Every morning, Paul Royal sifts through reports on tens of thousands of new malicious software samples to find the few that are truly novel and warrant further analysis. With 20 million new malware samples created last year alone, Royal stays busy.
“Modern malware is almost exclusively authored by professional criminals that act in the domain of organized crime,” said Royal, a research scientist in the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC). “Given the enormous popularity of inexpensive malicious software generation kits, even the technically illiterate can easily build stealthy malware with sophisticated anti-detection mechanisms.”
The number and complexity of cybersecurity threats has grown as corporate, government and consumer dependence on secure and reliable computer and cellular networks has increased – and the software Royal examines is only part of the problem. In 2010, malware programmers developed new forms of malicious software, including Stuxnet, which targeted Iran’s critical infrastructure. In addition, Google disclosed that its systems had been deeply penetrated by sophisticated international attackers.
Georgia Tech cybersecurity researchers are developing technologies and security strategies to enable the global cybersecurity solutions of the future. Georgia Tech’s cybersecurity research efforts are multidisciplinary and institute-wide – involving researchers from the College of Computing, College of Engineering, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI).
GTISC, established in 1998, and the recently created GTRI Cyber Technology and Information Security Laboratory (CTISL), leverage the cybersecurity expertise across Georgia Tech to define and develop research programs that have made Georgia Tech an international leader in basic and applied cybersecurity research.
This article examines Georgia Tech cybersecurity research efforts in the areas of threat monitoring and analysis, mobile device and telephone security, secure information sharing, and U.S. government agency security.
Malware, which includes everything from worms to viruses to botnets, is spreading faster than ever over the Internet. Bots are automated software programs that steal computing power every time an infected computer connects to the Internet. Computer hackers harness these stolen resources to form scattered yet powerful networks – called botnets – that can be used to send spam, execute phishing scams or steal financial information.
The fight against malware is often viewed as an arms race. Cybersecurity experts must continually raise the bar, sometimes by high profile arrests and takedowns of cybercrime networks. In the past year, Royal helped dismantle two large botnets – Mariposa and Kraken – using a system he developed called MTrace.
MTrace is an automated malware analysis system that uncovers certain characteristics of each malware sample and aggregates the information into a malware intelligence database that is used by corporate security groups, hosting providers, domain registrars and law enforcement.
“With tens of thousands of new malware samples uncovered daily, this automated analysis software is valuable to security researchers because the time required by a human to analyze every piece of new malware has become overwhelming and nearly impossible,” said Royal.
At its peak, the Mariposa botnet comprised more than 1 million computers, including compromises in half of the Fortune 1000 firms, as well as government agencies, universities and home users in more than 190 countries. When Mariposa’s command-and control domains were shut down and its operators arrested, 800,000 financial credentials were found on one of the operator’s home computers.
Royal also used MTrace to gather intelligence about the resurgence of the large spamming botnet, Kraken. The Kraken botnet – which at one point included about 650,000 compromised computers, including computers in 10 percent of the Fortune 500 companies – re-emerged about a year after its last takedown, bootstrapped by another botnet that acted as a malicious installation service. According to Royal, this shutdown took exceptional persistence, as the Kraken operators continuously changed their domain names and hosting providers.
Cybersecurity professionals like Royal and programs like MTrace are placing increasing pressure on the controllers of the tens of thousands of botnets worldwide.
Botnets aren’t the only threats researchers in GTISC are battling – they’re also trying to eliminate “drive-by downloads.” During a drive-by download, a website installs malicious code, such as spyware, on a computer without the user’s knowledge or consent. Approximately 1.2 million websites worldwide were found to be infected with malware in 2010.
Georgia Tech School of Computer Science professor Wenke Lee, graduate student Long Lu and collaborators from California-based SRI International developed a tool to eliminate drive-by download threats. BLADE – short for Block All Drive-By Download Exploits – is browser-independent and designed to eliminate all drive-by malware installation threats. Funding for the BLADE tool was provided by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Army Research Office and U.S. Office of Naval Research.
“By simply visiting a website, malware can be silently installed on a computer to steal a user’s identity and other personal information, launch denial-of-service attacks, or participate in botnet activity,” said Lee, who is also co-director of GTISC. “BLADE is an effective countermeasure against all forms of drive-by download malware installs because it is vulnerability and exploit agnostic.”
The researchers evaluated the tool on multiple versions and configurations of Internet Explorer and Firefox. When they exposed a computer to more than 1,900 malicious websites, BLADE successfully blocked all drive-by malware installation attempts. The software produced no false positives and required minimal resources from the protected computer. Major antivirus software programs caught less than 30 percent of the more than 7,000 drive-by download attempts from the same websites.
The BLADE testing showed that the applications most frequently targeted by drive-by download exploits included Adobe Acrobat Reader, Sun Java and Adobe Flash – with Adobe Reader attracting almost three times as many attempts as the other programs. Computers using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 became infected by more drive-by downloads than those using versions 7 or 8, while Firefox 3 had a lower browser infection rate than all versions of Internet Explorer. Among the more than 1,900 active malicious websites tested, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States were the top three countries serving active drive-by download exploits.
“BLADE monitors and analyzes everything that is downloaded to a user’s hard drive to cross-check whether the user authorized the computer to open, run or store the file on the hard drive. If the answer is no to these questions, BLADE stops the program from installing or running and removes it from the hard drive,” explained Lu.
The researchers hope to release BLADE to the public for download later this year.
While computer users are waiting for this release, they should spend some time protecting their personal information with stronger passwords. A recent study by researchers in the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) found that seven-letter passwords might not be safe for long because of the growing computing power of graphics processing units (GPUs).
“Right now we can confidently say that a seven-character password is hopelessly inadequate and as GPU power continues to go up every year, the threat will increase,” said GTRI senior research scientist Richard Boyd.
Designed to handle the ever-growing demands of computer games, today’s top GPUs can process information at the rate of nearly two teraflops (a teraflop is a trillion floating-point operations per second). Until recently, multi-core graphics processors – which are made by either Nvidia Corp. or by AMD’s ATI unit – were difficult to use for anything except producing graphics for a monitor.
But that changed in February 2007 when Nvidia released an important new software-development kit. These new tools allow users to directly program a GPU using the popular C programming language. Unfortunately, this new capability dramatically accelerates a password-breaking technique that engineers call “brute forcing.”
In brute forcing, attackers use a fast GPU (or even a group of linked GPUs) – combined with the right software program – to break down passwords that are keeping them out of a computer or a network. The intruders’ high-speed technique basically involves trying every possible password until they find the right one.
“Length is a major factor in protecting against brute forcing a password,” explained Joshua L. Davis, a GTRI research scientist involved in this project. “A computer keyboard contains 95 characters, and every time you add another character to your password, your protection goes up exponentially, by 95 times.”
Complexity also adds security, he said. Adding numbers, symbols and uppercase characters significantly increases the time needed to decipher a password.
Would-be password crackers have other advantages, said Carl Mastrangelo, an undergraduate student in the College of Computing who is working with GTRI on the password research. A computer stores user passwords in an encrypted “hash” within the operating system. Attackers who locate a password hash can besiege it by building a “rainbow table,” which is essentially a database of all previous attempts to compromise that password hash. Generating a rainbow table takes a long time, but if an attacker wants to crack many passwords quickly, once he’s built a rainbow table it might then only take about 10 minutes per password rather than several days.
Davis believes the best password is an entire sentence, preferably one that includes numbers or symbols. That’s because a sentence is both long and complex, and yet easy to remember. He said any password shorter than 12 characters could be vulnerable – if not now, soon.
Smartphones – such as BlackBerrys, Droids and iPhones – have become indispensable to everyone from today’s highly mobile workforce to tech-savvy youngsters. While these devices keep friends and colleagues just a few thumb-taps away and allow business to be done anywhere that has cellphone reception, they also pose new security and privacy risks.
“Traditional cellphones have been ignored by attackers because they were specialty devices, but the new phones available today are handheld computers that are able to send and receive email, surf the Internet, store documents and remotely access data – all actions that make them vulnerable to a wide range of attacks,” said Patrick Traynor, an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science and a GTISC faculty member.
Traynor and Jonathon Giffin, also an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science, recently received a National Science Foundation grant to develop tools that improve the security of mobile devices and the telecommunications networks on which they operate. These Georgia Tech faculty members, together with a team of graduate students, are developing methods of identifying and remotely repairing mobile devices that may be infected with viruses or other malware.
Malware can potentially eavesdrop on user input, steal sensitive information, destroy stored information or disable a device. Attackers may snoop on passwords for online accounts, electronic documents, emails that discuss sensitive topics, calendar and phonebook entries, and audio and video media.
“Because mobile phones typically lack security features found on desktop computers, such as antivirus software, we need to accept that the mobile devices will ultimately be successfully attacked. Therefore, our research focus is to develop effective attack recovery strategies,” explained Giffin.
The researchers are investigating whether cellular service providers – such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless – can detect infected devices on their respective networks. Because infected devices often begin to overutilize the network by sending a high volume of traffic to a known malicious Web server or by suddenly generating a high volume of text messages, monitoring traffic patterns on the network should allow these infected phones to be located, according to the researchers.
To assess their proposed methods of finding and repairing infected mobile devices, the researchers are building a cellular network test bed at Georgia Tech that will simulate how cellular devices communicate over a network. This test bed will be interoperable with GTRI’s Mobile Innovation, Security and Forensic Test bed (MISFiT), which examines the entire mobile ecosystem and its vulnerabilities.
“The focus of MISFiT is in-depth analysis with a system view, including mobile data analytics for capacity planning, machine-to-machine security and security issues associated with mobile and location-based commerce,” said Chuck Bokath, a GTRI senior research engineer.
Another dimension of privacy and security concern for mobile phones is their future integration with consumer credit and banking capabilities. Imagine – instead of fumbling for a credit card, coupons and loyalty card at a grocery store, you use your mobile phone to provide all that information.
This futuristic-sounding experience may not be far off. In November 2010, AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA announced the formation of the Isis mobile commerce network, with pay-by-phone service expected in some markets within 18 months. In advance of these new mobile capabilities, a research team at Georgia Tech recently analyzed the technical and policy gaps that make pay-by-mobile users vulnerable.
With support from the National Science Foundation and SAIC, the study was conducted by Seymour Goodman, a professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech, Traynor, and graduate students Andrew Harris of the Sam Nunn School and Frank Park of the School of Computer Science.
“It is essential that we understand both the opportunities and the dangers presented by mobile devices,” said Goodman, who is also co-director of both the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) and the Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy (CISTP). “The safe and responsible deployment of emerging mobile technologies requires not only additional understanding, but also the willingness of government, corporations and civil society to confront these challenges expeditiously.”
Customers must first be educated about how data is collected and shared on mobile phones and how they can protect against theft and abuse of their personal information. The researchers propose the creation of a comprehensive national privacy policy to ensure that consumers can use a “digital wallet” to purchase goods with confidence that the data generated through those transactions will not be bought, sold or traded. In addition, the study suggests that digital wallet developers consider sensible privacy statements designed specifically for mobile phones.
On the technical side, vulnerabilities lie in authenticating the legitimacy of a digital wallet reader. Near-field communication technology – a form of radio-frequency identification (RFID) – will likely be used to process consumer transactions. The researchers suggest there should be a mechanism to authenticate readers and notify users before they disclose their private information.
“Users are willing to trust devices with which they are interacting without proper validation, so the public will need to be educated about what these digital wallet readers should look like and how to spot an illegitimate device,” said Goodman.
Goodman, Harris and collaborators at Carnegie Mellon University are also concerned with the security risks that mobile phones bring to less-developed countries. In 2009, the 53 countries of Africa boasted 295 million mobile phone subscriptions for a penetration rate of 37.5 per 100 inhabitants.
With funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the researchers investigated cellular security vulnerabilities in Africa. They found that many African nations suffer from a deficiency of appropriate laws and organizations needed to confront cyber crime.
“In such an environment, mobile phones become an unprecedented tool to track a citizen’s activities. An unscrupulous government could easily use the cellular network to track an individual’s movement, listen to conversations and access financial records,” explained Goodman.
The research team has suggested solutions to these vulnerabilities, such as requiring device manufacturers and service providers to offer adequate security, increasing the African workforce of information security professionals, and initiating a public awareness campaign to alert the African people to the potentially detrimental effects mobile phones can have.
GTISC researchers are also investigating security on landline phones, as phishing scams make the leap from email to the world’s voice systems. Today, it is relatively easy for criminals to fake caller ID and employ the same sort of phishing scams they use on the Internet.
Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, Traynor and Mustaque Ahamad, a professor in the School of Computer Science and GTISC director, identified a digital fingerprint hidden within voice signals that can reveal fraud and thwart voice phishing scams.
The team created a system called PinDr0p that exploits artifacts left on call audio by the voice networks themselves and then determines the path a call takes to get to a recipient’s phone with at least 90 percent accuracy. The team is currently working on using PinDr0p to geolocate the origin of calls.
Information sharing requires that partners establish broad electronic trust among the caretakers of critical information and those who need and are authorized to use that information.
Researchers from Georgia Tech teamed with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University’s Center for Comprehensive Informatics to develop technologies that will protect the security and privacy of electronic health information.
“Storing medical records in electronic format and sharing them among different health care organizations has the potential to produce enormous improvements in the quality and efficiency of the health care system, but unauthorized disclosure of the information has the potential to damage lives and harm careers,” said Douglas Blough, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Through a project called MedVault, Blough and professors Mustaque Ahamad and Ling Liu of the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech are developing a broad set of information security and privacy tools that can be integrated with electronic health records systems and work flows. MedVault is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
With health information exchanges popping up across the country, individuals will begin sharing health documents with various health care system entities, which will need to verify the source and trustworthiness of the documents. MedVault researchers developed a system that uses redactable signature technology for source-verifiable, patient-controlled information sharing. The system enables documents digitally signed by a health care provider to be authenticated, while at the same time invisibly deleting information a patient wants to keep confidential.
“This technology could be especially valuable, for example, to parents who need certified health records to enroll a child in school, college, summer camp or other activity because parents would just need this one digitally signed document and could use it in many different ways,” explained Blough.
The research team also designed a policy combination and conflict resolution system that can examine the policies of multiple health care entities and ensure they are all followed.
“Each organization with a health information exchange may have a different policy about what information in their system can be disclosed under specific circumstances and patients might want to set their own disclosure controls, and all of these policies must be enforced. Our system combines these multiple policies and resolves any conflicts,” added Blough.
The MedVault team is working to ensure that these technologies are seamlessly integrated with the overall health system and its medical processes to provide strong security and privacy while assuring patient safety.
While secure information sharing is necessary in the health care sector, it’s also essential for criminal justice organizations. The Global Federated Identity and Privilege Management(GFIPM) initiative provides a way for justice and public safety organizations to securely access information from multiple agencies with a single logon. John Wandelt, a GTRI principal research scientist, is the GFIPM initiative’s project manager.
Established through a collaborative effort of the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative membership, the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the GFIPM initiative provides the justice community with a secure information-sharing architecture based on an electronic justice credential. This standards-based justice credential can be used to securely connect law enforcement and public safety personnel to interagency applications and data over the Internet.
“By separating the roles of identity providers from service providers, the GFPIM architecture allows agencies to leverage their existing local security infrastructures, policies and mechanisms to significantly reduce overall cost and increase privacy, security and usability,” explained Wandelt.
The GFIPM framework supports identifying and authenticating users; managing the certifications, clearances, job functions, local privileges and organizational affiliations associated with each user that can serve as the basis for authorization decisions; and determining what information is required to audit systems.
The framework leverages the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) for which Wandelt and other GTRI researchers provided engineering support and technical guidance.
In September 2010, the GTRI team working in conjunction with the Global Security Working Group published a baseline set of GFIPM technical and governance specifications. The specifications are currently being adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and several state and local agencies to securely exchange sensitive information.
For decades, researchers at Georgia Tech have developed technologies for defending against and defeating attacks on the battlefield. More recently, they have been focusing major efforts on defending the virtual battlefield.
Experts in the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) are tackling security issues with government and military networks, and developing new tools and methods for securing information and networks.
To develop and deploy advanced technologies to defend against and deter cyber attacks on the United States, researchers are pursuing challenges in various agencies within the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and local, state and allied foreign governments.
Georgia Tech’s work focuses on providing resilient command-and-control solutions to war fighters operating in contested environments, and helping government agencies defend against cyber criminals to safeguard the nation’s critical infrastructure.
The sophisticated, multiphase cyber attacks that increasingly target government operations are often invisible to traditional security technology. To construct systems that control homeland and combat operations, GTRI researchers are designing and fielding resilient information systems that include secure network enclaves, virtualization and multilevel security.
GTRI researchers are helping the U.S. Department of Defense develop, test and integrate new technologies for defending networks.
“The objective of this work is to assure command and control from a networking perspective in a hostile cyber environment,” said Jeff Moulton, a GTRI principal research associate.
The Network-centric Test and Training System (NeTTS) developed by GTRI also provides command-and-control mission assurance. NeTTS is a family of nonintrusive test tools for distributed, network-centric environments that support test and training through the creation of realistic virtual environments.
Since 1997, GTRI has developed these tools, with most funding from the Department of Defense’s Resource Enhancement Program. The first of these tools, the Realistic Operational Communications Scenarios (ROCS) System, pioneered a systematic approach to Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) testing, focusing on ground combat elements. Successor systems – the Commander’s Air Defense Environment Test Tool (CADETT) and the Integrated Broadcast Service Test and Analysis Tool (ITAS) – focused on air operations and intelligence systems.
The centralized code base allows rapid deployment of updated code, new plug-ins and drivers, new development language versions, troubleshooting and other changes. The NeTTS training component emphasizes realism, focusing on software that can merge training with actual tactical communications systems to offer a true hands-on experience.
“NeTTS has been used by all four military services, providing support during pre-test planning, test conduct and post-testanalysis of a wide variety of communication networks and systems,” said Fred Wright, a GTRI principal research engineer.
U.S. Army personnel use a Deployable Joint Command and Control (DJC2) forward command post. GTRI researchers have supported information technology upgrades for the DJC2. (Credit: U.S. Army)
GTRI has also been involved for more than seven years with the U.S. military’s Deployable Joint Command and Controlsystem (DJC2) – a self-contained, self-powered temporary headquarters facility. GTRI has been responsible for designing DJC2’s information technology infrastructure since the initial prototype stage.
“The time it used to take to deploy a joint task force infrastructure was significant,” said Jack Hart, a senior research engineer leading the program for GTRI. “Our forces need to be able to stand up a joint task force communications infrastructure in a very short amount of time – not two or three weeks but 72 hours or less.”
The work, which is directly sponsored by the DJC2 Joint Program Office, has included networks and wired and wireless communications, as well as newer elements such as advanced peer-to-peer internetworking convergence and satellite communication terminals.
One major hurdle, Hart explained, has involved migrating from the serial equipment originally used by the joint task forces. The serial approach was based largely on modem communications, which made tactical communications between field units and headquarters problematic.
To enable the migration, GTRI designed a seamless, phased transition from the original equipment to Ethernet systems based on current Internet protocol (IP) technology. Hart’s team created a hybrid architecture that allowed older serial equipment to connect to new IP systems when required.
Now that the DJC2 rapid-response kit has been designed, tested and fielded, GTRI is focusing on enhancing important technical elements of the system. Hart’s team is developing a secure DJC2 wireless architecture, expected to become one of the few operational systems that is fully accredited for security. To support this wireless architecture, the team is utilizing wideband satellite Ka and X-band communications technologies.
Georgia Tech’s cyber researchers are also applying the latest technologies in signal and protocol exploitation, Web crawling, malware analysis, and reverse engineering of embedded and application programs to counter adversary information networks.
For one project, GTRI researchers are developing new techniques for critical infrastructure and network defense and information operations in the Air National Guard. GTRI plans to develop interoperability solutions for connecting aircraft to various data link systems and ground forces, along with analyzing and identifying security issues.
GTRI will also develop an interactive process for tracking cyber technologies and threats. In particular, a systems engineering process will be customized to provide an understandable presentation of cyberspace trends and issues, and predict future threats.
“As technology changes and new systems come online, the Air National Guard needs new tools to watch for attacks so that they can continue to progress as new technologies develop into cyber concerns,” Wright explained.
Also in the network vulnerability area, GTRI has developed a platform called SpiderSense, which provides intelligent crawling and analysis modules for Web research. The platform is currently used for automated penetration testing and exploits research, but new tools and techniques can be rapidly prototyped. Initial development of SpiderSense was led by former GTRI senior research engineer Steve Millar with support from GTRI’s Independent Research and Development program.
Web servers often have full access to databases and supporting services within an organization. If they are compromised, they have the network permissions to cause damage to other, more critical systems like databases or directory servers. Web threats like this are currently addressed by an infrequent and uneven application of code reviews and penetration tests.
One of the SpiderSense modules assesses websites for possible entry points that malicious programs could use to gain access to Web servers and withdraw data from them, and tests each point for exploitability. The SpiderSense tool enables organizations to automatically defend websites from SQL injection, cross-site scripting, denial of service and other attacks.
“SpiderSense enables government and industry to conduct repeatable, automated and customizable security assessments of their Web applications to validate software development life-cycle practices and ensure information assurance,” said GTRI research scientist Andrew Howard, who is currently leading this research effort.
In addition, SpiderSense can be used as a platform for directing simulated intrusion attacks into networks, a practice called “red teaming.” Automated discovery of the vulnerable entry points in Web servers provides a technique for developing cyber weapons that also automate the exploitation of the vulnerabilities.
In another network vulnerability project, GTISC and GTRI researchers are helping the U.S. Department of Defense and other government agencies block and remove botnets from networks, shut down botnet operations on the Internet, assess current botnet threats and predict future trends.
Georgia Tech computer science professor Wenke Lee leads the five-year, $7.5 million Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) from the U.S. Office of Naval Research, which is aimed at developing practical approaches to detecting and removing botnets. The multi-university team, which includes collaborators at the University of Michigan, Stanford University and the University of California at Santa Barbara, plans to develop botnet detection and removal approaches that will work against all bots and botnets.
To do this, the researchers will first identify the basic properties of all bots and botnets, and then determine how they can target these structural and operational properties to locate bots and botnets. Lastly, they will develop practical ways to shut down the botnets and remove the bots from affected computers.
For example, a basic property of all bots is that they are not human, thus their activity is generated by a computer program. With this knowledge, the researchers hope to develop techniques that would help find bot-infected computers by distinguishing human-generated network traffic from program-generated traffic. To put this theory into practice, they would need to develop an effective way of monitoring the activity on computers and determining whether it originated from humans or programs.
To do that, they might develop a way to determine whether an email sent from a computer was sent by a user clicking a send button or some program sending it without user action. While all activity generated by programs is not bad, this could be their first clue that a computer might be infected with a bot. If additional bot-like properties are observed, the researchers would be able to determine for sure whether the computer was compromised.
“We are confident that by following this methodology, we can deliver approaches that are fundamental, meaning that if a botnet changes, the solutions will still work because they target the fundamental properties of botnets that each one has to have to survive,” said Lee.
GTRI researchers working in the secure information systems area design, develop and deploy enterprise information systems requiring state-of-the-art database, platform and Internet security. They are currently providing secure applications and cross-domain extensible markup language (XML) guards to the U.S. Department of Defense to enable sharing of compartmented data between networks and domains.
These applications are built from the ground up with redundant security measures at every layer. This security infrastructure provides the necessary protections to prevent data spills that could be catastrophic to national defense.
With the growing scale and sophistication of cybersecurity threats, multidisciplinary teams at Georgia Tech are focused on gaining a better understanding of emerging threats, as well as the motives and methods of cyber attackers.
Georgia Tech researchers are working together and partnering with local Internet security companies to provide solutions for defending against highly sophisticated and well-funded cyber criminal activities. The basic research conducted at GTISC provides the forward-looking activities required to defend proactively, and the applied research of GTRI incorporates these ideas into proof-of-concept and functional models. By partnering with small business, these solutions can be implemented.
To foster this vision, GTRI is developing a long-term strategic plan that invests in collaborative research involving numerous Georgia Tech units and small businesses. These plans include building a cyber test laboratory that provides development, testing and visualization capabilities in support of wired and wireless transport media. Plans also include connectivity to government test ranges, partnering with private industry to include its solutions in the laboratory, and developing targeted educational courses to enhance awareness.
“By developing solutions to impending cyber concerns at an early stage before they become widespread sources of harm, Georgia Tech will continue to be a leader in the cybersecurity arena,” said Mustaque Ahamad, director of GTISC.
Rick Robinson and Michael Terrazas also contributed to this story.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award Nos. CNS-0716570, CNS-0916047 and 0911886; U.S. Army under Award No. W911NF-06-1-0316; U.S. Navy under Award No. N00014-09-1-1042; National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Center for Research Resources under PHS Grant UL1 RR025008 from the Clinical and Translational Science Award program; and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under Award No. N00014-09-1-1042. 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, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, NIH or ONR.
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]]>The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech is a startup accelerator that helps Georgia technology entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. Founded in 1980, ATDC has graduated 135 companies, which together have raised more than a billion dollars in outside financing.
“Atlanta has become an international hub for companies working to counter cybersecurity threats,” said Stephen Fleming, Georgia Tech vice president and executive director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, ATDC’s parent organization. “Georgia Tech has world-class faculty and students working in this area, so we are helping grow that industry by spinning off companies that will be important players.”
Six of ATDC’s cybersecurity companies are highlighted below.
Damballa – an ATDC company co-founded by Georgia Tech School of Computer Science professors Merrick Furst, Wenke Lee and Richard Lipton, and postdoctoral fellow David Dagon – is a pioneer in the fight against cybercrime.
Damballa recently received $12 million in new equity funding to capitalize on the growing global demand for its network security solution. The product detects the remote control communication that criminals use to breach networks to steal personal and intellectual information, and conduct espionage or other fraudulent transactions.
“Damballa is fundamentally changing the way the industry fights cybercrime,” said Val Rahmani, the company’s CEO. “Our innovative solutions protect enterprise, Internet service providers and cloud networks from the devastating effects of botnets, advanced persistent threats, advanced malware and other cybercrime activity.”
Damballa customers include Fortune 1000 companies, Internet and telecommunications service providers, government agencies and educational organizations.
After developing cryptographic security software in his garage for a year, GlobalCrypto CEO Todd Merrill brought his company to ATDC in September 2008.
“We became an ATDC company because I was exposed to ATDC companies and realized they are well-built and seemed to have basic business processes taken care of,” said Merrill.
GlobalCrypto’s RealMe software authenticates users on a website, protects online content, prevents the sharing of online memberships, digitally signs documents and eliminates the need to manage multiple passwords for commonly used Web applications – all without fobs, cookies, tokens, certificates or cumbersome login requirements. To do this, the software embeds information in a digital image and then exchanges pieces of that image between a user and a Web application to accomplish a strong, bi-directional two-factor authentication.
The software provides regulatory compliance for customers in industries that include e-commerce, credit cards, trading and health care.
In a high-security setting, such as a bank or government agency, preventing information from unintentionally leaving the network security perimeter is important. To thwart such incidents, ATDC company Gyrus has developed an approach that uses hardware events combined with memory analysis to authorize outgoing information before it is sent. Gyrus’ approach, which is based on virtual machine introspection techniques, can be used in conjunction with white listing, firewalls and intrusion prevention.
“Since malware cannot reproduce hardware events coming from a keyboard or mouse, Gyrus interprets a user’s intent based on his or her interactions with the computer and verifies that the application traffic is indeed user-initiated,” said company founder Wenke Lee, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science.
The technology has been developed with funding from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Georgia Research Alliance and U.S. Army.
John Copeland, a Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering professor, founded the ATDC information security company Lancope in 2000.
“I began working on information security solutions after finding bursts of data on my home computer that I recognized as the work of hackers,” said Copeland, who was also the first Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.
Lancope introduced its first product, called StealthWatch™, in May 2001. StealthWatch uses behavior-based architecture to monitor network traffic and detect suspicious activity. Unlike signature-based and protocol-anomaly products, it can identify unknown assailants and quickly trace the source of attacks. Since its release, StealthWatch has evolved into a family of products that lets enterprises track and analyze their network flows to root out suspicious activity within their network environments.
ATDC company Purewire launched in August 2008 and quickly garnered several accolades – including Gartner Cool Vendor and DEMOgod – for its technology innovation and thought leadership in the rapidly growing Web security market.
The company provided Web security services to enterprises, as well as a host of social networking security tools for both businesses and consumers. In October 2009, Purewire was acquired by Barracuda Networks, where the technology serves as the foundation for Barracuda’s cloud-based security services and its research scientists run Barracuda Labs, the company’s multidisciplinary global threat research team.
Whisper Communications’ technology enables secure transmission of sensitive information – such as credit card numbers – from cellphones, laptops and other wireless devices. By creating a “cone of silence” around the transmitting and receiving devices, information transmitted with Whisper’s technology is garbled beyond repair beyond a certain distance.
“In the next six months, we plan to launch our first product with a strategic partner in the mobile-payments space,” said Steve McLaughlin, a co-founder of Whisper and a Ken Byers Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech.
The technology has been developed with more than $1 million from the National Science Foundation, Georgia Research Alliance, Imlay Investments and the Georgia Tech Edison Fund.
An ATDC company, Whisper Communications was founded in 2009 by McLaughlin, former doctoral student Cenk Argon and current doctoral student Demijan Klinc. In 2010, the company hired Jeffrey McConnell, an experienced early stage CEO, to drive the commercialization of the technology.
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]]>After peeling off the protective film from one side, the patch – which is about the size of a postage stamp – is pressed onto the forearm of a young child. Hundreds of tiny microneedles located on the surface of the patch painlessly enter the upper layers of the child’s skin, where they quickly dissolve. Made of a medical polymer, the needles carry vaccine particles directly to the specialized cells used by the skin to battle invading microbes.
This is one scenario that Georgia Tech researchers envision for using the microneedle-based vaccine patch they are developing with immunology experts at Emory University. The patch, which could be available within five years, might be administered by persons without medical training, providing a simple way to rapidly immunize large populations during pandemics.
Microneedles are just one example of the medical devices under development at Georgia Tech, often in collaboration with institutions such as Emory. By harnessing its engineering, scientific and computing capabilities and its entrepreneurial tradition, as well as the Atlanta medical community, Georgia Tech is advancing the field of medical device design and bringing new devices to market.
“One of Georgia Tech’s major research strengths is its ability to bring engineering together with the biosciences to create new solutions for health care problems,” said Stephen E. Cross, executive vice president for research at Georgia Tech. “Georgia Tech has a history of bringing innovations from the laboratory through the functional prototype stage, while coordinating the other commercialization activities necessary to bring them to market.”
Beyond the health benefits, these medical devices also have an economic development benefit. Displaying more robust vital signs than most business sectors, the global medical device market could top $300 billion this year, according to industry estimates. Research institutions like Georgia Tech have played a critical role in this growth by developing technologies that are ultimately licensed to medical device firms or that form the basis for startup companies that commercialize them for clinical use.
The roster of Atlanta-based startup companies that have built new medical devices based on technology developed at Georgia Tech includes CardioMEMS, MedShape Solutions and Zenda Technologies. The Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI), a new medical device development center under construction in midtown Atlanta, promises to expand this roster, while assisting both established and early-stage companies. And startup assistance is available from the VentureLab unit in Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute and from the Georgia Research Alliance’s commercialization program.
Depending on the type and complexity of the medical device, the process of moving technology innovations from the research laboratory to the bedside can take years. Prototypes must be designed and improved upon, preliminary laboratory and animal tests must be conducted, and the safety and efficacy of many new medical devices must be tested in clinical trials. Most devices also require federal regulatory approval before they can be introduced into the marketplace.
This article examines various health care technologies developed at Georgia Tech that are in different stages of research, development and commercialization. The article includes devices designed for condition detection and diagnosis, monitoring and treatment, surgery, drug delivery, and rehabilitation and mobility assistance.
Tests capable of detecting early Alzheimer’s disease are typically taken with a pen and paper and last about an hour and a half. Because of their length and expense, the tests are not used as regular screening tools.
Researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University have developed a portable screening device called DETECT that makes quick neuropsychological assessments to identify mild cognitive impairment, which could indicate the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The device runs patients through a 10-minute battery of visual stimuli that requires simple responses, assessing cognitive abilities such as reaction time and memory capabilities.
Results of a 400-person clinical study conducted at Emory’s Wesley Woods Center demonstrated that the DETECT test had accuracy similar to that of the pen-and-paper test.
“We envision the DETECT test could be part of normal preventative care an individual receives from a general practitioner, like a prostate-specific antigen test or mammogram, serving as a cognitive impairment vital sign of sorts that can be tracked from year to year,” said Michelle LaPlaca, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
LaPlaca and device co-creator David Wright, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Emory, founded a startup company called Zenda Technologies to commercialize the technology, which is currently being used in doctors’ offices in Georgia and Alabama. DETECT also has potential for use in assessing concussion and mild traumatic brain injury.
For another project, researchers are focusing on one of the pencil-and-paper tests neurologists administer to quickly screen for signs of cognitive dysfunction: the clock-drawing test. For example, an individual being assessed is asked to draw numbers on a circle so that it looks like a clock, with hands pointing to “10 minutes after 11.”
To automate and standardize the administration and evaluation of the clock-drawing task, Georgia Tech researchers have designed a software program called ClockReader that allows users to complete the test on a tablet computer with a stylus pen. The software provides spatial, temporal and geometric sketch information, along with behavior data, including time required to complete the task and pressure of the pen. Physicians can also watch a video of how an individual drew the clock.
“Our software program has the potential to reduce the amount of time required to analyze the results of the clock-drawing test, which would hopefully promote more frequent administration to measure variation over time,” said Ellen Yi-Luen Do, an associate professor with a joint appointment in the School of Architecture and School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech.
In collaboration with Allan Levey, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory University, more than 30 individuals with an average age of 75 tested the usability of the software. While most of the participants reported limited or no computer experience, their drawings using a stylus were almost identical to their drawings with a pencil and paper. The researchers are currently testing the software’s value to physicians.
This project is supported by the National Science Foundation, Korean Institute for the Advancement of Technology, Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute, Health Systems Institute, and the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory.
Neuropsychological exams are also sometimes given to individuals who have suffered a concussion. Because walking and thinking at the same time can be especially difficult for these individuals, scientists hope to use that multitasking challenge – measured by a simple radar system – to quickly screen individuals who may have suffered brain injuries.
By asking an individual to walk a short distance while saying the months of the year in reverse order, researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are trying to determine if that person is impaired. This simple test, which could be performed on the sideline of a sporting event or on a battlefield, has the potential to help coaches and commanders decide whether athletes and soldiers are ready to engage in activity again.
“Research performed at the University of Oregon found that when a person with a concussion performs cognitive and motor skill tasks simultaneously, they have a different gait pattern than a healthy individual, and we are working to identify those anomalies in a person’s walk with a radar system similar to those used by police for measuring the speed of vehicles,” said GTRI research engineer Jennifer Palmer.
The researchers have successfully used this method to distinguish the gait patterns of healthy individuals wearing calibrated vision-impairment goggles – which have been shown by research to potentially simulate the visual impairment one might experience with a concussion – from the patterns collected when the individuals did not wear the goggles. GTRI research engineers Kristin Bing and Amy Sharma, principal research scientist (ret.) Eugene Greneker and research scientist Teresa Selee are also working on this project.
Another GTRI researcher, Charlene Bayer, is developing a portable breathalyzer to detect the presence of breast cancer. Bayer, a GTRI principal research scientist, designed and tested the device in collaboration with Brani Vidakovic, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University; Sheryl G.A. Gabram, a professor of surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology at Emory University; and University of Ulm professor Boris Mizaikoff.
When an individual exhales into the device, compounds in the breath are trapped for further examination. The sensing methodology combines gas chromatography – a technique for separating complex compounds – with mass spectrometry, which identifies the chemical makeup of a substance. Specific patterns in the compounds are then found and used to confirm the presence or absence of the disease.
The research team conducted a clinical study analyzing more than 300 volatile organic compounds in breath samples of 20 healthy women over the age of 40, and 20 women recently diagnosed with stage II-IV breast cancer who had not yet received treatment. The results showed that the breath analysis was able to determine whether the sample came from a cancer patient or healthy subject 78 percent of the time.
Bayer recently completed a pilot study on individuals diagnosed with lung cancer, in collaboration with Suresh Ramalingam, an associate professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University.
Also utilizing the exhalation of breath, a device called PneumoniaCheck could help identify the pathogens responsible for an individual’s pneumonia. After an individual coughs deeply into the device, the apparatus segregates contents from the upper and lower airways without complicated valves, buttons or active user control. The aerosol specimens captured from the lower lung can then be analyzed using commercial genomic DNA methods to determine the pathogen that should be treated.
“Identifying the pathogens that cause pneumonia can be challenging because a high-quality specimen from the lower lung is difficult to obtain. PneumoniaCheck contains a filter to collect the aerosolized pathogens and excludes oral contaminants from the sample to improve specimen quality,” said David Ku, a Regents professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Ku is also the Lawrence P. Huang Chair Professor for Engineering Entrepreneurship in the Georgia Tech College of Management and professor of surgery at Emory University.
PneumoniaCheck has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The device was designed by Ku, Georgia Tech graduate students Tamera Scholz and Prem Midha, and Larry Anderson, who worked at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention while this research was conducted. Results of verification testing of the device were published in the December 2010 issue of Journal of Medical Devices.
Levent Degertekin is designing tiny devices micromachined from silicon that may make diagnosing and treating coronary artery diseases easier.
Degertekin, the George W. Woodruff Chair in Mechanical Systems, and Paul Hasler, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, micromachined intravascular ultrasound imaging arrays with integrated electronics. The devices can be inserted into one-millimeter-diameter catheters to image the arteries of the heart in three dimensions at high resolution using high-frequency ultrasound waves.
“The ability to integrate electronics on the same silicon chip is key for successful implementation of cost-effective, flexible catheter-based imaging arrays to reduce the number of cables and electronic interference noise,” said Degertekin. “Current piezoelectric transducer materials cannot be manufactured with the precision to implement these arrays.”
The system boasts a more compact design and three-dimensional imaging capability for guiding cardiologists during interventions, such as those for completely blocked arteries. The technology also offers higher resolution than current intravascular ultrasound systems, which help diagnose vulnerable plaque, a leading cause of heart attacks.
Funding for this research currently is provided by the National Institutes of Health. To commercialize the technology, the researchers have formed a startup company called SIBUS Medical, which is receiving assistance from VentureLab, a unit of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute that nurtures faculty startup companies.
Another device that may be commercialized in the future is the RemOtoscope – a smartphone attachment designed for at-home ear examinations. Ear infections result in more than 15 million doctor office visits each year in the United States because diagnosing them requires direct observation of the child’s eardrum and ear canal with a device called an otoscope.
Wilbur Lam, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University, envisions a physician remotely guiding placement of the device and diagnosing the condition via real-time video consultation with parents at home. Diagnosing ear infections at home could result in significant savings to the health care system.
The RemOtoscope attachment includes an illumination system that uses the smartphone’s flash as the light source, an optical system to provide magnification, and a software application to record data to the phone. With funding from the Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute, Lam plans to solicit physician feedback, improve the device based on that feedback, and conduct a double-blind study assessing the diagnostic image quality of the device.
“Once we collect clinical data and quantify the diagnostic efficacy of the RemOtoscope as it compares to a conventional otoscope, we may be able to begin changing how ear infections are diagnosed and treated,” added Lam.
There is no FDA-approved continuous bedside dialysis device for children. When critically ill children need kidney dialysis, doctors are forced to adapt adult-size dialysis equipment. These adapted adult devices can withdraw too much fluid from a pediatric patient, leading to dehydration, shock and loss of blood pressure.
To address this problem, which affects at least 4,000 children in the United States per year, doctors and engineers teamed up to develop a kidney replacement device designed especially for children. The prototype device is much smaller than existing dialysis equipment and works in tandem with equipment that supplements the function of the heart and lungs for severely ill patients.
“We have built a robust device that achieves automated and accurate fluid management,” said Ajit Yoganathan, a Georgia Tech Regents professor and the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering.
With funding from the National Institutes of Health, Yoganathan and Arvind Santhanakrishnan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Coulter Department, worked with Matthew Paden, an assistant professor of pediatric critical care at Emory and a physician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, to design the device. The team is currently testing the prototype’s biological compatibility and hopes to be ready for in vivo studies later this year and clinical trials in five years.
John McDonald, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Biology and chief research scientist of Atlanta’s Ovarian Cancer Institute, and research scientist Ken Scarberry are designing a similar system that would treat ovarian cancer. Comparable in principle to kidney dialysis equipment, the system would circulate a buffer solution through the peritoneal cavity to pick up free-floating cancer cells that have broken off the primary tumor. The device is the basis for a startup company called Sub-Micro.
Added to fluids removed from the abdomen, magnetic nanoparticles engineered to capture cancer cells would latch onto the free-floating cancer cells, allowing both the nanoparticles and cancer cells to be removed by magnetic filters before the fluids are returned to the body. In mice injected with ovarian cancer cells, a single treatment with an early prototype of the system captured enough of the cancer cells that the treated mice lived nearly one-third longer than untreated ones.
The research, which was published in the January 2011 issue of the journal Nanomedicine, has been supported by the Georgia Research Alliance, the Ovarian Cancer Institute, the Robinson Family Foundation and the Deborah Nash Harris Endowment. Sub-Micro also has raised private funding to support its prototype development and is receiving assistance from VentureLab, a unit of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute that nurtures faculty startup companies.
For individuals receiving treatment for cancer, complete blood counts are vital for assessing the degree of toxicity from treatment with chemotherapy or radiation, which places patients at high risk for serious infections and requires that they remain at home to prevent acquiring infections from public places.
Instead of making weekly visits to clinics or commercial laboratories to have blood drawn, patients may one day use a cell phone attachment and software being developed by biomedical engineers to measure platelet count, neutrophil count and hemoglobin levels in real time at home. The information can be obtained from a single drop of blood obtained via finger prick.
Analogous to at-home glucose monitors that diabetics use, the device – called the Quantum CBC – uses a cell phone-integrated microscope to analyze the blood, which is loaded into a disposable cartridge. The cartridge contains a channel with a fluorescent dye that binds to platelets and white blood cells, along with quantum dots targeted to neutrophils.
“Using this system, patients could test themselves whenever and wherever they desire to determine when they are at risk for infection, when they can leave their homes and when they require a transfusion,” said Wilbur Lam, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Coulter Department and the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University. “This device will empower cancer patients, allowing them to take an active role in their treatment and enhance their quality of life.”
Lam is collaborating on this project with Gang Bao, the Robert A. Milton Chair in Biomedical Engineering and College of Engineering Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech. It is supported by the Coulter Foundation.
Also using smartphone technology, researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed a novel iPhone application that may enable persons with Parkinson’s disease to use the ubiquitous devices to collect data on hand and arm tremors and relay the results to medical personnel. The researchers believe the application could replace subjective tests now used to assess the severity of tremors, while potentially allowing more frequent patient monitoring without costly visits to medical facilities.
The program, known as iTrem, utilizes the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer to collect data on a patient. The application directly tracks tremor information and in the future may use simple puzzle games to record tremor data, which will then be processed and transmitted. The GTRI development team presented a paper on iTrem in January at the 2011 International Conference on Health Informatics.
“We expect iTrem to be a very useful tool for patients and their caregivers,” said Brian Parise, a research scientist who is principal investigator for the project along with Robert Delano, another GTRI research scientist. “And as a downloadable application, it also promises to be convenient and cost-effective.”
iTrem will undergo a clinical study led by Stewart Factor, a professor of neurology at Emory University.
A research team led by Georgia Tech mechanical engineering assistant professor Craig Forest is designing a device to quickly and accurately personalize a patient’s drug dosage to prevent blood clots that can cause heart attacks.
When someone experiencing heart attack symptoms arrives at an emergency room, he or she typically receives a standard dose of aspirin and/or clopidogrel to prevent further blood clotting. But that standard dose may not be the best dose for a given individual.
With Forest’s device, a small blood sample is sent through a microchip containing a network of microfabricated capillaries that mimic the branching coronary arteries around the human heart. Because the branches contain flow restrictions of different sizes, the failure of blood to flow through the branches with smaller restrictions indicates that a higher drug dose may be required.
“This bedside device should be a huge improvement compared to the way dosage is determined today, which is by observing if the standard dosage leads to gastrointestinal bleeding, which means the administered drug dose was too large, or the patient has another heart attack, which means the dose was too small,” said Forest.
Emory University Department of Emergency Medicine assistant professor Jeremy Ackerman and Georgia Tech Regents professor of mechanical engineering David Ku are working with Forest on this project, which is supported by the American Heart Association.
When patients spend time in the hospital recovering, they may develop chronic wounds, such as pressure ulcers, stasis ulcers and diabetic ulcers. Approximately 20 percent of the hospitalized population in the United States suffers from these chronic wounds. By gathering information about the wounds over time, clinicians can identify wounds that may require different treatment.
Current methods and devices for wound measurement range from low-tech to high-tech. Simple ruler and tracing-based methods are easy to use but lack accuracy and reliability, and require contact with the wound. Devices using structured light and stereophotogrammetry methods are accurate and repeatable, but very expensive.
Stephen Sprigle, a professor in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture’s Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access, and Thad Starner, an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, developed a low-cost, high-precision wound measurement camera. They received funding from the Georgia Research Alliance, tested the device at Atlanta’s Shepherd Center rehabilitation hospital and recently licensed it to a medical technology company.
The hand-held device, which could be used by hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies, quickly determines and captures information on wound boundaries and wound area. The device provides fast, accurate and repeatable digital documentation of wound progression, a necessary component to validate payment from insurance and government agencies.
Starner also is involved in the development of Mobile Music Touch, a device originally designed to teach people to quickly learn to play a musical instrument – but which is currently being investigated for use in hand rehabilitation. The device consists of a leather athletic glove with a small plastic box on the back and vibration motors attached to each finger. Wireless impulses from a computer, MP3 player or cell phone transmit signals to the device, causing a specific finger to vibrate. The user then presses that finger onto a key on an electronic keyboard, the key lights up and the note sounds.
Mobile Music Touch was created by Georgia Tech graduate student Kevin Huang. Currently, Starner, graduate student Tanya Markow, and architecture and computing associate professor Ellen Yi-Luen Do, are working with Deborah Backus, the associate director of spinal cord injury research at Shepherd Center, to investigate the device’s potential for hand rehabilitation.
“When people are injured, they may go through intense depression,” said Markow. “Music can bring them a level of pleasure and enjoyment, and that’s important because folks are dealing with the psychological aspects of being injured. It’s soothing and relaxing – a way to raise their spirits.”
An initial study with Shepherd Center patients indicated significant improvement in both sensory response and motor skills. Researchers found it particularly surprising because people with spinal cord injuries do not typically experience further recovery more than a year after their injuries. The researchers also were surprised that patients said they were more conscious of their hands, suggesting a change in their nervous systems.
In the area of rehabilitation from balance disorders, Georgia Tech electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Pamela Bhatti is working on a system that uses inexpensive gyroscopes embedded in a visor to monitor patients during in-home rehabilitation exercises. These vestibular rehabilitation exercises can improve balance, thus reducing dizziness, disorientation and blurred vision during head movement, and ultimately the number of falls.
Typically, a physical therapist guides a patient through vestibular rehabilitation exercises and verifies proper execution, but the patient is unsupervised for in-home exercises. Bhatti’s head angular motion-monitoring system (HAMMS) uses microelectronics and motion sensors to instantaneously capture angular head rotations during exercises in a user-friendly and untethered fashion.
With a grant from the Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute, Bhatti will use HAMMS as a data-logging tool to study the execution of in-home gaze stabilization exercises by patients in the Emory University Dizziness and Balance Center.
“This device provides a user-friendly technique for tracking and optimizing rehabilitation exercises with real-time performance feedback, which I believe will result in improved outcomes, improved monitoring and reduced cost,” said Bhatti.
In the area of minimally invasive cardiac surgery, researchers have developed a technology that simplifies and standardizes the technique for opening and closing the beating heart during surgery.
Apica Cardiovascular, a Georgia Tech and Emory University medical device startup, licensed the technology from the institutions. The firm recently received a $5.5 million investment to further develop the system, which will make the transapical access and closure procedure required for delivering therapeutic devices to the heart more routine for cardiac surgeons. The goal is to expand the use of surgery techniques that are less invasive and do not require stopping the heart.
With research and development support from the Coulter Foundation Translational Research Program and the Georgia Research Alliance, the company has already completed a series of pre-clinical studies to test the functionality of the device and its biocompatibility. James Greene currently serves as the CEO of the company, which has offices in Galway, Ireland, and in Atlanta.
The technology was invented by Ajit Yoganathan, Georgia Tech Regents professor and Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering; Vinod Thourani, an associate professor of surgery and associate director of the Structural Heart Center in Emory University’s Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery; Jorge H. Jimenez, chief technology officer of the company, who received his Ph.D. from the Coulter Department; and Thomas Vassiliades, formerly an associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Emory University.
Through another Georgia Tech-Emory partnership, researchers have developed a hand-held device called SpectroPen to help surgeons see the edges of tumors in real time during surgery. Statistics indicate that complete removal, or resection, of most solid tumors is the single most important predictor of patient survival.
This hand-held device called a SpectroPen could help surgeons see the edges of tumors in human patients in real time during surgery.
With funding from the National Institutes of Health, SpectroPen was designed by Coulter Department professor Shuming Nie and associate professor May Dongmei Wang. The researchers recently launched a startup company called SpectroPath to further develop and commercialize this technology.
The device detects tiny nanoparticles coupled to an antibody that sticks to molecules on the outsides of tumor cells. Nie and his collaborators have shown that the SpectroPen can detect tumors smaller than one millimeter in rodents. The device was described in the October 2010 issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry.
Emory University radiology professor James Provenzale and surgeons at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine are currently using this device during operations to remove naturally occurring tumors in dogs. University of Pennsylvania assistant professor of surgery Sunil Singhal is applying for approval to conduct clinical trials involving patients with lung cancer.
A new vaccine-delivery patch based on hundreds of microscopic needles that dissolve into the skin could allow individuals without medical training to painlessly administer vaccines – while providing improved immunization against diseases such as influenza. These microneedle patches could simplify immunization programs by eliminating the use of hypodermic needles, and their “sharps” disposal and re-use concerns.
The National Institutes of Health recently awarded $10 million to Georgia Tech, Emory University and PATH, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization, to advance the technology. The five-year grant will be used to address key technical issues and advance the microneedle patch through a Phase I clinical trial. The grant will also be used to compare the effectiveness of traditional intramuscular injection of flu vaccine against administration of vaccine into the skin using microneedle patches.
“We believe this technology will increase the number of people being vaccinated, especially among the most susceptible populations,” said Mark Prausnitz, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. “If we can make it easier for people to be vaccinated and improve the effectiveness of the vaccine, we could significantly reduce the number of deaths caused every year by influenza.”
Prausnitz is also working with Georgia Tech postdoctoral fellow Samirkumar Patel and Emory Eye Center professor Henry Edelhauser to develop a hollow microneedle that can effectively deliver drugs to the back of the eye. This device could benefit individuals with retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, which can require injections on a monthly basis. Development of the device is supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Georgia Research Alliance.
“Our hollow microneedle technology is less invasive than direct injection into the eye because the microneedle apparatus is an order of magnitude smaller than currently used intravitreal needles and its length is less than one millimeter,” said Patel.
The hollow microneedle, fabricated from stainless steel, penetrates the white of the eye – called the sclera – to reach a unique location underneath it called the suprachoroidal space. Results published in the January 2011 issue of the journal Pharmaceutical Research showed for the first time that nanoparticles and microparticles can be delivered in this way to target drug delivery to the parts of the eye needing therapy in diseases like macular degeneration.
More recently, the researchers demonstrated that microneedle injections into the suprachoroidal space resulted in sustained concentrations of drugs and particles for several months, which could enable less frequent visits to the doctor for injections.
“Because we can use the microneedle to target a drug to this specific space in the eye, we believe we can minimize side effects while maximizing exposure of the drug to the tissues where it would be most effective,” added Patel.
The researchers are currently forming a startup company based on the technology, which they plan to test in clinical trials in a few years.
The Tongue Drive System is a wireless and wearable device that enables people with high-level spinal cord injuries to operate a computer and maneuver an electrically-powered wheelchair simply by moving their tongues. Maysam Ghovanloo, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his team have been recruiting individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries to test the system at the Atlanta-based Shepherd Center and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
Trial participants receive a clinical tongue piercing and tongue stud that contains a tiny magnet embedded in the upper ball. Users wear a wireless headset outfitted with sensors that track the movement of the magnetic tracer in the mouth. Software running on an iPod interprets the tongue commands and translates the information into commands for the wheelchair or computer.
During the trial, participants repeat two test sessions during a six-week period that assess their ability to use the Tongue Drive System to operate a computer and navigate an electric wheelchair through an obstacle course.
“Based on previous studies, we expect that as users learn to use the system, they will move the computer cursor quicker and with more accuracy, and maneuver through the obstacle course faster and with fewer collisions,” said Ghovanloo.
This research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.
Researchers led by Stephen Sprigle, director of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Applied Research Laboratory at Georgia Tech, also are designing devices to improve wheelchair users’ experiences. To help elderly users who propel their wheelchairs with their feet, the researchers have designed a wheelchair seat based on tension support that allows users to sit low enough in the chair for their feet to touch the ground. The seat, which was licensed by The Posture Works, offers buttock support while maintaining a wheelchair’s folding capability.
For individuals with weak hands or poor hand sensation, it can be difficult to slow down or stop a manual wheelchair using friction on the hand rims attached to the wheels of the wheelchair. While earning his master’s degree in industrial design at Georgia Tech, Jonathan Jowers designed a hands-on brake to help these wheelchair users slow down more easily and quickly, while reducing burning and fatigue.
Individuals with quadriplegia, paraplegia and muscular dystrophy have used the device to perform a series of deceleration maneuvers on a sloped surface. During the tests, the users were able to quickly and easily maintain speed, slow down and stop using the braking system.
In the Coulter Department, assistant professor Charlie Kemp is designing robots to help people with limited mobility perform everyday tasks. Kemp designed a robot named EL-E that can find and deliver items that are highlighted with a simple laser pointer.
The robot autonomously moves to an item selected with a green laser pointer, picks up the item and then delivers it to a selected person or location. EL-E can grasp and deliver several types of household items, including towels, pill bottles and telephones.
“Humans naturally point at things, but we aren’t very accurate, so we use the context of the situation or verbal cues to clarify which object is important,” said Kemp, who is also an adjunct professor in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. “Robots have some ability to retrieve specific, predefined objects, but retrieving generic everyday objects has been a challenge.”
More recently, Kemp designed a robot named Dusty to retrieve small objects dropped on the floor. Using a wheelchair joystick, users drive Dusty to a position in front of an object and press a button. Dusty autonomously moves forward and scoops the object into a tray for delivery. The user can navigate the robot back and press the lift button, which commands Dusty to lift the tray to a comfortable height for the user to grasp the object.
In collaboration with the Emory ALS Center, Kemp’s laboratory conducted a 20-person user study with individuals who have motor impairments. Participants were highly satisfied with Dusty, and found it easy to use.
When Alpharetta, Ga., company Access Product Marketing wanted to add a cane to its line of mobility devices, the company came to the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) for help. GTRI senior research scientist Brad Fain and his team designed a sturdy folding cane for the company.
The team designed the tip of the Hugo folding cane so that it could bear heavy loads and be highly resistive to slipping. The cane was successfully tested with 550 pounds of weight applied. The cane was also designed with an interchangeable handle that could be chosen by each user. The personalized handle feature came to the attention of the producers of the Fox television show, “House, M.D.” The main character, Dr. Gregory House, used a Hugo folding cane with a customized handle in more than eight episodes.
While using a cane can improve balance, wearing a glove with a vibrating fingertip might improve sense of touch. Georgia Tech researchers designed such a device and attached it to 10 healthy adult volunteers who performed common sensory and motor skill tasks, including two-point discrimination, single-point touch, texture discrimination and grasp tests. The results showed that the volunteers performed statistically better on all of the tasks when mechanical vibration was applied.
The device uses an actuator made of a piezoelectric material to generate high-frequency vibration. The actuator is attached to the side of the fingertip so that the palm-side of the finger remains free and the individual wearing the glove can continue to manipulate objects.
“This device may one day be used to assist individuals whose jobs require high-precision manual dexterity or those with medical conditions that reduce their sense of touch,” said Jun Ueda, an assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Minoru Shinohara, an associate professor in the School of Applied Physiology at Georgia Tech, and visiting scholar Yuichi Kurita worked with Ueda to design the device. Details were presented in May at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Shanghai.
In another project, researchers led by Bruce Walker, an associate professor of psychology and interactive computing at Georgia Tech, are helping to refine and improve an automated driving coach system designed at the Shepherd Center to aid drivers with brain injuries and other cognitive deficits.
The prototype system plugs into the car’s power outlet. The driver receives intermittent verbal reminders to check mirrors, speed, and distance from other vehicles and objects. When the driver completes a task, he or she presses a button positioned on the car’s armrest and then gets a brief verbal message of encouragement. If the system reminds a driver to complete a task and does not receive a response within three minutes, the system’s prompts increase in frequency.
Walker’s team gathered feedback from Shepherd Center patients who have used the automated driving coach to determine what speech and non-speech sounds and cues would be least intrusive and most helpful to its users. They are currently conducting evaluations of advanced versions of the system in the new driving simulator located in the Georgia Tech School of Psychology. They also consult with Centrafuse™, an Atlanta-based startup company that designs automotive software, on how to give the automated driving coach more functionality.
John Anschutz, the director of Shepherd’s Assistive Technology Center, led the initial development of the device, with the help of driver rehabilitation specialist Michele Luther-Krug, vice president of technology Mike Jones and director ofbrain injury research Ron Seel.
The development of medical devices is a logical outgrowth of many research activities at Georgia Tech. Moving these devices from the laboratory into the clinic is becoming an increasingly important part of Georgia Tech’s mission – and its collaborations with other institutions. The development and commercialization of medical devices supports Georgia Tech economic development goals and its mission of improving the human condition.
With design and prototyping support from the Global Center for Medical Innovation and commercialization support from the Georgia Research Alliance and Georgia Tech’s VentureLab, Georgia Tech will continue to advance the medical device industry.
T.J. Becker, John Christensen, Quinn Eastman, Rick Robinson, Jane Sanders, David Terraso and John Toon also contributed to this article.]]>Media Relations Contacts:
John Toon
404-894-6986
jtoon@gatech.edu
Brett Israel
404-385-1933
brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu
Researchers from Georgia Tech teamed with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University’s Center for Comprehensive Informatics to develop technologies that will protect the security and privacy of electronic health information.
“Storing medical records in electronic format and sharing them among different health care organizations has the potential to produce enormous improvements in the quality and efficiency of the health care system, but unauthorized disclosure of the information has the potential to damage lives and harm careers,” said Douglas Blough, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Through a project called MedVault, Blough and professors Mustaque Ahamad and Ling Liu of the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech are developing a broad set of information security and privacy tools that can be integrated with electronic health records systems and work flows. MedVault is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
With health information exchanges popping up across the country, individuals will begin sharing health documents with various health care system entities, which will need to verify the source and trustworthiness of the documents. MedVault researchers developed a system that uses redactable signature technology for source-verifiable, patient-controlled information sharing. The system enables documents digitally signed by a health care provider to be authenticated, while at the same time invisibly deleting information a patient wants to keep confidential.
“This technology could be especially valuable, for example, to parents who need certified health records to enroll a child in school, college, summer camp or other activity because parents would just need this one digitally signed document and could use it in many different ways,” explained Blough.
The research team also designed a policy combination and conflict resolution system that can examine the policies of multiple health care entities and ensure they are all followed.
“Each organization with a health information exchange may have a different policy about what information in their system can be disclosed under specific circumstances and patients might want to set their own disclosure controls, and all of these policies must be enforced. Our system combines these multiple policies and resolves any conflicts,” added Blough.
The MedVault team is working to ensure that these technologies are seamlessly integrated with the overall health system and its medical processes to provide strong security and privacy while assuring patient safety.
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Media Relations Contacts: Abby Robinson (abby@innovate.gatech.edu; 404-385-3364) or John Toon (jtoon@gatech.edu; 404-894-6986)
Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>To address this problem, which affects at least 4,000 children in the United States per year, doctors and engineers teamed up to develop a kidney replacement device designed especially for children. The prototype device is much smaller than existing dialysis equipment and works in tandem with equipment that supplements the function of the heart and lungs for severely ill patients.
“We have built a robust device that achieves automated and accurate fluid management,” said Ajit Yoganathan, a Georgia Tech Regents' professor and the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering.
With funding from the National Institutes of Health, Yoganathan and Arvind Santhanakrishnan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, worked with Matthew Paden, an asistant professor of pediatric critical care at Emory and a physician at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, to design the device. The team is currently testing the prototype’s biological compatibility and hopes to be ready for in vivo studies later this year and clinical trials in five years.
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Media Relations Contacts: Abby Robinson (abby@innovate.gatech.edu; 404-385-3364) or John Toon (jtoon@gatech.edu; 404-894-6986)
Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>Instead of making weekly visits to clinics or commercial laboratories to have blood drawn, patients may one day use a cell phone attachment and software being developed by biomedical engineers to measure platelet count, neutrophil count and hemoglobin levels in real time at home. The information can be obtained from a single drop of blood obtained via finger prick.
Analogous to at-home glucose monitors that diabetics use, the device – called the Quantum CBC – uses a cell phone-integrated microscope to analyze the blood, which is loaded into a disposable cartridge. The cartridge contains a channel with a fluorescent dye that binds to platelets and white blood cells, along with quantum dots targeted to neutrophils.
“Using this system, patients could test themselves whenever and wherever they desire to determine when they are at risk for infection, when they can leave their homes and when they require a transfusion,” said Wilbur Lam, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University. “This device will empower cancer patients, allowing them to take an active role in their treatment and enhance their quality of life.”
Lam is collaborating on this project with Gang Bao, the Robert A. Milton Chair in Biomedical Engineering and College of Engineering Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech. The project is supported by the Coulter Foundation.
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]]>For those remaining in town, there are plenty of holidayevents to enjoy around Atlanta, even on a student budget.
As always, be aware of your surroundings both on and offcampus to ensure a safe and enjoyable winter holiday. Help Georgia Tech policeby remembering what to do in the case of suspicious activity or incidents: ifyou see something, say something. GTPD can always be reached at 404.894.2500.
The Institute is closed from Monday, Dec. 26, throughMonday, Jan. 2. Classes resume the following Monday, Jan. 9. All administrativeoffices are closed, with a few notable exceptions; Georgia Tech Police remain on a 24-houroperation schedule, and the Office of the Dean of Students and Counseling Center (404.894.2575) remainaccessible 24 hours a day with staff on call.
Full information on Parking and Transportation Services isavailable at pts.gatech.edu.
Full information on Dining Services is available at dining.gatech.edu.
The Breakthrough Awards Program is designed to provideextended support to existing KRF-funded Innovator Award recipients to further researchon Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and increase the likelihood of abreakthrough discovery. Last year, the team’s proposal received one of theinaugural Innovator awards given by the foundation.
Over the course of the next year, the team’sresearch will focus on developing effective therapeutics that harnesses theimmunomodulatory properties of bacterial molecules for the treatment of IBD. Byexploiting the inherent ability of intestinal pathogens to control inflammatorysignaling pathways in the human body, the researchers hope to adapt bacterialregulatory molecules and use them as an immunotherapy.
“Weintend to develop a new therapeutic paradigm that utilizes bacterialimmunoregulatory mechanisms and engineers a nanoparticle delivery strategyessential for clinical viability,” says Champion. Immunomodulatorsare agents that alter the immune response by suppression (immunosuppressive) orenhancement (immunostimulant). “Our researchfocuses on exploiting the inherent abilities of intestinal bacteria toattenuate the symptoms of IBD,” she says.
IBD is a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine, including the major types of IBD known as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Althoughthe causes of IBD are unknown, medical experts believe the most likely cause isan immune reaction the body has against its own tissues in the intestine. Approximatelyfive million people worldwide suffer from some form of IBD, with symptoms thatinclude pain, bleeding, and debilitation. Current therapeutic options forpatients are largely limited to the use of anti-inflammatory steroids appliedeither systemically or locally for the treatment of the symptoms, and removalof the colon is the only cure at this time.
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private familyfoundation that funds inspiring and world-changing work. The Innovator Awards Program for IBD Researchencourages collaboration in the hope of finding new and better treatments, andultimately a cure, for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. The keycomponents for funding consideration include innovation, collaboration,scientific merit, and a high potential for success.
]]>Earlier this year, President Obama nominated Stancell to the board, which is the governing body of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Composed of 24 members, including Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson, the board serves as policy advisor to the President and Congress, oversees NSF’s $7 billion annual budget and makes recommendations on funding competitively reviewed research proposals from U.S. universities and other research organizations.
Candidates for the National Science Board must demonstrate leadership, intellectual contributions, breadth, depth and understanding of scientific knowledge, distinguished service and potential for further contribution.
“I am honored by President Obama's nomination, and I look forward to the opportunity to use my experience in technology and business to help foster science and engineering advances for the nation,” Stancell said.
Stancell joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 1994 after a 31-year career at Mobil Oil, where he first worked in research and development and retired as vice president of international exploration and production. He graduated magna cum laude in chemical engineering from the City College of New York and earned his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he later returned as a visiting professor.
A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Stancell is also the recipient of the National Award for Chemical Engineering Practice given by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. U.S. Black Engineer & IT Magazine named him Black Engineer of the Year in 1992, and in 1997, he was chosen by AIChE as one of One Hundred Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era. He was also selected by Georgia Tech students as the Outstanding Chemical Engineering Professor of the Year in 1997 and 2004.
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Dueto the McCamish construction, Georgia Tech is offering a shuttle service to themen’s basketball games this season at Philips Arena. Shuttles will run acontinuous loop for four hours from the Student Center Transit Hub to PhilipsArena, beginning one hour prior to each game’s tipoff. Shuttles will run forthe following games at Philips, all ACC matchups:
Kristen Shaw
Communications and Marketing
Three of the new AAAS Fellows at Georgia Tech hail from the College of Engineering and one is on the faculty in the College of Computing. The Fellows were announced today in the journal Science and will be honored at the Fellows Forum, held Feb. 18 at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada.
The new AAAS Fellows at Georgia Tech are:
Ali Adibi, professor of electrical and computer engineering, who was honored for his “distinguished contributions to the fields of integrated nanophotonics, photonic crystals, and volume holography."
David Bader, professor of computational science and engineering in the College of Computing, who earned the distinction for “distinguished contributions to the field of computational science and engineering.”
Robert Butera, professor of electrical and computer engineering who also holds a joint appointment in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, was named Fellow “for advances in computational neuroscience and neurotechnology, promoting engineering through society, editorial, and university leadership, and contributing to STEM policy and educational initiatives."
Paul Steffes, professor of electrical and computer engineering, who earned the distinction for “contributions to the understanding of planetary atmospheres through innovative microwave measurements."
AAAS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association. AAAS publishes the journal Science as well as many scientific newsletters, books and reports, and spearheads programs that raise the bar of understanding for science worldwide. The four Georgia Tech faculty members were among 539 Fellows elected by the AAAS Council in November.
]]>Heart-Thrombwas developed by Siddharth Gurnani, NicholasTurturro, Kelly Hefelfinger, Oscar Martinez and Pranav Gandhi, a team ofmechanical engineering seniors.
“It’s the only [machine] of its kind that mimics actualconditions of your heart and can give you a personalized dosage of Plavix,which is the most common way of treating cardiovascular disease and the thirdmost prescribed drug in the U.S.,” Siddharth Gurnani said.
The device could potentially help patients get a customized doseof Plavix right away, which is important because “too much prescription ofPlavix can cause internal bleeding and organ failure, and too little can causeheart attacks,” Gurnani said.
The Fall 2011 Capstone Design Expo was held in the GeorgiaTech’s Clough Commons on Dec. 8. At the semester-ending event, held by theGeorge W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, student teamssystematically design, build and report solutions, in the form of prototypes ordesigns of prototypes, for a variety of problems submitted from industrialsponsors or their own imagination.
Secondplace was awarded to ThromBOSSES, developed by seniors Kevin Parsons, PriyaPatil, Benji Hoover, Daniel Pak, Matthew Lee, Eric Kopfle, Josh DeVane andPoornima Vekataraman. This project was a redesign of a sternal retractor used duringmedian sternotomy surgeries. Median sternotomy provides access to the heart andlungs for surgical procedures such as heart transplant, coronary artery bypassand corrective surgery for congenital heart defects.
Thirdplace went to Re-Hand, an in-home rehabilitative device for strengthening handmuscles, following injury or a debilitating medical condition. The Re-Hand wouldallow for testing and rehabilitation of individual fingers and accommodates fortesting at different wrist positions. It also increases patients’ motivation throughan interactive game. Students involved with the Re-Hand project include seniorsDaphne Vincent, Elizabeth LeMar, Kunal McDonal and Alkindi Kibria.
]]>TheLamar Allen Sustainable Education Building (SEB) will be Georgia Tech’sparticipant in the Atlanta BBC. Opened in 1998, the 33,000-square-footstructure was one of the first commercial buildings in the U.S. toutilize autoclaved aerated concrete block construction, a lightweight, precastbuilding material that simultaneously provides structure, insulation and fireand mold resistance. The building now serves as a living laboratory for energyefficient education, research and application of sustainable technologies. It houses classrooms, computer labs and offices for the School of Civiland Environmental Engineering. At33,000 square feet, its size is typical of 80 percent of commercial buildingsin the U.S.
Georgia Tech Facilities' Energy Conservation Team completed an energy audit on theSEB prior to learning about the Better Buildings Challenge.
“Ouroriginal intent was to retro-commission the building to make it more energyefficient,” said Chuck Rhode. vice president for facilities management. “However,participating in the Better Buildings Challenge provides Georgia Tech theopportunity to showcase that retro-commissioning, recommended every five years,typically reduces energy consumption by 15 percent, has an average 8–15 month payback and provides the opportunity to retune a building for the end users’evolving needs.”
“Asa leading research university, it is important that Georgia Tech continuesreducing our energy consumption and demonstrating financial stewardship whileeducating the future leaders of the world about sustainable buildingpractices,” said Amir Rahnamay-Azar, senior vice president of administrationand finance.
Georgia Tech has gained a national reputation for embracing and promotingcross-disciplinary sustainability practices on the campus, in the classroom andin the laboratory. For four consecutive years, the Princeton Review has namedGeorgia Tech to its Green Honor Roll, one of only a handful of universities toreceive such recognition. Among many other highlights, Tech has alsobeen designated a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation.
The Atlanta BBC is part of the Department ofEnergy’s Better Building Initiative and is co-sponsored by Atlanta MayorKasim Reed, the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, Central Atlanta Progress and otherleading business and community organizations.
]]>A survey of more than 200 human embryonic stem cell researchers in the United States found that nearly four in ten researchers have faced excessive delay in acquiring a human embryonic stem cell line and that more than one-quarter were unable to acquire a line they wanted to study.
"The survey results provide empirical data to support previously anecdotal concerns that delays in acquiring or an inability to acquire certain human embryonic stem cell lines may be hindering stem cell science in the United States," said Aaron Levine, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Results of the survey were published in the December issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology. Funding for the study was provided by the Kauffman Foundation's Roadmap for an Entrepreneurial Economy Program.
Levine administered the web-based survey in November 2010 to more than 1,400 stem cell scientists working at U.S. academic and non-profit medical research institutions. Almost 400 respondents from 32 states completed the survey. Of those, 205 respondents reported using human embryonic stem cells in their research, and their responses were used in this study.
The surveyed scientists cited four main reasons for their problems accessing human embryonic stem cell lines: difficulty obtaining material transfer agreements, failure to acquire research approval from internal institutional oversight committees, cell line owners that were unwilling to share and federal policy considerations.
"Bureaucratic challenges may be inevitable in this ethically contentious and politically sensitive field, but policymakers should attempt to mitigate these issues by doing things like encouraging institutions to accept third-party ownership verification and providing clearer guidance on human embryonic stem cell research not eligible for federal funding," said Levine, who is also a member of the Georgia Tech Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.
The broad patents assigned to the initial inventors of the method used to isolate embryonic stem cells and numerous narrower patents claiming specific human embryonic stem cell-related techniques are also factors complicating access to human embryonic stem cell lines, according to Levine.
When survey respondents were asked how many of the more than 1,000 existing human embryonic stem cell lines they used, 76 percent reported using three or fewer lines and 54 percent reported using two or fewer lines in their research. More than half of the 130 respondents cited access issues as a major reason they chose to use specific cell lines in their research.
"These results illustrate that many human embryonic stem cell scientists in the United States are not conducting comparative studies with a diverse set of human embryonic stem cell lines, which raises concern that at least some results are cell-line specific rather than broadly applicable," said Levine. "Federal and state funding agencies may want to consider encouraging research using multiple diverse human embryonic stem cell lines to improve the reliability of research results."
Embryonic stem cell lines are being used to develop new cellular therapies for various diseases, to screen for new drugs and to better understand inherited diseases. It's crucial that diverse lines are available for this research to ensure that all individuals benefit from the results.
While availability was cited as the most common factor affecting scientists' choices regarding which cell lines to use, other considerations included suitability for a specific project, familiarity with specific lines, a desire to reduce complications in the laboratory, cost, the extent of relevant literature and the preferences of scientists' colleagues.
Three of the initial human embryonic stem cell lines derived at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1990s were the lines most commonly used by respondents. Cell lines H1, H9 and H7 were used by 79, 68 and 26 percent of respondents, respectively. Scientists also reported using more than 100 other lines, but each of these was used by fewer than 12 percent of respondents.
"Other research communities in the life sciences have experienced material access problems and they addressed them, in part, by creating centralized information and data sharing hubs, including public DNA sequence databases, tissue banks and mouse repositories. The stem cell research community has taken promising steps in this direction, but this analysis should encourage the community to continue and, if possible, accelerate these efforts," added Levine.
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Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>The process for earning Gold certification for the 2,000-bed student apartment community began in November 2007. As of 2009, all new buildings and renovations on Tech's campus are built to LEED gold specifications, but must be reviewed and approved by the USGBC to become certified. The Institute uses the LEED system as a way to operate its buildings efficiently and to result in healthier environments for students, faculty and staff.
To earn LEED certification as a new building, renovation or retrofit, the project must meet requirements in six categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation and design process. The Institute also follows guidelines outlined by its Yellow Book, one of the most advanced and forward-thinking documents in the college and university arena for environmental stewardship, sustainable design and energy management.
TheNorth Avenue Apartments earned LEED Gold for Existing Buildings (EB) Operationsand Maintenance (O&M).
"Weare particularly proud of the fact that this is the largest university housingcomplex in the world to achieve the LEED EB O&M certification," saidFran Gillis, senior director of housing facilities.
]]>The year-longhistoric restoration was funded by Georgia Tech Facilities Inc. primarily to accommodatethe Institute's requirements for large and small meetings and events, as wellas wedding and special corporate or civic events depending on availability. Rentalrevenues will be used to offset restoration costs and operation and maintenanceof the building.
The restoredvenue offers the flexibility to accommodate events ranging from small meetingsto weddings and special corporate events, according to Shawn Stinson, eventcoordinator for the Academy.
“Because ofits proximity to Technology Square, the Academy is very much a part of theInstitute’s master development plan,” said Howard Wertheimer, director ofCapital Planning and Space Management at Georgia Tech. “We are pleased to playa role in preserving this important icon of Atlanta’s past while also usingenvironmentally sound building techniques to make sure the building can beenjoyed by generations to come.”
One of thefew Atlanta buildings on the National Register of Historic Places anddesignated with Landmark status by the Atlanta Urban Design Commission, theAcademy of Medicine was designed by renowned Atlanta architect Philip Schutzeand features neoclassical architecture such as distinctive Doric columns. The 19,000-square-footbuilding also includes a 230-seat theater and six event spaces.
A focal pointof the Academy is the entry portico and rotunda, where black and white Italianmarble floors are accented by the illustrious Czechoslovakian chandelier madefamous after its inclusion on the movie set of "Gone with the Wind."In addition, the Academy features historic artwork and furniture along with museum-qualitymedical artifacts on display throughout the building.
Although thebuilding’s inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places limitedarchitectural changes to the original structure, environmentally friendlyconstruction techniques were used during the restoration process, with thefacility currently targeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design(LEED) Gold Certification. The Academy’s restoration was managed by twoMacon-based firms. Dunwody/Beeland Architects Inc. led design efforts whileChris R. Sheridan served as the general contractor.
The Academyof Medicine represents one of the few nonresidential projects by Shutze, whowas responsible for designing homes such as the Swan House. He also holds thedistinction of being a member of the first entering class of architecture studentsat Georgia Tech in 1908.
Originallyknown as the Fulton County Medical Society, the Academy once served as aresource to Atlanta physicians who used the library, meeting space andtelephone service center located there. In 1970, the organization changed itsname to the Medical Association of Georgia. In 1981, ownership was transferredto the newly formed Atlanta Medical Heritage Inc. that spearheaded anapproximate $1 million restoration project.
AtlantaMedical Heritage transferred ownership of the historic landmark to the GeorgiaTech Foundation in 2008. The action took place after the nonprofit group facedchallenges generating the resources necessary to maintain the venue. Thedecision to transfer the property to the Foundation was based on Georgia Tech’shistoric ties to the design of the building and because of the proximity of thelandmark to the Institute’s Technology Square complex.
The GeorgiaTech Foundation accepted the gift on behalf of Georgia Tech. At the time of theproperty transfer, the Foundation expressed gratitude and appreciation to themembers of the Atlanta Medical Heritage Board for their partnership andgenerous donation.
According tothe Foundation, partnerships remain the core of a strong and vibrant university,and the Academy of Medicine serves as a reminder of the generosity ofbenefactors who are extending Georgia Tech’s legacy of excellence well into thedecades to come.
Included onthe Georgia Tech Trolley route, the Academy provides an easily accessibleamenity for the entire campus community. Those interested in learning moreabout the Academy’s restoration or venue rental can visit www.academy.gatech.edu or call 404.894.1414.
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Bellamkonda directs the Neurological Biomaterials and Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory, a part of the Laboratory for Neuroengineering in the joint Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. He also serves as associate vice president within the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research (EVPR), directs a T32 training grant called Rational Design of Biomaterials, directs a Graduate Leadership Program for BioE/BME graduate students and is a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar.
Current research projects in the Neurological Biomaterials and Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory include: developing scaffolds for peripheral nerve regeneration and interfacing; developing vehicles for contrast agents and receptor-targeted nano-scale drug delivery for the treatment of malignant tumors; and engineering a system for tumor exvasion. He is also leading a research team exploring interfacing technologies that will better integrate external electronics to the nervous system. In addition to the Flanagan endowment, Bellamkonda’s research is funded by grants from NIH, NSF, the Coulter Foundation, the Georgia Cancer Coalition, and Ian's Friend's Foundation.
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404-894-2357
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Entrants are asked to submit ideas for new clean energy companies. The Challenge targets and isopen to all ACC schools, as well as other universities in the southeastern U.S.The Challenge finals event will rotate among three sub-regionswith nearby ACC schools co-hosting each year. Maryland, Virginia, and VirginiaTech co-host in Washington, D.C. in year one; Duke, North Carolina, NorthCarolina State, and Wake Forest co-host in Research Triangle in year two; Georgia Tech will co-host with Clemson, Florida State, and Miami in Atlanta in yearthree.
Supported by theDepartment of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy(EERE), the competition invites business plans with commercialization potential in the cleanenergy space, including projects related to renewable energy, energy efficiencyimprovements and advanced fuels/vehicles. The winner will receive a$100,000 prize and compete in the DOE National Clean Energy Business PlanFinals in Washington, D.C., in summer 2012.
Executive summary submissions are due Monday, Feb. 20, 2012. Visit the competition's website and see the attached (at right) flyer for more details. If you’d like to have a role in planning,marketing and running this competition at Tech, contact Marcia Kinstler in the Office of Environmental Stewardship.
]]>The impressive results, produced with assistance from Georgia Tech's Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP), came about after the company had labored for a number of years to sustain a continuous improvement system. These earlier improvement efforts had focused on large projects using a team-based approach, which highlighted both the existence of activities that didn't add value and the invisible walls between departments. For competitive reasons, the company felt the need for improvement was critical.
In 2007, Derek Woodham and Larry Alford, Georgia Tech lean specialists, conducted a lean assessment of the company's operations.
"When the results came back from the lean audit, we began questioning our business," said Jeff Tatum, Hoshizaki's director of manufacturing improvements. "Our CEO decided to implement the lean approach, and each person in a leadership role was required to complete lean reading material. This helped our leadership team fully understand the difference between value-added and non-value-added work."
In-house lean simulation training class for executives and other key personnel added to this foundation. By the end of the courses, Hoshizaki staff had mapped current and future value streams, identified appropriate techniques for improvement, developed a lean strategy and planned the application of specific lean techniques.
Woodham then proposed a series of kaizen events. Kaizen, or rapid improvement, focuses on a particular process or activity that identifies and quickly removes waste. Tatum and other members of the leadership team decided to focus their efforts on four product lines in the plant.
"The results of the kaizen events were so remarkable that a Kaizen Promotion Office (KPO) was established to implement lean across the organization," Tatum said. "It really became the lean training center and the change agent for the organization."
Hoshizaki also began implementing 5S in each manufacturing area. 5S (sorting, straightening, shining, standardizing, and sustaining) is a method for organizing the workplace. The "sort" phase led to the establishment of a red tag system for sorting unused items from each work area. Visual control aids were made available to each area during the "set" phase, and time was allocated for cleaning and inspection during the "shine" phase.
In 2009, Hoshizaki began to see double-digit productivity improvements that company officials expect to see continue.
"Georgia Tech training allowed each of the KPO members to understand the use and implementation method of the lean tools," said Jim Procuro, senior vice president of manufacturing at Hoshizaki. "By using employee ideas to identify and eliminate waste, we have been able to establish a successful continuous improvement system."
Tatum noted that more than 2,700 employee ideas were submitted last year and 43 percent of the suggestions were implemented. He expects that number to increase as Hoshizaki employees become more engaged and kaizen becomes a way of life.
Hoshizaki America was also the first company to join the Georgia Tech Lean Consortium, a forum for organizations to advance their knowledge and effective use of lean principles. According to Tatum, the monthly events have allowed companies to share and learn from each other and helped tremendously with Hoshizaki's benchmarking.
"The learning tours have been fantastic and the Georgia Tech training -- whether it's a value stream mapping event or a lean boot camp -- has been very useful in helping our employees understand the tools and applications," Tatum explained. "But there's a lot of activity with Consortium members that takes place outside of Georgia Tech. It's turned into a natural support function for continuing to learn."
Both Tatum and Procuro attribute Hoshizaki's success to support from the CEO and his executive team for the lean initiative and for the flexibility to adjust goals and measures as the project developed. Tatum noted that while other companies were worried about jobs and survival last year, Hoshizaki was able to give bonuses to its employees.
"Something like that encourages the employees to push that much harder, because they know the honesty and integrity are there on the part of the leadership team," he said. "Now lean is internalized and is just part of our own way of doing things in every project we do now. We are thankful that Georgia Tech continues to be there to support our journey."
About GaMEP: The Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) is a program of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute and is a member of the national MEP network supported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The GaMEP, with offices in nine regions across the state, has been serving Georgia manufacturers since 1960. With a broad range of industrial expertise, the GaMEP helps manufacturing companies across Georgia grow and stay competitive. It offers a solution-based approach through technical assistance, coaching, education, and connections to Georgia Tech, industry and state resources designed to increase top line growth and reduce bottom line cost.
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Ryan Adams, Joey Dolensky, Ryan Hoffman and Peter Sohl, allfourth-year students, will embark on a multi-day virtual journey on Saturday,playing video games from the Zelda series to raise money for charity through their 4/48 ZeldaMarathon.
The marathon began in 2008 with a simple idea: play fourZelda games in 48 hours, stream it online and ask people to watch and givedonations for charity. The marathon finished in just over 44 hours, raised $400and a tradition was born.
This year, the manpower grows from four to six players.They’ve doubled the number of games that will be played, bringing it to eightand including this year’s new addition to the Zelda suite, “Skyward Sword.” Donationrewards have been added to incentivize giving even more than in the past — butsome things haven’t changed.
“We still love Zelda,” said Adams, a biology major whoredesigned the marathon’s website, zelda448.com,for the second year in a row. During last year’s marathon, which raised $2,500,the site received 1,000 unique hits per day and about 3,000 views on its livestream; the total number of hours visitors spent logged on amounted to abouthalf a year, or more than 4,000 hours. Like last year, proceeds will benefitChild’s Play, an organization that distributes toys, games and other donationsto children in hospitals worldwide. Sohl’s basement in Acworth remains the venue;spending a week in this underground locale is part of what Adams looks forwardto most about the marathon each year.
“I’m not sure we’re wrapping our minds around how long itcould really take,” said Sohl, a business administration and science,technology, and culture major. Last year’s marathon lasted 64 hours, with sixgames being played, but raising as much money as last year could take up totwice as long because of new donation incentives. Many require the 4/48 playersto complete additional aspects of games, extending the time of the marathon anddelirium of its participants.
“The fun for the viewers is watching us become more and moresleep-deprived,” Sohl said. Adams recalled the end of last year’s marathonwhen, after 64 hours of play, the group circled up and sang “Lean on Me” to itsonline fans. This year’s fundraising goal is $10,000, and crossing each giftlevel along the way unlocks donor giveaways.
“It’s a really cool community dynamic. People want toinvolve themselves in the marathon any way they can,” Adams said, speaking ofboth online and local support. About two-dozen friends visit Sohl’s basementover the course of the marathon’s duration, and some online viewers play alongfrom home by starting games simultaneously with the marathoners.
The 4/48 Zelda Marathon begins Saturday, Dec. 17, at 10 a.m.Watch or make donations at zelda448.com.
]]>“Dr. Foege’s ability to develop and implement innovative health strategies has alleviated much human suffering in our world today and for generations to come,” said Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson. “It is our privilege to honor Dr. Foege for his deep moral commitment to humanitarian progress and his lifetime of service through Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen Prize for Social Courage.”
During a career spanning 60 years, Foege championed domestic and international health policies emphasizing disease eradication and control, and issues of child survival and development, injury prevention, population control, preventive medicine, and public health leadership, particularly in the developing world. Through leadership roles at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The Carter Center and the Task Force for Child Survival, Foege guided early response to the HIV/AIDS crisis; oversaw the eradication of Guinea worm disease, polio and measles, and the elimination of river blindness overseas; and advocated policies that vastly accelerated childhood immunization in developing countries. He is also credited with bringing to life visions for global health at both The Carter Center and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage recognizes individuals such as Foege who, by standing up for clear moral principles in the social arena, have positively affected public discourse at the risk of their own careers, livelihoods and even their lives. The Prize is supported in perpetuity through a commitment by the Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Family Foundation.
“Like former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr., Dr. Foege has envisioned a better world and created communities for realizing that dream in the face of seemingly insurmountable problems,” said Jacqueline J. Royster, dean of the Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. “His courage to do the right thing and his steadfastness, sometimes in the face of staunch opposition, has saved millions of lives and reshaped the global dialog about what is possible in health and social progress.”
As a young epidemiologist working in Nigeria in the 1960s, Foege discovered the power of the surveillance/containment vaccination strategy for eradicating smallpox. He braved civil war there to ensure that the last pocket of the disease was eliminated. Elsewhere in Africa and India, he overcame resistance to the new vaccination strategy, ultimately enabling the world to rid itself of this devastating disease.
Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 to head the CDC, Foege enlarged the organization’s mandate beyond infectious diseases to encompass the full spectrum of human health. In 1984, Foege co-founded the Task Force for Child Survival and Development as a working group for the World Health Organization, UNICEF, The World Bank, the United Nations Development Program and the Rockefeller Foundation. The forerunner of today’s Task Force for Global Health, the Task Force under Foege increased childhood immunizations worldwide from 20 percent to 80 percent, and expanded its mandate in 1991 to engage challenges such as malnutrition and hunger.
Foege remains active in many organizations. He is on the Advisory Board for the Emory University Global Health Institute and is a professor emeritus, at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health. He attended Pacific Lutheran University, earned a medical degree from the University of Washington and a Master of Public Health from Harvard University.
More information on the Allen Prize can be found at the following link: http://ivanallenprize.gatech.edu/home/.
]]>Library
Clough Commons
Buildings will continue to be monitored by Clough/Library Security.
]]>The InVenture Prize at Georgia Tech is an innovation competition for undergraduate students at the Institute. Students can work independently or in teams to develop and present inventions which will be judged by a panel of experts. Up to 10 inventions will be selected from preliminary rounds to advance to a final round, where two inventions will be selected as winners.
The past two years the competition's final round has aired live on Georgia Public Broadcasting, and teams have won up to $15,000 for their inventions.
Submitting an Intent to Compete informs the Office of Undergraduate Research and Student Innovation about your idea and assists with their planning, but does not obligate you to compete in the competition. Additionally, it is only necessary at this time to specify a category for your entry, but not a full description or abstract. Those who submit an Intent to Compete will have until Jan. 13, 2012, to register and fully disclose their ideas. The final round will take place on March 13, 2012; a full schedule for the 2012 competition is available online.
Submit your Intent to Compete form online. To learn more about the InVenture Prize, visit inventureprize.gatech.edu.
]]>“We hope that students will use these newcomputer stations to complete tasks that only take a few minutes and leave thecomputer clusters for others with more time-consuming assignments,” said CariLovins, Department Manager in the Office of Information Technology.
Located on the counter of the former CirculationDesk, these computers are now on-line and available for use. Computercapabilities include: Microsoft Office, Internet access, printing and a fewother applications frequently used by students.
Thequick-use stations were first introduced to the Library based on user surveysthat indicated a growing concern among students about line congestion. Quick-useterminals were added to the Library West Commons (LWC) at that time but havebeen removed while the furniture is being repaired. The computers will bere-installed in the LWC near the Library/Clough Commons connection once thefurniture repairs are completed, according to Lovins.
Inthe meantime, the eight new quick-use, walk-up computers now available in the LECshould help alleviate stress for students in a rush who need to make a minoredit or print an assignment quickly.
“As the semester progresses these new additionswill help keep traffic moving and provide greater computer access to studentswho need them most,” said Lovins.
]]>The conference rotates host institutions and will take place Feb. 17–19, 2012, at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C. Georgia Tech played host in 2011.
TheGeorgia Tech delegation will include six students selected through anapplication process. All students are welcome and encouraged to apply bysubmitting an application form online and completing threeessay questions (included in the application form). The deadline to apply is Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 5 p.m.
For moreinformation, contact Stephanie Knight in the Office of Student Involvement at sknight@gatech.edu or 404-385-6552.
]]>Wang is perhaps best known for nanogenerators that harvest mechanical energy from the environment, taking advantage of the piezoelectric properties of zinc oxide nanowires to produce electrical current. Starting with output that could barely be measured in 2006, his research team has steadily improved the devices until today arrays of connected nanogenerators can produce as much as 30 volts.
More recently, he has used the piezoelectric properties of the nanostructures to control charge transport in electronic devices, a technology known as piezotronics, which provides an alternative to traditional CMOS technology. He has also coined the term "piezo-phototronics" to describe techniques for controlling electro-optical processes in devices such as light-emitting diodes.
By leaving a gap in the PowerPoint slide he uses to describe his family of zinc oxide nanostructures, Wang suggests there's more ahead.
Wang received a 2011 Materials Research Society Medal Nov. 30th at the organization's fall meeting in Boston. The medal's commendation notes his "seminal contributions in the discovery, controlled synthesis, and fundamental understanding of zinc oxide nanowires and nanobelts, and the design and fabrication of novel, nanowire-based nanosensors, piezotronic devices and nanogenerators for energy harvesting."
Wang joined Georgia Tech in 1995, after earning his Ph.D. at Arizona State University and working for Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). His first interest was electron microscopy, where he helped other Georgia Tech researchers see the world of the very small.
He got his first major international attention from research on carbon nanotubes -- tiny structures of interlocked carbon atoms that helped create a new research area in the mid-1990s. Collaboration with Georgia Tech physicist Walt de Heer -- now known for his work with epitaxial graphene -- produced a 1996 paper on nanotube properties that included a microscope image of a carbon particle on the end of a nanotube. Analyzing the nanotube's vibration allowed the researchers to determine the approximate mass of the particle, and their device become known worldwide as a "nanobalance."
But Wang soon realized that the popularity of carbon nanotubes made that research field a crowded one. In search of a research area with more opportunity, he returned to his undergraduate roots in oxide materials -- zinc oxide in particular.
"Zinc oxide has a lot of advantages because of its semiconducting, piezoelectric, optical and other properties for sensors, transducers, energy applications and other uses," he noted. "I wanted to have a material that I could develop, to study the material in great detail, and to own the key intellectual property."
He began work on the material in 1999 and quickly produced significant results, including the development of "nanobelts" reported in the journal Science in 2001. Details of the structures and their synthesis attracted other researchers, and the paper has now been cited more than 3,500 times.
The nanobelt paper was followed by years of work investigating the properties and synthesis of zinc oxide structures. Perhaps the most significant advance was the ability to grow aligned arrays of zinc oxide nanowires, knowledge that led directly to the development of nanogenerators. Reported in April 2006 in the journal Science, nanogenerators drew international attention to Georgia Tech and rapidly led to a series of improvements that opened up new ways of powering nanometer-scale devices for building self-powered nanotechnology. The generators now produce enough power to operate conventional electronic components such as LED displays.
In the last few years, Wang has branched out into new forms of electronic devices, including piezotronic logic gates and memory, as well as light-emitting diodes enhanced with the piezo-phototronic effect. Multiple devices have been combined into self-powered sensing systems that not only detect harmful materials, but also alert authorities wirelessly. He has also built systems that combine different kinds of power harvesting, such as nanogenerators and photovoltaic cells -- and developed a hybrid cell for the first time.
"When nobody else is paying attention to a technology area, that is when you can be a pioneer," he said. "By the time most people have begun to pay attention to it, you have already made significant progress."
In his 16-year career at Georgia Tech, Wang has produced 28 patent applications, along with another dozen invention disclosures. He has formed a startup company to commercialize the technology, and published more than 20 articles in Science and high-profile Nature journals. Overall, he estimates his research team has produced more than 700 publications that have been cited 45,000 times with an h index of 103.
"When we began this work, we could see only dots -- no picture," he added. "Today we are able to see the big picture of what can be done with these nanostructures."
Though the MRS Medal recognizes Wang's research accomplishments, he's also proud of his role as teacher and mentor to students -- hundreds of them since 1995. Wang leads a large research group composed of post-doctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduate students. From his laboratory have come seven graduates who now hold assistant professor positions at prestigious U.S. institutions -- and more than 50 working at universities in China or Taiwan.
"As a professor, I view my job as having two parts: being an outstanding scientist and an outstanding educator," he said. "Our most important products are the students. If they can go on to be faculty members at the most prestigious universities in the world, we have done our job."
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Writer: John Toon
]]>A new study provides a mechanistic explanation of how ribonucleotides embedded in genomic DNA are recognized and removed from cells. Two mechanisms, enzymes called ribonucleases (RNases) H and the DNA mismatch repair system, appear to interplay to root out the RNA components.
"We believe this is the first study to show that cells utilize independent repair pathways to remove mispaired ribonucleotides embedded in chromosomal DNA, which can be sources of genetic modification if not removed," said Francesca Storici, an assistant professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "The results also highlight a novel case of genetic redundancy, where the mismatch repair system and RNase H mechanisms compete with each other to remove misincorporated ribonucleotides and restore DNA integrity."
The findings were reported Dec. 4, 2011 in the advance online publication of the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. The research was supported by the Georgia Cancer Coalition, National Science Foundation and Georgia Tech Integrative BioSystems Institute.
Storici and Georgia Tech biology graduate students Ying Shen and Kyung Duk Koh conducted the study in collaboration with Bernard Weiss, a professor emeritus in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University.
"We wanted to understand how cells of the bacterium Escherichia coli and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae tolerate the presence of different ribonucleotides embedded in their genomic DNA. We found that the structure of a ribonucleotide tract embedded in DNA influenced its ability to cause genetic mutations more than the tract's length," said Storici.
With double-stranded DNA, when wrong bases are paired or one or few nucleotides are in excess or missing on one of the strands, a mismatch is generated. If mismatches are not corrected, they can lead to mutations.
The researchers found that single mismatched ribonucleotides in chromosomal DNA were removed by either the mismatch repair system or RNase H type 2. Mismatched ribonucleotides in the middle of at least four other ribonucleotides required RNase H type 1 for removal.
"We were excited to find that a DNA repair mechanism like mismatch repair was activated by RNA/DNA mismatches and could remove ribonucleotides embedded in chromosomal DNA," explained Storici. "In future studies, we plan to test whether other DNA repair mechanisms, such as nucleotide-excision repair and base-excision repair, can also locate and remove ribonucleotides in DNA."
Using gene correction assays driven by short nucleic acid polymers called oligonucleotides, the researchers showed that when ribonucleotides embedded in DNA were not removed, they served as templates for DNA synthesis and produced a mutation in the DNA. If both the mismatch repair system and RNase H repair mechanisms are disabled, ribonucleotide-driven gene modification increased by a factor of 47 in the yeast and 77,000 in the bacterium.
Defects in the mismatch repair system are known to predispose a person to certain types of cancer. Because the mismatch repair system is conserved from unicellular to multicellular organisms, such as humans, this study's findings open up the possibility that defects in the mismatch repair system could have consequences more critical than previously thought given the newly identified function of mismatch repair to target RNA/DNA mispairs.
The results also provide new information on the capacity of RNA to play an active role in DNA editing and remodeling, which could be the basis of an unexplored process of RNA-driven DNA evolution.
This project was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award No. MCB-1021763). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigators and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.
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Writer: Abby Robinson
]]>TheRCOE has operated under different names since its creation in 1982. Presently knownas the Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence (VLRCOE), the current“center of excellence” designation was made by a panel of government andindustry experts who comprise the government’s National Rotorcraft TechnologyCenter. The VLRCOE carries out multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary researchand education, focusing on advancing vertical lift technology, and works in close collaboration with the U.S. rotorcraftindustry.
During the past decade, the RCOE has produced 82 PhD graduates. Studentsin the RCOE have a track record of excellence, winning first or second place inevery graduate and undergraduate rotorcraft design competition sponsored by theAmerican Helicopter Society International and the rotorcraft industry for thepast 27 years.
“Theimpact and contributions of the center to our School of Aerospace Engineeringand to Georgia Tech in general extendsfar beyond the more than $35 million in direct government funding provided overthe past three decades,” said Daniel P. Schrage, rotorcraft design professorwho has been the director of Georgia Tech RCOEs since 1986. “The center hasserved as a catalyst for expanding a number of our academic and research focusareas and has served as a positive force in the Georgia Tech’s distinction as oneof the world’s leading aerospace engineering universities.”
TheRCOE was Georgia Tech’s first externally designated center of excellence in1982. Since that time, it has partnered with other world-famous vertical flightresearchers from respected universities, such as the University of Michigan andUniversity of Washington at St. Louis.
]]>
Theexperimental discovery in 1982 of a new Hall conductance step at a fractionν=1/m with m=3, that is at (1/3)e2/h(with more conductance steps, at other m, found later) – where h is the Planckconstant and e is the electron charge – was made for two-dimensional electrons at low temperaturesand strong magnetic fields and was greeted with great surprise. The theoretical explanation of this finding ayear later by Robert Laughlin in terms of a new form of a quantum fluid, earnedhim and the experimentalists Horst Störmer and Daniel Tsui the 1998 Nobel Prizewith the citation “for the discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionallycharged excitations.” These discoveries represent conceptual breakthroughs inthe understanding of matter, and the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) liquidstates, originating from the highly correlated nature of the electrons in thesesystems, have been termed as new states of matter.
“Thequantum fluid state at the 1/3 primary fraction is the hallmark of the FQHE,whose theoretical understanding has been formulated around the antithesisbetween a new form of quantum fluid and the pinned Wigner crystal,” said Landman,Regents’ and Institute Professor in the School ofPhysics, F.E. Callaway Chair and director of the Center for ComputationalMaterials Science (CCMS) at Georgia Tech. “Therefore, thediscovery of pinned crystalline signatures in the neighborhood of the 1/3 FQHE fraction,measured as resonances in the microwave spectrum of the two-dimensionalelectron gas and reported in the Physical Review Letters in September 2010 by agroup of researchers headed by Daniel Tsui, was rather surprising,” he added.
Indeed,formation of a hexagonally ordered two-dimensional electron solid phase, a socalled Wigner crystal (WC) named after the Nobel laureate physicist EugeneWigner who predicted its existence in 1934, has been anticipated for smallerquantum Hall fractional fillings, ν, of the lowest Landau level populated bythe electrons at high magnetic fields, for example ν = 1/9, 1/7 and even 1/5.However, the electrons in the ν=1/3 fraction were believed to resistcrystallization and remain liquid.
TheGeorgia Tech physicists developed a theoretical formalism that, in conjunctionwith exact numerical solutions, provides a unified microscopic approach to theinterplay between FQHE liquid and Wigner solid states in the neighborhood ofthe 1/3 fractional filling. A major advantage of their approach is the use of asingle class of variational wave functions for description of both the quantumliquid and solid phases.
“Liquidcharacteristics of the fractional quantum Hall effect states are associatedwith symmetry-conserving vibrations and rotations of the strongly interactingelectrons and they coexist with intrinsic correlations that are crystalline innature,” Senior Research Scientist Yannouleas and Landman wrote in the opening section of their paper.“While the electron densities of the fractional quantum Hall effect liquidstate do not exhibit crystalline patterns, the intrinsic crystallinecorrelations which they possess are reflected in the emergence of a sequence ofliquid states of enhanced stability, called cusp states, that correspond in thethermodynamic limit to the fractional quantum Hall effect filling fractionsobserved in Hall conductance measurements,” they added.
Thekey to their explanation of the recent experimental observations pertaining tothe appearance of solid characteristics for magnetic fields in the neighborhoodof the 1/3 filling fraction is their finding that “away from the exactfractional fillings, for example near ν=1/3, weak pinning perturbations, due toweak disorder, may overcome the energy gaps between adjacent good angularmomentum symmetry-conserving states. The coupling between these statesgenerates broken-symmetry ground states whose densities exhibit spatialcrystalline patterns. At the same time, however, the energy gap between theground state at ν=1/3 and adjacent states is found to be sufficiently large toprevent disorder-induced mixing, thus preserving its quantum fluid nature.”
Furthermore,the work shows that the emergence of the crystalline features, via the pinningperturbations, is a consequence of the aforementioned presence of crystallinecorrelations in the symmetry-conserving states. Consequently, mixing rules thatgovern the nature of the disorder-pinned crystalline states have beenformulated and tested. Extrapolation ofthe calculated results to the thermodynamic limit shows development of ahexagonal Wigner crystal with enhanced stability due to quantum correlations.
“Inclosing, the nature of electrons in the fractional quantum Hall regime continuesnow for close to three decades to be a subject of great fascination, a researchfield that raises questions whose investigations can lead to deeper conceptualunderstanding of matter and many-body phenomena, and a rich source of surprise and discovery,” saidLandman.
This work wassupported by the Office of Basic EnergySciences of the US Department of Energy.
]]>
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]]>Chemical doping is routinely used in conventional three-dimensional semiconductors to control the density of electron carriers that are essential to the operation of devices such as transistors. But graphene, a semi-metal available in sheets just one atom thick, has properties very different from traditional materials such as silicon -- though researchers say doping will still be needed for producing electronic devices.
The bad news is that electronic designers working with graphene won't be able to simply apply what they've been doing with three-dimensional semiconductors -- which would translate to vastly degraded material quality for graphene. The good news, according to the study, is that graphene doping can be combined with other processes -- and need be applied only to the edges of nanoscale structures being fabricated.
"We are learning how to manipulate these two-dimensional sheets of carbon atoms to get some very unusual results that aren't available with any other material," said James Meindl, director of Georgia Tech's Nanotechnology Research Center, where the research was conducted. "Doping graphene to try to influence its properties is important to being able to use it effectively."
Details of the research were published online in the journal Carbon on October 29th. The research was supported by the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through the Interconnect Focus Center, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Because graphene sheets contain so few atoms by area, the substitution of elements such as oxygen or nitrogen for carbon atoms in the lattice -- as in conventional doping -- detracts from the high electron mobility and other properties that make the material interesting. So the researchers are rethinking the doping process to take advantage of graphene's unique properties.
"When we work with a three-dimensional semiconductor, we embed the dopant species in the bulk material and then fabricate it into a device," said Kevin Brenner, a graduate research assistant in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "With graphene, we will dope the material as we process it and fabricate it into devices or interconnects. Doping may be done as part of other fabrication steps such as plasma etching, and that will require us to reinvent the whole process."
Using sheets of exfoliated graphene, Brenner and collaborators Raghu Murali and Yinxiao Yang evaluated the effectiveness of two different techniques: edge passivation by coupling electron-beam lithography with a common resist material, and adsorption from coating the surface of the material. They found that the edge treatment, which chemically reacts with defects created when the material is cut, was a thousand times more efficient at producing carriers in the graphene sheets than the surface treatment.
"We will only be working with the edges of the material," Brenner explained. "That will allow us to leave the center pristine and free of defects. Using this approach, we can maintain very high mobilities and the special properties of graphene while creating very high carrier densities."
Because of the two-dimensional nature of the graphene, controlling the edge chemistry can provide control over the bulk properties of the sheet. "At nanoscale dimensions, the edge atoms tend to dominate over surface adsorption techniques," he added. "With a seven nanometer by seven nanometer graphene device, passivating just one edge C-atom provides the doping equivalent of covering the entire surface."
For doping the edge of a graphene structure, the team applied a thin film of hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ), a chemical normally used as a resist for etching, then used electron beam lithography to cross-link the material, which added oxygen atoms to the edges to create p-type doping. The resist and electron beam system combined to provide nanometer-scale control over where the chemical changes took place.
Doping treatment could also be applied using plasma etching, Brenner said. Controlling the specific atoms used in the plasma, or conducting the etching process in an environment containing specific atoms, could drive those atoms into the edges where they would serve as dopants.
"Anytime you create an edge, you have created a location where you can passivate using a dopant," he added. "Instead of needing to embed it in the surface, you can just take the edge that is already there and passivate it with oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen or other dopant. It could be almost an effortless process because the doping can be done as part of another step."
Beyond fabricating electronic devices, Nanotechnology Research Center scientists are interested in using graphene for interconnects, potentially as a replacement for copper. As interconnect structures become smaller and smaller, the resistivity of copper increases. Edge-doped graphene sheets exhibit a trend of increasing doping with reduced dimensions, possibly becoming more conductive as their size shrinks below 50 nanometers, making them attractive for nanoscale interconnects.
Armed with basic information about graphene doping, the researchers hope to now begin producing devices to study how graphene actually performs.
"Now that we have made a start at understanding how to dope the material, the next step is to begin putting this into nanoscale devices," Brenner said. "We want to see what kind of performance we can get. That may tell us where graphene's niche could be as an electronic material."
Meindl, who has worked with silicon since the dawn of integrated circuits, says it's too early to predict where graphene will ultimately find commercial applications. But he says the material's properties are too interesting not to explore.
"The chances are that something very interesting and unique will develop from the use of graphene," he said. "But we don't yet have the ability to predict what we will be able to do with this new material."
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]]>“Georgia Techalumni and friends have a longstanding tradition of generously supporting theInstitute. Given the bold and visionary aspirations articulated in our 25-yearstrategic plan, this support is more crucial now than ever before,” saidGeorgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson. “I am very pleased – but certainlynot surprised – to see that our community’s robust philanthropic track record greweven stronger last year.”
By use, $49million was directed for current operations, $32 million for permanentendowment, and $37 million for facilities and equipment. Programmatically,highlights included $44 million designated for the College of Engineering, $13million for the College of Management and $24 million for intercollegiateathletics. The largest sources of funding came once again from alumni andcorporations, each providing $41 million to the total. Once again, alumniparticipation is anticipated to be among the highest within all publicuniversities nationwide. Current and emeritus trustees of the Georgia TechFoundation provided nearly $11 million in gifts during the twelve-month period.
In the prior2010 fiscal year, Georgia Tech and its associated foundations accounted for 43percent of all gifts made to the 35 public institutions that comprise theUniversity System of Georgia.
According toTech’s Vice President for Development, Barrett H. Carson, Campaign GeorgiaTech continued its progress toward its expanded goal of $1.5 billion,posting progress at $1.019 billion and keeping pace at an average rate ofnearly $3 million per week. Two new campus structures were dedicated inlate September, each driven in large part by philanthropy – the John and MaryBrock Football Facility and the G. Wayne Clough Undergraduate LearningCommons. John F. Brock, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises and a1970 Chemical Engineering graduate of Georgia Tech, chairs the $1.5 billioncomprehensive campaign, which will conclude in 2015.
“Despite the uncertainty of the financialmarkets regionally, nationally and internationally, philanthropy to theInstitute continues strong across all constituencies. And the Institute’sstrategic plan provides the roadmap,” said Carson.
Facilitiesconstruction, endowed faculty chairs and professorships, and studentscholarships and fellowships remain at the core of philanthropic objectives.
As of June 30,2011, as reported to CAE, the market value of the consolidated endowments heldby the Georgia Institute of Technology and its associated foundationstotaled $1.6 billion (unaudited).
]]>Grand Challenges Explorations funds scientists and researchers worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. The Georgia Tech/CDC project is one of 110 Grand Challenges Explorations grants announced November 7th.
"We believe in the power of innovation -- that a single bold idea can pioneer solutions to our greatest health and development challenges," said Chris Wilson, director of global health discovery for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "Grand Challenges Explorations seeks to identify and fund these new ideas wherever they come from, allowing scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs to pursue the kinds of creative ideas and novel approaches that could help to accelerate the end of polio, cure HIV infection or improve sanitation."
Projects that are receiving funding show promise in tackling priority global health issues where solutions do not yet exist. This includes finding effective methods to eliminate or control infectious diseases such as polio and HIV as well as discovering new sanitation technologies.
The goal of the Georgia Tech/CDC project is to demonstrate the scientific and economic feasibility for using microneedle patches in vaccination programs aimed at eradicating the polio virus. Current vaccination programs use an oral polio vaccine that contains a modified live virus. This vaccine is inexpensive and can be administered in door-to-door immunization campaigns, but in rare cases the vaccine can cause polio. There is an alternative injected vaccine that uses killed virus, which carries no risk of polio transmission, but is considerably more expensive than the oral vaccine, requires refrigeration for storage and must be administered by trained personnel. To eradicate polio from the world, health officials will have to discontinue use of the oral vaccine with its live virus, replacing it with the more expensive and logistically-complicated injected vaccine.
Prausnitz and his CDC collaborators believe the use of microneedle patches could reduce the cost and simplify administration of the injected vaccine. Use of the patches, which carry vaccine into the body by dissolving into the skin, could eliminate the need for administration by highly-trained personnel and the "sharps" disposal problems of traditional hypodermic needles. Because skin administration produces an immune response with smaller doses of vaccine than traditional deep intramuscular injection, the researchers expect to reduce the per-person cost of vaccine. And by incorporating dried vaccine into the microneedles, they hope to eliminate the need for vaccine refrigeration -- a challenge in remote areas of the world.
"We envision vaccination campaigns in which minimally-trained personnel go door-to-door administering microneedle patches rather than oral polio vaccine," Prausnitz explained. "Our goal for this study will be to provide the data to scientifically justify moving the microneedle patch for polio vaccination into a human trial."
In research that will complement the Grand Challenges Exploration grant, Prausnitz and his team have also received funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) to support development of the polio vaccine application for microneedle patches. And in a project sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Prausnitz and other Georgia Tech researchers are collaborating with Emory University scientists on development of a microneedle patch for administering flu vaccine.
About Grand Challenges Explorations: Grand Challenges Explorations is a US $100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in 2008, Grand Challenge Explorations grants have already been awarded to nearly 500 researchers from over 40 countries. The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization. The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short, two-page online applications and no preliminary data required. Initial grants of $100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have an opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US $1 million. To learn more about Grand Challenges Explorations, visit www.grandchallenges.org.
About The Georgia Institute of Technology: The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the world's premier research universities, ranked second among all U.S. colleges and universities in the amount of engineering research conducted. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech's more than 20,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Georgia Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and minority engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
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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).
]]>Barabino commented on her new role: “My vision for BMES, ourprofession and the institutions and entities that represent biomedicalengineering, is that we practice and are characterized by diversity inclusionand that we serve as a model for others in doing so. Diversity inclusion is aterm coined to denote a characteristic where an institution demonstratesthrough its policies and practices that diversity is central to its mission –this characteristic is essential to drive future innovation in our field. Iwill work tirelessly to lead by example and anticipate that others will followsuit.”
Barabino is professor of biomedical engineering in theCoulter Department, where she also serves as Associate Chair for GraduateStudies. She joined the department in 2007 after an 18-year career atNortheastern University, where she rose to the rank of professor and served asthe vice provost for Undergraduate Education. In 2008 - 2009, she served asvice provost for Academic Diversity (VPAD), the first to hold the VPAD positionat Georgia Tech. She is a leading advocate for diversity in the STEM fields,traveling widely to speak and give workshops on the topic. In addition to STEMdiversity in higher education, her research focuses on sickle cell adhesion,cellular engineering and tissue engineering.
Written by Adrianne Proeller
]]>404-894-2357
]]>Sub-SaharanAfrica suffers from some of the greatest health challenges in the world, makingthe need for efficient healthcare delivery especially vital. However, mosthospitals and labs in the region use paper logs and manual entries for trackingdata, methods that take up valuable time and are prone to errors and loss ofdata. In an effort to increase efficiency and allow more patients to be testedaccurately, a team led by Professor Santosh Vempala in the School of ComputerScience developed the Basic Laboratory Information System (BLIS).
During asix-month pilot implementation in three hospital labs in Cameroon, BLISaccounted for a 66 percent decrease in errors and a 50 percent reduction inemployee workload. This led to significantly reduced waiting times, allowing twice as many patients to get testeddaily as compared to pre-BLIS operations.
“BLIS iseasy to use and intuitive,” Sidney Atah, BLIS project coordinator in Cameroon, said.“When configuring the software, you control the behavior and appearance of thesystem without modifying the program.”
Built fromfreely available, open-source components, BLIS digitizes the traditional datatracking system, resulting in a sustainable program that tracks specimens,results and workflow. Unlike similar software from commercial providers, BLISis extremely cost-effective, works on limited resources, and requires virtuallyno training. Additionally, the system is designed to work effectively incountries with very little IT infrastructure and limited connectivity.
“Integratingdata tracking software in these labs has been difficult in the past, mainly dueto high costs and the failure of other system providers to incorporate thevarying needs of labs and hospitals from different countries and cultures,” saidVempala, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science. “We wantedto design an extremely configurable system that would adapt to fit the needs ofits users in order to improve workflow and patient care.”
Instead offollowing a one-size-fits-all approach, BLIS was designed to enable each lab orcountry to customize and configure the system in a way that suits them best. Thedigital program seeks regular feedback from users and then incorporates thisfeedback through system updates, resulting in a program that evolves with theneeds of the lab.
Over thepast year, BLIS has been implemented in nine laboratories across three Africancountries: Cameroon, Tanzania and Uganda. Vempala and his team have worked withlocal lab technicians, representatives from each country’s ministry of healthand local implementing partners to integrate BLIS into various labs across thethree countries.
Dr.Maurice Mouladje, lab director for Buea Regional Hospital in Cameroon, saysBLIS has had a positive impact on both patients and staff. Physicians are ableto attend to patients promptly, and BLIS provides flexibility in lab technicianworkload. Similarly, Atah notes that BLIS’s reach goes beyond increasedefficiency and accuracy.
“BLIShas added confidence and hope in the quality of results and the ability of ourinstitutions to provide quality care to patients,” Atah says. “It makes me feellike nothing is impossible to achieve; it is our African dream.”
Byearly 2012, Vempala and his team of Georgia Tech graduate students, AmolShintre, Akshay Phalnikar and Anu Nair, plan to expand BLIS to labs in Ghana,in addition to incorporating the software in more clinics in Cameroon, Tanzaniaand Uganda. In the next year, he hopes to make BLIS available to any lab in thedeveloping world, which will also include access to local technical support fora minimal fee.
BLISis a part of Georgia Tech’s Computing for Good (C4G) initiative, which applies computingto social causes to improve quality of life around the world. For moreinformation about BLIS, including user feedback and access to the software,visit: http://blis.cc.gatech.edu.
Aboutthe Georgia Tech College of Computing
TheGeorgia Tech College of Computing is a national leader in the creation ofreal-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress.With its graduate program ranked ninth nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College’s unconventional approachto education is defining the new face of computing by expanding the horizons oftraditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaborationand a focus on human-centered solutions. For more information about the GeorgiaTech College of Computing, its academic divisions and research centers, pleasevisit http://www.cc.gatech.edu.
]]>In addition to the White Out festivities, a moment of silence will be observed during the pregame in memory of students Daniel Hickman and Naren Raghuraman and in honor of recovering student Ratheesvar Mohan.
The winner of the game will have theinside track for the Coastal Division title and a spot in next month’s AtlanticCoast Conference championship game. The Hokies are ranked tenth in the nation,the second straight top ten opponent for Georgia Tech. The Jackets haven’tplayed since beating then fifth-ranked Clemson on October 29.
Wear your white and we’ll see you atBobby Dodd Stadium! As you can see by clicking here,we’re already ready for the game. Go Jackets!
]]>Download this month's issue here (pdf).
]]>“Automation has made possible a vast number of efficiencies in modern commercial logistics and manufacturing,” said Henrik Christensen, RIM director and KUKA Professor of Robotics. “Using supply chains as an example, if we can use robots to optimize the entire process from start to finish, we can make improvements on a whole range of measures, such as end costs to consumers and environmental impact from transportation.”
The new 3,400-square-foot logistics lab initially will be outfitted with $944,000 in hardware from a CCBCC prototype bottling plant. Built by KUKA, a world leader in manufacturing robotics and system integration, the equipment includes robots, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), conveyor technology, safety components and other system technology. KUKA has provided the resources and manpower for delivery and set-up of the robots.
Also providing resources to move the automation equipment to Georgia Tech and start up the AGVs is Efacec USA, a leading supplier of automated material handling and storage systems located in the greater Atlanta area.
“We are happy to partner with KUKA to bring Georgia Tech students the opportunity for hands-on learning with sophisticated robotics equipment,” said Lauren Steele, vice president of Corporate Affairs at CCBCC. “Using this technology, these students will be able to develop commercial applications in manufacturing that will strengthen our economy and create American jobs.”
Specifically, Christensen said Georgia Tech will use the laboratory for three purposes: creating optimization algorithms for logistics; testing sensing equipment such as automated cameras and laser sensors; and supporting the annual Virtual Manufacturing and Automation Challenge, organized in conjunction with the National Institute for Standards and Technology.
In addition to the specific uses Christensen envisions, he said the new lab will open up new possibilities for robotics students and faculty.
“As Georgia Tech continues to advance its robotics research in industrial systems, this major gift will give our students unparalleled access to a professional, industry-quality facility,” Christensen said. “No other university has a similar facility.”
”KUKA is very excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Georgia Tech in the field of manufacturing and logistics,” said Dr. Christian Wurll, technical director for Logistics of KUKA Systems North America. “The lab will be used to intensify the research and development in mixed-case palletizing, mobile robotics and new manufacturing processes. In addition KUKA is glad to set up and support a state-of-the-art lab environment that will inspire the young generation and will get them in touch with real-world applications and equipment.”
“While Efacec has already been involved with Georgia Tech for the past few years in helping to develop engineering curriculum for the power transmission industry, we are pleased to continue our relationship in being a part of the creation of this new Manufacturing Robotics Logistics Laboratory,” said Jorge Guerra, executive director for Business & Operations of Efacec USA. “This new lab will give engineering students access to high-tech equipment with which they can increase their exposure to robotics and logistics.”
Manufacturing—along with health care and service robotics—is one of the three main robotics areas to which the United States should devote the bulk of its research focus and support in the future, according to a 2009 report by the Computing Research Association.
###
About the Georgia Tech College of Computing
The Georgia Tech College of Computing is a national leader in the creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress. With its graduate program ranked 10th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College’s unconventional approach to education is defining the new face of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on human centered solutions. For more information about the Georgia Tech College of Computing, its academic divisions and research centers, please visit http://www.cc.gatech.edu.
]]>Director of Communications
College of Computing at Georgia Tech
]]>"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
]]>Similarly, when a newly created drug doesn’t bind well to itsintended target, the drug won’t work. Scientists are then forced to go back tothe lab, often with very little indication about why the binding was weak. Thenext step is to choose a different pharmaceutical “combination” and hope forbetter results. Georgia Tech researchers have now generated a computer modelthat could help change that blind process.
Symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) allowsscientists to study interactions between molecules, such as those between adrug and its target. In the past, computer algorithms that study thesenoncovalent interactions have been very slow, limiting the types of moleculesthat can be studied using accurate quantum mechanical methods. A research teamheaded by Georgia Tech Professor of Chemistry David Sherrill has developed acomputer program that can study larger molecules (more than 200 atoms) fasterthan any other program in existence.
“Our fast energy component analysis program is designed toimprove our knowledge about why certain molecules are attracted to one another,“ explained Sherrill, who also has a joint
appointment in the School of Computational Science and Engineering. “It can also show us how interactions between moleculescan be tuned by chemical modifications, such as replacing a hydrogen atom witha fluorine atom. Such knowledge is keyto advancing rational drug design.”
The algorithms can also be used to improve the understandingof crystal structures and energetics, as well as the 3D arrangement of biologicalmacromolecules. Sherrill’s team used the software to study the interactions betweenDNA and proflavine; these interactions are typical of those found between DNAand several anti-cancer drugs. The findings are published this month in the Journal of Chemical Physics.
Rather than selling the software, the Georgia Techresearchers have decided to distribute their code free of charge as part of theopen-source computer program PSI4, developedjointly by researchers at Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, the University ofGeorgia and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It is expected to be available in early 2012.
“By giving away our source code, we hope it will be adoptedrapidly by researchers in pharmaceuticals, organic electronics and catalysis,giving them the tools they need to design better products,” said Sherrill.
Sherrill’s team next plans to use the software to study thenoncovalent interactions involving indinavir, which is used to treat HIVpatients.
This project is supportedby the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award No. CHE-1011360).The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigators anddoes not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.
]]>
“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
Hostedby the Atlanta Pediatric Device Consortium (APDC), the event will give outthree to five awards ranging from $25,000 to $50,000 depending on the deviceand its stage of development. Devices should be targeted to the pediatricpopulation and will be divided into four age groups, ranging from birth to age21.
Applicantsshould email two-page proposals for their devices by Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 3 p.m.to Maribel Baker in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Moreinformation, including submission guidelines, is available at www.tribes.gatech.edu/compete. Submissions are welcome from all faculty, entrepreneurs, clinicians,fellows, residents and students from any of the APDC institutions (consistingof Georgia Tech, Emory University, Saint Joseph Translation Research Instituteand Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta).
Those interested in attending butnot submitting entries may RSVP to the event online. The competition is free toattend, includes a complimentary breakfast and will take place at the PetitInstitute of Bioengineering and Biosciences (IBB) Building.
APDCwas launched this month with a two-year, $1.8 million grant from the Food andDrug Administration (FDA) to encourage the development of medical devicestailored to the needs of children, with the plan of taking the devices fromconception to commercialization.
]]>The study found that applying mechanical forces to an injury site immediately after healing began disrupted vascular growth into the site and prevented bone healing. However, applying mechanical forces later in the healing process enhanced functional bone regeneration. The study's findings could influence treatment of tissue injuries and recommendations for rehabilitation.
"Our finding that mechanical stresses caused by movement can disrupt the initial formation and growth of new blood vessels supports the advice doctors have been giving their patients for years to limit activity early in the healing process," said Robert Guldberg, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "However, our findings also suggest applying mechanical stresses to the wound later on can significantly improve healing through a process called adaptive remodeling."
The study was published last month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Because blood vessel growth is required for the regeneration of many different tissues, including bone, Guldberg and former Georgia Tech graduate student Joel Boerckel used healing of a bone defect in rats for their study. Following removal of eight millimeters of femur bone, they treated the gap with a polymer scaffold seeded with a growth factor called recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2), a potent inducer of bone regeneration. The scaffold was designed in collaboration with Nathaniel Huebsch and David Mooney from Harvard University.
In one group of animals, plates screwed onto the bones to maintain limb stability prevented mechanical forces from being applied to the affected bone. In another group, plates allowed compressive loads along the bone axis to be transferred, but prevented twisting and bending of the limbs. The researchers used contrast-enhanced micro-computed tomography imaging and histology to quantify new bone and blood vessel formation.
The experiments showed that exerting mechanical forces on the injury site immediately after healing began significantly inhibited vascular growth into the bone defect region. The volume of blood vessels and their connectivity were reduced by 66 and 91 percent, respectively, compared to the group for which no force was applied. The lack of vascular growth into the defect produced a 75 percent reduction in bone formation and failure to heal the defect.
But the study found that the same mechanical force that hindered repair early in the healing process became helpful later on.
When the injury site experienced no mechanical force until four weeks after the injury, blood vessels grew into the defect and vascular remodeling began. With delayed loading, the researchers observed a reduction in quantity and connectivity of blood vessels, but the average vessel thickness increased. In addition, bone formation improved by 20 percent compared to when no force was applied, and strong tissue biomaterial integration was evident.
"We found that having a very stable environment initially is very important because mechanical stresses applied early on disrupted very small vessels that were forming," said Guldberg, who is also the director of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech. "If you wait until those vessels have grown in and they're a little more mature, applying a mechanical stimulus then induces remodeling so that you end up with a more robust vascular network."
The study's results may help researchers optimize the mechanical properties of tissue regeneration scaffolds in the future.
"Our study shows that one might want to implant a material that is stiff at the very beginning to stabilize the injury site but becomes more compliant with time, to improve vascularization and tissue regeneration," added Guldberg.
Georgia Tech mechanical engineering graduate student Brent Uhrig and postdoctoral fellow Nick Willett also contributed to this research.
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
]]>
The device, which employs carbon nanotubes and is printed on paper or paper-like material using standard inkjet technology, could be deployed in large numbers to alert authorities to the presence of explosives, such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
"This prototype represents a significant step toward producing an integrated wireless system for explosives detection," said Krishna Naishadham, a principal research scientist who is leading the work at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). "It incorporates a sensor and a communications device in a small, low-cost package that could operate almost anywhere."
Other types of hazardous gas sensors are based on expensive semiconductor fabrication and gas chromatography, Naishadham said, and they consume more power, require human intervention, and typically do not operate at ambient temperatures. Furthermore, those sensors have not been integrated with communication devices such as antennas.
The wireless component for communicating the sensor information -- a resonant lightweight antenna -- was printed on photographic paper using inkjet techniques devised by Professor Manos Tentzeris of Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Tentzeris is collaborating with Naishadham on development of the sensing device.
The sensing component, based on functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNTs), has been fabricated and tested for detection sensitivity by Xiaojuan (Judy) Song, a GTRI research scientist. The device relies on carbon-nanotube materials optimized by Song.
A presentation on this sensing technology was given in July at the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium (IEEE APS) in Spokane, Wash., by Hoseon Lee, a Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering co-advised by Tentzeris and Naishadham. The paper received the Honorable Mention Award in the Best Student Paper competition at the symposium.
This is not the first inkjet-printed ammonia sensor that has been integrated with an antenna on paper, said Tentzeris. His group produced a similar integrated sensor last year in collaboration with the research group of C.P. Wong, who is Regents professor and Smithgall Institute Endowed Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech.
"The fundamental difference is that this newest CNT sensor possesses dramatically improved sensitivity to miniscule ammonia concentrations," Tentzeris said. "That should enable the first practical applications to detect trace amounts of hazardous gases in challenging operational environments using inkjet-printed devices."
Tentzeris explained that the key to printing components, circuits and antennas lies in novel "inks" that contain silver nanoparticles in an emulsion that can be deposited by the printer at low temperatures -- around 100 degrees Celsius. A process called sonication helps to achieve optimal ink viscosity and homogeneity, enabling uniform material deposition and permitting maximum operating effectiveness for paper-based components.
"Ink-jet printing is low-cost and convenient compared to other technologies such as wet etching," Tentzeris said. "Using the proper inks, a printer can be used almost anywhere to produce custom circuits and components, replacing traditional clean-room approaches."
Low-cost materials -- such as heavy photographic paper or plastics like polyethylene terephthalate -- can be made water resistant to ensure greater reliability, he added. Inkjet component printing can also use flexible organic materials, such as liquid crystal polymer (LCP), which are known for their robustness and weather resistance. The resulting components are similar in size to conventional components but can conform and adhere to almost any surface.
Naishadham explained that the same inkjet techniques used to produce RF components, circuits and antennas can also be used to deposit the functionalized carbon nanotubes used for sensing. These nanoscale cylindrical structures -- about one-billionth of a meter in diameter, or 1/50,000th the width of a human hair -- are functionalized by coating them with a conductive polymer that attracts ammonia, a major ingredient found in many IEDs.
Sonication of the functionalized carbon nanotubes produces a uniform water-based ink that can be printed side-by-side with RF components and antennas to produce a compact wireless sensor node.
"The optimized carbon nanotubes are applied as a sensing film, with specific functionalization designed for a particular gas or analyte," Song said. "The GTRI sensor detects trace amounts of ammonia usually found near explosive devices, and it can also be designed to detect similar gases in household, healthcare and industrial environments at very low concentration levels."
The sensor has been designed to detect ammonia in trace amounts -- as low as five parts per million, Naishadham said.
The resulting integrated sensing package can potentially detect the presence of trace explosive materials at a distance, without endangering human lives. This approach, called standoff detection, involves the use of RF technology to identify explosive materials at a relatively safe distance. The GTRI team has designed the device to send an alert to nearby personnel when it detects ammonia.
The wireless sensor nodes require relatively low power, which could come from a number of technologies including thin-film batteries, solar cells or power-scavenging and energy-harvesting techniques. In collaboration with Tentzeris's and Wong's groups, GTRI is investigating ways to make the sensor operate passively, without any power consumption.
"We are focusing on providing standoff detection for those engaged in military or humanitarian missions and other hazardous situations," Naishadham said. "We believe that it will be possible, and cost-effective, to deploy large numbers of these detectors on vehicles or robots throughout a military engagement zone."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Kirk Englehardt (404-407-7280)(kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu).
Writer: Rick Robinson
]]>“This is the beginning of an era of computing that we thinkwill be substantially different,” said Mundie, delivering the College ofComputing’s John P. Imlay Lecture in the College of Management’s LeCrawAuditorium.
Mundie said the new era could mark “the fourth paradigm” inscience, preceded by the eras of theory, experimentation and modeling, thelatter made possible by previous advances in computational capability. But accordingto Mundie, in the era of “Big Data,” everyone will have access to vast storesof information in “the cloud.” Combined with tools for visual analytics, thesemassive public data sets will reveal findings that would have been exceedinglyhard to recognize before.
“You can take your Visa card, go online and rent computingcapability larger than anything the government used to have,” said Mundie.
To demonstrate, Mundie pulled up a normal Microsoft Excelspreadsheet and, with a couple mouse clicks, populated it with 30 years ofprecipitation data for the eastern United States using a feature that linksExcel to publicly available data sets stored in the cloud. One or two clicksmore, and the data turned into a bargraph on which spikes and dips were easily discernible.
“Things that are hard to find in some ways leap out at youwhen you have these capabilities,” Mundie said. “Machine learning is going tobe a big part of this Big Data environment. It’s going to enable you to findpatterns that people would have a hard time finding before.”
Another hallmark of this new era will be computers that receiveinput more like people, shifting from the traditional graphical user interface(GUI) to a natural user interface (NUI). For example, instead of keying indata, users of next-generation smartphones will be able simply to point theirphone at an object such as a book and have the phone not only recognize whatbook it is, but also instantly offer a range of information or access toapplications that can grab even more information or services related to thebook. Another technological innovation will allow people to simply talk totheir computers by waving their hands.
Mundie closed with a series of demonstrations of thepossibilities offered by the Microsoft Kinect. Retailing at just $149, theKinect is a “revolution” in high-quality, affordable machine vision, Mundiesaid, with many of the same capabilities as equipment that cost $30,000 or morejust a year ago.
Immediately after Kinect’s release in November 2010, usersaround the world started developing hacks to make the device do much more thanjust play video games, and in June of this year, Microsoft supported the effortby releasing a Kinect software development kit. The company also created AvatarKinect, which enabled 70 million Xbox users to hold virtual meetings with eachother.
“I view this as the first step toward more photorealisticand [business-minded] applications of this technology,” Mundie said. “We arenot very far away—maybe three years—from having telemeetings withphotorealistic avatars and real-time language translation, includingadjustments of facial movements to account for the translation.”
Mundie's visit was co-sponsored by the College of Computing, the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, Peach New Media, the Georgia Tech Student Alumni Association and the Georgia Tech Office of Greek Life. Video below courtesy of Peach New Media.
]]>
College of Computing
404-385-7225
]]>By applying mechanical strain to the microwires, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology created a piezoelectric potential in the wires, and that potential was used to tune the charge transport and enhance carrier injection in the LEDs. This control of an optoelectronic device with piezoelectric potential, known as piezo-phototronics, represents another example of how materials that have both piezoelectric and semiconducting properties can be controlled mechanically.
"By utilizing this effect, we can enhance the external efficiency of these devices by a factor of more than four times, up to eight percent," said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering. "From a practical standpoint, this new effect could have many impacts for electro-optical processes -- including improvements in the energy efficiency of lighting devices."
Details of the research were reported in the Sept. 14 issue of the journal Nano Letters. The research was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In addition to Wang, the research team mainly included Qing Yang, a visiting scientist at Georgia Tech from the Department of Optical Engineering at Zhejiang University in China.
Because of the polarization of ions in the crystals of piezoelectric materials such as zinc oxide, mechanically compressing or otherwise straining structures made from the materials creates a piezoelectric potential -- an electrical charge. In the gallium nitride LEDs, the researchers used the local piezoelectric potential to tune the charge transport at the p-n junction.
The effect was to increase the rate at which electrons and holes recombined to generate photons, enhancing the external efficiency of the device through improved light emission and higher injection current. "The effect of the piezo potential on the transport behavior of charge carriers is significant due to its modification of the band structure at the junction," Wang explained.
The zinc oxide wires form the "n" component of a p-n junction, with the gallium nitride thin film providing the "p" component. Free carriers were trapped at this interface region in a channel created by the piezoelectric charge formed by compressing the wires.
Traditional LED designs use structures such as quantum wells to trap electrons and holes, which must remain close together long enough to recombine. The longer that electrons and holes can be retained in proximity to one another, the higher the efficiency of the LED device will ultimately be.
The devices produced by the Georgia Tech team increased their emission intensity by a factor of 17 and boosted injection current by a factor of four when compressive strain of 0.093 percent was applied to the zinc oxide wire. That improved conversion efficiency by as much as a factor of 4.25.
The LEDs fabricated by the research team produced emissions at ultraviolet wavelengths (about 390 nanometers), but Wang believes the wavelengths can be extended into the visible light range for a variety of optoelectronic devices. "These devices are important for today's focus on green and renewable energy technology," he said.
In the experimental devices, a single zinc oxide micro/nanowire LED was fabricated by manipulating a wire on a trenched substrate. A magnesium-doped gallium nitride film was grown epitaxially on a sapphire substrate by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, and was used to form a p-n junction with the zinc oxide wire.
A sapphire substrate was used as the cathode that was placed side-by-side with the gallium nitride substrate with a well-controlled gap. The wire was placed across the gap in close contact with the gallium nitride. Transparent polystyrene tape was used to cover the nanowire. A force was then applied to the tape by an alumina rod connected to a piezo nanopositioning stage, creating the strain in the wire.
The researchers then studied the change in light emission produced by varying the amount of strain in 20 different devices. Half of the devices showed enhanced efficiency, while the others -- fabricated with the opposite orientation of the microwires -- showed a decrease. This difference was due to the reversal in the sign of the piezopotential because of the switch of the microwire orientation from +c to -c.
High-efficiency ultraviolet emitters are needed for applications in chemical, biological, aerospace, military and medical technologies. Although the internal quantum efficiencies of these LEDs can be as high as 80 percent, the external efficiency for a conventional single p-n junction thin-film LED is currently only about three percent.
Beyond LEDs, Wang believes the approach pioneered in this study can be applied to other optical devices that are controlled by electrical fields.
"This opens up a new field of using the piezoelectric effect to tune opto-electronic devices," Wang said. "Improving the efficiency of LED lighting could ultimately be very important, bringing about significant energy savings because so much of the world's energy is used for lighting."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Zhong Lin Wang (404-894-8008)(zhong.wang@mse.gatech.edu)
Writer: John Toon
]]>Here’s a rundown of events happening throughout the nextseveral days, but you can learn more about each of them at homecoming.gatech.edu or from the 2011Rulesbook (PDF).
Thursday, Oct. 20:
Friday, Oct. 21:
Saturday, Oct. 22:
Sunday, Oct. 23:
Monday, Oct. 24:
Tuesday, Oct. 25:
Wednesday, Oct. 26:
Thursday, Oct. 27:
Friday, Oct. 28:
Saturday, Oct. 29:
]]>Kristen Shaw
Communications and Marketing
“This funding will allow us to move into new and emergingareas and leverage our relationships with the wireless industry, disabilityorganizations, governmental agencies, and other researchers and engineers topromote equitable access to wireless technologies and to develop new assistivetechnologies built on wireless platforms,” said Helena Mitchell, executive director of theCenter for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP) at Georgia Tech’s School ofPublic Policy and principal investigator and co-director of the Wireless RERCgrant. “This award affirms the growing importance of wirelesstechnologies for those who have disabilities.”
The award is the third consecutive five-year grant awardedto this team of researchers and engineers.
“We are pleased that NIDRR continues to support the Wireless RERC’s importantwork,” said Mike Jones, director of Shepherd’s Crawford Research Institute andco-director for the Wireless RERC grant. “The rapid pace at which wireless technologyhas evolved over the past several years – a pace that is expected to acceleratein the future – requires ongoing effort to ensure that the accessibility needsof people with disabilities are incorporated into new technologies.”
In technology development,the Wireless RERC will launch a new incubator to develop software applications(“apps”); the Apps Factory will fund innovative internal and external ideas ona competitive basis to provide apps to people with disabilities across a widerange of platforms. This work willenhance accessibility to this critical wireless technology and build newassistive tools based on these “smart” wireless platforms. Additionally, theWireless RERC will continue its work developing solutions to enhance theeffectiveness and accessibility of emergency alerting and access to 9-1-1emergency services.
The Wireless RERC will alsocontinue its focus on consumer and public policy research, including wirelessuse and usability by consumers with disabilities and studies that may shape thedevelopment of public policy primarily related to general accessibility and emergencycommunications.
“Our public policy work isa critical component of the Wireless RERC,” Mitchell noted.
Over the years, CACP has submitted29 filings for proposed rulemakings before the FCC and other regulatoryagencies pertaining to issues of telecommunications access and emergency communications. CACPfilings have been referenced or cited more than 60 times in ongoing rulemakings,including final rules and orders regarding advanced technologies and accessiblemobile alerts.
The Wireless RERC is one of more than 20 RERCs inthe United States. Other RERCs are devoted to fields such as aging,hearing impairment, visual impairment, public transportation, workplaceaccommodations, universal design, wheeled mobility and information technologyaccess.
Georgia Tech participants in the Wireless RERC also includethe Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA), Collegeof Computing (CoC), Interactive Media Technology Center (IMTC), School ofPublic Policy (SPP) and the School of Psychology.
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Georgia Tech Media Relations
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]]>Look out for your safety and the safety of others. If you’restudying or working on campus late at night, use the Stingerette or GeorgiaTech Police to get home safely. Request a Stingerette at stingerette.com or404.385.RIDE, or request a police escort at 404.894.2501. Keep in mind thatall-nighters are best spent at home rather than in an academic building.
Stress is a part of college of life, but it shouldn’t be thewhole thing. You can call the Counseling Center 24/7 at 404.894.2575, or usetheir online resources at counseling.gatech.edu.
Study hard, but know when you need a break. Plan to take abreak with the Student Center’s Midnight Breakfast, where faculty and staff volunteer to serve breakfast to students (purchase tickets online). These events are open to all students and include the eternalmotivator: free food.
Finally, if you have an issue regarding WPFE policies in oneof your classes, inform the Office of the Provost at provost.gatech.edu/reporting. Familiarizeyourself with WPFE policy on the Student GovernmentAssociation’s website.
]]>Seaweed growth on coral reefs is normally controlled by plant-eating fish, but in many parts of the world, overfishing has dramatically reduced populations of these consumers -- allowing the seaweed to dominate. Understanding these harmful chemicals and the seaweeds that produce them, however, could lead to development of new management techniques aimed at protecting fish that consume the most harmful seaweed. Protecting these herbivores could help reduce the pressure on coral, potentially allowing recovery of some endangered reefs.
Research on the coral-harming chemicals were reported October 17th in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Teasley Endowment at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
"We were able to isolate some of the key molecules responsible for the harmful interactions between seaweed and coral," said Douglas Rasher, a graduate student in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech. "These molecules are active at very low concentrations, suggesting that they need only to be expressed on the surfaces of the seaweed in minute concentrations to have damaging effects when they are in contact with the coral."
A May 2010 PNAS study published by Rasher and School of Biology professor Mark Hay showed for the first time that chemicals on the surfaces of seaweed could harm coral. To assess the scope of the coral-seaweed interaction, the researchers followed up their initial study by investigating interactions between eight different species of seaweed and three species of coral growing in the waters off the Fiji Islands. In 79 percent of the interactions studied, the seaweed chemicals harmed the coral.
"Though some corals were more resistant than others, what we have shown is that these seaweeds are generally bad for corals," said Hay, who has been studying coral reefs for more than 30 years. "At some level, these seaweed molecules can definitely kill the corals. But at other levels, what they are probably doing is cutting off the options for reefs to recover by making these reefs unreceptive to newly-arriving coral larvae. It is difficult for juvenile corals to colonize and grow through a chemically-toxic layer of seaweed."
In the 2010 study, the researchers determined that seaweed harmed coral only when their surfaces touched. That meant the harmful compounds were likely hydrophobic chemicals that dissolved in oil rather than water.
To identify the specific harmful compounds, the researchers produced extracts from the surfaces of the two most harmful seaweeds. Using a technique called bioassay-guided fractionation, they divided up compounds in these seaweed extracts by the degree to which they could be dissolved in oils versus water, or by their size.
They then placed gels containing the extracted compounds into contact with the most sensitive coral, Acropora. The coral samples had been placed into metal racks located on healthy coral reefs near Votua Village in the Fiji Islands. Similar gels not containing the extracts were used as controls -- and produced no effect on the coral.
By studying the effects of the extracts on the coral with a pulse-amplitude-modulated fluorometer to assess changes in coral photosynthesis, the researchers narrowed the list of suspect molecules. From the two most chemically-damaging seaweed species, the researchers isolated and identified four toxic molecules for detailed chemical analysis. Those compounds, identified as acetylated diterpenes and loliolide derivatives, are from a class of organic compounds known as terpenes.
The four molecules -- two from a green alga known as Chlorodesmis fastigiata and two from a red alga known as Galaxaura filamentosa -- were brought back to Georgia Tech for further study. They were analyzed by Julia Kubanek, a professor with joint appointments in the School of Biology and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and by graduate student Paige Stout. Kubanek and Stout, who were also involved in a related project aimed at discovering potential drug compounds on the coral reefs, mapped the structures of the toxic molecules.
For the future, the researchers hope to learn more about the compounds and how they evolved in seaweed. Contact between seaweed and coral would have been limited on pristine reefs, so Hay and Rasher believe the molecules may have evolved as part of defense against microbes or herbivorous fish. They also want to identify the species of fish that consume the seaweeds.
"We hope that this information will inform the Fijians to help them make decisions about fisheries management that could help protect the reefs," said Rasher. "We hope to give them scientifically-guided management tools for maintaining healthy reefs, or for restoring degraded reefs suffering from local human disturbance."
Coral is impacted by both global and local stressors. The global problems, including changing ocean pH and rising temperatures, can't be controlled locally. But issues such as overfishing and pollution can be controlled, and easing those local stresses may help the coral survive the global challenges.
"It's becoming clear that the problem for coral is not just one factor," said Rasher. "The decline of coral reefs results from a complex interaction between many factors. Our study shows that regardless of what factors are driving coral decline, once algae become established, they can suppress the recovery of coral."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>This year’s competition required students to designa spacecraft capable of removing large-sized debris from orbit around the Earthat an altitude between 540-600 miles, and at an inclination between 82 and 83degrees. Entries also featured a robotic arm capable of placing “deorbitingpacks” on individual pieces of debris.
The second-place team, “Team Zodiac,” was comprised ofstudents Eliot Bignell, Luis Reyes Castro, Azariah Cornish, EricDouglass, Caroline Hilton, Emre Tezcan, and Han Zhang. The third-place team,“TeamPACSat,” included students Marco Gomez, Michael Hill, Matt Lee, GarrettSisk, Alexandra Stavros, Eric Stuber, and Conner Volpe.
AIAA is the world’s largest technicalsociety dedicated to the global aerospace profession.
Written by Georgia Tech Communications & Marketing Student Media Member Ayesha Patel
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]]>The selection comes with $50,000 in funding that can be usedto help develop scientific and engineering discoveries into usefultechnologies, processes and products. Beth Mynatt, executive director of GeorgiaTech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and professor in the Collegeof Computing, will serve as the principal investigator for the I-Corpsinitiative.
“Georgia Tech is actively and aggressively working todevelop and commercialize the technologies developed here and to move thesediscoveries from the lab to marketplace,” said Stephen Fleming, vice presidentof the Enterprise Innovation Institute. “I-Corps supports our strategic focusto foster innovation and entrepreneurship on campus and throughout the state toultimately create jobs and stimulate economic growth.”
According to Fleming, a number of programs have beenrecently initiated to strengthen these strategic efforts, including IPaT,Georgia Tech Integrated Program for Startups (GT:IPS),and Georgia Tech Flashpoint, a newtechnology accelerator program. These programs are supported by VentureLab, the Institute’s comprehensivecenter for technology commercialization, and the Advanced TechnologyDevelopment Center (ATDC), which has helped launch and build successfultechnology companies for more than 30 years.
In total, theI-Corps awards are representative of six NSF directorates: Engineering;Computer and Information Science and Engineering; Biology; Mathematics andPhysical Sciences; Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences; and Education andHuman Resources.
For awardees, the first in-depth phase of the I-Corps experiencewill begin on Oct. 10, 2011, when the participants arrive at StanfordUniversity for the curriculum kickoff.
The I-Corps program selects up to 25 teams on a quarterlybasis to assess the commercial viability of their previously supported basic research.For more on the Innovation Corps, see the NSF Special Reportoutlining the program.
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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:
The It Gets Better Project started in September 2010 by syndicated columnist and author Dan Savage, inspiring the creation of more than 25,000 videos. Tech students were inspired by a recent video made by students at North Carolina State University. The film will be accompanied by a question and answer session with producers and participants, who will discuss the making of the video and personal experiences of coming out.
Musician and songwriter Matt Morris will also perform an acoustic set and speak about coming out, community, social media and songwriting.
]]>“This is a creative space,” explains Karen Head directorof the Communication Center. “We are coaching students in processes, strategiesand techniques, but we are also providing the space and equipment neededto practice.”
The Communication Center, located in suite 447 of the CloughUndergraduate Learning Commons, includes meeting areas, computer workstationsand rehearsal studios. Each area is designed for different types of work orproject phases, with faculty available to advise students each step of the way.
“We intend this to be a safe place for students to experiment andtake risks, without the pressure of assignment deadlines and grades,” said Head.
The Center’s staff of Brittain Fellows from the School of Literature,Communication and Culture focuses on what it calls WOVEN communication —written, oral, visual, electronic and non-verbal. Faculty provide coaching instrategies and performance, guidance in brainstorming and collaborativeplanning, and individual and small group tutoring. The Center is one of few inthe country that is run by tenure-track faculty. It is equipped to takestudents from conception to completion of a project, enabling them to draft,edit, revise and compose written or other types of work all in one room.
Head notes that the Center is not a fix-it shop, in that studentsshould not expect to drop off work and pick it up corrected, but the staffworks with students at all levels to help them become better communicators. “Celebrity”tutors from around campus will also assist in that effort, the first of whichwas President G. P. “Bud” Peterson at the Center’s grand opening on Sept. 28.
The Center is currently open to all undergraduate and graduatestudents, with the goal of also eventually serving faculty and staff. For now, the Center's staff is willing to partner with faculty on projects brought in my students.
"Helping students is much easier if we understand completely what a faculty member expects. We are also available to help faculty consider ways to include communication projects in their courses," Head said.
Studentsare encouraged to stop by or make an appointment during the Center’s hours ofoperation.
]]>“Weshow that with a strong electric field, you can induce a phase transitionwithout altering the thermodynamic parameters,” said Uzi Landman, Regents’ andInstitute Professor in the School of Physics, F.E. Callaway Chair and directorof the Center for Computational Materials Science (CCMS) at Georgia Tech.
Inthese simulations, Landman and Senior Research Scientists David Luedtke andJianping Gao at the CCMS set out first to explore a phenomenon described by SirGeoffrey Ingram Taylor in 1964 in the course of his study of the effect oflightning on raindrops, expressed as changes in the shape of liquid drops whenpassing through an electric field. While liquid drops under field-freeconditions are spherical, they alter their shape in response to an appliedelectric field to become needle-like liquid drops. Instead of the waterdroplets used in the almost 50-year-old laboratory experiments of Taylor, theGeorgia Tech researchers focused their theoretical study on a 10 nanometer (nm)diameter liquid droplet of formamide, which is a material made of small polarmolecules each characterized by a dipole moment that is more than twice aslarge as that of a water molecule.
Withthe use of molecular dynamics simulations developed at the CCMS, which allowscientists to track the evolution of materials systems with ultra-highresolution in space and time, the physicists explored the response of theformamide nano-droplet to an applied electric field of variable strength.Influenced by a field of less than 0.5V/nm, the spherical droplet elongatedonly slightly. However, when the strength of the field was raised to a criticalvalue close to 0.5 V/nm, the simulated droplet was found to undergo a shape transitionresulting in a needle-like liquid droplet with its long axis – oriented alongthe direction of the applied field – measuring about 12 times larger than theperpendicular (cross-sectional) small axis of the needle-like droplet. Thevalue of the critical field found in the simulations agrees well with theprediction obtained almost half a century ago by Taylor from general macroscopicconsiderations.
Pastthe shape transition further increase of the applied electric field yielded aslow, gradual increase of the aspect ratio between the long and short axes ofthe needle-like droplet, with the formamide molecules exhibiting liquiddiffusional motions.
“Herecame the Eureka moment,” said Landman. “When the field strength in thesimulations was ramped up even further, reaching a value close to 1.5V/nm, theliquid needle underwent a solidification phase transition, exhibited byfreezing of the diffusional motion, and culminating in the formation of aformamide single crystal characterized by a structure that differs from that ofthe x-ray crystallographic one determined years ago under zero-fieldconditions. Now, who ordered that?” he added.
Furtheranalysis has shown that the crystallization transition involved arrangement ofthe molecules into a particular spatial ordered lattice, which optimizes theinteractions between the positive and negative ends of the dipoles ofneighboring molecules, resulting in minimization of the free energy of theresulting rigid crystalline needle. When the electric field applied to thedroplet was subsequently decreased, the crystalline needle remelted and atzero-field the liquid droplet reverted to a spherical shape. The field reversalprocess was found to exhibit a hysteresis.
Analysisof the microscopic structural changes that underlie the response of the dropletto the applied field revealed that accompanying the shape transition at 0.5V/nm is a sharp increase in the degree of reorientation of the molecularelectric dipoles, which after the transition lie preferentially along thedirection of the applied electric field and coincide with the long axis of theneedle-like liquid droplet. The directional dipole reorientation, which isessentially complete subsequent to the higher field electrocrystallizationtransition, breaks the symmetry and transforms the droplet into a field-inducedferroelectric state where it possesses a large net electric dipole, in contrastto its unpolarized state at zero–field conditions.
Alongwith the large-scale atomistic computer simulations, researchers formulated andevaluated an analytical free-energy model, which describes the balance betweenthe polarization, interfacial tension and dielectric saturation contributions.This model was shown to yield results in agreement with the computer simulationexperiments, thus providing a theoretical framework for understanding theresponse of dielectric droplets to applied fields.
“Thisinvestigation unveiled fascinating properties of a large group of materialsunder the influence of applied fields,” Landman said. “Here the field-inducedshape and crystallization transitions occurred because formamide, like waterand many other materials, is characterized by a relatively large electricdipole moment. The study demonstrated the ability to employ external fields todirect and control the shape, the aggregation phase (that is, solid or liquid)and the properties of certain materials.”
Alongwith the fundamental interest in understanding the microscopic origins ofmaterials behavior, this may lead to development of applications offield-induced materials control in diverse areas, ranging from targeted drug delivery,nanoencapsulation, printing of nanostructures and surface patterning, toaerosol science, electrospray propulsion and environmental science.
This research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
]]>According to GTISC, GTRI and the experts cited in thereport, specific threats to follow over the coming year include, among others:
“We continue to witness cyber attacks of unprecedentedsophistication and reach, demonstrating that malicious actors have the abilityto compromise and control millions of computers that belong to governments,private enterprises and ordinary citizens,” said Mustaque Ahamad, director of GTISC.“If we are going to prevent motivated adversaries from attacking our systems,stealing our data and harming our critical infrastructure, the broadercommunity of security researchers—including academia, the private sector andgovernment—must work together to understand emerging threats and to developproactive security solutions to safeguard the Internet and physicalinfrastructure that relies on it.”
Today’s Georgia Tech Cyber Security Summit is one forumwhere the IT security ecosystem can gather together to discuss and debate theevolving nature of cyber threats, and to chart the course for creatingsolutions through collaborations among industry, government and academia. TheSummit was keynoted by Admiral William J. Fallon, U.S. Navy (retired) andincluded a panel of security experts from Equifax, The Financial ServicesRoundtable, Mobile Active Defense, Reputation.com and GTRI.
"Our adversaries, whether motivated by monetarygain, political/social ideology, or otherwise are becoming increasinglysophisticated and better funded,” said Bo Rotoloni, director of GTRI’s CyberTechnology and Information Security Laboratory (CTISL). “Acting as individualsor groups, these entities know no boundaries, making cyber security a globalproblem. We can no longer assume our data is safe sitting behind perimeter-protectednetworks. Attacks penetrate our systems through ubiquitous protocols, mobiledevices and social engineering, circumventing the network perimeter. Our bestdefense on the growing cyber warfront is found in cooperative education andawareness, best-of-breed tools and robust policy developed collaboratively byindustry, academia and government.”
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of thenation's leading public research universities and the home of groundbreaking cybersecurity research and academic initiatives through GTISC, GTRI and otherfacilities across campus. These efforts are focused on producing technology andinnovation that will help drive economic growth, while improving human life ona global scale.
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When nearly 40 million Nigerians took to the polls last April to elect a new president, many of them went online to share comments about their chosen candidates on blogs, Twitter or other social media platforms. They also used these new media tools to report what they saw. “Listening” to much of it was Georgia Tech Associate Professor Michael Best, which just might have saved a few lives.
During the election, Best provided technical support for a Nigerian group that wanted to use social media as a means for tracking the election process and identifying any problems that cropped up. Best and his team of researchers designed a social media aggregator tool that could pull content from about 20 different sources (including Twitter) and analyze the data in real time using keywords.
At the peak of activity, the aggregator tracked about 50 reports per second and analyzed them based on keywords and (sometimes) location data. The Nigerian Social Media Tracking Centre, formed just before the election by the organization Best was supporting, forwarded along confirmable reports of election irregularities and ultimately reports of violence to Nigerian authorities. All together the aggregator collected about 750,000 reports containing pre-identified keywords, and following the election the SMTC issued a summary report that listed a series of recommendations for using social media and instant messaging to improve future election experiences, such as:
Using social media as a means to gauge public response to political events is nothing new, but Best’s team is one of the first to use the practice in real time to help improve the electoral process itself, acknowledging that civilian reports can provide critical information. If violence erupts, the hours or even minutes saved by having identified the situation through social media posts could make a significant difference in response.
“Nigeria showed that this technology has legitimate and useful applications for monitoring elections or keeping a real-time pulse on any number of political or community issues,” said Best, an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. “Our ultimate goal is to delve deeper into the particulars of this, examining the information’s accuracy, depth, timeliness and scope, and comparing it along those dimensions to other sources of information.”
Tangibly, Best and team want to produce open-source software that can be used to monitor major events as a complementary tool to traditional monitoring techniques. For example, the National Democratic Institute and the European Union both sent observers to Nigeria for its April elections, and today Liberia will likewise see international teams on the ground, monitoring and reporting on the country’s electoral processes. How can crowdsourced election data compliment the work of trained formal observer missions? What impact will that data have? And what impact will Friday’s announcement that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will receive the Nobel Peace Prize have on the election?
“The nongovernmental organizations [NGOs] that do election monitoring are understandably leery of formally using this technology right now, because they don’t want to risk their data being tainted with unreliable citizen reports,” said Thomas Smyth, a Ph.D. student in Best’s lab. “However our research could open up new understandings of how social media function in election-like situations, and as the explosion of social media causes NGOs to refine their policies, it could be of interest to them.”
The stakes for Liberia’s election appeared to rise again on Friday, when it was announced that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will receive the Nobel Peace Prize. When the polls open at approximately 3 a.m. EST on Oct. 11, Best and a team of undergraduate and graduate students will be ready in a “situation room” on the Georgia Tech campus. Among the outlets to be followed are Twitter, Facebook public groups, SMS messaging and several other blogs and social media websites, including the open-source platform Ushahidi, popular in several African nations.
As reports begin to filter in, the aggregator will use posts clustering around certain keywords as evidence in a real-time organic catalogue of “curated incidents.” If the team identifies a situation it decides should be reported to Liberian authorities, Best has partnered with iLab Liberia, an information technology support organization, which will staff a “response room” in country.
“Social media and aggregate text messaging can, in a very real sense, be construed as a ‘cultural consciousness,’ and our goal is to show how you can take advantage of that for reasons other than marketing products or identifying pop culture trends,” Best said. “As we’re seeing through the ongoing ‘Arab Spring,’ these new technologies can be vital tools in service of democracy.”
In 2012, Best hopes to employ the aggregator in monitoring elections in Kenya, Senegal and the new nation of South Sudan.
###
About the Georgia Tech College of Computing
The Georgia Tech College of Computing is a national leader in the creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress. With its graduate program ranked 10th nationally by U.S. News and World Report, the College’s unconventional approach to education is defining the new face of computing by expanding the horizons of traditional computer science students through interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on human centered solutions. For more information about the Georgia Tech College of Computing, its academic divisions and research centers, please visit http://www.cc.gatech.edu.
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]]>On Wednesday, Relay invites students, faculty and staff tolight candles in honor of loved ones who have lost battles with cancer, arecurrently fighting them or celebrating them being in the past. The ceremonywill take place at the Campanile at 8:30 p.m. There will also be a free concert at 7 p.m. at Under the Couch featuring the band Courtesy of Frank.
Thursday, volunteers will be on Tech Walk from 11 a.m. to 1p.m. for people to stop by and write for whom they will “relay” on a purplePost-it. The Post-its will be afixed to a banner to be displayed on campus throughout the year.
Friday is the official kick-off, with music, games and freepizza for the first 100 guests to stop by at the Campanile. Relay For Lifeexecutive members organizing the initial events are also encouraging members ofthe campus community to wear purple for the day on campus.
Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society’s premierevent that focuses on celebrating the lives of those who have battled cancer,remembering loved ones lost and fighting back against the disease. Teams areformed in advance of the event and camp out overnight (usually on the campusathletic fields), taking turns walking or running around a track or path.
Tolearn more about Relay at Tech, visit relayforlife.org/gatech.
]]>"By developing, testing and refining medical devices specifically for children, we hope to produce safer, more effective devices that will improve their lives," said Barbara Boyan, the Price Gilbert, Jr. Chair in Tissue Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
The consortium will be led by Boyan, along with consortium co-directors Kevin Maher, a cardiologist and researcher specializing in pediatrics with appointments at the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Sibley Heart Center and Emory University, and Wilbur Lam, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist and bioengineer with appointments at Emory, the Aflac Cancer Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Georgia Tech.
Historically, devices designed for adults have been used in children. However, differences in body size and immune system responses between adults and children, and the lack of appropriate models to assess how a device might function in a growing child, can result in poor device performance and responses that are less than optimal.
"There is little information as to what devices are working well for children and what complications occur," explained Boyan, who is also a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. "In addition, the high cost of clinical trials for a small market like pediatrics has made conducting pediatric trials cost-prohibitive for many manufacturers."
The consortium will try to reduce these barriers by creating a product development pathway that will provide support for commercialization of devices for pediatric health care from initial concept to the completed product.
To do this, the consortium will build on partnerships the institutions have with the Georgia Tech Translational Research Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Science (TRIBES), which focuses on the need for engineering systems that result in commercial products; the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI), which includes a prototyping design and development facility; and the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech, a startup accelerator that helps Georgia technology entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. Consortium institutions will also partner with SJTRI and the National Institutes of Health-sponsored Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute (ACTSI) for pre-clinical, first-in-child testing and clinical assessments.
Additional consortium leadership will be provided by Franklin Bost, professor and director of design instruction in the Coulter Department; David Ku, a Regents professor with appointments in the Georgia Tech School of Mechanical Engineering and College of Management, and Emory's Department of Surgery; and Nicholas Chronos, president of SJTRI.
The consortium will provide assistance for pediatric medical devices from academic institutions and small businesses. The three technologies that will be investigated initially are:
The first innovation is the RemOtoscope -- a smartphone attachment designed by Lam for at-home ear examinations. Ear infections result in more than 15 million doctor office visits each year in the United States because diagnosing them requires direct observation of the child's eardrum and ear canal with a device called an otoscope. Lam envisions a physician remotely guiding placement of the device and diagnosing the condition via real-time video consultation with parents at home. The smartphone capabilities will also enable the transmission of other relevant clinical information to guide the physician in making the correct diagnosis.
The second device the consortium will bring into the pipeline is a renal dialysis device designed especially for children with kidney failure. There is currently no FDA-approved continuous bedside dialysis device for children. When critically ill children need kidney dialysis, doctors are forced to adapt adult-size dialysis equipment. These adapted adult devices can withdraw too much fluid from a pediatric patient, leading to dehydration, shock and loss of blood pressure. Matthew Paden, a pediatric critical care physician at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory realized this problem and has collaborated with Ajit Yoganathan, a Georgia Tech Regents professor and the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering, to develop the device.
The consortium will also investigate the development of a gel designed to delay the re-fusion of a child's skull bones after surgery for craniosynostosis. Craniosynostosis affects approximately one in every 2,500 babies in the United States and is caused by the premature closure of gaps between skull bones. The gel is being developed by Boyan; Joseph Williams, clinical director of craniofacial plastic surgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Emory University; and Coulter Department M.D./Ph.D. student Chris Hermann, senior scientist Rene Olivares-Navarrete, visiting professor Zvi Schwartz and associate professor Niren Murthy.
Future projects will be selected through the consortium's seed grant competition, which will provide awards between $25,000 and $50,000 to inventors in the partnering institutions and the business community to develop a pediatric medical device through the consortium. Entries are due Nov. 1, 2011.
Additional devices will also be identified through technology development and commercialization programs, including the Coulter Department capstone design class, the TI:GER (Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results) program in the Georgia Tech College of Management, Georgia Tech's comprehensive center for technology commercialization called VentureLab and the Goizeuta Business School at Emory.
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
]]>Enterprise to Empower (En2Em) seeks to educate,enable and engage students in social entrepreneurship, no matter what corner ofcampus they find themselves immersed in study.
“There’s a need not only for students to thinkmore innovatively and entrepreneurially, but also to think more about thesocial impact they can make,” said Melissa McCoy, founder and president ofEn2Em and a student in chemical and biomolecular engineering. After workingabroad during the spring of 2010 in Chile for SQM, a metallic mining company,McCoy found herself inspired to educate and engage fellow students in socialentrepreneurship. En2Em offers education, career development and ventureincubation services focused on social innovation.
“Students don’t think entrepreneurially or sociallybecause they don’t see exit strategies from college in these realms,” McCoysaid. She hopes to bring a wider understanding of social entrepreneurship toall of Tech; last year, En2Em hosted the Institute’s first Social EnterpriseCareer Fair, bringing organizations to campus such as Teach for America, TheCarter Center and the Georgia Center for Nonprofits.
“While our organization has a social focus, we want tohelp all entrepreneurially minded students and perhaps introduce them to theidea of applying their creations to developing markets or in a socially-orientedway.” En2Em works with organizers from the InVenture Prize, Business PlanCompetition and Ideas 2 SERVE to provide support to students already interestedin these events. “We want to push students to think longer term with theirventures — rather than it being a nice project to put on their resume, we wantthem to think they can change the world with this.”
En2Em will support the University System of Georgia’sSocial Business and Microcredit Forum being held at the Ferst Center on Oct.17. Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus, considered to be the father ofmicrocredit, will deliver a keynote address, and En2Em will assist in judging astudent social business plan competition. Applications for the competition willbe accepted through Friday, Oct. 14, with more details availableonline; winners will have the chance to dine with Yunus and competitionjudges.
Throughout the year, En2Em will host monthly Coffee andConversation events, organize dinners with social entrepreneurs and lead casestudy projects. In the spring, the group plans to host a second SocialEnterprise Career Fair and TEDxGT.
Students interested in learning more should visit en2em.org, where they can join a project, receivecounsel on venture incubation or find out about upcoming events.
]]>Cloud properties can have a significant impact on climate, yet the effects of aerosols like dust is one of the more uncertain components of climate change models. Scientists have long recognized the importance of soluble particles, such as sea salt and sulfates, in creating the droplets that form clouds and lead to precipitation. But until now, the role of insoluble particles -- mostly dust swept into the atmosphere from such sources as deserts -- hasn't figured significantly in climate models.
Using a combination of physics-based theory and laboratory measurement of droplet formation, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a model that can be added to existing regional and global climate simulations. The impacts of these refinements on cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity and droplet activation kinetics are still being studied.
"Understanding that insoluble dust forms more droplets than we thought it could, and that those droplets form close to the sources of the particles, could change our picture of how precipitation is formed in areas like the Mediterranean, Asia and other climate-stressed regions," said Athanasios Nenes, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. The findings were described at the Fall 2011 meeting of the American Chemical Society in Denver, and reported in the journals Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research and Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. A new paper on the global modeling impacts has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Soluble particles nucleate droplets by absorbing water under conditions of high humidity. Insoluble materials such as dust cannot absorb water, so it was thought that they played little role in the formation of clouds and precipitation.
However, Nenes and collaborators realized that these dust particles could nucleate droplets in a different way -- by adsorbing moisture onto their surfaces, much as moisture condenses on window glass during temperature changes. Some insoluble particles containing clay materials may also adsorb moisture, even though they don't dissolve in it.
Working with Irina Sokolik, also a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Nenes and graduate student Prashant Kumar studied aerosol particles created from samples of desert soils from several areas of the world, including Northern Africa, East Asia/China and North America. In laboratory conditions simulating those of a saturated atmosphere, these insoluble particles formed cloud droplets, though the process was slower than the one producing droplets from soluble materials.
"We generated particles in the laboratory from materials we find in the atmosphere," explained Nenes, who also holds a faculty appointment in Georgia Tech's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. "These particles take up water using a mechanism that had not been considered before in models. It turns out that this process of adsorption soaks up enough water to form cloud droplets."
The laboratory work showed that smaller particles were more likely than expected to generate droplets, and that their effectiveness as cloud condensation nuclei was affected by the type of minerals present, their size, morphology and processes affecting them in the atmosphere. The dust particles ranged in size from 100 nanometers up to a few microns.
These mineral aerosols may consist of iron oxides, carbonates, quartz and clays. They mainly originate from arid and semi-arid regions, and can remain suspended in the atmosphere for as long as several weeks, allowing them to be transported long distances from their original sources. In the atmosphere, the dust particles tend to accumulate soluble materials as they age.
"We can simulate what is happening to the particles as they get slowly coated with more and more soluble materials," said Nenes. "As they get more and more soluble coatings on them, they become more hygroscopic."
The researchers are now working with collaborators in Germany to incorporate their new theories into existing climate models to see how they may change the predictions. They also hope to carry out new field work to measure the activity of these insoluble aerosols in real-world conditions.
"We now need to study the cloud particles in the atmosphere and their ability to form droplets to verify our theory using real atmospheric data," Nenes said. "We also need to look at dust and clouds from more regions of the world to make sure that the theory works for all of them."
Clouds play an important role in governing climate, so adding new information about their formation could improve the accuracy of complex climate models.
"The reason that we care about particle-cloud interactions is that they introduce a lot of uncertainties in climate model predictions," Nenes said. "Anything that can be done to improve these predictions by providing more specific cloud information would be helpful to projecting climate change."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
Technical Contact: Athanasios Nenes (athanasios.nenes@gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>While breaks are great times to visit family or friends, they’realso great opportunities to enjoy campus and Atlanta with fewer obligations.There are plenty of events going on throughout the weekend that fit into astudent budget, but it’s also a chance to just walk around campus or the cityat times that you’d normally be consumed with books, research or work.
A few ideas for those of you sticking around town for thelong weekend and who may want to reserve a little time for a leisure activity:
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
All weekend
Monday and Tuesday
Georgia Tech’s ManufacturingResearch Center (MaRC) is one of the nation’s foremost multidisciplinaryeducational facilities focusing on developing next-generation manufacturingtechnologies.
“We are No. 1 inmanufacturing because this is where companies get things done,” said StevenDanyluk, professor and Morris M. Bryan Jr. Chair in Mechanical Engineering forAdvanced Manufacturing System and former director of MaRC. “I believe theManufacturing Research Center is the bedrock of where that reputation comesfrom.”
The 120,000-square-footbuilding in the northwest section of campus contains state-of-the-art labs thatsupport research, education and technological initiatives. It serves as anincubator for educational advancement and manufacturing research.
“The mission of the center isto translate our technology into real manufacturing expertise that could beused to create jobs and wealth in the state,” Danyluk said.
Since 1992, MaRC has beennationally recognized for its Manufacturing Education Program that has touchedthousands of Georgia Tech graduates.
Throughout the years, MaRChas also hosted a number of major research initiatives, some of which resultedin start-up companies such as viaCycle, Radatec, QCept, CaMotion and others.
“Together, these two aspectsof MaRC have been a significant contributing factor to Georgia Tech’s No. 1ranking in ‘manufacturing and industrial engineering’ by U.S. News & WorldReport,” said Leon McGinnis, Eugene C. Gwaltney Chair in Manufacturing Systemsand associate director of MaRC. “We are justifiably proud of ouraccomplishments and contributions in education and research.”
As the center celebrates its20th anniversary, it is honing its focus on new and innovative discoveries and areasof critical need.
“My hope is … that GeorgiaTech will lead the way as we move towards a renaissance of advancedmanufacturing in the U.S. and around world,” said Ben Wang, incoming executivedirector of MaRC.
Wang will be introduced tothe campus community at the ceremony and will assume the executive directorrole on Jan. 1. Wang will follow in the footsteps of Danyluk, who served as thecenter’s director from 1994 to 2010.
The MaRC anniversarycelebration will be held at 1 p.m. on the lawn between the MaRC and the J. Eriskine LoveManufacturing buildings. Guest speakers include Reeves Callaway, founder ofCallaway Cars, and Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department ofEconomic Development.
]]>EarSketch,a project in Ivan Allen College, is designed to encourage Atlanta’sAfrican-American high schoolers to study computer science. The program willallow students to remix hip hop music by writing computer code. EarSketch isbased on research by Georgia Tech that shows the relationship between gamingand an eventual interest in computer science is not as strong as may have beenpreviously assumed, especially for minorities.
“Traditional approaches to teaching computer science aredismal in engaging non-white male students, and the numbers forAfrican-American males are relatively low compared to other ethnic groups,”said Brian Magerko, assistant professor of digital media in the IAC School ofLiterature, Communication and Culture. Magerko, the principal investigator onthe project, is working with co-investigator Jason Freeman, an assistantprofessor in the School of Music in the College of Architecture.
“We believe that by leveraging the collaborative nature of remixcomposition and musically oriented computer programming, EarSketch may providea successful alternative to the cultural issues that computer games have in theengagement of minorities,” said Magerko.
EarSketch will teach students how to use a digital audioworkstation and to control musical loops and beats by writing small bits ofprogramming code. The project involvescollaboration with Mike Reilly from Lanier High School, where the software andcurriculum will be piloted in 2014.
The College of Computing’s $1 million grant will be used toaddress a different issue: a significant shortage of high school computerscience teachers in the United States. According to the College Board, thereare only 2,000 computer science teachers at the Advanced Placement (AP) levelamong the nation’s 25,000 high schools. NSF has a goal of having 10,000 highschool computer science teachers in 10,000 U.S. schools by the year 2015.
Mark Guzdial, a professor in the college’s School ofInteractive Computing, and Barbara Ericson, director of Computing Outreach,will oversee a three-year project that will investigate better ways to traincomputing teachers. Guzdial and Ericson are focused on creating new onlinemedia, allowing teachers to learn at their own pace rather than using a remoteclassroom model.
"The biggest challenge is learning computer science from adistance," said Guzdial. "Most training tools currently used—such asonline classes that require teachers to program code on their own with littleor no help—are ineffective. It's too hard for them. We're trying to find amiddle ground that will work with measurable learning and helping teacherssucceed."
For more information on the initiative, click here.
Both projects are part of the NSF’s Computing Ed for 21stCentury program, which aims to increase the number of students who plan tomajor in computing. According to the NSF, interest among college freshmen hasdeclined overall by 70 percent in the last decade.
]]>Released by the National Council on Disability (NCD),the report concludes that the transition to a new networked economy has thepotential to provide more employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
Previous research into the employment challengesfaced by people with disabilities has focused on the scarcity of jobopportunities and the perceived competitive disadvantages that they face. Thenew report, “The Power of Digital Inclusion: Technology’s Impact on Employmentand Opportunities for People with Disabilities,” focuses on the social capitaland networking needed to match job opportunities with job seekers.
CACP SeniorResearch Scientist James White wrote the report and oversaw a research teamthat included Paul Baker, Robert Todd, Nathan Moon, Brad Fain, Jessica Paterand Carola Conces. CACP is housed in the School of Public Policy at GeorgiaTech’s Ivan Allen College.
The report looked at the disruptive possibilities of aset of key digital technologies on employment: wireless communicationplatforms; social networks; immersive digital environments, including virtualworlds and tiered digital interactions such as electronic games; openpublishing; and open source processes.
Marking the launch of the report, the NCD hosted avirtual job fair October 4 to promote employment opportunities for people withdisabilities, inviting government, non-government organizations and private-sectoremployers to send in current employment opportunities. The positions weredistributed via Twitter, Facebook and the NCD listserv as examples of thetechnological opportunities described in the report.
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The UnitedNations ambassador and former Atlanta mayor was an early leader in the CivilRights Movement and is one of three surviving aides who was with Martin LutherKing Jr. when he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. For this year’s FreshmanReading Project, students read a collection of King’s work, “I Have a Dream:Writings and Speeches that Changed the World.” Young will address students atthe Ferst Center at 11 a.m. Tickets are free with a valid BuzzCard and areavailable at the Clough Commons information desk or the Student Center boxoffice.
Young will also visit the Ferst Center on Sunday, Oct. 9, at4 p.m. with his godson, Kabir Sehgal, with whom he recently co-authored “Walkin My Shoes: Conversations between a Civil Rights Legend and his Godson on theJourney Ahead.” The two will discuss their book and mentorship at this eventhosted by Delta Upsilon fraternity. Tickets are $5 for students and $12 for thepublic, and can be purchased at the Student Center box office, through DeltaUpsilon members or online. Proceeds will benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
Young and King workedtogether throughout the Southeast on nonviolent civil rights demonstrations,voter registration drives and other goodwill efforts through the SouthernChristian Leadership Conference (SCLC), where Young served as executivedirector from 1964–68. Through the SCLC, Young was instrumental in securing thepassage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 as well as the Voting RightsAct of 1965.
Youngrepresented Georgia’s Fifth District in the U.S. House of Representatives, servedas a U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under President Jimmy Carter and was a two-termmayor of Atlanta.
]]>Neil Desai
Delta Upsilon
Kristen Shaw
Communications and Marketing
That’s a huge loss of innovation and entrepreneurship at atime when the United States desperately needs both. Stephen Fleming, a Georgia Tech vicepresident and executive director of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise InnovationInstitute, recently told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce forum that this loss costsU.S. competitiveness and jobs, both present and future.
As a former venture capitalist now responsible for GeorgiaTech’s programs for high-tech startup companies, Fleming meets many students withtechnical backgrounds who have the entrepreneurial bent. One statistic he cited: of 28 students in arecent innovation competition, 26 were from overseas. Under our current status, those 26 represententrepreneurial talent for our competitors.
Immigration has been a hot-button issue for several yearsnow, but Fleming points out that immigrants have been powering U.S.entrepreneurship – and some of our most innovative companies – fordecades. Our higher education systemattracts the best students from around the world, so why shouldn’t we be takingadvantage of that, seeing that as an opportunity rather than a problem?
Read Fleming’s comments hereand see a video of his presentation on C-SPAN.
]]>
Both reports containinformation regarding campus security and personal safety including topics suchas: crime prevention, fire safety, campus police law enforcement authority,crime reporting policies, disciplinary procedures and other matters ofimportance related to security and safety on campus. They also contain crime statistics for the three previous calendar yearsconcerning reported crimes that occurred on campus; in certain off-campusbuildings or property owned or controlled by the institute; and on publicproperty within, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus.
To view a copy of these reports, visit:
Annual Campus Safety Report:
http://www.police.gatech.edu/documents/brochure.pdf
Campus Fire Safety Right-To-Know-Act Report:
http://www.police.gatech.edu/documents/firesafety.pdfor www.ehs.gatech.edu
If you would like to receive apaper copy of the Annual Campus Safety Report and/or the Campus Fire SafetyRight-To-Know-Act Report, you can stop by the Georgia Tech Police Department at879 Hemphill Avenue, NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30332 or you can request that a copybe mailed to you by calling (404) 385-8519.
]]>Abstracts for this year's Georgia Tech Research & InnovationConference (GTRIC), which will take place Feb. 6-7, 2012, are now beingaccepted. Information about the conference and instructions for submittingabstracts may be found online from Graduate SGA. Thedeadline for submission is Friday, Oct. 14.
As in the past, the conference has both a researchpresentation and an innovation component. There are significant prizes for thewinning research posters: five $5,000 one-year fellowships for PhD students andup to 30 grants (up to $1,500 each) supporting student travel to professionalmeetings. The innovation component, sponsored by the Enterprise InnovationInstitute, offers the opportunity to win the $15,000 Edison Prize that supportscommercialization of the innovation.
]]>The basic principle for growing thin layers of graphene on silicon carbide requires heating the material to about 1,500 degrees Celsius under high vacuum. The heat drives off the silicon, leaving behind one or more layers of graphene. But uncontrolled evaporation of silicon can produce poor quality material useless to designers of electronic devices.
"For growing high-quality graphene on silicon carbide, controlling the evaporation of silicon at just the right temperature is essential," said Walt de Heer, a professor who pioneered the technique in the Georgia Tech School of Physics. "By precisely controlling the rate at which silicon comes off the wafer, we can control the rate at which graphene is produced. That allows us to produce very nice layers of epitaxial graphene."
De Heer and his team begin by placing a silicon carbide wafer into an enclosure made of graphite. A small hole in the container controls the escape of silicon atoms as the one-square-centimeter wafer is heated, maintaining the rate of silicon evaporation and condensation near its thermal equilibrium. The growth of epitaxial graphene can be done in a vacuum or in the presence of an inert gas such as argon, and can be used to produce both single layers and multiple layers of the material.
"This technique seems to be completely in line with what people might one day do in fabrication facilities," de Heer said. "We believe this is quite significant in allowing us to rationally and reproducibly grow graphene on silicon carbide. We feel we now understand the process, and believe it could be scaled up for electronics manufacturing."
The technique for growing large-area layers of epitaxial graphene was described this week in the Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research has been supported by the National Science Foundation through the Georgia Tech Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the W.M. Keck Foundation.
The paper also describes a technique for growing narrow graphene ribbons, a process de Heer's group has called "templated growth." That technique, which could be useful for making graphene interconnects, was first described in October 2010 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
The templated growth technique involves etching patterns into silicon carbide surfaces using conventional nanolithography processes. The patterns serve as templates directing the growth of graphene structures on portions of the patterned surfaces. The technique forms nanoribbons of specific widths without the use of electron beams or other destructive cutting techniques. Graphene nanoribbons produced with these templates have smooth edges that avoid problems with electron scattering.
Together, the two techniques provide researchers with the flexibility to produce graphene in forms appropriate to different needs, de Heer noted. Large-area sheets of graphene may be grown on both the carbon-terminated and silicon-terminated sides of a silicon carbide wafer, while the narrow ribbons may be grown on the silicon-terminated side. Because of different processing techniques, only one side of a particular wafer can be used.
The Georgia Tech research team -- which includes Claire Berger, Ming Ruan, Mike Sprinkle, Xuebin Li, Yike Hu, Baiqian Zhang, John Hankinson and Edward Conrad -- has so far fabricated structures as narrow as 10 nanometers using the templated growth technique. These nanowires exhibit interesting quantum transport properties.
"We can make very good quantum wires using the templated growth technique," de Heer said. "We can make large structures and devices that demonstrate the Quantum Hall Effect, which is important for many applications. We have demonstrated that templated growth can go all the way down to the nanoscale, and that the properties get even better there."
Development of the sublimation technique arose from efforts to protect the growing graphene from oxygen and other contaminants in the furnace. To address the quality concerns, the research team tried enclosing the wafer in a graphite container from which some silicon gas was permitted to leak out.
"We soon realized that graphene grown in the container was much better than what we had been producing," de Heer recalled. "Originally, we thought it was because we were protecting it from contaminants. Later, we realized it was because we were controlling the evaporation of silicon."
Epitaxial graphene may be the basis for a new generation of high-performance devices that will take advantage of the material's unique properties in applications where higher costs can be justified. Silicon, today's electronic material of choice, will continue to be used in applications where high-performance is not required, de Heer said.
Though researchers are still struggling to design nanometer-scale epitaxial graphene devices that take advantage of the material's unique properties, de Heer is confident that will ultimately be done.
"These techniques allow us to make accurate nanostructures and seem to be very promising for making the nanoscale devices that we need," he said. "While there are serious challenges ahead for using graphene in electronics, we have overcome roadblocks before."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>
The Dream Mile, started by Tech students, is one of a seriesof Dream Mile races that take place across the country. The Atlanta race benefitsChildren’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Vibha, a nonprofit that supports educationand health programs in the U.S. and India. Last year, the local race had itshighest participation to date, with 1,400 runners, and raised more than$100,000.
“This event is organized entirely by volunteers and has afun family atmosphere,” said Samir Patel, a postdoctoral fellow in chemical andbiomolecular engineering organizing this year’s race. Music and carnival-stylegames will be available after the race, and all race participants receive at-shirt, chip timing and refreshments.
The Dream Mile begins at the Biotechnology Quad on FerstDrive and loops through the interior streets of campus; a full race map isavailable at The Dream Mile’s website. For those who may not be interested inthe walk/run aspect of the event, they may still participate in a pledge drivefor the race beneficiaries.
The 2011 Dream Mile begins at 7 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 1; registrationis $25 until Sept. 25, and $30 until the day of the race. To register, visit www.thedreammile.org/atlanta andregister through Active.com.
]]>404.348.8294
]]>The Bicycle InfrastructureImprovement Committee (BIIC) crafted events with both current and potentialcyclists in mind throughout the week of Sept. 26–30:
Throughout the week, cyclistswill participate in a commuter challenge, logging their mileage at bike.gatech.edu. Departments will compete for the highest participationand mileage quantities, with the grand prize of a commemorative bike rackinstalled at the winning department’s building. Other prizes will be distributed throughout the week, including t-shirts, gift cards to local businesses and bike-relatedgear.
The BIIC has implemented manychanges on campus since its formation last year, including new bike lanes onFerst Drive and Hemphill Avenue, sharrows throughout campus streets and newbike racks in various locations. The group also built and maintains bike.gatech.edu, an online resource for all things bike-related atTech.
“For those who don’t ride anddon’t intend to ride, we’d still encourage you to come and check out theviaCycle bikes [on Tech Walk], and to give us your feedback for how we can makecampus better for non-cyclists as well,” said Johann Weber, BIIC chair.viaCycle is Tech’s pilot bike share program that enables users to have accessto communal bikes on campus.
President G. P. “Bud”Peterson and Mrs. Valerie Peterson will join Friday’s Tour de Tech as cyclistsride through campus to see improvements already made for bikes and talk aboutwhat’s to come.
“Our number one goal isalways more cyclists. It saves the university money, and it’s a healthier andmore environmental commute,” Weber said. Future goals of the BIIC include morecovered and indoor parking, additional lockers and showers around campus andsoliciting feedback from the campus community.
]]>Kristen Shaw
Communications and Marketing
“The P&O Clinic at the Good Samaritan HealthCenter is an extraordinary opportunity for the students in the MSPO program, asit will provide a real-world clinical experience in a comprehensive and holistichealth care environment,” says Kistenberg. “The students will be able tocombine their didactic education with their clinical and technical skills in asupervised setting to provide prostheses and orthoses to the underservedpeople in Atlanta. It’s a win-win-win for everyone.”
The clinic is being equipped and stocked througha grant from the St. Luke’s Episcopal Outreach Program. Students will startseeing patients in October.
Dr. Bill Warren founded the GSHC in 1998 indowntown Atlanta with the mission of providing quality healthcare to those unableto afford it. The center is a full-time healthcare home that provides care touninsured and underserved individuals and families in metro Atlanta withmedical, dental, mental health and health education services. Now in its 13thyear of operation, GSHC has affiliate locations in Cobb and Gwinnett counties.
In 2010, more than 500 volunteers donated 10,000hours of service and, together with the center’s full-time staff, provided morethan 23,700 patient visits. Roughly 65 percent of those treated were uninsuredworking poor. Patients pay for services based on a greatly reduced sliding feescale. Those who are unable to pay receive care at no charge.
Kistenberg is Georgia Tech’s coordinator ofprosthetics and the co-director of the MSPO program. His research focus areas include the developmentof novel upper extremity prostheses and controls, functional aestheticrestoration, and evaluation and enhancement of prosthetic and orthoticrehabilitation services in developing nations.
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The collaborative program, designed to quickly create jobs tofill demand in Georgia’s expanding HIT cluster, provides a commercializationpathway for the supply-side and training for the workforce on the providerside. The initiative also engages traditionally underserved businessesthroughout the state’s economically distressed areas via technical assistanceresources.
“Our ultimate goal is simple – to achieve higher-quality,lower-cost and more patient-centric health care throughout Georgia,” said SteveRushing, director of HIT initiatives at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise InnovationInstitute (EI2), who will serve as the general advisor for theintegrated project plan. “Throughextensive collaboration and partnerships, this initiative leverages existingresources to boost job creation through technology deployment, and thus economicdevelopment.”
The HIT proposal is funded by the Economic DevelopmentAdministration (EDA), the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and theSmall Business Administration (SBA). The Atlanta Development Authority (ADA) willassist with financing coordination on the SBA Scope of Work.
“ADA will focus onidentifying and coordinating financing sources such as small business loans andequity from angel and venture capital firms to enhance this initiative,” saysBrian McGowan, president and ADA CEO. “This grant will greatly expand ourregion’s capacity to create jobs and establish a global competitive edge in ahighly sought after innovation cluster.”
In-kind donations and support for hiring program graduateshave also come from the HIT industry and information technology providers. Inaddition, the Georgia Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) BusinessCenter will play a key role in identifying eligible and formerly underservedsmall businesses to participate in the program.
The centerpiece of the EDA funds provided by this grant willbe the creation of an Interoperability Lab that will be funded for two years. A standards-based facility located at theGeorgia Tech Research Institute, the lab will test and evaluate cutting-edgehealth information technology software innovations originating from industry,researchers, faculty and students, inventors and other sources.
As part of the initiative, Gwinnett Technical College willdevelop a one-year certificate in health information technology. The “Feet on the Ground” program, designed for veterans andunderemployed/unemployed individuals,will provide industry-designed training for employment in software development,sales and customer service, medical billing and coding, and computer networkingpositions within health care provider organizations.
“This grant and the resulting ‘Feet on the Ground’ programis great news for our veterans, those unemployed and underemployed, andindividuals eager to enter the rapidly growing field of health informationtechnology,” said Gwinnett Tech President Sharon Bartels. “HIT is a growingsector where there are jobs – for those with the right skills and training. Theprogram Gwinnett Tech will develop will help fill this unmet need for a skilledworkforce and connect job seekers with employers.”
The “Feet on the Ground” certification program will undergocurriculum development and preparation for the initial project year. The targetfor years two and three will be to graduate more than 400 certified traineesannually, approximately half of them veterans.
More information on the HIT initiative will soon beavailable on the EI2 website.
# # #
]]>“The problem with stealing T’s started a couple of years agofrom occasional spots on campus. In the last six months or so it has escalated,it’s all over campus, and there are no T’s anywhere,” said Elle Creel,president of the undergraduate Student Government Association (SGA).
Creel is referring to the disappearance of the letter “T”from signage across campus. The trend spans from metal T’s attached to exteriorwalls of buildings, to vinyl adhesive T’s affixed to dorm and bus stop signs.
SGA is encouraging students to assume the role of keepers ofTech tradition throughout this week with a campaign to “Keep the T in Tech.”
“The tradition is only the Tech Tower T,” said Creel.“Stealing any other T on campus is manipulating the tradition.” According tothe 2011-12 T-Book, “the specific T to be stolen [from Tech Tower] is the onefacing the I-75/85 highway … However, contrary to popular belief, thistradition does not include stealing T’s from around campus and executionthereof will result in disciplinary action.”
Wednesday, students are invited to “relive the realtradition” at 8:30 p.m. by the steam engine on Cherry Street, next to TechTower, though SGA is not disclosing the details on how this will take place;Creel said it will be “a chance to see the true tradition with your own eyes.”Students are also being offered amnesty on Wednesday for anypast thefts, a transgression that would normally land them in the Office ofStudent Integrity. Instead, they may bring any stolen T’s to Tech Walk between11 a.m. and 2 p.m., where they will be collected in the Ramblin’ Wreck.
SGA will devote the open forum of its weekly Tuesday meeting,at 7 p.m. in room 117 of the Flag Building, to discussion of this campus issue.Students also may voice their opinions by signing an electronic pledge to “Keepthe T in Tech” at sga.gatech.edu/t. Signatures will be collected throughWednesday and will be published in Friday’s Technique. Thursday, Tech Walk willbe home to a craft station where students can decorate and keep a replica T oftheir own.
"Publishing names in the Technique will be a good visual and public display of support," said Armina Khwaja, a business administration major. "It says a lot more than just having events and not having concrete evidence that a lot of people support this."
Creel acknowledged that they won't change campus culture in one week, but that they want to make it clear to students that stealing T's is detrimental to campus and is punishable by the Office of Student Integrity if caught.
“The idea of stealing the Tech Tower T is cool, but stealingany T is not the tradition,” Creel said. “From our perspective, it’s aboutpride on campus, and we want campus to reflect the pride we have in GeorgiaTech.”
"People who believe in tradition also love this school, and one wouldn't vandalize the school if they love it ... students need to voice their concern for the issue to other students," said Alex Lober, a third-year environmental engineering major and peer leader in campus housing. "I'm taking my [residents] to the event on Wednesday night because it will be a fun and extremely influential event."
]]>Kristen Shaw
Communications and Marketing
Gig.U has released a Request forInformation to seek input from university communities, leading Internetservice providers and other interested entities with final responses due onNov. 9, 2011.
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On Thursday, Sept. 29, students may attend this year’s first Georgia Tech Night at the Woodruff Arts Center and choose to see either the Alliance Theatre’s “Into the Woods” or “Broke,” and may also visit the High Museum; the Symphony will not have a performance that evening. The Georgia Tech band will also perform, and attendees will enjoy free refreshments.
Stingers will run between the Student Center and the Arts Center from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., with a final departure from the Arts Center to campus at 10:30 p.m.
Alliance Theatre performances are ticketed, and tickets are available upon arrival at the Arts Center on a first-come, first-served basis. Ticketed performances begin at 8 p.m. Parking is available at the Woodruff Arts Center parking deck, or students may take MARTA to the Arts Center transit station.
Students will also have the opportunity to purchase a student pass to the Woodruff Arts Center, enabling them to attend unlimited events from the High, Alliance and Symphony for just $20 a year.
]]>Gareth Guvanasen
Graduate SGA
“I am very honored to receive thisaward, particularly because of its combined focus on research, education andoutreach. As consuming and vital as research is, I think the call totrain and inspire our young people and to reach out to underrepresentedgroups is equally vital. I am honored to be mentioned in the context ofthat effort,” said Westdickenberg.
According to the White House,the PECASE awards embody the high priority the Obama Administration places onproducing outstanding scientists and engineers to advance the nation’s goals,tackle grand challenges, and contribute to the American economy. Sixteenfederal departments and agencies join together annually to nominate the mostmeritorious scientists and engineers whose early accomplishments show thegreatest promise for assuring America’s preeminence in science and engineeringand contributing to the awarding agencies' missions.
“It is inspiring to see theinnovative work being done by these scientists and engineers as they ramp uptheir careers—careers that I know will be not only personally rewarding butalso invaluable to the nation,” President Obama said. “That so many ofthem are also devoting time to mentoring and other forms of community servicespeaks volumes about their potential for leadership, not only as scientists butas model citizens.”
Westdickenberg has been at GeorgiaTech since 2006 where she works in applied mathematics.
“I get excited when there is acurious or surprising phenomenon that has been observed in physical ornumerical experiments and that we can come to better understandthrough mathematical analysis,” she said.
One example she gives of her workis determining how to calculate the effect of noise, or small thermalfluctuations, on small physical systems. Traditionally noise is rare and isn’tmuch of a problem, but the smaller the system, the more likely those rareevents can be, said Westdickenberg.
“Therefore as nanoscale andsub-nanoscale devices become more prevalent, these issues need to beunderstood more precisely than before,” she said.
The awards, established byPresident Clinton in 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science andTechnology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. Awardees areselected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science andtechnology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated throughscientific leadership, public education or community outreach. Winningscientists and engineers have received research grants for up to five years tofurther their studies in support of critical government missions.
For Westdickenberg, teaching andoutreach are just as vital to her career as research.
“There can be a tension inacademia because research and teaching each make
large demands on our time and energy.Sometimes teaching can suffer as a
result. But what could be more important thanteaching our young people,” she said. “When the students areengaged, teaching is thrilling. Personally, I find nothing as exciting ashelping someone to reach the point where they can understand somethingnew.”
Georgia Tech graduate Gayle Hagler, who earned a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering in 2002 and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering in 2007, was also named a PECASE Honoree by President Obama.
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College of Sciences
404-385-1393
]]>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.
]]>"The EFRI research teams will probe some profound aspects of the interface of biology and engineering," said Sohi Rastegar, director of EFRI. "If they are successful, the principles and theories uncovered in their investigations could unlock many technological opportunities."
This year, 14 transformative, fundamental research projects were awarded EFRI grants in two emerging areas: technologies that build on understanding of biological signaling, and machines that can interact and cooperate with humans.
The three Georgia Tech projects include:
The therapeutic robot could enhance, assist and improve motor skills in humans with varying motor capabilities and deficits. The goal of the project is to program a humanoid rehabilitation robot to perform a "partnered box step," which is a defined pattern of weight shifts and directional changes, solely based on interpreting movement cues from subtle changes in forces between the hands and arms of the robot and the person.
To do this, researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University will study how humans use their muscles to walk, balance and generate force signals with the hands for guidance when moving in cooperation with another person. They will also study "rehabilitative partnered dance," which has been specifically adapted to help improve gait and balance in individuals with motor impairments.
"Our vision is to develop robots that will interact with humans as both assistants and movement therapists," explained principal investigator Lena Ting, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "We expect our project to have a long-term impact on quality of life of individuals with movement difficulties, such as those caused by Parkinson's disease, stroke and injury by improving fitness, motor skills and social engagement."
Working with Ting on the project are Emory University School of Medicine (geriatrics) assistant professor Madeleine Hackney, Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering assistant professor Charlie Kemp and Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing assistant professor Karen Liu.
For the second project, researchers at Georgia Tech and The City College of New York will investigate devices for "alternative perception" and the principles underlying the human-machine interaction. Alternative perception combines electronics and the other senses to emulate vision. In addition to aiding the visually impaired, the findings are expected to have other applications, such as the development of intelligent robots.
The researchers plan to untangle how humans learn to coordinate input from their senses -- e.g. vision, touch -- with movements, like reaching for a glass or moving through a crowded room. They will then map out how machines, such as robots and computers, learn similar tasks, to model devices that can assist humans.
The team envisions a multifunctional array of sensors on the body and has already developed prototypes for some of the devices. The full complement of wearable sensors would help a sightless person navigate by conveying information about his or her surroundings.
The researchers hope their findings on perception, and the prototypes they develop, will spawn a raft of wearable electronic devices to help blind people "see" their environment at a distance through touch, hearing and other senses. The technology would also benefit sighted individuals who must navigate in poor visibility, such as firefighters and pilots.
Principal investigator Zhigang Zhu, professor of computer science and computer engineering in City College's Grove School of Engineering, will collaborate with City College professor of psychology and director of the Program in Cognitive Neuroscience Tony Ro, City College professor of electrical engineering Ying Li Tian, Georgia Tech Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering professor Kok-Meng Lee, and Georgia Tech School of Applied Physiology associate professor Boris Prilutsky.
The third project will address a fundamental question of developmental biology: what controls the spatial and temporal patterns of cell differentiation? Answering this question will lead to a better understanding of the basic principles of embryogenesis, explain origins of developmental disorders, and provide guidelines for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
The research will be conducted by principal investigator and Princeton University Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering associate professor Stanislav Shvartsman, Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering associate professor Hang Lu, New York University Department of Biology professor Christine Rushlow, and University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Department of Computer Science associate professor Saurabh Sinha.
Scientists know that among an embryo's first major developments is the establishment of its dorsoventral axis, which runs from its back to its belly. The researchers plan to study how this axis development unfolds -- specifically the presence and location of proteins during the process, which give rise to muscle, nerve and skin tissues.
To enable large-scale quantitative analyses of protein positional information along the dorsoventral axis, Lu and Shvartsman will further develop a microfluidic device they previously designed to reliably and robustly orient several hundred embryos in just a few minutes.
"By understanding this system at a deeper, quantitative level, we will elucidate general principles underlying the operation of genetic and multicellular networks that drive development," said Lu.
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)
Writers: Abby Robinson, Holly Korschun and Jessa Forte Netting
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In a competitionhosted by the City of Atlanta and Emory University’s Goizueta Business School,a team of Georgia Tech students earned first prize and a monetary award forproposing a system for electric vehicle adoption in Atlanta.
Undergraduate studentsCorbin Klett, Matt Jacobson, Logan Marett, Kevin Miron and Andrew Vaziri earned$5,000 for their proposal of how to drive demand for 50,000 electric cars on Atlanta’sroads during a two-year period. The students represent both Solar Jackets, GeorgiaTech’s student group dedicated to the design, creation and expansion of solartechnology, and the College of Management's Technology and Management Program.
“Our approachwas to devise creative and unique solutions to electric vehicle adoption,emphasizing ways of reducing the cost to the city government,” said Jacobson. “Westressed branding and education, creating a new ‘EV Brand’ we dubbed ChargeATL,and a website mockup to go along with it.”
The City will use funding received from the Department of Energy to implement ideas generated from the competition, with the goal of the Atlanta area being the first region in the country to have 50,000 electric vehicles on its roads. The Mayor’s office wanted to utilize the creativity of Georgia students to find ways to make the state competitive in this market.
“The Solar Jackets were incredible, coming up with as much as they did on their own,” said Jules Toraya, program manager in the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. “They stood out over the rest because they had answers — answers to tough questions, how to get budgets — and you could tell they had scoped out their ideas and had conviction about them.” Execution of these ideas will begin with an effort to pass electric vehicle-related legislation in the fall.
Four otherteams presented at the competition on Sept. 13, including three from Tech andone from Emory. The groups were chosen from a pool of nearly 30 teamapplications spanning many Georgia universities, including Tech, Emory and theUniversity of Georgia.
“It was anexciting opportunity to be able to tackle a problem the City of Atlanta isfacing and feel like we could have an impact,” said Melissa McCoy, whoparticipated on another Georgia Tech team. “The Solar Jackets team did a trulyamazing job.”
]]>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.”
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Santa Fe Campus Media Relations
(+52) 55 9177 8000 ext. 8017
castro@itesm.mx
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 2008 and 2009, Georgia Tech was recognized as a Tree Campus USAuniversity; this program fosters the development of the next generation of treestewards, and recognizes college campuses and their surrounding communities promotinghealthy urban forest management and engaging the campus community inenvironmental stewardship.
Committee members are expected to actively participate and contribute in policy and guideline issues, as well as research and gather information to enhance the Georgia Tech Campus Tree Care Plan. They are also expected to participate or volunteer in tree planting events on campus.
The next meeting of the Georgia Tech Tree Campus USA Advisory Committee is Thursday, Sept. 15, at 11 a.m.; the committee meets the secondThursday of each month in the conference room of Landscape Servicesat 947 Atlantic Drive on campus. Interested students may contact theHyacinth Ide in Landscape Services.
]]>As previously stated by Georgia Tech PresidentG.P. “Bud” Peterson, Georgia Tech is steadfastly committed to the integrity ofthe Institute's athletics program, including full cooperation with and supportof the NCAA. To respect the NCAA process, no one from Georgia Tech will commenton the appeal until Georgia Tech's case is formally presented to the NCAAInfractions Appeals Committee and a decision rendered.
]]>Joining Georgia Tech as chairin August 2001, McKnight transformed the Institute’s 107-year old modernlanguages curricula into one of the nation’s premier programs. Today, 21percent of Tech students are enrolled in applied language and interculturalstudies, compared to an 8 percent national average.
McKnight was a forceful advocatefor modern language studies framed in the many contextsin which other languages are spoken and he emphasized the critical competitiveedge they provide to 21st century students entering the global workforce. He expanded the school’s language curricula from six to ninelanguages, including Arabic and Farsi. He oversaw the growth of the joint majorin International Affairs and Modern Languages and helped established both the jointdegree in Global Economics and Modern Languages and a bachelor’s degee inApplied Languages and International Studies (ALIS).
The connections McKnight forged throughout the College andInstitute resulted in the creation of key programs. He fostered continuedgrowth of the school’s signature Languages for Business and Technology (LBAT) faculty-led summer study abroad programs and formed partnershipswith Tech’s ROTC programs, supporting the military’s emphasis on foreignlanguage competency.
“Phil’s vision and tireless work have been an inspiration tous all,” said Modern Languages Professor Bettina Cothran. “Above all, however,Phil has been a human being of greatest integrity, wisdom, with a generosity ofheart that encompassed his entire ‘family’ at Modern Languages. His untimelyand unexpected passing leaves us with a profound sense of loss, but also a callto continue to build the School of Modern Languages into a place which createsopportunities for students, faculty and staff to reach their highestaspirations.”
McKnight’s research interests included East German writers, contemporaryliterary representations of history, late 18th century literature, and appliedlanguage learning in the context of the global economy.
He is survived byhis wife Ulrike Hahn-McKnight and two daughters, Anna and Ursula.
Plans for serviceswill be announced as they are available.
]]>“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.
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.
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Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) will answer that burningquestion on Wednesday evening with iPrevent, its annual Mock Dorm Room Fire. OnFowler Street, between Ferst Drive and 4th Street, a replica dorm room will beset aflame to the public. Perhaps as hot as the fire itself will be free PapaJohn’s pizza, Coke products and T-shirts as long as they last, for those whoparticipate in four of the eight activities set up around the event.
WREK radio will DJ a scorching sampling of music at theevent. Vehicles from Atlantic Station’s Fire Station 11 and Georgia FireSprinkler Association will demonstrate fire extinguishing and sprinklersystems. A narrated fire investigation tour of the burned dorm room replicawill be given to show what signatures are left behind after a fire occurs.
Georgia Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner Ralph Hudgenswill present a state proclamation declaring that Georgia recognizes Septemberas National Campus Fire Safety Month.
Previous mock dorm fires have shown that a dorm room canignite and burn in three minutes; if your curiosity is sizzling, the dorm roomwill be lit at 6:30 p.m. with events following along Fowler Street.
]]>“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.
]]>While state revenue collections have been positive for the last 14 months, state officials remain cautious. Over the summer, state agencies — the University System of Georgia included — were requested to develop a plan to return 2 percent of their state appropriation for each of the next two budget cycles. For the University System, a 2 percent reduction equates to a cut of $34.8 million for FY 2012; of this, $4.2 million will come from Georgia Tech.
“Even though state revenues are expected to grow moderately, our biggest challenge, now and in the foreseeable future, is resources,” President G. P. “Bud” Peterson said. “The global recession continues to present challenges at the federal, state and local levels, impacting us here at Georgia Tech like everyone else.”
To accommodate the state’s request, Peterson said a portion of the reduction will be managed centrally and the rest will have to be absorbed at the departmental and unit levels. “Through careful planning and the additional revenue realized through tuition, Georgia Tech is still capable of meeting its core responsibilities,” Peterson said.
“We believe we can continue to preserve and enhance our instructional activities, address critical academic issues such as the faculty-student ratio and course availability, and continue to support our research and service missions,” Peterson said. “Over the course of the past several years, we have been able to hire a few new faculty to ensure the quality of our academic and research programs and partially accommodate our enrollment growth. We are continuing to work to address retention and compression issues. While I fully recognize that we have not been able to give merit raises for the past four years, we are working to resolve this as quickly as we can, given the current economic pressures.”
Peterson also expressed his appreciation for the support of the Georgia Tech community. “I continue to be impressed with the tremendous dedication and support of the people of Georgia Tech. These are difficult times and by pulling together, we can and will continue to provide the very best educational opportunities for our students and effectively serve the state of Georgia.”
]]>Led by Mark Hay, a Georgia Tech professor of biology, the 10-day mission includes two Ph.D. students and a postdoctoral researcher who are living 50 feet below the surface in the unique underwater lab. Aquarius, which is about the size of a school bus, includes scientific laboratories and living quarters for up to six scientists who can live and work underwater for the entire length of the mission.
Hay's research team has been studying how seaweed and fish affect the health of coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. They have shown that the natural defenses of seaweed can harm the coral, and that plant-eating fish can control the growth of the noxious seaweed. The new studies will build on that knowledge and provide new information on the complex factors affecting reef ecosystems.
"Consumption of seaweed plays a critical role in structuring coral reefs and in selecting for algal traits that deter herbivorous fish," explained Hay, who holds the Harry and Linda Teasely Chair in the Georgia Tech School of Biology. "Recent studies have noted dramatic variance among species in the susceptibility of herbivorous fish to seaweed chemical and structural defenses. These differences can translate into dramatic direct effects of herbivore diversity on seaweed."
Because certain fish species eat specific seaweed species, and certain seaweeds are more damaging to coral than others, differences in the diversity of seaweed-eating fish can have a dramatic indirect effect on corals -- as well as on changes in the structure and function of the endangered reefs.
"Our mission to Aquarius will allow us to study experimentally how herbivore diversity may be managed to conserve and even restore reefs," Hay added. "In previous studies, we have demonstrated that herbivore diversity affected the function and structure of the coral reefs. We plan to build on that research in this new study through Aquarius."
During the 10-day mission, the researchers will evaluate changes in reef communities near Aquarius, where they have built large cages and enclosed different species of fish for the past ten months. Within the enclosures, they included specific species of fish, or mixes of different species. They will be evaluating the effects of these different fish and mixes of fish on the health and growth of the coral to determine:
* The long-term effects of the fish on the community structure;
* Which seaweeds are most damaging to corals and which herbivores can best control these species;
* How small mobile species and recruiting juvenile fish that can pass through the cage mesh respond to community changes;
* How algal chemical and mineral defenses generate the mechanisms driving these changes.
Field studies by Hay's group have previously shown that several common species of seaweed in both the Pacific and Caribbean can kill corals upon contact using chemical means.
While competition between seaweed and coral is just one of many factors affecting the decline of coral reefs worldwide, this chemical threat may provide a serious setback to efforts aimed at repopulating damaged reefs. Seaweeds are normally kept in check by herbivorous fish, but in many areas overfishing has reduced the populations of these plant-consumers, allowing seaweed to overpopulate coral reefs.
Other studies done by the group using a similar type of reef enclosure found that mixing two specific species of herbivorous fishes decreased seaweed cover by as much as 76 percent, increased coralline crusts that stimulate coral settlement by as much as 117 percent, increased coral growth by 22 percent, and prevented additional coral loss.
The new study will assess the impact of different species of seaweed-eating fish and compare those to previous results evaluating different mixes of fish.
The goal will be to determine which specific mixes of fish can control the most damaging of seaweeds and to evaluate the importance of herbivore diversity in suppressing seaweed and protecting corals. This information could be used to help manage fishing practices to protect the reefs.
"The particular biodiversity of herbivores may be as important as the density, or mass, of herbivores in determining the structure, function, and health of reef communities," Hay said. "We know too little of the species-specific effects of reef herbivores, how effects of multiple species sum to produce an overall effect, or which particular mix of herbivores is critical for suppressing aggressive seaweed to maintain reef function."
Coral reefs are declining worldwide, and scientists studying the problem had suspected that proliferation of seaweed was part of the cause -- perhaps by crowding out the coral or by damaging it physically.
By allowing scientists to remain on the ocean floor for long periods of time -- a capability known as saturation diving -- Aquarius helps researchers get more work done by extending the dive time at depth and eliminating the decompression time that would be required for returning to the surface each day. Owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Aquarius is managed by the University of North Carolina Wilmington and located in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
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]]>“Weare actively and aggressively working to develop and commercialize thetechnologies developed here at Tech, moving the discoveries made in ourlaboratories to the marketplace and building the companies that will createjobs, drive our economy and stimulate economic growth,” said Georgia TechPresident G. P. “Bud” Peterson. “The recent passage of the Leahy-Smith AmericaInvents Act designed to reform the U.S. patent system will strengthen theInstitute’s efforts to innovate and enhance our potential to be a force forprosperity.” Peterson currently serves as a member of the National AdvisoryCouncil on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Updateson new and ongoing initiatives include:
AdvancedManufacturing Partnership (AMP): In June, President Barack Obamanamed Peterson to the AMP steering committee. AMP is a national initiative ofthe President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that willidentify opportunities to catalyze investment in and deployment of emergingtechnologies with transformative potential for advanced manufacturing in theU.S. and develop collaborative approaches that will realize theseopportunities. The PCAST AMP will help guide the nation’s investment inadvanced manufacturing R&D across a diverse range of technologies with thegoal of creating high-quality jobs and enhancing the global competitiveness ofthe U.S. PCAST will hold the first of four regional meetings at Georgia Techon October 14.
Enterprise to Empower(En2Em): ThisGeorgia Tech student organization seeks to educate, enable and engage studentsin social entrepreneurship, and to help students discover how their skills andtalents in any field—from business to engineering—can be applied to current socialproblems impacting the world today. En2Em’s goal is toequip participants with the skills of leadership, creativity and empathy forothers so that they may become positive change-agents in their communities andworkplaces.
Georgia Tech IntegratedProgram for Startups (GT:IPS): GT:IPS combines astreamlined licensing program with organized support for faculty and studentinventor-entrepreneurs. Courses were launched inJuly to assist the campus in areas ranging from budgeting to copyrights.
Georgia Tech Flashpoint:Flashpoint, Georgia Tech’snew technology accelerator program, has selected its inaugural class of 18teams that will be invited to participate in the first cohort that will runthrough December of 2011. The program has also disclosed formation of theFlashpoint Investment Fund I, a $1 million risk capital fund that will supportstartups in the first two cohorts. The program, the first public-privatepartnership of its design in the country, brings together resources from the Institute, private funding andstartup leaders to accelerate innovation and growth.
Global Center for Medical Innovation(GCMI): The GlobalCenter for Medical Innovation made it one step closer to reality after thecenter location renovation was officially launched in August 2011. U.S.Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez joinedrepresentatives from the four partnerorganizations supporting the center, including Georgia Tech, SaintJoseph’s Translational Research Institute, Piedmont Healthcare and the GeorgiaResearch Alliance,at the event.
IC3 – To streamlinethe process from proposal to the commercialization stage, the Georgia TechResearch Corporation and the Office of Sponsored Programs recently announced theformation of IC3. The new initiative consists of three divisions,the Office of Industry Collaborations and Affiliated Licenses, the Office ofInternational Contracts and Technology Transfer and the Office of InnovationCommercialization and Translational Research. As part of the effort, a new website has been launched to promote research collaborations andtechnology transfer opportunities to build successful partnerships betweenGeorgia Tech and the business communities.
InnovationCo-Laboratory:Officially launched in March 2011, this international research collaboration isa joint venture between the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, the GeorgiaTech Enterprise Innovation Institute, the Beijing Institute of Technology Schoolof Management and Economics and the University of Manchester Institute ofInnovation Research. The InnovationCo-Laboratorywill build an architecture of collaboration between the three institutions thatwill involve shared data resources, training and joint research with pilotprojects focusing on the nanotechnology domain.
TI:GER: Theaward-winning TI:GER Program (TechnologicalInnovation: Generating Economic Results), a partnership between Georgia Techand Emory University School of Law that brings together PhD, MBA and lawstudents to learn about the challenges of commercializing innovativetechnologies, won a grant from Georgia Tech's Fund for Innovation in Researchand Innovation (GT FIRE) for aninternational technology commercialization project to be conducted incollaboration with Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich, Germany.
VentureLab: Georgia Tech’scomprehensive center for technology commercialization, VentureLab is open to all faculty,research staff and students who want to form startup companies based upon theirresearch. Part of Georgia Tech’s EnterpriseInnovation Institute, VentureLab just celebrated its 10thanniversary for transforming innovations into companies by developing engagingbusiness models, connecting researchers with experienced entrepreneurs,locating sources of early-stage financing and preparing these new companies forglobal markets. Many companies created within VentureLab become part of the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC),Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator. ATDChas been helping to launch and build successful technology companies for morethan 30 years.
# # #
Note: The programs featured above are representative of many ongoing efforts across campus. See the news release below for a more extensive list of initiatives.
]]>A team of researchers from Georgia Tech and Florida StateUniversity are investigating the perceptions older adults have of theusefulness of computers as a communication tool. This study,being presented at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, examinedthe degree to which demographic variables, technology and computer experience,and the perceived importance of an activity for older adults’ quality of lifeinfluenced the older adults’ perceived importance of the computer forcommunication activities.
Wendy Rogers, Georgia Tech School of Psychology professor and principal investigator on the NIH-fundedproject, explained, “This research will broaden our understanding oftechnology acceptance for older adults. Our findings will help guide the designof future systems as well the development of better instruction and trainingfor current computer systems.”
Although some findings were anticipated based on previouswork, the research did uncover some unexpected results that may lead to futureresearch.
“One of the more surprising findings was that within thissample of older adults, the oldest individuals found a computer more useful forcommunication activities,” said John Burnett, a graduate student on theresearch team. “There could be several reasons for this finding, and itdeserves more research.”
According to Burnett, “It could be that older computer usersare less mobile and therefore more likely to find certain types ofcommunication tools more important to them.”
Researchers believe that this type of research is importantbecause it has implications for how products are developed and how the UnitedStates designs for an aging population.
“It is not that older adults are afraid of technology, butmaybe that technology is not designed in a way this is useful to or usable byolder adults. It could also be that older adults are not aware of some of thepotential benefits of these communication technologies,” Burnett said.
The research showed that those surveyed preferred certaintypes of computer communication. Email and emailing photos were the mostimportant communication tool for those older adults surveyed, whereas videoconferencing and social networking were not as important.
The research revealed that older adults generally stronglypreferred specific computer-based communication technologies. For designers,this would suggest a need for making technologies more usable for older adults.For example, including video conferencing or forums that are difficult to useor poorly understood by the user may only increase the complexity of acomputer, making its use less likely.
Burnett suggests, “A comprehensive assessment of user needsand preferences for activities can assist designers in developing computer-basedcommunication technologies that older adults perceive as being more useful.”
]]>All species of life are able to develop in different ways by varying the genes they express, ultimately becoming different shapes, sizes, colors and sexes. This plasticity permits organisms to operate successfully in their environments. A new study of the genomes of social insects provides insight into the evolution of the genes involved in this developmental plasticity.
The study, which was conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, showed that genes involved in creating different sexes, life stages and castes of fire ants and honeybees evolved more rapidly than genes not involved in these developmental processes. The researchers also found that these fast-evolving genes exhibited elevated rates of evolution even before they were recruited to produce diverse forms of an organism.
"This was a totally unexpected finding because most theory suggested that genes involved in producing diverse forms of an organism would evolve rapidly specifically because they generated developmental differences," said Michael Goodisman, an associate professor in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech. "Instead, this study suggests that fast-evolving genes are actually predisposed to generating new developmental forms."
The results of the study will be published in the Sept. 20, 2011 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation.
The project was an international collaboration between Goodisman, associate professor Soojin Yi and postdoctoral fellow Brendan Hunt from the Georgia Tech School of Biology, and professor Laurent Keller, research scientist DeWayne Shoemaker, and postdoctoral fellows Lino Ometto and Yannick Wurm from the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Lausanne.
Social insects exhibit a sophisticated social structure in which queens reproduce and workers engage in tasks related to brood-rearing and colony defense. By investigating the evolution of genes associated with castes, sexes and developmental stages of the invasive fire ant Solenopsis invicta, the researchers explored how social insects produce such a diversity of form and function from genetically similar individuals.
"Social insects provided the perfect test subjects because they can develop into such dramatically different forms," said Goodisman.
Microarray analyses revealed that many fire ant genes were regulated differently depending on whether the fire ant was male or female, queen or worker, and pupal or adult. These differentially expressed genes exhibited elevated rates of evolution, as predicted. In addition, genes that were differentially expressed in multiple contexts -- castes, sexes or developmental stages -- tended to evolve more rapidly than genes that were differentially expressed in only a single context.
To examine when the genes with elevated rates of evolution began to evolve rapidly, the researchers compared the rate of evolution of genes associated with the production of castes in the fire ant with the same genes in a wasp that does not have a caste system. They found that the genes were rapidly evolving in the genomes of both species, even though only one produced a caste system. These results were also replicated for the honeybee Apis mellifera.
"This is one the most comprehensive studies of the evolution of genes involved in producing developmental differences," Goodisman noted.
This study helps explain the fundamental evolutionary processes that allow organisms to develop different adaptive forms. Future research will include determining what these fast-evolving genes do and how they're involved in the production of different sexes, life stages and castes, said Goodisman.
This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award No. DEB-0640690). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigators and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.
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]]>Theregenerative power of tissues and organs declines as we age. The modern daystem cell hypothesis of aging suggests that living organisms are as old as are itstissue specific or adult stem cells. Therefore, an understanding of themolecules and processes that enable human adult stem cells to initiateself-renewal and to divide, proliferate and then differentiate in order torejuvenate damaged tissue might be the key to regenerative medicine and an eventualcure for many age-related diseases. A research groupled by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology, conducted the study thatpinpoints what is going wrong with the biological clock underlying the limited division ofhuman adult stem cells as they age.
“Wedemonstrated that we were able to reverse the process of aging for human adultstem cells by intervening with the activity of non-protein coding RNAs originated fromgenomic regions once dismissed as non-functional ‘genomic junk’,” said Victoria Lunyak, associate professor at the Buck Institutefor Research on Aging.
Adultstem cells are important because they help keep human tissues healthy byreplacing cells that have gotten old or damaged. They’re also multipotent,which means that an adult stem cell can grow and replace any number of bodycells in the tissue or organ they belong to. However, just as the cells inthe liver, or any otherorgan, can get damaged over time, adult stem cells undergo age-related damage. And when this happens, the bodycan’t replace damaged tissue as well as it once could, leading to a host of diseasesand conditions. But if scientists can find a way to keep these adult stem cellsyoung, they could possibly use these cells to repair damaged heart tissue aftera heart attack; heal wounds; correct metabolic syndromes; produce insulin forpatients with type 1 diabetes; cure arthritis and osteoporosis and regeneratebone.
Theteam began by hypothesizing that DNA damage in the genome of adult stem cells wouldlook very different from age-related damage occurring in regular body cells. They thoughtso because body cells are known to experience a shortening of the caps found atthe ends of chromosomes, known as telomeres. But adult stem cells are known tomaintain their telomeres. Much of the damage in aging is widely thought to be aresult of losing telomeres. So there must be different mechanismsat play that arekey to explaining how aging occurs in these adult stem cells, they thought.
Researchersused adult stem cells from humans and combined experimental techniques withcomputational approaches to study the changes in the genome associated withaging. They compared freshly isolated human adult stem cells from young individuals, which canself-renew, to cellsfrom the same individuals that were subjected to prolonged passaging inculture. This accelerated model of adult stem cell aging exhausts the regenerativecapacity of the adult stem cells. Researchers looked at the changes in genomic sites that accumulateDNA damage in both groups.
“Wefound the majority of DNA damage and associated chromatin changes that occurredwith adult stem cell aging were due to parts of the genome known as retrotransposons,”said King Jordan, associate professor in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech.
“Retroransposonswere previously thought to be non-functional and were even labeled as ‘junk DNA’, but accumulating evidenceindicates these elements play an important role in genome regulation,” headded.
Whilethe young adult stem cells were able to suppress transcriptional activity ofthese genomic elements and deal with the damage to the DNA, older adult stem cells werenot able to scavenge this transcription. New discovery suggests that this event is deleteriousfor the regenerativeability of stem cells and triggers a process known as cellular senescence.
“Bysuppressing the accumulation of toxic transcripts from retrotransposons, wewere able to reverse the process of human adult stem cell aging in culture,”said Lunyak.
“Furthermore,by rewinding the cellular clock in this way, we were not only able torejuvenate ’aged’ human stem cells, but to our surprise we were able to resetthem to an earlier developmental stage, by up-regulating the “pluripotency factors” – the proteinsthat are critically involved in the self-renewal of undifferentiated embryonicstem cells.” she said.
Nextthe team plans to use further analysis to validate the extent to which therejuvenated stem cells may be suitable for clinical tissue regenerativeapplications.
Thestudy was conducted by a team with members from the Buck Institute for Researchon Aging, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of California,San Diego, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering CancerCenter, International Computer Science Institute, Applied Biosystems andTel-Aviv University.
Citation:
Inhibitionof activated pericentromeric SINE/Alu repeat transcription in senescent human
adult stem cells reinstates self-renewal. Cell Cycle, Volume 10, Issue 17, September 1, 2011
Written byDavid Terraso, Georgia Tech/Kris Rebillot, Buck Institute
]]>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.”
]]>Patel, now an assistant professor in the departmentsof Computer Science, Engineering and Electrical Engineering at theUniversity of Washington, has focused much of his work on low-cost sensors thatcan be placed in homes to measure energy consumption. These devices help track usageof everyday appliances and assist homeowners in identifying ways to saveelectricity and water. Patel is also exploring how similar sensors can be used tomonitor human movement to assist with home security and elder care.
Patel received a B.S. (2003) and a Ph.D. (2008) from the College of Computing where he studied under Gregory Abowd.
MacArthur Fellows are anonymously nominated by their peerson the basis of creativity and achievement. Candidates are not informed untilwinners are selected, allowing the foundation to call them “out of the blue” toaward them the $500,000 grants.
]]>The five-year project focuses on developing biomaterials capable of capturing certain molecules from embryonic stem cells and delivering them to wound sites to enhance tissue regeneration in adults. By applying these unique molecules, clinicians may be able to harness the regenerative power of stem cells while avoiding concerns of tumor formation and immune system compatibility associated with most stem cell transplantation approaches.
"Pre-clinical and clinical evidence strongly suggests that the biomolecules produced by stem cells significantly impact tissue regeneration independent of differentiation into functionally competent cells," said Todd McDevitt, director of the Stem Cell Engineering Center at Georgia Tech and an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "We want to find out if the signaling molecules responsible for scarless wound healing and functional tissue restoration during early stages of embryological development can be used with adult wounds to produce successful tissue regeneration without scar formation."
In addition to McDevitt, Coulter Department associate professor Johnna Temenoff and Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering professor Robert Guldberg are also investigators on the project.
Regenerative medicine seeks to restore normal structure and function to tissues compromised by degenerative diseases and traumatic injuries. The contrast between embryonic and adult wound healing suggests that molecules that facilitate tissue regeneration during embryonic development are distinctly different from those of adult tissues.
This grant includes plans for engineering biomaterials that can efficiently capture morphogens, which are molecules secreted by embryonic stem cells undergoing differentiation. The study will also evaluate the regenerative activity of molecule-filled biomaterials in animal models of dermal wound healing, hind limb ischemia and bone fractures. Examining the effects of the morphogens on a range of animal wound models will increase the likelihood of success and define any limitations of the technology, such as its use for specific tissues or injuries.
"Biomaterials have largely been used in an attempt to direct stem cell differentiation or serve as passive cell transplantation vehicles for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering purposes," said McDevitt, who is also a Petit Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech. "The idea of specifically engineering biomaterial properties to capture and deliver complex assemblies of stem cell-derived morphogens without transplanting the cells themselves represents a novel strategy to translate the potency of stem cells into a viable regenerative medicine therapy."
The award was one of 17 granted this year through the NIH Director's Transformative Research Projects Program (T-R01), which was created to challenge the status quo with innovative ideas that have the potential to advance fields and speed the translation of research into improved health for the American public.
Another T-R01 grant was awarded to Coulter Department professor Shuming Nie, associate professor May Wang and University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Thoracic Surgery Research Laboratory director Sunil Singhal. That $7 million, five-year grant will support continuing work by the Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology team on developing fluorescent nanoparticle probes that hone in on cancer cells and on creating instruments that visualize them for cancer detection during surgery.
Since its inception in 2009, the NIH Director's Award Program has funded a total of 406 high-risk research projects, including 79 T-R01 awards.
"The NIH Director's Award programs reinvigorate the biomedical work force by providing unique opportunities to conduct research that is neither incremental nor conventional," said James M. Anderson, director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, who guides the NIH Common Fund's High-Risk Research program. "The awards are intended to catalyze giant leaps forward for any area of biomedical research, allowing investigators to go in entirely new directions."
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]]>The event — whichcalls itself “a celebration of all things DIY” — will feature the skills and creationsof a variety of makers from the region, including blacksmithing, kineticsculptures, robots and 3D printers. About 50 makers will be in attendance withtheir wares, including many from the Tech community. This smaller version oflarger Maker Faires that have been held in Detroit, New York and California givesthe event its “mini” moniker.
“I thought Atlanta would be a great place for a Mini MakerFaire because there haven’t really been any in the South before, and I know theSouth is filled with just as many makers and crafters as the rest of thecountry,” said Eric Weinhoffer, the ME student organizing the event. “GeorgiaTech is an extremely good location to host an event like this, thanks to thetechnological advancements that come out of the Institute every year. Theschool itself is an inspiration to makers.”
The event is free to attend and will welcome students,faculty, staff and guests in the Manufacturing Related Disciplines Complex (MRDC)parking lot, Saturday, Sept. 10, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Most makers will beexhibiting their work, but some will have creations for sale as well. To learnmore about the makers who will be in attendance, visit the Atlanta Mini MakerFaire website.
]]>Kristen Shaw
Communications and Marketing
Snyder wasknown for building bridges between nanotechnology, biology, medicine,chemistry, materials science and engineering throughout his career.
In January2003, Snyder joined the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) atGeorgia Tech and created a new joint program with Peking University, leading to30 new positions in advanced materials, nanotechnology and bio-enabledmaterials. Snyder also helped oversee the merger of MSE with the former Schoolof Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering.
“As a scholar, teacher, schoolchair and friend, Bob was everything one would hope for in a colleague,” Georgia Tech College of Engineering Dean Gary May said. “He helped lead the School ofMaterials Science as it grew in numbers and stature to where it is now,recognized as one of the top programs in the nation. Bob’s leadership andcommitment to engineering education will be sorely missed.”
Snyder’sresearch focused on the characterizationof advanced materials by x-ray diffraction. He studied everything from superconductorsto nanomaterials and had a hand in developing some of the first automateddiffractometers, a device that is now a staple in any research laboratory.
He held eightpatents, published 300 papers on materials and materials characterization and presented thousands of talks around the world with more than 50 plenary andkeynote lectures. Snyder authored two textbooks, edited nine technical books and contributedchapters to nine books and encyclopedias.
“Bob was one of the most dynamic,energetic and visionary leaders I have ever interacted and collaborated with,”said Zhong Lin Wang, Regents’ professor and College of EngineeringDistinguished Professor, who worked with Snyder for nearly a decade. “His deepinterest in science and education made extraordinary contributions to thematerials program at Georgia Tech. His passing is a huge loss to the school,Georgia Tech and the international scientific community.”
Snyderreceived his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Marist College in 1963 and hisdoctorate in physical chemistry from Fordham University in 1968. He entered the field of materials through hisPh.D. research and continued it as a post-doc at the University of Pittsburghand NASA. He began teaching at the New York State College of Ceramics at AlfredUniversity in 1970 and rose through the academic ranks to professor of CeramicScience in 1982. He chaired the MSEDepartment at Ohio State from 1996 through 2002.
Students say Snyder was an impactful teacher and mentor, who they will remember fondly.
“I came to Professor Snyder acurious and fresh graduate student, but under his guidance and support, theworld has opened up to me, and I have developed into a scientist,” said KenBeyerlein, Snyder’s former graduate student. “ I always went to him when Iwould run into a wall in my research, and he always had the uncanny ability toimmediately identify and directly address the root of a problem.”
The memorial service will be from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Oct. 1 in the Gordy Room of the William C. Wardlaw Jr. Center, located at 177 North Ave. Snyder is survived by his wife of 48 years,Sheila, son Robert, daughter Krissy and two grandchildren.
]]>Hughes, whohas served as chair since 2003, will be returning to the faculty. After athorough search and a recommendation from a faculty committee, Hughes will assumethe Howard T. Tellepsen Endowed Chair in CEE.
“We are alldeeply grateful to him for his many years of extraordinary service to the schooland the college,” May said.
An interimchair of CEE will be appointed and a national search for a new chair willcommence soon, May said.
Hughes hasgarnered numerous awards and honors while at Georgia Tech including the WalterP. Huber Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineering, theMcKee Medal from the Water Environment Federation and the CH2MHillOutstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award, as advisor, by the Association ofEnvironmental Engineering and Science Professors.
The TellepsenChair was established to reward an individual who demonstrates commitment tostudents, values education, has a strong record of scholarly achievement and isdedicated to serving others.
“Joe iscertainly a deserving individual to hold this prestigious chair,” May said.
]]>The five-year research program could lead to improvements in a broad range of areas, including higher performance satellite thrusters, improved tubes for Department of Defense radar and communications systems, more efficient high-intensity lamps, and new plasma deposition and spray-coating processes.
The researchers will utilize new analysis techniques, including a terahertz-frequency laser for non-intrusively studying the plasma sheath, which is the portion of the plasmas that interacts with the wall. The researchers will use atomic probe technology to study how the plasmas -- a state of matter that contains ionized particles -- interact with and are affected by the walls. Modeling and simulation techniques will also help predict how plasmas may interact with improved wall materials.
"In these systems, the plasma is dumping energy into the wall, and the wall may be giving back some particles or energy that affect the plasma," explained Mitchell Walker, associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering. "There is a dance between the plasma and the wall that needs to be understood so we can improve the materials across a range of applications."
Plasmas are created when electrons are added to or removed from atoms, giving them a charge. The interaction between the resulting ionized gas and wall can be complex, involving the transfer of mass, charge and energy from the plasma to the wall -- and sometimes from the wall back to the plasma. This energetic interaction may damage the wall, eroding the surfaces and leading to device failure.
Existing plasma wall materials have been developed largely by trial-and-error. Developing a fundamental understanding of the plasma-wall interaction will give researchers the information they need to develop better wall materials.
"We need to get at the fundamental issues, then use that knowledge to make the materials better," said Jud Ready, a principal research engineer in the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). "Before we can produce better materials to make better applications, we need to understand the environment in which the materials have to operate."
A major part of the research will involve the use of a terahertz-frequency laser to study the sheath, a narrow portion of the plasma where the wall interaction takes place. Within that small region, usually just a fraction of millimeter or so wide, plasma particles collide with the wall, transfer electrical charge, and apply energy.
"The sheath has a strong electric field which is either pulling or pushing electrons from it," explained Walker, who is director of Georgia Tech's High-Power Electric Propulsion Laboratory. "By adjusting what the wall material contains, we can change the sheath and watch how the plasma adjusts to the wall."
Traditional probe techniques used for studying such phenomena alter the sheath activity when they penetrate it, so the researchers must develop a technique that does not physically enter the plasma sheath. Their solution will use a very fast terahertz laser that won't affect the plasma as it measures the sheath. To give the laser a larger target for study, Walker will produce plasma sheaths as much as a centimeter wide.
"This will allow us to make measurements that nobody has ever done before," he explained. "Using the data we obtain, we will be able to look at all of the analytical models that people have generated and compare them to real experimental data."
Improving the wall materials will also depend on detailed knowledge of how the plasma affects them. For that information, the researchers will use unique tools available at the University of Alabama that are able to identify individual plasma atoms that may be embedded in the walls. Researchers will also use modeling and simulation techniques to predict, based on the experimental data, how a broad range of materials would interact with the plasmas.
"A plasma places a material under extreme environmental conditions, including high temperature erosion, exposure to ion implantation and field emission from the surface," said Gregory Thompson, associate professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. "These conditions will affect the structural integrity of materials, but an understanding of the underlying mechanisms that control the response of the materials' structure is lacking. Working with Georgia Tech, we will systematically characterize how plasmas interact and contribute to the underlying phase and mechanical stability characteristics in the materials."
Finally, Ready and GTRI colleagues will apply their experience with thin film deposition and phosphors to create an additional analytical tool. By embedding certain phosphors in the walls, the research team will be able to tell how much energy is being transferred -- and where that is occurring.
"The more robust the material, the better it will be for military or commercial applications," Ready noted. "We expect that there will be dramatically improved performance."
This material is based upon work conducted under contract FA9550-11-1-0160. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the researchers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
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Media Relations Assistance: Georgia Tech: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu); Kirk Englehardt (404-407-7280)(kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu); University of Alabama: Mary Wymer (205-348-6444)(mwymer@eng.ua.edu).
Writer: John Toon
]]>Researchers in the Atlanta-based Center for Pediatric Healthcare Technology Innovation are developing imaging techniques designed to predict whether a child's skull bones are likely to grow back together too quickly after surgery. They are also developing technologies that may delay a repeat of the premature fusion process.
"Babies are usually only a few months old during the first operation, which lasts more than three hours and requires a unit of blood and a stay in the intensive care unit, so our goal is to develop technologies that will simplify the initial surgery and limit affected babies to this one operation," said center co-director Joseph Williams, clinical director of craniofacial plastic surgery at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Emory University.
Craniosynostosis affects approximately one in every 2,500 babies in the United States. The condition is caused by the premature closure of sutures with bone. Sutures, which are made of tissue that is more flexible than bone, play an important role in brain growth by providing a method for the skull to increase in size. If the sutures close too soon and get replaced with bony tissue, the skull may limit the normal expansion of the brain.
If untreated, craniosynostosis can cause a range of developmental problems. If treated using the standard treatment course, surgeons remove the fused skull bones, break them up, reposition them, and hold them in place with plates and screws. This usually slows bone growth between the bone pieces, allowing room for expansion of the brain. However, studies show that more than six percent of babies need a second operation to separate the bones again and 25 percent of those require a third operation.
"Following the first surgery, there's a clinical need to be able to screen children on a regular basis to predict when their skull bones are going to fuse together again so that the surgeons can determine if additional intervention will be required," said center director Barbara Boyan, the Price Gilbert, Jr. Chair in Tissue Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and associate dean for research and innovation in the Georgia Tech College of Engineering.
To address this need, the researchers have developed a non-invasive technique to monitor bone growth with computed tomography images. They created software that identifies bone in the images, quantifies the distance between the bones, the mass of bone in the gap, and the area and volume of the gap. The research team has demonstrated the utility of this "snake" algorithm using a mouse model of cranial development and recently presented their findings at the 2011 Plastic Surgery Education Foundation conference.
"Using our snake algorithm to analyze computed tomography images of developing skulls in mice, we were able to monitor different types and speeds of bone growth on a daily basis for many weeks," said Chris Hermann, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Coulter Department. "While one suture fused between 12 and 20 days and then significantly increased in mass for the next 20 days, another came closer together and increased in mass but remained largely open."
The research team recently adapted the technology for use in children and began a clinical study to determine the effectiveness of the algorithm to diagnose cases of craniosynostosis. The researchers hope this technology will improve the ability of physicians to diagnose and determine the severity of craniosynostosis.
In addition, the researchers are studying the biological basis of the condition and developing technologies they hope will delay bone growth and eliminate the need for additional operations. In one project, Coulter Department research scientist Rene Olivares-Navarrete and Williams are examining individuals with craniosynostosis to identify genes that influence suture fusion. Determining the genes that control suture closure may help the researchers identify potential therapeutic targets to prevent premature suture fusion.
The research team has also designed a gel to be injected into the gap created between skull bones during the first surgery. The material -- called a hydrogel because it contains a significant amount of water -- would deliver specific proteins to the area to delay, but not prevent, bone growth.
"The hydrogel cross-links spontaneously because of a reaction between a polyethylene-glycol monomer and a cross-linking molecule, allowing for polymerization without the use of chemical initiators or the production of free radicals," explained Hermann.
Preliminary results in a mouse model of cranial development indicate that the gel, developed in collaboration with Coulter Department associate professor Niren Murthy, can be injected into a gap between skull bones, firm up rapidly and not injure underlying soft tissues or impair bone healing. These pre-clinical results were presented at the Society for Biomaterials Annual Meeting in April 2011.
Both Boyan and Williams see promise in using these technologies to improve the treatment of children with craniosynostosis and eliminate additional operations sometimes needed to treat the condition.
"During the initial surgery, injecting the gel may reduce the operation's severity if it eliminates the need for plates and screws to hold the skull bones in place afterward," explained Boyan, who is also a Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Eminent Scholar. "After the surgery, if the computed tomography images tell us that the skull is closing too quickly, we may be able to inject the gel through the skin overlying the skull without surgery to further delay the bones from fusing."
The researchers are currently improving the protein release kinetics of the hydrogel and conducting pre-clinical experiments to determine which proteins successfully delay bone growth when included in the gel. Approval from the Food and Drug Administration will be required before this system and hydrogel can be used as a treatment for craniosynostosis.
The Center for Pediatric Healthcare Technology Innovation is supported by Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, in collaboration with Georgia Tech.
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
]]>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.
]]>Humanitarian logistics encompasses a broad range ofactivities related to preparing, responding and recovering from natural andman-made disasters as well as ongoing humanitarian crises due to war, famineand infectious diseases. In humanitarian organizations, inefficiencies inpreparation, response or recovery can cause drastic results including the lossof lives.
Addressing the unique skills needed by professionals in thehumanitarian world, Humanitarian Logistics Professional Courses, includemethodologies for assessment, mobilization of resources, procurement, transportationand distribution.
The program is comprised of three courses:
Pre-planning Strategy for Humanitarian Organizations
Systems Operations in Humanitarian Response
Tactical Decision Making in Public Health and HumanitarianResponse
The courses include many interactive components, such ascase studies and games, which help professionals in the humanitarian world tolink the challenges and decision-making trade-offs they face in practice withthe systematic approaches, tools, and techniques presented.
The Center for Health & Humanitarian Logistics atGeorgia Tech, a unit of the Supply Chain & Logistics Institute and a partof the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, works to improvehumanitarian logistics (including short or long term, man-made or naturaldisasters) and ultimately the human condition by system transformations througheducation, outreach, projects and research.
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404.385.3102
]]>Known as alginate, the material is extracted from common, fast-growing brown algae. In tests so far, it has helped boost energy storage and output for both graphite-based electrodes used in existing batteries and silicon-based electrodes being developed for future generations of batteries.
The research, the result of collaboration between scientists and engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Clemson University, was reported Sept. 8 in Science Express, an online-only publication of the journal Science that publishes papers in advance of the journal. The project was supported by the two universities, as well as by a Honda Initiation Grant and a grant from NASA.
"Making less expensive batteries that can store more energy and last longer with the help of alginate could provide a large and long-lasting impact on the community," said Gleb Yushin, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Materials Science and Engineering. "These batteries could contribute to building a more energy efficient economy with extended-range electric cars, as well as cell phones and notebook computers that run longer on battery power -- all with environmentally-friendly manufacturing technologies."
Working with Igor Luzinov at Clemson University, the scientists looked at ways to improve binder materials in batteries. The binder is a critical component that suspends the silicon or graphite particles that actively interact with the electrolyte that provides battery power.
"We specifically looked at materials that had evolved in natural systems, such as aquatic plants which grow in salt water with a high concentration of ions," said Luzinov, a professor in Clemson's School of Materials Science and Engineering. "Since electrodes in batteries are immersed in a liquid electrolyte, we felt that aquatic plants -- in particular, plants growing in such an aggressive environment as salt water -- would be excellent candidates for natural binders."
Finding just the right material is an important step toward improving the performance of lithium-ion batteries, which are essential to a broad range of applications, from cars to cell phones. The popular and lightweight batteries work by transferring lithium ions between two electrodes -- a cathode and an anode -- through a liquid electrolyte. The more efficiently the lithium ions can enter the two electrodes during charge and discharge cycles, the larger the battery's capacity will be.
Existing lithium-ion batteries rely on anodes made from graphite, a form of carbon. Silicon-based anodes theoretically offer as much as a ten-fold capacity improvement over graphite anodes, but silicon-based anodes have so far not been stable enough for practical use.
Among the challenges for binder materials are that anodes to be used in future batteries must allow for the expansion and contraction of the silicon nanoparticles, and that existing electrodes use a polyvinylidene fluoride binder manufactured using a toxic solvent.
Alginates -- low-cost materials that are already used in foods, pharmaceutical products, paper and other applications -- are attractive because of their uniformly distributed carboxylic groups. Other materials, such as carboxymethyl cellulose, can be processed to include the carboxylic groups, but that adds to their cost and does not provide the natural uniform distribution of alginates.
The alginate is extracted from the seaweed through a simple soda (Na2CO3)-based process that generates a uniform material. The anodes can then be produced through an environmentally friendly process that uses a water-based slurry to suspend the silicon or graphite nanoparticles. The new alginate electrodes are compatible with existing production techniques and can be integrated into existing battery designs, Yushin said.
Use of the alginate may help address one of the most difficult problems limiting the use of high-energy silicon anodes. When batteries begin operating, decomposition of the lithium-ion electrolyte forms a solid electrolyte interface (SEI) on the surface of the anode. The SEI must be stable, allow lithium ions to pass through it, yet restrict the flow of fresh electrolyte.
With graphite particles, whose volume does not change, the SEI remains stable. However, because the volume of silicon nanoparticles changes during operation of the battery, cracks can form and allow additional electrolyte decomposition until the pores that allow ion flow become clogged, causing battery failure. Alginate not only binds silicon nanoparticles to each other and to the metal foil of the anode, but they also coat the silicon nanoparticles themselves and provide a strong support for the SEI, preventing degradation.
Thus far, the researchers have demonstrated that the alginate can produce battery anodes with reversible capacity eight times greater than that of today's best graphite electrodes. The anode also demonstrates a coulombic efficiency approaching 100 percent and has been operated through more than 1,000 charge-discharge cycles without failure.
For the future, the researchers -- who, in addition to Yushin and Luzinov, included Igor Kovalenko, Alexandre Magasinksi, Benjamin Hertzberg and Zoran Milicev from Georgia Tech and Bogdan Zdyrko and Ruslan Burtovyy from Clemson -- hope to explore other alginates, boost performance of their electrodes, understand how the material works.
Alginates are natural polysaccharides that help give brown algae the ability to produce strong stalks as much as 60 meters in length. The seaweed grows in vast forests in the ocean and also can be farmed in wastewater ponds.
"Brown algae is rich in alginates and is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet," said Luzinov, who is also a member of Clemson's Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies (COMSET). "This is a case in which we found all of the necessary attributes in one place: a material that not only will improve battery performance, but also is relatively fast and inexpensive to produce and is considerably safer than some of the materials that are being used now."
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: Georgia Tech, John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu); Clemson University, Tom Hallman (864-656-2063)(thallma@clemson.edu).
Writers: John Toon/Tom Hallman
]]>
SAA kicks off its second year on Thursday, Sept. 15, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at eight locations across campus. Any student, member or non-member, can stop by these locations to learn about SAA, meet Georgia Tech alumni and enjoy free giveaways. Waffle House, Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola, Tin Drum, Barrelhouse, The Varsity, Rita’s Italian Ice and more will be at the various sites handing out free food in support of SAA.
That evening, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Tech Tower Lawn, all members are invited for dinner and networking with alumni at SAA’s “Welcome to SAA” event. Tech grad Riccardo Ullio (CE 90, MS CEE 93), chef and owner of well-known Atlanta URestaurants will be onsite to meet students and serve up free dinner from his restaurants. Attendees will enjoy everything from Neopolitan pizza from Fritti, to lasagnette Bolognese from Sotto Sotto and chicken tinga tacos from Escorpion. Tech grad, former NFL football player and owner of Kent's Country Cookies, Kent Hill (IMGT 79), will also be onsite handing out cookies to all attendees.
All Tech students are encouraged to stop by one of SAA’s locations and join today to give back, get the goods and get connected today!
]]>The Georgia Tech awards represent two out of 16announced by the agency on Aug. 25. In total, the DOE pledged to award morethan $41 million over three years to organizations across the U.S. for projectsfocused on reducing the energy and cost penalties associated with currentcarbon-capture technologies.
As principal investigator, Christopher Jones, New-Vision Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, willreceive $2.4 million over three years for research on the use of aminesorbent-loaded hollow fibers for CO2 capture—a novel process referred to asrapid temperature swing adsorption. Jones and his research team aim to have thepreliminary design, optimization and economic analysis of a full-scale system todemonstrate the potential for this technology to meet cost and performancegoals set by the DOE.
The Obama Administration has set a goal todevelop cost-effective carbon-capture technologies within 10 years and to bringfive to 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016.
William Koros, Roberto C. Goizueta Chair forExcellence in Chemical Engineering, GRA Eminent Scholar in Membranes andprofessor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, is theco-principal investigator on a separate project based with GE Global Researchin Niskayuna, N.Y., which will receive $2.4 million over three years. Theresearch will focus on developing new, bench-scale polymer membranes, whichincludes modifying the properties of the polymer in a coating solution andfabricating highly engineered, porous, hollow fiber supports.
“I am enthusiastic about thecaliber of research that professors Jones and Koros are doing under this program,”said Ronald W. Rousseau, school chair & Cecil J. "Pete" SilasChair in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. “Not only arethey contributing to the development of outstanding graduate students, but theirresearch projects also have the potential for impacting energy needs andinfluencing the sustainability of our energy supply.”
Existing carbon-capture technologies are not efficientbecause they require large amounts of energy for their operation. The goal ofthis research is to reduce the energy penalty with carbon-capture technologies,lowering costs and helping to move the technology closer to widespread use.Post-combustion, carbon-capture devices can be applied to both new and existingplants by adding a separating agent that helps isolate the CO2 from the othergases before it leaves the plant. This device can take the form of membranes,solvents or sorbents.
“Charting a path toward clean coal is essentialto achieving our goals of providing clean energy, creating American jobs andreducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will also help position the United Statesas a leader in the global clean energy race,” said U.S. Energy Secretary StevenChu.
]]>Students and their families, as well as faculty and staff,will enjoy music, lawn games and complimentary food amidst good company to kickoff the fall semester.
The graduate arm of the Student Government Association (SGA)is also accepting applications for senators for the 2011-12 academic year. SGAmeets on a weekly basis and serves the integral function of disseminatingStudent Activity Fee funds for the Georgia Tech student body, along withadvocating for other issues of importance to students at Tech. Senators areelected from each department on campus.
More information is available on the SGA website; electionspackets can be downloaded at right.Applications are due Friday, Sept. 2, by 11:59 p.m.
The full GSS elections timeline is as follows:
Endowed in 1994, the scholarship is intended to reward those students who excel in academics, accept leadership positions and demonstrate a passion for Georgia Tech. Semmes graduated in 1910 with a degree in mechanical engineering and was one of the first presidents of ANAK.
Basic criteria for selection are: a full-time or co-op undergraduate engineering student, junior or senior in standing, with a minimum 3.0 grade point average who is not graduating within the year. See application link below for more information.
]]>This month's issue features the Game Day Recycling program, which kicks off its fourth season at tonight's home opener against Western Carolina, as well as information about plastic and aluminum recycling, student move-in and upcoming events. Read or download (but please, don't print) the Recycling Buzz (pdf).
]]>To serve those students, the Language Institute beganoffering free writing assistance to all students last fall. With very littlepromotion, the 10 hours per week allotted to help students was consistentlybooked throughout the last year.
“The goal was to provide a service to the Georgia Techstudents that we knew was very much needed, and running the pilot hasdefinitely confirmed that,” said Mo Burke, a Language Institute instructor. Sinceits inception, the program has served about 150 students each semester, manyvisiting on a regular basis.
Students work one-on-one with instructor Jane Chisholm in20-minute sessions. Though the focus ison writing support, Chisholm also assists with speaking and presentationskills, customizing the time to students’ needs.
“When I came to Tech for digital media, the literatureexpectations were much higher, and I didn’t have as much experience since mybackground was in graphic design and art,” said Hye Yeon Nam, a digital media PhDstudent from South Korea. “I wanted to improve my skills because it’s importantto communicate with my students and other people in my field.”
Nam met with Chisholm on a weekly basis and has recommendedthe service to numerous friends and classmates. Though other classes werehelpful, Nam improved the most from the one-on-one time, for which she wouldhave paid a significant amount per hour outside of Tech.
“The best part about working with students is sending themaway feeling as if they have learned what kinds of problems they have, how theycan improve their writing and what makes good writing,” Chisholm said. She’salso able to serve as a source for editing students’ writing outside of theirprofessors and advisors, providing a relief for faculty as well.
Chisholm hopes to expand the capacity of the service andwill implement an online appointment scheduling system this fall. For now, thoseinterested in writing or communications support can visit the Language Institutein the O’Keefe building or contact Chisholm to make an appointment.
]]>Kristen Shaw
Communications and Marketing
An estimated 1.6 million Americans suffer moderate to severe leakage through their tricuspid valve, a complex structure that closes off the heart's right ventricle from the right atrium. Most people have at least some leakage in the valve, but what causes the problem is not well understood.
A new study, published online in the journal Circulation on August 1, 2011, found that either dilating the tricuspid valve opening or displacing the papillary muscles that control its operation can cause the valve to leak. A combination of the two actions can increase the severity of the leakage, which is called tricuspid regurgitation.
"We think this is the first in vitro investigation into the mechanics of the tricuspid valve, and that our findings into the mechanisms that cause tricuspid regurgitation could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment," said Ajit Yoganathan, Regents professor and Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Chair in Biomedical Engineering in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
The tricuspid valve consists of three flaps that open to allow blood to flow from the heart's upper right chamber to the ventricle. To close the valve, the flaps re-cover the opening, keeping blood from flowing back into the chamber it just left. When the valve is leaky or doesn't close tightly enough, blood flows backward into the chamber just after the heart contracts.
Tricuspid regurgitation has been increasingly recognized as a source of disease in patients with chronic mitral valve regurgitation, but surgical repair of the tricuspid valve alone is recommended only in rare cases. If an individual suffers from severe tricuspid regurgitation, surgeons will sometimes repair the tricuspid valve during a surgery to repair other leaky heart valves.
"Standard clinical procedures that detail when and how tricuspid valve repairs should be performed need to be developed and this study suggests several items that should be considered," said one of the study’s co-authors David H. Adams, chair of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. "Current repairs for tricuspid regurgitation focus mainly on remodeling the valve's opening to correct enlargement, but this study shows that it may also be important to restore the position of the papillary muscles, providing as much overlap as possible, in order to conduct effective and durable tricuspid valve repairs."
With funding from the American Heart Association, Yoganathan and Coulter Department graduate student Erin Spinner conducted experiments with porcine tricuspid valves to determine possible causes of tricuspid regurgitation. The valves were attached to a plate designed to create physiological dilation and then placed inside a right heart simulator.
The researchers first investigated the effect of dilating the opening of the tricuspid valves. When the openings stretched to an area 40 percent larger than their normal size, a hole appeared in the central region of the valve. The hole caused leakage, and increased in size with further dilatation. This finding surprised the researchers because similar studies using the same method had shown that the heart's mitral valve could withstand dilation of 75 percent before leaking.
"These results tell us that the tricuspid valve is a much more complex valve than the mitral valve, which only has two flaps," explained Spinner. "Forming a proper seal over the valve opening might be more difficult with three flaps, which could be why such a large percentage of the population experiences some level of tricuspid regurgitation and why some individuals with annular dilation have tricuspid regurgitation and others do not."
The research team also investigated the effect of displacing the valve's three papillary muscles, which attach to the valve via threads. Contraction of the papillary muscles opens the valve and relaxation of the muscles closes the valve. The study showed that papillary displacement alone resulted in significant tricuspid leakage.
"While isolated displacement of the papillary muscles is rare, these results are relevant toward understanding what may happen if the size of the valve opening is repaired, but the papillary muscles are left displaced," noted Yoganathan.
The study also showed that higher levels of tricuspid leakage resulted when the researchers combined the conditions -- dilation of 40 percent or greater and displacement of all papillary muscles.
In their future work, the Coulter Department researchers plan to look at the effect of pulmonary hypertension on the tricuspid valve, because tricuspid regurgitation usually develops in association with pulmonary hypertension -- which is abnormally high blood pressure in the lungs. They also plan to work with their clinical collaborators to extend their findings to humans.
"In our in vitro study we were able to select specific porcine valves, but with human subjects there will be more anatomical variety. For example, two people may have valves of the same diameter, but one person may have longer flaps that are able to compensate for dilation whereas the other might not," noted Yoganathan.
In addition to those already mentioned, Pedro del Nido, a professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Children's Hospital Boston; Emir Veledar, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Division of Cardiology and Division of Epidemiology at Emory University; and Coulter Department research engineer Jorge Jimenez and undergraduate students Patrick Shannon and Dana Buice also contributed to this work.
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
]]>Congratulations to ChrisCoen from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and NicoleBauer, Matthew Bopp, Cole Kazemba, Demyan Lantukh, Mihir Pathak and ZachPutnam from the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.
The students will receivegraduate student fellowships from NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist topursue master's or doctoral degrees in relevant space technology disciplines attheir respective institutions.
This first class of SpaceTechnology Fellows is part of NASA's strategy to develop the technologicalfoundation for its future science and exploration missions. The program's goalis to provide the nation with a pipeline of highly skilled engineers and technologiststo improve U.S. competitiveness.
"These fellowships willdevelop America's technology leaders for tomorrow, leaders that will help usout-innovate, out-educate and out-build our competitors and maintain ourleadership in space," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said."President Obama has said, 'America's competitiveness rests on theexcellence of our citizens in technical fields.' These grants are an investmentin America's intellectual capital and our nation's future."
NASA Space TechnologyFellows will perform innovative space technology research while building theskills necessary to become future technological leaders. Selected candidateswill perform graduate student research on their respective campuses and at NASAcenters and nonprofit U.S. research and development laboratories.
The awards include a stiped thatranges between $30,000 and $36,000, a faculty advisor allowance, on-siteR&D lab experience allowance, health insurance and tuition.
]]>Understanding this evolutionary process may help computer scientists as they develop protocols to help the Internet accommodate new uses and protect it from a wide range of threats. But the model suggests that unless the new Internet avoids such competition, it will evolve an hourglass shape much like today's Internet.
"To avoid the ossification effects we experience today in the network and transport layers of the Internet, architects of the future Internet need to increase the number of protocols in these middle layers, rather than just push these one- or two-protocol layers to a higher level in the architecture," said Constantine Dovrolis, an associate professor in the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The research will be presented on Aug. 17, 2011 at SIGCOMM, the annual conference of the Special Interest Group on Data Communication, a special interest group of the Association for Computing Machinery. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation.
From top to bottom, the Internet architecture consists of six layers:
• Specific applications, such as Firefox;
• Application protocols, such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP);
• Transport protocols, such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP);
• Network protocols, such as Internet Protocol (IP);
• Data-link protocols, such as Ethernet; and
• Physical layer protocols, such as DSL.
Layers near the top and bottom contain many items, called protocols, while the middle layers do not. The central transport layer contains two protocols and the network layer contains only one, creating an hourglass architecture.
Dovrolis and graduate student Saamer Akhshabi created an evolutionary model called EvoArch to study the emergence of the Internet's hourglass structure. In the model, the architecture of the network changed with time as new protocols were created at different layers and existing protocols were removed as a result of competition with other protocols in the same layer.
EvoArch showed that even if future Internet architectures are not built in the shape of an hourglass initially, they will probably acquire that shape as they evolve. Through their simulations, Dovrolis and Akhshabi found that while the accuracy of the structure improved with time, the basic hourglass shape was always formed -- no matter what shape it started in.
"Even though EvoArch does not capture many practical aspects and protocol-specific or layer-specific details of the Internet architecture, the few parameters it is based on -- the generality of protocols at different layers, the competition between protocols at the same layer, and how new protocols are created -- reproduced the observed hourglass structure and provided for a robust model," said Dovrolis.
The model revealed a plausible explanation for the Internet's hourglass shape. At the top, protocols are so specialized and selective in what underlying building blocks they use that they rarely compete with each other. When there is very little competition, the probability of extinction for a protocol is close to zero.
"In the top layers of the Internet, many new applications and application-specific protocols are created over time, but few things die, causing the top of the hourglass to get wider over time," said Dovrolis.
In the higher layers, a new protocol can compete and replace an incumbent only if they provide very similar services. For example, services provided by the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and HTTP overlapped in the application-specific layer. When HTTP became more valuable because of its own higher layer products -- applications such as web browsers -- FTP became extinct.
At the bottom, each protocol serves as a general building block and shares many products in the layer above. For example, the Ethernet protocol in the data-link layer uses the coaxial cable, twisted pair and optical fiber technologies in the physical layer. But because the bottom layer protocols are used in an abundant way, none of them dominate, leading to a low probability of extinction at layers close to the bottom.
The EvoArch model predicts the emergence of few powerful and old protocols in the middle layers, referred to as evolutionary kernels. The evolutionary kernels of the Internet architecture include IPv4 in the network layer, and TCP and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) in the transport layer. These protocols provide a stable framework through which an always-expanding set of physical and data-link layer protocols, as well as new applications and services at the higher layers, can interoperate and grow. At the same time, however, those three kernel protocols have been difficult to replace, or even modify significantly.
To ensure more diversity in the middle layers, EvoArch suggests designing protocols that are largely non-overlapping in terms of services and functionality so that they do not compete with each other. The model suggests that protocols overlapping more than 70 percent of their functions start competing with each other.
When the researchers extended the EvoArch model to include a protocol quality factor -- which can capture protocol performance, extent of deployment, reliability or security -- the network grew at a slower pace, but continued to exhibit an hourglass shape. In contrast to the basic model, the quality factor affected the competition in the bottom layers and only high-quality protocols survived there. The model also showed that the kernel protocols in the waist of the hourglass were not necessarily the highest-quality protocols.
"It is not true that the best protocols always win the competition," noted Dovrolis. "Often, the kernels of the architecture are lower-quality protocols that were created early and with just the right set of connections."
Researchers are also using the EvoArch model to explore the emergence of hourglass architectures in other areas, such as metabolic and gene regulatory networks, the organization of the innate immune system, and in gene expression during development.
"I believe there are similarities between the evolution of Internet protocol stacks and the evolution of some biological, technological and social systems, and we are currently using EvoArch to explore these other hourglass structures," said Dovrolis.
This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (Award No. 0831848). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.
Research News & Publications Office
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
Writer: Abby Robinson
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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.
]]>Based on patent-pending technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Atlanta company has developed an encoding methodology that makes data signals transmitted beyond its "cone of silence" useless to any eavesdroppers. Whisper is now working with First Data, a major payment processing provider, to demonstrate this layer of security using two of the newest Android phones.
"Our product will give consumers a higher degree of confidence that their private information is being protected during transactions, without them having to do anything," said Steven McLaughlin, co-developer of the technology and a Ken Byers Professor in Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Digital wallet technology will enable consumers to use their smart phones and other devices to make financial transactions, replacing traditional plastic credit cards. But without strong security, transferring data from the phones to merchant terminals could expose it to theft from "sniffer" devices that can capture wireless information.
Whisper's software would be installed on mobile devices carrying the digital wallet technology, said Jeffrey McConnell, CEO of the company. It would automatically encode the users' credit card information, which would then be decoded by similar software on the merchant side of the transaction. Because of the company's proprietary coding, the information would only be readable within two or three feet of the merchant terminal -- and hopelessly garbled beyond that distance.
"Once you get outside of that cone of silence, communications is no longer possible," McConnell explained. "An eavesdropper hoping to get confidential information would get nothing. This allows us to set a defined zone within which secure communication can occur. Once you get beyond that boundary, no usable information can get out."
The company believes that mobile financial transactions are the most compelling first application for the product, but the technology could be used wherever data traveling wirelessly needs to be protected. Other uses might be in medical devices that transmit wirelessly, in the electronic check-in pads being developed to gather patient information in medical offices, and in streaming video played via wireless devices, McConnell said.
"Our technology is an encoding methodology, so the methodology is the same with any application, whether it's for mobile payments or high-speed video," said McConnell, who has a background with payment processing companies including American Express, First Data and Western Union.
Whisper Communications has so far received seed funding from the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) VentureLab program, Atlanta-based Imlay Investments and the Georgia Tech Edison Fund. It has also received a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The company has been working with First Data to evaluate the new product. A full demonstration is planned for this summer, and McConnell said the software could be ready for the marketplace within six months.
The company expects to license its product to the developers of digital wallets, and to the makers of merchant terminals. Worldwide, there are about 20 million terminals in operation, and most of them would be candidates for the Whisper software. In the United States alone, there are 150 million smart phones.
With its strong roots in financial services and information security, Atlanta is a good place to build a company like Whisper, McLaughlin noted.
"Atlanta is an ideal city for the mobile payments and security approach that Whisper is taking," he said. "It has always been known as a go-to place for cyber-security and has the largest concentration of credit card payment companies in the United States, so the combination of security and payments is a natural."
Whisper's original technology was developed by McLaughlin and Georgia Tech alumni Cenk Argon and Demijan Klinc. It has roots going back to "quantum key distribution" research done at Georgia Tech's Lorraine campus with collaborators from Portugal.
McLaughlin, who is also Georgia Tech's Vice Provost for International Initiatives, realized that technology developed for the earlier project could have applications in securing wireless communications. But he didn't have a startup company in mind until he was approached by staff from the Georgia Tech VentureLab program. The VentureLab team, which included Paul Freet, Keith McGreggor and Stephen Fleming, learned of the technology and approached McLaughlin about forming a company.
"VentureLab has been nothing less than fantastic for us," said McLaughlin. "From the very beginning, we felt high interest, support and a push to succeed."
VentureLab introduced McLaughlin to McConnell, and was instrumental in obtaining funding to support early commercialization studies.
"We have created a good product, none of which would have been there without what VentureLab did," said McConnell. "They helped the researchers and pushed them to explore how this technology could be turned into a viable company."
VentureLab is Georgia Tech's comprehensive center for technology commercialization, open to all faculty, research staff and students who want to form startup companies based upon their research. Part of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute, VentureLab transforms innovations into companies by developing engaging business models, connecting researchers with experienced entrepreneurs, locating sources of early-stage financing and preparing these new companies for global markets.
Companies created within VentureLab become part of the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Georgia Tech's startup accelerator. ATDC has been helping to launch and build successful technology companies for more than 30 years.
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Because Jupiter has been largely unchanged since its formation at the birth of our solar system, scientists hope Juno will resolve unanswered questions not only about the massive planet, but also about how our solar system evolved. Among the key questions are how much water exists there, and how that water evolved from the hydrogen-rich early solar system.
"Jupiter collected much of the original solar nebula, that sheet of material that surrounded our sun when it formed," said Paul Steffes, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of the Juno Mission Team. "Knowing how much water is in the atmosphere of Jupiter is going to give us real insight into how the whole solar system has evolved. Understanding Jupiter really helps us understand how we got started."
To detect and measure water, Juno will carry a radiometer that can measure radio emissions produced by the planet itself at microwave frequencies. As those signals pass through Jupiter's atmosphere, they are altered by the water and other constituents. Understanding how the signals were altered can tell scientists much about the atmosphere of the giant planet. The probe will receive microwave signals at six different frequencies that scientists know are emitted at various levels of the planet's atmosphere.
"The intensity of the microwave radiation at specific frequencies gets weaker depending on how much water is there," Steffes explained. "We'll be able to not only say whether or not there's water there, but we'll also be able to say at what altitude it exists based on the signatures of the microwaves coming out of the planet's atmosphere."
Interpreting that data will require knowledge that Steffes and his students are developing by simulating the Jupiter atmosphere in their pressure vessel, which is located inside an oven on the roof of Georgia Tech's Van Leer Building.
Though Jupiter is a long way from the sun, the planet's gravitational forces create high temperatures and tremendous pressures in the lower layers of the atmosphere where the water is believed to exist. The laboratory atmospheric simulations allow Steffes and his students to study the behavior of microwave signals passing through ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, helium, hydrogen and water vapor at pressures up to 100 times those of the Earth.
The researchers, including graduate student Danny Duong, have made thousands of measurements at different temperatures, pressures and microwave frequencies as the signals pass through different combinations of gases. The laboratory work is expected to be completed during 2012.
"The measurements we've made will allow the radiometer on Juno to be calibrated," Steffes explained. "When Juno gets to Jupiter, we'll know what conditions each microwave signature corresponds to."
Earlier attempts to quantify the water on Jupiter -- the solar system's largest planet -- produced conflicting information. Steffes assisted the Galileo mission, which dropped a probe into the planet's atmosphere in 1995 and found surprisingly little water. Yet when the Comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter in 1994, it stirred up oxygen that led scientists to believe water was abundant.
Once Juno reaches the planet, it will go into an elliptical polar orbit to avoid Jupiter's deadly radiation belts, which would harm the probe's electronic systems. Juno is scheduled to make 30 orbits, each of which will take 11 days. The researchers then expect to take about 18 months to process the information sent back to Earth.
Beyond measuring water on Jupiter, Juno will also study the planet's gravitation field in an effort to determine whether a solid core exists and how the giant body rotates. It will also measure magnetic fields and investigate Jupiter's auroras, which are the strongest in the solar system. And it will take a look at the planet's polar areas for the first time ever.
Juno is also notable because it will be the first deep-space probe to be powered by photovoltaic arrays, which were less expensive than the nuclear generators used on earlier missions.
Steffes has been studying planetary atmospheres for more than 25 years, and has simulated conditions on Venus, Neptune, Saturn and Uranus in addition to Jupiter. The work has continued under the same contract since 1984. Georgia Tech's research into other planets goes back more than 50 years, Steffes noted.
Studies of other planetary atmospheres can now be done from Earth using radio telescopes such as the Very Large Array in New Mexico, or the new Atacama array in Chile. But Jupiter's radiation belts, which are made up of energized particles spewed into the atmosphere by the volcanic moon Io, prevent that.
"To test for water, you have to operate at frequencies that are pretty low, about the same as a cell phone," Steffes said. "But the radiation belts are generating huge amounts of noise at those frequencies, so we couldn't do this observation from Earth because the radiation belts would mask the signal from Jupiter's atmosphere. We are very fortunate to have this opportunity to observe Jupiter with the Juno spacecraft."
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
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]]>A total of 16 universitiesacross North America took part in this competition and were challenged todesign, re-engineer, and then test a sports utility vehicle in order tominimize fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions while maintainingvehicle performance and consumer appeal. The competition was held June 5 - 16at General Motor’s Milford, Mich., proving grounds and at locations throughoutWashington, D.C.
The Georgia Tech teamentered a hybrid electric vehicle with a power-split architecture featuring abiofuel powered 1.6L engine, GM’s 2-Mode hybrid transmission and a lithium-ionbattery pack provided by A123 Systems. Georgia Tech placed first out of the sixuniversities that chose to use this prototype power split architecture. EcoCAR: The Next Challengeis a three year collegiate advanced vehicle technology engineering competitionsponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors, and managed byArgonne National Laboratory.
Students were given carteblanche to design and build their unique advanced propulsionsolutions in order to meet the array of vehicle performance targets set by thecompetition. Teams explored a wide variety of technologies and strategies thathelped their vehicles achieve these goals, such as hybrid electric, plug-inelectric, range-extended electric and fuel cell electric architectures, alongwith a combination of gasoline, ethanol, biodiesel, electricity, and hydrogenfuels and energy carriers.
Teams were directed tofollow the real-world approach modeled after GM’s global vehicle developmentprocess, providing students with hands on engineering experience.
“The EcoCAR Challenge givesus an unparalleled venue to work together with the top of their industry toapply what we’ve learned in the classroom to make a genuine difference in thereal world,” said founding team leader Ryan Melsert.
The Georgia Tech team included over 60 students with teamleaders Carlos A. Cubero-Ponce and Ryan Melsert and faculty advisors includingProfessor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Tom Fuller, AssistantProfessor of Mechanical Engineering Michael Leamy and Professor of Electricaland Computer Engineering David Taylor.
Written by Georgia Tech Communications &Marketing Student Media Member Ayesha Patel.
]]>Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a glove with a special fingertip designed to improve the wearer's sense of touch. Applying a small vibration to the side of the fingertip improves tactile sensitivity and motor performance, according to their research results.
Previous research has shown that adding an appropriate amount of white noise -- a concept called stochastic resonance -- can improve sight, hearing, balance control and touch, but the white noise had not been incorporated into a wearable device. The Georgia Tech prototype is believed to be the first wearable stochastic resonance device, attaching to the fingertip to improve the sense of touch.
"This device may one day be used to assist individuals whose jobs require high-precision manual dexterity or those with medical conditions that reduce their sense of touch," said Jun Ueda, an assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.
Ueda worked with Minoru Shinohara, an associate professor in the School of Applied Physiology at Georgia Tech, and visiting scholar Yuichi Kurita, to design the device and test its capabilities on a small group of healthy individuals.
Details of the device and preliminary test results were presented in May at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Shanghai.
The device uses an actuator made of a stack of lead zirconate titanate layers to generate high-frequency vibration. The ceramic layers are piezoelectric, which means they vibrate when an electrical charge is applied to them. The actuator is attached to the side of the fingertip so that the palm-side of the finger remains free and the individual wearing the glove can continue to manipulate objects.
For this study, the researchers attached the device to 10 healthy adult volunteers who performed common sensory and motor skill tasks, including texture discrimination, two-point discrimination, single-point touch and grasp tests. The experimental results showed that the volunteers performed statistically better on all of the tasks when mechanical vibration was applied.
"All of the experimental results showed that some mechanical vibration was better than none at all, but the level of vibration that statistically improved sensorimotor functions varied by test," noted Ueda.
For each test, researchers attached the device to a volunteer's non-dominant index finger and subjected the finger to six randomized vibrations that ranged from 0-150 percent of that person's vibration amplitude threshold, a value that was determined by earlier testing. The threshold value was the magnitude of vibration required for a subject to feel that the device was vibrating.
In the two-point discrimination test, two sharp points were pressed against the fingertip and volunteers reported whether they could reliably distinguish two points touching their finger versus just one. The results showed that when individuals were subjected to vibrations equal to 75 and 100 percent of their thresholds, they could sense two points that were closer together.
The single-point touch experiment involved pressing a fiber strand against each individual's finger. Subjects were asked to report if they could feel filaments of different weights touching their fingers. The volunteers could feel lighter weight filaments when exposed to vibrations up to their vibration amplitude threshold.
In the third experiment, pieces of sandpaper with different grits were glued on one side of a plastic board. Researchers then randomly selected a test piece of sandpaper and attached it to the other side of the board -- which the subjects could not see. Subjects touched the single piece of sandpaper and tried to select the matching piece from the nine samples on the other side of the board. At vibration levels of 50 and 100 percent of their thresholds, the subjects selected the correct piece of sandpaper 15 percent more often than when they were not exposed to any vibration.
For the grasping test, each subject pinched and held an object for three seconds with as small a force as possible without letting it slip. Statistically significant improvements in grasping were observed for cases of 50, 100 and 125 percent of threshold vibration.
All four sensing ability tests confirmed that the application of certain levels of mechanical vibration enhanced the tactile sensitivity of the fingertip. However, because the levels of vibration that created statistically significant results varied, the researchers are currently conducting experiments to determine the optimal amplitude and frequency characteristics of vibration and the influence of long-term exposure to vibrations. The researchers are also working on optimizing the design of the glove and testing the effect of attaching actuators to both sides of the fingertip or the fingernail.
"The future of this research may lead to the development of a novel orthopedic device that can help people with peripheral nerve damage resume their daily activities or improve the abilities of individuals with jobs that require skills in manipulation or texture discrimination," said Ueda.
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]]>The American Helicopter Society’sannual competition requires undergraduate and graduate teams to design andsubmit proposals on a multi-mission vertical lift system that meets therequirements three different missions: search and rescue, insertion and resupply.The Georgia Tech teams competed with others from around the world.
The Georgia Tech undergraduate team wonfirst place in this year’s competition with its rotorcraft Golden Retriever,while the graduate team placed second with its entry Odyssey. Georgia Tech has obtained the first or secondplace award 27 out of the 28 years that it has competed in the AHS Student DesignCompetitions.
Daniel P. Schrage, professor of aerospace engineering, is thefaculty mentor for both teams consisting of aerospace engineering majors. Themembers of the undergraduate team include Laura Armanios, Silvio Lopez, NatashaBarbely, Trevor Mohr, Andrew Carter, Michael Moyer, Dennis Garza, Kit Taylorand Gregg Hines. The graduate team consists of Sylvester Ashok, JonathanLitwin, Raymond Beale, Marc Mugnier, Bhanu Chiguluri, Jaikrishnan Vijaykuma, MichaelJones, Xin Zhang and Jeewoong Kim.
This year’s sponsor of the competitionwas Bell Helicopter Textron.
Written by Georgia Tech Communication & Marketing Student Media Member Katie McGuire.
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The piezoelectrically modulated resistive memory (PRM) devices take advantage of the fact that the resistance of piezoelectric semiconducting materials such as zinc oxide (ZnO) can be controlled through the application of strain from a mechanical action. The change in resistance can be detected electronically, providing a simple way to obtain an electronic signal from a mechanical action.
"We can provide the interface between biology and electronics," said Zhong Lin Wang, Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "This technology, which is based on zinc oxide nanowires, allows communication between a mechanical action in the biological world and conventional devices in the electronic world."
The research was reported online June 22 in the journal Nano Letters. The work was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Department of Energy.
In conventional transistors, the flow of current between a source and a drain is controlled by a gate voltage applied to the device. That gate voltage determines whether the device is on or off.
The piezotronic memory devices developed by Wang and graduate student Wenzhuo Wu take advantage of the fact that piezoelectric materials like zinc oxide produce a charge potential when they are mechanically deformed or otherwise put under strain. These PRM devices use the piezoelectric charge created by the deformation to control the current flowing through the zinc oxide nanowires that are at the heart of the devices -- the basic principle of piezotronics. The charge creates polarity in the nanowires -- and increases the electrical resistance much like gate voltage in a conventional transistor.
"We are replacing the application of an external voltage with the production of an internal voltage," Wang explained. "Because zinc oxide is both piezoelectric and semiconducting, when you strain the material with a mechanical action, you create a piezopotential. This piezopotential tunes the charge transport across the interface -- instead of controlling channel width as in conventional field effect transistors."
The mechanical strain could come from mechanical activities as diverse as signing a name with a pen, the motion of an actuator on a nanorobot, or biological activities of the human body such as a heart beating.
"We control the charge flow across the interface using strain," Wang explained. "If you have no strain, the charge flows normally. But if you apply a strain, the resulting voltage builds a barrier that controls the flow."
The piezotronic switching affects current flowing in just one direction, depending on whether the strain is tensile or compressive. That means the memory stored in the piezotronic devices has both a sign and a magnitude. The information in this memory can be read, processed and stored through conventional electronic means.
Taking advantage of large-scale fabrication techniques for zinc oxide nanowire arrays, the Georgia Tech researchers have built non-volatile resistive switching memories for use as a storage medium. They have shown that these piezotronic devices can be written, that information can be read from them, and that they can be erased for re-use. About 20 of the arrays have been built so far for testing.
The zinc oxide nanowires, which are about 500 nanometers in diameter and about 50 microns long, are produced with a physical vapor deposition process that uses a high-temperature furnace. The resulting structures are then treated with oxygen plasma to reduce the number of crystalline defects -- which helps to control their conductivity. The arrays are then transferred to a flexible substrate.
"The switching voltage is tunable, depending on the number of oxygen vacancies in the structure," Wang said. "The more defects you quench away with the oxygen plasma, the larger the voltage that will be required to drive current flow."
The piezotronic memory cells operate at low frequencies, which are appropriate for the kind of biologically-generated signals they will record, Wang said.
These piezotronic memory elements provide another component needed for fabricating complete self-powered nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) on a single chip. Wang's research team has already demonstrated other key elements such as nanogenerators, sensors and wireless transmitters.
"We are taking another step toward the goal of self-powered complete systems," Wang said. "The challenge now is to make them small enough to be integrated onto a single chip. We believe these systems will solve important problems in people's lives."
Wang believes this new memory will become increasingly important as devices become more closely connected to individual human activities. The ability to build these devices on flexible substrates means they can be used in the body -- and with other electronic devices now being built on materials that are not traditional silicon.
"As computers and other electronic devices become more personalized and human-like, we will need to develop new types of signals, interfacing mechanical actions to electronics," he said. "Piezoelectric materials provide the most sensitive way to translate these gentle mechanical actions into electronic signals that can be used by electronic devices."
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]]>The Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory, which was foundedin 1992, is a component of the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering inthe College of Engineering at Georgia Tech.
The competition, organized annually by the AIAA TechnicalCommittee, requires teams to engage targets at ranges of at least 500 nauticalmiles in less than 10 minutes in thepresence of hypersonic flight speeds. Georgia Tech competed against two otherteams from Auburn University and the Naval Post Graduate School.
The Georgia Tech team’s final design uses a three-stagesolid rocket ballistic missile that can reach speeds in excess of Mach 6 uponimpact. The final design can also launch from naval ships and militaryaircraft.
The design team, led by Scott Strong, program manager, andWilliam Garrison, chief engineering, consists of Aerospace Engineering graduatestudents Jeremy Bennetch, Christopher Brenci, Grace Contino, Addison Dunn, BlaineLaughlin and Anthony Piplica. It is advised by Professor Dimitry Mavris,Division Chief Rebecca Douglas and Bradford Roberston, graduate student, of theAerospace Systems Design Laboratory.
The team intends to showcase its results at the Joint Army,Navy, NASA, Air Force conference later this year.
Written by Georgia Tech Communication & Marketing Student Media Member Katie McGuire.
]]>The capsule's structure -- hollow except for polymer chains tethered to the interior of the shell -- provides spatially-segregated compartments that make it a good candidate for multi-drug encapsulation and release strategies. The microcapsule could be used to simultaneously deliver distinct drugs by filling the core of the capsule with hydrophilic drugs and trapping hydrophobic drugs within nanoparticles assembled from the polymer chains.
"We have demonstrated that we can make a fairly complex multi-component delivery vehicle using a relatively straightforward and scalable synthesis," said L. Andrew Lyon, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. "Additional research will need to be conducted to determine how they would best be loaded, delivered and triggered to release the drugs."
Details of the microcapsule synthesis procedure were published online on July 5, 2011 in the journal Macromolecular Rapid Communications.
Lyon and Xiaobo Hu, a former visiting scholar at Georgia Tech, created the microcapsules. As a graduate student at the Research Institute of Materials Science at the South China University of Technology, Hu is co-advised by Lyon and Zhen Tong of the South China University of Technology. Funding for this research was provided to Hu by the China Scholarship Council.
The researchers began the two-step, one-pot synthesis procedure by forming core particles from a temperature-sensitive polymer called poly(N-isopropylacrylamide). To create a dissolvable core, they formed polymer chains from the particles without a cross-linking agent. This resulted in an aggregated collection of polymer chains with temperature-dependent stability.
"The polymer comprising the core particles is known for undergoing chain transfer reactions that add cross-linking points without the presence of a cross-linking agent, so we initiated the polymerization using a redox method with ammonium persulfate and N,N,N’,N’-tetramethylethylenediamine. This ensured those side chain transfer reactions did not occur, which allowed us to create a truly dissolvable core," explained Lyon.
For the second step in the procedure, Lyon and Hu added a cross-linking agent to a polymer called poly(N-isopropylmethacrylamide) to create a shell around the aggregated polymer chains. The researchers conducted this step under conditions that would allow any core-associated polymer chains that interacted with the shell during synthesis to undergo chain transfer and become grafted to the interior of the shell.
Cooling the microcapsule exploited the temperature sensitivities of the polymers. The shell swelled with water and expanded to its stable size, while the free-floating polymer chains in the center of the capsule diffused out of the core, leaving behind an empty space. Any chains that stuck to the shell during its synthesis remained. Because the chains control the interaction between the particles they store and their surroundings, the tethered chains can act as hydrophobic drug carriers.
Compared to delivering a single drug, co-delivery of multiple drugs has several potential advantages, including synergistic effects, suppressed drug resistance and the ability to tune the relative dosage of various drugs. The future optimization of these microcapsules may allow simultaneous delivery of distinct classes of drugs for the treatment of diseases like cancer, which is often treated using combination chemotherapy.
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]]>The Georgia Tech team made an electrocardiograph, a device used to detect and diagnose heart abnormalities, from e-waste components. The team acquired smart phones through donation programs, using the cell phone hardware for processing andtransmission, while other components are used for signal input and isolation. The technology of CardioReach is in its earlystage development, but the team expects a functional prototype to be made by asearly as August.
Cardiovascular diseases are one of the greatest risks tohuman health. Although the technologies that detect and treat these diseasesexist, the devices are not available to the vast number of developingcountries, which is why the Georgia Tech team took on the project. The team is working on the price adjustment for CardioReach, so the device will be less expensive and still competitive than the other similar devices popular in Brazil, Russia, China and India.
College students and recent graduates from around the world participatedin the e-waste competition, held in May at the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign. Global issues such as electronic waste or e-waste generated bycomputers, TVs, cameras, printers and cell phones are growing every day.
The competition included two categories: E-Waste Preventionand E-Waste Reuse. The competition challenged students to create solutions to prevent electronic waste or recycle it into new items, with the goal of motivating students to come up with an idea orservice that could help current and future generations become more responsible.Also, the competition pushed participants to create new ways that currente-waste can be productive and useful. A total of 29 teams submitted entries, 12in the reuse category and 17 in the prevention category. Three prizes wereawarded in each category with three honorable mention awards.
Written by Georgia Tech Communications & Marketing Student Media Member Ayesha Patel.
]]>Mice given a single H1N1 vaccine through the skin using a coated metal microneedle patch as well as mice vaccinated through subcutaneous injection were 100 percent protected against a lethal flu virus challenge six weeks after vaccination. However, when challenged with the H1N1 virus six months later, the injected mice had a 60 percent decrease in antibody production against the virus and extensive lung inflammation. Mice that were vaccinated with microneedles, on the other hand, maintained high levels of protection and antibody production after six months, with no signs of lung inflammation.
"A major goal of influenza vaccine development has been to confer strong immune responses, including immunological memory and cellular immune responses for long-term protection, and to limit virus spread after infection," said first author Dimitrios Koutsonanos, MD, post-doctoral fellow of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine.
The research team also included Ioanna Skountzou, MD, PhD, Richard Compans, PhD, Maria del Pilar Martin, PhD, and Joshy Jacob, PhD, from Emory, and Georgia Tech bioengineers Mark Prausnitz, PhD, and Vladimir Zarnitsyn, PhD.
Researchers already have found that intramuscular injection is not the most efficient way to deliver vaccines. The muscles have a low concentration of cells needed to relay immune signals and activate a T-cell response, including dendritic cells, macrophages, and MHC class II-expressing cells. The skin, however, contains a rich network of antigen-presenting cells, including macrophages, Langerhans cells and dermal dendritic cells that activate cytokines and chemokines – immune signaling cells responsible for initiating an immune response.
The Emory/Georgia Tech research team previously reported that delivery of seasonal influenza vaccine through the skin using antigen-coated metal microneedle patches or dissolving microneedles elicited strong immune responses that can confer protection at least equal to conventional intramuscular injections. The team has developed dissolving microneedle technology that could be used in easy-to-administer, painless patches.
"The pandemic H1N1 A/California/04/09 influenza virus continues to be the predominant strain," said lead researcher Ioanna Skountzou, MD, PhD, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Emory University School of Medicine. "Our research shows that skin-based vaccination, made possible through microneedle technology, may now be a viable and more effective alternative to intramuscular injection for H1N1 flu and other strains as well."
"Microneedle delivery also offers other logistical advantages that make this method attractive for influenza vaccination, such as inexpensive manufacturing, small size for easy storage and distribution, and simple administration that might enable self-vaccination to increase patient coverage," said Prausnitz.
This news release was written by Emory University.
Media Contacts: Holly Korschun, Emory University (404-727-3990)(hkorsch@emory.edu) or John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu).
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The Pearson Prize recognizes excellent students who havedistinguished themselves by working towards their undergraduate degree and alsoserving the community. The Pearson Foundation has awarded the Pearson Prize forHigher Education to 70 students from universities and colleges across theUnited States.
Originally from Jamaica, LaMontgraduated with an associate’s degree in chemical engineering from BrowardCollege. He was a member of the Honors Institute and a campus and regional PhiTheta Kappa officer at Broward College. He was involved incommunity services, such as: coordinating a cultural project, conducting leadershipworkshops, mentoring peers, fundraising for cancer survivors, participating inliteracy programs and advocating the TerraCycle program, which engagesvolunteers in recycling while raising money for a campus scholarship fund. He is currently continuing his studies in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Georgia Tech.
The PearsonPrize supports the Pearson Foundation’s commitment to students, lifelonglearning, community service and leadership. It was created to help the studentswho are facing financial challenges while pursuing academic goals.
Written by Communications & Marketing student employee Ayesha Patel.
]]>The awards ceremony was heldat the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, a CAS national institute, inBeijing on April 27. At the ceremony, Wu delivered a lecture titled,“Statistical Design and Modeling of Experiments with High-Tech Applications,”drawing on his ongoing research at Georgia Tech.
As part of the professorship,Wu visited two branches of CAS in April and May, the Academy of Mathematics andSystems Science in Beijing and the University of Science and Technology ofChina in Hefei. In Hefei, he gave a lecture titled, “A Fresh Look atEffect Aliasing and Interactions: Some New Wine in Old Bottles”.
Wu’s research achievementscover mathematical statistics and industrial statistics theories, methods andapplications. Wu's honors include membership on the National Academy ofEngineering, Member of Academia Sinica, Committee of Presidents of StatisticalSocieties Presidents Award in 1987, honorary professor at Chinese Academy ofSciences, and an honorary doctor of mathematics at University of Waterloo. Heearned his BS in Mathematics from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. inStatistics from the University of California, Berkeley. Wu joined GeorgiaTech in the summer of 2003.
The Einstein ProfessorProgram aims to enhance the training of strategic science and technologyexperts and talented senior scientific leaders, and to strengthen Chinesescientists' contacts and exchanges with top scientists throughout the world.
CAS is a leading academicinstitution and comprehensive research and development center in naturalscience, technological science and high-tech innovation in China. CASstrives to build itself into a scientific research base at an advancedinternational level, a base for fostering and bringing up advanced S&Ttalents, and a base for promoting the development of China's high and newtechnology industries.
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To be used by optometrists and ophthalmologists, the instrument -- known as the VisionOptimizer -- is intended to provide more accurate vision measurements, along with a more patient-friendly and engaging vision test. The company believes its system will facilitate the custom-manufacturing of spectacles and contact lenses that provide better eyesight and improved wearing comfort compared to conventional prescriptions.
"We've known for a long time that many prescriptions produced by existing methods really didn't optimize the patient's vision, but until now we haven't had a way to make more accurate measurements or to use that information to produce better lenses," said Keith Thompson, a surgeon and ophthalmologist who is also the CEO of DigitalVision LLC, the company developing the VisionOptimizer. "Today's patients need razor-sharp vision to use their smart phones, spend hours at their computers and enjoy sports on the weekends."
Eye doctors currently prescribe glasses and contact lenses using measurements obtained with the phoropter, an instrument that has changed little since it was introduced in the early 1900s. During a conventional vision test, the patient looks through the phoropter at an eye chart while the doctor dials different corrective lenses into position. The patient is asked to choose which set of lenses provides the clearest view of letters on the eye chart.
Phoropter measurements are limited to increments of a quarter of a diopter of resolution. The resulting glasses or contact lenses often fail to provide all of the vision improvement now possible with modern computer-controlled lens fabrication technology, Thompson noted. And errors cause as many as one in seven prescriptions to be re-made.
During the 1970s, a system called the Humphrey Vision Analyzer was introduced to measure vision more accurately than the phoropter, and to provide a better patient experience. Instead of viewing an eye chart through a bulky lens dial, the system projected images onto a mirror, and the patients adjusted a set of knobs to improve image quality. The Humphrey system, which is no longer in production, used a unique sliding lens system to evaluate smaller incremental changes than the phoropter could measure. But while the device made more accurate measurements, the fabrication equipment needed to manufacture corrective lenses to match that accuracy has only become available within the last ten years, Thompson added.
With help from GTRI, DigitalVision is producing a new system that adds patented measurement technology and other improvements to the Humphrey concept. Using computer algorithms not available in the 1970s, the GTRI researchers have redesigned the instrument's optical system for higher performance. The original assembly of pulleys and wires used to move the lenses will be replaced by microcontrollers and inexpensive actuators.
"We believe we have solved all of the fundamental issues that needed to be addressed," said David Roberts, a GTRI senior research scientist who is leading the research and development project. "The challenges are now down to engineering -- controlling all the tolerances and keeping everything in alignment."
The result, according to DigitalVision, will be a system in which a patient sits in an exam chair and looks at images in a two-foot diameter telescope-grade mirror while providing feedback through a hand controller. The system will measure the amount of nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism present and determine higher-order aberrations that the phoropter cannot detect. The doctor will be able to show patients how much better they could see with the new prescription compared to their old one by using real images such as street signs and golf greens. The VisionOptimizer's specifications will be transmitted electronically to a fabrication laboratory that will custom manufacture spectacle and contact lenses.
"It's more real-world than what eye doctors are using today, and has commonalities with video games for a population that is accustomed to interacting with computers," said Leanne West, a GTRI senior research scientist who is also working on the project. "For today's population, the new vision test will be a fun and engaging experience."
A patent-pending head and eye tracking system developed by GTRI is expected to improve the accuracy of the test by eliminating alignment errors. GTRI's tracking system will also eliminate the need for restraining the patient’s head, and should allow easier examinations of children, the elderly and people with disabilities.
"As you move your head around, the images will go with you," explained Jose Garcia, the company's chief technology officer. "One of the issues with testing young patients, as well as older patients and people with disabilities, is that patient movement during the vision test leads to errors. With GTRI's eye and head tracking system, we expect that these groups can be tested with confidence that they are seeing the image properly and responding to the test."
The Georgia Research Alliance, a public-private organization that supports the development of technology companies in Georgia, has provided the company with seed funding for commercialization.
"Anyone who has had an eye examination will appreciate the potential of DigitalVision's technology," said Lee Herron, vice president of commercialization for the GRA. "While the product is still in the early stages, the company is making steady progress toward bringing its system to market."
DigitalVision expects to have a prototype system ready for beta testing in as little as six months, and hopes to receive expedited approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If all goes as planned, doctors may be able to purchase the new system in about a year.
"We feel that this market is ready for a disruptive technology," Garcia added. "Doctors in this space are hungry for technology to replace the phoropter. This system will allow doctors to introduce a new category of corrective products to their patients."
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]]>Ratliff was selected to jointhe Network of Global Agenda Council for his experience and intellectualleadership in international supply chain and logistics research.
The Global Agenda Council onLogistics & Supply Chain convenes 15-20 of the world’s most relevantthought leaders to provide insight and develop recommendations to address keyglobal challenges. Council members will meet Oct. 10-11 at the Summit onthe Global Agenda in Abu Dhabi. This event will bring together 700experts from around the world to share knowledge and advance recommendations tothe most critical challenges facing humanity.
Ratliff is a supply chainand logistics expert with more than 30 years of experience as an educator,researcher, consultant and technology business executive. He has worked with awide range of companies and government organizations to recognize and evaluateopportunities for supply chain synchronization and logistics optimization, todevelop strategies for exploiting these opportunities and to develop theprocesses and technologies necessary to execute on these strategies.
Through Ratliff’s leadershipat Georgia Tech, Supply Chain & Logistics has expanded across internationalboundaries with the development of trade, logistics, innovation and researchcenters in Asia and Latin America.
The first center of thiskind was The Logistics Institute-Asia Pacific established in partnership withthe Singapore Economic Development Board, and the National University ofSingapore. It was followed by the establishment of the Trade Innovationand Productivity Center in San Jose, Costa Rica; the Georgia Tech PanamaLogistics Institute in Panama City, Panama; and most recently, the Trade andLogistics Innovation Center in Mexico City, Mexico.
Supply Chain &Logistics, a unit of the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and SystemsEngineering, has been a leader across a broad range of supply chain andlogistics domains for more than thirty years. It provides globalleadership for research and education in the application of scientificprinciples to optimize the design and integration of supply chain strategy,infrastructure, processes, and technology. Supply Chain & Logistic’sprimary activities involve the development of new concepts and strategies forthe practice of supply chain engineering and new tools for analysis, design,and management of logistics processes.
]]>The technique, which uses a heated atomic force microscope (AFM) tip to produce patterns, could facilitate high-density, low-cost production of complex ferroelectric structures for energy harvesting arrays, sensors and actuators in nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). The research was reported July 15 in the journal Advanced Materials.
"We can directly create piezoelectric materials of the shape we want, where we want them, on flexible substrates for use in energy harvesting and other applications," said Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, co-author of the paper and an assistant professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "This is the first time that structures like these have been directly grown with a CMOS-compatible process at such a small resolution. Not only have we been able to grow these ferroelectric structures at low substrate temperatures, but we have also been able to pattern them at very small scales."
The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. In addition to the Georgia Tech researchers, the work also involved scientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
The researchers have produced wires approximately 30 nanometers wide and spheres with diameters of approximately 10 nanometers using the patterning technique. Spheres with potential application as ferroelectric memory were fabricated at densities exceeding 200 gigabytes per square inch -- currently the record for this perovskite-type ferroelectric material, said Suenne Kim, the paper's first author and a postdoctoral fellow in laboratory of Professor Elisa Riedo in Georgia Tech's School of Physics.
Ferroelectric materials are attractive because they exhibit charge-generating piezoelectric responses an order of magnitude larger than those of materials such as aluminum nitride or zinc oxide. The polarization of the materials can be easily and rapidly changed, giving them potential application as random access memory elements.
But the materials can be difficult to fabricate, requiring temperatures greater than 600 degrees Celsius for crystallization. Chemical etching techniques produce grain sizes as large as the nanoscale features researchers would like to produce, while physical etching processes damage the structures and reduce their attractive properties. Until now, these challenges required that ferroelectric structures be grown on a single-crystal substrate compatible with high temperatures, then transferred to a flexible substrate for use in energy-harvesting.
The thermochemical nanolithography process, which was developed at Georgia Tech in 2007, addresses those challenges by using extremely localized heating to form structures only where the resistively-heated AFM tip contacts a precursor material. A computer controls the AFM writing, allowing the researchers to create patterns of crystallized material where desired. To create energy-harvesting structures, for example, lines corresponding to ferroelectric nanowires can be drawn along the direction in which strain would be applied.
"The heat from the AFM tip crystallizes the amorphous precursor to make the structure," Bassiri-Gharb explained. "The patterns are formed only where the crystallization occurs."
To begin the fabrication, the sol-gel precursor material is first applied to a substrate with a standard spin-coating method, then briefly heated to approximately 250 degrees Celsius to drive off the organic solvents. The researchers have used polyimide, glass and silicon substrates, but in principle, any material able to withstand the 250-degree heating step could be used. Structures have been made from Pb(ZrTi)O3 -- known as PZT, and PbTiO3 -- known as PTO.
"We still heat the precursor at the temperatures required to crystallize the structure, but the heating is so localized that it does not affect the substrate," explained Riedo, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Physics.
The heated AFM tips were provided by William King, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
As a next step, the researchers plan to use arrays of AFM tips to produce larger patterned areas, and improve the heated AFM tips to operate for longer periods of time. The researchers also hope to understand the basic science behind ferroelectric materials, including properties at the nanoscale.
"We need to look at the growth thermodynamics of these ferroelectric materials," said Bassiri-Gharb. "We also need to see how the properties change when you move from the bulk to the micron scale and then to the nanometer scale. We need to understand what really happens to the extrinsic and intrinsic responses of the materials at these small scales."
Ultimately, arrays of AFM tips under computer control could produce complete devices, providing an alternative to current fabrication techniques.
"Thermochemical nanolithography is a very powerful nanofabrication technique that, through heating, is like a nanoscale pen that can create nanostructures useful in a variety of applications, including protein arrays, DNA arrays, and graphene-like nanowires," Riedo explained. "We are really addressing the problem caused by the existing limitations of photolithography at these size scales. We can envision creating a full device based on the same fabrication technique without the requirements of costly clean rooms and vacuum-based equipment. We are moving toward a process in which multiple steps are done using the same tool to pattern at the small scale."
In addition to those already mentioned, the research team included Yaser Bastani from the G.W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech, Seth Marder and Kenneth Sandhage, both from Georgia Tech's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Materials Science and Engineering, and Alexei Gruverman and Haidong Lu from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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]]>"These contrast agents fill the need for probes that can accurately image small numbers of bacteria in vivo and distinguish infections from other pathologies like cancer," said Niren Murthy, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "These probes could ultimately improve the diagnosis and treatment of bacterial infections, which remains a major challenge in medicine."
The imaging probes were described in the July 17, 2011 advance online edition of the journal Nature Materials. The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.
Coulter Department postdoctoral fellows Xinghai Ning and Seungjun Lee led the project. University of Georgia Complex Carbohydrate Research Center postdoctoral associate Zhirui Wang; and Georgia State University Department of Biology associate professor Eric Gilbert and student Bryan Subblefield also contributed to the work.
In the United States in 2010, bacterial infections caused 40,000 deaths from sepsis and were the leading cause of limb amputations. A major limitation preventing the effective treatment of bacterial infections is an inability to detect them inside the body with accuracy and sensitivity. To image bacterial infections, probes must first deliver a large quantity of the contrast agent into bacteria.
"Most existing imaging probes target the bacterial cell wall and cannot access the inside of the bacteria, but maltodextrin-based imaging probes target a bacterial ingestion pathway, which allows the contrast agent to reach a high concentration within bacteria," said Murthy.
Maltodextrin-based imaging probes consist of a fluorescent dye linked to maltohexaose, which is a major source of glucose for bacteria. The probes deliver the contrast agent into bacteria through the organism's maltodextrin transporter, which only exists in bacterial cells and not mammalian cells.
"To our knowledge, this represents the first demonstration of a targeting strategy that can deliver millimolar concentrations of an imaging probe within bacteria," noted Murthy.
In experiments using a rat model, the researchers found that the contrast agent accumulated in bacteria-infected tissues, but was efficiently cleared from uninfected tissues. They saw a 42-fold increase in fluorescence intensity between bacterial infected and uninfected tissues. However, the contrast agent did not accumulate in the healthy bacterial microflora located in the intestines. Because systemically administered glucose molecules cannot access the interior of the intestines, the bacteria located there never came into contact with the probe.
They also found that the probes could detect as few as one million viable bacteria cells. Current contrast agents for imaging bacteria require at least 100 million bacteria, according to the researchers.
In another experiment, the researchers found that the maltodextrin-based probes could distinguish between bacterial infections and inflammation with high specificity. Tissues infected with E. coli bacteria exhibited a 17-fold increase in fluorescence intensity when compared with inflamed tissues that were not infected.
Additional laboratory experiments showed that the probes could deliver large quantities of imaging probes to gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria for internalization. Both types of bacteria internalized the maltodextrin-based probes at a rate three orders of magnitude faster than mammalian cells.
"Maltodextrin-based probes show promise for imaging infections in a wide range of tissues, with an ability to detect bacteria in vivo with a sensitivity two orders of magnitude higher than previously reported," said Murthy.
This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (NSF Career Award No. BES-0546962) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (Award Nos. RO1 HL096796-01 and HHSN268201000043C). The content is solely the responsibility of the principal investigator and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF or NIH.
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Analyzing data from multiple measurement stations, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that the quake weakened subsurface materials by as much as 70 percent. That nonlinear response from the top layer of the Earth's crust affected how the movement of faults deep beneath the surface was transferred to buildings, bridges and other structures.
Understanding how the soil responds to powerful earthquakes could be important to engineers and architects designing future buildings to withstand the level of acceleration measured in this quake. The information will also help seismologists develop new models to predict the effects of these rare and extremely powerful events.
"The degree of nonlinearity in the soil strength was among the largest ever observed," said Zhigang Peng, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "This is perhaps not too surprising because the ground shaking generated by this earthquake -- acceleration as much as three times the Earth's gravity -- is also among the highest ever observed."
The findings were reported in a special issue of the journal Earth, Planets and Space (EPS). The research was sponsored the National Science Foundation (NSF) and by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC).
Peng and graduate student Chunquan Wu were among the first scientists to examine data recorded by the high-quality seismometers that are part of the Japanese Strong Motion Network KIK-Net. The stations have accelerometers both on the surface and in boreholes located on bedrock far beneath it. The researchers chose to study data from six stations that have strong velocity contrasts between the surface soil layers and the underlying bedrock.
"In this study, we were trying to understand the relationship between soil nonlinearity and peak ground acceleration (PGA), which is a measure the ground shaking," said Wu. "We want to understand what parameters control this kind of response."
By comparing data on the acceleration of motion from sensors on the bedrock to comparable information from surface sensors, they were able to study how the properties of the soil changed in response to the shaking. The researchers computed the spectral ratios of each pair of station measurements, and then used the ratios to track the temporal changes in the soil response at various sites at different levels of peak ground acceleration.
"The shear modulus of the soil was reduced as much as 70 percent during the strongest shaking," Wu explained. "Typically, near the surface you have soil and several layers of sedimentary rock. Below that, you have bedrock, which is much harder than the surface material. When seismic waves propagate, the top layers of soil can amplify them."
Nonlinear response from soils is not unusual, though it varies depending on their composition. Similar but smaller effects have been seen in other earthquake-prone areas such as California and Turkey, Wu said. The shallow layers of the Earth's upper crust can be complex, composed of varying types of soil, clay particles, gravel and larger rock layered in sediments.
Because the March 11 quake lasted an unusually long time and generated a wide range of ground motions of greatly varying strengths, it provided an unprecedented data set to scientists interested in studying nonlinear soil behavior.
Beyond the immediate effect of the strongest shock, the researchers were interested in how the soils recover their strength after the shaking stops. That recovery time can vary from fractions of a second to several years, Wu said.
"It is still not clear whether there could be longer recovery times at certain sites," Wu noted. "This is a function of soil type and other factors."
If the soils are very porous, water can lengthen the recovery. "For porous media, the ground shaking could cause water to go into the pores, which will also reduce the shear modulus of the soil. If water is involved, the recovery time will be much longer," he added.
Soil response to aftershocks, which ranged up to magnitude 7.9 after the main Tohoku earthquake, was also studied.
Information developed by the Georgia Tech researchers will be provided to seismologists developing new hazard models of very powerful earthquakes. Knowing how soils respond to strong shaking is also important to predicting how motion deep within the Earth will be translated to structures built on the surface.
"Understanding how soil loses and regains its strength during and after large earthquakes is crucial for better understanding and predicting strong ground motions," Peng noted. "This, in turn, would help earthquake engineers to improve the design of buildings and foundations, and could ultimately help to protect people in future earthquakes."
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]]>
The gift will send a total of 30 students – 20 on faculty-led summer programs;five for one-year deep immersion; and five for semester-long programs.
Georgia Tech is one of six schoolsgetting a slice of $1 million that will enable 160 students from U.S. universitiesto experience China firsthand.
]]>"There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us, but nobody has been able to tap into it," said Manos Tentzeris, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the research. "We are using an ultra-wideband antenna that lets us exploit a variety of signals in different frequency ranges, giving us greatly increased power-gathering capability."
Tentzeris and his team are using inkjet printers to combine sensors, antennas and energy-scavenging capabilities on paper or flexible polymers. The resulting self-powered wireless sensors could be used for chemical, biological, heat and stress sensing for defense and industry; radio-frequency identification (RFID) tagging for manufacturing and shipping, and monitoring tasks in many fields including communications and power usage.
A presentation on this energy-scavenging technology was scheduled for delivery July 6 at the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium in Spokane, Wash. The discovery is based on research supported by multiple sponsors, including the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration and Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
Communications devices transmit energy in many different frequency ranges, or bands. The team's scavenging devices can capture this energy, convert it from AC to DC, and then store it in capacitors and batteries. The scavenging technology can take advantage presently of frequencies from FM radio to radar, a range spanning 100 megahertz (MHz) to 15 gigahertz (GHz) or higher.
Scavenging experiments utilizing TV bands have already yielded power amounting to hundreds of microwatts, and multi-band systems are expected to generate one milliwatt or more. That amount of power is enough to operate many small electronic devices, including a variety of sensors and microprocessors.
And by combining energy-scavenging technology with super-capacitors and cycled operation, the Georgia Tech team expects to power devices requiring above 50 milliwatts. In this approach, energy builds up in a battery-like super-capacitor and is utilized when the required power level is reached.
The researchers have already successfully operated a temperature sensor using electromagnetic energy captured from a television station that was half a kilometer distant. They are preparing another demonstration in which a microprocessor-based microcontroller would be activated simply by holding it in the air.
Exploiting a range of electromagnetic bands increases the dependability of energy-scavenging devices, explained Tentzeris, who is also a faculty researcher in the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech. If one frequency range fades temporarily due to usage variations, the system can still exploit other frequencies.
The scavenging device could be used by itself or in tandem with other generating technologies. For example, scavenged energy could assist a solar element to charge a battery during the day. At night, when solar cells don't provide power, scavenged energy would continue to increase the battery charge or would prevent discharging.
Utilizing ambient electromagnetic energy could also provide a form of system backup. If a battery or a solar-collector/battery package failed completely, scavenged energy could allow the system to transmit a wireless distress signal while also potentially maintaining critical functionalities.
The researchers are utilizing inkjet technology to print these energy-scavenging devices on paper or flexible paper-like polymers -- a technique they already using to produce sensors and antennas. The result would be paper-based wireless sensors that are self-powered, low-cost and able to function independently almost anywhere.
To print electrical components and circuits, the Georgia Tech researchers use a standard-materials inkjet printer. However, they add what Tentzeris calls "a unique in-house recipe" containing silver nanoparticles and/or other nanoparticles in an emulsion. This approach enables the team to print not only RF components and circuits, but also novel sensing devices based on such nanomaterials as carbon nanotubes.
When Tentzeris and his research group began inkjet printing of antennas in 2006, the paper-based circuits only functioned at frequencies of 100 or 200 MHz, recalled Rushi Vyas, a graduate student who is working with Tentzeris and graduate student Vasileios Lakafosis on several projects.
"We can now print circuits that are capable of functioning at up to 15 GHz -- 60 GHz if we print on a polymer," Vyas said. "So we have seen a frequency operation improvement of two orders of magnitude."
The researchers believe that self-powered, wireless paper-based sensors will soon be widely available at very low cost. The resulting proliferation of autonomous, inexpensive sensors could be used for applications that include:
• Airport security: Airports have both multiple security concerns and vast amounts of available ambient energy from radar and communications sources. These dual factors make them a natural environment for large numbers of wireless sensors capable of detecting potential threats such as explosives or smuggled nuclear material.
• Energy savings: Self-powered wireless sensing devices placed throughout a home could provide continuous monitoring of temperature and humidity conditions, leading to highly significant savings on heating and air-conditioning costs. And unlike many of today’s sensing devices, environmentally friendly paper-based sensors would degrade quickly in landfills.
• Structural integrity: Paper or polymer-based sensors could be placed throughout various types of structures to monitor stress. Self-powered sensors on buildings, bridges or aircraft could quietly watch for problems, perhaps for many years, and then transmit a signal when they detected an unusual condition.
• Food and perishable-material storage and quality monitoring: Inexpensive sensors on foods could scan for chemicals that indicate spoilage and send out an early warning if they encountered problems.
• Wearable bio-monitoring devices: This emerging wireless technology could become widely used for autonomous observation of patient medical issues.
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]]>En2Em is partnering with Better World Books, an onlinebookseller that donates a book to a child in need for each one it sells. BetterWorld Books has raised $10 million to support libraries and global literacy andeducation programs.
Collections for the En2Em book drive will run from Dec. 4–16with bins in the Old Civil Engineering Building, Student Center, StudentSuccess Center, College of Management, Campus Recreation Center, residence halllaundry areas and Skiles. Both used and new books are accepted.
The Library’s book drive will help fill bookshelves for thepediatric patients at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. The drive will rununtil Dec. 21, with collection containers at the Clough Commons CORE Desk, theLibrary rotunda and the Architecture Library.
Only new items are accepted because of hospital sanitationrequirements. Books for ages 2–18, coloring books and crayons, dictionaries,journals, books on tape, DVDs, mp3 players and iTunes or Barnes & Noblegift cards are all welcome.
]]>Chibueze Ihenacho
Enterprise to Empower
Reed wasinaugurated as the 59th mayor Atlanta on January 4, 2010. Since taking office,Reed has hired more than 200 police officers, improved fire-rescue responsetimes, reopened all of the city’s recreation centers, and improved the servicedelivery of city departments such as Sanitation and Public Works. During hisfirst year in office, he increased the city’s reserves from $7.4 million to $56million and initiated a series of reforms to address the city’s unfundedpension fund liability.
Prior to hiselection, Reed established a track record of leadership during his 11 years asa member of the Georgia General Assembly. He was first elected in 1998 as a staterepresentative and served two terms. From 2002-2009, he served in the GeorgiaSenate, where he was vice chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
As anundergraduate member of Howard University’s Board of Trustees, Reed created afundraising program that has contributed more than $10 million to the school’sendowment since its inception. He was appointed Howard University’s youngest generaltrustee in 2002 and remains a member of the Board of Trustees.
Chairman ofthe Transportation and Communications Committee of the U.S. Conference ofMayors, Reed also serves as chairman of the Regional Transit Committee of theAtlanta Regional Commission. He is a member of the Leadership Georgia Class of2000 and Leadership Atlanta Class of 1998, and was named to the AspenInstitute-Rodel Fellowship Class of 2007. Reed is also a former board member ofboth the National Black Arts Festival and Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund.
Reed grew up inthe Cascade community of Atlanta, where he attended Utoy Springs ElementarySchool and Westwood High School (now Westlake High School). He earned abachelor’s degree and a law degree from Howard University; he also received anhonorary Doctor of Laws degree from his alma mater last March. Reed is a formerpartner of Holland and Knight LLP, an international law firm with offices inAtlanta.
Often referredto as “one of the most courageous persons the civil rights movement everproduced,” Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securingcivil liberties and building what he calls “The Beloved Community” inAmerica. His dedication to the highest ethical standards and moralprinciples has won him the admiration of many of his colleagues on both sidesof the aisle in the United States Congress.
Lewis was bornthe son of sharecroppers on February 21, 1940, outside of Troy,Alabama. He grew up on his family’s farm and attended segregated public schoolsin Pike County, Alabama.
As a studentat American Baptist College, Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations at segregatedlunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1961, he volunteered toparticipate in the freedom rides, which challenged segregation at interstatebus terminals across the South. Lewis risked his life on those rides many timesby simply sitting in seats reserved for white patrons. He was also beatenseverely by angry mobs and arrested by police for challenging the injustice ofJim Crow segregation in the South.
During theheight of the movement, Lewis helped form and was named chairman of the StudentNonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was largely responsible fororganizing student activism in the movement, including sit-ins and otheractivities. This included organizing voter registration drives and communityaction programs as well as the peaceful protest march across the Edmund PettusBridge in Selma, Alabama.
Despite morethan 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries, Lewis remained adevoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence. After leaving SNCC in 1966,he was named associate director of the Field Foundation and participated in theSouthern Regional Council’s voter registration programs. Lewis went on tobecome the director of the Voter Education Project, which transformed thenation’s political climate by adding nearly 4 million minorities to the voterrolls.
In 1977, Lewiswas appointed by President Jimmy Carter to direct more than 250,000 volunteersof ACTION, the federal volunteer agency.
In 1981, Lewiswas elected to the Atlanta City Council. While serving on the Council, he wasan advocate for ethics in government and neighborhood preservation. He waselected to Congress in November 1986 and has served as U.S. Representative ofGeorgia’s fifth congressional district ever since. He is senior chief deputy whipfor the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, a member of the HouseWays and Means Committee, a member of its Subcommittee on Income Security andFamily Support, and chairman of its Subcommittee on Oversight.
Lewis holds aB.A. in religion and philosophy from Fisk University, and he is a graduate ofthe American Baptist Theological Seminary, both in Nashville, Tennessee. He hasbeen awarded more than 50 honorary degrees from prestigious colleges anduniversities, as well as numerous awards from imminent institutions, includingthe only John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage Award” for Lifetime Achievementever granted by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. Last yearPresident Barack Obama awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highestcivilian honor. The Timberland Company has developed the John Lewis Award tohonor the congressman’s commitment to humanitarian service.
Lewis and hiswife, Lillian Miles, who reside in Atlanta, have one son, John Miles.
]]>Stepp,a Computer Science major in the College of Computing, is a former national andregional winner of the Aspirations in ComputingAward. Champion is an assistantprofessor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
TheOffice of Public Engagement is hosting the event, and White House PolicyOffices will use the discussions to create best practices for future education initiatives.
]]>Open Health Tools, Inc., is a multi-stakeholder open source community in which member organizations collaborate to create the shared platforms and tools necessary to build affordable and easy-to-use interoperable health IT solutions. Also joining the effort as its senior strategic advisor is Robert M. Kolodner, M.D., who is chief health informatics officer for Open Health Tools and former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
"The over-arching mission of this initiative is to provide a virtual environment in which diverse stakeholders work together to unleash the innovations necessary to bring the industry to its future state," said Steve Rushing, director of Health@EI2, which is part of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute.
The new initiative will include participants from government, health care providers and provider organizations, patient and personal health advocacy organizations, open source and commercial vendors, public health organizations, academic and non-academic researchers, start-up companies and entrepreneurs.
"We want to accelerate the health IT advances necessary to deliver high quality, person-centered health and care and eliminate health disparities," said Kolodner. "Our initiative will gather a rich set of open source and commercial resources that enable public, private, and non-profit entities to begin collaborative projects quickly and with minimal start-up costs. By using proven processes that build trust and increase project success rates, the community will develop shared infrastructures and tools that deliver value and choice for users and create new business opportunities for vendors."
Kolodner will serve in a planning and participant coordination role, making use of his 30-plus years of experience in health information technology.
"Rob is not only nationally recognized as a health information technology expert, but also a deeply experienced collaborator and consensus builder among diverse groups," said Rushing. "He'll play a critical role in creating opportunities for widespread health IT innovation within and across organizations. Rob possesses a strategic view of policy implications on the national health care picture that cannot be obtained from any other source."
As former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Kolodner took a lead role in activities to implement a nationwide health IT infrastructure and stimulate health IT use in the public and private sectors. Prior to his role at HHS, Kolodner had been the senior clinical health informatics leader at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) where he provided vision, direction, and leadership for VA's award-winning health IT activities, including its internationally acclaimed VistA Electronic Health Record, a personally-controlled Personal Health Record (PHR) for veterans (My HealtheVet), and the nationwide deployment of real-time, bi-directional exchange of electronic health information between VA and the Department of Defense.
Kolodner received an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and a medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine.
About Open Health Tools: Open Health Tools is an open source community with a vision of enabling a ubiquitous ecosystem in which diverse stakeholders in health and health IT can collaborate to build interoperable systems that enable patients and their care providers to have access to vital and reliable medical information at the time and place it is needed. Open Health Tools is working to generate a vibrant active ecosystem involving software product and service companies, medical equipment companies, health care providers, insurance companies, government health service agencies, patient and personal health advocacy organizations and standards organizations.
About Enterprise Innovation Institute: The Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute helps companies, entrepreneurs, economic developers and communities improve their competitiveness through the application of science, technology and innovation. It is one of the most comprehensive university-based programs of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization and economic development in the nation.
Enterprise Innovation Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology
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Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA
Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu) or Abby Robinson (404-385-3364)(abby@innovate.gatech.edu).
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