Faculty News
Awards & Recognition:
Dr. James Chen (MAE lecturer) has been elected an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Institute of High Energetic Materials.
For his continuous support of the American Society of Civil Engineers-National Capital Section (ASCE-NCS) and the student ASCE chapter at SEAS, Prof. Majid Manzari (CEE) will receive the Meritorious Service Award from the ASCE-NCS at their April 19 banquet.
Research:
Prof. Chunlei Liang (MAE) was invited by the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to work in Boulder, CO, for a month this summer. He will conduct research to model the sun on NCAR's massively parallel computers.
Papers:
Prof. Pedro Silva (MAE) published the paper "Seismic Performance of a Concrete Bridge Bent Consisting of Three Steel Shell Columns" in Earthquake Spectra Online (EQS), the professional journal of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.
Conferences & Presentations:
Prof. Tianshu Li (CEE) attended the American Physical Society's March Meeting 2011 in Dallas, TX, March 21 - 25. At the meeting, he presented his recent theoretical modeling work, titled "Embedded Si Nanocrystals: Tailoring Interfaces to Manipulate Electronic States," in the session Optical Properties of Semiconductor and Metal Nanostructures.
Prof. Julie Ryan (EMSE) co-authored a paper presented by Eneken Tikk (lead author) at the Georgetown Cyber Project Conference on March 29. The paper results from a multi-year collaborative effort among its four concept authors to explore the legal issues associated with cybersecurity and cyberwarfare: Eneken Tikk (2011) "10 Rules of Behavior for Cyber Security: Concept by Prof. Dan Ryan (National Defense University), Prof. Julie Ryan (George Washington University), Maeve Dion (Stockholm University), Eneken Tikk (NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence)." Tallinn (2011): CCD COE Publications.
Guest Vignette
Today a file system with billions of files, millions of directories, and petabytes of storage is no longer a rarity. As file systems grow, users are increasingly eager to perform complex queries, such as "How many files have been updated in the past ten days?", and "Which are the five largest files that belong to John?". The first is an example of an aggregate query, which provides a high-level summary of all or part of the file system; the second is a top-k query, which locates the k files and/or directories that have the highest score according to a scoring function. Applications that require just-in-time analytics over large file systems, such as data management, archiving, enterprise surveillance, etc., often require fast processing of these queries.
To address this need, Profs. Howie Huang (ECE) and Nan Zhang (CS) have designed and developed "Glance," a just-in-time query processing system that can produce accurate query answers within a short amount of time. Glance achieves this through quick analysis based on a small number of samples (files or folders), which can be collected from a very large file system. It works seamlessly with the tree structure of the system and can be applied instantly over any new file system. This research was published in February at the USENIX conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST 2011).
Glance opens the door to a new paradigm for just-in-time storage forensics that could potentially help prevent future WikiLeaks-like occurrences. For example, border patrol agents may need to count the number of encrypted files in a traveler's hard drive in order to determine whether he could be transporting sensitive documents. The agent must make a determination quickly, as he can only detain each traveler for an extremely limited amount of time. Once fully developed, Glance will be able to help facilitate these types of storage forensics tasks. (Provided courtesy of Prof. Howie Huang of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Upcoming Events
SEAS Events:
MAE Seminar: "Encapsulated Microbubbles: From Echocardiography to Noninvasive Blood Pressure Monitoring"
Kausik Sarkar, University of Delaware
Monday, April 4
2:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: "Intelligent Command Generation to Reduce Machine Vibration"
Joshua Vaughan, Georgia Institute of Technology
Tuesday, April 5
2:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
ECE Seminar: "Protocols and Theories for Multi-Hop Wireless Networks"
Alhussein A. Abouzeid, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Tuesday, April 5
2:00 pm
640 Phillips Hall
MAE Seminar: "Onboard Guidance, Navigation, and Control of Advanced Autonomous Systems"
Behcet Acikmese, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Friday, April 8
2:00 pm
736 Phillips Hall
11th Annual Women's Leadership Conference: "Wholistic U"
Coordinator: Prof. Shelley Heller (CS)
Friday, April 8
9:00 am - 3:30 pm
Mount Vernon Campus
MAE/GWIBE Seminar Series: "Engineering Feedback Control Systems in Microbes"
Mary J. Dunlop, University of Vermont
Thursday, April 14
1:00 - 2:00 pm
640 Phillips Hall
SEAS Faculty Excellence Awards
Thursday, April 21
3:00 - 5:00 pm
308 Marvin Center
Pelton Senior Design Competition & SEAS Senior-Alumni BBQ
Wednesday, May 11
5:00 - 8:00 pm
Grand Ballroom, Marvin Center
Entrepreneurship Events
Follow GW Office of Entrepreneurship activities on: Facebook: GW Office of Entrepreneurship, Twitter: GWInnovate, and www.gwu.edu/entrepreneurship.
$50K BizPlanComp: Announcement of Semi-Finalists
Tuesday, April 5
Howard Hoffman Distinguished Lecture Series
Speaker: John Ourisman
Tuesday, April 5
6:30 pm
651 Duques
$10 Starbucks gift card to the first 50 attendees
Entrepreneur Office Hours in MSSC
Friday, April 8
1:00 - 2:00 pm
104 MSSC
$50K BizPlanComp: Workshop - Delivering a Compelling Oral Presentation
Friday, April 8
5:00 - 7:00 pm
553 Duques
BYOB (Be Your Own Boss): Different Generations of Success
Monday, April 11
9:00 pm
651 Duques
$50K BizPlanComp: Finals
Thursday, April 14 and Friday, April 15
Duques, 6th Floor
Entrepreneur Office Hours in Old Main
Friday, April 22
1:00 - 2:00 pm
102 Old Main
SEAS Seminar on Entrepreneurship: "Building Your Early Stage Startup Team"
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
6:00 - 8:30 pm
108 Funger Hall [Please note the room change for this seminar]
Other Events
U.S. Department of Transportation National Engineers Program
Prof. Kim Roddis (CEE chair), panel member for the University Engineering Programs session (12:45 - 1:30 pm)
Wednesday, April 6
8:30 am - 1:30 pm
Catholic University's Pryzbyla Center
620 Michigan Ave. N.E.
Washington, DC
Academic Success Events
Get to the Point: Developing Employer-Centered Resumes and CV's
Tuesday, April 5
4:00 - 5:30 pm
Marvin Center 310
Ethical Research Standards: Doing Research the Right Way
Wednesday, April 27
3:30 - 5:30 pm
Marvin Center 402
Dissertation Defenses
Razaq Ferhadi (CEE) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, titled "Evaluation of Options to Extend Span Range of Precast Prestressed Concrete Bridge Girders During Preliminary Design," on March 11. He presented a parametric study and investigated the impact of using the available options and trends (individually and simultaneously) on extending the span range of bridge girders and the corresponding cost of the superstructure. The results of his study will help design engineers decide which options to consider based on the project criteria. The research was conducted under the direction of Prof. Sameh Badie (CEE).