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Calendar Archive, April 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Student Professional Awareness Conference (SPAC)
Sponsor: IEEE Student Branch, George Mason University
Time: 12:00 noon - 4:00 pm
Place: George Mason University, Mason Hall, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA
Directions: See www.gmu.edu/welcome/Directions-to-GMU.html.
Contact: MacQuynh Dang at
mdang1@gmu.edu or 571-277-8297.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Northern Virginia Section Administrative Committee Meeting
NOTE: For this month only, this meeting is NOT on the second Wednesday.
Time: Dinner 6:00, business meeting 7:00-8:00 pm
Place: Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway, Conference Room 7, Fairfax, VA
Directions: See
www.fairfaxcounty.gov/maps/locatMap.htm. From I-495, take I-66 West to Exit 55B Fairfax County Pkwy North (Route 7100). Turn right onto Fair Lakes Pkwy East. Turn right at light onto Monument Dr. Turn right at light onto Government Center Pkwy. The Government Center is on the left.
More Info: All interested IEEE members are invited to attend.
Contact: Please use the new IEEE vTools application to preregister at http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/465 or contact Jeff Poston at poston@ieee.org or
703-983-7020.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Model Based Imaging: In Search of the Free Lunch
Sponsors: Signal Processing Society (Washington Chapter), University of Maryland Booz Allen Hamilton Distinguished Colloquium in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Speaker: Dr. Charles Bouman, Purdue University
Time: 2:00 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). Visitor parking is behind the building.
From the College Park Metro Station (Green line), take the free UM campus shuttle, get off at the first stop, walk back a hundred yards and turn onto Paint Branch Drive. Look for the Kim Engineering Building on the left after the first stop sign. See shuttle schedule at
www.transportation.umd.edu/routes/schedules/CollegeParkMetro.pdf.
More info: The lecture will be followed by a reception and networking time. All are welcome to attend. See Diamond story below.
Contact: Ted Knight at teknight@umd.edu
or the IEEE SPS chapter at
washington.sps@ieee.org.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Basketball Fundraising Game: Montgomery College Faculty vs. Students
Sponsors: Montgomery College IEEE Student Branch, Montgomery College Robotics Club
Time: 4:30 pm
Place: Montgomery College, Large Gym, 51 Mannakee St., Rockville, MD
More Info: This friendly basketball game is fundraising event to help the IEEE Student Branch raise funds to complete their Underwater Robot Project. By buying a ticket, you will automatically be entered in a raffle drawing for a chance to win an iPod Touch. Come cheer as the Montgomery College staff go head-to-head against the students.
Cost: $5.00 for regular admission; $3.00 for Montgomery College students
Contact: Frange Abaraka at
ieee.mc.rockville@gmail.com.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
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 Metro Center (Red, Orange and Blue 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: RSVP to Monica Taysing-Lara at m.taysinglara@ieee.org or 202-725-2225.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
IEEE High School Science & Technology Poster Contest Finals
Sponsors: Washington Section, Northern Virginia Section, Life Member Committee of the IEEE Foundation, PACE
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: See Diamond story below, or http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/wash_nova/computer/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=54&Itemid=63.
Contact: Tom Starai at starai@ieee.org or Dr. Haik Biglari, P.E. at hbiglari@ieee.org.
Sponsors: Power Engineering Society, Industry Applications Society
Speaker: Ted Fluehr, Wonderware SE
Time: 6:00-8:00 pm
Place: Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute, 4300 Wilson Blvd., Suite 750, Arlington, VA
Directions: From Ballston Metro Station (Orange line), turn right at top of escalator then left on the street. Proceed two blocks toward Macy's, turn right and walk one block to Ballston Point at the intersection of Wilson Blvd. and Glebe Rd. If driving, see
www.ari.vt.edu/ari_directions.html. There is a parking garage in the building with a $1 charge for 3 hours. After 6:00 pm, there is limited free street parking.
More Info: A light dinner buffet will be served, followed by the program. All interested persons are invited.
Cost: Free for IEEE members; $10 for non-members.
Contact: Rich Phillips at rdphillips@ekfox.com or 800-520-4771 ext. 113.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Instantaneous Mean Frequency and Phase Maps in Studying Human Ventricular Fibrillation Dynamics
Sponsor: George Washington University Institute for Biomedical Engineering
Speaker: Dr. K. Umapathy, Ryerson University, Toronto
Time: 1:00-2:00 pm
Place: MAE Conference Center, Room 736 Academic Center, George Washington University, Washington, DC
More Info: See Diamond story below. Pizza and refreshments will be served. For more information, see www.ibe.gwu.edu.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Art of Consulting, Part 3: Getting Business
(Without Getting The Business)
Sponsor: National Capital Area Consultants' Network
Speakers: Dr. Bob Miller, Trace Systems; Bill Grimm, Avorex Design; and Dr. Mark Pittelkau, Aerospace Control Systems
Time: 6:00-8:30 pm
Place: DeVry University, 2450 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA
More Info: See Diamond story below. All IEEE members, student members, and guests are welcome. Sandwiches will be served.
Cost: $20 cash at the door.
Contact: Please register by 12:00 noon on April 20 at
http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/459.
For additional information about the workshop, contact Monica Mallini at m.a.mallini@ieee.org.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
IEEE Women in Engineering Administrative Committee Meeting
Sponsor: Women in Engineering
Time: Dinner 6:30 pm, meeting 7:30 pm
Place: Vie de France Restaurant, 600 Maryland Ave. SW, Washington, DC
Directions: The restaurant is near the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station (Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange lines). Use the Maryland Ave. & 7th Street exit and look for 600 Maryland Ave. (Capital Gallery Building) on your right at the top of the escalator. Enter the building and walk straight ahead to the restaurant just beyond the information desk. There is also a parking lot under the building.
More Info: All interested IEEE members are welcome.
Cost: Each person is responsible for her dinner.
Contact: RSVP by Friday, April 17 to Varetta Huggins at vhuggins@ieee.org.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
SiC Vertical-Channel JFETs for RF and Power Switching Applications
Sponsor: Electron Devices Society (Northern Virginia and Washington chapter), Electron Devices Society / Solid State Circuits Society (Baltimore chapter), Power Electronics Society (Baltimore chapter)
Speaker: Dr. Victor Veliadis, Northrop Grumman Advanced Technology Center
Time: Refreshments 5:30 pm; presentation 6:15 pm
Place: National Electronics Museum (formerly the Historical Electronics Museum), 1745 W. Nursery Rd., Linthicum, MD
Directions: From the Washington Beltway, take Rte 295 (Baltimore-Washington Pkwy.) north to the West Nursery Rd. exit and stay right on the ramp. Go through three stoplights. The museum is on the left, next to the Marriott Hotel. See
www.nationalelectronicsmuseum.org/hours-directions-parking.shtml.
More Info: The technical presentation will be preceded by complimentary refreshments. See Diamond story below.
Contact: If you plan to attend, please reply by Tuesday, April 21 to Murty Polavarapu at murtyp@ieee.org.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Role-Based Access Control Implementation and Interoperability Standard
Sponsors: Computer Society, American Society for Quality (ASQ) Section 509 Software SIG, Society for Software Quality (SSQ)
Speaker: Dr. Edward Coyne, SAIC
Time: 6:30 pm
Place: Video teleconference with sites in McLean and Silver Spring. Addresses are provided at the registration link below.
More Info: See Diamond story below. All interested IEEE members and guests are invited to attend. Pizza and soda will be served.
Cost: Free
Contact: Advance registration is required to enter the facilities. Please register online at
www.asq509.org/ht/d/sp/i/2499/pid/2499.
If your plans change, please email ankums@mitre.org to cancel your reservation.
Sponsor: IEEE-USA
Place: Washington, DC
More Info: SET Congressional Visits Day is an annual two-day event that brings scientists, engineers, researchers, educators, and technology executives to Washington to raise visibility and support for science, engineering, and technology. It includes a series of briefings and meetings highlighted with visits to your Congressional delegates.
Contact: Participants must register by Wednesday, April 15. For details and registration information, see
http://ieeeusa.org/policy/cvd/default.asp. Direct questions to Deborah Rudolph
at d.rudolph@ieee.org or 202-785-0835.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Architectures, Abstractions, and Algorithms for Large Teams of Robots
Sponsor: Robotics and Automation Society
Cosponsor: Sensors Council
Speaker: Prof. Vijay Kumar, University of Pennsylvania
Time: Networking & refreshments 6:45 pm, presentation 7:00 pm
Place: MITRE Corp., 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. This presentation is part of the RAS Chapter Distinguished Lecturer Series.
Contact: RSVP by April 24 to Dr. Raj Madhavan at raj.madhavan@ieee.org.
Diamond Stories
Friday, April 3, 2009
Model Based Imaging: In Search of the Free Lunch
Over the last two decades, digital imaging applications have evolved from a niche application into a huge commercial enterprise; and along the way, model-based imaging techniques have evolved into a core set of theoretical tools that form a major component of the field's theoretical foundation. The primary goal in model-based techniques is to construct a model of the image and the imaging system, and then to use this framework to infer information that is not directly available. This unifying framework can be used to solve a wide array of imaging problems ranging from image segmentation and analysis to image reconstruction and representation.
We present examples in applications ranging from medical to desktop imaging, and show how in each case model-based methods can be used to substantially improve quality or reduce cost of the imaging system. In the field of desktop imaging, we show how model-based methods have been used to increase resolution of images, efficiently store documents, and correct image distortion in low-cost imaging systems. At the other end of the cost spectrum, we give examples of how model-based methods have the potential to dramatically increase the quality of medical computed tomography (CT) images, while simultaneously reducing dosage.
Finally, we conclude by presenting some emerging analytical methods in the use of sparse techniques for the modeling and analysis of images, and show how these methods can improve model accuracy and/or dramatically reduce computation and storage.
Charles A. Bouman received a B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981 and a M.S. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982. From 1982 to 1985, he was a full staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and in 1989 he received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University. In 1989, he joined the faculty of Purdue University where he is the Michael J. and Katherine R. Birck Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Biomedical Engineering and is co-director of Purdue's Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility located in Purdue's Research Park.
Professor Bouman's research focuses on the use of statistical image models, multiscale techniques, and fast algorithms in applications including tomographic reconstruction, medical imaging, and document rendering and acquisition.
Professor Bouman is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), a Fellow of the society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T), a Fellow of the SPIE professional society. He is also a recipient of IS&T's Raymond C. Bowman Award for outstanding contributions to digital imaging education and research, has been a Purdue University Faculty Scholar, and received the College of Engineering Engagement/Service Award, and Team Award.
He is currently the Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, a member of the Board of Governors and a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He has been an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing and the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. He has also been Co-Chair of the 2006 SPIE/IS&T Symposium on Electronic Imaging, Co-Chair of the SPIE/IS&T conferences on Visual Communications and Image Processing 2000 (VCIP), a Vice President of Publications and a member of the Board of Directors for the IS&T Society, and he is the founder and Co-Chair of the SPIE/IS&T conference on Computational Imaging.
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Saturday, April 11, 2009
IEEE High School Science & Technology Poster Contest Finals
This project will engage the youth of the local area to demonstrate their creativity in a technical application, technology concept or social implication to encourage pursuit of a technical career. Students are engaged with exploring ideas and communicating their ideas in a formal written and visual demonstration. Students will be judged on visual presentation, verbal support and technical interest. Students will compete for financial recognition among other high school students in support of their college curriculum.
Scholarship awards are $2,500 for first place, $1,500 for second place, and $1,000 for third place. The top 20 contestants will receive a one-year IEEE student membership. Contestants are being identified at the 2009 science fairs in February and March. Awards will be announced at the IEEE National Capital Area Awards Banquet on Saturday, May 2.
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Instantaneous Mean Frequency and Phase Maps in Studying Human Ventricular Fibrillation Dynamics
Cardiac arrhythmias are lethal and could seriously affect the quality of living. While there are therapeutic solutions available for tackling atrial fibrillations (AF) which are relatively less lethal, ventricular fibrillation (VF), the more lethal of the arrhythmias, is still elusive in spite of 100 years of research. VF is a non-stationary process and it manifests into variations in the waveform morphology, phase, and frequency dynamics of the electrograms. A joint time-frequency (TF) approach would be the best way to analyze the electrogram data acquired during VF.
This talk will present one such TF approach to extract the instantaneous mean frequency (IMF) from inter cardiac electrograms acquired simultaneously from the epicardium and endocardium of the isolated human hearts and study the spatio-temporal frequency changes during VF. Unlike the well-known dominant frequency (DF) approach where the instantaneous temporal evolution of spectral characteristics is lost, the proposed IMF approach could track the temporal frequency changes over space. These evolving frequency patterns over time can be correlated with the locations of phase singularities in phase maps to reveal better mechanistic insights on the dynamics of the VF sources. The potential of the proposed approach in tracking migratory sources and conduction blocks during VF will be presented with examples and the possibility of using this information to modulate VF for focal therapies will be discussed.
K. Umapathy, Ph.D., works at the Toby Hull Family Cardiac Fibrillation Management Laboratory, Toronto, and the General Hospital & Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Art of Consulting: Getting Business (Without Getting The Business)
The National Capital Area Consultants Network is pleased to present an encore of a series that was very popular a few years ago, The Art of Consulting. Developed by local members, the series combines presentations with a roundtable discussion forum to help you determine how consulting fits into your career plan in the current economic climate. If you've been thinking about becoming a consultant, or thinking that you might have to, here's something you won't want to miss. We'll show you what works, what doesn't work, and what it takes to make it in business.
The Art of Consulting series is designed for IEEE members and other engineers who practice consulting, are thinking about consulting, or want to take charge of their careers. Sessions will cover topics such as running a consulting business, marketing, getting paid, contracts, and effective communication. Attendees can expect to hear fresh ideas and proven techniques from experienced consultants. They will find a hospitable, informal atmosphere in which to compare notes with others to find out what works and what doesn't - from people who know.
The content of the evening series is an expanded version of the workshop held on January 31 in Maryland. Each session of the evening series will be offered in a different location in Virginia.
In this third installment, Getting Business (Without Getting the Business), we'll discuss finding new clients and generating repeat business. We'll start with basic promotional materials like brochures and business cards, and progress to portfolios and websites. Having advertising materials is only part of the story. You also have to decide who you are trying to reach, how to find them, and what to do and say when you have found them. We'll show some guerrilla techniques for marketing, and we'll talk about marketing individually and in teams, at trade shows and commercial associations like technology councils and professional associations. Bidding the job and closing the sale are vital skills. We'll show you things to look out for, like the 5/8th's Rule, and why you should multiply your initial estimate by three. Feel free to bring your own brochure, portfolio, or other promotional material and join the discussion.
Bob Miller, the workshop leader, owns Trace Systems, Inc., which provides custom software and electronic design services. Dr. Miller is experienced in bringing high tech products to high volume production. He managed the group at Zenith that first put Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filters into color televisions for the first time. These devices are now mass produced worldwide, in quantities of over 50 million per year. He has a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He received three George Westinghouse Innovation Awards for commercial product concepts. He has six patents, over 25 publications, and is the principal author of Acoustic Charge Transport, published by Artech House in 1992. Visit his website at www.tracesystemsinc.com.
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Thursday, April 23, 2009
SiC Vertical-Channel JFETs for RF and Power Switching Applications
Silicon carbide (SiC) is a wide-bandgap semiconductor which is ideally suited for high power/temperature switching applications due to its high critical-field strength, its excellent thermal conductivity, and its high saturated drift-velocity. The vertical-channel Junction-Field-Effect-Transistor (VJFET) is presently the most mature SiC power switch because it uses pn junction depletion regions as a current-control mechanism in the active device area, and can therefore fully exploit the high-temperature properties of SiC in a gate voltage-controlled switching device. SiC VJFETs are free of gate-oxide problems, exhibit electrostatic discharge immunity of 16 kV, and do not suffer from forward voltage degradation. In this talk, an overview of VJFET fabrication, reliability, high-temperature operation, and electrical performance will be presented.
Dr. Victor Veliadis received the M.S. degree in electronics engineering from the National Technical University of Athens Greece in 1990, and the M.S and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1992 and 1996. From 1996 to 2000, Dr. Veliadis was with Nanocrystals Imaging Corporation where he developed quantum-dot phosphors and high-resolution X-ray imagers. From 2000 to 2003, he was with Lucent Technologies where he designed InP-based tunable photonic integrated circuits for telecommunication applications. In 2003, Dr. Veliadis was Adjunct Professor at Ursinus College and St. Joseph’s University, where he taught quantum mechanics and oversaw the physics laboratories. In 2004, he joined Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems as an Advisory Engineer responsible for the development of compound semiconductor devices for power and optoelectronic applications. Dr. Veliadis has authored or co-authored 55 peer-reviewed technical articles, and has four issued and nine pending patents to his credit.
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Role-Based Access Control Implementation and Interoperability Standard
The central concept of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is that IT permissions are delegated to roles. Users assigned to roles receive the permissions granted to the role. This level of indirection can provide simpler security administration and finer-grained access control policies. Over the past 15 years RBAC has provided a widely used model for security administration in large networks of applications and other IT resources. In 2004, the RBAC model proposed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was adopted by the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) as standard INCITS 359-2004.
While INCITS 359 provides common models and definitions for RBAC components and functions, it is not a standard for implementation. It leaves open a number of decisions regarding the selection of RBAC features and functions for compliant products. Nor does it provide normative rules for designing and building products that conform to the standard.
To address this lack of implementation rules as well as a need for system interoperability rules, INCITS CS1.1 has developed an RBAC implementation and interoperability standard (RIIS). This presentation will discuss the status, need for, and content of the RIIS.
Ed Coyne is a senior security engineer at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). His research interests include access control models and role engineering. He has published a book, Role Engineering for Enterprise Security Management. Coyne has a doctorate in theoretical linguistics from Georgetown University. He is chair of the CS1.1 Role-Based Access Control task group of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) and has been co-chair of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) security expert panel.
Dr. Coyne may be contacted at
edward.coyne@saic.com.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Architectures, Abstractions, and Algorithms for Large Teams of Robots
Networked robots represent the convergence of robotics, sensor networks and mobile ad-hoc networks, with many applications and a growing market projected to be $200B in 2013. This talk will focus on the fundamental problems and practical issues underlying the deployment of large numbers of autonomously functioning robots. The central problem is the so-called inverse problem of deriving individual robot behaviors for a desired group behavior. There are numerous examples of group behavior in biology which suggest that analysis of swarming behaviors in biology may provide insight for the synthesis of collective behaviors for engineered systems. I will present a methodology for modeling and analyzing such collective behaviors and discuss architectures, abstractions and algorithms for the control of large networks of robots.
Vijay Kumar is the UPS Foundation Professor and the Associate Dean in
the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio State University in 1987. He is on the faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics with a secondary appointment in the Department of Computer and Information Science. He served as the Deputy Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science from 2000-2004, and directed the GRASP Laboratory, a multidisciplinary robotics and perception laboratory, from 1998-2004. He also chaired the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics from 2005-2008.
Dr. Kumar's research interests lie in the area of robotics and networked multi-agent systems. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and an IEEE Fellow. He has served on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, Journal of Franklin Institute, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design and the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics.
He is the recipient of the 1991 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator award, the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the 1997 Freudenstein Award for significant accomplishments in mechanisms and robotics, and the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Kawamori Best Paper Award. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and an elected member of the Robotics and Automation Society Administrative Committee.
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Please send meeting announcements, corrections and comments
to ncac-scanner@ieee.org.
Updated 4/27/09
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