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Calendar Archive, May 2008
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Washington Section Administrative Committee Meeting
Time: 6:45 pm
Place: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC
Directions: Use the 12th Street entrance. The AAAS building is one block from the Metro Center station (Red, Orange and Blue lines) and approx. six blocks from the Gallery Place Metro station (Red, Yellow and Green lines).
Street parking is free after 6:30 pm (no parking 4:00-6:30 pm). There is a pay parking lot at the intersection of 9th St. and New York Ave., and an underground parking garage at 14th St. and New York Ave.
See map at www.aaas.org/dcwest.pdf.
More Info: All interested IEEE members are welcome.
Contact: Tim Weil at trweil@ieee.org or 301-452-3641.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Technology for the Golden Years:
Leading an Independent Life in the 21st Century
2008 Spring Symposium
Sponsor: Northern Virginia Section, Washington Section, Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
Cosponsors: Antennas and Propagation Society, Communications Society (Washington chapter), Computer Society, Information Theory Society, Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, Reliability Society, Robotics and Automation Society, Signal Processing Society (Northern Virginia chapter), and the Society for Social Implications of Technology. The IEEE Student Branches at Capitol College, George Mason University and the University of Maryland College Park are also cosponsors.
Speakers: Dr. Henrik Christensen, Georgia Institute of Technology; Cindy Crump, AFrame Digital; Dr. John Spletzer, Lehigh University; Dr. S.K. Gupta, University of Maryland; and Dr. Craig Carignan, Georgetown University
Time: 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
Place: University of Maryland, Kim Engineering Building, Room 1110, College Park, MD
Directions: From I-495, exit at Route 1 South, proceed approx. 2 miles, turn right onto Campus Drive, then immediately turn right onto Paint Branch Drive and the Kim Engineering Building will be on the left (after a stop sign). Free parking on weekends in Lots XX1-5 and 11b-c (read signs carefully). See
www.parking.umd.edu/themap.
From the College Park Metro Station (Green line), take the C8 Metrobus to campus. See schedule at
www.wmata.com/timetables/md/c8.pdf.
More Info: Both professionals and students are invited to join us for an informative day in the use and application of cutting edge technology for disability and elder care. Speakers from industry, academia and research will address topics including robotic technology to assist the elderly, personal automobility, the next generation of sensors for remote monitoring and alerting, product development challenges, and rehabilitation systems. See Diamond story below.
Cost: Registration by Sunday, May 4 is $25 for IEEE members, $10 for IEEE student members, $50 for non-members, free for Life Members. Late registration after May 4 is $45 for IEEE members, $20 for IEEE student members, $75 for non-members.
Contact: Register for the 2008 Spring Symposium online at
https://icm3.ieee.org/eventmanager/onlineregistration.asp?eventcode=ock, or contact Kerry Hartman at hartman_k@computer.org to register by mail. For more information about the symposium, contact Debi Siering at siering@ieee.org.
Sponsor: Signal Processing Society, Washington Chapter
Speaker: Prof. Nitish Thakor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University
Time: Reception & networking at 5:00 pm, followed by the lecture
Place: University of Maryland, Computer Science Instructional Center (CSIC), Building 406, Room 1115, College Park, MD
Directions: From the north or I-495, take Route 1 South. Approx. 2 miles south of the Beltway, turn right onto Campus Drive, then immediately turn right onto Paint Branch Drive and the CSIC Building will be on the right, next to the parking lot. From the south on Route 1, turn left onto Campus Drive, and follow above directions.
See www.parking.umd.edu/themap. Free parking after 4:00 pm in Lot XX.
From the College Park Metro Station (Green line), take the free UM campus shuttle, get off at the first stop, walk back for a hundred yards, turn left onto Paint Branch Drive and look for the CSIC building on the right. See shuttle schedule at www.transportation.umd.edu/routes/schedules/CollegeParkMetro.pdf.
More Info: See Diamond story below.
Contact: Prof. Ramani Duraiswami at
ramani@umiacs.umd.edu.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Air Interface for Sprint WiMax
from an Operations Perspective
Sponsor: Microwave Theory and Techniques Society
Speaker: Shervin Gerami, Sprint Nextel
Time: Reception 5:30 pm, dinner 6:00 pm, lecture 7:00 pm
Place: Mitre Corporation, Building 2, Conference Room 1N100, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA
Directions: See
www.mitre.org/about/locations/mitre2_map.html. The walkway to Building 2 is accessible from level 2 of the parking garage. Free parking.
More Info: See Diamond story below or
http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/wash_nova/mtt.
Cost: Lecture free; $15 for optional dinner (reservation required).
Contact: Please RSVP for dinner only by Wednesday, May 7 to Roger Kaul at
r.kaul@ieee.org or 301-394-4775, or to Bruce Levine at bruce.levine@ieee.org.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Northern Virginia Section Administrative Committee Meeting
Time: 6:30 pm
Place: Olive Garden Restaurant, 8133 Leesburg Pike (Tysons Corner), Vienna, VA
Directions: From I-495, take Route 7 West (Exit 47A) toward Tysons Corner. Turn left at Gallows Road. Parking garage is behind the restaurant.
More Info: All interested IEEE members are invited to attend.
Contact: Chuck Baldi at cbaldi@ieee.org or 703-675-0678.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Positive Train Control: A Regulatory Perspective
Sponsor: Land Transportation Committee of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society and American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Speaker: Mark Hartong, P.E., Senior Electrical Engineer, Office of Safety, Federal Railroad Administration
Time: 11:30 am
Place: American Public Transportation Association, 1666 K Street NW, Washington, DC
Directions: Take the Metro to Farragut North station (Red Line, use K Street exit) or Farragut West station (Orange & Blue lines, use 17th Street exit).
More Info: For more information about the topic and speaker, see
www.ieee.org/dc-ltc. The National Capital Land Transportation Committee (LTC) holds monthly lunch meetings from September though June. The LTC is jointly sponsored by the ASME Rail Transportation Division and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society of the Washington and Northern Virginia Sections. All interested persons are invited. Membership in ASME or IEEE is not required.
Cost: $15 cash at the door for lunch.
Contact: Please make reservations by 4:00 pm on Monday, May 12 by contacting Ken Briers at ken.briers@parsons.com or 202-775-3397, or Karl Berger at karl.berger@dcm-va.com or 703-803-7917.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Design for Reliability: Uncovering Elegant Solutions
Sponsors: Women in Engineering, Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Reliability Society
Speaker: Dev Raheja
Time: Refreshments 6:30 pm, presentation 7:00 pm
Place: Mitre Corporation, Building 2, Conference Room 1N100, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA
Directions: See
www.mitre.org/about/locations/mitre2_map.html.
More Info: See Diamond story below. All are welcome to attend!
Contact: Please RSVP by Sunday, May 18 to Katie Schaffold at
katie.schaffold@ieee.org.
Sponsor: National Capital Area Consultants' Network
Speaker: Mr. Christopher Moody II, Moody Insurance Worldwide, Clarksburg, MD
Time: 6:00 pm
Place: Olive Garden Restaurant, 8133 Leesburg Pike (Tysons Corner), Vienna, VA
Directions: From I-495, take Route 7 West (Exit 47A) toward Tysons Corner. Turn left at Gallows Road. Parking garage is behind the restaurant.
More Info: See Diamond story below. Future NCA-CN activities and upcoming officer elections will be discussed in a brief business meeting preceding dinner and Mr. Moody’s presentation. For 2008 Consultants' Network dues, please bring a $50 check payable to "IEEE NCA-CN."
Cost: $25 cash for dinner.
Contact: Monica Mallini at m.a.mallini@ieee.org.
Sponsors: IEEE Computer Society; American Society for Quality (ASQ) Section 509 Software SIG; and the Society for Software Quality (SSQ)
Time: 6:30 pm
Speakers: Lenny Eng
Place: Video teleconference with sites in McLean, Silver Spring and Gaithersburg. Addresses are provided at the registration link below.
More Info: All interested IEEE members and guests are invited to attend. Pizza will be served. Advance registration is required to enter the facilities. See
www.asq509.org/ht/d/sp/i/2499/pid/2499 for details and to register. (Please check this link again because rooms at the locations are subject to change.)
Cost: Free
Contact: Tom Starai at starai@ieee.org.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Graduate Student Poster Competition: Optical Science and Technology
Sponsors: Lasers and Electro-Optics Society, Washington and Northern Virginia Chapter and Baltimore Chapter
Time: 6:00-8:00 pm
Place: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Howard County Room 3, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD
Directions: APL is located approx. 1/2 mile west of Route 29.
See
www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/visitor/directions.asp.
More Info: The LEOS chapters are hosting a graduate student poster competition to foster industry-academia collaboration and knowledge transfer. Cash awards for the best posters. See
www.ieee.org/BaltimoreLEOS for more information.
Contact: Deadline is May 18 for poster submission and attendee RSVP to baltimore.leos@ieee.org.
Diamond Stories
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Technology for the Golden Years: Leading an Independent Life in the 21st Century
This symposium will explore the use of robotics and sensor technologies to help the elderly live independently. Speakers include:
Dr. Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Computing and Interactive Computing, provides an overview of current methods and how today's research will lead to sustainable technologies that allow people to maintain their autonomy as they grow old. He presents a variety of examples from basic assistance to the complex, and describes a number of challenges for the future.
Ms. Cindy Crump is founder and CEO of AFrame Digital, Inc. of Falls Church, Virginia, a research-based health technology company developing innovative wireless remote health monitoring applications to address the needs of elders and other at-risk populations. She explores the ways that continuous 24/7 remote monitoring of patients in the home, outpatient rehabilitation and institutional long term care will fill the gaps between office visits and provide a true safety net for individuals with chronic issues.
Dr. John Spletzer is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Lehigh University. Dr. Spletzer discusses the research and development of the Automated Transport and Retrieval System (ATRS), a technology-based solution for drivers in wheelchairs. ATRS integrates robotics and automation technologies into a traditional automobile without making permanent changes to the vehicle, thus eliminating the need for an attendant or costly van conversion.
Dr. S.K. Gupta, an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland, will present the challenges faced by current designers in understanding the implications of their design decisions on the lives of people with disabilities as well as developing product platforms to offer low cost solutions. In addition, he will discuss why the needs of people with disabilities should be emphasized in the undergraduate engineering design curriculum.
Dr. Craig Carignan, a Research Associate Professor at Georgetown University’s Imaging Science and Information Systems Center, will present and demonstrate his current research involving a robotic arm exoskeleton rehabilitation system. Treatments for common pathologies such as rotator cuff tear or impingement range from exercise rehabilitation to surgery and, in extreme cases, to shoulder joint replacement.
Back to Calendar listing above.
Brain signals carry the code for what we think and what we do. So, what is the code, and how can we decode the brain signals to convert thoughts into action, and action into function: such as moving the hand and finger in a prosthesis? First the brain signals come from neurons (spikes or action potential) but can be picked up from the cortex or the scalp (electroencephalogram, EEG).
First, Dr. Thakor will present the basic and advanced applications of the EEG signal processing, mainly to interpret the subject's thought or intent to interact with a computer or a machine such as a robotic prosthetic hand. As an example, we can readily show that through thoughts a cursor can be moved on a computer screen or a prosthetic hand can be made to open and close. Dr. Thakor will present the basic signal processing strategy, which essentially uses spectral analysis but must resolve independent signal components from the brain. Building on that idea, he will show that decoding neural spikes, or action potentials, from a population of neurons is required to achieve higher functionality--such as moving individual fingers or controlling a grasp in a prosthetic hand. He will present two strategies: maximum likelihood estimation and neural network algorithms optimized for experimental neuronal data for this application.
Dr. Thakor will conclude his talk with the challenge to signal processors to develop approaches to interpreting brain rhythm so that brain-machine interface, brain control of computers, and interpreting complex sensory, motor and even more advanced cognitive intentions can be achieved. He will speculate on what applications might open up in the field of brain-machine interface.
Nitish V. Thakor received the B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1974 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1981. He served on the faculty at Northwestern University between 1981 and 1983, and since then he has been with the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, where he is currently serving as a Professor of Biomedical Engineering.
He conducts research on neurological instrumentation, biomedical signal processing, micro and nanotechnologies, neural prosthesis, and clinical applications of neural and rehabilitation technologies. He has authored more than 170 peer-reviewed publications on these subjects. He is the editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Neural and Rehabilitation Engineering. He directs the Laboratory for Neuroengineering and is also the director of the NIH Training Grant on Neuroengineering. One of his current research projects, in collaboration with a multi-university consortium, funded by DARPA, is to develop a next generation neurally controlled upper limb prosthesis. He is actively engaged developing international scientific programs, collaborative exchanges, tutorials and conferences in the field of biomedical engineering.
Dr. Thakor is a recipient of a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, IEEE and Founding Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society. He is also a recipient of the Centennial Medal from the University of Wisconsin School of Engineering, Honorary Membership from Alpha Eta Mu Beta Biomedical Engineering.
For more information about Dr. Thakor and his research, see www.jhu.edu/nthakor.
Back to Calendar listing above.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Air Interface for Sprint WiMax
from an Operations Perspective
This presentation will provide an overview of how WiMAX technology will be deployed and optimized based on the standard 802.16e, and made operational based on vendor specific algorithms. The deployment aspect will reflect how networks are optimized to minimize interference and maximize coverage. Discussion will also reflect to how current operational tools provide this assessment statistically using GIS and matrix/probability methods. The operational discussion will go over the aspects of QoS, mobility, paging, and testing that an operator needs to consider when managing the network. The presentation will illustrate certain scenarios that Sprint manages around, including vendor capabilities, to operate the network during congestion.
Shervin Gerami has worked in the wireless industry for more than 8 years. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a B.S. in electrical engineering. While in college he interned for Rockwell Automations and developed the programming for a robotic torque arm reader. This reader achieved manufacturing efficiency for Industrial Ball Bearing by 20 percent and reduced work related injuries by 50 percent within a specific line. He also worked with Phillips Magnavox in developing the testing equipment and programming for remotes specific to their new (in 1999) line of HDTV.
With his programming and testing background, after college Gerami worked for multiple wireless companies in developing and enhancing existing algorithms that took drive collection data and established permission patterns for frequency reuse for two major TDMA and GSM carriers in the US. In 2001 he joined Nextel Communications, Inc. in Phoenix, optimizing a network of over 300 sites. In 2003 he joined Nextel’s corporate headquarters developing processes and standards for network operations. During that time he developed multiple national processes, standards, and feature enhancement requests to further improve network efficiency both in capacity and performance. His role has continued with Sprint Nextel to where he is today, managing the functional wireless broadband systems engineering team, within XOHM, to establish the standards and process for operating and managing the WiMAX air interface.
Back to Calendar listing above.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Design for Reliability: Uncovering Elegant Solutions
Is your organization is making too many specification changes? Too many design changes? Then this presentation is for you. It covers the art and science of nipping potential system failures in the concept design, when the ROI is the highest. Examples from the aerospace, medical and automotive industries will be presented to show how thinking outside the box can yield elegant and efficient solutions. A case history of a company that was rescued from going out of business will be discussed to demonstrate the power of a reliable design.
Dev Raheja, a new product engineering consultant since 1981, is dedicated to design assurance technologies. He chairs the IEEE Design for Reliability Committee and is the author of two books, Assurance Technologies Principles and Practices and Zen and the Art of Breakthrough Quality. His range of consulting encompasses automotive, aerospace, medical systems, defense systems, consumer products and high tech manufacturing.
Being a true international consultant, Raheja has conducted training in several countries including Sweden, Australia, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Taiwan, South Africa and Brazil. His clients include NASA, GM, Boeing, FDA, Siemens Medical Systems, Johnson & Johnson, Karl Zeiss, Nissan, Litton, General Dynamics, ITT, BAE Systems, Lockheed-Martin, IBM, Intel, Harley-Davidson, United Technologies, and the U.S. Government. Raheja successively served as an executive with Booz Allen Hamilton, General Electric Health Care Systems, and Cooper Industries.
Back to Calendar listing above.
Business insurance may be legally or contractually required. Are you protected from undue liability? What are your insurance needs? What are GL, E&O, and property insurance? What are common business practice and legal requirements for insurance? What is contractual liability? What employee coverage is needed? What about business use of private vehicles and related liability issues? Is my personal property protected from business liability? Can an employee sue me?
It is essential to protect yourself and your business from liability, and indeed business insurance may be a legal or contractual requirement. This talk will help you understand various forms of liability, legal requirements for insurance coverage, common business practice, and insurance and contract language. Various forms of coverage will be discussed, including general liability, errors and omissions, property insurance, product liability, employee coverage, and automobile insurance. The talk will also cover personal protection from business liability. The presentation will focus on the needs of consultants and businesses with a few employees.
Christopher Moody II is president of Moody Insurance Worldwide. He has been working with multinational businesses structuring and managing domestic and global insurance programs for more than 10 years.
Prior to joining Moody, he worked as a commercial underwriting manager for the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, a large property and casualty insurance company. At Chubb, Moody managed Chubb’s Washington, D.C. middle-market commercial division. This division focused on professional services, government contracting and manufacturing industries. He was instrumental in creating Chubb's Mid-Atlantic International Underwriting Unit and participated in the formation of Chubb’s Eastern Region International strategic plans.
Mr. Moody’s experience and expertise lie in the development of insurance and risk management programs for domestic and multinational companies. These programs focus on the global scope of a company's property, liability, directors and officers, and professional liability exposures as well as integrating these programs with employee benefit and welfare programs.
Moody Insurance Worldwide is one of the Washington area's largest independent insurance agencies. Moody has more than 40 employees and works with clients to customize insurance programs appropriate for their exposures and needs.
Back to Calendar listing above.
Please send meeting announcements, corrections and comments
to ncac-scanner@ieee.org.
Updated 5/30/08
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