When the levees failed, about 80 percent of New Orleans flooded. More than 1 million people across the Gulf Coast were forced to leave their homes — many never returned.

In the years since, the region has served as a laboratory for researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology who have traveled to New Orleans and other locations to study the effects of the disaster.

Their work has helped determine what went wrong; how best to rebuild the region; and how to help the nation prepare for future calamities.

Read the full story:
10 Years after Katrina: Lessons Learned, Lessons to Learn

The Air Pollutant Optimization Model, described in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides a new approach for reducing the health effects of ozone and fine particulate pollution. By helping to minimize both health impacts and generating costs, the hybrid model may provide a new tool for utility companies seeking to meet air quality standards, complementing traditional capital-intensive emission controls.

In a test case based on data for the state of Georgia for selected months from 2004 to 2011, the new model suggests that health impacts could have been reduced by $176 million, while increasing generating costs by $84 million – a net savings of approximately $92 million in health costs. For power systems elsewhere, costs and savings would vary by the types of fuel used, the locations of generating facilities and the amount of flexibility available in regional power systems.

The test case evaluated sulfate emissions in Georgia prior to installation of flue gas desulfurization units, which have since reduced emission of that pollutant by as much as 97 percent. Sulfates are a major source of fine particulate matter.

“We looked at what would be the least expensive way of running these power plants if you take into account both the generating costs and the health impact costs,” said Valerie Thomas, one of the paper’s senior authors and a professor in the School of Industrial & Systems Engineering and School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “You would still be operating plants that emit pollutants, of course, but you would reduce operations at the ones having the greatest impact and increase the use of facilities that have less impact or are in other areas.”

The new approach depends on the use of “reduced form” air quality predictions. Comprehensive air quality models typically take days of computer time to calculate concentrations of pollution for one emissions scenario, but the new format uses only the “sensitivities” derived from the full model to accurately produce predictions in less than a second. This capability allows utility companies, for the first time, to test many possible scenarios in evaluating how air quality would change with different combinations of generating plant operations.

For instance, when wind conditions carry emissions from one generating facility toward a major population center, that plant could be throttled back and power from a facility affecting fewer people used in place of it.

“For the first time, we have integrated the capability for rapidly predicting air quality into the electricity system operation model,” said Athanasios Nenes, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. “We can now run thousands of scenarios very quickly, as the winds and other conditions change hourly, to find the most economical way to generate electricity that minimizes population exposure to pollution.”

Georgia Tech environmental researchers have been developing and refining air quality models for decades, and now operate models to help regulatory agencies predict when air quality could reach levels of concern. At the same time, other Georgia Tech researchers have studied optimization of power generation to produce power at the lowest cost.

“Putting these technologies together has given us a capability we’ve never had before,” said Armistead Russell, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Tradeoffs are always made, but right now those decisions have to be made without the necessary knowledge.”

In Georgia, electricity generating facilities use a variety of fuels, including nuclear, coal, natural gas and biomass. The generating facilities range in size, and have differing capabilities to be powered up and down in time scales consistent with changes in the weather, Thomas said.

“We are accustomed to modeling the aspects of how these plants work together to meet demands, which varies on different days of the week and at different seasons of the year,” she explained. “None of the plants can be flipped on or off like a light bulb, but the utility companies can adjust up and down the amount of power they are producing.”

Certain generating facilities cost more to operate, and when they are used to substitute for power generated by less expensive facilities, that raises the overall cost. However, the model shows that these higher generating costs can be more than offset by reductions in human health costs.

“This is really all about ‘smart generation,’” said Nenes. “If there’s a way to meet the standards by controlling who emits what and at what time, that may change the amount of investment you’d need to make in new emission control equipment. Hour-by-hour, we’ll be able to determine what makes the most sense in terms of both cost to produce electricity and its impacts.”

While the hybrid Air Pollutant Optimization Model tracks many forms of pollutants, those regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are fine particulates and ozone. Fine particulates can affect cardiovascular and respiratory health, while ozone at high concentrations can trigger asthma attacks in susceptible persons.

Power plants currently account for about a third of pollution, but as a next step, the researchers hope to include emissions from mobile sources such as automobiles in their model. The researchers are also evaluating use of their model in countries such as China and India that have greater pollution concerns.

Reported in the journal’s Early Edition August 17, the research was supported by a grant from the Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech. “Better understanding of the connections between our energy choices and the impact on human health and environmental is essential as we strive to develop safer, more sustainable solutions to meet our future energy needs,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute.

In addition to those mentioned, the study also included Paul Y. Kerl, Wenxian Zhang, and Professors Juan B. Moreno-Cruz, Matthew J. Realff and Joel S. Sokol, all from Georgia Tech.

CITATION: Paul Y. Kerl, et al., “A New Approach for Optimal Electricity Planning and Dispatching with Hourly Time-Scale Air Quality and Health Considerations,” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015).

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Georgia Tech is leading the way, graduating the most female engineers in the nation, but the College of Engineering is not resting on its success. Its incoming freshman class this fall will have close to 30 percent women. Two of Georgia Tech’s engineering programs, biomedical and environmental, both have more than 50 percent women. 

Despite the success, Georgia Tech Dean of Engineering Gary May knows the Institute can do more.

“Right now we have a lot of work to do to build awareness and provide a support system for our women students as well as for our faculty, for that matter,” said May, who hosted a media roundtable in Washington, D.C. to discuss the challenges and success stories involved with attracting women to the STEM fields.

“I think the most critical aspect of what we’re doing is bringing awareness of the issues,” said May. “As an institution in a leadership position in the production of women engineers and scientists, it is our responsibility to get the word out about how important this is to the rest of the nation.”

The roundtable, held on Capitol Hill, highlighted a discussion of thought leaders from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, IBM and Caterpillar; representatives from academia; and recent alumni.  Panelists shared their personal stories about overcoming obstacles, how they developed their own career in a STEM field as well as shared what their employers are doing to encourage women in the STEM fields.

“I’m an engineer. I’ve had a terrific career and really enjoyed what I’ve done and the types of problems you can bring your toolset to solve,” said Patricia Falcone from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and a roundtable panelist. “When I went to school, it was kind of the early days for women going into engineering. What surprises me is that the numbers haven’t gone up. We know that having mixed and diverse teams really enables creativity and good solutions.”

“I believe the number one issue with girls and women in technical fields is confidence or lack of confidence,” said Susan Puglia, vice president of IBM’s Global University Programs and vice chair of IBM’s Academy of Technology board of governors. “Building that confidence early on as girls are going through middle school, high school and even college, as well as into the workforce, is so important.”

Puglia says that IBM and other companies have programs designed to support their female workforce.

“We’ve been focused on some programs at IBM on teaching women what computing and engineering is all about," she said. "In the workforce, it takes the form of coaches or sponsorships to help them progress and do well in their fields.

The media roundtables are an example of a collaborative effort between Georgia Tech’s Office of Government and Community Relations, College of Engineering, Office of Development and Institute Communications.

“Policymakers in Washington, D.C. are very concerned about the STEM crisis in our country and the impact it’s having on our competitiveness,” said Robert Knotts, Georgia Tech’s director of Federal Relations. "As the producer of more engineers than any other university in the country, it’s important that Georgia Tech lead the discussion about how we can get more girls and women engaged in engineering. We were thrilled to hear from Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (the ranking member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee) and from our distinguished panel of experts about what we can all do to encourage and support female engineers.”

“This collaborative effort was possible because we had the support of so many units across campus,” said Matt Nagel, director of media relations. “Media roundtables give us a unique opportunity to raise Georgia Tech’s profile among many of its key audiences on a national level including media, congressional staff and other influencers in the D.C. area.”

Georgia Tech media relations team is working on several upcoming media roundtables, but Nagel says they are always looking for good ideas from the units across campus.

“Each roundtable is different. The Women in Engineering roundtable was targeted toward congressional staff and higher education reporters. In the future, we may take a more specific topic and have a much more intimate group setting.”

The NIST grants, which range from $378,900 to $540,000, were part of $9 million in advanced technology planning grants awarded to 19 universities and other nonprofit organizations and are the first conferred by NIST’s inaugural Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia (AMTech).

Todd McDevitt, associate professor, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Stem Cell Engineering Center, will serve as the technical lead for the $499,636 AMTech grant awarded to the Georgia Research Alliance, in partnership with Georgia Tech. With cell therapy manufacturing projected to grow rapidly over the next decade, the funds will be used to establish a national road map and consortium in cell manufacturing to improve access to cutting-edge medical technology for patients.

Ben Wang, executive director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute, will serve as the lead for a second AMTech grant totaling $385,112 that will help speed development and deployment of advanced composites.

Georgia Tech’s Institute of Paper Science and Technology, part of the Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance, is a collaborator on the $482,078 NIST funded project that will map pathways for developing advanced technologies for pulp and paper manufacturing. The Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance is an industry-led consortium that promotes development of advanced technologies for the pulp and paper industry. 

Tom Kurfess, professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control, is part of a $434,577 award led by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing & Machining focused on developing a strategy and roadmap to identify current barriers to full adoption of MTConnect, an evolving interoperability standard for manufacturing. The funding will also determine the best path forward to achieve widespread implementation across manufacturing industries.

Technology road mapping is a key component of all funded AMTech projects. Each consortium will engage manufacturers of all sizes, university researchers, trade associations and other stakeholders in an interactive process to identify and prioritize research projects that reduce shared barriers to the growth of advanced manufacturing in the United States. 

Georgia Tech is a national leader in research, education, policy and industrial assistance related to manufacturing. President G.P. “Bud” Peterson serves on the Steering Committee of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, and Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute runs the Manufacturing Extension Partnership for the state of Georgia (http://gamep.org/).    

The NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant, entitled “Research Experience for Student Veterans in Advanced Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship (REVAMP),” will provide technical training, entrepreneurship and research experience for 10 students each summer. The students will learn the latest manufacturing techniques as well as how to work with the new technologies. They will work side by side with world-class researchers and business leaders in additive manufacturing, precision machining, scalable manufacturing and sustainable design and manufacturing.

“This program will leverage GTMI’s world-class facilities, diverse technical expertise and inspiring interdisciplinary research environment,” said Chuck Zhang, the principal investigator of the grant, and a professor in Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and GTMI. “It will provide a great opportunity for transitioning veterans and underrepresented minority students to learn the latest manufacturing techniques that can give them hands on experience and prepare them for the workforce in manufacturing.”

In addition, the curriculum will also include an entrepreneurship component that will allow students to learn firsthand from experts at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute as well as startup leaders at the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC).

The program is currently recruiting students nationwide and hopes to attract transitioning military veterans as well as underrepresented minorities to participate.

“We’re really excited about this opportunity,” said John Morehouse, Director of Manufacturing Programs and Partnerships at GTMI, and co-principal investigator for REVAMP. “This type of program can truly be transforming for the students. It can open their eyes to other possibilities for a career path and even show them the possibilities of starting their own business.”

Students will be required to be in Atlanta for the summer. Each student will be provided support for travel expenses, a $5,000 stipend, and on-campus housing. The program is set to begin on May 27, 2014.

Those interested can find additional information at http://manufacturing.gatech.edu/revamp-nsf-reu.

The Institute’s College of Engineering ranked No. 6 and all 11 of the programs within the college are ranked in the top 10, including industrial engineering (No. 1), biomedical and bioengineering (No. 2), environmental (No. 4), civil (No. 5), aerospace (No. 5), mechanical (No. 5), electrical (No. 6), computer (No. 7), nuclear (No. 8), materials (No. 9) and chemical (No. 10). Georgia Tech appears on the top 10 list of engineering specialties more than any other ranked institution.

"Georgia Tech's strong rankings with U.S. News & World Report year after year reflect the Institute's ongoing commitment to excellence in research and teaching, as well as a legacy of preparing innovators and leaders," said Georgia Tech President G.P. "Bud" Peterson.

The Institute tied for the No. 9 spot in overall computer science rankings, coming in No. 6 in both systems and artificial intelligence and No. 8 in theory.

Georgia Tech moved from No. 26 to No. 24 in overall chemistry rankings and up to No. 29 in overall physics rankings. In discrete mathematics and combinatorics, the Institute moved up four spots to No. 4.

The Scheller College of Business full-time MBA program ranked No. 27, while the Institute’s part-time MBA program ranked No. 20, moving up from the No. 24 spot in 2014.

The Institute’s College of Engineering ranked No. 4 for theeighth consecutive year and all eleven of the programs within the college areranked in the top 10 including industrial engineering (No. 1), biomedical and bioengineering (No.2), civil (No. 3), aerospace (No. 4), electrical (No. 5), nuclear (No. 5), environmental(No. 6), computer (No. 6), mechanical (No. 6), materials (No. 7) and chemical(No. 10).

“All of Georgia Tech’s graduateengineering programs are ranked in the top ten in the nation.  We’re proud that our College of Engineeringis not only one of the best in the U.S., but also the largest, preparing nearly3,000 graduates each year,” said Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud”Peterson.  “We commend our outstandingfaculty, staff and students who helped make this a reality.”

Georgia Tech appears on the top 10 list of engineering specialties more than any other ranked institution.

The Georgia Tech College of Management full-time MBA programranked No. 32, while the Institute’s part-time MBA program ranked No. 28.

To help answer those questions, researchers, policy-makers and R&D directors study patent maps, which provide a visual representation of where universities, companies and other organizations are protecting intellectual property produced by their research. But finding real trends in these maps can be difficult because categories with large numbers of patents – pharmaceuticals, for instance – are usually treated the same as areas with few patents.

Now, a new patent mapping system that considers how patents cite one another may help researchers better understand the relationships between technologies – and how they may come together to spur disruptive new areas of innovation. The system, which also categorizes patents in a new way, was produced by a team of researchers from three universities and an Atlanta-based producer of data-mining software.

“What we are trying to do is forecast innovation pathways,” said Alan Porter, professor emeritus in the School of Public Policy and the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the project’s principal investigator. “We take data on research and development, such as publications and patents, and we try to elicit some intelligence to help us gain a sense for where things are headed.”

Patent maps for major corporations can show where those firms plan to diversify, or conversely, where their technological weaknesses are. Looking at a nation’s patent map might also suggest areas where R&D should be expanded to support new areas of innovation, or to fill gaps that may hinder economic growth, he said.

Innovation often occurs at the intersection of major technology sectors, noted Jan Youtie, director of policy research services in Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. Studying the relationships between different areas can help suggest where the innovation is occurring and what technologies are fueling it. Patent maps can also show how certain disciplines evolve.

“You can see where the portfolio is, and how it is changing,” explained Youtie, who is also an adjunct associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy. “In the case of nanotechnology, for example, you can see that most of the patents are in materials and physics, though over time the number of patents in the bio-nano area is growing.”

The patent mapping research, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, will be described in a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). In addition to Youtie and Porter, the research was conducted by former Georgia Tech graduate student Luciano Kay, now a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California Santa Barbara.

“The goal for this research was to create a new type of global patent map that was not tied into existing patent classification systems,” Kay said. “We also wanted an approach that would classify patents into categories or clusters in a graphical representation of interrelated technologies even though they may be located in different sections and levels of the standard patent classification.”

The International Patent Classification (IPC) system is based on a hierarchy of eight top-level classes such as “human necessity” and “electricity.” Patent applications are further classified into 600 or so sub-classes beneath the top-level classes.

Critics note that the IPC brings together technologies such as drugs and hats under the “human necessity” class -- technologies that are not really closely related. The system also puts technologies that are closely related – pharmaceuticals and organic chemistry, for instance – into different classes.

The new Patent Overlay Mapping system does away with this hierarchy, and instead considers the similarity between technologies by noting connections between patents – which ones are cited by other patents.  

“We completely disaggregated the patient classification system and looked at all the categories with at least a thousand patents,” Youtie explained. “We think our map gets closer to measuring the ideas of technological similarity and distance.”

Maps produced by the system provide visual information relating the distances between technologies. The maps can also highlight the density of patenting activity, showing where investments are being made. And they can show gaps where future R&D investments may be needed to provide connections between related technologies.

The researchers produced a series of patent maps by applying their new system to 760,000 patent records filed in the European Patent Office between 2000 and 2006. The data came from the PatStat database, and was analyzed using a variety of tools, including the VantagePoint software developed by Search Technology of Norcross, along with Georgia Tech and Intelligent Information Services Corporation.

One surprise in the work was the interdisciplinary nature of many of the 35 patent factors the researchers identified. For instance, the classification “vehicles” included six of the eight sections defined by the IPC system.  Only five of the 35 factors were confined to a single section, Youtie said.

Because the researchers adopted a new classification system, other researchers wanting to follow their approach will have use a thesaurus that translates existing IPC classes to the new system. That conversion system is available online.

In addition to those already mentioned, the research team also included Ismael Rafols of Universitat Politecnica de Valencia in Spain and Nils Newman of Intelligent Information Services Corp.

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (Award No. 0531194) and NSF Award No. 1064146. The research was also undertaken in collaboration with the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, University of California Santa Barbara (NSF Awards No. 0938099 and No. 0531184). The findings and observations contained in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

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Brazilian power system generation is dominated by hydroelectric sources using large reservoirs that allow multi-year regulation. As of 2010, the country’s power generation facilities included more than 200 major power plants, of which 141 were hydroelectric. The hydro facilities account for 77 percent of Brazil’s installed generating capacity, and are located in 14 large river basins with their generation interconnected to take advantage of hydrological diversity between the basins.

Because the hydro plants use water stored in reservoirs to generate electricity, operators must decide when to use the water. Since the water inflows depend on rainfall, the amount of water available for future power generation cannot be predicted with high accuracy. Moreover, historical records indicate the possibility of dry periods which place a burden on hydro generation – and may require the use of thermal power plants to meet demand.

ONS uses a complex computer algorithm that models the system to help ensure that electricity generation meets the demand at minimum expected cost, planning the generation of power based on such information as electricity demand forecast and water inflow scenarios based on the historical data. The system also sets the monthly price of power for the country. However, during the early part of this century, power rationing that took place in Brazil called into question the validity of meeting day-to-day needs using a policy based on minimizing the expected cost of power.

To improve the system, ONS decided to develop a methodology for adding a risk aversion criterion to the planning model. Four years ago, it contacted Alexander Shapiro, a professor in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Shapiro is an expert on optimizing systems using stochastic programming, a technique useful for modeling complex systems when not all input parameters can be known.

“The usual criteria used for our planning purposes took a neutral approach to the risk of energy supply failure,” explained Joari Paulo da Costa, a research engineer with the Methodology Development Department of ONS in Rio de Janeiro. “During earlier energy rationing, it turned out that this approach was not sufficient and that some measure of risk aversion had to be taken into account by the planning model. An ad-hoc procedure had been implemented, but only with the results of the risk-averse methodology proposed by Professor Shapiro have we achieved a proper inclusion of these concerns into the methodology and computer program.”

During the course of the project, Shapiro visited Brazil several times to confer with officials of ONS, including da Costa and Murilo Pereira Soares, a senior engineer.

“If they don’t have enough water, they have to use more expensive generation sources,” explained Shapiro. “The algorithm they have been using sometimes produces high prices for electricity, that, although fully justifiable within the mathematical framework, do not conform to the expectations and are not intuitive.”

The system presented a classic optimization challenge concerning the use of a resource whose future availability could not be determined with accuracy.

“The risks in the system are very simple,” Shapiro explained. “When you have water in the reservoirs, you can either use it now, which makes electricity very cheap now, or you can hold onto it. If you use it now, in a few months you might not have enough water to produce the electricity you need.”

Shapiro and former Ph.D. student Wajdi Tekaya  worked with ONS to understand the problem formulation, and suggested some modifications that would reduce the risk of energy supply failures. The changes they made rely on stochastic programming, which is often used for modeling optimization programs that involve uncertainty.

“We developed a methodology for how to control the risk of energy shortages while optimizing the use of water,” he explained. “We also wanted to control the risk of price spikes. It is a very complex system.”

The project also provided a computer implementation of the proposed methodology. This prototype served as a proof of concept which played a fundamental role in validating the proposed methodology.

The new risk-averse methodology developed in the collaboration between Shapiro and ONS has now been integrated into the computer program being used to set operational policy and prices for the Brazilian Interconnected Power System, da Costa said.

The methodology developed by Georgia Tech and ONS could potentially be applied to other power generation systems, as well as to other operations in which uncertain natural resources – such as water supplies – must be used to meet the demand for electricity or other products.

“The approach to managing risk is very general and could be applied in other areas,” Shapiro said. “The approach is a new one that could be used to reasonably control the risk.”
In real-world optimization problems, decision-makers rarely have all the information they want, so decisions must often be made on incomplete data.

“We have to make the best decisions with the information that we have,” said Shapiro. “We all know the past, but we cannot know the future. We have forecasts, but we do not know for sure what will happen.”

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The advantages of electric versus diesel depend largely on how the trucks will be used – the frequency of stops and average speeds – and the source of electricity for charging batteries. In city driving with frequent stops, the electric trucks clearly outperform diesel vehicles.

“On average in the United States, electric urban delivery trucks use about 30 percent less total energy and emit about 40 percent less greenhouse gases than diesel trucks, for about the same total cost, taking into account both the purchase price and the operating costs,” said Dong-Yeon Lee, a Ph.D. student in the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “However, costs and emissions depend on how and where the truck will be used.”

In urban delivery routes with lots of stop-and-start driving, electric trucks are roughly 50 percent more efficient to operate than diesel trucks overall. That makes them at least 20 percent less expensive than diesel-fueled trucks, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 50 percent. Where they are frequently stopped and started, the higher efficiency of the electric motor at low speeds and the regenerative braking systems in electrical vehicles help provide better efficiency.

However, electric delivery trucks lose their advantage in suburban routes that involve fewer stops and higher average speed. Electric vehicles have a limited daily range and top speed, and without a lot of stops, lose their regenerative braking advantage. Electric vehicles can cost more than their diesel counterparts under certain conditions, particularly if high-cost charging systems are used, if the battery must be replaced early, or if they are used mainly for highway driving.

The relative benefits of the electric vehicles, the researchers found, depend on vehicle efficiency associated with drive cycle, diesel fuel price, travel demand, electric drive battery replacement and price, electricity generation and transmission efficiency, electric truck recharging infrastructure and purchase price. The study findings were reported July 16, 2013, in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

The research team took into account the sources of electricity used to charge the electric vehicles in evaluating greenhouse gas emissions. Electricity produced from hydroelectric sources – more common in the northwest United States – dramatically reduced total greenhouse gas emissions for electric vehicles operated there.  Vehicles operated in states heavily dependent on coal for producing electricity showed higher emissions.

In every state in the U.S., electric trucks provided some reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, with urban routes providing the most advantage. In about half of the states, the electric trucks cut greenhouse gas emissions by a third or more compared to diesel vehicles.

Wild cards in the study included the future costs of both diesel fuel and electricity, and the potential cost of replacing an electric truck’s battery pack if it has a shorter-than-expected lifetime. Lithium-ion battery packs are expected to last the lifetime of the trucks, as much as 150,000 miles for the drive cycles tested.

“Technology advances make predicting the long-term price of electric trucks difficult,” said Valerie Thomas, one of the study’s co-authors and a professor in Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and School of Public Policy. “Battery price reductions down the road could have a large effect on the cost-competitiveness of electric trucks, while only diesel fuel prices could have a similarly large effect on the future cost-competitiveness of diesel trucks.”

The researchers decided to study electric trucks in urban delivery applications because vehicles in these applications tend to travel the same routes each day, spend significant amounts of time in stop-and-start operation, and return at the end of each day to a central location where they can be charged.

The comparison involved a 2011 Smith Newton electric truck powered by a 120 kW electric motor, and a 2006 Freightliner truck powered by a Cummins diesel engine. The two trucks had approximately the same gross vehicle weight, curb weight and payload. The comparison controlled for improvements in diesel efficiency between 2006 and 2011.

The researchers were surprised to find that the electric truck had cost advantages over the diesel vehicle under some conditions. They had expected that costs would always be higher for the electric vehicle, especially since the purchase price of the electric truck studied was higher than the diesel truck – and other models of electric trucks would have larger cost differentials.

“Over the life of the truck, there are many situations in which the total cost of operating an electric vehicle is less than operating a diesel vehicle,” noted Marilyn Brown, another co-author and a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy. “Our expectation was that the electric vehicle would provide environmental benefits, but at a cost. We found that particularly in urban settings and in locations with relatively low greenhouse gas emissions from electricity, electric delivery trucks both save money and have environmental benefits.”

Depending on what happens with vehicle and fuel costs, the advantages could swing even farther in the direction of electric vehicles.

“The relative benefit of electric trucks over diesel counterparts could be much more significant than one might expect,” said Lee. “If the electric truck is deployed in the right drive or duty cycle application, fleet operators could enjoy higher returns on investment, while saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

CITATION: Dong-Yeon Lee, Valerie M. Thomas and Marilyn A. Brown, “Electric Urban Delivery Trucks: Energy Use, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Cost Effectiveness” (Environmental Science and Technology, 47 (14): 8022-8030, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es400179w

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The project is jointly supervised by Xiaoming Huo from ISyE and Hang Lu from ChBE, and the Institute for Data and High Performance Computing is providing seed funding for a graduate research assistant in ISyE to help advance the research. The model is being developed as a new platform that will allow for accurate phenotyping or classification of characteristics in the worms using high-throughput computing to determine the genes and pathways as well as compositions in food intake that contribute to fat accumulation.

The main objective is to develop the image processing system with pattern recognition to automatically distinguish the distinct types of lipid droplets, which are composed of fatty acid compounds, in the worms. The image analysis and classification system will systematically extract image features, efficiently learn models, and reliably predict phenotypes, or characteristics, from the images that are developed by studying the lipid droplets.

Current limitations in imaging and analysis of the lipid droplets in the worms have stunted the potential for growth, exploration, and attainable knowledge in the lipid droplet realm of research, says co-principal investigator Xiaoming Huo in ISyE.

Current methods used by the team enable them to obtain only one set of 3D images every ten seconds. A comprehensive study on the relationship between food composition and the resulting lipid analysis requires the ability to identify and classify the characteristics of hundreds of thousands of images. Researchers say that such high throughput is only manageable if the image processing and consequent prediction is automated.

The proposed research has direct applications in other problems in biology, such as neural development, stem cells, cancer diagnosis, and drug discovery. It is also potentially applicable in areas such as contemporary manufacturing of advanced nanomaterial, where a core problem is predicting the properties of produced nanomaterial.

“The research is potentially transformative because the proposed approach will develop a new technique for quantitative imaging, high-throughput experimentation, and analysis of lipid distribution and protein function in C. elegans, in pursuit of determining the unknown genetic contribution to fat storage and distribution,” says co-principal investigator Hang Lu in ChBE.

Part of the process involves microfluidics, sometimes called “Lab-on-a-Chip,” and used in the project for imaging, manipulating and sorting the animals. Combined with the statistical image analysis methods funded through the IDH seed grant, the researchers aspire to move the frontier of genetic research to the next level.

The LRMC predicts that Florida, Louisville, Indiana and Gonzaga are most likely to advance to the Final Four in Atlanta, with Florida and Gonzaga playing for the title on Monday, April 8. It’s the first time in the LRMC’s 10-year history a team that isn’t a number one seed is picked to win the title.

Joel Sokol, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE) whose research specialties include sports analytics and applied operations research, oversees the annual project. During the season, the LRMC uses basic scoreboard data to create a weekly ranking of all 347 Division I NCAA teams. The mathematical formula looks at every game and factors in the margin of victory and where each game is played. When the field of 68 was announced last Sunday, Sokol’s team released its bracket.

Last year, the team presented a paper that shows the LRMC has been the most accurate predictive ranking system over the last 10 years. The model outperformed more than 80 others, including the NCAA’s Ratings Performance Index (RPI), the system most experts use to justify who should and shouldn’t get into the tournament.

“Our system combines the aspects of performance and strength of schedule by rewarding game performance differently according to the quality of each opponent,” said Sokol. “Compared to something like RPI, LRMC is able to predict which team is better by taking the margins of victories and losses into account.”

The LRMC identifies which team is most likely to win each game. However, upsets sometime get in the way – in fact, about 25 percent of all NCAA tournament games are upsets. If you’re trying to find this year’s Cinderella, Sokol says Bucknell, Davidson, Belmont and St. Mary’s are the most likely “small schools” to make the Sweet Sixteen. Memphis, UCLA and Butler are the teams most in danger of being eliminated early (each is seeded sixth).

Aside from picking tournament winners, the LRMC has also been used through the years to dispel a few myths. For example, in the long run, certain teams don’t have big home court advantages. Almost all home courts are about the same.

“The reason that you hear people say things like ‘Duke is one of the toughest home courts - it’s so hard to win there’ isn’t because of the court or the fans,” said Sokol. “It’s that Duke is usually such a good team. When you give them even a three- or four-point home court advantage on top of the skill advantage they usually have, it’s hard to overcome.”

Also debunked is the popular belief that “good teams know how to win close games.” Sokol’s team looked at home-and-home conference results through the years.

“If the cliché was true, teams that won close games at home would have a significantly higher winning percentage in the road rematch than teams that lost close games at home,” he said. But close home winners won about 35 percent of their road rematches. Close home losers won about 33 percent.  

When the NCAA was considering expanding the tournament to 96 teams, Sokol also used LRMC simulations to point out that the dramatic upsets fans love to see would decrease by a factor of five, potentially leading to a sharp decrease in fan interest.

Sokol is joined on the LRMC team by fellow ISyE Professors Paul Kvam and George Nemhauser, as well as Professor Mark Brown of City College, City University of New York.

This article is the first in a series of Q&As to introduce the Tech community to the eight IRIs and their directors. First up, Executive Director Ben Wang answers five questions about the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI). 

Q: Why is manufacturing a national priority?

A: Manufacturing is the foundational building block of our nation's economic and national security, creating wealth and raising America’s standard of living. It accounts for 70 percent of America’s exports and 90 percent of Georgia’s exports. Manufacturing employs more than two-thirds of all U.S. scientists and engineers; 90 percent of all U.S. patents come from manufacturing; and manufacturing comprises more than 50 percent of the nation’s R&D. For every manufacturing job created, more new jobs are created in the supply chain — and even more in the broader economy — which is vital to our nation’s growth and competitiveness.

The U.S. has more inventions and better ideas than any other country and has been the first mover in many new technologies. Building on this track record, transformational manufacturing technologies will drive American manufacturing back to its preeminent position in the global economy. With research being key to manufacturing, there is great urgency to accelerate large- and nano-scale leading-edge research, including research related to biomedical and clean energy solutions, from the lab to the real world.

Q: How is Tech, under the leadership of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI), uniquely positioned to address the challenge for the U.S. — and its manufacturers — in manufacturing?

A: GTMI is a university-wide community of thought leaders who are passionate about manufacturing innovations that: lead to the creation of new knowledge and high-value jobs in Georgia and the U.S., enhance our national security and global competitiveness, and address the importance of economic and environmental sustainability.

Recent discussions and debates across the U.S. point to the need for innovation-driven manufacturing, and academic research is a major source of innovation. GTMI supports Georgia Tech’s thought leadership in this national discussion on manufacturing through transformative endeavors such as the White House Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) Steering Committee — on which Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson serves.

Under the auspices of the AMP Steering Committee, which is tasked with reinvigorating U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, five work stream task forces were named: technology, workforce development, infrastructure, policy, and communications. A large number of Georgia Tech faculty across all six colleges participated in numerous discussions on these topics, and GTMI played a critical role in coordinating and facilitating meetings and discussions on both the local and national levels.

GTMI takes a holistic approach to re-energizing U.S. manufacturing. We catalyze collaborations of industry and government across the Georgia Tech campus — from engineering, to science, to business, to policy. In addition to working closely with our academic faculty and students, GTMI personnel collaborate with all colleges, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and Tech’s technology transfer functionaries and business incubators — to name just a few.

GTMI focuses on the complete innovation value chain — from raw and recycled resources, to prototypes and finished products. We develop advanced materials, systems, processes, education, workforce rapid certification, supply chain realignment, and policies that impact manufacturers’ performance in the marketplace. Industry-focused and customer-centric, GTMI amplifies Georgia Tech’s global reputation as the world leader in innovation-driven manufacturing.

GTMI’s road to success means fostering a manufacturing innovation ecosystem and a clear, measurable pathway that accelerates translation of interdisciplinary research into competitive products. We define our success by how fast we can move research from the lab into the real world to create substantial economic value and societal impact through public-private partnerships.

Q: How does GTMI work with and support faculty and students?

A: GTMI leverages its resources, including a small, experienced staff, to support Georgia Tech faculty and students. We provide our partners with space for research; seed grants; administrative, communications, and marketing support; and networking opportunities.
GTMI includes Georgia Tech’s 400,000 square feet of state-of-the-art manufacturing research facilities in our innovation ecosystem, and we address specific industry needs in "collaboratories" (which are co-located embedded labs), pilot plants, or prototype shops in which Georgia Tech researchers, scientists, and engineers work side-by-side with their counterparts from industry, government, and academia.

GTMI research teams dynamically engage the Georgia Tech community in responding to requests for assistance. For instance, we recently worked with a student team to develop a prototype for a medical device called MAID (Magnet Assisted Intubation Device).

GTMI is also coordinating the campuswide response to National Institute of Standards and Technology’s request for information on the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, an ongoing initiative from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
In addition, GTMI supports multidisciplinary, large-scale proposals such as the one for the ambitious $65 million National Additive Manufacturing Institute. Even though our proposal was not selected for funding, a coherent additive manufacturing group was established at Georgia Tech, and, as a result of this proposal, many companies are pursuing R&D opportunities with our additive manufacturing team. And the state of Georgia is creating an advanced manufacturing commercialization partnership within the Fort McPherson redevelopment.

GTMI also holds workshops to address grand challenges and develop technology road maps. In 2012, GTMI hosted a workshop on lightweight materials for the Defense Production Act Committee. This year, we are planning to host workshops on topics including: supply chain and logistics, bio-manufacturing, and production readiness.

In support of our objective to cultivate Tech’s manufacturing community, we are hosting a weekly brown bag seminar series where experts from Tech and around the country give insightful presentations and interact with the campus community. And we’re going to launch a newsletter to keep our community informed of ongoing efforts and opportunities.

Q: How is GTMI addressing manufacturing education?

A: With top-quality researchers, facilities and equipment, GTMI aims to educate and train the workforce of the future to investigate, collaborate, and compete successfully. We are accomplishing these high-priority goals through on-site programs that provide real-world research and education opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. Examples of these opportunities include GTMI’s Manufacturing Education Certificate Program and our partnership with the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

GTMI is also partnering with the Technical College System of Georgia on collaborative, manufacturing-based instructional programs in our technical colleges around the state. Additionally, we are very involved in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) outreach activities.

Q: What does success look like in five years?

A: In five years, GTMl will:

• Contribute substantially to the goal of doubling industry-sponsored research, as outlined by Steve Cross, Executive Vice President for Research.
• Continue to add to the number of new manufacturing startups launched from Georgia Tech. Over the past 20 years, the Manufacturing Research Center (MaRC) has helped create 15 new companies. GTMI will amplify this startup-friendly tradition and substantially increase the number of new advanced manufacturing-focused companies.
• Lead the national debate with thought leadership on advanced manufacturing.
• Become the acknowledged U.S. center of accelerated translations of lab discoveries into competitive products and services.
• Help companies cut product development times by 50 percent and development costs by 75 percent.

 Georgia Tech is part of a $4.4 million contract awarded to Florida State University by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Ben Wang and Chuck Zhang, professors in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, will lead the work that Georgia Tech will be conducting on the project.

The VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) project is aimed at addressing the shortcomings of current prosthetic socket systems — the part where a patient's limb connects to a prosthetic device — through the development, testing and delivery of “Socket Optimized for Comfort with Advanced Technology” (SOCAT) prototypes.

“This transformative project will leverage the latest advances in innovative materials and advanced manufacturing technologies to build the next-generation prosthetic socket system with significantly improved comfort," said Wang, who is also the executive director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute.

The project will integrate several technologies to create a more holistic above-knee socket system that could be worn longer and more comfortably.

In close collaboration with researchers at the High-Performance Materials Institute at FSU, Georgia Tech’s team will conduct major research tasks toward the success of this project. This includes creating the overall socket system design, evaluating advanced manufacturing technologies and developing innovative adaptive materials to better manage changes in limb volume and pressure while providing active cooling and temperature control.

"These improved wearability functions and features will be achieved and enhanced by integrating advanced materials, such as composites and nanomaterials, and by implementing new manufacturing technologies, including additive manufacturing and printed electronics,” Georgia Tech's Zhang said.

More than 1.8 million amputees are living in the U.S., and that number is expected to triple by 2050, according to a recent report by the National Limb Loss Information Center.

A prosthetic socket joins the residual limb to the prosthesis. Each socket is custom-made for the patient according to the shape and condition of the residual limb and mobility grade. While new and emerging technologies have improved amputees’ quality of life, many continue to suffer from discomfort and skin ailments as a result of poor fit, elevated temperatures and moisture accumulation within the socket.

Along with materials researchers and engineers from Georgia Tech and FSU, the multidisciplinary project team includes orthotic and prosthetic practitioners and engineers from Advanced Materials Professional Services, Prosthetic and Orthotic Associates, Quantum Motion Medical and St. Petersburg College.

“Despite the advances made in prosthetics over the years, the socket continues to be a major source of discomfort for our amputees due to issues arising from poor fit, elevated temperatures and moisture accumulation,” said Changchun (Chad) Zeng, a Florida A&M University-FSU College of Engineering assistant professor and principal investigator on the project. “These adverse conditions effectively limit the basic activities of amputees and can greatly diminish their quality of life. This award gives us the opportunity to tackle those problems so our veteran amputees can live better, more fulfilling lives.”

The first phase of the two-year contract will focus on developing and testing the specific technologies for individual socket components.The second phase will involve the refinement of each system and material, as well as the complete production of the prototypes.

Launched in 2010, VAi2 leverages cutting-edge progress in the private sector and academic communities with the federal workforce to improve access to healthcare and services, control costs and increase quality. In 2012, VAi2 became known as the Veteran Affairs Center for Innovation (VACI).

“Ideas are the heart of innovation, and VACI provides the dynamic ecosystem that lowers the barrier of entry for innovation at VA,” VACI Director Jonah Czerwinski said. “The SOCAT project represents the kind of innovation in service to veterans and the broader population that we are after.”

Georgia Tech’s efforts in addressing such needs have traditionally received recognition from various sources. Diverse Issues in Higher Education, for instance, ranks  the University No. 1 in multiple categories: engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded to all minority students, engineering doctoral degrees awarded to African Americans, engineering doctoral degrees awarded to Hispanics and engineering doctoral degrees awarded to all minority students. Hispanic Business Magazine also recently named Georgia Tech No. 1 among engineering graduate schools.

Dr. Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs at Georgia Tech, accepted the award during NACME’s Awards Dinner and Celebration, and thanked all of the individuals and departments at Georgia Tech – from Enrollment Services to the College of Engineering – dedicated to attracting and supporting underrepresented students as they pursue careers in engineering.

“I am proud that our efforts to improve diversity span the full spectrum,” Bras said. “We work with all age groups to cultivate a diverse pipeline by increasing engineering awareness in the K-12 arena and exposing students to real-world, hands-on engineering experiences; we work with high school students; we celebrate our minority students and their accomplishments; and we have programs to promote graduate education – particularly in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields – among women and underrepresented minorities.”

Bras added that Georgia Tech remains committed to its goals of diversity and inclusiveness and to providing the best education to all students.

“The support and recognition of great organizations like NACME is very much appreciated,” he said.

Hispanic Business, which highlights trends in Hispanic markets, released the news on its website. The College of Engineering was singled out for factors like its academics and campus climate, as well as efforts to recruit and retain Hispanic students.

As of September, the College of Engineering boasts 132 Hispanic or Latino graduate students.

"This honor reflects the college's longstanding commitment to diversity," said Gary May, dean of College of Engineering. "We've made important strides in recruiting Hispanic students and promoting a supportive atmosphere. A diverse student population enhances the environment for learning and provides for both personal and cultural awareness."

Georgia Tech established its Office of Hispanic Initiatives in 2002 and offers a number of activities, such as the annual Latino Welcome Weekend, to enrich the educational experience on campus. The office aids in recruiting high-achieving Hispanic and Latino students. More than five percent of the total student body is Hispanic or Latino. To help attract Hispanic and Latino graduate students to campus, doctoral students at Georgia Tech are eligible for the Goizueta Foundation Fellowship, which offers an annual stipend of $4,000.

“I think all of us should be very proud of the Institute’s efforts to serve our Hispanic/Latino students, other underrepresented minorities, as well as the entire Georgia Tech population,” said Jorge Breton, director of the Office of Hispanic Initiatives at Tech.

Breton also commended members of the Tech community for their outreach efforts, including the Latino Organization of Graduate Students (LOGRAS), whose goals include easing the transition for Hispanic students new to the Institute. 

"Georgia Tech is committed to using technology and advanced platforms to enrich and expand educational opportunities,” said Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson.  “Through Georgia Tech’s Office of Professional Education, we already offer courses to more than 25,000 students worldwide.  Steps such as this agreement will enable even more students throughout the world to have access to Georgia Tech’s expertise, and help to meet the needs for lifelong learning.”

"It seems clear that higher education is currently experiencing the first ripples of a wave that could drastically alter the method, scope and scale of educational access and delivery, " said Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president of academic affairs for Georgia Tech. "Georgia Tech has been in the business of offering online courses and education for some time. By joining Coursera we seek to expand our presence in that space, provide increased global access to our excellent educational products, experiment with new methods and ideas in the delivery of education and, most importantly, enhance the learning options and convenience for our own students."

Georgia Tech’s initial courses include Computational Photography, Computational Investing, Energy 101, Control of Mobile Robots and Fundamentals of Online Education. The Institute plans to add online courses across a range of disciplines to the online platform.

"The technological sophistication and expectations of today's college students drastically outpace their institutions," said Rich DeMillo, director of Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities. "By embracing innovators such as Coursera, who are the vanguard for the oncoming technological revolution, universities can not only improve student access to course content, but also fundamentally change core value structures such as student recruitment and retention, degree customization, and overall productivity and efficiency."

Georgia Tech Dean of Professional Education Nelson Baker also noted, “We are empowering people to learn, and are connecting and expanding our global learning community to meet the evolving needs of students worldwide. By adding courses via Coursera, we are further supporting an individual’s quest for wanting to be more competitive and competent whether that is in their studies at a university, in their place of employment or just to be members of an educated society.”

Other institutions partnering with Coursera are the California Institute of Technology, Duke University, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Princeton University, Rice University, Stanford University, UC San Francisco, University of Edinburgh, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Toronto, University of Virginia and the University of Washington.

“Coursera is dedicated to creating better educational opportunities inside and outside the classroom, and we could not do it without the blessing and commitment of universities,” said Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller. “We’re fortunate to have the support of these highly respected academic institutions as we move toward our shared goal of providing a high-quality education to everyone around the world.” 

To date, Coursera has seen more than 680,000 students from 190 countries and more than 1.55 million course enrollments across its 43 courses.

 About Coursera
Coursera is on a mission to change the world by educating millions of people by offering classes from top universities and professors online for free. Coursera's comprehensive education platform combines mastery-based learning principles with video lectures, interactive content and a global community of peers, offering students from around the world a unique online learning experience. Coursera has partnered with top-tier universities to provide courses across a broad range of disciplines, including medicine, literature, history and computer science, among others. Coursera is backed by leading venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates. For more information, visit Coursera.org.

Georgia Tech was one of 16 organizations to receive a Boeing Supplier of the Year Award. The Institute was selected from a pool of more than 17,500 Boeing suppliers in more than 50 countries.

Georgia Tech was honored in the category of Academia, which recognizes outstanding performance as a strategic university. As one of Boeing's eight strategic universities, Georgia Tech provides increased knowledge and understanding of fluid flow, advanced manufacturing technology, design and aircraft technology through basic and applied research, which is based in Georgia Tech's Manufacturing Research Center (MaRC).

The Boeing award recognizes multidisciplinary research by Georgia Tech Mechanical Engineering Professors Steve Danyluk and Ari Glezer, Industrial & Systems Engineering Professor Leon McGinnis, Aerospace Engineering Professor Dimitri Mavris and College of Computing Professor Henrik Christensen. 

Boeing supports various research activities at Georgia Tech related to manufacturing technologies, such as control and control systems on cranes, mobile platforms and robotics for moving parts in a factory environment and active flow control for wing tips, said Danyluk, professor and Morris M. Bryan Jr. Chair in Mechanical Engineering for Advanced Manufacturing Systems.

“I am very pleased that Boeing has expressed their confidence and support in Georgia Tech by providing the resources to conduct research and development on manufacturing problems of critical significance to their business,” said Danyluk, former director of MaRC. “Our faculty are excited and energized by the Supplier of the Year Award, and we'll continue to excel in developing the tools and processes that will keep the U.S. in a lead position in manufacturing sciences."

Other professors and research engineers from across campus who help support Georgia Tech's work for Boeing include Bert Bras, Jon Colton, Bill Singhose, Rick Cowan, Shreyes Melkote, Russell Peak, Chris Paredis, Tina Guldberg, Marc Goetschalckx, Joshua Vaughn, Frank Mess and Andrew Dugenske. 

The Boeing global supply chain is among the most geographically dispersed in manufacturing. The company annually purchases more than $50 billion in goods and services from approximately 28,000 suppliers that employ more than 1.2 million people around the world.

“In today’s challenging business environment, an agile supply chain that continuously delivers excellent performance is critical,” said Jack House, vice president of Supplier Management for Boeing Defense, Space and Security and the leader of Boeing’s companywide Supplier Management program. “The supplier partners receiving 2011 Supplier of the Year Awards have demonstrated outstanding commitment to providing our customers with the best-value, highest-quality products and services, while meeting the customers’ requirements and anticipating their needs for the future.” 

Fortunately, researchers and students at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a possible solution for bus bunching that provides better service to riders, simplifies the job of drivers and reduces work for management.  

Industrial & Systems Engineering Professor John Bartholdi and Georgia Tech alumnus Don Eisenstein (MS IE 1983, PhD IE 1992), a colleague from the University of Chicago, have devised a way of computing the delays so gaps between buses “self-equalize.”

Now an interdisciplinary team of Georgia Tech students, together with Tech Parking and Transportation Services, have built a system of tablet computers to control the trolleys on Tech’s main campus route, which carries more than 5,000 passengers a day.

“Because of its simplicity, our scheme is easy to implement and easy to adapt,” said Bartholdi, who is also the Manhattan Associates Chair of Supply Chain Management. “We expect it to be useful for other transportation systems with short headways, such as subway trains or airport shuttles.”

The first step toward reliable bus service, Bartholdi says, is to abandon the fixed schedule and have drivers go with the flow of traffic.

Under the scheme, each bus is equipped with a GPS and cellphone. The GPS constantly reports the bus’s position to a central server. When the server recognizes the bus has reached a stop, it sends a message via cellphone telling the driver how long to wait and when to proceed.

That departure time is calculated through a “self-equalizing” equation, which changes the headway of each newly arrived bus to an average of its former headway and the headway of the trailing bus. For example, if its former headway was larger, its new headway becomes smaller. Using the equation, gaps between buses will equalize even if a bus is added or removed, or if the bus route changes.

“The equation computes a wait time for each bus arriving at a control point in such a way that gaps between buses tend to equalize,” Bartholdi said. “Exactly how that happens is the magic of the mathematics.”

When the research team tested the system on Tech’s bus line earlier this semester, the researchers received positive results and favorable reviews from bus riders and drivers.

This is a Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) at Georgia Tech, which combines students from across disciplines to solve a real-world project. The research outcomes will be published in Transportation Research Part B in May.

Nearby, at the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, researchers are working with a large U.S. avionics maker to speed new product production using specialized software that automatically generates simulations of the manufacturing process. And across campus in the College of Architecture, a team is working with an international corporation on digital techniques that allow entire concrete walls to be custom-manufactured to architectural specifications.

The Georgia Institute of Technology was founded in 1885 with a mandate to develop manufacturing capabilities in the state of Georgia. Today, researchers whose work directly supports manufacturers can be found throughout Georgia Tech’s academic colleges; in the Georgia Tech Research Institute, which focuses on applied research; and in the Enterprise Innovation Institute, which assists business and industry.

Georgia Tech’s role in supporting industry was highlighted in June 2011 when President Barack Obama named Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson to the steering committee of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP). Georgia Tech joined five other leading universities – the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, the University of California Berkeley and the University of Michigan – in the AMP’s $500 million push to guide investment in emerging technologies, increase overall U.S. global competitiveness and boost the supply of high-quality manufacturing jobs.

“We applaud this initiative, and Georgia Tech is honored to collaborate to identify ways to strengthen the manufacturing sector to help create jobs in Georgia and across the United States,” Peterson said. “Many of our challenges can be solved through innovation and fostering an entrepreneurial environment, as well as collaboration between industry, education and government to create a healthy economic environment and an educated workforce.”

Advanced manufacturing involves not only new ways to manufacture existing products, but also the development of new products emerging from advanced technologies, observed Stephen E. Cross, Georgia Tech’s executive vice president for research.

“Georgia Tech’s mandate has always been to support manufacturing and technology development in the state and in the nation – to conduct research with relevance – so supporting industry comes very naturally to us,” Cross said. “The leading-edge research across the Institute combines thought leadership with a focus on real-world problems and opportunities. Through this we will help lead a renaissance in advanced manufacturing in the United States.”

The university’s research initiatives on behalf of manufacturers are many and varied. These efforts include multiple areas of manufacturing-related research and involve collaboration across a variety of disciplines.

Developing Novel Manufacturing Technologies

Advancing Digital Manufacturing -- Suman Das, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, has developed a technology that could transform how industry creates and produces complex metal parts through “lost wax” investment casting. In an ambitious project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), he has created an all-digital approach that automates how part designs are turned into the real thing.

Currently, such metal parts are devised on computers using computer-aided design (CAD) software. But the next step – creating the ceramic mold with which the part is cast – involves a complex 12-step process that uses hundreds of tooling pieces and extensive manual labor. The result is a lengthy, costly and low-yield process that typically produces many scrap parts along with a few usable ones, said Das, who directs the Direct Digital Manufacturing Laboratory in Georgia Tech’s Manufacturing Research Center (MaRC).

By contrast, the approach used by Das involves building ceramic molds directly from a CAD design. Called large area maskless photopolymerization (LAMP), this high-resolution, direct digital manufacturing technology builds the molds, layer by layer, by projecting patterns of ultraviolet light onto a mixture of photosensitive resins and ceramic particles.

After a mold is formed, it is thermally post-processed at high temperatures to burn away the polymer and sinter the ceramic particles. That process forms a structure into which molten metal can be poured for casting.

“The LAMP process can reduce the time required to turn a CAD design into a test-worthy part from several months to about a week, and it can produce parts of a complexity that designers could only dream of before,” Das said. “It also can reduce costs by 25 percent and the number of unusable waste parts by more than 90 percent, while eliminating 100 percent of the tooling.”

Das is currently working with turbine-engine airfoils – complex parts used in aircraft jet engines – in collaboration with the University of Michigan, PCC Airfoils and Honeywell International Inc. He believes LAMP technology will become pervasive and will be effective in the production of many other types of metal parts.

Das said that LAMP can create not only testable prototypes, but could also be used in the actual manufacturing process, facilitating the mass production of complex metal parts at lower costs in a variety of industries.

A prototype LAMP alpha machine is currently building six typical airfoil molds in six hours. Das predicts that a larger beta machine – currently being built at Georgia Tech and scheduled for installation at a PCC Airfoils facility in Ohio in 2012 – will produce 100 molds in about 24 hours.

“When you can achieve those volumes, you have gone beyond rapid prototyping to true rapid manufacturing,” he said.

Customizing Building Components -- Researchers at the College of Architecture are also helping to automate the process of turning CAD designs into manufactured products. A team in the Digital Building Laboratory is collaborating with Lafarge North America to develop ways to manufacture customized wall structures directly from parametric digital models.

The new process involves custom-molding entire curtain walls from rubber negatives to produce a unitized system called the “Liquid Wall,” constructed with Ductal®, Lafarge’s ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC), and stainless steel. The Liquid Wall, created by Peter Arbour of RFR Consulting Engineers and collaborator Coreslab Structures Inc., won the 2010 AIANY Open Call for Innovative Curtain-Wall Design.

“We don’t want to just pick standardized products out of catalogs anymore,” said Tristan Al-Haddad, an assistant professor in the College of Architecture who is involved in the collaboration with Lafarge, along with assistant professor Minjung Maing and others. “We’re developing the protocols and research to manufacture high-end customized architectural products economically, safely and with environmental responsibility.”

The Liquid Wall approach is challenging, explained professor Charles Eastman, who is director of the Digital Building Laboratory and has a joint appointment in the College of Computing. The process involves creating rubber negatives using wall-form designs created with parametric modeling software, then planning production procedures and mapping out ways to install the completed, full-size walls on actual buildings.

“When you’re creating a completely new process like the Liquid Wall, you’re faced with developing a whole new manufacturing process for this kind of material,” Eastman said.

Individualizing Mass Production -- Industrial designer Kevin Shankwiler, an associate professor in the College of Architecture, creates objects that can be both customized and mass-produced. By utilizing advances in flexible manufacturing technology, Shankwiler and his students develop furniture designs that can be changed to meet individual needs – such as those of persons with disabilities – while being built cost-effectively using mass production methods.

Today’s designers can build responsiveness to individual needs into the computer models used in production, Shankwiler said. Current manufacturing methods – such as computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) and 3-D printing techniques – are capable of creating furniture and other goods that can meet users’ specific requirements without resorting to an institutional look.

“In one research effort, we took a dining room chair in the Craftsman style, and we designed and built a model that could accommodate both wheelchair users of differing abilities and fully ambulatory people,” Shankwiler said. “We have to ask – how should the human need affect the manufactured output and what are the best methods for achieving that?”

Pursuing Micro-scale Machining -- J. Rhett Mayor, an associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, is investigating techniques that allow effective machining of metal surfaces at 50 microns – one 2,000ths of an inch – or less. He is also developing unique applications based on advanced micro-machining, such as tiny channels in metal that enhance heat transfer between surfaces.

At present, Mayor explained, the ability to cut micro-features into surfaces is limited to metal sections about 1 centimeter square, a size that offers little cooling capability. Research being conducted by Mayor and his group focuses on scaling up micro-machining capabilities so that micro features can be cut in larger metal sheets.

“We can currently make hundreds of features on a square centimeter,” Mayor said. “What we need are millions of features on a square foot.”

One type of micro-scale feature – micro-channel heat exchangers – could play an important role in cooling factory-floor devices, as well as in the development of closed-loop systems that could generate power using recycled heat. For example, today’s factories typically use large electrical motors that vent their heat inside the plant, wasting energy.

In related work, Mayor and his team are developing optimization routines and thermal models that could enhance electrical machine design through the application of micro-machining and other technologies. The aim is to create machines that are smaller, yet offer high energy outputs thanks to more efficient cooling and to energy recycling.

Another application of large scale micro-machining could involve the development of lightweight electric actuators that would take the place of hydraulics in aircraft. Such electric actuators would need plenty of power to replicate the high torque provided by hydraulics; those power requirements would demand effective cooling strategies.

Tackling Issues on the Factory Floor

Promoting Factory Robotics -- Henrik Christensen, a professor in the College of Computing, is working with the Boeing Company to advance robotic manufacturing in the aircraft maker’s facilities.

In one project, Christensen and his team are working on an initiative that makes fundamental changes to how pieces are handled on the factory floor. In this approach, robots reverse the standard procedure by moving processing machines to a given part, rather than moving the part through an assembly line.

“Think of a large airplane structure,” Christensen said. “Having a machine move along the body of the aircraft, rather than moving the body itself, could result in much more efficient use of the machine.”

The team is employing a movable platform in the MaRC building that supports a robotic processing machine. Tests have already been performed using mobile painting and drilling capabilities that could lead to similar implementations at Boeing facilities.

Christensen has also developed automation technology that helps Boeing inspect parts and sub-assemblies that arrive from suppliers. The mobile robotic system scans each arriving piece to confirm that it is the correct item and conforms to the stipulated dimensions.

The technology allows Boeing to identify shipping errors almost immediately, before the mistake can delay production. It also saves on labor costs and allows workers to be assigned to less routine tasks.

The Boeing projects are part of the Aerospace Manufacturing Initiative (AMI), which was established in 2008 when Boeing identified Georgia Tech as a strategic university partner and agreed to collaborate on innovative manufacturing technologies for aerospace products. The AMI, which involves multiple research projects across Georgia Tech, is led by Steven Danyluk, who is the Morris M. Bryan Jr. Chair in Mechanical Engineering for Advanced Manufacturing Systems. Since 2008, Siemens USA and CAMotion Inc. have also become AMI participants.

In another project just getting launched with a major French manufacturing company, Christensen is pursuing novel technology that would allow a factory-floor robot to learn tasks via direct human demonstration. Rather than having each robotic operation mapped out laboriously on a control computer, a worker would demonstrate the optimal way to perform a job and the robot would then mimic the human.

This human-model approach to robotic learning could have applications across a number of industries, he added; both Boeing and General Motors have expressed interest in the technology. Other application areas for this technique include health care and biotechnology, where it could help automate both manufacturing procedures and laboratory testing.

Improving Online Production -- Jianjun (Jan) Shi, a professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE), conducts research that addresses system informatics and control. He uses his training in mechanical and electrical engineering to integrate system data – comprising design, manufacturing, automation and performance information – into models that seek to reduce process variability.

In one effort, Shi is working with nGimat Co., a Norcross, Ga.- based company that is currently evaluating ways to mass produce a type of nanopowder used in high-energy, high-density batteries for electric cars. With sponsorship from the Department of Energy (DOE), Shi is supporting nGimat as it works to increase nanopowder output by several orders of magnitude.

“This product has very good characteristics, and the task here is to scale up production while maintaining the quality,” said Shi, who holds the Carolyn J. Stewart Chair in ISyE. “We must identify the parameters – what to monitor, what to control – to reduce any variability, and do so in an environmentally friendly way.”

In work focusing on the steel industry, Shi is pursuing multiple projects including the investigation of sensing technologies used to monitor very high temperature environments in steel manufacturing. With DOE support, he is working with OG Technologies Inc. to develop methods that use optical sensors to provide continuous high-speed images of very hot surfaces – between 1,000 and 1,450 degrees Celsius.

“We want to catch defect formation in the very early stages of manufacturing,” Shi said. “By using imaging data of the product effectively with other process data to eliminate defects, we can help optimize the casting process.”

In another project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Shi is investigating ways to use process measurements and online adjustments to improve quality control in the manufacturing of the silicon wafers used in semiconductors. He is working with several manufacturers to examine the root causes of undesirable geometric defects in wafer surfaces.

Anticipating System Failure -- Nagi Gebraeel, an associate professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, conducts research in detecting and preventing failure in engineering systems as they degrade over time. The goal is to avoid both expensive downtime and unnecessary maintenance costs.

“We could be talking about a fleet of aircraft, trucks, trains, ships – or a manufacturing system,” Gebraeel said. “In any of these cases, it’s extremely useful for numerous reasons to be able to accurately estimate the remaining useful lifetime of a system or its components.”

With National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, Gebraeel has examined some of the key challenges in accurately predicting failures of complex engineering systems. Specific challenges include the ability to account for the uncertainty associated with degradation processes of these systems and their components, the effects of future environmental/operational conditions, and the dependencies and interactions that exist in multi-component systems.

In one project, Gebraeel and his team worked with Rockwell Collins, a maker of avionics and electronics, to monitor and diagnose the performance of circuit boards that control vital aircraft communications systems.

With equipment funding provided by Georgia Tech, Gebraeel has developed an adaptive prognostics system (APS), a custom research tool that allows him to investigate how quickly components degrade under stresses, using sensor-detected signals such as vibration.

“There’s a real need for information about the remaining life of components, so that users can find the economical middle ground between the cost of scheduled replacements and the cost of failure,” he said.

Maximizing Throughput with Software -- Three faculty members in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering – Shabbir Ahmed, George Nemhauser and Joel Sokol – recently completed a project supporting a major maker of float glass. The manufacturer was automating a process in which finished glass plates are packed for shipment.

The company was concerned that new machines – which pick up and remove glass from the production line – might fall behind, allowing valuable plates to be damaged. They wanted the capability to carefully schedule production sequences so the machines could function at maximum capacity without wasting plates.

The team tackled development of new software that could minimize production problems. They devised algorithms that allowed the machines to work at their maximum efficiency and enabled them to handle input data with more than 99 percent efficiency.

“The algorithms we delivered can also be used strategically, to determine how many machines of each type should be installed on a production line,” Sokol said.

Sokol, Nemhauser and Ahmed are also collaborating on a project with a large international corporation to support production throughput at a semiconductor manufacturing facility.

The challenge involves the physical movement of semiconductors from one processing station to another throughout the factory. Because the routing of semiconductors between processing machines can differ from item to item, there’s no linear assembly line procedure; instead, hundreds of automated vehicles pick up items from one processing point and move them to the next step.

Due to the facility’s layout, these automated vehicles often encounter congestion that can delay the production schedule, said Nemhauser, who is the A. Russell Chandler lll Chair and Institute professor. The team is developing methods to best route and schedule the vehicles to minimize congestion and to move items between machines in ways that don’t delay production.

Increasing Manufacturing Precision -- Shreyes Melkote, who is the Morris M. Bryan Jr. professor in mechanical engineering, directs the Precision Machining Research Center, one of numerous centers based in MaRC. Melkote researches precision manufacturing issues in several areas, including the production of precision metal parts and photovoltaic substrates.

In a project sponsored by The Timken Company, Melkote is investigating methods for faster and more efficient machining of hardened steel materials using a hybrid process called “Laser Assisted Hard Machining.” Results from successful machining trials have demonstrated that this hybrid process has the potential to reduce machining time as well as cutting tool cost by prolonging tool life.

In a Boeing-sponsored project, Melkote is developing thin-film sensors capable of monitoring high-speed machining operations. The goal is to give operators in-depth feedback for more effective control of high-speed rotating machines used to produce aerospace parts.

Traditional piezoelectric sensors are costly and unreliable, Melkote said, and installing them on a given machine can alter its dynamic characteristics. By contrast, sensors made from low-cost piezoelectric polymer film can be attached to a rotating device without affecting its operation. A patent application is being filed on this sensor technology.

“Thin-film sensors allow us to accurately measure what’s happening between the tool and the work-piece, in terms of forces, vibrations, deflections and other process responses,” he said. “We have demonstrated that the quality of information we are getting from a $200 sensor is as good as from one that costs $30,000.”

Innovations in Manufacturing Systems and Processes

Automating Manufacturing Simulations -- Professor Leon McGinnis of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering focuses on model-based systems engineering, an approach that uses computational methods to enable capture and reuse of systems knowledge. McGinnis is pursuing several sponsored projects in this area.

In one effort, McGinnis and his team have been working with Rockwell Collins, a maker of avionics and electronics, to help speed the introduction of new products by automating a process that simulates the requirements of production.

To optimize the resources needed to make products at the required rate, McGinnis explained, Rockwell Collins creates a computerized simulation of the manufacturing processes. Development of these models has traditionally been the province of experts skilled in taking initial system designs and painstakingly translating them into simulations of actual production.

“This is not a trivial task – producing a simulation model requires some 100 to 200 hours per product,” said McGinnis, who is associate director of MaRC. “The company was only able to generate a few production models at a time, which created something of a bottleneck.”

To understand the process of developing simulation models, a team interviewed the Rockwell Collins experts on the methods they used to develop such models. Then the Georgia Tech researchers turned to SysML, a programming language that enables the computerized modeling of complex systems, including multiple related factors such as people, machinery and product flows.

By using SysML to describe the evolution of a given product, the researchers were able to automate its movement from design to simulation. Even more important, the team created a domain-specific version of SysML that was customized to the Rockwell Collins environment. That achievement allowed any of the company’s new products and systems to be plugged into a SysML-based automation process.

This new way of doing things appears to reduce the time required to build simulation models by an order of magnitude, said McGinnis, who leads the Model-Based Systems Engineering Center in MaRC.

In another project, McGinnis and his team are collaborating with the School of Mechanical Engineering and MaRC to develop semantics for manufacturing processes under a DARPA contract. In other work, McGinnis is collaborating with the Tennenbaum Institute – a Georgia Tech organization that supports research for enterprise transformation – to address the challenges of identifying and mitigating risks in global manufacturing enterprise networks.

Developing Future Factories -- A research team from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is working with the General Motors Co. to develop novel sensor and computer technologies for manufacturing.

The project, known as the Factory of the Future, seeks to establish a manufacturing model based on approaches and technologies that are largely new to factory design and processes. Among other things, the researchers are investigating the use of biologically inspired software algorithms to help maximize plant floor efficiency.

“The future factory is one with an extremely agile environment, allowing the manufacturing plant to be reconfigured in real time to meet the objectives for production,” said Gisele Bennett, director of the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory at GTRI.

At the heart of this process improvement approach is a robust combination of sensor and intelligent algorithm technologies, said Bennett, who is leading the project. The resulting optimization algorithms would utilize asset visibility of supplies, machines and vehicle-assembly status to optimize the manufacturing process, based on current requirements that could include energy savings, throughput or cost.

The goal is a broad, centralized view of all aspects of the manufacturing process, available in real time. This big-picture capability could lead to greater efficiency and productivity due to improved routing, inventory control and visibility into the health of the manufacturing equipment.

“Among other things, these techniques could support a capability for just-in-time car building,” Bennett said. “A consumer could go into a dealership, choose the car they wanted – and as soon as the car is specified, its assembly would begin remotely.”

Advancing the Adaptive Process -- A multidisciplinary team of Georgia Tech researchers is taking part in the Adaptive Vehicle Make (AVM) program. The four-year DARPA program, announced in the first half of 2011, fosters novel approaches to the design, verification and manufacturing of complex defense systems and vehicles. Funding for Georgia Tech’s share of the work is expected to exceed $10 million.

The AVM effort consists of three primary programs: META, Instant Foundry Adaptive through Bits (iFAB) and Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle (FANG). FANG includes the vehicleforge.mil project and the Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) effort.

Georgia Tech is collaborating with Vanderbilt University on the META program and the related Component, Context, and Manufacturing Model Library (C2M2L) program. Led by professor Dimitri Mavris, director of the Aerospace Systems Design Lab, and research engineer Johanna Ceisel, Georgia Tech’s META effort focuses on dramatically improving the existing systems engineering, integration and testing processes for defense systems.

Rather than utilizing one particular alternative technique, metric or tool, META aims to develop model-based design methods for cyber-physical systems that are far more complex and heterogeneous than those in use today.

Shreyes Melkote, a professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering, leads an iFAB team that is developing manufacturing-process capabilities and model libraries to enable automated planning for the design and manufacture of military ground vehicles.

A GTRI team led by Vince Camp is also supporting iFAB, providing process guidance for development of the libraries. In addition, researchers from four Georgia Tech units, along with companies InterCAX LLC and Third Wave Systems Inc., are supporting this iFAB effort.

The vehicleforge.mil project, led by GTRI researchers Jack Zentner and Nick Bollweg, is creating a secure central website and other web-based tools capable of supporting collaborative vehicle development. The core website – vehicleforge.mil – would allow individuals and teams to share data, models, tools and ideas to speed and improve the design process.

“The aim here is to fundamentally change the way in which complex systems are taken from concept to reality,” said Zentner, a senior research engineer. “By enabling many designers in varied locations to work together in a distributed manner, we’re confident that vehicles – and eventually other systems – can be developed with greater speed and better results.”

The C2M2L model library is part of the overall effort. C2M2L seeks to develop domain-specific models to enable the design, verification and fabrication of the FANG infantry fighting vehicle using the META, iFAB and vehicleforge.mil infrastructure.

The MENTOR effort will engage high school-age students in a series of collaborative design and distributed manufacturing prize-challenge experiments, with the goal of inspiring America’s manufacturing and technology workforce of tomorrow.

DARPA envisions that the prize challenges will include up to 1,000 high schools in teams distributed across the nation and around the world, using computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) additive manufacturing machines – also known as 3D printers. The goal is help students collaboratively design and build systems of moderate complexity, such as mobile ground and aerial robots and energy systems.

MENTOR is led by professor Daniel Schrage of the School of Aerospace Engineering and director of the Integrated Product Lifecycle Engineering Laboratory, and by professor David Rosen of the School of Mechanical Engineering, who is also director of the Rapid Prototyping & Manufacturing Institute in MaRC.

Strengthening Supply Chains -- Vinod Singhal, who is the Brady Family Professor of Operations Management in the College of Management, investigates supply chain disruptions and their relation to corporate performance. In one project, he is evaluating recent disruptions at manufacturing companies and other businesses, where he documents the magnitude of drop in stock prices, loss of revenue and increase in costs due to supply chain disruptions.

“Traditional approaches to supply chain management have focused only on efficiency,” Singhal said. “Newer approaches involve avoiding value destruction by instituting a reliable, responsive and robust supply chain.”

Singhal has developed a detailed framework that helps enterprises manage their supply chain risks. His research instructs companies on how to prioritize risks, making supply chain vulnerabilities more visible and ensuring that top management learns to recognize the issue as critical to corporate success.

Modeling Flexibility -- In the College of Management, Regents’ professor Cheryl Gaimon studies technology management in manufacturing and service enterprises. In one study, Gaimon and former Ph.D. student Alysse Morton analyzed the value of flexibility in high-volume manufacturing of products with short life cycles, such as computer components.

The researchers developed a model showing how companies could link internal manufacturing capabilities with swiftly changing external market forces. They demonstrated how these businesses could exploit manufacturing efficiencies, early market entry and quick shifts between product generations, combined with optimal pricing policies.

“Our results demonstrated that firms need to work closely with their equipment suppliers to achieve more flexible technology, and that even a less-efficient facility can realize a long-term competitive advantage through an earlier market-entry strategy,” Gaimon said.

Lowering Quality-Failure Impact -- Assistant Professor Manpreet Hora of the College of Management conducts research in several areas of business and manufacturing, including the recall of products such as automobiles. In a recent study, he looked at the risks that can sometimes be created by today’s lean manufacturing methods.

In studying automotive recalls, Hora discovered that because companies often share components across multiple vehicle lines to maintain lean practices, a potential defect in such components can greatly increase the cost and the magnitude of a recall. He concluded that increased quality checks of shared and critical parts are essential in lowering the impact of quality failures from recalls.

Helping Manufacturers Improve Products

Reducing Engine Noise -- In a project sponsored by EADS North America, a large aerospace and defense company, GTRI researcher Jason Nadler tackled the problem of helping the manufacturer reduce noise produced by commercial and military jet aircraft.

Nadler and his team used innovative materials that make possible a new approach to the physics of noise reduction. They found that honeycomb-like structures composed of many tiny tubes or channels can reduce sound more effectively than conventional methods.

“This approach dissipates acoustic waves by essentially wearing them out,” Nadler said. “It’s a phenomenological shift, fundamentally different from traditional techniques that absorb sound using a more frequency-dependent resonance.”

Nadler’s research involves broadband acoustic absorption, a method of reducing sound that doesn’t depend on frequencies or resonance. Instead of resonating, sound waves plunge into the channels and dissipate through a process called viscous shear.

He has developed what could be the world’s first superalloy micro honeycomb using a nickel-based superalloy. He estimates that this new approach could provide better sound attenuation than any acoustic liner currently available.

Improving Poultry Production -- The Food Processing Technology Division of GTRI performs a broad spectrum of research for the food industry, including numerous projects that support the state’s nearly $20 billion poultry industry. Research areas include advanced imaging and sensor technologies; robotics and automation systems; environmental and biological systems; food and product safety research; and worker safety research.

In one project, GTRI researchers are employing image processing, statistical modeling, modeling of biomaterials and high-speed force control to bring automated chicken deboning to poultry processors. The Intelligent Deboning System aims to match or exceed the efficiency of the manual process.

Initial tests of the deboning prototype system, including cutting experiments, have shown the system’s ability to recognize bone during a cut and thus avoid bone chips. The work has demonstrated the validity of GTRI’s approach.

“There are some very major factors in play in this project,” said Gary McMurray, chief of the Food Processing Technology Division and project director. “These include food safety – because bone chips are a major hazard for boneless breast fillets – and yield, because every 1 percent loss of breast meat represents about $2.5 million to each of Georgia’s 20 processing plants.”

Controlling Baking Systems -- GTRI has developed a production line system that automatically inspects the quality of sandwich buns exiting the oven and adjusts oven temperatures if it detects unacceptable products.

Working with baking company Flowers Foods and AMF/BakeTech, a baking equipment manufacturer, GTRI researchers Douglas Britton and Colin Usher have tested their industrial-quality prototype system. Made of stainless steel, the system is dust-and-water-resistant, and mounts on existing conveyor belts as wide as 50 inches.

The researchers tested the system in a Flowers Foods bakery.

“We have closed the loop between the quality inspection of buns and the oven controls to meet the specifications required by food service and fast-food customers,” said Britton. “By creating a more accurate, uniform and faster assessment process, we are able to minimize waste and lost product.”

Testing Manufacturing Materials -- The GTRI Materials Analysis Center (MAC), led by Lisa Detter-Hoskin, supports manufacturers and other groups using advanced analytical tools and methodologies that address materials characterization, failure analysis and corrosion issues for manufacturers and other companies. MAC annually manages research projects and evaluates samples for hundreds of corporations and agencies.

For example, the center supports CE-Tech LLC of Alpharetta, Ga., in numerous areas, including conducting analyses of competitive products and resins. The objective is to lower raw-material costs for CE-Tech clients through the substitution of lower-cost resins.

In another instance, GTRI works with Fairfield, Conn.-based Acme United Corp., a maker of cutting, measuring and safety products, to evaluate the chemistry and structure of new surface coatings. In one project, GTRI personnel tested a proprietary Acme United physical vapor deposition technology used to impart a hard outer shell onto steel blades.

“We frequently need to test,” said Larry Buchtmann, vice president for technology for Acme United. “GTRI has the specialized equipment and trained engineering staff to meet our ongoing needs for these services.”

Assessing Advanced Electronics -- GTRI’s Electromagnetic Test and Evaluation Facilities (EMTEF) and Electromagnetic Phenomenology Laboratory test facilities provide ongoing research and support for manufacturers. Both commercial customers and the U.S. government use these assets to aid design and manufacture of antennas and antenna-related sensors for wireless systems, cell and base station antennas, aircraft antennas and related applications.

“These multi-purpose ranges allow antenna manufacturers or design engineers to confirm modeling designs, diagnose performance problems, and to confirm performance against advertised specifications,” said GTRI researcher Barry Mitchell.

In one past instance, Mitchell recalls, a maker of aircraft weather radar was encountering problems with false alarms coming from wind-shear detection systems in flight. A GTRI team tested a waveguide antenna array on a planar near-field range belonging to the research institute, and the resulting aperture holograms revealed leakage points from brazed joints on the array. Eventually the problem was traced to a defect in the dip-brazing process during manufacturing, enabling corrective measures.

Making Manufacturing More Sustainable

Supporting Sustainable Manufacturing -- School of Mechanical Engineering professor Bert Bras, who leads the Sustainable Design and Manufacturing (SDM) Program in the MaRC, focuses on reducing the environmental impact of materials, products and manufacturing processes, while increasing their competitiveness.

The SDM group gets a large share of its research funding from industry. Together with MaRC research engineer Tina Guldberg, Bras and his group are currently working with Ford, GM and Boeing on projects related to sustainable manufacturing. Much of their work centers on a better understanding of the overall effect of manufacturing operations, as well as potential unintended consequences of product, process and business decisions over their life cycle.

One technique developed by Bras and his students involves the inclusion of environmental impact measures such as energy and water consumption in activity-based cost models. In this way, a single assessment model can quantify financial and environmental consequences of manufacturing process choices.

With Marc Weissburg, a professor in the School of Biology and co-director of the Center for Bio-Inspired Design, Bras and his team are working on an NSF-funded project focused on the role of biologically inspired design in industrial manufacturing networks.

Bras is also collaborating with professor Nancey Green Leigh of the School of City and Regional Planning and professor Steven French of the College of Architecture on an NSF-funded project that studies methods of boosting product and material recovery in urban areas for use in local manufacturing. Leigh and French are also focusing in this grant on quantifying the amount of carpet and electronic waste generated in a metropolitan area and the economic benefits of diverting it from landfills, thereby creating business and job opportunities.

Recovering and Reusing Waste -- Jane Ammons, who is the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, collaborates on reverse production systems with Matthew Realff, a professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. For more than 10 years, the team has focused on two important areas: the recovery and reuse of carpet wastes and ways to reduce electronic waste.

Ammons, Realff and their teams have developed a mathematical framework to support the growth of used-carpet collection networks. Such networks could help to recycle much of the 3.4 billion pounds of carpet waste currently produced in the United States annually. Research indicates that successful reuse of that carpet has a potential value of at least $850 million, versus a disposal cost of at least $60 million for simply sending it to landfills.

In other work, the team is studying the problem of e-waste – unwanted electronic components such as televisions, monitors and computer boards and chips. The e-waste stream includes hazardous materials such as lead and other toxins, yet effective management and reuse of e-components can be profitable. Ammons and Realff have devised mathematical models that address the complexities of e-waste processing, with the goal of helping recycling companies stay economically viable.

Promoting Manufacturing Sustainability -- In a recent project, associate professor Chen Zhou in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, working with professor Leon McGinnis, tackled sustainability issues for a major U.S. manufacturer. The issue involved shipping gearbox components from China to the United States in ways that would minimize not only cost but also greenhouse gas emissions and waste.

It turned out that packaging was at the heart of the issue. The researchers had to configure component packaging so that the maximum number of components could be placed in a cargo container, yet also allow for optimal recycling of the packing materials to avoid waste and unnecessary cost.

“This was definitely a complex problem,” Zhou said. “You must track every piece of packaging from its source to its final resting place, when it either goes into another product or into a landfill.”

The team created a model – a globally sourced auto parts packaging system – that optimized cargo container space. The model also enabled the use of packing materials that were fully reusable; some materials went back to China for use in future shipments, while the rest was recycled into plastics for new vehicles.

Clearly, Georgia Tech’s broad-based involvement in advanced manufacturing research reflects both the talents of its faculty and the determination of U.S. industry to reinvent itself with the help of university-based research.

The United States generates more inventions than the rest of the world combined, and Georgia Tech will continue to work with business and government to help turn the nation’s vast innovative capabilities into an American industrial renaissance.

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of Research Horizons magazine. Abby Robinson also contributed to this article.

Research projects mentioned in this article are supported by sponsors that include the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the principal investigators and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF or DARPA. 

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Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).

Writer: Rick Robinson

The average high school grade point average for those accepted to Georgia Tech for the fall semester is 3.9 with an average SAT score of 1430 or 2105 with writing included. That represents an average of 700 points for each section.

On average, admitted students will have taken eight classes that are Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or college-level by graduation. Georgia Tech’s admission review process and GPA re-calculation values a student’s choice to take more rigorous courses during his or her high school career.

“This year’s accepted class is truly exceptional,” said Director of Undergraduate Admission Rick Clark.  “Each year, the competition for admission to Georgia Tech is increasing and every class raises the quality of our campus.”  

According to Clark, this year’s decisions were extremely difficult. “We conduct an extensive, holistic and comparative review process, which means every application is read multiple times. Our admitted class of students not only has remarkable academic achievements and established intellectual curiosity, but also has proven potential to be tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders.”

The class also continued the trend of being more diverse, with 86 countries and 49 states represented in the admitted class. Georgia Tech accepted more women and Hispanic students this year compared to last year. Clark clarifies, however, that admittance statistics don’t necessarily predict ultimate enrollment numbers.

“We’ll see these numbers fluctuate between admittance and matriculation,” said Clark.  “Clearly this group of students has multiple offers of admission and high levels of scholarships to consider as well. It’s our sincere goal, however, to continue the recent trend of augmenting geographic, ethnic and background diversity in our class.”

Approximately 14,700 students applied for acceptance to Georgia Tech, an Institute record and a three percent increase from last year. Each student is vying for one of the 2,400 spots for fall admission or the 250 spots available to start this summer.

“Our summer program gives students the opportunity to experience a world-class research institution in an intimate setting,” said Clark. “Starting out with small class sizes, as well as a chance to really get to know professors, is a huge advantage.”

Early deposits are up by about 10 percent as well. Those accepted to Georgia Tech have until May 1 to make their deposits and enroll in classes during their freshman orientation.

Then consider the predictions made by Georgia Tech’sLogistic Regression Markov Chain (LRMC) method, a computer ranking system thathas historically been more accurate than the NCAA’s own Ratings PercentageIndex.

LRMC predicts this year’s NCAA Final Four matchups will mostlikely be Kentucky vs. Michigan St. and Ohio St. vs. Kansas, with Kentuckybeating Ohio St. for the championship.

Other predictions by the system include:

• Texas, Belmont and N.C. State are the underdogsmost likely to pull off an upset in the first round.
• California, N.C. State, Belmont and Texas couldbe this year’s “Cinderella” teams; they are the most likely double-digit seedsto make it to the Sweet 16.  
• Michigan St. will be the No. 1 seed with thetoughest second-round matchup.
• Wichita St. vs. Indiana and New Mexico vs. Louisvilleare other intriguing potential second-round matchups.
• The West Region, led by Michigan St., is thedeepest of the four regions.
• Wichita St. vs. Indiana and New Mexico vs.Louisville are "intriguing" potential second-round matchups becauseLRMC says they will be close games, even though both pit a lesser-known teamagainst a better-known team.

“Kentucky is the likely champion because they've won almostall their games,” said Joel Sokol, operations research professor at GeorgiaTech who developed LRMC along with colleagues. “They've won by convincingmargins at home and on the road against very good teams, and they've done itall against a strong schedule, including Kansas, North Carolina, Indiana andFlorida.”

Since the 2003 season, LRMC has correctly predicted theoutcomes of more NCAA tournament games than competing ranking systems and majorpolls.

In 2010, for example, LRMC correctly predicted the winnersof 51 out of 64 NCAA games—beating out more than 50 of the top-ranking sites.In 2008, the system predicted the Final Four, final two and the eventualvictor, as well as several upsets in earlier rounds.

Georgia Tech Operations Research Professors Sokol and GeorgeNemhauser and Statistics Professor Paul Kvam developed the LRMC method, along withMath Professor Mark Brown of the City College of New York. 

The system looks at the results of all the college basketballgames played during the season. Specifically, it examines which team wins, whichteam loses, where the game was played and the team’s margin of victory. Theresearchers then run that data through several mathematical models—empirical Bayes,logistic regression and Markov Chain—to determine the ranking of teams.

Yet even with the best formula, it’s impossible to predict aperfect bracket, Sokol said.

About one-quarter of all tournament games are affected byupsets, injuries or last-second, buzzer-beating baskets. Such was the case lastyear when only one top seed made it to the regional finals. This human factoris where the LRMC predictions can falter.

Still, LRMC’s odds aren’t bad.

According to a study of historical data just completed bythe research team, LRMC is significantly better at predicting NCAA Tournamentgames than almost all of the other ranking systems, such as Sagarin’spredictor, Pomeroy’s ranking, Las Vegas Favorite and the NCAA’s RPI.

Sokol, Nemhauser and Kvam are professors in the H. MiltonStewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering in Georgia Tech’sCollege of Engineering.

To address that need, systems engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using computer models to help resource-poor nations improve supply chain decisions related to the distribution of breast milk and non-pharmaceutical interventions for malaria. They are also forecasting what health care services would be available in the event of natural disasters in Caribbean nations.

“We are using mathematical models implemented in user-friendly tools like Microsoft Excel to improve the allocation of limited resources across a network, especially in resource-poor settings,” said Julie Swann, an associate professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Swann reported on three global health case studies designed to improve the allocation of limited health care resources on Feb. 19, 2012 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada.

For the first project, Swann and a group of graduate students created models to strategically determine how a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in South Africa should expand its breast milk donation and distribution network to the whole country. In the network, healthy mothers donate breast milk, which is stored in a local repository, transferred to a milk bank to be processed and then distributed to neonatal units where mothers cannot provide it themselves because of disease status or physical inability.

“We wanted to determine how we could provide breast milk to the most people while also being geographically equitable in terms of access,” explained Swann, who holds the Harold R. and Mary Ann Nash chair at Georgia Tech. “We looked at the cost of equity and how that changed the distribution design.”

To determine where the organization should expand its network and the best way to do so, the team used operations research to examine the existing and proposed locations in the network as well as what type of transportation would work best to cover the increased geographic area. The model recognized that breast milk supply increases with higher income and education levels and low HIV prevalence, while breast milk demand increases with lower income and education levels and high HIV prevalence.

The researchers recently recommended locations for expansion to the NGO and advised the organization to pay a courier service to carry the milk to the neonatal units, in order to balance cost and reliability and improve efficiency. Volunteers, who are inherently less reliable, were driving the milk from one location to another.

In another project, done in collaboration with the World Health Organization, Swann and a team of undergraduate and graduate students used models to optimize the distribution of non-pharmaceutical interventions for malaria, such as nets or sprays, with pilot data from a country in Africa called Swaziland.

Their models provided a time-based deployment plan for the country, including details on what geographic zones to target for spraying, when to deploy in each zone, how many people can be protected in each zone, what resources should be located at the distribution centers, and the opening and closing dates of the distribution centers.

The researchers showed that using a systems approach to examine allocation decisions could increase the number of people covered with the same amount of funding by more than 25 percent. The team worked with Pinar Keskinocak, a professor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, to develop a teaching game based on the work. The game has been used worldwide in classes of humanitarian students.

For the third project, Swann and a team of graduate students are using technology to estimate the performance of disaster preparedness plans in advance of an event. The project is part of the Caribbean Hazard Assessment Mitigation and Preparedness (CHAMP) initiative, which is supported by a Georgia Tech alumnus and led by Reginald DesRoches, a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech.

In Puerto Rico, Swann’s team evaluated the existing hospital networks and other health care provider locations described in the island’s emergency preparedness plans.

“To forecast the country’s ability to provide health services following an earthquake, we took population data and overlaid it with projections of earthquake locations and severity to estimate the capacities and amount of congestion that would result at health care facilities,” said Swann.

The researchers recently presented the initial results of their study to the Puerto Rico Department of Health and made recommendations for health care resources and hospital capacities based on predicted bottlenecks in the system. They are currently examining Belize’s hurricane evacuation plans. Keskinocak and Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering associate professor Ozlem Ergun and visiting assistant professor Pelin Pekgun-Cakmak are also contributing to the CHAMP initiative.

“We have found that technology innovations like mathematical models can help to solve problems in global and public health, such as the allocation of limited health care resources,” noted Swann. 

Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA

Media Relations Contacts: Abby Robinson (abby@innovate.gatech.edu; 404-385-3364) or John Toon (jtoon@gatech.edu; 404-894-6986)

Writer: Abby Robinson

"We offered Georgia Aquarium leaders accurate predictions on how the new AT&T Dolphin Tales exhibit would impact guest flow within the aquarium and how to optimize the operations logistics, efficiency and show schedules for the new exhibit," said Eva K. Lee, a professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.

The new 84,000-square-foot AT&T Dolphin Tales attraction, which opened in April 2011, includes a theater with performances of Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins in a Broadway-style production with live actors and trainers, all set to an orchestral soundtrack. The exhibit also features a lobby area where visitors can be face-to-face with the dolphins through a 25-foot viewing window.

"We knew that managing the flow of guests through the new AT&T Dolphin Tales exhibit was going to be more difficult than the other aquarium galleries because guests would be entering and exiting the exhibit through the same space," said Brian Davis, director of education and guest programs at the Georgia Aquarium. "The logistical predictions and recommendations Georgia Tech provided us were extremely accurate and enabled us to ensure an amazing guest experience while remaining fiscally responsible."

To provide recommendations to the Georgia Aquarium on how to optimize visitor flow through the new exhibit, Lee and Georgia Tech graduate student Chien-Hung Chen created RealOpt-ABM, a large-scale modeling and decision support software suite that could model guest movement through the entire aquarium.

With this software, the researchers predicted guest flow through the new exhibit and the impact of the new exhibit to surrounding areas and overall visitor flow. They were also able to determine the best strategies for show scheduling, resource allocation, space usage, and theater loading and unloading. RealOpt-ABM produced recommendations that were implemented for operations design of the new exhibit, according to Joe Handy, vice president of guest experience at the Georgia Aquarium.

According to Lee, the software's success lies in its integrated simulation and optimization approach and its inclusion of human cognitive and behavioral elements. The software's computational speed also allowed for rapid solution strategies and on-the-fly reconfigurations. Facility layout, physical design and activities at specific points of interest were captured in sub-models, which were aggregated and coupled to form the overall model.

"RealOpt-ABM incorporated advances in agent-based simulation that capture the stochastic nature of the events within the aquarium, optimization of resource allocation and show schedules, and modeling of human cognitive decisions that affect show preference and guest behavior," explained Lee.

To validate the model, Lee, research engineer Niquelle Brown and 10 Georgia Tech students analyzed guest flow and behavior patterns in the entire aquarium before the new exhibit opened. Through time-motion studies in 2010, they collected guest flow data and captured the decisions guests made, such as turning left or right when they arrived at an intersection and how long guests spent in each exhibit area. The data showed that guest movement changed based on the time of day and what time guests arrived at the museum.

Using RealOpt-ABM, the researchers accurately predicted the amount of time required to load and unload the AT&T Dolphin Tales theater, depending on the number of guests, which led to a recommendation that performances be separated by at least 90 minutes to minimize congestion. The researchers also recommended that on days with fewer than 6,000 aquarium attendees, only two shows should be offered. This recommendation was based on the need to maintain the comfort and health of the dolphins while minimizing unnecessary operations costs.

RealOpt-ABM also detailed the optimal number and location of ticket scanners and traffic controllers and the best time to open the theatre doors so that the waiting time and queue length were acceptable. The study also predicted that unless other provisions were made, a large percentage of the new exhibit's lobby area would be occupied by baby strollers that were not allowed in the theater. Lee's team recommended the creation of valet stroller parking in the main lobby of the aquarium to avoid logistics bottlenecks and congestion in the exhibit lobby area.

This logistics research project is one of six finalists for the 2011 Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice, which is given by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). The winner will be selected on Nov. 14 at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, following presentations by the finalists.

"Effective strategies for managing guest flow are imperative for the successful operation of the aquarium and we trust Georgia Tech's logistics advice 100 percent," said Davis. "As the Georgia Aquarium continues to grow and expand, we will always look to Georgia Tech's expertise to maximize the experience for our guests."

Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA

Media Relations Contacts: Abby Robinson (abby@innovate.gatech.edu; 404-385-3364) or John Toon (jtoon@gatech.edu; 404-894-6986)

Writer: Abby Robinson

“From our focus on environmentalstewardship in our buildings and grounds to our energy conservation andrecycling programs, Georgia Tech has gained a national reputation for embracingsustainability practices,” said Steve Swant, executive vice president ofadministration and finance. “Our investment in this green revolving fundprogram will help support our continued sustainability efforts.”

Most recently, Georgia Tech wasnamed as one of 16 colleges on the Princeton Review’s Green Honor Roll and has earned Tree Campus USA recognition by the Arbor Day Foundation. Besides using environmentallyfriendly cleaning products, Georgia Tech requires that all vendors providegreen products. During the 2010 season, the Institute’s game day recyclingprogram netted 21 tons of recyclables during six home games.

The Billion Dollar Green Challenge launches publicly on October 11 at theAssociation for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Educationconference in Pittsburgh. With more than 2,500 participants, includingrepresentatives of Georgia Tech, the conference is the largest gathering todate on higher education sustainability.

In advance of the launch, 33 institutions, including Georgia Tech, have alreadyjoined the Challenge’s Founding Circle by committing to invest a cumulativetotal of more than $65 million in green revolving funds. In addition toHarvard, Stanford and ASU, other Founding Circle institutions include Caltech,Dartmouth, George Washington, Middlebury, the University of British Columbiaand Weber State University.

The Challenge is inspired by theexceptional performance of existing green revolving funds, which have a medianannual return on investment of 32 percent, as documented by Greening The BottomLine, a report published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.

                                                                

Lohmann arrived at Tech in 1991, first serving as an associate dean in the College of Engineering before assuming his current duties in the Provost’s Office in 2002. While at Tech, Lohmann has also served as liaison to the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and liaison to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

He also led the Institute through its most recent reaccreditation process in 2005, which involved creating the Quality Enhancement Plan.

“Both France and Atlanta share a common strong commitment toinnovation as an engine for economic growth,” said Pascal Le Deunff, ConsulGeneral of France in Atlanta.  “Lastyear, “France-Atlanta 2010” brought together almost 3,500 participants andbreathed new life into the relationship between France and the SoutheasternUnited States.”

According to Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson,France-Atlanta provides a unique opportunity for not just students, but anyoneinterested in exploring the great country of France through cultural andhumanitarian logistics, business workshops and scientific symposiums.

“Many of the challenges we face today are global in nature,impacting all of humanity—things like energy, sustainability, water utilizationand resources, humanitarian logistics and healthcare,” said Peterson. “There is no end to thepossibilities before us when we work together for solutions.”

The following events will take place at Georgia Tech. Acomplete list of France-Atlanta events can be found at the official website.

October 27, 8:30 a.m.– 12:00 p.m.
Georgia Tech Lorraine: Enabling US-FrenchCooperation in R&D and in Higher Education
Manufacturing Research Center (MaRC) Auditorium

October 27, 2:00 p.m.– 5:00 p.m.
Roundtable Discussion: How to BetterCoordinate Humanitarian Response
Marcus Nanotechnology Building

October 28, 8:30 a.m.
Graphene: Taking Electronics BeyondSilicon*
Manufacturing Research Center (MaRC) Auditorium
*RSVP Required

November 4, 7:30 a.m.– 1:30 p.m.
Nuclear Energy: Security and WasteManagement
Marcus Nanotechnology Building

November 5, 9:00 a.m.– 6:00 p.m.
Paris-Atlanta: The Physical, Social,and Cultural Fabric of “Outer City” and Inner Suburb
College of Architecture, Reinsch-PierceFamily Auditorium

November 9, 7:00 p.m.
Art Papers Live! Lecture SeriesPresents Two Contemporary French Artists
Georgia Tech Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship
College of Management 4th Floor

TheTimes Higher Education, a British publication, used a new methodology for its2011-2012 World University Rankings. It was developed after consultation with50 sector leaders, the publication’s editorial board and websitefeedback. The new methodology, with data supplied by Thomson Reuters,places less importance on reputation and heritage than in previous years andgives more weight to hard measures of excellence in all three core elements ofa university’s mission – research, teaching and knowledge transfer. It isalso the only global ranking system that includes a section dedicated to theteaching and learning environment, including the first-ever global survey ofinstitutions’ teaching reputations. In all, the ranking system includes 13 separateperformance indicators across five broad categories:

• Teaching — the learning environment (worth 30 percent of the overall ranking score)
• Research — volume, income and reputation (worth 30 percent)
• Citations — research influence (worth 30 percent)
• Industry income — innovation (worth 2.5 percent)
• International outlook — staff, student and research (worth 7.5 percent).

Thecenter, which is a partnership between the two institutions, will focus on improvingMexico’s logistics performance and increasing trade competitiveness.

Theceremony will be held at Tecnológico deMonterrey’s Sante Fe campus, located at Av. Carlos Loza No. 100 Col., Santa Fe,Mexico, DF 01389. The event will begin with a light brunch, followed by theofficial launch of the center and tour of Innovation Park.

“Inorder for us to continue our global positioning, we have to understand the supplychain from an international perspective,” said Jaymie Forrest, managingdirector of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute.  “It is essential that there be in-depthknowledge of major trading partners such as Mexico for Georgia Tech to be theleader in international trade.”

TheTrade & Logistics Center in Mexico City is the fourth addition to GeorgiaTech’s international network of innovation and logistical centers.

TheSupply Chain & Logistics Institute at Georgia Tech’s H. Milton StewartSchool of Industrial and Systems Engineering in Atlanta is the main center ofthe network. Three international centers are currently operating in Singapore,Costa Rica and Panama. Each center supports the competitiveness agenda of thecountry.

Acountry’s productivity, as influenced by logistics performance, is critical toits global competitiveness. The World Bank’s annual Logistics Performance Indexranks the United States 15th, Mexico 50th, Panama 51st and Costa Rica 56th in the world in logistics performance. A clearneed exists to improve these rankings through more effective and productivelogistics, Forrest said. 

Likethe others, the new center in Mexico City will focus on three areas –education, research and industry growth.

“We’regoing to provide education and research to make sure Mexico has the capacity todo it on its own,” said Miguel Martinez, executive director of the Mexicocenter.  “The fact that an institutionlike Georgia Tech is involved will help us get there faster with provenmethodologies and success in other countries.”

Thecenter will offer professional and executive education on logistics and trade,the same extensive curriculum offered by the Supply Chain & LogisticsInstitute at Georgia Tech. That includes comprehensive programs in lean supplychain, transportation, warehousing, inventory, trade and supply chain strategy.

Forits research agenda, the center will work on projects for Mexico’s federalgovernment in several areas, such as disaster management and humanitarianlogistics and improvement of the food and beverage supply chains. The center’sresearch areas will also include warehouse distribution and logistics,logistics and manufacturing, supply chain for emerging economies andinformation technologies for supply chain management.

Toreach Mexico’s industry base, the center will be partnering with one ofMexico’s largest business associations to develop education programs and toolsfor its members, so they have a better understanding of logistics and how it affectsthem.

“Thegoal is to better prepare our infrastructure and our industries to becompetitive at the local level and for export,” Martinez said.  

Thecenter is a win-win for all involved, Forrest said. The countries benefit byleveraging Georgia Tech’s expertise to improve logistics performances, which isthe foundation for competitiveness and trade. Georgia Tech benefits by offeringa richer learning experience for its students and faculty, and positioning theInstitute as the global leader in international trade research.

“Researchand development leadership requires a global presence and applied knowledge,”Forrest said. “Our network of innovation centers provides Georgia Tech thefoundation for collaboration and application in the field for maintaining ourexpertise in supply chain and logistics.”

Each year, HispanicBusiness magazine measures the effectiveness of the nation’s universitiesin attracting Hispanic students. The rankings are based on recruitment and retentionof Hispanic students, degrees conferred to Hispanics, Hispanic faculty, and theexcellent quality of education and services offered to Hispanic students.

Of Georgia Tech’s 1,536 full-time graduate students inengineering who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, 85 or 5.5 percentare Hispanic.  Hispanics earned 31postgraduate degrees in engineering, about 4.7 percent of the total amountawarded in 2010.  Out of the 446 full-time faculty members inthe College of Engineering, 12 are Hispanic at the time of survey.

“As in previous years, this great achievement has been madepossible thanks to the hard work of various individuals and entities at GeorgiaTech,” said Jorge Breton, director of Hispanic Initiatives at GeorgiaTech.  “I think we all should be veryproud of the Institute’s efforts to serve our Hispanic and Latino students aswell as other underrepresented minorities and the entire population.” 

For Fall 2011, the College of Engineering has 99 full-timeand 42 part-time Hispanic graduate students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents enrolled.

Hispanic Business magazine serves the U.S. Hispanic population with information, ideas and advicefor individuals looking to pursue or actively be involved in business. It ispublished monthly and distributed to 1.4 million subscribers throughout theUnited States.

“Family Weekend is very much a Tech community event. There are many opportunities, especially on Friday, for faculty and staff to get involved,” said Kimberly Sterritt, director of the Parents Program. “Attending a seminar or participating in a college/school reception is a great way to gain insight into what it’s like to be a student and to connect with students and their families.”  

The goal of the weekend is to help families better understand the opportunities and experiences available to their students. However, another goal that Sterritt and her staff have for the weekend is to facilitate more interaction among students, parents, faculty and staff.

“This weekend is an opportunity to reconnect with many of the families of first-year students I met during FASET orientation,” said Dean of Students and Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs John Stein, who regularly participates in the event. “In speaking with them, I can get a sense of how their sons and daughters are adjusting to being at Tech.”

This year’s Family Weekend will be held on Sept. 23 and 24, and will include a series of presentations, panel discussions and demonstrations (held on Friday in the Global Learning Center) led by Tech faculty and staff members that focus on some of the following areas:   

• Study abroad opportunities
• The Freshman Reading Project
• Student success strategies
• Managing growth on campus

On Friday afternoon, various colleges and schools will also host receptions across campus, which faculty and staff are encouraged to attend. The receptions are an opportunity for parents to ask questions regarding specific programs, Sterritt added.

“Families enjoy meeting and talking to faculty and staff, and it’s a good opportunity to hear family members’ impressions of Tech and to answer their questions,” Stein added.

To learn more, send an email here.

“Sue Ann has a deep understanding of academic excellence as well as faculty needs,” said Gary May, dean of the College of Engineering. “While research and education is critical to the success of our college, it’s also imperative that we focus equally on professional development of our faculty. She is ideally suited to fill this important role, which is focused to address the most pressing issues of one our most important resources -- our faculty.”

As associate dean, Bidstrup Allen will focus on implementing college-wide programs that help faculty advance in their professional careers. She also will oversee initiatives to update promotion and tenure processes, enhance diversity of college faculty and implement orientation, educational, mentoring and recognition programs that aim to improve faculty satisfaction, well being and performance.

Bidstrup Allen received her bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her doctorate from the University of Minnesota. Bidstrup Allen’s main research focus is in the area of new materials and processes for microelectromechanical systems and for advanced interconnects for integrated circuits.

She is a fellow of the Society of Plastics Engineers and is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society and the American Society for Engineering Education. Bidstrup Allen is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the DuPont Young Faculty Award, the 2008 American Society for Engineering Education Sharon Keillor Award and the 2008 Council of Chemical Research Diversity Award.  

TheG. Wayne Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons is a 220,000-square-foot, sustainably designed academicfacility intended to enrich undergraduates’ academic environment and presentinnovative learning opportunities. The new facility, which adjoins to the PriceGilbert Library in the crossroads of Tech’s campus, opened at the start of thefall semester.

GeorgiaTech’s 10th president, Clough – CE 1964, MS CE 1965 – was known for hiscommitment to undergraduate education during his 14 years leading the Instituteand has been named president emeritus by the University System Board ofRegents. Clough is currently the 12th secretary of the SmithsonianInstitution, the world’s largest museum and research complex with activities inmore than 100 countries.

“Tohave my name linked to this remarkable building is an honor and humbling,”Clough said. “As an alumnus of this great institution, I feel as if I representall of the thousands of alumni who went before me and those who will follow andbenefit from the Commons and what it will offer Georgia Tech’s talentedundergraduate students.” 

Thededication ceremony will be held on the first floor of the Clough Commons,across from the auditoria. The event, which is open to the public, will begin withremarks from several speakers and conclude with tours of the facility.

Speakersinclude 
Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson, University System of GeorgiaChancellor Hank Huckaby, Senior Vice President for Undergraduate Studies and AcademicAffairs Anderson D. Smith, Georgia Tech Undergraduate Student Body PresidentElle Creel and alumnus Al West.

Open24/7 year round, Clough Commons is a unique and comfortable environment outsidethe traditional classroom where students can take advantage of hands-on, collaborativeand technologically enhanced teaching and learning opportunities.

Thefacility boasts 41 classrooms ranging from intimate seminar settings to tieredlecture halls, two 300-seat plus auditoria, day-lit common areas with more than2,100 seats for individual studying and group work, and modern science labs forall foundational courses.

TheClough Commons also offers a single location for undergraduate advising,tutoring, student success programs and other student-centered academicservices.

Thebuilding’s sustainable features include innovative water recycling (89 percentprojected reuse), 1.4 million gallon cistern, locally sourced materials, nativelandscaping and rooftop solar panel array – all of which Institute officialshope will result in platinum LEED certification for the building in the future.

The347 solar panels mounted on the rooftop were designed by Suniva, a Georgia Techstart-up company based on the research and technology of Georgia Tech ProfessorAjeet Rohatgi. Radiance Solar installed the panels. Turner Construction Co.built the commons.

TheClough Commons cost $93.7 million to build and outfit, $60 million of which wasstate funded. The building is a symbol of the Institute’s commitment tosustainable and smart growth. Georgia Tech currently has five LEED certifiedbuildings on campus and several others going through the process.

“Clough UndergraduateLearning Commons is symbolic of Georgia Tech’s vision to enhance undergraduateeducation,” President Peterson said. “It also representsthe heart of Georgia Tech, for were it not for the generosity of our alumni andother supporters, coupled with an investment from the state, we would not beable to have this impressive new facility.”

“GeorgiaTech is proud of its decade-long ranking as a top ten public university,including the largest engineering program in the nation, ranked in the top fiveand a national leader in the total number of engineering degrees awarded towomen and to underrepresented minority students,” said Tech President G. P.“Bud” Peterson.  “We will continue in our journey toward preeminence ineducation, research and economic development, serving the state and thenation.” 

Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering ranked 5th in theundergraduate rankings for engineering programs at universities where thehighest degree is a Ph.D.

The School of Industrial and Systems Engineering maintainedits top ranking, while Aerospace Engineering maintained its 2nd ranking.Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering are also ranked 2nd in their discipline,both moving up from 3rd last year. Civil Engineering maintained its 3rd place rankingand Environmental Engineering moved up two spots, also ranking 3rd. ElectricalEngineering moved up to 4th from 5th last year.

Georgia Tech’s College of Management maintained it 28thranking this year.

 The Institute’s internships and cooperative educationprograms are also highlighted in “Programs to Look For”.

Georgia Tech is among the top U.S. public and private institutions invited to be part of the World Economic Forum’s Knowledge Advisory Board, a group of senior representatives from the foremost 200 universities worldwide that will advise the forum on how to engage with academic partners and the field of higher education.

“The World Economic Forum is the premier convener of thought leaders around the world,” said Steven McLaughlin, Georgia Tech’s vice provost of international initiatives. “Having Georgia Tech as the only public university in that group expands our global impact and influence, and connects us to an important international network of leaders.”

McLaughlin will be traveling to Geneva this fall to represent Georgia Tech on the Knowledge Advisory Board.

The partnership between Georgia Tech and the World Economic Forum has yielded other initiatives.  Several Georgia Tech faculty members, for example, will be participating in the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, China, Sept. 14-16.

Known as “Summer Davos,” the Annual Meeting of the New Champions is the foremost global business gathering in Asia and is designed to foster interaction, generate insight and achieve impact across more than 1,500 participants attending.

Four faculty members will be representing Georgia Tech at “Summer Davos” in Dalian.

Elizabeth Mynatt, interactive computing professor and executive director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT); Blair MacIntyre, interactive computing professor; Ian Bogost, literature, communication and culture professor; and Michael Best, associate professor of international affairs, will be presenting in the “IdeasLab with Georgia Tech: Connectivity and Social Interaction.”

They will discuss persuasive gaming to address societal issues; augmented reality in media, healthcare and politics; creative discovery to manage personal information; and social media in civic engagement and political development. The IdeasLab is a unique format during the meeting in which the world’s top academic institutions present their current thinking and the audience interacts on their ideas.

MacIntyre and Bogost will also be filming a short documentary at the meeting that profiles their research work, and Mynatt will be participating in an executive think tank on Innovation and Energy Technology hosted by NBC, Harvard Business Review, Caixin Media and Shell.

Besides holding meetings, the World Economic Forum produces a series of research reports and engages its members in sector-specific initiatives.  Georgia Tech faculty members have been asked to be academic partners on three studies for the forum.

• Renu Kulkarni, founder & executive director of FutureMedia and principal research associate at Georgia Tech, will be serving on a World Economic Forum Steering Committee focused on “The Future of Content." This committee, comprised of such global media companies as Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, comScore and Disney, will examine the disruptive role media is playing across many industries worldwide. Findings of the report will be issued at Davos in 2012.
• Mustaque Ahamad, director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center and professor of computer science, will be directing a study on cyber security.
• Donald Ratliff, executive director of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain and Logistics Institute, has been invited to become a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Logistics and Supply Chain for the 2011-2012 term. In this role, Ratliff will lead a global trade supply study.

In addition to Dalian, the World Economic Forum hosts an annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which brings together top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists to discuss world issues.

“My passion for having real impact in practice through my research has continued since my graduate school days and has shifted from focusing on the for-profit sector toward the health and humanitarian sectors,” said the Joseph C. Mello Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE). “The main motivation for this shift was that I wanted to have more of a direct — or positive — impact on people’s lives.”

While at Georgia Tech, Keskinocak met two other professors, Ozlem Ergun and Julie Swann, who shared this passion for helping others. The three established the Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics in 2007.  In a short time, the center has become a key global player in helping to ensure that disaster relief supplies — food, clean water, and medicine — arrive as quickly and efficiently as possible to those in need.

Through her work as co-director of the center, Keskinocak has collaborated with a number of governmental and nongovernmental organizations, including the American Red Cross, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CARE and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

“I consider the establishment of this center and its activities to be the most enjoyable and rewarding of my professional activities,” Keskinocak added.

Recently, The Whistle had an opportunity to learn more about Keskinocak and her time at Tech.

How did you get to your current position?
When I completed my PhD, I worked at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in the area of supply chain and revenue management for two years. I joined the ISyE faculty in 1999.

Tell us a little bit about your research.      
Recently, my research focus has been in the health and humanitarian sectors. For example, in a joint project with CARE, we looked at pre-positioning emergency supplies with the goal of shortening response times after a disaster.

What do you do to make learning more engaging for students?   
I try to use real-world examples. One example of this is a case study that I co-authored that focuses on the distribution of limited resources for indoor residual spraying for malaria prevention. We developed an Excel-based classroom game that works with the case study to provide students with a comprehensive modeling exercise, enabling them to apply various methods learned in ISyE classes.

What piece of technology could you not live without as an instructor?
I use email, PowerPoint and have a web page, but I don’t rely too much on technology in the classroom. I still like to use an old-fashioned board coupled with PowerPoint and printed exercises that I distribute.

Best place to grab lunch?
I like to go to Ferst Place with colleagues or students, since it always has something I can eat — I’m a pescaterian, so I eat seafood but no other meat— and it’s an easy walk from my office.

Name a few books you’ve read recently.
“Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson, “Little Bee” and “Incendiary” by Chris Cleave and “Pearl of China” by Anchee Min, to name a few. Also, I love to read children’s books recommended by my 9 year old so that he and I can talk about them. Most recently, we read the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer and the Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart.

If you weren’t in your current line of work, what would you be doing?
Realistically, I’d work for a nonprofit organization or be an executive in a company. In a surreal scenario, I would be a dancer.

Applicants are teamed up based on their backgrounds andstrengths to create a well-rounded group able to consider the engineering,humanitarian and health perspectives of the task at hand.

“We have a lot of global health students from Emory, so weneed more Tech students, especially engineers, to team up with them,” saidHayden Asquith, a business administration and industrial engineering major whois chairing the event for EWB-GT. Students will come primarily fromGeorgia Tech and Emory University, but some have also registered from ClemsonUniversity and the U.S. Military Academy (West Point).

Through a $15,000 donation from Siemens, EWB-GT will giveout monetary prizes in three divisions, to be named at the start of the event;first place in each division will earn $4,000, and second place $1,000. Workingwith Peacebuilding Solutions, a non-governmental organization, the winningdesign will be presented to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees thiswinter and constructed shortly thereafter.

“The competition will be an intensive week, but the payoffis worth it — not just financially, but for the experience of meeting amazingcontacts, especially for global health or refugee camps, and actually puttingwhat you learn in school into action,” Asquith said.

The weeklong competition will commence with an openingceremony on campus on Sunday, Sept. 25, when students will receive specificationsfor the refugee camp. Each group will present its design before a panel ofjudges at an open event on Saturday, Oct. 1, at the College of Management.

There are no minimum requirements for participation;interested students should apply online by Saturday, Sept. 10, either with agroup or as individuals.

In years past, a display of 3,000 flags graced the campus green space between the Student Center and Skiles; this year, that display will move to the Instructional Center lawn, still holding the significance of honoring lives lost in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Additionally, a vigil will be held Sunday evening at the Campanile at 8 p.m., where members of the campus community will share personal stories or memories related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Georgia Tech College Republicans, along with the Office of Diversity Programs, are organizing these events, along with hosting guest speaker Marc Thiessen on Thursday, Sept. 8. Thiessen, who worked as a speech writer for President George W. Bush, will give an open lecture at the College of Management’s LeCraw Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. on the status of U.S. security.

All events are open to the public, and those wishing to share a story at the Sunday vigil are encourage to contact Kristen Greig. 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), StanfordUniversity, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois round out the top five in thiscategory.

This is the ninth consecutive year that the Academic Ranking of WorldUniversities has measured the performance of top universities worldwide.

Petersonapproved the recommendation earlier this month, submitted on behalf of theCollege’s nine school chairs and four associate deans. Achievements cited underGiddens’ leadership, which formally ended June 30, include the College’sinternational reputation for excellence in engineering, the preeminence of itsfaculty and the growth of its sponsored research funding. During his tenure,the College has awarded engineering degrees to nearly 25,000 graduates at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels.

“Don’senergy, enthusiasm and dedication to engineering is felt by those of us whohave had the pleasure of working with him,” Peterson said. “The credit for ourreputation for engineering excellence resides in the quality of our faculty, andwith this honor we recognize Don’s leadership and stewardship, under which theCollege has flourished.”

An alumnus of Georgia Tech three times over, Giddens has been a member ofthe faculty for more than 40 years. He is the pastpresident of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers; this year, he will serve as president the American Society for EngineeringEducation.

Giddens,who has served as dean since 2002, announced last fall his intention to stepdown at the conclusion of the academic year. In addition to his professional activities, he plans to continue workingon his research in cardiovascular fluid mechanics on a part-time basis.

“We are extremely proud of this year’sfreshman class,” said Georgia Tech’s Director of Undergraduate Admissions RickClark. “Not only is this group extremely academically talented anddiverse ethnically and geographically, but their leadership potential,entrepreneurial spirit, innovative background and aspirationsrepresent exactly the type of students we are trying to recruit, enrolland graduate."

More than 1,000 female students are in theincoming class, which is more than an 8 percent increase from three years ago. African American, Hispanic and multi-racial enrollment has alsobeen steadily increasing in recent years.

Tech had the largest number of applications forthis year’s class, with more than 14,250 students applying, approximatelya 5 percent increase compared to last year. This year’s freshman classincludes students from 48 states and 38 countries. Sixty percent of theincoming students are in-state students, representing more than 99 of Georgia’scounties.  Just under 10 percent are international students.

Approximately2,575 freshmen will be living in on-campus housing and more than 2,400 of thatgroup will be living in freshman experience dorms. These dorms have specialprogramming to meet the needs of incoming freshmen and help them adjust to lifeon campus.

“At Georgia Tech, we recognize that all accomplishments comethrough people,” said Scott Morris, associate vice president of HumanResources. “We are so pleased to be recognized for our efforts to support anddevelop an outstanding workforce.”

Georgia Tech was recognized in four out of twelvecategories: confidence in senior leadership; job satisfaction; facilities,workspace and security; and work/life balance.

The results, released in The Chronicle’s fourth annualreport on the academic workplace, are based on a survey of approximately 44,000people at 310 institutions, including 245 four-year colleges. Honor Rollrecognition for four-year colleges was given to the 10 institutions in eachsize division that were cited most often across all of the recognitioncategories.

For example, relating to the facilities, workspaces andsecurity category, during the past 15 years, Georgia Tech has constructed andrenovated many campus facilities that serve as a vital backdrop for providingan innovative live, learn and work environment, including a significantinvestment in the human and ecological landscape.

The campus has also increased its focus on sustainability, establishingbuilding standards for environmental stewardship, sustainable design and energymanagement and requiring that all building and renovation projects be designedand built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold standards.

“We are absolutely honored to have been selected for thisrecognition, but we are not content to rest on our laurels,” said Morris. “Ourgoal is to be recognized in each of the twelve dimensions outlined in thesurvey.”

Two other Georgia colleges were included on the 2011 HonorRoll. Brenau University, Gainesville, Ga., was recognized in the small, four-yearcategory, while East Georgia College in Swainsboro, Ga., was recognized in thesmall, two-year category.

According to The Chronicle, the assessment process had twocomponents: a questionnaire about institutional characteristics and afaculty/staff questionnaire about individuals' evaluations of theirinstitutions. The assessment also included an analysis of demographic data andworkplace policies at each participating college or university. Thequestionnaires were administered online in March and April of this year.

Survey respondents were asked to respond to 60 statementsusing a five-point scale, ranging from "strongly agree" to"strongly disagree." They were also asked to rate their satisfactionwith 18 benefits, respond to two open-ended questions, and answer 15demographic questions.

“Great Colleges to Work For” is one of the largest and mostrespected workplace-recognition programs in the country. The Chronicle workedwith ModernThink LLC, a human-resources-consulting firm that has conductednumerous “Best Places to Work” programs involving more than 4,000organizations.

“Dr. Wang is an internationally renowned scholar and leader who will oversee Georgia Tech’s interdisciplinary manufacturing programs and their impact on economic development,” said Steve Cross, executive vice president for research. “Through his leadership, we will see a renaissance in manufacturing in this state.”

Wang will follow in the footsteps of Steven Danyluk, who served as the center’s director from 1994 to 2010. In addition to his work at MaRC, Wang will also hold an appointment as a professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.   

“Over the last 30 years, I have worked in various positions related to manufacturing — from operations and planning to strategy and policy,” Wang said. “The approach we will take to reaching the center’s goal of becoming the world’s manufacturing thought leader and trendsetter is to create an innovation ecosystem. We will add substantial commercial, economic and societal values to Tech professors’ inventions to license the technology to a company, create a joint venture or form a new spin-off company.”

Currently, Wang is director of the High-Performance Materials Institute at Florida State University. He also serves as an assistant vice president for research in engineering and holds the following three distinguished professorships: the Simon Ostrach Professor of Engineering, the FSU Distinguished Research Professor and the U.S. Department of Energy Samuel P. Massie Chair of Excellence.

Wang earned his bachelor’s in industrial engineering from Tunghai University in Taiwan and his master’s in industrial engineering and PhD from Pennsylvania State University.

“We applaud this initiative, and Georgia Tech is honored to collaborate to identify ways to strengthen the manufacturing sector to help create jobs in Georgia and across the United States,” said Peterson, who also serves as a member of the Secretary of Commerce's National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The steering committee will guide the efforts of industry leaders, federal agency heads and university presidents, and will partner universities with industry and government agencies to develop new research and education agendas related to advanced manufacturing.

The president also announced a new National Robotics Initiative as part of the advanced manufacturing and technology focus. Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics for Georgia Tech, serves as an academic and research leader on the National Robotics Initiative.

According to Christensen, this is a critical time for the U.S. While the last 25 years saw tremendous progress due to the Internet, the next game-changing revolution will be robotics.

“Robotics technology addresses a number of our nation’s most critical needs, including reinvigorating the U.S. manufacturing base, protecting our citizens and soldiers, caring for our aging population, preserving our environment, and reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” Christensen said. “Through the National Robotics Initiative, the United States can regain our leadership position from Europe, Japan and South Korea, both in terms of basic research and in terms of the application of the technology to secure future growth. As home to one of the nation’s top robotics programs, Georgia Tech is an enthusiastic member of this strategic effort.”

The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership will commit to form a multiuniversity, collaborative framework for the sharing of educational materials and best practices relating to advanced manufacturing and its linkage to the innovation.

Susan Hockfield, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Andrew Liveries of Dow Chemical are chairing the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership steering committee.  In addition to Peterson, other committee members include University of California at Berkley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, Stanford President John Hennessy and Carnegie Mellon President Jared Cohon.

“Many of our challenges can be solved through innovation and fostering an entrepreneurial environment, as well as collaboration between industry, education and government to create a healthy economic environment and an educated workforce,” Peterson said. “This collaborative effort will facilitate job creation and global competitiveness and is a component of Georgia Tech’s strategic plan.”

Obamainvited leaders from industry, government and higher education to helpestablish a national manufacturing agenda. He will announce several actionsbeing implemented by his administration including the creation of an AdvancedManufacturing Partnership, to be spearheaded by leaders from top engineeringuniversities and several major U.S. manufacturers. President Obama's speech, held inCarnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center, will bestreamed online at the following link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/live

Thepresident is expected to discuss establishing U.S. leadership innext-generation robotics. Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics at GeorgiaTech who serves as an academic and research leader on the National RoboticsInitiative, will also participate in the summit.

“Iam very pleased to be a part of this effort that brings together government,industry and research universities to design solutions to ensure America’smanufacturing competitiveness now and in the future,” Peterson said.  “Georgia Tech is an economic engine for the stateof Georgia, and we are honored to work in concert with other universities,industries and the government to foster economic development and help create jobson a national level as well.”

Accordingto Peterson, commercialization is deeply ingrained in the mission of theInstitute.

“GeorgiaTech will continue to play an important role in assisting the Americanmanufacturing sector in becoming more competitive,” he said.

Petersonalso serves as a member of the Secretary of Commerce's National AdvisoryCouncil on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Ammons is the first woman to be named a school chair in Georgia Tech’sCollege of Engineering. She was also the first woman to receive a Ph.D. fromthe School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) in 1982 and the firstwoman faculty member in the school.

“Dr.Ammons brings with her a superb track record as a researcher, advisor, andrecognized leader in the field of industrial engineering. She brings with her avision to lead the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering to higherlevels of excellence within a multidisciplinary and high-technologyenvironment,” said Don P. Giddens, dean of the College of Engineering. “Dr.Ammons is a well-rounded educator and administrator, and we look forward to thedevelopment of new curriculum, service and research endeavors.”

Ammons currently holds the rank of professor and also has served as associatedean for faculty affairs in the College of Engineering since 2004. She is theauthor or co-author of more than 100 refereed and technical publications in thearea of manufacturing systems and supply chain engineering with a specialinterest in developing closed-loop, environmentally sustainable systems. Ammonshas served in several school, college and Institute capacities, including as theNational Science Foundation ADVANCE professor of engineering from 2002 to 2005.She has been principal or co-principal investigator on a variety of sponsoredresearch programs, having enjoyed support from both industry and federalfunding agencies.

In addition to her research and institutionalservice activities, Ammons has been highly active in professional serviceexternal to Georgia Tech. Ammons is a past president of the Institute ofIndustrial Engineers and has chaired the National Science Foundation EngineeringAdvisory Committee. She is a member of the Technical Committee for the Uganda:Millennium Science Initiative Project, co-financed by the World Bank, andserves as a program evaluator for ABET, Inc., the engineering educationaccreditation organization.

At Georgia Tech, Ammons has been honored with eightteaching/faculty awards at the school and university levels. In addition to heracademic experience, Ammons has worked as a plant engineer for an industrialmanufacturer and is a registered professional engineer in the state of Georgia.

The H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial andSystems Engineering is the largest academic program of its kind in theworld with a strong foundation in optimization, stochastics, simulation andstatistics. With the recent release of the 2012 U.S. News & World Report, ISyE again was ranked as the No. 1 graduateprogram of its kind, making this the 21st consecutive number oneranking. 

“Gary exemplifies the type ofleadership qualities we hope to instill in each of our students,” ProvostRafael L. Bras said. “As a faculty member, administrator and representative ofGeorgia Tech, his impact on his profession and on this institution has beenprofound.”

May will succeed Don Giddens, who will be stepping down as dean of the College of Engineering, a post he has held since 2002, and retiring from the Institute at the end of June.

Asdean, May will assume responsibility for directing the nation’s largestengineering program, one that enrolls nearly 60 percent of Georgia Tech’s studentbody and is home to about half of its tenured and tenure-track faculty.

“Iam grateful for the opportunity to lead a premier institution like the Collegeof Engineering,” said May. “It is truly an honor and a privilege to beentrusted with one of the world’s most respected brands, and I am lookingforward to working with faculty across the college to advance the quality of oureducation and research programs.”

A native of St. Louis,Missouri, May earned his bachelor’s in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech as a student in Georgia Tech's Cooperative Education Program, a five-year accredited, academic program in which students alternate semesters of full-time study with semesters of full-time, paid employment directly related to their major. Current College of Engineering Dean Giddens was also a co-op student at Georgia Tech.

For his graduate studies, May pursued both his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley. He returned to Tech as an assistant professor in 1991,achieving full professor status in 2000. Two years later he was tapped bythen-President Wayne Clough to serve as his faculty executive assistant, a rolethat introduced him to administrative responsibilities at an institutionallevel.

May,who has chaired the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 2005, sharedhis aspirations for the future of the college during a public presentation lastmonth.

“My vision is to create anenvironment where anyone with the aptitude and inclination to study engineeringwill want to come to Georgia Tech,” he said. In partnership with colleagues inthe other colleges, he added, “we will build a community of scholars to addressthe issues and challenges of the world through technology.”

“Gary’srecord of scholarship, his collaborative nature and his tireless mentorship tostudents are admirable,” President Bud Peterson said. “We are very excited about the future of engineeringeducation and research at Georgia Tech under Gary’s leadership.”

Bras thanked the members ofthe search committee for their service, as well as the members of the largercampus community who participated in the evaluation process.

“Weconducted an international search to identify the best possible candidates tolead our largest academic unit,” Bras said. “That the final choice for thismost important and desirable position is one of our own , as a graduate,professor and academic leader, speaks to the excellence of Georgia Tech."

By providing opportunities for Georgia’s engineering deansto gather and discuss the crucial issues facing their schools, as well as theengineering profession, the GCES will seek to expand the depth and breadth ofengineering educational and professional opportunities in the state.

Founding members of the organization are the University ofGeorgia, Southern Polytechnic State University, Mercer University, GeorgiaSouthern University, and Georgia Institute of Technology.  The Georgia Consortium of Engineering Schoolswill have its inaugural meeting at Southern Polytechnic State University on May23, 2011.

 “With the growth ofengineering programs within the University System of Georgia, it is importantthat the engineering deans of the participating institutions met regularly andcoordinate our efforts on behalf of the state,” said Don P. Giddens, dean ofGeorgia Tech’s College of Engineering. “Creating a formal group through whichcommunications and synergistic efforts can be effective is an important step inmaximizing the impact of limited State resources and also will provide amechanism to serve our students better. Georgia Tech is enthusiastic over thisapproach.”

The project’sobjective is to generate public awareness of political issues related to votingdistricts, proposing a mathematical algorithm to automatically redistrictregions using census data. Project Redistrict, a project of Georgia TecheDemocracy, has the long-term goal of constructing an intuitive website thatredistricts areas based on parameters such as population equality, density andcontiguity.

“The team workedvery hard throughout the term and is very excited to be awarded this grant,”said Sheetul Hassan, a third-year materials science and engineering student andteam leader for the project. “The grant money will be used primarily forimprovement of our innovation through community outreach programs and inmuch-needed software. This is a great honor and we look forward to the futuresuccess of this project.”

Team membersinclude industrial and systems engineering students Charlotte Huang, SwethaKrishnakumar and Xiaotong Yang; computer science student Himani Manglani; andpublic policy student Stephanie Noble. Rich DeMillo, distinguished professor inthe College of Computing, served as faculty advisor.

The honorincludes $1,000 for project implementation, $500 in student scholarships and a$1,000 stipend to DeMillo. The team will be presented with certificates ofmerit at Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson’s office on May 5.

GeorgiaTech researchers –  Nathan Mlot, mechanical engineering graduate student; Craig Tovey, professor of industrial and systemsengineering; and David Hu, joint professor of mechanical engineering and biology – have solved the mystery of how fire ants self-assembleinto a waterproof raft.

Usingtime-lapse photography and mathematical modeling, the Georgia Tech team foundthat fire ants act collaboratively rather than individually to form awater-repellant, buoyant raft.  

Apaper describing the research, titled “Fire ants self-assemble into waterproofrafts to survive floods,” was published April 25 in the early edition of thejournal Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences.

“It’sa real thrill unraveling what at first looks like chaos,” Tovey said. “Tounderstand what the individual behaviors are and how they combine in order toachieve the function of the group is the central puzzle one encounters whenstudying social insects.”

Anindividual ant’s exoskeleton is moderately hydrophobic. But fire ants enhancetheir water repellency by linking their bodies together, a process similar tothe weaving of a waterproof fabric, researchers said.  

Byfreezing the ants, the Georgia Tech team observed that fire ants constructrafts when placed in water by gripping each other with mandibles, claw andadhesive pads at a force 400 times their body weight.

Theresult is a viscous and elastic material that is almost like a fluid composedof ant “molecules,” researchers said. The ants spread out from a sphere into apancake-shaped raft that resisted perturbations and submergence techniques.

Todetermine how this is possible, Tovey and the team tracked the ants’ travel andmeasured the raft’s dimensions. They found the ants move using a stereotypedsequence of behavior. The ants walk in straight lines, ricocheting off theedges of the raft and walking again until finally adhering to an edge, Toveysaid. The ant raft is water repellent because of cooperative behavior.

Theant raft provides cohesion, buoyancy and water repellency to its passengers. Evenmore remarkable, it is self-assembled quickly, in less than 100 seconds. It is alsoself-healing, meaning if one ant is removed from the raft, others move in tofill the void.

“Self-assemblyand self-healing are hallmarks of living organisms,” Hu said. “The ant raftdemonstrates both these abilities, providing another example that an ant colonybehaves like a super organism.”

Theresearch could have application to logistics and operations research andmaterial sciences, specifically the construction of man-made flotation devices.It also could impact the field of robotics, the team said.

“Withthe ants, we have a group of unintelligent units acting on a few behaviors thatallow them to build complex structures and accomplish tasks,” Mlot said. “In autonomousrobotics, that’s what is desired—to have robots follow a few simple rules foran end result.” 

The following excerpt is number 6 on the list “125 Pieces of Tech History,” featured in the September/October 2010 issue of Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine:
One of Dean of Students George Griffin’s hats hangs on display in the Alumni House. Griffin was hailed as “Mister Georgia Tech.”

In 1946, Griffin, “with his obvious love of people, unfailing sense of humor and talent for dealing with students and faculty, was an overwhelming choice for dean of students,” said a tribute written for the unveiling of a portrait of him in the Alumni House.

After retiring in 1964, Griffin was named dean of students emeritus, and he opened a job placement service on campus for alumni over age 40. Nearly until his death in 1990 at 92, Griffin reported daily to an office he maintained in the Alumni House.

The forum focused on lessons from the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crises and was moderated by Brian Woodall of the School of International Affairs. The following panelists participated:

• Pinar Keskinocak, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Usha C. Nair-Reichert, School of Economics
• Glenn Rix, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Glenn Sjoden, School of Mechanical Engineering

“The program is off to a great start,” said Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “The submitted proposals mesh well with our strategic plan, and that was our hope.”

The program has two purposes. The first aims to facilitate planning for large extramural proposals — those that are of strategic value to the Institute and have more than $500,000 in direct costs per year. The second provides support for feasibility studies of transformative ideas in research and/or education.

“Innovation in research is critical for us to lead and set the science, technology and policy agenda for the United States and the world,” said Steve Cross, executive vice president for research. “I am happy to support GT FIRE in stimulating faculty thinking and creativity.”

Funding of up to $4,000 per group is available on an ongoing basis for large extramural proposals and can be requested for costs associated with workshops, meetings, retreats and limited travel.

Funding of up to $40,000 for up to two years is available for transformative research and education proposals for costs associated with feasibility studies.

Two proposals have received funding to assist in planning for extramural grants including one from Ken Sandhage, on behalf of the Materials Council, for a workshop titled, “The Future of Materials Characterization at Georgia Tech,” and another from Bojan Petrovic, Glenn Sjoden and Farzad Rahnema of the School of Mechanical Engineering to facilitate planning for a $7.5 million, multidiscipline, multi-institution, Tech-led Department of Energy Integrated Research Project research proposal.    

Out of an initial 42 submitted transformative proposals, the following three research-related ideas and four education-related ideas were selected for funding:

For Research

• Determinants of ‘Innocence:’ Modeling Exoneration Via Innocence Project Data, Kobi Abayomi, Industrial and Systems Engineering
• Development of Aptamers for Gene Targeting, Francesca Storici, School of Biology
• Epigenomic Divergence between Primates and Evolution of Human Disease, Soojin Yi, School of Biology

For Education

• Educating a Biotechnology Policy and Security Workforce, Margaret Kosal, School of International Affairs, and Robert Butera, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Advancing Science Process Skill Development through Inquiry-based Biology Laboratory Classes, Cara Gormally and Joseph Montoya, School of Biology  
• Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Design Minor, David Rosen, School of Mechanical Engineering
• Technology Commercialization and Innovation in the Global Economy, Marie Thursby, College of Management

Submissions were reviewed by a committee consisting of faculty members from across campus, with Ravi Bellamkonda, associate vice president for research, and Ray Vito, vice provost for graduate and undergraduate studies, leading the group.  

“The GT FIRE program is the first of many initiatives on campus to foster and stimulate innovation,” Vito said. “There were more worthy ideas than we could support. But our offices will work to support these programs in other ways.”

To apply, contact Monique Tavares.     

Outreach by Georgia Tech Students

Through theStudent Government Association’s Tech Cares for Japan initiative, credit cardor BuzzCard donations can now be made at the following link: https://epay.gatech.edu/C20793_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=126

Funds collectedthrough this link and other efforts will be consolidated into a single checkand presented to the American Red Cross on behalf of Georgia Tech students.

Tech Caresfor Japan has also kicked off a “1,000 cranes” fundraising effort. Volunteerswill staff a table near Einstein Bros. Bagels through April 5 and collect aminimum $1 donation for each crane that is created. Plans are to display thefolded cranes in the Student Center.

Crisis and Recovery Insight
On Wednesday, April 6, Georgia Tech experts will participate in a faculty-ledconversation to discuss the causes, response  and consequences of the catastrophe in Japan.The event will be held in room 236 of the Global Learning Center from 4 to 5:30p.m.

Thediscussion will be moderated by Brian Woodall, Sam Nunn School of InternationalAffairs, and questions from the audience are welcomed. The panel members are:

    * Pinar Keskinocak, H. Milton StewartSchool of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    * Usha C. Nair-Reichert, School ofEconomics

    * Glenn Rix, School of Civil andEnvironmental Engineering

    * Glenn Sjoden, George W. Woodruff Schoolof Mechanical Engineering
Honored guests for the event include representatives of the Consulate-Generalof Japan in Atlanta. Guests will have the opportunity to sign a book ofcondolence and encouragement for the Japanese people, and a number oforganizations will be present for those who want to become more activelyengaged in recovery efforts.

International Programs

Allinternational work and study abroad programs destined for Japan have beencanceled due to ongoing disaster conditions in the country and based on thetravel warning issued by the U.S. Department of State. This decision impactsnot only students who planned to participate in programs this spring, but also atotal of 22 students who were scheduled to participate in summer work and studyabroad programs. Georgia Tech is working with students whose programs are canceled to try to minimize the negative consequences for the students. 

Georgia Techis also reaching out to students in Japan. The Institute is finalizinglogistics to host two or three graduate students from Tohoku University in oneof Tech’s research centers as well as exploring other ways that students mightbe accommodated.

Ten of theCollege of Engineering's programs have again been ranked in the top 10including industrial engineering (No. 1), biomedical (No. 2), civil (No. 3),aerospace (No. 4), environmental (No. 5), electrical (No. 6), computer (No. 6),mechanical (No. 6), nuclear (No. 8) and materials (No. 8). Chemical engineeringranked just outside the top ten at No. 11.

“The sustained excellence of our College ofEngineering rankings serve as a testament to our outstanding faculty, staff andstudents,” said Georgia Tech PresidentG.P. “Bud” Peterson. “As we move forward to define our future, our excellencein architecture, engineering, business, science  and technology – and howthey interface with public policy and the liberal arts – will continue toprovide a unique resource for interdisciplinary innovation.”

The GeorgiaTech College of Management full-time MBA program was ranked No. 28, while theInstitute's part-time MBA program moved up seven spots to No. 17.

The group designed a latrine that uses solar energy to inactivatedisease-causing pathogens in waste and render it safe to use as fertilizer. Theproject is a collaboration of EWB-GT students, the Georgia Tech ResearchInstitute (GTRI), Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health andcommunity leaders in Bolivia where the team has worked on installing protoypesof the system.

“In many communities, water is too precious to use fortransporting waste,” said Kevin Caravati, research scientist at GTRI, which ledto the group’s investigation of dry sanitation methods. The sanitized waste“can be used as fertilizer for biofuel crops or cotton, but people do use itfor food, so we must make sure it’s safe — that’s where Emory and the Centersfor Disease Control help us out."

In addition to the solar latrine project, EWB-GT currentlyhas projects in Honduras and Cameroon; on Thursday, April 7, they’re hosting an eventto recognize World Water Day, which officially fell during the Institute’s springbreak, with their Mungoa-goa Challenge on Freshman Hill.

For the challenge, participants will race their friends up the hill while carrying fivegallons of water to raise awareness for the one billion people who lack accessto clean drinking water. Donations at the event will go to the Cameroon projectteam, which plans to travel there this summer.

“The Cameroon group is ready to really get intoimplementation,” said Chris Donegia, president of EWB-GT. In December 2010, theCameroon group began implementing a water distribution system in the village ofMungoa-goa by starting the installation of a solar-powered well. “Thatcommunity is great — they have a whole list of projects they want to do.”

EWB as an organization designs and implements sustainable,community-driven engineering projects that foster leadership within communitiesand among students. EWB in the United States formed in 2002; the Tech chapteremerged three years later.

Valle, an academic professional in the G. W. Woodruff Schoolof Mechanical Engineering, received her master’s and doctoral degrees fromGeorgia Tech in mechanical engineering. She also holds a master’s degree inaerospace engineering from a French “Grande Ecole,” EPF, the first engineeringschool in France to admit only women.

The Georgia Tech Women in Engineering program is dedicatedto recruiting top female students into engineering majors and, once enrolled,to ensure the highest level of retention by fostering an environment thatencourages curiosity, creativity and intellectual and personal growth. Theprogram strives to redefine the engineering profession as a positive societalforce with the potential to improve the quality of life through the creation ofworld changing technologies.

Georgia Tech is home of the largest engineering program inthe country and graduates more women engineers than any other institute in theU.S.  Since 1990, Georgia Tech hasincreased the number of women awarded engineering degrees by 70 percent. InFall 2010, the College of Engineering enrolled almost 12,000 students with afemale enrollment of more than 2,600.

Valle has taught at Georgia Tech since 2004 both in civiland environmental engineering and mechanical engineering. She has also been onthe faculty of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University ofMaine. She spent several years in private industry with the MetLife Group as abusiness analyst.

While at Tech, Valle has received numerous awards includingan Amelia Earhart Zonta Foundation Fellowship, the Sigma Xi Best Ph.D. ThesisAward, and the CETL Undergraduate Educator Award.

Just check out the predictionsby LRMC (Logistic Regression Markov Chain), the computer ranking systemdesigned by three professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

It predicts this year’s NCAAFinal Four matchups will most likely be Ohio State vs. Duke and Kansas vs.Brigham Young University (BYU), with Ohio State beating Kansas for thechampionship.

The southeast region has thebiggest likelihood of first-round upsets by double-digit seeds, with MichiganState, Gonzaga, Utah State and Belmont looking like all good candidates.

“Since one of BYU’s bestplayers left the team, the southeast region is really wide open,” said JoelSokol, operations research professor in the Stewart School of Industrial andSystems Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Since the 2000 season, LRMChas correctly predicted the outcomes of more NCAA tournament games thancompeting ranking systems and major polls.

Last year, LRMC correctlypredicted the winners of 51 out of 64 NCAA games – beating out more than 50 ofthe top ranking sites. In 2008, the system predicted not only the Final Four,final two and the eventual victor, but also several upsets in earlier rounds.

Developed by Georgia TechProfessors Joel Sokol, Paul Kvam and George Nemhauser, with assistance fromMark Brown, math professor at City College of New York, LRMC utilizes data suchas home court advantage, scores, teams competing and margin of victory in pastperformances to calculate likely victors.

But it also uses statisticalmethods to determine potential underdogs, which Kvam calls the “six degrees ofKevin Bacon approach.”

“The system bounces fromteam to team looking at their results, trying to hone in on who is really No.1,” Sokol said. “The team that it keeps coming back to most often is our No. 1,and so on.”

With 68 teams vying for collegebasketball's biggest prize, more teams than ever before, the tournament canalways be affected by upset, injuries or last-second, buzzer-beating baskets.That’s the human factor where LRMC predictions can falter. 

But the system has provenmore reliable with its predictions than the NCAA’s own Ratings Percentage Index(RPI). Historically, the upgraded LRMC method has picked the winner ofmore than 74 percent of tournament games correctly, while the RPI has beenright less than 70 percent of the time.

Sokol recommends startingwith LRMC predictions and making tweaks based on your own personal knowledge orpreference.

“It’s like Watson,” Sokolsaid of the IBM Supercomputer that appeared on “Jeopardy!” last month. “OverallLRMC is likely to be better than others, but every once in a while it sayssomething that you look at and say, ‘How could that be?’”

In addition, Jill Burya, assistant director of Georgia Tech's Work Abroad Program, was traveling in Japan on a Department of Education grant when the earthquake hit. She has safely returned to the United States.

Georgia Tech also has 35 students enrolled from Japan. OIE iscontacting these students to offer support and counseling services inthis potential time of need. For those who may have family or friendsin Japan, the Georgia Tech Counseling Center provides a variety ofservicesto students and the greater campus community. See the CounselingCenter's website at http://www.counseling.gatech.edu/index.php,foradditional details.

In addition, throughout the day, Georgia Tech researchers have providedtheir insight and expertise to the media and the public through ABC, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, CNN,CNN en Español, the Weather Channel, Fox News and other national newsorganizations. As this natural disaster transitions from a response torecovery situation, Georgia Tech will be involved in the research arenain terms of evaluating the impact of the earthquake and translatingthat knowledge into useful information designed to help mitigate futuredisasters.

Georgia Tech will continue to monitor the impact of the earthquake inJapan, the Pacific and other affected areas and stands ready to offerthe Institute's assistance and expertise.

Representatives from the humanitarian sector, government, nonprofitsand academia will address these questions and more at the 3rd annual Health andHumanitarian Logistics Conference, to be held March 3-4 at Georgia Tech’sGlobal Learning Center. The conference is open to the public.

“The conference will play an important role in highlightingthe key issues and challenges in the health and humanitarian sectors and willhelp build bridges, enable the exchange of ideas and establish collaborationsacross different players,” said Pinar Keskinocak, professor in the School ofIndustrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Participants from across the globe – countries such asCanada, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, India, Kenya, theNetherlands, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Uganda, and Zambia – areexpected to attend the conference.

Georgia Tech and The UPS Foundation, the charitable arm ofUnited Parcel Service, are sponsors of this year's conference.


"UPS has become a leading force in urgent humanitarianrelief with the logistics expertise, technology and assets we can bring,"said Ken Sternad, president of The UPS Foundation.  "Working withpartners like Georgia Tech helps UPS to extend its support for our communitiesin preparedness, response and recovery in times of disaster." 



The Georgia Tech Global Learning Center is located at 84Fifth St. NW, Atlanta, GA 30308.

As one of the most highly respectedengineering universities in the world, Georgia Tech will be hosting a varietyof activities and events in observance of National Engineers Week.

Tau Beta Pi, Georgia Tech’s engineering honor society, isorganizing the following events:

Feb.  21
Humpty Dumpty Egg Drop:  11:00 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Students are invited todesign a device to keep an egg safe in a drop from the stairs of Bobby DoddStadium to Calloway Plaza below.

EngineeringMovie Night: 8 p.m.  The original Tron movie will be shown in the StudentSuccess Center’s Clary Theater.  (Freepopcorn and soft drinks will be provided.)

Feb. 22
Rubik’s Cube Contest:  11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Participants will begiven three opportunities to solve a Rubik’s Cube in a record amount of time.Each attempt to solve the cube will be timed, and the lowest time will berecorded for competition. 

Build-A-Thon:  1:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Teams of up to fourmembers will bring at least 15 cans to build a unique structure entirely out ofcanned food.  All canned goods will bedonated to the Atlanta Community Food Bank after the competition. Constructionwill take place on the Student Instructional Center lawn sidewalk.

Feb.23
Engineering Exposition: 10:30 a.m.-1:00p.m.
Honor societies,professional societies, research groups and other organizations will presentcreative demonstrations on the Student Instructional Center lawn sidewalk.

SkyscraperContest:  Noon -3:30 p.m.
Students construct skyscrapers out of marshmallows, skewers and toothpicks withthe tallest and strongest garnering top honors.

Feb.  24
Dodgeball Tournament:10:00 a.m.
Sixteen teams will play in this single-elimination tournament, which will takeplace in the North Avenue Gymnasium. 

Feb. 25
Comedy Night:  8:00 p.m -9:30 p.m.
Enjoy an admission-free show by a comedianfrom the Punchline. The event will take place in Midtown Theater, the small circularstage outside of Burdell’s in the Student Center. 

The week will culminate with therecognition of engineering achievements at the annual Georgia EngineeringAlliance’s Awards Banquet planned for Feb. 26 at the Georgia Tech Hotel andConference Center.

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“It's a tremendous honor and a dream come true,”said Wellkamp. “The chance to study at Oxford will be exciting, challenging andintellectually enriching. I feel incredibly blessed to get an opportunity likethis.”

Wellkamp says he’s eager to pursue a world-classeducation in economics and already realizes how the degree can help him withhis long-term goals.

“Given the economic challenges our country andour world are facing right now, and looking forward to our long-term challengessuch as energy, climate change and sustainable economic development, I think weneed more leaders who are well-versed in economics,” said Wellkamp.  “I am also excited to gain aglobal outlook on the challenges facing humanity through exposure to British,European and other international perspectives.”

Wellkamp, who was awarded the Harry S. TrumanScholarship in 2009, graduated from Georgia Tech last year with a double majorin industrial and systems engineering and public policy. 

As a student, Wellkamp was elected UndergraduateStudent Government Association President for 2008-09, during which time he ledinitiatives to promote campus sustainability and reform the Institute’spolicies regarding football ticketing, campus e-mails and final exampreparation. In addition, he served on the Georgia Tech Presidential SearchCommittee and was a member of the Student Advisory Committee to the Board ofRegents.

Wellkamp was also active in politics and publicpolicy outside of campus, spending one summer working in the Office of Scienceand Technology Policy at the White House and another summer with a politicalconsulting firm in Atlanta. Wellkamp is not resting on his past success andhopes to pursue his passions relating to clean energy.

According to Wellkamp, he began contemplatingwhether to apply for the Marshall Scholarship more than a year and half ago.

“It's an intense and highly reflective process,”said Wellkamp. “The application itself involves a 1,000-word personalstatement, two more 500-word essays about your proposed program of study andwhy you want to study in the UK, and several other smaller essays as well. Ialso had to get four letters of recommendation (a of mix academic andprofessional references) and an institutional endorsement from Georgia Tech.”

After being selected as a finalist, Wellkamp hada 30-minute interview with a six-member panel in Atlanta, where they asked himquestions ranging from subjects in economics to solar panel technologies to theBritish prime minister candidate debates this past April.

The Master of Science in Supply Chain Engineering will be anintensive, 12-month curriculum in analytic methods, supply chain engineeringand enterprise management with a focus on creating strong networks betweenstudents and industry.

“We listened carefully to the industry community and to thestudents at Georgia Tech to design a program that meets the needs of the supplychain professional of the 21^st century,” said Harvey Donaldson,associate chair of industry and international programs at ISyE.  “With this degree, students now canpursue a highly focused graduate education experience in supply chain engineeringand explore immediate career opportunities with global enterprises.”

Supply chain engineers plan networks thatmove raw materials and supplies into production facilities, transform them intofinished goods and distribute products to customer markets.

Students, who may come from a wide range of academic,business and geographical backgrounds, will progress through the programtogether as a cohort in small class sizes and with experiential learningactivities.

Designedto be a new professional graduate education model, the program consistsof eight required courses and two electives offered during the fall and springsemesters. In addition, a capstone industry experience – where students willapply their knowledge to a real-world supply chain engineering project – will beoffered during the summer.

For 20 consecutive years, U.S.News & World Report has ranked Georgia Tech’s School of Industrial andSystems Engineering as the No. 1 graduate program for industrial andmanufacturing engineering in the nation (http://www.isye.gatech.edu/news-events/news/release.php?nid=55538).

The school is currently accepting applications for theAugust 2011 class. The deadline is March 1. 

The study -- conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) -- examined factors that may have contributed to the striking state-by-state variation in U.S. H1N1 flu vaccination rates. The results of the study were revealed on Oct. 26 at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making.

"Health officials in states that reported lower H1N1 vaccination rates should learn from states with high vaccination rates during the 2009 event to increase their rates during the next pandemic or significant health emergency," said Julie Swann, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Swann also held a joint appointment at the CDC for six months last year through its Preparedness Modeling Unit.

CDC Immunization Services Division Branch Chief Pascale Wortley and Georgia Tech graduate student Carlo Davila Payan worked with Swann on this project.

Among American adults, H1N1 vaccine coverage ranged from a high of 34 percent in South Dakota to a low of nine percent in Mississippi. The research team found that states with higher past seasonal influenza vaccination coverage or use of other preventive health services in adults showed higher 2009 H1N1 vaccination rates.

"These findings suggest that an increase in health-seeking behavior may increase vaccination rates during a pandemic," noted Swann. "If we could encourage more adults to be vaccinated against flu each year, we might have more success in protecting them from the next pandemic."

Lower adult H1N1 vaccination coverage was observed in states where the disease circulated for a long period of time. That might have occurred because if someone in a household already had influenza, others in the household did not feel the need to get vaccinated, explained Swann.

In terms of supply chain factors, vaccination coverage was lower in states where more time was required to order allocated doses. The team noted that time lags in the system may be a function of efficiency or differences in system processes across states, suggesting monitoring and potential system design changes.

For high-risk adults -- those with underlying medical conditions that make them more susceptible to severe outcomes from influenza infection -- coverage ranged from 10 to 47 percent across the country. While the yearly acceptance of seasonal flu vaccination affected the likelihood of H1N1 vaccination for this group as well, the study found that states with a large percentage of individuals medically underserved by health professionals showed lower coverage for H1N1 immunization.

"This shows that the public health issues such as not having enough primary care providers or having high poverty in an area not only have an impact on daily primary care, but also emergency pandemic care as well," said Swann.

Among children aged six months to 17 years, vaccine coverage ranged from a high of 85 percent in Rhode Island to a low of 21 percent in Georgia. In this group, the researchers found that states with a higher percentage of children showed lower vaccination coverage. Conversely, a focus on school vaccination or a high number of doses sent to or administered in public access areas positively impacted the H1N1 vaccine coverage.

"Accounting for the relative size of a state's child population in allocating vaccine could improve vaccination coverage of children, in a scenario where children are targeted, especially if children of some ages require two doses of the vaccine, which was the case with the H1N1 vaccine," said Swann.

In terms of supply chain factors, vaccination for children was associated positively with the number of shipments per location. According to the research team, repeated distribution to the same sites could represent underlying system differences related to the efficiency of those states, the use of school vaccination programs or their ability to monitor vaccine use and redistribute to providers who were vaccinating quickly.

In this study, the researchers were able to explain more than 75 percent of the variation in state-specific vaccination coverage of adults or children with regression models that included only statistically significant variables.

Some of the state-specific data that the research team collected in their search for factors that influenced H1N1 vaccination coverage included:

• Demographic data -- e.g. race, education level and income
• State and government data -- e.g. number of counties and federal dollars per capita
• Health indicators -- e.g. seasonal flu vaccination rates and number of healthcare providers
• H1N1 surveys -- e.g. how the vaccine was allocated (by the state or locally) and the availability of doses in public settings
• CDC allocation and shipment data -- e.g. number of vaccination sites and peak week of Influenza-like illness activity

While the study found relevant factors, the researchers note that the recommendations of the study are based on data collected during a vaccine shortage situation and may not apply to a non-shortage situation. In addition, even though the team collected as much data as they could on state infrastructures and decision-making processes, complete data from every state was not available.

"Ultimately, the study suggests factors that public health agencies might consider monitoring in an emergency vaccination program with limited vaccine supply, and several other aspects public health systems could consider when designing systems," added Swann.

Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA

Media Relations Contacts: Abby Vogel Robinson (abby@innovate.gatech.edu; 404-385-3364) or John Toon (jtoon@gatech.edu; 404-894-6986)

Writer: Abby Vogel Robinson

The Institute garnered an overall grade of "A-" on the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card, also known as the Green Report Card. The Sustainable Endowments Institute issues the annual report to measure sustainability initiatives at colleges and universities.

More than 330 national colleges and universities are graded in nine categories, ranging from Climate Change & Energy, Green Building and Food & Recycling to Administration, Investment Priorities and Student Involvement. In eight of the nine categories, Tech earned an "A" grade, added with a "C" in Shareholder Engagement.

Schools with an average grade of "A-" or better across all categories are recognized as Overall College Sustainability Leaders. Across the country, 52 institutions earned this distinction; for the region, only the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Furman University were awarded top-tier status. Seven schools received an A — the highest grade given.

A three-time graduate of Georgia Tech, Giddens has spentmost of his more than 40-year career at his alma mater, interrupted only by afive-year tenure as dean of engineering at The Johns Hopkins University from1992-1997.

Upon his return to Tech, Giddens led the development of anew type of joint education and research model, partnering with EmoryUniversity in the creation of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.The program built on each institution’s respective strengths and was one of thefirst of its kind in the nation. Giddens served as the inaugural chair of thefledgling department and was subsequently named dean of the College in 2002.

In announcing Giddens’ decision, Provost Gary Schuster praisedhis leadership in directing a college that enrolls nearly 60 percent of thestudent body.

“Don and I have worked together for almost two decades,during which time I have respected his leadership within Biomedical Engineering,the College of Engineering and his alma mater,” Schuster said. “Don has playeda key part in shaping Georgia Tech’s reputation and has helped build thegroundwork for its continuing and expanding preeminence.”

Giddens has also been active in helping the general publicgain a better understanding of both the engineering profession and theengineer’s role in society. In 2008, he chaired a National Academy ofEngineering committee that explored the ways in which messaging and practicalcommunication could help change perceptions, engage students and portray a morepositive image of engineering. Earlier this year, he was selected as president-electof the American Society for Engineering Education. Following his retirement,Giddens will return to the faculty on a part-time basis to continue hisresearch in cardiovascular fluid mechanics as well as his professionalactivities.

“The impact that Don has had on this institution is immense,and we thank him for his tireless service on behalf of Georgia Tech,” PresidentG. P. “Bud” Peterson said. “His enthusiasm for engineering cannot be overstated,and we will continue to look to him as a resource in assessing the future ofengineering education in the United States.”

“Georgia Tech has changed dramatically since I arrived as afreshman student in 1958, and I could never have dreamed then that I would oneday be dean of the largest, and I would argue the best, engineering college inthe country,” Giddens said. “This institutional ascendancy in such a relativelyshort time is truly remarkable. But upon reflection, I’m not surprised. We havethe best people — faculty, students, staff and alumni — one can imagine, and itis the people who make Georgia Tech great. I’m happy to have been fortunateenough to spend almost an entire career here.”

The Institute will form a search committee and initiate a  search for a successor in the comingweeks.

Peterson and his wife, Val, are traveling the state from north to south July 12 – 16. Stops will include Young Harris, Athens, Watkinsville, Greensboro, Perry, Warner Robins, Fort Valley, Lyons, Vidalia and Albany.

This is the second annual state tour for the Petersons. As new residents of Georgia, Peterson initiated the visits last year to provide an opportunity to meet face-to-face with alumni, students, state leaders and other friends to share updates on Georgia Tech and to listen to questions and concerns. Stops for the 2009 tour included Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Brunswick and Augusta.

As the Institute’s seventh president, the 44-year-old was “readily accessible to students … and shared with many of the student leaders a concern about contemporary social problems.” He left the Institute two years later to become president of his alma mater, Purdue University.

He joined Georgia Tech in 1966 as dean of engineering. Though at Georgia Tech for a short period of time, Hansen was a leader in rethinking the core undergraduate engineering curriculum, eventually succeeding in implementing a number of changes that reduced the number of required hours to graduate, installed more flexibility in the selection of courses, and increased the course offerings in the humanities and social sciences. He told students on the day of his appointment as president, “If you do not have the freedom to explore, you will not learn, grow, and will not be a well educated person.”

Hansen is survived by his wife, Marylin White Hansen; sons Geoffrey (wife Angela) of San Francisco, James of Houston, and Paul (wife Dee Ann) of Saratoga, Calif.; daughters Ruth Rachel (husband Michael) of Carmel, Calif., and Chris Glancy (husband Michael) of Fort Myers, Fla.; and five grandchildren: John, Catherine, James, Steven, and Richard.

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions be made to the Carter Center in Atlanta, or to Purdue University on behalf of the Cancer Center in the Arthur G. Hansen Life Sciences Research Building.

Thomas, who joined Georgia Tech in 1989, specializes in the fields of graph theory and combinatorics, areas of mathematics with applications across a wide domain, from computer science and engineering to biology, economics, and social science. He also directs the interdisciplinary program in Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization (ACO), a joint effort of the College of Computing, the School of Mathematics, and the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

“Robin has produced the sort of deep scholarship with important implications for science and technology that characterizes the work of our best faculty,” said Doug Ulmer, chair of the School of Mathematics.

As evidence of a sustained career of groundbreaking work, Thomas and his collaborators have been awarded the Fulkerson Prize of the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Programming Society twice, in 1994 and in 2009. This prize, the most prestigious in discrete mathematics, is awarded every three years. Thomas and his collaborators are the only multiple recipients of this prestigious prize.

“Robin is a first rate mathematician, a talented educator, and an immensely valuable colleague,” Ulmer said. “His presence at Tech is a huge asset, and this Regents' Professorship is an entirely appropriate way to honor his accomplishments.”

Each academic year, the vice provost for Academic Affairs solicits the six college deans for Regents’ Professorship candidates. Deans typically will submit one or two candidates, who must be full professors, for consideration. A selection committee, then makes its recommendation for candidates, which in turn are approved by the vice provost, the provost and the president.

"I am very happy to receive this honor, but I should also stress the role of the great work environment here at Tech," Thomas said. "I would not have been able to accomplish nearly as much if not for the excellent colleagues, collaborators, postdocs, students and staff members that I have had the privilege to work with over the years. I am indebted to them for helping me achieve this honor, and hope to repay them by being a valuable colleague, collaborator, mentor and teacher."

Two were named as award recipients this year. All five were recruited by and brought to Tech by ISyE Professor Jeff Wu, who joined Georgia Tech in 2003 as the Coca-Cola Chair in Engineering Statistics. Wu also was able to fill five assistant professor slots—one each year. By 2008, Wu had found the junior faculty he wanted for these positions in members Nagi Gebraeel, Yajun Mei, Nicoleta Serban, Roshan Joseph Vengazihiyil and Ming Yuan.

• Gebraeel’s research centers on improving the accuracy of predicting unexpected failures in engineering systems. A Tech faculty member since 2007, he earned both his masters and doctoral degrees from Purdue University in 1998 and 2003, respectively. The NSF named him a recipient of the CAREER Award in 2006. He also is a recipient of the Purdue University Graduate Student Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2003.
• Mei’s research centers on change-point problems and sequential analysis in mathematical statistics, sensor networks and information theory in engineering, as well as longitudinal data analysis, random effects models and biostatistics clinical trials. He earned his doctorate in mathematics with a minor in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. Mei, who started at Tech in 2006, spent two years as a postdoctoral scholar in biostatistics in the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He was named a CAREER recipient this year.
• Serban joined the ISyE faculty in 2005. With a master’s in theoretical statistics and stochastic processes from the University of Bucharest, Serban earned her doctorate in statistics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. Her research focused on nonparametric statistical methods motivated by recent applications from proteomics and genomics. A 2007 recipient of the Class of 1969 Teaching Fellow award from the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, she earned her CAREER award this year.
• Vengazihiyil, who earned his doctorate in statistics from the University of Michigan in 2002, was awarded the CAREER Award in 2005. With research interests in the areas of quality engineering and statistics, he has focused on developing novel statistical methods for solving complex engineering problems. Named the Coca-Cola Junior Chair in ISyE from 2008 to 2011, Vengazihiyil also is the recipient of the Best Paper Award, IIE Transactions-Quality and Reliability Engineering 2009.
• Yuan, who holds a master’s in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, received his doctorate in statistics from the University of Wisconsin in 2004. Earning the NSF CAREER Award in 2009, he was named the Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar in 2007. Yuan’s research interests include statistical learning, bioinformatics and methods of regularization.

Wu’s selection of these faculty members for the ISyE Statistics Group and their earning the prestigious award were a bit serendipitous, he says. “We simply wanted to hire the best people and groom them,” he said. “Winning a CAREER Award is one measure—though not the only one—of success.”

Their selection for the group, he says, was not based upon work that he consciously thought would be considered for this recognition of junior faculty. Wu adds that he did comment on and read the faculty members’ proposals who won their awards while at Tech, but that was the extent of his involvement.

“These CAREER awards are kind of rare,” explains ISyE Chair Chelsea “Chip” White, H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and Schneider National Chair in Transportation and Logistics. “To have the insight to be able to identify junior faculty capable of successful award-winners is phenomenal.”

Having a statistics group within the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering is unique in the higher education landscape, according to Vengazihiyil, who says the arrangement has led to better exposure of the latest developments and trends in engineering, as well as providing opportunity to collaborate with engineers.

“We have 11 to 12 members, one of whom is joint with another research group,” Wu said. “Ours is the best research group internationally in engineering statistics—that is, in developing statistical methodologies and theory and applying them to engineering, information technology and physical sciences. Besides adding our reputation to the prestige of Georgia Tech, members of our group have become involved extensively in collaborative work with faculty in Engineering, the College of Computing and the College of Sciences.”

Barbara Christopher in Industrial and Systems Engineering contributed to this story.

In May, the Georgia Tech Integrated Food Chain Center (IFC)launched as an international research hub focused on designing, analyzing andimproving the food chain for cold and perishable products.

The center – established by Georgia Tech’s Supply Chain& Logistics Institute and Memphis-based Sterling Solutions LLC – isenvisioned as collaboration between academia, government and industry.

The goal: assure that growers, processors, retailers andlogistics providers can deliver quality perishables via greater efficiencythroughout the supply chain.

“Supply chain research to date has focused very little on food chains comparedto the extensive efforts spent on supply chains for other products,” said IFCExecutive Director Don Ratliff, noting the lack of attention the cold chain haspreviously received. “Because food is both perishable and is consumed by people,there are fundamentally different integration issues and challenges to beresolved to keep the food safe and control waste.”

The time, though, is ripe.

Consumer interest in food safety and practices has neverbeen stronger. Retailers and wholesalers desire the same assurances, along withconsistent product safety and quality management systems that maximize saleswhile minimizing waste.

With the U.S. being the biggest importer and exporter ofperishable food goods, it was vital to focus energies on the complex system of coldchain shipping and receiving that currently exists and refine it for anevolving society and economy.

Specifically, there are three current trends that will forcemore attention on and resources to integrating food chains:

• Pending food safety legislation will likelyrequire time limits be placed on product tracing, which can only be satisfiedthrough automation and integration. This will also require cooperation amongthe food chain entities, along with standardizing data requirements. Newtechnologies, processes and infrastructures will be necessary to reduce thecosts that accompany these regulations.

• Improved product quality monitoring will helppredict the post-harvest life and the end of shelf life of food products. Newtypes of data will need to be captured regarding product status and performancealong with the advent of variable transfer times, temperatures and theopportunity to enhance product transfers.

• Improved analytics are needed to better addressthe increase in food chain complexity. Today’s food chains offer moreperishable products, additional participants as well as complex transportationlogistics plus additional processes, technology and security. This requires newpredictive models to best assess inventories and the need for replenishmentthroughout the chain.

“There’s not much visibility back up the food chain, even inthe best of circumstances,” said IFC Director of Research John Bartholdi. “Whatwe are really focusing on is knowing the history of food and when we receiveit. If we can have much better estimations of shelf life, then we can move theproduct more efficiently through the supply chain here.”

Less waste, more efficient replenishment and better productquality is the end result.

Georgia Tech’s IFC will be housed in the Supply Chain & LogisticsInstitute at the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.  For more information, visit http://ifc.scl.gatech.edu.

The guide was established, "to recognize the impressive environmental and sustainability programs at universities and colleges across the country," said Princeton Review's Leah Pennino and USGBC's Ashley Katz. In addition, the Green Honor Roll, first established in 2008, "salutes the institutions receiving the highest possible Green Rating score (99) in the year’s tallies,” said Pennino.

According to Princeton Review, Georgia Tech’s inclusion on the Honor Roll and in the guide is an indication that the Institute excels in providing students a healthy and sustainable quality of life, preparing students for green jobs and responsible green citizenship and using environmentally responsible school policies.

Environmental sustainability is a vital component of the Georgia Tech academic experience. With classes, research, and majors addressing various aspects of the topic stretching across all of the Institute’s colleges and majors, students learn to think green. In addition, Georgia Tech’s strategic plan recommends that all students should take at least one class focused on sustainability before they graduate.

The Institute also integrates sustainable practices in all aspects of campus operations, maintaining a fleet of natural gas powered buses, using local and organic food in the dining halls, recycling various items including batteries, paper, plastic, and glass, and using non-toxic cleaner in buildings. The institute also maintains a rigorous building code for all renovations and new buildings, ensuring that they meet LEED standards.

In addition to having one of the nation's top graduate engineering programs, 9 of Georgia Tech's 11 programs have again ranked in the top 10, including industrial (No.1), biomedical (No. 2), civil (No. 3), aerospace (No. 4), environmental (No. 5), electrical (No. 6), mechanical (No. 6), nuclear (No. 8) and materials (No. 8). Of particular note, the civil engineering program moved up to No. 3 from last year’s No. 6 ranking.

"These rankings highlight Georgia Tech’s ongoing preeminence in the engineering arena and our growing prominence in the field of business.  The results are a direct reflection of the caliber of our students and faculty," said Georgia Tech President G.P.”Bud” Peterson. “As we move forward, the quality of the people of Georgia Tech will play a key role in defining our future.”

Georgia Tech’s graduate computer science program ranked No. 10 with several of its specialty programs also ranking in the top 10 including artificial intelligence (No. 7), theory (No. 7) and systems (No. 9).  In addition, discrete mathematics and combinations ranked No. 8.

Georgia Tech’s College of Management full-time MBA program was ranked No. 26, while the Institute’s part time MBA program tied with Georgia State University, ranking No. 24.

In this capacity, he will serve as the Institute's principal research officer with direct oversight of the Institute's interdisciplinary research centers, the Enterprise Innovation Institute, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and the Georgia Tech Research Corporation. He will work closely with the colleges, affiliated units, and faculty. The EVPR will report directly to the president and will be a member of a new executive leadership team consisting of the president, the provost, and the executive vice president for Administration and Finance.

"At every point in his career, Steve has increased the breadth of the technology portfolio and the size of research budgets under his direction," Peterson said. "He will be a strong advocate for Georgia Tech, both supporting a robust research enterprise internally and extending our influence with external research partners."

In a presentation to the campus in February, Cross said he views the role as that of a "chief marketing officer … spending a lot of time outside the Institute building relationships with senior officials in government and industry."

At the same time, Cross underscored the importance of a shared understanding between research and academics.

"The provost has to have a role in research," he said. "It is critical that the EVPR work with the provost to proactively support faculty hiring and retention. We have to be anticipatory, based upon solid planning with clear objectives."

During the next 100 days, Cross plans to seek the counsel of senior administrators and faculty, conduct a baseline review of budgets and research operations, and develop a plan for moving forward.

"My approach to the decision-making process centers around clear communication to those within our research enterprise in order to foster a shared understanding of the issues, goals, priorities and actions in front of us," Cross said. "It is through this process that we can collectively move our research enterprise from its current state to an envisioned state that is being articulated as part of Georgia Tech’s new strategic plan."

While Cross will stay involved with GTRI through his oversight role, he will, by May 1, announce who will serve as interim director. The announcement will be followed by details concerning the search for a new director for GTRI.

Cross holds faculty appointments as a professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and as an adjunct professor in both the College of Computing and the College of Management. Since August 2009, he has played a lead role in Tech's ongoing strategic planning initiative. He serves on the research advisory boards of the Health Systems Institute, the Georgia Tech-Emory Collaboration for Regenerative Medicine and the Tennenbaum Institute. His personal research interests focus on leadership, culture change, workflow simulation, and enterprise transformation. In January 2010, Cross was appointed to the Defense Science Board.

He joined Georgia Tech in 2003 after serving as director and CEO of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, which he joined in 1994. Previously, Cross served at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Washington, D.C.

Cross earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1983, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1977 and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Cincinnati in 1974. He is an IEEE Fellow and current associate editor of IKSM (an online journal of information, knowledge, and systems management). He has supported numerous National Research Council studies and has testified on numerous occasions before the U.S. Congress on topics including innovation, cyber security and software engineering.

Set preparations for the movie will begin this week, with production scheduled to wrap up on Aug. 24. Filming will take place at the following locations: Campus Recreation Center, Ford Environmental Science and Technology Building, G. Wayne Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons, Klaus Advanced Computing Building, Leadership Challenge Course, Noonan Courtyard and the Marcus Nanotechnology Building.

“Georgia Tech is one of the most unique and dynamic campuses I have ever seen,” said the director of “The Internship,” Shawn Levy. “The architecture and space is as forward-thinking as its curriculum and student body; we thought it was the perfect setting for our story.”

In addition to set preparation and production activities, there will be numerous trailers and tents on campus to accommodate equipment and the many extras appearing in the film. The greenhouse area of the Student Center food court will be used as the dining area for the crew.

Georgia Tech’s Office of Capital Planning and Space Management has worked closely with 20^th Century Fox to ensure minimal disruption during production. There may be times when access to buildings and other areas is rerouted or restricted, but students, faculty and staff will continue to have access to their offices, classrooms and labs.

There also may be isolated situations where popular locations are impacted. For example, the Clough Commons Starbucks location is projected to be closed Aug. 7-9 with controlled access possible Aug. 3-19.

“The Internship” is scheduled for release in 2013.

LRMC (Logistic RegressionMarkov Chain), the computer ranking system designed by three professors at theGeorgia Institute of Technology, has forecast this year’s NCAA Final Four match-upswill be Kansas vs. Syracuse and Duke vs. West Virginia with Kansas taking thetitle.

LRMC’s Final Four predictionsdiffered from the NCAA’s seeding this year in selecting West Virginia to beatKentucky to reach that coveted bracket. A few other surprises emerged as well.

“There are severalupsets predicted in the earlier rounds,” said Joel Sokol, operations researchprofessor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering atGeorgia Tech. “Among others, San Diego State, Utah State, Murray State andBrigham Young could be surprises.”

Developed by ProfessorsSokol, Paul Kvam and George Nemhauser, LRMC utilizes data such as scores, teamscompeting, home court advantage and margin of victory in past performances tocalculate likely victors along with potential underdogs that could emerge asstatistical spoilers. The system has been impressively successful, particularlyin 2008, when it predicted not only the Final Four and eventual victor, butalso several upsets in earlier rounds.

This year, the professors haveupgraded the system’s probability calculations, an improvement that couldenhance the accuracy of the results. For this new research, Georgia Tech'sLRMC team welcomed a new member: math professor Mark Brown of The City Collegeof New York.

LRMC is not an infallibleresource. There’s always the chance of an upset, injury or other factor thataffects the outcome of competition.

“There’s a lot ofrandomness,” Kvam said. “Statistically, we’re going to have years where we’reoff.”

Nonetheless, the system has provenmore reliable with its predictions than the NCAA’s own Ratings Percentage Index(RPI).  Historically, the upgraded LRMC method has picked the winnerof more than 74 percent of NCAA tournament games correctly, while the RPIhas been right less than 70 percent of the time.

This year’s LRMC bracket canbe accessed at http://www2.isye.gatech.edu/~jsokol/profspicks/profspicks10.htm