NEWSLETTER OF
THE
FEBRUARY 2006
The web site for the
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Signal Processing Society and
Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society
2. ED/SSC
Society Meeting Notice
3. Lasers
and Electro-Optics Society Meeting Notice
4. 2006
Baltimore PES Engineers' Week Dinner Meeting
5. IEEE-USA
President's Column: Priority Issues for Organization
1. Signal Processing Society and Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society
We have two meetings planned. These meetings will be joint meetings of the Signal Processing Society and the Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AES). We are attempting to revive the AES Society so some of the signal processing meetings will be joint meetings with AES. If anyone is interested in running the AES Society, you can let me know at one of these meetings.
The first meeting will be on February 14 and will feature a talk by one of our signal processing members, Dr. Donald JG Chiarella. His talk will be on Intelligent Transportation Systems. A brief description is given below.
The second meeting will be on March 2 and will feature a talk by Dr. Damon Tull, who leads a start-up company specializing in high-quality image processing R & D (DVIP Multimedia, Inc.). A synopsis of this presentation will be given in the next newsletter.
At these two meetings, the IEEE will provide some snacks
and soft drinks. After the talk, any who are interested can join us at Ruby
Tuesdays, which is just down the road from the museum. The IEEE will pay for
the speaker’s dinner. The rest of us are on our own. Providing sandwiches at
our meetings was getting too expensive. People would sign up for the meeting
and then not show up so there was a lot of food left over. We need to be more
careful with our budget. One of our expenses is the plaque that we present to
the speaker to thank him/her for taking the time to prepare and present the
talk. Another expense will be the cost of the speaker’s dinner. If we plan on
having a meeting approximately once a month, we simply cannot afford to feed
sandwiches to everyone. When I was living in the
Here is the meeting notice for February 14.
Topic: Intelligent Transportation Systems
Speaker: Dr. Donald JG Chiarella
MIS Section Chief
Date: Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Time: 5:45 PM: Snacks.
6:00 PM: Talk begins.
Location: Historical Electronics Museum (HEM) (directions below)
Please respond to ronald_aloysius@ieee.org if you are planning to attend this meeting. Also, let me know if you will be joining us afterwards at Ruby Tuesdays for dinner so I can make reservations. Again, only the speaker’s dinner is paid for. The rest of us need to pay our own way. (Ruby Tuesdays is not that expensive and the food is very good.)
Description:
Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) means electronics, communications, or information processing used singly or in combination to improve the efficiency or safety of a surface transportation system. This talk will show how ITS offers some new options for addressing transportation challenges. The talk will address a wide variety of ITS applications and show the substantial benefits. Four basic questions will be addressed. What is ITS? Why is it important to integrate ITS throughout a region? What are some of the applications of ITS? What are the potential benefits?
Dr. Chiarella informed me that a tour can be set up for those who are interested. We can discuss this at the meeting to plan out a day and time.
Directions to HEM:
The Historical Electronics Museum (HEM) is located near BWI airport. The address for the HEM is:
Historical
410-765-0230
The directions for the HEM are as follows:
From
Route
Take West Nursery Road exit, turn left
at light and go through four stoplights.
Museum is on the left, next to the
Marriott Hotel.
From
Route 97
Turn right at sixth light onto
Turn right at second light onto
Museum is on the right, next to the
Marriott Hotel.
From
Route
Take West Nursery Road exit, stay right
on ramp.
Go through three stoplights.
Museum is on the left, next to the
Marriott Hotel.
From Route 195
Route 170 North (
Left at first light onto
Left at light onto
Right onto
Museum is on the right next to the
Marriott Hotel.
From Interstate 95
Exit onto I95 East to 295 North and
follow directions from
2. ED/SSC Society Meeting Notice
Date: Wed Feb 22
Location:
Historical
Time: 5:30 refreshments and social
6:15 speaker
Topic: “Novel Piezoelectric MEMS Devices – Fundamentals & Fabrication”
Speaker: Ronald G. Polcawich
US Army Research Laboratory
Abstract:
Piezoelectricity is an extremely important physical phenomenon and in ceramic form has been widely used in sensors, actuators, and transducers. Piezoelectric thin film applications have been limited in the past with a majority of efforts emphasizing low performance materials such as ZnO and polymer based piezoelectrics because of their ability to be easily integrated with standard microelectronics fabrication. However, a special class of functional materials, ferroelectrics, possesses a tremendous potential in new MEMS devices and has seen increasing research interest in recent years. Ferroelectrics, or polar materials, have the ability to function as sensors, actuators, transducers, pyroelectric detectors, and can be used as a non-volatile memory source. The aim of this presentation is to cover the fundamentals of ferroelectric materials and describe past and current research efforts that attempt to exploit their high piezoelectric coefficients for MEMS applications.
Biography:
Ronald G. Polcawich is MEMS research engineer with the US
Army Research Laboratory’s Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate. As an employee with the RF and Electronics
Division his current research includes the fabrication and development of
piezoelectric and non-piezoelectric MEMS devices including RF MEMS switches,
magnetic sensors, MEMS phase shifters, and novel micro power sources. His expertise includes thin film deposition
and etching, residual stress in thin films, MEMS fabrication, and ferroelectric
and piezoelectric thin film characterization.
Mr. Polcawich received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Materials Science
and Engineering from
3. Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Meeting Notice
The Baltimore Chapter of the Lasers and Electro-Optics
Society is pleased to announce the next speaker in the Chapter’s Technical
Seminar Series. The event is
co-sponsored by TeraComm, LLC (www.teracomm.com)
and will be held at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in
Howard County Room 3 on Wednesday February 22.
A banquet dinner will be served at
Speaker: Dr. Jag Shah, DARPA MTO
Topic: DARPA’s
Programs on Photonic Integration
Location: JHU Applied Physics Laboratory Howard County Room 3
Date and Time: Wednesday, February 22, 2005, 6PM Dinner, 7PM Lecture
RSVP for Dinner: Friday, February 17, 2006
Also, keep in mind the upcoming 2nd Annual Baltimore and DC/Northern VA LEOS Chapter Co-Sponsored Graduate Student Poster Competition on Wednesday, April 26. Original or recently published poster presentations from graduate students in the Baltimore-DC-Northern Virginia area are welcome. An independent panel of judges will evaluate the posters, and a cash award and merit certificate will be awarded to the best poster. All students and professionals from the region are welcome to come for education, networking, talent scouting, etc.
4.
2006 Baltimore
The Baltimore Chapter of the Power Engineering Society is
again inviting high school students to attend our annual Engineers' Week Dinner
Meeting to be held during National Engineers Week. This year’s dinner meeting
will be held on Thursday February 23, 2006 from 6 PM to 9 PM at the BWI
Marriott Hotel,
5. IEEE-USA President's Column: Priority Issues for Organization
The following is information provided by IEEE
As he begins 2006 as IEEE-USA President, Dr. Ralph W. Wyndrum Jr. translates IEEE-USA's mission into four primary areas of focus: ensuring that U.S. technology policy enhances America's future and protects American workers; developing new tools and improving our career resources for members; supporting and publicizing valuable continuous education opportunities for U.S. IEEE members; and promoting fields of interest of the IEEE needed by the next generation of technical professionals. Read the IEEE-USA President's first column at:
http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/presidentscolumn/Wyndrum/jan06.html
IEEE-USA President's Column:
Welcome to the New Year, fellow U.S. IEEE members. I hope you enjoyed time with family and friends, while renewing your spirit.
In my years of service, I have kept the IEEE-USA mission
close to my heart. As your 2006 IEEE-USA President, it is my guiding purpose.
Our mission is "to recommend policies and implement programs specifically
intended to serve and benefit the members, the profession and the public in the
To me, our mission translates into four primary areas of focus:
+ Ensuring that
+ Developing new tools and improving our career resources for U.S. IEEE members
+ Supporting and publicizing valuable continuous education opportunities for our members
+ Promoting IEEE fields of interest needed by the next generation of technical professionals
In 2006, we have a prime opportunity to act on our first
focus, technology policy. As a participant in the National Innovation
Initiative, IEEE-USA will urge Congress to pass comprehensive legislation
designed to promote
In addition, IEEE-USA will continue to support immigration
reforms that enable the
We applaud Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) for
sponsoring this bill, and IEEE-USA will support this legislative effort to
protect U.S. IEEE members and their careers. Other IEEE-USA policy priority
issues for 2006 include retirement security, e-health-related measures, and the
planned revamping of the
IEEE-USA will support our second focus by continuing to enhance the Employment Navigator with its several-million job listings, resume tools and other resources. Each day, the Employment Navigator collects more than five-million job leads from more than 170,000 Web sites, and consolidates them into a single, searchable database. As many of you already know, nearly one-third of the jobs available to subscribers are not found on public job boards.
We will also continue to promote the IEEE-USA Career and Employment Strategies Forum. With more than 2,300 members, this thriving online forum provides discussion areas, job opportunities and other useful information for members who wish to communicate and collaborate on career topics. The Consultants Database and Salary Service are also slated for major upgrades this year.
The IEEE-USA Employment Navigator complements the IEEE Job Site, which provides access to more than 3,000 employers who are specifically looking to recruit from IEEE members. The nearly 41,000 registered members can view and apply for nearly 10,000 jobs at the site. This resource has raised approximately $925,000 in revenue for the IEEE, which, in turn, allows us to offer more services to IEEE members.
Turning to continuous education, IEEE-USA is working with the IEEE Educational Activities Board to make available the best of the IEEE's educational content through one-hour online learning modules. Expert Now IEEE contains the latest information on emerging technologies and seminal works presented at the highest-rated IEEE conference tutorials, short courses and workshops. These unique, Web-based courses run the technical gamut from aerospace to vehicular technology, and are designed to save members time and travel costs.
In addition, IEEE-USA is offering 29 online "soft skills" courses with partner AchieveGlobal. And we'll continue to provide our members with P.E. Exam review courses in the months ahead.
Further, IEEE-USA is joining with IEEE Educational Activities in promoting the IEEE Education Partners Program in which IEEE members have access to some 6,000 courses from more than a dozen providers to help members meet their continuing education, certificate and graduate needs. And savings on this program could easily offset the cost of member dues.
Finally, in 2006, IEEE-USA will be sponsoring the
expansion of the IEEE Teacher In-Service Program (TISP) into
Both provide useful resources for U.S. IEEE members to bring technology education into their local schools. I commend and support these committed individuals who strive to enhance the level of technological literacy, science and mathematics among pre-university educators and their students.
We must all renew our commitment to support the IEEE-USA
mission and our careers by making our voices heard in
I look forward to sharing this exciting year ahead with you. Please share your ideas with me at r.wyndrum@ieee.org.
6. Continuing EE Education
We are re-running this request for interest in a continuing education program. This program will be in the format of seminars focused on a particular topic of interest. The seminars may run either during the week after work hours or possibly on Saturday. The idea for the program is described below.
Name of project: Continuing EE Education (“CEEE”)
Goal: A section-level program aimed at:
Updating the IEEE members on new developments in the EE field.
Familiarizing engineers with basic new tools, products and techniques as well as giving them the initial knowledge and skills to use them.
Inviting representatives from different vendors to present leading novel products.
Giving tutorials in new areas.
Helping IEEE fellow members become more competitive, especially in times of uncertain jobs, off-shoring and salary stagnation.
Facilitating networking.
Broadening the horizon of each IEEE member.
Fostering collaboration between members of different societies as well as generation of new ideas (“cross-pollination” element).
The program should be open to all IEEE members, including students. It is meant to be a cross-societies initiative, i.e. should not be limited to narrow topics serving the interests of a single chapter only. Emphasis should be placed on meeting with experienced experts from different fields. Critical comparisons between different solutions of EE problems are expected to be made, and trends should be discussed.
Potential topics of interest could include, but are not limited to:
Software tools:
Programming languages
Compilers
Real-Time Operating systems
Debuggers
Emulators
Hardware tools:
Novel electronic components
Single-Board Computers (SBC)
Embedded solutions
FPGAs
Printed circuit board design (schematics capture, layout)
Circuit simulation (PSPICE)
Portable devices
Signal and image processing (examples, tools, help)
Wireless devices:
Theory
Standards
Available OEM products
Trends
Internet-based methods and devices:
Standards
Available tools
Contemporary design tools (like AutoCad and Solid Works)
Reliability and Compliance issues
We plan to invite qualified speakers from academia, industry and governmental institutions. The speakers will be professionals who can give first-hand information and share front-line experience on the technology, methods and tools being presented.
We plan to organize 2-4 meetings annually. Each meeting is planned to last for 2 hours or more. We could meet on weekdays, or on Saturdays.
Please send us your suggestions and preferences regarding topics, time and place of meetings, the name/acronym of the program etc.
Boris Gramatikov
Chair,
Bgramat@jhmi.edu