NEWSLETTER OF THE BALTIMORE SECTION OF THE IEEE

July 2008

The web site for the Baltimore section of the IEEE is:

http://www.ieee.org/baltimore

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. IEEE and the Repeal of the Maryland Computer Services Tax

2. Notes from the Desk of the Chair of Baltimore Section

3. Financial Engineering: a Growing Career Path for Technical Professionals

4. Baltimore Region Conferences

5. Continuing EE Education

1. IEEE and the Repeal of the Maryland Computer Services Tax

The following is a note from Russ Harrison, IEEE-USA, and John Dentler, Region 2 Director, on the repeal of the Maryland computer services tax.

“Much has been written in the print media about the role of the various Maryland Tech Councils in repeal of the Computer Services Tax. It is important for IEEE membership to understand the part that IEEE-USA and the regional officers played in working toward the repeal of the legislation.

Maryland’s high-tech industry dodged a bullet this past April. After two months of debate, the Maryland legislature voted to repeal a 6% sales tax that would have applied to all computer services purchased in Maryland. The tax was part of a tax reform package passed in November, 2007. It was not scheduled to go into affect until June, but the threat of the tax was already causing considerable concern in the industry.

The Computer Service Tax first surfaced in early November. The Maryland Legislature had been debating the Governor’s Tax Reform Bill for over a month. The State House had already passed their version of the bill, which did not contain the Computer Service Tax. As part of last minute negotiations, a tax on landscaping services was removed from the Senate version of the bill and replaced with the Computer Service tax. Within days, the Senate passed their version of the bill. Despite assurances from several legislators that the tax would not be part of the final bill, it was. The Tax Reform Act of 2007, including the Computer Service Tax, was signed into law just before Thanksgiving.

There were no hearings on the Computer Service tax, and almost no public debate. Because of the speed at which the tax was passed into law, IEEE members in Maryland had very little time to comment on the tax. IEEE-USA sent out a Legislative Action Alert on November 9, 2007, but only a few dozen IEEE members were able to response before the bill was passed the next week.

Fortunately, this wasn’t the end of the fight. Because the Computer Service Tax didn’t go into affect until July, engineers in Maryland had plenty of time to get organized in 2008. Led by the Technology Council of Maryland, a broad coalition of high-tech and other business groups sought a repeal of the tax as soon as the Maryland legislature began its 2008 legislative session. IEEE-USA and the two Maryland IEEE sections (Baltimore and Washington) were active participants in this coalition.

The coalition focused their efforts on a few key problems with the tax. These included the complexities involved with applying a tax to a service with, frequently, no physical component, the tax’s vague language, and its impact on Maryland’s ability to attract and keep high-tech companies. Their efforts received a big assist when it was learned that governments in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia were actively trying to lure companies out of Maryland. None of these three states tax computer services.

IEEE Region 2 Director (and Maryland resident) John Dentler added another argument to the debate during testimony he gave before the Maryland Ways and Means Committee on March 12, 2008. Dentler pointed out to the committee that computer services are not really a product, but a tool used by virtually every business in Maryland. Requiring Engineers to pass on the cost of this tax to their customers would be like requiring carpenters to charge extra when they use Saws, but not hammers, or requiring lawyers to charge extra for prepositional phrases, but not other figures of speech. Of course Lawyers were exempted from this tax written by the Legislators. This was simply a grab by our legislators for other people’s money. Sadly, our legislators consider Engineers and IT services providers “other people”. We needed to let them know we understood their game.

Additionally, since almost every company needs computers to stay competitive, the Computer Service Tax would have made it harder to conduct business in Maryland – any type of business, (except the exempted legal, architectural, and educational services).

If Maryland companies delay upgrading their IT infrastructure, which competitors in Virginia and Pennsylvania don’t, over time the Maryland companies will become relatively less competitive compared to their neighbors. The Tax was not just a threat to IT companies, but to all Maryland businesses.

Maryland Legislators listened. Faced with growing opposition to the tax, Maryland’s Governor, Martin O’Malley, and Senate President, Tom Miller, dropped their firm opposition to re-opening the debate over the Computer Service Tax. In the end, they gave legislators a choice: the Computer Service tax or a new tax on wealthy taxpayers. In late April, the legislators chose to repeal the Computer Service Tax.

This story reminds engineers of two things. First, our elected leaders don’t understand our profession, our industry or technology. Second, it is up to us to help them understand technology and its impact on society, and we must stand up for ourselves and speak out honestly. Very few legislators in Annapolis understood the impact a tax on Computer Services would have on businesses in our state. We need to do a better job communicating with our elected leaders to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

2. Notes from the Desk of the Chair of Baltimore Section

The following is a note from Bill Semancik, Chair of the IEEE Baltimore Section.

“With the come of summer the Section slows down its schedule of meetings due to the many vacations that are planned. This presents an opportunity to tell you about some of national IEEE activities in which I am involved.

Some time ago I promised you that as activities started to gel at the IEEE Systems Council that I would let you know what was going on. As a quick recap, the IEEE Systems Council is an organization that has about 10-12 technical societies as members. It has been in existence for three years. It has sponsored two conferences. Since January I have been the Communications Society representative to the Systems Council.

I have now been to three meetings. The last meeting was held in June in conjunction with the IEEE President's meetings. The news worth reporting is that the council has finally down selected on a set of topics for a Systems of Systems Conference.

In Denver we down selected from a set of six possible choices for systems to build a conference around to one or possibly 2. The topics that captured the imagination of the council members were earth sensing and healthcare. I thought that I left the council meeting assuming that the number 1 topic was earth sensing but since then healthcare systems of systems appears to be pulling into the lead. As a representative of Communications Society, I see the possibility of pulling a variety of capabilities from the technologies of our members and the companies who support our members. The healthcare system of the future will not just be about information systems within hospitals, doctors' offices, and pharmacies. What we will see is that people who require continuous medication will carry sensors that provide real-time telemetry to your doctor. Your doctor will have the ability to remotely adjust the infusion rate of the pump delivering your medication. Prosthetics will be remotely programmable. Surgery will be remote with haptic feedback. At the core of all of this will be a myriad of communications technologies coordinating all of the pieces.

One thing that we discussed is turning around the format of the normal multi-disciplinary conference. Normally each specialty is given a separate track. The ability for the disciplines to interact in this format is limited. What we discussed was the possibility of forming sessions around issues. The purpose of the sessions would be then to present what each discipline could bring to bear on the resolution of an issue along with talks about the integration of the disciplines. If effect, it would treat the conference as a session of an integrated product team.

From now on the real work begins. The Societies have to negotiate for a chair for the conference and the work of picking the session topics begins. The target is for a conference in late 2010 or early 2011 in this format.”

Bill Semancik

Chair, IEEE Baltimore Section

wsemancik@ieee.org

3. Financial Engineering: a Growing Career Path for Technical Professionals

The following is a paid advertisement by T. Rowe Price, a leading global investment management firm.

It might surprise you to hear that the financial industry is now one of the hottest destinations for sharp-minded engineers. And for good reason, says Richard T. Whitney, head of Quantitative Equities at Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price, a leading global investment management firm.

“The financial industry has matured to a point where sophisticated and innovative models are now a big part of decision-making,” explains Whitney. This is prompting many financial firms to reach out to engineers and others with technical backgrounds to apply their expertise to the world of investing.

See the following website for more information:

http://www.troweprice.com/financialengineering

4. Baltimore Region Conferences

The following conferences are planned for Maryland, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia. This list can be used for planning purposes and also represents potential volunteering opportunities.

2008 10th IEEE Conference on E-Commerce Technology and the 5th IEEE Conference on Enterprise Computing, E-Commerce and E-Services (CEC/EEE)

21 Jul - 24 Jul 2008

Doubletree Hotel- Crystal City

Arlington, VA, USA

http://cec2008.cs.georgetown.edu/index.html

2008 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering

(CASE 2008)

23 Aug - 26 Aug 2008

Marriott Key Bridge

Arlington, VA, USA

http://www.ieee-case.org

2008 Second IEEE International Conference on Biometrics: Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS)

29 Sep - 01 Oct 2008

Hyatt Regency Crystal City

Washington, DC, USA

http://www.cse.nd.edu/BTAS_08

2008 IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis & Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS)

07 Sep - 10 Sep 2008

Tremont Suite Hotels

Baltimore, MD

http://www.mascots-conference.org/

2008 IEEE 25th Symposium on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies (MSST)

22 Sep - 25 Sep 2008

Sheraton Inner Harbor

Baltimore, MD, USA

http://www.storageconference.org

2008 3rd International Conference on Malicious and Unwanted Software (MALWARE)

07 Oct - 08 Oct 2008

Hilton Alexandria Mark Center

Alexandria, VA, USA

http://isiom.wssrl.org

2008 IEEE Workshop On Signal Processing Systems (SIPS)

08 Oct - 10 Oct 2008

Radisson Hotel Reagan National Airport

Arlington, VA, USA

2008 37th IEEE Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop (AIPR 2008)

15 Oct - 17 Oct 2008

Cosmos Club

Washington, DC, USA

http://www.aipr-workshop.org/

2008 IEEE 58th Annual Broadcast Symposium (BTS)

15 Oct - 17 Oct 2008

The Westin Hotel

Alexandria, VA, USA

http://www.ieee.org/bts/symposium

2008 IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference - Intelligent Biomedical Systems (BioCAS)

20 Nov - 22 Nov 2008

Location: TBD

Baltimore, MD, USA

http://www.biocas2008.org

2009 IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition - APEC 2009

15 Feb - 19 Feb 2009

Marriott Wardman Park Hotel

Washington, DC, USA

http://www.apec-conf.org

2009 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO)

02 Jun - 04 Jun 2009

Baltimore Convention Center

Baltimore, MD, USA

http://www.i-leos.org

2009 International Quantum Electronics Conference (IQEC)

June 2-4, 2009

Baltimore Convention Center

Baltimore, MD, USA

http://www.i-leos.org

2009 IEEE Pulsed Power Conference (PPC)

28 Jun - 02 Jul 2009

Renaissance Mayflower Hotel

Washington, DC, USA

http://web.ece.missouri.edu/ppc2009

2011 IEEE AUTOTESTCON

September 19-22, 2011

Baltimore Convention Center

Baltimore, MD, USA

http://www.autotestcon.com

2009 IEEE 59th Annual Broadcast Symposium (BTS)

14 Oct - 16 Oct 2009

The Westin Hotel

Alexandria, VA, USA

http://www.ieee.org/bts/symposium

5. 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

Web Page Design

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

Baltimore Section

Bgramat@jhmi.edu