associate professor of aerospace engineering. "He is very deserving of the honor."
Lafleur plans to attend graduate school and pursue his doctorate. He is not certain where graduate school will take him but "Georgia Tech is certainly up there in the running," he said.
Concerning his career aspirations, Lafleur said, "I certainly want to do space types of engineering. And I prefer to focus on human space flight and all the new exploration initiatives such as going to the moon and Mars."
]]>"Although most companies start out with a strong focus on customers, as the organization grows beyond a dozen members, people may stop looking outward and become preoccupied with internal processes," says Craig Cochran, a regional manager at Georgia Tech's Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures, where he assists companies with quality improvement and lean techniques.
In his new book, "Becoming a Customer-Focused Organization" (Paton Press, 2006), Cochran explains that this corporate myopia is a natural phenomenon sparked by self-preservation.
"Once someone becomes part of an organization, it's only natural to want to remain part of it - at least, until something better comes along," he explains. "The irony is that this inward orientation doesn't ensure survival. In fact, it guarantees the opposite-irrelevance, obsolescence and death."
In contrast to other books on the topic, Cochran takes a global approach to being customer-focused, covering everything from management systems to complaint resolution. A customer-centric philosophy isn't just for Fortune 500 companies, he stresses: "All organizations have customers, including government agencies and nonprofit groups."
In search of feedback: A good example of the inward orientation at work is how many companies approach customer feedback as an annual event - an Olympic survey of sorts - instead of treating it as an ongoing process.
"Companies shouldn't try to invent new ways for collecting customer feedback," Cochran says. "They already have countless customer interactions available to them, ranging from salespeople to technical reps. What's important is to provide some structure to these interactions and share them with everyone in the organization." Weaving customer feedback into daily processes makes it easier to digest and easier to take action on, he adds.
Embrace complaints: Another measure of an organization's true focus is how it handles customer complaints. Most companies treat complaints not as red alerts but as something they'll get around to eventually. Managers even argue about how to categorize complaints, whether it was a bona fide beef or merely a comment.
Smart companies cherish customer complaints. "Customers who complain are not nitpickers or looking for discounts, they're committed to your organization," Cochran says, noting that complaining requires time, effort and emotion. "Someone who isn't committed to your company wouldn't bother complaining."
Customer-centric organizations make it easy to complain. They use toll-free numbers and complaint desks staffed by knowledgeable people who don't give scripted answers. They apologize for any inconvenience suffered by customers and thank them for bringing the problem to the company's attention.
Perhaps most important, customer-focused organizations make sure they get back to customers. "Unless you let someone know what action has been taken, the customer is never going to perceive a difference," Cochran says. "You've got to close the loop. If the customer isn't aware of the fix, then the remedy doesn't exist."
Leading indicators: A customer-centric company tracks customer satisfaction and loyalty metrics at the highest levels of management instead of relegating them to the customer-service department.
In most companies, however, senior management fixates on financial measures like sales and profits. "But these are historical metrics of what happened in the past," Cochran points out. "In contrast, customer-satisfaction and loyalty are leading measures that indicate what will happen in the future, so they're more valuable to the organization."
Bottom line, if a company isn't concentrating on its customers, the blame belongs to the boss. "The leadership of an organization has no job more important than making sure everyone knows the importance of the customer," Cochran says. "CEOs who want real job security should try to please customers, not shareholders."
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: Craig Cochran (678-699-1690); E-mail: (craig.cochran@edi.gatech.edu).
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>Engineers from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are assisting them, using current computer and database technology to help military aircraft maintainers get their work done more efficiently. A team from GTRI's Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory (EOSL) has been developing and improving maintenance software for the U.S. Navy since 2000.
Called the Maintainer's Electronic Performance Support System (MEPSS®), this software was initially developed for the Navy's P-3C Orion patrol aircraft. A more recent version is now helping maintain the RQ-2 Pioneer Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, and portions of the GTRI software are being used in other aircraft maintenance programs.
"The idea is to give maintainers all the information tools and decision-making capabilities that they need," said Gisele Bennett, director of EOSL and principal investigator for the project. "From a simplified standpoint, you can almost look at it as an information portal, where you're collecting and disseminating information to the maintainers."
MEPSS is typically installed on a laptop computer. Technicians can check parts lists, consult manuals, and add information about their work as they go.
The system can be updated in a variety of ways - through a squadron LAN, a standalone server, CD-ROMs, USB devices, or the World Wide Web. A Web-enabled system gives maintainers access to up-to-the-minute technical and parts information, and helps them both access and share work-related information.
Whatever the connectivity approaches used, the software performs a needed centralizing function, Bennett says. For example, by reviewing software reports maintainers can detect trends involving, say, troublesome parts that need multiple replacements. Or they can pinpoint repair techniques that need improvement.
And maintainers can conveniently brief themselves on an aircraft's maintenance history, right down to work done recently by a previous shift that is not on site to answer questions.
MEPSS uses MS Internet Explorer as the delivery mechanism for the information that is extracted from a database. The system also has the ability to post announcements, allowing effective dissemination of critical issues and information among an entire maintenance community.
"The maintainer can look up all kinds of information about how to repair a system, document what they did, document any problems, and add any helpful hints that they need to share," Bennett said. "It's a collaborative tool that lets them share information with other maintainers and between squadrons."
Keesah Hall, an EOSL research scientist, says that in constructing MEPSS, researchers spent considerable time at Naval air bases watching how maintainers performed their work. That kind of first-hand observation gave the research team insight into what maintainers needed.
"We made sure they were integral in the design process," she said. "It was designed for them specifically, to help them with the tasks that they complete every day."
When maintainers are working overseas in the field, they find that electronically controlling maintenance records is an advantage. That's because high winds, rain, sand and other environmental hazards will destroy paper publications.
"The paper can go flying everywhere, so having everything on a portable computer is helpful for them," Hall said.
By contrast, the special hardened laptop computers used by maintainers shrug off most environmental effects.
MEPSS software won the 2001 Gold Award for Excellence in E-Learning in the Performance Centered Design Category. This awards program is sponsored by brandon-hall.com and Online Learning Magazine.
The maintenance program is written in the Java programming language and integrated with an Oracle database. Java is 'platform-independent,' which means that Java-based programs are easy to move between various computer types such as the IBM-PC / Microsoft Windows computers, Apple Macintosh systems, or Unix-based and Linux-based computers.
The MEPSS system has several different components including:
* Passdown Log - tracks aircraft through the maintenance cycle;
* Troubleshooting Tips - allows new repair techniques to be disseminated over the system;
* Interactive Training - offers refresher courses and procedural guides for complex repairs;
* Parts Catalog - offers a pull-down menu format with links to various parts sources;
* Personal Notes - allows maintainers to document issues for future reference.
Hall recalls that the aircraft maintainers used to carry individual 'wheel books,' which they used to make paper notes about important points and problems. The problem was, sharing information between the individual wheel books wasn't automatic. Now, she notes, being able to enter such information into a linked computer system makes it much easier to share.
Trouble-shooting tips are among the most important capabilities the system offers, Hall believes. When GTRI researchers interviewed maintainers, they learned that knotty maintenance problems can sometimes take a week or more to solve. Now maintainers can share these hard-won solutions with their coworkers via MEPSS.
"When we were designing the system we asked, 'How can we help them save money and time by documenting these kinds of issues?' " Hall said. "Now the system lets them keep track of things that are not easy to figure out."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, GA 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Kirk Englehardt (404-385-0280); E-mail: (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Gisele Bennett (404-894-0155); E-mail: (gisele.bennett@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>These are some of the questions that concern Nancy Healy. As education coordinator for the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), she's helping develop educational outreach programs designed to ensure that tomorrow's workers have the right skills for nanotechnology industries - and that the public will be able to separate nanotechnology fact from fiction.
Her biggest challenge: helping people relate to structures whose size is measured in billionths of meters. And that's without explaining the quantum mechanical effects that make ordinary processes such as friction dramatically different at the nanoscale.
"There's a misperception that nanotechnology is really still science fiction," said Healy, who described NNIN education efforts February 18th at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). "People generally don't know what nanotechnology really is. There's a risk that their perceptions will be based on popular culture portrayals of it rather than fact."
The U.S. government is investing a billion dollars a year in the technology of the very small. The National Science Foundation (NSF) estimates that by the year 2015, nanotechnology will directly employ more than two million workers worldwide. Yet 80 percent of the people recently surveyed by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies admitted to knowing little or nothing about it.
"We still have a long road ahead in educating people," said Healy, whose efforts are headquartered at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "But we don't have much time because the technology is moving forward quickly. Nanotechnology is already here, though some of the most important aspects of it are still 10 or 15 years away."
Today, nanotechnology is mostly seen as the province of Ph.D. scientists and engineers. But as the industry grows, it will need people at all education and skill levels to meet needs that range from cutting-edge research to maintenance of manufacturing equipment.
"The field is wide open," Healy added. "There are many opportunities, not just for technical people, but also for specialists such as patent attorneys, pharmacists, entrepreneurs and marketers. The most important skill will be the ability to work with people in other disciplines - to be an interdisciplinary person."
A consortium of 13 U.S. universities supported by the NSF, the NNIN supports a broad base of educational programs focused on K-12 students, teachers, undergraduate students - and the general public.
Goals of the effort include:
* Exposing young people to nanotechnology research to help encourage them toward careers in science and engineering;
* Training teachers and guidance counselors about experimental sciences, providing teaching tools and enhancing their enthusiasm for helping students pursue science and engineering careers;
* Creating and distributing educational materials for children, college students, technical professionals, teachers and the general public, and
* Focusing efforts on populations having disproportionately low employment and education in the sciences.
In pursuit of those goals, NNIN institutions are pursing a broad outreach effort that involves dozens of different projects. Typical activities include:
* Summer 'Nanotechnology Camps' designed to engage high-school students;
* 'Chip Camps' that teach students key nanotechnology processes hands-on;
* Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), a program that encourages college students to remain in science and engineering fields;
* Development of an 'Open Textbook' on nanotechnology;
* Hands-on activities to help teachers understand nanotechnology and development of materials to help them teach the topic, and
* Outreach activities such as Web sites, newsletters and presentations at national scientific meetings.
Though it's too early to judge success, Healy says students participating in the NNIN REU program tend to stay in science and technology fields. The NNIN REU program is also growing, with 500 applicants in 2005.
Beyond developing a nanotechnology workforce, the NNIN education initiative is also working to help the general public understand the new industry.
"We want to avoid the problems that have come with genetically-modified organisms," said Healy. "We want to make sure that the public understands the benefits, as well as the social and ethical issues. We have to be sure that the public is comfortable with this, and that if there are questions, that the scientists and engineers answer them."
The National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN) is an integrated networking partnership of 13 universities that provide user facilities serving the resource needs of nanoscale science, engineering and technology. Further information on the Network can be found at (www.nnin.org).
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia USA 30308
Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Nancy Healy (404-385-4307); E-mail: (nancy.healy@mirc.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The report -- The Report on Georgia's 2006 Innovation Forums-- examines innovation as a force to drive economic development in the state. New approaches, processes, products and ideas can help strengthen Georgia's ability to compete in the global economy.
"Georgians realize it is up to all of us to create a better environment for fostering innovation," wrote Governor Sonny Perdue. "We must ensure that all Georgians have access to the technology tools they need to spur innovation."
Nearly 400 Georgians participated in 18 forums around the state as part of an annual effort by a public policy think tank -- the Southern Growth Policies Board -- to identify economic development issues. Through the forums, citizens helped to identify the opportunities and challenges that will create a 'culture of innovation' in Georgia.
The forums and resulting report were led by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia in partnership with the Georgia Centers of Innovation and more than 20 local and regional partners.
Discussions explored four approaches to promote innovation: building knowledge, encouraging entrepreneurship, boosting existing business, and recruiting talent and investment.
Improving K-12 education and preparing children for jobs that require skills in math and science dominated discussions. The report cited a need for increased access to technology particularly in rural areas, taking a more customized approach to education, and making classroom instruction relevant to the real world. Citizens also said that communities must address issues related to developing both the existing and the future workforce barriers such as the dropout rate, issues of persistent poverty, and low expectations for achievement.
"What we heard from Georgians during this process reinforces the central role that education plays in the Southeast region's economic development," said Art Dunning, vice president for public service and outreach at the University of Georgia. "Universities contribute to innovation not only through instruction but also through basic research."
Forum participants discussed ways to encourage entrepreneurship. One suggestion was that each high school graduate learn the basic skills to start and run a business. Others emphasized the importance of understanding career choices at an early age.
Businesses owners said that existing businesses -- especially small to medium sized ones -- do not have the resources to invest in product development. They advocated a greater role for universities in fostering innovation.
"To succeed in the new global marketplace, companies must be able to rapidly develop and commercialize innovative products, processes and services ahead of their competition," said Wayne Hodges, vice provost in Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute. "This report identifies some of the issues Georgia companies and communities must address to build a more competitive economy based on innovation."
The state has invested in innovation and technology transfer through programs such as the Georgia Research Alliance, which recruits top scientists for the research universities, and the Georgia Centers of Innovation, which supports entrepreneurs and researchers, connecting them to the resources they need to nurture innovation the areas of aerospace, agriculture, life sciences, robotics manufacturing and maritime logistics.
The report represents the first step in charting action plans tailored to each region of the state. The themes that emerged from the forums may inform program development and public policy.
Among specific themes emerging from the forums were:
- Spread the word on the importance of and vehicles to innovation;
- Foster a 'culture of learning;'
- Develop a more customized approach to education;
- Conduct special outreach starting as early as third and fourth grade, to students and their parents, before the 'light' goes out;
- Increase emphasis on developing critical thinking and problem solving skills among youth;
- Focus on fostering home-grown innovation among existing enterprises, especially entrepreneurs;
- Improve access to computers and Internet in all communities, across all socio-economic categories;
- Expand support for programs for communities to learn how to create a desirable environment for talented and creative people as a route to fostering innovation;
- Think regionally;
- Continue the dialogue.
The entire report can be downloaded from the following Web sites:
- http://www.fanning.uga.edu/news/news.html
- http://innovate.gatech.edu/Portals/0/ga-innov-forums.pdf
Research News & Publications Office
Enterprise Innovation Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon, Georgia Tech (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Kathleen Cason, University of Georgia (706-542-2512); E-mail: (kcason@uga.edu)
Technical Contacts: Joy Wilkins, Georgia Tech (404-895-6115); E-mail: (joy.wilkins@innovate.gatech.edu) or Mac Brown, University of Georgia (706-583-8284); E-mail: (macbrown@fanning.uga.edu).
The Southern Growth Policies Board is a non-partisan public policy think tank that provides a forum for decision makers in 13 Southern states to develop and advance visionary economic development policies. Georgia's report contributes to the Southern Growth Policies Board annual report.
The Southern Growth Policies Board's trustees from Georgia are Governor Sonny Purdue; State Representative David Casas; Chris Clark, deputy commissioner for global commerce at the Georgia Department of Economic Development; Nancy Cobb, executive director of the One Georgia Authority; O. B. McCorkle, president of the Warren County Chamber of Commerce; and State Senator Jeff E. Mullis.
]]>To help first responders and hazardous materials (hazmat) teams, researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed the "Chemical Companion." This software tool, which operates on Windows CE-based personal digital assistants, provides detailed information on 130 of the most common chemicals associated with hazmat incidents.
"Knowing the characteristics of a chemical, such as its boiling point or density, tells us different things about how to approach the scene," said project co-director Christina Baxter, a senior research scientist in GTRI's Health and Environmental Systems Laboratory (HESL). "Suppose there's a fire. With some flammable substances, water might make the fire burn even hotter, and foam is needed to suppress the blaze."
Sponsored by the federal government's Technical Support Work Group, the Chemical Companion helps first responders make decisions about:
- Protective equipment. Different chemical agents require different protective clothing and respirators.
- Chemical reactivity, which can result in toxic fumes, fires and explosions. For example, if bleach (sodium hypochlorite) and ammonia come into contact with each other, they can create a deadly chlorine gas.
- Isolation and protective zones. Distances will vary depending on chemicals involved, the size of a spill, weather conditions and time of day.
- Appropriate medical aid, ranging from basic to advanced life support.
-With some chemicals like Orthene®, which is a fire-ant killer, administering oxygen to a victim would have a detrimental effect," noted Amy Cook, a chemist in GTRI's Electro-Optical Systems Lab (EOSL).
First responders may be able to identify chemical agents from the shape of containers, shipping papers or signs posted at the hazmat scene. But if there are no solid clues, the Chemical Companion enables responders to identify an unknown chemical by entering details about the substance's physical appearance, such as odor, color and state.
Another option for pinpointing unknown chemicals is to report medical symptoms displayed by victims. For example, twitching, constricted pupils, excessive sweating and confusion might indicate the presence of the nerve gas sarin.
"The Chemical Companion makes it easy for first responders to access information quickly from multiple paths," said Gisele Bennett, director of EOSL and co-principal investigator. "The system is also very robust and easy to update so we can continue to add more chemicals."
Although there are existing software tools for hazmat teams, these programs can cost as much as $2,000 per license. In contrast, the Chemical Companion will be free to the military, law enforcement officers and fire departments.
Besides price, other hallmarks include greater depth of information on chemicals and more detailed medical advice. What's more, the Chemical Companion features a calculator to help responders determine 'stay times' - how long they can remain in a contaminated zone - based on what type of protective equipment they're wearing.
"Being able to accurately project stay times saves money as well as lives," said Baxter, noting that hazmat suits are expensive - about $1,000 each. "These suits can only be worn once. If we pull a first responder from a hot zone after 15 minutes when he or she could have remained safely for 45 minutes, that's a considerable cost."
Hazmat equipment also presented a design challenge for GTRI researchers. "The whole concept of user design changes dramatically when you're dealing with this kind of environment," Bennett explained.
Indeed, to get a taste for the conditions that first responders work under, GTRI engineers donned protective gear and participated in training exercises at the Douglas County Fire Department.
"When you're in a hazmat suit, even simple tasks, like picking up a penny, can be very difficult," said Benjamin Medlin, a GTRI software development specialist. "So you can imagine how difficult it might be to use personal digital assistants - which aren't the easiest devices to use under normal conditions."
To minimize the amount of typing required to use the Chemical Companion, the GTRI team incorporated lots of dropdown menus and automatic fill-ins in the software. The program also features large lettering and shading between columns to make numbers and words easier to read from under bulky hazmat masks.
Beta-testing for the Chemical Companion began in the fall of 2005 with a number of fire departments around the country, including units in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle and Douglas County, Ga. Researchers expect the Chemical Companion will be ready for distribution in the summer or fall of 2006.
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); Kirk Englehardt (404-385-0280); E-mail; (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu) or Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Christina Baxter (404-894-5362); E-mail: (christina.baxter@gtri.gatech.edu) or Gisele Bennett (404-894-0155); E-mail: (gisele.bennett@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>Instead of a large furnace that is normally used to grow nanotubes as part of the chemical vapor deposition process, the Georgia Institute of Technology researchers grew bundles of nanotubes on a micro-heater built into an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip. The tiny device provided highly-localized heating for only the locations where researchers wanted to grow the nanostructures.
Because the resonance frequency of the cantilever changed as the nanotubes grew, the researchers were able to use it to accurately measure the mass of the structures they produced. The next step in the research will be to combine the growth and measurement processes to permit in situ study of mass change during nanostructure growth.
"There are hundreds of materials - electronic, magnetic and optical - that are grown using a similar thermally-based technique," said William P. King, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Mechanical Engineering. "By growing these structures on cantilevers, we will be able to determine exactly what is happening with the materials growth as it occurs. This could provide a new tool for investigating the growth of these structures under different conditions."
Using arrays of cantilevers operating at different temperatures would allow researchers to accelerate the process for mapping the kinetics of nanostructure growth. Because the cantilevers can be heated and cooled more rapidly than a traditional furnace, batches of nanostructures can be produced in just 10 minutes - compared to two hours or more for traditional processing.
"We can change the structures being grown by rapidly changing the temperature," explained Samuel Graham, also an assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Mechanical Engineering. "We can also change the kinetics of growth, which is something that is difficult to do using conventional technology."
By demonstrating that carbon nanotubes can be growth on an AFM cantilever, the technique also provides a new way to integrate nanometer-scale structures with microdevices.
The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation's CAREER award, and has been reported in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
King, Graham and collaborators Erik O. Sunden, Jungchul Lee and Tanya L. Wright began with an AFM cantilever fabricated in their Georgia Tech lab. The cantilever had an integrated electric-resistance heater whose output temperature could be controlled by varying the current. Actual heater temperatures were measured to within four degrees Celsius using Laser Raman thermometry.
Calibration of the cantilevers over a large temperature range using Raman spectroscopy was a key aspect of the success of this research, allowing the first detailed temperature maps of these devices, Graham noted.
The researchers used electron beam evaporation to deposit a 10 nanometer iron catalyst film onto the cantilever. After heating, the iron film formed islands that provided catalytic sites for growing nanotubes.
The cantilever was then placed into a quartz tube, which was purged of contaminants with argon gas. The cantilever heating was then turned on and the temperature held at approximately 800 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. A combination of methane, hydrogen and acetylene - precursors for carbon nanotubes - was then flowed into the chamber. Only the cantilever tip and the reaction gas immediately around it were heated, leaving the remainder of the experimental set-up at room temperature.
After removal from the tube, the cantilever was examined using a scanning electron microscope, which showed vertically aligned carbon nanotubes growing from the cantilever heater region. The nanotubes ranged in length from five to 10 microns, and were 10 to 30 nanometers in diameter. Although the entire cantilever was coated with the iron catalyst, the nanotubes grew only on the heated area. A temperature gradient on the heater created differences in the types of nanotubes grown.
Both before and after the growth, the cantilever was vibrated so its resonance frequency could be measured. Those measurements showed a frequency decline from 119.10 to 118.23 kHz after the nanotubes were grown on the cantilever. After the resonance measurements were made, the cantilever was heated beyond 900 degrees Celsius in air to burn off the nanotubes. When the resonance frequency was measured again, it had changed to 119.09 kHz, showing that the frequency drop had been due to the mass of the nanotubes.
From the change in the resonance frequency, the researchers were able to calculate the mass of the carbon nanotubes they had grown as approximately four picograms (4 x 10-14)kg.
"We are working on integrating the growing and weighing of the nanotubes so we can do both of them at the same time," said King. "That would allow us to monitor the materials growth as it happens."
Once the two processes are integrated, the researchers expect to increase the number of cantilevers operating simultaneously. Cantilever arrays could allow many different growth temperatures and conditions to be measured in parallel, accelerating the task of charting the growth kinetics to determine the optimal settings.
"This is a platform for materials discovery, so we could test tens or even thousands of different chemistry or growth conditions in a very short period of time," King said. "With a thousand cantilevers, we could do in a single day experiments that would take years using conventional growth techniques. Once the right conditions were found, the production process could be scaled up."
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 Jane Sanders (404-89402214); E-mail: (jsanders@gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Bill King (404-385-4224); E-mail: (william.king@me.gatech.edu) or Samuel Graham (404-894-2264); E-mail: (sam.graham@me.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>In a paper published April 13 in Science Express, an online advance publication of the journal Science, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France report measuring electron transport properties in graphene that are comparable those seen in carbon nanotubes. Unlike carbon nanotubes, however, graphene circuitry can be produced using established microelectronics techniques, allowing researchers to envision a 'road map' for future high-volume production.
"We have shown that we can make the graphene material, that we can pattern it, and that its transport properties are very good," said Walt de Heer, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Physics. "The material has high electron mobility, which means electrons can move through it without much scattering or resistance. It is also coherent, which means electrons move through the graphene much like light travels through waveguides."
The results should encourage further development of graphene-based electronics, though de Heer cautions that practical devices may be a decade away.
"This is really the first step in a very long path," he said. "We are at the proof-of principle stage, comparable to where transistors were in the late 1940s. We have a lot to do, but I believe this technology will advance rapidly."
The research, begun by de Heer's team in 2001, is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Intel Corporation.
In their paper, the researchers report seeing evidence of quantum confinement effects in their graphene circuitry, meaning electrons can move through it as waves. "The graphene ribbons we create are really like waveguides for electrons," de Heer said.
Because carbon nanotubes conduct electricity with virtually no resistance, they have attracted strong interest for use in transistors and other devices. However, the discrete nature of nanotubes - and variability in their properties - pose significant obstacles to their use in practical devices. By contrast, continuous graphene circuitry can be produced using standard microelectronics processing techniques.
"Nanotubes are simply graphene that has been rolled into a cylindrical shape," de Heer explained. "Using narrow ribbons of graphene, we can get all the properties of nanotubes because those properties are due to the graphene and the confinement of the electrons, not the nanotube structures."
De Heer envisions using the graphene electronics for specialized applications, potentially within conventional silicon-based systems.
"We have shown that we can interconnect graphene, put current into it, and take current out," he said. "We have a very promising electronic material. We see graphene as a platform, a canvas on which we can work."
De Heer and collaborators Claire Berger, Zhimin Song, Xuebin Li, Xiaosong Wu, Nate Brown, Tianbo Li, Joanna Hass, Alexei Marchenkov, Edward Conrad and Phillip First of Georgia Tech and Didier Mayou and Cecile Naud of CNRS start with a wafer of silicon carbide, a material made up of silicon and carbon atoms. By heating the wafer in a high vacuum, they drive silicon atoms from the surface, leaving a thin continuous layer of graphene.
Next, they spin-coat onto the surface a photo-resist material of the kind used in established microelectronics techniques. Using electron-beam lithography, they produce patterns on the surface, then use conventional etching processes to remove unwanted graphene.
"We are doing lithography, which is completely familiar to those who work in microelectronics," said de Heer. "It's exactly what is done in microelectronics, but with a different material. That is the appeal of this process."
Using electron beam lithography in Georgia Tech's Microelectronics Research Center, they've created feature sizes as small as 80 nanometers. The graphene circuitry demonstrates high electron mobility - up to 25,000 square centimeters per volt-second, showing that electrons move with little scattering. The researchers expect to see ballistic transport at room temperature when they make structures small enough.
So far, they have built an all graphene planar field-effect transistor. The side-gated device produces a change in resistance through its channel when voltage is applied to the gate. However, this first device has a substantial current leak, which the team expects to eliminate with minor processing adjustments.
The researchers have also built a working quantum interference device, a ring-shaped structure that would be useful in manipulating electronic waves.
The key to properties of the new circuitry is the width of the ribbons, which confine the electrons in a quantum effect similar to that seen in carbon nanotubes. The width of the ribbon controls the material's band-gap. Other structures, such as sensing molecules, could be attached to the edges of the ribbons, which are normally passivated by hydrogen atoms.
Beyond coherence and high electron mobility, the researchers note that the speed of electrons through the graphene is independent of energy - just like light waves. The electrons also possess the properties of Dirac particles, which allow them to travel significant distances without scattering.
Among the challenges ahead is improving the techniques for patterning the graphene, since electron transport is affected by the smoothness of edges in the circuitry. Researchers will also have to understand the material's fundamental properties, which could still contain 'show-stoppers' that might make the material impractical.
De Heer has seen hints that graphene may offer some surprises. "We already have indications of some new and surprising electronic properties of this material," he said. "It is doing things that we have never seen in two-dimensional materials before."
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Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Walt de Heer (404-894-7880): E-mail: (deheer@electra.physics.gatech.edu) or Phil First (404-894-0548); E-mail: (first@physics.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>In response, the Georgia Office of Homeland Security/Georgia Emergency Management Agency (OHS/GEMA) asked the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) to help implement a statewide communications system that enables interoperability among public-safety agencies. The $8 million project is funded through the federal Department of Homeland Security's Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention Program.
"One of the advantages of this system is that it allows agencies to use their existing equipment," explained Douglas Cobb, a principal research engineer at GTRI's Information Technology and Telecommunications Lab (ITTL) and the project's technical lead. Instead of replacing legacy radio equipment - which would carry a stiffer price tag of $200-300 million - interoperability will be achieved through a 'gateway approach.'
How it works: Internet networking components and a type of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) software will be installed in selected 911 dispatch centers throughout the state. This will allow radio calls from law officials and first responders to be routed over the state's private Internet Protocol (IP) network, which uses multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) technology designed to carry voice, data and video traffic.
Cobb points out that the new system won't increase radio frequency coverage or channel capacity. "It's not like adding more towers or more channels to a radio system," he said. "Instead, the system is IP-based with level-4 radio interoperability. Through the use of the state MPLS and network components, it provides dynamic statewide and regional radio interconnections (trunked and conventional) for public-safety first responders and allows agency dispatchers to access and control multiple legacy radio systems. With this system in place, an authorized police officer in Rome, Ga., could talk to a police officer in Savannah - something that isn't currently possible."
The new interoperable communications system is significant on a number of levels, says Dan Brown, special projects manager for OHS/GEMA, which is administering the project. "Not only does this help facilitate the National Response Plan," Brown explained, "but this begins to accomplish a goal that Georgia has had for more than 30 years."
The new system could be used in a variety of scenarios, such as:
* Transporting prisoners from one jurisdiction to another.
* Manhunts like the one for Brian Nichols, Atlanta's alleged 'courthouse shooter,' where lookouts were posted in different counties.
* Chemical spills or other accidents that might require re-routing of traffic.
* Hurricane or other disaster evacuations.
Radio communication systems for police, fire and emergency medical have existed for decades, but these systems were primarily developed to serve local communities, points out Jay Sexton, a research engineer in GTRI's ITTL. "As we enter a new era of homeland security and mutual aid, there's a greater need for interoperable systems," Sexton said. Interoperability not only enables officials to respond faster to a crisis, he explains, but also prevents information from being misconstrued.
As the project's technical adviser, GTRI has been involved in a variety of ways, from conducting feasibility studies to helping the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA) identify potential technology vendors.
In September, Motorola was selected to provide networking equipment and service. Installation of the system has begun at four 911 centers in Cobb, Floyd, Glynn and Muscogee counties, along with one mobile communications unit. After these pilot sites are up and running, the system will be rolled out to the rest of the state.
By the end of 2006, more than 80 percent of Georgia's population should have access to the system through fixed assets in 911 centers with remaining areas of the state served by mobile communications units.
Installing the equipment, however, is just one aspect of the project. Developing proper operating procedures -- such as what constitutes an emergency and who will turn the system on -- will also be critical to the system's success. "You can have the greatest technology in the world, but unless you have the right procedures in place, you're toast," said Doug Cohen, another GTRI engineer at ITTL involved in the project.
In addition to its other responsibilities, OHS/GEMA will take the lead in developing those operating procedures as well as marketing the system to end users.
"Although the project is a relatively low-cost statewide system, it's very complex - both from a technological and implementation perspective," observed Cobb. In addition to the project's principal partners - OHS/GEMA, GTRI and GTA - representatives from the Georgia State Patrol, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the state's sheriffs, police, fire and emergency response associations have participated. "It's unusual to have so many partners involved in a single project," Cobb said.
Research News & Publications Office
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- Georgia Tech: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Kirk Englehardt (404-385-0280); E-mail: (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu).
- GEMA: Donna Burns (404-635-7061); E-mail: (dburns@gema.state.ga.us).
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>That event underscored the need for simple techniques to provide fail-safe destruction of sensitive data aboard such aircraft. Working with defense contractor L-3 Communications Corp., scientists at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed a series of prototype systems that use special high-strength permanent magnets to quickly erase a wide variety of storage media.
Developed so far for VHS tapes, floppy drives, data cassettes, and small computer hard drives, the techniques could also have commercial applications for banking, human resource and other industries that must also protect sensitive information.
"This is a very challenging problem," said Michael Knotts, a research scientist in the GTRI's Signature Technology Laboratory. "We had to verify that the data would be beyond all possible recovery even with unlimited budget and unlimited time. Commercial devices on the market for data erasure just couldn't fill the bill, because they were magnetically too weak, they were physically too large and heavy, or they didn't meet stringent air safety standards."
During the project, the researchers developed testing procedures that use a magnetic force microscope (MFM) - a variation on the atomic-force microscope (AFM) more commonly used to provide detailed images of surfaces at the nanometer scale. The MFM mapped the very small magnetic perturbations created by data stored on the media, helping determine how well data patterns had been destroyed.
"If you erase the data by whatever means, you should see a surface devoid of any specific pattern or periodicity," Knotts explained. "Our goal was to see a random distribution of magnetization that would indicate a clean disk."
During the three-year project, Knotts and collaborators Don Creyts, Dave Maybury, Candy Ekangaki, and Tedd Toler explored a broad range of possible destruction techniques, including burning diskettes with heat-generating thermite materials, crushing drives in presses and chemically destroying the media.
The researchers had to select techniques and equipment that would:
* Be light enough for aircraft use and operate independently of aircraft electrical systems;
* Be mechanically simple to ensure reliable operation;
* Produce no harmful gases or flame;
* Provide mechanisms to prevent inadvertent erasure.
During their first year of work, the researchers learned that data could remain on diskettes that had been subjected to high heat, and had to abandon thermal destruction techniques because of the fire and harmful gases they generated. That left only magnetic techniques.
In developing techniques for complete erasure, the researchers first had to learn how different data storage drives operate, then assess the magnetic field levels necessary for complete erasure. To do that, they obtained a number of commercially-available micro-drives, cut the media into sections, subjected them to varying magnetic fields, and then tested the sections with the MFM.
"We had to understand how the data is laid out on the disk so we could know where to look for the patterns, and we had to do a lot of measurements to determine exactly what kind of magnetic field is needed to destroy all data," said Knotts. "We had to do a lot of destructive testing to determine that, and our lab is littered with the carcasses of dead hard drives to prove it."
Producing a magnetic field sufficient to destroy data patterns required the use of neodymium iron-boron magnets custom-designed for the project and special pole pieces made of esoteric cobalt alloys. The magnets, which weigh as much as 125 pounds, had to produce fields sufficient to penetrate metallic housings that surround some drives.
"We developed models for magnetic circuits that we could run through optimization codes to design the best shape to get the field that we needed," Knotts said. "It takes quite a magnetic field to get through the steel enclosures on some of the drives. We are producing magnetic fields comparable to those used in magnetic resonance imaging equipment, so these are not your ordinary refrigerator magnets."
Mechanically, the researchers faced challenges in reliably moving data storage devices through the magnetic fields. In some cases, aircraft crews would simply insert removable media into a motorized mechanism that pushes them past the magnets, while for other media, crews would have to twist a knob and pull drives out of their enclosures and through a magnetic field. To prevent accidental erasure, each technique requires several deliberate steps.
With success in erasing removable media and small hard drives, the researchers are moving onto a final phase of the project, which will involve large computer hard drives partially encased in thick steel caddies.
Beyond Department of Defense applications, the magnetic erasure techniques could have applications to the commercial world, where banks, human resource agencies and other organizations must ensure complete destruction of data in computer equipment being discarded.
Knotts admits he'll be a bit sad to see the project end.
"This was certainly an unusual project," he said. "It's not often that we get paid to crush equipment in presses, blow things up and set off fires in microwave ovens."
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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).
Writer: John Toon
]]>By converting mechanical energy from body movement, muscle stretching or water flow into electricity, these 'nanogenerators' could make possible a new class of self-powered implantable medical devices, sensors and portable electronics.
Described in the April 14th issue of the journal Science, the nanogenerators produce current by bending and then releasing zinc oxide nanowires - which are both piezoelectric and semiconducting. The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the NASA Vehicle Systems Program and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
"There is a lot of mechanical energy available in our environment," said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Our nanogenerators can convert this mechanical energy to electrical energy. This could potentially open up a lot of possibilities for the future of nanotechnology."
Nanotechnology researchers have proposed and developed a broad range of nanoscale devices, but their use has been limited by the sources of energy available to power them. Conventional batteries make the nanoscale systems too large, and the toxic contents of batteries limit their use in the body. Other potential power sources also suffer from significant drawbacks.
"We can build nanodevices that are very small, but if the complete integrated system must include a large power source, that defeats the purpose," added Wang, who also holds affiliated faculty positions at Peking University and the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China.
The nanogenerators developed by Wang and graduate student Jinhui Song use the very small piezoelectric discharges created when zinc oxide nanowires are bent and then released. By building interconnected arrays containing millions of such wires, Wang believes he can produce enough current to power nanoscale devices.
To study the effect, the researchers grew arrays of zinc oxide nanowires, then used an atomic-force microscope tip to deflect individual wires. As a wire was contacted and deflected by the tip, stretching on one side of the structure and compression on the other side created a charge separation - positive on the stretched side and negative on the compressed side - due to the piezoelectric effect.
The charges were preserved in the nanowire because a Schottky barrier was formed between the AFM tip and the nanowire. The coupling between semiconducting and piezoelectric properties resulted in the charging and discharging process when the tip scanned across the nanowire, Wang explained.
When the tip lost contact with the wire, the strain was released - and the researchers measured an electrical current. After the strain release, the nanowire vibrated through many cycles, but the electrical discharge was measured only at the instant when the strain was released.
To rule out other potential sources of the current, the researchers conducted similar tests using structures that were not piezoelectric or semiconducting. "After a variety of tests, we are confident that what we are seeing is a piezoelectric-induced discharge process," Wang said.
The researchers grew the nanowire arrays using a standard vapor-liquid-solid process in a small tube furnace. First, gold nanoparticles were deposited onto a sapphire substrate placed in one end of the furnace. An argon carrier gas was then flowed into the furnace as zinc oxide powder was heated. The nanowires grew beneath the gold nanoparticles, which serve as catalysts.
The resulting arrays contained vertically-aligned nanowires that ranged from 200 to 500 nanometers in length and 20 to 40 nanometers in diameter. The wires grew approximately 100 nanometers apart, as determined by the placement of the gold nanoparticles.
A film of zinc oxide also grew between the wires on the substrate surface, creating an electrical connection between the wires. To that conductive substrate, the researchers attached an electrode for measuring current flow.
Though attractive for use inside the body because zinc oxide is non-toxic, the nanogenerators could also be used wherever mechanical energy - hydraulic motion of seawater, wind or the motion of a foot inside a shoe - is available. The nanowires can be grown not only on crystal substrates, but also on polymer-based films. Use of flexible polymer substrates could one day allow portable devices to be powered by the movement of their users.
"You could envision having these nanogenerators in your shoes to produce electricity as you walk," Wang said. "This could be beneficial to soldiers in the field, who now depend on batteries to power their electrical equipment. As long as the soldiers were moving, they could generate electricity."
Current could also be produced by placing the nanowire arrays into fields of acoustic or ultrasonic energy. Though they are ceramic materials, the nanowires can bend as much as 50 degrees without breaking.
The next step in the research will be to maximize the power produced by an array of the new nanogenerators. Wang estimates that they can convert as much as 30 percent of the input mechanical energy into electrical energy for a single cycle of vibration. That could allow a nanowire array just 10 microns square to power a single nanoscale device - if all the power generated by the nanowire array can be successfully collected.
"Our bodies are good at converting chemical energy from glucose into the mechanical energy of our muscles," Wang noted. "These nanogenerators can take that mechanical energy and convert it to electrical energy for powering devices inside the body. This could open up tremendous possibilities for self-powered implantable medical devices."
Research News & Publications Office
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Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Zhong Lin Wang (404-894-8008); E-mail: (zhong.wang@mse.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The new collaboration will help advance the company's goal of 'education through simulation,' a concept it believes will transform education and training by helping students better visualize the operation of complex systems.
As part of its intended collaboration with Georgia Tech, GSE wants to advance its understanding of cognitive factors involved in decision-making processes, and develop new visualization tools and diagnostic techniques. The company expects to work with Georgia Tech's College of Computing, the Strategic Energy Institute, the National Electric Energy Testing Research and Applications Center (NEETRAC) and the Global Learning Center.
"As today's technical staff retires, the electric power generation industry faces a critical human resources issue of how to provide the skilled personnel needed to operate and maintain increasingly complex facilities," said Hal Paris, senior vice president of GSE. "The industry also needs personnel who can become productive quickly, without a long training period. We think that education through simulation offers a real opportunity address these issues."
John Moran, the company's chief executive officer, said GSE sees the collaboration as a win-win opportunity that benefits both organizations.
"What impressed me at Georgia Tech is the outstanding level of innovation and creativity," Moran said. "Georgia Tech thinks differently about simulation and its applications. That has enormous implications for companies like ours, and creates a force multiplier for both of our organizations."
Beyond collaboration in the development of new technology and approaches to education and training, the company also wants to attract Georgia Tech students to the industry sectors it serves by providing internships and cooperative education opportunities at its simulation training centers currently underway or planned.
At a recent ceremony, company representatives were welcomed by four Georgia Tech officials: Wayne Hodges, vice provost in the Enterprise Innovation Institute; Jilda Garton, associate vice provost and president of the Georgia Tech Research Corporation; Thom McLean, director of technology services in the College of Computing, and Roger Webb, interim director of the Strategic Energy Institute.
"This project involves an array of activities across campus from research to academics, and from training to the development of Georgia Tech students in co-op programs," said Hodges. "Georgia Tech helps enterprises be more innovative in solving problems using science and technology. We are particularly interested in connecting companies to Georgia Tech resources so we can work together to create new opportunities and new products."
The collaboration will complement what the College of Computing is already doing to transform interdisciplinary computer science education, McLean explained.
"GSE is a world leader in simulation and the company has decades of experience applying that technology to meet the training and education needs of large-scale industrial facilities," he said. "We look forward to helping GSE Systems transform the way people are prepared to manage and operate the world's industrial infrastructure. This collaboration offers our students an opportunity to understand real-world issues, develop an international perspective, and to play a role in creating the next generation of simulation, training and worker assistance technology."
McLean also announced that GSE will become the newest member of the College's Industrial Partner Association.
Roger Webb, interim director of the Strategic Energy Institute, noted that the energy industry must address significant human resource needs in the years ahead. "One of the major challenges in the energy business is developing the next generation of workers," he said. "That goes beyond existing infrastructure and energy supply issues."
GSE Systems is expanding into the Middle East, and recently won a contract from the Emirates Simulation Academy, LLC. to develop a simulation training center in the United Arab Emirates. The facility will include real-time, high fidelity simulators for a gas turbine power plant, a desalination plant, a combined cycle plant, a petroleum refinery and an oil platform. A similar concept is being finalized with the University of Strathclyde for a simulation training and diagnostic center in the United Kingdom.
GSE Systems is a real-time simulation company with more than three decades of experience, more than 250 applications and 100 customers in more than 25 countries. GSE's software, hardware and integrated solutions provide applications to the energy, process, manufacturing and government sectors worldwide. The company is headquartered in Columbia, MD.
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Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (john.toon@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The situation has prompted an international group of researchers to urge national and international authorities to combat the problem with stringent regulations, law enforcement and the provision of inexpensive medicines to undercut the counterfeiters. Based on their own research and other scientists' studies, they outline the problem and make recommendations for addressing it in a paper published June 13 in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine. The researchers' work was funded by the Wellcome Trust of Great Britain and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
"The manufacture and distribution of counterfeit drugs, including anti-malarials, is a massive international problem, and few agencies are investigating it," said Facundo Fernandez, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Georgia Tech and an author on the paper. His close collaborators include scientists Paul Newton from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and Michael Green from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Malaria is a widespread international problem, primarily in poor and developing countries in the tropics - though some cases have been reported in Florida in the United States. The disease - transmitted by mosquitoes infected with the parasite Plasmodium falciparum -- infects 300 to 500 million people a year. Each year, about 1.5 million of those - mostly children - die even though genuine anti-malarial drugs are quite effective. One of the most efficacious drugs is artesunate derived from the Artemisia annua plant native to China.
The percentage of over-the-counter counterfeit artesunate tablets containing no artesunate apparently increased from 38 to 53 percent in southeast Asia between 1999 and 2004, according to a studies led by Newton and Professor Nicholas White at Oxford. In some countries, the majority of the available artesunate is fake, according to the Oxford studies, which are cited in the PLoS Medicine report.
Meanwhile, identifying counterfeit tablets has become increasingly difficult as counterfeiters have implemented sophisticated manufacturing and packaging strategies -- such as including low, but ineffective, levels of the proper active ingredients and applying counterfeit holograms to packaging -- to deceive investigators and consumers. In fact, Fernandez, a bioanalytical chemist, and his collaborators found that some counterfeit artesunate anti-malarial drugs contain up to 10 milligrams of the active ingredient - compared to the 50 milligrams that genuine artesunate tablets contain.
"We make no apology for the use of the term 'manslaughter' to describe this criminal lethal trade," the authors write. "Indeed, some might call it murder. Somewhere people are directing a highly technical and sophisticated criminal trade-in the full knowledge that their ineffective 'product' may kill people who would otherwise survive malaria infection."
Serious implications exist for the relatively new practice of incorporating ineffective levels of active ingredients in artesunate tablets, the authors note. Exposure of malaria parasites to low concentrations of artesunate in patients taking counterfeit products will greatly increase the risk for the selection and spread of malaria parasites that are resistant to artemisinin derivatives. That could lead to a loss of effectiveness for these essential medicines and an avoidable failure of malaria control, they write. In addition, the presence of small quantities of artesunate in tablets may mean that the Fast Red dye test, widely used for screening the quality of artesunate tablets, yields false-positive results, depending on how much artesunate is present in the fakes.
Also, many fake artesunate tablets contain other drugs, possibly because the counterfeiters are trying to further deceive patients and doctors by producing a placebo effect, Fernandez said. "For example, some of the counterfeit tablets we analyzed contained acetaminophen that would reduce a fever, or the antibiotic erythromycin, or even early-generation anti-malarials that are no longer effective."
The researchers' analyses determined there are now at least 12 different types of fake artesunate, classified by Oxford researchers based on the counterfeit holograms affixed to artesunate packaging. Evidence suggests that production is on an industrial scale, according to research by Newton and Green published in 2001 in the British medical journal The Lancet. For example, a non-governmental organization in Burma purchased 100,000 counterfeit artesunate tablets from one large pharmacy, the researchers note.
"At this point, we believe there are probably multiple sources, but they may be using the same distribution network," Fernandez added.
The authors also cite serious implications of this public health problem for tourists in malaria-prone countries. Visitors often buy unregulated artemisinin derivatives in the tropics or on the Internet. It is inevitable that counterfeit artesunate will seep into this trade, the authors predict.
The greater concern, they note, is for sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2001, artemisinin derivative-based combination therapy (ACT) has increasingly become the first-line malaria treatment in Africa. Authorities estimate that 130 million courses of ACT will be used in Africa in 2006.
"The high cost and shortage of ACT provide a favorable situation for the spread of fake artemisinins that could put the lives of thousands of African children at risk," the authors write. They urge authorities to implement tighter controls on drug importation, as well as a subsidy of up to $500 million a year to ensure that ACTs provided through the private sector are relatively inexpensive and locally affordable so there is no financial advantage in unwittingly purchasing a fake.
"It will be an avoidable tragedy if a lack of political will and action allows fake artesunate to compromise the hope that artemisinin derivative-based combination therapy offers for malaria control in Africa and Asia and results in the emergence and spread of resistance to the artemisinin drugs, shortening the useful life of these vital medicines," the authors add. "As global efforts to control malaria rely heavily on these drugs, these issues deserve overdue, urgent action to prevent a public health disaster in the malarious world."
In related research, several of the authors, led by Fernandez, are studying new, high-throughput screening techniques to detect and quantify the contents of counterfeit anti-malarial drugs and other fake pharmaceuticals. This research will be published in an upcoming edition of the journal ChemMedChem. Read more about this work online at: gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/detect-fakes.htm
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Media Relations Contacts: Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jsanders@gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Facundo Fernandez, Georgia Tech (404-385-4432); E-mail: (facundo.fernandez@chemistry.gatech.edu) or Paul Newton, University of Oxford (856-21-242168); E-mail: (paul@tropmedres.ac) or Michael Green, Centers for Disease Control (770-488-4039); E-mail: (mdg4@cdc.gov).
Writer: Jane Sanders
]]>"We now face a new concept of war where instead of being miles away, the enemy may be in the same building or just a few feet away," said David Shumaker, director of SENSIAC, the military's sensing information analysis center. "That means a paradigm shift in the design of sensors. In many applications today we need technologies for situational awareness, where long range may be a secondary consideration."
Housed within the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), SENSIAC is one of the newest information analysis centers (IACs) serving the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). It replaces IRIA, a center that was initially founded at the University of Michigan's Willow Run Laboratories and operated there under various ownership for nearly 50 years until Georgia Tech won the contract in December 2004.
"Although IRIA focused primarily on infrared technologies, SENSIAC has a much broader mission and scope," said Ann Batchelor, SENSIAC's deputy director. "We provide information on all sensing-based technologies related to defense activities, including infrared, laser, radar, acoustic, electro-optical, aroma, chemical and many other sensors."
In addition to being a clearinghouse for information, SENSIAC conducts research projects and educational programs. The center draws upon experts across the Georgia Tech campus, as well as seven other universities that serve as SENSIAC team members.
Winning the DoD contract gives Georgia Tech national recognition in the military sensing arena, Shumaker said: "This places us in the center of the military sensing community. We touch everyone in one way or another."
Indeed, SENSIAC supports the defense department and other government branches, including intelligence agencies like the FBI and CIA. In addition, the center helps government contractors and university researchers engaged in activities for national defense or homeland security.
"SENSIAC has a very broad audience," Shumaker said. "We serve everyone from university researchers to soldiers who are firing rifles."
Examples include:
* Warfighters who need to know the limitations of a particular sensor or training in how to use it.
* DoD program managers who need an independent party to evaluate competing technologies.
* Contractors who need help testing new sensing equipment or simulating how well it will perform.
"To get help from SENSIAC, anyone in the military sensing community need only call or e-mail us with a problem," said Shumaker. "SENSIAC puts an expert on problems immediately, and best of all, it costs the user nothing. It is a free service of the IAC. We have answered questions from 'can you give me an expert in binary gas Joule-Thompson coolers' to 'how do I tune my missile warning receiver.' Inevitably, if the task requires extensive research, we have to charge the user."
Education is an important part of the center's mission. Between the end of the Cold War and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there was little hiring of sensing specialists in both government and industry circles. And now that a number of senior engineers are retiring, there is a lack of mentors for newcomers.
To help bridge this experience gap, SENSIAC offers continuing education classes for DoD, intelligence and homeland security agencies, as well as their contractors. Seven courses were available this fall, including classes on hyper-spectral imaging, target acquisition modeling and military laser principles. During the next few months, the curriculum will be expanded rapidly to more than 40 courses.
"SENSIAC really raises Georgia Tech's profile in defense sensing," said David Schmieder, the center's Coordinator for Electro-Optics Education and Technical Inquiries.
"We've always been an educational leader in this area, providing specialty training that wasn't available anywhere else, but it was hard to get the word out," Schmieder explained. "Now SENSIAC gives Georgia Tech a formal path to make agencies aware that these programs exist, and it gives the military a formal path to request specific educational programs it may need."
SENSIAC also manages the defense department's Military Sensing Symposia (MSS). These eleven annual conferences, which began in 1956, enable government and industry experts to gather and share best practices about classified projects in a protected environment. Proceedings of the meetings are archived and made available to those with appropriate security clearance.
Because of a unique contract provision, SENSIAC can conduct research on an expedited basis for government agencies and contractors. "As long as the research is related to military sensing in some way, a project can get a green light in as quickly as two weeks, as opposed to waiting six to eight months under alternative contracting methods," Schmieder said.
The center is also launching a technology transfer program, which will be led by Edward Reedy, GTRI's retired director. The idea is to move emerging technology out of universities and into military sensing applications more quickly, Shumaker explains.
"SENSIAC is an enabler of military sensing technology," Shumaker added. "We exist to help others do their jobs faster, cheaper and more efficiently."
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Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Kirk Englehardt (404-385-0280); E-mail: (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: David Shumaker (404-385-7370); E-mail: (david.shumaker@gtri.gatech.edu) or Ann Batchelor (404-385-4032); E-mail: (ann.batchelor@gtri.gatech.edu) or David Schmieder (404-894-1051); E-mail: (david.schmieder@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>In response, a team of Georgia Institute of Technology researchers is developing an inexpensive, handheld device that uses Doppler ultrasound technology to find veins quickly.
"Depth and angle are the critical issues for vessel detection," says project leader Michael Gray, a research engineer at the Electro-Optical (EOSL) Systems Laboratory within the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). "Even if you locate a vein at the skin's surface, it's still easy to miss when you try to insert a needle into the tissue below."
The Doppler effect is a phenomenon that occurs when electromagnetic and sound waves interact with a moving object, altering wavelengths and frequency. For example, a police radar gun sends microwave signals to a moving car, and when signals bounce back, the change in their frequency provides a measurement used to determine the vehicle's speed.
Doppler ultrasound is similar, except that acoustical waves are transmitted. Compared to static skin and tissue, blood is a moving substance, so ultrasonic waves reflected from blood vessels have different characteristics than transmitted ones, providing critical 3-D information about a vein's location.
Hospitals have sophisticated ultrasound systems to evaluate the heart, valves and vessels for general blood-flow studies. But this kind of equipment is impractical and too costly for field use.
"Although the use of Doppler technology isn't new, the novel aspect of our vein finder is the system's design, which makes it both portable and economical," says Peter Rogers, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Mechanical Engineering.
The patent-pending vein finder is composed of two parts: A reusable unit houses the electronics and signal processing components, while a disposable coupler box holds a reflector and needle guide. The needle guide is positioned parallel to the sound beam being transmitted by a transducer in the device's reusable section.
As medics move the device along a patient's arm or leg, the transducer emits a thin acoustical beam, about the size of pencil lead, into the reflector. Then the reflector directs the ultrasonic waves into the patient's skin at a slight angle. The device can determine the direction of blood flow to distinguish arteries (which carry blood away from the heart) from veins (which carry blood to the heart). Once the device detects a vein, an alarm is triggered, and medics insert the needle.
The vein finder has proved highly effective in initial tests on phantom tissue, a model that simulates human tissue and blood vessels.
Researchers have now begun adapting the device for human use.
Developing the user-friendly vein finder has been a deceptively complex task.
"One reason it's so challenging is that we're using very simple components to keep costs down," notes Francois Guillot, a research engineer in the School of Mechanical Engineering.
Unlike large ultrasound systems used by hospitals for general blood-flow studies, the vein finder is targeting a very small area of the body.
"That means the acoustical beam has to be smaller," says Jim Larsen, a research engineer in EOSL. Another complication is that only a small amount of energy, about 1/10,000 of transmitted waves, scatters off the vein.
"So you're limited in how much energy you can put in and how much you can pick up," he adds. "Cost, size and power issues restrict us to using a single sensor, which limits the type of signal processing we can do to eliminate the scattering effects."
Once the system is successfully adapted for humans, data processing and electronics will be miniaturized in a prototype for field-testing. The researchers envision the final product will be about the size of a fat fountain pen.
Compared to existing devices on the market that try to locate veins with lights or heat strips, the GTRI-developed system will be faster and more reliable, says Connell Reynolds, founder of Reynolds Medical Inc., a medical device manufacturer in Fairburn, Ga., that is sponsoring the project.
A former paramedic, Reynolds says the vein finder will be invaluable for a variety of medical users, including ambulance services, hospital emergency rooms, clinics, the military and nursing homes.
"For example, IV (intravenous) insertion is especially difficult in dehydrated patients because their blood vessels lack normal volume," he explains. "Similarly, because cardiac patients' hearts aren't pumping properly, their veins are hard to locate. It's also difficult to find veins in obese people and young children because their vessels are covered by layers of fat."
In addition to speed, the vein finder's accuracy will make treatment easier for hospital patients who need ongoing IVs or blood work.
Larsen recalls a hospital stay of his own that required numerous blood tests. This resulted in swelling and inflammation in his arms, making it increasingly more difficult for nurses to find his veins. "It often took seven or eight tries," he says. "It wasn't long before I felt like a pin cushion."
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 (404-385-0280); E-mail: (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Michael Gray (404-657-0441); E-mail: (michael.gray@gtri.gatech.edu) or Peter Rogers (404-894-3235); E-mail: (peter.rogers@me.gatech.edu) or Connell Reynolds (770-463-1233); E-mail: (creyn39598@aol.com).
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>The distinction came in the Winter issue of BusinessWeek Magazine's 'SmallBiz' edition, which included the four U.S. incubators as part of an article titled: 'Hatching a Success: Business incubators are back - and ready to transform your startup.'
The article noted that ATDC has graduated more than 100 high-tech companies since being founded 25 years ago. The article also mentioned Georgia Tech VentureLab, which was formed in 2001 to help guide faculty members through the process of launching companies based on Georgia Tech innovations.
Finally, the article reported the success of Jacket Micro Devices, a wireless chipmaker formed in VentureLab and now led by serial entrepreneur Jim Stratigos. The company, based on technology developed at Georgia Tech, has raised more than $8 million to support its growth.
Also included in the BusinessWeek listing was Norcross-based Intelligent Systems, an incubator formed in 1990. The two other incubators are the William M. Factory Small Business Incubator in Tacoma, Washington, and the Linux Collaboration Center in San Jose, Calif.
"It is always an honor to receive national recognition and attention for our program," said Tony Antoniades, general manager of the ATDC. "It further validates our impact and benefits our companies by bringing them extra exposure and credibility in the financial marketplace."
About the ATDC: Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center is a nationally recognized science and technology incubator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies, providing strategic business advice and connecting its member companies to the people and resources they need to succeed. More than 100 companies have emerged from the ATDC, including publicly-traded firms such as MindSpring Enterprises - now part of EarthLink.
Headquartered at the Georgia Institute of Technology, ATDC has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the nation's top nonprofit incubators. ATDC was formed in 1980 to stimulate growth in Georgia's technology business base, and now has locations in Atlanta, Columbus, Savannah and Warner Robins. For more information, visit (www.atdc.org).
ATDC News & Information
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, GA 30308 USA
Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (john.toon@atdc.org).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The technique is yielding insight on viruses - such as RSV, human influenza, hepatitis C, West Nile virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) -- that replicate with the help of proteins encoded by ribonucleic acid (RNA) inside the cell. Ultimately, the research could to lead to early and rapid detection of viral infection and the design of new antiviral drugs.
Scientists and engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia are studying bovine and human RSV with molecular-scale probes - called molecular beacons - that are engineered oligonucleotides (short sequences of RNA or DNA) shaped like a hairpin with a fluorescent dye molecule on one end and a quencher molecule on the other end. They are designed to fluoresce only when they bind to a complementary target - in this case, RSV genomic RNA.
"For the first time, we were able to visualize an important part of the RSV virus -- its genome -- in live, infected cells," said Phil Santangelo, a research engineer in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "Our molecular beacons attach to the virus and glow inside infected cells as the virus grows, replicates and infects other cells. We can now see that happen in real time in cultures in the lab."
"That's very different from how scientists have studied viruses in past; they've looked at viruses in fixed (or preserved) cells," he added. " Within the first week of studying human RSV in living cells, I learned something new because I was looking at it live."
Molecular beacons were originally developed at the Public Health Research Institute in New Jersey in the late 1990s. They were initially used for in vitro assays outside cells. But Santangelo and former Georgia Tech Ph.D. student Nitin Nitin, now a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University, devised methods for getting the beacons inside the cell without destroying the probe and without changing the cells.
Santangelo gave an invited presentation on his research April 20 at the Materials Research Society meeting in San Francisco. The research is funded under a National Institutes of Health grant to Professors Shuming Nie and Gang Bao - both in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory -- to develop new, high-sensitivity live-cell probes. In this study, Santangelo, who works for Bao, collaborated with Amelia Woolums, an associate professor of large animal medicine at UGA.
They determined their molecular beacon techniques deliver high-sensitivity and high-specificity results in both bovine and human RSV strains. "The RSV genome is interesting in that it is 15,000 nucleotides long, and one of its RNA sequences repeats itself nine times," Santangelo explained. "So we were able to bind up to nine probes to that sequence, and that helped us achieve very high sensitivity to the virus. In the human virus, in fact, we were able to see a single RSV virion."
Also, researchers were able to detect virion aggregates in bovine RSV within the first day in culture, Santangelo noted. Typically, veterinarians cannot detect RSV until after five or six days of incubation.
Bovine RSV can be a major problem in cows, which represent a good animal model for human RSV. Calves have RSV symptoms similar to those in human babies, and the disease pathology is similar. So studying bovine RSV yields information about the strain that infects humans, he added.
Also in this study, researchers used confocal microscopy to view very thin sections of the RSV viral genome in live, infected cells. This technique allowed them to reconstruct the viral RNA aggregates in three dimensions.
"Most pathologists look at thick sections of RSV in formaldehyde, but our 3D structures are more fluid and amorphous than the solid structures pathologists have observed," Santangelo said. "The more we know about how RSV really looks, the more we'll understand about its pathogenesis."
RSV is the most important cause of respiratory infection in young children worldwide, infecting virtually every child in the first few years of life. Immunity is feeble and fleeting, and repeated infections are the rule. One in every 100 or 200 infected infants requires hospitalization, usually for bronchiolitis. There is not yet an effective vaccine for RSV, and current anti-viral drugs are in their infancy in terms of efficacy, Santangelo noted.
Ultimately, researchers want to conduct in vivo testing, but must first adapt their molecular beacons technology for that purpose, Santangelo said. "In the nearer term, we hope to use molecular beacons to detect RSV in clinical samples like with those taken with a nasal swab. We might be able to detect RSV in its first day of incubation and make an early diagnosis," he added.
The researchers also hope their research will lead to development of a suite of anti-viral drugs for treating RSV and other viruses, including human influenza.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Phil Santangelo (404-385-5031); E-mail: (philip.santangelo@ibb.gatech.edu) or Amelia Woolums (706-542-9329); E-mail: (awoolums@vet.uga.edu).
Writer: Jane Sanders
]]>Using a new room-sized environmental test chamber, more than a dozen smaller chambers and a mass spectrometric center able to measure ultra-trace concentrations of airborne chemicals being emitted from products, scientists at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are helping manufacturers meet those international standards to minimize emissions.
"We can help manufacturers address regulatory issues," said Charlene Bayer, principal research scientist in GTRI's Health and Environmental Systems Laboratory. "Because U.S. manufacturers sell their products worldwide, they must meet emission regulations imposed by nations in Europe and Asia. We make the measurements companies need to improve their products."
For example, the testing helps manufacturers of indoor furnishings select components that have lower emissions. It also helps textile and apparel companies choose fabric finishes that both survive cleaning and minimize emissions. And it helps makers of paints and other wall coverings select biocides and other chemical constituents with the least impact on the indoor environment.
Large enough to accommodate humans or animals, the new 27.5 cubic meter environmental chamber will also allow researchers to study broader concerns - including the impact of low-level indoor air pollutants on productivity and human health.
"There is an emphasis now on developing high-performance schools, and part of that will be to measure how changes in indoor air quality improve the performance of children," explained Bayer. "By studying how emissions from normal furnishings affect children performing classroom tasks, you can estimate what might happen if you reduce the emissions."
Tests involving humans will be carefully designed to avoid exposing subjects to potentially harmful levels. The research will also be done under close medical supervision, with cameras and a special windowed door to monitor subjects inside the chamber.
Beyond helping manufacturers improve their products, the new facility may lead to a better understanding of what compounds cause problems and how indoor pollutants form. There is evidence, Bayer said, that the chemistry inside buildings is more complex than previously thought.
It's known, for instance, that ozone produced outdoors during summer months enters buildings in significant amounts. There, the powerful oxidant may react with volatile organic compounds emitted from indoor furnishings to create a chemical soup that includes compounds not originally present in the furnishings.
"The chances are very good that it's not the emissions we know about that are really bothering people, but rather the compounds that result when the emitted chemicals react with ozone," Bayer said. "That could be quite significant in urban areas like Atlanta that have high levels of ground-level ozone."
The large chamber can simulate real-world environmental conditions inside buildings. Coupled with the sensitive mass spectrometers, that allows those low-level chemical reactions to be studied in detail.
"We really have to look at the interactions between chemicals and the changing indoor air chemistry," Bayer added. "That's something we can now do because we have the room-sized chamber."
Beyond an improved understanding of indoor air quality, GTRI's environmental chambers can also be used to calibrate a broad range of new sensors being developed.
"We can put sensors into a well-controlled environment that simulates real conditions," Bayer said. "We can expose the sensors to carefully-controlled levels of individual compounds, as well as to combinations of compounds."
Also under development is a vest-based instrument for measuring the airborne emissions that can affect children with asthma. By correlating exposures with attacks, the vest will help researchers better understand the factors that lead to asthma problems.
In all, GTRI operates 15 environmental chambers that range in size from just 135 milliliters up to 27.5 cubic meters.
Samples taken from the chambers are analyzed by four mass spectrometers designed for different types of identification. For example, one instrument is used to analyze light gases such as carbon dioxide, which is produced by the respiration of living organisms such as bacterial and fungi. Another system is designed for proteomic and other biomedical research. The instruments can measure as low as femtogram quantities of chemical compounds.
The facility also includes other instruments, including gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer combinations. For testing the efficiency of air filtration systems, Bayer uses a smoking machine that helps simulate a smoke-filled environment. The test facility also analyzes the efficiency of other equipment designed to clean the air.
Beyond the expertise and facilities in GTRI's own labs, Bayer can call on researchers in Georgia Tech's academic colleges - as well as collaborators at Emory University, Georgia State University and the University of Miami Medical School.
"Combining these capabilities, we can focus on the far-reaching and difficult issues," she said. "The linkage to academic researchers and to these other schools gives us tremendous abilities to study complex issues."
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 (404-385-0280); E-mail: (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Charlene Bayer (404-894-5361); E-mail: (charlene.bayer@gtri.gatech.edu) or Victor DeJesus (404-385-3081); E-mail: (victor.dejesus@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The prototype device, produced by a team in the Interactive and Intelligent Computing division of the Georgia Tech College of Computing (COC), uses off-the-shelf equipment - camera-mounted sensors, lighting equipment, a projector and a computer -- to scan for, find and neutralize digital cameras. The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image-producing sensors used in digital cameras.
Gregory Abowd, an associate professor leading the project, says the new camera-neutralizing technology shows commercial promise in two principal fields - protecting limited areas against clandestine photography or stopping video copying in larger areas such as theaters.
"We're at a point right now where the prototype we have developed could lead to products for markets that have a small, critical area to protect," Abowd said. "Then we're also looking to do additional research that could increase the protected area for one of our more interesting clients, the motion picture industry."
Abowd said the small-area product could prevent espionage photography in government buildings, industrial settings or trade shows. It could also be used in business settings -- for instance, to stop amateur photography where shopping-mall-Santa pictures are being taken.
James Clawson, a research technician on Abowd's prototype team, said preventing movie copying could be a major application for camera-blocking technology.
"Movie piracy is a $3 billion-a-year problem," Clawson maintains -- a problem said to be especially acute in Asia. "If someone videotapes a movie in a theater and then puts it up on the web that night or burns half a million copies to sell on the street - then the movie industry has lost a lot of in-theater revenue."
Moreover, movie theaters are likely to be a good setting for camera-blocking technology, said Jay Summet, a research assistant who is also working on the prototype. A camera's image sensor - called a CCD -- is retroreflective, which means it sends light back directly to its origin rather than scattering it.
Retroreflections would probably make it relatively easy to detect and identify video cameras in a darkened theater.
The current prototype uses visible light and two cameras to find CCDs, but a future commercial system might use invisible infrared lasers and photo-detecting transistors to scan for contraband cameras. Once such a system found a suspicious spot, it would feed information on the reflection's properties to a computer for a determination.
"The biggest problem is making sure we don't get false positives from, say, a large shiny earring," said Summet. "We need to make our system work well enough so that it can find a dot, then test to see if it's reflective, then see if it's retroreflective, and then test to see if it's the right shape."
Once a scanning laser and photodetector located a video camera, the system would flash a thin beam of visible white light directly at the CCD. This beam - possibly a laser in a commercial version - would overwhelm the target camera with light, rendering recorded video unusable. Researchers say that energy levels used to neutralize cameras would be low enough to preclude any health risks to the operator.
Still camera neutralization in small areas also shows near-term commercial promise, Abowd said. Despite ambient light levels far higher than in a theater, still cameras at a trade show or a mall should be fairly easy to detect, he said. That's because image sensors in most cell phones and digital cameras are placed close to the lens, making them easier to spot than the deeper-set sensors of video cameras.
Camera neutralization's potential has helped bring it under the wing of VentureLab, a Georgia Tech group that assists fledgling companies through the critical feasibility and first-funding phases. Operating under the name DominINC, Abowd's company has already received a Phase 1 grant from the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) with VentureLab assistance.
Abowd said that funding availability will likely decide which technology -- small- or large-area -- will be developed first. DominINC will apply soon for GRA Phase 2 money, Abowd said. Those funds would be used to aid anti-piracy product development, as would any funding coming from the film industry.
Other potential funding, from industry and elsewhere, would likely be used to develop anti-espionage small-area applications.
Stephen Fleming, Georgia Tech's chief commercialization officer, said motion-picture groups are actively looking for technology to foil piracy. Movie distributors might even promote camera-neutralizing systems by refusing to send films to theaters that don't install anti-piracy systems.
There are some caveats, according to Summet. Current camera-neutralizing technology may never work against single-lens-reflex cameras, which use a folding-mirror viewing system that effectively masks its CCD except when a photo is actually being taken. Moreover, anti-digital techniques don't work on conventional film cameras because they have no image sensor.
Good computer analysis will be the heart of effective camera blocking, Summet believes.
"Most of the major work that we have left involves algorithmic development," he said. "False positives will eliminated by making a system with fast, efficient computing."
Also involved in the camera-neutralizing project are Shwetak Patel, a College of Computing PhD student; Khai Truong, a former Georgia Tech PhD student who is now at the University of Toronto, and Kent Lyons, a College of Computing post-doctoral student. A paper on this technology was published and presented at the Ubicomp 2005 conference in Tokyo, Japan, last September.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Rick Robinson (404-694-2284); E-mail: (rick.robinson@innovate.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Gregory Abowd (404-894-7512); E-mail: (gregory.abowd@cc.gatech.edu).
Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>Results of the three-year study, conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Sandia National Laboratories, provide a 'road map' to guide development of next-generation micron- and nanometer scale high-resolution imprint manufacturing. By reducing cost and time, the design rules could help make high-volume production of nanotechnology-based products more economically feasible.
"This work provides a rational link between what engineers want to make using nanoimprint lithography and the path for creating them," said William King, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Mechanical Engineering. "We have developed manufacturing design rules that will give future users of this technology a predictive tool kit so they'll know what to expect over a broad range of parameters."
The research results have been published in the Journal of Vacuum Science Technology B and the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering. The research was supported by awards for King through the National Science Foundation's CAREER program and the PECASE award program of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Nanoimprint lithography is the ultra-miniaturized version of the decades-old embossing process in which a master tool - or a mold - is pressed into a soft material to create detailed patterns. Using a broad range of polymer materials, nanoimprint lithography produces structures on the micron or nanometer size scales, offering the potential for lowering production costs.
However, quality issues caused by unpredictable polymer flow into the non-uniform features of embossing tools pose a major stumbling block. Earlier research into this complex process has produced often conflicting recommendations, forcing manufacturers to pursue costly trial and error.
Using the results of experimental work and a simulation program adapted in collaboration with researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, King's research team examined every variable involved in the nanoimprinting process, recording the outcome of each incremental change through the design space. They studied such variables as shear deformation of the polymer, elastic stress release, capillary flow and viscous flow during the filling of imprinting tool cavities that had varying sizes and shapes.
"This helped us to resolve the phenomenological events that occur during the manufacturing process and to link them to the observed experimental outcomes," King explained. "Because we have blanketed the entire design space, we have a firm understanding on the linkage between process parameters and outcomes."
At the micron- and nanometer size scales studied by the researchers, the fundamental laws of physics remain the same as at larger scales, but manifest themselves in different ways.
"At the small scale with embossing and nano-imprinting, different issues are important," King said. "For instance, we can have gradients in surface tension that are very important to how polymer nanostructures are formed. We can also have high pressure gradients inside our embossing tools that are almost ridiculously high compared to what you would expect at the macro scale."
The research examined, for example, how large differences in cavity sizes on the imprinting tool lead to non-uniform filling and non-local polymer flow. It also provided recommendations on how to minimize such issues.
The research ultimately pointed to specific parameters that determine the outcome of the process. These include key geometric parameters that predict the polymer deformation mechanism. The research also developed a new non-dimensional measure, the 'Nanoimprint Capillary Number,' which predicts the flow driving mechanism that ultimately governs all of the polymer flow details.
By reducing the complex set of variables to key parameters, King - along with Georgia Tech graduate student Harry D. Rowland and collaborators Amy C. Sun and P. Randall Schunk of Sandia National Laboratories - have been able to account for the varying process outcomes reported by other researchers in dozens of papers, King said.
The results apply to any polymeric material that follows standard viscous flow rules and produces feature sizes larger than 50 nanometers. The next step in the research would be to modify the simulation software to account for physics changes that occur on smaller size scales.
The results could have applications in semiconductor manufacturing, where nanoimprinting offers a potential alternative to increasingly expensive lithography processes to produce circuitry. It could also help make high-volume production of nanoscale structures for optoelectronic, biomedical and other applications more economically feasible.
"Nanoscale products are too expensive to manufacture, and they will continue to be too expensive until something fundamentally changes in the process," King added. "Nanotechnology will not be successful until you can go into a grocery store or discount store and routinely purchase products based on nanotechnology. That's what we want to accomplish."
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 Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Bill King (404-385-4224); E-mail: (bill.king@me.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The company, which will market its innovative 'purpose-built' vehicle directly to customers, also plans to revolutionize U.S. automobile manufacturing as a lean and integrated organization. In March, the firm announced plans to locate its headquarters, research and development center, direct sales center, customer service, and mid-volume production and logistics operations in the metropolitan Atlanta area. On April 19th, officials from Georgia Tech and Carbon Motors signed a memorandum of understanding setting out their intent to establish research, education and financial arrangements.
"In this era of enhanced homeland security concerns, law enforcement first responders require the most appropriate specialized equipment delivered to them in the most efficient way possible so our women and men in uniform can patrol our communities in a more effective and safe manner," said William Santana Li, chairman and CEO of Carbon Motors. "With more than 200 law enforcement agencies nationwide, we have developed a list of 74 critical criteria that law enforcement vehicles need to meet. This vehicle will be different in almost every way to truly meet the needs and desires of law enforcement."
To make that vision a reality, Carbon Motors plans to take advantage of Georgia Tech's expertise in a broad range of areas. Initially, the company's designers and engineers plan to tap Georgia Tech's expertise in the ergonomic design of aircraft cockpits and the integration of highly complex electronic and electrical systems.
"Police vehicles today have a complex set of systems that need to be ergonomically configured to ensure proper flow of information to officers, especially when they are in pursuit or in stressful situations," said Li. "What we essentially need is comparable to the cockpit of a helicopter - which Georgia Tech has experience in designing. That is expertise not normally found in the automotive industry."
Beyond the human factors interface expertise, the company also intends to take advantage of Georgia Tech experience with integrating complex electronic systems - expertise also developed in decades of work done for military agencies.
"The amount of electronic and electrical equipment that will be in this vehicle is an order of magnitude beyond what you'd find in any existing automobile," Li noted. "This becomes not only a systems integration issue, but also a testing and validation concern involving electromagnetic interference and compatibility issues under a variety of environmental conditions."
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), which recently developed the Ultra-Armored Patrol concept vehicle for the U.S. military, plans to work with Carbon Motors on those key tasks.
"Large scale systems engineering is an area where GTRI has a proven track record of success," said Stephen E. Cross, director of GTRI and a vice president at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We recently designed and built a concept military fighting vehicle to keep soldiers safer on the battlefield. We look forward to working with Carbon Motors to develop new vehicles that will make first responders safer on the streets."
Beyond human factors and systems integration, the company is also exploring Georgia Tech's expertise in other areas, including materials selection, logistics, information technology, manufacturing product life cycle management, sensor technology, aerodynamics, decision making algorithms and process engineering.
"This project is a prime example of how forward-thinking companies like Carbon Motors can collaborate with Georgia Tech to bring innovative products to the market and to transform a vital sector of the U.S. economy," said Wayne Hodges, vice provost in the Georgia Tech Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures. "We look forward to working with the company to both develop this new vehicle and to change the way that automobiles are designed, produced and sold."
For Georgia Tech, the collaboration will not only provide an opportunity to impact industry and help create jobs in Georgia, but it will also give students an opportunity to work on real-world projects, Hodges noted. That experience will equip those students to not only support Carbon Motors, but also to bring a new business model to the U.S. automotive industry, he added.
The collaboration is an example of how Georgia's investment in higher education can have an economic development payoff, noted Craig Lesser, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
"One of Georgia's strengths is its research capabilities and the involvement of our universities in economic development," Lesser said. "Georgia Tech is truly a world-class university, and we are pleased that Carbon Motors will develop the kind of relationship that will benefit both organizations."
Based on two years of market research, Carbon Motors identified what law enforcement agencies needed in a vehicle built expressly for their use. Current police vehicles are based on retail passenger vehicles that are modified by a highly-fragmented set of local suppliers with little standardization or integration.
Among the improvements will be significantly enhanced total vehicle performance, improved fuel economy, enhanced safety and a reduction in total costs.
Carbon Motors is working with the state of Georgia, the Metropolitan Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Georgia Power Company, local governments and developers to determine the best location for a rail-linked 100-acre site to become the 'Carbon Campus' housing the new company.
About Carbon Motors: Carbon Motors Corporation is a new U.S. automaker with an innovative business model. The company is developing and will manufacture, distribute and service an all-new purpose built law enforcement patrol vehicle. The Carbon Motors mission includes developing a new lower-volume capable vehicle platform, establishing a direct and efficient end-to-end supply chain, and continuing to foster public and private sector collaboration. For more information, visit (www.carbonmotors.com).
About the Georgia Tech Research Institute: The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit applied research arm of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. GTRI's approximately 1,200 employees perform or support more than $100 million in research yearly for more than 200 clients in industry and government. For more information, visit (www.gtri.gatech.edu).
About the Georgia Tech Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures: The Georgia Tech Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures helps enterprises improve their competitiveness through the application of science, technology and innovation. With integrated service offerings focused on specific customer sets, the Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures helps companies achieve and maintain a competitive edge, fosters development of successful startup firms, and assists communities and economic developers in adopting innovative practices. On May 1, the organization will become known as the Enterprise Innovation Institute. For more information, visit (www.edtv.gatech.edu).
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).
Writer: John Toon
]]>Using thin layers of graphite known as graphene, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States, in collaboration with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, have produced proof-of-principle transistors, loop devices and circuitry. Ultimately, the researchers hope to use graphene layers less than 10 atoms thick as the basis for revolutionary electronic systems that would manipulate electrons as waves rather than particles, much like photonic systems control light waves.
"We expect to make devices of a kind that don't really have an analog in silicon-based electronics, so this is an entirely different way of looking at electronics," said Walt de Heer, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Physics. "Our ultimate goal is integrated electronic structures that work on diffraction of electrons rather than diffusion of electrons. This will allow the production of very small devices with very high efficiencies and low power consumption."
Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Intel Corporation, the work was described March 13th at the March Meeting of the American Physical Society. Details of fabrication techniques have been reported in the Journal of Physical Chemistry.
Because carbon nanotubes conduct electricity with virtually no resistance, they have attracted strong interest for use in transistors and other devices. However, serious obstacles must be overcome before nanotube-based devices could be scaled up into high-volume industrial products, including:
- An inability to produce nanotubes of consistent sizes and consistent electronic properties,
- Difficulty integrating nanotubes into electronic devices using processes suitable for volume production, and
- High electrical resistance that produces heating and energy loss at junctions between nanotubes and the metal wires connecting them.
De Heer, who helped discover many properties of carbon nanotubes over the past decade, believes their primary value has been in calling attention to the useful properties of graphene. Continuous graphene circuitry can be produced using standard microelectronic processing techniques, potentially allowing creation of a 'road map' for high-volume graphene electronics manufacturing, he said.
"Nanotubes are simply graphene that has been rolled into a cylindrical shape," de Heer explained. "Using narrow ribbons of graphene, we can get all the properties of nanotubes because those properties are due to the graphene and the confinement of the electrons, not the nanotube structures."
De Heer envisions using the graphene electronics for specialized applications, potentially within conventional silicon-based systems. Graphene systems could also be used as the foundation for molecular electronics, helping resolve resistance issues that now affect such systems.
"There is a huge advantage to making a system out of one continuous material, compared to having different materials with different interfaces - and large contract resistances to cause heating at the contacts," he said.
De Heer and collaborators Claire Berger, Nate Brown, Edward Conrad, Zhenting Dai, Rui Feng, Phillip First, Joanna Hass, Tianbo Li, Xuebin Li, Alexei Marchenkov, James Meindl, Asmerom Ogbazghi, Thomas Orlando, Zhimin Song, Xiaosong Wu of Georgia Tech and Didier Mayou and Cecile Naud of CNRS start with a wafer of silicon carbide, a material made up of silicon and carbon atoms. By heating the wafer in a high vacuum, they drive silicon atoms from the surface, leaving a thin continuous layer of graphene.
Next, they spin-coat onto the surface a photo-resist material of the kind used in established microelectronics techniques. Using optical lithography or electron-beam lithography, they produce patterns on the surface, then use conventional etching processes to remove unwanted graphene.
"We are doing lithography, which is completely familiar to those who work in microelectronics," said de Heer. "It's exactly what is done in microelectronics, but with a different material. That is the appeal of this process."
Using electron beam lithography, they've created feature sizes as small as 80 nanometers - on the way toward a goal of 10 nanometers with the help of a new nanolithographer in Georgia Tech's Microelectronics Research Center. The graphene circuitry demonstrates high electron mobility - up to 25,000 square centimeters per volt-second, showing that electrons move with little scattering. The researchers have also shown electronic coherence at near room temperature, and evidence of quantum interference effects. They expect to see ballistic transport when they make structures small enough.
So far, they have built an all graphene planar field-effect transistor. The side-gated device produces a change in resistance through its channel when voltage is applied to the gate. However, this first device has a substantial current leak, which the team expects to eliminate with minor processing adjustments.
The researchers have also built a working quantum interference device, a ring-shaped structure that would be useful in manipulating electronic waves.
The key to properties of the new circuitry is the width of the ribbons, which confine the electrons in a quantum effect similar to that seen in carbon nanotubes. The width of the ribbon controls the material's band-gap. Other structures, such as sensing molecules, could be attached to the edges of the ribbons, which are normally passivated by hydrogen atoms.
De Heer and collaborators began working on graphene in 2001 and received support from Intel in 2003. They later received a Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) award from the U.S. National Science Foundation. They have filed one patent for their methods of fabricating graphene circuitry.
De Heer and his colleagues expect to continue improving their materials and fabrication processes, while producing and testing new structures. "We have taken the first step of a very long road," de Heer said. "Building a new class of electronics based on graphene is going to be very difficult and require the efforts of many people."
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Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
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Writer: John Toon
]]>By combining the new magnetic separation process with traditional gravity-driven separation, the technique could lead to more efficient production of specialty chemicals - and a reduction in waste normally produced by separation processes. The research was reported March 13 in the online preview version of the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
"We have developed a way to do multiple reactions in a single vessel while being able to recover the catalysts in pure form for reuse," explained Christopher W. Jones, an associate professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "By doing the reactions in a single vessel, we can cut out two or three separation steps to provide both an economic advantage and an environmentally benign process."
Separations using magnetic catalysts have been limited by a tendency of the nanoparticles to clump together because of their magnetic attraction for one another. The clumping dramatically reduces their catalytic activity.
To overcome this problem, the Georgia Tech researchers used nanometer-scale magnetic particles that are so small (5 to 20 nanometers in diameter) that they no longer exhibit a net magnetic attraction. But these superparamagnetic nanoparticles, developed by the research group of Z. John Zhang in Georgia Tech's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, are attracted to an external magnetic source, providing a mechanism for separating them in pure form from the reaction vessel.
"These magnetic nanoparticles work well as catalyst supports because they are very small and so have a high surface area that allows creation of many catalytic sites for high activity levels," Jones said. "Because they are superparamagnetic, they remain suspended in the reaction vessel and do not clump together until a magnetic source is brought near them."
Traditional batch chemical production involves a sequence of paired chemical reaction and separation steps at the end of which the desired chemical product must be removed from the excess reactants, waste products and catalyst. The separation steps, which often require substantial energy inputs, add significant cost to the overall process.
To reduce the number of separations required, researchers have developed 'one-pot' processes in which multiple reactions take place without intermediate separation. However, separations still must be done at the end of the combined reaction steps.
The new technique would allow more than one catalyst to be recovered and reused at the end of the one-pot reactions. Jones envisions the new process being used in the specialty chemical and pharmaceutical industries which produce relatively small volumes of high-value chemicals.
"For a specialty chemical company, you could imagine having a library of different catalysts that could be recovered by traditional methods and a library of magnetic catalysts recovered by magnetic means," he explained. "You could mix and match them to do different one-pot reactions depending on the needs."
In demonstrating the first example of a multi-step, one-pot reaction in which the catalysts could be recovered in pure form, the researchers controlled the reaction process by varying temperatures and pressures and controlling when reactants were introduced.
Because of its simplicity, Jones expects the new one-pot technique could be immediately put to use for chemical reactions that require only organic active sites on the catalysts. For more complex processes, additional time would be required to develop the necessary catalysts.
Ultimately, economics will determine where the process is used. "Anything that can be done in the chemical industry to reduce the number of separations can greatly reduce the cost of making a product," Jones said. "If you could cut the cost of synthesis by as little as 20 percent, that would have a huge impact."
For the future, Jones and Zhang envision using multiple catalysts whose magnetic properties would be tuned for activation at different temperatures, allowing them to be separated independently.
"Over the past few years, we have made great progress in developing a fundamental understanding of the magnetic properties of these nanoparticles," Zhang said. "By carefully choosing their composition, we can design the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles to fit the requirements of the processing conditions."
Jones and collaborators Nam T.S. Phan, Christopher S. Gill and Joseph V. Nguyen began their demonstration by functionalizing superparamagnetic spinel ferrite (CoFe2O4) nanoparticles through silane chemistry to create surface base sites. The basic nanoparticle solids were then used in conjunction with a sulfonic acid polymer resin in the tandem deactealization-Knoevenagel reaction. Both catalysts and all the reagents were added to the vessel at the same time, and the chemical reaction took place over a 30-minute period.
After the reaction, the non-magnetic catalyst was removed from the vessel by decantation while a small permanent magnet held the magnetic catalyst to the vessel wall. After separation, the recovered catalysts we analyzed for signs of contamination and then reused in other multi-step one-pot chemical reactions without loss of catalytic activity.
Supported by an exploratory research grant from the National Science Foundation and by Georgia Tech internal research funding, the project demonstrates how the unique properties of nanometer-scale materials can find real-world applications.
"Here, nanotechnology allows us to do something that is commercially relevant and environmentally benign," Jones said. "The understanding of magnetic properties at the nanoscale allowed us to put a magnetic catalyst and a non-magnetic catalyst together, do a reaction, and then separate them."
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Writer: John Toon
]]>The Innovolt device, called a current-inrush voltage surge suppressor, is designed to protect electronic equipment from both current and voltage surges. Traditionally, surge protectors have addressed only voltage surges, said Deepak Divan, a Georgia Tech professor who invented Innovolt's core technology and serves as chairman and chief technology officer for Innovolt.
"I had worked in the power protection area for many years, and I was puzzled that equipment was still being damaged in the field despite the application of transient voltage surge suppression or TVSS devices," Divan explained. "I started digging and found that although lightning strikes are routinely blamed for damage, there is very little data that supports that."
Further research, he says, revealed that the culprit was not voltage surges but current-inrush surges -- electrical current spikes that follow a power disturbance called a voltage sag. Such sags typically show up as a momentary flickering of lights. Then, as electrical flow recovers, current surges can damage every type of electronics equipment from consumer to industrial.
"We have found that for every voltage surge that the equipment faces, there are probably 100 current surges," Divan said. "And it can be a huge jump. On different kinds of typical equipment, we have measured current-inrush surges of 60 times the normal current rating."
In electrical circuits, voltage is an energy-related measure, analogous to water pressure in a pipe. Current is a measure of the flow of charge in a circuit, analogous to the amount of water flowing through a pipe.
Innovolt's answer is the current-inrush voltage surge suppressor (CVSS), based on Divan's patent-pending inventions in the field. Innovolt's protection devices combine current-inrush suppression with the traditional transient voltage surge suppression found in existing surge suppressors.
"We see this as a next generation device, not as a completely different type of technology," Divan said. "The users will not have to wonder if they need voltage or current protection - they will have both."
The company has completed initial product development, and its dual-technology devices are ready for beta testing in the field, says Uday D. Karra, Innovolt's chief executive officer.
Innovolt has secured an exclusive license to the underlying patents and technology from the Georgia Tech Research Corporation, he says, and is seeking early adopter partners to participate in beta testing, as well as second-round funding.
First-round funding for product development has come from various sources. VentureLab has received $50,000 from the Georgia Research Alliance to assist in commercializing the current-inrush technology under license to Innovolt.
Innovolt executives envision a line of equipment protection devices that will help protect anything containing electronics, from televisions and computers to industrial equipment. The company's business model calls for it to both manufacture and license its technology, depending on business opportunities.
Both Divan and Karra are veterans of previous successful business ventures. Divan, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, started Soft Switching Technologies in 1995, developing a line of power line-conditioning products for factories.
Karra recently served as chief software architect and CEO of Lumenor, an Atlanta company that offered financial software and services to banking, energy and telecommunications industries.
"Both of us are seasoned entrepreneurs," Karra said. "Yet VentureLab and Commercialization Services have been of tremendous help in getting this technology out of the lab and into the real world. They've been the facilitators, helping us to navigate through the system."
Georgia Tech's Commercialization Services, a division of the Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures, helps identify Georgia Tech innovations with potential commercial value. When it finds a promising technology, Commercialization Services either helps negotiate technology-licensing agreements with existing companies, or its VentureLab unit assists fledgling companies through the critical feasibility and first-funding phases.
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Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>In today's electronics world analog chips perform a vital role, taking real-world information such as audio, video and temperature and converting it to the digital form that computers use.
But many researchers say analog's advantages go much farther, extending to the areas of power consumption, size, and heat generation that are critical to today's handheld devices.
Colleges and universities that train analog engineers are few and elite. The San Jose Mercury News, a Silicon Valley newspaper, recently published an article focusing on Georgia Tech, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley as top centers of advanced analog education.
"The world analog market is topping $32 billion a year and growing," said Joy Laskar, director of the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC), a Georgia Tech center that specializes in research and design of 'mixed-signal' -- analog and digital -- applications. "Our 41 industry partners keep a careful eye on both our research and our students."
The technology business world of today is excited about analog ICs, says Young Kim, vice president of business development for GTronix Inc., an analog chip design company located in Fremont, Calif., and Atlanta, Ga., that has Georgia Tech roots.
"We were one of the rare cases where a top-tier venture capital firm funded us based on purely the potential of the technology," he said. "And that is because of the quality and potential of the technology that was researched within GEDC."
GTronix has closed on a second round of funding from Menlo Ventures, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm with $3.9 billion under management. The new capital infusion was in the "low double-digit millions," Kim said. Deliveries of initial products aimed at the audio-applications market are probable in the 2006 second quarter, he adds.
Other analog-oriented companies to come out of Georgia Tech include RF Solutions of Norcross, Ga., acquired in 2003 by New Jersey-based Anadigics Inc., and Quellan Inc., based in Santa Clara, Calif.; Atlanta, and Tokyo.
Analog's most important virtue may be its capacity to do many tasks that digital chips can - and do them better, says Paul Hasler, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and an analog research specialist at GEDC. Hasler, who is GTronix's chief science officer, runs the Cooperative Analog/Digital Signal Processing Lab within GEDC.
"Analog's biggest advantage is that it burns a lot less power," said Hasler, who is also director of the Georgia Tech Analog Consortium, a research group within GEDC. "It's a factor of a thousand or so when it's done right."
While a typical digital circuit operating at one watt might run an hour or two with a given battery, he explains, the equivalent analog circuit might last more than a month.
"When you're looking at an hour versus a month timeframe in terms of your battery life, that's pretty impressive," he said.
Analog's other advantages include small size and low heat production, explains David V. Anderson, an ECE professor who works with Hasler at GEDC. That means analog circuits may be preferable for many tasks suited to future mobile devices, including speech recognition, audio processing, and image and video processing.
Anderson has been researching reconfigurable analog and mixed-signal systems at GEDC. The traditional problem with analog systems, he says, is that users cannot simply just change function by changing what's in memory, as they can with a digital system. Instead, they have had to go through a costly and time-consuming design process.
GEDC researchers, he says, have developed analog chips that can be reconfigured on the fly to perform a variety of tasks.
"Now, it's essentially just a software change - and then this analog chip can do a different type of processing," Anderson said.
Such reconfigurable analog chips are not as adaptable as digital chips, but are more so than previous analog designs, he adds. In an audio analog chip, for example, one algorithm might clean up audio, and then switch to modem processing with a simple software change.
Analog's capabilities are familiar ground to National Semiconductor Corp. (NSC), a Santa Clara, Calif., company with $1.91 billion in sales in FY 2005. NSC's core area of expertise involves analog chips, principally RF and mixed-signal ICs.
"There's been an analog resurgence in the past five years," said Dennis Monticelli, chief technologist and fellow at NSC. "And it's back because of the user experience."
Digital technology, he explains, makes information easier to store, copy and transmit. But getting that information to human beings means going through the analog world -- sound, video and power management depend on analog chips.
"When cell phone became digital," Monticelli pointed out, "the analog content of the cell phone actually increased, both to support digital chips with data conversion and power as well as to later add popular functions such as ring tones, MP3, and color displays."
Like a number of other companies, NSC keeps close ties to schools with strong analog-engineering programs. During the 1990s, Monticelli says, many universities backed off analog education and heavily emphasized digital.
"Georgia Tech was one of those schools that maintained a balance between digital and analog," Monticelli said. "We value our relationship there, and Joy Laskar as director of GEDC has helped the analog effort grow. We can choose the professors we would like to work with, and we get to work with some top students. We have a design center in Atlanta, and some Georgia Tech students wind up working there as well as in some of our other U.S. sites."
Gary May, who chairs Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, agrees that the combination of academic training and direct contact with industry helps put budding engineers on a solid career track.
"The Georgia Tech Analog Consortium has had a long history of success in preparing students for successful careers in industry," said May, who is Steve W. Chaddick School Chair. "Through GTAC's industrial fellowship program, graduate students can gain valuable work experience at leading electronics companies who are members of the Consortium. These internships can oftentimes lead to full-time employment."
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Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>Based on intellectual property from the Georgia Institute of Technology, EndoSure is the first implantable pressure sensor that combines wireless and microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology to receive FDA clearance.
"This is a significant milestone that validates our product is safe and relevant," says David Stern, CardioMEMS' chief executive, noting that the FDA based its 510(k) clearance on results from an international clinical study involving more than 100 hospital patients in the United States as well as Brazil, Argentina and Canada.
Better results, less hassle
Officially known as the EndoSure Wireless AAA Pressure Measurement System, CardioMEMs⢠innovative device measures blood pressure in people who have an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Ruptures from this weakening of the lower aorta rank as the 13th leading cause of death in the United States. Although doctors can treat the bulging artery with a stent graft, stents can fail, so aneurysm patients require lifetime monitoring.
Yet traditional testing methods, such as CT scans, are expensive and time-consuming. What's more, CT scans are limited in scope because they only reveal the size of an aneurysm. In contrast, the EndoSure monitors pressure inside the aneurysm sac - the most important measurement for doctors to know.
CardioMEMS also makes testing easier for both doctors and patients. About the size of a paper clip, the EndoSure sensor is implanted along with the stent graft during endovascular repair. During checkups, patients don't need to remove clothing: Doctors merely wave an antenna in front of the patient's chest, and low-power radio-frequency waves activate the EndoSure system, relaying pressure measurements to an external receiver and monitor.
"Initial demand is extremely encouraging, and we're working hard to get the product out to our new customers," says Stern, noting that EndoSure is compatible with all commercially available stents.
In addition to FDA clearance, CardioMEMS achieved another milestone when it closed on $16 million in financing in December. Leading this Series C round was new investor Medtronic, a Minneapolis-based manufacturer of implantable biomedical devices. Several previous investors also participated in the financing: Boston Millennia Partners, Foundation Medical Partners, Arboretum Ventures, Guidant Corp. and Johnson & Johnson Development Corp.
Outside investment in CardioMEMS now totals about $32 million - no small achievement. In fact, the company was tapped as one of the Georgia Biomedical Partnership's "Deal of the Year" winners for 2006, an award recognizing companies that have advanced the state's bioscience industry.
Doctor-engineer duo
Observers link CardioMEMS' success partly to its approach to commercialization. "Instead of a technology looking for a home, CardioMEMS clearly identified a market need that required a technology solution," points out Lee Herron, general manager of biosciences at the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Georgia Tech's incubator for high-tech startups. "When it comes to tech transfer at universities, it's often the other way around," he explains.
CardioMEMS traces its roots to an unlikely duo: Dr. Jay Yadav, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and chairman of CCF Innovations, and Mark Allen, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the school's MEMS research group.
Having previously founded AngioGuard, a company that developed the first filter to prevent emboli during surgery, Yadav was interested in applying MEMS technology to medical devices. (MEMS uses micro-machining fabrication to build electrical and mechanical systems at the micron scale -- one-millionth of a meter. Although MEMS was originally developed for the integrated circuit industry, it's an attractive platform for medical devices because mechanical, sensory and computational functions can be placed on a single chip.)
Intrigued by several of Allen's published papers on MEMS, Yadav traveled to Georgia Tech to meet the engineer. Allen had already developed microsensors that could monitor the performance of turbine engines in military aircraft, but he and Yadav believed that the technology could be adapted to measure heart and blood pressure in people.
Although Allen had been involved in a previous startup -- Redeon, a pioneer in micro-needle technology - CardioMEMS marked his first experience commercializing a biocompatible medical device. "Developing an implantable sensor for humans has been very exciting," Allen says. "It's opened a whole new application area for me to think about where MEMS technology could go."
CardioMEMS is already extending its core technology to other products. In the works are:
* A sensor that measures intracardiac pressure in people who suffer from congestive heart failure. After successful testing on animals, clinical trials began in February with a successful implantation in a patient's pulmonary artery in Santiago, Chile.
* A sensor that measures blood pressure in patients with thoracic aorta aneurysms.
* Devices to help hypertension patients monitor their condition at home and adjust medication.
Leveraging Georgia Tech resources
Georgia Tech has played an important role in CardioMEMS' growth, agree its founders.
For starters, the licensing process went smoothly, says Yadav, noting that Georgia Tech was "very professional." And having access to micromachining equipment and cleanrooms at Georgia Tech's Microelectronics Research Center (MiRC) was a critical resource, saving the company millions of dollars during prototype development.
"A lot of our processes, such as photolithography and wafer bonding, have to be carried out in clean environment because even small amounts of dust could destroy the devices we're trying to make," Allen explains. "Georgia Tech's MiRC is one of the few places in the state where that kind of technology can be done."
CardioMEMS has also benefited from the school's talent pool. A majority of the company's senior engineers are Georgia Tech graduates and many part-time workers are students from the school.
Being a member of ATDC, Georgia Tech's incubator for high-tech startups, has also been a plus. "ATDC has been very accommodating," Yadav says. "We expanded several times, and they always managed to find us space."
Last year marked a particular growth spurt when CardioMEMS more than doubled its size, growing from about 30 to 70 employees. CardioMEMS graduated from ATDC last summer, but continues to maintain headquarters in Technology Square. The company also has lab space in the ATDC Biosciences Center.
"Having our offices so close to Georgia Tech not only makes it easier for me to remain in a consulting role but also for our engineers to access university resources," Allen observes.
Among startups formed from university research, CardioMEMS has been one of Georgia Tech's biomedical pioneers. "The fact that CardioMEMS is starting to gain traction shows how the school's investment in bioscience resources and infrastructure is starting to pay off," says Kevin Wozniak, associate director of Georgia Tech's Office of Technology Licensing. He refers to an initiative that began in the late 1990s and paved the way for a new four-building complex as well as new partnerships such as Emtech Bio, an incubator devoted to the formation of life-science companies.
Because life-science companies are prized for generating high-paying jobs, CardioMEMS' growth is good news for Georgia.
"I think we're helping change a misperception that there's no medical device industry in Atlanta," Stern says. "Granted, you wouldn't compare it to Minneapolis or Boston, but there are there are several other firms here and our progress creates additional visibility for that market in Atlanta. Success breeds success, helping attract more companies and investors."
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Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
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Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>The new hybrid system could allow dual wired/wireless transmission of the same content such as high-definition television, data and voice up to 100 times faster than current networks. The new architecture would reduce the cost of providing dramatically improved service to conference centers, airports, hotels, shopping malls - and ultimately to homes and small offices.
"The same services would be provided to customers who would either plug into the wired connection in the wall or access the same information through a wireless system," explained Gee-Kung Chang, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "In an airport, for instance, a traveler could watch a movie, talk to a friend and work interactively through a wireless system or by plugging into the wall."
Chang described the network architecture and experimental demonstrations of it March 10th at the OFC/NFOEC optical conference in Anaheim, Calif. Chang, who holds the Byers Endowed Chair in Optical Networks at Georgia Tech, is also a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and a researcher at Georgia Tech Broadband Institute in the Georgia Centers for Advanced Telecommunications Technology (GCATT).
Today, telecommunications providers generally supply services that are either all-wireless, through cellular telephones or similar devices, or all-wired - through DSL, cable or optical access network. As wireless providers seek to provide new bandwidth-intensive services such as video, music and high-speed Internet access, however, the bandwidth needs of wired and wireless services are converging.
The optical-wireless access network envisioned by Chang and his colleagues would connect to existing optical fiber networks that already serve much of the nation. But before entering a building, signals on the optical fiber would be optically up-converted in the central office from their normal infrared wavelengths to the millimeter-wave spectrum. Using a technique developed at Georgia Tech, wireless and baseband signals carried by multiple wavelengths would be converted onto the millimeter-wave carrier simultaneously.
The conversion would be done using one of several all-optical techniques such as external modulator, four-wave mixing (FWM) or cross-phase modulation (XPM) that would not require costly high-frequency electronic devices. The resulting signal would be split into two components and carried by passive optical network (PON) infrastructure installed throughout a building.
One component of the signal would be detected by high-speed receivers built into the ceilings of rooms, then amplified for short-range wireless transmission at frequencies of 40 to 60 gigahertz. The other signal component - carrying identical information - would be accessed through standard wall outlet throughout the building using a low-cost receiver and optical filter.
Either way, users could receive signals at data rates of up to 2.5 gigabits per second, significantly faster than service provided by most Wi-Fi or WiMax systems used at Internet hot-spots and other service areas.
Upstream - from the user back into the network - the system would only need to provide less capacity - likely less than one gigabit per second per user.
Because the capacity of optical fiber is so high, this optical-wireless network could use wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) to carry as many as 32 different channels, each providing 2.5 gigabit-per-second service. That would allow users within buildings to subscribe to services from many different providers, each with their own content.
"You could have one network shared by many providers because bandwidth is not a limitation once you combine the advantages of optical and wireless access systems," Chang noted. "If you look into the future, the broadest bandwidth possible would come through combining and integrating optical and wireless services in a single network."
In his laboratory, Chang and colleagues Jianjun Yu, Zhensheng Jia, Yong-Kee Yeo, and Benny Bing have already demonstrated transmission of 32 wavefronts, each with 2.5 gigabit per second wireless service.
Chang has been talking with telecommunications providers about the new network architecture, and says it could be commercially available within five to seven years. But he agrees that even with many groups world-wide working on the issue, there're many technical challenges remain.
A key issue will be reducing the cost of the components. For commercial locations such as airports, hotels and convention centers, those costs could be shared by many users, Chang points out. But before the service could be cost-competitive for the home or even small-office, home office (SOHO) market, equipment costs will have to drop.
Another issue will be antenna designs for delivering high-speed wireless to specific areas of a building without interfering with service in adjoining spaces. To meet those challenges, Chang is collaborating with Manos Tentzeris and John Papapolymerou, two Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering professors who are also part of the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC).
Chang is also working on efficient coding methods to deliver robust packets and bit streams under adverse environment such as RF blocking and fading of wireless signals inside the building. To meet these challenges, Chang is working with Faramarz Fekri, a professor in School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, to devise coding schemes that would extend the range of millimeter-wave transmission or reduce the bit error rate of transmission by intelligently using a small overhead in packets.
Companies such as NEC and BellSouth are already working on components integration and systems requirements needed for the hybrid optical-wireless communications network. Integrating the system components may be the most challenging part of the implementation and network deployment.
"We want to keep the mobility and easy of access that you find in wireless hot-spots, but we are shooting for the highest speed possible for wireless," Chang added. "The interface between the optical and wireless is critical. A lot of people are interested in this kind of research, but to make this practical, we need industry and universities working together."
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Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: G.K. Chang (404-385-2712); E-mail: (geekung.chang@ece.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The 'Fragmented Aperture Antenna,' a computer-designed planar system, has already demonstrated a 33-to-1 bandwidth - well beyond the 10-to-1 ratio achieved by conventional designs. The researchers believe they can extend that range to at least 100-to-1 for use in radar and communication applications.
"Phased array antennas take up space, and if you must have a different antenna for every function - communications, radar and other tasks - the space required can be considerable," noted Paul Friederich, a principal research engineer in GTRI's Signature Technology Lab (STL). "On any military platform, space is at a premium. Our antenna can replace five conventional antennas, which would reduce the weight and volume required for antennas."
The GTRI ultra-wideband antenna would also have applications in most Department of Defense agencies. Current ships must carry dozens of antennas - a problem for all ships, especially submarines. Aircraft have limited surface area for antennas, with weight always a concern. Ground vehicles and even individual soldiers could benefit from reducing the number of antennas they must carry, Friederich noted.
Because it is flat and can be conformed to surfaces, the new antenna design could also have commercial applications, Friederich noted.
Key to the new GTRI design was taking advantage of electronic interaction between antenna elements known as 'mutual coupling.' For years, antenna designers had been taught to minimize this interaction. But with their detailed computer modeling, the GTRI engineers realized they could take advantage of it by electrically connecting the elements.
"Instead of trying to avoid mutual coupling, we designed it into the antenna where it actually provides a lot of benefits - including allowing us to have an extremely wide bandwidth," explained Jim Maloney, an STL principal research engineer. "What everybody used to avoid was actually the silver bullet that makes this work."
The 33-to-1 antennas are flat and include three layers of metal foil fabricated in computer-designed patterns using printed circuit board technology. A prototype that works down to 300 MHz is16 inches square and about three inches thick - providing a substantial size, weight and volume savings over conventional 'egg crate' antennas.
"The advantage of this technology is that it is manufactured using planar printed circuit boards," Maloney said. "We just laminate them together so they are flat. The conformal nature of these antennas also provides an advantage."
Beyond their circuitry pattern, the antennas also need a backplane to reflect electromagnetic energy - and protect the electronic control equipment behind the antenna. The new antenna also relies on computer-designed innovations there: a 'broadband screen backplane' made up of foam and partially-conductive films.
"This is a materials sandwich that we designed using our computer modeling codes," explained Friederich. "We had to make a new backplane that would be compatible with the extreme bandwidths so it wouldn't degrade the antenna performance, so we developed a laminate of foam and partially-conducting layers to do that in an optimal way."
Beyond the technical issues they had to overcome, the researchers also faced skepticism from their colleagues - and an antenna test system that was designed for conventional devices. For instance, they had to evaluate their 33-to-1 device in three different antenna test facilities to cover the entire frequency range.
GTRI has been working on the ultra wideband antenna for nearly a decade, building new technology on top of detailed computer models.
"Nobody could really study the mutual coupling effects until computers became good enough to evaluate what would happen when you moved elements around and changed their shapes in the presence of other elements," said Maloney. "One of our strengths is an ability to do very detailed and accurate numerical models of antenna performance. We can determine how antennas are going to perform without having to build them."
The new design will reduce antenna volume and weight. By simplifying construction of the radiating structures, the antenna electronics become the driver of the overall cost. Long term savings there will depend on advances in microelectronics fabrication, Friederich cautioned.
Beyond potential use on military aircraft, ships and ground vehicles, the technology developed in GTRI could also have applications for devices that would not need broad bandwidth - such as wearable antennas that could be incorporated into military uniforms or even tents. The conformal nature of the devices could also open up commercial applications, though cost could be an obstacle.
"Now that we have shown the antenna works, we are in a consolidation phase of work in which we're trying to figure out which bandwidths make sense for particular applications, and we working with corporate partners to design the electronics that will be needed," added Friederich. "It's just a matter of time before we see these antennas begin appearing on military platforms."
Beyond Friederich and Maloney, development of the antenna has involved Doug Denison, Lynn Fountain, Brad Baker, Eric Kuster, Stephen Blalock, James Fraley and a number of co-op and graduate students.
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: Paul Friederich (404-894-3272); E-mail: (paul.friederich@gtri.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>The restructuring brings new and established Georgia Tech programs together into a broadly integrated initiative designed to help industry, entrepreneurs, economic developers and communities become more competitive through the application of science, technology and innovation.
Creation of the Enterprise Innovation Institute represents the first major reorganization of Georgia Tech's economic development and business assistance programs since the Economic Development Institute (EDI) was formed in 1993. The changes affect all activities of Georgia Tech's former Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures, including the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) business incubator, VentureLab research commercialization effort, Commercialization Services initiative and former Economic Development Institute.
Supporting Georgia Tech's goal of defining the technological university of the 21st century, the new organization will expand efforts to identify and transfer key innovations likely to have significant impacts on local, state and national economies. Plans for the restructuring grew out of consultations with key Georgia Tech stakeholders, findings of the 2005 Georgia Manufacturing Survey, and recommendations from the National Innovation Initiative co-chaired by Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough.
"The future viability of local, state and national economies will depend largely on their ability to successful apply science, technology and innovation," said Georgia Tech Provost Jean-Lou Chameau. "Through the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech will bring its considerable resources to bear on helping enterprises of all types become more competitive in today's global marketplace."
A leader in science and engineering education and with a research program totaling more than $400 million per year, Georgia Tech is a major developer of science and technology innovations. Building on these new technologies and collaborating with like-minded organizations, the Enterprise Innovation Institute will work with the private sector to apply innovations to real marketplace needs, he said.
"The rapid and dramatic changes taking place throughout the world mean U.S. companies can no longer compete just by reducing costs and boosting efficiency," said Georgia Tech Vice Provost Wayne Hodges, who heads the new organization. "Business is now global and companies must complete on the basis of innovation. To succeed in the future, companies must be able to develop and commercialize innovative products, processes and services ahead of their competition."
Beyond driving innovation into business, industry and government, he explained, the new Enterprise Innovation Institute will also make Georgia Tech's services to industry and communities more customer-focused, more closely tied to the strengths of the institution, and better able to take advantage of Georgia Tech's expertise. It will also expand efforts to form new companies and create new commercialization opportunities based on technology developed by Georgia Tech researchers.
"Because of its research and service programs, and participation in national competitiveness initiatives, Georgia Tech is uniquely positioned to help our state's companies and communities both understand and meet the challenges ahead," Hodges added.
Underscoring the challenges facing Georgia companies, the 2005 Georgia Manufacturing Survey found that 18 percent of the state's manufacturers had lost business to international outsourcing between 2002 and 2004. But on a more hopeful note, the survey also found that companies relying on innovation for a competitive edge enjoyed larger sales margins, paid higher wages - and had less to fear from outsourcing than did companies relying on other forms of competition.
The new Enterprise Innovation Institute provides services through four primary units organized by customer group:
- Industry Services, which focuses on industrial customers around the state. This unit includes the Georgia Tech Regional Office Network; Atlanta-based centers that focus on such productivity improvements such as quality, lean enterprise, energy and environmental management; and federally-supported programs such as the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center.
- Commercialization Services, which focuses on moving technology out of the laboratory and into the marketplace. Commercialization Services identifies Georgia Tech innovations with potential commercial value, works with faculty to determine the best path for commercializing the technology, helps license technology established companies, and - where appropriate - involves experienced entrepreneurs in forming new companies.
- Entrepreneur Services, which focuses on meeting the needs of emerging companies around the state. The unit includes the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), the Georgia Statewide Minority Business Enterprise Center, the Centers of Innovation program and the new SBIR Assistance Program for the State of Georgia, which helps eligible companies win federal R&D grants.
- Community Policy and Research Services, which brings innovation to local and state government entities while conducting technology-based research and policy projects that help communities provide a supportive environment for business and industry. The group's best-known services are WebFIT, which helps communities anticipate the results of land-use decisions, and LOCI, which assess the economic impact of development.
A fifth new unit, the Strategic Partners Office, assists companies seeking to develop Georgia Tech relationships, serving as bridge to a broad range of campus-based resources and people.
"We see a need for more strategic and comprehensive assistance to these companies that are forward-thinking and interested in innovation," Hodges said of the Strategic Partners Office. "Expanding our relationships with them will help create synergies between Georgia Tech assistance programs that will boost both their value and impact."
To learn more about the Enterprise Innovation Institute, please visit (innovate.gatech.edu).
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: (john.toon@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>These polymers have several advantages over existing biodegradable polymers, researchers said. Among them, the polymers - called polyketals - are biodegradable into Food and Drug Administration-approved compounds. Synthesis is a simple and easily customized process. Degradation of the polymer does not produce inflammation-causing acid, but instead generates membrane-permeable products that allow all of the polymer's byproducts to diffuse outside the cell. That means byproducts shouldn't accumulate in a patient's tissue and cause inflammation.
"We've known for 20 to 30 years that when cells take up particles, they move them to a part of the cell with a low pH -- about 5.0," said Niren Murthy, an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. "Researchers have been able to successfully exploit this process in cell culture and in animal models, but have done so using materials that generated acid degradation products and that hydrolyzed too slowly for chronic use. Thus, there has been very little clinical activity in this area."
However, polyketal nanoparticles use the cell's acid to hydrolyze into hydrophilic compounds that can release encapsulated therapeutics at an accelerated rate in the acidic environments to which they are targeted, Murthy explained. Also, unlike polyester-based biomaterials, polyketal nanoparticles do not generate acid when they degrade. Researchers don't know yet whether polyketals will be less inflammatory than current polymers used for drug delivery, but expect to evaluate this response within the next year.
Murthy presented information on the development and potential applications of polyketals March 27 at the 231st American Chemical Society National Meeting in Atlanta. His collaborators are Emory University immunologist Bali Pulendran, University of Rochester physician Robert Pierce, and Georgia Tech graduate students Michael Heffernan and Stephen Yang. Their research -- under way for the past two and a half years -- is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Development of the polymer was a surprisingly straightforward process, Murthy said. "There is a reaction that is well known in synthetic organic chemistry called the acetal exchange reaction," he explained. "We can change this reaction a little bit and use it to make these polymers. It's normally a reaction used to protect alcohols, but when you make it react with a molecule with two alcohols, it makes this polymer."
Because this chemical process is a simple one, it is feasible for production of the polymer on an industrial scale, potentially making it widely available, Murthy said.
"We have a lot of flexibility in terms of the types of alcohols we incorporate into the polymer," he added. "We can tailor the polymer's hydrolysis rates and mechanical properties, which would broaden its medical applications. For example, in some cases you want drug delivery faster than others. With acute liver failure, you want drug release in one to two days, whereas with arthritis, you want release over one to two months."
In addition to its simple synthesis, another advantage of polyketals is their degradation process, which generates membrane-permeable products, Murthy said.
"The problem with using polyesters as drug delivery vehicles is that most of the illnesses being treated are chronic diseases requiring weekly injections, yet polyesters take months to degrade," he noted. "Polyketals hydrolyze in a week, diffuse out of the cell and are then excreted outside of the cell."
Researchers hope to test polyketals in clinical trials within five years if animal model studies show potential. To date, Pierce has done some testing in mice to treat acute liver failure. He injected polyketal nanoparticles in mice, and the polyketals delivered them to the animals' livers. But researchers don't know yet whether their system can deliver treatment in vivo. The answer to that question is about a year away, Murthy added.
Potential applications of polyketals include the delivery of anti-oxidants to treat acute liver failure in people who have suffered an alcohol or acetaminophen overdose. In these patients, the liver stops functioning because macrophage cells in the liver create reactive oxygen species. One of the treatments is the delivery of superoxide dismutase, an enzyme that essentially detoxifies superoxide.
Other applications include the use of polyketals in any type of protein-based vaccine, Murthy said, adding that researchers have not yet pursued this possibility. Yet another application is protein delivery for a wide range of therapeutics, including insulin delivery for Type 1 diabetics - alleviating the need for multiple injections.
In mid-2005, Georgia Tech, Emory and the University of Rochester filed two provisional patent applications on the polyketal drug delivery system. Murthy noted that a Japanese patent filed in 2001 described the same polymerization process, but used it to make photo resists, rather than a drug delivery system.
Researchers have discussed the start up of a biomedical company based on this technology, but first they must have some compelling data from animal studies. If they pursue commercialization, the process could potentially be done within Emtech Bio, an early-stage biosciences business incubator operated by Emory University and Georgia Tech.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu)
Technical Contacts:
1. Niren Murthy, Georgia Tech (404-385-5145); E-mail: (niren.murthy@bme.gatech.edu)
2. Bali Pulendran, Emory University (404-727-8945); E-mail: (bali.pulendran@emory.edu)
3. Robert Pierce, University of Rochester (585-275-1874); E-mail: (robert_pierce@urmc.rochester.edu
Writer: Jane Sanders
]]>That concern can be clearly seen among the startup companies formed in Georgia Tech's VentureLab program, which is assisting more than a half-dozen early-stage companies that are pursuing clean-technology products and services. These new technologies range from renewable fuels and high-efficiency solar cells to hurricane forecasting and tiny jet-like devices that could reduce aircraft-fuel consumption.
Georgia Tech is well positioned to pursue clean technology and renewable energy. Among its many interdisciplinary research centers are the University Center of Excellence for Photovoltaics Research and Education, the Center for Innovative Fuel Cell and Battery Technology, the Strategic Energy Initiative, the Institute for Sustainable Technology and Development, and the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics.
"Our clean-tech companies have one aim in common - to use Georgia Tech discoveries to make a number of things happen in a more environmentally sensitive and economically viable way," said Stephen Fleming, Georgia Tech's chief commercialization officer.
Commercialization Services, a unit of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute, identifies, evaluates and promotes Georgia Tech innovations with potential commercial value. Most such discoveries fall into two categories: the majority are licensed to established corporations, while a few - about one in 10 -- have the right stuff to form the basis for new companies.
These new-company candidates typically come under the wing of VentureLab, a Commercialization Services unit that assists fledgling businesses through the critical feasibility and first-funding phases. Ben Hill and Jon Goldman, business advisers with VentureLab, work with clean tech and renewable energy companies and projects.
"Mounting concern has made clean tech and renewable energy an important business area," said Hill. "We think that a lot of Georgia Tech research can be developed into companies that will help Georgia's economy as well as the environment."
VentureLab is currently advising a number of "clean-tech" startups, including:
C2 Biofuels is an outgrowth of a Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Initiative (SEI) project that seeks to develop fuel-ethanol production from biomass material available in large quantities in the Southeast, including Southern yellow pine. This business is supported by Sam Shelton of SEI and the Georgia Tech School of Mechanical Engineering and Bill Bulpitt of SEI. In addition, a team at the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the University of Georgia is helping to evaluate and develop processes and technologies. The startup is led by Roger Reisert, a Georgia Tech alumnus who has designed, built and operated refineries.
Climate Forecast Applications develops tools to forecast cyclones and hurricanes 10 to 30 days ahead, a service that would be valuable to utility, energy and risk-management companies, and to agriculture. The work is based on research by Judith Curry of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Peter Webster of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
WiSPI focuses on methanol-based fuel cells that can be integrated onto silicon chips, enabling self-powered, wireless sensors that could monitor everything from soil moisture content to weather patterns and secure areas. Such technology, which could have extensive business, military and consumer uses, is based on the work of Paul Kohl of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Kohl is teamed with David Kelly, a seasoned executive.
LumoFlex is developing organic photovoltaic materials that could result in substantial power savings in a number of products. The company derives from research by Seth Marder of the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Bernard Kippelen of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Ajeetco is a solar-energy company that is using high-efficiency polycrystalline silicon films to produce large-scale photovoltaic solar panels. It is based on research by Ajeet Rohatgi of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and University Center of Excellence for Photovoltaics Research and Education.
Other projects in the pipeline include:
Plum Combustion, which uses stagnation point reverse flow combustion to enable efficient burning, thus obtaining low-NOx emissions without catalysts. Potential applications include aircraft and other turbines, microturbines, hot-water heaters and industrial burners and dryers. The technology is based on the work of Ben Zinn in the School of Aerospace Engineering.
Virtual Aerosurface develops tiny devices that, installed in aircraft wings or wind turbines, emit 'microjets' of air that adjust lift and drag to improve control and save fuel. Such devices could aid other Georgia Tech projects -- such the SEI / InfinitEnergy plan for a demonstration wind farm offshore from Savannah that could generate 10 megawatts of power. Microjet devices derive from the work of Ari Glezer of the School of Mechanical Engineering.
Vehicle Monitoring Technology monitors vehicle activity and vehicle emissions in conjunction with driver behavior to promote safety, air quality and energy efficiency. The technologies are based on research by Randall Guensler and Jennifer Ogle of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Waitless Algorithms is a ride- and vehicle-sharing technology that could result in fewer vehicles on the road in smog-plagued urban areas. The technology is based on work by Steve Dickerson of the School of Mechanical Engineering.
Research News & Publications Office
Enterprise Innovation Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Rick Robinson (404-694-2284); E-mail: (rick.robinson@innovate.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (john.toon@innovate.gatech.edu).
Technical Contacts: Ben Hill (404-894-2376); E-mail: (ben.hill@innovate.gatech.edu) or Jon Goldman (404-385-4109); E-mail: (jon.goldman@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>This patented technology adds recessed micro- and nano-electrodes to the tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM), creating a single tool that can simultaneously monitor topography along with electrochemical activity at the cell surface.
Researchers presented information on the work March 26 at the American Chemical Society's 231st National Meeting in Atlanta during a session on new approaches in analytical chemistry.
The new multi-functional imaging technique will advance the study of biological samples, said Boris Mizaikoff, an associate professor at Georgia Tech's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and director of its Applied Sensors Lab.
"Conventional AFM can image surfaces, but usually provides limited chemical information," he explained. "And though scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), another probing technique, provides laterally resolved electrochemical data, it has limited spatial resolution. By combining AFM and SECM functionality into a single scanning probe, our tool provides researchers with a more holistic view of activities at the cell surface."
In addition to Mizaikoff and Kranz, the team also includes post-doctoral scholar Jean-Francois Masson and graduate student Justyna Wiedemair.
In the ATP study, which is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and done in collaboration with Douglas Eaton at Emory University's School of Physiology, the Georgia Tech team used the multi-scanning biosensors to study ATP release at the surface of live epithelial cells (cells that cover most glands and organs in the body). ATP, a chemical involved in energy transport, is of interest to medical researchers because elevated levels have been linked with cystic fibrosis, a disease that affects one out of every 2,500 people in the United States.
Using epithelial cell cultures from Emory, the Georgia Tech researchers have demonstrated that their multi-functional biosensors work at the live-cell surface during in vitro studies.
"Before you can identify what triggers the ATP release, we must be able to quantitatively measure the released species at the cell surface," Mizaikoff said, noting that many pathological events involve the disruption of chemical communication and molecular signaling between cells, especially in the nervous system, lungs and kidneys.
Improved understanding of cellular communication can lead to new strategies for treating diseases, Mizaikoff added: "Being able to operate sensors in an electrochemical imaging mode at the micro- and nanoscale is an exciting opportunity for complementing optical imaging techniques. There are many clinical research problems that these biosensors can help with."
During the same ACS session, the Georgia Tech team also presented findings of a related project.
A collaboration with Estelle Gauda at Johns Hopkins University and also supported by NIH grants, this project monitors ATP release at the carotid body. (The carotid body is a chemoreceptor that, among other functions, monitors oxygen content in the blood and helps control respiration.)
Chronic oxygen stress - too much or too little oxygen during early postnatal development - can lead to a deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching body tissues in premature infants and newborn animals. But little is known about how oxygen stress affects regulatory networks and alters chemoreceptors. To gain insights, the Georgia Tech researchers will study ATP, which is among the signaling molecules released by the carotid body.
Researchers incorporate the same technology used for the multi-functional scanning probe. For this study, however, they have tailored the biosensor to work at a larger scale - the microelectrodes are about 25 micrometers in diameter as opposed to the sub-micrometer dimensions of the combined AFM-SECM approach.
"There are a lot of emerging sensor technologies, but few have been adapted for routine use in medical research, which is one of the development goals at the Applied Sensors Lab," Mizaikoff said. "As analytical chemists, we want to develop quantitative sensing devices that can answer important questions for clinical researchers."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu)
Technical Contacts: Boris Mizaikoff (404-894-4030 or 404-936-5367); E-mail: (boris.mizaikoff@chemistry.gatech.edu) or
Christine Kranz (404-385-1794); E-mail: (christine.kranz@chemistry.gatech.edu)
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>In the search for life on other planets, astrobiologists regard liquid water and chiral biomolecules to be critical components. "Yet because chiral molecules can be made synthetically as well as biologically, it's not enough to just find them on other planets. We need to show a change of chirality over time," said Tracey Thaler, a graduate student at Georgia Tech's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Thaler works with Professor Andreas Bommarius in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Thaler has investigated racemization - the conversion of an optically active compound to a racemic form, which has no optical rotation - as a new approach for analyzing samples in outer space. "Because this type of reaction is found only in biological systems, it could serve as a marker for extraterrestrial life," Thaler explained. She presented results from the study on Thursday, March 30, at the 231st American Chemical Society National Meeting in Atlanta.
The study is part of a collaborative effort with Professor Rick Trebino's research group in Georgia Tech's School of Physics. The two research groups are trying to improve analytical instruments used on space missions, research that is sponsored by NASA.
Chromatography, the current method used to evaluate extraterrestrial samples on space missions, is a tedious process, Bommarius explained. Another drawback, researchers must know in advance the specific compounds they're looking for, which isn't always possible. In contrast, polarimetry, a method for measuring optical activity, does not require knowledge of the structure being analyzed. But because existing polarimeters have performance limitations, Georgia Tech researchers are developing a more sensitive polarimeter that can detect smaller concentrations of optically active compounds. Thaler's work serves as a test bed for such an instrument.
"Tracey's study is significant because it marks the first time that racemization has been looked on as a sign of life on other planets," Bommarius said. "What's more, she has identified two new media in which the enzyme mandelate racemase is active."
Mandelate racemase (MR) is an enzyme that catalyzes the racemization reaction for the substrate mandelic acid. Mandelate is one the simplest chiral molecules and has a large specific optical rotation, making it well-suited for polarization analysis, Thaler explained.
An important part of the study was to determine if MR reactivity could occur at subzero temperatures found on planets like Mars or moons like Titan, Europa or Enceladus, where recent data shows water is likely to exist.
After a number of unsuccessful attempts with organic cryosolvents - the most common medium to probe enzyme activity at low temperatures - Thaler achieved MR reactivity in two unconventional media. They were concentrated ammonium salt solutions and water-in-oil microemulsions (anionic surfactant Aerosol OT and non-ionic surfactant Triton X-100). Racemization occurred in temperatures as low as -30 degrees Celsius. This was promising because both the microemulsions and the concentrated salt solutions are expected to form on other planets and moons.
Another auspicious finding: Measurements for the activation parameters (thermodynamics) in the ammonium salt solutions and water-in-oil microemulsions were very similar. "This tells us that racemization is not only possible in other media, but thermodynamic parameters found in these media are similar to those found in media that's normally used," Thaler said.
The next step will be to use the MR system with the new polarimeter being developed by Trebino's group while Thaler and other members of Bommarius' team explore additional enzyme systems that might also be good test models.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu)
Technical Contacts: Tracey Thaler (404-385-3089 or 404-388-5974); E-mail: (tracey.thaler@chbe.gatech.edu) or Andreas Bommarius (404-385-1334); E-mail: (andreas.bommarius@chbe.gatech.edu)
Writer: T.J. Becker
]]>Based on laboratory studies, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers report promising results using bacterial species from three genera isolated from subsurface soils collected at a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Field Research Center site in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Researchers conducted preliminary screenings of many bacterial isolates and found several candidate strains that released inorganic phosphate after hydrolyzing an organo-phosphate source the researchers provided.
The bioremediation research project, funded for three years by DOE's Environmental Remediation Sciences Division, is in its early stages. Research team member Melanie Beazley, a Ph.D. student in the Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, presented preliminary findings on March 30 at the 231st American Chemical Society National Meeting in Atlanta.
"These organisms release phosphate into the medium, but the precipitation (of uranium phosphate) occurs chemically," explained Assistant Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Martial Taillefert, co-director of the study. "That is the biomineralization of uranium and the novelty of this approach."
The process begins when the bacteria - from the genera Rhanella, Bacillus and possibly Arthrobacter -- degrade an organo-phosphate compound such as glycerol-3-phosphate (G3P) or phytic acid (IP6), which can be present in subsurface soils.
"During their growth, the organisms liberate phosphate they derive from the organo-phosphate compound," said project co-director Patricia Sobecky, an associate professor of biology. "The free phosphate is released to the surrounding media, which is a solution in the lab. Then we conduct assays to see how much uranium is mineralized by the phosphate released by the bacteria."
The bacteria's role is crucial in this process because uranium cannot dissociate the organo-phosphate compound chemically, Taillefert explained. So uranium in the presence of organo-phosphate alone does not result in significant uranium precipitation.
Sobecky and her Ph.D. student Robert Martinez are conducting the microbiological and physiological component of the research, while Taillefert and Beazley study the uranium chemistry and analyze distribution of different forms of uranium during incubation in the lab.
"The devil's in the details with the chemistry of uranium: There are numerous forms of uranium in the environment, which are all influenced by the natural properties of soils and groundwater," Taillefert said.
Sobecky added, "What we're doing now is optimizing the assay conditions and the techniques to analyze the distribution of uranium species in the lab."
Traditionally, DOE has funded research investigating the chemical reduction of uranium contamination. But there are two approaches to immobilizing uranium. One strategy reduces uranium (VI) to uranium (IV), which is, in principle, immobile. But the uranium can re-oxidize even with traces of oxygen from rainwater seeping into the groundwater. The Georgia Tech approach biomineralizes uranium (VI) into an insoluble form of uranium via phosphate precipitation.
As they work toward a bioremediation strategy that will work in the field, researchers must design a mechanism to deal with competing organisms in the soil that might sequester the free phosphate, Sobecky noted. Though their current grant does not cover the cost of a field study, researchers hope to obtain funds in the future to test their strategy at Oak Ridge and potentially other DOE sites. Uranium contamination is a concern at DOE sites because it can migrate to groundwater in surrounding areas, Taillefert noted.
"At this point, we know the organisms we're studying are active in precipitating uranium phosphate," he said. "Now we need to determine how chemically stable it is."
Researchers also have learned that when the bacteria are releasing phosphate from G3P, the bacteria can tolerate the toxic uranium and can continue to grow once the uranium is precipitated by the released phosphate.
"Our challenge now is fine-tuning the conditions around the bacterium so eventually it can thrive and work chemically in a natural setting," Taillefert said.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu)
Technical Contacts: Patricia Sobecky (404-894-5819); E-mail: (patricia.sobecky@biology.gatech.edu) or Martial Taillefert (404-894-6043); E-mail: (martial.taillefert@eas.gatech.edu)
Writer: Jane Sanders
]]>Ultra-high-frequency silicon-germanium circuits have potential applications in many communications systems, defense systems, space electronics platforms, and remote sensing systems. Achieving such extreme speeds in silicon-based technology - which can be manufactured using conventional low-cost techniques - could provide a pathway to high-volume applications. Until now, only integrated circuits fabricated from more costly III-V compound semiconductor materials have achieved such extreme levels of transistor performance.
"For the first time, Georgia Tech and IBM have demonstrated that speeds of half a trillion cycles per second can be achieved in a commercial silicon-based technology, using large wafers and silicon-compatible low-cost manufacturing techniques," said John D. Cressler, Byers Professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a researcher in the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech. "This work redefines the upper bounds of what is possible using silicon-germanium nanotechnology techniques."
The accomplishment will be reported in the July issue of the journal IEEE Electron Device Letters. The research has been supported by IBM, NASA, and the GEDC at Georgia Tech.
"This groundbreaking collaborative research by Georgia Tech and IBM redefines the performance limits of silicon-based semiconductors," said Bernie Meyerson, vice president and chief technologist at the IBM Systems and Technology Group. "IBM is committed to working closely with our academic and industry partners to deliver the insight and innovation that will enable a new generation of high-performance, energy efficient microprocessors."
The silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistors built by the IBM-Georgia Tech team operated at frequencies above 500 GHz at 4.5 Kelvins (451 degrees below zero Fahrenheit) - a temperature attained using liquid helium cooling. At room temperature, these devices operated at approximately 350 GHz. Performance measurements were made using a specialized high-frequency test system in the Georgia Electronic Design Center.
The devices used in the research are from a prototype fourth-generation SiGe technology fabricated at IBM on a 200-millimeter wafer using an older un-optimized mask set. Simulations suggest that the technology could ultimately support much higher (near-Terahertz) operational frequencies at room temperature, Cressler said.
"Having a silicon-based technology that is compatible with low-cost IC manufacturing - while still providing these extreme levels of performance - allows us to envision integrating these devices into systems that would be affordable for emerging commercial markets as well as defense applications," Cressler said.
The next step in this research will be to understand the physics behind the silicon-germanium devices, which display some unusual properties at these extremely low temperatures.
"We observe effects in these devices at cryogenic temperatures which potentially make them faster than simple theory would suggest, and may allow us to ultimately make the devices even faster," said Cressler, who heads the world's largest university-based silicon-germanium research team at Georgia Tech. "Understanding the basic physics of these advanced transistors arms us with knowledge that could make the next generation of silicon-based integrated circuits even better."
SiGe is a process technology in which the electrical properties of silicon, the material underlying virtually all modern microchips, is augmented with germanium to make chips operate more efficiently. SiGe boosts performance and reduces power consumption in chips that go into cellular phones and other advanced communication devices.
Silicon-germanium technology has been of great interest to the electronics industry because it allows substantial transistor performance improvements to be achieved while using fabrication techniques compatible with standard high-volume silicon-based manufacturing processes. By introducing germanium into silicon wafers at the atomic scale, engineers can boost performance while retaining the many advantages of silicon.
IBM first announced its SiGe technology in 1989, and later introduced SiGe into the industry's first standard, high-volume SiGe chips in October 1998. Since that time, the company has shipped hundreds of millions of SiGe chips.
A laboratory and specialized test equipment used in the research are located in the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech.
"We are happy to see that the GEDC's continuing support of research in high-speed mixed-signal technologies and other device research is leading to more cost-effective solutions for commercial applications," said Joy Laskar, who is director of the GEDC and also the Joseph M. Pettit Professor Chair in Electronics in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Beyond Cressler, the research team included Georgia Tech Ph.D. students Ramkumar Krithivasan and Yuan Lu; Jae-Sun Rieh of Korea University in Seoul, South Korea (formerly with IBM); and Marwan Khater, David Ahlgren and Greg Freeman of IBM Microelectronics in East Fishkill, N.Y.
"This new speed record provides encouragement to keep pushing forward on silicon-germanium devices," Cressler said. "There is a lot more fruit available from silicon-germanium technology if we invest the effort to get there."
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Media Relations Contacts: John Toon, Georgia Tech (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Glen Brandow, IBM (914-766-4615); E-mail: (brandow@us.ibm.com).
Writer: John Toon
]]>Albany, Ga.-based MacGregor Golf Co., which employs about 115 workers during peak production, has been producing golf clubs for more than a century. In recent years the process typically worked like this: New designs were created for the upcoming season, raw materials obtained, club parts manufactured to the new specifications and clubs were assembled in batches of 50. Customized clubs accounted for about 10 percent of the company's annual output.
The process left MacGregor with a substantial surplus inventory at the end of the year. The company couldn't discount the inventory without, in effect, competing with its own new designs the following season.
The burdensome and costly end-of-year surplus was a topic of conversation this past fall when manufacturing manager Scott Nix met with Art Ford, South Region manager of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute, and Ed Hardison, a quality/environmental/energy specialist from Tech's Albany, Ga., office to talk about Georgia Tech's services, including lean manufacturing assistance. The discussion was followed by a preliminary on-site assessment by Ford and John Stephens, a Georgia Tech lean-manufacturing specialist based in Eastman, Ga.
Following a presentation at the company on lean management, they recommended conducting a kaizen class - a fast and focused problem-solving exercise - to introduce lean-manufacturing concepts to a cross-section of MacGregor employees, according to Nix. "I sent about 25 people to the class - managers, people from different departments, and four or five team leads who went through the whole simulation process. The light went off in everybody's heads: Wow! This is a pretty cool way of doing it."
Next, Stephens devised the nuts and bolts of a lean manufacturing program for MacGregor, the heart of which is called a manufacturing cell. A cell is a system where everything needed to build a particular product - from raw materials to packaging - is contained in one compact area.
MacGregor started this past February with a cell to make wedges and irons, then added another for putters and metal woods. Plans for a third cell are on the drawing board.
"Products move from one operation to the next easily - you're just passing the product off as you make it, so basically you're making one at a time," explained Stephens. "There's no up-front picking or sorting of materials, so that labor is eliminated. There's no movement throughout the plant of batches of irons, as there was before."
Unlike a conventional assembly line, the cell is configured in a U shape, which brings tasks and workers closer together. "Consequently almost any person in the cell can help almost any other person in the cell because they're all that close," he added.
The cell accommodates the principle of lean manufacturing that an item is not produced until there is an order for it, according to Stephens.
"You should never have any finished goods sitting around," he explained. Lead times may dictate a need to store certain raw materials, "but you don't put the effort or labor or overhead into producing items and putting them into finished-goods stock."
The approach is similar to MacGregor's custom work for touring PGA professionals. Each club is produced individually, and a set is complete and shipped within two days.
One of the keys to rapid turnaround was that club heads were attached to shafts with an epoxy that cured in 15 minutes at room temperature. In MacGregor's standard procedure, heads were affixed with a glue that had to be cured in an oven for two hours. The epoxy method was adopted for all production.
"You could get custom clubs faster than you could get stock product, which didn't make any sense," Nix said. "We were already doing lean manufacturing, accidentally, on the custom side. John came in and helped us adapt our custom express philosophy over the whole plant. Now everything is made to order."
Also important is that the product quality for which MacGregor is famous has not been compromised by the cell manufacturing approach.
"There's a lot of care taken in the cell generally, and there's a lot of cleaning of the finished product before it gets to the last station of the cell, which is packing," Stephens said. "Clubs have to be blemish-free, they have to be perfect."
Results from the lean manufacturing process at MacGregor have been impressive, according to MacGregor Senior Vice President Joe Rocco. Productivity has increased 50 percent while labor savings of about 25 percent have come from both production and shipping, since clubs leave the cells packaged and labeled, he says.
"The biggest savings have come from the elimination of obsolete inventory," Rocco noted. "Energy costs have decreased because cure ovens are no longer necessary, and the entire manufacturing operation uses only one-fourth of its former space."
Customers are happier because an order is built and shipped within 48 hours, versus one week under the old system, he adds. "Rapid response time also provides us with the flexibility to meet increased demand for a particular product."
From a different standpoint, Stephens was impressed with MacGregor's flexibility too. "Although this was a big change for them, they were already in the mindset that change is good," he said. "They just moved ahead and implemented a lean approach."
For more information on lean enterprise services of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, please contact Tim Israel (404-894-2272); E-mail: (tim.israel@innovate.gatech.edu) or John Stephens (478-374-1493).
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Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (john.toon@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: Gary Goettling
]]>The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced a $15 million, five-year grant to support the new Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power. Industry partners will augment NSF funding with $3 million, and seven universities involved in the center, including Georgia Tech, will contribute an additional $3 million. The center will be based at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus.
"This center will advance fundamental knowledge, providing a platform for technology that will spawn new industries. We are impressed with the ambitious goals of the center for research and education and the strong partnership with industry," said Lynn Preston, leader of the Engineering Research Centers Program at NSF.
Fluid-power technology encompasses most applications that use liquids or gases to transmit power in the form of pressurized fluid. The complexity of these systems ranges from a simple hydraulic jack used to lift your car when replacing a tire to sophisticated airplane flight control actuators that rely on high-pressure hydraulic systems.
Fluid power is a $33 billion industry worldwide. Industry areas include aerospace, agriculture, construction, health care, manufacturing, mining and transportation. With help from the National Fluid Power Association, more than 50 companies have agreed to provide support for the research center.
"The challenges and opportunities in fluid power have been amplified by the inactivity of universities in recent decades. Forward looking industry leaders have seeded efforts at Georgia Tech and elsewhere, but the NSF recognition of the transformational opportunities for efficient fluid power drives of advanced devices was needed to spur on a new generation of researchers with interdisciplinary talents," said Wayne Book, the HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Professor of Fluid Power and Motion Control in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, director of the Fluid Power and Motion Control Center and the leader of the Georgia Tech team for the ERC.
Researchers at the center will study ways to use fluid power more efficiently in manufacturing, agriculture, construction and mining. Each 10 percent improvement in efficiency of current uses of fluid power in these industries will save about $7 billion a year in U.S. energy costs. Researchers will also work to develop hydraulic hybrid passenger cars that are less expensive and more efficient than current electric hybrids. A 10 percent improvement in efficiency in national passenger-car energy use will save about $10 billion a year.
Another goal of the research center is to develop portable, wearable and autonomous fluid-power devices capable of operating for long periods of time without external energy sources. This technology could lead to new medical and rehabilitation devices and robots that could be used in rescue missions.
A range of obstacles will be tackled by the new center to enable such devices. At Georgia Tech, Richard Salant, a professor of mechanical engineering, will lead a project to minimize leakage by understanding the complex interactions among fluids, metals and sealing materials and to incorporate the understanding in analysis for computer-aided design of seals.
Ken Cunefare, a professor of mechanical engineering and an acoustician with a research emphasis in noise control, will work to find ways to reduce the noise of fluid power, one of the primary deterrents to fluid power's use in the applications of the future.
Chris Paredis, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and a specialist in the theory and methods of design, will examine the combination of many interdisciplinary analyses and how they can be introduced into a multi-phased design process.
Wayne Book, who specializes in robotic controls, will research improvements in the human interface to hydraulic and pneumatic machines so that the machines can be more easily controlled to reduce training time and task time and to minimize errors.
In addition to research, the center will be involved in developing youth education programs, improving efforts to increase student diversity in engineering, designing internship and exchange programs for undergraduate and graduate students, and offering short courses and labs for industry workers.
Other core universities involved in the center include University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University and Vanderbilt University.
]]>Radakovich has nearly 20 years of experience in collegiate athletics management positions. He comes to Tech after six years at LSU, and he previously served as the athletics director at American University in Washington, D.C., in 2000-01. That followed stints as associate athletics director at South Carolina (1994-2000) and Long Beach State (1989-94) as well as two years as the athletics business manager at Miami.
Just the seventh Director of Athletics in Tech history, Radakovich takes over for Dave Braine, who is retiring after nearly nine years in the post, and he also follows in the footsteps of storied names such as John Heisman, Bobby Dodd and Homer Rice.
"I am pleased that Dan Radakovich has chosen to join Georgia Tech as our new Athletics Director,"said Clough. "He brings a unique combination of enthusiasm for sports, concern for student athletes, experience in athletic administration, business experience and communication skills that are needed in today's complex world of intercollegiate athletics. It is my pleasure to welcome Dan and his wife, Marcie, and their two children to Atlanta.
"Our search has been thorough and complete," continued Clough, who chaired a search committee that also included Dan Schrage, Faculty Representative for Athletics; Joe Irwin, President of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association; Chuck Easley, former Tech football standout and current member of the Athletic Board; and David Anderson, President of the Student Government Association.
"We have left no stone unturned and have considered candidates from around the nation, from a range of institutions and from non-traditional sources. I want to thank my fellow search committee members who worked long and hard to evaluate individuals with outstanding credentials who were interested in our AD position. I am gratified by the interest we saw by top members of intercollegiate athletics in our job, and I thank each one for their participation. This says a great deal about Georgia Tech and its strong position in intercollegiate athletics."
In his position at LSU, Radakovich was responsible for the day-to-day operation of an athletics program with an annual budget of more than $50 million, encompassing 20 sports and more than 450 student-athletes. He directly supervised LSU's men's basketball and baseball programs.
A strong fund-raiser, Radakovich was instrumental in developing LSU's football ticket donation program which resulted in more than $9 million in new annual revenue. He also participated in the most ambitious capital improvement initiative in school history, including a $90 million renovation of the Tigers' football stadium. LSU athletics reached unparalleled heights during his tenure, highlighted by the 2003 national championship in football, as well as national titles in men's and women's track and field and top five national rankings in baseball, women's basketball, softball and gymnastics.
In his stint as athletics director at American, he coordinated the school's move into the Patriot League.
As associate athletics director at South Carolina, Radakovich directed financial operations for a $30 million athletics budget while supervising financing and logistics for $33 million in facilities improvements. He also worked closely with then-South Carolina athletics director Mike McGee in laying the groundwork for the new $70 million Colonial Center Arena in downtown Columbia, S.C.
At Long Beach State, where he served as senior associate athletics director from 1989-94, Radakovich managed a $5 million budget while reorganizing the fund-raising operations and coordinating the production and sales of radio broadcasting packages. He also supervised the men's basketball and baseball programs.
Radakovich began his career in athletics administration as the athletics business manager at Miami from 1983-85. He then worked in the private sector for four years before moving to Long Beach State in 1989.
A native of Monaca, Pa., Radakovich, 47, was a football letterwinner and student coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1980 with a bachelor of science degree in finance. He added a master's degree in business administration from Miami in 1982. He also completed the Sports Management Institute's executive education program in 1992.
He is married to the former Marcie McDonald, and the couple has two children, Christian, 15, and Grant, 12.
]]>The competition centers around a forum to discuss ways to preserve and revive a historical section of Dubai. The city has had massive growth in the last 45-plus years. Since 1960 Dubai's population has grown from 50,000 thousand people to more than 1.4 million.
Most of Dubai's urban areas consist of fairly new structures because of the massive population boom. However, the original settlement, which is built around Dubai Creek, has some deteriorating structures and will be the focus of the competition.
The forum is asking each university team to come up with a plan to revitalize the original settlement of Dubai while maintaining the integrity its heritage.
Georgia Tech's team is made up of four graduate students from the College of Architecture. Shauna Achey, C. Scott D'Agostino, Chad Stacy and Jeffrey Williams were all personally selected by Dagenhart to compete in the project.
"They are a diverse group," said Dagenhart. "I think they complement each other very well."
"I see it as an honor to be given the opportunity to work among such a talented group of designers and represent Georgia Tech and the College of Architecture," said Stacy.
Georgia Tech's team began its research for the competition over winter break and finished working on the presentation in the middle of January.
"It was a little more than a month of hard work," said Dagenhart. "We did a lot of initial digging around to learn more about the local traditions of Islamic architecture and cities. We wanted to understand their heritage and the history behind their architecture."
"The project has been an exciting experience so far," said Stacy. "It has challenged us to closely analyze the chronological development of the city and its relation with cultural and socioeconomic complexities of not only Deira and Bur Dubai, but also that of the Arabic region."
The Georgia Tech team then put together a plan that revolves around four central easy-to-remember concepts: Green, Cool, Inhabit and Connect.
Green refers to the idea of planting trees and creating an urban arboretum. This part of the plan also calls for parking gardens. The second part of the Georgia Tech plan utilizes the historic wind towers used in traditional housing in Dubai. These wind towers were used to cool the houses by directing the wind down the tower to cool the area below.
"We would make the wind towers public art," said Dagenhart. "They would be functioning wind towers. Some might have fans or misting towers attached to them. We want people to enjoy the heritage and art of the project."
The next portion of the plan calls for building additional housing to allow more people to inhabit the area. The housing development would use traditional Arabic forms of architecture to preserve the historic nature of the area. These houses would include courtyards and bent entries. These entries are made so that a visitor cannot see clearly into the home. Both are important elements used in traditional Arabic housing.
The last part of the Georgia Team plan is to connect the historic area of Dubai with the rest of the city. This would be accomplished through a metro transportation system (that is already in the works) and a system of water taxis and other ground transportation.
Georgia Tech's team will leave March 15 for Dubai and return on March 21.
The competition will include five universities competing from around the world representing different regions. The four other universities are South Australia (Australia), Tongji (China), Pavia (Italy) and Aleppo (Syria).
"I'm looking forward to seeing the other team's strategies for solving the issues of re-inhabiting downtown Dubai," said Stacy.
]]>Georgia Tech is piloting an effort to provide advanced calculus courses to students at five Fulton County high schools via distance learning. Through live two-way videoconferencing technologies 34 high school seniors, juniors and sophomores are able to continue their math studies, after they completed all the math courses offered at their high schools. This spring semester 33 of those high school students will continue their calculus studies with Calculus III. The pilot program is currently with Alpharetta, Centennial, Chattahoochee, North Springs and Roswell high schools with plans to expand to other schools throughout Fulton County next year. Other metro Atlanta counties have expressed interest as well.
"We approached this partnership with the mindset of how can Georgia Tech reach out and help the state of Georgia assist students who have the academic desire to achieve beyond what's available at their local school," says Nelson C. Baker, associate vice provost for Distance Learning and Professional Education at Georgia Tech.
"This joint venture is one of many we hope to develop with Georgia Tech," says Judy H. Dennison, director of core academics for Fulton County Schools. "We have many students who need the challenge of college-level classes, and through this distance learning effort we're able to provide that in a cost-effective way."
The 36 high school students, mostly seniors, taking the calculus distance learning courses have already completed Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus and passed the exam for college credit for Calculus I. The distance learning class is a good deal for the high school students, since they receive both high school credit as well as college credit for the class. The HOPE Scholarship program pays the tuition costs to Georgia Tech, and Fulton County Schools pays the transmission costs and provides the videoconferencing equipment required for each school.
"It was a little tough getting used to the fact that your teacher isn't in the room and is on the screen, but I've gotten used to it," said Molly McLaughlin, a senior at Roswell high school who is interested in studying chemical engineering. "The distance learning calculus classes are going to prepare me for college so I'll know better what to expect next year."
"We face the double challenge of finding qualified math teachers to teach higher level calculus and the logistical challenge of serving the small number of exceptionally advanced students sprinkled throughout the county. We're finding that distance learning is a great solution," says Dennison.
Georgia Tech already participates in the Accel program, funded by the Georgia Lottery, where a small number of high school students from 10 - 15 per year enroll and attend one to two classes on campus. However, for most high school students traveling to campus for class is not practical. To qualify for the distance learning calculus class, the Admissions office reviewed students' G.P.A. in math, SAT scores and AP Calculus exam scores.
"The students enrolled in the distance learning calculus class are highly qualified students who we would be interested in recruiting to Georgia Tech for college," says Rick Clark, assistant director in Georgia Tech's Admission office. "Through this program we're able to provide them a glimpse of life at Georgia Tech, so it's important that this be a positive experience for them."
Just like the traditional Tech students enrolled in Calculus III, the high school students attend three lectures per week - Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8 a.m. - 8:55 a.m. and a smaller recitation period on Tuesday and Thursday with a teaching assistant.
"These students are incredible," says Tom Morley, professor in the School of Mathematics who teaches the distance learning calculus class. "There's a big gap between high school and college in terms of expectations, and they are doing well. I've found that these students are bright and if they want to say something to the class they will. They don't seem intimidated by the Tech students or the videoconferencing dynamic."
When asked if teaching simultaneously to a lecture hall of Tech students and to the high school students at remote locations is difficult, Morley says, "With the distance technology I find myself having to stay in one place rather than run around as I want."
Morley has been involved in a number of outreach activities including serving on the committee that did the final rewrite for the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS) for mathematics grades 9-12, conducting for several years summer workshops for Atlanta and DeKalb AP calculus teachers, running a month-long workshop for Fulton County 6th grade teachers last summer to prepare them for the new Georgia Curriculum and many more. Next summer he's teaching a workshop for Fulton County 7th grade teachers and the new Georgia Curriculum.
Georgia Tech's Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics & Computing (CEISMC) has a long relationship with Fulton County schools as well as many other educational groups, schools, corporations, and opinion leaders throughout the state of Georgia. CEISMC works toward one common goal to ensure that K-12 students in Georgia receive the best possible preparation in science, mathematics and technology. Through this relationship, the distance learning partnership developed.
"This partnership is providing a service to Georgia students that they couldn't get elsewhere," Morley. "There are many small and large counties that have the same issues. I'd really like to grow this program to address the specialized needs of students throughout the state."
Media Contacts:
Elizabeth Campell
Georgia Tech
404-894-4233
elizabeth.campell@icpa.gatech.edu
Mitzi Edge
Fulton County Schools
404-763-6834
EdgeM@fulton.k12.ga.us
Sponsored by the IEEE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.), the medal will be presented to Meindl at the IEEE Honors Ceremony on Saturday, June 24 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
During his career as a scientist, educator and high-level technology executive,
Meindl logged a string of exceptional technical accomplishments. Early in his career, he developed micropower integrated circuits for portable military equipment at the Army Signal Corps R&D Laboratories in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
Later at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, he created low-power integrated circuits and sensors for a portable electronic reading aid for the blind, miniature wireless radio telemetry systems for biomedical research, and non-invasive ultrasonic imaging and blood-flow measurement systems. He was the founding director of the Integrated Circuits Laboratory and a founding co-director of the Center for Integrated Systems at Stanford, a model for university and industry cooperative research in microelectronics.
From 1986 to 1993, Meindl was senior vice president for academic affairs and provost of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, where he oversaw all teaching and research.
He joined Georgia Tech in 1993 and was appointed director of its Microelectronic Research Center in 1996. In 1998, he became the founding director of the Interconnect Focus Center, leading a team of more than 60 faculty members from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford, Rensselaer, The State University of New York Albany and Georgia Tech in a partnership with industry and government. His research at Georgia Tech includes exploring solutions to problems that arise from trying to interconnect billions of transistors within a tiny chip.
During his career at Stanford, Rensselaer and Georgia Tech, Meindl has supervised more than 80 doctoral graduates who went on to have profound impacts on the semiconductor industry.
An IEEE Life Fellow, Meindl is the recipient of the Benjamin Garver Lamme Medal of the American Association for Engineering Education, the J.J. Ebers Award of the IEEE Electron Devices Society, the IEEE Education Medal and the IEEE Solid State Circuits Award. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He holds bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees, all in electrical engineering, from the Carnegie Institute of Technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society. Through its 365,000 members in 150 countries, the society is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications, to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. Dedicated to the advancement of technology, the IEEE publishes 30 percent of the world's literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, and has developed more than 900 active industry standards. The organization also sponsors or co-sponsors more than 300 international technical conferences each year.
]]>Krishna V. Palem, joint professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the College of Computing and the founding Director of the Center for Research in Embedded Systems & Technology (CREST) (1999-2005), was named an ACM Fellow for contributions to compiler optimization and embedded computing. He has worked with and led efforts internationally in the area of embedded systems and their compiler optimizations, having founded one of the earliest laboratories for research in academia dedicated to this field in 1994 "the Real-time Compilation Technologies and Instruction Level Parallelism (ReaCTILP) laboratory at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, where he was a faculty member. The work pursued there led to the widely used TRIMARAN system co-developed with the CAR group of HP-Labs and the IMPACT project of the University of Illinois. From 1986 to 1994, he was a member of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. As part of his research and while at Georgia Tech, Palem laid the foundations of architecture assembly which the prestigious Analysts' Choice Awards recognized by nominating it as one of the outstanding technologies of 2002. More recently, he has been innovating a novel technology entitled Probabilistic CMOS (PCMOS) for enabling ultra low-energy embedded computing. He was a Schonbrunn visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where he was recognized for excellence in teaching, and an invited professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. Palem was instrumental in helping found the first thematic program in Embedded and Hybrid Systems administered by Singapore's premier funding agency, ASTAR, and chairs its advisory body in this area. He is a fellow of the IEEE.
Vijay Vazirani, professor in the College of Computing, was named an ACM Fellow for contributions to optimization and approximation algorithms. Dr. Vazirani is a leading researcher in algorithm design, and more generally, in the theory of computing. Throughout his research career, he has demonstrated a consistent ability to obtain novel algorithmic ideas, frequently of substantial mathematical depth, which while solving the problem at hand, also lay the groundwork for future contributions by others. Vazirani joined Georgia Tech in 1995. His work on approximation algorithms, championing the primal-dual schema, which he applied to network design, facility location, and web searching and clustering, helped determine the direction of that field in the 1990's, culminating in his definitive book on the subject, published in 2001 and translated into several languages. More recently, with his brother, Umesh Vazirani, professor at U.C. Berkeley, and his doctoral students, Aranyak Mehta and Amin Saberi, he has gone back to his earlier seminal contributions to the classical maximum matching problem to develop algorithms for optimizing ad auctions on the web, an entirely new application with large commercial implications for search engine companies such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. His recent work in the nascent area of algorithmic game theory and market equilibria, which attempts to address economic/computational issues arising from the Internet, represents another example of the creation of a wholly new area. He is currently involved in producing, together with three other prominent researchers, an edited volume that will consolidate progress made in this area over the last five years and also help set the tone of research for the next few years.
The new ACM Fellows, from some of the world's leading industries, research labs and universities, have made significant advances that are having lasting effects on the lives of citizens throughout the world. This year ACM selected 34 of its members as ACM Fellows.
Several universities had multiple winners, including Georgia Tech, Berkeley, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois, Stanford, Washington and Wisconsin, with achievements in a variety of fields. Among the technology areas cited were: verifiable voting systems; software reliability and security; active and semi-structured database systems; high performance discrete-event simulation; theory and computing infrastructure for real time computing systems; shared-memory multiprocessing; compiler construction, programming languages, interactive programming environments, and network architecture, protocols and algorithms.
Within the corporate sector, Intel Corporation garnered two Fellows, with achievements recognized in mobile and ubiquitous systems, and high performance processors and multimedia architectures. AT&T Labs also had two Fellows, whose contributions were in algorithms and data structures, and the theory of e-commerce and market-based, decentralized computation. Other corporate research facilities with 2005 Fellows were Microsoft Research; IBM Almaden Research Center; and Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies. Their contributions included database query processing; application of logic in computer science; and packet processing and traffic management algorithms.
"These individuals deserve our acclaim for their dedication, creativity, and success in pursuing productive careers in information technology," said ACM President David Patterson. "By seizing these opportunities, they demonstrate the astonishing potential for innovation in the computing discipline, and the broad-based, profound and enduring impacts of their achievements for the way we live and work in the 21st Century. On a personal note, I am pleased that I've known and collaborated with many of these new fellows for several years."
ACM will formally recognize the new Fellows at its annual Awards Banquet on May 20, 2006, in San Francisco, CA. Additional information about the ACM 2005 Fellows, the awards event, as well as previous ACM Fellows and award winners is available at www.acm.org/awards.
2005 ACM Fellows
Thomas E. Anderson, University of Washington
Dines Bjǿrner, Technical University of Denmark
Stephen R. Bourne, El Dorado Ventures
Rodney Brooks, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Surajit Chaudhuri, Microsoft Research
Keith D. Cooper, Rice University
David L. Dill, Stanford University
Christophe Diot, Thomson Paris Research Lab
Michel Dubois, University of Southern California
Michael J. Franklin, University of California, Berkeley
Ophir Frieder, Illinois Institute of Technology
Robert Harper, Carnegie Mellon University
Maurice Herlihy, Brown University
Phokion G. Kolaitis, IBM Almaden Research Center
Vipin Kumar, University of Minnesota
T.V. Lakshman, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies
Brad A. Myers, Carnegie Mellon University
David M. Nicol, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Krishna Palem, Georgia Institute of Technology
Thomas Reps, University of Wisconsin, Madison/GrammaTech, Inc.
Lui Sha, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Mikkel Thorup, AT&T Labs - Research
Eli Upfal, Brown University
Umesh Vazirani, University of California, Berkeley
Vijay V. Vazirani, Georgia Institute of Technology
Roy Want, Intel Corporation
Gerhard Weikum, Max-Planck Institute for Informatics
Uri C. Weiser, Intel Corporation
Daniel S. Weld, University of Washington
Michael P. Wellman, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Jennifer Widom, Stanford University
Walter Willinger, AT&T Labs - Research
David A. Wood, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Hui Zhang, Carnegie Mellon University
About ACM
ACM is an educational and scientific society uniting the world's computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field's challenges. ACM strengthens the profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.
About the ACM Fellows Program
Initiated in 1993, the Fellows program celebrates the exceptional contributions of the leading members in the computing field. These individuals have helped to enlighten researchers, developers, practitioners and end-users of information technology throughout the world. The new ACM Fellows join a distinguished list of colleagues to whom ACM and its members look for guidance and leadership in computing and information technology.
Engaged in groundbreaking research of the complex influences shaping today's industrial enterprises, Sloan Industry Studies Fellows are selected based on their promise to contribute to the advancement of knowledge as well as U.S. industrial development and economic competitiveness. Rothaermel was recognized for his work in the biotechnology industry.
Sloan Industry Fellows, who are free to pursue whatever lines of study are of most interest to them, receive a $45,000 grant for a two-year period.
"I am truly honored and humbled to receive a Sloan Industry Studies Fellowship," Rothaermel says. "I greatly appreciate the recognition of my past work. This generous grant will enable me to continue my quest of understanding the competitive and welfare implications of the life sciences in general and biotechnology in particular."
Sloan Industry Studies Fellowships provide support to junior faculty from a wide array of academic disciplines, including management, economics, engineering and political science. Fellowship candidates, who are nominated by their academic department chairs, other senior scholars, or business executives, must have strong partnerships with people in their chosen industries.
Other 2006 Industry Studies Fellows include Jason Owen-Smith of the University of Michigan, Meredith B. Rosenthal of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Anita L. Tucker of the University of Pennsylvania.
The Sloan Foundation, which began awarding its prestigious Research Fellowships to young scientists in 1955, launched the Industry Studies Fellowships in 2004 to extend the tradition of the nonprofit institution's founder, a renowned industrialist. Alfred P. Sloan Jr., who served as chairman and CEO of General Motors, established the foundation in 1934.
Rothaermel, who joined Georgia Tech in 2003, has published his research in the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal, among other journals. Honors won by his research include the Academy of Management's William H. Newman Award and the Strategic Management Society Conference's Best Paper Prize.
Writer: Brad Dixon, College of Management
]]>Grenga's appointment to metallurgy professor in 1968 opened the door to many more distinguished women faculty members and students at Georgia Tech.
While she came to Georgia Tech as a postdoctoral fellow in chemistry, Grenga retired a professor and administrator. During her time at Tech, Grenga held several administrative positions on campus, including director in the Office of Graduate Studies and Research.
She was secretary, vice president and then president of the national Society of Women Engineers (SWE) in addition to being longtime faculty advisor for the student chapter of SWE. She also served as professor emeritus in the School of Materials Science and Engineering.
At Georgia Tech, she held the office of president of Sigma Xi and Phi Kappa Phi. She was a recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Georgia Tech ANAK Faculty Award and the Georgia Tech Women's Leadership Conference's Women of Distinction Outstanding Faculty Member Award.
Grenga obtained her B.A. in chemistry in 1960 from Shorter College and her Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Virginia in 1967. She was employed by the Food and Drug Administration for a few years until she began her career in academia.
In 2001, Grenga published a book entitled Movies on the Fantail, a compilation of the diary writings of her brother, James Grenga, and other sailors' accounts while aboard the destroyer USS Barr.
]]>The commitment establishes a permanent endowment, the income from which will be available for unrestricted use within ISyE.
The school has been named the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering in recognition of the Stewarts' commitment. ISyE becomes the fourth named school in the Georgia Tech College of Engineering, joining the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
"The opportunities presented by a commitment of this magnitude are nothing short of amazing," said Chelsea C. 'Chip' White III, the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair in ISyE. "I look forward to working with our faculty, staff and administration in determining how these funds can best be used to build upon the school's long tradition of innovation, research and educational excellence and academic leadership."
The highly visible U.S. News & World Report college rankings have placed ISyE in the nation's No. 1 slot in industrial and manufacturing engineering for 16 of the past 17 years. The Stewarts' commitment will be instrumental in helping the school maintain and increase its national prominence.
"You can't have the nation's No. 1 ISyE program for fifteen years running without strong private, philanthropic support from alumni and friends, corporations and foundations," said College of Engineering Dean Don P. Giddens. "Sustaining the unparalleled quality of the school's research programs and the excellence of its faculty and student body takes ongoing, significant investment. We are very fortunate that Milt Stewart has always understood that need and offered his wholehearted support of ISyE."
In addition to a gift of $2.5 million that has already been made, the Stewarts' commitment consists of two charitable remainder annuity trusts totaling $7.5 million that have recently been established and a third charitable remainder annuity trust of $10 million that will be established in the near future. The Stewarts will receive income from the trusts until December 2015, when the trusts assets will be transferred to the endowment, whose estimated value will be at least $20 million.
"We were thrilled seven years ago when they created the first school chair in Georgia Tech history, a visionary step that helped secure the finest leadership available for the School," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "Now, with this wonderfully generous commitment, Milt and Carolyn have ensured the ongoing momentum and prestige of the school they love so much for many years to come."
Stewart has a long history of philanthropy at Georgia Tech. He established the H. Milton Stewart Endowment Fund for ISyE Programs in 1995 and the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair in ISyE in 1999. He has supported scholarships for women students coming to Georgia Tech from Habersham High School.
Stewart is retired chairman and CEO of Standard Group, a company he established in 1987 with his sister, Kay Swanson, in Cornelia, Georgia. Holdings of the Standard Group at that time included Standard Telephone, which Stewart's father, H. M. Stewart Sr., purchased in 1939. Arkansas-based Alltel purchased Standard Telephone in 1998.
In addition to receiving his bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1961, Stewart later went on to receive his MBA from Emory University. Stewart is a trustee emeritus of the Georgia Tech Foundation, emeritus member and former chairman of the ISyE Advisory Board, former member of the College of Engineering Advisory Board, and a former president, trustee and Executive Committee member of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.
]]>This attraction and a partnership between the King Center and the Georgia Institute of Technology led to the development of the FOCUS program in 1991.
"We hope this visit will encourage each student to pursue an advanced degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology but if not Georgia Tech an institution of their choice," said Robert Haley, founder and Director of the FOCUS Program. "This program has enjoyed a tremendous amount of success. I believe the administration's commitment to the program, coupled with the wonderful students who attend our program, make this a premier event."
FOCUS is credited with keeping Georgia Tech among the leaders for awarding graduate degrees to minority students. The program has hosted more than two thousand students from more than 100 universities during its 15-year existence.
Haley has built the program into one of the finest in the country and believes its success will continue because of the tremendous support from the administration, faculty, staff and students.
"The FOCUS program has a bright future," said Haley. "We have the right chemistry and inclusive environment on campus to keep this program among the elite minority recruiting tools in higher education for years to come. It gives Georgia Tech a clear advantage over its peer institutions."
President Wayne Clough says he's pleased with the program and its success.
"I am proud of the work that Robert Haley and his staff have done to make FOCUS what it is today. This program has become a model that other institutions want to emulate," said Clough.
This year's agenda features speakers Calvin Mackie, co-founder of Channel Zer0; Nicolas Donofrio, executive vice president, Innovation and Technology, IBM; Michael Thurmond, Georgia Commissioner of Labor and Frank Matthews, publisher/editor-in-chief, Diversity Issues in Higher Education..
]]>"What the Georgia Tech model recognizes is that the world is increasingly going to be operating off the flat-world platform, with its tools for all kinds of horizontal collaboration," writes Friedman.
In The World Is Flat, Friedman demystifies the new flat world that technology, communication and increasing globalization are creating. In the chapter "The Right Stuff," Friedman extensively quotes Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough and describes how Tech has worked over the last 10 years to attract and retain more students with more wide-ranging interests such as music and film, with the thought that these students are more flexible and able to adapt and work across disciplines.
According to Friedman, "very few presidents of premier technology universities boast about their tubas as much as their test tubes. But Clough has reason to boast, because my guess is that by making Georgia Tech sing-and by making other user-friendly additions to the undergraduate teaching system, and by making education overseas easily available for Georgia Tech students - he is producing not just more engineers, but the right kind of engineers."
"Tom Friedman understands like few others how the world is changing around us and how important technologically savvy graduates have become to our nation. Georgia Tech shares his conviction and appreciates the validation he has given to our efforts to create an educational experience that prepares our students for success in an era that demands flexibility, creativity, experimentation, and teamwork across traditional boundaries," says Clough.
Friedman continues his observations, sharing conversations with Rich DeMillo, dean of the College of Computing, and Merrick Furst, associate dean of the College of Computing. Friedman highlights the College of Computing's re-design of the computer science major called Threads. The new curriculum features nine 'threads' which combine computing with another field such as media, information, or people, to produce graduates with broader knowledge and experiences than the traditional fixed set of computer science skills.
Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work at The New York Times, where he serves as the foreign affairs columnist. He is the author of three previous books, all of them best-sellers: From Beirut to Jerusalem, winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction; The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization; and Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11. In 2005, The World Is Flat was given the first Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, and Friedman was named one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report.
]]>In Chapter Seven, entitled "The Right Stuff," Friedman extensively quotes Clough in the "Tubas and Test Tubes" section and describes how Georgia Tech has worked over the last ten years to attract and retain more students who have more wide-ranging interests such as music and film, with the thought that these students are more flexible and able to adapt and work across disciplines.
Friedman points out that, "very few presidents of premier technology universities boast about their tubas as much as their test tubes. But Clough has reason to boast, because my guess is that by making Georgia Tech sing-and by making other user-friendly additions to the undergraduate teaching system, and by making education overseas easily available for Georgia Tech students-he is producing not just more engineers, but the right kind of engineers."
Friedman continues his observations, sharing conversations with Rich DeMillo, dean of the College of Computing, and Merrick Furst, associate dean of the College of Computing. Friedman highlights the College of Computing's redesign of the computer science major called Threads. The new curriculum features nine 'threads' that combine computing with another field such as media, information, or people, to produce graduates with a broader knowledge base and set of experiences than the traditional fixed set of computer science skills.
"What the Georgia Tech model recognizes is that the world is increasingly going to be operating off the flat-world platform, with its tools for all kinds of horizontal collaboration," writes Friedman.
]]>Chevron Technology Ventures, a subsidiary of Chevron, plans to collaborate with Georgia Tech's Strategic Energy Institute and contribute up to $12 million over five years for research into and development of these emerging energy technologies.
The focus of the joint research is to develop commercially viable processes for the production of transportation fuels from renewable resources such as forest and agricultural waste. This is viewed as an important advancement over first-generation biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, which are made from agricultural crops such as corn, sugarcane and soybeans.
"This research alliance underscores Chevron's commitment to expand and diversify the world's energy sources and represents an ambitious effort to achieve breakthrough technology in the development of cellulosic biofuels," said Don Paul, vice president and chief technology officer, Chevron Corporation.
"Beyond this project, Chevron in 2006 expects to spend approximately $400 million in the development of alternative and renewable energy technologies and in delivering energy efficiency solutions," added Paul.
"Once developed, second-generation processing technology will allow waste products to be converted into renewable transportation fuels, opening the door to a new phase in alternative energy," said Rick Zalesky, vice president of Biofuels and Hydrogen, Chevron Technology Ventures (CTV).
Chevron and Georgia Tech formed the alliance because their research and development goals related to emerging energy technologies are closely aligned.
"This collaboration fits well with Georgia Tech and its Strategic Energy Institute's goal to help develop energy technologies that both industry and consumers can embrace. We look forward to working with Chevron to create effective and economical fuel alternatives," said Roger Webb, director of the Strategic Energy Institute.
"I appreciate Chevron's commitment to assist Georgia Tech with developing commercially viable and environmentally friendly Georgia ethanol," said Governor Sonny Perdue. "Georgia has a wealth of renewable energy resources and we must be proactive in developing alternative fuel sources. The state of Georgia and Georgia Tech are leading the nation with this cutting-edge research."
The alliance will focus its research on four areas: production of cellulosic biofuels, understanding the characteristics of biofuel feedstocks, developing regenerative sorbents and improving sorbents used to produce high-purity hydrogen. (Note: During hydrogen production, sorbent materials are used to remove gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen.)
Cellulosic Biofuels
Through a process called aqueous phase reforming, researchers will develop processes to directly convert biomass such as wood or switchgrass into hydrogen or hydrocarbon transportation fuels. The study will help researchers determine the feasibility of producing commercial volumes of cellulosic biofuels or hydrogen from biomass and also understand the conditions needed for large-scale production facilities.
Another focus area will be to understand the characteristics of biofuels produced from different feedstocks and their effects on biofuel production processes. Defining the properties of various biofuels will help in the design of equipment and procedures to accommodate different feedstocks.
Hydrogen
Sorbents are used in hydrogen production from natural gas to remove odorants that contain sulfur. They are usually costly and can be used only once. Scientists from Chevron and Georgia Tech are working to develop regenerative sorbents that can be used repeatedly, thereby reducing the cost of hydrogen production from natural gas.
In a related project, researchers are working to develop sorbents for the purification of hydrogen produced from natural gas reforming. Both hydrogen performance and vehicle performance increase with sorbent performance, leading to greater overall energy efficiency.
In addition to the advanced research that the Georgia Tech initiative will conduct, Chevron is making significant investments in conventional biofuels. The company recently formed a biofuels business unit to advance technology and pursue commercial opportunities related to the production and distribution of biofuels in the United States. Chevron also recently invested in a new biodiesel facility in Galveston, Texas, that will produce diesel fuel from soybeans and other renewable feedstocks.
Chevron is investing across the energy spectrum to develop energy sources for future generations by expanding the capabilities of today's alternative and renewable energy technologies. Since 2000, Chevron Corporation, through its various subsidiaries, has spent more than $1.5 billion on renewable energy projects and on delivering energy efficiency solutions. Focus areas include geothermal, hydrogen, biofuels and advanced batteries as well as wind and solar technologies. Chevron is the largest renewable energy producer among global oil and gas companies, producing 1,152 megawatts of renewable energy, primarily from geothermal operations in Indonesia and the Philippines.
]]>Each year, invasive exotic species cause an estimated $120 billion in damage in the United States, not to mention the untold amount of harm they do to the structure and function of native ecosystems. In this latest study, researchers found that exotic herbivores, including cattle, rabbits and goats introduced by Old World explorers, can encourage the spread of invasive exotic plants - increasing their relative abundance by nearly 70 percent over native plants.
"Exotic herbivores may facilitate the growth of exotic plants by selectively consuming native plants, potentially freeing resources for exotic plants that can resist these herbivores," said John Parker, graduate researcher in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Parker, along with Professor Mark Hay and fellow graduate student Deron Burkepile, analyzed 63 published studies of more than 100 exotic and 400 native plant species. In addition to finding that exotic plant eaters increased the percentage of exotic plants in a community, they found that exotic plant eaters also increased the richness and variety of exotic plants.
They also found that native herbivores, once thought to have little effect on exotic plants, are far more effective in reducing their number. They decreased the relative abundance of exotics by 28 percent and the absolute abundance by 15 percent.
"These findings were interesting to us because, on most continents, many of the resident herbivores have been hunted to extinction by early settlers, often times to make room for their own domesticated and feral herbivores from the old world," said Parker.
He also noted that this radical shift in herbivore composition may favor exotic plants over natives.
Recent research, including a paper authored by Parker in Ecology Letters last year, suggests that native herbivores actually prefer to eat exotic plants over native plants. This research proposes that since the exotic plants haven't yet adapted to the threats posed by native plant eaters, they may not have the right defenses and are often easier prey than the native herbivores' usual meal.
Moreover, most previous assessments of this "natural enemies hypothesis," have focused on the effect that specialized insects have on plants. However, Parker notes that insects commonly reduce plant growth and biomass, but vertebrate herbivores are often larger and thus more commonly kill plants outright. Because of this, vertebrate herbivores often have a stronger impact on plant communities.
The study's findings have serious implications for conserving ecosystems and reducing the economic damage that invasive exotic species cause.
"Restoring native vertebrate herbivores to their natural ranges, while reducing the number of exotic herbivores, could be an effective tool in reducing invasive exotic plants," said Parker.
]]>Appearing in the January 23, 2006 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, biologist Soojin Yi reports that the rate of human and chimp molecular evolution - changes that occur over time at the genetic level - is much slower than that of gorillas and orangutans, with the evolution of humans being the slowest of all.
As species branch off along evolutionary lines, important genetic traits, like the rate of molecular evolution also begin to diverge. They found that the speed of this molecular clock in humans and chimps is so similar, it suggests that certain human-specific traits, like generation time, began to evolve one million years ago - very recently in terms of evolution. The amount of time between parents and offspring is longer in humans than apes. Since a long generation time is closely correlated with the evolution of a big brain, it also suggests that developmental changes specific to humans may also have evolved very recently.
In a large-scale genetic analysis of approximately 63 million base pairs of DNA, the scientists studied the rate at which the base pairs that define the differences between species were incorrectly paired due to errors in the genetic encoding process, an occurrence known as substitution.
"For the first time, we've shown that the difference in the rate of molecular evolution between humans and chimpanzees is very small, but significant, suggesting that the evolution of human-specific life history traits is very recent," said Yi.
Most biologists believe that humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor before the evolutionary lines diverged about 5-7 million years ago. According to the analysis, one million years ago the molecular clock in the line that became modern humans began to slow down. Today, the human molecular clock is only 3 percent slower than the molecular clock of the chimp, while it has slowed down 11 percent from the gorilla's molecular clock.
This slow down in the molecular clock correlates with a longer generation time because substitutions need to be passed to the next generation in order to have any lasting effect on the species,
"A long generation time is an important trait that separates humans from their evolutionary relatives," said Navin Elango, graduate student in the School of Biology and first author of the research paper. "We used to think that apes shared one generation time, but that's not true. There's a lot more variation. In our study, we found that the chimpanzee's generation time is a lot closer to that of humans than it is to other apes."
The results also confirm that there is very little difference in the alignable regions of the human and chimp genomes. Taken together, the study's findings suggest that humans and chimps are more closely related to each other than the chimps are to the other great apes.
"I think we can say that this study provides further support for the hypothesis that humans and chimpanzees should be in one genus, rather than two different genus' because we not only share extremely similar genomes, we share similar generation time," said Yi.
Even though the 63 million base pairs they studied is a large sample, it's still a small part of the genome, Yi said. "If we look at the whole genome, maybe it's a different story, but there is evidence in the fossil record that this change in generation time occurred very recently, so the genetic evidence and the fossil data seem to fit together quite well so far."
]]>The research, a collaboration with Siddhartha Maheshwary and Dr. Jacquelyn Mason at the Centers for Disease Control, was cited as timely and innovative, advancing research frontiers of both management science and health care services. The award is named after Dr. William Pierskalla to recognize his contribution and dedication to improving health services research and delivery through operations research.
Lee's research focuses on novel mathematical modeling and computational advances for medical and biomedical investigations, developing realistic mathematical models, algorithmic strategies and clinical decision-support systems to help analyze large-scale biological, DNA/genomic and clinical data. Her medical/biomedical research includes novel pattern recognition and classification algorithms for early disease diagnosis and prediction, target therapeutic intervention and disease monitoring; analysis of clinical treatment modalities and design of optimal and combination treatment regimens, and drug delivery for cancer; and health care outcome analysis and development of prediction rules for treatment effectiveness, and design of improved treatment regimens.
In 1996, Lee received the NSF CAREER Young Investigator Award for research on integer programming and parallel algorithms. She was the recipient of the prestigious Whitaker Foundation Biomedical Grant for Young Investigators in 2000 for her work on novel biological imaging and combined optimal treatment for prostate cancer. She is the first industrial engineering researcher to receive this award. She also received an NSF Information Technology Research Award for her work on computational advances for cancer therapeutics in 2003.
She has received six patents on innovative medical systems and devices, one of which is currently under FDA review for approval for clinical use in the treatment of prostate cancer.
Lee received her undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science with highest distinction from Hong Kong Baptist University. She received her Ph.D degree in Computational and Applied Mathematics from Rice University in 1993. After graduation, she spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow in the NSF Center for Parallel Computation, and in 1995, she was an NSF/NATO postdoctoral fellow in Scientific Computing at Konrad-Zuse Zentrum Informationstechnik Berlin.
]]>Georgia Tech Ireland (GT Ireland) will be GTRI's first applied research facility outside the United States. 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 expects to employ 50 highly qualified researchers.
GTRI, which conducts more than $140 million in research and development annually for industry, government and academic institutions across the world, is launching this new enterprise with support from IDA Ireland, the agency responsible for industrial development and overseas investment in Ireland.
"Ireland is increasingly known as a world leader in innovation and for embracing technology. As Georgia Tech expands its global horizons, we seek partners who share our values and goals," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "Thus, we are especially pleased to celebrate the formation of this forward-looking collaboration with Ireland and our Georgia Tech Research Institute. We are grateful to the government and civic leaders of Ireland who worked on this exciting initiative with us."
The institute will work 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.
"I'm delighted to be celebrating the official opening of GTRI Ireland, a unique and innovative institute for Athlone," said Ireland's Minister of Finance Brian Cowen. "This international Applied Research Institute will be a critical component of Ireland's R&D infrastructure."
Dr. Stephen E. Cross, Georgia Tech vice president and GTRI director noted, "GT Ireland is an integral part of GTRI's plan to develop international operations and build long-term relationships with industrial partners by providing innovative solutions through customer-focused R&D. This initiative directly supports Georgia Tech's vision to define the technological university of the 21st Century."
Georgia Tech Ireland and its research partners will focus on several strategic research strands to provide international leadership in these emerging fields.
The institute's digital media research will include development of a national test bed for Internet protocol television (IPTV), a fully interactive digital television research and development platform offered via fixed and wireless broadband connections. By bringing together developers and users, the institute will explore the potential applications of this emerging technology.
The research with RFID will center on authentication and identification technologies including RF, accoustics and optics for the commercial sector. Using a system engineering approach, the work will provide novel technologies to address complex challenges in global asset tracking, ePedigree and manufacturing.
The institute's biotechnology research will focus primarily on medical devices for preventive and predictive medicine and manufacturing of medical devices. Here the focus will be on the convergence of pharma, biomedical devices and ICT.
The institute's energy and environmental research focus will be on enabling technologies and systems models for sustainable energy alternatives. The range of research will span stationary and mobile applications.
GT Ireland's Athlone location leaves it well situated for collaborative research with a broad range of companies and universities throughout Ireland. 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 Deputy Director Dr. David Parekh, who has been working with IDA Ireland for the past two years to bring this initiative to fruition, will have primary responsibility for developing GT Ireland strategy, establishing corporate alliances and selecting the right talent to ensure this endeavor is successful. He commended IDA for its commitment to innovation and effectiveness in supporting initiatives through a world-class staff of professionals in Ireland and the U.S. In describing this partnership with the country of Ireland, he remarked, "Ireland has the resources of a nation and the agility of a start-up."
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.
]]>Solvay, an international chemical and pharmaceutical group headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, with units in more than 50 countries and a strong presence in Georgia, has signed a three-year commitment with Georgia Tech to fund research in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).
"Solvay's partnership represents a substantial investment in Georgia Tech and signifies the company's confidence in Tech's ability to provide end-to-end resources encompassing modeling, synthesis, fabrication and testing," said Seth Marder, director of COPE.
Solvay's commitment to Tech will help fund research in OLEDs, thin-films of organic molecules that give off light when electricity is applied. OLEDs could be used in everything from television and computer monitors to household lighting to handheld computing devices, such as iPods and personal digital assistants.
COPE has already developed a unique material platform for OLEDs that may be deposited over large areas by ink-jet printing and patterned using standard photolithography. Tech researchers have found that exposing the material to ultraviolet light leads to hardened materials that are insoluble and maintain stability under high temperatures. This allows researchers to build a multi-layered solid-state device from liquid materials.
The partnership further strengthens the company's solid presence in Georgia, with offices of Solvay Advanced Polymers in Alpharetta and Solvay Pharmaceuticals in Marietta. For Tech, the partnership enhances its already strong international presence and reputation and adds an outlet for successful technology transfer and commercialization of research.
COPE, through the research group of Jean-Luc Bredas, already conducts research activities with the University of Mons-Hainaut in Belgium. Georgia Tech has two international campuses, Georgia Tech Lorraine in Metz, France, and Georgia Tech Singapore.
"Because Georgia Tech is an institution that is continuing to grow its reputation as a global player, this partnership helps that effort by strengthening the name recognition in the capital of Europe," said Bredas, professor at COPE and Tech's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.
In addition to Marder and Bredas, two other principals at COPE are Bernard Kippelen, associate director of COPE and professor in Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Marcus Weck, associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Léopold Demiddeleer, director of Solvay Corporate R&D and New Business Development, commented: "The New Business Development division of the Solvay Group was looking worldwide to build a strong knowledge and innovation base in advanced materials for organic electronics. COPE was right on target, at the right time and at the right location for us. This winning partnership will take advantage of the world-class expertise of COPE and the industrial potential of Solvay in this highly challenging field. I consider this as the first critical step of a major long-term program for the company. Let's get started!"
About Solvay: SOLVAY is an international chemical and pharmaceutical Group with headquarters in Brussels. It employs some 30,000 people in 50 countries. In 2005, its consolidated sales amounted to EUR 8.6 billion generated by its three activity sectors: Chemicals, Plastics, and Pharmaceuticals. SOLVAY is listed on the Euronext 100 index of top European companies. Details are available at www.solvay.com.
]]>The Joseph Mayo Pettit Alumni Distinguished Service Award will be presented to Charlie Brown, BC 62, a leader in commercial development in metro Atlanta; Ben Dyer, IE 70, co-founder of Peachtree Software and a general partner of Cordova Intellimedia Ventures; Glen Robinson, Phys 48, MS Phys 50, a researcher who chipped in $100 to form Scientific-Atlanta and became its CEO; and Al West, AE 64, who transformed a computer game into a $600 million-a-year business.
The Distinguished Service Award is the highest honor bestowed by the Alumni Association for a lifetime of leadership, achievement and service to Georgia Tech and the community.
The Dean Griffin Community Service Award will be presented to Bill Todd, IM 71, president and CEO of the Georgia Cancer Coalition, the first president of the Georgia Research Alliance and the Alumni Association's vice chairman of Roll Call.
Christopher Klaus, Cls 96, will be named the Outstanding Young Alumnus. The founder and chief technology officer of Internet Security Systems gave Georgia Tech one of the largest gifts in its history - $15 million for the construction of the Christopher W. Klaus Advanced Computing Building.
The designation of honorary alumnus will be presented to Jean Duke, wife of Paul A. Duke Sr., ME 45, IE 46; Aaron King, team dentist for the Georgia Tech athletics program for 40 years; and Bob Thompson, the Institute's vice president for administration and finance.
The Alumni Association will stage the Gold & White Honors gala at the Atlanta History Center.
]]>The Center will use IBM technologies to advance research into new drugs for the treatment of some of today's most life-threatening diseases, including cancer. The Center's research will be headed by one of the world's leading systems biologists, Dr. Jeffrey Skolnick, the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology.
Funded by $8.5 million in grants from the State of Georgia, the Georgia Research Alliance and the National Institutes of Health, the new Center for the Study of Systems Biology merges Dr.Skolnick's biomedical research expertise with IBM's high-performance computing capabilities to create a brand new supercomputer. The new supercomputing cluster running Linux will be among the fastest in the world, and one of the most powerful among research universities in the Southeastern United States. The cluster is hosted by BellSouth's world-class facilities in Midtown Atlanta.
"By using IBM technology for our research, we can significantly shorten the time to market for new drugs," said Dr. Skolnick. "Systems biology integrates mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology with advanced, high performance computing and engineering. Bioinformatics and systems biology allow us to utilize the vast information growing out of the sequencing of the human genome, enabling drug developers to reduce the number of compounds they must screen by a factor of 10."
The 1000-node Cluster 1350 system built on IBM BladeCenter® systems and powered by dual-core AMD Opteron® processors is capable of performing more than 8.5 trillion calculations per second, which would place it as the world's 41st most powerful supercomputer based upon the November 2005 TOP500 list (www.top500.org) of supercomputers. The system performance and scalability will offer students and faculty the ability to quickly and accurately analyze complex DNA and proteins to determine the biological and chemical processes of human cancer genes and proteins, to aid in the development of more targeted drugs to treat such diseases.
"Universities today are looking for the fastest, most innovative and cost-efficient systems to help their intellectual communities translate the research they generate into viable information for the commercial market," said Doug Balog, vice president, IBM BladeCenter. "With the Cluster 1350 system based on the AMD Opteron LS20 IBM BladeCenter, students and faculty of Georgia Tech are gaining the processing power and system resources they need to make more accurate decisions in research and raise the profile of the Institute among the nation's most elite research facilities."
"Only the most technologically savvy universities are able to compete in the field of drug discovery and bioinformatics," said Mike Cassidy, president and CEO of the Georgia Research
Alliance. "Georgia Tech's focus on top-of-the-line technology and research facilities and the attraction of Dr. Jeff Skolnick and other world-class scholars will raise its presence in this competitive market and attract some of the nation's brightest students to join our research team to advance medicines that will improve the well-being of people everywhere."
BellSouth worked closely with Georgia Tech and IBM to design a unique, reliable hosting environment to support the high power density supercomputing cluster.
"With our hosting background, we had the flexibility and experience to quickly create a one-of-a-kind solution that could support Georgia Tech, IBM and the supercomputing cluster that will power the groundbreaking research of Dr. Skolnick," said Bill Smith, BellSouth's Chief Technology Officer.
The new supercomputer, capable of a peak performance of more than 16 TeraFlops, consists of a cluster of 1,000 AMD Opteron processor-based LS20 nodes for IBM BladeCenter systems (total of 4,000 core processors) running Red Hat Linux 4 on the infrastructure nodes and Scientific Linux on the compute nodes. The supercomputer forms the basis of the IBM Cluster 1350, a pre-packaged and tested super-cluster that is ultra-dense and easy to manage.
"AMD64 technology delivers the processing power needed to run some of the most demanding supercomputers, without sacrificing performance-per-watt efficiencies," said Kevin Knox, vice president, Worldwide Commercial Business, AMD. "By working closely with IBM on their AMD Opteron processor-based BladeCenter cluster, we feel confident that researchers at Georgia Tech will be better equipped to execute against demanding timelines and ultimately help bring critical drugs and research to market even faster."
The technology from IBM also includes 28 terabytes of IBM DS4800 storage and 20 terabytes of IBM DS4100 storage to house the large volumes of research data and provide a disaster recovery backup. Force10 TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers are also integrated into the IBM BladeCenter cluster to provide resilient interconnectivity enabling predictable cluster performance and scalability that will allow Georgia Tech to seamlessly expand its cluster.
"Network resiliency is key to ensuring computing cycles are not interrupted and that researchers gain the reliable computing power they need to efficiently analyze massive amounts of data," said Marc Randall, president and CEO at Force10 Networks. "IBM has taken its leading server technology and combined it with our leading switch/router in a single high performance cluster solution to provide organizations like the Center for the Study of Systems Biology with the computing power they require to for advanced scientific research."
Also included with the solution is IBM Rear Door Heat eXchanger (code named "Cool Blue,") a technology component that can use the existing chilled water supply for air conditioning systems already located in the majority of customer datacenters to reduce server heat emissions into the room by up to 55 percent. Georgia Tech has deployed "Cool Blue" on 12 racks, reducing noise and easing the burden on existing air conditioning units. The Rear Door Heat eXchanger can reduce first-time installation costs by as much as 40 percent while lowering energy costs by almost 15 percent.
The cluster solution helps increase the overall performance of the Center's datacenter while lowering its total cost of ownership. The speed and flexibility of the systems also reduce the time it takes to complete research projects, allowing the Center more time to explore new commercial opportunities in the fields of pharmaceutical science and healthcare.
About BellSouth Corporation
BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth has joint control and 40 percent ownership of Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless voice and data provider with 54.1 million customers. More information about BellSouth can be found at http://www.bellsouth.com/.
About the Georgia Research Alliance
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 improving laboratories and equipment at these research universities; and through converting research into products, services and jobs that drive the economy. To learn more about GRA, visit www.gra.org.
About Force10 Networks
Force10 Networks is the pioneer in high performance switching and routing. Based on a revolutionary system architecture that delivers best-in-class resiliency and massive scalability, Force10's TeraScale E-Series switch/routers ensure predictable application performance, increase network availability, and reduce operating costs. Today, many of the world's largest Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks depend on Force10 Networks. For additional information, please visit the company's website at www.force10networks.com.
About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.
IBM and BladeCenter are trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. For a complete list of IBM Trademarks, see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.
]]>Jonathan Diaz is proof that good high school teachers can change students lives, or at least their minds. He had planned to go to film school to become a director, but after taking a high school astronomy class he decided that his future lay in cosmology.
"I was always good in science," said Diaz, a physics major from Alpharetta, Ga, "but the thought that I would spend my life devoted to it, didn't occur to me until I took an astronomy course. I realized that there is something more than what I see in front of my eyes."
At Tech, Diaz is working in the PicoForce lab under Elisa Reido studying the atomic origins of friction and other phenomena on the nanoscale.
But just because he's an aspiring physicist, doesn't mean he's turned his back on filmmaking. He recently finished making his first feature-length film, shot on mini-DV, titled 'Disruptions.' He is currently writing his second feature-length screenplay.
Andrew Marin comes from scientific stock. With an engineer for a father, a mother who's a nurse, an uncle who's a geologist and another who's an ecologist, it's no surprise to his family that Marin decided to pursue engineering.
In fact, the chemical and biomolecular engineering major from Plano, Tx said he can't remember a time when he hasn't been interested in engineering.
"It's very hands-on. I like seeing things develop from an idea to an application - that's very satisfying," said Marin.
When he's not busy playing soccer or competing in a triathlon, he's working with professors Charles Eckert and Charles Liotta on tunable solvents. Marin participated in the development of these solvents in which key properties can be rapidly changed. This could streamline the processing of chemicals - such as those used in the food and pharmaceutical industry.
According to A.J. Friend, mathematics is key to understanding the world. Whether it's discovering the hidden relationships between seemingly unrelated people or groups, predicting and explaining people's behavior, or solving more traditional mathematical problems such as those faced in engineering or the sciences - math is an essential tool.
While still a freshman, the discrete mathematics major from West Haven, Ct, participated in research examining the degree of partisanship and power networks of the U.S. House of Representatives.
"Network theory is going to have a huge impact," said Friend. "It's what Google and Amazon's recommendations are based on. With the direction that marketing is taking, it's the only way to understand the world."
Like Diaz, it was a high school teacher who really inspired him to utilize his natural talent for math. And like Marin, he's also athletic, playing sweeper in intramural soccer.
Concentrating in both applied and theoretical mathematics, Friend is still experimenting with the direction he wants his future to take. What he is sure of is that he wants to teach.
"Relaying mathematical ideas to others in a simple and clear fashion and then seeing the epiphany in that person's expressions have been joys of mine for as long as I knew enough math to do so," he said.
Named in honor of the former Arizona senator, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship Program is designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The award covers the cost of tuition, fees, books and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year for up to two years.
]]>But Georgia Tech researchers have developed a technology to help spectrometers - instruments that can be used as the main parts of sensors that can detect substances present in even ultra-small concentrations - analyze substances using fewer parts in a wider variety of environments, regardless of lighting. The technology can improve the portability while reducing the size, complexity, and cost of many sensing and diagnostics systems that use spectrometers. The technology has appeared in Applied Optics, Optics Express and Optics Letters and was presented as an invited talk at the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Annual Meeting 2005.
Conventional spectrometers have multiple parts - a narrow slit, a lens (to guide light), a grating (to separate wavelengths), a second lens and a detector (to detect the power at different wavelengths). The Georgia Tech team's goal was to combine all these pieces into two parts, a volume hologram (formed in an inexpensive piece of polymer) and a detector, to create a compact, efficient and inexpensive spectrometer that could be used for multiple spectroscopy and sensing applications.
"This technology is very useful for low-end spectrometers, but at the same time, there are many applications that require high-end spectrometers. This technology could convert a portion of a complex, high-end system into a much more versatile and light system," said Ali Adibi, head of the project and an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Because of its light weight and relative insensitivity to optical alignment, the new design helps create more versatile and portable spectrometers for several applications where portability had been difficult. For instance, the technology would make hand held devices possible for carbon monoxide detection or on-the-spot blood analysis and other biomedical applications.
One of the key advantages to the new spectrometer is its insensitivity to alignment. Spectrometers are very sensitive to the direction and wavelength of light and several of their parts are devoted to keeping the light correctly directed.
But the Georgia Tech team was able to incorporate those necessary alignments along with the focusing functions into a volume hologram. This hologram is recorded by the interference pattern of two beams in a piece of photopolymer.
"There were lots of challenges because the light we need to analyze is diffuse in nature," Adibi said.
Conventional spectrometers work the best under collimated light (i.e. light moving in only one direction). However, the optical signal needed for practical sensing applications is diffuse. This problem is solved in conventional spectrometers by blocking light in all but one direction using a slit and a lens, but this also results in considerable power loss and lower efficiency.
"By choosing the appropriate hologram, we have no collimating hardware in our system. We have further demonstrated the capability of improving the throughput by using more complex holograms, which are recorded similar to less complex holograms, in our spectrometer without adding to the actual complexity of the system," Adibi added.
The Georgia Tech team has a prototype for a lower-end spectrometer comparable to those currently on the market but for a considerably lower cost, Adibi said. Their research will now focus on developing more complex systems by using specially designed volume holograms to improve the efficiency - and thus the sensitivity - of the spectrometers, Adibi added.
The project was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism through the Integrated Alcohol Sensing and Data Analysis program. The Georgia Tech team is part of a larger team of researchers lead by Dr. David Brady at Duke University.
]]>"There is no agreed-upon description of what the job entails or even what it's called," says Nate Bennett, a Georgia Tech professor of organizational behavior who is co-author, with Stephen Miles, of Riding Shotgun: The Role of the COO (due June 19 from Stanford University Press) and an article in Harvard Business Review's May issue on the same subject.
Another challenge, in addition to defining the COO role, is determining whether the position is headed for extinction or making a comeback, say Bennett and Miles, a partner of Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Consulting. Although they cite one 2004 study showing that the number of firms with COOs had declined 22 percent over the previous decade, the authors have seen recent evidence that corporate demand for the position is growing.
While some firms have declined to fill vacated COO spots, instead dividing the job's duties among other top managers, many companies in a wide range of industries have announced new COOs in recent years, including Microsoft, RadioShack, Airbus, Allstate, Alcatel, Chiron, Nissan, Comcast, Eli Lilly, Apple, and Medtronic.
"We can easily argue that there is a growing need for the role," says Miles, listing such reasons as the widening scope of CEO responsibilities and the increasing desire of boards to identify heirs to the top spot. Bennett adds: "In light of these trends, it's surprising that COOs are not more common. Our suspicion is that they would be if there were less variability and confusion surrounding the role."
Aiming to shed light on a job largely neglected by scholars and the business press, Bennett and Miles extensively researched what makes a successful COO and why companies might want to add the position. Their book, Riding Shotgun, features in-depth interviews with numerous executives, including Motorola's Ed Zander, eBay's Maynard Webb, Starbucks's Jim Donald, and PepsiCo's Steve Reinemund.
Finding that COO duties tend to vary greatly because companies adapt the job to meet the needs of particular CEOs, Bennett and Miles identify seven major types of second bananas: 1) the executor, who implements strategies, enabling the CEO to be more externally focused; 2) the change agent, charged with leading major reorganizations, turnarounds, or other strategic imperatives; 3) the mentor, brought on board to help a young or inexperienced CEO; 4) the other half, whose strengths complement the CEO's; 5) the partner, for CEOs who work best in that kind of relationship; 6) the heir apparent, groomed to take over one day; and 7) the MVP, promoted because he or she is too valuable to lose to a competitor.
"The tremendous variation in COO roles and responsibilities manifestly implies that there is no standard set of 'great COO' attributes'." write Bennett and Miles in the Harvard Business Review, noting that the most critical factor for success is a high level of trust between the CEO and COO. "The CEO must feel certain that the COO shares his vision, is not gunning for the top spot, and can get the job done."
Of potential interest to any manager climbing the ladder, both the journal article and Riding Shotgun are intended as resources to help CEOs and COOs collaborate more effectively. While COOs must keep their egos in check, CEOs should find ways to share the spotlight, the authors note. Frequent communication and a clear division of responsibility between the two are also crucial, they write.
According to the authors, reluctance to add a number-two executive can sometimes be detrimental to both the company and CEO. They argue, for example, that ousted Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina should have hired a COO to help ease the company's complicated merger with Compaq.
"Understanding what makes for a successful chief operating officer is vital because the effectiveness of COOs is critical to the fortunes of many companies - and could be to many more," Bennett says.
Writer: Brad Dixon, College of Management
]]>Brechignac oversaw the day-to-day operations as director general for CNRS from 1997-2000, returning to research upon the end of her tenure. Picked for the post by the French Government, Brechignac will now be responsible for formulating and guiding the organization's research strategy.
"We will continue promoting the traditional disciplines. But now, we have to face the global problems of the world, like energy and water, and that requires an interdisciplinary approach," said Brechignac. "If you want to make new things, you have to bring people from different fields and motivate them to work together."
With a budget close to $3 billion US ($2.29 billion Euros) and a workforce of more than 26,000 people, the CNRS is a very influential scientific organization that helps coordinate research in government, university and corporate laboratories.
Brechignac's affiliation with Georgia Tech began in the early 1990's, when she began collaborating with Uzi Landman, director of the Center for Computational Materials Science, Regents' and Institute professor and F.E. Callaway endowed chair of physics at Georgia Tech. Her extensive work with Landman's group at the School of Physics on fission processes of charged metal clusters, that bear similarities to nuclear fission, led to Brechignac's appointment to adjunct professor of physics and the distinguished visiting scholar chair in 2001.
"Catherine has long been a leader of the international scientific community and she is most deserving. I am confident that she will lead the CNRS ahead in its research priorities," said Georgia Tech Provost Jean-Lou Chameau. "Georgia Tech is proud of its association with prominent international scientists like Catherine and leading research institutions such as the CNRS. It's serendipitous that our relationship with CNRS through Georgia Tech Lorraine is now augmented by our established and emerging collaborations with Dr. Brechignac."
The CNRS and Georgia Tech Lorraine have been working together since 1998 when a CNRS lab, GTL-CNRS Telecom was opened at the Lorraine campus. Recently, this relationship has been strengthened with the formation of an international partnership known as Unite Mixte Internationale between Tech and CNRS. This partnership is the first of its kind in France where CNRS partners with a non-French entity to engage in research of mutual interest.
As president, Brechignac will continue to expand her research in nanoscience and the structure of fractal systems, like those found in the brain. She and Landman are currently exploring ways to further strengthen their individual collaboration, as well as the institutional partnership.
"To connect with Georgia Tech will be a great benefit to research in both organizations," said Brechignac. "Science is a global endeavor. Nobody can do it all, nobody should try to do it all. So it's through our collaborations that we hope to expand our knowledge of the world," added Landman.
]]>Georgia Tech researchers have created a highly sensitive atomic force microscopy (AFM) technology capable of high-speed imaging 100 times faster than current AFM. This technology could prove invaluable for many types of nano-research, in particular for measuring microelectronic devices and observing fast biological interactions on the molecular scale, even translating into movies of molecular interactions in real time. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, appears in the February issue of Review of Scientific Instruments.
Not only is FIRAT® (Force sensing Integrated Readout and Active Tip) much faster than AFM (the current workhorse of nanotech), it can capture other measurements never before possible with AFM, including material property imaging and parallel molecular assays for drug screening and discovery. FIRAT could also speed up semiconductor metrology and even enable fabrication of smaller devices. It can be added with little effort to existing AFM systems for certain applications.
"I think this technology will eventually replace the current AFM," said Dr. Levent Degertekin, head of the project and an asscoiate professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. "We've multiplied each of the old capabilities by at least 10, and it has lots of new applications."
FIRAT solves two of AFM's chief disadvantages as a tool for examining nanostructures - AFM doesn't record movies and it can't reveal information on the physical characteristics of a surface, said Dr. Calvin Quate, one of the inventors of AFM and a professor at Stanford University.
"It is possible that this device provides us with the 'ubiquitous' tool for examining nanostructures," Quate added.
And what's the key to this dramatic increase in speed and capabilities? A completely new microphone-inspired probe.
Current AFM scans surfaces with a thin cantilever with a sharp tip at the end. An optical beam is bounced off the cantilever tip to measure the deflection of the cantilever as the sharp tip moves over the surface and interacts with the material being analyzed.
FIRAT works a bit like a cross between a pogo stick and a microphone. In one version of the probe, the membrane with a sharp tip moves toward the sample and just before it touches, it is pulled by attractive forces. Much like a microphone diaphragm picks up sound vibrations, the FIRAT membrane starts taking sensory readings well before it touches the sample.
And when the tip hits the surface, the elasticity and stiffness of the surface determines how hard the material pushes back against the tip. So rather than just capturing a topography scan of the sample, FIRAT can pick up a wide variety of other material properties.
"From just one scan, we can get topography, adhesion, stiffness, elasticity, viscosity - pretty much everything," Degertekin said.
For a regular AFM to detect the features of the object, the actuator must be large enough to move the cantilever up and down. The inertia of this large actuator limits the scanning speed of the current AFM. But FIRAT solves this problem by combining the actuator and the probe in a structure smaller than the size of a head of a pin. With this improvement, FIRAT can move over sample topography in a fraction of the time it takes AFM to scan the same area.
Georgia Tech researchers have been able to use FIRAT with a commercial AFM system to produce clear scans of nanoscale features at speeds as high as 60 Hertz (or 60 lines per second). The same system was used to image the topography as well as elastic and adhesive properties of carbon nanotubes simultaneously, which is another first.
FIRAT's new speed and added features may open up many new applications for AFM.
For instance, FIRAT is capable of scanning integrated circuits for mechanical and material defects. And in biomolecular measurement applications, FIRAT can scan the surface quickly enough for a researcher to observe molecular interactions in real time.
"The potential is huge. AFM started as a topography tool and has exploded to many more uses since. I'm sure people will find all sorts of uses for FIRAT that I haven't imagined," Degertekin said.
FIRAT will be available for certain applications immediately, while others may take a few years, Degertekin said.
]]>Mateas, an expert in artificial intelligence (AI)-based art or expressive AI, and Stern worked on their creation for 5 years.
"With Façade we really wanted to open up a whole new genre of interactive entertainment experience. Traditionally games have focused on physical movement - running, jumping, shooting - in fantasy or science fiction environments. In contrast, Façade focuses on social interaction with human characters. Games are the cinema of the 21st century, and are capable of commenting on the full range of human experience. But fundamental artificial intelligence and design research are necessary to enable games to move beyond action/adventure scenarios. Façade takes a big step in this direction."
Façade is shaped as a visit to a quarreling couple, where the player finds herself involved in the breakdown of their marriage. Whether and how their marriage ends, and how they feel about you, depends on how you interact with them. Advance artificial intelligence techniques are used to control the autonomous characters, to manage the dynamic plot arc, and to understand the player's natural language conversation with the characters.
Façade is available for free download, currently only for PCs, but with a Mac port coming soon. Mateas is now working with Blair MacIntyre within Georgia Tech's GVU Center to have Façade ported into an augmented reality experience in which viewers can physically walk through Trip and Grace's apartment and carry on a conversation with the couple. The computer animated characters are superimposed on the real world, using an augmented reality headset.
"We're trying to get as close as we can to the Star Trek Holodeck", says Mateas.
Mateas directs the Experimental Game Lab (EGL) at Georgia Tech, where he and other faculty push the limits of game design and technology. Within the EGL, Mateas continues to develop advanced AI for interactive entertainment, including AI techniques for interactive story, advanced autonomous characters, and for games which dynamically change and morph depending on how the player plays them. Besides entertainment applications, such technologies have huge implications for future education and training simulations.
"Imagine historical simulations where you can talk to famous people from the past, organizational simulations for management training that include office politics and face-to-face people skills, healthcare simulations that allow doctors to practice bedside manner. Façade was only the first step."
For more details about their winning work and to downloaded a copy, visit http://www.interactivestory.net/download/.
About Slamdance
Started in 1995 by a group of upstart filmmakers, Slamdance Film Festival is a year-round organization dedicated to emerging artists and their vision. Slamdance has established a unique reputation for premiering independent films by first-time directors working with limited budgets. At the same time, the Festival has stayed true to its roots by being organized and programmed by active filmmakers. In 2004, Slamdance launched a teleplay competition in conjunction with fox21, a Games Competition, and the Slamdance Media Group; a company comprised of distribution and talent-management units.
On Sunday morning, 44 Georgia Tech students will head to New Orleans, for an eight-day trip to help residents of St. Bernard Parish clean up their storm damaged homes. Students will be working with Habitat for Humanity.
"We'll be removing trash and personal items from the houses that are salvageable," said Sarah Brackmann, assistant director of student involvement for the Office of Community Service (OCS).
In addition to helping with storm clean up, students will visit Tulane University for a talk by Tulane students and local residents about the realities of living in a post-Katrina New Orleans.
Shortly after Katrina, Tech provided food and shelter to 275 student evacuees from Tulane. Volunteers from Tech helped many of them get to their hometowns and assisted others who needed help finding housing in Atlanta.
This is the third such trip Tech students have taken to the areas damaged by last year's storms. Over winter break, another group of students traveled to Mobile, AL, to help clean homes damaged, rather than going home for the holidays.
During the fall break, the Tech chapter of Campus Christian Fellowship organized a relief trip that delivered 225 student volunteers to four locations along the Gulf Coast. The organization worked with Tech's Student Health Services to provide tetanus shots for student volunteers, and the Counseling Center to provide orientation sessions.
Students and the Institute have responded to the needs of the Gulf Coast in a myriad of ways. Shortly after the storms, students raised more than $50,000 for relief efforts. Georgia Tech also opened the Coliseum for the Red Cross to use as a temporary shelter. Several volunteers from campus coordinated activities for the children at the shelter, while trained caseworkers volunteered their time to help evacuees obtain needed resources.
]]>"In order to take full advantage of growing global trade opportunities, Latin American and Caribbean countries must upgrade and expand their infrastructure base in a sustainable manner" said De Falco. "UPADI 2006 brings together a unique forum of business leaders, professional engineers and educators with the skills, knowledge and business savvy to promote sustainable infrastructure development and expansion in the Pan American and Caribbean region."
A United States citizen, De Falco assumed his current position at the IDB in December, 2005. His primary responsibility is to oversee all Bank operations. Prior to his current assignment, he was the Manager of the Regional Operations Department for the Andean and English Speaking Caribbean during the 1994-2005 period, and the Plan and Programs Department from 1988-1994. Before joining the IDB, De Falco was Director of the Office of Developing Nations Finance in the U. S. Treasury Department where he handled financial and economic issues affecting U.S. relations with developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. He joined the U.S. Treasury Department as an economist and was assigned to the Office of Industrialized Nations.
De Falco's remarks kick-off the UPADI conference where subsequent plenary sessions will focus on topics related to the theme of the bilingual conference: "Building a Sustainable Infrastructure: Education, Technology Innovation, and Economic Development." Features of the four-day meeting include a series of technical congresses and presentations, along with the following additional plenary session speakers: Raquel Alfaro, Fund for Fostering Scientific and Technological Research; Carlos Braga, senior advisor, International Trade Department, The World Bank; and Alberto Alemán Zubieta, chief executive officer, Panama Canal Authority.
Founded in 1949, UPADI represents a membership of approximately 2.5 million engineers from 26 member countries in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The goal of the organization is to advance science and technology to benefit humanity through hemispheric cooperation. The organization seeks to develop action plans, encourage outside funding, and work for the economic development of the nations served. The UPADI conference was last hosted by the United States in 1990 in Washington, D.C.
Registration and conference details for UPADI can be found at http://www.upadi2006.com/english/index.shtml or contact Diana Turner at 404-385-3510 for additional information.
]]>Zinn, a Regents' professor and the David S. Lewis Jr. chair in the School of Aerospace, is an expert in the dynamics of flow, combustion, propulsion and energy conversion systems. Zinn is also director of the NASA University Research Education Technology Institute (URETI) Center for Aeropropulsion and Power based at Georgia Tech. The center's research is aimed at improving aircraft engines technologies.
"The contributions of Ben Zinn over a four decade career in combustion and propulsion research are internationally recognized for their influence on the field of aerospace propulsion. It's entirely appropriate that this unusual and highly capable facility bear his name," said Dr. Robert Loewy, chair of the School of Aerospace Engineering.
Zinn's current research focuses on low emission combustors, improving the performance of liquid rockets and investigating the control of combustion processes in power generating gas turbines and jet engines. His research has been supported by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, the Departments of Energy and Commerce, the National Science Foundation and industry.
"I am very honored to receive this special recognition from Georgia Tech - an institution that has provided me with unparalleled opportunities to develop as a person and as a professional in my field," Zinn said. "Since this award would not have been possible without the support of many highly talented colleagues, students and administrators, I wish that there was some way that I could share this award with them."
Zinn started his career at Georgia Tech in 1965 as an assistant professor. He has published extensively and lectured throughout the world, and is also a co-holder of nine patents. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in aerospace and mechanical engineering from Princeton and his M.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford.
Zinn is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
]]>"I am pleased to announce that Ron Bayor will serve in this new capacity," said Dr. Sue V. Rosser, dean of Ivan Allen College. "Ron's body of scholarly work in ethnic history and his ability to work with the faculty to expand its research and build its undergraduate and graduate programs are assets for Georgia Tech."
"I am excited about this opportunity to lead the School of History, Technology, and Society and look forward to making scholarly connections with other Georgia Tech schools and departments," said Bayor. "The School has an outstanding reputation as a leader in the field of science and technology history and sociology, and we will work to further expand that reputation as well as continue our significant contribution to other aspects of historical and sociological research and teaching."
Bayor has been the recipient of several teaching awards at Georgia Tech including the 2006 Geoffrey G. Eichholz Faculty Teaching Award. He is the past recipient of the School of Social Science Excellence in Teaching and the Georgia Tech Outstanding Teacher Awards. Recently, Bayor received the Association for Asian American Studies 2006 Lifetime Service Award for his dedication as editor of the Journal of American Ethnic History and his support of scholars in the field of Asian American Studies. Several of his books have won national awards as well.
Bayor, a historian specializing in urban, ethnic, immigration, and race relations history, is frequently invited to speak at academic conferences and historical society events and to consult on community projects. He has served as the lead historian for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and on the City of Atlanta advisory committee for a past planned PBS series about Atlanta neighborhoods.
Bayor is the founding editor of the Journal of American Ethnic History and served as editor from 1981-2004. He currently serves as president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society. He is the author of several books including "Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish, Germans, Jews, and Italians of New York City, 1929-1941"; "Fiorello LaGuardia: Ethnicity and Reform"; and "Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta". He is also coauthor of "Engineering the New South: Georgia Tech 1885-1985"; editor of "Neighborhoods in Urban America"; coeditor of "The New York Irish", and editor of "Race and Ethnicity in America: A Concise History" and "The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America". Bayor is also editor of "The New Americans" by Greenwood Press, a series of 15 books on new immigrants to the U.S. from various countries including Korea, China, Vietnam, India, Dominican Republic, and Jamaica.
Bayor received his doctoral degree in American urban history from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his master's degree in American history from Syracuse University and his bachelor of arts in history from City College of New York.
Bayor fills the position previously held by Dr. Willie Pearson, who is stepping down from the chair position and will remain on the faculty of HTS.
School of History, Technology and Society
The School of History, Technology and Society (HTS) is dedicated to the ideal of a well-rounded education at a technological university and provides instruction in the social sciences to every student at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The School offers courses in history and sociology leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Science in History, Technology, and Society; Master in History and Sociology of Technology and Science; and Doctor of Philosophy in History and Sociology of Technology and Science. HTS also offers a variety of minor and certificate programs for students in other undergraduate majors.
Gene amplification is the increase in copy number of a particular piece of DNA and
is a hallmark of tumor cells. Amplified genomic segments are frequently manifested in one of two cytologically recognizable forms. Double minutes are extrachromosomal segments of amplified DNA. Homogeneously staining regions are amplified intrachromosomal segments forming large genomic regions. Some strategies of pharmaceutical research in cancer prevention and treatment could involve curbing cancer development via restricting gene amplification. The first step towards achieving this is to discover the rules that govern whether an amplification event is a double minute or a homogenously-staining region.
It's known that regions of chromosomes that are prone to amplification have
palindromic sequences of DNA, which are weak places where the chromosome can break. These palindromic sequences can be naturally found in human genome. The distribution of such sequences can vary from one individual to another. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered that a particular type of DNA break, a hairpin-capped double strand break, induced by these palindromic sequences, is a precursor to amplification.
"We have a developed a system in yeast which would mimic the situation in human cancer cells wherein oncogenes might be located next to palindromic sequences. Using this system we have discovered the rules that determine how double minutes or homogeneously staining regions can be generated," said Kirill Lobachev, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Biology.
"If these rules operating in yeast can be extended to higher eukaryotes then we can propose that if the oncogene is located between the hairpin-capped break and the telomere, then the amplification event will result in a double minute. If the break occurs between the oncogene and the telomere, then the amplification would yield a homogenously-staining region." adds Vidhya Narayanan a Ph.D. student in Kirill Lobachev's lab and first author of the study.
The findings can help researchers understand the cause of cancer in diseased individuals and also to potentially identify individuals who might be prone for cancer.
In addition to Lobachev and Narayanan, the research team consisted of Hyun-Min Kim from Georgia Tech and collaborators Piotr A. Mieczkowski and Thomas D. Petes from Duke University. This work was supported by funds from National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health.
]]>"Through this Summit, Secretary Rice and Secretary Spellings and their respective Departments want to reach out to college and university presidents to reinforce a common interest in attracting foreign students and scholars to U.S. institutions," notes Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. "Of equal importance is seeking investment in educating globally competitive U.S. students to work in fields of international interest."
Summit attendees will represent the full richness and diversity of the higher education system in the United States, coming from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and will include leading public and private Ph.D. granting institutions, as well as community colleges, historically black institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions, religiously affiliated institutions, and women's colleges. Also invited are the principal presidential higher education associations and the heads of the federal science and humanities bodies.
Among other topics, the Summit will focus on how to attract foreign students and scholars to the United States, as well as how to encourage more American students to receive part of their education abroad. In addition, participants will discuss marketing of U.S. higher education programs abroad, reaching out to underserved populations, understanding visa and regulatory processes, cooperating to meet exchange priorities, and utilizing fully the international education resources of community colleges. The Summit will also draw attention to the key investments required to strengthen international higher education for Americans, including increasing access to study abroad, encouraging non-traditional study abroad locations, strengthening non-traditional language acquisition, developing coherent international strategies at U.S. universities and colleges, and engaging the public and private sectors in a shared national vision for the future.
]]>The lead instructor for the course, David Cowan, executive in residence in the Health Systems Institute at Georgia Tech, brings 26 years of industry experience to the classroom.
"This course will not prepare students to be the chief accountant but instead to function as the CFO in their segment of the organization," said Cowan. "We will address basic financial concepts and the unique challenges facing healthcare, and attendees will learn many proven tools and techniques which we will apply to practical case studies."
This course is the first in the Health Systems Professional Education Series for 2006. Georgia Tech's graduate program in health systems is top ranked in the field, and faculty members bring their extensive experience in consulting, research and teaching to the classroom. Short courses offered during the coming year include:
*Healthcare Financial Management
*Essentials of Statistics For Health Professionals
*Statistics for Health Professionals
*Decision Analysis in Healthcare
*Healthcare System Modeling and Operations Management
*Measurement and Management of Quality Care
*Computer Simulation in Healthcare
*Measurement and Analysis of Health Outcomes
*Information Technology and Decision Support for Healthcare Delivery
*Human Computer Interaction and Healthcare Informatics
*Informatics and Healthcare Delivery
All courses will be taught at Georgia Tech's new state-of-the-art Global Learning & Conference Center located in midtown Atlanta and are organized by the Professional Education division at Georgia Tech.
Detailed information about these courses is available online at http://www.pe.gatech.edu, key word HS.
]]>The microlenses make use of the antibody-antigen binding, the same process used by the human immune system, to detect biological or chemical agents. When antibodies on the microlenses come into contact with the antigen they are set to detect, they bind, causing the lenses to swell and become less dense. By projecting an image through the tiny lenses, scientists can view this swelling as a change in the microlens' focal length. If the projected image is normally in focus, it goes out of focus when it comes into contact with the substance.
"These are reversible, so you can use the same lenses over and over again. This is the first time someone has done this with microlenses," said L. Andrew Lyon, associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Lyon and colleagues tested their system on its ability to detect biotin, a B-complex vitamin. To make the two-micrometer-wide microlenses, they coated the surface of a flexible polymeric hydrogel microsphere with the antigen biotin and aminobenzophenone (ABP), a photo-cross-linking agent, which is able to chemically attach to other molecules when exposed to UV light. Adhering these microparticles on a glass substrate causes them to deform into microlenses. After binding the biotin with its antibody, researchers hit it with ultraviolet light, causing the ABP to react with the antibody, attaching it to the microlens irreversibly. The microlenses are now ready to do their job.
"When you expose the lens to a solution that contains the antigen, it will compete for the binding site on the antibody. When the antigen and antibody bind, the lens swells and become less dense, changing its focus," said Lyon.
Once developed into a device, the microlenses' ability to conduct rapid chemical and biological tests could lead to significant savings in healthcare costs as many blood tests could be run in a physician's office rather than being sent to an outside lab. It could also allow authorities to rapidly detect and identify a toxic chemical in the event of a spill or terrorist attack.
Many traditional analyses using enzyme or fluorophore-labeled antibodies can take up to a day or more and require large pieces of expensive equipment. A device built with microlenses could be handheld, since standard technologies currently exist that integrate microlenses into compact optical systems.
"The beauty of this is that the microlenses are very tunable in terms of sensitivity," said Lyon. "You can also make arrays so you can detect multiple components on one sample, allowing you to multiplex your detection. Whereas now, each separate thing that doctors look for in a blood test is a different test they have to do in the lab."
Lyon said the next step in developing the microlens sensors is to test the technology's performance in complex biological fluids, like blood serum.
]]>"This is the first time anyone has modeled them all with an algorithm that improves the accuracy of the structure," said Jeffrey Skolnick Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "I think it's going to have significant impact, because it's a major class of drug design."
One of the hottest areas in drug research, rational drug design uses three-dimensional computer simulations to study how different drugs and their cellular targets interact with each other. This technique can help research teams discover which compounds are most likely to achieve the desired results, potentially accelerating the speed of drug research and allowing for the discovery of reactions that may not have been found through traditional means.
G protein-coupled receptors are targeted by an estimated one-third of all drugs and convey chemical signals from the outside of cells to the inside. But because they tend to fall apart once they're removed from the outer membrane of the cell, scientists have only been able to solve the three-dimensional structure for a few of them. And those aren't even good drug targets. Until now, researchers wanting to model any of the others have had to base their models on the structures of the existing, non-pharmacological receptors. Since those receptors, according to Skolnick, are evolutionarily distant from the proteins thought to be good drug targets, the models aren't very accurate.
Using an algorithm they developed known as TASSER, a team of researchers led by Skolnick, then at the University of Buffalo, created three-dimensional structures of all the GPCRs below 500 amino acids in the human genome.
"The solved GPCRs are of the same approximate shape as the ones known to be good drug targets, only they differ in details. But it's the details, the packing of the helixes, their angles, their size, that differentiate the drug binding sites of GPCRs from one another," said Skolnick, "TASSER appears to have the capacity to give us a reasonable picture of the structure of these proteins."
Of the 907 models TASSER has helped create, Skolnick estimates that about 820 are accurate enough to be useful to researchers.
"There's still room for significant improvement. They're like cartoons - they kind of look like reality sometimes, but they can be used to help design experiments," said Skolnick.
The mission of the Center for the Study of Systems Biology at Georgia Tech, of which Skolnick is the director, is to essentially simulate life on a computer by building accurate three-dimensional models of the components of life, such as individual proteins and collections of proteins.
"The idea is to simulate these proteins, introduce a drug structure and see how they interact," said Skolnick.
The next step for Skolnick is solving the structure of proteins that have been implicated as a factor in various types of cancer.
]]>U.S. ports serve as crucial gateways for international trade, but they're particularly vulnerable to damage in an earthquake. Western U.S. ports in Oakland, Los Angeles, Long Beach and Seattle are at the greatest risk for earthquake damage, but eastern U.S. ports in Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga., are also at risk.
A new project led by the Georgia Institute of Technology aims to develop strategies to help safeguard ports from earthquake damage. The project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has $3.6 million in funding over the next five years.
"Ports are a critical civil infrastructure system," said Glenn J. Rix, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the project director. "Given the growth in international trade, we don't think seismic risks at ports have received the proper amount of attention. If a large portion of a major U.S. port such as Oakland or Los Angeles were out of service for a year because of an earthquake, there would be significant economic consequences for the United States."
In 1995, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck in Kobe, Japan, causing extensive damage to both the city and its port, the sixth largest in the world at the time. The port required $8.6 billion and two years to repair. By 2003, the Port of Kobe had fallen to 32nd largest in the world and will likely never recover the lost business.
Ports are particularly vulnerable to damage during earthquakes because wharves are often built on unstable ground that is prone to liquefaction - a process that causes soil to lose its strength as a result of ground shaking. The large cranes used to load and unload containers from ships are also susceptible to damage from ground shaking and deformation.
The project's goal is to help port authorities and other stakeholders manage seismic risk more effectively.
"Modern ports are large, complex systems," said Rix. "Our project team includes researchers and practitioners with expertise in civil engineering, logistics, risk analysis, and social science to address seismic risk issues in every aspect of the system."
A key part of the project is to evaluate methods of preventing damage to wharves and cranes using large-scale tests. The team will perform these tests at four labs that are a part of the George E. Brown Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES), a program initiated by NSF to advance the field of earthquake engineering with a shared network of experimental sites and tools, an archive of earthquake data and earthquake engineering simulation software.
The team will also investigate applying the same approach to managing risks from other natural hazards, including hurricanes.
"We learned an important lesson from the experience of Gulf Coast ports following Hurricane Katrina," Rix said. "The physical damage was minor compared to the impact of the displaced labor force on port operations, which emphasized the need to examine the entire port system."
The project team, led by Georgia Tech, includes experts from the University of California, Davis; Decision Research Inc.; Drexel University; University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Seismic Systems & Engineering Consultants Inc.; University of Southern California; University of Texas at Austin; and University of Washington.
]]>"It's great to see so many of our graduate programs sustaining their high national rankings," said Tech president Wayne Clough. "While rankings are not the sole measure of success, we like to see consistent quality and positive growth."
Tech's graduate Engineering curriculum maintained its national stature, once again ranked among the top five in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. Eight 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 16th straight year, an achievement almost unheard of in U.S. News rankings. The eight engineering programs ranked in the top 10 are: aerospace (4th), biomedical (3rd), civil (4th), computer (7th) electrical (7th), environmental (7th), industrial and systems (1st) and mechanical (7th).
"Our success is the direct outgrowth of recruiting and retaining the finest faculty and students possible and investing in the infrastructure that allows them to thrive," said Clough.
For business schools, Tech's College of Management ranked 34th, down two from last year when it jumped up 10 slots to number 32.
"I'm very proud of our faculty, graduate students and staff," said Clough. "We're competing against some of the finest universities in the world and excelling."
]]>"We have set the dates alumni will want to put on their calendars for this fall," said Kara Allen, director of Events for the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.
The Yellow Jackets open the 2006 football season hosting the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame Sept. 2. A tailgate party open to everyone in the Tech community is planned for the Tower lawn.
About 2,000 parents and families of students are expected to visit campus Oct. 5 to 7 for Family Weekend featuring seminars, tours and the Georgia Tech vs. Maryland football game.
Homecoming will be held Oct. 26 to 28, with milestone reunions for the classes of 1981, 1966 and 1956 along with the Old Gold celebration and the popular Buzz Bash for all other classes. The Yellow Jackets play Miami in the Homecoming game.
The Alumni Association is also sponsoring bus trips to the Clemson game on Oct. 21 and the Georgia game on Nov. 25.
]]>"Jean-Lou has played an indispensable role in the evolution of Georgia Tech's stature as one of our nation's top 10 public universities," Clough said. "We are very proud of his appointment and hope to take advantage of this link between two of the nation's leading technological universities. We consider ourselves fortunate to have enjoyed the benefits of his talents for such an extraordinary length of time."
Dr. Chameau, 53, has been provost and vice president for academic affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology since June 1, 2001; and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar since 1995. He joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 1991.
Previously, he served as dean of the College of Engineering. As dean of the largest college of engineering in the country, Dr. Chameau led educational and research programs in nine engineering disciplines; all of which have received national recognition, and collectively confer the largest number of engineering degrees to undergraduate and graduate students in the country.
In addition to continuing to enhance the strengths of its core disciplines, Dr. Chameau has been instrumental in making Georgia Tech a worldwide model for interdisciplinary activities, technology innovation, and entrepreneurship, and a catalyst for economic development. In addition, during his tenure he placed a strong focus on efforts to improve the educational experience of students, increase diversity on the campus, recruit women into engineering and science, and to foster entrepreneurship and international opportunities for faculty and students.
Dr. Chameau received his secondary and undergraduate education in France, and graduate education in civil engineering from Stanford University. In 1980 he joined the civil engineering faculty at Purdue University, where he subsequently became full professor and head of the geotechnical engineering program. In 1991, he became the chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 1994-95, he was the president of Golder Associates Inc. He currently serves on the boards of directors for MTS Systems Corporation, Prime Engineering, and is a trustee and treasurer of the Georgia Tech Research Corporation. He received the Rodney D. Chipp Memorial Award, Society of Women Engineers in 2004, a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award and the ASCE Casagrande Award.
]]>The Georgia Tech team (College of Architecture graduate students Shauna Achey, C. Scott D'Agostino, Chad Stacy and Jeffrey Williams) presented their proposal last week in Dubai. The proposal included suggestions on broad principals, design strategies and specific courses of action for next steps.
"The Georgia Tech project told a story," said Professor Richard Dagenhart, who oversaw the team. "We knew from the feedback that we received right away that our project was among the best in the competition. Everyone understood the story we were trying to tell, and that was a key indication that they understood the overall concept of the project."
"It was a little intimidating to present to an international jury at first," said Williams. "However, we were confident about our work. I was proud to be associated with this group of world-class designers and positively represent Georgia Tech in the international arena."
The Georgia Tech team created its proposal during winter break and worked on the project during the first few weeks of spring semester. The team's first step was to study the traditional Islamic city and traditional house forms and learn from them. The proposals then combined tradition with contemporary design for new housing, public spaces, and the tradition of Dubai's wind towers designed to be public art.
"I think our students had a unique opportunity to see how architecture reveals a different cultural tradition in the Middle East" said Dagenhart. "At the same time, the international competition also showed that architectural education is very similar worldwide."
Dagenhart also suggested that the biggest impact on the students might be the collaborative work itself.
"It really was a unique learning opportunity," Dagenhart said. "The students were able to work collaboratively with their professor, which is much different from or normal group or individual studio work. I set the direction and they did the work. If something didn't work, then they had to figure out something else."
The winning team received a cash prize, part of which will be split among the students with the rest going to the College of Architecture to promote urban design and research, including recruitment of students to the program.
The competition included five universities from around the world representing different regions. The four other universities were South Australia (Australia), Tongji (China), Pavia (Italy) and Aleppo (Syria). An international jury of architects and urban designers - from Australia, Canada, Egypt, Malasia, France and Scotland - reviewed the competition projects and selected the winners.
]]>The new building will have 30,000 square feet of cleanroom research space, one of the nation's largest and an essential element of nanotechnology research. It will offer access to researchers from universities and industries in the region, helping to create new nanotechnology industries and attract industries that will benefit from nanoengineering.
Nanotechnology will produce materials ten times stronger than steel but much lighter in weight, digital storage units the size of sugar cubes that can hold all the information in the Library of Congress, and tiny medical devices that can detect individual cancer cells and target them with specialized treatment.
The commitment was triggered by the state of Georgia's recent allocation of $38 million for the facility, which completes the state's total project commitment of $45 million.
Bernard Marcus, the civic leader and philanthropist whose vision and investment made the Georgia Aquarium a reality, is also founder of the Marcus Foundation and serves as its chairman of the board.
"We are delighted to make this commitment for Georgia Tech's Nanotechnology Research Center Building," said Marcus. "Nanotechnology holds such amazing promise for truly revolutionizing many facets of our lives, specifically in medicine, while having the added benefit of economic development. The discoveries that will be possible as a result will prove the wisdom of the investment. I am pleased to partner with the state and Georgia Tech in making this research facility a reality."
"As a son of Russian immigrants to our country, Bernie Marcus represents one of America's great stories of what determination, hard work, and intelligence can accomplish in our great country," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. In spite of setbacks, he realized his dream late in life as a businessman in creating The Home Depot and leading it to a level of success undreamed of. In retirement he once again is demonstrating his passion for life through his good works and philanthropy. He inspired our graduates at our May commencement with his insights, an address given in the shadow of the remarkable Georgia Aquarium, built because of his support and vision.
"This complex man, however, also is committed to helping conquer the diseases that plague mankind," Clough continued, "and we are proud to announce the grant of $15 million from the Marcus Foundation towards Georgia Tech's Nanotechnology Research Center Building. This generous commitment will be used to build this unique facility that will open the doors for studies that focus on using breakthroughs from nanotechnology to fight cancer and other diseases."
Coupled with a $5 million commitment from the Woodruff Foundation last year, the Marcus Foundation's $15 million commitment pushes the total of private funds for the project past the $20 million mark, the minimum amount required to begin construction. The total private funds goal is $35 million.
]]>The study, conducted by the Huron Consulting Group, shows Georgia Tech provides a $3.9 billion impact within the state of Georgia and supports directly or indirectly the creation of approximately 44,400 jobs to the state. Based on the annual funding the state provides Georgia Tech, the return on investment through economic impact is almost $15 for every state dollar. In addition, Georgia Tech graduates more engineers than any other university in the nation and generates hundreds of invention discoveries annually, both of which provide fuel for the economy of the future.
The study also looks to the dramatic changes occurring in the economic landscape and makes several recommendations to keep Georgia Tech and the state's other public research universities competitive in today's fast-paced and rapidly changing global economy. The recommendations call for continued support for innovation based on initiatives to compete with the growing investment being made in other states and nations. Further, recommendations are made to improve flexibility in decision making and operations and enhance control of revenues within a new system for accountability.
"This study shows the dramatic impact Georgia Tech has on the state's economy and highlights the growing importance innovation will have in the economy of the future," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "It also sends a message that if we are to be successful in the future, the way we do business needs to allow for greater flexibility, agility and responsiveness. The present policies under which Georgia Tech and its sister public research universities operate should be re-assessed, working with the University System of Georgia and the state to bring them into alignment with the demands of the 21st century."
Competition for technology and innovation continues to get fiercer as countries such as India, Ireland, and China move rapidly to compete with the United States. To keep its competitive edge, the United States must adapt to a global environment in which both the largest technology markets and the largest technological workforces are in Asia.
"The United States is at a crossroads where we need to compete in a rapidly changing global economy," said BellSouth Chairman and CEO Duane Ackerman, who is also the co-chair of the Council on Competitiveness. "The race for innovation is extremely competitive. It will take the world's best-trained and most creative technological work force for the United States to maintain its position as the world's innovation leader. If talent is not available here, U.S. and foreign companies will seek it elsewhere."
The report reviews actions taken by several other states to maneuver their research universities successfully to compete in the global race for innovation and technology transfer. Michigan, Virginia, Colorado, Florida and Texas are allowing their institutions more flexibility to meet the challenges they face in today's global economy.
"Georgia Tech has provided Southern Company, the State of Georgia, and the Southeast with a great resource for innovation, qualified graduates, and research," said Southern Company CEO David Ratcliffe. "It is in our best interest to keep Georgia Tech competitive and help all our state research universities achieve the flexibility they need to compete with their peers across the world. Georgia Tech's success in partnering with the private sector provides a competitive advantage to them and the state."
The study also highlights expected outcomes and benefits that these changes would have if implemented. Among them are more high-end jobs for the city of Atlanta and state of Georgia, improved access to intellectual capital, development of the workforce of the future, expansion of a vibrant research enterprise, creation of new private-public partnerships, expansion of infrastructure for economic growth, and savings in money and time that can be allocated elsewhere.
Southern Company, BellSouth, Bank of America, C.B. Richard Ellis, Earthlink, Imlay Foundation, Internet Security Systems, Moseley-Kelly-French Corporation, Scientific Atlanta, Waffle House, The University Financing Foundation and the Georgia Tech Foundation sponsored the Economic Impact Study.
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premiere research universities. Ranked ninth among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech educates more than 17,000 students every year through its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech maintains a diverse campus and 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. During the 2004-2005 academic year, Georgia Tech reached $357 million in new research award funding. The Institute also maintains an international presence with campuses in France and Singapore and partnerships throughout the world
]]>"Dr. Steve Salbu is one of those unique individuals who themselves are very talented and have the ability to motivate others to succeed," says Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "At this opportunistic juncture for our business school, we believe he is ideally suited to help us identify and build the next strategic directions needed to capitalize on the momentum that exists at Georgia Tech as a whole."
"Steven Salbu brings an extensive background in ethics and business law to the business school at Georgia Tech. His research expertise in ethics, his vision, commitment to teaching excellence, and deep understanding of the business world impressed the search committee," says Jean-Lou Chameau, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Georgia Tech. "I am confident that he will lead the business school to new heights, and catalyze Institute-wide efforts in global innovation and sustainability."
Salbu is currently associate dean for graduate programs, Bobbie and Coulter R. Sublett Centennial Endowed professor, and university distinguished teaching professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. He is the director of the McCombs School's Business Ethics Program. He has also served as a visiting professor at a number of top U.S. and international business schools, including the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, London Business School, and Indiana University.
"I am very excited about this opportunity," he notes. "The faculty, students, staff, and alumni of the College of Management are a remarkably talented community of scholars and professionals. They are highly motivated to take the College of Management to the next level. I look forward to joining them in this charge, as we work together with energy and enthusiasm to ensure that a great Institute always has a great business school."
Salbu earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Hofstra University in 1977; a master's degree from Dartmouth College; a master's and Ph.D. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; and a law degree from the College of William and Mary. He is the past editor-in-chief of the American Business Law Journal and is currently on the editorial board of Business Ethics Quarterly. His administrative experience includes serving as the director of the University of Texas's EMBA Program in Mexico City; director of their Business Ethics Program; and coordinator for their Legal Environment of Business Group. He has been the recipient of a number of teaching awards throughout his career and has published extensively in the fields of business ethics, international business, and business law.
In June 2005, the current dean of the College of Management, Terry C. Blum, announced that she would step down as dean of the College, effective June 30, 2006. Blum has led the Georgia Tech College of Management since the summer of 1999. After leaving the deanship, Blum will remain on the faculty, creating and directing the new interdisciplinary Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship for the university.
Georgia Tech College of Management
The College of Management, the business school at Georgia Tech, prepares business leaders for changing technological environments through disciplinary and interdisciplinary educational programs for undergraduates, MBA students, PhD students, and executive audiences.
Most security products in use today only sample a small fraction of the data streaming across high-speed networks, explains MBA student Aldor Delp, CEO of Intrinsic Security. But his company has developed an efficient means of examining every single bit of data so that no attacks, including network-vulnerability scans and worms, slip past the system.
"It's a totally different way of looking at security," says Delp, noting that previous methods of examining all network data have proven too cost-and-time prohibitive to implement. "Our company provides the first proven solution for network monitoring at speeds over 1 gigabit per second, which allows for a nearly 100-percent accurate, real-time response to threats and significantly lower hardware requirements than anything else currently on the market."
Delp shared the $10,000 prize for best overall business plan with fellow MBA students Robert Henebry and Jozef Purdes; Chris Clark, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering at Tech; and Abhishek Kumar, who earned his PhD in computer science in December. Intrinsic Security also edged out the competition's four other finalists to win the Most Fundable prize (a package of legal, financial and other services worth $20,000), which goes to the team considered most ready to enter the marketplace by the judges.
The Business Plan Competition, started in 2001 and open to all Georgia Tech students and alumni who've graduated within the past five years, is intended primarily as an educational exercise, but it often leads to the creation of real technology-based businesses.
Serious about Success
All of Intrinsic Security's officers plan to commit themselves fully to the company after graduation and hope to bring their product to market by the fall. Now seeking investors, they expect to break even in 2007 and net $24 million by 2010. They're marketing their innovation, which is now in beta-testing on the Georgia Tech network, to large companies with high-speed networks.
Intrinsic Security grew out of the Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results (TI:GER) program - a partnership between Georgia Tech and Emory Law School that joins science and engineering students with MBA, economics and law students, who collaborate in learning how to move technologies from the lab to the marketplace.
Clark, a TI:GER participant, developed the pattern-matching hardware necessary for Intrinsic Security's high-speed network security system, and he later connected with Kumar, who created the algorithms and software that make it possible to efficiently analyze the data. MBA students worked on evolving the business concept in a venture-creation class last fall at Georgia Tech's business school.
The Business Plan Competition was a terrific learning experience for the team, says Henebry, an MBA student who is vice president of marketing. "We've really had to think on a strategic level about everything involved in the process of starting up a business," he says. "The feedback from the judges has been invaluable. If you really want to pursue a business like our team does, then you need to know where the holes are in the plan."
Other Teams Honored
Two other TI:GER teams placed second and third in the overall Business Plan Competition. EvIslet (pronounced "e-violet"), a research-and-development company for medical devices, won $3,000 for its plan to market an innovation improving the success of islet-cell transplantations used to treat diabetes. Its team members include MBA student John Stallworth, Emory law students Scott Anderson and Kamram Salour, and Jeff Gross, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at Tech.
Third-place winner PolyDerm Delivery Systems, which won $2,000 for its plan for a drug-delivery skin patch employing polymer microneedle technology, includes Sean Sullivan, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, and MBA students Steve Selfridge and James Stefanakos.
PolyDerm Delivery Systems also won two $500 prizes given for the first time this year: the Sustainability Award, awarded to the plan that best addresses environmental concerns and/or demonstrates social responsibility; and the Showstopper Award, honoring the team that did the best job selling itself to judges in a trade show held the night before the final-round competition. Intrinsic Security won the $500 prize in the Elevator Pitch Contest, in which teams got only one minute to verbally sell their business concepts - the amount of time they might have in an elevator with a potential investor.
The Sustainability, Showstopper, and Elevator Pitch contests were open to all twelve teams that participated in the competition's preliminary rounds, while only the five finalists could compete for the top awards, including Most Fundable.
Sponsors and Judges
Sponsors of the 2006 Business Plan Competition included HLB Gross Collins PC, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, PaloAltoSoftware, RBC Centura, and Speechworks/Asher Communications.
Final round judges included Tony Antoniades, Advanced Technology Development Center; Stephen Gross, HLB Gross Collins PC; Knox Massey, Atlanta Technology Angels; Sig Mosley, Imlay Investments Inc., and Bill Oaks, Acorn Equities.
Preliminary round judges included Carter Allen, CGA Technology Counsel; Tom Barnes, Mediathink LLC; Mark Braunstein, Patient Care Technologies; Rhen Cain, Entrepreneurs Foundation of the Southeast; Stephen Fleming, chief commercialization officer of Georgia Tech; Rob Hassett, Casey Gibson Leibel PC; Kathleen Kurre, Fusion Advisors; Mary Leary, Advanced Technology Development Center; Jack McMillian, Tech Bridge; Mark Morel, Procuri Inc.; Charles Vaughn, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP; and Mike Vollmer, Attorney at Law.
Sustainability Award Judges included Ray Anderson, Interface Inc.; Carol Carmichael, Georgia Tech's Institute for Sustainable Technology and Development; and Ben Hill, VentureLab.
The Showstopper contest was judged by prior Business Plan Competition winners: Nimisha Gupta, Rosie Kwok, Bill Moultrie, Mike Orndorff, and Ree'L Street. Former winners also judged the Elevator Pitch Contest: Dave Beck, Dave Burgess, Blake Byers, and Bill Edens.
Writer: Brad Dixon, College of Management
]]>RoboCup is an international project designed to promote research in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, computational perception and related fields. Its goal is to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a set of standard problems where a wide range of technologies, including perception, planning, cooperation and action must be integrated and examined.
More details about the 2006 KUKA RoboCup U.S. Open including participants and updated schedule are available at http://www.robocup-us.org.
Schedule
April 20 - venue opens for the teams at 12 noon
April 21 - competition begins 8:30AM - 6PM
April 22 - round-robin competitions and quarter finals from 8:30AM - 5PM
April 23 - semi-finals and finals 8:30AM - Noon; finals 1PM - 4PM
The US Open is sponsored by KUKA Robotics and Lockheed Martin. For more information about these companies, please visit http://www.kukarobotics.com and http://www.lmco.com.
]]>A new institute at Georgia Tech and Emory University will develop systems and technologies designed to help improve communication among all the players in health care, from the patients to the doctors, administrators and insurers. Tech will receive funding totaling $5 million to establish the institute, called The Health Systems Institute (HSI). The institute will partner 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.
"Health care is the industry that is the most information intensive, yet it has to support and utilize all this information with technology and tools that are lagging far behind other industries," said François Sainfort, director of the new institute and the William W. George Professor of Health Systems at Georgia Tech. "Our goal is to streamline the industry and decrease health care costs for consumers."
"The partnership between Emory and Georgia Tech will advance our goal of creating a new model of health care that translates advances in genomics, bioinformatics, and systems biology into long-term and lifelong health for individuals and populations," said Michael M.E. Johns, MD, CEO of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center and executive vice president for health affairs at Emory University. "The Health Systems Institute augments our new Predictive Health Initiative, which will depend on our ability to generate, process, protect and integrate vast amounts of information."
Administrative costs make up about 30 percent of the $1.79 trillion Americans spent on health care in 2004. But with more advanced systems and technologies to manage patient information, the health care industry could significantly reduce administrative costs.
The new institute's key goal is to move beyond using information technology for a simple electronic record to using new technologies to provide a complete patient record. This electronic patient record could contain everything from a genetic profile and socio-demographic information to comprehensive clinical and insurance information to help doctors and health professionals make better-informed and more efficient decisions about a patient's health care.
The HSI is led by the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and brings together the expertise of many disciplines at Georgia Tech and Emory, including Georgia Tech's School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the College of Computing, the College of Management, the College of Architecture, the School of Public Policy and Economic Development and Technology Ventures, as well as Emory's School of Medicine, School of Public Health, School of Nursing and Winship Cancer Institute.
"With the tremendous success of our biomedical engineering/bioengineering programs and rapidly growing relationships with Emory and other health care providers, such as Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, we are in a position to set a new, multiscale model for health systems by extending the concept of health systems and personalized care from the molecular level to the delivery of healthcare," said Don P. Giddens, dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech, Lawrence L. Gellerstedt Jr. Chair in Bioengineering and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta will contribute a portion of the institute's initial funding and partner on several large research projects, and several other Atlanta-area hospitals as well as health care information technology providers are developing collaborations with HSI.
The institute's work includes designing health information systems such as a computer or kiosk interface in a waiting room that could help cancer patients let doctors know about all their preferences, medications and treatment before they get in to see the doctor. By the time the patient is seen, the doctor already has a printout of all the patient's responses and can make a more personalized decision on treatment strategies.
The institute is also working on a handheld device that would give doctors and nurses complete access to patients' records, test results and vitals while also connecting them to the pharmacy and administrative offices.
But the institute's projects will also capitalize on biomedical research and technologies such as sensors for diabetics that could continuously transmit data on the patient's glucose levels and insulin needs to a monitoring doctor.
Aside from clinical and medical projects, the institute also plans to develop technologies for better billing and administration for health care-related businesses and organizations.
"We'd like to attract not only the providers, such as the hospitals and the physician's offices, but also the insurers and companies developing products for the health industry," Sainfort said. "The idea is to develop and implement systems that save lives and save money in such a way that everybody benefits."
]]>"RIM@Georgia Tech will serve as the flagship for Georgia Tech's robotics efforts, coordinating the university's capabilities in this field under one roof and facilitating the transfer of research results to the industry," said Dr. Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics and distinguished professor in the College of Computing, who will direct the new research center. "This new center allows Georgia Tech to maximize its established relationships with industry leaders and its strengths in interactive and intelligent computing, control, and mechanical engineering."
With a focus on personal and everyday robotics, as well as the future of automation, faculty involved with RIM@Georgia Tech will develop both undergraduate and doctoral degree programs tailored to best enable students to understand and drive the future role of robotics in society and industry.
"The College of Computing identified robotics as one of our critical areas for educational growth and further research development," says Richard A. DeMillo, John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of the College of Computing. "With Henrik's leadership and the establishment of RIM@Georgia Tech, we're well on our way to achieving eminence as a true leader in this growing field."
Currently, Georgia Tech boasts 31 faculty members involved in robotics research, 15 robotics-related laboratories and approximately 44 courses in robotics. The center is expected to grow significantly over the next few years.
"Georgia Tech has a strong capacity and a rich history in the field of robotics, and we've just scratched the surface in this high-growth market," said Dr. Charles L. Liotta, vice provost for research and dean of graduate studies at Georgia Tech. "Through shared resources and a growing synergy among Georgia Tech faculty in this field, the possibilities for breakthroughs in robotics are limitless."
Under the direction of Dr. Christensen, a global leader in robotics research and innovation, RIM@Georgia Tech will be positioned as a national leader in the research and development of tomorrow's cutting-edge robotics breakthroughs. As one of the center's first projects, researchers from RIM@Georgia Tech are preparing to enter the 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge, a United States government-sponsored competition that will feature autonomous ground vehicles executing simulated military supply missions safely and effectively in a mock urban area. The 2007 Grand Challenge is part of the annual robotics Grand Challenge series that began in 2004 and is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense.
"Academic and research excellence is the focus of this new center; but developing technologies that can be adopted by industry and applied to the real-world will be a top priority," said Dr. Don Giddens, dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. "RIM@Georgia Tech will follow the Institute's model of bringing technology from the lab to the market."
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 http://www.cc.gatech.edu/.
About the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech
The College of Engineering at Georgia Tech is the largest engineering program in the U.S. and ranked 4th among the country's best graduate programs by U.S. News and World Report. A respected leader in interdisciplinary research and education, the College of Engineering grants the highest number of engineering degrees in the nation across nine fields of study. For more information about the programs in the College of Engineering, please visit http://www.coe.gatech.edu/.
Writer: Stefany Wilson, College of Computing
]]>"It is an honor to be asked to serve as chair of the committee and a role that I'm pleased to undertake for several reasons," said Clough, whose first job out of Georgia Tech was working on flood protection issues for the Mississippi River Basin with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "I know the history of these projects and relate closely to their importance to the people living there."
Under Clough's leadership last fall, Georgia Tech stepped up to help with evacuees and students who were displaced by the hurricane. The Institute opened its doors to campus buildings to be used as shelter space, and the Tech community volunteered to help in a variety of other ways.
"It is now time for Georgia Tech to do what we can with our special expertise to help in the very large effort to rebuild," said Clough. "As president I hope to represent Georgia Tech and its commitment to work on these issues until they are resolved."
Clough said the Corps will continue its work to repair the damaged areas because of the urgency of the upcoming hurricane season. This work will initiate improvements to the levees that will over time enhance the level of protection they can provide. Clough believes that if the levee system is to be taken to a Category 5 hurricane level, it will take an innovative approach and will require an extended period of time to accomplish.
The committee will review several engineering issues and policy questions with the goal of having some definitive results by June 1, the official beginning of the next hurricane season. The committee will issue interim reports as its work develops.
"The NAE/NRC has assembled an outstanding group of experts on a range of fields that bear on our work," said Clough. "I am certain we have the right group to tackle this very tough assignment."
]]>"Everyone here believes the Beltline is good for the city," said College of Architecture Associate Dean Doug Allen. "The goal of this year's symposium is to provide a forum for a structured public discussion aimed at developing a better understanding of the importance of the BeltLine for the future growth of Atlanta."
The BeltLine project is closely tied to Georgia Tech because it originates from College of Architecture alum Ryan Gravel's thesis. The BeltLine's concept is to transform abandoned rail tracks that surround the city of Atlanta into green space that connects parks throughout the city.
"It has been an incredible experience to see the BeltLine capture the imagination of so many people across the city of Atlanta," said Gravel, who plans on participating in the afternoon panel discussion that concludes the forum. "Not only is this project itself exciting, but the conversation that it has started about quality of life in the urban core of Atlanta is unprecedented. I am impressed with how many people just know intuitively that the BeltLine will be good for their community and with how hard they are willing to work to ensure that it happens."
The College of Architecture is exploring a number of projects that deal with the BeltLine. College of Architecture Professor David Green has had several student urban design studios that have looked at specific sections of the BeltLine and the issues that face the neighborhoods in those locations. Professor John Peponis has studied the elements discussed in Professor Green's studios and looked at how the scenarios impact the city and region as a whole. The Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development is currently doing a health assessment study on the BeltLine.
"The BeltLine is many things to many people," said Allen. "Within the academic context of the design studios, Georgia Tech has a unique ability to use the BeltLine as a kind of laboratory for our students, faculty, and research to test components of the BeltLine project. We hope that this can contribute to the forward progress of the BeltLine to the benefit of the City as a whole. We cannot plan or develop the Beltline ourselves, but we can and should be a conduit to ensure that the ideas and issues of all the constituents of the complex project are discussed in an open and constructive manner."
The morning session of the symposium will discuss the multiple views of the BeltLine project and urban regeneration. Speakers representing the developers, parks and recreation, transportation and neighborhood advocates will all take part in the discussion.
The early afternoon session will discuss Professor Green and Professor Peponis' work on the BeltLine. The symposium will conclude with a panel discussion among civic leaders, planners and architects, all of whom have a role in the planning and development of the BeltLine.
"My hope for the BeltLine is that it will truly create healthy, sustainable communities where people want to live and that it will accommodate thousands of anticipated new residents in the city of Atlanta and at the same time maintain a high quality-of-life for existing residents," said Gravel. "I hope the BeltLine changes the way we think about Atlanta so that the city can truly transform into a progressive, livable region."
This year's symposium is being co-sponsored by the College of Architecture and the College of Architecture's Alumni Committee.
]]>"As a leading research university, it is fitting that Georgia Tech is part of this elite group of universities building and using one of the fastest networks in the world," says Charles Liotta, Georgia Tech's vice provost for research and graduate studies and Regents professor of chemistry. "Georgia Tech invested in this fiber optic network so that our researchers, who often deal with massive amounts of data or need real-time remote control of sophisticated equipment located across the country, will have access to the most robust network possible."
Because NLR owns the underlying fiber optic cable and optical equipment, as well as other networking equipment, it can cost-effectively implement multiple, diverse experimental and production networks on its nationwide optical fiber footprint with unprecedented flexibility and responsiveness. A core set of basic services is currently available from NLR. Variations of these basic services, as well as additional services are available upon request.
NLR can be described as a very fast 'highway' with 'multiple lanes.' Some lanes operate as dedicated lanes reserved for a researcher requiring a very fast, direct connection. To access these dedicated lanes, researchers pay a fee for this premium service based on distance, bandwidth and time. One of the other lanes on the NLR 'highway,' called the National Exchange Fabric, is shared and available now to Georgia Tech researchers at no charge for demonstration projects to the connected universities and research institutions.
"NLR provides Georgia Tech researchers unprecedented control over a network infrastructure with up to 40 individual lightpaths-each of which can transmit data at 10 gigabits per second and be used to deploy dedicated side-by-side, but physically and operationally separate, production and experimental networks," says Ron Hutchins, Georgia Tech's chief technology officer and associate vice provost for research and technology.
"Having access to the NLR infrastructure through Southern Light Rail gives Georgia Tech researchers unparalleled services and capabilities. Because of the close and ongoing coordination among member organizations, SLR is able to provide researchers a unique level of assistance and facilitation in provisioning and maintaining these services," says John Mullin, Georgia Tech's chief information officer and associate vice president and associate vice provost for information technology.
"Industry researchers may use National LambdaRail for solely research applications, and in fact, Cisco Systems is a member," says Brian Savory, executive director of Southern Light Rail based at Georgia Tech. Researchers with questions about NLR and needing more details about services may contact Brian Savory at 404-385-5171 or brian.savory@oit.gatech.edu.
About Southern Light Rail
Southern Light Rail (SLR) is a Georgia Tech non-profit corporation providing National LambdaRail (NLR) access to the Georgia Research Alliance universities, other universities in the Southern region of the United States and governmental and private sector organizations involved in university research initiatives. Visit http://www.southernlightrail.org for more information.
About National LambdaRail
National LambdaRail is a major initiative of U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies to provide a national scale infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking technologies and applications. NLR puts the control, the power and the promise of experimental network infrastructure in the hands of our nation's scientists and researchers. Visit www.nlr.net for more information.
Southern Light Rail Participants
Current:
Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia State University
Medical College of Georgia
University of Georgia
Pending:
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
University System of Alabama
National LambdaRail Primary Connection Points
Atlanta
Chicago
Denver
Houston
Los Angeles
New York City
Seattle
Washington D.C.
-END-
Useful Links
Southern Light Rail http://www.southernlightrail.org/
National LambdaRail http://www.nlr.net/
]]>To begin the concept phase, an interdisciplinary design workshop was established at the start of Tech's summer term, led by Professor Ruchi Choudhary and Franca Trubiano from the College of Architecture. The team, including students from architecture, engineering and biology, was initially divided into seven groups. Each group then created their own concept for the house. After two weeks, through a democratic process, four houses were chosen to continue. The team was then divided into four groups to further those house concepts. After a vote on these projects, one week later, there was no clear winner. For a moment, it was unclear what the Tech team was going to do. After reflecting on its predicament over a long weekend, the decision was made to create a hybrid, a combination emphasizing the strengths of each house design.
"Combining the best elements of each of the four projects seemed to make a lot of sense. All of the students spent enormous time investigating the various energy systems of the project and how they could be conceptualized into architecture. There were a lot of good ideas created during the past several weeks. In the end, nobody could abandon them. So it was decided to combine the ideas. And magically it worked," said Chris Jarrett, one of the Solar Decathlon team's project managers. "It was a welcome result to a lot of collaborative work and late nights. The strategy allows everyone to take some ownership."
Tech's Solar Decathlon team is highly interdisciplinary and collaborative, reaching nearly all corners of the university. It comprises a large number of students, faculty and staff across the institute, as well as several consultants. Specifically the team includes four institute level partners, participation by four of the six colleges at Georgia Tech, and the support of three research centers - one each from architecture, engineering and science. The Tech team also includes three project managers, seven faculty advisors, more than 50 undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. students, and four consultants.
With the project having such strong interdisciplinary ties, it has given students a unique opportunity and experience.
"I've always been in an engineering environment with a bunch of engineers and so it has been a different experience working with people who are coming to the project from a different perspective," said Adam Boyd, a graduate student in mechanical engineering. "We've been combining our thought processes and ideas and have really come up with something impressive out of it."
Architecture students say it's been an excellent learning experience.
"The engineers help us with things that we don't know so much about," said Travis Hampton, an undergraduate in the College of Architecture, "How much energy is needed to power the house. They do the calculations to figure out how many panels we're going to need to make this house work. Also in terms of the batteries, how many do we need? The plumbing, how should that be designed? They really helped us make some good decisions on which choices would be most efficient."
"It is quite a fruitful experience because different students have different perspectives on the same project," said Amine Alami, PhD student in electrical engineering. "Some see it from an architecture standpoint, while the engineers see it from a focus more on the technical parts of it and are more energy oriented. It is very interesting to see how we can all find a middle point, where we can combine all these ideas and please everyone in the design part of it."
"Also, knowing from the beginning that the solar house is getting built is something we normally don't get into at school," said Joe Jamgochian, an architecture graduate student. "And yet, knowing how to really put a building together is what we're going to face after we graduate. That's why this project is so exciting."
Tech's Solar Decathlon team will continue to modify the project as they prepare for the next phases of the competition. For more information on the team, please visit http://solar.gatech.edu.
]]>The logistics of handling all those panicked people, health care workers, vaccinations, clinics and forms are dizzying. And while health departments have plans in place, it's very difficult to know how well those plans will perform when time is critical and the minutes needed to move patients to a large clinic or for a frightened patient to fill out a form could mean life or death for thousands or millions of people.
Now researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a computer program, based on a clinical model created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to help U.S. state, city and county health care departments create and test more efficient plans for treating infectious illness, whether it's a natural or man-made outbreak.
The program, called RealOpt and created by Dr. Eva Lee, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will be installed over the next few months at health departments across the state of Georgia and health departments in 35 other states have plans to test the program. While the program is still in the testing phase, it will soon be available free to any government health department that requests it from Georgia Tech.
RealOpt has been tested by the DeKalb County Health Department in Georgia, and the county ran a very successful anthrax drill last year. Lee used RealOpt to help DeKalb test and improve its existing bioterror preparedness plan.
RealOpt takes the numerous variables associated with a health care department's treatment of a very large group of people, and through large-scale simulation and optimization (even considering variables such as panic and language barriers), pinpoints the most efficient way to move patients to and through a facility. Using the program, a health care department can determine the best location for emergency clinics based on population density and road accessibility, the most efficient facility layout, the number of health care professionals needed in certain areas, the number of vaccinations needed and the time it will take to treat patients.
RealOpt can be used to prepare for a possible outbreak, as well as for emergency re-assignment of health care workers within the clinic and between clinics during an actual outbreak. By being able to assess preparedness, health departments will have more a precise estimate of the resources and funds needed to treat communities before an actual outbreak.
In addition to its role in planning, one of RealOpt's significant advantages is its ability to process data in real time as the emergency treatment occurs. As patient flows fluctuate, the program can determine how to reallocate the facility's resources in a fraction of a second, sending more doctors or nurses to one station or more attendants to the paperwork processing area.
"Rapid analysis of scenarios not only allows for large-scale planning and preparedness, but also allows on-the-spot optimization to maintain the best resource allocation over time," Lee said. "As patients enter and progress through the clinic we can observe the flow and dynamically adjust the configuration as needed. This is also critical for response to catastrophic events, for example, if one treatment site collapses."
RealOpt also includes an automated facility-layout drawing tool that allows health care workers to design and analyze their own clinic layout in response to various emergency situations, such as anthrax, smallpox, flu pandemic or natural disaster.
Lee continues to add to RealOpt's capabilities, and is currently adding a disease propagation component to the system. The addition would help to analyze the disease's spread within treatment sites and possible ways to halt or minimize the spread. It will also determine how to redirect patients should one center need to be quarantined or closed to prevent further spread of a disease.
]]>The research team led by Dr. Krishna Palem, a joint professor in the Georgia Tech College of Computing and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of the Center for Research in Embedded Systems & Technology, has confirmed that architectural and application gains to be reported at DATE are as high as a factor of 560 when compared to comparable CMOS based architectures. As traditional CMOS semiconductor technology approaches the nanoscale, coping with noise and energy savings are increasingly important. PCMOS harnesses the inherent instability of noise and uses it as a resource to achieve energy efficient architectures. In the architectures, noise induces distortion in the application. However, given the human ability to average this routinely such as in voice when using cell phones, or in images when they are streamed to hand held devices, the user does not often notice the distortion as significant and is willing to pay the price for significant energy savings. A demonstration showing this effect in the context of video decompression used in modern DVD images is available for viewing at http://www.crest.gatech.edu/palempbitscurrent/demo.html.
"Probabilistic architectures extend PCMOS to computing substrates beyond devices," says Palem. "By mixing chip measurements and simulations, gains have been shown using this technology for such applications as Hyper-encryption as applied to computer security, and through cognitive applications such as speech recognition and pattern recognition as well as image decompression. The gains ranged from a factor of 10 to a factor of more than 500 over conventional architectural approaches."
Beyond such architectural objectives, when applications need random sources, historically pseudo-random numbers generators were used. The Georgia Tech research team used the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommended tests to quantify and measure the quality of randomness of PCMOS within this limited context of being viewed as a source of random bits, beyond complete Probabilistic System on Chip (PSoC) architectures. PCMOS outperformed CMOS in the quality of random sequences generated.
Next Steps
The research team will work on developing PSoC architectures to be fabricated using devices of 180 nanometers, for specific applications with an embedded flavor such as video, and audio signal processing (DSP). Palem estimates this will take nine months to validate. The technical paper being presented at DATE is available at http://www.crest.gatech.edu/palempbitscurrent/date2006.pdf.
Currently, there are more than 600 ongoing genome sequencing projects of eukaryotes that carry nuclei within cells. Decoding the DNA sequences that come out from even a single genome project is an enormous task. Still, unraveling the genetic code of living creatures allows scientists to understand the details of the cellular machinery. This knowledge helps generate ideas for a variety of future research directions. Understanding the specific features of individual genomes may lead to the development of personalized medicine, while comparing the genomes from related species can help scientists trace their evolution.
"The genomic sequence is a foundation and blueprint of molecular cellular networks and processes which dynamics need to be reconstructed to understand how the cell works. These networks are specific for each organism, so once you know the list of the genes, you start to assemble all the parts into a picture," said Mark Borodovsky, Regents' professor in the School of Biology and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics at Georgia Tech.
Borodovsky developed the first version of GeneMark in 1993. In 1995, this program was used by Craig Venter and his Institute for Genomic Research to find genes in the first ever completely sequenced genomes of the organisms representing the two prokaryotic domains of life, bacteria and archea.
A self-training version of the genefinding program for prokaryotic genomes was created by Borodovsky's group in 2001. Since 1998, it has been frequently used for gene finding in eukaryotes, particularly in plant genomes such as rice. By now, use of the GeneMark programs by the researchers around the globe was registered for discoveries of more than 400,000 genes in various genomes, from viruses and bacteria to rice and humans.
Now Borodovsky and his team at Georgia Tech have taken a leap forward and built a program that can train itself to make accurate gene prediction in the numerous newly sequenced genomes of eukaryotes. The program uses established general principles of genetic code organization - adjusted to the general compositional features of a particular genome - to help identify at least a few regions of the anonymous genome that contain protein coding sequences. Once they have the initial predictions, they separate the coding and non-coding sequences. This clusterization allows scientists to apply machine-learning techniques to refine the parameters of the recognition algorithm to the specific patterns found in the newly identified protein-coding sequences. A researcher then repeats this prediction and training step, each time detecting a larger set of true coding sequences that are used to further improve the model employed in statistical pattern recognition. The last run, when no innovation is reached at the prediction step, produces the desirable final set of predicted genes.
Because the self-training method uses established general principles of eukaryotic gene organization to reconstruct the species specific nucleotide sequence patterns, it speeds things up, since scientists don't have to wait for an outside expert to develop a sequence large enough to use as a training set. That can shave a year or more off a sequencing project. With the self-training method, the program does the work itself.
Details on the new program can be found in number 20 of Nucleic
Acids Research (volume 33) on pages 6494-6506.
"This is a sure sign of our growing maturity as a university, and I am pleased to have seen this happen while I am privileged to be here," says Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough.
"The continuing support of the MacArthur Foundation will allow us to create an enduring community of scholars at Georgia Tech dedicated to providing the best independent scientific and technological advice on the security policy challenges facing the United States and the world," says William Long, chair, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. "This program exemplifies the commitment of Georgia Tech and the Nunn School to bridging the worlds of technology and policy to find solutions to the problems of the 21st century."
The Sam Nunn School received a renewal grant of $1.84 million that extends the initial grant for five years. The new grant will fund four research initiatives on information security and cyber threats; the role of information and communications technology in societal reconciliation and reconstruction following conflict and examining cases such as Rwanda, Mozambique and Afghanistan; initiatives to reform the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in light of recent challenges posed by North Korea and Iran; and continue to develop a public-private partnership among federal, state and local agencies to prevent bioterrorism. This grant will also fund one new tenured faculty position and provide support to dozens of mid-career and graduate research fellowships in science and security through the Nunn Security Program. Assistant professor Mike Best holds one faculty position under the terms of the original grant, and the renewal award will fund a second faculty hire in the area of Science, Technology, and International Security. The School will begin a search for this faculty position shortly.
Co-principal investigators are John Endicott, professor of international affairs and director of the Center of International Strategy, Technology and Policy (CISTP), and Seymour Goodman, professor of international affairs and computing. Endicott is a leader in developing a Nuclear Free Zone in northeast Asia and for this work was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Goodman is co-director of CISTP and co-director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC).
The Foundation's Science, Technology and Security Initiative is designed to nurture a new generation of experts working on issues at the intersection of science, technology and policy and to close gaps in knowledge about the technical aspects of national and international security.
"The number of specialists providing independent analysis of nuclear and biological weapons dangers falls far short of the international community's needs, especially as the threat of terrorism has grown," said Jonathan F. Fanton, president of the MacArthur Foundation. "The diffusion of nuclear weapons material and expertise, and the emerging dangers from biotechnology and cyberspace pose new and profound threats to international peace and security. There should be more substantial engagement between policymakers responsible for decisions regarding security and technical specialists with the expertise on these new and emerging threats."
A major goal of MacArthur's grantmaking in international peace and security is to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear and biological weapons. To do this, the Foundation awards grants to strengthen independent scientific and technical advice on security policy, to develop new approaches in cooperative security, and to support policy research and engagement.
In addition to the Science, Technology and Security Initiative, grants are also made to develop new and effective policy approaches to arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament. Funds are made available to organizations working to encourage transnational collaboration to reduce tensions, prevent accidents, and avert new arms races.
The Foundation also makes grants to bring information, analysis and conceptual frameworks to the attention of lawmakers and policy advisors. It supports projects that engage policymakers in discussions of national and international security issues, facilitates the flow of new ideas to policy leaders, and ensures that scientific and technical expertise is made available to decision makers.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grant making institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. With assets of $5 billion, the Foundation makes grants of approximately $200 million each year.
]]>Berthelot, who is residing full-time in Metz, will oversee all administrative, operational and financial responsibilities for all research and academic programs at GTL and coordinate operational relations with local and national institutions in France. He will also play a key role in the strategic development of GTL, in collaboration with senior administrators and faculty members in Atlanta, GTL faculty and with local and regional partners in Lorraine and in Europe.
"GTL offers some extraordinary challenges and opportunities for Georgia Tech's faculty and students, through innovative academic programs, collaborative international research programs, and transatlantic economic development," said Berthelot. "I am honored to be part of this effort."
The Assemblée Générale (Board of Directors) of GTL has also asked Dr. Jean-Lou Chameau, Georgia Tech provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, to chair the board as president of GTL. Chameau is familiar with the Assemblée Générale, having served on this board since 1997. As provost of Georgia Tech and president of the Assemblée Générale of GTL, Chameau will provide direction to the operations, academic programs and overall strategy of the Metz campus.
Steven W. McLaughlin, Ken Byers Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, lead GTL operations and planning on Georgia Tech's Atlanta campus as deputy director of GTL. McLaughlin will work closely with Berthelot, Chameau and others in Atlanta to further GTL's mission.
Opened in 1990, GTL represents an integral piece of Georgia Tech's emphasis on a truly global education. Students can take graduate-level courses taught in English in electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering and computer science. Since 1991, over 800 graduate students have spent at least one semester at GTL before graduating from Georgia Tech. Over 75 faculty members from the Atlanta campus have spent at least one semester at GTL. GTL also offers undergraduate courses as part of its summer program as well as through Georgia Tech's newly created International Plan, a program that adds a unique multicultural and international dimension to undergraduate courses. During the summer of 2006, faculty from all six Georgia Tech colleges will teach 26 courses at GTL.
"GT Lorraine gives Georgia Tech students an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of how their area of study fits into an international community. The International Plan and GT Lorraine will help students better compete in a global economy," said Chameau.
The program will offer junior-level students from electrical engineering, computer engineering and mechanical engineering a year-long course of study that will add a unique multicultural and international dimension to their undergraduate education. Students participating in this program will complete a minimum of two years of college-level French, at least two courses of which are taught in French and courses in Global Economics, European Society and Culture and European Business Practices. Some of this coursework will be taken at the Metz campus during their required stay of two semesters at GTL.
Berthelot will lead GTL's core graduate and undergraduate summer program and its expanded role through the International Plan to provide a greater number of Georgia Tech students with an international education and experience.
Berthelot joined the faculty of Georgia Tech in 1985, was promoted to associate professor in 1990, and to professor in 1996. A native of France, he has been involved with GTL since 1997, when the School of Mechanical Engineering established its presence at GTL. His main research interests are in the area of acoustic materials and ultrasonic nondestructive testing.
McLaughlin has been the director of research at GTL since 2003. His research interests are in the general areas of communications and information theory. His research group has ongoing projects in the areas of wireless communications, optical and magnetic recording, quantum key distribution and data security. He has published more than 200 papers in refereed journals and conferences and holds 26 U.S. patents. He served as the president of the IEEE Information Theory Society in 2005.
]]>The meeting will take place in Lindau, Germany, June 25-30, where Ringer will participate in various activities with the Nobel Laureates. Since 1951, Nobel Laureates in chemistry, physics and physiology/medicine have annually convened in Lindau to have open and informal meetings with students and young researchers from around the world. This year's event, which traditionally rotates by discipline each year, will focus on chemistry.
ORAU's participants are joining 51 other students to represent the United States and more than 350 other international students at the meeting. The other students representing the United States are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Army, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
All participants will travel to Washington, D.C., for a meeting at DOE headquarters before leaving for Germany on Friday, June 23. On Saturday, June 24, the students will arrive in the historic medieval island city located at the common border of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Students will attend the opening ceremony for the 56th Lindau Meeting on Sunday, June 25.
The Laureates will lecture on the topic of their choice related to chemistry and participate in less formal small group discussions with the students. The primary purpose of the meeting is to allow participants-most of whom are students - to benefit from informal interaction with the Nobel Prize winners. Therefore, Laureates will preside over informal roundtable sessions exclusively for students and join participants at local restaurants for additional informal discussions. Various social events are also on the agenda, including an evening dinner gala, which will allow participants to meet attendees from other countries around the world.
On June 30, participants will travel by ferry to the Isle of Mainau for the closing ceremonies at the baroque Mainau Castle, the residence of Swedish patrons the Bernadotte family. The late Count Lennart Bernadotte began the Lindau meetings in 1951. That afternoon, U.S. participants will return to Munich for the flight home or continue traveling through Europe on their own.
Ringer holds a bachelor's degree from Mississippi College. She is the daughter of David and Susan Ringer of Florence, Miss.
Additional information:
A Web site has been set up to post daily information while students are attending the meeting. Each day, photos and a summary of events will be posted. The URL for this year's meeting is http://www.orau.gov/lindau2006.
The Web site and travel arrangements for all participants are being administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), which is managed by ORAU for DOE.
ORISE is a U.S. Department of Energy facility focusing on scientific initiatives to research health risks from occupational hazards, assess environmental cleanup, respond to radiation medical emergencies, support national security and emergency preparedness and educate the next generation of scientists. ORISE is managed by ORAU.
]]>President Wayne Clough said Fetig would be a strong resource for Tech as it moves forward with key initiatives.
"Jim has an impressive background in public relations and marketing and is eager to become involved in the planning and execution of a strategy that fits our goals for the future. We are excited to welcome him to our leadership team."
Working for the U.S. Army, Fetig has directed media strategy at the Pentagon and served as the special assistant to its Chief of Staff. In his last governmental position, he served as director of public affairs for the National Security Council at The White House. More recently, he has worked as vice president of public relations for Lockheed Martin and as vice president for media relations at Raytheon Company in Waltham, Mass.
Fetig's work in public relations has earned him national honors from professional societies. Sue Ann Allen, executive assistant to the president and chair of the search committee, said the group was swayed by his track record and organizational success.
"Jim Fetig's breadth of experience, effective management and leadership style and engaging demeanor make him ideally suited for the job," she said. "He brings a very strong corporate experience to our operation, and we are fortunate to have him on board."
In leading ICPA, Fetig's principal assignments will involve both communications and marketing. As the head of the central public relations function for Tech, the associate vice president reports directly to the president, serving as the spokesperson for the Institute and as its chief communications counselor.
He will also be responsible for developing Institute-wide communications strategies, driving implementation of communication initiatives, measuring the impact of those initiatives and collaborating to ensure strategic alignment of all communications activities.
A Six Sigma specialist, Fetig said he is eager to take on a new challenge.
"I was completely impressed with everyone I met at Georgia Tech and all that Dr. Clough's team has accomplished," he said. "The vision for the Institute is compelling as is the opportunity to join a world-class organization. I am looking forward to meeting and working with everyone on the faculty and staff."
]]>Last year, the father and son research team of Mostafa El-Sayed and Ivan El-Sayed, showed that gold nanoparticles coated with a cancer antibody were very effective at binding to tumor cells. When bound to the gold, the cancer cells scattered light, making it very easy to identify the noncancerous cells from the malignant ones. The nanoparticles also absorbed the laser light more easily, so that the coated malignant cells only required half the laser energy to be killed compared to the benign cells. This makes it relatively easy to ensure that only the malignant cells are being destroyed.
Now, they've discovered that by changing the spheres into rods, they can lower the frequency to which the nanoparticles respond from the visible light spectrum used by the nanospheres to the near-infrared spectrum. Since these lasers can penetrate deeper under the skin than lasers in the visible spectrum, they can reach tumors that are inaccessible to visible lasers.
"With the nanospheres we're using visible lasers, but most of the solid cancer is under the tissues and visible light doesn't go but a few millimeters deep. But by using the nanorods we can tune them to react to the infrared lasers, which can penetrate the tumor without being absorbed by the tissues," said Mostafa El-Sayed, director of the Laser Dyanamics Laboratory and Regents' professor of chemistry at Georgia Tech.
Many cancer cells have a protein, known as Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EFGR), all over their surface, while healthy cells typically do not express the protein as strongly. By conjugating, or binding, the gold nanorods to an antibody for EFGR, suitably named anti-EFGR, researchers were able to get the nanoparticles to attach themselves to the cancer cells.
In this latest study, researchers incubated two malignant oral epithelial cell lines and one benign epithelial cell lines with nanorods conjugated to anti-EFGR. Not only were the malignant lines clearly identifiable as such under a simple optical microscope, but after being exposed to a continuous sapphire laser in the near infrared spectrum, the malignant lines only required half the laser energy to kill them as the healthy cells.
"This makes it more practical than the sphere in terms of treating cancer," said Mostafa El-Sayed. "For laser phototherapy treatment of skin cancer or, for diagnostic biopsies, the spheres are fine, but for phototherapy of cancer deep under the skin, like breast cancer, then one really needs to use the nanorods treatment."
]]>The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is the autonomous agency that manages the Panama Canal, the leading interoceanic waterway that serves world maritime commerce.
Under his leadership, Zubieta has transformed the Panama Canal into a world leader in services to the maritime industry, positioning the Canal as a key pathway for global transportation. He will share his thoughts and best practices.
"Panama has successfully managed and operated the Canal since the United States handover in 1999," said Zubieta. "We have continued to set the bar higher for efficiency, safety and reliability, while at the same time enhancing economic development opportunities for our country. The Canal certainly represents a cornerstone of infrastructure for the Latin American region and serves as a key asset for those seeking to do business here."
A native of Panama City, Republic of Panama, Zubieta graduated from Texas A&M University with dual degrees in industrial and civil engineering. Prior to joining ACP in 1996, he served as CEO of one of the largest construction companies in the country. In 1998, he was appointed Administrator of the Panama Canal Authority, the new Panamanian entity tasked with the management of the waterway upon its transfer from the U.S. to the Republic of Panama. During the following two years, Zubieta served simultaneously as Administrator of the Panama Canal Commission and the Panama Canal Authority, ensuring that the decisions taken under the Commission administration would have continuity under the new Canal Authority.
Founded in 1949, UPADI represents a membership of approximately 2.5 million engineers from 26 member countries in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The goal of the organization is to advance science and technology to benefit humanity through hemispheric cooperation. The organization seeks to develop action plans, encourage outside funding, and work for the economic development of the nations served. The UPADI conference was last hosted by the United States in 1990 in Washington, D.C.
Registration and conference details for UPADI can be found at http://www.upadi2006.com/english/index.shtml or contact Diana Turner at 404-385-3510 for additional information.
]]>A group of experts in science, engineering and public policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Imperial College London and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory recommend a comprehensive research and policy plan aimed at increasing the practicality of using biofuels and biomaterials as a supplement to petroleum. The review article, called "The Path Forward for Biofuels and Biomaterials," appears in the Jan. 27 issue of Science.
"We can readily address, with research, 30 percent of current transportation fuel needs. But reaching that goal will require 5-10 years and significant policy and technical effort," said Dr. Arthur Ragauskas, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a lead on the project.
While many think of ethanol when they think of biofuels, the group recommends a much broader spectrum of possible materials including agriculture wastes such as corn stovers and wheat stalks, fast-growing trees such as poplar and willow and several perennial energy crops such as switchgrass.
In addition to including more diversity in materials, the group also recommends some changes to the plants themselves using techniques such as accelerated domestication to make them more efficient energy crops. But doubling the productivity of energy crops will mean identifying constraints and correcting them with genomic tools.
To make biofuels a truly practical alternative to petroleum, the group says there will need to be significant improvements in how biofuel is processed. Their vision is for a fully integrated biorefinery, which is designed to take advantage of advances in plant science and innovative biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power and chemicals from biomass.
The biorefinery would work much like a petroleum refinery, which produces multiple fuels and products from petroleum.
The group based its recommendations on research studies, including studies on the development of rapid-growth, high-energy content trees and perennials, novel environmentally friendly biomass extraction technologies, innovative catalysts for the conversion of agriculture and wood residues to bioethanol/diesel and hydrogen, bio-fuel cells and next-generation green plastics and materials prepared from sustainable sources such as plants, sunlight and wastes.
Other team leaders on the project include Dr. Charlotte Williams and Dr. Richard Murphy from the Imperial College London and Dr. Brian Davison from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Other key collaborators include Dr. Charles Liotta, Dr. Charles Eckert, John Cairney, James Frederick and Jason P. Hallett from Georgia Tech, Dr. Richard Templer, George Britovsek and David Leak from Imperial College London; and Dr. Lee Riedinger, Jonathan R. Mielenz and Timothy Tschaplinski from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
]]>The Ivan Allen Prize is awarded annually to a distinguished public figure whose service over a lifetime has significantly contributed to the progress of the quality of life in Georgia. Previous recipients of the award include 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).
Ivan Allen College is named for Atlanta's legendary mayor, businessman and Tech alumnus, Ivan Allen Jr., who represented the essence of 'the New South' and, among other achievements, is credited with peacefully desegregating Atlanta during the tumultuous 1960s. Hill will be honored at the Founder's Day luncheon on March 15, an event that annually marks Mayor Allen's birthday.
Biography of Jesse Hill Jr.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri on May 30, 1926, Hill arrived in Atlanta in 1949 after completing a Bachelor of Science in math and physics from Lincoln University and an MBA in Actuarial Science from the University of Michigan. Joining the Atlanta Life Insurance Company initially as an actuarial assistant, Hill rose to become the firm's third president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the Executive Committee in 1973.
As an executive and CEO of the largest African-American owned financial institution in America, he continued to build upon the company's strong tradition of supporting human and civil rights activism. Over the course of his successful career, Hill has compiled a long list of 'door-opening firsts' for African-Americans.
Appointed by Mayor Allen to chair the bargaining committee that negotiated the purchase of what was to become Metropolitan Area Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), Hill was the first African American member to sit on MARTA's Board of Directors. He also was the first African-American selected to serve on the Board of Regents for the University System of Georgia. In 1977, he was elected president of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the first African-American to hold such a position in a major U.S. city. He also was elected as the first black member of the Board of Trustees of the Commerce Club, the elite venue of Atlanta's previously all-white power structure.
In addition, Hill has served on the boards of a number of corporations, including Comsat, Delta Air Lines, Knight Ridder, Morse Shoes, National Service Industries, Rich's, S & H Corporation, and SunTrust, often as the first minority member. For the past 25 years, he has served as chairman of the Board of Governors Opportunity Funding Corporation (OFC), a Washington, D.C. based organization committed to promoting and facilitating the development of minority business enterprise.
During the 1960s, Hill directed his company to quietly underwrite civil rights initiatives throughout the South, such as providing bail money to release individuals arrested in sit-ins and other protests. For over fifteen years, he also served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change. In addition, Hill served on the Board of Directors and in various leadership capacities for the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Hill also founded The Atlanta Inquirer, the weekly newspaper that became the voice of the civil rights movement in Atlanta.
But it is as a political leader in the city of Atlanta that Hill has had perhaps his most lasting impact. Soon after his arrival, he quickly became acquainted with most of the key leaders of the city through the auspices of the Hungry Club. Located at the Butler Street YMCA where Hill first resided, the club provided the only forum at that time where black and white leaders could engage in serious dialogue on contemporary issues.
Head of virtually every major voter registration drive in the black community during the 60's, Hill chaired the All Citizens Registration Committee, precursor to a political organization that has since nurtured the careers of Atlanta's last four mayors. Consequently, he served as campaign chairman for Maynard Jackson, elected in 1973 as the first black mayor of a major city in the South; and Andrew Young, the first black elected to Congress from Georgia and the South since Reconstruction.
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.
"Participants will discover Disney success stories and learn about management philosophies and behind-the-scenes operations that have made the Walt Disney World Resort a benchmark for businesses around the world," said George Aguel, senior vice president for Walt Disney Parks and Resort. "We showcase philosophies and strategies that have made the Walt Disney World Resort a success - ideas that are easily adaptable to other organizations."
"We think this insider's look at the world famous Disney model will be fascinating and are proud to bring this exciting program to Atlanta," says Bill Wepfer, vice provost of Distance Learning and Professional Education at Georgia Tech.
The Atlanta Disney Keys program has four 90-minute sessions:
- Leadership, Disney Style : Participants discover how effective leadership has been the catalyst at Disney to drive employee/customer satisfaction and bottom-line results, from the company's inception to today.
- Management, Disney Style : Participants examine the importance of integrating an organization's corporate culture into selection, training, and care.
- Service, Disney Style : Participants explore world-renowned Disney principles for service
excellence.
- Loyalty, Disney Style : Participants learn key practices and principles in building and sustaining loyalty that have made Disney a trusted and revered brand around the world for more than 75 years.
Registration and tuition fees for the program are $475 per person, and include course materials, continental breakfast, breaks and parking. For registration information, call 404-385-7460 or visit http://www.disney.gatech.edu/.
]]>Held in the Management building in Technology Square, the Celebration included a formal reception and dinner, in addition to the awards presentation.
"This occasion honors twelve individuals who have done so much to enhance the College's reputation through their remarkable professional and civic leadership," says Terry C. Blum, dean of the business school. "We are proud that they are a part of the College and delighted to publicly recognize their achievements."
New members of the Hall of Fame, which recognizes leaders for their lifetime career achievement and contributions to society and Georgia Tech, will include:
Joel H. Cowan, IM 1958
Owner of the investment company Habersham & Cowan Inc., Cowan founded Georgia's Peachtree City, serving as the town's first mayor from 1959 to 1963 and CEO of the town's development company through 1976. In recent years, he has shifted from real-estate development to focus on international activities, including trade, technology transfer, and merchant banking in the Netherlands and the emerging economies of Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, and China.
Alvin M. Ferst Jr., IM 1943
A native of Atlanta, Ferst was president of Alvin Ferst Associates Inc. until retiring in 2003. He started his real-estate development and management-consulting company in the early 1980s after retiring from a long career with Rich's Inc. After joining Rich's in 1946, he held a variety of management positions, finally rising to executive vice president and treasurer of the company. He began his career as an industrial engineer with Philco Corporation.
W. Mansfield Jennings Jr., IM 1956
Jennings is chairman of ComSouth Corporation, a full-service telecommunications company. A native of Hawkinsville, Georgia, he served as ComSouth's CEO for several decades until 2003. Jennings led ComSouth's evolution from Hawkinsville Telephone Company, founded in 1913, into a full-service telecommunications company offering not only local and long-distance phone service, but also cable TV, high-speed Internet, business phone systems, and more.
New members of the Academy of Distinguished Alumni which recognizes leaders for their contributions to business, Georgia Tech and society at large, will include:
Neil K. Braverman, IM 1960
Braverman retired five years ago after starting three companies and selling them to major corporations. He co-founded the last of these, Safeskin Corp., in 1988. Safeskin was the first company to market hypoallergenic examination gloves designed for health-care professionals who were sensitive to latex. Under Braverman's leadership, Safeskin was recognized by Fortune magazine five years in a row as one of the top ten small companies in America. Kimberly Clark bought it in 2000.
David W. Dorman, IM 1975
Dorman is the former chairman and CEO of AT&T Corp., which he led through a period of profound reinvention and transformation prior to completing the merger of AT&T Corp. and SBC Communications in November 2005. Dorman, who was named AT&T's chairman and CEO in 2002, joined the company as president in 2000. Prior to that, he was the CEO of Concert, a global venture created by AT&T and British Telecommunications.
Joseph W. Evans, IM 1971
Evans is the chairman and CEO of Atlanta-based Flag Financial Corporation, which is the parent company of Flag Bank. This seventy-five-year-old community bank now has twenty-seven offices in fifteen Georgia counties. He joined Bank Corporation of America in 1980, rising to CEO in 1984. After the bank merged with Century South Banks in 1997, Evans became president and COO of the combined entity. He served as CEO from January 2000 to June 2001, when BB&T acquired Century South.
Jack Guynn, MSM 1970
Guynn is president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta , where he has worked for his entire career. He joined the Atlanta Fed in 1964, holding a variety of positions in the bank's New Orleans and Miami offices over the years. In 1984, he was named first vice president and chief operating officer, with responsibility over the operations of the bank's Atlanta headquarters and five branch offices, a position he held for twelve years until taking over the presidency.
Toney E. Means, IM 1982
Means is the CEO of Rx Fulfillment Services Inc., a leading national mail-order pharmacy and drug-benefit management company that is a subsidiary of Intrepid Holdings Inc. In 1988, six years after he started working in the pharmaceutical industry, Means started the first African American-owned pharmaceutical company, Imiren, growing it to produce and market twenty-seven generic prescription products dispensed in more than 20,000 U.S. retail pharmacies and 6,500 hospitals.
Dennis M. Patterson, GMGT 1971
Patterson is corporate executive vice president and a member of the Management Committee for SunTrust Banks Inc., the seventh largest commercial bank in the United States, with $180 billion in assets, more than 1,650 offices in eleven states, and just under $2 billion in earnings. Patterson is responsible for development and coordination of SunTrust's sales and service organization and culture across all lines of business and geographic divisions.
New members of the Council of Outstanding Young Alumni, which recognizes alumni for their career achievements and contributions to Georgia Tech and society, will include:
Kelly H. Barrett, IM 1986
Barrett, who joined The Home Depot in 2003, was named vice president of Internal Audit last fall. In her current position, she is responsible for developing and executing a risk-based audit plan and building a leadership program within her area that serves as a pipeline of talent for The Home Depot. In her previous role as vice president and corporate controller for The Home Depot, Barrett was responsible for all of the company's internal and external financial reporting, and its financial controls and systems.
Jeffrey A. Beech, MGT 1987
Beech serves as president of The Beech Foundation, which assists nonprofit causes with strategic planning, fundraising, business modeling, board and leadership structure, and community outreach. Prior to creating the foundation in 2000, Beech enjoyed an international consulting career, serving as a global managing partner for Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting), where he was part of a leadership team responsible for developing the largest supply-chain strategy practice in the world.
J. Michael Robison, MGT 1997
Robison is founder, chairman and CEO of Lanier Parking Holdings, an Atlanta-based conglomerate controlling more than $10 billion worth of commercial parking at 300 properties in thirty-four cities across the United States. He is also chairman of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau and Atlanta Streetcar Inc., a nonprofit organization restoring streetcar service along Peachtree Street. Lanier is the only parking company to have an entire division devoted to alternative transportation.
Writer: Brad Dixon, College of Management
]]>The UMI, which is the first of its kind in France, will be based at Georgia Tech Lorraine (GT Lorraine), the European campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology located in Metz, France. Created in 1990, GT Lorraine excels in secure networks and innovative materials research.
Two large and select French engineering schools, ENSAM and SUPELEC, and two universities, Franche Comté University in Besançon and Paul Verlaine University in Metz, are associate members.
"The fact that the UMI agreement was officially signed in Paris at the CNRS headquarters in the presence of Dr. Catherine Brechignac, president of CNRS, and Dr. A. Migus, director of CNRS, shows that CNRS attaches great importance to this new venture between Georgia Tech and CNRS. It is clear that Georgia Tech Lorraine played an important role in this strategic partnership," said Dr. Yves Berthelot, director of GT Lorraine.
The partnership between GT Lorraine and CNRS started in 1998 with a mixed research unit (UMR) of CNRS in the area of secure telecommunications networks through optical fibers.
The new mixed international GT-CNRS unit will be devoted to optics-based communication using the dynamics of chaos in optoelectronic components, quantum cryptography and ultrafast optical communication.
The UMI's research will also focus on innovative materials related to optics, electronics and mechanical engineering, with an emphasis on nanotechnology and intelligent materials. The research will target industrial applications for aeronautics, automotives, biomedical engineering and energy.
Dr. Abdallah Ougazzaden, a GT Lorraine professor, will direct the UMI. Ougazzaden has a doctorate in optoelectronics, and his thesis led to record performances on a worldwide scale and a transfer of know-how in the new technology of semiconductor laser manufacturing with Alcatel CIT. He was previously a researcher with CNET and worked as a director of research with Bell Labs in the United States. He then joined the University of Metz as professor and deputy manager of the Photonic Optical Materials Laboratory and Systems (LMOPS/SUPELEC). He is the author and joint author of more than 130 publications and holds 20 patents.
"I look forward to leading the combination of the research strengths of Georgia Tech with other superior French universities and engineering schools to make significant advances in secure networks and materials research and to extend this international partnership with other partners and other research areas," Ougazzaden said. "I'm sure that we have all the ingredients to be successful in this international research unit."
]]>"After working several years to expand the music program and to provide an academic center to what has been for years a co-curricular program, I believe this new master's degree in Music Technology represents a huge step in the development of music at Georgia Tech," said Dean Tom Galloway, College of Architecture. "I am so appreciative of the many students and faculty across campus who have helped us create a fully interdisciplinary program centered in art and technology."
Students interested in the program will need to complete 48 credit hours to graduate and will be heavily involved in research.
"We would like students to take part in our effort to innovate and develop future technologies for music performance, composition and education," Said Gil Weinberg, director of Music Technology.
The new program will eventually offer students two different concentrations to complete the degree. However, the plan is to start the degree program with one concentration in Computer Music Research and Engineering. The other concentration will be geared toward music production, and the plan is to offer that concentration within the next few years.
"Clearly, what is most important is to provide a world-class education for students who wish to pursue careers in music technology," said Frank Clark, director of the Music Department. "We also hope to positively impact our profession through innovative research, performance and teaching. As we look forward, it will be imperative to build a new Center for Music, Art and Technology - we desperately need new and innovative facilities."
The master's degree in Music Technology will be the first degree in Tech's history combining performing art with technology. The degree is also interdisciplinary and will require collaboration across campus.
Students pursuing the new degree will have a chance to take classes in Industrial Design, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, College of Computing, College of Sciences, and Literature, Communication and Culture.
"Throughout the process of creating a strategic plan for music, we inexorably returned to the combination of music and technology," said Clark. "It became abundantly apparent that we were positioned to institutionally, regionally and nationally create unique paradigms for music performance, teaching and research. It was also clear that we had an unparalleled opportunity to develop interdisciplinary programs combining music, architecture, computing, science and engineering."
According to Weinberg, the Music Department has already started receiving interest from students. He hopes to have 5 to 7 students start the degree path next fall, with that number expanding to about 20 or more within the next few years.
]]>Each team will be awarded $100,000 over two years to support the Solar Decathlon's research goal of reducing the cost of solar-powered homes and advancing solar technology.
The Solar Decathlon is an international competition that brings student teams from universities across the United States, Europe and Canada to compete in designing, building and operating highly energy efficient, completely solar-powered houses. The teams will assemble their homes on the Mall.
Contest rules require that each house generate enough energy from the sun to operate a household, a home-based business and related transportation.
Georgia Tech's team will by led by College of Architecture professors Chris Jarrett, Ruchi Choudhary and Franca Trubiano. They will act as project managers for an interdisciplinary team of students who will be assembled to create the home.
"Building Ecology and Emerging Technologies is a new study track within Master's of Science program in the College of Architecture and it offered an impetus to submit a bid for the Decathlon," said Trubiano. "We thought the Solar Decathlon could be a project that would structure, organize and then propel the Building Ecology and Emerging Technologies study track."
"One of the terrific things about this project is we're collaborating with both the College of Engineering and the College of Sciences," said Jarrett.
The Georgia Tech team will be truly multidisciplinary with collaborators from the College of Architecture, the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Center for Biological Inspired Design (CBID) and the Institute for Sustainable Technology and Development.
Teams are judged in ten different categories, seven of which focus on energy efficiency; others include design and comfort of the house. The team with the most points - the most energy-efficient and innovatively designed house - wins.
"Our faculty, staff and facilities are going to be our strengths," said Jarrett. "Our Advanced Wood Products Lab and our expertise across the campus will also make our team very competitive."
"This is the kind of project where getting to the finish line isn't the goal," said Trubiano. "We are in this to win."
The Georgia Tech team is already starting to prepare for the Decathlon by preparing to raise money and sponsors for the event. The team is also looking for space around campus to begin building.
"One of the major starting points is fundraising and that's where we are now," said Jarrett. "We need to deliver a fundraising report and know where the funding is coming from by mid March."
Other universities participating in the 2007 Solar Decathlon are California Polytechnic State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Kansas State University, Lawrence Technological University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York Institute of Technology, Team Montreal - Ecole de Technologie Superieure, Universite de Montreal, McGill University (Canada), Technische Universitat Darmstadt (Germany), Texas A&M University, Pennsylvania State University, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain), University of Cincinnati, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland, University of Missouri-Rolla and the University of Texas at Austin.
The Solar Decathlon takes place every other year; the 2005 winner was the University of Colorado.
]]>Marcus helped found the world's largest home improvement retailer, The Home Depot Inc. His company revolutionized the home improvement business with its warehouse concept. Chairman of the board until his retirement in 2002, he remains director emeritus and Home Depot's largest single stockholder.
From 1972 to 1978, Marcus was chairman of the board and president of Handy Dan Improvement Centers Inc., a home center retail chain. Prior to Handy Dan, he was president of O'Dell's, a manufacturing conglomerate, and vice president of Hard Goods Merchandising for Vornado Inc., a retail chain.
Marcus' civic involvement has been translated into the creation of the Marcus Foundation, where he serves as chairman of the board. His areas of focus include Jewish causes, children, medical research, free enterprise and community support.
A centerpiece of his desire to give back to the community is the Georgia Aquarium, which recently opened in Atlanta. This $290 million attraction is dedicated to the people of Georgia and the associates, customers and shareholders of The Home Depot. With a total of 550,000 square feet and 8 million gallons of water, it is the largest aquarium in the world and houses more than 125,000 animals from 500 species.
In 1991, Marcus and his wife Billi established The Marcus Institute, which provides programs for children and adolescents with disorders of the brain and their families. An additional commitment in 1998 led to a national expansion when the Marcus Institute joined forces with the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.
Among the prominent philanthropies is the founding of the Israel Democracy Institute, located in Jerusalem. This non partisan and nonpolitical think tank serves as an important resource and change agent, dealing with complex issues facing Israeli democratic society. Former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz serves as the honorary chairman.
Marcus serves in numerous leadership roles including the Shepherd Spinal Center, The City of Hope, The Marcus Jewish Community Center, and Business Executives for National Security. A native of Newark, New Jersey, Marcus received a bachelor's degree in pharmacy from Rutgers University.
]]>Researchers from Georgia Tech's School of Psychology's Adult Development lab examined how younger and older adults who were induced into a positive or negative mood interpreted the actions of others. They found that older adults who were induced into a negative mood were more likely than younger adults to attribute the actions of an individual to that person alone, rather than considering that situational factors may be affecting their actions. This correspondence bias suggests that, when in a negative mood, older adults are more internally focused on maintaining an emotionally satisfying experience and thus have difficulty processing external information.
"It may be the case that older adults in a negative mood state are more motivated to downgrade their negative emotions and, thus, not allocate enough processing time to focus on the details of the situation. So this needs to be taken into consideration when imparting information to older adults," said Fredda Blanchard-Fields, professor in Georgia Tech's School of Psychology.
One situation where this knowledge might be useful is when a doctor has to tell a patient they have a serious illness.
"You want to give them time to deal with the fact that they have the illness, to deal with the emotions before you have them make a decision on how to treat it," she said.
That's very different from the way young people handle information. When in a negative mood, young adults were more likely to consider situational factors when assessing an individual's behavior, the study found. Younger adults may not have the same motivational tendencies and thus can tolerate negative emotions more easily and focus on the details of the task. This suggests that they are more externally focused when in a negative mood.
Researchers recruited 97 young adults between 18 and 28 years of age and 94 older adults whose ages ranged between 59-80 years. Participants in the study viewed film clips designed to induce them into either a positive, negative or neutral mood. Once they completed a test that measured their mood, they were given a test to measure their attention to detail and working memory capacity. Finally, they were given an essay and asked to assess whether they thought the opinions in the essay were forced or the result of the writer's own choosing.
When in a negative mood, older adults were more likely than younger adults to assume that the actions of the essay writer reflected a true belief, despite the fact that the writer had no choice in which belief to advocate.
"We thought that this was because the older adults were not focusing on the essay, not focusing on the instructions," said Andy Mienaltowski, graduate researcher and lead author of the study. "Instead, they were focusing on their negative mood state, their emotional state that they had been put in before they read the essay."
These findings seem to support other research suggesting that as people age, they become more interested in regulating their emotions and eliminating negativity.
"Older adults may be captured by the negativity and, therefore, focus attention on emotion regulation," said Blanchard-Fields. "Therefore, they focus attention on emotion regulation rather than focusing attention on the details that they need to internalize. So it's a dual task for them."
When positive moods were induced, the roles were reversed. This time, the younger adults were more likely to be less focused and exhibit the correspondence bias, and the older adults were detail oriented and considered other factors when explaining the writer's essay.
"Here we see that younger people tend to become more lax and lose focus; whereas, older people are more likely to focus on the task they are completing," said Mienaltowski.
"So it shows that the young and old are motivated by different goals and, therefore, perceive and process information differently because of the changes in goals across the lifespan," said Blanchard-Fields.
The next study for the research team will be comparing the effects of negative mood on cognition in younger and older adults.
]]>GTRI, which conducts nearly $140 million in research and development each year for industry, government and academic institutions across the world, will receive support from IDA Ireland, the agency responsible for industrial development and overseas investment in Ireland. The new institute will focus on four technology areas that mirror Ireland's research strengths - digital media, radio frequency identification (RFID), biotechnology and energy.
"Ireland is increasingly known as a world leader in innovation and for embracing technology. As Georgia Tech expands its global horizons, we seek partners who share our values and goals," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "Thus, we are especially pleased to celebrate the formation of this forward-looking collaboration with Ireland and our Georgia Tech Research Institute. We are grateful to the government and civic leaders of Ireland who worked on this exciting initiative with us."
The institute will work 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.
Ireland's Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin TD, in announcing this joint initiative at a press event in Athlone, said, "Applied research institutes specialize in translational research - the integration of technologies to prove feasibility - where ideas can be proven to have commercial potential. GTRI Ireland will provide this capability and will work across multiple disciplines and in partnership with industry to bring new technological solutions to address the industry and market needs of companies in Ireland."
Dr. Stephen E. Cross, Georgia Tech vice president and GTRI director noted, "GTRI Ireland is an integral part of GTRI's plan to develop international operations and build long-term relationships with industrial partners by providing innovative solutions through customer-focused R&D. This initiative directly supports Georgia Tech's vision to define the technological university of the 21st Century."
To take full advantage of Ireland and GTRI's research strengths, GTRI Ireland will focus on several research areas.
The institute's digital media research will include 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 will explore the potential applications of this emerging technology.
The research with RFID will center 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 will target pill-tracking accuracy, ensuring authenticity and dosage.
The institute's biotechnology research will focus primarily on medical devices for preventive and predictive medicine and manufacturing of medical devices. The institute's energy and environmental research focus will be on enabling technologies and systems models for sustainable energy alternatives, a research area of critical importance to both the United States and Ireland.
GTRI 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 Deputy Director Dr. David Parekh, who has been working with IDA Ireland for the past two years to bring this initiative to fruition, will have primary responsibility for developing GTRI Ireland strategy, establishing corporate alliances and selecting the right talent to ensure this endeavor is successful. He commended IDA for its commitment to innovation and effectiveness in supporting initiatives through a world-class staff of professionals in Ireland and the U.S. In describing this partnership with the country of Ireland, he remarked, "Ireland has the resources of a nation and the agility of a start-up."
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.
]]>Learning how water vapor reaches the stratosphere can help improve climate prediction models. Similarly, understanding the pathways that ozone-depleting chemicals can take to reach the stratosphere is essential for understanding future threats to the ozone layer, which shields Earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays.
Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, performed their analysis using data from the Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on NASA's Aura spacecraft, combined with data from NASA's Aqua and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Missions.
The team collected more than 1,000 measurements of high concentrations of water vapor in the stratosphere over the Tibetan Plateau and the Asian monsoon region. The measurements were collected during August 2004 and August 2005, during the height of monsoon season. Through the use of wind data and NASA atmospheric models, they found the water vapor originated over Tibet, just north of the Himalayan mountain range.
The team also found that even though more thunderstorms occurred over India, the storms over Tibet transported nearly three times more water vapor into the lower stratosphere than the more frequent thunderstorms that occur over India.
"This study shows that thunderstorms over Tibet are mainly responsible for the large amount of water vapor entering the stratosphere," said Dr. Rong Fu, associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, who led the study. "The rainfall may not be as frequent over Tibet as over the Indian monsoon area, but because Tibet is at a much higher elevation than India, the storms over Tibet are strong and penetrate very high, and send water vapor right into the stratosphere."
The study also found that the same pathway is responsible for transporting carbon monoxide, an indicator of air pollution, into the upper atmosphere.
"There's almost no carbon monoxide production in Tibet, so it's widely believed that carbon monoxide is transported to the tropopause over Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent," Fu said. The tropopause divides the lower atmosphere from the stratosphere, and is located at an altitude of about 18 kilometers (11 miles) above Earth over the tropics and Tibet.
Fu added, "Our study finds thunderstorms over Tibet transport as much carbon monoxide to the lower stratosphere as do those over India. When long-lived pollutants are transported out of the lower atmosphere, they can move rapidly. Pollutants from Asia, for example, can wind up on the other side of the world."
The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Aura, Aqua and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission are part of the NASA-centered international Earth Observing System, and are managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Aura's Microwave Limb Sounder was built by JPL.
JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology.
]]>Last summer, the journals Nature and Science published studies claiming to show a very strong link between rising tropical sea surface temperatures and an increase in the strength of hurricanes. The Nature study, by Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, concluded that cyclonic storms in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceanic basins were increasing in strength and duration. That increase, Emanuel concluded, was due to increasing sea surface temperatures caused, in part, by global warming.
A month later, the journal Science published research linking an increase in sea surface temperatures over the past 35 years to a near doubling in the number of the strongest hurricanes, those labeled Category 4 or 5. The study, authored by Peter Webster, Judith Curry and Hai-Ru Chang at Georgia Tech and Greg Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, examined hurricanes in all oceanic basins that play host to cyclonic storms around the world.
This latest study sought to determine whether factors other than sea surface temperatures could be significantly contributing to this 35-year trend. Georgia Tech researchers Carlos Hoyos and Paula Agudelo, along with Curry and Webster examined three factors: vertical wind shear (changes in wind speed and direction with height); humidity in the lower atmosphere; and zonal stretching deformation, which is the tendency of the winds to rotate in a cyclonic direction.
"If you examine the intensification of a single storm, or even the statistics on intensification for a particular season, factors like wind shear can play an important role," said Curry, professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. "However, there is no global trend in wind shear or the other factors over the 35-year period."
Curry said they did see a small but significant trend in increasing wind shear strength in the North Atlantic, but that the sea surface temperatures were the dominant influence on the increase in both global hurricane intensity as well as the intensity of the North Atlantic hurricanes.
"With this new paper, we firm up the link between the increase in sea surface temperatures and hurricane intensity, which has been a key issue in the debate about whether global warming is causing an increase in hurricane intensity," said Curry.
The study was supported by the Climate Dynamics Division of the National Science Foundation.
]]>The premise underlying this evolving field is the belief that every animal must solve a particular problem to survive, so every animal embodies a design solution for a particular problem.
"The natural selection and evolution of species provides us with the longest engineering design test of all time," said Jeannette Yen, professor in Georgia Tech's School of Biology. "By studying how organisms solve the problems they face, we get to benefit from the millions of years of knowledge embedded in the DNA of each creature."
While scientists, like Leonardo DaVinci, looked to nature for inspiration centuries ago, biomimetics has recently caught on as a hot area of research at universities across the country. Last year, Georgia Tech launched the Center for Biologically Inspired Design (CBID) as a way to encourage more of the interdisciplinary research that was already taking place among research groups. Now, the center boasts 20 members comprised of researchers from various fields of engineering, biology, chemistry, psychology, applied physiology and architecture.
Other institutions are also expanding biomimetic research. The University of California - Berkeley recently opened a new Center for Interdisciplinary Biological Inspiration in Education and Research. And at the University of Toronto, researchers are busy creating methods for teaching this approach across disciplines.
At this conference, scientists and engineers from institutions, including Georgia Tech, Caltech, Case Western, UC Berkley, the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research, Shandong University and the University of Illinois will present snapshots of their research in progress.
Symposium highlights:
In an effort to create brain-inspired sensors and gain new insight into how memories are formed in the human brain, Hang Lu, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Georgia Tech, is studying how sensory- and memory-related genes are expressed and regulated in tiny micro-sized worms by observing the worms' behavior on an equally micro-sized chip.
While Steven DeWeerth, an electrical engineer at Tech with a focus on biomedical engineering, is working to understand how the body communicates with joints and muscles for movement and balance in order to design robots and prosthetics that replicate the naturally fluid movement of animals and humans. He's using a small robot that closely replicates the balance and movement of a cat, and a frog muscle linked to a virtual robotic leg.
In research that could lead to novel strategies for tissue engineering, repair and replacement, Georgia Tech biologist J. Todd Streelman is looking at fish jaws to better understand the mechanical properties of jaws and teeth under stress.
Researchers from other institutions will present findings on materials inspired by the strength of spider silk, the elasticity of cartilage, the arrangement of butterfly scales, the dry adhesion of gecko hairs for locomotion, fish teeth and the patterns and processes of diatom silica shells.
Other researchers will present research on the propulsive systems used in fish fins, jellyfish jets, insect legs and snake undulations, along with various ways to produce and coordinate these motions. One researcher from Caltech uses Electro Active Polymers, while another researcher from Case Western uses Braided Pneumatic Actuators as muscles in robots. A researcher at Northwestern uses whiskers as robotic sensors. At other institutions, researchers are outfitting robots with jointed legs and sticky toes.
]]>"Georgia Tech is committed to providing international educational opportunities through innovative programs and partnerships," said Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. "The UPADI conference offers an ideal forum to enhance our working relationship with Pan America to insure that the Western hemisphere continues to have a competitive edge in the engineering sector." Clough will be one of the keynote speakers during the event.
The theme of the bilingual conference is 'Building a Sustainable Infrastructure: Education, Technology Innovation, and Economic Development.' Features of the four-day meeting include a series of technical congresses and presentations, along with five plenary sessions focusing on transparency and global ethics, economic development, free trade, sustainability and education. Plenary session speakers include Ciro de Falco, executive vice president, Inter-American Development Bank; Raquel Alfaro, Fund for Fostering Scientific and Technological Research; Carlos Braga, senior advisor, International Trade Department, The World Bank; and Alberto Alemán Zubieta, chief executive officer, Panama Canal Authority.
UPADI is calling for final paper submissions by the June 2006, deadline, as well as inviting students to enter UPADI's Student Design Paper Competition. Submission guidelines can be found at the following links:
- http://www.upadi2006.com/english/papers.shtml
- http://www.upadi2006.com/english/competition.shtml
Founded in 1949, UPADI represents a membership of approximately 2.5 million engineers from 26 member countries in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The goal of the organization is to advance science and technology to benefit humanity through hemispheric cooperation. The organization seeks to develop action plans, encourage outside funding, and work for the economic development of the nations served. The UPADI conference was last hosted by the United States in 1990 in Washington, D.C.
Registration and conference details for UPADI can be found at http://www.upadi2006.com/english/index.shtml or contact Diana Turner at 404-385-3510 for additional information.
]]>"At Georgia Tech we teach digital design at the graduate and undergraduate level and are preparing our students to be innovators in the digital revolution," says Janet Murray, professor and director of the graduate Program in Digital Media in Tech's School of Literature, Communication and Culture. "We are pleased to bring together some of the leaders in industry and academia to discuss the challenges facing the field."
"Georgia Tech is at the cutting edge of innovation in multimedia, gaming and interactive technologies," says Elizabeth Mynatt, associate professor in the College of Computing and director of the GVU Center at Georgia Tech. "The Living Game Worlds symposium offers a multidisciplinary look at these converging technologies."
Georgia Tech's Digital Media Graduate Program in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture and the GVU Center in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech have organized Living Game Worlds 2006 as a follow up to last year's successful inaugural event initiated by Georgia Tech's Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and the School of Literature, Communication and Culture celebrating the tenth anniversary of digital media degree programs at Georgia Tech.
Living Game Worlds 2006 also includes a keynote by three-time Emmy winner Dale Herigstad, who has more than a decade of experience in interactive television and broadband environments. Panel discussions will feature experts from industry and academia discussing issues in digital media including design process, interactive design, games, digital art, mixed reality and convergence. The day closes with demos and exhibits. The detailed agenda is available online at http://gameworlds.gatech.edu/.
Participants include:
* Will Wright, co-founder of Maxis and the original designer of the two best-selling computer games SimCity and The Sims. In 2005 he received the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Progress and Service from Georgia Tech's Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
* Dale Herigstad, creative director of Schematic and three time Emmy winner, has 25 years experience as a graphic designer in television and over a decade of experience in interactive television and broadband environments.
* Christopher Klaus, founder and CEO of Kaneva Inc., a digital entertainment marketplace where people can watch, play, create and self-publish films and games. Klaus is also founder and chief security advisor of Internet Security Systems (ISS) headquartered in Atlanta.
* Raph Koster, chief creative officer at Sony Online Entertainment, builds massively multi-player online worlds, including Star Wars Galaxies, an online version of the Star Wars universe.
* Karen Lennon is president/CEO, Beyond Z Interactive Media, a leading iTV development company. With over 15 years experience in new media, marketing and management, Lennon launched her Emmy Award winning iTV company in 2000.
* Michael Mateas, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Communication and Culture and College of Computing, recently won the Grand Jury Prize for Façade at the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition at the independent Slamdance 2006 Film Festival.
* Rick Sanchez, vice president for content for GameTap, Turner Broadcasting's first-of-its-kind broadband games and entertainment network, which launched to consumers last October.
* And more
About the Digital Media Graduate Program
The Georgia Tech Digital Media Graduate Program in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture (LCC) in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech 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.
idt.gatech.edu
About the GVU Center
The GVU (Graphics, Visualization and Usability) 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. www.gvu.gatech.edu
Here are several highlights of Georgia Tech research presented at the symposium:
In an effort to create brain-inspired sensors and gain new insight into how memories are formed in the human brain, Hang Lu, an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a researcher with the Center for Biologically Inspired Design and Engineering (CBID) at Georgia Tech, is studying how sensory- and memory-related genes are expressed and regulated in tiny micro-sized worms by observing the worms' behavior on an equally micro-sized chip.
"Nature has evolved a very efficient sensing system for the worms. The worms are very good at finding mates, finding food, avoiding predators and finding a good home. We're hoping we can learn a lot from this highly evolved sensing system," Lu said.
The key is deciphering how the very small worms (about 50 microns in diameter, much smaller than the diameter of a human hair, and with only 302 neurons altogether) integrate their keen sensory information about their environment into their brain. A certain stimulus, such as the presence of undesirable bacterial food, triggers changes in sensory neurons that stimulate other neurons to give rise to an avoidance behavior, and can also create a memory imprint in the worm's brain.
In order to figure out which neurons are activated for a particular behavior, Lu and her team use a laser beam to operate on worm neurons and then study the behavior after the lesion forms. A genetic technique is used to make certain neurons produce jellyfish's green fluorescent protein, and the laser beam then targets the green neurons.
Since the worms and their neurons are so small, appropriate micro-sized devices have to be created to study them. By carefully controlling the types of stimuli the microscopic worms are exposed to via an intricate micro chip with stimulus delivery systems, Lu and her team can decipher what new sensory information is triggering which neurons that then produce proper behavior and form worm memory as a result.
Steve DeWeerth and Lena Ting, faculty members in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, are working to create better control of legged robots and human prostheses using biological inspiration. Their research centers on better understanding how the nervous system communicates with joints and muscles for movement and balance and then designing systems that closely replicate the naturally fluid movement of animals and humans. The research group's goal is to help build robots with better mobility and prosthetics with natural movement more similar to a real limb.
One experiment involves a small robot that closely replicates the balance and movement of a cat to help the team determine how the body communicates to joints and muscles to help withstand sudden jolts or changes in footing. The little robot takes bumps and ground shakes while researchers gather data on how it avoids falling and what kind of pressures trigger a loss of balance.
Another project combines a real frog's muscle with a virtual robotic leg. Force impulses simulating an outside stimulus (such as a sudden bump) are sent to the frog muscle by a computer and motor. The muscle then sends a signal back to the computer, and the virtual
model translates the reaction. The biological/computer fusion creates an electrical and mechanical information loop that provides researchers with a better idea of how the muscle reacts to certain mechanical stimuli.
And in research that could lead to novel strategies for tissue engineering, repair and replacement, Georgia Tech biologist J. Todd Streelman is looking at the jaws of different species of cichlid fish to better understand the mechanical properties of jaws and teeth under stress.
Some species of cichlids crush hard prey, like snails, while others do not. Streelman's team is generating three-dimensional X-rays of the jaws to allow them to compare species and see the microscopic architecture that reinforces the jaws while the fish crush their prey. Using a technique commonly used by engineers to model mechanical properties, Finite Element Analysis, the team is able to determine which parts of the jaws are the most important in withstanding these extreme compressive forces.
]]>The quality of R&D personnel available and opportunities for university collaboration are often more important attractors, find Marie Thursby, professor of strategic management at Georgia Tech College of Management, and Jerry Thursby, professor and chair of economics at Emory University. They presented their research findings February 16 at a meeting of the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable of the National Academies in Washington D.C.
Their survey of more than 200 multinational companies across fifteen industries (mostly based in the United States and Western Europe) shows that China and India will continue to be major beneficiaries of R&D expansion over the next few years as companies seek new market opportunities, access to top scientists and engineers, and collaborative research relationships with leading universities.
Despite the trend toward offshoring R&D operations in Asia, companies are keeping their most cutting-edge research in developed countries where intellectual property (IP) protection is the strongest. According to the study, only 22 percent of the R&D effort in emerging countries is for new science. "While costs are higher in the United States and other developed countries, these economies still have a comparative advantage in R&D because of the high caliber of their scientists, particularly given the IP environment," says Marie Thursby. "Not everything's moving to China and India."
But to remain competitive, the United States must maintain the quality of its R&D personnel by providing more basic-research support and removing obstacles to immigration for highly skilled workers. "We are educating the world's best and brightest, but make it difficult for them to stay in America," Thursby says.
In their study, the Thursbys identified and ranked the importance of different factors influencing the location of R&D facilities. They also tracked the R&D work coming into the United States from abroad as well as projects moving in the reverse direction, identified favored countries for locating R&D work, and outlined trends for future R&D expansion.
More than half of the U.S.-based companies that responded to the survey report that they have either recently expanded or planned to open R&D facilities in China and India versus other developed countries. Of sixty-three Western European companies responding, thirteen plan on expanding or locating new R&D facilities in the United States.
In both developed and emerging countries, the top factors influencing corporate decisions about R&D locations are market growth potential, quality of R&D talent, university collaboration, and IP protection, according to the survey. Cost wasn't the most important consideration in either developed or emerging countries, despite what major media have often reported on multinational R&D locations in recent years.
One of the study's most surprising findings, according to the researchers, was the role university collaboration plays in the corporate decision-making process. Collaboration was a particularly important factor in the decision to expand R&D into emerging countries, even though they offer less IP protection, the survey shows.
"The study underscores the critical role universities play in a country's national innovation system, not just in the training of new scientists and access to the best talent, but in the ease of developing and licensing technology," said Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation seeking to advance entrepreneurship in America and improve education.
For more information, contact Marie Thursby at 404-894-6249 or marie.thursby@mgt.gatech.edu.
Writer: Brad Dixon, College of Management
]]>"It's well-known that pollutants don't always stay in the region in which they are produced. What's not understood as well is where and when they travel," said Yuhang Wang, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Finding this large amount of NOx traveling from across the Pacific is important because it will allow us to build better models so we can better understand how pollutants created in one region of the world are affecting the other regions."
Wang, along with colleagues from Tech, the University of California, Irvine, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research studied data from the Tropospheric Ozone Production about the Spring Equinox (TOPSE) experiment when they found much larger amounts of an array of chemicals, including NOx, and ozone than predicted by current models.
Formed when fuel burns at a high temperature, any of the sources of NOx are manmade, with automobile exhaust, electric utilities and industrial activity responsible for the bulk of human-produced NOx. The amount of NOx available largely determines how much ozone, a major component of smog, is produced in most regions of the atmosphere.
"With a very small amount of NOx sitting around, as long as you have all these emissions of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, the NOx sits there and continuously produces ozone. So in a way you really don't need a lot of it, but when you have a lot of it, it tends to produce ozone faster," said Wang.
Current models have shown these chemical species coming across the pacific at lower altitudes, but those peak in March and April. Wangs finding that the higher altutide transport occurs in May is significant, not only because they found a large amount of NOx unaccounted for by current models, but the fact that it's occurring in May means the NOx is more efficient at making ozone.
"For the same amount of NOx, ozone production is faster in May than April because
there is more ultraviolet light and water vapor available in May," said Wang.
While it's not clear whether this trans-Pacific transport is coming from Asia or as far away as Europe, given Asia's proximity and its burgeoning industrial activity, Wang suggests it is the more likely source. The next step in this research is to study chemical measurements over east Asia to see if there is indeed a link to this seasonal transition and emissions from Asia.
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