The Electronic Newsletter of the IEEE Toronto Section - the latest news about upcoming events and the people that make them happen - Section and Chapter meetings, workshops, conferences, and other events of interest occuring in Toronto and surounding areas.   Posted every month.   Now formatted for portrait-orientation printing.
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Upcoming Chapter/Group Meetings Nov 3, 2008 at 11:00 a.m.   Dr. Ali Khademhosseini from the Center for Biomedical Engineering, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, presents "Microengineered hydrogels for stem cell bioengineering and tissue regeneration," organized by our Signal Processing and Engineering in Medicine and Biology Chapters. Click for details. Nov 3, 2008 at 5:00 p.m.   Prof. Walter Kellermann of the University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany presents a Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecture, "Acoustic Signal Processing for Next-Generation Multichannel Human/Machine Interfaces," organized by our Signal Processing Chapter Click for details details. Nov 4, 2008 at 6:00 p.m.  Dr. Daniel Fischer, Senior Engineer, Kinectrics presents, "Artificial Intelligence Stops the Car (so you don’t have to)," organized by our Signals and Computational Intelligence Joint Chapter. Click for details. Nov 7, 2008 at 4:00 p.m.  Bruno Di Stefano presents "Adding Wireless Communication to Embedded Systems," organized by our Communications Chapter. Click for details. Nov 13, 2008 at 4:30 p.m.   Professor Sanzheng Qiao of McMaster University presents "Sphere Decoding and the LLL Algorithm," organized by our Communications Chapter. Click for details. Nov 20, 2008 at 6:00 p.m.   Prof. Thia Kirubarajan (Kiruba) of McMaster University presents "Passive Coherent Location: Tracking Aircraft Using Radio and TV Stations," organized by our Aerospace and Electronic Systems Chapter and Communications Chapterdetails.Registration required. Nov 25, 2008 at 6:30 p.m.   Dr. Venkat Venkatramanan of the University of Toronto presents "Optical Amplifiers for Telecommunication Applications," organized by our Communications Chapter.details. Dec 5, 2008 at 1:30 p.m.   Dr. Patrick Mitran from the University of Waterloo presents "Cognitive Radio: some perspectives on interference mitigation," organized by our Communications Chapter.details. Section News IEEE Toronto Section launches Consultants Database October 25, 2008 - The IEEE Toronto Section Consultants Database is an initiative of IEEE Toronto Section Consultants Network Affinity Group which was formed on October 7, 2008 under the stewardship of Fasih Masood, Chair, Industrial Relations Committee & Consultants Network Affinity Group. The technical architect of the database is Karl Martin, IEEE Toronto Section Webmaster. In phase-I, the objective of the Consultants Database include, but not limited to, fostering the growth of Consultants in fields under the umbrella of IEEE & its Societies, encouraging local consultants to join the IEEE Toronto Section Consultants Network and form new alliances, promoting the use of independent technical and engineering consultants by industry and business, and providing educational activities for self-employed members. Under the MOU of IEEE and PMI Southern Ontario Chapter, the Consultants Database will also be advertised on the home page of PMI SOC Website at http://www.soc.pmi.on.ca/ In phase-II, IEEE Toronto Section will publish a print catalogue of all consultants with pictures & profiles which will be distributed at all the IEEE Events. LINK: http://toronto.ieee.ca/consultants/#null IEEE Toronto Section Partners with TRIEC by Visda Vokhshoori & Fasih Masood How long has it been since you first arrived in Canada ? Has it been 30, 20 years or maybe less? Regardless of when you arrived I am sure you can vividly remember your experiences of those first few days, weeks, and months. It was hard, wasn’t it? To adapt; to call a new place home, to meet new people, build new relationships, to find a job and build a career. It was hard, wasn’t it? But, it got better. Time, perhaps one individual or a group of people –they all played a role in your success story. The story of our settlement in a new country is a bitter sweet one. It’s a story that is informative. There is a lot to learn from it especially for engineers who arrive in this country. They need us. They need us to share our stories with them, so that they can find their own paths. Fasih Masood, Chair of IEEE Toronto Section’s Industry Relation Committee is going to start something new for us. We are partnering with TRIEC, Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, www.triec.ca, to support the Mentoring Partnership Program, www.TheMentoringPartnership.com. This program is a collaboration of community organizations and corporate partners that bring together skilled immigrants with established professionals in occupation-specific mentoring relationships. It is delivered through a network of community organizations in the City of Toronto and the regions of Halton, Peel and York. And to kick off this partnership we are attending the TRIEC’s Power of Networking event with Mike Lipkin, world-renowned motivational speaker. This is a full-day event designed to help immigrants explore the 'Power of Networking’. A few of us IEEE volunteers, Fasih, Marcelo, Patrick and I will be in the Engineering Sector Room along with other organizations to provide information to the engineers who registered for this event. Come if you are free. It is on November 1. The event starts at 8:00 AM . But you don’t have to be there that early. You can come for the sector room section of the program. That starts at 1:00 PM . But if you can’t join us that day, please consider dropping Fasih or I a note. Let us know that you are interested in mentoring an engineer. We would be more than happy to connect you with a match. It feels good to give back to the profession, doesn’t it? Such Strategic Partnerships also help Toronto Section to align itself to the core purpose of IEEE which is to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity and what better use of IEEE resources then to help the local communities in which we live and work… "Someone taught you…. Someone helped you…. Someone showed you….Someone took the time….Now it's your turn…. 24 hours over 4 months. Become a Mentor and be that someone………" Resources: http://www.triec.ca/events/12 Toronto Section Senior Member Profile - Dr. Guomin Li, Ph.D., P.Eng., SMIEEE Dr. Guomin Li, Ph.D., P.Eng., SMIEEE, is currently a senior design engineer at Axiomatic Technologies Corp., leading development of various advanced real-time embedded control systems products for electrohydraulic applications as well as off-highway vehicle and mobile equipment industries. As a senior Post-doctoral Research Fellow, he worked in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Ryerson University from late 2001 to early 2003. Before then, he held various academic positions, ranging from Research Assistant to Research Associate to Associate Professor, in Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Tianjin University, respectively. He also worked as an engineer in a leading design institute in the field of automation and electric drives in China. Dr. Li has a diverse portfolio of professional interests. His areas of expertise include mechatronics, advanced control systems, intelligent systems, industrial electronics (hardware and software co-design), motor drive and servo control, real-time automation communication and networking, embedded advanced electromechanical and electrohydraulic systems, as well as embedded off-highway vehicle and mobile equipment control. Dr. Li has published tens of scholarly articles in reputable scientific journals and international conferences. In his industrial practice, he has recently, as project leader and primary designer, developed a number of complex advanced embedded control system products for off-highway vehicle and mobile equipment applications. Examples include one-of-a-sort networked optimal engine temperature controller using variable pitch fan and nonlinear control algorithm, and embedded DSP based three-axis synchronous steering controller for heavy-duty trailers. Dr. Li is currently a member of Experience Requirements Committee of Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO-ERC, Canada), whose mandate is to evaluate applicants' professional experiences for license granting, and to address relevant general licensing issues for the engineering profession. He was a past technical reviewer for two international journals. Dr. Li received the B.Eng. degree in electrical & electronics engineering from Wuhan Institute of Technology in 1983, M.A.Sc. degree in control engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology in 1988, and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1999. Tesla, An Evening With Genius – Nov. 6–8, 2008 Play organized by: Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Toronto Section He discovered alternating current, wireless and radio. And no, he is not Marconi. In fact, in 1943, the Supreme Court granted full rights to Tesla for the invention of radio, nullifying the claims of Marchese Gugliemo Marconi who had patented a two-tuned-circuit design and a more practical four-tuned-circuit modeled after Tesla's. Marconi's patent on the invention of radio was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court because Tesla's work predated it (Case #369, 6/21/43). Nikola Tesla is known as the forgotten genius although we know him too well through his inventions. In a unique event, IEEE Toronto Section and PEO have organized an evening with Tesla! This one-man play about Tesla's life is written by J. Michael Newlight and Frank Tabbita, with Frank Tabbita as Nikola Tesla. Tickets are available on www.ticketmaster.com. Thursday, November 6th at 8:00 pm - $20 Friday, November 7th at 8:00 pm - $25 Saturday, November 8th at 8:00 pm - $25 Students - $15 on any day The above prices include all applicable taxes and fees. For more information visit the event web site: http://www.vasicweb.com/tesla/ Upcoming Conferences May 12–15, 2009 — Canadian Conference on Climate Change – CCTC 2009 will be held in Hamilton, Ontario. Oct 19–21, 2009 — Product Safety Engineering Society Symposium – PSESS 2009 will be held in Toronto, Ontario. All IEEE Conferences in Canada - please use this link. Upcoming Courses "Overhead Conductor Tension and Sags, and Guying of Poles" by Wallas H. Khella, Ph.D., P.Eng. — Nov. 3 & 4, 2008 This one and a half day seminar is designed for Engineers, Technologists and Technicians working for electrical utilities, communication organizations and consulting engineering firms dealing with the design of new or upgrading of overhead distribution lines. The seminar will outline the physical and mechanical characteristics of the overhead line components and shows how to apply these to design pole lines that meets the Regulation. Reference Standards and applicable specifications will be given. Each participant will receive a comprehensive set of seminar notes, which can be used as reference design manual. Various Excel spreadsheets will be demonstrated to assist in determining the guying/anchoring requirements to meet the required Grades of Construction. Click for details (hosted on the S&C website). Read More.... "Critical Software Safeguards Course: Lint and MISRA-C" by Michael Barr — Nov. 20, 2008 The automatic C/C++ code checker, lint, is a powerful but underutilized static analysis tool. The “2004 Guidelines for the Use of the C Language in Critical Systems” (a.k.a., MISRA-C) are similarly powerful and underused. On their own, lint and MISRA-C are powerful tools for preventing or detecting bugs and, thus, making embedded systems safer and more reliable. Furthermore, the value of following the MISRA-C coding guidelines is magnified many times by the use of lint or another static analysis tool as an automatic rule enforcer. This one day course introduces both static analysis and MISRA-C individually and demonstrates how to put them together for maximum impact. Click for details. "Project Management — Meeting Those Pesky Requirements" by Celia Desmond, B.Sc., M. Eng. — Nov. 24 & 25, 2008 What makes a project successful? What can you do to make your projects succeed? Numerous problems cause many projects either to fail, or to create headaches for the project team. In order to meet the project requirements or to meet the changing expectations of others, project teams must understand these and manage them. There are techniques that can be implemented which have been shown to make projects more successful and to make life easier for the project manager and the team. This short seminar provides broad coverage of project management methods, supplemented by real project examples. The two day seminar will be held at S&C Canada’s Training Centre. A set of notes will be provided. Snacks, refreshments and lunches will be freely available to all attendees. Click for details (hosted on the S&C website). "Building USB Applications with Libusb" by Dennis Cecic — Nov. 29, 2008 Are you still trying to use Serial/Parallel ports for PC interfacing? Good luck. USB has emerged as the de-facto standard interface for PC connectivity. Unfortunately for developers, the USB programming model is relatively complex, compared to these traditional interfaces. The objective of this 1-day class is to review the important aspects of USB (electrical, protocol, mechanical, certification), as well as providing hands-on experience in implementing a custom PC Host application using the cross-platform Libusb API to exchange generic data with a USB microcontroller. The course will be run in a fully instrumented computer laboratory. Click for details. Registration deadline: November 22, 2008 IEEE Communications Society Launches New Wireless Communication Engineering Technologies Certification Program The Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers Communications Society (IEEE ComSoc) has launched a new program to certify the practical knowledge and skills of wireless communications professionals. The IEEE Wireless Communication Engineering Technologies (IEEE WCET) Certification Program has been specifically designed by IEEE ComSoc to address the worldwide wireless industry’s growing need for communications professionals with practical problem-solving skills in real-world situations. With this certification, professionals will be able to clearly demonstrate their knowledge of wireless communications technologies to employers or change engineering fields as new opportunities arise in the wireless industry. In the coming months, IEEE ComSoc will also launch a set of resources designed specifically to help participants prepare for the examination. In addition, a Candidate Handbook for the IEEE WCET certification program containing policies, complete details of the subject areas covered, reference sources, sample questions, application procedures and contact information is currently available free-of-charge through IEEE ComSoc. Read more... For more information on the IEEE Wireless Communication Engineering Technologies Certification Program (IEEE WCET) contact: Jean Niblett, IEEE Communications Society, 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Phone: (212) 705-8913. E-mail: j.niblett@comsoc.org or visit www.ieee-wcet.org. IEEE News IEEE Members Select Pedro Ray 2009 President-Elect IEEE Xplore ® Upgrade Provides New Tools for Researchers IEEE to Present 2008 Medal of Honor to Intel Pioneer Gordon Moore During Honors Ceremony For more IEEE news from the IEEE Newsroom - Click here. And check out the IEEE Institute Magazine here. Membership Future Senior Members of the IEEE Toronto Section   Have you been in professional practice for at least ten years and have shown significant performance over a period of at least five of those years?   You should be an IEEE Senior Member.   Need help in obtaining your three references?   We will help you - just contact Dimitri , our membership chair.   Please click this link to find out the advantages, the requirements, and an explanation of the process including key links to apply online. Volunteers Volunteering a few hours a month is a very rewarding experience - we have a great group of about 45 volunteers who contribute to the smooth running of our Section - by distributing the workload over many Section members, the individual load is kept small. If you are interested, please contact our Section Chair Alex Bot at this Advertising For Advertisting in the annual printed edition of IEEE Toronto Section - The Annual Connection please contact the Editor. The IEEE Toronto Section accepts advertising for items deemed to be of interest to our members. If you would like to advertise in our newsletter, please contact the editor. Please send any news item submissions, comments, suggestions, concerns to the editor before the 28th at this email . Thank you for reading - Naresh Kurada,MSEE,P.Eng., (Editor). Subscribe or Unsubscribe IEEE Toronto E-News is sent monthly to all members of the IEEE Toronto Section and to a separate mailing list of non-members who have elected to subscribe (except those who have opted out) and any one else who has subscribed.   Since we are now using a new IEEE service, called e-Notice, our member mailing list is created each month using the on-line membership data base. IEEE Toronto Section Members   If you receive two copies, please cancel the non-member one by using the linked web page and completing the simple web form to "Unsubscribe".   If you do not wish to receive these newsletters, use this link to cancel your subscription. All Others (members of other sections and non-members)   If you wish to opt in or out, please use the linked web page and complete the simple web form. Home Page: http://toronto.ieee.ca by webmaster