Thursday and Friday, July 8 and 9
ISO Working Group, Information Technology for Learning, Education, and Training: Culture, Language, and Human Functioning Activities
Sponsor: Information Theory Society, Washington Section
Time: 8:30 am to 5:00 pm daily
Place: Capitol College main campus, 11301 Springfield Road, Laurel, Md.
Directions:Baltimore-Washington Parkway to Powder Mill Road, exit west to Springfield Road north, about 1-1/2 miles to campus on right. See http://www.capitol-college.edu for directions.
More info: Continental breakfast, coffee, and lunch will be provided.
See web sites: http://jtc1sc36.org, and
http://www.capitol-college.edu for additional information.
Contacts: To register contact Greg Strutt,
gstrutt@ieee.org. For more information contact Steven Smith, 301-369-2800 or
ssmith@capitol-college.edu.
Place: Allie’s American Grill, Bethesda Marriott, 5151 Pooks Hill Rd., Bethesda, MD
More Info: See Diamond Story, below.
Mike Gilliom graduated from Virginia Tech with a BSEE degree in the spring of 2002. He is working on his masters thesis, which deals with complex control systems in the field of power electronics. Having worked with control systems in power electronics for three years, he has a strong interest in bringing more powerful and complex controllers into the field of power conversion and motor drives.
Bob DeSourdis is a Principal Engineer and Vice President with Science Applications International Corporation in the Applied Communications Business Unit. He began work in Public Safety communications in 1996 as Spectrum Analysis lead on the first year of the Public Safety Wireless Network (PSWN) program. Since that time, he has supported public safety wireless planning efforts for several states and Federal agencies. He was the Technical Manager on the SAIC Phase I National Distress Response Modernization Program for the US Coast Guard and was the Program Manager for the development of a Strategic Wireless Plan for the Department of Justice. He is currently the Technical Manager for the National Wireless Communications Infrastructure Program (NWCIP) and the SAIC Public Safety Integration Center, integrating full Enterprise services and solutions for Public Safety, Homeland Security (HLS), and Homeland Defense. The PSIC develops integrated HLS "use cases" and is inviting all vendors/providers to display their capabilities in these solutions.
Previous to his Public Safety work, Mr. Desourdis spent 15 years working in post-nuclear attack communications for Peacekeeper and the mobile deployment of the Small ICBM, among other emergency communications problems.
He has published several technical papers on meteor burst communications. He has co-authored a John Wiley book on Meteor Burst Communications; lead and co-authored an Artech House book entitled Advanced HF Radio Communications with Dr. Eric Johnson; was the creator and lead author for an Artech House book entitled Emerging Public Safety Wireless Communication Systems with Dave Smith, Don Speights, John DiSalvo, and Richard Dewey, published in November 2001; and recently co-authored a Kluwer book entitled "Preferential Emergency Communications: From Telecommunications to the Internet," with leading Internet researchers. He is currently preparing a book proposal on the role of wireless in Homeland Security.
He holds a BS in Mathematics and MS in Electrical Engineering from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MS in Technology and Policy from MIT.
Mr. Silva graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering, and obtained an MBA degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Before joining Smith Barney, Mr. Silva was instrumental in starting Solarmetric, a Java data objects implementation. He also started a new international light business for Fresnel Optics, did statistical process work for Reflexite Corporation, and served as a project manager for 3M.
In specific, the design of an ultra-high efficiency 10-GHz transmitter power amplifier with
dynamic power supply and MEMS tuning circuits will be presented. The power amplifier is a
switched-mode amplifier and therefore highly nonlinear. The linearity characterization and
improvements using dynamic biasing will be presented. Two smart antenna arrays will also be
presented: The dynamic holographic optoelectronic processor for this
antenna system is a collaborative project with the University of Colorado physics department.
Zoya B. Popovic received her Dipl. Ing. degree from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia in 1985, and Ph. D. degree from Caltech, Pasadena, California, in 1990. She joined the faculty of the University of Colorado in Boulder in August 1990, where she became a full professor in 1998. She has developed five undergraduate and graduate electromagnetics and microwave laboratory courses and co-authored (with her father) a textbook Introductory Electromagnetics (Prentice Hall) for the junior-level core course for electrical and computer engineering students. Her research interests include microwave and millimeter-wave quasi-optical techniques, high-efficiency microwave circuits, intelligent RF front ends, RF-optical techniques and low phase noise oscillators for atomic clocks. She is the winner of the 1993 Microwave Prize from the IEEE MTT Society for the best journal paper.
J. Samuel Walker is the official historian of the United
States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He has held academic positions at
Georgetown University and the University of Maryland. He is the author of
numerous publications. Previous books include "Permissible Dose: A History of
Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century" and "Containing the Atom:
Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment."
Wednesday, July 14
Linear Systems in Ranking Applications
Sponsored by the Control Systems Society, Washington Chapter
In recent years in the business of college football, much effort has been spent looking for a way to rank NCAA teams effectively. Traditionally, rankings in the league have been determined by a ballot system in which college coaches and press associates cast their votes. Many argue that this system is flawed by its subjectivity. A new ranking system, the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), ranks teams based on several components of play and averages the scores arbitrarily. Even this system has serious faults, since there is no scientific basis to how the scores are weighted. There is, however, a new possibility. Modeling the league as a linear system offers a surprisingly simple and accurate way to determine a relative ranking for the entire league. The peculiar characteristics of this system offer insight to the twists and turns of both the ranking system itself and linear system theory as a whole. This presentation introduces the system and analyzes the results to verify accuracy. The system is analyzed from a linear system perspective, allowing parallels to be drawn between the mathematics and the model.
Tuesday, July 27
Public Safety Radio Systems and SAIC's Public Safety Integration Center
Bob Desourdis will give a briefing on SAIC's Public Safety Integration Center (PSIC). The Center is a testing and demonstration center that is used to illustrate the successful integration of SAIC and more than 75 vendor capabilities and expertise based on specific customer needs. Focusing on the areas of public safety, homeland defense and national security, PSIC visitors are presented with a series of emergency scenarios followed by a demonstration of various integrated systems and solutions that can help them meet their unique public safety requirements. PSIC customers include state and local public safety offices and law enforcement authorities, as well as federal agencies that provide emergency management, disaster prevention and recovery services to the nation.
Thursday, September 16
Financial Seminar
Mr. Manfredi graduated from the United States Naval Academy in the Class of 1975 with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering. He served 7 years in active duty and 13 years in the Naval Reserve Intelligence Program, attaining the rank of commander. He is a graduate of the Smith Barney Consulting Group University Graduate School and Smith Barney Institute. He is a Certified Investment Management Consultant and Certified Investment Management Analyst and a member of The Investment Management Consultants Association (IMCA).
Thursday, September 23
Intelligent RF Systems and Antennas
The current trend is to require more functionality of a portable or not-so-portable radio system:
operate at many frequencies for more than one application, adapt to the signal space, adapt to
changes in the environment, operate at low power levels (and cost nothing). As examples of
current research areas at the University of Colorado at Boulder that address sub-sets of this
problem, this talk will cover experimental adaptable (intelligent) microwave circuits which
optimize power usage, and smart antennas with adaptive analog signal processing.
(a) a small 2-GHz array of 2 antennas which performs like a larger array of 5 antennas
using signal processing analogous to sonar processing in bats, and
(b) an antenna array which
can perform blind signal separation, i.e. separate completely unknown broadband signals
scrambled through propagation.
Wednesday, October 20
Three Mile Island in Historical Perspective
On this 25th Anniversary of the worst accident
involving a nuclear power plant in the United States, it is important to
understand what actually occurred at Three Mile Island. The event which began
at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979 was watched by the entire world. Authorities at
the highest level were called to the crippled plant as they as they sought to
prevent the emission of dangerous quantities of ionizing radiation into the
environment. Sam Walker will provide an analysis and overall perspective of the
human drama that unfolded on that fateful day and for the weeks and months that
followed the accident. He will provide a clear picture of the human drama
that surrounded the accident while placing it in the context of the intense
debate that was occurring over the benefits of using nuclear power for the
generation of electricity. The presentation will cover questions relating to
studies of the long-term health effects from the accident and will offer a
unique perspective into the issues of dealing with a critical event in today’s
world.
7/31/04