2007-2008 Colloquia Schedule

Sep 6: BEYOND CLIMATE: THE EMERGING SCIENCE OF A HIGH CO2/LOW pH

Dr. Peter Brewer, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

By far the largest sink for fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted to the atmosphere is the ocean. Eventually some 85 percent will be transferred to the ocean by gas exchange across the air-sea interface.

We have already disposed of some 500 billion tons of fossil fuel CO2 in the ocean. The signal is easily recognizable below 1-km depth, and the invasion rate is now ~1 million tons of CO2 per hour. This is causing a lowering of ocean pH, and reasonable calculations show that Earth may experience an oceanic pH lower than that over the last 25 million years. The consequences for marine life – respiration and reproduction of deep-sea animals and calcification of coral reefs – are beginning to be unraveled by novel insights and experiments.

For more information on the ocean chemistry of greenhouse gases, visit http://www.mbari.org/ghgases/.

Dr. Brewer, now an ocean chemist and senior scientist at MBARI, spent 24 years as a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. His current research covers the changing ocean chemistry of CO2, the formation and fate of methane hydrates, and the development of laser Raman spectroscopy for deep-ocean science. He holds a BSc and PhD from Liverpool University in England and has authored over 140 scientific papers. Dr. Brewer is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Brewer's presentation (PDF, 5 MB)

Mr. Brian Adolf, COMSOL

The phenomenon of thermal lensing is an important one in high-power optics applications. The concept is that some high-power electromagnetic waves (usually from a laser) are propagating through an optical system that heats up due to slight absorption of the powerful incoming light. While these components heat up, they undergo thermal expansion, which also changes the optical path and the shape of the lens. Furthermore, most optical components have an index of refraction (and possibly the absorption) that depends on temperature. All of these phenomena are taken into account correctly in the transient model to be presented.

To see examples of problems that COMSOL Multiphysics solves, visit http://www.comsol.com/showroom/.

Mr. Adolf is an applications engineer at COMSOL’s Palo Alto office. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a BS in electrical engineering/computer science and a BA in physics. Previously he worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., doing laser measurement and characterization; at Linear Technology in Milpitas as an analog integrated circuit designer; and at Nifty Analysis and Design, the consulting company he founded that utilizes COMSOL Multiphysics.

Mr. Adolf's presentation (PDF, 4 MB)

Mr. Lee Klynn, LM/ATC

Digital Radiography (HRDR) is an x-ray imaging system developed at Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center for non destructive test applications. The talk will cover a brief history of the development starting with real time radiography extending though the current 32 MB per image state of the art HRDR system. Technological details and example applications will be discuss. Lee Klynn is a senior staff scientist/engineer at Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto and a member of the team developing and applying the HRDR digital x-ray imaging system. His research interests include radiation sensors, digital image processing, radiography, infrared imaging, and non destructive test. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from Cal State Northridge. Mr. Klynn's presentation (PDF, 3 MB)

Mr. Tom Coughlin, Coughlin Associates

Digital storage is a key enabling technology for today’s digital consumer electronic products.

Digital storage in consumer electronics changed the character of technology in and around the home over the last ten years. The next ten years will see even greater changes. As the price of storage in $/GB decreases consumers use more storage. Personal content in the average home will become greater than commercial content as the number of devices for capturing the experiences of our daily lives increases and as the tools for editing and sharing this content become widely available. In the next decade the drive to capture life real time and to share those experiences could create petabyte storage in many homes.

Tom Coughlin, President, Coughlin Associates has been working for over 30 years in the data storage industry. Tom is active with IDEMA, the IEEE, SMPTE, SNIA and other professional organizations. Tom is Chairman of the 2007 Santa Clara Valley IEEE Section. He is the founder and organizer of the Annual Storage Visions Conference (www.storagevisions.com), a partner to the annual Consumer Electronics Show. Coughlin Associates provides market and technology analysis as well as Data Storage Technical Consulting services. For more information go to www.tomcoughlin.com.

Mr. Coughlin's presentation (PDF, 4 MB)

Dr. Sarah Heilshorn, Stanford University

Surgeons currently use common industrial materials inside the body to replace damaged body parts. For example, hip implants are made from the same material as golf clubs, and vascular bypasses are often made from the same material as raincoats. However, if we want to replace more complicated body parts like heart tissue or the spinal cord, we need better materials!

By high-jacking Nature’s material-making machines, we can engineer new materials that communicate with our cells to promote healing and regeneration. These new materials work by imitating the natural proteins found inside our bodies. Just like natural proteins, these engineered proteins contain “instructions” that can be read by cells. Using these new materials, we are working to determine the correct set of instructions that will cause stem cells to differentiate into heart muscle cells to treat heart attack patients and neurons to treat spinal cord injuries.

Prior to joining the Stanford School of Engineering in 2006, Prof. Heilshorn completed a PhD in chemical engineering and biology at Caltech and was a postdoctoral scholar in neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley. She combines these diverse fields to design new materials that mimic those found in our own bodies. At Stanford, Prof. Heilshorn is part of the Stanford Regenerative Medicine Program, the Bio-X Program, and the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/heilshorn/

Dr. Heilshorn's presentation (PDF, 2 MB)

Dr. Alberto Salleo, Stanford University

Miniaturization and integration of electronic components have made computers common household appliances. At the opposite end of the spectrum, there are large-area electronic devices with electronic components spread over square meters. Examples of this technology include flat-panel displays, x-ray sensors, photovoltaic panels and distributed chemical sensor arrays.

The success of macroelectronics hinges on the development of new materials and novel fabrication technologies. For this purpose, semiconducting and conducting polymers and other solution-processable semi-conductors have been recently developed. This presentation will cover the structure-property relations and the limitations of these materials. Fabrication technologies that take advantage of the availability of active materials in liquid form also have been developed. In addition to techniques borrowed from the printing industry, self-assembly based on phase separation and microfluidics are extremely promising.

Dr. Salleo has a BS and MS in physical chemistry from the University of Rome. He obtained his PhD at the University of California at Berkeley, working on optical breakdown caused by high-power lasers in fused silica. He was a post-doctoral fellow and a member of research staff at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) before joining the Materials Science Department at Stanford as an assistant professor.

Dr. Salleo's presentation  (PDF, 4 MB)

Dr. Rajit Gadh, Professor, Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science Director, UCLA-WINMEC

NOTE THAT THIS COLLOQUIUM IS BEING HELD ON TUESDAY OCT. 23 from 1 - 2 pm.

In the next 25 years, personal information-carrying and disseminating capability will extend from computing and communication devices to non-computing artifacts we use in every day life, such as automobiles and wristwatches. This "Internet of Artifacts" will need to be uniquely identified using technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID), communicate wirelessly with one another while they are moving, and have the ability to make intelligent decisions first individually and then collectively. RFID technology can embody the identity and other related information of an artifact within a chip called a “tag” that has no power source. This information becomes available to a transceiver when the RFID tag receives the RF transmission and its coupled energy.

At UCLA the Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium (WINMEC) is exploring the Internet of Artifacts via a project called WinRFID (http://winmec.ucla.edu/rfid). Applications include asset management, inventory management, logistics, supply chain management and security for a wide range of industries: health care, logistics, aerospace, defense, retail and manufacturing. The presentation will include technical and business aspects of RFID and examples of current and future use.

Dr. Gadh is a professor at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA and the founder/director of WINMEC. His areas of interest include mobile/wireless Internet, multimedia/ graphics, RFID middleware and scalability, RFID sensor architecture and wireless enterprise security. Dr. Gadh has published over 100 papers, holds three patents and co-founded two start-up companies. He has a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University, a master’s from Cornell University and a bachelor’s from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

Dr. Gadh's presentation (PDF, 4 MB)

Dr. Brent Ellerbroek, Caltech

The objective of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project is to design and build a ground-based, 30-meter-diameter telescope for research in astronomy at visible and infrared wavelengths. Adaptive optics (AO) is an essential technology for achieving many, if not most, of the project’s scientific goals.

This presentation will review the requirements for the project's AO systems, the current status of these systems' designs, their anticipated performance, their AO component technology requirements, and future plans to develop and commission these systems to support early light science operations beginning in 2016.

TMT is a collaboration of the California Institute of Technology (CIT), University of California and Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA). For details, visit http://www.tmt.org/ or http://www.astro.caltech.edu/observatories/tmt/.

Dr. Ellerbroek leads the Adaptive Optics Group for the Thirty Meter Telescope Project. He previously worked on the analysis, design, and implementation of adaptive optical systems at the Gemini Observatory, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and Optical Sciences Company. He received his BA in mathematics from the University of California at Los Angeles and his PhD in mathematics from CIT.

Dr. Ellerbroek's presentation (PDF, 3 MB)

Dr. Peter Weber, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Tracking and mapping small molecules is a major challenge for biological materials. In my laboratory, we use stable isotope and elemental labeling to study biological processes and materials. The samples are then characterized at high spatial resolution (down to 50 nm) using nanometer-scale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS). I will present two recently published stories. In the first one, we studied C and N fixation in the cyanobacteria Anabaena oscillarioides using CO2 and N2 that was enriched in the minor isotope. This work shows how metabolic processes in microbes can be studied using our approach. In the second study, we use synthetic model membranes with molecule-specific isotopic labels to study the organization of lipids in cell membranes. This work demonstrates the sensitivity and specificity of this approach.

http://www.llnl.gov/pao/news/news_releases/2007/NR-07-07-02.html

Dr. Gloria Höfler, Argos Tech

Quantum cascade lasers (QCL) have become the source of choice in the mid-infrared (IR) wavelength range (3 to 20 µm) of the electromagnetic spectrum for several applications, particularly in the field of spectroscopic ultra-sensitive gas detection. These wavelengths are of importance because most molecular compounds have their fundamental vibrational "fingerprint" frequencies in the mid-IR region. Therefore, sensors with mid-IR lasers can identify and measure trace quantities of chemicals in gases /liquids with high sensitivity.

QCLs will offer an inexpensive, compact, reliable source for analytical and industrial sensors in various emergent biomedical, homeland defense and military applications. One important step towards the wide use of these devices is their operation at room temperature in both pulsed and continuous mode.

This presentation will highlight the performance of QCLs grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) at room temperature and above (up to 400K) in continuous mode.

In 2006 Dr. Höfler co-founded Argos Tech, a Santa Clara-based start-up company pioneering the commercialization of mid-IR semiconductor lasers. Previously she held managerial and engineering positions at 3M (Corporate Research Laboratories), Hewlett-Packard (Optoelectronic Division), LumiLeds Lighting and Agilent Technologies in the area of opto-electronics. She received her PhD, MS and BS degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has authored numerous journal articles and holds several patents.

Dr. Höfler's presentation (PDF, 4 MB)

Dr. Yi Cui, Stanford University

In the past two decades, there have been significant efforts in developing nanocrystal, nanowire and nanotube materials. Researchers at Stanford University now are exploring these materials as a source of energy.

Nanoscale materials share many novel properties including confinement effects, a large surface area and facile strain relaxation. One-dimensional structures have additional benefit because they support charge carrier transport to the macroscopic distance.

This presentation will include several examples of how to explore the unique properties of nanomaterials for better energy technologies and a discussion of nano lithium batteries and solar cells. For information on the Yi Cui Group, visit http://www.stanford.edu/group/cui_group/yicui.html.

Dr. Cui is an assistant professor in Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford. His current research focuses on nanomaterials synthesis, electronic and ionic properties, batteries, solar cells, memory and sensor devices. He received his BS in chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China and his PhD in chemistry at Harvard University. He also was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Cui has published numerous technical papers on nanomaterials and technology.

Dr. Cui's presentation (PDF, 8 MB)

Dr. Sean Mackey, Stanford University

Pain is a universal human experience. Ancient civilizations attributed pain to demons and curses, people in the Middle Ages began to see evidence that pain is involved with the brain and nervous system, and Leonardo da Vinci developed the idea that the spinal cord transmits sensations to the brain.

Today Dr. Sean Mackey, who leads a multi-disciplinary team of researchers at Stanford University, carries that torch forward with groundbreaking studies in functional neuro-imaging of pain. One study in particular that he will discuss involves the use of real-time learned brain control, which offers the promise of changing the abnormal pathology in the brain of patients with chronic pain. For additional information, visit http://snapl.stanford.edu.

Dr. Mackey is an associate professor in the Departments of Anesthesia and Neurosciences at Stanford. He also is the director of the Pain Management Division, co-director of the Stanford Pain Research and Clinical Center, and director of the Stanford Systems Neuroscience and Pain Lab. His primary research interest involves the use of advanced research techniques—such as neuroimaging, psychophysics and neurobehavioral assessment— to investigate the neural processing of pain and neuronal plasticity in patients with chronic pain. He has served as principal investigator and investigator for multiple National Institutes of Health, foundation and industry-sponsored protocols to investigate chronic pain and evaluate novel analgesics for acute and chronic pain.

http://paincenter.stanford.edu/faculty/mackey.html

Dr. Mackey's presentation (PDF, 1MB)

Dr. Keith Hester, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)

Clathrate hydrates are inclusion compounds consisting of water cages that trap and concentrate gases, such as methane, under high pressure/low temperature conditions. While these compounds can cause pipeline blockages, hydrates in nature are of interest as a possible future energy resource, a contributor to climate change and a factor in seafloor stability. Researchers have used an in situ Raman spectrometer to evaluate the structure and composition of both natural and synthetic hydrates in the ocean. This technique allows for minimal disturbance to the hydrate sample. Laboratory studies using multi-component systems and related to implications for oceanic hydrates also have been conducted (see http://www.mbari.org/ghgases/). Dr. Hester is a post-doctoral fellow at MBARI. His research interests encompass spectroscopic and diffraction studies of clathrate hydrates, including the structural stability of multi-component hydrate systems, both in the laboratory and in the field. He received a BS and a PhD in chemical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Hester's presentation (PDF, 6 MB)

Dr. Franklin Orr, Stanford University

There is a consensus that we humans will need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases substantially in this century if we are to avoid unacceptable modifications to climate and the biogeochemistry of the ocean. Hence the important question is: How are we to do that?

The challenge – to change the world’s energy systems – is a huge one, and there is no single, simple solution to it. We need to dramatically improve energy efficiency, move increasingly to the use of energy resources that have low or zero net emissions of greenhouse gases (solar energy, some biofuels, wind, nuclear power, geothermal power…) or – to the extent that carbon stays in the fuel mix – capture and store an increasing fraction of the carbon dioxide that results. In addition, we need research to create new energy conversion options for the future. This presentation reviews possible pathways for substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. For more information, visit http://gcep.stanford.edu.

Dr. Lynn Orr is a professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering, director of the Global Climate and Energy Project and former dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. Previously, he was employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Shell Development Company and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. He holds a PhD from the University of Minnesota and a BS from Stanford, both in chemical engineering.

Dr. Orr's presentation (PDF, 3.5 MB)

Dr. Becky Stoermer-Golightly, Oxonica Inc.

The use of Nanoplex Biotags as labels for tracking biological molecules has many benefits over traditional biomarkers such as fluorophores and quantum dots. Nanoplex Biotags have the potential for high multiplexing capabilities, they do not photobleach and they can be detected in a variety of biological matrices including whole blood.

Oxonica has developed the biotags, which are a type of optical quantitation label based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The particles consist of a 50-nm-diameter gold nanoparticle core, a layer of organic reporter molecules and a 20-nm-thick silica (glass) coating. The spectrum of each tag consists solely of the Raman signal from the adsorbed reporter. By using different reporters, a large number of spectrally unique tags can be prepared, allowing a high level of multiplexing. The glass coating renders the particles exceptionally robust to changes in pH, temperature and ionic strength, and provides a facile surface for bioconjugation. This presentation will feature two no-wash assays based on this technology: Nanoplex™ Rapid and Nanoplex™ Direct.

Dr. Stoermer Golightly is a scientist at Oxonica, Inc., in Mountain View, the U.S. subsidiary of Oxonica plc (http://www.oxonica.com/diagnostics). The company develops nanotechnology-based commercial products for global markets, including Envirox™, a diesel fuel additive; Optisol™, a uvA/uvB absorber for personal care products; and Nanoplex™ Biotags, optical detection labels for biodiagnostics. She has a PhD in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University, where she designed optically detectable biosensors for DNA detection, and a BS in chemistry from McDaniel College in Westminster, MD.

Dr. Stoermer-Golightly's presentation (PDF, 2 MB)

Dr. Holger Schmidt, UC Santa Cruz

Researchers have developed a new approach to optofluidics, the combination of microfluidics and optics on a single chip. Their approach is based on liquid-core antiresonant reflecting optical waveguides (ARROWs). These waveguides can simultaneously guide both liquids and light and have the potential for creating fully planar optofluidic systems with ultrahigh sensitivity.

Dr. Schmidt will review the physical principle and fabrication of hollow-core ARROWs and describe their application to single-molecule spectroscopy. In particular, he will discuss the detection and manipulation of single biomolecules in an ARROW-based optofluidic device and the addition of nanoscale structures and all-optical particle control for enhanced functionality. More information: http://photon.soe.ucsc.edu.

Currently an associate professor of electrical engineering at UCSC, Dr. Schmidt was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a diploma in physics from the University of Stuttgart in Germany and an MS and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from UC Santa Barbara. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications in the areas of integrated optics, quantum and nonlinear optics, nanomagnetism and semiconductor optics. His current research interests include optical studies of single particles with applications in biomedicine, quantum optics and magnetic data storage.

Dr. Schmidt's presentation (PDF, 4 MB)

Dr. Stuart Weiss, Creek Side Center for Earth Observation

The nitrogen compounds in urban and agricultural air pollution effectively fertilize the land surface through a process called "atmospheric nitrogen deposition," whereby gases and particles are adsorbed onto surfaces and directly into plants.

The threatened Bay checkerspot butterfly illustrates how this process plays out in a complex ecological and regulatory environ-ment. Nitrogen fertilization encourages the growth of weedy annual grasses that crowd out native wildflowers that the butterfly requires for food and nectar. These grasses can be controlled by well-managed cattle grazing and precision mowing. Innovative conservation initiatives in Silicon Valley, based on air pollution impacts, are working towards conserving, managing and restoring thousands of acres of wildflowers for the butterfly to thrive and future generations of humans to enjoy.

A freelance environmental scientist, Dr. Weiss is recognized as an expert on nitrogen deposition, conservation biology and microclimatology. In 1999 he started the Creekside Center for Earth Observation (www.creeksidescience.com) to bring cutting-edge science to ecological conservation locally and worldwide. He received both his PhD and BS in biological sciences from Stanford University. In addition to more than 25 peer-reviewed scientific papers and dozens of technical reports, his conservation work has been extensively covered in the popular media.

http://www.creeksidescience.com/

Film clip from ABC 7 local news on webpage under http://www.creeksidescience.com/news.html

Dr. Weiss' presentation (PDF, 7 MB)

Mr. Greg Edwards, Lockheed Martin

What is happening with the Internet in regard to computer security today? Over the past few years, there have been fewer virus outbreaks, but viruses, worms and trojans have become more dangerous. Phishing and various variations have increased dramatically. Identity theft has reached epidemic proportions with no end in site.

There are technical solutions to many of these technical problems. However, the “bad guys” are using more social engineering in their attacks and these often defeat the technical controls. Probably the best preventive control is more education on how con artists and fraudsters trick their victims.

This talk will include a review of current problems and suggestions on how to improve security while using the Internet at home and work. Useful URLs also will be provided.

Mr. Edwards works full time in computer security and teaches computer/network/wireless security part time at the University of California Santa Cruz Extension and elsewhere. He has a BS in physics from the University of California at Davis. He also is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information System Auditor (CISA), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Certified Wireless Security Professional (CWSP) and Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA). In addition, he has Global Information Assurance Certification in Incident Handling (GCIH) and certification in InfoSec Assessment Methodology (IAM).

Mr. Edward's Outline

Safe Internet Commerce

Dr. Roger Blandford, Stanford University and Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

Recent observations of the microwave background, supernovae and clusters of galaxies show that the universe is geometrically flat, kinematically accelerating and dynamically dominated by an unseen dark matter. If general relativity is correct, it also exhibits a field called dark energy which is so far indistinguishable from Einstein's universal and eternal cosmological constant. The meaning of and evidence for these statements will be presented.

Dr. Blandford is director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University (http://www-group.slac.stanford.edu/kipac/ ) and a former professor of theoretical astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology. He has a BA, an MA and a PhD in applied mathematics from Cambridge University. His interests include black holes, gravitational lensing, cosmic rays and neutron stars.

Dr. Blandford's presentation (PDF, 2.6 MB)

Dr. Chenyu Wei, NASA-Ames

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are formed by rolling graphene planes into unique tubular structures, which have nanometer-scaled sizes with radii ranging from several to tens of nanometers. CNTs have high mechanical modulus and strength and excellent thermal and electronic properties, making them good additive fibers for nanocomposite materials.

This presentation will address recent developments in theoretical and modeling studies of CNTs and their polymeric composites including atomic-level understanding of their mechanical strength, yielding mechanism, thermal and mechanical reinforcement, interfacial structure ordering and assembly of polymer molecules on nanotube surface, and phase transitions in polymer CNT nanocomposites.

Dr. Wei is a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. Her primary interests are theoretical modeling and simulations of the structural, thermal, mechanical and transport properties of nanoscaled materials and biosystems (see http://people.nas.nasa.gov/~cwei). She holds a BS in physics from the University of Science and Technology of China and a PhD in physics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Wei's presentation (PPT, 2 MB)

Dr. Mike Brzozowski, HP Labs

The recent explosion of social computing applications on the Web – from social networking sites like Facebook to “crowd-sourced” resources like Wikipedia – presents a wealth of exciting new tools. Students, consumers and even enterprises are turning to social software to answer difficult questions.

But how do you encourage people to contribute honest, truthful and useful information? Mr. Mike Brzozowski will examine this question with examples from his own work as well as other research in the field and commercial Web services.

For more information, visit http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/ and http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/idl/.

Mr. Brzozowski is a research scientist in the Information Dynamics Lab at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. His research interests include social computing, computer-supported collaboration and machine learning. He received his BS and MS degrees in computer science, specializing in human-computer interaction, from Stanford University.

http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Michael_Brzozowski/index.html

Mr. Brzozolowski's presentation (PowerPoint, 10 MB)

Dr. Lara Crawford, PARC

The rise in embedded computing, sensing and actuation is leading to the development of larger scale distributed systems in a variety of domains. These systems can have many appealing qualities, such as modularity—which confers benefits during both design time and run time—and reconfigurability—the ability to change the system structure for customization purposes, for repairs or in response to environmental conditions or component failure.

To reap these benefits, however, the software designed for such complex systems must address a number of challenges in dynamically coordinating and controlling the distributed components. This presentation will cover some of the challenges, solutions and lessons learned during the design and implementation of a prototype highly modular, reconfigurable printing system at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

For more information, visit:

www.parc.com/era

www.parc.com/research/projects/intelligentcontrol

www.parc.com/about/pressroom/news/2006-10-13-printerarch.html

Dr. Crawford is a member of the Embedded Reasoning Area of the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at PARC. She holds a PhD in biophysics and an MS in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and an AB in physics from Harvard University. Her research interests lie in the areas of distributed, hierarchical and learning control and coordination, particularly of large-scale and networked systems.

Dr. Crawford's presentation (PowerPoint, 3 MB)

Dr. Peter Neumann, SRI International

This presentation will span a wide range of computer-relevant topics—including security, reliability, safety, system integrity, privacy and protection of human rights—with respect to applications such as homeland security, critical infrastructures, voting systems and surveillance. This may appear to be a large collection of topics, but they are all interrelated by several common themes.

More information:

• http://www.risks.org

• http://www.csl.sri.com/neumann/holistic.pdf

• http://www.csl.sri.com/neumann/nrc-votpgn07.html

• http://crypto.com/paa.pdf

Dr. Neumann, principal scientist in SRI International’s Computer Science Lab and an SRI Fellow, is concerned with computer systems and networks, trustworthiness/dependability, high assurance, security, reliability, survivability, safety, and many risk-related issues such as voting-system integrity, crypto policy, social implications and human needs including privacy. He has an AB in math and an SM and PhD in applied mathematics, all from Harvard University. He also has a doctorate in math and physics from Technische Hochschule Darmstadt in Germany. Dr. Neumann moderates the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Risks Forum and chairs both the ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy and the National Committee for Voting Integrity (http://www.votingintegrity.org). He is a member of the U.S. Government Accountability Office Executive Council on Information Management and Technology and the California Office of Privacy Protection advisory council. He also co-founded People For Internet Responsibility (http://www.PFIR.org).

Dr. Neumann's presentation (PDF, 64 kB)

Dr. Antony Fraser-Smith, Stanford University

It is now over 400 years since William Gilbert published his De Magnete in which he concluded that the magnetism of Earth was a planetary property and that “it proceeded from within.” A little later, in 1635, Henry Gellibrand’s measurements of declination showed that there was a secular variation of the magnetic field. In modern terminology, this ultra-low frequency magnetic signal is called Earth’s magnetic field. Starting with the Great Alaska Earthquake (magnitude 9.2) of 1964, evidence has been accumulating for additional magnetic signals emerging from within Earth, but under different circumstances: prior to large earthquakes.

This talk will summarize the evidence, what should be done with it, and how it may be utilized. After all these years, the measurements cited strongly suggest that there are still new and exciting things to be learned about magnetic signals that “proceed from within” Earth.

After graduating with a PhD in the physics of Earth’s space environment from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Professor Fraser-Smith came to the United States in 1966 to work in the Palo Alto Research Laboratory of Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. Later he moved to the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. Now a professor emeritus (research) of electrical engineering and of geophysics, he continues teaching and doing research. His areas of interest include low-frequency electromagnetic fields in space and Earth’s environment and the use of these fields for communication and probing the structure of Earth and other objects in our solar system. He was an investigator for the Shuttle Electromagnetic Tether experiment and, more down to Earth, his group was the first to discover that BART is a prolific source of low-frequency magnetic fields throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january9/agufraser-010908.html

Dr. Fraser-Smith's presentation (PowerPoint, 2 MB)

Dr. Howard Zebker, Stanford University

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has long been hidden from view due to its thick atmosphere. The Cassini spacecraft, a NASA space mission now observing the Saturn system, includes a radar instrument that easily penetrates the clouds and observes Titan several times per year in great detail. Cassini has several imaging modes that provide much information about Titan’s interior and surface geophysical properties:

• Low-resolution scatterometer and radiometer modes observe the entire planet and return information on the surface composition and structure.

• High-resolution imaging modes map the surface in fine detail and display geologic processes.

• An altimeter mode retrieves the detailed shape of the moon.

This presentation will describe how scientists use data from scatterometer and imaging modes to derive the scattering laws for Titan’s surface and volume scatter, and later use these laws to derive corrections for Titan altimetry data. For more information, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Dr. Zebker is a professor of Geophysics and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He has a BS in engineering and applied science from California Institute of Technology, an MS in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles and a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford. Formerly he was assistant manager of the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dr. Zebker has written numerous scientific papers and holds three patents. He also is associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, chair of the Western North America InSAR Consortium and a member of the NASA Antarctic Mapping Mission Science Advisory Group.

http://ee.stanford.edu/~zebker/ 

http://ee.stanford.edu/~zebker/research/index.html

Dr. Zebker's presentation (PowerPoint, 16 MB)

Dr. John Ristevski, earthmine inc

Two Bay Area companies are using laser scanning and other digital technologies to map archeological sites and urban areas. This presentation will give an overview of current and emerging technologies in reality capture and examine the practical uses of these data sets.

CyArk is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the documentation of heritage and archaeological sites. It utilizes terrestrial light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology to capture accurate and comprehensive data sets, creating a digital archive for preservation, posterity and research.

earthmine incorporated is a Berkeley-based company that is “indexing reality,” creating a robust geospatial data mine of urban environments. It utilizes a calibrated stereo-panoramic camera array, collected at regular driving speeds along every street in a city or metropolitan area. This imagery is processed into dense 3D point information using stereo-correspondence algorithms and made available over the Web.

Mr. Ristevski is cofounder and co-CEO of earthmine (http://www.earthmine.com) and the former director of research and development at CyArk (http://www.cyark.org). He has bachelor of geomatic engineering and bachelor of laws degrees from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a master of science degree in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, where his research focused on the application of laser scanning for heritage management. He also is a lecturer in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Stanford University.

http://www.profsurv.com/archive.php?issue=110&article=1555

Dr. Steven Curtis - NASA, Ames

From what began as a study of cost scaling for missions in space composed of many platforms—concluding that the path to affordability may be through “smart” spacecraft as opposed to “dumb” ones—NASA has developed an architecture that explores what “smart” means and what could be a pathway to it. This architecture is the result of a “thought” experiment, a Prospecting Asteroid Mission set in the middle of the 21st century. Its objective was to conduct a fully autonomous exploration of the Asteroid Belt with a swarm of 1,000 spacecraft composed of several types of workers.

The architectural solution was the Autonomous Nano Technology Swarm (ANTS), which incorporates a shape-shifting tetrahedron-based physical architecture with a neural system composed of basis functions. The ANTS architecture solution (see http://ants.gsfc.nasa.gov ) was back-propagated to a state achievable with present technologies, and is being pursued in the form of Tet Walkers, shape-shifting rovers for terrestrial and planetary applications. Tet Walkers can operate in cave and urban settings that require climbing and negotiating highly structured terrain.

Steve Curtis is chief of the Planetary Magnetospheres Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Instruments from his lab have flown to every planet in the solar system. He holds a PhD, MS and BS, all in physics, from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has served as a project scientist on several NASA missions and has proposed multiplatform missions under NASA’s MIDEX and Discovery programs. His research interests lie in the study, description and stability of many element systems and their underlying complexity.

Dr. Curtis' presentation (PDF, 6 MB)

Videos:
Test at Meteor Crater
Big Red Rising
Smart Solar Sail

Mr. Avi Robinson-Mosher, Stanford University

Solid/fluid coupling has many applications in fields such as aeronautics and biomedical technology. It poses the challenge of trying to join two fundamentally different structures in a physical and accurate way. Some methods approach coupling by simulating both solid and fluid as Lagrangian or Eulerian, but this requires giving up the use of state-of-the-art techniques in either the solid or the fluid. Using more accurate constitutive models requires that solids be simulated on a Lagrangian mesh and fluid simulated on an Eulerian mesh, but this presents the difficulty of dealing with non-aligning meshes, making it hard to conserve momentum. Explicit and semi-implicit methods for coupling impose time-step restrictions and have stability and accuracy issues.

This presentation will introduce a new method for solid/fluid coupling that handles the problem of non-aligning meshes and treats the coupled system in a fully implicit manner, making it stable for arbitrary time steps, large density ratios, etc.

A third-year PhD student in the Stanford Computer Science Department, Mr. Robinson-Mosher conducts research on physics-based simulation for computer graphics. He has a BS in computer science and a BA in physics from Davenport College at Yale University and a master’s degree in political philosophy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

http://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/

http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-fedkiw-020707.html

http://graphics.stanford.edu/courses/cs448-01-spring/papers/fedkiw.pdf

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/january16/oscar-011608.html

Mr. Robinson-Mosher's presentation (PowerPoint, 1.5 MB)

Greenhouse gases and particle soot have been linked to enhanced sea level, snow melt, disease, heat stress, severe weather and ocean acidification, but the effect of carbon dioxide (CO2) alone on air pollution mortality has not been examined or quantified.

Increased water vapor and temperatures from higher CO2 separately increase ozone more with higher ozone; thus, global warming may exacerbate ozone the most in already-polluted areas. A high-resolution global-regional model has found that CO2 may increase U.S. annual air pollution deaths. Although California has only 12 percent of the U.S. population, more than 30 percent of the increased deaths in the U.S. occur in the state, which has six of the top 10 polluted U.S. cities. Results of a recent study provide a basis for regulators to control carbon dioxide based on health grounds.

The journal article describing this work and a link to an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, “EPA’s own study argues for California waiver,” describing its policy implications can be found at:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Ve.html

Dr. Jacobson is director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program, professor of civil and environmental engineering and professor of energy resources engineering, by courtesy, at Stanford University. He holds a BS in civil engineering, an AB in economics and an MS in environmental engineering, all from Stanford, and an MS and a PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of California at Los Angeles. He has published two textbooks, Fundamentals of Atmospheric Modeling and Atmospheric Pollution: History, Science, and Regulation, and more 75 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/0710OralTestHouseBC.pdf

Dr. Jacobson's presentation (PDF, 5 MB)

Dr. Ulrich Dahmen, LBNL: National Center for Electron Microscopy

Advanced electron microscopes give us unprecedented views of materials and their strange behavior on the nanoscale. The National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM) has been using atomic resolution microscopy to investigate the structure of nanocrystals embedded in microcrystals.

Nanocrystals display a fascinating range of behaviors that get stranger with smaller size. To understand this behavior is important for strong alloys, efficient catalysts, energy-saving devices and the many exciting applications of nanoscience. However, today’s microscopes are still myopic, limited by lens aberrations. To overcome these limitations, NCEM leads the Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope project (TEAM), an initiative to create the world’s most powerful aberration-corrected electron microscope. This instrument will enable future researchers to see atoms in nanocrystals, 3D and real time. Dr. Dahmen will highlight some discoveries of nanoscale materials as seen under the beam of an electron microscope, outline the principles of the new technology and speculate on future advances in materials and instrumentation. For more information, visit http://ncem.lbl.gov/TEAM-project/index.html.

A principal investigator and senior staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Dr. Dahmen has been engaged in electron microscopy research for over 25 years and has served as head of NCEM since 1993. He has published extensively on the crystallographic structure of interfaces, the evolution of precipitate morphologies and the effects of size on the behavior of embedded particles. He earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Bochum in Germany and a PhD in materials science from the University of California at Berkeley.

http://ncem.lbl.gov/index.html

Dr. Alan Karp, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories

HP Labs encourages activities considered to be outside the mainstream. Its Virus Safe Computing Initiative takes a view of security quite different from that of most security professionals, including HP security teams. Indeed, much of what the group recommends runs 100 percent counter to the company’s official strategy.

Members of the group design systems that improve usability by adding security. This presentation will include several examples. One is Polaris, a virus-safe computing environment for Windows. Running applications under Polaris limits the potential damage of many common attacks. The result is a computing environment subject to far less harm from malicious code users may accidentally run, fewer security dialog boxes to interfere with their work and more functionality. Attendees will be asked to guess why the group uses the logo pictured at right.

Polaris gives users the freedom to allow scripting on Web pages, use macros in documents and launch executable email attachments—all without risking their machines. This safety comes without intercepting system calls or making changes to the operating system or the applications. For more information, visit http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2004/HPL-2004-221.html.

Dr. Karp is a principal scientist at HP Labs where he heads the Virus Safe Computing Initiative. His current research is on access control for the Services Oriented Architecture. Earlier in his career, he served as chief scientist of HP's E-speak Operation, participated in developing the architecture of Intel's Itanium processor and did large-scale scientific computing at IBM. Dr. Karp has a BS in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a PhD in astronomy from the University of Maryland.

Talk on this topic given at Google, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7179100659758053865.

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