SEAS Newsletter
Week of November 9-15 2009
Awards & Honors:
On September 22nd, Prof. Samuel Kotz (EMSE) and his co-author Saralees Nadarajah were awarded the 2007 Jacob Wolfowitz Prize for Theoretical Advances in Mathematical and Management Sciences for their paper "Exact Distribution of XY Elliptically Symmetric Pearson Type II Distribution," published in The American Journal of Mathematical and Management Sciences.
Prof. Michael Plesniak (MAE chairman), has been awarded, along with one other co-recipient, the first-ever Citation for Meritorious Service to the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society (APS). The letter announcing the citation states that the officers of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the APS selected Prof. Plesniak for this citation because he has “done an exceptional job in promoting our community by your service on the Ad Hoc Committee on Media & Public Relations in publicizing fluids to the lay community and to the funding agencies. In addition, we recognize your work in promoting fluids internationally by your service on the External Affairs Committee. We also appreciate your enthusiastic support of fluids while serving with the National Science Foundation.”
Media Mentions:
Election history was made in Takoma Park, MD, on November 3, 2009. For the first time anywhere in the world, voters had the ability to independently audit the election tally. About 1,700 voters used the Scantegrity voting system to cast votes for the positions of mayor and city council members. The Scantegrity count has been confirmed by a hand count, within the expected margin between hand counts and automated counts. Voters had until November 6th to determine if the confirmation numbers obtained on their ballots are missing from the website, after which anyone can audit data made public by Scantegrity.
Scantegrity has been developed by GW Professor Poorvi Vora, of the Department of Computer Science, and graduated doctoral student Stefan Popoveniuc, in collaboration with several other universities. Public domain efforts to prototype this class of voting systems have become somewhat widespread (about eight such protoyped systems exist) after the first one, Citizen Verified Voting, was prototyped entirely at GW by Professor Vora's doctoral student, Ben Hosp.
Media covered the process in print and via radio. Online articles appeared in Wired magazine, and Computerworld.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/scantegrity/
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140285/E_voting_system_lets_voters_verify_their_ballots_are_counted?taxonomyId=1
WAMU radio provided the following coverage:
Takoma Park Voters Use New System
http://wamu.org/audio/nw/09/11/n4091104-29958.asx (Microsoft Media Player) http://wamu.org/audio/nw/09/11/n4091104-29958.ram (Real Audio)
New Voting Technology Makes Debut In Takoma Park http://wamu.org/audio/nw/09/11/n24091103-29954.ram
http://wamu.org/audio/nw/09/11/n24091103-29954.asx
Prof. Dianne Martin (CS) was interviewed by a news crew from German ZDF television station on October 26th about the 40th anniversary of the Internet. She was asked about how the major social implications of the Internet have evolved and where she sees it going in the future. The video, in German, can be viewed at: http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/40_Jahre_Internet/875762?inPopup=true
Research:
The GW Institute for Biomedical Engineering is pleased to announce the following winners of the 2009-2010 Biomedical Engineering Interdisciplinary Research Fund:
"Large-Scale GPGPU-based Cardiac Arrhythmia Simulations" Matthew Kay (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Howie Hwang (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering)
"Localization of the Cold Plasma Treatment Effect on Living Tissue" Michael Keidar (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) and Mary Ann Step (Department of Anatomy and Regenerative Biology)
"Assessment of Complex Brain Stimulation for Control of Experimental Seizures in a Rat Model of Epilepsy" James Leiphart (Department of Neurosurgery and Anatomy & Regenerative Biology) and Murray Loew (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering)
"Studying 2D-to-3D Conversion Using an Ultrasound Simulator" John Philbeck (Department of Psychology)
"Foot Biomechanics and the Origin of Human Foot Function" Brian Richmond (Department of Anthropology, and Anatomy and Regenerative Biology)
Papers:
Prof. Edward Della Torre (ECE) has recently had the following papers published: 1) E. Cardelli, E. Della Torre, and A. Faba, “Experimental verification of deletion and congruency property in Si-Fe magnetic steels,” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 45, pp. 5243 - 5246 (2009); 2) E. Cardelli, E. Della Torre, and A. Faba, “Theoretical consideration about magnetic hysteresis and transformer inrush,” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 45, pp. 5247 - 5250 (2009); and 3) E. Cardelli, E. Della Torre, and A. Faba, “Analysis of a unit magnetic particle via the DPC model,” IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 45, pp. 5192-5195, (2009).
Prof. Murray Loew (ECE) presented the paper "Image Fusion and the Method of Paired Comparisons: Experiments, Evaluation, and Open Questions" at the Army Conference on Applied Statistics on October 21st, in Tempe, AZ. Co-authors were James Bonick and Clarence Walters from the U.S. Army Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate, Ft. Belvoir, VA.
Conferences & Presentations:
Prof. Michael Keidar (MAE) presented an invited talk at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics on November 3rd. The talk was entitled Exploring Plasma Mechanisms of Carbon Nanostructures Synthesis in Arc Discharge.
Prof. James Lee (MAE) was invited to give a presentation on "Micromorphic Theory and its Extension" at the Workshop on Mesoscale Mechanics of Complex Materials, held November 2nd – 3rd in Vancouver. The workshop was sponsored by NSF, AFOSR, and Academia Sinica (Taiwan).
The 15th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-15), also known as the International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, was held in Rome, Italy, during October, with 150 attendees and over 100 papers. Prof. David Nagel (ECE) presented an invited paper “Diurnal Effects on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions.”
Amal Al Katrib, a doctoral student (ECE), had a poster presentation at the conference: “Can Water Be the Origin of Excess Heat?” After the meeting, Nagel wrote a comprehensive “Scientific Overview of ICCF-15,” which was published by Infinite Energy magazine: http://www.infinite-energy.com/images/pdfs/nageliccf15.pdf .
Other News:
Prof. Murray Loew (ECE) served as general chairman of the 38th IEEE Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop, held October 14th- 16th at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C.
Student News
ECE doctoral student Kevin Wagner presented a paper, entitled "On proportionate-type NLMS algorithms for fast decay of output error at all times," at the 43rd Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers. He co-wrote the paper with Prof. Milos Doroslovacki (ECE). The conference was held in Pacific Grove, CA, November 1st – 4th.
Guest Vignette
Over the past few years, EMSE Professors Hernán Abeledo and Enrique Campos-Nanez, in collaboration with researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center, have been working on a system to improve the radiofrequency ablation of cancer tumors. Radiofrequency ablation uses heat generated by radiofrequency waves to destroy cancer cells. This is a novel cancer therapy that is suited for many patients who cannot undergo traditional surgery. Our goal is to develop a computer based system that provides preoperative and intraoperative treatment planning for the radiologist executing the ablations. Our interdisciplinary research effort involves medical imaging and guidance methods, along with mathematical optimization models and algorithms. Integrating these technologies, our system yields an optimized plan to ablate the tumor region, while avoiding injury to vital organs and minimizing the damage to healthy tissue. The ongoing work is funded by the National Institutes of Health and has undergone animal testing. Initial results will appear in forthcoming issues of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering and the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Hernán Abeledo of the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering)
Upcoming Events
CS Seminar: Security of Voting Systems
Speaker: Ron Rivest
November 9th
5:00 pm
308 Marvin Center
Seminar: "Driver Behavior: Modeling Behavior or Modeling Particles?"
November 11th
12:45 – 2:00 pm
Virginia Campus, Research Building 1, Room 410
More info . . .
Biomedical Engineering:
Pharmacology and Physiology Department Seminar
Cardiac Pacing and Defibrillation: History and Mechanisms of Antiarrhythmia Therapy
Igor R. Efimov, Ph.D., The Lucy and Stanley Lopata Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis
November 11th
12:30 – 1:30 pm
643 Ross Hall
Biomedical Engineering:
Cardiology Grand Rounds, “Optical Mapping of the Human Heart. Do Animal Models Predict Clinical Physiology?”
Igor R. Efimov, Ph.D., The Lucy and Stanley Lopata Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis
November 11th
5:00 – 6:00 pm
GW Hospital, 6th Floor Conference Room, 6-117
CS Colloquium: Combinatorial Architecture: A Multi-core Processor Running on Regular Sequential Code
November 12th
4:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
More info . . .
Seminar on Automotive Safety: November 12th
9:00 am – 3:30 pm
Virginia Campus, Research Bldg 1, Conference Room 410
More info . . .
GW Institute for Biomedical Engineering Colloquium: Accelerating Medical Device Innovation: The Role of Innovation
November 13th
10:30 – 11:30 am
223 Funger Hall
More info . . .
CS Colloquium: Top-k Algorithms and Applications
November 16th
12:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
More info . . .
MAE Colloquium: Measurement Science for Intelligent Manufacturing Robots and Automation Program
November 16th
2:00 – 3:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
More info . . .
Alumni Career Networking Night: This event is open to all GW graduate students
November 18th
6:30 – 8:30 pm
Marvin Center Continental Ballroom
More info . . .
CS Colloquium: Pain and Some Other Dangers AI Poses to Itself and to Society
November 30th
4:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
More info . . .
SEAS 125th Anniversary Events
Frank Howard Lecture Series–Dr. Frieder Seible, Speaker: Thursday, November 12th
6:00 - 9:00 pm at 1957 E Street N.W., Room 213
Registration required for this event
More info . . .
SEAS Seminar Series: Engineering Challenges in the 21st Century: Monday, November 16th
“Sustainability – Water Quality,” Presented by Prof. Rumana Riffat (CEE)
6:30 pm
310 Marvin Center
More info
SEAS Seminar Series: Engineering Challenges in the 21st Century: Monday, November 30th
“Smaller and Faster: Nanomaterials,” Presented by Prof. Martha Pardavi-Horvath (ECE)
6:30 pm
101 Marvin Center
More info . . .
Frank Howard Lecture Series–Dr. Barbara Liskov, Speaker: Wednesday, December 2nd
6:00 - 9:00 pm at 1957 E Street N.W., City View Room
Registration required for this event
More info . . .
Dissertation Defenses:
Name of Student Defending: Jae-Woong Hwang
Title of Dissertation: "A Whiteboard-based Computational Framework for Dynamic Team Coordination”
Wednesday, November 18th at 1:30 pm
736 Phillips Hall
Name of Student Defending: Kai Xing
Title of Dissertation: "Coding-based Channel Assignment in Multi-channel Wireless Networks”
Thursday, December 3rd at 10:00 am
736 Phillips Hall
__________________________________
>> November 9-15 Newsletter
>> November 2-8 Newsletter
-
>> October 26-November 1 Newsletter
>> October 19-25 Newsletter
>> October 12-18 Newsletter
>> October 5-11 Newsletter
-
>> September 28-October 4 Newsletter
>> September 21-27 Newsletter
-
>> Continue back to home
|
