IEEE India Bulletin  Vol. 12 No. 1  January 2002

Dear Fellow Member,

It appears that the time ahead of us is going to be very tough for all of us. The terrorists organisations in India are becoming more and more daring and powerful. After the 11th September tragedy in USA, another most daring incident took place in New Delhi on the 13th December 2001 when the terrorist outfit attacked the Indian Parliament which has shocked not only us but the whole world. There is all likelihood of similar acts happening in near future. I do not know what role we engineers play except that we should remain united and strengthen the hands of our government in combating the terrorism. We should continue to perform our normal duties with all sincerity and do not get provoked from rumours. India’s greatest strength lies in Unity in Diversity and there is no reason ,why we should not come out from the terrible scenario with flying colours.

The year 2001 is coming to close and we should feel satisfaction from the growth and achievements of IEEE in India. Our membership is continuously growing. Our sections and volunteers as well as student branches are getting quite a few awards and it has been well recognised at regional as well as headquarters level that IEEE in India is on a firm footing. But still there is a lot of scope for its further growth. Let us all work harder to ensure that year 2002 will be still better in all respects.

Wish you & your family a VERY HAPPY & PROSPEROUS YEAR.

Sincerely yours

E-mail : pksri@satyam.net.in

BEST WISHES TO YOU FROM
IEEE INDIA COUNCIL FOR A NEW YEAR

FULL OF JOY AND PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS

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Truth

‘Whenever you have truth, it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected’

- Mahatma Gandhi

‘ Truth, purity and unselfishness – wherever these are present, there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor thereof. Equipped with these, one individual is able to face the whole universe in opposition’

– Swami Vivekananda.

‘Most companies don’t die because they are wrong; most die because they don’t commit themselves. They fritter away their momentum and their valuable resources while attempting to make a decision. The greatest danger is in standing still’

-Andy Grove,

Former CEO of Intel

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We are just entering the new year with lot of aspirations and hopes that 2002 would be a better year than the previous, which we all wish to forget as a bad patch in history. With globalization in full force, free movement of men and materials around the globe without barriers has become a reality and the world has shrunk to a global village. We have our kith and kin in many parts of the world now and our business interests also do not have any boundaries. All these lead to a situation where we can no more be interested only in the happenings just around us. Instead of peace and harmony in the immediate vicinity, it is now time for world peace, as happenings in most parts of the world, would have its repercussions in our very lives too.

Let us now make a new year resolution to work for total harmony in this planet, as living in isolation is no more sensible and practical

With New Year Greetings,

Robert Cody

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by
IEEE GUJARAT SECTION

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Govt of India is contemplating dividing India into two time zones – East and West. The zones will have a difference of over 60 minutes and one would even gain one hour by flying from Kolkata to Mumbai. The Centre has appointed a committee to suggest utilizing the daytime available in the country. Having two time zones is one of the options the committee is looking at. The eastern parts would save on a lot of energy that is being wasted on electricity as the sun sets early there. They can start working early.

Resetting of time by 30 minutes (plus or minus, as per the zone) will be done, once the two zone scheme is approved for implementation by Govt.

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A computerized early warning system may soon be monitoring US hospitals for the first signs of a bio-terrorist attack. By raising the alarm quickly, it could reduce the spread of diseases such as small pox, say its developers.

Called the Lightweight Epidemiology Advanced Detection and Emergency Response System (LEADERS), it should spot outbursts of infectious diseases before doctors are even aware of a problem.

Via a secure Internet connection, LEADERS can securely extract details of patients’ symptoms and lab results from hospital records, regardless of what software a hospital uses. This means hospital staff won’t have to do any extra work like entering data into a computer. For example, a doctor examining a patients with a rash and fever might not immediately think of small pox. But LEADERS would spot if nearby hospitals had patients with similar symptoms and inform doctors and the relevant government agencies immediately.

Originally developed for the US Air Force, the system is already running at 79 military hospitals. The developers which include Oracle, Idaho Technology, EYT and ScenPro, believe it is ethnically feasible to roll the system out to the US’s 6000 hospitals in just 60 days. LEADERS is easy to set up because the software runs off a central server accessed via the net. That means the hospitals don’t have to install any additional hardware or software.

(Courtesy: New Scientist, 15 Dec,’01.)

A new kind of bandage in research stage at the University of Rochester in US may keep you out of trouble from your wound getting infected. Sensors in a bandage can screen for bacteria or viruses in a wound, signaling the need for antibiotics. A US dept of agriculture researcher is working on a smart bandage that would help cure chronic wounds by blocking an enzyme that breaks down proteins and hampers healing. Still another bandage draws oxygen-rich blood to damaged tissue to speed recovery.

(Courtesy: Newsweek)

A Japanese company has developed a ceramic aromatherapy pot to lift your spirits at times when suffering from computer fatigue. The pot to be plugged into your PC’s USB port, warms and releases vapours from one of six scented aromatherapy oils, such as lavender

A query received by a software technical support team and the reply:

Dear Tech. Support,

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend v7.0 to Wife v1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure. In addition, Wife v1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization, where it monitors all other system activity.

Applications such as Smoking ver10.3, Boozing v2.5 and Saturday Night Pubs v5.0 crash the system whenever selected. I cannot keep Wife v1.0 in the background while attempting to run some of my other favourite applications like Night Club v12.3, Bachelor Party v9.1, Golf v5.0, Football v6.0, Television v3.2 and Dance Drunk v6.9. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend v7.0, but the un-install does not work on this program. Can you help me please!!!

Reply from Technical Support:

Ref: -Upgrade from Girlfriend v7.0 to Wife v1.0. This is a very common problem that male users complain about, but it is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend v7.0 to Wife v1.0 with the idea that Wife v1.0 is merely a UTILITIES & ENTERTAINMENT program.

Wife v1.0 is actually an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its creator, GODWORKS INC. to run everything. It is impossible to un-install, delete, or purge Wife v1.0 from the system once installed. You cannot go back to Girlfriend v7.0 because Wife v1.0 is not designed to do this.

Some have tried to install Girlfriend v8.0, Wife v2.0 or Affair v1.0 but end up with more problems than the original system. Installing any of Girlfriend v8.0, Wife v2.0 or Affair v1.0 leads Wife v1.0 to infect the system with a potentially harmful virus Divorce. The only anti-virus program, that has a cure for Divorce is Alimony & Child Support v5.0, marketed by LAWYERS CORP. Cleaning of Divorce from the system is a very time consuming procedure; besides, Alimony & Child Support v5.0 is a very expensive program and requires regular updates making it more expensive. For more details look in your manual under "Warnings-Alimony/Child Support" which was given to you at the time of registration with Wife v1.0.

Having Wife v1.0 installed myself, I feel the best course of action will be to enter the command C:\APOLOGISE. In fact I would suggest that you use this command every time Wife v1.0 crashes on your system. Wife v1.0 is a great program, but requires very high maintenance.

Consider buying additional software to improve the performance of Wife v1.0. I recommend Flowers v1.0, Chocolates v3.4, Movies v2.0 or even New Clothes v7.0, which will improve the performance of Wife v1.0. Incase you have Wife v1.0 and Mother v1.0 installed on the same hard drive separate them to different hard drives with immediate effect.

Coming from the stables of rival companies Wife v1.0 and Mother v1.0 have incompatible source codes and make the system unstable. Do not, under any circumstances, install Secretary with Short Skirt v4.4. This is not a supported application for Wife v1.0 and is likely to cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,

Tech Support.

(Culled from the internet by: S.Gopakumar SMIEEE, Kerala Section)

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BOMBAY SECTION CELEBRATES SILVER JUBILEE

The IEEE Bombay Section, started in 1976, celebrated 25 years of its existence in Mumbai on December 8, 2001. On this occasion, Dr. Keshav Nori, CIO of TCS delivered a talk on "Differences and Similarities between Software Engineering and other Engineering Disciplines" and
Prof. Rajesh Gupta, IEEE Distinguished Lecturer from the University of
California, on "Design Technology and Architectural Adaptation for
Deep-Submicron VLSI Systems". Over 120 IEEE members, including students,
attended this technical session. As part of the Silver Jubilee function, the Section also honoured IEEE members who had contributed significantly to the growth of the Section during the last 25
years, and presented them with medals and plaques. These members included
past Chairs of the IEEE Bombay Section, IEEE Fellows in the Section, and those in the Section who have been members for 25 years or more. For the record, the IEEE Bombay Section, when it was formed in 1976, had 226 members and 1 student branch. Today, twenty-five years later, it has 3915 members and 39 student branches.

[Reported by Prof. J. Vasi

Chair, IEEE Bombay Section]

Madras Section

The commemoration day of Prof. Shannon, Father of Information Theory, was celebrated by IEEE Madras Section on 17th Nov.2001. Dr.T.V.Gopal, speaking on the occasion, highlighted the contributions of Prof. Shannon to communication, Information Theory etc. Er. S.A. Soundara Rajan (Madras Section Chair) and Er. N.S. Ganesan, Chief Engineer( AIR & TV) also spoke.

Under the aegis of Madras Section, two student branches were inaugurated recently, one at AMS college of Engineering, Avadi and the other at SSM College of Engineering, Komarapalayam.

Kerala Section

Prof. Raj Jain( Co-founder and CTO, Nayna Networks and professor of Compter and Information Sciences, Ohio State University), a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Communications Society, delivered lecture at Trivandrum on 20 Dec.’01 on ‘Optical Networking with IP over DWDM: Recent Advances, Trends, and Issues’. Future of optical networking, traffic growth, Ethernet Vs SONET etc were discussed on this occasion.

L to R: R. Bhavani Shankar, Er. N.S. Ganesan,
Er. S.A. Soundara Rajan, Prof. T.V. Gopal

Survived Layoff ? Practice these now !

[ Excerpts from an article by Suzanne Koudsi in Fortune, Dec.10, ‘01]

As companies continue to cut costs, the days of frequent promotions are a distant memory. So are the days of endless opportunities to show off your skills. Lay off survivors, faced with fewer options, are finding themselves in career purgatory – there is no way up and no way out.

Here are eight tips to help workers break free from the inertia:

1. Avoid taking cover

Don’t hide behind your computer. You should really work to increase or maintain the visibility that you have. Speak up in meetings, join task forces and volunteer for difficult projects that co-workers are not willing to tackle.

2. Build a circle of allies

Fortify your current relationships and work on making new ones, both within and outside the office. Allies will be helpful in terms of letting you know information, like if there is a job possibility that comes up.

3. Load up on new tools

This is the perfect time to acquire new expertise. Brush up on computer skills, audit a class, or get a certificate or degree in your field – and when jobs do open up, you’ll be ready.

4. Look beyond your job description

People don’t get promotions just because they do their jobs well; they get promotions because they take initiative.

5. Manage your own PR

Doing well is part productivity and part publicity. Keep a positive attitude, avoid emotional outbursts, and appear calm and organized.

6. Be creative

Remember, people hire us to think, not just to do. Schedule an hour each day to work on extra things such as new initiatives or ways to improve your job or that of those above you.

7. Take responsibility for your success

Be proactive, not reactive. Figure out your goals and let mangers know what they are; identify your weaknesses and work on them; find better ways to harness your strengths.

8. Adjust your attitude

Don’t panic. Even though the economy is in a recession, your career is not coming to an end. How you look at the situation will have a big impact on whether you stay stuck or move ahead. One can choose to say there is no opportunity or one can choose to look for it.

Famed fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Doctor Watson pitch their tent while on a camping expedition, but in the middle of the night Holmes nudges Watson awake and questions him.

Holmes: Watson, look up at the stars and tell me what you deduce.

Watson: I see millions of stars, and if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it is quite likely there are planets like earth, and if there are a few planets like earth out there, there might also be life.

Holmes: Watson, you idiot ! Somebody stole our tent.

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"We, the members of the IEEE … do hereby … agree to seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of technical work, to acknowledge and correct errors, and to credit properly the contributions of others"

- IEEE Code of Ethics

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